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It can be difficult to win with a lot of armies, but some armies appear to be very difficult to play, let alone master.

What do you think are the most difficult armies to play in Warhammer?

Whatever army you play is the hardest, and whatever army your opponent plays is the easiest.

Seriously, though, I'd say Orks. I have not played them, but from what I know of tournaments, you've got people who can rock tournaments with Eldar and Marines and such, but can't do well with Orks even when they've got great builds.
Alternatively, maybe GSC. They're a very finesse army.

Personally? (40k or otherwise) One I don't like.

I've always found that if I LIKE the army I do much better with it no matter what it's specific rules.

If I were judging things based solely upon RULES?
Then I'd probably vote AdMech.
They just don't have stable rules.
Once you get the hang of them GW tends to radically change them.....
GSC also suffers from this.

Drukhari are probably up there. They're a glass hammer and used to have many tricks up their sleeves to help out, but this seems greatly reduced in the 10th edition index at least. Fingers crossed for a massive improvement in the codex.

Crispy78 wrote:
Drukhari are probably up there. They're a glass hammer and used to have many tricks up their sleeves to help out, but this seems greatly reduced in the 10th edition index at least. Fingers crossed for a massive improvement in the codex.

Idk. Drukhari can be easy to lose with, but the actual piloting isn't that complicated. It's more that you just don't have a lot of options, so you kind of win/lose on whether your opponent knows how to counter you and whether or not you flub important rolls.

I feel like GSC are at least as unforgiving as drukhari while also having a bigger learning curve to begin with. Speaking as someone who plays drukhari fairly frequently but hasn't worked up the courage to field my GSC this edition.

Side note: man my marines always end up feeling like easy mode compared to my space elves. Even if I don't win with them, they're just way less of a mental load than trying to plan out agile maneuvers or thinking about whether or not I'll have the CP to juke likely charges in the next turn... Like, suddenly being able to just... move a squad onto an objective? And *NOT* have them automatically evaporate to the first thing that shoots at them? It's an entirely different game from the one my squishy elves are playing.

Like my drukhari have to be like, "Okay, we're going to gamble by putting the smallest possible investment of warriors onto this objective. Now in order to score points on it, I need to send this transport to tie up enemy A while the two squads inside go for enemies B and C. Then I'll have the reavers dive in to help hold enemy C because they'll kill my first unit when they fight back. If I spend pain tokens to empower these two units in the fight phase, I should do just enough damage to keep them from killing me off and removing the warriors in a single turn."

Meanwhile marines are like, "Hey, this objective is kind of dangerous. Maybe I should move a second squad onto it."

Edit: And my thousand sons are like, "Wouldn't it be hillarious if my opponent tried moving something within overwatch range of all these flamers? Haha. Can you even imagine."

Depends what one means by hard. Any way playing the game the way it is not pre build by GW is hard. SM for example are writen, FAQed, nerfed etc as if 100% of people played ultramarines.

But if we consider stuff like working army, cost, transport ease etc It would be Ad Mecha. There are armies that fall apart, if not played correctly or which are very intensive on checking and rechecking ranges like GK. There are also tedious to play armies, ones that require a good faction pilot to play, ones that only work in teams. Ad Mecha are all of those things.

I think "mental load" is a good objective measure of difficulty. It doesn't necessarily effect win rates - but yeah, the game is fundamentally different.

I guess there are other definitions.

1. How "swingy" is your army? I think the point above about Orks falls under this. I'm not sure Orks are "difficult" exactly - its just that they've often been swingy as opposed to reliable. The pros tend to like armies with high stats+rerolls so there's a very high chance they'll do what they are told. You can therefore map out the objective game a few turns ahead. With swingy armies however the dice can leave you hanging in the wind. You want to reduce those odds if winning a tournament means winning 5-6 games in a row.

2. Does your faction need to focus on the objective game - or can it focus more on ripping apart the opponent, and picking up objectives almost as a side-quest? At some level this depends on whether you currently are in the power pecking order - but its hard to imagine say GSC becoming an "attack-move=win because the opponent's been wiped" army. If you send everything forward its more likely you'll be the one getting wiped. Whereas say Eldar at numerous points of time have been just mathematically better than other factions. Marines often bounce up and down.

I agree with the mental load equation.

Some armies (like my beloved Imperial Knights) are easier to play with. I measure to see if my enemy is within range. If so, I will attempt to blast them away. If not, I will move closer and attempt to blast them away.

Some forces have auras, and attacks that must be done in a particular order to work... and of your forget to fire the Immolator before your Sisters... your plans can fail.