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.

First up, please keep things as civil as possible. If you disagree with someone's opinion, don't just lambast them, enter into a conversation, or even lively debate.

Now then.

As the thread title says, I am intrigued as to what parameters different gamers use for define whether they feel any given unit is much cop. I'm not looking for absolutes, just a gathering of opinions and hopefully some decent discussion.

I'll weigh in with my opinion after a few other posts, though I suspect you can predict it'll be fairly Loony Left for most tastes

A good unit is able to make up its points value and them some.

Also, a good unit also is able to block, distract, obliterate, surround, an enemy unit of sorts.

i.e.
Good unit, 5 possessed marines with mark of khorne and rending weapons assaulted 3 different bane blades and wrecked all 3 (in seperate turns).

Bad unit, 10 man squad of grots assaulted a 10 man squad of firewarriors, grots won combat and firewarriors failed morale check, and the grots over ran.

To me a good unit is one which can carry out the task it is purchased for (points not cash) i.e. using Kislev horse archers to draw out night goblin fanatics. I regularly use a particular model to act as a fire magnet so that I can let my oponent concentrate on that rather then my other units completing thier objectives.

For me a bad unit is one which consistently fails to achieve the task it is inteded to carry out (although this is normaly down to me rather than the rules!).

Okay But when you say make up it's points, are you talking purely in destructive terms, in so far as it can punch it's weight, or in the more flexible terms, which would include your second line, namely the blocking/tying up/supporting role?

Example would be a unit costing 300 points say, which physically destroys 100 points worth, but in doing so tied up a 500 point unit for a number of turns. That to me would suggest the unit is at least useful. Not necessarily good enough to be a 'must have' in any list, but in specific lists, worth it's weight (like HTH defence in a Shooty List).

I tend to look for a couple of things. First off, nice models or nice models I can convert. I generally do a pretty good job of finding homes for fun to paint stuff in my army. I also try to make things WYSIWYG since it just tends to be easier.

Second, I like my entertaining units. I'm a fan of my units doing something wacky and unpredictable, so I'm guessing Orks are a good choice for me.

Finally, I like my unit to be easy to use. That doesn't mean I need something point and click for every unit, but if I have to break out a calculator to figure things out with the unit on the table, then it's just too much.

This all probably points to me not being overtly picky. I'll play most units come to think of it.

It should be cool and worth its points.

Please define worth it's points?

Right, now for my take on this.

To me, a unit has to have a role within my larger army. Chaos Possesed for instance, can provide a decent hitting CC unit for an army otherwise geared towards shooting. They can also serve as support to other specialised combat troops. Take Chosen Terminators for instance. Their main weakness in my opinion, are their low numbers. If I get careless, they risk being horribly swamped by lesser troops, when they could be off stomping big stuff and really pulling their weight. Having a unit of Posessed on hand to bundle in aids them in this weakness. So here whilst the Terminators are indeed a better choice normally, the points invested in the Posessed pay off by ensuring my Terminators get a chance to do their job.

So yeah, with me it's about perceived synergy. Hopefully my cunning plan is indeed cunning, and works. If not I'll give it a little scientific method and experiment further (lack of right opportunity in that game, me missing tricks etc). If that fails, then I'll drop the unit and possibly never even touch it again!

The more it kills, the better it is

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Please define worth it's points?

Difficult, but put simply the unit must have a game effect equal to the proportion of my army it takes up in points, give or take based upon coolness.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Chaos Possesed for instance, can provide a decent hitting CC unit for an army otherwise geared towards shooting.

I'd ask if you play Chaos but a better question would be 'have you ever even seen a chaos army'?

A good unit balances the qualities of synergy, redundancy, and flexibility in an army.

A unit can have these qualities either internally, like a Devastator unit having synergy between its Sergeant and a Heavy Weapon trooper by way of the former's Signum, or it can have these qualities externally, like a third Land Raider providing redundancy to other Land Raiders.

