Current meta list....warning. Not for the light hearted

[dtse]

So this is the early tournament meta in 8th. Keep in mind this is a team tournament list (ETC) so they have certain restrictions but this list can be easily subbed into any faction. Obviously his is not meant to be casual or fluffy (although you could consider it pretty fluffy) so no need for any comments like that. But for the tournament players here, be ready for lists like this:

 

Azrael

Darkshroud

Darkshroud

Drop pod

Landspeeder HB

Dark talon ....... x7!!!!!

 

There we go. Someone asked about alpha strike dark angels? Here we are. As I said flyer spam is a thing right now. Just sub in other flyers for other chapters. Get your reroll dude into the middle with a jump pack or in this case a pod. Only thing is dark talons are not good vehicle killers but 7 rift cannons will still probably kill a knight first turn.

[G8Keeper]

I pity the guy/girl who has to buy 7 Dark talons for this, he will be single if he/she wasn't already.

[sneakybamsen]

I have 1 dark talon assembled and another two in boxes still wrapped...

 

Only 4 more to go ;)

[Frater Cornelius]

There was this list with 3 Ravens and Stormtalons. However, that list still would have an edge, because of better anti-tank/-monster capabilities. Still, ugly if the opponent is unprepared. I am sure Necrons will follow suit with flyer spam :D

[Andrés Pacheco]

For a list that practically gives up fist turn, it seems very flimsy. Any shooting list with buffs would take it apart before it moved. It would then get one turn with whatever it had left, before the flyers had to hover, or lose Azreal's buff zone, both of which hurt the list further.

 

Would look cool though :)

[Chaplain Lucifer]

An army list with a single infantry model.

I know tournaments are another level in how tough the list has to be but this one is... ridiculous for many reasons.

But hey, if someone has the money for 7 Dark Talons, might as well use them.

I prefer not to take my tournaments that seriously... Better for my blood pressure.

[dtse]

i think it is in fact very survivable against alpha strike.

 

all of them are -1 to hit since they are supersonic

 

most of them will fit in -1 darkshroud bubble, so thats -2 to hit them...some armies can't even hit that

 

and then many of them wil have 4+ invuln....so I doubt you will be wiping this army off turn 1 as you say.

 

 

Anyway, have a look at ETC team list if you like this sort of thing, you will basically see list after list of spam....spam dark talons, spam stormravens, spam wraiths, spam razorbacks, spam devastators, spam razorwings (apparently someone added up there will be over 900 razorwings at this tournament), you name it!

An army list with a single infantry model.
I know tournaments are another level in how tough the list has to be but this one is... ridiculous for many reasons.
But hey, if someone has the money for 7 Dark Talons, might as well use them.
I prefer not to take my tournaments that seriously... Better for my blood pressure.

this is a serious tournament.  these people feel they are (and to some extent they are) representing their country in the Olympics of 40k.  They pay and travel across the world to play 40k, and they are a team, so you can't have anyone not taking it seriously.  In canada, it's an application process with gaming resume and they judge you on other tournament results....so yea, for these members, its a very serious thing indeed

[Loar]

And yet they are all playing slight variations on horrible spam flyer lists that are easy to play and slot in for anyone.  There is very little skill that comes with playing the same single model or 2-3 models in a list against other players all doing the exact same, I saw one list someone had that was literally just 9 Hemlocks.  It will mainly come down to who rolls dice better (so just luck) and which lists get paired against which other lists that might have a slightly better edge against them based on the single or couple models they each have (so just rock, paper, scissors).

 

This is what people are rolling their eyes at a bit here, it degrades the legitimacy and importance of having teams representing countries and resumes and tryouts and all that, when the lists are so monotonous and spammy that any half-decent player could show up and play them and have the same result.  The competitive matched play scene needs some spam enforcement either directly from GW or by the tournament organizers soon or this is gonna get old really fast.  It already kinda is.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Loar

[dtse]

yea, in hyper competition like that, it is literally rock paper scissors, where the outcome is determined right at beginning, or at least turn 1-2.  it is what it is, and hopefully the spam will work its way through the system.  Reece seems to think that balanced is the way to go and that spam will disappear after a while, i guess we will see what codexes bring

[sneakybamsen]

Not that I have much experience on the matter, but isn't this spamming of units usually what happens after a new edition has hit?

