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As far as I can see there are two main ways to build a Chapter Master:

Pimped out:
Bike, Shield Eternal, Burning Blade -255pts

This configuration works best with the Iron Hands chapter trait to give him FNP and IWND, and team him with a command squad apothecary to make him a true monster.
Grav guns synergise well with the blind on Burning Blade to give him the edge on most MCs in cc. Artificer is kind of superfluous given that he has 3++.
He does cost as much as a Land Raider, but is a huge thorn in the side of your opponent and is an absolute nightmare to deal with.

Cheap and Cheerful:
Bike, Storm Shield, Power Axe -180pts

Retaining most of the utility of the previous build but decidedly cheaper, vulnerable to ID and not quite as good against MCs.

It seems at the moment while you pay a premium for the pimped out Master his ability to TAC and not get smashed to death is a well worth the investment.

What do you think ?

First, quick note- only Iron Hands vehicles get It Will Not Die. Infantry don't benefit from it.

Personally, I think it depends on how you did the rest of the list. If you have lots of cheap, low point cost units, then the high value Chapter Master might be a good return for your points.

If, like me, you prefer high cost, fully equipped units, then you won't be able to fritter the points away on your HQ like that, and would be better served spending those 75 points on another unit.

Just my own take on it. Hope it works out for you!

Iron hands characters get IWND.

Yep, the chapter tactic states that "all vehicles and characters get IWND".

Yep, just re-read it. Mea culpa! My bad...

I stand by my advice, though!

I prefer the eternal warrior shield + power fist.

Burning Blade or don't bother?

Artificer armour I feel is a must to avoid (well double the amount needed to) being killed by small arms fire/attacks.

Unsure..

Artificer armor/eternal shield/power fist.

The teeth of terra isn't at all bad, either. +2S, AP3 and rampage will give out enough attacks to effectively kill most if not all MEQ. Good if you've got a tighter point budget.

I've used a CM with a bike, AA, TH and shield eternal to good success.

Personally, i think the main attraction to the CM this edition is the fact that you can pimp him out... alot. So if your going the 'cheap and cheerful' route, i'd look at something else - maybe a captain, who is 40 points cheaper in base cost with minimal losses (-1 W / A).

I agree with Zambro, if you're gonna have your CM in the thick of things, you might as well make sure he's well equipped. He still needs a good retinue.

AA, Shield Eternal, Burning Blade for serious beast mode, for cheaper alternative swap the blade for a PF or TH (although Lysander may be better at that point). BT chapter trait is great for challenges. White Scars for bikes.

On a bike, I'd try to fit him in a command squad with some storm shields might be good but not a true dedicated CC unit and you have to shell out pts for a captain. An Honour Guard squad with the CM in a LR will be potent and can still sweep-advance (again, great as BTs) or you can go all termies with TH/SS for the bonus of shooting you Orbital Bombardment after moving (but losing my the sweep).

My go to CM is AA, bike, eternal shield and hammer. 250 on the nose. BT tactics and a five man grav gun squad for troops and you have my SM ally detachment.

I know people really want that S8 or more with the hammer or fist, but striking at I1 is iffy, especially considering the fast heavy hitting monsters out there that will almost certainly intercept the biker Chapter Master.

The Burning Blade's S7/AP2 at normal initiative is too good (despite that Daemon-weapon style wound on a 1, it has that right?). I saw a White Scars army CM with AA/Shield/Burning Blade eat through way too many squads last week to say 'a power fist would've been better'.

I guess if it's a bunch cheaper maybe it's worth it for a hammer or fist, but that guy with the Blade can take almost any Challenge and either win or stalemate, even vs a Swarmlord!

 Lord Krungharr wrote:
I know people really want that S8 or more with the hammer or fist, but striking at I1 is iffy, especially considering the fast heavy hitting monsters out there that will almost certainly intercept the biker Chapter Master.

The Burning Blade's S7/AP2 at normal initiative is too good (despite that Daemon-weapon style wound on a 1, it has that right?). I saw a White Scars army CM with AA/Shield/Burning Blade eat through way too many squads last week to say 'a power fist would've been better'.

I guess if it's a bunch cheaper maybe it's worth it for a hammer or fist, but that guy with the Blade can take almost any Challenge and either win or stalemate, even vs a Swarmlord!

This.

Not sure about the Swarmlord, but everyone else is fair game. Str 7 or Str 8 I1 though? hmmmm

Teeth of terra is bad because killing too many people will leave you exposed in the opponent's shooting phase.

Just had an evil thought: two HQs- a pimped out Chapter Master and a budget captain both on bikes with IWND and FNP. Yikes.

Some quick math for you gents -

~16% chance for the Burning Blade to cause the S4 AP2 HIT.
~8% chance for it to wound.
~4% chance for it to be an unsaved wound. (vs Iron Halo).
~2.5% chance for it be an unsaved wound. (vs Storm Shield).

Burning Blade is infinitely safer than a Daemon Weapon.

Main advantage of the pfist is to ID t4. Against a mc the grav gun/blind combo is probably better than wounding on a 2+ instead of a 3+

An alternative to the 180 point cheap and cheerful is the 190 point same thing but upgrade the axe to a fist.

The thing with a TH is that it lets you fight Daemon Princes and other über-nasties and get them to strike at I1 as ling as you get a wound through. With W4, EW and a 3++ you really shouldn't be dying in one turn, and after the first turn the enemy will probably be hitting at I1 as well. Everyone is going crazy about S7 AP2 at initiative, but S8 is much better and the I won't really matter that often. As a final bonus, a TH is cheaper than the Blade.

