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.

I know that the general consensus is that Eldar are the top army, maybe Necrons or one or two Tau builds but...

They are, certainly in the case of Tau and Necrons, reliant on their own codex. Eldar can ally with DE and Harlequins and also Corsairs. But these three armies have to play with what they are given - powerful though they may be, they play with what they have and that's it. However, in the era of allies, space marines smash these guys. Space marines are all battle brothers and can pick and choose from a massive range of units and options to fill any gap. Admittedly, a lot of thought has to go into some builds to get the right synergy but space marines have so many options purely because they can all ally with each other and fill any role required.

Eldar are much more point and click but they stand alone by en large, Necrons and Tau certainly do. Space marines on the other hand have a bottomless pot of units and formations that work with each other and are far less predictable.

PS. This is not a troll post. It's my genuine contention and for the record, i play corsairs without spamming any unit. Except for 4 troop choices on foot.

Options are pointless if they're bad.

I agree with Walrus. It doesn't matter if you get a choice of different makes of knives when your opponent has a shotgun.

Oh, come on! That's all you've got? If Eldar don't get a new codex any time soon they will become stale and people will work out how to beat them - space marines have so much variety that there's always a way to build an army to meet any foe even if they get a new codex and none of the space marines do!

Plus the fact that some flavour of marine will get a new codex on a regular basis, they always have new toys to play with!

And haven't most tournaments seen something other than eldar win?

Space Marines are definitely Top Tier, for all their nifty stuff and bonuses. However, Tau with their new buffs, Necrons, and Eldar are all up their with them.

In the end, most of these top tier armies break down to a few good lists, case in point. Eldar usually have some form of Scatterlasers, jetbikes, and a WK if allowed. Tau are now going with some formation and Stormsurge if allowed. Necrons usually almost always do the Decurion. Space Marines run some sort of bikes, usually the Librarian formation on bikes, then a Ravenwing or White Scars formation, then flavor with Centurions/Drop Pods/other good units to taste.

 ColdSadHungry wrote:
Oh, come on! That's all you've got? If Eldar don't get a new codex any time soon they will become stale and people will work out how to beat them - space marines have so much variety that there's always a way to build an army to meet any foe even if they get a new codex and none of the space marines do!

Plus the fact that some flavour of marine will get a new codex on a regular basis, they always have new toys to play with!

And haven't most tournaments seen something other than eldar win?

Most marine units are average to below average. Also, marine variety means nothing if you face blind opponents. Which you should in order to test your list building skills. For example, marine tanks are basically junk. That's a lot of units that are bad right there.

The main difference between marines and eldar is that much of the marine factions power is derived either from extensive use of allies to make chapter superfriends or formations such as the gladious to get free transports and bonuses. Eldar don't need any of that especially in a non ITC environment that made several indirect changes that tone them down. Scatter bikes, WK and Farseers are powerful enough that you don't need more than a CAD and not much in the way of tactics if true be told either.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The main difference between marines and eldar is that much of the marine factions power is derived either from extensive use of allies to make chapter superfriends or formations such as the gladious to get free transports and bonuses. Eldar don't need any of that especially in a non ITC environment that made several indirect changes that tone them down. Scatter bikes, WK and Farseers are powerful enough that you don't need more than a CAD and not much in the way of tactics if true be told either.

That's exactly what I mean though! Eldar are obviously very strong but it all comes from their own codex. Space marines can draw from all of the space marine books which means they have more options, more opportunity to cover weakness, greater combinations of units and will stand the test of time better.

If a new, non marine codex comes out - nids or whoever - and that codex is able to nullify eldar bike spam, the eldar can't as easily fall back on another top notch build. Marines could however. Or if the meta really shifted due to a new codex, marines are likely to have the tools to adapt.

 ColdSadHungry wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The main difference between marines and eldar is that much of the marine factions power is derived either from extensive use of allies to make chapter superfriends or formations such as the gladious to get free transports and bonuses. Eldar don't need any of that especially in a non ITC environment that made several indirect changes that tone them down. Scatter bikes, WK and Farseers are powerful enough that you don't need more than a CAD and not much in the way of tactics if true be told either.

