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.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
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.

Sniper drones EAT MCs alive... and from the other side of the table. 48" rapid-fire sniper at BS5 that can jump back behind cover after shooting? Yes, please.

The problem with sniper drones is they compete with broadsides, hammerheads, and skyrays.

Vespid are terrible, though. Honestly, I'd include stealth suits as a #2. Also, Tau have the two crappiest characters in the whole game in their codex. Aun'Shi and Aun'Va are both incredibly useless.

Tau are the most internally balanced. They have the most 'generally god' units with only one 'bad' unit (Vespid). They have one borderline OP unit (Riptide), and lots of favour and goodness.

SM are close behind, but they have more OP units though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Sniper drones EAT MCs alive... and from the other side of the table. 48" rapid-fire sniper at BS5 that can jump back behind cover after shooting? Yes, please.

I agree, whilst they may not sound the best on paper they do extremely well on the board. Even against non-MCs (especially with an Ethereal nearby) they do well.

Eldar

SGTPozy wrote:
Tau are the most internally balanced. They have the most 'generally god' units with only one 'bad' unit (Vespid). They have one borderline OP unit (Riptide), and lots of favour and goodness.

SM are close behind, but they have more OP units though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Sniper drones EAT MCs alive... and from the other side of the table. 48" rapid-fire sniper at BS5 that can jump back behind cover after shooting? Yes, please.

I agree, whilst they may not sound the best on paper they do extremely well on the board. Even against non-MCs (especially with an Ethereal nearby) they do well.

Aun'Va and Aun'Shi are even worse.

 Peregrine wrote:

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

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

Wait. What? The Eldar probably have the fewest weak units, some of the best specialists, and are one of the strongest highlander forces... depending on how you split hairs, someone certainly could vote for them (I wouldn't, but its far from the worst internally balanced)...

They should be in a poll this exhaustive.

I would say orks. Their army is pretty focused around their boyz, however, Most HQ's are viable (only seen a Mek w/o big gun once), most of the elites are cool, some of the heavy support is a bit iffy. Fast attack is what I would say is the most balanced of all. I've never seen two ork armies the same

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

That sounds like poor internal balance to me. Besides, there's plenty of units that aren't worth their points cost.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Aun'Va and Aun'Shi are even worse.

I get that Aun'Shi is bad but Aun'Va is pretty good. He can do the same as 2 Ethereals, has an additional save and grants re rolls.

SGTPozy wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Aun'Va and Aun'Shi are even worse.

I get that Aun'Shi is bad but Aun'Va is pretty good. He can do the same as 2 Ethereals, has an additional save and grants re rolls.

He's also incredibly easy to kill, since it's just him and two guards. If he could attach to a unit, he'd be great.

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

The DA flyers skew the gap between good/bad units by lowering the bar.

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:I voted for tau, because tau.

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

What? Tau?

How many games do you see markerlight pathfinders in? All of them. How many games feature vespid, or piranhas, or sunsharks, or razorsharks? None of them. How many tau players bring devilfish? Or more than one squad of kroot? Or really anything more than minimum firewarrior squads? How are stealth suits balanced with riptides? Who even owns a darkstrider model? Or regularly fields aun'shi or aun'va?

Tau is possibly the least internally balanced, even perhaps moreso than eldar.

Well I use pathfinders eery game" I never use vespid, but often use fusion blaster piranhas, and the flyers. I bring devilfish every now and then (but only 1), I often use 2 Kroot squads, and always max out y fire warrior squads. I haven't used stealth suits in a while though, and I field Aun'Va 75% of the time. I made my own Darkstrider so does that count?

Seriously, you're just assuming that every Tau player is a WAAC kinda guy with your post.

No, he's pointing out that the Tau codex has some very obvious and glaring balance issues.

Fact is, any tournament level Tau list has none of the units Ailaros mentioned, and for good reason; they're all totally inferior to the select few other units you can easily fill up on.

How on earth have more people voted for CSM than BA? CSM has to have one of the worst balancing issues as a solo codex in the game!

If you look at BA threads however, there are debates on everything atn from ASM-Bikes and Priests-Libbys-Chaplains-Captains to Death Co-Sang Guard and Pred-Ravens.

 Blacksails wrote:
No, he's pointing out that the Tau codex has some very obvious and glaring balance issues.

Fact is, any tournament level Tau list has none of the units Ailaros mentioned, and for good reason; they're all totally inferior to the select few other units you can easily fill up on.

Maybe external balancing issues but not internal ones. Externally they are unbalanced because other armies are not internally balanced, therefore that makes Tau one if the odd ones out.

Tau have answers to basically every threat, therefore they are internally balanced.

SGTPozy wrote:Seriously, you're just assuming that every Tau player is a WAAC kinda guy with your post.

Well you don't care about the game being seriously balanced, and that's fine. Neither do I.

But regardless of that fact, the tau codex is very imbalanced. Just because people like you or I aren't WAAC doesn't change this fact. A fact easily demonstrable by the wide swath of units even "semi-competitive" people rarely ever take. Of course, we could do a deconstruction on everything to show why people take fusion crisis suits and pathfinders instead of fusion piranhas and stealth suits, but given the preponderance of evidence, it doesn't seem necessary.

 Nevelon wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

The DA flyers skew the gap between good/bad units by lowering the bar.

