Considering Grots for my Archon: tactical

I am finding that my Archon (Husk/Soul/Shadow/Blast/PGL) is generally doing all the work, and her Incubi buddies are often dead before they do much (6 Inc, Klaivex, MA).
I'm looking at Grots for the majority toughness benefit, and 4 of them cost roughly the same; how do they compare tactically? The higher Strength is an obvious bonus, as is the Pain Token, especially for the Archon, but the trade off is the armour: enemy Power Weapons often eat through it anyway, however. The Liquefier would be nice too, for Overwatch.

Have any of you guys done a comparison on the table? How did it work out? I want to feel it is worth the investment before I buy!

I have started a matching thread in Low Commoragh, searching for models ;-)

Its on my to try list

I'm running a 4man Grot unit in a Raider with my Archon this weekend for the first time myself.... it's vs. Tau, Necron, and Grey Knights.

I'll let you know how they do.

It's my go to unit for my archon boosts his toughness and is an incredibly tough unit.

I normally put them in a raider with enhanced aethersails, go flat out into enemies lines they will have to dedicate so much fire to take the whole squad down.

Make sure you give the archons PGL and take an aberration to take challenges for the archon.

I was wondering whether the Klaivex/Aberration was actually good or not: as my Archon has a Huskblade and Soul Trap, surely I WANT to be calling or accepting challenges with attached ICs? She wants those souls so the Trap doubles her strength?!

A squad leader can challenge your archon to prevent him from chopping through the rest of the squad...if the aberration accepts instead your archon is free to wreak havoc!

It depends who makes the challenge if you have one IC or C in the squad you cannot refuse the challenge if a SM sergeant challenges with a power fist you don't want your archon to die to him.

So I just tested both units in a series of games. Heres what I ran:

archon, shadowfield, pgl, huskblade, venom blade, drugs
7 incubi, klaivex
raider, sails
399

haemonculus, liquifier, venom blade (and also swapped for archon as above except no pgl)
4 grotesques, liquifier, aberation- flesh gauntlet
raider, sails
310 (385 with archon -pgl)

Both units performed very well. The incubi are straight murder. Anything they hit evaporated. But, as you say, they did tend to die off to shooting, even overwatch from bolters, heavy bolters, telsa, big shootas, pretty much everything can hurt if you roll bad on armour saves. Still totally worthwhile.

Grotes on the other hand didnt always hit as hard, depending on opposing armour value, but they always threw out plenty of wounds and the double liquifier guns on such resilient platforms was just amazing. They killed 14 models in one shooting phase with the liquifiers and actually killed themselves out of charge range (which is where I missed fleet).
The gauntlet was also pretty nuts especially if combined with the archon. Its great against things like wraiths, nids, nobz bikers (all of which I faced). The aberation ID'd a couple MCs and beat down on hordes and elites alike including one team game where a cron scythe got shot down and crashed into their unit inflicting wounds after which they still fought through 54 gants (archon with the unit in this game).

Either way I found an aether sail raider delivery to be my favorite so far allowing me to position with 4++ cover nearly every time and often survive to deliver its contents.

When I rolled the archon with the grotes I left the pgl off and never really missed it but obviously if pts allow it would be a nice addition. In the T3 incubi id say its mandatory.

Final thoughts: I love both units so far and will likely be running with both for quite some time. Incubi are likely better in a meq infested environment but id wager grotes will usually out-play them against xenos. Pick some up I doubt you will be disappointed.

Edit- I should add that I did math hammer both units pretty hard before purchasing, same as you. While I dont have the results handy, iirc on average grotes were straight better against S4 or less, and incubi were better against higher strength not of the ap3 variety.
However this doesnt take into account the cost of a single wound which puts the grotes pretty far ahead in terms of survivability all around at only 12 pts/wound. Also plasma, missiles, any ap3 weapons barring vindicators/ID are in the grotes favor. Poison not so much. Its also worth noting that grotes absorb fire like no other with 14-15 T5 wounds in the unit plus the archons 2++ and FNP. Meanwhle I lost 3 incubi to overwatch from gauss blasters (the remaining 4 + archon still wiped the whole squad + tek + imhotek). Ya love em both.

