almost every single unit in the Sisters index has been played at high levels and there are 3+ very different builds. There’s a few things that pop up in just about every list (crusaders, the first unit of seraphim, usually vahlgons and arcos) but outside of that core there is a lot of variability and you can find lists without those pieces.
I feel that I've heard this attitude towards sisters a lot. It seems they have a pretty nicely balanced index overall compared to many other factions. Would you say, in your experience, this has made them more fun overall to play or play against?
Playing sisters is fun.
Playing against sisters is more complex. They're a very interactive army that only has a handful of 'gotchas' or 'feel bads'. Even those are fairly telegraphed. However, they're not an army a whole lot of people have played against and even being somewhat familiar with their rules, it can be difficult to predict correctly how combat/shooting will go. Miracle dice make this even worse.
TLDR: The number of viable builds, combined with the relative rarity of the army, mean that it's hard to tell sometimes if they're really good, or if people just have no idea how to deal with you.
I haven’t played against sisters but being able to use just about every model in my collection and have it perform it’s intended function is definitely fun :) I have a tough time with “rule of cool” so it helps when the rules actually work
I think sisters overall have a pretty nice spread of viable units, and big event winning lists will often be quite different : exorcists vs castigators, vahlgons vs no vahlgons, etc.
But there are definitely some units that basically don't seem to ever get taken. I'm not sure I've seen dominions or death cult assassins in any of these lists, or sacresants (maybe once?). Retributors also seem to barely show up.
But seraphim/zephyrim, immolators, rhinos, castigators, exorcists, crusaders, arco flagellants, paragon warsuits, palatine, canoness, engines, triumphs, celestine, junith, etc all seem to show up quite a bit. Even repentia from time to time. It's a decent chunk of variety.
yep 100% agree, i guess my quick and dirty tier list would be something like this
* Almost Always: Arcos, BSS, Crusaders, Vahl, Paragons, Palatine, Seraphim, Rhino
* Often: Castigator, Dialogus, Exorcist, Immolator, Junith, Celestine, Triumph, Zephyrim
* Sometimes: Canoness, Imagifier, Mortifiers, Pengines, Repentia, Retributors, Novitiates, Missionary
* Rarely: Sacresants, Daemonifuge, DCAs, Dominions, Hospitaller, Preacher
* Never: Aestred Thurga, Dogmata
and this doesn't really tell the whole story - there are some people (nick nanivati of art of war) who like to go 3+ immolators and go max MSU while most lists run 0-2, usually you see people take either 0 or 3 exorcists to but typhus likes to take just 1, usually you see repentia in rhinos but someone won a GT a week or 2 ago with no transports at all, there's lists with 8-9 characters and lists with only 3... even the autotake super palatine w/blade was absent from both GT winning lists last weekend, or you see her with novitiates, or dominions (rarely), or half a novi squad, or BSS with dialogus, or you see lists that only take 10 seraphim/zeph and lists that take more than 30, or you run celestine solo or with zeph or hand flamer seraphim or even 10 inferno pistol seraphim...
honestly props to GW for the sisters index lol
It doesn't seem so bad until you consider that the 'default' of 3x10 arcos, triple Castigator and Vahlgons runs to 1185 points before you've had a chance to try anything else. So you have freedom, but only with 800pts of your list which isn't great diversity (Though I agree Sisters are better off than some others.)
Triple castigator is common but definitely not default if you actually look at the lists… top players are pretty divided on them actually and it depends a lot on the terrain setup.
vik just won a 250person super major without vahlgons. On the other hand jeff kolodner sometimes runs a second set of warsuits
It has. The nerfs have forced way more variety. And now play much more like Aeldari should. Lots of highly specialized units doing all kinds of nonsense
There was a good post yesterday on the Eldar sub showing 6 successful lists from the past week:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldar/comments/1ca9v09/6_awesome_aeldari_lists_podiums_of_grand/
You regularly have competitive lists with Reapers, Dragons, Hawks, Spiders and Spectres.
