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Now that I've got my hands on the new Space Marine book (and while people wait for me to finish the more detailed Chapter Creator I'm working on), I decided to get this community project going.

Simply put while most chapters can be fit into the book's current Chapter Tactics there are some chapters out there which cannot be accurately represented with the Chapter Tactics the book currently provides. This community project (which will eventually had a nice, shiny PDF) is being created to give a wider variety of chapter tactics for chapters which do not follow the tenants of those current allowed in Codex: Space Marines.

Just a few rules before I get the ball rolling:
1) No "road blocking." If you don't like or fancy an idea/rule or think an idea/rule is flawed or broken, please offer a reason why and attempt to offer a suggestion to fix the issue.
2) No asking why I am starting this project or why it exists, it isn't constructive and tends to derail threads.
3) Please keep all replies constructive, civil, and as helpful as you can.
4) Please note that this is for Chapters whose tactics greatly deviate from one another. If a chapter's tactics can easily be represented by an already established set of Chapter Tactics (whether from Codex: Space Marines or this Index Astartes project) than there is little-to-no reason to give them their own Chapter Tactics.
5) Established (official GW/Forge World) chapters only please. While I think it's great that players want their homebrew chapters to have their own specific Chapter Tactics I don't think this is the appropriate place to accommodate that (at least for now, once we get a good cross section of Chapter Tactics we could definitely open the table up to getting your own Chapter Tactics balanced and into the project).
5) Each Chapter Tactics entry should only have two traits and everything within each trait must relate and make sense (the two traits can be different in their own right, but any rules within a single trait must make sense together).
6) No Force Organization shuffling. Making units scoring or allowing armies to take a few ICs as a single HQ choice is okay.
7) Playtesting and reports of playtesting using the Chapter Tactics found here are not only welcomed but encouraged. We want to make sure that no Chapter Tactics are "no brainer" choices or which have rules which are simply broken, able to be abused in bad ways, or Chapter Tactics which are simply underwhelming when compared to others.

UPDATES


Alright, now that that's out of the way let's get onto the meat and gravy of the Index Astartes project: the new Chapter Tactics.



BLOOD ANGELS



BLOOD RAVENS



DARK ANGELS

At first glance, it all looks fairly reasonable and in general line with how I wish all the marine codices would be represented in a single book.

The problem with the Carcharodons is that it basically invalidates Tyberos, seeing as the chapter tactics are nearly identical to what Tyberos does to an army anyways. I mean, its exactly how they should be, I'd just hope you have something in the back of your head to give Tyberos a little extra flair other than his ballin claws and making one lightning claw termie unit a troop choice.

Why do blood ravens have infiltrate?

 Blacksails wrote:
At first glance, it all looks fairly reasonable and in general line with how I wish all the marine codices would be represented in a single book.

The problem with the Carcharodons is that it basically invalidates Tyberos, seeing as the chapter tactics are nearly identical to what Tyberos does to an army anyways. I mean, its exactly how they should be, I'd just hope you have something in the back of your head to give Tyberos a little extra flair other than his ballin claws and making one lightning claw termie unit a troop choice.

This is something that happens a fair amount with Forge World books when new books are released. Old units or characters tend to become underpowered or invalidated through the new rules.

Sadly I haven't heard anything from either GW or Forge World as to how Forge World units with Chapter Tactics even work anymore. Are they still treated as Chapter Tactics as per the new rules or are those Chapter Tactics now invalid due to the way the new Codex and it's special rules are structured? If their Chapter Tactics still apply then I'd be more than happy to taking suggestions for adding these Special Characters into the project or even just adding snippets in as replacements for what was formerly their Chapter Tactics. However, if the new Codex has indeed invalidated Special Character Chapter Tactics than I think that's a problem Forge World is going to have to fix themselves sadly.

 Formosa wrote:
Why do blood ravens have infiltrate?

