Codex: SM Librarians in 7th

[Disruptor_fe404]

Yeah, that's what I was using it for... But probably not any more!

[Emperors Immortals]

Deus, I'm desperate to get my raiders working so please let me know how it goes :)

 

Relatedly, how well does the TEQ 4++ work with a tac squad? I was thinking of walking one upfield with a mortis dread.

[Captain Idaho]

Considering 2nd edition had a power Tyranids could buy called Psychic Scream, I'd say you got off lightly!

 

Librarians are still solid fighters. Even if you struggle to get off powers, they are a solid centre of a unit. That's the key. Have them with a unit that benefits from their solid centre yet also compliments any powers you do get off.

 

If the opponent has more dice than you, go for less pschyic tests to try and get them off.

[KJQ]

I never got a psychic power off over the weekend. Having one ML2 psyker against 3 Broodlords and 2 Tyrants each game means you're constantly out-diced. Even if you're only using blessings.

They managed enough 6's to nullify ALL your successful 4+ rolls?  Just asking because a lot of people think the denier only has to reduce your successful rolls to one less than needed. For example, you need 2 successes, roll 5 dice and get 3. They have to roll 3 sixes, not just two to nullify.

[Disruptor_fe404]

They managed enough 6's to nullify ALL your successful 4+ rolls?  Just asking because a lot of people think the denier only has to reduce your successful rolls to one less than needed. For example, you need 2 successes, roll 5 dice and get 3. They have to roll 3 sixes, not just two to nullify.

 

Indeed. Keep in mind, I don't have many dice at all. One ML2 psyker means I only have d6 + 2 dice to use my powers with. I never rolled higher than three on that d6, and honestly, i wouldn't use more than four on a WC2 power anyway. He gets d6 + 7 dice to Deny with.

[SyNidus]

I think another thing people need to consider is the aspect of psychic defense. The hood has been buffed to 12" range which would easily cover your entire army if done correctly. Of course the issue is choosing which powers to deny, especially if the opponent has more warp charges than you do.

 

Going through the disciplines, the most useless one seems to be telekinesis. I'd use pyromancy if I'm facing down hordes(mainly orks and tyranids) and biomancy for everything else. Telepathy for low leadership armies (orks, guard and tau).

[GreyCrow]

Telekinesis is a strange discipline, let's be honest. I think it will help against many Monstruous Creatures and Vehicles, where you need an extra punch against lone non infantry targets. I played with it on Saturday because the enemy had an abundance of transports and light vehicles and rolled 1 & 2 on the powers chart, which wasn't really great.

He had army wide Adamantium Will so he denied easily and I really had low rolls all across the board, but I wouldn't discount that discipline so far !

I managed to get in a Haywire Malediction that would have finished off a tank, but I rolled a 1 (). Gets Hot! would work wonders against vehicles with no twin linked weapons as well !

[Captain Idaho]

It is probably the most difficult discipline to use. It's got great powers but is less focused and therefore harder to plan for.

 

It could be very powerful to cast Haywire Malediction on just about any shooting unit. Especially those new Flash Gits, Leman Russ Punishers, Ork Lootas and anything with S7 spam (just about).

 

But it's so unreliable! Levitation is great for a Librarian to get a shooting unit into position (Centurions!) but playing with Centurions gives a low chance of getting said power. Same goes for Haywire Malediction.

 

That is the biggest weakness of the discipline. Too difficult to get powers you need as they all are so specific and not linked together.

[GreyCrow]

Exactly, and one thing that would limit its effectiveness is that half of its powers have random effects, which can be relatively disappointing. It's good for support though against lone high T/low AV targets.

Compared to other disciplines, powers 1 to 3 can be either really damaging, or whiff completely, which is not awesome :/ On the other hand, Powers 4 to 6 are extremely awesome.

 

It doesn't have the shiny appeal that Biomancy has, which is a lot more straightforward to build a Jedi Librarian. Telekinsis seems more of a gamble discipline.

 

Biomancy and Pyromancy do seem the most straightforward approach for Space Marine Librarians

[Ming]

Played a local league game this past weekend, and I had Tiggy, Divination powers. The primaris and 3 others. Two spells were worthless in the game.

