I know there's already an Ork vs Knights thread, but I thought we could do with one for general anti-Knight tactics. The following applies to Knights generically, although please feel free to chip in with army-specific tactics.
The Knight, as I see it, has these strengths: - Fast moving - Long Range on the Paladin, good range on the Errant - Huge CC prowess against vehicles and MCs - Versatile and moveable shielding - 6 HP
And these weaknesses: - The Ion Shield can only cover one facing - The Armour Values themselves are not phenomenal - Not as good in CC against hordes - Difficult to protect or hide.
If any more of either come to light I'll edit it in.
General anti-Knight tactics:
- Flanking: due to the shield only covering one facing, any threats that can attack from multiple angles are great. Things like outflankers and Drop Pod/Deep Strike units are very helpful, and even from deployment, splitting your heavy hitters onto the flanks will force the Knight to expose one side to defend against the other. It also means that if it focuses on one flank, the other remains relatively safe from it.
- The Knight can do nothing against Fliers, as their only significant armament are blast weapons or CC attacks. This means fliers can either protect embarked troops from the Knight until they are needed, or can focus on bringing it down. Night Scythes and Valkyries excel at the former, Stormtalons at the latter and Stormravens and Vendettas can do both pretty well. The mobility of fliers also gives you more chance of getting around the shield or forcing it to redeploy, leaving other attack routes open.
- I think that single-shot high-S/low-AP weapons (lascannons, Vanquishers, meltas, Railguns) will be better against the Knight that high ROF weapons aiming for glances (Tesla Destructors, Deffguns, HYMP) as 6 HP is a lot to strip through just glancing.
Surviving the Knight - Cover seems essential to surviving attacks from a Knight, as none of their weapons ignore cover. Ruins or even plain obscured can help a lot, and if you GtG, you're further reducing the cost effectiveness of the Knight far more than your own units.
Army Specific Tactics - Space Marines of all types are best using melta in Drop pods, preferably in multiple arcs to get around the shield. Sternguard, Wolf Guard or even a couple of tactical squads with meltas should hurt it.
- Grey Knights' best bet is the Dreadknight with Greatsword and Fist, although you will probably lose it in return.
-Tau can use fusion-suits as above, and I think putting a Railhead on each corner will mean that as soon as it goes after one, it will have to expose a weaker facing. Even with the shield, you're looking at open AV13 and AV12 with a 4++, which Hammerheads should be able to hurt.
- Demons can get some mileage out of mass FMCs (although the Stubbers can ground them, so be careful there), and if you are going to charge it, make sure you use multiple MCs, preferably with high initiative and other buffs.
- Dark Eldar can use lances to make it AV12 all round, which should make damaging the front armour easier. The mobility of Venoms and Raiders means you can get around the shield fairly easily. Wych squads with Haywire Grenades might be able to do some damage, but are unlikely to kill the Knight outright, and either way you lose the unit, either to Stomps if you fail to kill it or the explosion if you do.
- Eldar can use Crimson Hunters with Bright Lances as above, without fear of counter-attack from the Knight. A pair of Wraithknights should also be able to hurt it if you can stay out of CC for a while. In CC, you're still going to do some damage, but if you don't kill you'll lose the Wraithknight. Fire Prisms are also a safe bet as the AP1 gives you a good chance to do the extra D3 HP.
So, Dakka, have at it. I'll try and keep the OP updated as more thoughts come in, and feel free to point out any ommissions. After a while, I'll see about getting this up as an article.
I was chatting with a friend about this. He has ordered 4 (works for GW so 50% helps). That us his 1490 list. 2 paladins and 2 errants.
Nasty against most armies but if my scars got 1st turn then I could put 2 melta squads 4 shots on 2 of them. With the extra +2 for ap1 I should be getting at least 2 explodes which would mean an average of 5/6 hp's. I then would need to rely on my 4+ jink save until turn 2. I would gave to line my guys so they face a side each forcing him to expose one side to non inv.
Of cause this is all good in theory but if he gets in I'm screwed. I have also got the talons on turn 2 plus the triple las pred and a vindicator to help strip them.
The Libby May have a useful power too (puppet master would be amazing)
Good point about the Jink saves there, in fact cover in general is going to be vital to surviving them, as none of their weapons have Ignores Cover.
Mass melta is a good way of doing it, and if you can get melta on 2 facings then he's certainly in trouble. Also, consider putting the 2 meltas at each end of the squad if you're running in a line, so 1 blast will struggle to hit both (I think with multiple blasts you have to put both in the same place?)
Reserving a few units might be a good way to limit his first-turn usefulness, and ensure you get the drop on him.
I do not see the knight titan changing the meta at all right now. Being a vehicle and not a monsters creature is to much a liability right now. If the AV where 14 14 13 maybe they would shift the meta some, but right now most of the common spammed weapons can still take down AV 13 reliably. The 4+ inv save is not that big a deal because if they are being played right they should be in cover most of the time. I would not change my current tau or necron list at all to face a list of knight titans. What I think will happen is GW will tweak the rules in 7th edition to make knight titans really powerful so they will sell even more than they all ready will.
Has anyone tried to proxy a list made up of knight titans yet?
Krellnus wrote: Dreadknights with sword and fist will have a pretty decent chance of bringing it down in a turn, but if it doesn't, it probably dies.
Hmm, I have both, I might playtest that a few times. Mostly likely result, though, is that they kill each other. Both are I4, so the Dreadknight is still getting hit with 3-4 D-strength attacks even if it does kill the Knight. That said, it's more than a fair trade.
I think you could buff it with Quicksilver from a libby (or is that only on the libby's unit?). Worst case scenario, and both are killed, you're trading 190-odd points for 370.
My flying circus is not scared, but all my other lists in 6th have slowly shed off excess AT because they aren't as needed anymore.
The fact that they are pretty fast means anybody who expects to face them needs to bring enough AT to counter them.
Anyways as far as flying circus goes I would probably ignore them as much as possible, but those heavy stubbers could do a lot to ground a FMC to then assault. I probably wouldn't assault one unless it had 3 hullpoints or less with Be'Lakor. If I actually had to assault one with full HPs I would probably dogpile it with 3 FMCs to make sure it's dead. An Iron Armed DP could do something to them with vector strikes. Heldrakes are almost completely immune to them and can just fly around and roast their troops.
As a Space Wolf player, I don't feel threatened. For about 250 points I can bring 10 Combi-Meltas in a Drop Pod. That should do the trick. (With appropraite placement, he should only get invulns from about half of those, too.)
Judging by Escalation, Knights, and the fact that lots of alpha strike S8AP1 is generally great, my Wolf Guard have been getting lots of action lately.
Brother Sergeant Bob wrote: Drop pod melta, either combi melt with sternguard or a drop pod with command squad and melta guns.
So the Knight will shift the meta slightly.
Melta weapons were traded for plasma guns in the 6th edition so far.
Now one needs to bring them back.
I never stopped using Melta. Aside from general anti-tank, (4 Meltaguns was and is all the anti-tank I ever need, and asa Space Wolf player there's no harm in it,) they cause instant death against heavily prevalent T4, something that Plasmaguns can't do. In a pinch, they can cause havoc by ID'ing T4 Warlords. (I've played a lot of games where Ikilled Warlords and HQs with Meltaguns because of S8.)
How to kill a knight: hit it with a D-weapon a couple times, watch your opponent cry. A Warhound or Revenant should take one off the table in a single shooting phase (with a second D-weapon left over to kill something else if you're confident in your dice), and even a Shadowsword will probably kill one before it can earn its points back.
Paradigm wrote: - Spreading and spacing will obviously help, but also think about positioning. If you have multiple special weapons in a squad, separate them by 5" if possible so the Knight can't take out both in one shot.
