6 Oct 2026, overnight (00:20 to 01:45 Pacific). A search for a second 11th-edition human tier list for the twelve armies whose reviewer yardstick has only one. Nothing here joins a ledger, the frozen inputs or a yardstick: the new panel is marked "reference: candidate second list (T-733), not in any yardstick until Jordan approves".
In plain English
- Seven new candidates, all real: every one was confirmed by YouTube's own title, channel and date, or by the Reddit post itself. They cover four armies: Orks (four lists), Dark Angels, Agents of the Imperium and Death Guard (one each).
- One became a panel: Auspex Tactics' Orks list (22 Aug 2026). It is the only human Orks list we now hold, because the Sprues & Brews Orks file was retired on 3 Oct as a codex review, not a tier list.
- Its weak spot: it was checked against the video's chapter list, not its captions. YouTube refused this machine every caption request all night (four tries, 15 minutes apart, from 00:40 to 01:26). So its reliability is low-medium.
- Still to transcribe: four lists are drafted from the video but can't be checked against the captions yet. They are Art of War and Secondary Objective on Orks, Grimdark Breakdown on Dark Angels and Brother Tobias on Agents. They wait for a session where YouTube serves captions.
- Nothing new found for seven armies: Adeptus Mechanicus, Astra Militarum, Blood Angels, Drukhari, Emperor's Children, Thousand Sons and Leagues of Votann. Space Wolves has no list in the window graded on the rules before its new codex.
- What Jordan decides is in the table at the end.
How we searched and checked
- YouTube, directly: YouTube's own search, read with curl: about 40 queries such as "<army> tier list 11th edition", "unit tier list", "every datasheet ranked" and "best to worst", plus German, French and Spanish wordings. Every hit was dated by its watch page (publishDate) and named by YouTube's oEmbed (title and channel).
- Reddit: read through pullpush.io, because Reddit blocks this machine. Faction subreddits were searched for "tier list", "tierlist" and "ranked" between 1 June and 30 September 2026, and each post Gemini named was read by its id.
- Gemini with Google Search (tools/askgemini.js, 4 questions):
- what it looked for: blogs, articles, podcasts, Reddit and other languages, plus dates for the Ork candidates;
- every link it gave was checked as above. It invented none this time;
- twice it named a Reddit post as a separate list when the post only links a list we already hold (below).
- The web: two searches for tier lists in blogs and articles. Tabletop Battles' datasheet reviews are prose, with no grades.
- Already rejected on 3 Oct (reports/tiers/sources/2026-10-03-rejected-sources.csv): those candidates were not reopened.
- Transcribing: Gemini watched each verified video at low resolution and drafted unit, row and minute. A draft is a GEMINI AGGREGATE and is kept raw in build/gemini/t733/ (git-ignored), with the tools used. A draft becomes a panel only where the video's captions, or its page text, confirm it.
The rules applied:
- 11th edition only (June 2026 on), published 1 June to 30 September 2026;
- Space Wolves graded on the rules before their new codex;
- human-made only: YouTube, podcast, blog, article, or a Reddit post with a full list;
- never Listhammer;
- unit names and letters only, any note in our own words.
Army by army
Counts are candidates found / verified / transcribed. "In window" means 1 June to 30 September 2026.
Adeptus Mechanicus (holds Belisarius Paul): 0 / 0 / 0
- Gemini twice offered r/AdeptusMechanicus "Would love feedback on this 11th edition tier list I made!" (u/Dead_tread, 5 Aug 2026). Pullpush shows it is a link post to Belisarius Paul's own video, so it is the list we already hold.
- Astrategas Wargames (May 2026, 10th edition) and Omnii's detachment and points videos were already rejected on 3 Oct.
- Nothing else in the window.
Agents of the Imperium (holds Inquisitor Varik): 1 / 1 / 0
- Brother Tobias, "Agents of the Imperium as ALLIES for Ultramarines! Warhammer 40.000 Tierlist" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_8yt8cB4Iw).
- Verified: oEmbed and watch page; a 73-minute stream that started 1 Sep 2026 (UTC) and was published 2 Sep.
- What it is: a different question from Varik's. It grades the Agents as allies in an Ultramarines army, in three rows: playable, needs imagination, and garbage.
