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Something popI played against a Blood Angels army for the first time last week and I faced off against a Sanguary High Priest armed with Jump Packs and Lightning Claws.  Nasty little bugger, he ate squads all by himself.

So seeing as I have a good amount of Assault Marines anyway and I like using a jump pack chaplain I figured a fun idea would be to realy pimp the guy out: Jump Pack, Frags, 2 Lightning Claws, and Termy Honors - 166 Points for a Master of Sanctity.  I'm toying with the idea of going completely nuts and giving him the Mantle, which would up his points even more but especially be helpful if he get bogged down in a squad with a Power Fist, but I'm hoping that it may be unecessary and I'm normally not used to spending so many points on my HQ except for some rare circumstances. 

He does seem pretty nice even without being able to take Furious Charge like a Blood Angels HQ, killing 4 MEQ's on the charge at I5 no less. 

I was primarily planning on converting him for fun games but I'm wondering just how good an idea this may be.

Personally I think its a waste of points. You can't pimp a marine character like you can chaos. Blood angles are a bit of an exception because they get free furious charge but even then it's dubious.

Rather then your overpriced Master of Santity, take a cheap jumpack Relcusiarch and have him lead an assault squad. Litanies of hate FTW.

I often take a chaplain master, jump pack, L.Claws, t.honors and frags, comes out to 166. He accompanies an assault squad and they are brutal on the charge. Keep him cheap as, like you said, the powerfist is his worst nightmare and can wipe out your pricey chappy really fast. The mantle is useful if you KNOW you will be facing them, but too expensive for an all purpose list. In my experiance, keeping SM characters cheap is the best way to go and most likely way to get their points back. they are not chaos lords as winterman said, and never will be. The only upgrade worth routinely considering is artificer armor to make sure chappy doesnt fall to hordes. Mine almost always gets his points back, and on the charge, you cna count on him to kill at least 5 MEQ's.

another good, but pricey combo (for non BA's) , is giving the assault squad furious assault. That way they all stirke at In5, ensuring that chappy doesn't disengage everyone else. on the charge, this squad is just brutal, throw in a fist on sarge and they can go toe to toe with nearly anything.

75pt. Master is the most effective way of recouping his cost. The sheer value of targeting priorities and morale checks at 10 is quite worth 75pts. Anything more, and you're likely to be outmatched, outclassed, and wasted.

My opinion, of course.

You think so? My chappy very rarely dies without doing a boat load of damage. Also, i take a cheapy librarian often and he usually proves to be a huge asset.

Different strokes for different folks, and playing styles i guess.

That said, Reecius, what would you say is a good loadout for a Chaplain (Sorry Voodoo, I'm not trying to threadjack you)? I recently decided to make a Termie Command Squad with a Terminator Chaplain, and beam them in on a Teleport Homer on my Marshal. Good or bad idea?

Reecius: Well, my style is guns, guns, guns; running a chappy would be giving points away, in my armies, since he wouldn't have any support and would be overwhelmed all alone. I'm considering and experimenting with a libby for support and anti-psyker, wondering if it's worth the loss of some guns. I'm assuming your style is more choppy, so I'd expect you to have more success with the chappy.

Well anyone who read my Army list knows that it basically functions as a commander delivery system.

With the new Chaplian rules it seems that they were made specifically for lighting claws - reroll.... everything. That's feckin' awsome. [My reaction when I first got my hands on the new codex, I instantly recieved an erection.] The Mantel is something you should only take every now and again as it is only useful in certain situations. It's useless against Tau, Necrons, Dark Eldar and Eldar [Unless you plan on facing down a Wraithlord - not something I advise] But the Artificer Armour is a must I think.

Other then that I think the 170 point Chaplian with a jump squad is worth if only if you play a really assaulty army. [It's out of place in a static army as it is too many points for a counter assault force] But for an army that's always putting on the attack pressure it's perfect.

I have found that if you play DA's and you have assault squads, the lionhelm is absolutely essential. Sure it bumps your points by 35 but it grants a 4+ shooting invulnerable save to everyone within 3" of the helmet, that is AWESOME. Strapped to a Master with jump pack and power weapon, you are ready to run a squad into the fray.

After trying librarians they end up being a lot of points if you give them a jump pack, generally people bring epistolaries so they can have FotA and FoD, (And LD 10 for psych tests and hood tests)both are great when combined with a jump pack squad, especially FoD when you get towards your opponents board edge. And of course, FotA can cause pinning, destroy light vehicles, and goes through walls, without needing LoS. The force weapon however is great against all comers, especially if you can get a high enough initiative to get rid of special characters BEFORE they can strike (means giving them a familiar for I6 works great against most enemies).

