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I'm looking for someone to lead my death company and I've decided these 2 are great. The options im debating between is lemartes with 5 jump pack DC or Tycho with 5 DC in a rhino.

2 completly different tactics i know but i just cant decide which is best. I'll also be running a blender dread but not in a drop pod so it will be following the unit i decide on.

Jump pack DC are very pricey and don't always make up the points. The same is extra true for Lemartes. Keep in mind that you can lose 400 points or more in one single shot from an IG Russ battle cannon. I had this happen actually when my DC infernis pistol failed to hit point blank on a Russ battle tank ....just awful luck.

Tycho is a bit more versatile (still really pricey)


As it happens, I've run both the builds you are asking about. The jump DC can do well but they must first survive long enough to assault.

Personally, I would just take a larger death company on foot and stick them in a LRC with Tycho OR a regular Chaplain.

Best of Luck!

Regular Tycho? He's awfully expensive for no real upside.

Hence the option to replace him with a chaplain. Crazy_d said he might want to use him, so I thought that might be the safest way.

I have a love/hate relationship with Tycho. He does well if well protected. I usually lost him to embarrassingly bad save rolls.

Honestly I don't often take either of them with my DC. Regular Tycho is great with Sternguard, but DC Tycho isn't an IC so he can't join the DC squad anyways. Lemartes can be pretty good but he only makes sense if the whole squad has jump packs, which increases his real cost quite a bit.

I would go with either a Reclusiarch or a Chaplain. Of course, the option of not having a leader and just using those points to add more DC marines is a viable one.

I have a mech BA. Ok so I use both maybe not wise, but so far had good luck at 1500 points. I have Lemartes with a 8 man death company with thunderhammer and powerfist. It is about 495 for all that. And yes I have cried when they get wiped out . I do want to say protect the thunderhammer and bad things can happen to your opponent. Tycho I throw in the rhino with an assault squad and sit at an objective. I just soften them up with vindicator, razor with lascannon, and death company. That is my 2 cents. Tycho gets the nice special ammo and so on. So for 175 not bad compare to regular SM captain.

Orblivion wrote:
Honestly I don't often take either of them with my DC. Regular Tycho is great with Sternguard, but DC Tycho isn't an IC so he can't join the DC squad anyways.

This. Bottom line is, there is unfortunately no reason/allowance to run Tycho with DC.
In smaller games I like to take a Reclusiarch to go with, just to fill out the HQ slot - that lets me take more basic units to fill up the numbers that the expensive DC can otherwise stop you from taking.

I think DC tycho cannot join a unit - he's a unit of one isn't he?

Vanhammer_Bard wrote:
I think DC tycho cannot join a unit - he's a unit of one isn't he?

Correct.

I don't think either is a great choice- Lemartes can be a beatstick, but it's going to be very difficult for a jump pack DC to make back its points; you can get far better damage output for the points elsewhere. On paper that unit is scary as Hell, but in practice it's just not as effective as alternate options. Ultimately, it's like a deathstar-lite: it'll get beaten by real deathstars, but won't really kill standard infantry much faster than the same number of assault marines + autocannon support, which will have the same cost and have greater utility.

And DC Tycho just sucks.

Tycho is good for a list with sternguard. In fact, he's in my drop pod/jumper list. Tycho is a rare source of init 5 attacks that outright ignore armor. Granted, TH/SS terminators still smush him, but he's legit against a surprising number of foes.

Lemartes just overpriced, like all the other DC tricks.