Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have 2 questions
1) what are tier lists? I have seen the term in allot of places but could anyone maybe explain what it means.

2) Why do people think high tier lists are instant win? I can easily beat a grey knight dread knight list with tau. Frankly i have done it 2 times and i am a pretty lousy player.
So thanks for answering my questions and don't misunderstand it please.

admiral9 wrote:1) what are tier lists? I have seen the term in allot of places but could anyone maybe explain what it means.

Because GW have a rather slapdash approach to games design, some codexes wind up more powerful than others, and even within codexes it is entirely possible to create lists that are vastly more powerful than other lists from the same codex.

So players tend to rank the codexes in order of power. You'll often see certain codexes referred to as 'Tier 1' because they are the currently perceived most powerful.

2) Why do people think high tier lists are instant win? I can easily beat a grey knight dread knight list with tau. Frankly i have done it 2 times and i am a pretty lousy player.

No list is instant win. But a competent player is more likely to win with a higher powered list than a similarly skilled player with a weaker list.

Tier is like different levels, like tier one hockey is the highest level, tier one lists are, if you use mathhammer between a tier one list and a tier two or three list, the tier one list will win.

Most common in fighting games, Tier lists are essentially an organization of characters (or in this case, armies) that classifies the potency of that army.
Tier lists are built off of a number of factors. Top player matchups, tournament results, and hard statistics tend to be the major ones.

Keep in mind a few things:

-Tier lists apply only to the highest known level of play within the current metagame. In other words, the game you and your friends play in your basement is very different from the game top tournament players play. How hard it is to actually use the army is not taken into account, as it is assumed that both players are using them at their maximum known efficiency.

-Tier lists are constantly evolving. As new techniques and playstyles are discovered and become more effective, tier lists change to reflect this. A tier list is not infallible, as it is only a reflection of the metagame. If some new strategy were to be found that destroyed the current metagame, whatever system of tiers that were in place would be drastically altered to reflect this.

-Tier placement does not always denote what army will win. For the most part, an army at the higher end of the tier list will have more strong matchups and less weak matchups than an army on the low end, but that does not mean that it won't have a bad matchup against an army on the lower end of the list.
Some armies are very specialized for specific purposes, making them great counterpicks against specific, higher tier armies, but poor choices for anything else. This would be reflected in their own tier placement.

-Tiers are not a deciding factor in a matchup. Player skill will always play a factor, and can cause matchups to go in a way that a tier list would not coincide with. This is a bit more understated in a game as poorly balanced as 40k, but is still the case, even if it isn't as much as it would be in better games.

-Lastly, picking a lower tier army is not an indicator of skill, and should not be seen as a handicap for any reason. A player who does well with a low tier army may be unable to compete with a higher tier one. Tier listing should not be used as a way to separate players.
(for example, in Guilty Gear, I play an OK order Sol, a mid tier character, but I cannot play Eddie to save my life, even though he's a top tier character. With that in mind, saying that I lost because I chose a low tiered character would not be a valid excuse. This mindset falls under the larger blanket of "No Johns").

Thanks for the answers and help guys i think that i understand it now.