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We are currently seeing a plethora of builds and multiple unique armies winning tournaments.

We are in a 40k renaissance, competitively speaking. Gone are the years between releases, the meta gets shaken up with each new release, the game stays fresh and exciting for competitive players.

Knights will be huge on Deathstar 40k. The meta will evolve again. 5th edition was ridiculously stagnant and dominated by the same army fads(Grey Knights).

And narrative players? Why should they care? They can house-rule everything since they're playing a narrative.

6e was ever balanced?

I'm pretty sure it just went from the Guard and Necrons working over everyone to the Tau and Eldar working over everyone.

I'm really torn on what I think about what's happening with 40k.

On the one hand, 5e had become fairly stagnant. Most of the codexes were so old that the meta had pretty much solidified. If you saw a player across from you lay a Tau or Eldar codex on the table then you didn't even need to see his list to have a pretty good idea of what he brought.

That absolutely needed to be fixed. In order to provide some variety each army has to have multiple "take all comers" builds available. DE was a pretty good step in the right direction as there were clearly 3 different types of armies to run, although there are certainly a few units that they shouldn't have bothered making an entry for.

Fast forward to today. We've had a large number of releases recently. But not just regular releases, releases that completely tear down the structure that was 40k. With the 6e allies matrix there is an obvious disconnect between the background and ability of certain armies to ally. For example, the background states that Tau will never ally with Orks as they consider the Orks to be completely irredeemable. However, the powers that be ignored this background in an effort to make 40k more like a mini Apoc.

Now some people might simply not care one bit about the background and whether the gaming experience is reflective of it; but there are a number of people, such as myself, that do. That's why I think allies are "broken". Guard ally with SM? good. Daemons ally with CSM? Absolutely. Grey Knights and SOB NOT Battle Brothers? lol wut? GK can ally with Eldar? What happened to "suffer not the alien to live"? DE being able to ally with Daemons at any level? Um.. no.

Going further we've had different ways that changes have been introduced. For example, Death from the Skies - to fix flyers and Stronghold Assault to fix buildings. Personally, I think this approach was is horrible. Yes, those items certainly needed to be fixed however the corrections should have been in the form of FAQs, not additional books that need to be purchased, lugged around and debated as to whether they should be included within a gaming group. And don't forget "data slates" for individual units... The past year of rule releases screams "we didn't test the 6e BRB release AT ALL. So, please pay us to fix it." lovely.

Next, we have various codex "supplements". Unfortunately these seem to take a haphazard approach to how they function with the parent army. Rather than providing a different way to build a core army some of these can ally with themselves (without going blind...) causing all sorts of FoC breaking issues.

Which leads into codexes such as Inquisition and Imperial Knights that completely disregard the force chart. Making an entire army by spamming just 1 model shouldn't be possible. Yet that's an "option" we now have... and these are "full" codex releases not just supplements. Quite frankly I think the Inquisition one should have been a supplement which could have been taken with any imperial force - except the space wolves. They don't play well with each other. The Imperial Knights one should have been a data slate to either be taken as a Lord of War (escalation) or perhaps to fill a heavy slot in an IG army.

Point is, we are in a very weird time for 40k and I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. Yes, they have completely gotten away from the bog standard armies from 5th edition - which is a good thing - but the way they've done this has been to completely tear apart any semblance of army balance and by dispensing with large portions of the background from the game.

If I had my preference I'd rather see them focus on how to make a single army both flavorful (ie: not acting like everything else) AND by providing units where all of them are compelling to use. I think structure is a very important thing for helping people create an army that actually has a chance against most things it will run into. By removing the last pretenses of structure they are encouraging an even greater divide between those players that intrinsically know how to build lists vs those that really have no idea what they are doing.

Grey Knights and SOB NOT Battle Brothers? lol wut? GK can ally with Eldar? What happened to "suffer not the alien to live"? DE being able to ally with Daemons at any level? Um.. no.

It probably would help if people actually knew the background fluff at times.

Like the fact that GK has worked with Eldar quite a few times against Daemons and the like (They helped return a Craftworld for gods sakes), specially the Harliquins and their anti-daemon stance \.

Dark Eldar do have factions that actually summon and work with Daemons (Yes, including Slaaneshi!), and GK typically keep all factions at arms length, thus the SoB/GK allies of convenience, not to mention SoB's views on those who cannot be judged...

Most of the time I keep seeing people list fluff violations that have actually happened in the backstory.

 Kain wrote:
6e was ever balanced?

Not so much balanced as there was optimism that it would be balanced by now due to FAQs and the first couple of Codices seeming to eliminate OP stuff.

