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I just didn't orks as an example because the are pretty much brand new and tatics are yet in the making. At the same stage for other codices people were complaining about the wave serpent price hike, the end of tzeench daemons due to flamer and Kairos nerf and how GW could have dared to give Space Marines those useless centurions

As for blood angels - it is very likely that a great deal of competitive players is current playing their blood angel collection as counts-as space marines and only the few ones who refuse to jump ship or don't care about winning keep playing them.

The best example how this system can fall appart would be what Dashofpepper did in 5th. He purposely picked up armies which were called bad and crushed his opposition with them. He defeated the top tier armies of that time (SW, IG, BA) with orks, close combat necrons from the old codex and later dark eldar. However, he would massively increase the average winning percentage of the three other players playing the same army as him, simply because he was an exceptionally good player.

Whatever happened to DashofPepper? I haven't seen his posts in a long time......

..... a long time.

 Green is Best! wrote:

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
It's the Sisters of battle by a landslide. They don't even get a real codex. They have a tiny pool of miniatures and there rules were terribly written. Add in that the miniatures are overpriced and metals and you' can see that they're the worst off.

I have run sisters for quite a while. They make power armor armies and terminator heavy armies cry.

They may not be top tier, but they have their moments where its not even fair.

Agreed - they are a nasty firefight MSU army - have asome great units -

Scouting Dominions with 2-4 Melta guns is always fun,
Celestine works well - much fun when they say, so whats her WS 4,5 maybe? - nope 7, Iniaitive? 3 or 4?,nope 7 and so on...........
Exorcists - AV13 front, D6 S8 AP 1 missiles every turn

Oh and everything ,even the vehicles gets a least a 6++ nice

Hey, it's your opinion, if you think this Codex is bad...I guess just use the old one if it makes you feel better. But, ever since I got this codex, I haven't looked back at the old one. This has such better balance over all, cost drops on an army already known for cheap units, and a few minor tweaks here or there (For better or for worse), but we ended up with a BETTER book.

I think Ork players have to understand we will ALWAYS be at a disadvantage. We are the 'punching bag' race of 40k. But I always tend to have fun in every game I play, because...Orks! Are they 'competitive'? Maybe not without using some cheese. But every army does that. We just don't have 'Da best cheese!', or at least not that we have yet to discover. It's still a bit early in our Codex's lifespan to determine it's overall competitiveness.

Other armies have it much worse. But it seems GW plans on rolling out overdue Codecies pretty quick, since they put the pedal down to get Space Wolves going, and who knows what's next. I hope BA players get their due next, since they seem to be in a rough way right now.

If you are unhappy with your army, maybe it's time to cash in your chips, or take a break, or start a new army...and by new army I mean the 'always wins' army since you wouldn't want to play an army that actually has spirit, has the best models and the most individualism of any single faction in pretty much any game out there right now.

Ork units are individually good and the ork codex as a whole is good against most armies.

That being said they can't compete in a tournament because they are hard countered by Eldar who are a very common sight. Every ork unit is strong against some eldar units and weak against others, but Eldar will win because superior maneuverability allows them to pick the fights.

Ork mek guns are practically immune to dakka as T7 grots laugh off damage. It's all fun and games until 2 eldar jetbikes land 4 hammer of wrath attacks and 4 regular swings that hit on a 3+ and wound on a 2+

Manz can laugh at eldar dakka even shuriken weapon pseudo rends until a rape knight jumps their bones.

It all comes down to speed. Manz are slow and purposeful while rape knights are fast. GJB are ultra fast and will curbstomp mek guns unless an ork assault unit sits back and baby sits them. Ork truks are fast until they meet a high volume of eldar s6/s7 dakka. Wagons also give maneuverability until they eat shots in their AV12 sides.

It all comes down to this. A highly skilled Eldar player should be able to beat a highly skilled ork player because orks have weaknesses that are easily exploited by Eldar.

"....they are made of explodium."

Honestly. I love the new codex, but the Heavy Support slot is packed full of things to take, making it difficult to make choices.

