Is there any reason not to use the best units?

I really appreciate the replies fellas. It is really helping me as a new player. I might just field some harlequins yet.

Mushkilla wrote:

That's just the tip of the ice burgh, but even in such a small sample you can see there is a large variety of Dark Eldar lists that seem to be doing well. With quite a variety of different units.

Hope that helps.

The problem is mush when I looked at those lists I didn't see a lot of variety, at least in terms of Dark Eldar. That might because I haven't seen enough armies and don't understand what counts as variety. Most people use up one slot on "something different" like the Grotesques, but the rest of your entire list are reavers, warriors in a transport, and ravagers. Every army had 2+ ravagers and maybe one flyer. The only time a fast attack slot was used for anything but reavers, the baron was an HQ choice. And the elite sections had trueborn, or something their HQ joined. While warriors outfieled wyches probably around 2:1 at least I did see some variety there. That brings me to my next thought:

Autopilot wrote:

I really like this topic, though. I often have a very hard time fielding something that I know could be out shined by another unit. What I often do is remind myself that I play Dark Eldar dirty. I really enjoy strategizing and playing hard with an army thats fast and like a dagger in my opponent. If someone wants to play a relaxed, non-strategic game, I'll pull out a whole different codex.

Thanks! And that's why I made the topic honestly. As someone who enjoys the whole codex. Lurking around this website enough, I know Mush is a really good strategist/player etc. If I took his army and added a group of mandrakes, the army is still competitive, I didn't change the foundation, but I did just waste 45-150 points. And while mandrakes are the extreme, you do start to look at every unit like that over time. You know what I didn't see in any of those armies? Scourges, which I love, or a parasite engine, which I also love. Or any taloi for that matter. I'll keep using them, but apparently no one else does.

Azdrubael wrote:

Yeah, sure. Combination of certain units and certain playstyle is more powerfull and brutal then set of single units defined as "best" taken in all slots. There is more enjoyment also in defining and finding them, this is what actually 40k is. Otherwise its just roll dice, drink beer. No need for armies.

That's probably the best answer I heard so far. If you only field what's considered to be the best units, you won't find anything better. Though I'm not opposed to just rolling dice and drinking beer.

Quote :

The problem is mush when I looked at those lists I didn't see a lot of variety, at least in terms of Dark Eldar. That might because I haven't seen enough armies and don't understand what counts as variety. Most people use up one slot on "something different" like the Grotesques, but the rest of your entire list are reavers, warriors in a transport, and ravagers. Every army had 2+ ravagers and maybe one flyer. The only time a fast attack slot was used for anything but reavers, the baron was an HQ choice. And the elite sections had trueborn, or something their HQ joined. While warriors outfieled wyches probably around 2:1 at least I did see some variety there. That brings me to my next thought:

And onto your next thought on the Parasite Engine as well...

This completely depends on your list. Why would you take something slow and on foot when the rest of your army flies? Also, if you're relying on the bulk of your anti-tank to come out of your Heavy slots, why not take the Ravager? If you have anti-tank elsewhere, your Heavy slots would be free too bring the parasites. But would you want them really? Does the rest of your army really benefit from the Parasite Engine throwing buffs around or are they too far away/in transports to matter?

It's all about army synergy. If you want to take advantage of the engines, you have to build an army around them. If you want to be mobile and fast, you have to build your army to compliment that. This is why you don't see those "extremes" and "oddities" in those lists presented earlier.

HERO wrote:

Yes, and they made it even worse.  This is a points based game after all, and the units you buy should matter and have an impact on the game (especially if their entire purpose in life is to assault).  Not only do you have to subject your guys to Overwatch which can result in models lost, but now you factor in multi-units overwatching with stacking benefits from special rules from that of the Ethereal.  Why is this needed?  It's the extra layers that makes it so abysmal for all army types who choose to assault as their primary method of flavor.  Tau makes this flavor stale, and says frak your assault, I get to Overwatch with stacking special rules.

Agreed - and even with that extra oomph they will still be shredded by whatever gets through the screen, and also leave you open to then declare other assaults free of the excessive firepower. I suppose it's an issue if you only get in one semi-fragile unit a turn to assault distance with them, but if that's the case the assault probably isn't going to go well for you even if they didn't have this ability.

HERO wrote:

There is a serious difference between "weakening" and invalidating.  Why would I ever take Deathwing assault as an option if they're just going to eat a S8 AP2 Large template upon entry?  Why Drop Pods for that matter?  Or get intercepted and shot down as soon as a model I bought and paid for comes into battle?  I wouldn't mind if this was limited to a SC, or an expensive model that you pay for, but why is this so common place?  It's not about unfair advantage at this point, it's simply making the game unfun for someone who wants to play a certain way, and mind you, how the designers wanted them to play because these special rules exist for that particular army, and throwing it out the window.  The same here with all the Ignore Cover weapons that you can buy/switch/upgrade.  These weapons should be luxury weapons, not commonplace and spammed to the point where certain armies, ours is the best example, but Eldar, other armies utilizing bikes and fliers, which rely on as their primary defense mechanism is rendered invalid.

