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For all the uninspired and/or confusing writing, lame copypastes and useless rules, Orks is a decent codex in terms of balance.

I'm also surprised at how well-rounded and polished Codex: Blood Angels is. I hadn't played against them in ages, had a game against them last week and it was a blast. It's almost as if they had, God forbid, playtested it!.

I would say Imperial Knights regardless of if you are including FW models. Every model has it's own perks and disadvantages, and the only model a person might not include is the magaera. Even that modle isn't too bad. If you houserule in the HH:Conquest Imperial Knight FOC and rules, this changes a little bit and certain knights get obviously better at certain roles, but nothing so bad to say OMG this is OP. I would say SM is a close second. the only reason why the assault units aren't taken is because assault is such a poor option in general.

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

20-strong csm squads with choppy indeps are doing great.
Chosen are doing good as a landraider retinue - especially khornate ones with a hidden fist. And rhino chosen with 5 plazma and prefered enemy are super-useful. Cypher formation makes them fine too. Especially as a support for your 20-strong infiltrating squads.
They require specific stuff like Huron, Cypher or an Escape Hatch, but they do work.
Rhino marines synergise well with drakes and can put some pressure and drive-by shooting.
Mutilators are hilarious to be solo-dropped close to an enemy backlines or vehicles especially if you have all your HS slots taken allready or need 2 units instead of one obli.

Khorne zerks are a mixed bag. I'd go for upgraded khornate marines most of the time but unlike them, zerks ain't afraid to loose their icon guy. I feel this guyz are underperforming and are generally worse than regular khornate marines due to havingno access to meltaguns and being a bit too expensive. But that fealing lasts only until regular marines run away or fail their fear test due to not being fearless
T-Sons are also a mixed bag. They've become semi-okish in 7-th, i think. Fearless, extra warp charge, a force weapon and 4++ is the best thing going for them. ap3 bolters are just a handy addition in my eyes. But the price tag...oh it hurts. Still, won't be bad if you take a min squad in a rhino. People tend to underestimate the guyz badly - i've seen them actually winning games tarpitting MC with 4++ and fearless eventually killing them off with a force weapon. And they're sitting on a point to the last man. It's that they're not point-effecient in a direct offence what makes them bad in the eyes of most players.

Warp talons and possessed are hard to use properly. Possessed are semi-oki as a retinue to a prophet of the voices sorc but only cause they're the only unit that's able to join him. Warp talons might get used in a min squad to respond to enemy bikers or assault marines, for example. But in general, i'd prefer to have another min squad of marines for the points or raptors that can have special weapons, still have fear and assault and krak nades and are just more versatile while warp talons have limited use, albeit they do kill bikers and asm good enough. Though, Talons are fearless which is a huge benefit as is.
Defilers. I just don't like their wana-be-versatility that doesn't work but you pay for every single perk on an av12 slow walker. You always have more focused stuff to field that's gona do their job better. The only occasion i can think of is when you're expecting the enemy to be playing a gunline + backfield drop. In this case you can hope to stay back, shoot your battlecannon and still protect your backfield good enough. Or when you're expecting to face haywire - 4 HP, 5++ and IWND are good in this situation. I'd probably discard them completely (at least due to the fact that C: D defiler-like walkers exist) but some people do like how they perform. Even for the ammount of points this daemon machines cost.
Fabius Bile - almost noone fields him but i've seen the guy used in an infiltration combo to buff marines to s5 base. It's actually a sound tactix in a high-pt game when you can have a bunch of fearless khornates with s6 on the charge and hope to get invisibility off or add in Cypher for shrowded. H&R helps the guyz a lot too. While Fabius can join some other squad and add a semi-fine beatstickness in there and provide fearless.

So far, i'd only tell that i see no real reason to field just one unit.
Lucius. Even Ahriman, being overpriced, has a mass of psyshreiks with BS5 and a warlord trait going for him. And even apostle is fine as a ld10 buff bauble or a hatred-fearless buff for your choppy guyz in low pt games when you can't stick Kharn in there due to marks or something.

 koooaei wrote:

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.

Honestly, the only thing I ever look at and go "naah...." is basic nobs, and I can even still see the argument for them. I LOVE the ork codex. there's nothing in there I wouldn't consider taking.

