Goonhammer April faction tiers

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Goonhammer released their faction reviews:

www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-competitive-tier-list-april-2021/

Tyranids: second tier. Increased due to additions of good forgeworld units into our rosters
GSC: tier 4. Nothing changed here
Trash tier: Tau + thousand sons


Thousand sons in trash tier surprised me. I'd have imagined that their durable troops + good psychic presence would have allowed them to do well in 9e.

Thoughts or comments on any of the rankings?

[kazetanade]

TBH, I'm mostly in agreement on it. Total shat on AoW's original tier ranking where Nids were below GSC cuz "GSC has tools, Nids dont". like what.

Thousand Sons I think it's due to price vs tankiness scale. With Basic Marines going up to 2W, and TS staying on 1W, it's a hard matchup. The closest equivalent is GK and GK got so many tools in the bank it's not even funny. Most of CSM factions are currently near that bottom tier right now IIRC.

Also, I have not seen TS pick up after their codex at all other than Magnus, cuz something like 40k MWs out of his ass. I think there must be some fundamental flaws with their codex which they arent given tools to overcome at all. DG would have been in the same boat if they didnt have Mortarion, some really good fast bois, and some decent objectives to overcome the need for speed.

With LOS blocking terrain becoming prevalent, Nids will always come nearer to the top - in any meta where HG can do well, Tyranids do well, because HG have been our traditional carry unit since early 8th. With the loss of Transhuman on everything (being focused purely on Primaris gives us more options, such as targetting down VanVets, Bikers, etc. Also the fact that not everything has a 3++ or 4++ save helps), more LOS blocking, less prevalent Ignore LOS shooting elsewhere, HG have a good matchup where they dont have to be overly worried about things suddenly blowing it out of the water or reaching up underneath to be badtouched. Early on in 8th I'd found them increasingly hard to use and dropped them, but that was primarily due to HIGH number of Dense terrain being used in my area, which is not a tournament standard. Most maps that focus on LOS and have relatively little Dense will be great for HG.

[garg]

Exocrines are also strong thanks to the prevalence elite infantry and the ability to do d3.
I feel they are overreacting on sm going down in rankings. They have been the faction to beat for a good while coming into 9th so everyone specced to beat them. If sisters stay to then there will be a move to counter them.

[LordPathos]

[No One]

garg said:

I feel they are overreacting on sm going down in rankings. They have been the faction to beat for a good while coming into 9th so everyone specced to beat them. If sisters stay to then there will be a move to counter them.

They're a strong faction, but aren't top tier: sisters and harleys have been top tier for the entire edition, no people aren't going to suddenly start shifting to hard counter them. Either they can't without opening themselves up to the other factions, or they are as much as they can against a top tier faction that's top tier for a reason.

Also teching against SM is basically teching against DG and Custodes as well, and even if they aren't truly top tier, they're still strong and very meta prevalent.

[garg]

You are right that SM haven't been top in 9th. What i meant is that they were near the top since marines 2.0 in 8th. So some good players have moved on and everyone knows their tricks.
I don't feel it is an issue that they as an early codex are not the top faction. They are still good and have a lot of good units and builds. Necrons though may be more of an issue but i cant comment on how good they are out not.

[kazetanade]

Gonna be honest, the codex designs look pretty good right now - none of the codexes are universally strong and impossible to beat. None of the first 3 + 4 supplements feel grossly out of whack compared to their peers.

DE feels like the most possibly oppressive codex atm, but even that codex has some flaws that are exploitable. So overall in a good place atm. At least the armies have an actual varied playstyle.

[hiveoverall]

Apr 15, 2021 10:08:41 GMT kazetanade said:

Gonna be honest, the codex designs look pretty good right now - none of the codexes are universally strong and impossible to beat. None of the first 3 + 4 supplements feel grossly out of whack compared to their peers.

DE feels like the most possibly oppressive codex atm, but even that codex has some flaws that are exploitable. So overall in a good place atm. At least the armies have an actual varied playstyle.

What flaws ? If you tech against them, you are screwed against DG DA custodes etc. and you are only good against harlquins and ork boy spam

Also, blowing up their transports is not as easy as it seems, and they are VERY cheap.

It feels extremely oppressive. I play orks and DA, not just nid. its going to be rough

[kazetanade]

There are a few weaknesses that are there:

1. Subaceptibility to half move,advance, and half charge rolls.

2. Difficulty in peeling onion layers and will die to most weight of attack.

3. Very dependant on their transports to keep them safe before engagement, very squishy and vulnerable outside of combat.

4. Unable to hold objectives that the enemy is not on, due to innate fragility.

5. Guns are poor - having 5 or 6 dark lances in an army does not make much for anti-tank guns, and poison bounces off marines esp in cover. They have to engage into combat to do work.

6. Extremely cp hungry, with what seems like very little defensive tools other than Lightning Reflex.

There may be more, but those are the first few I really noticed.

[purestrain]

idk, just spam 3+ poison at anything and laugh while your characters do work