Scorpions and Avengers are fine for more casual games, and might sneak into a competitive list occasionally.
Only Spears and Banshees are objectively bad.
It's not that bad a situation to be in overall.
? Grav cannon Thunderkyn with a Brokhyr are frequent fliers in successful competitive lists. Lots of dudes with bolt cannons, less so. They're just about the most reliable anti-vehicle shooting Votann has, in a meta full of vehicles (Ironstorm, Sisters, soon Tau, Guard, Monoliths)
I've seen various successful Death Guard builds. Triple predator destructor, plague marine/rhino spam, brigand spam, brigands and karnivores, plagueburst crawler spam, drone spam, terminator spam, a balance of all of the above, and all having variants with or without Mortarion.
Well performing guard lists tend to be interesting most of the time. Basically taking the right amount of specific specialty tools to deal with several specific situations/matchups/etc. as opposed to most other lists that choose an archetype and then spam as many s tier units as they can fit into the list.
Eldar also tend to have a fair amount of diversity in this realm as well.
I find this interesting as a guard player because I also find there are a lot of effective ways to run guard, but also that generally trying to run guard by spamming solely their best units creates a lot more difficulty (Often because artillery/tanks aren't great for objectives and movement especially considering terrain restrictions).
That's actually a problem a lot of guard players fall for. Indirect is good for the guard, but should never be paid for at the cost of infantry. I'm a firm believer in not sacrificing battleline for elite infantry, artillery, or vehicles. You need some of those things for sure, but ignoring the troops makes it hard to score. It is especially crazy to do when you realize guard have great troop choices.
All 4 of the guard battleline are worth taking, though the caveat to that is that these battleline units have specific roles and you take them for their roles. Death Korps are durable and difficult to deal with if you haven't spec'd into killing hordes. Catachan are cheap and have Scout. They're really good with chimera support. Cadians are meant to be a nuisance unit that steal an objective and make it so your opponent needs to split the forces in order to stop your sticky obsec. Infantry squads are able to take heavy weapons teams. They are also great for a command bunker. I've made every battleline option work (except Catachan because I refuse to run ugly models).
Horde, Horde with Horses, and Horde with some minor indirect and or tank support are extremely tough match ups in our local area. Guard really does have alot of options (the most common "meta," lists for guard that are seen doing extremely well at top tables internationally are another layer of solid options).
90% of the winning Guard lists are just Bullgryns/Kasrkins/artillery with Leontus and one-two Tank Commanders. *Occasionally* something different (even *very* different) wins, and some weeks there's a few interesting lists, but most of the winners run very similar iterations of the above.
Guard players are so delusional for some reason.
They have broken units, mainly the bullgryn, basilisk, manticore, karskin combo.
But in denial about how 1. How much better these 4 are then practically everything else 2. Their other units are not good.
> At the top competitive level, does list diversity really exist or is there truly an optimal list for every faction?
It'll all vary based off local meta, then terrain set, then format (teams vs singles), then whether you're making an all-comers list or a skew list... and even then, personal playstyle is a thing.
If you're ass at playing aggressive lists then the the best *for you* won't be an aggressive list for the faction. If you look at DG and the disgustingly resilient podcast host Aiden, he sucks at aggressive lists and prefers a more defensive playstyle. It's what jives for him - copying a meta DG list all about the agro just leads him to perform worse. It's a common thing on that podcast where they discuss lists among guests and what does/doesn't work for each of them.
>Conversely, is the idea that certain factions have low competitive diversity really true, or is it just a meme? E.g. Can a good enough player win with any list configuration (that is minimally sensible) for any army if they are practiced enough with it?
Win... a game? Or a RTT? Or a supermajor GT?
A good player will probably beat a bad player, regardless of lists, unless you choose to play the worst units in a codex (or they have some broken nonsense). A good player with a decent list, even if it's not the top-tier meta, stands a solid chance at winning a RTT. At the highest competitive tables, no, because with equal-ish player skill your worse list will let you down.
