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 Marik Law wrote:

 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

The thing is the lore does state they do practice promoting Libbies through the standard chain of command, sergeant and captain and company champion. And nowhere does it mention "Ordo Psykana" Librarians.

Also, Blood Ravens of all chapters should be the ones to have Divination as this is what they use the Libbies for- locating the enemy and weaknesses so they can form a masterplan and end things in one fell swoop. Taking away Divination just hinders the fluff once again.

 Deadshot wrote:
The thing is the lore does state they do practice promoting Libbies through the standard chain of command, sergeant and captain and company champion. And nowhere does it mention "Ordo Psykana" Librarians.

Also, Blood Ravens of all chapters should be the ones to have Divination as this is what they use the Libbies for- locating the enemy and weaknesses so they can form a masterplan and end things in one fell swoop. Taking away Divination just hinders the fluff once again.

I'm 99% positive that the Ordo Psykana within the Blood Ravens was indeed mentioned as an enclave of the Chapter's most gifted Librarians. Not in the games, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned either in one of the novels or in an issue of White Dwarf. I still don't recall any mention of Librarians going up the ranks normally, everything I've read seems to imply that said Librarians are given chains of command after becoming Librarians.

Seems we have a problem here. While I will agree your idea is good it does have some inherent problems, the biggest one beings rules bloat. It's a lot easier and straightforward to say "you can take up to five Librarians as a single HQ choice" than it is to take 1-2 paragraphs to describe unit upgrades. We also have to consider how much is too much, do we let just any Sergeant or whomever upgrade to a Psyker or do we pull a Red Scorpions and only allow Tactical Squads to upgrade? They definitely shouldn't have multiple Librarians and Sergeant upgrades, especially if they can have Divination.

How does this sound for a compromise?

BLOOD RAVENS
Know Your Enemy: So long as this detachment includes at least one Librarian, units in this detachment, including vehicles, have the Preferred Enemy special rule. In addition, your Librarians have have access to the Divination psychic discipline in addition to the normal Disciplines a Librarian may take. However, allied Space Marine 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: Any Veteran Sergeant from a Tactical Squad in this detachment may be upgraded to a Lexicanium for 25 points, replacing his boltgun or bolt pistol with a force weapon and gaining the Psyker (Mastery Level 1) special rule. Lexicaniums generate their powers from the Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy psychic disciplines but may only ever use the discipline's Primaris Power.

I think for the intention I wanted, Tac Vet Sgts only is best. A Librarian-Captain can be best represented by simply a Libby. However I do maintain the Blood Ravens having Divination is fluffy and logical as they use this a lot. For balance purposes, maybe give them Div at the expense of losing Biomancy or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I was mistaken about the Ordo Psykana, it does exist, I'd just never heard of it. Sorry.

 Deadshot wrote:
I think for the intention I wanted, Tac Vet Sgts only is best. A Librarian-Captain can be best represented by simply a Libby. However I do maintain the Blood Ravens having Divination is fluffy and logical as they use this a lot. For balance purposes, maybe give them Div at the expense of losing Biomancy or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I was mistaken about the Ordo Psykana, it does exist, I'd just never heard of it. Sorry.

The new rules I posted in the last post have them having Divination in the first Chapter Trait instead of the second.
I could definitely see them getting it at the expense of something else though, would balance it out a bit.

Hehe, don't worry about it man, lore slips my mind all the time.

I want a chapter tactic that allows all of an army's drop pods to drop on the first turn.

And I want every army to have grey knight servo skulls.

Blood Angels. Red Thirst is a terrible trait in the current codex because of how it is implemented. A 1 in 6 chance to buff one small portion of your army. You almost never get it on the squads you want, and since you can get furious charge anyways through a Sanguinary Priest its effects have minimal impact.

I propose that instead, Blood Angels receive the Assault Doctrine (once per battle) Chapter Tactic that Ultramarines have AND increase Hammer of Wrath attacks from models with jump packs by 1.

The Assault Doctrine will do a good job of representing that turning point in the battle when the Blood Angels just want to rip their foe apart, and the improved Hammer of Wrath will boost their Jump Pack infantry's effectiveness.

BLOOD RAVENS
I think their librarians should have asccess to Divination powers. Vidaia definitely was a diviner. Other idea is to replace infiltrate with something based on interceptor rule, like 1/2 of squads have interceptor against anything but orks (because their actions cannot be predicted)

MINOTAURS
Their preferred enemy should spread to Grey Knights and Siege list. Maybe excluding henchmen, inquisitors and assassins from GK codex.

