Flesh Hammer

Dark Artisan Formation
Haemonculus 135
-warlord, scissor hand, panacea, web way portal
Talos 135
-heat lance, ichor injector
Cronos 125
-spirit probe

Corpse Thief Formation
Talos Squad 675
-5 with heat lances, ichor injectors

Covenite Coterie
Haemonculus 105x2
-web way portal
Grotesques 265x2
-aberration with scissor hand, 6 regular

After reading Mush's latest battle reports I've been kicking around some related ideas. For this codex and the last I've really been liking grotesques, and particularly with this codex I've been liking talos a lot. So why not make an army out of just that essentially?

If my math is right I'm at 1810, so forty more points to spread around. Any thoughts?

Hoping to play the list tonight (looks like it's two am here) in a local 30k league...though they obviously allow more than just HH lists in, and chances are I'll end up against my necron buddy.

I'd probably take haywire over HL on the corpse thief formation. The HL has more damage potential, but it's quite easy to outrun them. And when you spread them out, as I assume is the most viable thing, it's quite hard to get all of them into range. If you're out of melta range, good luck with S6 lance killing a vehicle

The haywire blaster on the other hand, has a higher range and with 5 a similar damage output.

With spare points, I'd try to buy as many grots as possible.

Eish, I dub this list all you need is kill lol. Proper title you have there, as this list is about as subtle as a brick to the face, which can hurt a lot. I predict either smashing victory, or drawn out defeat as you have one tool in the toolbox, which is a hammer, but you'd be surprised the different ways you can use a hammer.

I agree with Omega that you probably want to drop the HL, as people that have tried that option don't seem to like it that much (like most things, redundancy makes them better, but still). If you can scrape some more points off of maybe scissorhands (although I do love them), you can afford another couple grots. Either way, you're already going big, so you might as well just invest everything into the small amount of things you have.

Lord Mal wrote:

Eish, I dub this list all you need is kill lol.  Proper title you have there, as this list is about as subtle as a brick to the face, which can hurt a lot.  I predict either smashing victory, or drawn out defeat as you have one tool in the toolbox, which is a hammer, but you'd be surprised the different ways you can use a hammer.

I agree with Omega that you probably want to drop the HL, as people that have tried that option don't seem to like it that much (like most things, redundancy makes them better, but still).  If you can scrape some more points off of maybe scissorhands (although I do love them), you can afford another couple grots.  Either way, you're already going big, so you might as well just invest everything into the small amount of things you have.

Yep, I couldn't have said it any better myself.  No Eldar trickery or sneakiness here.  Just raw, come-at-me-bro', brute force.  Which I really appreciate.  Really interested in hearing how your game went.  I think Coven units give us a surprisingly good chance against the resilient new Necrons because the best way to beat them is to sweep them in CC and since your whole army is Fearless and can put out a lot of pain in CC, I like your odds.  Really fun list!

If it's any help Fraust, my revised 1250 point list is:

HQ
Haemonculus, web way portal
Haemonculus, web way portal

ELITE
10 Grotesques, aberration
10 Grotesques, aberration

DARK ARTISAN
1 Haemonculus (warlord)
1 Cronos, spirite probe
1 Talos, splinter cannons, chain flails

Total: 1250 points

I dropped all the scissor hands. I initially took them to deal with walkers, but realistically an aberration on average scores 0.41 rends, taking 7 turns to deal with a 3HP AV12 walker is not realistic. I think I'm better off saving the points and finding a way to play around them.

It's kind of like having 1-2 melta guns in a list and saying that it means your list can deal with AV14, it's a deliberate delusion that will only get me to make mistakes on the table by luring me into a false sense of security/hope.

Also breaking off an expendable haemonculus can be great for scoring objectives and other sneakiness, and without any gear and being used mainly as power form pain boosters and WWP caddies they can be quite expendable indeed (best of all is it's fluffy: scarlet epicureans).

Which freed up space for a Dark Artisan formation, which gets me a more resilient anchor/warlord bunker (tasty bait), a cronos which opens up more options when playing the resilience game.

