The Dark Angels don’t have it so hot when it comes to Librarians.

There’s the basic, unnamed Librarian. He’s got a number of wargear options, including the ability to take Terminator armor. He’s got two powers: a random flamer template (S 2d6-2 , AP d6) and the ability to save a single wound with a Leadership test.

Then there’s Ezekiel, Grand Master of Librarians. He has no wargear options, and cannot Terminator armor. He’s got the same powers as the other Unforgiven Librarians, plus the ability to remove a model from the game if it fails a Leadership test (which sounds cool, but very unlikely to happen).

Note that “can take Terminator armor” is something I’m particularly concerned about; my Dark Angels are (especially since the new Space Marine codex came out) primarily Deathwing. So a Librarian not wearing Tactical Dreadnought armor is pretty useless to me, which means that Ezekiel is pretty useless to me. (Also, the lack of an Invulnerable save hurts, and that he makes all units within a foot of him Fearless does nothing whatsoever for me.)

The problem is: Ezekiel is much better at doing what I need a Librarian to do: wear a Psychic Hood and shut down enemy psykers. That, more than anything else, is why I want a Librarian in my list.

Ld 9 (generic Librarian) is not nearly as good as Ld 10 (Ezekiel). Chaos Sorcerers and Eldrad, the guys I’m most likely to see doing naughty things with Warp-born powers are Leadership 10, which means I need to beat their roll by 2 instead of just 1. Ick.

So, what to do? Outsource?

I’m looking at replacing my generic Dark Angels Terminator Librarian with a Daemonhunters choice.

For a five points less than Ezekiel, I can buy a Grand-Master with a Psychic Hood. I’m swapping a master-crafted force weapon for a +2 S one, a master-crafted bolt pistol for a stormbolter, losing the Fearless bubble (that I have no use for) and gaining +1 A. I also don’t get any psychic powers, but I’m very much okay with that. That said “five points less than Ezekiel” is still a hefty chunk of change, and is more than I’d like to spend on a single model.

For over sixty points less than a generic Terminator Librarian, I can buy a Brother-Captain with a Psychic Hood. In this case, I’m replacing the force weapon with a +2 S power weapon (which is kind of a bummer), and taking -1 BS, -1 W, -1 I and +1 Ld. This is a tougher choice. The +1 Ld makes him much, much better at doing what he does, but the loss of the Force Weapon is a great one and dropping down to one wound makes him considerably more fragile. Still, he costs nearly half of what I’m paying for a Terminator Librarian!

I’m supposed to play some Planetstrike tomorrow; I’m going to replace my Librarian with a Brother-Captain and see how that goes.