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I've been playing since 2nd edition and my first army was craftworld. I haven't always played competitively, so take the following with a grain of salt, but from my experience Craftworld Eldar have literally always been one of the top performing armies, if not THE top performing army. I cant think of any edition where this hasn't been true.

Claiming that it can be expensive if a player wants to have the most meta pick is redundant on two fronts because;
1.the hobby is expensive regardless and
2. every army has better and worse units that change in effectiveness edition to edition.

If I were to recommend a codex faction for a competitively minded player I think CWE has to be the go-to. Surely? I can't think of any faction that has been so successful for so long.

More on topic I think we need a definition of 'tool box'. For me it would be the ability to participate in every phase of the game while having reactionary stratagems.

LoftyS wrote:
Tau IMO, they have a great tactial trick for every phase. Just make sure you have XV25 for sneaky deployment and successive combat shenanigans.

Edit : Drukhari is well balanced too.

Tau is one of the absolute LEAST versatile armies in the game! No CC and no psychic. In 5th Tau has at least Kroot as a CC unit. They were not the best, but they did okay.
I am a Tau player myself, and... No, I'm not. I WAS a Tau player until 8th landed. Now I'm a DG and Custodes player. :3
Tau does one thing and one thing only (almost): Shoot. Sure, they have access to some mobility, but with how cover works nowadays it's not really a viable option. And with the loss of JSJ, not even suits are very mobile.

Swarmlord Tyranids with a versatile selection of Melee threats is basically this playstyle to a tee. Pick a choice each turn to slingshot up the field. Stonecrusher Carnifexes into combat with Knights, or blob of Genestealers for shredding screens, or a hormagant zerg if you want to tarpit something, Gargoyles if you need it to have wings, Bonesword Warriors if you want durability and don't need to wrap much up, etc etc.

Kall3m0n wrote:

LoftyS wrote:
Tau IMO, they have a great tactial trick for every phase. Just make sure you have XV25 for sneaky deployment and successive combat shenanigans.

Edit : Drukhari is well balanced too.

Tau is one of the absolute LEAST versatile armies in the game! No CC and no psychic. In 5th Tau has at least Kroot as a CC unit. They were not the best, but they did okay.
I am a Tau player myself, and... No, I'm not. I WAS a Tau player until 8th landed. Now I'm a DG and Custodes player. :3
Tau does one thing and one thing only (almost): Shoot. Sure, they have access to some mobility, but with how cover works nowadays it's not really a viable option. And with the loss of JSJ, not even suits are very mobile.

Unlike most Tau players, my mainstay are Stealth Suits. They are fine at CC and I stick them in all the time. Hard to kill, and a great screen to prevent your commanders being shot at. Which can be used to great effect when infiltrating together with a Coldstar. Charging with the XV25 is often critical to keep other units safe from shooting. Tau can and should use CC tactically. Not using psykers is not a downside for me as I don't rate psykers. I mostly don't use them in the armies that have access to them. Thanks to deny the witch and perils it's an unpredictable way to play that is too swingy and luck based to make it in my armies. I probably will use some in my upcoming Chaos army and maybe Dark Angels too, but mostly for flavour.

"BA are nerfed more. Maybe not by event count, but certainly by net effect of deep strike nerf and fly nerf. Even capt smash is fired from lists now."
BA were nerfed harder. CWE were nerfed more frequently. The topic was whether CWE have *ever* been nerfed, so I meant frequency, so should have specified. No argument that other factions have been nerfed harder.

"Again this seem to me like an argument in favour of eldar being a safe army"
CWE is certainly the 'safest' army. It's been on top more frequently than any other faction - by a *wide* margin. Just be aware that, while the army is fairly 'safe' that way, no individual unit is.

For instance, consider how Tac Marines have been since the start of 6th - every single Troop in the CWE book has had it worse in that timeframe. However, the army as a whole has had it better. That's because CWE is the king of having a tool for every job. So they have a huge variety in their toolbox. Because they have such a variety, for any given variation of the rulesset or meta, they're likely to have an OP option or two.

"On the other hand if someone picked an army like BA, bought in to it, now he is left with 15 scouts and some jetpack HQs he can use, everything else was nerfed hard. "
In almost every case, the answer is to just wait a year or two, and see if the meta changed. There are *many* units that were worse off two years than those units are now, but are now in a good - or even great - place.

Unfortunately, Marines are being "not-technically-replaced" by Primaris - regardless of your take on that scenario, it seems unlikely they'll get "fixed". To add insult to injury, you play GK - GW appears to have written them off. But consider if you had said this in 5th edition - which unit has been more useful since then, Marine Scouts or Storm Guardians? JP Smashfether or a mounted-up Archon?

