Advice for choosing and using named BA characters

[bushman101]

so, my current main opponent plays Space Wolves and always uses named characters (Bjorn, Njal, Logan...just about all of them). I've always just use generic un-named choices. I do fairly well against him, until it gets time to deal with his characters.

 

So I figure it's time to get into named characters (I've kinda wanted to paint up these guys anyways...). But which ones?

I'm definitely gonna get Mephiston and Curbulo (I like their models).

 

Who else works well with our chapter?

How should I run Mephiston? (especially since he's not a IC)

[JamesI]

My personal favorite is Astorath, the improved Red Thirst rolls and the S6 axe and chaplain rerolls on the charge is great.

 

Corbulo is great, the trick is timing when you really need that reroll he provides.

 

Mephiston is a hammer. Keep him hidden as along as possible and splat any who get in your way with him. But stuff like power fists, plasma will take him down pretty quick if given a chance.

[Boltergeist]

I run Astorath and Mephiston quite a bit; the others not so much.

 

Mephiston is a game changer but not usually a game winner. You have to protect him or he can and will die. I usually have him hop around behind advancing tanks, then leap out and charge a unit. He's very good at sniping ICs, killing scoring units, and taking out vehicles, but can't really stand up to 'hammer' units.

[mercury]

I have played many games with Mephiston, and he is truly a beast. You need to run him behind a wall of armour, or in a Storm Raven though to protect him from enemy shooting. Alternatively, just run him behind a jump pack unit for the 4+ cover save, though this is less ideal. It is also important to know Mephiston's limitations. It can be very tempting to throw him into combats and expect him to win, but you need to pick your fights a little better than that. He excels at killing small MEQ units, Space Marine characters and units such as Fire Warriors, Kroot etc which lack the special weapons which can put the hurt on him. He fears power fists, so is very bad against the likes of Thunder Hammer termies and power klaw Nobs; and doesn't tend to fare so well against larger units with 'hidden' fists e.g. Ork Boyz, 10-man Tactical Squads etc. He will give small units of Grey Knights fits (who cares if they are Initiative 6?).

 

Corbulo is a fine choice in the right kind of build. Remember that he costs the same as 2 regular Priests and if you have a lot of Troops on the table, or like to spread out, or field jump infantry; 2 Priests are likely to be a better choice for you.

 

Of the other characters, I have used Tycho, Seth and Astorath a lot. Tycho and Astorath are pretty poor to be honest: neither are that great in combat or add enough to your army to justify their points cost, IMO. I can see that myself and James have very differing opinions here but I'd suggest not wasting time/points/money on them.

Edit: I just need to make the point that Astorath IS worth considering for larger games e.g. Apocalypse. You need a lot of units on the table which can benefit from Red Thirst to justify his 220-point cost. You can exploit this ability in very large games.

 

 

Seth can be useful as he is relatively inexpensive for a 4-wound Chapter Master. His combat ability is pretty good, and his Whirlwind Of Gore is fantastic for landing a Strength 9 auto-hit on vehicles which thought they were safe by moving at Cruising Speed or faster. You need to be using a mech or Drop Pod build with him though, as he doesn't fit into jump pack armies at all.

 

I have not used Dante or Sanguinor. I would rate Dante quite highly in specific army builds i.e. a DoA army with melta-toting Honour Guard, couple of RAS units and 2-3 units of Sang Guard. I personally do not have the inclination to run such a list, though I have no doubt that the old man would be very useful.

 

I do not rate the Sanguinor that highly. Despite his buffs (which are good), I'd always take Mephiston if I was going to spend 250+ points on a HQ choice. I'm not sure if that is a statement of how good Mephy is though, rather than being due to Sanguinor's weakness. The synergy of the Sanguinor + Banner + Priest + Sang Guard = Sang Guard with 5 S5, I5 master-crafted power weapon attacks each on the charge looks tempting, but then work out how much of a points sink it really is (and how much overkill it is too!) and you'll think again!

 

My personal favourite character at the moment is Lemartes. He is another character which only fits into certain builds though. Basically, if you are taking a Death Company and a Storm Raven, then you should be taking Lemartes. I can find no way of justifying the points cost of DC with jump packs, hence the necessity of the Storm Raven. My current list has a Raven, DC and DC Dread anyway, so Lemartes is a no-brainer. He massively buffs the DC with re-rolls to hit and wound on the charge, but more importantly is a I6 power weapon-toting upgrade character with Furious Charge. This means that like a squad Sergeant he cannot be targeted in combat. You do want him to get hurt early on though, so always allocate a wound to him in the early game (preferably a plasma wound!). Once wounded he is nothing short of monstrous: S6, I7 on the charge with 7 attacks which can re-roll to-hit and to-wound. For this reason he is my go-to guy for eating Grey Knights and would even quite happily give Mephiston a run for his money, providing you have enough DC alive to allocate wounds to!

 

Hope this all helps

 

- Mercury

[Quixus]

There is no rule against upgrading a mechanized or footslogging squad of DC with Lemartes. You only pay for a Jump Pack that Lemartes cannot use, unless all of the DC are slain.

 

If you use DC Lemartes is great.

[mercury]

There is no rule against upgrading a mechanized or footslogging squad of DC with Lemartes. You only pay for a Jump Pack that Lemartes cannot use, unless all of the DC are slain.

 

If you use DC, Lemartes is great.

 

Except that if the foot-slogging unit contains Lemartes, then the only transport it can use is a Storm Raven. Hence you take Lemartes if you have DC and a Raven, and leave him at home if not. Foot DC without a transport is a BAD idea.

[1Drop]

I have Astorath, Lemartes, Dante and Mephiston and plan on getting corbelo at some point.

