Talos guns, Grotesque attacks, and Shredders

I played Haemonculus Covens in 7e, and am super excited to try them out in 8. So I have a few questions.

With an interesting thread showing effectiveness of different guns at destroying vehicles, and the Haywire blasters being one of the worst, I have 5 of my 6 talos equipped with haywire blasters, and the last with a heat lance. This is because before I used my talos as the anti-vehicle weapon platforms, as I already had enough anti-infantry everywhere else in my army. Should I then rip off the haywire blasters at some point and replace them with something else? Heat lances don't seem that hot (pun intended) for taking on vehicles. Stinger pods, however, might be interesting for taking on any vehicle up to T9 because of volume of fire. Splinter cannons do not seem like an attractive option. What are your thoughts on Talos guns?

My next question is melee attacks with Grotesques. They have 2 different melee weapons which both provide different benefits. So am I supposed to choose one weapon when attacking in melee? Or can I essentially use both, gaining the benefit of both?

I was looking into Warriors and Trueborn to add to my army, and an interesting find occurred. Before the shredder was sort of a shunned weapon, but now it may be attractive. Sure the 12" range is a major negative, but 4D3 S6 shots for only 32pts can be quite formidable. S6 can whittle down vehicles and most infantry is wounded on 3+ (with rerolls). This could make the Shredder are fairly versatile weapon. What are your thoughts on the Shredder (aside from the Turtle's villain).

And one more question that I just thought up: is the crucible of malediction really free on Haemonculi?

The only thing I can really comment on is the Grots. You can attack with multiple weapons, but each attack is separate. I think most people will be using all their base attacks on the Fleshgauntlets (for the Mortal Wounds), and then attacking once with the free attack generated by the Cleaver.

However, there may be situations where you would prefer the -1AP of the Cleaver, and will take all your attacks with it.

As for the shredder, I think the re-roll is only vs Infantry. And we already have enough Infantry based attacks (all our splinter). I have yet to get in a game with 8th though, so this is all Theoryhammer at this point.

Multi Melee Weapons

The way my local has been playing it (how we are reading the rules) that you can fight with any weapons you are equipped with Up to your attack profile, some weapons say (if you are armed with 2 gain an extra attack) so you have 2, you need need to fight with both to gain that extra attack, but some weapons also say you only ever get 1 attack with this weapon.

So you need to look the weapons 1st for the ruling, follow those rules and pick w.e you want/can.

You can also "split" you attacks, lets say you have a Character and 3 SM's in base with 1 Talos, you took the Injector, you can make that 1 attack to the character, then you can make you last 3 attacks with the Scalp toward the SM's. (the 3 attacks will most likely kill the 3 SM and now you have a chance to go through Invuls against the Character and low chance to do D3 mortal instead of 1).

Range Weapons on Talos and AT for them

It comes down to do you want Range or Melee AT? remember you DONT have to charge what you shoot! you can shoot at 1 thing then charge another. Also Talos does 2 damage in melee with Scalps. Being S6 you will need 4's vs light and 5's vs heavy vehciles, but at -1ap and 2 damage with 5 attacks, hitting on 2/3+.

But Talos are not AT units at all anymore sadly, you will need true AT in your army now (Dark Lances).

Heat Lance vs Splinter Cannon:

Shredders

They have -0ap sadly, if you want them Kabals/Trueborn hunt vehicles, you need Dark Weapons, Shredders are amazing AI, 3's to wound and loads of hits. I personally like them better than poison weapons for AI, 3's to wound compare to 4's to wound.

Anti Vehicles

To me there are 3 types of vehicles, Light, Heavy, Super

Light = T5
Heavy = T6/7 (90% the vehicles are here)
Super = T8+

Only a very vehicles are T5 or T8+

If you go in thinking most opponents till have some T6/7 vehicles you should prepare for those and make sure they can hurt T8 in case they bring that.

T5/6 are extremely easy to deal with compare to T7, Shredders, Heat Lances, Melee no longer needs 4's to wound now they need 5's.

Interesting stuff, guys. Thanks for answering my questions. I do like the haywire blasters for their price, which helps me to take more talos. I don't expect haywire blasters to one-shot anything, but at least put pressure on vehicles. Any mortal wounds is something even heavy vehicles need to consider. I have 5 HB talos that I will try in my coming game and see what they can do.

Haywire is almost completely useless, they wont even put pressure on them at all.

Really fast

Most vehciles are T7 10wounds

Haywire is S4 (needs 5s to wound) with only -1 to armor save (most have 3/4+ armor) so you need a 5 to wound and they get a 4/5+ to save against it.
Haywire special rule is, in addition to any other wounds, on a 4+ to wound you do 1 more wound, no saves allowed.

50% the time Haywire will only do 1 wound, 25% the time 2 wounds.


Heat Lances needs 5+ to wound most times as well, but they will get -5 to saves (meaning 0 saves) and D6 wounds.