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As still a new player that has bought a lot of bad units for my 5 armies . Why do the even sell such units and not jus the good units also that would help stearm line codesxs . so i guess my ?is why are ther so many crapy units that you shouldnt play

Because of options? Unless you're all about winning, and nothing else, then I can understand your perspective. If you're more concerned with the narrative, or just about having fun, then I would imagine that you would want as many options as possible, despite their effectiveness. Thus, I guess that answers your questions...GW is catering to a wide range of gamers...not just the power gamers.

Werewalrus wrote:
Because of options? Unless you're all about winning, and nothing else, then I can understand your perspective. If you're more concerned with the narrative, or just about having fun, then I would imagine that you would want as many options as possible, despite their effectiveness. Thus, I guess that answers your questions...GW is catering to a wide range of games...not just the power gamers.

Well said Remember zilka86, GW doesn't even consider their product as a competitive game. It's a "hobby" for collectors. You have a wide variety of units because some people (I think many of us) play both for competitions and for fun. Not only that, some of us just like to paint stuff.

The Dark Eldar Mandrakes for example. It's a horrible unit for gameplay but it's a model made of awesome and win that looks great painted.

Just ever trouny i go to all have same list pnly been playing a yr and i only go to trounys and get butt kicked hard ever time so i switch armies use internet to find best list and still get lose been to 10trounys

Crappy units is a subjective term.

How you use a unit is key and what you need to use it for is key as well.

For example, I love to use vespid, even though people think they suck, because the look on my opponents face when I gun down a monsterous creature or squad of marines with them is well worth it.

A good player will make much better use out of units than a new one. Some units are far better for new players, as are some armies. Just because you can't find a use for some units doesn't mean there's no way to make them work.

Warp talons were considered crap until the daemons update, when you could use the book on them to grant them a 2+ invul.

And so forth.

zilka86 wrote:
Just ever trouny i go to all have same list pnly been playing a yr and i only go to trounys and get butt kicked hard ever time so i switch armies use internet to find best list and still get lose been to 10trounys

If you're using a net-list, then everyone at the Tourney knows how to beat that list, because it's a cookie-cutter template army. It's a "book example" army that everyone and their mother has had practice fighting. There's also the chance that they've been playing a lot longer than you have been, and have a greater understanding of the intricacies of the game, and know how to counter Net-lists with their own armies (as they've seen them a lot).

It's all about diversity and the art of creating and painting different and exciting things. (Agreeing w/ TheDraconicLord's comment).

Example, Vangaurd Veterans. TERRIBLE unit for what you must put down point wise and for what they bring to the battlefield. However, the combination of Artificer armor (looks wise) and the amount of "cool looking" weapons they have are a selling point for some people. Plus, you can paint them up nicely for more of a visual aesthetic, rather than a functional, fielded unit.

zilka86 wrote:
Just ever trouny i go to all have same list pnly been playing a yr and i only go to trounys and get butt kicked hard ever time so i switch armies use internet to find best list and still get lose been to 10trounys

Doesn't matter how many netlists you use. A list will not win your a tournament unless you have the experience and skill to go with it. And jumping from army to army every time you lose means you are reset every single time, so rather than develop your skill, you learn nothing and will keep losing.

OminusMarine wrote:
It's all about diversity and the art of creating and painting different and exciting things. (Agreeing w/ TheDraconicLord's comment).

Example, Vangaurd Veterans. TERRIBLE unit for what you must put down point wise and for what they bring to the battlefield. However, the combination of Artificer armor (looks wise) and the amount of "cool looking" weapons they have are a selling point for some people. Plus, you can paint them up nicely for more of a visual aesthetic, rather than a functional, fielded unit.

Aye, I put down Honour Guard and Vanguard Veterans almost every time I play marines, and people go, "Damn, that's a great looking unit," and then they promptly murder them with a fraction of the points.

