All the Codexes are out. Who won?

[Waking Dreamer]

Grey Knights ranked first!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the bottom...

[Closet Skeleton]

Top Tier

Knights

Dark Eldar

 

High tier

Craftworld Eldar

Imperial Guard

Chaos Daemons

Orks

 

Mid tier

Death Guard

Dark Angels

Deathwatch

Blood Angels

Harlequins

Tau

Custodes

Thousand Sons

Tyranids

Genestealer Cults

 

Low tier

Space Marines

Necrons

Adeptus Mechanicus

Sisters of Battle

 

Bottom tier

Grey Knights

 

Mono-codex tiers don't really mean much. There are also bad codexes that can produce a handful of good builds so I find there's always some confusion of factions with limited tournament build options and codexes with wide varieties of powerful builds.

[Burni]

 

You missed AdMech!

 

He said he's leaving the ones out he has no experience with lol

 

D'oh missed that bit...

[Morticon]

Im curious to see so many people ranking BA much higher than other marines.  Any reason for this?  Seems like its largely reliant on the damage output and movement ability of Smashy? 

 

Anything else, though? Sallies shooting or Gullybubble tears them a new one, though.  

 

Thoughts?

[PeteySödes]

Im curious to see so many people ranking BA much higher than other marines. Any reason for this? Seems like its largely reliant on the damage output and movement ability of Smashy?

 

Anything else, though? Sallies shooting or Gullybubble tears them a new one, though.

 

Thoughts?

I think lots of demoralization from the fly change. Less smash captains because of it. I think overall BA has a couple more viable builds (numbers wise) over codex marines who mostly rely on Gman for the ultra competitive so you maybe see them more?

 

Not taking a position that it’s fact but just that I can understand the perception.

[Hantheman]

To put it simply, in my opinion

 

Drukhari won. That codex is so strong- they literally got like 3 space marine chapter tactics for their entire army as part of their base kit.

Craftworlds, Orks and GSC (early days but likely) just behind it. Imperial Guard just behind them.

 

 

Then there's the good codexes like Tyranids, Tau, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Blood Angels, Harlequins and Daemons. They all can work but need a lot of skill and excellent knowledge of the army

Knights are good but only as a buff to Imperium. Themselves they can be beaten by most other mono-codexes.

 

Then the dull tier. Space marines (except Gulliman), Space wolves, Dark Angels, Ad Mech and Necrons. Pick from-  Uninspiring strats, over-costed or totally unusable units, not much flavour or feeling to the codexes. Won't ever make it as mono-codex army in the world of soup, but could compete is Soup was not prevalent.

 

Then Grey Knights

[PeteySödes]

To put it simply, in my opinion

 

Drukhari won. That codex is so strong- they literally got like 3 space marine chapter tactics for their entire army as part of their base kit.

 

 

I dont want to derail here but omg this. I 'member when they were glass cannons, now i swear with the name change they got more durable than marines.

 

Maybe my friend rolls hot all the time but I swear venoms are one of the cheapest most durable and shooty things in the game.

[kombatwombat]

I too think DEldar have become crazy durable this edition. I get that not getting hit at all is a good defensive strategy and that DE vehicles should have invulnerables and hit modifiers. Once you manage to hit them though, they should fold like wet cardboard. As in, if you successfully tag a Venom and get through the invul, a single Lascannon should have a 50/50 chance of blowing it up in one go, not a 1/6.

[HandsWithLegs]

I'm surprised that everybody is ranking Dark Angels in the mid tier. From my experience the book is incredibly disjointed and the major parts of the book don't work together. Plus the relics and powers are not good and only a 3-4 of the stratagems are of any use. 

[Morticon]

I'm surprised that everybody is ranking Dark Angels in the mid tier. From my experience the book is incredibly disjointed and the major parts of the book don't work together. Plus the relics and powers are not good and only a 3-4 of the stratagems are of any use. 

 

agree here.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

I’m a tad confused—could someone with a better understanding of the meta than me please explain why Necrons seem to be consistently ranked bottom tier?

 

We aren’t the best but we do have multiple good/decent list options (even if they are Ctan spam or destroyer spam), and some good/very flavorful stratagems.

 

I don’t get to play much, so this may just be an exposure thing, but I’m genuinely confused. Don’t Necron lists generally place higher than not at tourneys?

[Tyriks]

No. If you exclude lists of 3 Tesseract Vaults, they have one of the poorest showings at tournaments of any codex.

