Is there any reason to use Incubi over Grots?

Is it just me, or did incubi go from being an auto-include to being hard to justify at all?

I'm desperately trying to find any reason to bring 10 incubi instead of 5 more grots, and I'm drawing a blank. 5 Grots have 20 T5(6) wounds, 6(5)++, 5+++, -1D (because of course we're going AoF) vs the Incubi 10 T3 wounds, 3+, 6(5)++.

Their damage output is pretty much identical with the Incubi getting only 5 more attacks, in exchange for being wiped off the board the first time your opponent looks at them. They only begin to narrowly pull ahead in terms of damage against T6+ if they're accompanied by Drazhar for +1 to wound.

Drazhar himself is great but for the 75 pts extra you pay for him, you could afford 2 more Grots and an Archon to get guaranteed fight last instead of rolls through Ancient Evil and an Animus Vitae to ensure your Grots hit on 2+, same as your incubi. Plus the ability to run a Realspace raid instead of a Raiding force.

I'm hoping someone can tell me I'm missing something here. I don't want to be hamstringing myself running Drazhar and his incu-boys just because I think they're cool - which I do, cause they are.

The nerf to Incubi and their transports combined with the buff to Grotesques has definitely skewed things massively in favour of the Grotesques currently, but there are some advantages to Incubi still. They're easier to hide and slot into spaces on the board, they handle -1 D and 3 wound targets slightly more effectively than Grotesques, they come with the possibility of forcing a target to fight last. That doesn't really compensate for how many advantages the Grotesques have currently, IMO, but it's not nothing.

The reality is that right now Grotesques do just outclass Incubi. Whether that will remain true if and when the Grotesque buff gets reverted, and Incubi gain access to 9th edition Ynnari rules, is a question that we'll have to wait a bit to answer.

Incubi have a fight last ability, hit on a 2+, have better AP, get a +1 damage on 6’s (as long as klavex is alive, who should be last to die anyway) and also get a +1 to wound rolls when buffed by Drazhar. You can also fit 5+1 in a venom, which you can’t do with grots. They’re also slightly cheaper and have a better armor save. So I’d say there are still some good reasons to take incubi.

Though I will say this thread makes me want to swap out my incubi for grots and give them a shot.

As a question, do you think Grotesques are still better than Incubi even without Coven abilities (like -1D)?

Essentially, what I'm wondering is whether Grotesques are actually better as Blades for Hire than Incubi.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

As a question, do you think Grotesques are still better than Incubi even without Coven abilities (like -1D)?

In a vacuum, it's a closer call. I'd say Grots lose the ability to ignore the Raider tax without -1 D and a Haemy nearby. That makes their added points more noticeable. Otherwise, they still compare favorably.

They kill practically all the same targets the Incubi do, with the added benefit of actually maybe surviving the response. A unit of 3-4 T5, 4W, 5+++ unsupported Grots dropped off by a raider into your frontlines is much harder to dislodge than 5 Incubi doing the same.

When you consider that they're core, it's no contest. As a side note on their resilience, I ran my 3 DT Cronos at some AoF Grots the other day and firing syphons + vortexes did more wounds to themselves than the Grots. That's when I dropped my DT patrol altogether