Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In another thread, the "worst troop in the game" label got thrown around a bit preemptively.

It started a discussion on ranking troops that really should be its own thread.

To that end, who is the worst? How would you rank them?

My first thought is the worst troop is Wyches. But I expect to be corrected!

I am sure I'm missing a number of troops.

Also, units I haven't placed yet/don't know where to place:
-Corsair Corsairs
-Skitari
-Gretchins
-Necron Immortals
-Genestealer "Favored Disciples"

So, from best to worst:

CWE Jetbikes
Necron Warriors
SM Bikes
Katraphon?
Fire Warriors
SM Crusader Squad
Dire Avengers
SM Scouts (BS4)
SM Tacticals (+BA/DA/SW)
SOB Sisters
Plague Marines
Noise Marines
Pink Horrors
Muclid Spores
Tau Breacher Squad
Plaguebearers
SM Scouts (BS3)
Guardsmen
Tempestus Scions
Kreig Guardsmen
Kreig Grenediers
GK Termies
CSM Tacticals
Ork Slugga Boyz
Demonettes
Kalabites
Guardian Defenders
Kroot
Cultists
Ork Shoota Boyz
CSM Chosen
PAGK (Strike Squad)
Termigaunts
Hormagaunts
Harlequins
Blood Letters
Tyranid Warriors
Rangers
Thousand Sons
Storm Guardians
Berzerkers
Gretchin Scavenger Mob
Wyches
Genestealers

Flip tacticals and scouts and I would generally agree. The only time tacticals are good is via the GSF to give them free transports.

Scouts are good for their price and have a great DT.

Wyches are pretty bad. Can't think of anything off the top of my head that I'd put below them.

You seem to have CSMs fairly high. Am not convinced on that - I'd probably directly swap them with Harlequins.

CSM Cultists are missing from your list. I'd put them around the mid-range somewhere. All I really use mine for is holding a back-field objective until someone looks at them a bit funny and they all die or run away, but at least they're dirt cheap...

Worst troop? Thousand Sons. Extremely overcosted, no overwatch, the Squad Leader has a Primaris small blast which has a 1 in 6 chance of being weaker than a frag grenade...they pay through the nose for a 4++ that won't matter in a game of Scatter Lasers and Missile Broadsides. Let's put this in perspective: A unit of 4 Thousand Sons and Aspiring Sorcerer costs *more* than 2 Broadsides with HYMP and SMS. A Thousand Son is 4 points less than an Eldar Scatterbike. And that's just sad.

GSF would put Tacs near the top...

Without GSF, are you sure they are worse than everything between them and Scouts?

The range from where I put Tacs through Scouts are mostly fairly close, although CSM Tacs probably need to be dropped down a bit.

Should Harlies be moved up that much? They aren't terrible, but they do have limitations.

I'm not sure if CSM have the worst troop in the game, but I think they have the worst set of options. Cult troops can be outright bonkers terrible.

I added some Demon troops, but I'm not very sure about their placement.

What about gk terminators-there is only power armoured gk (strike squad).

GK Strike squad is absolutely overrated with their revised weaponry.

GK TERMIES?

I put the PAGK (Strike Squad) much lower on the list than Tacs, obviously.

I'll need to put GK Termies on there too, not sure where. I think higher than PAGK, but lower than Tacs.

Storm Guardians are substantially better than Guardian Defenders.

Guardians are pretty junky, as is, so efficiency is a greater concern than effectiveness. Storm Guardians are cheaper (72 vs 90) and provide a useful thing in free melta guns, so you don't otherwise have to commit a real unit into exploding some superflous vehicle that's now in your deployment zone (like the ubiquitous Drop Pods). What do Guardian Defenders provide, more Scatter Lasers? Why would I waste points on Guardians to get those?

I would gladly take Sisters as a unit over marines for no other reason than they get two specials per five. I'd also rate fire warriors a bit better because they have a better gun, same with DA both of who have access to better transports.