[GrinNfool]

A fair bit depends if you look at them as mono codex or with the ability to bring allies.

 

Mono codex I would say your top tiers, in a rough order IMO

Eldar

Dark Eldar

Tau

Knights

AM

Custodes

 

All of these I think stand very well on their own, either through ability to bring a few specific very powerful units (custodes or knights) or via their ability to have answers and choices to a lot of different things (the rest)

 

Middle Tier would be

Orks

DW

TS

Ad Mech

DA

Ultras (Bobby G)

GSC

CD

nids

 

Basically all of these guys have pretty solid monodexes, but either struggle because they lack some superstars, or because they lack options to deal with certain things,

 

Low tier

Other SM factions

Necrons

Harlies

CSM

SoB

 

Other than necrons, who I will say in the right hands can be successful, these guys are all best used as allies, or in the case of necrons just don't have too many solid options.

 

Bottom

GK - you know why

 

Considering allies

almost anything using Ynnari or castellans = top tier

 

Tau, TS, demons, nids, orks, GSC, non knight using AM or Custodes, Mono dex DE or Eldar = mid tier

 

Other Imperium not using knights, necrons, CSM (w/o demons) DG, all the rest = low tier

 

GK = bottom tier, you know why

[GrinNfool]

I'm surprised that everybody is ranking Dark Angels in the mid tier. From my experience the book is incredibly disjointed and the major parts of the book don't work together. Plus the relics and powers are not good and only a 3-4 of the stratagems are of any use. 

If ranking via mono dex ravenwing makes them reasonable, and their chapter tactic makes them the only faction able to use primaris reasonably other than DW. 

[kombatwombat]

I’m a tad confused—could someone with a better understanding of the meta than me please explain why Necrons seem to be consistently ranked bottom tier?

 

We aren’t the best but we do have multiple good/decent list options (even if they are Ctan spam or destroyer spam), and some good/very flavorful stratagems.

 

I don’t get to play much, so this may just be an exposure thing, but I’m genuinely confused. Don’t Necron lists generally place higher than not at tourneys?

There are manifold issues with the Necron book. For example, Reanimation Protocols cease to function at mid to high points levels because there’s enough firepower in the opponent’s army to completely wipe units one at a time and circumvent RPs entirely. Also, we pay for a similar-to-MEQ statline, which is a terrible affliction to have this edition.

 

The one that truly cripples us though is that Gauss’ anti-vehicle mechanic didn’t survive the transition to 8th Ed. Since that was a core of our design principles for so long, we don’t have access to much by way of heavy anti-tank. Anything T8, particularly with Invul saves and/or lots of wounds are unmanageably difficult to bring down with a Necron army. Unfortunately, 8th Ed has generally been dominated by... T8 models with lots of wounds and often Invul saves.

 

The current measure of competitiveness, for example, is ‘can you kill a Knight Castellan in one turn?’ For Necrons, it’s more a question of ‘can you kill a Knight Castellan at all?’

[Huggtand]

I'm a bit surprised that so many have the Imperial Knights as a top tier competitive codex (as in winning games at tournaments, in pickup games it depends on so much other variables). I don´t see that mono Knights are placed in the top tiers at tournaments where players know how to play against them.

Knights really struggle against opponents that plays towards the mission. Yes, if we only play to kill each other they are strong but throw in holding objectives and they really have problems on their own. Personally I would place them in the middle tier of codices (in the upper half ).

As an allied force or taking allies to complement them they become very strong but not so much as a mono codex.
 

The current measure of competitiveness, for example, is ‘can you kill a Knight Castellan in one turn?’ For Necrons, it’s more a question of ‘can you kill a Knight Castellan at all?’

This of course is depends if the conditions of winning is to delete the Castellan instead of playing the mission. It was fun to listen to some players at the LVO who said just that. They just used the terrain to limit what the Castellan could target and focused on the rest instead.

[Slasher956]

.... you know the answer to the question that is the thread title (who won?) is very simple...

 

GW won!

 

:p

 

As for which codex is best... honestly it depends on the enviroment /meta.  For example there are few knights where I play so that alters what you 'need' in your list.... how ever... my beta Sisters lost 100% of the games I played, and our GK player has only won a couple (one of which was against the sisters!)

[Hantheman]

I'm surprised that everybody is ranking Dark Angels in the mid tier. From my experience the book is incredibly disjointed and the major parts of the book don't work together. Plus the relics and powers are not good and only a 3-4 of the stratagems are of any use. 

