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When to take infantry squads over conscripts or scions: when you want a unit that is basically conscripts, but it can take a lascannon and have a decent chance of hitting something with it.

 ross-128 wrote:
When to take infantry squads over conscripts or scions: when you want a unit that is basically conscripts, but it can take a lascannon and have a decent chance of hitting something with it.

It's a BS4+ Lascannon though. I'm not saying Infantry squads are bad but Conscripts and Scions cover everything ya know?

the_scotsman wrote:
Infantry squad: Give me a reason to take them over Scions or Conscripts

They hit harder than conscripts but are cheaper than both scions and conscripts on a squad-per-squad basis.

the_scotsman wrote:
I would call a unit a "bad unit" if in-faction, there was no reason to take them at all.

Hormagants: Give me a reason to take them over genestealers or termagants

Infantry squad: Give me a reason to take them over Scions or Conscripts

Kataphron Breachers: Why take them over Destroyers (which also suck, but have more reason to exist)

If you're looking for who's the worst, you've got to be looking at who's going to see the least play, and that's basically going to be a call between the handful of units who offer absolutely no reason to take them over the in-faction alternatives.

From there, you can say "but why would I take space marines when I could take guardsmen and be in-faction imperium" but you have to keep in mind you already lose obsec for everybody if you do that, and you lose subfaction benefits for any faction that has them.

In my eyes, if there is a reason to put a unit on the board, then it cannot be the worst troop if there are alternatives for whom there is no reason to field them at all.

Worst of the worst of the worst I'd argue Kataphron Breachers. Just a pitiful unit right now, and they add insult to injury in that they're not even good at filling a slot because they cost so damn much.

Hormagaunts - Yep
Infantry squads - Yep
Breachers - Nah - they are about even with destroyers. 3+ save really helps them compared to a 4+. Heavy Arc Rifle is pretty BA.
Intercessors - The best troop space marines have to offer.

the_scotsman wrote:
I would call a unit a "bad unit" if in-faction, there was no reason to take them at all.

Hormagants: Give me a reason to take them over genestealers or termagants

Infantry squad: Give me a reason to take them over Scions or Conscripts

Kataphron Breachers: Why take them over Destroyers (which also suck, but have more reason to exist)

If you're looking for who's the worst, you've got to be looking at who's going to see the least play, and that's basically going to be a call between the handful of units who offer absolutely no reason to take them over the in-faction alternatives.

From there, you can say "but why would I take space marines when I could take guardsmen and be in-faction imperium" but you have to keep in mind you already lose obsec for everybody if you do that, and you lose subfaction benefits for any faction that has them.

In my eyes, if there is a reason to put a unit on the board, then it cannot be the worst troop if there are alternatives for whom there is no reason to field them at all.

Worst of the worst of the worst I'd argue Kataphron Breachers. Just a pitiful unit right now, and they add insult to injury in that they're not even good at filling a slot because they cost so damn much.

Worst in the game not compare 1 unit in athe same codex to another unit.

What is the single worst troop unit.

Can we make a poll? I think most would agree - Dire Avengers followed closely by Gardians are 1 and 2. 3rd I'd say space marine tacticals - however some might not agree on this.

the_scotsman wrote:
I would call a unit a "bad unit" if in-faction, there was no reason to take them at all.

Hormagants: Give me a reason to take them over genestealers or termagants

6" pile in/consolidation, and cheap point cost. They're great at dragging additional units into a combat, and encircling models to stop them from falling back.
Yes, they're rather pathetic at actually killing things, but their job is instead to lock stuff down and tarpit for a couple of turns until the genestealers move in to mop up.
It's not a job that's always needed, but in 1.5k or higher games I can usually spare the points for a unit of them.

I have loved them since 2nd edition (conceptually anyway, getting them to stay standing up was a challenge) but the problem with hormagaunts is similar to wyches. There is not much point trying to tie things up. That is points that could have been spent on killing stuff.

You are putting a lot of contrivances together when "just send in something that kills whatever it contacts" is a better approach.

I don't see how say a squad of 30 gaunts and 15 genestealers is materially better than say two squads of 15 genestealers. The genestealers are dramatically better in combat, and while point for point they are a bit more vulnerable to shooting its not dramatic against S3 and S4 attacks.

Arson Fire wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I would call a unit a "bad unit" if in-faction, there was no reason to take them at all.

Hormagants: Give me a reason to take them over genestealers or termagants

6" pile in/consolidation, and cheap point cost. They're great at dragging additional units into a combat, and encircling models to stop them from falling back.
Yes, they're rather pathetic at actually killing things, but their job is instead to lock stuff down and tarpit for a couple of turns until the genestealers move in to mop up.
It's not a job that's always needed, but in 1.5k or higher games I can usually spare the points for a unit of them.

I literally stated this before be said this so i felt it was pointless to add b.c he wants h-gants to be a bad pick it seems.

They are cheaper, faster and with a good ability.