I play a morkanaut in most of my games. Is it worth the 300 points investment? Kind of debatable. With a burna unit with two meks and a big mek with fixxer uppers inside, it almost never dies from hullpoints (IT HAS FIVE FFS). The only time it ever does is when a group of stern guard drop behind it and throw out a ton of melta shots or something like that or if it gets lucky one-shotted. It throws out tons of dakka and ranged ap2 with its KMK and KMB, and provides another KFF, which is always nice. On the off chance it gets in CC, it's effectively an ironclad. Is it super competitive? Not at all. Is it handicapping yourself by taking it? By no means at all either.

gorkanauts are much the same, but more shots at lower ap, and better by d3 attacks in CC. I prefer the morkanaut, but it's kind of up to preference.

ancraig wrote:

Honestly, the only thing I ever look at and go "naah...." is basic nobs, and I can even still see the argument for them. I LOVE the ork codex. there's nothing in there I wouldn't consider taking.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/622940.page

 koooaei wrote:

ancraig wrote:

Honestly, the only thing I ever look at and go "naah...." is basic nobs, and I can even still see the argument for them. I LOVE the ork codex. there's nothing in there I wouldn't consider taking.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/622940.page

lol, this is like the third time you've pointed it out to me. I'll try them one day, but every time I get ready to field them, I cringe, chicken out, and field mega nobs instead.

ancraig wrote:

lol, this is like the third time you've pointed it out to me. I'll try them one day, but every time I get ready to field them, I cringe, chicken out, and field mega nobs instead.

Hah, yeap. There are also some nice threads about the use of units like vespids started by other guyz. It's alwayz interesting to see how people tend to find good use for stuff that everyone else discards as garbage.

Toburk wrote: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

Yeah, welcome to balance.

DanielBeaver wrote:I think the vanilla SM codex has some of the worst internal balance.

I've been thinking about this more, and I don't think they're the worst, but I'm thinking of them less than before. I think what's confusing is that the SM codex just has SO MUCH STUFF in it. If "balance" in your mind means "eight or ten similar power units", then you can easily get this in the SM codex, but unlike most other codices, it doesn't mean that the codex as a whole is balanced.

Because there are a lot of balanced parts to the SM codex... but then you have things like speeders and rhinos and land raider crusader/redeemers and vanguard vets and a bunch of other stuff in there too. In a way, I think it's sort of like eldar, but moreso. There are two or three balanced codices sort of rolled into one big codex, but the parts aren't necessarily balanced among themselves.

I know for sure it's not Eldar.

The gap between Howling Banshees and Fire Dragons...
All the special characters are not competitive.
The gap between Rangers and Guardians (DA serve a specific role but are overpriced too).
Again, the gap between shining spears and Warp Spiders.
And lastly, the gap between Fire Prism / Falcon and WK.

Combine that to the fact that most optimized armies don't even use their FA slots, sometimes not even their Elite slots, and clearly internal balance is not a strong point of that codex.

I was so tempted to click Sisters, because it's easy to be balanced when you only have 5 units. Clicked orks of course.

 Ailaros wrote:

Toburk wrote: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

Yeah, welcome to balance.

DanielBeaver wrote:I think the vanilla SM codex has some of the worst internal balance.

I've been thinking about this more, and I don't think they're the worst, but I'm thinking of them less than before. I think what's confusing is that the SM codex just has SO MUCH STUFF in it. If "balance" in your mind means "eight or ten similar power units", then you can easily get this in the SM codex, but unlike most other codices, it doesn't mean that the codex as a whole is balanced.

Because there are a lot of balanced parts to the SM codex... but then you have things like speeders and rhinos and land raider crusader/redeemers and vanguard vets and a bunch of other stuff in there too. In a way, I think it's sort of like eldar, but moreso. There are two or three balanced codices sort of rolled into one big codex, but the parts aren't necessarily balanced among themselves.

As has been explained to you multiple times, that's not 'balance.'

Not an option in the poll, but I would say the Legion Crusade list from FW probably has the best internal balance. There are no real duds, and no real superstars, either. Just about everything is viable depending on how you want to play your army and which Legion you go with.