That's exactly what I mean though! Eldar are obviously very strong but it all comes from their own codex. Space marines can draw from all of the space marine books which means they have more options, more opportunity to cover weakness, greater combinations of units and will stand the test of time better.

If a new, non marine codex comes out - nids or whoever - and that codex is able to nullify eldar bike spam, the eldar can't as easily fall back on another top notch build. Marines could however. Or if the meta really shifted due to a new codex, marines are likely to have the tools to adapt.

What about something that nullifies the marine ones? Drop pods, grav, bikes, these are the main complaints with marines. What if something stripped them of that? Beyond that, Marines aren't *that* hideous.

And if something is capable of nullifying Eldar scatterbikes and Wraithknights, that thing would nullify every other army as well.

Anything that can beat back scat bikes and wraith knights would likely be so powerful that i doubt anything could fight it in any codex. That said, eldar have a lot more options than just that. The above list is just the most powerful, but every single unit in Eldar sans shinning spears are atleast average if not above. Fire dragrons melt vehicles, guardians and dire avengers are deceptively fast and hard hitting due to special rules. The wave Serpent is one of the best transports in the game, and all their other tanks are strong due to being skimmers that can jink and run around quickly to cap maelstorm points.

Marines are very reliant on formation gimmicks and allies. Sure we have lots of options but as it was said before it doesn't matter if many of those options are not very good.

Lets see for that you'd need a high volume strength 8+ or Fleshbane ap3 ignores cover weapon with 36" or better range on a cheaper than 27pt, 12" movement phase relentless durable model, probably Obsec.

Unless the model specified that it only worked against wraithknights or windriders it'd invalidate everything in the game.

Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

...And Gravcents, and Librarius Conclave, and free transports out the wazoo, and solid MSU, and Chapter Tactics, and multiple supplements, and IoM Superfriends, etc...

Marines have plenty going for them, despite how many Loyalist players enjoy crying poor.
Sure on their very own they're not Smeldar levels of obnoxious, but they're able to compete and make life completely miserable for at least half the other armies in the game.

Not to mention that Loyalists have stolen so much of the cool toys that used to belong exclusively to Chaos Marines...

I don't think anyone is saying marines are weak. Quite the opposite in fact, they are a top army, but I don't think they are the top, and only achieve such power via very specific formations and allies. Taken in a single CAD with no other bonuses they are not that bad.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

...And Gravcents, and Librarius Conclave, and free transports out the wazoo, and solid MSU, and Chapter Tactics, and multiple supplements, and IoM Superfriends, etc...

Marines have plenty going for them, despite how many Loyalist players enjoy crying poor.
Sure on their very own they're not Smeldar levels of obnoxious, but they're able to compete and make life completely miserable for at least half the other armies in the game.

Not to mention that Loyalists have stolen so much of the cool toys that used to belong exclusively to Chaos Marines...

That is all well and good until you factor in Eldar being Eldar, Necrons refusing to die to anything including Str D, and Tau wrecking everything you listed besides the Librarius Conclave with relative ease. Marines are good. There is no doubt about that, but they are not too tier outside pretty much one specific build.

And you won't ever see me arguing that CSM don't need a boost. A big boost.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

...And Gravcents, and Librarius Conclave, and free transports out the wazoo, and solid MSU, and Chapter Tactics, and multiple supplements, and IoM Superfriends, etc...

Marines have plenty going for them, despite how many Loyalist players enjoy crying poor.
Sure on their very own they're not Smeldar levels of obnoxious, but they're able to compete and make life completely miserable for at least half the other armies in the game.

Not to mention that Loyalists have stolen so much of the cool toys that used to belong exclusively to Chaos Marines...

That is all well and good until you factor in Eldar being Eldar, Necrons refusing to die to anything including Str D, and Tau wrecking everything you listed besides the Librarius Conclave with relative ease. Marines are good. There is no doubt about that, but they are not too tier outside pretty much one specific build.

