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Wave serpents are fine because howling banshees.

greyknight12 wrote:Your data is usually considered a little more trustworthy if you link the source (http://www.torrentoffire.com/6499/the-meta-meets-2015), rather than just throwing a graph up there. The graph itself is an incomplete picture because:

1) Even the people reporting the data say so. "This will give us a quick snapshot of the current state, but it will be a few months before we can start showing trends again with any significance. As for the current snapshot, it looks a bit like this:"
2) It doesn't include effects of allies, which later on in the article becomes very relevant in the case of Imperial Knights.
3) As other posters have pointed out, it doesn't filter out the results of an army playing itself.
4) The win % isn't weighted by which wins those were...was it over a noob in the first round or the win that won the GT? We don't know. I went to an RTT with a friend once, and both of us won all our games. However, he won the tourney and I was just under the top 25%.

Finally 40K metrics are always going to be difficult to calculate simply because of the combination of army, list, and player skill. Player quality doesn't affect whether or not an army is "OP", that's an objective (if there is such a thing in this game with the stereotypes we have) assessment of the overall potential of an army and it's units. "Cheesy" is a very subjective term that gets thrown around a lot and means absolutely nothing.

SGTPozy wrote:http://www.torrentoffire.com/6499/the-meta-meets-2015

Here's the link to the article.

If you bothered to read the entire thread you would have noticed that I did actually provide a link to the source... So nice try.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RunicFIN wrote:
It looks like you linked the results of a singular tournament or the beginning of 2015, not the statistics for whole of 7th edition, which tell a very different story.

Nice try though.

Up-to-date stats mean that newly updated armies are more likely to be represented whilst with generic 7th stats they will not be represented.

I think the issue with the graph here is the sample size. The armies closer to 50% also happen to have a massive amount of games to draw from so the win rate normalizes around 50% with an even-ish win/record. While the armies on each end of the graph have a very low sample size which skews the percentage more.

Basically the sample size is too low on most of the armies to accurately claim how viable they are. If for example I only had 1 game with Dark Angels for a sample size it was 1 win then I'd have a 100% win record which is not accurate to how competitive they are. This is the issue the data for the a lot of the armies have. The armies with massive sample size (Tau, Eldar, Nids) have a large enough data pool to account for that inaccuracy but because they are so popular also have a lot of matches amongst themselves so come with a win and a loss for the data make they win ratio zero-sum which is they normalize around 50%.

 greyknight12 wrote:

4) The win % isn't weighted by which wins those were...was it over a noob in the first round or the win that won the GT? We don't know. I went to an RTT with a friend once, and both of us won all our games. However, he won the tourney and I was just under the top 25%.

Finally 40K metrics are always going to be difficult to calculate simply because of the combination of army, list, and player skill. Player quality doesn't affect whether or not an army is "OP", that's an objective (if there is such a thing in this game with the stereotypes we have) assessment of the overall potential of an army and it's units. "Cheesy" is a very subjective term that gets thrown around a lot and means absolutely nothing.

So how would you qualify this fact:

In Starcraft II, mines used to be a low skill very powerful tool that would severely affect the balance of games from copper to diamond and only end up balanced in Masters / GrandMasters league.

In 40K, which at most has leagues up to maybe gold because nobody plays it and nobody has several thousand games in the same revision of the game and isn't that competitive, most things will totally depend on player skill.

An army cannot be objectively OP, what happens is that specific builds from specific sources handled in a specific way come out on top.
You have many people still whining about the old SeerStar and BeastStar, or WS Spam who truly believe those things are so easy to handle anyone could do it.
And the fact of the matter is that most 40K players cannot handle any of these builds well enough to make them truly strong.

There is no objective assessment of the overall potential of an army and its units, because power level is a matter of context: what is out there, what's the current shift in the meta, what unexpected list could break your combo, how likely is it that you will have to face your nemesis, what's the latest discovery and so on.

I play aspects of 40K that I've seen some of the best US players ignore completely and that tells me there are a lot of undiscovered things out there and always room for a new meta-breaking build which will completely change your vision of what's overpowered - if you're watching.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RunicFIN wrote:
It looks like you linked the results of a singular tournament or the beginning of 2015, not the statistics for whole of 7th edition, which tell a very different story.

Nice try though.

