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Everyone always talk about how op the Tau and Eldar are aswell as talking about how underpowered the Tyranids are. But I don't think that I have ever been part of a conversation about what a good codex is. In your opinion, what codex is the holy grail that should be help up as an example to all others as the most balanced codex? One that is competitive, fluffy but not op?

I dont know that there is one. Even those that are externally balanced for the most part often have awful internal balance. I think the 2014 armies balance ok against each other for the most part, but not against newer books and their internal balance is horrific.

Cassor the Damned wrote:
Everyone always talk about how op the Tau and Eldar are aswell as talking about how underpowered the Tyranids are. But I don't think that I have ever been part of a conversation about what a good codex is. In your opinion, what codex is the holy grail that should be help up as an example to all others as the most balanced codex? One that is competitive, fluffy but not op?

There really isn't one. Necrons in my opinion come the closest (barring the 4+ RP shenanigans) but no other codex is really that fair.

SM, Tau, Eldar all have super weapons, super shenanigans or just ridiculously under priced units that are easy to spam, especially in their broken formations.

Nids, Orks, DE, (CSM before change) IG are all weird compared to each other and horribly under powered compared to the other codexs.

GW really hasn't done their due diligence in regards to balancing externally or internally. The real question though is whether this is intentional. Why balance the codex? Make 1-2 super powered units that everyone buys and then gimp everything else. Next edition put out a new codex that NERFS those units a bit and ridiculously buffs 1-2 other units so everyone buys more of those units. See what I mean?

Don't get me wrong, some units have always been a bit broken but look at the new WK this edition or the Stormsurge for Tau or the SM grav cents.

I don't know that we've got a single Codex right now to hold up as an example of 'this is how Codexes ought to be written!'. As far as books that are competitive, fluffy, non-OP, internally well-balanced, enable a variety of builds, and can run off of solid basic units rather than pushing weird shenanigans I'd say the best we've got are the Deathwatch, Space Wolves, and Necrons.

The other Marine books are only made to work by stacking powerful formation benefits and have terrible internal balance, Guard, Orks, DE, and Tyranids aren't particularly competitive, MT, Sisters, and the AdMech books are very mono-build, CSM/KDK are held together with spit, prayers, and formation benefits, Harlequins are absurdly restrictive, Eldar are a pile of mediocre units carried to victory by a couple of very, very OP units, Tau are inherently monobuild by virtue of the army's premise, and Genestealer Cults and the Knights are walking gimmicks.

(Extending this to Forge World the Corsairs could get an honorable mention as a well-functioning book because they lose many of the sillier things the Eldar are running around with and replace them with basic units that actually function, but the various variant Guard lists fall under the same umbrella as the core one, and most of the rest are too old to easily categorize.)

Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

And yet you can actually play your Troops units without having to get bribed with free transports in that book. Tactical Marines have fallen by the wayside if they aren't in a Gladius, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are still usable.

I call that a win for how Codexes ought to work. Troops are supposed to be the solid core who hold the line and let your fancy units go haring off to do dramatic things, but all to often in 7th your Troops are there to be belittled and ignored in favour of min/max armies and formations with no Troops.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

And yet you can actually play your Troops units without having to get bribed with free transports in that book. Tactical Marines have fallen by the wayside if they aren't in a Gladius, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are still usable.

I call that a win for how Codexes ought to work. Troops are supposed to be the solid core who hold the line and let your fancy units go haring off to do dramatic things, but all to often in 7th your Troops are there to be belittled and ignored in favour of min/max armies and formations with no Troops.

What makes blood claws and grey hunters better then tactical marines? Im asking, I don't play against SW often.

SemperMortis wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

And yet you can actually play your Troops units without having to get bribed with free transports in that book. Tactical Marines have fallen by the wayside if they aren't in a Gladius, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are still usable.

I call that a win for how Codexes ought to work. Troops are supposed to be the solid core who hold the line and let your fancy units go haring off to do dramatic things, but all to often in 7th your Troops are there to be belittled and ignored in favour of min/max armies and formations with no Troops.

What makes blood claws and grey hunters better then tactical marines? Im asking, I don't play against SW often.

Grey Hunters get double special weapons. No idea why you'd like Blood Claws though.

pm713 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

And yet you can actually play your Troops units without having to get bribed with free transports in that book. Tactical Marines have fallen by the wayside if they aren't in a Gladius, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are still usable.

