Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Would dark eldar wracks and grotesques be a decent choice as allies in an eldar army?

What do you think they would play well with and against?
I'm thinking it could add a very tough punch to an army, that the opponent probably won't be expecting when those dark eldar stand up against some decent damage. With eldar still doing what they do best elsewhere on the table.
And with the right HQ to give them pain tokens.
Or is this just way too many points to be viable?

I'm going by what I've read as I don't own a dark eldar codex yet.

It all hinges on what your Eldar army does and what gaps can be filled by allies.

I was considering focusing on firepower with my eldar. Giving me a tough combat unit.
Possibly using them to keep the more valuable units in the army safe.
Would they "stack" well with a Farseer?

Plus like the idea of also running a wrath heavy eldar army for the full aspect but with tough eldar units being a rarity in the codex I'm not sure how a force of this type would play at 1500 - 2000

I think you could find a use for grotesques for sure.

I LOVE the Grotesque-star with dark eldar. And all it needs to be fully functional is two haemonculus, which you can buy with a single HQ slot, so it is safe to be an ally unit.

Unfortunately I don't see anything they really want for psychic powers in the eldar book, doom isn't that interesting for a unit with furious charge strength 5, and with two venom blade wielding ICs, fortune and guide are eldar unit only.

It is probably too expensive to buy more powers, but divination is immediately enticing... I would roll and hope for Forewarning or Misfortune, and trade everything else in for Precience. Forewarning would make grotesques bonkers, T5 3 wounds, 4++ then 5+.

Focusing on firepower for the eldar portion is smart. When I run the grotesque-star, the rest of the army is just fragile long ranged shooting. Something that tempts my opponent to shoot at it instead of the giant fearless mass of meat-devils bearing down on them.

I've got all kinds of reasons why I think something like this is a wise idea in terms of the new book missions too. You need non-vehicular aggressive units that don't get countered by being charged. Until adjustments are made to aspect warriors, I think grotesques and beast packs are eldar's best bet.

Remember that you need to get the Grotesques from point A to point B, and that means either a raider or a WWP.

One is fragile and limits your Grotesquestar to 10 models, and the other has to be used carefully, as you can't assault from it. I usually run mine with Urien and 9 wracks, as he will grant extra pain tokens to wrack units in addition to being a haemonculus in a wrack unit Clone field plusautohealing is fun in challenges too

That said, Grotesques work reasonably well with CWE as a rough assault unit, assuming you can actually get them to the combat.

Focusing on firepower for the eldar portion is smart. When I run the grotesque-star, the rest of the army is just fragile long ranged shooting. Something that tempts my opponent to shoot at it instead of the giant fearless mass of meat-devils bearing down on them.

I've got all kinds of reasons why I think something like this is a wise idea in terms of the new book missions too. You need non-vehicular aggressive units that don't get countered by being charged. Until adjustments are made to aspect warriors, I think grotesques and beast packs are eldar's best bet.

That's quite true.
I could imagine a mech Eldar army with Serpents and Warwalkers screened by Grotesque squad and Beast packs (or Harlies) are used for counter-strike.

Ascalam wrote:Remember that you need to get the Grotesques from point A to point B, and that means either a raider or a WWP.

One is fragile and limits your Grotesquestar to 10 models, and the other has to be used carefully, as you can't assault from it. I usually run mine with Urien and 9 wracks, as he will grant extra pain tokens to wrack units in addition to being a haemonculus in a wrack unit Clone field plusautohealing is fun in challenges too

That said, Grotesques work reasonably well with CWE as a rough assault unit, assuming you can actually get them to the combat.

Sadly, you an only fit 4 grotesques in a raider and still be able to get the haemonculi in there with them. So if you want that big unit, you'll have to foot slog or WWP.

Sorry, was thinking Wracks i think... Brain was elsewhere last night (in a jar, in the lab, probably..)

Doesn't help that i played the old codex, where the grotesques were wrack-sized

My Wrackstar plays as above,

My GROT-star is a WWP delivery with 10 and Urien.

DonerStoom wrote:Would dark eldar wracks and grotesques be a decent choice as allies in an eldar army?

What do you think they would play well with and against?
I'm thinking it could add a very tough punch to an army, that the opponent probably won't be expecting when those dark eldar stand up against some decent damage. With eldar still doing what they do best elsewhere on the table.
And with the right HQ to give them pain tokens.
Or is this just way too many points to be viable?

I'm going by what I've read as I don't own a dark eldar codex yet.

I think if you are on foot, it might be nice to mix in some high toughness allies and wracks and grots fit the bill.
Grotesques need an IC to keep from going bezerk, and the cheapest from the DE list is the haemoculus which costs 50 points without upgrades and comes with a pain token.
whatever you do it is always nice to put a venom blade or scissorhand on your abbervation(grotesque sergeant) for a massive number of attacks
if you take wracks, dont take a sergeant or at least dont give him any weapons as it decreases his number of attacks.

Well, Deathstars are out in the new edition, since there are units out there that can tie them up for a while. Look at a larger Ork mob or fearless Gaunts.

