I. Chaplain or Librarian in deathwing army

[facmanpob]

Here's a slightly different avenue of reasoning.....

What style of play are you good at?

Looking back at Stobz' and March10k's posts, it is clear that they prefer different styles of play, so for March10k the Chaplain is the better option, and for Stobz its the Librarian. I love the Chaplain and have tried to run him with a bike, jump pack...many different set-ups.....I've just come to the realisation that I'm not very good at it......I'm actually much better at running a Librarian....

All I'm saying is that rather than looking at what is best for your army, try building your army around what you are best at!

[march10k]

If I were you then; I'd go for something similar to March's dual raider list and any points left you can spend on more bodies inside the raiders and maybe a libby on bike with PFG or in TDA running along behind the raiders with a PFG (just for the giggles, due to the stoopid FAQ ruling).

 

Go forth and slay...

 

Edit: If you take one raider then take two, redundancy is key there.

Hell if you want to start rolling take 2xLRC and 1x LR with three squads inside and drop Belial with a shooty squad in their rear turn two to disrupt raider killers. As you get more bodies you can try different combos, you only learn an army by playing not by reading our waffles.

 

It's funny, really.  It really sounds like I'm advocating for the Interrogator, yet I myself go with the librarian.  There are two reasons for this apparent contradiction. 

 

First, the OP was asking us to compare a level 1 librarian in TDA to an Interrogator in TDA.  Yet, most of the pro-libby responses specify a level 2 librarian, which was not part of the original question.  And it makes a big difference.  The L2 is less inferior to the IC as a killer, and having two powers from divination, only one of which need be dropped for prescience, reliably gives you two good powers...like maybe the "I AM A GOD OF SINGLE COMBAT" power. Or simply the ability to cast prescience and still insta-gib some fool with your force weapon.

 

Second, the scenario here involves the character serving as a buff-dispenser attached to a unit of terminators, whereas the role I assign to my librarian is completely different.  He might dish out prescience a few times, if he can safely do so without exposing himself to enemy fire, but his primary purpose is to be the bearer of a PFG for the crusaders, and then, in the endgame, to turbo-boost into range to contest an objective.  He's definitely not supposed to fight anyone at all, if it can be avoided, which does not seem to be the case with this libby/chappy comparison question, and he's not joining a unit, which it seems the libby/chappy in this comparison will.

 

So, for the purpose of being a PFG-bearer and OBJ-contester who is not supposed to get stuck in and who might toss off a buff if the opportunity arises, I choose a bike libby. But for a buffing combat character to join a unit in TDA, I would choose an interrogator chaplain.

 

Someone asked whether knights need melee help.  I find that question odd.  With AP4 melee weapons, the answer is "yes."  Against MEQs and TEQs, they might as well be bashing people in the face with a stormbolter for all the good their melee weapons do.  With that attached character, they're not automatically going to wipe the enemy out on the charge, and without him, they're not likely to win on the second (enemy's) round of combat.  If you're allowing the enemy his full save, and you have a small number of attacks, you are in danger of being tarpitted for the entire game.  It's possible that the character will add enough power that you slaughter on the charge and have to survive a round of shooting against your T5 and 2+/3++ save...but without the character, the risk that you will take more than 3-4 rounds of melee to bash your way through the enemy is even higher.  The attached character dramatically increases the chance that your fight will be over in 1-3 rounds, versus "no end in sight" without him.  That's help that no other terminator unit needs, they're almost all attacking at S8 AP2, and certainly no worse than S4 AP3, which is immeasurably better than AP4.  Without, for example, the sword of silence on board, knights are one-hit wonders.  With Belial, they continue to be extremely dangerous after smiting something.

[shintuhadoken]

To me it all boils down to what army do you play against the most.

 

If I'm playing against Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar (or Dark) or IG I would roll with the I Chap, and put them with the knights and watch them eat anything alive.

 

If I'm playing anything else I normally go with the Lib with the Lions Roar.  By using Beliels deep strike, a plasma cannon on the command squad and a lions roar in one turn, its normally an interesting start to any game against power armour.