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Soup is all the rage this edition. However, I'm an old-timer and I like mono-faction. So, with that in mind, which lists can pull this off the best? Let's try to differentiate if we are talking with or without FW rules, but both ways are valid.


Although they've been balanced a bit I'd say the two top-dogs at the moment are Eldar and Imperial Guard. How would you rank the other factions?

Eldar & Guard,

Everything else lumped into some form of unplayable.

Grey Knights

*Genesteeler Cults - I'm not sure yet wich of the 1st two categories to put these guys in.

Just as a guess I'd have to give the nod to the better books like Dark Eldar, Orks, etc.

Eldar would be okay, still able to spam a handful of strong units, but as a whole book, have a lot of missing elements.

I do wish we'd see more tournaments go this route as it's 10x more interesting than the boring Soup-meta that is prevalent.

Well, not only CW and AM, but also Drukhari are very well playable as a mono-faction.

Death Guard are a great Mono-Faction, with and without nurgle daemon to help out.

In addition to the obvious;

Drukhari are the top performing mono army.

Tau are pretty good and recently enjoyed sweeping points reductions.

GSC will very likely be top tier given their unit stats, costs and since they have Vect 2.0.

Orks are largely considered a gatekeeper army, similar to pre points reductions Tau.

Deathwatch have success and look to get better with bolter rule.

Imperial Knights are no joke, but throw in the loyal 32 and they're infinitely better.

One thing to remember is that in this comparison the armies won't be fighting against soup either which may give extra legs to some factions.

I'd say that Drukari, Aeldari & Orks are top of the pile having loads of viable options and builds. The aeldari in particular have lots of units that are never seen but are still very good for their points.

Tyranids, Tau, Imperial Guard, deathguard, Imperial Knight are next up, all working well as a mono faction but all being reasonably one dimensional.
Likely add GSC to this list as well.

After that its just a mix of codexs that didn't really have enough thought put into them, most have lackluster stratagems which are where the real power lies this edition. Sadly most of the earlier codexs are in here and also most of the power armour which were all likely designed together.

Indeed, its a pity that most of the Marine codex armies cannot hold their own.
This particularly holds for GK, the first codex released in the 8th edition.
The vanilla SM codex is much better but still the mono factions described in there are not viable on their own.

 WisdomLS wrote:
Tyranids, Tau, Imperial Guard, deathguard, Imperial Knight are next up, all working well as a mono faction but all being reasonably one dimensional.
Likely add GSC to this list as well.

Also Thousand Sons - but these are all factions that can hold their own against allied armies to some degree.

Below them armies like solo blood angels are poor because they will invariably run into blood angels supported by guard and knights - if everyone is playing single codex then they can reasonably fill out their list with scouts, primaris marines, death company, sanguinary guard, and the odd forgeworld unit.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, its a pity that most of the Marine codex armies cannot hold their own.
This particularly holds for GK, the first codex released in the 8th edition.
The vanilla SM codex is much better but still the mono factions described in there are not viable on their own.

They hold their own just fine, independent of some highly-visible posters' opinions.

Holding their own is entirely different from being #1, and largely bring nothing useful to the soup, but on their own they're more than playable if you want to play them.

Dark Eldar seems to be at the top for Mono-faction,
Then there's probably Eldar, Guard
Then probably Tau, Orks, CSM, and probably Deathwatch
Then Vanilla Marines, Blood Angels, Tyranids, and probably Sisters of Battle
Then Dark Angels and Necrons
Then Space Wolves
Then somewhere down there is Grey Knights

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, its a pity that most of the Marine codex armies cannot hold their own.
This particularly holds for GK, the first codex released in the 8th edition.
The vanilla SM codex is much better but still the mono factions described in there are not viable on their own.

They hold their own just fine, independent of some highly-visible posters' opinions.

Holding their own is entirely different from being #1, and largely bring nothing useful to the soup, but on their own they're more than playable if you want to play them.

