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So I'm attempting to come up with a simplified way to help new players pick armies based purely on general playstyle. Like the true engineer that I am, I created an excel spreadsheet

It is very very very simplified, but I'd like help trying to make sure I got the armies right (or at least close)

The player ranks these four traits:
Damage - Having a force that can dish out a lot of damage
Survivability - Having a force that can take a hit and not go down
Mobility - Having a fast/mobile force
Horde - Having more people than the opponent


These are how I ranked each of the armies (the trait ranked last is disregarded):

Imperial Guard - Dam - Hor - Sur
Sisters of Battle - Dam - Sur - Hor
Space Wolves - Dam - Sur - Mob
Tyranids - Hor - Mob - Dam
Chaos Daemons - Hor - Mob - Sur
Orks - Hor - Sur - Dam
Dark Eldar - Mob - Dam - Hor
Tau - Mob - Dam - Sur
Blood Angels - Mob - Sur - Dam
Eldar - Mob - Sur - Hor
Necrons - Sur - Dam - Hor
Grey Knights - Sur - Dam - Mob
Chaos Space Marines - Sur - Hor - Dam
Black Templar - Sur - Hor - Mob
Dark Angels - Sur - Mob - Dam
Space Marines - Sur - Mob - Hor


Now obviously some of them aren't exact, the thing is that I can't have duplicates. These were my best interpretations, so please let me know if you disagree. Keep in mind though that these are very broad strokes over the army. Obviously you can create horde armies out of Marines, or create a really fast Chaos Space Marine army. This is just to help a new player find a starting point.

Here's the excel sheet if you feel like taking a look.

I'd call daemons Dam - Mob - Hor, as they are not at all survivable for the most part, except for a very few choice units. (Primarilly the great unclean one and co. )

So you are saying that armies without Dam should not be considered from a damage perspective?

I know BT and Eldar are struggling right now, but I couldn't completely disregard their damage potential.

Even less so with SM and Chaos Daemons.

I would also personally rate Dam higher than Hor for Eldar. They are totally not a Horde army.

Orks are much more mobile than Tyranids.

In before posts sweating the details and missing the point.

Edit: Looks like I'm too late.

I ran into a lot of cases where two armies had the exact same ranking, hence why I need the help identifying which army fits that more and how to make the other work.

As far as damage goes, it is mainly just "what is the priority of the player." If damage is ranked first, then the player cares most about having as many of the enemy's models removed from the board. Obviously every army needs this to some extent, but some focus more on it than others.


@Evileyes

Thanks for the input, I haven't played new daemons at all and was going based on their old codex that had a lot more T4 models. I'm relieved that you picked a ranking that wasn't taken by another army haha.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:
Orks are much more mobile than Tyranids.

What would you rank the Ork traits as then? It isn't so much a direct comparison between two armies as it is what is are the traits of each individual army. To me, Orks are much more survavable than they are mobile, and deal much more damage than they are mobile.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rohansoldier wrote:
So you are saying that armies without Dam should not be considered from a damage perspective?

I know BT and Eldar are struggling right now, but I couldn't completely disregard their damage potential.

Even less so with SM and Chaos Daemons.

I would also personally rate Dam higher than Hor for Eldar. They are totally not a Horde army.

So Eldar you'd rank it:
Mob - Sur - Dam?

That's the same as Blood Angels, hence why I put them at Horde vs Damage for their last trait. They are much more Horde like than Blood Angels, but that doesn't make them a Horde army.



Also, to clarify. This gives points to each army and then you can rank them. You don't have to pick what this says is your first choice, but it'll help you narrow it down to like 5 armies that you can ask people about.

You might want to consider a few things, as Tau might have mobility in their Crisis suits, but they might not have mobility in their scoring units.

As for Tyranids, i wouldnt really call them that mobile, except for Flying Tyrants, Raveners and Gargoyles there isnt really much speed in their units i am afraid, however if you counted outflanking, infiltrating and spores as mobility, then they have a few ways to be "mobile" .

