Does anyone else seem to have tons of trouble with imperial knights. I agreed to a game yesterday but had no idea what he was bringing. Pulled out a Knight along with a few dreads and stuff. Needless to say my orks had pretty much no answer to knight as they always strike last with PK's, so they die before even getting to hit. Even my necrons really usually have a pretty hard time with them. armor 13 and a 3+ invon.... plus the guy had tech marines following it around...

Does anyone else have trouble with Imperial Knights...

Nope. With wave serpents and IK being a good part of the meta now, I've switched to drop pod melta with drop pod tig/cents support. They make short work of imperial knights and basically anything else with either high toughness or AV.

Yeah it's a pretty common issue lately. The game has changed in a number of ways that a lot of people dislike. Knights basically invalidate half or more of your army, especially if that's all they field. You run into games where you risk not having fun and just lopsided gameplay.

That said, this is my expectation and what I've heard other people say they felt after playing them - I stopped playing due to things like that. I don't doubt that you can have good games with knights, but it should involve fights with armies that have been modified to deal with them.

ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

TAC lists by definition have substantial portions of their armies devoted to anti-horde, anti flyer, anti-psyker and so on. To face 100% hard to kill super heavy walkers negates all that other stuff, leaving you with the small portion of your army that can do much. In theory.

Disclaimer: Haven't played with or against them.

Not sure what happened in 6th that caused people to stop planning to face a Land Raider or two in every game, but the exact same equipment needed to deal with high AV, high Toughness units can still deal with high AV, high Toughness in 7th. If you are not planning to face 1-2 Knights in every game, how do you expect to fair against a tank-spam list? Or a WraithKnight/Lord/Guard list? Or Tau? Or Necrons? How are Inperial Knights even remotely harder to deal with than Marine Centurian spam?

All you need to do to defeat Knights is to plan on facing more than one in every game and take the units that can bust tanks in number so you can get shots on multiple facings during the same shooting phase. And that is it. If you can plan for that, you can reasonable kill any of the supposed Uber-units currently in the game. If you don't plan for that, then its on you.

SJ

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

Tell that to Tyranids.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

Tell that to Tyranids.

Couldnt FMC circus wreck a knights day? The ones with the haywire shots? Crones?

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Not sure what happened in 6th that caused people to stop planning to face a Land Raider or two in every game

A Land Raider or 2 is significantly less armour than an entire army of IK, it also could be taken out in CC by monstrous creatures and IMO LR don't have enough firepower for their points cost and so weren't as big of a threat. They also couldn't score objectives.

I don't think IK armies are terribly overpowered, but I do think they further mess up the already pathetic balance of 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

Tell that to Tyranids.

Couldnt FMC circus wreck a knights day? The ones with the haywire shots? Crones?

If you took heaps of them and you got lucky. I can't remember the maths off the top of my head, but we calculated it out in a thread a while back and for their points Crones don't do enough damage to really hurt IK, but because they fly they can be a nuisance to them.

EDIT: Yeah, the haywire missiles, you only have 4 of them, so that's on average less than 2HP of damage over 2 shooting phases assuming you fire at a side that doesn't have the shield up and less than 1HP on a side which does have it up. Now that Vector Strike has been nerfed it's also unlikely to do any damage from that either (even before it was nerfed you were unlikely to do much). And the Crone is a 155pt model, so 155pts for the sake of doing MAYBE 1 or 2 HP isn't really worth it.

A Warboss should still be able to scrap a Knight fairly reliably. Especially if he's got a Nob helping too.

Knights also hate any mobile Melta or high volume shooting.

With shooting, the key is lots of shots and/or flanking the knight from multiple sides so only one gets the 4+(or 3+ for the Seneschal)

If you get the charge off, they're not that scary in melee. Mega Nobs will laugh off his Stomps unless he rolls a 6 and at best he'll paste 2 a turn with his melee attacks. Then a punch of PKs will ruin his day. They only have 6 hull points and Arm13.

Techmarines should have a difficult time keeping up with a model that moves 12" each turn unless he just sits there.

Full unit of Tank Bustas or 2 should take the IK out load them up in transports and drive at it fireing away. Then assault with your TankBusta Bombs ( which are Melta Bombs now) and he should depending on dice rolls go away.

You'll probably lose the Tank Bustas to stomps at the same time, but mutual annihilation is in your favor.

I face knights with my Orks frequently, and find them not terribly difficult to defeat. I have an opponent who likes to bring 4 knights (3 of them in that special adamantine lance formation) at 1500 points.
Here are some things which work well for me.

-tankbustas. No surprise here. Melta bombs + tank hunters. I like at least 3 mobs of 9 - 12 in trukks. These will be targeted for termination by a savvy opponent, but that's ok, because you also bring...

- trukk boyz. As many as you can. Nob w/ klaw (+ Mek w/ killsaw in two squads.)

-war bosses w/power klaws in two of the trukks, (preferably the trukks which lack killsaw meks.)

Strategy is orkishly simple. Rush at least 9 trukks at him full speed. Every trukk contains a unit capable of wasting a knight. The dreads will die even more easily.

The trouble with knights is the big boom when they die. Therefore be careful about how many units are in proximity when that occurs.

I think too many people look at big scary things, panic, and think how am I going to kill it without taking losses(because thats how a lot of other things get killed in 40k)

When they really should be thinking, what can I sacrifice to take it out?

Agreed.

.

Why would make a TAC list unable to deal with 3 AV13 6HP walkers?

hotsauceman1 wrote:ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

The whole concept of TAC has really taken a beating since the start of 6th edition. How do you build an 1850 point list that can deal with;

4 Knight titans
150+ infantry
4+ Land Raiders
30+ 2+ save models.
5-10 Flyers
AV13 Wall necrons
AV14 wall imperial tank armies
rerollable 2+ invul save deathstar
40+ beasts
6+ flying monstrous creatures
Serpent spam/wraith knights
30+ bikes with special/heavy weapons
battlesuit spam
Demon Factory
etc etc.

The additions of flyers and super heavies, and some of the new toys in some of the codexes has created some extreme lists out there that require very specific tools to defeat.

Knight armies aren't unbeatable, but a TAC/well rounded list is going to have a crappy time, since every S7 or less shooting weapon is rendered entirely useless.

If its anything like Gargants in Warmahordes, it means any traditional TAC list is outdated.

My TAC lists in 40k usually has enough anti tank, but if I play against a Knight-heavy list, most of my list can't do anything. Not even slow them down. Land raiders are tanks, and thus even spammed have ways for most of my TAC lists to handle them. Knights are a whole different beast. And av13 sometimes 4+ 6hp superheavies are very hard to stop. A pen can't take down a weapon. An explodes won't take it out. You can't immobilize it and move out of the firing arc. You can't slow it down with terrain. It doesn't have any reason to only move 6". It can charge, and can fight back hard in melee.

If I face one, my tac lists should be able to handle it. A lot of the ways to tale one down involve piece trades, though, so if there is a second, I'm in trouble. A third, and why did most of my army even show up?

Gargants in Warmahordes was one of the reasons I left the game. I want more tactical options than list-roulette. There are a few tactical options when facing Knights, but for the most part they just ignore most tactics and still punch your face in.

They're basically Wave Serpents without the Serpents few weaknesses.

No trouble for me.
I got plenty of tanks to just unload into them until they die or bring in Vendettas and they can't do anything at all but run in circles.

Yeah people seem to think that, "Hey I can build a TAC list that can deal with Knights, why can't everyone else?"

My TAC SoB list can EASILY stomp a Knight into the ground, it isn't even funny how bad I can bust them up.

My TAC Tyranids will be likely rolled by a single Knight let along the rest of their army. The only way Tyranids can bust up a Knight is in CC...where the Knight has every advantage with its strength D weapon. Plus if you do get into a situation where you can threaten in in melee it can outrun the entire Tyranid army with its 12" movement. You would need on average 5 Crones to shoot enough Haywire at a Knight to kill it, those are horrible odds. You can get in with a couple of vector strikes but as discussed they aren't that great in 7th anymore so you will be relying on all 5 Crones.

TAC is a myth in 40k. Some armies can build a TAC list but some armies just can't do it. I fail to see how Orks can do it either because in an ideal world you CAN get the charge off with the Tank Busters but in reality the Knight player isn't going to have much of an issue popping their transport before they can even get close.

Just throw a squad on it or better yet let it charge you and do not attack it on your turn. They will have to cut though them and it will be tied up on their turn.

This game is largely an objective game. This is one of the major reasons I am glad for this as it means my TAC lists do NOT have to be capable of killing 200+ infantry, 5 FMC, a Deathstar, and 4 imperial knights. Instead I can concentrate on winning the game and minimize damage from what I cannot kill.

You would think my Necrons wouldn't have an issue against them, but honestly, I can't kill them in melee, and I have to rely on 6's and hope they fail enough saves. Even Necrons have trouble against lists made entirely of Knights.

1500 points.

you can take 4 knights with that much (4 paladins is exactly 1500 points)

well let's play list builder for a moment.

Imperial Guard 1500 point armor list:

HQ: Tank Commander
- LR BT
-LR BT
-LR BT


Troops:
Vetern Squad
Vetern Squad

Fast Attack
Sentinal Platoon
2 Armored Sentinals with Autocanons.

Heavy Support:

LR Platoon
-LR BT
LR BT
LR BT

LR- Platoon:
LR Eradicator
LR Eradicator
LR Eradicator


124578
I put this out to note that IKs hardly are some new thing, armor spam has long been a possiability you have to be perpared for when fighting some opponents

BrianDavion wrote:

(List Stuff)


124578
I put this out to note that IKs hardly are some new thing, armor spam has long been a possiability you have to be perpared for when fighting some opponents

I don't think that list is quite 124,578 points

Carnage43 wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:ISnt this why TAC lists exist?

The whole concept of TAC has really taken a beating since the start of 6th edition. How do you build an 1850 point list that can deal with;

4 Knight titans
150+ infantry
4+ Land Raiders
30+ 2+ save models.
5-10 Flyers
AV13 Wall necrons
AV14 wall imperial tank armies
rerollable 2+ invul save deathstar
40+ beasts
6+ flying monstrous creatures
Serpent spam/wraith knights
30+ bikes with special/heavy weapons
battlesuit spam
Demon Factory
etc etc.

Except really, you can eliminate half that list because it's redundant:

Armoured enemies: 4 Knight titans / 4+ Land Raiders / AV14 wall imperial tank armies / AV13 Wall necrons
Heavy Infantry: 30+ 2+ save models / rerollable 2+ invul save deathstar
Light Infantry: 150+ infantry / Daemon Factory
Airborne: 5-10 Flyers / 6+ flying monstrous creatures
Mechanised: Serpent spam/wraith knights
Cavalry: 30+ bikes with special/heavy weapons / 40+ beasts / battlesuit spam

Of course, a lot of the time, you can then narrow it down further by categorising them by "weapons needed to destroy":

High S / low AP: Armoured Enemies / Heavy Infantry / Mechanised
High RoF: Light Infantry / Cavalry
AA: Airborne.

Or, put another way:

Melta: Armoured / Heavy Infantry / Mechanised
Flamer: Light Infantry / Cavalry
AA gun: Airborne.

All of a sudden, the TAC list becomes a lot less of a daunting subject...

 Yonan wrote:
Yeah it's a pretty common issue lately. The game has changed in a number of ways that a lot of people dislike. Knights basically invalidate half or more of your army, especially if that's all they field. You run into games where you risk not having fun and just lopsided gameplay.

That said, this is my expectation and what I've heard other people say they felt after playing them - I stopped playing due to things like that. I don't doubt that you can have good games with knights, but it should involve fights with armies that have been modified to deal with them.

Very well said.

