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the_scotsman wrote:
Looking objectively at what armies people are bringing to tournaments, you've got clear tiers:

I'm not sold on custodes beyond the bikes, at least as a tournament army.
As mix at match allies the wolves do bring thunderwolves/lords as a decent soup filler, filling a similar role to bikes and other souped units in the guard/smash captain list.

A.T. wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Haven't seen those results. BA and assault are so bad right now. We might as well not have a chapter tactic except on the captain.

LVO 2018 - top 8 consisted of 4 eldar lists, 3 Imperial lists containing varying amounts of Blood Angels, and one chaos list.
IIRC the 9th and 10th place lists were also mixed imperial/blood angel armies.

A few more books and no more first turn assaults now, but it's not as if anything drastic has happened since the LVO to give other factions a big leg up over the BA beyond those that have moved away from their index rules.

I'd count ravagers as drastic. Maybe I'm just picking up all those models in a fever dream?

Martel732 wrote:
I'd count ravagers as drastic. Maybe I'm just picking up all those models in a fever dream?

I'd count them as an index faction getting a codex. Not really something to complain about.

A.T. wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd count ravagers as drastic. Maybe I'm just picking up all those models in a fever dream?

I'd count them as an index faction getting a codex. Not really something to complain about.

We can agree to disagree.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Honestly. My crons are unbeaten in 1v1 since the new edition came out, granted, these are only in semi-competitive games in a local meta.

Overpriced. Yes.
Have to play smart? Absolutely.
Need to run solid lists to have a chance to win? Definitely.

But I wouldn't call the dex bottom-dweller.

Necrons are not nearly as bad as people claim they are on these forums. I know some very good necron players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Looking objectively at what armies people are bringing to tournaments, you've got clear tiers:

I'm not sold on custodes beyond the bikes, at least as a tournament army.
As mix at match allies the wolves do bring thunderwolves/lords as a decent soup filler, filling a similar role to bikes and other souped units in the guard/smash captain list.

Except that's all you need for a supplement to Guard. Those bikes are BONKERS, they are good enough on their own to win any game, just give them the standard Guard CP battery, and Artillery cheese.

 Marmatag wrote:
Except that's all you need for a supplement to Guard. Those bikes are BONKERS, they are good enough on their own to win any game, just give them the standard Guard CP battery, and Artillery cheese.

Yes - I was just suggesting they seemed to fit better in the description of tier 2 (limited builds but good soup potential) rather than tier 1 (good number of tournament-worthy units).

A.T. wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Except that's all you need for a supplement to Guard. Those bikes are BONKERS, they are good enough on their own to win any game, just give them the standard Guard CP battery, and Artillery cheese.

Yes - I was just suggesting they seemed to fit better in the description of tier 2 (limited builds but good soup potential) rather than tier 1 (good number of tournament-worthy units).

Theyre definitely borderline. I've seen a fair few pure custard lists in tournaments (mostly focusing on bikes, but also including vexators and regular schmoes) so I threw them into T1, but I haven't played them a lot so I could be wrong. I'm sure without the bikes they'd be T2 solidly, and again they suffer from a bit of the overall Power Armor Problem (Powblrem?) as their only non-forgeworld transport is a suck raider, and the only heavy choice they have is a crappy non-FW contemptor dread, which cant be outfitted for dakka.

 Marklarr wrote:
So what I gather from this thread, is that Grey Knights are the worst codex, then comes every other codex, except Eldar, who are at the top?

Eldar aren't an army any more than Imperium is.

And if you meant Craftworlds, 2-5 good units doesn't make an army either when the rest is unplayable garbage.

Aren't IG at least as "up there" as CWE and DE?

Aren't Harlies somewhere between T1 and T2? Technically, they don't have many bad options, but that's because they don't have many options period.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marklarr wrote:
So what I gather from this thread, is that Grey Knights are the worst codex, then comes every other codex, except Eldar, who are at the top?

Eldar aren't an army any more than Imperium is.

And if you meant Craftworlds, 2-5 good units doesn't make an army either when the rest is unplayable garbage.

