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So, what do you think is the army with the best internal balance?

Units that are good are expensive compared to other units WITHIN THE CODEX. Which codex has the fewest must-haves? Which codex has the fewest bad options?






I didn't include a couple of options. Stormtroopers have only five units. I'm not sure that's worth discussing.

I would say Sisters. All of their units are good and can be made to work in a list except Penitent Engines, which are garbage. Repentia require an allied Land Raider but are spectacular, and hilarious, if they get one.

Celestians are meh, but can be used as a mobile firebase with stormbolters, et cetera.

Daemons. Once you have a Pink Horrors unit or two to start the Summoning ball rolling it matters very little what you bring.

You haven't included stormtroopers with 5 units but you have included IK with...how many units?

Knights

Two choices, both nearly identical. Hard to argue the internal balance isn't great here.

Honestly, most of the SM books are largely pretty good here, I'd probably go with one of those.

You didn't include Eldar on your list.

Deleting a post is beyond my skill. Mods?

 Ashiraya wrote:
You didn't include Eldar on your list.

No need to include an option that nobody will ever vote for.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Deleting a post is beyond my skill. Mods?

Why not put militarum tempestus with a question mark too, than.

I know I'll draw a lot of hate for this, but I'd say CSM.

You start with a regular chaos space marine, at a certain points cost. Then, for a point more, you make them a little better in close combat with a CCW. For a couple points more, you make them even a little better with a MoK. For a few more points, you make them a bit better with a fearless banner. For a few more points, you swap them for berzerkers, who get all that, plus WS5. And for a few more points, they can take the icon of wrath. And then for a few more points, you can take khorne chosen, which have access to power weapons. And a bit more than that, and you can take khorne possessed, and a bit more and you have MoK terminators, and then MoK mutilators.

The same goes for the other chaos gods as well. There are a ton of options, each with a few more special rules or bits of wargear, each for an appropriate price hike.

Yes, yes, uncreative people thought it was just about plague marines and helldrakes, but uncreative people are always solipsistic when it comes to codex balance. It's only made worse by the fact that most of said people also want to win with little effort, and CSM is riddled with units that are hard to get the most out of.

When you move past that, though, there's a lot of options that are roughly the same. And, of course, there aren't any units that are crazy overpowered, and the number of genuine stinkers (as aversed to "non-point-and-click") is pretty low.

 Ailaros wrote:
I know I'll draw a lot of hate for this, but I'd say CSM.

Uhh... What?

I feel it is the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

SYKOJAK wrote:
I feel it the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

I was briefly tempted by this, as the decent units are all vaguely balanced, but it's too weighed down by duds.

Because stormtroopers (yes, I'm including them) are a good choice, and I can imagine ogryn sometimes, but then you have wyrdvanes and ratlings. Likewise, I like the hellhound variants, and vendettas are vendettas, but then you have rough riders... and armored sentinels. You have all the russ variants, but you also have the basic russ, and then you have the hydra as well.

The guard codex is one of those where it's close, but something always comes and spoils it with a "yes, but..." moment.

SYKOJAK wrote:
I feel it the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

Not even close. The IG codex has terrible internal balance, there are way too many units and options that are so good that they're almost mandatory, and way too many that are so terrible that you'll never take them outside of the most casual low-power environment.

SYKOJAK wrote:
I feel it the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

The AM book has awful internal balance to my eyes, I think it's probably amongst the worst out there.

The Elites section in its entirety is largely junk, the Heavy Support slot is painfully overcrowded and half the army's unique capabilities are all in there, the ordnance bearing Leman Russ tanks crippled by losing old Lumbering Behemoth for the new Heavy rule, and the Hydra having been nerfed into uselessness, while the Wyvern is everyone's old Thudd Gun complaints dialed up to 11. The Troops sections has been pared down, with mechanization options largely remaining viable only for Vets and many platoon units remaining really bad or mediocre at best, Etc.

Codex: Imperial Knights

 Vaktathi wrote:

SYKOJAK wrote:
I feel it the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

The AM book has awful internal balance to my eyes, I think it's probably amongst the worst out there.

