Why so down on Grotesques?

I've seen more than one Dark Eldar player opine that Grotesques are the black sheep of the new Codex, and I am interested in what the people of this forum think.

My thoughts thus far:
Admittedly, this may be my fondness for Greenskins shining through, but my playtesting has the Grotesques working out just fine. The Rampage and Bulky rules do hold them back, but not much.
The Rampage rule means you more or less need a Haemonculus hanging out with them(at least at first), but I don't see that as a problem. They now have Furious Charge and the chance to use some of those wonderful close-ranged toys the Haemonculi have access to (Liquifier, Orb of Despair, Shattershard). The Haemonculus is the most vulnerable of this unit in close combat, but he's already given his Pain Token away, and the more attacks going his way, the more Grot attacks going your opponents.
As a side note, one tactic I did like later in the game was peeling the Haemonculus away from the unit after they've butchered an enemy unit and giving the two Pain tokens to whomever needs it, then throwing the Grotesques into combat however I please. In my experience, players facing DE tend to bunch up their forces, sometimes in the beginning, sometimes after being punished for leaving a unit isolated, so the Grots going pop isn't as big a deal in the endgame.
Bulky merely restricts a Raider squad of Grots to a size they should normally be. Four is more than enough to deal with the targets you should be sending them against, and if you want a mass of them, you can always use the Webway portal to get ten into combat.

I have heard the Grot dislike justified in comparison to other Elites, and I don't see that either. Three Bloodbrides for every one Grotesque seems a bit much, but three T3 wounds vs. three T5 wounds puts it into perspective for me. That, and Grots are much better at making sure what they hit stays dead.
Two Grotesques per three Incubi, again, the Grots are more durable, and better able to kill things at first.
As the Trueborn are for entirely different purposes, I don't think it's fair to compare them. I do think the 'born are better though.

In the end, I think that the Grotesques are mostly being ignored because they are the midpoint between the Pain Engines and the Wracks, and most DE do anything but middle of the road. I'll grant that the Grotesques seem out of place, but I think that they do fill their own role rather nicely.

Grots are a horde killer, and a tarpit. I really like using them,a s a pack of 4 of em with a Haemi minder (and I always have a Haemi in my lists anyway) can serve to take out hordes, tie up MEQ (I held up a Vanguard Vet Squad for 4 Turns) and deal with light vehicles ( I once had a pack of them take out 3 eldar tanks in a row)

But, they come at the cost of not having the armor negating power weapons or high WS of Incubi, or the Invuln save and cheapness of Wyches.

Random idea.

Combine them with Archon. Give him Clonefield, Ghostplate Armour (or just 2++), Phantasm Grenades, Blaster (because BS7 is uber), Djin Blade and CCW so he get max PW attacks (base + 3: 2 from blade and 1 from PW+CCW combo. Exactly 7 without charge), neat AT weapon, ability to soak few really bad wounds, good LD and (drum roll) grenades.

Not sure if it is worth losing FC but you should get it pretty fast...

Local_Ork wrote:

Random idea.

Combine them with Archon. Give him Clonefield, Ghostplate Armour (or just 2++), Phantasm Grenades, Blaster (because BS7 is uber), Djin Blade and CCW so he get max PW attacks (base + 3: 2 from blade and 1 from PW+CCW combo. Exactly 7 without charge), neat AT weapon, ability to soak few really bad wounds, good LD and (drum roll) grenades.

Not sure if it is worth losing FC but you should get it pretty fast...

I was so focused on the Grotesques that I completely forgot how they could make ICs better. An Archon starting out with a 4+/4+ save AND negating D3 attacks is just evil!

I plan to test that Archon and his "Court". Would like to see if this would work.

I though about using them as an Archon's bodyguard aswell. Thye lack power weapons and grenades, which the Archon brings, and in return they protect the Archon from shooting 8majority toughness 5 rules) and stomp hordes.

Well tbh, the Grotesque are great for those wanting to deploy any T3 HQ imo.

Grouping them up with Lady Malys for example. Still have yet to use them myself, but might deploy them with Lady Malys since she is a very weak target. And to give her T5 is great. Even tho i think she is an to expensive HQ.

Only problem with them though is that in that configuration they are slow, unless you pop them out of a WWP, then it might be brown trousers time for your opponent.

I've played a few times, they work well as a tarpit, but really struggle with enemies with an average save (marines). Whoever you run them with needs to bring the pain in terms of power weapons etc. Ithink they have some milage as a terror weapon at the moment as many opponents have never faced them before and react irrationally to them. They might well as a counter charge unit if you are playing some kind gun of gunline army - I'm all out mechanised so don't have the need of this.

I generally dislike Pain Token shenanigans, however, starting an Archon and a Haemonculus with four Grotesques, outside of a Raider, then splitting them so that the Archon has two Tokens and the Grotesques/Haemonculus have one with the Archon joining Incubi in a Raider and the Grots/Haem jumping into their Raider would be an ugly trick. The Coven squads would still be fairly tough from having FnP and high T, and the Archon escort would be instantly nasty.

surely the grots and haemo combined have 2 tokens? When they split thats only one each.

I like the idea of grots but they are a bit expensive, slow and actually not all that good at killing MEQs.

The Berserk rampge rule is characterful but totally unneccessary.

Despite all this im still going to convert some from rat ogres and talos parts for my webway coven list.

Venkh wrote:

surely the grots and haemo combined have 2 tokens? When they split thats only one each.

I like the idea of grots but they are a bit expensive, slow and actually not all that good at killing MEQs.

The Berserk rampge rule is characterful but totally unneccessary.

Despite all this im still going to convert some from rat ogres and talos parts for my webway coven list.

I always forget they only have one. For some reason I always think two.

Must be the fact that you almost always want them with a Haemo for furious charge. S6 is great for killing off Eldar characters and wounding MEQ's on 2's

What do you guys think about possibly putting a Succubus inside a unit of grotesques instead of an Archon. She doesn't give grenades to the squad, but she does have her own. Arming her with a power weapon / agonizer will provide the necessary power weapon attacks and she comes with a 4++ invulnerable save in combat, while the FnP and T5 of the grots should keep her relatively safe from shooting. Once in combat she will most likely be striking first, reducing the number of attacks against her/the grotesques. She also gives the squad the ability to beat a dreadnaught in combat (which could easily remove this unit from the table) by supplying a haywire grenade. This might be a long shot but you could also arm the grotesque leader with the gauntlet which forces the str/ldrship test to reduce the number of attacks an enemy IC or sgt could send her way.

A singe haywire grenade will almost NEVER work on a dread, though Rackarth's uber grots have str 7 on the charge and could be worth throwing at a dread, though I prefer a big unit of these coming from a wwp with Urien, he can soak 1 wound a turn for the unit which is fairly nice.

They are an ideal unit for multi charging armour spam with multiple str6-7 hits on rear armour, also something to think about is that to really put a dent in them your opponent is going to have to take the pressure off the rest of your army.