Grey Knights and SOB NOT Battle Brothers? lol wut? GK can ally with Eldar? What happened to "suffer not the alien to live"? DE being able to ally with Daemons at any level? Um.. no.

And yet the credo "Suffer not the Witch" is apparently not applied to a chapter of marines who are all witches...

Gotta agree with Zebio on this one, the allies chart isn't perfect but it works pretty well in an "Enemy of my enemy is someone I can trust not to shoot me till my enemy is dead kind of way"

Some of them, CWE and DE particularly sums up the fluff nicely. They might fight and hate each other at times but at least they are both still Eldar and not one of those filthy primitive civilizations that sprang up post Fall...

I hope this (my) version of the allies chart makes it into 7th:

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Grey Knights and SOB NOT Battle Brothers? lol wut? GK can ally with Eldar? What happened to "suffer not the alien to live"? DE being able to ally with Daemons at any level? Um.. no.

And yet the credo "Suffer not the Witch" is apparently not applied to a chapter of marines who are all witches...

Gotta agree with Zebio on this one, the allies chart isn't perfect but it works pretty well in an "Enemy of my enemy is someone I can trust not to shoot me till my enemy is dead kind of way"

Some of them, CWE and DE particularly sums up the fluff nicely. They might fight and hate each other at times but at least they are both still Eldar and not one of those filthy primitive civilizations that sprang up post Fall...

The Grey Knight's reputation for purity is beyond the reproach of even the Templars. The Templars hate the witch as the witch can and has fallen many times, with even the Astropaths and Navigators needed for society to function being a necessary evil. However the Knigts were founded at the behest of the Emperor himself, and despite all the temptations of the Daemonic, the heretical, and the Alien, not one has ever fallen.

Even Logan and the Wolves don't begrudge them in particular (the Ordo Malleus that commands them though...) so it's not impossible for even the templars to give the Grey Knights proper respect.

Yet they will casually butcher a whole group of Sisters and *bathe in their blood* to protect themselves. The other aspects of the IoM may not act against the Knights, but trust them?

Would you trust an ally that engages in the kinds of actions the Knights do? So witches, ally killing, exterminatus toting, answers to no-one outside the inquisition, mind wiping, sacrifice you in the name of the IoM "allies".

I an keeping an eagle eye on those guys, allies or no.

And Arun, that's a very Imperio-centric allies chart I'd rather not see personally.

Very few even know they exist, much less who they are, much less that they killed some Sisters.

If you were an important enough person in the Imperium to know of them, you'd also know how important they are.

Like for example the first founding chapters Captains and Chapter Masters that make up a chunk of the allies matrix?

The average IG infantryman wont know but those Marines, Generals and Inquisitors are going to know enough to be wary of the GK. They don't need it confirmed, it's enough that they aren't going to trust them outright with just some of the rumours that float around them.

It's one thing to think of them with respect knowing they are the mighty heroes of the Imperium. It's quite another to not worry they are going to mind wipe you, outright murder you or blow up the entire planet you are standing on at any given moment.

Grey Knights are known by all Chapter Mastesr of all Space Marine Chapters I believe (I know this is in the fluff somewhere, I think it may even be in the Grey Knight book.). Only the Chapter Master though, the rest of his marines won't usually know. Marines have their minds wiped after fighting alongside them too (Another piece of fluff, I believe is mentioned in the Blood Angel book).

As to the OP though... When was it balanced? When 6th first released and Necron Wraithwing dominated everything in its path? I don't think there has ever been, or will ever be a time when balance reigns. We are forever subjected to growing gap between middle tier and top tier. If you don't play at tournaments though, this doesn't really come into play that often.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Yet they will casually butcher a whole group of Sisters and *bathe in their blood* to protect themselves. The other aspects of the IoM may not act against the Knights, but trust them?

Would you trust an ally that engages in the kinds of actions the Knights do? So witches, ally killing, exterminatus toting, answers to no-one outside the inquisition, mind wiping, sacrifice you in the name of the IoM "allies".

I an keeping an eagle eye on those guys, allies or no.

And Arun, that's a very Imperio-centric allies chart I'd rather not see personally.

There is a reason why the best relationship the Grey Knights can possibly have is allies of convenience and work about as well alongside the more talkative Xenos as they do with the rest of the Imperium.

Well yeah, that's my point, it was in reference to Cliverly who seemed to think GK and SOB should have been Battle Brothers. The rumours and speculation around GK alone should put people off trusting them and if they actually know some of what they've done it's even worse.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Perfect Organism wrote:
It's been a gradual creep, which pretty much every book apart from Codex: Dark Angels, Codex: Space Marines and Codex: Tyranids has been part of.