As a CSM player, I still have to say the CSM codex. The only things that are truly overcosted are the warp talons and mutilators. However, even they have their place, and their high cost represents the high cost of the daemon special rule, deep striking, and the current meta of ridiculous things like serpent spam. If you can ever get warp talons to their targets, they can bring the pain. Mutilators are actually pretty tough for their low point cost, and one or two of them deep striking behind the enemy definitely works on a psychological level. The main problem you see on this forum is that people like to min and max really hard, but CSM units are actually really versatile. This leads to people thinking that things like dreadnoughts are useless, when they're actually a decent choice if you need some versatility, Where CSM are falling short is that we don't really have any overpowered units, so we suffer more from metagame breaking units in other codexes, but that's an external problem.

Mark of Nurgle is pretty overpowered, so are Nurgle Spawn, Nurgle Bikers, Axe of Blind Fury, Black Mace, IA13 stuff etc.

I don't see MoN as a must take. All of the marks are wonderful and bring something different with them. I think Nurgle gets taken a lot as the extra toughness makes the game a little more forgiving. MoK is not taken too often as assault looks bad on paper, but on the actual tabletop, it's pretty awesome. Same for slaanesh. Tzeentch's invulnerable save is not too hot unless you're giving it to something that already has an invulnerable save, though, and the icon giving only soul blaze is rather meh. It is what I run on my Havocs, however.

Also, marks and icons are not all costed the same, with more powerful ones being more expensive.

SGTPozy wrote:
Mark of Nurgle is pretty overpowered, so are Nurgle Spawn, Nurgle Bikers, Axe of Blind Fury, Black Mace, IA13 stuff etc.

Saying MoN is OP, which is hogwash I say, then listing off units with MoN is redundent. Demon weapons are strong but have high costs and Black Mace can kill you as well as the enemy. IA 13 is not Codex: Chaos Space Marines and is therefore irrelevant in this discussion. MoN is good, but does not make anything OP. If it was OP than putting it on anything would transfer said OPness to said unit, and sadly, that is not the case. Would I say our codex is perfectly balanced? No. Would I say it is one of the more balanced ones? Yes. The Most internally balanced? Probabaly not, as I voted Imperial Knights. Only two units that both function as well as the other? Sound good, if not fun.

The most balanced codex is obviously Inquisition.
I have yet to find a single unit that I wouldn't take, and that wouldn't supplement some other army quite well.

Yeah, I don't get the MoN thing either. Certainly +1T is easier to use than any of the other marks, but that's about it. It doesn't even make the model more survivable compared to other mark+icons depending on the weapon. MoN is better against lasguns and bolters, but MoS with FNP is better against scatter lasers and autocannons, while MoT is better against plasma weapons and up.

They're only one of three durability options.

The only exception to this is PMs who get both MoN and FNP at the same time, but they make up for this by being no better at shooting and worse in CC against everything but MCs.

When you remember that a khorne berzerker is over 7 times as good on the charge as a regular marine is off it, and noise marines ignore cover saves with salvo (and anti-tank) weapons, and 1ksons don't need cover saves and can set people on fire with Ap3 bolters, the fact that the only thing you get from PMs is durability seems way more crummy than a lot of people let on.

I voted for Tau because there are no options in the codex that are absolutely horrendous next to others. The worst option is the Vespid, but they provide a decent AP3 solution to the codex.

I say this because if you were to randomize an army list using anything in the codex I would think, "I can make this work just fine".

Where with my other army, Imperial Guard, there are units so terrible they should just be removed as nobody would play them outside of the most casual settings. Rough Riders? They are so laughably bad. Plus in the IG codex the different slots are so horribly balanced, where in the Tau codex each slot has multiple good options.

Seriously, the elite section in IG is a joke where the heavy slot of packed with absolute must-haves. Give us a new FoC chart to play with!

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, I don't get the MoN thing either. Certainly +1T is easier to use than any of the other marks, but that's about it. It doesn't even make the model more survivable compared to other mark+icons depending on the weapon. MoN is better against lasguns and bolters, but MoS with FNP is better against scatter lasers and autocannons, while MoT is better against plasma weapons and up.

I run MoS and while FnP is pretty good, it stops working against certain weapons. Granted, this is AFTER MoN becomes worthless, and Str 6/7 is quite common, but it's very expensive and the Icon bearer can get sniped out of the squad. No sniping the MoN.
But most CSM lists run min cultsits or plague marines. I use noise marines myself, and their firepower is impressive, but I wouldn't call them tough.
MoN is given to units that are already T5 or have a 2+ save.

