Leaders Without Bodyguards

[Jolemai]

I don't mean those with the Lone Operative rule.

 

Is there any reason to take a Leader without a bodyguard? Or are you just asking for trouble?

[Karhedron]

Seems to me they would be easy to kill off without a bodyguard. Also most Leaders apply buffs to their attached units. If you don't attach a unit, those buffs go to waste.

[sonsoftaurus]

Maybe in a lower point game some could still be tough enough, like a Gravis Captain. 

[tychobi]

Bike captain with artificer armor and a relic shield seems like an ok solo. Free armor of contempt and all he gives up is assault for guns.  2+4++5+++, 7 wound at t5 isn't terrible 

[9x19 Parabellum]

A Captain in Gravis Armour coming out of a transport that has a couple unused slots is a beast.  Give him artificer now you got a T6, 2+,4++,5+++,  6 wounds, who halves damage and hits like a truck in close combat. Also you're not wasting any buffs since he has no bodyguard buffs (his Rites of Battle can be used on anyone).

 

If you play BT you could also give him Tannhauser's Bones and reduce incoming damage to 1/4. (I think).

[Blade of Sigismund]

Some factions, yes. Space marines, no.

 

I think the only one I would run is the lone operative reaver lieutenant guy. 

[Karhedron]

On 8/28/2023 at 11:29 PM, 9x19 Parabellum said:

Also you're not wasting any buffs since he has no bodyguard buffs (his Rites of Battle can be used on anyone).

 

No, Rites of Battle can only be applied to the owner's unit.

 

Quote

Rites of Battle: Once per battle round, one unit from your army with this ability can be targeted by a Stratagem for 0CP, even if another unit from your army has already been targeted by that Stratagem this phase.

 

The bit in bold highlights that only the unit with the ability can benefit from it. The Captain cannot hand it out to an unrelated unit.

[Grim Crafter]

I dont know all of the stats of all leader in the game, but some still feel off as to how they attach to bodyguard units. Either because it feels wierd not been able to attach to a certain unit, for example Mephiston not being able to go with bladeguard veterans but allow with sternguard,  it feels of with such a  melee character. Anothers just might be not worth taking in a body guard unit if they really are meant to stay far behing, for example Tallyman, he is good giving the +1 to hit but he is even more valuable by giving that free CP that barely ever fails, so if you get im on the table for the CPs only than why would you attach im to a unit, even MSU plague marines and only to keep em hidden at the back? I think that until all armies get their proper codexes all of this will remain wierd regarding some characters.

[TheArtilleryman]

A Phobos lieutenant with a grav chute can be really useful and cheap to save in reserve, deep strike in and clutch late game objectives. In small games this can be particularly useful as most armies will have few units and will have taken a bunch of casualties by the and so there may well be a free objective or two.

[Karhedron]

Ghostweave cloak for 15 points is not a bad idea if you want to run a Lone Phobos Lt for shenanigans. 

[Brother Hellion]

It seems to me Leader characters  need bodyguards in this edition because:

A) The passive buffs are too good to pass up

B) They die like lemmings attempting a high dive competition when they are alone

C) The combined force unit typically controls objectives better and withers Battleshocks more.

 

Its almost like the good ol' days of 6/7th edition where you create a bike squad of Captian/liberian/Apothicary/Chaplin attached to three man bike squad and have it roll across the battlefield like a steam roller only to run into a chaos knight with a 60+ unit of chaos doggies walking to intercept.

 

[AutumnEffect]

A Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor marked to Slaanesh with the Intoxicating Elixir could be worth a go as a lone distraction piece.

110 points nets you 6 wounds with a 2+/4++/5+++ that halves all incoming damage.
You can spend a CP on Skinshift to then heal him 3 wounds.

 

Tough enough he's not trivial to kill and cheap enough to not mind losing. Deep strike him in and run around.

[MadEdric]

I used a terminator lord in one of my games as a distraction.  Marked Khorne so not as survivable as the Slanesh version, but he did do the work.

Gave him the collar for an extra d3 attacks and S and while he didn't survive the game, he did hold up one side of the board as a unit of bikes and coptas slowly chewed him down, by the end only the boss on the wartrike had survived and he was weakened enough for the traitor guard to take out and keep that side.

[Jolemai]

Abaddon and Grimnar have been seen solo in tournament lists lately. Thoughts on those?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Abaddon is an Undivided Weapon, you just fling him at something and it's mostly likely to die. He can move up the board give Invulns, Reroll hits or Reroll darkpacts in an aura, do actions and be a great backfiled deterrent. Or use the Slaanesh advance and charge strat and get him into combat with something. Because he's infantry and auras don't need line of sight, he can just sit behind terrain and still be great at what he does.

I'm not sure on Logan's rules but I'd imagine it's not far off being a similar role with the added bonus that him on sled is very fast!

