mattjgilbert wrote:Variants of Chaos marines (using the lash) - ask killmaimburn or baragash
Some ork builds - ask Taumaul
Imperial Guard - ask King
Space Wolves and probably now Blood Angels move towards top tier too I should think.
You need someone to chip in who plays in the tournaments about what they see and what is most successful.
In response to
OP PM.
Building competitively for
40k is a tricky thing.you want your hobby to have legs to last a long time,A lot (not all) of the armies have a rock paper scissor strength and weakness to other types of army and their current profusion around you..
Its only when you've just got the most uber thing that will kill everything in the world that the game/codex or opponents armies, or generation of opponents change. So I would suggest that getting into the hobby for top tier is very unstable (not going to be a good slow burning barbecue).
As many will say your familiarity with the enemy,what you take, how many ways to play it you have and how the dice roll can make choice of codex a minor difference (but even if a necron dude did finish in the top 5 in the UKGT..the reason we go "wow" is because there is still A difference)
Further..you have to know what your going to face..US comp scene is 1750-1850 and ard boyz (2500) basically isn't it? The level at which you play effects what is most deadly..For example the competitive chaos build starts getting a bit fat over 1850, heavy slots have been taken, you might take abaddon, you might try to put something vaguely fast in..Whereas the arguments over the efficacy of Imperial guard drop away as their list (
FOC) remains flexible as the points spiral up (and people just start wondering about fielding 30+ tanks)
Right with that disclaimer out the way.
Chaos can and is competitive, but its
boring as anything.. the codex has an awful lot of stuff that just can't come out to play (I have 3k of tzeentch that won't be coming out for a good while EVEN in the softest friendlies against someone on lower points who is drunk and wants me to win) Basically you end up with demon prince/s (nurgle warp time or slannesh with lash)..If your good probably a sorceror lash embedded into a hard core troop (slannesh leading nurgle...somebody cut off my face now dammit).Core troops is a very strong point, plague marines are sheer awesome.Beserkers (if piling out of a landraider) are brutal and eat most other stuff.Backed up by a load of obliterators (which are really very expensive compared to new codex prices but always can do A job if not THE job.)..Occasionally possessed vindicators, but people are starting just trounce them now everyone is playing anti mech.
The basic
CSM with 2 close combat weapons and bolter is a devastating beast, He can fire his bolt pistol and then charge with in effect 3 attacks (1 basic, 1 for 2CCWs 1 for charging)..1 marine=4 attacks *in a way*. You can have 2 melta, a combi melta on your champion and a combi melta on your rhino..Making you a devastator troops choice......But people don't take them because the paragraph above is better. Plague marines can do most of that with more bumps and less restrictions, its just a good example of why all chaos lists end up with the playing getting a bit cross with the new codex.
Chaos doesn't do well with the current (now waning I guess) cyclical trend of mass fire/throw enough crap and everything will die.Although
here is the YTTH attempt.
Chaos as a codex suffers from having had a good codex before, and stirring up some hate, so all that was good was torn to pieces and shoved into other peoples books, no synergistic leaders (I think I can hear LH testifying and screaming Amen as he reads it), no charismatic dark leader giving his gifts to cheap pond skum traitorous currs...just "fwargle gargle gargle msdfurraarr...RUNN THAT WAY!!!"
Kirby is currently going back over the codex giving it a unit review with competitions in mind..
there are several threads here on building chaos lists for comp play.. they all end up relatively similar.
For
fun..
2 flying princes
summoned greater demon
3 crazed dreadnoughts with
CCW missile launcher
2x5 plaguemarines in rhinos melta guns and a champion
3 defilers.
Gives you 9
MC/
MC-likes, a bad rep and you will still lose most games, but is funny (pronounced.."foo0 -neh" and only mildly sarcastic)
Vague Imperial Marine EQuivilant (
MEQ)
Blood angels are just the awesome and winsome...so much I can't even talk about it..in fact they are so winsome I shall rank them below wolves...(and handy as if you don't mind crap models there is an excess of cheap nasty smurf tactical guys floating around the webs and you just have to paint them red)..I must admit I lost a bit of interest in
BA after faq, but they are at least sane.(They can do lots of razorbacks (who are kind of like cheap plague marine beserkers in super tanks), flying wing of doom (who are like flying beserker plague marines), dreadnought spam(not very good) and a good mix of psychic defence and synergy.Good cheap solid missile devastators and cheap access to landraiders.(even those posh flying boyz become an option as they are cheaper than in preceding codexs) Space wolves same kind of thing..Cheaper and less penalised/restricted than smurfs, do a lot of things chaos really should be able to do..
