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I left the hobby about 3 years ago just before the current edition. From my latest perusing of GW website and here it looks like every single codex has been updated since I left. When I was playing there was really only 2 or 3 armies that were good and basically thats what everyone took to any tourny or local. Lots of razor spam etc.

Now that it looks like all the books are updated and theres tons of new models and new rules, Im wondering how all the armies stack up now? What armies are winning events, what is popular, what is OP, etc etc.

Basically looking for a condensed 3 year update.

3 years ago was what? 5th edition? We are in 7th edition now. (seventh, not sixth. Not a spelling mistake. 6th editon only lasted like 20 months, not even a full 2 years.) Did you now that?

Some say 7th is the best ever, some say it's the worst ever. Some say 7th broke their gaming group and people quit playing, others say 7th got them back in 40k to start again.

So it's a mix of opinions.

Davor wrote:
3 years ago was what? 5th edition? We are in 7th edition now. (seventh, not sixth. Not a spelling mistake. 6th editon only lasted like 20 months, not even a full 2 years.) Did you now that?

Some say 7th is the best ever, some say it's the worst ever. Some say 7th broke their gaming group and people quit playing, others say 7th got them back in 40k to start again.

So it's a mix of opinions.

Oh wow, yes it was 5th edition. I left right as 6th edition came out. It would have been around 2011, so maybe even closer to 4 years now.

How does everything stand in terms of books and armies?

You're gonna get mixed opinions but in general because armies have been updated so quickly and because of the set up of 7th allowing so many options in detschments and formations most army books have at least one somewhat competitve build. I am not saying every army has a chance to win a major tournament but you don't see army books like during 5th edition that were 5 years and 2 editions out of date and basically worthless.

Also don't worry much about 6th and 7th edition it is basically the same thing except 7th changed psychic powers.

Now if your trying to figure out which army is considered the army for tournaments most likely to win this list is fairly accurate.
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.

Of the above list each step is a lot closer to one another instead of one army list being massively better then another.
For instance LVO is next month and I would say a varient of any of the top 4 in the above list can win the entire tournament.
It could be either tyranids, elder, demons, or space marines can win that tournament.

 Mafty wrote:

Davor wrote:
3 years ago was what? 5th edition? We are in 7th edition now. (seventh, not sixth. Not a spelling mistake. 6th editon only lasted like 20 months, not even a full 2 years.) Did you now that?

Some say 7th is the best ever, some say it's the worst ever. Some say 7th broke their gaming group and people quit playing, others say 7th got them back in 40k to start again.

So it's a mix of opinions.

Oh wow, yes it was 5th edition. I left right as 6th edition came out. It would have been around 2011, so maybe even closer to 4 years now.

How does everything stand in terms of books and armies?

Well, everyone except Necrons has been updated. Hopefully within the month it will be. Otherwise 7th is pretty good, brought me back to the game after taking a break through 6th. The armies' power levels ebb and flow. Rules in the box models are changing the paradigm, giving nids a few cool new options. Trying to find an objective view from people about which army is op etc is tough around here, though I'll tell you that the models and books and ascetic is better than ever with better and better models being released in plastic. Hopefully more soon.

Eldar are now considered unbeatable because of Wave-Serpent Spam. For those who don't serpent spam they are still effective, but I've seen them loose almost as much as they win.
Tau aren't far behind Eldar in terms of people not liking them. *cough* Usually the IoM players *Cough*
Space Marines have got even more choices to throw in their army. Some Marine factions seem to be ridiculously strong, (Space Wolves) but xenos can't complain about much without someone screaming "WAVE SERPENTS" at them.
Imperial guard have changed name, I don't know much else.
Imperial Knights exist just to give the Imperium of man something else that's better than the xenos races.
Tyranids got worse looking at the general dakka consensus But then flying monstrous creature spam has destroyed countless armies.
Orks also got hit hard apparently, I don't know enough about them.
Dark Eldar got updated twice. You won't find softer targets outside of the marshmallow industry, but they are good if you're a skilled player.
Chaos just churned and got new stuff, not many people rant about them.
Necrons are due a new update soon, but currently they are pretty average, other than being able to field an obscene amount of fliers.
Chaos Deamons used to be the unbeatable game-destructing psychopaths... I think they fell into a hole somewhere because they don't get half the hate anymore.
And Sisters of Battle are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, probably because GW might get some bad press if they dropped the all-female army.