True, but flyers are really a whole nother bag. I think give DA the same flyers SM have and the codex wouldnt be that terrible.

I find it amazing that so many people are voting for C:SM
The codex is filled with inferior choices and have a long list of units that are universally regarded as absolutely horrible and overpriced.

It's been said above but surely Eldar? Howling Banseers and Harlequins aren't very good but everything else can be justifiably taken without massively impacted TT performance.

 BobNT wrote:
It's been said above but surely Eldar? Howling Banseers and Harlequins aren't very good but everything else can be justifiably taken without massively impacted TT performance.

Not even close. The Eldar codex has the full range of units from "so horrible you'll never even consider taking them" to "so blatantly overpowered even the hardcore WAAC players have to admit that GW made a mistake".

 Peregrine wrote:

 BobNT wrote:
It's been said above but surely Eldar? Howling Banseers and Harlequins aren't very good but everything else can be justifiably taken without massively impacted TT performance.

Not even close. The Eldar codex has the full range of units from "so horrible you'll never even consider taking them" to "so blatantly overpowered even the hardcore WAAC players have to admit that GW made a mistake".

However if you somehow where able to score the effectiveness of every unit in the Eldar Codex and plotted them using either S.Dev or on a scatter graph, I'd imagine a fairly grouped set of results with the exception of WS & WK at the top end and probably H'Quins and Banshees at the bottom. I have no idea how to calculate this effectiveness score, I'll leave that to someone cleverer and/or with more time on their hands then me

If anyone does create a system/calculation that works across all Codexs please let me know because I'd love to see the results.

Not sure how you can argue with a codex with only 2 options. imperial knights get my vote

I guess Codex inquisition isnt too bad ether. or Assassins.

Out of the normal stuff though id put my money on Vanilla marines.

overall i can mentally see me using a little bit of everything without it sucking too bad.

SGTPozy wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
No, he's pointing out that the Tau codex has some very obvious and glaring balance issues.

Fact is, any tournament level Tau list has none of the units Ailaros mentioned, and for good reason; they're all totally inferior to the select few other units you can easily fill up on.

Maybe external balancing issues but not internal ones. Externally they are unbalanced because other armies are not internally balanced, therefore that makes Tau one if the odd ones out.

Tau have answers to basically every threat, therefore they are internally balanced.

That's not at all what is meant by internally balanced.

An internally balanced book would mean all options are more or less equally viable in any kind of list; it means there are no clear superior or inferior choices. Vespids are universally bad. Devilfish are overcosted and unnecessary in most lists. Hell, even the Hammerhead is found lacking because of its competition with Broadsides. That's what internal balance means.

External balance is more to do with how the codex stacks up in overall power. It'd be comparing strong tournament lists against other strong tournament lists to see how well the overall power level compares. You can also use it to compare similar units with similar roles from one book to another.

Internal balance is solely concerned with how viable a unit is given the other options in the codex. To that end, units like Vespids, Devilfish, their flyers, Piranhas and most of the characters are pretty poor choices, meaning the codex is poorly balanced internally.

BobNT wrote:However if you somehow where able to score the effectiveness of every unit in the Eldar Codex and plotted them using either S.Dev or on a scatter graph, I'd imagine a fairly grouped set of results with the exception of WS & WK at the top end and probably H'Quins and Banshees at the bottom. I have no idea how to calculate this effectiveness score, I'll leave that to someone cleverer and/or with more time on their hands then me

Okay, perhaps. I guess one shouldn't let external balance issues bias a discussion of internal balance.

But still... warp spiders, wave serpents, wraithknights, and things on jetbikes are in a totally different league than banshees, scorpions, vypers, guardians, rangers, and avatars.

It's more like the eldar codex has two balanced pools, where everything within the pool is pretty similar, but the pools themselves are very different. That's still an imbalanced codex.

Fair point Ailaros.

I want to hear how people think the CSM (Go plague marines/heldrake/oblits or go home) is internally balanced.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I want to hear how people think the CSM (Go plague marines/heldrake/oblits or go home) is internally balanced.

You mean the 4 people that voted?

Voted Knights because.. well.. 2 marginally different options are hard to beat.

Otherwise I guess I would vote Orks.

Tau, Space Marines, Eldar, Imperial Guard - all those armies have units that are -never- picked in competitive games, orks are almost all equal with a few options being slightly better.

The new 7th ed Ork codex probably has the best internal balance. Compared to the 4th ed one, most of the good stuff was nerfed and the outrageously overcosted stuff got big point reductions. Everything more-or-less does the same things in more-or-less the same ways with more-or-less the same point costs. It's surprisingly bland given what Orks are known for.

There are a few old units that weren't fixed, the lucky stix is an auto-take for a warboss, and lobbas somehow got cheaper (which sort of makes sense given the whole codex feels like it was written for 5th and 5th ed artillery was nothing special)

In general, it's proof that internal balance does not necessarily make for a good codex.

 Gangrel767 wrote:
Eldar

Absolutely - they should have been included in the poll. Obviously they have some serious external balance issues, but taken in a vacuum the codex is the textbook example of good internal balance.

To go against the grain, I think the vanilla SM codex has some of the worst internal balance. I feel like a fool if I'm not taking one of a few gimicky builds (all of which rely on grav weapons or exploiting overpowered character abilities with spam).