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Does anyone use dead barebones HQ's in a combat role with any success?

I am thinking like a Captain with the Primarch's Wrath in a group of Sternguard or a Jump Pack Chaplain with Assault Marines. Maybe a Captain on a bike with a powerfist or power weapon and some biker troops if you were to get fancy.

I know that a dead base Librarian is about as cheap as it gets, but is that one power going to be a bigger help than an HQ that can consistently mulch up weak/average units?

A captain with a power fist and combi weapon is a good candidate to tag along with sternguard. Theyll rarely assault anything, but he does make assaulting them a scarier prospect. 3 ws6 fist attacks isnt anything to write home about, but itll put in some work.

I like a bare bones chaplain (w/ jump pack) no frills.

I've run my captains light on gear, but always AA and some sort of CC toy. They do OK.

I've had some pretty good success running with a chaplain in terminator armor with some assault terminators out of a land raider. They pretty much slaughter almost anything they assault!

Remember the libby also gets a force weapon. If you make it an axe, 3 (4 on the charge) st5 ap2 attacks is a good bonus on his powers. Especially if you charge an MC, have extra marines to take the wounds and are able to activate force.

Low level games, a barebones libby can do wonders.

Biomancy can give you some surprising oomph (if you're going combat).

Of course, I'd argue the barebones libby is better suited for ranged support, but it's still useful (especially in low points games).


Barebones combat hqs can also be really effective depending on the army. Often fighting tau doesn't require a lot of bells and whistles for instance.

I think the problem is that C:sm needs its fancy stuff for to play well. Absolutely barebones captain/CM's are just scary in my opinion. You pay too many pts for one model to let him be ineffective or die that easily. For those guys AA is atleast a must and if he wants to be in CC he needs some bells and whistles to be worth his pts. A chainsword is not a weapon for a HQ to fight with. In contrast your libbys and chappys are just fine without upgrades. They shine due to their abilities and don't rely on their weapons as much. In retrospect it is bit ridiculous that both chaplains and libbys get stock power weapons and other abilities for less than a captain who is stuck with a chainsword. . . guess extra stats and the invul kinda makes up for it. Its pretty easy though if you just want a cheap HQ to fill the spot and keep plenty of pts for the rest of the army, leave the captains at home and I'm on the fence about a CM. His OB helps but not quite enough. Libbys and chaplains are loaded out better so you spend less.

I recently found two level one librarians to be insufficient. Psychic powers are so unreliable now there useless. If your opponent had any psychers of his own you'll never get off the powers you want. Because of this i would take librarians totally out of the equation. Personally id say take a captain. My second choice would be a MotF.

If you want a HQ that you don't need to plough points into, try a chaplain. Inbuilt power maul and 4++, a couple of very nice buffs, and much cheaper than a kitted Captain. The only downside is the lack of a 2+ save, but you can take TDA if you're worried.

Terminator Captain, combi-Melta, chainfist, and Storm sheild. Deep strike solo to cause mediocre chaos. For a half decent 131pts.

@unadoptedpuppy
Is that a legal combination of gear? Maybe in the DAs book?

I love the barebones Chaplain. (il give him an auspex and maybe melta bombs)

I use him with a unit in either a land raider or a drop pod, and get the most of the fearless and zealot rules that way. Plus his Crozius is enough to take care of some light infantry.

He's great for small point games coming in at less than 100 points.

I sometimes use a Captain in an ally force, but never bare bone; 3+/4++ T4 is not enough to suck up any weapon that's removely powerful, gets instant killed by even the humblest of krak missile for what in return; ATSKNF to a squad, WS6 and I5-which is wasted with AP- attacks.

Captain would require at least a 30-40 pts investement, if only to get him an artificer armour and a power weapon.

Never used a Chaplain, but from what others wrote, he seems a good investment since he comes with nice toys for a few lowered stats

 Red Marine wrote:
@unadoptedpuppy
Is that a legal combination of gear? Maybe in the DAs book?

Whoops! Yeah I messed something up in there. Ya'll get the idea, though. Sort of a lone wolf kinda guy that can deep strike in strange places and fend for himself...

Barebones captain is a waste of points. For similar numbers you can get an ML 2 Libby or one on bike and shoot the biomancy primaris.

Can always run the old standard AA & SS & RB.

Just don't engage terminators or mega nobz and you'll be fine.

So has anyone tried something like a Captain with a Primarch's Wrath stuck in with Sternguard or Tac Marines and sitting on a midfield objective?

Or maybe a TDA Captain with Primarch's Wrath to give him 2+/4++, a Power Sword, and 3/5 Relentless Shredding shots hitting on 2's and re-rolling a miss for being Master Crafted; all for 140pts?