Some I have seen use Veil of Time, helps you iron out any bad rolls, this works well with I6, so you can guarantee a dead IC (rerolling missed hits and wounds) (Of course this means you can't use the force weapon so its a tradeoff)

Then there is Might of Heroes gives you d3 additional attacks. Great for the veteran sergeant with a powerfist. Again trades off with being able to use a force weapon.

My chaplains get bolt pistols and they're glad they get that much.

I generally consider tooling a marine character (Or any non-Chaos/Tyranid) character to be a waste of points. But then again, I generally run a shooty army.

One thing also to consider is that tooling a character is a way to lose points in comp...I know the system they use where I play gives you a penalty if you take 50 points of wargear/gifts/biomorphs on a model...The entire system seems designed to hurt Chaos and help Loyalists, but still...

My chappy is cheap, 166 points. he has a jump pack, L.Claws, T.Honors and frags. he butchers MEQ's and attached to the assault squad they are a brilliant unit. they are mobiel enough to be offensive and can hold back and protect my gunline (I play about hald shooty half assault), being fast enough to assault where needed anywhere in my backfield.
However, i have a second chappy that is the same points cost but has a Thunder hammer instead, and he is more versatile. He can strike at In 5 with his crozius (which he comes with for free) which is slightly less effective than L.Claws, or you can swing the thunder hammer. at 6 attacks with rerolls, that is brutal. that combo is actually really good with the mantle, to go MC hunting, especially TMC's. A chappy with a mantle, jump pack and thunder hammer is a carnifexes worst nightmare. a shooty fex will swing at you tiwce, hit once on average and you will have a 50% chance of ignoring that.
then you swing and hit on average 5 times (often 6) and wound on 2's if he is tough 6. that will equal, on average one dead fex per charge. Tooled out HtH fexes will take two rounds to kill, and are more of a threat, as are tyrants, but for the points, he is a hugely valuable tool for taking them out and can easily kill two TMC's in one game, often doubling his points. Plus, he can get into assault turn two, and stop shotty fexes from firing, which is a huge advantage by itself.

in termy squads i have tried both options. The 5 man furious assault, all L.Claw terminator squad with a chappy is aboslutely deavstating. they will average on the charge about 16 dead MEQ's at In 5, it is actually a bit overkill. The only problem, is that they dont have frag grenades, so opponants in cover will always strike first, but they will usually still get slaughtered anyway, you just might actually lose a termie first. if you deep strike them, everything on the board that can shoot them , will. If you put them in a crusader, same problem. Getting to combat is the biggest hurdle with these guys. They are also just brutal against horde assault units. Anything toughness/weapon skill 3 will take about 20 power weapon wounds at In 5, that is the majority of any mob or brood and is pretty much garaunteed to celave the kill zone, which will prevent any attacks from landing back on you first round. But again, they are slow and bullet magnets. I have found that they are best used against assault armies that you know are coming to you, like nids, keep them hidden to counter charge and then laugh manically as they counter charge and shred anything they hit.

the 5 man termie assault squad with thunder hammers lead by chappy is actaully better for making assaults, IMHO. They dont need frags as they go last anyway, and they are more resiliant. My favorite tactic with them is to drop pod them (using the pod for cover) in the enemy back lines and then use the rest of my assaulters as the anvil with the approaching termies as the hammer. It works well and they are as much of a psychological deterant as anything else, but in all honesty, the best way to use terminators is in 5 man squads with two assault cannons. the assault terminators look cool and are fun but are truly less effective than the shooty units.

if you are drop podding a command squad the termie librarian with fear and fury works well against anything non fearless, as most everyone knows by this point. But i have had a huge amount of success taking just librarian with just FoD, a bolt pistol and frags and putting him in a back corner. He shoots FoD all day, hitting multiple units causeing pin checks and doing slight damage. He is great for knocking out annoying objective grabbing speeders that are out of LOS, trukks, raiders or anything armor 10 or 11. He doesn't need to see them and can hide all game. I attach him to a dev or las plas squad to give them LD 10 and so that he cant be targeted and in a pinch, he is still a decent counter charge unit. the best part? he is only 120 points! He has won we so many games, i cant even begin to say it, by simply knocking out a speeder that would have grabbed a table quarter, etc, or by knocking out a raider full of wyches that nothing else could see. he has proven to be an all star.

