The mathhammer breakdown on what to use... Librarians are still the best cheap HQ available for those of us who aren't codex jumpers (haha jk?). Mephiston... Scary, killy, but too many points and really unfluffy for my self-made chapter. I'd rather use a Land Raider. Other characters are kinda useful, but this post is going to be about the tried and true BA librarian that you get starting at 100 points.
Quick rundown of the psychic powers in order...
Blood Boil: 1 auto wound, no armour save, you can select the model if you roll a 5 or less. Okay, but this is a shooting attack. What's the point to taking this? The only real use I see out of this is punking tooled out 1 wound sergeants, you know, the ones running rampant with combi meltas and power fists (I am guilty as charged). Even still, you only have a 36% chance of actually getting to choose where the wound goes, slightly better than 1 in 3 tries. With a 12" range you will probably only get to use this power 1 or 2 times a game, if at all.
In short - it's pretty crappy, I wouldn't bother with it.
Fear of the Darkness: Interesting stuff here. This power is a little too situational to just mathhammer away. How close is the enemy unit to the table edge? Can you get them to run right off? Are they below half strength? Avg Ld values of your opponent? Etc etc, the list goes on. I think that this power can be extremely good. I would defintitely want to run with 2x librarians and double-cast this for insurance, similar to how I play my pair of vindicator tanks - as a single cast is going to give you somewhere in the ballpark of succeeding half the time depending on Ld values ofc. 40k is not the kind of game that you want to rely on half-chances. Always make sure that you statistically have the volume of shots needed to
perform and your army should do well. Obviously there's always crazy dice rolls, both good and bad, but volume of shots is SO essential to reliability.
Might of Heroes: +D3 attacks, or 2 on average. For a typical librarian, this is weak. Only really worth it with Sanguine sword, and to cast 2 powers in the assault phase means you must be an epistolary which is pretty much a waste. Much better power to use for assault is Unleash Rage. I'd only take this with a Furioso Librarian dreadnought.
Shackle Soul: Some eldar trickery is going on here. Looks interesting on paper, and truth be told I've never tried it. Very manipulative, so if that's your game then maybe I'd go for it. The big problem I see with it is that it has a 12" range, so that enemy unit will really have to fail most of the checks (unlikely) in order to not be a threat to your librarian and his unit. A little too chancy for my tastes.
Shield of Sanguinius: Hell yeeeah! Alright, it's not
that good. But if you are running a parking lot, I think it's pretty much retarded these days not to take a Librarian with this power. I know, traditional cover for vehicles isn't
that hard to achieve, and it also isn't hard to generate cover by interlocking your own vehicles. However, you're pretty much always going to have a few vehicles up in front and out in the open. Consider this an army-wide 5+ cover save for all your vehicles. Don't let that force you to bunch up all your tanks though. While this power *does* make castling generally appealing; remember to
play the board and not run the same cookie cutter deployment vs. whoever you play against.
Librarian's are all about force multipliers and
not being the
individualistic kill everything turbo street fighter champ.
Smite: Okay, this is another junk power. Please don't pay 100 points for a dude that pumps out a mindblowing FOUR!! Str4 BS4 AP2 shots - at 12" range to boot. (Averages to a massive 1.32 MEQ kills not in cover). Yeeeah.
The Blood Lance: Unlike Smite, you can actually kill things with this. Auto hit if it goes off (yeah!), str 8 (yeah!), AP1
and Lance (YEAH!). Oh, and you can hit more than one unit if you line it up and get range. Really, it's not so so good, but the thing is that you can only cast 1 power per player turn. If you are running the librarian in a squad that prefers to shoot (double tap) instead of assault, then this may be the power for you. I have blown up my fair share of tanks with this power. The squad my Librarian goes with has effectively 2 meltaguns, which is not very reliable. The extra shot will help.
The Sanguine Sword. No you are not mephiston. This is a horrible idea for a regular librarian. See next power!
Unleash Rage: Force multipliers are what you want, like this power. If you want to run a super killy librarian unit, take this with terminators or anything assaulty. I have had great success using this with terminators. You will kill anything you charge at providing the power goes off. Unlike a chaplain you can keep using this if you get locked in assault.
Wings of Sanguinius: Only bother with a Furioso Librarian. Don't gamble by running this on a pack-less Lib in a jump-packing squad. Disaster waiting to happen. You have been warned!
That wraps up this post. What I have been using for my Librarians are the following:
Terminator Librarian (Terminator heavy list)- Unleash Rage + Blood Lance or Fear
(Note: Don't be dumb like me, you should
probably give him a storm shield)
Power armored Librarian (Parking lot) - Shield + Blood Lance
(Note: Keep this one cheap and cheerful. Hold the wargear please!)
More to come
UPDATE:
New GW FAQ took a big dump on psychic shooting in order to nerf OP space wolves. In the process they nerfed everyone else. I won't be running Blood Lance anymore now that you need a BS check on top of psychic check - the auto hit was huge and now that it uses the Lib's mediocre BS4 I reckon it's crap compared to taking Unleash Rage.
Also, I tried an Epistolary setup today, something I RARELY ever do in an all-infantry list. Took Rage and Sword (Yeah, I know I said it sucked) but it turned out to be okay. I think the shield was still a better deal but the 3 attacks (4 on charge) re roll hits at str 10 was pretty nasty tbh, especially with furious charge granted from the honor guard meaning he was striking first. Just a thought.
