The Lesser Races

Thought it would be useful for all fellow archons out there to have a single thread with consise infomation on other races in the 40K universe, there strengths and weaknesses (particularly against us). Please feel free to add your own

Eldar
Strengths:
- Fantastic transports, wave serpents are fast, can have an incredible choice of weapons and upgrades against many weapons
- Close range shooting, you don't want to end up 12" away from an eldar player. There standard weapons are often Assault 2 and negate our pitiful armour save
- Dire Avengers, another great troop choice with good mid-range weapons and a decent BS and WS, ability to fire twice (assault 4 weapons ouch) or the ability to minus 1 attack from assaulters
- Wraithlords and Wraithguard, generally very powerful units with devastating guns, high toughness and not something to usually go into close combat with
- Fire Dragons, so much melta potential
-Psychic attacks, some of the powers available to a farseer or warlock can be devastating and turn the tide of many battles
-Howling Banshees, great close combat unit with plenty of power weapon attacks and the ability to turn your initiave to 1 in the first round of assault
-Very Mobile army
-Pathfinders, arguably the best scout options in the 40K universe- plenty of rends
-High leaderships

Weaknesses (against DE)
-General lower BS/WS
- Not a great deal of invulnerable saves
- Poisioned weapons make mincemeat of wraith constructs
- General lack of ranged attacks
-Low toughness

Tau
Strengths:
- Great wound allocation on battlesuits (drones will die)
- Massive range
- High powered basic weapons, enough to blow up our transports
- Pinning weapons, be prepared to fail leaderships
- Very high powered heavy weapons, auto-glance against us
- Can be quite mobile in some lists
- Upgrades allowing same squads to shoot at different targets
- Markerlights- no more cover saves for you :/
- Decent saves

Weaknesses:
- Suck in close combat, really really suck
- Can be quite a stationary army, lack of mobility
- Low toughness
- Low BS/ very low WS

Chaos
Strengths:
- Deep strike on to the board
- Good balance of close combat units, some tough, some strong, some fast
- Powerful HQs
- Some good Close range shooting
- Flamers of Tzeentch- these really really hurt everything
- All have invulnerable saves

Weaknesses:
- Random deployment
- Random allocation of which part of the army comes on first
- Poor shooting
- Struggle to take out vehicles
- Not particularly mobile
- Poor heavy support options

Necrons
Strengths
- High toughness
- Decent saves
- "We will be back" expect them to get up again
- Powerful template and blast weapons
- Powerful special HQ rules that will annoy you
- Good shooting
- Good leadership

Weaknesses
- Poor in close combat
- low initiative
- Stationary army
- Expensive

Grey Knights
Strengths:
- High strength and toughness
- Great saves
- Many special rules making them great at everything
- Mobile
- Strong weapons
- Matt Ward wrote the codex
- Good in close combat
- Good shooting
- Powerful heavy weapons

Weaknesses:
- Very expensive units
- Lots of 24" heavy weapons so vulnerable to Nightshields, sometimes
- Can be outranged, sometimes
- Can be vulnerable to very mobile armies, sometimes
- Vulnerable to overwhelming shooting attacks, sometimes

Vanilla Marines
Strengths:
- Well balanced army
- Good toughness and Strength
- Great armour saves
- Good variability of heavy weapons
- Versatile
- Good armour on vehicles
- Average in close combat
- Good range
- Powerful heavy weapons

Weaknesses:
- Relativly expensive units
- Not the most mobile
- Can be beaten in close combat
- Can become reliant on cover

Space Wolves
Strengths:
- Some Fast units
- Strong and Tough
- Many close combat attacks
- Death star units "cough thunderwolf cavalry OP cough"
- Good range
- Good saves
- Counter attack

Weaknesses:
- Can be relativly immobile
- LoS
- Poisoned weapons on high toughness charectors

