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So my blastmaster, cultist, spawn balanced list [some long range shooting from blastmasters, some mid-range from cultists and bolters, and cc from cultists, lord, spawn and maulerfiend] list got completely stomped by some knights the other day.

I'm honestly at a bit of a loss for how to handle knights. I only use unmarked or Slaanesh-marked units, and the army I faced at 1850 was 3 knights and some tau. I lasted until turn 6 but in the end was tabled. I've been tossing around the idea of melta chosen, etc. but they would just have their rhino popped and be wiped out before they did their job.

Should I really bother much with preparing for a list like this? Should I just hope I don't face many in a tournament environment?

I use 2 Predators Annihilators in my TAC list, though I don't think they'd be able to do much against 3 Knights...

What about a few teams of Melta Raptors? You could use their mobility/DS to position them and minimise the effects of the Ion Shield.

Honestly, I don't think we can get enough long range firepower to handle a force like that. And we are pretty lacking in the Superheavy department, unless you want to go Derp for the Derp god. (Tractors for all!)
That being said, I would go with Predators (Annihilator), backed up with Termicide meltas. The problem is that we have a lot of close range goodness but we can't get close enough to use it, and if we do then they blow up on us.

It's a tricky one. Deepstriking Raptors or TDA seems to be the best solution.

Can auto cannons hurt the knights?

Csm use to have the best heavy and it was called the defiler.

Regular autocannon will glance the front armor on a six.

Ever thought of allying in chaos daemons? A bloodthirster might help! With some greater and lesser gifts he could make light work of them. It's expensive though for something I've not tested!

They will murder a bloodthirster. They have a S close combat weapon and if they roll a 6 on their stomps the BT just goes away (plus, I'm a SLAANESH force.)

Adding Khornate units to a Slaaneshi force? That's... uhm... heresy?

Anyway, few people seem to notice that Stomp doesn't work against MCs and GCs. Strength D CCW is a serious threat, though.

 Spellbound wrote:
They will murder a bloodthirster. They have a S close combat weapon and if they roll a 6 on their stomps the BT just goes away (plus, I'm a SLAANESH force.)

A keeper of Secrets with 2 greater rewards would run you 210pts.

against a Knight I'd favor it. with the Greater Etherblade she would be at S8 rending with I10 W9 and 6 attacks.
I'd run an allied detachment of this.

Keeper of Secrets
ML 2
2x Greater rewards
235 pts.
roll on Telepathy and prey for Invisibility. he/she should shred a Knight in CC.

2x Daemonettes 180pts.

Otherwise Forgefiends can work against them, weight of dice and all

Belakor can take a knight (but might die in the explosion) im thinking a hellcult to get 60 fearless cultists to tie them up. Throw in a mark of tzeentch and some divination and maybe get a 3++ to really last.

If your feeling rich, the forgeworld slaanesh daemon could probably handle them..

This might sound crazy, but what about Terminators?

Take 5 and give them multimeltas and some powerfists/chainfists. Land Raider them or deep strike (in the right spot). Or hell take there and suicide them into them. I've had games where I DSed on the flank of armored Imperial Guard where they inflicted 3 pens on landing, and then wailed through 3 more tanks with their fists. They might have just the power to punch open those bad boys.

can you puppet master knights or just regular units?

spamming full autocannon havocs might not be a bad idea .... ya your glancing on 6s but you can take alot of them add that in with something else to threaten (and have the ion shield moved away from facing one of the units).

Ok. My bad on the khorne front. But daemon allies really could work. Does it all have to be slannesh? Or does it just have to not be khorne?

 Spellbound wrote:
Should I really bother much with preparing for a list like this? Should I just hope I don't face many in a tournament environment?

No, I don't think you can rely on not meeting knights at a tournament, unless they ban them.

The best CSM shooting unit for taking out knights is probably the forgefiend. Two FF (with hades AC and extra ectoplasma) using their daemonforge rule will strip half the knight's HP off it in one turn. The knight has about a 1/3 chance of killing a FF outright if it has the melta weapon, so the odds look good for the fiends in a shooting match. The knight will win if it can get into assault, but that gives you the opportunity to throw a unit of infantry at it and tie it up for a while.

Psyker powers can help a lot. Sensory overload can reduce the knight's effectiveness both in shooting and assault, while Puppet Master and Hallucination are downright brutal. Protecting your tank-hunting units with Invisibility is quite nice too.

In close combat with a knight, you need a mixture of expendable scrubs to soak up damage and characters to deal some. Try to get as many melta bombs as possible into your list, because they are the most efficient way of killing vehicles and monstrous creatures with champions.

Alternatively, hit it with something that can take it down before it can strike back. A couple of flying daemon princes should comfortably take out a knight on the charge (remember that smash attacks can re-roll armour penetration as well as doubling strength, so you're almost guaranteed to take off a hull point with every hit). Only issue is that the resulting explosion could kill the princes.

How about DS obliterators+termicide units? to get mutlitpe shots of the weaker armor sides so he cant benefit from the ion shields..

Cyvash wrote:
How about DS obliterators+termicide units? to get mutlitpe shots of the weaker armor sides so he cant benefit from the ion shields..

Could work, if the deep strike works.

You need something like 10 melta shots at under half-range to take a knight out, even if half of them are avoiding the shield, so it's probably not a good idea to try and do the whole job with just deep-striking melta. On the other hand, it's slightly more hull points getting knocked off than the equivalent amount spent on forgefiends. On the gripping hand, waiting for a couple of turns before the melta shows up, with the knights pounding you the whole time, doesn't sound like fun.

I'd probably try and get a mixture of different units which can do the job. Like one forgefiend, couple of obliterators, a small terminator unit, couple of daemon princes, one melta bike squad... present them with lots of different threats, then combine two or three of those to actually do the takedown. That way, you have more flexibility to deal with other threats too.