Best Heavy Cavalry in 8th

[Asuryan's Spear]

I had actually thought you used the mounts when calculating damage as the profile meshed together and the highest was chosen. If this is wrong then i apologise and conceed the arguement.
however my personal 2 cents is Dragon princes. for 30 points more you get 2 high weapon skill, re-rolls to hit, strength 5 on the charge (strength 3 isnt that good but they are elves) with high I, Ld 9 and a 2+ save in a list badly i need of some armour. If they charged chaos knights i think they'd have a good chance of toppling them.plus 2+ save against breath weapons and fire based attacks. thats dragons, hydras and flaming cannonballs out the window as well as spells from the lore of metal( as they count as flaming). all this for just 30 points makes these boys well worth they're points and genuine contenders. oh and all their attacks can be magical for 15 point outlay on the champion.

[Askari]

Dragon Princes suffer from being really rubbishly terrible if they don't get the charge. Add in that S5 isn't enough to punch through other heavy armoured knights, certainly not if you only have one round of it.

Granted, Chaos Knights and Blood Knights cost a fair bit more, but with Blood Knights having 3 S7 attacks each on the charge, and 3 S5 otherwise... well... Dragon Princes don't come out too well.

[malladin.ben]

Demigryph Knights are only T3, as you use the Riders T, if I remember right. However, the 1+ Save is awesome, as is the damage they can put out for pretty few points. I'd be having at least one unit of 4 if I had an Empire army.

No. You use the highest. Read pg 83 of your rulebook.

[Askari]

No. You use the highest. Read pg 83 of your rulebook.

You mean this bit?

"All the cavalry rules apply to Monstrous Cavalry, with one exception - monstrous cavalry always use the highest Wounds characteristic the model has..."

[warplock]

Demigryff knights will be T3 as they use the rider's toughness.

[GodlessM]

My Chaos Knights nearly always have 3++ Ward save. Blood Knights do not.

How on earth do you figure this? Mark of Tzeentch and War Shrine is the only possible way to do this, however unless your dice are rigged then there's no way they should enarly always have it. Unlike Chosen they have no means of getting buckets of re-rolls, with the ability only to re-roll a natural 10 and nothing else.

[malladin.ben]

You mean this bit?

"All the cavalry rules apply to Monstrous Cavalry, with one exception - monstrous cavalry always use the highest Wounds characteristic the model has..."

Lol. Oops my bad. I should really learn thread one of these days.

[Mati]

Last night 5 chaos knights hold the charge from my dark elven hammer: 12 black guards, general with crimson death and a chariot. The immunity to fear, t4 and bets armor save there is really make them resilient. And then they fight back (or if not against elves then usually they go first!) and do so untill all enemies lie dead around them. Add a warshrine buff and they really are the sight to be feared by everyone.

[GodlessM]

Last night 5 chaos knights hold the charge from my dark elven hammer: 12 black guards, general with crimson death and a chariot. The immunity to fear, t4 and bets armor save there is really make them resilient. And then they fight back (or if not against elves then usually they go first!) and do so untill all enemies lie dead around them. Add a warshrine buff and they really are the sight to be feared by everyone.

Here's two obvious questions; how did he let his cavalry get charged by your much slower infantry, and why do you only take 12 Black Guard (i.e. not enough to make any bit of difference really)?

[Scammel]

I went for Chaos Knights over Mournfangs. Whilst it's true that Mournfangs hit much harder on the charge, both are equally good at grinding it out and the Knights are much, much more reliable - they're not as utterly dependent on charging as the 'Fangs and they won't bolt at the first loud noise.

[RugbySkin]

Necropolis Knights. Simply for the fact of the disgusting amount of attacks you get. (2 per rider, 3 for the champ and all with killing blow) and 3 poison attacks from the snakes. Add in the fact you want to be casting the +5 ward spell and the movement spell every round and you got some nice rezzing going on. Also you can entomb them, which is something to do when you have extra points and don't feel like getting another tomb prince out for a 10 man squade of tomb guard you didn't want to use anyway. (Seriously, 1000 point games are hard to pick the goodies you want with this army)

AND they can be proxied for the SStalkers by taking the rider off.

