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Hey there dakkadakka!

I’ve been out of the hobby for quite some time and would like to get back into it. Starting to do a some research as there have been oh so many changes. Any thoughts on the top 5 competitive armies? I’m not looking to choose the top army, but trying to figure out a mix of competitiveness vs. what I want to sink my time into painting and collecting.

Any guidance would be appreciated! Thank you in advance!

dink4221 wrote:
Hey there dakkadakka!

I’ve been out of the hobby for quite some time and would like to get back into it. Starting to do a some research as there have been oh so many changes. Any thoughts on the top 5 competitive armies? I’m not looking to choose the top army, but trying to figure out a mix of competitiveness vs. what I want to sink my time into painting and collecting.

Any guidance would be appreciated! Thank you in advance!

There's supposed to be a balance patch in the next week or so, so top armies is likely to change. Honestly, top armies is something that's always changing so for the most part you should really look to pick up something you'll enjoy even through bad times. Anything you've got an eye on? I can give you a bit of a competitive rundown if you do.

I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

But yeah, the Balance Updates make big changes every 6 months.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies. What a codex mostly offers at this point is stability, as there's not any big shakeups happening to the army anytime soon.

Wow, DakkaDakka never disappoints, always so quick with responses! I typically like the chaos side of things in the past due to the painting techniques, but I’m up for anything but vanilla space marines and orcs.

Well, for marines just know that they've made it a lot easier to pick your rules separate from chapter now, so you can pick that a lot more freely now.

There's rumors that next year is going to be a big revamp for Chaos. The Chaos Marines book is already out and quite solid, but people are expecting a big shakeup for the others. Given the way things have been reorganized, people are expecting demons to get split up and more tied to Death Guard, 10kSons, World Eaters and a lot of people expect a new Emperor's Children line. I think if any of those lines appeal to you it'd be fine to start now, but I'd be a bit weary of a combined demon army at the moment.

In terms of competitiveness, I think of those 10k tends to be the most consistently strong though pretty focused on Magnus. Generic Chaos marines are also really solid right now and World Eaters are in a good place if a little less flexible in playstyle. Dark Angels and Sisters are very good and Eldar are always strong, even when they're "bad" by Eldar standards.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies.

It is good to know that GW learned from the backlash over 'codex-creep'. Last edition, we only played codex armies against other codex armies, and index armies vs other index armies.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies.

It is good to know that GW learned from the backlash over 'codex-creep'. Last edition, we only played codex armies against other codex armies, and index armies vs other index armies.

Last edition there wasnt any indexes ...

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies.

It is good to know that GW learned from the backlash over 'codex-creep'. Last edition, we only played codex armies against other codex armies, and index armies vs other index armies.

Last edition there wasnt any indexes ...

Doh But you know what I mean, if talking about 8th.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies.

It is good to know that GW learned from the backlash over 'codex-creep'. Last edition, we only played codex armies against other codex armies, and index armies vs other index armies.

They've done a good job embracing limited scope. You pick a detachment and it comes with 6 stratagems and 4 enhancements and a detachment rule. They had one of these for each faction at launch so everyone has that baseline from the Index and the codex releases have just created more detachment variety instead of adding on to what exists. Honestly, the biggest issue with the codex releases, IMO is that they've been a little too focused on one unit type for the new detachments, leaving them often just not as good as the generalist detachment from the Index.

So, top 5 armies? It's all about what this season's focus is on. Have a look at the Rules Commentary here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/downloads/warhammer-40000/

 Skinnereal wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I expect the top 5 will be the ones that have codexes.
Codex armies against index armies can be quite imbalanced.

Eh.... kinda? A lot of codexes have been a downgrade for armies.

It is good to know that GW learned from the backlash over 'codex-creep'. Last edition, we only played codex armies against other codex armies, and index armies vs other index armies.

It all would be fine, if exeptions didn't exist. Playing vs SoB right now is not very fun right now. Same with hyper crypt necron, custodes , also a codex out army, have not way to even draw the match up vs them. Chaos Marine lists are proped up by AC/DC to such an extent, that even if that thing went up 50pts per unit, it would still be the only right way to play. There are some fun mid armies like tyranids or ad mecha, but for each of those there is an ork or custodes or DeathWatch codex.

Powerwise right now the top armies in the nexus seson, for non team games, are SoB,1ksons and Necron, Out of those 1ksons are hard to play, Necron have multiple builds and feeel as if they had their codex writen with nexus seson in mind. SoB on the other hand play a different game then all other armies.