Corpsethief Claw Formation

The formation that includes 5 Talos that gain scout and a VP for each non vehicle unit kill in CC. I was wondering if many people have used this formation and if so how well it has played for them?

This formation doesn't come cheap at 600 points stock.

How would people kit out the formation? cheapest with stock weaponry? loaded with twinlinked haywire and Ichor injectors?

how one would go about making the most of the scout move in deployment?

Any ideas for what other units that would work well in conjunction with this formation? nearby Cronos?

I'm interested in this formation and so far feel like it would be worth fielding. Would like to know what others think from their experience whether this is worth making.

cheers

I suspect most people won't have used it simply because of the monetary investment required. And, I'm not sure how much use you'd get out of 5 Talos, outside of this formation.

Hell, I'm not even sure GW can be bothered modelling and painting 5 Talos. The picture for the Corpsethief Claw shows just 3, and I strongly suspect that the GW team doesn't actually have any more. Which, to me, says quite a lot.

From a purely theoretical standpoint, it's not something I'd want to use for a few reasons:

1) It's too many points tied up in a single squad. Even without upgrades, 600pts is a hell of a lot to put into one squad.

2) It's slow. Yes, it has scout, but that still only gets you a little further forwards - for the rest of the game, you're stuck with a 600pt unit that's moving 6" per turn and doesn't even have fleet.

3) Partially due to the above, it seems like it would be very difficult to actually bring its might to bear against an enemy. For a start, you're either shooting with very limited firepower (relative to its cost), or else trying for the extra d6" movement and sacrificing your shooting in the process. And, regardless of which you choose, you still won't have the movement to pick and choose your fights. So, you could quite easily find yourself being tarpitted, blocked by transports, or simply unable to catch your target.

4) They don't support your army. And, for a 600pt unit, this is a pretty serious flaw. The problem is that they don't really do much - they can shoot a bit and hit hard in combat, but that's it. They offer no buffs, no support, can't match the speed of your other units, and just don't give you much in the way of options.

Again, this is purely theoretical, but I just think it's too many points in a single, slow-moving melee unit.

If you put some haywire blasters on them you get a fair amount of AT (with fair range) and extremely durable models. If you want a pure coven force theoretically they would help fill out that role but since I don't have five talos I haven't tried it out, but sooner or later I intend on trying them.

Problem with the corpsethief is that whichever weapon you use, it's probably overkill. Haywire blasters are great, but using 5 twin linked you will be wasting shots (although it will provide redundancy once you start losing models) Heat Lances are also awesome but are just as much overkill as the haywire blaster, and you're not likely to need as much splinter cannon fire as the full unit so equipped could give you. I'd be sorely tempted to split 60-40 haywire and splinter cannon i think.

I really want to get to the point of having 5 talos for the corpsethief and still have enough for a dark artisan left over.

regarding slow movement: Realize that if you deploy in a straight line at max spacing, you have about 18" board presence prior to movement - this means deployed centrally, you can threaten 30" + charge range (18" plus 6" lateral movement to each side) each turn. And since you really don't want to overkill too much on the turn you charge, you'll be happy if only 1 or 2 talos get into combat that first round. On your enemy's turn you can pile in and get the last 2 or 3 there, now with weight of S7 AP2 attacks, you should be able to decimate pretty much any unit you touch baring walkers w/ S10 attacks or imperial knights.

That being said, I certainly don't think that a 600 point unit is an effective use of your points, I shudder when I see the points I commit into the dark artisan formation.

1850 list:
Succubus a/ Armor if Misery, Glaive, Blast Pistol
(4) Grotesques, Raider w/ Lance

(2) x (5) Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Venom w/ 2nd cannon
(2) x (5) Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Raider w/ Lance

(3) x (6) Reavers, Caltrops & Heat Lances

Corpsethief formation w/ (2) Ichor Injectors


I think it could work ok... Could lose the ichor injectors & a unit of kabalites to throw in a cronos, but unless you're able to keep him out of LOS I think a single cronos would get singled out pretty quickly due to the massive boost it provides to that corpsethief blob....

clever handle wrote:

regarding slow movement:  Realize that if you deploy in a straight line at max spacing, you have about 18" board presence prior to movement - this means deployed centrally, you can threaten 30" + charge range (18" plus 6" lateral movement to each side) each turn.  And since you really don't want to overkill too much on the turn you charge, you'll be happy if only 1 or 2 talos get into combat that first round.  On your enemy's turn you can pile in and get the last 2 or 3 there, now with weight of S7 AP2 attacks, you should be able to decimate pretty much any unit you touch baring walkers w/ S10 attacks or imperial knights.