I call that a win for how Codexes ought to work. Troops are supposed to be the solid core who hold the line and let your fancy units go haring off to do dramatic things, but all to often in 7th your Troops are there to be belittled and ignored in favour of min/max armies and formations with no Troops.

What makes blood claws and grey hunters better then tactical marines? Im asking, I don't play against SW often.

Grey Hunters get double special weapons. No idea why you'd like Blood Claws though.

Double special weapons and a heavy? or they replace the heavy weapon with a special weapon?

Either way, thats the same damn thing as tacticals but with more specialty, Sounds more like cheaper sternguard

I'd say sm. Only thing I don't really like is grav spam but besides that a very respectable all around codex. It certainly doesn't have the chaff the orks have and the must takes tend to be wargear instead of troops which is okay.

Necrons are pretty good, wraiths could be toned down ever so slightly, either slightly less fast or slightly less good inv. RP is good but actually suffers slightly in maelstrom so I'm not too upset about it.

Tau is fine until you get into the bigger stuff, rip tides, storm surges, that new mofo.

Orks get a bad rap because of how garbage so many units are but there's enough good stuff in there to do okay without unbalancing the game. Bikers, koptas, bustas, etc. the hqs are actually pretty balanced, warboss/big mek/weirdboy/painboy all have their uses and none really stand out from each other.

Honestly tho the only thing I don't like about eldar is the bajillion extra movement phases for every unit in every phase. Please cut that gak out. Tau are kinda guilty of that too. Way overpowers the dex, I don't think they properly anticipated the effect that would have on the game.

SemperMortis wrote:

pm713 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

And yet you can actually play your Troops units without having to get bribed with free transports in that book. Tactical Marines have fallen by the wayside if they aren't in a Gladius, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are still usable.

I call that a win for how Codexes ought to work. Troops are supposed to be the solid core who hold the line and let your fancy units go haring off to do dramatic things, but all to often in 7th your Troops are there to be belittled and ignored in favour of min/max armies and formations with no Troops.

What makes blood claws and grey hunters better then tactical marines? Im asking, I don't play against SW often.

Grey Hunters get double special weapons. No idea why you'd like Blood Claws though.

Double special weapons and a heavy? or they replace the heavy weapon with a special weapon?

Either way, thats the same damn thing as tacticals but with more specialty, Sounds more like cheaper sternguard

I like Grey Hunters less now than I did before noticing they don't get a pistol/CCW for free or the ability to just swap the bolter for a CCW now, it's a 2pt/model upgrade to add a chainsword. That said two special weapons (the extra special weapon replaces the heavy weapon, you don't get two specials and a heavy) and Drop Pods remains nothing to sneeze at. Blood Claws are 12ppm power-armoured Scouts with pistol/CCW and Rage, the extra upside is a power axe/powerfist that can't get challenged out.

The advantages over normal Space Marine units in a vacuum are slight, but factoring in the Curse of the Wulfen for speed/melee buffs the book actively encourages a threat-saturation approach. The Blood Claws may kill you less dead than the Thunderwolves would, but that doesn't mean you want a power fist with five attacks on the charge surrounded by ablative wounds running into your Riptide.

The Riptide still wins because immortality.

Basically there are two units that run over entire armies like they weren't there. They can just set up the TWC and I know that I'm going to get tabled. And then there's the rest of the codex. Doesn't sound balanced to me.

Orks get a bad rap because of how garbage so many units are but there's enough good stuff in there to do okay without unbalancing the game. Bikers, koptas, bustas, etc. the hqs are actually pretty balanced, warboss/big mek/weirdboy/painboy all have their uses and none really stand out from each other.

Bikers are good,
Koptas are not really good. They are solo units that are only good because they are relatively affordable with enough survivability to make it useless to shoot them off the table. You have to take small units of Koptas because they lack any Mob rule modifiers and will always run off the table when failing a morale check.

Bustas Suck now. S8 AP3 rokkitz are good, but on a T4 6+ platform they are weak, the real reason people took them is the ability to place melta bombs, which is now gone.

