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Quite a few of the new formations in Traitor's Hate uses a warpsmith. But my issue with it is that its a very high point model that is too inefficient if all you are going to do is use it to unlock a formation and babysit some vehicle.

Ideally the warpsmith should be used to get close in since it has fairly decent close combat capabilities and a 2+ armor save. However, the warpsmith has no mobility (it can't take a bike and it can't deep strike). Putting it into a rhino negates its ability to repair (other than the Rhino).

About the only solution I could think of was to use the artifact voice of the prophet, put him with a squad of possesed and hope you roll the mutation that turns the whole unit into beast type. But that creates an even bigger problem in that now you have to play crimson slaughter, and you have to use possessed which are inefficient for points in the first place... (Not to mention you only have one third chance of rolling that mutation each turn anyway).

The only other way to give him mobility is to put the warpsmith into a Rhino or a landraider. Bringing a landraider is adding yet more points! :(

Ultimately, he is expensive in terms of points for his stats and close combat gear which don't benefit him most of the time, because its really hard to get him into close combat. And if we are using him on a Rhino, he doesn't get to use his role of supporting the vehicles he really should be supporting like daemon engines or tanks.

What role do you use your warpsmith for, and how did make him "earn" back his points?

You really cant because he is worthless and useless and some how cost more than a tech marine.

Can he fix up a Renegade Knight? Would be up for taking the Mauler formation if he can repair my Knight.

I made up a list with a renegade knight and a hellforged warpack formation. But various issues I ran into included:

1. The knight moves 12 inches while the warpsmith only moves 6 inches. He can't keep up!

2. The warpsmith adds so much cost to the hellforged warpack I could have literally taken another renegade knight instead of the warpack and I would have more bang for my buck. :(

You could make him babysit a bigger vehicle? (Spartan, Stormlord, Titan...)

Typhon perhaps?

 Eldarain wrote:
Typhon perhaps?

Kasyr Lutien Typhon? Keep the summon-engine rolling and fix it when the other guy tries to stall it?

It's not like half HP per turn counts as babysitting.

The best you could get out of him is put him in a squad of spawns or khornedogs and just use him as a source of ap2. He's still slow and can't tank too well but his curse can be really annoying for things with many shots. Also, he can make an opponent's ruin a bit worse - might matter for obliterators and havoks.

But all in all, you won't be able to squeeze too much out of him without a bike that he can't take because Chaos. He is also a techmarine that costs 30% more for no reason.

Dreadclaw?

Put him with a decent assault unit and use him for assault - his Techmarine skills mean the Dreadclaw is less likely to be blown up before you can assault from it.

House rule him to be fewer points ...

Seriously though, Arbitorlan's suggestion is probably the one that comes the closest. You can try to run him w/Spawn or dogs, but he'll only slow them down and he really isn't the best at anything else. My thinking is that if you want to use one of his formations, I'd drop him in he Dreadclaw and try to combine his assault with one from some Warp Talons from a Raptor Talon formation. That's really stretching it IMO, but you gotta work with what you have. lol

Or just not bother and take a regular cad with lord/sorc and a few cultists for camping?

It's not that the rules for formations are amazing enough to justify the warpsmith. Well, maybe the obliterator one. But than you need to keep the smith close to your oblis. And he's wasted once again. Nothing that won't kill them will ever come close to so many ap2 and the warpsmith's melee potential goes to waste once again.

Unfortunately, the best way to run a warpsmith is on a shelf. Other options are not "best" but close to "least awful". Spawns would at least slingshot him into an assault. He could also try to tank some wounds with 2+ armor early on. If they throw ap 2 at him - just look out. Good, they've wasted a bunch of ap2 on armor- spawns. If they throw non-ap2, good he will tank most of it since the unit is still t6 and won't get a lot of wounds. If he dies in the process, good - he won't slow the spawns anymore.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Dreadclaw?

Put him with a decent assault unit and use him for assault - his Techmarine skills mean the Dreadclaw is less likely to be blown up before you can assault from it.

I like this.

