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Hello all, I am looking at coming back to 40k. I have not played at all in 7th edition. I played a few games in 6th edition, but mostly in 5th edition. I am looking at returning with either a tau, space marines, or dark eldar. I was just hoping you guys could tell me:

1. Are any of these armies currently top tier competitive?
2. What are some models seen in most competitive army lists?
3. Is there a general breakdown of what armies are considered top tier?
4. Is unbound really a thing, or do most people run with a single army?
5. Does taking allies count as making an army unbound?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

1. Space Marines, possibly Tau, don't know about DE (they just got a new codex)
2. Long story
3. Most people say Eldar are the top. YMMV beyond that.
4. I have had pickup games where people have Unbound lists. In my regular gaming group, we only use Unbound for campaign type stuff (like an air raid or something like that). Otherwise, we use Battleforged, and in our goup, we even say no to most non-intra-Imperial, non-intra-Eldar combos. But I think alot of people do use allies.
5. No. Battleforged allows for Allies. There's an ally chart in the book. Some armies have better ally relationships with others, but any army can techincally ally with any other army, and it's nothing to do with Battleforged vs. Unbound.

The difference between Battleforged (not CAD) and Unbound, is that all units in a Battleforged army fit into a Detachment.

CAD and AD are both different types of detachments. The newer codices and supplements add Faction-specific Detachments.

Yep...sorry about that. Corrected

1) none of them are bad. Space Marines are certainly top tier with a number of great list builds, Tau have the ever-hated Triptide list and DE's new codex hit too recently to be sure but they definitely aren't awful by any means.

2) Wave serpents, Wraith Knights, Riptides, Imperial Knights, Gravity Gun Centurions, SM Chapter Master with tons of stuff on a bike (nicknamed Chapter Master Smashfether), Necron barges and ghost arcs...

3) Metaknight tier: Eldar. Top Tier: Daemons, Spess Mehrines, Tau. Mid tier: Necrons Tyranids Space Wolves Orks. Only One Good List Tier: Grey Knights Sisters CSM Actually No Reason to Play Tier: Bad Angels and Derp Angels.

Thanks for the input guys. I expected tau to be superior to space marines. It's a fair surprise that space marines are so competitive at the moment. I seem to remember them not being so good.

I am leaning towards Tau, just because using the farsight enclaves codex means painting significantly fewer models.

Also, a battlesuit / robot army can look very nice on the table.

Suks wrote:
Thanks for the input guys. I expected tau to be superior to space marines. It's a fair surprise that space marines are so competitive at the moment. I seem to remember them not being so good.

I am leaning towards Tau, just because using the farsight enclaves codex means painting significantly fewer models.

Also, a battlesuit / robot army can look very nice on the table.

I agree, I just really have trouble standing the goofiness that is the riptide's head.

"Shasvre! I am honored to be chosen to pilot this powerful new design...but I feel as though the head could be..,improved."

"Why? A smaller head is a smaller target! For the greater -"

"Yes yes , but perhaps then the shoulders could be....smaller? Just so, in relation to one another, they don't look quite so..."

"You fool! Have you SEEN the space marines? Our glorious nation is still two, if not three hundred years behind in the Shoulder Race! Don your mighty suit of armor! ...here, let me help you with the helmet I know the arms on that thing weren't designed to reach it."

Space Marines have so many factions, units, and ally options. They can be very good, and you'll never run out of stuff to buy, lol.

Tau are plenty competitive, Dark Eldar, not so much -- in 7th codex, they were hit somewhat with the nerf bat. Not that they are broken by any means; one might simply say, they're not as broken as the Eldar

There are rules in 7th that let you take whatever you want; however, "battle brothers" get things like warlord and unit bonuses and benefits (for instance, being able to repair each others' units) while units that don't get along have restrictions like not being able to even be near each other.

It can be pretty cool -- winding a narrative as to why two armies have come together to battle another. It can also be abused in a game to have a table that makes no sense. Most people I play against have just one army or combine two as some of them make sense, like IoM mixups, or Dark Eldar + Eldar. Although I hear about it, I don't see many games where Orks take an Imperial Knight, for instance.

Space Marines are in a good seat, Tau got worse because no Taudar and no Buffmanders with Riptides, but they are still a strong codex. Dark Eldar are a little more trickier to play, but their new book is very good in my opinion.