This isn't necessary. Knight weapons are just normal blast weapons and follow the normal wound allocation rules, they don't get to snipe out special weapons.
Might not be too much of a problem for white scars. They are fast enough to get into the side arcs to avoid the 4+ invo. Imobolized from grav guns sounds pretty good, and mm attack bikes can get within 12" on turn 1.
Deamons and necrons can tar pit the ones without a d weapon in cc with a 3++ invo unit. Necrons are in great shape, they could strip a lot of hp with 5 gauss + 2 voltaic staffs jumping out of a night scythe. Average rolls are 5.5555 hp stripped easily avoiding the shield.
Ork boys and a blob seem like a hopeless tarpit if they only have 3/4 attacks, and blobs can be loaded with melta. Like WK they have speed to avoid a tarpit, but the tarpit can area deny them.
Eldar can flat out a wave serp loaded with wg or fire dragons. It would only have 1 turn to get past a 4+ jink with serpent shield.
schadenfreude wrote: Might not be too much of a problem for white scars. They are fast enough to get into the side arcs to avoid the 4+ invo. Imobolized from grav guns sounds pretty good, and mm attack bikes can get within 12" on turn 1.
Deamons and necrons can tar pit the ones without a d weapon in cc with a 3++ invo unit. Necrons are in great shape, they could strip a lot of hp with 5 gauss + 2 voltaic staffs jumping out of a night scythe. Average rolls are 5.5555 hp stripped easily avoiding the shield.
Ork boys and a blob seem like a hopeless tarpit if they only have 3/4 attacks, and blobs can be loaded with melta. Like WK they have speed to avoid a tarpit, but the tarpit can area deny them.
Eldar can flat out a wave serp loaded with wg or fire dragons. It would only have 1 turn to get past a 4+ jink with serpent shield.
AFAIK they all got D CC weapons.
And stomp on top of that, so blobs also wont work out well.
Anyway, any "glace-spree" tactic will probably work.
Haywire, gauss, etc...
in general, it gives D3 additional attacks at CC, who are small blasts and can be up to a small distance away from the knight.
Meaning, potentially, it can take out dozens of troops each combat round.
My SOB will use a few more melta dominions in immolators. Nothing too scary.
My Marines on the other hand might have more of a problem. My IF get "tank hunter" for devastator squads. I haven't used my dev squad in a long time. Might have to dust them off.
For Tyranids, I'm still leaning towards a somewhat high-risk strategy of Monstrous Creature Smash Attacks". Provided I am faster than the Knight, it should go down with a few penetrating hits?
A Royal Court consisting of 4 StormTeks and a VeilTek is a lot cheaper than a Scythe + 5 Warriors + 2 StormTeks, and can kill two Knights in the same time as it takes the scythe to arrive and kill one.
How about a Scarab Blob?
Ten bases, attacks from titan kill max 8 with Spacing, 2 remaining scarabs drop it to AV 11 an average
Yeah, Haywire is a pretty good bet (although rolling against WS may reduce the damage you'd expect). The thing is, if you fail to kill it, then you're as good as dead, and if you do kill it then you're going to die from the explosion. Still, it's a fair trade that will only really hurt if you're playing Kill Points.
IHateNids wrote: A Royal Court consisting of 4 StormTeks and a VeilTek is a lot cheaper than a Scythe + 5 Warriors + 2 StormTeks, and can kill two Knights in the same time as it takes the scythe to arrive and kill one.
How about a Scarab Blob?
Ten bases, attacks from titan kill max 8 with Spacing, 2 remaining scarabs drop it to AV 11 an average
Assuming they don't scatter. The guns only have a 12" range so they can scatter out of range or mishap. Both units can also be easily wiped out by enemy shooting after they take down a knight. If the veil tek fails rp the royal court is worthless. It's also not scoring. The teks jumping out of a scythe are troops with ever living. Only 1 needs to make RP if the unit is wiped and it can beam back on board the scythe next turn
Scythes are not tripe. I think a better comparison would be that 6 storm teks assigned to 3 units inside scythes costs less than 4 storms and a veil. All vehicles are a joke if storm teks are added to every night scythe.
For my Eldar, a Wraithknight charging the Imperial Knight will demolish it with 5 I5, S10 AP2 attacks + 1 I10 S10 HoW attack. Even if the I. Knight gets the charge, WK has a potential to cripple it.
I'm not sure on the Wraithknight to be honest, as if you do fail to kill (and roughly you're looking at 3 hits, 1.5 pens, maybe 1 explodes, which isn't enough) then you've lost a huge chunk of points. It could work well enough if you've dropped 2 HP or so from shooting, but I wouldn't charge a full-HP Knight with a unit as expensive as a WK.
The other thing in the Knight's favour is that it will keep functioning until all it's HP are gone, as I don't think you can immobilise/stun/shake/weapon destroy a Super Heavy. If that's correct, then a Knight with 1HP is just as dangerous as one with 6HP.
Eldar fire prisms should do the job, if not then dragons are always good to have. Just keep the dragons in serpents to get in close, equip them with lances just in case while the prisms hit either flank of the knight. S9 ap1 lance will penetrate any armor like a knife through butter then 4+ will do significant damage. If your lucky, or have enough prisms (id estimate 3 on good rolls but my craftworld always has 4 for good measure) the dragons shouldn't be needed.
Paradigm wrote: I'm not sure on the Wraithknight to be honest, as if you do fail to kill (and roughly you're looking at 3 hits, 1.5 pens, maybe 1 explodes, which isn't enough) then you've lost a huge chunk of points. It could work well enough if you've dropped 2 HP or so from shooting, but I wouldn't charge a full-HP Knight with a unit as expensive as a WK.
The other thing in the Knight's favour is that it will keep functioning until all it's HP are gone, as I don't think you can immobilise/stun/shake/weapon destroy a Super Heavy. If that's correct, then a Knight with 1HP is just as dangerous as one with 6HP.
Not even Weapon Destroyed? Damn. But nevermind that, the Knight will always have a chance to shoot it beforehand, so expect to see some results there as well and with Prescience, he should kill it reliably. Without it, the titan definitely needs to be chipped already.
Yeah, a WK may do it through shooting+CC with the right support elements (prescience, preferably some HP already gone). It will at the very least do a lot of damage.
Well, I think its better to field two Knights not just one.
Against a WK, I'd put a Knight into cover. Then the Knight will strike first and with D-weapons in cc it will not be hard to kill the WK.
kingleir wrote: 10 man deathwing knights squad with interrogator chaplain and librarian in spartan assault tank.
You make the stomp roll for each unit.
So most often your DW terms will be ok from the stomp, Perhaps losing a model here and there. BUT when the knight rolls 3 stomps AND he rolls one of them with a 6 on the stomp table he is going to wipe the squad when combined with his D attacks.
Sidebar: I think that they should have written the stomp rule to work like Smash attacks where it is a tactical choice. D3 +1 stomps OR your regular attacks.
There are too many people recommending tarpits. Those won't work. You can't spread out in combat and D3 small blasts placed anywhere around it will destroy your troops. The S6 AP4 hits will be bad enough but if a 6 is rolled for the stomp EVERYTHING UNDER IT IS REMOVED FROM PLAY. No pass, no go, do not collect $200. If you assault it with something you better make sure said assaulter has a pretty good chance of killing it outright before the I1 step.
herpguy wrote: There are too many people recommending tarpits. Those won't work. You can't spread out in combat and D3 small blasts placed anywhere around it will destroy your troops. The S6 AP4 hits will be bad enough but if a 6 is rolled for the stomp EVERYTHING UNDER IT IS REMOVED FROM PLAY. No pass, no go, do not collect $200. If you assault it with something you better make sure said assaulter has a pretty good chance of killing it outright before the I1 step.