 

Yeah terrible codex. Love the army, but my lord there is nothing inspiring in that codex apart from some half-decent ravenwing stuff. Same for a lot of the Astartes really.

[TrawlingCleaner]

I'm surprised that people are ranking GSC mid tier. Maybe I'm biased but at the moment I would say they're definitely one of the strongest armies out there. They can deal with hordes easily: flamers coming out of the wazoo, acolytes, purestrain, kelemorph. They can deal with Psykers effectively: Turn one perfect ambush pop with a Sanctus, mindwyrm familiar, Magus's aura. They can deal with tanks pretty effectively: mining lasers being pretty cheap, now doing D6 damage, abominant and abherrants, currently we have a way of instant killing a knight which if I'm not wrong no one else can do, the ability to make the Patriarch a S9 with 9A monster.

 

Maybe I'm just biased and I'll be proved wrong, but I honestly think that they're the army to watch out for in tournaments coming up.

[Closet Skeleton]

Im curious to see so many people ranking BA much higher than other marines.  Any reason for this?  Seems like its largely reliant on the damage output and movement ability of Smashy? 

 

Anything else, though? Sallies shooting or Gullybubble tears them a new one, though.  

 

Thoughts?

 

The basic marine codex has the worst stratagems, that's obvious to anyone. Guiliman is one model.

 

Salamanders just make cost inefficient firepower more reliable, if they're shooting BA assault armies off the board you haven't got enough terrain.

 

 

I’m a tad confused—could someone with a better understanding of the meta than me please explain why Necrons seem to be consistently ranked bottom tier?

 

The meta hasn't adapted to the post chapter approved changes.

 

Necron problem was that they were so expensive if you took enough shooting you couldn't take anything else.

 

 

I'm surprised that everybody is ranking Dark Angels in the mid tier. From my experience the book is incredibly disjointed and the major parts of the book don't work together. Plus the relics and powers are not good and only a 3-4 of the stratagems are of any use. 

 

1. They're better than most other chapters and have unique units that can't be duplicated.

 

2. Relics don't matter when the special characters are so good.

 

3. Only having 3-4 good stratagems isn't so important if those 3-4 are worth using every turn, weapons of the dark age is veterans of the long war tier in that it can make the whole book punch above what it should.

 

4. Mid tiers are big and still have a lot of range in them.

 

I'm a bit surprised that so many have the Imperial Knights as a top tier competitive codex (as in winning games at tournaments, in pickup games it depends on so much other variables). I don´t see that mono Knights are placed in the top tiers at tournaments where players know how to play against them.

 

Knights really struggle against opponents that plays towards the mission. Yes, if we only play to kill each other they are strong but throw in holding objectives and they really have problems on their own. Personally I would place them in the middle tier of codices (in the upper half ).

 

Knights struggling to win tournaments as a pure faction doesn't make them not stupidly powerful as a pure faction, it just also happens to be a no brainer for them to take a loyal 32. Pure knights are amazing its just that the players who have the skill to place high in a large tournament don't use pure knights.

 

Knights don't lose if they don't play the mission since they can outshoot any mid tier or lower codex. Most people just don't run the kind of horde that can win on objectives and survive the first 3 turns of knight shooting.

 

Knights also can grab objectives, its just that they can shoot enough armies off the board to not bother taking the abilities that make them good at that.

 

Sadly most tournaments don't have LVO level terrain so that's not very relevant. Knights have the height to basically render terrain irrelevant from my experience.

 

A fair bit depends if you look at them as mono codex or with the ability to bring allies.

 

Mono codex I would say your top tiers, in a rough order IMO

AM

Custodes

 

Middle Tier would be

Orks

 

Low tier

Harlies

 

 

I've never seen mono-Custodes do well. I don't think Astra Milatarum are top tier despite the fact that I've never beaten them in a tournament. I've been at tournaments where Custodes were among the only armies I could beat and that's never been the case for me with Knights or Guard.

 

 

Harlequins do well in a knight meta so I think you're massively under-rating them. They break so many rules and can get enough cheap focusable firepower that I think its just that they're a high skill faction that the skilled players overlook.

 

Shining Spears > Harlequin Jetbikes > Custodes Jetbikes > Reaver Jetbikes > Guardian Jetbikes

 

Orks are great, there are just a lot of relaxed ork players who don't game them enough and no non-competative Eldar players to show how mediocre that codex actually is for list building variety. The top tier ork armies are shooting ones and most ork players didn't pick up the faction for 12+ mek guns and 20+ lootas.

