My First DE Coven list - chainflails or injectors? And Haemies do I add CC weapons?

Hey all,

So after reading Jimsolo's freakshow tactica I finally found the drive to finish up my coven conversions (my second army and a little different from my ork horde). For a starter list I came up with 1000 points. I am pretty happy with it, but after much searching and reading I couldn't find much debating about loadouts;

Grotesquerie;
5 Grots + ABBA + Scissors
5 Grots + ABBA + Scissors + (raider +DL +NS +ES)
Haemie + WWP + Sump

Dark Artisan;
Talos + Ichor Injector
Cronos + Spirit Probe
(WL) Haemie + WWP + V.Mask

That's bang on 1000 points.
So chain-flails, statistically do more wounds on T7 or lower (mathed out by Count I believe), but the injector Wound's always on a 2+ and has ID. Is it simply a personal preference? Are chain flails more useful considering I have loads of Grots with Flesh gauntlets already?

Also, as far as I could tell the Haemies are most likely going to be hanging back, as they provide the buffs, so no CC weapons? I have the V.Mask incase I come up against someone who has a High initiative and a chance of putting my beasties down. Thus allowing me to sacrifice the haemie in a challenge and hopefully prevent some of the wounds spilling over.

Tactics;
Attempt for diamond objective placement
I will start 1 unit of grots in the raider somewhere BLOS like ruins or something. Then on my turn using the aethersails I can push straight up with the 5 grots, they will be fearless turn 2, so hopefully shouldn't be in much trouble with regards to having them wiped before my other units arrive. DS in other units and either hold objectives, or pincer them if they are a slower moving army.

I personally don't run any extra weapons on the talos often, like em nice and cheap! The only time I do take any weapon is for the TL Liquifier so I can have 3 templates deepstrike no scatter in the Dark Artisan formation.

I think I might drop a grot to make room for the Grotesquerie haemmy with them (unless I'm misunderstanding--do both grot squads have a raider?).

I don't generally find Enhanced Sails worth it, but local metas and playstyles may affect that enough that I wouldn't recommend changing it if it works for you.

One grot squad has a raider, as I dont have a WWP caddy that I can attach to them. I did consider running the coven FOC so I could give them one, but I need a unit on the board.

The sails are simply for the first move, so I can effectively flatout to anywhere on the board ready for next turn. But the sails are probably not needed. what would you do if you had a few points about? like if I dropped 1 grot too.

If you dropped a single grot, then scissorhands on the haemmies and a heat Lance on the Talos, personally. But that may be a matter of taste.

Jimsolo wrote:

If you dropped a single grot, then scissorhands on the haemmies and a heat Lance on the Talos, personally.  But that may be a matter of taste.

I'll take that into consideration. The scissorhands do actually sound good to me, I can then accept challenges from some of the weaker IC's. The heatlance seems useful, especially since I don't have much dedicated AT, something the DA is probably going to be trying to do while the grots smash everything else.

The Scissorhands allow your CC heavy army to still be able to threaten Walkers, which are one of the Covens' biggest weaknesses.