Obsessions for a Tantalus

With the recent FAQ to give tantalus PfP, I'm curious what other people think are effective obsessions for the tantalus.

Prior to the FAQ, I figured that Cursed Blade was the only useful option. With the recent change, Black Heart is looking really juicy and if not better then probably equivalent.

Oddly, even though Dark Technomancers is generally terrible now, it still is great on FW platforms. Dark Technomancers is bad on every codex unit except Chronos (and there it is just okay)

Reapers go to S8 with +1 to wound and D3+4 damage. This is extremely threatening to the dreadnought heavy lists which are on the rise. Or, they can do the dispersed profile to throw out 2D6 blast shots at AP-1 and D2. And it's only a single gun, so if you roll terribly then you can take, at most, 3 wounds.

The Tantalus actually uses DT well too. GW decided that it's best we don't have any good routes to damage 2 or 3, but they forgot about Tantalus or I'm sure they'd have done a better job of killing the FW options too. Since they forgot to ruin these units, enjoy str 6 with +1 to wound and D3. You're still paying at least 75 points more than you ought to, but it fills a hole that exists nowhere else.

Dark Technomancer, as a whole, is pretty terrible now. You're giving up unique WL traits, unique relics, unique strats, and still taking an all consuming obsession that is utterly worthless on anything that isn't a heavy support choice.

But I think a patrol of Drazhar, 5 naked wracks, and 2 Reapers is decent. Or a spearhead of Drazhar, Tantalus, and 2x Reapers is useful too. Beyond DT, the Tantalus is just wildly, absurdly overpriced and should be shelved.

Black heart gives it advance and charge, ignore negatives in melee shooting, and earlier if its alive counts as double for degraded. The 1 free re-roll is not bad too. Poison Tongue to redeploy it.

sekac wrote:

Oddly, even though Dark Technomancers is generally terrible now, it still is great on FW platforms. Dark Technomancers is bad on every codex unit except Chronos (and there it is just okay)

Reapers go to S8 with +1 to wound and D3+4 damage. This is extremely threatening to the dreadnought heavy lists which are on the rise. Or, they can do the dispersed profile to throw out 2D6 blast shots at AP-1 and D2. And it's only a single gun, so if you roll terribly then you can take, at most, 3 wounds.

The Tantalus actually uses DT well too. GW decided that it's best we don't have any good routes to damage 2 or 3, but they forgot about Tantalus or I'm sure they'd have done a better job of killing the FW options too. Since they forgot to ruin these units, enjoy str 6 with +1 to wound and D3. You're still paying at least 75 points more than you ought to, but it fills a hole that exists nowhere else.

Dark Technomancer, as a whole, is pretty terrible now. You're giving up unique WL traits, unique relics, unique strats, and still taking an all consuming obsession that is utterly worthless on anything that isn't a heavy support choice.

But I think a patrol of Drazhar, 5 naked wracks, and 2 Reapers is decent. Or a spearhead of Drazhar, Tantalus, and 2x Reapers is useful too. Beyond DT, the Tantalus is just wildly, absurdly overpriced and should be shelved.

I would have thought DT was awful on vehicles with multiple shots since any 1s to hit make it suffer d3 mortals, the Tantalus has s8 guns aswell not s5.

So, nerfing DT has ruined whole units! Because now, they are absolutely useless!!
Their stats were so awful, their rules so lousy, only DT made them at least playable!!!
Its such a shame! Now there is only one last thing to do:
Burn the Drukhari Codex and play AdMech! Problem solved!!

Haha kind of dramatic! Just saying DT is probably not worth taking anymore

I wasnt aiming at you.

sekac wrote:

GW decided that it's best we don't have any good routes to damage 2 or 3, but they forgot about Tantalus or I'm sure they'd have done a better job of killing the FW options too. Since they forgot to ruin these units, enjoy str 6 with +1 to wound and D3. You're still paying at least 75 points more than you ought to, but it fills a hole that exists nowhere else.

No way to get D2? Are you kidding? GW just got rid of hovering flamethrowers with a fixed D2. So its ruined?
And now, that this is gone, there is a hole, that dont exist in any other army?
What other army has hoverplatforms with 14" movement, where the guys can shoot out of to their hearts content?
With 4D6 autohits per Safaribus and a fixed damage of 2?
Right! None.

I think, you're just pissed, because your autowin abillity just circled the drain...

Gizamaluke wrote:

I would have thought DT was awful on vehicles with multiple shots since any 1s to hit make it suffer d3 mortals, the Tantalus has s8 guns aswell not s5.

It's only D3 mortals per gun, not per 1 rolled. So it takes, at most D3 mortal wounds.

