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I've been out of the game for a while now. Curious as to a general consensus, what's top tier, what's trash. When I left Eldar and Marines were top while Tau and Crons weren't far behind.

Thats about how it is, but Tau and Necrons are up there, and Daemons can be straight mean with some of the new formations and the such.

Guesses/approximations. Ordering within tiers doesn't mean much.

Tier 1: Hardcore. Straightforward, easy powerful tournament armies.

Craftworld Eldar
Space Marines
Tau
Chaos Daemons
Eldar Corsairs (FW)

Tier 2: Solid. Good, reliable. Can hold their own in tournaments but may be weaker than the top tier or somewhat monobuild.

Space Wolves
Necrons
Dark Angels
AdMech (Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus)
Khorne Daemonkin

Tier 3: Odd. Possible as a standalone force but generally stronger with/as allies.

Inquisition
Deathwatch
Astra Militarum and FW variants
Blood Angels

Tier 4: Bleh. Barely playable, held up by allies or a few crutch units.

Tyranids
Grey Knights
Sisters of Battle

Tier 5: Help. Close to irrelevant. Almost nothing to add as allies, seriously underpowered on their own.

Orks
Dark Eldar
Harlequins
Militarum Tempestus

Disqualified 1: Armies that shouldn't be standalone forces in the first place. Useful or relevant as allies.

Imperial Knights
Renegade Knights
Assassinorium

Disqualified 2: Pending playtime. Probably tier 2 but don't quote me on this.

Genestealer Cult
Chaos Space Marines (with new content, tier 4/5 without it)

What about R&H? They seem top tier, especially if you consider corsairs to be.

Based on armies I've seen and played:

GSC can hang with a lot of the "top tier" stuff - they can slap Daemons around handily and will take Scatbike Eldar apart with few problems, and the few things they have problems with (Gladius parking lots, mass EWO Tau and Flyers) are difficult to play against rather than hard counters. Whether that's enough to make them A1 competitive GT-sweeper bait I don't know, but they're a fantastic army to play.

Mech Sisters aren't completely hopeless either. They're hard-countered by Tau and Scatbike Eldar, struggle to contain and outplay legit deathstars, and pretty much anything else than can plonk their vehicles out from under them without giving them a chance to reply, but they'll take a handy chunk out of GSC and Gladius Spess Mehrens. Footslogging Sisters are... well, footslogging Sisters. It doesn't work and never really has.

Space Wolves and Grey Knights might be useful for TWC and Dreadknights - i.e. all the stuff I don't own - but everything else is a bit cacky. Ironwolves feels like it could work if you had some way to go first every game, but you can't do that. So, el shelfo.

Space Marines are as lacklustre as they always have been, but they get so many damn options and supplements and formations that you can cobble together something powerful enough to whup just about anyone.

Fateweaver seems like the way to go if you want to play Daemons. They seem a bit fragile and under-mannedotherwise, and that Warp Storm table can be horrendous without his rerolls.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


Tier 5: Help. Close to irrelevant. Almost nothing to add as allies, seriously underpowered on their own.

Dark Eldar
Harlequins

Eh, Dark Eldar and Harlequins can do pretty well against a lot of things if they have a well set up army and are used correctly.
Dark Eldar have cheap access to massed anti-infantry/MC fire, have one of the best non-deathstar melee units in the game (CC Reavers) and have three good formations from Haemy Covens that are great at melee and soaking up firepower (Grotesquerie, Dark Artisan, Corpse Thief Claw)
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard. With the Death Masque unique units they actually can do pretty well, with the special bikes incredibly hard to kill without ignores cover, same with any unit joined by the Spectre. They have great melee and can do pretty good MSU

 gummyofallbears wrote:
What about R&H? They seem top tier, especially if you consider corsairs to be.

Probably tier 2. I put Corsairs up in tier 1 because they've got jetbikes, the Warp Hunter, and the Skathach, R&H may have recyclable masses but I'm not sure I'd put them in tier 1 because of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:


Tier 5: Help. Close to irrelevant. Almost nothing to add as allies, seriously underpowered on their own.