Agreed, massed melta, or shooting from 2 flanked positions from ranged, seems the way to go.
I think Storm ravens and/or vendettas will be strong against IKs. Due to their mobility, anti-vehicle weaponry, and Immunity to blast and CC of which the IKs have in spades but they also have no effective means to hurt flyers.
I'll just ignore knights until they are threatening cc, at which point I will shoot them. The problem I see is controlling the table. You can't advance on your opponent if he has a knight in the way, which makes the table smaller. Which means the other avenues of approach will be shooting galleries.
I'm going to use one vs. Tau/Eldar/Taudar. It should be easier to get units locked in cc with the knight likely drawing the lions share of the fire. I'll sacrifice 375 points if it means I get on top of a gunline unscathed.
Lanchester's Square Law is a very good way of thinking about units such as Imperial Knights, specifically, a linear increase in the number of units has a squared effect on the survivability and firepower of those units. While one IK had X effect on the game, two IKs are worth 4 times the effort to kill (2^2), where as three IKs will take 9 times the effort to kill. And there can be 4 IKs in a 1500pt game, requiring 16 times the effort to kill one in order to kill all four.
I don't know about outshooting a Riptide one on one, but I imagine the damage output is similar, and with a 12" move and 2d6 charge I think there's every chance they'll catch (and demolish) a Riptide in CC. Of course, the Riptide is cheaper, but I'd put my money on the Knight in a stand-up fight.
Elgrun wrote: Im guessing a Knight could not outshoot a Riptide nor could it catch it in CC?
Almost guaranteed to catch and kill it in CC. Outshoot it? Well, the Ion Accelerator won't scare the Knight and the Thermal Cannon won't scare the Riptide, so...
Two multimelta landspeeders maybe. Deepstrike on either side so it can only shield against 1. Of course you'll need a reserve manipulation to help them arrive at the same time...
If they both penned then rolled a 4+ to cause an explosion and then hit a 5/6 and 3-6 for extra hull poins they could. The chances are slim with 1 shot each tho.
I have play tested this against 4 knights 2 of each with my scars. If I get first turn on 3 occasions then at least 2 knights die to mass melta. I then lose 2 squads to cc but on turn 2 have hit and run off giving me more melta shot plus I have a triple las pred and a vindicator helping out. If my talons come in in turn 2 then I rely on rending shots to strip a few more HP's.
Bottom line is that for anything that isn't carrying multiple s8 ap2 or higher you are goosed. If you are then great.
In one run through my Libby rolled for puppet master which was rather funny.
I sacrificed Kahn for the sake of tying up a round of combat but at least I got another melta shot off.
I'm not bothered by them personally but I can see how people would be.
My Eldar can deal with them via d scythes and wraith cannons plus wraith knight and lord just make a mess on the charge.
I think the biggest concern is being unprepared for them. Say you don't know you're facing Knights, and wind up staring down two. A lot of armies will have serious problems.
I'm just going to make sure I have my warhound ready in case someone starts bringing too many to the club.
And for the record, a fearless swarm IS a good thing to use against it. While the swarm is still "swarmy" it kind of sucks - that blast from the stomps will take out a BUNCH. But after a couple of rounds, when the swarm has piled in around it in a thin line, that blast is killing like 3 models each. That's between 3-9 models per assault phase, and on a 1 nothing happens. A termagant or ork boy tarpit isn't bad, really.
Problem is I haven't found a rule that prevents superheavy walkers from sweeping, which means should the swarm ever become un-fearless, you'll have a problem. Losing combat by 7 or more is hard to remain in place from, and they're I4 so pretty good at sweeping.
Hive Crone vector strikes followed up by a Tyrant assault for 4 Smash attacks is looking pretty promising to me so far. I may have to switch Shreddershard for Electroshock Grubs on my melee Tyrant as well for an extra free Glance.
What is the AV of the Knight on the rear by the way?
One thing to remember as well is that you can only charge a MC you can't hurt, not a vehicle. So you can't charge a bunch of ork boyz (and before anybody says power klaw Nobz those are still terrible this edition) or gants into one.
The Imperial Knight is a Super-Heavy Walker, so uses its Front Facing AV value to close combat (assuming its not backing to an enemy unit). Remember that as a Super-Heavy (while also NOT being LoW), it is immune from being immobilized and losing weapons.
Also remember that the Ion-Shield does NOT effect close combat attacks, only shooting.
So the *best* unit to attack/kill an Imperial Knight would be a unit that gets many High Strength (S 8 or 9) attacks, preferably with an initiative value above 4, though anything above 1 will work. As that I don't play Space Elves in either flavor, would anyone be able to tell me if they have access to such a close combat unit?
Also keep in mind that the Imperial Knight is rediculously wide for how deep the model is, giving it a very skewed cross section for determining its vehicular facings. Its Front facing will be at least twice as wide as its side facings.
Araenion wrote: What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?
A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).
A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4
You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.
Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.
Indeed. But since it's a previously apoc rule, it wasn't so hard to believe. Anyway, that explosion is just scary. This thing isn't any bigger than a LR, so why doesn't LR explode like that? IMHO, that's just too much. Otherwise, I really like the rules of these mini-titans.
Having seen one at my Local GW store, I can say that they are in fact a fair bit larger than a Leman Russ. Also, remember the leman russ has its engine (which is run on liquid fuel) stuck on its rear. Whats inside the russ are the crew compartments, and ammunition for its dinky (by comparison) weapons.
The Imperial Knight on the other hand is Piloted by one person, the weapons are separate from its body on its arm, and its power plant is a a piece of Dark Technology fueled by Peace, Justices, and The American Way. Or something to that effect.
So, yeah, I can see several people using knights in a rather kamikaze fashion, rushing forward at max speed to get into CC for kills, then extra kills from its death-throes. Actual playing should see if this pans out or not.
Araenion wrote: What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?
A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).
A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4
You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.
Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.
Welp, completely scratch my past recommendation of charging it with multiple FMCs. That's just so stupid that anything that kills it gets rewarded with a D hit to the face. That's just beyond dumb and makes it almost impossible to kill safely. They can basically charge forward and if your army doesn't kill it it kills anything it wants but if your army does kill it they just get blown up anyway. Catch 22. I give up.
Araenion wrote: What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?
A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).
A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4
You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.
Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.
Welp, completely scratch my past recommendation of charging it with multiple FMCs. That's just so stupid that anything that kills it gets rewarded with a D hit to the face. That's just beyond dumb and makes it almost impossible to kill safely. They can basically charge forward and if your army doesn't kill it it kills anything it wants but if your army does kill it they just get blown up anyway. Catch 22. I give up.
Well crap. Up until this point, there wasn't anything standard 40k that I wasn't willing to fight (I'm willing to tangle with screamerstars from time to time). But I don't see any way a balanced army could possibly fight back against this. 3 of these played by a moderately competent player (1100-1200ish points?) would be able to demolish just about any TAC army I've ever created. (I tend to win if not place at most of the FLGS tourneys I attend). Fighting Equal points of these would just be obscene.
Admittedly most of my strategies for army design revolve around building for durability and to outlast my opponent. D weapons just invalidate that entire approach (c'mon my 2+/3++ EW chapter master is just as easily removed by strength D as a grot)
Yep, I feel the same as you. I think everybody has been optimistic about fighting these up until this point but everybody has mostly forgotten this piece of information.
I'm going to go ahead and say it: Knights will break the game completely and utterly. I will say there is NO WAY to counter them unless you have extreme long range ability, and I will say that NO ARMY will be able to stop 5 or even 3 of these at long range before they get to the lines. Even if you can somehow muster that you will be entirely unbalanced against any army.
