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Often hear about competitive play being unfluffy, so for fun, just wondering which currently good build takes the cake. Doesn't have to be a top tier army, just one of the decent ways to build any army, even bottom tier armies are fine. Just which army when built well, is the most unfluffy?

Death Guard and TSons being best buds in competitive play springs to mind.

Hit me with the most unfluffy lists that are currently seen in competitive play!

The obvious one is the three Shield Captains on Dawneagle Jetbikes.

I'd have to go for two of the nine captains of the blood angels, carrying some of the chapters most sacred relics, all alone and serving as kamikazi support for a lucky platoon of catachans.

Also all of the tactical free space marines lists but that's nothing new.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The obvious one is the three Shield Captains on Dawneagle Jetbikes.

Arguably one of the more fluffy custodes builds.
Army of custodes away from terra? Not fluffly.
One or a few elite custodes sreaming down from the sky to strike down/capture a specific threat to the throne? Moderately plausible.

One could argue that fielding a pair of BA captains is how mechanically we can get the impact of what two assault marines would do in the fluff.

Barring using movie marine rules.

A.T. wrote:
One or a few elite custodes sreaming down from the sky to strike down/capture a specific threat to the throne? Moderately plausible.

Custard Creams, yes. That is what Vertus Praetor are. Shield Captain Custard Creams, not so much.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custard Creams, yes. That is what Vertus Praetor are. Shield Captain Custard Creams, not so much.

Given that the Vertus Praetors give you more bang for your buck i'd imagine they would be fielded that way too, if not for the 10 model minimum and 3 model packs.

A.T. wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custard Creams, yes. That is what Vertus Praetor are. Shield Captain Custard Creams, not so much.

Given that the Vertus Praetors give you more bang for your buck i'd imagine they would be fielded that way too, if not for the 10 model minimum and 3 model packs.

Yeah, it's because the Supreme Command Detachment exists. Also, Shield Captain Custards have the Character Protection, so can't usually be shot at. Vertus Praetors are dead on arrival.

People are barely using Custodes Captains at this point. It's the equivalent to whining about Kony in 2018. It's weird and detached from the current game.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People are barely using Custodes Captains at this point. It's the equivalent to whining about Kony in 2018. It's weird and detached from the current game.

It could be casual people not keeping up to speed with the meta. A tournament player that does a lot of events can possibly get a new army in 2-3 weeks, if the meta shifts. It is much harder for a casual player who got a 2000pts army, to suddenly totaly change it.

Magnus and mortarion in the same army is obviously the worst option. The only reason I could see this working from a narrative perspective is if the other army had rowboat. They MIGHT put away their differences to get a better chance at killing their brother.

The runner up choice for me is when people make their warlord a random company commander in an imperial army that includes knights and space marines. That would never happen.

I have that same problem when I include magnus in my army because he SHOULD be the warlord, but his trait sucks real bad. So I really want someone else to be my warlord, but I have a really hard time justifying that from a fluff angle.

Karol wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People are barely using Custodes Captains at this point. It's the equivalent to whining about Kony in 2018. It's weird and detached from the current game.

It could be casual people not keeping up to speed with the meta. A tournament player that does a lot of events can possibly get a new army in 2-3 weeks, if the meta shifts. It is much harder for a casual player who got a 2000pts army, to suddenly totaly change it.

Fair enough, it still doesn't make that perception correct, though. It's important to note they are not dominating the game, regardless of ones anecdotal experience.

 SHUPPET wrote:


Death Guard and TSons being best buds in competitive play springs to mind.

Hit me with the most unfluffy lists that are currently seen in competitive play!

What? Chaos armies being a hodge-podge of everything is pretty much the only fluffy way to play them outside of playing 30K. That's kinda the point of Chaos, splintered, angry, dispersed and uniting wherever and whenever behind whoever manages to united them for a raid, campaign or crusade.

They've even all traditionally been in one book, before GW decided to defile 40K with all the ported over Heresy-nonsense.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:


Death Guard and TSons being best buds in competitive play springs to mind.