Taking a break from studying to come back to this. First, off, thanks for the quick replies and solid advice guys.

Omega...good call, and probably what will ultimately happen. This list is for a local 30k league primarily, and there's more than a few things immune to melta in the HH lists. Heat lances are cheaper though, so I'm actually going to have to drop grots (or probably a grot) to fit in the haywire. My original idea was, for one...the models I use are the Reaper Bones large fire elemental, so heat lance felt more appropriate than haywire , and two...s6 ap1 (pretty sure HL is 1) would be a lot better off against the number of t4/5 3+/2+ models I'm going to be going up against than s4 ap4 (think HW is 4...). For tonight I'm probably going to just run with the list as is, as I need to be studying the history and current situation of the Esperanto language for an upcoming presentation rather than monkeying with my list. I'm being a bad enough student hitting the store again tonight

Lord Mal...yeah, the name has special meaning to me. A friend of mine back home who plays templars constantly refers to his manly bits as "the Hammer" so me being me, I get a huge kick out of saying "yeah, I used the Hammer on a guy at the shop last night." on fb, and tagging the templar guy.

Yep, looks like if I drop all the scissor hands I can fit two more grots in with the spare points I already had...which is tempting. I haven't used scissor hands a whole lot, but they've been fairly underwhelming for me so far. Granted, probably my last ten games have been against one necron player and a trio of ork players and one of said ork players playing eldar once...so it's largely been "you rend? I don't care, t-shirt save" or "you rend? I don't care, invuln save/reanimation protocols." As I said above, I'm probably going to leave the list as is for tonight's game but I'm going to start seriously considering not using SHs any more. Maybe I'll get lucky and go up against one of the Legion lists and the rending will come in priceless...

Sweetbacon...lol I think it'll be a lot more of me coming at them, with scout and deep strike, but I get your meaning So far the best luck I've had against the newcrons was with my coven units, though I've still lost every game I've played against them. Been using a lot of harlequin stuff the last few games and I think I'm going to give them a break. I like them, but I'm not breaking them out against the cron player again for a bit as I'm real tired of the glass cannon vs metal wall game...That said, I know I'm going to miss my Shadowseers, and it's incredibly tempting to go unbound at some point just to have a couple in this list. In both games I've played clowns vs terminators Fog of Dreams has been absolutely beautiful...one game it turned his tomb blades into bumbling gits then hamstrung his wraiths for a turn...in the next it got a unit of lychguard to damn near lose combat against a unit of broadsides and kept the overlord (I think that's what it was, some HQ choice I believe with the fancy warscythe) in combat with the shadowseer for two+ full game turns.

Mush...I like the list. Dart Artisan is definitely a good place for a warlord. That's similar to what I did with my 1000 point game yesterday...I just had less grots and a couple more upgrades. The issue I had was with the speed of the dark artisan...that and I came in piecemail, which sucked majorly.

As above, I think I'm about there too with the scissor hands. I took them partially as anti walker (got charged by an oldcron walker thing on a central objective a while back and couldn't kill the damn thing and after it was in assault I couldn't shoot it...) and partially cuz I knew I was in a spot with the one necron player and a lot of marine players (even outside of the 30k lists, the place I go to college at has a lot more marines than my last area). That and meganobs are becoming a thing, and well over half the people I know well who play 40k play orks. That all said, I haven't really seen much return.

Looks like a fin list. I'm interested in seeing how it plays.

Hmm...Showed up and the league was something of a mess. Apparently the guy who EVERYONE told me was the head guy is not, in fact, the head guy...and the head guy is sick, so we have no "paperwork" for me to upgrade my "hq guy"...which I'm not exactly sure what all that entails...

