Blood Knights vs other cavs

[funkmonster7]

Why do some VC players claim that Blood Knights are the best cavs in the game? Don't they get destroyed by Demigryphs and Bretonnian anti-large knights?

[Hugh de Salle]

Their not but they should be up their with the best , However they can be healed and gain models back which is more than other cavalry.

I just don't find them useful enough to justify the cost , I would rather have 2 extra GG than blood Knight's imho.

[RCMidas]

Give them to a Blood Dragon Lord of around 12th level however, and suddenly their upkeep is just as low as that of the Grave Guards. Recruit them from Nuln and you can get them at rank 9 straight out of the gate. As cavalry armies go, that one is practically unstoppable.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Why do some VC players claim that Blood Knights are the best cavs in the game? Don't they get destroyed by Demigryphs and Bretonnian anti-large knights?

On the tabletop they were the strongest cavalry in the game. You can make the argument that they are the strongest in lore, too.

Demigryphs are not technically cavalry; they are Monstrous Cavalry.

[archmag]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Why do some VC players claim that Blood Knights are the best cavs in the game? Don't they get destroyed by Demigryphs and Bretonnian anti-large knights?

Where did you see those claims? Why do you ask this in separate thread instead of the thread where they claim this? It looks like you are the one claiming this when you do it like this.

[Wyvern]

Blood knights beat everything except demi halberds in a 1v1. Throw in zombie summons and they beat everything. Theyre also really good vs infantry, which demi halberds kinda arent. End result is that theyre easily top 3 for cav, and some will say best

[Hugh de Salle]

Originally posted by Wyvern:

Blood knights beat everything except demi halberds in a 1v1. Throw in zombie summons and they beat everything. Theyre also really good vs infantry, which demi halberds kinda arent. End result is that theyre easily top 3 for cav, and some will say best

I agree bout everything except their not that great with infantry their more anti large , Grail Guardians and Chaos Knights are anti infantry cavalry.

[Jakal, Lady kisser]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Why do some VC players claim that Blood Knights are the best cavs in the game? Don't they get destroyed by Demigryphs and Bretonnian anti-large knights?

On the tabletop they were the strongest cavalry in the game. You can make the argument that they are the strongest in lore, too.

Demigryphs are not technically cavalry; they are Monstrous Cavalry.

they were never called strongest in the lore, and they weren't the strongest cavalry in the game either, they just were very good and mowing down cheap infantry.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Originally posted by Wyvern:

Blood knights beat everything except demi halberds in a 1v1. Throw in zombie summons and they beat everything. Theyre also really good vs infantry, which demi halberds kinda arent. End result is that theyre easily top 3 for cav, and some will say best

I agree bout everything except their not that great with infantry their more anti large , Grail Guardians and Chaos Knights are anti infantry cavalry.

Ehhh, doesnt matter what they are on paper, you usually want to be cycle charging infantry, and for that blood knights are far better than any melee cav, and at least on par with all other shock cav.

Originally posted by Jakal in the red dress:

Originally posted by Lampros:

On the tabletop they were the strongest cavalry in the game. You can make the argument that they are the strongest in lore, too.

Demigryphs are not technically cavalry; they are Monstrous Cavalry.

they were never called strongest in the lore, and they weren't the strongest cavalry in the game either, they just were very good and mowing down cheap infantry.

Blood knights are literally competing for top spot powerwise in lore against grail knights and chaos knights. Its basicalky a trifecta of uber roided humans, and blood knights are often seen as best, just counteres by sheer holiness of grails.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Jakal in the red dress:

Originally posted by Lampros:

On the tabletop they were the strongest cavalry in the game. You can make the argument that they are the strongest in lore, too.

Demigryphs are not technically cavalry; they are Monstrous Cavalry.

they were never called strongest in the lore, and they weren't the strongest cavalry in the game either, they just were very good and mowing down cheap infantry.

1. I said "you can make the argument." That means I did not make a definitive argument, since lore is fuzzy and even contradictory on these things. (For instance, one text will claim X is the strongest, but another text will claim that Y is the strongest.)

2. Sorry, but you are simply wrong here. On the tabletop Blood Knights were the strongest cavalry. There was a well-known mathematical head-to-head numbers crunching analysis done on both monstrous and regular cavalry, and Blood Knights came on top among cavalry - though I cannot find it online any longer, as it's been a while. Another measure of a unit's power - albeit not always perfectly precise - is its cost. Blood Knights were the most expensive during the last edition, coming in at 50 points per model. For comparison's sake, Chaos Knights and Grail Knights - two other competitors for the top spot - come in at 40 points and 38 points, respectively. Chaos Knights can go a bit higher if you stack Marks and magical weapons, but they'd still be cheaper than Blood Knights.

[notnewbutyork]

Lore wise, although it's never outright stated that "these are the best" it would probably be like:

Grail Knights, Blood Knights, Chaos Knights (and their variations), dragon princes, the Gryphon Legion, several empire knightly orders (many of which never had rules)

depending on who you ask and whether it's thought of as 'individually' or 'as a military organization' ...

rules wise: depends on the edition we're talking about
(in 5th or 6th i believe there was a supplement that let you build your own knightly order, stats, equip, special rules and all (you could even make them cursed, so that randomness happens for a reduction in point cost if i remember right), we never used it, believe it was in WD once)

but yeah, blood knights are really hard, prob the hardest, even when accounted for their considerable cost (discounting monstrous cav, where demigryphs and mournfang were the best imo) but they were not always the best choice ofc, sometimes it's better to go for cheap (other than demigryphs, which were too cheap for what they were)

[Zane87]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Their not but they should be up their with the best , However they can be healed and gain models back which is more than other cavalry.

That is the thing.

1on1 they might lose.
Once you cast invocation of nehek though they will outlive all other cavalry and most monsters.

