Thoughts on Grotesquerie

The Shredder wrote:

A couple of questions:

1) How do you support the Grotesques with Dark Artisan? Do you walk them up the field, or still use WWP to get them in position? Also, do you charge both in together, or just use them near each other?

2) Is this viable at 1500pts, or do you take them at higher point levels?

I admit it is tricky to fit in both at 1500 points, but if you run the Grots in units of three, just give the Haemie the Sump or Scissorhands (in both formations) along with WWP, and only take Chain Flails and the Spirit Probe, both units come out to around 750.  Then if you take a Llaehman HQ, you can take two Warriors in Venoms w/Blasters, two Ravagers, and two HWB Scourges to round out the list, just as an example.  I would deep strike the Dark Artisan in right next to your Grots which should have zoomed forward on turn one.  I find that the Dark Artisan is great with the Corpsethief and the Grotesquerie.

Mushkilla wrote:

@ligolski I would almost never deep strike assault units in raiders when they can come on from the table edge and be anyware 30" into the board without scatter (36" with sails). This is far more reliable and accurate. Not to mention it can avoid intercepter as long as you are out of range or out of sight in your movement phase.The two exceptions to this are hammer and anvil deployment and not being able to hide/be out of range from a unit with interceptor that can reliably down your raider before it turboboosts.

agreed mush, i was simply stating it as an option if you were desperate or willing to try something crazy haha

Thor has put what I thought into words here so I don't really want to echo. Dark artisan is also always useful with a web way portal, you pop them down anywhere heads turn.

I would also say to a previous post on the last page. If you are going up against GK and you really are worried about force etc, there's no reason you have to take grots. They are as far as I'm concerned one of the best units we have and I want them in lists if I don't know what I'm fighting. But yeah they can be countered and its expensive. So take that hefty lump of points and get something else. But as said before, grots are still far from useless against GK, they will make a nice distraction for them to chase. And the grots might even win if the Gk take some wounds from shooting!

90% of the time anyway. I wouldn't assault GK except with an archon incubi hq (old dex certainly maybe not so much now) and then splash out on venoms, blasterborn, reavers, dissie ravager and a dark lance ravager. Small super elite armies cant take casualties and close quarter ones that cant reach you certainly don't like it.

@shredder, Thor has already pointed out some very effective uses for grotesques that don't involve being useful by winning combats. Remember they can also be very useful by simply losing a combat - place them out in the open to bait a charge, they'll get wiped due to force weapons, then focus your lance weaponry on the GK units that are left standing in no-mans land. That army doesn't pack 3++ saves, so are highly vulnerable to AP2 firepower.

Also, your group may play differently, but I believe you're playing psyker UNITS wrong - once an IC joins a unit, he is functionally a part of that UNIT. Therefore, if an IC has a power, AND a unit has a power, and they join together, they still count as one unit of psykers for the purposes of multiple attempts at casting a power per turn.

Grub mentioned something worth emphasizing, I think. I think GK are one of the few armies where dissies to complement your splinter weapons would really be useful due to the fact that GK are typically run as a small, elite force with a lot of 2+ saves. Plus, they can make taking down a Dread Knight much easier in one turn.

clever handle wrote:

@shredder,  Thor has already pointed out some very effective uses for grotesques that don't involve being useful by winning combats.  Remember they can also be very useful by simply losing a combat - place them out in the open to bait a charge, they'll get wiped due to force weapons, then focus your lance weaponry on the GK units that are left standing in no-mans land.  That army doesn't pack 3++ saves, so are highly vulnerable to AP2 firepower.

For the most part, he doesn't use cover much anyway.

Also, Draigo has a 3++ save which can be upgraded to a 2++ via a psychic power.

What would you recommend against Dreadknights?

clever handle wrote:

Also, your group may play differently, but I believe you're playing psyker UNITS wrong - once an IC joins a unit, he is functionally a part of that UNIT.  Therefore, if an IC has a power, AND a unit has a power, and they join together, they still count as one unit of psykers for the purposes of multiple attempts at casting a power per turn.

That's very interesting.

sweetbacon wrote:

  Plus, they can make taking down a Dread Knight much easier in one turn.  

Statistically, it would take 3 Ravagers all firing Disintegrators at a DK to kill it in one turn. And, that's only if it fails to cast Sanctuary to boost its invulnerable to 4++.