" If someone bought in to a BT army with actual BT units, he is a sad sod right now."
If someone wants to run a Swordwind army, featuring a thousand cuts, they're SOL now.
If someone wants to run a Black Guardian Warhost, spamming Guardians and support, they're SOL now.
If someone wants to run a heavy Spirit Host, with multiple Wraithlords and a Wraithknight, they're SOL now.
If someone wants to play a Saim-Hann "Mounted Up" army, where even their Troops are in Serpents/Falcons, they're SOL now.
If someone wants to play Ynnari as described in the fluff, or without one of the 3 Special Characters, they aren't just trash tier - they actually can't legally do either.

It sucks that BT is boned right now. But they are *hardly* the only faction that can't play how they want.

"[CWE being OP] I cant think of any edition where this hasn't been true. "
Almost always true. Only exceptions since 6E started was over half of 6E (their codex changed that, but came out in the second half of the edition), and the Index era of 8th (but they got their Codex early). And Ynnari *were* top tier, using CWE units, during the Index era.

Fair analysis. Although I'm not in love with scouts as much as many of the posters.

Bharring wrote:
..."[CWE being OP] I cant think of any edition where this hasn't been true. "
Almost always true. Only exceptions since 6E started was over half of 6E (their codex changed that, but came out in the second half of the edition), and the Index era of 8th (but they got their Codex early). And Ynnari *were* top tier, using CWE units, during the Index era.

5e. Coming out of the hellholle of 3e Aspect-spam and 4e Mechdar they had an out-of-date Codex with some really very overpriced stuff, and the damage profile of the typical army was shifting to stuff the Eldar didn't have good counters to while everyone else was getting tools to kill lightly-armoured vehicles more effectively. They bounced back into the upper tiers with 6e and Jink saves but there was one edition where the Craftworld Eldar weren't competitive.

For me, the answer to a strong enemy army is Eldar.
It has tools to combat each army at every threat range.

Just be aware that, while the army is fairly 'safe' that way, no individual unit is.

All I know that, I have played against returning eldar players that had armies from prior editions and they had no problem with beating my GK army, or the noob armies played by some people around here.

For instance, consider how Tac Marines have been since the start of 6th - every single Troop in the CWE book has had it worse in that timeframe. However, the army as a whole has had it better. That's because CWE is the king of having a tool for every job. So they have a huge variety in their toolbox. Because they have such a variety, for any given variation of the rulesset or meta, they're likely to have an OP option or two.

Again I don't know much about other editions. But did eldar ever care about troops? unless of course times where their troops were good. From my point of view an eldar army is able to cripple an opposing army, specially a marine one in 1-2 turns. After that they can lose, but only if they go after that 23-0 win. If they want a 13-7, which to me is more or less what a non tournament game is, they just win every time. They have no problem with surviving stuff, no problem with speed, their melee units are always at least the best in the game, same with their shoting. But then again I know past eldar only from stories, people here could be lieing to me. I can only say what I think or feel is true.

Karol wrote:

For instance, consider how Tac Marines have been since the start of 6th - every single Troop in the CWE book has had it worse in that timeframe. However, the army as a whole has had it better. That's because CWE is the king of having a tool for every job. So they have a huge variety in their toolbox. Because they have such a variety, for any given variation of the rulesset or meta, they're likely to have an OP option or two.

Again I don't know much about other editions. But did eldar ever care about troops? unless of course times where their troops were good. From my point of view an eldar army is able to cripple an opposing army, specially a marine one in 1-2 turns. After that they can lose, but only if they go after that 23-0 win. If they want a 13-7, which to me is more or less what a non tournament game is, they just win every time. They have no problem with surviving stuff, no problem with speed, their melee units are always at least the best in the game, same with their shoting. But then again I know past eldar only from stories, people here could be lieing to me. I can only say what I think or feel is true.

The Eldar have had a melee unit that was "among the best in the game" once (Wraithknights in 7e). Before 7e Eldar melee was a joke, in 8e Eldar melee is more a testament to how powerful their psychic buffs are than anything else (before someone says "Shining Spears" I dare you to deploy a unit somewhere your opponent has line of sight to them and see if they ever make it to combat).

[CWE ...] "They have no problem with surviving stuff"
The Wave Serpents have no trouble surviving stuff.

Their one Deathstar, casting powers and using stratagems, doesn't have too much trouble surviving stuff.

Stacked to-hit penalties (Fliers, Rangers, or Conceal/LQR) have a reasonable amount of trouble surviving stuff.

Anything else makes Marines look tanky per point.

CWE has major trouble surviving stuff. Unless you're going after what they want you to go after (and they're really good at forcing you to).

"no problem with speed"
Wraithlord says Hi. Wraithguard. Cheapest transports are well over 100pts. Some of the fastest stuff in the game, but they pay for that speed (although some offenders don't pay *enough*, and they never should have been given WWP).

" their melee units are always at least the best in the game"
Don't Shining Spears lose to unbuffed Guardsmen if they get charged?

