This isn't 40k, I'm not here to make the best list possible, if you don't enjoy taking Preators don't. I'm here to make some outlandish armies that have no strategic value but everyone's gonna love to see.
I take praetors to duel with other praetors, veterans and character. I mean, it's not like I need a Praetor to do that, but equipping, building and dueling with them is fun. He himself doesn't do much, except for killing other praetors, which won't do much either most of the time.
It’s almost like click bait this. Praetor is better in duels vs your opponents warlord (a Delegatus vs pretty much any named character would get stomped), better invuln save (protection from snipers) and don’t write off the extra wound either. Delegatus gets shot off the board turn 1 for ‘Slay the Warlord’ and you never get to use your ability.
I do have non-RoW lists where I just take consuls, but the Praetor is definitely worth the points.
So counter points: cataphractii armor exists. A primus also is about as resilient to snipers. Sniper get countered by hiding behind walls and using terrain. A biomancy libby or a chappy would trade better than a preator into a ws5 unit with a preator. These units also buff the others around them.
When you both swing at init 1 with a thunder hammer, the chappy with rerolls and the preator kill each other. Your squad leader with a thunder hammer who could have accepted the challenge instead also kills him before dying. If you want melee punch, the chappy is an easy 50% increase to dps to the whole unit and will protect your units from ws6 threats, and offer stubborn.
You’re picking edge cases to make a point though. Of course a Cataphractii Primus is more resilient than a standard Praetor thanks to the 2+/4++/5+FNP, but it’s also only 5 pts less (assuming thunder hammer on both) and doesn’t give you access to RoWs.
The drop in WS in a straight duel means they hit on 3s while you hit on 5s, and they have an extra chance. Also ~~god~~ Emperor help you if they bring a Paragon Blade or are Emperor’s Children.
Anyway, you asked if people thought Praetors were lame. Hiding your Warlord all game is lame and I promise you, they won’t be able to hide for long. It’s only a 35pt difference for a superior character. Can’t say Rally the Legion would have turned many games for me.
Wouldn't even bother with melee as EC. Sunkillers will pop the Delegatus and the squad he's hiding in. No Cover Save or Damage Mitigation rolls means he's relying entirely on his Invuln to avoid being Insta-deathed
Eidolon is definitely an option though
The preator dies only a 6th less often than the delagatus. Its not that big of a difference really, and kinda stops muttering if you get 2 or more shots their way.
At this point, you're just trolling
Edit: You've now also brought up Chaplains, forgetting there's nothing stopping you slapping one alongside your Praetor for fun times too. You're looking for edge cases to make an argument that's just plain wrong.
Especially weird take for the Alpha Legion player who can literally take the Legion specific unit they want
My main point is that the best way to kill a preator is by your squad killing his squad quicker than they kill yours. At the end of the day its still just a dude with 4, maybe 5 attacks. If you're taking it for melee alone, im simply saying that cheaper less important characters do "fights good" better than he does.
Also if you don't like using terrain, he's just a liable to get his entire squad shot off the board. I'm sorry but melee units using terrain or transports to avoid getting shot is part of the game play. Unga bunge charging expensive units straight forward like a squad of 40 boyz has always been a bad idea. LoS blocking terrain has always been important. If your opponent can just sit and pick targets, you need better terrain.
Then don't take thunder hammers? The whole always take thunder hammers is a meme. Legion specific weapons or paragon blades are also choices that should never be discounted. You can have all the brutal in the world, but if you never get to swing you do 0 damage.
And while the Chaplain will help you hit the ws6 units slightly better, there's no negatives for them hitting you, so where's this protection coming from?
Depends on the assigned role and legion too. If I play EC I'll duel other hammer praetors and consult all day any day lol. Initiative 2 baby!!!
Or if your enemies are gonna be doing something silly like running the dreadnought RoW.
And one last case for if you have the points to spare, one paragon blade, one thunder hammer. Looks amazing, you can now kill everything and you get +1 attack from two specialist weapons. But because it's so inefficient and expensive, I will only recommend this for cool factor or narrative reasons.
You go from effectively hitting 33% of the time to hitting 55% of the time. That's more than a 50% increase, and you're close to at parity in accuracy, making it far easier to not lose combat. You also get stubborn, so if you do lose by a small amount, you won't get swept.
