Dark apostle - worth taking?

[old git]

Pretty basic really. Is the new version of the Dark Apostle worth the 100 point price tag (or 110 with disciples). Previously I ran a bare bones model with my Berzerkers, quite a simple combination. Now there are possibly some combos that allow other uses. Are they better than before...?

[MasterDeath]

Well, they can basically do anything they could do before and then have another function in your army, so I think the point increase is in order. With the two additional prayers (one from list. one from mark) they can for example protect one of your zerker squads in turn 1. One thing I have to get used to is that prayers are choosen at begin of round, so depending on first turn before your turn or after.

[Seahawk]

Berzerkers that hit on a 2+, then buff with a Chaos Lord to reroll those misses. 'Nuff said!

[Commander Dawnstar]

The new Dark Apostle is ... different. He's certainly better in quite a few areas thanks to prayers that offer him new forms of utility (buffing ranged units or providing -1 to hit for protection mainly) and others that allow him to approach melee from different angles (buffing to wound rolls or becoming a beatstick himself) but not all of the changes are positive. Having to roll for prayers adds an element of unreliability that wasn't there before, even if his Disciples bring failure down to a 1/6 chance, and between his Disciples taking up slots and prayers being chosen at the start of the battle round he's actually a pretty bad choice to back up a unit in a transport. He should better to run alongside a footslogging melee unit now though as he can hand out a modicum of protection against shooting.

 

If you want to stick him in a transport to back up a melee unit then he probably isn't worth it anymore. He can't offer prayers until the turn after he disembarks (as he can't do anything at the start of the battle round while embarked) and effectively takes up three slots if you want a better than 2/3 chance of Dark Zealotry's rerolls. If you're planning on footslogging or using him to support ranged units then I'd certainly imagine he's worth it.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I like him for gunline support especially with the Alpha Legion. He can work with melee units, but you'd better be running him FO'd or as a Renegade because as was mentioned before, there are too many issues with transports.

[Minsc]

If you take him for his re-roll aura and nothing else he's way worse: He's more expensive and the prayer has a chance to fail.

If you take him for the brand new utility he can bring to the table, he's a massive improvement over the old one.

[Sception]

As meantioned by others, he's fantastic support for foot slogging units of all types. Move & shoot havocs laying down fire? Love him. Big wad of possessed scrambling towards melee? Wouldn't leave home without him. Foot slogging combi/reaper termies? Why not. Massive cultist blobs gumming up the table? It's what he lives for.

 

However, if your squads mostly deep strike or ride transports to battle, you're better off with automatic auras like chaos lord or exalted champion or psychic buffs like sorcerer or master of possession, due to the apostles inability to buff units that arent already on the table at the start of the game round, or buff anything at all if he isnt already on the table himself.

 

So zerkers in rhinos, deep striking raptors, and teleporting terminators would rather be supported by exalted champions, jump lords, and termie sorcerers respectively.

[shandwen]

I think the question is the range band you expect to be using the character in. If you are looking for cc or in your enemies face then use champs, lords, or executioners. If mid to long range then apostles and sorcerers.

[Furnace Lord]

As meantioned by others, he's fantastic support for foot slogging units of all types. Move & shoot havocs laying down fire? Love him. Big wad of possessed scrambling towards melee? Wouldn't leave home without him. Foot slogging combi/reaper termies? Why not. Massive cultist blobs gumming up the table? It's what he lives for.

Do you think such units can work? I have no experience with transports just yet in this edition, I'm kind of curious how well footsloggers do.

[Sception]

Honestly? I have no idea. :p

[Boshea]

He definitely took a bit hit for melee armies with how prayers work now. He marks Khârn more appealing for rerolls in a World Eater list. Same point cost (if you take the disciples), only takes up one transport spot, gives rerolls on the disembark turn, can do some heavy lifting in melee. He may just kill a few guys if you don't do positioning well.

[Cheex]

Dark Apostle is less appealing to me as a World Eater player now, at least for his previous role (running with Berzerkers in Rhinos).

 

However, he does have other uses: hiding important units, buffing shooting units, buffing counterassault units, that kind of thing.

 

That said, he is still 110pts (since you'll always want to take some Disciples), so whatever you use the prayer on needs to be worth it.

[Dallas Drake]

 

As meantioned by others, he's fantastic support for foot slogging units of all types. Move & shoot havocs laying down fire? Love him. Big wad of possessed scrambling towards melee? Wouldn't leave home without him. Foot slogging combi/reaper termies? Why not. Massive cultist blobs gumming up the table? It's what he lives for.

