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WhiteWolf14 wins the debate with his unit of Empire Pistoliers

Congrats WhiteWolf, +6 rep and the honour of the MASTER TACTICIAN badge.





While we wait for some more entries into the Master Tactician #6 - Grand Alliance, I thought we could kick off a quicker tactica question for everyone to jump straight into.

The usual rules apply, submit your opinion and once we get a few, I'll post a poll for everyone to vote on (you can change your vote at any time) and everyone can start debating.

Name the best* (or most influential) cavalry unit** and explain why you think it's the most important cavalry unit*** in the game.

* on a point-for-point basis.
** excluding monstrous cavalry.
*** any legal unit; including magic items (eg. banner, champion magic weapon) and command group but excluding all characters (lords, heroes, wizards, special characters etc.).

To support your argument you might want to talk about;

1) how you would use it,
2) it's flexibility,
3) the value for points,
4) why it out performs other units of the same kind.

...and anything else you care to mention.

Feel free to continue the debate as long as you like.

Prize for the winner and rep for all entrants :-

+6 rep for the winning answer (includes entrant rep)
+1 rep for each (meaningful) entrant

The winner will also gain the rank of "MASTER TACTICIAN" until the next person wins the award.

Very obviously, there is no best answer here because it depends on so many factors, the good news is that this gives you a lot of leeway to argue your case.

Here's what Sigmar thinks...

Dark Riders




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Saw topic, no to reply, going for Knights of the Realm.

I will find something to support hunch once able to focus on more than ten seconds.

I'm in as well, but I have to wait until I get home from work to look at my books! One question, is it just a straight up unit review, or are chapions, and magic upgrades part of the equation?

This looks fun, I'll try not to spread myself too thin buy debating to tactician topics at one go.

I think I'll have to plump for Empire Outriders, heavy fire power on horse back, great!

Hey another debate, well I got to go for the 'Griffon Legion' Kislev Winged Lancers that are a bit special.

CHAOS. KNIGHTS.

They are amazing. I flank charged 5 of them with 5 Dragon Princes, they won without losing a man and ran down the unit. Then they were front charged by another 5 (I dont know why I did that, I guess I thought that they would be tired from killing the other 5, they didn't actually lose anyone The only thing that can beat them in the High Elf army is a unit of White Lions (a unit of 27 with a noble can kill 8 in one round) and I guess a Star Dragon, but I don't usually take them.

They are flexible due to marks, have some good banners, and can (but shouldn't really) take lances, and have some good banners, and can take a warshrine bonus in emergencies. And they are only special choices, so you can take a lot of them if you want.

Hi Bob, you can choose any legal unit and include a command (champion, musician, standard) and any legal magic banner or other listed unit and command equipment. No hero or lord level characters.

I have clarified the rules to exclude all characters (except the champion in the unit command group). See the starred notes above.

I would have to go with the undead Black knights! Any weapon the touch is made into a wight blade, making it magical, and I think killing blow. They have a 2+ armour save, cause fear, immune to psychology, and can go ethereal through terrain, just can't end their movement in it. With the way the new terrain line of sight works, it makes going through woods easier. Sure you loose troops my loosing combat, if it is high enough difference, you might not loose any. If you loose so guys, just make more! Also, they can choose a magic banner up to 50pts as well! I like to run with at least 2 ranks. They rock!

Good choice Bob, are they better than Blood knights?

Bretonnian's Knight of the Realm
Bonuses: Relative Cheap, Knight's Vow, Blessing of the Lady, Lance Formation
Drawbacks: Long Flanks, Non-optional champion

Price
Quick look to Bretonnian's Knights of the Realm doesn't reveal their potential. They are easily compared to members of Empire's Knightly Orders and in such competition they lose to their fully armoured neighbors – why anyone would want pay extra point just to remove barding? Sure, in older edition it meant roughly about 15% longer charge range - difference that allowed them be within guaranteed charge range of most of their targets but not other way around - but in current one? Paying extra points to remove gear that one has already paid? Is their point cost overpriced?

Well, this might be true, this might be illusion, it depends how crucial full command and more precisly, champion is seen – and more standard champions become, cheaper Knights of the Realm become when compared others. Just image how much champion upgrade cost when price is divined among the unit... and think what Knights of the Realm would have costed without champ instead. In this sense knights are about 1 to 3 points cheaper than set point cost suggest. Getting about two knights of the realm at cost of one Chaos knight isn't bad deal at all.

And thanks to lance formation, number of knights required to disrupt opponent's ranks is almost halved when compared others. Six strong 'vanilla' units are still effective force yet cheap to wield.

Knight's Vow
Knights also benefit from the Knight's Vow, making them Immune to Panic. Panic is effective form of psychological factor for what few are completely immune. Fear is effective psychological effect but with magic standards, spell and simply being so common makes it counters itself. Panic is harder to cause, sources of panic has drop from each edition and protection against it is rare thus making it powerful tool for those who can utilize it – screaming skull catapults and hellcannons for example are scary because lucky shot can send multiple units fleeing, not because casualties but panic-causing special rules.

