List of 40K Cheese

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The history of Warhammer 40,000 is a history of violence. No matter what people will tell you, the game has always had excessive problems with imbalance, min-maxing and blatant bullshit - From the days of Rogue Trader to modern day 7th Edition, the game has fostered many cheesy units, army lists or deathstars, who have changed the meta and repeatably broken the game - Not through players maximizing their gear or people abusing unclear rules, but by simply being awfully balanced and written.

Fortunately, many of these, if not all of them, are the very concept of "The flame that burn twice as bright dies twice as fast", as they all got their reckoning at some point or another. Being either nerfed to the ground, changed to the core or completely removed from the game, this allowed the next-cheesy thing to step in with a silly hat and a way too small point-tax.

But life will go on. New codices will be under/overpowered and grind the others to dirt, the meta will change to deal with what-ever is the most powerful at the moment, and the forums will be white-hot with rage over the unbalance present, but life will go on, and as soon as you accept this eternal struggle for our fun and wallets, you will be at peace.

As time goes on, this list will grow, to encompass more and more cheese as it gets released. If you feel that a unit, model or deathstar needs mentioning in the list, feel free to add to it with your own experiences and knowledge.

2nd Edition

Polymorphine: Assassins used to be able to magically appear in the middle of a squad via Polymorphine (killing a troop when you exploded out of his body, leading to such shenanigans as a Guardsman hiding a dude in power armor on a bike). Then Jump Pack over and throw a Vortex Grenade and killing anything on a +2.

3rd Edition

Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch" You could have a blight Lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allow you to jump all over the field. Then add a Powerfield that gave you a +2 invulnerable save) This was just one of many cheese custom Exarchs that were possible.

4th Edition

Fish of Fury

It has its own page, but the basic gist involved using a semi-invulnerable troop transport as a mobile bunker for the otherwise assault-prone Fire Warriors.

5th Edition

Grey Knights *cough* Matt Ward *cough*

6th Edition

The Heldrake

The Heldrake was added to the 6th Edition Chaos Space Marine Codex as a new unique flier. The Codex itself was generally considered a weak book, and many cried that the CSMs would be left in the dust... Which would have been true, was it not for the Heldrake. As the only flier in the codex, and by far one of the most efficient ones in the entire game at the moment of release, it became the crutch for the entire codex. It could singlehandedly take on entire squads of Space Marines with impunity, because of 1) An AP 3 flamer, that everyone upgraded the Hades Autocannon to get and which could fire from its cavernous rear due to RAW, 2) the Vector Strike rule, that made it able to strike the unit it would be about to toast and 3) being a flier, few things could take it down quickly enough. Three of them could be taken in the Fast Attack slot, and you can be sure that people did just that.

With the arrival of 7th Edition, the rules for Turret-mounted weapons got changed (no more asses of fire), as did the changes to Vector Strike - Now, the flamer can only be placed wherever the mouth is pointing, and because it is a flier, it cannot just swivel around to hit an enemy like it used to. On top of that, Vector Strike only does one attack on ground enemies, compared to the old D3+1 that it hit everything with. Nowadays, the Heldrake is still a tough, fast flier, that can take out both fliers and infantry, but it isn't so overpowered that every CSM player has to have three of them in any army list.

And again with the arrival of 8th edition it's kinda back, it's pricier (like most vehicles) and while it's not that good it now has its asses of fire (and wings of fire, and legs of fire, and belly buttons of fire...) back and its Baleflamer is nasty but it's now only wounds MEQs on a 3+ and is only AP -2, it's good with being able to do 12 wounds and all, but it really shines against Tau infantry gunlines. While Tau aren't as common as all of the many many many SM chapters, thanks to 7th edition many players started collecting Tau and they're still seen. When Tau are seen, as you deploy your Heldrake you can be fairly certain that mass fire warriors won't do too much damage to it but god help you if you even let a crisis see it, which is easier than you think.

Chapter Master Smashfucker

Smashfucker is a character build for the Iron Hands that exploits several durability-boosting relics to become nigh-unkillable for a fraction of the points cost of a named character.

7th Edition

The Entirety of 7th Edition Eldar: No really, they're completely fucking broken. The entire army can be considered unholy rotten cheese, worthy only of being boycotted against. You know they're bad when the only way to beat them is to tell your opponent, "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Eldar!" Unless of course you play Space Marines or Necrons, who have access to gravspam (especially useful against Wraith) and resurrection cheese respectively. Any other post-Necron codex isn't bad either, but less certain than these first two. Which brings us to...

The Skyhammer Annihilation Force, a Space Marine dataslate formation. Two Devastator squads in drop pods that ignore Drop Pod Assault, and two Assault Squads with jump packs. The devs are Relentless on the turn they Deep Strike, and the assault squads can charge immediately.

Gladius Strike Force: Space Marines' detachment-size formation. Anything in a Battle Demi-Company is Objective Secured, and any Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorbacks taken as dedicated transport have their base cost reduced to 0 if you take two demi-companies.

The Screamerstar, a combination of artifacts and psychic powers that gives a unit of Screamers a 2+ Invulnerable Save while rerolling results of 1, making them effectively invincible.

Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation: Includes units from Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and and Imperial Knights. Everything has Canticles of the Omnissiah, all wargear is free, and nothing Gets Hot. Have fun.