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If BoLS is to be believed (and unlike their other 40k content their event coverage is pretty good) there are several things worth taking away from the BAO Top 8:

1. The finish was very close. A matter of dice rolls or difference in opponents, and any one of these lists could have won.

2. While the exact details of his list are not yet available, the Tau player in the Top 8 only had four Commander Suits. As it tuns out, there might be more to Tau than just spamming as many Commanders as possible.

3. The Dark Angels player only had two Flyers in his list (a pair of Fire Raptors).

4. All of the Top 3 lists have one thing in common (in addition to AM and using Conscripts): the use of at least three different detachments.

Overall, I think that what we can take away from the BAO is that the game is in a much better state balance-wise than it was in 7th edition. The FAQ nerf to Flyers and Sudden Death has definitely cut down on the Flyer spam, particularly Stormravens.

The biggest changes to balance that I would see being necessary going forward are to Conscripts and to Detachments. I don't think Conscripts need a points increase or lose the ability to receive orders, as that would make them objectively inferior to Guardsmen. I would prefer a limit on the availability of Conscripts instead: for every unit of Guardsmen in a Detachment, you may take one unit of Conscripts as a Troops choice. I also think that there needs to be a return to the old Two-Source limit for army construction, albeit for Detachments: your army may be composed of a maximum of two Detachments (of any type). In addition, all units within a detachment must share the same faction Key Words. Both of these changes would, in my opinion, further improve the balance of the tournament game in 8th Edition.

The be fair I watched the live stream of the final game with Tau vs Guard. The damn guard player was sloppy as hell.

In a tournament, how the hell are you going to shoot plasma at stealth suits and over charge thinking you're safe with re reroll 1s. They weren't even playing the game right and we're supposed to draw conclusions from this tournament?

 TheNewBlood wrote:
If BoLS is to be believed (and unlike their other 40k content their event coverage is pretty good) there are several things worth taking away from the BAO Top 8:

1. The finish was very close. A matter of dice rolls or difference in opponents, and any one of these lists could have won.

2. While the exact details of his list are not yet available, the Tau player in the Top 8 only had four Commander Suits. As it tuns out, there might be more to Tau than just spamming as many Commanders as possible.

3. The Dark Angels player only had two Flyers in his list (a pair of Fire Raptors).

4. All of the Top 3 lists have one thing in common (in addition to AM and using Conscripts): the use of at least three different detachments.

Overall, I think that what we can take away from the BAO is that the game is in a much better state balance-wise than it was in 7th edition. The FAQ nerf to Flyers and Sudden Death has definitely cut down on the Flyer spam, particularly Stormravens.

The biggest changes to balance that I would see being necessary going forward are to Conscripts and to Detachments. I don't think Conscripts need a points increase or lose the ability to receive orders, as that would make them objectively inferior to Guardsmen. I would prefer a limit on the availability of Conscripts instead: for every unit of Guardsmen in a Detachment, you may take one unit of Conscripts as a Troops choice. I also think that there needs to be a return to the old Two-Source limit for army construction, albeit for Detachments: your army may be composed of a maximum of two Detachments (of any type). In addition, all units within a detachment must share the same faction Key Words. Both of these changes would, in my opinion, further improve the balance of the tournament game in 8th Edition.

I just wanted to say a "thank you" for a return to reasonable analysis of the situation, rather than just yelling something silly like, "Ban FW models."

I think we're seeing the evolution of a meta in process. The IG armies are clearly the top three list, and I'm expecting the next step will be to see if an army comes specifically to counter them. We see it a lot in other games - popular recipe X comes along and does well, so people create Y to counter it. Then Z comes along to counter Y, but how does X vs. Z pan out? Conscripts are certainly very strong, no doubt about it.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
The be fair I watched the live stream of the final game with Tau vs Guard. The damn guard player was sloppy as hell.

In a tournament, how the hell are you going to shoot plasma at stealth suits and over charge thinking you're safe with re reroll 1s. They weren't even playing the game right and we're supposed to draw conclusions from this tournament?

Gaming fatigue sets in.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

2. While the exact details of his list are not yet available, the Tau player in the Top 8 only had four Commander Suits. As it tuns out, there might be more to Tau than just spamming as many Commanders as possible.

His list is here. It has 6 Commanders which combined make up around 50% of the total list in terms of points.

https://spikeybits.com/2017/07/bao-top-table-imperial-guard-vs-tau.html

Lets break it down it terms of models:

80 points of Marker Drones.
264 points of Gun Drones.
907 points of Commanders.
42 points of Fireblade.
243 points of Crisis Suits.
230 points of Stealth Suits.
127 points of Devilfish.
80 points of Pathfinders.
43 points of Fire Warriors.

