Is there any reason to take a pain engine?

Quote :

I see them both as good primaris and bike killers.
Leave the TEQ to the dissies.

5 Hellions vs Primaris Marines

10 Attacks-> 6.66 Hits -> 3.33 Wounds -> 1.11 Unsaved -> One dead Primaris.

A little eh, but that's not factoring in drugs yet.

+1 S = 1.5 Unsaved Wounds.
+1 WS = 1.38 Unsaved
+1 Attack = 1.66 Unsaved

So generally, you're killing maybe 1-2 Marines a turn.

Compared to Incubi
15 attacks -> 10 Hits -> 5 Wounds -> 4.16 Unsaved -> Two dead Primaris. So a reliable 50-100% damage output for 5 more points. Not to mention increased versatility against regular MEQs.

Now let's move to the Talos.

6 attacks -> 4 Hits -> 2.66 Wounds -> 1.33 Unsaved -> One dead Primaris.

That while costing 36 points more than Incubi. Either option has really negligible damage output by comparison.

In defense to hellions they are faster than the incubi and can shoot.
Sadly, the poor Talos is undefendable.

The thing is that once you start comparing it to its counterparts in other armies the Talos becomes a joke. Be it a wraithlord, or a dreadnaught, or a hell brute, or a carnifex, or a Killer Kan. All of these have melee anti-vehicle options, generally with massive damage, AP, Strength boosts or all of the above (EG the Dreadnaught power fist), while also having excellent ranged options and survivability. Once taken out of a vacuum and placed against one of these death machines the Talos really doesn't compete, as no matter the category it is put up against its alternative army equivalents it gives a poor showing.

My reason for taking pain engines is because I love the Drukhari Coven. Especially the pain engines.

The coven units just need some very minor tweaks to be really good, but not op

Yknow though I feel like I've been kinda hard on the Talos considering how much I love to run Venoms...

For 30pts more you get something that shoots about as well as a Venom and that can fight in combat. It also is more durable than a Venom.

1 Talos as the dedicated cc unit isn't going to cut it these days just like no one would run a list with just one Venom. I want to see the guy who owns ten of these things run two Spearhead detachments of 3 Talos and 2 Talos, 1 Cronos, respectively, at 2k. That's less than 750pts and you still have tons and tons of room for AT.

Maybe Talos spam is the AI unit we've been waiting for and we just need to accept that the days of eating MEQ are behind us.

lcfr wrote:

At Rapid Fire range it kills one MEQ and in combat it kills a little more than 1.

Why exactly does anyone need to pay attention to it when they see it on the battlefield and know how much of a schmuck unit it is?

If he ignores them I will make him pay but it hasn't come up yet.
Nobody wants a pair of talos charging them turn 2.

I'm not saying talos are tournament worthy but 95% of games (wild guess) aren't at tournaments.
Their fun and I have made them work.

lcfr wrote:

Maybe Talos spam is the AI unit we've been waiting for and we just need to accept that the days of eating MEQ are behind us.

Eating MEQ is half the job of a AI unit. You won't be facing only GEQ spam ^^ And even against GEQ, the Taloi lack the amount of attacks needed to cram through a horde of conscript. 6 attacks for 100 points is just not enough.

He is bad imo, not even worth it at all, not enough melee or shoot for the points.

Ignore me.  

It's not just that I think units of 2 talos are great. I'm also having success with MSU reavers.

The role I see them having now is that of a situational battering ram.
A unit of two or three with a couple of liquifiers and stinger pods (both assault, and the pod strong enough to sort of scare vehicles a little), could potentially advance turn one and still shoot.
Then, if they get in range they can, together with any other AI you have in range, work on clearing out any chaff screens present.
If they create a large enough gap, turn 2 they can potentially charge the long range support units in the back field that don't hit back particularly hard. (devs, tanks, oblits, heavy weapons teams).

They probably won't kill it, but unless what they charge has fly, they can't shoot when they fall back, and since the Talos is pretty tough, it should survive to be able to shoot, and charge same target again next turn, tying it up for another round. With some careful positioning and pile ins they might be able to tie up a large parking lot or gun line for several turns.

If the other player ignores them, they will possibly tie up his back field for most of the game.
If he wants to try and remove them with shooting, the rest of your army gets free rein for a turn or two or three.
If he sends his elite CC units after them, you have dictated their whereabouts and hopefully pulled them too far out of position to do anything more useful for a while.

In short, they seem to me best as board control units.

They will struggle in hammer and anvil deployment until we can deep strike them again (I'm an optimist). Orks and any other army that don't usually have a lot of stuff in their backfields, depending on their list, are probably not going to be particularly impressed.

Good thing is that most of those things that have few units in their back line (orks, demons etc) often also are the ones that have units with worse saves and sometimes even multiple wounds (bikers, nobs, demons?) Thus the Talos is better at against those armies in a fair fight then against other armies.

Scrz wrote:

If the other player ignores them, they will possibly tie up his back field for most of the game.
If he wants to try and remove them with shooting, the rest of your army gets free rein for a turn or two or three.
If he sends his elite CC units after them, you have dictated their whereabouts and hopefully pulled them too far out of position to do anything more useful for a while.

In short, they seem to me best as board control units.

Well put good sir. My experience exactly.

Painjunky wrote:

Scrz wrote:

If the other player ignores them, they will possibly tie up his back field for most of the game.
If he wants to try and remove them with shooting, the rest of your army gets free rein for a turn or two or three.
If he sends his elite CC units after them, you have dictated their whereabouts and hopefully pulled them too far out of position to do anything more useful for a while.

In short, they seem to me best as board control units.

Well put good sir. My experience exactly.