An archon isn't a half bad choice for a grotstar either.

Costs more than twice as much as a Haemonculus though, but gives the entire unit both offensive and defensive grenades, has a much better statline and can be kitted out with wargear to suit every situation, while also provided a 2++ and FnP. Which might have been hugely buffed, since Feel No Pain's exact wording says 'treat the wound as having been saved' which, as I'm interpreting it, means that the shadow field isn't destroyed unless you fail your FnP as well.

More beatstick, more expensive, it's a good choice, but a costly one.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, Deathstars are out in the new edition, since there are units out there that can tie them up for a while. Look at a larger Ork mob or fearless Gaunts.

I respectfully disagree.

30 boys get 3 wounds onto grotesques with overwatch. 2 don't get FNPed.
42 attacks from grotesques 8 attacks from venomblade hameonculus
25 hits, 20 wounds, 17 dead orks.
13 orks get 13 hits, 2 wounds, maybe 1 gets through, allocated to an unwounded grotesque.

Thanks for being fearless this turn orks. Next turn (which will be yours) I'll break you, then conslidate into a fresh charge having lost zero models.

And the double haemie grot-star is one of the wimpier of the new fangled deathstars out there.

fortuned eldar units joined by as many 2+ save characters as you can buy, nob bikers, fex-stars, etc are all really taking advantage of Look out, Sir! to get ridiculous survivability mixed in with terrifying punchiness.

oh yeah... edited to add. Why does my grotstar unit need to 'get there'? Can't it just move-run with its 34 T5 feel no pain wounds that can be spread around the unit thanks to look out sir abuse? Its a board dominance piece, not a fast assaulter, beast packs are awesome for that. Grotstars move up like a fat menacing bully, and then late game spread out to double contest and be very difficult to kill.

Shep, very good analysis. So it seems that other factors balance out the benefit given by fearlessness in cc.

Ascalam wrote:Remember that you need to get the Grotesques from point A to point B, and that means either a raider or a WWP.

Not necessarily. Remember, Kandras gives infiltrate. Not at all certain if that would be effective, but infiltrate is a delivery mech. Only reason I mention it is because I've been thinking lately on how to break the game with Kandras infiltrating squads in 6th.....nothing useful yet. Wraithgaurd/farseer/Kandras/conceal lock would be cute, but again I'm pretty sure it's effectiveness would be limited.

Lokas wrote:An archon isn't a half bad choice for a grotstar either.

Yeah I desperately want an archon in it, but I am pretty terrified of failing morale. I am a lot more comfortable just being fearless from turn 1.

The weakness of the grotstar is that they don't really have any game against terminators. The archon doesn't help with that. There isn't anything in the dark eldar book besides harlequins that does. And I do have to admit, if I was going to reach for harlequins, I think I'd take a fortune-seer and 3 jetbike troops, and get those tasty tasty re-rolls along with runes of warding.

The grotstar is one of those units that is really good until it isn't. I know that sounds silly, but what I mean by that is that if someone is handing you low strength wounds, then you can spread them all throughout the unit all day long the unit will seem pretty much unkillable, and will win so many combats so convincingly. But fail a couple look out sir's from strength 8 shooting, and you lose your independent characters. Or taking strength 10 barrage and immediately picking up 35 point models with no armor and no FNP. If it faces three long fang squads, then you can just tuck the independent characters into the unit and play by the rules. But if there were two manticores on the table, you'd pretty much have to reserve until you could handle them.

And I'm not disparaging ork boys or termagants in the slightest. Those units both got great buffs in those fearless changes. Its just a case of a 200 point unit facing a 480 point unit that is designed from the ground up to beat up on non-elite units and non-flying vehicles.

The OP was asking about bringing in grotesques to eldar though, which I have adittedly drifted away from discussing.

You could definitely do it, you just need 2 haemies and the big grotesque unit, and actually it is probably what I'd port over if I was going to base the army on eldar. But I just want to make sure that you've at least considered getting an archon with shadowfield joined to a unit with fortune on it. The only thing sweeter than that is two archons in that unit, and you can only do that by having dark eldar take the lead.

Would it be legal to run an allied list something like

3 haemonculi (wargear suggestions welcome)
1 large unit of grotesques
1 decent unit of wrackes w/ raider

3 haemonculi being one hq slot, placing 2 with grotesques and 1 with the wracks, help them out a bit too.

Seems legal to me.

Edit to add wargear suggestions: I like my haemonculi with liquifiers and venom blades. Only other option for me is to step up to the agonizer, but thats a borderline overinvestment in the haemonculus' statline.

Shep wrote:Seems legal to me.

Edit to add wargear suggestions: I like my haemonculi with liquifiers and venom blades. Only other option for me is to step up to the agonizer, but thats a borderline overinvestment in the haemonculus' statline.

Im looking at Haemi ancients with mindphase guantlets. If only they worked on characters and not just ICs. You challenge an IC with a fist. Hit him all day and then make him make a bunch of tests, he should fail one and then lose all his attacks. regular haemis work too, just not as many attacks.

Liquifier and Venom Blade is the default for my Haemonculi as well.

