Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

What do you think is the most useless unit from a gaming viewpoint? Which unit is so terrible that you wonder why GW ever included it in the game? I'm talking strictly from a gaming and tactical viewpoint, regardless of the actual model or the army.

I think it has to be Chaos Spawn: An ok profile, yet completly ruined by their random movement towards the closest enemy, and random number of attacks and pitiful save.

What's your opinions on the most useless unit?

Primaris psyker unless I've missed something anyway, why the hell include a supposedly powerful psyker and yet allow him no psychic defence, pitiful, oh and storm troopers.

Ogryn. Supposedly uber-tough humanoids, the IG assault element. But they're going to lose, and lose badly to any true hth unit and with their low leadership, they're gone.

Storm troopers are overcosted, but at least they can be useful as suicide deep striking melta units. Altho that finction can be performed better by valk/vend meltavets.

Pariahs. Over priced, don't count as necrons and only have one attack. Makes them a points sink in aNecron army and resultantly are taken by few (if any) players

We're not tlaking about useless units. But the MOST useless unit. Which is, without a shadow of a doubt, Repentia.

Space Pope.

Stomboyz - overpriced and you can field the same amount in a battlewagon for the same speed

It has to be a Tau Ethereal, they do nothing good and give the other player a chance to make your units run.

This has happened before, Space Pope won hands down. Use the Search function...

Pfeh, I think the space pope's at least more useful than Repentia.

4M2A wrote:It has to be a Tau Ethereal, they do nothing good and give the other player a chance to make your units run.

In big games, they can actually be quite useful if they sit in cover on an objective with a 12 man bs4 fire warrior squad

No, Repentia are fine. Its most useless overall, not "most useless Sisters of Battle unit, not compared to any other army list unit entry ever"

I'm talking strictly from a gaming and tactical viewpoint, regardless of the actual model or the army.

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:No, Repentia are fine. Its most useless overall, not "most useless Sisters of Battle unit, not compared to any other army list unit entry ever"

I'm talking strictly from a gaming and tactical viewpoint, regardless of the actual model or the army.

Repentia are useless in the context of every other army save one specific army using one specific special character. They are not, and have never, EVER been "fine". Ridiculously expensive, easy to kill, hard to control, cannot be joined by an IC, cannot ride in transports, and did I mention easy to kill? There's no redeeming feature in the squad. Even if they get into close combat they're often dsetroyed by their targets because they always strike last, and therefor recieve a lot of casualties... and they're fearless, so they are going to suffer even more for it normally, any real dedicated close combat squad is going to tear them apart before they can bring their eviscerators to bear, and any non-dedicated squad can be dealt with by Seraphim, who are more survivable, more mobile, more controllable, and just overall better in every way.

Even with that one special C:IG character-- and many tournaments don't even allow allies to begin with-- they're still mediocre.

NO! Everyone knows that the Most Useless Unit award has to go to something out of the DE codex.
Hellions are the most utterly useless crap in the entire game in the fact that they basically do everything jetbikes do, but worse.
Mandrakes, also due to their utterly terrible offense and defense, and the fact that the stealthy deployment doesn't really scare *anyone* due to them being Guardsmen with pistol/cc weapon.

Greetz,
Mr. Self Destruct

Melissia wrote:Repentia are useless in the context of every other army save one specific army using one specific special character. They are not, and have never, EVER been "fine". Ridiculously expensive, easy to kill, hard to control, cannot be joined by an IC, cannot ride in transports, and did I mention easy to kill? There's no redeeming feature in the squad. Even if they get into close combat they're often dsetroyed by their targets because they always strike last, and therefor recieve a lot of casualties... and they're fearless, so they are going to suffer even more for it normally, any real dedicated close combat squad is going to tear them apart before they can bring their eviscerators to bear, and any non-dedicated squad can be dealt with by Seraphim, who are more survivable, more mobile, more controllable, and just overall better in every way.

Even with that one special C:IG character-- and many tournaments don't even allow allies to begin with-- they're still mediocre.

Repentia are better then...

Mandrakes

The Decapitator
(The above two cannot be deployed in 1 of 3 game missions in 5th edition, and even in the two that you CAN take them, you'd be hard pressed finding a reason actually TO take them)

Hellions

Grotesques

Firewarriors

Space Pope

Codex: Necron (except the Monolith)

Biovores

Weird Boyz

Flash Gitz

Chaos Spawn

Ahriman (Debateable)

the list goes on.

Just because they are the 'worst' choice in your codex, does not make them the most useless.

Yes Seraphim are better and thus make Repentia a far less attractive choice in a which hunters army, but to list repentia as "The most useless unit in 40K" for that reason would be like saying Tac marines are the most useless unit in 40k when in a BA army because Assault marines are "so much better".

Well, I think the Wierdboy is almost more useless than the Ethereal, but if your lucky enough to get the power you wanted he can actually be good.

I actually agree with stormboyz since theres almost no reason at all to take them. As the_ferret said, you could just take boys in a wagon, same speed, more durability.

Ok what/who is the space pope?

Melissia believes that the Sisters must be best at everything, even being bad.

On-topic, the Space Pope and Necron Pariahs both have the same flaw.

Not only do they have a negligable upside - but they have a BIG downside that affects not only themselves, but the whole army.