Farseers Spiritseers Crimson Hunters Hemlocks Wave Serpents Rangers Fire Prisms Warlock Skyrunners Autarch Skyrunners Dark Reapers and Shining Spears is what I typically see out of competitive CWE lists, which more than qualifies them for Tier 1 given the viable unit pool of other tier 1 armies.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Honestly. My crons are unbeaten in 1v1 since the new edition came out, granted, these are only in semi-competitive games in a local meta.

Overpriced. Yes.
Have to play smart? Absolutely.
Need to run solid lists to have a chance to win? Definitely.

But I wouldn't call the dex bottom-dweller.

Necrons haven't placed in the top 3 of any GT or Major since 8th edition came out (up until mid May at least). They have legitimately done worse in tournaments than GK have. As far as tournament standings they are currently the worst performing army in the game. If we can get people to stop with the "I win every game in my local hobby shop" chatter, maybe GW will address the problem with the worst performing army in the game. Anecdotal experience outside of a competitive scene vs competitive with statistical data gathered in large sample sets, isn't terribly useful.

Yes, they are a codex bottom dweller, no question. Competent players wreck them in a tournament environment, consistently. (The only potential capable build is 3 LoW)

http://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/

Woo boy, claiming the whole Craftworlds army except two units is garbage. lol

the_scotsman wrote:
Theyre definitely borderline. I've seen a fair few pure custard lists in tournaments (mostly focusing on bikes, but also including vexators and regular schmoes) so I threw them into T1, but I haven't played them a lot so I could be wrong.

It'll most likely be based around a banner to protect the bikes from first turn alpha strikes (-1 to hit) and minimum troops to fill out CP requirements.
But custodes bikes do scale up well compared to some soup units (like captain smash). The big biker units a pure custodes force can field have even more punch than the supreme command trio.

Bharring wrote:
Aren't IG at least as "up there" as CWE and DE?

Aren't Harlies somewhere between T1 and T2? Technically, they don't have many bad options, but that's because they don't have many options period.

IG are still winning major events.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marklarr wrote:
So what I gather from this thread, is that Grey Knights are the worst codex, then comes every other codex, except Eldar, who are at the top?

Eldar aren't an army any more than Imperium is.

And if you meant Craftworlds, 2-5 good units doesn't make an army either when the rest is unplayable garbage.

The only things that are pure garbage are melle aspect warriors and the avatar. Everything else with maybe the exception of the wraithlord (which can actually do pretty well fi it gets ignored for a single turn. I played one last night and he killed twice his value in points and held up a unit of custodian guards for a turn until some wardens knocked him over) is about as good as the good options in other armies.

Warwalkers are great - 5++ save and 2 heavies for cheap.
Night spinner is pretty good too. Artillery tank that can fall back and shoot - is really nifty. 2d6 ignore LOS str 7 flat 2 ap-4 on 6 is no joke.

Eldar can literally get by just based on the fact ap-3 on 6's is the minimum damage units are pushing out. It's such a strong ability.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

meleti wrote:
Woo boy, claiming the whole Craftworlds army except two units is garbage. lol

Yeah I thought that was funny too.

A.T. wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Except that's all you need for a supplement to Guard. Those bikes are BONKERS, they are good enough on their own to win any game, just give them the standard Guard CP battery, and Artillery cheese.

Yes - I was just suggesting they seemed to fit better in the description of tier 2 (limited builds but good soup potential) rather than tier 1 (good number of tournament-worthy units).

...How exactly are Necrons supposed to soup?

"The only things that are pure garbage are melle aspect warriors and the avatar."
Storm Guardians say hi. Oh, and Windriders.

And every Phoenix Lord (the CM equivelants).

And Vypers.

But most of the units in the CWE book are above par. I agree that CWE is top tier.

A.T. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Now the question is: how many of those BA lists were anything outside Scouts and Captains?

At least two - the pure list had a lot of incessors with some death company and sanguinary guard - lemartes at the lead, while the top ba/guard soup had three squads of sang-guard, no captains, and 10 full squads of catachan infantry.

