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With the model’s impending release I think it’s a good time to over Canis Rex. IMO this unit is an underrated gem from the Knights book and will be a strong option should command point batteries be nerfed. Let’s go over his weaknesses first from the most to least impactful.
-expensive (near the price of a fully kitted out warden)
-freeblade special character so no access to house traditions, stratagems, relics (of any kind), or warlord traits of any kind (the one he can get is garbage.)
-stuck with his default weapon layout
-has a burden.
So honeslty a pretty hard to list to overcome, but I think that his strengths do a good job of rising to the challenge. Once again I’m gong from most important trait to the least.
1) Starting WS and BS of 2+. This is massive as it greatly increases Canis Rex’s CC and shooting pontential over other knights. I’ll go into more details of this in other sections, but this is the biggest reason why you’ll want to take Canis.
2) Freeblade traits. A big reason why freeblades are uncompetive is risking the table isn’t worth losing a household. You are stuck in a range between completely inconsistent (2 Qualities, and 1 burden) or consistent but weak (1 Quality, 2 burden). Canis gets around this by automatically coming with the 2 best qualities, and one of the least bad burdens.
-his burden of “obsessed with vengeance” requires him to shoot and charge the closet enemy unit. It does not require him to move towards the cloest enemy unit however. This means that its very possible that you will be able move in a way to get a unit you want to target to be the closest to Canis. Combine this with the fact that realistically the burden will apply in only 1/3 turns, means that he burden isn’t that big of a deal.
- Sole survivor is a solid quality. With this Canis is very reliable horde stomper as 12, WS 2+, re-rolling 1s, S8 attack’s means around 10 dead guardsman a combat. Las inpusler can also be buffed (meaning you are hitting with pretty much all your shots.) but it usually will shoot high value small units. His Multi laser gets a lot better with this quality though.
-Legendary hero is incredible and the second big reason why you’ll want to take Canis. Allows him to re-roll a single hit, wound, damage, charge, or save roll once per battle round. Notable that the list includes both charge and damage rolls. This ablitly is great for two reasons. The first is that it saves command points. This will of course be a lot more valuable if command point batteries get nerfed. The second reason this is good is because you can use it the same phase as a command point re-roll. Have two important charges in a single turn, you can re-roll a die for both, or re-roll both of Canis dice if he really needs to make a charge. Need to re-roll 2 damage dice in the shooting phase, you can with Lengendary hero. Best Quality by far.
3) Sir hektor getting out is a pretty nice, mainly because the unit isn’t destroyed until he is. Your opponent likely will have worked hard to kill Canis, so they might not be able to kill hecktor. This means you might have denied them getting a kill for turn under ITC, which could swing the game to your favor. Combine this with Hektor being useful as objective grabber, means this is solid special rule.
4) getting freedom’s hand. Good for deathgrip and big game hunting. Not really tooo much different than a normal fist, but helped by Canis’s 2+ WS. This means that Canis hits similarly to a warden with the Paragon Gaunlet when using freedom’s hand.
5) multi-laser. Better than a stubber!
6) breaker of chains. Nice flavor text. It will come up occasionally, but needing a 6+ to save someone means that this ablitly will actually be useful around 1 out 5 games (if you run allies).
Bonus) is a character for heroic intervention. Easy to get in the Knights codex, but still something.
Last point is he armed with a las impulser. The gun is either a worse avenger Gatling cannon, or a slightly worse 18 inch thermo cannon (2 d6 pick highest damage is slightly more useful than S 12 v 9. Combine this Canis’s 2+ BS means he is shooting slightly worse than a base warden, or slightly better than an errant at close range.
The way to look at canis is that he is slightly weaker gallant in CC, and a slight weaker warden in shooting. This means he is good in all situations, but never quite the best. Really his big selling point his legendary hero quality, That ablitly by itself nearly makes him. I would say that relic/ warlord-trait warden beats him out in terms of efficiency, but if you don’t want to spend command points to give that warden those items then Canis could be your man.
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