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What in your opinion is the single most skill based army in terms of difficulty against power/viability, for example despite the best of your ability CSM and SoB still lack somewhat in power despite how you play, where eldar require less skill to reach high viability, but what armies do you think that in game high skill reaps the largest rewards? Excluding overpowered and underpowered armies.

I'm going to say Dark Eldar (with or without Harlequins) probably requires the most skill to play. And I'm not talking about the kind of dark eldar that is used to transport wraithguard, I'm talking pure Dark Eldar.

A lot of people will say Dark Eldar and Harlequins are underpowered, but if you've ever played a skilled dark eldar player, you know how powerful they can be. The thing is, they are really unforgiving if not played right.

Dark Eldar needs a skilled player. Speed is their armor. This is a very different concept when compared with MEQ armies. Its a class cannon which can hit hard but may suffer badly if the enemy hits back.

Yup, another vote for dark eldar.

I'll put in a vote for Stormtroopers/Scions.

Chaos army using thousand sons

only reason I would say DE aren't #1 (they are definitely top 3 though) is that they have access to so many anti-tank weapons and can spam AP3. The hardest time I have as an Ork Player is killing vehicles. Hell I usually ignore high AV vehicles unless I have to kill them, in which case I field an Boyz squad or a biker squad with the task of armor hunting.

Beyond that I really don't know I would say DE, Orks and maybe Chaos.

Deathwing / thread

Hard to play does not mean weak. Just because an army book is at the bottom of the power curve does not mean it's hard to play -- it just means it needs a new book.

The hardest armies to play are those that are the most unforgiving to mistakes. These are armies that border on the extremes.

For example, a glass cannon army like DE will be hard to play because a mistake in the movement phase will result in the army getting hammered badly.

Another example would be a slow moving footslogging army. If you deploy deathwing badly, you are in trouble because getting into the proper position to score objectives is hard or impossible.

DE with the actual maneuvering of units on the board, positioning, and the likes. I think Guard gets up there too, but even with my personal bias, they're probably not the most skill-based with a couple of potential auto-includes like Pasknisher, Wyverns, and Vendettas.

Harlequins by far. Even above dark eldar. Strong in the right hands with zero margin for error.

Harles, fantastic at what they do and very, very strong, dark eldar right next to them, but since they have far more variety to play with a bit easier.

No experience with Harlequins, so of the armies I do know, I'm gonna say DEldar.

Konrax wrote:Chaos army using thousand sons

Nah. They're not strong, but they're very much a blunt instrument. Shove them across the table and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but they don't have the flexibility to be difficult to play.

Dark Eldar for the above reasons. One wrong inch in the movement phase and it's game over.

Beyond movement, success with Dark Eldar relies on PERFECT targeting priority.
If you remove the wrong threats in the wrong order, you're also screwed.

But if you do it right, sweet sweet tabling...

Harlies , the fact that people complain about them being worthless is an indicator, having played against them in some very capable hands, holy crap they are powerful.

They have no margin for error though.

I was playing Decurion necrons with a lychstar and by the end of the game, although I still had the lychguard and orikan mincing harlies, Imotekh and zhandrek had been sniped out of the unit, My wraiths got neutered before they charged. All by shadowseers.

Basically, the phantasmancy discipline is incredible in the right hands, you can't kill harlies if you can't hit them.

Anything that lacks:

- resiliency
- mobility
- ranged firepower
- predictability

Yoyoyo wrote:
Anything that lacks:

- resiliency
- mobility
- ranged firepower
- predictability

orks have 1 out of 4 of those. mobility.

I vote Dark Eldar, they're underpowered, but they also have a very high skill floor. So a very skilled player can make them go a long way, they still have certain issues, but to unskilled players they'll seem unplayable as a result of the combination of those two factors.

I mean hey, look at the Corpse Thief Claw formation, if played right it can generate victory points that wouldn't exist in a game otherwise. That should say something, because in theory if both players are tied, the player with the CTC formation will win, simply because they have access to more points as a whole in a game.

