How to equip the Soulgrinder?

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**Sir Arun**

I'm thinking about taking a Soulgrinder as part of the Chaos Daemon allies for my CSM army 1500 points and up. It's a small allied force consisting of a Flying power armored Nurgle DP with Balesword and ML3, 10 Bloodletters as troops (cause I like the models) and the Soulgrinder as HS.

My main CSM force is rather assault heavy (rhino carrying chosen with power weapons, helbrute and defiler marching forward to get into melee while shooting, maulerfiend) so I thought of the following setup:

Soul Grinder with Mark of Tzeentch and torrent flamer. I'm gonna deepstrike him along with the bloodletters so pretty much my entire army is up in the enemy's face (with the exception of a small squad of Noise Marines, 10 MoN CSM and 10 shooty cultists who stay back) so I figured a S6 AP4 torrent flamer will kill hordes that could tarpit my soulgrinder while the counts-as battle cannon would do a better job at killing MEQ, but would be worse against TEQ since its not a torrent and scatters off, and also worse against hordes for this very reason, and I'm anyway good at slicing up MEQ *and* TEQ in cc.

**CrownAxe**

Never warp gaze.

Both vomit and phlegm are solid and just comes down to what your army needs.

For dedications, Tzeentch and Slaanesh are good (though i think slaanesh doesn't need a weapon upgrade and should just be running instead). Nurgle I think is a trap. It makes you want sit your grinder back in cover and just lob 36" battle cannons except that is not worth the 180 points you'll spend on it. A single battle cannons worth of damage isn't worth the 150 you pay on a LRBT and spending 30 more pts to be harder to kill but no extra damage doesn't make it better. Grinders work best being aggressive since most of its damage comes from combat with it.

**Sir Arun**

But if you run you cant shoot, right?

**CrownAxe**

That is correct. But the main strength of slaanesh on a soul grinder is the +3" to running and fleet so its a waste to not run with it and ensure a turn two charge.

**Sir Arun**

I am thinking if 15 points are really worth the 3" extra run. I thought deepstrike was the way to go with this guy since you have a good chance of placing that torrent template where you want to that way and avoid getting targeted by enemy anti-tank on turn 1 itself

**CrownAxe**

You don't deep strike them. They are very durable already (they are practically a land raider) and a huge threat both in shooting and close combat. Why would you want to waste at least a turn of their shooting and delay them getting into combat where they want to be. They work best by asserting their presence on the board and forcing your opponent to either avoid them or have to deal with them

**broo**

I agree, slaanesh is the way to go.. give it a try I sometimes run two both being slaanesh.. the mobility is amazing..

I like to go first when i play demons so I often get counter deployed where my soulgrinders are not in optimal position but use one turn of movement and flip the battle lines..

a Tzeentch soul grinder is great at CC.. ive grimored it and sent it in against TWC and dreads.. it's been solid.

**McGibs**

If you ARE deepstriking it (I usually do because mine is khornate), then make sure you do it off on a banner. These suckers are big, and being able to negate scatter is pretty essential. Getting some cavalry up the field, or deepstriking in a pathfinder team of troops with an icon and an instrument is pretty good insurance that they'll arrive on time, and on target.
Deepstriking is just good for landing something as big and nasty as they are right in the enemies face. Running it up the field is good too, but lets the enemy react more to it.

For weapons, the baletorrent has never let me down. The phlem seems oddly synergized with its role of heavy assault walker.
Also, as above stated, don't forget about the grimoir buff! Slapping a 3++ on this guy makes him pretty invincible, which is especially useful for when you need him to crush something particularly nasty for a turn. Shooting wise, it makes him pretty much a non-target. Most people wont waste shots at an AV13 4HP walker with 3++,

**Galef**

Both my Grinders are Slaanesh with Baleful torrent. I usually run them turn 1, then turn 2 I flame something and/or charge. The Baleful Torrent is very much worth it, even if you only use it once, but choose to run in other turns. I cant tell you how many times I have achieve First Blood because of the Torrent

Don't forget another benefit of Fleet is to re-roll charge dice.