I did have a Chapter Master with Storm Shield and burning blade, who had Hammer Hand casted on him kill a knight by himself. Burning blade is STR +3, and +2 STR from hammer hand. I was hitting the knight at STR 9 initiative 5.

You want to make sure you charge it. My recommendation for orcs:

Have a warboss on a bike, give him the relic from the Waagh Ghaz supplement: Choppa of Ragnorok.

This is a big choppa that gets better each time you kill someone. IE, starts off at STR +2 AP5 and each time it kills a model, it gets +1 STR and drops AP by 1. Maxing out at STR 10 AP1.

My advice, this warboss starts away from the knight, ignore the knight.

Kill low level models with the warboss. Once you get your 4-5 kills head on over to mister meanie and charge him. You'll hit him at higher initiative I believe and if you have attack squig you get a reroll on a hit which is crucial.

It's very possible you can destroy the Kinight on one turn of combat.

Be advised, the knight will go boom and will boom very hard. Just pray his mega super blast explosion of tears scatters away from you instead of directly over like it did with my chapter master

Ehhh, what if you run into all knights?

Melta: Armoured / Heavy Infantry / Mechanised
Flamer: Light Infantry / Cavalry
AA gun: Airborne.

But that is not how it works.A grav cent star is different from a jetseer council and a Eldar mecha list is different from an army runing a LR wall or
1+ knight.


Flamers do nothing cavalery builds, because they have tanking HQs or are t5, and while they can kill demons or low armor save models like IG, the problem with demons is not the number, but how fast they can grind through a mealstorm mission deck while casting powers.

And how do you counter flyer builds with most armies. IG/sob/orks or chaos have no anti air units worth taking in a tac list. Now there are of course armies like eldar who can do AA with serpents , anti tank with firedragons , counter other deathstars and have their own under invisibility and destroy LoW using ally haywires , but that is just one army.

IG have not AA worth taking? they might be the best aegis users, and they got the ability to outright spam shots like no other. and that's before we got into forgeworld toys or their own cool planes.
SoB have bigger issues, but they are still IoM, and can do ally-spree to fix anything.
Orks? moar dakka. considering you are mostly BS2 anyway, shooting at flyers is just half your shots, meaning a flyer takes as much effort as 2 chemiras.
Chaos are known to be screwed at some points, but given they have the godamn king of the skies (heldrake), I don't see how they got AA problems, just vector them down (vector strikes are STRONGER in 7th against airborn targets, only weaker against ground ones.)

As for knights, eldar mech and LD being different-on the counterbuilding part? not so much. the same units I use to take down land raiders are the ones I use to take down necron AV spam and knights, I'm not even thinking of the subject any more, its a few units I auto-include in any list againt any army I play against unless I know as a fact he has no tanks.

Demon summoning factory is proven time after time to be a failure of an army competitively, not sure why you even bring that one up.

Flamers not working on calavary IS true, but than again, calavary lists suffer from very low model count that can be hurt by nearly everything. honestly you dont even need special preparations for them, and if one shows up-all them fancy anti-tank guns you should have gotten are just used as high S "autowound/no save" guns.

As for the mention that nids cant take down knights as they need tons of crones for the needed haywire.
So what? just dont kill them.
Nids can literally spawn high number of fearless mooks, just use all them "useless" gaunts (who are useless as they cant kill anything when its all knights) to tie them up, with the synapse MC standing back and not even bothering to enter the fight, and laugh as his entire army is stuck stepping on tiny bugs while you scoup up all the victory points.
If you cant annihilate them-play the mission. knights SUCK at it. just like any deathstar based army.


You should have no problem in building a TAC list that really has a shot against anything out there if you build your list smart and make your units multi-purpose.
I've learned by now to always get my fire warriors the EMP grenades. not because they are good at it, but because it makes them not useless when facing armored lists.
And when a unit IS "useless"? (say, bolter marines against all-knights), than you find a non-killing use for it. use it as a tarpit, a roadblock, just to hold an objective. if your list have a single unit that is, EVER truly useless-you are doing something wrong.

 BoomWolf wrote:
IG have not AA worth taking? they might be the best aegis users, and they got the ability to outright spam shots like no other. and that's before we got into forgeworld toys or their own cool planes.
SoB have bigger issues, but they are still IoM, and can do ally-spree to fix anything.
Orks? moar dakka. considering you are mostly BS2 anyway, shooting at flyers is just half your shots, meaning a flyer takes as much effort as 2 chemiras.
Chaos are known to be screwed at some points, but given they have the godamn king of the skies (heldrake), I don't see how they got AA problems, just vector them down (vector strikes are STRONGER in 7th against airborn targets, only weaker against ground ones.)

As for knights, eldar mech and LD being different-on the counterbuilding part? not so much. the same units I use to take down land raiders are the ones I use to take down necron AV spam and knights, I'm not even thinking of the subject any more, its a few units I auto-include in any list againt any army I play against unless I know as a fact he has no tanks.

Demon summoning factory is proven time after time to be a failure of an army competitively, not sure why you even bring that one up.

Flamers not working on calavary IS true, but than again, calavary lists suffer from very low model count that can be hurt by nearly everything. honestly you dont even need special preparations for them, and if one shows up-all them fancy anti-tank guns you should have gotten are just used as high S "autowound/no save" guns.

As for the mention that nids cant take down knights as they need tons of crones for the needed haywire.
So what? just dont kill them.
Nids can literally spawn high number of fearless mooks, just use all them "useless" gaunts (who are useless as they cant kill anything when its all knights) to tie them up, with the synapse MC standing back and not even bothering to enter the fight, and laugh as his entire army is stuck stepping on tiny bugs while you scoup up all the victory points.
If you cant annihilate them-play the mission. knights SUCK at it. just like any deathstar based army.


You should have no problem in building a TAC list that really has a shot against anything out there if you build your list smart and make your units multi-purpose.
I've learned by now to always get my fire warriors the EMP grenades. not because they are good at it, but because it makes them not useless when facing armored lists.
And when a unit IS "useless"? (say, bolter marines against all-knights), than you find a non-killing use for it. use it as a tarpit, a roadblock, just to hold an objective. if your list have a single unit that is, EVER truly useless-you are doing something wrong.

My exalts, take all of them!

 BoomWolf wrote:
As for the mention that nids cant take down knights as they need tons of crones for the needed haywire.
So what? just dont kill them.
Nids can literally spawn high number of fearless mooks, just use all them "useless" gaunts (who are useless as they cant kill anything when its all knights) to tie them up, with the synapse MC standing back and not even bothering to enter the fight, and laugh as his entire army is stuck stepping on tiny bugs while you scoup up all the victory points.
If you cant annihilate them-play the mission. knights SUCK at it. just like any deathstar based army.

Have you actually tried this?

It works if you bring a lot of little buggers, I think you'll find many armies don't actually bring the monolithic units required to tie up a Knight for more than 1 or 2 turns. If the Knight decides to charge you, it fires it's double battle cannon shots and stubber shots, a lot of gaunts go splat, that alone could wipe out smaller units and take a chunk out of larger units, it then charges, takes out another 5-10 gaunts, your turn comes around, another 5-10 gaunts drop, by the time it comes to the Knight's turn there's a good chance the Knight is out of combat ready to do it all again. Even a 30 large unit will probably only tie it up for a couple of full game turns (4 combat phases + whatever shooting the Knight got off first).

Yes, those gaunts are cheap, but they only last a turn or 2 against a single Knight so they're a speedbump more than an actual tarpit. If you took TONS of gaunts you could tie them up most of the game and just win by occupying a large amount of the battlefield. But we are talking about a TAC list here.

In a TAC 'nid list, the Knight player just has to look at the start of the game and think "hmmm, what could be a hindrance to me" and just target those things. It could be a unit of Carnifex, so just target them early so they can't do much damage, it could be a swarm of little things, so just drop a few large blasts on them before charging in.

At the end of the day, Tyranids are going to struggle with 1 or 2 Knights and not really have an answer for 3 or 4 or more.

I've had to tweak my Eldar slightly b/c of IK showing up in higher numbers. A lot will also vary based on playing a one off game or in a tourney. Roughly, some changes as follows:

2 x 3 War Walkers (one off game: 6 Brightlances/ tourney 3 Scatterlaser, 3 Brightlances)
1 x 3 Hornets with Pulse Lasers (outflanks for side and rear armor)
1 x 1 Wraithknight (2 x S10 shots and assault capability)

I've not faced 5 yet. The most have been 3 in a single game at 1850 points. There are some other reasonable options: Swooping Hawks, Wraithguard, Warp Spiders and hitting rear armor, D-Cannons, Fire Dragons, Wave Serpents lending support to strip a couple of Hull Points.

Makumba wrote:

Melta: Armoured / Heavy Infantry / Mechanised
Flamer: Light Infantry / Cavalry
AA gun: Airborne.

But that is not how it works.A grav cent star is different from a jetseer council and a Eldar mecha list is different from an army runing a LR wall or
1+ knight.


Flamers do nothing cavalery builds, because they have tanking HQs or are t5, and while they can kill demons or low armor save models like IG, the problem with demons is not the number, but how fast they can grind through a mealstorm mission deck while casting powers.

And how do you counter flyer builds with most armies. IG/sob/orks or chaos have no anti air units worth taking in a tac list. Now there are of course armies like eldar who can do AA with serpents , anti tank with firedragons , counter other deathstars and have their own under invisibility and destroy LoW using ally haywires , but that is just one army.

It almost sounds like you expect flamers to just stand in front of the enemy shooting at the toughest part of the enemy unit or something... thing is, if they have a super-HQ tanking at the front of the unit, use your anti-tank guns (you have them: you're TAC) to take out the HQ so your anti-horde can get at the squishier cavalry.

Flier builds? Well, my TAC list for Sisters includes an Avenger, soo... unless they spam aircraft, I'm good. For everything else, there's TL ignores cover melta guns.

Ways I have seen certain army builds beat a Knight heavy army (there are two at my store who play very regularly) and though they have won a good number of their games they have still lost a good number, in particular to the following:

IMPERIAL GUARD & MILITARIUM TEMPESTUS:

-Large amounts of Leman Russ Battle Tanks: Vanquishers and Demolishers work pretty well.
-Veterans with Melta Guns: Rush them up in Chimeras or Taurox's, or even out of Valkyries.
-Vendettas: The BEST Imperial Guard AA BT.
-Deep Striking Stormtroopers with Melta: Really helps to get behind and on the sides, to limit the Ion Shields effectiveness
-Superheavies: Shadowswords in particular are awesome.
-Tarpitting with squads of x50 Guardsmen with a priest to make them Fearless: Works amazing with a Tank heavy army, they Tarpit the Knights that get close.

TAU AND FARSIGHT ENCLAVES:

-Deepstirking Fusion Crisis Suits: Excellent for getting on the sides and rear of the Knight so the Ion Shield is not effective.
-Broadsides: Need Large #'s of them but especially with the Support Firebase Cadre with Tank hunter helps.
-Fire Warriors with EMP Grenades: The best build to Counter Knights ive seen for Tau, spam Devilfish with the 3+ Jink and squads of x6-x12 Fire Warriors with EMP Grenades. To many targets for the Knights to take down and to win through weight of numbers.
-Riptides: Give them Fusion and the Ion Accelerator and try to use their Jump Move to the best of their ability to stay ahead of the speedy Knights. Deepstriking them actually worked for me in one game as I surrounded one on three sides and took it down.
-Hammerheads: Not very effective as their only one shot but if you need the added anti-tank you could get lucky and sneak a pen in. Give then an Ion Cannon and try to get them on the flank or rear.