This has been pointed out several times already, and the statistics for the whole of 7th edition start like this:

IK: 62%
Eldar: 56%
Tau: 54%
Necron: 52%

So basically, the discussion is still on even if Pozy picked the wrong data to start it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CrownAxe wrote:
The armies with massive sample size (Tau, Eldar, Nids) have a large enough data pool to account for that inaccuracy but because they are so popular also have a lot of matches amongst themselves so come with a win and a loss for the data make they win ratio zero-sum which is they normalize around 50%.

That is not correct and here's why.

Let's assume that you have a total population of say 200, with 60 Eldar, 60 Tau and 80 Nids.

Any single Eldar player would be playing 59 Eldar, 60 Tau and 80 Nids.
Any single Tau player would be playing 60 Eldar, 59 Tau and 80 Nids.
And so on.

For an Eldar, that would give you (50% WR * 59 + (vsTau)% WR *60 + (vsNids)% WR*80)/200, or in other words one third 50% and two thirds actual win rates.

When you take real numbers into account, Eldar on Eldar games represent even less (more like a fifth at most) and will thus have little effect on the overall average.

Morgoth that is not accurate because Eldar, Nids, and Tau are not the only armies in the data. Even with their massive presence in the sampling thay are only 45% of the entire batch of data.

The point i was making is that the chance of those armies facing them selves is much high then any of the armies on the ends of pozy's graph.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
So... Eldar "All Ranger" army justifies "Eldar All Wraithknight/Wave Serpent Army" because total army win stats average out.

Why wouldn't it? I can field both. Also, Ulthwe-style Seer/Guardian. Though I prefer Aspect-heavy. Plus generic "balanced" Highlander army. And various unbound things. "Eldar" isn't synonymous with WaveWraith - it's a whole Codex with lots of options.

Yeah, it is synonymous with WaveWraithSpiders because that's what people use in practice.

Martel732 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
So... Eldar "All Ranger" army justifies "Eldar All Wraithknight/Wave Serpent Army" because total army win stats average out.

Why wouldn't it? I can field both. Also, Ulthwe-style Seer/Guardian. Though I prefer Aspect-heavy. Plus generic "balanced" Highlander army. And various unbound things. "Eldar" isn't synonymous with WaveWraith - it's a whole Codex with lots of options.

Yeah, it is synonymous with WaveWraithSpiders because that's what people use in practice.

Yeah, because everybody only uses the best units in their codex and every local meta is just like the overall competitive meta, and the statistics that say that Eldar win 56% of the time are thus perfectly descriptive of your local meta, meaning that anyone whining about Eldar and Playing Tau is whining for a 2% WR difference, and Necrons 4%.

Or maybe not.

Maybe most whiners have a good reason to whine, that they were roflstomped by a much better army list than theirs, because they don't actually play those competitive army lists, and that has nothing to do with a codex in particular.

Are you seriously claiming that the number of WS spam lists is lower then let say those eldar armies made out bad units?

 Grey Templar wrote:
I have to seriously question the validity of the data used in this graph.

Imperial Knights have a 70% win ratio? Daemons, Knights, and Dark Eldar being the top 3?

In my experience, very few people play deamons and de and those that do tend to be some of the best people at the game. right now imperial knights is probably just do to people have no idea how to counter them yet. Or just don't build armies capable of countering them because they are so rare.

As a Dark Angle player

zalak wrote:
As a Dark Angle player

Are you obtuse or acute?

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

zalak wrote:
As a Dark Angle player

Are you obtuse or acute?

They're obviously a straight 90 degree angle! Anything else would be heresy!!

I think you'll find that it has been heavily implied that Dark Angels are not terribly well acquainted with anything straight!

Makumba wrote:
Are you seriously claiming that the number of WS spam lists is lower then let say those eldar armies made out bad units?

If we were to be able to see every Eldar list made and played since the new codex, then I would hazard a guess that is indeed the case; experience and various polls/threads online suggest to me that most players worldwide are closer to the casual than competitive end of the spectrum, and as such are likely to run a wider range of lists. However, at a tournament level, the point being discussed, then you are right in suggesting WS Spam is probably the most common, as it's widely accepted as the most powerful build in the book.

This misses the point, though. It's not whether or not a codex is most often played as it's most powerful, the issue with balance is that the potential for that list to exist is there. If one book can produce a list that stands head and shoulders over the 'best' of most other books, then that book clearly has an issue in its balance, whether that list is played by 1% of the book's players or 100%

 Paradigm wrote:

Makumba wrote:
Are you seriously claiming that the number of WS spam lists is lower then let say those eldar armies made out bad units?

