Grots vs Talos

Hey there,

I was considering a large block of something scary to rush up the center of the board. Seems like it might distract fire from squishier targets on the fringes. But in order for such a force to work synergistically with the rest of the army, it has to be relatively fast so they can't just deal with it on Turn 2-3 after shooting down all my raiders/venoms/reavers.

10 Grotesques +Urien, in WWP
10 Grotesques+ Urien, move, advance, ?fire and fade foward
3 Talos + Urien, Move, advance, fire and fade forward.
30 Wracks + Urien or a Heamunculus-Clearly the most attacks, definitely the slowest, works poorly with strategems, not multiwound so less likely to distract heavy weapons, but they are troops.

All are about 400pts.

First question: Can you fire and fade something that doesn't have a gun?

Grots have more attacks, more wounds, and are probably sturdier (100 pts buys you 12 T6 4++ wounds, 100 pts in talos only buys you 7 T7, 4++ wounds), but you lose out on the ranged weapons.

Has anyone had any luck with a coven heavy-list like that, possibly using them as a distraction or a must-deal-with mid-board threat?

Frowny wrote:

First question: Can you fire and fade something that doesn't have a gun?

No. You can only Fire and Fade if you actually shoot something, so if you have no gun (or are out of range of your Liquifier) you're out of luck.

Yeah problem with fire&fade is you're going to get yourself outside of the haemonculus aura which is not great.

I have limited experience with coven units, I only just ran my first talos this past weekend and it didn't do a whole lot. I can definetly say though that it felt slow, by the time it was up in range to assault anything the game was already swinging in my favor, and my opponent didn't waste any firepower on it as he was much more scared of raiders full of warriors and ravagers. WWP might be a good way to bring them in, you may not make your charge on the turn they show up but you can drop them right up in your opponent's face where he's going to have to deal with them. I usually hate charging from deep strike, but grots can actually fail their charge and not die immediately unless your opponent throws a lot of firepower on them.

10 sounds like a very big unit to deep strike though. I'd go down to somewhere around 6-8.

Whats about:

Heamonculus with Mask
Urien
4 Grots

all in a Raider?

385 points

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Yeah problem with fire&fade is you're going to get yourself outside of the haemonculus aura which is not great.

This isn’t really true. You can still keep them in range of the aura due to the Talos base sizes, you don’t even have to advance if you don’t want to.

Given the gun restriction, you can try a trio of Talos rushing forward with a Haemonculus (and maybe Cronos?) behind. To avoid being outflanked and getting the Haemonculus sniped out, you can anchor this formation on both sides with a Raider of Wracks or Grots. The raiders would also get the T bonus, so it’s one big beefy block.

Agree, Talos with Fire&Fade move of 8+D6+7", where Haemi is 7"+D6". If you have 3 Talos you can just leave one behind two and keep the 6" buff-range from the Haemi.

The Talos uses the large flying base, right? So that’s 2.34 inches, plus the 6” aura range means you still catch them as long as they didn’t advance further. Move he Haemonculus first, the Talos can fly over him now.

Why don’t more people run grot mobs? I’ve run two groups of 5 or 1 group of 10 recently and it is great

Prophets of flesh, the reroll 1s for invuln warlord trait and lightning fast make them absolute monsters. They don’t even have to make the charge because then they are a great distraction for all your paper boats

RedRegicide wrote:

Why don’t more people run grot mobs?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's because the models are a pain to get hold of or convert. Buying a unit of ten straight from GW would cost £150 and consist of ten copies of the exact same model...

I’d counter with crypt horrid but those are Only a little cheaper before conversion costs. That’s a fair point

Putrid Blightkings with Talos spare parts are just perfect. I love mine anyway.

RedRegicide wrote:

Why don’t more people run grot mobs?

I think plenty of people do! I ran 2 units of 4 in the LGT, each with a Succubus and a Haem/Urien, in Red Grief Raiders. They were my star unit in pretty much every game.

