The Most Powerful Army in 40k

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**Selym**

Ashiraya wrote:

The Eldar have no weaknesses. Even their weakest links are good and useful units.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. All the Eldar units are better points-for-points than equivalent units almost anywhere.

The Space Marine codex is a weak book with a few exploitable things, but those few things make up a small part of the whole codex.

I seriously disagree with this though. Against Eldar, sure, you'd get trashed without superfwends, but have you even seen the IG, CSM, BA and Tyranid codexes?

**Ashiraya**

I have. I have a fairly large CSM army, an actual CSM army with no Heldrakes at all. You have listed four of the worst codices in a game with 23 codices, and SM can easily be better than those without being anywhere near good.

Tactical Marines are really not all that much better than my equivalent, Chaos Space Marines. Sure, they get a few things in exchange for 1ppm, but in the grand scheme of things it is not a huge deal - your average close combat or fire fight is close enough to be almost entirely down to luck. The same with most of the codex. Raptors vs assault marines, Rhinos vs Rhinos, Land Raiders vs Land Raiders, Captains vs Chaos Lords - CSM stuff tend to be a bit worse, but not to any extreme degree, and while CSM is absolute bottom SM are certainly not strong in and of themselves either.

The average SM army I see with foot tactical marines and the like is utterly destroyed by leman russ tanks, and I would not claim IG are top tier either.

**Selym**

Who brings footspam in 7E? That's just asking to fail. Unless you are eldar...

**Akiasura**

You can say marines in rhinos without gladius if you want. A fluffly marine army gets stomped, hard.

Terminators? Awful
Assault Marines? Awful
Basic Marines? Bad, not quite awful.
Devastators? Mediocre

A good marine list plays like White Scars or Iron Hands. TFC, Cents, and Bikes. Its hard to play fluffy from the other chapters. Its not hard to play the craftworlds.

This is a similar problem with Tau. If you play Tau because you love Tau, you're golden. If you play Tau because you like the idea of an alien mixed empire, which is how they were originally sold (I remember rumors they were getting new aliens like the hrud for a while) you're going to have a bad time currently.

**SemperMortis**

Selym wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:

The Eldar have no weaknesses. Even their weakest links are good and useful units.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. All the Eldar units are better points-for-points than equivalent units almost anywhere.

The Space Marine codex is a weak book with a few exploitable things, but those few things make up a small part of the whole codex.
I seriously disagree with this though. Against Eldar, sure, you'd get trashed without superfwends, but have you even seen the IG, CSM, BA and Tyranid codexes?

I think what Ash was saying is that without incorporating the Super friends the SM codex isn't nearly on the same power lvl as Necrons/Daemons/Tau or Eldar. I would agree with that.

I have faced all of those armies listed above and generally with my orks I lose to necrons/daemons/tau and Eldar regularly because they literally evaporate my Ork units with minimal effort. Necrons/Daemons games are close, Eldar/Tau games are usually me getting tabled. Against a regular SM army though? without Allied shenanigans? I would say its about 50/50 depending on skill of the player. In my last tourny I lost 1 game, and it was against a SM player, and ironically I came very close to beating him. He got very lucky in the 1st turn, killing off almost my entire warboss Bikestar w/ Painboy. If he hadn't gotten so many lucky rolls on that first turn I would have evaporated him. He went on to place 2nd in the tournament behind me. I won based on points across the board.

So yeah, if Orks can stand against a SM army that doesn't do ally shenanigans or Gladius whatever they are probably not a top tier codex.

**d00mspire**

SemperMortis wrote:
Selym wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:

The Eldar have no weaknesses. Even their weakest links are good and useful units.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. All the Eldar units are better points-for-points than equivalent units almost anywhere.

The Space Marine codex is a weak book with a few exploitable things, but those few things make up a small part of the whole codex.
I seriously disagree with this though. Against Eldar, sure, you'd get trashed without superfwends, but have you even seen the IG, CSM, BA and Tyranid codexes?

I think what Ash was saying is that without incorporating the Super friends the SM codex isn't nearly on the same power lvl as Necrons/Daemons/Tau or Eldar. I would agree with that.

I have faced all of those armies listed above and generally with my orks I lose to necrons/daemons/tau and Eldar regularly because they literally evaporate my Ork units with minimal effort. Necrons/Daemons games are close, Eldar/Tau games are usually me getting tabled. Against a regular SM army though? without Allied shenanigans? I would say its about 50/50 depending on skill of the player. In my last tourny I lost 1 game, and it was against a SM player, and ironically I came very close to beating him. He got very lucky in the 1st turn, killing off almost my entire warboss Bikestar w/ Painboy. If he hadn't gotten so many lucky rolls on that first turn I would have evaporated him. He went on to place 2nd in the tournament behind me. I won based on points across the board.

