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We're a few weeks in, and people have had a chance to test the waters a bit, and while I'm a big proponent for 8th, and I really do believe that GW are really trying this time, and I'm willing to forgive a lot in the Indexes because I believe they are very far from representative of what the different codex are gonna look like, it's still interesting to see what unit was crowbared into your army just to make good on the "everything we currently sell is gonna have rules" promise and compare or maybe have someone dispute the judgment of lowest rung unit.

Who knows, maybe someone will show you the way you've missed to use that unit.

For me, as an AdMech, it's Servitors.

Servitors have the ridiculously unflexible unit size of 4.
They have a statline of ws 5+/bs 5+, but realistically will have 4+/4+, as they do benefit from a tech priest within 6" unlocking their mindlock. Still. It's another limitation.
Their base cost of 2 makes you think that maybe you can use them as disposable wounds, but then you realise that they come as standard with a servo-arm for 11 points.
This makes them a 13 point model with T3 and a 4+ save and nothing else for survivability. They've only got a single wound each. That's a very soft target.
So surely that servo arm means they are a melee unit? Well.. no. They're Move 5" with no options for transports, and they have one single attack.
The one thing that they can do, is be a heavy weapons team, as they can take two heavy weapons, and a plasma cannon is 21 points. That's a really good price tag... on anything else.
But making these two 23 points each is basically throwing away the points.

a 4+ to hit weapon team, that becomes 5+ if they have to move a single step, 6+ if their priest leaves them too, that can in no way get more than two extra bodies to die before them, and even those for being T3 4+sv are coming at a steep price means they just don't have any place on the field. If you could at least get some more bodies in the unit, even at 13 points per wound, they would at least not die to the first round of small arms fire.

I just can't find a use for these things, and it feels like they were mostly thrown in for completion. There's nothing they synergise with. I think the best use case is cheesing with the Understrength Unit rule, making it a 2 man unit rather than taking the extra two servo arms, then running two plasmacannons and just hoping you get first round so you can get one round of shooting with them. Maybe that's worth the 46 points?

a stompa... 977 points is absolutely obsurd compared to imperial knights

From what I've seen locally,

Chaos: All the Khorne units I've fielded so far have been fine (or amazing) and I haven't heard many complaints from most chaos players. The only thing that comes close are cultists, they seem like your paying points for a dead unit because they will die easy, literally anything will beat them off of the objective they're sat on.

Imperial Guard: Vanquishers are a bit lack luster this edition.

Orks: Despite the vast number of losses reported they aren't looking bad, the only unit that seems that bad are the flyers which don't really put any hurt down this edition without the blasts from bombs.

Blood Angels: Not really seen much here except some Sanguinion guard get vaporised on the turn they deep struck.

Imperial knights: Consentrated fire power (from firing lines at least) can take one down a turn and the chainsword is quite bad compared to the feet.

Dark Eldar: Only played one game against them but Wyches do not seem to hit as hard as people have been claiming, neither do a lot of their units. Of course might be bias: it was our first game of 8th ed and I took Zerkers.

Those are just the armies I've been able to take a good look at in action so far (none of this "well they're theoretically bad").


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
a stompa... 977 points is absolutely obsurd compared to imperial knights

Has anyone played a game with one yet? Yes they're expensive but maybe in practise they'll bring the hurt...

Anything with the "Inquisition" tag

Necron Praetorians... way too expensive for an elite, unbuffable, lone wolf, throwaway unit.

Nothing for Thousand Sons has been bad - just some stuff is super bland right now...looking at you exalted sorcerers and Ahriman...

