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I am passing on a challenge that has been issued to me twice from two different individuals within the past 30 hours. Why have I been challenged? I'm not sure, but figured this would be a fun exercise.


The rules:

Thread will begin with a known "Hopless" unit that I have been challenged to find tactics for.

Each poster will attempt to find a use(chuckle) or to at least mitigate the damage caused by this units presence within the army. A real life comparison would be getting stuck with a the Presidents spoiled kid or some rock star dragging media coverage with him.

There are to be no posts suggesting or saying don't use them, this is a making lemonade from p**$ exercise. Making the best of a bad situation. Think of this as a test of your tactical ability and generalship.

When I feel that the unit or character has recieved enough suggestions or enough time has passed I will propose another "Hopeless" unit. Posters may continue to post on the units named previously by me but may not introduce new units for the challenge.


The first unit for this challenge will also be the toughest:

Aun'va


Have fun, Ill post one of my thoughts after a couple of other posters.

Aun'va has several uses.

1. As a paperweight.

2. As an object lesson in wasted money.

3. As a demonstration to your friends about the time that went into crafting a beautiful piece of worthless junk.

4. As a proxy for something useful in friendly games.

5. Mounted upon a bookshelf, he can bring solemnity to any room.

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That's about it. OP, the reason you haven't gotten any responses is probably because your challenge is an oxymoron. There is no test of tactical ability and generalship to be had by finding a use for a useless model. The generalship is in recognizing what a piece of crap a model or a unit is and not fielding it.

I have to be honest, I hope this thread dies an inglorious death. The disasters of 40k codexes are uncommon but not rare, and should be avoided, ignored, and we should all pretend that they do not exist. Its the best thing for them.

I have a friend that once used Aun'Va in his greatest tactical capacity:

Preventing WH40K players from getting laid.

How does the space pope stop that?

I'll try and see if I have a salvageable idea...

Okay, it's a pretty gak one, but it's an idea. Get all shooty with your Tau, and send Space Pope in when the enemy starts to close in. When they inevitably kill the pope(preferably in your assault phase, after you've done as much damage as possible that turn), hopefully you'll fail as many leadership tests as possible, allowing you to recover some extra distance between you and the enemy, assuming you successfully regroup.

Seriously, that's all I've got. Crazy, stupid, and completely random, but a cool idea if you can get it to work.

Dashofpepper wrote:
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That's about it. OP, the reason you haven't gotten any responses is probably because your challenge is an oxymoron. There is no test of tactical ability and generalship to be had by finding a use for a useless model. The generalship is in recognizing what a piece of crap a model or a unit is and not fielding it.

I have to be honest, I hope this thread dies an inglorious death. The disasters of 40k codexes are uncommon but not rare, and should be avoided, ignored, and we should all pretend that they do not exist. Its the best thing for them.

Yet, it is a test because a real general has to deal with these issues.

@All Posters- If your not up to the challenge then please refrain from posting your attempts at humor and let this thread go.

Now as to Aun'va.........(Scratches Head).........(Imagines loading the model into a cannon)..........

*Deleted*

Next

Dash it all, started the post, took a break and Fafnir has the same idea.

Edit- *deleted idea because it cloned the prior post*

If by real general, you mean in the real world war and not a table top game? Then the general will place that "unit"/Presidents son or Rock star as far away from the front lines as possible.

If talking about Real General in 40k, then a real General will realize which units are effective and which ones are not even useful enough to guard the bathrooms. They therefor do not bring them.

You desperately need the points to make it to 2,500 for 'ard boyz?

^^The other Tau player in my area^^

focusfire: No, it is not a test because real generals don't have to deal with these ideas. As a former army officer, when I had a useless soldier, I fired him. If I had someone who couldn't meet proficiency standards, his career in the army ended. In real life, generals have to make do with what they have at their disposal, but they also are not artificially burdened with sub-par or useless weaponry/troops.

If you're referring to 40k generals, again - you choose the list you write and the units you include. No need for the artificial constraints of being required to take terrible choices; that's called bad generalship.

------------------------------
Shas'O Dorian: Start with 9 Broadside Battlesuits, one of each team having a target lock. Add in a unit of piranhas and two units of pathfinders, max out your suits (individual taskings, not multi-purpose), and take a Shas'o and fill in the gaps with firewarriors. Boom. =)


And I repeat: the only use for the space pope is as a paperweight. He has no value in game, and finding a use for him isn't good generalship; not taking him is good generalship.