Zenotaph wrote:

No way to get D2? Are you kidding? GW just got rid of hovering flamethrowers with a fixed D2. So its ruined?
And now, that this is gone, there is a hole, that dont exist in any other army?
What other army has hoverplatforms with 14" movement, where the guys can shoot out of to their hearts content?
With 4D6 autohits per Safaribus and a fixed damage of 2?
Right! None.

I think, you're just pissed, because your autowin abillity just circled the drain...

For someone who consistently demonstrates a lack of understanding about 40k you are also really quick to be condescending. Pretty terrible combo. "I may not know what I'm talking about, but at least I'm an ass about it!"

If you read carefully, you'll see I didn't actually say there is no way to get damage 2, I said there are no good routes to it. When you MUST get into combat to kill primaris marines and equivalent, your options are very narrow. The ONLY other platform in the entire codex is a ravager with dissies. Unfortunately, there are a lot of guns that quickly kill ravagers, it gives up 2 points on BTD because of its useless 11th wound, and it prevents you from taking WWSWF. It makes your opponent's choices with secondaries easier and makes yours harder.

Pointing out that no other army has Raiders with 2 squads of 5 wracks with liquifiers, and therefore we shouldn't have it either is idiotic. We don't have contemptor or redemptor dreads, therefore space marines shouldn't have them either. Every army should have identical units, right?

I'm pissed for 3 reasons.

1) GW and playtesters obviously did a horrible job in the first place and made an obsession that is bad on most every unit that can take it except liquifier guns where it's way too good. That's why wracks were the ONLY coven unit in the competitive scene.

2) Rather than spend any amount of time figuring out how to dial it back to a reasonable level, they did the laziest possible thing they could think of. It's still all consuming so it's like one of the main obsessions except you give up a unique WL trait, relic, and strat. Your HQ gets almost no value out of it, your troops get almost no value out of it, your elites can't use it, there is no coven fast attack, talos shouldn't use it, and Chronos can kind of use it. That's worth being all consuming, right? GW: Yep!

3) The only competitive option for coven has been removed from the game. Competitive lists will feature at most 6 or 7 coven models. Either 5 wracks and a haemonculus as a tax for Realspace Raiders (which is much better now that 3x patrol has been nerfed) or 5 wracks and Reapers/Tantalus in a patrol because DT is still decent on FW platforms.

DT liqs needed to be addressed, but removing coven from the competitive scene entirely was a stupid and lazy way to solve it.

Now do you understand things a little bit better?

Gizamaluke wrote:

I would have thought DT was awful on vehicles with multiple shots since any 1s to hit make it suffer d3 mortals, the Tantalus has s8 guns aswell not s5.

It is only once per gun so 2d6 shots lets say I rolled 12 ones, you would only take 1d3 mortals. that is why I still like disintegrators on DT raiders.

DT Liquifiers were simply bonkers. If Coven becomes "unplayable" because of this, it's not the result of the nerf, but bad internal balance of Coven units. I don't like how it was addressed either, but it's an improvement for the game as a whole.

So far, there was simply no reason to take any other Coven units and I doubt people have exhausted the full potential of Covens yet. Liquifiers are far away from being a terrible choice either.

sekac wrote:

For someone who consistently demonstrates a lack of understanding about 40k you are also really quick to be condescending. Pretty terrible combo. "I may not know what I'm talking about, but at least I'm an ass about it!"

Oh, that hurts. Well, I did fine the last 12-15 years, I got my share of wins and losses.
And I did that all without abusing glitches.
But hey, everyone has the right to his/her own opinion. If it sounds condescending then I apologize.
That was, by no means my intention. Well, maybe a little bit. A very little...

sekac wrote:

If you read carefully, you'll see I didn't actually say there is no way to get damage 2, I said there are no good routes to it. When you MUST get into combat to kill primaris marines and equivalent, your options are very narrow. The ONLY other platform in the entire codex is a ravager with dissies. Unfortunately, there are a lot of guns that quickly kill ravagers, it gives up 2 points on BTD because of its useless 11th wound, and it prevents you from taking WWSWF. It makes your opponent's choices with secondaries easier and makes yours harder.

Splintercannons, Missiles, Nightscythes, Hexrifles and the Dissies. And why do you have to shoot with D2? There are always others ways.

sekac wrote:

Pointing out that no other army has Raiders with 2 squads of 5 wracks with liquifiers, and therefore we shouldn't have it either is idiotic. We don't have contemptor or redemptor dreads, therefore space marines shouldn't have them either. Every army should have identical units, right?

Thats not, what I said and meant. And I'm pretty sure, you know that very well, don't you?

sekac wrote:

I'm pissed for 3 reasons.

