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Armies that can battle brother count as a single army, so we have:

IoM
Chaos
Eldars
Tau
Necrons
Orks
Tyranids


Automatically Appended Next Post:

My order is:

IoM
Eldars
Necrons
Chaos
Tau
Orks
Tyranids

Nids/Chaos/Orks unbound extravaganza

Eldar>Tau>IoM>Necron>Nids>Chaos>Orks

Eldar>Tau>IOM> everything else.

Tyranids w/ 5 Flyrants > Eldar WS Spam > Daemons > Greyknight Nemesis Strikeforce with Tigurius or Sevrin Loth + Cents and fliers and Sicarans > Necrons > Knights > Tau > Greentide > Does not matter.

 Zande4 wrote:
Tyranids w/ 5 Flyrants > Eldar WS Spam > Daemons > Greyknight Nemesis Strikeforce with Tigurius or Sevrin Loth + Cents and fliers and Sicarans > Necrons > Knights > Tau > Greentide > Does not matter.

Completely agree

I'm disliking the pattern of Orks being useless and uncompetitive :(

Niiru wrote:
I'm disliking the pattern of Orks being useless and uncompetitive :(

Greentide when tooled out correctly is pretty amazing

IoM >= Eldars > Tyranids > Tau > Necrons > Orks >= Chaos

 Mulletdude wrote:
IoM >= Eldars > Tyranids > Tau > Necrons > Orks >= Chaos

Nope

Why do people rate Chaos that low?
Since he counts Battlebrothers as one, that includes Daemons.

MercenStein wrote:
Eldar>Tau>IoM>Necron>Nids>Chaos>Orks

This. Although I might flip flop orks and chaos on certain days.

If we broke down IOM though, Knights would be first.

I dont think that the IOM should be combined into one and is there an effective way for WS spam to properly deal with massed flyrant, with few harpies thrown in.

This is tabletop only or also fluff based?

I thought we were talking about actual competitive not unbound competitive.

 Mulletdude wrote:
IoM >= Eldars > Tyranids > Tau > Necrons > Orks >= Chaos

I like this one the most so far. If you're putting Tyranids at the bottom of the list... you're flat out wrong. Before I put my own down, I have to say that throwing "Chaos" and "Imperium" in together is a huge mistake as it really dilutes the rankings. For example, Chaos Daemons are a top 5 army in my mind, where Chaos Marines are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

By your combined "factions" I would say...

1. Eldar
2. Imperium
3. Tyranids
4. Necrons
5. Tau
6. Chaos
7. Orks

But, if I had to rate the factions independently of eachother...



To clarify, I don't think you can rank the armies anymore though. There are so many different combinations and counters and allied possibilities that ranking the armies is a Herculean feat. I rated Tyranids a better army than Tau overall, however I think 1 on 1 Tau will beat Tyranids more often than not. The meta is a beautiful thing.

 Zande4 wrote:
Tyranids w/ 5 Flyrants > Eldar WS Spam > Daemons > Greyknight Nemesis Strikeforce with Tigurius or Sevrin Loth + Cents and fliers and Sicarans > Necrons > Knights > Tau > Greentide > Does not matter.

This feels like a pretty accurate ranking And I am sure each of those armies will be heavily represented at the LVO next month. However I don't think a 5x flyrants list will win it and think eldar wave spam will but that's mainly because eldar play the victory point game well and 2+ rerollable saves are nerfed in that tournament. We also don't really know what will happen to necrons by then either.

1. Orks
2. Chaos.
3. Tyranids
4. Necrons
5. Tau
6. IoM
7. Eldar


Pick from the top (in a tourney setting), and you're more likely to win through skill and your willingness to compete, pick from the bottom and you're more likely to be relying on the crutch of a badly balanced codex to disguise your lack of skill/willingness to face up to fair match.

Wonderwolf wrote:
1. Orks
2. Chaos.
3. Tyranids
4. Necrons
5. Tau
6. IoM
7. Eldar


Pick from the top (in a tourney setting), and you're more likely to win through skill and your willingness to compete, pick from the bottom and you're more likely to be relying on the crutch of a badly balanced codex to disguise your lack of skill/willingness to face up to fair match.

There is a lack of skill in this current meta. Very few players can actually play the game without chesse

To be fair I think the admatium lance formstion pretty much does that more then any other army. It relys more on the models inherent ability to negate most other armies theat then any real viable tactic. It masks a lot of poor playing by ignoring things like teraiin, line of sight, rerollable invulnerable saves, d weapon/stomps, and most of your opponents basic weapons. Even its superheavy status removed the ability for it to just get a lucky explode result and when you even kill it. It ends up damaging a large portion of whatever killed it. I think the admantium lance formation is the poor players version of wanting to compete with as little skill needed as possible. I guess that's why you don't see a lot of the top players playing it because other lists tend to be better when played well.

SGTPozy wrote:
Armies that can battle brother count as a single army

No they don't. Why are you categorizing like this? It's stupid and completely inaccurate. Especially at how different in power they are amongst them selves (such as daemons vs CSM or White Scars vs Dark Angels)

 CrownAxe wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
Armies that can battle brother count as a single army

No they don't. Why are you categorizing like this? It's stupid and completely inaccurate. Especially at how different in power they are amongst them selves (such as daemons vs CSM or White Scars vs Dark Angels)

Woah, calm down dear. I'm categorising it like this as battle brothers work like an expansion to the army. They work just like how Imperial Armour books work; they provide more units to the army.

