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Question is: Death Masks, Yay or Nay?

Death Masks if you didn't already know work like this, when your/their sanguinary guard charge an enemy they must pass a leadership test or the enemy goes down to WS 1 for the remainder of that phase.
when i first saw this (btw i am still learning oh so much of 40k rules) i was like OooooooOOOooooo that sounds good, i mean what noob wouldn't?
So i took to the dice like i always do now, and gave it a try... much to my displeasure with or without the difference was minimal; at best!
Going from a 3/4/5+ to hit to 3+ to hit always didn't change much at all, infact when i did read it again and realise it was only for the charge i was like "Ewww!" lol.

So what's your take on the death marks? is it worth the 25 points for the unit of 5?
I'm currently thinking no atm.. i could spend that 25 points on a couple more infernus pistols in another unit.

Sorry about the wall of text.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not yet had any feedback :(
Sad Panda

Whilst I'm not a Blood Angels player, Eldar get something similar for Banshees, but it only costs 1/5th of what it costs BA players.
Even considering the discount, I've never been all that impressed with it on the aformentioned Banshees. As you mentioned, it's only on the charge and most (i.e. not Gretchin) enemies will pass anyways. I take it because it's cheap and there's not much in an Eldar army you can fill corners with.
The only thing I would mention in it's favour in your case is that your elite, shiny, feathery vampires are only WS4. Whether it's worth the cost is up to you.

I would guess it matters on what army you are facing.
If your planning to be running through squads of guardmen, you already have a weaponskill advantage to hit on a 3+
(I think)

However you might see more benefit when fighting enemys like chaos, especialy their elite mele troops.

Really useful when you charge in with another cc unit like Death Company. I have been in games where they are used to great affect by a skilled player.

Otherwise, they don't have much of an impact when it's just Sanguinary Guard. You just don't get enough of these guys to really benefit from the WS1.

Ok so the verdict was pretty much the same from you guys too, that makes me happy.
I'll be running them along side a death company dreadnought anyway so i shouldnt need the WS1 to take out a whole unit.

Holistically I would say epic waste of points, unless you face a ton of horde armies.

Thanks
Yeah i do think ill just leave them out, tbh i am sort of glad for that too, i hate the look of the deathmasks, i would much prefer to cut them up and use them as rubble in my terrain pieces.... yeah you heard me!

I don't really care for it too much because its usefulness varies a lot depending on who you are fighting. Against a group of LD6 Hormagaunts, yea it can be nice but against any MEQ, necrons, LD8+ characters, it just isn't something you can consistently rely on.

For 5 more points you get get a banner to increase your attacks by 1. For 5 points less you can get two upgrades for the unit like a powerfist, plasma pistol, or infernus pistol. Items that you can rely on completely.

I personally wouldn't bother with it. The main problem is, a lot of things are going to be LD8 at the lowest (assuming there's a sergeant with +1 LD in the squad). Tyranids have a bunch of things that are relatively low LD (6s and 5s) and there a handful of thing sprinkled throughout the other armies that drop below 7, but overall I think you're going to find that the LD check gets passed anyway. Considering that a full half of the armies out there (Marines) are LD8 across the board, another four are almost universally 9 and 10 (Chaos, Daemons, Necrons, Orks - considering Mob Rule) it's really only something that's useful occasionally.