Lootas should never have been moved to the slot, or conversely Gitz should have been made an elites choice.

That being said, there are three things that are really hurting the current Ork codex.

1.) Low AV dedicated transport choice(s), there are games where I lose ALL five of my trukks turn one. It makes me feel sad.

2.) Not much of anything above T5, with the exception being EXTREMELY low points costed, "real dollar" inefficient Mek Gunz. I have ranted over this. 47 Dollars for a box that produces ONE gun when you can spend ~65 and make FOUR with trukk parts is absolutely insane. They need to rework this product boxing if anything imo.

3.)Players that don't know how to work around the bad parts of a codex, and instead bitch about the codex on here, as if it makes them win more, which is obviously the only measure for "good" by which they follow.
[sarcasm] Because playing the game purely for fun apparently isn't a thing. [/sarcasm]

So far, my Orks have won every game I've played with them. The ability to take large mobs of boyz in fairly cheap AV 14 has really made them tough to deal with. At 1500 points I've been taking 2-3 Battlewagons filled with Boyz or MANz, with an allied Waaagh!!! Ghazghkull detatchment with a Big Mek with the Mega Force Field on a Bike ripping up behind them giving it all a 4++ bubble. Even if they pop a transport turn 2, the Boyz are pretty much where they need to be already, and with a re-roll on the Ork warlord table, it makes it very likely that your warboss can make your Boyz fearless for a turn, or at least allow them to re-roll moral if he's nearby. This is without even getting into formations like the Blitz Brigade or Bully Boyz. Orks have a lot of decent tools this edition, and I think that once the Codex has been out a little longer people will start finding ways to combine everything properly.

As for what is the worst army overall right now, I really don't have tons of experience with many of the armies (DE, BA, SoB, and Crons specifically), so I have no real idea. Still, wouldn't say Orks are the worst at all.

I know this is supposed to be focused on Orks, but I have to chime in about the Tyranid comments I keep reading. Since the Tyranid codex came out, my nids are 7 and 0 and I play nothing that looks anything like the net lists I see, or even the same list twice in a row. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I lost with my Tyranids. That's not just me bragging, I can't remember the last time I beat Rythem's Nids either and I also don't think he uses net lists.

So I have to echo Bludbaff's above statement. I was on a terrible losing streak with my chaos marines until I started thinking outside the box of my usual lists and I've had some very positive results since.

There's no "worst army" in 40k. There are "worst armies for you". I don't think I'd do well as Tau, no matter if I used nothing but the most "competative" list I could find, but my Tyranids and I have a very hard time losing because regardless of the units I take the army as a whole suits my favourite playstyle.

I'm working on an Ork army now, but it probably won't see the light of day for a while as I'm worried that if I start playing Orks, I'll literally never play any other army again.

kungfujew wrote:
I know this is supposed to be focused on Orks, but I have to chime in about the Tyranid comments I keep reading. Since the Tyranid codex came out, my nids are 7 and 0 and I play nothing that looks anything like the net lists I see, or even the same list twice in a row. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I lost with my Tyranids. That's not just me bragging, I can't remember the last time I beat Rythem's Nids either and I also don't think he uses net lists.

So I have to echo Bludbaff's above statement. I was on a terrible losing streak with my chaos marines until I started thinking outside the box of my usual lists and I've had some very positive results since.

There's no "worst army" in 40k. There are "worst armies for you". I don't think I'd do well as Tau, no matter if I used nothing but the most "competative" list I could find, but my Tyranids and I have a very hard time losing because regardless of the units I take the army as a whole suits my favourite playstyle.

As a Nid player, what kind of lists do you run? I like hearing about uncommon lists doing well!