The Elites section in its entirety is largely junk, the Heavy Support slot is painfully overcrowded and half the army's unique capabilities are all in there, the ordnance bearing Leman Russ tanks crippled by losing old Lumbering Behemoth for the new Heavy rule, and the Hydra having been nerfed into uselessness, while the Wyvern is everyone's old Thudd Gun complaints dialed up to 11. The Troops sections has been pared down, with mechanization options largely remaining viable only for Vets and many platoon units remaining really bad or mediocre at best, Etc.

Have you ever found a way to make platoons cost efficient? I've given up after 10+ games. The problems are always the same; the cost for the platoon + support is on absurd levels, leaving them with minimal expensive makes them largely, if not entirely, useless.
I really wish I could take conscripts without the platoon requirement, by the Emperor it solve so many of my problems with a cheap bubble wrap.

OT. I would argue for either Tau or Orks. Tau have choices that are objectively better than others, but they don't really have choices that are truly useless (excluding Vespid or that 1 odd flyer).

Zewrath wrote:Have you ever found a way to make platoons cost efficient? I've given up after 10+ games.

Since 6th edition dropped, not really. Foot guard is still fun to play, but the rules as they are hate horde armies with a virulent passion.

Fearless priests was a nice bump, but nowhere near enough to counter the effects of the losses incurred by wound allocation (and to a lesser extent, cover rules). It's almost enough to make me want to play 5th ed again, where attrition-based armies had at least a slim chance against uber-unit elite armies.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
You didn't include Eldar on your list.

No need to include an option that nobody will ever vote for.

Might as well exclude GK too.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

SYKOJAK wrote:
I feel it the Astra Militaurm codex. Balance has to start with good 'ole humans.

The AM book has awful internal balance to my eyes, I think it's probably amongst the worst out there.

The Elites section in its entirety is largely junk, the Heavy Support slot is painfully overcrowded and half the army's unique capabilities are all in there, the ordnance bearing Leman Russ tanks crippled by losing old Lumbering Behemoth for the new Heavy rule, and the Hydra having been nerfed into uselessness, while the Wyvern is everyone's old Thudd Gun complaints dialed up to 11. The Troops sections has been pared down, with mechanization options largely remaining viable only for Vets and many platoon units remaining really bad or mediocre at best, Etc.

Have you ever found a way to make platoons cost efficient? I've given up after 10+ games. The problems are always the same; the cost for the platoon + support is on absurd levels, leaving them with minimal expensive makes them largely, if not entirely, useless.
I really wish I could take conscripts without the platoon requirement, by the Emperor it solve so many of my problems with a cheap bubble wrap.

OT. I would argue for either Tau or Orks. Tau have choices that are objectively better than others, but they don't really have choices that are truly useless (excluding Vespid or that 1 odd flyer).

Platoons can work if blobbed, but not really primarily as the meat of the army, but more as a centerpiece unit. Infantry Squads don't really work great split up into their own units except if you're just trying to bubble wrap cheaply.

Heavy Weapons Units are just awful (amongst the least effective and least survivable heavy weapons units in the game), Special Weapons Squads likewise are just as bad without a transport (though can be workable in a Valk...by why wouldn't you just take Vets?). Platoon Command Squads aren't terrible if you put 'em in a Chimera. Conscripts are both bad and pointless when you can blob a platoon.

I used to like running them mechanized, but when the basic cost of a mechanized platoon went up 40pts (gaining nothing) for a minimum sized squad and lost several firing points, coupled with the fact that Vets remain the same price with largely cheaper Doctrine options like Carapace, it's hard not to just go for the Vets.

I think Dark Eldar are probably the most internally-balanced codex now.

The coven supplement has made all of the coven units viable, while all Cult units sans wyches and hellions are at least okay and compete well with other units in the codex. Of the SC's, Drahzar and Lelith are both kind of "meh" due to the meta simply not giving a gak about 6'' moving infantry-blenders, but at least they (largely) do what they're supposed to do for their points.

