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I want to like them, really. Who could dislike DLC JP chaos marines ?

I bought a box, and I am still considering building either raptors or talons. Raptors are cheap, versatile with their special weapons, can have a DLC champion if I really fancy that.

So, wise tactical minds of Dakka : should I like Warp talons ?

most people really dont like them, I am of a different mindset

I like them, but only for a very very special mission
they slaughter meq, i mean its bad, but they are out in the open and expensive they will get shot up. They also slaughter meq so well, they do it too well. You need large squads as targets to make them effective.

Think of them as a counter a very specific counter. If you see your BA friend going too assaulty with his DC and assault marines you might want to throw these guys in. If you arent facing much shooting, and are facing a lot of 3+ saves they guys will shine. In a TAC list, there will be too many times they are hopelessly outmoded or shot out of the sky.

Dont try and DS them for their special rule unless you know you arent going to scatter. IE a skyshield landing pad.

I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.

i think they gain more from init 5, or MoK for 4 attacks

 Exergy wrote:

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.

i think they gain more from init 5, or MoK for 4 attacks

They don't gain much if the enemy is in cover as they'll be I1 anyways, go with either MoN or MoK,

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think its a terrifying unit if played right. To fast to ignore and hit hard unless you are in termie armor.

Im not sure on the points, but 36 points for a jp dlc, 4++ model is not to bad. Or, if you prefer hard to wound, get them at toughness 5. Add in a biomancy ml3 sorceror and its a devistating unit. Expensive? Yup. Durable? Can be? Ignorsble? Hell no!!! Deepstrike on a flank whilr your opponent has to deal with advancing csm elsewhere? Ya, threat overload pros imho. A competent player can easily take advantage of what warptalons bring to the table.

i think they gain more from init 5, or MoK for 4 attacks

They don't gain much if the enemy is in cover as they'll be I1 anyways, go with either MoN or MoK,

if the enemy is in cover you probably shouldnt attack. overwatch + combat losses and you are likely to lose a bunch of 30 point models.

Thats why you attach an ic to them, lord or sorc, and then
split the squad, charge with the ic first and challenge then move in your talons so the dont suffer the init penalty

They are very good at killing anything that isn't a terminator. Crowd control.

With MoT, they are very durable against anything with power weapons(more then normal)

Although with a 5++ standard, the MoN for T5 might actually be more durable.

All valid points, but from what I can see, they are still underwhelming compared to, say, regular raptors.

Dispite being cool models, I feel (never tested) that they are less versatile than raptors. They may be more durable, but at a much higher cost !

Did I summarize it well ?

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
Thats why you attach an ic to them, lord or sorc, and then
split the squad, charge with the ic first and challenge then move in your talons so the dont suffer the init penalty

Just like to point out this doesn't work.

For models to get past the initiative penalty, the target unit has to have been locked in combat from a previous turn.

Pg. 28, left side

Multiple Combats section

"Charging Through Difficult Terrain:

If all of the enemy units charged were already locked in combat from a previous turn or had gone to ground, the Initiative penalty for charging through difficult terrain does not apply," blah blah blah.



In short, Warp Talons are good if..

Your opponent is fielding a large squad of 3+ save models that is deployed outside of area terrain

And terrible in absolutely every other situation. Your decision of whether or not that happens frequently enough to be worth buying a 30pt/model nonscoring squad of otherwise very cool looking Chaos mareenz.

I played a vanilla SM army against a buddy using Warp Talons, and I got my ass handed to me while using tacs to hold objectives. Sad day for me.

I've actually contemplated building an army around these lads and the key.

Problem boils down to the following.

The keybearer can't be in CC 'till turn two.
Key has to be activated before a "safe/pinpoint" deepstrike
Your reserves start entering on turn two.

Ways around this:
Bring as many warptalon squads as you can, and hope for a "bad" reserveroll turn one.
Make sure your keybearer is in cc by turn two.

Pray.

The ability to stop all enemy shooting from units within 6" is awsome, if you hit the ground in the storms ey. You can potentially stop an entire IG gunline for a turn.

Here are some stats for nurgle or tzeentch ( t5/overwatch/4++/overwatch)

Bolters(20 shots)- 1.5/.4/2.2/.55
2x plasma(4 shots)- 1.48/.37/1.1/.278
Helldrake(hitting 5)- 2.2/--/2.08/--
10 tau(20 shots)- 1.67/.56/2.2/.74
10 Power swords(20 A)- 2.2/-/2.5/-
10 Power axes(20a)- 4.4/-/4.16/-
Against 10 th/ss tzeetch 10 warp talons have 2.5 models living assuming they get the charge and hammer of wrath.

When power fist/str 8 gets into play that removes armor save tzentch survive better. But with anything str 5 or lower nurgle do better. Against toughness 6/7 it is a toss up depending on the ap.

You could bring a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch from the Daemon codex with the book to make them 2++.

This would also give you access to the Daemon books amazing assault units too.

They are splendid if you give them MoS, otherwise they are far too expensive in points for what they do.

I play a fully dedicated Nurgle army from time to time and I have never really found a use for them that would fit my army's theme. Nevertheless, I like the models so I picked up a box and went to own painting them (they were painted to be Slaaneshi for my next Chaos project).