I absolutely love hordes of hormagaunts. 2 or 3 units of 20 just own the board with move through cover and +3 to run. Raveners and lictors are tied as my favourite unit. With rending claws Raveners eat hordes and elites alike, while the lictors pop up exactly where they're needed to shoot some flesh hooks into rear armour or pop up ut of LOS to really threaten support units. Also, Shrikes for the rediculous mobility. I just make sure that my shrikes and raveners are protected from turn 1 shooting if I go second, but I find that target overload is too easy with nids as everything can be too fast. Also, units of warriors add a surprising amount of firepower and who cares if they die. Now your Str 8 weapons aren't blowing apart my MC's. Outflanking genestealers can cause more mayhem just by showing up then by actually getting into combat and multiple mawlocks put the fear of god into everything. My favourite HQ is the walking hive tyrant w/2 or 3 guard. People get nervous seeing him coming as they can't choose to shoot at him first, since there are too many faster threats, but if he gets to their lines then he beats face and there's not much that he's scared of that can't be killed by the mass medium/short range shooting that nids can put out. Plus people always underestimate what a hormaguant support charge can do. If you kill 15 of the 20 hormaguants then they're still amasing charge support. I use them as frag grenades. They base with enemies and force them to kill them off while the biggies tear a chunk out of the squad. The next round, they're not at I1 and have much less to worry about.

My fastest, most rediculous nid win was with an army that consisted completely of infiltrating genestealers, mawlocks and lictors. When 2 squads of three lictors popped up along with 2 mawlocs and deathleaper, the game was over turn 2 just before the genestealers got to tighten the noose.

I've played almost every army in 6th and seeing as how 7th didn't shake things up too much I feel like my experiences will carry over for the armies I no longer play...

I have to agree with the sentiment that Tyranids are the worse suffering army right now. The codex is just bland, full of terrible units, and has a devastatingly punishing special rule that doesn't give them much of a buff. People say an army wide fearless is amazing but considering how little psychology plays in 40k in general it isn't that great of a boon and if the army didn't have fearless it would crumble even worse than it already does. It feels like no one at GW has any idea of what direction to take Tyranids so we get stuck with generic and bland units, few special rules and abilities, and pricing that is all over the board. Tyranids are stuck in 3rd while the game has moved on for years, a Hive Tyrant used to be a walking tank that could take multiple rounds of shooting and walk its way into combat. Now, it is hard to keep a Tyrant on the board more than a single turn unless he is flying and then he might last a couple more. 7th sure as hell didn't help with the nerf that MCs took that was obviously targeting all other MCs and not the TMCs, yet TMCs felt the nerf worse than the targets.

SoB are not a bad codex at all! I love playing my girls and they can do so much right that it makes up for their terrible codex. That's right, it is a terrible codex, but power level wise it is mid tier at worse. Being able to take 4x Meltas, a combi-melta, and a immolator with a multi-melta that can outflank right into your enemy is pretty awesome, even if you don't outflank it you can scout it up and get into range first turn anyway. Heavy Flamer, Flamer, 2x Combi-flamer troop choices are great for clearing and holding objectives. Exorcist are just nasty if you can get even average roles with them, sure you will have that one game where they can't roll higher than a 1 for shots but then you will have a game where you roll nothing but 6's. The SoB codex needs some serious work to make half of it even worth putting on the table, but you can still put out some nice armies and I can say that I love the way SoB play because they feel right. I feel like I am purging the heretics with all of the flamers and meltas that I am throwing around, it is just fun.

EDIT:

I absolutely love hordes of hormagaunts. 2 or 3 units of 20 just own the board with move through cover and +3 to run. Raveners and lictors are tied as my favourite unit. With rending claws Raveners eat hordes and elites alike, while the lictors pop up exactly where they're needed to shoot some flesh hooks into rear armour or pop up ut of LOS to really threaten support units. Also, Shrikes for the rediculous mobility. I just make sure that my shrikes and raveners are protected from turn 1 shooting if I go second, but I find that target overload is too easy with nids as everything can be too fast. Also, units of warriors add a surprising amount of firepower and who cares if they die. Now your Str 8 weapons aren't blowing apart my MC's. Outflanking genestealers can cause more mayhem just by showing up then by actually getting into combat and multiple mawlocks put the fear of god into everything. My favourite HQ is the walking hive tyrant w/2 or 3 guard. People get nervous seeing him coming as they can't choose to shoot at him first, since there are too many faster threats, but if he gets to their lines then he beats face and there's not much that he's scared of that can't be killed by the mass medium/short range shooting that nids can put out. Plus people always underestimate what a hormaguant support charge can do. If you kill 15 of the 20 hormaguants then they're still amasing charge support. I use them as frag grenades. They base with enemies and force them to kill them off while the biggies tear a chunk out of the squad. The next round, they're not at I1 and have much less to worry about.

