2000p "Coven" out of Webway, just a try.

Got a list here that i would love to discuss with you guys. Ive been thinking about grots alot lately in most casual games, cause face it i run as it is right now 2 tournaments every year. Those two tournaments isnt enough to not build fun lists and play around with, i got time to try out the harder versions that i bring along.

So grots it is. I really want to see these guys out of the webway portal. Ive got some lists with them coming in boats, often along with Urien but thats not the only way to play them i think. The question is if this would work, im not sure.


3 Haemonculus: 3 x liquifier, 3 x venom blade 195
2 Haemonculus: 2 x Webway portals, 2 x liquifier 190

3 Grots: liquifier, aberration with scissor 140
3 Grots: liquifier, aberration with scissor 140
3 Grots: liquifier, aberration with scissor 140

3 Wracks: raider with flickerfield and dark lance 100
3 Wracks: raider with flickerfield and dark lance 100
10 Wracks: 2 x liquifier guns
8 Wyches: Hekatrix, Agoniser, Haywire grenades 126
8 Wyches: Hekatrix, Agoniser, Haywire grenades 126

5 Scourges: 2 Haywire blasters 130
5 Scourges: 2 Haywire blasters 130

Talos: TL heat lance, chain flails 120
Talos: TL heat lance, chain flails 120
Talos: TL heat lance, chain flails 120

Total: 1997


So what do you guys think? Is it viable?

So you have 5 Haemonculi. No weapons. just 2 portals.

Why? I know everyone's sick of the "rhetorical" questions. They're not rhetorical. At all. I feel like I've fallen down a particularly trippy rabbit hole. What do these do, besides eat points, distribute pain tokens you don't need, and hand out kill points and combat res in assaults?

So, the grotesques get a second pain token. S6, I5 on the charge, ya? Too bad they're infantry speed, and most dedicated assault units have at least two of the following:
Storm Shields
Better speed to initiate the assault
I5+
Power Weapons
Some way of dealing with T5

Well you've got the WWP, great - you have a T4 6+ FNP model contributing 2 points of free combat res. Even if you get the charge off, he goes simultaneously with most stuff, and flails his S4 furious charge limbs about, so much sound and fury. I'm not saying Haemonculus+Grotesques is bad, but at least let the poor sap DO something before he gets smashed.

Take off the Aberration, I know Ld 4 will be missed, but it's for the best. Haemonculus gets a liquifier and a power weapon/venom blade. That's it. So, you have double the Liquifier-ness, and S4 power weapon attacks, or you wound 97% of your CC hits. I don't feel like doing the scissorhand math, but if you think it's necessary, have at it.

I feel a little better now.

Do the wyches really need haywires? If you have dreadnought/tank-popping problems here, I have 0 sympathy for you. Nada, cero. But they're fine, otherwise, assuming they have token support from the other 2 gentlemen with the portals

3 Wracks do what? 100 points for a scoring AV10 vehicle with a dark lance and 5+ invuln - why is this good? The five warriors with a blaster and no boat, are they there to help the anorexic wrack squads with self-esteem, or what?

So, we now have 4 wrack squads. 5 man, liquifier. two have raiders, and we took off the flickerfield because insurance for insurance's sake is a scam, and we had points left over from the wyches, who still don't need haywires without the blasters.

So, still at 1999, unless scissorhands couldn't cut the mustard, and you have 30 or 15 points leftover.

30 means the other 2 Haemonculi get liquifiers and venom blades too, so all 5 have them. Boss! 15 means one gets a liquifier, and his friend gets a shattershard.

Not bad.

I take it the 3 Haemonculus are purely Grot sitters. As mentioned above might as well make them have a little bite. First get each of the 3 a Power Weapon for 10 points as it adds something the Grots can't and thats a few hits that ignore armor, with FC you should be hitting first I5 and wounding on 4s or 3s. Since this unit can't fleet you don't have the option of not firing for the extra distance before the charge. Again might as well take one of the best template weapons in the game a liquifier. It again gives the unit more pre-charge punch, possibly thinning out those MEQ and Terms prior to HtH.

I like my Aberrations one of two ways cheap or beefy. Cheap is 15pts for 2 attacks and thats using a VenomBlade. The other is the Flesh Gauntlet giving them the insta-kill option as well as the ignore FNP rule.

Again I don't like leaving liquifiers on the table so your Haem's with WWP should take them.

I'd seriously consider dropping a Haem and unit of Grots.

Maybe pick up a full 10 man unit of Wracks with 2x Liquifiers and/or another unit of Scourges.

The warriors are meh and I think you would be better served with one unit of Scourges over both of these mediocre units.

Add another unit of Scourges

I think Chain-flails are meh, both on paper and in game.

So what about....