DARK ELDAR AND ELDAR:

-Dark Lance spam: This works amazing for the Dark Eldar and TAC lists as its their best form of Anti-Tank. Ive seen a Dark Lance heavy list drop a full Knight and half of another Knight in one turn.
-Iyanden Eldar: So many S10 shots that they cannot handle it, especially when they are in Wave Serpents with their shields still active as they can only be glanced and maneuver around them.
-Scourges and Fire Dragons: Both great anti-vehicle options and with them either Deep Striking or in Wave Serpents it really makes it difficult to take them out before their deliver their payload.

SPACE MARINES:

-Centurions: A unit of these can reliably drop a Knight a turn if you have enough luck, take a few units of these and you really have a good chance.
-Drop Pod Marines: Definitly requiring luck on the turn you come in (Salamander Tactics work great) drop all of them and hope to punch some Melta through.
-Thunderhammer & Stormshiled Terminators: As long as he doesn't roll a 6 to wound you still get your 3+ Invulnerable save, pretty tanky against the Knight, also helps to be delivered in a Storm Raven or Landraider to get to charge it so they don't take a Hammer of Wrath hit.

TYRANIDS:

-Crone Spam: Take a lot of these for the haywire and Vector Strikes, combined with Fly Tyrants they do a pretty decent job.
-Gaunt Swarm: Since your Guants are fearless and he cant instant kill your MC's Tarpit them with swarms of fearless Guants. If you take enough of them you can win through attrition and by claiming objectives since they are not objective secured.
-Hive Guard: Have to bank on glancing but being able to shoot out of LoS does come in handy.

NECRONS:

-Necron Warrior Spam: The more Gauss you have the more chances for glances, lots of these to try and glance them to death.
-Necron Flying Circus: They cant hit you while in the air and the Tesla Destructor is not bad for taking down knights if you get on their side or rear.

These are all the lists I have seen BEAT a heavy Imperial Knight list (x3 or more) so I hope this helps some of you and gives you some ideas.

Artillery....
Mek Gunz can take knights, Supa Kannon easily, ZZap guns, Shock Attack gunz....

I never have problems with anti armor and my orks.

 gmaleron wrote:

TYRANIDS:

-Crone Spam: Take a lot of these for the haywire and Vector Strikes, combined with Fly Tyrants they do a pretty decent job.

Crones don't work, they just don't inflict enough HP of damage for their cost.

Flyrants can actually work, if you can get a Flyrant on each flank of a Knight so it has to pick only 1 to guard against, then with TL devourers you can inflict about 2HP on average per turn.

You better hope the Knight player didn't bring anything to deal with Flyrants and you better have brought a lot of them At 230pts each I don't see a TAC army bringing more than 2.

-Gaunt Swarm: Since your Guants are fearless and he cant instant kill your MC's Tarpit them with swarms of fearless Guants. If you take enough of them you can win through attrition and by claiming objectives since they are not objective secured.

Can work, but you need to take heaps, more than would be in most TAC lists. You basically have to flood the board with them.

-Hive Guard: Have to bank on glancing but being able to shoot out of LoS does come in handy.

For the cost of a Knight, you can buy roughly 7 Hive Guard. On average, they do a bit over 1 HP of damage per turn. So it would take a full game of firing to take out a Knight. The being able to shoot without LOS helps, but I think you're pushing your luck thinking you're going to be able hide a unit within 24" but out of LOS for the whole game.

tenebre wrote:
Artillery....
Mek Gunz can take knights, Supa Kannon easily, ZZap guns, Shock Attack gunz....

I never have problems with anti armor and my orks.

My Pask seconds this statement *shakes angry fist*

Add another army to the list.

Adepta Sororitas:
- Repentia Spam. Repentia strike last and die easy, but you only need two to survive until I1 to kill a Knight without problems and they come in squads of ten.
- Dominon Spam. Lots of outflanking meltaguns kill anything dead.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
As for the mention that nids cant take down knights as they need tons of crones for the needed haywire.
So what? just dont kill them.
Nids can literally spawn high number of fearless mooks, just use all them "useless" gaunts (who are useless as they cant kill anything when its all knights) to tie them up, with the synapse MC standing back and not even bothering to enter the fight, and laugh as his entire army is stuck stepping on tiny bugs while you scoup up all the victory points.
If you cant annihilate them-play the mission. knights SUCK at it. just like any deathstar based army.

Have you actually tried this?

It works if you bring a lot of little buggers, I think you'll find many armies don't actually bring the monolithic units required to tie up a Knight for more than 1 or 2 turns. If the Knight decides to charge you, it fires it's double battle cannon shots and stubber shots, a lot of gaunts go splat, that alone could wipe out smaller units and take a chunk out of larger units, it then charges, takes out another 5-10 gaunts, your turn comes around, another 5-10 gaunts drop, by the time it comes to the Knight's turn there's a good chance the Knight is out of combat ready to do it all again. Even a 30 large unit will probably only tie it up for a couple of full game turns (4 combat phases + whatever shooting the Knight got off first).

Yes, those gaunts are cheap, but they only last a turn or 2 against a single Knight so they're a speedbump more than an actual tarpit. If you took TONS of gaunts you could tie them up most of the game and just win by occupying a large amount of the battlefield. But we are talking about a TAC list here.

In a TAC 'nid list, the Knight player just has to look at the start of the game and think "hmmm, what could be a hindrance to me" and just target those things. It could be a unit of Carnifex, so just target them early so they can't do much damage, it could be a swarm of little things, so just drop a few large blasts on them before charging in.

At the end of the day, Tyranids are going to struggle with 1 or 2 Knights and not really have an answer for 3 or 4 or more.

Yeah I have personally tried this tactic against Knight builds and it just doesn't work. Double battle cannons easily eliminates any hope you have of tar pitting them and even if you do manage to hit them with a 30 gaunt brood they can stomp their way through it in a turn or two. In a TAC list I have no more than two broods of 30 so...they aren't going to accomplish that job well.

On top of that, Tyranids have a hard time playing the objective in Maelstrom of War because they are so slow, if I draw an objective in your deployment and one in my deployment I have to split my forces to even attempt to get the two of them. I can ignore one and go for the other but then I am placing all of my faith in the ability to draw more objectives on one side of the table so I can keep grabbing them.

Seriously; Knights aren't the worst thing ever, I agree with that. But don't sit here and try to tell me all the easy ways there are to dealing with them when the advice you are giving is just flat out wrong. MOST armies don't have an issue building a TAC list that can deal with them regularly. At the same time Orks/Tyranids/Daemons are all going to have a hard time dealing with a Knight in a TAC list. Now each of those armies can be built to deal with a Knight, but at the expense of being a TAC list.

As a Tyranids player when I come up against AV14 Spam like Land Raiders it is easier to ignore a Land Raider than deal with it. A LRC is the most threatening thing and for the most part it isn't going to do a great deal of damage to me every turn. A Knight on the other hand is going to be destroying TMCs left and right in melee and removing mid size bugs and swarms with its double battle cannons. What it really boils down to is that the Knight has every tool necessary to deal with Tyranids while at the same time being the one real weakness Tyranids have always had.

I'm not saying I can't handle Knights. I'm just saying I don't like how they shift the meta for TAC lists. And don't enjoy that style of gameplay. When Gargants came onto the scene in Warmahordes, I didn't suddenly start losing regularly, but I did lose a lot of enjoyment of my games.

Knights have a very different role than a Land Raider or two. Even if the firepower needed to kill them is similar, they do very different things.

Nobody said "easy", at any point.
But it was said that its doable, possible, and happens all the time.
Ive seen nids, demons and orks all beat knights, either by taking them on with their own toys, or by playing the avoiding game.

There are tactics, there is sneaky play.
You know he'll beat you up in a fight? dont charge. just stand as close as possible to him (cant use large blasts if you are really tight, as it will aim at himself due to plate size) and wait for him to charge at you, at the very least you delayed him a bit more.
If you have a horde, you probably have a spawner tervigon, he can tie a knight up practically forever like this, just keep sending guys to stand in front of him.
If you are airborn, stay in the air and mess with him.
If you use the endless swarm, throw the ever-returning hordes to be roadblocks.

Its not foolproof, but it can be played around, and you can get a shot at winning even without taking down a single knight. that's where strategy and outplaying comes in. you wont beat them alot, but you'll have a shot when one comes up.

And if these guys are the meta and you face them all the time, maybe its time to consider "subpar" units who are decent counters, like shock hiveguard.
They will hardly ever miss something that big, wont get ID by the blasts (and with cover and shrouding wont even take much damage), and haywire gives decent changes to pull a hull point even through a shield. I bet there are others.

It does sound like your tactics for nids against Knights mostly revolve around the Knight player being a complete noob, taking a force that is not remotely "TAC" or getting very lucky.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly improbable unless you've tailored a list to do it and even then your chances are hardly great (compared to most other armies where if they tailor to take on any other army they will almost always dominate).

The reasons my tactics with nids are not great, is that I am not a nid player.
I don't know their ins and outs very well, I know to prioritize shooting targets, "hit and run" shooting moves and deciding long-term deepstrike locations as an enclaves player.

But I've seen nids beat knights, so I know its within the realm of possibility.

Knights are a problem for many players. It is an obvious fact of the game now, that you may run across and entire army of AV13/12 walkers. Whilst you certainly could have made a list that could counter it, most TAC lists simply do not have enough anti armour to bring down more than 1 or 2 of them.

Some armies are inherently weak vs Knights. Daemons and tyrannids are quite hard pressed by them after smash changed for example.

Are Knight armies Cheese as the OP suggests? Not really. To my mind they act more like a rock/paper/scissor list - on steroids.
They may be more competitive than another r/p/s list, like landraider spam, but at the end of the day if the opponent has packed enough meltaguns then the game will normally go against them.

It is also possible to beat them on objectives as a pure knight list will be very few on models.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The reasons my tactics with nids are not great, is that I am not a nid player.
I don't know their ins and outs very well, I know to prioritize shooting targets, "hit and run" shooting moves and deciding long-term deepstrike locations as an enclaves player.

But I've seen nids beat knights, so I know its within the realm of possibility.

I don't doubt it's within their possibility. The only issue I have with Nids, as a Nid player, is the fact that 7th edition made it so it's THAT much harder for us to kill vehicles. Especially Knights, because we can't kill them in melee, and our shooting isn't that great beyond Devourers with Brainleech worms. And you could argue that charging in a full brood of Carnifexes with Crushing Claws would do the trick, they can't possibly kill them all, right? Well, 365 of their points could wipe out Two Carnifexes before they get to strike, and then after that, you might kill one. So it took you roughly 400+ points worth of your vehicle killers to kill one knight, and now whats left will get shot to bits.

Even the Hive Crone is beyond taking, honesty. I would love to own one, but do I want to spend 83 dollars on one? No. Do I want to go buy 3+ of them just to beat Knights, which will still probably win? No. I would rather decline the game in general. Which sucks, but that's what it comes to.

 BoomWolf wrote:
But I've seen nids beat knights, so I know its within the realm of possibility.

I can only imagine it was a bad IK player, an extremely lucky 'nid player with a TAC list, mildly lucky 'nid player with a tailored list or there is some tactic vs Knights I don't know about yet (entirely possible ).

I've only played small games against Knights with my 'nids and mostly knowing it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Even the Hive Crone is beyond taking, honesty. I would love to own one, but do I want to spend 83 dollars on one? No. Do I want to go buy 3+ of them just to beat Knights, which will still probably win? No. I would rather decline the game in general. Which sucks, but that's what it comes to.

Dont worry, the Crones don't really have a chance either Flyrants do have a chance to strip some HP if you can get them on an unshielded side, but IMO that's not enough to win you a game unless you just take an army of nothing but Flyrants and gants.

