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If you are not taking special characters I think the only choice is Captain on a Bike or Librarian.

Chaplains with Jump Packs and Assault Marines are alright, but Blood Angels do it better.

Librarian is best in tournies. None of the people I play even have psykers, so I don't usually take my libby. I have a few captain models, and they always wreck havoc and draw a lot of fire. Completely tooled up with a command squad and they're seriously dangerous and seriously hard to kill. One of my captains, not made to be super killy, is only 140pts (used to be 115, but I make a MK2 model of him so I gave him a pt boost) once made 17 armour saves in a row. He was on one wound, however, and the 18th and final shot levelled at him saw him gone in that game. But virtually all of the enemy army that wasn't being eaten alive in CC by my dudes shot at him + command squad (which died first).

Chaplain; always run one. With assault Termies. In a LR. Tbh, it's just about my most killy unit. Although I once lost all 585pts of it to about 160pts of scarabs. I tank shocked, one of them got lucky and immobolised me, then in assault they destroyed the LR and my guys didn't have room to disembard and so were destroyed.

^ too long a post :p But that's just some of my personal experience.

But what has a chaplain to offer a captain doesn't?

waasssdddd wrote:I think captains are the way to go if you're playing a balanced game. just like his marines he's a jack of all trades, master of none.

So you're essentialy just picking up a more expensive Space Marine as opposed to someone who can help out other units in your army?

Chaplain give a unit in your army the ability to re-roll failed attacks on the assault and gives that unit fearless.

Librarian can null Psychic Powers being used against your army within 24" of him. He can also assist in shooting with a variety of powers and in combat if given Might of Ancients can become a beast and slay MC's.

Master of the Forge lets you take Dreadnought's as Heavy Support allowing you to take 6 Dread's or 3 Dreadnought's and still take Elites like Sternguard or Terminators! He can also repair your vehicles should the need arise.

Now I'm not saying the Vanilla Captain is bad but all he gives you is access to a Command Squad which even if tricked out an Assault Terminator Squad would be a better choice as they are more survivable thanks to their Invulnerable Save. I have a Vanilla Captain and he only comes out in friendly games because he can be a CC beast but he is far outclassed as far as strategy by the other HQ choices.

Oh and playing a Captain on a Bike doesn't mean you need to have an all bike army, it just means you can make the Bikes you already play into Troops. I have a list that works very well with 2 Bike Squads and 2 Tactical Squads. Since the Bikes are more specialized they usually press forward and the Tactical Squads hang back supporting them as they go. Plus the Bike gives the Captain +1 toughness making him even deadlier in CC.

But the captain, not being good at the support role is a monster at CC and from range, being supported by other units.

I have a foot-slogging MotF with a Conversion Beamer(nice little model conversion using a Multimelta backpack, Plasma Cannon with the barrel cut of and 2 "barrels" added to it as disks of plastic) He works great when added to Either my Double Plasma Squad(Plasma Gun and Cannon) or my Las/Plas squad. Also, he does quite well on that rare occasion I take a Missile Dev Squad.

I only have 3 dreads currently but I usually take a unit of Termies as well.

For my second HQ in most games I take Chaplain Cassius as he adds quite a bit to my army and is Dead hard, he usually accompanies an assault oriented Tac Squad in a LRC.

how about sicarius?

waasssdddd wrote:how about sicarius?

As a special character, he adds a lot more to your force than a standard captain and has wargear that no other generic captain can have. IMO, we should keep SC's out of the discussion, as they're not really "captains". I mean, you can't really compare a normal librarian to Tigurius (and no "yes you can I just did" responses to this!), because asides from points, Tiggy is just better than a libby could ever be (with the exceptions of an invuln and a 2+ save.. They got it right with Njal Stormcaller!).

I personally use a Chaplain in Termie armor and link him up with my Assault Terminators in a LRC. I don't think you need to use captains to support shooting units, because marines accel at shooting. I prefer to use my HQs to support assaulting units since this is where marines fall kinda flat.

I have seen some crazy as hell Chaplain action in my time.

Well, in my squad 15 hits to reroll on I4 and 9 to reroll at S8 on I1 and 12 of the 15 reroll wounds, on the charge. Yeah, rediculous!

IMO, if your going competitive, then only take a captain for the cmd squad with 4X special weapons.

But honestly, it depends how your list looks to determine which one to take.

I really don't know how I would use a captain, without using him on a bike with t he cmd squad. He just seems meh if you just attach him to a randomm squad.

Captain w/ Relic Blade and Storm Shield.

CMD Squad w/ 4X Plasma (Company Banner if desired)

All in a Razorback.


This unit is a good fire base unit to take out MC's, TEQ's, MEQ's, and light armor huning. Not terribly expensive and if properly supported can do a lot damage.

a captain with a LC and combi plasma is plain scary. with little luck he can nullify a 5 man termy squad in a single turn

waasssdddd wrote:a captain with a LC and combi plasma is plain scary. with little luck he can nullify a 5 man termy squad in a single turn

But bring on the MCs and SCs and it's all over for him.

