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Based on an argument I keep having in the Dark elf threads. How much radical choice is in the codexes? For example with Nids you can play Nid Zilla, or scuttling swarm, and those armies will be very different.

I know of 4 ways to play Dark elfs.
1. Fill the board with Venoms and raiders (with cargo of some kind)
2. Coven, Talos and Grotesques.
3. Alpha strike Bike heavy list.
4. Flyier spam.

(Combined arms not sure if this counts cause it is just a balanced mix of the above, but a balanced list plays much different from any slew list.)

Harliquins I think only have one list. Fast choppy with tricks. You get choices but the army is still going to play the same. You are still going to have the same battle plan.

So the rules are Single codex armies only and the armies need to play differently from each other on the table to count as a radical choice.

Headlss wrote:
Based on an argument I keep having in the Dark elf threads. How much radical choice is in the codexes? For example with Nids you can play Nid Zilla, or scuttling swarm, and those armies will be very different.

I know of 4 ways to play Dark elfs.
1. Fill the board with Venoms and raiders (with cargo of some kind)
2. Coven, Talos and Grotesques.
3. Alpha strike Bike heavy list.
4. Flyier spam.

(Combined arms not sure if this counts cause it is just a balanced mix of the above, but a balanced list plays much different from any slew list.)

Harliquins I think only have one list. Fast choppy with tricks. You get choices but the army is still going to play the same. You are still going to have the same battle plan.

So the rules are Single codex armies only and the armies need to play differently from each other on the table to count as a radical choice.

The question seems to be about archetypes.
Now it is important to differentiate between actually somewhat functioning archetypes, and others that theorethically you can build and in practice don't really work at intermediate level.

Guard is up there.

You can do air guard, with valkyries full of scions.

You can do melee guard, with catachans, bullgryns, and priests.

You can do gunline guard, with lots of tanks.

You can do mechanized guard, with all infantry in Chimeras.

I think Guard.

Infantry Horde (static OR melee with Catachan doctrine)
Mechanized Infantry
High Mobility (Sentinels, Rough Riders, Taurox)
Aircav with Scions
Elite Infantry (scions, bullgryns etc etc)
Artillery Carpark
Tank-Heavy

In view of Eldar,

- Serpent spam Biel-Tan,
- Alaitoc Rangers and tanks,
- Iyanden Wraith heavy,
- Saim-Hann biker army.

 wuestenfux wrote:
In view of Eldar,

- Serpent spam Biel-Tan,
- Alaitoc Rangers and tanks,
- Iyanden Wraith heavy,
- Saim-Hann biker army.

All "specializations" are played with Alatoic in mind though, so I wouldn't call them "different playstyles".
It's Guard without a question

Obligitory post about how nice it must be to have three or four competitive archtype builds in a faction when Ultramarines only have one and non-Gulliman vanilla marines don't even have that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Obligitory "Grey Knights say hello" follow up.

The Newman wrote:
Obligitory post about how nice it must be to have three or four competitive archtype builds in a faction when Ultramarines only have one and non-Gulliman vanilla marines don't even have that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Obligitory "Grey Knights say hello" follow up.

Chaos has theorethically multiple archetypes, however most of them are the same overarching units. SOOOOO.

Tyranids seem to fit this. Very few "bad" units, ways to build hybrid, melee heavy, even shooting, etc. The diversity was a big reason I decided to do them as a second army.

Nids would be high on the list - shooting/psyching or bashing. Horde or elite.

DA are up there but still a tier behind or better with all their -wings being relatively elite/low model count.

Guard are up there.

CWE have potential.

Chaos has some options.

I'd give it to Nids though being able to go both shooty and bashy, as both horde and elite.

I’d say Daemons have 4. 3 I’d you really want to argue that Slaanesh does the same job as Khorne because they both get stabby-stabby.

Khorne: Daemon bomb in combat that doesn’t miss and knight crusher.
Slaanesh: speed across the board without resorting to spending valuable CPs to instantly jump.
Nurgle: resilient, hard to shift board control.
Tzeentch: blast their ass with magic and fire.

Tzeentch will also let you have the “flickering 32” for 30pt units of 10 Brimstones with a couple heralds to get a bunch of command points built up.

Imperial Guard.

