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Nids gained a lot but Guard gained the most in 8th. Orks, Nids, Guard all got buffs. SM and Daemons trended sideways from being top of the heap to still top 3. Ynnari may have dropped just a tad from "best army" to "top 5" but are obviously still powerful. Tau took a big hit. A few skilled players have been able to effectively spam commanders but overall I truly dont think Tau stack up. Maybe its cause I've been wrecking them with Nids/Guard. GSC also took a massive nerf but still exist as the glue between Nids/Guard. Crons seem to have gone down slightly. They do fine up until the top tables where damage output wipes units too fast for them to recover. Decurion was better vs the competitive meta than Crons are now. Knights also took a hit. I truly dont get the "Knights so good!" talk on FLG because knights have been getting kicked around the floor by other competitive armies. Not shooty enough and will get blown away by strong firepower armies.

 labmouse42 wrote:

malcontent999 wrote:
Orks took a big hit. The loss of blast and templates means that 5+ ballistic skill really hurts. Plus no more ard boys and special rules for bikers. And red ones don't go faster..

Spoiler:

Orks are a good candidate for 'best improved' army of 8th edition...

How are they best improved? Orkz lost vehicles from the codex/index, lost vehicles from forge world, lost ard boys, lost upgrade options, lost characters (granted this is over time). Weapons and vehicles are over costed like 24 point twin rokkits, 55 point naked koptas, and 900 point naked stompas. For some reason burnas are d3 hits rather than d6. I can belt off some more hits if you want.

I never said they couldn't be competitive or fun, just that they took a lot of hits. Even so, the only really competitive build is the green tide with boyz or stormboyz and some characters. Changes to ork weapons and blast/template has made a hot mess of shooty orkz, and cost of vehicles makes mekanized lists untenable also. One can still have a lot of fun with these in friendly games, but at the moment you'll never beat someone playing for keeps.

Im really hoping Necron Crypteks get back their unique staff options. I used to love doing a royal courts because of those. As it stands they're just a cheap Orikan or a double/tirtiary insurance policy in case your initial and move phase ReProt from ghost arc fail horribly (assuming you give em a rez orb).

Also kind of miss Pariah and Leaders from Dynasties other the Sautekh…
Really hoping Ghost ark gets an expansion on who it can carry when we get our codex, would love to use them as immortal carriers so im not risking warrior survivability by running low numbers. *sigh*
Also kind of wish spiders were a bit beefier and it wasn't a suicidal risk to use their ability to restore scarabs and scarabs weren't so meh, but other then that though im having decent fun with 8th edition. ^_^

malcontent999 wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

malcontent999 wrote:
Orks took a big hit. The loss of blast and templates means that 5+ ballistic skill really hurts. Plus no more ard boys and special rules for bikers. And red ones don't go faster..

Spoiler:

Orks are a good candidate for 'best improved' army of 8th edition...

How are they best improved? Orkz lost vehicles from the codex/index, lost vehicles from forge world, lost ard boys, lost upgrade options, lost characters (granted this is over time). Weapons and vehicles are over costed like 24 point twin rokkits, 55 point naked koptas, and 900 point naked stompas. For some reason burnas are d3 hits rather than d6. I can belt off some more hits if you want.

I never said they couldn't be competitive or fun, just that they took a lot of hits. Even so, the only really competitive build is the green tide with boyz or stormboyz and some characters. Changes to ork weapons and blast/template has made a hot mess of shooty orkz, and cost of vehicles makes mekanized lists untenable also. One can still have a lot of fun with these in friendly games, but at the moment you'll never beat someone playing for keeps.

I'm not an Ork player so I can't be precise on changes but at the large ETC event near me green tide came 2nd to IK and was only list to beat my AM army. I couldn't of imagined orks doing so well in 7th. Maybe it is only one hyper comp list but that's better than the 0 they had before

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
I actually agree that Necrons aren't as bad as people say they are. From my own admittedly limited experience, they can work well at least in some settings.

Guard is mainly just conscript spam that lets them work so well?

The only people who are saying nercons are bad are the people who have been crying since putting crons on the table stopped being an automatic win. They are perfectly fine even with just the index for the most part

Orcs are by far one of the most improved armies at the moment. Its laughable someone is honestly trying to say they are in a bad spot right now

A lot of whinging in this thread.

Anyhow, in terms of balance, I think 8th edition overall is both much more "flat" and responsive than 7th edition. Really, I think it's easier to nerf the outliers (like Conscripts, Scions, Commanders, and Daemons and flyers, which was done recently) and make detachments more strict than to buff the 80% of underused units out there.

In which case you'll just get a new 20% of used unit and you'll still end up with the bottom 40% never being seen

Orcs are by far one of the most improved armies at the moment. Its laughable someone is honestly trying to say they are in a bad spot right now

Orks are only good if you take a Green Tide, 120-150 Boyz list, and if your opponent doesn't take armored vehicles (yeah, right).

Outside of that, they are simply trash - they have no good options when it comes to shooting, vehicles, or anti-armor/flyer.

I'm sorry, just because they have one viable list and playstyle does not a good army make - I'm glad they got something, but let's be realistic with where we think they fall on the power scale.

Mesokhornee wrote:

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
I actually agree that Necrons aren't as bad as people say they are. From my own admittedly limited experience, they can work well at least in some settings.

Guard is mainly just conscript spam that lets them work so well?

