Red Grief in own transports or Flayed Skull?

'ello there.

I've been tinkering with my first list coming back to 40k from a decade long absence.
I'm leaning towards a wych cult with som kabal support for my initial list.
Red grief wyches in Flayed skull transports was the idea.
But...

In Flayed skull transports my wyches could be moved additional 3" in movement phase, then advance the transports. And then cross my fingers that I find proper cover to launch that 2nd turn charge. Wyches pop out, move, advance, charge rolls (rerolls) and see how that works.

But wouldn't it be equally feasible to just use Red Grief transports for the wyches?
The transports could still move their normal range, advance, and then charge (rerolls) the enemy on turn 1 with a shard of luck. On turn 2 the wyches pop out, or the transport is downed and the wyches pop out. Granted, they will possibly be left standig in a hail of shooting unless they can exit the transport and stay close enough to enemy models to avoid being shot. (Is that possible?)

Hm... Writing this out, I think I can already see the advantage of using Flayed Skull transports. Having the reliable 3" move and not having to rely on charging to close the distance, makes it possible to use cover and hopefully keeping the wyches alive a bit longer to reach the enemy.

Well, I look forward to your insightfull comments and usefull advice in my intentions of a wych cult/kabal soup

I think you got it. That extra 3" movement can be key to getting your transport behind that -1 to hit terrain (assuming you are against marines with +1 to hit, since you cant be below -1 to hit total) or the obscuring terrain.

Flayed Skull also allows the Venom to re-roll 1's to hit with its splinter weaponry. It isnt much of a damage increase, it is more to keep the damage consistant (gets rid of those occasional bad rolls).

Also dont forget the free 3" movement when you disembark from the transport! (just remember the whole model MUST remain within 3", unlike previous editions where just an edge of the base needed to be within 3").

If you are playing Wych Cults, you need to plan ahead to the next turn and position in such a way that you can zone out parts of the board with your potential charge range from the transports.

Glad I wasn't completely off
I was actually planning on using raiders for the wyches. Just to have more wyches reaching the enemy and tying up enemy units.

Basically this setup:
1st patrol: Red Grief
HQ: Succubus with TROOP: 8 wyches. In a Flayed skull raider.

TROOP: 10 wyches in flayed skull raider.

2nd patrol: Flayed Skull
HQ: Archon(warlord) in raider with succubus and wyches.

TROOP: 5 kabalites in Red Grief Venom.

TROOP: 5 kabalites in Red Grief Venom.

Alliance of agony strategem for another warlordtrait and units supplied with blasters where possible, disintegrators on the raiders.

In terms of units, that was the idea and my initial starting point.

Would recommend trying out 2x5 instead of one 10 man squad of wyches. More board control and you can launch 2 units out of that transport instead of 1 (generally over 2 turns). More Actions to score those sweet Secondary VPs. More units for screening out enemy deep strike (prevent them from scoring their Secondaries)

It is also harder to clear 2x5 units after the transport gets popped (if you are trying to hold an objective)

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of having 2 separate units in the same transport actually
Still waiting for the models I bought to arrive, and then there's some assembly and painting.
But looking forward to trying it out.

FledglingArchon wrote:

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of having 2 separate units in the same transport actually
Still waiting for the models I bought to arrive, and then there's some assembly and painting.
But looking forward to trying it out.

Just consider that you have to pick 2 different drugs for them. But RedGrief Wyches are there for tarpit, they don't rely so much on drugs (not as CursedBlade/Strife)

Cerve wrote:

FledglingArchon wrote:

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of having 2 separate units in the same transport actually
Still waiting for the models I bought to arrive, and then there's some assembly and painting.
But looking forward to trying it out.

Just consider that you have to pick 2 different drugs for them. But RedGrief Wyches are there for tarpit, they don't rely so much on drugs (not as CursedBlade/Strife)

For tarpitting, movement is useful to get in position, toughness is useful for a longer tarpit and leadership to reduce moral loss.

dumpeal wrote:

Cerve wrote:

FledglingArchon wrote:

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of having 2 separate units in the same transport actually
Still waiting for the models I bought to arrive, and then there's some assembly and painting.
But looking forward to trying it out.

Just consider that you have to pick 2 different drugs for them. But RedGrief Wyches are there for tarpit, they don't rely so much on drugs (not as CursedBlade/Strife)

For tarpitting, movement is useful to get in position, toughness is useful for a longer tarpit and leadership to reduce moral loss.