It’s been said above, but high mobility Scion armies. Slow crawl with Russ and Infantry “blockers”. Leaf blowers full of Artillery. Armour Skew, Infantry Skew, Mixed Bag, Melee focus, Melee avoiding. High Mobility run-and-Gun with Talarn Doctrine.

The only thing you can’t do is Deathstar. There’s nothing capable of being “that awesome” that you would dump all remaining points into buffing it. Although, honourable mention goes to 1+ save Ogryn

Guard. To add on where everyone else has left off:

Special Ops Commanodos-Scions with heavy mix between Valks and Taurox Primes, so it’s not Aircav

Super Heavy-BAAANEBLAAADES

Craftworlds can do a lot of different style lists.
Pure infantry with rangers, dark reapers, avengers, hawks etc.
Mechanised infantry with guardians, banshees, fire dragons, wraithguards/blades etc in serpents.
Static gunlines with prisms, scat bikes, support weapons etc.
Mobile gunlines with shuriken bikes, vypers, flyers etc.
Melee with ynarri and iyanden wraith hosts amongst others.
Super heavies with knights and forgeworld tanks.
Psychic heavy lists.
Plus the craftworlds abilities can throw in variations like shuriken spam with Biel tan, saim Han bike lists, ulthwe guardian bombs etc.
Plus so many of the above work well in combination too, mechanised infantry to push forward supported by a static gunline, for example. It's a very flexible and, sometimes, very good army.

The Newman wrote:
Obligitory post about how nice it must be to have three or four competitive archtype builds in a faction when Ultramarines only have one and non-Gulliman vanilla marines don't even have that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Obligitory "Grey Knights say hello" follow up.

Space Marines have a ton of varity, they may not be super compeitive right now, but with a long term "editions only last so long" view they're one of the better codices given they have 4 troop choices alone.

BrianDavion wrote:


Space Marines have a ton of varity, they may not be super compeitive right now, but with a long term "editions only last so long" view they're one of the better codices given they have 4 troop choices alone.

They do have a lot of variety, but not a lot of depth. You can't do horde - either shooting or CCW - with Space Marines. Each person is going to go with a different formula for what constitutes a "Play style"

I figure there's at least 5(or 8 depending on how you count them). Horde shooting Horde CCW, Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, Combo Hode/Elite Shooting/CCW i.e. 1)Horde Shooting, Horde CCW, 2)Horde Shooting Elite CCW, 3)Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, 4)Elite Shooting, Horde CCW

I'm not sure how many of those styles are viable in any given edition - one could and probabl should argue CCW is just bad in this edition horde or elite - but I think the only Army Book that can play all 8 are Nids. Maybe CWE - they have so many things I'd be hard pressed to decide if it was horde or elite, they tend to ride that fence pretty well. Space Marines, Custodes, GK, etc can't do Horde Anything. I think you'd have to work to say IG can do Elite anything tho scoring Leman Russ tanks have some potential.

Breton wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Space Marines have a ton of varity, they may not be super compeitive right now, but with a long term "editions only last so long" view they're one of the better codices given they have 4 troop choices alone.

They do have a lot of variety, but not a lot of depth. You can't do horde - either shooting or CCW - with Space Marines. Each person is going to go with a different formula for what constitutes a "Play style"

I figure there's at least 5(or 8 depending on how you count them). Horde shooting Horde CCW, Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, Combo Hode/Elite Shooting/CCW i.e. 1)Horde Shooting, Horde CCW, 2)Horde Shooting Elite CCW, 3)Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, 4)Elite Shooting, Horde CCW

I'm not sure how many of those styles are viable in any given edition - one could and probabl should argue CCW is just bad in this edition horde or elite - but I think the only Army Book that can play all 8 are Nids. Maybe CWE - they have so many things I'd be hard pressed to decide if it was horde or elite, they tend to ride that fence pretty well. Space Marines, Custodes, GK, etc can't do Horde Anything. I think you'd have to work to say IG can do Elite anything tho scoring Leman Russ tanks have some potential.

Correction, you can go horde. It's just not hordy enough. (exception for that one RC dude that went mad and recycles EVERYTURN

but you may verywell field 100 Tacs or CSM and proceed to annoy your enemy with 3+ saves.

