How to best equip a talos?

I have a conversion idea for my fledgling army but I am curious how to best equip a talos?

Chainflails. Maybe the extra CCW. That's all.

liquifier and stock splinter cannon. They're beastly

One of mine (Blossom) is armed with Splinter Cannon and Liquifier Gun, she's built to demolish all sorts of infantry. The other, Buttercup, is armed with heat lance and chain flails, she's anti-tank/MC. Bubbles is a Chronos :-D

Liquifier and Splinter Cannon, hands down. But I'm planning on testing out Haywire Blaster to go with my Scourge HWB unit sometime soon.
Grokfog you're officially my favourite. I'm running Talos/Talos/Cronos on saturday, can't wait to pull 'em out!!!

Laughingcarp wrote:

I'm running Talos/Talos/Cronos on saturday, can't wait to pull 'em out!!!

Tell us, how they performed.   

TL Haywire Blaster and Chain Flails. I play my Talos as a jack of all trades. Tank/Flyer pot shots early turns, advancing troops/deepstrikers mid/late game. Depends on opponent really but stay clear of Meltas and Lascannons lol

1++ wrote:

Depends on opponent really but stay clear of Meltas and Lascannons lol

Sternguard sucks, too. I really hate their special ammo...

I personally prefer the twinlinked splinter cannon/liquifier load out.

It has a 36" range splinter cannon and can sit in midfield where all the objectives are and then your opponent needs to come to you, talos are scoring this edition and as a result all the more effective. You don't need to have objective secure if you can kill anything that comes near you.

It's an area denial unit. Start it 12" into the board in cover. Move it forwards 6" or 6"+d6 (run) if there are no targets, and you are in the middle of the board turn 1-2. You can threaten anything within 18", because it's not like overwatch bothers a talos, so there is no reason not to try a 10-12" charge. With move through cover you don't get a charge distance penalty for charging out of the cover you're lurking in. With the liquifiers anything that comes within 14" (6" move + 8" flame template) is going to be in trouble, whilst the 36" range twinlinked splinter cannon can fire away at scoring units whilst you sit and wait for your opponent to advance.

The splinter cannon is also great for getting a pain token on it ASAP. This is probably the most important aspect of the splinter cannon, if you order you shooting phase, so by the end of turn 1 your talos hasn't fired yet and an enemy unit is down to 1-3 models then theirs a good chance you can get FNP on it turn 1. This really goes a long way to making it more survivable.

Even if your talos gets shot to pieces turn 1 they are probably the most resilient unit in our army for their cost. If your opponent is shooting it instead of the more fragile elements of your army you should be well on the way to victory as he will be expending considerable fire to do so (especially if your talos is obscured by a ruin for a 4+ cover save).

The talos is about projecting fear. Can your opponent risk it rolling high on it's charge and reaching one of his units? Can your opponent risk it rolling AP1-2-3 with it's twinlinked liquifiers (S4 re-roll to wound making them quite deadly)? Can your opponent risk that it might roll a 6 for its number of attacks? Can your opponent risk failing to wound it? Can your opponent risk it passing more 3+ saves than it statistically should? Can your opponent risk the liquifiers rolling above average on overwatch?

Fear is not about what a unit will do, but about what it has the potential to do. In the case of the Talos, that's terrible terrible damage.

I find the other upgrades don't really do much for their cost, making a unit that's already good in assault better doesn't really help it, if anything it can hinder it by making it more likely to win combat on your turn (rather than on your opponents assuming you get the charge). The haywire blasters are too unreliable, and rarely amount to much. The heatlances are only effective within 15" which is in your assault range anyway, and pales in terms of utility value compared to splinter cannons, which lets you get pain tokens on it early and allows it to still contribute whilst lurking in cover near an objective.

Excellent write up Mush. Making the switch, today!

Ive used the splinter/liquefier in many games and they have been fantastic.

Tho lately I have been trying out the haywire/chainflails option vs a regular opponent who loves his crons. I find it more usefull vs the barges and destroyer lords that seem to be everywhere. Also its good for snapping at sythes.

If 7thed does see more vehicles on the table this loadout maybe more useful.

Played the Talos(LG/SC)/Talos(HWG)/Cronos(blast) today vs Orks.

Those three models were MVP hands down. Lost the Cronos T2 but it took all the Ork's shooting (45 Lootas + shoots boyz) to drop it, ended the game with both Taloi alive. Fear of Large Blast and the template vs his open-topped trukks (ha!) brought that dakka on.

In accordance with above posters' experience, HWG mostly didn't deliver (all it did all game was kill 2 boyz).
But the Taloi worked as amazing fear-generators, area-denial, and damage sinks. Best use of points ever.
Only thing I'm considering is trying Chain-Flails; averaged 1 kill/phase in CC.

But because they're scoring now they beat out Ravager as far as I'm concerned for future list-writing. Not to mention they're that few points cheaper.

Chain flails. If you have the points, an extra CCW. I don't add anything else to him. His primary purpose is to lead the charge in my army, and he very often doesn't survive that. Too many more points sunk into him doesn't really benefit me.

