Brotherhood Champion ideas

[Skywrath]

So, I was brainstorming some ideas with the Brotherhood Champion and a few ideas/questions came to me. So starting with the obvious one:

 

1. How does the Apothecary (an elites choice) have more wounds than a Brotherhood Champion? Like really, they went through all the effort of making him an HQ choice rather than an Elites choice, and couldn't give him one extra wound?

 

While relevant, I also realised that when our Codex drops, the chance he gets said wounds will increase to 5 or maybe 6. Then it hit me - he is THE perfect suicide bomber, even more so than the apothecary. Typically speaking the apothecary sacrifices about 95pts (with the hammer) to do an average of 5-6MW's. I always found that trade-off to be a bit odd, so I started looking at ways to perfect it. As it stands, as I am picking up Castellan Crowe today, I abstractly looked at my previous tier upgrade list (BC thread), and realised Castellan is nothing more than a Brotherhood Champion. My friend then on Facebook off-hand mentioned the idea of Inner Fire, and then the stars aligned. What if the suicide bomber survived after his drop? So here's the rundown on why I think he's better (at least when the Codex drops):  

 

Survivability: Apothecary has a 5+ invuln compared to the BChamp's 4+. On top of this he has a stance that gives him an effective SS save (+1 to his saving throws) and can be buffed to a 3+ invuln. Sure the Apothecary can heal himself after his descent from grace (pun intended), but there is practically little or zero chance he will survive into your next turn. The BChamp on the other hand can be buffed to a native 3+ due to Heed the Prognosticars. On top of this, due to his Heroic Sacrifice rule, he fights before he dies, ensuring anything that attacks him, pretty much dies. So off the bat, you have a much more effective way to keep him alive. He has 1w less, but with a buffed 3+ invuln, fights before death, +1 to saving throws (if stance chosen even though you don't charge), that trade-off is more than worth it, would you say?

 

Offensive Capability: Most apothecaries are run with hammers or staves. Sometimes I run him with the Soul Glaive/Blade of the Forsworn relic, but those are a rarity. Let's assume you run an apothecary with a hammer - great offensive potential IF you survive. If you run an apothecary with a stave, you only get +1 in the fight phase, making him a 4+ invuln, compared to a BChamp's 1+ armour save. Now here is where the BChamp is a better choice. I'd give him the Blade of the Forsworn relic, and with his stance (+1 to wound and maybe hammerhand) you are wounding up to T6 units on 2's at -3 AP, 3 flat damage, with 5 or so attacks. Then there is the fact that he fights before he dies, therefore doubling that potential. And if he does survive until your next fight phase, there is another cast of Inner Fire that he can do. You are effectively doubling his capabilities for 5pts less than the apothecary with a hammer that probably doesn't get a chance to use it! 

 

Cons: Effectively you are paying a total of 3-5 CP for all this (1 for Insertion, 1 for range, 1 for 3d6, 1 for relic, and a potential 2 for heed the prognosticars. However if you were to run a list where the paladins weren't the star of the show (i.e. see purifiers and rhinos, especially when we get our 2W update) then what you have is a beatstick where you could get a lot of value from.

 

Either way, thoughts?

Edited March 2, 2021 by Skywrath

[Gnomeo]

I love out of the box thinking. Good work. I would assume the apothecary has more wounds because the terminator armour gives +1.

 

Unfortunately your idea doesn't work for a few reasons.

 

1st brother champions don't have the teleport strike ability thus can not use the stratagem to deep strike at 3". If they did though definitely a good option.

 

2nd heed the prognosticar is used at the beginning of the turn and as deep striking models aren't on the board it can not be used on them. This is the thing I hate the most about this stratagem

 

3rd remember the defensive stance is only in close combat. he does still has a 4++ which is better than the apoth so statistically more survivable. But the opponent will probably just shoot.

 

Definitely thinking on the right line idea wise though. Keep it up.

 

Have you tried the curiass on the apothecary. That can work well as you get to do the 5+ shrug on wounds you do to yourself from inner fire aswell.

[Weltbild]

You make some good points. Disclaimer: I‘m not overly familiar with the BChamp as I never used him yet. The fact that he fills an HQ slot would probably still keep me from using him. Perhaps in a list consisting of 2 patrols he might fit in, but the apothecary looks more appealing to me in a battalion where characters are a scarce resource. Edited March 2, 2021 by Weltbild

[Skywrath]

I love out of the box thinking. Good work. I would assume the apothecary has more wounds because the terminator armour gives +1.

 

Unfortunately your idea doesn't work for a few reasons.

 

1st brother champions don't have the teleport strike ability thus can not use the stratagem to deep strike at 3". If they did though definitely a good option.

 

2nd heed the prognosticar is used at the beginning of the turn and as deep striking models aren't on the board it can not be used on them. This is the thing I hate the most about this stratagem

 

3rd remember the defensive stance is only in close combat. he does still has a 4++ which is better than the apoth so statistically more survivable. But the opponent will probably just shoot.

 

Definitely thinking on the right line idea wise though. Keep it up.

 

Have you tried the curiass on the apothecary. That can work well as you get to do the 5+ shrug on wounds you do to yourself from inner fire aswell.

 

Gargh! Always like this, whenever I have a brilliant idea, there is always that one small detail that upsets it. Not aimed at you, but at my luck in general. However, before I completely discount the idea, we do have the use of the teleportarium strategem, which would be the same thing. After reading the wording of it, it seems using that strategem seems to be more focused on the unit coming out of deepstrike rather than a unit having the Teleport strike ability. Meaning it would be actually work (will it work with strategic reserves though as they are all the same thing)? 

 

2nd hurdle can be worked around with sanctuary. Although granted, that's another detail I missed, oops!

 

3rd hurdle isn't a problem - even if I use dynamic insertion, I still go through shooting and fight phase, so even though he's standing still doing nothing, I still have to declare what stance he is in regardless if he can charge or not. 

 

If the first hurdle can be negated with that idea, overall the idea still works, although it's not as elegant, admittedly!

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement - I don't give the apothecary the cuirass for the same reason I don't give him the TH - he's going to do without the chance to gain much out of it. Sure he shrugs all wounds on a 5+, but with 5W it's not going to do much. Thanks for clarifying about the BChamp and his low wounds.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Skywrath

[Gnomeo]

So from my understanding because dynamic insertion says. "The teleport strike ability" it would not work. As the teleportarium does not provide that ability. It provides its on thing. Same reason why draigo and dreadknights can't use dynamic insertion.

 

I think a really nice change for the codex would be to have the teleportarium stratagem read "this unit gains the teleport strike ability"

 

There is the option of taking an ancient with the refining banner and use 1 cp to cast 2 powers

Edited March 2, 2021 by Gnomeo

[Skywrath]

Alternatively we might see a BChamp in Terminator armor when our codex drops, and we can do this then. Even if this idea doesn't work now, it could work then, with that caveat. Well assuming we still get to keep our Dynamic Insertion rule.