 

The way we played Tiggy's re-roll (as "explained to me by my opponent") is that if a reroll was warranted, he'd roll all of the dice over and accept the second roll. I'd have about 6 dice per turn to cast spells with. Of the 7 turn game, I had 3 spells that failed with rerolls, one perils which I was allowed to reroll, no DTWs, overall it was a good day.

[Captain Idaho]

So which powers were worthless and why?

[knife&fork]

 

That is the biggest weakness of the discipline. Too difficult to get powers you need as they all are so specific and not linked together.

 

Telekenesis works pretty well on a librarian that is capable on his own, or in a support role if he can reroll powers to get what he needs. Problem is there aren't many of those in the Marine armies outside of the BA lib dread, mainly because he is a vehicle and don't get the full benefit from many other powers.  

 

Most of the psykers that do well alone in other codexes will roll on telepathy or biomancy.

[Captain Idaho]

Looks like the consensus is biomancy is our strongest choice. Can't argue with that really.

 

Telekinesis with Tigurius could be interesting. He's not bad at getting powers he wants so the role you choose for him is more consistent and easier to plan for.

 

Though he could become a monster with biomancy using the same logic.

[Captain Idaho]

Huh.

 

I checked on the rules for Beam powers and I think people have been thinking it's like the old rules (myself included).

 

It now draws the line and each unit is hit a number of times equal to the number of models under the line from its squad.

 

That makes powers like Molten Beam and Assail really quite good for their Warp Charge cost.

 

Assail is particularly interesting for having a range of 18" and a S6 for one Warp Charge.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Based on your comment, Cap, I re-read the psychic section.  For me, that's an interesting note, but it's not the big change to Beams.  For me, the big change is that beams no longer drop -1 Strength for each model hit.  So Assail is a S6 hit against everything it hits.  That brings Assail up in my estimation and makes Molten Beam a lot more impressive.  Whether I'll try Telekinesis. . . well, the needle's still bouncing a bit, but that whole question is still a moot point since I'm not planning on taking a Libby at this point anyway.

[knife&fork]

Also novas now hit everything, including flyers, within range. 

[Captain Idaho]

Based on your comment, Cap, I re-read the psychic section.  For me, that's an interesting note, but it's not the big change to Beams.  For me, the big change is that beams no longer drop -1 Strength for each model hit.  So Assail is a S6 hit against everything it hits.  That brings Assail up in my estimation and makes Molten Beam a lot more impressive.  Whether I'll try Telekinesis. . . well, the needle's still bouncing a bit, but that whole question is still a moot point since I'm not planning on taking a Libby at this point anyway.

Yeah I totally meant that it doesn't lose the strength but forgot to say it. Not very clear on my part.

 

S6 ain't too shabby though.

[Jostal]

My mistake on the divination. whoops ;p

 

Im trying this build for my Clan raukaan libby this weekend:

ML 1 Libby, Betrayer's Bane, Mindforge Stave, Bike: 130 points.

 

Thinking Telepathy for the chance of getting invisibility to try to put on my Knight. May just go with Biomancy though.

 

In a recent game i ran 3 psykers, one was a Furioso Dreadnought and i got lucky and rolled the Psychic maelstrom power on him. I only got it off once in the 5 rounds we played, but it definitely turned the tide against a full squad of grey hunters and a wolf lord.

[Quozzo]

One day I will roll either a 2 or a 3 on the Sanctic table, and my hammernators will go to S10 or 2+ invulnerable.

That will also be the same day where I face an all-infantry Guard list or something, where neither will make a difference.

If you want hammerhandinators just take a GK techmarine or GK Brotherhood champion. They have hammerhand and the primaris as standard, are ICs and only perils on a double 6 since they're GK.

[Axagoras]

I really feel that severin loth taking invisibility, dominate and terrify is a great combo. Make something big and nasty on your side invisible (knights, chapter masters, ect) while if needed tagging up a enemy unit with terrify and then dominate to cause some issues.