And then again, even moderate amount of basic firepower can be effective against cavalry usually limited in numbers. Being immune for these factors means that expensive unit don't turn their tail at critical moment, especially middle of charge. To contrast, Chaos Knight's Will of Chaos just reduce likelihood to fail Panic test but they have to pay if they want guaranteed immunity. Knights have it already.

Blessing of the LAdy
More importantly, Knight's Virtue allow knights to be affected by Blessing of the Lady, granting knights extra protection while giving opponent ability to choose if going first or second. Drawback? No, not really as it offer less-suspicious way to pass first turn for opponent; as it seemingly grands just ward saves, unskilled general may forgot that Bretonnians are most likely adapted gameplay straight from the deployment that prefers going second as well. But getting off topic.

Blessing grands ward save that improves when strength of attacks start to become too much for mundane armour to withstand. This highly increase their survivability against warmachines or hard-hitting units usually used to deal armoured enemies. Blessing can be lost, that is true, but thanks to Knight's Vow, it requires either terror, failed combat or voluntary flee action.

Once again seemingly drawback can be utilized against opponent. People tend to fight to upkeep their benefits and thus how many would except to see knights voluntarily flee? Willingly giving up ward saves can take opponent off-guard but it is small price to get opponent drawn to good location, especially if enemy lack high strength attacks almost altogether.

Lance Formation
Most cavalry units did suffer from the new requirement of needing at least two ranks to negate enemy flanks, as it often doubled the cost of heavy cavalry units that are going to do flanking duty. And such units become expensive investment.

Thanks to Bretonnian's Lance Formations, Knights of the Realm avoided this new rule set almost complitely. Sure, you have to bought that sixth's model but as it grands rank bonus, extra model is well worth of his cost.

For nine knights – still less than minimum of amount of models in other cavalry units what they need to even claim critical mass – Knights of the Realm enjoys from two ranks and still having only one knight unable to attack during charge.

For twelve knights they have full combat resolution from ranks and still only two knights that can't attack during charge. Not bad deal that for what all others almost has to pay for filling second flank. One could actually go for fifth ranks as well – three more knights, two more attacks and higher likelyhood that even infantry units will have trouble to claim Steadfast bonus once carnage is over.

Lance formation also offer smaller unit frontage, meaning that two knight units can actually perform dual charge even against minimum frontage of any other unit willing to claim ranks and get every model apart middle-ones after second rank to fight.

Drawback of lance formation is its long flanks but because Knights of the Realm can be still expected to break even ranked units on charge instead being just stuck like spoon ir porrage, they should be reasonable odds to pursue out of charge arcs or reform to face possible counter units.

Lance formation also offer some extra protection for damsels, keeping weak characters out of risk of being targeted in close combat.

Other forms of Influence
Knights of the Realm are trademark unit of Bretonnian army and there is no way to avoid taking them. How many units, speak alone cavalry, are seen so important that no force can go without them? Suddenly can't recall any other. They aren't just effective cavalry unit that has survived drain of time and which can still be wielded effective even in edition itself hostile for cavalry, they are the very soul of Bretonnian force that every Bretonnian general must master.

Empire knights are core and there is no cap to how may you can get

Ok, 6 entries so far (or 7 if i include my Dark Riders suggestion).

I'd like to kick off and finish the date before 15th Jan when we start debating the MASTER TACTICIAN #6 - A Grand Alliance.

I'll do a round of promotion and see if we can get it up to 10 entries before we start the debate / voting.

@Telephenion:

Yes, knights of the realm are an excellent choice. In fact, you made the mistake of saying they lost barding, which is untrue. They still have 8 movement from a special rule, as well as a 2+ armor save. Okay, now that I have finished supporting my opponent (This is why I'm a bad warhammer player, I help my enemies.)

Comparing Chaos Knights with Brettonian Knights:

Chaos Knights hit harder (2 attacks, 5 strength always, not just 1st round). They are more durable (4 toughness to 3 toughness and they have 1 better AS). They are barely slower, they cause fear, they can take more upgrades

A few things that are less obvious.
Brettonian knights are they primary combat troop for brettonia because their infantry isnt good. Chaos Knights can be (Chaos all cav army is possibly more viable than Brett all cav). chaos knights have support units like Marauders and Warriors to take hold enemy in front.

Ok, shockingly no one has taken these.

For myself, Id go for the Vampire Blood Knights.

Unit Name	M	Ws	Bs	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Blood Knight	4	5	3	5	4	1	4	2	7

With an excellent stat line, Toughness 4, Frenzy, There unit champ can get a 25 Point Magic Item.
They can march normally despite being Undead. They never suffer dmg as result of a Dead General.
Can get a 75 Point Magic banner. And Cause Fear. And you can revive the entire unit from the Grave as long as 1 Survives.

So a Unit of 10 would have 21 Str 7 Attacks on the charge and 5 Str 4 Attacks.
As it stands now, they can get a Banner for Hatred, 4+ Ward vs Shooting, Magical & Flaming attacks, Armour Piercing attacks and Regeneration for the whole unit with a BSB.

Price Wise. Each Knight cost a massive 55 Points EACH, add in Command Group, Standard, you looking at a 700 point unit of 10 Knights. Which isnt actually too bad considering the killing power they have