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So it seems to me like in this game there is no end of less attractive (bordering on useless) options for things.

Like lightning claws over thunder hammer/storm shield or god hammer landraiders.

So what options do you feel are rubbish/less worthwhile and why?

Most things have their uses. I happen to enjoy both of your examples, often at the same time. I mix a pair of LC terminators into my assault squad, and drive them to battle in a phobos land raider (with the godhammer pattern lascannons)

Having a couple of LC termis in the squad helps when you are mulching things that aren’t giant monsters. More attacks, and the ability to re-roll the wounds helps a lot. I still have 3 TH/SS guys to tank wounds as needed, but they don’t all need that level of protection.

The TLLC LR is the only one of the core codex land raiders that pretends to be a MBT. The others are battlefield taxis. They do a very good job of being tough and shuttling assault troops where they need to be. But outside of their cargo, they have very little impact on the battlefield. Chances are, somewhere out there, something needs to eat a few megajoules of coherent light. PotMS lets you target things while on the move (and/or separate targets) and the LC’s range lets you hit it. Sure, you pay a premium for abilities that you might not fully utilize, but that doesn’t make it useless.

The Internet is not a big fan of generalist, jack of all trades units. You should take the very best, specialist units, and hammer your foes with them. Everything else is useless trash, and you are being silly for even considering it. OK, that might be a little hyperbole, but hey, it’s the internet. If you step away from the mythical internet meta, and focus on what’s happening on the tables at your FLGS, a lot of the “garbage” units will do just fine.

YMMV

 Nevelon wrote:
If you step away from the mythical internet meta, and focus on what’s happening on the tables at your FLGS, a lot of the “garbage” units will do just fine.

Precisely, and Exalted. 40k is not binary, and it's not black and white. The only time a unit/upgrade can ever be called useless is if there is something else that does exactly the same thing for a lower cost.

See this thread here for examples of how unit the internet hates have a lot of potential: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/604466.page

 Paradigm wrote:
The only time a unit/upgrade can ever be called useless is if there is something else that does exactly the same thing for a lower cost.

The only time?

How is paying 10 points for +1S on a Fire Dragon Exarch not useless?

Because it gives +1S

If you paid 10 points for +0S, then it would be useless.

As it is, it is merely limited, but Internet binary speak doesn't distinguish between the two.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want useless, how's about one of the FW Ork walkers, I forget exactly which, which comes with an Ordnance weapon, and isn't Superheavy, but has an option for +35 points to substitute one of it's DCCW for another one.

Which it will never be able to fire, as it is a blast weapon.

Even then, I've realised as I've been writing that it isn't totally useless, as it means it would take two weapon destroyed results to take out that weapon system, but, again, limited, and probably never worth 35points.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
If you step away from the mythical internet meta, and focus on what’s happening on the tables at your FLGS, a lot of the “garbage” units will do just fine.

Precisely, and Exalted. 40k is not binary, and it's not black and white. The only time a unit/upgrade can ever be called useless is if there is something else that does exactly the same thing for a lower cost.

See this thread here for examples of how unit the internet hates have a lot of potential: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/604466.page

Hey - I agree with some parts of your posts, but disagreed with other parts. I was going to come on here and rant and rave and say that I hate everything you said... but it's not as easily black & white as that.

I really liked the discussion in Magic the Gathering about card powers - they have a term that is really great for this purpose, "strictly better/strictly worse". It's really hard to apply it to warhammer though because there are so many variables - even if you have an upgrade that is the same exact effect in the same army but at a higher cost - it might not be "strictly worse" because it's usually being given to a different unit. A 40 point autocannon being given to a BS6 model is probably going to be a better option than a 30 point autocannon given to a BS2 model.

So for that reason I think It's very hard to ever really discuss strictly better option - at least within 1 codex. Maybe across codexes or comparing base codex to FW you could. Instead people tend to look at the average performance of different units or upgrades to see which ones give the most value. In that case, I think you really can make a strong argument for certain things to be well underpowered/overcosted compared to alternatives in the same book. Useless is the wrong term of course. It's like how some people 'literally' use some words to add emphasis without understanding or caring what they 'literally' mean.

