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.

For the DE, it's the sword elves. Less attacks than the spear elves or corsairs for the same cost. More durable than spears, but marginally less durable in close combat than corsairs up to S5, tied at S6, and only become more durable at S7... and how often does S7 come up? Add in that the parry save doesn't work against shooting, impact hits, magic, and stomps while the corsair's 4+ armor works (to some extent or another) against all of it there's no contest at all.

Spears should have been a point cheaper than Corsairs, and swords a point cheaper than spears. That would give them a role which right now they simply do not have.

For VC I think it's a toss-up between the Corpse Cart and Bat Swarms, but I'm gonna have to say... Bat Swarms. The Corpse Cart is actually useful sometimes, despite being a M4 chariot. And actually, I think being M4 is it's only real downside.

But Bat Swarms, man... I feel like they're great, like they have potential or something, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to use them right. Either I DON'T know what to put them up against and when, or I DO but I can't keep them alive long enough to actually let the matchup happen. Like, if a GG horde gets in with a monster or something, I want to combo charge maybe, but they'll end up dying to shooting before I can get it. Actually, that's a bad example because GG are ASL anyway with great weapons. But you get the idea. Maybe combo charged with Black Knights who aren't carrying a vampire death machine? But when do I take BKs without vamps?

And at a minimum of, I think, 70 points for the smallest unit, they just come up short when compared to either two Fell Bats at 32 points or a single base Spirit Host thing at 45 points.

Also, we should definitely make this a non-special character discussion. Don't special characters ALWAYS win this fight unless you're talking about High Elves?

It might have to be no SC and no swarms...

Hey, jungle swarms aren't bad.

No they aren't, in fact they're everywhere

DE: Fleetmaster.. whatever they were going for, they failed. The rest of the book is pretty solid. A few weaker choices are justifiable in certain situations, but I just don't see the point of Fleetmasters.

CD: Infernal Guard with ranged weapons. Overpriced for such a short range and average BS. I'd rather save those points to spend on Warmachines or cheap hobgoblins to get more drops.

Ironsworn are also pretty bad... mainly just because they are in the Special slot... a lot of competition there. If there was a way to move them to Core, they'd be better.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

DE: Character is the Fleetmaster and the unit is witches. The fleetmaster is pointless in every aspect, and witches are a combat unit that don't want to be in combat. As without the shadow buffs, they rely on killing their opponents before they get to strike back. And anything witches can kill, darkshards do it better. Because they can't get hit back.

I agree with the Fleetmaster... but witches are great.

With the ASF rerolls, and poison (and potentially the Cauldron... but that's an outside factor so hard to bring in) they destroy other infantry. Also damage in combat is nice because you can break and run them down. Don't forget how huge combat resolution is against Undead armies.

I think witches are one of the best units in the book and maybe one of the best core options in the game.

I'm going to echo Bat Swarms for my VC, but I also want to throw Zombies under the bus. I have never seen a reason to take Zombies when Skeletons are still available. Yes, skeletons cost more, but they can do all the things zombies CAN'T do, and all but one of the things zombies CAN do (and that one thing isn't all that special, anyway).

Man, you're way off about zombies.

squidhills wrote:
I'm going to echo Bat Swarms for my VC, but I also want to throw Zombies under the bus. I have never seen a reason to take Zombies when Skeletons are still available. Yes, skeletons cost more, but they can do all the things zombies CAN'T do, and all but one of the things zombies CAN do (and that one thing isn't all that special, anyway).

What in the world are you talking about? The Newly Dead is incredible.

Dwarves either slayers - i think they should be skirmishers given their background or gyrocopter. From memory its 140 points with 1 role - harass the rears of units

For Tomb Kings it would have to be Tomb Swarms hands down.

Other than Tomb Swarms, I'd have to say Horsemen...

Yea, at least horseman have a sort of purpose.

4+ armor saves and spears.

Aren't tomb swarms unbreakable? just like snotlings used to be they hold up expensive units

There is an exact duplicate of this thread in the 40k forums. The difference I see is this; The Fantasy people stick to the heart of the thread. One or possibly two units competing for the spot are being listed as "The Worst" of any Army Book. Some discussion where people disagree and then the next army is brought up.

In the 40k thread, it quickly devolved into every player of a middle to bottom tier army listing off 80% of the units in their codex, with a long rant on each as to why it is terrible.

Why is this? Does it have to do with Fantasy being a more balanced game? Or that Fantasy players are more level headed? Or that 40k Players simply care more about the state of the game? I'm actually curious.

On topic:
As I don't really play whfb yet, but only read fluff and collect/paint, I'd say the worst unit I have is the ratling gun because the model is so poor when it could have been so fantastic

I'd say it has to do with fantasy being more balanced in general (both internally and externally).

As someone who plays both i too agree that army books have better internal balance than codexes. Some army books go as far as to have no useless units in them.

