All the Codexes are out. Who won?

[Schlitzaf]

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.

No no no I am saying they HQ and their troops are have a good but surrounded by lackluster support relatively

[Ishagu]

So according to the LVO most armies fall between 45% to 55% win ratios, with certain Soup lists and Ynnari dominating at 60%+

 

In terms of singular Codex the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, GSC, Ad-Mech (Big boost in CA) and Tau and possibly Knights are best or better than average.

 

A bigger concern than pure power is how utterly BORING some books are, stuff like Astartes.

[chapter master 454]

So according to the LVO most armies fall between 45% to 55% win ratios, with certain Soup lists and Ynnari dominating at 60%+

 

In terms of singular Codex the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, GSC, Ad-Mech (Big boost in CA) and Tau and possibly Knights are best or better than average.

 

A bigger concern than pure power is how utterly BORING some books are, stuff like Astartes.

 

Agreed about some books just not offering any sort of combo ability or any way to really work a list around something. Astartes are bad for it but there is at least somet things here and there (however it is mainly ether you go smash captain or as I have been doing, Imperial Fist with Rhino Primaris for the fun of it to see how far it goes) but I will say a lot of early codexes actually have poor stratagem design and really...even eldar suffers it along with imperial guard imo. Not sure how other armies fair but if you look at even Eldar stratagems you kind of just go to sleep. Yea, there are really good ones there but...they are just boring and uninspired. Would of loved to see a stratagem each for the aspect warriors and for imperial guard who are famous for only using their relic stratagem need something more than their tripe of a set of stratagems to actually make use of their CP (hence why also people LOVE them for CP batteries...not like you actually want to use their stratagems).

Another issue can be relics. Again, early codexes seem to have uninspired relics while later on they seem to get a bit more fancy. I mean...again astartes, eldar and imperial guard pretty much all share a catalogue of extremely similar layout of relic choices with little inspired options. I mean...Ulthwé's relic is a helmet that gets you +1 to smite rolls...wow...really? Cool so it only functions to aid eldar is smite spam. Imperial guard relics are for some reason riddled with various melee weapons and pants ranged weapons. Yes, I guess GW took the meme seriously ("Drive me closer I want to hit them with my sword") and astartes certainly take the biscuit with it but at the very least we can make use of our relics by finding an appropriate HQ to run it on...though the tome of malcador or whatever may benefit if it actually did something useful and we had more desirable psychic powers (that weren't us trying to spam smite. I suppose Null Zone is nice but the rest are fairly fringe case use).

[Biscuittzz]

So according to the LVO most armies fall between 45% to 55% win ratios, with certain Soup lists and Ynnari dominating at 60%+

 

In terms of singular Codex the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, GSC, Ad-Mech (Big boost in CA) and Tau and possibly Knights are best or better than average.

 

A bigger concern than pure power is how utterly BORING some books are, stuff like Astartes.

 

Do you know the win rate for GK? Granted I'd say the sample size will be incredibly small compared to the others.

[Halandaar]

I'd be wary of reported win-rate percentages without context anyway. I mean, Ynnari may well have 60% win rate, but could have faced a particularly easy run of weaker armies along the way.

[Huggtand]

In the long run (over a year) an average win-rate percentage should be fairly representative.

 

The bigger problem is that the for most tournaments the faction is counted as your primary detachment. So if you have 1005 points of Grey Knight and 995 points of Imperial Guard it´s a faction win for the Grey Knights.

[Ishagu]

 

 

So according to the LVO most armies fall between 45% to 55% win ratios, with certain Soup lists and Ynnari dominating at 60%+

 

In terms of singular Codex the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, GSC, Ad-Mech (Big boost in CA) and Tau and possibly Knights are best or better than average.

 

A bigger concern than pure power is how utterly BORING some books are, stuff like Astartes.

Do you know the win rate for GK? Granted I'd say the sample size will be incredibly small compared to the others.

GK are the worst performers with a win rate below 35%

 

The hard data has been passed on to GW who are fully aware of the issue and will look to resolve this in future, allegedly.

[Ishagu]

I'd be wary of reported win-rate percentages without context anyway. I mean, Ynnari may well have 60% win rate, but could have faced a particularly easy run of weaker armies along the way.

This is a good point but over 4200 games were played at the lvo. This data has been added to existing data pools to complete a pretty accurate picture of the meta.

 

It has been asked why the detailed data isn't available to the public, the answer is that this is high value data that has a high compilation cost and isn't going to be given out for free. The relevant people are aware, and hopefully it leads to a better experience for everyone. As I said above, if every codex can have a win rate between 47% and 53% then that's fantastic, but I want all the books to be as exciting and varied as more recent ones like Orks and GSC.

[Slasher956]

Then its very telling when a beta codex dosnt even get a run out as a mono doex at LVO*... giving it a win rate of 0% yet still people put it as 'mid tier' 

 

 

IIRC the couple of sisters armys that were taken where part of soup lists and only 1 or 2 got in to the top 50... and none in the top 40

[Ishagu]

There are adendums to the data of course. That's something that will need to be looked at in more details.

