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 Techpriestsupport wrote:

Are there any other "useless" units in any armiesyou would like to advocate for?

First thing comes to mind:

A Deathwatch Terminator (a 2W, T4, 2+, 5++ model): Cyclone missile launcher, Storm bolter, Meltgaun and Power fist is 114pts. Is 'only' 3 power if use in a veteran squad, if playing power. Granted power level is rare to use and even then DW come out on the wrong side. But I have a few made and when playing Power level have performed well (among other wacky/expensive points combo's) and is always fun to use (Tele strat)

For normal, points games:

For Tau:
I know a lot on this site and others hate them but I have found XV8 Crisis Battlesuits with 2 Cyclic iron blasters and 1 Advanced targeting with some shield drones in support have worked well for me on many occasions (are expensive but have done the job) and I have found Vespids great for objectives etc. I love running solo XV9 Hazard Support's as well and they have performed.

Only one's that stick out tbh

A lot of "bad" units are only marginally so and many of them can be transformed into good units with support.

Let's take Spawn for example and compare them to Grotesques.

Spawn, M7 W4 S5 T5 W4 AD6 L9 Sv5+
Grotesque, M7 W3 S5 T5 W4 A4 L8 Sv6+/5++(and probably 6+++)

As for weapons...

Spawn, S:user AP2 D2
Grotesque, S:user AP2 D1

Grotesques are 35 and Spawn are 33. For a scant 90 points they can be S6 and T6.

The abilities of the spawn are making attacks AP4, or D6+2 attacks, or reroll wounds. For 1 CP I can pick the one I want AND reroll the number of attacks.

For 30 points more than Urien I can follow these guys with an exalted sorcerer to give them a 5++ and heal / -1 to hit / +1 to hit / warptime (pick your poison) on top of reroll 1s to hit.

Are Grotesques better? Quite likely. Is it a huge gap? I imagine the gap is so small that it comes down to dice. Grotesques are better taking and giving hits to S3/T3 models, no doubt.

Slipspace wrote:
The Necrons nicely highlight the current problems of the Psychic phase to me. Necrons have OK screens with Scarabs, but the short-medium range nature of the army means getting in range of psychic powers is inevitable. They have no meaningful psychic defence. A single Deny form a Warlord Trait is fine against, say, a SM army with a Librarian, especially considering that Trait also makes your models immune to morale. Against anything with more than that, it's completely futile. The major problem is that Deny is such an unreliable mechanic, even having a bunch of it in the army is not going to help that much. Putting it on Spyders is laughably bad too, mainly because the unit is so terrible it's more of a liability to take it than not.

I've played Necrons against TSons and while it's certainly not an unwinnable game, it's an uphill battle. More than that, I just find the endless psychic phase with its stream of Mortal Wounds dull , unengaging and utterly uninteresting.

The main issue is that GW seems to balance pyskers and powers around the idea that armies might have one, maybe two in a bigger game. Then they release factions that can have a dozen on the field. Add to that the default power is I roll dice and you die and that creates all kinds of issues with a lot of factions having essentially no defense at all other than possibly allies.