Two others I recall were guard CP soup, BA captains, and some form of Imperial support (the top wolves list - adding thunderwolves, and the top sisters list - adding seraphim)

Rare occurence
Don't bank the codex on those two lists. Were it consistent you'd have a point.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marklarr wrote:
So what I gather from this thread, is that Grey Knights are the worst codex, then comes every other codex, except Eldar, who are at the top?

Eldar aren't an army any more than Imperium is.

And if you meant Craftworlds, 2-5 good units doesn't make an army either when the rest is unplayable garbage.

Depends on what class those 2-5 units are. AdMech can do some pretty good stuff with just enginseers, rangers, dune crawlers, bots, and destroyers. (Or whatever those tracked troops are called)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
Farseers Spiritseers Crimson Hunters Hemlocks Wave Serpents Rangers Fire Prisms Warlock Skyrunners Autarch Skyrunners Dark Reapers and Shining Spears is what I typically see out of competitive CWE lists, which more than qualifies them for Tier 1 given the viable unit pool of other tier 1 armies.

Commas dude.

Why do people feel the need to start these threads? Is it validation that their army is poor? Is it just to watch the world burn in a salt mine? I don't get it - the question is incredibly subjective.

Unless you're willing to play using the current flavour of the month units that are most competitive virtually any codex is going to seem awful.

I don't see many biker armies, anywhere. I don't see many bikes at all in fact. If you're a Saim Hann, White Scar, Ravenwing or any other biker-centric player you're probably going to think your codex is pretty dire, regardless of how many powerful options it has available to it.

Extremely generally I'd say that all codexes apart from Grey Knights are considered playable. Some more than others for sure. Obviously any army that is able to soup is infinitely more powerful than one that can't.

Some people I could name start threads with the intention of "I know people are pretty mopey about army [xxxx], but it's what I own already. I'd like to be a little more competitive but I don't want to buy a whole other army, I'm looking for ideas on how to best utilize what I already have."

That lasted about a page and a half before making the left turn into a salt mine.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Why do people feel the need to start these threads? Is it validation that their army is poor? Is it just to watch the world burn in a salt mine? I don't get it - the question is incredibly subjective.

Unless you're willing to play using the current flavour of the month units that are most competitive virtually any codex is going to seem awful.

I don't see many biker armies, anywhere. I don't see many bikes at all in fact. If you're a Saim Hann, White Scar, Ravenwing or any other biker-centric player you're probably going to think your codex is pretty dire, regardless of how many powerful options it has available to it.

Extremely generally I'd say that all codexes apart from Grey Knights are considered playable. Some more than others for sure. Obviously any army that is able to soup is infinitely more powerful than one that can't.

Ummm those Windriders that advance and charge are pretty gnarly. They are very much a thing. It's just marine bikes that don't function.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Rare occurence
Don't bank the codex on those two lists. Were it consistent you'd have a point.

Adepticon top 16 then? Two more - an aggressors and sang-guard list led by Seth, and a sang-guard and chaplain element supporting a guard/shield captain list.

Plus the usual smash-captain showings - one with the guard/scouts/support element setup and the other being a supreme command joined to dark angels.

A.T. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Rare occurence
Don't bank the codex on those two lists. Were it consistent you'd have a point.

Adepticon top 16 then? Two more - an aggressors and sang-guard list led by Seth, and a sang-guard and chaplain element supporting a guard/shield captain list.

Plus the usual smash-captain showings - one with the guard/scouts/support element setup and the other being a supreme command joined to dark angels.

Chaplain one sounds like the usual support like Slamguinus, but I didn't hear about the Aggressors list so I'd to definitely look at it if you got a link.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Why do people feel the need to start these threads? Is it validation that their army is poor? Is it just to watch the world burn in a salt mine? I don't get it - the question is incredibly subjective.

Unless you're willing to play using the current flavour of the month units that are most competitive virtually any codex is going to seem awful.

I don't see many biker armies, anywhere. I don't see many bikes at all in fact. If you're a Saim Hann, White Scar, Ravenwing or any other biker-centric player you're probably going to think your codex is pretty dire, regardless of how many powerful options it has available to it.