What I do since I like to run 4 maulerfiends or so from the engine pack formation in TH (purely cause i like them) is to throw it in whatever flavor of heavy support of the day. The more heavy support you have the more mileage your gonna get out of smith heals Ex: Forgehost.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Dreadclaw?

Put him with a decent assault unit and use him for assault - his Techmarine skills mean the Dreadclaw is less likely to be blown up before you can assault from it.

I was thinking similar. The Dreadclaw can be taken as a dedicated transport with chosen, so you won't have to take a CAD to slip the dreadclaw in and you want to take the formation.

Load up the chosen either as shooty (I like Meltas) or choppy. The Dreadclaw is an assault vehicle, after all.

Give him the MoK and the axe of blind fury (upwards of 10+ attacks) and put him in a land raider with an assault unit.

Might not be a GT level choice but can be quite useful character.

The warpsmith lacks what CSM really need in an IC, Fearless. He wants to get into combat yet can be swept if he loses.


He either needs to be shootier(like lvl3 sorcerers are still good for Chaos) or he needs at least fearless.

What I'm imagining you could do is run an Ordnance Tyrant purge list with 4 units of Spawn (55 points for 3 models each), the first three units hiding a Cyclopea Cabal biker, while you plop the Warpsmith into the 4th unit. Roll either Geomortis or Ectomancy for your movement powers of choice, and catapult him around the field.

Alas, for FAQ restrictions on placing him in an allied Valkyrie/Arvus Lighter.

The sad thing is, a Heretech sorceror on a bike is cheaper and yet more effective.

Or just go full level 3 Heretech sorceror with a spell familiar and keep that sorceror safe. At least I won't be tempted to throw it into battle the way I want a Warp Smith just to justify his cost.

I like the suggestions of putting him in a dread claw though. I didn't know dread claw was considered a dedicated transport for chosen.

So, it makes a rather pricey drop deep strike unit but at least the warp smith can repair the dreadclaw, and it can use its 2+ save to protect the relatively fragile yet expensive chosen. And since the dreadclaw is an assault vehicle, the chosen can assault along with the warpsmith after shooting.

I guess I can seperately use a level 2 or 3 heretech sorceror for the real "warp smith" duties if I have a vindicator squadron or a hellforged warpack to protect/boost.

Been trying. Mutilators, two solo obpits, fist of the gods, put two attached to the mutilators. Might be tough enough

The only real thing a Warpsmith brings is lots of attacks. Seriously, he isn't bad when he's getting 6 attacks on the charge (or 7 for MoK, but you aren't taking that).

For our super mediocre deathstars, all of which involving Spawn, he's the challenge catcher for the Lords and Sorcerers. He's virtually guaranteed a decent crack at challenges once you splurge for MoN + the Aura.

It is still insulting that he got no discount after the Master of the Forge did.

 buddha wrote:
Give him the MoK and the axe of blind fury (upwards of 10+ attacks) and put him in a land raider with an assault unit.

Might not be a GT level choice but can be quite useful character.

Problem is the Axe lowers his WS, meaning he is hitting most chumps on 4s rather than 3s like a Chaos lord would.

On the shelf is how he earns his points best unfortunately. Still, I run one in my friendly Iron Warriors and stuff him in a land raider with some MoT Terminators and unless I get unlucky, it normally gets where it needs to, usually because the warpsmith has repaired a hull point or fixed an immobilised result, so it's less bad than usual, but it's also a friendly list, so it's not for competitive games anyway.

In smaller games he rides around in a rhino as the second special weapon and acts as a bit of an assault deterrent or, if they're forced to get out, they go looking for stuff to bully with their semi combat character.

 Exergy wrote:

 buddha wrote:
Give him the MoK and the axe of blind fury (upwards of 10+ attacks) and put him in a land raider with an assault unit.

Might not be a GT level choice but can be quite useful character.

Problem is the Axe lowers his WS, meaning he is hitting most chumps on 4s rather than 3s like a Chaos lord would.

He's has more attacks. The -1WS isn't that bad.