**gwarsh41**

Sir Arun wrote:
I am thinking if 15 points are really worth the 3" extra run. I thought deepstrike was the way to go with this guy since you have a good chance of placing that torrent template where you want to that way and avoid getting targeted by enemy anti-tank on turn 1 itself

It's not just the 3", which seems really short, its also fleet. So you get to re-roll charge and run. I used to think the same, plus I dislike slaanesh, then after trying it once, I was sold.
Look at it like this:
Move:6
Run: 4-9 (re-rolling)
Charge 2-12(re-rolling

Or
Move:6
Run: 1-6
Charge 2-12

The re-rolls are amazingly huge, and 3 inches doesn't seem like much, but consider the difference in making a charge of 7 and a charge of 10. Your auto cannon isn't going to make or break a game, but if you have a lone imp guardsmen standing around out of cover for easy first blood, then yeah, don't bother running. Every other time, run those suckers. Don't be distracted by the S10 gaze, your BS3. Don't get your hopes up on that large blast, the torrent is insanely awesome.

I run soul grinders as often as possible, some of my favorite units in the game. My general set up is 2 slaanesh torrent, 1 nurgle phlegm. Nurgle protects my back while blobbing mid range. Slaanesh's run up and screw up the enemy! Additionally, if you run tzeentch heralds with screamers and get cursed earth, getting a slaanesh grinder in the bubble is pretty easy.

EDIT: Don't forget that walkers get overwatch, torrent weapons are template weapons with range, so they get wall of death. For the 1 out of 25 games where someone wants to charge a soul grinder.

**broo**

the gaze is not great but I do sometimes go for it competitively and heres why.

I see a lot of tau players in GT's and there is no better feeling than enfeebling a riptide the hitting it with a gaze.. poof

it's only happened a few times but man it's so game changing..

I'll save my fatey roll to hit or cast precience on the grinder for insurance..

of course it's no guarentee to get enfeeble but i run lash princes so im all over biomancy already so this works into what I'm already doing.

**Big Blind Bill**

Slaanesh is by far the best option.

Best weapons would be either stock (nice and cheap, spend most the time running), or torrent flamer (in case of hordes, or to punish units for trying to hide in cover).

I'm not a fan of the nurgle phlegm build. If you want to try it then I'd recommend going for the cheaper plague hulk instead.

Never take the warpsword. Ever.

**changemod**

If you're using it primarily for it's anti-flyer potential, Warp Gaze seems the logical backup weapon since the other two can't even hit.

Particularly if you can find a Skyfire Nexus, at which point it suddenly pays for itself right there.

Yeah, probably quite easily the weakest weapon in every other situation of course.

**Big Blind Bill**

changemod wrote:
If you're using it primarily for it's anti-flyer potential

No competitive daemon player would ever do this though. Ever.

Soul grinders are awful anti air platforms, and they should have more important things to do most of the time.

**changemod**

Big Blind Bill wrote:
changemod wrote:
If you're using it primarily for it's anti-flyer potential

No competitive daemon player would ever do this though. Ever.

Soul grinders are awful anti air platforms, and they should have more important things to do most of the time.

*Shrug*

They come with Flakk missiles for free and Daemon anti-air is downright terrible. Not really claiming it to be optimal.

**Big Blind Bill**

Even though daemon anti air is limited, soul grinders are not the answer. For example:

A grinder firing at a valkyrie (AV12), will take 6 turns on average to bring it down, 12 turns if it jinks.

Daemons are better off ignoring flyers, or getting some allies in to do the job.

**The Internet is for Khorn**

I feel like nurgle grinders are overhated on this forum. I don't know why.
Both nurgle+phlegm and Slaanesh+torrent are good options, I go with nurgle because my meta has a lot of anti-vehicles, so running my only 2 vehicles up close is usually a death sentence.

**gwarsh41**

It isn't that I hate them, but I find the slaanesh grinder is a better first choice. I like my nurgle grinder to chill in cover and keep people away, my army is very aggressive, so I need something big and scary to move around with my hounds and whatnot. That is where the slaanesh grinder excels.

**Sir Arun**

What about the tzeentch grinder? cheap and if you roll a 1 on the inv. save you get to re-roll it, so if you look at it mathematically, it has somewhere around 35-40% chance of deflecting any incoming hits