So yeah, if Orks can stand against a SM army that doesn't do ally shenanigans or Gladius whatever they are probably not a top tier codex.

I think Orks are underrated. They are pretty decent at their job, even if I am a Tau player and stereotypically hate them.

**DarknessEternal**

This would be a worse army than any army composed of any single codex of any of those.

They don't work better together. They would be worse.

**GrafWattenburg**

Superfriends or Eldar, no doubt.

For example, take this one-source battleforged Eldar 1735p army:

Core: Pale Courts Battlehost (Aspect Lord Shrine, Halls of Martial Splendour)

Autarch, Banshee Mask, Jetbike
Aspect Lord Shrine
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch

AUxiliary 1: Aspect Host
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
10 Warp Spiders with Exarch

Aux 2: Aspect Host:
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders with Exarch

Wraith Construct:
Wraithknight, 2 Scatterlasers

Support:
Lynx, Pulsar Ghostwalk Matrix, Holo Fields

**Selym**

That momet when you literally have the Eldar codex right next to you, but you don't want to look up how that army plays.

**Jacksmiles**

Selym wrote:
That momet when you literally have the Eldar codex right next to you, but you don't want to look up how that army plays.

Considering there's only 4 different models in it, I think you can guess

**DarknessEternal**

GrafWattenburg wrote:
Superfriends or Eldar, no doubt.

For example, take this one-source battleforged Eldar 1735p army:

Core: Pale Courts Battlehost (Aspect Lord Shrine, Halls of Martial Splendour)

So by "one source" you mean two sources.

**cosmicsoybean**

Ashiraya wrote:
No, I have not 'snorted a lot of warp dust'.

If you set down your average Space Marine army on the table, the way the lore presents them, the way GW presents them in army displays and so on and so forth, you'd have an army with perhaps a captain, a few tactical squads (maybe with rhinos), some assault squads, devastators, a dreadnought, maybe some terminators and/or a land raider, a captain...

And that is not powerful. I'd feel fairly confident taking on those with my Chaos Space Marines, and that is saying something.

I think people are forgetting that a formation patchwork aberration stitched together from centurions, Dark Angels and Space Wolves wolf riders is not the same thing as 'Codex: Space Marines.' This is like saying CSM are good because some competetive daemon lists ally in a mace prince with min cultists.

In order to make Space Marines compete with top armies like Tau and Eldar, you not only have to pick the absolute best of the codex (bikemasters, Centurions) but you also have to buff them with allies, formations and psychic powers (standalone the bikemaster will not do much damage for his massive cost and the centurions are horrifically slow and vulnerable without transports, ICs to tank and psychic support). Without all that support, my CSM Vindicator can easily deal with the Centurions while Thousand Sons can tarpit the bikemaster nicely, and don't you realise how absurd that fact really is?

Even the dreaded Skyhammer is a onedimensional gimmick that falls flat to Rhinos.

And that is just one particular list. Again, people are looking at this thread like it asked 'The Most Powerful List in 40k'. And then the infamous list with various SM chapters becomes a strong contender. But in terms of codices as a whole, the Space Marines codex is extremely unimpressive compared to, say, Eldar, who have no dud units whatsoever. Tournament netlists are just one small part of this game, guys. Most people do not run a super-optimised list of only the best units. And as soon as you don't, the Marine codex becomes weak much faster than the Eldar or Necron codex does.

I wasn't aware that the op was about what is the strongest *fluffy* list. What the 'lore and gw present' doesn't matter, at all, when determining an armies power. The space marine codex and supplement are undeniably top tier (not first, but top) and to say otherwise is rather ignorant of your own rules, armies like CSM would *KILL* to be able to literally move terrain around the table as they please, teleport around and buff their saves to a stupid level.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
cosmicsoybean wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Space Marines are a weak army

I see someone has smoked a whole lot of warp dust!

His analysis is correct. If it weren't, BA would be good.

No, BA are bad because they are a melee army in a shooting focused edition, that and they don't have nearly the cheddar that the SM has.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I like how this quickly devolved into a competition of "who has the shorter wang" among the top three armies (Tau, Eldar and Marines).

They're all equally cheese. Eldar is just more equally cheese than the others, cuz they can't be bothered to be lowered to the level of the mon-keigh (and whatever they call the Tau).

**Selym**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I like how this quickly devolved into a competition of "who has the shorter wang" among the top three armies (Tau, Eldar and Marines).

