Editing List of 40K Cheese (section)

== 3rd Edition == 
Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch."  You could have a bright lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allowed 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; however, they were also the only thing keeping Eldar on the table - those customizable Exarchs, though cheesy, were expensive in an army with nerfed and expensive units and weapons. Eldar were largely bottom-tier in 3rd edition.

===3.5 Edition===
In general, 3.5 had 3 specifically cheesy armies, two of which belonged to Chaos.

====Necrons====
Necrons were introduced as a stand-alone codex army for the first time in 3.5. Their release was met with immediate hostility once neckbeards read their codex; here's why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hod0WtYE4SA|here is a video of their grand debut]
* Basic infantry guns that could kill a Land Raider with a lucky shot.
* "We'll Be Back!" made infantry immune to death as they basically had a 4++ that could be rolled after they failed their 3+ armour save and after your opponent was done shooting.
**Compounding that, the Resurrection Orb that ignored any of the restrictions previously applied to the WBB rule like instant death or bypassing armour saves in CC.
* Warscythes in abundance that ignored all saves and rolled 2D6 for pens.
* Veil of Darkness which allowed you to Deepstrike hop a unit all over the board.
* The fucking Monolith - immune to anything that wasn't S9/10 and/or ordnance, could deepstrike and never suffer a mishap, fixed your broken troops and could deepstrike in any from reserves. Oh, and Melta/Ordnance rules that gave better chances to penetrate armor? Into the trash they went thanks to ''Living Metal''. And for that extra little rub of salt in the wound, if you managed to damage it and get an "immobilized" result it would land but remain active (if immobile) unlike any other skimmer in 3rd that crashed and burned and got removed.

Necrons lacked the mind-boggling amount of possible unit and wargear combos that Chaos had access to (in fact, they were pretty light on both unit choices and wargear) but they earned the title "n00bcrons" for another reason: the cheese was so prevalent, so built into their army's very identity (i.e. "We'll be back!" and Gauss weaponry) that it was easily used (and occasionally abused) even by complete beginners more or less by accident.

====Chaos====
Going into third edition, Chaos was... unremarkable. Bland. Decent crunch-wise, but without the wealth of options to field Daemons/Cultists/Mutants/Fallen/Renegades/... they had in 2e. Pete Haines listened to the players (yes, GW did that back then) and Chapter Approved articles in White Dwarf did provide those variants over the years. Eventually GW decide to bring out a 3.5 Codex updated with all those options and a couple extra added on top... and that's where it went horribly wrong. A wealth of options meant a wealth of possible combinations and some were just... too much. They went from 'strong but expensive' to 'outrageous'. Here's a smattering of what CSM had in 3.5:

''Young cheese'' (things that were a-okay on their own but could combine into ungodly monstrosities.)
* Khornate chain axes: Being one of the only things that could outright modify armour saves, reducing them to 4+ unless worse, across the board - that's right, your terminator's save is no better than carapace armour against them. Ork Choppas did the same on an army-wide level for free back then.
* Unit Champions could take Psy Powers and even Daemon Weapons. Strong, but with only 1 HP it could turn very ugly very quickly both ways. 
* [[Possessed]] were expensive but they could ''buy'' their powers instead of rolling for them, which included rending, fleet ''and'' a magical bolt pistol shot, making them point-for-point one of the killiest assault units in the game, but with a 3+/5++ and a single HP they didn't last long if the enemy had any occasion to shoot/strike back at them.
*The [[World Eaters]] army list in general: Tough motherfuckers full of [[rage|RAEG]] that would murder the fuck out of everything they got their hands upon on the charge, giving the opponent the easy to understand but hard to solve problem of "shoot me before I reach you!" The only thing that kept them from being completely broken was their lack of firepower, jump packs and assault vehicles and the unpredictability of their special 'rage' rule that would give them a free "run" move on a dice roll of "1" (tested each turn, roll 2 dice with the ''correct'' wargear) but they had to rush toward the enemy even if it meant disembarking or leaving cover. It would leave them helpless in the open to be shot to death just as often as it allowed them to get into charge range to murder shit, which kept the army manageable (if unpredictable) to play both with and against.

