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Disclaimer: I was a big fan of them in V4, but in V5, I'm not sold.

Pros:

Buying a squad champ usually gives his attached squad +1 attack in close combat, an extra pip of leadership and access to "champion only" wargear, be it the armory or from his select list - usually stuff like plasma pistols, powerweapons and the former "weapon du jour", the powerfist. I'm guessing that the usual reason for buying the upgrade is to access the extra equipment. This is great if you want to cram "more killy" into a squad and conserve killpoints. There's been some lamentation that PF have been nerfed. I'm not convinced that the powerfists lack of a bonus from a 2nd ccw means that it is nerfed, as the guy swinging it usually has +1 attack on his profile, meaning that you really lost 33% attacks rather than 50% on a regular turn and only 25% less attacks on the charge. Not great, but not crippling - and if he was armed with a 2 handed weapon initially instead of a pistol/ccw, there's no net change! The PF is arguably the most flexible as it alows near guaranteed wrecking of vehicles in V5 in close combat, ability to harm monstrous creatures and squishing weak squaddies on a 2+ - all compelling reasons to upgrade to a champ and buy one.

Cons:

The points costs for a champion are on the high side. To buy a Veteran Sgt or an Aspiring Champion and give them weapons usually costs around (or more than) two additional bodies, depending on what you bought. The cost wouldn't be so bad except the new wound allocation system means that your guy could die at any time from an allocated wound, should the squad take enough fire. That's over 50 points on a 1 wound model... more if you modeled the icon on the champ (so don't model icons on the champ kids!)

For example, instead of upgrading a dude to an Aspiring Champion with powerfist you could buy:

A rhino for his squad (or soon, a drop pod for his Loyalist buddies)
2 more chaos marines and an undivided icon (to make up for not buying his +1Ld and get +2 attacks in close combat to boot) - Don't buy 2 champs with fists and you could get another base squad of marines!
2 raptors! IMO, a squad of raptors w/ 2 meltas > upgrading to 3 PF aspiring champions!
3 daemons! IMO a squad of daemons > upgrading to 2 PF aspiring champions!

Conclusions?!??

While I think that champs probably have their place in squads such as bikes and assault troops, where the base squad member is expensive and their force multiplying ability would be more apparent - I can't shake the feeling that overall, the cost of the champion (and his lack of durability) is such that buying more men -or- more mobility is the better option almost every time.

C'mon guys... am I wrong?!??

i would say so
i always take a champ with a fist just cause it means i can hurt the big ones so a dreadnought or a carnifex wont just rip through the squad with no chanve
also i allows the squad to kill termies and other elite guys

There's plenty of reasons to take a Champion in a squad. One reason is to make up for some deficiency in the squad that isn't made up elsewhere in the army (Power Weapons, Fists, anti-tank Psychic Powers, etc). Another reason is to make up for some deficiency in the squad, such as its Leadership. Yet another reason is to enhance the squad with some special rules like Warlock and Exarch Powers. A fourth reason is for a victim in which to corporealize Greater Daemons. And so on.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say look at what the rest of your army does, and what you want them to do, and that'll indicate whether you should spend the points on a Champion or spend them elsewhere.

Nurglitch: I wasn't specifically thinking of Warlocks/Exarchs as I feel that their squad boosting powers are more of an exception to the rule rather than the norm - most squad upgrades from other armies only boost combat performance of one member, along with a slight increase in Ld.

I feel I should qualify my question - I guess it is more of whether it is advisable to attempt to create "jacks of all trades" at a premium or whether it is better to buy additional single-role units with the points saved by not upgrading.

keezus:

Okay, then that's a question which you'll have to run the numbers for on a case by case basis. As mentioned, I suggested you can run this by a rule of thumb of whether you have the space in the rest of the army to accomplish what the Champion might do (same goes for special and heavy weapons), or whether you need to pay the premium for the flexibility that the Champion offers.

Im gonna have to go with nurglich.
Squad champions provide some much needed help to squads. 1 pip in leadership is very helpfull during the course of a game and the H2H potential of the champ could make the difference of life or death for his squadies.
There is a reason every squad above 6 men had a powerfist in it during 4th edition. It was that helpful.

Cypher: Every squad above 6 men had a powerfist because that powerfist was 50% more effective than it is now and could not be targetted. Your squad was also more likely to stick around if it got its arse whooped in combat so the PF sgt got to swing in more combats. In V5, if you get whipped in combat, you're probably running (and dead) unless you got whipped by a tiny margin. In this case, the +1Ld on your champ would kick in and they might stay.

That 1 extra wound the Champ is guaranteed to cause might be able to push combat resolution over in your favour, where the 40 or so points you spent to buy the champ would be well worth it - though in the case of a generalist squad against a specialized squad such as Harlequins or Genestealers, that 1 extra wound probably won't help you win combat.

+1Ld doesn't help vs. shooting as you always test at base Ld. Maybe against pinning and such, but it certainly doesn't help much in combat resolution if you lost by more than 3 men, since testing on Ld5 or Ld6 is by law of averages, a loosing proposition regardless! I will conceede that buying 2 extra bodies in this case doesn't help at all, as they don't add many wounds against in your favour and will get run down all the same if they lost combat.

So here's the rub.

