The Land Raider Crusader is a rare and hallowed war engine within the arsenal of the Grey Knights, a battering ram of ceramite and blessed steel built to shatter fortified positions and disgorge its passengers directly into the enemy's throat. The knights of Titan usually prefer to strike by teleportation or from the belly of a Stormraven, but when raging warp storms, poisoned skies or hostile ground deny them such swift deployment, they turn to the brute certainty of the assault tank.
A favoured stratagem, particularly of the First Brotherhood, is to send several Crusaders grinding forward in a wedge, crashing through walls and barricades until they reach the foe's stronghold. Then the frontal assault ramp slams down and a squad of Grey Knights storms out amid a hail of point-blank fire. To support this brutal work the vehicle bristles with weaponry, its sponson-mounted hurricane bolters, twin assault cannon and multi-melta filling the air with a killing storm of shot and flame.
Like every machine the Grey Knights take to war against the daemon, no Crusader is a mere tool of iron. Each component is consecrated and warded three times over before it is fitted, its hull inscribed with protective litanies so that the tank may drive through the unclean fires of the warp and emerge unbroken. It is as much a rolling reliquary as it is an instrument of destruction.
Order of battle
