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I did a quick search and didn't find anything.

What is the best thing to do with Crowe? I am looking into a Grey Knight list with purifier spam but am at a loss as to what to do with him. He cannot join anyone else so he's a loaner. What should he be doing?

Hiding. He's a 150pt tax to allow you to take Purifiers as troops, that is all.

L. Wrex

That's what I was afraid of lol.

Well, in my Mech Purifiers he steals a squads rhino and rides to the front or hides in a corner. the squad has 4 psycannons and stays still in some cover and blasts away with 16 str7 rending shots and 12 Str5 shots and doesn't need their rhino.

or in my Stormraven list, he rides in a Stormraven.


What you do with Crowe doesn't really matter. he has already acomplished his goal by allowing Troops choice Purifiers.


He is actually a fantastic Tarpit. Just get into CC with a Blob squad or a Boyz mob and use Shield of Blades. he won't die anytime soon and Cleansing Flame can actually win the combat for him(possably sniping any Power Fists or Klaws)

Ya, usually hiding. Unfortunately he's not even as good as a regular Brotherhood Champ. One other option is to use him to counter assault some big nasty MC or HQ to take something with him when he dies.

I think he is as good as a regular BC. he just has a different role.

a BC has a Force weapon and should be going after multi-wound models.

Crowe just rends on 4+ and has Cleansing Flame. this means he should go after hordes of weak models(like Blobs and Boy mobs), use Shield of Blades to stay alive, and Cleansing Flame them to cinders.

if he happens to get in a fight with an IC, he can Rapier Strike him. or just keep Cleansing Flaming him.

I have had my Ghazgkull killed by his Heroic Sacrafice a couple times now.

I would just use him as a missle to kill stuff that is a menace.

Problem with Crowe is that his Shield of Blades only grant him a 2+/4++ (he hasn't got a NFS), unlike the normal Brotherhood Champ who has a 2+/3++. So when he does get punked by that hidden Klaw/Fist he hasn't got that great a chance of surviving really

I would personally just stick him behind some LOS blocking terrain and let the rest of the army carry on without him. I think he ranks up there as one of the worst s. characters in 40k, and would probably top it if he didn't unlock the units that he does.

L. Wrex

he has a 75% chance of surviving a power fist punk.

thats better then a 3++ save.

But not as good as a re-rollable 3++.

L. Wrex

yes, but Crowe has Cleansing Flame and 2 wounds to counter that.

you just have to use them differently.

I've found the best use for him is to tarpit units for a couple turns. Or charge a unit with an expensive IC and heroic sacrifice him.
In the first scenario, you are removing your opponents threat from affecting the game for a couple turns. In the second, you are almost always trading up points wise as crowe is not that expensive for a SC. And it's funny to hear your opponent say "he does what now?"

If used properly, Crowe can actually be very good. He is a menace to expensive enemy units (HQ's) with Heroic Sacrifice and to hordes as well. Here are some accomplishments I've achieved with him:

- Killed the Nightbringer with Heroic Sacrifice (HS).

- In a game against Eldar, he took out a farseer + 1 unit of howling banshees with Cleansing Flame (CF), a unit of dire avengers (CF) and a 5-man seer council. Then went on to contest the eldar objective, giving me the win.

- Killed the Swarmlord with Heroic Sacrifice (HS).

- Killed 28 ork boyz with 1 single CF and later took out the KFF Big Mek with HS.

- Killed a unit of 15-lootas and was going after Ghazzie but the game ended (would've added him to my collection as well!)

- Killed 1 squad of long fangs and 2-3 squads of 5-man grey hunters.

- Killed a 200pt+ Deamon Prince with HS.

- Tarpitted numerous enemy units.


His anointed blade is arguably better than a nemesis force sword. Rending on 4+ is great against vehicles and monstrous creatures. The force sword isn't that good against MC's because you're most likely wounding it on 6's and if you try to force weapon it to death, you're not going to be able to use Heroic Sacrifice later.

What I normally do with Crowe is let him take the strike squad's rhino if I'm playing an objectives-based scenario. If it's annihilation, then he runs behind a rhino (and out of LOS) as the whole army should be advancing. He is often under-estimated and usually ignored by opposing players, at least initially, because he doesn't do much. But once he gets close....BAM! Your opponent would wish that they had killed him earlier.