I have units that don't kill anything ever in my Warmachine armies, but
people go out of their way to kill them.

Rhupert Carvolo is a number one target due to his ability to give other models
extra threat range.

Choir of Menoth enhance Protectorate of Menoth warjacks significantly enough
that they are targeted early on.

(I guess that goes with the synergy mentioned by MDG)

In Fantasy, you'll see this in Fast Cavalry and low point fliers.

Eagles are 50 points and they can be used to March block, redirect, or threaten
warmachines.

Maybe they don't kill anything at all in the game, but they create threats on
the table that have to be dealt with.

A unit that can cause kill its pts worth, can fulfill multiple purposes(since there are lots of games types and not lots of money lining the wallet).. When I field certain units to fulfill certain things whether a land raider to blow up something or move troops. Now if it keeps dying before it can do those things(as example for anything) now if it can't do that either I'm doing something dumb or I have just found that this unit is definitely not worth it.. like why bring daemonettes(who suck in 40k) when I could bring bloodletters for almost the same cost but the bloodletters are better at killing..

Good points Malfred. Units that cause fear in players are highly valued.

Wow, what a question...

First, tactical flexibility. Meaning, that the unit can do more than one thing. A unit that has nothing but assault capability is utterly useless if the opponent can kill it in assault. Good units can adjust based on what is needed.

Barring that, a good unit needs to be a trump unit. Units like bloodcrushers, nob bikers, and thunderhammer terminators are trumps, because they're generally going to outclass an enemy unit.

Price is, of course, important. A mediocre unit becomes good if it is cheap enough to have lots of, a good unit becomes mediocre if it costs too many points. I'd generally take an aggressively priced mediocre unit over a high priced quality unit simply because you can have more of them, and numbers will win out over time.

What else? Potential for synergy. Good armies work together, the units have synergy with each other. Synergistic units are those that not only do their own job, but that also make other units in the army better.

But, overall, I think that a good unit needs to be flexible.

In 5th edition, there are essentially 4 roles for a unit:
1. Attacking (Taking objectives)
2. Support attack (Killing things)
3. Blocking (Tarpitting or protecting your objective)
4. Defending (Holding your objective)

If a unit has an assigned role and does that job well, that is my definition of a good unit.
For example, ork boyz. If I take ork boyz as defenders, they do the job insanely well. They're tough, don't run away, can move and shoot with range, and have the tools to deal with most attacking units coming to remove them from the objective. That makes them a good unit. They're good at the other 3 things too, but nevermind that.

An example of a bad unit would be swooping hawks. They're expensive, nonscoring, and not particularly destructive. They're also fragile. They're terrible attackers, useless blockers, and as a nonscoring unit can't hold anything. Their only use is as a support attacker, and they're mediocre at it (dire avengers kill troops better, for instance, and are cheaper). That makes them a bad unit.

I don't agree with most of the other opinions about worth their points or get their points back. If I could take a monstrous creature that was scoring and immune to shooting but did zero damage it would still be a great unit...It would be the ultimate blocking unit and a damn good defender.

A good unit does what it does best well, and doesn't fare as well doing something it isn't supposed to do. This means that one good unit may require backup from other good units good at doing different jobs (I'm not suggesting that a good unit has to be good at ONLY ONE thing, it can have a couple of jobs, but it needs to back up the other units where they are week.)

On the other side, a poor unit either isn't very good at what it's supposed to do, or is good enough by itself, but is a little bit expensive, leaving not much room for other units to support it.

Edit: Example of a good unit? The humble space marine tactical squad; even when they succumb to the forces of Chaos, this unit is good at getting out of a transport and shooting something. They can also be tooled with special weapons to do many different jobs, and lets them back each other up. They aren't good at assaulting, which is fine, they've got a special rule for that anyways. Example of a bad unit, Flash Gitz, more expensive than a nob, with a random AP gun, they are however good at their job (ranged anti armored-infantry fire) but cost way too much to do it, can't hold objectives, and steal a Heavy Support slot!)