As a former army officer, when I had a useless soldier, I fired him

Which army was that? You fired a soldier? Care to explain on this a bit? I take it that you're talking about "soldiers" who work for the army but push papers at office buildings? You fired someone because he was employed to use the copy machine and carry coffee to others but always overslept and didn't come to work, that kind of firing a soldier?

I doubt any 40K unit that has a points cost fills the criteria of useless. As long as it has any stats or any abilities it has a use however limited it might be. Pretty much every real life soldier has a use too, even if for nothing else than minesweeping.

@ Dash-As a vet I can say that during wartime the general doesn't always have the luxury of firing a soldier. Especially if he is a political legacy that is working on his military record for a future political career. Also, because of man-power difficulties during war-time.

Put it this way, your not an american general but a british one that has been given prince harry as a member of your forces. He has uses, but his cost in resources out-wiegh any battlefield benefits. What do you do with him? How do you get him his battlefield experience without costing the nation a potential heir to the throne.

This is very much a classic part of generalship.

Now I ask for you to please contribute in some other manner than don't bring him.

focusedfire wrote:
Put it this way, your not an american general but a british one that has been given prince harry as a member of your forces. He has uses, but his cost in resources out-wiegh any battlefield benefits. What do you do with him?

Whatever Prince Harry's uses are in the battlefield is what he'll be applied to. If he has no uses and cannot be fired because he is royalty, then I would put him somewhere out of the way and out of mind.

-------------------------------------------

In 40k, the space pope's best use is the same. Out of the way and out of mind, and the best possible scenario is the one where you didn't bother spending money on him in the first place. The second best scenario is you recognize his utter uselessness in a game and don't bring him.

@Dash- Please to re-read the initial post and my last. Don't want to butt heads on this but if you continue to push I will take action.

@All Posters-I like the basic idea of this thread because there are units and equipment designed and implemented in real world armies that are pieces of junk. The commanding officers have no ability to change what has been given to them. This is a thread about how to handle such situations.

The whole point of Aun Va is to give your army a chance in close sombat. So rush him out there to get killed and then run all your fire warrior squads with carbines in to fire then assault enemy lines. It will catch them by surprise.

He is also a decent counter assault unit in an army that has no assault to it really.

PLease give an example in 40K that you will be forced to bring a unit that you do not want to?

@jbunny

Shas'O Dorian wrote:You desperately need the points to make it to 2,500 for 'ard boyz?

^^The other Tau player in my area^^

The only reason to bring him to the fight intentionally is to get him killed. Charge him at something his gaurds may be able to hurt and allocate as many wounds to him as you can. If he dies great, if his gaurds survive it thats even better. He is not worth the points by any standard. Personally I prefer to just take a standard Ethereal since you get a similar effect and your allowed to take the better firewarriors. People keep telling me just use markerlights but my dice tend to not let me hit the side of a barn from inside so I just bring both and deal with it. :3

A better "challenge" would have been to have people just post a unit that many find useless and give reasoning and an example of how it actually has a role.

rocklord2004 wrote:The only reason to bring him to the fight intentionally is to get him killed. Charge him at something his gaurds may be able to hurt and allocate as many wounds to him as you can. If he dies great, if his gaurds survive it thats even better. He is not worth the points by any standard. Personally I prefer to just take a standard Ethereal since you get a similar effect and your allowed to take the better firewarriors. People keep telling me just use markerlights but my dice tend to not let me hit the side of a barn from inside so I just bring both and deal with it. :3

A better "challenge" would have been to have people just post a unit that many find useless and give reasoning and an example of how it actually has a role.

QFT.

Focusfire, I've read your posts. I'd encourage you not to pretend to be a moderator. Dakka Dakka is a place for the exchange of ideas, and as long as it is done without being rude, ideas are encouraged to be freely swapped around.

Your idea is that we as players should create a paradigm of being a good general and mandatorily finding a use for a useless model. I'm encouraging you to change your paradigm and instead of labeling it "good generalship" to bring a useless model to recognize that good generalship is in truly recognizing what synergy can be created in a list with which models and not artificially wrecking your army by injecting point wastes in it. Better to play a Tau game 1800 vs 2000 points than to inject the space pope into the Tau list.

You're welcome to disagree with my thoughts and assessments. You created a thread for the community to provide input into your ideas, and you're now required to listen to that input, provided that it conforms to Dakka's rules for doing so - which everything in this thread so far has - I've been mirrored in my assessments by several people now.