Thanks for the replies! Looks like he can be used in a number of ways depending on terrain and mission types. I will give these ideas some tries.

Thanks!

jy2 wrote:If used properly, Crowe can actually be very good. He is a menace to expensive enemy units (HQ's) with Heroic Sacrifice and to hordes as well. Here are some accomplishments I've achieved with him...

Those are all very good stories, but they are just that; stories. I could throw a ton of anecdotes around about how my PIS killed Kantor and Lysander in close combat but that doesn't mean that PIS are automatically better than those characters when it comes to blows, it just means I got incredibly lucky. Quite whether you expect Crowe to reliably wound *every single Ork boy* in a 30-man mob every time he uses SF doesn't detract from the fact that, objectively, he isn't very good. Your luck has been exceptional, and it makes for plenty of awesome tales to tell, but luck doesn't tell the whole story. For every time my PIS have beaten up Lysander, I've had 10 more where they've been assaulted and wiped by a pair of Tactical Marines.

L. Wrex

In my mind, the best way to use Crowe is to provide a halberd-filled Purifier squad with a Land Raider, then give their Razorback to Crowe. You could do the same with a Death Cult Assassin-filled Acolyte retinue if you'd prefer.

Whichever assault unit that you decide to utilize, they benefit from the Assault Vehicle rule provided by the Land Raider. In turn, Crowe benefits from an inexpensive shell with added maneuverability plus a heavy weapon. As other posters have mentioned, Crowe is fairly reasonable and effective against multiple unit types when you actually get him into close combat. This strategy enables him to do so while also increasing the maneuverability of your army as a whole.

In that vein, I view the Land Raider as an investment that ameliorates Crowe's point cost. Rather than "throwing good money after the bad," you're investing points in a way that enables Crowe to contribute to your army while also improving the combat performance of one of your front-line units. I'd rather get some use out of those points rather than just hiding him and effectively playing with a 150 point handicap, as some would advocate.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:

jy2 wrote:If used properly, Crowe can actually be very good. He is a menace to expensive enemy units (HQ's) with Heroic Sacrifice and to hordes as well. Here are some accomplishments I've achieved with him...

Those are all very good stories, but they are just that; stories. I could throw a ton of anecdotes around about how my PIS killed Kantor and Lysander in close combat but that doesn't mean that PIS are automatically better than those characters when it comes to blows, it just means I got incredibly lucky. Quite whether you expect Crowe to reliably wound *every single Ork boy* in a 30-man mob every time he uses SF doesn't detract from the fact that, objectively, he isn't very good. Your luck has been exceptional, and it makes for plenty of awesome tales to tell, but luck doesn't tell the whole story. For every time my PIS have beaten up Lysander, I've had 10 more where they've been assaulted and wiped by a pair of Tactical Marines.

L. Wrex

While they may be stories, they illustrate how you can use Crowe effectively. He's had more good games for me than he's had bad ones. That doesn't necessarily have to be games in which he's killed stuff, but if he's able to hold off/tarpit an enemy uber squad effectively, then that's a good game for me as well.

The misconception here is that he is "just a tax in order to take troop purifiers". He is much more than that if you know how to use him properly.


And FYI, he didn't kill all 28 boys with CF. He killed 14 (about average for a 30-boy squad), and then my opponent failed all his 6+ No Retreat saves (statiscally, he should've made made 2 of the 14 saves). Against eldar, I killed 4-5 of the banshees and DA's with CF and then broke both of those units (not all in 1 battle). Basically, the things he is able to do against the right opponents is actually quite normal and not based off of extreme luck.

Put Crowe into reserves and hope for the best if you are playing a kill point mission.

Stormraven suicide mission against the biggest thing on the board!

use him to hold your army list down in case of a breeze, its a pain to go chasing it, and its all he is good for really.
(though you still have the shame of owning that awful model)

Stella Cadente wrote:use him to hold your army list down in case of a breeze, its a pain to go chasing it, and its all he is good for really.

The new Finecast one won't hold down any paper very well :/

nectarprime wrote:

Stella Cadente wrote:use him to hold your army list down in case of a breeze, its a pain to go chasing it, and its all he is good for really.

