Dark apostle - worth taking?

[Sception]

One thing that does bother me, and where I think the sorcerer out-does him, is in the lack of mid-game versatility & stratagem support.  The sorcerer knows two powers of their choice, and can use both in a turn.  The apostle knows three prayers, but one of those is locked in, and the second is locked to his mark so there's only four to choose from, and all of the mark powers are personal buffs.  And of the prayers the apostle knows, only one can be used per turn.

 

Beyond that, if you find during the game that your sorcerer needs a different power, you can spend a command point to grab the one you need via the familiar stratagem.  I frequently take prescience & delightful agonies on a sorcerer supporting deep striking plasminators, but sometimes the unit I want to target has an invulnerable save.  In that case, I can spend a command point to grab death hex.  The apostle has no similar ability to switch out prayers.  If you take the -1 to hit prayer and find yourself opposite a pure melee army, then oh well.  If you take the +1 to shoot prayer to buff some havocs and those havocs get shot off the board, then oh well.

 

None of this is to say I think he's bad.  I still like the look of him, and being able to throw out a -1 to be hit buff on a unit before the opponents first shooting phase is amazing, especially for alpha legion where it stacks with their legion trait.  But I do wish he was more flexible during the game, and I do wish he had more stratagem support.  Maybe in the future we'll get to see the word bearers participate in a campaign and get an expanded ruleset a la the black legion in Vigilus.  I could see them getting prayer specific stratagems & warlord traits.

[MegaVolt87]

Being locked into that base prayer unable to swap it, where the sorc can chose their powers seems like an unnecessary handicap for the apostle. 

[Panzer]

Being locked into that base prayer unable to swap it, where the sorc can chose their powers seems like an unnecessary handicap for the apostle. 

It's no different than psyker being locked into having Smite. The real difference is that the dark apostle is locked into taking one of the mark based prayers. I really don't mind that though. The mark based prayers are a bit underwhelming but he's not a psyker so the more different he mechanically is the better.

[Cheex]

Being locked into that base prayer unable to swap it, where the sorc can chose their powers seems like an unnecessary handicap for the apostle. 

 

A fair price to pay for powers that can't be denied, IMHO.

[Sception]

It's no different than psyker being locked into having Smite.

Again, though, our sorcerers arent locked into smite. We can soend a co to trade it out with a stratagem.

[Panzer]

 

It's no different than psyker being locked into having Smite.

Again, though, our sorcerers arent locked into smite. We can soend a co to trade it out with a stratagem.

 

Yeah but only via Stratagem. That's not part of the units own mechanic. The Dark Apostle in its current form didn't even exist when those Stratagems got written and when you are out of CP your Sorcerer is locked into smite like any other psyker too.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Gasp! Here's an actual use for the stratagem that let's you Mark an unmarked unit. Because the Apostle automatically gains his Mark's prayer, you can go into a game unmarked, then use the strat to pick the Mark whose prayer mostly closely matches your need at the moment.

 

Maybe?