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For the next unit in my Battle company, I was thinking of grabbing a Librarian. But, I heard people say it's a waste of points before, because (I've no idea of this) many other races have a way of making psychers useless. But, for the same points as a captain, I can have a unit good for any role needed. Good buy or no?
And if I'm posting in the wrong spot, please move me.

Id prefer a captain any day. Tigurious is win machine but is over costed and dies easily.

They are good if you want to teleport squads, or let enemies eat assault 4 ap 2, or vortex of doom them, but generally i steer clear of librarians.

Good buy.
he does 2 things that are pretty important: he brings psychic defenses and he has null zone.

null zone is just unspeakably good. it's pretty much death to anyone playing a demon army for 1 thing...

tigerius is tempting to me bc he knows all the psychic powers and he lets you manipulate your reserve rolls, which is potentially critical, but at the end of the day he's just too expensive.
AF

I would get tigurius...but points and actual cost offset me. and the main thing in the librarian was looking for is might of the ancients. Whenever I do find a store to visit (hopefully this saturday i'll get a chance) i'll leearn if one really is a good buy. Idk, just my captain was the AOBR one, so my options were, well, already laid down for me, which I really didn't like, but eh, it came with orks so i could play my bro. anywho, he just seems a littler more versatile, especially with hood and null.

Tiggy is not just expensive, he's gak statwise and no inv.
The libby brings the psy defense as said, afterwards he's a tool box character with nifty powers for some spice in general.

I try to choose a utility power and an offensive power to be flexiible.
Note, I'd suggest this guy as a secondry HQ choice as he's quite squishy and somewhat narrow with application.

I like to run mine with termie armor in a tac terminator squad. Probably not the most popular way of doing it but I find it useful for objective grabbing via teleport or getting support were I need it.

Just be careful around plasma cannon equivalent weapons. No use serving them on a silver platter

Tigurius IMO only serves a purpose in a pure drop pod army.

Libby's are great well rounded HQ's. Null Zone is cool. Still like captains for the ability to take CMD squads.

Or 20+ squads of shoota boyz... that hurt.

the Librarian is commonly viewed as the best vanilla HQ choice marines have. next is the Chaplain and then the Captain.

a Libby with Terminator armor and SS(which you really should take as he NEEDS an Invul save and will make Perils that much less of a concern) will come in at 140 pts.

for his powers Null Zone and another power of choice work great. this is the "Competitive" build for Libbys right now.

Null Zone will murder 2 of the hardest units to kill, Fortuned Seercouncil spam(this is assuming they actually get Fortune off with the Psyhood around) and TH/SS Terminators.


the only power i would say is bad is Force Dome. 5+ Invulns aren't that spectacular.

I use librarians in most of my lists. Only time I use anything else is when I need a biker captain to unlock bikes as troops, or a captain to unlock command squads.

The reasoning for this is in 40k you don't really need an HQ other than to be legal. Paying a huge number of points for him to be some sort of bad isn't good points spent. Now if he has some utility, like major force multipliers or unlocking other units as troops (or in the case of a master of the forge, heavy support options) then its a bit different. A librarian has two things that I look for in my HQ, its cheap and its effective.

In the matches where null zone matters, it is a back breaker. In the matches it doesn't matter, well, you have another power to chose from. Hoods are more useful these days than they have been in the past.

I run mine with in TDA with a Storm Shield with Null Zone and The Avenger. He rides with my Assault Terminators and makes Daemons and other Terminators and Nobs very, very sad in CC.

The Avenger us great for when the MM on my Land Raider makes a nice clump of MEQS jump out of a Rhino.

Monster Rain wrote:I run mine with in TDA with a Storm Shield with Null Zone and The Avenger. He rides with my Assault Terminators and makes Daemons and other Terminators and Nobs very, very sad in CC.

The Avenger us great for when the MM on my Land Raider makes a nice clump of MEQS jump out of a Rhino.

This

Yeah, you want some sort of utility out of your HQ slot. Librarian does utility better than the other choices. Personally, I'd say the Captain is just ahead of the Chaplain in that department as he gives you access to Bikers as Troops and the Command Squad, which is the only way Marines get a concentrated special weapons squad. However both the Chaplain and Captain are essentially beat-sticks. You need to be a really good beat-stick to be picked on that merit alone (ie Kharn, Ragnar, Mephiston), which neither of them are.

The Librarian isn't good in combat, but he can do things for your army that you can't get in any other slot. I'd say take an Epistolary as your first HQ, then use the second one to tailor your list as the points scale up, be it Master of the Forge if you like Dreadnoughts or have an abundance of tanks you want to keep fixed, Captain for reasons previously stated, or a Chaplain because you want your Assault Terminators to draw even more fire. It is very rare that you'll want a second Librarian.

Lib with a squad of sterngaurd is very popular, and i love it. He can give them a inv save 5+. Also he has some fierce attacks, specially at the rapid fire range where you want your sterngaurd. Personally i LOVE the commander. He is my favorite model so that helps, i give him a relic blade and storm bolter; at 133 points he can do serious damage against monsterous creatures and elites (generally he is better against expensive and few enemies) if he is getting FNP that is another nice bonus.

Thanks guys, I have my MOTF with a conversion beamer, so he's mainly fire support, where as the captain...yeah...dirt cheap in my eyes with the gear he has.

Honestly, if people are telling you that Librarians are a waste of points, the best advice I can give you is to stop listening to them.

The Librarian is, by far, the most effective Space Marine HQ for the abilities of the model itself. There's no (good) reason to, in a competitive list, take anything but a libby as a HQ unless you're building your list around the other option (e.g., Captain on bike to get biker troops, Vulkan to boost TH/melta/flamers, etc).

