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There are a couple units in the game that hold up to that... but not many.

No need to take 6x units of gaunts. You take 3x units of gaunts, and then three more tervigons. That's possibly 5 tervigons (if you elect to take them as HQ's) spawing more gaunts every turn. (That's as many as 45 gaunts a turn without sterilization...although I average around 35). Transports? Well you are moving your tervigons to keep within range of your gaunts so they can share your poison and furious charge (you don't need to spend points on them) so when you run into transports how do 5 monstrous creatures with 6 wounds each sound? Eventually some will go sterile, but some will keep pumping out til the end of the game.


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6+ save suck? Give your tervigons catalyst...then you can give 5 units a turn feel no pain

That's not entirely true KingCracker.

Taking away the lords for the moment, the thunderwolves are likely to cause 10 casualties before the orks swing, and then no-retreat wounds kick in, because the boyz are wounding on 5+ (6+ if charged) versus a 3+ save.

I don't think that's because the thunderwolves are overpowered, so much as because they have a good matchup against boyz. (There are things that they don't match up so well against too). More importantly, as others have pointed out, the No Retreat! wounds really amplify the effect of losing combat when you've got a 6+ save.

It's not just thunderwolves, any really dedicated assault unit will have a similar effect, killing a ton of boyz before they swing, and then letting the no-retreat wounds kick in.

Because of how initiative works, the bigger the unit fighting against the orks, the less damage they'll take from those who survive the charge too. Heck, worst case might be when 30 boys charge 30 boyz. The chargers will, in all likelyhood, kill 25 of the chargees, for 2 casualties in return.

Low quality troops can do okay if they have to fight shooty guys or a low number of guys, but No Retreat, and poor initiative are real weaknesses in assault.

Imperial Guard are the best IMO. They can pack a ton of melta and bring more bodies than any other army. Take Commissars for Stubborn and give the Sergeants power weapons. Sprinkle in heavy weapon squads and special weapon teams to taste, perhaps some Priests, and top it all with with Creed or Straken.

Orks are also good, but suffer from poor iniative and the whole no retreat debacle.

Brother SRM wrote:
Guard can legally field the most models in one FOC though. I don't have my codex on me, but you can cram over 100 guardsmen into each troops slot.

Too lazy to check if someone has pointed it out (sue me!), but either CSM or Daemons (can't remember which) has no limit to the amount of models they can field, as there's on restriction for some minor annoyance daemon-thingie.

It's CSM that can take an infinite number of summoned daemons, since they don't fit into the FOC at all. Of course, then they're not really taking them in the FOC, are they? So IG comes out on top there (each troops slot can have 144 models jammed into it; it'll cost over a thousand points, but it's possible).

CSM can theoretically spend as many points on summoned lesser daemons as they want but realistically speaking you will never ever see anyone taking advantage of it. The summoning mechanic places a practical limit on how many such units can actually enter play. They also cost quite a bit so in a game played with a points restriction they won't end up outnumbering anyone other than loyalist SM and Necrons. Lesser daemons also aren't terribly good by most accounts. The unlimited lesser daemon thing is only of intererest if you're playing with silly thought experiments about the most models that could possibly be used with no regard for points costs.