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With nids it's more the really good speed, good firepower, and the needing 6's to hit while being an MC on top of it.

Still, with the new trio of dexes out, I think that Tyranids have lost a little bit of relative power. Scat bikes can blow Flyrants out of the sky with guide cast on them, and knights are hard for flyrants to knock off the table.

Even with BA, my record against flyrants is not completely embarrassing. The rest of the army is reasonably powered, and one can win on objectives.

 N.I.B. wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Their main forms of damaging units, Poison and Lance, aren't nearly as effective as they were before.

Ignore Cover becomes more and more prevalent and they don't have good armour saves, like Necrons/SM, or the bodies to not care, like Orks and Tyranids.

Codex: Flyrant have the numbers to not care? lol

Last time I played my Tyranids it was against old Tau with the old Firebase support cadre, extra Riptide and Buffmander, with Fire Warriors and Pathfinders fod troops, few Crisis.
I brought two Flyrant, two Trygons and the Endless Swarm formation. I ended up having enough bodies to weather the storm and was able to win through attrition.

Do I think its the best build? No way. I firmly believe 3-5 Flyrants (depending on mission type) is the best way to play competitive Nids. The Tau Codex might not have changed which is why I valididate this win (it was December 2014) but their Hunter Cadre is something I've not gone up against, and I'm not sure how army-wise TL, Monster Hunter and Ignore Cover would do against Endless Swarm. Probably, very, very bad. I would have to get a few games in, but I'm unwilling because the meta (particulary mine) has shifted with my mates collecting Gladius and Triple Harvest Decurion, so I essentially have to shoehorn myself into lots of Flyrants which is boring.

Their crappy warlord table is just one of a thousand little flaws that kill the army in a truly competitive setting. saying that's it's free or just a bonus is flawed when the other side also gets bonuses but much better ones. While generalship and dice do matter, playing with one hand behind your back due to it being a bad book is a problem.

 Frozocrone wrote:
There is also this, if you really must read more

Yup. Stelek is.... incredibly rude (like a lo of people on Dakka, really) and incredibly negative (also...) and unlike those i dislike here, the difference is, he is IMMEDIATELY hostile and confrontational on any subject.

The reality is, he has only one mode: Spam the best uits in the codex. I used to call him "Triples" because that was the only advice you could get out of him but worse, the only thought he would even accept without blowing a gasket entirely.

I told him Three Exorcists wasn't the way I would play a Sisters of Battle army. Explosion.

I told him how to do nul Deployment. Explosion. He thought I was insane. I would have been fine with the latter part as his opinion literally doesn't matter. but its the attacks that I couldn't stomach.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:

My main point was that BA didn't really have a time in the sun in 5th. They were strong, but no better than the wolves and came out later.

You clearly didn't play the people I did nor pay much attention to the internet then. Because the nerd rage was off the HOOK as regarded the Blood angels and it singlehandedly ushered in 6E in my opinion. They mighta done it anywys but only 6th Edition could save us from that codex. It honestly couldnt matter less in this thread which is why I dont know why we're wasting time on it. I actually didnt bring them up, what's his name did and we are circling the drain talking about it here. Start a new thread if its important enough but I dont think it is.

Some other points regarding the Warlord Table:

1) Two of the bonuses (Rage and Fear) are ones you get through PfP. So, if you roll either of those you have the situation where a Warlord trait is basically making your only special rule redundant. On top of Rage being, you know, crap.

2) There are reasons why you'd want to roll a DE trait - perhaps because of fluff, or because your detachment/formation only grants you a reroll if you roll on the DE table. The former in particular is why I hate this book - because it goes back to making me choose between having a list that's fluffy/interesting or having a list that's good.

3) Two of our SCs are stuck with traits from this damn table. And, naturally, they got the worse ones possible. Lelith gets +1WS, whilst Urien is stuck with Fear. He's not even allowed to have a trait from the Coven book for some stupid reason.

 Jancoran wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:

My main point was that BA didn't really have a time in the sun in 5th. They were strong, but no better than the wolves and came out later.

You clearly didn't play the people I did nor pay much attention to the internet then.