Force multipliers -- abilities which increase the effectiveness of the rest of your army -- are the strengths of the SM HQ choices. For raw combat, you're almost always going to do better with TH/SS terminators than an assault monster in a HQ slot.

The Librarian gets two potent force multipliers -- the Psychic Hood, which can protect most of your army at once, and Null Zone, which makes pretty much everything you've got better against targets with invulnerable saves. And those both come at the 100 point base cost. The second psychic power is a choice from a list of which most are solid, and you can still further equip the model.

The choices without force multipliers are largely outstripped by TH/SS terminators -- still one of the best deals in elite assault units in the whole game.



Oh, regarding Terminator Armor on a Librarian -- while it doesn't mesh with my playstyle (as I typically play mechanized, and if my libby is in a position to get use out of his 2+/5+, I've usually already lost (or won)), if you're going to take it, you might as well take Vortex of Doom so you can fire it on the move.

rarely do I find so much to agree with...

Well, a Librarian is the best support character in an SM army.
My vanilla SM army never goes out without a Librarian.
He's equipped with terminator armor, storm shield, null zone and whatnot.

I also want to say that the Librarian is the best choice simply because he offers the most for his points. Look at the captain and what he does for his 100 points (Init5 some extra wounds and attacks) and look at the Librarian (Force weapon, psychic hood + 2 powers) for the same price.

Well, Captains are not a bad deal either.
But psychic protection is a must-have in a competitive environment and nullzone is god-sent.

I don't think a librarian should be the sole hq either. on the balance, good as the librarian is, chapter tactics is a must have for any marine force.
AF

Chapter tactics? You must not like (and therefore not use correctly IMO) combat tactics.

Combat tactics is great.

Edit: Normally the TDA/SS libby is the only HQ I run. Assault terminators do all the heavy lifting with the help of nullzone.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I don't think a librarian should be the sole hq either. on the balance, good as the librarian is, chapter tactics is a must have for any marine force.
AF

While I'm not sire they're a Must Have, I'll say that the Librarian pattern that I run goes really nicely with Vulkan or Lysander.

Dracos wrote:Chapter tactics? You must not like (and therefore not use correctly IMO) combat tactics.

Combat tactics is great.

Edit: Normally the TDA/SS libby is the only HQ I run. A
ssault terminators do all the heavy lifting with the help of nullzone.

Combat tactics is pretty good, but a canny opponent won't let you regroup when they can help it.

And I'm never afraid to let them chase me, unless I'm close to my board edge. I can still shoot while running, meaning if you try to escort me off (staying within 6") I'll get in a couple turns of shooting. My playstyle (and therefore army list) involves taking the center of the board and he objectives around turns 2-3. If you assault me my terminators are nearby to dig my out, or I'm going to force you to chase me away from the objective towards my backfield firebase. If you don't pursue and let me regroup, ill be in rapid fire distance and continue to whittle you down.

Do you use Calgar? Sounds like he'd be great for this type of list!

Nope, he is way too expensive!

I'll link you to my army list in a sec... you'll see that mostly everything is as cheap as I can make it, so that I can stuff as many vehicles in the mix as possible.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/299705.page#1664490

I played in Astro winnipeg July 24/25. I came in 4th in best general category out of ~30 participants. Its notable that I lost the last round to an opponent that incorrectly gave a unit of his Tank Hunters, which I found out after the tournament they should not have had. This had a significant impact on the game. Likely without that rules error by my opponent I would have been 2nd place.

That was my first tourny on the GT circuit.

1st was Eldar I lost to in round 5
2nd was Space Wolves
3rd was Orks I lost too in round 6

The only thing I've been considering changing is the extra armor on the LRC, and maybe swapping avenger out for something else.

Librarians are great. I would take one in most SM armies that I would play. Null Zone is a VERY strong power right now. Gate and Avenger are also very good and I'd take one of these 2 with Null Zone. Generally I already have another HQ (Vulkan, maybe Pedro sometimes) because the Librarian won't be a huge force to reckon with on his own. The way he can help the rest of the army by buffing your units, hexing their units, or providing movement options is very strong though.

Also, most armies can shut down psychic powers to a degree, but they are able to do so because they've taken a Librarian (in the case of SM) or their race's equivalent to one. Taking your own gives you psychic defense against their magic as well as providing you with your own strengths via the psychic powers that your Librarian takes.

All around it is a great buy.

Monster
well chapter tactics is the only thing I can think of that even remotely justifies 16 points a man for your tacticals. It's part of what you're paying for when you buy them so it makes sense to get the most use out of your squad.....

don't get me wrong librarians are awesome. but *the* best.... no that's going too far.
AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Monster
well chapter tactics is the only thing I can think of that even remotely justifies 16 points a man for your tacticals. It's part of what you're paying for when you buy them so it makes sense to get the most use out of your squad.....

don't get me wrong librarians are awesome. but *the* best.... no that's going too far.
AF

Marines are 16 points a model because of "As they shall know only Cheeze!!".
Look! I failed my break test. Oh, you caught me, I guess I'm just fearless now.
Look! I failed my break test and fell back. Now I'll shoot you and assault again!
That ability has good synergy with combat tactics, and can be used to cleverly move units on the opponents turn. Many times I've had someone shoot 25% of a squad in charge range of a deathstar. I'll auto fail the test, fall back and auto rally.

On the orig topic, libbies are great. I've also found a cappy on a bike wihh relic blade and storm shield to be a unexpected beast.