If you have the spare points, you could consider a Shattershard as well. It's a flame template that hits the specific models under the template, allowing you to snipe characters out of a unit on a failed toughness save. Other than that, not really much worth taking.

Wracks are easy to equip. Take nine, take a liquifier gun, add a raider, add a haemonculus equipped as above. Easy peasy, effective, and absolutely brutal against MEQ and GEQ.

Especially GEQ with the revised poison rules, which brings me to my next suggestion.

Which is less of a suggestion, and more of me theorycrafting aloud. You should always take an aberration with your Grotesques, it's 10 points for more strength 5 attacks and the opportunity for some nifty wargear. In the past, I've always advocated the venom blade as his gear, as he can reroll that 2+ against even tyranid monstrous creatures. However, after rereading the 6th edition poison rules, I'm beginning to ponder a scissorhand instead.

Because poison is now worded to 'always wound on a fixed number, unless a lower result is required' you can still get that 2+ to wound against the majority of things you'll want your grotstar facing, with the poison rerolls, and with 7 attacks on the charge as opposed to 6. It's 10 points more for that extra attack, and the efficiency drops as the opponent's toughness goes up (mathhammered out, the scissorhand outperforms the venom blade against toughness 4 or less by about 1 wound on average, on toughness 5 or more, they about even out, on toughness 7 or more, the venom blade is superior) but as Shep said, this is a huge, expensive unit that's meant to faceroll anything that isn't your opponent's death star. Very few things are toughness 5+ and fit into that latter category, making the scissorhand a more expensive, but better performing option that fits in the Grot's role.

Something to think about. The venom blade is still awesome, don't get me wrong. It's just an idea I've been pondering.

I think with the new poison rules and FC the Scissor hand is the way to go, unless your desperate for the points, then stick with the venom blade.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

The weakness of the grotstar is that they don't really have any game against terminators. The archon doesn't help with that. There isn't anything in the dark eldar book besides harlequins that does.

Lilith can. Talk about a beauty and the beasts deathstar combo . Plus Lili can nab FC and FNP off the brutes, allowing her to throw out about 1.22 to 2.44 wound/turn against TeQ depending on SS or not, with a couple precision strikes thrown in just in case. Oh, and don't forget about her armor save ignoring BS 9 Plasma Grenade .

Shep wrote:Seems legal to me.

Edit to add wargear suggestions: I like my haemonculi with liquifiers and venom blades. Only other option for me is to step up to the agonizer, but thats a borderline overinvestment in the haemonculus' statline.

A hexrifle is also an option, especially when the Haemi stays on the Raider. Directed fire comes as a bonus.

Dash2021 wrote: Not necessarily. Remember, Kandras gives infiltrate. Not at all certain if that would be effective, but infiltrate is a delivery mech. Only reason I mention it is because I've been thinking lately on how to break the game with Kandras infiltrating squads in 6th.....nothing useful yet. Wraithgaurd/farseer/Kandras/conceal lock would be cute, but again I'm pretty sure it's effectiveness would be limited.

I've also pondered the possibilities of a Karandras-grotesque-star and it seems hella mean. Not only does he give them infiltrate, but stealth, move through cover, fearless, plasma grenades, and a reliable 2+ save to boot. If you are savvy when you set them up (in cover of course - so they get a 3+/4+ depending on what kind), you can most likely get a guaranteed 2nd turn charge. If they get hit with any weapon short of s10 ap2, they can simply shrug off the wounds and spread them around. Even if you get hit by a s10 ap1, you could let Karandras take the hit as he is eternal warrior. If you're facing down 3 manticores, than simply outflank.

Unfotunately Dash, the wraithguard/farseer/Karandras combo would not be able to infiltrate - if you look at the wording for infiltrate, it states that independent characters need to have the infiltrate USR in order to join another unit that is doing so. Karandras can only bestow it on the unit he joins, not any other independent characters. That doesn't stop a farseer from running/zooming up to join them after 1st turn though! On the other hand, a unit of outflanking wraithguard could be boss for taking out backfield artillery tanks or taking an objective behind enemy lines. Anyways, I digress.... Karandras and grotesques!!! Did I mention that mister K has 7 s8 powerfist attacks on the charge? Bye bye termies...

ShadarLogoth wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

The weakness of the grotstar is that they don't really have any game against terminators. The archon doesn't help with that. There isn't anything in the dark eldar book besides harlequins that does.

Lilith can. Talk about a beauty and the beasts deathstar combo . Plus Lili can nab FC and FNP off the brutes, allowing her to throw out about 1.22 to 2.44 wound/turn against TeQ depending on SS or not, with a couple precision strikes thrown in just in case. Oh, and don't forget about her armor save ignoring BS 9 Plasma Grenade .

Drazhar isnt bad either.

Except he can only join Incubi.

But yes, he IS a buttstomper these days

Ascalam wrote:Except he can only join Incubi.

But yes, he IS a buttstomper these days

I thought he only confered his exarch skills to them and was only fearless with them.

Nope, he can only join Incubi, unfortunately.