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How do?

So as you’re probably aware, 40k is pretty mental.

It’s not quite sci fi, but more sci fi than sci fantasy. It’s a glorious messy mash up of so many tropes and influences it kinda stands on its own as an audacious original.

And with that comes some properly ‘wtf’ units. Given such things are highly subjective, I’m not going to set any rules or limitations here. Your take is different from my take, and long may that be the case. I say this now, and clearly, because of course I’m going to offer my own suggestion first. I am your host, and it would be rude for me not to. Just please don’t feel this thread is about one upping the previous poster.

For me? It’s Imperial Guard Rough Riders.

Oh glorious anachronism! Barely trained men upon basic Horsies, but with surprisingly high tech exploding lances! Streaking as fast as they can across the field to make their prey explode upon the tip of their lance!

You can keep your bike mounted conversions (no, really, keep them, they look ace!), I’ll stick to the original ‘Dave & Dobbin’ take. Not only are they clearly nonsense for that point of the future, but they also hark back to the true inspiration of the Imperial Guard -WW1. The ‘not quite sure what’s so’ Great ‘about it’ War. The last time we saw Cavalry charges attempted as an actual ‘well surely this’ll work as well as it did for the past few hundred years’ tactic.

Yeah. Of course that didn’t pan out. Warfare had moved on. But man, that is so 40k. And I do miss them. If only as a non-Guard player for the simple joy of taking out a surprisingly hitty unit with relatively little effort.

Now, remember the Rough Riders are simply my pick/opinion, not a benchmark. You do you and weigh in with your own pick

Just remember to sell it in an amusing way!

Dreadknights. Baby carriers will NEVER not be bizarre.

Chaos spawn.

Nothing exemplifies Chaos better

Ork shokk attack gun, I love how hilariously orky it is. An unreliable, impractical and insane weapon that is also supremely deadly when it works

The original Ork Shokk Attack Gun, where you rolled on the table to see what the Snotlings did to the target - would they be warp-crazed, appear _inside_ the target or something else...

One of my most recent favourite: Repulsors.

Taking the otherwise rather technologically advanced concept of a "hover tank", and making it even more brutal and bastardised than even things like Land Speeders and Legion jetbikes.
It's a tank covered in guns that stays aloft by PUNCHING THE GROUND so hard it leaves a trail of glass behind it. It's that marriage of brutality and otherwise "normal" sci-fi ideas that makes 40k work. Things like plasma, something that in most settings would be a last resort due to it's extreme danger, are just thrown about in 40k and the user threat is just collateral damage.

The tyranid biovore. Old images of tyranid had a lot of phallic-looking art, this thing looks like a walking piece of male anatomy. Even more mind-bending is it *shoots* "spores" that look suspiciously like a certain reproductive cell.

Makes you wonder how the thing looks as it shambles across the battlefield, lobbing its artillery all over its enemies...

Then, there's the Pyrovore, which the same thing, but its spouting fire....geez guy, go see a doctor about that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do?

So as you’re probably aware, 40k is pretty mental.

It’s not quite sci fi, but more sci fi than sci fantasy. It’s a glorious messy mash up of so many tropes and influences it kinda stands on its own as an audacious original.

And with that comes some properly ‘wtf’ units. Given such things are highly subjective, I’m not going to set any rules or limitations here. Your take is different from my take, and long may that be the case. I say this now, and clearly, because of course I’m going to offer my own suggestion first. I am your host, and it would be rude for me not to. Just please don’t feel this thread is about one upping the previous poster.

I've got two, for different reasons
Absolutely Crazy:
Deathstrike Missile. Minimum range 12" [yes, the ICBM has a minimum range less than a cruise missile or artillery howitzer]. Blast radius 3+1d3" [fething massive next largest blast was 10" diameter and only present in apocalypse, next largest in regular play was 5" diameter]. Barrage. S10 AP1. Can anyone say "DANGER CLOSE!" ?

Obnoxious Rules:
Wyvern introduced in 6th edition. There's no better way to grind a game to a halt than with one of these back then with its 2 Twin-Linked Heavy 2 Barrage Small Blast Shred weapons. BUT WAIT! They come in batteries of 3!

Orks…. all of them are impossible!

If I have to be specific I'd pick the Big Mek SAG.

-matt

IMO most of the eldar armoury fits here.

Shuriken catapults are linear accelerator guns that fire a thousand monomolecular blades to shred the target.

Death spinners are monofilament guns that fire clouds of razor mist that slices you up inside yourself. Harlequins kisses do they same thing but stab you first with an oversized combat needle.

Dire swords use the soul of a dead eldar to tear your brain apart when they stab you.