Yes the deployment of this formation would be best utilized if sent in a straight line with max spacing up the middle of the board as a slow impending doom. I would imagine this would become a massive fire magnet, keeping the rest of the force out of the spotlight allowing them to maximize their damage output.

I feel like this formation would be best accompanied with the dark artisan formation behind them. This would give them the FNP buff and if the haemonculus is the warlord he will allow rerolls of 1 for both formations FNP. The Dark artisan formation would become a fire magnet of its own in this case because of its supportive qualities but it would be a hard choice having that closer 5 strong Talos unit. The Dark Artisan formation comes in at 290 minimum + a stock Corpsetheif at 600 totaling at 890 for both. Quite the investment of points for this loadout but it is 21 T7 wounds with 3+ armour save and 4+ FNP with rerolls of 1. 30 twinlinked splinter cannon shots from the corpsethief to whittle down squads they approach.

Depending on what else in in the list they accompany you could upgrade them to have twinlinked haywire instead yet they are out there to really face non vehicles in cc to get those victory points kills. The twinlinked splinter cannons give them a decent threat  bubble as they make way up the midfield with that 36" range. I would personally keep them cheap if not stock and put my AT into other such as two ravagers/scourges to take out walkers or other armored threats.

I would be interested to know how well this formation plays on its own with no support from another formation/ cronos as that requires a further investment of money and points

no matter what with this formation... grey knights... grey knights... I'm not sure if you'd want to include the helm of spite in there somewhere somehow...

clever handle wrote:

no matter what with this formation... grey knights... grey knights... I'm not sure if you'd want to include the helm of spite in there somewhere somehow...

I run the Claw occasionally. If I ran into Grey Knights, I'd A) avoid melee, and B) use ALL my denial dice for Force.

I am one Talos away from being able to run it. Talos in general are probably a must have for any army at this point so I can't wait to have 5.

I'm working on a carnival of pain so for me the question is not IF i will get this formation but when... i have 2 talos an 2 unbuilt talos. and i think i will go with the dark artisan unit deep striking with wwp... the cronos is a must have i think in any coven army and the talos in the dark artisan units will be anti tank equipped.
for corpsethief you need to be playing at least a 1500pt game at the very least the reason is this..
its an extremely scary unit, of very tough to kill creatures especially if you give them a haemonculus or a nearby cronos. so scary that everything els in your deployment is gonna be un touched and free to move up and tarpit any heavy weapons units that might shoot your corpsethief formation. at base cost 600... you get 5x twin linked splinter cannons...since you want them to soak up shots being 18 inches up the field shooting another 36 (54 inches putting them in reach of about anything on a 4x4 game board turn one) they are relentless because they are a monstrous creature so they can move and shoot... just have them wrack up those VPs, your opponent, HAS to deal with them. But its gonna take up almost half your army at 1500 points which is why i think this is more for like a 2k game. but just think about it......30 twin linked poison shots can mop up most units that have already taken a few hits

you could always deep strike them instead of scouting also and you get the haemonculus buff also. if you want to spend the point give them the twin linked liquifier and chain flails and they will seriously be a force to wrecked with.

Can you attach a hamey to the formation? If so SYNDRIQ’S SUMP would be great for fleet. and yes a WWP would be viable then too as a form of transport.

indpendant characters can join any unit i thought

Yes I believe you are right, i just wasn't sure if there was some sort of restriction with this formation. That is a great idea as it makes weapons like heatlances on the talos much more viable. Haemonculus with the syndriqs sump and a wwp would be so solid with a squad of 5 with heatlances. Though they are not getting a VP for vehicle kills, it would make the turn they come in from a WWP effective.

