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Those one or two models can pull a lot of tricks though. Being able to get spells like Null Zone off more reliably can act as a serious force multiplier.

28% of the time you’ll fail to cast Null Zone and do so without rolling a 1 though. It’s only a 50/50 on average if you roll a single 1 as well (averaged across 2-6 on the other roll). Even with the re-roll, I think you still successfully cast Null Zone ~48% of the time on average. Someone smarter than me will correct me if I am wrong.

Not to mention you’ll need to use a Phobos Librarian, deploy 9” away and then likely use the move again power to get into the position you want. Oh, it’ll also cost you a relic and potentially a CP.

It’s just, there is far too much to chance for things to go wrong for me. If you don’t go first, the Libby probably dies. If you do go first then you have to hope that you can get into position, cast and then kill the required target(s) within that 1 turn.

 Dr. Mills wrote:
Oh noes, this chapter tactic isn't immediately spammable into my existing list with very little imput and as such isn't considered top tier.

Dakka in a nutshell.

Look, this trait may not be a stupendously good one, but for certs in builds or armies it's great. I play a lot of Primaris, so causing plasma to wound me on a 3+ is a godsend.

I didn't knew 'so below other marine tactics it's not even funny' means "merely not top tier" these days. Gee, the scoundrels, wanting playable rules and whatnot!

As for your other comment, instead of 5 models dying to S8 hits, something rather uncommon, 4 will die. Gee, you saved 15 points per turn~! What a change, eh? Consider that Iron Hand ability, considered among the weakest in the game, will also do that, except it works on every single type of wound, not just S8+, and applies to every single one of your models, instead of being good only on multiple wounds T4 (BR one being useless on T5+). We don't even compare apples with oranges here, when you put BR apple (be it their trait/relic next to others, or Angelos next to other chapter masters...) every single thing is just weak in comparison.

Funnily enough, it appears you have GW permission to run BR with other chapter tactics while keeping their relic, stratagems and characters, which would be very potent given balanced rules but with how bad BR stuff is the potential for combos is minimal here. Oh well. Salamander chief librarians, here we go.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Anyone defending the Chapter Tactic as even "good" clearly didn't read the Chapter Tactic.

Anyone not understanding how good this tactic really is, is obviously not used to playing psykers.

Anyone not understanding how bad this tactic really is, is obviously not used to playing SM psykers.

Fixed that for you. This rule would be good if BR had demon princes or exalted sorcerers. Hell, it would see use if BR had access to Mephiston and psychic dreadnoughts of Blood Angels. They don't. As much as it would be funny for vanguard librarian to always be chief librarian of his chapter once update finally drops, one really niche usage affecting a single model does not a good rule make. Maybe if SM get new psychic powers in new Codex. Until then, stuff you lose in comparison will always be better...

Funnily enough, it appears you have GW permission to run BR with other chapter tactics while keeping their relic, stratagems and characters, which would be very potent given balanced rules but with how bad BR stuff is the potential for combos is minimal here. Oh well. Salamander chief librarians, here we go.

where do you get that from?

 Irbis wrote:

 Dr. Mills wrote:
Oh noes, this chapter tactic isn't immediately spammable into my existing list with very little imput and as such isn't considered top tier.

Dakka in a nutshell.

Look, this trait may not be a stupendously good one, but for certs in builds or armies it's great. I play a lot of Primaris, so causing plasma to wound me on a 3+ is a godsend.

I didn't knew 'so below other marine tactics it's not even funny' means "merely not top tier" these days. Gee, the scoundrels, wanting playable rules and whatnot!

As for your other comment, instead of 5 models dying to S8 hits, something rather uncommon, 4 will die. Gee, you saved 15 points per turn~! What a change, eh? Consider that Iron Hand ability, considered among the weakest in the game, will also do that, except it works on every single type of wound, not just S8+, and applies to every single one of your models, instead of being good only on multiple wounds T4 (BR one being useless on T5+). We don't even compare apples with oranges here, when you put BR apple (be it their trait/relic next to others, or Angelos next to other chapter masters...) every single thing is just weak in comparison.