2x Haemonculus - Liquifier, WWP
2x Haemonculus - Liquifier, PW

5x Grots - Aberration, Flesh Gauntlet, Liquifier
5x Grots - Aberration, Flesh Gauntlet, Liquifier

3x Wracks - DL Raider (Haem w WWP)
3x Wracks - DL Raider (Haem w WWP)
8x Wracks - Liquifier
8x Wyches - Haywire, Hek, Agonizer
8x Wyches - Haywire, Hek, Agonizer

5x Scourges - 2x Haywire Blasters
5x Scourges - 2x Haywire Blasters
5x Scourges - 2x Haywire Blasters

1x Talos - TL-Liquifier, TL-Heatlance
1x Talos - TL-Liquifier, TL-Heatlance
1x Talos - TL-Liquifier, TL-Heatlance

Fletch wrote:

I take it the 3 Haemonculus are purely Grot sitters. As mentioned above might as well make them have a little bite. First get each of the 3 a Power Weapon for 10 points as it adds something the Grots can't and thats a few hits that ignore armor, with FC you should be hitting first I5 and wounding on 4s or 3s. Since this unit can't fleet you don't have the option of not firing for the extra distance before the charge. Again might as well take one of the best template weapons in the game a liquifier. It again gives the unit more pre-charge punch, possibly thinning out those MEQ and Terms prior to HtH....

Hey. Not that bad suggestions at all there. The grots need a haemonculus to work really. They have so crappy LD and only start with one pain token otherwise so getting fearless is simply to far away so thats why there are one for each unit. I agree that one could invest a little more points into the Haemonculus, i'l see what i can do on that. It would also be very nice to have a couple more scourges with haywire blasters.

Regarding the chain-flails. I'm not sure how many games you use Taloses in? I use 3 taloses in 90-95% of my matches, chain-flails is the single most importent thing in the army, without it you will struggle many times when you need to deliver. But some might not like the upgrade, even thou its cheap for what it does.

The liquifiers on the grots is also needed imho. Missing the chance to distrubiting wounds is not good. Making them 5 men strong isnt a bad option thou, one could easily drop them down to that and still have a pretty solid hitting force. My idea with running the smaller units out of the webway was that you can strike more targets at once. To be honest i would not mind dropping them down further to 3 men strong, it would still be enough wounds and attacks from each unit. Investing some points into a larger wrack unit on the other hand is something really worth doing.

I'l update the list in a while.



EDIT: List has been updated.


edit - profane language is not allowed - Baron Tordeck

I like it better.

Just curious if you can squeeze 15 points out somewhere to upgrade the Haem's with the Grots to Power Weapons over the VBs. I like the cheapness of the VB typically with Haem's but the Grots could really benefit from a few I5 S4 (on the charge) ignore armor save (and FNP) attacks since the Grots already provide you with a good amount of wound oppurtunities at low numbers (i.e. 2s or 3s to wound). One of the big risks you take with having just a 3 man (especially w/o the help of a PW) is you'll need to be really carefull about what units the Grots pick on because if you don't kill enough or all of them your Haem could be left really exposed and focus fired in HtH, leaving you without his leadership and exposing the unit to "the bomb effect" (which might not be bad, see below). But hey try it out as you have it and see how it does for you, no harm in that right?

I'd almost think about dropping one of the Hek's down to a VB, yes you loose 1 PW with 3 attacks but gain 3 PWs with a net gain of 6 additional PW attacks in the army. If you think the Wyches might spend some time tank wrestling and you plan on taking the Grots against troops more than tanks I think the better place for your Power Weapons will be where they are going to be used more often. Or keep the Hek's as is and drop the Scissorhands on two of the Aberrations for VBs and upgrade the third Aberration to a Flesh Gauntlet as well as PWs for your Haem "minders".

Again on the Chainflails your mileage may vary but I still feel that the Twin-Linked Liquifier (twin-linked Templates are just nasty) lead into HtH w/o Flails (again Talos can't fleet) kills more models more of the time than a No Shooting lead into HtH w/Flails approach against all comers. Now against only vehicle targets the Flails will provide a minor boost most of the time (44% of the time its 1 attack more or the same as w/o Flails), and if I took the Talos as a 1 trick pony than sure but most of my units especially the ones coming out of my heavy slot need to be able to handle any target available.

Another note and something I have been thinking about toying with in a WWP list is taking small 3 man Grot units without an IC leading them. Push them deep (run) into enemy lines and hope after maybe a round or two they go boom, i.e. the Grot Bomb. I think it would be best against a Guard Gunline, where I can get mixed into my opponents lines, holding in HtH until either the Grots die through attrition or blow up. Tactically sound, No, potential for serious fun, YES.

What do you need a full 10 wracks to kill? Why not just bulk up the 3-man squads?
Haywires are pointless, everything else except the wracks handles tanks well.
What does an abberation with a scissorhand do that another Grotesque can't do better? I liked the 4-squads better.

PreacherOfDeath wrote:

What do you need a full 10 wracks to kill? Why not just bulk up the 3-man squads?
Haywires are pointless, everything else except the wracks handles tanks well.
What does an abberation with a scissorhand do that another Grotesque can't do better? I liked the 4-squads better.

10 man allows Liquifier x2 which is a painfull proposition for almost any unit facing the Wracks. I take it you have an opinion on what the optimal unit size is, which is? (based on your comments its somewhere north of 3 but south of 10).

