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Got a small Ultra army and looking to make a large purchase to flesh them out. Any units/vehicles to stay away from, just not worth their points?

Thinking about speeders and storm speeders how are they? looking to make them shooty. I don't mind a little assault but not the main direction i want to go my last army was mostly melee and I did not enjoy the play style.

Thanks!

Space Marines in general, they're boring.

There are no real "bad" units in the Marine codex. Some units are just a little better than others. Land Speeders are decent, if a little bit fragile. Land Speeder Storms are pretty good now, since our scouts got a buff. Use them to ferry around bolter/shotgun/bp and CCW scout squads to objectives you need to take, or to do drive by's.

yea I was thinking shotguns But drive by bolts sounds fun as well but not sure how well that works.

then there's the whole open top thing where maybe two ccw are the way to go?

it all sounds fun

In my experience drive by scouts are great as a harassing unit. Drive by enemy unit in double tap range and unload, or if you're worried about being charged stay a little further away.

Terminators are about all you need to stay away from. I overall hate Sternguard models so I just use Tactical Marines for them, but you might actually like the bling.

Thanks! sternguard is on my list to get will have to take a close look at the model

Assault Cents are are probably the only bad unit in the codex. Their to slow to be a viable assault unit

Shooty Terminators and Assault Centurions are the only real bad units in the codex. Most other units have their place. Ultras do a good job at buffing a lot of lackluster units, such as Tactical Squads, through their doctrines. I run two units of bolter scouts in Land Speeder Storms as my Troops. Even when I was running just one, I found it to be a good unit. Now they are better than Tacticals in almost every way, so I run two.

I'll just add to the echo chamber in here, stay away from Assault Centurions, they are horrifically bad and overcosted.
Tactical Terminators (shooty ones) are equally terrible.

This isn't even coming from a competitive POV, even for casual play both units are bad.

The only other pieces of advice I'd always give to a SM player are thus:
If taking Devestators, do not mix weapons, take all the same or none at all.
If taking Tact squads, never give them a Heavy Weapon if you're keeping them mobile (Rhinos/Razorbacks). But if you are fully maxing out a squad, keep the heavy weapon and special weapon ranges similar (EG: Plasmaguns and Multimeltas are an awesome combo, their best range for maximum effectiveness is 12" [Rapid Fire and Melta USR respectively])

Assault Centurions can just be stuck in a pod and they pretty quickly become decent

I find dreadnoughts on occasion are also a bit of a waste the points could be used more effectively somewhere else. but i never dont bring one i just love the model even though he does nothing most games.

Even the “bad” units can be made to work, but they are never going to be as efficient as the good stuff. But there are very few true “trap” choices, and I think most of those are at the handing out gear and upgrade stage, rather then units. For example, never give sternguard stormbolters, and make sure all of the guns in you dev squad want to shoot the same thing.

A lot of things are also conditional on who you plan on playing. In general, there is a lot of AP2 firepower out there these days, which is why terminators are often listed as bad units. (There are more reasons, lots of threads pointing out their flaws). But in a more casual meta, they can work reasonably well. Not as effective as just spamming the good stuff, but workable.

Some units are very list dependent. In a list with a lot of armor saturation, dreads get better. Assault marines are mediocre, but are an important part of the Skyhammer Annihilation Force.

On the units listed in the OP, speeders work fine. LSS have a number of nice tricks, and let you get more out of your scouts. Which are already not bad. Normal LS’s are fragile, but don’t cost a lot. I like mine with TML/HB, but they are flexible platforms that can be geared to fill gaps in your list.

To me I feel nothing is as good as people say I found a lot of good units are not good Like ever one says use scouts over tac squad to me scouts and tac are both bad. but I rather have tac squads and numbers and better save

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Assault Cents are are probably the only bad unit in the codex. Their to slow to be a viable assault unit

Assault Centurions are miles better than any Terminator variant.

Assault marines are bad as well.

Assault is bad for marines period they have know way to do it

stay away from land raiders. The kit is cool and they are super iconic, but as far as usage on the table goes...With the exception of the 6th ed Dark Angels dakka raider, I have never had a land raider earn back it's points or soak up enough firepower for me to feel that it was a worthwhile investment to my army lists.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
stay away from land raiders. The kit is cool and they are super iconic, but as far as usage on the table goes...With the exception of the 6th ed Dark Angels dakka raider, I have never had a land raider earn back it's points or soak up enough firepower for me to feel that it was a worthwhile investment to my army lists.

Yeah LR are bad as well.

How about predators and whirlwinds?
Thanks again everyone this is a big help!

Predators are sad because they will never be Exorcists.

It's alright, we have Sicarans.

Grimlineman wrote:
How about predators and whirlwinds?
Thanks again everyone this is a big help!

Preds are not bad. I’d go with auto/las, or full LC versions. Try to keep them back and avoid giving shots to your thin side armor.

Whirlwind’s main flaw is that the TFC exists. But it doesn’t cost a lot of points, blows chunks out or hordes, and fits nice into a few formations. How much anti-horde firepower you need in your list is up for debate and very meta dependent. A pair of WWs is on my short list of things to grab next. YMMV.

 Ashiraya wrote:
It's alright, we have Sicarans.

...

Well played.

I've not seen good results from Sicarans because of D weapons and grav cannons.

Martel732 wrote:
I've not seen good results from Sicarans because of D weapons and grav cannons.

With that logic, I guess you should only take gargantuan creatures and other grav platforms.

Martel732 wrote:
I've not seen good results from Sicarans because of D weapons and grav cannons.

Ordinarily I agree with you on most things but this is probably the worst post I've ever seen you make.

Sicarans are good. They fulfill the niche of needing to kill skimmers, assuming there's a bunch in your area, and they're Fast to boot.

They also ignore Jinking on Bikers, which is good depending on whether you want them dead immediately or just want them jinking to eliminate more offense.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I've not seen good results from Sicarans because of D weapons and grav cannons.

Ordinarily I agree with you on most things but this is probably the worst post I've ever seen you make.

Sicarans are good. They fulfill the niche of needing to kill skimmers, assuming there's a bunch in your area, and they're Fast to boot.

They also ignore Jinking on Bikers, which is good depending on whether you want them dead immediately or just want them jinking to eliminate more offense.

I'm just saying what I've seen happen to them when they are fielded. They aren't cheap, and don't have the firepower to bring down a WK, and are hard to hide from a Skyhammer strike. They are strong vs DE and DA for sure, but those are a relatively small cross section.

They were kings of 6th ed, when they were the absolute bane of Wave Serpents who themselves otherwise dominated the meta.

Nowadays the Sicarans' crowns are slipping from their heads, but they are by no means poor tanks at all. I assume you prefer your Predators, Martel?

 Ashiraya wrote:
They were kings of 6th ed, when they were the absolute bane of Wave Serpents who themselves otherwise dominated the meta.

Nowadays the Sicarans' crowns are slipping from their heads, but they are by no means poor tanks at all. I assume you prefer your Predators, Martel?

Prefer only in that I have the model and I lose less points when hit by grav amps or D weapons. I really like the concept of the Sicaran, and I like the model, but not the price or the tabletop reality of vehicles that are that expensive.

Also, only ignoring jink is a kick in the jimmies with MCs putting their toe in ruins.