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So I was thinking about making a Coven army and I noticed that you dont hear much about them anymore Anyone have any experience with them lately? How are they holding in the current meta in your local areas? My plan for this army is one that will be mostly converted and so i will be playing at 1000 pts for awhile before slowly adding to so any advice for that point range would be awesome aswell.

They are my primary army. I love them.

Their formations are pretty epic. The Dark Artisan, Corpsethief Claw, and Grotesquerie are my favorites. The Scarlet Epicurean and Scalpel Squadron formations are also decent.

I find that their Ld negatives are best capitalized on by bringing a psyker with Telepathy, and/or some more Ld negatives (such as the Mask of Secrets, Armor of Misery, or a Hemlock).

What would you say would be a good set up for 1000 pts

Corpsthiefe Claw (a squad of 5 Talos with Scout and score extra victory points for killing none vehicle units in combat) with a Dark Artisan (Talos, Cronos, Haemonculus).

Thats 6 S7, T7 MC's with W5 (6 for the one in the DA formation, who is also I5 instead of 4) and 5 attacks each on the charge with FnP and Fearless. I arm the CTC with Chain Flails for re-rolls to wound and Heat Lances for some multi purpose shooting, and just chain flails on the DA Talos. The Cronos boosts everyones FnP to 4+ and the Haemonculus as Warlord means that any Talos and Cronos within 12" re-rolls FnP rolls of 1. Not many models but it's increadibly difficult to deal with short of D or Force weapons.

For a slightly friendlier list you could try a Grotesquerie and a Scalpel Squadron.

Oh that first list sounds dirty but man thats alot of pain engines to convert up. Running the corpse thief is there any advice for how to properly make it work? Any other good complimenting units or formations?

It is, so far the only thing I've come up agaisnt that does a lot of damage to a CTC is Grey Knights making liberal use of Force, a Warp Hunter with it's D3+1 small blast D shots, a sword and board Wraithknight and surprisingly a squad of 5 Corsair Cloud Dancer Jet Bikes with Splinter Cannons. 30 poison shots with Prescience on them equated to a dead Talos in a single round of shooting. I imagine Devestators with Grav would have a similar effect. Surprisingly Tau struggle to do enough damage before I get into combat and wipe them off the board.

As for running it, basically point the CTC at the biggest threat your opponent has and run after them, it's got decent shooting and will destroy most units in close combat with ease. The big problem is that it's slow so could take you a while to get into combat and it's expensive, with my suggested loadout it's a 650pt formation.

The Dark Artisan is by far the most complimentary formation you could run with it, the Cronos makes all the models more survivable by boosting the FnP from 5+ to 4+ and the Haemonculus Warlord Trait gives all Talos and Cronos within 12" re-rolls of FnP rolls of 1.

The Scalpel Squadron will help with the speed, it's two units of Wracks in Venoms that automatically Deep Strike onto the board turn 1 (they have to start in reserve) and score D3 victory points if they score First Blood. Wracks arent much good no matter what you do with them but Venoms are always useful, 24 poison shots between them is nothing to sniff at.

The Grotesquerie is arguably just as good as the CTC if not better. A Grotesque is S5, T5 with 3W each and up to 8 attacks each on the charge, 9 if you roll for Rage on their mutation table (and up to 10 for the Aberration upgrade). Basically you've got 2 squads, put them in Raiders and run them up the board towards your opponent, last game I ran them in they went through several squads of Crisis suits.

I'm not familier with the other 2 formations to be honest, they both rely heavily on Wracks and frankly they're a terrible unit, only good for holding your opponent up.

I'd highly recommend checking out Jimsolo's Freakshow Tactica thread, will give you an excellent overview on how to use each of the formations amongst the specifics of attacking your opponent via their Leadership stat.

 Solosam47 wrote:
Oh that first list sounds dirty but man thats alot of pain engines to convert up. Running the corpse thief is there any advice for how to properly make it work? Any other good complimenting units or formations?

The best way to convert pain/parasite engines I've found is to make "traitor" wraithlords. You can get old metal wraithlords off of ebay for $10-$12, and convert them with spare spikes, blades, and chains from your Dark Eldar purchases.

I second checking out the Freakshow threads.

^Personally I converted up some Skaven Stormfiends, there aesthetic is very similar to Covens to begin with.

I did Reaper Bones large fire elementals, and painted them up as shadow elementals. Talos for 8 bucks and a couple minutes of painting/drybrushing.

 Imateria wrote:
^Personally I converted up some Skaven Stormfiends, there aesthetic is very similar to Covens to begin with.

