I see this questions show up a lot on forms and in person so I figured I give my 2 cents on the units and what there roles are in a army.
From my xp most opponent lists bring shooting of some kind weather its for softening up the targets while they come into range or generally there
main strategy of winning you find it a lot.
That being said Banes
offer a uniqe nitch in the Cryx unit arsenal as they can handle heavy
armor targets which you will un doubtfully run agents weather its jacks or
Iron fang pike men or even Templar nights. Lets face it we need to
crack armor and that's what the banes do.
With that in mind your
right we have two Bane units to pick from the "Bane Knights" and the
"Bane Thralls" this is how I look at them personally:
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BANE THRALLS
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The Cost?
A
full on Bane thrall unit will the necessary tools to survive is going
to cost your around 15 pnts that's Full unit of Bane thralls (10) + UA +
The BLT tax
What do you get in this package?
* POW 13 (dark shroud)
* threat range 10"
* 4d6 dice on charge models
* stealth to handle shooting
* ARM 15 to survive blast damage most the time
* tough
* free stand up on maintenance phase
* remove stationary for free
I
have put kador jacks to bed with 4-5 of these guys on the charge and
that's easily a 10pnt model scraped if I can get two groups on the
charge I can scrap 20+ pnts in one round if there kador jacks. Talk
about a return on your investment right?
Now what do they lack?
They
can't handle rough terrain sadly and it gets tricky keeping them
together with your officer in a safe place. Its easy to want to jump
your officer and FB into the fray speciously sense there sporting
weapons but DON'T. Its not worth the loss of tough and dead rising
believe me. There biggest problem is not being able to ignore rough
terrain sense there are a lot of player that will take advantage of said
things.
There slow... With a natural SPD 5 your not ghosting
through thick building and still getting a chance to attack this has
caught me off guard many a times when I tried to reach a juicy target on
the other side of a wall and found my self lacking the 1" I needed to
do what I wanted to do. They are fast on the charge with BLT but that
means you NEED to manuver BLT to get them to what you want.
DARK SHROUD!!!
Is
dark shroud worth it? Well is +2 damage on any other model in your army
worth it? This is not a spell btw so you can park a BT in melee range
of a juicy target that is immune to spells and still get the benefit
some times that 2 damage is all you need to win the game or tip the
scales in your favor so I think it is fantastic
As they say any little helps.
They
need BLT to work past smashing heavy ARM targets. If your soaking so
many pnts into a package deal then they need to be able to handle
infantry as well which means you need to become good at maneuvering BLT
on the field as well as them. This takes practices and time to learn. Also
you will be tempted to bring BLT into the fight but only do this if you
can shield him with new Bane Thralls after to go to town.
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BANE Knights
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The Cost?
A
full on Bane Knights unit will the necessary tools to survive is going
to cost your around 14 pnts that's Full unit of Bane Knights + the BLT
tax
What do you get in this package?
* POW 11
* threat range 12"
* 4d6 dice on charge models
* Vengeance to close the distance on shooting + double the carnage when all ready in melee
* ARM 16 to survive blast damage most the time
* Ghostly to ignore free strike + go through terrain / obstetrical
Still
have the power that thralls bring but with lacking Dark Shroud be ready
to commit more to the effort of taking down a arm 20+ model. But the
nice thing with reach you can fit a lot more of them around a target
Now what do they lack?
They
are easy to shoot up across the board. When your pushing only ARM 16
and crap DEF of 12 so guess what your going to be hit. If there toting
anything at POW 11+ there going to kill you on average dice rolls most
the time.
Like there Bane thrall cousins there still slow... The
kick back through is with Vengeance you get a free +3" if any of them
get taken out which makes the rest of the unit seem "Faster" the nice
thing is even in the thick of things you benefit from this. Its one of
those models that your damned if you don't and damned if you do
Ooooo Ghostly! how dose that affect there game play?
As
I said Banethralls fail at being able to be vary mobile thanks to not
being able to handle rough terrain or Obstetrical in there way. This
make them highly predictable to control on the board. But where they
lack the Bane knights ex sell. There easy to shoot but they can come
from any ware and with Ghostly + Vengeance + reach weapon together you
can "Side step" things in front of them and kill things behind them like
a juicy UA or important solo.
Why should I care about Vengeance?
Vengeance
is the chance to get up the field, re organize your ranks, and sweep
through ranks to better targets thanks to having ghostly also. A known
tactic is to put one out on its own in front of the other ones to tempt
players into trying and killing it. If a player did not read about
"vengeance" then there going to kill it and suddenly scream out hax when
all your stuff moves closer at the begin of your next turn
I love this so much!
They still need BLT look above for the reason why...
So which sould I take? BANE THRALLS or BANE KNIGHTS?!
The answer is simple. You should take the unit that best compliments your caster. I try and run it this way my friend:
Dose my caster have access to ghostly? If yes, then I take the Bane thralls hands down. If no, I take the bane Knights.
It
is as simple as that with some few exceptions thanks to caster tactics
and that's this with eLich thanks to causing mist and reach lets you
park your Bane Knight right out of the edge and lolz as there unit in
the mist will die if they stay in the mist or get a free strike and die
if they try to leave the mist. Plus with his feat anything with a super
long threat range is awesome.
Another caster I bring them with a
lot is with Venethrax thanks to there ability to effectively get two
hits in with vengeance helps with corpse harvesting for Venethrax spell
"Soul Harvest". Pluss he falls into my rule above of not having a way of
giving out Ghostly to his units.
I know you can argu just take
Saxon Oric to give out pathfinder to the Bane Thralls but I could also
put those 2pnts into a solo that can spray / shadow bind / power boost
aka war which sooooo ya no thanks.