A big thank you to Muchkilla. That presentation was just what I needed to begin painting, and fielding my Talos. I even want to buy another! ;-)

Mushkilla wrote:

I personally prefer the twinlinked splinter cannon/liquifier load out.

It has a 36" range splinter cannon and can sit in midfield where all the objectives are and then your opponent needs to come to you, talos are scoring this edition and as a result all the more effective. You don't need to have objective secure if you can kill anything that comes near you.

It's an area denial unit. Start it 12" into the board in cover. Move it forwards 6" or 6"+d6 (run) if there are no targets, and you are in the middle of the board turn 1-2. You can threaten anything within 18", because it's not like overwatch bothers a talos, so there is no reason not to try a 10-12" charge. With move through cover you don't get a charge distance penalty for charging out of the cover you're lurking in. With the liquifiers anything that comes within 14" (6" move + 8" flame template) is going to be in trouble, whilst the 36" range twinlinked splinter cannon can fire away at scoring units whilst you sit and wait for your opponent to advance.

The splinter cannon is also great for getting a pain token on it ASAP. This is probably the most important aspect of the splinter cannon, if you order you shooting phase, so by the end of turn 1 your talos hasn't fired yet and an enemy unit is down to 1-3 models then theirs a good chance you can get FNP on it turn 1. This really goes a long way to making it more survivable.

Even if your talos gets shot to pieces turn 1 they are probably the most resilient unit in our army for their cost. If your opponent is shooting it instead of the more fragile elements of your army you should be well on the way to victory as he will be expending considerable fire to do so (especially if your talos is obscured by a ruin for a 4+ cover save).

The talos is about projecting fear. Can your opponent risk it rolling high on it's charge and reaching one of his units? Can your opponent risk it rolling AP1-2-3 with it's twinlinked liquifiers (S4 re-roll to wound making them quite deadly)? Can your opponent risk that it might roll a 6 for its number of attacks? Can your opponent risk failing to wound it? Can your opponent risk it passing more 3+ saves than it statistically should? Can your opponent risk the liquifiers rolling above average on overwatch?

Fear is not about what a unit will do, but about what it has the potential to do. In the case of the Talos, that's terrible terrible damage.

I find the other upgrades don't really do much for their cost, making a unit that's already good in assault better doesn't really help it, if anything it can hinder it by making it more likely to win combat on your turn (rather than on your opponents assuming you get the charge). The haywire blasters are too unreliable, and rarely amount to much. The heatlances are only effective within 15" which is in your assault range anyway, and pales in terms of utility value compared to splinter cannons, which lets you get pain tokens on it early and allows it to still contribute whilst lurking in cover near an objective.

This is why I have three pain engines and am in the process of converting two more. I need to decide how I want to make my 6th and then I'll have enough to double up on the 'Carnivale of Pain' Apocalypse formation as well - and well if we get lucky and they become a 1-3 option in the new codex then even better.

My Talos always run around with twin-linked Splinter Cannons and Liquifiers unless I desperately need the points for the Liquifiers elsewhere... which considering my love of Liquifiers isn't often.

The Cronos seems even better in the 7th edition than in the 6th:
1) he is scoring
2) his template attack now reach models in open-topped transports (I play mostly against orks and Necrons so this is a huge improvement for me)

Also wyches benefit a lot from his pain tokens and are slightly better in the 7th (less explosions, blind).

ive been running a talos/cronos list in conjuction with the duke, have all the vehicles deep striking in and the big boys out of a wwp. and a few other units to distract from the haemy carrying the wwp

You just have to make sure you haemy carrying the portal survives long enough to deploy it. So far ive managed to do it in all my 5 games,

darthken239 wrote:

You just have to make sure  you haemy carrying the portal  survives long enough to deploy it.  So far ive managed to do it  in all my 5 games,  

How?

Laughingcarp wrote:

darthken239 wrote:

You just have to make sure  you haemy carrying the portal  survives long enough to deploy it.  So far ive managed to do it  in all my 5 games,  

How?

From my experience of doing the same; guile, cunning and decent LoS blocking terrain. Also the fact that I always deploy it in the first turn. I've generally only ever used one portal in my lists and as yet *touch wood* have always been successful in getting it to where I want it. Keeping the Venom - or occaisionally Raider - wrapped in other 'less important' transports to grant cover does always help, and generally ensuring there are bigger looking targets elsewhere. I'll admit without LoS-blocking terrain it's much harder unless you're going first.

It depends on how you want to run them.

I tend to run two of them with a Cronos (only once have ever run three Cronos and b the end of that game every one of my units had full pain tokens) and they'll have either Liquifiers and Splinter Cannons or Haywire Blasters. Heat Lance has never really worked for me before.

Laughingcarp wrote:

darthken239 wrote:

You just have to make sure  you haemy carrying the portal  survives long enough to deploy it.  So far ive managed to do it  in all my 5 games,  

How?

Generally by having the haemonculus in a Venom with either Wracks or Kabalites and flying asap to where I need the portal, while hugging all the cover I can find.