Well, obviously I did not play the same people you did. Mephiston was good but not game breaking (he couldn't, for example, beat a unit of TWC) and the priests quickly added up in points. The strongest parts of the BA codex were the super fast tanks among a few other things.

As far as the internet is concerned, most people complained about the following in 5th;
Transports and how immune they were to life.
Only marines from SM are salamanders, for obvious reasons.
How SW were basically marines +1 in everyway that mattered and were way too strong (one of the few units with splitfire and wound allocation BS made their units really strong)
GK being broken for the last 14 months of the edition before the next edition slowed them down. Daemons especially hated them, as did nids.
So much codex hopping for the chaos space marines dex (to SW mainly, not BA, which should tell you something).
Wound allocation BS and the units that could take advantage of them (I don't believe BA had any of these).

BA were certainly competitive, but not the best army in 5th. They weren't even the best marine army.

 Jancoran wrote:

Because the nerd rage was off the HOOK as regarded the Blood angels and it singlehandedly ushered in 6E in my opinion.

6th edition came out over 2 years after the BA codex dropped. BA had a full year before the GK dex dropped and overshadowed everyone. SW were also out for a while and were, at worse, just as good as BA if not better (you certainly saw more complaining about SW and more chaos players hopping to that dex over BA).
I don't know how you can think 6th edition was designed to reign in blood angels at all.

 Jancoran wrote:

They mighta done it anywys but only 6th Edition could save us from that codex. It honestly couldnt matter less in this thread which is why I dont know why we're wasting time on it. I actually didnt bring them up, what's his name did and we are circling the drain talking about it here. Start a new thread if its important enough but I dont think it is.

I was just pointing out that you were wrong in your timeline. GK had more time in the sun than BA did, assuming BA were overpowered at release (which while good, did not overshadow the SW). The difference in time between BA and GK is less than GK and 6th edition dropping.
That's all. I didn't want any revisionist history going on

@Vipoid,
Are there any armies that get an amazing warlord table? I tend to kinda ignore it, as it's a random bonus that doesn't seem to make a big splash outside of a few random traits that are amazing.
I realize it's just another weak thing, but I've never had the warlord table matter outside of a few special characters that have a good one pre-picked out.

I would say either the Necron or the Tau warlord tables are pretty amazing, or at least have amazing choices. Do not have either in front of me to check.

The marine one is pretty good as well, only the fear one is crappy since fear is possibly the worst universal rule, but atleast the marine forces the opponent to roll on 3d6

oz of the north wrote:
I would say either the Necron or the Tau warlord tables are pretty amazing, or at least have amazing choices. Do not have either in front of me to check.

I second that the Necron Warlord traits are awesome. Not a single bad one in the bunch, if you ask. Not sure about Tau's, though.

Interesting.
Follow up question then;

How important is a strong warlord table to the strength of the army?

Frozocrone wrote:There is also this, if you really must read more

By the Chaos gods! And I thought Dman137 was the king of poor sportsmanship...

While painful to read, that battle report was at least interesting. Dark Eldar really haven't changed a lot in terms of overall playstyle:
Step 1: Alpha Strike
Step 2: Murder what's left
Step 3: Remember the objectives, make a mad dash to claim as many as possible

Problem is, the game had changed a lot since (I assume) 5th edition. Dark Eldar no longer have super-powerful alpha strikes, there are plenty of things that are durable enough to render their shooting impotent, and many armies are just as fast and mobile. Dark Eldar have lost their niche in the game.

Akiasura wrote:Interesting.
Follow up question then;

How important is a strong warlord table to the strength of the army?

Not particularly. The BRB has plenty of alternate tables that are often better. the problem with the Dark Eldar warlord traits are that they're only useful if you want your HQ to get in CC. other than that, you're better of with on of the BRB tables, preferably Strategic.

Well I consider certain Warlord traits worth risking a roll on their respective charts. Like the reroll to champion of chaos for csm, retooling warp storm for chaos daemons, or the inquisition trait that lets a psyker inquisitor produce an additional warp charge every turn

Akiasura wrote:
Interesting.
Follow up question then;

How important is a strong warlord table to the strength of the army?

