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That's irrelevant.

It goes like this:

1. combat happens somehow
2. one army wins

The army that wins consistently across the planet already factors in everything. That is what statistics are. That is what makes an army high tier. It doesn't matter if they win because they have vast array of so-so choices or 1 choice of godly units. If they win, they are high tier.

Let's see, you're in UK. A team is premier, top tier if it wins. If all the players on a team are [a certain race] it doesn't matter. If all the players on a team are jerks it doesn't matter. If all the players on a team are left-footed, blind, have horrible drooling problems, don't have a coach, BUT they win every single game...they are high tier. They will be in the premier league. HOW they do it, doesn't matter. Until someone can stop them, they are high tier.

Ogres pretty good, with not many options. They are still high tier.

It's not irrelevant. Certainly not the only factor (as you say, an army's raw strength is important too), but it's certainly one of the factors.

Let's say, for instance, Ogres were significantly cheaper. This would obviously give the army huge raw strength. But then let's say that every other army has access to Purple Sun and that Purple sun had a much lower casting value, but came at a price. Suddenly, that Ogre army isn't so great, as there's a hard counter to the army. How many counters an army has is a factor of which tier it should be placed in.

Now, carrying on the above example, say Ogres had the ability to pay more to make them I5. The army now has another viable build. Either you can have more troops, but be at risk to Purple Sun, or you can have less and not be at risk. Therefore, if your opponent has spent points getting Purple Sun, and you've gone with the I5 Ogres, you've got an advantage. Your opponent has a dilemma when list building. Does he spend points on something which may be useless, or does he save his points, but potentially leave himself vulnerable to a very powerful list.

It's an extreme example, but one that highlights the importance of counters. If an army has fewer counters, it is better, and one way to reduce counters is by having variety in the types of lists you can viably field.

 The Shadow wrote:
It's not irrelevant. Certainly not the only factor (as you say, an army's raw strength is important too), but it's certainly one of the factors.

A tier depends on wins. Look at football. The top tier teams are the winning teams. Not teams with varied play.

Look at the military. The best army is the most powerful army. Not the most varied.

Variety does not come into a tier. Tiers are explicitely created to judge the power of something, If option A steamrolls the rest of game 1, then the book containing option A is the top. Regardless of other choices.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
It's not irrelevant. Certainly not the only factor (as you say, an army's raw strength is important too), but it's certainly one of the factors.

A tier depends on wins. Look at football. The top tier teams are the winning teams. Not teams with varied play.

Look at the military. The best army is the most powerful army. Not the most varied.

Variety does not come into a tier. Tiers are explicitely created to judge the power of something, If option A steamrolls the rest of game 1, then the book containing option A is the top. Regardless of other choices.

Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose. If I have a Warhammer army with all missile troops, I have an equal chance of winning, provided my missile troops are equally as good as my other troops, as is the case in many armies. And, in modern warfare, it may have escaped your notice, but nobody uses cavalry or swords anymore, and dragons and wizards don't exist. Comparing it to a game which does involve such things is folly.

Real life analogies often work in these discussion, but certainly not this one. Try comparing Warhammer to, I don't know, some RPG video game, Clash of Clans or something, you might actually get somewhere. As much as I love an analogy, silly ones don't prove anything.

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

I don't know if you're trying to troll or really don't understand something this basic.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER. You keep trying to change that absolute fact, like with your football example above. We just told you, the team (army) is winning. HOW they did it, is irrelevant. They are doing it--you can't change that fact no matter what you write. If Ogres across the world have a 75% win rate, you saying it's not possible because they don't have many choices doesn't make it true.

That's what tier means. That is the English language. Grab a dictionary. Go to town.

And guess what low tier means. If a team loses every game...it's low tier. If you quadrupled the number and variety of troops available to Wood Elves, but the new units all sucked, the army would still be low tier. It doesn't matter if they have a vast choice of terrible options.

Yes, football, modern military, games, or anything that is described by the English language, all uses it the same. And the same concepts apply to each. If you say an aircraft carrier is big, it doesn't suddenly mean it's yellow, just because it's a different context. That would defeat the purpose of having a language.

 Aipoch wrote:
@Alex, no down-play intended. All armies require skill to play well, the connection I was trying to make is that an average general playing a top tier army battling a highly experienced general with a low tier army could be considered an even match up; I'd bet even money on who would win. In the opposite situation, where a brand new player is using a bottom tier army, and a veteran player is using a top tier one, I wouldn't bet a dime on the new player to win.

@sing, the ability to field large units in and of itself is not enough to be top tier. Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, and Beastmen also have this ability. What keeps Skaven mid-tier (in my opinion, of course) is the fact that they are one of the most unpredictable armies in the game. Where most armies suffer minor mishaps when things go wrong, it isn't uncommon for a Skaven mishap to wipe out half his army. Coupled with the fact that several units are over-costed\under performing (jezzails, night runners, doom flayers, etc.), the lack of cavalry, lack of traditional ranged firepower, and limited spell lores, they remain mid-tier to me.

@Duke, again the tier system, in my eyes, isn't about which army stands a better chance of winning. Going back to the 40k comparison, fantasy is very much a dynamic game and system, where as 40k is very static. It is entirely possible to fairly judge who will win a 40k game based on lists alone (assuming average generalship on both parties). This is not possible in fantasy. Yes, you can see who brought what kind of nasties, how much cheese there is, etc., but you cannot judge if they will come to fruition.

The armies I placed in top tier position have fewer faults than the mid tier and bottom tier. They have the potential to create the largest amount of effective lists, and tend to provide the fewest headaches; they are reliable and dependable. They represent the level of competency I wish all army books were given.

I'd hate to complain about skaven but there are another few things to whine about. Spells just need to be updated to 8th edition for skaven. Give us a range extension on some of the spells for higher casted versions of each or a more potent version of the spell.

