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With the release of CA2018 and the latest round of FAQs have we finally achieved some semblance of balance in the 40k universe or are there still some outliers waiting to be taken to an extreme both in terms of lists and tactics?

Obvious outliers exist at both ends of the competitive spectrum.

Yeah I was curious about the OP side mostly because I play in a very competitive meta and I'm not seeing a lot of crazy lists. Maybe things need to cook a little longer? Dunno...just surprised I haven't seen anything stupidly OP yet being played...

Imperial Knights are pretty high on the power curve as are those armies that can spam cheap but effective infantry hordes (IG, Orks, some Nid builds).

Marines and other elite-ish armies seem to suffer from being squeezed on both sides. They are not numerous enough to fight hordes and not strong enough to pose a serious threat to Knight armies. As they have for several editions, GW seem to have overpriced the generalists while making specialists at either end of the spectrum too cheap.

Having said that, the balance issues are better than they have been for a long time. Certainly far better than the dark days of crazy Formations towards the end of 7th (here, have 500 points of free transports because you are fielding a "fluffy" battle company).

nope knights and IG friends still the competitive meta defaults you need to expect 60%+ of your games to be at a tourney

Nope and as long as game is designed by company for whom balance means less profit it won't.

CA2018 will have a relatively small impact on the overall balance of the game, IMO.

It was primarily buffs to underperforming factions, and none of them were obviously over the top enough for them to come close to the top tier units that were not touched.

Aeldari soup with Ynnari+heavy drukhari, Imperium soup with guard+Knight Castellan, Chaos Soup with DPs/Nurgle stuff with some Nids/Tau/Orks smattered in as wildcards will still be the competitive default.

You may see a few new contenders slotted in as the third element in an imperial soup list (murmerings of storm bolter/storm shield deathwatch squads and small admech/sisters contingents) but they'll be tacked on to the loyal 32/castellan setup and the flavor of the list will largely stay the same.

Arguably the most common flavor of soup at top lists - eldar soup - didn't change one bit with CA2018, so that should tell you about how much the overall meta will shift. Not much.