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The plain old libby used to be my go-to unit when I needed a cheap utility HQ to buff my army. Powers like null-zone, gate of infinity or the avenger were no-brainer choices and it would almost always find itself useful.

Now what?

While I could easily ally with DA and bring in a libby with PFG and small scout squad for under 180pts, I'd like to avoid doing so. But which discipline to take? If you're looking for a support libby which of the primaris powers is a decent fail-safe?

While Tigurius is awesome and almost an auto-take in a UM army, I'm biased towards the IF CT as it fits my army better but I'm rather unsure what discipline I should go for.

Any advice/help appreciated.

If not Tigurius, I prefer Telepathy. A great Primaris, and Puppet master, Invisibility, Hallucination, and Terrify are all great.

Telepathy or Biomancy are usually going to be your go-tos, though this is largely dependent on what other units and selections are in your army. Generally speaking, your Librarian should also take the level 2 upgrade, which makes him much more formidable.

Depends what you want him to do. I plan on running a telekinesis Librarian with sternguard in a drop pod. While GoI is not guaranteed, there is still a chance to get it, and a lot of the other powers seem that they would work well.

But I think I'll be fielding him less for a bit.

i think you cant go wrong with Biomancy. my favorite combo is when you get enfeeble and hemmorage. the best power is Iron Arm, and the primaris is a ap2 assault 4 shooting attack.

im thinking of giving a libby the Burning Blade, with enfeeble or Iron Arm ur instakilling most stuff at initiative.

For my money? Telepathy. Telepathy is like a shallow grave on route 51. (Because I'm diggin' it!) Awesome stuff. Biomancy is pretty hot too, but you should always have a plan for your librarian if you don't get the powers you want. Having a backup deployment strategem if you get less than optimal powers is a very good idea.

So lets say you want to get Puppet Master and fail your roll.

Now, do you take the Prmaris power, and then roll again to try and get it (and subsequently get stuck with another power that you didn't want)? -- or try on a different table, where you have the option to get another Primaris/Power that you want?

I've never used the BRB powers so I want to see how people tend to roll for their powers and what they do when they fail to get the ones they want.

 NickTheButcher wrote:
So lets say you want to get Puppet Master and fail your roll.

Now, do you take the Prmaris power, and then roll again to try and get it (and subsequently get stuck with another power that you didn't want)? -- or try on a different table, where you have the option to get another Primaris/Power that you want?

I've never used the BRB powers so I want to see how people tend to roll for their powers and what they do when they fail to get the ones they want.

Depends on which power you rolled, number of decent powers in the discipline, and what enemy you are facing. I tend to always swap dominate from telepathy on my princes as it's useless 90% of the time. But for things like haemorrhage I will keep it even though its by far the most pointless power made, just to increase chance of iron arm. So to answer your question, it depends. My soft answer would be always keep for biomancy, and switch only telepathy rolls that will be useless (dominate, terrify vs non fearless armies, puppet master against no single model shooting unit).

xera32 wrote:

 NickTheButcher wrote:
So lets say you want to get Puppet Master and fail your roll.

Now, do you take the Prmaris power, and then roll again to try and get it (and subsequently get stuck with another power that you didn't want)? -- or try on a different table, where you have the option to get another Primaris/Power that you want?

I've never used the BRB powers so I want to see how people tend to roll for their powers and what they do when they fail to get the ones they want.

Depends on which power you rolled, number of decent powers in the discipline, and what enemy you are facing. I tend to always swap dominate from telepathy on my princes as it's useless 90% of the time. But for things like haemorrhage I will keep it even though its by far the most pointless power made, just to increase chance of iron arm. So to answer your question, it depends. My soft answer would be always keep for biomancy, and switch only telepathy rolls that will be useless (dominate, terrify vs non fearless armies, puppet master against no single model shooting unit).

Ah, but dominate is worth it's weight in gold 10% of the time, haha. (against other Daemons primarily)

It really depends on how important a single power on that tree is worth to you; so basically what the above poster said about Iron Arm, but really specific to any power. I like Invisibility a lot; thus I will often keep things I don't need just for the reroll

Thanks everyone for the good feedback! Will try my hand at biomancy and telepathy.

Let's not forget the often-maligned Pyromancy.

I plan on trying out a 5 man ASM squad with 2 flamers and an ML 1 Libby with the pyromancy sig spell (it's a heavy flamer with soul blaze) all in a drop pod (remove jump packs, of course). That should put the hurt on IG blobs, nids and orks

It's also super cheap- 95 points for the squad with pod and 65 for the libby.

May not be super competitive, but it's a noteworthy tactic.

I would think Divination would be good. The 4++ power would make Devastator Centurions pretty beast. Also, Perfect Timing on a squad of backfield Devastator LasCannons might be nice. Or just Prescience on some Scouts; BS3 ain't so crap when you're re-rolling.

Bio if your enemy has lots of tough things with good armor saves
Telepathy if they are lotsa fearless and/or lack psykers
Pyro if hordes and/or melta spam.

 RancidHate wrote:
I would think Divination would be good. The 4++ power would make Devastator Centurions pretty beast. Also, Perfect Timing on a squad of backfield Devastator LasCannons might be nice. Or just Prescience on some Scouts; BS3 ain't so crap when you're re-rolling.

The only marine in the codex who has access to divination is Tigurius.

Push for the BA codex and get cheap BA libbies with divination!

Martel732 wrote:
Push for the BA codex and get cheap BA libbies with divination!

By BA you mean DA, right?

Telepathy gets my vote, but really, libbies are no longer the auto-take they were in 5th, at least for vanilla SM. The fact that their powers are random and that all Primaris powers (save prescience, which he can't get) are spotty at best means you really can't build a strategy around them. The Captain is IMO the best generic HQ choice right now, Chapter Master a close second.

If you really want a libby, ally with DA so that you can get Divination.

I like to take one from biomancy and one from telepathy. Both have some good buffs and debuffs with ap2 or save ignoring primaris powers. Endurance is a great squad buff for relentless so those grav guns can move and fire at full effectiveness, iron arm, and warp speed are obvious because you have a force weapon and the others are just fun.

Psychic shriek can seriously hurt monstrous creatures if you roll well, dominate rarely works so I don't bother with it. Puppet master, terrify, invisibility are all great abilities (puppet master on a sun cannon equipped wraith knight is fun).

Out of those two disciplines there are 9 out of 12 random powers that will find some use in every game and a pair of decent primaris powers so you can't really go wrong.