Talos and/or Cronos

I have been running Talos, Cronos and Haemy only lists (using the Spearhead Detachments) in the last 3 8th games (I have 7 Talos/cronos) and I have found them to be surprisingly resilient to even melta guns (whether this was 5+/6+ lucky rolling or actually the case is yet to be proven to me) which was a huge surprise and joy as i was expecting them to be far from effective as an army.

I originally tried them with just splinter pods and added ichor injectors, though after finding both to be utterly useless against elite units such as Custodes (I am incapable of rolling a 6 on the one ichor injector hit); I started running Twin Liquifiers and Haywire blasters. I found liquifier guns totally solved the Custodes issue very effectively, though i found the haywire to be underwhelming.

I have dabbled in heat lances for them and while they proved to be very good in power level games I'm not sure I could justify the price in a points game.

I think that I need to start using a mixture of splinter pods (horde control) liquifier guns (elite control) and heat lances/haywire blasters for vehicles.

if you hadn't guessed from reading this post so far; I don't rate the Talos in CC anymore... I have found that CC with Talos can be used as a Haemy (with electrocorrosive whip) delivery system which will decimate pretty much any infantry/monster units that have been weakened by the shooting.

The Cronos are a little bit hit and miss for me at the moment, the shooting is -2AP but the chance of hitting and wounding is far less than the guns on the Talos. The buff has been useful (rerolling wounds) but I have found the wound recovering is wholly unreliable as the Cronos is pretty bad in CC, so can only really be used against basic troops like Guardsmen and Guardians.

I've probably missed a lot of information, but that is the general gist of my experience so far running upwards of 4 Talos and 2 Cronos (in a single list). Feel free to ask questions

kiblams wrote:

I started running Twin Liquifiers and Haywire blasters. I found liquifier guns totally solved the Custodes issue very effectively

Looking at the stats for the twin liquifier, it doesn't immediately leap out as the ideal solution to a T5, W3, 2+/5++ problem. You're needing 5+ to wound and they're getting a 4+ save on average. That's just over 1 wound per firing. What are you finding so good about it?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Looking at the stats for the twin liquifier, it doesn't immediately leap out as the ideal solution to a T5, W3, 2+/5++ problem. You're needing 5+ to wound and they're getting a 4+ save on average. That's just over 1 wound per firing. What are you finding so good about it?

I think we need to stop looking at the numbers and trying to figure this stuff out, I had dismissed them myself due to the low str, but after having very little luck with all other weapons and in CC against Custodes I was open t anything...

Str3 is not such a bad thing anymore, as for almost all infantry you're looking at 5s rather than 6s, and you would be surprised at how many 5s can be rolled when you roll a lot of dice in real world rolling.

What I have quickly learnt through playing 8th is that in most instances AP is that king, and for me at least liquefier spam is proving a pretty reliable method of delivering AP

That's fair enough but you're essentially relying on abnormally good luck, which is not really a tactic that you should build a unit or army around.

Count Adhemar wrote:

That's fair enough but you're essentially relying on abnormally good luck, which is not really a tactic that you should build a unit or army around.

in my experience, all it takes is one turn of good luck for me and bad rolls for my opponent to completely change the course of a game, I have found the liquifier guns give me more chances of that happening. I should add that in my 1k list I am running 10 of them on 2 Haemys and 4 Talos...

2d6 hits ~ 7
5+ to wound ~ 2.33 wounds

Not Terrible and provides some decent overwatch
Price 26 points, which I think is a little high but you could probably earn it back.

It's not quite enough to make the tallos worth it, but if your set on using the Tallos it does seem to be a decent choice.

Kiblams has a good point. The standard deviation is lower when you roll more. Could benefit a list that relies on luck (or in this case, less bad luck)

So i played my first game of 8th with a talos and it performed excellently. I got an old one recently, always liked the giant death scorpion look so i figured i would throw it in my list for fun. Well the old girl didnt kill much but she lived threw 40 plus shots from necron warriors in a single turn. Im putting a full coven list together and im going to use 2 talos and two cronos with a haemie supporting them see how they do.