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So, What are some of the most underated units you have in your codex?
Codex: SM
Master of the forge: When everyone brings NOTHING but SC and librarians, The master of the forge is my fallback.
With the new mission to make heavy support scoring, you got scoring dreads. Or the Rightly feared Conversion Beamer, Gunline armies are right scared of this puppy.
and the 5+ ballistic skill and the 2+ armor at only 100 points?

Imperial Guard:

Ministorum priest. This single guy utterly destroys any vehicles it gets into close combat with. This especially true with the new hull point rules and the new "vehicles have a weapon skill" rules.

Not against vehicles, he makes the squad land 50% more hits (especially useful when there's a powerfist in the squad) on the charge. Add to that, of course, his own 3 rerollable powerfist attacks.

He's also good for handling challenges. He only has W1, but he's only T3, so lots of things in a challenge would cause ID anyways. Add to this a 4++ save, which means he can actually stand toe to toe with things that ignore armor saves (which most challenges will include), and said powerfist makes him able to actually punch things back. Extra utility if there's another power fist in the squad because the priest can absorb the challenge and let the other power fist punch up the squad.

He's death incarnate to vehicles, he's able to make a crappy CC squad into a decent one, and he's able to take full advantage of the new challenge system.

For 60 points.

And come on, he's an old man with a 10-foot-long chainsaw sword that cuts land raiders in half.

For Templars, it's Techmarines for pretty much the same reasons Ailaros had about his Priest (except the old man with a chainsaw part), except cranked up to 11. 6 Chainfist attacks on the charge with a 3++ and two wounds?! Yes please.

Codex SM:
Scouts.

Seriously Underrated!

I took a 10 man squad with shotguns and knives (half and half)sarg with a powerfist. They wiped a termigaunts squad ( killed a tyrant guard and put 3 whole wounds on the swarmlord!!!! they even lived until the end of the game because lysander showed up to help.

If you look at there stats and weapon options and compare them to units in other races they look very nice. especially when you consider weapon options.

On top of that they are flexible, they have scout, infiltrate, outflank and move through cover.

Orks:

The lowly Grot.

 Thrawn2600 wrote:
Codex SM:
Scouts.

Seriously Underrated!

I took a 10 man squad with shotguns and knives (half and half)sarg with a powerfist. They wiped a termigaunts squad ( killed a tyrant guard and put 3 whole wounds on the swarmlord!!!! they even lived until the end of the game because lysander showed up to help.

If you look at there stats and weapon options and compare them to units in other races they look very nice. especially when you consider weapon options.

On top of that they are flexible, they have scout, infiltrate, outflank and move through cover.

I could not agree more with this.

Scouts are easily one of the most under-rated units in the game, even if it's a squad with Cloaks, Snipers and a Missile Launcher, these guys have never failed to impress me.

Lords of change. In a Flying circus list, especially at 2000+ points, they're essentially pimped out deamon princes with a 3++ and S/T 6.

Warp Spiders.

Yes, they're kind of expensive and also relatively slower than they used to be, but they're still pretty fantastic. They shred any vehicle that's not AV13 all around and lay down a fusillade of wounds on non-vehicles.

They can't get away like they used to now that assault goes as far as they retreat, but they still have Hit and Run. And since they're an "attacking at angles" unit, the thing they shoot is the only thing that should be able to catch them, and they just lost a few inches from the near side.

DE

Wracks


Daemons

Nurglings.


Orks

Grots or Flash Gitz

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Warp Spiders.

Yes, they're kind of expensive and also relatively slower than they used to be, but they're still pretty fantastic. They shred any vehicle that's not AV13 all around and lay down a fusillade of wounds on non-vehicles.

They can't get away like they used to now that assault goes as far as they retreat, but they still have Hit and Run. And since they're an "attacking at angles" unit, the thing they shoot is the only thing that should be able to catch them, and they just lost a few inches from the near side.

Warp Spiders used to give my guard nightmares...

For Space Marines, Scouts are quite under rated. They are fairly cheap but still able to hit quite hard, although their accuracy is less than it used to be. Whirlwinds are pretty underrated too, especially considering the upgrades to large blast weapons (its a shame that the Whirlwind doesn't have the best range, however).

For Tau, I'm not entirely sure, but there seems to be an underrated unit from every entry. Stealth Suits are quite good with the FAQ, not quite as versitile as Crisis Suits, but as a cheap JSJ Anti-Infantry Roll they perform quite well. Not GREAT mind you, but they now actually have a niche role opposed to no roll at all (kitting all types of infantry). The Fire Warrior was once much hated, but even in 5th it wasn't that bad and 6th has made it one of the better basic infantry options. The Skyray is also criminally underrated, but if you are making proper use of Markerlights, they can be deadly. Also, since they don't fire missiles using BS, if you really want to take down a Flier you can have a squad use it's markerlights to try to get a hit on the thing, and then you can use a missile to try to hit it on a 2+. It's not true AA fire, but it works well enough, especially since Pathfinders can now move and snapfire markerlights at fliers with no penalty.

