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So far my lists have mostly been fun/fluffy, but I'm wondering what HQ you'd pick for a more competitive list. Right now I just run a standard, no upgrades librarian to save on points (the only thing cheaper is a base tech marine). I throw him with a command squad most times, two plasmas and an apothecary, all in a rhino. Any opinions on that so far? I've considered company masters, but putting anything on them, even just a power weapon, would put them above a fifth of my available points, making a good one costs over a quarter of them. If I go with an expensive company master, why not take ezekiel for the same price and have a level three psyker?

Basically, does a librarian suffice as an HQ, should he get upgrades, and is a company command squad too expensive? If he's not that good, what is the ideal alternative? The rest of my army for that is just three tac squads with whatever weapons I feel suffice, or swap one of those squads out for sniper scouts.

Librarian on a bike with a 5 man ravenwing command squad. At 500 pts you'll chew most things up.

In general, any army can be helped out by a Divination Librarian, so I say stay with him. A Company Master is decent, but you need at least arty armour and a power sword, so he's best saved for games where you have a few more points to play with.

The Company Command squad is similar; they can be great, but really need points thrown at them to be worth it.

librarian or company master, at 750pts any of the generic hq's isnt a bad idea, you could probably also make asmodai work, at around 750 - 1250 is the sweet spot for the dark angels codex. its where are army feels most at home. armies cant break out the counters to the things we could bring and our shortcomings arent as noticeabole as they could normally be.

the nephilim and dark talon may be carp with wings but at 1000 points i scarcely doubt anyone will have more than one or two units capable of nailing it reliably via skyfire, the odd rocket marine with flakk, the tau with a tracker on his riptide, or a couple of other isolated items. most armies will get one shot and if they miss it probably wont come around again for a long while.

the same can be said for asmodai or big zeke. exekiel normally is a lousy hq because he has no fnp or invul save, but at 900pts hes actually not the worst choice in the universe and he could proove to be very useful, asmodai would work wonders if you fight infantry heavy lists where he can sit behind a marine sgt and then just faceroll piles of infantry with his ID power sword. asmodai would work incredibly well at those kinds of brackets against a poorly built guardsmen list, militarum tempestus, or orks. their leaderships are poor and there arent many ways to gain fearless in those armies.

there are some other examples but imo thats our comfort zone, 1500 starts to stress that a little bit and anything beyond 1650 can turn pear shaped if you arent prepared for all manner of shickanery and willing to extract those models that are more fun than practical.

you could probably also make asmodai work,

OP: please ignore this unless unless making a fluffy list.

faceroll piles of infantry with his ID power sword

He does not have an ID powersword. He has an ID specialist melee weapon. That is quite a bit worse.

Best DA hq would be a librarian on a bike, possibly with PFG.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

you could probably also make asmodai work,

OP: please ignore this unless unless making a fluffy list.

faceroll piles of infantry with his ID power sword

He does not have an ID powersword. He has an ID specialist melee weapon. That is quite a bit worse.

Best DA hq would be a librarian on a bike, possibly with PFG.

it must be depressing never being able to have fun with a codex and army unless your running netlists and winning. Do you just leave after you lose at a tournament? Or do you remember to take your 40k stuff with you?

 ionusx wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

you could probably also make asmodai work,

OP: please ignore this unless unless making a fluffy list.

faceroll piles of infantry with his ID power sword

He does not have an ID powersword. He has an ID specialist melee weapon. That is quite a bit worse.

Best DA hq would be a librarian on a bike, possibly with PFG.

it must be depressing never being able to have fun with a codex and army unless your running netlists and winning. Do you just leave after you lose at a tournament? Or do you remember to take your 40k stuff with you?

The OP specifically stated that he wanted a competitive suggestion for his DA. You suggested Asmodai, who is certainly the worst special character in the book, and quite possibly the worst HQ choice of all options available, at least normal chaplains can take PFG/bike/meltabombs and be slightly useful.

Not only do you recommend the worst HQ in the book, but you also appear to not understand his rules. He does not have an ID powersword, in fact he does not have a sword at all.

So I think it is reasonable I tell the OP that your advice in this case is plain wrong.

OP: Personally I would recommend getting 2 boxes of black knights, making 5 of them into a ravenwing command squd, and the 6th one to convert your librarian onto a bike. The other competitive options is either sammael for ravenwing troops, or Azrael for RW and DW, and also fun with allies and 4++ saves.

Chaplain or Librarian.

Unfortunately, Asmodai is a terrible character, and only belongs in a fluffy list.