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Yes the game is not even officially out yet but from what you have seen on youtube, your own games and mathing it up how do you rate all the armies in 40k now or at least your top 3 or 5?

Poll added for the top tier.

i'm going:
1. IG
2. Nids
3. Dark Eldar
4. Space Marines
... not sure the rest

Best contenders are the three horde armies in no particular order; tyranids, orks, and guard.

The answer is clearly Drew Carey

Imperium (no mechanical reason to distinguish further - most of the options listed are just specific subtypes of Imperium armies) and Tyranids.

Definitely chaos space marines and deamons, specifically khorne world eaters and khorne deamons. This opinion is in no way based on any facts or proof I just love fething up this way too early polls.

I have this sneaking suspicion Harlies, Eldar combo armies and IKs will end up being pretty good in 8th.

Harlies due to speed and power, Eldar due to some sneaky combos being worked out between all 3 sub factions and IKs due to their superheavy fallback rules, firepower and toughness.

 andysonic1 wrote:
Definitely chaos space marines and deamons, specifically khorne world eaters and khorne deamons. This opinion is in no way based on any facts or proof I just love fething up this way too early polls.

oh you.... XD

For the eye brow raising i'm mainly doing this to get the opinion now so in 6 months we can look back at this thread run a similar one and see how they differ.

Hordes, inclining towards nids

Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

So far - and this is all subject to change and reevaluation as the meta takes shape - it looks to me like the following:

IG are going to be the Daemons of 8e - a lot of builds are garbage, but the few that aren't are gamebreaking. Not S because what counters them will counter them hard. A-tier.
Space Marines are strong and only going to get stronger, but I actually expect that Blood Angels may outperform vanilla Marines. Too soon to tell, though. Also too soon to really break out DA or SW as separate forces. B+-tier.
Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters) are better than before. Acts of Faith are tricky, but can potentially be bananas. Repentia hit like a truck but still suffer from extreme glass-ass disease. Long on specialists, short on generalists relative to other Imperial factions. That could be powerful in the hands of the right general. Stronger than they've been in a long time. Low A-tier.
Grey Knights, unless I'm reading everything wrong, took a purely unnecessary nerfbat to the knees. Their Terminators don't suck now, but PAGKs are still weaksauce, and the NDK is no longer all that impressive. Psychspam doesn't look like the winner it once was, either. I think I'm missing something, though. C-tier, but what the heck am I missing?
Deathwatch seem to have the same problems as before. They have scary firepower, but they suffer from awkward combinations. I think they'll be a counter-pick that specializes in gimmick-breaking, but it's too early to tell for sure. B-tier, but with no confidence in that.
Imperial Agent forces are too small to really each be considered individually, and I don't have a good feel at all for how mono-Inquisition, mono-Custodes, mono-Sisters of Silence or similar armies might play. Taken in toto, however, this is a deep toolbox that could do very well added to Guard, Sisters or Marines. No more buff-stacking, but there's lots of room to patch holes in each other's arsenals. C-tier standalone, probably, but it's hard to tell.
Adeptus Mechanicus looks like a real artist's pick. Many options, many of which are really strong, but they're fighting uphill against a lack of transports and some units that are awkward to use. Still, I think they've got a lot of tricks, and in the right hands could be very hard to beat. S-tier.
Craftworld Eldar are no longer the ludicrous powerhouse that they once were - the bugaboo units from 7e got nerfed into the ground, and tellingly, they're still at least decent. A-tier.
Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier
Harlequins got some much-needed buffs, but a few confusing weapon changes. On their own, they suffer from the same problems as in 7e: they're fragile, have a fairly limited toolbox and are relatively expensive. However, none of those problems seem quite as crippling as before. High B-tier
Ynnari are bananas, just like they were before. They might not be quite as broken as before, but Soulburst is still insanely strong, and you can pick and mix the best units from the other three Aeldari factions. Likely extremely strong, unless their gimmick turns out to be easier to counter than I thought. S-tier,
Tau Monster Mash is dead and buried. Good riddance. Combined arms is the watchword. They could get quite nasty once folks figure out the new style, though. Expect more gunlines, though, which is kind of a bummer, because gunlines are boring. B-tier
Necrons don't have a particularly deep toolbox, but what they have is versatile and they just keep coming back. Also, massed AP -2 shooting on durable, accurate Troop choices is frightening by any metric. Quantum Shielding could make the usual go-to antitank guns less of a winner against Necron tanks than one might expect. I don't see them sweeping top tables, but they'll hang in there against almost anything, and there's no easy answer for killing them. A-tier.
Orks got better than they were, but they had nowhere to go but up. Well, up they went, at least for horde builds. Speed Freaks lists may be hurting, as may any attempt at a gunline. OTOH, the Morkanaut and Gorkanaut no longer suck: someone's gotta be able to do something with that. B-tier
Tyranids are going to be strong all around. They'll never outshoot Tau, they'll struggle to out-chop Orks or Khorne Daemons, but they chop way better than the shooty guys, shoot way better than the super-choppy guys, and have the tools to make it all work. They may suffer from glassiness a bit, which could make going first against Guard, Eldar or Tau rough. S-tier.
Genestealer Cults lost some of their 7e gimmicks, unfortunately, but they seem to make up for it by being able to freely take Tyranid and IG allies, which should patch the holes. Like Tau, I think their flavor changed, but once their new style gets sussed out I think they'll be mean. A-tier
Chaos Space Marines regrettably lost a lot of their flavor that they had just gained, but in exchange they got the best balance they've had in a long time. A few of their old favorites were nerfed for no good reason, but a lot of other things got way stronger. Heldrakes are kinda crazy. A-tier.
Chaos Daemons seem to have been kicked in the butt, hard. If you're not running Chaos Undivided, you're going to suffer, and even if you do, it looks like an uphill climb, though the big daemons are suitably frightening. I could be missing the synergy - indeed, I almost certainly am - but they look like a C-tier army for now.