An all flyer army can't even do anything because you're going need to get troops on objectives and every Knight is scoring.
This is only a theory, but it is my belief that the inclusion of Imperial Knights as they are now, is intended to force players to use Stronghold Assault and Escalation units. Up to this point, many players only field or accept them in "escalation" or "stronghold" games when Games-Workshop intended for these to be a part of the standard game as an addition to the standard ruleset. The books do not say "ask if your opponents like fortifications or super-heavies." They say "roll off to determine if you use the special missions involved with these books or the standard missions."
By including new Super-Heavy units that are like mini-lords-of-war, they can force players to get super-heavies to stay competitive. Your opponent is using 4 Imperial Knight Paladins in a 1500 point list? Laugh if you play as IG and use a 455 point Shadowsword (or 505 if you use the Lascannon sponsons like you should), and sling a D weapon shot across the board at them every turn. Or take the Vortex Missile Silo from the Stronghold Assault Book and use its ridiculous weapon to start nuking those Knights to kingdom come.
While Knights aren't unkillable, everything related to them makes them a tough unit to deal with, and that gets worse when you consider people can use them all by themselves as an army. This has the potential to completely mess with the meta and how people play, depending on how many people convert into using Knight-based or Knight-supported armies.
To Razerous:
It has base 3 attacks at Strength D, so 4 on the charge, + HoW attack on the charge, finishing with D3 stomps against small stuff at Initiative 1. The D roll is used instead of to would. 1 = no wounds, 2-5 = D3+1 wounds, 6 = D6+6 wounds, for vehicles it becomes 1= penetrating hit, roll as AP 2 on Vehicle Table, 2-5 Superheavies take D3+1 HP, Vehicles automatically explode, 6 Superheavies suffer D6+6, Vehicles still explode.
As for the Catastrophic Explosion, its whenever a Super-Heavy dies. It always happens. And as that a 4-6 yield the most damaging explosion, that means that theres a 50% chance it is a truly dangerous explosion.
Hmmm... Me thinks this serious armored threat may just be what all those infantry lists have been needing for breathing room. If you think about it up until this point in 6th most armies have chosen to forgo heavy anti tank in favor of massed medium weapons. Maybe now with the possibility of running into an army of all heavy armor some points should be diverted towards dealing with that instead of dealing with light vehicles and monsterous creatures in a TAC list.
If IG has anything going for it it's the fact that if something exists a Leman Russ is there to ruin it's day. (I got that from 1d4chan). In this case, a Las/MM Vanquisher would do well against this thing considering it's speed. Pair the Vanquishers up with a Vendetta and someone is about to have a really bad day. Drop Stormies and Al'rahem platoons would add additional pressure.
Another set up I can see is having an Inquisitor buff a platoon of MG/Lascannon guys with a group of SITNW Conscripts to screen them. Space them out and 20 guys can make the Knight Player lose a turn of assault which is where they want to be. I wouldn't take too many Conscripts since you do want them to lose combat so you can shoot at them.
For SM.. Grav-Gun bikers. Grav-Gun bikers would have a field day with these guys.
koooaei wrote: What's the problem? Just don't play vs them
Well, you could do that. But this is not the point here.
It appears that there is not a perfect answer for bringing down a Knight, especially when the enemy fields two or more.
A unit of Assault Termies with hammers could do it. The Knight will strike first with 3 or 4 attack, say killing 2 Termies.
Then the Termies can swing back at the same time they will get stomped.
If super heavies are immune to imobolized then grav guns won't strip many hp.
The most amusing way would be IG demo vets in cc. It's a double suicide mission between stomps and the explosion, but it would be so funny to see guardsmen take one down in cc.
Another answer would be tiggy and a tau buffmancer ina unit of 6 tllc/ml cents. 6 tllc 12 tl krak all with tank hunter and div to force rerolls on sucessful invo saves.
It appears that there is not a perfect answer for bringing down a Knight, especially when the enemy fields two or more.
A unit of Assault Termies with hammers could do it. The Knight will strike first with 3 or 4 attack, say killing 2 Termies.
Then the Termies can swing back at the same time they will get stomped.
CC is not a viable strategy for killing an Imperial Knight. Your 275 point terminator squad, even if it does kill the Knight (which is nothing to be relied upon), is guaranteed to die in the process (whether through stomp attacks or through the ensuing sD explosion). You just spent 275 points to kill 370. Now, how did those terminators get to that Knight that has a 12" movement? They certainly didn't walk up to it. The Knight's sD melee also very likely killed their Land Raider, meaning that you are now 155 points in the hole.
The only unit that it is even reasonable to send into CC with an Imperial Knight are units that are cheaper but can still cause damage. That pretty much means IG Veterans with melta bombs or some screwy choices from the DE codex.
The perfect answer to bringing down a Knight is high strength, long range shooting. The problem is that such shooting either doesn't exist or that taking such shooting in the required density is ineffective against other opponents.
So, the real solution to Imperial Knight is taking Imperial Knights and rolling well.
kir44n wrote: ...
The Imperial Knight on the other hand is Piloted by one person, the weapons are separate from its body on its arm, and its power plant is a a piece of Dark Technology fueled by Peace, Justices, and The American Way. Or something to that effect.
...
That's sig'able, do you mind?
Also, as far as killing a Knight I'm thinking with such a big footprint Guard's mass blast templates should have no problem killing them, even if you encounter a pair. I'm figuring on my codex SM's having the easiest time of it, given the mass droppod nastiness they can throw out.
If they only moved 6" like regular walkers you would be able to shoot them down before they got to you. With a 12" move that is going to be nearly impossible. Especially since you can't stun them or destroy their weapons.
There is no good way to kill these things, at least no ways that aren't costing you more than the Knight itself and make you unable to fight any other armies. You could maybe shoot down 1, but any more than that and you are pretty much screwed no matter what.
I've been thinking the Guardsmen horde is the best friend and one of the worst enemies of the new Knights.
Say you've got 40 Guardsmen, with 4 meltabombs on the Sergeants, and an Inquisitor to give Prescience and Stubborn (255 points total). In support of the Knight, you prevent close range melta drops and unfavorable assautls by bubble-wrapping, and you can clean up the leftovers of the battle cannon shots with the lasguns.
Against the Knights, you spread out, denying some of the Knight's mobility, and make its battle cannons chew through 5 pt Guardsmen. If you can engage it in assault, it's got to eat through so many bodies with its stomps, all the while getting pegged with meltabombs from the sergeants. You're averaging three meltabombs hits per close combat phase, so maybe 2 penetrations that get through each turn? If it blows and kills every last guy, you're still up by about 100 points. I guess it will depend on how fast stomping can kill the guardsmen.
You have to remember that the Stomp occurs while your units HAVE to be consolidated for close combat. The small blast template can at max kill 9-13 guardsmen (the hole does NOT need to be centered on a model). The only restriction is the the template cannot overlap the IK's base, and the following stomps must be within 3" of the preceding stomp.
In addition, yoru precious sargeants/commisar can be sniped out of combat by said stomp attacks. So unless the IK rolls 1-2 on the number of stomps, and a 1 on the Stomp Table, then theres a good chance you are going to lose your stubborn/melta bombs for future phases (though if you lose stubborn, there will be no future phases).
Also remember that the Paladin has 2 heavy stubbers in addition to the RFBC, increasing the number of wounds you are going to take in shooting.