No one unit is completely worthless though, even Vanguard who are often held up as an example of over-costed units. Everything has a niche, it's just sometimes you pay more points than that niche is worth. Vanguard, as an example, are really great in extended combats against certain armies. Green Tide orks like to hide power claws away from the frontline of combat in the first round, to avoid them being killed by higher initiative enemies. Vanguard can drop down on a flank of the ork tide, and kills most of those klaws. Units like devastators, heavy weapon squads, long-fangs and so on are also good targets for them, but that's a very specific niche other things can do for cheaper.

Besides, the updated codexes have had much better internal balance than most of 5th ed. There are very few units I would say are genuinely not worth taking in some capacity. Khorne Berserkers and Thousand Sons aren't amazing, but they have very real uses, Kroot can provide masses of sniper fire for the lowest cost in the game, and I think the Falcon is the only mediocre unit still in the Eldar codex; even Guardians got a lot better. Things are looking up for the unpopular or underpowered units in each dex.

Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army. also i thought net list are the way to go the best way to make a army so it should do good in a game not get beat in 3truns so easy


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Am not a power gamer also the reason i have so many armies is so i can play i also have ever codex so i can no all the rules and build a 2000pt army for ever one and really be abel to play the game

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

Werewalrus wrote:
Because of options? Unless you're all about winning, and nothing else, then I can understand your perspective. If you're more concerned with the narrative, or just about having fun, then I would imagine that you would want as many options as possible, despite their effectiveness. Thus, I guess that answers your questions...GW is catering to a wide range of games...not just the power gamers.

Well said Remember zilka86, GW doesn't even consider their product as a competitive game. It's a "hobby" for collectors. You have a wide variety of units because some people (I think many of us) play both for competitions and for fun. Not only that, some of us just like to paint stuff.

The Dark Eldar Mandrakes for example. It's a horrible unit for gameplay but it's a model made of awesome and win that looks great painted.

I agree, Def Dreads and dreadnots are not worth the points but I still have them because they fun to paint and collect.

zilka86 wrote:
Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army. also i thought net list are the way to go the best way to make a army so it should do good in a game not get beat in 3truns so easy

If you have the fastest car in the world, you don't win a race unless you know how to drive it.

Am not a power gamer also the reason i have so many armies is so i can play i also have ever codex so i can no all the rules and build a 2000pt army for ever one and really be abel to play the game

Not a power gamer and only using netlists...does not compute.

And really? You have 2000 points of ever army?

 curran12 wrote:

zilka86 wrote:
Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army. also i thought net list are the way to go the best way to make a army so it should do good in a game not get beat in 3truns so easy

If you have the fastest car in the world, you don't win a race unless you know how to drive it.

Am not a power gamer also the reason i have so many armies is so i can play i also have ever codex so i can no all the rules and build a 2000pt army for ever one and really be abel to play the game

Not a power gamer and only using netlists...does not compute.

And really? You have 2000 points of ever army?

The last isn't all that implausible, all that's needed is time and/or money. And if you have enough of one, the other can slide a bit.

zilka86 wrote:
Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army. also i thought net list are the way to go the best way to make a army so it should do good in a game not get beat in 3truns so easy


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Am not a power gamer also the reason i have so many armies is so i can play i also have ever codex so i can no all the rules and build a 2000pt army for ever one and really be abel to play the game

This is a game that requires a really, really long time invested to master an army. It also involves building your own lists and testing them, changing them, testing them again, so on and so forth, over and over and over again. Using net-lists? You're not learning anything about the army, you're just trusting someone else's list to perform for you.

And, heh... well... a Tourney is where you are likely to find the sort of player who *is* a power-player. Their armies are often optimized to the nth degree to fill the role they are designed to fill (usually Take All Comers, but as often not, being more specialized anti-Flyer, anti-psyker, anti-armor, anti-horde or whatever armies). These tend to be the sorts of players for whom winning is not everything, but the only thing.

To answer the OP: bad units exist because GW's game designers are lazy and incompetent, so their "cool" ideas often have terrible balance. They aren't deliberately making bad units, they just don't know what professional playtesting is. That's why you get Vendettas and rough riders in the same FOC slot, because when you just guess at what a unit's point cost should be and send it off to the publisher you often guess wrong.