Pointedly omitted are Knights, both Imperial and Chaos. I really haven't seen them in action, and the batreps I've seen are in some disagreement. Mono-knights lists, I think, will still be mostly a gimmick.

So far, then, I count: 3 S-tier, 7 A-tier, 5 B-tier, 3 C-tier, and I feel like I'm missing something on all the Cs. Clustered in the middle, more or less what I expect. If I'm right, and the power spread really is that much narrower than in 7e, a much better time will be had by all.

He who is last shall be first.

Tyranid
Sisters
Dark Eldar
IG


It's our time to shine bitches!

If we get the constant updates like promised, hopefully they are all in the same tier

 buddha wrote:
Best contenders are the three horde armies in no particular order; tyranids, orks, and guard.

What makes you say that? I play orks, and I've found that cover, which basically is what saved my army in 7th, is almost useless. LoS means almost nothing, if you can see one model the entire unit can die. +1 to saves is woefully insufficient - I have kommandos in a ruin, which before was basically a 3+ save from almost everything, who get zero saves from, say, ad mech grav gun spam.

I don't mean to complain too much, I'm pretty happy with 8th generally, but the way cover works (or, more accurately, how it does not), is a pretty massive detriment to horde armies, in my opinion.

Then you toss in the fact that anyone can waltz out of combat at-will in what I like to term the "I'm taking my ball and going home" maneuver, and getting into CC isn't much help either.

THEN toss in the fact that a TON of weapons got double shots. I get that twin-linked weapons got double shots across the board, but for imperial armies (or armies that hit on 3+s), that's a MASSIVE buff, even factoring in -1 to hit on heavy weapons when they move. And then there's storm bolters which got double shots for absolutely no reason whatsoever........

I'm getting off point, but I certainly don't think that orks are OMGWTFBBQOP at the moment. The fact that so many things just put out a TON of shots and that orks basically don't get saves against them anymore (or laughably pitiful ones) isn't exactly a winning combination.

