Guest Article: Crowe musings

Here's Dan's second guest article relating to Grey Knights and this comes in the form of the basis of a Crowe + Purifier list! Nothing revolutionary but a good analytical look at what taking Crowe + Purifiers gives you over your normal GKSS. 

Crowe, I wish to discuss this fellow and see what you think.

Firstly I keep hearing about the 'Crowe Tax' for Purifiers. Yes this is correct if you wish to run Purifiers as troops you must take Crowe, Crowe is annoying as he cannot go in a squad so has to run around on his own shouting shoot me Im a free kill point. At 150points he doesn't cost the earth but its pretty crap price for the lack IndiChar.

So the positives are he allows Purifiers as troops this is where the whole 'tax' issue i believe becomes a bit murky. If we look at the Purifiers compared to our other resident Grey Knight troops choice the gulf is huge. For 4 points we double the units base combat potential (this is huge when combined with Halberds) gain fearless (well I aint running off this goddamn objective and I have just raped you in combat with I6 power weapons so I'm gonna be winning) the ability to take cheap multiple psycannons without maxing out the squad (the cost is sort of offset by 5man being 120points) and Cleansing Flame psypower with squad wide LD9 (no crying when you lose your Justicar Ld9).

Cleansing flame is useful if you are bum rushed by lower save hordes that would otherwise likely drown your GKSS in mountains of body's. When cast you cause a wound on all models in B2B on a 4+ BEFORE all blows are struck, combined this with a follow up from I6 halberds youve done some pretty sweet damage before the opponent has had a chance to swing.

Now back to the tax issue. In order access these guys without Crowe you still need to invest in a HQ and 2 troop choices and then you can access your elites. What Crowe does is allow you to have your HQ and your Purifiers as troops still giving you access to the Elites slots if you desire.

If you want to keep it 'Grey Knight' the cheapest way to access your Purifiers is Champion (100pts) and 2 5man GKSS (200pts), So we have already spent 300 points on a mediocre HQ and two troops with no bling, no body's and no wheels to then go and spend potentially 900 points on 3 pimp units but unfortunatly can score. So we would potentially have to spend another 300 points on our troops to get them up to scratch and/or invest in a Grandmaster and appropriate unit for him to roll with to enable some scoring Purifiers. I.E. A big point sink (700+) when we can spend 150points on a... well a bit of a dud but skip all the other crap and dive straight into the bad boys of the dex.

for 272points you can get 8 Purifiers, 2 Psycannons, 5 Halberds and a master crafted Daemonhammer in a Rhino. GKSS Ok so we want 2 Psycannons so we need 10 bodys right? 200 points, 2 Psycannons... 20 points we would like the MC Hammer.. 15 points we also need a ride 40 points for a Rhino you want Psybolts? 20 points lets chuck in a few halberds 7 for 35points 330 points. For very similar firepower and less combat potency we spend 58 more points on GKSS over Purifiers.

Right so...

Crowe - 150

Purifiers : 2x Psycannon, 5x Halberd, MC Hammer, Rhino - 272
Purifiers : 2x Psycannon, 5x Halberd, MC Hammer, Rhino - 272
Purifiers : 2x Psycannon, 5x Halberd, MC Hammer, Rhino - 272
Purifiers : 2x Psycannon, 5x Halberd, MC Hammer, Rhino - 272

So we have spent 1238 points for our crappy HQ and 4 Awesome troops choices which over thier GKSS compatriots we save 208 points, still have 4 troop choices and the WHOLE codex still to choose from. I don't believe their is a 'Crowe tax' infact I would consider us 58points in the black.

Now I would like to make it clear that this is not my idea of 'the best list' it is simply another way to look at Crowe and how he can change things around without being considered some overcosted burdon on society. Yes you can access Purifiers with The Coat and cheap henchmen but this has its own issues, the GK Codex is so varied that this is just one list in a million potentials and I believe Crowe has received a bit of a bad rap.

I hope the general theme of the idea came over fairly clearly (probs not! :)).. please let me know what you guys think of the different perspective on Crowe.