Dont expect any of these guys to go toe to toe with a Chaos lord or DP, they just get punked. Your best bet against those monstrosities is shotting, and after that a 10 man assault squad with a power fist. SM characters are utilities. they are good in combat, but their real use is in complimenting your troops, which are the real power of a SM list, IMHO.

Anyway, that was a bit long wided but i hope that helped.

CCW, jump pack, 2W, frags and meltas to lead the assault squad, or alternatively nuke the occasional unsupported tank - though I have toyed with the idea of mantle, thunderhammer, 3W, Termie Honours and bionics. Not a fan of lightning claws on the Chaplain - in his unit is a different story, especially if they are a Terminator Command Squad - as he all ready pays for a power weapon.

Sorry corpsman, i just realized i rambled on forever and didnt even answer the question, hahaha, sorry about that.

anyway, no, the chappy leading the deepstriking termie squad is less efficiant than the chapter master (cheaper, provides leadership and nearly as good in HtH if not charging) or ideally, the librarian, which can be a huge punch in the face to non fearless armies with FoD.

@white widow: a master with an iron halo costs the same as a bare bones chappy who already has the 4+ invul, but lacks the power weapon. For the same gear, they cost the same, chappy is much better an the charge, master gives better leadership. it really comes down to what kind of army you play, but you make a good point with keeping him cheap. I just love my chappy, 90% of the time, he rips people new A holes.

edit: in previous post i mean fury of the ancients on the libby, not FoD.

I could see tooling out a librarian. With furious charge (courtesy of command squad or by being a blood angel) and a servo skull/psyber eagle/whatever is sitting in your bits box he can go with I 7 and STR 5 with a force weapon.

As a Templar player, I find the leadership boost given by the commanders indispensible. I used to run armies led entirely by chaplains, but ld 9/10 keeps the initiaties running constructively forward. Since I make A LOT of leadership checks, I need that boost. I would run him with a mantle, the problem is that the mantle doesn't help you against the ubiquetous force weapon. I prefer to keep him minimal (power weapon and maybe a halo).   I might do some experimenting with claws though.  The idea is to distract the enemy into striking at him while the serge with the power fist does the splatterizing.  In my pod lists, I'll be in close combat (where I am fearless) by the time they kill the marshall.

I do have a termie marshall with a thunder hammer, combi plasma gun, and mantle that I built because he looks cool. Fortunately, most players recognise the fact that a cool looking model is worth letting me proxy the hammer as a power weapon.

Tooling your Marine HQ = Bad

I can never justify putting so many points into a single toughness 4 model.  As has been stated before, Chaos HQ's will crump any vanilla HQ character you put out.  Case and point.

Chaos Lord - MkCU, D.Stature, D.Strength, D.Speed., Mutation, D.Aura, Spiky Bits, Master Crafted, CCW, and Dread Axe - 186 points.

I don't care how much you tool up your vanilla HQ, he will always lose to this character.  The prince hits on 3's with 2 re-rolls, and wounds on 2's with no saves at all. 

Alternatively, if you don't have mantle, you will cry when you run into this guy.

Chaos Lord - MkCU, D.Stature, D.Strength, D.Speed., Mutation, D.Aura, Spiky Bits, Master Crafted, CCW, and Dark Blade - 186 points.

This prince hits on 3's with 2 re-rolls, and wounds on 2's and any failed save results in instant death.

The only time loyalist HQ's will earn their points back is if you are running up against the rank and file of your opponents army.  Even then, powerfists hidden behind 10 wounds will crump your character before he earns his points back.  And if you think that is rare, look at all of the podding lists on this forum.

Termie Assault Squads are another unit that I can't justify taking.  It's a lot of points in a unit that can only move 6" a turn and can't make sweeping advances.  The only time I could see using it is in a pod list where initiative 4/5 power weapons are scarce, and it gives an opponent second thoughts about assaulting adjacent squads.  In any other list, a standard Termie Squad will almost always out-performs the Assault Termies.  Putting the squad in a Land Raider is just asking for Railguns and Lascannons in the face.  And after a turn of being entangled, you march across the board in front of every AP 2 or rending weapon your opponent has.  I can't think of a better way to lose 500 points with no gain.  It's like free VP for your opponent.

Now lets be fair here. At killing 4 MEQ's on the charge he has a good chance at clearing the killzone assuming you set your charge up right and your opponent doesn't have counterattack.

Also what I neglected to mention is that while I run him with assault marines, when I use assault marines I use the trait that lets me take them as Elites with Furious charge, in which case the chaplain ends up doing lots of great things with the Unit.

He obviously doesn't want to be going against other characters and he needs to be careful of PF squads but since he has the jump pack you should be able to setup charges where you can ignore the PF sarge.

