Chaplain or Librarian

[Brother Captain Josef]

Just played against my friend's Tyranids with a Termnator Libby accompanying my Assault Terminators. I found him incredibly effective. Imo the Chaplain made an already hard-hitting unit slightly OP. The Termies are already incredible in Assault so I don't really see the point of an HQ making their attacks even better. A librarian, on the other hand has many other useful benefits.

 

Quoted for truth. When I run my assterms (3 x SS+TH, 2 x LC for versatility and thinning out) I use a chappie over a libby for only two reasons: My spare captain was easier to convert into a chappie that a libby :pinch: and as I have different weapons in the squad I need to make sure the important ones hit (TH for MCs, LC for other stuff etc) a bad dice roll can ruin your day.

 

There is one other factor that has yet to be mentioned. You opponent should know your libby is more useful to you and will likely take any opportunity to kill him to remove your hood and other benefits etc. The best place to do this is CC and as your asstermies need to be in combat to be effective expect your libby to die very quickly. Yes this is true of your Chappie but his death is less detrimental to your army as a whole as all he is doing is making a deadly assault unit into an assasination unit. (as a general rule asstermies rerolling hitting kills anything in one go.)

 

I feel a libby is most effective bombing about hiding in a bike unit and staying out of combat, making the most of his other benefits. Yes he's nice in a termy squad but is likely to be picked out and assasinated because of his excellent synergy and considering you should be throwing your asstermies at big monstrous gribbly stuff instagib is gonna be likely as they will attack before your termies get to swing.

[Xeonic]

...I feel a libby is most effective bombing about hiding in a bike unit and staying out of combat, making the most of his other benefits. Yes he's nice in a termy squad but is likely to be picked out and assasinated because of his excellent synergy and considering you should be throwing your asstermies at big monstrous gribbly stuff instagib is gonna be likely as they will attack before your termies get to swing.

The rules specifically allow you to leave an IC attached in a transport to leave the unit by the unit debarking.

 

Some quick points values.

 

Libbie, Epistolary w/terminator armor&SS 190 pts.

Chaplain, 100 pts.

Libbie, 100 pts.

 

So in a list the first maxed libby is just about points interchangeable with a naked PA libby and a chaplain, you attach them both to a termie squad in a raider, and assault big gribblies with the chaplain, or neither attached and leave the libby in the raider until something juicy shows up(a big tank that you can might to death perhaps). Even if you take the chaplain out of the equations, you can just leave the libby in the raider vs anything he's likely to die to. Note that you can also debark him at the same time and have him charge a completely different unit- or the same one as the terminators, or you could potentially attach the libby to the chaplain on debarkation and assault w/ them as a unit, which would be pretty cool actually(they could also sweeping advance).

 

Anyways, I got off the track, but my point was that in a raider with terminators you don't have to deploy him with the terminators, you can just leave him in the raider if some situation could potentially get too dangeous for him to make it.

 

Is a bike a better delivery system for the hood? Sure. Is the raider a bad one? Well that depends how many meltaguns there are within 6" of it. :mellow:

Your psychic hood should work if or not he's hiding in an AV14 bunker.

[Br.Pat]

...I feel a libby is most effective bombing about hiding in a bike unit and staying out of combat, making the most of his other benefits. Yes he's nice in a termy squad but is likely to be picked out and assasinated because of his excellent synergy and considering you should be throwing your asstermies at big monstrous gribbly stuff instagib is gonna be likely as they will attack before your termies get to swing.

The rules specifically allow you to leave an IC attached in a transport to leave the unit by the unit debarking.

 

Some quick points values.

 

Libbie, Epistolary w/terminator armor&SS 190 pts.

Chaplain, 100 pts.

Libbie, 100 pts.

 

So in a list the first maxed libby is just about points interchangeable with a naked PA libby and a chaplain, you attach them both to a termie squad in a raider, and assault big gribblies with the chaplain, or neither attached and leave the libby in the raider until something juicy shows up(a big tank that you can might to death perhaps). Even if you take the chaplain out of the equations, you can just leave the libby in the raider vs anything he's likely to die to. Note that you can also debark him at the same time and have him charge a completely different unit- or the same one as the terminators, or you could potentially attach the libby to the chaplain on debarkation and assault w/ them as a unit, which would be pretty cool actually(they could also sweeping advance).

 

Anyways, I got off the track, but my point was that in a raider with terminators you don't have to deploy him with the terminators, you can just leave him in the raider if some situation could potentially get too dangeous for him to make it.

 

Is a bike a better delivery system for the hood? Sure. Is the raider a bad one? Well that depends how many meltaguns there are within 6" of it. :ph34r:

Your psychic hood should work if or not he's hiding in an AV14 bunker.

 

 

Some nice points there. However, giving him Termie Armour and a Storm Shield adds some extra attacks at a higher initiative. Give him Might of the ancients and you effectively have a relic blade. The 2 wounda and 3+ inv save should soak up a decent amount of damage. Supposedly. And is more survivable than a naked Chaplain. In this set up I wouldn't turn him into and Epistolary because it would make it too expensive.

[Jackelope King]

I'm not sure if you can actually "leave him in the Raider", actually. When a unit exits a transport vehicle, they're deployed within 2" of the access point/points, and must maintain unit coherence. This is done during the movement phase. And the Librarian must move out of cohesion during the movement phase.

 

Now off-hand I'm not sure whether you could do something like deploy the termies with the librarian, then have the librarian run during the shooting phase to get back into the land raider (thus basically not exposing him), but that's because I can't remember the rules for running right now. I know that if he's still in the squad come the Assault Phase, he's going in whether he wants to or not.

[Xeonic]

I'm not sure if you can actually "leave him in the Raider", actually. When a unit exits a transport vehicle, they're deployed within 2" of the access point/points, and must maintain unit coherence. This is done during the movement phase. And the Librarian must move out of cohesion during the movement phase.

 

Now off-hand I'm not sure whether you could do something like deploy the termies with the librarian, then have the librarian run during the shooting phase to get back into the land raider (thus basically not exposing him), but that's because I can't remember the rules for running right now. I know that if he's still in the squad come the Assault Phase, he's going in whether he wants to or not.

Transports, disembarking, page 67 BRB:

"The unit and any Independent Characters may in a later phase debark together as a unit, they may also disembark separately by either the unit or the characters separately...or even at the same time using different access points."

 

Basically debarkation is done in the movement plase anyways, and as long as you place characters more than 2" away from the unit they've automatically left it.

 

SM transports I believe without exception have more than one door, so this is very easily possible.

[Jackelope King]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.