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I was wondering what the experienced players thought about the ranking of armies in AOS

That youll get 1000 different answers from 1000 people.

After point adjustments, Slaanesh is A-tier. Also makes horde armies relevant, since it’s designed to rule hero-hammer. FEC, Skaven and DoK were also A-Tier, but I think moved to B-tier with point adjustments. So Slaanesh is in a league of its own until the next point adjustment/rules adjustment rolls out.

Many armies are in the B-A tier with a few in S tier, most are above C honestly, there is always some outliers in tournaments doing well.

AoS isnt as much as list building as it is more about timing and movement, yes some armies like Skaven, FeC, IDK, HoS can take insanely strong DPS and fast moving lists with even summoning, but some armies from C tier still out plays them time to time do to a better player.

Tiers were all the rage on Twitter a few weeks ago.

Very consistent on the top and bottom tiers amongst players. It was the middle tiers that were the source of a lot of contention.

 auticus wrote:
That youll get 1000 different answers from 1000 people.

Agreed - I'm not asking for the definitive list. Trying to bet a ballpark of where armies sit in low, middle high tier type categories

And what is S - tier mean?

The Honest Wargamer is a great source for tourney stats, which are about as reliable as you can get in terms of actual numbers. But it does mask things like army diversity (Slaanesh doing well is based almost entirely around triple-KoS lists, for example).

Yeah. Thats the rub. There are no in depth statistics. So you'll see a faction doing well, but that doesn't mean the faction is doing well necessarily, but that a certain build is doing well. Or in some cases, a couple of builds are doing well.

The triple Keeper of Secrets list is pretty much the new bog standard example.

Usually its a simple matter of asking "what makes this faction do well" and the answers will form a pretty consistent picture. People tend to agree on why a faction is good/bad far more than how good/bad it actually is.

The meta is always changing.

Depending on what becomes battleline in the new Free Cities book I would expect gunlines to return to the game soon which will make it more difficult for rush across the board armies like Slaanesh, FEC, and Khorne.

The last GHB brought back the Tomb Kings regenerating gunline of Tomb Queen w/aetherquartz brooch + Liche Priest + 30 Skeleton archers throwing out 60 shots at 20" , with exploding 6's causing more hit rolls, and potentially hitting on 2's costing no command points (thanks to the queen & brooch). It's straight busted for a battleline combo.

That's just one battleiline unit and 2 heroes at 540 points total, they can spam that all day. And most people won't be prepared for a Grand Alliance Death list like that as TK have been gone for so long.

That being said, once people catch on GW will nerf it. So, play what you like and don't chase the power list of the day because it won't last long.

Rushing across the board quickly is good against gunlines, not bad. Turn-1 charging tends to obliterate gunlines easily.

Their plentiful christmas gifting of an alpha strike to so many forces make gunline play difficult I agree.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Rushing across the board quickly is good against gunlines, not bad. Turn-1 charging tends to obliterate gunlines easily.

This is what chaff and pre-measuring is for. You can at least get 1 salvo off, 2 if you double turn. Didn't say it was foolproof either, but it doesn't stop people from trying. I've seen a lot of Stormcast, Tomb Kings, and Wanderers gunlines showing up lately in response to Slaanesh and FEC. Sometimes the weight of dice works sometimes itdoesn't. Gunlines still fold to teleporting armies as well, but like I said it doesn't stop people from trying.

If Free Cities has handgunners, quarrelers, outriders, crossbowmen, thunderers, pistoliers, archers as battleline then I guarantee you will see some more gunlines showing up in addition to the dwarf bomber/gyro copter, organ gun, etc.

GW will want to sell models after all so expecting some of these units to become better than they currently are.

 D6Damager wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Rushing across the board quickly is good against gunlines, not bad. Turn-1 charging tends to obliterate gunlines easily.

This is what chaff and pre-measuring is for. You can at least get 1 salvo off, 2 if you double turn. Didn't say it was foolproof either, but it doesn't stop people from trying. I've seen a lot of Stormcast, Tomb Kings, and Wanderers gunlines showing up lately in response to Slaanesh and FEC. Sometimes the weight of dice works sometimes itdoesn't. Gunlines still fold to teleporting armies as well, but like I said it doesn't stop people from trying.

If Free Cities has handgunners, quarrelers, outriders, crossbowmen, thunderers, pistoliers, archers as battleline then I guarantee you will see some more gunlines showing up in addition to the dwarf bomber/gyro copter, organ gun, etc.

GW will want to sell models after all so expecting some of these units to become better than they currently are.

Well, yeah, but the point is armies that can cross the board in 1 turn are better off than those which are slower. I was responding to:

Depending on what becomes battleline in the new Free Cities book I would expect gunlines to return to the game soon which will make it more difficult for rush across the board armies like Slaanesh, FEC, and Khorne.

Which is the exact opposite of what a rise in gunlines would do; fast armies would remain relevant while armies that could not rush across the board would be pushed out.