Talos opinion

Hi guys, what do you think about talos in the new codex? i think he is preatty good and i will run 3 talos in my lists from now on. your opinions?

Pretty good.

75 points for 6 S7 attacks with AP-2, Damage 2 is great.

Heat Lances and Haywire Blasters are good options for their price, being assault lets you advance with them and still shoot (though hitting on 5's isn't great).  Splinter Cannons are good for them and the Stinger pod is sweet.

Chain Flails double your attacks at the cost of damage AP and the +1 Strength from Macroscalpels.  But that's 10 S6 attacks!  And you can still carry a Macroscalpel with that.

The Ichor Injector isn't really worth it, and the Talos Gauntlet is questionable, but gives you a boost against T7&8.

The obsessions really make them pop, though.

4++ invuln from Prophets is wicked.

An additional -1 to AP for melee weapons with the Coven of Twelve.

Dark Creed's -1 LD per unit per unit within 6" stacking to -3 isn't directly beneficial to them, but if you're building around a Freakshow a Talos is as useful as any unit to further debuff you're opponent.

Chuck on some PGL's, a Hemlock, a Farseer and a Masked Shadowseer and all of a sudden we're outputting things like -7LD!

Talos Rock!

They're a bit more expensive than that. A Talos with 2 macro-scalpels and 2 splinter cannons comes up to 103 points a pop. Still really good though. I would recommend sending them straight up the board. A squad of 3 moving as far as 15+d6 inches in the first turn forces your opponent to answer a 21 wound threat.

15+d6" movement was from the base 8", advancing adds d6, and 7" from fire and fade.

Don't bother with chain flails though, they are hardly any better against GEQ. Macros kill ~4, chain kills ~5. also, use stinger pods to keep them cheap. or haywire.

wormfromhell wrote:

Don't bother with chain flails though, they are hardly any better against GEQ. Macros kill ~4, chain kills ~5. also, use stinger pods to keep them cheap. or haywire.

I think chain flails are good if you take Coven of Twelve. There is a good argument that having your few melee units with Co12 and make those units smaller threats that you dont need the 4++ and in melee can do much more damage.

Personally i like the 4++ more, but i know some that are just using them more so against alpha/beta melee armies, where you put them in places that wont get targeted turn 1 and you charge your turn 1-2.

Slow and not very good imo. Don't kill enough if they actually get into combat. They can tie up some stuff for a short while and they aren't a bad defensive unit if you hide them somewhere. Taking up Ravager hiding room though. I won't be using them again.

@amishprn86 you are a tyranid expert, are they comparable to carnifexes? they seem similar costed and if you take 3 you cant ignore them marching into your lines

AzraeI wrote:

@amishprn86 you are a tyranid expert, are they comparable to carnifexes? they seem similar costed and if you take 3 you cant ignore them marching into your lines

They're pretty comparible and just as good.

Outside of the model (which is great), I don't really see the appeal of Talos.

- The drop in strength and toughness seems unnecessary. It would be nice if the Haemonculi aura actually buffed their toughness, rather than just getting it to what it should have been in the first place.

- More importantly, though, they just seem really pillow-fisted. It seems like they're missing a point of AP on most of their weapons. Maybe you're supposed to take them with Coven of Twelve? But even then, when most monsters are dealing d6 damage or a straight 3 damage with no penalty, it's rather disheartening that ours has to take a -1 penalty to hit just to get to d3 damage. I'm pretty sure just about every other Monster's attacks do d3 damage by default.

- Even with the Haemonculus' aura, it doesn't seem particularly durable. Lascannons, Dark/Bright Lances, Plasma and such still wound it on 3s, and with only 6 wounds I'm not convinced by a 5++/6+++ save. Going Prophets of Flesh for the 4++ might help with that, but then you're back to the issue if being pillow-fisted when you actually reach combat.

It almost seems like it was built around having both the Prophets of Flesh and Coven of Twelve Obsessions, in addition to the Haemonculus' aura.

I mean it's not dreadful or anything, I just think there are better options.

Nah I think you should consider them in a similar way as the carnifexes.
Sure alone they are nothing.
But when they cost around 100 points who cares.
Take 3 of them, that means 18 s7 ap-2 2d melee attacks and 12 haywire shots if you go for the 4++
Although I might wish the 30 s6 rerollable ap -1 1d attacks. First turn spend 1 cp so you are close to the enemy line. They have similar defensive stats as our vehicles so draw the same weapon fire and either buy your vehicles more time (they still on average eat 6-8 lascannon shots before dying), also unlike our vehicle they have a good save that putting them in cover can be a good option (shooting at them with lasguns when they are in cover is 432 shots neccesary, even with first rank fire second rank fire that is an insane amount). Although I have not used them yet, to me they seem quite nice against most non space marines dealing enough damage to both vehicles in shooting that they must be killed or engaged and having a high enough number of melee attacks that normal units will die, so they must either engage with a lot, or something very though.

If you are a twitch subscriber to Games Workshop check out Lawrence's game last Friday. He used 3 units of 2 Talos. He seemed to really like them.