[Karhedron]

Logan's selling point is his special rule:

 

High King of Fenris: Once per battle, in your Charge phase, this model can use this ability. If it does, until the end of the turn, you can re-roll Charge rolls made for ADEPTUS ASTARTES units from your army and, until the end of the turn, each time an ADEPTUS ASTARTES model from your army makes a melee attack, you can re-roll the Hit roll.

 

An army-wide bonus like that is very powerful. Once it has been used, his value is largely spent so he can just be used as a nuisance piece without the need to spend 200-ish points on a Terminator squad to babysit him.

[TheArtilleryman]

I recently played a match with my guard against space marines where my vindicare assassin almost played a completely separate game against a lone Phobos lieutenant, the one from the Leviathan box. This guy was incredibly frustrating to play against as even though I had a clear line of sight to blow him away, being a lone operative meant that I couldn’t shoot him, sat as he was on top of an objective. In the end my assassin had to drop down from his perch, climb the building to get to the guy, almost died in close combat, before managing to disengage and finally shoot him in the face at point blank range. The whole game came down to this one objective in the end.

 

Nice story, but my moral is that lone characters can still have a big part to play in 40K.

[Helbrechts_Sword_Servitor]

Since the Emperor's Champion doesn't buff his unit (and can't be attached to Bladeguard Vets! Why GW???), you can run him from a Land Raider, charge something, kill and then get killed. 

[DemonGSides]

I would imagine that they would expect you to run the EC with the BT specific blade guard, sword bretheren. Considering he's an offensive powerhouse, it would make sense to stick him with the more offensively minded squad. 

 

Plus those sword bretheren are gonna help out the EC more as well; they're gonna impart their bonus since he's part of the unit. Let me tell you, the Sweep profile becomes EXTREMELY juicy at 2 damage(Goodbye, enemy MEQ!), or if you're going into something big, getting 7 Strike attacks is a very nice benefit, especially if you're using the squad to hunt characters (which you should be).

 

Tangentially, I also wouldn't be surprised if a BT codex eliminated the ability to bring some of those overlapping things even more than the current index does. 

[Helbrechts_Sword_Servitor]

 

I would imagine that they would expect you to run the EC with the BT specific blade guard, sword bretheren. Considering he's an offensive powerhouse, it would make sense to stick him with the more offensively minded squad. 

 

Plus those sword bretheren are gonna help out the EC more as well; they're gonna impart their bonus since he's part of the unit. Let me tell you, the Sweep profile becomes EXTREMELY juicy at 2 damage(Goodbye, enemy MEQ!), or if you're going into something big, getting 7 Strike attacks is a very nice benefit, especially if you're using the squad to hunt characters (which you should be).

 

Tangentially, I also wouldn't be surprised if a BT codex eliminated the ability to bring some of those overlapping things even more than the current index does. 

I always forget that the squad ability impacts the leader.

[Darwhine]

Hello, let me give my opinion regarding the solo characters. I read in the post that for space marines it was not interesting to play characters this way because they lost squad skills and their unit buff. 

This is generally true if we think in terms of performance, but this is not always the case in strategic terms.

 

For example: the lieutenant with combined weapon who cannot join a squad and who can only be played solo. He has everything of a scoring unit: Lone operative, FNP5+, stealth, infiltrator surge move when a unit arrives within 9 inches of him.. but: 70 points. 

The price of a scout squad. Next to the phobos lieutenant, who buffs the phobos units by giving them the deadly hit, can move from D6 after shooting; he has the deep strike, he is an infiltrator and scout 6. 

Only here: 55 points.

 

Between the lieutenant with combined weapon and this one... I prefer the last one. 

Almost 50% cheaper, it can fep and then move, allowing you to score secondary ones like behind enemies line, the center of the table or the T1 quarters of the table, which does not do as well (or even cannot do) the lieutenant in combined arms. This is probably one of the cheapest entries in the codex which makes it an excellent scoring unit. 

He is certainly less resilient than the combi lieutenant, but can hide just as easily behind a ruin. 

Where the lieutenant combi competes with the scouts, the lieutenant phobos has no equivalent in terms of costs.

 

Other characters can very well completely modify their role with augmentations, such as the death company captain in Lost Bethren detachment, who can have an augmentation to revive him at 2+ (which allows him to inflict twice his BM capacity when dying) or an optimization to give +1 to hit all death company units for one turn after his death. 

With these profiles, we can make it an expendable missile on enemy lines. 

Likewise in deathwatch or imperial agent, Artemis with its ability to revive on a 2+, its invulnerable has 4+, its fnp 6+ and its improved flamethrower, for only 65 points makes it a good entry to guard a back yard. In GK, as surprising as it may be, a grandmaster in 2+/4+ invu, who can have a special weapon, who can deep strike and do a free rapid ingress thanks to his pc reduction ability, can act as a secondary scoring unit at 95 points, in the same way as an even cheaper techmarine (70 points).

Likewise, the captain stern who can revive on 2+ is also indicated in this army which does not have access to scouts and low-cost mobile units.

 

Sometimes you have to look beyond statistics and the profitability of abilities (which very often are only used once during a game).