1) GW and playtesters obviously did a horrible job in the first place and made an obsession that is bad on most every unit that can take it except liquifier guns where it's way too good. That's why wracks were the ONLY coven unit in the competitive scene.

2) Rather than spend any amount of time figuring out how to dial it back to a reasonable level, they did the laziest possible thing they could think of. It's still all consuming so it's like one of the main obsessions except you give up a unique WL trait, relic, and strat. Your HQ gets almost no value out of it, your troops get almost no value out of it, your elites can't use it, there is no coven fast attack, talos shouldn't use it, and Chronos can kind of use it. That's worth being all consuming, right? GW: Yep!

3) The only competitive option for coven has been removed from the game. Competitive lists will feature at most 6 or 7 coven models. Either 5 wracks and a haemonculus as a tax for Realspace Raiders (which is much better now that 3x patrol has been nerfed) or 5 wracks and Reapers/Tantalus in a patrol because DT is still decent on FW platforms.

DT liqs needed to be addressed, but removing coven from the competitive scene entirely was a stupid and lazy way to solve it.

Now do you understand things a little bit better?

OK, I understand your points here. Actually, I did the whole time. I just dont agree.

sekac wrote:

1) GW and playtesters obviously did a horrible job in the first place and made an obsession that is bad on most every unit that can take it except liquifier guns where it's way too good. That's why wracks were the ONLY coven unit in the competitive scene.

Be mad, be pissed, that is ok and your right. Nobody can or should tell you how to feel. I would like you to think about where your rage is directed though, specifically in the quote above. I would lay no to very little blame on the play-testers. Do you really believe that Brad Chester, Art of War, Tabletop Titans, or Tabletop Tactics would not have noticed that and made mention of that? Some of these guys had never even seen some of the rules from the released codex. IE they were never in the Playtest docs they got. It is also why the Splintermind pod cast review was so down on the book. I believe that they recorded them way before the actual release of the Codex based off the last Playtest doc they got. I think with this Codex they changed a lot of the rules after the play-test was over, more so than previous books. Hell Lawrence from TTT said that they never even saw d3+3 damage on the darklance during the test.

I will put full blame on GW for any or all of this because your play-test is only good if you provide the rules to be tested and if you are willing to make changes based on the feedback of those rules.

Dalamar wrote:

sekac wrote:

1) GW and playtesters obviously did a horrible job in the first place and made an obsession that is bad on most every unit that can take it except liquifier guns where it's way too good. That's why wracks were the ONLY coven unit in the competitive scene.

Be mad, be pissed, that is ok and your right.  Nobody can or should tell you how to feel.  I would like you to think about where your rage is directed though, specifically in the quote above.  I would lay no to very little blame on the play-testers.  Do you really believe that Brad Chester, Art of War, Tabletop Titans, or Tabletop Tactics would not have noticed that and made mention of that?  Some of these guys had never even seen some of the rules from the released codex. IE they were never in the Playtest docs they got.  It is also why the Splintermind pod cast review was so down on the book.  I believe that they recorded them way before the actual release of the Codex based off the last Playtest doc they got. I think with this Codex they changed a lot of the rules after the play-test was over, more so than previous books.  Hell Lawrence from TTT said that they never even saw d3+3 damage on the darklance during the test.

I will put full blame on GW for any or all of this because your play-test is only good if you provide the rules to be tested and if you are willing to make changes based on the feedback of those rules.  

Fair enough, I don't have enough insight to criticize any one in particular, or any group. But the playesting process for covens was poor. They had 1 good option and it was something that stood out immediately and was so good it was a crutch. There is no way it snuck through unnoticed. DT liquifiers was 100% a choice GW made, and maybe you're right, they hid that from their playtesters.

Regardless of how that happened, it is gone. Fine. But that doesn't make anything else more viable in its stead. Covens just won't get taken as anything more than a tax because there's no reason to. The entire coven subfaction just has very poor internal balance.

Anyway, this is all getting pretty off-topic, but DT remains viable on the FW vehicles and only requires a 40 point tax of objective squatters/backfield screeners.

And luckily the FW Vehicles arent superheavy, so no extra CP to spend.

lol the fact that we can still take 10 Venoms with Splinter cannons makes this arguing funny.

I field some. Ok, not quite that much, but its a lot of munitions flying around. Very funny with Poisoned Tongue.

Dalamar wrote:

Gizamaluke wrote:

I would have thought DT was awful on vehicles with multiple shots since any 1s to hit make it suffer d3 mortals, the Tantalus has s8 guns aswell not s5.

It is only once per gun so 2d6 shots lets say I rolled 12 ones, you would only take 1d3 mortals.  that is why I still like disintegrators on DT raiders.