Dark Eldar seems to be at the top for Mono-faction,
Then there's probably Eldar, Guard
Then probably Tau, Orks, CSM, and probably Deathwatch
Then Vanilla Marines, Blood Angels, Tyranids, and probably Sisters of Battle
Then Dark Angels and Necrons
Then Space Wolves
Then somewhere down there is Grey Knights

As much as I enjoy your optimism, I feel you're pretty much dead wrong when it comes to competitive. Army choice matters more than your play with said army, and the results from events showcase this pretty hard. Good match-ups, better skills than the opponent etc are all big advantages that no player who wants to win should be willing to give up. But choosing to play with a handicap, and not taking every advantage available means you won't be favoured to win events (statistically anyways). Technically, Orks could "hold their own" in 7th, but no one would consider the codex unwarranting of a re-do or large scale army-wide buffs.

Tau, Tyranids and Dark Eldar, probably Craftworld too. Most everything else you almost never see mono faction if you want to be good.

I Hear Orks are alright. Death Guard can do mono but IMHO is mid-tier at best.

GSC seem like they will be good mono.

Virtually everything else if you want to actually be competitive you are playing at a significant disadvantage if you aren't doing soup lists.

Darsath wrote:

Spoiler:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, its a pity that most of the Marine codex armies cannot hold their own.
This particularly holds for GK, the first codex released in the 8th edition.
The vanilla SM codex is much better but still the mono factions described in there are not viable on their own.

They hold their own just fine, independent of some highly-visible posters' opinions.

Holding their own is entirely different from being #1, and largely bring nothing useful to the soup, but on their own they're more than playable if you want to play them.

Dark Eldar seems to be at the top for Mono-faction,
Then there's probably Eldar, Guard
Then probably Tau, Orks, CSM, and probably Deathwatch
Then Vanilla Marines, Blood Angels, Tyranids, and probably Sisters of Battle
Then Dark Angels and Necrons
Then Space Wolves
Then somewhere down there is Grey Knights

As much as I enjoy your optimism, I feel you're pretty much dead wrong when it comes to competitive. Army choice matters more than your play with said army, and the results from events showcase this pretty hard. Good match-ups, better skills than the opponent etc are all big advantages that no player who wants to win should be willing to give up. But choosing to play with a handicap, and not taking every advantage available means you won't be favoured to win events (statistically anyways). Technically, Orks could "hold their own" in 7th, but no one would consider the codex unwarranting of a re-do or large scale army-wide buffs.

Wasn't this already confined to mono lists?

There's no point to marines competitively because anything they bring is less than Guard or Knights can offer. Except for BA; they can bring stuff to the table, but that's limited somewhat. In addition, there's a lot of factions that don't bring anything to the table competitively, because they can't be part of the allies matrix and have indigenous weaknesses they can't overcome by adding a Knight or adding Guardsmen. On their own, versus another faction on their own, they're definitely okay though.


Marines have a couple major weaknesses, mostly stemming from being the first codex. First, their cost per CP is really high, because they have expensive very expensive heroic HQ's and somewhat expensive line infantry; so you'll pass over them for you CP generation. Second, their support units have been ignored, and their stratagems are defunct; a Predator tank, costs about the same as an Armiger or a Leman Russ Commander, and killshot requires hilarious investment into units you won't be able to buff to get +1 damage on one Predator's lascannons. Finally, nobody is trying to address either, because it's all about f****** tactical marines and terminators, apparently. There are three troop options for Space Marines, they need to offer appreciably different capabilities to be worthwhile, and if you try to "fix it" by taping special rules to them you're not meaningfully differentiating them from Scouts or Intercessors, and therefore not fixing them. Anyway, because they don't offer better CP generation that the Guard, or better support assets than Knights, the only real opening they can fill is for someone like Cpt. Smash.

That said, they do have good answers, if not a particularly wide selection of threats, and the units they have that are good are pretty adequate and have wide availability of buffs.

Also, WRT to army choice and etc. you're not right. Army composition matters, and so does your understanding of your units and how they interact with the board and the enemy. Because you need both to win, if either half is deficient, you lose.

Top mono-faction would be Imperial Guard. Before the Castellan they were the top faction in soup based ITC - AS A MONO FACTION, just with Shadowswords instead of Castellans.

After them it would be the Xenos. Order doesn't really matter. And Dark Eldar don't really function without Eldar to support them with Psychic.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Holding their own is entirely different from being #1, and largely bring nothing useful to the soup, but on their own they're more than playable if you want to play them.

Hey, how dare you make a post without ridiculous over the top hyperbole and whining!

You get back down there and complain that if your army isn't winning every game, it sucks, RIGHT NOW!

