138 replies to this topic

[shakhak]

Ah Sir Broderick. He rose quickly through the Justicar ranks, making it out of several battles by the skin of his teeth. His resilience was not ignored and was appointed to command. He once led the Justicars, but soon tossed his shield and sword aside for the warhammer that he now holds. Although the weapon grants him unique advantages, his quickness to toss aside the fighting of the holy justicars upset many. The Justicars refuse to listen to him and while he still holds his rank of Captain he has been limited in the quality of troops he is allowed to lead.
Rumor has it that there is a Mounted Ivy Crown by the name of Vernone that several Justicars have followed into battle and returned with stories of great success. Whether this ivy crown seeks a place among the justicars or even the lion lancers is yet unknown.*

*Not that any of this is true or official of course, it's just an example of how I view the situation.*

[Feanor]

I was not complaining I just thought it was funny. If I can ever get done with my Elves, Crusader will be my next big thing

[Gus Landt]

Yeah, clearly an oversight. I am not planning to correct it at this time though. I am adamantly opposed to any errata for as long as possible.

[Warwick]

Good. It still works fine. I say if there is any way to avoid errata you should leave well enough alone.

[Sir Drake]

Yep weird he can't lead his own Justicars.


I have a tactic/questions for crusaders.

I am looking at adding in a unit of light lancers.
Herne the light lancer and 3 light lancers. as a group. with musician, standard and give Herne the magic armor. 167 points total.

I am playing with the Crusader rule that all leaders are fearless and soldiers gain +1 dis.
This also gives the light lancers deflect/1 which should help some from archer fire.

Here is my tactic, is this legal?

1. Ranger the unit up.
2. Have a 15" charge range and hit a target with 3-4 of lancers.
3. use my free action inspire from the armor and now all the lancers are +1 MAV that are fighting the same model as Herne
4. Do their swift attack. Since we are on the same model we get +1 for inspire and +1 for support and so have 3-4 strike first attacks with MAV of 6. With any luck this could take down a lot of different models.
5. finish up the combat round, hopefully if they are not dead, they are injured badly enough not to do much to the lancers.
6. break away from the model moving 11" away.
7. Make shaken checks on Dis 7 (so only fail on 1-2) or Dis 6 if wounded and get re-roll due to standard.
8. If I fail on the re-roll can I use the free rally action from Herne's armor to allow them to re-roll again? Or do I have to wait till the rest of the unit moves away and then do it. So the guy who failed twice, got stuck in combat, can he take it so he comes out of it?

What do you think?

I know there are questions in here, but I thought the tactics part also wanted to discuss.

[Stubbdog]

The only real flaw in your list is #7. The SA Swift attack states that you automatically get to break BTB when performing a swift attack, and therefore no roll is needed.

Further, if you werent swift attacking but rather just regular attacking and wanted to break, then you only have to roll to break if you are based with the same or more points worth of base size. That is, your cavalry is basically a base size 2. If you were based with a single standard based model, you wouldnt need to roll to break from it. Only if you were based with 2 standard based models or at least 1 larger model.

as for using the armor to both do a free inspire and a free rally on the same activation.. I will have to confirm with Gus before answering but I think the answer would be even though each is considered a free action, I believe you would only be able to do one free action per activation. But, again, I wil have to re-read things before I can confirm.

[Sir Drake]

Ok, I wasn't sure. When I read the swift attack, there was something about doing things normal. I don't have my book with me now. So I wasn't sure if that intended to make a Dis check to break away or not.

Heck if that is the case, then drop the standard.

Yea I knew if I was basing size 1 models I wouldn't have to. But the idea was also to hit larger monsters as well and weaken them down before a heavy hitting infantry troop got to it.

Just getting back into it. I haven't played a game yet with 2.0, but got the books, and a small army. so just trying to get things straight in my head first.

Thanks for all your help

[Qwyksilver]

If you are not able to peel those light lance off, and get them away, they will get swarmed pretty easily, and cavalry have an annoying habit of getting locked into place.

They are great for getting in there fast and exploiting an exposed flank or crunchy model. I also have used them as feints, drawing a portion of an opponent's army off the main section to deal with them. Charging in to finish off an already damaged model also is a good tactic for them.

You just have to do whatever you can to make sure they do not get tied down. They lack the staying power of the light lancers. Bringing an Isarah along also doesn't hurt for healing purposes. Hold her back, but in range of the rest of the troop for some long distance lovin.