The only people who are saying nercons are bad are the people who have been crying since putting crons on the table stopped being an automatic win. They are perfectly fine even with just the index for the most part

Orcs are by far one of the most improved armies at the moment. Its laughable someone is honestly trying to say they are in a bad spot right now

Cron's work in a casual setting okay, infact casually every army is very balanced atm. In general when speaking about their weaknesses, its only in a competitive setting, where they are pretty bad. My win rate has actually gone up in 8th now I can play whatever I like and not bring sub-optimal lists to make games fair for both sides. Just underwhelming as a faction atm, but the codex should bring some flavour back.

Nids, orcs, guard are the great winners. How long has it been since you have seen guard and orcs in competitive environment?

However, both orcs and guard are only good when running as infantry list. Vehicles in orc codex are overcosted. In IG, most of them are overcosted.

 deltaKshatriya wrote:

I've just constantly heard that conscript spam is the best way to go for IG. Haven't heard any other strategies so far.

I would put infantry spam above conscripts because when you have the heavy weapon support you can really do some damage

Going by 8th edition rules, Orks benefited the LEAST!!!

New Cover Rules: Orks went from a 4+ Cover save on our 6+ models to a 5+ Cover save. They also changed the rules so that the unit doesn't benefit in competitive play unless the entire unit is in cover. Good luck fitting 30 Boyz into a grove of trees or behind a 3in long wall section.

Blast: Holy crap, we don't have a single blast weapon worth taking. the changes to blast hit the Orkz like a brick. My Kill Kannons (I Have 3) cost 27pts, are S7 -2AP 2damage and ranged 24. They fire D6 shots which averages 3-4 shots and at BS2 that means 1 hit a turn on average. I am paying 27pts for a weaker, shorter ranged, less AP and less damage lascannon. Even if you roll that lucky 6 thats on average only 2 hits a turn.

Pricing: We had units go up absurdly high in cost. Warbikers went from 18pts to 27, they lost jink and their special rules as well. Yeah they gained that all important +1 wound for durability, damn shame it actually made them LESS durable. I could reliably get a blob of bikers with a 2+ cover save either with characters or night fighting/turbo-boosting. The worst offender in my opinion though are our ranged weapons. I used to spam Rokkitz on everything, they never hit anything but at 5pts why not take a S8 AP3 rokkit? Now? 12pts for a single shot rokkit, and if you have a model that has to take 2 like the DeffKopta? 24 right? NOPE 28 because feth you very much.

You want to talk about an army taking a hit? Last edition we had Mech Lists which were competitive, we had Green Tide lists that were competitive we even had a competitive speed freak list. This edition? Its either green tide or nothing.

The only benefits we got this edition were to boyz. Boyz are only good because unlike everything else in our codex, they remained roughly the right price. There is nothing new or exciting about them though honestly. We lost movement, we lost cover, we lost 5+ FNP, we lost powerklaws being useful. We gained +1 strength (we had that on the charge anyway) we gained the standard 3+ to hit, which we had against most other armies anyway (except speesemehreens) we gained...nothing else really. We "Gaine" +1 attack with choppa but our basic load out was choppa/slugga which already gave us that +1 attack which we promptly lost. Mob rule got "Better" kind of. It still isn't where it should be like it was in 5th edition. Basically the giant blobs benefit from the new mob rule and nothing else. Worse, standard nob upgrades don't have a nullifying effect like they should.

Anyone here who thinks orkz are one of the top benefiting armies of 8th has no idea about orkz and are probably basing their opinion on a handful of games against the only competitive list we have.

Tau suits except the commander took a big hit. All are hitting only on 4+ as ever but now suffering from moving if they don´t take that special support system and they lost their hit and run capability.
But i have to say that Longstrike with Hammerheads equipped with Ion cannons did quite well, a little expensive perhaps.

Certainly many armies lost a lot (GSC and Tau took the biggest hit imo) but to try and drag this back to the OP, I think that Guard is the final answer. Guard are insanely powerful now, no questions about it. And to think that they havent even gotten their Codex yet is scary as they will only get stronger.

SemperMortis wrote:
You want to talk about an army taking a hit? Last edition we had Mech Lists which were competitive, we had Green Tide lists that were competitive we even had a competitive speed freak list. This edition? Its either green tide or nothing.

I know that screaming about how the sky falling everywhere is your thing, but let's be serious: None of the list you just called "competitive" did stand anywhere near a chance to beat the top competitive lists, let alone place anywhere in the top 3 of a major tournament.
Most ork armies didn't even stand a chance to beat a competitive army that was generated out of anything but the bottom tier of codices - usually the tournament reports had some line saying "and then there was this one dude who brought orks and didn't place last". So last edition it was just nothing.

Orks are not totally awesome now, but overall it has become a lot better than in 6th or 7th. We're still below what we had in 5th though.

So yes, orks got a massive boost. If they manage to not totally screw up our codex now, I'll be happy.

Oh, and the should keep the guy who wrote the rules for the Waaagh! Ghazkhull supplement locked up in a cage somewhere so ork players who visit the HQ can throw metal deff dreads at him.

 Jidmah wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
You want to talk about an army taking a hit? Last edition we had Mech Lists which were competitive, we had Green Tide lists that were competitive we even had a competitive speed freak list. This edition? Its either green tide or nothing.

