Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
The 7th edition meta was the frozen T-1000 towards the end of Judgement day, 8th edition has been the bullet fired by Arnie straight into it's face, smashing the whole thing into a thousand pieces. Each day since 8th edition dropped, the hot bright sparks of the 40k Dakka community, have been slowing turning the brittle fractured remains of the meta back into a molten state. The liquid metal blobs are on the move.
With each passing army list, debate, discussion and configuration, we here at Dakka are remoulding the previously shattered remains of the 7th edition meta, into a new 8th edition meta. It's still very much incomplete and who knows what it's going to look like, although I doubt it's going to be another incarnation of Robert Patrick.
In other words. It's too early.
The first rule of unarmed combat is: don’t be unarmed.
2017/07/06 22:23:02
Subject: Re:so what does the meta for 8th look like?
BrianDavion wrote: in other words it's too early to say. I do think with the price costs for vehicles etc 8th is going to be a, comparitivly, heavy infantry edition.
You'd think so but vehicles are also a lot harder to kill now than they were before. No chance to instantly explode, a lascannon can always roll a 1 for damage... Thousand Sons is especially good at dealing with infantry with our inferno boltguns, but against vehicles we don't really have a good answer that isn't also a vehicle.
Where I live it's Intangible Ghostkeels and swarms of Daemons or Nids dictating the meta.
Most shootie armies can't deal with the Ghostkeels, most melee armies can't deal with the swarms.
I don't break the rules but I'll bend them as far as they'll go.
I've seen a lot of different stuff on the tables. One trend I've noticed as people have had a few weeks to get settled is the spamming of whatever unit or type though. An assault army is 100% unit x with character support, a flyer list is nearly 100% flyers, etc... I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but for whatever reason it's what I'm seeing. It's strange, because my initial impression was we'd see more balanced forces but the opposite seems to be happening.
Going to take a while longer for it to find a real meta though. Right now people are still bringing things based on what they think is good, rather than building to beat a particular army though.
dosiere wrote: I've seen a lot of different stuff on the tables. One trend I've noticed as people have had a few weeks to get settled is the spamming of whatever unit or type though. An assault army is 100% unit x with character support, a flyer list is nearly 100% flyers, etc... I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but for whatever reason it's what I'm seeing. It's strange, because my initial impression was we'd see more balanced forces but the opposite seems to be happening.
Going to take a while longer for it to find a real meta though. Right now people are still bringing things based on what they think is good, rather than building to beat a particular army though.
Since it's easier than ever to spam whatever you wish not really surprising
fe40k wrote: Meta is ultimate spammy - TAC lists are the weakest this edition.
That's a bummer. My store runs leagues where you have to submit your army list in advance, and play that same army list for every game regardless of opponent. Balanced "take all commers" army lists are, presumably, the best lists for that. UNLESS the current meta favors some lists, like 3rd ed was all about the Rhino Rush.
I've always said if I was ever to get back into 40k then I'd just make the cheesiest, most over the top list I could, and screw it if I ever won or lost. Nearly did it, too, back when Blood Angels could take Assault Squads as Troops. Was kicking around the idea again, recently, with Space Marines Combat Squads. Six Combat Squads with 4 Matines & a Lascannon, six Combat Squads each with three marines and two Lascannons, and six Speed Bumps with three marines, a Flamer and a Powerfist.
I just have to remind myself from time to time that GW is NOT a game company that exists to put out a game that is balanced or even fun. It's a model company that exists to sell me models.
Yeah, there's no real restrictions on taking spam anymore. *there will be all spam all the time Tac lists are dead.
Since there's no real incentive to play single faction anymore, the meta will look like the exact same 3 lists in 6 months, I'm certain. Imperium, ynarri, Nids.
BrianDavion wrote: in other words it's too early to say. I do think with the price costs for vehicles etc 8th is going to be a, comparitivly, heavy infantry edition.
You'd think so but vehicles are also a lot harder to kill now than they were before. No chance to instantly explode, a lascannon can always roll a 1 for damage... Thousand Sons is especially good at dealing with infantry with our inferno boltguns, but against vehicles we don't really have a good answer that isn't also a vehicle.
yeah and I'm not saying you won't see vehicles, but I have a hunch that the field is going to be more then "3 tatical squads, an assault squad and a predator" rather then "2 naked scout squads, 3 predators" etc
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
fe40k wrote:Meta is ultimate spammy - TAC lists are the weakest this edition.
Top armies are:
Imperium
Tyranids (base+AM)
After that, it's a bit muddled - we'll wait to see who gets to spam the strongest units the best when the tournament results start coming out.
Taking the results from the thread Vector Strike noted, the top armies are Imperial Gourd and Space Wolves. Unquestionably, the Tau are by far the worst army, in terms of these self-reported results. Whether this is just true for the army, or whether half its playerbase is still trying to play their 7e cheesefest is another matter...
A rundown of the 10 best cataloged armies thus far:
Spoiler:
Selym wrote: Time for another W/L ratio, this time of any army with more than 40 games :
The thing with spam lists is that you are mainly playing rock-paper-scissors.
Yeah, the stormraven list is strong - but if everyone brings them then the countermeta players will bring Onager Dunecrawlers and Quad Icarus Lascannons.
