Crusaders

[wrightjd]

But can't you see him throwing some +9s on Gauntfield? Or Judas? I don't think he's a head to head beast, but that's why he's got backstab, so he never fights head to head.

 

Yeah, I think he's definitely still useful in some situations, but he isn't able to be used in the manner I used him before. I must admit, I had something of a man crush on Marcus Gideon. He was my favorite model in the crusader army by a long shot.

 

Really the only negative of the new Halbarad is the loss of +2 on friendlies. But he's got Healer now, and staying power. You must play a very different style than we do around here, but the old Halby's DV8 meant he was blown off the field long ago.

 

I always strapped GMA on him every game. So when he finally was out of spells he could get in there and crack some skulls. In fact, I usually had him in there cracking skulls before he was out of spells if I could. I'm a very offensive and melee oriented player, sometimes that comes back to bite me, but I can usually manage to do alright.

 

The Onyx Golem had Big, but I get the point. He has definitely become more bland, but he's really cheap and does have a bigger troop size than most captains. And cheap, lord is he cheap.

 

I think he lost his non-unique so folks would field more of him, and paint up more versions of an absolutely gorgeous model.

 

I couldn't agree more about the gorgeous model, and I have one painted up myself. I think what I'm still coming to terms with is that before the changes the crusaders were one of, if not the most, expensive armies. Now they're fairly average in the price and power part (Not counting calvary, good lord not counting calvary).

 

He lost a point of DIS, and Deflect/2 for one more Tough and one more track and Trencher. How much worse is that really?

 

Guess we just have different perspectives.

 

PS

 

Sorry about the confusion. I was looking at a slightly outdated pdf version of Broderick, when he was only 44 points and a sad excuse for a captain. He is now much more to my liking.

[wrightjd]

Here's a sample army I'll be fielding until I get my all calvary army together:

 

Duke Gerard - Holy Light, Holy Weapon, Greater Magic Armor

Justicar x4

Templar Ironspine x4

Valandil - Ice Blastx2, Fireball, Firestorm - Greater Familiar

 

Lord Ironraven (gotta see how he fairs)

Templar Knight x3

Templar Ironspine x4

Saramonde (I chose to run with her as my gimmick character instead of Gideon)

 

Sir Brannor - Cure 1 x2, Holy Light

Templar Knight x3

Templar Ironspine x3

Halbarad - Divine Vigor, Cure 2, Cure 1 - Greater Magic Armor

 

 

I only took cure ones for the event people get out of range of my heals, otherwise I have healers to go around. No calvary in this army. 1500 point army by the way.

[Qwyksilver]

Drop the Fireball. It's not nearly as useful unless you are planning on going against some 1-2 track soldier types. The one point of damage is nice, but you can find better uses for those points. I'd strongly encourage you to pack 1-2 Counterspells instead. They cost little, and can save the life of a troop nearby from some potent Magic. Also consider that the chance of Valandil being alive to cast 4 offensive spells is not very likely unless you are playing in an untimed to the death situation. Because Counterspell is so powerful, level 2+ mages have become serious targets. I'd even consider losing the Firestorm, again, nice AOE, but only one point of damage. Something like Stun is likely to be more cost effective, because you are preventing enemy models from being able to attack, which means you can move in and slaughter a troop with melee without reprisal.

 

I'd consider something like:

Counterspell x2 = 20 points = 4 spell levels

Bolt x1 = 5 points = 1 spell levels

Icestorm x1 = 30 points = 3 spell levels

Stun x2 = 30 points = 4 spell levels

 

Total: 85 points, 12 spell levels.

 

You're using all 12 spell slots. 3 of your spells can be used Defensively. You save 5 points from your build. I'd even consider changing the Icestorm to an Ice Blast, and getting another Bolt to help protect you from archers, which saves you another 5 points.

 

You also REALLY want Valandil to have Greater Magic Armor. His DV 9 makes him prime fodder for Ranged attacks, especially Indirect Shots.

