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I have been reading a lot about the new GK codex and Crowe is almost universally panned as useless except to make Purifiers troops. What is it that makes him so terrible otherwise?

He's ok, but don't get me started on his brother, Russell. Robin Hood was rubbish...

...sorry, it's 22:15 here and I've been up since 06:00

Brotherhood Champs are a bit weird to begin with(and not a good choice in the highly fought over HQ slot) and units assaulting Crowe get furious charge and preferred enemy. So unless Crowe is by himself(in which case your opponent shoots him) any unit he joins is going to die if charged.

Tzeentchling9 wrote:Brotherhood Champs are a bit weird to begin with(and not a good choice in the highly fought over HQ slot) and units assaulting Crowe get furious charge and preferred enemy. So unless Crowe is by himself(in which case your opponent shoots him) any unit he joins is going to die if charged.

I'm pretty sure that Crowe isn't an IC, he is infantry. So you can't have him join units. Good luck finding a ride for him too.

the fact that he is not an IC is huge. he doesn't have enough protection to last. he also gives the enemy FC and Re-rolls vs him. His only saving grace is the fact you get to take purifiers as troops

Well purifiers can do their ablitie ( i forgot the name ) every assault turn meaning they are great at range and the can hurt in assault

The reason people don't like him.
No HtH attacks in assault unless you give up rerollable 2+ 4++ save.
No IC, so no joining other units.
Give units assaulting him FC and rerolls to hit.
Titan's Herald is useless on him, if you want him the survive the turn he is assaulted.
He has Hammerhand, but will never use it. You give up Cleaning Flame and reroll save to use it. Plus, the turn you do attack you want to save you power use for Heroic Sacifice, becouse he will die that turn.

Saying all that if used right, he well be a ungodly tarpit. The trick is making sure you assault with him, and picking the right unit to charge, as in no unit spaming Power Weapons.

His big killers are lack of IC, 2 wounds, and only 1 psychic power. Add on top of that FC and rerolls to anyone who assaults, and you wouldnt WANT him to be able to join units. Only time that doesnt matter is when a BA assault squad with chaplain and sangpriest assaults him

Noir wrote:The reason people don't like him.
No HtH attacks in assault unless you give up rerollable 2+ 4++ save.
No IC, so no joining other units.
Give units assaulting him FC and rerolls to hit.
Titan's Herald is useless on him, if you want him the survive the turn he is assaulted.
He has Hammerhand, but will never use it. You give up Cleaning Flame and reroll save to use it. Plus, the turn you do attack you want to save you power use for Heroic Sacifice, becouse he will die that turn.

Saying all that if used right, he well be a ungodly tarpit. The trick is making sure you assault with him, and picking the right unit to charge, as in no unit spaming Power Weapons.

Well summarized. If Crowe did not unlock the best unit in the codex as Troops, nobody would be giving him a second glance.

Noir is right, he's good if you "use him correctly." The issue is everything about him is working against "using him correctly." He can't take a transport, unless you jack someone else's ride or devote an entire Land Raider or Stormraven to his personal use. So generally he's stuck moving across the board on his own two feet, without Fleet, Deep Strike, Infiltrate, or any other way to really be an assault threat. Keep in mind that at any point during this trek he can be instantly murdered by any Lascannon, Meltagun, or Rapid Fire Plasma pointed his way, as he can't join a unit to absorb AP2 shooting for him.

The number of hoops you have to jump through to get him to do anything useful is ridiculous. Pretty much any savvy opponent is going to just shoot him before he gets into melee, and gleefully collect 1 KP / 10 Battle Points for killing your HQ character. Even if he does get into melee, any number of Power Weapons attacking him is going to make him unhappy. Given his foot-bound nature, the majority of the time your opponent will be assaulting him, not the other way around. You can theorycraft about counter-charging, baiting, and giving him Scout for hours, but in the end, his inferior mobility means any competent opponent is going to dictate where he assaults, not you.

I think the saddest part is that there are a multitude of small changes would have made him viable. Independent Character, Personal Teleporter, Deep Strike, the ability to take a Transport, or just a regular Nemesis Force Sword instead of his ridiculously bad and un-fluffy Daemon Weapon would all have made him worth taking.

Everything said here is true and well put but there is the small caveat that if he ever did get to charge into combat against big baddies or units without power weapons... he'll do great.

Long odds I know, but he is a mini purifier unit all on his own.
Half of his abilities aren't psychic powers, so you can pick a combat stance (probably the save re-roll), use cleansing flame and take out the leader of the unit that killed him all in the same turn. IE: charge an ork horde (again, rare situation I know), wipe out half with cleansing flame, either try to save forever or hit everyone in btb with an attack, and then bring the PK nob down with him when he dies.

He ain't great, its true, but for the ability to take purifiers as troops, I'm willing to swallow that bitter pill and try to make him work

He might be intended as a trap unit The special rules hint that you're secretly hoping for the enemy to charge you. If they do that you can decide if you want to use cleansing flame to thin out the unit or try your luck at assassinating a character. Of course he does have some serious problems making this happen. I will note that Heroic Sacrifice is a psychic power and with mastery level 1 he has to choose whether to use cleansing flame and hope he survives or hold back and hope he dies so he can use Heroic Sacrifice.

It almost seems that Crowe is the trade off for Purifier troops. The purifiers are so good you have to put up with an HQ this bad to take them.

