40K Tactics: Space Marine Libbys & Chaplains
Hey guys, I am Learn2Eel and this is my Codex: Space Marines Tactica! Today, I will be looking at the Librarian and Chaplain. I hope you enjoy this article!
The Space Marines have a large array of generic characters to choose from, with characters that have distinct roles in an army list and fulfill them admirably. The Captain and Chapter Master are combat-oriented heroes that can allow army list manipulation when certain wargear options are chosen, while Librarians, Chaplains and Masters of the Forge are primarily geared to varying forms of support. The addition of Chapter Relics and the streamlining of wargear costs leads to tougher choices than previously for which character to lead your army; gone are the days when a Librarian was a default choice due to Null Zone and the like. Now, there are intrinsic benefits to employing a Chapter Master in place of a Captain, and so on, rewarding your choices in a considered fashion. As well, the differing Chapter Tactics certainly boost the viability of individual choices by considerable margins!
Librarian
Overview – Librarians are the cheapest HQ choice a Space Marine player has access to, and it is rare indeed that one would say they don’t justify their comparatively minimal investment. Each is a psyker that can be upraded to Mastery Level two, with access to four of the main rulebook psychic disciplines; the only exception, sadly, being Divination. This limits the Librarian to comparatively mediocre primaris powers, while disallowing Space Marines from gaining ease of access to a reliable and incredibly useful form of twin-linking. It goes without saying though that the other disciplines can be quite strong as well; Biomancy and Telepathy can provide some strong blessings or maledictions each, for example.
Each Librarian comes stock with a force weapon of your choice – all of which have their various uses, to be discussed later – though they lack the number of attacks, Initiative or Weapon Skill to truly worry most monstrous creatures and characters. You should never rely on a Librarian to provide a strong melee presence, though some builds can be quite cost effective and durable in combat – notably a Terminator-armoured Librarian with a storm shield that runs just on the triple-digit mark. They are otherwise rather fragile with a mere two wounds and no access to an invulnerable save outside of terminator armour and subsequent upgrades, or an expensive Shield Eternal that is most definitely wasted on a two wound model. The Librarian is your cheapest means of unlocking the devastating Command Squads filled with special weapons; massed flamers or meltaguns in a drop pod with Salamanders Chapter Tactics, or massed grav rifles on bikes with White Scars Chapter Tactics? That cheap Librarian on a Bike gives you some good love here.
How to Equip Them – Unless you plan on running them in a Rhino, or you want to save points and aren’t too concerned for their safety – running them bare to get a Command Squad is not unheard of – I would generally recommend either the Terminator armour or Bike upgrades to give them extra potential mobility and durability at a low cost. Taking the former also allows the Librarian to take a storm shield, which is laughably cheap for a model with a mere 5+ invulnerable save or lack thereof otherwise. Adding a combi-weapon of your choice bumps the Librarian up to a respectable low triple digit cost, but makes them a versatile, decently tough, and even quite nasty HQ choice that also provides extra random effects in the form of psychic powers. Remember that even Terminator-armoured Librarians can fit in Drop Pods provided there are two spots free for him; factor this into taking units such as Sternguard or Command Squads and the like.
Where to Put Them – The best aspect of a Librarian is their versatility; they provide any unit with a decent force weapon, a probable good armour save and thus a miniature wound tank, as well as one or two powers from differing disciplines. That a Librarian can choose from one of four different tables when determining their powers allows you quite a deal of freedom to adapt to enemy armies and tactics. Terrify, Invisibility and Hallucination are always great powers from Telepathy, but Fire Shield or Enfeeble can change the game in a pinch by either providing a unit with a strong, reflective cover save or reducing the instant death threshold of pesky monsters and infantry. For these reasons, there are very few “bad” places to put a Librarian, particularly if you gave them either a bike or Terminator armour. Generally speaking, they work well for drop-podding units by providing some extra alpha strike potential in the form of either a combi-weapon or a nasty power such as Psychic Shriek. Similarly, you can use them on foot to provide bonuses such as Endurance or Invisibility to ground units that require it.