Then there's the issue we have very poor movement army-wide. The fastest things we have are all random movement, gutter runners scouting, the warp grinder (which could mishap badly and pretty much every mishap result ends badly) and the vermin lord. Nobody takes the vermin lord because it's expensive and can be killed easily enough. I don't know why people would want it to be the general even if it could be since it'd just get sniped in a heartbeat by cannons. Gutter runners might get to where they need to be in time but enemies can scout block their deployment and hurt that. Everything else just takes to long to get to where it needs to go. The warp-grinder will take several turns and may mishap even when it finally does come on. You also have to mark the spot so the enemy knows where they'll be coming on before they do as if somebody deep-striking in 40k had to mark where they will eventually arrive with one unit. Also considering leadership the units which do need to go around and do stuff will most likely fail their leadership tests should they be forced to make any. The one exception to this is rat swarms which are unbreakable and not too shabby when they work. I'd still prefer that super armored and warded warlord skitterleaping strategy for facing war machines though. It tends to get the job done whenever I face war machines.

We also have no flying units or cavalry. So I dunno most of what makes skaven good is based around large targets and hordes and the large targets and single models like weapons teams will just get killed off by anything on high ground anyway regardless of whether you placed slaves in front of the weapons team or not. Also considering how slow your guys are your weapons teams shouldn't be able to hide behind buildings even if they really had to esp. since they must be deployed with the parent unit they came with.

Skaven have their ups and downs. If the enemy has good shooting then my monsters are just dead. That said against any melee armies and weaker ranged armies the monsters and weapons teams are much better.

I'm probably going to be given crap for this but I find it to be more important what army your army is facing rather than actual tiers though that matters too. I play against lizardmen a lot and I swear they must be geared towards facing skaven. Their caster is better, their shooting is all poisoned and can be massed better, they have flyers, cavalry, armor, monstrous infantry, cold-blooded (better than 'strength in numbers') and so much good stuff. They also have weapons teams which are more durable and about as good as mine with a similar cost. His monsters can also kill mine if they need to. Overall the lizardmen army has more options and in many cases does better than skaven except that skaven have cannons and skaven have cheaper guys that can horde better.

Oddly enough I played a dwarf player and totally won though I chose no wizard that game but it wasn't totally because he was dwarfs. My same lizardmen playing friend played him (the one I usually lose to) and he was totally trounced twice and I beat the dwarf player with a significant amount left over I think. I can imagine dwarfs just have better shooting to handle him, the skinks didn't have many monsters to face and got destroyed, the slann couldn't cast magic too well and just overall he was shot and dwarfs even have decent melee.

--------------------------

Skaven mishaps and being random is so weird. Last game I only went through maybe one mishap on the doomwheel out of a long game and maybe at least one miscast.

The game before the first miscast of the game turned my level 4 wizard into a level 1 wizard on my very first turn. The storm banner lasted 7 player turns and hurt me worse than my opponent including preventing 3 warpfire throwers to fire and 2 warp lightning cannons to fire and though the doomwheel could fire in that turn it misfired and lost d6 to its movement and this was all in one turn. Not only that but one of my cannons misfired 2-3 times that game. On my next turn of my warpfire throwers misfired and blew up on its first shot, another misfired and didn't shoot and the final one fired and actually killed some stuff. My abomination also failed to make one of its charges. Oh and I think my other warp lightning cannon failed to fire at least once. So yeah it was one of the most unlucky games I had esp. in the middle part of the game where I really, really needed my warpfire throwers and warp lightning cannons to shoot. One warp lightning cannon shot did strike home and auto-kill a troglodon or some other monster and it was one good thing but it went through a warp lightning cannon before the other shot it to death.

Besides all this bad luck it had been the 2nd time in 2 to 3 weeks somebody totally destroyed my models because one guy leaned on a model tray and caused 30 clanrats to do a backflip onto the floor. I was so pissed. So very, very pissed.

It's worth noting this bad game happened just 2 weeks ago and the good one happened just a week ago.

After that one bad game I'm contemplating never using the storm banner again. I might use it against empire or dwarfs and possibly ogres but even then I am seriously considering not using it. Considering mishaps I may not even take warpfire throwers anymore (mishap and likelihood that it'll be sniped before it gets to its destination is too high). Weapons teams are fun but I don't think I'd use them in a competitive game. They're just not reliable enough esp. depending on the army you face.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER.

Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying that the best army is the one with the most variety, I'm saying that having a larger variety of viable builds will increase your chances of winning, thus making you a higher tier army.

Using your Wood Elves example, quadrupling the number of units (even if they were bad) may not make the army top tier, but it would make it better, provided the new troops are different enough. I know very little about Wood Elves, so this is likely a bad example, but, as I understand, Wood Elves struggle most with fast moving units, combat units, flaming attacks and heavily armoured units. If you bring those things to a match against Wood Elves, you're pretty much guaranteed a win. But if those new troops could deal with those things better (not brilliantly, we're assuming they're still "bad"), then Wood Elves have become a better army. Suddenly, your heavy armour and your combat don't quite have the same potency as they once did, making the game harder to win.

So yes, point for point, those new troops may not be as good as, say, Chaos Warriors, meaning Wood Elves still struggle against such armies, but that added variety makes Wood Elves harder to prepare for and harder to beat. Therefore, Wood Elves win more, therefore, they're deserved of a higher tier

 The Shadow wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER.

Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying that the best army is the one with the most variety, I'm saying that having a larger variety of viable builds will increase your chances of winning, thus making you a higher tier army.

No.

Tier is solely, and wholly dependent on victories. The more victories you have, the higher tier you are.

You could have a book where you have 1 model. If it steamrolls a book with 1000000000000 models, the book with the single model is of a higher tier. That is how tiers work. They were designed, and implemented as a method of gauging power. Variety does not come into it,

Tiers can depend entirely on the number of wins an army has worldwide. If anyone happens to have god-like omniscience and has the figure of every win\loss match up of every game ever played across the globe, I would be more than happy to go by those findings for a tier system.

