most overprice/useless/unplayed units in 8th ed books

[panic_puppet]

Another vote for Ushabti. Mostly because for the price of 4 ushabti you can get 3 Necropolis Knights, which are more survivable, faster, and dish out more damage. If there was a non-khalida related way to make bowshabti viable in small units, they'd be ok. But there isn't.

[Storyteller]

I'm certainly no expert and this may be the inexperienced general blaming his tools but in I've played so far with the Empire in 8th I've found the Helstrom Rocket Battery to be underwhelming. I like taking it because it's such a fun concept, but in battle I end up thinking I'd rather have another cannon or more handgunners.

[Liber]

Ushabti here. Overall the 8th ed Tomb Kings book seems great...but Ushabti are the worst costed unit I can think of off the top of my head.


Edit - Just noticed a large amount of Ushabti votes that specifically mention the 'bow' version. This is true, but not necessary as all versions of Ushabti are terribly priced for what they do. A real shame as the models IMO are awesome.


Edit Edit - Crap, have to give a shout out too the Flame Cannon. It has the honor of being both useless and overpriced. I wonder how many GW has sold in the past couple years...five?

[AmaroK]

Considering the 8th edition books only, and in my usual games, I have to say the scraplauncher. I have yet to see one, because they are mainly competing with the ironblaster obscenity. I also have to agree on the ushabti and regular skelly cavalry for tk. Boars boyz arent used in my game area either, nor any kind of swarm. All in all, I think 8th books are making a good work making all the books units usable, but there is always room to improve.

[Wesser]

I've said it before..

Empire Pistoliers. Soooo overpriced for a fast cavalry with bad shooting and low leadership

Bretonnian Grail Pilgrims had most of their advantages over Men-at-arms taken away.

Though I must admit the Bow Ushabti is up there with the sillest. Maybe if they could be taken with greatweapons as well...but guess that would have been expensive..

[Vipoid]

Are we including Special Characters in this list?

If so, I'd like to nominate Isabella, and Krell (both from VCs):

Isabella for being a 175pt tax to make Vlad worth a damn.

Krell is of dubious usefulness to say the least:

A normal wight king with a great weapon and dragonhelm (for 4+ save) is 100pts. Krell is 205, so you're paying 105pts for +1 WS, +1W, +1I (the latter might be useful, were it not for the fact that he's wielding a Great Weapon ). He doesn't get an extra attack, because that might actually be useful. His axe is interesting, but a bit strange seeing as he has killing blow (or Heroic Killing Blow if he's in the same unit as Heinrich - because we all love having our fragile mage on the front-line with one of our most expensive fighters, don't we?).

If we ever have a thread about the worst items, then I'd nominate Krell's armour. It gives him a 4+ save, and nullifies magic weapons if he makes a save against them. Because, as we all know, a 4+ armour save is the bane of all magic items, and there are so few items that strike at S6+ or ignore armour saves entirely...

[Mullitron]

Are we including Special Characters in this list?

If so, I'd like to nominate Isabella, and Krell (both from VCs):

Isabella for being a 175pt tax to make Vlad worth a damn.

Krell is of dubious usefulness to say the least::

Well if we are including special characters I would have to add Malekith, for 600-900 odd points (based on his mount option) he can easily take on most cheap infantry without being harmed and even killing 2-3 of them a turn! But besides that hes a quite easy target for anything with magical attacks, his melee damage is worse than many hero level characters he has poor magic option's and items all make him a joke for his cost.

Units from new books I probably agree with the poor snotlings, shame because their a unit we all love and a unit with lots of character

[The bearded one]

If we're including special characters, I'm going to point to 90% of the lizardmen special characters, who are overpriced by about 100-200 points each. 300+ points for tic'tac'to, a skink chief on terradon with ignore-saves blade and a slightly better terradon and excruciatingly useless outflanking ability, costing 150 points more than the generic version would be? But.. this is about 8th edition books, not 6th/7th!

The tomb king necrolith colossus with the bow option seems like an enormous waste of points. A single BS2 shot..

[Lorcryst]

I know I'm guilty of this too (in my replys), but this thread is supposed to be about 8TH EDITION ARMY BOOKS ... so while I can see the points about the Flame Canon, Grail Pilgrims, Malekith and the like, they are sadly Out Of Topic ...

Seems like a toss between Snotlings and Ushabtis, with the TK constructs in the lead ...

[Doommasters]

Why don't you do some direct analysis between the new and old and see how they have changed?

[Antipathy]

Savage Orc archers.

Just... why...

