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I was gonna say 616 Conscripts, but that's actually not a bad list. 212 hits per turn, against SM, that's 70 and 2/3rds wounds per turn, which translates to around 23 dead Marines a turn.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Has Pouncey being an a** about the unparameterized contest soured the rest of us on the parameterized contest?

Dropping it entirely, I actually have a question.

Why are you trying to make the least powerful 1850 point lists you can come up with? Just for fun, or are you actually trying to come up with useful ideas?

The OP is actually someone else.

And I think it's just for fun. A neat thought experiment.

I can't tell you why the OP asked the question, but I'm answering it because I think it's going funny places.

Speaking of funny places to go the most expensive Inquisitorial Acolytes I can make are 39pts each (117pts for a 3-man squad of Guardsmen statlines with power fists and power armour), add in a 68-pt dual-power-fist Inquisitor per three squads for detachment legality and you've got about thirty Acolytes and four Inquisitors at 1,500pts. Everyone's footslogging T3 in power armour and loaded with thunderhammers, the only ranged weapons are laspistols off the Acolytes.

Well I think the OP wins this.

But how about an entire army of Kroot?

 Vector Strike wrote:
Zounds of the Ethereal Council formation.

Min 3 ethereals (including aun'va/shi), max 7
They're Fearless (quite a bonus to make the game longer)
They're all part of one, indivisible unit
They don't have any ranged weapon
They don't have any dedicated transport
They invoke all auras at once, within 24" (the only one helpful is FnP 6+)

Each little group is like puckling berries from a tree: 3 to 7 VPs for each! You don't even need to care about cards!

If it were me, I'd run this. You can fit 37 ethereals into 1850. That's 37 additional VPs up for grabs on a t3, no save unit that has no ranged attack, and at best, a 6+ fnp

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I can't tell you why the OP asked the question, but I'm answering it because I think it's going funny places.

I asked it because it's a funny question, and there's something cathartic in trying to write "the worst thing" for 40k.

On a historical note, I remember the old 4th edition Chaos Codex winning the "worst army" contest hands-down, no matter the points level.

One barebones Chaos Lord.
Two barebones Chaos Marine Squads. DO NOT TAKE ICONS FOR THEM!
Spend ALL the rest of your points on Lesser Daemons. They don't take up any slots, so you can do this to infinity!

The Lesser Daemons HAVE to start in Reserve. When they pass Reserves, they must DS near an Icon. If there are no Icons to DS nearby, they're automatically destroyed.
The beautiful thing about how much this army fails is that you can scale this to infinity, and legally field only 11 barebones foot Marines, no matter whether it's 1500 points, 1850 points, 9000 points...

This is an easy one to answer. The correct answer is: Whatever army that I bring to the table.

 SickSix wrote:
Well I think the OP wins this.

But how about an entire army of Kroot?

It would have bad armor, but it would have a lot of models that can shoot and infiltrate

 JNAProductions wrote:
I was gonna say 616 Conscripts, but that's actually not a bad list. 212 hits per turn, against SM, that's 70 and 2/3rds wounds per turn, which translates to around 23 dead Marines a turn.

I don't think marines could put out enough wounds to kill them. Even if every attack hits they're still vastly
outnumbered.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I was gonna say 616 Conscripts, but that's actually not a bad list. 212 hits per turn, against SM, that's 70 and 2/3rds wounds per turn, which translates to around 23 dead Marines a turn.

You'll never get all 600+ conscripts within range to actually do this. As soon as you come within 24" of the marines you're going to be removing models by the fistfull. Unless you're playing on planet bowling ball you'll be hitting terrain constantly. Footprint matters.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I was gonna say 616 Conscripts, but that's actually not a bad list. 212 hits per turn, against SM, that's 70 and 2/3rds wounds per turn, which translates to around 23 dead Marines a turn.

You'll never get all 600+ conscripts within range to actually do this. As soon as you come within 24" of the marines you're going to be removing models by the fistfull. Unless you're playing on planet bowling ball you'll be hitting terrain constantly. Footprint matters.

Yeah, true, but you just have SO DAMN MANY of them!

For comparison, 1850 points of Spess Mehreens Tactical Squads (132 dudes) will, assuming they're all in Rapid Fire range every single turn, manage to remove...

264 shots, 176 hits, 117 and 1/3 wounds...

It'll take them 5.25 turns to kill them all, assuming no cover, and by some miracle they manage to get into Rapid Fire range turn one.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers against 1850 of anything

The priests in fortresses scanerio would be interesting I suppose. Those priests would have mad firepower but the guy with the heavy bolter could do work if he doesn't get alpha struck on T1

 Happyjew wrote:
OK so using the following limitations army must include one non-vehicle unit.
Army cannot be an auto-lose army. In other words can't just use things that must start in reserve.

Adepta Sororitas (116 points)
Ministorum Priest (2x Shotgun, Melta Bomb, Warlord, Cloak of St Aspira)
2x Ministorum Priest (2x Shotgun, Melta Bomb)
Fortifications (1730 points)
Wall of Martyr Imperial Defense Network each consisting of:
- 3x Bunkers (Comms Relay, Escape Hatch, Magos Machine Spirit, 6x Tank Traps)
- 3x Imperial Defense Emplacements (6x Tank Traps)
- 4x imperial Defense Line (6x Tank Traps)

3 grizzled old men dual wielding shotguns sitting in front of a massive defense system.

Sounds like Father Grigori from Half-Life 2. Do you have any way to get a tech-priest with a gravity gun in there?

"We dont go to Ravenholm"

 Engine of War wrote:
Nothing but bare bones guardsmen platoons.
With a CCS of course.


