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They are obviously very expensive, but apart from that they don't seem so bad.

So why do people hate them so much? What's so bad about them?

The big ones are that they are relatively fragile, have to spend a turn sitting around if you want to use their ability, don't have grenades so attacking anything in cover drops them to I1, and they can't punch through 2 plus armor.

It is mainly just that they are super expensive for what they do. They are too easy to take out with even the most basic troop weapons. The result is that they cannot make it into combat to do what they need to do.

They are absurdly fragile for the price as you are paying almost 3x the price of a regular SM for the same durability

Their damage is solid but very specialized (is pretty much only good against 3+ armor. doesn't do anything to 2+ and is wasted on 5+ or worse hordes) so struggle to make their points back.

Don't have any basic equipment like guns of any kind or grenades

Have a terrible special ability (blind is bad, the hoops your jump through to trigger it are bad, the position it leaves you in is bad)

Technically they are functional because they are mobile and put the hurt on in combat. But are so vastly overcosted and aren't that durable that they don't do anything meaningful in most games as you'd have to pay an arm and a leg to get the unit large enough to have some guys survive a round or two of shooting to make it into combat.

They're really only better than Raptors on the charge against MEQ outside of cover. If that isn't the most specialized thing you've heard, I don't know what to tell you.

Plus they're not as durable as Raptors for the price, AND Raptors can take Special Weapons to let them hurt targets they ordinarily couldn't in the first place.

Yeah, the lack of grenades, the low durability and the fact that their biggest trick is bad makes them a poor fast attack choice.


They are better in the daemon codex, being daemons allows them to get effected by the daemon shenanigans.

Another point that I feel is often overlooked is that they are completely irrelevant even within their own niche.
Between price, fragility and ultra-specialist equipment, their one and only role is in taking out heavy armour that has neglected cover. They are built specifically to deal with the 3+ saves that Raptors or allied Daemons aren't quite as efficient as dealing with.

But if you need to kill 3+ saves, and only have a FA slot and ~160pts to do it with, the Heldrake is simply the better option. It will kill more Marines, do so from 12" + Torrent, throw in some utility from the Vector Strike, and present an AV12 Daemonic Flier instead of a MEQ profile.

I won't call them the worst unit in the army, as that title is held by the Possessed IMO. But they are a niche unit that doesn't even have a unique niche.

I think their major weakness in the inability to deal with 2+ armor. If their lightning claws were rending I think they'd be okay. There are ways to buff their survivability.

It also hurts they are in a slot that is already crowded. Bikes, Heldrakes and spawns are some of chaos's better units. Even if they weren't over costed they have stiff competition.

They aren't bad, the angst comes from their wasted potential. They need some help actually getting into combat and like others have said need grenades. Pretty much Mozzamanx hit the nail on the head.

Mozzamanx wrote:
Another point that I feel is often overlooked is that they are completely irrelevant even within their own niche.
Between price, fragility and ultra-specialist equipment, their one and only role is in taking out heavy armour that has neglected cover. They are built specifically to deal with the 3+ saves that Raptors or allied Daemons aren't quite as efficient as dealing with.

But if you need to kill 3+ saves, and only have a FA slot and ~160pts to do it with, the Heldrake is simply the better option. It will kill more Marines, do so from 12" + Torrent, throw in some utility from the Vector Strike, and present an AV12 Daemonic Flier instead of a MEQ profile.

I won't call them the worst unit in the army, as that title is held by the Possessed IMO. But they are a niche unit that doesn't even have a unique niche.

Possessed can't be the worst because Crimson Slaughter fixes all their issues. Besides being absurdly expensive.
At least they can be OS. Warp Talons don't even have that.

I personally dont think they are out right garbage, I just think they cost too much by a tad and it is also a lot of points to make them effective i.e daemon stuff to increase inv or better deepstrike, ect..

Potential is there, I agree they need rending, they also need a safer way to DS then get into assault.

