Overall metagame summary?

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Hey folks,

 

I've been getting back into playing the game (rather than just building and painting.) Several new codices have come out since I last played seriously, and the whole metagame has changed. I am looking at building a competitive list to take to local tournies (and beyond if I do well.) However, before I can do that I need to know what the other power lists are at the moment. I keep hearing/seeing terms like 'leafblower', 'air cavalry', 'flying circus', and 'thunder cav'. Some of them I'm familiar with, and some are fairly obvious. But I want to become more familiar with all this big tournament builds, and I want to know the specifics. For example, I know thunder cavalry lists are space wolves using lots of wolf riders. But I don't know how many, or what the most optimal form of this build is. I also don't know what it beats and what beats it.

 

So, I'm looking for summaries of the top builds from each race, and a basic breakdown of what they contain and their pros and cons. I understand that is a fairly large amount of information, but I'm hoping there's enough people out there with metagame knowledge to fill me in. And I doubt I'm the only person who wants to know this stuff by any means.

[Grey Mage]

*blinks*

 

Well the flying Circus is an incredibly stupid build for eldar, where you take a large seer council and put them on jetbikes. Its nigh unkillable with all those rerolling 4++ and 3+ saves, but on the other hand its ineffective against anything that isnt a tank or an MC with a bad save. Complete crap. Any squad with FNP can walk up and tarpit them for the next 10,000 years. At a base cost of 45pts a model, before psychic powers, theyre a third string set of nob bikers thats mostly there to distract you from the couple units of aspect warriors in serpents thats all they can otherwise afford. Tie up this unit, shoot down their skimmers, have a beer.

 

Air Cavalry is the Imperial Gaurd, mounted in Valkyries and Vendettas- fast moving skimmers that come in squadrons of 1-3, they have impressive firepower, but the list is somewhat limited by the squadron rules. Its strong in that its very mobile, and the vets that are carried around have good firepower- but if they dont get the job done, they die quickly... a good alpha strike list, seems to prefer reserving alot of their units to make up for their relative vulnerability. The squadron rules really hurt them, did I mention that? If you can keep your HW squads alive long enough to shoot their rides out from under them this list will fold quickly. Razorback spam lists work wonders here, and BA with FNP cheap devastators have a good advantage against them.

 

Thunder Cav tends to be 2 or 3 ICs on thunderwolves, accompanied by large units of fenrisian wolves and some thunderwolf cavalry, the idea being to alpha strike your opponents by assaulting their whole line turn 1 if possible and moving up a couple of scoring units to take objectives. Its actually rather successful in a 'rawr eat your face!' kind of way. Downsides- Unless you take Canis Wolfborn you cant get FWs as troops, and hes not the best IC in the game by any means. A note- fenrisian wolves will be I5 in this list, and have a good amount of S4 attacks to drag you down with. The veritable Demon Prince that is a TW Lord is the main threat though. What beats it? Tau. Deploying in the backfield, shoot the crap out of the wolves that gaurd those ICs and then use your suits to take down said ICs- works like a charm.

 

Leafblower is another alpha-strike list. You take a few squads in chimeras to shield your artillery, and then shell the ever living ;) out of everything you can see. Squads in the chimeras provide close support with meltas and plasmas and a valkyrie or two is often present to keep people off the flanks. Dies to outflankers, particularly wolf scouts ^_^ and has a harder time in DOW and against DP armies with good melta capability. BA might fall in this category with alot of deep striking melta equiped combat- squads... but thats just a theory. Usually accompained by an inquisitor with a pair of mystics for exactly that reason- but if your good itll be risky to use ordnance on your incoming squads, as your opponent is just as likely to hit his own troops.

 

Mephiston, Lord of Death has become an icon of BA might, and seems to crop up in every second list at tournaments. Hes not an IC, dies to rapid fire plasma, and so do most BA squads. Hes scary if he gets to CC, but thankfully Stormravens are hard to find these days- all custom jobs. Once a model for them comes out though this guy is going to be alot scarier.