Ork codex has literally no units that are not worth fielding in at least some situations.

Zaggy? Does fine with a stormboy formation.
Flash gitz? They're fine in a battlewagon. They are good in a blitz brigade formation as they can get bs3 starting from turn one! And even Badrukk is fine within Flashgitz formation.
Killa kanz? They're fine in a dreadmob formation.
Burna boyz? Still fine in a small unit with meks in a stompa or naught. Or just burnas in a cheapo truck. Can take killsaw meks a bit cheaper.
Regular nobz? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/622940.page
Ghazzy?.. Now that's harder. But he has a place in huge games where an extra wound and EW might matter more than 2+ rerollable.

 koooaei wrote:
Ork codex has literally no units that are not worth fielding in at least some situations.

Zaggy? Does fine with a stormboy formation.
Flash gitz? They're fine in a battlewagon. They are good in a blitz brigade formation as they can get bs3 starting from turn one! And even Badrukk is fine within Flashgitz formation.
Killa kanz? They're fine in a dreadmob formation.
Ghazzy?.. Now that's harder. But he has a place in huge games where an extra wound and EW might matter more than 2+ rerollable.

What about the Orkanauts then ?

The Imperial Answer wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Ork codex has literally no units that are not worth fielding in at least some situations.

Zaggy? Does fine with a stormboy formation.
Flash gitz? They're fine in a battlewagon. They are good in a blitz brigade formation as they can get bs3 starting from turn one! And even Badrukk is fine within Flashgitz formation.
Killa kanz? They're fine in a dreadmob formation.
Ghazzy?.. Now that's harder. But he has a place in huge games where an extra wound and EW might matter more than 2+ rerollable.

What about the Orkanauts then ?

Naughts are not horrible as is. People are having mixed results with them actually. They're pretty fine in dreadmob and they're one of a good options to getting outflanked with an indep formation too. This formation can actually make a unit of 6 kanz with grotzookas/scorchas worthwile too.

I don't know enough about Orks to cast judgement, but now that you mention it they seem like a contender as well.

How are Flash Gitz? I have never ever seen anyone take them, whereas Lootaz are a common sight. EDIT- Durr you just answered that. Disregard.

EDIT 2- The growing pattern of formations making bad stuff good is both hope instilling and disconcerting. The former because it's nice having crap units that you've always wanted to use but don't because they're crap suddenly be useful, the latter because on GP those units should have had well written rules in the first damn place without you having to cough up extra cash for their viability.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

EDIT 2- The growing pattern of formations making bad stuff good is both hope instilling and disconcerting. The former because it's nice having crap units that you've always wanted to use but don't because they're crap suddenly be useful, the latter because on GP those units should have had well written rules in the first damn place without you having to cough up extra cash for their viability.

Personally, i think that rules should be WAY cheaper than what GW asks for them. But i find the whole formation thing being quite positive on tabletop and it's the most important thing to focus on. I treat it as hotfixes.

It's very hard to write the whole codex ballanced even if you try hard and spend lots of hours of human work and money on it. But when you just see what underperforms over time (probably by looking at what's left in stock - let's be realistic) and add a little bit of something to it - it's benefical for everyone. People get army variety and can finally use some of their favorite models without handicapping a list and GW gets their stuff sold.

GW ain't a company of moustache-twirling villians who's only wish is to make you feel bad because they hate you. It's just really super-hard to write stuff good in one go with their current politics. They can go away from it by introducing dynamically changing rules on the website or something but it ain't gona happen as they'll loose a lot of money from paper-publishing and e-books emidiately. So, formations are a solid solution in this case. I just feel they need to cost less.

It is interesting that Tau are higher up in the poll (initially at least) seeing as how they are moaned about so often.

I voted for tau, because tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But seriously, only sniper drones and vespid are obvious non-options compared to other options in the codex, and they have their uses.

On its own, I think DA are fine. The DW Termies are a little expensive, but get some good stuff. I think the problem is that most codices are underpriced compared to DA and thats when trouble comes.

Knights, no question.