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What are (in your opinion), the top 5 armies for competitive play? For argument's sake let's assume these are allowed to take a small contingent of allies if they desire to (as it is so common in the competitive scene these days). I'll be interested to see what comes out on top! Let me know if I messed up and forgot someone...

I went with CW Eldar, Drukhari, Knights, CSM, and Tyranids. Those are all very solid right now, especially with soup builds. CWE and Drukhari work very well together, especially with Ynnari being a thing, and each of the five I mentioned are very capable of standing on their own (although Knights generally won't win a GT by themselves, but they'll be a solid gatekeeper list).

Not necessarily in that order.

- Craftworld
- Drukhari
- Chaos Daemons
- Astra Militarum
- Thousand Sons

Ynnari needs to be added to the list.

Craftworld
Drukhari
Imperial Guard

the other two are very difficult to determine, imo.

Custodes, Knights, Guard, Craftworld and Dark Eldar.

Lolz at whoever voted for grey knights.

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

 Yarium wrote:
Ynnari needs to be added to the list.

Ynnari is really just Eldar soup, plus 3 models. Don't think it really counts for the purposes of this poll.

Stux wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Ynnari needs to be added to the list.

Ynnari is really just Eldar soup, plus 3 models. Don't think it really counts for the purposes of this poll.

Their psychic powers are a key glue. They should be in the poll by my count.

GK twice as good as SM. Feel the burn.

Some rather broken Codice at the moment:

+ Imperial Knights. This is not broken, just the fact you either stomp them or get stomped. Any Imperial Knight list is going to be very skewed.

+ Primarchs. Death Guards, Thousand Sons and Ultramarines are not necessarily OP, but the Primarchs are way too powrful one-man armies. GW is going overboard with these models. I would like to see Montarion and Magnus nerfed while Guillman getting a point increase.

+ Astra Militarum. Hilariously cheap blob and powerful tanks. A rather easy to understand army, the Astra Militarum is noob-friendly and the bane of pubs. Give Infantry some special rule and boost their cost to 5 pts per model. This would not only balance them but prevent them being being used as CP farm for other armies.

+ Dark Eldar. Too many saves. As annoying as Death Guards except they are way too fast.

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Karol wrote:
GK twice as good as SM. Feel the burn.

This poll doesn't really work as a ranked list since everyone's only voting for the top 5. Just means twice as many people think GK is a top 5 codex, which is really just a sign that GK are getting some troll votes.

Smotejob wrote:Lolz at whoever voted for grey knights.

Trolls voted for Grey Knights. Don't feed them by acknowledging them...

bibotot wrote:Some rather broken Codice at the moment:
+ Primarchs. Death Guards, Thousand Sons and Ultramarines are not necessarily OP, but the Primarchs are way too powrful one-man armies. GW is going overboard with these models. I would like to see Montarion and Magnus nerfed while Guillman getting a point increase.

Funnily enough, you don't see a lot of lists with Primarchs getting to the top tables of major tournaments. And Bobby G doesn't need another nerf; vanilla Marines are already struggling even with him.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

Smotejob wrote:Lolz at whoever voted for grey knights.

Trolls voted for Grey Knights. Don't feed them by acknowledging them...

bibotot wrote:Some rather broken Codice at the moment:
+ Primarchs. Death Guards, Thousand Sons and Ultramarines are not necessarily OP, but the Primarchs are way too powrful one-man armies. GW is going overboard with these models. I would like to see Montarion and Magnus nerfed while Guillman getting a point increase.

Funnily enough, you don't see a lot of lists with Primarchs getting to the top tables of major tournaments. And Bobby G doesn't need another nerf; vanilla Marines are already struggling even with him.

yeah as it is the primarchs are all what 400 odd points? at that points level they SHOULD be the fulcrum at which the battle swings.

I don't think the results match reality so i'll just Vect this poll. I rolled a 6, you lose the thread AND the poll is invalidated.

Two many votes. With this many choices you need to make it top three. Or if ypu want to vote this many times you need to split the options.

Make knights one option but knights with guard broth another option.

Dark elfs one option, Elf salad 1 option. Dark elf salad with farseerer dressing another option.

Are you having Ultra Marine roast? Or the Bobby G Prime rib?

There's a difference.

I chose five votes so we'd see more information about the bottom end of the field (which does seem to have happened as they've still got plenty of votes).

And if you want to make your own poll with every imperial army 'with allied guard' or 'without allied guard' be my guest haha. You'll wind up with a lot of options if you're going to list every single combo of good armies that can ally, plus the pure forms.

I could see adding ynari but I think that this would just divide the eldar vote. As they only have one decent character of their own they're entirely reliant on the strength of Drukhari, harlequins or CWE. To me they feel a lot more like a 'chapter tactic' than an army in their own right.

Niiru wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Ahriman, Magnus, Daemon Princes all of who ignore the smite nerf backed up by Tzaangor tend to make up the most powerful chaos lists I see, often fielded with a Daemon detachment for more Daemon Princes and Brimstones.