What is more likely to come up, though, is a collection of findings from personal experiences in isolated settings, mixed in with word of mouth, internet chattel, and final placement in a handful of tournaments.

Hence, the initial summation of the top-tier\mid-tier\and bottom-tier armies given do not reflect which army wins the most. In the same spirit of the OP comment, the top-tier armies listed are the ones which closely resemble the essence of tau-eldar in 40k: excellent, dependable, and powerful synergy that is a formidable foe on the battlefield.

What might be appropriate is to set-up two distinct tier systems: a tournament tier list, and an over-all tier list. This would allow each army to cherry pick its strongest "tournament" build, and face off in a vacuum against the others, allowing the assumption of excellent generalship and tactics to be present by all parties. The second system, however, cannot make that assumption, and thus cannot exist in a vacuum.

The highlighted difference between 40k and fantasy remains. Despite the often overwhelming power of a top-tier army in fantasy, no battle is over before the game begins.

The analogy given about military tiers being decided as the most powerful was both out of place, and incorrect. A modicum of history will show "powerful" armies failing time and again to defeat their "less-powerful" opponents for the exact same reasons, and those same reasons apply in fantasy: generalship and tactics. Common examples most should be able to remember include Thermopylae, Stalingrad, any army that ever invades Russia in the winter, wars that decide to fight vague terminology, etc.

 Aipoch wrote:
The analogy given about military tiers being decided as the most powerful was both out of place, and incorrect. A modicum of history will show "powerful" armies failing time and again to defeat their "less-powerful" opponents for the exact same reasons, and those same reasons apply in fantasy: generalship and tactics. Common examples most should be able to remember include Thermopylae, Stalingrad, any army that ever invades Russia in the winter, wars that decide to fight vague terminology, etc.

Actually, the analogy is correct. It just is not foolproof. Hence we have the term underdog. The system was created as a medium of gauging power in competitive settings. I.E. The more powerful a team, player, aspect, etc, the higher the tier.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER.

Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying that the best army is the one with the most variety, I'm saying that having a larger variety of viable builds will increase your chances of winning, thus making you a higher tier army.

No.

Tier is solely, and wholly dependent on victories. The more victories you have, the higher tier you are.

You could have a book where you have 1 model. If it steamrolls a book with 1000000000000 models, the book with the single model is of a higher tier. That is how tiers work. They were designed, and implemented as a method of gauging power. Variety does not come into it,

And victories are partly dependent on the variety in a list. Partly due to the power of the book, yes, but that's not the only factor.

So, in your example, the power of that one book is so great that it doesn't need variety at all. If you had two books, one of which had ten different units of equal power, and another with twenty different units of the same power, then the latter book will be stronger, because it's harder to prepare for and can field a larger variety of threats, and counter a larger variety too.

 Aipoch wrote:

The analogy given about military tiers being decided as the most powerful was both out of place, and incorrect. A modicum of history will show "powerful" armies failing time and again to defeat their "less-powerful" opponents

But again, you failed to read and understand this very simple thread.

The highest tier is the one that wins. No one said the military with the most planes was highest tier. That was not written anywhere. The exact opposite was written...over and over. Please read the thread, the same points have been repeated ad nauseum and those arguing against it keep skipping the most fundamental part:

wins = tier

How you win, doesn't matter. If it is statistically large enough set, the fact one side consistently wins is evidence of their tier.

Pretend you're a bookie for horse racing. And your life depended on predicting the outcome of a race. You were told Horse1 has raced 50 times on this track and never lost. Is not sick. Is not old. Horse2 has raced 50 times on this track and never won. Is not sick. Is not old. There are no other conditions that affect the race. You know NOTHING about horse racing. Who do you bet on?

There are people arguing, "But HOW does Horse1 run? How many saddles does it have?" It doesn't matter. As long as nothing has fundamentally changed from its 50 wins, you know its tier.

That's why when armies get their books changed, things get muddied. Because their past histories and match-ups aren't as relevant. If a basketball team changes players you're not as sure where they stand.

 The Shadow wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER.

Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying that the best army is the one with the most variety, I'm saying that having a larger variety of viable builds will increase your chances of winning, thus making you a higher tier army.

No.

Tier is solely, and wholly dependent on victories. The more victories you have, the higher tier you are.

You could have a book where you have 1 model. If it steamrolls a book with 1000000000000 models, the book with the single model is of a higher tier. That is how tiers work. They were designed, and implemented as a method of gauging power. Variety does not come into it,

And victories are partly dependent on the variety in a list. Partly due to the power of the book, yes, but that's not the only factor.

So, in your example, the power of that one book is so great that it doesn't need variety at all. If you had two books, one of which had ten different units of equal power, and another with twenty different units of the same power, then the latter book will be stronger, because it's harder to prepare for and can field a larger variety of threats, and counter a larger variety too.

No they aren't. As evidenced by old bloodletters and glade guard. If option a in book 1 is so good it renders options 2-n pointless, and wins 96.92521243% of the time, then book 1 is a top tier book. As opposed to book 2 which has a variety of units that win 50.212% of the time.

 Aipoch wrote:
The reason tier systems work well in 40k and poorly in fantasy is because of each games innate mechanics.

40k is a game of easy decisions and hard counters. Fantasy is a game of difficult decisions and balanced counters.

Current 40k is far and away shooting. The top tier lists bring the biggest and baddest guns they can, on the toughest platforms, that deny the most saves. And they can do this, and they form a hard counter to a large portion of all other units. Examples include common combinations of AP3, ignores cover, with either large blasts, lots of accurate shooting, and great range. It takes little to no effort to pick a target, roll your dice, and watch models leave the table.

Fantasy has some similar opportunities, but they tend to come in issolated match-ups or as last-resort efforts, and they are not without their drawbacks or risks. The most common example is using unit-ending spells with many power dice when no dispel scrolls are present.

To that end, the reason a tier system isn't the same in fantasy is a game mechanic issue. You cannot just bring a netlist to the field and win. Deployment must be correct. Movement must be correct. Deciding when to and not to charge, who to charge, and with what, must be correct.