My fastest, most rediculous nid win was with an army that consisted completely of infiltrating genestealers, mawlocks and lictors. When 2 squads of three lictors popped up along with 2 mawlocs and deathleaper, the game was over turn 2 just before the genestealers got to tighten the noose.

A man after my own heart, I love Lictors and Raveners. Raveners are by far my favorite unit in the entire game!

That said...it is apparent to me that you don't play in a very competitive environment because those units are just awful, they aren't even really worthwhile in a casual setting. Medium bugs are in a horrible position because they are far to expensive to act as a distraction away from your MCs. I don't buy this idea that every S8 weapon firing at your Warriors/Raveners/Shrikes is one that isn't shooting at your MCs, because if you are running enough Warriors/Raveners/Shrikes to be threats then you obviously don't have enough points to buy that many MCs! Bare bones a Ravener is 30 points, a realistic squad of them is 6 and that comes out to 180...that cost as much as a 6W MC that is going to take the same number of krak missles to bring down as the squad, plus they are much more susceptible to small arms fire than a T6 MC. That and a single battle cannon is going to ruin your day with medium bugs, while they may not be popular in your meta I have to play against them rather frequently and have lost so many medium bugs all at once that it is just sad.

I wish lictors were better...the fact that they just have to take it on the chin for an entire turn when they are again susceptible to small arms fire is just bad. Chances are they are coming in turn 2 or 3 and at that time most small arms aren't going to have many targets to choose from and those lictors are going to be facing a ton of fire that they just don't have the proper defenses to take on.

The more i play with pure maelstrom missions, the more i believe that the current tier list is meaningless.

Well, that may be an exaggeration. The BAO results are a decent representation of current power levels amongst armies in 7th edition when playing eternal war, even when combined with maelstrom. But in a pure maelstrom game, everything gets turned upside down. In testing, ravenwing has been at the top. Each troop choice splitting into 3 obsec units (bikes, attack bike, speeder) is absolutely huge, and the ability to scout as well as turbo boost to quickly reposition, beside the added durability that things like the darkshroud provide, make them one of the armies to beat in MM.

Other highly mobile armies, specifically ones with fast moving troop choices and good transports, also do well in maelstrom. Eldar, blood angels, white scars, and to an extent necrons are all fantastic choices. Drop pods are good (though not as strong as you might expect) and tyranids/orks get a breath of fresh air. Gunline armies are, almost entirely, useless in maelstrom, as are FMC spam and air force lists.

Maelstrom is how the game is actually meant to be played.

 th3maninblak wrote:
The more i play with pure maelstrom missions, the more i believe that the current tier list is meaningless.

Well, that may be an exaggeration. The BAO results are a decent representation of current power levels amongst armies in 7th edition when playing eternal war, even when combined with maelstrom. But in a pure maelstrom game, everything gets turned upside down. In testing, ravenwing has been at the top. Each troop choice splitting into 3 obsec units (bikes, attack bike, speeder) is absolutely huge, and the ability to scout as well as turbo boost to quickly reposition, beside the added durability that things like the darkshroud provide, make them one of the armies to beat in MM.

Other highly mobile armies, specifically ones with fast moving troop choices and good transports, also do well in maelstrom. Eldar, blood angels, white scars, and to an extent necrons are all fantastic choices. Drop pods are good (though not as strong as you might expect) and tyranids/orks get a breath of fresh air. Gunline armies are, almost entirely, useless in maelstrom, as are FMC spam and air force lists.

Maelstrom is how the game is actually meant to be played.

