Topic: hq or captain?

[adz594]

sorry for asking so many questions latly, but when picking your army do you look at having an expensive hq or just take a captain for 100pts and spend the rest on troops etc to do the fighting.

cheers

adz594

[SMVaughn]

Depends what you want to do with him. A base 100 pt Captain does not bolster troops much. Expensive HQ are nice fluff, and can bolster various aspects of your units depending on your HQ choice. Where a Captain properly outfitted can bolster units, and cheaply. For example if you have a unit of Assault Termies all with Lightning Claws and then a 160 pt Captain equipped with Termie armor and lightning claws, the 5 man 200 pt termies just got 20 + attacks on the assault, and alone the Captain can break off and kill what ever comes his way.

[Malfush]

If you're just going to spend the "basic" amount of points (in our codex, that's pretty much 100 for HQ's), you're better off choosing a libby, a chaplain, or even a MotF. They all cost the same base cost as the captain, but provide better perks. The captain is a good HQ, but he needs to be tooled up to do his job, whereas the other HQ's can get away as basic.

[KJQ]

Regardless of which HQ you choose, you should make sure it is good fit for your army and/or build your army around your HQ.

In my case most of my lists include a lot of melta, flamers, and sometimes assault termies with THs, so I usually play Vulcan - especially as I seem to suck at rolling to hit   In smaller point games <=1250 I tend to go with a basic HQ. IMHO the best bang for the low-point buck is the vanilla chaplain. Even then, you want to match him with an appropriate assault oriented unit based on how he modifies the rules for his unit (i.e. fearless, re-roll to hit in assault).

I've only been playing for 1.5 years, but my experience is that high cost HQ's in general don't pay all that well, exception being Vulcan. I never play more than one, preferring to spend my points on things like dreads, vindis, dakka preds, TFC.  Exceptions of course are high point games and apocalypse games.

[WisdomLS]

I think if your looking for a bare bones cheap HQ then the librarian is the best. Come with a force weapon, a psychic hood and two powers.
Just great his points but isn't that survivable so be careful where you place him, he's more of a force multiplier than a beat stick but what do you expect for 100pts

[Azash76]

I would agree with what everyone here has already said.

However a good HQ depending on your army I think is Chaplain Cassius. At his cost, this guy is one of the best HQ's in CSM point for point.

Moderator Comment

Removed listed stats. Always assume we know what you are talking about.

[Admiral Dred]

I agree with Azash.  Unless you run a chaplain with a jump-pack or some sort of key equipment, scrounge up the extra points and get Cassius.  He gets alot of perks for a slight cost upgrade.  Ask yourself this, if all his perks were listed for that point cost in the vanilla chaplain profile, would you buy them? 

For me...
YES

160 pt Captains work well i guess, i would rather invest a wee bit more for Lysander, who is a beast, or Vulkan for even less.  Both boost their armies and have amazing combat potential, eclipsing even tooled-up captains IMO.