Fantasy is largely a game of combo's, whereby a seasoned veteran can easily see a game unfold from the deployment phase, but a rookie will be wondering who is going to engage who when.

The only tier system present isn't the kind that states "this army has a better chance against the lower tier armies", but instead helps indicate the level of balance and overall usefulness of ALL units, items, abilities, and other factors that a particular army can bring to bear on the battlefield. This factors in such things as unit costs, special abilities, unique army builds or mechanics, and other such things. The skill a general must posses to reliably defeat opponents on a regular basis is also present.

-Top Tier-

These armies have little to no issues with their entire range of units. They can be fielded in a number of different ways effectively, and rarely face something they are not prepared to handle or are incapable of dealing with.

Dark Elves
High Elves
Warriors of Chaos
The Empire
Vampire Counts
Ogre Kingdoms

-Mid-Tier-

These armies have a slight to moderate issue with some aspect of the game, and can find themselves in a tight spot because of it. They can be fielded in several ways, but typically a couple general builds stand out far above the others, and certain units are auto-include simply by how the army functions or how undercosted\over-effective they are. There are times where they will face something they cannot handle or are ill prepared to deal with, but this rarely happens.

Dwarfs
Daemons of Chaos
Lizardmen
Skaven
Orcs and Goblins

-Bottom Tier-

These armies typically require a seasoned general to function correctly. Many units in their respective army books are rarely fielded from being far too overcosted\under effective, or just ineffective all together. Very few viable builds exist, and the ones that do take a high amount of skill to be effective. Army builds will depend on special rules and abilities unique to the army. There are many occasions where the army will face something they cannot handle or are ill-prepared to deal with. These armies are not recommended for new players.

Beastmen
Bretonnia
Tomb Kings
Wood Elves

To wrap it all up, the tier system in fantasy can be better understood as a difficulty setting. There are normal, hard, and extreme difficulties when commanding your army to victory, representing the top tier, mid tier, and bottom tier armies, respectively.

I can agree with you to an extent, however I disagree with Bretonnia being a low tier army. I have played these guys for awhile now and they have always done very well for me, even against the top tier armies and I have managed to win most of the time against some of the strongest lists out there. The only army I have a big difficulty against is Nurgle Chaos Warriors, but besides that I have done solid against every other top tier army. I would put Bretonnia in the middle tier, but they would be the bottom or near the bottom of that tier, as though they can still be very competitive against a lot of armies, they still suffer from old rules, points costs, and the change in the game making cavalry not as effective.

Besides that, I would agree with this, but I would break it up into 4x Categories, with them being Top Tier, Top-Mid Tier, Bottom Mid-Tier, and Bottom Tier Armies.

Top Tier: Strong for Good Everything across the board, with Ogres and WOC being easy to play, with HE and DE being nasty in the Magic Phase and being able to hit hard. Also, all armies are very easy to collect compared to many horde armies.

Warriors of Chaos
Dark Elves
High Elves
Ogre Kingdoms

Top Mid Tier: Strong against every army, as they each have access to either strong infantry, magic, and shooting, as well being able to bring various units/rules to there respectable armies.

The Empire
Dwarfs
Vampire Counts
Skaven

Bottom Mid-Tier: Struggle at times again certain lists, but are still competitive and can surprise many oppoents.

Daemons of Chaos
Lizardmen
Orcs and Goblins
Bretonnia

Bottom Tier: Struggle to get things going and will not improve unit l they get a new book. Tomb Kings just struggle right now and I feel bad for those players.

Beastmen
Tomb Kings
Wood Elves

Pretty similar, except the way I see it, Ogres are a very strong Army for new players, as they are easy to play, strong magic, and can hit like a ton of bricks, which even makes Chaos Warriors baulk when they are hit in mass by a Bull Horde. And Skaven are still a strong army and they are difficult with Slaves, Large Blocks of Infantry, War-Machines, and Hell-pits.

 The Shadow wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Football and modern military are completely and utterly different, don't even try and bring them into this. If you have a football team with all defenders, you'll lose.

We are already beginning with WHOMEVER WINS MOST IS HIGHEST TIER.

Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying that the best army is the one with the most variety, I'm saying that having a larger variety of viable builds will increase your chances of winning, thus making you a higher tier army.

No.

Tier is solely, and wholly dependent on victories. The more victories you have, the higher tier you are.

You could have a book where you have 1 model. If it steamrolls a book with 1000000000000 models, the book with the single model is of a higher tier. That is how tiers work. They were designed, and implemented as a method of gauging power. Variety does not come into it,

And victories are partly dependent on the variety in a list. Partly due to the power of the book, yes, but that's not the only factor.

So, in your example, the power of that one book is so great that it doesn't need variety at all. If you had two books, one of which had ten different units of equal power, and another with twenty different units of the same power, then the latter book will be stronger, because it's harder to prepare for and can field a larger variety of threats, and counter a larger variety too.

But by looking at every single game and win ratio, all of that is already accounted for. So if the book with less options is still winning more, then it's higher tier because it's still outperforming the one with many options.

I can't see how this is unclear. If your Army Book consistently wins, no matter why that is, it's high tier. It could be because you have loads of options and always manage to shift it up, or it could be because your one build crushes everyone. It doesn't matter why. You win a lot means your Army Book is powerful and high tier.

WINS ARE TIERS.

 Purifier wrote:

But by looking at every single game and win ratio, all of that is already accounted for. So if the book with less options is still winning more, then it's higher tier because it's still outperforming the one with many options.

If you could point me to a document or database that has accurately recorded every single game Warhammer game and their outcomes, and then ranked the armies up in order of wins, then I'll happily accept that I'm wrong.

