Updated April 3 – added details and concluding section.
Whenever I find myself in the waiting area of the dentist office, or in the library of my old university while my wife attends a workshop, there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll lost track of myself building lists for Warcry either in my head or with the wonderful Warcrier.net tools.
Earlier this week, I was in a similar situation, and also slightly feverish thanks to my daughter’s daycare being a never ending source of fun new illnesses that I experience on an almost continuous basis.
Having a few hours to kill, I ended up spending way too much time thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of the Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Chamber and their potential for greatness in Warcry (which will soon be a post of its own).
During that waking fever dream, however, I also became inordinately focused on one model in particular – the Knight-Judicator – and the utter tragedy that such a beautiful model could at the same time be such a drag on any Warcry list.
It begged the question for a thought experiment – can crap units like this ever become star players?
And so, this got me wondering – is there any way possible to redeem this model, and give him the glory that someone that gorgeous deserves?
I’m not entirely sure, but I did come up with a pretty lunatic hypothetical scenario where one of the most disappointing pieces could shine if all the stars aligned for them.
Who is the Knight-Judicator From SCE Thunderstike?
In my opinion, the Knight-Judicator is one of the sweetest looking models from all of Stormcast Eternals.
I mean look at that dude.
The way his cape blows in the wind, the look of determination in his eyes, and the size of that terrifying bow – what’s not to like?
Surely, a piece like that would be make for glorious leader in any Warcry list or even the piece around which we listbuild the rest of the team?
Wrong. The only really great thing about the piece is how sweet he looks.
Why the Knight-Judicator of SCE Thunderstrike Sucks
Below are the stats for this bad-boy.
At first glance, you might be tempted to think “hey, this guy is pretty sweet.”
He’s got high toughness, great health, and HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THAT RANGED ATTACK.
Your eyes inevitably become fixated on the ungodly 20″ maximum range and the 4/10 damage profile. Those are the numbers of a veritable sniper – the kind of numbers that put even the biggest opposing pieces to bed early.
But then, you spend another second looking at that same weapon profile and notice that he has only 1 attack die per attack activation. Just 1.
Wait, you think, that’s not so bad. He can still do up to 10 damage on a single roll, and that damage could hit pretty much anyone, anywhere right?
But then you do the math.
Math: It’s not on the side of the Knight-Judictor
Knight-Judicator has two main weaknesses with this attack profile.
The first, is that even with a sweet strength 5 ranged attack, you’re gonna statistically be dealing 0 damage on 33% of your attack activations with a 235 point unit.
The second, is that points for points, he just plain sucks for dealing damage out of the box.
Compare him to other 235 point models, like our friend the Bloodkine with Bullgor Great Axe.
Sure, there’s always the chance that the big cow might whiff and do 0 damage in a given attack but it’s not gonna happen a third of all the times he activates.
In fact, let’s compare the average damage output of these two pieces from using tools created by our friends over at Warcry Statshammer.
In pretty much every situation, our Bullgor is gonna do double the damage to an opponent with equal defending stats.
Now, granted, the Bullgor I picked has fairly good combat stats, making him a bit on the meaner side of units in that price range, so let’s compare our Knight Judicator to some friends from his own faction – the always trustworthy Annihilators.
Aaand we’re seeing similar things with average damage, where the Annihilator is gonna do roughly double any activation compared to our champion.
But wait! The range has to count for something right?
Okay, so let’s pair him against a similarly priced unit who also has crazy range – the Castigator Prime from the Sacrosanct Chamber.
Ouch – our Castigator does more damage in every situation as well, and that doesn’t even include when he buffs himself with the wonderful Burst of Celestial Lightning which can bring him up to a 5/7 with a high enough triple.
The disparity is really something.
Is there any situation where this model doesn’t suck? Maybe one that involved abilities of his own or those of his allies?
Maybe.
The Glorious Knight-Judicator Fever Dream
There is a world where the Knight-Judicator isn’t the worst piece on the table. But it’s a world that requires quite a few stars to align.
Firstly, we can all agree that he sucks on his own, and needs a buff.
Fortunately, there are abilities that can do that without waiting for GW to do it for us.
Note: his own ability is not the saviour we’ve been waiting for. The kind of silly Draw the Gaze of Sigmar, which just dumps a couple of damage on an area for a Quad.
To get our boy up to snuff, we’ll need to bring in some allies, as well as make him tag-team with another piece who kind of sucks but can also help make the Knight-Judicator suck less when paired together.
Getting a Buff from a Kharadron Overlord Ally
The first ally is everyone’s favourite little buddy from the Kharadron Overlords – the Company Captain.
This model isn’t anything special stats-wise. Instead, his appeal lies in the triple that all KO leaders can access – Fight for Profit.
With this ability, that typically works so well in KO warbands, our little buddy gets to buff the attacks of nearby friendly fighter by +1. Even better, if he’s carrying treasure or on an objective, that goes up to +2.
