Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: 10th Edition’s Top 5 Armies
Goatboy here and the new 40K 10th edition has a lot of – haves and have nots. Here’s the five armies you need need to watch out for.
We’ve seen some big rules changes in 10th edition. It does feel like there is a great divide between the best armies and the worst armies to the point where we’ll hopefully see some FAQs soon. Either that, or we’ll have a summer of Space Elf doom for all the players hitting the Matched Play scene. But it isn’t just Space Elves as there are definitely a top 5 armies out there.
Now this isn’t to say all the other armies are bad. It is just all the others feel about right in their power level. Sure there are a few things that probably need to be relooked at but for the most part the game and indexes work. This is a huge thing as these things had to be done fairly quickly, tested quickly, and then released. The rules feel very locked in and while we know there are problem armies it does feel like GW is listening and watching. Just look at how Deathwatch was quickly dealt with.
“Who runs Bartertown? I run Bartertown!”
I expect a month or two of rough times and would advise any new player wanting to pick up Eldar and some of the other best armies to hold off a bit on the outlier good stuff. There isn’t a point in wasting time building, painting, and sourcing some of these models if we expect a Nerf to hit them pretty quickly. The new edition is fresh and GW is ready to stamp issues out quickly so don’t waste your time trying to find all that hard to get “resin/metal/3d printed” Space Elf nonsense that might not be good in a quick point update/rules change. A word of warning that many players who rush-built power armies right at the start of 8th and 9th were also sad pandas when GW quickly nerfed them. Anyone remember those flash in the pan Custodes jetbike, Storm Raven, and Culexus spam lists? I do.
1. Aeldari
This is the Top Dawg army right now in the current 40K Meta. I don’t expect its current rules to stay the same as we all know how busted they appear to be. Having a pile of “auto successes” that can generate Critical Hits and Wounds is a very big issue. This is one of the ways a game can break when you can guarantee a success and then guarantee a Critical Success. Losing the chance for a bad income is just not a good feeling in any game especially if you are playing into them. On top of just those sets of rules having access to a large amount of devastating wounds and Towering models becomes a big issue to deal with.
Then you add in all their movement tricks, Indirect shooting, and extremely under costed units and you have an army that can do it all. The Aeldari are on GW’s radar and if you don’t already own the broken models I would advise not investing in buying them till we see all the tweaks. The hype is real for these guys and we are just living in their world. The Aeldari right now, can play the range game, they can punch you in the face, and murder you with all their lasers.
2. Adeptus Custodes
This is probably the other lurking army that has some game like Aeldari. They have Mortal wound saves, Invulnerable saves, and powerful rules. While it isn’t nearly as busted as Aeldari it is an army that will give lots of other armies fits. It is one of the few “assault” based armies that can survive getting into combat and murdering all your friends. Adeptus Custodes are also a pretty cheap army that only needs one FW addition in the Caladius Grav-Tank if you want shooting anti-vehicle options.
I don’t know if they need the Caladius as again – you could just have a ton of bodies on the table and play the board control game. I don’t know if Adeptus Custodes are going to get nerfs in the first iteration of balancing I expect to see from GW so they might be safe. I would probably hold off on the FW side of purchases and just go with as many bodies on the table as again – the army appears simple enough to get with Custodian Guard, Wardens, and characters.
3. Thousand Sons
This again is another army that I feel is probably safe from nerfs beyond just answering some Doombolt questions. Their range is an issue and while yes they can put out a ton of damaging fire power a savvy Aeldari player can just play out of the range and murder them with efficient space lasers of doom. It is the same with how some of the Adeptus Custodes can just survive things with Mortal Wound protection and good saves all around. Still Thousand Sons are an army full of plastic models that seems like you could do well with it. You have movement tricks, good firepower in general, and a powerful army rule in the Ritual options you have. Magnus does seem good but with Towering Wraithknights murdering him from afar it just feels sad to try and play one of the sweet big monsters of doom.
4. Space Marines
Not all of the flavors of Space Marines are good (Cough cough… Space Wolves) but for the most part this is going to be the true gatekeeping army right now. Desolation Marines are way too cheap and effective at murdering hidden squishy bodies. The combos of Oath of Moment with other unit options can erase big things in the game.
Space Marines are not broken levels of nonsense like Aeldari, but they are something to watch out for. I expect some of the bad things to get an extreme change coming to them in the future – either tweaks in how in direct actually works or just point hikes – will see something coming soon. The edition is extremely lethal currently in the sheer amount of firepower the best armies can bring versus the other armies that just have to take it in the face.
5. Imperial Knights
I wish this was Chaos Knights – but Imperial Knights just push it over the edge a little bit. Towering is a big problem in the game right now with a lot of terrain having too many dang windows. This is where we need to look at either – changing how Towering works or just updating a ton of terrain to say these windows are closed. I didn’t like the old way where you could see the knight but they couldn’t see you. I am not sure how to tweak it beyond just making things more expensive to ensure you don’t have too many Knights on the table.
Still Imperial Knights got better with some of the Forge World ones (Coming soon in plastic it seems just in time to be used). Their army rule of completing a mission and getting army wide FNP with a bunch of powerful Auras just feels like it is an oppressive force. Thank goodness Aeldari are here to blast them with all their sweet lasers and keep this menace at bay… said no one.
Where We Are Right Now
These are the top 5 armies that seem poised to cause a lot of headache in the initial 40K 10th Edition Matched Play events. We have some other outliers too that feel alright rules wise but are the above are some of the worst armies out there. Orks got a lot of FW goodness and with the overall thoughts on kitbashing for Orks being ok we can expect some of the FW stuff to “show” up to events. You can also see how CSM looks like a powerful shooting army with 12 Oblits blowing things up out of LOS or Melting things in the face. GSC might be interesting too in that anything that can bring back so many models for “free” might be an issue. Time will tell on all of these.
I hope GW does a hard look at assault options too and help them out. They just don’t feel like they do enough with a ton of their AP dropped. Having the lower AP means even getting there they don’t do enough damage to warrant the investment in a model that doesn’t have some kind of pew pew option. Makes me sad to look at all my World Eaters sitting in a box wondering if they are going to get there and give all their friends a hug… of DEATH!
I look forward to serving our new Craftworld Overlords!
