Grotesques?

A unit that I think is very cool and has utility out the wazoo is Grotesques! They have high str, T and are multi wound, plus the Aberration has some cool upgrades too. Even when they throw a temper tantrum you could possibly position it so it goes off hilariously well. I never seem to see lists include them though and I'm wondering if there's anyone who can tell me why or about good ways they've used them before on the table. I'm really interested in finding out how they get used.

hy and welcome first of all, to our glorious little place of dark space.
on topic: grots are good, but most lists embrace speed, and grots arent good at that. They are best when they are a group of 10, but then they are on foot. Since our wwp nerf, there isnt much of a way to get them in the enemies face fast, except if you want them to sit a round of shooting in your gnarlskin arse.
Second is their high points cost, being relatively good with high T and multiwound. A full tac squad with plasma pistol, plasma rifle and flamer only kills 1 on an average roll from 12" range and that means next round those grots are going to do some serious damage!
Third, because only 4 can fit in a raider!!! and they take up a heavy slot, it is really hard to fit them in to a list. Even i have to retailor my dual FO lists.

Put Urien in your army and spend 5 pts more for s6 grots, put in malys for anty psy and that blob of 10 giants is worthy of a deathstar. Even if only 4+2IC are transported in a raider, they are extremely hard to kill, and with psyblock, not even GK force weapons can kill'em...well iirc that is, we had a debate on that. Could someone refresh? But even if this doesnt stand, they are a great unite!

But as i said, problem one is justifying them in their slot for their points, and geting some use out of them. They need an IC with their low saves also.

Four Grotesques plus an IC is enough to do serious damage and weather a beating too.

Succubus: venom blade
4 Grotesques: liquifier
Raider: night shields, shock prow

That's 290 points, including the HQ and transport, which isn't bad considering you're getting 12 T5 FNP wounds and 17 S5 attacks on the charge.

Incubi end up being about the same points when you factor in the need for a Klaivex with demi-klaives. They do have WS5 S4 AP3 weapons, which are superior. However, Incubi trade away the Grotesques' multiple wounds for an armor save of 3+, which is not as sure a thing. There are far more AP3, 2, and 1 weapons out there than there are S10 ones.

Wow thanks for the fast replies guys, so what I'm mostly getting out of this is that grotesques are either slow or smaller a squad than would be ideal? Would dropping them off via WWP into cover be viable? With the way terrain is set up I'm sure I should be able to get a decent piece that could cover them all within 18" of my deployment

I probably should have added this when asking about them but my friends who I play seem to always be intent on playing as big of games as they can get. They often will do 2v1 or 3v2 so that they can get more points to use on their armies.

well, first of all, they are elites and not heavy.
so now that trueborns is not the must elite unit, you could consider them.

in 6th i have tried them 3(one flamer, one aberration with flesh gauntlet, perhaps scissor is better) + haemonculus with liquefier, in a raider. so 2 liquefiers and 5 toughness multi wounds, that can much easier hit tanks now is not bad at all, just try to avoid units that could actually hurt you.
i even tried 2 of those units and once 3. they performed ok, sure the opponent didn't know how to deal with all of them, but then again you miss anti air shooting/ anti high armor.
i would give them a chance again, that's for sure

They are very resilient, T5 and FnP makes them OK out of the webway, hidden behind cover its as good as a 3+ sv. Speed is their downfall so you do have to get them close to do some damage. They're good vs stationary tanks but getting them there is the hard part. A beast unit with 5 Clawed Fiends has close to the same resiliancy and damage output but move much much faster

I have usually used 3 in the past, in a raider with a heamy with a WWP.

I think tho, with the changes to 6th I will try a larger unit on foot with Urien.

They have basically replaced my wyches as the tarpit unit, though they chew through things quick enough; they sort of play like a squad of Ork Nobz.

I've been running 5 with a Blaster Archon, and I've yet to loose them all, and they've always made it across the board to do some damage. I'm usually sending them into infantry squads, so I opt for the Aberration with Scissorhands, most guys flinch when I explain it's 7 attacks on the charge, wounding on a 3+ at the very worst, re-rolling to wound.

Since everyone locally has embraced the forgeworld units/lists, I've been looking at allying with a small force of Corsairs from the IA11 book. Adding a Corsair Prince with a shimmershield to that Grotesque unit gives them a 5+ invuln in CC, and then 5+ FNP, plus he can give me a free turn of night fight to get them across the board better.

To function well, you'll need some fast moving distraction units, jetbikes and beasts cover that in my lists, but raiders and venoms could draw that as well.

I believe this will be my latest experiment:

Beauty & The Beast (cheesy name for the win!)

Succubus, venom blade, haywire
Succubus, venom blade, haywire
4 Grotesques, aberration, venom blade
Raider, sail
370pts

18 venom blade attacks, 18 T5 wounds.

With the changes to poison, Aberration with flesh gauntlet is really nasty. He wounds most things on 2+ or 3+, gets rerolls to wound, and kill most things with a single hit. Even if he doesn't ignore armour, he is quite likely to inflict that one hit he needs to kill a character.

Mushkilla wrote:

I believe this will be my latest experiment:

Beauty & The Beast (cheesy name for the win!)

Succubus, venom blade, haywire
Succubus, venom blade, haywire
4 Grotesques, aberration, venom blade
Raider, sail
370pts

Looks good I'm running something similar but with Haemy instead of one of the Succubi.

Any change this unit will make it into your Buzzards list/reports? I'm very happy with my Grots so far!

Whenever I take them, I use the following formation:

Succubus - Venom Blade
3-4 Grotesques - Liquifier, Aberration with Scissorhands
Raider - Nightshields, Aethersail, Snares

Always in a Raider. Get them into grips with something ASAP.

