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The Tau Hammerhead.

It lost its role as a halfway compromise between the fast but fragile Eldar skimmers and the slow but tough imperial tracked tanks in 6th with the culling of the Tau vehicle upgrades list and the loss of the "counts as fast for the purpose of shooting" multi-tracker.

Crisis suits.

Loss of JSJ, minimum unit size of 3 suits meaning you can't even take a suicide melta suit as 3 of them is way too expensive for a suicide unit and being flat out worse in every way than just taking a commander who can pack more guns and has the survivability granted by being a character.

For my space marines:
Land Speeders - their rules just don’t support what they were designed for, it is weird that iron hands have better land speeders than white scars or dark angels.
Dreadnoughts - walkers as whole have no real special purpose over just a normal vehicle, they need something to distinguish between walkers and normal vehicles. While some walkers are good still they just don’t have a place other than fluff in most lists now.
Land Raiders - haven’t seen one fielded in person in years, they are very expensive (points and $) with many people switching to primaris they don’t see use as a transport often and they are out gunned by repulsors and repulsor executioners.

For my nids:
The dimacheron has no real purpose, it’s rules make it pretty out of place in most lists but it is such a cool model.
Tyranocites have really no purpose in most lists now.

TheAvengingKnee wrote:
...Dreadnoughts - walkers as whole have no real special purpose over just a normal vehicle, they need something to distinguish between walkers and normal vehicles. While some walkers are good still they just don’t have a place other than fluff in most lists now...

Melee attacks. In theory. Not usually in practice, but in theory.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

TheAvengingKnee wrote:
...Dreadnoughts - walkers as whole have no real special purpose over just a normal vehicle, they need something to distinguish between walkers and normal vehicles. While some walkers are good still they just don’t have a place other than fluff in most lists now...

Melee attacks. In theory. Not usually in practice, but in theory.

I think this was their original purpose (and it's supported in the fluff). Dreads stomping up the field with some infantry, usually anchoring one of their flanks, assault cannon blazing away to provide some covering fire, close combat weapon ready to mulch some baddies should they get too close.

Now they're mostly useful as long range weapon batteries.

Gotta disagree with the guy who said chosen are trash in the first page. They're great. They can now have 4 attacks on the charge, a sergeant with potentially 5 attacks, or 4 attacks with a weapon and one with chainsword. For one point over csm. I've found them really strong with 5 plasma, all with chainswords. Pop them in a rhino/LR first turn, get out and melt stuff with your silly amount of special weapons, inevitably lose all the bolter dudes, (but who cares) then charge in and clear infantry with all that S4 goodness.

Meh. Dreads still have some of the same roles.

Prior editions were either mobile weapon platform & melee support for infantry or long-range fire support. They still do both of these reasonably well, but with an added fire-support defensive role.

Stick a twin las and storm bolter fist next to some Devs on a home-field objective and blast 2 lascannon shots as fire support that can then also run in and tie up melee infantry or overrunning tanks aimed at the devs.

I just wish the missile launcher was a snowflake typhoon/cyclone.


For lost roles: I nominate the sentinel variants

Both are meant as fast outrider/vanguard units but both also suffer move-and-fire penalties for their weapons. And the sentinels pay way to much for the chainsaw, which only grants them some AP (2 pts is too much when evey army has some ability to treat AP -1 as AP 0, even a regiment in the same codex). A chainsword bonus attack or any other change in statline would be of more value to the points.

On a more general note I think across the factions anything that's just that box to move things have lost its niche as cheap transports are no longer a thing…

Rhinos, Trukks, Chimeras all seem to be fall into this bracket
As opposed to things like Wave Serpents, Razorbacks and Repulsors which have more than a token amount of firepower.

Some units that stand out:

Heavy Assault Tanks (Land Raider, Repulsor): This was always destined to be a problem and it particularly hurts since the repulsor never had a chance to shine without this problem. These tanks spend too many points for thier heavy tank role, have too little transport for their point cost in the transport role, and already suffer the problem in that a single model with a high point cost and no LOS safety is a huge risk in the 8th ed battlefield.