Granted I had this idea for fun games, not something to take to a tourny, but on the surface it seems as if it may be a good enough idea that in your average run of the mill army list it could do pretty well if used right (with assault marines).

I agree 100%

that is why i never take that unit. The only way to use assault termies (if you have to) is as a countercharge unit to protect your gunline or in a pod.

But termies are actually really good, as a shooty unit first and assault units second.they can move and put down some serious firepower at 24". Darrian uses a ton of them and he puts down a walking wall of lead 24" deep. Come withtin that and you get 12 assault cannons in the face, its nasty. And if you get too close, they can always charge with 20 or so powerfists. That is nothing to scoff at.

and as for chaos characters being better than SM cahracters? without a doubt, that isnt even a question.

You dont fight other characters with SM characters, as already stated, you let 10 man HtH squads with a fist do it. Those squads will kill nearly anything in HtH if they get the charge.

You fight other infantry with SM characters. A chappy with L.Claws will just murder infantry, it is rediculous.
I had a buddy that used to run 2 chappies with jump packs and L.Claws together and they would wipe out entire 10 man squads on the charge without taking a scratch.
You can drop two command squads each with 2 special weapons, sarge with a fist and a librarian each with Fear, and you have 2 12" bubbles within which any non fearless army will be running for the board edge. Overlap them and you force two tests at -2, that is brutal, Although most people already know that.
If you want to get really mean, drop pod tigerius, a 24" buble of fear is stupid, that covers most of the board.

I love SM characters, they are so flexible. You can take them dirt cheap and let your troops do the work or you can kit them out and create a very useful tool out of them. And like Voodoo Boyz said, a 10 man assault squad with sarge and his fist and furious assault led by L.Claw chappy is just a wrecking ball on the charge.

It just depends on the overall style of your army and your play. I have tried a bunch of different combos with my marine characters and have found a ton of useful ways to utilize them.

I think Reecius hits the nail on the head, the match ups are simply framed incorrectly. You don't use an IC to take out another IC, you use them to collapse a flank, destroy other units to protect your guys and so forth. Your Vet Seargent, which has 10 wounds is the one you want to kill specialist monsters.

As for librarians you know my stance, jump pack, FoD, and FotA is nice all around. If you have a heavy fire base that needs to be shut down, try and pin them with FotA, if you need to get other people to run off the edge, FoD, which is absolutely death to most armies, ESPECIALLY TAU.

Your Commander is a better idea for the rest of your army, if you have spare points, its good to attach a chaplain to make your guys fearless, and then when the get into assault you get to re roll missed hits if you charge. AWeSOME.

In the end though tooling out a commander is smart, if you UNDERSTAND the role your commander is supposed to play. Moving him in to lone dog against a whole army is pointless (no one will disagree there), additionally, trying to match up your IC against some other IC's is not going to net you and positive gain, but you use that commander to get your guys down the field, and deliver a seriously heavy payload of death in assault, and you have made up your points.

Expensive, sure is, worth it, if you know what you are doing, absolutely. And, Like I said, if you are DA it is more than worth it to take some tooled out commanders to make sure you get into assault (Lion Helm is possibly the best piece of war gear ever, 4+ invulnerable save in a 3" bubble to shooting. For 35 points....honestly, God himself couldn't make an item better than that).

When I see a pricy marine HQ I see the squad I kill first, and say "sweeet, thanks for the extra vps"

Many chaos characters can kill those squads without to many problems if they charge correctly. I built my chaos characters to take them on spesifically and they work very well (135 pts). The only thing they fear is killing the squad in on their turn and then duying to shooting as they are now way out in front.

The best way to kill enemy characters is charge them with a character and assult squad with fist. You will lose something but assuming you won't is stupid. A character and a fist can usually kill any non-monster in 2 turns of combat, sometimes 1 and then you go from there.

Exactly.

@longshot
that is a good point, but that goes for ANY army's most expensive unit, its not as if SM units with a commander are particularly easy to destroy, at least any more so than any other squad and commander. Plus, they way i run my squads,they all cost about the same, give or take a few points, and they nearly all have similar equipment. they are optimally eqquiped for my play style, have redundancy and i can attach a character to any squad with similar results.

@cypher
That is all too true, i hate those chaos lords that can rip through squads. i have two regular opponants who take uber lords that are just insane on the charge. A nurgle lord on a bike with a man reaper is a kick in the nuts, and the slanesh lord is my worst enemy, just . You have to focus shooting on them or feed them a scout squad to, jsut like you said, hope they kill them all and then shott them to death afterwords.

