Did the Grots & Talos just get worse in 8th?

Hi,

I´ve played few games with 8th edition and i like it so far, but the troubling idea has crawled inside my cranium...have the Grots & Talos got worse? Altough i faced Tau with my basic build, i had Haemie boosting their T +1 (does jack now days, you have to wound on 5+ with basic S 4/5 weapons anywayz...) that really didnt help...I find the 6+ "FNP" being the biggest nerf. Talos will go down, even with more wounds...Grots get gunned down (no more WWP to get in the backfield fast) easily...i don´t know, maybe i´m jumpin the gun here, but that´s the first imperssion i had with Covens units. Venoms on the other hand are freakin awesome! -1 to hit AND an 5++ against the big guns, love it!

Any good/bad games in the 8th with Covens units?

- LV

If you look around you'll find a few coven threads.

Ppl are having success with heams, wracks and talos.
Chronos and grots, not as much.
At least that's what I've read and is my own exp over a handful of games.

Grots need a raider to get to cc maybe? The bonus t depends a lot on who is shooting at you. Remember the +1 t for grots is quite nice against a lot, Not versus the very common s4 or 7+ (s5 tau will now wound on a 5+ instead of a 4+, s3 lasguns need 6+ and s6 eldar still need a 4+).

But yes grots and talos seem to have suffered. Wracks on the other hand seem to have become a bit better from what I hear (no experience with them).

Talosi (Taloses?) took it in the pants in 8th, that's for sure. I think that Talosi may well be the single worst Monster in all of 8th edition. It's to the point where the only thing I'd have them fight is dust on the display shelf. I've yet to see them played in a way that doesn't end with them getting turned into sashimi before they get to do anything more than put out some token firepower.

Grots definitely got way worse too, not really because of any outright nerfs so much as that they didn't gain anything more than a 5++ while losing out in a huge way with the new damage rules. Basically anyone that looks their way with a d6 damage weapon will blow them to shreds. I guess their damage output is decent, but they're still in a pretty darn sad state right now.
(I'm only a little salty since I got the finishing touches done on my grotesquerie right before 8th dropped.)

Overall neither of them have the wounds, nor the multi-wound damage or AP-reduction, to stand out in the new edition. Pour one out for 'em and add some kabal elements to your coven to compensate.

Well. I guess the damage output with mortal wounds from the grotesques is quite nice. Keep in mind that those spill over. So it´s a nice way to decimate bigger squads and kill big ugly monsters.
But yeah. They have to stay in a raider because things like lascannons are nasty against them.

I find they are actually quite nice against lascannons, a lot of chances for overkill (either rolling to high or first doing only 1 or 2 wounds and then doing more with a second shot) and if they are shooting lascannons at my grots (who still have a 5++ and a 6+++) those cannons are not killing my vehicles. And while not cheap they are also not overly expensive.

Why d oyou think they are worse.
My arguments that they are better:
- High leadership.
- Monstrous cleaver as 2nd choice wepon with -1 AP which is great.
- free fleet due to pfp (earlier only in Grotesqurie)
- toughness buff from Heamy (was only in Grotesqurie as well)
- 5++
- No instant death
- 7" move

What is worse
- price
- maybe worse fnp, but it's the same for all units

Actually I never sent them through WWP, as they will stand one turn in the open and can charge only turn 3 (or even turn 5 if you are not lucky).

So, guys please add some points to my list of thing that got worse.

SERAFF wrote:

Why d oyou think they are worse.
My arguments that they are better:
- High leadership.
- Monstrous cleaver as 2nd choice wepon with -1 AP which is great.
- free fleet due to pfp (earlier only in Grotesqurie)
- toughness buff from Heamy (was only in Grotesqurie as well)
- 5++
- No instant death
- 7" move

What is worse
- price
- maybe worse fnp, but it's the same for all units

Actually I never sent them through WWP, as they will stand one turn in the open and can charge only turn 3 (or even turn 5 if you are not lucky).

So, guys please add some points to my list of thing that got worse.

The no instant death point is quite not honnest considering all the multi wound weapon thats existing now

What is worse
- Loss of ability to reroll wounds on T4 or lower opponents
- Effective loss of wounds due to weapons doing multiple damage but, unlike pretty much every other multi-wound creature, the Grots maintain their 7e number of wounds

To your list you can add that they are not as nasty in cc, even with the PfP buff hitting on 2+, they lost attacks (rampage was definitely a big boost) and they don't hit as hard, true you have your mortal wound on a 6+ but they lost the reroll to wound (since the universal poison rule is gone, so doesn't matter if you hit low T models) and they lost the instant death on 6+ (a single mortal wound doesn't seem good enough exchange to me).