Blood Ravens had Infiltrate back in the 4th Edition rules. This is explained due to how the Blood Ravens commit to battles. Using a combination of their Librarians to divine the enemy's plan and researching their enemy greatly before battle, the Blood Ravens are able to adapt to the enemy far better than most chapters and are able to anticipate enemy positions and adjust accordingly. This methodical approach to engaging enemies instead of just hurling themselves at the enemy with the Codex Astartes as their guide has put them at odds with other forces of the Imperium, particularly other Space Marine forces who view the Blood Ravens reserved and tactical approach to combat as cowardice.

I remember Blood Angels from my starter days in 40k back in 3rd Edition... wasn't the Red Thirst a hindrance as well as an asset?

Instead of simply making 1/6 your army furious charge and fearless for no downside, I reckon give them something akin to Mad Dok Grotsnik's special rule "One Scalpel short of a Medpack" where he must simply mindlessly charge at the nearest foe every turn.

Descent of Angels is mad overpowered IMO. Deep Strike is suppost to have like, risks associated with it, and now it simply doesn't for your entire army.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I remember Blood Angels from my starter days in 40k back in 3rd Edition... wasn't the Red Thirst a hindrance as well as an asset?

Instead of simply making 1/6 your army furious charge and fearless for no downside, I reckon give them something akin to Mad Dok Grotsnik's special rule "One Scalpel short of a Medpack" where he must simply mindlessly charge at the nearest foe every turn.

Descent of Angels is mad overpowered IMO. Deep Strike is suppost to have like, risks associated with it, and now it simply doesn't for your entire army.

Both of the Blood Angels rules were taken directly from Codex: Blood Angels (5th Edition) and both are the Blood Angels army-wide special rules. :(

Bit of an edit: That would mean that the entire Blood Angels Codex is OP. When Blood Angels are redone next year if these rules change I'd be happy to change the rules here, but for now I fear that if I change said rules people will cry fowl that the rules aren't as good as the rules they are based on in the Blood Angels codex. Also the Descent of Angels special rule clearly states that only Jump infantry and Drop Pods gain access to the rule, all other units who have Deep Strike will scatter normally.

The Blood Angels book isn't particularly overpowered, and neither is the chapter trait you have presented here.

I am pleased that you managed to avoid making the obvious "STEHL REHN" or Kleptomania joke with the Blood Ravens.

What do you think should be the chapter trait of the Minotaurs?

 Kain wrote:


What do you think should be the chapter trait of the Minotaurs?

As a suggestion, I'd make them allies of Connivence with Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, Grey Knights and Salamanders.

The minotaurs would definatly be using Prefered enemy: Space marines as their chapter tactic nad maybe a rule concerning their ample supply of wargear, maybe rhino-based tanks in squadrons of 1-3


Why the AoC with those chapters, the Minotaurs should be AoC with UM but I don't think I've read about them being on a bad footing with wolves or salamanders, in fact in the Badab war part two there is a long text with the Salamanders and Minotaurs fighting together on Shaprias

 Dantioch wrote:
The minotaurs would definatly be using Prefered enemy: Space marines as their chapter tactic nad maybe a rule concerning their ample supply of wargear, maybe rhino-based tanks in squadrons of 1-3


Why the AoC with those chapters, the Minotaurs should be AoC with UM but I don't think I've read about them being on a bad footing with wolves or salamanders, in fact in the Badab war part two there is a long text with the Salamanders and Minotaurs fighting together on Shaprias

The Minotaurs have a reputation for being incredibly brutal, with no real care for civilian casualties or any form of collateral damage. A polar opposite to the Imperial Fists and Salamanders. The Space Wolves part is mainly due to the Minotaurs having close connections to the high lords of Terra, who I doubt have many good things to say about the Space Wolves.

