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As of now my main enjoyment in 9th edition comes from Crusade (and Tempest of War). And while Crusade is most often not the place for powergaming and min/maxing, since the narrative is one of the main driving factors, it is nonetheless quite fun to look up what silly combinations one could to with the upgrades from battle honors/crusade relics.

So, I am interested in what silly/powerful combinations your faction can pull off especially for characters (again just to make this clear, I am not advocating going for the most busted combination in Crusade regardless of narrative. This is just meant as some lighthearted fun to see what's theoretically possible).

I'll start (note that no unit can have more than 6 battle honors/relics at a time):
So you start with a Custodes Blade Champion in Shadowkeepers Shield Host and give him two warlord traits: Lockwarden and Superior Creation, so he ignores invulns in melee against enemy characters and has a 5+++.
-First upgrade is a weapon upgrade for +1 dmg on all three profiles of the Vaultswords
-Second upgrade is the Deadly Charge battle honor for +1 attack when charging/charged/heroic
-Third is a Custodes specific artificer relic called Aurulent Warding which allows you to re-roll one save per turn
-Next is a Custodes legendary relic called the Lucent Aureole which just provides a 3+ invuln base
-throw in the Blackstone Shard relic to make him completely immune to psychic shenanigans
-lastly give him the Unphased and Undaunted Custodes specific battle honor which allows him to re-roll one save per battle round

So this leaves you with a character that hits (against characters) with 7 attacks at S6, Ap4, Dmg4, re-rolling all wounds and allowing no invulns. Add to that a 3+ invuln for which he has three free re-rolls per battle round and a 5+ Fnp, oh and he's also completely immune to any psychic powers. With the "Earning of a Name" requisition you can even give him part of the Emperor's Chosen fighting style to make him even more tanky with a 4+ Fnp against all mortal wounds. So this guy basically murders any character that doesn't have a damage cap like Ghazgkull or isn't a knight while also being unreasonably tanky. He's also pathetically slow and easy to avoid though.
Edit: forgot that he also gets the Stasis Oubliette relic so he can make an enemy unit fight last, which makes him even more obnoxious.

Let's hear your silly/busted Crusade shenanigans.

My Keeper of Secrets became the first Legendary character in my playgroup. She has too much crap weighing her down to name all of them, but the critical things are:
- An extra attack all the time, +1 more for each - Character or Monster she kills in a game.
- 2x extra attacks on the charge/when charged/when HI
- Double exploding 6s (so 13 total attacks with each 6 becoming 3 hits instead of 1).
- +1 damage on 9 of those attacks (damage 4; the rest are damage 3)
- ignores invulnerable saves in CC. (!)

She also has +4" of movement, +2 advance, and +2 to charge, giving her an average threat range of 32.5 inches and a maximum threat range of 40" for a charge, with the attacks above.

Let me see if I can remember the captain my son was using.

Salamander captain, indominus version with the relic shield. So 3+ armor, 4++ invuln, 4+ vs. mortal wounds.

WL trait for +2T.
Burning blade relic
Bionics, for +1S, 5+++
Battle honor for the extra wound.
Nanobot rez thing to stand back up when dead.

So he swings a bunch of times 2+ to hit, S8, -5 AP, 2 dam a pop. Not to shabby. On defense he’s T6 with a 3+, 4++, 5+++, more wounds then he needs, and ignores half the MWs you aim at him. Between the nanobots and the sal strat he can potentially stand back up twice after you put him down. And I think I might be missing a few other things. Tough nut to crack.

I wanted my Deathwatch Watchmaster to be an archetypal commander, as opposed to a fighter, so I bought the requisition strat that lets him have 2 WL traits; I took the one that grants Obsec to a unit that doesn't have it or doubles the count if they do and the trait that lets him give a unit the ability to shoot even if they are performing an action. Cool thing is that all of that was right out of the gate, which helped me distinguish his veteran status.

The story is that he is a grizzled leader of old marines, but many of the soldiers of his Watch Fortress got wiped out. Inquisitor Kyria Draxos brings a handful of Primaris who earned a place with the Deathwatch during the campaign fought in the Pariah Nexus.