In short, spamming commanders and drones (with some flamer crisis suits thrown in) certainly seem to be the only way for Tau to compete.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

2. While the exact details of his list are not yet available, the Tau player in the Top 8 only had four Commander Suits. As it tuns out, there might be more to Tau than just spamming as many Commanders as possible.

His list is here. It has 6 Commanders which combined make up around 50% of the total list in terms of points.

https://spikeybits.com/2017/07/bao-top-table-imperial-guard-vs-tau.html

Lets break it down it terms of models:

80 points of Marker Drones.
264 points of Gun Drones.
907 points of Commanders.
42 points of Fireblade.
243 points of Crisis Suits.
230 points of Stealth Suits.
127 points of Devilfish.
80 points of Pathfinders.
43 points of Fire Warriors.

In short, spamming commanders and drones (with some flamer crisis suits thrown in) certainly seem to be the only way for Tau to compete.

Thank you for pointing out my error; I did not know the full details of his list.

Look at it this way: while it is true that this player spent 50% of his points on Commanders, he also spent 50% of his points on units other than Commanders. With the way his Detachments are set up, he easily could have cut points down in other units in favor of more Commanders. So why didn't he? He must have had a reason for doing so, seeing as how he made Top 8 in a large and highly competitive tournament.

Also interesting: no Coldstar Commander. Again, he clearly must have a reason; what could it be for not including such a powerful unit?

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Thank you for pointing out my error; I did not know the full details of his list.

Look at it this way: while it is true that this player spent 50% of his points on Commanders, he also spent 50% of his points on units other than Commanders. With the way his Detachments are set up, he easily could have cut points down in other units in favor of more Commanders. So why didn't he? He must have had a reason for doing so, seeing as how he made Top 8 in a large and highly competitive tournament.

Also interesting: no Coldstar Commander. Again, he clearly must have a reason; what could it be for not including such a powerful unit?

Because it's less powerful than Commanders, more mobile but less powerful.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Look at it this way: while it is true that this player spent 50% of his points on Commanders, he also spent 50% of his points on units other than Commanders. With the way his Detachments are set up, he easily could have cut points down in other units in favor of more Commanders. So why didn't he? He must have had a reason for doing so, seeing as how he made Top 8 in a large and highly competitive tournament.

Most likely for warm bodies as meatshields and objective takers, even excluding gun drones Tau have okay to good sources of s4-5 that are also less vulnerable to multiwound weapons then commanders.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

In short, spamming commanders and drones (with some flamer crisis suits thrown in) certainly seem to be the only way for Tau to compete.

Nah.

My list is doing not just well...but brutally well. It doesn't even have a Command suit.

 Arandmoor wrote:

Rickels wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Rickels wrote:
If conscripts are the "meta" then you just have to work out a way to beat them. You will start seeing massive ork armies with 150+ orks, banners and warboss with some weirdboys to teleport a squad within 9", congo to the warboss, advance and then charge those conscript units.

6+/5+ with only double shots and then dying in drove on a 2+/3+.

Stop being so nerf happy and figure out a way to beat the current meta instead of relying on GW to do it for you.

So your 30 orks are going to kill a ton of conscripts?

Against a squad of 50 conscripts 5 orks die to overwatch, if you congaline back to your buffs (lets say ghaz, and a weirdboy giving them +2 attacks, and the banner) you probably have 15 boyz attacking (5 died, probably 10 not in range once you conga back to your buffs) So you have 3 base attacks +3 from bonuses so 6 attacks each. 90 attacks, kills 33 conscripts, 17 remaining kill 2 more orks. Those guys fall back on their turn, and the rest of that ork squad dies. The issue is that if you trade 30 orks for 30 conscripts you will lose the game.

But yes that is one of the armies that might have a chance against conscripts spam + killy stuff.

You are assuming you lose 5 orks in overwatch but you are forgetting that you can stagger units, that first unit that ported in is just the wound soaking damage for the other unit coming at the conscripts. Lock any other conscript unit nearby in the following consolidation and then force orders to be get back in the fight, which halves the effectiveness of the conscript wall.

In your world of mathhammer you are missing the most vital portion of the game we are playing, space. You literally will be so crowded with those conscript spam you are never ever EVER going to get the mythical figure of 200 shots, ever.

The mathhammer also misses out on the strategy.

If I'm depending on getting 30 boyz into CC, I'm assaulting with something else first specifically to draw their overwatch out early so I can charge in with the boyz and maximize the effects of any buffs I've got going.

It's what small groups of Komandoes are for. It's also why assaulting with transports is so popular.

If you are assaulting with a small unit Kommandos, you better hope they don't die in overwatch, and that they don't fail the charge which isn't unlikely, because then you still lose 5 boyz. If you are assaulting with a vehicle you are at least on turn 2 (unless your opponent moved toward your orks.) in which case it is not unreasonable to think you no longer have 30 orks in a squad. Sure there are ways to mitigate overwatch, those things also cost points. Strategy happens from both players.