The Brotherhood champion of the Grey knights...a controversial character in the new codex, however although he is vying for that all important HQ slot in your army against a myriad of choices he is not completely unusable and shouldn't be written off as such.
Today we will take a look at him in detail and will compare and contrast him with his other HQ counterparts at the end...
Okay so your standard brotherhood champion is essentially a 1 wound Grey Knights Grand Master in artificer armour, without Grand Strategy and is BS4, but is an outstanding WS7 not to mention conveying re-rolls to hit during assault, always re-rolling his failed CC wounds and if that wasn't enough an ability to take your opponent with you should the unthinkable happen to him...weighing in at 75 points less what on earth isn't making this guy a contender for every list.
Well then, here's the catch with this guy. The Brotherhood Champion does not have any profile attacks, in their stead he has The Perfect Warrior, a collection of 3 different battle stances which you can choose to use during the ensuing punch up...
Sword storm - use against counter charge units...he need to be surrounded to make this effective.
Blade Shield - fantastic for tar-pitting those nasty units giving you chance to re-group or reinforce him.
Rapier strike - use against smaller high Initiative units when striking along side a squad, try take out those xenos gribbles before they get you...
couple this with only 3 wargear options:
Digital Weapons - oh dear God why would they even offer this???
Empyrean Brain Mines - Coolest name in the codex along with Ulumethi Plasma Syphon other than that not bad but not amazing.
Psybolt Ammo - Yes they are a must take especially for 5 points.
Conclusion
Now we see why the Brotherhood Champion is controversial, he just isn't a good enough all round unit when you have so many other choices vying for those all important HQ slots...But if you still find yourself drawn to him because he sounds cool (like myself) I would say 2 things do it during friendly games (these are the times when you should be trying new things and perfecting your strategies after all) and also remember keep him BASIC no more than 105pts!
I'm going to try him another day maybe even 2 (when my guys are built....more on this topic in later posts) and use them as a tar-pit for nasty units so I can manoeuvre my terminator squads into firing positions or get away and ignore them...If this works it will all show in a future battle report, if not I'll have egg on my face but at least I will know whether it is a tactic ever worth considering.Labels: Brotherhood Champion, Grey Knights, List Building, Ordo Malleus, Tactics
Conclusion