3 man Wrack units are used as a minimal delivery system for the WWP since the Haem cannot get a transport on their own in a DE army (i.e. no non-dedicated transports). A lot of people look at the 30 points as a necessary evil in the cost to deploy a WWP and don't look at spending more points on this by bulking them up. Many feel that if the WWP is deployed everything else that Haem does is just gravy. A lot of times they are in Venoms with between 3 and 4 Wracks, but at least here you don't see to many bigger units on WWP deployment duty. I don't see a penalty to making them bigger its just most don't.

Haywires are not pointless even more so in a Coven heavy army especially given their low cost per model paired with a higher than average rate of causing a damage result on a successful hit.

I don't like Scissorhands but basically your spending 25 points for 3 attacks, I'd rather save 10 and take a Venomblade (2 attacks more) or spend 5 more and get a Flesh Gauntlet and get a weapon with some punch.

PreacherOfDeath wrote:

Haywires are pointless, everything else except the wracks handles tanks well.

Commas are not periods. Of course Haywires aren't always pointless. But here? There's points to be saved, and plenty of ways of reliably damaging tanks and dreads. If your wyches are assaulting a dreadnought with no support from grotesques/talos... Haywires won't help. Try rolling dice and see.

There's a great guide by Thor665 about unit sizes. Should be mandatory reading.

So, you shoot 2 liquifiers at a unit. Great, I approve.

Then you assault the injured unit with 10 wracks. They have 30 attacks. 15 hit. No FC? 7 or 8 wound. at least 2 marines die, much more if guardsmen. How many models do you think are left after both liquifiers hit? Not enough, you're out of combat and getting shot.

3 wracks have no liquifier. We agree, they're an easy kill, pretty useless. So they're there to buy your Haemonculus with the WWP a transport.

So, assume the haem has just the wwp. the transport is a raider, no upgrades.

The wwp, normally 35 points to use, with all the things that are ONLY there to set it up, is:

35
+50
+60
+30

So, you pay 175 a WWP, because everything used to deploy it is functionally negligible (useless free kills) afterwards. There are 2 in this list, so 350 points is spent on WWPs. 350/2000 is 17.5%

So, you're going to take almost a fifth of your list as handicap to deploy by WWP? WHAT? Some necessary evil.

So, that haemonculus can take a liquifier. If we stick him with 5 wracks, who also have a liquifer, we have the same amount of liquifier as the 10 wracks, but without the overkill. For only 40 points more, the squad can do something besides "drop a portal and wait to die." So, we have 180 points of good anti infantry squad that can defend an objective and win combat on the opponent's turn, in a raider, which shoots dark lances. Now, each WWP is worth ONLY the original points.

The abberation get one more attack because he is an abberation. And leadership 4! WOOOW. Scissorhands gives 2 extra attacks, that wound on 3 re-rollable. So, that's 3 more attacks. For 10 more points, you take away the abberation and scissorhands, and get the same 3 attacks at S5, S6 on the charge. So no re-roll on the 3s to wound, but you wound marines on 2s on the charge, and you can hurt tanks with those 3 attacks.

Already, this 4th grotesque looks better than the abberation, for the extra 10 points are more than worth it. But then there's the icing on the cake: you also get 3 more T5 FNP wounds.

You mean Librarian dreadnoughts? Does anyone use them?

Haywire Blasters hit. S4 doesn't really matter, because once you hit it applies a Haywire Grenade effect. You only need to stun, and here's why.

Tallying the guns in a list is a good measure of strength... in a shooting list. This isn't.

Talos get 7+2d6 armor penetration, remember? If the scourges stun a tank, the Talos auto-hits with 4-6 attacks on average, and should pen with at least one.

Against anything with rear armor 10, 4 grotesques get 16 S6 attacks on the charge - don't bother stunning it first if it hasn't moved more than 6", if it moves more than 6" you still inflict .88 penetrating hits. If it moves less than 6" you inflict 2.67 penetrating hits. If it didn't move or you were able to stun it first, you inflict 5.33 penetrating hits. 3 penetrating hits is enough to reasonably assure you get the top 1/3 of the vehicle damage table on a Penetration, Wrecked or Explodes!

Let's recap.

HaemGrots: Can assault stunned or combat speed tanks.
Scourges: Stun tanks for HaemGrots
Taloses: Can shoot tanks and assault innards, or assault tank that they don't kill with AP1 guns
Wracks: Their raiders shoot Dark Lances, which can hurt tanks from a distance.
Wyches: Troop/Tarpit, their job is to lock things in combat for the Taloses and HaemGrots (including dreadnoughts with template weapons), they have no reason to assault tanks when everyone else shoots them or assaults them better.

So a librarian dreadnought zooms headfirst into wyches, who jumped out of the portal and are locked in combat with something else. Wyches save 50% of any wounds inflicted, which shouldn't be too many - don't let the slow Blood Talon dread near them, that should be priority #1! Next turn, Talos or HaemGrots show up and tear up the dread, you lose maybe 1-2 wyches if you aren't careful.

Sorry to disturb you in this argument wich unit is better the others but i think we lost track from the real topic

And aye thanks for the answers from most of you, some just need to learn some good behaviour.