Players with Monstrous Creature based lists would also like to lodge a complaint that DE splinter weaponry is unfair and makes it unfair and prevents them from playing the lists they wish to play.

I don't disagree that a given Tau list can render other lists at extreme weakness to play - indeed, I openly said as much. That said, I'm not sure if I think that negatively affects the overall competitive meta, which is my point.

I certainly agree with you that it makes it exceedingly risky to field a full Drop Pod based army - most assuredly.

HERO wrote:

This self-defeatist logic infuriates me.  Why build models and rules (pods, deathwing assault, jink-save models, alpha strike, reserves) when you have another army that outright ignores these rules and thus, gives the models no purpose.

I don't think there are many Codices that have come out in the past 5+ years that didn't ignore some aspect of the core rules. It may be lazy game design, but it is how they choose to hand flavor to armies nowadays.

HERO wrote:

6th Ed. is a very cinematic edition that strays pretty far from competitive play.  But when talking about armies in a competitive sense, it's pretty easy to say that Tau has all the right tools for the job.  They're a competitively-designed army, in a non-competitive edition, and this a recipe for disaster.  Their book simply takes advantage of everything the edition offers:  Nerf to assault, emphasis on shooting, Overwatch, decreased cover, the list goes on.

I would say they are a competitively designed army built for the edition in which they're playing, and it shows. That said, there are many competitive Codices in play at the moment, and a decent number of them are quite highly competitive versus Tau. Now, if Tau were eating *everything* I'd probably be more in line with your fears, but I think Tau has a couple holes of its own and thus I'm more relaxed about it.

HERO wrote:

Not screws, but roadblocks.  My beef with Tau is not the fact they're a strong army, we've dealt with them in the past: GK, Necrons, Space Wolves, IG, but with the fact they force players to play certain things, or play a certain way, or be utterly annihilated.  Not because of sheer power, but because their book says they can take options that makes your player options not matter.

I guess I see that point, but I'm not sure it's legit...or rather, if it is legit that Tau are the first ones to do it. Quite frankly, when I played against a full Drop Pod army I had to play differently than if I was fighting a mech IG gunline - I'm not sure that makes either army inherently broken. At the same time, yeah, Tau are super strong against some lists...so are a lot of lists. Venomspam is kind of nuclear toasted cheese versus Flying Circus (as a random example), does that mean Venomspam shouldn't be allowed because it prevents people from playing Flying Circus, a legit build from a Codex, or does that mean people should try to build lists that are more inherently flexible rather than gimmick based?

I think that's about where our points diverge, I am applauding the Tau Codex for hindering gimmick paper/rock/scissor lists and you are saddened that it did the same (seeing those lists as needing to be inherently playable options).

I think we agree with the conclusion, we just have different ways to look at it.

Taking your argument out to a (perhaps illogical extreme) does that mean that no Codex should be released that prevents me from playing a Mandrake/Decapitator themed army? I mean, no one questions or complains when they field that and get their teeth kicked in - there are always lists that will be sub-standard. New Codices will take some lists from being playable and put them into the laughable side (and, perhaps, also do vice versa - albeit not as often) but I see that as inherent and natural growth in the meta, not a proven example of poor design beyond the already present examples that they make non-viable choices in a codex.

Quote :

Players with Monstrous Creature based lists would also like to lodge a complaint that DE splinter weaponry is unfair and makes it unfair and prevents them from playing the lists they wish to play.

Another example of design that did not take external balance as a factor at all.  At no point during that design meeting did someone say:  What about MCs, or rather, what about the only thing that Tyranids have going for them?  It's just lazy design.  Then again, it's probably just me and a few niche others in the game industry that sees these things as clear as a day.  I work in the gaming industry so these are conversations we have all the time.

Quote :

I think that's about where our points diverge, I am applauding the Tau Codex for hindering gimmick paper/rock/scissor lists and you are saddened that it did the same (seeing those lists as needing to be inherently playable options).

This is exactly where our points diverge.  If in the game of balance, there's rock, paper, scissors and Tau hinders them all, what is it?  A shotgun. And that's no good for the game.

To the Original Post: The reason for taking the sub-optimal units (and ther's always going to be a long argument over which those actually are..!), is for the fun and variety of Gaming For Pleasure; it is not going to happen in a competitive environment.

My gaming group of a few dozen adults who meet via a Facebook group have recently instigated an option for when advertising on the page for a game: Friendly or Competitive. Not a new concept, but we just adopted it.