I am loving the fact that Tyranids went from "worst of the worse" to "top dog" basically overnight if the poll is correct.

 mrhappyface wrote:
Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

I haven't seen necrons win a game yet. They can hit hard but Reanimation Protocol is easy to counter by just wiping whole units of necrons at once. I've seen a game where the necron player didn't even get to make RP rolls.

IDK, I think it's awfully early to start calling who is best. I've played 3 games, and I don't really have a great feel of who is especially strong or weak so far.

Though, I'm not sure why nids are getting such praise, I honestly haven't looked much into them so far. Perhaps they're just improved?

Without a doubt, Tyranids get the "most improved" award, with Dark Eldar and Sisters not far behind.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

I haven't seen necrons win a game yet. They can hit hard but Reanimation Protocol is easy to counter by just wiping whole units of necrons at once. I've seen a game where the necron player didn't even get to make RP rolls.

I've won all four of my games as necrons, and only one of them was a nailbiter, which was against Magnus and four renegade knights. I think what jade angel said is fair, we don't have a particularly deep toolbox, but everything in it is solid. There are however a lot of bad ways to build necrons lists, Like Frankie's from the recent FLG match was terribad.

I don't want to seem unappreciative, because we are not in a bad place overall, It's just that we used to be one of the most versatile armies and now we are down to just a few comps being effective. That feels like a much bigger change than either gauss or repair protocols. The bar for CC effectiveness has been raised so much that none of our melee units kept up. So we are left with our shooting which arguably got more effective, but we have short range on most of our weapons, which pigeon holes us into high mobility low unit count armies that rely on tricks like the deceiver and tomb world deployment to close distance quickly. Being danger close makes us much more vulnerable to CC focused armies like bugs and orks, especially when our CC units are subpar. It's a balancing act that I'm not sure will make it to top table very often.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I am loving the fact that Tyranids went from "worst of the worse" to "top dog" basically overnight if the poll is correct.

I'm personally of the opinion that tyranids are a lot flashier but less effective than IG overall. Grab a few hundred conscripts, HQs to buff them, ratlings for characters, and manticores for heavy stuff. You now have the most cost effective infantry (rips apart termagaunts/hormagaunts), the most cost effective snipers and an absolutely brutal alpha strike anti tank/mc (that's also really cost effective). It tends to wreck most armies, but is arguably even worse for tyranids.

jade_angel wrote:

Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier

A number of people have said this, but you had a thorough list with a lot of reasoning, so I'll ask you the question: what makes DE better in 8th? People keep saying this, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Things that improved:

Transports got more resilient
Dark Lances do lots of damage
Some units are speedier
Hellions don't seem to be terrible anymore

Things that didn't:

Venoms put out less firepower (and poison spam is the same)
Covens seem somewhat weaker overall (maybe tougher, but with worse damage output on the Talosi and no boost for Grotesques)
Wych cult units don't seem like the #1 most improved unit in 8th, as Frankie claimed

I think where I am is that I believe that stuff like Ravagers and Scourges will be great -- putting out tons of damage and easily chewing through tough stuff. I'm still just kind of unconvinced about poison spam; people talk about DE firepower -- sure, they put out lots of shots, but mathhammer dictates that you shouldn't be getting *that* many unsaved wounds. Everyone talks about how great gunboats are; sure, they don't die as quickly, but you're missing splinter racks, and otherwise, they have the exact same firepower as they did in 7th (as long as you're filling them with splinter kabalites). And maybe Covens stuff will turn out to be decent, but I think I'd rather have them in their 7th ed incarnation where Talosi in combat could threaten anything; now, with -1 AP, they occupy the same role as Grotesques do (putting out lots of attacks with no AP, while being tough). I'm not convinced either way about the viability of a lot of DE stuff, it just seems that people have been quick to call them quite strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
IDK, I think it's awfully early to start calling who is best. I've played 3 games, and I don't really have a great feel of who is especially strong or weak so far.