If we were to be able to see every Eldar list made and played since the new codex, then I would hazard a guess that is indeed the case; experience and various polls/threads online suggest to me that most players worldwide are closer to the casual than competitive end of the spectrum, and as such are likely to run a wider range of lists. However, at a tournament level, the point being discussed, then you are right in suggesting WS Spam is probably the most common, as it's widely accepted as the most powerful build in the book.

This misses the point, though. It's not whether or not a codex is most often played as it's most powerful, the issue with balance is that the potential for that list to exist is there. If one book can produce a list that stands head and shoulders over the 'best' of most other books, then that book clearly has an issue in its balance.

Just to add to what you are saying, I think the problem with Eldar, when compared to another strong Codex like Newcrons or Tau, is what units are overpowered.
Tau have the riptide, a non-essential unit. It's just one option in the book, and Tau players don't have to take it. You can argue it's not fluffy as well.
Necrons have wraiths. A non-essential unit, you certainly don't have to take it. There are a lot of strong options in the codex.
Eldar have their dedicated transport. It's extremely fluffy to take it, and they really should include at least one. It's hard to picture an eldar army that doesn't include at least one of these.

The same is true for most of the really strong units in other dexes. They usually aren't the most fluffy option (Heldrake is a good example when it released), and they often aren't the ONLY choice.
For Eldar this is not the case.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think you'll find that it has been heavily implied that Dark Angels are not terribly well acquainted with anything straight!

O'snap

Majsharan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I have to seriously question the validity of the data used in this graph.

Imperial Knights have a 70% win ratio? Daemons, Knights, and Dark Eldar being the top 3?

In my experience, very few people play deamons and de and those that do tend to be some of the best people at the game. right now imperial knights is probably just do to people have no idea how to counter them yet. Or just don't build armies capable of countering them because they are so rare.

Daemons ? there's a ton of FOTM Daemons out there. How many editions ago are you ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

Makumba wrote:
Are you seriously claiming that the number of WS spam lists is lower then let say those eldar armies made out bad units?

If we were to be able to see every Eldar list made and played since the new codex, then I would hazard a guess that is indeed the case; experience and various polls/threads online suggest to me that most players worldwide are closer to the casual than competitive end of the spectrum, and as such are likely to run a wider range of lists. However, at a tournament level, the point being discussed, then you are right in suggesting WS Spam is probably the most common, as it's widely accepted as the most powerful build in the book.

This misses the point, though. It's not whether or not a codex is most often played as it's most powerful, the issue with balance is that the potential for that list to exist is there. If one book can produce a list that stands head and shoulders over the 'best' of most other books, then that book clearly has an issue in its balance.

Just to add to what you are saying, I think the problem with Eldar, when compared to another strong Codex like Newcrons or Tau, is what units are overpowered.
Tau have the riptide, a non-essential unit. It's just one option in the book, and Tau players don't have to take it. You can argue it's not fluffy as well.
Necrons have wraiths. A non-essential unit, you certainly don't have to take it. There are a lot of strong options in the codex.
Eldar have their dedicated transport. It's extremely fluffy to take it, and they really should include at least one. It's hard to picture an eldar army that doesn't include at least one of these.

The same is true for most of the really strong units in other dexes. They usually aren't the most fluffy option (Heldrake is a good example when it released), and they often aren't the ONLY choice.
For Eldar this is not the case.

Except that Riptides are somewhat outdated, I also think WS Spam will always be my build of choice (looks, playstyle and fluff), it was the case in v4, v5 and v7 and I'm rather happy with the current state of affairs, where it's competitive for once but still a fair match up for the other very competitive builds.

Just to put my two cents in, I'd consider myself not a great player, but I've been practicing Eldar for a bit now. It's not impossible to play without Wave Serpents, but at the same time I need to get my boys from A to B, and hoofing it (even with Battle focus) doesn't really cut it. I kinda wish we had another transport to be honest cause I don't want to lose the Wave Serpent fire power, but I also don't want to pay a ton if the Serpent gets a points increase just to hussle guys.

morgoth wrote:

Majsharan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I have to seriously question the validity of the data used in this graph.

Imperial Knights have a 70% win ratio? Daemons, Knights, and Dark Eldar being the top 3?

In my experience, very few people play deamons and de and those that do tend to be some of the best people at the game. right now imperial knights is probably just do to people have no idea how to counter them yet. Or just don't build armies capable of countering them because they are so rare.

