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We seem to have had enough time to sort out some of the strongest units in 8th now. Please vote for the TOP THREE strongest units FOR THEIR POINTS COST.and we'll see what dakka thinks!

I've tried to include at least something from each faction, and have been largely led by what people are spamming in the ETC. I've grouped a couple of units with similar battlefield roles or are usually found together. I'm afraid I'm not going to include forgeworld in this, as I'm not familiar with many of the models outside the guard ones.

I'm sure I'll have left some strong options out, so let me know if I have. Necrons seem pretty well balanced to me - I wasn't sure of any standout units for them!

Look forward to seeing the results!

The "Your" in the question is confusing me

Do you want us to pick the top 3 strongest in our armies

or the 3 we feel are strongest overall in any army?

Also, Devastators/Havocs should be up there imo

Ah sorry, I meant 'your' as in what do YOU think are the strongest.

I meant for all armies

Thanks for letting me know though - I've updated the thread title!

Guilliman.

Brimstones until they're nerfed.

Harleys.

Tau Commander, gun drones, and gulliman. Look at the bao day 1 results. Tau commanders for days. In this case I do approve a nerf to them, but on the flip side I want to see some buffs put out to the other non-viable anti-tank units in our army and rejiggering.

I'll wait until the BAO is completely over before giving my final judgements on what I think needs to happen for Tau balance. Probably not as crazy as everyone thinks either.

stratigo wrote:
Guilliman.

Brimstones until they're nerfed.

Harleys.

2/3 were my choices too, I've swapped Harleys with scions though

Well conscripts, guilliman and stormravens are nosing ahead as the most undercosted units in the game.

It's a bit depressing that GW had the option to adjust 2/3 of these in the last codex and chose not to. I know they vetoed full armies of stormravens, but it doesn't stop people using a LOT of them in a list.

admech robots with their 36" range 18 shots of s6 ap-2 ignoring cover for a little over 100 points... on a plattform with a 3+ 5++ t6 and 6w...

they are horribly undercosted. also those elektro priests semm a bit too much especially after they get their 3++ save

Scions

Stormravens

Guilliman

These are the only real OP things in 8th edition. Maybe brimstones too, but there aren't many tzeentch players and if you use only original models I don't think there will be a huge spam of this little guys since they are very expensive in masses and not that common in the used market.

Serious question

Why is Harker up there?
Is his +1 AP Assault Heavy Bolter REALLY that broken?
Even if it is a little above the curve, it's not like he can do THAT much in 5-6 turns.

 Talamare wrote:
Serious question

Why is Harker up there?
Is his +1 AP Assault Heavy Bolter REALLY that broken?
Even if it is a little above the curve, it's not like he can do THAT much in 5-6 turns.

People use him as a source of reroll 1 for everything in AM armies.

Stormraven
Guilleman
Brimstone Horrors

Not sure why Conscript/Commisar combo was included - it's a combo ie more than one unit.

Because conscripts or commissars on their own aren't that strong, and you're unlikely to see conscripts without a commissar. If there's any other similar combos out there then I'd include them too.

Harker can give re rolling ones to a huge amount of artillery at a time. Ive seen a bunch of competitive lists use him. He is particularly well with manticores and other artillery tanks. His heavy bolter is just a small bonus.

Necron Gauss pylon is quite points efficient for what it offers, not broken on the same level as alot of other things, but for points efficiency....

Conscripts - They do everything you need troops to do, cheaper, more efficiently, with more wounds, and the moment you add a commissar to them (which you will), they do it more effectively.

Securing Objectives? Bodies
Taking hits? Wounds
Not running from battleshock? Commissar.
Prevent Deepstrike? Huge board presence.
Overwatch? Same BS as any other troops in overwatch, but more bullets.

Add Psychic barrier to their mix, and Celestine as an HQ, and now they do all that stuff they do the best, even better.

Guilliman - His stat line is amazing (He is a primarch). He gives you the same command points as a Battalion, so just taking him solo is often cost efficient. His invuln is off the chart. His weapons somehow got gene-seeded themselves to be that pimp.

Not just his own stats and CP, but his force multiplication is fething incredible, rerolls for days, oh and if you don't feel like shooting, than just go ahead and get more rerolls for assault troops.

