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couple of things I heavily disagree with Ketara.

First I think bikers and scourges aren't nearly as good as you say. Especially scourges with dark lances, giving them a heavy weapon is pretty much worthless IMO.

now for the two bigger things. I think you are completely underestimate the elite wych unit and grotesques. Try looking at them from other points of view

Elite wyches for example are a fantastic tarpit unit and in fact I don't think there is anything better in the army for holding up units like TH SS termies/deadnoughts/nobikers/MCs/smaller units of multi attack creatures. You are right they don't have much killing potential but they can hold up allot of units indefinitely.

Now on to grotesques. Would I ever charge them into a close combat unit? absolutely not I agree with on that one. But I see them as a great anti tank/small supporting unit. Put 4 of them with a haemi in a raider with aethersails and a shock prow. Turn 1 do a full tank shock charge on a vehicle from across the board and more often then not its going to be a S10 hit. You can at least shake a vehicle. Now your raider has a 4+ cover save adding extra protection to the grotesque unit. This forces your opponent to target as much fire power as possible on this unit because they are a huge threat. Now since grotesques are T5 they are very hard to instant death even when the raider is destroyed, further if they survive the next turn you can charge another vehicle or devestator squad. with 4 grotesuqes and a haemi you are doing 16 S6 attacks on the rear armor of a tank which means they glance the majority of enemy vehicles on a 4+ which is pretty good in my book. This who unit isn't that expensive either maybe 200+ points. Now if my opponent is forced to dedicated 800 points of fire power to even hope to kill them then its a worthwhile trade.

Anyways thats all hope this was constructive.

dumplingman wrote:couple of things I heavily disagree with Ketara.
Elite wyches for example are a fantastic tarpit unit and in fact I don't think there is anything better in the army for holding up units like TH SS termies/deadnoughts/nobikers/MCs/smaller units of multi attack creatures. You are right they don't have much killing potential but they can hold up allot of units indefinitely.

Now on to grotesques. Would I ever charge them into a close combat unit? absolutely not I agree with on that one. But I see them as a great anti tank/small supporting unit. Put 4 of them with a haemi in a raider with aethersails and a shock prow. Turn 1 do a full tank shock charge on a vehicle from across the board and more often then not its going to be a S10 hit. You can at least shake a vehicle. Now your raider has a 4+ cover save adding extra protection to the grotesque unit. This forces your opponent to target as much fire power as possible on this unit because they are a huge threat. Now since grotesques are T5 they are very hard to instant death even when the raider is destroyed, further if they survive the next turn you can charge another vehicle or devestator squad. with 4 grotesuqes and a haemi you are doing 16 S6 attacks on the rear armor of a tank which means they glance the majority of enemy vehicles on a 4+ which is pretty good in my book. This who unit isn't that expensive either maybe 200+ points. Now if my opponent is forced to dedicated 800 points of fire power to even hope to kill them then its a worthwhile trade.

Anyways thats all hope this was constructive.

Pretty good points on both elitist Wyches and Grotesques.
Bloodbrides should be able to hold up a deathstar unit for a while. With impalers they can reduce enemy attacks to a minimum.
The tactics on Grotesques mounted in a Raider with a Haemi seems pretty nasty at first sight. Even if the Raider is being destroyed after ramming, the passengers are hard to take down, and every shot against this unit is one shot less at the rest of the army.

I agree with most of what you've said Ketara, but I certainly disagree with your verdict on Grotesques.

I've been using them out of the WWP to monster effect with either Urien or a standard Haemmy. 10 strong is a point sink, but they are really tough to deal with.

IMO the Trueborn are the bomb - suicide bomb that is. In the 4 blaster config, they are the best for cheap AT. Greater still if you like Sliscus or Talosssssses or both.

What do you guys recommend for a Sliscus force??? I've tried Wyches and I cannot get them to work at all. Sathonyx and his Hellions work really well, but then I lose out on the Haemmies.

Haemmies are too good for their points IMO to not include.

And finally... What about a Sathonyx/Haemmie coven force??? On paper it looks like it could really bring the pain. Any comments???


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BTW...

You know they'll end up errataring the Haemmie/Hellion trick by saying the Haemmy can only join an infantry unit only.
Just to piss us off as ATM, the combo is very very effective.

highly doubt they are going to errata something like that. Characters have always been able to join units of different types even if their move speed was faster or slower so no worries.

I hope so.

I wasn't aware that we've been able to do that.

/facepalms self.

Puscifer wrote:I agree with most of what you've said Ketara, but I certainly disagree with your verdict on Grotesques.