Really? I think there's a reason why pure maelstrom was banned at most major tournaments.

The one maelstrom match I've played so far ended with my Guard blob-list completely ignoring the objectives and tabling my Blood Angels opponent at the top of the 4th round.

Which would totally not have happened in any other mission, right?

Maelstrom is an extremely awesome system, which brings more balance to the game than any other mission type, since the game is no longer decided by the game state of a single turn. How often did you have a game where you would have won if a game lasted one more/one less turn? In Maelstrom the first turns are just as important as later turns.

It's big problem for tournaments is being able to luck out on VP and win by nothing by good draws. If you draw two achievable missions with d3 VP and score 3 for each of them, the game is pretty much over for your opponent. It doesn't happen that much, but when it does, it's pretty frustrating. Since the goal of most tournaments is to measure the skill of the opponent, rather than their luck in drawing better cards than their opponents.

For example, in one of my recent game I had the objective to slay a character for one VP or three for d3 VP as well as d3 VP for holding three objectives at once. My opponents failed a LoS! roll on his herald and it instant-died to a rokkit, then I charged my warboss and some boyz into a screamer star which had failed its grimoire and killed another two heralds. I also had units on two objectives in my backfield. I scored first blood this way, slay the warlord, and rolled 2 VP for the objectives and another 3 VP for characters, for a total of 7 VP in a single round. My opponent, on the other hand had an objective to kill a flier or FMC (had none), issue a challenge (Tzeench Daemons vs Orks...) or score objective number three (blocked by three battlewagons parking on top of it). My opponent had pretty much no way to beat me due to me being seven points in the lead, and him only being able to get a single VP out of his three cards.

A simple rework of some cards could easily fix the problem of randomly outright winning you the game due to lucky circumstance. Also, the removal of some cards which are not achievable in half your games would help a lot (kill a psyker, use a psykic power, kill a flier, etc).

 Jidmah wrote:

A simple rework of some cards could easily fix the problem of randomly outright winning you the game due to lucky circumstance. Also, the removal of some cards which are not achievable in half your games would help a lot (kill a psyker, use a psykic power, kill a flier, etc).

My local tournaments allow to discard Tactical Objectives which cannot be achieved (destroy a Flyer whilst the enemy has none, etc.), and the D3 value is set to 2. Helps a lot.

Maelstrom can get out of hand though. Some armies have cheap fast units that can capture objectives very quickly which puts the opponent behind very quickly. 4th turn I was beating my opponent 17:2 and it was the first 7th ed game I had ever played. I had lost 1-2 units and his army was down to a couple of guys, so I was winning point wise and VP too

Some armies are at a distinct disadvantage for maelstrom games and some are at a great advantage for maelstrom is my point

If you manage to score 17 points while killing almost his entire army, your would have won any kind of game against him.

What kind of mission were you playing to enable you to score 17 VP in 4 turns anyways?

buckero0 wrote:
Maelstrom can get out of hand though. Some armies have cheap fast units that can capture objectives very quickly which puts the opponent behind very quickly. 4th turn I was beating my opponent 17:2 and it was the first 7th ed game I had ever played. I had lost 1-2 units and his army was down to a couple of guys, so I was winning point wise and VP too

Some armies are at a distinct disadvantage for maelstrom games and some are at a great advantage for maelstrom is my point

Like i said, it turns the tier list on its head. Armies with cheap, fast transports/obsec units: eldar, ravenwing, blood angels, dark eldar, and tyranids. Notice how, other than eldar, none of these armies are at the top of the charts in eternal war missions. It completely rebalances the game.

Not to say other armies cant adapt. Tau and guard cant play static gunlines anymore ( fine by me, those armies are boring to play with and against). Instead, they have to swap to transports and mobile units like crisis suits. Eldar can no longer turtle up and dart on top of objectives on turn 5, or invest half their army into a seer counsel. Maelstrom forces people to actually play a dynamic and evolving game.

