Vanilla is no commander, musician, nor standard.
At the time, I tended to take musicians for rallying, and modeled commanders and standards anyway as well.
This is not what vanilla is.
Vanilla just kinda means plain or normal. It is actually slang that is not more useful than the actual word.
I would avoid using the word vanilla in such manor in any future uses of the English language.
@Konrad.
Knights in T9A are vastly different than in 7ed/6ed. You have to compare them to 8th ed or nothing at all.
The current knights have many options. First is consideration is unit size. Then you have to decide if you are sticking with great weapon, or lance/shield.
Regarding the musician: if you got a big unit, a musician is nice to have as board space can get in the way of wheeling. If you just have a unit of 5 then probably no musician needed.
Banners are pretty good to have as they add +1 combat res all the time.
Champions are decent for challenges obviously, great for that extra attack, especially in knight units with low numbers of attacks.
Only consideration with champs and banners is that the champion is killed last. So if you are taking a small unit it sucks to have your banner guy die and you lose the +1 combat res.