I've been using them out of the WWP to monster effect with either Urien or a standard Haemmy. 10 strong is a point sink, but they are really tough to deal with.

Have you tried used minimum sized squad with liquifier and Aberration in a Raider? It has majority toughness 5 and 11 wounds in 4 different models (with haemonculus of course). It seems more flexible than a large squad because it doesn't hurt so much when you lose it to a Manticore or a Dread and is a lot faster.

Sorry for the long period between updates Gents, just been incredibly busy of late! Real life has taken over somewhat. I should have a new section up at some point soon hopefully though.

I'm not sure why people think that wychs don't have killing power. They can put out so many attacks that they force a lot of saves. Especially bloodbrides, when armed with razorflails can put out the hurt very well. The only thing they have issues with are units with FNP and a high save. I run bloodbrides with a Succ (9 brides and the succ in a raider) and 2 models with agonizers can really punish those units.

I think Bloodbrides and Succ is a cheap elite combat unit that has been largely overlooked.

Aetherse wrote:

Puscifer wrote:I agree with most of what you've said Ketara, but I certainly disagree with your verdict on Grotesques.

I've been using them out of the WWP to monster effect with either Urien or a standard Haemmy. 10 strong is a point sink, but they are really tough to deal with.

Have you tried used minimum sized squad with liquifier and Aberration in a Raider? It has majority toughness 5 and 11 wounds in 4 different models (with haemonculus of course). It seems more flexible than a large squad because it doesn't hurt so much when you lose it to a Manticore or a Dread and is a lot faster.

OMFG, I didn't see that. Double facepalm to self. Does it work??? Seems too. The lack of armour makes me think otherwise.


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Dammit!!! I want a third HQ slot.

Tried it.

It doesn't have the wallop factor or survivability of the large unit.

Great at low points though.

Puscifer wrote:Tried it.

It doesn't have the wallop factor or survivability of the large unit.

Great at low points though.

If the enemy lacks Str 10 shooting and str 10 melee then the large squad should be able to stay around forever. It is a big if though because the Grotesques die really fast if enemy has those. I assume that you normally don't have to fight against Vindicators or Dreads?

350 points is a pretty steep price for a footslogging squad in my opinion, how did you manage to catch anyone with those and did you have cover?

Minimum Grotesques would be pretty effective against the standard Razorwolf lists. The only thing that can take grotesques down in list like that would be unholy amount of shooting (even though Grots don't get fnp against las-plas they still have 3 wounds) or TWCs, and charging Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet would still be gamble (odds are about 50/50) for anyone without EW.

Thanks for this thread a good headsup before playing a DE list as I get the feeling they are going to be a lot more common.

dumplingman wrote:Put 4 of them with a haemi in a raider with aethersails and a shock prow. Turn 1 do a full tank shock charge on a vehicle from across the board and more often then not its going to be a S10 hit.

Wouldn't you be worried about losing the raider and its entire contents to that S10 hit on your open topped vehicle, negating your opponent having to worry about it at all?

Aetherse wrote:

Puscifer wrote:Tried it.

It doesn't have the wallop factor or survivability of the large unit.

Great at low points though.

If the enemy lacks Str 10 shooting and str 10 melee then the large squad should be able to stay around forever. It is a big if though because the Grotesques die really fast if enemy has those. I assume that you normally don't have to fight against Vindicators or Dreads?

350 points is a pretty steep price for a footslogging squad in my opinion, how did you manage to catch anyone with those and did you have cover?

Minimum Grotesques would be pretty effective against the standard Razorwolf lists. The only thing that can take grotesques down in list like that would be unholy amount of shooting (even though Grots don't get fnp against las-plas they still have 3 wounds) or TWCs, and charging Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet would still be gamble (odds are about 50/50) for anyone without EW.

Nope, no Vindicators and not many Dreads in my meta.

I use my ten Grotesque out of a wwp with either Urien or another Haemmy. This is the only way I would field Grotesques ATM as the small squads in raiders are basically cannon fodder after the raider blows up.
I find the wwp to be an amazing delivery system. So far my opponents have forgotten that I have deployed it or that I still have a unit or two in reserve. The strength 7 on the charge from the Uber Grotesques has won me a fair few games as there is currently nothing that can stand up to a war of attrition against them.


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You know something... I've overlooked and forgotten about Incubi.

/Facepalms self again.

Arakasi wrote:

dumplingman wrote:Put 4 of them with a haemi in a raider with aethersails and a shock prow. Turn 1 do a full tank shock charge on a vehicle from across the board and more often then not its going to be a S10 hit.