[shanewatts]

Closet Skeleton - I know a player or 2 that do well with mono-custodes

[Schlitzaf]

So here is my feeling, but first let’s separate feeling from facts.

 

1) Loyal 32/Rusty 17; are ‘bad’ when taken purely for CP (Unless Stode Or Knight allies). Anyone who claims they need either because “muh” needs realize what they are saying.

-1B) Smash Captains best unit for Astartes isn’t a tax Unit. And 3 Scouts cost less than either Loyal or Rusty. They also screen and can be more impactful, then either. Anyone saying that needs to relearn or doesn’t understand the value of the Loyal 32 (which is really Loyal 750-800 point Brigade competitively).

-2C) Allies vs Mono. I’ll discuss more in my ranking, but the cost for allies are spending detachments and opportunity cost. Lists don’t become better by adding allies. Lists built as 1800 points + 200pt CP batteries are worse than list built as 2000 points.

 

Now my ranking, the winners?

1) Aeldari

-1b) Three Aeldari Codexes; Harlequin, Craftworld and Dark Eldar all have themetic and varied playstyle. The Ynnari Question, deal with later. But the codexes succeed in that manage to avoid the “Astartes” struggle. In general the main thing you have a varied set of builds.

-1c) You however see the classic Kelly Issue of MonoDex Build (Shining/Reaper and Venom/Distengrator). And that within the codex the viable subfactions for a variety of reasons are limited far more than other codexes. Harlequin while not being a bad codex (to my understanding) just isn’t good enough).

2) Non-Astartes Imperium

-2b) The foremost is that this is the first edition in awhile, Imperium rich non-Astartes tapestry represents. That onto itself is a win. And in a soup list each Non-Astartes codex adds something to the list. Meaning when designed as an Imperium Army, as the case should be the whole is more than the sum of its part.

-2c) The “AM” Codexes (Ministorum, Mech And Militarum) are the case of old factions being revived and given new life. Also each manage to be somewhat similar, but avoid being “Astartes” lite. Having their own gimmicks and more.

-2d) Rules Wise? Mechanicus suffers from lack of unit variety, and limited threats. Being good stock Troops, and support elements (Priests, Onagers and robots for example). But the HQ’s being glorified taxes. Ministorum/Sisters suffers a similar issue, except unlike Mechanicus is a lackluster support vs tax HQ. Additionally both are primary 12” rapid armies based on using “small” buff rules (faith and canticles) that just don’t help.

-2e) Gaurd, I place here as their issue they exist. While Loyal 32 for CP is Bad, the Gaurdsman are cheap and flexible enough having acceptable units in every slot and role to help an Imperium Army. A marine army will also suffer from board and body, Gaurd fix that. And there are more examples. As a codex, Gaurd has a KellyDex both in build and subfaction. Catachan and Horde is basically the list to go. The other subfactions bar Cadia or super niche, just don’t exist. They often represent why Imperium Soup can carry but not how Imperium can carry.

-2f) Custodes And Knights (implicitly Assassin, and other Imperium MiniAction); while more functional than other miniAction in other Factions, would be 1-3 datasheet. And while expanded and otherwise, both suffer in general on the tabletop from being worse kind of skewed gameplay.

 

3) The Tyranid

-3b) Tyranids being fledged out on the subfactions and the genestealer cult expansion both represent a win. But we have the MonoBuild rear it’s ugly head. The second is Tyranid Monsters are very poorly or weirdly costed depending who you ask. The Gaunts and infantry do more. But a winner is that unlike 5th-7th Nids are playable. And the return of instinctive behavior to its classic rules, helps a lot.

-3c) Cults And Stealers. The latter unit is one of the best and the point of comparison for good melee but it’s not it doesn’t function with Cult Trait in Cult Dex. The Blips a callback to Space Hulk And Strategems replacing the Chart. Makes the army much less swingy.

 

4) Necron&Tau

4b) These Armies one being far greater then the other I talk about because both represent how a codex doesn’t win.

4c) Necron Codex while having neat rules and otherwise suffers from seeing a Knight and enter back up phase. The Codex simply didn’t change anything or help army. It help the list get into 12” to one degree but didn’t add anything.

4d) Tau Codex is only Tau Codex. The Auxillaries and otherwise basically don’t exist. There viablility stems from faux Invisibility Style. The Traits didn’t really enhance or highlight the aspects of the army that otherwise ignored.