I'd say a blob squad would be a risk, considering it's healthiness/damage potential is so reliant on a few models that can be sniped out in such a manner
Against the Knights, you spread out, denying some of the Knight's mobility, and make its battle cannons chew through 5 pt Guardsmen. If you can engage it in assault, it's got to eat through so many bodies with its stomps, all the while getting pegged with meltabombs from the sergeants. You're averaging three meltabombs hits per close combat phase, so maybe 2 penetrations that get through each turn? If it blows and kills every last guy, you're still up by about 100 points. I guess it will depend on how fast stomping can kill the guardsmen.
Guardsmen will likely be the go-to support for knights, making them even more difficult to tackle.
But to use them against Knights, you will have to wade through large blast templates on your way to the Knight. It will be moving away from you faster than you can move toward it on foot. When/If you do reach it, your guardsmen will consolidate toward B2B contact before the I1 step, when you make your maximum of 4 melta bomb attacks. At the same I1 stage of your melta bombs, the Knight responds with up to 3 small blasts on top of you models that are forced to be as close to each other as is physically possible. If you don't kill the Knight, plan on rolling snake eyes to pass your leadership test.
I get that you can have a lot of guardsmen, but they will not make it across No Man's Land in any condition to be effective.
im thinking for SM, besides the drop poding Melta, a good unit would also be a 5 man legion of the damned unit with combi-melta, melta and multi melta. They get to reroll their deepstriking, with relentless the MM gets to fire at bs 4, and with a 3++ they should be a bit more survivable as long as they dont get D killed.
they arent able to do it on their own, but at 155 points total, i think they could help.
10 DE witchs with haywire would do alright vs IKs.
with a 12 inch +2d6CC threat range(if they are in a boat)and the ability for 10 of them to put out about 6 hull points of damage before reprisal. Not to mention the invul will help with stomps if you cant drop it on the charge leaving them to be wiped out on the IKs turn for you to finsh off with lances shooting.
Oof, I guess I didn't realized the timing of stomps. That would pretty much make Guardsmen assault a losing proposition.
What about an inquisitorial retinue? A bunch of crusaders or acolytes to take hits, a handful of priests with Eviscerators. You charge out of a Land Raider, use the Priest's smash ability with the Eviscerator to get 2 re-rolled S10 armorbane attacks per priest. Lets say on Priest sings the re-roll saves song, you'd get 2 4++ chances against the stomp, plus a 4+ LOS! That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.
It struck me a bit as dortof the same situation we had with flyers, some people just going 'Heeeell no' to the inclusion of super-heavies. But know most players field them or are okay with their presence.
I think it's just a question about getting used to them. In my gaming community we used to ask before a fight who was gonna bring flyers, and now they're common place.
Biophysical wrote: That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.
It does, I was going throw out an idea about DoABAMSU with lots of melta + storm ravens, but for the points in a TAC list you are gimped vs hordes.
I think if you want to CC them you must be I5 AND have some sort of haywire or melta bombs. They must also be cheap enough that when the D blast goes off you can lose the unit and still consider it a win.
Thats why I think 10 haywire witchs in boat with a 3 lance ravager for back up would do nicely. Other wise you'll have to bring enough long ranged anti tank to drop them.
Really after thinking about counters. I feel these IKs may be a bit much. If the 4++ ion shield was removed or even the 12" movment they would be a bit easier to deal with.
Disclaimer: I am almost never one to cry for nerfs and whine about the OPness of units.
Biophysical wrote: That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.
It does, I was going throw out an idea about DoABAMSU with lots of melta + storm ravens, but for the points in a TAC list you are gimped vs hordes.
I think if you want to CC them you must be I5 AND have some sort of haywire or melta bombs. They must also be cheap enough that when the D blast goes off you can lose the unit and still consider it a win.
Thats why I think 10 haywire witchs in boat with a 3 lance ravager for back up would do nicely. Other wise you'll have to bring enough long ranged anti tank to drop them.
Really after thinking about counters. I feel these IKs may be a bit much. If the 4++ ion shield was removed or even the 12" movment they would be a bit easier to deal with.
Disclaimer: I am almost never one to cry for nerfs and whine about the OPness of units.
I would probably be mildly satisfied if they simply exploded like regular vehicles, and not with a S: D hit. It's just not fun when you get utterly punished for killing one.
True, I think just shooting it to death is the best option, you dont want to get into close combat with them, not only cause of the D Saw, but if you do kill it, it still hits you with a D blast
Maybe the right answer is the 4th edition answer: Lascannons
It only takes 4 lascannon hits to take a hull point off front armor with the 4++. Any army that can generate 12 or so lascannon hits each turn can drop a Knight in a couple of turns, and they're good against pretty much any other big nasty out there. So that means only 24 lascannons in an IG army. So, you know, 8 heavy weapon teams. Some of those are bound to be on side armor and avoid the 4++ also.
Biophysical wrote: Maybe the right answer is the 4th edition answer: Lascannons
It only takes 4 lascannon hits to take a hull point off front armor with the 4++. Any army that can generate 12 or so lascannon hits each turn can drop a Knight in a couple of turns, and they're good against pretty much any other big nasty out there. So that means only 24 lascannons in an IG army. So, you know, 8 heavy weapon teams. Some of those are bound to be on side armor and avoid the 4++ also.
I'm being facetious.
That's what I've been thinking, but lascannons have dropped off the radar for a reason. It's a severe handicap to have to take lascannons when they are subpar against everything else. Plus there are plenty of armies that really don't have that option. Daemons for one have no way to kill these barring sacrificing their own big guys which cost almost the same amount of points.
herpguy wrote: Yep, I feel the same as you. I think everybody has been optimistic about fighting these up until this point but everybody has mostly forgotten this piece of information.
I'm going to go ahead and say it: Knights will break the game completely and utterly. I will say there is NO WAY to counter them unless you have extreme long range ability, and I will say that NO ARMY will be able to stop 5 or even 3 of these at long range before they get to the lines. Even if you can somehow muster that you will be entirely unbalanced against any army. An all flyer army can't even do anything because you're going need to get troops on objectives and every Knight is scoring.
This went even farther than Escalation.
Ravenwing can bring a ton of Meltas.
At the LVO, I brought 8 meltaguns, 4 multimeltas, and speeders lobbing 12 CML shots.
IKs are fine, as is. They can be hard countered by common units, yet are a hard counter to units in the game that are tough for most people to deal with, all at a reasonable cost point.
Ironically, back in the day when GW had published vehicle construction rules, the Knight I built were pretty close to these guys, only at 400pts per unit, although mine had a better power field and 2 heavy bolters instead of stubbers. Still had a TCCW, rapid fire Battle Cannon, and 2 Structure Points. So, yeah, I think GW really did play test them.
I don't know man. The fact that they are scoring and can be brought as a primary detachment is pretty ridiculous.
In the flyer analogy above, people were frustrated with the advent of Flyers because most codexes didn't have an answer to them. That answer being units with skyfire special rule and flyers of their own.
So flyers being the answer to flyers, the obvious extension to this situation is that D weapons are the answer to superheavies with D weapons.
I just don't like where this is going. When the Tau and Eldar codexes first dropped, it already seemed to me that GW was having issues with power scaling. With the advent of Knights I feel like they've wilingly thrown themselves and 40K into a vicious
cycle of unchecked power scaling. This could get ugly.
I do recall there being an official GW comment at some point not long ago where they said something to the effect of "we don't care about competitive 40k". So, it's not too surprising.
At the end of the day, own one if you like the model and if the folks at your FLGS or local tourneys let you field them. Don't if none or one of the above doesn't apply. Frankly, nothing about Knights is any different from escalation save that one is a model and one is a book. You can just as much say "no playing with codex: knights" as with Escalation or even Eldar.
astro_nomicon wrote: I don't know man. The fact that they are scoring and can be brought as a primary detachment is pretty ridiculous.