I got faced off against a nid player by the not head/head guy...and I'm still not entirely sure if we were supposed to play a normal game, or a game with our upgraded "hq guys"...as his broodlord (I think) was his "hq guy"

Me not being familiar with the nid codex didn't realize a broodlord had instant death on all it's attacks, so I deep struck my first unit of grots right up by it (it being the warlord), was charged, and promtly took seven right back off the table... https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

I was ahead most of the game in points (cloak and shadows) until the end when he managed to get two ahead of me on turn 5 and the game ended. Not how I was expecting the game to go, and frankly I'm more than a little annoyed at the organization of the league...but the nid player was a really cool guy in the area I hadn't met yet, so that's a plus.

Necron player is doing a 1750 game against blood angles and it's 17:45...so I'm probably not going to get that game in tonight...it has to happen though...

Ohh yeah...we also played a 1400 game...so I basically stripped all the upgrades but the ichor inchectors and panacea and instead of a corpsethief I just ran two individual talos.

The original idea was to scout the corpsethief up and get the dark artisan near by as soon as reserve rolls would allow to give them the bonuses to feel no pain...which was nothing like how the nid game went

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get something going with the cron player.

Pretty sure broodlords can't get instant death? Maybe it was a swarmlord (all his attacks do cause instant death)? The trick with a swarmlord is he's slow, only has a 3+ save and doesn't have grenades. Still that was a nasty surprise! I get the feeling with this list you really need to know your match-ups (hard because you need to play them to learn them) and what your opponents units are capable of. Look forward to hearing how that second game goes, watch out for triarch stalkers!

Aha, swarmlord then. Knew it was some kind of lord

Yeah, if I'd known the specs I'd have stayed way the hell away from that thing. The not having grenades did come in to play though, as the swarmlord was hanging out in a forest that I deep struck into (which reminds me I spaced dangerous terrain tests when I landed in there...going to have to apologize to the the guy next time I see him), so the turn he charged I was able to kill his accompanying hive guard and had the guy worried about the instant death wounds before he swung out his own ID attacks.

Completely agree about knowing the other codexes. It's something I normally do pretty good with, but this is the first nid player I've talked to in a while. Luckily I have easy access to the codex so I can start reading up

I feel like a complete tool now. Was looking through the nid book and noticed something I completely spaced...something that had been particularly important to me when the book first came out, and hasn't been important since. No biomancy. The big thing with the swarmlord was it had endurance and warp speed on it...so 10 attacks on the charge and feel no pain vs most of the hits I put on it...Even with the league/campaign specific boosts things should have gone completely different. Going to ask the nid player for a rematch if I see him again

Cron player is sick today, so I'm just going to hit the shop and see who I see...

Fraust wrote:

I feel like a complete tool now. Was looking through the nid book and noticed something I completely spaced...something that had been particularly important to me when the book first came out, and hasn't been important since. No biomancy. The big thing with the swarmlord was it had endurance and warp speed on it...so 10 attacks on the charge and feel no pain vs most of the hits I put on it...Even with the league/campaign specific boosts things should have gone completely different. Going to ask the nid player for a rematch if I see him again

Wow no wonder that was so rough! It makes more sense now!

Took the Hammer back to the 30k league tonight, and was unfortunately tabled...

That said it was something of a close game, and I made a couple monumental mistakes, and hadn't read up on 30k as much as I should have.

Played against one of the store owners, an incredibly awesome guy who plays salamanders.
Going from memory his list had two tac squads in rhinos that had heavy flamers (apparently a 30k thing?), two contemptor dreads with dual kheres, another dread maybe contemptor with two DCCWs, twin heavy flamer and a melta, landraider with a unit of fire somethings that were two wound TH/SS terminators, and then an HQ on a jetbike with eternal warrior and a thunder hammer.

I had basically the above list without the DA heat lance, haywire on the CTC, no aberrations and 8 model grot squads.

Table was all ruins with an open courtyard in the middle. Game was the relic, deployment hammer and anvil. The league/campaign had some special rules that we largely forgot, but the one that did come up was all close combat attacks had rending.