When we want to practice our tournament lists it will be double Heldrakes, 3 Ravagers, multiple Riptides etc, and not a sub-par unit in sight.

When we ask for a "friendly", however, we redesign our lists to be fun, fluffy or pretty; Harpies swoop from battlements, Shokk Attack guns misfire, Rough Riders thunder in, and Blood Claws mess up the carpet! A key point to friendly games working, however, is that it relies on an understanding between both players that the fun is more important than the win, and that even if your Khorne guys might be tactically better of going to ground on an objective, that's missing the point a bit.

Heldrakes are not welcome against anything but Terminator armies (AP3 flamer); Interceptor guns are not welcome against Reserve armies; Tau are not welcome against...actually, so far, Tau are not welcome! We haven't found a friendly Tau yet! Greater Good my Arsenic And Old Lace!

TL:DR, if you have beer&pretzel buddies, play for the fun and the stories, bring any models you like; if you have competitive buddies, fight hard, and optimise your lists.

I only take the best units.
Thats why I take haywych venoms over blaster born, because they are better.

The units that work best for you are different from what a 12 year old says are best

Going to have to agree with HERO here.

Tau don't care about:

-Night fight (black sun filters on most things).
-Cover (loads of ignore cover).
-Blind weapons (all suits are immune to them, what a new mechanic? Let hard counter it before it's even properly implemented into the game, I'm mean I2 shouldn't be a disadvantage for tau should it?).
-Reserve/deepstrikers (they have loads of intercept).
-Flyers (they have volumes of fire and skyfire).
-Line of sight (smart missiles, seeker missiles)
-Assault (they have supporting overwatch).
... the list goes on...

In short if your army relies on some special mechanic to function, tau probably ignore it or hard counter it. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Thankfully a lot of tau players seem unimaginative and can't see past gunline tactics, so until they start getting creative we can still beat them.

Eldar allies also make Tau even stronger, and I wouldn't be surprised if they gained a lot from the new space marine codex (as they are battle brothers with space marines).

Ultimately I just think I'm doomed to be sub-optimal but by the Dark Muses I will lose with style!

I take whatever i fancy for the time being,  right now it's harlequins, vect, warrior gunboats x2, reavers, talos, voidraven and ravager.  Oh, 5 wyches in venoms x2

I don't think too much. I also only take models i like painting.

As to the original question, I think you'll find that many players will choose a unit or theme then build around it. This is the case with mush's list which is popular on this board. He likes the reavers (which have classically been considered suboptimal) then added units around them. The grots and gunboats are what worked best for his list and aren't completely unheard of either. If you like scourge and talos then start there and figure out what else you need. Most players don't like talos/cronos because they're slow and hard to deliver, but that will be what makes your list interesting.

I didn't like the new Tau book (or any Tau book) when it first came out either. I've warmed to it only because it adds a risk/reward element to units like drop pods which are designed to pod down and remove one unit from the board and more if they can weather the return fire. This is true of a lot of these binary units. One thing is that Tau still struggles against assault lists or drop lists or whatever because Interceptor and Overwatch and the like can only be used once per turn. These rules just give the Tau a chance before they fold in melee. 6th is very rock-paper-scissors but at least the Tau book punishes some of these gimmicky lists. This is similar to DE Venom spam which crushes flying circus but struggles against mech - if you want the gimmick then you introduce a counter to your list.

But I definitely agree on those blacksun filters. Blind looked like it was going to be a counter for Tau and Cron but for some reason Tau are immune to that and Night Fight which was melee's best chance. It's like the designers started with an interesting idea but just went overboard with it. Hopefully the next DE book has something that blinds units which are immune to blind and night fight.

This thread has turned into rather large discussion! I am going back to the first question there was, and I will keep my answer as short as I can.

The first thing about a list is, that you like it.
It has been said, and it is true. I always take a list where I can think up some fluff, arrange them in a neat formation, paint them so that they fit in all well together... then I start pondering the strategy.
Im not that focused on winning, and I have never seriously considered on changing my list just because of mathhammer. I have listened to the advice of many people here, which I have used to alter my lists, true. But I only do it if I like the suggestion, and the list would still have the basic "spine" it had when I first thought of it.
I also want to try as different lists as I can. I actually have more lists unused than what I have used...

I do use venoms more than raiders, but I have just one ravager.
I like the duke.
I dont have any list with the baron.
I am planning on building a list with at least 9 reavers and CWE allies, which would include Nightspear (so no Farseer at all), Dark Reapers and guardians (on foot). I dont know how it will turn out, but I will do it because I like a lot of the models and want to see how it goes. I dont care if it will fail miserably, I would still try it again if I liked the game!