Though, I'm not sure why nids are getting such praise, I honestly haven't looked much into them so far. Perhaps they're just improved?

I think that Tyranids have a lot of strategies that seem very strong in 8th, but as people adjust to the game, they'll be able to counter them. Overall, I'm very happy with where Tyranids are, and I'd be sad to find out that a lot of their strong stuff really is OP. Tyranids are still susceptible to the same stuff that did them in in 7th -- fry their synapse and they fall apart. Warriors are cheaper, but they're hardly more resilient, so they can still be neutered.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

I haven't seen necrons win a game yet. They can hit hard but Reanimation Protocol is easy to counter by just wiping whole units of necrons at once. I've seen a game where the necron player didn't even get to make RP rolls.

I've seen a few necron games so far and they do look very dangerous, a couple of games they tabled their opponent.

As a side note: I wonder if necrons will be one of the few armies where taking max sized squads will be a positive in order to make sure RP goes off.

 Grimgold wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

I haven't seen necrons win a game yet. They can hit hard but Reanimation Protocol is easy to counter by just wiping whole units of necrons at once. I've seen a game where the necron player didn't even get to make RP rolls.

I've won all four of my games as necrons, and only one of them was a nailbiter, which was against Magnus and four renegade knights. I think what jade angel said is fair, we don't have a particularly deep toolbox, but everything in it is solid. There are however a lot of bad ways to build necrons lists, Like Frankie's from the recent FLG match was terribad.

.

Was that knight game a 2kgame? I didn't think an army like that would be able to work this edition. Did you just focus down a knight at a time

 mrhappyface wrote:
Are we forgetting how OP reanimation protocol can be now? Potentially 4+ re-rollable which may or may not return multi-wound models like wraiths to full wounds. Besides the amazing survivability they still hit like a truck.

Wraiths don't have RPs.

Also, I'd question the whole 'hit like a truck' line. Their basic guns are slightly better than bolters, sure, but their medium and heavy weapons are vastly more expensive and they lack any good ways to take out vehicles or MCs.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 buddha wrote:
Best contenders are the three horde armies in no particular order; tyranids, orks, and guard.

What makes you say that? I play orks, and I've found that cover, which basically is what saved my army in 7th, is almost useless. LoS means almost nothing, if you can see one model the entire unit can die. +1 to saves is woefully insufficient - I have kommandos in a ruin, which before was basically a 3+ save from almost everything, who get zero saves from, say, ad mech grav gun spam.

I don't mean to complain too much, I'm pretty happy with 8th generally, but the way cover works (or, more accurately, how it does not), is a pretty massive detriment to horde armies, in my opinion.

Then you toss in the fact that anyone can waltz out of combat at-will in what I like to term the "I'm taking my ball and going home" maneuver, and getting into CC isn't much help either.

THEN toss in the fact that a TON of weapons got double shots. I get that twin-linked weapons got double shots across the board, but for imperial armies (or armies that hit on 3+s), that's a MASSIVE buff, even factoring in -1 to hit on heavy weapons when they move. And then there's storm bolters which got double shots for absolutely no reason whatsoever........

I'm getting off point, but I certainly don't think that orks are OMGWTFBBQOP at the moment. The fact that so many things just put out a TON of shots and that orks basically don't get saves against them anymore (or laughably pitiful ones) isn't exactly a winning combination.

So Orks, like the Tyranids and Guard, have the base tools that 8th is built for. Numbers, able to spam command points, lots of cheap vehicles. Your vehicles are cheap, deadly, and plentiful. Your artillery is good. And your walker spam is incredible. Best yet, you can spam large numbers of cheap board control troops for everything from objectives to dictating deepstrike and bubble wrapping. Hear so many people complaining about 50 conscript blobs? Ork don't care with their own mobs of slugga and shoota boyzs. Hear people complaining about how their army is going to pop enemy transports? Orks don't care with amazing walkers and vehicles of their own. Hear people complaining about how little 2k points actually lets them bring in 8th? Orks don't care as their stuff is cheap and point efficient.