Can't use Lightning fast on Haemonculus Coven...
If they killed your raider you were losing at least 1...not good.

UlrikTheSlayer wrote:

Can't use Lightning fast on Haemonculus Coven...

Not sure what you're saying here? I wasn't suggesting that.

Quote :

If they killed your raider you were losing at least 1...not good.

1 in 6 chance of explosion followed by 1 in 6 chance of a death and I have CPs to re-roll if needed. Not really something that bothered me.

You can't use lightning fast reflexes if you don't shoot. And you can't shoot if no enemies are in range. Shooting is a requirement to trigger the strat

colinsherlow wrote:

You can't use lightning fast reflexes if you don't shoot. And you can't shoot if no enemies are in range.  Shooting is a requirement to trigger the strat

Are you thinking of Fire and Fade here?

RedRegicide wrote:

Why don’t more people run grot mobs?

I can only speak for myself, but I've never liked pumping a lot of points into a single, large unit.

I'm also not a fan of having big, unwieldy blobs of infantry in my DE.

RedRegicide wrote:

Why don’t more people run grot mobs? I’ve run two groups of 5 or 1 group of 10 recently and it is great

Prophets of flesh, the reroll 1s for invuln warlord trait and lightning fast make them absolute monsters. They don’t even have to make the charge because then they are a great distraction for all your paper boats

Its reroll 1s of FNP not the invuns btw

If you wanna run Grots on Raiders, bring in an Ur-Ghul each.

Anyway I'm another one who love footslogging Grotesques.

RedRegicide wrote:

Why don’t more people run grot mobs? I’ve run two groups of 5 or 1 group of 10 recently and it is great

Prophets of flesh, the reroll 1s for invuln warlord trait and lightning fast make them absolute monsters. They don’t even have to make the charge because then they are a great distraction for all your paper boats

i'm planning to do this as soon as i can afford to do it. i've currently got no coven other than two old school haemonculi, i was leaning toward 3 groups of 3 to fill out a coven detachment. that said i hadnt thought of putting them in the WW so now im wondering if getting two talos is worth the points sink.

Honestly, it depends on the match up, Talos are more of Jack of all Trades, they have FLy so can attack Flyers, they can have good guns, they can have 2D melee, they can have 10 attacks each instead, so you are paying to do more roles, where
Grots have 1 role, Anti-infantry. Grots for general anti-infantry aka against 0 tanks, 0 flyers, 0 T8, are much better, they have more wounds, same AP with more attacks so the 2D doesnt matter (15 attacks vs 6, or 15A vs 10A).

Tl;Dr Grots are better Anti-Infantry, Talos are Jack of all Trades

Burnage wrote:

colinsherlow wrote:

You can't use lightning fast reflexes if you don't shoot. And you can't shoot if no enemies are in range.  Shooting is a requirement to trigger the strat

Are you thinking of Fire and Fade here?

Yes! I went full special!

Grots for chaff, Talos for heavy stuff. That is why I don't care for the chainflail and just go double scalpel.

I prefer the Grots on foot, they move fast enough, and look scary so draw the enemy's firepower. The amount of fire they absorb is actually more valuable than any kills they inflict.

Quote :

If they killed your raider you were losing at least 1...not good.

1 in 6 chance of explosion followed by 1 in 6 chance of a death and I have CPs to re-roll if needed. Not really something that bothered me.[/quote]

The Raider don't have to explode for you to loose models, so it's 1 in 6 for each model transported.

Rashkasha wrote:

Quote :

If they killed your raider you were losing at least 1...not good.

1 in 6 chance of explosion followed by 1 in 6 chance of a death and I have CPs to re-roll if needed. Not really something that bothered me.

The Raider don't have to explode for you to loose models, so it's 1 in 6 for each model transported.[/quote]

Oops, yeah. You're right. Brain fart there...