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I was just flipping through some of the codices and I noticed there were quite a few pointless upgrades and equipment. I'm wondering if there are more that I've missed.

Grey Knights:
Brotherhood Champion can pay 5 points for Digital Weapons. His weapon already re-rolls ALL failed to wound rolls.

Eldar:
The Avatar of Khaine can spend 5 points to get Night Vision. His only shooting attack has a range of 12", so Night Fighting would have no effect.

Orks:
Meganobz come with frag grenades, so they can strike at initiative when charging through terrain. They're all equipped with Power Klaws and strike at initiative 1.

Space Wolves:
A Rune Priest can buy a Wolf Tail Talisman for 5 points, effectively giving him a 5+ Deny the Witch. As a psyker, he already has a 5+ DtW (and a 4+ to stop the power if they're close enough).

What other useless crap is in your codex?

Your Ork and Space Wolves arguments are incorrect as of 6e. Frag grenades now actually do something, as they can be thrown. In 5e, they were just Initiative boosts. And Deny the With only existed in 6e.

Ah, good point. Forgot about throwing frag grenades. Well, at least they were 100% worthless when the book came out

One more: the option for the Tau to take a TL Burst Cannon on a Hammerhead/Skyray. You have a free exchange for a gun that's strictly better in every way (SMS).

The Avatar can shoot a quadgun, so there's a use for night vision. Maybe not the most efficient use of points, but still...

Thud wrote:
The Avatar can shoot a quadgun, so there's a use for night vision. Maybe not the most efficient use of points, but still...

IF fast shot worked too...

How funny would it be to stick the avatar on the icarus lascannon - two shots at BS10, ignoring night fighting
Not exactly fluffy, but the image amused me

Battle Focus (the run-shoot rule) is given to Eldar Windrider jetbike squads. Jetbikes cannot run...

I'm pretty sure scout bikers still have shotguns. Which are completely overshadowed by the relentless TLd bolters on the bike. Even if you swap those out for the grenade launcher, that's still better.

Siphen wrote:
Ah, good point. Forgot about throwing frag grenades. Well, at least they were 100% worthless when the book came out

Not really. I don't know about the rules of 4th ed but in 5th you can still strike at iniative if you don't use pk in cc (still applies in 6th).

This might be a personal opinion but the necron overlord's phaeron upgrade always looked kind of useless to me. Especially since the overlord has almost if not nothing in terms of heavy weapons.

Dimensional Key.

SkavenLord wrote:
This might be a personal opinion but the necron overlord's phaeron upgrade always looked kind of useless to me. Especially since the overlord has almost if not nothing in terms of heavy weapons.

But if you joined him to a squad of Immortals or Warriors you can rapid fire and then charge. It would be useful in some situations.

CSM has a few. Ichor blood is five points, and all it does is make the enemy take a strength 3 hit whenever they deal an unsaved wound to you.

Destroyer Blades are pretty bad too. 15 points for D6 S6 hits when you ram things? Meh.

tallguynsc wrote:

SkavenLord wrote:
This might be a personal opinion but the necron overlord's phaeron upgrade always looked kind of useless to me. Especially since the overlord has almost if not nothing in terms of heavy weapons.

But if you joined him to a squad of Immortals or Warriors you can rapid fire and then charge. It would be useful in some situations.

True but then again, the points cost is kind of steep.

eldar
weopon upgrades for stock wraithknight.
then you could buy a scatter laser for the sun cannon

SkavenLord wrote:

tallguynsc wrote:

SkavenLord wrote:
This might be a personal opinion but the necron overlord's phaeron upgrade always looked kind of useless to me. Especially since the overlord has almost if not nothing in terms of heavy weapons.

But if you joined him to a squad of Immortals or Warriors you can rapid fire and then charge. It would be useful in some situations.

True but then again, the points cost is kind of steep.

But still, name the scenarios where you'd WANT to charge instead of just move and shoot? Or specifically, the scenarios where you'd plan on doing it and spend points to be able to do it?

Lhamean from the DE codex.

She herself is cool, but her special ability is to make all the archon's poisoned weapons 2+.

The only poisoned weapons the Archon can take are a venom blade (2+ already) and a splinter pistol, which you are going to want to swap out in any case.

Not 100% useless, but close.

