Grotesques?

how to get the best out of them? I have 20 awesome 3d printed ones I want to use.

intend is to run squads of 5 from artisans of flesh jumping out of raiders supported by cult of cursed blade wyches.

Artists of the Flesh (I'm assuming that's what you meant) is pretty much the best choice for grots and talos in my opinion. I don't think they need to support or be supported by CB wyches however, since they both bring a lot of S5 attacks to the table (more attacks per points for wyches and more AP and tankier in the case of grots). If you mass grots, what you'll lack is anti tank (I mean grots can threaten tanks, but they're not very good at it).

I'd keep the cleaver, the gauntlet seems underwhelming to me (-2 ap, and -1 damage for just +1s and a few MW doesn't seem worth it to me in most cases, except maybe against things with a high invul, or T5,6 1W models with no armor save, so, very specifically ork boys), and liquifiers are more efficient on wracks if you like them

If you like dumb, non-cost efficient strategies however, you could try to take a maxed stack of grots with liquifiers in a raider/in the webway to try and melt something. Since DT doesn't work on liquifiers anymore it won't be that effective against MEQ, but you can still melt a horde I guess. Wouldn't exactly recomment it though.

What kind of enviroment are you playing into? Beer-hammer, semi-competitive, full on Competitive (notice the capital "C")?

Grots do have a lot going for them. Flat 2 damage profile is very nice, and having the back up flesh gauntlets to do MWs certainly doesnt hurt. Having the Infantry keyword allows the flesh monsters to benefit from Cover, walk thru walls, Retrieve Octarius Data, get into Transports, etc.

The main issue with Grots is they compete with Incubi, and Incubi are criminally undercosted at 80 points for a unit. That 80 point unit puts out more damage than a minimum 120 point Grot squad.

You also need to be careful with how many wounds in your army for giving up No Prisoners points to the opponent. 4W per model is a lot of wounds.

AotF Grots are quite tanky though. Right now there are a lot of Damage 2 weapons, and AdMech/Flyer lists that do a MASSIVE amount of damage if they can Alpha strike you. Grots can absorb a lot of that damage and shrug it off, unlike most of our army (that 6++/5+++ really shines).

You can also go for a Custom Coven with Splinterblades (exploding 6s to hit) and Master Torturers (-1CP for the reroll all wounds Strat). This really amps up the damage profile and means your Grots can punch thru basically anything short of Mortarion and Heavy Tanks.

Let us know what your thinking and we can provide more hints/tips on running our favorite fleshy boys

another custom build i love for Grotesques is the Reroll Charge and +1S custom obsessions.
Splinterblades with the +1S too is a good choice imho

Splinterblades is a pretty neat ability. Getting an extra hit on 6s to hit, litterally equates to "+1 to hit" that bypasses the "can only be +1 to hit" that was added in 9th.

Let me explain, because I have nothing better to do.

If you roll 6 dice, you get the following results:
1
2
3
4
5
6

If you are WS3 like Grots, you will hit 5 times (3, 4, 5, 6 + extra attack for exploding 6).

After Turn 3, when you are WS2, you will actually hit 6 times out of 6 attacks (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 + extra attack for exploding 6).

It basically gives you +2 to hit while getting around the maximum +1 to hit restriction.

IDK if the +1S gives you quite as much as Splinterblades, or being able to use Torturers Craft for only 1CP on your Grots (or for 0CP on your Wracks!).

Guess it really depends on what you want your Grots to do. Survive, or punch things?

I'd say semi-competitive? The games we play are mostly 1k-style, My personaly style is always fluffy but hard.

I played one game against necrons and the unit of 5 just ripped a gigantic hole through his army. He charged it with a monolith to slow it down but didn't kill one, and they obliterated it...

Even after enduring a huge amount of shooting, unit 4 only fell when the monolith exploded

and that was with splitter blades and +1S

Since I have always taken the offensive upgrades in all my other armies, I decided to buck my natural instincts here.

in all my other armies I normally always take the offensive upgrades so I thought I would buck my natural instints

if you want to go on the defense side of the game, Artist of the Flesh (-1D detachment wide) or Prophets of Flesh are the way to go!
Both are really good and viable in competitive games.

Prophets gives you access to Urien but has a diminishing return on Talos or even Grotesque units but is amazing on Wracks (HAemoxytes).
Artists is better all around as the bonus will almost always apply no matter your unit..........but if you face a heavy D1 list well.....

For my part, I like grotesques well enough, but no matter how you build them, they just can't do the damage that equal points of Incubi do. So to get value out of them, you really have to leverage their considerably better defense.


Incubi can trade up very easily, and grotesques cannot. They can trade up, but they're targets are limited. So instead, you need to look for mismatches. Try to find things that can't handle grotesques and see if you can jam those units up or kill them outright.

Kalmah wrote:

Prophets gives you access to Urien but has a diminishing return on Talos or even Grotesque units but is amazing on Wracks (HAemoxytes).
.

yeah the relic and the strat are pretty good they are worth considering, the do fight nicely as a support coven in a realspace I think

And dont forget the untility of Infantry. They can Retrieve Octarius Data, Raise Banners, etc.

well... I have a game today and for hilarity, I'm using 15 grotesques...