 Purifier wrote:

Why is this? Does it have to do with Fantasy being a more balanced game? Or that Fantasy players are more level headed? Or that 40k Players simply care more about the state of the game? I'm actually curious.

I have to echo the sentiment of better balance. WHFB is just, flat out, a more balanced game than 40k.

3rdGen wrote:
Aren't tomb swarms unbreakable? just like snotlings used to be they hold up expensive units

Our whole army is unbreakable. Basically it becomes a matter of paying 80 points minimum for 10 wounds to hold something up a turn or two at best, once you make considerations for crumble.

That's actually not a bad deal. Consider that's basically what a tarpit does, a tarpit costs a lot more, and a tarpit is vastly more difficult to maneuver around the map.

But for TK, they can't march, so they can't get around and block units. Wherever you have them, they're going to sit in that relative position unless you stop your whole army and let a couple swarms move, which isn't likely. You can do an easier job with Carrion at about the same cost and WAY faster. They have 6W vs 10 but 4T vs. 2.

The only saving grace for the swarms is EBTS. I'd rather 80 points for 2 swarm bases for warmachine hunting instead of a scorpion who will die to grapeshot.

 HoverBoy wrote:
As someone who plays both i too agree that army books have better internal balance than codexes. Some army books go as far as to have no useless units in them.

Lizards, High Elves, Dark Elvescome to mind as really no useless unit. They have some bad ones but if you really wanted to you could make the seahelm, Sword-legged captain and Troglodon work.

Liz swarms are sucky. People were arguing with me about varghulfs being useful at all and varghulfs are waaay better than Troglodons. People were arguing about the TK Stalker shooting attack and we argued a while about Bastiladon Ark of Sotek shooting attack. If the one line that says "all enemy units within D6" is good enough to get rid of all the other shooting requirements (like the Stalker group argued) then it's not horrible, otherwise, it's totally useless. Cold One riders aren't useless, but they still aren't so hot.

 Wilytank wrote:

squidhills wrote:
I'm going to echo Bat Swarms for my VC, but I also want to throw Zombies under the bus. I have never seen a reason to take Zombies when Skeletons are still available. Yes, skeletons cost more, but they can do all the things zombies CAN'T do, and all but one of the things zombies CAN do (and that one thing isn't all that special, anyway).

What in the world are you talking about? The Newly Dead is incredible.

So you get a few more zombies when you raise them... ok... but their stats are crap (even for undead) they can't get a command group (thus hurting combat res unless you bring a stonking great blob of them to compensate), they can't pursue a fleeing enemy (d6 hits per rank isn't a guarantee of wiping out a unit, and they always strike last (which can be mitigated with a Corpse Cart, but I'd rather use my CC on Grave Guard or skeles). If you aren't running zombies as a horde, there isn't much point in taking them... and my army hasn't got enough spare points to justify a horde of zombies.

Skaven here:

Overall worst model in the book: Vermin Lord. 500 points, will not see any action in games under 2000 points and games over about 2500 he will probably get destroyed before he can do anything worthwhile. Toughness 5, Wounds 5, Ward Save 5. Any piece of artillery out there would love to fire on this guy.

Generally speaking, everything else in the Skaven book is pretty good at whatever they do or whatever plan you have up your sleeve. The only issue with Skaven I can say is everything (except the slaves and clanrats) are over priced.

I've been over this before, but the Vermin Lord is basically a DoC Keeper of Secrets with LvL 4 and (somehow) managed to buy a balesword. That would be 530pts. They are +- a few attributes each after that.

It's not that it's a horrible unit, it's just that Skaven have so many that are better and the style doesn't fit the army. They do better with a lot of cheaper heroes and not some mega expensive gigantic monster hero who can't be the general.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
I've been over this before, but the Vermin Lord is basically a DoC Keeper of Secrets with LvL 4 and (somehow) managed to buy a balesword. That would be 530pts. They are +- a few attributes each after that.

It's not that it's a horrible unit, it's just that Skaven have so many that are better and the style doesn't fit the army. They do better with a lot of cheaper heroes and not some mega expensive gigantic monster hero who can't be the general.

Then you're looking at the difference between whether it's the stand-alone worst model in the army book, or it's the worst model for an army made with that army book.
Consider that a "worst unit" doesn't necessarily have to be bad, only worst. (The linguist in me cringes.) Like the Mad Hatter said, it's not hard to have more tea if you have had none.

What are your criteria for worst unit? I mean if I had a Gargantuan Rat with the stat of 10 across the board, and he costs 10 points, then that's a pretty amazing unit. But if I have to field atleast 2 million points of skavenslaves to be allowed to field him, then he's pretty terrible in any game of a realistic size. Since he can't be fielded.

Yes, but what he said, and what I was disagreeing with, was this:

he will probably get destroyed before he can do anything worthwhile. Toughness 5, Wounds 5, Ward Save 5. Any piece of artillery out there would love to fire on this guy.