D- weapons tear a hole into the warp and suck parts of your body into it.



The eldar never heard of the Geneva convention and it wasn't until the necrons that we another army had horrifically over the top guns like this. At least bolters are conventional explosives, rather than the eldar's obsession with causing you to fall apart in anime katana chunks....


In this vein then, warp spiders and wraithguard are pretty weird.


The imperium has a lot of body horror in it though:

servitors
machine spirits (human brains embedded in computers)
arco flagellants
servo skulls


Pariahs until they were retconned, culexus assassins

space marines are pretty tame.


Most of the tyranid army fits this.

Madboyz... so mental you needed I think 6 different random tables to work out a)what kind of mania they were suffering from and b)what it actually made them do. They might squabble with each other over who owned a particular bolter, or they might just become invulnerable super orks and utterly smash anything they looked at.

the exorcist..

I mean, this is a pipe organ built onto a tank that fires missiles as you play the organ...

The Doom of Malantai was pretty damn annoying.

I remember a game where I allowed my opponent to bring him, even though this was 7th edition.

I regretted it.

Necron Flayed ones. Their backstory is basically a horror story of robot psychopaths skinning their victims, wearing their skins and then eating them. But they don’t have a stomach so they basically just go through the motions of eating them for no point. And I like how they also freak out the other robot aliens.

I always liked the chaos spartan assault tank, where there's a danger it will actually eat the people it's transporting

The Penitent Engine.

Because nothing says "Grimdark" like strapping a prisoner to a torture rack and then strapping THAT to a walking murder machine!

Going to have to mirror my fellow Ork players here and say the Shokk Attack Gun. Teleportation is always used as a superpower or convenient plot device for most sci-fi/superhero settings, but nothing reflects 40k's crazy background and quintessential Orkish nature for using it as a purely man-portable weapon to shoot their own sub-species as ammunition into the enemy. That's the equivalent of us using teleportation technology to send babies or dogs into the equivalent of hell and back into people to scrabble their innards apart.

If that's not 40k I don't know what is.

Simply harlequins...bright, dancing, fairy clowns....that will literally feth you up without you even knowing it's happening. What's the weapon? Well, they punch this tube into you and basically a monofilament wire uncoils within your body, turning it to soup. And that's funny....apparently.

 Flinty wrote:
Madboyz

Yeah, this. The original RT-era version, not the massively toned-down 2nd edition version that only had a single D6 table (boo!).



The models were awesome too:

Those old orks were really crazy and had so much character. Absolutely ludicrous to have a horde army have a number of totally distinct metal models, but props to the mini designers for cranking them out at such a pace!

my personal favorite has to be the descriptions of what dark eldar and harlequin weapons do to their targets, and how utterly, fantastically, AMAZINGLY boring they are on the table top.

Harlequin's Kiss lore: A hollow needle the user punctures through the armor of its victim, then uncoils a monomolecular spring inside them turning them to goop inside their armor.

rules: +1s, -1AP, d3 damage.

Harlequin's Caress Lore: Projects a phase-shifting aura around just the hand of the user, allowing them on a perfect strike to reach inside the chest of their victims and pluck out their heart or other suitable organs

rules: +2S, -2AP, 1 damage.

Neuro Disruptor: Fires a beam of destructive thought through specially crafted crystals that leaves the body unharmed but destroys the brainwaves of the target, causing foes to slump to the ground apparently unharmed but totally deceased.

rules: S4, Ap-3, D3 damage.

Star Bolas: Plasma detonation charges designed to be thrown in a whirling arc to wrap around the legs of the victim and bisect them.

rules: d3 shots, S6, Ap-3, d1. Also,in a stunning display of "GW doesn't know how their own rules work" this is a weapon designed to be equippable by the entire squad of jetbikes, and it has the Grenade type, meaning if you take it only one model in the squad can use it. Hurp madurp.

Drukhari Huskblade: a spirit-leeching sword that drains the vitality from enemies it strikes, turning slain victims into crumbling ash and restoring youth to the Archon that wields the weapon

rules: +1s, -2AP, d3 damage.

Monoscythe Missile: a devastating bomb that could be capable of deleting whole chunks of reality, but the cruel dark eldar have reconfigured it with a containment field to ensure that its horrific explosion occurs only in two dimensions. Pilots time the explosions with precise accuracy to attempt to perfectly decapitate as many opposing combatants as they can.

rules: S6, Ap0, D2.

Hexrifle: a repurposing of a devastating "glass plague" that ripped through Comorragh, hexrifles crystallize the flesh of their targets, turning the dead into macabre statues of transparent glass, twisted into expressions of tortured pain.

rules: S4, Ap-1, d1. A completely normal, regular-ass sniper rifle.