Grots - 3 pts for s2 t2 ld4. When you can have 6 pts boyz with a free nob, mob rule, and all the great stuff
Runtherd - cause of grots
3 types of big meks after the faq - They're pretty expensive and now can't really cover all that much with clarifications to "entirely within". Can still be used in walker lists, i guess, but why not just take an extra walker instead?
Burna bomber - all ork flyers are quite mediocre but the burna bomber does exactly what a blitza bomber does but worse.
Flash gitz - too expensive and too restrictive. With the clarifications to battle fortress and no re-rolls inside transports they're pretty worthless. Traditionally so.
Killa kanz - they're not as bad as in 7-th but still one of the worst walkers in the game.
Meganobz (arguably) - just too expensive. And lost so much punch. They're still almost twice as tough as boyz point-for-point vs small arms fire but are less choppy and anything with multi-damage and some ap chews through them really quickly.
Biker nobz - so expensive. Regular bikers ain't amazing but are still better than nob bikers.
2 types of painboyz - cause if you REALLY want to field a painboy to supplement your amazing wierdboys you take Grotsnik
Stompa - too expensive, doesn't do all that much damage and easy to deal with
3 types of buggies - cause koptas are better

That's around 50% of the codex. Which is still an improvement over the last codex! So, not bad, i guess.

 mrhappyface wrote:
From what I've seen locally,

Chaos: All the Khorne units I've fielded so far have been fine (or amazing) and I haven't heard many complaints from most chaos players. The only thing that comes close are cultists, they seem like your paying points for a dead unit because they will die easy, literally anything will beat them off of the objective they're sat on.

Imperial Guard: Vanquishers are a bit lack luster this edition.

Orks: Despite the vast number of losses reported they aren't looking bad, the only unit that seems that bad are the flyers which don't really put any hurt down this edition without the blasts from bombs.

Blood Angels: Not really seen much here except some Sanguinion guard get vaporised on the turn they deep struck.

Imperial knights: Consentrated fire power (from firing lines at least) can take one down a turn and the chainsword is quite bad compared to the feet.

Dark Eldar: Only played one game against them but Wyches do not seem to hit as hard as people have been claiming, neither do a lot of their units. Of course might be bias: it was our first game of 8th ed and I took Zerkers.

Those are just the armies I've been able to take a good look at in action so far (none of this "well they're theoretically bad").


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
a stompa... 977 points is absolutely obsurd compared to imperial knights

Has anyone played a game with one yet? Yes they're expensive but maybe in practise they'll bring the hurt...

I have taken a stompa on several occasions, they have a lot of guns that hit like ork shooting so you roll d3,d6, 2d6 shots so average 1,2,or 4 hits. they do well in combat but playing a 2 knights list they were taken out within a few turns. 40 wounds is nice but when you are losing them d3 and d6 at a time they go fast 12" move also goes down quick as they go down to 9 inches for movement at 20 wounds and 6 inches at 20. I put a kff big mek plus some nobz inside it keeps getting crippled before they even get to pile out to charge (and whiel 5++ is good for 1/3 dmg reduction it is not exactly reliable). in one game I was taken to below 30 wounds by a single lascannon dev squad. (3 hits, 11 wounds so not exactly a stellar roll on his part either)

It would be not overcosted around 600 points but still not worth bringing and it would be a great value at around 500... really it should probably fall somewhere in the middle there and is ~300 points over costed which is cripplingly useless at non apocalypse size games.

Sadly, once again Possessed... Though not because they are straight up bad, but because Warp Talons do what they do and do better.

Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

LRBT Eradicator. Like the normal LRBT... only worse.
2/10 would not field.

There are plenty of underwhelming choices for the IG. The Vanquisher, as mentioned, is pretty worthless, as is the exterminator. The Taurox has a nasty case of anti-synergy, merging a high speed transport with 30pts worth of not very good long range shooting.

But the real winner for garbage has to be Wyrdvane Psykers, who are somehow worse than Astropaths, which are the exact same battlefield role and can even be played with the same models.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

I wouldn't say "absolute" garbage, but yeah pretty much
I'd add Pink Horrors in Matched Play to that as well. Literally no reason to take 1 Pink when 5 Brims cost the same for 5x the wounds

But conversely, Pinks are absolute gold in Narrative games because Split is free and 10 Pinks cost the same as 10 Brims, yet 10 pinks include 20 Blues and 20 Brims
Talk about balance. A unit should not be utter crap in 1 form of play, yet a near auto-take in another.

