Now for something a little different

On my adventures through the internet, I see a lot of 40k related things.  Most of it is bad, some of it good and just occasionally a real gem appears.

This could quite easily be one of those gems;

The Trails of Draigo. Safe for Work version
The Trails of Draigo. Not Safe for Work version

What makes a bad unit good and a good unit bad?

Something which can be difficult for new players to understand is the concept of a bad unit being good.  The same concept applies where a good unit becomes bad.  I will try to explain how this happens and what you can do about them.

Firstly, bad units that can be good.  Some people may say there isn't such a thing as a bad unit, but that is not true.  However you do need to measure how good a unit is in context of its own book.  A unit could indeed be utterly terrible in the overall game, but if it is the only unit you have in your book capable of doing a certain thing, or it does a certain thing very cheaply, then it is not a bad unit.  This is important to bear in mind. 

Lets look at an example.  Imperial guardsmen.  Not the veterans, but the regular guardsmen.  These are a troops choice, who can take a single special and a single heavy weapon, with a below average statistic line and armour save.  Within their own codex and indeed own troops section, they are competing against the superior veteran squads who have better shooting ability, on par with most elite armies, lots of options and the ability to take three special weapons and a heavy weapon for only two points a model more.  Having taken this into account, you need to look into what the guardsmen can do that the vets cant and this has to be weighed against the cost of giving up a vet squad. 

The first thing you notice is that the guardsmen are more expensive than most well equipped vet squads despite the worse statistics.  This is because you have to buy two units and a platoon command.  For 130 points you can field a naked platoon of twenty five guys.  For a similar cost you could field ten vets with three melta guns and a lascannon.  The difference here is the bodies that the platoon allows you to bring.  You can attach a further three squads of ten, a conscript unit of up to 20 and multiple heavy and special weapon squads.  The humble guardsmen choice is in effect the ability to deploy an entire army.  This is what guardsmen bring to the table over vets, but at the opportunity cost of not deploying as many elite troops.

We now shall look at a unit which seems to be fairly terrible, but is in fact brings quite a lot of useful utility. Enter the Mawloc. Compared to the Trygon it has a worse statistic line, no ranged attack beyond its Terror from the Deep and competes directly with the Trygon, Tyrannofex and Carnifex for large monsters in heavy support.

So how do you get the most out of a creature that is fairly poor in close combat due to low weapon skill and attacks, but has no shooting attacks I hear people cry? The Answer is simple, in objective games this monster has no equal anywhere else in the codex. On turn four, tunnel. You need to be able to do this on turn four, regardless what it was doing up to this point. You need it to come up on an enemy objective on turn five. This has three key uses. Firstly it inflicts a bunch of strength 6 ap2 hits on the enemy unit which should inflict damage on pretty much anything. Secondly it pushes the unit away from the blast marker, If done correctly and you didn't scatter too badly they should now be outside of the three inches required to score. Thirdly, even if you scatter further away, or the enemy are still around, you should be able to run and contest the objective. This leaves the other player with the not so fantastic prospect of having to shoot or charge a large monster with a troops choice, which generally are not close combat experts. This means each Mawloc you have can effectively cancel one enemy held objective, provided you can keep them alive on most of their wounds up to turn four.

Next lets look at good units which can be bad.  Typically there are two causes of this.  A lack of synergy from units and competition for slots use. 
First of all, lets consider what is considered to be a good unit which you can see in a previous article on What Makes a Good Unit
Usually this is something that is capable of doing a job well in the context of the army book.  So how can a good unit be bad?  If I have followed the advice previously given your good units can't possibly be bad right?  Wrong.

Here is an example.  Grey knight terminators.  An exceptionally good unit choice, with a selection of power weapons, strong ranged weapons, very good armour saves, reasonable price and count as scoring.  What is not to like?  Following this logic, you want to fill all your troops choices up with them.  This is how many cookie cooker internet lists work and for a lot of units, eg taking 5 plague marines, giving them two special weapons and sticking them in a rhino, this works a treat.  However in terms of the Grey knight terminators, it doesn't.  Let us consider why.