Aside from massive game changes...
Assault is now unreliable and considered useless by a lot of people.
Vehicles now have hull points, the equivalent to wounds.
Psychic powers are different and have their own phase.
Metal models are now replaced with finecast resin.
Multi-kits are now made by Games Workshop, apparently to save money but the prices haven't been higher...
Fliers became a thing, adding a new level to the game.
Missions have changed, now including the 'Maelstrom of war', which uses cards that you don't Have to buy... But the game is gonna be much slower if you don't.
And Codex supplements became a thing to release new rules and fluff about armies. And getting an extra wad of cash per player
All the massive bits I can think of.
(I bet someone will hate me for my IoM comments. Long live the Xenos!!!) (And down with the wave serpents so the complaining will stop. They're broken, we all know this.)

Orks lost a lot of flavour. And as a mostly-assault army, they have a lot of issues because of random charge lengths and no charging from reserves etc. They seem to be widely considered the weakest army.

Though I just started playing them a month ago, and in my mind they are by far the most fun army, both to build and to play.

Competitive though? Dunno. There are certain builds that I think could be pretty nasty, but every army has those. Orks is probably the most balanced army out there atm, and once tau and eldar get the 7th edition treatment hopefully things will be a bit more even-handed.

Interesting to see that Eldar is considered to be amazing. I have an eldar army and back in 5th is was probably the worst army. Wave serpents were expensive and died very easily. I lost almost all my games in 5th edition with eldar, one of the reasons I stopped playing was I was tired of losing.


How do space wolves match up these days? This IOM acronym is new to me, what does it include?

Niiru wrote:
Orks lost a lot of flavour. And as a mostly-assault army, they have a lot of issues because of random charge lengths and no charging from reserves etc. They seem to be widely considered the weakest army.

Though I just started playing them a month ago, and in my mind they are by far the most fun army, both to build and to play.

Competitive though? Dunno. There are certain builds that I think could be pretty nasty, but every army has those. Orks is probably the most balanced army out there atm, and once tau and eldar get the 7th edition treatment hopefully things will be a bit more even-handed.

I play Orks too and the green tide is one of the best tournament lists. Ironically it's also an assaulty list that's dripping with massive fluff and flavor that does well in tournaments.

I hope that list makes it far in LVO however Orks are not really a popular tourney army. I always feel rushed moving 130+ boyz in a short time limit.

 Mafty wrote:
Interesting to see that Eldar is considered to be amazing. I have an eldar army and back in 5th is was probably the worst army. Wave serpents were expensive and died very easily. I lost almost all my games in 5th edition with eldar, one of the reasons I stopped playing was I was tired of losing.


How do space wolves match up these days? This IOM acronym is new to me, what does it include?

Imperium of Man. All the puny 'umans. So its space marines, imperial guard (or whatever they're called now, astroturf or something), inquisition, assassins. Basically means they are all "battle brothers" and so you can play whatever stuff you want with no downsides. Essentially, its super cheap, but I guess it sells codex's (codicies?) and models.

Space wolves are in the IoM, and they seem to be among the cheesiest more powerful of the chapters. Probably because they have really expensive to buy and cool looking wolf rider models. They are good and fun though, if I collected space marines I would consider them.


I just want there to be an Imperium of Orks. Or maybe an Imperium of Xenos. So I can also be cheap and take all the good stuff from various codices without any downsides. Probably happen in 8th edition, the way things are going lol.


Eldar wave serpents got a lot more survivable, and are really good. Probably the best transports in the game. I only ever run two though (I also only own two lol) so I don't lose friends by being


I only just noticed that emoticon is right next to the text box here... shows how often it's used on dakka


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:

I hope that list makes it far in LVO however Orks are not really a popular tourney army. I always feel rushed moving 130+ boyz in a short time limit.

Haha yeh, if I had unlimited cash I would buy 100 boyz just so I could occasionally run this list, it seems a lot of fun. On paper. In practise, I would hate to have to move between 100 and 300 models every turn! This is why I go for more elite-y lists.

The IOM stands for the Imperium of Man, which includes all the human and altered human codexes. Like Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard,) all of the Space Marine equivalents, the Imperial Knights, ect, ect, ect.

so the new rules allow a fairly limitless amount of choices then? if you can combine all those books into one army.

 Mafty wrote:
so the new rules allow a fairly limitless amount of choices then? if you can combine all those books into one army.

With a traditional "battle forged" army list, you would technically need to run a HQ and 2 Troops choices for each codex. But you could indeed run a space marine detachment, a Guard detachment, an inquisitor and an Imperial Knight in one army list yes.

Actually for inquisitors and imperial knights you dont need to bother with the HQ and two troops, which makes it even easier on the IoM to field stuff from different books.


Technically, you can do this for any army though. An ork commander can add a detachment of Eldar to their list, and if they use a HQ and two Troops minimum it will still be battleforged, and so get the bonus of objective secured etc. (If its a CAD).

The advantage of the IoM, is that they can do it, and then still benefit from all the bonus's.

eg.