I know that screaming about how the sky falling everywhere is your thing, but let's be serious: None of the list you just called "competitive" did stand anywhere near a chance to beat the top competitive lists, let alone place anywhere in the top 3 of a major tournament.
Most ork armies didn't even stand a chance to beat a competitive army that was generated out of anything but the bottom tier of codices - usually the tournament reports had some line saying "and then there was this one dude who brought orks and didn't place last". So last edition it was just nothing.

Orks are not totally awesome now, but overall it has become a lot better than in 6th or 7th. We're still below what we had in 5th though.

So yes, orks got a massive boost. If they manage to not totally screw up our codex now, I'll be happy.

Oh, and the should keep the guy who wrote the rules for the Waaagh! Ghazkhull supplement locked up in a cage somewhere so ork players who visit the HQ can throw metal deff dreads at him.

In your opinion what is better about Orkz in 8th over 7th? Because the only things I can think of are Boyz, Mob rule and Ghaz not being a complete waste of 200+ points.

I mean, you actually see orks in the top tables in major tournaments now, which wasn't the case in 7th?

 Klowny wrote:
I mean, you actually see orks in the top tables in major tournaments now, which wasn't the case in 7th?

And the only reason for that is Boyz spam. So like I said, beyond the stuff already mentioned, what has gotten better?

SemperMortis wrote:

 Klowny wrote:
I mean, you actually see orks in the top tables in major tournaments now, which wasn't the case in 7th?

And the only reason for that is Boyz spam. So like I said, beyond the stuff already mentioned, what has gotten better?

I think the main thing common to those top armies, was a squiggoth. Sure boyz made up a lot of lists but there were a few with stormboyz.

As a whole the army is alot more playable this edition, they were very very bad last edition, and while stuff may be expensive, there have been other armies that have been harder hit. *raises hand for my undying phalanx*

I've played against a fledgling ork player and the army can have brutal combos, and are very capable and playable on a casual setting, and are tournament capable. Neither of which were the case last edition. So on a holistic level, orks have vastly improved.

I understand its hard to see this when you play the faction and if you go unit by unit things may look worse, but they are much better this edition than last.

Look at the tournament settings, they rank alot higher than alot of armies. Look at dakkas results for casual play, sure they're not the best but your codex isnt even out yet.

The sky is not falling my friend.

My army has been hit incredibly hard, and while I dont like being bottom of the ladder now, I feel the codex's will balance everything out. Even so, necrons aren't in a very bad place, just hard to play if your opponent is anyway competent

 Klowny wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 Klowny wrote:
I mean, you actually see orks in the top tables in major tournaments now, which wasn't the case in 7th?

And the only reason for that is Boyz spam. So like I said, beyond the stuff already mentioned, what has gotten better?

I think the main thing common to those top armies, was a squiggoth. Sure boyz made up a lot of lists but there were a few with stormboyz.

As a whole the army is alot more playable this edition, they were very very bad last edition, and while stuff may be expensive, there have been other armies that have been harder hit. *raises hand for my undying phalanx*

I've played against a fledgling ork player and the army can have brutal combos, and are very capable and playable on a casual setting, and are tournament capable. Neither of which were the case last edition. So on a holistic level, orks have vastly improved.

I understand its hard to see this when you play the faction and if you go unit by unit things may look worse, but they are much better this edition than last.

Look at the tournament settings, they rank alot higher than alot of armies. Look at dakkas results for casual play, sure they're not the best but your codex isnt even out yet.

The sky is not falling my friend.

Ive not said the sky is falling, i am pointing out fact. You say everything got better, the opposite is true, the only good combos we have involve boyz. Stormboyz are just regular boyz with better movement. So beyond that we don't really have much, Weirdboyz have use now, and honestly beyond that i am struggling to see anything that got better.

So what combos are you talking about? What hidden gems am I missing? And as a heads up, Squiggoths are FW not index, most tournaments I go to restrict FW.

Nobs loaded to the teeth with weapons are scary, dakkajets and a bunch of da jumped boyz is terrifying. flash gitz perform very well. Meganobz eat a whole bunch. Sure all of these are expensive units/combos, which rule them out for tournament level play, but are very competent on casual tables. But just because they aren't viable competitively doesnt mean the army is worse off. The army is better off becuase of boys, and only boys in general, but the fact orks are competitive means they have got better.

Before you could have greentide or mek spam, as the only even casually competitive builds, now you can do alot of things with alot of different units. That means the army is better even casually.

If you want to talk expensive combos, I'm happy to show you how much worse it can get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I just realised that this from the view of a necron player, and we have been shafted harder than most armies, so maybe against the stronger armies you may struggle more. In saying that I have a 100% win rate, and my main opponent is a guard player that loves spamming conscripts, HWT, and scion plasma, so a pretty hardcore build.

For reference your lucky you have boyz, necrons can barely be competitive even with FW, only due to how strong the pylon is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and im not trying to get into a 'who has had it worse this edition gak swinging competition', i just want to point out that orks are a lot better off than they were in 7th, as most armies are on a similar level, with outlier units making some armies stronger than average. But as a whole everyone is very comparable this edition.

Nobz didnt get better, they got slightly cheaper but to counter that they made the weapon upgrades more expensive. So no they didn't get better.

Dakkajets, same thing really. But they went from Utter trash that is never worth taking to Utter trash that you can take in a seriously friendly game. They have 18 shots, 9 hits and against Marines 6 wounds which cause 3 Casualties...unless they are in cover then its 2. So you are paying 150ish pts for a model that can slay 2-3 MEQS a turn.