2x 5 are artists of flesh and 5 are coven of twelve, just cause I wanna try the fancy relic sword

For those running Grotesques, are you all footslogging them or is anyone running them in Raiders?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

For those running Grotesques, are you all footslogging them or is anyone running them in Raiders?

both can work, really depends on your army, you don't want footslogging grots if the rest of your army is in transport, especially if they're not AotF, but you could footslog 2 packs of grots if you're also running a few talos, especially with AotF, won't be easy for most opponents to effectively choose targets, and that's what matters.

webway grots would be nice IF we had anyway to boost our charges besides reroll coven, but as it is, meh.

I'm also a fan of 3 grots and 5 wracks in a Black heart raider advancing and charging turn 1. worst case you still forbit a unit from firing for a turn, the raider pops, you lose a few wracks, and you have 3 grots in the middle of your ennemy's army. The chaos you create could be worth the cost. Haven't tried it yet but I really want to.

Patayou wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

For those running Grotesques, are you all footslogging them or is anyone running them in Raiders?

both can work, really depends on your army, you don't want footslogging grots if the rest of your army is in transport, especially if they're not AotF, but you could footslog 2 packs of grots if you're also running a few talos, especially with AotF, won't be easy for most opponents to effectively choose targets, and that's what matters.

I agree given just tried it, I had 2 x5 in raiders and 1 foot slog AOF that was running with the talos, and they where tanky, makes me wanna get cronos so I can bring them back to life

Quote :

I'm also a fan of 3 grots and 5 wracks in a Black heart raider advancing and charging turn 1. worst case you still forbit a unit from firing for a turn, the raider pops, you lose a few wracks, and you have 3 grots in the middle of your ennemy's army. The chaos you create could be worth the cost. Haven't tried it yet but I really want to.

I was thinking about that but with wyches in a real space that's all 3 factions in 1 hit

Backslide wrote:

makes me wanna get cronos so I can bring them back to life

if you kept your cronos bits from the talos box, you can just buy the "shell" bits and build a discount cronos

Patayou wrote:

I was thinking about that but with wyches in a real space that's all 3 factions in 1 hit

if you manage it, tell me how it goes, I'm very curious

Patayou wrote:

Backslide wrote:

makes me wanna get cronos so I can bring them back to life

if you kept your cronos bits from the talos box, you can just buy the "shell" bits and build a discount cronos

my whole covens army is 3d printed, I have 6 dark technomancer cronos in the queue, 9 is probably a bit much

Backslide wrote:

my whole covens army is 3d printed, I have 6 dark technomancer cronos in the queue, 9 is probably a bit much

I would be careful about skewing too hard into DT Cronos. There are a lot of -1 damage units out there (all the important Aircraft, Dreadnaught lists, even mirror AotF Coven units).

I think 2x2 DT Cronos is probably the sweet spot.

YOLO-ing a raider of stuff up into the enemy army Turn 1 can be pretty fun, but if your playing against a META faction, those units would be better spent hiding a turn and actually contributing to the late game (IMO). If your playing beer-hammer, its fun as heck to see your opponent go "wait, say that defensive profile again?!"

35 point grotesques! I is a happy piratical fleshcrafter!

Backslide wrote:

35 point grotesques! I is a happy piratical fleshcrafter!

They're finally a real alternate choice to wyches. I always loved coven units, but it was always painful to see wyches do 3.2 times the attacks of grots for the same cost and be almost as tanky (T5 and 5++, vs T3 4++, same wounds per points, grots WERE a bit tankier for the cost but not enough to justify doing that much less damage)

now wyches only do 2.3 times the number of attacks of grots per points, when taking into accound their better AP and D2 weapons, they'll probaly be more cost effective than wyches when facing the right opponents, which means they will probably be a real melee choice when facing marines and other 2W armies, and you'll get more wounds per points on grots

Grotesques are adorable and very underrated, even more so with their recent points cost reductions. Experimental Creations and Splinterblades gives them the ability to turn anything in to puree.

i'm so happy for our Grotesque!
I was going for a Cult only list for my next game in 2 weeks, but now i think i will switch to Coven to play my Grotesques and Talos!!

I'm so happy now that imho our 3 subfactions are now at the same power level (i know Book of rust still kick the Cult of Strife in the stratosphere but my opinion is that this book should not even exist in matched play).

Wrack_Enthusiast wrote:

Grotesques are adorable and very underrated, even more so with their recent points cost reductions. Experimental Creations and Splinterblades gives them the ability to turn anything in to puree.

agreed with the drop in points and the drop for hemonculs that second or 3rd patrol option to mix up your covens looks that much better

well my old building block was:

Showstealer
8 bloodbrides
8 wyches
2 raiders with chainsnares
451

so 1 or 2 of those formed the basis of the army

but

succubus
8 wyches
raider with DL
5 incubi
venom with 2 cannons
456 and still rather formidable

I think the proper comparison is Grots vs Incubi

Grots = 105 pts, for 15, S5 D2 attacks
Incubi = 90 pts, for 16, S5 D2 attacks

No question its a good day to be a Coven player. Time to pull out the old Grotesquery!

fisheyes wrote:

I think the proper comparison is Grots vs Incubi

Grots = 105 pts, for 15, S5 D2 attacks
Incubi = 90 pts, for 16, S5 D2 attacks

No question its a good day to be a Coven player. Time to pull out the old Grotesquery!

ws2 on the incubi all the time though... but one does absorb a lot more damage