Bad units still ain’t good.
Pyrovore
Foremost amongst the feeder organisms of the Tyranid swarm is the Pyrovore. Its hulking, bloated form drips with acidic digestive juices capable of dissolving nearly any material in seconds, for the Pyrovore is a veritable walking stomach designed to break down organic matter for consumption. However, like the stomach of most creatures, a Pyrovore is really nothing but a liability during a battle and has no place being anywhere near the front lines- at best, it will be a momentary target for the enemy’s weapons before it explodes with a messy “pop” that leaves a rank acidic odor reminiscent of week-old beef hanging thick in the air.
A Pyrovore’s true power, however, lies in that most childish of weapons- the Flamespurt. As it digests its meal, flammable gasses are produced in the Pyrovore’s gullet and can be expelled from its maw to be ignited in a blast of fire that will incinerate the unwary. It can, in other words, light its own farts at the enemy SO HARD that they die- a truly undignified end for even the most desperate of Imperial Guard grunts.
Imperial bio-magos have noted a disconcerting similarity between the Pyrovore’s form and the… the reproductus of human males. Whether this similarity is intentionally engineered by the Hive Mind in order to unnerve opponents or whether it is some hideous cosmic coincidence is beyond speculation, but the fact remains undeniable and it has kept many a magos awake at night, pursued by dreams of a six-meter high flame-gushing dick driven by a rabid hunger.
Possessed
Many are the gifts of chaos, and like the gifts given to children on Yule’s Eve not all of them are equally useful. Some great champions of Chaos might grow wings that allow them to soar on Empyrean winds, or reflexes of electric speed, or a corpulence that can absorb unreasonable amounts of punishment. Others are not so fortunate, because as it turns out randomness very rarely works out in one’s favor; pity the poor Aspiring Champion who has been “blessed” with a fifth spleen or with an extra set of (nonfunctional) arms growing from their face and back.
The ranks of Possessed sit firmly in the latter category, despite the immense effort required to create them. Daemons, as creatures not of the materiel universe, have very little understanding of how the world of flesh and matter functions and as a result the strange mutations they bring with them are rarely of any use at all. Creatures of ultimate nightmare they might be, but all the body horror in the world won’t stop a Boltgun round from tearing through the glistening, unarmored flesh-sack that has replaced your legs and rendered you all but immobile. Many of their mutations do, in fact, enhance the combat prowess of their bearer at close rangers (such as is the case with extra sets of slavering jaws or rending limbs) but in a galaxy where cannons the size of a sky-scraper are commonplace, such enhancements are only marginally more useful than a glistening flesh-sack.
Furioso Dreadnought
Every Dreadnought hosts a mighty hero of their chapter, entombed for all time within a living sarcophagus of adamantine and ceramite- or at least this is the case for Codex Astartes-compliant Dreadnoughts, at least. The Blood Angels chapter (as well as their brethren the Space Wolves) have chosen to entomb the most deluded idiots of their organization, however, and as a result they are vastly inferior to those of the Ultramarines and other chapters. Though the robotic enhancements give a Furioso Dreadnought the power of a wrecking ball with every blow, its clumsy and uncoordinated efforts mean that only the unluckiest of combatants will happen to be in range when it throws a temper tantrum and stomps one or two of them to death. For anyone else, the Furioso’s stubby arms and waddling legs mean that it is simplicity itself to escape the wrath of the doddering idiot trapped within the metal shell.
Electro-Priests
Divided into two sects wracked by internecine disputes, the Electro-Priests are the 41st century equivalent of the Console Wars of old Earth. The Fulgurite sect believes that the one true way of the Machine God is to slay their enemies in close combat, the better to steal back the electrical life-force they possess and consecrated it to the Omnissiah; however, they neglect to wear any armor when striding into battle, a mistake that comes back to haunt them in the moments before their frail human bodies are shredded by the advanced war technology of the future millenia. While such a mistake is wholly understandable when it comes to throwback cultures like those of many agri-worlds, it is truly baffling when coming from a priesthood whose very credo is that of technological advancement and the replacement of flesh with machine- for surely even the lowest members of the heirarchy could be spared a suit of mail or other protection in the image of a machine?
Their brothers of the Corpuscarii sect look down on such foolishness with contempt, though their own methods are little better. Determined to prove the Machine God’s worth through ranged combat, they choose as their weapon the most short-range and uncontrolled (as well as easily-shielded) forces of wild lightning. Able to strike a target at distances of approximately the same distance as a thrown rock, the Corpuscarii have harnessed the mightiest technologies in the known universe in order to craft weapons that would lose a stand-up fight with a group of slingers- troops that, one should remember, went obsolete approximately 45 centuries prior when the bow was invented.
That the two groups are so individually incompetent is laughable in and of itself, but what truly pushes the spectacle into the realm of farce is their ongoing feud over which is “superior.” Like those aforementioned Console Wars, both groups are utterly convinced of not only their own righteousness but also of the utter inanity of their opponents, somehow missing that the whole rest of the universe considers them both to be a laughingstock and utterly blind to the triviality of the distinction they make about an unimportant issue. None of this has stopped their schism from driving a deep wedge of resentment between the two priesthoods, however, and their seething battle over which way to fail their god is most holy periodically boils over into spasms of incompetent violence.