Extremely generally I'd say that all codexes apart from Grey Knights are considered playable. Some more than others for sure. Obviously any army that is able to soup is infinitely more powerful than one that can't.

Craftworlds Shining Spears, Harlequins Skyweavers, and Custodes Vertus Praetors are three really powerful bikers. It’s not like bikers are universally bad, maybe non-Scout SM bikes are bad but many others are still great. This edition really rewards units that move quickly.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Chaplain one sounds like the usual support like Slamguinus, but I didn't hear about the Aggressors list so I'd to definitely look at it if you got a link.

Andrew Gonyos list -
BA element: Seth, Librarian with pack, 3 min scout squads(bolters), 9 sanguinary guard, 3 squads of 5 aggressors, company ancient with powersword, and the standard of devastation.
Guard element: Straken, Catachan commander with powersword, priest, six infantry squads(bare), two cadian commanders, and six cadian mortar squads
BA made up 1357pts of the 2000pt list.

--

The chaplain had a regular crozius and stormbolter, running in support of a pair of seven man sanguinary guard squads and a sanguinary ancient. Rounded out by a single squad of scouts with pistols and knives. Roughly 750pts out of the 2000pt list with another 750 of guard and 500 of custodes.

--

The two others were mephiston and a pair of jump HQs, one with scouts for the extra CPs while the other swapped a captain for Lemartes.

A.T. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Chaplain one sounds like the usual support like Slamguinus, but I didn't hear about the Aggressors list so I'd to definitely look at it if you got a link.

Andrew Gonyos list -
BA element: Seth, Librarian with pack, 3 min scout squads(bolters), 9 sanguinary guard, 3 squads of 5 aggressors, company ancient with powersword, and the standard of devastation.
Guard element: Straken, Catachan commander with powersword, priest, six infantry squads(bare), two cadian commanders, and six cadian mortar squads
BA made up 1357pts of the 2000pt list.

--

The chaplain had a regular crozius and stormbolter, running in support of a pair of seven man sanguinary guard squads and a sanguinary ancient. Rounded out by a single squad of scouts with pistols and knives. Roughly 750pts out of the 2000pt list with another 750 of guard and 500 of custodes.

--

The two others were mephiston and a pair of jump HQs, one with scouts for the extra CPs while the other swapped a captain for Lemartes.

Oh. You had me thinking it was pure. Still that's a good number of points.

My main question is how did the Aggressors make it anywhere. I know they can be surprisingly quick, but no amount of quickness matters if they aren't able to fire twice, which is primarily where their offense comes from.

valdier wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
Honestly. My crons are unbeaten in 1v1 since the new edition came out, granted, these are only in semi-competitive games in a local meta.

Overpriced. Yes.
Have to play smart? Absolutely.
Need to run solid lists to have a chance to win? Definitely.

But I wouldn't call the dex bottom-dweller.

Necrons haven't placed in the top 3 of any GT or Major since 8th edition came out (up until mid May at least). They have legitimately done worse in tournaments than GK have. As far as tournament standings they are currently the worst performing army in the game. If we can get people to stop with the "I win every game in my local hobby shop" chatter, maybe GW will address the problem with the worst performing army in the game. Anecdotal experience outside of a competitive scene vs competitive with statistical data gathered in large sample sets, isn't terribly useful.

Yes, they are a codex bottom dweller, no question. Competent players wreck them in a tournament environment, consistently. (The only potential capable build is 3 LoW)

http://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/

Totally agree. Necrons can't soup to balance out their weaknesses which are... i don't even know where to start... lol

What's gone wrong with Necrons? They were being described as lower top tier to solid mid tier on release. Have people just worked out the counter to Necrons now?

phillv85 wrote:
What's gone wrong with Necrons? They were being described as lower top tier to solid mid tier on release. Have people just worked out the counter to Necrons now?

The rules they pay a premium for are either easy to negate (RP) or unreliable (QS), they don't have many options to deal with heavy targets or hoards, and they have a lot of overpriced units.
They aren't terrible, but they could be a lot better.