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Just thought it would be interesting to get peoples opinion on what factions will win/lose with the coming of 8th - be interesting to look back at in 6 months time when we're all settled into 8th and moaning about how good pyrovores and rough riders are.

The poll is who you think will be the strongest faction at launch but feel free to work out a ranking/who's gonna be worst off.

I went with the apparent faction groupings at the moment, aware they can all change and become slightly less relevant depending on how alliances work but still.

(Trigger Warning: If you don't like 8th edition speculation read the damn title and go moan somewhere else.)

Why is this not a multi-choice poll? Multiple factions can dominate (as there are now)

 CrownAxe wrote:
Why is this not a multi-choice poll? Multiple factions can dominate (as there are now)

Because it's a damn tiny box and i missed it ... i think it's fixed now

obviously any vote at this moment is mostly a guess, the power house factions are useally the ones with the cheesy list that abuses the rules in just that way... that said I'm gonna vote Space Marines, because I suspect they'll be the most legitimatly solid race in 40k, with a wide varity of good choices etc. the goal of 8th edition is for every codex choice to be useful and relevant. obviously they're not gonna have a 100% sucess rate with this, but over all I feel space Marines are going to be the closest.
Space Marines are proably gonna be a "useful over all" army.

I hope the difference between armies is so small that 'power rankings' will be a thing from the past...

 Vector Strike wrote:
I hope the difference between armies is so small that 'power rankings' will be a thing from the past...

Ha.

Go try to play Age of Sigmar without the shenanigans people who have their own faction books get and with pre-End Times models and see how far you get.

'Power rankings' are here to stay.

Power rankings will stay, but hopefully they'll be dragged together *a lot* compared to what they are today. The discrepancies today are like the armies come from several different game systems with no attempt to balance them between each other.

Safe bet SMs will still be top tier so Im going with them.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
I hope the difference between armies is so small that 'power rankings' will be a thing from the past...

Ha.

Go try to play Age of Sigmar without the shenanigans people who have their own faction books get and with pre-End Times models and see how far you get.

'Power rankings' are here to stay.

But that's still "codex creep" in a sense, since faction books are gradually released, yes? Based on rumors, all 40k factions will be updated simultaneously in a pseudo-"Grand Alliance" book, and hopefully w/o sub-faction (or whatever they'd be called) books to creep, like AoS faction books are to Grand Alliance books. Hopefully GW just follows the PP model and makes across-the-board updates every year. Give all factions a fair chance to compete and consumers a fair chance to decide what they really wanna play (for those that can't control their insecurity and must play the most recent creep).

That aside, there will be power rankings as usual, but I have a feeling it'll be much more closer from top to bottom than some of the stuff I hear/have heard about 7th and 6th.

The devil is in the details on codex power. We don't even know the rules yet.

Well, there will always bebetterfactionsfor perfect balance is impossible to achieve (unfortunatly). However, according to the T'aus' (apostrophe intensifies) Faction focus i think they'll get even nastier. But that's more like an Impression.

And of course space marines, because it's a true symbol for GW (who even released more of them, i hope not instead of plastic SoBs) and because Ward is back, what, with no offense, is no great sign, imho...

SM will be in the spotlight in 8th, as will chaos (in one or many forms), which by itself will give them more new stuff. I think Tau will transcend well into 8th, as I predict it will be a ranged game.

If they follow most previous eras, probably Eldar and Space Marines, with Necrons and Tau probably up there too and some flavor of Chaos (be it Daemons or Marines or Renegades) as a wildcard.

SM will be in the spotlight in 8th, as will chaos (in one or many forms), which by itself will give them more new stuff. I think Tau will transcend well into 8th, as I predict it will be a ranged game.

 Vaktathi wrote:
If they follow most previous eras, probably Eldar and Space Marines, with Necrons and Tau probably up there too and some flavor of Chaos (be it Daemons or Marines or Renegades) as a wildcard.

Marines weren't a thing until 6th/7th. Until you go back to early 3rd. They were incredibly pedestrian in late 3rd-5th.

Marine armies were very strong in 5th (Vulkan everywhere...) particularly if you include variants (Space Wolf gunlines...), and certain builds (even if not the entire codex) were strong in 3rd and 4th, even if they had to be built around things like assault cannon spam and minmax'd lasplas units or the like.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Marine armies were very strong in 5th (Vulkan everywhere...) particularly if you include variants (Space Wolf gunlines...), and certain builds (even if not the entire codex) were strong in 3rd and 4th, even if they had to be built around things like assault cannon spam and minmax'd lasplas units or the like.