Yeah but all of those options are't valuable as +1A/+1S, which works only with Cursed Blade or Strife.
With RedGrief, 2x5 are better overall.

Cerve wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

Cerve wrote:

FledglingArchon wrote:

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of having 2 separate units in the same transport actually
Still waiting for the models I bought to arrive, and then there's some assembly and painting.
But looking forward to trying it out.

Just consider that you have to pick 2 different drugs for them. But RedGrief Wyches are there for tarpit, they don't rely so much on drugs (not as CursedBlade/Strife)

For tarpitting, movement is useful to get in position, toughness is useful for a longer tarpit and leadership to reduce moral loss.

Yeah but all of those options are't valuable as +1A/+1S, which works only with Cursed Blade or Strife.
With RedGrief, 2x5 are better overall.

+1A/ +1S is useless for tarpitting. What you want is not to kill the unit. It's to keep them busy.

Honestly, how many Primaris Marines do you think 5 wyches can kill? You would be lucky to take 1 down on the charge, and have 1 wych remaining at the end of their counter-attack. Regardless of your Combat Drug of choice.

fisheyes wrote:

Honestly, how many Primaris Marines do you think 5 wyches can kill? You would be lucky to take 1 down on the charge, and have 1 wych remaining at the end of their counter-attack. Regardless of your Combat Drug of choice.

5 wyches is not a tarpit unit. Anything less than 10 is useless to tarpit, precisely for that reason.

If you play 10 Wyches, using them for tarpit is a waste. They can carry 3 special weapons+1 power sword, they actually CAN do some damage.
From Cursed Blade and +1 S drug, they do 9 S5 attacks with special weapons (both gauntlets and impaler are good), 3 S6 Ap-3, and 18 S5 attacks.
From Strife with +1S, they are 12 S4, 4 S5, and 24 S4.
With ToS and +1S, those are a lot of attacks that wounds veichles at 4+
With Berserker Fugue, even more attacks.
With Slashing Impact you have 10 bodies that brings to you 3-4 MW BEFORE the fight.
In all these cases, 10 Wyches are good for bringing damage AND a bit of tarpit. +1T is a waste on them.

Then, you have to consider Reavers. If you're playing Wychcult you"re probably running them (with Red Grief it's mandatory..). You want +1T on them, not on Wyches.

Wyches are a tarpit unit, but tarpit doesn't mean "staying alive forever". If you want that kind of tarpit, just run PoF, not Wychcult. 5 Wyches are a good tarpit unit for 1 single round. They're good because of their no-retreat rule. Of course you need to be smart with them: if you have to charge 5 Primaris, MAYBE you will likely kill 1 of them with shooting, and THEN you will charge. You need to help the math of the ladies


But first of all: for a patrol you need them, so you can choose: just 5 of them as a tax, and use them for tarpit role. Or 10 of them and use them for a bit of puch.
If you want tarpit units for real, just go PoF Wracks. But T4 on wyches are useless in my opinion....unless you're running 60+ of them, from Cursed Blade, and you're playing 7+ drugs units. In this way you can play in an Ork-ish way, having blobs with T4, 6+/6++/6+++ on shooting, OS, that once in melee they just shine in both toughness and damage dealing.
But that's another story



PS: or you can Spam 5 Wyches units of course. But in that case drugs is worthless, you play them usually spamming Blast Pistols, OS, and Shardnets. And if you need to tarpit someone you will throw 2-3 squads of them into a single target.

I used the Wyches some-what successfully to screen out the back field and ensure small enemy units dont deepstrike/outflank. Wyches will wreck Rippers/Nurglings/etc

Cerve wrote:

Wyches are a tarpit unit, but tarpit doesn't mean "staying alive forever". If you want that kind of tarpit, just run PoF, not Wychcult

PoF coven are not good at tarpitting, because they don't have no escape rule. PoF wracks are good at holding objectives.

Well you can charge something and now they are force to fight or fallback, that in it self is a form of tarpit. Slowing down their actions is tar pitting. Many units can not fallback and charge, or fallback and shoot.

amishprn86 wrote:

Well you can charge something and now they are force to fight or fallback, that in it self is a form of tarpit. Slowing down their actions is tar pitting. Many units can not fallback and charge, or fallback and shoot.

Precisely this.

And more than that, you can actually surround your opponent. 5 Wracks have the same coesion rule of the 8th, so you can still trap models as before. And you can use multiple units and literally surround a unit too. I surrounded a Chimera with 2 Venoms and 5 Wracks few days ago.