MoT is terrible. It's only better against plasma weapons if there is no cover at all available, or the unit already has a invul save. I have never seen anyone take it unless running an extremely fluffy list for 1ksons.

 Ailaros wrote:

They're only one of three durability options.

The only exception to this is PMs who get both MoN and FNP at the same time, but they make up for this by being no better at shooting and worse in CC against everything but MCs.

This is not true. Poison allows knives help against everything, they either wound on a 4+ with a re-roll or wound on a 4+. Either way, it's a lot better.
Being able to take min sized squads with 2 plasma guns makes them better at shooting too. There is a reason they are widely seen as the best troop choice.

 Ailaros wrote:

When you remember that a khorne berzerker is over 7 times as good on the charge as a regular marine is off it, and noise marines ignore cover saves with salvo (and anti-tank) weapons, and 1ksons don't need cover saves and can set people on fire with Ap3 bolters, the fact that the only thing you get from PMs is durability seems way more crummy than a lot of people let on.

Well, when you use adjectives instead of facts to make things seem better then they are, sure, plague marines seem terrible.
Khorne Berzerker being 7 times as good as a regular marine you'll have to walk me through. They don't get 7 times the attacks, or even 3 times the attacks with better wounding, so I doubt this is true, but I never run them so who knows?
EDIT: I missed the words "the charge". Yes, this is about 7 times as good. Only about 3 times as good if the marine charges, and only slightly better if it's a wolf. However, only a someone who doesn't know what the word "berzerker" refers to allows them to charge, unless you take a landraider. Either way, they aren't worth it.

Noise marines are awesome, but expensive. I run them and take 3 squads and just blastmaster all day. It's nice having a good Str8 ap 3 blast weapon, but any 2+ save (riptide) and I can't hurt them at all. Easily the second best cult unit, and the only one worth considering outside of PM.

1ksons don't need cover, but they don't benefit from cover either. Setting people on fire is crap, it does nothing. They get the worst psykers in the game, are terrible in cc, and can not overwatch. They are also really overpriced for what they do. Honestly, they should be far and away the cheapest cult unit for what you get currently.

PM are the best melee fighters, the toughest, and have the 2nd best shooting out of all the cult units.

RaptorHunter wrote:I say this because if you were to randomize an army list using anything in the codex I would think, "I can make this work just fine".

Really...

Darkstrider
Aun'shi

Firewarriors (10) - pulse carbines, Devilfish
Kroot (10) - krootox, shaper w/ pulse carbine
Kroot (10) - krootox, shaper

Sunshark - decoy launchers, disruption pod
Razorshark - decoy launchers, disruption pod
Razorshark - decoy launchers, disruption pod

Skyray - point defense, disruption pod
Skyray - point defense, disruption pod

... enjoy your 1500 point game.

When considering internal balance would we only look at fewest must have and fewest duds, or would how units interact with eachother matter.

kroot are okay, and you see them run. Kroot however become better in an only tau world because they are really good at dealing with riptides.

Stealth suits are not great, but are horrible once marker lights remove their cover.

space wolves are also high on the list offering a solid well rounded codex at the cost of being cc centric. having a focus like that though is fine because in their book they have the tools to make it work.

 Ailaros wrote:

This is not true. Poison allows knives help against everything, they either wound on a 4+ with a re-roll or wound on a 4+. Either way, it's a lot better.
Being able to take min sized squads with 2 plasma guns makes them better at shooting too. There is a reason they are widely seen as the best troop choice.

 Ailaros wrote:

When you remember that a khorne berzerker is over 7 times as good on the charge as a regular marine is off it, and noise marines ignore cover saves with salvo (and anti-tank) weapons, and 1ksons don't need cover saves and can set people on fire with Ap3 bolters, the fact that the only thing you get from PMs is durability seems way more crummy than a lot of people let on.

PM are the best melee fighters, the toughest, and have the 2nd best shooting out of all the cult units.

Yeah well the problem is that due to how they changed the poison rule in 7th ed, you no longer get rerolls in melee against them: so now you they basically murder you in melee (there's more of them and they hit first)