Flashgitz Are still utter crap. So many ways to make them relevant and what does GW do? Destroys any Synergy they have with the rest of the Index. 3 shots hitting on 5s = 1 hit. And they will always be moving because they are short ranged and need a vehicle to survive past your opponents turn 1. Even if you gave them 4+ armor they would still be terrible because they are so heavily over priced that your opponent can hit them with everything early on and make his pts back.

Meganobz got worse, by a lot. First off they lost attacks. Secondly they lost WS, it was very common for Meganobz to hit on 3s last edition, this edition they are always hitting on 4s unless you are paying for an expensive Banner Nob who would be better employed fighting with da Boyz. So to summarize, fewer attacks and fewer hits. Yeah they did get 1 extra wound, but in an edition where Plasma and any number of other weapons is 2 or D3 damage that isn't a buff, its more o a way to keep it where it was supposed to be, and even then I think they failed.

the point of this thread is comparing 7th to 8th and seeing which armies benefited the most. So far you have boyz, stormboyz, and I'll even give you Dakkajets even though they are still crap, and add my own in there as Kommandos.

In response though we had the following units heavily nerfed or had such a drastic increase in price that they aren't viable anymore.

Meganobz
Burnas
Warbikes
Deff Koptas
Trukk
Battlewagon
Stompa
Mek Gunz
Big Gunz
Kanz
Dreadz
And a few more. As an example of what I am talking about. Trukkz in 7th were crap, but they were 30pts of crap so worth it. This edition they are 82pts, or 88 if you equip them the way I used to have mine with the Rokkit Launcha. So 30pts just became 88. that is just shy of a 200% increase in price. What did it gain from going up in cost 200%? Well its T6 now instead of AV10 which is actually a bit of nerf since now instead of being glanced on 6s by S4 weapons it is now getting hit on 5s. It did gain a nifty 4+ save and went from 3 HPs to 10 wounds. So the good news is that it can't be 1 shot by a AP2 weapon. So for a decent increase in durability it went up in price 200%....Which is why you won't see Trukkz in any competitive list anymore.

My speed Freak list died horribly this edition as well. my warbikers went from 18pts (I considered this to be slightly over priced as well) to 27pts, they gained the same buffs Boyz got and 1 extra wound, they also lost Jink, Turbo-special rule and the change to twinlinked didn't help them nearly as much as it helped Marine players. So 2 Wounds is actually a nerf to durability again because of how many -AP weapons are everywhere, prior to this edition If a lascannon hit my bikes I had a minimum of a 50/50 to survive (Jink) which I could improve with Night fighting, Zhadsnark or Turbo-boosting, any 2 of these would give me a 2+ Jink save. This edition? the model is just dead. But hey the shooting did get better! I went from 1.66 hits on average to 2, woohoo! of course a SM player went from 2.66 hits to 4....but hey at least they didn't increase the prices drastically on anything i had thats TL... (Sarcasm they did )


So, i know nothing about Necrons so I don't know how hard you guys got hit but I can tell you that Orkz are in a bad place right now, the META is going full horde for the Nids, IG, Chaos and Orkz so it won't be long before Marine Players are taking more gunlines and wiping out those horde relatively quickly. And unfortunately that is the only thing orkz have that is viable in competitive games.

2 troops and 1 fast attack or elite choice is just shy of 1000 points for Necrons...

SemperMortis wrote:
Nobz didnt get better, they got slightly cheaper but to counter that they made the weapon upgrades more expensive. So no they didn't get better.

Which ones? Killsaws, PKs, Big Choppas or Powa-Stabbas? Or any of the combi-weapons that were utterly useless last edition?
Also ammo runts being additional wounds is a huge buff to them, for the first time ever it's possible to footslog regular nobz without just throwing away points..

Dakkajets, same thing really. But they went from Utter trash that is never worth taking to Utter trash that you can take in a seriously friendly game. They have 18 shots, 9 hits and against Marines 6 wounds which cause 3 Casualties...unless they are in cover then its 2. So you are paying 150ish pts for a model that can slay 2-3 MEQS a turn.

Now do that math again for 7th edition. Best case 12 on a Waaagh!, 9 of those hit, 7.5 wound, 2.5 dead MEQ. Without the Waaagh only 1.8 dead MEQ. So still slightly worse once per game, a lot worse the rest of the game.
You can't deny that they got better.

In response though we had the following units heavily nerfed or had such a drastic increase in price that they aren't viable anymore.

Burnas

They were viable in 7th? The edition where you couldn't shoot from transports when it moved more than 6"? Where tau and eldar would kill them during overwatch and make them fail their charge. That is, if a knight didn't just stomp all over them laughing about their useless S4 AP3 weapons. Last but not least you had to drop one burna (or buy a HQ mek) to have any chance of ever passing a moral tests. Oh, and they were more expensive than they are now.
They nerfed a template that never did anything to d3 hits. Yeah, that sucks, but it's not like they ever got to fire that template against anyone that wasn't assaulting their battlewagon out of idiocy.

Deff Koptas

Better bombs, decent close combat weapons, twice the wounds, ability to deep strike at will, hit&run works reliably now. Sure the weapon costs suck, but in general they are not worse than their previous incarnations.