In the flyer analogy above, people were frustrated with the advent of Flyers because most codexes didn't have an answer to them. That answer being units with skyfire special rule and flyers of their own.
So flyers being the answer to flyers, the obvious extension to this situation is that D weapons are the answer to superheavies with D weapons.
I just don't like where this is going. When the Tau and Eldar codexes first dropped, it already seemed to me that GW was having issues with power scaling. With the advent of Knights I feel like they've wilingly thrown themselves and 40K into a vicious
cycle of unchecked power scaling. This could get ugly.
I feel the same way, it's been spiraling out of control.
Somebody on BOLs has a good theory where he says he think GW may be doing this in retaliation due to a large chunk of the community realizing how ridiculous Escalation is and banning it from events. It's not so easy to ban an actual army.
I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.
465 points nets you: 3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits 9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous) So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.
Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.
So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.
rabid1903 wrote: I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.
465 points nets you:
3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits
9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous)
So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.
Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.
So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.
Doesn't 'Nids have that no LOS str8 gun? If so, spam those... unless they're stupendously expensive.
rabid1903 wrote: I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.
465 points nets you:
3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits
9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous)
So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.
Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.
So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.
Doesn't 'Nids have that no LOS str8 gun? If so, spam those... unless they're stupendously expensive.
True, there are Hive Guard. 55 points a pop though, and each will average 1 hit per at 24". Even if you maxed out your elite slots with them (495 points) that still the exact scenario above but without the haywire shots to add on (plus a 4+ invul to go through.)
Zoanthropes or lucky Hive Tyrant psychic powers I'm starting to look more at. Warp Blast actually can peck away at them decently well, but definitely not a sure thing.
obsidiankatana wrote: I do recall there being an official GW comment at some point not long ago where they said something to the effect of "we don't care about competitive 40k". So, it's not too surprising.
At the end of the day, own one if you like the model and if the folks at your FLGS or local tourneys let you field them. Don't if none or one of the above doesn't apply. Frankly, nothing about Knights is any different from escalation save that one is a model and one is a book. You can just as much say "no playing with codex: knights" as with Escalation or even Eldar.
Yeah I get that, but I would never say flat out "no" about a legitimate codex or any of the units therein. I don't call two models whose only difference is the main weapon an army or codex or anything of the like. That's why I find it so preposterous that you can actually take them as a freaking primary detachment.
Whatever, call me a nagger, a neighsayer, or a nincompoop, this kind of stuff ruffles my Jimmies and I wouldn't play with it or against it.
I don't see any reason that tournament organizers would have a different reaction to this than what happened with the escalation and stronghold assault rules, and I hope that's the case. It just frustrates me to see that this is the direction GW is taking 40K. They're turning it into Battle Tech for Dummies.
The problem with Knights, Escalation and Stronghold Assault is and will continue to be Strength D weapons. They're completely ridiculous and terrible for the game.
Imagine if Knights had a Str 10 AP 1 weapon, a 6 on a Stomp caused a Str 10 AP 1 hit and the center of their explosion was a Str 10 AP 1 hit. It would still be a great unit, without being an I-Win button in melee combat.
The solution to rerollable 2++ saves is to errata that insanity out, not to ratchet it up a notch.
One of the rumors I've heard is that this is games-workshops way of dealing with the super-deathstar units (fateweaver) and help speed up how much slower 6th is. D weapons solve invuln saves out the waaazzooo, while also speeding up games by wracking up the kill counts.
And to the idea of people "letting" you field legitimate codex's and units.....yeah. That'll happen when I can tell Chaos Players that they can't take anything Nurgle for the +toughness (or fateweaver and his schenanigans), or that the Tau can't take their riptides. It isn't a cafeteria choice. If its part of the main rules, you have to deal with them ALL, not just the ones you *like*
The rules for the Imperial Knight have every appearance of being a giant middle-finger to the portion of the community that banned Escalaction and Stronghold Assault. Games-Workshop *wants* people to use these units and rules. Decided that you don't need Escalation & Stronghold Assault? Fine, here are some super-heavies that AREN'T Lords of War, that score, and have a D weapon.
Everything I have seen seems to indicate that these are directly meant to be faced by Escalation book Super-Heavies. Nothing else either has the survivability or efficiency to reliably do it, especially when you consider someone can take a force of 4-6 of these.
No, I was not seriously complaining about Nurgle Chaos, I was using it as an illustrative example of cherry picking something out of a legitimate codex as something someone might not like, and thus decide they won't play it.
Like it or not, Games-Workshop has decided that D weapons and Super-Heavies are now going to be part of the Standard Game. Period.
So at this point it is more constructive to suggest and debate what the most effective anti-imperial knight weapons and units will be (which at this point I think will be Escalation Lord-of-War units), rather than debating the Imperial Knight's legitimacy (which is a futile endeavor because we do not influence that decision, that is Games-Workshop)
Nids can deal with one (with difficulty), but 3. Or even 6? No way to even remotely deal with that. 3 Crones and 2. Flytyrants is great until You have 12 heavy stubbers shooting 36 shots at them for grounding tests. Plus The IG or whatever bubble wrap units that they will take as allies. (or vice versa).
some people will see them as a challenge, some people will play them once and decide that they arent really and enjoy the game without Auto-win buttons. then there will be that guy who drops 700 bucks on five of them, goes all like "Who wants a peice of this" and the rest of the guys are like "ha, F*** you, lol, who wants a round of warmachine"
Forgive the pun but its escalation. Even the best example of over-poweredness (2++ saves) has its flaws, chinks, pitfalls and liabilities. It also operates on the same realm as the rest of 40k; stuff.
Lords of War was too much, both in points and leathality. Knights are toned down just enough to make it feasible but its still way out there.
The only two problems are;
1) Str D weapons
2) Super-Heavy special rules.
A walker moving 12", crazy death-throes explosions, deadly CC abilities - were all possible with additional rules that didn't go too far. But alas, GW went Balls Deep and screwed it all up.
As for killing one; Out-kill the army - Deny it good targets from shooting and from assault; Destroy the rest of the army with all of yours. It hasn't got a ranged D weapon until you 'splode it soo... ignore it?
herpguy wrote: Lol are you really complaining about Chaos? Mark of Nurgle? Those are not winning tournaments.
Anyways, of course games go faster when you just pack up your models without getting to do anything.
D weapons don't belong in the game at all.
Well, it appears that D weapons have become a viable part of the game.
Games may become faster when the enemy fields two Knights or one Revenant Titan. Then the kills might stack up.
Some of the solutions here are more in a vacuum. With one Knight the enemy will have some other units to cover the Knight, say, not letting your Wyches come close enough.
I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?
I've seen the various posts about how 'nids would handle one of these things, but someone asked about 3-6, which is a stupidly valid question as this is actually a tactics discussion...not how much you hate D weapons.
A buddy of mine plays Tyranids and I gave him the Knight stats, he had to tailor a list to kill ONE reliably and that wasn't even worrying about the rest of the army with the Knight. Can you imagine 6 of these god damn things? I don't even play Tyranids and I'm stumped. Massed gaunts to tie them up? In 1850 I suppose you could do that and see about killing the rest of the army maybe?
Even playing Guard I'd be worried about facing six of these donkey-caves. Three? I've got it in the bag and I might even have some guys left over to hold an objective. Six? The only thing I can really think of is Vendetta spam and that's taking full 3 model squadrons, which I suppose wouldn't do too poorly.
But what about CSM? I can't recall anyone tossing any ideas out there to handle Knight spam using our neighborhood demon worshipers.
jeffersonian000 wrote: I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?
SJ
Weill, I think two Knights would be enough to cause a headache to each opponent.