Honestly, I've rarely seen speed make a difference in maelstrom games. Occasionally it does, but more often (at least in my experience) fast units can reach enemy objectives - but lack the strength/firepower to to actually clear the enemy unit off them and capture them.

The only exception to this is Drop Pods - because dropping an AV12 vehicle with Objective Secured, plus a 10-man squad goes a long way to holding an enemy objective.

That aside, what I see making the biggest difference is, sadly, luck. Usually one side will get 3 easy objectives (e.g. capturing objectives in their own side, cast a single psychic power etc.), whilst the other side ends up with 2-3 very difficult objectives (capture an enemy objective, capture every objective, declare a challenge etc.). And, once the first player gets ahead like this, it's very rare for their opponent to catch up. Certainly it's never happened on one of our games.

 th3maninblak wrote:

Like i said, it turns the tier list on its head. Armies with cheap, fast transports/obsec units: eldar, ravenwing, blood angels, dark eldar, and tyranids. Notice how, other than eldar, none of these armies are at the top of the charts in eternal war missions. It completely rebalances the game.

Agreed. That's why I was so confused when several people claimed that DE are one of the worst armies. They definitely aren't in Maelstrom of War missions, whenever I take them as an Allied Detachment to my primary CSM I notice a substantial increase in the performance of my army. Objective Secured Bikers, LRs or swarms of Termagants are pretty effective at claiming Tactical Objectives as well.

 vipoid wrote:
Honestly, I've rarely seen speed make a difference in maelstrom games. Occasionally it does, but more often (at least in my experience) fast units can reach enemy objectives - but lack the strength/firepower to to actually clear the enemy unit off them and capture them.

The only exception to this is Drop Pods - because dropping an AV12 vehicle with Objective Secured, plus a 10-man squad goes a long way to holding an enemy objective.

That aside, what I see making the biggest difference is, sadly, luck. Usually one side will get 3 easy objectives (e.g. capturing objectives in their own side, cast a single psychic power etc.), whilst the other side ends up with 2-3 very difficult objectives (capture an enemy objective, capture every objective, declare a challenge etc.). And, once the first player gets ahead like this, it's very rare for their opponent to catch up. Certainly it's never happened on one of our games.

Not speed as in "i have one unit that can dart in to claim an objective and then get blown up". Speed means that a sizeable portion of your army can reposition itself if need be. BA assault marines and transports, DE and eldar skimmers, white scars and ravenwing bikes (and in the case of ravenwing, land obsec land speeders), and nid gargoyles, deepstriking rippers and fast horms are all units that are usually taken in multiples that can secure objectives quickly and can be supported by the rest of the army. Drop pods havent even been THAT amazing, as once you secure an objective you commonly have to o grab another one, and youve lost your mobility.

And games are rarely, in my experience, that swingy. Usually each player will draw 1-3 dead cards a game, with the same number of easy objectives. Most of the time you can claim any objective if you havent misplayed and given up part of the table.

 doktor_g wrote:
Orks highest rank at BAO was 52nd... Coincidence?]

There apparently wasn't a single solely Dark Eldar army on that chart... Coincidence?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 doktor_g wrote:
This year. Not my graph. Go to Torrent of Fire. The armies you mentioned were removed because their numerical power (sample size) was too small and was removed for clarity. IIRC.

The lack of people playing them is, from a competitive stand point, quite telling.

 Jidmah wrote:
Which would totally not have happened in any other mission, right?

That was my point, yeah.

Why even post such a stupid poll?

The advantage of the new allies matrix is that it makes any army playable by being able to cover its weaknesses. However, many of these books are still not strong to stand on their own. Tyranids is the most shining example of this. While a few of the Tyranids lists do in fact place very well in tournaments, the better question is how many of those lists are strictly codex Tyranids armies. The powerful high placing builds always include the extra formations from the tyranids supplements. The book does not stand strong on its own. The missing pieces come mostly from supplements or forgeworld. Not to mention they are CTA with every other army so they are the most difficult to ally in with others. Tyranids are not the most in need of an update but they are certainly the worst of the new wave. Honestly even GK who were a late 5th edition can easily mop up most tyranids lists

 dmthomas7 wrote:
The advantage of the new allies matrix is that it makes any army playable by being able to cover its weaknesses. However, many of these books are still not strong to stand on their own.