For Necrons, it's probably the Gauss Immortal, which is odd considering that nobody thinks that they are bad, they just feel that there are better options. Gauss Immortals are extremely good at killing 4+ or worse armour dudes (basically, they are better at killing non-marines), while Tesla are better at killing MEQ because of the higher number of hits they put out. That being said, they are only under-rated in my eyes because they are the only unit which I don't agree with where they are regularly placed (Wraiths are good, Praetorians are ok, Flayed Ones suck).

 Ascalam wrote:
DE

Wracks

They just cost too much if I want to field a lot of them... But I agree they're underrated.

Really? I consider them to be pretty cheap.

Plus there isn't a better way to get a raider hull than a 3 man wrack unit, and you would be surprised at how durable those mini-units can be

Yeah, I'll also jump on with warp spiders. I don't think they're the MOST underrated thing in the eldar codex (because they have a LOT of underrated stuff to compete with), but they're definitely up there.

If you've never played against someone who really knows how to take advantage of MSM, you'll never understand why things like warp spiders or guardian jetbikes are scary. If have, then you know exactly why...

 Ascalam wrote:
Really? I consider them to be pretty cheap.

Plus there isn't a better way to get a raider hull than a 3 man wrack unit, and you would be surprised at how durable those mini-units can be

Are we talking points or money? Because I was talking about money. Are they any effective as an assault unit? At one point, I was gonna replace wyches with them as the "spammy assault unit", then I looked at the price and went "never mind"...

I've always had success with Carnifexes, personally, while everyone else tends to decry them as being completely useless. They could be cheaper, sure, but they've always accomplished what I sent them to do.

This might, however, have something to do with the terrain we use. At our FLGS, they have a huge amount of 40k terrain, so we put lots of 40k buildings on the table. Even a single story 40k ruin will completely hide a Carnifex, while a Trygon will tower over a 2 story building still attracting fire.

Ah, i was talking points.

I converted all my wracks The price GW wants for the 'official' ones is obscene.

I run a Coven list, mainly, so it's heavy on haemies, wracks (as troops) and grotesques, plus Pain Engines.

They are pretty decent as an assault unit (as far as DE go these days), though cramped by the small unit size. They outshine Wyches, for me at least, in 6th (unless you are trying to kill vehicles).

For the IG codex, its a tough choice.

However the number 1 underrated unit is the humble guardsman. Nobody expects anything from them at first, after all, everyone hears the jokes about them being yokels armed with t shirts and flashlights who cant hit half the time. And they play against a proper foot horde, and they learn that while guardsman is a joke, a hundred are almost unstoppable. Whether they're camping an objective with heavy weapons, charging forward in power blobs armed with power mauls, or just fielding small squads with special weapons to divide and conquer. People are starting to learn to fear them in my area

As for an actually underrated unit, i'd say the devildog/hellhound variants are the most underrated unit. They have a lot of potential, but they're just completely outclassed by vendettas. If the vendetta wasn't so cheap, I really think you would see them more.

I don't know. I think it's less that they're underrated because people are overrating things in the same slot and more that hellhound variants are just bad.

Take a 120 point meltagun on an AV12 chassis, for example. I don't think that calling that bad is necessarily undervaluing it...

Likewise, calling a 130 point vehicle with only AV12/10 that has a 0" ranged turret weapon anything other than atrocious is overvaluing it grossly, in my opinion.

"Humble guardsmen" are rubbish. They stand there, kill nothing, then die. I'd say they were, if anything, over-rated.

 Testify wrote:
"Humble guardsmen" are rubbish. They stand there, kill nothing, then die. I'd say they were, if anything, over-rated.

You are kidding, right?

I think I'm going to have to go with the standard guardsman. For a while I'd been taking a naked Platoon with my mech vet list, to add a couple of cheap scoring units and to bubble wrap my tanks.

Recently I've been blobbing them together and using them more offensively. If they get FRFSRF, they can force allot of wounds on anything with a toughness value. Even firing at monstrous creatures, a full strength squad is going to force roughly 5 armor saves, or 10 saves against MEQ. Which isn't bad for a single round of shooting from a 100 pt unit.

While they're squishy their lack of special weapons puts them pretty low on my opponents list of priority targets.

 motyak wrote:

 Testify wrote:
"Humble guardsmen" are rubbish. They stand there, kill nothing, then die. I'd say they were, if anything, over-rated.

You are kidding, right?

Depends on your meta. Plenty of armies can very easily dispatch infantrymen, to the extent that it's not worth unpacking. Others can't.

 Testify wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 Testify wrote:
"Humble guardsmen" are rubbish. They stand there, kill nothing, then die. I'd say they were, if anything, over-rated.

You are kidding, right?