However, I need to throw a "Wish I had a second vote" vote for the Dragon Princes. Sure they're not the gods of destruction that a unit of chaos knights WoC players love to fantasize about CONSTANTLY (They always die pretty quick when the local chaos player gets his out), but a HE army should ALWAYS take 2 crappy lvl 1 Beast mages so they can roll a spell and ditch it and take that signature spell. A unit of Seaguard, Swordmasters or Phoenix Guard with +1 S and T is nasty. A unit of Dragon Knights is downright wrong.

[sulla]

Here's two obvious questions; how did he let his cavalry get charged by your much slower infantry, and why do you only take 12 Black Guard (i.e. not enough to make any bit of difference really)?

12 black guard is 20 black guard + 1 gateway... Regardless of that, I'd be far more worried by any of the 8th ed monstrous cav with DE than by chaos or vampire knights. The cauldron and the BG or witch elves I6 allows me to threaten normal knights with fast killing blows. can't do much against well armoured MCs in combat unless I bring mindrazor to the battlefield.

[AngelofSorrow]

I have to interject here because you are all missing the clear winner in this debate.
Bloodcrushers. They are the best because the hit so hard. Every part of the model has killing blow. A ward save to start. S6 on the rider S5 on the mount. Brutal. Slap a herald on jugger in there and you get hatred to boot. The perfect character assassins, rank breakers, and they are psychologically powerful. They have never let me down. Many BSBs have fallen to their might leading to the rout of the rest of the army.


Ready for eternal war!

[FashaTheDog]

AngelofSorrow, just because your Bloodcrushers can roll something other than ones doesn't mean anyone else's Bloodcrushers can. Ever charge a unit, fail to inflict a single wound, lose three in return then have the rest vanish from Instability when you finally roll those pair of sixes? Yeah, that is every game of mine.

Stat-wise, I would say Bloodcrushers are great, but they are fairly expensive and unlike the Chaos Knights, who are something like 60% the cost, they cannot get a 3+ ward save of awesome or at the least stat upgrades along the way. I do not know enough about the Ogre's offering to this debate other than the fact that the Rhinox cavalry look amazing.

[GodlessM]

I have to interject here because you are all missing the clear winner in this debate.

If they were the clear winners everybody wouldn't be missing them would they?

Bloodcrushers hit pretty hard but cost way too much and are outclassed by other options in the book.

[Scammel]

I do not know enough about the Ogre's offering to this debate other than the fact that the Rhinox cavalry look amazing.

Rhinox Cavalry are probably the single most destructive unit in the game on the charge.

[chocmushroom]

Well, I voted Chaos Knights as I've just had 5 of them beat a unit of 6 minotaurs and a doom-bull, only loose two models! But for my second vote and against all types of units I'd go Necro Knights. As stated before Killing blow with two attacks means they can ignore that tricky armour save, and the snakes Poison attacks means they can hurt anyone. If you can get the +1 attack spell off a unit of 6 (with champion)(3x2) will only be getting 19 S5 KB attacks and 12poison attacks on the charge! The morfangs problem is that they only are amazing on the charge. If they get charged the low I means that half the unit could be dead before they get to attack, and against any other decent HC unit they will loose.

[Rosstifer]

How on earth do you figure this? Mark of Tzeentch and War Shrine is the only possible way to do this, however unless your dice are rigged then there's no way they should enarly always have it. Unlike Chosen they have no means of getting buckets of re-rolls, with the ability only to re-roll a natural 10 and nothing else.

BSB on Barded steed in the unit, Favour of the Gods. He can modify the rolls for the whole unit. Take 2 Warshrines. Buff buff buff. As you said, they get to re-roll 10's, and with the Favour you have a good shot at getting good results. It might be cheating to count the character as part of the unit for the purposes of this thread, but the potential for Chaos Knights is just awesome.
10 out of the last 12 games I've had them with a 3+ Ward by turn 3.

Plus, I was being silly when I posted that and forgot that the character isn't technically a Chaos Knight

[librerian_samae]

I would say rhinox cavalry but as they weren't in the poll I will say mournfang as unless I'm using brets I have my heavy cavalry do support flank charges against infantry blocks and rhinox/mournfang are excellent at this, especially when factoring in the dragon hide banner and a good ol' casting of the beasts signature spell.

They just eat through most things and have the wounds/armour save to last.