The Einhyr Champion in the 10th edition index

Today we're taking a look at the Einhyr Champion in the Leagues of Votann index for 10th edition Warhammer 40000.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen." A biblical quote for a nerf of biblical proportions. The Einhyr Champion, more commonly known as the E-Champ, used to be a fearsome powerhouse, capable of holding a flank all by himself, advancing ludicrous distances and dealing out mortal wounds like candy. But that was 9th edition.

A lot of people were dismayed when they first saw the 10th edition incarnation of the E-Champ. Gone are his glory days of crying Leeeeeeroy and charging in alone - and triumphing. But is he really bad now? I tend to use one in my lists, and I feel I've gotten my money's worth most of the time.

75 points gets you a character guy with M5", T6, Sv2+, W5, Ld7+ and OC1. He makes a unit he's leading reroll charges for free, and he can deal mortal wounds on the charge. He can either have a 4++ invulnerable save or the ability to teleport.

Offensively, he carries an Autoch-pattern Combi-bolter (which realistically isn't going to do all that much) and one of two pretty good melee weapons. We'll get to those later.

Role 1: Leader

I can see two roles for the Einhyr Champion in current armies. The first one, the one I've mostly used him for, is leading a group of 5 deepstriking Einhyr Hearthguard into battle. Why 5? Because if you paid for 10 Hearthguard, you definately want a Kahl leading them to give them lethal hits. You would still want that for your 5-man, but there are two reasons you might still not do it: 

First of all, points. The 15 point difference up to a Kahl isn't that great, but sometimes you just have to cut points somewhere - and you want a character with your Hearthguard to trigger their Oathband Bodyguard rule.

Secondly, reroll charges for a deepstriking unit. Now, the reason Einhyr Hearthguard are good at deepstriking is that they don't actually need to make the charge to do a difference. Their main output is from shooting. But sometimes charging out of deepstrike is the only way you'll get onto an important objective, and this is when the ability can win you games. A single 9" charge has only a 27.78% chance to go off. With a reroll (unfortunately we have to roll the entire charge again even if we rolled a 1 and a 6), that increases to just under 48%. Now, you do not want to rely on a 48% chance, but if the cards say you have to take the enemy homefield objective and this is the only way to do it? Go for it.

Of course, you might just reroll for a command point. Sure. I don't know about you, but I don't always have those to spare in 10th. Or even if you did, now you can use it on something else.

Balance vs Kahl

If you switch out a Kahl leading Einhyr Hearthguard for an E-champ, you pay by losing Lethal Hits on the squad. You gain 15 points, 1 cp (if you use the reroll charge for something useful), slightly better survivability (I'll assume your opponent isn't regularily firing AP-4 or better guns at your Hearthguard, where the Kahls squad invulns could come into play) and slightly better Melee output.

Is that a fair trade? As long as you still have plenty of Kahls in your army to glare at people, I think so.

Deepstriking alone? Doesn't work.

A tactic that's been discussed several places, including an earlier version of this article, is to take the teleport crest and deepstrike a lone Einhyr Champion. Unfortunately, this does not work. The teleport crest says "while this model is leading a unit". So no lone wolves deepstriking.

You COULD put him in strategic reserves, but not getting into the opponents deployment zone until round 3 at the earliest puts some cramp in his style.

Role 2: Thunderkyn Bodyguard

I just thought of another way of using the E-Champ which I think can make sense:

If you have spare capacity in a transport (which will very likely be your Land Fortress with 3 Thunderkyn with grav cannons), a lone E-Champ can also take the Shield Crest and go there with them. In this case, his role isn't to score points as much as be a bit of a deterrent/speed bump against someone trying to neutralize your Thunderkyn and Land Fortress by getting into melee with them (which happens in almost every game I play). 

Indeed, I find my Land Fortress tends to be a magnet to things like Mortarian or the Void Dragon, and in such cases it would be very nice to have an angry dwarf in exo-armor to delay them a bit.

I think I'll test this out!

Loadout

We've talked about his role in the army, but what weapons should you take on your E-Champ? I know this is why most of you are reading this, so no worries, here cometh the math! Just one word of warning first... did you notice that "damage dealing" isn't mentioned in the roles I described? Apart from maybe "take a Kahl for Lethal Hits if you want to deal maximum damage with your hearthguard"? For the roles I see for the E-champ, weapon choice is not very important.

But of course, if he does get stuck in, you want to do as much damage as possible, and I did once get an E-Champ into my opponents backfield where he proceeded to take out a Canoptek Reanimator. So the choice still matters.

Here's the average damage output with 0, 1 and 2 tokens:

I'm impressed with GW here, this is probably the most internally balanced weapons choice in the book. The Darkstar Axe is consistently better against infantry, even elite infantry like terminators or gravis, while the Mass Hammer deals better with monsters and vehicles.

I'm honestly stumped at making a recommendation here. I tend to take the hammer myself, because if I get an opportunity to hit a hard target, I want the highest chance of taking it out. But I also know that I mostly end up charging soft targets with my E-champ and his Hearthguard, and those soft targets do not always entirely die to their hits. Which means that I probably should be taking the axe.

I think you'll have to experiment here and see which one works for you.

Conclusions

I think the E-Champ is an okay character choice for the Leagues of Votann. Might even go so far as to say "pretty good". I certainly have less problems finding a reason to include him than the Grimnyr. Used correctly, you shouldn't regret taking a champion in your list.