RED SCORPIONS
I cannot see why they have FC and Hatred against anything - Red Scorpion aren't psychopathic berzerkers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marik Law wrote:
Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well: Any Veteran Sergeant from a Tactical Squad in this detachment may be upgraded to a Lexicanium for 25 points, replacing his boltgun or bolt pistol with a force weapon and gaining the Psyker (Mastery Level 1) special rule. Lexicaniums generate their powers from the Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy psychic disciplines but may only ever use the discipline's Primaris Power.

Upgrading the sarge to psyker gives you not only psi powers, but also 5+ DTW, plus power weapon that could ID (i think this aline worth 20 pts). 25 points is just too cheap - lokk at Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerers, they're like 60+ points apiece, despite having the crappiest powers in the game.

But Aspiring Sorcerors also have AP3 bolt pistols (AP3 is severely upcosted compared to AP4-6) and a 4++. In GW point calculation it wkuld only come to 35 at best, and then there is fearless and VotLW (Hatred Space Marines and Ld10).

 Deadshot wrote:
But Aspiring Sorcerors also have AP3 bolt pistols (AP3 is severely upcosted compared to AP4-6) and a 4++. In GW point calculation it wkuld only come to 35 at best, and then there is fearless and VotLW (Hatred Space Marines and Ld10).

Yeah-yeah, AP3 pistols you would never use as all your powers are witchfire, and fearless in 6e is mostly inferior to ATSKNF. And hatred on the sorc is bad joke, since you want to keep him away from CC.

Regardless of their use, they still majorly up the points cost because GW overestimate their usefulness. But, Ld 10 and 4++ are still useful and expensive on a Sergeant Psyker.

First off I'd like to thank everyone who has made contributions and given their input so far, you guys are great and are helping shape this project up to be something cool.

xole wrote:I want a chapter tactic that allows all of an army's drop pods to drop on the first turn.

And I want every army to have grey knight servo skulls.

I'm not looking into doing custom Chapter Tactics at this point in time, as stated in my original post. If you can find an official GW, FW, or BL Chapter which specializes in these things I'd be more than happy to look into it though.

Th0rh4mm3r wrote:Blood Angels. Red Thirst is a terrible trait in the current codex because of how it is implemented. A 1 in 6 chance to buff one small portion of your army. You almost never get it on the squads you want, and since you can get furious charge anyways through a Sanguinary Priest its effects have minimal impact.

I propose that instead, Blood Angels receive the Assault Doctrine (once per battle) Chapter Tactic that Ultramarines have AND increase Hammer of Wrath attacks from models with jump packs by 1.

The Assault Doctrine will do a good job of representing that turning point in the battle when the Blood Angels just want to rip their foe apart, and the improved Hammer of Wrath will boost their Jump Pack infantry's effectiveness.

The problem is that Blood Angels have never been able to control the Red Thirst, it isn't something they can channel, so allowing them to do so just doesn't fit their lore any. Sorry. :(

They do have two elements which aren't random and are predictable, however: Death Company and far superior Deep Strike for drop pods and jump infantry.

Mezmerro wrote:BLOOD RAVENS
I think their librarians should have asccess to Divination powers. Vidaia definitely was a diviner. Other idea is to replace infiltrate with something based on interceptor rule, like 1/2 of squads have interceptor against anything but orks (because their actions cannot be predicted)

Added: Upgrading the sarge to psyker gives you not only psi powers, but also 5+ DTW, plus power weapon that could ID (i think this aline worth 20 pts). 25 points is just too cheap - lokk at Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerers, they're like 60+ points apiece, despite having the crappiest powers in the game.

MINOTAURS
Their preferred enemy should spread to Grey Knights and Siege list. Maybe excluding henchmen, inquisitors and assassins from GK codex.

RED SCORPIONS
I cannot see why they have FC and Hatred against anything - Red Scorpion aren't psychopathic berzerkers.

Blood Ravens:
Librarians do have access to Divination now, I just have not updated the original post yet.

Technically speaking, the Aspiring Sorcerer is only a 35 point upgrade from the 23 point rubric marines. He also has a 4++ save, AP 3 bolts, Ld 10, and is Fearless. That aside, if you read the entry closely you'll notice that only Veteran Sergeants can be upgraded, meaning 24 points plus the 25 for the upgrade, leaving us with a 49 point unit which leaves us only a mere 9 points shy of the Aspiring Sorcerer. I think 9 points shy is acceptable, I'd even be willing to say that the 9 point difference is worth the 4++ save alone.


Minotaurs:
I haven't read anything which says that Minotaurs have ever been dispatched to deal with rogue Grey Knight detachments, just their regular Astartes counterparts in other chapters. If anything it seems to heavily hint that the Minotaurs are the lapdogs of the Inquisition, meaning if anything they'd never fight against them and, thus, would not have any experience fighting any of the Inquisitorial forces.