Dracoknight wrote:
You might want to consider a few things, as Tau might have mobility in their Crisis suits, but they might not have mobility in their scoring units.

As for Tyranids, i wouldnt really call them that mobile, except for Flying Tyrants, Raveners and Gargoyles there isnt really much speed in their units i am afraid, however if you counted outflanking, infiltrating and spores as mobility, then they have a few ways to be "mobile" .

I may be a bit biased based on how I play Tau (100% suits or vehicles) but how would you not consider mobility their primary trait? I understand that their scoring units aren't all that mobile, but so much of the rest of the army is that I have a bit of a hard time agreeing.

I play Tyranids, and I do consider them to be pretty dang quick. Fleet is common, we have many different deployment methods, plus we have blatant speed on several units. Would you switch Damage and Mobility, or did you want to change it more significantly than that?

I'm really not trying to shoot you down, so please don't read it that way. This is just something I anticipate a lot of my friends using so I want to make sure I get it right, and will debate anything I don't immediately agree with

I think its just more fair for new players to know where in their army those traits are most prominent.

The Tau troop can be pretty slow without a devilfish, and those can be a bit iffy to recommend from what i have seen on this forum, and in the current ruleset objectives is ( sadly ) the main source of victory.
Ofcourse it goes a bit against the simple nature of this list, but using thousands of dollars on a army is never simple, so adding the important details might help a player that want a speedy army decide which *type* of speed the player wants.

As for Tyranids, yeah fleet is alright, but they still only move 6" in the move phase with the regular run range.
What i put into "speed" is the ability to go from your deployment zone into your enemys deployment zone, which is were my argument against nids being mobile came from.

Added note: could add a few extra ones such as negatives and maybe "customizeability score" between 1 to 10 ( the ability to upgrade or change your units to your taste )

I see your points, though I think you may be missing that it is meant as a broad stroke of the armies. Meant more to narrow it down to a few for them to research vs picking the one army they're going to forever love and match perfectly to. When most of the people I've brought into the game hear "there are 16 armies to choose from" they glaze over a little bit.


The other thing is the difference between speed and mobility. I consider mobility to include speed, deployment options, agility (like jump-shoot-jump) and availability of transports. Both Tau and Tyranids tend to have a significant number of these working in their favor.


Lastly, if I add really any more options it actually will take away from what I'm trying to do. I used to have it be about 6 traits. It actually would make it so nobody ever got their ideal army and was really frustrating. I'd always have to tell them "well you can't have this, this, and this but this one is kinda close."

Were a bit unsure of the purpose, but as a quick breakdown for further research it should do the trick.

You might want to put in a more in-depth explaination of the attributes, new players might not understand what it all means, so adding the note what mobility means forexample also applies to deployment rules and not just movement speed.

On the mention of Horde you could rather say that they have the ability to field a large amount of cheap models on the table, the mention of fielding more models of your oppoment might give the wrong idea that model count matters.

etc.

Sorry for the arguing, but it kinda pokes the designer in me ^^;;

It's not a problem at all, I encourage arguing

I'll explain the attributes better to new players whenever they use this; that'll probably avoid a lot of confusion and should help make their results more accurate.


With that in mind, are there any other changes to the specific armies' traits you're thinking?

I guess adding "Psykers" to their list, whenever or not they have psykers that is their "field"

Like Eldar, Grey Knights, Demons, and Tyranids.

I might also suggest a Ranged, CC, or hybrid list. While sure there are some ways to modify the armies to be either, most armies excel at one or the other.

Yes, in 6th edition it seems like most armies are leaning towards shooting, but there are those that would rather shoot at closer range.

Like dark eldar would be Ranged/shooty
space marines would be hybrid
Black templars would be cc
Orks would be hybrid (what with the prevalence of shoota boyz and lootas)
Eldar would be ranged

Orks are definitely more dam than hor
So:
Dam-Hor/Mob-Sur if anything the Hor/Mob is because of the two most common list builds. One is small and fast, other is large and slowish.

