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Of all the formations and detachments currently available for the various armies, what have you found to be the best/coolest/most effective? List as many as you want.

The Tau Riptide Wing is basically a no-brainer, and asfar as I'm concerned, broken.

Another one is the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. By itself, it's fun to play against with a decent list. If you combine it to the Blood Angels Flesh Tearers Strike Force, it becomes broken.

Necron Canoptek Harvest combined with Reclamation Legion is a really effective combination, however not as dominant as it used to be during it's time of release, as more ridicilous stuff has ( once again ) been published after it.

Top marks: grotesquerie, Decurion, Gladius ((not in order, lol).

Tau Ethereal Council plain sucks. A bunch of 3-7 extra VPs for the enemy in a T3 Sv- package.

Coolest for me would be Bullyboyz. Best one that Orks have, due to mitigating Mob Rule with Fearless. WS5 and Fear are just cherries on the top. I just need to get the models for them lol.

Best one would probably go to Riptide Wing. Why GW keeps putting Apoc in standard games I don't know.

Most effective probably goes in hand with best. But I do like Canoptek Harvest, making Canoptek Wraiths what they are.

Shadowstrike Kill Team coupled with the Talon Strike Force is pretty neat. The SKT can automatically pass or fail reserve rolls, and the TSF lets you roll for reserves Turn 1 (albeit at 4+, but doesn't matter). SKT can also charge out of deep strike. So it makes for a great alpha strike.

I always enjoy running the Dark Artisan formation. A Talos, Cronos and Haemonculus joined as a squad can be pretty lethal, but works best as a bullet soak and distraction because of how much damage it'll do in close combat.

casvalremdeikun wrote:Shadowstrike Kill Team coupled with the Talon Strike Force is pretty neat. The SKT can automatically pass or fail reserve rolls, and the TSF lets you roll for reserves Turn 1 (albeit at 4+, but doesn't matter). SKT can also charge out of deep strike. So it makes for a great alpha strike.

SKT... Snikit... hehe.

Imateria wrote:I always enjoy running the Dark Artisan formation. A Talos, Cronos and Haemonculus joined as a squad can be pretty lethal, but works best as a bullet soak and distraction because of how much damage it'll do in close combat.

A friend of mine loves that. With Tau, I have to compromise so much firepower to kill it that I leave it be and kill the rest. Ugh.

How are the IG formations from Mont'ka?

Canoptek Harvest. 500 points of pure awesome (relentless Wraiths with RP anyone?)

Eldar Aspect Host. As flexible as can be, and grants a huge bonus to Aspect Warriors. Probably the best formation in the Eldar codex.

The Unending Host detachment for the Siege of Vraks R&H isn't bad, as it essentially rewards you for sending suicide units to their death with yet more suicide units in better places. which result in yet more suicide units in good places, etc. Which, when combined with your tanks and artillery can work well.

Pick a Tyranid formation that isn't Skyblight... contender for bad formation. Most of the formation rules don't mitigate the drawbacks of the units they're composed of.

Kharne's Butcherhorde wins the "best concept, worst execution" medal in my book.

 Camundongo wrote:
The Unending Host detachment for the Siege of Vraks R&H isn't bad, as it essentially rewards you for sending suicide units to their death with yet more suicide units in better places. which result in yet more suicide units in good places, etc. Which, when combined with your tanks and artillery can work well.

So much this. It is quite powerful but I don't see a whole lot of talk about it for some reason (probably because Forgeworld and the assumption that Chaos can't do anything but suck).

A possible contender for worst would be the Dark Angels Hammer of Caliban. Basically a 3-tank unit of Predators, Vindicators, or Whirlwinds, in a squadron with a Land Raider. Vehicles that do not belong together, EVER. Not to mention that none of these vehicles are very good on their own in today's meta. Other bad ones would include the Khorne Daemonkin Brazen Onslaught, and the DA and CSM ones from the DV set and expansions.

As far as best formations around go, I might say Skyhammer Annihilation Force is a top contender. Perhaps not THE top, but right up there with the Necron Canoptek Harvest and others. Most of the ones in the recent Tau books are pretty solid as well.

 Secrets of the Machine wrote:
How are the IG formations from Mont'ka?

The bassy formation that allows them to recive orders makes them pretty good. Everything else is pretty meh to bad, though the obsec one is decent enough. Steel host does russ spam better I think and the infantry ones all require too much other junk or way, way too many guardsmen. Not sure why everything has to have a CCS as a requirement either, makes for points bloat and an odd army with 3+ company commanders in the same small detatchment. Psychers summoning on 2's has potential.

Vanilla marines; skyhammer is pretty good, but that's mainly because grav is too good, ASM don't really scare most people. Gladius is good because ObSec and hundreds of free points and free re-rolls are never going to be bad. Librarius conclave is pretty silly too.

Red marines; Taxi services is the new black, the vanguard/sternguard one hands out 400 free points, and again, free stuff is rarely bad

Green marines; ravenwing is the standout here, then just add other biker IC's on to start piling on special rules for the lulz, can still get free stuff, but not as good on the special rules as vanilla marines, but not bad either

Furry marines: WS 5 thundercav with no troops tax is a thing, also a cheaper but less good way to get pods, but you can't get as many as the red taxis

Mary Sue marines: Strike force of a libby and 5 termies can add some punch, psychic dice and a flurry of instant death attacks to any army, along with optional 0-2 baby carriers and IIRC, draigo can tag along as well?

Tau; OSC, makes tanks obsolete, Drone net because intercepting markerlights is harsh, riptide wing because they needed to be able to remove even more of your army turn 1 apparently, retribution cadre hands out BS increase to a bunch of crisis without neededing a marker source and ensures your dudes all turn up on time, oddly enough the flier formation that hands out d3 marker tokens, not because the models are inherantly good, but because you can now just automatically put markerlights on invisible units.

DEldar: Corpsethief and Dark Artisan are both pretty rad, scalpel squadron allows for null deployment which can be quite handy.

Eldar; Aspect host is just rubbing salt into the wounds for most, the base jetbike formation is notable for being the cheapest way to get 5 wraithknights into a bound army at 1850, the crimson hunter one is king of the skies, wraithhost is piling a bunch of handy rules on a bunch of rediculously overwpowered models so it'll rarely not be good.

CSM; Belakor

Daemons; Belakor

Crons; Destroyer cult is strong, but overshadowed by the harvest for most, decurion was the original and still one of the best for bringing broken-ness to a new level. Judicator battalion has it's moments, and deathbringer flight can be handy in a flier spam list.

Mechanicus; War convo has had a fairly strong showing too, and again, free points is never going to be bad, the robot maniple can be silly strong too, but at least it's costly. Both skitari and kataphrons get much better when combined with red taxis, and they were already good.

KDK; nothing really broken, but the gorepack isn't terrible since fleshhounds and bikers are good, but certainly no standouts of broken-ness like most other codecies.

Harlies; ... ? Combining their shadowseer and death jester can give you an extremely niche -ld shenaniganry when combined with Eldar and DEladar stuff I guess, but on their own, same boat as daemonkin with nothing standout.

I think that's about it, though with the hurricane of releases, I've undoubtedly missed something.