I'd say if it can stand side by side with Strategic and you would happily roll on it, then it's a solid Warlord Table.

Exactly. I would NEVER complain about rolling on the Necron table, for example. Hell, Nemesor shows how useful each of the tables are based off what you pick each turn.

Akiasura wrote:
How important is a strong warlord table to the strength of the army?

To most armies? Probably not very.

However, when you have HQs like the DE ones - starved of any force-multiplier abilities - then it's yet another nail in the coffin.

It's also annoying for Urien. He's probably the most durable HQ in our book, but if you want to ustilise that durability by making him your Warlord then you're stuck with a useless trait.

I think part of the problem is that Fear is just ignored by too much.

If ATSKNF didn't auto-immune themselves to Fear, I could see it's viability. As it is, only Orks actually care about it, the rest of the factions either are immune, or are shooty armies to begin with.

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Akiasura wrote:

My main point was that BA didn't really have a time in the sun in 5th. They were strong, but no better than the wolves and came out later.

You clearly didn't play the people I did nor pay much attention to the internet then.

Well, obviously I did not play the same people you did. Mephiston was good but not game breaking (he couldn't, for example, beat a unit of TWC) and the priests quickly added up in points. The strongest parts of the BA codex were the super fast tanks among a few other things.

As far as the internet is concerned, most people complained about the following in 5th;
Transports and how immune they were to life.
Only marines from SM are salamanders, for obvious reasons.
How SW were basically marines +1 in everyway that mattered and were way too strong (one of the few units with splitfire and wound allocation BS made their units really strong)
GK being broken for the last 14 months of the edition before the next edition slowed them down. Daemons especially hated them, as did nids.
So much codex hopping for the chaos space marines dex (to SW mainly, not BA, which should tell you something).
Wound allocation BS and the units that could take advantage of them (I don't believe BA had any of these).

BA were certainly competitive, but not the best army in 5th. They weren't even the best marine army.

 Jancoran wrote:

Because the nerd rage was off the HOOK as regarded the Blood angels and it singlehandedly ushered in 6E in my opinion.

6th edition came out over 2 years after the BA codex dropped. BA had a full year before the GK dex dropped and overshadowed everyone. SW were also out for a while and were, at worse, just as good as BA if not better (you certainly saw more complaining about SW and more chaos players hopping to that dex over BA).
I don't know how you can think 6th edition was designed to reign in blood angels at all.

 Jancoran wrote:

They mighta done it anywys but only 6th Edition could save us from that codex. It honestly couldnt matter less in this thread which is why I dont know why we're wasting time on it. I actually didnt bring them up, what's his name did and we are circling the drain talking about it here. Start a new thread if its important enough but I dont think it is.

I was just pointing out that you were wrong in your timeline. GK had more time in the sun than BA did, assuming BA were overpowered at release (which while good, did not overshadow the SW). The difference in time between BA and GK is less than GK and 6th edition dropping.
That's all. I didn't want any revisionist history going on

@Vipoid,
Are there any armies that get an amazing warlord table? I tend to kinda ignore it, as it's a random bonus that doesn't seem to make a big splash outside of a few random traits that are amazing.
I realize it's just another weak thing, but I've never had the warlord table matter outside of a few special characters that have a good one pre-picked out.

Yeah we just dont agree. NEVEr did Space wolves get the hate mail this did and GK got some hatemail but they weren't around as long in 5E so its just not really the same at all. Blood anfgels were amazeballs abnd theres a reason Matt Ward was hated as soon as it hit.

Again, fairly unimportant since this isnt about Blood Angels.

It's actually important in illustrating how different perceptions can be. It's the exact same problem people are having with your analyses of CSM and DE. I haven't agreed with one of your analyses yet, and the BA thing just continues the trend. In fact, your misanalysis of BA in 5th makes me far less likely to believe anything else you write about lists I'm less familiar with.

 Frozocrone wrote:
I think part of the problem is that Fear is just ignored by too much.

If ATSKNF didn't auto-immune themselves to Fear, I could see it's viability. As it is, only Orks actually care about it, the rest of the factions either are immune, or are shooty armies to begin with.