(They still have a job because GW's target market doesn't actually play the game, they just like the idea of a game existing. The kid buying $500 worth of space marines that will end up forgotten in the closet in a couple weeks doesn't care about the fine points of game balance, so why pay extra to make better rules?)

Units that are bad now weren't necessarily always bad. Sometimes the rules change.

The game's been out awhile.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Units that are bad now weren't necessarily always bad. Sometimes the rules change.

The game's been out awhile.

Great point that I didn't think of. This is my philosophy (can remember who said this). The goal of a game is to win, but it not the win that is sweet, but the completion of the goal. Just change your goal to have fun (gayyyyyyyyyyy).

So maybe i really am at a lose with this game haveing to buy so many books and armies to play is w lot of money. but if that what takes so be it and i never understood how to make a list that's any good so i run per made list

Focus one one army or two. My mind would explode if I had to deal with every army.

zilka86 wrote:
Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army. also i thought net list are the way to go the best way to make a army so it should do good in a game not get beat in 3truns so easy


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Am not a power gamer also the reason i have so many armies is so i can play i also have ever codex so i can no all the rules and build a 2000pt army for ever one and really be abel to play the game

No offense, but is English your first language?

He's either trolling or he's a 10 year old

Sorry i was useing my phone. just very frustrated with this game after spending so much time and money. seems like ever thing i use in my armies is a bad unit. even my new eldar army is no good it should be the power house army as its the newest army.

Werewalrus wrote:
Because of options? Unless you're all about winning, and nothing else, then I can understand your perspective. If you're more concerned with the narrative, or just about having fun, then I would imagine that you would want as many options as possible, despite their effectiveness. Thus, I guess that answers your questions...GW is catering to a wide range of gamers...not just the power gamers.

I actually don't know about that. I think that the writers of the codices literally think every unit they write will be effective. I mean, Matt Ward has been on record saying as much.

I think more likely it's that GW doesn't necessarily know what will and will not be effective four or five years down the road or however long it is until a new draft of a codex comes out.

That's one of the misconceptions that haunt 40K, partially due to one writer's run of OP codexes

The newest codex isn't necessarily the most powerful, and even if you are running a top-tier dex/list it does not guarantee an easy win. Chance and opponent skill matter.

GW has actually been seeming to tone back the codexes a bit in 6th. Tau are a little above the curve, but DA, Daemons and CSM weren't the uber-powerhouse books that broke the game one after another.

Each has some punch, but there are codees before them that heft a lot more win-button weight, such as Necrons

The thing about Eldar, especially, is that it takes a measure of skill to make the army work (though not as much as DE ) and to really wreck face it also needs your units to all be in the right place at the right time. This takes a heap of practice to make work effectively, and picking an off-the-rack list without this practice won't win you games.

There are very few out and out stinkers in the game. Some units are better than others, but almost any unit can be deadly in the hands of a player who understands it's best use, and can get it to where he needs it to be.

What 'stinker' units are you using, and how are you using them? Could be that they are a spanner being used in a hammer's task, when they would be more effective used differently?

zilka86 wrote:Just ever trouny i go to all have same list pnly been playing a yr and i only go to trounys and get butt kicked hard ever time so i switch armies use internet to find best list and still get lose been to 10trounys

Here's your problem.

40k isn't REALLY a strategy game - it's a dice game. If you want to take a game seriously as a competitive exercise, then you will always be disappointed by 40k. Hanging around a bunch of people playing the game on easy mode while pretending that they win games by force of will won't help your attitude.

As for why there are crappy units, I agree with the idea that there are a lot fewer than you think. Once again, being around uncreative people who only play one kind of list doesn't actually mean that the other options are bad - they're just outside of the myopic focus the people around you are capable of producing. There are, I will admit, bad units, but GW's generally getting better at this over time (for example, CSM came out recently, and only have two genuinely awful units, and DA also came out recently, and really only has one, and that's out of entire codices). The other times that units are bad is because the codex is old and the game has changed out from underneath them. For example, rough riders, ogryn, and priests didn't used to be that bad for a guard army, but then 6th ed came out and made them bad. As guard hasn't had a 6th ed codex yet, they're sort of just stuck, wallowing in the wrong rules set.