++part of why I bring up Space Marines is we should consider that "ITC tourny winning lists" shou;dn't be our only valid criteria for varity of play because let';s face it, every codex is mono build in that regard. but some codices are a lot more flexable then others. Custodes for example are not terriably flexable. you have a lot of 2+ 4++ infantry with power weapons and bolters. outside of the jet bikes (ignoring Forge world) they're pretty samey. this doesn't mean they're BAD, but it does mean that custodes are more or less similer across the board. then you have an army like Tyranids where you can go with tyranid warrior prime HQs, and tons of small infantry and flood the board, or just as validly a Hive Tyrant lead list of Tyranid warriors, carnifexes and other big monsters for a monster mashup list...
or some combination of the two.

Likewise guard can with their infantry and vehicles go with a infantry focused list, a tank focused list, or even a air cavalry list.

Just because something may not be the ideal list for a tourny doesn't mean it's not something you can do.

This is why i asked in the first post to this thread after OP.
All archetypes or just functionning ones.

Breton wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Space Marines have a ton of varity, they may not be super compeitive right now, but with a long term "editions only last so long" view they're one of the better codices given they have 4 troop choices alone.

They do have a lot of variety, but not a lot of depth. You can't do horde - either shooting or CCW - with Space Marines. Each person is going to go with a different formula for what constitutes a "Play style"

I figure there's at least 5(or 8 depending on how you count them). Horde shooting Horde CCW, Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, Combo Hode/Elite Shooting/CCW i.e. 1)Horde Shooting, Horde CCW, 2)Horde Shooting Elite CCW, 3)Elite Shooting, Elite CCW, 4)Elite Shooting, Horde CCW

I'm not sure how many of those styles are viable in any given edition - one could and probabl should argue CCW is just bad in this edition horde or elite - but I think the only Army Book that can play all 8 are Nids. Maybe CWE - they have so many things I'd be hard pressed to decide if it was horde or elite, they tend to ride that fence pretty well. Space Marines, Custodes, GK, etc can't do Horde Anything. I think you'd have to work to say IG can do Elite anything tho scoring Leman Russ tanks have some potential.

Dark Eldar have relatively few units, but can do just about any playstyle to a functioning level. They won't win major tournaments with all variations, but any of them can win a local level event or do well at store play.

1) Horde Shooting: Massed Deepstriking Kabalites
2) Horde CC: Massed Wyches
3) Elite Shooting: Ravagers, Haywire Taloi and Aircraft focussed lists
4) Elite CC: Grotesques and Taloi
5) Mechanised: Venom/Raider spam, backed by Aircraft and carrying Kabalites
6) Combined Arms: Gorteques and Taloi backed by Venoms and/or bikes

With my Death Guard I can do:

CC-focus (Plague Marines/Possessed/Drones/Mortarion/Dreadnoughts)
Mid-range shooting/Blight launcher spam (Plague Marines)
Mechanized focus (Crawlers, Rhinos, Land Raiders, Drones)
Horde (Cultists/ Zombies)

With my Nurgle Daemons I can only do horde or some kind of hero/monsterhammer with Princes, GUO, Poxbringers.
Possibly also air cavalry with up to 27 Plague Drones (more without rule of 3 of course).

BrianDavion wrote:
++part of why I bring up Space Marines is we should consider that "ITC tourny winning lists" shou;dn't be our only valid criteria for varity of play because let';s face it, every codex is mono build in that regard. but some codices are a lot more flexable then others. Custodes for example are not terriably flexable. you have a lot of 2+ 4++ infantry with power weapons and bolters. outside of the jet bikes (ignoring Forge world) they're pretty samey. this doesn't mean they're BAD, but it does mean that custodes are more or less similer across the board. then you have an army like Tyranids where you can go with tyranid warrior prime HQs, and tons of small infantry and flood the board, or just as validly a Hive Tyrant lead list of Tyranid warriors, carnifexes and other big monsters for a monster mashup list...
or some combination of the two.

Likewise guard can with their infantry and vehicles go with a infantry focused list, a tank focused list, or even a air cavalry list.

Just because something may not be the ideal list for a tourny doesn't mean it's not something you can do.

Even outside of ITC their is a number of codex's that on payper can build a number of archetypes, just a shame you'll loose every game with that list against a semi competent opponent.

Technically you can play Tau as a close combat Horde, they'll be very bad at it but you can technically play that way.

It's a toss up between guards and nids.

Nids have many more ways to play the melee game (monsters, ultra fast, ultra durable, all deep strike...etc).