 

BAs also seem to be doing alot of Razorback spam these days, along with C:SM. I think its stupid, and my on table experiances back this up- razorbacks just dont have the firepower or the survivability to be the backbone of an army, and die like flies to any well equiped force. Its worse for BAs, who pay more, alot more, for their RBs, unless they take a squad of RAS in them... in wich case you have a 5 man squad who cant give any real support fire to the RB, and is also fairly fragile. Bleh.

 

Vulkan Lists are still prevalent with C:SM players, though Id say about 10-15% of them have jumped on the BA bandwagon- either theyre after the next big thing, or like many werent satisfied with C:SM in general.

 

Necrons seem to be running mostly destroyer lists, though one of my locals has done well with his 'ninja crons' with involves using a Lord to teleport around a squad of Immortals and a couple deep striking monoliths to bring him right into the heart of the enemy, and rapid fire them to death. Against opponents with alot of rending or high strength CC attacks they suffer huge issues, but against IG and C:SM it eats peoples faces off. Good counter-assault units, playing your objectives, and Vindicators seem to solve the problem just fine though.

 

SoB and GKs may be very different in your area- they changed *IE DROPPED* the allies rules when they came out with an online PDF. The official word is that they still exist, but tournaments get to decide on an event by event basis if theyre included or not. That being said, alot of SoB players in particular seemed to use IG to plug holes in their lists, and are in sorry shape without this crutch.

 

Of course, I myself play balanced SWs and Footslogging Eldar as my two main armies- IE none of the above. I dont find any of these to hard to deal with in the end. People just get caught up in the new sensation, find a list to counter it specifically... and thus begins the rock paper scissors of stupidity. I reccommend not using any of the above lists, because for all their power they have vary obvious, and easily exploited flaws.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Thanks Grey Mage, that is a good deal of the info I'm looking for. I'm going to be crafting an all comers list, I just want to know about these builds so I can be sure my all comers will be able to handle them all.

 

What are nid doing these days? And I know there are other codex SM builds being used, but we can let other people contribute some knowledge to this.

[Grey Mage]

Frankly, most of the Nid builds Ive seen in action including about 30 genestealers in two squads, supported by monstrous creatures, and a large brood of Termagaunts to make a scoring Tervigon, wich creates more termagaunts, and some gargoyles to rush up the flanks and hit the enemy hard turn 1 or 2 so their large MCs can move up the field unmolested. Alot of short range bolter fire takes a heavy toll on these guys, though the Catalyst power- wich gives any unit FNP- is a pain and a half.

 

Its one of the reasons I consider psychic defense mandatory in todays environment actually.

[Khavos]

I thought Flying Circus referred to BA jumpers/Stormravens/land speeders lists.

[greatcrusade08]

Leafblower is another alpha-strike list.

 

i think we need to clear up what alpha strike means, becuase shooting at the enemy turn one doesnt qualify IMO.

 

I see an alpha strike as close combat turn one

[Gunslinger87]

That was a nice breakdown, but the reason why these lists are so prevalent in tournaments is even though you come up with a "counter" list for each one, how would such a list do against the other? You cant expect to make a counter army for every list you might face, especially if you plan on taking just one said list into a tournament.

 

People will always try to find "broken" lists... I prefer to enjoy the game.

 

I mean, Chaos players can field 6 land raiders for 220 with 3 termies in those counting as transports.... hmmmmm.

 

Or all termie space wolf lists. Yup, there is always an answer or a way to beat them, but in general, those lists are almost idiot-proof.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I mean, Chaos players can field 6 land raiders for 220 with 3 termies in those counting as transports.... hmmmmm.

 

Chaos mass land raider lists are far from competitive.

 

You are right about the general issue though. Specialist lists will often beat generalist lists, but then lose to another specialized list that's built around whatever counters them. The challenge is to avoid getting stuck playing rock - paper - scissors. When dealing with specialist builds (like all those above) you can often know who is going to win a match before you even begin because this game does have various hard counters. If I go to a tournament and take a specialist list, then I will be guarunteed wins vs some opponents and losses versus others (short of exceptional dice rolling and luck.) The problem then is that weather I win or lose comes down to the luck of who I get matched against. The power to decide my games rests with whatever person or system chooses who fights who, not my actual skill at the game. When playing generalist lists, you have a hard match against specialist lists. Instead of some auto wins and other auto losses, you instead have all games being very hard. But that still means that if you are good and not too unlucky you can pull through.