I'm sorry what? Omniscope Grav Centurions moving and wasting 2 enemy MEQ squads at a time led by beatstick CM taking any and all enemy fire and dropping orbital bombardment that happily scatters off to a nearby tank doesnt ring a bell? Or biker command squad going all grav? Or Imperial Fist Lascannon Devastators? White Scar all biker army where almost every unit is scoring?

What do Imperial Fists Lascannon Devastators do that's so devastating?

 Orock wrote:
[A good Gravstar build laughs at Wave Serpents.

HAHAHAHAHAHAhAHA no.

Good Gravstar immobilizes/kills two serpents a turn. Serpents are not good against twinlinked, ignores cover grav guns that reroll their armor pen. Add in GOI and that's a pretty easy match up. Serpents just can't get through that many 2+ saves fast enough

The Internet made it Unbalanced.

 Guitarquero wrote:
The Internet made it Unbalanced.

Don't bring ICQ into this!

 anonymou5 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
[A good Gravstar build laughs at Wave Serpents.

HAHAHAHAHAHAhAHA no.

Good Gravstar immobilizes/kills two serpents a turn. Serpents are not good against twinlinked, ignores cover grav guns that reroll their armor pen. Add in GOI and that's a pretty easy match up. Serpents just can't get through that many 2+ saves fast enough

What does it do about the other 4 Wave Serpents in the list and the pseudo-rending weapons within them? As long as the Eldar player understands the rules of the Space Marine Codex enough to understand the capability, this is a non-issue for a Serpent heavy list. And if it kills two Serpents, it isn't killing the Wraithknights. If it is killing the Wraithknights, it isn't killing the Serpents. Hardened target saturation is what makes these builds nasty....and I have never had issues with even the strong players and their Centurion-star setups.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Well yeah, that's my point, it was in reference to Clively who seemed to think GK and SOB should have been Battle Brothers. The rumours and speculation around GK alone should put people off trusting them and if they actually know some of what they've done it's even worse.

Let me put it a different way. The SoB *allowed* the GK to slaughter them in order to defeat the daemons. The trust level on that has to be incredibly high; hence the reason I think they should have been BB. As far as the other armies: No one who had heard anything at all about the GK would trust them.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:

 anonymou5 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
[A good Gravstar build laughs at Wave Serpents.

HAHAHAHAHAHAhAHA no.

Good Gravstar immobilizes/kills two serpents a turn. Serpents are not good against twinlinked, ignores cover grav guns that reroll their armor pen. Add in GOI and that's a pretty easy match up. Serpents just can't get through that many 2+ saves fast enough

What does it do about the other 4 Wave Serpents in the list and the pseudo-rending weapons within them? As long as the Eldar player understands the rules of the Space Marine Codex enough to understand the capability, this is a non-issue for a Serpent heavy list. And if it kills two Serpents, it isn't killing the Wraithknights. If it is killing the Wraithknights, it isn't killing the Serpents. Hardened target saturation is what makes these builds nasty....and I have never had issues with even the strong players and their Centurion-star setups.

If you disembark your precious troops to shoot with them for a slim chance of rending, they're dead next turn and you've lost the game.

Centurion devs are the second best thing for hunting Wave Serpents, the best thing being Crisis suits with twin missile pods and buff commander.

You can easily fit both into a Farsight Enclaves/Space Marine list. Eldar are incredibly squishy outside of the Seerstar/ Beastpack, they have no hardened targets.

Gating centstar kills the Wraithknights first turn. Crisis suits kill Serpents. With my opening salvo I can potentially kill or cripple half your army; Eldar can't deal with the correct Tau/SM build. Do the strong players you play go to or win in many GTs? If not, they're not strong players.

clively wrote:
Let me put it a different way. The SoB *allowed* the GK to slaughter them in order to defeat the daemons.

Eh? That's not how I've ever heard the story told.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

clively wrote:
Let me put it a different way. The SoB *allowed* the GK to slaughter them in order to defeat the daemons.

Eh? That's not how I've ever heard the story told.

Of course not. It doesn't fit into the "Ward is the devil!" spiel going on on the interwebz.

clively wrote:

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Well yeah, that's my point, it was in reference to Clively who seemed to think GK and SOB should have been Battle Brothers. The rumours and speculation around GK alone should put people off trusting them and if they actually know some of what they've done it's even worse.