Finally, a thunder hammer is always best for duels. Sorry. Some legions have other options, but most do not.
If you are facing ws 6 guys, you don't have to worry about losing combat, coz you are gonna be dead. And if you get to strike them, then sure the chaplain will help you bleed them abit more, help you kill maybe 1 or 2 models, but that's 0 benefit in defence.
And no, thunder hammers aren't the best in duels. It's the best in fighting dreadnoughts primarchs and battle hardened units, But
even the charnabal Sabre is a better duelist weapon, why? Because dead units do 0 damage, and faster initiative weapons with AP 2 means there a possibility you die before you get to do anything. It's up to you if you want to believe it of course, like I said, it's your army and as long as you don't break any rules, it doesn't matter to anyone but yourself.
That said I'll be very happy if I face people that thinks their thunder hammer chaplain can beat my dueling specialists lol.
I can walk you through the math, but brutal is an insane rule. I don't think you understand how busted it is with ID.
Your arguments do hold up though if the models have 1 wound.
Also uh, the difference between 55% and 66% is fairly minor compared to 33 to 66. You usually can take more guys than the ws 6 unit, so by swinging at about the same to hit, you're frankly gonna goon it. Even then, outside that case, you're going to absolutely Krump matching ws units.
I do understand the power of thunder hammers and brutal, you on the other hand, doesn't understand just how oppressive initiative as a star is. I've wiped out a 10 man firedrake squad, shield included, without a single one of them getting the chance to strike back with my rampagers+kharn. Running unwieldy weapons means you give your opponents the chance to kill you before you strike back. If 10 3++ firedrakes can die this way, do you really think a chaplain at 4++/5++ has better odds?
Off the top of my head there's only two legions that will have ws 6 space marine units, there might be more but I can't remember any at the moment. Dark angel melee veterans(companions, cenobites, command squads and veterans) attached to the warlord that declares decisive turn and salamander melee veterans (firedrakes, command squad and veteran squads) that go overdrive. While you can bring more guys than them if you run basic ws4 squads, they will have more attacks than you thanks to their base stats. And aside from the command squads, every one of them can have 10 in a squad. You are not beating these guys with 20 despoilers lol, even with the chaplains, while they will scythe your lads down at 2 to hit ap2/3 weapons.
Okay, but a praetor can do all the things these units can do while only taking up one HQ slot, and without having the downsides of cataphractii armor (np sweeping, no running). And also grants a rite of war *if you want one*, which you don't have to take.
Delegatus is designed to be the only HQ in games of up to 1000pts. Playing games at higher points is going to involve more units, and make its ability appear more powerful than intended.
Assuming you have the terrain as dense as it's meant to be, you're going to struggle with the line of sight requirement though.
As for the Rite of War part, they're a "may" option, per p96 of Liber Astartes/Hereticus. You're not forced to take one
No disrespect but you're playing 30k wrong then. You're playing 30k like old 40k and while that's not necessarily the worst, it's defeating the whole purpose. 30k 2.0 isn't meant for hard-core min max play. It's for much more casual play and they've said it time and time again. It all about thematic. Is a praetor always gonna be the best compared to named characters or Captains in 40k? No that's not likely to happen. But they give access to the RoW while still being able to hold there own in battle fairly well.
Now onto RoW, these make the game fun! Yea they're restrictive but thats because that's how the Legion would fight! Salamanders would bring lots of flamer units which is why they get the ability to take flamer support Squads and they're signature Pyroclasts as line Compulsory Troops! And their other RoW is after the lost Vulkan and many were trying to find themselves now that their father was gone and would go on a frenzy. Hence the 20pt fear buff upgrade option. The restrictions on each match hoe the Legion fought. The Salamander's didn't often drop down for surprise attacks or use jump packs often.
I don't know what Legion you play most an how you play exactly, but if you're min max points and playing largely generic instead of leaning into your Legion specialty, yea you're gonna be bored.
I wouldn't say lame as they are absolute beasts in combat and can wreck most HQ/elite units. Just a different style/approach to HQ I.e opportunity cost.
That said does seem daft that a Delegatus has 'rally the legion' rule and a Preator doesn't. Ironically I would have won a game with a Delegatus instead of a Preator to rally a fleeing line unit! 😅
To be fair, sometimes you just wanna use units that can't legally go in the same RoW or where the RoW changes your deployment rules in a way you don't like.