 

Otherwise, the list looks pretty good. You can also field Justicars in one of the other troops if you want. Gerard has a Faction SA in the Crusader Faction book that has not been changed yet call The Wolf. It allows him to field Adepts in his troop, that do not count towards the Adept total for your Army. So you could field Justicars in Gerard's troop, and then Justicars in Ironraven or Brannor's troop as well.

[cristomeyers]

I just bought the starter set of Warlord, wondering on ideas to expand the Crusaders in the box to 1000. Any good ideas for builds. I am lost.

 

Which set are you refering to? The one with the rule book and both a crusader and necropolis army?

The one with the Cusaders and necropolis armies. Is has the following in it

Lord Ironraven

Halabarad

Unforgiven (9)

Adrian

 

My recommendation would be get the other Crusader starter box. That should get your collection to around 1000 with minimum investment. You'd get a Warlord, a Mage, and some really tough soldiers.

[Rat_Ryan]

Hi Im a noob in warlord, and I chose the crusaders faction, I have what brings the starter(the mage, ironraven somo templar unforgiven) a guardian angel and duke gerard, what else should I buy to start playing? I thought of more templar units but donno^^ could someone help me?

[Qwyksilver]

Justicars, Finari, Lion Lancers, Sir Danel (Lancer Capt), Sir Brannor, some Conlons, Halbarad, Hospitaliers, Templar Iironspines

[spiritual_exorcist]

Well, Did I lie about Gus delivering, or is Mercy 'Fixed'? (Or at least usable)

 

I think the mechanic works, and it functions against the same number of models as Bane does, so thas fair enough, and those of you calling for turn undead abilities at least got 'Undead Hunter' to keep you happy :)

 

Beware Reptus and Reven, those low disciplines are really going to suck when you're playing against the Crusaders.

[Qwyksilver]

Not really, most of the Models have a 3 or 4 on their last track, which means at worse, it's a 40% chance of Mercy. The nice benefit though is that if the Model fails, it just dies.

 

Comparing Mercy to Bane is not a valid comparison since every Dwarf can use Bane all the time, even on Defensive Strikes. Mercy can be used by any Crusader, but only one model per troop per activation can use it at a given time. Not to mention, Bane works on all Models with Tough. Mercy works on all Models with Tough that are not Undead or having Berserker. Therefore Mercy works on less Models.

 

I'm just happy it is clearly written and not overpowerful, but still useful.

[Sergei]

Beware Reptus and Reven, those low disciplines are really going to suck when you're playing against the Crusaders.

 

Yea, yesterday Mengu Mercied Khong-To

[mooseyjoe]

Did you make sure to put my main man lizard out of his misery?

 

 

I must say, I think this incarnation of mercy scares me more than all the rest. It's simple and easy to use. That means that it will happen a whole lot more. I know at least one crusader player who didn't mercy much because it was so much trouble (and then it wouldn't work).

[spiritual_exorcist]

Mercy in previous incarnations was far more effective (the last iteration excluded), version only works on tough/X models, and relies only on the last track discipline value of a model, if you field a high discipline army, or one with few tough models you probably won't have to worry too much.

 

Thing about this version is if the Mercy fails, you perform a CdG instead, which is great, it makes it far less of a liability to try to mercy a model.

 

Scary for certain factions, but most faction abilities are rougher on some enemy factions than others.

 

I'd say a wise tactic against the Crusaders is to loot your own stunned models and forget a tough/1-2 roll, as the crusader is alot more likely to Mercy such a model than you are to get it back on it's feet anf fighting for your side using tough/x. Of course it's different if you're talking about a discipline 7 model with tough/4.

[Kelcore]

All true about the Mercy. And I love it. It's now an incidental, nice little bonus FA rather than the main thrust of the army and what you center your tactics around.

 

Personally I rarelky if ever used Mercy on a medel that didn't have tough.

 

And now, if it fails, you don't have to put down the same model AGAIN!

