What units are "Tax" units and what purpose do they serve?

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**TheCustomLime**

sfshilo wrote:
There is no TAX unit. The concept comes from a terrible place in wargaming called the internet.

Most units can be useful, there are rare occurances in 40k of a unit being unuseful. (4th ed chaos spawn come to mind....)

I will use the kdk possesed example. For starters that unit is worth a blood tithe so it is already useful by being there. Is it the best at that? No. But it is still useful. Additionally, if you design the entire army considering their impact then you will play better as a whole.

Get rid of this tax crap idea, it is a formation, you have to take it, you may as well use the unit or just take a cad if you do not like it.

What you described in your last sentence is actually a good definition of a tax unit. A unit that's suboptimal but mandatory to take a formation. You seem to acknowledge the concept but yet you think it doesn't exist? Am I misconstruing your argument?

As for a tax unit in my Codex Tactical Marines definitely qualify. They have poor shooting and mediocre durability for their cost. Their best use is taking 6 5-man squads for objective camping in a GSF to abuse the free transports.

**Lord Corellia**

the_scotsman wrote:
Lord Corellia wrote:
For Orks, I think of Nobz as more of the tax in most of their formations. Nobz on foot are simply not effective for their points, and because of this (and the fact that more veteran Warbosses will likely have a load of the Aobr ones kicking about) the kit doesn't sell very well. Because it doesn't sell well, GW puts it in damn near every bundle to try and shift some of them.

A real shame, as fluff-wise and model-wise they are pretty damn cool. Pity their rules don't come close.

It's a good thing that their bikes are equipment, and not a separate unit, so in almost every instance nobz can be replaced with the superior nob bikers.

I suppose, although that still doesn't do anything to help with the scads of extra Nobz you'll have from buying Ork bundles. Nob Bikers still aren't the be-all and end-all as they once were.