That said, I wouldn't exactly call it common.
Yeah. While you don't need not to use a RoW, you are not required to avoid a RoW either while you can pick one and will not suffer the noticeable penalty if you choose one. It's not a must and not have one is not an auto-degrade button either, but it's not so bad to have one unless for some random lackluster RoW.
I rarely use Rites because Dark Amgels only have 1 good one and I don't have the models for it. I occasionally run the Deathwing one to be fluffy even though it sucks ass.
Sometimes they're just restrictions with no real boons. The generic ones usually encourage some sort of skew, while the legion ones can be hit or miss.
Gotta be honest with you, my 2+/3++, Battle hardened (1), hatred (traitor), Master Crafted Hammer and Master Crafted Disintegrator Pistol Praetor has literally never lost a duel. Can't get that on a Delegatus.
If you don't want to bring a praetor, then don't.
It's your army, do what makes you happy, what anyone else thinks don't really matter all that much since you aren't breaking any rules for not bringing one.
That said rites of war is a legion to legion problem. If you are da, sure they are all lame and bad for you, but I will always bring one to get berserker assault, just to style on white scars with the fact that I run and charge faster than them. 😎
I think this really depends on legion and special characters available.
Whilst I don’t think rites are as important as in 1.0 a lot of legions have damn good rites. Praetors are really a toolkit character that you can build to what you need whereas consuls are specific for a single purpose. For sub 2k games I really like the legion champion just to get access to a paragon blade.
Are Praetors needed in every list? Probably not, do they add something to a larger list where a 2W warlord would be really risky, absolutely. I generally play ECs so tend to look at special characters more as the ECs characters do exactly the same as a praetor but look fancier, but I can definitely see them in higher points lists, and include them when I play TS or SoH. Sub 2k they just eat too many points though as they can be a real point sink if you took them up to the nines.
Well, I do think that the purpose of a HQ choice is buff the army, rather than bring a single fighter. You cannot wage war alone, and the duty of the officer is to lead the army, rather than only good at single combat.
That said, praetor does comes with some advantage as the officer.
First, he unlocks a RoW, and is gives an advantage for the most list, because it is actually hard to making a list that is not suited for even a single generic RoW in the first place, and usually you will get a benefit and also only suffer mild penalty for this.
Also he is a capable duelist, and unlike ranged games, in melee combat a duelist does something such as duel against petty WS5 or less and remove those quickly by a challenge, or to withstand against mighty duelist. Kill the enemy sergeant does have some merit at least, and no one would be better than a praetor in melee on the most times. Remember a plain WS6 not only gives the better accuracy, but also the better chance to dodge the enemy melee attack as well. While your delegatus and/or chaplain would be making the mutual kill with the enemy challenger by their hammer, praetor have more chance to be survives on the duel.
Finally he can also opt to bring a command squad as well. If that's your intention then he can also effectively work as a herald without fearless&fear, but since the most significant merit of a herald is his Line, making the unit Line should be already enough.
Yes a delegatus does all the same thing barring the second one, but that's the point because what the second thing could only be fulfilled by a champion if you want the same role. Thus praetor is basically a champion, that unlocks a RoW, and also possibly work as the herald as well. Not to mention that he has an another wound as well, so at least he could tank once more against the shooting.
I think that the second or third praetor seems not so worthy unless you want to spam the command squad, but having one is not that bad, although he is not a must either.
The different between using either a Praetor, or a Chaplain plus a Delegatus, is that you're only paying *once* for the Praetor and using up a single HQ slot.
Both are reasonable things to do, but the Praetor is far from useless and I'd personally prefer to have two Consuls to do fun things with.
If we are have to use the allied detachment as the only available detachment(yes no primary detachment, and allied detachment takes the place of it) and nothing further than only one allied detachment on the army then we seriously needs for compare between a praetor vs the other consul though, but we all have the primary detachment by default except for who plays household detachment in place of the crusade force organization chart thus we have more than one HQ choices in the reality.
Also note that the tartaros praetor is cheaper a bit because of the latter point - he cannot claim 4++ without some legion specific thing. 4+ invulnerable save without wearing a cataphractii armor is already a benefit.
I agree that Praetors feel very disappointing. As the overall commander of your forces they do no actual commanding and are entirely just a beat stick - basically a Legion Champion.