Do you think such units can work? I have no experience with transports just yet in this edition, I'm kind of curious how well footsloggers do.

 

 

My experience as a Death Guard player says that footslogging can absolutely work, in fact I haven't run Rhinos once this edition. I regularly run 30-40 Plague Marines on foot, usually as MSU blight launcher spam. What makes DG footslogging so strong is the resilience of Plague Marines and the Dark Apostle kinda helps provide this to CSM. -1 to hit is super important, add that to Alpha Legion and you're bordering on losing friends, needless to say you can run -3 quite easily if you throw your lot in with papa Nurgle. I think 10 man Terminators with -1/-2 to hit are nuts strong, as are big units of CSM which if Black Legion can be scary good (Abaddon + all 4 marks strat). Havocs, especially if you have 4 Slaanesh chaincannons shooting twice. Two things I think make the Dark Apostle strong, 1) the prayer is cast at the start of the battle round, not your turn. This means you can have -1/-2 to hit from the start of the game. 2) His range of prayers kinda cover all bases, the 3 best I think are -1 to be hit, +1 to shooting, 5++ inv save. If running a melee blob you can drop the -1 hit for +1 wound if facing Knights etc - for example Nurgle Possessed can be wounding T8 on a 2+ doing D2/3 and mortal wounds on a 6.

 

This weekend I'm playing my DG as Nurgle Alpha Legion. I plan on running 20 Nurgle Possessed on foot supported by a Dark Apostle, Master of Possession, Plaguebringer and Gnarlmaw. I expect to have a tough few games as Possessed are still sub optimal, but it should be fun to finally put Possessed CSM on the gaming table.

[BolterZorro]

He can have his uses, but the list and strategy have to be built around him: if you use him to buff/debuff one unit, he'll be stuck t this unit for pretty much the whole game because he's slow, and because he's range effect is short (6").

I don't think that I'll take one because:

- 110p is expensive

- not versatile enough

- not enough mobility to compensate the short range or prayers.

- you can't customize: no weapon choice, no jump pack and I don't see him as war lord.

 

I won't order him because I won't have any use in my playstyle. But maybe I'll take him in the future just for collection.

[ChazSexington]

 

As meantioned by others, he's fantastic support for foot slogging units of all types. Move & shoot havocs laying down fire? Love him. Big wad of possessed scrambling towards melee? Wouldn't leave home without him. Foot slogging combi/reaper termies? Why not. Massive cultist blobs gumming up the table? It's what he lives for.

Do you think such units can work? I have no experience with transports just yet in this edition, I'm kind of curious how well footsloggers do.

 

 

 

Honestly? I have no idea.

 

Footslogging Cultists were our go-to unit for ages, but they've been nerfed harder than the Castellan deserves. 

 

Abaddon can make Legion squads work, Alpha Legionnaires hugging cover can work, massed DG can work. 

 

Now, possibly Renegades can work - I can see recycling CSMs is gonna be pretty good, even without VotLW! Abaddon making them autopass morale as long as a model is within 12." That might work alongside the Dark Apostle. 

[Panzer]

 

As meantioned by others, he's fantastic support for foot slogging units of all types. Move & shoot havocs laying down fire? Love him. Big wad of possessed scrambling towards melee? Wouldn't leave home without him. Foot slogging combi/reaper termies? Why not. Massive cultist blobs gumming up the table? It's what he lives for.

Do you think such units can work? I have no experience with transports just yet in this edition, I'm kind of curious how well footsloggers do.

 

 

I feel like the key to footsloggers is to not have any of them be important. If you have any kind of important infantry walking over the board it'll get nuked as soon as the opponent can, but if all of it is a wash then it's less likely for him to focus his shooting on one specific unit as much.

So basically target saturation as always.

[Subtle Discord]

Don't forget that the Dark Apostle can also gain a Warlord Trait with the strategem that's going to be quite popular; if you've got the Lord and Sorcerer and plan to use the Council strat there's more incentive to figure out how to fit him in and his utility can be increased quite a bit with the right Trait.

[Sception]

Don't forget that the Dark Apostle can also gain a Warlord Trait with the strategem that's going to be quite popular; if you've got the Lord and Sorcerer and plan to use the Council strat there's more incentive to figure out how to fit him in and his utility can be increased quite a bit with the right Trait.