Sometimes I take two such units, and sometimes I attach an Archon instead with a VB or a Huskblade. I do like Mushkilla's Aberration-with-a-VB idea, haven't tried that.

Mine have yet to do anything spectacular (quite the opposite, in fact), but they do successfully keep opponents occupied for great lengths of time

well, i would use archon instead of succu, because the 2up invul is much better than the 4up in cc - ofc that costs a lot of points.
And i would take FG on the aber, because he will be wounding a lot of things on a 3up, and rerolling, and taking the chalange, they can do a lot of hurt with it.

but i will give the succu-grot combo a thought, looks nasty!

Setomidor wrote:

Any change this unit will make it into your Buzzards list/reports? I'm very happy with my Grots so far!

Just posted a new list in the army section (with grots included).

Gobsmakked wrote:

Always in a Raider. Get them into grips with something ASAP.

I agree the raider really helps make them a threat.

Gobsmakked wrote:

I do like Mushkilla's Aberration-with-a-VB idea, haven't tried that.

I'm actually a fan of flesh gauntlets (same reason that Nomic mentioned), But I don't find them as necessary in a unit with two succubi, the venom blade is cheap option for an extra attack (2 CC weapons), wounding on 2+ and re-rolling to wound (poison). I have personally always found the scissor hands to expensive for what they do.

Enfernux wrote:

well, i would use archon instead of succu, because the 2up invul is much better than the 4up in cc - ofc that costs a lot of points.

The trick is a 4++ and FNP equates to a 3++ against anything that isn't S6 or higher, so the succubus isn't bad at protecting the grots. Initiative 8 is also handy for sweeping advance.

You can also run a single succubus with a power axe and venom blade. Personally I'm keen on experimenting with two cheaper succubi as you get an extra 3 T5 wounds a load more I8 attacks (I was thinking 12 I8 attacks on the charge would help protect the unit by killing off a few enemies before they get to strike), more LoS shenanigans, you can start with fearless if you roll a 6 on the drug table, and two haywire grenades for dealing with walkers (the achilles heal of grots).

The one thing I'm considering dropping is the liquifier, as without fleet it will only hinder your chances of getting into assault.

xzandrate wrote:

Since everyone locally has embraced the forgeworld units/lists, I've been looking at allying with a small force of Corsairs from the IA11 book. Adding a Corsair Prince with a shimmershield to that Grotesque unit gives them a 5+ invuln in CC, and then 5+ FNP, plus he can give me a free turn of night fight to get them across the board better.

Wait what? Oo You can field IA and Forgeworld units in normal games? Or your just playing Apoca games with IA allies?

I played an awesome game against Grumpy Kwi yesterday in which he used Urien, a Haemi, and 6 grots with an Aberation. He kept the Aberation, Urien, and Haemi out front to get as many Look Out Sir rolls as possible. We couldn't find anything in the rulebook preventing the LOS wounds from being allocated to a different model each time(Unlike 5th edition where wounds caused to multiple wound models had to be consolidated) It was BRUTAL! I shot that unit to hell and back but wasn't able to start eliminating models until all of the models in the unit had 2W each. I don't know if this will get FAQ'd later, but for now it makes our big fellas NASTY.

i am currently working on a list, incorporating urien, grots, haem ancient and wracks w raider in one forc org, and duke in the other - He's just to much a pirate to miss out...or maybe Vect w grots and haem...who knows...decidionsdecidionsdecidions...

Evil Space Elves wrote:

We couldn't find anything in the he LOS wounds from being allocated to a different model each time

I too was looking this up and couldn't find anything to say that wounded models must continue to have wounds allocated too them. As long as they are within 6" and in the same unit, go right ahead and pick and choose who takes the wounds and when.

1++ wrote:

Evil Space Elves wrote:

We couldn't find anything in the he LOS wounds from being allocated to a different model each time

I too was looking this up and couldn't find anything to say that wounded models must continue to have wounds allocated too them. As long as they are within 6" and in the same unit, go right ahead and pick and choose who takes the wounds and when.

Yep, that's how it works.

Count Adhemar wrote:

1++ wrote:

Evil Space Elves wrote:

We couldn't find anything in the he LOS wounds from being allocated to a different model each time

I too was looking this up and couldn't find anything to say that wounded models must continue to have wounds allocated too them. As long as they are within 6" and in the same unit, go right ahead and pick and choose who takes the wounds and when.

Yep, that's how it works.

Exactly why I'm beefing up that Grot unit to run with Urien in this month's Apoc game

Fine cast + 1 limited model. That's my big problem.

I may try a few Counts as models in my next game since they've got such rave reviews!

There is a unit of three on the rumoured release list. Personally I'm using conversions based on Warmachine models and some Talos bits

convert grots from other models, thats a good way to go - and probably what im gona do as well

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

1++ wrote:

Evil Space Elves wrote:

We couldn't find anything in the he LOS wounds from being allocated to a different model each time

I too was looking this up and couldn't find anything to say that wounded models must continue to have wounds allocated too them. As long as they are within 6" and in the same unit, go right ahead and pick and choose who takes the wounds and when.

Yep, that's how it works.

Exactly why I'm beefing up that Grot unit to run with Urien in this month's Apoc game

Karnival of Pain - I had 30 Grots running around at Str9 on the charge. Thank you Duke.

Whoa! They let you use the Karnival of Pain Data sheet with the current codex? Wow!

Here is a pic of my Grot Squad I used against Evil Space Elf (notice the 2 venoms and the Razorwing Jetfighter in the background). The squad survived all that but left all my grots severely wounded.



I purposely put Urien there to see what happens, you can see the haemy just to the right of him - he forgot to put down his portal. After that shooting phase, I believe there was only 2 grotesques that only had 1 wound assigned to them, all the others had 2 wounds each and Urien with 1 I believe.