Trukk
And a few more. As an example of what I am talking about. Trukkz in 7th were crap, but they were 30pts of crap so worth it. This edition they are 82pts, or 88 if you equip them the way I used to have mine with the Rokkit Launcha. So 30pts just became 88. that is just shy of a 200% increase in price. What did it gain from going up in cost 200%? Well its T6 now instead of AV10 which is actually a bit of nerf since now instead of being glanced on 6s by S4 weapons it is now getting hit on 5s. It did gain a nifty 4+ save and went from 3 HPs to 10 wounds. So the good news is that it can't be 1 shot by a AP2 weapon. So for a decent increase in durability it went up in price 200%....Which is why you won't see Trukkz in any competitive list anymore.

The reality of 7th was that you paid 30 points to have your mob take 12 s4 hits, then take a pinning test, then take a moral test because you lost half your unit and have the nob kill another one or two boyz, leaving you with around four boyz and a nob after the first turn of enemy shooting - because even scatter lasers and pulse rifles could make the trukk explode.
You basically paid 30 points to have your unit of boyz take more casualties. The only thing that worked in trukks was MANz because they were immune to most of the awesome transport rules of 7th.
The reason you don't see trukks now is because there is no payload that is worth delivering. Trukks are awesome transports now, it's just that you don't have anything to put in them that wouldn't be better off in a battlewagon or footslogging.

Battlewagon

Deff rolla? T8 instead of AV12/10? Can easily take three close-up hits from melta and still keep running? In 7th losing 4 battlewagons by turn 2 was normal, if your opponent got lucky he could kill them all turn 1. Oh, and they also killed half their passengers while getting killed.
Also, no more deep-striking units shooting rear armor, and not even overcharged plasma can take it down reliably.
The most used loadout for BWs since 5th has been a single big shoota to prevent immobilize, and the killkannon has always been terrible.

Stompa

Well... it went from terrible to more terrible. Can't argue that. Not even FW managed to create half-decent stompa rules.

Mek Gunz

I'd argue that the bubblechucka and the smasha gun actually got better, KMK got worse. The tractor cannons are worse against flyers now, but better against ground targets.

Big Gunz

Zzap gun got better, Kannon blast got worse, but you usually fielded them for the direct shot. Lobba did get worse.

Kanz

They were awesomely bad last edition. The kan klaw was nerfed into oblivion (now better again!), they had to pass moral checks wen taking casualties or were unable to shoot and died to a stiff breeze due to 2HP at AV11.
Now they've still got no more moral issues in units of 3, and get a buff to attacks in larger units. A kan with a KMB is only 5 points more than in the old edition.

Dreadz

Guides did advice putting two big shootas on dreads because they would never reach combat anyways. Sooner or later they were close enough to a melta to one-shot them, if some autocannon didn't just shoot the laughable 3 hp off the thing. Even if they made it into combat, some MC would simply smash it dead.
Now it does have a realistic chance of crossing the field and tear a whole into anything that dares to fight it - because it can finally strike first. It also got 'ere we go without needing a 1200 point minimum formation.

About that awesome jink save - you seem to be forgetting that everyone and their dog was ignoring cover in 7th, so you would rarely, if ever, have a jink save.

Orks were not buffed to top tier in any way, but it's really hard to claim that we have it worse than before. The list of competitive units from the old codex is MA Warboss with da lucky stikk, MANz, KMK. End.

So, i know nothing about Necrons so I don't know how hard you guys got hit but I can tell you that Orkz are in a bad place right now, the META is going full horde for the Nids, IG, Chaos and Orkz so it won't be long before Marine Players are taking more gunlines and wiping out those horde relatively quickly. And unfortunately that is the only thing orkz have that is viable in competitive games.

Well, you said the same when 8th hit - two months ago.

Which ones? Killsaws, PKs, Big Choppas or Powa-Stabbas? Or any of the combi-weapons that were utterly useless last edition?
Also ammo runts being additional wounds is a huge buff to them, for the first time ever it's possible to footslog regular nobz without just throwing away points..

Combi-Skorchas were very useful last edition and were only I believe a 5pt upgrade and I took them often. Now they cost 19pts. Not exactly competitive anymore. PKs and Killsaws stayed roughly the same price but they took a hit in regards to effectiveness, that -1 to hit is a huge deal. Ammo runts are good, but think of it this way, you are paying 4pts for an upgrade that functions as a free wound. Not a great use of 4pts but not a terrible use either. Overall I think they are on the right track but they still are crap and actually got worse in their #1 role which was Close Combat and a platform for Skorchas. This unit got worse

Now do that math again for 7th edition. Best case 12 on a Waaagh!, 9 of those hit, 7.5 wound, 2.5 dead MEQ. Without the Waaagh only 1.8 dead MEQ. So still slightly worse once per game, a lot worse the rest of the game.
You can't deny that they got better.

I will give you this, it got marginally better. Not enough to ever take one in anything but a fluffy for fun game, but yes it got MARGINALLY better. I will give you this one. This unit got marginally better.

They were viable in 7th? The edition where you couldn't shoot from transports when it moved more than 6"? Where tau and eldar would kill them during overwatch and make them fail their charge. That is, if a knight didn't just stomp all over them laughing about their useless S4 AP3 weapons. Last but not least you had to drop one burna (or buy a HQ mek) to have any chance of ever passing a moral tests. Oh, and they were more expensive than they are now.
They nerfed a template that never did anything to d3 hits. Yeah, that sucks, but it's not like they ever got to fire that template against anyone that wasn't assaulting their battlewagon out of idiocy.

Yes Burnas did in fact get worse, the template basically made them useless because the only reason people took them in the first place was in Burna wagonz. Nobody used them in assault or as foot sloggin because they sucked at that. So yes they got worse, but since they were already crap its not that noticeable. A crap unit became even Crappier, this unit got worse.