[Gunslinger87]

Yup, rock, paper, scissors sums it up perfectly :D youve said it better than i could.

[mowglie]

Leafblower is another alpha-strike list.

 

i think we need to clear up what alpha strike means, becuase shooting at the enemy turn one doesnt qualify IMO.

 

I see an alpha strike as close combat turn one

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_strike

 

I don't think aircraft carriers really do close combat!

 

Also, iirc, the term comes to 40k via battletech where it meant applying the maximum firepower you could up-front without regard to whether or not you could sustain it due to heat. I don't think close combat was particularly popular in battletech either.

[minigun762]

I like to think of Alpha Strike lists in the same way as a "glass cannon", very damaging but you're more fragile then most. Your best defense is to wipe out the opponent before they can hurt you.

 

Look at some of the major alpha strike units, Vendettas, Razorbacks, Chimera, Manticores. These are AV12 at best and many of them are AV10. They rely on you not having enough to hit them back after they hit you.

[Jackelope King]

Leafblower is another alpha-strike list.

 

i think we need to clear up what alpha strike means, becuase shooting at the enemy turn one doesnt qualify IMO.

 

I see an alpha strike as close combat turn one

Alpha strike means going nova on turn one and firing like crazy. It's a BattleTech reference, where you shot all your powerful weapons at once to try to drop the other guy, and pray you did enough damage while you sit there waiting for your heat sinks to work and get you back in the game.

 

Leafblower is a pure alpha strike. The ONLY reason the original list did well was because the player using it got first turn every single game in the tournament. The player admitted it. The fans didn't care... they decided it was the holy grail of all 40k and tried to take it everywhere.

 

Now that's not to say it's a bad list. It's okay. Not totally optimized, but not the end-all-be-all to IG.

[greatcrusade08]

thats pure nonsense, most armies have alot of weapons that can shoot turn one.. suddenly everyone is running an alpha strike list..

 

sure i get battletech but range played a bigger part in that game.. its not 40k..

 

and as for aircraft carriers, how many of those do we see in 40k.. please aircraft carriers have no weapons, you mean they send out loads of planes to blow stuff up right?

well then its not the carriers doing the 'strike' is it?

[Brother Xeones]

Alpha-strike list are not automatically CC oriented. I recall an old 3rd Edition Tau "Alpha-Strike" list which took a ridiculous mount of seeker missiles. The rest of the army was designed around the markerlights necissary for shooting those seekers off asap. To me, alpha-strike lists simply mean focusing on making a single, decisive attack on the first turn (or at least early in the game--either shooting or CC will do) in the hopes of crippling the opponent early. Often (like battletech) this can leave the list vulnerable later on and are quite likely to be highly dependent on getting first turn. Other examples are podding multiple sternguard squads or Shrike infiltration lists.

 

Well the flying Circus is an incredibly stupid build for eldar, where you take a large seer council and put them on jetbikes. Its nigh unkillable with all those rerolling 4++ and 3+ saves, but on the other hand its ineffective against anything that isnt a tank or an MC with a bad save. Complete crap. Any squad with FNP can walk up and tarpit them for the next 10,000 years. At a base cost of 45pts a model, before psychic powers, theyre a third string set of nob bikers thats mostly there to distract you from the couple units of aspect warriors in serpents thats all they can otherwise afford. Tie up this unit, shoot down their skimmers, have a beer.

 

I thought Flying Circus referred to BA jumpers/Stormravens/land speeders lists.

 

Actually, the Flying Circus refers to a largely extinct 4th Edition Eldar power build which was composed of Harlequins in Falcons (sometimes Wave Serpents but usually Falcons). This core was usually supported by a couple of squads of Dire Avengers in Serpents or a few units of jet bike guardians. It was quite effective when Eldar skimmers were well-nigh unkillable due to SMF and their wargear upgrades. Harlequins were also nasty because they could consolidate into new combats and had fleet when everybody else still couldn't "run". After the changes that came with the introduction to 5th edition, this list became much less popular.