- No more Rampage
- To-Wound chart removes their previous ability to wade with impunity through S3 firepower unless they've got a Haemonculus to babysit them. And even when babysat they get exactly 0 more survivability against S4 attacks.
- To-Wound chart and the lack of poison re-rolls makes them worse at killing T3 and T4 targets (going from "2+ rerollable or 3+ rerollable" to "3+, 4+ with the flesh gauntlet")
- Vehicles and Monsters got their wound counts roughly tripled but grot weapons only do 1 Damage, meaning they lost the ability to glance vehicles to death and are a joke against the Monsters that once feared their Instant Death flesh gauntlets.
- The Flesh Gauntlet wastes their S5 against most targets and relies on way too rare mortal wounds for their damage output. (To see what a real Mortal Wound machine in CC looks like, look at the Fulgurite Electro-Priests and compare) It's actually so bad that you're basically always better off with the Cleaver.
- A very harshly increased vulnerability to Battle Cannons, Lascannons, Meltaguns, Hot-Shot Plasmaguns, Autocannons, Lances, and basically every other S<10 multi-damage weapon.

Grots got hit the hardest out of all our units, I think. A shame because lots of people have nice conversions.

Honestly without the formations and with the nerf to grots/talos/cronos, Coven might be the new Wych Cult in terms of effectiveness....

Well about Talos i'm not sure they got really nerfed, did someone tried them to have an idea ?

Quauchtemoc wrote:

Well about Talos i'm not sure they got really nerfed, did someone tried them to have an idea ?

In 7e Talos were AP2 on all attacks and Ichor Injectors wounded on a 2+ with ID on a 6. They did 2.78 unsaved wounds against MEQ (and also against pretty much any non-vehicle/GMC in the game). In 8e they do 0.2 wounds against MEQ. Talos have sadly been slapped pretty damn hard with the nerf bat.

Are you sure about the 0.2 wound ? But yes indeed seems less strong

Edit: My math say a bit less than 2 wound after turn 3, so less strong indeed

Adding to the list of negatives for Grots:
- No more IWND from haemonculi.
- No more Zealot from Haemonculi.
- No more Eternal Warrior from Haemonculi.
- Changes to transports make them drastically slower and worse at getting into combat.
- They can no longer lock units in combat and be immune to shooting.
- However, they can themselves be effectively locked down by combat (unless they kill the entire squad that turn, then even if they fall back they still won't be able to charge that turn).

I think the main point though is that they no longer seem to have any real value over shooting units that are considerably cheaper. Ignoring cover is far less of an issue, and the loss of their reroll and changes to the to-wound chart mean they're not significantly better against low-toughness units. e.g. They used to wound guardsmen on 2s with rerolls, now they wound them on 3s without rerolls. Might as well just use poison weapons that are available on considerably cheaper platforms, which can make use of the speed of their transports and which don't need to leave the safety of those transports to be effective.


With regard to the Talos, I really don't see the appeal. Its attacks went from being AP2 to being a pitiful AP-1, and its single Ichor Injector attack has no AP to speak of. What's more, it now needs a Haemonculus babysitting it just to get back its original toughness, and even that is far less useful due to the new to-wound mechanic (even at T7, lasguns can still wound it and bolters only need 5 to hurt it). And, again, it can no longer tie up units in combat to protect itself from shooting (though it can be tied up with chaff to prevent it from assaulting something valuable).

As with the Grots, I'm just not seeing the appeal.

Quauchtemoc wrote:

Are you sure about the 0.2 wound ? But yes indeed seems less strong

Edit: My math say a bit less than 2 wound after turn 3, so less strong indeed

Sorry, bit disingenuous as the Ichor Injector is only 1 attack and I forgot to add in the remaining attacks for the macro scalpels! Oops! Extra 1.11 wounds against MEQ for those still falls far short of the damage they did in 7e and it only gets worse against better saves and higher toughness, which previously made no difference.

You can put 2 Macro Scalpel, its much better

I was mainly comparing the Ichor Injector as that was the go to armament for Talos in 7e. With 2 x MS I calculate 2.67 damage vs MEQ as opposed to 2.78 wounds in 7e, which doesn't sound like much difference but the chances are that all those wounds will go on the same model in 8e, killing it several times over, whereas in 7e they could kill 2-3 models.

I like the talos.

I've played them in pairs in 2 games now, 2 Splinter cannons and 2 macro-scalpels each.
2x6 S6, -1AP, 2D attacks is strong. 8" is fast enough. PFP is excellent for them.

In both games they walked through a ton of bullets.
They're at full effectiveness even on 1 wound which is boss.
They earned their pts. And even tho 3 died over the 2 games they all made it into cc and did work, i was very happy with them.

In 2 games i did not lose a single skimmer! Not even 1 down to half wounds.
This is because the talos drew 90% of the fire. You have to respect that and the carnage they wrecked was soo satisfying.
I would use them again without hesitation.

I don't think the grots got worse, except by comparison: everything else got better, and they stayed the same.

Jimsolo wrote:

I don't think the grots got worse, except by comparison: everything else got better, and they stayed the same.

Even then - they lost rampage, the lost the Aberration, they lost poison rerolls etc.

But I agree that it's more to do with changes to the core rules and to other models than to changes to the Grots themselves.

Has anyone tried them out yet?

I tried them one game.

I really liked them. They are still hard to take down. Especially with the haemonculus aura and PfP, hit fairly hard and are faster this edition due to move7, re-rolling charges and hitting on 2s from PfP.

I had 3 Grots into a 10 strong seekers of slaanesh unit and they held them off. They even got charged by beserkers and fended them off for awhile. Then my wych unit a succubus got in there and finished off the stragglers

So all these concerns are overrated?