Best Uses – Generally speaking, with the lack of access to Divination and thus having less reliance on a great Primaris power, I would keep the Librarian cheap and don’t focus on a particular strategy with them specifically. Instead, think of how they can provide either a nasty Command Squad toting some special weapons on Bikes or in Drop Pods, or whatever you fancy, and of how cheaply you can fill up your Warlord slot. Of course, a two-wound character is unlikely to survive any real punishment, so this is a risk you must consider when determining whether a single Librarian fills out your HQ choice acceptably. I would usually either mount a Librarian on a Bike or put them in Terminator armour, and attach them to a unit of your choice to match the wargear selection. Librarians aren’t amazing and it is unlikely they will do anything ground-breaking, but they provide some potentially great psychic support powers, some extra melee punch with two or more force weapon attacks at Weapon Skill five, and even a clear target for enemies afraid of a psykers’ potential. For an army that wants a cheap support commander and isn’t too afraid of the big bad monsters inflicting instant death on him, I think a Librarian is the HQ of choice – particularly in smaller games where their abilities are more pronounced.
Chapter Tactics – Unlike say the Captain or a Chapter Master, Librarians don’t really benefit as much from any specific set of Chapter Tactics. They don’t have enough wounds to capitalize on It Will Not Die from Iron Hands, nor are they truly suited for challenges where Black Templars ply their trade – not that you will ever see one in those colours, Abhor the Witch and all. Salamanders give them a free master-crafting which can be certainly helpful for a combi-weapon or their force weapon, while a Bike-mounted Librarian obviously gets a bit of a kick from the White Scars detachment rules.
Chaplain
Overview – Billed as the intermediary between the combat-oriented Captains and support-oriented Librarians, Chaplains combine some watered-down elements of both choices into an affordable but generally less than spectacular package. A Chaplain has slightly boosted durability compared to a stock Librarian as he has a 4+ invulnerable save, though he still has a mere two wounds and a 3+ armour save. His higher base cost than the Librarian means that this bonus evens out, as the Librarian can get a 2+ armour save and 3+ invulnerable save for quite a bit less than a Chaplain. Instead of a force weapon, a Chaplain has an inferior power weapon, and though some might complain that it is specifically a power maul, these are statistically the best power weapons overall. The Chaplain is intended as more of a combat support character than the Librarian; though his damage output will usually be similar or less than a Librarian, the Chaplain actually buffs his unit in combat with the Zealot special rule. Fearless isn’t that big of a boon on Space Marines who already have And They Shall Know No Fear, as there are always some units you do not want to engage, or combats you want to get out of on specific turns.
However, re-rolls to hit on the first round of combat due to Hatred can be quite helpful for a dedicated melee unit. Of course, this presents an obvious issue with the Chaplain that the Librarian does not share; a Chaplain needs to be attached to a dedicated melee unit to really make the most of his Zealot special rule. This is then compounded by the fact that Space Marines lack great dedicated melee units aside from Honour Guard; Assault Terminators aren’t so great in 6th Edition due to mini-Rending Eldar shooting, massed high Strength firepower from every army, and more AP2 than has even been seen before. Even with storm shields, there is simply too much rate of fire to put them down quite quickly; besides, getting them near an opponent without investing in an expensive Land Raider can be difficult enough as it is due to deep strike scatter. Vanguard Veterans and Assault Marines certainly aren’t bad choices, but probably not the kind of unit you would really want a Chaplain joining. The two jump units really aren’t cut out to compete with units such as Screamers, Flesh Hounds or the flying monsters that popularize the 6th Edition meta. This leaves the much improved Honour Guard, though you have to sacrifice a HQ slot anyway through a Chapter Master to access them in the first place. This leaves Chaplains without a great unit to really benefit, and the Chaplain doesn’t even provide such stellar benefits as a Librarian potentially would anyway; their sole advantage is that their abilities are guaranteed, not random, and thus far more predictable in the army list creation stage.
How to Equip Them – Seeing as Chaplains already come stock with a 4+ invulnerable save, Terminator armour isn’t as worthwhile an upgrade on them as it is for a Librarian; that they pay more for this upgrade is rather silly, indeed, as they make less benefit of it overall. Like any other HQ choice though, a Bike is always a great upgrade – particularly in a White Scars army – this gives any commander a welcome boost to their survivability, as the extra point of Toughness can function more or less as an extra wound against most enemies. Besides, the mobility alone allows your melee-support Chaplain to get into combat that much quicker, and while Bikers may not defeat “hard” melee units in combat, the addition of Zealot should let them overpower typical enemy forces in Troops and so on. You can add a cheap combi-weapon on to the Chaplain to give him a one-shot chance at crippling a key enemy formation, though I feel this is an inefficient use of a dedicated melee HQ – or at least one that wants to make you believe it is one. Much like Librarians, they have access to the Chapter Relics, but I would advise against them as they are still two wound models without great saves unless you pay through the nose for it. This will merely leave you with a points inefficient character that would simply make you wish you had invested a similar amount of points in a pair of cheap Librarians or a kitted our Captain. Either keep the Chaplain stock, or put him on a Bike to make the most of his rather mediocre abilities.