The other side of the coin are abilities or powers that have no alternative to compare to, but are extremely situational. Even though they might do something useful once every now and again, the points spent on something else would have been consistently useful in every game.

Some examples off the top of my head from the Necron Codex:

Phaeron upgrade for Overlord
Some # of points to give the unit relentless. But necrons have no heavy weapons to fire so all it does is let them charge after shooting, which is arguably not worth the price.

Paying to get Entropic strike for C'tan.

Some strong arguments made against Flayed Ones
Basically there are better CC options in the codex that will do more against enemies with any kind of armor and against any lighter armored enemies tesla wins out and has range.

Paradigm wrote:See this thread here for examples of how unit the internet hates have a lot of potential: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/604466.page

Yeah, ignoring false dichotomies, etc. etc. for a moment, people talking about there being total garbage is a sign of the lack of creativity of the speaker much more than anything else. Or people being too lazy to research how other people are using those units successfully. Any time someone says something can't be used effectively you only need a single counterexample to prove them wrong, and there's a lot of fodder for that on the internet.

I certainly have limits to my own creativity (I never could get penal legionnaires and I haven't seen much of a use for LRBTs since russes became heavy, for example), but that's my shortcomings. Showing up and saying that a vast majority of the game is comprise of units that can move, and damage other units, and sometimes superscore and saying that they're basically useless is silly. Other people have found uses for them, it's just not everybody has caught up with them yet.

Which is what makes threads like paradigms so good.

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
If you step away from the mythical internet meta, and focus on what’s happening on the tables at your FLGS, a lot of the “garbage” units will do just fine.

Precisely, and Exalted. 40k is not binary, and it's not black and white. The only time a unit/upgrade can ever be called useless is if there is something else that does exactly the same thing for a lower cost.

See this thread here for examples of how unit the internet hates have a lot of potential: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/604466.page

Hey - I agree with some parts of your posts, but disagreed with other parts. I was going to come on here and rant and rave and say that I hate everything you said... but it's not as easily black & white as that.

I really liked the discussion in Magic the Gathering about card powers - they have a term that is really great for this purpose, "strictly better/strictly worse". It's really hard to apply it to warhammer though because there are so many variables - even if you have an upgrade that is the same exact effect in the same army but at a higher cost - it might not be "strictly worse" because it's usually being given to a different unit. A 40 point autocannon being given to a BS6 model is probably going to be a better option than a 30 point autocannon given to a BS2 model.

So for that reason I think It's very hard to ever really discuss strictly better option - at least within 1 codex. Maybe across codexes or comparing base codex to FW you could. Instead people tend to look at the average performance of different units or upgrades to see which ones give the most value. In that case, I think you really can make a strong argument for certain things to be well underpowered/overcosted compared to alternatives in the same book. Useless is the wrong term of course. It's like how some people 'literally' use some words to add emphasis without understanding or caring what they 'literally' mean.

The other side of the coin are abilities or powers that have no alternative to compare to, but are extremely situational. Even though they might do something useful once every now and again, the points spent on something else would have been consistently useful in every game.

Some examples off the top of my head from the Necron Codex:

Phaeron upgrade for Overlord
Some # of points to give the unit relentless. But necrons have no heavy weapons to fire so all it does is let them charge after shooting, which is arguably not worth the price.

Paying to get Entropic strike for C'tan.

Some strong arguments made against Flayed Ones
Basically there are better CC options in the codex that will do more against enemies with any kind of armor and against any lighter armored enemies tesla wins out and has range.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying at all that there aren't worse or better units for certain tasks. Using your example of Flayed Ones, I agree that in most cases, Wraiths will do their cc job better. The only thing I'm try ing to point out is that just because something is outperformed by something else, that doesn't make the former unit useless.

That's why there's merit to discussing tactics rather than just being told what the best unit for a given role is.