DA and HQ in 8th

[gainsay]

Im having a great time list building my dark angels in 8th. I am struggling however with my HQ options. What do you folks think are solid options and how to best use them. I don't play much with named characters so those are out for me. I played a terminator libby and would never again. The plain interrogator chappy seems ok but over all the apothecary is more exciting than the generic HQ's imo :/ 

 

 

[dtse]

so with characters, its all about the aura buffs.  so most lists need one thing that buffs to hit rolls...so a generic captain, or some kind of chapter master (azrael, belial, sammy).

 

then if you want just combat hit rolls, you need a chaplain, or an interrogator.

 

most armies should have at least 1 librarian for aversion, and for smite

 

then the rest is just gravy.

[Kewl Imp]

Running Green, take Azreal. Running Deathwing, take Belial. Running Ravenwing, take Sammael.

I think in my competitive lists, there will always be an interrogator chaplin(still a beast) and one librarian. It just depends on the army I use. Since I play pure Ravenwing, Sammy, Lib on bike, I Chap on Bike. So far, not including my dice, its been pretty good. Sammy rerolls all to hits. The I chap is good for breaking away from the main force for close combat and rerolls in melee. Libby stays towards the center to deny.

[SnakeChisler]

Im having a great time list building my dark angels in 8th. I am struggling however with my HQ options. What do you folks think are solid options and how to best use them. I don't play much with named characters so those are out for me. I played a terminator libby and would never again. The plain interrogator chappy seems ok but over all the apothecary is more exciting than the generic HQ's imo :/ 

Apothecary is an Elite choice not a HQ

 

The only non Named Characters I've used are

Techmarine on a Bike

Interrogator Chaplain on Bike with Power Fist

Librarian on Bike

 

Given what Azreal, Sammael Belial bring to the table I don't think anyone is going to wander past one of the big 3 and we are Dark Angels so putting together a generic HQ is restrictive and always has been the current edition just reinforces that.

 

The 7th go to's of int Chaplin with mace and Librarian with force axe are gone 

[Kewl Imp]

Here is hoping that we get our relics back when the codex is released properly.

[Elios Harg]

Well, it depends on what you want out of your HQs. They all buff, but the named ones tend to buff better. Azrael, Sammael, and Belial are either the only options available for their type (no company master on bike which is still BS) or are a bargain for what they give. For example, Belial vs. Company Master in Terminator Armour with a relic blade (which is similar in power to sword of silence) is a 5 point difference. That is a serious bargain to add full rerolls for Deathwing models (and Belial keeps Rites of Battle, so loses nothing for non-Deathwing). Asmodai is basically an Ancient for everyone (and stacks with the other Ancients for DW and RW).That alone makes him worth the 50 or so more points than a standard interrogator-chaplain. In my opinion, the blades of reason are merely a bonus which gives him the ability to inflict chunks of wounds on multi-wound models. Ezekiel is still like a librarian with Captain-like stats (in fact, better than captain right now, since he only gives up 1 attack and in exchange he gets a 2+ and they cannot). Like Asmodai, he simulates an Ancient as well (this time a Company Ancient) though it is only a fight phase version, but it is still a bonus ability.

 

The main reason to field non-named versions are to change their equipment (None get access to combi-weapons except Azrael and combi-weapons are really awesome now; thematically and practically, a librarian or interrogator-chaplain on bike make more sense than Ezekiel or Asmodai in a Ravenwing list) or for slight points breaks. An IC, Techmarine, or Librarian on bike are significantly cheaper than Sammael in either form. Similarly, a base Company Master would be significantly cheaper than Azrael or Belial. Really, though, a Company Master with a power sword and combi-plasma can put the hurt on people, allows nearby models to re-roll on 1s and costs less than 100 points, that is not bad at all! Put him with two units of company veterans equipped with combi-plasma (1 of 5 men; 1 of 4 men) in a drop pod or Rhino and that can produce some serious hurt (and far less risky overcharge as you get to re-roll 1s to hit; though I probably wouldn't chance it on the Master).

[Berzul]

Haven't tried 8th ed yet (this weekend will probably be my first go at it, I hope), but my gaming group does the same thing about not using much named characters and rather using generic HQs.

 

Reading through them, they do seem to fit a specific role each.

 

Company Masters seem to go well with shooty units, specially plasma units, for the combi weapon amd the re rolls. You can make good use of these HQ with tacticals or devastators, and If melee comes your way, he can deal some serious damage even with a power sword. At 93 points, that is really affordable. Given this, I don't see much merit in taking him as jump infantry, unless you want to be able to reposition him easily.

 

Chaplains and Interrogator Chaplains should rather be used as assault HQs. I think these guys are the most versatile, in the sense that no matter what you take them with, they are good, be it jump packs (with some assault marines), bikes (with some knights), TDA (with anything from the deathwing), or on simple Power Armor (with veterans geared for melee). You need this guy in close combat, thats key.