''Aged cheese'' (This is where it started to get really ugly, although those things were still within hailing distance of manageable.)
* Chaos Lords that could out-punch anything, point-for-point.
* Vehicle upgrades that could regrow lost weapons and become mobile again on a 4+, ignore crew shaken/stunned ''and'' grant +1 AV on all sides.
* Bloodletters that wore the equivalent of Power Armour and wielded the equivalent of Power Swords. Basically an evil deep-striking Space Marine [[Honour Guard]] (albeit without guns).
* [[Sonic Weaponry]] - anything with a Mark of Slaanesh could exchange their guns for sonic weapons (and get access to the Slaaneshi armoury if they were characters). This lead to [[Rhino]]s, [[Dreadnought]]s, Defilers, Lords, Lieutenants, regular Marines, Chosen, Possessed, Aspiring Champions, Bikers, Havocs, Terminators and ''Predators'' all sporting Sonic Weapons. They weren't as good as they would become in later editions, but they were better than the Bolters and Autocannons they replaced (almost) for free.
* [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets introduced as both a monstrous creature and a walker, which made it pretty much invulnerable in melee against anything without Power Fists (or equivalent Strength-doubling CC weapons).
* [[Obliterator]]s. Back then they were fucking GOD-TIER - S/T5, two wounds, 2+/5++, loaded with heavy and special weapons they could freely choose from, Fearless, deep-striking and with ''slow and purposeful'' (that was supposed to limit their mobility but just allowed them to fire heavy weapons all the time). Even engaging them at close quarters wasn't a great option with their absurd tankiness and the fact they strike back with [[rape|S10]] Power Fist blows. Luckily for your opponents you could only take a single squad of up to three of them. Eventually they got FAQ'd down to T 4(5) which made them more vulnerable to meltagun/lascannon/power fist 'Instant Death' but they were still ''hard'' customers and an auto-take.

''Premium cheese'' (The really retarded things that could break the game. Never mind those costed arms and legs in points, unless the opponent knew what was coming and went to great lengths to avoid them, those things were "I-win" buttons.)
* A [[Daemon Prince]] with Power Armour, Wings and the Dread Axe. Tough, moved like jump pack infantry, a beastly statline, 3+/5++ and the really cheesy part: the Dread Axe ignored invulnerable saves and wounded on a 4+ unless better. Combined to the fact the DP was a monstrous creature that ignored armor saves; and you had a tough, fast motherfucker with a truckload of attacks that hit/wounded easily, ignored '''all''' saves and could easily consolidate from unit to unit, remaining locked in CC and untargetable the whole game as it solo'ed the enemy army. (And I wish I was exaggerating...)
* Siren. A Slaaneshi minor psychic power that made a model immune to shooting and blocked line of sight. Spam generously. Worst of all, it combo'd way too well with the Daemon Prince load-out above - hell, this thing could actually take on and defeat a Nightbringer back in the day with some luck.
* Veteran skills - ranging from 1-3 pts. per model, could be taken on any squad (only 1 skill for marked units) with higher costs for independent characters. You could load up whole squads that infiltrated, moved through cover and furiously charged.
* Chosen. Chosen were... absurdly powerful since you could make any member in the squad an aspiring champion, giving them access to the armoury. If they were marked and if you took a chosen squad in a multiple of the number of that god (Slaanesh 6, Nurgle 7, Khorne 8, Tzeentch 9), then the 10 pt. upgrade cost was free! Deathstar of 8 Khornate champion TERMINATORS that could butcher through anything (and I mean anything). A truckload of [[exploding dice]] S7 attacks ignoring armor saves on the charge coming out of a Land Raider to chain-rape unit after unit anyone? Or maybe a squad of 6 Slaaneshi Chosen all with Doom Sirens, plasma pistols and power weapons? If you prefer, 9 Tzeentchian Sorcerers [[troll|auto-succeeding on psychic tests thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch]] with psychic Heavy Bolters and Lascannons unleashing some next-level mind-bullet dakka (or alternatively turning everything into [[Chaos Spawn|those things]] or throw down templates that wounded on a 4+ and ignored armour and glanced vehicles)? Yeah, it was kinda like that back then...
* The [[Emperor's Children]] Legion list. Sirens, sirens you can't shoot and that will demolish you in CC everywhere.
* The [[Iron Warriors]] Legion list. Remember above where it said you could have only one unit of god-like Obliterators? Well, nope! Take as much as you can! Oh, and you can exchange two Fast Attack slots on the FOC for one more Heavy Support choice! More Obliterators? Well, nope, since they were elite but here came the second best thing: [[derp|the only ones amongst the Chaos Legions]], Iron Warriors had access to both the Vindicator from the loyalist armoury and the Basilisk from the Imperial Guard's armoury. You know, just in case the nine Obliterators ran into some trouble and needed some long- and/or close-range fire support!