Marine Melee Common Infantry: Assault Marines, Reivers, tactical marines w/chainswords. All have the same problem - 8th ed largely expects a minimum of -1AP to handle all the armor saves, but these weapons use a base 0 AP and have a pitful few attacks for their point cost.

Tactical Marines: Primaris marines have the survivability to make their point cost back, Devastators can dish out enough damage to mitigate the 1W problem, AM infantry is hell a lot of more points efficient. Tatical marines have ... a single special weapon. GW is in a bind here, they can't make them cheap enough and all the options for making them better is already being used by another model.

Terminators: 8th ed has a lot of -AP to make up for the armor values in other models, but this puts Terminators in a weird place. They could barely hold on to the 'survivable' angle before Primaris models came on the scene. Now you are paying more points for a job that could be better handled by Primaris marines.

Eldar Infantry: Whoever thought that a half-dozen versions of the standard infantry statline was a good idea should have been shot. Putting it into a faction in which most models are expensive point wise and of low survivability is just terrible. One model line will always outdate the others.

Tyranid Warriors: Its a model that GW can't dare buff too much because they are elite mid-price models in a faction that's supposed to be all hordes backed by super-elite monsters. They are the tatical marines of tyranids

Necron Warriors:
When I started the army (4th), they were terrifying. No need for special weapons or fancy stuff, on basic troop gun can trash tanks. Any Gauss weapon that rolled a wound roll of 6 did one unsalable damage, regardless of toughness.

Basically they did a mortal wound to anything on a 6+ to wound. Why won't they give us that back!?

Monolith:
I'm not too sure what to say here...I know what it should be capable of *looks at 3rd ed codex*...but..*looks at 8th ed codex* ...what did they do to it?!!?! The Monolith has totally lost its purpose as a transport/support/undying tank.

The tervigon was one of the best units in the game in 6th (I think it was 6th). In an edition where only troops scored, they were a troop choice if taken with an MSU+ unit of termagants, spawned more (free) termagants as the game went on, offered synapse, psychic powers, could kill a land raider in combat, were tough to kill and were only about 160 points IIRC. The only reason people didn't take 3 of them was all of the spawned gaunts would slow the game down too much, and you already needed upwards of 100 painted termagants to field two tervigons given all of the models you'd spawn. Oh, they also shot a large blast weapon

Now they're expensive, easier to kill, offensively weak and you have to pay for new units of gaunts you spawn. They're not OP, which is good, but you aren't likely to see them any more. Also, hordes are in now, so enemies are more prepared to deal with massed bodies than back then when a horde was a niche build

I have a hard time justifying Assault Marines when you can either take Vanguard who can also fly over and have a better chance to kill characters, or bikes for a hard hitting quick moving assault unit.

Heck, you can boost those bikes turn one and get a 3++, and then be In position to unleash bolters/plasma guns turn 2 onwards.

A 10man Assault Squad is 180 pts for 3 plasma pistols and an axe on the sergeant. Total of 10 wounds.

a 9 man bike squad (8 bikes and an attack bike) is 254, gets 2 plasma guns, a combi-plas, a heavy bolter, and 9 TL Bolters. Is a total of 20 wounds.

Sly Marbo. Fails at being an HQ, fails at being anti-infantry, fails at character assassinating.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Sly Marbo. Fails at being an HQ, fails at being anti-infantry, fails at character assassinating.

Yeah, only good at taking Gold at ETC 2019.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Sly Marbo. Fails at being an HQ, fails at being anti-infantry, fails at character assassinating.

I actually love him in 8th, if i had guard i would play him every game lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Falcon: It hasn't had enough firepower to be a credible 'tank' since 4th at least, and the move to twin linked = double shots means it's just a worse Wave Serpent at this point.

As someone with more of them than WS's... yeah they are so bad.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
For me the biggest unit I struggle to justify these days in most landspeeders. They used to be incredibly fast and packing a ton of fire power. MM and Flamer combos could threaten almost anything, and the ML or Assault Cannon variant were also mobile and hit hard. Combine that with the option to deep strike or come in screaming from reserves meant they offered a ton of flexibility.