Funnily enough, it appears you have GW permission to run BR with other chapter tactics while keeping their relic, stratagems and characters, which would be very potent given balanced rules but with how bad BR stuff is the potential for combos is minimal here. Oh well. Salamander chief librarians, here we go.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Anyone defending the Chapter Tactic as even "good" clearly didn't read the Chapter Tactic.

Anyone not understanding how good this tactic really is, is obviously not used to playing psykers.

Anyone not understanding how bad this tactic really is, is obviously not used to playing SM psykers.

Fixed that for you. This rule would be good if BR had demon princes or exalted sorcerers. Hell, it would see use if BR had access to Mephiston and psychic dreadnoughts of Blood Angels. They don't. As much as it would be funny for vanguard librarian to always be chief librarian of his chapter once update finally drops, one really niche usage affecting a single model does not a good rule make. Maybe if SM get new psychic powers in new Codex. Until then, stuff you lose in comparison will always be better...

Yeah, it's a pretty terrible stratagem. SM Librarians just flat out are not good and the barely have 3 powers worth using. I'd love this in Blood Angels but alas it's wasted here.

I had done a bunch of math on how the trait affects psychic tests, and then my computer ate it... so let me try to reconstruct it. Basically, re-rolling ones on what's essentially a difficulty check is a huge bonus, because you swap the worst possible result for another roll. For low WC powers, this will nearly eliminate failures. Smite will now succeed over 95% of the time on the first casting, 80% on the second, and 72% on third, while the odds of an 11+ go from 1 in 12 to 1 in 9.

OTOH, the defensive tech is strictly worse than the Iron Hands trait, which itself isn't exactly the belle of the ball.

On the whole, this looks like a fun trait if you want to play a psyker heavy army in a casual environment. And don't sleep on the relic. Two shots, S5, AP -3 and D2? It might do some work.

It also DRASTICALLY cuts down on perils, don't forget.
When your THIRD smite is as likely to shoot as someone else's first, you are not as worried about the warp charge increase.

Low perils chance, better chances to supersmite and far more likely successes who are also harder to deny makes BR libbies freaking great. The TS sorcerers only win out once you pile five or so and the warp charge increase spins out of control, yet everyone agrees TS sorcerers are pretty darn good. (princes and ahriman are just even better)

The BR trait is good to anyone who wants to play psyker heavy marines with focus on termies and primaris

Yaknow, what actual BR fluff fans just might want to begin with.

Reducing the risk of perils on a double 1s to almost impossible is not a huge buff, rolling double 1s rarely happens. Although i managed to do it twice in succession (rolling four 1s with 2*2 dice) for the same psyker, killing him The psychic re-roll 1s is nice, but it doesnt boost BR psykers to tsons smite spam levels. A relic psychic staff which gives +1 to smite would be nice for BR psykers, BA have this.

Dude, did you read the math above?
The third BR smite is still as good as a TS smite (same chance to shoot, TS has range, BR has lower peril and better chance to super)
The second BR smite is superior, and the first is FAR superior.
How often do you think a TS player casts a forth smite? How about fifth?
Because only on the fifth the TS catch up on the overall output. 5 real smites a turn is not rational.

Right, either I’m doing something very wrong (likely) or someone else is… My calculations –

Standard smite is a 15/21 chance of going off, which is 71.4%.
Re-roll 1’s smite is a 54/72 chance of going off, or 75%.

Working on that, a second BR smite has a chance of 61.1% of going off, as they now need a 6+, and the third smite works out at 45.8%.

Now, unless I am completely wrong, this comes nowhere near Thousand Sons being able to smite continuously at a 71.4% chance.


Edit to take into account that there are technically 36 2d6 outcomes -

Standard - 26/36 - 72.2%
BR 1 - 100/132 - 75.7%
BR 2 - 82/132 - 62.1%
BR 3 - 60/132 - 45.4%

Final edit... Hopefully...

The re-roll 1's changes Null Zone from a 27.7% chance of going off, to a 30.3% chance.

So once again you just take Tiggy if you want Null Zone to go off

 BoomWolf wrote:

How often do you think a TS player casts a forth smite? How about fifth?