HQs are not good either. Weirdboy is trash, Big Mek is useless except as a cheap HQ to fill requirements or to walk around with a KFF/MFF on his back. His signature weapon, the SAG, sucks as well. Warbosses are ok, but since they lack any form of Invul save they aren't even good CC characters anymore. The only really good HQ choice is a painboy and then only because he confers a 5+ FNP. Im not sure (I don't have the codexs in front of me) but I thin they are more expensive then a SM Apothecary.

The bad units though....
Killa Kanz
Deff Dreadz
Morkanaut
Gorkanaut
Ghaz
Nobz
Nob Bikerz
Flash Gitz
Burna Boyz
Dakka Jetz
Burna Bomberz
Dive Bomber (think thats what its called)


So.......yeah

Question for more experienced, competitive level players:

Do you find that if you go only BRB + Base Codex, the games is more balanced? For instance, no supplements, no white dwarf formations, only what is contained in the base codex for units, and rules from the big rulebook.

It's probably easier to come up with a list of things that have impacted power creep the most and try and find a book that has the least of it. For example, Strength D and Grav are great examples of where things went completely nuts.

Another thing to consider are books that have unique rules to themselves that serve more to make an army feel unique and less to make them feel balanced. Things like Gauss and Poison come to mind. Gauss could have easily used the lance or melta rule but they had to come up with something more powerful and unique to give an army an identity. This only leads to the next army needing one, like poison on every attack. Which leads to another army needing one like Grav special weapons on every unit. Which leads to another army needing one like Strength D on every weapon in a unit.

If you took out Grav, Dark Angels would probably be one of the better all around books.

Even with Poison, Dark Eldar are one of the more balanced overall book.

The problem is these don't necessarily mean competitive due to Eldar, Tau, and Necrons. And god help you when you start to factor in allies, formations, detachment, and FW.

DA are pretty balanced. Even with grav. Grav really didn't change all much. Unit that were bad before grav were bad after. It just made a few crazy units more mortal.

I think I can agree that CAD crons seem like a good target for balance, I've done a fair number of matches as a cad and they seem capable but not overwhelming.

SemperMortis wrote:

Orks get a bad rap because of how garbage so many units are but there's enough good stuff in there to do okay without unbalancing the game. Bikers, koptas, bustas, etc. the hqs are actually pretty balanced, warboss/big mek/weirdboy/painboy all have their uses and none really stand out from each other.

Bikers are good,
Koptas are not really good. They are solo units that are only good because they are relatively affordable with enough survivability to make it useless to shoot them off the table. You have to take small units of Koptas because they lack any Mob rule modifiers and will always run off the table when failing a morale check.

Bustas Suck now. S8 AP3 rokkitz are good, but on a T4 6+ platform they are weak, the real reason people took them is the ability to place melta bombs, which is now gone.

HQs are not good either. Weirdboy is trash, Big Mek is useless except as a cheap HQ to fill requirements or to walk around with a KFF/MFF on his back. His signature weapon, the SAG, sucks as well. Warbosses are ok, but since they lack any form of Invul save they aren't even good CC characters anymore. The only really good HQ choice is a painboy and then only because he confers a 5+ FNP. Im not sure (I don't have the codexs in front of me) but I thin they are more expensive then a SM Apothecary.

The bad units though....
Killa Kanz
Deff Dreadz
Morkanaut
Gorkanaut
Ghaz
Nobz
Nob Bikerz
Flash Gitz
Burna Boyz
Dakka Jetz
Burna Bomberz
Dive Bomber (think thats what its called)


So.......yeah

In a unit vs unit setting, no, the koptas ain't good. They own bones in maelstrom though and are totally worth it on that basis alone. Even if they're ld was better, they'd still be taken in units of one because the synergize extremely well with MSU tactics which are the prredominant and most successful ones in the competitive meta today.

Bustas are still great, they were always better at shooting and the melta mob Rush was only useful for non walkers which they don't have a problem dealing with anyway. A model with a s8 rokkit and tank hunter for that price point is amazing. Pointing out their save sucks kinda misses the point. Footslogging orks suck. Bustas in a trukk gives ya 6 rokkit shots for 100 points, which is an amazing deal.

The weirdboy is actually awesome and he synergies extremely well with a mechanized list with his wide array of awesome witch fires, and whatever the hell ead banger is.