They were a staple in my list from 5th to 7th and were on of the most best units in the marine codex. The change to vehicles not being able to move and shoot with out a penalty along with them being fairly fragile means they usually sit on my shelf.

I know there are strats and traits that can improve them but GW doubling down on that mechanic is something I really dislike. A unit should be able to stand on it's own and have a purpose, it shouldn't need two or three levels of combo hammer to be good.

Like assault marines these things have new life with the supplements.

So people have to pay extra for them to stop sucking?

Actually most Speeders are still bad outside Ultramarines and Iron Hands.

Assault Squads still have no purpose though and no supplement is going to help them, simply because Vanguard exist.

Actually the point drops for land speeders were part of the equation. They're a fair bit cheaper now on top of other nifty benefits.

VV are elite; AM are fast, so if that distinction is important there is still a place for them even if it's only for the budget conscious 10 to 20 point savings.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
For me the biggest unit I struggle to justify these days in most landspeeders. They used to be incredibly fast and packing a ton of fire power. MM and Flamer combos could threaten almost anything, and the ML or Assault Cannon variant were also mobile and hit hard. Combine that with the option to deep strike or come in screaming from reserves meant they offered a ton of flexibility.

They were a staple in my list from 5th to 7th and were on of the most best units in the marine codex. The change to vehicles not being able to move and shoot with out a penalty along with them being fairly fragile means they usually sit on my shelf.

I know there are strats and traits that can improve them but GW doubling down on that mechanic is something I really dislike. A unit should be able to stand on it's own and have a purpose, it shouldn't need two or three levels of combo hammer to be good.

Like assault marines these things have new life with the supplements.

So people have to pay extra for them to stop sucking?

Actually most Speeders are still bad outside Ultramarines and Iron Hands.

Assault Squads still have no purpose though and no supplement is going to help them, simply because Vanguard exist.

Actually the point drops for land speeders were part of the equation. They're a fair bit cheaper now on top of other nifty benefits.

VV are elite; AM are fast, so if that distinction is important there is still a place for them even if it's only for the budget conscious 10 to 20 point savings.

The way the FOC works, Elite vs Fast Attack is not enough a distinction, and if you REALLY wanted a Jump unit you'd just spend the few extra points on Vanguard. The price difference really makes it as simple as that.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Tactical Marines: Primaris marines have the survivability to make their point cost back, Devastators can dish out enough damage to mitigate the 1W problem, AM infantry is hell a lot of more points efficient. Tatical marines have ... a single special weapon. GW is in a bind here, they can't make them cheap enough and all the options for making them better is already being used by another model.

Tac Marines remain the most offensively capable Troops unit. And don't forget the Combi-Weapon! The drop in price for Grav Cannons is also a boon.

VV as just AM with +1A really are not competing with AM.

A) They take up different FOC slots
B) The VV often have more competion for the Elites slot, even though their are more of them available.
C) There is basically no difference between the 2 other than # of attacks(so not sure where Crazyterran was getting the character assassination bit other than pumping points into different weapons, which further chages the 2 units)

I cannot quite agree with the bikers comparison either: 74 points can get you another unit in many cases, so paying for an entire separate unit(like 5 scouts with 4 snipers and a heavy bolter), to gain more wounds and shooting than the assault squad(who has a different role anyways)...

Assault Marines and VVs both have jump packs, so can jump over chaff to get at characters. However, VVs actually carry weapons that will make the characters worry.

The bikes and AM have the same role, as they both are there to harass units and charge and clear up chaff. Bikes have better T, an extra wound, move faster and can also contribute at range. They also have a better strategem, and mesh better with the Tactical Doctrine, which is as far as most marine armies will want to go.