 

Lemartes is the best IMO as he only counts as a member of DC and doesn't take up a slot on the force organisation chart and for the reasons already mentioned, he's a beast!!

 

Dante is also boss as he can accompany a squad of melta toting HG and deepstrike them right into the biggest threat to your stormravens and annihilate it and hopefully draw alot of the fire that lemartes and co would be getting in their SR.

 

So... I would take Dante and a librarian as HQ choices (unless you want to include more than one unit of DC then take astorath)

Then take Lemartes and corbelo (corbelo counts as an elite choice and use him to replace a sang priest)

(pretty expensive prospect having 4 named characters in one list though, I would normally take 1 or 2)

[Gv0zD]

I really like Dante. Of course, he's good for doa type lists, but I really like his surgical strike and hit and run abilities, which help deploying shooty HG. Hit and run may be used effectively with DC, as rage as far as I know doesn't affect that abilty. Charge, retreat, charge again.

 

I tried Tycho in mech lists, where he went along sternguard. He's not a bad choice, but obviously not the best.

 

To be honest I rarely use named character, and mostly use regular Libbies or Reclusiarchs. If you need to kill a named character, unleash DC, they'll eat them alive :D

[JamesI]

Of the other characters, I have used Tycho, Seth and Astorath a lot. Tycho and Astorath are pretty poor to be honest: neither are that great in combat or add enough to your army to justify their points cost, IMO. I can see that myself and James have very differing opinions here but I'd suggest not wasting time/points/money on them.

Edit: I just need to make the point that Astorath IS worth considering for larger games e.g. Apocalypse. You need a lot of units on the table which can benefit from Red Thirst to justify his 220-point cost. You can exploit this ability in very large games.

I'll just point out that if you are using a Reclusiarch with jump pack in your list, Astorath isn't that much more for better stuff.

 

Astorath has an improved relic blade compared to a power weapon (Astorath's strength of 6 and forced reroll of opponent's invul saves is great when used correctly. He ripped through a unit of assault terminators for me before they ever got to swing). Add to that his higher WS than a Reclusiarch and the improved red thirst.

 

Generally I find that if I use Astorath I can get away with 1-2 less priests than normal. Also, using 6+ units with the Red Thirst rule, having a likelyhood of 3+ falling to the the thirst is great. Assaulty units obviously benefit, while stuff like Sternguard, devs and bikes benefit from the fearless keeping them on the table in place.

 

If you are playing Mech, or wouldn't use a Reclusiarch anyway, or don't want lots of DC, Astorath would generally be a poor choice.

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

so, my current main opponent plays Space Wolves and always uses named characters (Bjorn, Njal, Logan...just about all of them). I've always just use generic un-named choices. I do fairly well against him, until it gets time to deal with his characters.

 

So I figure it's time to get into named characters (I've kinda wanted to paint up these guys anyways...). But which ones?

I'm definitely gonna get Mephiston and Curbulo (I like their models).

 

Who else works well with our chapter?

How should I run Mephiston? (especially since he's not a IC)

 

It's entirely dependent on the rest of your list. If you are going to field Sanguinary Guard or DoA... take Dante. If you are going to field jumpy death company take Lemartes. If you are doing DoA or Hybrid take Sanguinor. If you are using VV take Astorath and hope they get Red Thirst (since you cannot join a SP to them). If you are using Mech or Hybrid take Mephiston and/or Corbulo.

 

I almost always use Dante (with Sanguinary Guard) and often Corbulo in my Hybrid list.

[bushman101]

thanks for all the advice.

 

I tend to run either DoA/Mech/Hybrid

 

The Space Wolves player and I play 2500 pts, which uses most of my collection, thus I run Hybrid.

Mephiston is on his way. Still need to order Corbulo. Might actually pick up Astrorath, based on everyone's advice.

[JamesI]

Corbulo is a great choice for any list that isn't pure jump pack/DoA.

[SevenExxes]

My favorite character is Lemartes.

 

In one game I played he was on his own with one wound, assaulted a terminator squad and slaughtered all of them.

[bushman101]

so, a few stupid questions:

Meph can't join a squad because he's not a IC, but can I get a Sang Priest to join him since the Priest is a IC?

If I take a HG with Meph, does the HG actually run separately from Meph?

[JamesI]

so, a few stupid questions:

Meph can't join a squad because he's not a IC, but can I get a Sang Priest to join him since the Priest is a IC?

If I take a HG with Meph, does the HG actually run separately from Meph?

Meph can not join any squad, even an HG. If you take an Hg for Meph they must run separately.

 

ICs can not join squads that are always 1 model. This is in the rulebook under ICs. So nothing can be joined to Mephiston, Sanguinor or DC Tycho.

[bushman101]

ICs can not join squads that are always 1 model. This is in the rulebook under ICs. So nothing can be joined to Mephiston, Sanguinor or DC Tycho.

 

ah, okay, thanks.

I'll have to re-read that part of the IC rules

[Warboss John]

i am a HUGE Astorath fanboy! :( <3 :lol: Hes built like a :cuss-Brick-House and really rips apart enemy hammerunits, especially wih an Attached Honor guard, for example i had a honor guard(banner, bloodchamp, hidden-priest and Lightning claw) charge into a 5man THSS termie squad+termie Libraian(w/SS), and with the re-reolls on the charge+furious charge+ iniative 6/5+ Astorath forceing invuln re-rolls, My Astorath+Honorguard combo wiped out the ENTIRE! SS-termie squad pluss the SS-Libby! :lol: and its especially great because the whole squad has jumppacks and all the wargear is different for ALLOCATION MADNESS!!! :lol: plus they just aborb all small arms fire with the FNP, its fun getting shot by piles of dice with no wounds taken :D