Dark Eldar
Harlequins

Eh, Dark Eldar and Harlequins can do pretty well against a lot of things if they have a well set up army and are used correctly.
Dark Eldar have cheap access to massed anti-infantry/MC fire, have one of the best non-deathstar melee units in the game (CC Reavers) and have three good formations from Haemy Covens that are great at melee and soaking up firepower (Grotesquerie, Dark Artisan, Corpse Thief Claw)
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard. With the Death Masque unique units they actually can do pretty well, with the special bikes incredibly hard to kill without ignores cover, same with any unit joined by the Spectre. They have great melee and can do pretty good MSU

Haemonculi Covens may drag the DE towards tier 4, it's true. Most things that I put in tier 5 are there because there are relatively common units or strategies that invalidate their entire book or playstyle just by existing (DE are still suffering the fallout from the anti-skimmer/mid-S-spam tech introduced to combat Wave Serpents in 6th, Harlequins are just hard-countered by anything with even mediocre volume of fire).

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard

I dispute that Harlies can hit hard, but one thing they have which is pretty cool are the Flip Belts. They're annoying to play against because the usual methods of hiding don't work - they can walk **over** buildings like they weren't there to get at you. The first time it happens to you it's jaw-dropping. It's like, "what the feth are you doing, you can't charge through walls", and he'll be all "Aha, Flip Belts! They walked up the walls and over the roof!", and then you get charged and the Harlies all die anyway so it doesn't matter.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 gummyofallbears wrote:
What about R&H? They seem top tier, especially if you consider corsairs to be.

Probably tier 2. I put Corsairs up in tier 1 because they've got jetbikes, the Warp Hunter, and the Skathach, R&H may have recyclable masses but I'm not sure I'd put them in tier 1 because of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:


Tier 5: Help. Close to irrelevant. Almost nothing to add as allies, seriously underpowered on their own.

Dark Eldar
Harlequins

Eh, Dark Eldar and Harlequins can do pretty well against a lot of things if they have a well set up army and are used correctly.
Dark Eldar have cheap access to massed anti-infantry/MC fire, have one of the best non-deathstar melee units in the game (CC Reavers) and have three good formations from Haemy Covens that are great at melee and soaking up firepower (Grotesquerie, Dark Artisan, Corpse Thief Claw)
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard. With the Death Masque unique units they actually can do pretty well, with the special bikes incredibly hard to kill without ignores cover, same with any unit joined by the Spectre. They have great melee and can do pretty good MSU

Haemonculi Covens may drag the DE towards tier 4, it's true. Most things that I put in tier 5 are there because there are relatively common units or strategies that invalidate their entire book or playstyle just by existing (DE are still suffering the fallout from the anti-skimmer/mid-S-spam tech introduced to combat Wave Serpents in 6th, Harlequins are just hard-countered by anything with even mediocre volume of fire).

The nerfs didn't really bother the DEldar skimmers much, as they're super squishy anyways. 2HP 10 armor transports for everyone, but they have long range and lots of dakka for really cheap. They're great for holding back field objectives while throwing on wounds to infantry. Its the Talos's, or the Grotesques, or the Reavers that do the damage.
Used properly they can even beat some upper tier armies by high damage cheap MSU. for 63 points you can get a squad of reavers with Cluster Caltrops which have 3+ jink, combat drugs, very high mobility, and hit exceptionally hard for their cost on the charge. Talos's in a CTC have scout, plus the ability to score a lot of victory points if the enemy allows the unit to get into melee with anything. Stick a Dark Artisan next to it and even grav won't be too much of a worry.
They have do have options, and I would definitely put them in at least tier 3. They just aren't used much.

 BBAP wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard

I dispute that Harlies can hit hard

Given how cheap they are for their melee damage, with 100 points allowing 21 S4 attacks and d3 S6 HOW attacks on the charge, I would say they hit decently hard.

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

 BBAP wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard

I dispute that Harlies can hit hard

Given how cheap they are for their melee damage, with 100 points allowing 21 S4 attacks and d3 S6 HOW attacks on the charge, I would say they hit decently hard.

Cool. Now imagine you spent those 100pts (101, technically) on six Howling Banshees and an Exarch instead, and got 22 S3/AP3 attacks and immunity to the Overwatch fire that's going to kill your Embrace before those d3 S6 HoW attacks get to happen.

