Back 4th edition chaplains had the same stats as captains so were pretty good combat characters in there own right. That changed in 5th edition and a chaplain's role has become more specific. His strength is in supporting other units by making them fearless and letting you re-role failed roles to hit in the first round (as long as you charge) not in killing loads of stuff himself. So when you put a chaplain in a list you need a specific unit that you're going to put him with. This unit needs to be combat focused, likely to charge rather than be charged and have a delivery system (transport, bikes, jump packs, ect) that the chaplain can join them in.
So what units should he be with? Well, any of these would be a good choice.
Terminators
Assault terminators (But not if Vulkan is in the list and you have thunder hammers)
Command squad (including bike mounted command squads)
Vanguard veterans (but not if you are planning on using heroic intervention)
Assault squad (but only really worth it with larger units)
These units, however, would be less useful units to put a chaplain with.
Tactical squad
Bike squad
Scouts
Sternguard
Devastators
These units just aren't assault focused enough and/or don't have enough attacks to make it worth the points for a chaplain.
So that’s his job sorted, but what equipment should be have? As little as possible! I usually Just take a basic chaplain with no upgrades, remember the chaplain is there to support other units, not to do much himself. Obviously if the unit he joins has jump packs or bike he will need a jump pack or a bike to keep up with them. However, in my opinion, terminator armour in only worth it if you plan him to deep strike with a terminator squad (This is a viable tactic and a teleport homer in a rhino mounted tactical squad help it to be more reliable) if he is going to ride in a landraider with terminators, save the points and give him power armour. Terminator armour means he can't use a pistol (so he gets 1 less attack) and doesn't give that much extra protection cos it will be probably be a power weapon that kills him anyway. If you have the points a plasma pistol or melta bombs are good options but only if you have points left over.
Now we have our chaplain's role defined and he's armed, what to do with him on the battle field. Well, him and his unit are awesome on the charge and not great at much else so they need to get stuck in there as soon as possible. Ideally they shouldn't get draw into protracted combats as weight of number will be a problem if combat drags on and you start taking casualty. They need to charge units that they can break or wipe out in 1 or two rounds of combat and them move onto a new target. The plan is that they can either rack up several kill points or take out the enemy’s scoring units while your tactical squads manoeuvre to the objectives or get to hard cover and give supporting fire.
That's it for my first tactica blog. Let me know if you liked it and it you want to see more of them on here