It's this that makes a unit 'the worst'. Not Points cost, or stats etc. Most units have no army-wide downside at all other than points cost - but some have the capacity to make other parts of your army perform worse, just bey sharing a table with them.

Chaos Dreds sometimes flip out and kill your own soldiers, but even that's not an army-wide thing. There is an upper limit to the number of friendly models a chaos dred can kill in one game.

The very worst units in the game can cripple your whole dammned force.

Etherials die easilly and then your army runs away - Pariahs, since they don't have the Necron rule, make Phase Out easier.

The potential downsides are so large and so likely to occur that the small upsides are irrelevant. One wouldn't field an etherial if the model was free and made of solid gold.

Azezel wrote:Melissia believes that the Sisters must be best at everything, even being bad.

Now that is not entirely fair... Many sisters (and non sisters) players agree that Repentia could definately use some attention if one were to ever hope to consider them competitve, but the important thing to remember is that "Worst in Dex" is not always "Worst in game"... Eldar have some pretty terrible unit choices as well, but are they the worst ever? Far from it as long as dexs like Dark Eldar, Necron and Tau remain un-updated.

Kilkrazy wrote:Space Pope.

Damn I was going to say that too................. seriously WTF where they thinking when they wrote the rules for him and his kind?

No they aren't, for the following reasons:

1 and 2: They can at least be controlled and gain a massive boost to cover saves, making them more survivable than Repentia. And they cost less than Repentia. Admittedly I don't know too much about the IC, but even just a cursory glance at his rules makes me like him more than Repentia.

3: Much more mobile, able to hit and run, able to be controlled. And they cost less than Repentia.

4: Easier to control, powerful special rule, can be transported, can be taken in smaller squads. And they cost less than Repentia.

5: Hah. Wait, you're serious? How unfortunate. But Fire Warriors of equal cost will decimate a Repentia squad before it gets into close combat, and even do some damage to them after getting in to close combat. And they're scoring.

6: If you mean the IC, he's cheap and provides a bonus to the army, is decent enough in close combat (compared to othr Tau anyway), and comes with a retinue of BS4 fire warriors. If you mean the SC, then he isn't that good individually-- but he provides quite a good bonus for the army . And if he's killed, you're either screwed or your army becomes even more powerful. Randomly good is still better than never good.

7: No.

8: Cheap, long-ranged, mobile AP4 large blasts are actually quite good. The main issue is mostly that just about every other heavy support choice is better, not that this one is bad. Even three of them is cheaper than a half sized squad of Repentia, and can decimate a repentia squad in a single round of shooting at long range.

9: They're actually quite good, as my experience in using them is. The problem is that Mekboyz tend to be a bit better because of synergy with the rest of the army. But Warp'Ead Weirdboyz are still quite useful in my experience, and can turn the tide of battle with proper luck. Randomly being good is better than never being good. Oh, and he's cheaper than even a bare minimum squad of Repentiia is.

10: While expensive for what you get, Flash Gitz aren't the worst unit, and certainly not worse than repentia. Indeed, if they got the assault they would rip repentia apart in close combat, after doing some damage in ranged combat (which repentia can't do). There are better units in the Ork codex, but it's still better than Repentia.

11: Spawn DO compete with Repentia for worst unit ever given their ridiculous price for what they do. Certainly a lot better than the space pope.

12: Ahriman is outclassed by newer psykers, but still strong.

13: You are right. They are useless because they are useless, nto because they're the worst in this codex. The two statements are true, but not connected.

jbunny wrote:Ok what/who is the space pope?

I still think Chaos Spawn are supreme in this category of fail.

After looking at it, I'd concede that. They're the only unit I can think of that makes Repentia look good.

I'm going to have to counter your Repentia with Pyrovores.

For 45 points you get a heavy flamer that can potentially explode inside your own army. Get him in close combat? Sweet, he ignores armor saves.... with his 1 attack at initiative 1.

All in all, worst model ever.

Actually that heavy flamer could very well wipe out the entire Repentia unit in one turn-- and any surviving Repentia that wound it are dead due to Acid Blood.

Though Volatile really hurts the unit...

Still going to argue with the Ethereal/Space Pope. They are expensive, have crap attacks, no power weapons (a + to the S of a TAU WHOHOO!) and when they die, the WHOLE ARMY has to take a leadership test?!? Does anyone remember that Tau have a bad leadership to begin with?

i'm still of the opinion that a 10 man unit of vanguard with jump packs, dual wielding thunderhammers, is the most useless unit in the game. weighing in at 950 points or so, and loosing in hand to hand against any unit packing enough power swords, or even enough power fists (dual unit loss), though its easy enough to shoot them down before they do any damage at all.

Not even close Honersstodnt, not even close. Sure they might not be a cost effective unit, but in the right circumstances, they can still CREAM things. The Ethereals/Pope cant say any of those ever.

For example they will murder tanks like no bodies business

sure, they may be able to cream things, but they are SO cost inefficient, that they actively reduce the size of the rest of your army by a huge margin.

While the space pope may be useless, you can try to just hide the bugger in the back, and surround him with firewarriors. Useless, maybe. I'd still put my money on a tau army at 1000 points packing nothing but a space pope and ANY basic troop choices from the tau codex, over a 10 man squad of vanguard with hammers like this.