It's not bad to have a min squad of them. Pretty much as an anti-bike choice. They do mulch bikes quite nicely and bikes are not always hiding in diff terrain. The advantage over a heldrake is that they can charge the squad that's allready tied up, they can sweep or lock in combat in case of marines. The heldrake can just kill 3-4 dudes at best when they're spread out and it's not guaranteed that your bird arrives on time.

They seem quite like rough riders. People bash on them but they can function well enough to justify taking a small squad.

They're certainly not optimal, but like most jump infantry units they require a lot of finesse to use since they can't fall back on things like Jink or higher toughness like bikers can. I've seen them do decent damage in a KDK list, with all the MSU and blood tithe bonuses like FNP, my opponent often hops them behind shot-blockers and gets them into position and charges them in after the flesh hounds and other speedy stuff have already engaged the foe and finish key units off.

I feel that both Warp Talons and Possessed really need to be 2 wounds a pop for how much they're priced. This way even if they don't get to use their daemon save they at least have an easier time against bolters and the like.

They're hot garbage and right up there with mutilators and possessed for worst units in the codex. Notice how all 3 are heavily overcosted Assault units who are T4 base and 27 or 30 points per wound?

Remember when people scoffed at vanilla Marines honour guard who had a 2+, everyone had a power weapon, 2 attacks base and they could take a drop pod to ensure a turn 2 charge plus atsknf for being terrible at 25 ppm? Warp talons wish that they were that good.

The lack of scatter in csm means you risk mishaps if you're going to land within 6", and even then, blind is an initiative check, so most units only fail 33% of the time, and tau suits, who you really need to blind and would be susceptible to it, are immune.

Yes, you can get them to a 2++ with Daemons. If you're going to do that, why not use screamers, or a prince, or a D-thirster instead who are all more killy and more survivable? Any unit can be made decent with hundreds of points of support, relics and psychic powers, why start with an obviously sub-par unit?

 koooaei wrote:
bikes are not always hiding in diff terrain.

Here's the key point. If you're bringing units that need to charge outside terrain, why wouldn't I use it?
Like I said, the only thing Warp Talons do better is charging MEQ outside of cover. However, it isn't difficult to get cover. Heldrakes ignore that problem, and quite frankly I'd rather keep Raptors in combat for the opponent's turn so that they can't be shot at.

Look at it like this:
The bare minimum for Warp Talons is 160 points. 7 Raptors with two Melta Guns and MoK is 163 points, only 3 more. How does the math differ? Let us see:
1. 5 Talons charge at Tactical Marines. We will ignore Overwatch and HoW for this calculation because I don't feel like creating an actual squad to throw them at. 16 attacks on the charge means 8 hit, and 6 of those will wound. That's actually alright. THEN we get to this, ignoring Overwatch and HoW for simplicity's sake. 7 Raptors with MoK will have 29 attacks on the charge, half of those will hit for 14.5, and with half those wounding and getting through the 3+ we have 2.5 wounds done. That's significantly less, but we didn't factor in shooting. Assuming a single Frag hits two dudes, the shooting of the Raptors causes two more wounds. So 4.5 wounds in total were done by the Raptors. So far that looks a lot nicer for Warp Talons than the Raptors, but let us actually take a second and create a squad for them to fight.
2. The main loadout you might see on a Tactical Squad that was somewhat optimized in a Gladius (because you aren't honestly going to see them elsewhere) is a Plasma Gun and Grav Cannon at ten men, in a Rhino, getting us to about 190 points. We'll assume we can keep the same squads for now to get this point across. On Overwatch, for simplicity's sake, we kill one Warp Talon, and against the Raptors we score 1.5 dead Raptors, which swings to either 1 or 2. Now, with Raptor shooting you could decrease that amount dead from Overwatch if you snipe the Grav Cannon or Plasma Gun. That's already a net advantage to the Raptors. Now, the numbers stay the same for kills (slightly less because a dude died obviously), but the Tactical Squad will kill 1 Warp Talon or Raptor in return. Looking at it like this, we have 5 Raptors left and 3 Warp Talons left.
3. Now comes the tricky part. If the Tactical Squad was in COVER, only three Warp Talons get to attack, and assuming their Champ lives (just so we can get more attacks in for them to make it look better) that's 4 dead Marines. Raptors get to charge in at regular I, and that's 2 dead Marines. That didn't factor in shooting though, which actually stays surprisingly the same due to Melta Guns forcing the cover saves (dependent on what the cover is, so I assume 5+) and Bolter shots and the Frag Grenade not caring about cover for them. So looking at it like that, the Raptors inflicted 4 wounds as well: the same exact amount. I didn't even calculate how those losses would affect Overwatch either.
4. Now let us assume the Marines are hiding in the Rhino. The Warp Talons can only hit the rear armor to even potentially get glancing hits. Raptors can hit it with Melta Guns and get about a 50% to blow it up, which means something else can charge the Marines (or a better choice, the Heldrake, roasts them) or THEY can.