Chaos Space Marines
See vanilla marines but more spiky

Imperial Guard
Strengths:
- Very cheap, looking at either a horde shooting army or enough Tanks to make General Patterson cry
- Ordinance and Blast weapons
- Soooo many tanks
- Soooo many Vendettas and Valkyries
- Hydra tanks. Bye bye skimmers
- Good mobility
- Lots of medium powered multiple shot weapons

Weaknesses:
- Men are low toughness and have appauling saves (just like us)
- Low strength basic weapons
- Poor in close combat
- (mech armies have no weakness)

Orks
Strengths:
- Great in close combat
- Lots of poorly aimed shots
- Cheap horde army
- Win by attrition
- Tough Nobz
- Random events
- WAGHHH

Weaknesses:
- They are there own weakness
- Poor armour saves generally
- Poor shooting generally
- Random Events
- Can be slowed down once they have lost there vehicles
- Low Leaderships

I'll comment on what I've ran in the past, which is wolves.

Wolves can be a nightmare for DE. Specially in razorback, triple long fang builds with multiple living lightning rune priests. Also, as they have counter attack, I wouldn't say they dont like being assaulted, in fact they almost prefer it as they can rapid fire you first. Add in wolf banners and mark of the wulfen and you have troops that will tear up wyches even when they assault.

The thunderwolf build is not the strongest and is becoming less popular due to GK force sword shenanigans. The problem is heavy shooting that can drop AV10 transports quickly and split fire, along with troops that wont get swept over in an assault.

First of all, nice attempt to make all of this. However, you're missing Black Templar, Blood Angels, and Sisters of Battle...

Also, some of these have inconsistencies...like you say alot about eldar shooting, and then in their weaknesses you put "general lack of ranged attacks". Which makes no sense...

Thirdly, you should add alot more about each other race as you do about eldar. I understand that maybe you face eldar more or maybe play them also, but if you update this guide please try and flesh out the others.

So maybe the rest of us can help you out with this guide and make it more usable for everyone

PS; sorry if it sounds like I'm bringing your topic down, I mean absolutely no harm and am just trying to help

I do agree, the reason I made the thread was so people like yourself can add or improve anything that you have experiance on such as Levitus who gave another view (and likly a more experianced view) on Wolves.

Secondly the reason I only have only put some of the races up is because I play those guys a fair amount (Space wolves the least) and I don't feel that I could put up the other's as I have very little experiance against them, I will leave that to others with more experiance!

Fleshing out the rest will eventually happen, at the moment Im right in the middle of Uni exams so time is short!

With reference to the eldar shooting the actual OP says "close range shooting" so I don't see any inconsistancy there. And as with any tactica it could all be useless as lists can vary so much, I mean imagine trying to write one for a DE list when one might be a Fully meched venomspam and another may be a coven army!

If you do know about some of the not mentioned races please post about them

Its a really cool post, just needs user input from those that play or play against the army often. Then we'll all have 'preferred enemy' eventually. Like where it is heading.

I have played every current edition book in the past year (my GW has a very diverse gaming community) So I guess I will give a quick overview of every army and how they pertain to DE.

Blue Book Marines:
Avantages:
Marine Statline
ATKNF
Combat Tactics
Special Characters may be taken to replace Combat Tactics with other special abilities for customization
A ton of competient builds
Free/cheap upgrades when taken in squads of 10
Versitile
Great Vehicles
Hammerators
Null Zone

Disavantages:
Must take squads of 10 for their upgrades
reliance on combat squads for objective based missions
expensive troop choices
reliance on MEQ statline and Power Fist to win combat with any unit other than Hammerators

Space Wolves:
Avantages:
MEQ Statline
ATKNF
Great in assault
3 HQs
One of the best psychic defense in the game
Some of the best psychic powers in the game
Grey Hunters are one of the best troops in the game
Thunder Wolves
Long Fangs
Wolf Scouts

Disavantages
Low leadership without Wolf Guard
Can get expensive if you dont limit upgrades
Most SW players rely on their LongFangs, Melta, and Razorbacks for AT, so if you whipe out the LongFangs and stunlock Razorbacks, you pretty set