I gave my Daemon Price the Dimensional Key and kept my Terminators and Warp Talons in reserve. After the first DP Kill, the key activates and I was able to bring in the Termies & Talons with no risk of scatter, and the Blind ability from the Talons helped them survive long enough to make it into combat the next round. It was quite entertaining to see, and since I cleverly positioned the Termies and Talons on opposing sides of the area, anything my DP or Talons caused to flee, would fall back into my Termi models and be removed as casualties. It was kind of silly, and it work really well, but its an oddly specific play that I don't see happening often.

I think the best use for them is as allies to a Daemons army. Pair them with a cannon of Khorne to give them a chance going into cover and pick whatever Mark you so please (I prefer MoT).

They really need a force multiplier to make themselves worth it. Stuff like adding a biomancy sorcerer with endurance, or a teleplathy guy with invisibility, hell even allying with daemons for the book to use on them.

With CSM being really good at killing all the infantry ever, you would probably just need to make sure you had your anti-ap2 and tank covered, and sprinkle in some troops. You would be fine then.

I cannot justify fielding melee Raptors /Talons simply because the Heldrake performs their role better in every way....

Need to kill MEQ? Helldrake
160 points for 5 MEQ kill jump pack Talons? Heldrake for 170
Scared of assault in cover because Initiative 1? Heldrake their cover

Until the helldrake gets it's FAQ torrent removed.

Yeah.. keep waiting on that? Why in the world would that get FAQd in such a way? That's what the weapon does, it's a torrent flamer.

If you want to make them work, it's possible... if.

Most of that if is if you use them in a countercharge role. Even with their ++, they're not going to survive a cross-table charge. Even with their ++, they're not going to survive deepstriking next to something either and weathering the invariable pile of firepower directed at them before they can make it into close combat. You just can't use them offensively.

Defensively, though, you're talking about a unit that can hide out of LOS entirely and then jump out and tackle something that's been weakened before they hit your lines, or they can hide behind land raiders and countercharge stuff. Or they could be held back and then pick off seriously depleted units late in the game.

In a way, they're sort of like cavalry - charging them into your opponent is nothing but pointless suicide, but used to exploit weaknesses, finishing off crushed or routing units or attacking the proverbial baggage train is something that they can do, and do well.

The only problem, of course, is that 40k doesn't NEED these kinds of units, usually. Usually, you're looking at your opponent's entire army parked on a couple of objectives in their deployment zone most of the game, which means you won't have weaknesses to exploit.

 Kirasu wrote:
Why in the world would that get FAQd in such a way?

You do know we are talking about GW here, right?

We all know they are not the best in the codex but they are awesome looking models and the reason i started playing chaos, now lets continue looking for a way to make the best use of them. For me personally i am using them with 2 helldrakes and a swarm of zombies, it becomes a pincer technique and force them to choose from multiple threats, they either choose my talons and i looks them or they think they suck and ignore them, as well as any enemy unit in 6" may loose their shooting capabilities allowing for my other units in the army to survive. I know that other units are better but this is just one attempt and example of using these sweat looking models.

I play MoK Warp Talons with a Khorne lord, they do splendid.

Tips ive learned:

-Unless your spamming these guys don't bother DS them, the Warpflame strike special rule seems really good on paper, but when in effect it does very little as you scatter most of the time..

-Flank attackers: these guys really don't like being centre of attention and will fall once your opponent pours his/her firepower into it, so flank them, this diverts some units away from the centre action allowing for more of your units to breathe and makes him sweat more.

-Have some sort of other unit alongside them, don't let them do a solo thing along your flank, that's just as bad as putting them in the centre, have something alongside it, this can be any unit you fancy from long ranged Hellbrutes to Maulerfiend if you really wanted it to be.

Also do you play casual or competitive? if you play casual ignore the users talking about Helldrakes, that's a quick highway to getting no games, if you play competitive however unfortunately these guys will do almost no chance of survival, better to spam the Helldrakes in that case tbh..

Hope this helps

 Kirasu wrote:
Yeah.. keep waiting on that? Why in the world would that get FAQd in such a way? That's what the weapon does, it's a torrent flamer.

Yeah but the way you measure from the base as if it were a turret makes it OP. That and the idea that the Heldrake gets to break all the rules other flyers live by. That and the fact that these changes came AFTER GW saw that the Heldrake was unpopular.

But what the heldrake are we talking about turkies for?! This is about Warp Talons!

I think Warp Talons are kind of silly, a bit extravagant even. In a codex FULL of CC oriented units we do not need yet another niche-role unit that performs reasonably well under exacting circumstances, and only under those circumstances. These guys are just another fluff oriented unit that will never see the sort of sales one could expect from say a multipart plastic Helbrute kit. But what the heck!

We'll just wait until GW decides they want to sell Warp Talons, they'll get FAQ'd into the stratosphere and soon the forum will flood with triple Warp Talon lists. Another BRB will get released and the Warp Talons will go back to sitting on the shelf, alongside the Heldrake, the Riptide and all those hideous Centurions. Some new mini will get released and we'll all rave about how awesome/terrible/unnecessary it is until GW FAQs it so they can sell more models...

There was a post somewhere about 40k and drinking. I think I'll go knock a few back now...