Now, you'd think that with that generous amount of cheese, GW would get the message and stop piling it on... But then the world-wide "Eye of Terror" campaign happened and Chaos got another toy to play with - the Lost and the Damned army list. Veteran Chaos players actually rejoiced when it was announced as it meant they could go back to the 2nd ed days of fielding traitor Guard, Beastmen, mutants and other dregs supported by a very small number of traitor Marines. Sadly enough, while it did allow to do that, the army list came with its own rapetrain of cheese:

* The list allowed players to take units from the 3.5 CSM and Imperial Guard Codices in various FOC slots, as was announced. In practice, the (lack of) limitations amounted to taking the best of all worlds. 
* A cheap HQ choice (Chaos Lieutenant) that was point for point even more killy than the 3.5 Chaos Lord and way too good for the measly points paid.
* Mutants could be taken in huge cheap hordes that could tarpit pretty much anything forever.
* Big Mutants were awesome dakka blobs with 3 wounds each and great Chaos mark effects - basically, better Ogryns!
* Traitor guardsmen had better stats than loyalists, access to chaos marks, veteran skills here and there (Infiltrate ahoy!) and could wield '[[Bolter]]s'. Yes, said slapdash 'Bolters' had the same "Gets Hot!" rule as plasma weapons which meant you'd lose some traitors each time you fired but it was a very small price to pay to unleash an ungodly amount of dakka.

It's really no mystery as to why Chaos won the Eye of Terror campaign. Games Workshop, concerned with their future revenue streams from Spess Muhreen fanchildren, decided to basically reset the crunch and shift the timeline away from the event while attempting to balance (read: nerf to the ground) what it could in 4th edition.

===Honorable Mentions:===
====Blood Angels====
Blood Angels were tied with Khornate Berzerkers for the title of most killy fuckers in glorious melee. The 'zerkers were just a bit killier thanks to their chainaxes but the BA enjoyed better mobility thanks to being able to equip jump packs everywhere. That almost assured they would get that precious charge bonus of +1S and + 1I (on top of the +1A) from the army-wide Furious Charge, ensuring whatever they got their hands on would be [[rip and tear|brutally dismembered]]. For extra [[lulz]] you had the option to go for a full [[Death Company]] army that would forego any firepower for an army-wide FnP save on top of the [[rage|righteous fury at the death of Sanguinius]]. This said, each mini costed a premium when kitted-out, so it was an army of extremes: when things went right they'd table the enemy in three turns but when they went wrong they'd get tabled themselves in little more time, with few compromises due to the low model count.

====[[Imperial Guard]] Armored Division====
This one deserves an honorable mention as well, even if it quickly disappeared after the arrival of [[Necrons]] and their vehicle-killing Gauss everything and "We'll be Back!" shenanigans. Back in 3rd ed., vehicles were much less prevalent, as were the ways of dealing with them. Most armies had a couple of heavy weapons like Lascannons, some power fist equivalents and a melta-bomb here and there, and it was more than sufficient to deal with the occasional armoured behemoth. This list? It was [[rape|vehicles only!]] HQ? [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] variant. Troops? Leman Russ variants. Anything else? Leman Russ variants (with the token Infantry Squad in a Chimera). Park together covering the vulnerable rears, point battle cannons and let fly, all guns! Due to the lack of heavy weapons being able to affect the Russ' frontal AV, "all-rounder" armies stood little chance of doing anything.  Basically, fluff Imperial Guard tactics.