Frankenberry wrote: But what about CSM? I can't recall anyone tossing any ideas out there to handle Knight spam using our neighborhood demon worshipers.
Triple-drake vector strike fun + autocannons to the rear?
Ally your own Knights?
Ally in/take LoW with Destroyer Weapons.
I got temporarily excited about using my Brass Scorpion, then realised how horrifically outclassed my 700pt model was by even a single Knight
Frankenberry wrote: I've seen the various posts about how 'nids would handle one of these things, but someone asked about 3-6, which is a stupidly valid question as this is actually a tactics discussion...not how much you hate D weapons.
A buddy of mine plays Tyranids and I gave him the Knight stats, he had to tailor a list to kill ONE reliably and that wasn't even worrying about the rest of the army with the Knight. Can you imagine 6 of these god damn things? I don't even play Tyranids and I'm stumped. Massed gaunts to tie them up? In 1850 I suppose you could do that and see about killing the rest of the army maybe?
Even playing Guard I'd be worried about facing six of these donkey-caves. Three? I've got it in the bag and I might even have some guys left over to hold an objective. Six? The only thing I can really think of is Vendetta spam and that's taking full 3 model squadrons, which I suppose wouldn't do too poorly.
I'm struggling to find any reliable Tyranid solution for this that doesn't involve a double-FOC full of Crones. Virtually anything getting into melee with one of these is toast*, and it's very unlikely that you'll be the one getting off the charge anyway.
A Harridan may be able to handle Knights fairly well, so long as it's not grounded. It Vector Strikes at S10 (ignoring the invuln save), and can unload up to twelve S10 shots straight after. These shots will undoubtedly attract the attention of the shield, so with a little planning you can position other units to fire at another facing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it should also be able to unload its Gargoyle brood while swooping in order to tarpit the Knight for a while. Obviously the drawback here is that a Harridan plus little dudes costs more than 2 Knights.
As for more conventional solutions, massed Exocrines may be viable. You can put down 2 per Knight and try to ensure the shield can only protect from one at a time. Don't forget to Overwatch when the Knight inevitably charges them...
Hopefully the upcoming re-print of IA4 will open up some options for Nids.
*even Hierodules. Yep, even the melee-focused GC that costs 50% more will most likely die before striking back
xttz wrote: *even Hierodules. Yep, even the melee-focused GC that costs 50% more will most likely die before striking back
I wondered that sort of thing after looking at the GBS, but (shockingly) I don't keep the books at work. D-CCWs really should have been strike-at-Initiative-1.
If your enemies only taking one, as Chaos take an allied Chaos Demons Skarbrand.
Try to tie up or occupy the Knight with cultists or some other throw-away unit, and give Skarbrand the charge in. He's a demon of Khorne, so he has FC for +1S to his first turn of hitting (so S7), Hatred gives him re-rolls to hit on the first round (when he's WS10), and Rage gives him +2 attacks for that first phase, bumping him to 8 attacks instead of the standard 6.
Oh, and he strikes at Initiative 10 with an armourbane AP 2 weapon.
Out of the wide ranges of monstrous creatures, he stands a good chance of gibbing an Imperial Knight in CC before the Imperial Knight even has a chance to hit back. So while he may well get hit by the D strength explosion (and thats assuming it doesn't scatter), it would have to roll well to instantly kill him (a 6 on the D weapon table).
So of the models I can think of to handle ONE knight, Skarbrand tops my list. And at 225 points, he's a bargain to the Knight's 375.
jeffersonian000 wrote: I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?
SJ
You hit the nail on the head that most people are missing. I'm sure any army could kill a Knight. That's not the issue. As somebody else said, I would probably gladly pay for a 375pt brick that could sit on an objective with 6 HP that can't be one-shotted, with a directional 4++ and has a 15" blast when it dies. The fact that it is the scariest CC monster in the game and has a 2 shot battlecannon is just icing on the cake.
Anyways, Heldrake spam as a solution for CSM? There aren't enough turns in the game for that to work. How are you going to get autocannons to its rear exactly?
Also, sure a Daemons list *could* hurt it, but what happens when your 350 pt character gets sent to the warp as a reward for killing one of these? (which its entirely unlikely to accomplish in the first place)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kir44n wrote: If your enemies only taking one, as Chaos take an allied Chaos Demons Skarbrand.
Try to tie up or occupy the Knight with cultists or some other throw-away unit, and give Skarbrand the charge in. He's a demon of Khorne, so he has FC for +1S to his first turn of hitting (so S7), Hatred gives him re-rolls to hit on the first round (when he's WS10), and Rage gives him +2 attacks for that first phase, bumping him to 8 attacks instead of the standard 6.
Oh, and he strikes at Initiative 10 with an armourbane AP 2 weapon.
Out of the wide ranges of monstrous creatures, he stands a good chance of gibbing an Imperial Knight in CC before the Imperial Knight even has a chance to hit back. So while he may well get hit by the D strength explosion (and thats assuming it doesn't scatter), it would have to roll well to instantly kill him (a 6 on the D weapon table).
So of the models I can think of to handle ONE knight, Skarbrand tops my list. And at 225 points, he's a bargain to the Knight's 375.
God forbid Skarbrand takes any damage before attacking the Knight. There's a reason nobody takes him... he sucks. Plus he's way slower than a Knight so if he catches one that's a bad play by your opponent.
Xyptc wrote: For Tyranids, I'm still leaning towards a somewhat high-risk strategy of Monstrous Creature Smash Attacks". Provided I am faster than the Knight, it should go down with a few penetrating hits?
The trouble here is that even with Smash, you will rarely do enough attacks to outright kill a Knight in one round of combat. After a bit of Math-hammer, the most likely unit to succeed is a Hive Tyrant with Crushing Claws and another melee weapon, but not using Smash. That's going to average 2.9 HP damage, with a reasonable chance of inflicting further HP thanks to Explodes damage results.
Realistically, you need to be charging a Knight with multiple FMCs to kill it before it can strike back.
I love the thing and may get one, but there's no way in hell I'd play a normal army against two or more of those things. If the other guy complains I'd shake his hand, tell him he won and be done with it.
For special scenarios or whatnot, sure. Sounds like fun. I'd play against them to see how they roll. There simply isn't enough dakka in a regular army to take out several of these things. (regular meaning no d-weapons or escalation whatevers.)
Xyptc wrote: For Tyranids, I'm still leaning towards a somewhat high-risk strategy of Monstrous Creature Smash Attacks". Provided I am faster than the Knight, it should go down with a few penetrating hits?
The trouble here is that even with Smash, you will rarely do enough attacks to outright kill a Knight in one round of combat. After a bit of Math-hammer, the most likely unit to succeed is a Hive Tyrant with Crushing Claws and another melee weapon, but not using Smash. That's going to average 2.9 HP damage, with a reasonable chance of inflicting further HP thanks to Explodes damage results.
Realistically, you need to be charging a Knight with multiple FMCs to kill it before it can strike back.
I originally thought of this before with Daemons, but then I realized you're very likely for them all to get wiped out by the ensuing Strength D explosion. It's quite redonkulous.
MWHistorian wrote:I love the thing and may get one, but there's no way in hell I'd play a normal army against two or more of those things. If the other guy complains I'd shake his hand, tell him he won and be done with it.
For special scenarios or whatnot, sure. Sounds like fun. I'd play against them to see how they roll. There simply isn't enough dakka in a regular army to take out several of these things. (regular meaning no d-weapons or escalation whatevers.)
That's what I would likely do. I would probably give them a go at least once to see how OP they are but if somebody showed up with these I would just say "Congratulations, you bought yourself a win, hope you feel good about yourself." I expect the guy who magically has "Been a White Scars player since forever" when the new SM codex came out who plopped down 30 freshly built and unpainted bikes to have a few of these pretty soon.