[Sir Drake]

ok, looking at the miniatures I have. Here is my current list.

Troop 1:
Ironraven Templar with Holy Armor
2 Justicars
2 Templar Ironspine
1 Hospitalier
2 Wardogs
Musician

Troop 2:
Sir Broderick Justicar w/ Magic weapon
Finari, Justicar
3 Templar Knights
Templar Ironspine
2 Hospitaliers
2 Wardogs
Musician

Troop 3:
Herne Light Lancer w/Armor of Courage
3 Ivy Crown Light Lancers
Musician
Standard

Troop 4:
Uriel Guardian Angel w/ Holy Weapon

985 points

So I have 15 points to spend. Any thoughts?

Other models I have not used:
1 Justicar
2 Ironspines
I have plenty of models I can proxy for now, so feel free to suggest anything.

I could just go tactics book and luck charm to make it 998.

[Stubbdog]

Overall, that is a good list so you could play that with no worries. But, you asked for a couple of suggestions, so I made a few tweaks:

Crusaders - 998 points

Troop 1
Ironraven, Templar
Holy Armor
Saramonde
Justicar x 2
Templar Ironspine x 2
Hospitalier
War Dog x 2
Musician

Troop 2
Sir Broderick, Justicar
Finari, Justicar
Templar Knight x 3
Templar Ironspine
Hospitalier
War Dog x 2
Musician

Troop 3
Herne, Light Lancer
Armor of Courage
Lady Devona of the Ivy Crown
Ivy Crown Light Lancer x 3

Troop 4
Guardian Beast of Aurellius

Troop 5
Celestial Lion

Equipment
Luck Stone

-------------------------------------------
5 troops, 25 models, 1 tactician, 1 spy, 6 init cards
998 total points


Remembering that both the guardian beast and Celetial Lion have summoned (spellcaster). So, they can be summoned by Lady Devona right as you run up to the enemy, or they can be also be summoned by your hospitaliers, who are spellcasters even tho they are soldiers. Celestial Lion has SA Roar, a very useful SA that tends to get overlooked a lot. So, even if you cant summon the Lion into btb, he can still be very useful coming out of no where to possibly shaken a whole bunch of enemies right as you are crashing into them with either the horses or your troops..

Gave Herne the Armor of Courage so that he can inspire and rally his guys as a free action. And tossed in Devona for spell support. A well timed spell from her can turn a battle, or she can be there to counterspell someone trying to stop your horses short.

Traded in Broderick's weapon and the standard for the choice of either another Lancer or Sramonde, in this case I chose Saramonde for a tactician and spy to help control the battle. But, another Lancer is also a good coice since that seems to be the focul point of this army build.

In the end Uriel is a great model, but tends to work better when the army is built around him, and this army is more built around Herne and his Lancers.

[merlonc]

Has anyone experimented with using large numbers of war dogs as screens and support for foot heavy crusader list? something like the following:

Troop 1
Duke Gerard
Almaran the Gold x 2
War Dog x 6
Templar Knight x 3
Templar Ironspine x 2
Halbarad, Priest of Aurellius
Musician
Luck Stone

Troop 2
Sir Malcom, Lightbringer
Isarah, Cleric of Shadarzaddi
War Dog x 4

Troop 3
Acacia, Ivy Crown Ranger
Ivy Crown Archer x 2
War Dog x 4

Troop 4
Hound of Judgment

Troop 5
Hound of Judgment

[Sir Drake]

I was thinking wardogs were short, so they wouldn't screen anything, right?

[Brushmaster]

I was thinking wardogs were short, so they wouldn't screen anything, right?

Correct , they only way they would "screen" is by charging into melee ASAP with their Rush Attacks , and hopefully tie up some models till the infantry makes it into b2b .

[merlonc]

They can also be used to block lines of advance to keep hordes from swarming around your flanks for a turn or so.

[Stubbdog]

Unless you play against someone with a decent number of shooters or casters then this list will at least have a chance. But, even with the speed of the dogs, you have so many of them that if the opponent does have any ranged attacks, then they just deploy back a few inches and shoot you up as you run across the field. Wardogs make for a great support model, but are not front line attackers, even with their SAs. I tend to hold mine in the back field seemingly timid while my frontline troops slowly make their way across the field. Then bolt the hounds up just in time to be the supporting models with them, not the other way around.

But, again it all depends on what the enemy army build has in store too.