Deff Koptas
Better bombs, decent close combat weapons, twice the wounds, ability to deep strike at will, hit&run works reliably now. Sure the weapon costs suck, but in general they are not worse than their previous incarnations.

From 30pts to 83. They lost jink as well but gained 2 wounds YAY! nope. Still a loss in durability. they did gain a semi-useful one time bomb, but you won't use it often if your opponent knows about them because Deff Koptas are squishy as hell for 83pts. and their CC weapons you brag about are crap. one gives you 4attacks at S4 -1AP and the other gives you 2 S8 attacks at -1 to hit so likely 1 hit, and to get the 2nd one you add another 30ish pts to the cost. No, Deff Koptas are utter trash now. This unit got Worse by a lot.

Trukkz
The reality of 7th was that you paid 30 points to have your mob take 12 s4 hits, then take a pinning test, then take a moral test because you lost half your unit and have the nob kill another one or two boyz, leaving you with around four boyz and a nob after the first turn of enemy shooting - because even scatter lasers and pulse rifles could make the trukk explode.
You basically paid 30 points to have your unit of boyz take more casualties. The only thing that worked in trukks was MANz because they were immune to most of the awesome transport rules of 7th.
The reason you don't see trukks now is because there is no payload that is worth delivering. Trukks are awesome transports now, it's just that you don't have anything to put in them that wouldn't be better off in a battlewagon or footslogging.

So NOW they are awesome transports, and since boyz got better this edition that means they should be in them right? No, whoops there goes your whole point. And didn't you just argue that nobz got way better? Why aren't they riding trukkz in competitive lists? Say what you want, Trukkz are DRASTICALLY over priced. And the fact is that last edition people spammed them in tournament lists, and this edition you don't even see them in local tournaments.
This unit got SIGNIFICANTLY Worse.

Battlewagon
Deff rolla? T8 instead of AV12/10? Can easily take three close-up hits from melta and still keep running? In 7th losing 4 battlewagons by turn 2 was normal, if your opponent got lucky he could kill them all turn 1. Oh, and they also killed half their passengers while getting killed.
Also, no more deep-striking units shooting rear armor, and not even overcharged plasma can take it down reliably.
The most used loadout for BWs since 5th has been a single big shoota to prevent immobilize, and the killkannon has always been terrible.

T8 only when you use the "Ard Top" and by doing so you negate its open topped ability making it a giant transport and gun platform. I used to run 3 wagons in my Speed Freak list, I never had a problem with them, they usually didn't die until turn 3+ and usually because I had dropped the passengers off and no longer cared about them. And I also used to field them with 4 Rokkitz and a Kannon for a grand total of 30pts because for 30pts I got 5 S8 shots. Now that same load out costs 63pts, so not worth taking now. The wagon also went from 110pts to 161, which is roughly a 50% increase in price for that minor addition to durability. And while you are right about Melta and such you seem to forget that they are now SIGNIFICANTLY more vulnerable to every type of weapon and can't hide behind cover with an AV14 front sticking out to negate most shooting. So I would call the durability a wash and point to the massive increase in cost for weapons, which are not negated by the fact that we got Deff Rollas back...kind of. This unit got worse.

Stompa
Well... it went from terrible to more terrible. Can't argue that. Not even FW managed to create half-decent stompa rules.

Agreed, atm its beyond crap. This unit got worse...but i think it hit the bottom of the barrel, broke through and slammed into the nether.

Mek Gunz
I'd argue that the bubblechucka and the smasha gun actually got better, KMK got worse. The tractor cannons are worse against flyers now, but better against ground targets.

The prices and durability also took a huge hit so the stats of those 2 guns might have gotten slightly better but the end result is still a worse platform. T7 3+ save to T5 5+ save is a huge nerf, and the old wording allowed artillery to take hits as if the Grots were T7 so you bought the extra grots and they were great as meat shields. This unit got worse.

Big Gunz
Zzap gun got better, Kannon blast got worse, but you usually fielded them for the direct shot. Lobba did get worse.

Zzap guns didn't get better, they got different. the other two you even note got worse. But more importantly they were T7 3+ now they are T5 with a 5+ and only have 3 wounds..., that is just horrible. It also went up in price by 50%. So do the math on that, it lost durability by a lot, most of the gunz got worse and it still went up in price 50%....ridiculous. This unit did Get worse

Kanz
They were awesomely bad last edition. The kan klaw was nerfed into oblivion (now better again!), they had to pass moral checks wen taking casualties or were unable to shoot and died to a stiff breeze due to 2HP at AV11.
Now they've still got no more moral issues in units of 3, and get a buff to attacks in larger units. A kan with a KMB is only 5 points more than in the old edition.

Yeah they were terrible last edition, but that is because they went up in price by about 40% while losing Strength on their klaw. The morale check was a minor problem at best. If you do field Kanz this edition you need them in units of 3 minimum because that gives you the bonus, and they do in fact have a morale issue, and it got worse. If you field a unit of 6 and lose 2 on a leadership check of 5 you lose another model, on 6 you lost 2. That is a big deal. They also went up in cost again...which is mind boggling. Actually most price increases in the Index are mind boggling because most of the units were trash before so GW said "You know what will make them better? making them cost more points!" They also don't have any weapons worth taking now, the nerf to grotzooka was the worst issue. SO overall YES this unit got worse.