Its really no problem for a tsons player to cast 10 smites. Three or four HQs, 5 units of MSU of rubric marines, one tzaangor shaman, 2 MSU scarab occult terminators, they all can smite. Thats 13 smites. I have never seen a tsons player doing only four or five smites, thats wasting their potential.

 p5freak wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

How often do you think a TS player casts a forth smite? How about fifth?

Its really no problem for a TS player to cast 10 smites. Three or four HQs, 5 units of MSU of rubric marines, one tzaangor shaman, 2 MSU scarab occult terminators, they all can smite. Thats 13 smites.

I agree, when I’m playing pure Thousand Sons, I can easily smite 5+ times.

However, if we are talking the soup list that is all the rage right now, generally it is only 3 smites due to it being a Supreme Command of only 3 units.

BrianDavion wrote:

Funnily enough, it appears you have GW permission to run BR with other chapter tactics while keeping their relic, stratagems and characters, which would be very potent given balanced rules but with how bad BR stuff is the potential for combos is minimal here. Oh well. Salamander chief librarians, here we go.

where do you get that from?

Full text of BR rules: https://i.imgur.com/uOtvMXY.jpg

I see nothing stating you lose access to BR stuff if you change tactic to say Salamanders. You'd probably lose access to Salamander relics and stratagems but meh, they aren't that great and you'd only really want their tactic anyway.

 BoomWolf wrote:
It also DRASTICALLY cuts down on perils, don't forget.
When your THIRD smite is as likely to shoot as someone else's first, you are not as worried about the warp charge increase.

Okay, but how many librarians are you going to take? One? Two? Three are already starting to dangerously eat into your points, not to mention the fact there are few good powers for them to cast anyway, and opportunity cost in not taking captains/LTs or (hahahaha) Angelos as your HQs.

The trait would be easier to swallow if Chief Librarian got one extra cast in the deal, increasing efficiency, or if you had buff librarians of BA/CSM/GK to take on extra load, but as it is, it's kind of niche/weak...

 BoomWolf wrote:
Dude, did you read the math above?
The third BR smite is still as good as a TS smite (same chance to shoot, TS has range, BR has lower peril and better chance to super)
The second BR smite is superior, and the first is FAR superior.
How often do you think a TS player casts a forth smite? How about fifth?
Because only on the fifth the TS catch up on the overall output. 5 real smites a turn is not rational.

Youre not playing against usual TSons lists then and multiple SM psykers isnt a viable option given their lackluster powers.

Where are the decals for the Blood Ravens located? I'd like a set or two of 10 each for Kill team.

I AM a TS player, that's exactly why I think so highly on rerolling 1s for casts.

Anyway, the decals are discontinued long ago, but if GW are clever (and lately they were) there is a fair chance they will either re-release it, or make an upgrade kit.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Where are the decals for the Blood Ravens located? I'd like a set or two of 10 each for Kill team.

They are located in forgeworldistoodumbandlazytoactuallyrestockdecals. So, unless you go for say alt sheet linked on page 1, no decals for you

 BoomWolf wrote:
I AM a TS player, that's exactly why I think so highly on rerolling 1s for casts.

Anyway, the decals are discontinued long ago, but if GW are clever (and lately they were) there is a fair chance they will either re-release it, or make an upgrade kit.

I get that but Thousand Sons have access to Ahriman, to at least 8 QUALITY powers, in addition to +6" range and no diminishing returns on smite casts. The re-roll 1s is minor compared to those massive advantages. Its like playing Thousand Sons but the only ability you got was re-roll 1s and only powers you got were Smite, a death hex with half the range and diabolic strength Not exactly that great then.

 Kirasu wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I AM a TS player, that's exactly why I think so highly on rerolling 1s for casts.

Anyway, the decals are discontinued long ago, but if GW are clever (and lately they were) there is a fair chance they will either re-release it, or make an upgrade kit.

I get that but Thousand Sons have access to Ahriman, to at least 8 QUALITY powers, in addition to +6" range and no diminishing returns on smite casts. The re-roll 1s is minor compared to those massive advantages. Its like playing Thousand Sons but the only ability you got was re-roll 1s and only powers you got were Smite, a death hex with half the range and diabolic strength Not exactly that great then.