And they squeaked him in at 9 wounds to get him around being targetted. Oh, everything somehow went perfect, and he failed 9 saves on a 2+/3++, after you spent most of your army trying to move to a place you could actually shoot him?? Annnnd... he's Celestine. No Slay the Warlord for you.


So, a statline of a stumpy Imperial Knight, including weapons, with better saves. Can't be directly targeted with proper positioning, re-rolling shooting, re-rolling assault, and re-rolling morale for pretty much everyone around him, and resurrects.... gotta be damn near 500 pts right?

Nope. 360.


The last one was a tossup between Stormraven and Brimstone for me. I put Stormraven for now, because I don't think the Flyer FAQ really solved the problem they presented of incredible mobility, more guns than god, and penalties to being shot at. But there's a good case for Brimstone spam providing many of the same benefits as Conscripts... but with smite.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Well conscripts, guilliman and stormravens are nosing ahead as the most undercosted units in the game.

It's a bit depressing that GW had the option to adjust 2/3 of these in the last codex and chose not to. I know they vetoed full armies of stormravens, but it doesn't stop people using a LOT of them in a list.

I think that's because people are voting based on early experience with Storm Ravens or just the fact that the campaign and codex drop is making Space Marines more prominent.

But Brimstone Horrors should definitely be in the top 3 instead, not 4th. It's 2 pts for a model that has a 4+ invuln save. With Changeling making them hard to shoot at and Daemon Prince making them shoot better. Not bad for a unit that can spam full strength Smites 1/3 of the time.

Brimstones don't have guns. Doesn't stop them from being borked, but at least there's that.

Barring the HQ tax (lol, HQ tax... serious) I can run like 1500 points of Brimstones. If I wanted to focus just on how broken the Brimstones are then let's leave out the Blue Horror casters for now (they don't explode casting smite).

10-model units of Brimstones are 20 pts each. I can field 75 squads of them. Sure, they explode when casting smite, but I have 10 in each squad and their saves are amazing.

75 squads can cast Smite an average of 25 times in a single turn at the cost of a 2pt model each.

That Smite will do an average of 2 MORTAL wounds each and probably kill back its points easily (even against OTHER BRIMSTONES).

25 * 2 = 50 no save automatic wounds spread across your army, albeit at whatever happens to be the closest model at the time of each casting (but with 25 castings... who cares?)

I'd probably go with Girlyman as the main offender.

I'm reluctant to call Conscripts "most powerful", because they're really not.

Don't get me wrong - I think that with Commissar and Commander support they bring a bit too much to the table for their cost.

However, one thing they really don't bring is actual power. All they really bring is a lot of cheap bodies to protect the units in your army that actually do the work.

I don't really need to explain Conscripts and Brimstones, but I want to actually bring up Cawl.

Not only is he a better purchase than the regular priest based in durability alone, his aura is so much better and he basically lets you choose your Canticles. It doesn't seem too powerful until you realize AdMech armies crumble without him. Does that make all those things overcosted, or is Cawl just too good? Time will tell.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I don't really need to explain Conscripts and Brimstones, but I want to actually bring up Cawl.

Not only is he a better purchase than the regular priest based in durability alone, his aura is so much better and he basically lets you choose your Canticles. It doesn't seem too powerful until you realize AdMech armies crumble without him. Does that make all those things overcosted, or is Cawl just too good? Time will tell.

Cawl constantly seems like for 250 pt's, he's a decently fair HQ (the Tech Dom's are overpriced tax, so Cawl becomes pretty mandatory).

The issue is, Ad Mech armies crumble without him, because Ad Mech armies are just Cawl, Kastelan, and Onagers sitting in a pile. No other units are really worthwhile to take at all over just subbing things in from other Armies.

Without him, Kastelan and Onagers are above average in strength, for sure, but can't really carry a game by themselves as they sit in one spot the whole time.

Which makes me think that Cawl's not "too good". The rest of the army is just "not good", and his multiplier added to two units that can take advantage of it is the only thing keeping the whole army out of the garbage.

I voted for Scions, Daemon Princes and Stormravens.

Scions: They get a "Deep Strike" rule that puts them within double tap range of a plasmagun with no risk, and said plasmaguns only cost 7 points and shoot just as accurately as those of Space Marines. Crazy.

Daemon Princes: 180 points gets you a 12" moving, Smite-throwing powerhouse that gets a huge number of high-strength attacks and gets to reroll not only his own attacks but those of other units nearby. Just nuts. They wouldn't be as good if they weren't so easily spammable though.

