Librarians?

I'm looking at Librarians and wondering whether they're valid HQ choices. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE psionics...but how effective are Librarians as HQ?

I guess part of me is really cautious about running too many psykers...but I'd appreciate the perspective of some more experienced Brothers out there?

Personally I like them in larger games. 5 terminators as a retinue stacking hammerhand and might of titan in a landraider... Or just generating powers front divination for him is good too.

Librians aren't worth it anymore, not when you take 6th edition psychic powers... Coteaz can do that for 2/3rds the price. No great stats, expansive weapons and sub optimal load outs. Our book powers are ... Ok at best.

Now I'm not saying you can never take one. But compared to a grand master in terms of combat. He sucks... In terms of coteaz for support... He sucks. Mastery lvl 3 is so expansive. Just that upgrade and he costs the same as my grandmaster with his bag of tricks. And now he's double the price of coteaz. And you still haven't given him anything else.

I don't think I need to say more. Use him in friendly games. Keep out of competitive lists.

I take a Libby everytime with the my Ghostwing list. Normally attach him to Mordrak+Ghosts, and have him rocking a staff, homer, and Warp Rift. This lets me 1st turn "Rift" an enemy unit that just need to dies 1st turn, while allowing following GKT to land spot on come turn 2, as well as tanking challenges as needed. GK Libbies are badasses, basically IC Paladins with a psychic toolbox to buff up your army as you need it.

In other games I've dropped Warp Rift for Psybolt and Prescience, moved the homer over to a Stormraven, and attached the Libby to my reservered GKT squad, which have Psybolts, banner, hammer, halberds, and Psycannon. In this config, I like the DS the 'Raven with Mordrak aboard on turn 1, followed by the GKT+Libby on turn 2. It's good combo for mulching IG, Eldar, Tau, etc.

SJ

Huh, I didn't know you could do that with Mordrak. Can you really Turn 1 Deep Strike with a Stormraven?

Yeah, that's a hell of a rules' interpretation. BTW Mordrak has to DS all by itself (and it's Ghost Knights) to arrive in turn 1.

On topic. Librarians are good HQs. No comparing them against Coteaz. Two completely different game approaches. Coteaz is great because he costs 100 pts and can swap two mediocre psychic powers for better ones. Before sixth, it was good only for henchmen spam.
The librarian in return is a Termy with a lot of support powers which buff a specific unit. Can purchase whatever psychic powers you need and is cheap as hell. For 165 you have a great HQ choice 3 powerful psychic powers and another very survibable model to boot. It doesn't need to be a monster in combat or in Shooting, it just needs to support your army in a very different way other units do. As with the GM, the Librarian ca accomodate specific builds, but saying that this HQ is bad is just dismissing many tactical possibilities and builds our codex offers.

+1 with brother DonFer
Aubec

I concur +1 to DonFer

(Ha, didn't expect to rhyme)

But I really wish they allowed saves against perils or even more wounds on the Librarian. I mean he has the same amount of wounds as a castellan!

The Lib is a good unit but I find that you need to base your army around him as he mostly goes into a buffing roll, so for some players this will not suit the way they play.

DonFer how can you not compare coteaz to a librarian, both mastery lvl 2. Both can roll from BRB powers. Both have 3 wounds, both have WS & BS 4. Both have 2+ save. Both have a 2+ LoS!
Coteaz, has some nice special rules. And yes he unlocks henchmen as troops. Yes coteaz can sweeping advance? Yes coteaz cost 50pts less! Yes you can steal the initiative better or prevent other from.

Coteaz > librarian.

That is very naive and arrogant not to realise that they are similar units.

thats pretty arrogant and naive of yourself arratak. lets compare a bit further:

does coteaz get instagibbed by S6+? yes
does coteaz have a invulnerable save at all? no
does coteaz have the option to get a teleport homer? no
can coteaz grab some cheap servo skulls? no
can coteaz grab some of the other psychic abilitys from our codex? no (and yes, we still got some really nice ones)
does coteaz have any options at all except his set up gear? no

Ok, ok you got me souba,

Yes. There is differences in load out/wargear but both coteaz and the librarian are both support Hq's. regardless of wargear. That's the basics of these two Hq's. and..... Now that Ezekiel from dark angels has been released. Mastery lvl 3 for 145 points. There's no way I can justify paying the points for a librarian.