But I very much doubt that you're going to be able to point me to such a document. Tiers aren't "wins", tiers aren't anything but a fabrication made by the Warhammer community to try and rank the armies up in order of strength. They're not based on data, such as the number of wins, we don't even base them on what's won a recent tournament. We use our own judgement, that's why when one person posts their version of the tiers, they'll be slightly different to another's. Aipoch placed Skaven in middle tier, I placed them in top. That's not because I have one document that says Skaven have a 85% win record and Aipoch has one that says they have a 65% win record, it's because I think Skaven are better than he does.

Yes, for the umpteenth time, I understand if an army wins more often than not, it is a strong army book. However, until someone compiles a master document of every Warhammer game ever played, we won't know which armies win the most, we have to use our own judgement. And we base that off various factors, such as the power of the units, versatility in lists, how much they rely on good rolls etc.

Let's take an example. Daemons are usually regarded as a mid-tier army. However, they have one or two very strong builds, so why aren't they top-tier? Your answer to this will be "because they don't win much". That's a simple answer, that doesn't read into it. It's right, yes, but if this was an essay assignment, you'd score low marks, because you haven't expanded your point. A better answer would be: "Daemons have great power available to them, but the power of the units is only one factor when deciding which armies are placed in which tier. Daemons are mid-tier because they fall down on the other factors. For example, they have very low versatility. Only a few lists are viable, which makes competitive Daemon armies easy to prepare for and play against. Furthermore, thanks to the Reign of Chaos table, they rely heavily on good Winds of Magic rolls, as a single poor roll can often lose them the game. These latter factors make it harder for Daemons to win, and thus they are seen as a mid-tier army."

Hopefully this illustrates my point a bit better.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

But by looking at every single game and win ratio, all of that is already accounted for. So if the book with less options is still winning more, then it's higher tier because it's still outperforming the one with many options.

If you could point me to a document or database that has accurately recorded every single game Warhammer game and their outcomes, and then ranked the armies up in order of wins, then I'll happily accept that I'm wrong.

But I very much doubt that you're going to be able to point me to such a document. Tiers aren't "wins", tiers aren't anything but a fabrication made by the Warhammer community to try and rank the armies up in order of strength. They're not based on data, such as the number of wins, we don't even base them on what's won a recent tournament. We use our own judgement, that's why when one person posts their version of the tiers, they'll be slightly different to another's. Aipoch placed Skaven in middle tier, I placed them in top. That's not because I have one document that says Skaven have a 85% win record and Aipoch has one that says they have a 65% win record, it's because I think Skaven are better than he does.

Yes, for the umpteenth time, I understand if an army wins more often than not, it is a strong army book. However, until someone compiles a master document of every Warhammer game ever played, we won't know which armies win the most, we have to use our own judgement. And we base that off various factors, such as the power of the units, versatility in lists, how much they rely on good rolls etc.

Let's take an example. Daemons are usually regarded as a mid-tier army. However, they have one or two very strong builds, so why aren't they top-tier? Your answer to this will be "because they don't win much". That's a simple answer, that doesn't read into it. It's right, yes, but if this was an essay assignment, you'd score low marks, because you haven't expanded your point. A better answer would be: "Daemons have great power available to them, but the power of the units is only one factor when deciding which armies are placed in which tier. Daemons are mid-tier because they fall down on the other factors. For example, they have very low versatility. Only a few lists are viable, which makes competitive Daemon armies easy to prepare for and play against. Furthermore, thanks to the Reign of Chaos table, they rely heavily on good Winds of Magic rolls, as a single poor roll can often lose them the game. These latter factors make it harder for Daemons to win, and thus they are seen as a mid-tier army."

Hopefully this illustrates my point a bit better.

Tiers are based on wins.

They are a ranking system.

The OP is asking which army is the strongest, not the most varied.

Therefore, using GCSE level English, we can extrapolate that the tiers he is after are the strongest armies,

End of debate.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

But by looking at every single game and win ratio, all of that is already accounted for. So if the book with less options is still winning more, then it's higher tier because it's still outperforming the one with many options.

If you could point me to a document or database that has accurately recorded every single game Warhammer game and their outcomes, and then ranked the armies up in order of wins, then I'll happily accept that I'm wrong.

But I very much doubt that you're going to be able to point me to such a document. Tiers aren't "wins", tiers aren't anything but a fabrication made by the Warhammer community to try and rank the armies up in order of strength. They're not based on data, such as the number of wins, we don't even base them on what's won a recent tournament. We use our own judgement, that's why when one person posts their version of the tiers, they'll be slightly different to another's. Aipoch placed Skaven in middle tier, I placed them in top. That's not because I have one document that says Skaven have a 85% win record and Aipoch has one that says they have a 65% win record, it's because I think Skaven are better than he does.

That's because both of your tiers are made up on the spot using nothing to back them up. I could make a tiers system based only on my opinion on people's paint jobs that I see around the gaming stores and mine would be just as valid as yours.

 The Shadow wrote:

Yes, for the umpteenth time, I understand if an army wins more often than not, it is a strong army book. However, until someone compiles a master document of every Warhammer game ever played, we won't know which armies win the most, we have to use our own judgement. And we base that off various factors, such as the power of the units, versatility in lists, how much they rely on good rolls etc.

Let's take an example. Daemons are usually regarded as a mid-tier army. However, they have one or two very strong builds, so why aren't they top-tier? Your answer to this will be "because they don't win much". That's a simple answer, that doesn't read into it. It's right, yes, but if this was an essay assignment, you'd score low marks, because you haven't expanded your point. A better answer would be: "Daemons have great power available to them, but the power of the units is only one factor when deciding which armies are placed in which tier. Daemons are mid-tier because they fall down on the other factors. For example, they have very low versatility. Only a few lists are viable, which makes competitive Daemon armies easy to prepare for and play against. Furthermore, thanks to the Reign of Chaos table, they rely heavily on good Winds of Magic rolls, as a single poor roll can often lose them the game. These latter factors make it harder for Daemons to win, and thus they are seen as a mid-tier army."

Hopefully this illustrates my point a bit better.