This might be shocking but it isn't (dark) eldar at all that requires the most skill to play. Playing an army with high speed, high unit count is simple.
Things that require more skill to play with are armies that great speed but are still depending on mobility and thus have to plan multiple turns ahead.
This makes footslogging orks and similar armies are one of the hardest armies to master in the current edition. There is no way that you can get away with making tactical mistakes with slow moving but vulnerable ~200 point units.
Ever seen a combat where the nob could not strike since he was still out of reach or shot a nob due to poor positioning in a blob ? This is the lv of detail an ork player has to cope with while predicting the upcoming turns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sure you can get away with playing these armies poorly in casual games. But this doesn't discount the fact that it requires great skill to use if you want to play a decent game.

I say Eldar, because it takes tons of skill to get games with them.

There has to be specified what "to play" really is.

Is it your starter game:
Where you just push your models forward and expect to make a lot of tactical errors.
-All armies that really don't like to be charged should be noted here as "need skill". All eldar variants, tau and GEQ score high in this category.

Is it a serious casual game. Where sup optimal armies are played at its max.
-All armies that have a have to plan strategies turns in advance and have a hard time pulling them off would require the most skill.
Eldar and dark eldar would fit into the simple to play category.

Or is it a extreme competitive event where armies are maxed out and only a few builds work at this point you should really be talking about builds instead of codexes.
I have no idea what builds are currently hard to control since I am not that interested in these kinds of builds.

Sisters of Battle.

DE here as well, although BA are much like DE with power armor and less jinking.

Im going to be that guy and say that tau are pretty skill based. along with eldar.

you can bring a tau list or an eldar one that you grabbed from the internet and still get wrecked if you don't have any idea what you're doing and expect the army to play itself.

If you fudge your phases with tau and miss nova charges or markerlights then you may have just lost the game. did you forget to jump away from those assault terminators? GG.

Eldar requires you to know what powers to use when and on what and in what order. the individual units themselves are generally pretty paper thin, but if you manage your abilities well then they get pretty beefy.

i agree that dark eldar can be a pretty high skill level to master, and it's definitely not a beginners army(i know it was my first lol).

However, orks and chaos marines do not require the same amount of skill. lets not confuse "taking skill to play" with "underpowered army". orks have one competitive list, green tide, zero skill to move a blob forward and charge, it's super basic gameplay wise. Orks get my vote as being the least skill intensive army.
chaos marines just need a new codex. if you pull out wins with CSM you either are very lucky or your opponent was also CSM.

die toten hosen wrote:
Im going to be that guy and say that tau are pretty skill based. along with eldar.

you can bring a tau list or an eldar one that you grabbed from the internet and still get wrecked if you don't have any idea what you're doing and expect the army to play itself.

If you fudge your phases with tau and miss nova charges or markerlights then you may have just lost the game. did you forget to jump away from those assault terminators? GG.

Eldar requires you to know what powers to use when and on what and in what order. the individual units themselves are generally pretty paper thin, but if you manage your abilities well then they get pretty beefy.

i agree that dark eldar can be a pretty high skill level to master, and it's definitely not a beginners army(i know it was my first lol).

However, orks and chaos marines do not require the same amount of skill. lets not confuse "taking skill to play" with "underpowered army". orks have one competitive list, green tide, zero skill to move a blob forward and charge, it's super basic gameplay wise. Orks get my vote as being the least skill intensive army.
chaos marines just need a new codex. if you pull out wins with CSM you either are very lucky or your opponent was also CSM.

Your definitely that guy then. Eldar/Tau require significantly less kill then most other factions. "If you fudge a nova" im sorry but thats just completely garbage. Tau are literally the most point and click army in the game. Oh what skill to use them. That unit is coming towards me, better fire 40 S8 missiles at it.

And Eldar? seriously? Wraithknight + Scatbikes = win in most games. The only tactics you have to worry about is which models you wish to remove from your opponent first.

