Gremlin taxidermists - How useful?

[Red Moon Head]

So I ordered the Creative taxidermy over the easter sale originally just for the stuffed piglets but started looking at how useful these guys can be. I doubt I would run more than one in a list and would likely run a full 6 stuffed with him.

Read up on the PMF page but thought I'd also ask here how people have found them first hand. On paper it looks like a full compliment of stuffed piglets could be a deterent for your enemy killing him at least but how practical is that?

Right now the obvious choice seems to be:
Taxidermimst
6x stuffed piglets
Pigapult.

Anyone got any feedback from using him?

[Mason]

I'd probably leave some Stuffed Pigs out of the initial list, since the Taxidermist can make them as the game goes on. Stuffed Piglets are quite fun, but you want to make sure that you still have enough significant or killy models to get victory points.

I've found that Taxidermists work pretty well well as flankers, since they can generally do pretty well against cheap or medium-range objective runners, as they can deal decent enough damage and start churning out exploding pigs to further gum up your opponent's works and help improve your activation control.

[Red Moon Head]

14 minutes ago, Mason said:

I'd probably leave some Stuffed Pigs out of the initial list, since the Taxidermist can make them as the game goes on. Stuffed Piglets are quite fun, but you want to make sure that you still have enough significant or killy models to get victory points.

I've found that Taxidermists work pretty well well as flankers, since they can generally do pretty well against cheap or medium-range objective runners, as they can deal decent enough damage and start churning out exploding pigs to further gum up your opponent's works and help improve your activation control.

I hadn't thought about the fact that they are Rare 6 I wouldn't be able to create extras until one dies, good point! 

Have you found that the "dead mans switch" has been a deterrent to opponents at all? Seems like with good positioning (pigapult) you could really force your opponents hand when trying to take him out.

[Mason]

I don't think it's necessarily a deterrent, unless the pigs are clustered around models that are camping objective markers or other important areas of the board, where a few explosions could unexpectedly cause the model to die unexpectedly.

It's a good ability to keep an eye on for sure, and something to keep in mind if you can get a pig up to a model but can't quite kill it, but nothing I'd base an entire strategy around.

[Math Mathonwy]

Their biggest problem is that Francois and Burt and Raphael are all 7SS and so much better that it's crazy. Making Pigs fly can be really cool, though, since they generally have really long Cg ranges. A bit dependent on terrain but at least on our tables Flight for Pigs makes them a lot better.

[Omenbringer]

Taxidermist's are some of my favorite models though I go back and fourth on them. They have changed a bit from last edition and I really think that just focusing on the explosive potential is missing out on the other benefits they can provide.

13 hours ago, Red Moon Head said:

Read up on the PMF page but thought I'd also ask here how people have found them first hand. On paper it looks like a full compliment of stuffed piglets could be a deterent for your enemy killing him at least but how practical is that?

Pull my finger is a decent resource but tends to miss a bit, especially on non-masters. If you are going to go all in on the exploding potential of the Stuffed Pigs and Taxidermist then I would recommend looking at the 1st ed division under Som'er. It lays out some of the old methods of positioning the pigs to maximize the effect, keep in mind though that some things have changed from that edition and will need to be modified (the largest being that you can not use Skeeters as controllers any more). The concept in positioning (particularly the "Pig Boomerang") is still applicable in setting up the "Bacon Bomb Assassination Run" (though again without Skeeters assisting in the movement it is much less effective).

9 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Their biggest problem is that Francois and Burt and Raphael are all 7SS and so much better that it's crazy. Making Pigs fly can be really cool, though, since they generally have really long Cg ranges. A bit dependent on terrain but at least on our tables Flight for Pigs makes them a lot better.

This is one of the main reasons I hire them, like Math I tend to use a lot of terrain though so your benefit level may differ (especially if you are on the lower side of the terrain recommendation). Never Happen can be difficult to pull off due to the suit requirement however Som'er can help that. The Stuffed Piglet summoning is a bonus for me.

Last thing I will add is that I am not a fan of the Stuffed Piglets as Pigapult fuel. There are just to many negatives as compared to the normal Piglet. I tend to use Som'er and Lenny with the Pigapult so perhaps another Master might get more use out of Stuffed Piglet fuel.

[Math Mathonwy]

3 hours ago, Omenbringer said:

Last thing I will add is that I am not a fan of the Stuffed Piglets as Pigapult fuel. There are just to many negatives as compared to the normal Piglet. I tend to use Som'er and Lenny with the Pigapult so perhaps another Master might get more use out of Stuffed Piglet fuel.

I like them better to be Placed By the Pigapult as opposed to being used as ammo. They have 4 Wd so likely will take at least two AP for the opponent to remove and the explosion is of course annoying.

[Vorschlag]

The auto trigger for positive damage flips means my taxidermist enjoys red-jokering henchmen or other big nasties.

 

[Red Moon Head]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I like them better to be Placed By the Pigapult as opposed to being used as ammo. They have 4 Wd so likely will take at least two AP for the opponent to remove and the explosion is of course annoying.

this is along the lines i was thinking, throwing 3 stuffed piglet to surround one model and send the taxidermist reckless with dirty cheater across the board at another.

[cfrag]

Can you use upgrades on taxidermists? I thought they were only minions

 

[Mason]

2 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Can you use upgrades on taxidermists? I thought they were only minions

 

They are enforcers!

[cfrag]

That is awesome!

I had this idea that enforcers were all rare 1 and all had unique names, (like gracie, burt, lenny, etc), but taxidermists just proved me wrong

Thanks for clarifying that to me

[steel762]

Stuffed piglets may good "get in the way" models and the fact that he can summon more gets him in my list from time to time. 

[Clement]

The taxidermist is one of the few ways in faction to clean up corpse markers.  Turning them into non corpse producing bombs seems like a bonus.   Anyone run one of these into Nicodem?

[Colonel Sanders]

My taxidermists will likely only see the table when facing ressers to clear out corpse markers. As a bonus Nico usually has everyone clumped around him for + flips so you can pile the pigsplosives up in there.