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So, now we got models! Both very, VERY, awesome models.

Does that makes them good? I dunno. Lets check it out:

Talos, AKA, the powerhouse:
- S7 and T7, AT options, AI options, No mobility options.

Chronoi, AKA, the little brother:
- S5 and T7, AI options, No mobility options, unit buffer.

So, how do we capitalize on lack of mobility on an army know for its finesse?

Well, the dark eldar are ALSO know for their tarpit potential.

Getting your alpha strike is important, but do you need to do it on first and second round? An all reserved dark eldar army says otherwise.

The trick is, alpha striking when an reserved army would but without reserving. How do you do that? A.: Suppressing fire.

What is the best gun option for suppressing fire? Haywire weaponry.
And what is the best melee option for suppressing fire? Anything with Inculnerables.

Shoot with Haywires at the tanks and assault infantry with invulnerable units. And play seek and hide.
Once your army is buffed with Pain tokens and/or your Talos is close enough to assault you should deliver the killing blow.

Needless to say you need Scourges for the Haywires, Wyches or Beasts for Invulnerables and trueborns for Darklight weaponry.

Of course, you could aways play WWPs, but i'm a guy that either reserves everything, or reserves nothing.

What are your thoughts on this? And how would YOU play Taloi and Chronoi?

Oh, and more thing: What is the best Setup for a Talos or Chronos?
My favorites:
Talos - Extra CCW, TL Liquifier, TL Haywire
Chronos - Spirit Vortex

The cronos is very nice against certain gunline armies as tehy can soak up a lot of punishment and return fire with AP3 blast weaponry.
The talos is a little easier to use as it can bust tanks and is better in CC.

Both get better if you can get them a cover save and if you can get them FNP soon. Note that they can use FNP against Krak Missiles


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Cronos
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440160a&prodId=prod1230014a

Talos
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440160a&prodId=prod1230007a

I have been testing two Taloi in a 1750 list centred around 2x Wyches (6) with Heamy and one Archon Full Wracks, Beastpack of 4 Flocks and 5 Khymerae, Scourges with 2x HwB, 2x 5 Balst Warriors in Raider and 1 Ravager.

For now I'm still struggling to make two Taloi work for me. I have kitted them with TL-HwB but I find myself doubting between shooting and running. The fact that I loose so much AT power putting 2 Taloi in, makes me want to fire the HwB to remove the incoming fire and the lack of moverment hurts the Taloi heavily.

I must say I enjoy playing Dark Eldar far more than with the old codex, now you have a vast choice of units that might work together. I want to do something different from 3x Ravages (mainly because I was tired of loosing my Ravagers due to 1 lucky shot). Now I'm thinking I need to put in mini Ravager instead of Blast Warriors.

Chronos, I was enthusiastic about at first but I think it lacks the punch in CC and has no AT possibility. Since I'm looking for enough AT to support my CC infantry I'm not completely sold on him.

I do get the thing of a cover save but on the other hand I don't want to be in difficult terrain to be slowed down even more. So I'm using my Beasts as mobile cover. But looking at the new model, it looks really difficult to claim any cover from beasts. I think I should switch to Venoms or Raiders to provide cover.

Have you thought about Web Way Portals? Have one or two Hermies, in radiers and have them jump forward first turn and drop the Web Way Portals on turn one at aorund the half way point. Then have your Talos or Cronos come out from there.

The only draw back is you are not sure when your units will arrive.

jbunny wrote:Have you thought about Web Way Portals? Have one or two Hermies, in radiers and have them jump forward first turn and drop the Web Way Portals on turn one at aorund the half way point. Then have your Talos or Cronos come out from there.

The only draw back is you are not sure when your units will arrive.

That is a big drawback. I don't know how people simple shrug to it.

@El_Jairo
You can try screening the Talos with the Beastmaster's models, not the Beasts (maybe the Clawed Fiend).

The reserve strategy has worked fine for me so far, I put enough units in reserve that i know i will likely get at least two on the second turn. The good thing about taloi, scourges with heat lances, beast masters with mixed beasts and hellions is that they all have a flexible role so whatever comes out, I can decide which WWP to use and target enemy units accordingly.
At least in my experience,
Taloi can do some damage against vehichles, or elite MEQ units with chain flails
Scourges have 9" to melt a vehicle or plenty of splinter fire and 2 str6 shots
Beast masters have plenty of low str rending hits which makes them very effective against MEQ or GEQ units, plus are a nightmare to kill because of wound allocation.
Hellions are not so strong at this but i always use the baron so they are scoring plus tough in cover

I've never tried a chronos, they seem quite hard to play and i'm not that interested in them to begin with to be honest. When i get bored with my current list maybe i'll try them out!