-

 Fafnir wrote:
Anything with the "Inquisition" tag

Daemonblades, Helrifles, Conversion Beamers, special grenades, relics, the list goes on and on. Half my Inquisition is now simply no longer playable if I want to WYSIWYG, and the other half either isn't technically Inquisition anymore or lost all of it's appeal. I guess Coteaz is still usable, but I've always preffered the radical Inquisitor style - and that's (option-wise) entirely dead. But out of all that, the Jokaero are the worst.

Seriously, how are Jokaero not Characters, but a single model with 3 wounds, with no option to add another one, and their digital weapons got crippled, too. Oh, and their buff is limited to <Ordo> units, which is literally just Inquisitors, Acolythes and other Jokaero. Awesome.
I have 4 and I will give them a try, but I'm not looking forward to it. Maybe just have them twin-link each other and snipe with their lascannon nope, their digital weapons are still crippled.

 Galef wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

I wouldn't say "absolute" garbage, but yeah pretty much
I'd add Pink Horrors in Matched Play to that as well. Literally no reason to take 1 Pink when 5 Brims cost the same for 5x the wounds

But conversely, Pinks are absolute gold in Narrative games because Split is free and 10 Pinks cost the same as 10 Brims, yet 10 pinks include 20 Blues and 20 Brims
Talk about balance. A unit should not be utter crap in 1 form of play, yet a near auto-take in another.

-

"Split" was over corrected. It was never an issue in competitive play (Everyone just used brimstones for efficiency.), and GW swung the nerf bat to "contain the problem" that was only a problem because of the psychic phase. I'm confident we may see things toned down less as things are updated in the future.

 Galef wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

I wouldn't say "absolute" garbage, but yeah pretty much
I'd add Pink Horrors in Matched Play to that as well. Literally no reason to take 1 Pink when 5 Brims cost the same for 5x the wounds

But conversely, Pinks are absolute gold in Narrative games because Split is free and 10 Pinks cost the same as 10 Brims, yet 10 pinks include 20 Blues and 20 Brims
Talk about balance. A unit should not be utter crap in 1 form of play, yet a near auto-take in another.

-

No, price should be upped across the board, and splitting horrors should be accounted for in that cost, working as they are supposed to in Matched as well. Saving points to come in later in summons is fine, saving them for eventualities that may not come is not gonna happen. Why would you even do that if you can just get all of the horrors at once instead and guarantee them on the board instead of having to wait for your opponent to activate them?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this will probably be revisited in the proper codex though.

Assault Centurions... 4" move on an assault unit, and can only ride in land raiders and storm ravens. Also, they cost a boatload of points, and have no invulnerable save. Yeah, they're trash.

Can't they still ride in drop pods?

 Polonius wrote:

But the real winner for garbage has to be Wyrdvane Psykers, who are somehow worse than Astropaths, which are the exact same battlefield role and can even be played with the same models.

Perhaps I'm misreading something here but a-are implying that the Astropath is bad in any way shape or form? Cause as he is right now, he's absurdly undercosted and may perhaps be the best force multiplier in the game for 15 points.

Martel732 wrote:
Can't they still ride in drop pods?

Drop Pods can't carry Centurions at all anymore.

Oh that sucks. That was the last best thing I could think to do with them: drop in assault cents.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

But the real winner for garbage has to be Wyrdvane Psykers, who are somehow worse than Astropaths, which are the exact same battlefield role and can even be played with the same models.

Perhaps I'm misreading something here but a-are implying that the Astropath is bad in any way shape or form? Cause as he is right now, he's absurdly undercosted and may perhaps be the best force multiplier in the game for 15 points.

Yes, I was very unclear. The Astropath is wicked good despite being cheaper than a minimum squad and enjoying protection from character status.

 Purifier wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

I wouldn't say "absolute" garbage, but yeah pretty much
I'd add Pink Horrors in Matched Play to that as well. Literally no reason to take 1 Pink when 5 Brims cost the same for 5x the wounds

But conversely, Pinks are absolute gold in Narrative games because Split is free and 10 Pinks cost the same as 10 Brims, yet 10 pinks include 20 Blues and 20 Brims
Talk about balance. A unit should not be utter crap in 1 form of play, yet a near auto-take in another.