Daemons ? there's a ton of FOTM Daemons out there. How many editions ago are you ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

Makumba wrote:
Are you seriously claiming that the number of WS spam lists is lower then let say those eldar armies made out bad units?

If we were to be able to see every Eldar list made and played since the new codex, then I would hazard a guess that is indeed the case; experience and various polls/threads online suggest to me that most players worldwide are closer to the casual than competitive end of the spectrum, and as such are likely to run a wider range of lists. However, at a tournament level, the point being discussed, then you are right in suggesting WS Spam is probably the most common, as it's widely accepted as the most powerful build in the book.

This misses the point, though. It's not whether or not a codex is most often played as it's most powerful, the issue with balance is that the potential for that list to exist is there. If one book can produce a list that stands head and shoulders over the 'best' of most other books, then that book clearly has an issue in its balance.

Just to add to what you are saying, I think the problem with Eldar, when compared to another strong Codex like Newcrons or Tau, is what units are overpowered.
Tau have the riptide, a non-essential unit. It's just one option in the book, and Tau players don't have to take it. You can argue it's not fluffy as well.
Necrons have wraiths. A non-essential unit, you certainly don't have to take it. There are a lot of strong options in the codex.
Eldar have their dedicated transport. It's extremely fluffy to take it, and they really should include at least one. It's hard to picture an eldar army that doesn't include at least one of these.

The same is true for most of the really strong units in other dexes. They usually aren't the most fluffy option (Heldrake is a good example when it released), and they often aren't the ONLY choice.
For Eldar this is not the case.

Except that Riptides are somewhat outdated, I also think WS Spam will always be my build of choice (looks, playstyle and fluff), it was the case in v4, v5 and v7 and I'm rather happy with the current state of affairs, where it's competitive for once but still a fair match up for the other very competitive builds.

In what way are Riptides outdated? Their upgrade is still too cheap, and they are a pretty safe choice for removing infantry of all kinds.
Granted, they suffer against knights and fliers, but knights are not really popular. With the nerf of the heldrakes, most fliers aren't OP unless their FMC's, which tau handle very well compared to most armies.

Deafbeats, when I say it's hard to imagine playing without waveserpents, I mean because the eldar fluff suggests they'd risk a tank over troops anyday. They seem like an army that wants and uses transports, yet theirs is considered to be quite overpowered.
Nothing about necrons suggests they'd use wraiths all day every day, for example.
You'd have a hard time selling a grav-star as the most fluffy of builds for Marines as well.

That's all I meant.

 Deafbeats wrote:
Just to put my two cents in, I'd consider myself not a great player, but I've been practicing Eldar for a bit now. It's not impossible to play without Wave Serpents, but at the same time I need to get my boys from A to B, and hoofing it (even with Battle focus) doesn't really cut it. I kinda wish we had another transport to be honest cause I don't want to lose the Wave Serpent fire power, but I also don't want to pay a ton if the Serpent gets a points increase just to hussle guys.

Just don't take a Scatter Laser, it makes the Wave Serpent perfectly balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:


In what way are Riptides outdated? Their upgrade is still too cheap, and they are a pretty safe choice for removing infantry of all kinds.
Granted, they suffer against knights and fliers, but knights are not really popular. With the nerf of the heldrakes, most fliers aren't OP unless their FMC's, which tau handle very well compared to most armies.

Deafbeats, when I say it's hard to imagine playing without waveserpents, I mean because the eldar fluff suggests they'd risk a tank over troops anyday. They seem like an army that wants and uses transports, yet theirs is considered to be quite overpowered.
Nothing about necrons suggests they'd use wraiths all day every day, for example.
You'd have a hard time selling a grav-star as the most fluffy of builds for Marines as well.

That's all I meant.

Go ask tournament players, they'll all tell you that Riptides are not where Tau is at anymore.

And yeah, Eldar are meant to be Mech in my opinion.

morgoth wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
Just to put my two cents in, I'd consider myself not a great player, but I've been practicing Eldar for a bit now. It's not impossible to play without Wave Serpents, but at the same time I need to get my boys from A to B, and hoofing it (even with Battle focus) doesn't really cut it. I kinda wish we had another transport to be honest cause I don't want to lose the Wave Serpent fire power, but I also don't want to pay a ton if the Serpent gets a points increase just to hussle guys.