I really have no idea why Smash was nerfed... even with it, you didn't have a brilliant chance, but it being nerfed is just another punch in the guts.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Even the Hive Crone is beyond taking, honesty. I would love to own one, but do I want to spend 83 dollars on one? No. Do I want to go buy 3+ of them just to beat Knights, which will still probably win? No. I would rather decline the game in general. Which sucks, but that's what it comes to.

Dont worry, the Crones don't really have a chance either Flyrants do have a chance to strip some HP if you can get them on an unshielded side, but IMO that's not enough to win you a game unless you just take an army of nothing but Flyrants and gants.

I really have no idea why Smash was nerfed... even with it, you didn't have a brilliant chance, but it being nerfed is just another punch in the guts.

Well, I can tell you why Smash was nerfed. A. Daemon Princes with Daemon Weapons = Obnoxious. B. A Trygon Prime with upgrades on the charge would have 7 attacks, without Yrmgarl Factor, and 5 attacks if he smashed. Which was the better option?

I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but I can certainly see why they did it. Plus, an army of nothing but Flyrants, that's pretty much half of what Tournament lists are already. >.<

Yeah, but the Trygon Prime also costs 230pts, 5 S10 attacks is hardly awesome for 230pts when you consider 5 Terminators cost 200pts and have 15 S8 attacks on the charge or the 15 S10 attacks of 3 Thunderwolf Cavalry with Hammers or Power fists

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah, but the Trygon Prime also costs 230pts, 5 S10 attacks is hardly awesome for 230pts when you consider 5 Terminators cost 200pts and have 15 S8 attacks on the charge or the 15 S10 attacks of 3 Thunderwolf Cavalry with Hammers or Power fists

Well, that's also comparing Tyranids who got boned to the Emperor's Finest, who get everything they want. So, yeah. Nonetheless, I've had good times with the Trygon, even though he costs 300+ points.

Bharring wrote:
If its anything like Gargants in Warmahordes, it means any traditional TAC list is outdated.

My TAC lists in 40k usually has enough anti tank, but if I play against a Knight-heavy list, most of my list can't do anything. Not even slow them down. Land raiders are tanks, and thus even spammed have ways for most of my TAC lists to handle them. Knights are a whole different beast. And av13 sometimes 4+ 6hp superheavies are very hard to stop. A pen can't take down a weapon. An explodes won't take it out. You can't immobilize it and move out of the firing arc. You can't slow it down with terrain. It doesn't have any reason to only move 6". It can charge, and can fight back hard in melee.

If I face one, my tac lists should be able to handle it. A lot of the ways to tale one down involve piece trades, though, so if there is a second, I'm in trouble. A third, and why did most of my army even show up?

Gargants in Warmahordes was one of the reasons I left the game. I want more tactical options than list-roulette. There are a few tactical options when facing Knights, but for the most part they just ignore most tactics and still punch your face in.

They're basically Wave Serpents without the Serpents few weaknesses.

You are disillusioned if you think colossal and gargantuan are ''dominating'' the meta in warmahordes.

The Stormwall is the best of the bunch, but yet Cygnar isn't winning the majority of tournaments even though most cygnarian players take it in at least one list.

1-2 loaded up heavies will demolish a colossal. They are strong, but not as strong as multiple heavy jacks or beasts. They are just another option. Some factions colosals/gargs are seen as unplayable even.

You are equally disillusioned is you think superheavies and gargaunts are dominating the 40k meta.

And how do you counter flyer builds with most armies. IG have no anti air units worth taking in a tac list

did you really just say that? the IG has 2 fliers and a "flak gun" the only army with BETTER anti-air is space Marines!

the flakk gun sucks hard and doesn't fit in to any army and to do AA you would need to run 3 vendettas ,which IG did before it got hicked up in price.

Marines have "better" AA because it is either cheaper or immune to melta or they can ignore flyers due to t4 or t5 and +3sv or better save.


BoomWolf anyone who played against a ctan shards knows there is something wrong with them.

2 fully loaded Ironclads can't reliably drop a colossal. But, anyways, thats not the point. Beating collosals wasn't the problem. Having fun while facing them is. And the secondary damage of what it did to the meta.

Winning isn't everything.

Makumba wrote:

BoomWolf anyone who played against a ctan shards knows there is something wrong with them.

The C'tan are a localized problem, not a problem with the LoW as a whole. just like annibarges do not make HS as a whole overpowered, and WS do not make transports as a whole overpowered.

 Sarigar wrote:
I've had to tweak my Eldar slightly b/c of IK showing up in higher numbers. A lot will also vary based on playing a one off game or in a tourney. Roughly, some changes as follows:

2 x 3 War Walkers (one off game: 6 Brightlances/ tourney 3 Scatterlaser, 3 Brightlances)
1 x 3 Hornets with Pulse Lasers (outflanks for side and rear armor)
1 x 1 Wraithknight (2 x S10 shots and assault capability)

I've not faced 5 yet. The most have been 3 in a single game at 1850 points. There are some other reasonable options: Swooping Hawks, Wraithguard, Warp Spiders and hitting rear armor, D-Cannons, Fire Dragons, Wave Serpents lending support to strip a couple of Hull Points.

Im really loving fire dragosn for this. You are almost always able to get around the shield via battle focus, and then light em up with all the melta shots.

I kinda wish Imperial Knights were never introduced to the game. They break the already sad balance of the game, and are just plain overpowered ( when wielded in numbers. ) They also force players to tailor their lists so they can deal with multiple Knights, for they render any non-antitank options useless.

I don´t know how many people here have actually tried tying up a Knight instead of just talking about it. It´s easier said than done. Personally I´ve started using my ( singular ) Knight less and less... because I feel like I´m winning with a unit choice, not with skill when I use him.

I still can´t fathom how GW just can´t manage balance in their game... seems smaller companies are doing thrice a better job at it.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Makumba wrote:

BoomWolf anyone who played against a ctan shards knows there is something wrong with them.

The C'tan are a localized problem, not a problem with the LoW as a whole. just like annibarges do not make HS as a whole overpowered, and WS do not make transports as a whole overpowered.

Cool, but if a LoW is would be taken it would be him . in 6th the problem were not stompas or baneblades , which were and still are crap for the points, but the dual pulsar armed super mobile eldar titans that were deleting 3-4 units per turn. Worse of it just because the shard exists people here can't use draigo or ghaz, because the only way to remove shards from the game was to ban all LoW from events.

That would be like saying that dedicated transports should be banned because wave serpents exist.

That's plain silly. if ONE of many options in a category is troublesome than you ban THAT SPECIFIC unit, not the entire category.
Its not even a dickmove against necrons, they HAVE other LoW options. and one is even armed nearly the same.


As for the guy who suggested that knights ruin the balance of the game because "force players to tailor their lists so they can deal with multiple Knights", and leman russes don't? because I tested it and you can have 12 of them in a 1850 point army withing a single FoC. that's 36 hull points with 14 front armor, nearly as though as 6 knights.

Any claims they are overpowered are silly. Ive had seriously no trouble killing knights even at 1000 points and my lists are not remotely optimized.

And then no one buys necron and stores have stuff left unsold. They don't support tournaments, so fewer people come to them, so even fewer armies get bought as the number of people playing drops and the stores lose more money. Most of the money , that is not ccg, comes to shops in forms of serpents,shards or riptides when they were good. If someone would start banning stuff on model per model bases, one can as well write new rules for w40k

LR will never be as good knights, as the army will be static and unable to score fast enough. A ctan is bad , because it is cheap, fast and doesnt make the necron player play with 12+ models.

TAC IG unless it takes ally, has no options to counter knights fast enough for them to get too close and I never played 1000pts. we play 1500 here as it is the standard tournament size of games here.

The point of 1000 points point is that its even smaller, and therefor harder to be ready to everything. and yet even then suprize knights are possible to take down.


As for per-model bans not possible, why not? the big turnies already make up so many of their own rules, bend over some existing rules, make whole new missions and in general feth with the game system (even banning whole categories of models), is banning one specific know problem unit really outside of what they do anyway?
If anything-that's LESS messing with the game than banning the entire LoW slot as they sometimes do, and far less than NOVA's "list of approved LoW" (who are not even remotely fair as the allowed list bans SO many things that are not even good, let alone OP)

 BoomWolf wrote:

As for per-model bans not possible, why not? the big turnies already make up so many of their own rules, bend over some existing rules, make whole new missions and in general feth with the game system (even banning whole categories of models), is banning one specific know problem unit really outside of what they do anyway?
If anything-that's LESS messing with the game than banning the entire LoW slot as they sometimes do, and far less than NOVA's "list of approved LoW" (who are not even remotely fair as the allowed list bans SO many things that are not even good, let alone OP)

I still don't get why the 40k community are so afraid of banning single models or allowing them. I've seen so many people say, with a straight face, that if they allow Ghazzy then EVERYONE is allowed to feth gak up with Reaver Titans and C'tans. There's like zero middle ground with so many 40k players, compared to Fantasy.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
The reasons my tactics with nids are not great, is that I am not a nid player.
I don't know their ins and outs very well, I know to prioritize shooting targets, "hit and run" shooting moves and deciding long-term deepstrike locations as an enclaves player.

But I've seen nids beat knights, so I know its within the realm of possibility.

I don't doubt it's within their possibility. The only issue I have with Nids, as a Nid player, is the fact that 7th edition made it so it's THAT much harder for us to kill vehicles. Especially Knights, because we can't kill them in melee, and our shooting isn't that great beyond Devourers with Brainleech worms. And you could argue that charging in a full brood of Carnifexes with Crushing Claws would do the trick, they can't possibly kill them all, right? Well, 365 of their points could wipe out Two Carnifexes before they get to strike, and then after that, you might kill one. So it took you roughly 400+ points worth of your vehicle killers to kill one knight, and now whats left will get shot to bits.

Even the Hive Crone is beyond taking, honesty. I would love to own one, but do I want to spend 83 dollars on one? No. Do I want to go buy 3+ of them just to beat Knights, which will still probably win? No. I would rather decline the game in general. Which sucks, but that's what it comes to.

The Barbed Hierodule is one of the few realistic options Nids have against multiple knights. I don't think knights are that bad for most armies but the Nid codex is just a mess and you're pretty much forced to go formations and/or FW to make them competitive.

 Antario wrote:
The Barbed Hierodule is one of the few realistic options Nids have against multiple knights. I don't think knights are that bad for most armies but the Nid codex is just a mess and you're pretty much forced to go formations and/or FW to make them competitive.

I will admit I've never used or faced a Barbed Hierodule.

But I'm looking at it's stats right now, I'm not sure why you think it's a great option against multiple Knights. You'd have to make sure you keep the thing out of combat as it's lower Ini than a Knight and would die in a couple of combat phases, it could do a couple of HP damage per turn shooting I guess, but it's 565pts for something that is no harder to kill than a Wraithknight

The barbed Hierodule is the only str 10 shooting nids can get aside from psychic shooting.

I completely agree the model is overpriced points-wise, but thats what makes it a fair LOW. it could probably use about 3 more wounds and a BS increase to make it worth the points in today's meta.

Eihnlazer wrote:
The barbed Hierodule is the only str 10 shooting nids can get aside from psychic shooting.

I completely agree the model is overpriced points-wise, but thats what makes it a fair LOW. it could probably use about 3 more wounds and a BS increase to make it worth the points in today's meta.

Tyrannofex and the rupture cannon.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Antario wrote:
The Barbed Hierodule is one of the few realistic options Nids have against multiple knights. I don't think knights are that bad for most armies but the Nid codex is just a mess and you're pretty much forced to go formations and/or FW to make them competitive.

I will admit I've never used or faced a Barbed Hierodule.