The problem is that tacticals don't do anything particularly well, and can't specialize in a way to optimize their stats.

Immortals are actually REALLY good, but I wish they could buy a Ghost Ark instead of only getting a Night Scythe. That hurts them a lot.

Tacs, stock, don't do anything better than units designed for that thing. But they do everything else better.

Transport access is arguable.

The FW gets a 60pt 12/11/10 that's also a skimmer. Compared to a 35pt 11/11/10, it doesn't seem so bad. +1 front armor, skimmer, and more small arms fire vs half the points.

Serpent vs Rhino is even harder. You get 4 Rhinos for one kitted Serpent.

For the models minus the transport, I'm also not so sure.

FW are reasonably cheap. 9ppm. But they die *twice* as fast to small arms. They have a good gun and don't cost MEQ prices. I could see that going either way.

DAs cost 13ppm. That is very nearly Marine prices. Kitted for MEQ or TEQ killing, Marines do as well point for point. Kitted for anti-GEQ, Marines to much better point for point. Kitted for anti tank, Marines destroy DAs. DAs do better vs well armored MCs, though.

Stock, Marines do as much as DAs to GEQ, do a bit less to MEQ, and do half what they do to TEQ. But cost practically the same per model while surviving twice as well.

And that's all just shooting. If 3 Marines get into CC with 10DA, the Marines win combat.

Between FW, DA, and Tacs, I think its a lot closer than you realize.

Except in a typical game of 7th, the assault thing never pans out. Tacs have non-advantages because GW took the assault phase out of the game. The kitting part of tacs is sketchy as well if you aren't list tailoring.

This may be meta specific but at this point in 7th I barely give a thought to small arms fire especially in tournaments. With more and more MC/GMC and bike armies out there I don't care about infantry fighting infantry. I care if the units I'm bring can hurt things before they get blasted off the table. For that reason alone I'd prefer FW or DA. Especially in the case of DA since they have a gun that hurts anything with a T value and gets Ap2 to boot. In the mean time my Marines are slow, don't have access to a skimmer, and outside of one guy with a special/sergeant with a combi have shooting that scares no one. The one point I do agree with you is that Rhino's are great for the price. Razorbacks not so much.

Pink Horrors should be much higher because they are daemon psykers that summon. They are the best troop daemons have so should be at least higher then Plaguebearers (who I would say aren't good at all)

Bharring wrote:
Tacs, stock, don't do anything better than units designed for that thing. But they do everything else better.

Transport access is arguable.

The FW gets a 60pt 12/11/10 that's also a skimmer. Compared to a 35pt 11/11/10, it doesn't seem so bad. +1 front armor, skimmer, and more small arms fire vs half the points.

Serpent vs Rhino is even harder. You get 4 Rhinos for one kitted Serpent.

For the models minus the transport, I'm also not so sure.

FW are reasonably cheap. 9ppm. But they die *twice* as fast to small arms. They have a good gun and don't cost MEQ prices. I could see that going either way.

DAs cost 13ppm. That is very nearly Marine prices. Kitted for MEQ or TEQ killing, Marines do as well point for point. Kitted for anti-GEQ, Marines to much better point for point. Kitted for anti tank, Marines destroy DAs. DAs do better vs well armored MCs, though.

Stock, Marines do as much as DAs to GEQ, do a bit less to MEQ, and do half what they do to TEQ. But cost practically the same per model while surviving twice as well.

And that's all just shooting. If 3 Marines get into CC with 10DA, the Marines win combat.

Between FW, DA, and Tacs, I think its a lot closer than you realize.

The devil fish is 80 points. naked. will usually be brought as 100 points for the +1 jink and move through cover (dont want to immobilize it)

For the original list, I think I'd rank shoota boyz above guardsmen.

Aren't SM better at getting to shoot before getting shot than DAs? Nothing says "I shoot first" quite like a drop pod. DAs can pay for a Serpent, but that'll cost about 4 pods and won't be as flexible (although it does bring a battle tank to the table).

