Lot of talk on the fix thread, which got me curious about peoples impression about the best and worst unit of each type (hero, infantry, archer, cav and siege). Not looking for a wish list of fixes, I'm just curious what is the consensus on the "good" and the "bad" units.

Here's my list; convince me otherwise:

Best Hero:

Ravos. Nobody else is throwing 3 dice with brutal and precise. He's a bigger beat stick that anyone else, and has an open slot to pick up a healing item.

Worst:

Maro. Linking the main attack to runes was a terrible idea. Making the attack and skill compete for activation was a terrible idea. I'd go without a hero before taking him; and I'd take any other hero before taking him.

Best Infantry:

Dranati. Tough Call here, but I really like the Darnati. They get all the good upgrades (equipment, skill, champ, musician, standard, and get the back rank siege). I haven't seen the Berserkers support Obscene yet, which might knock out the darnati.

Worst Infantry:

Reanimates. Don't bounce back well enough to tarpit, lack a cheap punchy champ, siege unit upgrades don't help fight. I run them, but I'd honestly rather have any other infantry choice.

Best Archer:

Reanimate Archer: very good damage output, option to spam blight, option to shoot at init 4. They can scoot into range late in the turn, and get off the first shot in the shoot out. Red and Blue, and surge on the dial does more shooting damage than any other unit.

Worst Archer:

Really tough call here, as the archer units are so close in ability. I'd say Kari, if we call here an archer unit (she should be in melee). Max of 6 damage is really under-performing.

Best Cav:

Flesh Rippers. Really durable for the points. The new beast master upgrade can let them reform or shift, followed by dead sprint for 1-2 movement (or the other way around) and them followed with a charge; and the beast master gives an extra precise.

Worst Cav:

Leonx Riders: Really nimble, but really soft. Skill on the left, and yellow, takes away a lot of options. Fights slower than other cav, and doesn't take a punch well. I wouldn't call it a bad unit, but if I had the option add any one cav unit to my list, these guys wouldn't ever make that cut.

Best Siege:

Spined Threshers: Durable, nimble(for siege), hits hard, accurate, spams panic. No real downside. Not much reason to not run as many as you can.

Worst Siege:

Rune Golems. Suffers from being first out, and lacking good options. Exceptionally slow, and very vulnerable to anything that goes strait to wounds (which is a bit too common). The real pisser is the lack of mobility. You get 2, and you get red-runes.

If you don't get 4 runes in the mix, you are slowly trudging across the table. Without any ability to turn, their position is very predictable.

Best Hero: Vorun'thul. Absolute predator, unparalleled ability to escape.

Worst Hero: Ardus, but Ankaur sure gives him a run for his money!

Best Infantry: I'm gonna say Spearmen. Berserkers probably outperform them right now, but the Spearmen dial is really quite strong, so I think they have the edge looking to the future.

Worst Infantry: I'm probably wrong, but Darnati! Gosh they're expensive. Hedge shroud may make me hilariously wrong.

Best Archer: They have pretty different roles, but it's gotta be Crossbows for that 3x1.

Worst Archer: Viper Legion? The upgrades look good so I expect them to see play, but the chassis itself is kinda meh.

Best Cav: Leonx. I'm constantly amazed they don't show up more, which probably means I'm wrong. But they're so affordable!

Worst Cav: Flesh Rippers. They're good, just a little too costly.

Best Siege: Spined Threshers. Hardly even a siege unit.

Worst Siege: Rune Golems. I still defend them a little bit, but they just don't compare favourably.

My 2 cents:

Best Hero: Ravos

Worst Hero: Maro

Best Melee Infantry: Spearmen, I like their options to armor up.

Worst Infantry: Reanimates, by a nose. No equipment options? What's that about?

Best Ranged Infantry: Crossbows by a mile (and a half).

Worst Ranged Infantry: Reanimate archers, by a nose. To be fair all ranged infantry are great, they lose out becasue they dont have the native surge abilities of the viper legion or the mobility of the deepwood archers.

Best Cav: Leonx, for the points no cav punch higher. Maybe replaced by Ventalla, to be seen.

