Blood Angels Tactica: Dark Angels Librarius Conclave

This past Christmas, GW gave the Imperial players quite the gift during the advent calendar event.  The Dark Angels Librarius Conclave has mostly gone under the radar, but the formation provides imperial based armies a much needed boost in the psychic department.

 

So, what is the Librarius Conclave anyway?  Well, it is a formation available for download from the Games Workshop Digital Library and is composed of the following units:  Ezekiel, and between 2-4 Dark Angels Librarians.  The special rules allow for you to double the range of Ezekiel's Mind Worm power, but more importantly, as long as one of the librarians is within 12" of another, he can cast either Librarians powers needing only a 3+ for a success as opposed to the typical 4+.  Doing so means no other Librarian from the formation within 12" may cast another power.

 

What this means (specifically for Blood Angels) is access to Telepathy with a high likelihood of manifesting the power everyone cares about; Invisibility.  Since the release of the codex, Blood Angels Librarians may no longer cast Telepathy powers.  That's a big kick to an army which relies so heavily on its ability to get into assault.

 

I have found the most useful method of running the formation as follows:

Ezekiel

1 Librarian ML 2

1 Librarian ML 2 with a power field generator (gives all models within 3" a 4++)

 

The unit together costs a whopping 375 points.  That is a lot, and probably enough to deter a lot of players from ever trying it.  The pros outweigh the cons, however.

 

The formation gives you an additional 7 warp charge dice for the psychic phase.  As most people know, the imperial armies tend to struggle in the psychic phase, especially against psyker heavy armies, because they simply struggle to bring enough warp dice to the table.  Add another psyker or 2 from your primary detachment and you can have between 9-12 warp charge dice in your Blood Angels army before the dice are rolled to generate extra in the psychic phase.  That alone makes the formation worth taking.

 

The biggest factor in what makes this formation so deadly is access to Telepathy tree as noted above.  With 6 rolls possible, you have an 80% chance of successfully rolling and getting Invisibility.  And this is the only power you need to worry about attempting to roll to generate for the entire formation. If you get fortunate and more than one librarian gets the power, that's all the better.  Since this unit won't be casting any other powers anyway, Invisibility is the one you want to go for with each psyker.

 

Suddenly your opponent is looking at not only Death Company and/or Sanguinary Guard with Dante, but also Invisible versions of those units.  Suddenly those units become a train wreck to deal with on the table.  On their own, these units are strong enough to wipe half your opponent's army off the board, but combined with the power of Invisibility, they are even more of a force to be reckoned with. 

 

During deployment you want to deploy all 3 of them on the board preferably hidden, in a single unit.  This way they can all benefit from a 4++ invulnerable save.  Don't embark on a transport, because you won't be able to cast Invisibility while embarked, but keep these guys as far out of line of sight from the enemy as possible.

 

When the psychic phase comes, chunk as many dice as you can at the power within reason.  I'd suggest anywhere from 5-7 dice.  Generating a success on a 3+ means the more dice you throw at it, the harder it becomes for your opponent to deny it, even with those pesky demon armies with tons of warp charges.  The idea here being to generate enough successes on the casting that your opponent can't make enough 6+ deny the witch rolls without burning through most of their own pool.  Don't be concerned with perils of the warp.  These guys are here for one reason and one reason only; to make your powerhouse units invisible.

 

The formation is pricey, but what it can provide is nearly double the killing potential of a Death Company or Sanguinary Guard unit.  These units are already difficult to kill, and are extremely fast.  Adding Invisibility in the mix makes them a devastating unit to deal with on the table top for your opponent and he'll likely throw anything and everything including the kitchen sink at them to stop the bleeding. 

 

In my last game I used this trick against a Necron player with a catacomb command barge, 6 wraiths, and the new C'tan formation running around with toughness 8 and a 3++ deep striking.  I was able to murder all of them with invisible Death Company. 

 

Again there are pros and cons to using this formation.  The main drawback being the incredible points sink invested into the unit, but the killing potential for your army goes through the roof when it works, and a majority of the time, it will.