Therion wrote:

As a former army officer, when I had a useless soldier, I fired him

Which army was that? You fired a soldier? Care to explain on this a bit? I take it that you're talking about "soldiers" who work for the army but push papers at office buildings? You fired someone because he was employed to use the copy machine and carry coffee to others but always overslept and didn't come to work, that kind of firing a soldier?

I doubt any 40K unit that has a points cost fills the criteria of useless. As long as it has any stats or any abilities it has a use however limited it might be. Pretty much every real life soldier has a use too, even if for nothing else than minesweeping.

WTF are you talking about. People get fired all the time in work-up to and during deployment. You do not risk lives by holding the hand of a liability.

If anything, it is the clerks that do not get fired.

True Dash, but at the same time, once you say he has no use, let it go and let other people see what they can come up with.

You made your point, further harping on this is borderline trolling.

Oh yes. And:

Life Benefits
All units with line of sight count as Stubborn.
An expendable unit that your opponent will try to avoid, not from fear but because it is a waste to attack it. It can also provide a slightly better cover save than a drone squadron of 2 models.
A unit that is more than competent at very small close combat fights. Remember, standard Imperial Guard, Tau or Eldar will only wound you on a 6+, and you will wound them on a 2+.

Death Benefits
Your crisis suits with the relentless special rule may now assault after they shoot with a higher initiative, strength 6, and rerolling to hit.
EDIT: Fire warriors can't gain the improvements when attacking vehicles with their grenades.
Stealth suits may also assault after they shoot with rerolling to hit, strength 5 and higher initiative.

Is Aun’va worth it for 205 points? Not really, but there are times when he could be potentially useful. With the way GW is rewriting special characters these days, he could be very useful indeed in a future codex.

Dashofpepper wrote:

rocklord2004 wrote:The only reason to bring him to the fight intentionally is to get him killed. Charge him at something his gaurds may be able to hurt and allocate as many wounds to him as you can. If he dies great, if his gaurds survive it thats even better. He is not worth the points by any standard. Personally I prefer to just take a standard Ethereal since you get a similar effect and your allowed to take the better firewarriors. People keep telling me just use markerlights but my dice tend to not let me hit the side of a barn from inside so I just bring both and deal with it. :3

A better "challenge" would have been to have people just post a unit that many find useless and give reasoning and an example of how it actually has a role.

QFT.

Your idea is that we as players should create a paradigm of being a good general and mandatorily finding a use for a useless model. I'm encouraging you to change your paradigm and instead of labeling it "good generalship" to bring a useless model to recognize that good generalship is in truly recognizing what synergy can be created in a list with which models and not artificially wrecking your army by injecting point wastes in it. Better to play a Tau game 1800 vs 2000 points than to inject the space pope into the Tau list.

I don't think the OP meant that. Re Read the original post, and find the words "hopeless, best use of the model, etc." I think it is more like a fun thread for people to find use for models that are probably hard to use, or less competitive on the first look.

By not reading properly or interpreting other's intention, I find your first post already a trolling one.

Yeah, you are free to comments, just like you are free to make a fool of yourself :-).

Like what Ozy has pointed out, you ve made your point, you may now stop trolling. There are alot others (like myself) who is interested to hear views on how people will use the model.

Dashofpepper wrote:You're welcome to disagree with my thoughts and assessments.

You seem to be going to an awful lot of effort to prove otherwise.

If you're not interested in the concept outlined in the thread, repeatedly posting about how you don't like the idea is definitely wandering across to the Trolling side of the line. You made your point. Let it go.

Thank you insaniak.

There is a clue as to how Aun'va might be used. It says in the codex that shadowsun is usually at his side. This may seem like compounding a bad unit with another one but there a synergy between the two units, an expensive one but it is there.

This list is conceptual with no numbers having been crunched.
You set up a hybrid gunline mech army with a broadside castle in the back corner.

Aun'va
Shadowsun

2 Crisis teams MP/PR w/MT.
1 Stealth team 4 models strong w/ BK , 8 GundronesYou

6 units of fire warriors. Run them all with BK & grenades. 2 teams will take Warfish

1 Pathfinder team w/ Warfish that goes to FW's
2 Piranha Fusion Squadrons of 3

1 Broadside team 3 strong w/ Sheild drones
2 Ionheads

Aun'va sets up in front of the broadsides to give them a coversave or is loaded into a transport to lead the two others in a fish of fury.

Shadowsun is set centrally to provide leadership boost to army.