Imperial fists and Salamander might not agree with the minotaur's way of war but in the end they are all still space marines and the protection of humanity is way more important than the methods of protection. Look at the relationship between DA and wolves they are allies of conveniance and they have been arguing with eachother for 10 000 years, that could merit an alliance of conveniance not some detail on how the enemies of the emperor is killed, Iron hands and black templars are just as, if not more heavyhanded in punishing civilians and ou aren't complaining about their alliances. However the minotaurs are still brutal and like to work by themselves so AoC might be justified when working with the IG and should be used when allying with ultramarines since the ultramarines and most of their founding chapters actually refuse to fight with the Minotaurs after the Macharian heresy.

How does this sound?


MINOTAURS
Attack Dogs: Models in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Hatred and Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) special rules. They are Allies of Convenience with any Imperial Guard or Space Marines detachments and any Imperial Guard or Space Marines taking Minotaurs as allies treat them as Allies of Convenience. In this instance, Space Marines includes any units from the following codecies: Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Marines, and Space Wolves.

Shield Wall: Any model equipped with a storm shield that is in base contact with two or more models whom are also equipped with storm shields have +1 Toughness. In addition, any Terminator Assault Squad upgraded to have thunder hammers and storm shields may replace their thunder hammers for relic blades at no additional points cost.

 Marik Law wrote:
How does this sound?


MINOTAURS
Attack Dogs: Models in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Hatred and Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) special rules. They are Allies of Convenience with any Imperial Guard or Space Marines detachments and any Imperial Guard or Space Marines taking Minotaurs as allies treat them as Allies of Convenience. In this instance, Space Marines includes any units from the following codecies: Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Marines, and Space Wolves.

Shield Wall: Any model equipped with a storm shield that is in base contact with two or more models whom are also equipped with storm shields have +1 Toughness. In addition, any Terminator Assault Squad upgraded to have thunder hammers and storm shields may replace their thunder hammers for relic blades at no additional points cost.

How about this for the second one;

Entombed Relics: Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts may be taken as Elites or Heavy Support choices.

 Dinamarth wrote:

 Marik Law wrote:
How does this sound?


MINOTAURS
Attack Dogs: Models in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Hatred and Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) special rules. They are Allies of Convenience with any Imperial Guard or Space Marines detachments and any Imperial Guard or Space Marines taking Minotaurs as allies treat them as Allies of Convenience. In this instance, Space Marines includes any units from the following codecies: Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Marines, and Space Wolves.

Shield Wall: Any model equipped with a storm shield that is in base contact with two or more models whom are also equipped with storm shields have +1 Toughness. In addition, any Terminator Assault Squad upgraded to have thunder hammers and storm shields may replace their thunder hammers for relic blades at no additional points cost.

How about this for the second one;

Entombed Relics: Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts may be taken as Elites or Heavy Support choices.

Sounds good but the only problem I can see with it is requiring/based on a Forge World unit. :(

Or, since they have lots of terminators, normal terminator squads can be taken as Heavy support rather than Elites. Assault terminators would still be elites.

While it looks mostly ok, the Blood Ravens is horribly overpowered.

Army-wide infiltrate is easy gate to abuse, and divination-able librarian spam unlock is also incredibly powerful.

Now, if you could infiltrate one unit per librarian (may the libby himself and an attached unit?), then it would be more sane, and will also promote their "mass librarians" nature, as just a single one won't be enough.


Yes, I know its "limited to non-bulky units", but once you got infiltration, and considering it transfferes into transports, do you really need more then tactical, sternguard and devastators? the easy positioning of them all will allow you an assured turn 1 superpreassure setup, and with rhino support, to get into double-tap ranges with them all.


On a funny note, Raven Guard brake rule 6 XD

Well for BR, they regularly promote psykers to positions outside the Librarium, like Captain and Sergeant and even CM.

Why not allow BR tactics to upgrade a character to a psyker Lvl 1 for a certain number of points and gain a force weapon. Powers would be randomised. And no swapping to the Primaris power.

D6 roll of
1- No Power, just the force weapon.
2- Biomancy
3- Divination
4- Pyromancy
5- Telepathy
6- Telekinesis

This would be really fluffy but cost some pointage and risk you not having any useful power. Maybe +25 for Sergeants, 30 for Veteran Sergeants and Terminator Sergeants and 35pts for Captains.