How's the size? I thought they were closer to grots than taloi.

Thank you all for all the help and suggestions!
Crazy the skaven idea came up cause that was the route I was gonna try haha

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
^Personally I converted up some Skaven Stormfiends, there aesthetic is very similar to Covens to begin with.

How's the size? I thought they were closer to grots than taloi.

Pretty close actually, it helps that as MC's go the Talos isn't particularly big.



I used Crypt Horrors for my Grotesque conversions, they're about as tall but much less bulky so fairly similar body shape to the finecast Grotesque.

Damn those are cool! I have 6 taloi and one cronos, but I may eventually buy that skaven kit to make some more...


I also used Crypt horror for my grotesques, but i didn't stop there. I used Ogres (6 for $40), tyranids warriors, ogryn/bullgryn (for the aberrations).

Awesome stuff! I was thinking converting rat ogres for mine, my original goal was to use coven as the basis for bringing my skaven moulder clan into 40k.

Do any of you know if rat ogre heads will fit on crypt horror bodies? I might try that with a little green stuff fur since it seems hard to get ahold of rat ogres these days at a decent price.

The profile is MUCH shorter, though.

You might run into trouble with people claiming MFA.

(They do look great, though!)

 Jimsolo wrote:
The profile is MUCH shorter, though.

You might run into trouble with people claiming MFA.

(They do look great, though!)

Whilst true, given the floaty nature of the Talos and Cronos I'd imagine you'll run into that problem whatever you do unless you convert something notably bigger than a Talos. At my local store it's not such a problem, whilst we have plenty of trerrain not much of it is at the specific hight were it would be a problem (either it doesn't block line of sight or it's as a Bastion).

See my thread for conversion ideas. A lot of my stuff is inspired from other ideas across the web with my own twist on them. I also have coven reavers/windriders, spyders and swooping hawks. Oh and I finished painting a lot, I have been a serious jerk face about updating my thread though, maybe tomorrow morning I will photo bomb the thread and get some feed back.

As for coven lists, mate, don't worry about competitive since your coven options are seriously limited and literally everything has a formation or build making it viable. So to start off, simply decide what units you have a passion to model up and paint. For example, a normal coterie can field up to 12 taloi/cronos so you really will start running out of steam before you ever have too many same with every other entry really. For me I have 22 grotesques, 7 taloi (2 unfinished) and 5 haemonculus 2 of which can double as skyrunner farseers when I want to take my eldar coven creations like my wraithknight aka Roe Beast

At 1500 I have taken the corpse thief claw with two units of 10 grotesques and 2 haemis with WWP so I could start with the CTC lid field first turn after scouting and moving and turn 2 I wwp in the two grot units and run them to for a semi circle trapping my opponents entire army after they ran, I went 2 of three at that RTT only losing to missile spam tau when I failed my crucial turn 2 assaults lol other wise I'd have tabled him instead.

You get the idea though, just pick some coven units you really want to model and start there, don't write of the normal coven coterie as an option until you have multiple units you need (like talos) It allows you to take solo MC's and a mix of grots haemis and wracks. I'd save the vehicles for last personally since DE vehicles are a PITA to paint, but thats just me lol. I also like to spam either AV or wounds since it makes an opponents list less optimal usually, their AT is wasted or their AI. Bringing just a couple vehicles for coven armies tends to end poorly unless you are using scalpel squadrons.

Either way, welcome aboard the pain train!

 Red Corsair wrote:
See my thread for conversion ideas. A lot of my stuff is inspired from other ideas across the web with my own twist on them. I also have coven reavers/windriders, spyders and swooping hawks. Oh and I finished painting a lot, I have been a serious jerk face about updating my thread though, maybe tomorrow morning I will photo bomb the thread and get some feed back.

As for coven lists, mate, don't worry about competitive since your coven options are seriously limited and literally everything has a formation or build making it viable. So to start off, simply decide what units you have a passion to model up and paint. For example, a normal coterie can field up to 12 taloi/cronos so you really will start running out of steam before you ever have too many same with every other entry really. For me I have 22 grotesques, 7 taloi (2 unfinished) and 5 haemonculus 2 of which can double as skyrunner farseers when I want to take my eldar coven creations like my wraithknight aka Roe Beast

At 1500 I have taken the corpse thief claw with two units of 10 grotesques and 2 haemis with WWP so I could start with the CTC lid field first turn after scouting and moving and turn 2 I wwp in the two grot units and run them to for a semi circle trapping my opponents entire army after they ran, I went 2 of three at that RTT only losing to missile spam tau when I failed my crucial turn 2 assaults lol other wise I'd have tabled him instead.

