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Hi all
i was thinking about... it's better buy blood angels codex powers or roll for 6th edition rulebook powers?

i mean: a librarian got 2 power; most of lists will use Shield of Sanguinius and Blood Lance (or sometime Wings of Sanguinius or Fear the Darkness, it depends on the list)
however, 6th edition rulebook got a lot of interesting powers...
Divination, for example, got the everworking Prescience; but also Forewarning (a 4++ save to a single unit in 12") or also Perfect Timing could be useful against a cover-using army (ie not pa users )
Telepathy got Psychic Shriek that's very good against almost anything (save maybe vs necrons) and Puppet Master is a really good power [just yesterday i saw a SM librarian force a riptide shoot against his own army... ouch!]. Also Dominate is a good thing, better than Fear the Darkness

however, a big things about BA codex's powers is they follow a little different ruling: Forewarning 4++ is way better the SoS, but you can cast SoS in enemy's shooting phase and then in your still use another power (you got back your warp charge!)

so, in the end: it's better to use the 6th edition rulebook powers and hoping for a good power (and you can always choose for prescience/psychic shriek) or use maybe the only thing inthe codex that's still better than new edition?

Divination is too good, regular librarians gain so much more from divination powers

I used to think it was better to risk and roll. But since the BA powers are auto select and shield effectively turns him into a level 2 libby for free, I haven't selected rulebook for a while.
Most BA powers are meh. However the following are all worth considering:

Shield of sanguinius. A MUST if you want value for points. Means he gets to use 2 psychic powers a game turn whilst still being level 1. 5+ cover bubble when combined with fnp is pretty niffty too.

Fear of Darkness. Playing BA means the opponent tends to hang around his own board edge. It can wipe out a unit a turn without a shot being fired. I've taken 4 in an army (4 libbys), and it worked to great effect. Ineffective against crons. Utterly useless against nids.

Sanguine sword. Libby with a jp, force axe, and st10 ap2 attacks? Great vehicle hunter! If you upgrade him a level so he has an extra force point for his force weapon a great non character MC hunter too. Or run him in a full 10man assault squad with a powersword on the sarge and a priest with fist and the unit is pretty lethal to anything it comes across (sarge takes challenges)

Blood Lance. Its a hmmmm power. Not quite meh. But almost. Its nice to fire off an auto hitting lance shot, but rarely seems to pay off for me. Shooting against anything juicy and it still needs to pass a psychic test, dtw roll, get a 5+ (4+ glance) for pen on anythin av12+ and then roll on the pen chart to really do anything.

Wings of sanginius. Saves valuable points in a 500/600pt game. Would still rather be able to cast shield. Not meh though as it is brilliant on mephiston and librarian dreads.

Unleash rage. Prescience is better, and you can be guaranteed prescience. But you cannot be guaranteed what your second power will be from the brb (unless rolling on another chart). So if you want shield (or another BA power) for certain, then blood rage can almost make up for not having prescience, plus, rerolling ones to hit and wound is decent when you get enough bodies (attacks) into combat.

The rest are pure bollocks imo.

There are two schools of thought:
Blood Angels Librarians (as well as Dark Angels and Space Wolves I believe) have access to Divination where other SM players do not. This is a big boost to BA and DA and SW who struggle with pretty much everything else.

Blood Angels and Space Wolves Librarians can pick their powers. This will probably leave when they get their new codex, but for now it is possible to build lists (Fear Spam or Drop Pod Jaws for example) purely around a psychic power as you can choose that same power every game for each Librarian instead of depending on luck to make your strategy work.

As far as the best BA powers go, Fear of the Darkness is our best as long as the enemy isn't fearless. Against armies like Eldar and Tau, it is simply devastating and by far our best tool for combating such durable shooting unit so close to the board edge. Watching a Riptide and his attached commander jet off the board for First Blood and Slay the Warlord will give you a taste of sweet sweet Tautears

Behind that, SOS takes a special place. As you mentioned, because of it's wording, it makes your Psyker basically level 2 for free.

Blood Lance, being a beam that doesn't diminish in power, can be helpful but is usually outclassed by simply throwing more melta shots. It's not often that you see AV13 and 14 vehicles anyway. Ghost Arks and Imperial Knights but not much else

Unleash Rage can be awesome for an assault squad, sometimes even better than prescience as it gives you rerolls on 1s of hits AND wounds so against the majority of enemies with WS4 or less, you'll get more rerolls than you would with Prescience letting you reroll all missed hits.

And finally taking a Librarian in Terminator Armor with Wings and Sword of Sanguinius gives you a character hunter that can tank hits for your assault squad like a boss. Still no Mephiston buuuuuut...

Mephiston you always want to take the Codex powers unless of course you are a troll and want a single model to destroy your opponents entire army. Then you put him in a Stormraven by himself and roll all three of his powers on Biomancy. You charge out of that SR with 8 or 9 Str 8 Init 8 attacks on a T7 8 or 9 character with FNP/IWND and Transfixing gaze letting him reroll hits AND wounds in challenges. Then you laugh maniacally.

As much as we love Librarians our codex powers are not really "the only thing that makes us better than other codices". Really they don't make us any better. What makes us better would be Fast Vindicators, Predators, Baal Predators and Razorbacks, and our kick ass Furioso Dreadnought which can be a Librarian (the only Libby in a force org slot other than HQ and it's an AV13 vehicle) or mulch infantry with frag cannons and blood talons or reel in vehicles with the magna grapple and melta gun and then punch the gak out of anything left with two blood fists. The problem of course with all of this is that vehicles are pretty much awful in 6th edition. With the addition of hull points, even AV13 vehicles will die in one round of shooting to anything STR 7 or higher.

Our Death Company and Vanguard Veterans would make us much better melee combatants but their cost is too exorbitant to consider them "better" and Sanguinary Guard come in too small of units for too high of a cost with not enough durability to make a difference. The codex is not dead as everyone likes to think it is. There's still good stuff in it. 6th edition rules are just not conducive to a competitive Blood Angels army.

Glad to see we pretty much agree on everything bocatt ;-). The reason I place prescience higher is that it can be used for range.

 bocatt wrote:
Mephiston you always want to take the Codex powers unless of course you are a troll and want a single model to destroy your opponents entire army. Then you put him in a Stormraven by himself and roll all three of his powers on Biomancy. You charge out of that SR with 8 or 9 Str 8 Init 8 attacks on a T7 8 or 9 character with FNP/IWND and Transfixing gaze letting him reroll hits AND wounds in challenges. Then you laugh maniacally.

About that... Divination has a few amusing powers too. Precognition and Forewarning is a pretty hilarious combo for Mephiston.