What competitive hqs are taking out the warboss, I wanna know cuz you ain't seeing them in itc that's for sure. Big mek sucks except for the stuff that actually doesn't suck that you mentioned yourself. Painboy is slightly more expensive but that's because he's providing FNP on average to 10 models while the apoc does it for 5. Hqs rock. The named characters suck though.

Of the list you posted, I agree with all of it except the gorkanaut and sometimes ghaz.

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves are codex: Wulfen and TWC. They are the reverse of balanced.

Actually, when you bring the Curse of the Wulfen Supplement into the argument Space Wolves have a few cool builds that don't even have TWC or Wulfen.
Personally I hate the Blackmanes flavour but all of an army's Drop Pods arriving on the first turn is competitive, all those Drop Pods being free makes it like that Space Marine list though.
Vehicles break stupidly easily but the Ironwolves formation makes transports crazy fast and makes the Tank Shock a proper tactic again. People ignore the Rhinos until they park on top of their stuff.
The Firehowlers spam Bikes and Jump Packs with re-rollable charges, on top of that they have a cool formation bonus that forces leadership checks to permit overwatch, less cool is that bonus being irrelevant to ATSKNF and Fearless but if every formation bonus had common hard counters like that 40k would be a nicer place.
The Drakeslayers are what the Blood Angels want to be when they grow up. Furious Charge, Stubborn, Monster Hunter and Preferred Enemy(Characters) drawback is the only fast options are bikes/jump packs for the already costly Wolf Guard or Land Speeders.

My fave is the Ironwolves. Free vehicle upgrades to transports is nice.
Running over your opponent's gunline and declaring it "roadkill" just makes your day.

I'm pretty happy with the internal balance of the Necrons codex.

Yeah, DA is reasonably internally balanced. RW Bikers are probably a bit under-costed for the survivability they get, but that's largely an issue with how the rules address bikers of all races. Non-Knight Terminators and Land Raiders are a bit over-costed. Nothing that wouldn't be fixable and the fixes for bikers and Land Raiders really need to come in the main rulebook.

Deathwatch are fairly well balanced. Tau are fairly well balanced if you watch out for the big suits. A lot of people complain they are some sort of super hitting and destroying army, but honestly data doesn't quite confirm this bias. The only notable big wins in the second half of the year were all thanks to the FW Ta'unar in tournaments that allowed all the big boys and crazy shenanigans. There was one player who managed to win first with a non-Ta'unar list but he was running Tau-Eldar list and is the only first place Tau list in regular itc to win first in 6 months. Otherwise a smattering of 2 or 3 place finishes.

Can I say remove Malefic from the game, delete the Grimoire from my codex, and daemons become reasonably balanced? I think it's access to daemon factory and an unkillable Screamer-Star that make my codex go from reasonable to unbalanced. I also think the warp storm should go and the costs for gifts should be changed and you should be allowed to pick them. But that addresses the random BS currently in the game, not OP-ness of codex. It's a different argument.

 Marmatag wrote:
Question for more experienced, competitive level players:

Do you find that if you go only BRB + Base Codex, the games is more balanced? For instance, no supplements, no white dwarf formations, only what is contained in the base codex for units, and rules from the big rulebook.

No. The balance of 40k is kind of a mess no matter how you slice up the rules. You might get rid of some ally shenanigans and the odd formation but that wouldn't make the game any less imbalanced. Necrons, Daemons, Eldar and Tau are incredibly powerful with just their Codex rules. If anything all you would do is hurt armies that rely on rules outside their Codex to compete like Guard or CSM.

Yeah if orks can't take zhad, bullyboyz, or double cad the balance would be even worse.

The first things that have to go are

a) Things that absorb way too much damage for their cost
b) Things that kill way too much for their cost
c) Things that cause a or b when combined with the ally mechanic

I'll vote Necrons as well. Both inside and outside.

I think for me the strongest contender for good but not overpowered codex with good internal balance has to go to the 5th edition Dark Eldar book. They didn't dominate the tournament scene but the army was still good, especially in the hands of an experience player, and the only outright bad unit in there were Mandrakes.

Necrons. I say it all the time, they have great internal and external balance. It isn't perfect, but its pretty solid. Nids arent as bad as everyone says, they are just stuck on only a few builds. Unless you're talking Eternal War, then they are horrible.

Dark Angels