Worth mentioning for the Ravenwing Command Squad: while the Champion doesn’t have precision, the Company of Hunter detachment has an enhancement that gives precision melee for only 10 points.
@@Sanctjud considering some of the other enhancements in company of hunters i say ... eh maybe? what i love doing is giving that boy fire discipline in gladius with a full pack of knights gives you some really nice move and fire and even decent on the charge not needing advance and charge to still put some good shots down range and position with
You're selling the Visarch quite short here. First, in the Troupe unit, he gets lance, so he's wounding TEQ characters on a 3, and MEQ characters on a 2. Even Custodes & tougher space marines on a 4. Second, the Aeldari reroll with a 6 fate die and sustained hits 2 increases his average hits by a lot. If you use a farseer skyrunner (which is very common in Ynnari lists), he gets full rerolls to hit, which is extremely powerful with sustained 2, and the farseer guarantees the 6 on the reroll. He's often hitting 9 or 11 times with a farseer nearby. At AP4 D2, that results in a lot of dead marines or termies and/or an almost assuredly dead character. Then you have Yvraine and the 12 troupe to mulch whatever is left.
This falls into the same thing as the Death Jester, the profiles look kinda powerful but not too standout or anything, then you realize that it can choose Sustained Hits 3, and paired with Fate's Messenger you statistically go from 3 near guaranteed hits to 7-9 hits with the Battle Host rerolls and suddenly your Death Jester is deleting enemy units that were silly enough to walk into his field of vision and his 6/-1/2 dev wounds Shrieker Cannon
Fully agrre ! And you didn't mention he brings FIGHT FIRST to the 11-13 brick of Harlequin Troupe, reason he is regularly picked in competitive lists using this Troupe Deathstar, along with Yvraine in the same unit to resurrect some troupes
I feel like boss snikrot is the closest orks can get to a "character slayer." Granted I take him and komandos to turn 1 charge, with 'ere we go and brutal carnage to 1 shot a character
In The Infinite and the Divine, we briefly meet a character that is essentially a Triarch Praetorian Executioner. Such a character would be a very cool "champion" type unit for the Necrons if GW ever made them.
Besides being an all-around BEAST in melee, Stracken has a key advantage over the Ogryn. Counterintuitively, Ogryn Bodyguards are NOT character models. I think Nork Deddog might be the only unit in the game with the Epic Hero keyword that is not a character. As such, they are not legal targets for the Epic Challenge stratagem. This little quirk leaves Stracken as the undisputed best “champion” unit in the Guard. o7
The standard CSM Master of Executions does have the rule that he can join a squad that already has a Leader, which does make him a bit more interesting. If running Emperor's Children you can put him and Lucius in a squad of Legionaries to gain a pretty scary amount of Fights First Precision attacks between the two of them.
Thousands Sons player here. My goto melee infantry unit is actually using a formation of exalted sorcerors on disk, with one of them running arcane vortex to get +1 strength and damage. With torrent weapon profile having str6 ap-2 dmgD3 and melee having 5atk WS 2+ str6 ap-1 dmgD3, and each character running solo for basically un-overwatchable nuisance charges (up to 3 of them), they can work together to absolutely bully all but the most sturdy units off the board. They can even challenge a dedicated melee unit like bladeguard to some effect. For ~350pts, this gives you 6 cabal points as well, so a doombolt can probably be thrown in as well before the charge since you will have other cabal units making points
You know we are *cooked* as a faction when Auspex thinks one of the two Ogyrn Body Guards are better than Iron Hand Straken as a melee champion. When stuck in to a unit Straken and on the charge gets 6 WS2+ S7 AP-3 D2 hits, with Lethals, and full rerolls to hit and rerolls to wound. He isn't as tough as an Ogyrn, sure, though he does have a 3+/4++, but he does significantly more damage.
The 55pts Lictor is pretty sick for Tyranid anti-hero options, I'm addicted to bringing 3 even in 1,000pts lists. If you keep one near your walking tyrant and the other two holding hands, they can disassemble basically anything by either diving headfirst onto a unit that strays too close, or by pulling a heroic intervention into a combat to protect their Warlord
The absolute champion for me was a naked crisis suit (had no points left for weapons, picked it to be a chaff lol) that deepstriked behind a vindicator, survived the round, charged, penned and rolled the explosion, and survived even that. Good ol times.
