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Im not sure where this thread should go... but anyway

What, in your opinion, is the best unit in every codex?

For me, in the armies I play, they are

1. Necron: Monolith - Hands down the best thing to ever happen to Metal Space Zombies, with wraiths being second

2. Marines: Razorbacks - Not always the best, but the Las/Plas is very versatile, Sternguard Vets and LR Redeemers tie for second

3. Nids: Doom of Malanti: The sole reason my group of gamers now shows wounds left on dice, not wounds taken, the broodlord is a close second

4. Eldar: Farseer: The most versatile, useful, and powerful standard psyker in the game. Wraithlords and wave serpents tie for second


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, this may already be a thread, so be gentle mods

Necrons: Monolith
BA: Preads, both Baal and Regular
Wolves: Long Fangs
Grey Knights: Psyfleman Dreads
Vanilla SM: TH/SS termies (with Vulcan)
Dark Angels: Belial
BT: Land Raiders immune to lances
Orks: Battlewagons
Dark Eldar: Ravagers
Nids: Hive Guard
Eldar: Eldrad
IG: Hydras and Vendettas Equally
Daemons: Fiends IMO
CSM: Oblits
Tau: Broadsides

For the IG, its a bit of a toss up. Most of our units are pretty top-notch and very few are useless or don't fit in to any list. Vendettas and Hydras are easily in the top three, but Manticores are equally excellent.

Every top guard list will have some manticores, some hydras, and some vendettas. Bang for buck, I'd say its a toss up between the vendetta and the manticore.

I disagree with your GK assessment, zeekill. The only reason why the Psyfleman is so good is because it counterbalances the short range of the true star of the codex: the lowly psycannon. Str7, ap4, Rending beats Str8 ap4.

Orks- regular ork boyz with pk nob.

Blood angels- baal Pred

It's really hard to say with most armies really. Mostly its very open to personal opinion. But here are mine for a some of the armies.

Necrons: Monolith
BA: Assault Marines
Wolves: Long Fangs
Vanilla SM: Land Raider Crusader
Orks: Lootas, or Kanz (hard to say)
Dark Eldar: Ravagers
Nids: Tervigon
IG: Either Vendettas or Leman Russ BT
Daemons: Bloodletters
CSM: Oblits
Tau: Crisis Suits

Eldar: Wave Serpents (best transport in the game)
Wolves: Scouts
Tau: Crisis Suits
SM: The chapter master special characters (vulcan and Shrike)
BA: Mephiston

Helvost wrote:
Wolves: Scouts

How can you justify Wolf scouts being better than Long Fangs?

Eldar: Wave Serpents (best transport in the game)

Yes it's one of the best transports in the game but it is also one of the most expensive. For me with eldar it's fire dragons.Best anti-tank unit going.

Necrons - Deceiver. Seriously, better than monoliths.
Orks - Da Boyz... or Ghazzy
Nids - Genestealers!
Dark Eldar - Venoms.

Rocky1 wrote:

Eldar: Wave Serpents (best transport in the game)

Yes it's one of the best transports in the game but it is also one of the most expensive. For me with eldar it's fire dragons.Best anti-tank unit going.

Yes , melta guns en masse on an elite choice make fire dragons a no-brainer.


especially when Eldar CC and the rest of the elite choices are overcosted and not very good

Templars: Both flavours of Terminators, simply because they're better than everyone else's!

For IG I'd say the Chimera, it's very good at what it does.

I'd also say that Grey Hunters are the best SW unit. The amount of stuff they get is almost disgusting.

I wont write about the other codexs but for Orks it's hands down the Big Mek with the KFF. By himself he has keept the codex competitive through 2 editions.
All other ork units mentioned above don't work proper without a mek to fix em

Blood Angels: Mephiston
Daemons of Chaos: Fiends of Slaneesh
Space Wolves: Rune Priests or T-Calv
Dark Eldar: Beastpacks
Necrons (current): Destroyer Lords
Orks: KFF meks or Kanz
Vanilla Marines: Thunderfire Cannon! So good for 100 pts...
Nidz: Tervigon
Grey Knights: Purifiers
Dark angels: Deathwing units
Sisters: Nothing anymore...?
Templars: Terminators
Eldar: Eldrad... bastard
Chaos Marines: Obliterators
IG: Vendettas or Hydras
Tau: Broadsides or Suits

sn0zcumb3r wrote:I wont write about the other codexs but for Orks it's hands down the Big Mek with the KFF. By himself he has keept the codex competitive through 2 editions.
All other ork units mentioned above don't work proper without a mek to fix em

Agree. No better unit in the codex than the KFF mek.

Zid wrote:
Sisters: Nothing anymore...?

Exorcists maybe?

I can't think of any other army that wouldn't take them given the option.

severedblue wrote:especially when Eldar CC and the rest of the elite choices are overcosted and not very good

You should see what a squad of 10 banshees with an executioner exarch will do to a squad of doomed MEQ on the assault. They have a total of 30 PW attacks. (27 STR 3, 3 STR 5). Half the normal bashees will hit, 55% will wound. 2/3 of the exarches will hit, with 8/9 chance of wounds. The 182 point squad of banshees can be expected to wipe a more expensive squad of MEQ -- such as GK.

Alas, these banshees have a few problems.
* They can be easily overwhelmed from multiple squads
* They require a 'doom' to be effective
* They will be shot to death on the following turn. (the reason the eldar are a dying race)
I find that one squad of banshees can be an effective tool for taking down the occasional squad of enemy. They work very well against FNP enemies, which are heavily resistant to scatter lasers.