Just don't take a Scatter Laser, it makes the Wave Serpent perfectly balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:


In what way are Riptides outdated? Their upgrade is still too cheap, and they are a pretty safe choice for removing infantry of all kinds.
Granted, they suffer against knights and fliers, but knights are not really popular. With the nerf of the heldrakes, most fliers aren't OP unless their FMC's, which tau handle very well compared to most armies.

Deafbeats, when I say it's hard to imagine playing without waveserpents, I mean because the eldar fluff suggests they'd risk a tank over troops anyday. They seem like an army that wants and uses transports, yet theirs is considered to be quite overpowered.
Nothing about necrons suggests they'd use wraiths all day every day, for example.
You'd have a hard time selling a grav-star as the most fluffy of builds for Marines as well.

That's all I meant.

Go ask tournament players, they'll all tell you that Riptides are not where Tau is at anymore.

And yeah, Eldar are meant to be Mech in my opinion.

That's an appeal to authority, which is a fallacy.
The 2 tournament players I know don't play Tau and never have. They play Eldar.
Could you give reasons why Riptides are not good anymore?
Has something changed to make them weaker? I suppose wraiths being T5 means they can not be ID'ed anymore by a Riptide, which is certainly a blow to the strength there, but necrons are extremely new and I doubt that is what you were talking about.

If by tournament player you mean local tournaments, then in 2014 I qualify, and I feel Riptides are where Tau is at. That, and pathfinders are probably the best units they have (please note I don't count HQ as units, even though they are clearly such. This comes from other wargames I play).
But I like suits. Even stealth suits, which I don't feel are very good. I never liked Kroot, even when they were a good choice.

EDIT: Agree that Eldar are meant to be meched. Most of the Eldar players I know don't play their armies anymore.
We used to have a large collection of Eldar players too.

Akiasura wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
Just to put my two cents in, I'd consider myself not a great player, but I've been practicing Eldar for a bit now. It's not impossible to play without Wave Serpents, but at the same time I need to get my boys from A to B, and hoofing it (even with Battle focus) doesn't really cut it. I kinda wish we had another transport to be honest cause I don't want to lose the Wave Serpent fire power, but I also don't want to pay a ton if the Serpent gets a points increase just to hussle guys.

Just don't take a Scatter Laser, it makes the Wave Serpent perfectly balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:


In what way are Riptides outdated? Their upgrade is still too cheap, and they are a pretty safe choice for removing infantry of all kinds.
Granted, they suffer against knights and fliers, but knights are not really popular. With the nerf of the heldrakes, most fliers aren't OP unless their FMC's, which tau handle very well compared to most armies.

Deafbeats, when I say it's hard to imagine playing without waveserpents, I mean because the eldar fluff suggests they'd risk a tank over troops anyday. They seem like an army that wants and uses transports, yet theirs is considered to be quite overpowered.
Nothing about necrons suggests they'd use wraiths all day every day, for example.
You'd have a hard time selling a grav-star as the most fluffy of builds for Marines as well.

That's all I meant.

Go ask tournament players, they'll all tell you that Riptides are not where Tau is at anymore.

And yeah, Eldar are meant to be Mech in my opinion.

That's an appeal to authority, which is a fallacy.
The 2 tournament players I know don't play Tau and never have. They play Eldar.
Could you give reasons why Riptides are not good anymore?
Has something changed to make them weaker? I suppose wraiths being T5 means they can not be ID'ed anymore by a Riptide, which is certainly a blow to the strength there, but necrons are extremely new and I doubt that is what you were talking about.

If by tournament player you mean local tournaments, then in 2014 I qualify, and I feel Riptides are where Tau is at. That, and pathfinders are probably the best units they have (please note I don't count HQ as units, even though they are clearly such. This comes from other wargames I play).
But I like suits. Even stealth suits, which I don't feel are very good. I never liked Kroot, even when they were a good choice.

EDIT: Agree that Eldar are meant to be meched. Most of the Eldar players I know don't play their armies anymore.
We used to have a large collection of Eldar players too.

Well I know many high level tournament players (not just local tournaments) who say that Tau is not about Riptides anymore.

Apparently the hot deal right now is missile sides or Crisis Spam.


I think this is mostly because the meta has adapted to Riptides a while ago already.

They're still very good of course, just not necessarily the best choice for a Tau player looking to spend those points.

It probably has something to do with the GravStar and other hard counters to T6Sv2+ models, which tend to be really hard countered, which is bad when taken in numbers.

