Crusader Loadouts

[ImperialSquishiness]

If you're taking Warglaives, that gives you your AT capability. Granted, not as good as a thermal cannon, but a couple of Armigers running together will give anyone a headache.

 

As a guard player, I love battle cannons, so I'd be more tempted to take a couple of crusaders with rfbc and a Gallant for choppy choppy. Plus a couple of Armigers and helverins if points allow.

[Karhedron]

I think we're at the point where the players often understand how things work in practice better than the writers seem to, which is a little worrying :/

But hardly surprising. Many players play far more games than the developers do and they play more intensely competitive games too. GW lack an effective form of Beta testing.

[Stray]

 

I think we're at the point where the players often understand how things work in practice better than the writers seem to, which is a little worrying :/

But hardly surprising. Many players play far more games than the developers do and they play more intensely competitive games too. GW lack an effective form of Beta testing.

 

 

You're not wrong. I suppose the greater worry is that it appears as though GW aren't very aware of this. It's much like the software developer who doesn't believe testing is necessary, because they've checked all their own work... (I've worked with a few of these).

[Mushkilla]

It's much like the software developer who doesn't believe testing is necessary, because they've checked all their own work... (I've worked with a few of these).

Omnissiah shield you from those blasphemous hereteks!

 

Don't they know the second universal law after "you shall always use source control" is "you shall always write test, preferably first"? How could any sain adept of mars go against these laws... It's madness... No it's HERESY!

 

+Purging data coils+

git reset HEAD~ --hard

[Mushkilla]

I thought I'd lord of machines this thread back to operational functionality, rather start a new one on the same topic.

 

Now that we are 6+ months into the knights codex do people still have the same preferences when it comes to:

 

1. Weapon load outs for the Crusader.

 

2. Which House to run the Crusader with.

 

3. Do people even run Crusaders?

 

Personally, I've been running two crusaders as Vulker for a while now. Though, I'm switching back to Raven as we play with a lot of terrain and I don't run any infantry so the extra mobility is really valuable for getting line of sight and securing objective. I find the companions stratagem is now too expensive to use on anything other than a Castellan.

 

I've also dropped the Ironstorm missile pods in favour of the storm spear, as much as knights suffer from line of sight blocking terrain, I just don't find the ironstorm reliable enough at killing infantry hiding out of line of sight. I'm still fluctuating between the thermal cannon and the rapid fire battle cannon though.

 

Curious to hear your experience.

[Stray]

I suspect (certainly from the perspective of the meta), that the Crusaders thunder has been thoroughly stolen by the Castellan these days. That's certainly not to say that the Crusader is a bad unit, but it's role is fairly handily covered by the Castellan (and then some) if you have the points available.

 

For me, the best 'Crusader' is likely the Renegade flavour. Twin Avengers offer some unholy fire power from arguably our best gun, plus there is access to the very lovely Trail of Destruction Stratagem. (Re-Roll all failed hits, 2CP - it competes quite nicely with the likes of Order of Companions).

 

I dunno, I feel the above offers something the Castellan doesn't cover - which I'd argue the Imperial version of the Crusader struggles to right now.

[brother_b]

I think they're aware, they try and get "internet famous" groups to playtest their rules, like Frontline gaming, etc.

 

I'm not sure THOSE are the people that should be exclusively testing the game. They play and make money off the tournament scene. I may be wrong, but I'm hoping they have a varied and extensive group of players from all sorts of gaming backgrounds looking at the rules alongside their internal testing.

[Mushkilla]

Yeah the Castellan is really good. I guess I'm looking at knights from pure knights perspective (Personal opinion rant: I play pure knights because it's an interesting challenge/puzzle, I mean what's the point of playing an army of giant robots if they don't have all the liabilities/weaknesses of being giant robots). I know the game is now thoroughly entrenched in soup, so indulge me for a second.

 

In the context of pure knights I find the Castellan a liability.

 

It's slow, it's mediocre in combat (you need these first two to play the objective game), you don't have screens to protect it, it's a massive CP/relic/warlord trait sink and not very reliable without Order of Companions (I mean the difference is night and day). Even if you do run raven at most you have 9CP as pure knights, no CP regen, so companions/rotate ion shield will burn all your CP in 3 uses, that's assuming you haven't spent CP to get more warlord traits.