 

Librarians always feel to me as a unit that needs to be close to tje enemy to be effective. Powers have short ranges for the most part, and ypu need to position ypurself correctly to deny the with now, so he needs to be mobile and to be sble to get up and close to the action. I'd say bikes are my favourite way to go here, with a biker squad to cover him. As far as I have seen, other ways of fielding the librarian tend to be hindered by his movement speed.

 

Techmarines look like either a good support HQ for heavy mechanized armies, or as a good short range shooty hq. Seems the servitors or the servo harness no longer aid in repair rolls, so if you are going tontake him just for that, you should take him as is, and might even consider hacing two as ypur batallion mandatory hq choices to spread your fixing. Redundancy is good for you. If you want to take him for his firepower, give him the servo harness and go at it. He can deal good damage, but the thing is, Company Masters would be a better fit innshooting, because of Rites of Battle, so I'm not sure how convenient it would be to take the techmarine.

[Elios Harg]

Haven't tried 8th ed yet (this weekend will probably be my first go at it, I hope), but my gaming group does the same thing about not using much named characters and rather using generic HQs.

 

Reading through them, they do seem to fit a specific role each.

 

Company Masters seem to go well with shooty units, specially plasma units, for the combi weapon amd the re rolls. You can make good use of these HQ with tacticals or devastators, and If melee comes your way, he can deal some serious damage even with a power sword. At 93 points, that is really affordable. Given this, I don't see much merit in taking him as jump infantry, unless you want to be able to reposition him easily.

 

Chaplains and Interrogator Chaplains should rather be used as assault HQs. I think these guys are the most versatile, in the sense that no matter what you take them with, they are good, be it jump packs (with some assault marines), bikes (with some knights), TDA (with anything from the deathwing), or on simple Power Armor (with veterans geared for melee). You need this guy in close combat, thats key.

 

Librarians always feel to me as a unit that needs to be close to tje enemy to be effective. Powers have short ranges for the most part, and ypu need to position ypurself correctly to deny the with now, so he needs to be mobile and to be sble to get up and close to the action. I'd say bikes are my favourite way to go here, with a biker squad to cover him. As far as I have seen, other ways of fielding the librarian tend to be hindered by his movement speed.

 

Techmarines look like either a good support HQ for heavy mechanized armies, or as a good short range shooty hq. Seems the servitors or the servo harness no longer aid in repair rolls, so if you are going tontake him just for that, you should take him as is, and might even consider hacing two as ypur batallion mandatory hq choices to spread your fixing. Redundancy is good for you. If you want to take him for his firepower, give him the servo harness and go at it. He can deal good damage, but the thing is, Company Masters would be a better fit innshooting, because of Rites of Battle, so I'm not sure how convenient it would be to take the techmarine.

Pretty much agree with all this. I am actually quite intrigued by the possibility of fielding a techmarine with Sam on Sableclaw and a unit of speeders. People will likely try to take down Sam since he is granting re-rolls (and unlike Librarian Dreadnoughts can be targeted golly gee?). As long as they can't kill him in a single round of shooting, you can keep repairing him with the techmarine. If they target the speeders, same thing, keep repairing each round with the tech. On average, it will take 12 lascannon shots to take Sam down. The issue is that your opponent could get lucky and take him down in 2 (and, of course, if he gets damaged and not fully repaired it will be far easier to take him down in subsequent turns).

[RayJ]

Techmarine with servo harness or conversion beamer and storm bolter on a bike is incredibly shooty. Harness is decent combat support in a pinch.

[aura_enchanted]

Ezekiel I expect to be everywhere. The one thing pinning him down was that he couldn't survive a weapon attack. He now has a 4+ invul and costs nothin over his 7th edition. He's practically solid gold plated.

[Knight of the First Legion]

Another interesting point is that as I understand it a number of our characters can benefit from the buffs of some of the new character units like ancients.

 

For example the Deathwing ancient gives all Deathwing within 6" +1 attack and as Azrael, Ezekiel and all interrogator chaplains have the Deathwing key word as I understand it they get the buff too.

 

Does anyone interpret it differently?

 

KOTFL

[dtse]

Nope. You are correct.

[SnakeChisler]

So an interesting thing I picked up from one of the interviews with the designers (been basically watching anything 8th coming out of GW towers on Twitch & their Youtube Channel).

With the change to how characters work a decision was made to set the Named Characters profiles in such a way that they would become a force multiplier for their factions and also a move to drive games to include epic heroes.

 

While the challenge system is gone their is still a push by GW to drive the narrative with epic clashes as mighty heroes lock horns

 

The SM book is a case in point the chapter master is completely gone if you want a big chief your forced to take a named character and looking at the Eldar book the pattern seen with Dark Angels sees their named characters giving force multipliers in a similar fashion.

 

This leads on to releases and the 3 model boxes that came out recently all superb models but all named characters and by all accounts this trend will continue.