Depends on your meta. Plenty of armies can very easily dispatch infantrymen, to the extent that it's not worth unpacking. Others can't.

This is true. Armies geard to fight mech spam are going to hurt against a Guard blob army due to not being able to kill enough per turn. My Tyranids are geared to fight infantry - just in MC Devourers, I'd be able to eat a blob squad in a turn.

Yup. Try playing exclusively against BA and 'crons (both of which know they're going to fight foot guard) and it's basically pointless.

I think I'm going to have to agree with testify here. Guardsmen have only ever been as strong as the weapon upgrades that they shield. Only in rather rare occasions (like FRFing a green tide) is a guardsman useful in and of himsef.

For every one time a lasgun did something interesting (of the possibly hundreds of shots you got off in that game), there are going to be several games where they were nothing but abblative wounds.

In a rules edition of non-by-unit, worse cover, and not properly hidden weapons upgrades, it takes a unit that was worthless on its own but synergized nicely into a unit that is just worthless on its own.

It is possible to under-rate their ability to hold objectives, what with the ability to put a PILE of 2+ cover save wounds on them, but they're really not good for much else anymore.

 Testify wrote:
Yup. Try playing exclusively against BA and 'crons (both of which know they're going to fight foot guard) and it's basically pointless.

Ah. I play with a hat to decide my armies. That stops my opponent (usually my brother or my mate) knowing they are going to be playing a foot guard army, an airborne army, a hybrid, whatever. I can see how the regular guardsman would seem awful when the opponent is ready for him for sure.

I once let on to my brother that I was running footguard before a game. Hello 2 thunderfires and a whirlwind. I know exactly what you mean by they can be bad if the enemy is ready for them.

 Testify wrote:
Yup. Try playing exclusively against BA and 'crons (both of which know they're going to fight foot guard) and it's basically pointless.

This is very true. A person who tailors their list can annihilate foot Guard. The problem really is where you play. I know some areas where people tailor their lists slightly by making them on the spot (oh, I'm playing necrons today, better bring lascannons) but it's not like looking at their list and hard tailoring. It's very friendly and essentially a way to get to bring more unique units you don't see. Other places are jerks and just completely tailor against your list if they can. These areas are instant death for a foot horde. I have played against a couple of them, and you may as well not even bother getting your models out. However, these lists would've been stomped by any list with more than a few vehicles in it, and they usually could never kill my russes.

The main place I play at doesn't really have either of those as far as I can tell. If people are tailoring against my foot lists, they're doing a terrible job My meta involves lots of tourney players. They make a hard copy of a list, and prefer to play against everything possible as practice and expose flaws. Essentially a "Take all comers" environment. I've noticed the tourney players have been coming to me for "can we kill 100 infantry models if we had to?" practice, since I'm the only horde player around on most days. Some days I give them a good fight, and sometimes it's a pushover. I'm still figuring out where I want my army to go, as well as the fact I've barely been playing a year, and these guys have been playing since 2nd/3rd edition.

In an environment like this, foot IG seems to do well. Few people bring enough hard anti infantry units, especially at the lower levels, since they're usually up against mech'd and flier lists. All the sudden the idiot IG player shows up and goes "hey guys I brought 20 lascannons, 3 russes and a 120 guardsmen : D" and it can be a hard fight for them. I have a feeling they'll start taking more anti horde soon, but who knows? The fact that I'm able to fight these guys to a standstill with me still learning the more intricate rules gives me hope though. I feel like my losses come more from inexperience and learning all the other armies tricks (and sometimes operator error), than the list itself, if that makes any sense..

For GKs, its got to be Interceptors. Pinpoint Psycannon and Psybolt rounds where you want them.

 Ailaros wrote:
Imperial Guard:

Ministorum priest. This single guy utterly destroys any vehicles it gets into close combat with. This especially true with the new hull point rules and the new "vehicles have a weapon skill" rules.

Not against vehicles, he makes the squad land 50% more hits (especially useful when there's a powerfist in the squad) on the charge. Add to that, of course, his own 3 rerollable powerfist attacks.

He's also good for handling challenges. He only has W1, but he's only T3, so lots of things in a challenge would cause ID anyways. Add to this a 4++ save, which means he can actually stand toe to toe with things that ignore armor saves (which most challenges will include), and said powerfist makes him able to actually punch things back. Extra utility if there's another power fist in the squad because the priest can absorb the challenge and let the other power fist punch up the squad.

He's death incarnate to vehicles, he's able to make a crappy CC squad into a decent one, and he's able to take full advantage of the new challenge system.

For 60 points.


Have to agree with this one. I think I have only fielded this guy once in 5 years. He did some damage in 5th with that "guys in the back take the wounds". Him, 50 man blob squad, all sgts had power weapons, and so did the 5 commissars. Just move forward, shoot, and try and attack something fun, like a terminator squad.

And come on, he's an old man with a 10-foot-long chainsaw sword that cuts land raiders in half.