 

In this context I still find the crusader worth considering, especially because it's very CP efficient (even when compared to a gallant). I've also found a krast crusader with headsman's mark/bulwark or first knight stormspear/avenger/rfbc can take on a Castellan reasonably well, even on its own.

 

The renegade crusader is definitely a beast though, especially when you reduce the targets toughness with that nurgle psychic power.

[Stray]

I tend to agree Mushy, it's quite a points sink in an already points heavy army too. From the way they get fielded, Castellans lend themselves somewhat to being the 'knight you bring to season your soup'.

 

Probably should have called it the Knight Oregano, or Knight Basil or something ;)

[ImperialSquishiness]

Really digging a Krast crusader with thermal cannon and the first Knight WL trait and Headsman's mark relic. Carves through big stuff like butter!

[Mushkilla]

After my most recent game I'm actually thinking crusaders might be more viable in Questor Imperialis than Questor Mecanicus. Here's the thinking:

 

Questor Imperialis have a few stratagems that are really good on Crusaders:

 

Sally Forth (3CP) - This is really interesting with crusaders, knights are one of the few armies this edition that can operate effectively when you split your force (no auras in most cases). It lets you come on from another vector making it much harder for your opponents to hide out of line of sight (flanking is actually really useful for knights who suffer more than most armies with this). At the same time you don't even have to commit to using this stratagem, but your opponent has to be aware if he is deploying first that you could use it.

 

Iron hail heavy stubbers (1CP) - AP-1 on all your heavy stubbers, makes them count for something.

 

Valiant last stand (2CP) - Shooting all your guns even at BS5 on death can win you a games if timed right.

 

House locked stratagems that are good on crusader:

 

Bio-scryer cogitator array (3CP)

Dragon Slayer (2CP)

Slayer Of Shadows (1CP)

Staunch Allies (2CP)

 

Thoughts?

[H311fi5h]

I think not having access to Machine Spirit Resurgent completely kills any Questor Imperialis house.

If that is not enough there is Benevolence of the Machine God, a knight player's only hope against Harlquins.

It's a bit sad really, but I'd never ever go to a tournament with a Questor Imperialis house. There is some neat stuff, but MSR is simply too important.

[Mushkilla]

So I play against Harlequins a fair bit. Benevolence of the machine god is super important, and I'd miss it against them. But I also find that you are likely to lose a knight a turn regardless of BOMG.

 

But machine spirit resurgent could be replaced with hawkshroud. Yes hawkshroud is not as powerful but it is a lot more CP efficient as its free, and works wonders on units that you would never waste MSR on like helverins. In the context of pure knights not having to spend a CP on MSR every turn frees up your CP for other stratagems.

 

Just a thought though.

[Lysere]

I think not having access to Machine Spirit Resurgent completely kills any Questor Imperialis house.

If that is not enough there is Benevolence of the Machine God, a knight player's only hope against Harlquins.

It's a bit sad really, but I'd never ever go to a tournament with a Questor Imperialis house. There is some neat stuff, but MSR is simply too important.

 

I prefer Hawkshroud over the stratagem since it allows for some extra options that mechanicus knights lack but it also comes down to what you're running. Knights like the Castellan and Crusader get the most out of Machine Spirit Resurgent while Gallants and the Valiant don't care about the degrading stats to the same degree. Certain Imperial households will fill a niche better but most of them struggle to be worth taking.

 

As an example House Terryn is the best way to run Triple Gallants thanks to their bonus and strat making them considerably more dangerous when combined. You could run a mechanicus house for them and still do well but you lack the big play potential of some of the Imperial strats. (Outflanking Questor or smaller, Fight or shoot if you go down, Fight twice for Terryn, Overwatch with friendlies for Hawkshroud, etc.)

 

Mechanicus Households are never a bad choice but they lack creativity in terms of strats and certain combos with Imperial households can be very powerful.

[hermanista]

Krast Crusader, RFBC, Headsmans Mark

 

My man of the match in so many games now.

 

First game out, he put through 29 unsaved damage from just the rfbc on a gallant and blew it to bits.

 

Ok I can't expect that every time, but a d3+2 damage RFBC is a scary prospect, more so when backed up with a 4d avenger.

 

Might consider giving him first knight as well in future to avoid "those turns" when he truly cliffs the dice rolls.