Dreadnaughts, whether Orky, Spikey or Posh versions are pretty mental. Just being encased forever in this horrible machine and slowly going mad, with the dealing of pain to others your only joy in life.
I don't know what's worse, the space marines who convince each other that a living hell is some kind of honour or the dread of bumping into the wrong doc/ deamonsmith!

IG suicide bombers, quietly sidelined when the real world overtakes your horrid pretend future

'Quinns, Hot Gossip meets Glam rock hair to fight the god of excess whilst somehow not just fuelling she who thirsts

Squat Land trains and Zepplins,technically epic but splendidly silly steampunk in the 40k

Death Jester and his shrieker cannon:

"Each round is impregnated with virulent biotoxins that cause the victim's metabolism to detonate spectacularly. The slightest wound promises a swift and horrific death, transforming the victim into a living bomb of jagged bone and boiling gore. Through it all the Death Jester looks on with avid amusement, keenly watching for any way in which to make his victims' deaths more darkly comedic. It is a credit to his twisted ingenuity that he will normally succeed."

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Jesters

Crispy78 wrote:
Death Jester and his shrieker cannon:

"Each round is impregnated with virulent biotoxins that cause the victim's metabolism to detonate spectacularly. The slightest wound promises a swift and horrific death, transforming the victim into a living bomb of jagged bone and boiling gore. Through it all the Death Jester looks on with avid amusement, keenly watching for any way in which to make his victims' deaths more darkly comedic. It is a credit to his twisted ingenuity that he will normally succeed."

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Jesters

Which of course, in the rules, translates to

one shot

zero AP

if you kill something it causes a couple mortal wounds to the squad.

woooooow such fun ruuuuules.

In its original incarnation, the model hit by the shrieker cannon would stagger 2d6", and then it would explode into a blast template. In the harlequin relaunch, it was a slightly more restrained version (small blast template centered where the model used to be) but if the enemy unit failed its morale test you got to pick the direction they ran, which true to lore let you set up funny situations like enemy gunline units running into your melee troops, or jumping into dangerous terrain, or jumping in front of enemy vehicles.

But now we have Harlequin Rules: Snooze Edition.

the_scotsman wrote:
my personal favorite has to be the descriptions of what dark eldar and harlequin weapons do to their targets, and how utterly, fantastically, AMAZINGLY boring they are on the table top.

Harlequin's Kiss lore: A hollow needle the user punctures through the armor of its victim, then uncoils a monomolecular spring inside them turning them to goop inside their armor.

rules: +1s, -1AP, d3 damage.

Harlequin's Caress Lore: Projects a phase-shifting aura around just the hand of the user, allowing them on a perfect strike to reach inside the chest of their victims and pluck out their heart or other suitable organs

rules: +2S, -2AP, 1 damage.

Neuro Disruptor: Fires a beam of destructive thought through specially crafted crystals that leaves the body unharmed but destroys the brainwaves of the target, causing foes to slump to the ground apparently unharmed but totally deceased.

rules: S4, Ap-3, D3 damage.

Star Bolas: Plasma detonation charges designed to be thrown in a whirling arc to wrap around the legs of the victim and bisect them.

rules: d3 shots, S6, Ap-3, d1. Also,in a stunning display of "GW doesn't know how their own rules work" this is a weapon designed to be equippable by the entire squad of jetbikes, and it has the Grenade type, meaning if you take it only one model in the squad can use it. Hurp madurp.

Drukhari Huskblade: a spirit-leeching sword that drains the vitality from enemies it strikes, turning slain victims into crumbling ash and restoring youth to the Archon that wields the weapon

rules: +1s, -2AP, d3 damage.

Monoscythe Missile: a devastating bomb that could be capable of deleting whole chunks of reality, but the cruel dark eldar have reconfigured it with a containment field to ensure that its horrific explosion occurs only in two dimensions. Pilots time the explosions with precise accuracy to attempt to perfectly decapitate as many opposing combatants as they can.

rules: S6, Ap0, D2.

Hexrifle: a repurposing of a devastating "glass plague" that ripped through Comorragh, hexrifles crystallize the flesh of their targets, turning the dead into macabre statues of transparent glass, twisted into expressions of tortured pain.

rules: S4, Ap-1, d1. A completely normal, regular-ass sniper rifle.

Oh god, so much this.

Would it really have killed them to make these weapons remotely interesting, rather than having all of them be as generic and boring as possible?