Call me biased, but Orks in general are good units.
Bog standard Ork boys are cheap as chips, and you get loads of 'kill' for your points, relatively speaking.
It's all about forcing your opponent to make loads of saves as an Ork player - 20 slugga boys charging into combat roll something ridiculous like 80 attack dice! Even 20 Shoota Boys (notoriously poor shots) still brass up their targets with 40 shots - then they can charge and roll 60 attacks! That's an obscene amount of dice - you're bound to kill something.
And all that dakka for 120 points!

The unit needs to have a clear definition of what it's role is, priced reasonably and be competitive against other units within it's slot. Units with lack of focus on what their role is tend to be over costed compared to what they will do in the game or tend to be so vanilla at everything that they suck at doing anything. There are quite a few units which remain in the box indefinitely because they just cost too many points for their effectiveness. The unit can be very good, but if another unit in the same slot is superior, it's still worthless.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

As the thread title says, I am intrigued as to what parameters different gamers use for define whether they feel any given unit is much cop. I'm not looking for absolutes, just a gathering of opinions and hopefully some decent discussion.

They have to do their job and do it well. Not necessarily kill, but allowing others to preform.

Flexibility helps. Its a bonus, but not necessary.

Like Malfred's example of great eagle.

For myself, for example, a battle sister is a good unit. Workhorse, flexible and does their job quite well-kill units and hold objectives. In the same codex, stormtroopers by comparison are sub-optimal. They do their job....not as well. Their troop so they are ok they can hold objectives, and you can get plasma and chimera-but they dont have the killing power of the battle sister, nor the survivability. Further by comparison repentia just suck. They dont do their job well at all- they cant survive with poor armor, and going last with a chainfist means they die mostly before doing anything useful.

A good unit is one that has a power that matches its points cost, contains no arbitrary restrictions, and is at its most effective when alligned with the fluff.

For it to be good it has to IMO:

Has to be able to justify it's point (either by killing its points value or accomplishing something in the mission or protecting unit X etc...)

Has to have multiple purposes (ex. a rhino can carry troop and then once it drops its payload contest objectives!) so it can't just do one thing only (footslogging marines)

Has to fit in with the rest of my army

For me, Tactical Flexibility is a must. One trick ponies bore me, no matter how good they are at it. I would rather have three units that support each other nicely than three units that each do only one thing very well (I guess that may be why I do not play Eldar). I love my Sisters because I can use them as a fireline, objective campers (each Rhino I lose on turn one turns into my objective camping units), tarpits, tank-hunters, infantry mowers, anti-MEQ, anti-hoard, bikini shots, `Service Sunday', etc.

The impossible to define `cool' is also essential. Ork Boyz are flexible (hold objectives, `shoot', assault, tarpit, bikini shots, etc), but they are not `cool' to me. Acts of Faith are `cool'. I guess the fluff ties a lot into `cool' from my perspective. Sisters without Faith are weak, but with it they make Space Marines fill their armoured jockstraps. Cool rules that tie the fluff in well make a unit interesting to me. Models fit into here for me too. I spend more time painting than I do playing (I paint every day, with very few breaks), so I spent a lot of time with my face very close to the models. I love the current Tyranid Warrior models and enjoy painting them. Even though their fluff and rules to not strike me as especially `cool', the models do. I want to get more purely because of I like the models. This is why I am also constantly tempted to play Grey Knights, even though my friends are always trying to deter me.

In-game effectiveness is obviously important. The idea of a swarm of Gaunts surrounding small units of Warriors is `cool', but not very good. I run it anyway, but I am constantly frustrated at how ineffective it is. Cost would tie directly into this. A unit that is over-costed would be ineffective, as you cripple your force to take it. If, for example, Stealers were 40 points each (for the current stat-line), as `cool' and effective as they are in their role, they are too expensive to properly use.

For me, a unit that has many uses, fluff/rules and/or models that inspire me, and are actually doing to be good in the game are what I consider ideal.