The problem is that most codices can run VERY different kinds of lists, in the same codex. You can run guard as mob-dam-sur with vendettas or hor-sur-dam with footguard or as dam-sur-mob if you're running mech. It doesn't really make sense to give the guard codex a single categorization, and it likewise doesn't make sense for most codices either.

As such, I kind of question how a single-rating system like this can be terribly useful.

Interesting idea and it could be a start. But, as @Ailaros said, there are a couple of other factors that need to be taken into account.

I think it would be ok if there were two armies that had the same ranking because that provides a choice (wait for it - I know that you are trying to give just one suggestion).

Picking an army isn't just about the way it plays, other factors such as cash costs to create, time to assemble, enjoyment of painting should also be included. So, perhaps there need to be say three categories : army (which you have); Cost; time to assemble/paint.

Flexibility (ie many different lists from the same codex) could be both a good and bad thing for a new player. I play Necrons mainly, but am just starting GK (just to see what a non-Xenos army plays like). I would recommend Necrons as an army where it can develop with you, but so far I'm not seeing the same flexibility in the GK book (but I've only been playing GK for a month). The key thing about this is not only the number of styles of lists, but the points levels that you can make the lists work at. I'm finding developing GK lists at 500-750 pts more difficult than with my Crons.

I suppose that the other thing to take into account is the level of skill required to operate the army. Clearly, if someone hasn't played before, putting them into DE may not be the best thing (or at least some form of comment should be given).

I think this is a good idea, PM me if you need help with the excel.

---edit---
And I suggest the Necrons would be Dam-Mob-Hor because of the cheap flyers, plus the speed of the wraiths, tomb blades, scarabs etc.

All,

Like I was saying previously, this is purely meant to be a starting point for players to choose an army. The first question that I always ask is for them to decide which is the most important: the way the army plays, the way the army looks, or the story behind the army. All three are obviously important, and I make sure they know that, but if the most important to them is the way the army plays then they will use this spreadsheet.

Obviously every army can play multiple builds and have many options. But if a new player comes up to you with no idea what the armies do, then having some way to narrow down the armies is going to be very helpful. Most players aren't going to want to try out all the builds for all 16 armies before they decide to actually start playing. That is what this spreadsheet is trying to help with.

Skill required to play, whether or not there are psykers, and flexibility are all very important parts of an army; I don't deny that at all. However, adding more traits is something I'm really trying to avoid. Right now, with those 4 traits the game is very accessible. Anyone can rank those simple triats based on how important they think they are. Additional traits (such as how difficult an army is to play) will need to be explained to the player after they narrow down their choices. Those are the kinds of things that will take the player from having 4-5 good options to having 1-3 great options that they can try out.

I'm sorry if I sound defensive and like I'm shooting down everyone's points. I just feel like the goal of this is being missed by the majority.

If anyone has suggestions for changing the current traits though I'd love to hear them, but when you provide the suggestions try to think of it as the whole army and not specific builds.



@Da Kommizzar

Interesting take on Orks. They always seemed like a Horde army to me. I know you can play several different ways, but I've never known Orks for the crazy amount of damage they can put out (not saying they don't.) Instead I've known them for there being tons of bodies, and being hard to kill.



@Markcron,

Thanks for the suggestion, and I agree with putting damage first. I'm curious why to rank survivability last though. I would think maybe doing Dam - Mob - Sur would be best. The whole army is Toughness 4 or higher, has high AV vehicles, 4+ or better armor across the board, and We'll Be Back. What do you think?

 rabid1903 wrote:

@Markcron,

Thanks for the suggestion, and I agree with putting damage first. I'm curious why to rank survivability last though. I would think maybe doing Dam - Mob - Sur would be best. The whole army is Toughness 4 or higher, has high AV vehicles, 4+ or better armor across the board, and We'll Be Back. What do you think?