Well to be honest, I'm inclining to think that the only way to make Taloi competitive is through a WWP.
If you face DoW deployment you have a huge handicap: you need to cross 12" more.
I'm not really a fan of WWP because I don't like the idea of offering my army as a piecemeal to my opponent. So it looks that I should give up the idea of playing wit Taloi atm.
They do lack what all my other units have: speed.

The idea of using Clawed Fiends to cover the Taloi isn't really appealing yet, maybe Grotesques. But all this would imply that the Talos will need a coven list to be used.
To my experience a Talos without cover can be too quickly destroyed (me failing my Armour saves 8/10 might bias my opinion).

My opinion on a Cronos is that it's main role is to give other unit pain tokens PT. To make them more either more resilient or more effective. Since most DE list look MSU I feel those PT are wasted and most of the cost for the Cronos too.
It might have a nice place in a Coven list with big Wrack en Gotesque units. Vs MEQ that one PT can prove to be a big difference (for sure in the open).
But who will put his marines in the open waiting to be assaulted?
So I still don't see the use for those nice pain engines, yet.

Tavitin wrote:
Oh, and more thing: What is the best Setup for a Talos or Chronos?
My favorites:
Talos - Extra CCW, TL Liquifier, TL Haywire
Chronos - Spirit Vortex

I'm pretty sure that your Talos setup is wasting points. Talos starts with one CCW which the TL-Liguifier replaces. Buying extra CCW would mean that you only have 1 weapon which is the same as having none so no extra attacks. Ichor Injector and Chain Flails however are special weapons and buying CCW will add 1 attack for them.

As a partially related note the Wracks have the same problem. Poisoned close combat weapons are special weapons and so won't count as extra CCW for weapons that aren't similar. Buying Agonizer for Acothyst will actually reduce the number of attacks by 1. It is funny that buying special weapon for Grotesque Aberration will add one attack as it doesn't replace the natural CCW the Grot has. Coven units seem to be so warped that they have hard time keeping count of their attacks.

I prefer using fully upgraded Chronos with WWP charge list. That way it can jump start the units that come from reserves with pain tokens. FNP and FC are pretty damn important for Hellions and foot wyches and if enemy infantry is close enough I can generate 4 pain token on the turn the Chronos arrives. 2 from shooting weapons, 1 from Probe and 1 from wiping out the unit I multi charged with Chronos and some dedicated assault unit.

jbunny wrote:Have you thought about Web Way Portals? Have one or two Hermies, in radiers and have them jump forward first turn and drop the Web Way Portals on turn one at aorund the half way point. Then have your Talos or Cronos come out from there.

The only draw back is you are not sure when your units will arrive.

But the other side is also not sure when units will arrive.

Aetherse wrote:

Tavitin wrote:
Oh, and more thing: What is the best Setup for a Talos or Chronos?
My favorites:
Talos - Extra CCW, TL Liquifier, TL Haywire
Chronos - Spirit Vortex

I'm pretty sure that your Talos setup is wasting points. Talos starts with one CCW which the TL-Liguifier replaces. Buying extra CCW would mean that you only have 1 weapon which is the same as having none so no extra attacks. Ichor Injector and Chain Flails however are special weapons and buying CCW will add 1 attack for them.

As a partially related note the Wracks have the same problem. Poisoned close combat weapons are special weapons and so won't count as extra CCW for weapons that aren't similar. Buying Agonizer for Acothyst will actually reduce the number of attacks by 1. It is funny that buying special weapon for Grotesque Aberration will add one attack as it doesn't replace the natural CCW the Grot has. Coven units seem to be so warped that they have hard time keeping count of their attacks.

True, the TL liquifier replaces a CCW so an extra CCW is 15 points for nothing

Wracks, yes its completely worthless to give their Acothyst anything, or even take an acothyst really

Grot Aberrations are awesome with venom blades. 5 pts gives you 2+ to wound(very likely rerollable) and +1 attack giving him 5 base. They cant take power weapons so I feel its the best option.


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El_Jairo wrote:

The idea of using Clawed Fiends to cover the Taloi isn't really appealing yet, maybe Grotesques. But all this would imply that the Talos will need a coven list to be used.

cover is nice, running a talos or cronos through some trees is a good idea
trying to get cover from foot models, ehh its gonna be rough but you can try. I think the best option is from a vehicle, which again makes it unlikely you are going to have pain engines in the first place

note though that pain engines can get pain tokens, cronos can get them very easily.
FNP helps you a lot against bolters but also against Krak Missiles and Rokkits.

Extra CCW removed from the Talos Setup.

now he does d6 attacks
uses a TL template with rolled AP
has a AT that stuns and immobilizes

I don't know, a TL Liquifier seems more dangerous and more killy than Chain Flails (when it comes to infantry, that is)

I read the OP. My only response:

Exergy wrote:
Grot Aberrations are awesome with venom blades. 5 pts gives you 2+ to wound(very likely rerollable) and +1 attack giving him 5 base. They cant take power weapons so I feel its the best option.