I reeeaally dont want to join the discussion which one is better, 10 warriors in raider or 5 warriors in venom, or anything like that. When I read the tactica or "stratetiga" by the wiki, I focused on Thor's talk about "How Dark Eldar win/lose", which did not talk about lists, but instead on how to play with DE in general.

I hope my little insights are worth something.

mushkilla wrote:

Spot on. Fuhmraaj suggested approach is how you make units you like work. Talos are a fantastic unit but need a list built around them, and can't just be bolted in at random into a list not designed to support them. That's exactly how my list evolved. I liked reavers which at the time were not a popular choice. I wanted to make them work, so I started out running 27 of them and slowly refined my list over time to support them more efficiently (which mean't cutting their numbers down to 18), and adding units like ravagers and warriors as they provided the support the reavers needed to perform effectively.

An addendum to this point would be that once you reach a certain point size, you'll likely find that you need to include some of these so-called suboptimal units at 1850pts just to reach the point limit. It's not uncommon for Venom spam lists to include reavers, grots or other units because 5 warriors in a Venom is a very cheap unit. Once you realize this, the task is to pick your unique unit then build a list to support it. I think every unit in the DE codex is viable is one capacity or another. The trick is to figure what type of list best complements these units.

Can we leave this one now please, as this is too good a discussion topic to get derailed by a rules argument?

The point made a by Fuhrmaaj about running out of "optimal" units at higher point games forcing you to take other units is interesting; I might consider playing some games with friends with a 0-1 stipulation on El/FA/HS just to make us play around a bit. Either that, or take our normal all-rounder lists, and design a list using NONE of our normal units!

commandersasha wrote:

Can we leave this one now please, as this is too good a discussion topic to get derailed by a rules argument?

Sorry about that you are absolutely right. Split the rules discussion into a separate topic.

Re: OP. There are 3 main reasons why you would run a 'non-optimal' list in competitive play.

1) Surprise. If you took a purely 'optimal' list every time then your opponents will know how to play against you every time. Your list is not what wins you games, how you play is. Sure, some lists are bad, some are good, and the good ones will more often beat the bad ones, however the 'best' list will usually lose to a good, but surprising list. blasters and lances are not the strongest thing in 40k, the unexpected is the strongest thing in 40k.

2) Meta. Depending on what you play against most often, you'll find some units more effective than others. If you're in an area with lots of xenos then venoms are strong. they deal with MCs well and are more effective against units with high armour saves (usually xenos). If you're playing against terminators a lot, you'll find that raiders with disintegrators will probably serve better.

3) Synergy. Some units work better with others. some units will only survive long enough to do their job if there's something else that's perceived a higher threat. Simply saying 'blasterborn are the best elite choice, i'll take 3 units' won't necessarily give you the best return. Lists work as a whole, not as units in isolation, so if you have plenty of lance fire from ravagers or raiders or warrior blobs then those extra blaster shots might be excessive redundancy. Instead you'd benefit from taking some splinter cannons or instead taking some beasts as a fire magnet or counterassault unit.

The 4th reason which depending on your view is just for the variety. Once you've been in 40k for a while, you do grow a level of attachment to some units. or you get 'playful' and think "i'd like to win with unit x because everyone thinks it's terrible but i think i can get it to work". That ties partly with the surprise aspect, but mostly it's because beating someone with a varied and supposedly bad list is more of an accomplishment than face rolling them with 144 poison shots a turn. So i guess reason (4) is satisfaction.

eris wrote:

or you get 'playful' and think "i'd like to win with unit x because everyone thinks it's terrible but i think i can get it to work".

I find this a big motivation.  I like to play with units/lists/armies that "everyone" says are rubbish, just because that kind of simplistic group think (often seen on some websites, but not so much, I think, here  ) really annoys me.  It was a chief factor for why I started playing DE and Tau, both of which were much-maligned, much-neglected forces with ancient codexes when I started with them.

The other factor that affects my list-building is which models I like.  I am a collector/painter first and a gamer second.  I buy what I like, then try to work out how to get it into a list.  Only when I have the luxury of having plenty of models can I start to meaningfully tailor my lists to only include what's good.

Plastikente wrote:

eris wrote:

or you get 'playful' and think "i'd like to win with unit x because everyone thinks it's terrible but i think i can get it to work".

I find this a big motivation.  I like to play with units/lists/armies that "everyone" says are rubbish, just because that kind of simplistic group think (often seen on some websites, but not so much, I think, here  ) really annoys me.  It was a chief factor for why I started playing DE and Tau, both of which were much-maligned, much-neglected forces with ancient codexes when I started with them.

The other factor that affects my list-building is which models I like.  I am a collector/painter first and a gamer second.  I buy what I like, then try to work out how to get it into a list.  Only when I have the luxury of having plenty of models can I start to meaningfully tailor my lists to only include what's good.

Hear, hear!