Vanilla marines were very mediocre, even with Vulkan. I'm not talking variants. I'm talking regular marines.

What I think will be the most interesting is that it seems every army gets <Chapter Tactics>. We know that Manries get this and that Chaos will get <Legion>, T'au have <Sept>, Nids have <Hive Fleet>, etc

This gives an enormous amount of potential for variation. With any luck, there will not be a definite "power ranking" as every army should have this special way to add more rules to their units.
GW has also said that they are not putting points cost on the unit's datasheets, but rather putting them in the Faction books in a way that can be updated.
So if something starts to look too powerful, they'll raise its cost. If a unit doesn't appear very often, they'll lower its cost, etc.

-

Weird question, when was the last time space marines were low tier? Just curious how possible it'd be.

 Galef wrote:
What I think will be the most interesting is that it seems every army gets <Chapter Tactics>. We know that Manries get this and that Chaos will get <Legion>, T'au have <Sept>, Nids have <Hive Fleet>, etc

This gives an enormous amount of potential for variation. With any luck, there will not be a definite "power ranking" as every army should have this special way to add more rules to their units.
GW has also said that they are not putting points cost on the unit's datasheets, but rather putting them in the Faction books in a way that can be updated.
So if something starts to look too powerful, they'll raise its cost. If a unit doesn't appear very often, they'll lower its cost, etc.

-

IMHO a better approuch would be simply to put the points costs up on a list for free. easier to update fast if your points costs are electronicly avalaible

The new CEO is a T'au fan, just sayin'....

Orks of course. How could anyone think otherwise?

If they fix Instinctive Behaviour so it's not a shackle that makes the nids move as one giant blob of synapse overlap then I think with the increased deadliness of assault, nids fastest general movement speed, deployment options like the new trygon tunnels and drop pods, the potential for things like gargoyles and shrieks to be "flying" like crisis suits are, the reduction in AP on weapons coupled with cover now being a boost to armor saves (HELLO VENOMTHROPES. If shrouded is still a +2 "cover" then even the hordes will have a 4+ save in the open), I think nids are going to be a VERY competitive army.

I think we are going to see a huge return of nids being vicious in melee supplemented by some sweet gun platforms So pumped to see the new Exocrine... also Carnifex).

The only thing that holds all that back is instinctive behavior. I wait patiently but anxiously for a nid article to tell me what my core rules will be doing this edition. Will my nids be hamstrung by themselves or will we be free to zip accoss the field and murder relentlessly.

Nids would like some immunity to bravery tests from the synapse. AoS Bloodbound has this and it is very important for the horde units especially. If not termagants will flee by the dozen.

I voted for quite a few, including Guard.

Guard are getting monstrous buffs this edition so far.

 Marmatag wrote:
I voted for quite a few, including Guard.

Guard are getting monstrous buffs this edition so far.

Hrm, lets wait and see. With stuff being able to assault from deep strike and out of transports, and the very disappointing Russ reveal and mediocre blast weapon changes, I'm not holding my breath. We can hope they turn out well, but I'm not going to expect that theyre gonna be great.

AnomanderRake wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
I hope the difference between armies is so small that 'power rankings' will be a thing from the past...

Ha.

Go try to play Age of Sigmar without the shenanigans people who have their own faction books get and with pre-End Times models and see how far you get.

'Power rankings' are here to stay.

I guess that's why Tomb Kings are dominating in tournaments these days, what with Battletome: Tomb Kings getting frequent updates. Also explains why my Khorne Bloodbound have been called the single most OP faction in the game!

Guard, of course, because lasguns can kill land raiders now.

SilverAlien wrote:
Weird question, when was the last time space marines were low tier? Just curious how possible it'd be.

Low tier? 2nd ed, I'd say. Maybe end of 5th as well.

Martel732 wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
Weird question, when was the last time space marines were low tier? Just curious how possible it'd be.

Low tier? 2nd ed, I'd say. Maybe end of 5th as well.

If just asking vanilla - not sure if they were ever 'low tier'. I didn't play competitively in 2nd (3rd came out when I was 12, so only played 2nd, as a child, for 3 years anyway) and was on a break in 5th so can't comment there. They haven't spent the majority of time as 'top tier' either until recently.

BA and DA have most certainly been low tier for a large proportion of the last 5 years though.