 Nerobellum wrote:

SkavenLord wrote:

tallguynsc wrote:

SkavenLord wrote:
This might be a personal opinion but the necron overlord's phaeron upgrade always looked kind of useless to me. Especially since the overlord has almost if not nothing in terms of heavy weapons.

But if you joined him to a squad of Immortals or Warriors you can rapid fire and then charge. It would be useful in some situations.

True but then again, the points cost is kind of steep.

But still, name the scenarios where you'd WANT to charge instead of just move and shoot? Or specifically, the scenarios where you'd plan on doing it and spend points to be able to do it?

So maybe it depends on the situation?

Plasma pistols. I love them and have many modeled on but I have never used them in a game because they are never worth the points....ever. Most likely I will proxy them as grav pistols now because at those can make a guy I1 in a challenge and give my pf a chance and won't kill me when I shoot

Wraithknight Ghostglaive, of course. +1S to a S10 unit... Yay? Oh and a single re-roll...!

Of course, it's a cheap way to get the Invul, but... Not exactly making him a CC weapon...

Daemons:
Warpsword for Soul Grinder. An Ap3 weapon on a walker that already has a double strength Ap2 CCW.

And most Tzeentch character upgrades. Pyrocaster for sure, not sure about Iridescent Horror. Can you make precision shots with a brotherhood of psykers shooting attack if you have a character upgrade in the unit?

Siphen wrote:
One more: the option for the Tau to take a TL Burst Cannon on a Hammerhead/Skyray. You have a free exchange for a gun that's strictly better in every way (SMS).

I have to agree with this. As least the gun drones are detachable, but the Burst Cannon is fixed. The Burst Cannon and the SMS are both S5, AP5 but the SMS has longer range, doesn't need LOS to shoot and ignores cover.

Yep, if it was two independent burst cannons like it used to be there might be times I would take it (emp grenade transporting "hero fish" lol). But as far as I can tell there is pretty much never a situation where a single twin linked burst cannon is better than the alternatives.

Extra Armour on basically anything, ever.

It was a pointless upgrade in 5th when you got shaken or stunned on a turnly basis, but now that only penetrating hits roll on the damage chart... I have had a vehicle stunned ONCE. And that was a rhino being shot by a longstrike with railgun.

 FirePainter wrote:
Plasma pistols. I love them and have many modeled on but I have never used them in a game because they are never worth the points....ever. Most likely I will proxy them as grav pistols now because at those can make a guy I1 in a challenge and give my pf a chance and won't kill me when I shoot

Obviously, you've never needed to punch through 2+ armor. and now with Precision Shots, a sgt with a plasma pistol can be a deadly sniper. Risk and cost come with the AP 2 stat. Time to wear the big pants.

Dimensional Key.

This times a thousand. For all the non-sense you have to go through to get it to work (not to mention how flipping expensive the stupid thing is) you should get some additional bonus from it. Especially since most of your deep strikers have usually already arrived by the time you get the key to work.

IG:

Color SGT Kell
Norkk ddork (i dont have a codex in front of me, that over priced ogryn body guard)

Yeah, thats about it. I guess power weapons now too.

Stormbolters for sternguards. Why bother with that a useless upgrade, when their default weapon is teen times better anyway?

 Redcruisair wrote:
Stormbolters for sternguards. Why bother with that a useless upgrade, when their default weapon is teen times better anyway?

There's a guy in my group who insists the stormbolter is the best basic small arm in the game, and always runs sternguard with stormbolters in a drop pod.

He may not be the best marine player ever.

Oh, yeah, on topic:

Vox Caster for Imperial Guard.

This high powered radio, a mere 5 points, allows the unit in question to re-roll failed order tests if both it and the command squad purchase the upgrade if they're both within 12''.

There's an awful lot of ifs in that, for a very narrow, specific upgrade which is 10% of the unit's base cost.

 Redcruisair wrote:
Stormbolters for sternguards. Why bother with that a useless upgrade, when their default weapon is teen times better anyway?

Stormbolters in general are not worth it these days, sternguard are just an extra bad place for them. With the changes to the rapid fire rules in 6th, they lost their main niche (weight of fire on the move) Now you just get one extra shot at long range. Woo!

Shame, they do look cool.

Stormraven has a ton of extraneous crap on it.