But you can have 7-8 RWF's for the same price (updated pricing) and thats what i do

So all in all its up to you and what you like.

|Meavar wrote:

Good thing is that most of those things that have few units in their back line (orks, demons etc) often also are the ones that have units with worse saves and sometimes even multiple wounds (bikers, nobs, demons?) Thus the Talos is better at against those armies in a fair fight then against other armies.

Because who plays Ork Lootas right ? ^^

[quote="amishprn86"]

Painjunky wrote:

But you can have 7-8 RWF's for the same price (updated pricing) and thats what i do

So all in all its up to you and what you like.

Agree that it's up to you and your preferences. But with the updated/FAQed costs on the RWF, I tend to lean toward the Talos. The RWF stand very little chance of killing anything other than conscripts, bugs, grots, etc, whereas the Talos (though uninspiring it may be) can actually hurt stuff. I know, 4+ on shooting feels terrible, since we're so used to 3+ kabs. But 12 poison shots is still reasonably able to hurt some things. 2 Heat lances can dish out some serious damage to big stuff. And then in CC, claws and liquifiers can do some real damage, too.

It is up to what you want. And Talos are for certain uninspiring at this point. But considering we have very few tanky CC options... They are at least another option. Grots Grots Grots get boring boring boring. And for those of not specifically min/maxing, Talos can be tons of fun, bring some seriously cool looking models to the table, and just be, well, comforting. They are our dreadnoughts, as it were.

HaeSuse wrote:

But with the updated/FAQed costs on the RWF, I tend to lean toward the Talos. The RWF stand very little chance of killing anything other than conscripts, bugs, grots, etc, whereas the Talos (though uninspiring it may be) can actually hurt stuff.

This is 8th edition, man. RWF's are tearing Land Raiders appart.
Your Talos will never reach one to begin with. He is arguaby less resilient than its price in flocks, and the flocks hit harder.

Mppqlmd wrote:

This is 8th edition, man. RWF's are tearing Land Raiders appart.

Really. How many flocks to kill a Land Raider?

Mppqlmd wrote:

Your Talos will never reach one to begin with. He is arguaby less resilient than its price in flocks, and the flocks hit harder.

Are you including the cost of the beast master or other LD buffs they need?

1 Talos may not make it but will soak AT fire that would otherwise be lighting up our skimmers.

It takes 64 flocks attacks to damage a land raider. Now that they have doubled in cost, this is not very efficient.
But the point is there, it's almost as hard for a RWF to damage a SM and a LR.

Here are my arguments for taking pain engines. I built eight of these a while ago (and have four more in the bitz box) and so am invested in them. Perhaps I am just trying to force them to work. All of these arguments assume that you spam them. Reasons:
1. Dakka... they put out as many shots as a venom and while they're not hitting as well, in the end it is the same because if the venom moves its hitting on 4s too. The diffrence is that you want the talos to move forward while you want your venoms to stay back (which makes the venom's cannons less useful).
2. Distraction. As I am running them en masse, I think that they make a good distraction. I am running a minimum of two squads of three. A 21 wound T7 unit that throws out 18x Str6 attacks that hit on 2s most of the time is big distraction. The real question is what are you trying to distract from...?
3. Durable. There are few things in the DE list that are T7. Also at 3+/5+/6 he has a better save than a venom. It's strange that I am comparing these things to venoms. Also, if you have a cronos in tow, you might be able to repair wounds. The sad fact of the matter is that the talos is one of the few things in our list that won't simply get blown off the table turn one... and that's a benefit.
4. Foot print. Three (or six) of these beasties, with their obligatory haemonculi in tow, set up a pretty big foot print on the table. Even units that can take a hit from these things (like vehicles) will back up because they don't want to get bogged down. It's more difficult to avoid a unit of talos than you'd think because they take up so much real-estate. Knowing that, you can start to get your opponent to move places he might not otherwise do.

That's what I've got right now. RB

Rancid blade wrote:

if the venom moves its hitting on 4s too.

How so ? The SC is a rapid fire weapon.

Rancid blade wrote:

2. Distraction.  As I am running them en masse, I think that they make a good distraction.  I am running a minimum of two squads of three.  A 21 wound T7 unit that throws out 18x Str6 attacks that hit on 2s most of the time is big distraction.  The real question is what are you trying to distract from...?   

The thing is though, if you run them at minimum cost (with Haywire), then they're ~120pts each. 6 of them is 720pts. If you're playing 1500pts then that's almost half your army spent on distractions.

Does that not seem a bit excessive?

Rancid blade wrote:

3. Durable.  There are few things in the DE list that are T7.  Also at 3+/5+/6 he has a better save than a venom.  It's strange that I am comparing these things to venoms.  Also, if you have a cronos in tow, you might be able to repair wounds.  The sad fact of the matter is that the talos is one of the few things in our list that won't simply get blown off the table turn one... and that's a benefit.  

I'm not really a fan of putting low-durability and high-durability units in the same list (unless the low-durability ones have some means to avoid being shot).

In theory, your opponents will spend all their time shooting the high-durability units, whilst the low-durability glass-cannons do the real work.

In practise (when you play against people who haven't undergone amateur lobotomies), your opponents will just shoot the fragile stuff and largely ignore the high-durability stuff. Doing this will have a much more marked impact on your firepower and also your mobility.

The Shredder wrote:

when you play against people who haven't undergone amateur lobotomies

Well, the Imperium makes up for the most part of the W40k fanbase ^^

I'm going to try running 3 in my next game. I definitely don't see them as damage dealers anymore, but they look like they could be great at disruption.

I have 6 Talos and 3 Cronos, i cant wait for DE codex to see if they improve.

Web way portals coming back could improve them by solving their biggest weakness : the fact that they are not a threat until turn 3 (at least).
Deep striking Taloi turn 1 could be pretty cool.