 

And Armor of the Faithful rocks my socks. That Fearless to everyone is HUGE.

[wrightjd]

All true about the Mercy. And I love it. It's now an incidental, nice little bonus FA rather than the main thrust of the army and what you center your tactics around.

 

Personally I rarelky if ever used Mercy on a medel that didn't have tough.

 

And now, if it fails, you don't have to put down the same model AGAIN!

 

And Armor of the Faithful rocks my socks. That Fearless to everyone is HUGE.

 

I don't really like to nitpick, but do you really think Armor of the Faithful is all that good? Sure fearless is nice, but how often will it really come into use? Deflect/1 is very nice, don't get me wrong, but how often will fearless REALLY be used? When you withdraw you still take the shaken tokens, so the real benefit is only against fearsome models. I mean it's a cool little perk, but I highly doubt it's going to change anything in play, especially since I really see people take more than 2 or 3 fearsome models.

 

Here's the real question I ask? Can anyone here actually make the claim that Judgement / Armor of the faithful as they stand (remember Judgement doesn't auto coup now either) even hold a candle to the elves special ability (Sure shot for everyone) or the reptus FA (reroll missed defensive strikes , that's like paying for part of a holy weapon on every single model)?

 

Here's a break down for you, if you'd really like to see one:

 

Let's base each faction ability strictly on the amount of damage tracks gained by faction ability or taken away:

 

First to consider is the elves, with sure shot and basically deflect/2. So with deflect/2 all ranged models are going to have a 20% less change to hit elven models. So if, in the course of a round say, you take 8 shots (marksman, whatever) you're talking about gaining 1.6 damage tracks per round. Over the course of a 6 round game this will amount to about 8 gained damage tracks, not too huge. This bonus will also always apply, because no one will ever need a natural 10 to hit an elf and if they're rolling against one of the few models on the board that needs a natural 10, they're throwing their strategy to luck anyways, but there would be no net gain if a natural 10 is already required. The next part of their FA is Sure Shot, the major component. These are just going to be estimates; I don't really have numbers to back them up. Let's say an average elf player, in a 1501 game, brings 6 elven archers, 3 elven rangers, Selwynn, and an elven sniper. I don't think that's outrageous and we're also leaving out Eawod. Here the stats are going to get a bit more complicated, but here's what we're looking at for each model:

 

This is going to assume an average DV of 11 against ranged (which I feel is a bit high).

 

Chance to hit for an elven archer: P(Hitting) = P(rolling 6,7,8,9,10 on a 10-sided die) = .5

Chance to hit for an elven archer w/Sure Shot: P(hitting) = P(hitting) + P(missing attack1 and hitting attack2) = .5 + .25 = .75

So overall you're 25% more likely to hit without using marksmen.

 

Chance to hit for an elven archer using marksman for one attack: P(hitting) = P(rolling 7,8,9,10) = .4 for a single attack

both attacks hit: P(hitting and hitting) = .16

Miss both attacks: .36

Chance to land one and not the other: .48

On average you are going to hit: 2*.16 + 1*.48 = .8, this means on average you won't quite land 1 hit per round.

 

With sure shot this changes (if you want the formula for this PM me) to hitting an average of: 1.136 times per round.

 

This basically amounts to a 33% increase in the amount of damage you do. So if on average you hit, from those 12 + 3 + 1 + 1 shots, say you land your attacks with 50% success, then you'll be increasing the amount of damage you do from 8.5 to 11.5 (about). So you're doing on average 3 more points of damage per round. Over the course of a 6 round game this amounts to probably close to 12-14 points of damage (due to models getting hit, etc, etc). Overall elves gain about 20-22 extra damage tracks from their faction abilities.

 

The reptus gain significantly more from their faction ability, but it will be significantly more work to prove that. If someone would like me to I can, but it's going to be long.

