So my team is looking into advancing their characters, for the most part with obvious choices: the Storm Warden is going for Tempest Blade, the Blood Raven is gonna be an Epistolary, and the Red Scorpion is considering what's best for Devastators (or for committing Xenos genocide). o.o Me being a Tau shoehorned in from Rogue Trader I'm kinda left out of the running here (boohoo), but the Black Shield Apothecary is considering his options too. He's not a Blood Angel, but that doesn't really mean he can't take the Sanguinary Priest class does it? Oh, or maybe the Dead Station Vigilant specialty, for all its knowledge about Xenos and Int-based abilities. (is it just me or did they forget to put in requirements for that class?!) there's no automatic, look-at-me class for apothecaries like the epistolary and forge master, so I wanted to ask you guys; what do you think my teammates should choose?

Hey this is my first reply in the forum.

I think the best option for devastators is the first company veteran (and dreadnought) the rules from A familiar foe are good if you use OW/BC rules, also and old friend.

With permission of you team you can required terminator armor with assault cannon and hurricane (yes is expensive)

For the apothecary I have the same question

Pd. sorry for my english.

My devastator was looking at going for watch captain. First company veteran is another good choice. Depending on how long you've been playing, dreadnought may be your future too.

Apothecaries have it kinda rough, in addition to being poorly supported through the advances they gain as part of their specialty, they also are denied access to some of the better advanced specializations, such as the Kill Marine and the excellent Tempest Blade, often for no apparent reason. In addition, some of the specializations which they can access, such as the Wolf Priest and Tyrannic War Veteran, are designed more to deal with not having an apothecary, or replacing much of their unique abilities, rather than supporting them. To make up for all of this, they have a single unique option available for advanced specializations, the sanguinary priest, which in addition to being chapter specific, is easily the most halfhearted and poorly supported advanced specialization. It is made even more of a slap in the face by being immediately preceded by the entirely excellent Librarian Dreadnought options, which include a way to harpoon someone 20m away with a Force Halbred.

Nonetheless, they do have quite a few options available to them. I will list the full range of options below, with the exception of the dreadnaughts, since no other specialization requires your death and GM approval to take, *and* makes it so your character may be unplayable depending on the mission selection. Know, though, that both dreadnaught variants are in theory available as well.

sanguinary priest
black shield
champion
chaplain
keeper
watch captain
first company veteran
ravenwing veteran
deathwing terminator
wolf priest
tyrannic war veteran
sword brother

Of the options available, there are 3 stand out options in my mind. The first is the Champion: The Heroic Armour, the full range of Dodge bonuses, both Wall of Steel *and* Step Aside, as well as Lightning Attack, all contribute to make the Apothecary able to more than hold their own in the front line amongst the Assault Marines, which is where his skills are likely needed most. It's a fantastic specialty for anyone, and can make even a Tac Marine or Devastator excellent in Melee, but with the Apothecary, due to lack of better options, their very inexpensive weapon skill advancements, and incredibly poor support for melee within their specialty itself make it stand out as easily one of the best, if not *the* best advanced specialization for them.

The second is the First Company Veteran, despite not being granted the free set of Terminator Armour like their Deathwing counterparts, their unique talent and special abilities are exceedingly useful, and they're not chapter specific. An excellent choice for increased survivability.

The third is Ravenwing Veteran, the other reason I didn't include Deathwing Terminators. Having a standard issue Bike with a Teleport homer is fantastic, and in terms of being able to be everywhere at once on a battlefield, it's hard to argue with results.

Thank you for all your recommendations, guys. I sent the link to this page to my teammates and it looks like our Devastator is dead set on the First Company Veteran now. Our healer is still on the fence, but he was grateful that I went to the trouble for him, so I'm passing his thanks on to you. Quinn, your analysis was excellent, and you deserve recognition for the effort you put into it. Special thanks to you.

With all that said, I do have one final, unrelated question. In the first post I mentioned the Dead Station Vigilant specialty, the only specialty I can find outside of the usual RoB, HtC, and FF. Quinn didn't mention it on his list, though I did find the requirements for it finally (right in the bottom right corner of the page) and it looks like apothecaries qualify. I don't think I can remember anyone ever mentioning this class, and the list of advances doesn't seem especially helpful in combat. Still, I wanted to know what you guys thought of it. Has anyone ever tried it before? What's it's purpose?

For background maybe suit very well in iron hands apothecaries. I like more background instead simple rules.