Take it for what you will but if you're going to compare our codex costs with others, of course there will be strengths and weaknesses. Most of the time, the have a substantial lower amount of models than other armies (tyranids, orks, guard, even other space marines). Saying you won't field a Grey Knight Libby because there's a better, cheaper Libby out there is like hearing a Black Temlpar playing say "I can't justify myself to buy 50 point rhinos, when Chaos has it for 35 points." Even Sisters of battle are out dated but people manage and play them pretty well.

But what ever floats your boat. I like both for what they do, except this edition Coteaz got a lot better. The Libby is still good in his own regard.

Aye Brother I concur!

I concur, the Grey Knight Librarian is somewhat of an unsung hero when your choosing HQ's, even giving him passive and defensive spells makes him powerful. The Shrouding and Sanctuary psychic powers can be pretty annoying to your opponent when he has to work hard just to hurt you.

You're talking about fluffy bunny fun games right?

Yes Arratak... Fluffy bunny games. The ones where you shake hands and smile genuinely while chatting about current events and the weather each turn of play instead of a tournament where your opponent screams at you for a rule citation because you moved your troop choice out of the kill range of his heavy support.

Yes the Librarian is expensive, so is everything else in our codex. But he offers something that the Grand Master or Corteaz can't.

I've been playing with a Grey Knight Librarian in my 'fluffy bunny' games for a year now, has he failed me? No, how can you ignore a choice that can save the bacon of any of your troops in dire situations or make the firing/assault options of your opponent harder to achieve?

Purityinflames asked if it were a viable HQ choice, I say yes.

That is if he wants to play happy casual games where you don't give your opponent the stink eye the entire game.

+1 Andarius the Red

I feel that each has its strengths and weaknesses, and that it comes down to what you like. If you don't want an Inquisitor and want to play all GK or visa versa then at last we have a choice.

I personally, will be taking a Libby

Strange. I am a competitive gamer and to put it bluntly: Librarian => Coteaz hands down.

Coteaz needs a certain build to use him, henchmen or glass cannon shooting that still needs a way to get him and his squad to within 24 of the enemy and often his squad is either full henchmen (dies from counter fire) or PAGK (also squishy).

The librarian on the other hand provides so much more buffs that taking anything else then GK psychic powers is a waste on him but then again taking him also depends on your build.

I´m not going to talk about fluffy gaming since anything goes there but about competitive ones and here is where the libby shines.
GK dont need super melee HQ monsters, they have good melee units as it is and the few models a gk army has really needs buffs in the survivability and mobility department and here is where the libby shines.

Almost all competitive GK armies use tripple psyflemen dreads. These are our best anti flier units that also eat dark eldar, eldar and mobile orks alive and cause big trouble for any mechanised MEQs or the usual guard parking lot.
The trick is to have them survive.
In games where I face opponents where the dreads can really maul (like 10-12 dark eldar banana boats or the necron flying croissant circus) the libby gets attached to a 5 man strike squad and put in terrain like ruins with the three dreads. The unit means the libby cant be Id by shooting and also gives the unit as well as the dreads shrouding.

Taking a skull and being smart with it in deployment means powers like summoning are very powerful. People usually hate summoning but this power alone (right after shrouding) has won me more games then anything else.
In desperate situations you can "fling" scoring units towards objectives (won me a very hard game where I actually played for 4 turns simply not to be tabled).

You can send of or DS units in misdirection attempts or attempts to reach a goal and force the enemy to react and slit up only to have the unit summoned away from certain death at the last moment.
Together with a skull you risk little for enormous gain.
Best memory of that is when I faced an uphill battle against a cheesy necron army built around massed wraiths. I sent a shooty squad to one flank, it killed a croissant and threatened an objective and this forced the nercon to divide his wraiths and send some to intercept it.
The necrons thus divided and I could shoot them dead and win the game in the end rather then face a bum rush I could not hope to beat in melee. The squad that I sent away was summoned back right before it was hit with the wraiths...who by now were to far away from the real action to do any good for the reminder of the game.

Summoning enables you to deepstrike things in unfavorable positions where the enemy thinks you will never go since you wont sacrafice that 240p strike squad "just" to kill that basilisk etc at the back of his lines because he will later on assault you but with summoning you can and even the knowledge of this will screw up the opponents plans big time.