And I was pointing out that he's nearly a mirror of the lords in another book. The lords who can't take any other lords who are much different. And they aren't "probably destroyed before doing anything worthwhile."

 Land_Stander wrote:
Skaven here:

Overall worst model in the book: Vermin Lord. 500 points, will not see any action in games under 2000 points and games over about 2500 he will probably get destroyed before he can do anything worthwhile. Toughness 5, Wounds 5, Ward Save 5. Any piece of artillery out there would love to fire on this guy.

Generally speaking, everything else in the Skaven book is pretty good at whatever they do or whatever plan you have up your sleeve. The only issue with Skaven I can say is everything (except the slaves and clanrats) are over priced.

I have used the vermin lord a few times in a 2000 point game for fun to try it out and it wasn't really that bad, I didn't take a grey seer so I still had a lvl 4 wizard who could cast the dreaded thirteen and he is way most beasty than any other of the lords.
Problem is making his points values back. You could do it depending on if you can get off plaque and the dreaded thirteen on some high cost units. But he didn't die, and did what I wanted him to do so I wouldn't say he is bad, just over costed but survives longer than a grey seer does.

I also am going to disagree with you about skaven being overcosted, just the majority of the lords are. Just my opinion.

squidhills wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

squidhills wrote:
I'm going to echo Bat Swarms for my VC, but I also want to throw Zombies under the bus. I have never seen a reason to take Zombies when Skeletons are still available. Yes, skeletons cost more, but they can do all the things zombies CAN'T do, and all but one of the things zombies CAN do (and that one thing isn't all that special, anyway).

What in the world are you talking about? The Newly Dead is incredible.

So you get a few more zombies when you raise them... ok... but their stats are crap (even for undead) they can't get a command group (thus hurting combat res unless you bring a stonking great blob of them to compensate), they can't pursue a fleeing enemy (d6 hits per rank isn't a guarantee of wiping out a unit, and they always strike last (which can be mitigated with a Corpse Cart, but I'd rather use my CC on Grave Guard or skeles). If you aren't running zombies as a horde, there isn't much point in taking them... and my army hasn't got enough spare points to justify a horde of zombies.

Guess what: Skeletons aren't winning combat either. At least you can bring more Zombies for your points so they can tarpit for a lot longer. You pretty much need to horde up on Skeletons anyway to lessen the chance of that Ogre/Chaos Warrior unit wiping them out in one turn of combat.

Vulcan wrote:For the DE, it's the sword elves. Less attacks than the spear elves or corsairs for the same cost. More durable than spears, but marginally less durable in close combat than corsairs up to S5, tied at S6, and only become more durable at S7... and how often does S7 come up? Add in that the parry save doesn't work against shooting, impact hits, magic, and stomps while the corsair's 4+ armor works (to some extent or another) against all of it there's no contest at all.

Spears should have been a point cheaper than Corsairs, and swords a point cheaper than spears. That would give them a role which right now they simply do not have.

Don't agree with this at all. Bleakswords + Dreadspears are the cheapest of the Core choices, which automatically qualifies them for best as a bunker role. For a bunker, a Parry Save is far more useful than 5 extra S3 attacks (even with ASF + MP), hence Bleakswords are the best bunker available to DE and therefore not useless at all. It's worth explaining that I mean a dedicated bunker. I often use Darkshards to bunker my (Supreme) Sorceress in, but in this instance the Darkshards aren't solely a bunker.

Tangent wrote:For VC I think it's a toss-up between the Corpse Cart and Bat Swarms, but I'm gonna have to say... Bat Swarms. The Corpse Cart is actually useful sometimes, despite being a M4 chariot. And actually, I think being M4 is it's only real downside.

Aw, man, Bat Swarms are great. They don't have the straight up cheapness of Fell Bats or Hosts, but you don't take them for drops or chaff, you take them for the ASL on an enemy unit, which comes in useful with almost every VC combat unit. And, with two armies in the game having army-wide ASF (and likely a third when Wood Elves get re-done), then the possibility of denying re-rolls to hit is brilliant.

squidhills wrote:I'm going to echo Bat Swarms for my VC, but I also want to throw Zombies under the bus. I have never seen a reason to take Zombies when Skeletons are still available. Yes, skeletons cost more, but they can do all the things zombies CAN'T do, and all but one of the things zombies CAN do (and that one thing isn't all that special, anyway).

Seriously? Zombies are one of the best units in the book and certainly the best Core choice. Zombies and Skeletons aren't meant to kill stuff, they're just meant to hold stuff up and be a pain. Zombies' cheap cost and extra D6 resurrection makes them brilliant for this. What's especially great is that a unit of 20, with a Banner for Blood and Glory purposes, costs a mere 65 points, but can be added to quite easily to make quite an efficient tarpit indeed.