So that automatically makes the Warp Talons not as flexible for what the situation really needs. Cover really makes a huge difference. When Grav Bikers (assuming Combi-Grav) get into range, because it isn't difficult, they'll kill 3 Warp Talons and 4.5 Raptors, showing that a 5++ doesn't actually help that much.
Now, we could make the argument that, since we spent 190 on the Tactical Marines, we should spend about 30 more points on either squad. Now, we could always switch to MoS instead of MoK and buy the Icon giving the Raptors FNP, or we are buying a Power Weapon of some type (most likely Power Sword) and another Raptor which is about 7 points over the limit I created. Spending on the Warp Talons is more difficult because you're either buying one more Talon or a Mark. You aren't really getting a choice. In this specific case, the flexibility is better than the specific tool. At that point though, spending so many points on the Warp Talons makes you realize you could've just gotten a Heldrake, which is guaranteed to get 5-6 dudes under the Template and kill 5-6 dudes a turn.

Raptors are not fearless, so they can fail fear tests quite easilly unless you run them with lord. And they're way superior to raptors in terms of raw damage output in melee point for point. Also, the fewer models you have, the easier it is to minimize return damage, so the 10 tacticals calculations are pretty irrelevant because 10 won't strike back. Close combat is not all on all. And ideally, you have enough mobility to provide more benefical charge routes.

Terrain is not always in the right place for the enemy to hide behind. It can also force them to stay back which is a good thing for point grabbing. And i think that their main target are not marines but bikers. Marines are not very problematic to deal with for the rest of the codex.

LOL'd at failing Fear tests easily. They're LD9 with the champ and there's nothing anyone is going to care about that inflicts Fear. The fact you said Fear was a big factor shows that you're grasping at straws.

I also disproved the whole "raw damage" thing once I incorporated shooting. Flamers instead of Melta make it even worse when it comes to infantry.

Not just fear, they can also fail ld and fall back. Besides, ld9 is only for champ and there are not only a lot of mechanics to snipe out one but also to lower ld. Basically, face harlequins or dark eldar and you're ws1 all day long.
Flamers are not always usabe just because they put the targets out of range and every inch matters when it comes to charging.

Unlike mutilators it's harder to prove my point here because a batrep won't show much as i don't see much reason of spamming warp talons unlike mutilators. I still think that a small squad has a niche and can be fine.

If they fall back or get swept, the next turn the thing can be shot at. Anything that's is gonna cause them to fall back is going to kill Talons anyway since they come in MUCH smaller numbers. It isn't the advantage you're making it to be.
Don't pretend that facing Dark Eldar or Harlequins is gonna help your case either, because you're really going to lose there. I can have the Raptors striking with I5 before you even get a new Warp Talon, and Raptors striking at WS1 at the same time seems better than your one Warp Talon fending for itself. Then it would be stuck in combat, die on your turn, and the Harlequins charge again. Or the Dark Eldar do whatever; they have nothing worthwhile that causes fear.