 Dantioch wrote:
Or, since they have lots of terminators, normal terminator squads can be taken as Heavy support rather than Elites. Assault terminators would still be elites.

As I stated in my original post, I want to avoid force organization shuffling for these Chapter Traits. Force org shuffling is sadly just far too able to be abused without army-wide balancing. :(

BoomWolf wrote:While it looks mostly ok, the Blood Ravens is horribly overpowered.

Army-wide infiltrate is easy gate to abuse, and divination-able librarian spam unlock is also incredibly powerful.

Now, if you could infiltrate one unit per librarian (may the libby himself and an attached unit?), then it would be more sane, and will also promote their "mass librarians" nature, as just a single one won't be enough.


Yes, I know its "limited to non-bulky units", but once you got infiltration, and considering it transfferes into transports, do you really need more then tactical, sternguard and devastators? the easy positioning of them all will allow you an assured turn 1 superpreassure setup, and with rhino support, to get into double-tap ranges with them all.


On a funny note, Raven Guard brake rule 6 XD

Squads that take dedicated transports cannot benefit from Infiltrate, says that right after the Bulky/Very Bulky units part. Also because Vehicles do not have the Chapter Tactics special rule they do not benefit from this Infiltrate rule either (so no infiltrating Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, etc). So essentially the only units allowed to use Infiltrate in these circumstances are HQ units without bikes or jump packs, Sternguard Veterans, Vanguard Veterans without jump packs, Tactical Squads, Scout Squads, and Devastator Squads so long as none of the aforementioned units has a dedicated transport.

The rules in Codex: Space Marines make it clear that, unless otherwise noted, only units with the Chapter Tactics special rule are effected by Chapter Tactics.

Deadshot wrote:Well for BR, they regularly promote psykers to positions outside the Librarium, like Captain and Sergeant and even CM.

Why not allow BR tactics to upgrade a character to a psyker Lvl 1 for a certain number of points and gain a force weapon. Powers would be randomised. And no swapping to the Primaris power.

D6 roll of
1- No Power, just the force weapon.
2- Biomancy
3- Divination
4- Pyromancy
5- Telepathy
6- Telekinesis

This would be really fluffy but cost some pointage and risk you not having any useful power. Maybe +25 for Sergeants, 30 for Veteran Sergeants and Terminator Sergeants and 35pts for Captains.

Interesting idea, though I don't think the randomization fits (I've always felt randomization in 40k is more of a Chaos trait than anything else). Another major problem is highlighted in your last paragraph: why risk the points upgrade for getting a Psyker who may end up with an underpowered, or useless, Primaris Power? However, other than those issues, it's a very good idea and one that, with a bit of fine tuning, will work great as one of the Blood Ravens chapter traits.

Ok, missed the transports writing, but infiltrate is way too strong even if "just" stenguard, tactical, devastators and HQs, at least without some strings attached.

 Marik Law wrote:

 Dantioch wrote:
Or, since they have lots of terminators, normal terminator squads can be taken as Heavy support rather than Elites. Assault terminators would still be elites.

As I stated in my original post, I want to avoid force organization shuffling for these Chapter Traits. Force org shuffling is sadly just far too able to be abused without army-wide balancing. :(

BoomWolf wrote:While it looks mostly ok, the Blood Ravens is horribly overpowered.

Army-wide infiltrate is easy gate to abuse, and divination-able librarian spam unlock is also incredibly powerful.

Now, if you could infiltrate one unit per librarian (may the libby himself and an attached unit?), then it would be more sane, and will also promote their "mass librarians" nature, as just a single one won't be enough.


Yes, I know its "limited to non-bulky units", but once you got infiltration, and considering it transfferes into transports, do you really need more then tactical, sternguard and devastators? the easy positioning of them all will allow you an assured turn 1 superpreassure setup, and with rhino support, to get into double-tap ranges with them all.