DAs can hurt anything with a T, but can't pen anything with an AV. Even stock, Marines threaten light vehicles that get to close. And they can be kitted with AT.

list tailoring would make SM much better than DAs. If you could tailor, the only target DAs would win against would be MCs, with Tacs outperforming vs everything else. Without tailoring, the need to make a decision is what brings Tacs down to the DA level.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So:
-Bump FW (and maybe DA) above Tacs
-Bump Pink Horrors to above Plague Bearers
-Specify Slugga Boys
-Put Shoots Boyz before Guardsme.

my order and its a sad order i know:

eldar jetbikes
crisis suits (FSE)
fire warriors
necron warriors/kataphrons (all)
marine bikes/harelquin troupes (codex marines only)
marine scouts/bloodclaws
tactical marines/wolfblades (tie)
imperial guard veterans/skitari vanguard/eldar warriors
chaos space marines/dire avengers
ork boyz/skitarii rangers
breachers
dark eldar warriors/tempestus scions (tie)
termagaunts/imperial guard troopers (tie)
grey knight terminators
sisters of battle squads/strike squads (tie)
most daemon troops
rippers/kroot warriors
cultists
tyranid warriors
gretchin
wyches

Bharring wrote:
Aren't SM better at getting to shoot before getting shot than DAs? Nothing says "I shoot first" quite like a drop pod. DAs can pay for a Serpent, but that'll cost about 4 pods and won't be as flexible (although it does bring a battle tank to the table).

DAs can hurt anything with a T, but can't pen anything with an AV. Even stock, Marines threaten light vehicles that get to close. And they can be kitted with AT.

list tailoring would make SM much better than DAs. If you could tailor, the only target DAs would win against would be MCs, with Tacs outperforming vs everything else. Without tailoring, the need to make a decision is what brings Tacs down to the DA level.

You have to be running drop pods. Eldar can counter this easily by reserves. Skyhammer is an issue, because it can choose turn two to arrive.

I consider a single wave serpent MORE flexible than four pods with stormbolters. If you aren't taking advantage of marines' strandedness after the drop, you need to start. Standard drop lists are growing more overrated with each codex release.

Things with T are generally much, much better than things with AV in 7th. AV actually sucks out loud most of the time. That's why DA are better in the 7th meta. Winning against MCs is absolutely huge in 7th. I think it's more valuable than winning against all other targets.

I think the real take home message is that since they let any kind of unit score, troops have become burdensome taxes for most lists. Except, of course, for our Eldar overlords.

You can't forget the Miltarum Tempestus Scions.

Marine cost for a Guard statline.

But they got AP3 guns! That are S3... and 18 inch Salvo...

EDIT: Ahh I was wrong about the baseline gun 24 inch Rapidfire. Still too expensive.

 Quickjager wrote:
You can't forget the Miltarum Tempestus Scions.

Marine cost for a Guard statline.

But they got AP3 guns! That are S3... and 18 inch Salvo...

/facepalm

Those guns can murderise Marines! Or if you take their book they are half decent at taking out MCs too but ya they are expensive.

 Quickjager wrote:
You can't forget the Miltarum Tempestus Scions.

Marine cost for a Guard statline.

But they got AP3 guns! That are S3... and 18 inch Salvo...

In their defense, they get two Specials at 5 men and their guns are Rapid-fire, not Salvo.

The volleyguns are salvo but they are also S4 2/4 24".

 cranect wrote:
The volleyguns are salvo but they are also S4 2/4 24".

That's pretty fearsome if they don't move, actually.

daemonettes are better then storm guardians by far.

PAGK ...

You must be kidding. These things rock. Seriously they will murder almost anything that isn't a TEQ.

 oldzoggy wrote:
PAGK ...

You must be kidding. These things rock. Seriously they will murder almost anything that isn't a TEQ.

Not in the shooting phase, they won't. And they don't take shots particularly well. Remember the assault tax, which is frequently 90% of your list.