Where to Put Them – A Chaplain suffers from its focus on boosting melee units; he wants to be with your best melee unit, or with a unit that could really use the boost. While it is fair to say Tactical Marines sure would like to be better in combat, taking a rather expensive and comparatively fragile HQ choice to fulfill this purpose for such a unit is not conducive to building an effective overall army list. You need to maximise the effectiveness of each unit as much as possible, and this means attaching the Chaplain to a strong assault unit. With the changes to the meta in 6th Edition, players are moving away from Terminators and the like simply because torrent of fire and massed AP2 weaponry dissuade even storm-shield wielding Terminators from taking the field of battle. For dedicated melee units, this leaves you with Command Squads, Honour Guard, Vanguard Veterans and Assault Marines. Assault Centurions are too expensive, slow and reliant on an expensive transport to make an effective melee unit in any sense, particularly with a costly character add-on factored in. Bikers can’t really be classed as a dedicated melee unit, but are ironically one of the best units for a Chaplain to join overall because they provide the Chaplain with a tough and deadly bodyguard – Relentless grav rifles! – while he gives them an added melee boost and Fearless to reduce the risks with their close assault tactics.
Vanguard Veterans can be deadly, but incredibly expensive, and either require a transport or jump packs which boost the price of a unit up quite quickly. Even then, they don’t compare favourably to some of the alternatives. Assault Marines are one of the cheapest options, but lack the real punch to deal with opposing dedicated assault units. Realistically, a Command Squad is best served in shooting due to the recent FAQ changes, particularly as Honour Guard are quite simply the most points-efficient melee unit in the codex that doesn’t really shoot either. This leads you with some pretty tough choices to make, though they really aren’t the good kind; the fact of the matter is that the Chaplain simply doesn’t provide the kind of bonuses an army such as Space Marines would like to have. Though assault is hardly dead, Space Marines aren’t an army that does it particularly well in any sense; though they are utilitarians, they are far more apt at shooting and more likely to do great damage there. Besides, a Librarian offers more potent direct combat support, particularly in protracted combats; the option to still flee as necessary from enemies such as Wraithlords, and random albeit stronger potential abilities through their psychic powers.
Best Uses – Chaplains are yet another method of getting a Command Squad into the fray, and it can be argued that the advantage Chaplains have over Captains is that they don’t need any more wargear aside from maybe a Bike. They are there to give a unit Fearless and Hatred, while providing some additional power weapon attacks. There is very little to change from that generic mould, and thus this limits the uses of Chaplains quite severely; they cannot do much except be decent combat support characters. Compounding the issue is the lack of units that really benefit from a Chaplain’s ability; if they were in an army that included assault units of similar offensive capabilities to, for example, Flesh Hounds or Wraithblades, this wouldn’t be such an issue. While Assault Terminators and the like are hardly bad units, there uses in game are limited by the very nature of 6th Edition; it punishes elite armies, particularly elite assault units, like few others. For this reason, you are best attaching a Chaplain to a Biker unit or a ‘hard’ assault unit of your choice; I feel the former is a more effective use of the Chaplain to ensure the Biker units can destroy their chosen targets. The latter, however, will still work in themed lists and will at least provide those melee units with some potential boosts to even the playing field.
Chapter Tactics – Like the Librarian, the Chaplain isn’t really geared to get a lot of personal benefit from any of the Chapter Tactics, though when combined with his power maul, the Accept Any Challenge special rule for Black Templars can be quite handy, if uninspiring. It won’t elevate them to higher levels of combat prowess, but it helps; much as Salamanders will help them out with a free re-roll to hit. As it is, you can comfortably take any of the Chapter Tactics and not feel like you are wasting the benefits of any particular choice.
Thanks for reading everybody and by all means chime in down in the comments. How have you been running your Secondary HQs?