Well, the combi plasma seems nice, but I really think you need a TH or something like that on him, so he can eat some MCs too

tedurur wrote:

GCMandrake wrote:Librarian is usually preferred. The combination of a psychic hood to neuter the enemy's own psychic abilities, and Null Zone which makes Nob Bikers and Assault Terminators much easier to kill makes it very useful. Keep him cheap with no extra wargear, take Avenger as the second power, and put him with a tactical squad and you can't go far wrong.

This or a Captain on bike to get bikes as troops.

Yeah, this. They're also pretty cheap (100 points?)

Although I sometimes opt for a chaplain. Re-rolls are always nice.

From what I've been posting on this thread, it'd seem like I hate captains and only use chaplains and librarians. Far from the truth.

I like captains, and I have quite a few lying around. However, I rarely use them (virtually never), except for fun. But I am planning on making two captains using probably the two strongest builds:

Jump pack captain - for me with a relic blade, artificer armour and storm shield - 185pts IIRC.

Biker captain - upgrades I'm planning on taking are the relic blade and hellfire rounds - 175pts is enough for me.

While I would like to use artificer armour on my biker, I'm not a fan of using models with the arty armour upgrade without the models' armour looking the part. The Jump Pack captain has it because the model I intend to use for conversion looks the part.
I also intend to use the aforementioned (multiple times) plasma command squad (Apothecary and 4x plasmaguns) in a razorback, but they will only be used if I can spare the points in whatever particular pts level I am using.

In low pt games captains can be quite devestating. Lets take 750 for example.
A chaplain with a JP would probably be best - backed up by an assault squad.
A captain, while less beneficial for points to your whole force, can still do very well when kitted out with all the upgrades, and a JP/bike to get him into combat fast enough, and/or dodge enemy units that he doesn't like the look of.

So, is Relic Blade the way to go with them. Nobody seems to mention using a Powerfist or TH. Just wondering.

Relic blade is gonna be the best for him. You really don't want to give up the I5 attacks and wounding most models on 2's at initiative is sweet.

Oh, yeah. I didn't realize that they were I5. That is pretty good then, with a S6 backing it up.

Yeah, they kill everything. The only real problem (usually) is hitting. Even when you're hitting most things on a 3+, there are always epic fail moments where you wish he was a chaplain. Digital weapons are pretty good if you have the pts, 10pts can easily make itself back by just killing one model with the re-roll of an unlucky 1 (or 1-3 if fighting an T6 MC).

YAY Vulkan for being mastercrafted and with digital weapons!!!!! That relic blade will work pretty nice if you get into assault with an MC.

pdawg517 wrote:YAY Vulkan for being mastercrafted and with digital weapons!!!!! That relic blade will work pretty nice if you get into assault with anything.

now, pdawg517, dunno what you got from that off-topic statement.. tbh it's just spam IMO. I mean, SCs have been ruled out of the discussion, and Vulkan He'stan isn't even a captain anyway, so he does not belong in this discussion./rant

LOL, just throwing it out there that the relic blade is really awesome in my experience with using vulkan. You are correct that he is not a captain, but he is close enough with the stat line of a captain.

I have ran just regular captains w/ relic blade and storm shield and have got similar results in assault especially when you give him digital weapons.

pdawg517 wrote:LOL, just throwing it out there that the relic blade is really awesome in my experience with using vulkan. You are correct that he is not a captain, but he is close enough with the stat line of a captain.

I have ran just regular captains w/ relic blade and storm shield and have got similar results in assault especially when you give him digital weapons.

Apologies for my previous post if I came off a bit rude, wasn't in a good mood. But my point still stands, and as far as SCs go, Vulkan is right up there at the top of the list.

If I had to do the top five SCs currently IMO, it'd probably be:

1) Mephiston
2) Vulkan
3) Swarmlord
4) Kharn
5) Tactical genious creed


Now, back on topic.. if there's anything more to discuss on this topic that is.

Another interesting upgrade is the auxiliary grenade launcher. Pretty cheap and can give your captain a) more fire power or b) some fire power if he is kitted out for CC entirely.

But as I have stated, captains are more fun and competitive when taking a cmd squad.

pdawg517 wrote:Another interesting upgrade is the auxiliary grenade launcher. Pretty cheap and can give your captain a) more fire power or b) some fire power if he is kitted out for CC entirely.

But as I have stated, captains are more fun and competitive when taking a cmd squad.

True things. But IMO it is more of an indulgement and it is pts probably better spent else where. But that piece of wargear is just begging me to do a conversion!

I think its a fun piece of wargear and could be good for some crowd control before you assault. It would be a fun conversion! I think of it as an under-slung grenade launcher on a bolter.