It would be a ton of dudes, but with nothing but lasguns.. besides infantry it couldn't hurt a fly.

WE DON'T NEED TO HURT THEM! THEY CANT KILL US ALL! (literally do not have enough shots per turn to kill all of those guardsmen)

This is the exact idea behind a killteam list of mine: 25 guardsmen with auto cannons, krak and all the works. Some lists do not have enough shots to actually kill everything by the end of the game. XD

In the current meta, isn't a full 1850pt army with a Canoness, maxed-out Battle Sisters, and all extra points filled by by Dominions, Seraphim, and Retributors, none of whom are armed with any other equipment than their basic loadout (i.e. bolters and bolt pistols), one of the worst armies Sisters of Battle can field?

Can't hurt anything with AV11 or higher without using Krak Grenades. Can't hurt anything Toughness 8, and anything Toughness 6 or higher requires a 6 to wound outside of Krak Grenades in melee. Flyers are basically invulnerable.

In the current meta involving tons of MCs and vehicles and very little infantry that this army's bolters are, at best, kinda okay at, wouldn't this be the worst army Sisters of- :: reads the following ::

"Nothing but bare bones guardsmen platoons.
With a CCS of course.


It would be a ton of dudes, but with nothing but lasguns.. besides infantry it couldn't hurt a fly."

Oh, someone already thought of that with a different army. Well, there goes my idea for a Sisters of Battle army worse than all-Repentia.

Practically every army can field a terribad army if you just take non-equipped HQ and spam basic infantry (or weapon-less weapon teams)

You can get it even worse with FSE
Crisis suit spam, without guns. at all.

Sure, you got S5 melee, but at WS2 I2 you are not exactly going to reap people apart.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Practically every army can field a terribad army if you just take non-equipped HQ and spam basic infantry (or weapon-less weapon teams)

You can get it even worse with FSE
Crisis suit spam, without guns. at all.

Sure, you got S5 melee, but at WS2 I2 you are not exactly going to reap people apart.

That's a good point.

Hmm... Well, avoiding that obvious route, I think I could make a pretty bad Sisters of Battle army if I maxed out my Heavy Support choices with Retributors with Multi-Meltas. That's a lot of wasted points on useless Multi-Meltas that are terrible anti-tank weapons on infantry and it also prevents me from taking Exorcists. Also if I maxed out the Retributors to 10 models instead of 5 and gave the Superior the most expensive power weapons I could, that'd waste even more points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So a single Retributor Squad with the following adds up to 205pts:

-10 models
-4 Multi-Meltas
-Veteran Superior with Melta Bombs and two Power Mauls

Three such squads would waste 615pts. Almost exactly 1/3 of your total points value.

That's certainly not good, but I wouldn't call it horrible. That's 12 24" S8 AP1 Melta shots, each with 6 Ablative Wounds.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That's certainly not good, but I wouldn't call it horrible. That's 12 24" S8 AP1 Melta shots, each with 6 Ablative Wounds.

Meltas are kinda useless after half range. Also they can't move and shoot, so they'd have to stay still before firing, and any vehicle can just drive out of range. And beyond half range, an Exorcist missile has the same statline as a multimelta, minus the melta, which doesn't matter beyond half range. An Exorcist gets d6 shots, can move before firing, has a 48" range, and AV 13/11/10. Also the Exorcist only costs like 135 points.

Like I said, not good. But again, not that bad either. It's a good 24" bubble of "Nope" for most things, since it punches through any armour (even TEQs) and can threaten any vehicle even at 24"-though admittedly Land Raiders aren't THAT threatened by it at 24".

And since you have three squads, you can pretty easily cover your entire DZ.

Edit: And, while you might have half the range, you have .5 more shots on average, and more importantly, ALWAYS have a consistent amount of shots. I'm sure you've rolled ones on Exorcist Missiles before when you really needed that six.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Like I said, not good. But again, not that bad either. It's a good 24" bubble of "Nope" for most things, since it punches through any armour (even TEQs) and can threaten any vehicle even at 24"-though admittedly Land Raiders aren't THAT threatened by it at 24".

And since you have three squads, you can pretty easily cover your entire DZ.

Edit: And, while you might have half the range, you have .5 more shots on average, and more importantly, ALWAYS have a consistent amount of shots. I'm sure you've rolled ones on Exorcist Missiles before when you really needed that six.

Just to be clear here about something.

You, are arguing with a Sisters of Battle player, about the effectiveness of multi-meltas as anti-tank weapons.

Not Anti-Tank. Anti-most things. They double out SM characters that aren't on bikes, wound anything short of a GUO or Wraithknight on 2s, ignore all armour...

Again, I wholeheartedly agree that they are not worth the points. But in a contest for building the WORST POSSIBLE LIST, they're not very good contenders.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Not Anti-Tank. Anti-most things. They double out SM characters that aren't on bikes, wound anything short of a GUO or Wraithknight on 2s, ignore all armour...

Again, I wholeheartedly agree that they are not worth the points. But in a contest for building the WORST POSSIBLE LIST, they're not very good contenders.

Let me put it this way.

A competently-built Sisters of Battle list has 0 multi-meltas on infantry.

Our Battle Sisters Squads can take a Multi-Melta as one of the two special weapons. We take two Meltaguns instead, even though a Multi-melta is the same points cost as a meltagun.

Meltaguns are more effective than multi-meltas.

A Sisters of Battle player who takes Retributors puts heavy bolters or heavy flamers on them.

Probably, this right here:

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Battle-Sister-with-Multi-Melta

Is a model that should never have been designed, because it is USELESS.