I hadn't realized that! A potential of 36 damage at the potential cost of 2d3 mortals is a pretty good trade-off. As a distraction, that sounds very appealing if you can make it survive longer than the first turn of shooting.

I always figured that melee was the best way to protect the giant boat, since it can't be hidden. The earlier it fights the better. IMO, cursed blade made the most sense prior to FAQ because of the reflecting saves (unmodified 6's, so it still counted even if AP tore through the armor). With the 6++ save, it's gotten more convenient.

Yeah that knowledge has really made me rethink! I may even whip mine out for friendly games now

Too bad Aotf didn't work on vehicles......

Black heart for first turn charge
dark creed for character sniping

sekac wrote:

Dalamar wrote:

sekac wrote:

1) GW and playtesters obviously did a horrible job in the first place and made an obsession that is bad on most every unit that can take it except liquifier guns where it's way too good. That's why wracks were the ONLY coven unit in the competitive scene.

Be mad, be pissed, that is ok and your right.  Nobody can or should tell you how to feel.  I would like you to think about where your rage is directed though, specifically in the quote above.  I would lay no to very little blame on the play-testers.  Do you really believe that Brad Chester, Art of War, Tabletop Titans, or Tabletop Tactics would not have noticed that and made mention of that?  Some of these guys had never even seen some of the rules from the released codex. IE they were never in the Playtest docs they got.  It is also why the Splintermind pod cast review was so down on the book.  I believe that they recorded them way before the actual release of the Codex based off the last Playtest doc they got. I think with this Codex they changed a lot of the rules after the play-test was over, more so than previous books.  Hell Lawrence from TTT said that they never even saw d3+3 damage on the darklance during the test.

I will put full blame on GW for any or all of this because your play-test is only good if you provide the rules to be tested and if you are willing to make changes based on the feedback of those rules.  

Fair enough, I don't have enough insight to criticize any one in particular, or any group. But the playesting process for covens was poor. They had 1 good option and it was something that stood out immediately and was so good it was a crutch. There is no way it snuck through unnoticed. DT liquifiers was 100% a choice GW made, and maybe you're right, they hid that from their playtesters.

Regardless of how that happened, it is gone. Fine. But that doesn't make anything else more viable in its stead. Covens just won't get taken as anything more than a tax because there's no reason to. The entire coven subfaction just has very poor internal balance.

Anyway, this is all getting pretty off-topic, but DT remains viable on the FW vehicles and only requires a 40 point tax of objective squatters/backfield screeners.

What the.....dude. There are some DE players that already have done placements with both DarkCreed and Artists of the Flesh Covens.
PoF massWracks is dope.
In 8th sniping DT was good, and now that the uber-broken elephant is out from the room, it still good in 9th. You don't figure how much damage 3 shoot you can field with Hexrifles, Ossefactors and Venoms.
You just have to pay a drawback, as DT should always been
You clearly don't have the full sight of the picture. DT flamers were something of the most LAZY competitive broken choices since IH. It's far from being "the only way to play Coven in 9th" lol
You can be more optimistic, don't worry on that. Data confirms it


DT is horrible on FW anyway imho, the last thing you want is lossing D3 MW per turn (2D3 sometimes, with Tantalus). Just spam Raiders, you get 2+ wounds on DLs which way less self damage.

I don't think that DT is completely useless... but I don't think that its new power level warrants that it still be an all-consuming obsession either.

for my part i'm working on a 2000pts list entirely based on Coven with no DT and it seriously rocks!
I use PoF and custom made reroll charge and +1S and its fully legit.
Not saying i will win a tournament with this list (is there that much list who can do that anyway? usually there is only 3 in the entire game and some more who can give it a try so....)
Our book is so full of good possibilities, it amaze me to see all those ''good players'' saying that if you don't play with broken stuff its deemed unplayable......come on guys!

We're getting very off topic at this point.

If I had to pick one for each sub faction:

Kabal of the Black Heart
Leverages the advance ability on the Tantalus to let you turn 1 Charge things, one reroll is not garbage.

Cult of the Cursed Blade
Increases the melee profile from S7 to S8 which is great because it's profile likes to fight T4 marines. Damage reflection much better now that it has a 6++ in melee.

Coven of Dark Technomancy
+1 to Wound on S8 weapons means wounding pretty much everything in the game on 2+ or 3+ and getting D3 is an important break point in several matchups.

Dark Creed gets an honorable mention but it's ability is hard to trigger in some match-ups due to the Tantalus' poor Ld stat. If it could use their strat it would be stupidly funny. It's a good Coven that does something meaningful for the Tantalus at least.

oops! sorry indeed i was very off topic!
As for the Tantalus....don't know a thing about it lol......