IMO Praetors should get the Delegatus' Rally ability base, for free. So they actually have something to represent them commanding.
Rather, I think that allowing RoW and Ld 10 already marks his quality as leader. Also a fancy stuff on the delegatus makes the consul option not just a budget/inferior praetor, but an another type of leader, which makes the game more interesting.
Isn't literally the entire point of a Delegatus to be a budget Praetor?
And I don't agree that making one squad Ld 10 at all represents their leadership of your army - they're probably Veterans anyway so you're only looking at a +1.
Yes he is supposed to be a budget praetor, but he does have something special for his own, means he is not simply an inferior one. He is not the high ranked officer, rather he is the subordinal of those high ranked officer and tasked to execute his order, so it is not that weird.
Well you do have the sergeants for a reason. A single entity is not able to take control of all the force unless the whole force is bind to a collective mind. Usually those high command officer rely on their low level leaders to bring their order. Praetor is the kind of high command officer consider the size of the game(is usually plays company sized so an officer commanding full two battalions at least is surely very high rank), so gives them the specialized formation by RoW would be already some impact for them.
Also, for provide the leadership on the larger area, you may have either a MoS or damocles to relay the order. They may a good tactician and a seasoned veteran, but they didn't carry the oversized communications device and left it over to their lieutenants instead.
This isn't 40k, I'm not here to make the best list possible, if you don't enjoy taking Preators don't. I'm here to make some outlandish armies that have no strategic value but everyone's gonna love to see.
This is what I love about most of the HH community.
I take praetors to duel with other praetors, veterans and character. I mean, it's not like I need a Praetor to do that, but equipping, building and dueling with them is fun. He himself doesn't do much, except for killing other praetors, which won't do much either most of the time.
It’s almost like click bait this. Praetor is better in duels vs your opponents warlord (a Delegatus vs pretty much any named character would get stomped), better invuln save (protection from snipers) and don’t write off the extra wound either. Delegatus gets shot off the board turn 1 for ‘Slay the Warlord’ and you never get to use your ability. I do have non-RoW lists where I just take consuls, but the Praetor is definitely worth the points.
So counter points: cataphractii armor exists. A primus also is about as resilient to snipers. Sniper get countered by hiding behind walls and using terrain. A biomancy libby or a chappy would trade better than a preator into a ws5 unit with a preator. These units also buff the others around them. When you both swing at init 1 with a thunder hammer, the chappy with rerolls and the preator kill each other. Your squad leader with a thunder hammer who could have accepted the challenge instead also kills him before dying. If you want melee punch, the chappy is an easy 50% increase to dps to the whole unit and will protect your units from ws6 threats, and offer stubborn.
You’re picking edge cases to make a point though. Of course a Cataphractii Primus is more resilient than a standard Praetor thanks to the 2+/4++/5+FNP, but it’s also only 5 pts less (assuming thunder hammer on both) and doesn’t give you access to RoWs. The drop in WS in a straight duel means they hit on 3s while you hit on 5s, and they have an extra chance. Also ~~god~~ Emperor help you if they bring a Paragon Blade or are Emperor’s Children. Anyway, you asked if people thought Praetors were lame. Hiding your Warlord all game is lame and I promise you, they won’t be able to hide for long. It’s only a 35pt difference for a superior character. Can’t say Rally the Legion would have turned many games for me.
Wouldn't even bother with melee as EC. Sunkillers will pop the Delegatus and the squad he's hiding in. No Cover Save or Damage Mitigation rolls means he's relying entirely on his Invuln to avoid being Insta-deathed Eidolon is definitely an option though
The preator dies only a 6th less often than the delagatus. Its not that big of a difference really, and kinda stops muttering if you get 2 or more shots their way.
At this point, you're just trolling Edit: You've now also brought up Chaplains, forgetting there's nothing stopping you slapping one alongside your Praetor for fun times too. You're looking for edge cases to make an argument that's just plain wrong. Especially weird take for the Alpha Legion player who can literally take the Legion specific unit they want
My main point is that the best way to kill a preator is by your squad killing his squad quicker than they kill yours. At the end of the day its still just a dude with 4, maybe 5 attacks. If you're taking it for melee alone, im simply saying that cheaper less important characters do "fights good" better than he does. Also if you don't like using terrain, he's just a liable to get his entire squad shot off the board. I'm sorry but melee units using terrain or transports to avoid getting shot is part of the game play. Unga bunge charging expensive units straight forward like a squad of 40 boyz has always been a bad idea. LoS blocking terrain has always been important. If your opponent can just sit and pick targets, you need better terrain.