I think he is best used against large units. He can Cleansing Flame in every combat phase, and then take re-rolled saves to tarpit a large unit with out many power attacks. Simply use a vindicarre to knock out the power weapons, if any, and then watch him not fail any saves while he flames away.

svendrex wrote:I think he is best used against large units. He can Cleansing Flame in every combat phase, and then take re-rolled saves to tarpit a large unit with out many power attacks. Simply use a vindicarre to knock out the power weapons, if any, and then watch him not fail any saves while he flames away.

Sure, he can go for the blade shield route, rerollable 2+ isn't bad. It isn't a 100 percent gimme that you will save all 35 wounds before you fail your first one, on the 36th save (in fact, the odds are greatly against it). It also isn't a gimme that the vindicare kills the PW guy. He probably hits no problem, but the vindi doesn't have 2+ sniper, he has normal 4+ sniper. He really is a poor HQ, as are all brotherhood champions

notabot187 wrote:He probably hits no problem, but the vindi doesn't have 2+ sniper

Yeah he does, it's also not going to allow an armor save.

notabot187 wrote:It also isn't a gimme that the vindicare kills the PW guy. He probably hits no problem, but the vindi doesn't have 2+ sniper, he has normal 4+ sniper. He really is a poor HQ, as are all brotherhood champions

Actually, he does, assuming you don't need to remove an invul save or do 2 wounds.

I think Crowe would be a perfect character to load up in a Chimera along with Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. Have him pop out and protect the tank against assaults while the ST's lay down vicious firepower from the inside. Then have Purifier squads fly around in Stormravens to clean up and capture objectives.

His CQC prowess is pretty nice. Hitting on mostly 2's & 3's and rending on a 4+ is awesome. Plus the master swordsman rules, he is a nasty bastard.

bryan40kman2000 wrote:I have been reading a lot about the new GK codex and Crowe is almost universally panned as useless except to make Purifiers troops. What is it that makes him so terrible otherwise?

Because unlocking purifiers as troops for 150pts isnt enough, he should be playing guitar solo's while riding a jetbike away from an explosion in slow motion without looking back, or else people complain.

Stormrider wrote:I think Crowe would be a perfect character to load up in a Chimera along with Inquisitorial Stormtroopers.

He can't be in a transport with anyone else.

Crowe has actually been pretty fun to use...

You can hide him quite easily on most boards...

So what I have done thus far...sit him on your objective and make him scoring...hiding from LoS isn't that difficult in my area. And any unit that decides to pick a fight is most likely dead.

Or outflank that beast...

Now al Crowe needed to be overpowered was one of the below

-IC status
-T5
-Fleet
-Eternal Warrior

All that being said...you probably won;t take Purifiers as troops often...but you will make them scoring with Grand Strategy regardless..

DarknessEternal wrote:

Stormrider wrote:I think Crowe would be a perfect character to load up in a Chimera along with Inquisitorial Stormtroopers.

He can't be in a transport with anyone else.

I guess that is because of his stupid sword?

ductvader wrote:

Now al Crowe needed to be overpowered was one of the below

-IC status
-T5
-Fleet
-Eternal Warrior

Having a normal nemesis force sword would have been enough for me, instead of the crappy stick he's wielding now. So yay, he can kill wraithlords with it. Whooptydoo. Except he can't, likely as not the wraithlord will smush him

Yes...Crowe is the only place safe enough to keep the daemon...and having others around it is an unecessary danger

I am looking at a physical copy of the Codex at my flgs, there is nothing in Crowe's entry or the entry of the Brotherhood Champion that says anything about them not being able to be transported with other troops.
Sounds like Crowe can go anywhere and do anything.

Edited for grammar fail

Stormrider wrote:I am looking at a physical copy of the Codex at my flgs, there is nothing in Crowe's entry or the entry of the Brotherhood Champion that says anything about them not being able to be transported with other troops.
Sounds like Crowe can go anywhere and do anything.

Edited for grammar fail

Notice the part where he isn't an independent character? That means he can't join other units, which means he can't take their ride unless they get out of it 1st.

Stormrider wrote:I am looking at a physical copy of the Codex at my flgs, there is nothing in Crowe's entry or the entry of the Brotherhood Champion that says anything about them not being able to be transported with other troops.
Sounds like Crowe can go anywhere and do anything.

Edited for grammar fail

Look at his rules....notice how it doesn't say independent character? THAT'S why he can't ride with anyone else. You COULD get him his own chimera/rhino to ride around in though, but it would have to be bought for another unit and have him 'hijack' it first turn.

Stormrider wrote:I am looking at a physical copy of the Codex at my flgs, there is nothing in Crowe's entry or the entry of the Brotherhood Champion that says anything about them not being able to be transported with other troops.
Sounds like Crowe can go anywhere and do anything.

Except that there is nothing in Crowe's entry that says anything about him being an Independent Character, which is the only way you can be able to be transported with other troops. Look at Mephiston for a great example.

The restriction on transport is a general one. Each transport can hold but one unit- and Crowe is so manly that he is his own unit.

About the only exceptions I can think of are IC, and Stormravens with Dreadnought and a unit of infantry or jump infantry.

he's a decent HQ.


you just have to treat him like he is and use him as a tarpit.


have him assault massive units of GEQ without power weapons and watch him destroy them(although he would probably do pretty well against a power blob. cleansing flame can snipe sergeants and Commissars )

crow has bad rules?, I never knew, I couldn't get past he god awful fluff