Niiru wrote:
Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

Tzeentch daemon princes are pretty much custodes biker captains with smite rather than bolters. Plus Ahriman on a disk - bolts onto all kinds of chaos lists.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!! Orkz have more votes then A LOT of armies, there are a lot of players out there who can't beat a horde apparently

SemperMortis wrote:
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!! Orkz have more votes then A LOT of armies, there are a lot of players out there who can't beat a horde apparently

Codex: Boyz is a great army, I dunno what you're talking about. Boyz make great troops choices, and you can have fast attack boyz, and there's even elite boyz. They're pretty weak on the heavy support front though, they should make a heavy boyz squad, maybe with a max unit size of 60 instead of 30.

 Ordana wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Ahriman, Magnus, Daemon Princes all of who ignore the smite nerf backed up by Tzaangor tend to make up the most powerful chaos lists I see, often fielded with a Daemon detachment for more Daemon Princes and Brimstones.

problem of primarchs is always the same... they cant hide so they are focused and deleted quick, only mid tier lists usually struggle against primarchs, maybe play 2 is the way, Magnus+Mortarion+2-3 Dp's and Arhiman and some cheap troops.

 blackmage wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Ahriman, Magnus, Daemon Princes all of who ignore the smite nerf backed up by Tzaangor tend to make up the most powerful chaos lists I see, often fielded with a Daemon detachment for more Daemon Princes and Brimstones.

problem of primarchs is always the same... they cant hide so they are focused and deleted quick, only mid tier lists usually struggle against primarchs, maybe play 2 is the way, Magnus+Mortarion+2-3 Dp's and Arhiman and some cheap troops.

The list is much stronger than you're making it out to be, and outside of a few armies deleting a primarch in one turn isn't easy.

 blackmage wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Ahriman, Magnus, Daemon Princes all of who ignore the smite nerf backed up by Tzaangor tend to make up the most powerful chaos lists I see, often fielded with a Daemon detachment for more Daemon Princes and Brimstones.

problem of primarchs is always the same... they cant hide so they are focused and deleted quick, only mid tier lists usually struggle against primarchs, maybe play 2 is the way, Magnus+Mortarion+2-3 Dp's and Arhiman and some cheap troops.

The trick is that Magnus isn't the power of the list. He is a distraction that you kinda can't ignore.

 Marmatag wrote:

 blackmage wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Eldar, Dark Eldar, Custodes, Knights and Chaos soup(mostly 1k sons).
Not necessarily in that order.
I'd include Guard but their main participation is in a cheap cp battery and not a majority component.

Why do 1k sons get so much opness votes? Is it just because of having access to a primarch? Or is it smite spam?

We don't really use lords of war in our play group, which may be why 1ksons never seemed all that powerful to me. Not bad, but expensive units.

Ahriman, Magnus, Daemon Princes all of who ignore the smite nerf backed up by Tzaangor tend to make up the most powerful chaos lists I see, often fielded with a Daemon detachment for more Daemon Princes and Brimstones.

problem of primarchs is always the same... they cant hide so they are focused and deleted quick, only mid tier lists usually struggle against primarchs, maybe play 2 is the way, Magnus+Mortarion+2-3 Dp's and Arhiman and some cheap troops.

The list is much stronger than you're making it out to be, and outside of a few armies deleting a primarch in one turn isn't easy.

but all those "few" armies are top armies you find at every tournament. Ig, De, Eldar and soup of them. U cant ever think to win a tournament if you cant handle those army lists. Yes Magnus cant be the "power" of that list but you invest 445pts in a model which might be removed turn 1 doing nothing if you start second, and that happen more often than i want ever see (and i have seen it so many times), now with Ik the problem got bigger, those pesky missiles stripping off ur inv saves.... matter nothing if you have a 3++ ur fethed up, poison weapons are another big issue, T7 is nothing you take a ton of wounds at 4+ anyway. Imho

Craftworlds; As much as I hate the codex as 3/4 of it is terrible the other 1/4 makes for some very powerful lists.

Drukhari; A powerful army with lots of possible builds, only real weakness is lack of psychic defence.

Tyranids; Plenty of strong options gives several ways to run the army competitively.

Tau; Can out shoot most lists.


Hard to say on the 5th, Chaos and Impreium rely so heavily on soup to get anywhere that it makes comparing the indavidual codecies difficult.

Niiru wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!! Orkz have more votes then A LOT of armies, there are a lot of players out there who can't beat a horde apparently

Codex: Boyz is a great army, I dunno what you're talking about. Boyz make great troops choices, and you can have fast attack boyz, and there's even elite boyz. They're pretty weak on the heavy support front though, they should make a heavy boyz squad, maybe with a max unit size of 60 instead of 30.

Codex: Boyz is terrible with the power creep now. Any gunline just decimates the Orkz before they can manage anything. Hell, Tau can overwatch a 30 blob of boyz to death before they get the charge off.

Fast attack boyz are faster boyz which cost more....in other words, crap, they also don't benefit from having 20+ models.

Elite Boyz are Kommandos, and after the nerf of 3 and the no 1st turn shenanigans they lost most of their appeal because they are basically just regular boyz who can deep strike and cost 50% more.

Codex: Boyz is an index, lol.