Talos fit outs

I have 4 straight out of a goonhammer article with Injector, power fist/scalpel and heat lance

with the points drop I'm considering a 2 or 3 with twin liquefiers and haywire

It is generally considered that the best Talos loadout is the Ichor Injector, Talos Gauntlet, and dual Heat Lance.

Haywire may be nice in the coming Vehicle Meta (according to my crystal ball, which is accurate about 50% of the time).

I think the sweet spot is units of 2, but with the Meta in flux nobody really knows right now.

Like fisheyes said, the usual build is injector + gauntlet. You CAN take a liquifier, but you'll get more of those per point on wracks, the injecor is also much cheaper and makes a mockery of invul saves. If you really want your talos to be able to deal with hordes, however, take one, they're still a much better choice than chainflail in my opinion, and they're the only unit that can fire the liquifier in melee

There is another option. The gauntlet is recommended because S8 is such a sweet spot (a lot of vehicles/monsters are T7 or 8, and a lot of units are T4), so if you play an experimental creation coven (+1 strenght) or if your talos hang around urien, you can outfit them with double scalpel, you'll still get your S8, lose the -1 to hit, and get another atack, for the price of -1 damage. They'll threaten tanks about as well and be a great Meq killer. The gauntlet is obviously still better vs units with -1 damage however, and AotF is so good that it can be hard to justify.

The only melee option I would never take is the chain flails, 0 ap and 1 damage, even with double attacks, is a waste on a talos in my opinion, we just have so much better options to deal with hordes (anything wych cult, shredders on warriors, trueborn or scourges, cronos, liquifier wracks, liquifier talos, even grots) are all better choices for this kind of job.

As for the ranged options, as said above, twin heat lances are probably the best deal, coven lacks ranged anti tank, not that the other options are bad, except probably the pods. Maybe you can play around a bit more if you're playing dark technomaners, but I didn't find anything amazing with that combo.

They can hang around solo BUT you should take 2 or 3 if you're gonna take a cronos to hang with them, so they can come back to life on a lucky tentacle attack and be healed by your haemunculus next turn

I mean, if you are taking an AotF patrol, you should probably make the most of it by taking 2x2 Talos. Talos are by far the best units for AotF.

If your going with Grots, I honestly think PoF is the better choice (based purely on my gut feeling)

well I have ended up with

4x injector/claw - Heat lances, 420 points of death and destruction
2x injector/blade - Heat lances, cheaper and still cheerful
2x blade/twine liquiferer - haywire for amusement

also have 6 cronos but that's another thread lol

After testing out the Thicc City build, I must admit I am wrong.

You still want the Talos Gauntlet (S8 to get thru Rambshakle, damage 3 for Chaff Launchers on AdMech aircraft) and Ichor Injector, but units of 3 Taloi absorb a STUPID amount of punishment