They're all equally cheese. Eldar is just more equally cheese than the others, cuz they can't be bothered to be lowered to the level of the mon-keigh (and whatever they call the Tau).

The lower limit of Eldar power is higher than the upper limit of several codexes, and certainly higher than the lower limit of any...

**GrafWattenburg**

DarknessEternal wrote:
GrafWattenburg wrote:
Superfriends or Eldar, no doubt.

For example, take this one-source battleforged Eldar 1735p army:

Core: Pale Courts Battlehost (Aspect Lord Shrine, Halls of Martial Splendour)

So by "one source" you mean two sources.

what? No its a single Eldar decurion detachment, how is it two sources?

**Selym**

Nvm

**d00mspire**

cosmicsoybean wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
No, I have not 'snorted a lot of warp dust'.

If you set down your average Space Marine army on the table, the way the lore presents them, the way GW presents them in army displays and so on and so forth, you'd have an army with perhaps a captain, a few tactical squads (maybe with rhinos), some assault squads, devastators, a dreadnought, maybe some terminators and/or a land raider, a captain...

And that is not powerful. I'd feel fairly confident taking on those with my Chaos Space Marines, and that is saying something.

I think people are forgetting that a formation patchwork aberration stitched together from centurions, Dark Angels and Space Wolves wolf riders is not the same thing as 'Codex: Space Marines.' This is like saying CSM are good because some competetive daemon lists ally in a mace prince with min cultists.

In order to make Space Marines compete with top armies like Tau and Eldar, you not only have to pick the absolute best of the codex (bikemasters, Centurions) but you also have to buff them with allies, formations and psychic powers (standalone the bikemaster will not do much damage for his massive cost and the centurions are horrifically slow and vulnerable without transports, ICs to tank and psychic support). Without all that support, my CSM Vindicator can easily deal with the Centurions while Thousand Sons can tarpit the bikemaster nicely, and don't you realise how absurd that fact really is?

Even the dreaded Skyhammer is a onedimensional gimmick that falls flat to Rhinos.

And that is just one particular list. Again, people are looking at this thread like it asked 'The Most Powerful List in 40k'. And then the infamous list with various SM chapters becomes a strong contender. But in terms of codices as a whole, the Space Marines codex is extremely unimpressive compared to, say, Eldar, who have no dud units whatsoever. Tournament netlists are just one small part of this game, guys. Most people do not run a super-optimised list of only the best units. And as soon as you don't, the Marine codex becomes weak much faster than the Eldar or Necron codex does.

I wasn't aware that the op was about what is the strongest *fluffy* list. What the 'lore and gw present' doesn't matter, at all, when determining an armies power. The space marine codex and supplement are undeniably top tier (not first, but top) and to say otherwise is rather ignorant of your own rules, armies like CSM would *KILL* to be able to literally move terrain around the table as they please, teleport around and buff their saves to a stupid level.

I wasn't on about the strongest fluffy list. Nowhere do I state the list must be fluffy.

**Ashiraya**

The strongest of the SM codex can compete with the strongest of the Eldar codex... If we use allies, psychic powers and other niche combos, that is.

The rest of the SM codex does not stand a chance against the rest of the Eldar codex, so the Eldar codex is much stronger as a whole.

To illustrate my point, take a SM army with no bikes, pods, librarians (including tiggy) or centurions against an Eldar army with no farseers, (including eldrad), wraithguard, jetbikes or wraithknights.

The SM army is hampered a lot more.

**Selym**

Why no Drop Pods? Stehl Reihn has been an integral part of SM strategy for ages.

**Ashiraya**

And so have Jetbikes for Eldar. I just excluded the very top of each army to illustrate my point that the body of the Eldar codex is better.

**Selym**

We already knew that. And given that Eldar are more powerful than anyone else, it does not really prove anything.

**Ashiraya**

Selym wrote:
We already knew that.

Given the responses in this thread, evidently not everybody does!

**cosmicsoybean**

Ashiraya wrote:
Selym wrote:
We already knew that.

Given the responses in this thread, evidently not everybody does!

No one is saying eldar are not top tier, you just, for some ungodly reason, think space marines are NOT top tier.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

d00mspire wrote:
cosmicsoybean wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
No, I have not 'snorted a lot of warp dust'.

If you set down your average Space Marine army on the table, the way the lore presents them, the way GW presents them in army displays and so on and so forth, you'd have an army with perhaps a captain, a few tactical squads (maybe with rhinos), some assault squads, devastators, a dreadnought, maybe some terminators and/or a land raider, a captain...

And that is not powerful. I'd feel fairly confident taking on those with my Chaos Space Marines, and that is saying something.