Yes, there are different power levels in the armies/factions that I provided, but that's the same in the individual codices. Are SM bikes on the same power level as SM tacticals? No, so why can't I group them together like this?

Because it's not accurate. It doesn't covey useful information. IoM is seven different armies (not even counting the four mini-dexs as well). When you say IoM is better then Chaos is doesn't mean anything because its an incredibly broad statement and isn't accurate of how ineffective some of them army (like Dark Angels or Sisters). CSM isn't as good Daemons but just allying Daemons to CSM doesn't suddenly make CSM just as powerful as Daemons because there are still mediocre CSM units in the list. So why represent the info as such?

In fact going by just armies isn't even good for the exact point you brought up. Bikes are better then tacticals so rank their competitiveness as such. So when White Scar bike spam wins a GT, saying "IoM won" doesn't mean anything, even saying "SMs won" doesn't mean much. Be accurate and say "White Scars bike spam won" so people actually learn something.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Because it's not accurate. It doesn't covey useful information. IoM is seven different armies (not even counting the four mini-dexs as well). When you say IoM is better then Chaos is doesn't mean anything because its an incredibly broad statement and isn't accurate of how ineffective some of them army (like Dark Angels or Sisters). CSM isn't as good Daemons but just allying Daemons to CSM doesn't suddenly make CSM just as powerful as Daemons because there are still mediocre CSM units in the list. So why represent the info as such?

In fact going by just armies isn't even good for the exact point you brought up. Bikes are better then tacticals so rank their competitiveness as such. So when White Scar bike spam wins a GT, saying "IoM won" doesn't mean anything, even saying "SMs won" doesn't mean much. Be accurate and say "White Scars bike spam won" so people actually learn something.

You don't have to conform to OP's guidelines. I didn't and have gotten 2 positive responses. I of course left a couple of competitive list out of my brief summation such as TriFlyrant with Barbed Hierodule, White Scars, Iron Hands with Smash Fether and Drop Pod Spam but people get the point.

1 imperium of man
2 eldars
3 tau
4 chaos
5 necrons
6 orks
7 nids

 Zande4 wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:
Because it's not accurate. It doesn't covey useful information. IoM is seven different armies (not even counting the four mini-dexs as well). When you say IoM is better then Chaos is doesn't mean anything because its an incredibly broad statement and isn't accurate of how ineffective some of them army (like Dark Angels or Sisters). CSM isn't as good Daemons but just allying Daemons to CSM doesn't suddenly make CSM just as powerful as Daemons because there are still mediocre CSM units in the list. So why represent the info as such?

In fact going by just armies isn't even good for the exact point you brought up. Bikes are better then tacticals so rank their competitiveness as such. So when White Scar bike spam wins a GT, saying "IoM won" doesn't mean anything, even saying "SMs won" doesn't mean much. Be accurate and say "White Scars bike spam won" so people actually learn something.

You don't have to conform to OP's guidelines. I didn't and have gotten 2 positive responses. I of course left a couple of competitive list out of my brief summation such as TriFlyrant with Barbed Hierodule, White Scars, Iron Hands with Smash Fether and Drop Pod Spam but people get the point.

Exactly, if you believe that the categories are bad, make up your own and just answer how you want to.

This entire post is disappointing - by that, I don't mean what you fella's are saying, but the fact that after over 25 years, GW has still not balanced out the forces so they are all on equal terms.


I play Chaos, Space Marines and Dark Eldar. I'd like to lose games because of mistakes I make or because of simply being outplayed by excellent strategy of the other player. It's not fun when you lose due to unequal rules and easily abusable rules


If only this list could be written with all the races at the same level of competitiveness

To be honest there will never be balance amongst all armies because of one army; Grey Knights. Think, you can nerf Eldar, Daemons and IK as much as you like and then buff DA, but GK will always have an advantage over Daemons since they are supposed to be anti-Daemon.

SGTPozy wrote:
To be honest there will never be balance amongst all armies because of one army; Grey Knights. Think, you can nerf Eldar, Daemons and IK as much as you like and then buff DA, but GK will always have an advantage over Daemons since they are supposed to be anti-Daemon.

Daemons are better than pure Grey Knights as far a TAC list goes these days. The game will never be balanced because it has too many variables for a balance team that has no will to balance.

 Zande4 wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
To be honest there will never be balance amongst all armies because of one army; Grey Knights. Think, you can nerf Eldar, Daemons and IK as much as you like and then buff DA, but GK will always have an advantage over Daemons since they are supposed to be anti-Daemon.

Daemons are better than pure Grey Knights as far a TAC list goes these days. The game will never be balanced because it has too many variables for a balance team that has no will to balance.

I mean if every single army managed to get balanced (somehow), Grey Knights would still have an advantage over Daemons as it is in their fluff and not including it would make them really bland.

I know that Daemons are better at the moment, I just meant that there can never be perfect balance so long as Grey Knights are an army.