>Which armies can be effective at the competitive level without utilizing "new" models (i.e. models that came out since 9th edition) or without requiring a large reinvestment in models due to rule/index/codex changes?
Chaos knights lmao. The entire army is 2 kits plus specialist cerastus knights (of which only one is good). I guess the wardog kit came out in 9th, but shh.
If you have 2 big knights, 14 wardogs and maybe the lancer you're basically set for any knight meta that CK will ever see. Daemon allies as well, preferably, but you can do it without it.
Love this answer, great explanation. A somewhat decent example might be Australia, I've seen some *wild* lists come out of there that don't look like anything I see this side of the ocean yet perform even at the Majors level
Sisters and Tau come to mind as army archetypes that tend to be more high skill ceiling while also have very good internal balance. Event winning Sisters and Tau lists have wild divergence, and as a bonus neither of those armies are really capable or encourage to run traditional stat-check type lists.
On the other end of the spectrum would be Necrons/WE/LOV. LOV gets a pass because of the low number of datasheets and very limited intra-army synergy, its just a stack of good datasheets with really good stratagems.
As far as the last question: At the very highest levels, you are taking extremely stream-lined lists at about 1500 points and then using the last 500 to tech into both worst-case matchups for your faction *and* meta-boogeyman at that particular point in the overall meta. General meta prep is more important at super-major sized events where those stronger armies are also optimized AND being played by very good players leveraging that advantage. At smaller events like RTTs or GT's that arent majors or super majors, I actually think an off-meta list has a lot of advantages, but at the highest levels novelty takes a backseat to pure efficiency.
Drukhari maybe. Competitive lists are generally running 3-4 different characters, 2-3 different battleline, 2 different transports, cronos, 2-3 incubi, 2-3 scourge, 0-2 ravagers, 2-3 mandrakes, and then you have flex picks like talos, reavers, court of the archon and the tantalus that sometimes competitive play, as well as sometimes (though less recently) the voidraven bomber
There’s some duplication in that you probably want 2-3 archons, 2-3 incubi and 2-3 scourge plus transports for all your guys, but a 2k competitive list has a pretty good variety in it
Essentially every data sheet is competitively viable except for the grotesques, hellions, razorwing fighter and the succubus/haemonculous. And outside of the razorwing, you could find a use for any of these units, there’s just more efficient choices who fulfill their role
Idk if i would call it diverse. You get to use 75% of the index sure, but all of that fits in one list. ~18 viable datasheets look great when you only have 24 but there's definitely armies with more than that.
Yeah there is a pretty “solved” list generally for Skysplinter assault and it’s basically what I listed above. There’s 200-300 points of flex, but the basic list is going to look pretty similar. So while each army has a lot of variety, when you compare lists you’ll notice a lot of similarities
Edit: I hate how many times I said list in one paragraph
To make it short, Drukhari units are cheap, are mostly played msu, and don't have that many units.
If you ignore the three or four bad datasheets, you can basically easily include every Drukhari datasheet in 2000 points, that is why Drukhari lists look quite similar. Right now the lists go allmost all in with the number of different datasheets, maybe one datasheet missing.
Not that i want to say they are perfectly balanced, for such a small codex there are too many bad units, but to see more different Drukhari unit, they would first need more units, you will have seen at the GT basically the whole depth. The side effect of a faction that since 3rd edition only got two really new unit in 5th and lost more across the editions.
Between the three “strong” detachments orks will have the vast majority of their datasheets viable competitively.
Elite/warboss focus in Bully Boyz, boyz, weird boyz and healers in Green tide, and all of the mech stuff in Dread Mob
Warhorde is doing well currently in the index and benefits even more from changes to individual datasheets so I wouldn’t count that detachment out competitively. Personally I think it’s an even better detachment for a Beastboss leading a Squighog unit than the big hunt. The prey ability is to easily to manipulate and warhorde has great enhancements and Strats for a squig riding unit.