The thing that makes this stuff tricky is how bad the internal balance is in each codex.
Two thousand points of rangers, crimson hunter exarchs, dark reapers, wave serpents and shining spears supported by farseer and warlock powers are very good.
Two thousand points of dire avengers, vypers, falcons, striking scorpions and Wraithlords led by an autarch and phoenix lord is very much average, perfectly fun and playable but would get stomped by the above example.
If people build fluffy lists most armies are pretty comparable, if people cherry pick only the best units, which is what competitive players obviously do, then the big differences come out.

I am not sure a fluffy eldar list, of the type you listed, is anywhere near the level of a fluff GK list. In fact the GK list would had to bring more or less a tournament list to play vs eldar and even then there would be huge problems, if the eldar player takes even one good unit.

 Marmatag wrote:
Top mono-faction would be Imperial Guard.

Aaand you're wrong. Top mono-faction is DE. Guard IS in the top 3, but you whine about guard so much in every thread I'm going to ceaselessly correct you whenever I can.

I'd love to see some recent data (within the past 6 months) that shows mono-guard lists outperforming mono-drukhari lists.

But actual data is the anti-marmatag.

Jokes aside, single-faction lists are a lot closer than a lot of posters are willing to admit.

Karol wrote:
I am not sure a fluffy eldar list, of the type you listed, is anywhere near the level of a fluff GK list. In fact the GK list would had to bring more or less a tournament list to play vs eldar and even then there would be huge problems, if the eldar player takes even one good unit.

I don't know much about grey knights, but I gather they're pretty poor generally, so I'll defer to your experience.
But I'd say a fluffy list of marines with tacs, dreads, predators etc would be be a pretty even match for a list of avengers, wraithlords and falcons etc, for example.

I'd say Grey Knights are the only faction that can't hold it's own mono.

They already started off on a bad foot, with expensive infantry and HQ's, no real antitank options, and having a lot of baked-in but unusable features, and then were hit with like 3 consecutive nerfs as a side effect of rules changes meant to bring other armies in line. In the process, their main shtick was also largely invalidated. You might be able to find a place for them as an auxiliary support faction for your other group, but then that raises the question: "Why not Scions?" who will bring everything the Grey Knights will add, but better, cheaper, and with more plasmaguns.

w1zard wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Top mono-faction would be Imperial Guard.

Aaand you're wrong. Top mono-faction is DE. Guard IS in the top 3, but you whine about guard so much in every thread I'm going to ceaselessly correct you whenever I can.

I'd love to see some recent data (within the past 6 months) that shows mono-guard lists outperforming mono-drukhari lists.

I'd love to see data that is constructed based on mono-as-a-requirement tournaments and events.

All i can tell you is that mono guard has been winning tournaments. Although they don't need to be mono, because there is 0 downside to bringing a Castellan over a Shadowsword.

You can call me wrong all day, but it that doesn't make it true.

 Marmatag wrote:
...All i can tell you is that mono guard has been winning tournaments....

Still waiting on that data.

Last time I checked the only mono list that won any tournaments recently was drukhari.

 Marmatag wrote:
Although they don't need to be mono, because there is 0 downside to bringing a Castellan over a Shadowsword.

That is more a problem with IK than with guard.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Marines have a couple major weaknesses, mostly stemming from being the first codex. First, their cost per CP is really high, because they have expensive very expensive heroic HQ's and somewhat expensive line infantry; so you'll pass over them for you CP generation. Second, their support units have been ignored, and their stratagems are defunct; a Predator tank, costs about the same as an Armiger or a Leman Russ Commander, and killshot requires hilarious investment into units you won't be able to buff to get +1 damage on one Predator's lascannons.

Our group is almost exclusively running mono-armies and this is a pretty accurate descriptions of marine's problems. Their stuff is very easy to kill, they lack firepower (compared to Eldar, IG, knights), they have no functioning melee units combined with almost all characters being melee oriented, they have no powerful psychic powers despite their psykers being expensive and they lack mobility since most of their mobility comes from dysfunctional transports. They simply have no strengths they can play into.

I wonder why you put dark angels below vanilla marines though. With Azrael, Darkshrouds, WotDA Helblasters and their re-rolls for standing still they mitigate some of their weaknesses makes them feel a notch above regular marines.

DE, CWE, IG, Orks and Tau are probably going to be top dogs, but by a small margin.