Worst Cav: Flesh rippers. Never played a game with or against flesh rippers where they did anything significant except take points out of the list.

Best Siege: Spined Theshers. Not so much a siege unit as a low grade hero.

Worst Siege: Golems. It makes me sick how one of the coolest ascetic units is an absolute dumpster fire on the battle field.

I take that back, that is an insult to dumpster fires.

Best overall unit: Threshers. For the points I don't think any thing punches harder, takes more damage and generates more banes.

Worst overall unit: Golems.

Favorite unit to play: Leonx riders. Getting a Leonx bounce right is one of the greatest highs of the game.

Most Frustrating unit to play: Ardus. Why cant you do the thing you do better Ardus?

Best hero: Ravos, he's not harbinger of doom he used to be, but still can bring down a 100 pt flank alone.

Worst hero: Maro, I cannot run him solo, he is just bad.

Best infantry: Darnati, super flexible close combat unit. Just got way better with the last latari release.

Worst infantry: Reanimates, what do they do well besides die well?

Best archer: Deepwoods, cost and ability outranks all others for reliable damage output and technical usage.

Worst archer: Reanimate archers, require too much teching to be great.

Best cav: Ventala, most universal cav in the game.

Worst cav: Leonx, super squishy, great for alpha strikes and little else.

Best seige: Spined thresher, because duh.

Worst seige: rune golem. They is the worst.

Best Hero: Naked I think it's Vorun'Thul. With upgrades it's Ravos with insatiable hunger.

Worst hero: Maro... Even with his best build he is fragile and difficult to use.

Best infantry: Spearmen. So many good builds. Great dial. Early attack and early defend. What's not to like?

Worst infantry: Reanimates. Why aren't they cheaper?

Best Cavalry: This might be crazy, but when played right oathsworn are soooo good for their cost. The ability to attack at init 3 and armor up is bananas.

Worst cavalry: This is tough... I kinda want to say death knights just because they are expensive. But they are also really good. I think all of the cav are pretty solid.

Best archer: Crossbows. Protected is good. Shoot and march is good. Respectable melee is sometimes very relevant. 3x1.

Worst archer: Minus upgrades it's reanimates archers. With upgrades probably vipers.

Siege: same as above...

Can’t answer this simply. Half my answers vary by unit size.

Best cav (2 tray): Death Knights

Best Cav (4 tray): Tied, Ventala and Rippers. Currently leaning towards ventala though

Best cav (6 tray): Death Knights

Best cav (9 tray): Oathsworne, possible Rippers but I need more time with Beastmaster to decide

Its not that simple to me

3 hours ago, Church14 said:

Can’t answer this simply. Half my answers vary by unit size.

Best cav (2 tray): Death Knights

Best Cav (4 tray): Tied, Ventala and Rippers. Currently leaning towards ventala though

Best cav (6 tray): Death Knights

Best cav (9 tray): Oathsworne, possible Rippers but I need more time with Beastmaster to decide

Its not that simple to me

And for the point cost, which of those those four do you find the best?

As for rippers, give the beastmaster a try. 360 charge is crazy good on something as fast as rippers.

8 hours ago, Darth Matthew said:

And for the point cost, which of those those four do you find the best?

As for rippers, give the beastmaster a try. 360 charge is crazy good on something as fast as rippers.

I didn’t consider the naked unit cost except on the 2 tray as I won’t ever run the bigger units naked. For 2 trays, Rippers were a very close second. Though Leonx didn’t take first anywhere, their bang for buck is also pretty good

I’ve tried Beastmaster on the 6 tray. It is very good. It also costs 77 points before anything else and doesn’t hit super hard. MoI to make it 82 and have some oomph. If you are emphasizing speed, then 86 to get dead sprint.

Or I can run my 6 tray Death Knights with everything I want for 67. 73 if I’m going all in.

Its not that the 6 tray with Beastmaster isn’t good. It’s that I think that highly of Death Knights.

For the 9 tray, I’ve seen to many impressive Oathsworn CavStars. I don’t see how to build Rippers to match that yet.