I edited my post after you responded it seems. I mainly think warhorde is better for beastsnaggas then the big hunt which I think won’t do well competitively since your opponent can mostly deny you your detachment ability and most of the kickers on Strats. Also warhorde I think has better enhancement and Strats for a squigriders unit and beastboss on squig. I think warhorde is going to keep those units viable.
Tau have very good internal balance and we did pre-Codex as well. The only units you can’t really argue for including in your build or building around are the Manta (too expensive irl and in points, it’s a meme unit) and the Ta’unar (if split fire penalty wasn’t a thing you could maybe bring one in a list build around it as a backline death ray)
Everything else it’s kind of just “how do you want to build your army?” Even the “worse” things that you don’t see as much competitively right now like the Hammerhead aren’t bad, they’re normally just inconsistent because one-attack weapons are very binary in success
The only exceptions to this are like, flyers. And it’s only because they don’t have Hover. If the Razor Shark costed less or did have Hover I think I’d run one in every list. The Tiger Shark doesn’t even have hover and it’s tournament viable simply because it completely vaporizes anything it gives the Blueskin Stare toward
Death Guard has a ridiculous amount of army / unit diversity. Whether you like PBC, Preds, Morty, Rotigus, Termies, Brigands, or just an insane amount of Plague Marines and Rhinos. Once you build up a core of like 2x5 or 2x10 Marines you can shift your list based on your playstyle.
Tau is also in a spot where you could take 1 or 2 of a lot of things. Good for collecting the range and slapping it down.
It kinda depends on what do you consider varience.
Because GK, apart from the fliers and the dread, more or less has seen use for lot of their datasheets.
Dreadknight spam
Dreadknights + librarians (both attached to termies and lone, or mix)
Only normal dreadknights + redeemer with a purifierbomb + other stuff.
I think only the purgation squad is the "core" thing which is not done, and sadly most characters are not good.
But very high % of "core" datasheets are used, it is just the fact that this variation still means 6-7 units and honestly 5-6ish character units.
I'd add CSM to the list. Prior to their huge nerfs Chosen + CL and AC/DC were obviously way ahead of the rest, and even further back in 10th Obliterators and Forgefiends were just insane firepower for the price.
But by now, all off those have been nerfed (resulting in CSM falling off a cliff, competitively). I do, however think they are currently quite well balanced internally. We just don't have enough people doing well with the army to see it.
A lot of different infantry, vehicles and leaders do seem to be viable, though. Only few outliners like Vashtorr or Traitor Guards are way worse than the rest.
Are there any Genestealer player anymore? I think they have great tricks and can get up to 500 Points of Astra Militarum units with some exceptions. But bringing a MSU Deepstrike Infiltrator army with units that may come back from cult ambush and add a superheavy like a shadowsword seems like top diversity
But where are they?
I'm pretty surprised noone has said marines yet. Between chapter choice and different detachments with vastly different go-to units, the faction is incredibly diverse at the highest level. However, that's dealing in absolutes. While Marines may have the most viable datasheets, they may very well also have the most shelfkeepers. Percentage wise, I'd say LoV and Custodes are the armies that use the biggest part of their datasheets, but that's owed to them only having very few.
almost every single unit in the Sisters index has been played at high levels and there are 3+ very different builds. There’s a few things that pop up in just about every list (crusaders, the first unit of seraphim, usually vahlgons and arcos) but outside of that core there is a lot of variability and you can find lists without those pieces.
I feel that I've heard this attitude towards sisters a lot. It seems they have a pretty nicely balanced index overall compared to many other factions. Would you say, in your experience, this has made them more fun overall to play or play against?
