wracks and grotesques

As I was looking in a couple of different forums, i saw that wracks and grotesques were most of the time, forgotten. Many new players (I'm also kinda new) don't consider putting wracks and grotesques in their army list. I also found that there weren't many videos on them . Anyhow, I wanted to now if this would work

-Urien Rakarth(or haemi),Wracks, Grotesques in a Raider with a Cronos/Talos engine following the vehicle
or
-Urien (or haemi) and Grotesques in a Raider with Wracks in a Venom right behind them and the Talos up ahead destroying vehicles

just wanted to know if any would work and if they would be effective.

feedback appreciated

I usually find myself throwing the Cronos out in front when possible since it is inexpensive, durable, and wants to flame something early.

Pain engines work pretty well coming out of a portal or as defensive threats you keep on your side of the table near stuff you don't want getting assaulted such as Kabalite Warriors on foot.

They very rarely survive a full trek across a table. But on the plus side they're pretty inexpensive, durable, and make good fire magnets in cover. Especially if you can get them their first pain token.

Pain engines tend to keep pace with Kabalite Warriors in a Raider, but they tend to be too slow to support Wyches, Incubi, or Wracks in a Raider since you'll want to turbo.

Try using the search function. This forum has loads of useful advice on all of these units.

Wracks and grotesques are awesome, wracks are better than wyches in close combat and come with liquifiers (a great weapon), are our toughest troops and are good anti infantry, Grotesques are a great shock assault unit when they accompany a succubus/archon.

Just because an option isn't popular does not mean it isn't good.

I would say try them out (proxy first if you're not swimming in cash); there is a good chance you'll like them.

mideasterngamer wrote:

As I was looking in a couple of different forums, i saw that wracks and grotesques were most of the time, forgotten. Many new players (I'm also kinda new) don't consider putting wracks and grotesques in their army list.

I think new players avoid grotesques and wracks for a couple reasons. One big reason is cost. These finecast units are pricey in an already expensive hobby. Short of conversions (which new players don't generally jump straight into) or proxies (which no one wants to do on a long term basis) the models are expensive (Dollars, Euros, GBPs, or whatever your local currency is). You can get a full box of warriors for almost the same cost as a single grotesque. Wracks are not quite as bad but still far from cheap and there are no coven units in the battleforce (if a new player starts with one of those). When you are starting out, or on a limited budget, the cost cannot be ignored.

New players may also be wary of branching out too far from mainstream tactics/army lists. There is a lot out there about regular kabalite troops, trueborn, ravagers, etc. Less on the grots, wracks, talos, etc. This is such a hard force to master that someone new may just want to avoid things that they aren't sure about, so they skip the coven goodies.

I am in the process of experimenting with wracks and like them a lot so far. I will be trying grotesques soon. So my thoughts above come from my own experiences. As with everything, your experiences may vary, but I really like the units in my fun, semi-competitive meta.

I got into DE last year and other than a couple of 'counts as' Haemonculi I have no coven units in my army at the moment.

I do however have 10 wracks, some models to convert into 5 Grots, Urien Rakarth and 2 Talos/Cronos kits stashed away in my cupboard waiting for me to have time to assemble and paint them.

I always try and have some wracks in my lists, their liquifier gun is incredible.

When points allow i always have a unit of grots to run with my archon or vect depending on what I'm running, the toughness 5 and 3 wounds makes hem incredibly tough to kill. If you start the grots with a haeme and vect you a have fearless unit with feels no pain and furious charge from the beginning of the game.

My normal tactic is to have the grot raider plus two others full of cc units and go flat out turn 1 to the enemies lines. They have to deal with them and more often than not they are still alive.

Leaves the rest of your force able to do what they want for at least two turns.

I have used grotesques in a raider accompanied by a cheap succubus. The grots provide high toughness and some nice high strength attacks, plus a character that can accept challenges. The succy brings a venom blade & her massive initiative for sweeping advances.

I'll admit Urien is probably the better choice - he boosts the squad nicely and is lethal in challenges - but is obviously a lot more expensive. Particularly when I generally only use the unit in a defensive fashion.

Wracks are really nice, but they lack an effective anti-tank capability so you have to be careful to point them at the right units and compensate appropriately with the rest of your list. They can also be the cheapest unit if you are running low on points, with a min unit size of 3. Don't forget to pick up a haemonculus to make them troops (this can give your list a different balance as the haemi is generally not great in assaults).

Conveniently enough, the points for the 3 troops choices I like to run riding in a venom are all identical:
5xwarriors, blaster
5xwyches, HWG
5xwracks, LG
This makes them easy to switch around in your list to get the right balance (should you be venom-spamming).

Haven't used the pain engines for quite some time, but the talos seems like really good value if you take 2 or 3 and arm them optimally (LG & SC is solid and cheap). Shame it competes with the ubiquitous ravager, which is a more natural choice for a shooty 40k world.

You'd really have to do extra playtesting to make a coven force work effectively, which can put off new players (not to mention the extra cost & conversion work others have noted)

hexrifle?

If the trueborn could take four heavy weapons, It might be worth sticking a unit or two in cover in your DZ, and holding a talos back to defend them, but they cant.

Aside from my beast pack the rest of my army relies on mobility and pre-measuring. I prefer to outrange my opponent, and focus my firepower so I can kill anything that can hit me back next turn. Deep striking armies are my nemesis, and I use the threat of a mobile liquifier to prevent or punish armies that land (all clumped up) in my backfield. Also the 3 man squad is a cheap way to get a venom, and is a survivable deck chair unit for its cost. People don't tend to shoot at the 3 man CC squad till the end of the game, and when that happens just get into cover and go to ground.

I tend to run

1x Hammie with LQ
1x 5 Man squad in venom with LQ
2x 3 Man in venom.

Hammie hijacks a venom to give me two mobile templates.