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Not talking about internal codex balance, not taking any allying shenanigans into consideration, and definitely excluding Codex Eldar, Tau, Space Marines and Daemons from the list, as these 4 codexes are currently top tier. Let's also leave the old BA and Crons codexes aside for the moment, as they are going to get updated very soon. Let's also leave all the supplements aside since they are too numerous and too difficult to pass judgement on, and just concentrate on the "main factions" as they were in 5th edition: 15 in total (16 actually, but BT got merged into SM). 6 have been excluded as mentioned above, leaving us with 9:

I'm talking about the other codexes, i.e. from 6th edition: DA, CSM, Tyranids, AM and the digital Adepta Sororitas, and from 7th edition Orks, SW, GK and now DE.

Of these 9 codexes, wouldnt you say most are relatively compatible with each other in terms of power level? I.e. games between these wouldnt have anyone at a disadvantage from the get go?

My impressions is that the nine codices (cannot judge SoB) mentioned are quite comparable.
GW has obviously decided to bring them in line.

I'd argue that the 7th edition Codexes are on an equal footing, sixth edition Codexes are not (not talking about the top-tier ones you mentioned, referring to the weak Codexes such as CSM, Nids, etc).

Honestly, I think even of the exceptions listed Codex Space Marines is a great codex but not over whelmingly better then the other codexes.

BrianDavion wrote:
Honestly, I think even of the exceptions listed Codex Space Marines is a great codex but not over whelmingly better then the other codexes.

Grav Centurions one-hit kill pretty much any MC that gets in range.

Together with Librarians (especially Tiggy) this can be made into a deathstar.

They have access to some of the most survivable beatstick CMs + FNP bike command squads in the game -> secondary deathstar

Techmarines with servo harnesses in Land Raiders make for very survivable firing platforms.

IH chapter tactics makes their vehicles a cut above the rest.

I've said the before, I'll say it again CSM, DA, SM, Nids, IG and SoB are all well balanced. Now remove the builds that are just exploitative of a single unit/combo from Tau (Triptide), Eldar (SerpSpam) and Demons (Screamerstar and Summoning Spam) and they are well balanced with the others too. I can't speak for the new Orks or DE, but SW are also on the same level, so the balance since the start of 6th is fine. It only breaks when people deliberately look to exploit the few issues that are there.

I would say all codices are reasonably balanced.

I would list eldar as my only exception. They remain by far and away the most competitive army.
SM and tau are competitive but not broken. Daemons are fine, the real problem with them is with summoning, which isn't in the codex at all.

At the other end I'd say tyrannids are a little weak. 7th ed MC changes severely limited their anti tank options, and several previously strong units were toned down in their new codex, and were not replaced by alternatives. They can still win, but are helped greatly by non-codex entries (FW, datalsates, formations).

An issue just as great as codex balance, is ally chart balance. Eldar's ability to be battle brother with DE has been a cause of many problems in the past with the baron, and will probably continue to be in the future with things like WWP deepstriking firedragons in a raider.

Many xenos are disadvantaged here compared to the large alliance web that imperial armies have.

I think pretty much everyone is balanced with each other except for Eldar which is a level above and tyranids/orks/sisters which are a level below. In a game it will of course depend on the player, but with comparable skill that's how I'd rank them.

Eldar and Daemons have some crazy power to them. Daemons are generally the best. Until you factor in knight titans. Tau aren't top tier because they can't kill a high armor tank at range anymore.

Everything else is pretty much on par. If eldar's wave serpents got an FAQ, they would be tolerable. Daemons have 2 broken tricks, summoning and FMC with jink while not flying. Knight titans are just silly if you didn't bring enough anti-tank.

FMC with jink while not flying.

300 point 4 wound MCs with random powers are a broken trick? I'm not seeing it tbh. The jink save is slight compensation for the huge nerfs they took between 6th and 7th eds.

I think the 7th edition codices are all pretty much on par. You could also say that Nids, DA, and CSM are pretty much on par with each other, in that they have very few competitive lists. Even then, I feel DA falls below both CSM and Nids in terms of general list effectiveness

 Sir Arun wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Honestly, I think even of the exceptions listed Codex Space Marines is a great codex but not over whelmingly better then the other codexes.

Grav Centurions one-hit kill pretty much any MC that gets in range.

Together with Librarians (especially Tiggy) this can be made into a deathstar.

They have access to some of the most survivable beatstick CMs + FNP bike command squads in the game -> secondary deathstar

Techmarines with servo harnesses in Land Raiders make for very survivable firing platforms.

IH chapter tactics makes their vehicles a cut above the rest.

grav cents are powerful but considering that prior to C:SMs monsterous creatures where pretty much the kings of the battlefield I give that a pass. they're a solid counter for a unit type that is otherwise INSANELY GOOD.


none of the things you mentioned are over the top IMHO. especially as centurions are NOT cheap.

Not saying codex space marines isn't a strong codex, just that I'd disagree that it's some sort of unbeatable uber codex.

The Space Marine codex is probably the most externally balanced codex in the entire game when standing alone (i.e. without allies).

Grav-cents are powerful, especially against monstrous creatures, but not overtly so. They still get cover saves and the like, which Daemon MC's have in spades and Tyranids can easily provide with venom/malanthropes.

- - -

As far as discounting the "top four" that is SM, Eldar, Tau and Daemons- yeah, all of the other codices match up very fairly.

Ironically, I'd go so far as to say that the Tyranid codex is at the top of that heap.