Stormravens: Probably not as good with the rule change for flyers and tabling, but still very very nasty for their points.

My votes:

Storm Raven

Ad Mech Robots

Cawl

Storm Raven is a given, a proper high power beat stick with huge amounts of dakka and is still powerful after the Nerf that really only stopped them being spammed. The problem is that they are too powerful for the points. Upping their base points (or making their guns cost more) would be more beneficial.

Castellian Robots are HILARIOUSLY undercosted for their points. 18 S6 -2AP ignore cover shots? How is that even remotely balanced? Add in the fact that it's only just over 100pts for this, you'll soon see this stuff spammed until the end of time.

Cawl. Simply put, the best all round HQ in the game. Offers so much and gives it aplenty. Girlyman is powerful. But Cawl is simply better at synergy. Add in the fact Cawl can use transports and is much easier to hide (I.e. isn't such a beacon of attracting Lascannon shots) you end up with a beastly HQ.

 Freddy Kruger wrote:
Cawl. Simply put, the best all round HQ in the game. Offers so much and gives it aplenty. Girlyman is powerful. But Cawl is simply better at synergy. Add in the fact Cawl can use transports and is much easier to hide (I.e. isn't such a beacon of attracting Lascannon shots) you end up with a beastly HQ.

They are both characters with below 10 wounds so they shouldn't be targetable by lascannons as long as you put another unit in front of them, which should be always.

 Freddy Kruger wrote:


Cawl can use transports

What transport can Cawl legally enter that doesn't prevent it due to his Keywords (the same as the rest of the Ad Mech army that is currently transportless due to other armies transports specifically restricting their carrying capacity to keywords)

I'd also like to nominate another unit for the list that should have been there from the start.

Malefic Lord. The stats really don't matter. It's a 30pt psyker who can cast Smite and has a 4+ invulnerable. Plus when he perils he becomes as fighty as a Daemon Prince.

There's even a detachment of only HQs. You can field as many of these guys as you want and call it an army while getting REWARDED FOR IT with tons of command points. The ones that peril will become your melee death machines.

Sorry, as stated in OP I'm not going to include forge world in this. Maybe in another thread at a later date, but I just can't be bothered to trawl every single miscosted forgeworld abomination. Just out of guard I'd have to include vultures, cyclops vehicles, earthshaker batteries and death corps engineers off the top of my head. Most people have never played against them so I don't think they'd score particularly highly either.

The malefic lord does sound pretty strong though!

BAO's first three rounds resulted in the following undefeated players/lists:

Your Top 15 undefeated factions and players: I decided to list the style of list instead of just the faction. There are a lot more intricacies to a lot of these lists, but most people condense a well-tuned list into one easy to understand concept anyways. So I did it for you guys.

Dustin Lane (9 Commander Suit Tau)
Doug Johnson (Imperium Soup)
Brandon Grant (Astra Militarum Hoard Guard)
Tony Myers (Space Marine Flyers and Guilliman)
Aaron Hayden (Renegane Knights + Magnus + Brimstones)
Adam Gati (Craftworld Ynnari)
Anthony Villa (5 Commanders + Yvarha)
Domagoj Mitrovic (Chaos Daemons, List not posted)
Paul Mckelvey ( The PM Special, + 4 Commanders)
John McCool (Like, a Billion Stormboyz and a Giant Squiggoth)
Kyle Watson (Dark Angel Dreadnoughts and 2 Fire Raptors)
Matt Barlow (Hoard Guard with not just Conscripts)
Phi Tracy (Guilliman + Whirlwinds and Stalkers)
Mitch Pelham (Stormlord + Drop Troopers)
Brian Hart (Militarum Tempestus + a Guard Firebase)

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/07/29/bao-first-3-rounds-results-and-videos/

Where's Chaos Berzerkers?

Cause I'd add them to my top three.

If they're not to be included for whatever reason, I'd say that, after the flyer nerf, Razorbacks, Dominions, and Genestealers are the top three units atm.

Stormraven, Brimstone horrors, Tau commander


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
Where's Chaos Berzerkers?

They are good, but they are hardly in the top five asssault infantry units right now. Unlike, Gurliman, Stormravens, Brimstones, Knights, Commanders, Conscripts and Scion-spam, bezerkers are not really topping the competetive meta. Or at least that is not my impression.