Against dreadknights ( I often face two per Gk game) scalpel squads with ossefactors can help finish them off. Venoms. Venoms. Venoms. Whenever somebody goes here is a tough, good armour save MC Splinterfire will win. 4 venoms will hose dreadknights. Finish off with blaster or darklance to taste and garnish with more shots if needed.

I have been lucky before and watched a scalpel squad supported by two venoms in the backfield kill 2 dreadknights turn 1. I cant say I have ever had any problems shooting them down, in assault, only time I remember killing one was old codex strength 8 archon with huskblade. But that is but a fond memory now lost to the nerf-bat of time. Shoot first, continue shooting is what I would suggest.

@sweetbacon
Dissies really do make Gk cry. Its a rare case where the dissie ravager can actually be the bees knees. They quake at the prospect of perhaps losing 9 termies to one (albeit lucky) gun platform!

The Shredder wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

  Plus, they can make taking down a Dread Knight much easier in one turn.  

Statistically, it would take 3 Ravagers all firing Disintegrators at a DK to kill it in one turn. And, that's only if it fails to cast Sanctuary to boost its invulnerable to 4++.

That's assuming you don't unload your Venoms, Warriors, and any Blasters you have at it first.  Which you definitely should.  

As Grub mentioned, Dissie Ravagers and Venoms are as devastating to GK as their Force weapons are to Grots.

based on the army you're proposing Shredder, the grey knight player has one turn of fast movement when he can use his shunt move, and then the rest of the game he's moving 12" or less - no vehicles means he's moving as jump infantry, and has gate of infinity due to Draigo (who yes, has a stormshield, but that's one model - use movement to get a better angle... that's kind of what dark eldar are supposed to do...). When he shunts (or gates) he can't assault. So you'll need to weather one turn of shooting, jink and then turboboost away the next turn.

Deploy / screen so that if / when he shunts he's unable to use his incinerators to kill your troops (that's all but impossible with a 50" range from start of movement to tip of template... but a man's got to try...) embarked in their vehicles.

Since you've mentioned 1500 points, and you're looking at 900ish points between the characters & Dreadknights, that means the opponent has about 600 points elsewhere... so 6 units? Play it just like any other opponent, pick a unit & focus on it until it is dead. Sit back at range - ours is 36", theirs is 24" and shoot at one target until it is dead, when he gets close, either turbo-boost away, or disembark your grotesques to provide a sacrificial charge blocker - you'll lose the unit, but the enemy wont be able to charge anything more meaningful - like a gunboat or your venoms. And this will allow you to shoot again next turn.

The Shredder wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

No they can't. No unit can attempt to manifest the same power more than once per psychic phase.

There are 2 characters in the terminator unit. The terminators can attempt to cast force. If they fail, the librarian can try to cast force. If he fails, Draigo can attempt to cast force. If any of these succeed, they affect the entire unit.

Doesn't matter. All part of the same unit so one attempt only. Absolutely specifically spelt out on page 24 of the rulebook. The unit can attempt to cast a power once per turn no matter how many psykers in the unit know that power.

I'll chime in here - I like dissies on ravagers. My three lance ravager never does much. I like dissies on raiders too. If I want AT I can load up on blasters and heat lances elsewhere easily.

So you are going to negate the effectiveness of grots by mentioning one codex where they need to played with more finesse? Really. I had a hard time against grots playing my 30k list - wrote up a brief batrep. It was the one unit that almost lost me the game. I have four MCs in my list that reroll poison wounds. Does not help against a grot squad with a powerful IC. Grots are just strong. In atac list the grotesquerie has a place. Let's not get into tailoring for a particular match up but rather how to use them in that particular match up - Thor had it right.

I say bait out the GK - and kill em with - DISSIES - Ihav always advocated dissies over darklances - we have plenty of AT elsewhere. We have had this discussion on the duck thread before methinks.

Against GK I would try and avoid assault altogether, focus on their transports. If they have vehicles, lances, blasters, heat lances, haywires can take them out. If they run DSing termies, then treat said weapons as if anti-infantry weapons. Anti-infantry for me would probably be focusing around two dissie raiders (both aiming at one unit that needs to die) and 3 venom warrior boats or 2 gunboats (means another 2 dissies) if ballsy.

Against GK if you need to assault, a group of Succubus w/Incubi can rack up the damage on a unit. Just avoid Draigo, unless he's like alone and got 1-2 wounds left.

It was brought up once but I'll bring it up again; the Helm of Spite is epic win against the codices that rely on psykers, like GK and Daemons, and often Tyranids.
Or if you're really hurting? Bring a Culexus assassin.