Shining Spears are a nasty unit right now, sure. But we're talking 2A per model - that's not a lot of attacks for Termie-level PPM. And if they *don't* charge, they're S3. So they're good "CC" units, but not great. But only as *skirmishers*, not as a front line CC unit.

Take a look at the other ~9 CC options (counting all the CC Special Characters as one). Not so great. Until CA, they were, on average, about as good as ASM - some of them even worse than that!

"same with their shoting"
Practically true, but technically not (because of your penchant for overstatement) - they've almost always had a shooting unit that was up there, but they didn't always have the best in the game.

"But then again I know past eldar only from stories, people here could be lieing to me. I can only say what I think or feel is true. "
This is why we keep going through this gak. Because you keep repeating this BS in every thread.

Eldar.

Unit has a disadvantage? There's a strat or Psychic power to offset it.

Unit has an advantage? There's a strat or Psychic power to make them even better.

Could we talk about something other than how OP eldar are? We've been over that ground.


The thread is supposed to be about tool box armies. Now honestly every army should have tools but our top picks are:

Craftworlds

Tyrinids

Dark elfs

Choas


?????

Rereading the OP, I'd say nids are the best match. Their codex is very versatile, most of the units are playable. A couple of big gaunt units could offer the grindy play style you mention.

Pure CWE feel limited in options. They have some strong units and can stack buffs, but only a select few of their units feel worthy of these buffs.

Dark Eldar seems like a versatile codex too, but I haven't really played them yet.

Adding allies gives you more options in all cases, and playing hypercompetitive lists limits them.

Rereading the OP:
"a way to answer most anything I encounter. Usually a Grindy playstyle accompanies this."
Screams "How SM are supposed to work". But, as we know, they don't really work that way.

I get the impression from "a way to answer most anything I encounter", he wants a list with units that can respond in different ways to different foes, not an army that can pick different units to answer different threats.

From "Usually a Grindy playstyle accompanies this", sounds like he wants to play attrition.

CWE do neither of these well (outside of being OP). He wants Marines from previous edition. So what does that?

From an attrition perspective, the standard Guard + Knight + SmashCaptain gives him that. And a number of tools to do a variety of things. But it's not really a toolbox army.

Are there any armies that function like Marines are supposed to? Where you take a number of units that you use differently, depending on your opponent? And can play the attrition game?

You mean like shoot the choppy stuff, chop the shooty stuff, hold the line vs aggression, break the line vs defense, etc all with the same units?

Honestly Salamanders are the first thing that came to my mind as they excel in running mobile, independent squads that can do whatever need be, including getting up close with a flamer or melta but also playing the distance game too if you want. They are also a decent enough faction that is definitely playable if not top tier, and being Marines they will probably keep that toolbox nature going forward. Also, they are literally artificers so toolbox on multiple levels lol

Bharring wrote:
Rereading the OP:
"a way to answer most anything I encounter. Usually a Grindy playstyle accompanies this."
Screams "How SM are supposed to work". But, as we know, they don't really work that way.

I get the impression from "a way to answer most anything I encounter", he wants a list with units that can respond in different ways to different foes, not an army that can pick different units to answer different threats.

From "Usually a Grindy playstyle accompanies this", sounds like he wants to play attrition.

CWE do neither of these well (outside of being OP). He wants Marines from previous edition. So what does that?

From an attrition perspective, the standard Guard + Knight + SmashCaptain gives him that. And a number of tools to do a variety of things. But it's not really a toolbox army.

Are there any armies that function like Marines are supposed to? Where you take a number of units that you use differently, depending on your opponent? And can play the attrition game?

Chaos soup is pretty good at attrition and has a wide variety of tools available to them.

1) best psychic phase in the game with Ahriman and friends
2) most survivable cheap spammable troops with plaguebearers
3) tasty close combat abilities with daemon princes, bezerkers, bloodletters etc
4) great shooting units from deepstrike with oblits, SOTs
5) ability to move out of phase with warptime and dark matter crystal

The reason they are slightly lagging behind guard and Ynari is the cost for these abilities. They seem ever so slightly expensive to run, especially HQs and flyers. Why is a heldrake, a largely unsuvivable non supersonic flyer only 18 points cheaper than a crimson hunter exarch, for example?

Ynarri, you get the toolbox of Dark eldar (single strongest codex currently imo), plus craftworlds and Harlies fi you want. Thier toolbox is simply the best in the game because in a game with limited activations they get extra activations for shooting and fighting as thier opponent kills them.

 Lance845 wrote:
Tyranids. Seriously. They can build a tac list like no other. Probably the poster child so far for most well rounded and balanced dex internally and externally. Nothing stupid powerful. Nothing complete and utter crap. Everything has a place in the right list and the best lists diversify.

Agreed - can do TAC well or can specialize very well too. They can compete in every phase of the game. What are they not good against? Large single indestructible models spamming AP-4+5 weapons.