Using Dark Apostle

[wargame insomniac]

Which would be more important if I had any Cult Troops. But until I can get some spare DV Chosen to convert some Noise Marines that is less relevant for me.

 

As I said before I intend taking a Lord myself. It just annoys me when someone is saying that a DA is never worth taking. I can see potential uses for DA.

[Sception]

A DA has Ld bubble, Beseech the Dark Gods and most importantly Zealot.

All of which might matter if the Leadership bubble was large enough to affect multiple units without dramatically increasing your vulnerability to blast weapons, or if BtDG applied to the most common (and only reliable) source of boon rolls, or if the chaos lord didn't already grant fearless to units he joins, or if our units that actually cared about hatred couldn't already buy it against most opponents that they'd actually need it against.

 

As it is, though, none of that is the case. I love the idea of dark apostles, but in practice they just don't seem to measure up or meaningfully contribute. Even the warpsmith has more to argue for themselves than this.

[Minsc]

The Dark Apostle is a "fluff-choice" for Wordbearer-players and for those (few) of us who wanted to have a "Spiky Chaplain".¨

 

Regular marines have a use for their Chaplains because he brings something they lack: fearless and hatred.

We don't really lack either of those. So what do our "spiky chaplain" bring instead? A near worthless ld-bubble and a cool specialrule, which sadly won't really have much of an effect most of the time.

 

Compare the Dark Apostle to the Warpsmith. They're both supposed to be spiky versions of the loyalist Chaplain/Master of the Forge.

The difference is that the Warpsmith feels unique and very different from the MotF, while the Dark Apostle just feels like a bad version of the Chaplain.

 

Apart from pts-adjustments and some more wargear selections, there's really nothing I would change about our Warpsmith.

The Apostle however needs something else to make him unique, to make him put his chin out and say "Hey, you WANT me in your armylist. I can do this that no one else can!".

A start would be to make BtDG affect Gift of Mutation rolls, and to increase the range of the Ld-bubble to 12".

It would make him more usable, and since you would actually utilize his specialrules, he would feel more unique.

[the jeske]

should be an elite just like the smith and probably cost 20pts less.