How is that different from what I said? How is it relevant to your argument?
First of all, when you wrote down your tiers you didn't write out a statement like that for each. So apparently it isn't needed? That contradicts what you just said.
Second, it's much too vague to be a factor in a tier system. It could be used after knowing the tiers to try and explain them, but you can't base your tier system on anything but wins.
Where you want to take your statistics from is up to you for your tier system. You have chosen to take it from your memory, which makes your tier system rooted only in your own ability to memorise every single game you have seen and makes any games outside of your spectrum not count towards the tiers. As long as you make that clear when you list your tiers, that's perfectly fine. Then we know that this is your opinion, not an actual calculated tier.

You have decided to make a tier system based on how you think the statistics are. On who you think wins the most. That's nothing but conjecture.
You're still basing it on who will win. You're still basing it off of wins and losses. You're just guessing as to who is winning and losing rather than using statistics, and in order to make your guesses you are validifying them with your opinions on how the armies work.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

But by looking at every single game and win ratio, all of that is already accounted for. So if the book with less options is still winning more, then it's higher tier because it's still outperforming the one with many options.

If you could point me to a document or database that has accurately recorded every single game Warhammer game and their outcomes, and then ranked the armies up in order of wins, then I'll happily accept that I'm wrong.

But I very much doubt that you're going to be able to point me to such a document. Tiers aren't "wins", tiers aren't anything but a fabrication made by the Warhammer community to try and rank the armies up in order of strength. They're not based on data, such as the number of wins, we don't even base them on what's won a recent tournament. We use our own judgement, that's why when one person posts their version of the tiers, they'll be slightly different to another's. Aipoch placed Skaven in middle tier, I placed them in top. That's not because I have one document that says Skaven have a 85% win record and Aipoch has one that says they have a 65% win record, it's because I think Skaven are better than he does.

Yes, for the umpteenth time, I understand if an army wins more often than not, it is a strong army book. However, until someone compiles a master document of every Warhammer game ever played, we won't know which armies win the most, we have to use our own judgement. And we base that off various factors, such as the power of the units, versatility in lists, how much they rely on good rolls etc.

Let's take an example. Daemons are usually regarded as a mid-tier army. However, they have one or two very strong builds, so why aren't they top-tier? Your answer to this will be "because they don't win much". That's a simple answer, that doesn't read into it. It's right, yes, but if this was an essay assignment, you'd score low marks, because you haven't expanded your point. A better answer would be: "Daemons have great power available to them, but the power of the units is only one factor when deciding which armies are placed in which tier. Daemons are mid-tier because they fall down on the other factors. For example, they have very low versatility. Only a few lists are viable, which makes competitive Daemon armies easy to prepare for and play against. Furthermore, thanks to the Reign of Chaos table, they rely heavily on good Winds of Magic rolls, as a single poor roll can often lose them the game. These latter factors make it harder for Daemons to win, and thus they are seen as a mid-tier army."

Hopefully this illustrates my point a bit better.

Tiers are based on wins.

They are a ranking system.

The OP is asking which army is the strongest, not the most varied.

Therefore, using GCSE level English, we can extrapolate that the tiers he is after are the strongest armies,

End of debate.

Variability is a strength O.o

For the record I was just asking which armies can make the most broken lists because in 40K all that matters is how much you can break the game, in fantasy it sounds like tactics are involved so all the other info is relevant and I'm more than happy to have it at my disposal.

 Purifier wrote:

Yes, for the umpteenth time, I understand if an army wins more often than not, it is a strong army book. However, until someone compiles a master document of every Warhammer game ever played, we won't know which armies win the most, we have to use our own judgement.

It's like that saying, "stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason."

We are humans connected to the internet with really big brains. The most sophisticated polling (like voter prediction) doesn't need a 100% perfect master document. For voting, to predict the outcome of 300 million people they often use less than 3000 sample, then come up with a margin of error.

We would know if Wood Elves were a dominant army because people would be winning with them and that information would be shared.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

It's like that saying, "stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason."

We are humans connected to the internet with really big brains. The most sophisticated polling (like voter prediction) doesn't need a 100% perfect master document. For voting, to predict the outcome of 300 million people they often use less than 3000 sample, then come up with a margin of error.

We would know if Wood Elves were a dominant army because people would be winning with them and that information would be shared.

You deleted the wrong starting quote tag D:

 Purifier wrote:

How is that different from what I said? How is it relevant to your argument?
First of all, when you wrote down your tiers you didn't write out a statement like that for each. So apparently it isn't needed? That contradicts what you just said.
Second, it's much too vague to be a factor in a tier system. It could be used after knowing the tiers to try and explain them, but you can't base your tier system on anything but wins.
Where you want to take your statistics from is up to you for your tier system. You have chosen to take it from your memory, which makes your tier system rooted only in your own ability to memorise every single game you have seen and makes any games outside of your spectrum not count towards the tiers. As long as you make that clear when you list your tiers, that's perfectly fine. Then we know that this is your opinion, not an actual calculated tier.

You have decided to make a tier system based on how you think the statistics are. On who you think wins the most. That's nothing but conjecture.
You're still basing it on who will win. You're still basing it off of wins and losses. You're just guessing as to who is winning and losing rather than using statistics, and in order to make your guesses you are validifying them with your opinions on how the armies work.

This is getting tedious.

Yes, I am basing my tiers off wins and losses, however, since I have no concrete facts regarding how often each army wins on a worldwide scale, I'm using my own knowledge of the game to come up with a system based upon who I think wins the most.

That is exactly the same as what everyone else is doing, except that everyone else seems to believe that the power of the individual units available is the only factor that determines whether or not an army will win, and thus their tiers are based solely on that. I'm basing it off various different factors. Yes, my example is conjecture, but so is every other tier list anyone else posts and that'll continue to be the case until someone logs every single game of Warhammer played.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

How is that different from what I said? How is it relevant to your argument?
First of all, when you wrote down your tiers you didn't write out a statement like that for each. So apparently it isn't needed? That contradicts what you just said.
Second, it's much too vague to be a factor in a tier system. It could be used after knowing the tiers to try and explain them, but you can't base your tier system on anything but wins.
Where you want to take your statistics from is up to you for your tier system. You have chosen to take it from your memory, which makes your tier system rooted only in your own ability to memorise every single game you have seen and makes any games outside of your spectrum not count towards the tiers. As long as you make that clear when you list your tiers, that's perfectly fine. Then we know that this is your opinion, not an actual calculated tier.

