Stats
Astroboy (ya thats my nickname for him) has to be compared to a Reclusiarch, and not very impressively here he has got +1WS. But hes got artificer armour which combined with the 4++ thats pretty good.
Wargear
Executioner's Axe has to be my favourite weapon in the BA codex (thats not very hard considering the rest are all Master-crafted force weapons). Its two-handed s6 power weapon and I love this bit, makes your opponent re-roll all successful invulnerable saves!
Other than all the normal chappy stuff thats it.
Special rules
Honour of the Chapter: as with all HQ chaplins it makes the unit he joins fearless.
Liturgies of Blood is the same again allowing Astorath and his squad to re-roll missed hits and if its the Death Company all wounds as well on the turn they charge.
Lastly he has the Shadow of the Primarch ability which I suspect is why most people will take him, making Red thirst on a 1,2 & 3 for all units.
Cost
Well in comparison to a Chaplin hes worth the points, well I think he would be, cause the Chaplin doesnt have very many options to bring him up to his standard and what cost do you put on the Executioner axe and an army wide special rule? I think hes worth every point you spend but saying that is he really that useful?
Uses
See although he may be worth the points, where does he fit into your army? It would seem that Red Thirst is obsolete when you have Sanuinary Priests in the army (and you will, they already give FC and let your units keep "ATSKNF" which is not that worse IMHO) He clearly works best with Death Company (as with all chaplins, you may as well take a Librarian if your not joining them to DC) but here is the problem, Death Company suffer the Rage special rule which means that they will run at the closest thing essentially making them out of your control, for this reason DC with Jump packs are highly inadvisable. Since Asrorath has a JP what do we do with him?
Astorath's JP gets in the way alot of the time but here is you options:
Stick him with a unit of 10 assault marines, make them fearless and plough your way through your enemy
Or try and stick him with DC which makes the Stormraven the only viable option really, so you take 5 DC with JPs and stick Astorath in, there is no doubt that this unit will pack a punch! But its going to make your Stormraven attract alot of firepower (which is not good, as I will explain when I get around to the Stormraven)
Lets be fair though in the end he cant do much better than a chaplin really! the Shadow of the Primarch is not that effective and certainly leaving a 50/50 chance for the units that need FC is not a good idea. Of course hes a beast in combat but not by much really, a bog standard HQ chaplin has 5A on the charge and will kill 2.9 marines and he kills exactly the same amount, with the cost difference of 65 pts, hes obviously better at killing better tougher stuff but still its never going to be that much better....
40kreddy
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