But I'm looking at it's stats right now, I'm not sure why you think it's a great option against multiple Knights. You'd have to make sure you keep the thing out of combat as it's lower Ini than a Knight and would die in a couple of combat phases, it could do a couple of HP damage per turn shooting I guess, but it's 565pts for something that is no harder to kill than a Wraithknight

The knight player cannot ignore it. So you know where those knights are headed and what angle the shields will be. Your flying MC's with haywire and/or units with high strength shooting can be positioned to take maximum advantage of that. Electroshock grubs are very painful for clustered knights.

Played against Orks the other day with my Sisters and a Knight - the Orks blew the Knight away with a squad of lootas including 4HP in one turn -Last HP was in overwatch :( !

They're basically Wave Serpents without the Serpents few weaknesses.

Except WS are far cheesier than any Knight

 Antario wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Antario wrote:
The Barbed Hierodule is one of the few realistic options Nids have against multiple knights. I don't think knights are that bad for most armies but the Nid codex is just a mess and you're pretty much forced to go formations and/or FW to make them competitive.

I will admit I've never used or faced a Barbed Hierodule.

But I'm looking at it's stats right now, I'm not sure why you think it's a great option against multiple Knights. You'd have to make sure you keep the thing out of combat as it's lower Ini than a Knight and would die in a couple of combat phases, it could do a couple of HP damage per turn shooting I guess, but it's 565pts for something that is no harder to kill than a Wraithknight

The knight player cannot ignore it. So you know where those knights are headed and what angle the shields will be. Your flying MC's with haywire and/or units with high strength shooting can be positioned to take maximum advantage of that. Electroshock grubs are very painful for clustered knights.

Hmm, maybe, it seems like too large a points sink to me on the surface. In combination with Flyrants I could see it doing a bit of damage to a couple of Knights, but you're the points for a Hierodule, 2 Flyrants and a Crone you're looking at enough points to buy 3 Knights. The Knights would have to be VERY clustered for Electroshock grubs to hit more than 1 with their huge bases.

A Knight army could possibly focus shooting on it, a 565pt Hierodule only averages 2HP per turn against a 6HP 375pt Knight, the Knight averages about 1 wound per turn on the 6 wound Hierodule, so shooting it to death would take a large investment of the Knight's shooting. You could just ignore the Hierodule early in the game and decimate the rest of the Tyranid army so that late in the game you can just squish it in combat (but then you'd be accepting that the Hierodule might kill a Knight).

It's definitely more competitive, I'd like to try a game and see how it goes in practice. Though I think a Hierodule is a sucky TAC list model, it's not bad against a Knight army because battlecannons will struggle with it... but against any other army in the game it's 565pts for something that is as easy to kill as a 240pt Wraithknight. If you went up against a shooty IG or SM army with 2-3 Knights, the IG/SM contingent could just kill the Hierodule in the first couple of turns.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Hmm, maybe, it seems like too large a points sink to me on the surface. In combination with Flyrants I could see it doing a bit of damage to a couple of Knights, but you're the points for a Hierodule, 2 Flyrants and a Crone you're looking at enough points to buy 3 Knights. The Knights would have to be VERY clustered for Electroshock grubs to hit more than 1 with their huge bases.

A Knight army could possibly focus shooting on it, a 565pt Hierodule only averages 2HP per turn against a 6HP 375pt Knight, the Knight averages about 1 wound per turn on the 6 wound Hierodule, so shooting it to death would take a large investment of the Knight's shooting. You could just ignore the Hierodule early in the game and decimate the rest of the Tyranid army so that late in the game you can just squish it in combat (but then you'd be accepting that the Hierodule might kill a Knight).

It's definitely more competitive, I'd like to try a game and see how it goes in practice. Though I think a Hierodule is a sucky TAC list model, it's not bad against a Knight army because battlecannons will struggle with it... but against any other army in the game it's 565pts for something that is as easy to kill as a 240pt Wraithknight. If you went up against a shooty IG or SM army with 2-3 Knights, the IG/SM contingent could just kill the Hierodule in the first couple of turns.

Like any LoW (and Knights) and deathstars it's a large point investment and it needs babysitting but it offers an decent ranged anti AV threat the codex severely lacks. It's far from an I-win button but it provides extra options in a vehicle heavy meta. It has 48" range and it can stay in cover. With a venomthrope/malanthrope (and fnp with a bit of luck) it can absorb massive amounts of shooting that would otherwise be targeted at other MC's. It's also one of the few fast MCs (12'+2D6) with fairly good alround cc abilities and when buffed with 'onslaught' it can still fire both its weapons.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Played against Orks the other day with my Sisters and a Knight - the Orks blew the Knight away with a squad of lootas including 4HP in one turn -Last HP was in overwatch :( !

They're basically Wave Serpents without the Serpents few weaknesses.

Except WS are far cheesier than any Knight

Serpents are undeniably cheese.

Serpents, when jinking with their shield up, are as tough to kill per point as Knights.

Serpents, when using their shield offensively and not jinking, are about as killy as Knights.

The Serpent does get to have more models than Knights, for the same points.

Half the game cannot threaten a Knight at all, but has ways (albeit inefficiently) to threaten a Serpent.

Serpents are bad for the game. Knights are worse, even if they aren't as competitive.

In regards to Lemun Russ spam, they can be assaulted and are slow. And vulnerable to pen effects. I had a game where the opponent put two LRs in front of a power field, and it was hard to face, but working around them was possible. Working around fast-moving Knights is a lot less possible.

If your army list cannot handle 1-2 Knights (wraith or imperial), then it's not TAC.

It's some kind of outdated pre-v6 TAC construct that deserves to lose for being outdated.

If you're playing Tyranid... go read the Competitive Tyranid thread, I'm sure they've got ideas.

Get used to the fact that there are only three top 3 armies, sometimes your army is not in there.

morgoth wrote:
If you're playing Tyranid... go read the Competitive Tyranid thread, I'm sure they've got ideas.

I'm flipping through that thread and finding nothing about dealing with Imperial Knights. Maybe I just missed it but it's a long arse thread and I'm finding more about allying Tyranids with an IK than I am about actually dealing with one

If Knights are part of the meta then I think Tyranids basically are incapable of making a TAC list, unless TAC means "lose badly to all comers".

Get used to the fact that there are only three top 3 armies, sometimes your army is not in there.

So the answer is 40k sucks, live with it?

I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition. In its current iteration, it has far -FAR- more versatile firepower than Knights do, while having 40 AV14 hull points at 2,000 points.

It has instant-death shells, which kill monstrous creatures more dead than even D weapons. It has cover-ignoring shells, it has extra hullpoints, it has the ability to give every tank stealth, and some other ways of giving them outflank. It has the ability to make them move flat-out, making them as fast as a Knight for objectives, and they're troops so they get Objective Secured.

This list has existed in various iterations since 3rd, but apparently people suddenly can't deal with it - it's way tougher than the knight list.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition

A Leman Russ tank company doesn't break Tyranids. They have rear armour of 10 or 11 and don't punch back with a D in close combat.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition

A Leman Russ tank company doesn't break Tyranids. They have rear armour of 10 or 11 and don't punch back with a D in close combat.

No, but they can fire Beast Hunter round, which is Str 8 AP2 Instant Death, Heavy 1, Blast while maneuvering at full speed from 72" away. Far more dangerous to Tyranids than a Knight.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

This sums it up for me. Well said.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition

A Leman Russ tank company doesn't break Tyranids. They have rear armour of 10 or 11 and don't punch back with a D in close combat.

No, but they can fire Beast Hunter round, which is Str 8 AP2 Instant Death, Heavy 1, Blast while maneuvering at full speed from 72" away. Far more dangerous to Tyranids than a Knight.

I disagree. Beast Hunter shells are bad... but the tank carrying them can still be killed. If I recall correctly they can only be taken on your Commissar tank and HQ tank, so you're only going to have 1 or 2 tanks like that in an army. They're still AV10 rear, a Flyrant can fly past them and on average will kill it in a single round of shooting. Or if you can get S4 infantry in CC with it you can have a crack at glancing it to death. If you do manage to get a TMC in CC with it, it's toast.

The Beast Hunter Leman Russ is a pain in the arse and an armoured battlegroup may have more firepower than a Knight army, but it's no where near as bad a the Knight army that just stands there laughing at you while it blows you apart.

And have you considered how bad it is when you take an armoured battlegroup allied with a few Knights

Yeah, the game might have always had armour in it, yeah, the game might have always had fethed up balance, but yes, Knights have made it worse especially for the poor 'nids.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition

A Leman Russ tank company doesn't break Tyranids. They have rear armour of 10 or 11 and don't punch back with a D in close combat.

No, but they can fire Beast Hunter round, which is Str 8 AP2 Instant Death, Heavy 1, Blast while maneuvering at full speed from 72" away. Far more dangerous to Tyranids than a Knight.

I disagree. Beast Hunter shells are bad... but the tank carrying them can still be killed. If I recall correctly they can only be taken on your Commissar tank and HQ tank, so you're only going to have 1 or 2 tanks like that in an army. They're still AV10 rear, a Flyrant can fly past them and on average will kill it in a single round of shooting. Or if you can get S4 infantry in CC with it you can have a crack at glancing it to death. If you do manage to get a TMC in CC with it, it's toast.

The Beast Hunter Leman Russ is a pain in the arse and an armoured battlegroup may have more firepower than a Knight army, but it's no where near as bad a the Knight army that just stands there laughing at you while it blows you apart.

And have you considered how bad it is when you take an armoured battlegroup allied with a few Knights

Yeah, the game might have always had armour in it, yeah, the game might have always had fethed up balance, but yes, Knights have made it worse especially for the poor 'nids.

My unbound army can have 10 Command Vanquishers with Beast Hunter shells, Artificer Hull and co-axial stubbers. It definitely stands there and laughs while it blows nids apart at BS4, with orders that force cover-saves to be re-rolled.

Oh if we're talking about Unbound then I entirely agree that also feths up the game

Is this now a competition of what that's been released in the past 6 months feths up the game the most?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Oh if we're talking about Unbound then I entirely agree that also feths up the game

Then, in the age of Unbound, Lords of War, and Knights, why are people complaining about being unable to build TAC lists?

Well most people still don't accept Unbound and many people don't accept LoW (especially the expensive ones) either.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Well most people still don't accept Unbound and many people don't accept LoW (especially the expensive ones) either.

Then they can just not accept knights. If they are just randomly banning things because it upsets their precious TAC list, then just add more stuff to the list.

Your original argument is the ABG has been around for ages so why are people complaining now when ABG that has existed for all this time, but it actually had a ton of weaknesses that stopped it being competitive against a TAC army, like the Leman Russes couldn't score, the AV10/11 rear armour. That's why people are complaining NOW.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Your original argument is the ABG has been around for ages so why are people complaining now when ABG that has existed for all this time, but it actually had a ton of weaknesses that stopped it being competitive against a TAC army, like the Leman Russes couldn't score, the AV10/11 rear armour. That's why people are complaining NOW.

Don't change the subject.

This thread is originally "My TAC is upset by knights!" and my argument is "TAC is, and has been for some time, dead as a squirrel hit by an ATGM." And then they say "Well, no, it's just knights."

Then "it's unbound and knights."
Then "it's lords of war and unbound and knights."
Then "it's flyers and knights and unbound and lords of war."

et cetera.

And I'm like "my point exactly..." People should get with the times. TAC is dead.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Your original argument is the ABG has been around for ages so why are people complaining now when ABG that has existed for all this time, but it actually had a ton of weaknesses that stopped it being competitive against a TAC army, like the Leman Russes couldn't score, the AV10/11 rear armour. That's why people are complaining NOW.

Don't change the subject.

I'm not?

This thread is originally "My TAC is upset by knights!" and my argument is "TAC is, and has been for some time, dead as a squirrel hit by an ATGM." And then they say "Well, no, it's just knights."