My Blade Champion has done so much for me every time I take him. He has one-shot a Bloodthirster on turn 1 with so many devastating wounds and done the same against the Silent King. Not to mention, he provides a reliable way to get my other Custode units he's attached to into combat. He synergizes so well with Custodian Guard, with full rerolls on objectives you control. Absolute beast for 110 points!
Big fan of the Judiciar and The Emperor's Champion is my favorite unit in the game since I started 40k eons ago. Also as a point of information, The Emperor's Champion is not chosen by the Black Templar, it is a warrior that is inspired by the Emperor to step forward and take the mantle of Champion.
I know we’re pretending the BA codex didn’t leak a week or two ago so GW doesn’t get mad, but Mephiston is deffo going to be our one man wrecking ball as opposed to the Sanguinor who’s still just a utility pick
I like running a brotherhood Champion with the +1 to wound relic, in a full 10 man strike squad. Putting them in a rhino works quite well also, as it reduces their footprint and they can still scout
Votann arguably have Kahl as well. That said, we don’t discuss Uthar- he’s the kid that never gets picked in the schoolyard kickball game. Orks also have Mozrog, Snikrot.
On Tau, while not a character or a single-model unit, Farstalkers do, I think, fit the bill. At game start you pick something and they get Lethals and Precision on all their attacks against it, so they do literally bounty-hunt a Character out. Granted, their weapons are basically all S4 AP0 D1 but you can bump that and bruise the Character or its unit beforehand for their bonuses to Hit/Wound or fish for Lethals if you really need to with a Lonespear as well.
A skitarii duellist pre-programmed with pure hatred for the enemy champions and tasked with seeking them out to eliminate for the Omnissiah would be pretty cool. Maybe he has some sort of Noosphere link so as to constantly ping for updates on enemy positions. Make him like general grievous, wielding 4 transonic blades and just a whirlwind of humming death. Could be a good Sicarian leader unit that we’ve wanted for a while.
Locus should add a 6+ FnP to the full unit once a game and Benefictus should add a 6+ invuln once a game, so they can be paired up, it's weird how little use both defensive buffs have otherwise.
My favorite Ogryn bodyguard set up is actually Ripper + Brute Shield. Gives him a decent gun to support with, ripper in melee isn't too bad of a weapon and gives him a invulnerable save better than his normal save that you cant modify.
Honestly Mephiston being a 4+++, fights first lone operative now he might be a pretty good contender for Blood Angel champion. Although if Precision is a pre requisite for characters that join units then maybe the new Astorath might be a good Champion for blood angels. Although him being high chaplain does sort of make him more of a commander same with mephiston being chief librarian. Honestly if we’re going based on lore (and my past experience in games) then the blood angels champion would honestly just be Dante.
Straken for guard packs a punch. Just watch almost any Moridan glory video and watch him solo almost anything. Run him with +10 wounds for 55pts (catachans) or just throw him in a chimera and have him pop out and charge something scary
For my world eaters list, im finding i prefer taking Skulltaker and a Bloodletter block as my character killers over a lord of exicution. Less attacks, but deepstike and rerolling wounds eith dev wounds is pretty spicy. ~200 points vs ~285.
I mean most competitive aeldari lists are running the Visarch in the harlequin blob. Sure the 4+ inv is a bit of a waste on the quins but he's decent in melee, gives ASF and the blob it's not quite as scary without him.
Very harsh on the Visarch I feel, I honestly thought he'd be a 9/10 with his different options of special rules and fights first. Like the Aeldari version of a Blade Champion. Choosing Drahzar over Lelith was a gut punch though 😂
If Blade Champion in Shield Host could take From the Halls of Armouries for +1S/+1D, he would be 10/10. Shame that enhancement is locked to the captains.
I wish that the company heroes were more like the ravenwing command squad that can have a captain or join a small squad it would give it better options. The squad is too small to give to most captains.
Yep I clean swiped a Redemptor dreadnought with 12 devastating wounds with some extra overkill from the regular hits one game. Another game my friend was deathly afraid of engaging his Abbadon + Termi brick with the MoE since he loses on either Fights First or if I get to charge him instead.
I know it's not competitive, but I'm very fond of my visarch + yvraine + clowns unit, since in my LGS I'm mostly up against marines and short-ranged infantry so they've eaten up more than their fair share of squads, with my favorite memory being them moving up to within 6 of my very important and exposed wraithguards only to heroically intervene and eat a charging helbrecht + sword brethren brick
It's very competitive, several very good aeldari players have taken it and won big events or podiumed. You are playing them absolutely correctly as well!
