Warhammer 40K: "Bad" Detachments - Making Them Work

In spite of the incredible miniatures, varied missions & layouts, and wide swath of options with which to build your army, Warhammer 40k is fundamentally a numbers game.  Sometimes, even in the face of a shrugworthy flavor, uninspired gameplay, or sheer efficiency, the detachment that’s “best” for a given army or playstyle might not mesh with what you want to do — that’s okay!  As someone who’s been trying to make Data-Psalm Conclave work for Admech these past few months, I understand where that sentiment comes from, and how exciting (and occasionally frustrating) it can be to finally see a suboptimal choice find merit.  I wanted to take this article to discuss what might make a detachment “bad”, how to approach listbuilding for these strategies, and how to find both fun & success with the beautifully mediocre.  So, strap in, because we’re going to make some bad detachments work.

Via Plague Gardening

First and foremost, the reasons you might not want to play the defacto best detachment for your faction are numerous: Maybe your collection doesn’t support the new hotness, or it doesn’t mesh well with your approach to an army from either a gameplay or flavor perspective.  Regardless of the reason, however, it’s first important to understand why the choicest detachment is good, and go from there.  To run off of my own experience, both Rad-Zone and Hunter Cohort are the best choices for Admech right now, with the other 3 options functionally rotting on the shelf (sorry, Cybernetica).

For Hunter Cohort, it comes down to the strength of its breadth — This detachment boosts up the models in the army that are already good, “autotake” even, and while the bonuses and stratagems are solid, the fact your entire list might receive their boon is a huge upside.  Per point, you’re getting the most gross benefit from taking Cohort and its optimal list over any other Admech list.  Rad-Zone on the other hand benefits because of a specific stratagem & enhancement, able to give your block of Breachers Sustained Hits, and your Battleline Lethal Hits, both of which are wildly efficient with the amount of rerolls present.  This means you can run the more niche options in the army to their full capacity, even if far fewer units each round benefit, resulting in a high specific benefit

Via Reddit

The reason the other options in Admech don’t work, largely, is down to a lack of benefit in either the specific or gross.  Cybernetica requires you warp your playstyle around a “just-fine” model in the Kastelan Robot, in theory providing a high enough specific benefit to outweigh its opportunity cost.  Similarly, Data-Psalm buffs Priests, Cawl, and Kataphrons, but given the Rule of Three in 40k, generally these units can only make up a maximum ½ of your total points, even if taken at their highest sensible amount.  Neither of these detachments offer truly outstanding stratagems or enhancements, merely making normally-meh units potentially solid, whereas Hunter Cohort makes solid units good.

Explorator Maniple, meanwhile, has broadly applicable benefits, specifically to attaching your non-Marshal Leader options to Battleline, but unlike Rad-Zone its broad rule and stratagems require far too many hoops to jump through, leading to a minimal gross benefit, even for lists that truly attempt to tailor themselves around Explorator.

Via Goonhammer

How we begin to build for detachments like these is to try and find their unique selling points which actually have the math to make up for their shortcomings.  In the case of Data-Psalm, the list excels at defending against armies with a high quality of attacks (such as Grey Knights, Custodes, etc) due to their 5++/5+++ save profile, and the list outputs more melee damage than anything else Admech can do, with our transports already being some of the best in the game.  Moreover, Cawl receives the benefits of Data-Psalm, and while he’s normally a mite expensive for what he provides, getting the detachment bonuses and access to stratagems makes him far more palatable.

From there, we springboard onto things that synergize with what we’re taking, or that are independently good.  In this slot, Blood Angels might look to Vanguard Vets, Tau to their Breachers, or Tyranids to Lictors, even if they’re playing a list tailored to things not included in their normal best-of lists.  For Admech, that’s our tank, the Skorpius Disintegrator with Ferrumite Cannon.  This main battle tank can crack standard T11 transports with 2 attacks, meaning the juicy bodies inside are then able to receive the blessings of the Motive Force, as our melee troops rush in.  Moreover, Cawl providing these tanks Reroll 1s ensures they’re far less of a gamble, allowing our squishy melee threats to shine.

Via Reddit

A simple core for this list, given these broad generalizations, might be along the lines of the above, which aims to make Fulgurites shine as one of the scariest melee threats for their points.  Of course, only 770pts of the list are actually benefiting from the detachment, something that’s a bit hard to reckon with, but regardless it likely has teeth.  You could also swap the technos for Marshals, and do a sort-of transport hokey pokey list, but at that point you’d be better off simply playing something like Rad-Zone.  Again, the true issue with some of these “bad” detachments is simply that not enough of an army can physically be there to benefit from its abilities, doubly so when the stratagems for this faction are largely per-model, meaning Techno-led Vanguard can’t receive the joys of something like a 4++.

While changes such as these cannot generally happen in a Balance Dataslate, crazier things have occurred.  While yes, sometimes changing the actual text of a detachment is the right move to make it work, points-related changes can be just as reasonable, and I’m sure that Data-Psalm could thrive with enough drops to the right units (hint hint, Electro-Priests).

Step 1 is understanding what makes a detachment good, Step 2 is working to find what a “bad” option can do that a good one cannot, and Step 3 is, frankly, practice.  Simply getting in more reps, understanding your faction, and getting good at objective play can all help you to be a better player, which in turn can assist you to be a better player at your choice of list.  Of course, when playing a worse overall strategy, you need to be better than both your opponent and their list, as reaching that parity is not an assumed measure when forcing something like Data-Psalm Conclave, or similar.  Very little supplants more games jammed, when it comes to getting good with a mediocre gameplan.

Ultimately, YOU are what makes a “bad” detachment work!  Heck, seeing things like Emperor’s Children win the London GT, or every single Tau detachment have at least one top under its belt means that good players with lists focused on doing their thing can succeed.  10th edition means not every faction has multiple detachments yet, but I can assure you, by the time this edition comes to a close, everyone will have at least one that can be called “bad” enough to draw folks in.

Via Reddit

With that, we’re now waiting to see what changes are to come in the End-of-October Dataslate!  What factions do you want to see receive a boost?  Is there a detachment that might become good with the right changes?  I’d love to hear what you’ve been brewing in the comments below!