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If you where to place a Librarian in a droppod with 8 sternguard, and sexy corbulo, what powers would you take? I am split between Divination and our good ol rule set.

Divination:
- Primarius power: re-roll to all hit. Awesome on sternguard for shooting and if being counter assaulted... however you cant use on the turn they drop in due to the blessing rules.

Old School
- Blood Lance: no longer needs to roll to hit, can be cast on drop and ap1 makes it nicer for poping cans
- Shield: still useful as before
- Unleashed Rage: spell to be used if unit get stuck in combat.
- The ability to use blood lance on your turn, then UR or Shield on their turn is a nice combo.

So what do you guys think, Lib+Stern what powers gives you more killing power.

Personally? I would think prescience. If you're taking an epistoliary then definately divination as you can roll for two powers on the Div chart and then choose the worse of the two to give up for prescience. Sternguard with Prescience shooting at a misfortuned unit is really devastating.

May I suggest 7 sternguard and then bring terminator armour with SS on your librarian.

Most of divination is useful.

Shield and blood lance has always been a lovely combination.

The other change is I am more willing to separate the librarian off when they drop and position him separately to blood lance(I think the 6'' away from a drop pod is a huge distance). This is very situational of course and only if he has a storm shield to make instant killing less likely.

I have been running the following as my Alpha Strike Unit, and it has rarely failed to perform...

Terminator Librarian + SS, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinius.
Terminator Librarian + SS, Blood Lance, Fear of Darkness
Honour Guard, 2x Storm Bolter, 2x Meltagun, 1x SS
Drop Pod

As its the only Drop pod in my army, it always arrives first turn. using the IGS to best use I try to get as close to enemy tanks as possible. By Carefully disembarking, you can have the two librarians 2"+ away from the honour guard and each other, but still within 6" of the SP. This allows you to target 4 seperate units on the drop, each priest can target a different unit, the HG, and the SB on the Drop Pod. Usually I will fire the HG first, either at an infantry squad or at at a tank. If I feel I can do 25% damage to a unit, I hit the unit. The Drop Pod does the same. If successful at cause 25% casualties, I use a FoD on the unit, hoping to cause the unit to fall back immediately, if it does and you caused 25%, it auto0fails the casualty check, and falls back again. Hopefully completely off the board. Otherwise, I use the Blood Lances to hit as many Vehicles as possible. With a little luck, you can seriously wreck any Parking Lots on turn one. The TDA/SS as well as the FNP really make the Librarians a lot more survivable, but many times they make their points back on the very first turn, after that its all a bonus.

The Terminator Librarian is definitely a consideration, that and the small added bonus is if I win combat they automatically run away (more shoooting)

Ratbarf wrote:Personally? I would think prescience. If you're taking an epistoliary then definately divination as you can roll for two powers on the Div chart and then choose the worse of the two to give up for prescience. Sternguard with Prescience shooting at a misfortuned unit is really devastating.

Pretty sure you have to decide if you are keeping the power or not before you can roll for the next power. Rules state you roll one at a time picking what chart you roll on before each roll. So if you get a garbage power and default and roll the same garbage power again, your stuck with it.

I would really try to make it 10 Sternguard so that you can combat squad on deployment and shoot two different targets. 5 combi meltas and 3 combi flamers + 2 heavy flamers. This will cover a mech target and a horde target. Corbulo and the Librarian can still fit in the pod with them.

As for the Libby powers I would go with Fear the Darkness and Sanguine Sword. Why? Because any Libby shooting will not be needed with all those shots. Fear gives you a chance against targets farther away if you scatter and you are most likely dropping near the back board edge. At least you can target enemy units near their own back board edge. Make them make a morale check at -2 or run off the table. That means a 7 or less for marines or the whole unit is gone. Any shooting the Libby might give you will not wipe out the whole unit like a failed morale check at -2 will. The Sword is a good deterrent from the inevitable assault that happens when you drop a pod in the enemy lines. Overlords will think twice about charging in lest they get instant killed by the str 10 sword.

DarthDiggler wrote:I would really try to make it 10 Sternguard so that you can combat squad on deployment and shoot two different targets. 5 combi meltas and 3 combi flamers + 2 heavy flamers. This will cover a mech target and a horde target. Corbulo and the Librarian can still fit in the pod with them.

No, they can not. Only vanilla marine drop pods are big enough to do this. Look at the models next time you see a battle with both types of drop pod, you notice the clear difference in size.

If you want to ally in a vanilla libby with vanilla sternguard... then you could take 10 +a term libby, you could take Nullzone and Vortex of Doom or Gate of Ifinity