One attack doesn't exactly make up for hitting on 4's. Besides, the lord can make up for that by taking a juggernaut, which also puts him at twice the wounds for overall less points.
I mean, absent a lord or prince, the smith makes a decent alternative for the axe as far as attacks go, but yea, the lord is quite a bit better.

I don't know about others here, but I tend to forget that the smith has a built in flamer and melta. So I was thinking of letting him charge a unit solo.
Combined with his 2+, he should be able to just about mop up the average unit on his own fairly reliably. Same if you give him the brand, loosing the +1 CCW bonus isn't that big of a loss considering his +2 attacks from the tendrils.

Put him in a dreadclaw with chosen or CCW csm and deepstrike somewhere with multiple units. Try to hold out for a turn and then separate the chosen and smith if it makes sense.
Unlike the other HQ's, the smith doesn't loose any grenades for having a 2+ save, least outside of a relic. He wouldn't be able to deal with any dedicated CC units but he should be able to handle himself just fine vs most units. Just don't make him charge a tau gun line lol.

Might even be worth getting a dreadclaw as a fast attack to join him with a unit of obliterators. That would allow them use all their weapon options when firing twice. Or get out and shoot twice turn one and deepstrike another unit close by on turn two. Somewhat circumvents the weapon restrictions since you would be getting a "fresh" set of weapons to choose from.

 Roknar wrote:
One attack doesn't exactly make up for hitting on 4's. Besides, the lord can make up for that by taking a juggernaut, which also puts him at twice the wounds for overall less points.

Warpsmiths are already only Ws4 so only hit most units on 4+ anyway. And since it's a daemon weapon he was also get +d6 attacks

True, but I Exergy was comparing the smith to a lord with axe. The lord hits on 3s even with the debuff. The smith doesn't really have anything to offer that the lord wouldn't do better when equipped with the axe. At least in terms of assaulting. The extra free flamer is pretty nice though.

I'd not call it free.

In a land raider or dreadclaw he can be used to bolster an assault unit (chosen) but then he's not really doing warpsmith things. Outside of it he's too slow unless you play a rolling thunder tank list and hide him behind a wall of armour. Chaos codex is too gimped. Throwing a decurion at them has not solved the fundermental problems of the faction. Units are arbitrarily overpriced. HQs should all be fearless and they should access to bikes and jump packs, probably even mounts too.

The Purge Detachment does not allow mixing renegade and marine units in the same Detachment. You need to take 2 detachments to have both. In a Purge Detachment the warpsmiths flamer gets shred (at the cost of gets hot) which might help but he still needs to be embedded in an assault unit and used for CC.

There's a possibility of hiding him in terrain and using that new psychic power to slingshot him (and the terrain) forward to where you need him. Would require strong psychic support but that cold solve his lack of movement.

Well you can buy a dreadclaw as a fast attack and stick any unit in there with him. So you can deliver a unit of obliterators into rapid fire range on turn one, which helps the formation. So he can still do warpsmith things for the formation. Of course that means you need a CAD. Also I'd rather curse a vehicle than attempt to repair, given it's a 2+ vs a 5+, so he'd still be doing his thing. And actually, just sticking him in a claw allows him to stop the claw from nomming it's contents so it's not like he's simply hitching a ride.

I never thought of that OP
Him in a squad of 10 Posessed with MoS and Icon of Excess and a 1 in 3 chance to get a 3++ (and a another 1 in 3 to get shrouded) is quite a tanky unit and can be potentially fast (due to the 1 in 3 chance to get the beast type)

Im just waiting for GW (or FW) to do Honsu...
He is one of the biggest characters in the CSM Fluff and has No rules OR Model

Master of Mechanisms is a very valuable ability. No one seems to be mentioning it's offensive use here. Warpsmiths are pretty good at wrecking a lot of the vehicles people take issue with these days, eg Knights.

Additionally, Shatter Defenses is a force multiplier. It makes everything shooting into that terrain better.

Trying to get the most of a Warpsmith by using only his actual model and weapons is ignoring what he's actually good at.