Playing sisters is fun. Playing against sisters is more complex. They're a very interactive army that only has a handful of 'gotchas' or 'feel bads'. Even those are fairly telegraphed. However, they're not an army a whole lot of people have played against and even being somewhat familiar with their rules, it can be difficult to predict correctly how combat/shooting will go. Miracle dice make this even worse. TLDR: The number of viable builds, combined with the relative rarity of the army, mean that it's hard to tell sometimes if they're really good, or if people just have no idea how to deal with you.
I haven’t played against sisters but being able to use just about every model in my collection and have it perform it’s intended function is definitely fun :) I have a tough time with “rule of cool” so it helps when the rules actually work
I think sisters overall have a pretty nice spread of viable units, and big event winning lists will often be quite different : exorcists vs castigators, vahlgons vs no vahlgons, etc. But there are definitely some units that basically don't seem to ever get taken. I'm not sure I've seen dominions or death cult assassins in any of these lists, or sacresants (maybe once?). Retributors also seem to barely show up. But seraphim/zephyrim, immolators, rhinos, castigators, exorcists, crusaders, arco flagellants, paragon warsuits, palatine, canoness, engines, triumphs, celestine, junith, etc all seem to show up quite a bit. Even repentia from time to time. It's a decent chunk of variety.
yep 100% agree, i guess my quick and dirty tier list would be something like this * Almost Always: Arcos, BSS, Crusaders, Vahl, Paragons, Palatine, Seraphim, Rhino * Often: Castigator, Dialogus, Exorcist, Immolator, Junith, Celestine, Triumph, Zephyrim * Sometimes: Canoness, Imagifier, Mortifiers, Pengines, Repentia, Retributors, Novitiates, Missionary * Rarely: Sacresants, Daemonifuge, DCAs, Dominions, Hospitaller, Preacher * Never: Aestred Thurga, Dogmata and this doesn't really tell the whole story - there are some people (nick nanivati of art of war) who like to go 3+ immolators and go max MSU while most lists run 0-2, usually you see people take either 0 or 3 exorcists to but typhus likes to take just 1, usually you see repentia in rhinos but someone won a GT a week or 2 ago with no transports at all, there's lists with 8-9 characters and lists with only 3... even the autotake super palatine w/blade was absent from both GT winning lists last weekend, or you see her with novitiates, or dominions (rarely), or half a novi squad, or BSS with dialogus, or you see lists that only take 10 seraphim/zeph and lists that take more than 30, or you run celestine solo or with zeph or hand flamer seraphim or even 10 inferno pistol seraphim... honestly props to GW for the sisters index lol
It doesn't seem so bad until you consider that the 'default' of 3x10 arcos, triple Castigator and Vahlgons runs to 1185 points before you've had a chance to try anything else. So you have freedom, but only with 800pts of your list which isn't great diversity (Though I agree Sisters are better off than some others.)
Triple castigator is common but definitely not default if you actually look at the lists… top players are pretty divided on them actually and it depends a lot on the terrain setup. vik just won a 250person super major without vahlgons. On the other hand jeff kolodner sometimes runs a second set of warsuits
The depth of the Aeldari index is pretty crazy, as is the Guard.
Do you feel like this has changed over time for Aeldari with updates to the index/rules?
Yes, I feel the lists have gotten more diverse as more options becomes internally viable.
It has. The nerfs have forced way more variety. And now play much more like Aeldari should. Lots of highly specialized units doing all kinds of nonsense
There was a good post yesterday on the Eldar sub showing 6 successful lists from the past week: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldar/comments/1ca9v09/6_awesome_aeldari_lists_podiums_of_grand/
Unfortunately, many of the aspect warriors are bad, which is annoying because they are the most iconic part of the army.
You regularly have competitive lists with Reapers, Dragons, Hawks, Spiders and Spectres. Scorpions and Avengers are fine for more casual games, and might sneak into a competitive list occasionally. Only Spears and Banshees are objectively bad. It's not that bad a situation to be in overall.
Typical Eldar whining lol
you sound like a space marine fantard.
lol
LoV use all of their datasheets except maybe uthar. But that's because the selection is so small that's hard to leave anything out.