You have decided to make a tier system based on how you think the statistics are. On who you think wins the most. That's nothing but conjecture.
You're still basing it on who will win. You're still basing it off of wins and losses. You're just guessing as to who is winning and losing rather than using statistics, and in order to make your guesses you are validifying them with your opinions on how the armies work.

This is getting tedious.

Yes, I am basing my tiers off wins and losses, however, since I have no concrete facts regarding how often each army wins on a worldwide scale, I'm using my own knowledge of the game to come up with a system based upon who I think wins the most.

That is exactly the same as what everyone else is doing, except that everyone else seems to believe that the power of the individual units available is the only factor that determines whether or not an army will win, and thus their tiers are based solely on that. I'm basing it off various different factors. Yes, my example is conjecture, but so is every other tier list anyone else posts and that'll continue to be the case until someone logs every single game of Warhammer played.

No. We aren't. We are stating that the power tiers in the original statement, are not based on versatility, rather strength. And the two are not interlinked. They are related. Variety, and versatilities are advantages that go alongside strength and power. They are not, nor will they ever be, interlinked.

The tiers in question are based on the strongest army. If there was a book called "Gods of The Old World" and it had 1 character, 1 core, 1 special, and 1 rare, but it always won, it is the top tier. Whereas, if it had 10000000000001 of each choice, yet always lost, it would be bottom tier. This is because variety =/= power. Variety adds to power, it is not linked to it. Please understand this.

Shadow, this is the quote we started disagreeing with experiment over, and this is where the whole "no it's not" comes from:

Experiment 626 wrote:
A book is top tier if it has multiple list options.

That statement is false. A book in the top tier could very well have a good variety of options but a book with a variety of options doesn't make it top tier.
You are saying almost the same thing as the rest of us while seemingly defending Experiment's position.

And in my opinion, a tier system not based on collected statistics is useless and I wouldn't give it the few seconds of time to read it.
If, however, you had a collection of statistics from your FLGS matches and made a tier system from that, I would be curious to see how tiers played out at your FLGS, and maybe even interested enough to read your thoughts as to why the tiers panned out that way.

Meh I still feel like most of the people that think skaven are so top tier haven't played against or with them in years. I'm not entirely sure of this but generally most people that have said this fit that profile.

Skaven can be decent sure. Maybe you just need numbers. That said against armies with cannons all the large targets are just cannon-bait and I'm sure spamming all those large targets would cost a lot of points. So I guess in the end it's not even really large targets but the rares. Everything is just becoming far too potent against older books like skaven. I mean Dwarfs have an enhanced parry for shield walls during certain times and added strength on the charge, they automatically have hatred against greenskins and skaven and roll for other armies and even if they didn't have all the cannons, regular guns and great weapons they have those iron-drakes which would just blow holes through abominations and are almost made to. Keep in mind the abomination used to be one of the most OP monsters around supposedly (though it goes down easier than some would think if you have even a little bit of flaming attacks).

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So I'm not sure. I'm just chalking it up to maybe I'm not playing skaven right though they are really random sometimes (like my 3rd last game) and not having enough money to buy the bajillion skaven I need (one guy in the store called it a rich man's army).

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Top tier just means a faction or army wins a lot. I've only played in 2 tournaments but it seems like restrictions may actually be helpful to an extent to prevent cheese and super annoying net lists. Yeah restrictions aren't always fun but neither is losing to cheese (this is being said by a skaven rat-man over here).

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If I had to talk about top tier armies I would definitely put warriors of chaos somewhere near the top or top middle tier. Daemon princes can just be made super stupid esp. if they fly. I pretty much out-played an opponent and shot 4 or more warpfire thrower shots into his warriors of chaos while forcing his frenzied warriors (pretty much everything he had was frenzied) to run around in circles for more good shots. I took him down to one warrior of chaos. I heard as long as he played the store owner never saw him lose though I brought him down pretty close. It was the stupid chariots and daemon prince in the end though the daemon prince had one wound left. Funny how stupid some factions or army lists can be. He wasn't even the hardest opponent that I've faced.

It's kind of funny how skaven used to be considered so top tier because I've only ever faced non-top tier armies for maybe the last two games. People usually seem to army swap for the newest and/or most OP faction. It's really disheartening to see people switching to a faction that's OP rather than what they like or what fits their play style.

I do tend to find that there seems to be a tier for each armies though. Against orcs & goblins, bretonnia, beastmen and some others I can win without too much trouble. Against vampire counts I can also do alright. Against lizardmen, warriors of chaos, ogres, dark and high elves and some others it's a fight for my life.

This thread went off the rails, but whenever someone in 40k asks me about balance I tell them the following.

"Everyone has nuclear weapons. Using them has risks, and you can't guarantee they will hit the target"

Cannons vs Monsters? Usually the monsters are in trouble, but the cannons can misfire.

Super spells? IF can kill you, dispel scrolls. No guarantee that the spell you need will be in your arsenal.

Big scary things with Regen (Hydras, Terrorgheists) - Lore of Fire, Light Signature, etc.

Elite units? Chaff and double flee

The only thing that is really broken is purple sun. Against the bad matchups it behaves like final transmutation. Against the good matchups it delete their army.

Andy06r wrote:
This thread went off the rails, but whenever someone in 40k asks me about balance I tell them the following.

"Everyone has nuclear weapons. Using them has risks, and you can't guarantee they will hit the target"

Cannons vs Monsters? Usually the monsters are in trouble, but the cannons can misfire.

