[Veteran Sergeant]

I think you have this backwards. Good players can win with most armies. But a more powerful codex would allow bad players to win more often.

The question should be,"will a bad to mediocre player win more with Orks or tau?"

There's no forwards or backwards to what I posted.

You judge an army based on how one type of player can play it.

If an average gamer played all of the armies, against other average gamers, which one would he win the most games with? That's how you create a tiered list, because it eliminates the variables.

Will my Corvette beat nearly every Mustang around Nürburgring in Germany? Sure. Will I beat Michael Schumacher if he has the Mustang and I have my Corvette? Probably not. But the Corvette is still the superior car in every way.

However, if you give Schumacher both cars, what does he win more races with? Look at the tournament winners. It gives a pretty clear picture what the best armies are at any given time. It isn't like suddenly all the Grey Knights players forgot how to win games, and there was a Tau and Eldar Renaissance. Those armies are just better in their current forms.

 

[Igni Ferroque]

You are all missing the point here. When you make these lists you're are taking the player out of the equation and holding the army up to how well it plays in the 6th edition rules.

What I mean by taking the player out is that the players are both of equal skill. Be it a dumbass, a casual or a pro, the armies should theoretically have the same statistics for wins or loses.

If you dont play competitively dont bother reading these lists because as everyone has pointed out, a good player will be a mediocre player with a stronger army many times until the point that mediocre player becomes a good/better player. This is just common knowledge to everyone.

You look at these lists and say, "Ok the players are on equal footing, which army will come out on top?" There are some merits to these kinds of lists for players who just want to play the game competitively.

Krueger though raises a valid point that one flaw with these armies are only as good as the mission their fighting on and you'd need to play x amount of games in each scenario to see who is king in each mission and deployment type. Then you accumulate all this data and it should show who is top dog over all. I'd love to see this done as I love looking at statistics and spread-sheets.

Edit:

Might as well throw in my two currency as well and say DE could be tier 3 due to their ability to overwhelm nids. They cant really stand up to the tough stuff but they're definitely not a tier 4 army.

 

[Wusword77]

Will my Corvette beat nearly every Mustang around Nürburgring in Germany? Sure. Will I beat Michael Schumacher if he has the Mustang and I have my Corvette? Probably not. But the Corvette is still the superior car in every way.

You're comparing an American Muscle car and an all around sports car. It's apples to oranges. A corvette is designed to handle twists and curves while maintaining speed, while a mustang is designed for (mostly) drag racing and making that quarter mile time. Your taking the Mustang out of it's element, while putting the Corvette right where it was meant to be driven.

Would be better to compare something like a Cadi CTS and a BMW 5 series. Both designed to be sport sedans with similar capabilities. Most people would say the 5 series is the superior car but the driver would be the main determining factor on which car would win.

You look at these lists and say, "Ok the players are on equal footing, which army will come out on top?" There are some merits to these kinds of lists for players who just want to play the game competitively.

Except the listing still falls apart when you take different point levels, terrain, and missions into determining which books are good.

Just because 2 armies might with a good amount of games at 1850 points doesn't mean they will be as powerful/effective at 500 points.

 

[Kreuger]

Except the listing still falls apart when you take different point levels, terrain, and missions into determining which books are good.

Just because 2 armies might with a good amount of games at 1850 points doesn't mean they will be as powerful/effective at 500 points.

That was exactly my point. To get any sort of statistically reliable result and develop a leader board you would have to conduct a series of games at the same points, mission, etc. As many variables as possible need to be controlled, leaving the remaining variables as army book and player skill.

And if the players play enough games within those parameters, then the variability of the players can be accounted for statistically. Eventually what remains is the quality of the army book.

 

[Igni Ferroque]

Except the listing still falls apart when you take different point levels, terrain, and missions into determining which books are good.

Just because 2 armies might with a good amount of games at 1850 points doesn't mean they will be as powerful/effective at 500 points.

Except the majority of international leagues follow the same points limits. There are tournaments that go for different points limits but the big tournies all follow the same formula. For example, the European Team Championship have a set points limit to compete in their competitions. Its one of the biggest, if not the biggest European league, so armies could be judged by that standard in Europe. The same can be done for other major tournaments in other continents.

The end of the first post covers different scenario's. You just need to do the research and then you can list these army's with much more certainty who will do better at what and who is much more versatile.