[GreyCrow]

Because powers are so random, I believe it's better to try to not spec your Libby to support a combo, but roll accordingly to what opponent you might have in front.

 

For instance tomorrow should see my Ghost Warriors get their revenge on the Sisters of Battle that beat them last week, and one big lesson I've learned is that with an army wide (that's right, even vehicles !) Adamantium Will, it's better to roll on Disciplines with a higher number of Blessings than others.

 

For the regular Space Marine Libby, each have at least 2, with Biomancy and Telepathy having 3 each so this is what I will be rolling for tomorrow. In each battle there is going to be at least one power in each discipline that won't be useful, so I think it's always better to plan to roll all your powers there and have 2 rolls at least just to make sure :p

[Axagoras]

well I said loth for a reason, its not random for him

[riddles]

Gonna chime in on this one as I've recently taken lysander out of my list for a libby due to the points saving.

 

I'm running: libby, level 2, terminator armour, force stave, storm shield, bones of osrak (the relic from SoT that gives an extra warp charge and re-roll psychic tests)

 

He's currently riding with 3 assault centurions with bolters and meltaguns in a land raider crusader and rolling on biomancy.

 

The powers I'm looking for are iron arm, warp speed, endurance and enfeeble - so 4 out of 6 powers that are truly useful, with life leach and haemorrage being a bonus.

 

Iron Arm - can't be instant deathed except by force weapons, 3 attacks on the charge at I4 S9 AP2

Warp Speed - makes him a unit sweeper. will struggle against anything better than a 4+ save, but thats what the centurions are for and in combination with Iron Arm is godly.

Endurance - gold standard for the assault centurions. having a 4+ FNP and eternal warrior really ups their survivability against stuff like MCs and THSS termis

Enfeeble - situationally useful, but I have a lot of bolters in the army re-rolling to hit and this power can really make them hurt. ID on beast of nurgle is handy too.

 

the libby and his unit are fast becoming the rock i build my army around. The land raider needs other priority targets like vindicators and ironclads in pods, but they will usually hit combat turn 2 and keep trucking through units until they're stopped.

[GreyCrow]

Just to add a little, I've been running numbers for different Psychic Disciplines, and it appears I was giving less credit to Telepathy than it deserved... by a large margin !

 

Psychic Shriek is an awesome Primaris, and perhaps the most effective of all powers. First of all, I'm not sure if any To-Hit rolls need to be made, because it's a witchfire that hasn't got a weapon profile. In any case, let's assume that we have to roll To-Hit.

 

At first, it seemed a poor power against armies/units with Ld8 or 9, but when rolling the dices, I was very impressed by the results ! The statistical average for a 3d6 roll is 10.5, which means 2.5 wounds with no armour or cover saves allowed when shot at Marines without a Veteran Sergeant. But that's the average, and with 3d6 the distribution curve starts to be a lot stronger towards the averages than 1d6 (obviously) and 2d6.

When rolling the dice, it felt relatively easy to get results of 12, 13 and 14, which are going to cripple a unit regardless of its leadership. Even a decent roll can down a MC with Ld10 by 2 to 4 wounds if it doesn't have an invulnerable save !

 

Even if you have to roll To-Hit, I feel that the damage output is quite nasty. For the rest of the powers, half are debuffs, half are buffs. In terms Shrouding and Invisibility are both very strong powers for the Marines Codex (even more with Raven Guard, getting a +3 bonus to their cover save in the first turn thanks to their CT, meaning 4+ in the open, 2+ anywhere else !), only Mental Fortitude seems wasted, but it can have its uses on an advancing unit to prevent it from losing a morale test against enemy shooting.

 

In terms of debuffs, Dominate is nice to annoy your opponent and Terrify synergizes very well with the Primaris. Hallucination isn't too bad in itself , but not that impressive either !

 

Overall, I think that Telepathy is the go-to for a support Librarian in a C:SM list, simply because it's got the best Primaris of all 4 disciplines available to standard Librarians.

[Rogue]

I've always used it for that reason (in 6th, which I'm still playing at the moment). With only one roll on the table (for a barebones librarian), it's good to have a useful primaris power to fall back on.