I personally love them. As VC you have basically 3 ways to form your army in an effective way.

1st: heroe spam/flying Circus (no necromancers though)
2nd: all-rounder normal army (mainly graveguards, crypt horrors, cavalry, and some monsters/corpse carts/Mortis engine)
3rd: hammer and anvil focused (mainly chaff and some high quality hammers like BK, Vargheists, Crypt horrors)


Advantage of 3 over 2 is lower army cost. Disadvantage is, you have to be able to hammer, if that fails you are toast.


I prefer 3 and imo Blood Knights are the best unit for that purpose. They hit hard and survive long enough to get the job done. 2 or 3 are enough for most threads.

[Hugh de Salle]

Originally posted by Zane87:

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Their not but they should be up their with the best , However they can be healed and gain models back which is more than other cavalry.

That is the thing.

1on1 they might lose.
Once you cast invocation of nehek though they will outlive all other cavalry and most monsters.

I personally love them. As VC you have basically 3 ways to form your army in an effective way.

1st: heroe spam/flying Circus (no necromancers though)
2nd: all-rounder normal army (mainly graveguards, crypt horrors, cavalry, and some monsters/corpse carts/Mortis engine)
3rd: hammer and anvil focused (mainly chaff and some high quality hammers like BK, Vargheists, Crypt horrors)


Advantage of 3 over 2 is lower army cost. Disadvantage is, you have to be able to hammer, if that fails you are toast.


I prefer 3 and imo Blood Knights are the best unit for that purpose. They hit hard and survive long enough to get the job done. 2 or 3 are enough for most threads.

Yeah i agree with you i think their are better cavalry for anti infantry purposes if you just want to get stuck in and not micro manage.

When i play VC i just love a Grave Guard front line and WoD its so effective i use cavalry just to mop up and find Black Knights do the job for a cheaper price.

Guess i'm just lazy

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Why do some VC players claim that Blood Knights are the best cavs in the game? Don't they get destroyed by Demigryphs and Bretonnian anti-large knights?

Where did you see those claims? Why do you ask this in separate thread instead of the thread where they claim this? It looks like you are the one claiming this when you do it like this.

I asked in a separate thread because otherwise I'd be necro-ing threads.

The second reason is I found these comments strewn across the Internet. Like Reddit. I don't have an account there neither do I plan on making one. So no, it does not look like I am the one claiming this when I do it like this...

I never came across someone saying specifically what Blood Knights are good for. Looking at their unit cards, they have anti-large, high charge (because they are shock cavs), but that's about it. They're not armor-piercing, while Bretonnian and Empire cavs (for the latter it is monstrous cavs) they have both.

I know there's one guy, probably on reddit, who said that VC Blood Knights are the best, but never said why, and no one responded after him.

And looking in this thread, it seems like there's a degree of debate going on about Blood Knights' abilities. It's good because it's what I'm looking for. (Maybe not the lore stuff because I never played the TT, but never mind, I always learn something I guess.)

Edit: Lobsterkuln said this: "Blood Knights are hands down the best tabletop Cav, and they're pretty ♥♥♥♥ing scary in this game too, definitely top 3. Just depends on what you're facing. Dragon Princes are up there too" in the thread "Best Cavalry Unit/Army?".

Shandor made a list 2 posts down in the same thread.

But the date of their posts was 4th Nov 2017.

Basically I compared the unit cards of Blood Knight with the other cav units of other races, it just doesn't look that amazing to me. Maybe I'm missing out the Undead-do-not-route factor and the healz-and-rezz factor, which makes them better than when I just compare numbers... But I didn't know that, hence why I asked. :)

[Zane87]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

I never came across someone saying specifically what Blood Knights are good for. Looking at their unit cards, they have anti-large, high charge (because they are shock cavs), but that's about it. They're not armor-piercing, while Bretonnian and Empire cavs (for the latter it is monstrous cavs) they have both.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Basically I compared the unit cards of Blood Knight with the other cav units of other races, it just doesn't look that amazing to me. Maybe I'm missing out the Undead-do-not-route factor and the healz-and-rezz factor, which makes them better than when I just compare numbers... But I didn't know that, hence why I asked. :)

They are a cycle-charge hammer troop. The main purpose is to deliver devastating charges in the flanks/backs of enemy units and then after a few seconds, pull out and repeat.


They are AL which means they can do that to large units very well, but their high stats and charge will still make them effective against infantry.

AL also means that they can fight large units head on and have a fair chance of winning, their base stats underlines that.


They have 2 additional strengths, one is their missile resistance (when not in melee), sth very deadly to all cavalry and monster units.
The other one is a possible 75% increase in health thanks to invocation of nehek (though realistically 25-50%)

About AP, don't let the tooltip fool you. Most units have some AP damage. Hover over the DPS stat to see the actual numbers.


Will they win against other AL Elite cavalry on their own without buffs? Probably not. But the bigger picture matters.


Invocation of nehek is huge and gives them unchallenged endurance.
Also, VC have quite a good campaign buff line thanks to research.

Finally, VC have Blood Knight Lords (up to 3+1, if we include the Red Duke), that further can buff them. Sth neither bretonnia nor the empire can.



Bottom line, are they the best AL cavalry in the game? Probably not.
But can they still beat the best AL cavalries in battle? Probably yes thanks to their insane (relatively speaking) buffs.

[funkmonster7]

Yeah I noticed that all units have some degree of AR damage. For Blood Knights, they have about 1/3 of their listed damage as AR, but it's still low. The only time they get to use it is when they get charge bonus in, because I think they can get near 100 charge bonus if including Lord red skill buffs. That means additional ~33 AR damage, which is huge.

Thanks, I didn't know about the missile resistance. I only saw their bronze shield.