On a funny note, Raven Guard brake rule 6 XD

Squads that take dedicated transports cannot benefit from Infiltrate, says that right after the Bulky/Very Bulky units part. Also because Vehicles do not have the Chapter Tactics special rule they do not benefit from this Infiltrate rule either (so no infiltrating Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, etc). So essentially the only units allowed to use Infiltrate in these circumstances are HQ units without bikes or jump packs, Sternguard Veterans, Vanguard Veterans without jump packs, Tactical Squads, Scout Squads, and Devastator Squads so long as none of the aforementioned units has a dedicated transport.

The rules in Codex: Space Marines make it clear that, unless otherwise noted, only units with the Chapter Tactics special rule are effected by Chapter Tactics.

Deadshot wrote:Well for BR, they regularly promote psykers to positions outside the Librarium, like Captain and Sergeant and even CM.

Why not allow BR tactics to upgrade a character to a psyker Lvl 1 for a certain number of points and gain a force weapon. Powers would be randomised. And no swapping to the Primaris power.

D6 roll of
1- No Power, just the force weapon.
2- Biomancy
3- Divination
4- Pyromancy
5- Telepathy
6- Telekinesis

This would be really fluffy but cost some pointage and risk you not having any useful power. Maybe +25 for Sergeants, 30 for Veteran Sergeants and Terminator Sergeants and 35pts for Captains.

Interesting idea, though I don't think the randomization fits (I've always felt randomization in 40k is more of a Chaos trait than anything else). Another major problem is highlighted in your last paragraph: why risk the points upgrade for getting a Psyker who may end up with an underpowered, or useless, Primaris Power? However, other than those issues, it's a very good idea and one that, with a bit of fine tuning, will work great as one of the Blood Ravens chapter traits.

Its that they can't swap to the Primaris at all. The intention of the randomisation would be to stop Prescience spam but I made an oversight. Just prevent Primaris swapping and it'd work the way I intended I think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Blood Ravens V1.1

Any Sergeant, Veteran or Terminator Sergeant and Captain in an army using the Blood Ravens traits may be upgraded to a psyker (ML 1) for an additional 25, 30 or 35pts respectively, replacing a weapon with a force weapon. The psyker may not swap to the Primaris power when rolling for psychic powers. This trait also unlocks Chracters with the Blood Raven's Chapter Trait (like Gabriel Angelos, in case someone wants to have a go).

BoomWolf wrote:Ok, missed the transports writing, but infiltrate is way too strong even if "just" stenguard, tactical, devastators and HQs, at least without some strings attached.

Hmm, I just wait to avoid them just copy-pasting the Mantis Warriors. Perhaps instead of Infiltrate, give the army Preferred Enemy instead?

Deadshot wrote:Any Sergeant, Veteran or Terminator Sergeant and Captain in an army using the Blood Ravens traits may be upgraded to a psyker (ML 1) for an additional 25, 30 or 35pts respectively, replacing a weapon with a force weapon. The psyker may not swap to the Primaris power when rolling for psychic powers. This trait also unlocks Chracters with the Blood Raven's Chapter Trait (like Gabriel Angelos, in case someone wants to have a go).

I think the easiest way to prevent abuse of Prescience is to keep the wording the way it is, so that only Librarians in the chapter can select from Divination, and wording the other characters with the Psyker special rule as just having the standard Marine range of powers?

UPDATE
How does this sound?

BLOOD RAVENS
Know Your Enemy: Units in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Preferred Enemy special rule. Allied detachments using the Blood Ravens Chapter Tactics must be held in Reserves, even in missions which typically do not use Reserves.

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well: You may take up to three Librarians as a single HQ choice in this detachment. Librarians in this detachment have access to the Divination discipline in addition to the normal disciplines available to Space Marine Librarians.

In addition, any Chapter Masters, Captains, and/or Terminator Captains in this detachment may replace their Melee weapon for a Force weapon, be equipped with a psychic hood, and be upgraded to have the Psyker (Mastery Level 1) special rule for 40 points. Chapter Masters, Captains, and Terminators upgraded in this fashion generate their powers from the Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy disciplines.