Red Scorpions:
I gave them Furious Charge and Hatred because they view virtually everything outside of their chapter, particularly their enemies, as impure, unclean filth that needs to be eradicated without prejudice or mercy and with extreme hostility. The lore makes it pretty clear just how overzealous they are towards their own purity and towards the impurity of others. If you can offer a better alternative I'm all ears.

There are no rogue Grey Knights, period, so the Minotaurs, as long as they remain loyal, will never fight them.

 Marik Law wrote:
Minotaurs:
I haven't read anything which says that Minotaurs have ever been dispatched to deal with rogue Grey Knight detachments, just their regular Astartes counterparts in other chapters. If anything it seems to heavily hint that the Minotaurs are the lapdogs of the Inquisition, meaning if anything they'd never fight against them and, thus, would not have any experience fighting any of the Inquisitorial forces.

Minotaurs are expert at killing marines. Their preffered enemy comes from the fact they know how to fight marines of any kind, know their weak spots, and know how to counter standard Codex tactix. Technically speaking they should have PE against anything with marine physiology, including CSMs too, as CSMs usually have the same weak spots (unless they are Nurgle-alligned or heavily mutated)

 Marik Law wrote:
Red Scorpions:
I gave them Furious Charge and Hatred because they view virtually everything outside of their chapter, particularly their enemies, as impure, unclean filth that needs to be eradicated without prejudice or mercy and with extreme hostility. The lore makes it pretty clear just how overzealous they are towards their own purity and towards the impurity of others. If you can offer a better alternative I'm all ears.

There are a lot of chapters who see anyone outside them as nothing more than potential threat. Comparing to the Iron Hands and IH successors Scorpions are friendly and swell guys.
I can suggest giving them the more special rules, the more impure their enemies are:
1) loyal marines, SB and GK and guard they have nothing
2) SW, BA, RG - reroll ones in CC during firs round (nerfed hatred)
3) major aberrants, like SW wulfens, Black Company, abhumans, assasins - hatred
4) chaos marines, chaos daemons, xenos - hatred and FC
5) deamon marines and other heavyly mutated humans/abhumans (nurgle ogryns, genestealer hybrids) - hared, FC and reroll ones to wound in CC

Yes, it a bit overcomplicated, I know.

Minotaurs know the weaknesses of Codex Astartes tactics. I'm pretty sure all marines know their own weaknesses as well as the Minotaurs do, but they don't focus on killing Marines. So non-Codex Adherant Marines, specifically GK which are majorly different due to psychic powers, all around power weapons, everyone with Mk8 style chestplates, huge numbers of Terminators (possibly the only chapter with equal or more suits than Minotaurs) and Inquisitorial backup from the Ordo Malleus, the most powerful Ordo.
The other being the suped up Chaos Marines who fight totally differently to neely renegade Chapters.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Marik Law wrote:
Minotaurs:
I haven't read anything which says that Minotaurs have ever been dispatched to deal with rogue Grey Knight detachments, just their regular Astartes counterparts in other chapters. If anything it seems to heavily hint that the Minotaurs are the lapdogs of the Inquisition, meaning if anything they'd never fight against them and, thus, would not have any experience fighting any of the Inquisitorial forces.

Minotaurs are expert at killing marines. Their preffered enemy comes from the fact they know how to fight marines of any kind, know their weak spots, and know how to counter standard Codex tactix. Technically speaking they should have PE against anything with marine physiology, including CSMs too, as CSMs usually have the same weak spots (unless they are Nurgle-alligned or heavily mutated)

 Marik Law wrote:
Red Scorpions:
I gave them Furious Charge and Hatred because they view virtually everything outside of their chapter, particularly their enemies, as impure, unclean filth that needs to be eradicated without prejudice or mercy and with extreme hostility. The lore makes it pretty clear just how overzealous they are towards their own purity and towards the impurity of others. If you can offer a better alternative I'm all ears.

There are a lot of chapters who see anyone outside them as nothing more than potential threat. Comparing to the Iron Hands and IH successors Scorpions are friendly and swell guys.
I can suggest giving them the more special rules, the more impure their enemies are:
1) loyal marines, SB and GK and guard they have nothing
2) SW, BA, RG - reroll ones in CC during firs round (nerfed hatred)
3) major aberrants, like SW wulfens, Black Company, abhumans, assasins - hatred
4) chaos marines, chaos daemons, xenos - hatred and FC
5) deamon marines and other heavyly mutated humans/abhumans (nurgle ogryns, genestealer hybrids) - hared, FC and reroll ones to wound in CC

Yes, it a bit over-complicated, I know.