615-720 points of your army in just one type of unit that has quite a few hard counters is just too much of a risk .

morgoth wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
Just to put my two cents in, I'd consider myself not a great player, but I've been practicing Eldar for a bit now. It's not impossible to play without Wave Serpents, but at the same time I need to get my boys from A to B, and hoofing it (even with Battle focus) doesn't really cut it. I kinda wish we had another transport to be honest cause I don't want to lose the Wave Serpent fire power, but I also don't want to pay a ton if the Serpent gets a points increase just to hussle guys.

Just don't take a Scatter Laser, it makes the Wave Serpent perfectly balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:


In what way are Riptides outdated? Their upgrade is still too cheap, and they are a pretty safe choice for removing infantry of all kinds.
Granted, they suffer against knights and fliers, but knights are not really popular. With the nerf of the heldrakes, most fliers aren't OP unless their FMC's, which tau handle very well compared to most armies.

Deafbeats, when I say it's hard to imagine playing without waveserpents, I mean because the eldar fluff suggests they'd risk a tank over troops anyday. They seem like an army that wants and uses transports, yet theirs is considered to be quite overpowered.
Nothing about necrons suggests they'd use wraiths all day every day, for example.
You'd have a hard time selling a grav-star as the most fluffy of builds for Marines as well.

That's all I meant.

Go ask tournament players, they'll all tell you that Riptides are not where Tau is at anymore.

And yeah, Eldar are meant to be Mech in my opinion.

That's an appeal to authority, which is a fallacy.
The 2 tournament players I know don't play Tau and never have. They play Eldar.
Could you give reasons why Riptides are not good anymore?
Has something changed to make them weaker? I suppose wraiths being T5 means they can not be ID'ed anymore by a Riptide, which is certainly a blow to the strength there, but necrons are extremely new and I doubt that is what you were talking about.

If by tournament player you mean local tournaments, then in 2014 I qualify, and I feel Riptides are where Tau is at. That, and pathfinders are probably the best units they have (please note I don't count HQ as units, even though they are clearly such. This comes from other wargames I play).
But I like suits. Even stealth suits, which I don't feel are very good. I never liked Kroot, even when they were a good choice.

EDIT: Agree that Eldar are meant to be meched. Most of the Eldar players I know don't play their armies anymore.
We used to have a large collection of Eldar players too.

Well I know many high level tournament players (not just local tournaments) who say that Tau is not about Riptides anymore.

Apparently the hot deal right now is missile sides or Crisis Spam.


I think this is mostly because the meta has adapted to Riptides a while ago already.

They're still very good of course, just not necessarily the best choice for a Tau player looking to spend those points.

It probably has something to do with the GravStar and other hard counters to T6Sv2+ models, which tend to be really hard countered, which is bad when taken in numbers.

615-720 points of your army in just one type of unit that has quite a few hard counters is just too much of a risk .

Thank you for posting reasons. The two players I know have gone to GT's, I never have. The only tournaments I ever traveled for where smash bros, and that was a long long time ago, when I was an undergrad. But this is all appeals to authority, which I am loathe to reach for given my profession.

I am not sure about the meta. To be honest, it doesn't seem like GW has a meta like WMH does, because the tournaments aren't taken as seriously here (compared to 5th edition). I can't tell you the top 8 lists in the last major tournaments, meanwhile I do know the top 8 for the last major warmachine tournament. I didn't look either up, the latter just comes up a lot more on their forums. Usually the winners post on the forums quite frequently and discuss their lists in detail and provide battle reports.

I wouldn't call grav star a hard counter to a riptide. The riptide out ranges it by quite a bit, and can put some wounds on it. The rest of the tau army is also very effective at putting wounds in the grav star (better than any other army in the game, especially with Tiggy included). The riptide also has a nice invul save and FnP, so it is unlikely to get one rounded by the grav star.

Missile sides and crisis suits are great units. Very good for the points, though crisis suits aren't what they used to be last edition. Which is a good thing.

EDIT
Throwing a lot of points in one unit type has always been what competitive 40k is about. Beast stars, FMC spam, Starcannon Spam, Rhino Rush, The Flying Bakery...they all rely on the premise of skewing hard in a way that makes most of the enemy's list unable to deal with it, and just walking over the opponent. What the unit type is changes from edition to edition, but that has always been a staple of the better builds.
Even grav star is basically taking one giant unit, from 2 types, and mashing them together to create an insane unit that doesn't die.