If that's how you construed it as that I apologies. I was referring to the fact you were talking about ABG going back to 3rd edition.

An ABG taken without Unbound and multiple FOC's doesn't break Tyranids. If you take away the "everything scores!" as well, then an ABG is mostly a toothless tiger when it comes to actually winning a game.

And I'm like "my point exactly..." People should get with the times. TAC is dead.

Well given people DO ban a lot of the things that tend to break TAC, I'd say TAC isn't dead, I'd say GW is killing TAC and it's dead if you want to play by their rules.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Your original argument is the ABG has been around for ages so why are people complaining now when ABG that has existed for all this time, but it actually had a ton of weaknesses that stopped it being competitive against a TAC army, like the Leman Russes couldn't score, the AV10/11 rear armour. That's why people are complaining NOW.

Don't change the subject.

I'm not?

This thread is originally "My TAC is upset by knights!" and my argument is "TAC is, and has been for some time, dead as a squirrel hit by an ATGM." And then they say "Well, no, it's just knights."

If that's how you construed it as that I apologies. I was referring to the fact you were talking about ABG going back to 3rd edition.

An ABG taken without Unbound and multiple FOC's doesn't break Tyranids. If you take away the "everything scores!" as well, then an ABG is mostly a toothless tiger when it comes to actually winning a game.

And I'm like "my point exactly..." People should get with the times. TAC is dead.

Well given people DO ban a lot of the things that tend to break TAC, I'd say TAC isn't dead, I'd say GW is killing TAC and it's dead if you want to play by their rules.

I see the confusion. I was bringing up ABG as an example of why TAC is dead, and has been for years. And I suppose I meant "TAC is dead in WH40k." Whatever houseruled abomination people are playing out there isn't WH40k, but TAC may not be dead

Well was ABG actually that bad against a TAC before 7th? 7th only came out a few months ago and before that I mostly considered ABG's pretty crap (they do lots of damage but don't actually win games).

But I only played against an ABG once, and not with my 'nids, so I dunno, maybe it was broken since 3rd I mostly just felt ABG's were pretty mediocre against your average TAC list.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Well was ABG actually that bad against a TAC before 7th? 7th only came out a few months ago and before that I mostly considered ABG's pretty crap (they do lots of damage but don't actually win games).

But I only played against an ABG once, and not with my 'nids, so I dunno, maybe it was broken since 3rd I mostly just felt ABG's were pretty mediocre against your average TAC list.

I've been playing it since 3rd, and it's had its ups and downs. In 3rd and 4th it was stupid good - for 1 pt per tank you could give them Hidden Set Up (basically a way better infiltrate), among other things. In 5th it was alright, because the new damage chart meant that tanks spent more of the game stunned and shaken than wrecked or shooting. (basically went from either damaged or functional to stunlocked).

In 6th it was bad, because of no scoring. In 7th, it's awesome again.

But even if we drop the example, I still think TAC is dead.

Yeah for the most part I don't disagree that TAC armies suck in a game dominated by rock paper scissors where you can essentially take whatever the hell you want.

There's a part of me that wants to see it get better not worse though There's another part of me that wants to sell my armies and give up (I've played so few games in the past few years but I can't bring myself to get rid of armies I've spent so long working on).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah for the most part I don't disagree that TAC armies suck in a game dominated by rock paper scissors where you can essentially take whatever the hell you want.

There's a part of me that wants to see it get better not worse though There's another part of me that wants to sell my armies and give up (I've played so few games in the past few years but I can't bring myself to get rid of armies I've spent so long working on).

I think this is great. If there's ever a time to justify taking the cool models that you've always wanted to take, but couldn't, now's the time!

I've never needed an excuse to paint cool models for show purposes and I'd rather not see game breakers in the game itself.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've never needed an excuse to paint cool models for show purposes and I'd rather not see game breakers in the game itself.

I like seeing what the cool models do to other cool models in the field of combat! I don't just paint Titans for looks (though that's part of the reason) - I paint them so I can more easily visualize the spectacle of the Legio Crucius engaging the Orks in a hard fight to save a Forge World.

Sometimes the Orks win.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

morgoth wrote:
If you're playing Tyranid... go read the Competitive Tyranid thread, I'm sure they've got ideas.

I'm flipping through that thread and finding nothing about dealing with Imperial Knights. Maybe I just missed it but it's a long arse thread and I'm finding more about allying Tyranids with an IK than I am about actually dealing with one

If Knights are part of the meta then I think Tyranids basically are incapable of making a TAC list, unless TAC means "lose badly to all comers".

Get used to the fact that there are only three top 3 armies, sometimes your army is not in there.

So the answer is 40k sucks, live with it?

That's about it. Tyranids were fethed so hard they exploded all over the place in a gooey mess. live with it.

When your MCs are some of the most overcosted MCs (apart from the dakkafex), and you can mostly build your army on MCs, you're in trouble.

Just play 1400 points of gaunts and two flyrants


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition. In its current iteration, it has far -FAR- more versatile firepower than Knights do, while having 40 AV14 hull points at 2,000 points.

It has instant-death shells, which kill monstrous creatures more dead than even D weapons. It has cover-ignoring shells, it has extra hullpoints, it has the ability to give every tank stealth, and some other ways of giving them outflank. It has the ability to make them move flat-out, making them as fast as a Knight for objectives, and they're troops so they get Objective Secured.

This list has existed in various iterations since 3rd, but apparently people suddenly can't deal with it - it's way tougher than the knight list.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

But your ABG army is not a TAC list. So it doesn't matter.

TAC lists are meant to fight TAC lists, they can't handle broken non-TAC lists, because nothing can, except other broken non-TAC lists which happen to be their (hard) counter, which makes them obviously non-TAC and non-competitive because you would stand a solid chance of losing at round X because you met your nemesis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Oh if we're talking about Unbound then I entirely agree that also feths up the game

Then, in the age of Unbound, Lords of War, and Knights, why are people complaining about being unable to build TAC lists?

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Knights are the edge of what's allowed in tournaments - and imo the edge of what should be allowed in competitive play, the others (LoW, FW, unbound) are great tools for friendly games but are not balanced yet.

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

In all honesty, Tyranids have been in this boat where they suck at TAC, and have been since 4th stopped being a thing.

5th edition: 6 to hit most vehicles in melee in the Razorback and Metal Box edition, while having crummy shooting and often can't break RHINO armor.

Having certain things beat them out isn't really new.

its not very accurate to compare IG (AM) ABG or even land raider spam to knights.

Knights cannot be 1 shotted, every other AV unit in the game potentially can. Knights, like MC, cannot be made impotent through crew stunned, immobilized, or weapon destroyed results as they are SHW. Vehicles can.

There are lot more to knights than just having av13 6hp.

 Sigvatr wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

They do? There are some big ones that do, I didn't think "most" did.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

They do? There are some big ones that do, I didn't think "most" did.

There're still a lot of people who are stuck on the 6th edition mindset and still believe that the Seerstar is a thing that dominates the entire competetive meta.
Perhaps it's because most of the 7th rulebook is written off with very subtle changes to existing 6th rules, excluding the psyker phase, that many just assumes that what ever was broken in 6th, is also broken in 7th.

That's not really related to what I asked though

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition. In its current iteration, it has far -FAR- more versatile firepower than Knights do, while having 40 AV14 hull points at 2,000 points.

It has instant-death shells, which kill monstrous creatures more dead than even D weapons. It has cover-ignoring shells, it has extra hullpoints, it has the ability to give every tank stealth, and some other ways of giving them outflank. It has the ability to make them move flat-out, making them as fast as a Knight for objectives, and they're troops so they get Objective Secured.

This list has existed in various iterations since 3rd, but apparently people suddenly can't deal with it - it's way tougher than the knight list.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

TAC in 7th is MSU spam: obsec troops with dedicated transports like drop pods, wave serpents and venoms. These three armies can also spam melta/haywire and deal with horde. LoW/Knights and deathstars are not killy enough to deal with the extra scoring units. Maelstrom and obsec transports have been a major game changer.



Nids have trouble with vehicles as most of their tools have been removed. Drop pods gone, Biomancy gone, 2d6 armor pen not available for FMC, vector strike nerfed, warpblast far less reliable. At the moment the codex options are a bit of haywire and high volume S6 shooting.

It's a bit frustrating that a powerful monster like a Hive Tyrant is pretty much helpless against heavy armor while a bunch of half naked dark elf gladiators can strip a Baneblade in no time flat.

@Antario, that's not true if you're playing ALL missions from the rulebook and not only those that favor obsec and other bs.

morgoth wrote:
@Antario, that's not true if you're playing ALL missions from the rulebook and not only those that favor obsec and other bs.

In 7th only 1 out of 12 BRB missions relies purely on kill points while 3/4 of missions have multiple objectives on the field. In 6th edition 1 in 6 missions was determined by kill points and only half the missions were objective heavy. Guess which strategy has become more important for a TAC army now.

Knights are borderline broken because they bring a lot to the table for their points. Their formation is actually sort of ridiculous. I can understand a big walker having 6 hull points. I can NOT understand it ignoring all results on the damage table so it gets to have the best aspects of an MC and a vehicle.

I can understand it having a 4+ save on one facing. I don't get why it has to bring a D-strength weapon to regular games.

I get why it should be fearsome in CC. I don't get why it should mulch things automatically with stomp, and then blow up to auto-kill whatever it is that managed to bring it down.

I really don't know how to deal with Knights with my CSM. They have no real weaknesses, and that is exactly why so many top lists in tournaments bring one.

 Sephyr wrote:

Knights are borderline broken because they bring a lot to the table for their points. Their formation is actually sort of ridiculous. I can understand a big walker having 6 hull points. I can NOT understand it ignoring all results on the damage table so it gets to have the best aspects of an MC and a vehicle.

I can understand it having a 4+ save on one facing. I don't get why it has to bring a D-strength weapon to regular games.

I get why it should be fearsome in CC. I don't get why it should mulch things automatically with stomp, and then blow up to auto-kill whatever it is that managed to bring it down.

I really don't know how to deal with Knights with my CSM. They have no real weaknesses, and that is exactly why so many top lists in tournaments bring one.

They actually are pretty moderate for their points, they are actually one of the few things ingame that are probably priced right.

And a couple melta penetration rolls can scrap a knight in a hurry. You just have to tag team it from multiple angles OR get into melee with something that has a bunch of Str8+ attacks.

Squads with hammers eat knights.

Bike squads with melta eat knights.

Fast vehicles with melta/lance eat knights.

Anything with 3+ saves or better can tarpit knights quite effectively(unless they roll 6s on their stomps) as the knight is only going to kill 1-2 a turn at most.

The mistake that many people make when sitting across from 4-5 knights is thinking to themselves "How am I going to kill all of those??"
What you should be thinking is "how can I kill 2-3 of those?". Because most games have objectives, and your list probably has enough objective secured units to hold 3-4 objectives, even while taking losses from the knights. They are tough to kill, but don't really hit that hard with only 3 attacks that don't generally ignore invulnerable saves and their stomps which do very little to MEQ-save units. Remember, if you have even one ork boy next an objective, it doesn't matter if there are 2 knights also next to it...it's yours. Your best bet is to focus down one or 2, then hold objectives.

And if you manage to get a chain reaction (knights are too close, and the explosion from one takes down another), all the more happy day for you.

Seriously. you don't need to kill the entire opposing army, just to kill enough of it so it won't kill too much of your army.