- Not transcribed: the video has no chapter list and the captions were refused. Gemini's draft (23 placements) is kept, but it mixes up characters (Coteaz and Karamazov) and groups three squads. It needs the captions.
- r/ImperialAgents_40K "Imperial agents vs 11th Edition...A Tier List" is Varik's own list (same title).
Astra Militarum (holds Auspex Tactics): 0 / 0 / 0
- None in the window. Already rejected on 3 Oct: Auspex's launch winners-and-losers video, Vanguard Tactics' overview, Astrategas (27 May, 10th edition) and Battleborn (1 Oct, outside the window).
- Mordian Glory's guides are not tier lists.
Blood Angels (holds Grimdark Chronicle): 0 / 0 / 0
- None in the window. Vanguard Tactics' "We Ranked ALL the Blood Angels Datasheets" is from about May 2026 (10th edition).
- Learning General's "Battlesector Tier List" grades the video game, not the tabletop.
Dark Angels (holds TacticalRock40K): 1 / 1 / 0
- Grimdark Breakdown, "Dark Angels: What to Buy FIRST in 11th Edition (Best Units for New Players)" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mwlbbh_Daw).
- Verified: published 22 Jun 2026, 23 minutes.
- What it is: a buyer's ranking for new players. It weighs tabletop strength together with value for money and kit flexibility, in rows S, A, B and C plus two joke rows below C. So it is not a pure power ranking.
- Not transcribed: Gemini drafted 39 placements (42 datasheets). The video's chapter list confirms the units and their order, but not the letters, and the draft's minutes drift by one or two minutes against the chapters.
- The chapter list caught one mistake: the draft's "Reiver" is the Reiver Lieutenant.
- The Six Machine's "Are Dark Angels S-Tier? BEST Units & Combos!" (3 Aug) is a best-units video, not a tier list.
Death Guard (holds The Disgustingly Resilient Podcast): 1 / 1 / 0
- r/deathguard40k, u/hvrry3k, "My Personal 11th Edition Tier List" (post 1veu4rx).
- Verified: pullpush gives the post, dated 3 Aug 2026 (UTC). The image downloaded.
- What it is: five rows, from "almost auto-take" to "bad, shelf it", holding 27 pictures of models.
- Not transcribed: the picture shows model photos with no names, so naming each kit by eye would be guesswork. The image stays out of the repo (it is Games Workshop's photography).
Drukhari (holds Deploy on the Line): 0 / 0 / 0
- None. Deploy on the Line's other videos rank detachments and dispositions, and its top-5 is not a tier list.
- Vanguard Tactics' overview is not a tier list. The Reddit tier lists Gemini found are from 2025.
Emperor's Children (holds Joy's 40k): 0 / 0 / 0
- None in the window. Chaos Coterie's "We ranked all 18 Emperor's Children Datasheets!" is from 19 May 2026 (10th edition).
- Grimdark Breakdown, Auspex, Vanguard and Grand Slam-Gaming made lists and overviews, not tier lists.
Orks (no human list in use: the Sprues & Brews file is retired): 4 / 4 / 1
- Auspex Tactics, "Codex Orks Tier List in Warhammer 40K – Ork Points and Early Power Ratings?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgK-D00lm0Y), 22 Aug 2026, 63 minutes.
- Transcribed: reports/tiers/panel/2026-08-22-orks-auspex-tactics.json, with 54 of the army's 55 datasheets (the Gargantuan Squiggoth isn't placed).
- How it was checked: the video's own chapter list names the tier for each stretch of the video (Tier 5, Tier 4, Tier 3, Tier 2 lower and upper, Tier 1). All 50 of the draft's placements fall inside the chapter of their tier.
- A spot check: the points the draft heard match our data exactly for 8 units (Big'ed Bossbunka 135, Bigboss 50, Deffkilla Wartrike 80, Gorkanaut 325, Hunta Rig 165, Kill Rig 175, Stormboyz 70, Warboss 100). The others moved in later updates.
- What isn't checked: which unit he names at which minute is the draft's alone. Reliability low-medium.
- Art of War 40k, "Codex Orks - Best and Worst Datasheets" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu0yOhUrJR4), 1 Sep 2026.
- Verified; one presenter (Michael Mann), who grades S, A, B and C and a bottom row he calls F.