The new Finecast one won't hold down any paper very well :/

true, and the breeze might melt the failcost

jy2 wrote:

And FYI, he didn't kill all 28 boys with CF. He killed 14 (about average for a 30-boy squad), and then my opponent failed all his 6+ No Retreat saves (statiscally, he should've made made 2 of the 14 saves). Against eldar, I killed 4-5 of the banshees and DA's with CF and then broke both of those units (not all in 1 battle). Basically, the things he is able to do against the right opponents is actually quite normal and not based off of extreme luck.

I've had similar results from Crowe. One game, he charged a nearly full strength kabalite warrior squad on an objective. Cleansing Flame took off 5-6 warriors, they broke after losing combat, and he caught them. I had him use blade shield and rely on CF, and the kill count was easily within 1 SD of average. This sort of thing isn't really an unrealistic result, if you can get Crowe in there.

I either have Crowe hide next to my Psyflemen and countercharge any attempt to tarpit them, or he borrows a psyback from his boys to go upfield and contest. He's not bad at making MCs and hordes alike a little wary of going after your fire support.

He performs great if you don't expect much out of him. for his cost and what he does, he is a very good buy. he has already done his job even before the game begins.

anything he accomplishes in the game is bonus.


His main problem is getting into CC. once he's there, he will dominate, but he tends to get shot at and die before that happens.

jy2 wrote:If used properly, Crowe can actually be very good. He is a menace to expensive enemy units (HQ's) with Heroic Sacrifice and to hordes as well. Here are some accomplishments I've achieved with him:

- Killed the Nightbringer with Heroic Sacrifice (HS).

- In a game against Eldar, he took out a farseer + 1 unit of howling banshees with Cleansing Flame (CF), a unit of dire avengers (CF) and a 5-man seer council. Then went on to contest the eldar objective, giving me the win.

- Killed the Swarmlord with Heroic Sacrifice (HS).

- Killed 28 ork boyz with 1 single CF and later took out the KFF Big Mek with HS.

- Killed a unit of 15-lootas and was going after Ghazzie but the game ended (would've added him to my collection as well!)

- Killed 1 squad of long fangs and 2-3 squads of 5-man grey hunters.

- Killed a 200pt+ Deamon Prince with HS.

- Tarpitted numerous enemy units.


His anointed blade is arguably better than a nemesis force sword. Rending on 4+ is great against vehicles and monstrous creatures. The force sword isn't that good against MC's because you're most likely wounding it on 6's and if you try to force weapon it to death, you're not going to be able to use Heroic Sacrifice later.

What I normally do with Crowe is let him take the strike squad's rhino if I'm playing an objectives-based scenario. If it's annihilation, then he runs behind a rhino (and out of LOS) as the whole army should be advancing. He is often under-estimated and usually ignored by opposing players, at least initially, because he doesn't do much. But once he gets close....BAM! Your opponent would wish that they had killed him earlier.

Read jy2's battle reports, you will be surprised at what Crowe does.

I've managed to dark lance and splinter rifle him to death around five times so the best idea would be hide him (skysheild landing pads were epic keep your unit on top hide him underneath when your enemies assault units come pop him out and eat them

GreyHamster wrote:
I've had similar results from Crowe. One game, he charged a nearly full strength kabalite warrior squad on an objective. Cleansing Flame took off 5-6 warriors, they broke after losing combat, and he caught them. I had him use blade shield and rely on CF, and the kill count was easily within 1 SD of average. This sort of thing isn't really an unrealistic result, if you can get Crowe in there.

I either have Crowe hide next to my Psyflemen and countercharge any attempt to tarpit them, or he borrows a psyback from his boys to go upfield and contest. He's not bad at making MCs and hordes alike a little wary of going after your fire support.

Just like to point out that kabalite warriors are just a hair away from being firewarrior bad in CC, S3 and 5+ more than counter acts the I5 and WS4 they have. Also, was full strength the full 20, or what many people think is full 10?

As for my view, I don't see him being a liability in objectives, in fact he is quite handy at killing basic troops. In KPs, its best to probably reserve him, then hide him.

Put him in reserve, hope he doesn't come in until turn 4+, and when he does show his damn face, use him to babysit your psyiflemen. If you put him directly behind one, it's possible no-one will be able to draw LOS.

I think my little brother said it best:

Me "Where do you think I should put Crowe?"

Him "Put him up your butt."

... you win this round.