Dreadz
Guides did advice putting two big shootas on dreads because they would never reach combat anyways. Sooner or later they were close enough to a melta to one-shot them, if some autocannon didn't just shoot the laughable 3 hp off the thing. Even if they made it into combat, some MC would simply smash it dead.
Now it does have a realistic chance of crossing the field and tear a whole into anything that dares to fight it - because it can finally strike first. It also got 'ere we go without needing a 1200 point minimum formation.

I will admit this unit got marginally better, it is still heavily over priced but it did get better.

About that awesome jink save - you seem to be forgetting that everyone and their dog was ignoring cover in 7th, so you would rarely, if ever, have a jink save.

False, Jink saved my army more often then not in 7th. I played speed freak and had anywhere from 20-35 bikers on the table at any given time. Without Jink my army would have died turn 2 at the absolute latest because T5 4+ isn't hard to kill, but T5 with a 3+ Jink save or 2+ Jink save was money.

SemperMortis wrote:
PKs and Killsaws stayed roughly the same price but they took a hit in regards to effectiveness, that -1 to hit is a huge deal.

Nobz were WS4 last edition, you were already hitting almost everything on 4+ except for stuff that didn't stand a chance in the first place. You also get to strike first with you PK now, and killsaws weren't even an option.
What the PK lost (and thus our entire army) is the ability to reliably handle vehicles.

Overall I think they are on the right track but they still are crap and actually got worse in their #1 role which was Close Combat and a platform for Skorchas. This unit got worse

Their number one role has always been wrecking stuff with mutliple PKs and a Waaagh! banner. They just sucked so bad that the only way they were used was cheap suicide skorchas.

Now do that math again for 7th edition. Best case 12 on a Waaagh!, 9 of those hit, 7.5 wound, 2.5 dead MEQ. Without the Waaagh only 1.8 dead MEQ. So still slightly worse once per game, a lot worse the rest of the game.
You can't deny that they got better.

I will give you this, it got marginally better. Not enough to ever take one in anything but a fluffy for fun game, but yes it got MARGINALLY better. I will give you this one. This unit got marginally better.

3 dead MEQ instead of 1.8 is a 66% increase. Good thing the dakka jet is now just "marginally worse" than the storm talon which is considered decent for most marines and kills 4 MEQ a turn, which is just 33% more.

Yes Burnas did in fact get worse, the template basically made them useless because the only reason people took them in the first place was in Burna wagonz.

You are probably thinking about 5th. There were no burna wagons in 7th. Whenever the battlewagon would move more than 6" template weapons could not shoot from it. Which means you would have to drive within 8" of your opponent, wait a turn, hope your BW didn't get instant-killed by whatever because you are most likely exposed your rear armor. Then, next turn, your could drive yourself into flaming position and try killing something with that template - assuming anything worth flaming didn't just move away. Unless your opponent was a serious idiot or was completely unaware of what burnaz can do, this never worked.
Considering battlewagons can move 12" and now and have burnaz fire from it again, burna wagons actually got better - because 15 d3 hits is still better than none at all and a dead battlewagon. And it's not like you got more than 3 hits from their templates in 7th anyways.

They lost jink as well but gained 2 wounds YAY! nope. Still a loss in durability.

Jinking with koptas was usually 5+ because they could not go to ground and have no exhaust cloud. Against anything with AP-1 or less, they are more durable now, and only against weapons with AP-2 or better and at least 3 oder d6 damage they are only slightly less durable, because all those lascannons, melta and plasma weapons used to wound them on 2's instead of 3's. The kopa stood close to no chance to survive a squad of bolter marines, and anything that kills them easy now killed it easily as well last edition.

and their CC weapons you brag about are crap. one gives you 4attacks at S4 -1AP

2d3 S5 attacks at AP 0. You don't make a convincing argument if you can't even get the numbers right.
Previously they had a choppa and most likely S3. You can't argue that those didn't get better.

This unit got Worse by a lot.

So, in your opinion, what did the kopta do last edition, it can't do now? In actual games, not by just tossing numbers in the air without comparing them to anything.
The reason you think they got terrible because they are too expensive to be a suicide unit now, which is what they were used mostly for before. However, they now durable enough that they need a dedicated anti-tank shooting to remove, which is reflected in their points. Of course, this advantage is lost if you are fielding all boyz otherwise, but in my games with BW my opponents were struggling to remove them.
If rokkits weren't so badly overpriced, they were an awesome unit now.

So NOW they are awesome transports, and since boyz got better this edition that means they should be in them right? No, whoops there goes your whole point.

Whoops, mobs of 12 don't have the additional attack, no awesome moral, no buff characters and warpheads cannot use psychic powers from transports and the PK no longer . Mobs of 30 boyz got better. Mobs of 12 boyz are close to useless now.

And didn't you just argue that nobz got way better? Why aren't they riding trukkz in competitive lists?

Don't start moving goalposts now. Your argument was that all those units got worse, not that they got to a competitive level.

Say what you want, Trukkz are DRASTICALLY over priced. And the fact is that last edition people spammed them in tournament lists, and this edition you don't even see them in local tournaments.

They spammed MANz which happened to be riding trukks. Other than that trukks were useless deathtrapps. What you got for all other units wasn't even worth a single point.

T8 only when you use the "Ard Top" and by doing so you negate its open topped ability making it a giant transport and gun platform.

Open topped does not affect it's ability to transport in anyway - unlike in 7th. It's also free now.