I'm not saying one of the three is the best yet; I'm just saying the 3 horde armies, including orks, have the tools to be among the best.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier

A number of people have said this, but you had a thorough list with a lot of reasoning, so I'll ask you the question: what makes DE better in 8th? People keep saying this, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Things that improved:

As I see it the key thing about DE is that most of the previously good tier stuff has got worse, so by staying the same DE have moved up.
Further to that DE have got tougher in a material way while their damage has improved.

Poison remains good. Kabalites have got cheaper and considerably more survivable against just about everything. The ability to split fire boosts the 5 man blaster squad.
-1 to hit on Venoms with a 4+/5++ with 6 wounds makes them tougher than before. Not doing 12 shots at 36" is a bit sad - but 18" is hardly point blank range, especially when you have a 16" movement.
In fact the 5++ on all vehicles is noticeable given that a lot of vehicles are getting a 6+ or no save from proper anti-armour weapons.
Perhaps most importantly though dark lances and blasters are good now. Previously there were thousands of words written about whether you went with scourges, ravagers, razorwings or blasterborn or something else entirely (reaver spam) for killing vehicles. Now almost all of these seem pretty good (I am sure one will turn out the most efficient but there you go). Anti-armour was often erratic. Now lances are cheap and against a typical armoured target (T7, 3+ save) more efficient than lascannons.

I havn't played Tyranids yet so I don't know quite what makes them good, but a lot it sounds like people playing similar armies to 7th, finding they only get 2/3rds the stuff (while the Tyranid player gets more stuff which is better) and as a result the uncomplicated plan of just shooting the Tyranid player off the table by the end of turn 3 doesn't work.

PUFNSTUF wrote:


Was that knight game a 2kgame? I didn't think an army like that would be able to work this edition. Did you just focus down a knight at a time

Yes a 2k game, I used the deceiver to redeploy into a denied flank which let me concentrate on magnus and a knight and left 3 of his knights half way across the table with no targets. Magnus died a few shots into the second round, the knight with him died to the deceiver in the assault phase of the second round, after that is was one a round. In all fairness I messed up the timing on the deceivers redeploy, but I don't think it ended up mattering. I think he was the 4 LoW FoC and the minus 1 command point FoC for magnus, but magnus gives you two bonus CP, so he ended up with 6 total CP. If it had been a straight shin kicking contest he would have mopped the floor with me, but because I was able to trick him into feeding me his army a mouthful at a time, i was able to get an early points advantage and he wasn't able to catch up. I don't know if I would be on me in the rematch though, now that he knows my tricks he will be a lot more cautious about relative concentration of forces.

It's a sad day when Death Guard doesn't even make the list :(

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier

A number of people have said this, but you had a thorough list with a lot of reasoning, so I'll ask you the question: what makes DE better in 8th? People keep saying this, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Things that improved:

Transports got more resilient
Dark Lances do lots of damage
Some units are speedier
Hellions don't seem to be terrible anymore

Things that didn't:

Venoms put out less firepower (and poison spam is the same)
Covens seem somewhat weaker overall (maybe tougher, but with worse damage output on the Talosi and no boost for Grotesques)
Wych cult units don't seem like the #1 most improved unit in 8th, as Frankie claimed

I think where I am is that I believe that stuff like Ravagers and Scourges will be great -- putting out tons of damage and easily chewing through tough stuff. I'm still just kind of unconvinced about poison spam; people talk about DE firepower -- sure, they put out lots of shots, but mathhammer dictates that you shouldn't be getting *that* many unsaved wounds. Everyone talks about how great gunboats are; sure, they don't die as quickly, but you're missing splinter racks, and otherwise, they have the exact same firepower as they did in 7th (as long as you're filling them with splinter kabalites). And maybe Covens stuff will turn out to be decent, but I think I'd rather have them in their 7th ed incarnation where Talosi in combat could threaten anything; now, with -1 AP, they occupy the same role as Grotesques do (putting out lots of attacks with no AP, while being tough). I'm not convinced either way about the viability of a lot of DE stuff, it just seems that people have been quick to call them quite strong.