I think the warlock titan has got to be in with a shout.
It's a titan, so already pretty mental, piloted by psychic ghosts that can see into the future to bend weapon fire, including lasers, in case the enemy has been rude enough to try and dodge, greater demons can be insta killed by it's melee attacks and it's main weapon is a dialed up to 11 tranquiliser, normally used to pacify dinosaurs, that basically melts the minds of it's enemies.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warlock_Battle_Titan

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
my personal favorite has to be the descriptions of what dark eldar and harlequin weapons do to their targets, and how utterly, fantastically, AMAZINGLY boring they are on the table top.

Harlequin's Kiss lore: A hollow needle the user punctures through the armor of its victim, then uncoils a monomolecular spring inside them turning them to goop inside their armor.

rules: +1s, -1AP, d3 damage.

Harlequin's Caress Lore: Projects a phase-shifting aura around just the hand of the user, allowing them on a perfect strike to reach inside the chest of their victims and pluck out their heart or other suitable organs

rules: +2S, -2AP, 1 damage.

Neuro Disruptor: Fires a beam of destructive thought through specially crafted crystals that leaves the body unharmed but destroys the brainwaves of the target, causing foes to slump to the ground apparently unharmed but totally deceased.

rules: S4, Ap-3, D3 damage.

Star Bolas: Plasma detonation charges designed to be thrown in a whirling arc to wrap around the legs of the victim and bisect them.

rules: d3 shots, S6, Ap-3, d1. Also,in a stunning display of "GW doesn't know how their own rules work" this is a weapon designed to be equippable by the entire squad of jetbikes, and it has the Grenade type, meaning if you take it only one model in the squad can use it. Hurp madurp.

Drukhari Huskblade: a spirit-leeching sword that drains the vitality from enemies it strikes, turning slain victims into crumbling ash and restoring youth to the Archon that wields the weapon

rules: +1s, -2AP, d3 damage.

Monoscythe Missile: a devastating bomb that could be capable of deleting whole chunks of reality, but the cruel dark eldar have reconfigured it with a containment field to ensure that its horrific explosion occurs only in two dimensions. Pilots time the explosions with precise accuracy to attempt to perfectly decapitate as many opposing combatants as they can.

rules: S6, Ap0, D2.

Hexrifle: a repurposing of a devastating "glass plague" that ripped through Comorragh, hexrifles crystallize the flesh of their targets, turning the dead into macabre statues of transparent glass, twisted into expressions of tortured pain.

rules: S4, Ap-1, d1. A completely normal, regular-ass sniper rifle.

Oh god, so much this.

Would it really have killed them to make these weapons remotely interesting, rather than having all of them be as generic and boring as possible?

My favorite is the insanely extensive and utterly boring haemonculus melee weapon gear list. Here's the rules in all their glory:

Haemonculus Tools: Strength user, AP0, Damage 1, Poison
Scissorhand: Strength user, Ap-1, damage 1, Poison, Chainsword bonus attack rule.
Venom Blade: Strength user, Ap0, Damage 1, Poison, but on a 2+!
Mindphase Gauntlet: Strength User, Ap0, Damage 2
Agonizer: Strength user, Ap-2, damage 1, Poison
Electrocorrosive Whip: Strength user, Ap-2, Damage 2, Poison
Flesh Gauntlet: Strength User, Ap0, Damage1, Mortal wound on a 6 to wound (Wow, so innovative and different!)

Has to be the most utterly yawn-inducing weapon list in the entire game. Seems like absolutely everything fills the exact same role of anti-infantry, there is a very clear and obvious best choice (EC Whip). Almost all of them are poison, and the ones that arent are both S3 AP- noodleslappers.

Plastic bits for every single one of these weapons exist, and exactly 2 models have access to them so it's not like this is a situation where they have to be particularly careful. Could they not have made one of them an anti-tank option?

There was Doomrider, who (IIRC) would appear at random, disappear at random, and if he was slain, you had a 4+ on 3D6 to deny the opponent victory points as he actually disappeared into the warp.

+1 to the SAG, the fact that orks used this tech as a weapon was awesome!

Old Chaos Dreadnaughts who were so insane that they might just scream and shoot (twice) or they might charge and attack (twice).

Kharne was always quite funky - the fact that he could never miss (hits on a 2+, 1's hit a friendly unit) was pretty cool!

 some bloke wrote:
There was Doomrider, who (IIRC) would appear at random, disappear at random, and if he was slain, you had a 4+ on 3D6 to deny the opponent victory points as he actually disappeared into the warp.

+1 to the SAG, the fact that orks used this tech as a weapon was awesome!

Old Chaos Dreadnaughts who were so insane that they might just scream and shoot (twice) or they might charge and attack (twice).

Kharne was always quite funky - the fact that he could never miss (hits on a 2+, 1's hit a friendly unit) was pretty cool!

IIRC he still does that, never misses.