Dont forget that many of the berst generals dont gravitate to the Sisters of Battle for example. That says nothing about the Sisters of Battle and everything about those generals. Same thing with Eldar

So if the best generals began to play Sisters of Battle a lot, you'd see that number rise sharply. My most feared army over time has BEEN my Sisters of Battle, despite the success i have had with Tau. most people know me as a "Tau guy" but ask them which of my armies they DONT want to face when they are paying money to face it and they will say Sisters of Battle.

So I think this chart has two problems: it doesn't tell you about ties, which are affecting this possibly. it also doesn't show who played those armies.

Tony Kopachs lists until he took up Eldar were not necessarily what I'd call world beaters on their own, just plain old reliable. Especially his Space Wolves. But he wins with skill (and a little luck never hurts).

Give him a good Sisters of Battle Army and I am quite confident these numbers would change. That or he's not as good as his record makes him look. =)

Ahh I see what you mean there Akiasura, totally agree.

Also I think i'm gonna try a game without Scatter Lasers too and see how that goes. I do like the weight of fire that the Lasers have so i'll have to try Shuriken Cannons or Star Cannons.

This whole thread raises the question of how much of a 40k win can be attributed to:
- player skill,
- listbuilding skill,
- Codex selection, and
- dice luck.

And if you assume a high level of player skill and/or listbuilding skill, to what extent does Codex selection matter?

My sense is that player skill has dropped dramatically from 40k3/4 down to 40k6/7, while luck and listbuilding has gone up. But I'm not at all convinced that a "pro" with Sisters or Orks regularly loses to a n00b with Knights.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
This whole thread raises the question of how much of a 40k win can be attributed to:
- player skill,
- listbuilding skill,
- Codex selection, and
- dice luck.

And if you assume a high level of player skill and/or listbuilding skill, to what extent does Codex selection matter?

My sense is that player skill has dropped dramatically from 40k3/4 down to 40k6/7, while luck and listbuilding has gone up. But I'm not at all convinced that a "pro" with Sisters or Orks regularly loses to a n00b with Knights.

People can only speak to their own experience where they play and then look to data like this (and it is suspect data since it lacks a lot of qualifiers you'd really want to analyze it). All we see for sure is that people chose to use certain armies more often that happened to win.

Through a preponderance of the evidence we generally accept that there probably IS a pecking order for the codex in terms of HOW easy it is to create a list good enough to compete. Or to put it another way, we recognize that certain codex's require lesss list building acumen. That does not tell us that the players could not compensate with greater list building acumen if they chose. So that little statement right there is important bcause if we have no way to know for sure that ANOTHER build wouldn't work EQUALLY well, then we're really missing a big chunk of the picture.

List building aside the General himself matters and so does his ego. Ask yourself an honest question. If you were generally respected as very good and there was pressure on you to perform, so to speak, to maintain that reputation, would you chance things by taking a less common build that ISN'T known to win? Maybe. But the odds on human behavior say no. That's like asking the rich if they would stop doing accepted best business practices and bartr their companies future on a more creative mode of operating. some do but very few.

So the excellent General progressively grows less and less interested in creativity and more and more into absolute certainty. He simply knows the weapon will perform through analytics JUST LIKE THIS chart. He intuitively knows it WILL work for him and he never has to answer hard questions about his choices if he fails (see the Seahawks for details on why someone might not EVER throw on second and goal with 20 seconds to go evr again). that in't to say they will never score like that. Just that they wont bet on it probably ever again.

So then there are the outlyers. A GREAT example of this was that awesome Deathleaper list that went berzerk and won it all. WHAT a great list for SO many reasons and it was from WAY in left field. Sometimes the road less traveled in the hands of excellent generals is EXACTLY what you need to win. But analytics like this won't ever show you what the best generals could do with the road less travelled because, simply put, they themselves wont put themselves out there like that.

Imperial Knights are extremely brutal in the hands of a competent opponent, and if you go to a lot of tournaments then, yes, they are more of a problem than Wave Serpents or Invisible deathstars. In fact, it's pretty likely that the relative dominance of IK's is artificially suppressing the win rates for Tau and Eldar. That said, IKs don't actually win a lot of tournaments, because they have a few bad matchups. They'll curbstomp most of their opponents, but in that one game where the other guy has a drop pod melta army, they fall apart.

Another bait thread from SGTPozy.

Why do you people continue to encourage him?

even bait threads yield some entertainment value.