Goatboy’s Monday 40K – Elites are Not so Elite
Goatboy is back for another Monday discussion. Today I want to say that Elites have slowly become a dumping ground for overpriced and obsolete units.
It hasn’t always been this way but lately as I go through each new book that comes out it just feels like you should just ignore the Elites section and move onto the good stuff at Fast Attack and Heavy.
I remember back in the day that the Elite section were the heavy lifters for your army. You needed some niche bad asses you looked no further then the Elites choices in the book. Heck the force org name just screams that these are supposed to be the best of the best. So why are we not seeing Elites getting taken nearly as much as Fast Attack and Heavy?
The first obvious answer is that Elites never score. There are two missions that allow for those Fast Attack and Heavy choices to score. This is huge as the limitation of not needing a vehicle to hold an objective goes away during those missions. You also mix in the fact that a lot of events are mixing these “options” up and adding them to just more then 2 missions. This is huge as you know most of the time you will have more scoring units during a portion of the games you are playing. The only thing Elites do well is deny units and cost a lot of points.
This comes to the second point in that the Elite choices have started to become rather niche options that don’t give you the balance or flexibility you need in most competitive armies. They normally fall into the expensive but tough options. Those are great things to have in a scoring unit but when you have to engage/kill your enemy to get your points back the Elite choices get left in your army bag.
Let’s look at the last few Elite choices to see if we can find something decent. Will start with the newest book and go down a ways.
Eldar
Fire Dragons, Harlequins, Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, Wraithblades, Wraithguard
Some of these are easily moved to a troop choice which increases their usefulness. The Wraith options are decent as they can become a fearless troop pretty easily. The others are just not nearly as good as their points want them to be. How did they miss grenades on the Howling Banshees? Fire Dragons used to be awesome but getting their points in line where they need to be has really kicked them in the Eldar family jewels.
Grade – 2 are good because we can make them troops so blargh.
Tau
Stealth Team, Riptide, Crisis Suit Team
The Riptide is great because it takes a lot to kill thus allowing it to try and generate your points back. The Stealth Team looks alright but when you look at the rest of the army their skills are just not nearly as good. You can get scoring bodies plus better weapons at other slots. The Crisis Suit Team works well when you can make them a troop with Farsight but by themselves there are other options that do their job better.
Grade – 1 Super good one the rest meh. At least we have one that you should see in every Tau Army. So a positive grade then.
Daemons
Bloodcrushers, Flamers of Tzeentch, Fiends of Slaanesh, Plague Beasts
Wow how this old Force Org slot has fallen when they got a new codex. The Flamers were part of the months of annoyance when they had “bad” rules written for them in a White Dwarf. The nerf hit them hard and has left many sitting on the shelf or in bargain bins at a “miniature” garage sale. The Fiends have their uses but the drop in attacks have hurt them. The Plague Beasts are cute but the model is so hideous it makes them a worse choice. The Crushers lost that armor save and kept their high points value so they dropped as well. I rarely see Elites in a Daemon army on the table top beyond some tests and trick builds.
Grade – Sad panda pants…
Dark Angels
Veteran Squad (Yawn), Deathwing Knights, Deathwing Terminators, Dreadnought (Wish I was better)
You have the two choices that are in every Marine book – Dreadnoughts and Vet Squads. I still think Vet squads should be allowed as a troop choice for every 2 Tactical squads you can buy. This would let me be thought of as a fixer instead of just a filler. The Terminator options are interesting in that one becomes a troop with a special HQ and the other has some interesting rules. The biggest issue is that with the game changing to massed firepower it doesn’t take much to cause one failure of a Terminator armor save.
Grade – Where’s my evil Dark Angels book? Oh yeah – blargh!
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Terminators, Cult Troops, Helbrute (Don’t call me a Dreadnought!!!), Chosen, Mutilators (Why?), Possessed
Here you have a large amount of options to pick from. The Cult troops are decent but why would you ever take them as an Elite when you would rather have a fearless troop helping your army out. The Chosen don’t seem to give you enough for their inflated points cost. Yes you can take Abaddon to open them up but it just becomes more cost effective to take 35 cultsts and attach Abby’s fat butt to them to keep his wounds in check. The Helbrute suffers from the Dreadnought curse of just needing to be cheaper to be worth wile. What if you could make weapon platform Dreads for like 75 points a piece. They get two Autocannons or something at that cost. Wouldn’t that be good? Will leave the Mutliators are home. The Possessed and Terminators are interesting but one doesn’t have fearless without spending too much and the other is random. This is where the codex should have gone crazy with odd weapons and options but alas we get the warm oatmeal that is the Chaos book. The more you take from there means you have less points to spend on Heldrakes.
So what Elites to take?
So with all the 6th books spread out in front of you the only good Elites are Riptides and the options that can become Troops. This is a shame as Elites used to be the bad asses of bad ass. I remember quaking in my boots when I had to face some Terminators as they got into my zone. Now I just feel like – wow that is a ton of points to spend on a non-scoring unit. Do you think we should have had a mission where Elites scored? What if most Elites just got cheaper? Would more Force Org swaps mean more unit usages as moving them into scoring turns a lot of these Elites into better options?
What do you think? Are you seeing more, or less Elites on the tabletop these days?