Blood Angels:
Avantages:
MEQ statline
ATKNF
DoA
FNP bubble
Assault Marines as troops
Cheap Razorbacks
Fast vehicles
Good psychic abilities
Blood Talon Dreads
Mephiston

Disavantages:
Reliances on fast Razorbacks, stunlock them and you good
Can not assault after DoA, so they drop, shoot their melta, and then die

Dark Angels:
Avantages:
MEQ statline
ATKNF
Terminators as troops
Bikes as troops
FNP and Banner on one termie or bike squad

Disavantages:
Only two really good reliable builds
any of their normal Marine stuff is overpriced

Black Templars
Avantages:
MEQ Statline
ATKNF
only army that gets closer when you shoot them
Army wide prefered enemy
Tank hunters cyclone termies
Blessed Hull Land Raider
Mixed squads can help with wound allocation

Disavantages:
Most of their stuff is overpriced

Grey Knights:
Avantages:
MEQ statline
ATKNF
Great psychic powers
Power weapon armed marines
Amazing shooting
Fortitude
Psybolts, and to an extention Psyflemen
Palidins
Wound allocation
Multiple competitive builds

Disavantages:
Can get very expensive
arent really that good in assault when assaulted

Imperial Guard:
Avantages:
Strong shooting
Hydras
A ton of AV12
A ton of S6 and S7 shots
Battle psykers
broken in DoW deployment

Disavantages:
BS3 average
Weak in combat
Very static

Sisters of Battle:
Avantages:
Power armor
Faith Powers
A ton of melta
6+ Invul on tanks
Exorsists
Scouting 4x meltas

Disavantages:
Must take Jacobs for HQ if they want to be competitive
Expensive for what you get
Most units are terrible

Chaos Space Marines:
Avantages
MEQ statline
Ok in assault
Oblits
Lash and Bolt sorcerors or princes
Plauge Marines
Deamon Bomb

Disavantages:
Expensive if you arent careful about upgrades
Nothing really stands them out

Chaos Daemons:
Avantages
All with Invuls
Bolt
Plague bearers
Blood cushers
Fateweaver
Alot of multiwound models

Disavantages:
Reliance on Bolt for AT duties
Random deployment
Must deepstrike

Eldar:
Avantages:
Some of the best psychic powers in the game
One of the best psychic defense in the game
Alot of AV 12
Alot of S6 shooting
Manuverable
Seer Councils

Disavantages:
BS3
Highly specialized
Expensive if you dont watch your upgrades

Orks:
Avantages:
Point for point, Ork Boyz are the best troops
Kustom Force Field
Lootas
Nob Bikerz
Wound allocation

Disavantages:
BS2
Little choice for long range AT options
Low armor saves
Dont like being charged

Tau:
Avantages:
Ton of long range fire
S5 basic gun
S10 AT weaponry
Wound allocation with Crisis Suits and Drones

Disavantages:
BS3
Low Leadership
Weak in combat
Can be very static

Necrons:
Avantages:
Very resilient
Great shooting
Several turns of night fighting
Scarabs
Very customizable with Court
AV 13
Can ignore shaken and stun results

Disavantages:
Weak in assault
open topped vehicles
have only really scarabs and S8 shots to deal with tanks

Tyranids:
Avantages:
High toughness
High wound count
Horde style
Hive Guard
Can spawn troops for objective based games

Disavantages:
High toughness is overcome with poison fire
low number of Hive Guard
have to deal with tanks in close combat.


Ok... I think Ive touched on every race. If I miss anything, let me know

Orks - Watch out for Big Meks who will carry either shokk attack guns (str 2d6 ap 2 ordinance - has all sorts of crazy special effects) or Kustom Force Fields (5+ cover save, vehicles are considered obscured), and Weird Boyz (random psychic attacks, but really nasty ones).

I've also found that Boyz like being charged just fine... They are much better in CC than at range.