Grey Knights and CSM still operate and are fundamentally different than their counterparts. While they may be similar they do not fight anywhere near the same, thus the Minotaurs would not be able to easily dispatch them as they would their loyal brethren. Also, again, the lore doesn't support them having Preferred Enemy against Grey Knights as they have never engaged in battle with them, thus do not know all the ins and outs of their combat skills, armour, and behaviour nor can they be bothered to study their enemies to the extent the Blood Ravens do before battle.

As for the Red Scorpions, there's a difference between caring about purity and taking it to extremes, the later of which the Red Scorpions do. While most chapters and those within the Imperium care about purity, the Red Scorpions take it to ridiculous extremes that would be heretical if it weren't so admired by certain organizations within the Imperium (Inquisition, Ecclesiarchy, etc). They refuse to work alongside abhumans and certain genetically deviant chapters and there is evidence to show that they their adherence to purity in all things is to such extremes that they have almost come to blows with loyalist Imperial forces because of it. To them, xenos are impure, anyone who is even remotely associated with Chaos is impure, those who associate with abhumans are impure, they're that level of crazy about it and will go out of their way to purify such abominations or those mingling with them.

While I can understand your desire to want to restrict their rules the problem with your suggestion is, as you said in the closing of your post, is that it's over-complicated. Splitting hairs over who they receive these special rules against will mean means you have to elaborate their rules against every single army excluding Imperial Guard without Ratlings or Ogryns, Inquisitor forces that don't use certain units, and certain Space Marine chapters due to how the 40k special rules work. You'd end up with something like Hatred (Blood Angels, Chaos Space Marines, Daemons, Eldar*, Grey Knights*, Imperial Guard*, Necrons, Space Wolves, Tau Empire, Tyranids) with the asterisks representing additional stipulations. As you can see it gets a bit ridiculous in length and for how few armies or units are excluded it's far easier to just say they have the special rules against everything as it prevents over-complication and rules bloat.

Also whose to say there are certain loyalist Space Marine chapters who don't have genetic deviations? Black Dragons would be represented by Codex: Space Marines and they totally have a messed up geneseed, as do many other chapters to some degree, hell even Salamanders would probably be considered heretical by Red Scorpions standards and all that's wrong with them is a problem with one of their implants, Red Scorpions are that crazy. So that would either require Space Marines to be part of that special rule or more rules bloat to explain that certain chapters are counted in there. Also they wouldn't be so discriminate about Space Wolves or Blood Angels, the Red Scorpions view their entire geneseed as tainted so, to them, members of the entire chapter are just as bad as their Wulfen or Death Company counterparts.

I can understand you want to represent the lore extremely closely, but for the purposes of keeping things simple and preventing rules bloat that sadly cannot be done in this circumstance. :(

I understand what you are saying about the Red Thirst. All Blood Angels feel it's call. I am thinking more along the lines of knowing when it's the right time to give in and stop resisting any more.

Trying to figure out another Chapter for addition to the Index Astartes...

BLACK DRAGONS
Dragon Claws: Jump Infantry in this detachment's Attacks and Hammer of Wrath attacks have the Rending special rule. These units also always count as having a pair of Melee weapons.

Th0rh4mm3r wrote:
I understand what you are saying about the Red Thirst. All Blood Angels feel it's call. I am thinking more along the lines of knowing when it's the right time to give in and stop resisting any more.

There's a problem with that too: Blood Angels can't control when it happens at all. Even chapters which embrace the Red Thirst and Black Rage, such as the Flesh Tearers, still can't control when it occurs though with them it happens far more regularly, while chapters like the Blood Drinkers try to prevent the Red Thirst from happening all together by drinking the blood of their fallen enemies.

I know its not in Codex: Blood Angels, but perhaps some form of compromise where the Red Thirst has other chances to trigger throughout the battle? Thoughts? Ideas?

Frankly I'd just give the Blood Angels Furious Charge or rage as their Bonus and leave the penalty to the fluff, since none of the other tactics come with negatives.

Give them that, Descent of Angels and steal the jump pack bonus from the Ravenguard and we might see some pretty awesome Jump pack armies.

Something that could be good for Black Dragons is to allow Honor Guard to equip jump packs. Simple but could have a dramatic affect on game play.

Well looks like Forge World made a free PDF with Chapter Tactics for the chapters they cover in it. Cool.

Now it's our turn! Start throwing out the names of official Chapters who have interesting tactical traits and beliefs. I've got a few in mind already.