I guess I put survivability last because a large number of builds rely on small units of warriors (granted, in a flyer but once they hit the table they can be killed comparatively easily). Also, I2 tends to have nasty effects as SA happens a lot.

But, thinking more about it, Quantum shielding plus WBB probably would make Sur more relevant than hordes. And that is before you factor in multiple wounds on wraiths, invul saves etc. (I put hordes because a common build is blobs of warriors)

I think you are right - Dam-Mob-Sur.

Granted, Necron Warriors and other basic footsloggers are slow, but most competitive Necron tournament lists will generally spam wraiths, annihilation barges and night scythes, all of which move at least 12". If this doesn't make them mobile I don't know what does. Definitely deserves to be one of their given three traits. They're certainly more mobile than they are horde.

I'd go for Mob - Dam - Surv

Best army chooser would be to actually watch some games, ask around, play some, and stress yourself out less.

My advice to new players is pick what you think is the coolest. Gw is releasing codex so often all armies will be equal soon. This whole thread is over complicating a very simple thing.

Honestly I don't feel that it's that complicated and I'm definitely not stressing out about it. I made the sheet up in 15 minutes based on the experiences that I have. I figured I'd just try to get it a bit more accurate, and ended up taking a lot of flak instead. I'll be on my way then. If anyone has any suggestions for adjusting traits just shoot me a PM.

-Rabid

Id almost say that IG can have all 4 as they have lots of cheap transports and can move around the field (mechvets). Granted not as mobile as say, DE, but still.

I think were you going to do something like this you would be better off going much more indepth. For instance my CSm+ Daemon army would be Mob- Surv-Dam with little in the Hor, despite the fact that you rank that trait highly for both armies.

I think you would need to go trough each codex and rank each unit on a scale in each categories around its strength, then either add up those ranking or average them to give the army overall scores in those categories (which gives the generic feel to the army.)

So lets say we use a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best.

Looking at a unit like Chaos Spawn

Horde = 3 (no more than 5 models in a squad, fairly pricey)
Damage = 5 (no AP weapons, No shooting, potentially large number of attacks, random combat bonus)
Survivability= 6(7 with Mark of Nurgle)( High Toughness, Lots of wounds, rarely get doubled out, no Armor Save)
Mobility = 7 (Beasts)

Or Regular CSM

Horde = 7(Units in numbers up to 20, Middle point cost, no advantages to taking more than 10 as far as upgrades)
Damage= 5( Only 1 AP CC weapon, not many attacks, Decent shooting, with weapon upgrades)
Survivability = 5(Large unit, good save, decent toughness.)
Mobility = 4( Regular Infantry, can improve with vehicles)

Do something like that for every unit in a book and add up or average the scores (so if we were going add for these 2 units

Horde = 10
Damage = 10
Survivability = 11
Mobility = 11


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something like that would give a better representation of the army for someone looking at it. Then after getting past the initial rating of the army they could dig into the units to see why the rankings are as they are.

Well either do that or just rank each army from 1-10 in each category, just gives you better differentiation.

I was about to offer to write a macro to do this for you. But then I realised, you'd already used a conditional macro to do it.

Yeah, I like the idea of a rating of 1-10 on how they handle each aspect.

I think this is a good idea to make a quick guide for beginners, so dont get too down on yourself about it. Hang in there and keep this going. With enough detail about this and a nice blog to go with it, im sure people would love to see an article about this.

anytime you put something up for people to criticize on the internet....they will. thats why they dont let people write comments next to paintings in major museums. would really ruin the art.

 Icculus wrote:
Yeah, I like the idea of a rating of 1-10 on how they handle each aspect.

I think this is a good idea to make a quick guide for beginners, so dont get too down on yourself about it. Hang in there and keep this going. With enough detail about this and a nice blog to go with it, im sure people would love to see an article about this.

anytime you put something up for people to criticize on the internet....they will. thats why they dont let people write comments next to paintings in major museums. would really ruin the art.

That was surprisingly profound.