An extra Scout squad with sniper rifles is a pretty nice waste of points I guess, but you could do it.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
The tervigon was one of the best units in the game in 6th (I think it was 6th). In an edition where only troops scored, they were a troop choice if taken with an MSU+ unit of termagants, spawned more (free) termagants as the game went on, offered synapse, psychic powers, could kill a land raider in combat, were tough to kill and were only about 160 points IIRC. The only reason people didn't take 3 of them was all of the spawned gaunts would slow the game down too much, and you already needed upwards of 100 painted termagants to field two tervigons given all of the models you'd spawn. Oh, they also shot a large blast weapon

Now they're expensive, easier to kill, offensively weak and you have to pay for new units of gaunts you spawn. They're not OP, which is good, but you aren't likely to see them any more. Also, hordes are in now, so enemies are more prepared to deal with massed bodies than back then when a horde was a niche build

That was 5th. And yeah, when first introduced they were very strong.
People absolutely did take more than 2 of them. At the time armies were limited to the standard force org chart, however tervigons had a rule where you could take one in a Troop slot instead of HQ for each unit of termagants you had in your army. Hence the short lived reign of the 5 tervigon gaunt spam list. GW nerfed the crap out of them in 6th edition, and the nerfs followed through to 8th.

These days they're an expensive monster with almost no offensive power. For ranged weapons they're just equipped with the tyranid equivalent of a heavy bolter, and their melee ability is poor.
Their only purpose is to produce basic termagants. However producing termagants costs points, unless you're replacing casualties in an existing unit.
Given that a tervigon simply doesn't Do anything useful itself, you're better off just spending all of its points on more termagants. That will give you far more than it was ever likely to produce over the course of a game.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Assault Marines and VVs both have jump packs, so can jump over chaff to get at characters. However, VVs actually carry weapons that will make the characters worry.

The bikes and AM have the same role, as they both are there to harass units and charge and clear up chaff. Bikes have better T, an extra wound, move faster and can also contribute at range. They also have a better strategem, and mesh better with the Tactical Doctrine, which is as far as most marine armies will want to go.

An extra Scout squad with sniper rifles is a pretty nice waste of points I guess, but you could do it.

Now, I know this is old school, but what about if they set it up where Assault Marines could be troop choices if you took a Jump HQ? I think that would be very fun in the least and would give a rather middling unit a huge bonus that may make it viable

Agreed, Assault Squads should be Troop choices, just flat out.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Agreed, Assault Squads should be Troop choices, just flat out.

Would be even better if they had access to bolters.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Agreed, Assault Squads should be Troop choices, just flat out.

Would be even better if they had access to bolters.

That would make them amazing mobile objective takers but that ship has long sailed since the kit is done. If anything just giving them access to plasma and melta could make a huge difference ala Blood angels.

Maybe if we are lucky we can get some Suppressor style unit with bolt rifles?

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Agreed, Assault Squads should be Troop choices, just flat out.

Would be even better if they had access to bolters.

That would make them amazing mobile objective takers but that ship has long sailed since the kit is done. If anything just giving them access to plasma and melta could make a huge difference ala Blood angels.

Maybe if we are lucky we can get some Suppressor style unit with bolt rifles?

I again allways wondered why it is okay for 5 raptors to have 3 plasma guns but not to have bloody bolters.
Like wtf? You are willing to carry these highly complex guns that suffer from dangerous instability if not handled propperly but a bolter with belt feeding is too mundane for you?

RIP aggressors. You got a second in the sun before the codex, but now you're 100% replaced by assault centurions.

Aggressors:
(6 +d3) x2(stationary) shots at 18". T5, S4, 3+, 3 wounds, 3 attacks (Power Fist)

Assault Centurions (+7 points)
12+2d6 (always) shots at 24"/8". T5, S5, 2+, 4 wounds, 4 attacks (No penalty Thunder Hammer)

Every FA option in the Ork codex. Interestingly some of these units have never had a purpose, because they are new.

Stormboyz - slower, more expensive, less killy Boyz that die for the privilege of goin fasta. Why aren't you using Da Jump?

Warbikes - too expensive for their damage output and durability, lost key rules from 7th-8th transition, Da Jump makes them useless compared to Boyz. They can't harass and there are better units to get stuck in turn 1.

Nob Bikes - way too expensive for their damage output and durability, superseded in almost every way by Warbikes that are themselves a poor unit as above.

Kustom Boosta Blasta - not quite anti-infantry, not quite anti-elite, not quite anti-vehile, not quite useful.

Shokkjump Dragsta - hits the most sour spot of doing too little damage and having too little durability to be useful. Has a melee weapon for some insane reason.