AzraeI wrote:

@amishprn86 you are a tyranid expert, are they comparable to carnifexes? they seem similar costed and if you take 3 you cant ignore them marching into your lines

Carnifex's has better stratagems tho, they also dont have invul, or fnp. you can give them -1 to hit with upgrade or other units and fnp via powers.

The difference is that the Fex can be tailor to you build so much more than Talos, they are equal to Talos for sure, they both have something the other wants and are comparable in points once you take everything.


Talos are a bit slower for us, but that isnt really a bad thing on how you use them, if you put 3 Talos in the middle of the table, your opponent is NOT going to get near them. You can create channels, you can stop movements, you can separate/split them, etc... And when you do get there turn 3 they will be devastating (or turn 2 against armies that like melee or hordes).

I think talos are at least worth a shot before we start writing them off as bad. 100ish pts really isn't too bad for what you get, and as soon as I own a talos or 2 I'll start playing around with them in my lists.

I think the only way to go is Prophets, not only for the 4++ but also Uriens buff that puts them at S8.

Focus on their beast feature, being cheap. 83 points for macroscalpels and stinger pods. Less than 500 points for 6 of them.

Haywire seems like the no-brainer to me. Cheapest, effective AT if truly needed, or just advance until in position to hurt stuff.

I have 3 I want more.

? Its 98pts for those i thought?
Talos 75pts - SP 15pts - Macros - 8pts (4e) 98pts But i agree, they are very cheap


I do like Stinger Pods, but i'm going HWB's they are about the same vs GEQ and now i have AT

Bah, my brain keeps stumbling over stinger and splinter. Boo hiss. Haywire then I guess but overall less appealing to me now.

Stinger Pods vs GEQ = 1.56 dead
HWB vs GEQ = 1.11 Dead
Splinter Cannon vs GEQ = Max Range: 1.00, Rapid Range: 2.00


EDIT: Forgot Talos was a 4+ to shoot

i tried a unit of three in my first codex game and they died MUCH faster than i anticipated, although i had some seriously bad rolls... I absolutely love the model and im going to give them more chances to prove their worth.
I think withershadow is right though prophets and Urien is the way to go str8 instead of 7 makes a huge difference. Macro and Haywire as weapons

withershadow wrote:

Bah, my brain keeps stumbling over stinger and splinter. Boo hiss. Haywire then I guess but overall less appealing to me now.

98 pts really still isn't that bad at all for what you get from Talos I think. Plus buffed by a heamonculus makes them significantly better, Urien even more so.

Also curious about running a unit of 3 talos, that reroll wounds roll stratagem would be a lot more effective on a 3 talos unit.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

withershadow wrote:

Bah, my brain keeps stumbling over stinger and splinter. Boo hiss. Haywire then I guess but overall less appealing to me now.

98 pts really still isn't that bad at all for what you get from Talos I think. Plus buffed by a heamonculus makes them significantly better, Urien even more so.

Also curious about running a unit of 3 talos, that reroll wounds roll stratagem would be a lot more effective on a 3 talos unit.

The Fire and fade stratagem seems quite strong on a 3 talos unit too

Quauchtemoc wrote:

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

withershadow wrote:

Bah, my brain keeps stumbling over stinger and splinter. Boo hiss. Haywire then I guess but overall less appealing to me now.

98 pts really still isn't that bad at all for what you get from Talos I think. Plus buffed by a heamonculus makes them significantly better, Urien even more so.

Also curious about running a unit of 3 talos, that reroll wounds roll stratagem would be a lot more effective on a 3 talos unit.

The Fire and fade stratagem seems quite strong on a 3 talos unit too

Architects of pain as well to give them 2WS before turn 3 and its dirt cheap...

Both very good points as well, both of those stratagems go to show that a 3 man talos unit might be a worthwhile investment. Wouldn't really want to spend cps on doing something with one talos, but 3 it would be a good use of cps.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Both very good points as well, both of those stratagems go to show that a 3 man talos unit might be a worthwhile investment. Wouldn't really want to spend cps on doing something with one talos, but 3 it would be a good use of cps.

Yeah, IMO if you are playing Talos you want them in unit of 3 for sure. We are very luck we can field them in units, many other similar units are not longer like that, they start as 1 unit for a drop but them act as single units after deployed. I was extremely worried Talos would get teh same treatment and if they did i wouldnt even play them. Being 1 unit of 3 (Wish we could do 5) is what i think makes them worth it.

Stratagems, easier aura buffs, 1 drop, 1 charge roll, etc... Re-roll a dice for a full unit and the stratagems a long is going to help them.

Without using any buffs/stratagesm they really are a B tier unit, with Auras, 4++, Fire and Fade, etc.. it puts them at an A tier, not an S tier, tho we only have 3 S tier units IMO (Ravager, RWJF, Mandrakes).

i still dont understand why they are only T6, carnifexes are T7, and most other bigbugs are T8 (except HT and Trygon et. al.)