An inquisitor can cast a psychic power onto a space marine squad. And the space marine squad might be flying around inside an Imperial Guard transport.

With the ork/eldar example though:
Farseer casts a psychic power... but can only use it on other eldar, not an ork unit. Also the eldar and orks can't use each others transports. They are effectively two totally seperate armies, that just happen to be on the same side.


From a fluff perspective, this is all fine, it makes sense. However for gameplay, it does give those pesky humans a lot of options that no other army gets even close to.


Edit:
You can also run "unbound", which means you can ignore the minimum "1HQ 2 Troops" and all that stuff. But you can't ignore the rules about Orks using Eldar transports, or Librarians casting buffs on Necrons. Only the IoM people can do that stuff.

Pretty much, although keep an eye on the allies matrix. It doesn't matter for IoM, but Chaos and Loyalist marines do not like working together, and most groups are not on good terms with the Tyranids. Something about the whole, "eat you now or eat you later" motivation causes people to distrust them.

A big change is the whole detachment thing. You had a simple FoC in the past. Right now you have many more options. I will not go into detail with unbound because it is banned from every mayor tournament anyways.

What you can do right now is building an army with your normal FoC like 1 HQ and 2 Standards as a must. You can also have an allied detachment, which has to be from another faction. Or you can simply say: "Heck I want to play with as many detachments as I want!"

Another big thing are formations. These are basically lists that are chosen by the codex writers. Most of the time you can only change some equipment options but the models are fixed. The downside to this is that your model options are fixed, but on the other hand every formation comes with some extra rules. The Tyranid living artillery formation for example lets you reroll your scatter dice practically for free, you just have to use the exact models the formation wants.

It is also possible to combine these things. So let´s say you build a normal army with a standard detachment and therefore a standard FOC, and you are combining it with a formation. You can do many cool things in 7th and maybe the best addition to the game are the maelstrom of war missions. You have to draw some cards which tell you what you have to do in order to earn any kind of victory points. Makes the game much more strategic but on the other hand a little bit more random too.

I'd like to add something most of you have missed, probably the biggest thing to happen to 40k since 3rd edition: For a while now, GW has been trying to break loose from the self-imposed chains of its own merchandising strategy. Basically, this means that off-codex updates are now a thing.

These updates come as Dataslates (standalone rules for a unit or formation, usually available as digital downloads from GW or BL. Formations, btw, are groupings of units that don't take FOC slots and benefit from special rules, another big game changer), army supplements (rulebooks detailing a sub-faction of a main army, like the Black Legion for Chaos Space Marines or Iyanden for Eldar) and campaign books and boxes (Campaign books include rules, fluff and missions for two or more factions, while campaign boxes are limited edition miniature starter sets, with minis for two factions and a small rulebook)

Yes, it IS confusing. GW seems to have noticed that rules are profitable on their own and help drive the sales of models, and it is on a veritable releasing frenzy. With GW's communications policy being what it is, visiting places like Dakka often is a must if you want to stay up to date and plan your purchases in advance. On the plus side, however, there are now infinite ways to assemble your army, weak armies have a chance of not staying weak for long, we've got tons of new material to play with and strategize, and more keeps being added on a weekly basis.

long story short 7th ed is proably a HUUUGE pain for a tournment goer as it's not exactly a tight edition, but the options are pretty open and for a narraitive gamer it's pretty cool as it's very very open.

Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

 Mafty wrote:
Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

Yes.
Yes.
and Yes.


Though I think space wolves may have a decent set of psychic abilities of their very own... I'm not too sure what Guard have in the psychic pool. But the guard can benefit from the wolf psykers anyway, depending on which has the better buffs. I'm sure the wolves have a Wolf Priest or Wolf-brarian or... Wolfro the Psychic Wolf Lord of Wolferhampton. Or something.

...I decided to look at the book. It actually is a Wolf Priest. So it's less amusing than I remembered.

Though there is a High Wolf Priest, who has a Wolf Amulet *and* a Wolf Helm. I thought space wolves would like wolves, instead of killing them and wearing them as hats.


I need to stop posting on dakka at 3am when I'm sleep deprived.

 Mafty wrote:
Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

Just about any Space Marine Chapter can ally with just about any other Space Marine Chapter. And Guard can ally with literally EVERYTHING IoM. I'm actually planning on doing an SW/BA army myself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiru wrote:

 Mafty wrote:
Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

Yes.
Yes.
and Yes.


Though I think space wolves may have a decent set of psychic abilities of their very own... I'm not too sure what Guard have in the psychic pool. But the guard can benefit from the wolf psykers anyway, depending on which has the better buffs. I'm sure the wolves have a Wolf Priest or Wolf-brarian or... Wolfro the Psychic Wolf Lord of Wolferhampton. Or something.

