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I'd like to get an evaluation on the cost /fairness of my home brew chief librarian for the Mentor Legion.
Lord Cthonis
WS5 BS4 S5 T4 W3 I6 A2 LD10 ML3
Gear: Space Marine Bike, Artificer Armor, Void Bringer, Frag and Blind Grenades, psychic hood
Special Rules- skilled rider, hit and run, ATSKNF, Soul Stealer, Brain Eater

Void Bringer is a set of AP2 lightning claws with the force special rule.
Soul Stealer- Regardless of which psychic powers are rolled for, Cthonis knows the life leech power from biomancy. This does not affect his power generation in any way. In addition, he has the Skyfire special rules when using a psychic shooting attack.
Brain Eater- After killing an enemy character or monstrous creature in a challenge, Cthonis gains preferred enemy for the faction the model removed was selected from.
Generate powers from Telepathy, Divination, or Biomancy.

I was thinking about 230. He doesn't have an invul but he's very punchy.

Normally I try to keep off of these sort of things, but this one jumps out at me pretty hard.

First off, AP2 force lightning claws on an I6 character... bit over the top. that means that a fair portion of anything wont get to swing back. Just generate from biomancy and most of the time you'll get iron arm/warp speed, which means a S8 T7 3W I9 A6 murderbot. Off the top of my head.. maybe Lysander, Draigo and Abbadon can take him on.

Basically anything without a ton of wound and/or a high ++ save is fubar. Plus this dude will shred other units. the skyfire thing is odd to me, considering his generation selection, so largely unnecessary. Unless you just put it in there so you could hit FMC with life leach and smite.

Just going off of what he has, as is, I'd put him at least a solid 300 points. Lose the crazy initiative value and drop the rending LC (maybe) and 230 could be reasonable after some testing. Though to be fair, force lightning claws don't exits for a reason. Anything with access to biomancy will just ruin anything they come up against, due to iron arm giving smash in 7th.

So yeah, in short he either needs to lose a handful of things (I6, AP2 force lightning claws, free extra power with no drawback) or he needs to be in the 300 point region

Some good input there. I didn't mean to add biomancy as a power that was a brain fart. So remove biomancy and drop him to I5. I'd put him at 230 then. The skyfire caveat is a background thing.

How does he ride a bike with two lightning claws?

Initiative Order AP2 with re-rolls to wound and Instant Death is pretty amazingly broken.

Why is he S5?

Blind Grenades and Hit and Run apply to his unit. Both are a potentially gamebreaking addition to bike units - already very powerful, was this intentional?

I also like how he has access to the three best lores for his psyker powers.

...be honest, is there an actual story behind this guy or are you just trying to kitbash a brutal hero and write the story around him?

raverrn wrote:
Initiative Order AP2 with re-rolls to wound and Instant Death is pretty amazingly broken.

Why is he S5?

Blind Grenades and Hit and Run apply to his unit. Both are a potentially gamebreaking addition to bike units - already very powerful, was this intentional?

I also like how he has access to the three best lores for his psyker powers.

...be honest, is there an actual story behind this guy or are you just trying to kitbash a brutal hero and write the story around him?

You're a little high strung, aren't you?

I think it will be better if he has a soul trap mechanism like in the old DE codex. So first challenge kill is S5, then ML3, then AP2. That fits his background better and is lower powered. I think you're overestimating the value of a 230 point character without an invulnerable save.

In the background I've generated the Mentor Legion are the chamber militant for the ordo chronus. This is a tie in to their RT background where they would randomly appear amongst other imperial armies and they utilized time manipulation gear. All their librarians are recruited from a primitive world dominated by warring tribes with bronze age level technology. These people especially their war shamans traditionally eat the enemy dead to gain strength or insight from the meal.

So change S to 4, and have the void bringer be standard AP 3 claws with the force (not instant death, a much more powerful usr) rule. Then he powers up in challenges with eaters of the dead, but if you choose to use that, you can't sweeping advance because he's to busy chowing down.

 Silverthorne wrote:


You're a little high strung, aren't you?

I think it will be better if he has a soul trap mechanism like in the old DE codex. So first challenge kill is S5, then ML3, then AP2. That fits his background better and is lower powered. I think you're overestimating the value of a 230 point character without an invulnerable save.

In the background I've generated the Mentor Legion are the chamber militant for the ordo chronus. This is a tie in to their RT background where they would randomly appear amongst other imperial armies and they utilized time manipulation gear. All their librarians are recruited from a primitive world dominated by warring tribes with bronze age level technology. These people especially their war shamans traditionally eat the enemy dead to gain strength or insight from the meal.

So change S to 4, and have the void bringer be standard AP 3 claws with the force (not instant death, a much more powerful usr) rule. Then he powers up in challenges with eaters of the dead, but if you choose to use that, you can't sweeping advance because he's to busy chowing down.

And I think you're underestimating the value of a 12" move beatstick of a model that has access to the three best lores, gives his unit two incredibly potent USRs AND can murder a Wraithknight before the thing can even swing. Dude was straight dope broke. Having him level up is much cooler from a fluff standpoint, though if anything I'd give him a standard Librarian statline and have him level up from there. I6 is still p. crazy even at AP3.

Was it your intention for him to snap fire most of his spells, or should Soul Stealer say '...may choose to have the Skyfire USR...'?

It seems like a librarian profile with bonuses. I think you should base the profile on ws5, bs5, s4 t4, w2, i5 a3 ld10, like the wolf guard battle leader, and add to that.

It seems a lot of the time like there is a linear progression of trooper, veteran, librarian/chaplain level, WGBL level, captain, to chapter master. For example, Astorath is the same profile as a captain, even though he is a "high chaplain." I think you are going to be happier with the power level if he has three attacks and i5 but only w2, and it is easier for people to understand, because they are intuitively familiar with other characters with that same profile.

The eaters of the dead rule is super distinctive, I think you should focus on that, instead of distracting from it with the other non-standard stuff.

Then I admit that I am another person perplexed by the lightning claws on bike. Unless you have already modeled it in a convincing way, I can only imagine it looks weird. The fourth wall is broken if the model looks like its just the lightning claw part glued to a biker model, instead of a like a space marine that has been shrunk down to miniature size.

The librarian can inflict Instant Death (via a power, fine) and has higher initiative than the majority of marine characters. There is math that people have done on that.

I think high strung is true only in the case that ther might be other people who thought the same thing and took a pass on replying, due to being less highly strung.

Recommend: w2, a3, bike, MC force sword, eaters of the dead.

I don't understand the perplexity with the dual-lightning claw thing. Why are Chaos Lords able to use both lightning claws and power fists simultaneously while driving a bike?

Duel-wielding weapons while riding a bike isn't a new thing for 40K.

Cuz combining those things makes the model look like
Mr Potato Head.

It is supposed to look at least nominally verisimilar, not like a token game piece that has any old parts stuck on with no relation to each other. Have you noticed the enormously popular portions of these and other forums revolving around building models that have neat metal surfaces or light effects and that don't look dumb?

Sword + bike looks really nice, you can put a bunch of weight behind it. Axe + bike looks nice. Lance + bike is a little preposterous. Preposterous power gloves + bike with little handlebars is a dumb thing that reminds you you have little plastic figures.

My point is, a character duel-wielding CCW whilst riding a bike is not a new thing. Chaos Lord on a bike with power fist and lightning claw has been one of the most popular builds in CSM for years. It seems strange to all of a sudden have a problem with a duel-lightning claw marine on a bike.

The bike must have Power Handlebars so that the guy could easilly drive it with a Power Fist.