You get the idea though, just pick some coven units you really want to model and start there, don't write of the normal coven coterie as an option until you have multiple units you need (like talos) It allows you to take solo MC's and a mix of grots haemis and wracks. I'd save the vehicles for last personally since DE vehicles are a PITA to paint, but thats just me lol. I also like to spam either AV or wounds since it makes an opponents list less optimal usually, their AT is wasted or their AI. Bringing just a couple vehicles for coven armies tends to end poorly unless you are using scalpel squadrons.

Either way, welcome aboard the pain train!

Red, I have always been an admire of your work, you and jimsolo are two of the people i like to read whenever you guys post! Thanks for the tips and advice! I tried DE last year but didnt connect and I think its because I didnt run coven. I always wanted a way to bring my skaven moulder into 40k so after putting them into the shoes of coven I think I found my white horse haha.

This project will be slow but im cool with it since I want this entire army to be converted(well maybe not the vehicles since I have no clue what rats would fly in as raiders and venoms go lol) but still I want to give a big thanks to you and everyone on this thread that has posted as it really inspires me to bring my rats to 40k. I have always played daemons and CSM/SM but never felt the connection as I did with the skaven so im excited to really dig my teeth in on this project.

If anyone also has some crazy cool conversion ideas, please, by all means throw them out there for us to read and see

Didn't realize you were going for a Hrud/Skaven in space theme. I think there is a ton of potential for it actually. I saw a skaven/imperial guard army years back and the guy used Hurst art molds and blue foam to make floating ruins as his chimera, I think you could go a similar route only making the ruins more of a floating laboratory with autopsy tables and meat-hooks/chains all over, maybe make grafted on limbs and a brain in a tube as the pilot and gunner. If you want a direct skaven analog you could make large warpstone arc reactor type engines for the lift and thrust. You can get cheap raider decks and grates off ebay to help make it look suitably techy.

Honestly I wouldn't be afraid to kitbash with skitarii. I think the limbs and cloaks would kitbash well with skaven and their weapons would be perfect, that is if you ever branch out into warriors and wyches.

Either way be sure to throw up some pics as you go, I am already interested.

DirtyDeeds wrote:
I also used Crypt horror for my grotesques, but i didn't stop there. I used Ogres (6 for $40), tyranids warriors, ogryn/bullgryn (for the aberrations).

Any pictures of these grotesques? I'd be interested in seeing the tyranid warriors.

Well, I can say a bit from being in the receiving end of those... things

Dark Artisan will generally require much more points to deal with it than its costs, so it's a win to its owner. My DE friend generally makes the Haemunculus his warlord. It takes FOREVER to get StW against him, or I just don't care. I try to gun down the Chronus first (a Buffmander with 3 melta-totting Crisis managed to kill it), because 4+ FnP re-rolling 1s is *)*&@)($&*)($!!

A SM friend fought Corpsethief Claw, but he didn't have Grav enough for 5 Talos... When I tested the new DA against it, the termies managed to hold off 2, but the other 3 were free to grab objectives and such.

The DS Turn 1 Wrack only managed to get first blood once, but it's a way for null deployment (my friend likes venom spam).

Coven is helluva better than base DE. It's like comparing SM and BA.

If the DA is your warlord, he can give Talos and Cronos outside his unit rerolls of 1 on FNP as well.

Side note, Vector, was he running his CTC as 5 separate Taloi? The formation is supposed to be a single unit...

I used WFB (AoS) Ogres and Talos btis

My Army is 18 of these guys from the Grotesquerie Formation with CtC formation.

1 Units of 10 and 1 unit of 3 Grots (this unit with Raider) Haemi with WWP, I DS the 10man Unit, I do this for both Grotesquerie's

Having 20 T5 (maybe T6 or FnP too) multi Wound guys with a HUGE Footprint x2 is amazing IMO, along with 5 Talos

 Jimsolo wrote:
If the DA is your warlord, he can give Talos and Cronos outside his unit rerolls of 1 on FNP as well.

Side note, Vector, was he running his CTC as 5 separate Taloi? The formation is supposed to be a single unit...

I don't remember now. In fact, I misremembered the Dark Angels part - the Taloi weren't in a formation. But those against SM were... the player gave up by turn 3, I think. He couldn't kill all those big monster quick enough (there were many zipping venoms around as well).

He used that one only once, anyway. He's doing Corsairs now...