That's great thanks Brom, your on-table rsults mirror my expectations, so as you say it is worth the investment and effort to build and try them!

Thanks to the replies on both threads, I will pick up some Warspears today!

Just saw something on Brom's list: you have a Venom Blade AND a Huskblade. How do these interact? I have only played Tyranids in 6th, whose biomorphs stack, but does the venom-husk combo give ID attacks that wound on 2+ at AZp2, or do you choose which benefit you get each round, sub phase, or can you mix? Do you still get +1 Attack for dual weapons?

commandersasha wrote:

Just saw something on Brom's list: you have a Venom Blade AND a Huskblade. How do these interact? I have only played Tyranids in 6th, whose biomorphs stack, but does the venom-husk combo give ID attacks that wound on 2+ at AZp2, or do you choose which benefit you get each round, sub phase, or can you mix? Do you still get +1 Attack for dual weapons?

You get +1A as neither is a Specialist Weapon but you have to choose which to use each fight sub-phase.

Credit for most of my load outs goes largely to members here. The combo is to maximize his damage potential and sheer utility. Against crap troops like gants, boys, etc I use the venom blade. Against MCs or ICs I use huskblade. Of course drugs can modify this game plan though especially if I roll 4- reroll to wound. I'm actually considering adding haywire grenades as well because I recently lost to a Mech army after murdering all the infantry but losing my fragile dark light chassis.. It was big guns mission.

Having used Grots now in a couple games, they WAY outperformed my expectations (especially in comparison to equal points of incubi). Some of that was some amazing Feel no Pain rolling, but also something I didn't think of, and may often be overlooked...

They don't kill/break decent units on the charge. It seemed counterintuitive to me to their survival, but when they attacked (one example) a 20 man unit of necron warriors with overlord, they won the combat, but not by a ton, and were protected the following round from return fire shooting, and defeated and broke the unit that turn, allowing them to charge another unit, and that happened again.

In my games I found that once they got into combat, they seemed to be able to avoid most enemy fire, except overwatch to their charges. Incubi on the other hand do SO much damage that they slaughter/break most anything I attack, opening them to all the return fire that my opponent can muster....

Something to consider.

I've also found grotes great at destroying armour. Its funny watching anni barges scatter when the grotbomb touches down since they are actually more deadly than dark light against jinking av13 if they can reach em which they usually can. In fact I feel they are better then wyches with haywire at this, simply due to survivability meaning they aren't just a one hit wonder at best. I haven't used wyches much I admit but they just never felt suited to 6th edition.

I run them with Urien in 2000 point games as well as an archon. It is a point sink, but man o man is it vicious.

They straight up murder almost everything, but cost a truckload of points. T5 is a real bonus especially in assault, as the Archon almost always goes first and clears out enemies in base contact pretty fast, making him more surviveable. With 3 challengers/accepters it makes for an interesting group, and S7 grots on the charge is nothing to sneeze at. Uriens instant death is nice too!

I often run Grotesques as an Archon delivery system. Works quite well against my IG playing friend who loves having a big blob behind a wall coupled up with a few tanks. In this, a unit of Grotesques that aethersails + flat outs across the entire table, sitting a few inches away from his gunline is an incredibly threathening unit that draws nearly all of his fire. Unless hit by a direct hit with the Manticore (which he won't, because he risks of wrecking his own guys), they can sit there and take a LOT of punishment, and the Archon will survive. Meanwhile, the rest of the table is relatively free to do what they see fit, the fragile Venoms, Raiders and Ravagers not in the immediate imperial attention.

If comparing against Incubi, they are a big, frozen cow's leg versus a high-tech laser scalpel - the scalpel's much better for doing precision work, but is rather easy to break, while the cow's leg will take a hell of a lot time to thaw and can dish out some serious bludgeoning hurt.