Smurfs.. only really should be taken if you really like bikes (which can never be taken beyond middle tier) or if your really want null zone (hurts elites who rely on being able to ignore
AP and power weapons)or the thunderfire cannon (useful to hurt bikes, ...but space wolf powers come with less downsides and do same thing potentially 30 hits to a unit,bolsters a ruin for you to be hard as nails in , but for a codex that has the worst stand back and shoot heavy infantry) .They have cheapish vehicles (like space wolves) and a good base in current fashions (in lowish bracket games) is 3xlas sponson autocannon turret predators, 3 twinlinked dual wielding autocannon dreadnoughts, 700 ish points for 6 nearly reliable tanks, you'd then take lots of meltaguns somewhere and a lot of speeders.The advantage space wolfs have over smurfs in this kind of build is smurfs have the worst troops potential..anywhere really (anyone who says other wise is basically morally, ethic'lly Spiritually, physically,positively undisputably undeniably certifiably definitely maaaad)...
Imperial guard are basically top,Everything in their codex is yum, every downside has a cheap fix.. we're toughness 3, so give us all really cheap high
AV V shooty transports.. we have rubbish guns, so let us take more special weapons than elite krak alien hunting angelic forces, our lowliest gruntlings in some situations might have lower leadership than aforementioned angelic genetically modified super human ninjas, take lots of them and give them an upgrade that makes them better than fearless. They don't like/don't attract super high power mutant awesome psychers (they do) oh well give them pseudo psychi powers that can cast up to 3 times a turn and can't be blocked or have any downside."they made stormtroopers worse..and elite!!", move veterans to troops and make them fill the role.The only way to go really wrong with guard is to have too many things fro the elite slots and to over bling/badly choose on heavy option tanks.
Dark eldar- like chaos, have 1 list, the I can take a billion dark lances list,and tar pit with some wychs.It does ok (and in the new comp scene where you get more points for taking unpopular armies ..its just shot up a few rankings) the big rock to its scissors being 3 monoliths..but thats the case for all mono lists.
Orks and eldar..in an odd place, were top..now seem to be viewed as old needing a revamp to stay above middle (which apparently eldar have succeded in getting????) both can do fully meched out,battlewagons/waveserperts +falcons. Eldar are more shooty, orks are more
CC (although both can do the other)...both have glass knife units (handled properly mono purpose they are deadly but need to be executed in combination with other things delicately) both have the option to take very low model count silly lists (seer council on bikes, nob bikers, 20 models 1500 points.. fashionable 2ish years back)Orks take "Kan walls", lots of killer kans (mechanicall choppy) who always have a 4+ cover save due to their synergistic
HQ choices. Eldar don't have that but their warwalkers are a very good way of bring mass firepower easily into any build. Green tide (100s of models) is good, the eldar equivilant..is a very meh (although I'm fairly sure there is a version out there that is a bit like
DE)
*In placing these 2 a mighty and great war strikes out with both races players vehemently saying that the *other* is 'better' more 'flexible' etc to justify having a lush new further down the power spiral codex and to excuse any poor performance on their own part.I can't see a great enough difference when used by great players to put a sheet of paper between them really at this point.(but as I say rumours say that eldar won the sympathy we need a power bump redux)
Nids- I haven't faced properly in new codex..so just being a little lamb I'll place them low top/high middle.
Demons, get abused from left to right..not top tier, too random..games can be thrown away despite your opponent making 100 mistakes.(upper middle, pure khorne +certain other builds and lowermiddle tier epi lists (can't do anything about tanks, and guess what every opponent has) and mixtures.
Other (lower)middle (c2) tier (along with smurf bikes epi etc)
Witchunters- can be built right and can do some stuff.
Tau (basically getting a lot of love from web peoples..srly everyway has been talking about them this year for no apparent reason)..relies on suits to a mono list level like chaos.A rich man who can afford to not win's guard (with floating super stuff).
Basement
Necrons- codex doesn't work with this edition,destroyer spam can still be brutal in the hands of an expert but...gosh they have to make a good list, get lucky and stuff. Demonhunters (but rumour mill says by the time I click post they will have a new codex along with necrons and
DE)
Summary
Top to bottom left to right
IG , Spacewolves,
BA, 1 build chaos,1build
DE,Orks+Eldar,Nids/,demons,most smurf,witchunter,tau,/demonhunter,necron,any other chaos or
DE build ..
Although opinion differs
..slightly 
I possibly think a better way to work out stuff is
a) do you want 5-20 models, 20-50 models, 50-150 models
b) lots of tanks/transports.
c) do you want to be fast, shooty or choppy or a combination.
d) will you slowly develop, or are you just itching to buy 3 shelves of
GW and vanish from the world for 2 months to paint it to basic table standard?
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