Also, I giggled when I read that Glade Riders are the best unit in the Wood Elf book right now

At 1200 points, yes. Above that, when people can 'afford' to waste points on odd bits of shooting here and there without sacrificing combat potential they lose effectiveness. At 1200, a vanguard move, 18" march and 30" bowshot, with no move penalty, the space to move and hide in cover, backes by a flying level3 lifeweaver, the hail of doom arrow, flying warmachine hunters, and the ability to outmaneuvre and combined charge enemies as and when you want makes them powerful indeed. Although 400 points of empire knights might outclass them in a straight up fight, 20 bowshots with no move and fire penalty and fire after march, forest strider, and the like for 5 turns before a combined charge of 400 points of gladeriders, eagles and warhawk riders can win a game especially when the lifeweaver is healing the units and casting things that generally cause pain like a possible dweller or thorns, and it adds up

Im notna fan of glade guard scouts, for their cost and the loss of s4 shooting there is little point in taking them for scouts when a glade rider unit with the same benefits and similar costing does the same but faster and more maneuverable has my vote.

As for Special Characters, The sisters on an eagle are a bargain buy, the stone thrower shot and ability to halt entire units are worth their points, not to mention their 4 wounds healing back to full at the start of the turn, and hence near immunity to cannonballs, as well as not being reliant on magic, for a 1300-1500 list, they are worth their weoght in points, even if you do lose the lifeweaver.

[Sparowl]

Razordons.

[Lance Tankmen]

Razordons.

never heard of em, which 8th edition book they from?

[Agoz]

I'd have to go with greasus goldtooth and bragg gutsman from the ogre kingdoms book as incredibly overpriced and underpowered characters, as for the worst unit, well, only having access to the empire and ogre 8th army books, I'd have to go with yhetees, they are quite expensive, their -1ws isn't very good because of their own poor weaponskill, and flammable, while not having been that bad a weakness in previous editions, now that everyone has access to a flaming unit, they just go down way too fast to justify using them.

[Ebon]

Off the top of my head and discounting the armies so old that EVERYTHING needs a rework (WE but also Brets):
Snotlings
Tomb Heralds (except for BSB)
bow Ushabti (which seems to be less them being bad and more Ushabti with great weapons being better)
Yhettees
Gorgers
Razordons (haven't seen a single army that includes them ever, including mine)
Celestial Huricanuum / Luminark (that might be because they're new though)
Razorgor (maybe because the model is awful)
most of the DoC named characters (huge points cost)
DE Reaper bolt thrower (seems to be just that the Hydra is a much better option in the slot)
Silver Helms (might just be my group there)
Bat swarms and Tomb swarms (primarily due to the baffling decision to make them Special, although Nurglings seem to have escaped)
Forsaken currently (probably will improve with new book)

EDIT: Missed the bit about specifically 8th books, sorry.

[Ebon]

I can find a use and do use every single unit in the tomb king book. Except for horsemen. I can't find a use for horsemen. I have a couple units of them from the old days of 5th edition undead when they could move through terrain like ghosts which was cool. However they have not seen a table top in over a decade.

Flank charges. They're fast and relatively maneuverable in an army that generally isn't. My technique is to draw enemy units onto my big skellie hordes. Since they're hordes, they can hold for at least a while. Then slam the horsemen into the flank and, with a little luck, that can be enough to win the combat for you.

[Boreas_NL]

My vote is for the Empire Mortar... With the 8th edition BRB it became pretty effective for it's points and it was obvious that it would undergo some sort of overhaul to change all that... However, they succeeded in making it completely useless... At 100 points and S2 it won't kill anything (really, it just can't). It always struggled to wound T4 troops but that was never a problem as there were other methods available but now it can barely scratch T3 models. Fortunately, according to the book, the Mortar's shells still explode with 'tremendous force'...

I have several (six in fact) converted classic Mortars including crew gathering dust (and looking very, very disappointed) in my cabinet. They are part of my Grand Battery (six Cannon and six Mortars) which I built especially for campaign based games and the occasional extreme battle...

Before Empire 8th edition I used to field a single one of each war machine (Cannon, Mortar, Helblaster and Helstorm), now I just field a single Cannon and a brace of Helblasters...

As only separate units are eligeble for the title of 'worst unit ever' I can't nominate the entire 8th edition Empire army book, right? Just kidding (or am I???) Since I've played a couple of battles with it, it seems not to bad though it still feels like a considerable step backwards for most of the book and the units with only a select few vaguely resembling effectiveness... Something about misery loving company, right?

[Blkc57]

Overpriced and useless for Skaven? Two words...Vermin Lord. You get all the penalties of being a demon prince without any of the benefits, all for the low low price of 500 points.

[Vipoid]

Overpriced and useless for Skaven? Two words...Vermin Lord. You get all the penalties of being a demon prince without any of the benefits, all for the low low price of 500 points.

I'm not disagreeing with you that the Vermin Lord is overcosted, but I'm not really sure what you mean when you say that he has all the penalties of a Daemon Prince, with none of the benefits?

[oldWitheredCorpse]

There's a lot of talk about Ushabti. The simple fact is that the AHW (additional hand weapon) option is the worst. Monstrous infantry pay a lot, around 11 pts, for greatweapons, but just a few points for AHW. It can be interpreted as a tax for striking at I, but then you might as well take bowshabti, that strike at I, have one attack less in CC, but project a S6 attack 30" over the board from the first turn.