While I don't think that's overpowered it feels odd compared to the new books approach. None of the chapter tactics alter your army list selection in and of themselves (aside from the kludgy inclusion of cusader squads for black templars) or cost points.

Perhaps something like so:

Any character with a power weapon may upgrade to a force weapon for free, if chosen they also change to type Psyker (ML1) but do not roll any powers.

P.S. thinking about this really made it feel to me as if the Black Templars were a late addition to this writing of the rules

Its not quite what I was going for. Firstly I don't think Chapter Masters should be included as BR Masters are usually Chief Librarian too if they are a psyker, so ML1 is kinda wrong for them.

2nd I didn't want to include a psychic hood to keep pts down on the upgrade and wanted Sergeants in there too. Even just Terminator and Veteran Sergeants if nessecary.

 Deadshot wrote:
Its not quite what I was going for. Firstly I don't think Chapter Masters should be included as BR Masters are usually Chief Librarian too if they are a psyker, so ML1 is kinda wrong for them.

2nd I didn't want to include a psychic hood to keep pts down on the upgrade and wanted Sergeants in there too. Even just Terminator and Veteran Sergeants if nessecary.

I think the easiest solution was my original methodology of just allowing Blood Ravens to take 3-5 Librarians as a single HQ choice. Iyaanden is allowed to take 5 Spiritseers as a single HQ, so its not horribly unbalanced to allow the BRs to take three to five as a single HQ, plus it would reflect the lore accurately that the chapter has a far greater number of Librarians than is typical for a Space Marine chapter.

The problem I see with allowing that many units, such as Captains, Sergeants, etc, to be upgraded to Psykers is you have far, far more psychic powers to keep track of and if there is a randomization element to their Psychic Powers is just bogs games down even more. Another problem with the randomized Psychic Powers is that upgraded unit characters I feel will be taken out of a desire to abuse mass Force Weapons instead of taking them for their intended fluffy purposes due to the unreliability of their psychic powers (six 5-man Tactical Squads mounted in rhinos, razorbacks, or drop pods and rushed into close combat).

 Marik Law wrote:

The problem I see with allowing that many units, such as Captains, Sergeants, etc, to be upgraded to Psykers is you have far, far more psychic powers to keep track of and if there is a randomization element to their Psychic Powers is just bogs games down even more.

This was only a problem before Chaos Daemons. You can't beat that codex with some random Librarian upgrades on characters . I'm actually like the Psyker upgrades for characters with random psychic powers. 3-5 Librarians w/ Divination per HQ slot can spin out of control very quickly.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Marik Law wrote:

The problem I see with allowing that many units, such as Captains, Sergeants, etc, to be upgraded to Psykers is you have far, far more psychic powers to keep track of and if there is a randomization element to their Psychic Powers is just bogs games down even more.

This was only a problem before Chaos Daemons. You can't beat that codex with some random Librarian upgrades on characters . I'm actually like the Psyker upgrades for characters with random psychic powers. 3-5 Librarians w/ Divination per HQ slot can spin out of control very quickly.

I think the easiest solution for that would to simply remove the ability to take the Divination discipline if you can take 3+ Librarians as a single HQ choice.

One of the problems I'm having with the Sergeant upgrades is nowhere in the lore does it state that Tactical Squads regularly replace Sergeants with Librarians, or even suggest that such squads are altered to accommodate Psykers or Librarians. From a lore point-of-view it just states that they have a far greater number of Librarians attached to each Company, that the First Company contains an entire squad of Librarians (that are only deployed in very dire or special circumstances), that Librarians sometimes act as Captains, and that usually the title of Chapter Master is both the Chapter Master and the Master of the Librarium of the chapter. To me this would definitely justify a new unit type (Ordo Psykana Librarian) and maybe, in separate rules, a new Apocalypse unit consisting of 10 Librarians.