But don't you get access to the mightiest of all soup-able factions. not that this is actually a good thing. or if its even meant to be "competitive"

BR probably wont be competitive seeing all this discussion

It's nice that Gabriel Angelos has the chapter master trait baked in, instead of needing to spend a bunch of command points to get it. The Chief Librarian strat is also nice against some armies that like to spam powers like Tyranids and Thousand Sons.

As for the chapter trait itself... well, I could see it being rather valuable in infantry-heavy lists. Things with lots of terminators, intercessors, hellblasters, aggressors, etc. Making all those abilities and strats that give opponent's weapons +1 to wound useless isn't bad. It just doesn't save them from massed small-arms fire, like from other intercessors or punisher cannons or whatever.

Nothing game-breaking, but it'll be a nice addition to the collection of White Dwarfs on my bookshelf and I'm sure Blood Ravens players will be happy.

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

 Jidmah wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

Yeah, this is my thinking. BR will be a strong contender for Primaris heavy lists. RG are still better because it affects far more weapons, but there's at least a niche for BRs if you wanna got both Primaris and Psyker heavy.

-

 Galef wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

Yeah, this is my thinking. BR will be a strong contender for Primaris heavy lists. RG are still better because it affects far more weapons, but there's at least a niche for BRs if you wanna got both Primaris and Psyker heavy.

-

Except why would you go Psyker heavy with Marines? The best bets you got are the named Characters for that (Tiggy especially so).

There's no reason to go Blood Ravens rules, period.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

And there are better defensive bonuses from Raven Guard if you wanna avoid Plasma.

 Jidmah wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

A) Maybe you should read my comparison with IH trait a few posts up, then produce actual argument against it; B) Plasma was a problem 2 years ago. Since then, we got absurdly stupid proliferation of D2 on stuff that should NEVER get it, stuff that is often S5-7 so still deletes BR primaris with zero effort. Plasma at least costs serious points, crap like GSC Kelly Sue doesn't care one bit about BR stuff when even weak trait like IH one would mitigate it somewhat...

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Its not a good trait. How many times is your BR infantry going to be attacked with S8+ weapons ??

Also dakka: "Primaris are crap because plasma!"

Yeah, this is my thinking. BR will be a strong contender for Primaris heavy lists. RG are still better because it affects far more weapons, but there's at least a niche for BRs if you wanna got both Primaris and Psyker heavy.

-

Except why would you go Psyker heavy with Marines? The best bets you got are the named Characters for that (Tiggy especially so).

There's no reason to go Blood Ravens rules, period.

Librarians are cool? not everyone can or wants to play ultra smurfs?

Librarians aren't that cool tho. They're one of the worst psykers in the game ATM and you never want to take more than one. Shadowspear had a great opportunity to increase their use, but as usual primaris only syndrome expanded to be Phobos only syndrome.

 Kirasu wrote:
Librarians aren't that cool tho. They're one of the worst psykers in the game ATM and you never want to take more than one. Shadowspear had a great opportunity to increase their use, but as usual primaris only syndrome expanded to be Phobos only syndrome.

You're confusing Cool for Good. They arent the same thing.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Librarians aren't that cool tho. They're one of the worst psykers in the game ATM and you never want to take more than one. Shadowspear had a great opportunity to increase their use, but as usual primaris only syndrome expanded to be Phobos only syndrome.

You're confusing Cool for Good. They arent the same thing.

By that definition every space marine character is "cool", which then renders the entire statement meaningless and thus requires another type of qualifier. Space marine captain with a thunderhammer is, I argue, much cooler than a Librarian as its featured in a ton of popular art / video games. A Chaplain is really cool as well and much more iconic than a Librarian. Saying that a "librarian is cool" as a justification for a discussion on their effectiveness doesn't do a thing to further the point.

Maybe he's not discussing their effectiveness, but rather answering the Question of why someone would take them in the Army. IE they are (particularly) cool to that person, perhaps much cooler to them than your Smashcaptain. That's the thing about cool, its different to everyone. Some people play their armies entirely on what they think is cool. So they are the people that would take a Chief Librarian.

They probably also think the Blood Ravens are cool, despite not having the best trait, so thats probably why they'd use it.

So that answers the assertion in the post they were responding to stating that there is no reason to play the Blood Ravens rules. Clearly there is, its just not for everyone.