Honestly, if you rewrote the rules for wave serpents and the dread 2+++, all you'd need to do is destroy the tau codex and start from scratch on that one faction, and they would all seem more or less in line with each other.

At least when DA and CSM came out, it definitely struck me that they were writing both of them at the same time, and were sort of "supposed" to be looked at as a matched set.

Anyways, I wonder how much of this is a result of the switchover to codices written by design teams rather than a single author. Obviously their fluff was written by committee, but perhaps there is some sort of crossover effect we're seeing due to authors collaborating more closely?

did i miss something where daemonic MC get cover saves when not flying? i realise its a little OT but yeah

Nurgle daemons specifically have shrouded natively. All FMC's have jink natively though, even when they're gliding (12" move, act as jump units for all intents and purposes).

So, all FMC's can get that jink 4++. Since the nerf to assaulting from swooping, the current hotness for Daemons is to take a Nurgle MC and just keep it in gliding mode the entire game. Give it zero ranged weapons, and have it jink every round so it'll get a 2+ cover save and still be able to assault immediately.

I appreciate the sentiment, but balance in the recent codexes is not present at all. They may win a comparable number of games, but we live in the age of Rock-Paper-40k when codex selection alone skews the balance of the game fundamentally.

I offer as evidence the latest statistics from Torrent of Fire:


Full article here: http://www.torrentoffire.com/5934/the-meta-post-nova

As you can see, statistically, in tournaments using the Torrent of Fire app, Tyranids beat Imperial Guard 95.4% of the time. I don't think generally anybody would consider Tyranids over powered, nor I.G. significantly under powered (Though a case could be made). The current trend in codexes codified by the absurd Imperial Knight codex has been to magnify the matchup imbalances. Now, this has had the effect reducing the separation between the overall win ratios, but the cost of that has been a more dramatic imbalance one codex to another. The 7th edition BRB magnified this process as well, but the net result has been to create a meta where:

Eldar beat Orks. Orks beat Necrons. Necrons beat Eldar.

Oh, Imperial Guard...

How is IG losing 95% of the time vs Tyranids? Can most IG list not delete entire squads of bugs with little to no effort? And when the rest is occupied with deleting bugs, the others focus down on the MC's? Also, how is their TL S6 shots doing any damage on IG vehicles? O_o
I'm actually very surprised.

The torrent of fire information is fun, but not conclusive. It has such a small range of data, and said data is greatly influenced by the different army lists people brought along on the day.

The fact that many match-ups are missing because they did not include a range of at least 10 games shows the limited scale of the data involved.

Still, I agree with the conclusion in the article: 7th is more balanced than 6th, Eldar are still king, but there are options out there that can shake things up.

 Zewrath wrote:
How is IG losing 95% of the time vs Tyranids? Can most IG list not delete entire squads of bugs with little to no effort? And when the rest is occupied with deleting bugs, the others focus down on the MC's? Also, how is their TL S6 shots doing any damage on IG vehicles? O_o
I'm actually very surprised.

I haven't played any tournaments for a while, but my guess would be that it might be because tournament IG lists invest too heavily in mech vets that aren't really that useful against nids.

As to "how is their TL S6 shots doing any damage on IG vehicles?". Flyrants are great tank killers. 12 TL devourer shots will average 5 glances/pens against AV10 and 3.5 glances/pens against AV11. If you took vehicle squadrons that can put some hurting down.

Dakka Flyrants actually eat Mech IG for breakfast, yeah. A Flyrant moving balls to the wall can get behind or just about behind an entire tank column by turn 2, in which case it'll just spend the game shooting them in their rear armor.

To makes things worse, because most tanks are squadroned, a Flyrant can potentially kill several of them in a single round (I've done as such, killed Pask and his entire unit in one fly-by).

In general, I can see why Tyranids would be a bad match-up for the Guard. As noted above, people tend to mech up with Guard, and Tyranids eat MSU for breakfast.

Leman Russ' are all pretty terrible against MC's with the exception of the Punisher, and taking Veterans means that you can't maximize the efficiency of your orders, so the amount of ignores cover in a Mech list will be very low, meaning Venomthrope-protected 'gaunts will be very hard for IG to handle.

I love the Guard, but they're in a rock and a hard place on the highly competitive level, imo.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:
How is IG losing 95% of the time vs Tyranids? Can most IG list not delete entire squads of bugs with little to no effort? And when the rest is occupied with deleting bugs, the others focus down on the MC's? Also, how is their TL S6 shots doing any damage on IG vehicles? O_o
I'm actually very surprised.

I haven't played any tournaments for a while, but my guess would be that it might be because tournament IG lists invest too heavily in mech vets that aren't really that useful against nids.

As to "how is their TL S6 shots doing any damage on IG vehicles?". Flyrants are great tank killers. 12 TL devourer shots will average 5 glances/pens against AV10 and 3.5 glances/pens against AV11. If you took vehicle squadrons that can put some hurting down.

Ah, well that explains some of it, but I didn't think heavy mech vets were still the best choice? I mean, sure, it's basically the only thing I can imagine IG play in Maelstrom missions. Perhaps it's because I'm spamming armor like a madman and thus have little experience with anything but Armor (and sometimes blob) lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and is IG tanks really that bad in Maelstrom? I'm using 2 tank commanders and the 'Full Throttle!' order seem to be decent to get objetives imo, but then again, I havent done competitve IG in 7th.

I'd say that with the new maelstorm missions and 7-th codexes, the game is pretty well ballanced. Eldar are still too good and sm exploit allies a lot but otherwise, i'm happy with what's happening.