Hit me with the most unfluffy lists that are currently seen in competitive play!

What? Chaos armies being a hodge-podge of everything is pretty much the only fluffy way to play them outside of playing 30K. That's kinda the point of Chaos, splintered, angry, dispersed and uniting wherever and whenever behind whoever manages to united them for a raid, campaign or crusade.

They've even all traditionally been in one book, before GW decided to defile 40K with all the ported over Heresy-nonsense.

Exactly. The loathed 6th edition CSM codex could have you using Typhus with Poxwalkers, except Ahriman is the warlord and now they're infiltrated. Was anybody complaining because they were in the same codex?

Every Grey Knight army?

To me it's more that a lot of competitive lists aren't breaking the fluff than the circumstances of those particular forces fighting together are so rare that they shouldn't happen often or logically make little to no sense. Two space marine captains fighting together is an event that would happen so rarely it would have to be a very decisive battle. To have that show up constantly is annoying. Then there is the silly idea that all IOM armies suddenly fight so much better due to 32 guardsmen being on the battle field with no other guard elements.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
To me it's more that a lot of competitive lists aren't breaking the fluff than the circumstances of those particular forces fighting together are so rare that they shouldn't happen often or logically make little to no sense. Two space marine captains fighting together is an event that would happen so rarely it would have to be a very decisive battle. To have that show up constantly is annoying. Then there is the silly idea that all IOM armies suddenly fight so much better due to 32 guardsmen being on the battle field with no other guard elements.

Well if the Chaplain or Librarian don't make sense, of course you're going to take two Captains. It isn't like there's 15 HQ choices for Marines. Even though there kinda is.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:


Death Guard and TSons being best buds in competitive play springs to mind.

Hit me with the most unfluffy lists that are currently seen in competitive play!

What? Chaos armies being a hodge-podge of everything is pretty much the only fluffy way to play them outside of playing 30K. That's kinda the point of Chaos, splintered, angry, dispersed and uniting wherever and whenever behind whoever manages to united them for a raid, campaign or crusade.

They've even all traditionally been in one book, before GW decided to defile 40K with all the ported over Heresy-nonsense.

Exactly. The loathed 6th edition CSM codex could have you using Typhus with Poxwalkers, except Ahriman is the warlord and now they're infiltrated. Was anybody complaining because they were in the same codex?

And the 5th and 4th and 3rd and 2nd Ed. Codex before that.

Not to mention that probably the only people from the Chaos Codex that would not be working with Ahriman and instead just kill him on sight, even if it meant allying and snuggling with a company of Space Wolves for a century, would be Thousand Sons with a semblance of sentience and, of course, Magnus, had he existed as a playable figure.

"This named character is in every list" is the big annoyance to me; Guilliman and Tigurius lead every Ultramarines force, Ahriman and/or Magnus headline every Thousand Sons army (particularly given that Magnus banished Ahriman for putting down the Rubric).

Guardsmen allied to other Imperial armies isn't unfluffy (Chapter Serfs, Ultramar Guardsmen, even Knight Households are bound to have men-at-arms not important enough to get a giant death robot), but making a Guard Officer the Warlord over Guilliman or a Custodes Shield-Captain is definitely grotesquely unfluffy, as is Kurov's Aquila showing up in every list.

Speaking of Custodes I've met new players who don't know that there are Custodians not on jetbikes; small deployments of Custodians in support of larger armies may be fluffy, but "here's 3-5 dudes on jetbikes serving as backfield troubleshooters for my gunline" stretches the bounds of credulity, especially if you're doing the Supreme Command Detachment of 3 Shield-Captains and there's a Guard Officer as your Warlord.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People are barely using Custodes Captains at this point. It's the equivalent to whining about Kony in 2018. It's weird and detached from the current game.

It could be casual people not keeping up to speed with the meta. A tournament player that does a lot of events can possibly get a new army in 2-3 weeks, if the meta shifts. It is much harder for a casual player who got a 2000pts army, to suddenly totaly change it.