I agree that Thunder Hammer is great and there is no point ever taking a fist instead of it. Five points for that concussive is a real bargain. However, Burning Blade is cool too, and it is a shiny new thing in the book, so personally I'd like to try it. Hammer may be better against monsters, but against bunch of tough assault specialist BB is better; it lets the Chapter Master slaughter them before they've chance to hit him or his squad. Shield Eternal might make the CM himself pretty unkillable, but BB allows him to protect his squad as well, taking down treats before they can strike.

Just remember you are still sinking an epic amount of points in 4 wounds. I think if I ever spent that many points on my CM I wouldn't ever tell my opponent what he had unless he specifically asked (which they will)... As a former guard player I used to smear overpriced units like a blinged out CM just to prove a point.

It is one of those things where if they dedicate that much fire power to killing him I am kinda okay with it.

I mainly have him to go riptide/wraithknight hunting as well as go toe to toe with a lot of the larger monstrous creatures.

If it werent for the riptide I would give him the giant chainsword because A.Giant fething chainsword and B. You need a B?

He also provides a solid melee threat that needs to be dealt with. If you dont he is on you on turn two. With 5 attacks on the charge he can reliably bonk 3 guys a turn which will against many of the xenos armies we see be enough. Not good against the little gribblies(hence the wanting of chainsword) But that is why you have him from white scars with hit and run.

Is there any reason you would not add an auspex?

255: Chapter Master; Artificier Armour; Shield Eternal; Thunder Hammer; Auspex; Bike - Iron Hands

He is a beast. Put him in a unit with grav bikers. Myself I ally him with a SW so my unit is RP, bike, jaws, 5 grav bikers, CM.

 felixcat wrote:
Is there any reason you would not add an auspex?

No, not really. It is just one of those little items you use to balance the point total of the army.

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the new version of Orbital Bombardment. With some twin-linked action (probably from a Rune Priest's Prescience), a STR 10 AP 1 Large Blast BARRAGE can snipe the hell out of anything that could give you trouble, especially if you get the first turn. This is a particularly potent weapon against the Screamer-star (center on the Grimoire Herald) and Jetseer-star (center on the armor save power Warlock) lists that have been gaining popularity. It also has a strong chance to annihilate a tank on the first turn (even a Land Raider!).

This new version of OB, combined with potent equipment like the Shield Eternal and Burning Blade, make the Chapter Master a real force to be reckoned with this edition.

(BTW this is all assuming your CM is on a bike... if he's not, I wouldn't bother running one honestly)

Problem with the bike is that he cannot be in a transport with some Honour Guard or Hammer Termies. (Another bigger problem for me is that I don't like how they look.) But bike certainly has many benefits, and I find it kinda annoying that OB is a pain to use without one.

If you want to go all-out, balls-to-the-walls offense-centric, run him as a Black Templar. Sure, you lose IWND and your 6+ FNP, but rerolls in challenges lets you take care of the most dangerous MCs even better and makes sure that most fighty Characters stay well away from you.

Why would you want fighty characters to stay away from you? Get in there I say!

 Lord Krungharr wrote:
I know people really want that S8 or more with the hammer or fist, but striking at I1 is iffy, especially considering the fast heavy hitting monsters out there that will almost certainly intercept the biker Chapter Master.

So what if they do? He is WS6, meaning most of them hit on 4's, and has a 2+/3++ and Eternal Warrior. He is still going to smash them into a pulp while they will do relatively little to him (perhaps a Wound maybe for the average monster), and with the Thunder Hammer he will go simultaneous for the second round.

Between overwatch and the CM and perhaps another attached character, assaulting a bike squad is not the smartest move. Ans less you forget, those bikes also have TL bolters when the grav is not the optimal choice (damons).

You could prescience your OB but really I rarely take the RP without jaws these days. It certainly depends on who you are facing. I think you need to think of the OB as a very nice bonus that when it works is quite a nasty surprise. Smart players will keep their units far enough apart so scatter can hurt or near table edges ... however, even if it makes you deploy awkwardly to compensate for the possibility of getting hurt by the OB it has done its job.

My little mini-deathstar the way I run it costs a lot of points ... 560 points to be precise. But it is scoring 9which many deathstars are not), it has an RP which is a force multiplier and not just useful for the deathstar, and it can really dish out the damage. Is it worth it? It has not failed to impress yet. Nine grav shots, RP powers, OB shot, excellent in assault, jink saves ... pretty decent all round unit that is fast and potent.

Couple of recent CM highlights:

-killing a pair of broadsides with the Orbital bombardment when they thought they were safe due to night fight and out of 36" range... Except they forgot about rhinos having searchlights. Mwahahaha....

-passing a MSS test and chopping the nuts off a Destroyer Lord with my Burning Blade while he's reduced to WS1.

My new list of nastiness involves a Chapter Master and Allied Tau Commander in the same unit on the first turn when he pops his OB. Re-roll to hit, Tank Hunter/ Monster Hunter ignores cover large blast barrage str 10 ap 1.

In fact, can you take more than one CM? He isn't 0-1 anymore, I might just take two and pop off two in the first turn...

In a shooty meta such as this the BT chapter trait isn't great; since you'll already by chopping up whatever you reach in cc, the Iron Hands trait is better on balance as it allows you to survive long enough to reach combat. EW/IWND is also a real pain in the bum.

BT trait unlocks Crusader Squads though. Lasplas squads are pretty decent.