 

There are also anomalies like pure Salamander lists performing far better than Ultramarines and Raven Guard.

 

Look at is as general picture. The more niche armies can't be measured as easily.

[Waking Dreamer]

 

GK are the worst performers with a win rate below 35%

 

The hard data has been passed on to GW who are fully aware of the issue and will look to resolve this in future, allegedly.

 

 

2019 - The year Grey Knights could be great again...? 

[Ciler]

a lot of early codexes actually have poor stratagem design and [...]

Another issue can be relics. Again, early codexes seem to have uninspired relics while later on they seem to get a bit more fancy.

^ This, agreed 110%. The SW codex for instance, even though not necessarily much better, offers more interesting stratagems and potential combos.

 

I fully expect a "new" or "updated" SM codex would immediately rise to the top of the food chain.

[Ishagu]

The spicy stuff will come with the new units and stuff.

[Prot]

So according to the LVO most armies fall between 45% to 55% win ratios, with certain Soup lists and Ynnari dominating at 60%+

 

In terms of singular Codex the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, GSC, Ad-Mech (Big boost in CA) and Tau and possibly Knights are best or better than average.

 

A bigger concern than pure power is how utterly BORING some books are, stuff like Astartes.

 

Mmmm... I don't think Admech sit there. Plus the information is super confusing because it uses the "primary" detachment as the army. So there's one Admech force that did fairly well. However you break down the list you find a few of the chicken walkers but it's still mostly the binary 17, loyal 32, and Knights. (Knights do NOT perform as well on their own as they do as an ally at ITC based events.)

 

You missed Astra which is a fantastic, very competitive codex even without the Castellan. The Castellan also skews so many of these lists. I really think the amount of Castellans at LVO show it needs more than point hikes.... it needs a dataslate tweak.

 

Ynnarri are always going to be way up there in the hands of a skilled player. The idea of giving one army extra 'partial turns' which can be triggered by a skilled player very easily is just ridiculous (in my opinion) and never should have been left as is for this long.

 

Ynnarri is my winner for the broken mechanics that allow it to legally 'cheat'. 

My second pick is a tie between Dark Eldar and Astra. Both are exceptionally capable as stand alones. Both can bring an immensely flexible playstyle.  They can trounce so many codexes face to face, in a lot of different venues (not just ITC). 

 

I've faced off against both in competitive play and it never ceases to amaze me the variety of play these two codexes are capable of at the most competitive levels of play.

 

Things that don't impress me: Soup lists. I still say this will never, ever go away. It sells models cross codexes, and helps reduce the slack in some poor codex writing.  So stuff like "Thousand Sons" for example. Someone tells me TS won tournament X, and sure enough the lists are something like: Ahriman, Magnus, DP's, Mortarion, + tons of Plaguebearers. What the heck is that? That's not my Thousand Sons. 

 

Grey Knights look bad... heck I stopped playing them entirely, but they ever change the survivability of marines overall and this could be a really punishing codex one day. I think they have to be super careful of this sort of stuff happening by making -broad- sweeping changes to codexes in general. Heck this is just about the case for Deathwatch right now. In my opinion since CA1028 DW went from the fluffy bottom feeder of marine armies straight into one of the best chunky soup mixes, and flat out winning best overall in some tournaments (ITC). That was unheard of pre CA 2018, so I'd be very careful moving forward with broad changes. 

[chapter master 454]

I almost feel like grey knights are one of these polarising armies as something in me from what I have seen of them (and that isn't much granted) shows some incredible potential that if not carefully kept in check could return us to smite spam for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't know what it is but I think grey knights are bottom tier but again, something in me says "those guys would be INSANE if they weren't gimped"

[Beams]

I almost feel like grey knights are one of these polarising armies as something in me from what I have seen of them (and that isn't much granted) shows some incredible potential that if not carefully kept in check could return us to smite spam for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't know what it is but I think grey knights are bottom tier but again, something in me says "those guys would be INSANE if they weren't gimped"

If grey knights were less than 18 pts a piece, or had 2 wounds/attacks, I think they would be used as shock troops in almost every imperium army. As it is, I think they aren't terrible, just too costly and lack good special weapons.

[Biscuittzz]

Then its very telling when a beta codex dosnt even get a run out as a mono doex at LVO*... giving it a win rate of 0% yet still people put it as 'mid tier' 

 

 

IIRC the couple of sisters armys that were taken where part of soup lists and only 1 or 2 got in to the top 50... and none in the top 40

 

As far as I know, and I could very well be mistaken on this, but as a 'beta' codex I don't think it was allowed at the LVO. Just like the beta rules. So it would have been Index Sisters, which obviously would be far behind most codexes.

 

Happy to be corrected however on whether it was included.