The pros you listed are the main reasons why they got better. DE weren't bad in 7e because poison sucked - hell, poison was arguably the only thing they had that did work as well as it was meant to. It's better now because vehicles are no longer wholly immune, but I'm not sure how relevant that is. Venom spam got weaker, but with the other sources of firepower now actually working, my thought on that is "well, who actually cares at this point?".

The fact that lances work and your transports don't die to the first autocannon pointed their way is huge. Almost as huge, you can move the transport 12", and its passengers can still shoot. In 7e, they had to snap-fire if you did that, which made gunboats slow. Also, any penetrating hit essentially soft-killed your gunboat for at least a whole turn: on a 1,2,3, you're snap-firing, and the passengers probably are. A 4 blows off a gun, and a 5 leaves you stranded. A 6, you die and the passengers, even if they live, are neutered at least for that turn. Since that no longer happens, gunboats are relevant for more than just a first-turn salvo. Now you have to hard-kill them, and that's harder to do.

Ravagers now actually work as designed: 12" move into position, then open fire with all weapons. Plus, those weapons count as Assault, so you can advance if needed, then shoot at -1, which isn't bad when you're BS 3+ to start with.

Power From Pain starts protecting you immediately, not on Turn 2, and you can actually use it against S6 and up. Everyone's favorite guns in 7e (modulo grav, but DE was one of the few armies grav sucks against) caused ID to most T3 guys, so that FNP was mostly useless. Picking your Combat Drugs is huge, and being able to have different drugs on different dudes is almost as big. Wyches that hit on a 2+ (instead of a 4+, as was usual in 7e) makes their tricks actually work, as does reliably having more attacks or S4. Being able to divide your fire makes Kabalite Warriors/Trueborn a lot more efficient. Reavers are no longer just fishing for sixes, and are no longer hamstrung by wanting to shoot one class of target and assault another. Also, instead of the funky shenanigans of chain-snares and shock prows in 7e, their transports can actually fight fairly well - well enough to support their passengers, at least. And they FLY, so you can charge in, then fade out and open fire, or fade forward, deeper into the enemy deployment zone (while still firing).

Long story short, their intended trick - move like greased lightning, hit hard, keep moving, then fade away from the counterattack - actually works now.

Harlequins, Tyranids, Imperium are the three strongest factions I think

Tyel wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier

A number of people have said this, but you had a thorough list with a lot of reasoning, so I'll ask you the question: what makes DE better in 8th? People keep saying this, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Things that improved:

As I see it the key thing about DE is that most of the previously good tier stuff has got worse, so by staying the same DE have moved up.
Further to that DE have got tougher in a material way while their damage has improved.

Poison remains good. Kabalites have got cheaper and considerably more survivable against just about everything. The ability to split fire boosts the 5 man blaster squad.
-1 to hit on Venoms with a 4+/5++ with 6 wounds makes them tougher than before. Not doing 12 shots at 36" is a bit sad - but 18" is hardly point blank range, especially when you have a 16" movement.
In fact the 5++ on all vehicles is noticeable given that a lot of vehicles are getting a 6+ or no save from proper anti-armour weapons.
Perhaps most importantly though dark lances and blasters are good now. Previously there were thousands of words written about whether you went with scourges, ravagers, razorwings or blasterborn or something else entirely (reaver spam) for killing vehicles. Now almost all of these seem pretty good (I am sure one will turn out the most efficient but there you go). Anti-armour was often erratic. Now lances are cheap and against a typical armoured target (T7, 3+ save) more efficient than lascannons.

