Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to talk about things that we don’t see anymore, and I don’t mean wins (for me).
I have gone through a lot f models over the years. I have bought, sold, and bought again a number of armies in my time. Games Workshop always has, and still does, make the best looking miniatures in the industry. I know there are plenty of miniature manufacturers that make models just as good, and sometimes better, but I don’t think they have the same volume of quality that Games Workshop produces. The models look so good that one can’t wait to get them together, painted and ready for the battlefield. Unfortunately, since I am, or was (you decide), a competitive player, there are many units that have, at one point or another, been a must have in an army but have fallen on hard times. one of these units is the Chaplain.
Just look at the picture above. How cool is that model? from the beginning, the image of a Space Marine Chaplain has just the coolest look about it. From the skull shaped helmet to the bone armor some of them wear, they just ooze character to me. They were practically a must have in your army in previous editions. Unfortunately, in this edition the special ability of the Chaplain does not mesh well with most current Space Marine armies that you see vying for the top spots in tournaments*. Although rerolling wound rolls is good, it is during the assault phase and not too many Space Marine armies are built to be an assault army. Sure, could maybe take him and a small assault oriented squad of guys to maybe act as a countercharge element, but if you really needed him to do that you may have already lost the game. You still see them on occasion, but you really won’t see them consistently in a winning list. except maybe because they just had the model and nothing else to spend the points on.
It’s probably my Mexican heritage showing through** with my fascination of the Chaplain and wanting him to be good again. I think the image above is the best way of showing the state the Chaplain is in right now in 8th edition. Interred in a Chaplain Dreadnought, due to the models being essentially dead. This new form allows the Chaplain , as a concept, to continue to serve in form that greatly benefits the Chapter that it serves. They have now become an inexpensive unit that has a high toughness, more wounds, doesn’t degrade, can carry 2 lascannons, has 6+ Feel No Pain, and even give nearby units +1 strength in close combat. All for about 200 points. I hope when Games Workshop releases the updated Space Marine book, they will rework the humble Chaplain so that he may once again take his place among the other heroes of the Imperium.
That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know your thoughts, and your favorite Space Marine Chaplain story, in the comments section. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!
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*RTTs don’t count
**See you at Dios de La Muerte!
The 8th edition Lt has effectively replaced the Chaplain in many lists. BUT Lemartes still appears in Blood Angels lists with Death Company.
A better question would be have SM disappeared from SM lists ?
Or have SM disappeared as a competitive army ? The last I saw winning was Spider’s Ultramarines in the official GW GT Heat 1 of September 2017.
Is your source of fewer than 12k competitive players in one format too small to tell ?
In the UK (and soon Spain and Australia) the Primaris Chaplain comes free on the cover of Warhammer Conquest magazine 34. it will be interesting to see if that kick-starts more being used at Warhammer World et al. And we are promised more Mark X Gravis armoured marines in 2019.
Already we’re seeing jump-pack Chaplains appearing as they can fly into combat / act as a fire-fighter buffing a number of spread-out units.
Are you insinuating, Rob Meme, that a sample size of 12k competitive players is too small and that PRIMARIS CHAPLAINS coming with a magazine is going to cause a resurgence? Lmao
It really is a damn shame, as they’ve always been among the coolest 40K Models. Part of the problem is that, yeah, Smash Captains aside, SM don’t really do Assault very well. Another issue is that they tend to be a “win more” kind of upgrade. They don’t usually provide enough of a boost to let a Unit expand its range of viable targets, they just make it so they’ll crush the things they can already beat harder.
My best use for them for some time now has been converting them into Chaos Lords.
“Although rerolling wound rolls is good, it is during the assault phase and not too many Space Marine armies are built to be an assault army.”
Havent touched 40k for some time now, since what GW calls “balancing” is just a bad joke, but I remember the Chaplain to allow rerolling for melee HITS, not WOUNDS… did they change this?
Yeah, Chaplains are re-rolls to Hit. CSM have Exalted Champions who give them full re-rolls to Wound in the Fight Phase, but Loyalists don’t.
Chaplains went out the useless window in 8th along other things like wet cardboard..sorry, “power armour” and its so called staying power, terminators, water pisto..sorry, bolters (that now despite being sooo strong apparently need desperate crutch rules DOUBLING their damage output just to make SM try to barely hang on in the game in the twelfth hour), LR redeemers, whirlwinds, vindicators, assault cents, AT cents, land raiders that are stopped in their tracks by a lonely naked grot touching them,
flamers, thunderfires, assault marines or anything grey knightish and so on, basically everything not horde, imperial guard, eldar or knights.
Funny enough I´m dead wrong because pointing out the glaring flaws dont exactly help selling toys in here so all the above examples are “really” SOOO strong, including deathwing, just ask reece.
The entire SM codex has never been stronger then today, it´s true and anyone who dares say that half the codex is pure garbage, badly designed with atrocious “cost-to-damage math” behind it and so overtaken by codex creep that one just wants to weep is wrong!
Plenty of counter arguments are soon incoming telling us all how powerful assault marines and whirlwinds are.
1: Anyone tried using a landraider redeemer (with its sooo strong super flamers) stuffed with hammernators in anything close to a competitive setting?
2: In a friendly game?
3: In a super friendly game vs a blindfolded rookie using a 500p handicap?
They are sooo strong, especially if used in the third example!