Dedicated AA units are maybe useful now... dig out those Stalkers and Hydras!
I think the idea of a TAC list is not dead, as long as it's not purely reactive. It also has to cause its own problems that another player will need to think of a way to deal with.
TO of Death Before Dishonour - A Warhammer 40k Tournament with a focus on great battles between well painted, thematic armies on tables with full terrain.
Well you have Tyranids, you have Ynnari, you have Gun Drone Spam, Marine Storm Raven Spam, Spam Ynnari with Razorwing Flock Spam, Spam Spam Wave Serpent Spam, oh and Robute Gulliman buffing a Land Raider with Razorback Spam.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/07 11:36:13
Silentz wrote: The thing with spam lists is that you are mainly playing rock-paper-scissors.
Yeah, the stormraven list is strong - but if everyone brings them then the countermeta players will bring Onager Dunecrawlers and Quad Icarus Lascannons.
Dedicated AA units are maybe useful now... dig out those Stalkers and Hydras!
I think the idea of a TAC list is not dead, as long as it's not purely reactive. It also has to cause its own problems that another player will need to think of a way to deal with.
I don't think this is really true. I've seen this sentiment before and I think it confuses a TAC list with a list that presents a diverse set of targets. A spam list can absolutely be a TAC list, and a list that presents a diverse set of targets can still be countered hard.
In my view, rock-paper-scissors is much more about your offensive capabilities than your defensive ones. I've seen people run lists with more lascannons than bolters in them. These are "TAC" lists in what seems to be your sense; they had some infantry, some tanks, some flyers, some characters, etc., but they're absolutely horrible at actually taking on all comers. They just auto-lose to hordes. Likewise I've seen lists where if you glance over their models on the tabletop they appear to be a nice, diverse army, but then they only have two anti-tank guns. Again, this is the opposite of a TAC list and auto-loses to lots of monsters or vehicles.
Meanwhile, an infantry spam list can absolutely be a TAC list. It can be prepared to shoot at tanks and hordes and flyers. Adding a few vehicles will tend to simply make it worse against all lists, because all you're doing is giving the enemy's anti-tank guns something to shoot at. A flyer spam list is no weaker to your two Hydras than is a more balanced list that only has two flyers. There's no rock-paper-scissors element here, on the army scale. In either case, your Hydras will do some damage to a couple flyers. The flyer spam list is obviously going to prioritize killing them, though, so they don't provide much of an advantage beyond what they can accomplish in the first few turns, which is identical to what they would do if your opponent only had a few flyers.
Obviously it's true that you could come up with a rock-paper-scissors list that beats flyer spam. You could bring nothing but Hydras. But then it's you that doesn't have the TAC list. You're beating that one specific archetype and losing to everything else. The flyer spam list is still clearly TAC, though -- to be a TAC list doesn't mean that it's impossible to construct a specific list designed to counter it, just that it fares reasonably well against the range of plausible good lists. AA spam is just not a good list and isn't worth worrying about, unless flyer spam is 90% of the meta.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/07/07 11:55:02
We have a few lists that are just dominating everything, and they're all TAC lists. One is Rowboat Girlyman protected by Honor Guard with a variety of smurfs, and the other is two slightly different celestine-led sisters TAC lists.
the big, beefy characters who hover juuuuuust below the "what giant shittily proportioned 20 foot tall buzz lightyear, I only see Tactical marines!" threshold seem really powerful. I'm also finding it hilarious that chaos has to pay for Spawn if they want to use a special weapon taht might occasionally turn a guy into one, but sisters players pay 0 points for a 200 point character who resurrects herself and gaks out canonesses every turn.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
I think the fact everything can hurt everything now simple allows people to pick the best gun for 80% of situations (Assault cannons) and just spam it.
A Song of Ice and Fire - House Greyjoy.
AoS - Maggotkin of Nurgle, Ossiarch Bonereapers & Seraphon.
Bloodbowl - Lizardmen.
Horus Heresy - World Eaters.
Marvel Crisis Protocol - Avengers, Brotherhood of Mutants & Cabal.
Middle Earth Strategy Battle game - Rivendell & The Easterlings.
The Ninth Age - Beast Herds & Highborn Elves.
Warhammer 40k - Tyranids.
OTOH, it means you're never truly out of the game while you still have models, and there *is* the possibility of getting hilariously lucky and seeing flashlights kill off a Reaver Titan.
It's extremely unlikely, but whittle it down to its last one or two wounds, and it can happen.
From what I seen so far there is no dominant army and I think it's the wrong mindset going forward.
Bow down to Guilliman for he is our new God Emperor!
Martel - "Custodes are terrible in 8th. Good luck with them. They take all the problems of marines and multiply them."
"Lol, classic martel. 'I know it was strong enough to podium in the biggest tournament in the world but I refuse to acknowledge space marines are good because I can't win with them and it can't possibly be ME'."
DakkaDakka is really the place where you need anti-tank guns to kill basic dudes, because anything less isn't durable enough.
6000 World Eaters/Khorne 
/ BMG: Mr. Freeze, Deathstroke / Battletech: SR, OWA / Fallout Factions: BoS / HGB: Caprice / Malifaux: Arcanists, Guild, Outcasts / MCP: Mutants / SAGA: Ordensstaat / SW Legion: CIS / WWX: Union