Wouldn't you be worried about losing the raider and its entire contents to that S10 hit on your open topped vehicle, negating your opponent having to worry about it at all?

What I want to know is if we have that damn 5++ from a ram (I'm guessing no, but it'd be nice).

Why no?) ramming inflict some damage as normal shooting\melee will do.. question is can it make 4+ cover save for turbo-boosting.

Nah
Page 71
"A skimmer that is not immobilised and has moved flat
out in its last Movement phase counts as obscured
(cover save of 4+) when fired at."

erm. so ramming hits counts as Shooting or Melee hits ? I mean if second then isn't cover saves taken against "distance" attacks?

hmmm

The GW Faq that recently came out states that if a vehicle is destroyed/wrecked in the movement phase, the squad inside is killed.

I so like the idea of the 40 inch 1st turn charge. Oh well.

As unfluffy as it might seem, the Flickerfield could save you from being damaged by a Ram attempt...

Why would you ram anything with a raider? Use the DL it's armed with.


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Unless you're talking about a raider BEING rammed, then I'd point to p. 71 of BRB "Ramming Skimmers" All skimmers get a built in 3+ save against ramming attempts.

Ramming something with moved flat-out Raider full of Grotesques can be pretty much funn) as stated somewhere on the forums)

penek wrote:Ramming something with moved flat-out Raider full of Grotesques can be pretty much funn) as stated somewhere on the forums)

As long as you don't explode the Raider.
That's only fun for your opponent.


Eric

Thats another story, and you have FF to get out of this safe.

I'm going to say that flat out the Beastmaster unit rating is way, way off. It'll depend on the style of list you run but 2-3 units of 3 Masters, 4 Flockwings, and 5 Kymaera are amazing CC support for an MSU style DE list. They are a 156pts each, can be massive wound sinks (28 wounds), and will kill the units that fall out of almost all transports pretty easily. I'd personally rate them as the most competitive Fast Attack choice in the book and they are, to me, a almost no brainer. Bear in mind that this is my opinion without them being able to benefit from pain tokens. I'm personally playing that they don't until the FAQ comes out as I don't want to get blindsided.

Can Wyches CC better? Not really but they can survive better against elite low attack, high power attacks. But that's not what the beasts are for. They are to pounce on units falling out of transports or to slam into horde units like orks and nids and make them cry. Units that would swallow wyches with only mild heart burn dissapear in 2 rounds of combat against a beast unit.

I just think your viewing them from the wrong perspective and missing what they are about.

Oh and bikes can be mildly competitive but only as a distraction unit and scourges just don't have the saying power to work in their range bubble. Though they might have a place in an all foot list as then they wouldn't be the only target for the st4-5 guns.

I have only had a chance to skim the book. Wracks seem like a smaller troops version of grotesques. Is a wrack/grotesque themed army viable?

I agree, Hulksmash. Beasts are an underappreciated unit, particularly stockpiling razorwings for mass rending attacks (like Fiends) and a few khymerae to increase survival. Out of a WWP, they can hit damn near anything and have a mass of wounds to absorb fire.

But then, there's a lot of "analysis" in this thread I don't agree with, but to each their own.

Indeed Skarboy. To be honest I only read the FA section because someone told me about beasts being rated low and I use them in all my lists Had to put in my 2 cents

Something I'd just like to point out; in most circumstances (that is to say, every one I've been able to think up and calculate), the razorflails are statistically superior on average to hydra gauntlets. This is against all toughnesses and with most combat drugs. The obvious exception, of course, is the combat drug allowing rerolls to wound; this makes the hydra gauntlets far superior. Don't trust me, look at the data:

2 plain special weapon wyches vs:
WS4 T4? 6 razorflail attacks avg. 2.5 wounds, 11 gauntlet attacks avg. 1.833
WS3 T3? razorflails 4 wounds, gauntlets 3.667
WS4 T6? razorflails 1.375, gauntlets 0.9167

Oddly enough, this superiority carries through with the +1S and +1 attack drugs. I haven't redone all these calculations again with 2 pain tokens (S5, etc.), but I'm probably safe to extrapolate a similar result.

End lesson? Hydra Gauntlets are, statistically speaking, not worth taking. Having said that, I feel like the shardnets are a better weapon, simply because they provide a utility wyches already excel at; making a mockery of elite units. Want to tie up that big scary-arse bloodthirster for a while? Chuck him some double shard-net wyches, and watch him struggle desperately to kill even a single wych a turn with his 3 attacks while you chip away at his armour with your volume of attacks (and agonizer if you brought one!).