That or there's a switch in meta. Hydras were better in the beginning of 6th ed when everybody needed to bring a flier or three. Now that the mania is (slightly) beginning to dissipate, it just makes them less useful.

I encourage the use of "bad units." Why? It challenges us all to become better generals. We can all write lists to win, but it there are different forms of enjoyment that come from the game. I mean, how many people have imagined making an ENTIRE chapter of Space Marines, 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Devastator and 2 Assault Squads, along with a Command Squad, Captain, Chaplain, 2 Dreadnoughts, etc. Would it be the best army ever? No, but man that army would be the boss of any scene it was on, because it's concept is awesome. Name every character, number the squads ... make it original, and amazing.

The ways Warhammer 40k can be personalized ... along with the "in the spirit of the game" suggestions in the 6th ed. rulebook, point in the direction of "play the game for yourself." You want a crazy non competitive themed army? Go ahead. You want an Min/Mazed power gamer list? Go ahead. Somewhere in the middle?

zilka86 wrote:
Sorry i was useing my phone. just very frustrated with this game after spending so much time and money. seems like ever thing i use in my armies is a bad unit. even my new eldar army is no good it should be the power house army as its the newest army.

Yet you claim you are using netlists. What you are describing is not knowing how to play the game well, not an army problem. If you won't accept that, fine, but that's the best advice we can give you. Stick to one or two armies, and really learn them and how they interact with other armies. You can have the most overpowered list in the game and lose miserably if you don't have a grasp of HOW to play. I routinely lose games because I play horrifically. I don't place and capture objectives effectively, I have poor targeting choices, my units simply don't perform how I expect them too, I don't build balanced lists, etc. Part of my problem are my army lists. I don't run through how they will work and interact, I just go "hey, that looks cool, let's do it" without really thinking about it. Another problem is that I don't think far enough ahead in games. I don't suck because I play Blood Angels, I could have stalemated or won many games that I lost simply by playing smarter. I suck because I am lacking at the skills needed for this game or making VERY dumb choices at times. You are not seeing results because you aren't learning the game thoroughly and getting the experiences you need to win. How else would I learn that I should not let a terminator sergeant in a squad of 5 termis plus libby take a challenge 5 inches from my board edge? I learn from thinking through what happens if I fail a morale check if he does manage to die which I learned to do after that sad sad incident, or by really thinking forward to every possibility at every step, or by having him die, the squad fail a morale test, and 300+ points of units walking off the board in a 1k point game.

PS: You are the DEFINITION of a power gamer with the whole "my new Eldar army should be the power house army since it's newest". You can't buy wins, you have to earn them. If you don't get that, no one here can help you at all, sorry bud.

zilka86 wrote:
Hmmm i don't like clubs because ther full of kids i rather play at trunys no kids and it can't be that hard to master a army.

So you only play at tournaments? You're giving yourself an ENORMOUS handicap.

I know several international-level players. They typically play 4-5 games a week against other plays of a similar level and generally don't change army more than twice a year.

 evildrspock wrote:
I encourage the use of "bad units." Why? It challenges us all to become better generals.

Say that to Dark Eldar Mandrakes and Necron's Flayed Ones. *shudder* The first one at least looks cool, the other is a piece of gak in every sense. There are genuine BAD units in the game that you don't want to touch. I agree that there are units that aren't that good but you can still use them, try something new, like my Lychguard or Triarch Praetorian or the Monoliths. They aren't ultra competitive units, but they look cool and allow us different tactics. But certain units? Not even while playing for fun

Many models have conversion potential or simply look great if you were to paint them for display purposes.

Also keep in mind that some people like certain units for fluff / army themes. Your army won't "suck" if you squeeze in one of these units. You won't win tournaments but you can definitely put up a fight and win games.