Boomdakka Snazzwagon - worse at clearing infantry than the Kustom Boosta Blasta, Stole the rule from Warbikes.

Megatrakk Scrapjet - the most competitive buggy still has the problem of not knowing whether it wants to shoot things, get stuck in melee, or be very average at both. It still dies to a wet fart.

Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy - this is my favourite because it's so stupidly bad. This thing costs almost as much as a Disco Lord or, in Ork terms, a Battlewagon. It has 9 T6 wounds, a 4+ save and no character protection. The Battlewagon (for comparison) has 16 T8 wounds, a 4+ save and it can transport units for the same points. It's not even a HQ to fill slots. I genuinely believe that the person responsible for points costing and writing rules for this unit was drunk. They must have been. It's awful at everything, which is a shame because the idea and the model is phenomenal.

Deffkoptas - They can fly. Literally their only use is to grab objectives but at 30pts without weapons they are as expensive as 10 Grots that can be jumped and protect key units. Losing options from Index has made them utterly redundant.

None FA honourable mentions from the Ork dex -

Trukk - what sane Ork player is taking a Trukk when you can jump a group of 30 Boyz hidden outside of LOS and fill a HQ slot for about the same points? The Trukk is now a Tankbusta tax.

Burna Boyz - a joke. Worse than Boyz in every way. More expensive. Work that one out. Also have a literal "Burna" that is the worst "burner" in the game. I want to punch GW d3 times in the nuts for this travesty

Mek Gunz - Bubblechucka & KMK - many of you probably don't realise that there are Mek Gunz other than the Smasha. There are - one forces you to play slower for a hefty points cost and the other is a worse Smasha gun in all but number of shots, but costs a ton more.

Gunwagon - the best thing about this vehicle is that it can explode on a 4+.

Killa Kans - worst LD for cost in the game surely? Serves no purpose - can't specialise to be good at melee or ranged attacks.

Stompa - the Stompa is so bad it makes the Wraithknight look like a pro choice.

Mek Boy Workshop - only 80 pts to make my units worse?! Let's take 3!

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
The tervigon was one of the best units in the game in 6th (I think it was 6th). In an edition where only troops scored, they were a troop choice if taken with an MSU+ unit of termagants, spawned more (free) termagants as the game went on, offered synapse, psychic powers, could kill a land raider in combat, were tough to kill and were only about 160 points IIRC. The only reason people didn't take 3 of them was all of the spawned gaunts would slow the game down too much, and you already needed upwards of 100 painted termagants to field two tervigons given all of the models you'd spawn. Oh, they also shot a large blast weapon

Now they're expensive, easier to kill, offensively weak and you have to pay for new units of gaunts you spawn. They're not OP, which is good, but you aren't likely to see them any more. Also, hordes are in now, so enemies are more prepared to deal with massed bodies than back then when a horde was a niche build

My experience has been the reverse. They were ineffective in 6th/7th, overpriced and weren’t very dangerous in CC. I love them in 8E.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Tau Hammerhead.

It lost its role as a halfway compromise between the fast but fragile Eldar skimmers and the slow but tough imperial tracked tanks in 6th with the culling of the Tau vehicle upgrades list and the loss of the "counts as fast for the purpose of shooting" multi-tracker.

Crisis suits.

Loss of JSJ, minimum unit size of 3 suits meaning you can't even take a suicide melta suit as 3 of them is way too expensive for a suicide unit and being flat out worse in every way than just taking a commander who can pack more guns and has the survivability granted by being a character.

Was going to write this exact same thing but you beat me to it. Hammerhead was my favourite Tau unit and when the daft 6th edition codex made it unplayable (together with rules changes which made Railgun suck), I essentially gave up Tau altogether.

Suits were fun, they existed to play clever and flexible style of game where you tailored your shooting and maneuvering around what opponent had and did. In newer editions they have become pure Dakka spam unit with no flair.

Nearly all the Ork forgeworld units in 7th were amazing, but Grot Tanks, Grot Mega Tank and the Deff Dread are nowhere near as good now. I don't know if other forgeworld units across other factions are worse in 8th than they were in 7th.