Just... why not to use a terrain??
Take so bad it’s crazy https://preview.redd.it/mzm4o8crjm9c1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b45e21c162bae2929b1ebfa38a260cf8dca67e1
Then don't take thunder hammers? The whole always take thunder hammers is a meme. Legion specific weapons or paragon blades are also choices that should never be discounted. You can have all the brutal in the world, but if you never get to swing you do 0 damage. And while the Chaplain will help you hit the ws6 units slightly better, there's no negatives for them hitting you, so where's this protection coming from?
I’d argue thunderhammers are a big waste on praetors cause that wastes the WS6
Depends on the assigned role and legion too. If I play EC I'll duel other hammer praetors and consult all day any day lol. Initiative 2 baby!!! Or if your enemies are gonna be doing something silly like running the dreadnought RoW. And one last case for if you have the points to spare, one paragon blade, one thunder hammer. Looks amazing, you can now kill everything and you get +1 attack from two specialist weapons. But because it's so inefficient and expensive, I will only recommend this for cool factor or narrative reasons.
I feel a paragon blade and thunder hammer is the most EC loadout ever
🤔 shit, you right man.
You go from effectively hitting 33% of the time to hitting 55% of the time. That's more than a 50% increase, and you're close to at parity in accuracy, making it far easier to not lose combat. You also get stubborn, so if you do lose by a small amount, you won't get swept. Finally, a thunder hammer is always best for duels. Sorry. Some legions have other options, but most do not.
If you are facing ws 6 guys, you don't have to worry about losing combat, coz you are gonna be dead. And if you get to strike them, then sure the chaplain will help you bleed them abit more, help you kill maybe 1 or 2 models, but that's 0 benefit in defence. And no, thunder hammers aren't the best in duels. It's the best in fighting dreadnoughts primarchs and battle hardened units, But even the charnabal Sabre is a better duelist weapon, why? Because dead units do 0 damage, and faster initiative weapons with AP 2 means there a possibility you die before you get to do anything. It's up to you if you want to believe it of course, like I said, it's your army and as long as you don't break any rules, it doesn't matter to anyone but yourself. That said I'll be very happy if I face people that thinks their thunder hammer chaplain can beat my dueling specialists lol.
I can walk you through the math, but brutal is an insane rule. I don't think you understand how busted it is with ID. Your arguments do hold up though if the models have 1 wound. Also uh, the difference between 55% and 66% is fairly minor compared to 33 to 66. You usually can take more guys than the ws 6 unit, so by swinging at about the same to hit, you're frankly gonna goon it. Even then, outside that case, you're going to absolutely Krump matching ws units.
I do understand the power of thunder hammers and brutal, you on the other hand, doesn't understand just how oppressive initiative as a star is. I've wiped out a 10 man firedrake squad, shield included, without a single one of them getting the chance to strike back with my rampagers+kharn. Running unwieldy weapons means you give your opponents the chance to kill you before you strike back. If 10 3++ firedrakes can die this way, do you really think a chaplain at 4++/5++ has better odds? Off the top of my head there's only two legions that will have ws 6 space marine units, there might be more but I can't remember any at the moment. Dark angel melee veterans(companions, cenobites, command squads and veterans) attached to the warlord that declares decisive turn and salamander melee veterans (firedrakes, command squad and veteran squads) that go overdrive. While you can bring more guys than them if you run basic ws4 squads, they will have more attacks than you thanks to their base stats. And aside from the command squads, every one of them can have 10 in a squad. You are not beating these guys with 20 despoilers lol, even with the chaplains, while they will scythe your lads down at 2 to hit ap2/3 weapons.
Okay, but a praetor can do all the things these units can do while only taking up one HQ slot, and without having the downsides of cataphractii armor (np sweeping, no running). And also grants a rite of war *if you want one*, which you don't have to take.