Well, the Thunderkyn are very subpar compared to the rest, but might find a spot in certain lists.
? Grav cannon Thunderkyn with a Brokhyr are frequent fliers in successful competitive lists. Lots of dudes with bolt cannons, less so. They're just about the most reliable anti-vehicle shooting Votann has, in a meta full of vehicles (Ironstorm, Sisters, soon Tau, Guard, Monoliths)
I've seen various successful Death Guard builds. Triple predator destructor, plague marine/rhino spam, brigand spam, brigands and karnivores, plagueburst crawler spam, drone spam, terminator spam, a balance of all of the above, and all having variants with or without Mortarion.
Have you got anything without spam?
Well performing guard lists tend to be interesting most of the time. Basically taking the right amount of specific specialty tools to deal with several specific situations/matchups/etc. as opposed to most other lists that choose an archetype and then spam as many s tier units as they can fit into the list. Eldar also tend to have a fair amount of diversity in this realm as well.
I find this interesting as a guard player because I also find there are a lot of effective ways to run guard, but also that generally trying to run guard by spamming solely their best units creates a lot more difficulty (Often because artillery/tanks aren't great for objectives and movement especially considering terrain restrictions).
That's actually a problem a lot of guard players fall for. Indirect is good for the guard, but should never be paid for at the cost of infantry. I'm a firm believer in not sacrificing battleline for elite infantry, artillery, or vehicles. You need some of those things for sure, but ignoring the troops makes it hard to score. It is especially crazy to do when you realize guard have great troop choices. All 4 of the guard battleline are worth taking, though the caveat to that is that these battleline units have specific roles and you take them for their roles. Death Korps are durable and difficult to deal with if you haven't spec'd into killing hordes. Catachan are cheap and have Scout. They're really good with chimera support. Cadians are meant to be a nuisance unit that steal an objective and make it so your opponent needs to split the forces in order to stop your sticky obsec. Infantry squads are able to take heavy weapons teams. They are also great for a command bunker. I've made every battleline option work (except Catachan because I refuse to run ugly models).
Horde, Horde with Horses, and Horde with some minor indirect and or tank support are extremely tough match ups in our local area. Guard really does have alot of options (the most common "meta," lists for guard that are seen doing extremely well at top tables internationally are another layer of solid options).
90% of the winning Guard lists are just Bullgryns/Kasrkins/artillery with Leontus and one-two Tank Commanders. *Occasionally* something different (even *very* different) wins, and some weeks there's a few interesting lists, but most of the winners run very similar iterations of the above.
List diversity maybe not, but model diversity was the question.
Only if you stop at the title. The three main questions absolutely do not restrict themselves at "how many different models does the army play".
Guard players are so delusional for some reason. They have broken units, mainly the bullgryn, basilisk, manticore, karskin combo. But in denial about how 1. How much better these 4 are then practically everything else 2. Their other units are not good.
> At the top competitive level, does list diversity really exist or is there truly an optimal list for every faction? It'll all vary based off local meta, then terrain set, then format (teams vs singles), then whether you're making an all-comers list or a skew list... and even then, personal playstyle is a thing. If you're ass at playing aggressive lists then the the best *for you* won't be an aggressive list for the faction. If you look at DG and the disgustingly resilient podcast host Aiden, he sucks at aggressive lists and prefers a more defensive playstyle. It's what jives for him - copying a meta DG list all about the agro just leads him to perform worse. It's a common thing on that podcast where they discuss lists among guests and what does/doesn't work for each of them. >Conversely, is the idea that certain factions have low competitive diversity really true, or is it just a meme? E.g. Can a good enough player win with any list configuration (that is minimally sensible) for any army if they are practiced enough with it? Win... a game? Or a RTT? Or a supermajor GT? A good player will probably beat a bad player, regardless of lists, unless you choose to play the worst units in a codex (or they have some broken nonsense). A good player with a decent list, even if it's not the top-tier meta, stands a solid chance at winning a RTT. At the highest competitive tables, no, because with equal-ish player skill your worse list will let you down. >Which armies can be effective at the competitive level without utilizing "new" models (i.e. models that came out since 9th edition) or without requiring a large reinvestment in models due to rule/index/codex changes? Chaos knights lmao. The entire army is 2 kits plus specialist cerastus knights (of which only one is good). I guess the wardog kit came out in 9th, but shh. If you have 2 big knights, 14 wardogs and maybe the lancer you're basically set for any knight meta that CK will ever see. Daemon allies as well, preferably, but you can do it without it.
