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My vote is for the SW's Grey Hunters. Cheap, killy, versatile. They're everything you could want in a basic troop and more.

Honorable mention to the GK SS (good, but expensive) and the lowly Ork Boy (probably the most points efficient model in the game, but limited application).

Blood Angel assault marines

Why?

Because they get the job done, want anti tank? Take 2 Meltas and a power fist, want anti infantry? Take 2 Flamers and a power weapon, want anti elites? Take 2 plasma guns and a lightning claws and Infernus pistol. They are mobile and cheapens the cost of transports if you take off their packs

Several mentions of veterans yet none of platoons? I am suprised.

You can use platoons to do almost anything. As a rapid mechanised force they are inferior to veterans but for other roles they are far superior. For holding a line or an objective there are few better choices. They can also lay down a staggering amount of heavy weapons fire. Special weapon squads with flamers are better to put in skimmers than veteran flamers, as they are a fair bit cheaper.

My favourite thing is that in kill point games you can merge them together to help mitigate their number of points.

Imperial Guard Infantry Platoons. Versatile. Big (or small if you wish). A lot of options. You can field 6 chimeras with a platoon (max). I have never tried to field an army constructed completely out of platoons (+1HQ naturally) but I think it might work surprisingly well.

I'm saying Necrons simply because I'm pretty lucky with WBB and love the reaction my opponent has practically every WBB roll.

Depends on how basic we're talking (correct me if I'm wrong here)

SM Tacticals- Jack of all trades, low numbers, no specialty
Chaos Marine squad- like above but cheaper and slightly more number wise
Tau Fire Warriors- Good range good firepower but as a racial default melee abilities are horrific
Necron warriors- good numbers, good durability, good damage, but slow as molasses
Dire Avengers- decent and speedy, but specialized and suffers durability
Ork Sluggas/Shootas- decent all around and high numbers, not so much for the armor though
Gaunts- HIGH numbers, fairly speedy, but weak
Guardsmen- Numbers, Specialization, but suffers from typical guard infantry disadvantages
Dark Eldar, forgot their basic but if I remember it's fairly close to the regular Eldar
SoB- Decent, not quite as strong as the marine, not quite as weak as the guardsmen

Grey Hunters.

my vote would either be the grey hunter - gets everything done for excessively cheap.


or one that has not been mentioned yet - the sister of battle!!! 11pts for a stormtrooper with +1ld, boltgun, power armour and acts of faith = awesome!!! long live the boltgun!!

CSM seems good, but they aren't fearless and can get rundown in assaults. Grey Hunters seem good, but they can only wave at skimmers and tanks at range. Besides the Plague Marine outclasses the Grey Hunter in almost all ways.

The SM Tactical marine has the weapon flexibility to engage any unit at any range. It is the most versatile of all the troop choices.

DarthDiggler wrote:Grey Hunters seem good, but they can only wave at skimmers and tanks at range. Besides the Plague Marine outclasses the Grey Hunter in almost all ways.

Counter-Attack, Acute Senses, BP/CCW+ranged weapon for 15 points? Sure, Plague Marines might be better when it comes to survivability, but they're much more expensive.

I'd go with Grey Hunters too, but I really have fallen in love with my Kabalite Warriors lately, up to 24 poisoned shots per turn (or 14 with 3 S8 Lance weapons) yes please.

Plague marines!

Plague Marines, nobrainer. Genestealers, decent threat range when flanking and they can take a 3W unit leader. The amount of poison DE warriors can spew out scares me.

It's not surprising that many people are saying Grey Hunters, but I think they are wrong. Sure, Grey Hunters can give special weapons in 5 man groups and are cheap, but the most effective build for them is really the 5 man squad in a razorback - and you are doing this mostly for the razorback.

While Grey Hunters are good, its hard to call them best.

Anyone saying C:SM tactical squads are best, or even good, need to reevaluate how they define those words. edit: Instead, I'd call them necessary.

Ork boys are easily close to or at the top considering their good basic stat line and special rules relative to their point cost. Hidding that power klaw in the unit is great, and they can be highly offensive with sluggas or better all around with shootas.