Super spells? IF can kill you, dispel scrolls. No guarantee that the spell you need will be in your arsenal.

Big scary things with Regen (Hydras, Terrorgheists) - Lore of Fire, Light Signature, etc.

Elite units? Chaff and double flee

The only thing that is really broken is purple sun. Against the bad matchups it behaves like final transmutation. Against the good matchups it delete their army.

Actually you don't even really have to double flee with your chaff depending on how you do it. A charge can only be elected on something within charge range and in line of sight. If you only have one unit in range and line of sight to be charged and you flee with it then they have to absolutely fail the charge with no re-direct (provided you put it out far enough away and didn't roll crappy on your flee roll). It's a benefit of having a fast crappy unit out far enough from the rest of your army. One thing this allows is more shooting but there are other benefits like getting the enemy out of position.

IF can be troublesome but if you keep your wizard in a unit that is incredibly cheap and only there to die or off on its own then chances are most of those miscasts won't do anything to hurt you except for losing dice from the power pool. If you wait till your last spell to 6 dice it then the ill effects are pretty much negligent. Admittedly yeah this is more effective to use with a single model and those are more easily sniped but done right you only lose inexpensive guys from a unit you don't care much about anyway (which is why I generally don't put my wizard in anything more elite than clanrats as a skaven player).

Dispel scrolls are nice and annoying sometimes but you get one of them. I'm more annoyed by some faction specific items. It seems some factions still have infinitely stupid items that can really mess with the balance of power. Skaven have maybe 2 or 3 which can be good and they generally can be avoided or hurt us almost as much as the opponent.

Fire attacks are better for some armies. Warpfire throwers are too short ranged to really be super reliable against regeneration units. I find most regeneration units have low initiative and skaven have cracks call which is initiative test or die with no saves allowed. It's infinitely more helpful than the few flaming attacks we get. That said there is a rulebook banner for anybody that has a bad feeling they'll face enough regeneration enemies.

Monstrous anything (infantry, beasts, cavalry and monsters themselves) seems to have fairly lower initiative. It's also worth noting stomps and thunder stomps can only be done on war beasts, infantry and I think it was swarms (i'll need to re-check that last one). If you have something out of that category like cavalry, chariots or similar then you should be ok.

Cannons don't misfire nearly enough and if you place the shot 6"-8" away it will almost always hit its target. At least like 3 out of 4 times. If it does miss or misfire then there's the case of engineers for dwarfs and empire which fix the shot and make it work most of the time. If an opponent does it right and an engineer is crewing a war machine that war machine will probably never misfire.

I actually haven't seen purple sun as much as I've seen dwellers below. I have a friend that always goes lore of life and it's almost like he thinks it's skill he can just spam that spell over and over again. A strength test or die on all your models. It snipes out characters (something skaven absolutely need with a general and BSB) and it kills off half our units. I feel worse for opponents with magic resistance and good solid elite units. Then again if they choose to make a death star they probably should lose their death star as punishment for being so cheesy.

Oddly enough one of the best things to do against opponents with wizards is to just get into combat with the wizard and/or its unit. A wizard's unit in combat means they can't cast anything but hexes and augments and maybe a magical vortex. This controls how many spells they can throw at you and at times seems to make it easier to dispel. It actually helps if it's just a crappy unit that can last a while like slaves or maybe something that will get stuck in there. It helps even more if they throw their mage in with a crappy unit in the back though getting back there may prove tough without quick enough units.

 Purifier wrote:
Shadow, this is the quote we started disagreeing with experiment over, and this is where the whole "no it's not" comes from:

Experiment 626 wrote:
A book is top tier if it has multiple list options.

That statement is false. A book in the top tier could very well have a good variety of options but a book with a variety of options doesn't make it top tier.
You are saying almost the same thing as the rest of us while seemingly defending Experiment's position.

Ok, fair enough.

626's statement is false. Having variety won't purely make a book top tier. It will make it better, but not immediately top tier. The same goes for the power of the units. Having units that are more powerful won't instantly make a book top tier, but it'll make it better. These things are just factors, and they ALL affect which tier a book is placed in. The best books excel in ALL these areas.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Shadow, this is the quote we started disagreeing with experiment over, and this is where the whole "no it's not" comes from:

Experiment 626 wrote:
A book is top tier if it has multiple list options.

That statement is false. A book in the top tier could very well have a good variety of options but a book with a variety of options doesn't make it top tier.
You are saying almost the same thing as the rest of us while seemingly defending Experiment's position.

Ok, fair enough.

626's statement is false. Having variety won't purely make a book top tier. It will make it better, but not immediately top tier. The same goes for the power of the units. Having units that are more powerful won't instantly make a book top tier, but it'll make it better. These things are just factors, and they ALL affect which tier a book is placed in. The best books excel in ALL these areas.

As I've been trying to explain this ENTIRE time, power =/= variety. Sure they go hand in hand, but neither depends on each other. Like when Ogres first came out, they shot to the top because of mournfang. You can have a top tier book carried by the weight of one unit and one unit alone.

Purple Sun it's not that good. It's got 3 limiting factors:

Firstly the big issue is the chance of IF especially on the big version.

Secondly the chance of misfire and scattering it off the caster, bigger spell has a higher chance of hitting yourself.

finally it has a variable range. with makes it unpredictable.

A few times a big casting can help, but the risk is huge. I play TK and the risk is even larger due to our poor I value. Even when I have Arkhan I don't always keep the spell.

In regards to TK's placement in tiers. I feel that TK fits more in the middle of the pack. I reliably beat every army at a rate of more than 50% except Empire. I've gotten 2 wins out of games vs empire with my TK since the new empire book.

Every book that has came out has been great for TK since their book debuted. Every book has been easier to fight against since it's previous one.

BOTWD isn't too bad to deal with, just means skullapults, and caskets deal with other stuff. and Warsphinx do wreck elves.

DE not too bad, easy to shoot apart those brolocks. If they can blast me I can shoot them.