As for melee, what is better, a beefed up 200+ points grandmaster (who still gets IDd from a fist or hammer if he fails one 3++) or a libby at 170-ish points that grants your squad +2S, shrouds them from shooting (lots of plasma these days) and makes it I10?

Dont know how many charges I have negated for my opponents by casting a simple sanctuary. Coteaz cant do that for 5p.

Want to use Mordrak then a libby with warp rift will win you games.

Do you use a transport like a landraider or a stormchicken then a libby with shrouding and warp rift is a must.


Basically the libby with codex powers at 5 measly points is too good to pass up, he has good uses no matter what opponent you face and has won me more games then any other HQ, it´s not even close.

Thanks for the post. I dont have a librarian but now i feel i need one for my army. What is your tactic for warp rift and shrouding with a transport?

Thraxdown wrote:Thanks for the post. I dont have a librarian but now i feel i need one for my army. What is your tactic for warp rift and shrouding with a transport?

Lol! Brother Pyriel's post made me want to ask him about builds with Mordrak, LRs, and SRs. Definitely a sign of a great post.

+1 to Brother Pyriel. He really defended the Librarian very well.

But if you're going to put your Libby With your Dreads to give them better cover, why not run Techmarines which will do the same AND potentially restore hullpoints. They also have cheaper servo skulls too. BETTER YET why not use both?

Pyriel wrote:Strange. I am a competitive gamer and to put it bluntly: Librarian => coteaz.... Blah blah

Blah......

Blah

So give me your tournament list. And we'll see what you have.

I love how your like: yeah we have decent close combat units... When they get into combat. If they're not shot down by rapid fire
Plasma, demolisher cannons, battle cannons, artillery and dark eldar poisoned shots.

Infact... Let me link you are few ETC lists. Infancy ill also link you some NOVA lists. One of the biggest tournaments in emerica. We'll see if the top tournement players in the world even think about a librarian.

FRANCE ARMY LIST
PLAYER 4: Mathieu "throst" T. ARMY DESCIPTION : Grey Knights
HQ1 : Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (25), with Power Weapon (10), Servo-skull (3), Rad grenades (15) [53pts]
Elite 1 : 5 Purifiers (120) with 2 Psycannons (20), 1 Nemesis Hallberd (2), 1 Nemesis Hammer (5). Knight of the flame with Nemesis Hallberd (2) in Transport 1 [149pts]
Elite 2 : 5 Purifiers (120) with 2 Psycannons (20), 1 Nemesis Hallberd (2), 1 Nemesis Hammer (5). Knight of the flame with Nemesis Hallberd (2) in Transport 2 [149pts]
Elite 3 : 5 Purifiers (120) with 2 Psycannons (20), 1 Nemesis Hallberd (2), 1 Nemesis Hammer (5). Knight of the flame with Nemesis Hallberd (2) in Transport 3 [149pts]
Troop 1 : Grey Knight Strike Squad (100) with 1 Psycannon (10). Justicar with Nemesis Hammer (10) in Transport 4 [120pts]
Troop 2 : Grey Knight Strike Squad (100) with 1 Psycannon (10). Justicar with Nemesis Hammer (10) in Transport 5 [120pts]
Troop 3 : Grey Knight Strike Squad (100) with 1 Psycannon (10). Justicar with Nemesis Hammer (10) in Transport 6 [120pts]
Troop 4 : Grey Knight Strike Squad (100) with 1 Psycannon (10) in Transport 7 [110pts]
HS 1: 1 Dreadnought (115) with 2 twin-linked autocannon (10+5), Psybolt ammunitions (5) [135pts] HS 2: 1 Dreadnought (115) with 2 twin-linked autocannon (10+5), Psybolt ammunitions (5) [135pts] HS 3: 1 Dreadnought (115) with 2 twin-linked autocannon (10+5), Psybolt ammunitions (5) [135pts]
Transport 1 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts] Transport 2 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts] Transport 3 : Rhino (40), Dozer Blade (5) [45pts]
Transport 4 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts] Transport 5 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts] Transport 6 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts] Transport 7 : Razorback (45), Twin linked heavy bolter, Psybolt ammunitions (5), Dozer Blade (5) [55pts]
TOTAL [1750pts]