Wychs deserve a spot near the top for being one of the best CC units in the game. Their fragility to shooting puts them below the ork boy, however.

IG vets need a mention as well, as others have pointed out. They do what they do extremely well: carry special weapons at a cheap cost.

SW Grey hunters and BA assault squads probably deserve a spot near IG vets.

Plague marines certainly deserve a spot somewhere, probably not too high though since they have relatively limited offense.

Imperial Guard.

Not vets, but Platoons.

PCS can do what vet squads do, but cheaper. Platoons also have access to things like Power blobs, shooty blobs, heavy weapons squads and special weapon squads.

I usually only run Vets if I don't have the points to go for a full Platoon instead.

Lol, Orks boyz are best... If I was an Ork player, I'd say those were fighting words. Grey Hunters are the most versatile troops, BA Assault Squads are the most situationally powerful in melee, Veterans are the most situationally powerful at range, and GK:SS are the most situationally diverse. IG Infantry Platoons would be great if Vets weren't 3x better (1x for every special weapon over the Infantry squads you can get :-p). And lets be honest, Vets are only good because they have access to the best transport in the game: the Chimera. Has almost as much firepower as another race's standard battle tank, has the front armor to match, it's dirt cheap, AND it's a transport.

That is, GH will almost always make up a portion of their points even if used improperly. BA:AS can wreck up nearly anything in a well placed assault without taking casualties. Veterans are similar but at range instead. And GK:SS are good in any possible situation you can put them in, as long as the player is competent. In a way, this is ordered by level of skill required to adequately use.

Depends on the criteria for "best". Point for point, I think ork boyz get the nod, but as mentioned above, on a per model basis there are a number of excellent options available.

I'm going for ork Boyz. They decimate almost anything with the same points value...

Grey Knights? Force weapons(i 6 possible), grenades,heavy wep per 5, hammerhand, warp quake, 10 pt TH/DH. They also take terminators as troops by default.

I have taken out Assault Terminators with Boyz. Was pretty awesome.

For their points, they are amazing.

Vaktathi wrote:Space Wolves, Grey Hunters, no contest.

There's little that can compete with Grey Hunters in terms of capability as Troops. Chaos Space Marines with Counterattack, Acute Senses, and ATSKNF...with cheaper weapon/upgrade/squad options and 30-40% discounted sergeants (after kit)? Really? All the advantages of Tac Squads (save for combat squads/tactics, which aren't really that useful given the way GH's are equipped), the Wargear of CSM's, none of the downsides, and at a hefty price discount. Not a huge wonder as to why so many SW armies appeared out of nowhere after being relatively obscure for a decade (also...Long Fangs, but they aren't Troops).

Vets are good, but only with two weapons loadouts (triple plas or triple metla) and mounted in a transport. There's a reason you never see them (at least in any competitive sense) with grenade launchers, sniper rifles or flamers (well, rarely flamers, but only in valks), and certainly never footslogging.

GKSS's are very good, but tend to be either overkill or overspecialized. You don't need a squad full of force weapons and stormbolters to kill guardsmen, and they don't have enough attacks to successfully engage ork hordes, but work great at destroying MEQ's.

I'd have to agree with this.

Grey elder wrote:Take into [account] point cost , effectiveness, and how it performs in the game.

Point for pound, nothing tops an Ork Boy - at least nothing in the troops slot.

Genestealers...what's not not love about them

tervigon.. duh.. not only is it the best troop, it is the best unit in the nid codex lol

oadie wrote:

Grey elder wrote:Take into [account] point cost , effectiveness, and how it performs in the game.

Point for pound, nothing tops an Ork Boy - at least nothing in the troops slot.

Yeah, when it comes to it Ork Boyz reign supreme. i.e.

10 Space Marines = 25 Boyz
10 Grey Hunters = 25 Boyz
10 Genestealers = 24 Boyz
1 Tervigon = 26 Boyz
10 Plague Marines = 38 Boyz

This is of course without upgrades, but the fact you can put a Powerklaw in there and customize the boyz either for being absolute beasts in melee or the ability to pour out massive volumes of fairly good anti infantry firepower makes them one of the most terrifying troops choices out there.

DakkaDakka wrote: