Some insights into competitive 6th edition

Let's have a quick glance at two of the most competitive Space Marine list to get an idea of what makes something competitive. Note that this is intended as a rough list. If you want to see actual lists just Google 'Tournament winning white scar army' or 'Super friends bike army' and you find them readily enough.

When life doesn't give you grav-guns > > > Black Scars!

Chapter master with bike, power fist, shield eternal, melta bombs, artificer armour
Kho'Sarro Khan on Moondrakan
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Bikes (6) with 2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs
Storm talon with skyhammer missile launcher
Storm talon with skyhammer missile launcher
Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon

SUPER FRIENDS (White Scars with Space Wolf allies)
Chapter Master with bike, thunder hammer, shield eternal, melta bombs, artificer armour
Kho'Sarro Khan on Moondrakan
Wolf Lord on bike with stuff incl. thunder hammer
Rune Priest on bike with stuff
Command Squad with apothecary, grav guns, a smattering of storm shields
Tactical Squad with Rhino and flamer
Tactical Squad with Rhino and flamer
Grey Hunters in Drop pod (with meltas if I remember correctly)
Stalker
Stalker

These two armies play quite differently but have some similarities. We'll start with those: Massed grav-guns on bikes (who have relentless and so always fire salvo 3) efficiently kill most of the game's more annoying/better units - all around AV14, broadsides, riptides, crisis suits, Wraithknights, tyranid monstrous creatures, Ork nob bikers, devastator centurions, obliterators, wave-serpents, eldar jetbikes, demon princes with power armour, plague marines, other bikes, sternguard, death company, Sanguinary guard etc

Stalkers and Storm Talons provide cheap anti-air that isn't redundant against ground units. Storm talons mow through infantry squads at a good clip, and Stalkers are very adept at popping transports, notably Venoms. In my experience, both get overwhelmed quite quickly by 2 Helldrakes, who then proceed to annihilate a bike squad each turn, but Chaos Space Marines aren't very popular at the moment because they don't have much going for them besides Helldrakes (Demon flying circus with Drakes on the other hand...)

The Chapter master on bike can fire his orbital bombardment whenever he wants because the bike makes him relentless, which is awesome. In the early game he can mill about with Khan and a squad of bikes to tank wounds for them (you can look out sir anything you don't like the look of, and otherwise take your 2+/3++ and 4 wounds to the bank) until they get close enough to hurt something. He then breaks off to charge something (typically a tank or something else he can pulverise with his fist), while the squad grav guns something down and mops it up in assault.

White Scars have hit and run on their bikes, which mean they never get bogged down in assaults and can effectively stop a unit from shooting by staying in CC with them before hit and running to do something else on your turn (like capture an objective). Khan also gives you scout, which means you can get right up in a Tau players face and grav gun all his shiny shooters to scrap before he offloads substantial pain.

The rune priest provides psychic protection, notably from Eldar Seer Stars. The Dark Angels librarian used by other lists does as well, but less effectively. He does, however, grant prescience to the HQ death star unit, which is pretty amazing.

The main difference between these two lists is that Super Friends is heavily reliant on its death star (the CM, Khan, Wolf Lord, Rune Priest and command squad). It is a very hard unit to hurt, perform amazing multi-charges, kill anything and break apart in the final turns to contest multiple objectives in distant corners of the board. The Stalkers are there to kill flyers and transports while the tactical just walk around collecting objectives. Super Friends was designed to counter a meta-game of Taudau, Demon flying circus, Pink-star and Seerstar lists, and did a fine job of it.

The top list is somewhat more conventional. It has a huge number of troops units that can hurt any other unit in the game that doesn't fly and can capture objectives in a hurry. The storm talons kill the flyers. The thunderfire cannons kill the hordes the bikes can't pour enough bolts into (but nobody plays Tyranids or Orks competitively right now anyway). Note that the tactical squads with the flamers perform the anti-horde function for Super Friends (and Stalkers do a pretty good job too). Bikes are hard to hide from. They also provide great board and tempo control with their ability to cut off movement lanes and tie up units in assault before breaking away with hit and run. They are also quite cheap.

So what can we learn about what makes these armies competitive?
- Plenty of scoring options (both armies have 5+)
- Speed, especially on scoring/contesting units
- Redundancy (i.e. plenty of things all doing the same thing)
- Counters to the most obvious meta-game threats
- Some band-aids for the holes that do exist (thunderfire cannons and anti-air)