Few units in the game is better than hormagaunts at sorrunding and blocking the disembark from transports. You charge the transport with some hormagaunts, then you charge the transport with some genestealers. Then you select the hormagaunts to fight first, using their pile-in to move around the transport, then fight, and then consolidate fully around it in two ranks. Then you use the genestealers to pop the rhino, killing all hands because there are no room to disembark. You can do it with Ork boyz as well, but the hormagaunt + genestealer combo is better.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can we make a poll? I think most would agree - Dire Avengers followed closely by Gardians are 1 and 2. 3rd I'd say space marine tacticals - however some might not agree on this.

Yeah, I'd take tac marines over primaris everytime. But I'm considering the debate from my perspective, which is a SW player one, not a SM one. I've never seen intercessors in SW lists, even in casual ones. Only 1-2 lists with hellblasters. Grey hunters and blood claws are extremely common instead, not only in casual games but in many competitive lists. I still can't really see a huge difference between SW marines and vanilla ones. The only difference I can see is that SM have 1000+ more options than SW, and that makes tac marines just an average or mediocre choice, since they have tons of alternatives.

No one considers orks boyz bad, in fact many players put them along the best troops in the game. I'm an ork player and I disagree about that since ork boyz can be good only if you bring a list with at least 1500 points of them including their buffing characters. To let the boyz do something I'm forced to build a list around them or to invest tons of points for them, their transports or/and their buffing charcaters. A unit of 30 boyz can be deleted in a single turn quite easily unless they're part of a green tide. And the green tide has many nemesis and hard counters, starting with flyers. Really, ork boyz look good only because the rest of the codex is pure garbage, at super competitive levels, with the exception of their buffing characters and a couple of other units that are nothing more than faster boyz and sneaky boyz. In any mixed list with 90 boyz and other different stuff they'll do nothing against a competitive opponent.

I'd never say that boyz are bad but if they are top 5 and SM tacticals are bottom 3, IMHO there's something wrong in these ratings. 1 tac marine is better than 2 orks pretty much everytime unless, as I said before, you consider a list with only (or mostly with) ork boyz plus buffing characters.

 Blackie wrote:
1 tac marine is better than 2 orks pretty much everytime unless, as I said before, you consider a list with only (or mostly with) ork boyz plus buffing characters.

Really? What makes you say that?

Two shootaboyz has the same damage output as a tac-marine out to 12", and they have double the damage output from 12-18", while the tac-marine is best from 18-24". In close combat the two shoota boyz has 4x the damage out put of the tac marine, and while the tac marine is more survivable against anything AP 0, the shoota-boyz are more survivable against AP-2 or better. I think tac-marines are fine, but boyz are better in almost any scenario. They can shoot as well as tac-marines, they are much choppier and they are only slightly more fragile and slightly slower. That boyz only really has synergy with characters and more boyz has as much to do with the way cover saves work in 40k as it has to do with the index (which admittedly is pretty lacking)

In my ork lists, because I get free rerolls on my charge rolls anyway, and because at BS5+ I'm unlikely to get mileage out of most other rerolls, I just don't run troops at all. Boyz are good but as mentioned you need to make your whole list around them for it to be actually good.

 Blackie wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can we make a poll? I think most would agree - Dire Avengers followed closely by Gardians are 1 and 2. 3rd I'd say space marine tacticals - however some might not agree on this.

Yeah, I'd take tac marines over primaris everytime. But I'm considering the debate from my perspective, which is a SW player one, not a SM one. I've never seen intercessors in SW lists, even in casual ones. Only 1-2 lists with hellblasters. Grey hunters and blood claws are extremely common instead, not only in casual games but in many competitive lists. I still can't really see a huge difference between SW marines and vanilla ones. The only difference I can see is that SM have 1000+ more options than SW, and that makes tac marines just an average or mediocre choice, since they have tons of alternatives.

No one considers orks boyz bad, in fact many players put them along the best troops in the game. I'm an ork player and I disagree about that since ork boyz can be good only if you bring a list with at least 1500 points of them including their buffing characters. To let the boyz do something I'm forced to build a list around them or to invest tons of points for them, their transports or/and their buffing charcaters. A unit of 30 boyz can be deleted in a single turn quite easily unless they're part of a green tide. And the green tide has many nemesis and hard counters, starting with flyers. Really, ork boyz look good only because the rest of the codex is pure garbage, at super competitive levels, with the exception of their buffing characters and a couple of other units that are nothing more than faster boyz and sneaky boyz. In any mixed list with 90 boyz and other different stuff they'll do nothing against a competitive opponent.

I'd never say that boyz are bad but if they are top 5 and SM tacticals are bottom 3, IMHO there's something wrong in these ratings. 1 tac marine is better than 2 orks pretty much everytime unless, as I said before, you consider a list with only (or mostly with) ork boyz plus buffing characters.

I don't think ork boys are top 5. I don't think you can call anything with a 6+ save for 6 points top 5. A 30 man boys unit is actually pretty terrible on it's own. If you take 3-6 of them - some with make it and do a ton of damage so you can build around that. It doesn't matter if you take 5 or 40 tactical marines - they are going to do trash damage no matter what and die a lot faster than mass boys will on top of it. Grey hunters have always been a better choice than tactical marines - however they are still pretty crappy in this edition. Intercessors - while far from great are much tougher per point and are better in most situations vs most targets in shooting - always better in CC - and always cheaper to feild with their optimal builds. This allows you to take better things for those saved points.