Firstly although they are good value for their points, you don't get very many models for your points investment.  Terminators are normally valuable because they act in synergy with power armour marines.  Many players will not bother targeting units with just small arms at terminators simply because the chance of killing them is very low.  This in effect increases their survivability quite considerably in a normal balanced list.  However in lists which don't have power armour as scoring, there is no real choice but to shoot the terminators.   This coupled with a small number of models makes you vulnerable to freak unlucky dice rolls, and exceptionally vulnerable to armies packing a lot of ap1 or 2 weapons.  This is a good example of a lack of synergy, terminators by themselves just don't have any real synergy with other terminators.

The second example concerns competition for slots.  Every codex book limits choices to one-two hq, two-six troops and zero-three elite, fast attack and heavy support choices.  A unit can be a solid choice, but due to the other choices in the same slots, they don't get picked in the vast majority of competitive lists.  Going back to imperial guard, one unit that can be considered this is the Valkyrie.  This comes with a selection of anti infantry weapons in the form of a multi laser, rocket pods and cheap upgrades to sponson heavy bolters.  What is not to like?  The problem is it is going against the Valkyrie Vendetta, a vastly superior beast with three twin-linked lascannons and the same option for sponson heavy bolters for a handful of points more.  Imperial guard tend to have a large volume of anti infantry fire already, but accurate lascannons on a fast moving platform is pretty much unique to the Vendetta.  This therefore means that the Valkyrie is a bad unit choice, despite being a good unit on paper.

Tactical marines vs Grey Knight strike squads

This is the first in hopefully a series of comparisons between similar troop’s choices in different armies.  I hope to show that not all is as it seems between units which at first glance seem to be a poor option.

As space marines of various flavours are Games Workshops highest selling ranges, I think we can safely assume that they are probably the most popular.  Let us take a look at a common choice amongst players, the tactical space marine squad.  I hear quite a lot that all space marine armies should be based around three to four tactical marine units.  So I thought I would take a look and do a compare and contrast with grey knight strike squads

You can have five to ten space marines, who come with all the normal rules and basic equipment space marines generally do.  They have a sergeant and optional special and/or heavy weapons.  They can't take either of these options unless you have ten models, but then you get them free/discounted.  Therefore logic suggests you are paying at least part of these costs in the models you buy for the squad.

These compare badly to grey knight strike squads.  These come with a storm bolter and a power weapon for only a small amount of points more than tactical marines.   If they were paying the going rate for their weaponry they would be around ten points a model more than they are currently paying.  They can also upgrade their guns strength and field a supremely decent heavy weapon in the form of the pyscannon cheaply.

The next question you have to bear in mind is how important each unit is to the army it is included in.  Space marine tactical marines compete directly with scouts and bikes (if you have a biker captain) whereas strike squads compete against terminators and henchmen (with Coatez).  This is probably why the strike squads are cheap.  If they were more expensive, they would just be too uncompetitive against terminators in the same slot.  Tactical marines are unfortunately constrained by decades of being equipped the same, much like godhammer land raiders.  It is highly unlikely that tactical marines will ever change in their weapon choices, even in a new book.

Does this mean that tactical marines are miles worse than grey knights?  Not really.  They actually perform a slightly different role in the armies they are assigned to.  Space marines generally are a cheaper, therefore higher model count list than the grey knights.   Tactical marines can take the ever popular meltagun and multimelta combo, which is useful against mechanised armies which tend to dominate 5^th edition.

Having a power weapon, but only one attack limits how good at combat the strike squad is and stormbolters, while being good for basic troopers, are not exactly killing loads of the enemy as you are unlikely to have very many of them.  You can upgrade the guns with pysbolts but this is only economic in larger numbers of models which can be difficult to find the points for in a grey knight list.  The pyscannon is near mandatory, but can be fielded better on purgation squads which can field more of them, or on terminators which are relentless and can therefore use them more efficiently.

Key Units: Inquisitor’s retinue

This is the first of my posts on what I consider to be Key Units in various Army books.  A Key unit is usually one which is flexible and it is often the unit which has the ability to plug holes in your army book.

Arco Flagellant

This is a large volume of high strength attacks type henchman.  Low toughness and no armour will limit its usefulness.  Feel no pain is nice, but not especially useful with the low toughness.  This henchmen type is most useful against low toughness high volume armies.  I don’t believe this is especially needed in the Grey Knight unit, as they have a huge volume of shooting at ap 4 and 5 which should be easily able to deal with these enemies. 