 

I mean it also happened in 7th to a certain degree (4-5 flyrants in a tournament list for instance). I too think it will fade over time, I think the mechanism behind is that the very competitive players want to bring the strongest lists they can, to make it more likely for them to achieve wins at the events they go to. The simplest way of bringing a strong list is numbercrunching on dakkaoutput vs survivability and then finding the best ratio between those two.

 

I don't enjoy that kind of gaming myself, I'm just wondering if it isn't just business as usual?

[dtse]

Probably. It's super easy to find a strong points efficient unit and just spam it given the detachment structure currently.

[Andrés Pacheco]

i think it is in fact very survivable against alpha strike.

 

all of them are -1 to hit since they are supersonic

 

most of them will fit in -1 darkshroud bubble, so thats -2 to hit them...some armies can't even hit that

 

and then many of them wil have 4+ invuln....so I doubt you will be wiping this army off turn 1 as you say.

I'm sure you're right, was being glib with my morning coffee :)

 

Still:

 

Shoot the shrouds first.

Azreal is off table to begin, so no 4++

 

6 ven dreads with buff to hit/wound

2 leviathans

=most of that T6 list is toast :)

[FerociousBeast]

I've always wondered.

 

If someone is the super competitive type who is interested only in the rules, list building, and competition side of a game, willing to ignore the fluff and fun aspects of wargaming (as this list obviously does), why on earth would he pick 40k as his game of choice? 40k is incredibly expensive in both money and time, and there are far cheaper options out there to scratch one's WAAC itch, even in the genre of tabletop wargaming.

 

Seems either illogical or masochistic to me.

Edited July 18, 2017 by FerociousBeast

[dtse]

 

i think it is in fact very survivable against alpha strike.

 

all of them are -1 to hit since they are supersonic

 

most of them will fit in -1 darkshroud bubble, so thats -2 to hit them...some armies can't even hit that

 

and then many of them wil have 4+ invuln....so I doubt you will be wiping this army off turn 1 as you say.

I'm sure you're right, was being glib with my morning coffee

 

Still:

 

Shoot the shrouds first.

Azreal is off table to begin, so no 4++

 

6 ven dreads with buff to hit/wound

2 leviathans

=most of that T6 list is toast

 

 

naw, you start azrael on table for sure, and the shroud is just as hard to kill with -1 to hit and 4+ invuln.  leviathans don't have range unless you put both in lucius pods and you have 2 other non-relic HS in the SAME detachment....which is probably about close to 800-900 point investment....so yea

 

 

 

I've always wondered.

 

If someone is the super competitive type who is interested only in the rules, list building, and competition side of a game, willing to ignore the fluff and fun aspects of wargaming (as this list obviously does), why on earth would he pick 40k as his game of choice? 40k is incredibly expensive in both money and time, and there are far cheaper options out there to scratch one's WAAC itch, even in the genre of tabletop wargaming.

 

Seems either illogical or masochistic to me.

 

Probably because GW has the best models.  People can be competitive and like fluff too you know, it doesnt have to be all one or the other.  I love hyper competition, but i also enjoy casual games, and I love the fluff and read all the horus heresy books.  These things are not as mutually exclusive as you make it out to be

[Andrés Pacheco]

 

I'm sure you're right, was being glib with my morning coffee :)

Still:

Shoot the shrouds first.

Azreal is off table to begin, so no 4++

6 ven dreads with buff to hit/wound

2 leviathans

=most of that T6 list is toast :)

 

 

naw, you start azrael on table for sure, and the shroud is just as hard to kill with -1 to hit and 4+ invuln.  leviathans don't have range unless you put both in lucius pods and you have 2 other non-relic HS in the SAME detachment....which is probably about close to 800-900 point investment....so yea

Cool, if Azreal starts in the table, you're right it gets a lot tougher. Couldn't figure out what the pod was for, which was why I'd jumped to conclusions. The flyers might have a hard time benefiting from his buff this way though, at least after the first turn. Still, tougher to shift than I'd thought, you're right.

 

Good catch about the relic allowance, I'd forgotten. You could switch a couple of the ven dreads for contemptor mortis, which I think are HS. Or maybe switch the leviathans for the new massive dread, if it's any good. Might solve the range issue too.