Other adv class can be good for the apothecary is the keeper but again only in backgrounds I don't think you win to much in rules

In regards to the Dead Station Vigilant, I see it more as a knowledge and lore class. (I dont have the book on me at the moment as I lent it to our Librarian. So this is all off memory.)

It really depends on what your games are like and which direction your apoth wants to go. If you guys play combat heavy games, then I wouldnt pick DSV. There's not enough combat stuff in it.

However, if your games have more than a few lore checks in them, then a DSV would be handy to have around.

I'm actually thinking of having my Raptor Tac Marine become a DSV in the future as I dont really like the other specialities, and the guys I play with have very little interest in anything not combat related. So much so that we pretty much always fail any knowledge checks that we are required to make.

But I do want to have a chat with our GM about making the Tyranic War Vet an advanced speciality. If I could swing it, it would be pretty cool. I really like the Tyranic War Vet. He's pretty much the best all rounder out there. Good combat skills, some knowledge, and Medicae! (We really need medics in our games. We tend to get hurt a lot.)

I disagree about the Dead Station Vigilant not having enough combat stuff, it's actually full of amazing and unique abilities on that end. The ability to add your int bonus to *all* damage rolls vs a certain type of Xenos is incredible, especially when attached to a storm bolter or flamer, and will absolutely wreck hordes, as well as severely damaging elites. The solo mode ability is flat out the best sniping ability in the game, and is fantastic when paired with accurate weapons or those already relying on single shots (such as lascannons or missile launchers), and if used by a Raptor specifically, creates the ultimate sniper (though again, it's really good and useful even without belonging to that specific chapter). Battle awareness, combined with the ability to take early bonuses in the absolutely excellent evaluate skill, mean that even weak cover can be transformed to be nearly impregnable with a little bit of prep.

The best thing about it, though, is its flexibility. Since it's all tied to int, which good Apothecaries are maxing anyways, it means that with good prep, the Apothecary can decimate hordes one mission, snipe key targets the next, and establish a firm defensive position on the next.

I think it's a great specialty for an apothecary, and didn't even know it existed before now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It's not *nearly* as good for a apothecary who wishes to stay on the "front lines" and get involved in melee as the champion would be, but for those who prefer ranged combat, it's unique, useful, tied to the apothecary's main stat, and overall an excellent choice.

Thank you for all your recommendations, guys. I sent the link to this page to my teammates and it looks like our Devastator is dead set on the First Company Veteran now. Our healer is still on the fence, but he was grateful that I went to the trouble for him, so I'm passing his thanks on to you. Quinn, your analysis was excellent, and you deserve recognition for the effort you put into it. Special thanks to you.

With all that said, I do have one final, unrelated question. In the first post I mentioned the Dead Station Vigilant specialty, the only specialty I can find outside of the usual RoB, HtC, and FF. Quinn didn't mention it on his list, though I did find the requirements for it finally (right in the bottom right corner of the page) and it looks like apothecaries qualify. I don't think I can remember anyone ever mentioning this class, and the list of advances doesn't seem especially helpful in combat. Still, I wanted to know what you guys thought of it. Has anyone ever tried it before? What's it's purpose?

Dead Station Vigilants are kind of more skill oriented it seems, however they seem to be good at fighting Necrons.

DSV is great at fighting whatever enemy they Choose to fight. They pick before each mission what type of Xenos they want to be able to obliterate.

DSV is great at fighting whatever enemy they Choose to fight. They pick before each mission what type of Xenos they want to be able to obliterate.

It'd work well with the Apothecary, with them having cheap Int advancements and their poisoning ability. Which wouldn't be used against Necrons obviously.

Certainly that wouldn't go over well against the Necrons...but yes. I think that's the ideal route for an Apothecary for sure

It's been almost two months side I posted this topic. I got the answers I was after, but I never said thank you to you all for your help and advice. So, yeah, I just want you to know that I'm grateful for the advice and opinions you provided.

For those of you interested in knowing, our apothecary did take the DSV specialty in the end, joining our devastator on fire support while me and Stormy hold the line. Between him and our Librarian, there's pretty much nothing we don't know about anything.

Oh, and even I managed to get in on the OP goodness. Since I'm an oddball who doesn't qualify for any normal classes, my GM told me if I met the prerequisites I could take a modified version of the Dreadnought specialty! Basically, for me it means that when the mission calls for it, I'll get to take an XV-104 Riptide Battlesuit into the field! Can you say Ionic Cannon? And I'm not even stuck in it, I can go back to a normal suit when the next mission comes around. (This all happened about a month ago actually, I'm just writing in present tense because.... Because!)

Thank you all again, I'll see you around.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....heresy....