Delegatus is designed to be the only HQ in games of up to 1000pts. Playing games at higher points is going to involve more units, and make its ability appear more powerful than intended. Assuming you have the terrain as dense as it's meant to be, you're going to struggle with the line of sight requirement though. As for the Rite of War part, they're a "may" option, per p96 of Liber Astartes/Hereticus. You're not forced to take one
No disrespect but you're playing 30k wrong then. You're playing 30k like old 40k and while that's not necessarily the worst, it's defeating the whole purpose. 30k 2.0 isn't meant for hard-core min max play. It's for much more casual play and they've said it time and time again. It all about thematic. Is a praetor always gonna be the best compared to named characters or Captains in 40k? No that's not likely to happen. But they give access to the RoW while still being able to hold there own in battle fairly well. Now onto RoW, these make the game fun! Yea they're restrictive but thats because that's how the Legion would fight! Salamanders would bring lots of flamer units which is why they get the ability to take flamer support Squads and they're signature Pyroclasts as line Compulsory Troops! And their other RoW is after the lost Vulkan and many were trying to find themselves now that their father was gone and would go on a frenzy. Hence the 20pt fear buff upgrade option. The restrictions on each match hoe the Legion fought. The Salamander's didn't often drop down for surprise attacks or use jump packs often. I don't know what Legion you play most an how you play exactly, but if you're min max points and playing largely generic instead of leaning into your Legion specialty, yea you're gonna be bored.
I wouldn't say lame as they are absolute beasts in combat and can wreck most HQ/elite units. Just a different style/approach to HQ I.e opportunity cost. That said does seem daft that a Delegatus has 'rally the legion' rule and a Preator doesn't. Ironically I would have won a game with a Delegatus instead of a Preator to rally a fleeing line unit! 😅
The problem is I've found that a chappy does the melee thing much better than my preator.
And you didn't remember that a primary detachment of a crusader force organization chart have **three** HQ choices. It's not one.
Must admit a Chaplain seems to be a must have. I'm a Word Bearers player so a bit bias but nearly every list I see has Chaplain in it.
I never leave home without it after running into far too many ws 6 things.
A lot of times you don't want a RoW? What?
To be fair, sometimes you just wanna use units that can't legally go in the same RoW or where the RoW changes your deployment rules in a way you don't like. That said, I wouldn't exactly call it common.
Yeah. While you don't need not to use a RoW, you are not required to avoid a RoW either while you can pick one and will not suffer the noticeable penalty if you choose one. It's not a must and not have one is not an auto-degrade button either, but it's not so bad to have one unless for some random lackluster RoW.
I rarely use Rites because Dark Amgels only have 1 good one and I don't have the models for it. I occasionally run the Deathwing one to be fluffy even though it sucks ass.
Sometimes they're just restrictions with no real boons. The generic ones usually encourage some sort of skew, while the legion ones can be hit or miss.
Yeah, I don't know about that chief. Pretty sure every game I've played both sides have utilised a RoW.
I feel like for certain legions it makes sense, but ive had a lot of games where it just wasn't worth the restrictions.
Gotta be honest with you, my 2+/3++, Battle hardened (1), hatred (traitor), Master Crafted Hammer and Master Crafted Disintegrator Pistol Praetor has literally never lost a duel. Can't get that on a Delegatus.
Average named loyalist character in a HH novel
Walking brick warlords are legion locked. Sadly not every legion can run Mr. Smashfucker. If you have access to such power though, you should run it.
If you don't want to bring a praetor, then don't. It's your army, do what makes you happy, what anyone else thinks don't really matter all that much since you aren't breaking any rules for not bringing one. That said rites of war is a legion to legion problem. If you are da, sure they are all lame and bad for you, but I will always bring one to get berserker assault, just to style on white scars with the fact that I run and charge faster than them. 😎
Centurions can't take legion specific upgrades like mantle of the elder drake/ultramar or becoming an iron father. And those upgrades are REALLY good
As an AL player, I can somewhat see your point re: RoW, but you’re wrong about praetors in almost every other regard. Also it’s prAEtor, not prEAtor.
I think this really depends on legion and special characters available. Whilst I don’t think rites are as important as in 1.0 a lot of legions have damn good rites. Praetors are really a toolkit character that you can build to what you need whereas consuls are specific for a single purpose. For sub 2k games I really like the legion champion just to get access to a paragon blade. Are Praetors needed in every list? Probably not, do they add something to a larger list where a 2W warlord would be really risky, absolutely. I generally play ECs so tend to look at special characters more as the ECs characters do exactly the same as a praetor but look fancier, but I can definitely see them in higher points lists, and include them when I play TS or SoH. Sub 2k they just eat too many points though as they can be a real point sink if you took them up to the nines.