Also you're on Jump Packs. You're fine using Flamers and then charging. A template is what, 5 inches, and there's the matter won't kill all 4-6 Marines under it? Come on.

You know, it's funny. Lately, there's been a number of threads like: "Are X really that bad?". And there are generally 2 camps which always consist of all the same people from thread to thread. One states that it's the worst unit ever and that you should never even consider using them while other group says that it might not be that bad and there is a number of situations where this units can be used effectively. Don't know, maybe it's mostly up to people rather than the unit itself. Yep, there sure is something wrong with the unit if such question comes up so often. But in most cases it's not as doom and gloom as people paint it to be.

That's the L2P argument. It is lazy and it doesn't work.

Well, people bashed on greentide for the same reason. And than Fexini appeared out of nowhere and did amazing with it in a couple of GT. Skill does matter too. So, L2P has something behind it from time to time. And you are becoming better at the game when you're running uncommon units and making them work instead of just sticking to "internet wisdom" cheeze that's supposed to be top of the heap. How are you supposed to become better when you're running easy lists and aren't inventive at all?

NOBODY bashed on Greentide, as it was arguably the only way to make regular Boyz work on that scale. That is misinformation on your end and you know it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
NOBODY bashed on Greentide

orly. I remember quite well that everyone dismissed it as fluffy but not effective in a competitive game the moment it came out, than after a few tests it ended up to be quite mediocre and everyone forgot about it for a time. But than after a huge success of just a few people with it, greentide became venerated.

 koooaei wrote:
Raptors are not fearless, so they can fail fear tests quite easilly unless you run them with lord. And they're way superior to raptors in terms of raw damage output in melee point for point. Also, the fewer models you have, the easier it is to minimize return damage, so the 10 tacticals calculations are pretty irrelevant because 10 won't strike back. Close combat is not all on all. And ideally, you have enough mobility to provide more benefical charge routes.

Terrain is not always in the right place for the enemy to hide behind. It can also force them to stay back which is a good thing for point grabbing. And i think that their main target are not marines but bikers. Marines are not very problematic to deal with for the rest of the codex.

Warp Talons aren't fearless either, so that's a pointless argument.

As to minimising return damage, unless it's a strung out unit of ork boys, I rarely see units fail to get all their guys into combat once charged unless that's their plan.

10 tacticals won't strike back, they'll strike first because talons don't have grenades and any opponent who's played more than a handful of games knows to put stuff you don't want charged into terrain.

Again, this only makes them worse in comparison to heldrakes, as the heldrake is the natural predator of the bike, probably moreso than normal marines. Wounding on 3's no save to anything within 20" is way better than having to survive getting into combat and then wounding on 5's with a re-roll, no saves.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
LOL'd at failing Fear tests easily. They're LD9 with the champ and there's nothing anyone is going to care about that inflicts Fear. The fact you said Fear was a big factor shows that you're grasping at straws.

I also disproved the whole "raw damage" thing once I incorporated shooting. Flamers instead of Melta make it even worse when it comes to infantry.

I dunno, a 25% chance to fail is harsh on units that absolutely need to be on their game to not be bad. As one of the 3 armies that actually care about fear (CSM, Orks and DE), it kinda sucks. Agree on the raptors having way more damage output though.

 koooaei wrote:
Not just fear, they can also fail ld and fall back. Besides, ld9 is only for champ and there are not only a lot of mechanics to snipe out one but also to lower ld. Basically, face harlequins or dark eldar and you're ws1 all day long.
Flamers are not always usabe just because they put the targets out of range and every inch matters when it comes to charging.

Unlike mutilators it's harder to prove my point here because a batrep won't show much as i don't see much reason of spamming warp talons unlike mutilators. I still think that a small squad has a niche and can be fine.