I used to run 3 wagons in my Speed Freak list, I never had a problem with them, they usually didn't die until turn 3+ and usually because I had dropped the passengers off and no longer cared about them.

Good for you, my opponents actually did bring AP1 and 2 weapons that could penetrate AV12, resulting in an explosion half the time. What did they shoot those weapons at? Your jinking koptaz and bikes?

And I also used to field them with 4 Rokkitz and a Kannon for a grand total of 30pts because for 30pts I got 5 S8 shots.

Which were shooting snapshots at 6+ unless you chose to remain stationary. For slightly more than twice the points, you now get twice the fire power which is not a crater by turn 2. How exactly did that get worse?
Also, didn't you ever move your battlewagons flat out? How did you even reach your opponents?
I somehow doubt that you actually ever played a battlewagon like that in 7th.

And while you are right about Melta and such you seem to forget that they are now SIGNIFICANTLY more vulnerable to every type of weapon and can't hide behind cover with an AV14 front sticking out to negate most shooting.

That's not how the rules worked. As soon as anyone was in the AV12 arc he could shoot it, no matter which sides were visible. Anything that was able to move didn't shoot AV14, ever.
That it got significantly more vulnerable to any weapon is flat out wrong. Sure, bolter marines and have a 5% chance of wounding it from the sides and the front now, but they need to do it 18 times to kill a battlewagon. The only thing that got notably better at wounding battlewagons are S6/5 weapons with AP-1, but they have almost five times the wounds they had previously, which means four to five times the firepower needed to destroy, no matter what is shooting it. There is no way to for any realistic amount of firepower to kill the wagon faste than last edition.

The prices and durability also took a huge hit so the stats of those 2 guns might have gotten slightly better but the end result is still a worse platform. T7 3+ save to T5 5+ save is a huge nerf, and the old wording allowed artillery to take hits as if the Grots were T7 so you bought the extra grots and they were great as meat shields. This unit got worse.

The gun also has 6 wounds by itself and gets 5 gretchin for 10, for a total of 11 wounds, instead of the 6 it had previously. The mek gun itself now has as many wounds as the unit previously had.

Zzap guns didn't get better, they got different.

If adding causing mortal wounds to the enemy when it gets hot isn't a buff, I don't know what is.

If you field a unit of 6 and lose 2 on a leadership check of 5 you lose another model, on 6 you lost 2. That is a big deal. They also went up in cost again...which is mind boggling. Actually most price increases in the Index are mind boggling because most of the units were trash before so GW said "You know what will make them better? making them cost more points!"

Gotta love how you just willfully ignore the massive increase of wounds almost everywhere. T5 W5 3+ is a massive buff to survivability compared to AV11 HP2. Previously a single wave serpent could wipe out a unit of kanz on it's own. Killing two kanz now takes some serious firepower.
If you take your usual measurement for durability, which is being shot by a predator annihilator, you need over 200 points to kill a single kan on average, According to that, Kanz are tough as nails.

False, Jink saved my army more often then not in 7th. I played speed freak and had anywhere from 20-35 bikers on the table at any given time. Without Jink my army would have died turn 2 at the absolute latest because T5 4+ isn't hard to kill, but T5 with a 3+ Jink save or 2+ Jink save was money.

I guess you were the one player without tau, eldar and daemons in his meta then.

I take it you also feel orks are in a much better place this edition Jidmah?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Personally, I think everyone's taken a hit until they get their Codex.

Don't get me started on how it's kinda scummy that Marines got their Codex during a massive campaign event. And I play Marines.

We'll know who really took the hits as soon as the other books drop. So far, my only complaint is that a Crusader Squad is genuinely nothing more than a big blob of bolters and such, and has no real purpose any more.

A lot of folk seem to want the Crusader squad to have an assault focus again, personally I love that it doesn't: the purpose of Crusader Squads was to represent the BT's fluff on the table, ie groups of individual warriors each with their own preferred set of equipment or as you put it a big blob of bolters and such, but the way the rules worked in previous editions made mixed units worthless and so you either got big melee blob Crusaders or MSU specialspam Crusaders and nothing in between. 8th is the first time you don't get punished for using them "properly" because between universal split fire and rapid fire weapons no longer preventing a charge a marine with a bolter firing and then charging has something close to parity with a marine who charges then gets an extra attack from their chainsword. And you can still use the two previously more "efficient" loadouts if you want to, they're just not the *only* choices anymore.

As to the OT - the first distinction will be between have-Codex and no-Codex-yet armies, but among the latter Orks look to have suffered the most. You can still make 'em work but in a far more limited number of ways than before.

 Klowny wrote:
I take it you also feel orks are in a much better place this edition Jidmah?

Yes, considering how I dropped WH40k completely in 7th and now play again on a regular basis. I don't own anything but about 10k points of orks.

Unlike in 7th I feel like there is a point to actually putting ork models on the table. The index army has a lot of weaknesses and some pretty big oversights in balancing to put it nicely, but 8th edition and the index army are a great improvement over 7th, the last codex and the piece of squiggoth guano they dared to call Waaagh! Ghazghkull - especially the updated version of it.

Edit: I realized for the first time since joining dakka that "feth" is an automatic censoring

That is what I get for posting while intoxicated, simple stupid mistakes like the CC weapon on a DeffKoptas giving +1 strength not +1 AP.

Basically you and I will never agree, you somehow think Orkz are in a great place even though only 1 list is competitive and has started to decline a lot of late.