In regards to the OP -- the best eldar unit is Eldrad. Point for point, he delivers more force multipliers than any other model in the game
* Making opponent take psychic tests on 3d6
* Rolling 3d6 for his own tests
* 3 powers a turn (2 of the same power can be done)
* Repositioning after deployment

For tau, without any general criteria, I'd have to say the crisis suits. Originally i was going to say the broadsides for their 2+ save and having the strongest long range weapon in the game but the versatility and over all bulk of the army is what carries the crisis suit to the top of the list.

Necrons: Monolith and C'tan
BA: Umm haven't fought them enough to say for sure
Wolves: Long Fangs and Grey Hunters
Grey Knights: Purifiers or Paladins
Vanilla SM: TH/SS Termies (only 200pts? What the hell?)
Dark Angels: Haven't fought them yet
BT: Same
Orks: Gazzy
Dark Eldar: Honestly, the whole Codex is pretty dangerous
Nids: Equally - Hive Guard, Tervigon, Genestealers
Eldar: Not sure
IG: Vendetta, pretty much any tank
Daemons: Bloodletters
CSM: Oblits
Tau: Broadsides

It's really hard to pick one, especially in armies like Eldar where they rely on one another to function properly.

I'd say:

Eldar: Eldrad, Wave Serpent or Fire Dragons
Dark Eldar: Haemonculus, Baron Sathonyx or Beastmaster squad
Chaos: Plague Marines, Bezerkers, Rhino

For Marines: I'd have to say hammernators. Point for point they are the answer to nearly any deathstar out there. Doubly nasty if you can work in vulkan or null zone.

For Space wolves: Grey hunters, one of the few troop units that I would comfortably throw at terminators and expect results (of course I usually have a lord+wolf priest in as well).

For Tau: Crisis Suits can engage anything from light transports to MC's to infantry, versitility in the extreme. My second would have to be pathfinders, they have their problems (fast attack w/ heavy weapons that cant move and shoot, WTH???), but despite those issues, they are a massive force multiplier. My enemies will often target them to the exclusion of things in my army that can actually kill stuff. For 92 pts you can more than double the effectiveness of any other unit by removing cover saves and throwing a marker to ballistics (you average 4 hits for an 8 man squad, and it only takes 3 to strip most cover)

labmouse42 wrote:

severedblue wrote:especially when Eldar CC and the rest of the elite choices are overcosted and not very good

You should see what a squad of 10 banshees with an executioner exarch will do to a squad of doomed MEQ on the assault.

The statline of Eldar elite CC is not too bad. The problem is that they are so situational that it's hard to justify using those slots for say, more fire dragons. Compare that to other CC choices from other armies (such as wyches and incubi) that don't need doom to run. Every unit is perfect in its perfect situation

I've always, always wanted to run shining spears- love the models. If they weren't so expensive to buy on all counts for a mediocre assault unit......

Orks: IMO the best in terms of how fun it is would be Old Zogwort cuz he's as random and chaotic as any Weirdboy, but can also make Squigs out of IC.

But the best overall is Big Mek w/ KFF. I don't have one yet, but I proxied one in a game a couple of times and it greatly changes the game for Orks.

Space marines: speeders
Chaos marines: terminators
Imperial guard: chimera
Nids: tervigon
Crons: destroyers

Blood Angels: Assault Marines in razorbacks
Space Wolves: Long fangs
Dark Eldar: warriors with blasters in a venom or wyches in a raider, one or the other
Orks: KFF meks
Vanilla Marines: TH/SS Termies
Nidz: Genestealers
Grey Knights: Scoring hencemen
Dark angels: Belail (as he makes em win I guess?)
Eldar: anything in a serpent
Chaos Marines: Nurgle space marines
IG: Anything that makes a chimera scoring.
Tau: Crisis Suits

Necrons - Deceiver. Seriously, better than monoliths.

Ya i get that.

J.Black wrote:

Zid wrote:
Sisters: Nothing anymore...?

Exorcists maybe?

I can't think of any other army that wouldn't take them given the option.

Exorcists or Battle Conclaves with lots of Death-Cult Assassins. Those things can shred ANYTHING non-vehicle.

Edit: With Jacobus attached, of course.

Edit again: And let's just not even talk about Wraithlords.

I consider this a misaimed thread, just because the strength of an army in 40k is about making units operate in tandem with one another, rather than saying "which unit is best in the codex?" As an example, I can't say which unit is best for Dark Eldar (Trueborn? Venoms? Beastmasters? Wyches with Prows? The Baron?) yet you can power-combo like a boss with them. Likewise, would Mech Angels be as scary were it not for the Librarian Shielding them, the Priests turning them into credible assault threats, the Baals providing earlygame cover (or Corbulo providing outflank control for one Baal if desired, so you can get in the enemy's flank and bring dakka to bear on a localized front)?

Units are better than the sum of their parts when used intelligently.

zeekill wrote:Necrons: Monolith
BA: Preads, both Baal and Regular
Wolves: Long Fangs
Grey Knights: Psyfleman Dreads
Vanilla SM: TH/SS termies (with Vulcan)
Dark Angels: Belial
BT: Land Raiders immune to lances
Orks: Battlewagons
Dark Eldar: Ravagers
Nids: Hive Guard
Eldar: Eldrad
IG: Hydras and Vendettas Equally
Daemons: Fiends IMO
CSM: Oblits
Tau: Broadsides

This is right on the money, IMO apart from a few changes I'd make.

Black Templars: Dual Cyclone Termies with Preferred Enemy. That is one of the best units in the game.
Dark Eldar: Vect
CSM: Lash Sorcerer. The new FAQ makes them slowed good.
Sisters: Exorcist

Of course this is all arbitrary and examined in a vacuum, but it is fun. The overall list composition changes what is "best" but I think every book has some units that are standouts.

Vect isn't good for his points at all.

I'd say the most efficient unit for DE is a 5-man warrior unit with blaster. Stick them in a venom and they're SCARY efficient.