Again, neither unit is fearless, both are ld 9 (until the raptor champ dies anyway). There's fewer ways than before to snipe stuff out with all characters losing presicion shots at least, so I'd say that's pretty much a wash, especially since the sarge at least gets a 4+ LoS. If either unit is taking casualties, they're probably being killed to a man or rendered combat ineffective anyway.

I'd argue that it's quite easy to prove a point via batreps. Take a bunch of raptors and then replace them in the same list with equivalent points of warp talons and play the same opponent with the same list. Since both raptors and talons are in the same slot and serve the same purpose and can be made to be the same points, it should be easy if you have vassal and some opponents. Math alone shows that they're pretty rubbish, but people seem to believe small samples of anecdotal evidence instead of easily shown, repeatable math with no bias or uncertainty.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
...Or the Dark Eldar do whatever; they have nothing worthwhile that causes fear.

Also you're on Jump Packs. You're fine using Flamers and then charging. A template is what, 5 inches, and there's the matter won't kill all 4-6 Marines under it? Come on.

DE have Talos (corpsetief and dark artisan are some of their only redeeming features other than being a xeno taxi service) and a flamer is 8".

 koooaei wrote:
You know, it's funny. Lately, there's been a number of threads like: "Are X really that bad?". And there are generally 2 camps which always consist of all the same people from thread to thread. One states that it's the worst unit ever and that you should never even consider using them while other group says that it might not be that bad and there is a number of situations where this units can be used effectively. Don't know, maybe it's mostly up to people rather than the unit itself. Yep, there sure is something wrong with the unit if such question comes up so often. But in most cases it's not as doom and gloom as people paint it to be.

One group usually states that the unit in question is one of the worst units (and given that we're talking about mutilators, warp talons and possessed recently, it's a fair call. We've only got the thousand sons and Luscious to go until we can yell BINGO! and claim our prize) and that taking them in a competative list is a terrible idea since everything else does it better or there is no use for the thing that the unit does.

The other group tends to use extremely unlikely scenarios against non-competative lists to prove that not being a complete waste of points in 0.001% of games means the unit isn't bad.

Technically, both groups are right. In the right situation, said units can shine, but unfortunately, the required circumstances for this come to pass so rarely against a competative list that it is irrelevant. If talking about a casual game, then sure, take whatever models you like, that's why it's a casual game and thus outside the scope of discussion when we're specifically talking about competative lists.

 koooaei wrote:
Well, people bashed on greentide for the same reason. And than Fexini appeared out of nowhere and did amazing with it in a couple of GT. Skill does matter too. So, L2P has something behind it from time to time. And you are becoming better at the game when you're running uncommon units and making them work instead of just sticking to "internet wisdom" cheeze that's supposed to be top of the heap. How are you supposed to become better when you're running easy lists and aren't inventive at all?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
NOBODY bashed on Greentide, as it was arguably the only way to make regular Boyz work on that scale. That is misinformation on your end and you know it.

 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
NOBODY bashed on Greentide

orly. I remember quite well that everyone dismissed it as fluffy but not effective in a competitive game the moment it came out, than after a few tests it ended up to be quite mediocre and everyone forgot about it for a time. But than after a huge success of just a few people with it, greentide became venerated.

Fxeni didn't appear out of nowhere with greentide. Yes, it was bashed when it came out, but that was before the remainder of the 7th books came out, and before the insanity that was the 7.5 books too. Given the massive swing in meta towards 4+ saves and cover in combination all d-weapons or grav guns all the time, greentide became a solid counter. What was the real secret to Fxeni's success (other than him being an incredible general) was how the VSG was ruled to work (RAW instead of RAI) and a bunch of people not being prepared for that and playing it poorly.

Greentide was a thing before Fxeni came 9th, hell, he even faced off against another greentide in that very tournament! Don't get me wrong, Fxeni did extremely well with it and he showed up quite a few people, but he did take a meta-spoiler list and his gamble payed off. I think you'll find that if you go back and read the thread about his matches and the list discussion before that, people were already aware of the power of the tide and it was more about tweaks to support it that the tide itself.