[Beams]

 

 

Then its very telling when a beta codex dosnt even get a run out as a mono doex at LVO*... giving it a win rate of 0% yet still people put it as 'mid tier'

 

 

IIRC the couple of sisters armys that were taken where part of soup lists and only 1 or 2 got in to the top 50... and none in the top 40

As far as I know, and I could very well be mistaken on this, but as a 'beta' codex I don't think it was allowed at the LVO. Just like the beta rules. So it would have been Index Sisters, which obviously would be far behind most codexes.

 

Happy to be corrected however on whether it was included.

Index sisters are actually significantly more powerful then beta sisters, and previously had done reasonably versus codex armies in prior tournaments, so if it was index sisters, I would have expected them to place higher.

[Ishagu]

 

 

 

Then its very telling when a beta codex dosnt even get a run out as a mono doex at LVO*... giving it a win rate of 0% yet still people put it as 'mid tier'

 

 

IIRC the couple of sisters armys that were taken where part of soup lists and only 1 or 2 got in to the top 50... and none in the top 40

As far as I know, and I could very well be mistaken on this, but as a 'beta' codex I don't think it was allowed at the LVO. Just like the beta rules. So it would have been Index Sisters, which obviously would be far behind most codexes.

 

Happy to be corrected however on whether it was included.

Index sisters are actually significantly more powerful then beta sisters, and previously had done reasonably versus codex armies in prior tournaments, so if it was index sisters, I would have expected them to place higher.

I'm not sure about this at all. Codex Sisters have more damage output.

[toaae]

 

Then its very telling when a beta codex dosnt even get a run out as a mono doex at LVO*... giving it a win rate of 0% yet still people put it as 'mid tier' 

 

 

IIRC the couple of sisters armys that were taken where part of soup lists and only 1 or 2 got in to the top 50... and none in the top 40

 

As far as I know, and I could very well be mistaken on this, but as a 'beta' codex I don't think it was allowed at the LVO. Just like the beta rules. So it would have been Index Sisters, which obviously would be far behind most codexes.

 

Happy to be corrected however on whether it was included.

 

The only beta rule that wasn't at LVO was the new Bolters, becuase it came out after the rule cut-off. Otherwise, and in general, all major tournaments typically run all beta rules.

[TheFinisher4Ever]

I definitely agree with the other sisters players on here that the beta Sisters codex is the second worst codex and is actually a little worse than the Index list if you use the codex point changes. There are some things that are better about the beta dex (exorcists, bloody rose repentia, the 4++ castle and blessed bolts.) That said, the nerf to Celestine and the complete trashing of the act of faith system makes the index overall slightly superior. Losing double shooting makes the Heavy Bolter Retributors half as effective as they were and losing double moving has made seraphim far, far worse. Storm bolter dominions with blessed bolts are amazing, but that means you are missing out on melta dominions, which are some of your only much needed anti-tank units. Overall, its a bit of a toss up which book is actually better but id give the edge to the index. Which, in a meta with Ynarri, Castellans and Taunars, puts them slightly above Grey Knights.

[CaptainMarsh]

I am reserving an actual review of the Sisters Codex for the actual Sisters Codex and not the Beta. If the Beta was the finalized codex, it would likely be with the Grey Knights in the bottom tier.

[Ordo Machinum]

Wait? No Imperial Agents or Inquisition? 

[kombatwombat]

I almost feel like grey knights are one of these polarising armies as something in me from what I have seen of them (and that isn't much granted) shows some incredible potential that if not carefully kept in check could return us to smite spam for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't know what it is but I think grey knights are bottom tier but again, something in me says "those guys would be INSANE if they weren't gimped"

A big part of GK’s problems seem to be a case of (yet) another problem caused by Mortal Wounds. They depend on Smite as a part of their damage output, which means they have a wildcard unbalanceable element as a part of their core design. If Smite just became a weapon profile then GK’s design issues are contained to the MEQ stat line, which is hardly a unique or unsolvable problem.

[Waking Dreamer]

Grey Knights look bad... heck I stopped playing them entirely, but they ever change the survivability of marines overall and this could be a really punishing codex one day. I think they have to be super careful of this sort of stuff happening by making -broad- sweeping changes to codexes in general. Heck this is just about the case for Deathwatch right now. In my opinion since CA1028 DW went from the fluffy bottom feeder of marine armies straight into one of the best chunky soup mixes, and flat out winning best overall in some tournaments (ITC). That was unheard of pre CA 2018, so I'd be very careful moving forward with broad changes.

Well if we keep SM stat-lines as is, the other major costly part for GKs is their Psyker status, which scales horribly for anything over 1000 point games. Paying a premium for every single model to have a 1 MW 12" smite, a DTW (which becomes useless if you're not facing other psykers), and a Cap of a maximum of 1 attempt per each of the 6 Sanctic powers a turn (only if they are in range/applicable), is a waste half the time for say a 2000 point game.

 

GW has pointed each unit as if they are all using their psyker abilities every single turn. Which obviously they can't, and wouldn't be unusual if some units are completely shot-off the board before they can even try a 12" 1 MW smite.