Harlequins are grossly overpriced for their melee damage. If they were 13pts/model and the Troupe Master was a 10pt optional upgrade instead of a 20pt mandatory upgrade (making a Troupe 65pts minimum instead of 95pts) they might work better than they do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
The nerfs didn't really bother the DEldar skimmers much, as they're super squishy anyways. 2HP 10 armor transports for everyone, but they have long range and lots of dakka for really cheap. They're great for holding back field objectives while throwing on wounds to infantry. Its the Talos's, or the Grotesques, or the Reavers that do the damage.
Used properly they can even beat some upper tier armies by high damage cheap MSU. for 63 points you can get a squad of reavers with Cluster Caltrops which have 3+ jink, combat drugs, very high mobility, and hit exceptionally hard for their cost on the charge. Talos's in a CTC have scout, plus the ability to score a lot of victory points if the enemy allows the unit to get into melee with anything. Stick a Dark Artisan next to it and even grav won't be too much of a worry.
They have do have options, and I would definitely put them in at least tier 3. They just aren't used much.

Do you a deal. If a new release comes out that resurrects Night Shields as to +1 to existing cover (worded to stack with Night Fighting), adds a formation that replicates the 4e Apocalypse formation that counted a bunch of Raiders as Flyers that came in from Reserves on turn one, makes Trueborn/Hekiatrix free upgrades that don't move the unit to Elites, ups Disintegrators to S6, brings back Jetbikes for characters, makes Scourges Jet Packs, and makes Skimmers give safe Deep Strike, and I'll upgrade them to tier 4 in my estimation.

Every game I've played as or against DE under their current Codex involves about 3/4 of the army dead turn one after doing absolutely nothing. They definitely belong in the 'help' tier at the moment.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

 BBAP wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
The Harlequins are lower on the charts, but can still hit hard

I dispute that Harlies can hit hard

Given how cheap they are for their melee damage, with 100 points allowing 21 S4 attacks and d3 S6 HOW attacks on the charge, I would say they hit decently hard.

Cool. Now imagine you spent those 100pts (101, technically) on six Howling Banshees and an Exarch instead, and got 22 S3/AP3 attacks and immunity to the Overwatch fire that's going to kill your Embrace before those d3 S6 HoW attacks get to happen.

Harlequins are grossly overpriced for their melee damage. If they were 13pts/model and the Troupe Master was a 10pt optional upgrade instead of a 20pt mandatory upgrade (making a Troupe 65pts minimum instead of 95pts) they might work better than they do.

Harlequins also pay for the ability to ignore terrain, hit and run, furious charge, and in most formations run and charge. They also have cheap access to some nifty melee weapons.
That, combined with some defensive powers from the Shadowseers makes them somewhat decent. Not top tier, but not the worst.

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
Given how cheap they are for their melee damage, with 100 points allowing 21 S4 attacks and d3 S6 HOW attacks on the charge, I would say they hit decently hard.

100pts for that is only cheap in comparison to MEQs. In the grand scheme of things it's pretty expensive, all told. The same amount of points in the GSC Codex gets you 40+ attacks at the same Strength, except with Rending and AP5 - plus there's so much of everything that having a dozen or so of your dudes die isn't a big deal.

I suppose the problem is less about their damage output, more to do with overcosting. The army is too small to make the damage stick or to survive whiffs. It's a real shame too because the models are gorgeous. Also Flip Belts are crazy and I want to use them.

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
...Harlequins also pay for the ability to ignore terrain, hit and run, furious charge, and in most formations run and charge. They also have cheap access to some nifty melee weapons.
That, combined with some defensive powers from the Shadowseers makes them somewhat decent. Not top tier, but not the worst.

There is exactly one upside to Harlequins over Howling Banshees, and it's access to an Open-Topped transport within their Codex. The Troupe exists as a tax to make it harder to just stick Shadowseers in Craftworld squads.

If they aren't the worst dedicated assault unit around it's because Wyches still exist.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
...Harlequins also pay for the ability to ignore terrain, hit and run, furious charge, and in most formations run and charge. They also have cheap access to some nifty melee weapons.
That, combined with some defensive powers from the Shadowseers makes them somewhat decent. Not top tier, but not the worst.

There is exactly one upside to Harlequins over Howling Banshees, and it's access to an Open-Topped transport within their Codex. The Troupe exists as a tax to make it harder to just stick Shadowseers in Craftworld squads.

If they aren't the worst dedicated assault unit around it's because Wyches still exist.

Well, there's also Furious Charge (commonly regarded as one of the Banshee's biggest failings), Hit & Run, flip belts, invulnerable saves as standard and easy access to S6 AP2...