 

That's Black Legion only, and even with the additions in Vigilus the Black probably won't be the most popular CSM subfaction.  If you are playing Black Legion, it's a pretty nice bonus for picking one up, though you'll still want some sort of infantry base for him to support, as 110 points is too much for just a warlord trait, no matter how good the Black Legion's warlord options are.

[Subtle Discord]

Oops, forgot that it was a Black Legion only strategem. It's a mixed blessing to have lots of options because then you've got to keep track of it all.

[Sception]

Oops, forgot that it was a Black Legion only strategem. It's a mixed blessing to have lots of options because then you've got to keep track of it all.

Indeed, a wealth of options is both a blessing and a curse. A bit off topic, but did you notice that black legion have an extra relic stratagem that they can use in addition to the one that CSMs have by default? By using both stratagems you can get up to 4 extra relics if you were willing to drop 6 CP on it. EDIT: whoops, no, you specifically cant use both of those at the same time. Oh, well.

 

As for the extra warlord traits... they're great, especially with the options the Black Legion has in that regard, but I really wish the stratagem had an option to include a warpsmith in all of that. A lord discordant with the Black Legion half wounds trait seems fantastic, and about the only reasonable way to run a single LD as opposed to two or three clones of the same dude, but if you take that then you can't use the council strat at all.

[old git]

I'm coming from a Berzerker point of view. If you take 8 berzerkers (as you should be), with an Apostle and 2 disciples (it has to be 2, who don't take up a force org slot by the way) they can't fit in a rhino, or 'raider come to that. You don't have to take the disciples but then he's less reliable. Also, and obviously, whilst in a transport he can't use his prayers, disciples or not. From a Khorne point of view he's suddenly almost unusable.

[Tallarn Commander]

I often put a Dark Apostle in a Rhino with my Zerkers. Now, as you note, I cannot.

 

I'll still use a Dark Apostle, but less frequently. With a good Turn 1 and/or Tuen 2 advance roll he still might be in range of the Zerkers when they do their Turn 2 charge. But it's no longer a sure thing. Sigh.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Basically, the role of the dark apostle has changed from being your go-to for melee support to being more like a support sorcerer - he moves up with your foot troops and gives them a buff.

 

Now, I agree for its old role he's not that great anymore - better to go with a lord or a champion now.  Instead, it has a a new role and in that role he works very well.  In fact, I'm quite excited about defensive buffs that you can have in place even if you end up going second, or essentially being able to cast prescience on 2 different units.

 

That said, I can understand why people who used it in its old role are unhappy - a model you previously bought and (likely) lovingly painted no longer works with your list, and you are left scrambling looking at inferior alternatives.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

The new Apostle can't buff folks when he's in a transport anymore, but he can buff a Transport before it rolls forward, giving it -1 to be hit that's cumulative with smoke. Then he resumes marching up the table with your firebase.

 

I run an elite World Eaters army and he's going to be in mid-table with a unit of Havocs, a unit of Chaos Spawn, 3 Helbrutes, and a Contemptor. That's a lot of things to shield him and for him to buff. The 5++ aura for the units around him could be awesome, but I'm currently focused on making my Rhino with Berzerkers and characters live longer. Depending on Advance rolls, he might also be able to shield my Terminators when they drop, since the Rhino will have already done its job at that point.

[Cheex]

Basically, the role of the dark apostle has changed from being your go-to for melee support to being more like a support sorcerer - he moves up with your foot troops and gives them a buff.

 

Now, I agree for its old role he's not that great anymore - better to go with a lord or a champion now.  Instead, it has a a new role and in that role he works very well.  In fact, I'm quite excited about defensive buffs that you can have in place even if you end up going second, or essentially being able to cast prescience on 2 different units.

 

That said, I can understand why people who used it in its old role are unhappy - a model you previously bought and (likely) lovingly painted no longer works with your list, and you are left scrambling looking at inferior alternatives.

 

Completely agree with this.

 

He has a new role, and that role is pretty good. It's just different.

 

I'm thinking: Spartan full of Berzerkers, with Dark Apostle (with Disciples) and a bunch of cultists next to it. Benediction of Darkness in the first battle round on the Spartan, which then rolls forward with essentially the same protection as smoke but still being able to shoot with its considerable firepower. DA and cultists run forward, and should still be within 6" of the Spartan in the second battle round to buff it a second time.

 

For more fun: take a second DA to also buff the Spartan's shooting. 8 lascannon shots hitting on 2+? Yes, please.