As far as Orks are concerned, the Green tide is not a competitive, its a scare tactic at best, the real tactics of orks involve a lot more strategic moves then simply rush up the board. I won't get to much into it because honestly I don't think you comprehend what tactics are.

Hell, with Tau, positioning hardly even matters, because once you get to Broadsides or whatever else they have, you don't even need LOS to shoot at units hidden across the board. Got some infantry camping an objective behind a big, tall building? We're just going to shoot at you anyways, without barrage. The weapon stats go down... a bit, but nowhere on the board is truly safe.

MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:

die toten hosen wrote:
Im going to be that guy and say that tau are pretty skill based. along with eldar.

you can bring a tau list or an eldar one that you grabbed from the internet and still get wrecked if you don't have any idea what you're doing and expect the army to play itself.

If you fudge your phases with tau and miss nova charges or markerlights then you may have just lost the game. did you forget to jump away from those assault terminators? GG.

Eldar requires you to know what powers to use when and on what and in what order. the individual units themselves are generally pretty paper thin, but if you manage your abilities well then they get pretty beefy.

i agree that dark eldar can be a pretty high skill level to master, and it's definitely not a beginners army(i know it was my first lol).

However, orks and chaos marines do not require the same amount of skill. lets not confuse "taking skill to play" with "underpowered army". orks have one competitive list, green tide, zero skill to move a blob forward and charge, it's super basic gameplay wise. Orks get my vote as being the least skill intensive army.
chaos marines just need a new codex. if you pull out wins with CSM you either are very lucky or your opponent was also CSM.

Your definitely that guy then. Eldar/Tau require significantly less kill then most other factions. "If you fudge a nova" im sorry but thats just completely garbage. Tau are literally the most point and click army in the game. Oh what skill to use them. That unit is coming towards me, better fire 40 S8 missiles at it.

And Eldar? seriously? Wraithknight + Scatbikes = win in most games. The only tactics you have to worry about is which models you wish to remove from your opponent first.

As far as Orks are concerned, the Green tide is not a competitive, its a scare tactic at best, the real tactics of orks involve a lot more strategic moves then simply rush up the board. I won't get to much into it because honestly I don't think you comprehend what tactics are.

So clear personal attack aside, I think you're wrong. basing my arguments on my local and state meta green tide is very competative, end in top three almost every event. eldar however do not. we have had maybe three eldar victories i can remember, we have had i think two ork victories, on with green tide and one with a grot can list, generally our eldar players do very poorly. hell one of our top lists that generally does place either first or second is blood angels death company with a nemesis strike force, he murders with two armies considered by Dakka to be trash. this website has the most skewed idea of whats good that it's baffling.

i play tau, i understand how my army works, it takes actual thinking(which i know is hard for most ork players). I see people play tau and make really gakky decisions and expect the army to win the game for them. NO army outside of maybe eldar bikes with wraigthknight(which isnt a huge thing here thanks ITC) plays itself. though i can see you being a ork player who incorrectly finds a green tide to be "non competitive" having a hard time with that, considering the victim complex of ork players being what it is.

Are tau strong? yes they are, its why i play them, i enjoy playing a competitive army against other people with competitive armies. I also know that Dakka is filled with care bear players who dislike people playing differently from them. There are multiple ways to play this game, which multiple people play day to day.

Also ignores cover is not ignores line of sight. i dont know where you got that from but you are clearly mistaken.

Eldar are literally THE least skill-based army you can play.

Warp Spiders, Scatterbikes, Wraithknights and Wraithguard. Hell, you can remove either Warp Spiders or Wraithguard and have a ridiculously competitive army with just THREE units.

Codex:Stronghold Assault

It must be a bit difficult to win with an unbound list made of buildings and turrets

Serially, how can it be anything but deathwing, low model count, can't deal with hordes effectively, high point cost and low survivability.

There's more, but it takes some real skill to beat armies like eldar and tau, and is even a struggle against guard and orks (depending on list)