 

No one has mentioned Nob Bikers either. That has been pretty popular for a while. It basically consists of two warbosses on bikes leading large squads of nob bikers. The amount of options for these guys means that you can really play the wound allocation game and they are already incredibly tough because of perpetual cover saves, and FNP in addition to their armor saves. Oh, and did I mention the warbosses make them scoring? The downside is that they are incredibly expensive units when fully tooled up so if you are facing two squads like this, you won't see much else. Find things that negate their Armor and FNP saves (like missile launchers). They'll still get a cover save, but if you can pump enough high strength shots into them, they'll disappear. S10 weapons are particularly nice since they can ID them and deny them the ability to spread those wounds around. Also, feel free to feed them a sacrificial unit or two to keep them occupied for a turn or so while you focus on other things.

 

Loganwing is another list that seems to be getting attention lately. Logan Grimnar makes Wolfguard count as troops. Often, people use this type of list to spam 20+ missile launchers. Wolfguard in terminator armor with CMLs are standard. Sometimes only the CML bearers are in termie armor to make the squads cheaper. Heavy slots are filled with missile launcher Long Fangs and Fast Attack sports Landspeeder Typhoons. Lone Wolves are sometimes used as cheap throw away elites choices. I haven't played against this type of list so I'll leave the suggested counters to someone else.

 

Chaos Lash lists have lost effectiveness, since everyone has been meching up in 5th, but you still see them used. Since the OP has a Chaos Avatar, he may be familier with this type of list already, but I guess it's still worth mentioning. Usually you have 2x Daemon Princes (or 1 DP, & 1 Sorcerer) both with Lash of Submission. Plague marines are for holding objectives, and Obliterators are used to drop plasma templates onto the infantry that has been lashed into nice, template shaped groups. Some lists use Vindicators instead of Oblits, so the flavor changes, but the effect is the same. Lash lists used to be thought of as the epitome of "cheese" by some, but the simplest way to avoid it is to keep your infantry in vehicles (which are not effected by Lash). Also, eliminating the Lash wielders breaks the Template/Lash combo.

 

Anyway, those are some additions worth mentioning IMO.

[Jackelope King]

thats pure nonsense, most armies have alot of weapons that can shoot turn one.. suddenly everyone is running an alpha strike list..

No. The leafblower list had tons of throw-away units with one-shot weapons (like Demo Charges all over the place, gunning it forward with Valks to drop them off, etc.). Their job was to drive up, throw a demo charge / fire meltas, then get completely obliterated, and hope they killed something critical to the enemy plan. It works decently when it goes first and can ruin the enemy's day before the enemy can ruin his day (and it wasn't a hard strike to stop if you had first turn... bubble wrap effectively, pop two or three transports).

 

After it expended its initial volley, its firepower was vastly decreased. That is what an alpha strike is. You invest considerable resources in generating more damage output than should be possible on turn 1, with the hope that you can mash the opponent before he can mash you. And if your alpha strike fails, your list is effectively built at fewer points than the opponent's, so you're at a disadvantage. Hence the term "alpha-strike", harkening back to BattleTech, where an alpha-strike was an all-or-nothing gamble.

 

In the Marine arsenal, this includes things like Hunter-Killer Missiles, "Scout"pedos (whether the biker or LSS variety), first-turn Drop Pod Ironclads or Sternguard. They'll come in, deal some (hopefully) disproportionate damage, and then die. You hope that what they kill hurts the enemy more than it hurt you to include those throwaway units in the list.

[Grey Mage]

thats pure nonsense, most armies have alot of weapons that can shoot turn one.. suddenly everyone is running an alpha strike list..

 

sure i get battletech but range played a bigger part in that game.. its not 40k..

 

and as for aircraft carriers, how many of those do we see in 40k.. please aircraft carriers have no weapons, you mean they send out loads of planes to blow stuff up right?

well then its not the carriers doing the 'strike' is it?

They are alpha strike lists because they have to do alot of damage early in the game or get overwhelmed in the mid game. They depend on doing that damage for their very existance. Its not just the potential, but the focus.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

How prevalent are land raider spam/rush lists these days?

[Br.Pat]

"Scout"pedos

 

 

I want those scout pedos locked up for a long, long time.