Guards have more ways to play the all shooty game.

In the end i would give the win to the guards though, because nids lack transports and all related playstyles.

Not Online!!! wrote:


but you may verywell field 100 Tacs or CSM and proceed to annoy your enemy with 3+ saves.

at the same points level you've got 100 Tacs, the horde armies have 400 guardsmen or better or 600 grots.

Further to the playstyles listed already, if you get bored of having a competent army with decent rules then 'Guard' can also play as Renegades & Heretics.

It highly depends on if you mean "competitive playstyles" or "do whatever the feth you want playstyles".

Not Online!!! wrote:

Breton wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Space Marines have a ton of varity, they may not be super compeitive right now, but with a long term "editions only last so long" view they're one of the better codices given they have 4 troop choices alone.

I'm not sure how many of those styles are viable in any given edition - one could and probabl should argue CCW is just bad in this edition horde or elite - but I think the only Army Book that can play all 8 are Nids. Maybe CWE - they have so many things I'd be hard pressed to decide if it was horde or elite, they tend to ride that fence pretty well.

Correction, you can go horde. It's just not hordy enough. (exception for that one RC dude that went mad and recycles EVERYTURN

but you may verywell field 100 Tacs or CSM and proceed to annoy your enemy with 3+ saves.

Craftworlds can do hordes, it not optimal but three squads of 24 storm guardians and two guardian defender bombs of 20 in the webway costs 752 points for over 100 bodies. Getting morale immunity or close to isn't that hard either, avatar of Kaine, iyanden trait, farseer power. It's not as cheap as some but with doom and jinx even storm guardians will chew through a lot.

Orks can do:

Green Tide (all the boys)
Grot Horde (MSU gretchin, everywhere!)
Dreadbash
Battlewagon Bash
Trukk Rush
Gunline (lootas, mek guns, flash gitz)
biker bash
orkzilla (squiggoths and gargantuan squiggoths)
Speed Freek (buggies, bikes, trukks and stormboys)
Flyboys (all the fliers, with minimal support to make them fit in)
Bully Boys (all elites - 'ard boys, skar boys, Meganobs and nobs)
and of course, a mix of any of the above. I'm sure there're ones I haven't mentioned, as well!

12 to beat! bring it on, 'oomies!

My vote would be Craftworld as well

- Mech Gunline
- Fast Bike Assault
- Mechanized Infantry assault
- Infantry gunline
- Infantry board control
- MSU skimmers and mobile infantry
- even “Knight” list if you wanna bring Wraithknights
- smite (and other Mortal Wound) spam
- Walker list
- Character jank
- etc...

- also the Eldar planes are supposed to be decent. Not sure if anyone ever tried building a list around those

CWE I think wins. Tons of builds, if you're not just talking meta-toppers. Most aren't competitive (Windrider Warhosts and Black Guardian Warhosts won't get you anywhere), but they certainly have competitive ones too (Deathstar, Serpent Spam, etc).

They're an army focused on specialists and perfection; their schtick is that they use the perfect tool for the job. It's natural that they vary so much.

Contrast with Marines, who theoretically (but not in practice) always consist of a handful of core Troops (Tacs or Intercessors), with a variety of support (some Devs/Hellblasters, some ASM/Inceptors, etc). In practice, Marines come down to Gman and/or dakka-heavy tanks (Pred/Repulsor builds). Not a lot of variety either thematically or in practice.

Nids are doing well for a variety of ways to play, rules-wise, but not as well as Eldar. And it's not as core to their schtick.

Orkz have more options than expected. But most of it comes down to "How do I get my krumpen on best" - with a few outliers like Loota Spam. So you can have Green Tide overwhelm the opponent. Or an armored wall overwhelm the opponent. Or Speed Freeks overwhelm the opponent. Or Bikers overwhelm the opponent. Or DaJump in fast and overwhelm the opponent. Technically, these are mostly very different builds, and some are played very differently from others. But, thematically, they're mostly the same.

DE come in behind CWE. Thematically, there are 3 major variants. Functionally, mostly the same. You're fast & furious, slow & unkillable, or nimble & nasty. And often you need to use more than one of these subsets in a list.

So, once again, (Craftworld) Eldar win in just about every way. Most variation thematically. Most variation in playstyle. Most variation in competitive builds.