Pianhas are set up to screen the transports.

What do you guys think?

After comments on this I will propose the next unit for discussion.

On a side note... he is a tougher ethereal... With this in mind, you can re-roll successful leadership checks so you have a higher chance of not tying up your troops when your opponent assaults them...

I believe the Tau tactica has something said for the uses of the ethereal... just replace ethereal with Tough Ethereal...

OK, enough time has passed on this unit. It is time to move to the next. Please feel free to still comment on the previous unit but I am moving the thread Forward.

I'll take it easy this time and suggest a unit that, mainly, just IG players feel is over costed and ineffective.

Next up:
IG Storm Troopers
(Thought about the Death strike but want to get people involved before throwing out another "quote" hopeless unit out.)

Same rules as before. Find a way to make the unit work or at least not hinder the army overly much. Explain the circumstances of how the unit is used and discuss our various takes on what to do.

Stormtroopers are quite viable in many facets of 40k. The ability to declare whether they Infiltrate, Deep Strike or be Scouts is huge. A deep striking unit is great with two melta guns, perfect for dropping near tanks and blowing them away.

An infiltrating unit has many things going for it. It's already powerful weaponry counts as pinning on turn one.

Outflanking with a unit like that could be devastating in the right situation.

I don't see how this unit isn't viable, or could be considered useless.

focusedfire wrote:Next up:
IG Storm Troopers

The trick to your challenge, as you yourself pointed out, is to read the fluff text. Aun'va with Shadowsun. Aun'va does counter-assault, and Shadowsun makes sure your army doesn't completely crumble when he dies.

Stormies are trained to operate independantly and to be the tip of the spearhead, so run them that way. The more mobile the list, the less they'll bring to the table. I suppose Plasmaguns are the best weapon they can take. The 4+ help midigate the over-heat, and the AP2 synergizes with their AP3. Their uses are going to vary hugely, but they are basically a 115 point cruise missile. They will break something important to your opponent, and that's about it. I'd like to post some scenarios, but apparently daddy dearest is drunk and I've got to go. I will return!

@ Stormrider and Darkhound- Personally, I agree completely but have been through too many threads whete the IG players call this unit everything from non-competitive to useless. I am tired of arguing the point, I know they have a viable use but figured this was the only way to open a tactics dicussion about them while keeping the trolling to a minimum.

My view of the Storms is that one squad(two squads max) should be in a guard army as a keep your opponent honest in deployment unit. Arm them with plas and deploy according to the mission and list you are playing against.

What I really like about the Stormtroopers is the re-rollable deep-striking ability. It gives you the opportunity to drop behind enemy lines and try and frag those long-range units that get on your nerves. Granted, IG has long-range counter-firepower, but sometimes it's nice to have a different option.

A friend of mine bought a squad of Stormtroopers as his very first unit, just because he liked the models. By doing this, we necessarily got some experience in how they play. He armed them with what is in the box, flamer and GL and a power weapon, making this squad 185 points for 10 guys - more expensive than a tactical Marine squad! However, there are useful in some situations I think:

Airborne Assault

Assume a smaller points game and the enemy has left only a small firebase to hold objectives while rushing towards you with the main force. Most armies will try to get close to IG gunlines and therefore probably leave not too much behind - Tau might be an exception. In this case, you can deep-strike your stormtroopers close to the enemy firebase and blast away with all that you have. Add meltas against vehicles or maybe even flamers (against Lootas for example) if you're really ballsy with your deepstrike. They should kill something. -
The important part now is, that your enemy is forced to make a decision. Does he relocate some of his assault units rolling towards the IG gunline towards the STs? If he does that, he loses forward momentum. Great for your main army! If he ignores them...yeah, they are not GREAT, but they will continue to harass the enemy quite reliably. Keep in mind that they are armed with pistol and CCW, so they even have chances at close-combat if necessary. This can be tried against small (!) ork units because of their I2 or against Tau and IG infantry units. This way you can keep your STs from getting fired at - and few people leave dedicated CC units at their firebase to plan for such actions, do they? Against vehicles, you can use krak grenades and get some effect, even if you tooled them against infantry.
This way, as a 10-man squad, the STs are not a total suicide mission. The important thing is the rather reliable deep-strike.

I'm trying to figure out how the other special missions (scout/infiltrate) work out best, but I like them to arrive somewhere and do maximum damage for at least one turn - if they have to walk towards their target, they will probably be shot at and die as quickly as the T3 4+ models they are.