Tantalus - Worth it?

What is everyone's experience with the Tantalus? Is it worth 400pts? Sure transporting 16 models is cool, but it feels expensive to me still. Does anyone find these useful? Or is it just something to take in a casual game because it's a cool model?

It's a death-star unit. You need to be careful not to put too many eggs in one basket, because the Tantalus WILL draw a crap of fire. If you don't keep that in mind when planning your strategy, it's a huge problem. However, I do think that you can also use this to your advantage. Send the thing at full speed (which is 32" I believe with his sails) right into your opponent, and I'll promise nothing is going to pay attention to your other units anymore.
It's expensive and tricky to play. But I definitely wouldn't call it a complete waste of points.

I disagree. It's not a death star. Not survivable enough for that (Yet I never tried with artist of flesh). Dont expect it to survive more than 1 turn. It's a drop bomb. You deep strike it and try to kill for 400 points of ennemy model with it, and use the fact your ennemy will focus kill it to advance your fragile units.

In Apoc its worth it. Otherwise its extremely overcosted. It dies in 1 turn vs almost every army.

And its not a DS at all, sure you can add in 16 riders but 16 is an option not a must.

It is a Transport that can go in any <Kabal>, <Wych Cult> or <Coven> detachment you have. The only real use that I can see is to benefit from the new <Coven> traits like Dark Technomancy

Full disclosure, I have never used a Tantalus, and am a semi-casual player

Not tier S but definitely tier A. But it needs a quite amount of skill to be played correctly. It's all about deepstrike it (99% of the time) and playing around threat levels between you and your opponent (which is something that Drukhari usually do more than other armies so nothing new here).

DT: big beta-strike
AOTF: surprisingly durable (remember to keep 1 haemonculus within 6" from him if)
BH: trigger nice with Ravagers and the Writ. Huge beta-strike with 4 boats on DS
The Coven with Exoteric Killing from.Afar: the best sniper in the game probably
Cult of Strife: Shoot Twice killing stuff! Huge Beta-Strike
RedGrief: Faster like an aircraft, and he can charge after

Some tips:
-Remember to charge with that thing. It is huge, it spam MortalWounds (sniping even) and blocks an huge part of the board;
-Use his load (except in mind games, see next point). Both Scourges and Hellions can be embarked inside.
-Deoloy it on turn 1 ONLY if you're AOTF AND if you're going first AND if you're playing it as a bait (i.e. a lot of Raiders with melee stuff+it empty. Or 3 Rava+it. Force your oppo making hard choices) AND if your oppo doesn't have an oustanding first turn shooting phase (ex facing some Orks, BA, some Marines etc. -keep in mind that you can play around ranges, and that thing is fast enough to be deployed touching your board and join to the battle the same turn).
Otherwise, DS him.

Forgot about the stratagem that allows Coven units to target Characters, good call @Cerve

fisheyes wrote:

Forgot about the stratagem that allows Coven units to target Characters, good call @Cerve

But.. you could just take 3 Reapers for almost the same price and have double the wounds and the same ability to shoot characters.

The Tantalus for me is better as Wych, it can turn 1 charge (36" movement and charge), so turn 1 move, shoot, charge. Which how big it is you can "pile in" into many units and you can force multi units to fallback, many which might not be able to shoot and falling back.

For me the Tantalus is a 1 hit wonder, you take it to be scary and to be a bullet sponge, so might as well go all out with it.

Cerve wrote:

DT: big beta-strike
AOTF: surprisingly durable (remember to keep 1 haemonculus within 6" from him if)
BH: trigger nice with Ravagers and the Writ. Huge beta-strike with 4 boats on DS
The Coven with Exoteric Killing from.Afar: the best sniper in the game probably
Cult of Strife: Shoot Twice killing stuff! Huge Beta-Strike
RedGrief: Faster like an aircraft, and he can charge after


-Deoloy it on turn 1 ONLY if you're AOTF AND if you're going first AND if you're playing it as a bait (i.e. a lot of Raiders with melee stuff+it empty. Or 3 Rava+it. Force your oppo making hard choices) AND if your oppo doesn't have an oustanding first turn shooting phase (ex facing some Orks, BA, some Marines etc. -keep in mind that you can play around ranges, and that thing is fast enough to be deployed touching your board and join to the battle the same turn).
Otherwise, DS him.

Noob Alert ... <lol> Can someone help me understand these acronyms ?

BH - probably means Black Heart. But DT and AOTF ?!?!?!?

Grimoire wrote:

Cerve wrote:

...

Noob Alert ... <lol> Can someone help me understand these acronyms ?
BH - probably means Black Heart.  But DT and  AOTF ?!?!?!?

DT- Dark Technomancers
AOTF - Artists of the Flesh

Thanks !

Another question if I may ? OP says 400 points for the Big Boat but according to the FW Index it's less and apparently all the weapons are zero cost. Am I reading this right ?

@Grimoire the Forge World index will be seriously out of date - the most recent Chapter Approved will always have the most up to date points values for all models.

It is currently 400pts, a lot of units have 0 point costed wargear, this is normal.