Yep, they're not fearless in the book. My mistake. Just used to seeing them in daemonkin where they are thanks to being daemons. They also open up a neat formation with a drake that is even better for daemonkin than for regular csm.

They're daemons in the CSM book. Daemon rule gives fear and 5++. Fear is not the same as fearless. Warp Talons are not fearless in either book.... They are *slightly* better in KDK because they get both Mark of Khorne and Daemon of Khorne special rules.... But they are still over costed units that aren't even the best at their niche roles.

Wait, they're not getting fearless in kdk? I've been cheated!
Anywayz, biker shredding still remains the same.

 Drasius wrote:
One group usually states that the unit in question is one of the worst units (and given that we're talking about mutilators, warp talons and possessed recently, it's a fair call. We've only got the thousand sons and Luscious to go until we can yell BINGO! and claim our prize) and that taking them in a competative list is a terrible idea since everything else does it better or there is no use for the thing that the unit does.

The other group tends to use extremely unlikely scenarios against non-competative lists to prove that not being a complete waste of points in 0.001% of games means the unit isn't bad.

Technically, both groups are right. In the right situation, said units can shine, but unfortunately, the required circumstances for this come to pass so rarely against a competative list that it is irrelevant. If talking about a casual game, then sure, take whatever models you like, that's why it's a casual game and thus outside the scope of discussion when we're specifically talking about competative lists.

[TL;DR]


That's not entirely true imho. Both camps usually agree that they are bottom of the barrel. But it seems to me that the competitive pack always assume that competitive value is all that matters. And moreso, that in a casual game you may as well play with a painted rock, because it's just for fun anyway. Win or loose...same thing. The other camp tries to find way to make them work somewhat in games where you want to take X unit for whatever reason, because playing casual lists doesn't mean you don't care about winning.

Every time there is is a thread inquiring about a bad unit, everybody immediately suggests not taking it and more often than not suggests plague marines, without exploring how you could possibly make it work. Which is good from a competitive angle. But what if you want to still win and you want to take X unit? I for one have a certain vision in mind when composing armies. Like, say I want to play Black Legion. To me that means lots of marines, termies and chosen. Termies and chosen being the posterchild bad-asses from a fluff perspective. And I don't much care about nurgle and slaanesh. I don't care if the rules are better, I don't want any of those units. If anything then I'll take khorne or tzeentch. And then there are units like the hellturkey, which can die in a fire for all I care. It took me months just to warm up to the maulerfiend, but I still won't even consider taking a forgefiend.

So, in a sense, the codex offers a whole lot less choice for that particular army. And, in my case I don't like taking allies either. So for that example Black Legion list its unmarked power armour or bust. Now I also don't want to run an all basic marine list, which might still be fun. But then I'm going in KNOWING I'm going to loose. Which is totally ok as long as your having fun. But while that black legion list will probably not be competitive in any way, I still want to win with it. And then it doesn't help me one bit to know that every other unit would be better, I need to know how to make what I have work.

If I want to take warp talons because I think the models are kick ass, then I want to know how I could possibly make them work. In that case taking them isn't a choice, they are already part of the army. So where do I take it form there? What mechanics help overcome the whole grenade thing for instance? All while knowing full well that they suck and more importantly WHY they suck. That way, I can know what I'm about to get myself into and decide whether or not to go through with it. I'm fine with loosing a game if it was a close call for example.

Of course that's all good only so long as both players have similar expectations about the game. If I brought a thousand son list to a game against a competitive player..even against csm, chances are it would get pretty ugly pretty fast lol. But yea, the competitive bunch seems to paint an image where taking things like warp talons is akin to an automatic loss, while the other guys are trying to show that isn't necessarily the case. I don't think anybody is actually saying that warp talons are going to win you games.