Warahammer 40K: Blast From The Past – 5 Armies That Defined 7th Edition
The End of Warhammer 40,000 7th edition was only 4 years ago. Here are five of the armies that defined the era!
However you feel about 7th edition (which was really culmination of years of gaming and various previous editions), folks will always remember the armies that shaped the meta. Love them or hate them, the impacted the game in ways folks are sure to remember. Looking back, it wasn’t too difficult to remember a few of the armies that everyone loved, hated, or loved to hate. Let’s look back at Warhammer 40k 7th Edition.
Imperial Super Friends
Did you want to play a Marine faction but can’t decide? Well just take the best stuff from them all and play that! Oh and probably put them all on bikes and run them as a huge “Death Star” then they can share all the special rules and folks will LOVE it. So. Much. Fun.
Really you could extend this out to a bunch things but it wasn’t until the big Nerf came that this army became dead in the water…well mostly dead. At the end of the edition you could still pull off some shenanigans but no where what you used to be able to. Still, Super Friends were a thing for a chunk of 7th.
Tzeentch’s Re-Rollable ++2 / Daemon Summoning / Magnus & Friends
I’m lumping these together so that I an add more armies to the list, but also because they are mostly Tzeentchy themed. 7th Edition was very friendly to Chaos Daemons with their ability to dominate the Psychic Phase. Couple this with the ability to generate units for free that were able to hunker down on objectives and it was tough to deal with. Oh and let’s not skip over that whole re-roll your ++2 save era. Yeah, that was the BEST wasn’t it!?
The Gladius
You know how you deal with your opponent summoning more units? You just start the game will all your extra units on the board. “Free units” seemed to be a recurring problem in 7th…but the Gladius pretty much took the cake. Getting literally hundreds of extras points in your army in the form of free transports might not sound all that bad. But don’t forget that the Gladius made them scoring and they just flooded the field. Flyer problem? Where are they going to land as your carpet of bodies blocks off all the table. Did you lose an objective? Just toss more bodies on the pile. Oh and let’s play the “how many dice can I roll in a single turn” game while we’re at it.
Scat-Bike / Wraith Knights / Mass Eldar D
Before the name update to “Aeldari” the Eldar also had a really solid run in 7th edition – there was little they couldn’t do well. That’s why I’m lumping these different builds together because they all revolve around the Eldar doing their thing. Scatter Bikes were both extremely fast and could rain strength 6 death on targets from afar. Wraithknights with their D Shots and Gargantuan Creature status made them deadly at range or up close. And let’s not forget the massive amount of D shots Eldar could bring if they really wanted to. Yes, the Eldar in 7th were always a threat and I’m not even going to talk about what you could do if you brought Warp Spiders…
Taudar
Another pre-name update army, the Tau had options. The Utility Belt Commander from the Tau had a really good run in 7th well. Before the big nerf to sharing came, it wasn’t uncommon to see Tau [and something else] on the table. Tau and Eldar were a very popular combo, but I have seen Tau and Marines as well. Really, any excuse to fit in a contingent of Tau with the Commander along was used. It just seemed to plug a lot of holes other armies had – and you could bring a Stormsurge along for fun which probably helped.
Bonus: Allies Table
Look – I’m just going to leave this here and I think you all know why. The Allies chart is the enabler for a lot of the armies we all love to hate…I blame you Allies table. Most of the list wackiness came from folks figuring out the best way to use and abuse this chart. GW abandoned this chart for later editions but kept the idea around. Are we better or worse for it now? I’ll let you decide.
There are plenty more army builds out there that folks had issues with – what did we miss? Let us know in the comments.