But with Grots you can do plenty vs GKs. Especially if you've got enough shooting threat, which Dark Eldar really should, he'll be spending a lot of those expensive warp charges on defensive buffs. Not to mention he HAS to be wasting warp charges on Gate in order to keep up with us at all. So that's already most of his charges gone, leaving a few for Force. Means he has the chance to fail and/or you have the chance to deny. And with those few dice, he'll want you not to deny meaning he'll throw more dice at fewer units; ergo, fewer units will actually have Force activated. Charge away.

If he DOESN'T go for defensive buffs, then just shoot him. If he doesn't use Gate, run away then shoot him.

Psykers got paddled hard in this edition - use that to your advantage. No more 3 powers effectively automatically activated per psyker.

And yeah, multiple psykers in a single unit are NOT allowed to attempt the same power multiple times. Once an IC joins a unit, they are a part of that unit.

tru dat on the Psykers. Though despite their nerfs, Psykers still do well.

You seen that vortex thing? In two turns I had it scatter on to a dark artisans formation sucking it up and a squad of grots. Psykers do good if they get what they want!

shrug. Its a dice game. but in general they are fantastic. ask any Tzeentch FMC player what his record is.

Are Grotesques too good not to be in any list?

They can do so many things for your army. Paired up with reavers, it's pretty hard to take out.

I would probably have at least one squad, if not the grotesquery in any list I was playing if I did not know what the opponent was bringing or using because as far as I see it, there counter is force weapons, vindicators, walkers and perhaps massed standard shooting. But that is pretty dependent on what your opponent does with them. I might not go whole hog on assault against GK in particular because shooting them works so much better anyway!

My basic list always has at least three in it, usually 4, as a bodyguard to my HQ.

I'm not saying at all that Psykers are BAD, merely that they're not as effective/efficient as they were in 6th.

Currently looking at allying a Grotesquerie in with my CSM for a friendly league coming up. Aggressive CSM on one side of the board, Grotesquerie on the other. Rush up and beat their way into the middle, avoiding having to keep one eye open until late in the game.

The Grotesquerie is absolutely brilliant. Not once have I actually lost a unit in a game. I wouldn't say auto-include at all, as that depends entirely on the list and they're a huge points investment. But they're absolutely worth building a list around.
They did the best for me in a match vs Tyranids;
4 Grots, Aberration w/Scissorhand, one unit had a Haemy and 4 LGs, one unit had a Haemy w/Helm of Spite.
The LG unit accounted for a unit of 10 Termagants, 30 more Termagants, and a Zoanthrope.
The other unit polished off a Carnifex, 30 Hormagants who charged them, and a Venomthrope.
Both units scored me objective points as well.

VS Necrons, they were beating up bad guys left right and centre. The two units with Urien and a Succubus took out a MSS Command Barge w/Warscythe and 2+/3++ not once, but twice. They killed a unit of Wraiths with Destroyer Lord, several units of Warriors, and soaked an UNGODLY amount of shooting. Urien is much to thank for that; such a beefcake.

Laughingcarp wrote:

It was brought up once but I'll bring it up again; the Helm of Spite is epic win against the codices that rely on psykers, like GK and Daemons, and often Tyranids.

I think I'll indeed bring it in future.

Hopefully it will make him think twice before teleporting his GK terminators near me, and make him wary of activating force weapons when I'm nearby. If nothing else, it should at least make my succubus more of a target and hopefully draw fire away from my warlord haemonculus and squishier units (like blasterborn).

Laughingcarp wrote:

But with Grots you can do plenty vs GKs. Especially if you've got enough shooting threat, which Dark Eldar really should, he'll be spending a lot of those expensive warp charges on defensive buffs. Not to mention he HAS to be wasting warp charges on Gate in order to keep up with us at all. So that's already most of his charges gone, leaving a few for Force. Means he has the chance to fail and/or you have the chance to deny. And with those few dice, he'll want you not to deny meaning he'll throw more dice at fewer units; ergo, fewer units will actually have Force activated. Charge away.

If he DOESN'T go for defensive buffs, then just shoot him. If he doesn't use Gate, run away then shoot him.

That's very useful advice, thanks.

That is incredibly solid advice from laughingcarp there. To expand on it, we do really win through mobility and any non mobile assault force GK post shunt/deepstrike that is commiting to force weapons over gate wont catch you if you want to play that way and whittle his numbers down before commiting an assault unit like Grots to it!