# Librarian vs. Chaplain



## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

which character has more tactical flexibility? I personally like the damage output of a librarian, but the chaplains morale bonuses are handy too
thoughts?


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Don't forget the Chaplains ability to allow the squad he is with to reroll misses when charging. Combine a term chappy with a lightning claw armed termy squad and you have brutal death to deliver to any unit with near impunity.


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

i have to go on the side of chaplains i've seen too mny libraians fail their psycic test for their force weapon


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

I personally go with Librarians.. Im never on the field without one. First off the pyschic powers are pretty cool. You can make him a HtH monster with Might of Heros, get your re-rolls with Veil of Time, make horde armies run with Fear of Darkness, pin horde armies with Fury of the Ancients, try to kill models in a really cool way with Vortex of Doom, or just keep the original Storm of Emporers wrath and shoot people with a nice Ap2 Blast shot. In addition you have the Psychic hood to try and nullify your opponents psychic attacks which with the new chaos is quite often, and you have your own Force weapon to kill characters out right in HtH. Give him a Familiar and now hes Init 6 which gives you good chance of going first/same time in HtH with other characters.

Chappys are great but there biggest benefit IMHO (Litanies of Hate) is used only when charging. With the new Chaos Lash armies its becomes far more difficult to get the charge and often times your cc unit will be manipulated so that it looses the charge.


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## SyNide (Nov 24, 2007)

I like both 

Deepstriking Libby with Fear of the Dark is awesome!


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## Warpath (Nov 27, 2007)

> Don't forget the Chaplains ability to allow the squad he is with to reroll misses when charging. Combine a term chappy with a lightning claw armed termy squad and you have brutal death to deliver to any unit with near impunity.


All the way........i'm such a huge Chaplin fan, game wise, fluff wise even model wise too.


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## Ultima (Jun 16, 2007)

IMHO, Librarian hands down. Psychic powers like fury of the ancients and fear of darkness are absolutely brilliant. Not only that, the psychic hood is invaluable and imo a must have especially with Lash Princes and eldrad users becoming so popular. Also the force weapon can be so useful against enemy characters

The chaplain's advantages are good but imo irrelevent in alot of situations. Its quite good that he makes a squad fearless. But SM have high leadership with and they shall know no fear, so it doesnt matter really. Similarly, re-rolling misses on the charge can be juicy, but I think SM are generally not the strongest combat force. There are endless units with a higher initiative that will tear down SM combat squads for breakfast.

the librarian can attack multiple units without needing los, make massive portions of the enemy army fairly reliably run away, instant kill characters and has a brilliant psychic defence. Its just a no-brainer for me.


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## Archangel (Dec 30, 2007)

Termie Chappy + Termie squad w/ Ltng Claws + LRC = Complete obliteration of anything it touches.

I go with chappy all the way.

Many moons ago I was all about the Libby, but after failing too many psychic tests it ends up being a only slightly above average character.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

For tournament play in a marine army I think a Librarian is near-essential. Chaplains are very good for leading death company and potentially useful if you like to have 700 points of terminators, chaplain and vehicle in one place - which isn't for me.

I find fury of the ancients hugely useful. I like the psychic hood and force weapon too. I play my marines pretty shooty, so a chaplain doesn't make a lot of sense for me.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

I think *neither* is tactically flexible. Both are dedicated close combat units in the end, really-- they both come with fancy close combat weapons, and in both cases, their abilities are best used in close combat-- in the Librarian's case, a force weapon and psychic powers that have very short range or have some effect on how combat flows; and in the Chaplain's, Fearless and re-rolling misses on the charge. The tactically flexible HQ choice is the Commander, since he can be equipped with ranged weapons and buffs the entire army's leadership, which is quite a bit more useful when you have a gun line than having a model that can make close combat rather one-sided.


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## Sons of Russ (Dec 29, 2007)

Someguy said:


> For tournament play in a marine army I think a Librarian is near-essential. Chaplains are very good for leading death company and potentially useful if you like to have 700 points of terminators, chaplain and vehicle in one place - which isn't for me.
> 
> I find fury of the ancients hugely useful. I like the psychic hood and force weapon too. I play my marines pretty shooty, so a chaplain doesn't make a lot of sense for me.


I agree, however, this is one area I feel the BA list needs help. Is it still legal to ally with grey knights in tournements? From what I have read, IG/SM/SoB were the only armies that could officially have allies for sanctioned event...


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

> In addition you have the Psychic hood to try and nullify your opponents psychic attacks which with the new chaos is quite often


I hate psychic hoods. Hate them. I will be the first to admit that Lash of Submission is somewhat overpowered and at the very least should cost more but the hoods ability to negate ALL powers cast in a turn is ridiculous imho. And I thought that even before the new chaos codex came out, especially after seeing a single hood pretty much screw over an Eldar force for an entire game. The Eldar player just could not get a single power off thanks to that hood and as a consequence lost the game BADLY because of it. Hoods either need to be FAR more expensive or there should be a limit of some kind on how many powers it prevents. I saw a suggestion once that the first one should work as normal and any negations after that should require a 5+, then a 6+ for each attempt after that and I find that idea to be quite excellent actually. Means it is still good but puts it back into the range of other wargear. As it stands now however it is too much.


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## CATzeentch (Dec 25, 2007)

Holy crap I agree because I cast about 5-7 powers per turn, needing most to really have an effective battle plan, so I DESPISE Hoods, and want to kill runes of warding(3D6 psychic test). But I say get a jumpy chap and an assault squad or a termie librarian in a termie shooty squad.

P.S. I Fire trucking hate hoods.


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## Terminator (Nov 17, 2007)

I would vote librarian, as he has several decent setups. The chaplain is really optimized for leading an assault unit. However, I think the commander is the most flexible. Here's my simplified rundown:

Librarian: tooled-out, probably the strongest individual IC
Chaplain: cheaper, best leader for a squad, specifically assault 
Commander: especially for the master, best unit for the whole army, because of his conferred Ld 

It depends where you want him to go too. A chaplain is a natural for the assault squad. A cheap master is great on the back line with his troops. And a librarian in terminator armor is a beast deep-striking with term bodyguards. I've also heard good things about both chaplains and librarians on bikes.


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## Damned Fist (Nov 2, 2007)

Solution: Take one of each! Thats what I do.:victory: That way my opponent can hate both of them equally..., Right Wraith?


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