Rating:  3/10

Banisher

This should only be taken for its special ability which is not very impressive or useful given Warp Quake does a better job and is available on your troops choices.  Unfortunately this works only against Daemons of Chaos and Summoned Daemons in Chaos Space marine armies.   There is no scaling in their ability, so at the absolute limit, you should only ever include one.   They can take an Evicisirator for a boost to their combat ability.  Take this if you include one but it really is the most useless henchman.

Rating: 1/10

Crusader

One of the best choices in this section.  A power weapon, flak armour and a storm shield on a guardsman statline for less points than a space marine.  Very useful for absorbing power weapon and low ap shots.  Although they do have a power weapon they have only one attack per model, and no option for additional hand weapons.  They are essentially an anvil choice which will keep the whole unit around.  I consider these to be virtually compulsory for any successful Henchman Unit.   You should take two or more in any full size unit you take.  In smaller units or in armies where you have Coatez, they are not as essential as the role of the unit changes.

Rating: 8/10

Daemonhost

A fairly poor stat line, no options, and a large model don’t make this choice especially appealing.  It has a random ability, most of which are quite decent but they vary between combat and ranged.  Unfortunately as you have to roll and can’t pick it, this will mean that you can’t rely on this unit to do what is needed when you need it to.   Really should only be taken in fluffy lists, and even then I would not recommend taking more than one or two.

Rating: 3/10

Death Cult Assassin

Along with the Crusader, the DCA is a top notch combat henchman.  A large volume of high initiative power weapon attacks coupled with a decent weapon skill make this a  no brainer in combat.  Very good value for points, being the same price as a Crusader.  Ideally in any hand to hand henchman unit you want around half of your unit made of these.  They have a low save, which although it is invulnerable, can’t be relied on to keep them alive, so you will need other cheaper/better protected warriors to bulk out the unit.  Ideally take three to six of these.

Rating: 8/10

Inquisitorial Servitor

This is the same unit which is available for Space Marine techmarines, and imperial guard techpriest engiseers.  You get a guardsman statline, carpace armour and a bonus high strength powerfist style servo arm as default, along with the option to mount heavy weapons replacing the servo arm.  Most of these weapons are expensive, but they can be useful if your henchman unit is going to be a shooting based unit.  Options include heavy bolter [poor] plasma cannon [dangerous] and a multi melta [good].  I would advise to either take one or two of these for their high strength attacks, as the unit lacks instant death and anti-walker combat attacks, or leave them at home.  Their shooting attacks are pricey and inaccurate, but at a push they can provide extra heavy shooting for a unit, which in a chimera can be useful.  Shooting can be improved by the next unit.

Rating: 3/10 rising to 6/10 with a Jokaero.

Jokaero Weaponsmith

Expensive monkey with some interesting rules to improve the units shooting.  These benefit primarily Servitors and Warrior acolytes so only include them if you have plenty of the first two choices in the unit.  They are exceptionally expensive; possess a poor stat line and a low invulnerable save.   They come with a heavy weapon choice and boost other guns in the unit.  I would recommend taking none in a combat unit and one or two in a shooting unit.

Rating: 3/10 rising to 7/10 with sufficient numbers of shooting henchmen.

Mystic

A human with a teleporter homer.  This unit does exactly what it sounds like it does and nothing flashy.  You are perhaps paying a point or two too much for this ability but it could be useful depending on the composition of the rest of your army.  I can’t foresee any reason to ever take more than one.

Rating: 4/10

Psyker

A shooting henchman, with a power which increases for every additional pysker.  I like this unit, although I would always endeavour to take at least two if you take them, so you are wounding MEQs on 2+.  Fairly useless in a combat unit, but handy to throw down a large template.  In large numbers can cut through marine armies with ease as the AP also decreases per additional psyker.

Rating:  6/10

Warrior Acolyte

Cheap and incredibly customisable.  I would advise bulking out any unit of henchmen with these.  You can tool a few of them up with special weapons such as melta guns, or keep them cheap and use as wound counters for the other more specialised models in the unit.  They do get plasma guns at a cheaper price than many armies, although they do have low bs and low save, so they are not an ideal place to put them.  Many of the combat options can be put on other models cheaper, so they should really only be considered to be a shooting option.

Rating: 8/10