And for those who claim that knights are another reason why "TAC is dead", nope. I play TAC. wonna know how?
I run a list where every single unit can at least deal at least SOME degree of damage to tanks, monsters and hordes. (the three three of "defense", even super-infantry in the end behaves like monsters)
Maybe alot of my units are not optimal for any one job (heavens forbid the fire warriors to be optimal against tanks, that would be crazy), but they all assist at anything that gets thrown at me-no matter how minmaxed, nothing i have on the field can be outright ignored by any army, and as long I'm not tabled-I have something to fight with. (as long I'm not left with just markers ofcourse. they are not quite threatening on their own)

My railheads can slug tanks and MCs or submunition hordes (drones detach to go annoy stuff), my fire warriors can gun down hordes ping at MCs and EMP tanks, my suits come with fusion to blow up tanks and cause major pain to monsters but can last-resort assault hordes to delay them, ralai has a gun for nearly anything, my riptide (singular) is equipped with an HBC that is decent against everything, even if never quite perfect, etc. all units are multi-purpose.
And I don't even need the "game start list manipulation" that psykers bring, or that the demon rewards has. (honestly, why didn't nids have such a system of buying "mutation levels" and than applying them at game start? it fits them well.)

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

Some armies definitely do TAC better than others.

Knights themselves aren't a good TAC army, but they can feth up some other TAC armies, maybe not Tau ones though.

That's usually how spam armies work, they fail badly against some armies but smash other ones, they don't dominate, they just feth up the balance.

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

I find individual and small knights (though not entire armies of them) to be quite balanced.

The only problem I have with them is when they roll 6's.

6+d6 wounds is a bit too much, and auto removing models with a 6 roll on a stomp attack really can be game breaking.
I would be more happy if it was toned down a bit.

Chainsword would be fine imo with only D3 wounds per hit. It is still terminally lethal to the vast majority of the game.


Stomp attacks should be something like str 10 ap2 on the roll of a 6, instead of simply removing a model. This way it would still squash squads almost as effectively, but won't remove giant MCs and terminators as easily.

Makumba wrote:

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

That's because the wave serpent is completely off the charts and the only thing he does not eliminate with absurd ease is taken down by the fire dragons.

Every WS+FD unit is a self-contained "tac unit" that is not only a threat to any target, but brutally efficient against any target, paring great armored defense, what is probably the most point-efficent melta in the game, the number of shots to take down hordes with the strength that even just random snap-hits will threaten flyers, etc, etc.
Its quite literally the most obviously OP "win button" unit in the game.

Using the WS as an answer to any point anyone brings up is absurd, unless the point was "the balance is perfect", and than WS is the perfect counter-argument.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Makumba wrote:

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

That's because the wave serpent is completely off the charts and the only thing he does not eliminate with absurd ease is taken down by the fire dragons.

Every WS+FD unit is a self-contained "tac unit" that is not only a threat to any target, but brutally efficient against any target, paring great armored defense, what is probably the most point-efficent melta in the game, the number of shots to take down hordes with the strength that even just random snap-hits will threaten flyers, etc, etc.
Its quite literally the most obviously OP "win button" unit in the game.

Using the WS as an answer to any point anyone brings up is absurd, unless the point was "the balance is perfect", and than WS is the perfect counter-argument.

That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

The lack of balance is the primary reason TAC lists suck. Imbalance can come in the form of overpowered units (which requires you tailor to beat it) or it can come in the form of units that are good against one thing and suck against another (Knight suck against an army with decent ranged anti-tank and are awesome against armies that have don't have so much anti-tank and/or use CC as their anti-tank).

morgoth wrote:


That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

Excuse me?

Assuming BS 4, you will have an abysmal 0,0062% chance to 1 shot a WS with a single lascanon shot.

That's assuming 3+ to hit, 4+ to pen, the opponent failing his 3+ cover, the opponent failing his 2+ reduction to glance AND THEN assuming you roll 6+ on the vehicle.

I won't even begin the calculations on what the chances are that the vehicle explodes, wounds every passenger inside and them, all failing their saves. I would have to put so many zeroes that the chances for a single laser shot ever harms the WS, let alone destroying the whole unit of 250 point, is best described as non existent.

 Zewrath wrote:

morgoth wrote:


That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

Excuse me?

Assuming BS 4, you will have an abysmal 0,0062% chance to 1 shot a WS with a single lascanon shot.

That's assuming 3+ to hit, 4+ to pen, the opponent failing his 3+ cover, the opponent failing his 2+ reduction to glance AND THEN assuming you roll 6+ on the vehicle.

I won't even begin the calculations on what the chances are that the vehicle explodes, wounds every passenger inside and them, all failing their saves. I would have to put so many zeroes that the chances for a single laser shot ever harms the WS, let alone destroying the whole unit of 250 point, is best described as non existent.

Excuse me ?

Assuming BS4, you have a 3+ to hit, 3+ to glance, 4+ to pen, 3+ cover, 5+ on the damage table.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WAVE SERPENT THAT HAS ITS SHIELD ACTIVATED YET IS COMPETITIVE AT THE SAME TIME.
Go read on schrödinger's wave serpent, it's a concept just for you.

It's 5,6% and 7.4% when TL which is very often the case with lasers. So.. maybe I shouldn't Jink if there's only a 15% chance when not jinking ? o gak boom. Wait. I jinked. good... i now have 25% of my damage dealing abilities.

And my Space Wolf opponent does it in at most 4 shots every game, even with cover saves (I'm not that good at rolling saves).

The thing is: luck against an IK will do nothing because there is no vehicle damage table roll, making it a lot tougher and less variable than other vehicles.



Really, you should try those WS for yourselves before thinking they're made of pure god mode.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, I think there's something wrong with Imperial Knights. The presence of D strength is a first in regular 40K lists and ... it's badass. Ignoring invulnerable saves is crazy good.

morgoth wrote:

Excuse me ?

Assuming BS4, you have a 3+ to hit, 3+ to glance, 4+ to pen, 3+ cover, 5+ on the damage table.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WAVE SERPENT THAT HAS ITS SHIELD ACTIVATED YET IS COMPETITIVE AT THE SAME TIME.
Go read on schrödinger's wave serpent, it's a concept just for you.

It's 5,6% and 7.4% when TL which is very often the case with lasers. So.. maybe I shouldn't Jink if there's only a 15% chance when not jinking ? o gak boom. Wait. I jinked. good... i now have 25% of my damage dealing abilities.

And my Space Wolf opponent does it in at most 4 shots every game, even with cover saves (I'm not that good at rolling saves).

The thing is: luck against an IK will do nothing because there is no vehicle damage table roll, making it a lot tougher and less variable than other vehicles.



Really, you should try those WS for yourselves before thinking they're made of pure god mode.

Except you talked about the unit being destroyed by a single laser canon, in which case the glancing is irrelevant.
Except you need 6+ to explode a vehicle, assuming you're playing 7th edition and the weapon is AP 2 (which the lascanon is).
Except WS do in fact pop their shields against alpha strike lists and if they aren't going 1st, so what ever your definition of competetive is, I've never heard of it. Especially if said competetive environment allows 5+ to explode on a weapon that is AP2.

Also, I don't know how you do math, but assuming TL BS 4 Lascanon AP2 with 3+ cover, there's a 4,9% to destroy the target. And this is also assuming no Night Fighting, Scatterfield Generators, Wave Serpent Shield, but then again, you seem to play a game of 40K where AP2 explodes vehicles on 5+.

Throwing "schrödinger's wave serpent" at me considering I play tau and I faced the same type of arguments all the time with my crisis suits and riptides (crisis have all weapon loadouts, riptide have all NOVA active 24/7) is insulting.

But the WS often DOES have its shields up COMPETITIVELY, it only shifts to fire mode when it has a good reason to do so. killing another bolter boy or two is no reason to give away your defenses, killing your anti-tank is (as it negates the consequences of the lack of shield to ever occur)

And they WILL jink when you aim any serious anti-tank against them, because why the hell not? the FD can come out and hammer something anyway, and every turn they don't die is another turn they can shot (even if worse) and you cant move on to other targets. its tactically smart to jink against anything that poses a serious threat.

TL;DR a single lascannon is NOT a threat to a wave serpent statistically.

Its far more than twice the threat it is to a Knight.

And its also much less optimal a weapon for shooting a Serpent than a Knight. For Serpents, you want s7, melee, or mobility to get rear armor.

Serpents are certainly cheese too, of course. But does the potential of cheese elsewhere negate the state of cheese for the unit under discussion?

These debates don't seem that productive in regards to comparative play. Their biggest use seems to be in deciding what to field for casual play.

(For melts efficiency, pod + combi sternies is probably even on price per shot with Fragons + Serpent, but gets into Melts range even easier, survives return fire better (but both are usually piece trades), and is better equipped for handling other targets, whereas fragons/serpents bring the stupidly-OP Serpent's dakka for the gun line. Melts efficiency I'd give to the Sternies, list effectiveness I'd give to the Fragons - once again, all about the Serpent, in this game, it seems.)

Bharring wrote:
Its far more than twice the threat it is to a Knight.

And its also much less optimal a weapon for shooting a Serpent than a Knight. For Serpents, you want s7, melee, or mobility to get rear armor.

Serpents are certainly cheese too, of course. But does the potential of cheese elsewhere negate the state of cheese for the unit under discussion?

These debates don't seem that productive in regards to comparative play. Their biggest use seems to be in deciding what to field for casual play.

(For melts efficiency, pod + combi sternies is probably even on price per shot with Fragons + Serpent, but gets into Melts range even easier, survives return fire better (but both are usually piece trades), and is better equipped for handling other targets, whereas fragons/serpents bring the stupidly-OP Serpent's dakka for the gun line. Melts efficiency I'd give to the Sternies, list effectiveness I'd give to the Fragons - once again, all about the Serpent, in this game, it seems.)

But don't the combi-melta sternguard only get one shot? So if they get unlucky they now have a max of two meltaguns, whereas the Fire Dragons could try again next turn or move to a different target if they do blow up the one they're aiming at, with much less of a loss in anti-tank firepower.

I suppose I was raiting them on the must-melt-that-one-thing-now metric. Fragons could, theoretically, melt something else next turn if they survive. But they shouldn't survive. Less likely than combi sternies. For must-melt, Sternies I think win, but for consistent melting provided they aren't shot, Fragons win.

10 meltaguns/combi-meltas do an average of 2.777 damage(roughly 2.5 pens and .222 glances) results against AV13 with the 4++ up.

But if you combat squad and hit the knight with half facing not the shield its a little better. We'll assume the shield goes to the AV12 side.

2.777 damage results on AV13 with no shield.

1.38 damage results on AV12 with the shield For a total of 4ish damage results. Thats 4 out of the 6 HPs down. On average, one of the 3 pens will cause an Explodes result, which is a 2/3 chance of knocking off the last 2 hull points.

S0 10 Melta sternguard have a very good chance of one shotting a Knight if you hit it from multiple angles. And you can come down in a pod to guarantee delivery.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WAVE SERPENT THAT HAS ITS SHIELD ACTIVATED YET IS COMPETITIVE AT THE SAME TIME.

They are if a Eldar player goes second/ has the Iniiative seized against him?

Wave Serpenets are perhaps the cheesiest unit in the game................

 Grey Templar wrote:
10 meltaguns/combi-meltas do an average of 2.777 damage(roughly 2.5 pens and .222 glances) results against AV13 with the 4++ up.

But if you combat squad and hit the knight with half facing not the shield its a little better. We'll assume the shield goes to the AV12 side.

2.777 damage results on AV13 with no shield.

1.38 damage results on AV12 with the shield For a total of 4ish damage results. Thats 4 out of the 6 HPs down. On average, one of the 3 pens will cause an Explodes result, which is a 2/3 chance of knocking off the last 2 hull points.

S0 10 Melta sternguard have a very good chance of one shotting a Knight if you hit it from multiple angles. And you can come down in a pod to guarantee delivery.