Ardus wins as worst hero.

Maro has issues, but at least he can shoot things.

Ardus has a good chance of never seeing combat, and his borrow surges ability requires a substantial investment to be useful.

9 hours ago, Church14 said:

I didn’t consider the naked unit cost except on the 2 tray as I won’t ever run the bigger units naked. For 2 trays, Rippers were a very close second. Though Leonx didn’t take first anywhere, their bang for buck is also pretty good

I’ve tried Beastmaster on the 6 tray. It is very good. It also costs 77 points before anything else and doesn’t hit super hard. MoI to make it 82 and have some oomph. If you are emphasizing speed, then 86 to get dead sprint.

Or I can run my 6 tray Death Knights with everything I want for 67. 73 if I’m going all in.

Its not that the 6 tray with Beastmaster isn’t good. It’s that I think that highly of Death Knights.

For the 9 tray, I’ve seen to many impressive Oathsworn CavStars. I don’t see how to build Rippers to match that yet.

Cav stars are good, but much easier to deal with. Reform, move 2 (or move 1 with a bend) then move 1-3 (or red) makes in pretty much impossible to ever catch the ripper-star. It isn't that they hit harder than anything, it's that they hit hard, and choose their fight better than anything. They can lead an exceptional you can't catch us force. For unmatched speed, it could potentially move 9 (shift 1, forward 2, forward 4, forward 2).

This is obviously heavily skewed by my tiny local meta.

Best Hero: Ravos, I really can't argue with this. That said, other heroes have out-performed him, but Ravos is one your opponent immediately has to change their gameplan for.

Worst Hero: I'm gonna diverge and say Maegan. I think she goes down very easily considering that her ideal engagement is relatively close quarters. I've seen some Maro's do real work as a solo hero, but Maegan goes down too quickly almost every time. Plus, I like Maro's army-building ability better than Maegan's, but only slightly.

Best Melee Infantry: Darnati. I haven't played a lot with these guys yet, but they seem to just absolutely wreck when built as a tarpit with Warsong Banners.

Worst Infantry: Berserkers. They've always managed to underwhelm me.

Best Ranged Infantry: Heavy Crossbowmen. I gotta say though I almost went with Reanimate Archers here as those guys are really fun to play with/against when you play them as a blight engine and mass Carrion Worms.

Worst Ranged Infantry: None of them really stand out as bad to me, but I have yet to play with Viper Legion Archers.

Best Cavalry: Leonx. They're cheap, tricky movement dials when you're creative, and I love running 1x3 Column Tactics.

Worst Cavalry: Honestly none of them feel super bad to me. I have yet to see anyone really do anything impressive with Flesh Rippers though

Best Siege: Carrion Worms. These guys are so good as solo units. They're nice as a 1-2-off for support and stopping enemy charges. They're also great in mass as solo units. Plus the model is really cool.

Worst Siege: Amyhelin Scion. I don't totally hate them, but I find it easier to get value out of Rune Golems.

Like church, I have a problem rating any unit except perhaps by tray formation and secondarily by cost. Here goes:

Basic infantry:

Best 2x1: Darnati warriofrs. No other formation can do more with no upgrades

Worst 2x1: Reanimates

Best 2x2: Zerkers: they becime incredibly flexible and the wound to add lethal opens up what they can do.

Worst 2x2: Spearman

Best 3x2: Spearman: lots of flexibility and some nice build options at flexible costs

Worst 3x2: all are really close. Maybe reanimates again

Best Star: Zerker-star

Worst star: Darn~star, as a Latari player, I keep trying but can't find one I like.

Archer infantry

Best 2x1: Latari archers. Fire rune and TS with built-in precise and surge shift gives them lots of damage options.

Worst 2x1: Crossbowmen. The main thing they do is damage and the 3x1 does this better in all important ways.

Best mid~tier: Crossbowman. No other unit competes well enough at this tier.

Worst mid~tier: all of the others are pretty even here

Best 3x2: Reanimate Archers: droppping attack initiative helps them outshoot any other faction's 3x2, otherwise they are all pretty even.