The Old Marines were pretty nervous about the Primaris; even though they are veterans just like other members of the Deathwatch, they were still viewed with suspicion. Draxus actually stayed with the Watch Fortress to command the Primaris Kill Teams, because the Watch Master was focusing his command on the Proteus (old Marine teams).

In a pivotal battle, my Indomitor team helped the Old Marines hold a transmission tower long enough to broadcast critical intelligence back to the Watch Fortress, and to commend them for their role in the battle, their sergeant was upgraded with the relic that lets him use Special Issue Ammo, signifying the formal acceptance of the unit. In the next battle, I'm not sure if Draxus will still be around: the Primaris are now regarded as full battle brothers.

None of my Crusades contain units that have advanced beyond Battle Hardened yet, and I try to let the story on the table-top determine their growth rather than dream up particular combos... But this is kinda fun, so when I get back to my books, I'll see what I can come up with.

My CWE Crusade isn't ready to field yet, but I considered having a unit or two explore one path to its Penultimate level, only to switch and go all the way on their second path.

Love crusade but dislike the pattern of some people building Uber characters or units. Our group pretty much tries to have a general consensus of which unit deserved marked for greatness each game. The goal should be narrative, not trying to build the super character/unit

 bullyboy wrote:
Love crusade but dislike the pattern of some people building Uber characters or units. Our group pretty much tries to have a general consensus of which unit deserved marked for greatness each game. The goal should be narrative, not trying to build the super character/unit

Which is why crusade is just matched play with extra steps...

Stuff needs to be wayyy more expensive/harder to achieve & be limited. I really wanted to like crusade when it was released. But upon reading the rules, determined it wasn't for me(due to lack of restrictions).

 bullyboy wrote:
The goal should be narrative, not trying to build the super character/unit

Exactly.
In our 1st Crusade my Necron Warden had his leg blown off.
His 1st Crusade relic was Artisian Bionics.
He's painted the generic Necron dull solver/chrome. His replacement leg is gold.

In another more recent Crusade I played my Drukhari pain engines.
They're led by an Archon. I honestly don't want even 1 elf in the list, but I must have a HQ. And every HQ is an elf....
So he'd spend the early rounds hiding in the warp. Turn 3 he'd pop out, grab an objective, & I'd use the Take Credit agenda to give him undeserved xp.
Since he was very often all alone? And apparently a craven coward who hid & stole credit? I kitted him out with every possible honor/relic etc to make him as hard to kill as possible.
He had a replacement ++ save (for WHEN, not if the shadow field failed), he had bionic, he could get up from being dead, & he was immune to psychic powers.

 bullyboy wrote:
Love crusade but dislike the pattern of some people building Uber characters or units. Our group pretty much tries to have a general consensus of which unit deserved marked for greatness each game. The goal should be narrative, not trying to build the super character/unit

I love the idea of asking other people who they think should be marked for greatness- pretty cool innovation.

I agree that playing the game shouldn't be about building up to super combo- it's why I choose to let battlefield actions determine which battle honours are the most appropriate- but I still thing this is a fun post and an interesting exercise. I'd never end up with the uber combos that I will research for the purposes of this thread... Not unless some very, very specific story related conditions occur in game.

Yep, this is the goal of narrative play in general. We are in a campaign right now (not Crusade though) but units and characters can advance, it units can also be depleted. I have a Deathwatch kill team that is down to 50% strength but still has to pay full points. It has won several honours but I just can’t justify taking them anymore at 50%. So instead, the sergeant is being promoted to captain (new model being painted) and the remaining 4 of the squad will all be bladeguard veterans (his bodyguard). Now I know exactly what chapter each veteran will be from.

A buddy and I both have a week off soon and will be doing a small crusade, looking forward to it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My Keeper of Secrets became the first Legendary character in my playgroup. She has too much crap weighing her down to name all of them, but the critical things are:
- An extra attack all the time, +1 more for each - Character or Monster she kills in a game.
- 2x extra attacks on the charge/when charged/when HI
- Double exploding 6s (so 13 total attacks with each 6 becoming 3 hits instead of 1).
- +1 damage on 9 of those attacks (damage 4; the rest are damage 3)
- ignores invulnerable saves in CC. (!)

She also has +4" of movement, +2 advance, and +2 to charge, giving her an average threat range of 32.5 inches and a maximum threat range of 40" for a charge, with the attacks above.