The only thing is that when they are waiting  to come onto the board you have a massive chunk of points that are not there. If they start on the board they provide a threat from turn one that the opponent would feel they have to deal with as it approaches.  If they are waiting in reserve the rest of your force will be getting targeted.

Tattooudrew wrote:

indpendant characters can join any unit i thought

Unfortunately they cannot join a unit of Monstrous Creatures.

ahh okay what a shame haha, ignore what i had earlier said

dang that sucks, still having scout they can get in position to lay down serious firepower

Hammer and Anvil tactics, move the Corpsethief up the center flank with scalpel squadrons and dark artisan, etc. Maybe accompany the Corpsethief with a scarlet epicurean to buff the FNP and use wracks to screen unwanted assaults/ deny objectives.

I've found that deploying the Corpsethief in the middle of the board with a DA behind them to support provides amazing board control which allows you to dictate your opponent's movement. It also confused their target priority as they have to decide whether to whittle down the Corpsethief before it starts doing real damage or the DA which is buffing the Corpsethief, making it much harder to kill, all the while the Corpsethief is drawing closer. Feeding the Corpsethief disposable units to slow it down is also a poor choice as this is just giving your opponent a free VP each turn. Currently, the only things I'm slightly worried about when I run the Corpsethief are Knights (can be mitigated by HWB/HL and Smash attacks) and Grey Knights (still don't have a really good answer for them other than Helm of Spite and prayer).

I would consider it in a Cities of Death game. The fewer enemies can see such an expensive squad, the better, so I would want a lot of terrain between them and my Taloi.

Depending on what army my opponent brings, I would equip them with either Liquifiers (to burn out weaker infantry) or Chain Flails (to butcher stronger infantry) and either Haywire Blasters (against vehicle-heavy armies) or Splinter Cannons (against not-vehicle-heavy armies).

With 5 Smash attacks, taking Heat Lances seems unnecessary. If you get that close to a vehicle, you might as well just assault it. Those points could be better used elsewhere.
Ichor Injectors don't seem like a good idea either to me. No model I know is so dangerous that five monstrous creatures at once would need instakilling weapons to take it out. And if there is one, I wouldn't want to get into close combat with it anyway!
I'm not sure about Stinger Pods though. I would never take one on a single Talos, but 10 Strenght 5 AP 5 blasts does sound like they could hurt infantry blobs pretty well.

Rokuro wrote:

I would equip them with either Liquifiers (to burn out weaker infantry)...

At 75pts for five I'm doubtful in their utility. You won't be able to get them all to fire effectively due to the size of the unit and it likely being spread out. They also risk shooting you out of charge range, generally why I find shooting, in particular template weapons, is dubious at best on assault units. Not to mention you lose an attack for having two close combat weapons as you replace one with the liquifiers. At least that's why I don't run them.

Mushkilla wrote:

Rokuro wrote:

I would equip them with either Liquifiers (to burn out weaker infantry)...

At 75pts for five I'm doubtful in their utility. You won't be able to get them all to fire effectively due to the size of the unit and it likely being spread out. They also risk shooting you out of charge range, generally why I find shooting, in particular template weapons, is dubious at best on assault units. Not to mention you lose an attack for having two close combat weapons as you replace one with the liquifiers. At least that's why I don't run them.

That's true, more than 3 Liquifiers would probably be a waste of points and attacks.
But there are a few units I would rather shoot as much as I can and not assault. Buffed Conscripts or fearless Chaos Cultists, for example. And if they assault me, I can at least thin them out a bit more through overwatch. The second worst place for a Corpsethief Claw is in a tarpit.

I don't liquerfier because you lose an attack I believe

colinsherlow wrote:

I don't liquerfier because you lose an attack I believe

That is partially correct. Since it goes on one of the arms and is not a pistol, a model with a Liquifier does not get +1 attack for an addtional close combat weapon. But that's still 3 attacks for a Talos with Liquifier, and 4 for one without.
Replacing a close combat weapon with a flamer (a twin-linked one even) is not always a bad idea though.

If tarpitting is something to worry about, then don't deploy the Taloi in such a fashion that would cause that to arise.