-

No, price should be upped across the board, and splitting horrors should be accounted for in that cost, working as they are supposed to in Matched as well. Saving points to come in later in summons is fine, saving them for eventualities that may not come is not gonna happen. Why would you even do that if you can just get all of the horrors at once instead and guarantee them on the board instead of having to wait for your opponent to activate them?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this will probably be revisited in the proper codex though.

If you think ALL horrors should have their price increased then I believe you have a poor idea of balance. Currently pinks are not used, period, due to cost and inefficiency with split. People would simply not play Daemons if they somehow made them more expensive.

*If you are stating price should be REDUCED for all three options COMBINED with split, that would be more accurate. Because a single splitting pink horror costs 24pts, and is useless to me when a squad of 11 models with a single split costs 23.

I also disagree that saving them for casualties won't happen, because in all of my games I've done exactly that. Why would you? Because advancing constantly and summoning backfield horrors that didn't exist on turn 3-4, but are there now to hold a point, is a terrific ability to have.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Daemons: Screamers. Absolute garbage.

I wouldn't say "absolute" garbage, but yeah pretty much
I'd add Pink Horrors in Matched Play to that as well. Literally no reason to take 1 Pink when 5 Brims cost the same for 5x the wounds

But conversely, Pinks are absolute gold in Narrative games because Split is free and 10 Pinks cost the same as 10 Brims, yet 10 pinks include 20 Blues and 20 Brims
Talk about balance. A unit should not be utter crap in 1 form of play, yet a near auto-take in another.

-

No, price should be upped across the board, and splitting horrors should be accounted for in that cost, working as they are supposed to in Matched as well. Saving points to come in later in summons is fine, saving them for eventualities that may not come is not gonna happen. Why would you even do that if you can just get all of the horrors at once instead and guarantee them on the board instead of having to wait for your opponent to activate them?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this will probably be revisited in the proper codex though.

If you think ALL horrors should have their price increased then I believe you have a poor idea of balance. Currently pinks are not used, period, due to cost and inefficiency with split. People would simply not play Daemons if they somehow made them more expensive.

I also disagree that saving them for casualties won't happen, because in all of my games I've done exactly that. Why would you? Because advancing constantly and summoning backfield horrors that didn't exist on turn 3-4, but are there now to hold a point, is a terrific ability to have.

I think all horrors that can split should have that represented in their initial cost, instead of being priced like individual units. I think splitting should just be what they do, instead of being an option that you pay for as you go along. What are you gaining from not just running all three units, all three types of horrors, down the field instead of waiting for them to pop out? Sure, they can then be mass fired down, but then you've got something else that isn't being shot at instead, right? Because they could have been taken down by the same amount of fire over 3 rounds instead, leaving more open to pick off other units in your army if you choose the summoning path. And if they happen to hit a wall of conscripts, the three units will take it down considerably quicker than one unit that then becomes another that then becomes another, right?

Being more nimble around the field is the one bonus I see. You're not gonna take up a huge swat of land with way too many models.

If you remove the option to select individual horror models as a unit type, you need to REDUCE their cost. You stated they should be increased, which would destroy the unit.

Pink horrors are useless specifically due to their cost.

A single squad of pink horrors, if split was factored in, costs 240pts. If you even attempt to increase that then Fielding even a basic BATALLION for Tzeentch will cost nearly 1000pts before adding anything other than Tax.

As to what I gain from them being separate? I have multiple, smaller, weaker units I can comfortably leave behind to camp objectives. Exactly what horde troops are useful for. Summoning is tied to power rating, and I do not want nor need to rely on summoning things that are effectively unlikely to ever be summoned.

As far as not taking up a large amount of space with back field summoning, once again I disagree. I can summon 30 Brimstone's for 60 points with a roll of around 10+ on 3d6.