Fear is actually more useful than the WS increase though! It actually comes up in games. The WS increase rarely does. I suppose it depends on which character you're taking. But thats just it: Warlord Traits just aren't a reason to even play or not play a codex so other than being "cool"...

the Strategic Warlord Traits are the most useful for my style of play, so I rarely bother with other Warlord tables when playing Dark Eldar. Coven is another story but Dark Eldar? I think Strategic table works best for me.

"the Strategic Warlord Traits are the most useful for my style of play"

Well there's one thing we agree on at least.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
I think part of the problem is that Fear is just ignored by too much.

If ATSKNF didn't auto-immune themselves to Fear, I could see it's viability. As it is, only Orks actually care about it, the rest of the factions either are immune, or are shooty armies to begin with.

Fear is actually more useful than the WS increase though! It actually comes up in games. The WS increase rarely does. I suppose it depends on which character you're taking. But thats just it: Warlord Traits just aren't a reason to even play or not play a codex so other than being "cool"...

the Strategic Warlord Traits are the most useful for my style of play, so I rarely bother with other Warlord tables when playing Dark Eldar. Coven is another story but Dark Eldar? I think Strategic table works best for me.

That last paragraph is such a stupid statement.

It doesn't "fit your play style more". It's a matter of good traits vs crap ones.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
I think part of the problem is that Fear is just ignored by too much.

If ATSKNF didn't auto-immune themselves to Fear, I could see it's viability. As it is, only Orks actually care about it, the rest of the factions either are immune, or are shooty armies to begin with.

Fear is actually more useful than the WS increase though! It actually comes up in games. The WS increase rarely does. I suppose it depends on which character you're taking. But thats just it: Warlord Traits just aren't a reason to even play or not play a codex so other than being "cool"...

the Strategic Warlord Traits are the most useful for my style of play, so I rarely bother with other Warlord tables when playing Dark Eldar. Coven is another story but Dark Eldar? I think Strategic table works best for me.

I'd argue against that. Succubus becomes WS9, so she's hit on fives against a predominately WS4 meta, which is a huge deal considering her fragility.
Haemonculus becomes WS6, so is hit on fours from SM Captains/Chapter Masters - also hits on threes against Librarians and Chaplains which is nice.
Archon doesn't do combat well anymore. WS8 isn't notable, except against a Hive Tyrant maybe, who now hits you on fours? But CC Tyrants are rarely a thing these days.

The trouble is that the things WS7+actually make a difference against are things that murder the Archon anyway.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


It doesn't "fit your play style more". It's a matter of good traits vs crap ones.

I'm pretty sure... it actually does...fit my style best.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
The trouble is that the things WS7+actually make a difference against are things that murder the Archon anyway.

I didn't say "never". I think it went without saying that +1 WS was going to have an impact against something. And it also goes to my point: the warlord table isnt as terrible as some made it sound. It's just...there... like all of them pretty much.

Here's something fun to chew on though: The Warlord doesn't have to be an HQ. So in theory this could benefit someone besides the HQ. I don't know how often you will want to do that but its a fun thought.

This is very true, and is usually missed on a lot of players since it usually only comes up in Unbound and killteam. Any character can be the Warlord. Confused a friend before by using that hellbrute formation that makes a squad of 5 of them with one being the character in it. Not amazing, but certainly funny

 Jancoran wrote:
And it also goes to my point: the warlord table isnt as terrible as some made it sound. It's just...there... like all of them pretty much.

True, it's just there. And some Warlords will find pretty much everything good in some way. Others won't. If your Warlord is bad in close combat it probably won't be very happy about getting a CC boost, for example - that's something that benefits a CC monster more.

Not that I dislike the rulebok traits very much - they could all possibly be useful. The fact that some Codex armies just have better Codex warlord traits than others is a bit of a bummer though. The DE ones aren't top of the bunch, even my SoB have better ones considering the army. Sure, Fear isn't that good - but getting Stubborn, Warlord LD for units withing 12'', an extra point on your Inv save or even rerolls to Deny the Witch? That's something.

Adepta Sororitas rock. They definitely benefit from their own chart