...I decided to look at the book. It actually is a Wolf Priest. So it's less amusing than I remembered.

Though there is a High Wolf Priest, who has a Wolf Amulet *and* a Wolf Helm. I thought space wolves would like wolves, instead of killing them and wearing them as hats.


I need to stop posting on dakka at 3am when I'm sleep deprived.

The Wolf Priest is the equivalent of a Chaplain. Rune Priests are Wolf Psykers.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Mafty wrote:
Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

Just about any Space Marine Chapter can ally with just about any other Space Marine Chapter. And Guard can ally with literally EVERYTHING IoM. I'm actually planning on doing an SW/BA army myself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiru wrote:

 Mafty wrote:
Wow this seems incredibly more confusing and complex than before. I guess I'll have to read into this a lot more. It seems like it would be difficult facing other opponents and having these confusing mix of rules and having people not play the rules properly.

So can space wolves have imperial guard on their side and benefit from psych abilities?

Can space wolves mix with regular marines or BA?

Yes.
Yes.
and Yes.


Though I think space wolves may have a decent set of psychic abilities of their very own... I'm not too sure what Guard have in the psychic pool. But the guard can benefit from the wolf psykers anyway, depending on which has the better buffs. I'm sure the wolves have a Wolf Priest or Wolf-brarian or... Wolfro the Psychic Wolf Lord of Wolferhampton. Or something.

...I decided to look at the book. It actually is a Wolf Priest. So it's less amusing than I remembered.

Though there is a High Wolf Priest, who has a Wolf Amulet *and* a Wolf Helm. I thought space wolves would like wolves, instead of killing them and wearing them as hats.


I need to stop posting on dakka at 3am when I'm sleep deprived.

The Wolf Priest is the equivalent of a Chaplain. Rune Priests are Wolf Psykers.

so how does it work? Do I need a certain amount of HQ and troops from each army? Can I take only HS from one army?

ok the way it works is that instead of a FoC, you have what's called a detachment.

the standard deteachment is the combined arms detachment. which is the useal 1-2 HQs, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elites, 0-3 Fast attacks, 0-3 Heavy Support, 1 Lord of War (Lord of wars are eaither some potent characters that where once HQs, such as Dragio or Logan, or a super heavy, such as IG can take a baneblade as their LOWs, YES baneblades are now legal for standard games. note not every local is accepting of LoWs. so don't get too excited) fortifications are just like they sound. it means if you wanna play an Imperial fists army who specialize in fortifications etc you've now got rules for it

there is also an allied detachment, which is to allow a small group of allies, this consists of 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 0-1 elite, 0-1 FA, 0-1 HS.

some special armies have special detachment rules, but those aren't worth being concerned about at the start.


I'd strongly reccomend when ya get back in not worrying too much about it, just using your old FOC (which is a perfectly valid detachment) and building from there. don't let all the special detachment stuff confuse you. they are just additional options

unless he plays SW or tyranids, those aren't realy seen being played outside of formation armies.

Can you guys explain what unbound is and how these formations work?

It is hard to explain, because unlike back in 5th or 6th most of the game is house ruled by communities. A lot of places don't accept unbound. Unbound strickt raw is you picking an army out of legal units from any source you want. Want an army of just land speeders or dreadnoughts, you can do it. Any combinations are legal.
Formations are CAD which have a pre set number of units, characters you have to take to get some sort of special rule.
Neither unbound or formations have the new super scoring rule, even if units in a unbound or formation are troops.

A very very nice opportunity with the Allies system is that you can use counts-as converted models to use the rules of something more fitting rules-wise from a different faction. Like ultra tooled-up ogryns as chaos obliterators or whatever.

If you field guys from factions that hate each other you get a few penalties though.

 Mafty wrote:
Interesting to see that Eldar is considered to be amazing. I have an eldar army and back in 5th is was probably the worst army. Wave serpents were expensive and died very easily. I lost almost all my games in 5th edition with eldar, one of the reasons I stopped playing was I was tired of losing.


How do space wolves match up these days? This IOM acronym is new to me, what does it include?

Eldar will still tough in 5th. You just had to use very specific lists.

Davor wrote:
3 years ago was what? 5th edition? We are in 7th edition now. (seventh, not sixth. Not a spelling mistake. 6th editon only lasted like 20 months, not even a full 2 years.) Did you now that?

Some say 7th is the best ever, some say it's the worst ever. Some say 7th broke their gaming group and people quit playing, others say 7th got them back in 40k to start again.

So it's a mix of opinions.

mmmhmmm. 3 years ago we had 5th ed, which I still play. If you still have 5th ed, then play 5th ed.
I knew that 6th ed wasn't too good, and I also knew it didn't last very long. but 20 months is short.