 

5) Chaos

5b) Talk more on Heretic Astartes later, but Chaos

in general represent by Daemon, Various Heretic Astartes, Boardgame Filler, and R&H. Like Imperium gotten fleshed out.

5c) Now I place them at 5 here and not above Tau and Necrons. Because the various MiniDexes are token. Not having “one unit” clause would help immensely. And even doing a shared keyword like “Lost and Damned”. Then in White Dwarf compile the rules, and edit and make a somewhat full codex.

5d) Daemons are secretly “Letter Bomb” Dex. Deep Strike should been handled more like it was in Cults. Daemon push to MonoDex have left aspect of Daemon (undivided princes and Belakor, other things) in the dust.

 

6) The Astartes

6b) I hesitate to call Astartes a loser, as I think it’s a mischaracterization of the issue. I will call them a failure. The first is the the claim “marines die easier” ignored past issue marines died just as easily, it’s just you always had cover or hiding in transports. But the Astartes both failed to work in such a way that would be saliant.

6c) Superflous Units And Options. Marines have how many terminator variants? Marines need to be fixed in a core fashion. But they have so many units and for someone those units are “The Marine”. And worse the codex issues become only worse as it’s issues are flanderized. Marines have CP issues, but CP generation is not one of them. Atleast in terms of affordability of Battlelion. Sense you are taking Captains anyways, and 3 Scouts are less than Loyal/Rusty whatever you should no issues filling a Battlelion.

6d) But Schlitzaf you did say CP! Yes I did Marine units function on what is best described as a buddy principle. 1 Unit paired with Another, after SmashBattlelion pre-Beta Bolter, an MSU Tactical needed s Razor or well useless. Terminators require either two squads or a raider. The larger issue is not filling a Battlelion but a second Battlelion.

7c) Bodies that don’t do anything. In a weird sense, we are paying for a Chassis most cases a unit only used half of. An assault marine rarely cared for its BS and a Tactical rarely for strength and WS. In essence you are paying double for what you use. And then in the battlefield your regular Bros in squads often just exist to bodyblock for CoolBros. Meaning you have a significant portion of a squad that doesn’t do anything.

8d) Cult Legions (And Ordo Militant) all the above minus uselessles coolbro and just make it worse. But the worse part? Is that for one reason or another perception, reality or otherwise, Astartes Units in Astartes are admittedly seen as bad. While I disagree but that another topic. What is true is that “Astartes” in rules haven’t done enough to show us why we want Astartes.

8e) All together? Astartes Codexes are the most fleshed out in Unit and engagement methods of all the codexes. And “mono”Build Dex is more complicated than MonoBuild. Despite the “gulliman only way”, Vanilla Astartes has Templars, Crimson and Raven all represent. And the other Astartes generally have two builds that don’t use the same units or playstyle. But as I mention below this is one of the reason the codex is a ‘failure’.

8f) While in the past Astartes being s fully rounded self contained army which didn’t lack a tactical niche beside board presence (even that was solvable depending on your flavor of marines), it was a major bonus or boon to players and the codex? Now it’s a drain as while a marines had a unit to do a specialized role it was just generally worse than equivalent units in other codexes. But in an era where games were codex v codex that was a boon inspite of that. Now? It’s a solution in codex that an army no longer requires making space marines generalistic codexes worse

 

My 2 cents

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I think Tau can be exceptionally strong versus any faction or soup but requires a solid general.

[Cpt_Reaper]

I was discussing this with my group just the other day.

 

To my eyes there are no "tiers" of power, simply a win or lose.

 

The codex can stand alone with more than 2 viable builds - Win

The codex is only viable as allies, requires allies or has only 1 or 2 viable builds - lose

 

If you can't turn up to a pick up game with a codex and, no matter what army your opponent puts on the table, you have a chance of winning then your codex has "lost" the arms race.

E.g. If I turn up with my Dark Angels with a list that isn't hellblaster/intercessor spam then I can expect to lose in most pick up games.

[Ficinus]

Schlitzaf, were you calling the Sisters HQ units lacklustre support units? The canoness is more a melee missile, like a cheaper, less powerful (but not by much) smash captain. In a mixed Imperial list, the smash captain does it better, but in a pure Sisters list, she does the job very well.

 

The Missionary is basically just an expensive preacher, so a bit lacklustre compared to the preacher, but they provide a very powerful buff combined with the right units (arco-flagellants, repentia, canoness) for their very low cost. They're also surprisingly durable for their cost.