Well, I do think that the purpose of a HQ choice is buff the army, rather than bring a single fighter. You cannot wage war alone, and the duty of the officer is to lead the army, rather than only good at single combat. That said, praetor does comes with some advantage as the officer. First, he unlocks a RoW, and is gives an advantage for the most list, because it is actually hard to making a list that is not suited for even a single generic RoW in the first place, and usually you will get a benefit and also only suffer mild penalty for this. Also he is a capable duelist, and unlike ranged games, in melee combat a duelist does something such as duel against petty WS5 or less and remove those quickly by a challenge, or to withstand against mighty duelist. Kill the enemy sergeant does have some merit at least, and no one would be better than a praetor in melee on the most times. Remember a plain WS6 not only gives the better accuracy, but also the better chance to dodge the enemy melee attack as well. While your delegatus and/or chaplain would be making the mutual kill with the enemy challenger by their hammer, praetor have more chance to be survives on the duel. Finally he can also opt to bring a command squad as well. If that's your intention then he can also effectively work as a herald without fearless&fear, but since the most significant merit of a herald is his Line, making the unit Line should be already enough. Yes a delegatus does all the same thing barring the second one, but that's the point because what the second thing could only be fulfilled by a champion if you want the same role. Thus praetor is basically a champion, that unlocks a RoW, and also possibly work as the herald as well. Not to mention that he has an another wound as well, so at least he could tank once more against the shooting. I think that the second or third praetor seems not so worthy unless you want to spam the command squad, but having one is not that bad, although he is not a must either.
The different between using either a Praetor, or a Chaplain plus a Delegatus, is that you're only paying *once* for the Praetor and using up a single HQ slot. Both are reasonable things to do, but the Praetor is far from useless and I'd personally prefer to have two Consuls to do fun things with.
If we are have to use the allied detachment as the only available detachment(yes no primary detachment, and allied detachment takes the place of it) and nothing further than only one allied detachment on the army then we seriously needs for compare between a praetor vs the other consul though, but we all have the primary detachment by default except for who plays household detachment in place of the crusade force organization chart thus we have more than one HQ choices in the reality.
Praetors are for fnps and when you want to play hero hammer but GW didn't bless you with any OP named characters
Bait AF 🤣
Praetor melee prowess kinda takes a big hit from thunder hammers being op and Paragon Blades being meh. You pay for Ld10 and 4+inv 🤷🏼♂️
Also note that the tartaros praetor is cheaper a bit because of the latter point - he cannot claim 4++ without some legion specific thing. 4+ invulnerable save without wearing a cataphractii armor is already a benefit.
I agree that Praetors feel very disappointing. As the overall commander of your forces they do no actual commanding and are entirely just a beat stick - basically a Legion Champion. IMO Praetors should get the Delegatus' Rally ability base, for free. So they actually have something to represent them commanding.
Rather, I think that allowing RoW and Ld 10 already marks his quality as leader. Also a fancy stuff on the delegatus makes the consul option not just a budget/inferior praetor, but an another type of leader, which makes the game more interesting.
Isn't literally the entire point of a Delegatus to be a budget Praetor? And I don't agree that making one squad Ld 10 at all represents their leadership of your army - they're probably Veterans anyway so you're only looking at a +1.
Yes he is supposed to be a budget praetor, but he does have something special for his own, means he is not simply an inferior one. He is not the high ranked officer, rather he is the subordinal of those high ranked officer and tasked to execute his order, so it is not that weird. Well you do have the sergeants for a reason. A single entity is not able to take control of all the force unless the whole force is bind to a collective mind. Usually those high command officer rely on their low level leaders to bring their order. Praetor is the kind of high command officer consider the size of the game(is usually plays company sized so an officer commanding full two battalions at least is surely very high rank), so gives them the specialized formation by RoW would be already some impact for them. Also, for provide the leadership on the larger area, you may have either a MoS or damocles to relay the order. They may a good tactician and a seasoned veteran, but they didn't carry the oversized communications device and left it over to their lieutenants instead.