I prefer my Aberrations with Scissorhands if possible. Scissorhand Aberration is almost the same as getting another Grotesque as you get 3 attacks over rank and file model. Venom Blade would of course be cheaper but extra S6(7) attack is in my opinion worth 10 points. I don't run Raider sized squads without Urien because I don't find S5(6) reliable. For large foot mobs of Grotesques I wouldn't buy Aberration because 2 or 3 more attacks don't really matter when you already have 40 on charge.

Tavitin wrote:I don't know, a TL Liquifier seems more dangerous and more killy than Chain Flails (when it comes to infantry, that is)

I think this is good a setup. Chain Flails are better against vehicle and add reliability but come with higher price because of the mandatory CCW upgrade. Still none of the builds is really that expensive so it all comes down to personal preference. The new model seem to be easy to magnetize so you can switch weapons on the fly. Haywire Blaster is a good option for all comers list but if you are only fighting Nids then the Splinter Cannon is obviously much better.

Aetherse wrote:

Exergy wrote:
Grot Aberrations are awesome with venom blades. 5 pts gives you 2+ to wound(very likely rerollable) and +1 attack giving him 5 base. They cant take power weapons so I feel its the best option.

I prefer my Aberrations with Scissorhands if possible. Scissorhand Aberration is almost the same as getting another Grotesque as you get 3 attacks over rank and file model. Venom Blade would of course be cheaper but extra S6(7) attack is in my opinion worth 10 points. I don't run Raider sized squads without Urien because I don't find S5(6) reliable. For large foot mobs of Grotesques I wouldn't buy Aberration because 2 or 3 more attacks don't really matter when you already have 40 on charge.

why would you take a large squad of grots? 4 is the best number because of cost and getting them into a raider. sure you CAN have 10 but thats 400 points that can be broken until it has 3 pain tokens.
but then you lose your 2+ to wound and instead have 3+ to wound(likely rerollable)

run into a MC like a wraithlord and you would much rather have 2+ to wound and 5 attacks than 3+ to wound and 6 attacks.

Exergy wrote:
why would you take a large squad of grots? 4 is the best number because of cost and getting them into a raider. sure you CAN have 10 but thats 400 points that can be broken until it has 3 pain tokens.
but then you lose your 2+ to wound and instead have 3+ to wound(likely rerollable)

run into a MC like a wraithlord and you would much rather have 2+ to wound and 5 attacks than 3+ to wound and 6 attacks.

The foot mob part was just a side note. Without a Raider Grotesques face the same problems as Ogryns, namely not getting anywhere, and as you said they cost a metric ton.

I ran quick mathhammer of Venom Blade and Scissorhands versus Wraithlord and results were that Venom Blade does 0.69 wounds and Scissorhands does 0.67 wounds. When they are charging the numbers are 0.83 versus 0.78.
So it is not a very big difference.

Also as you probably know T8 is not really the baseline of MCs and as 3+ get relatively better with rerolls than 2+ (4+ getting most out of it) the Scissorhands outperforms the Venomblade when they both reroll wounds. For example against Tervigon Blade does 1,30 wounds and Hands do 1.38 wounds. The main point in the extra attack is hitting vehicles which is what Grotesques should be doing first when they reach the enemy lines.

Aetherse wrote:
The foot mob part was just a side note. Without a Raider Grotesques face the same problems as Ogryns, namely not getting anywhere, and as you said they cost a metric ton.
I ran quick mathhammer of Venom Blade and Scissorhands versus Wraithlord and results were that Venom Blade does 0.69 wounds and Scissorhands does 0.67 wounds. When they are charging the numbers are 0.83 versus 0.78.
So it is not a very big difference.
Also as you probably know T8 is not really the baseline of MCs and as 3+ get relatively better with rerolls than 2+ (4+ getting most out of it) the Scissorhands outperforms the Venomblade when they both reroll wounds. For example against Tervigon Blade does 1,30 wounds and Hands do 1.38 wounds. The main point in the extra attack is hitting vehicles which is what Grotesques should be doing first when they reach the enemy lines.

sure the reroll makes the scissor better, although it still costs more.
therefore making them Urien's makes the scissor better, as he will reroll more
so does getting them FC, as they can reroll more although FC only works when they are charging and venom blades are better when charging.

for me its 10 more points. 10 points on something expensive and it doesnt add that much. Taking urien and then giving them Str6 makes them even more expensive while still not improving their survivability or making them that much killier. 5pts per model is a lot. 10 points more on a 40pt sarg is a lot too.