And you won't ever see me arguing that CSM don't need a boost. A big boost.

I think you're confusing vanilla Marines with Blood Angels.

Codex: Spess Muhreens has a lot of viable builds, evne in a tournament capacity, and is one of the strongest armies out there. Put it this way: if allies, Eldar, and Tau didn't exist, sace Marines would be on top.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Not to mention that Loyalists have stolen so much of the cool toys that used to belong exclusively to Chaos Marines...

Vanilla Marines stole from Chaos Marines and from each other. I still remember when Dark Angels use to be the gimmick army because they were the only ones able to field an all-bike army or all-terminator army. Now every marine and his grand-primarch can do it (that is, unless you're Chaos). Even the bloody blood angels can do it, and Murderfang is Moriar the Chosen in all but name.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

...And Gravcents, and Librarius Conclave, and free transports out the wazoo, and solid MSU, and Chapter Tactics, and multiple supplements, and IoM Superfriends, etc...

Marines have plenty going for them, despite how many Loyalist players enjoy crying poor.
Sure on their very own they're not Smeldar levels of obnoxious, but they're able to compete and make life completely miserable for at least half the other armies in the game.

Not to mention that Loyalists have stolen so much of the cool toys that used to belong exclusively to Chaos Marines...

Chapter tactics are mostly crap. They don't have solid MSU without formation gimmicks. There is no codex IoM. Eldar have access to all the IoM stuff as well. If what you said were true, BA wouldn't be total garbage.

The elephant in the room is that marine weapons, and most Imperial weapons other than grav, suck compared to Xeno equivalents. Marines don't have scatterlasers, so they literally can't compete without special snowflake gimmicks. BA don't have access to those gimmicks, and so BA are the true measure of what meqs are capable of. Which is basically nothing. Just like CSM.

New to marines, so take this with a pinch of salt, but I've found them up to the task of the games I've played so far, where when I have lost, it was down to how I played rather then the army itself. I think a decently researched marine army can hold its own and have a chance against most things, which is a nice place for a codex to be in. When I play my Tau, it feels more rock, paper, scissors.

Nice variety of builds and different ways to play the army, which is really cool.

The only negative so far I've found is, I've quickly moved away from most non Grav/melta weapons. My list at this point, can basically be summed up weapon variety wise as Grav of some form (cannons, guns, combi), melta (multi-melta, meltaguns) and bolters.

Those weapons pretty much cover your bases better then the alternatives imo. Still I still green, so could be wrong on that point.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

Exalted. Space Marines might have many tools, but Eldar is ahead by so far, that its near impossible to catch them. Other than rangers and Guardians, any Eldar unit is far more powerful than anything SM can conjure. Any new codex power creep will easily eclipse SM, but its near-impossible to overshadow even the lowest end of the eldar range.

The Space Marine power level, with the internal balance of Eldar is what we need. There is only 1 bad unit in the entire eldar codex.

Unfortunately, with Robin "Bona Fide" Cruddace writing the nid codex, we'll be seeing wings nerfed to JJs, and sharp point increases everywhere.

With the Eldar codex, to win, you only need one codex. With the Space marine codex you need various different books. If Eldar can rock it from just one book, I would say that they are in great shape. My BA codex against the Eldar codex .... I could take over 3,000 points to the Eldar 2,000 points and still get Rick Rolled.

No, Space Marines are not the top tier army by miles.

Dont worry Eldar are still OP and only reliant on one source to be good.

Marines don"t really need allies. It's nice that they can get some, but it's not a necessity. Gladius is ridiculously powerful when built right - moreso than Eldar, in my view. Gravbike spam CAD is still very good too.