They make up for their lack of BS with their sheer number of shots (normal gun is an assault 2 bolter)

forgot KFF, so I added that

as for Boyz being charged, the question comes do you want 3 attacks per Boy at S3, or 4 attacks per boy at S4? I already know which one I want

Normally when Boyz get charged by anything, its the Power Klaw that grinds them out, but by then they are normally mauled enough that they arent as much of a threat as they were before in their mob form.

XD Of course you want 4 attacks at S4, but 3 attacks at S3 isn't too shabby, and while their BS is only 2, their WS is 4, so they hit a lot more reliably.

You really should add the Shokk Attack gun to the list too, as it has a 60" range, is ordinance (cover saves what? XD), and can potentially take most of an entire unit off the field with no saves of any kind allowed (on a roll of double 6's)

Orks also have the potential to take as many vehicles as we can (albeit in squadrons), and those vehicles typically are better armored than we are...

Yeah Shok attack guns can be lethal, the first time I played with my Dark Eldar I watched one roll double 6 and watched my Archon and 10x Bloodbrides disapear... However it can also be useless, like the result which fires the Big-Mek into close combat, not good when it runs into some pretty angry incubi!

XD I would be more angry about just having the mek disappear... or hitting his own unit instead...

i run 9 kans with a BW ( buy a cheap little nob squad to take it). Us DE players can have a very hard time dealing with the 4+ cover save on the kans and the sheer amount of AV11. Orks can be strong against DE by either being extremely mechanized or by playing the green tide. Green tide lists sneak up on a lot of unprepared DE lists because they laugh in the face of anything that we have that is even slightly elite (incubi, wyches, w/e else) because even if our CC units wipe out the mob, another one is just going to counter charge and obliterate us. A good Ork general is still a formidable foe against any DE list.

They have a hard time laughing at us eating 100+ poisoned shots a turn, in my experience.
Generally i think Orks are a favorable matchup for any competent DE general.

Mech is not tough enough to withstand what we take for really strong mech, AI is covered just by taking our army and venoms, good CC options (helions blob, beasts) maul them in CC. Razorwing is insta bad news for orks and their single answer for us - Lootas.

ur right completely. Any DE general worth half their wits will only lose 1 vehicle to a squad of lootas in most cases. They are such an easy target to take out due to their leadership 7. Lootas arnt a problem for DE in the slightest. However, most people bring 3x ravagers which leaves them open to the green tide. 100 poisoned shots a turn really wont stop a green tide list if the general is competent

Orks is not always a particularly difficult match up, and i do agree that it tends to be favorable to us in most circumstances. However, the ork book has evolved and stayed competitive by relying on one concept which is its ability to spam. The ork book can spam AV14, 11 dreadnoughts, or 150+ bodies and all of these three builds incorporate extremely point effective units. The concpet of an "all around" ork list has really diminished with time. All "around lists" can suffer greatly from this "gimmick" of spamming that orks pull off.

The DE book really does well in most cases vs orks, but like all the other books our lists have pockets of venerability that are often overlook because we never anticipate those weaknesses to be made evident and exploited, and the ork book does an extremely great job at prying on subtle over looked weaknesses that we never anticipate on having a problem with. That is where the ork threat lies

Orks can give us real problems. Spamming boyz units with rokkit launchers, killa kanz and big meks can be an absolute nightmare for us.
At the minute where I play the ability to take down AV 11/12 spam is on the rise so this is a pretty popular ork list. The big Meks save makes it difficult to take out the rokkits before your skimmers are on the ground. After that the green tide can just sweep you up. Obviously we have counters, but not a regular list counter.

Kenny the Trueborn's last sentence is correct and summarizes directly. We cannot simply bend over backwards and tailor our lists to be anti ork when orks arnt seen as much as they once were and the tailored ork list would suffer greatly against other tournament lists. Orks have always been based around spamming a gimmicky tactic, and although many of those gimmicks have become outdated (trukk spam, nob bikers) some of the builds are still competitive and quite nasty (kan wall, battlewagon spam, green tide)