On a scale of a 1 to 10 i would put Orks, Tau and CWE on 10, IG and DE on 9, all other factions on 8, except vanilla SM and Admech on 7 and GK on 6.
The last 5 points of the scale would't be used, because all things are quite close.

After the fly change, BA bring nothing. Just wanted to set the record straight on that. Capt Smash is dead. It was inevitable, being a one-model codex. BA might be worse than GK as a mono-faction now after the bolter change. BA have nothing going on in 8th ed anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Darsath wrote:

Spoiler:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, its a pity that most of the Marine codex armies cannot hold their own.
This particularly holds for GK, the first codex released in the 8th edition.
The vanilla SM codex is much better but still the mono factions described in there are not viable on their own.

They hold their own just fine, independent of some highly-visible posters' opinions.

Holding their own is entirely different from being #1, and largely bring nothing useful to the soup, but on their own they're more than playable if you want to play them.

Dark Eldar seems to be at the top for Mono-faction,
Then there's probably Eldar, Guard
Then probably Tau, Orks, CSM, and probably Deathwatch
Then Vanilla Marines, Blood Angels, Tyranids, and probably Sisters of Battle
Then Dark Angels and Necrons
Then Space Wolves
Then somewhere down there is Grey Knights

As much as I enjoy your optimism, I feel you're pretty much dead wrong when it comes to competitive. Army choice matters more than your play with said army, and the results from events showcase this pretty hard. Good match-ups, better skills than the opponent etc are all big advantages that no player who wants to win should be willing to give up. But choosing to play with a handicap, and not taking every advantage available means you won't be favoured to win events (statistically anyways). Technically, Orks could "hold their own" in 7th, but no one would consider the codex unwarranting of a re-do or large scale army-wide buffs.

Wasn't this already confined to mono lists?

There's no point to marines competitively because anything they bring is less than Guard or Knights can offer. Except for BA; they can bring stuff to the table, but that's limited somewhat. In addition, there's a lot of factions that don't bring anything to the table competitively, because they can't be part of the allies matrix and have indigenous weaknesses they can't overcome by adding a Knight or adding Guardsmen. On their own, versus another faction on their own, they're definitely okay though.


Marines have a couple major weaknesses, mostly stemming from being the first codex. First, their cost per CP is really high, because they have expensive very expensive heroic HQ's and somewhat expensive line infantry; so you'll pass over them for you CP generation. Second, their support units have been ignored, and their stratagems are defunct; a Predator tank, costs about the same as an Armiger or a Leman Russ Commander, and killshot requires hilarious investment into units you won't be able to buff to get +1 damage on one Predator's lascannons. Finally, nobody is trying to address either, because it's all about f****** tactical marines and terminators, apparently. There are three troop options for Space Marines, they need to offer appreciably different capabilities to be worthwhile, and if you try to "fix it" by taping special rules to them you're not meaningfully differentiating them from Scouts or Intercessors, and therefore not fixing them. Anyway, because they don't offer better CP generation that the Guard, or better support assets than Knights, the only real opening they can fill is for someone like Cpt. Smash.

That said, they do have good answers, if not a particularly wide selection of threats, and the units they have that are good are pretty adequate and have wide availability of buffs.

Also, WRT to army choice and etc. you're not right. Army composition matters, and so does your understanding of your units and how they interact with the board and the enemy. Because you need both to win, if either half is deficient, you lose.

Marines bleed points quickly. Their expensive units lack invulnerable saves, which is now mandatory in 8th. They still can't squeeze 13 pts of utility out of a marine. Intercessors are getting closer, especially the veterans. But again, they bleed points when targeted by multidamage weapons that are EVERYWHERE. The way 8th is written, hordes are just better.

If you enforced mono factions, I think my Mono faction Knights actually move higher in the rankings, as many armies choose not to bring enough Anti armor firepower in faction, favoring Anti horde.

Anti-armor doesn't work vs IKs though. You need mortals and S5 spam.

Daemons do perfectly fine as a mono-army, while the loss of Thousand Sons Daemon Princes and their psychic powers and relics hurts you've still got up to three Daemon Princes and among the best Troops Choices in the game to pick from. The non-HQ, non-Troops choices are a bit meh, but the army as a whole is perfectly playable in a mono-Codex context.