[chaplain belisarius]

that made me laugh...well don sir!:D

[Jackelope King]

"Scout"pedos

 

 

I want those scout pedos locked up for a long, long time.

:P

[Warprat]

thats pure nonsense, most armies have alot of weapons that can shoot turn one.. suddenly everyone is running an alpha strike list..

No. The leafblower list had tons of throw-away units with one-shot weapons (like Demo Charges all over the place, gunning it forward with Valks to drop them off, etc.). Their job was to drive up, throw a demo charge / fire meltas, then get completely obliterated, and hope they killed something critical to the enemy plan. It works decently when it goes first and can ruin the enemy's day before the enemy can ruin his day (and it wasn't a hard strike to stop if you had first turn... bubble wrap effectively, pop two or three transports).

 

After it expended its initial volley, its firepower was vastly decreased. That is what an alpha strike is. You invest considerable resources in generating more damage output than should be possible on turn 1, with the hope that you can mash the opponent before he can mash you. And if your alpha strike fails, your list is effectively built at fewer points than the opponent's, so you're at a disadvantage. Hence the term "alpha-strike", harkening back to BattleTech, where an alpha-strike was an all-or-nothing gamble.

 

In the Marine arsenal, this includes things like Hunter-Killer Missiles, "Scout"pedos (whether the biker or LSS variety), first-turn Drop Pod Ironclads or Sternguard. They'll come in, deal some (hopefully) disproportionate damage, and then die. You hope that what they kill hurts the enemy more than it hurt you to include those throwaway units in the list.

 

 

I also like the Star Fleet Battles reference, where multiple turn weapons like photon torpedos or scatter pack drones are compared to one turn charging weapons like phasors and disruptors. The ability to burst a shield with overwheming damage in one turn, vs more shots spread over the whole game.

 

Or the old style Magic the Gathering Suicide Black deck, where you would damage your own health early in a bid to do enough damage to kill the other wizard before his deck got a chance to get started.

[Zynk Kaladin]

Air Cavalry actually sounds pretty cool :P

 

I wish I had the money to go IG...

[Grey Mage]

How prevalent are land raider spam/rush lists these days?

I still see alot of them online, but theyre not prevalent where I live- few people own more than one Raider, or two, each of different variants so they can easily switch them out between games. Our tournaments run from 1000-1850pts with 1.5k being average, and frankly most people have seen just how quickly a raider can die, at wich point youve lost an 6th of your army.

 

They have some success, but I see more triple vindicators from both loyalists and chaos then I do of Landraiders- and even thats only about one army in 4. Scary though, and very effective for their cost.

[minigun762]

Chaos Lash lists have lost effectiveness, since everyone has been meching up in 5th, but you still see them used. Since the OP has a Chaos Avatar, he may be familier with this type of list already, but I guess it's still worth mentioning. Usually you have 2x Daemon Princes (or 1 DP, & 1 Sorcerer) both with Lash of Submission. Plague marines are for holding objectives, and Obliterators are used to drop plasma templates onto the infantry that has been lashed into nice, template shaped groups. Some lists use Vindicators instead of Oblits, so the flavor changes, but the effect is the same. Lash lists used to be thought of as the epitome of "cheese" by some, but the simplest way to avoid it is to keep your infantry in vehicles (which are not effected by Lash). Also, eliminating the Lash wielders breaks the Template/Lash combo.

 

On the note of Chaos units, the main change I've seen is a move away from Lash Princes towards Nurgle WT Princes. The rest of the stuff has stayed about the same, Troops are still a mix of CSMs/PMs and Berserkers and the Obliterator is still the default heavy choice though both the Defiler and Combi-Predator have somethings going for them. Elites are limited to Terminators or Chosen doing some sort of special weapon spamming and Fast Attack is almost completely neglected.

[Myxx]

To me, alpha-strike lists simply mean focusing on making a single, decisive attack on the first turn (or at least early in the game--either shooting or CC will do) in the hopes of crippling the opponent early

 

I agree with this. I add HK missiles to all my Rhinos/Razors and fire them all turn 1, plus any Devs/Tacs/Scouts missiles as well.