BLOOD RAVENS
Know Your Enemy: So long as this detachment includes at least one Librarian or Ordo Psykana Librarian, units in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Preferred Enemy special rule. Allied detachments using the Blood Ravens Chapter Tactics must be held in Reserves, even in missions which typically do not use Reserves.

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well: You may take up to five Librarians as a single HQ choice in this detachment. In addition, Blood Ravens have access to the Ordo Psykana Librarian unit.

ORDO PSYKANA LIBRARIAN
110 Points
Ordo Psykana Librarians are HQ choices. Note that you may not take more than one Ordo Psykana Librarian as a single HQ choice.

WS 5, BS 5, S 4, T 4, W 3, I 5, A 3, Ld 10, Sv 3+
WARGEAR: Power armour, bolt pistol, force weapon, frag grenades, krak grenades, psychic hood.

SPECIAL RULES: And They Shall Know No Fear, Chapter Tactics, Independent Character, Psyker (Mastery Level 2)

PSYKER: Ordo Psykana Librarians generate their powers from the Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy disciplines.

OPTIONS:
* May be upgraded to Psyker (Mastery Level 3) ..............................25 pts
* May replace bolt pistol with a boltgun ..............................free
* May replace power armour with artificer armour ..............................20 pts
* An Ordo Psykana Librarian in power armour or artificer armour may take items from the Ranged Weapons, Special Issue Wargear and/or Chapter Relics lists.
* An Ordo Psykana Librarian may replace his power armour, bolt pistol, and frag and krak grenades with Terminator armour ..............................25 pts
** An Ordo Psykana Librarian in Terminator armour may only take items from the Special Issue Wargear and/or Chapter Relics lists.
** An Ordo Psykana Librarian in Terminator armour may take one of the following:
**** Storm bolter ..............................5 pts
**** Combi-flamer, -melta or -plasma ..............................10 pts
**** Storm shield ..............................10 pts

What is the benefit of the Mantis Warrior's getting sternguard with sniper rifles? Doesn't that just make them really expensive snipers? Or do they get special ammo?

 pretre wrote:
What is the benefit of the Mantis Warrior's getting sternguard with sniper rifles? Doesn't that just make them really expensive snipers? Or do they get special ammo?

The benefit is you can have a unit with Stealth, power armour, sniper rifles, and the upgrade option for camo cloaks. The rule wasn't designed to be an uber-upgrade unit, it was designed to give the Mantis Warriors their Tranquility Sniper units as depicted and described from the lore. I did it in this fashion because I wanted to prevent any Chapter Tactics from being "no brainer" choices and be in-line with the ones in Codex Space Marines. I want people to take Chapter Tactics because they're interesting and fit with their chapter's lore and not because said Chapter Tactics give them a clear advantage over other Chapter Tactics.

I don't think 'clear advantage' is necessary, but balanced between each other would be nice.

PE for the entire army and 5 librarians for 1 HQ or Expensive Stealth Snipers and D3 redeploy.

Not really a choice...

Just saying maybe the MW need a little fleshing out.

 pretre wrote:
I don't think 'clear advantage' is necessary, but balanced between each other would be nice.

PE for the entire army and 5 librarians for 1 HQ or Expensive Stealth Snipers and D3 redeploy.

Not really a choice...

Just saying maybe the MW need a little fleshing out.

There are players who don't like playing Psykers in general. I think you represented each a little too plainly too.

MANTIS WARRIORS
- D3 redeploys using both Infiltrate and Scouts if you take a Librarian (pretty impressive to me).
- Librarians can have Divination (which, if you ask some players, is a sizable bonus).
- Free Stealth special rule for all Sternguard Veteran Squads, with the option of taking camo cloaks for a small points increase and/or taking free sniper rifles.

BLOOD RAVENS
- Can take up to five Librarians as a single HQ and have access to a unique 3 wound Librarian.
- Have Preferred Enemy, but when taken as Allies have to be put in Reserves no matter what.


Personally I'd rather take the Mantis Warriors Chapter Tactics over the Blood Ravens one, even though both are good.