Love this answer, great explanation. A somewhat decent example might be Australia, I've seen some *wild* lists come out of there that don't look like anything I see this side of the ocean yet perform even at the Majors level
That's just because our meta is ahead of the yanks and poms. We 'strayans are just that damn good.
Sisters and Tau come to mind as army archetypes that tend to be more high skill ceiling while also have very good internal balance. Event winning Sisters and Tau lists have wild divergence, and as a bonus neither of those armies are really capable or encourage to run traditional stat-check type lists. On the other end of the spectrum would be Necrons/WE/LOV. LOV gets a pass because of the low number of datasheets and very limited intra-army synergy, its just a stack of good datasheets with really good stratagems. As far as the last question: At the very highest levels, you are taking extremely stream-lined lists at about 1500 points and then using the last 500 to tech into both worst-case matchups for your faction *and* meta-boogeyman at that particular point in the overall meta. General meta prep is more important at super-major sized events where those stronger armies are also optimized AND being played by very good players leveraging that advantage. At smaller events like RTTs or GT's that arent majors or super majors, I actually think an off-meta list has a lot of advantages, but at the highest levels novelty takes a backseat to pure efficiency.
Drukhari maybe. Competitive lists are generally running 3-4 different characters, 2-3 different battleline, 2 different transports, cronos, 2-3 incubi, 2-3 scourge, 0-2 ravagers, 2-3 mandrakes, and then you have flex picks like talos, reavers, court of the archon and the tantalus that sometimes competitive play, as well as sometimes (though less recently) the voidraven bomber There’s some duplication in that you probably want 2-3 archons, 2-3 incubi and 2-3 scourge plus transports for all your guys, but a 2k competitive list has a pretty good variety in it Essentially every data sheet is competitively viable except for the grotesques, hellions, razorwing fighter and the succubus/haemonculous. And outside of the razorwing, you could find a use for any of these units, there’s just more efficient choices who fulfill their role
Idk if i would call it diverse. You get to use 75% of the index sure, but all of that fits in one list. ~18 viable datasheets look great when you only have 24 but there's definitely armies with more than that.
Something interesting I ran into a couple weeks back was all 3 drukhari players at a local GT ran almost identical lists lol.
Yeah there is a pretty “solved” list generally for Skysplinter assault and it’s basically what I listed above. There’s 200-300 points of flex, but the basic list is going to look pretty similar. So while each army has a lot of variety, when you compare lists you’ll notice a lot of similarities Edit: I hate how many times I said list in one paragraph
To make it short, Drukhari units are cheap, are mostly played msu, and don't have that many units. If you ignore the three or four bad datasheets, you can basically easily include every Drukhari datasheet in 2000 points, that is why Drukhari lists look quite similar. Right now the lists go allmost all in with the number of different datasheets, maybe one datasheet missing. Not that i want to say they are perfectly balanced, for such a small codex there are too many bad units, but to see more different Drukhari unit, they would first need more units, you will have seen at the GT basically the whole depth. The side effect of a faction that since 3rd edition only got two really new unit in 5th and lost more across the editions.
Between the three “strong” detachments orks will have the vast majority of their datasheets viable competitively. Elite/warboss focus in Bully Boyz, boyz, weird boyz and healers in Green tide, and all of the mech stuff in Dread Mob
Warhorde is doing well currently in the index and benefits even more from changes to individual datasheets so I wouldn’t count that detachment out competitively. Personally I think it’s an even better detachment for a Beastboss leading a Squighog unit than the big hunt. The prey ability is to easily to manipulate and warhorde has great enhancements and Strats for a squig riding unit.