Let me put it a different way. The SoB *allowed* the GK to slaughter them in order to defeat the daemons. The trust level on that has to be incredibly high; hence the reason I think they should have been BB. As far as the other armies: No one who had heard anything at all about the GK would trust them.

I thought most everyone ignored that fluff as the bad fanfic writings of an idiot and not real canon?

Heldrakes were broken but i'd say its the weapons race between tau and eldar that really made things bad. Like everything else it will pass, maybe in a year we could be crying about imperial guard cheese. I'd say orcs or ba have that potential too, but with the lack of melee in this edition i doubt it.

 kronk wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Perfect Organism wrote:
It's been a gradual creep, which pretty much every book apart from Codex: Dark Angels, Codex: Space Marines and Codex: Tyranids has been part of.

I'm sorry what? Omniscope Grav Centurions moving and wasting 2 enemy MEQ squads at a time led by beatstick CM taking any and all enemy fire and dropping orbital bombardment that happily scatters off to a nearby tank doesnt ring a bell? Or biker command squad going all grav? Or Imperial Fist Lascannon Devastators? White Scar all biker army where almost every unit is scoring?

What do Imperial Fists Lascannon Devastators do that's so devastating?

They get the tank hunter USR, meaning they get to re-roll any and all failed armor penetration rolls. Four S9 Lascannons doing this is very, very deadly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, in regards to the GK debate, Mat Ward raped the fluff. I believe "mind wiping" was his idea.

 Sir Arun wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, in regards to the GK debate, Mat Ward raped the fluff. I believe "mind wiping" was his idea.

He didn't, and it wasn't.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:

 anonymou5 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
[A good Gravstar build laughs at Wave Serpents.

HAHAHAHAHAHAhAHA no.

Good Gravstar immobilizes/kills two serpents a turn. Serpents are not good against twinlinked, ignores cover grav guns that reroll their armor pen. Add in GOI and that's a pretty easy match up. Serpents just can't get through that many 2+ saves fast enough

What does it do about the other 4 Wave Serpents in the list and the pseudo-rending weapons within them? As long as the Eldar player understands the rules of the Space Marine Codex enough to understand the capability, this is a non-issue for a Serpent heavy list. And if it kills two Serpents, it isn't killing the Wraithknights. If it is killing the Wraithknights, it isn't killing the Serpents. Hardened target saturation is what makes these builds nasty....and I have never had issues with even the strong players and their Centurion-star setups.

I'm not saying that you are not capable of beating a Grav Star list with your WS Spam list. I am saying that a Gravstar definitely has the advantage in that matchup. Asmodai already covered it, but I'm going to reiterate.

The Gravstar kills WKs even easier than it kills Serpents (the WKs die first, if you're lucky they put a few wounds on a CM first). You're looking at two Eldar units dead in a turn, almost for sure. In turn, you cannot kill the Gravstar fast enough. There will be between 1-2 Chapter Masters tanking, and then either a Tau Commander in Iridium Armor or a pair of Inquisitors (one of whom will be Coteaz) in TDA/Artificer armor. Then all the Centurions themselves have a 2+ save. If Shadowsun is present they will have a 2+ cover, which will completely ignore your pseudo rending. If you're counting on the Serpents for rending, assuming SL/Cannon/Shield (and I personally don't run the Cannon on my Serpents, and neither do many top level players), you are avereging slightly less than 1 rend per 2 Serpents. I think the Gravstar can handle that. If you're dismounting your Dire Avengers, maybe you kill a Teletubby or two, but now Thundefire cannons and Talons and/or etc just killed all your Troops. It's a terrible matchup for Serpent spam.

Really though, for as good as Wave Serpents are (and they're amazing) and how much they shifted the meta (which was insane for a dedicated transport, they single handedly killed Pulse Bomb style Tau gunlines), Serpent spam is not a top tier list. Eldar are the best Army in the game, and part of that is because of Wave Serpents, but it is not because of armies rocking 6-9 Serpents. Gravstar (or Teletubby star as I hope catches on) is a top tier Army, and it hoses Serpents/WKs. To really run with Eldar you need an actual damage sink. Beastpacks and Seer Councils being the obvious candidates, but Guardian blobs work pretty well too.

clively wrote:
Let me put it a different way. The SoB *allowed* the GK to slaughter them in order to defeat the daemons.

We don't actually know that. All we're told is that the GK "turn their blades upon" the surviving Sisters. Nothing's said about how the Sisters react to it.

Anyway, as for their allies rating, I'd say that allies of convinience fits. The GK are quite distant from anyone who isn't them, and the Sisters have some degree of wariness towards Marines in general.