 

Either way, dreads vs. planes is a fight I'd happily watch :)

[Hoots]

Ha ha horrible stuff!

 

I'm wandering if the drop pod is a last turn line breaking unit?  Keep those flyers up and flying to deny them being easier to hit? maybe its for grabbing an objective thats worth good points?   Maybe you model it with the doors shut and hide azrael (out of line of sight) behind it as soon as you can to stop him getting shot at??

 

I think actually finding space on the board would be your biggest problem and could be th main killer.

Either way it's not my cup of tea

 

Hoots  

[dtse]

so the drop pod gives you the option of dropping azrael in beside your flyers on turn 1, or you could use it for linebreaker....trust me...these lists are not worried about tertiaries, they are going for tablings....

[Interrogator Stobz]

How will it do against a couple of Archerons with a couple of other Knights of any description? I faced them on the weekend and they are brutal, lucky T-Hawks add 12" to the range of guns or mine would have been toast.

 

I'm thinking that four units get to go first. The Archerons will deploy as close as possible, move 14", auto-hit 2D6 times and if three go unsaved kill the Shrouds turn one, and then stomp anything close. The other half of his army will get to work killing Azrael and friends, after that the Archerons will move to and corner the birds and auto-hit them with a threat range of 32".

 

Magnus + 3 Chaos Knights would be problematic with a butt tonne of mortal wounds delivered first turn, and normal Knight twin Battle cannons put out enough hurt to remove plenty of stuff in two turns too. That was another list of four models

The list looks cool enough, but resilience to the big guns of the 40kverse our codex alone does not have.

 

The big problems I faced were the small armies that win by going first with an epic alpha strike, and those armies with massive blobs of super cheap infantry protecting effective gun line and/or Psyker-smite spam. Although Guilliman gun line will also give our boys a hard time.

 

You need to go first in uber-competative 8th imho.

[dtse]

Yup.

[Solrac]

I wouldn't call this the current meta because one guy takes this list.

 

Team Tournaments are also a different kettle of fish. Once your team get's assigned another team, the team leaders take turns in assigning pairings. This list works in a team tournament setting because you can assign it against a list that will be bad against it.

 

Chaos Daemons/Space Marines with Daemon Prince spam, Magnus and Horror spam is more popular (faced two of them on the weekend). These lists wreck any flyer list because your DP's are characters so you can't shoot them with all the horrors around then they assault you and wreck all your flyers by multi assaulting cause you bunched them all together to get a buff from Azrael.

[dtse]

This is just an example of current meta. Stormraven spam would be more common. And spam in general. Horrors. Conscripts. Razorwings. Hemlock fighters. Knights. You name it. Our own major, Captal City Bloodbath in a few weeks will be a better indication of meta where it is now.

[Interrogator Stobz]

It will be cool to see a bunch of pics and to get some learning's from that tournament dtse, take a camera please :D

[dtse]

As usual there will be a full tournament report of the whole 3 day event including our doubles and singles major 40k

[the jeske]

I've always wondered.

 

If someone is the super competitive type who is interested only in the rules, list building, and competition side of a game, willing to ignore the fluff and fun aspects of wargaming (as this list obviously does), why on earth would he pick 40k as his game of choice? 40k is incredibly expensive in both money and time, and there are far cheaper options out there to scratch one's WAAC itch, even in the genre of tabletop wargaming.

 

Seems either illogical or masochistic to me.

largest pool of players. It is only that.

[Master Sheol]

I've always wondered.

 

If someone is the super competitive type who is interested only in the rules, list building, and competition side of a game, willing to ignore the fluff and fun aspects of wargaming (as this list obviously does), why on earth would he pick 40k as his game of choice? 40k is incredibly expensive in both money and time, and there are far cheaper options out there to scratch one's WAAC itch, even in the genre of tabletop wargaming.

 

Seems either illogical or masochistic to me.

Because GW games are the most player wargames of the planet and so a WAAC player can appoint himself as the best player of the planet and joke on fluff pmayers like us that he knows how to play and that we are just boobs

Yes its a very distorted view of what is funny in a wargame but i dont mind ETC and other "pro" tournaments

BTW that "DA" list is the ugliest one on the planet, i own just 1 DT and i will continue Using just one ;)