How do you play apothecary? Do you stick to a support role, or do you take a more "active" approach to your class. Do you prefer meele or ranged? Do you play prestige classes with your apothecary (Ravenwing/Wolfpriest/Sanguinary Priest)? 

Personally I like to go Tyrannic War veteran apothecary, I feel like it helps make Apothecary a bit more dangerous in combat will retaining the ability to support my kill team with my medical skills/knowledge of Tyranids.

Well, in our group we have a melee apothecary from White scars..

The problem for him is, that we need so much healing, that there is rarely time for him to fight :s

In my last Deathwatch session, my Apothecary duelled a Shas'O, blew the head off an escaping Ethereal and climbed a moving and shooting Orca gunship, killed the pilots and dropped a grenade into the Shas'O's open hatch.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you can do some pretty sick stuff if your roles are high enough. I personally like to play mine in more of a "stand back and shoot, be on stand-by to rush in and assist" style role. Let the Jarheads do the heavy lifting but don't be afraid to jump in when required. He's still a Space Marine at the end of the day.

BrotherTenparo said:

You've definitely got the right combo for the op apothecary.  Double down on the toxins if you want to create a face melter.  Another avenue to look at is having a raptors or raven guard apothecary who can dual hat as a percision impact asset as well as support. 

Myself, I play an Imperial Fists Apothacary. I ended up taking the "leader" role as it: a) allows me to stay a bit back calling out patterns b) since alot of the skills an apothocary get are kinda "meh" you can focus alot on attriubutes early, and pick up the social skills (like charm, intimidate..) needed. I have been playing this for about a year, and find its a pretty good build if you are in it for the long term game. Also, as an Imperial fist, I can stay alive by using cover alot more effectivly.

If I were to play an Apothecary, I would max out his Lore skills, give him an Auspex every mission, and play him as the party's defacto 'science officer' when not in combat. That's still technically a 'support' position, I suppose, but one that will get lots of 'spotlight' time…

In the campaign I am GMing, the Apothecary comes from a Chapter that puts a strong focus on dual-wielding pistols. As such I allowed him to swap the cost of WS and BS advances, to better facilitate his character's pistoliering. This helps to keep him in a support position near the action, but leaves him free to do his job without getting his foot blown off by friendly fire (our previous Apothecary, who has gone rogue since then).

If you find yourself hampered by the Apothecary specialsation then load up on general and Deathwatch advances, just because you aren't getting on well with your spec doesn't mena you aren't a space marine!

As a GM-PC apothecary I found that my character does well in nudging things along story wise.

However in combat I'm always the one with the bolter down range shooting relentlessly.

I've never really had an issue playing as an apothecary due to the fact that my role in real life is a Hospital Corpsman for the US Marines, so the sense of duty to those I'm charged with is carried over.  Plus my Kill-team is somewhat melee orientated, so my bolter adds a little dakka dakka kinda fight scenes.

Thus far i've managed to defeat a lictor and quite a decent number of genestealers on my own, I look forward to the next mission which will be either orks or tau.  SO I don't feel like my character is underwhelming at all, in fact what an apthecary does in the first place jsut seems to enahce the overall expeirence and reassures the players that their precious characters will live (until the evil gm that is me deicdes to drop a doom sized asteroid on their heads muahahahaha!).

I'm gonna play my first Apothecary in a game and my plan is this:

1. Go in fast and hard with a chainsword!

2. Heal up people after the enemy is made into kebab.

Hey folks

I'm new to running an apothecary with my group. I decided to do the final sanction mission on here with my group and we will continue with to the edge of oblivion at the next meeting. My only worry with the apothecary is that during battle he leaves himself and the marine he's healing open to damage for a round as they both have to stop what they are doing. Am I reading this wrong or does it seem that he has to wait till the end of a combat to do his thing? I really like the class but I feel like I have to wait till the smoke clears to help anyone

Hey folks

I'm new to running an apothecary with my group. I decided to do the final sanction mission on here with my group and we will continue with to the edge of oblivion at the next meeting. My only worry with the apothecary is that during battle he leaves himself and the marine he's healing open to damage for a round as they both have to stop what they are doing. Am I reading this wrong or does it seem that he has to wait till the end of a combat to do his thing? I really like the class but I feel like I have to wait till the smoke clears to help anyone

ughh sorry for the double post…

At what rank do you get the MIU? and also what book is that in? I haven't heard of it before. cheers for the good idea though. If I can't find the stats for it I might just make some house rules for one :D.