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Hello everyone, I have been away from the game for quite some time, and I am looking to get back into it.

I have played anywhere from casual to WAAC competitive to TFG lists.

But I have sat out for years...

The armies I have played to some degree are: Orks, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Eldar, and Ad Mech.
I played mainly around 4th-5th, and then whenever Ad Mech came out, but played for a month and sold em.

I aim to play about 1500 points, and maybe bump up to 2k.

So what army is worth its weight and won't break the bank? Also really would lean to armies with little model count, as I don't plan on having a ton of models around the house.

While most armies can be somewhat successful, the most potent ones currently are Guard, GSC, Orkz, Tau, CWE, DE and the various flavors of soup.

Also, most competitive armies will be fairly expensive. GSC and Orkz are probably the most expensive if you also count the time it takes to assemble/paint 120 of their infantry models. But even Eldar's relatively low unit count requires overpriced resin models.

All flavors of marine, Sisters, Grey Knights, and mono Admech tend to struggle the most without tons of souping (or a particulary tear-your-hair-out obnoxious Infantry based SoB list that retails for about 1200USD.)

For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

tneva82 wrote:
For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

I don't exactly know how you can say that when two of the single most low model count/low cost per points armies that have ever existed are both useful in the competitive scene, that being Imperial Knights and Custodes.

Sure, they typically do use some allied support, typically in the form of either minimal guard or skitarii battalion detachments, but we've seen plenty of mostly-knights or mostly-custodes lists succeeding in competitive play.

tneva82 wrote:
For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

You're not really handicapping yourself. CWE don't really need soup to be top tier, neither do guard, and Orkz are topping all over the place.

Soup is good because it's more flexible more than it just being out and out more powerful.

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

You're not really handicapping yourself. CWE don't really need soup to be top tier, neither do guard, and Orkz are topping all over the place.

Soup is good because it's more flexible more than it just being out and out more powerful.

Where are Orks "Topping all over the place"? I'd like to see some proof on that one.

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

You're not really handicapping yourself. CWE don't really need soup to be top tier, neither do guard, and Orkz are topping all over the place.

Soup is good because it's more flexible more than it just being out and out more powerful.

What units are top ork armies using?

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
For competive games the top 2 dogs are Imperium and Eldar soup. Anything else and you are handicapping yourself to some degree as soup has so many inheritent advantages that soupless codex units should be notably better per points to overcome.

Also alas for you 8th ed is edition where elite small armies suffer a lot so...yeah expect to paint plenty of models. Eldar with their flyer spam and wave serpents/ravagers/venoms can be on the smaller side though.

You're not really handicapping yourself. CWE don't really need soup to be top tier, neither do guard, and Orkz are topping all over the place.

Soup is good because it's more flexible more than it just being out and out more powerful.

Riiiiiiight. That's why mono codexes are dominating all the tournaments....oh no wait they aren't. Soups are. IG+knights, eldar+dark eldar. Eldar always benefits from having dark eldars(sure you can make good pure eldar. Eldar soup is just better so you are handicapping). IG benefits from taking non-IG elements. Again sure can IG win games without soup? Yes. But you will have even bigger win ratio with soup elements. And in tournaments don't expect to go to the top without soup without good luck.

And orks were just hit by major nerfbat and were still hardly regular sight at the top so...Yeah expect even less presence from them with their top 2 builds killed.

Even basic logic tells you that. Everything in codex HAS to be more powerful per point than other codexes for soup not to be good. For IG not to benefit from soup their options all have to be better than others. And ork codex point for point they HAVE to be better than IG to compensate benefits IG gets by having knights etc. Soup allows taking best of multiple codexes with no drawbacks. That's always going to be better than pure

Simple elementary school logic shows it, real world examples show it with soup dominating tournaments as long as tournament isn't single codex tournament(well duh)

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Where are Orks "Topping all over the place"? I'd like to see some proof on that one.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/774776/10441596.page