Salamanders go first after I scout up with the CTC (staying in some ruins a little ways away from the relic), moving the landraider right up next to the relic. A rhino moves up on either side, along with a dreadnought near each one. One kheres dread is up in a ruin on my opponents right acting as a "sniper"...the CC dread was with the right most rhino. He sends some shots my way and either manages one wound total or nothing...pretty sure nothing. Both tac units disembark and spread out behind their respective rhinos.

My turn I move the CTC out of the ruins...haywires the LR down to one hull point, and then charges in. They multi assault the LR and the CC dread on my opponent's right but fail to make it to the dread. They do finish off the LR and all the termies pile out of the one hatch that isn't blocked.

His turn the termies and two dreads charge into my CTC and knock it down to one talos...I was sad.

My turn the DA drops into the ruins behind the landraider and "flamers" the tac squad on my opponent's left for I believe two casualties. The one grot unit that comes in lands infront of that rhino and they get a low run to spread out a little. He finishes off the last talos and is set up to charge into my grots.

His turn he charges into my grots...I feel sad and dumb. His warlord gets into the ruins and charges my DA.

Both those combats last for most the rest of the game.

Highlights include his two tac squads doing the cool 30k furry of lots of shots thing into my DA before the HQ charged them and managed one wound on the talos...and my second unit of grots charging his healthy tac squad and getting a 3 on rampage...killing all but four or so and then running them down.

Particular blunders include accepting a challenge with my warlord after I charged in to keep his other tac squad from going after the relic and being power fisted into next week. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking there. They eventually won that combat and ran that squad down though, but were ultimately finished off though I can't remember if it was the termies or kheres dread that did it...thinking dread...

Getting my chicken thoroughly kicked aside it was a fun game. I think the list is going to stay as is for the time being but I need to be a lot less aggressive. I think I should have sat in those ruins with the CTC and haywired transports for at least another turn...letting the termies come out and charge further into my side of the board then sent the grots after the individual tac squads.

Interesting match, thanks for the write up. If I remember correctly scouting units can't charge turn 1. This can be a bit if a pain with CTC.

If I remember right they can't charge if you go first as opposed to not being able to charge the first turn period...though it's entirely possible I'm mistaken. Neither of us were overly familiar with scout. I'll check it out in the book before I play the CTC again to make sure.

Fraust wrote:

If I remember right they can't charge if you go first as opposed to not being able to charge the first turn period...though it's entirely possible I'm mistaken. Neither of us were overly familiar with scout. I'll check it out in the book before I play the CTC again to make sure.

Just checked, that was the case in 6th, now in 7th it's a blanket can't charge on the first turn (even if you go second).

Damn...that's work aroundable but does hamper a good bit of the ideas I had with this list. Thanks for double checking on that.

Oddly enough my next thought is bringing in tau instead of the CTC. I need to juggle points, but the basics would be the fire support cadre or whatever it's called (broadsides and a riptide) to act as my anchor units and open up transports before the grots come on.

How are you liking corpsethief? Originally, I had planned on it too, but I'm starting to think about instead taking them out of the heavy slot and just running 2 or 3 talos and a Cronos center field for the board control instead to save on points. It is a lot of points even though it seems to smash face when it connects with stuff.

Unfortunately I've only had the one game since posting the list, and the CTC was the first thing to die. They managed to utterly wreck a landraider and I think they killed a couple of the special salamander terminators, but the terminators and a dreadnought did them in over two assault phases.

It's tempting to change the list up at the moment as I have a couple ideas kicking around, but I don't want to restructure things based off one game where I know I made a couple big mistakes. Hopefully this weekend I'll get some games in at the shop here...and then if I'm understanding things right next week I'm off school for spring break, so will be going to a different town with another shop and a couple old friends.

I don't know that I would run a cronos with multiple talos squads like that...least not a lone cronos. They're tough but not invulnerable, so I don't imagine they'd last all that long. Eventually I might go back to just talos as opposed to the CTC, but if I do it'll either be multiple squads spread out, or three individual talos and a cronos all close together like I used to run.

But yeah, going to give the CTC some more time. The ability to rack up extra VPs is something I want to explore and something I think will have a huge impact on games once I get things figured out.