I have had 6 games with my dark eldar and have been pleasantly surprised by the Talos Pain Engine. Most people will tell you not to take this model because he is slow, has random attacks and his ballistic skill 3 isn't good enough. Well I say bah humbug to that!
In the style of fast moving, assault oriented dark eldar list which has moderate long range fire support and massive mid range fire support, the Talos pain engine has done very well for me so far. To date I have played:
4 Necron armies
1 Space Wolves army
1 Chaos Space Marine army
The testing is continuing to go well but I need to get some more games against marine style armies. I am still using 1 webway portal and have been able to get the portal to a good spot on the board every game. Whether I hide them with the hellions if I am going second so he can leave and drop them, or put them with some Trueborn when I go first. The Webway portal has been the key to the success of the pain engine.
The way I run my pain engine:
Twin Linked Haywire blasters, twin linked liquifier gun-110 points
I know you are thinking why not a heat lance even with the portal? Well I have thought long and hard on this and am testing the use of haywire blasters in my army. I have 2 units of scourges which have 2 each and the one on my pain engine. The haywire blaster in my opinion is one of the best weapons in the DE codex. It is the same as the grenade but has a 24" range! So yes, that landraider with armor 14, here you go! Can't shoot or immobilized, or if I am lucky, wrecked. On a roll of a 6 after hitting I get a penetration hit....from a strength 4 weapon....that has a 24" range.....on scourges who are jump infantry and my pain engine. Not a bad tactic. Against open topped vehicles the haywire blasters have owned them. My last 2 games against Necron's my Pain engine wrecked, 1 annihilation barge, 3 ghost arcs, 1 stalker, 1 doomsday arc, and a unit of warriors.
His toughness 7 and strength 7 make him feared and tough to kill. The twin linked liquifier gun which is a random d6 ap makes him scary to swarms and normal infantry. 50% to roast armor 3+ :).
In Close combat he is good against MEQ as he has weapon skill 5 and strength 7, but his random d6 attacks can be helpful, but can be horrible as well. He is initiative 4 which helps with being such a large creature against dreadnoughts, carnifexes, etc. With 2 pain tokens he can get to initiative 5 with furious charge and strength 8 which is great as well.
His 3+ save and toughness 7 is great because he can shrug off lots of small arms firepower and requires heavy weapon shots to take him down which of course takes the heavy weapons focus away from other important units.
I will continue playtest and write a full report soon!
![[Image: dark-eldar-Talos-Pain-Cronos-Parasite-Engine-01.jpg]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sK1idKDA3TmiQzZiS3LtaUDsyDh5XSU_KgVTPcqs7qqErcyjtkObhR4t-IdpT4jqklG-OEmjwcIOIyi9uhR3eBBu6xp9YU9XtZfefat3MXfSc2J6KuRSchzAgb2CS5Oj3L5jxe-i9yAY5H0q4VQH_Ft2OoYfswgjbn6lYI-pxHDimUNGPaT6XLJBhJTA=s0-d)
Beautiful!!!!
We need to get a game in. As of today I'll finally have my full 1850 points if Tau. I'm off most of next week if you want to meet up.
ReplyDelete/sigh. DE have bigger tougher beasties than Tyranids too. ;)
ReplyDeleteKeep pushing the envelope =)
I could meet up with you Monday. This is the only day I will be in Indy next week. If you wanted to meet at G2D4 we could get in a game at 11. Let me know....
ReplyDelete@Ghostin, He is tougher but only has 3 wounds.....Still not bad for 110 points. :)
Nothing wrong with the Talos... It's always enjoyed the benefit of a Portal. In the old days, it was either a fire magnet (start on the board) or a 150 point model (ie, you bought a portal).
ReplyDeleteWith new (read; better) gun options, and some CC goodies, this guy has only gotten better.
Now that I'm running Heamy's in my list, I may be able to justify putting one in.
On the other hand, I love the ravagers and fighters a bit much, I think...
I have never felt that the Talos was "bad".
ReplyDeleteI do feel that it could use a 30-40 pts discount, that would help it to hit the table more often.
I dunno... at that point you're paying what, 70 points for a pretty nasty MC? People got up in arms about being able to take 3 wraithlords in 500 points (which was done, obviously, because you could). You could do it with the Talos, too.
ReplyDeleteDifferences?
Less strength (matters against... oh... other Taloi and Wraithlords? Hmmmm...).
1 Less toughness. I guess since bolters can technically hurt it it can't be called cheese...
Random attacks (which you can help, for a small cost) instead of ... what... 2? Occasionally you'll roll a 1. Occasionally.
Twin-linked gun instead of 2 separate. Cheaper, and more accurate for BS3. I'm not complaining.
Either way, around 100 points for even a CC-only S7/T7 monster wouldn't be terrible... it just depends on the build you're using. Each of the three trees of DE warfare have different styles. Not all will always mesh perfectly with everything else. You can incorporate, yes, but not willy-nilly. Takes some effort. Go figure.
Something else that makes the Talos pretty awesome compaired to other monstrous creatures is his size. He isn't super big and almost everything dark eldar has is on a flying base pretty much giving him a 4+ cover most of the time!!!! :)
ReplyDeleteHas anyone used the Cronos instead?
I myself haven't run a Talos yet, but my Cronos has done quite well. It frequently gets itself up to 2 pain tokens once it's in range, and then starts sharing the love with my other units.
ReplyDeleteSeems like this would do well as a follow up to faster wyches who tie up the foe as this thing comes in to clean up.
ReplyDeleteLove the teaser, have really been curious what your DE will come out like.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention that so far my Cronos has only seen action against various types of Marines, from Vanilla to GK. I want to try him on something a bit less beefy, because while he has no trouble with their 3+ armor, their T4 means that his shooting weapons need 5s to wound with it's large blast and 4s with it's template.
ReplyDeleteCourse, he'd probably do better against Marines if I backed him up effectively, but my DE lists are still kinda hodge-podge, trying to get a feel of how exactly I wanna run it.