Although you won't hear me saying I disagree with you, the price tag that unit of max loaded stern guard comes with is a bit on the steep side, especially when you compare it to the cost of what you are destroying.

The recent spat of posts have been about the Knight potentially being even cheesier than the super cheese Wave Serpents.

Knights have more survivability, per point, than a Serpant with its shield up, jinking. Knights have as much killing power, per point as non-jinking Serpents shooting everything.

Knights can always move 12 without losing killyness. They can't flat out, but don't take dangerous terrain, and can charge.

Knights have fewer models per point.

Knights can fight in Assault.

Both are cheesy, but I think the Knight wins most cheese.

Except knights are not more shooty per point, nor more durable per point.

The WS itself costs less than a third of the knight, meaning that in direct comparison you have more HP on the WS, and its even split among 3 targets meaning "overkills" is a problem, also you have much more guns scattered around. (and a knight's guns are nothing impressive for it's cost. you can get THREE battle cannons as lemons for the same price)
The ion shield as more limited facing, and is far more susceptible to flanking kills, and the insanly low model count makes them fall to the same problem most LoW do-you can safly use normally "overkilling" units on them without much of a waste.
And the WS can protect other units inside it as a transport.

Per point, the WS is far superior to the knight.

How have all IK armys been doing in the big tournaments?

 BoomWolf wrote:
(and a knight's guns are nothing impressive for it's cost. you can get THREE battle cannons as lemons for the same price)

A leman with a battle cannon is 150pts, so it's more like 2.5, not 3. Leman Russes get around 25% more battlecannons, at the cost of not being able to do CC, weak rear armour, not superheavy.

What? 150 for the battle cannon? damn you are overpaying on that variation. my ion cannon can be gotten for as low as 125. (though upgrade often knock him up to 140 with Dpod)

And while the rear is weaker, the front is practically stronger, the HP are more spread around (so less overkills) and the lemon is not even a very good unit to begin with. (especially not at 150, thought it was 130-135 or something)

Point is, knight shooting is not great. is decent for the price, but not great. he has some really great points like his D strikes (though these are less impressive these days) and his SH status, but his shooting is not the reason you get him.

Sometimes it appears on these threads that whenever I protect a unit as "not cheese" people take it as if I claim they are bad.
Not at any point I claimed or thought they are bad, they are a good, even very good unit-but not overpowered as some people make of them, and not that hard to take down as some think.

For the most part AV14 is worse than AV13 with a 4+, since the Knight 4+ is directional I consider them about equal. AV14 is slightly better against lower S attacks but AV13 with a 4+ save is better against anything high strength, lances and melta.

 Grey Templar wrote:
10 meltaguns/combi-meltas do an average of 2.777 damage(roughly 2.5 pens and .222 glances) results against AV13 with the 4++ up.

But if you combat squad and hit the knight with half facing not the shield its a little better. We'll assume the shield goes to the AV12 side.

2.777 damage results on AV13 with no shield.

1.38 damage results on AV12 with the shield For a total of 4ish damage results. Thats 4 out of the 6 HPs down. On average, one of the 3 pens will cause an Explodes result, which is a 2/3 chance of knocking off the last 2 hull points.

S0 10 Melta sternguard have a very good chance of one shotting a Knight if you hit it from multiple angles. And you can come down in a pod to guarantee delivery.

How are you not just striking the back, which can't be ion shielded with a drop pod?

I believe normal knights can put their shields in the rear. Its just the Lancer which can't IIRC.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I believe normal knights can put their shields in the rear. Its just the Lancer which can't IIRC.

Ah right, forgot.

Typically though the shield facing is rather small considering the base, the back is the biggest but if you've got it pinned (an IK army has at max, 4-5 IK in a 2000 list), and kill it you've reduced its army power by 25%, while still being able to score over it.

If the knight is so cheesy, why have all IK lists done poorly in the major tournaments? My guess is the fact that every good TAC list has multiple ways of dealing with them and can win the objective game easily. Instead of drop pod stern, I prefer drop pod GH with a WG combi melta. You get 3 melta shots per pod when they drop, then 30 attacks on the charge the next round. I can kill 3 knights by turn 2 with my list. Then I have 3 turns to camp objectives and the remaining knights have to choose whether to go after my pods holding objectives, my centurions or my GH squads.

 Yonan wrote:
Yeah it's a pretty common issue lately. The game has changed in a number of ways that a lot of people dislike. Knights basically invalidate half or more of your army, especially if that's all they field. You run into games where you risk not having fun and just lopsided gameplay.

That said, this is my expectation and what I've heard other people say they felt after playing them - I stopped playing due to things like that. I don't doubt that you can have good games with knights, but it should involve fights with armies that have been modified to deal with them.

This was also a big reason for my decision to stop playing.

As I said elsewhere, if your army, at any point ever, can even thoretically be met with an opponent that renders half your army useless (as tarpitting IS a use), than you did something wrong in army building.

That's part of the problem with overspecialized units, you are so involved in getting one thing done properly, that you are either pointless, of massively overcosted compared to what they actually do when you do not need that one thing done.

That is also why things like the oblits and even mutilators count in my eyes as great (ok mutis only good, they ARE a bit overcosted), because while they are never the most efficient at what they do, they will ALWAYS be doing something, no matter what you face. that is why marines cost so much to begin with, due to the plate of special rules, decent gun, decent CC and double grenades-they will get something done against everything but most edge cases.

Single-minded units are only useful if you take a handful to fix a hole in your ability to remove things, but at the bigger scheme, they will not work.

When I face knights? every model in my army contributes to some level. even the fire warriors. because that's how I set up my army, where everyone has multiple purposes, even if they are never perfect.

That is also why things like the oblits and even mutilators count in my eyes as great (ok mutis only good, they ARE a bit overcosted),

Massively, they won't be killing for better then their points costs due to their lack of attacks, needs something in general to buff them up a bit.

 BoomWolf wrote:
(as tarpitting IS a use)

I'm pretty sure people were excluding that use, especially when their ability to tarpit sucks (realistically the unit needs to be able to survive 2 rounds to tarpit, otherwise it just gets charged and killed before the Knight's next turn).

Though when half my units are incapable of doing anything more than dying and holding objectives, it does make a boring game to me, even if I might win. I feel like I might as well have used 2 counters that each represent 20 wounds instead of pulling out my 40 hormagaunts.

So building an army that leads to games I enjoy a lot more is 'doing it wrong', as I should be building armies that guarantee me a win even if I hate playing them?

Once again, win/loss isn't the only issue here.

Skink-if cannot get stuck in combat for at least 2 rounds, you cannot tarpit. tarpitting is not a job EVERY unit can do.

Bharring-yes. competetive and fun/fluff are not always the same, you CANNOT have a game system where every stratagy is viable by the default nature of it. some stratagies WILL be better, some WILL be worse. that rules applies to every game in existence that involves any level of skill. (as opposed to pure luck game)
When talking about things like "cheese" we are assuming we are fighting competitively and tuning up for maximum efficiency, regardless of amusement value, not throwing random things into a list because we happen to like them.
Stop trying to mix fun with competitiveness, the two are not aligned and can never be. high-level play in pretty much every game is more of a chore than something fun.
And when you play for fun, cheese is not your problem, as you assume that the other party is also playing for fun and is not tuning up for maximum efficiency (spamming is one kind of tunning that is obviously not amusing as the game is stale and repetitive, yet it IS efficient because you rely on doing a single thing very, VERY good.)

I actually find knowing what constitutes cheese as far more important for casual games. In competitive games, knowing davu + Wraith knights is cheese won't really have any effect on you, as you'll usually field/face them anyways. In casual, you can decide not to take cheese, and both players win.

But I agree that, in a competitive scenario, choosing a strategy because you like it doesn't help you win.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Skink-if cannot get stuck in combat for at least 2 rounds, you cannot tarpit. tarpitting is not a job EVERY unit can do.

Yes, but I believe what Yonan was referring to was that a Knight army could invalidate half your existing army. Sure I could stop playing Tyranids because playing Tyranids now constitutes doing "something wrong in army building".

When entire units in your codex or in some cases almost all your codex constitutes doing something wrong in army building, IMO something is wrong with the game. It's also a very valid reason to be unhappy with the game.

Gamer: "Well, I just spent hundreds of dollars and all my free time for the past 6 months assembling this army"

GW: "Oh hai guyz, we just added an army that invalidates half your army"

Gamer: "....feth you"

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Skink-if cannot get stuck in combat for at least 2 rounds, you cannot tarpit. tarpitting is not a job EVERY unit can do.

Yes, but I believe what Yonan was referring to was that a Knight army could invalidate half your existing army. Sure I could stop playing Tyranids because playing Tyranids now constitutes doing "something wrong in army building".

When entire units in your codex or in some cases almost all your codex constitutes doing something wrong in army building, IMO something is wrong with the game. It's also a very valid reason to be unhappy with the game.

Gamer: "Well, I just spent hundreds of dollars and all my free time for the past 6 months assembling this army"

GW: "Oh hai guyz, we just added an army that invalidates half your army"

Gamer: "....feth you"

Chaos Daemons vs Warp Quake

Tyranids vs Everything mech in 5th.

Tyranids pretty much get the shaft no matter what edition.

Can the big T-C'Tan deal with a Knight or 2

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Skink-if cannot get stuck in combat for at least 2 rounds, you cannot tarpit. tarpitting is not a job EVERY unit can do.

Yes, but I believe what Yonan was referring to was that a Knight army could invalidate half your existing army. Sure I could stop playing Tyranids because playing Tyranids now constitutes doing "something wrong in army building".

When entire units in your codex or in some cases almost all your codex constitutes doing something wrong in army building, IMO something is wrong with the game. It's also a very valid reason to be unhappy with the game.

Gamer: "Well, I just spent hundreds of dollars and all my free time for the past 6 months assembling this army"

GW: "Oh hai guyz, we just added an army that invalidates half your army"

Gamer: "....feth you"

Well, pretty much every nid "horde" unit can be a tarpit thanks to sheer numbers of cheap fearless drones, and all the big guys can either hurt the knights, provide support powers or in general do something.
There are very few nid units who are literally useless against knights. a unit that still brings something to the table is not invalidated.
Not VERY useful applies to many, but useless is rare.

"Near useless" is basically what I mean when I refer to something being invalidated.

Sure, a Trygon can maybe put a HP of damage on a Knight... but at 190pts to "maybe" put a HP on a Knight and maybe hold an objective (it's not objective secured). Yeah, that's mostly what I consider being invalidated.

You dont have to kill something to neuter it. Fearless tarpits are a pin for the non-OS knights.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
You dont have to kill something to neuter it. Fearless tarpits are a pin for the non-OS knights.

Yes we've been over this on previous pages

Indeed, I was pointing out your summary of GW missed that factoid out

Yes, but it still invalidates half* your existing army because not everything is...

a) an effective tarpit.

b) able to hurt a Knight.

c) objective secured.

So anything that doesn't fit in to one or multiple of those categories is near useless, thus invalidated (at least IMO). Things like basically any S6 or less special weapons are just wasted points. Many units just become glorified wound counters because it's irrelevant if they're strength or toughness 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... they still get wounded on a 2+ and still can't damage a Knight at all.

I'm not making a sweeping statement of "everything is completely useless!" I'm just reinforcing the earlier statement by another poster that large slabs of your existing force can be invalidated and for some gamers this is an unpleasant experience.






*obviously I don't know the exact proportion, I just say "half" as a simplification, lol.

So a Knight is not OP, because eldar can easily beat it?

So out of the 4 knights* on the table, of 6 objectives, what makes the other 2 objectives implausible for your "half an army" to deal with?

*presuming 1750 or so points