Which is a really bad thing.

*Every* army should be able to stand up on its own - allies shouldn't be necessary for this.

 th3maninblak wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Honestly, I've rarely seen speed make a difference in maelstrom games. Occasionally it does, but more often (at least in my experience) fast units can reach enemy objectives - but lack the strength/firepower to to actually clear the enemy unit off them and capture them.

The only exception to this is Drop Pods - because dropping an AV12 vehicle with Objective Secured, plus a 10-man squad goes a long way to holding an enemy objective.

That aside, what I see making the biggest difference is, sadly, luck. Usually one side will get 3 easy objectives (e.g. capturing objectives in their own side, cast a single psychic power etc.), whilst the other side ends up with 2-3 very difficult objectives (capture an enemy objective, capture every objective, declare a challenge etc.). And, once the first player gets ahead like this, it's very rare for their opponent to catch up. Certainly it's never happened on one of our games.

Not speed as in "i have one unit that can dart in to claim an objective and then get blown up". Speed means that a sizeable portion of your army can reposition itself if need be. BA assault marines and transports, DE and eldar skimmers, white scars and ravenwing bikes (and in the case of ravenwing, land obsec land speeders), and nid gargoyles, deepstriking rippers and fast horms are all units that are usually taken in multiples that can secure objectives quickly and can be supported by the rest of the army. Drop pods havent even been THAT amazing, as once you secure an objective you commonly have to o grab another one, and youve lost your mobility.

And games are rarely, in my experience, that swingy. Usually each player will draw 1-3 dead cards a game, with the same number of easy objectives. Most of the time you can claim any objective if you havent misplayed and given up part of the table.

Tyranids now count as a fast army? Since when? Tyranids are on the of the slowest armies out there...Deep striking Rippers are the best option for objective control but they aren't to hard to dislodge from an objective.

On the topic of Maelstrom of War missions, my buddy plays DE and hadn't played since mid 6th, he came back into the game and asked me to play a game. So I pulled out my Necron dual Monolith list and we set up to play and because of DE's speed and the mission type the game ended with a 18-2 points difference in favor of his DE. I only won because I table him at the bottom of turn 5. The entire game just felt silly because he mostly ignored my army, taking pot shots where he could, zooming around the table to grab objective after objective for the first couple of turns and it became quickly apparent that I couldn't hope to get close to him in VPs so I just focused on tabling him...

I think the Maelstrom of War missions are horrible, terribly designed with the best of intentions. I feel like with so many things GW does, it was a great idea that was executed horribly.

These missions favor anything with bikes that can boost around the table to grab objectives, actually fighting is secondary to just moving your units around...Think about that, movement wins games not because it is crucial but you literally win the game just by pushing your models on the table every turn. I feel like the objectives should only be scored at the end of the game and the cards should focus more on things like the last half of the table...but then you have the issue that some of the missions are unachievable.

I agree that maelstrom can balance out lists and armies in general. I'd add that this really functions well IF you allow the discard impossible objectives rule (and that really should just be FAQ'd).

Maelstrom evens things out by changing the ways armies work, and introducing more randomness. Typically I dislike too much randomness, but I think maelstrom does it right (when amended, see supra .) It forces you to field an army that can adapt to perform multiple rolls. If you do not, you're taking a gamble. In this way, it really provides power to more TAC lists that don't spam certain units.


Does that mean you can't have maelstrom stomps due to army lists? Of course not. If someone's army is built to throw out LOTS of anti-tank versus a very army heavy force, you'll probably have a bad time. But that list won't function as well over a long period of maelstrom games against multiple lists. In this way maelstrom really rewards more tactical flexibility.

Mobility will be good, but I think what'll drop Eldar down *to* top tier is that moving up to objectives early makes it easier for the enemy to reach out and touch you.