 

Comparing this with armor of the faithful and it doesn't even hold a candle, to be honest. With deflect/1 you're talking about gaining less than one damage track per round, and this isn't factoring in the considerable number of natural 10s most armies will need against crusaders. Justicars / Duke Gerard / Angel / Danel / Damon / Lion's Lancers all need natural 10s to be hit by most factions anyways. In the course of a game I would predict Fearless + Deflect/1 is going to give you 8 extra damage tracks or less. This is not a considerable change.

 

So if we're talking about if it's balanced - I'm going to say no, absolutely definitely not when faced with the reptus and elves. To every other faction, Darkspawn and vampires included, I'm going to say it's fairly close, a little on the downside. I don't factor in Smite(Evil) because only 1/3 of the armies are evil and they even have some neutral models often. So it's hard to say how often it will or will not come into play. The biggest thing, and the biggest advantage, of the elves and reptus is that they ALWAYS get their FA to work and there's no way you could possibly stop them.

[Kelcore]

[

I don't really like to nitpick, but do you really think Armor of the Faithful is all that good?

 

I do indeed. EVERYONE gains not one, but TWO SA's. That stack with existing SA's. I don't know about you, but Discipline checks and what not come up ALOT when I play. And EVERYONE gaining fearless, ESPECIALLY against the Necropolis, IMO is huge. Even though it's not as big a deal against everyone else, keep in mind, no matter who you face, no one under the aegis of Armor of the Faithful can be targeted by spells with fear effects. Sounds sweet to me.

 

I see the Deflect/1 being a nice compliment to all those troops/models who already deflect, and a nice bit of insurance to those that don't. Could it go up a point? Sure. But not without everone else (that'd be the other side of the fence here) who loves to complain about how "overpowered" the Crusaders are having a fit. YMMV, but it looks sweet to me.

 

Even in the default list, the Smite Undead ability comes in handy with the Necros, Razig, AND the Nefsokar (and to an even more limited extent, Overlords). Limited? Sure. It doesn't have the far-reaching, affect everybody effect that alot of the other FA's have, but *shrug* it's what we've got. I don't think it's any more or less an FA than anyone elses. The crusaders FA's compliment the already exceedingly good defensive/offensive capabilities of the faction.

 

Besides, no matter how much we beg, I doubt that Gus'll give us Smite/Everthing 5.

 

I also adore the fact that the Wolf goes to both lists. Justicars a-go-go!

 

But by that same token *put on whiny voice* " But what if we want to field Kristianna or Jahenne as our Warlord?"

 

Which, actually, is a damn good question. :) Gus?

[Qwyksilver]

Never receiving a Shaken token is HUGE.

Negates Fearsome. Negates leaving penalties to leaving B2B, other than wasting a Mov action. Negates firing Ranged attacks or Spells into B2B. Negates both Fear and Scare spells. Makes you Immune to Shock as well. And EVERYONE gets it. Not to mention, if you face Necropolis, you no longer take a -2 Dis penalty, at worst, you are just a normal Model again. Most of the Leaders and Elites in your sublist still keep Fearless, since most of them had it to begin with.

 

Plus, balance isn't just about how many points to you can add to kill stuff, but also how much you can survive, and what you can bring to the table. Just The Wolf alone is huge.

 

2 troops with Justicars or Lion Lancers or War Dogs.

 

It's not just about the straight up numbers, but what you can also do with the SA.

 

Also, lets not forget, Smite is added to ALL attacks rolls.

Ranged, Melee, Attack Spells.

 

 

 

 

And back to Mercy...

Because Mercy is now based solely on your opponent's Discipline, War Dogs have become very useful with Distract. Two or three Wardogs and some Lions Lancers successfully using Shock is going to give you almost any Model. Imagine the hurt you can put on with Sir Danel, Sir Damon, 3 Lancers and 3 War Dogs. You can either negate Defensive Strikes altogether, or reduce them to maybe 1 or 2. Drop that final track Discipline by however many Dogs you brought. Because you only need one model in there not attacking to offer Mercy, you're golden.