- Not transcribed: its chapter list names each unit. The draft's minute falls in the right unit's chapter for all 50 placements, but the letters are not in any page text.
- Secondary Objective, "New Ork Codex - 11th Edition Tier List!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CTiMBqSL_o), 9 Sep 2026.
- Verified; grades S to D, on his first look at the codex.
- Not transcribed: no chapter list, captions refused. The draft has 45 placements.
- The Daily Krumper, "11th Ork Codex Release Tier List" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQddeb37y34), 6 Sep 2026.
- Verified. At 3 h 10 min it is too long for one Gemini read, so it was not drafted.
- Seen and set aside:
- 40K RAW's reaction to Art of War's list (17 Sep) is a reaction, not its own list.
- r/orks "Ork units ranked by 6 criteria" (15 Jul) scores each unit 1-10 on six criteria before the codex. That is not a tier list.
Space Wolves (holds Art of War, graded on the new codex): 0 / 0 / 0
- Nothing in the window on the rules before the codex:
- Astrategas Wargames' Space Wolves list is from 9 May 2026 (10th edition);
- Almost Functional Gaming's "NEW Space Wolf Tier List" is from 2 Oct, outside the window, and uses the new codex (already rejected on 3 Oct);
- Auspex Tactics' Space Marines tier list (4 Aug, before the codex) grades only Codex Space Marines units: none of the 93 units in our panel of it is a Space Wolves unit;
- Tabletop Battles' Space Wolves datasheet review is prose on the new codex.
- What this means: the brief's Space Wolves want can't be met inside the window.
Thousand Sons (holds Redundant Rolling): 0 / 0 / 0
- None. Redundant Rolling's other videos are "winning units" and detachment pieces, and Secondary Objective ranks armies, not units.
- Fireside's Reddit unit list is from May 2025.
Leagues of Votann (holds Auspex Tactics): 0 / 0 / 0
- None. VotannVersus40K's "meta watch", Grimdark Breakdown's lists and Vanguard's overview are not tier lists.
- Astrategas is from 14 May 2026 (10th edition).
What Gemini got right and wrong
- Right:
- it invented no links;
- its Ork dates were correct to the day;
- its minutes on the Art of War video sit in the right unit's chapter for all 50 placements.
- Wrong:
- it twice offered a Reddit link post as a separate list;
- on the Dark Angels video its minutes drift by one or two, and it heard "Reiver" for the Reiver Lieutenant;
- on the Agents stream it mixes up two Inquisitors.
- The lesson: a draft is a good map of where to look in the captions, and not a transcription on its own.
Waiting on Jordan
| What | The question | Our suggestion |
|---|---|---|
| Auspex Tactics, Orks (panel written) | Use it as Orks' human list in the yardstick? Checked against the chapter list, not the captions | Wait for a caption spot-check first (any session where YouTube serves them; the draft and tools are in build/gemini/t733/) |
| Art of War 40k and Secondary Objective, Orks (drafted) | Transcribe them from the captions when YouTube allows, as Orks' second and third lists? | Yes: Orks has no other human list |
| The Daily Krumper, Orks (3 h) | Worth a transcription? | Only if the two above fall through |
| Grimdark Breakdown, Dark Angels | Does a buy-first ranking (tabletop plus hobby value) count as a reviewer? | No, or at half weight |
| Brother Tobias, Agents | Does "as allies for Ultramarines" count as an Agents list? | No: a different question from the army on its own |
| u/hvrry3k, Death Guard (Reddit picture) | Accept a pictures-only list, which someone would have to read kit by kit? | No |
| Seven armies with nothing new, and Space Wolves before the codex | Stay at one human list, or widen the window (for example lists from early October, which see the dataslate)? | Stay at one; the GEMINI AGGREGATE half-weight lists (T-731) already add a second voice |
Cost
- Gemini: 9 calls in all.
- 4 search-grounded questions on the pro model;
- 5 video reads on the flash model at low resolution, about 1.6 million video tokens.
- Estimate: under one dollar in all, against the $5 budget.
- YouTube: its search and watch pages were read directly at no cost. Its caption service refused every request (HTTP 429), and so did the services that relay it (Invidious, youtubetranscript.com).