Fair enough, it still doesn't make that perception correct, though. It's important to note they are not dominating the game, regardless of ones anecdotal experience.

Not saying I disagree, but the thing with views and people is, that they often have very little in come with reality. Lets take tau for example. From what I understand they were either very good in prior editions, or at least were viewed as very good. In 8th, they are very far from being the best, yet there were still people calling with tau nerfs when their codex came out. IMO it is the same mechanism here. Plus it is not always not true. If someone came from 3ed, and thought that eldar are very powerful, he would not be wrong, even if his actual knowladge about 8th ed was zero.

I think the only unfluffy thing I can think of is horrors of different kinds durning in to poxwalkers when they die. Also old stuff like a pink spliting in to a blue and a poxwalker on death. It as is someone was doubling souls.


Ah and those magnus+morarion+ 4 DP lists. In fluff greater demons and demon princes are jealous of each others power, and hate sharing the same siblings do. It is always some super rare end of the world, siege of the emperors palace or first war for armagedon kind of a thing happening. Yet on the tables the demonic primarchs seem to be riding shotgun in every patrol.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
To me it's more that a lot of competitive lists aren't breaking the fluff than the circumstances of those particular forces fighting together are so rare that they shouldn't happen often or logically make little to no sense. Two space marine captains fighting together is an event that would happen so rarely it would have to be a very decisive battle. To have that show up constantly is annoying. Then there is the silly idea that all IOM armies suddenly fight so much better due to 32 guardsmen being on the battle field with no other guard elements.

Well if the Chaplain or Librarian don't make sense, of course you're going to take two Captains. It isn't like there's 15 HQ choices for Marines. Even though there kinda is.

This is my point though, two companies from the same chapter on the same field of battle would be really rare, something that should pretty much be reserved for an Apoc level game. A captain and Chaplain/Librarian/Techmarine makes sense. Two smash captains with chapter relics backed by the loyal 32 and a knight doesn't.

 Elbows wrote:
Every Grey Knight army?

Seconded. Whoever decided "let's take the melee heavy infantry out of the Ordo Malleus book, delete all the Inquisitorial stuff, and stretch them into a standalone army with a full force org chart that gets frequently deployed against things other than full-scale daemon invasions" screwed the GK mechanically ("let's field an army consisting of six slight variations on one unit plus four slight variations on one HQ, a weird robot with a Terminator in a baby carrier, and all the worst Space Marine vehicles, and turn them into a full army loaded with 22pt 1W/1A melee dudes with no delivery mechanism and no anti-tank weapons!") and turned the fluff into a walking joke.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
To me it's more that a lot of competitive lists aren't breaking the fluff than the circumstances of those particular forces fighting together are so rare that they shouldn't happen often or logically make little to no sense. Two space marine captains fighting together is an event that would happen so rarely it would have to be a very decisive battle. To have that show up constantly is annoying. Then there is the silly idea that all IOM armies suddenly fight so much better due to 32 guardsmen being on the battle field with no other guard elements.

Well if the Chaplain or Librarian don't make sense, of course you're going to take two Captains. It isn't like there's 15 HQ choices for Marines. Even though there kinda is.

This is my point though, two companies from the same chapter on the same field of battle would be really rare, something that should pretty much be reserved for an Apoc level game. A captain and Chaplain/Librarian/Techmarine makes sense. Two smash captains with chapter relics backed by the loyal 32 and a knight doesn't.

Two Captains on their own can be explained by (for instance) Chapters with deviant command structures that have a dude with that statline for each demi-company, or by a senior officer who doesn't command his own Company (a senior member of the Honour Guard, the Chapter Master, something like that) taking the field alongside a real company. Two Captains packing important relics taking orders from a Guard Warlord with his own important relic who happen to be in the same place as exactly 32 Guardsmen and an unsupported Knight with another venerable relic of epic destruction, also taking orders from that same Guard Warlord, is just silly.