Geez that's nasty. Cool stuff keep em coming

To be sure I'll just reiterate what I've already said in my initial post: the purpose of this thread was not advocating to go for uber builds in crusade from the get go. It was just meant as some lighthearted fun to see what's possible in theory. It's also not about proving others how much you personally adhere to only giving narrtively fitting upgrades.
Everybody can play as they want and see fit, especially in crusade....nobody on this forum should really care whether you build for uber characters in crusade or not. That's something to be discussed with the people you play with.

Just a quick off-topic but somewhat related post:

Apparently, the guys at Goonhammer have their own convention, and they run a narrative event every time. They are preparing their huge narrative event now, and the guy designing it is running a 12 part series about his process. This might be of interest to Crusaders.

Here's the link to the first article in the series:

https://www.goonhammer.com/designing-the-goonhammer-open-narrative-event-part-1-setting-the-stage/

Back on topic: I'm home now, and near my books. I'll be posting again soon.

In our club's narrative Crusade, my opponents have learned to shoot at things that aren't my (debatably loyalist) Death Guard captain-commander Erasmus because he's decided not to die. Avoiding him in combat is usually a solid plan for most regular units as well.

Currently this legendarily tough noggin' is rocking the following:

- T5, W6, 2+, 4++, -1 Dmg base for being a Death Guard terminator lord.
- WT for +1 W and immunity to being wounded on 1-3's.
- +1 Str and 5+++ bionics (after he had to be patched up from taking half a Tau army to the gut).
- +1 T and a once per turn reroll to hits, wounds or saves from favours of fates (chaos boons, mechanically).
- Every now and then also carries a single-use first aid kit to stand up with D3 wounds instead of dying.

Offensively:

- +1 M, Advance and Charge (making those teleport charges all that more possible).
- Can teleport instead of moving (Dark Age relic technology that he dug up from an alien space station's wreck).
- Relic for rerolling all hits and wounds (Warp Insect Hive, a nanobot cloud in this instance).
- His manreaper has been refined with +1 Dmg along with a +1 Str and mortals on 6's poison (basic lords don't technically get manreapers but bwah, sod official wargear restrictions in good company).

So he's a very frustrated man, who strikes from the shadows and disappears like Mortarion used to and leaves a bloody trail of corpses behind him. Takes and draws fire like nobody's business buying time for the rest of the line to close in while being able to respond to changes on the field very quickly.

I wonder how many people picked up the artisan bionics after getting smacked down?

Mechanically, it’s a great pick to make a character more rugged (so they don’t die easy next time).

Thematically, it’s a great excuse to get back into the fight after getting punked. Especially if you get put down in a gruesome way.

The first mission of the crusade campaign vs. my son was an assassinate one. My JP captain with a thunderhammer ended that one real quick. Hence the bionics on his captain.

In the new crusade at the local GW I started my chaplain off in phobos armor. My force was doing recon looking for a lost patrol and it’s captain. Got ambushed by Tau. He was the last man standing on my side, getting gunned down at the end. Rolled a battle scar, but gained enough XP to level up. Burned the RP to ignore the scar, picked up bionics. And switched him out of stealth gear into vengeance mode, swapping the model for the one that came with the indominus box, complete with the bionic face. Also switched most of my army from FA/recon type units to battleline.

Sometimes I roll, sometimes I pick the honors. It can be fun either way.

 Nevelon wrote:
I wonder how many people picked up the artisan bionics after getting smacked down?

Quite a few, most likely

It's one of the most obvious items that is both good mechanically and comes with a story attached to it. Who doesn't like a comeback with some gruesome mutilation in this grimmest of darks? Upgrades like that are memorable and fun. To be fair, many of the various Relics in BRB, Warzones and White dwarves are like that. It is a bit of a shame that most units do not have as interesting options available to them, defaulting instead to mere numbers like rerolling 1's for veterans.

I've written about this elsewhere, but one of the things I am doing as a houserule is making the six relics associated with the Triumph stand alone relics.

The idea is to replay the historical games where those artifacts were retrieved and then once each order has found their relic, to bring them together to form the Triumph for a huge onslaught battle to wrap up the campaign.

The nastiest one I've seen is "Punishment Goes Brrrrr" - a Tank Ace Leman Russ Punisher with an Artificer Weapon turret.