Worst 3x2: Crossbowmen. Other than the 3x1, every other faction gets a touch more out of their archers.

Regular Cav:

I am torn whether to include Ventala here because they got released as a special, so I’m confining it to the initial regular cav and excluding them, but might have to revise much later as more releases come out.

Cav are also complicated by the fact that price points make them hard to compare. If your mind includes rank discipline on a 2x1 death knights, a 2x2 Leonx is the more apt comparison.

Best 2x1: Flesh Rippers. They are one of the best “no upgrades” units at this price point. Death knights need something. And although leonx and Oathsworn can hit harder for the same cost, the extra staying power matters.

worst 2x1: Oathsworn. Leonx can still maneuver.

Best midtier: 30 points. Leonx. Rippers and Death knights excluded at this tier.

best upper mid-tier (30-50): Leonx. Rippers and DK tough at 4 tray, but when you compare points to points, Leonx shine.

best star unit: DK.

Best seige:

1x1: Scions. The 1x1 is a utility piece. The scion does this cheaper than any other siege piece.

2x1: Threshers. These guys are meant to be mashers and the best at this price point.

2x2: The hardest, because once the other seige units get their badly needed rerolls, they compete more evenly with Threshers. Still, probably Threshers.

3x2: Not really different from the 2x2 evaluation. Threshers gain access to Wind Rune and other possible equipment upgrades, so still probably Threshers.

Heroes: probably Ravos, though there is much better and more even design in the Latari and Uthuk releases and in the third hero offerings.

Worst: still Rune Golems, though the jury is probably out on how Zachareth passing vitality tokens might affect the viability of 2x2 and 3x2 stacks, especially if one builds with a 2x2 spearman with Rune Manipulation.

Specials: Scouts, Ventala, Wraiths, and Obscenes.

i have a feeling here that the intent longterm is to have a main unit of the type and a special seige, cav, and infantry. In the end, we might have to lump them all in with their type, although I think none of them really fit that type completely. They are also hard to compare against each other.

best 2x1 or below: Scouts. Ventala a close second. At this price point, they do what they need to do the best.

best 3x1: Wraiths. The only 3x1. I like a little better than 1x3 Ventala with flank fire. Really flakey in damage, but Wraiths can offer more utility.

best 2x2: Ventala, quite possibly the best Ventala formation.

best 2x3: can I do none? The Scouts draw too much attention for their purpose. Wraiths are utility and don’t have a slot this big. Ventala are still good, basically wanting to be a huge tar pit, that becomes more stable with Honor Markings. I’m not sure 2x3 Obscenes are going to cut it in points-tight Uthuk lists.

2 hours ago, Vergilius said:

Worst  star  : Darn~star, as a Latari player, I keep trying but can't find one I  like.

Its Starnati.

24 minutes ago, Jukey said:

Its Starnati.

Star-Not. Lol

SteerStar

15 minutes ago, Church14 said:

SteerStar

For when its been neutered of its power.

Bullstar just doesn't have the same ring.

15 hours ago, Vergilius said:

Like church, I have a problem rating any unit except perhaps by tray formation and secondarily by cost. Here goes:

So I took your picks, and narrowed the field to the unit you named the most often in any given section.

Infantry: Zerkers

Archery: 3 way tie, with Viper Legion out of the running; though you did lean toward Reanimates.

Cav: Leonix

Siege: Threshers

Support: Ventala

Hero: Not Rated.

2 minutes ago, Darth Matthew said:

So I took your picks, and narrowed the field to the unit you named the most often in any given section.

Infantry: Zerkers

Archery: 3 way tie, with Viper Legion out of the running; though you did lean toward Reanimates.

Cav: Leonix

Siege: Threshers

Support: Ventala

Hero: Not Rated.

On archers, not really a lean toward reanimates, though I probably wrote more on the 3x2. Vipers end up being a weird second at almost every tier, but never actually a last place finish. They are really solid and probably have one of the highest damage potential thresholds, good synergy, and good utility options.

is there some reason why distinctions a player draws has to be eluded? After all, this is a low key for fun excercise, right?