Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Being a little distant from the game right now, looking to understand if any recent Codexes have gotten better with the release of supplements or other balance changes to the game.

Wondering if any of the following armies have gotten 'better' with time, or if people still have the same concerns as when they came out.

- Orks
- Tyranids
- Blood Angels
- Grey Knights

You've been very distant then. Formations put Blood Angels and Tyranids into very fun lists. Tyranids can spam with the best of them now, and have a 15pt Troop choice. Or Obj Sec Gargoyles with Skyblight but that's old news. Still good but not a new release. Blood Angels can make ridiculous combinations for Deep Strike and Reserves that make them an exception to a lot of rules in the BRB. Turn 1 fliers, Assault out of Deep Strike, reduced or zero scatter, damage on Deep Strike arrival like a Hammer of Wrath hit. Fun stuff.

No clue about the Orks or Knights. Not my cup of tea but I see plenty of complaints about Dreadknights so they must be doing something right.

Ork's have had a couple of supplements that have given them some new formations and a new character or two.

Most of the new characters and units (they're old units, but given a mini-formation style loadout and special rules) are pretty much garbage.

However, some of the new formations are pretty interesting, or at least potentially useful depending on what you run. Being able to field 5 battlewagons without using up any of your heavy support slots would be a godsend in large games (and for people who like battlewagon spam, not really my thing but I know others love it).

Also, the ghazkrul detachment gives you a new FOC chart and a couple special rules, as well as a new selection of wargear. The specials are alright, and some of the gear is pretty cool and Orky. You do lose objective secured though, which is... bad? good? hard to say really.

It depends on what you mean with 'better'.
The changes to Blood Angels make them much more enjoying to play, even when we lose some of the old stuff.
They also happen to be a lot stronger than they used to be, but that was something we knew was going to happen.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Being a little distant from the game right now, looking to understand if any recent Codexes have gotten better with the release of supplements or other balance changes to the game.

Wondering if any of the following armies have gotten 'better' with time, or if people still have the same concerns as when they came out.

- Orks - new codex is better but they are still lagging behind, the ghazzy supplement was a nice experiment but beyond that she does little for you, the loss of wazdakka and nobs as troops pretty much damn their old army lists. however they got back the old kanz wall and they can now legally field a stompa, so theres that


- Tyranids - shield of baal leviathan was the best thing that could of ever happen to the tyranids, all you need to know is that you can field FIVE hive tyrands.. FIVE, they also got back mysetic spores which was really nice, their codex couldnt be any better now unless it played a guitar rock solo every time you opened it and it shat bags of money

- Blood Angels - they are better than they were but i have a feeling that they will burn half as long the deathstorm supplement helps them a noticeable deal and they are simply the best army for instant damage output (by that i mean the fastest army to go from deployment to damage in their case based on sheer volume). they arent perfect though and many veterans of blood angels are not happy with the new codex one bit. i feel that it is fine for now but it just wont be good enough say 8 months down the line.

- Grey Knights - they got worse but not by much, they are now an outstanding army for kill team now though and their new psyker grenades are really dirty, they will just ruin magic heavy armies. but they really arent where they used to be; they are in poor condition is the best description i can give.

 ionusx wrote:
[

- Tyranids - shield of baal leviathan was the best thing that could of ever happen to the tyranids, all you need to know is that you can field FIVE hive tyrands.. FIVE, they also got back mysetic spores which was really nice, their codex couldnt be any better now unless it played a guitar rock solo every time you opened it and it shat bags of money

Still not up to 4th ed Quality but yeah Leviathan has improved things alot.

I can tell you that i'm doing great with footslogging orkses now. And it's telling something as we had really hard time in 6-th. The return of the old WAAAGH and the addition of pseudo-fleet on the charge have made this difference. But even though the dex itself got overall stronger, i feel that it's mostly due to maelstorm missions that i'm winning games.

Formations are handy but i don't think they're worth it in games below 1750 as they're all themed around some aspect and get neat bonuces in exchange for numerical disadvantages.

For example:
Red Skull kommandoes - absolutely awesome rules allowing to come from any board edge, get shrowded and reroll failed cover saves for the first turn. But you got to take 4 units of kommandoes along with Snikrot. Even if you take 2 full squads and 2 min squads, it's ~550 points in reserves. Not great for orkses as we rely on numbers. If there were no eldar, tau and ig with massed ignore cover, this would probably be a more appealing formation. But as for now, you not only leave a huge part of your army in reserves, but also have strong chances of running into hard-counters that invalidate massed kommandoes.

Bully boyz - fearless ws5 Mega Armored Nobz. What's not to like?! But once again, got to take 3 units of 5. And MANz don't really work that great without transports - means they'll only be fine in speed freak lists in larger games.

And so on and so forth.

All in all, the codex is great and formations allow variety but require to get lists built around them. Not that it's bad or something. But having seen what dark eldar and blood angels get, i'd also like to have some neat little formations that are just a handy addition to my army and not a thing to build my lists around. So far, we get smaller formations like Stormboyz and Flash gitz that can potentially work in almost any list. But gitz are not that great in the first place and stormboyz don't work that great with massed deepstrikes. Now with the new Blood Angels charge from DS i wish Zaggy got his old Charge from DS back.

- Orks: Unquestionably this codex is worse. The best thing added was pain boss. Gifts and gubbins are cool. Deffkoptas are cheaper. All other changes were good but with a nerf (KFF) so a wash. Warbikers got cheaper. Some cool formations. There were SEVERAL giant setbacks including new MobRule is absolutely unbearably terrible. The killa kan nerf COMBINED with a point raise begs the question WHY? Kan Wall is definitely dead and buried. Then a point raise to our best troop... makes me sad. Troops are now a tax to get elites. Soooo grots.

- Tyranids: The river of tears that were initially shed by the bug heads has been absorbed by some new supliments and units. There are several middle/top tier builds.

- Blood Angels: Dunno yet. Limited nerd rage seems promising.

- Grey Knights: One of the most overpowered codecies got some nerfs and point raises. Still super strong.

All my opinions. YMMV.

 doktor_g wrote:
- Orks: Unquestionably this codex is worse. The best thing added was pain boss. Gifts and gubbins are cool. Deffkoptas are cheaper. All other changes were good but with a nerf (KFF) so a wash. Warbikers got cheaper. Some cool formations. There were SEVERAL giant setbacks including new MobRule is absolutely unbearably terrible. The killa kan nerf COMBINED with a point raise begs the question WHY? Kan Wall is definitely dead and buried. Then a point raise to our best troop... makes me sad. Troops are now a tax to get elites. Soooo grots.

Are you following the http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/623943.page

Seems, you owe this guy a stompa. He's doing really great with orks in this GT.

 doktor_g wrote:
- Orks: Unquestionably this codex is worse.

I'd question that.
This codex is far stronger.