Well there is also the thing, that for a long time marines lacked a lieutenant rank officer. Someone who could lead your dudes without being the chapter master. IMO Lts should be what cpts are now, cpts should be 0-1 and chapter masters should be limited to special characters. And yes I am saying that as a GK players whose only playable model is a Master.

Always hated the T'au Riptide lists. I can see a full suit army working in certain scenarios in my mind, but a collection of 3/4 Riptides with a commander. No thanks. Fire Warriors (and troops in general) should form the backbone of any army.

 Hollow wrote:
Always hated the T'au Riptide lists. I can see a full suit army working in certain scenarios in my mind, but a collection of 3/4 Riptides with a commander. No thanks. Fire Warriors (and troops in general) should form the backbone of any army.

I'd support going back to 5th edition style of troops and only troops can score objectives.

Cephalobeard wrote:People are barely using Custodes Captains at this point. It's the equivalent to whining about Kony in 2018. It's weird and detached from the current game.

What? Who is whining about them? I said one of the good ways to build an army, when playing Custodes that's DEFINITELY Captains. Did you read the OP or were your eyes too misted over?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:


Death Guard and TSons being best buds in competitive play springs to mind.

Hit me with the most unfluffy lists that are currently seen in competitive play!

What? Chaos armies being a hodge-podge of everything is pretty much the only fluffy way to play them outside of playing 30K. That's kinda the point of Chaos, splintered, angry, dispersed and uniting wherever and whenever behind whoever manages to united them for a raid, campaign or crusade.

They've even all traditionally been in one book, before GW decided to defile 40K with all the ported over Heresy-nonsense.

Exactly. The loathed 6th edition CSM codex could have you using Typhus with Poxwalkers, except Ahriman is the warlord and now they're infiltrated. Was anybody complaining because they were in the same codex?

Huh? Who is complaining? I'm trying to find non-fluffy builds, and two primarchs that hate each other and two Chaos gods that are enemies in the fluff, working together every second list was a good enough example to mention, surely.

Hollow wrote:Always hated the T'au Riptide lists. I can see a full suit army working in certain scenarios in my mind, but a collection of 3/4 Riptides with a commander. No thanks. Fire Warriors (and troops in general) should form the backbone of any army.

I know nothing about Tau lore, but I'm under the impression from game lore that Riptides seem to fight in Wings?

The one my opponent is using to crush my "absolutely background following army"

Yeah, in the Tau fluff their armies are organized into hunter contingents which groups together a number of smaller cadres. One of those component cadres can be a Riptide wing. The fluffiest way to play a Tau army I suppose is to go include the old command and hunter cadre formations in your army, and then whatever cadres like Riptide wings that you prefer; competitive Tau lists with battalions/brigades and 3 Riptides aren't far off from that.

It can of course be argued that all this fluff was invented to sell formations, but that's just how 40k goes.

I don’t look at tournament lists often but when I do they all make me scratch my head. None of them bear much resemblance to the back grounds I know. And the way they are played is horrendous also. In the times of dark reapers and winged tyrants I saw a battle report and it was so crazy the way they played. No idea why those involved even bothered playing 40k when the story mattered so little.

Andykp wrote:
I don’t look at tournament lists often but when I do they all make me scratch my head. None of them bear much resemblance to the back grounds I know. And the way they are played is horrendous also. In the times of dark reapers and winged tyrants I saw a battle report and it was so crazy the way they played. No idea why those involved even bothered playing 40k when the story mattered so little.

Perfect man! Give me some current examples!

To be honest the armies I see at the top tables are actually , for the most part... I don't know. Normal. Most of them have a bunch of troops, unlike many 7th armies with crazy formations , and barring some cases like those Tyranid lists with 9 ripper swarms and spamming zoantrhopes, Tyrants and tyranid guards, most of the othe list(A castellan supporting a infantry heavy IG army is absolutely fluffy) are actually fine.

I agree that mostly the dissasociation with the fluff comes from how they play the game. In the top tables the game is based around using those loop holes (Like the SocalOpen with the untargeteable infantry inside buildings) and in general "ugly" ways to play the game that feel wrong.