For units like the Company Captain himself, this is a good ability but not a game changer. However, for units with low attacks and high damage (like the KO Aethercannon or our man the Knight-Judicator) it’s potentially a game changer.
For instance, let’s say our Company Captain and Knight-Judicator manage to pull this off on an objective. His average damage output would then look like this.
Even if these tables are just showing us the damage based on the odds, that’s not bad – against T4, the odds are he’s gonna wipe them out if they’re chaff and also put a dent into larger things.
Plus, if you’ve got hot dice and roll a couple of crits, you could be looking at over 20 damage an attack activation – that’s “knock a leader off the board” territory.
But is this the best we can do?
Getting Another Buff from an Seldom Used Thunderstrike Unit
I was so focused on the KO buff that this whole time I had forgotten that the SCE Thunderstrike have a unit of their own who’s also able to increase the number of dice friendly units roll when attacking.
This little guy: the Vigilor
I’ll have to admit, Vigilors are units I’ve never really given a second glance towards. They’re okay archers, but kinda pricey, and with Vindictors and Annihilators being so good, why would I ever put points on these guys?
However, in our dream scenario, we could take advantage of the ability they bring to the table.
For a triple, Guiding Lightning is a bit expensive but not total crap. A lot of other buffs that add to attacks are also triples, and the advantage of this one is that it’s a rank and file unit that has it.
It won’t be the most useful for giving melee allies a boost, as you cannot target someone in melee with your pieces with a missile unit (unless you move them in to engage after), but it would theoretically work great with other missile attacks.
In this case, our Knight-Judicator could wait to get buffed by the Company Captain and then target the same unit as our Vigilor.
All it takes are two measly triples. Piece of cake right?
In this situation, that would bring his ranged characteristic up from 1 to 4.
Now we’re looking at some damage! And these are just the laws of averages.
With 4 dice per roll, you could theoretically hit up to 40 damage on an attack. That’s enough to nuke a Fomoroid Crusher in a single attack or make even a Tyrant or Chimera blush.
But could such a massive combo ever even be pulled off?
In the real world? Probably not, since it depends on a lot of factors.
However, since this is my dream, why not see if we can get the stars to align even more?
That’s where the Nightmare Quest box comes into play.
The Ideal Starting Location for our SCE Thunderstrike Fever Dream
Nightmare Quest is a fun terrain set where the centrepiece of any battle is the giant Realmshaper Engine which more often than not sits at the, well, centre of the map.
From atop of that terrain piece, ranged units get to have a field day, harassing pretty much anyone they want from across the board.
In some cases, ranged units are also lucky enough to start there. In the deployment arrangements for Nightmare Quest, there are actually two that can make these happen, with Mismatched Opponents being the one where opponents begin even further away.
From atop that glorious platform, if we had a deployment group with our Knight-Judicator and his two buddies, we’d be able to give him the pick of the litter. Not a single enemy deployment zone would be safe, nor would they have enough time to all rush into the relative safety of being within 6″ of our archer.
If the map happened to have objectives placed in every quadrant, he’d pretty much be able to hang out up there are rain death from start to finish – surely the task he was born to accomplish.
But another thought crept up in my head, would it even be possible to make a 1000 point list where this deployment would be legal?
After all, our little combo deployment clocks in at a cool 490 points for just these three pieces alone.
A Hypothetical List for our Running Knight-Judicator Joke
It turns out, it is possible to make a legal list for this scenario.
———-
Warband Roster
1,000pts | 7 fighters
– Knight-Judicator (235pts, Hero)
– Company Captain (90pts, Hero)
– Vigilor (165pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
– Gryph-Hound (115pts)
———-
Generated on Warcrier.net
With 7 units, we could legally have one deployment of three (Knight-Judicator and friends) and then two other deployments of paired units.
The two Annihilators and Vindictor do elevate this list a bit out of joke territory, since those models are so good stats-wise, but it would still be an uphill battle since almost half the warband would effectively be camping one spot.
Literally any other deployment would also severely happen the efficiency of the dream team too.
That said, this silly list and scenario would be fun to try with some friends – if only to see if you could slam a couple slam dunks from our champion, the kind that people continue to talk about over beers months after the match ended.
So to come full circle with our thought experiment, is it possible to make lists that elevate the mediocre to the tier of the godly? Yes, it is.
Is it advisable for anything outside of casual? No, probably not.
Unless you’re one hell of a gambler.
The Bottom Line
The Knight-Judicator is a sweet piece to look at, but to make him the focal point of any warband will require coordination and some thoughtful listbuilding (never mind, some luck).
If you want to go the route, he’s fortunately an easy piece to find since he’s part of SCE Thunderstrike.
Notably, I’ve seen dozens of listings for this guy on eBay being shipped from the UK well-below the list price (though if you’re in North America, the shipping is a bit prohibitive and it’s easier to pick him up on Amazon CA or Amazon USA where he’s often 33% less than the Games Workshop listing.
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