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I'm not saying that the Grinders aren't good units, or that they don't have good uses, but that in my experience they aren't so great that I'd rather have them. I've had 2 souldgrinders disappear in round 2 from some lucky hits from the lascannons in IG troop squads, after missing the Russ with one of them, and not getting through the armor with the other. Next round though the russ went bye bye from one squad of screamers, as did a second one from another squad.

Mind you, I also don't take bloodcrushers (partly because I object to spending $25 per model for them), but mostly because I find my DS suicide flamer squads to be invaluable.

dancingcricket wrote:I'm not saying that the Grinders aren't good units, or that they don't have good uses, but that in my experience they aren't so great that I'd rather have them. I've had 2 souldgrinders disappear in round 2 from some lucky hits from the lascannons in IG troop squads, after missing the Russ with one of them, and not getting through the armor with the other. Next round though the russ went bye bye from one squad of screamers, as did a second one from another squad.

Mind you, I also don't take bloodcrushers (partly because I object to spending $25 per model for them), but mostly because I find my DS suicide flamer squads to be invaluable.

Well, no offense but that is anecdotal. I do agree that if you take Grinders you need to take 3 and put them in the same drop....else all their heavies will focus on one (with no detriment to doing so). Chance for a lascannon to pen a Grinder;

Marin Devs w/ 4 Las Cannons:
2.64 hits
0.87 pen
0.28 wreck/blow it up

Not exactly good odds for a (likely) 278 pt unit against a 160 pt unit...who is going to jump into HTH and eat them the next turn . Sure there are games where they blow it up with a lucky hit in turn 1...just like there are games were they fail to blow up any of the 3 despite pounding them every turn. Odds say however, AV 13 units that can HTH tend to stick around...

15 Screamers though, *shrug*. Say everything goes absolutely right, they don't scatter and get rapid fired...I don't react to them and they blow something up. They'll likely lose 2-3 from the explosion and get killed the next turn...so you traded units/points. Just not my cup of tea!

/I dig the models though

why would you be taking a 4 lascannon dev unit they are horrendously expensive, whats more likely to kill them are the 50 point attack bikes or the melta guns all over the place. people arent using that many points to kill them and thats the problem you should be looking at melta guns as a threat lascannons don't really kill tanks very well this edition compared to a melta variety weapon

and the prevalance of melta weapons in pretty much every book are far cheaper and more effective at killing soulgrinders.

space marines have combi meltas on pretty much every unit and failing that they have cheap speeders and attack bikes with multimeltas and even just bike units not to mention bs 5 characters with meltas coming out of rhino's or drop pods, or everyones favorite sternguard out of pods with combi meltas

chaos marines have meltas out of every orifice possible 5 melta chosen units outflanking or 5 melta havok units not to mention the 5 point combi melta on terminators and the bs 5 melta on their characters, and bikes and raptors all have melta

eldar have fire dragons, fusion gun autarch haywire grenades,

tyranids have any monstrous creature killing it pretty handily in combat not to mention rending in piles of places to get it

sisters have melta all over the place too

imp guard have melta 4 a crack out of 5 man suicide squads and all over the place, not to mention demoliser cannons

tau have melta guns too (i forget what they're called) out of deepstriking units and theirs can hit on 2's also they also have emp grenades, oh yeah and that little railcannon gun

the point is there are far far too many ways to kill a soulgrinder that are reliable (not 4 lascannon devastators) and at the worst are equal points but in almost every case are far far fewer points than a grinder

don't forget every melta gun only needs a 5 to glance and a 6 to pen (assuming close range) on TWO dice, and then has a 50% chance to kill a grinder and those aren't odds that I like

even taking into account a unit of marines rapid firing screamers (assume 10 bolters since its easy and any special weapon other than a flamer (which is hard to get an average) will only get the same wounds) will hit 14 times and wound 7 times, wich translates to 3.5 dead screamers dropping a unit of 15 to a unit of 11, which is still more than enough to kill a tank, and has far more dice than a grinder still.

this is also not taking into account the usage of terrain, I can hide screamers behind terrain in most cases, where can you hide a soulgrinder? Hell where can you hide a grinder so it gets a cover save? the thing is gigantic (which is awesome its such a cool model)


either way people obviously have their own opinions on what's good and what's bad, such as you and I do. And everybody should decide for themselves which option they like better, and which option fits their playstyle. What people forget is that every unit in every book is good somewhere in some situation for somebody. It all depends on how you use them and wht your playstyle is. The only way for that to happen is for people to get out there and try it for themselves and form their own opinions.
It would be beneficial to the community at large for remembering this and not telling people "this unit is dumb or that unit sucks" and trying to be open to new ideas, and new styles of playing (I'm just as guilty of saying this sucks as the next guy, and for that I apologize.) and if people would remember to think that way it would make the community just that much better.
So since this thread is starting to sound like a stelek shout down, I will have nothing further to say on this subject, instead I'll let everyone else TRY it for themselves and decide which they like better. Everyone is welcome to have as many last words as they wish

The debate about soul-grinders I think is a matter of personal preference and the local meta-game. I have seen soul-grinders do both great and horrible. They do get better in higher numbers.

I have seen Deamonzilla work to a good degree, I have seen bloodcrusher spam which seems to be the most potent out of the powerbuilds, lastly is the Epidemus build that is good but not against everything.

Sign of a good codex if people are arguing over different tools for the same job ;-)

Somnicide wrote:Sign of a good codex if people are arguing over different tools for the same job ;-)

You are absolutely correct sir!

Deamons is a codex that breaks up the game mechanic in 40k and plays by its own terms and with Eternal warrior, multi-wound models have no fear of Instant Death. They are an army that not too many people prepare to fight against.