1. In HTH we have a few scenarios:

vs GEQ. GEQ's have difficulty against power armour so the MEQs are probably going to win anyways, so buying a champ is superfluous in this case.

vs MEQ. The classic 3+ save bonanza. Combat is probably going to be won by 1 or 2 wounds max. In this case, the loosing side will probably make their leadership check. Having an icon of undivided for chaos is a better buy than having a champ.

vs Assault Arse-Kickers (i.e. Harlequins, Genestealers etc). You are probably going to lose, +1Ld, powerfist or not.

vs Tank: A much higher chance of killing a tank with a properly equipped champ (p-fist). Regular attacks can only glance.

vs Walker: A good chance of killing it wth a powerfist sgt, and no chance at all without.

vs Monstrous Creature: A good chance of causing wounds if you bought a powerfist sgt, but more than likely, you will lose combat, since you can not cause enough wounds to kill it, and the monstrous creature will usually cause more wounds in return. +1Ld might keep them around though.

Against shooting, as long as your base squad is 7+, your chances of having your champ picked off by enemy fire is below average, with the chance decreasing as you increase squad size. Taking minimum size squads with a champ is asking for trouble. So in full size squads, your champ can be insulated from shooting wound allocation as long as a template doesn't frag him - which might have happened in the old edition anyways.

So to wrap up:

Champ is generally insulated against shooting, so a shooting champ is effective while his squad size doesn't drop below 6.

Champ does not help much in combat resolution against forces with equal statline, and is redundant in combat resolution against forces with inferior statline.

Champ's contribution is insufficient to swing combat in your favour vs. dedicated assault troops.

Champ can turn the tide vs. vehicles and walkers (although shooting them is usually a better choice!)

Champ is a wildcard vs. monstrous creatures.

I'll concede that you guys are in essence correct that the decision is really driven by army composition and expected opponents. IMHO, definitely not an auto-include.

keezus wrote:I feel I should qualify my question - I guess it is more of whether it is advisable to attempt to create "jacks of all trades" at a premium or whether it is better to buy additional single-role units with the points saved by not upgrading.

It depends on what the role is. A power fist sargent kills 10 times as many MEQ's in close combat (without the charge, or 7.5 with) than a regular marine. So if you think you're likely to get into close combat with MEQ's, a fist sargent it worth his weight in gold. When shooting at GEQ's the sargent doesn't help much if at all. So you have to work out how you expect your army to work and build towards that. It will probably involves some "jack of all trades" units as well as some single-role units.

I run Tau. For me the upgrade to a shas'ui in the firewarriors provides the extra leadership and access to the bonding knife. So for 15 more points I get Ld 8 and the ability to regroup below half at a cost of 1.5 firewarriors. Having played a dozen 5th edition games I have had the joy of having the shas'ui shot out from my squads and yes it does suck but I feel what he adds to the unit is worth it. Now in that vein I do not buy shapers for my kroot units as he cost four times what a standard kroot cost and his added leadership and ability to buy a 6+ save for the entire unit is not off any significate benifit to the kroot unit. It is all wasted points in my opinon.

I am currently constructing an Ork army and I intend to include a nob with powerklaw in any unit that can hold one. I belive the PK nob provides the ork unit with a backup plan for dealing with unusual situations (vehicals/MCs), but that their leadership is not needed in standard ork boyz units. Getting into more bizzare unit champion upgrades. I can understand why Sisters of Battle players buy veteran sister superiors for the extra faith points and for making units faithful. Eldar aspect warriors with exarchs are another example, rarely is the exarch bought for wargear or leadership (banshees with glave is an exception) and are usually bought for their powers that enhance the squads (shing spears with hit and run).

Like many have already stated the champion upgrade needs to enhance the unit's primary function or provide it with a secondary option in emergancy situations. I rarely see a vet sgt. in a devistator unit, but I often see an exarch in a dark reaper squad. Why? both provide the same function, long range fire support. Yet the exarch adds to the unit while the vet sgt. just makes it more expensive.

Just wanted to note that I don't believe exarchs add any Ld bonuses at all...same Ld as the squad, tho I'm only 95% sure on this one

Right, Exarchs have the same leadership as the squad.
Exarch powers are neat if an Autarch joins the squad. She benefits from these powers.
Acrobat is now really useful due to the modified counter-strike rule: The Banshee squad gets +1 attack.

a very viable option for the champion upgrade is in the chaos space marine codex. Chaos terminators have no cap on the number of terminator champions they can take-
the upgrade gives them an extra attack, and paired with lighning claws and a land raider, you have an assault force that can kill almost anything on the charge.

I play against a chaos player who took a 10 man squad, all had lightning claws, champion upgrade, and fabius bile's warrior upgrade. he threw in a mark of slaanesh, and advanced them behind a screen of plauge marnes. It was most of his points for the game- but the space wolf player was unnable to combat the termies, and ended up being completely wiped off the feild.

Iboshi2 wrote:you have an assault force that can kill almost anything on the charge.

But you don't want to do that...

Iboshi2 wrote:I play against a chaos player who took a 10 man squad, all had lightning claws, champion upgrade, and fabius bile's warrior upgrade. he threw in a mark of slaanesh, and advanced them behind a screen of plauge marnes. It was most of his points for the game- but the space wolf player was unnable to combat the termies, and ended up being completely wiped off the feild.

Terminators can't have Fabius Bile's upgrade. It's easy to be super powerful when you don't follow the rules.