Not really on topic but...

Tacit is totally correct about termie assault squads. A unit of termies has some serious firepower AND close combat ability. If the low initiative of powerfists is a problem, then give the sarge claws.

I'll have to try a lightning claw chappy. It might work.

Lightning Claw Chappies are such a waste of points...

You already get a free Power Weapon that rerolls hit rolls on a charge! Just attach the guy to an assault unit and you've got enough killing power as it is. Anything more is overkill.

Well, you may have not had much luck with with L.Claw chappy, but i would deffinately say he is not a waste of points, by any means.

The T.Hammer, Crozius combo is more flexible as he can go at In 5 or 1 with the big hit, is better vs. vehicles and it costs the same as the L.Claws.

However, the L.CLaw chappy with double rerolls is brutal. I have had countless experiances where you have sub par to woud rolls and pick the dice up and re roll them and you blow the statistical curve in the other direction.

In my last game, L.Claw chappy charged 3 chaos bikers, i rolled, failed to wound at all, picked them up for the reroll and killed all three.

That is a very limited context, obviously, but it is a good example as it shows how useful rerolls are against any high toughness models. the odds of rolling a 5 or 6 on 5 dice (his average amount of hits on WS 4 or lower) is no where near as good as on 5 dice with rerolls.

there is a lot to be said for the 2 wound super cheap chappy with an assault squad, but I certainly would not say a L.Claw chappy is a waste of points. If his rerolls cause him to kill 2 more marines than he otherwise would have, then the claws have paid for themselves, and that is highly lkely to occur. Also, the rerolls to hit go away after the first turn of combat, the re rolls on the claws stay.

At any rate, its open to debate, but i would deffinately suggest giving it a try at the least. It may work for you and it may not.

I would like to state that I proxied in this config with my normal Jumping Chappy model and when the GK Grand Master + Retinue deep struck a little too close they got charged by the chaplain and furiously charging assault squad w/ PF. Chaplain engaged the terminators and the assault squad engaged the Grand Master.

They wiped out the squad.

My Command squad is configured as as follows:

Epistolary Librarian- Power sword-bolt pistol-Might of Heroes-Storm of the emporor's wrath-
Termie Honours-combat sheild-psychic hood-Artificer Armour-purity seals=
Emporor's Champion- Power sword-bolt pistol-Termie Honours-combat sheild-Rosarius=
Apothacary- chainsword-Narthecum-Reductor-Termie honours-combat sheild=
Sergeant- Chainsword-bolt-pistol-Termie honours-combat sheild=
Marine- Heavy Bolter-Termie honours=
Marine -shotgun-termie honours=
Marine -Bolter-termie honours=
Marine -Bolter-termie honours=
Marine -Bolter-termie honours=
Marine -Chainsword-bolt pisto=

All have Infiltrate=

this squad cost around 550pts.
I configured it as an exemplary CC squad.

All I can say about the L.Claw chappy with an assault squad is that I LOVE it.  I play Dark Angels, which means I set up a nice fire wall, but I have found using a full jump squad with that chappy insanely valuable.  I whittle apart what I need to with my guns and let the chappy and his boys clean up whats left.  Hell I almost can't even take that squad anymore with my normal game groups... I've had 3 HW squads empty all they had into the assault guys on turn one and ignore my ven dread and my pred... anything that can make people ignore things like that has to be worth it.  As far as with commanders goes... with my trust your battle brothers/ true grit divergent chapter, I use an overly decked out commander with a nice squad behind him... its points heavy but the second time I played them was against the nuns with guns, backed up by IG.  Game ended up a draw... though I should lost... thrice damned assassin whispering in my ear and rolling SIX 6's with that damn template weapon of hers... thankfully a powerfist in the face cleaned that problem up.... but I digress.  I took that command squad up the flank and literally marched down my buddies line.  Giving the 2 vanilla marines in the squad flamers was flawless.  flame template the sides of the squad leaving enough guys close to me for a charge... I went from what should have been a crushing defeat to a handshake over the best damned draw I ever fought.  It is all a matter of taste, some games its best to generic your leaders, other times you just gotta know when to pump them.
Aztralwolf

SMoverlord, not only did you raise a 4 month old thread from the dead but you apparently use an illegal and way overpriced unit.

Welcome to Dakka, I'm sure your posts will provide hours of entertainment...

Once back in the day I used to run my Dark Angels Librarian on a bike. Against an infantry heavy IG army I kept winning the combats during the assault phase then used Weaken Resolve to break them. The Librarian managed to force around 75% of the IG to fall off the board.

- Greenie