I think people are forgetting that a formation patchwork aberration stitched together from centurions, Dark Angels and Space Wolves wolf riders is not the same thing as 'Codex: Space Marines.' This is like saying CSM are good because some competetive daemon lists ally in a mace prince with min cultists.

In order to make Space Marines compete with top armies like Tau and Eldar, you not only have to pick the absolute best of the codex (bikemasters, Centurions) but you also have to buff them with allies, formations and psychic powers (standalone the bikemaster will not do much damage for his massive cost and the centurions are horrifically slow and vulnerable without transports, ICs to tank and psychic support). Without all that support, my CSM Vindicator can easily deal with the Centurions while Thousand Sons can tarpit the bikemaster nicely, and don't you realise how absurd that fact really is?

Even the dreaded Skyhammer is a onedimensional gimmick that falls flat to Rhinos.

And that is just one particular list. Again, people are looking at this thread like it asked 'The Most Powerful List in 40k'. And then the infamous list with various SM chapters becomes a strong contender. But in terms of codices as a whole, the Space Marines codex is extremely unimpressive compared to, say, Eldar, who have no dud units whatsoever. Tournament netlists are just one small part of this game, guys. Most people do not run a super-optimised list of only the best units. And as soon as you don't, the Marine codex becomes weak much faster than the Eldar or Necron codex does.

I wasn't aware that the op was about what is the strongest *fluffy* list. What the 'lore and gw present' doesn't matter, at all, when determining an armies power. The space marine codex and supplement are undeniably top tier (not first, but top) and to say otherwise is rather ignorant of your own rules, armies like CSM would *KILL* to be able to literally move terrain around the table as they please, teleport around and buff their saves to a stupid level.

I wasn't on about the strongest fluffy list. Nowhere do I state the list must be fluffy.

Which is why I didn't quote you saying that you did, this other guy, ashiraya is talking about how the lore-based space marines is weaker than an eldar lore based list, which is completely irrelevant in your post.

**Selym**

Ashiraya wrote:
Selym wrote:
We already knew that.

Given the responses in this thread, evidently not everybody does!

Quote an opposing opinion?

**Martel732**

The thread asked for most powerful army, not lists. The marine army isnt that good, it has a few specific lists that are good.

**cosmicsoybean**

Martel732 wrote:
The thread asked for most powerful army, not lists. The marine army isnt that good, it has a few specific lists that are good.

By that logic Tau and necrons are not that good as well, since their power is from formations and synergy.

**Martel732**

Not exactly. The average tau or necron unit is still much better than the averagd marine unit. Marinez need very specific builds to be good, tau and necrons have way more options.

**Torus**

Hmm, marines have quite a few options available

Build wise they have

Alpha strike:
Scouting bikers + White scar shenanigans
Drop pod spam + Skyhammers

Objective/ defensive:
Gladius Strike force

Deathstars builds (even without allies can be fairly nasty)

Options wise they have

Grav weaponry

The most utility out of Psychic powers

Easy access to 2+ armour saves via for certain units: Centurion/ C -terminator/artificer armour types

In anycase, with shooting being such a massive part of the game, and Alpha strikes being so potent and the versatility marines have, you're damn right I think are top tier.

**Jacksmiles**

GrafWattenburg wrote:
DarknessEternal wrote:
GrafWattenburg wrote:
Superfriends or Eldar, no doubt.

For example, take this one-source battleforged Eldar 1735p army:

Core: Pale Courts Battlehost (Aspect Lord Shrine, Halls of Martial Splendour)

So by "one source" you mean two sources.
what? No its a single Eldar decurion detachment, how is it two sources?

Because Pale Courts Battlehost isn't in the Eldar Codex, you need the IA book as well as the codex to run it. One army, one faction, two sources

That was the first thing that ran through my head seeing your post, at least. IDK if that's how "one-source" is commonly defined within the community, though, so I didn't comment on it. But I see that list as having two sources.

**Martel732**

Torus wrote:
Hmm, marines have quite a few options available

Build wise they have

Alpha strike:
Scouting bikers + White scar shenanigans
Drop pod spam + Skyhammers

Objective/ defensive:
Gladius Strike force

Deathstars builds (even without allies can be fairly nasty)

Options wise they have

Grav weaponry

The most utility out of Psychic powers

Easy access to 2+ armour saves via for certain units: Centurion/ C -terminator/artificer armour types

In anycase, with shooting being such a massive part of the game, and Alpha strikes being so potent and the versatility marines have, you're damn right I think are top tier.

I think alpha strikes are rather easy to blunt. And you are cherry picking the marine codex again. Go unit by unit in the codex (the ones everyone skips over!) and it's not that good of an army.