I do not think you play Daemons, or have not played them in 8th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an additional note, if you FORCE all pinks to split, this means the average cost for a single troop choice currently would be 240pts, $105, and a total of 50 models built and painted.

 koooaei wrote:
Grots - 3 pts for s2 t2 ld4. When you can have 6 pts boyz with a free nob, mob rule, and all the great stuff
Runtherd - cause of grots
3 types of big meks after the faq - They're pretty expensive and now can't really cover all that much with clarifications to "entirely within". Can still be used in walker lists, i guess, but why not just take an extra walker instead?
Burna bomber - all ork flyers are quite mediocre but the burna bomber does exactly what a blitza bomber does but worse.
Flash gitz - too expensive and too restrictive. With the clarifications to battle fortress and no re-rolls inside transports they're pretty worthless. Traditionally so.
Killa kanz - they're not as bad as in 7-th but still one of the worst walkers in the game.
Meganobz (arguably) - just too expensive. And lost so much punch. They're still almost twice as tough as boyz point-for-point vs small arms fire but are less choppy and anything with multi-damage and some ap chews through them really quickly.
Biker nobz - so expensive. Regular bikers ain't amazing but are still better than nob bikers.
2 types of painboyz - cause if you REALLY want to field a painboy to supplement your amazing wierdboys you take Grotsnik
Stompa - too expensive, doesn't do all that much damage and easy to deal with
3 types of buggies - cause koptas are better

That's around 50% of the codex. Which is still an improvement over the last codex! So, not bad, i guess.

Painboys on a bike is a great thing, and Big meks still rocks. And while Flash Gitz and Gretchins are useless Skorchas, Bikers, Nob Bikers and Manz are at least decent. On the other hand you forgot to mention Lobbas and Burnas which are even worse than Flash Gitz. Many of Orks units simply suffer from "while perfectly decent it is still not as good as taking more boyz and weirdboyz instead"

First, on the Splitting Horrors topic: I think that you should only be able to take Pink Horrors in your initial list, and that they should cost like 14 ppm or something with free splits into blues and brims as appropriate. You only get the little horrors when Pinks die rather than being able to take just a unit of Brims for 20 pts. To me, that is cheesier than splitting Horrors, that you can spam stupidly cheap and durable Brims instead of having to take the bigger ones.

As for what's useless in my armies:
Dark Angels: Servitors (for the same reasons as the AdMech ones the OP mentioned), Land Speeder Typhoons (too expensive for how fragile they are), Drop Pods (way too expensive especially since they can't get a squad close enough to do that much, at least with some weapons).
Tau: Aun'shi (a melee Tau character that's not a battlesuit? No, just no.), Riptides (GW hit these big guys with the nerf bat really hard), Shield Drones (the FAQ put the final nail in their coffin).
Chaos Space Marines: Forgefiend (too expensive for what it does). Really not all that bad, though.
Death Guard: Lord of Contagion (Comparable wargear and stats to Typhus, but lacking some of his abilities and costing 20 points more?!)
Chaos Daemons: Furies (many reasons), Screamers (too expensive for what they do), Soul Grinder (too expensive, but perhaps I just haven't figured out its niche yet).

Celestians, and to a lesser degree, Exorcists and Repentia.

Celestians are expensive Battle Sisters, iwth +1 WS and a bodyguard rule. Except the only character we have worth protecting with something this expensive doesn't even need the protection.

Exorcists are now outclassed in firepower by pretty much every other dedicated tank, even outclassed by razorbacks and immolators to an extent, with random hits, and random reduced damage. Even retributors with heavy bolters are arguably better.

Repentia are a long way better than before... but they're still expensive, fragile units.

Granted, of these, nly the exorcist was a mainstay before.

Imperial Guard: Some variety of Leman Russ. At least the Basilisk is cheap. Or veterans probably, since ordinary guardsmen are cheaper and don't come in platoons anymore [and can't make a big squad anymore either]
Sisters of Battle: Celestians. I can't find a use for them, that wouldn't be better served for less by Battle Sisters, and even better served by Dominions. And, since they nerfed Seraphim Hand Flamers and decreased the cost of Storm Bolters, the only reason I can see to take anything other than Dominions is to have a unit of Seraphim to follow Celestine around and absorb fire/surround tanks for her to kill.

Battlewagons, because they can be shutdown and totally destroyed by a Biovore unit half it's cost from across the map.