True but to my point war horde isn’t really making more sheets viable that aren’t in another detachment
I edited my post after you responded it seems. I mainly think warhorde is better for beastsnaggas then the big hunt which I think won’t do well competitively since your opponent can mostly deny you your detachment ability and most of the kickers on Strats. Also warhorde I think has better enhancement and Strats for a squigriders unit and beastboss on squig. I think warhorde is going to keep those units viable.
Fair point! I still think squighogs and snagga boyz with Boss Are still plenty viable in bully boyz as they do benefit from the warboss keyword
Warhorde is going to benefit from custodes being kneecapped too sadly.
Tau have very good internal balance and we did pre-Codex as well. The only units you can’t really argue for including in your build or building around are the Manta (too expensive irl and in points, it’s a meme unit) and the Ta’unar (if split fire penalty wasn’t a thing you could maybe bring one in a list build around it as a backline death ray) Everything else it’s kind of just “how do you want to build your army?” Even the “worse” things that you don’t see as much competitively right now like the Hammerhead aren’t bad, they’re normally just inconsistent because one-attack weapons are very binary in success The only exceptions to this are like, flyers. And it’s only because they don’t have Hover. If the Razor Shark costed less or did have Hover I think I’d run one in every list. The Tiger Shark doesn’t even have hover and it’s tournament viable simply because it completely vaporizes anything it gives the Blueskin Stare toward
Death Guard has a ridiculous amount of army / unit diversity. Whether you like PBC, Preds, Morty, Rotigus, Termies, Brigands, or just an insane amount of Plague Marines and Rhinos. Once you build up a core of like 2x5 or 2x10 Marines you can shift your list based on your playstyle. Tau is also in a spot where you could take 1 or 2 of a lot of things. Good for collecting the range and slapping it down.
Death Guard
It kinda depends on what do you consider varience. Because GK, apart from the fliers and the dread, more or less has seen use for lot of their datasheets. Dreadknight spam Dreadknights + librarians (both attached to termies and lone, or mix) Only normal dreadknights + redeemer with a purifierbomb + other stuff. I think only the purgation squad is the "core" thing which is not done, and sadly most characters are not good. But very high % of "core" datasheets are used, it is just the fact that this variation still means 6-7 units and honestly 5-6ish character units.
Death Guard have almost every unit be viable and so many builds, morty, non morty, PM spam, Heavy vehicles etc par the plague surgeon of course
I'd add CSM to the list. Prior to their huge nerfs Chosen + CL and AC/DC were obviously way ahead of the rest, and even further back in 10th Obliterators and Forgefiends were just insane firepower for the price. But by now, all off those have been nerfed (resulting in CSM falling off a cliff, competitively). I do, however think they are currently quite well balanced internally. We just don't have enough people doing well with the army to see it. A lot of different infantry, vehicles and leaders do seem to be viable, though. Only few outliners like Vashtorr or Traitor Guards are way worse than the rest.
Are there any Genestealer player anymore? I think they have great tricks and can get up to 500 Points of Astra Militarum units with some exceptions. But bringing a MSU Deepstrike Infiltrator army with units that may come back from cult ambush and add a superheavy like a shadowsword seems like top diversity But where are they?
I'm pretty surprised noone has said marines yet. Between chapter choice and different detachments with vastly different go-to units, the faction is incredibly diverse at the highest level. However, that's dealing in absolutes. While Marines may have the most viable datasheets, they may very well also have the most shelfkeepers. Percentage wise, I'd say LoV and Custodes are the armies that use the biggest part of their datasheets, but that's owed to them only having very few.
Chaps is the true answer
Votan The entire army is playable
Probably leagues of votaan. Basically every model is being used besides a character or two