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
Marines don"t really need allies. It's nice that they can get some, but it's not a necessity. Gladius is ridiculously powerful when built right - moreso than Eldar, in my view. Gravbike spam CAD is still very good too.

lolwut? Gladius nets you a bunch of AV11 transports. That. Is. It. No Wraithknights. No Scatterbikes. No Str D. A bunch of easily blown up tanks.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
Marines don"t really need allies. It's nice that they can get some, but it's not a necessity. Gladius is ridiculously powerful when built right - moreso than Eldar, in my view. Gravbike spam CAD is still very good too.

lolwut? Gladius nets you a bunch of AV11 transports. That. Is. It. No Wraithknights. No Scatterbikes. No Str D. A bunch of easily blown up tanks.

A bunch of FREE easily blown up tanks... and ObSec coming out your ass... and tons of reroll to it. Seriously, Eldar just don't seem so scary when you have a well-built Gladius at your command. The only thing I still find annoying is there ability to manoeuvre so fast.

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
Marines don"t really need allies. It's nice that they can get some, but it's not a necessity. Gladius is ridiculously powerful when built right - moreso than Eldar, in my view. Gravbike spam CAD is still very good too.

I've almost beat Gladius with my BA. I've never gotten close against Eldar. Gladius can't table me turn 3. I at least get a chance to play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
Marines don"t really need allies. It's nice that they can get some, but it's not a necessity. Gladius is ridiculously powerful when built right - moreso than Eldar, in my view. Gravbike spam CAD is still very good too.

lolwut? Gladius nets you a bunch of AV11 transports. That. Is. It. No Wraithknights. No Scatterbikes. No Str D. A bunch of easily blown up tanks.

A bunch of FREE easily blown up tanks... and ObSec coming out your ass... and tons of reroll to it. Seriously, Eldar just don't seem so scary when you have a well-built Gladius at your command. The only thing I still find annoying is there ability to manoeuvre so fast.

You're not playing the right Eldar opponents, then. Scatterlasers trim down the Gladius quickly.

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
With the Eldar codex, to win, you only need one codex. With the Space marine codex you need various different books. If Eldar can rock it from just one book, I would say that they are in great shape. My BA codex against the Eldar codex .... I could take over 3,000 points to the Eldar 2,000 points and still get Rick Rolled.

No, Space Marines are not the top tier army by miles.

Definitely. A single WraithKnight would have probably wiped out 1000 of those BA points by itself. Thankfully, my Blood Angels mainly play against Chaos Space Marines, so in that respect I have a fighting chance whenever I field them.

There is no chance that codex Space Marines is more powerful than the current Eldar book. Eldar have an abundance of different saves, re-rollable psyker powers, elite units that carry D strength guns (Wraithguard) and the dreaded WraithKnight. With the WraithKnight I don't necessarily think it is all down to it's power level, a titan is super killy, but at the same time is point costed appropriately. I cannot fathom why a WraithKnight is the fraction of the cost of an Imperial Knight, that just makes no sense.

The biggest problem is firepower. If the rules lent itself more to close combat, then I think marines and the like would stand a significantly better chance against the likes of Eldar and Tau. Since 7th edition caters more towards shooting, then all the guns and rules are in the favour of those armies with the better guns and equipment. Fluffwise I guess it makes sense, since Eldar are the more advanced race technologically.

Grav aside, can anyone say that Space Marine vehicles and guns are stronger/better than Eldar ones?

Even grav suffers against Orks and Daemons. Eldar don't have any problems with those lists.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Ah...the weekly "Eldar aren't that bad, it's THIS army that is the most broken!". Marines are a one trick pony. Grav Cannons in Drop Pods and Grav Bikes are all they've got that is menacing.

...And Gravcents, and Librarius Conclave, and free transports out the wazoo, and solid MSU, and Chapter Tactics, and multiple supplements, and IoM Superfriends, etc...

If you're having trouble with vehicles that aren't Drop Pods in this edition, that's your problem not the Marine player's.

Martel732 wrote:
Even grav suffers against Orks and Daemons. Eldar don't have any problems with those lists.

Exactly. I cannot see Eldar struggling against any other army in the game, they have weapons and rules to deal with pretty much most threats.