I havn't played Tyranids yet so I don't know quite what makes them good, but a lot it sounds like people playing similar armies to 7th, finding they only get 2/3rds the stuff (while the Tyranid player gets more stuff which is better) and as a result the uncomplicated plan of just shooting the Tyranid player off the table by the end of turn 3 doesn't work.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

jade_angel wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

Dark Eldar - the whipping-elves of the galaxy gain power from pain, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to whip them that long? The Comorrites are back. They're glass and utterly unforgiving of mistakes, but in the right hands,
they rule. A-tier

A number of people have said this, but you had a thorough list with a lot of reasoning, so I'll ask you the question: what makes DE better in 8th? People keep saying this, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Things that improved:

Transports got more resilient
Dark Lances do lots of damage
Some units are speedier
Hellions don't seem to be terrible anymore

Things that didn't:

Venoms put out less firepower (and poison spam is the same)
Covens seem somewhat weaker overall (maybe tougher, but with worse damage output on the Talosi and no boost for Grotesques)
Wych cult units don't seem like the #1 most improved unit in 8th, as Frankie claimed

I think where I am is that I believe that stuff like Ravagers and Scourges will be great -- putting out tons of damage and easily chewing through tough stuff. I'm still just kind of unconvinced about poison spam; people talk about DE firepower -- sure, they put out lots of shots, but mathhammer dictates that you shouldn't be getting *that* many unsaved wounds. Everyone talks about how great gunboats are; sure, they don't die as quickly, but you're missing splinter racks, and otherwise, they have the exact same firepower as they did in 7th (as long as you're filling them with splinter kabalites). And maybe Covens stuff will turn out to be decent, but I think I'd rather have them in their 7th ed incarnation where Talosi in combat could threaten anything; now, with -1 AP, they occupy the same role as Grotesques do (putting out lots of attacks with no AP, while being tough). I'm not convinced either way about the viability of a lot of DE stuff, it just seems that people have been quick to call them quite strong.

The pros you listed are the main reasons why they got better. DE weren't bad in 7e because poison sucked - hell, poison was arguably the only thing they had that did work as well as it was meant to. It's better now because vehicles are no longer wholly immune, but I'm not sure how relevant that is. Venom spam got weaker, but with the other sources of firepower now actually working, my thought on that is "well, who actually cares at this point?".

The fact that lances work and your transports don't die to the first autocannon pointed their way is huge. Almost as huge, you can move the transport 12", and its passengers can still shoot. In 7e, they had to snap-fire if you did that, which made gunboats slow. Also, any penetrating hit essentially soft-killed your gunboat for at least a whole turn: on a 1,2,3, you're snap-firing, and the passengers probably are. A 4 blows off a gun, and a 5 leaves you stranded. A 6, you die and the passengers, even if they live, are neutered at least for that turn. Since that no longer happens, gunboats are relevant for more than just a first-turn salvo. Now you have to hard-kill them, and that's harder to do.

Ravagers now actually work as designed: 12" move into position, then open fire with all weapons. Plus, those weapons count as Assault, so you can advance if needed, then shoot at -1, which isn't bad when you're BS 3+ to start with.

Power From Pain starts protecting you immediately, not on Turn 2, and you can actually use it against S6 and up. Everyone's favorite guns in 7e (modulo grav, but DE was one of the few armies grav sucks against) caused ID to most T3 guys, so that FNP was mostly useless. Picking your Combat Drugs is huge, and being able to have different drugs on different dudes is almost as big. Wyches that hit on a 2+ (instead of a 4+, as was usual in 7e) makes their tricks actually work, as does reliably having more attacks or S4. Being able to divide your fire makes Kabalite Warriors/Trueborn a lot more efficient. Reavers are no longer just fishing for sixes, and are no longer hamstrung by wanting to shoot one class of target and assault another. Also, instead of the funky shenanigans of chain-snares and shock prows in 7e, their transports can actually fight fairly well - well enough to support their passengers, at least. And they FLY, so you can charge in, then fade out and open fire, or fade forward, deeper into the enemy deployment zone (while still firing).

Long story short, their intended trick - move like greased lightning, hit hard, keep moving, then fade away from the counterattack - actually works now.

Alright, you guys sold me -- I'm looking forward to trying this stuff out myself!!