While the Strength D Death-Throes explosion is a threat, I think people are overestimating it.
First, it follows Scatter rules, with the exception of no BS reduction. So if it scatters anything more than 3", you are out of the Strength D hit (assuming you were in base contact). If you weren't in base contact, it would have to scatter in your direction for the D portion of the blast to hit. The outer rings of the blast are still dangerous, but to monstrous creatures that only means 1 wound. 1 Wound is survivable.
In addition, the Strength D blast has a 1/6th chance to do nothing, and a 4/6 chance to do 2-4 wounds. Its only on a roll of 6 that you take the "you're now gibbed" D6+6 wounds.
So the Death Explosion is bad on standard infantry and vehicles due to its size, but for monstrous creatures its mostly a matter of bad luck if you get caught in the explosion, and even worse luck if you get hit by the worst result.
As it is, I'm thinking a pair of Bloodthirsters (500pts), a pair of Flying Demon Princes (400 pts) or Skarbrand(225pts) should be just fine for knocking out a single Imperial Knight.
While they can move 12", between terrain and other models there are ways to bottleneck and control such large enemy units to get it where you want it.
Who ever uses a pair of blood thirsters? or skarbrand? Unfortunately these ideas just aren't things people use very often because they're terrible options vs every other opponent.. What in the world is the point of blood thirsters anyway? Lord of change is S8 with the staff and has psychic powers.
I expect you'll see knights backed up with infantry in front and flyers/flyer defense.
We aren't asking what super-popular kids on the block are going to be good at killing imperial knights, its what will bring down an Imperial Knight.
As for why bloodthristers? They're Khornate demons, and I was primarily looking in at the Khorne stuff for killiness in CC. If the same can be pulled off with a Lord of Change, that could work too.
If the Knight gets bubble wrapped by infantry protecting it, its both slowing it down and risking said infantry if something were to kill it.
Besides, just because something is useless against whats popular now doesn't mean it will be useless against what will be popular going forward. When enough people are saying that the current popular format can't deal with Imperial Knights, that itself implies that the popular lists are going to change. And that opens the door to different units/unit combinations working.
Good options are good options regardless of if "popular kids" are using them or not. Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.
The answer is the same as usual, shoot it until it's dead. Getting a MC in CC with it is very risky due to how Strength D works. Khorne units are fairly pointless vs any opponents unless it's dogs, so might as well shelve those options and look towards the better used units (which are useful against all opponents).
Killing a knight won't be any different than killing a land raider really. It's only AV13 and a 4+ invul isn't a big deal as it's not like that is totally unheard of. Melta hits do D3+1 HP on a 4+, so it'll probably die to 2 melta pens which is nothing to worry about.
A knight simply isn't special, just use same SOLID tactics for destroying tough vehicles and the outcome will be similar. Gimmicks are never a good idea.
Well, pretty much all that matters is how you can kill a Knight with an all comers list. So far it's not looking good at all.
Thanks for the blast clarification, that helps... a little. It's still a S D 5" blast and scattering helps it actually because then it's not just on the base that nobody can be within anyway.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Probably the best Knight killer I can think of is Kharn in a blob of cultists. However it would take a concerted effort because it's entirely reliant on them getting the charge off. However statistically he should easily kill one on the charge and has all the cultist bodies in case something goes wrong.
Be'Lakor has a similar damage output (slightly less) but doesn't have any cushion in case something had happens.
Kirasu wrote: Good options are good options regardless of if "popular kids" are using them or not. Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.
The answer is the same as usual, shoot it until it's dead. Getting a MC in CC with it is very risky due to how Strength D works. Khorne units are fairly pointless vs any opponents unless it's dogs, so might as well shelve those options and look towards the better used units (which are useful against all opponents).
Killing a knight won't be any different than killing a land raider really. It's only AV13 and a 4+ invul isn't a big deal as it's not like that is totally unheard of. Melta hits do D3+1 HP on a 4+, so it'll probably die to 2 melta pens which is nothing to worry about.
A knight simply isn't special, just use same SOLID tactics for destroying tough vehicles and the outcome will be similar. Gimmicks are never a good idea.
A Knight actually is special, primarily due to being a superheavy and the special case of the Ion Shied. The former makes it immune to 1-5 on a the pen chart and grants it a lovely 12'' move, so your meltas better do the job in one shot, be quick enough to keep up with it, be durable enough to withstand the return fire, or a combination of the three. The latter is chosen during enemy shooting phase. So if I SEE a melta drop, I'm putting the shield on that end. Half your shots now do nothing, so you need four shots to ensure two get through, both had better pen, get a 4+, then roll at least a 2 on D3. Not likely. If you doubling up and hitting it from both sides that's another matter, but that also assumes your opponent left two sides of his Knight entirely exposed and deserves to lose it.
A 4+ save on a vehicle is nothing new was my point. Just because it's called an Ion Shield doesn't make it special. It also isn't any faster than a lot of units, it's easy to keep up with it because it's probably going to be moving at you.
Wave serpents have a 4+ against most meltas and plenty of other vehicles. The point is, as I mentioned, you simply need to roll a 4+ twice against it with a melta gun.. So you gotta be able to kill 2 vehicles which isn't horribly difficult.
against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?
If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty
Kirasu wrote: Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.
Haha perhaps when you've seen him in action. My current Khorne list is built around him and he is amazing for 225 points.
And Bloodthirsters are better at killing a lot of things than a Lord of Change. Anything they can instant death with their Axe of Khorne with for example.
They're also capable of having a lot more attacks:
3 (6 halved for Smash)
+1 (weapon in each hand)
+3 (Eternal Blade)
+2 (Rage from Skarbrand)
So nine Strength 10 Attacks, striking first, hitting on 3+ with a reroll from Skarbrand. 4+ to penetrate, with a reroll because of Smash.
I'm looking forward to playing a Knight list with my flying Khorne Daemons.
The numbers have been run countless time on The Lord of Change vs Bloodthirster debate. A Bloodthirster is only marginally better in combat than as LoC while a Lord of Change doesn't need to drop down and expose itself into combat to do anything.
There is a lot of hyperbole on this thread. It should be noted that 4 knights are 1500 pts by themselves. People saying that you will face 6 knights against 1 FOC are being disingenuous or don't know the pts values. This means that at 1750 pts you cannot fit another knight in and you can barely fit even a modicum of AA into your list. Forget further ranged support.
There is also a strange disconnect in the knights killing power. They have 3(or 4) attacks which are Str D. This means they will likely connect and damage with 1(2) Str D attacks. This is followed by 1-3 stomp attacks which will usually be S6 AP4. This means they are really good at killing MCs and vehicles and are pretty good at killing Sv4+ or worse blobbs. They do however fall pretty flat against anything like a 5 man TACSM squad where you will average 2-3 dead SM per assault phase. You can actually further reduce this damage by pulling alternate models from b2b so the stomp becomes less effective. This is a strange dichotomy where small units of ~5 models with 1 wound and a good armour save remove much of the killing power of the IK. Units on large bases and good saves also have little to fear from stomps and as long as they can deal with 1-2 deaths an assault phase they will be okay.
Units like jetseer star will have little difficulty with IK as they take 1-2 casualties and then hit back with 8+ S9 attacks (possibly more on the charge). Even if they fail to kill it they will take very little damage from the stomps due to their base size and save.
You will say to me that the death explosion will kill said unit. However there are many ways to limit this or remove it entirely. The jetseer star above would HnR out and try to kill the knight at range. Most units are cheap enough that loosing them to kill a 375 pts scoring unit would be worth it.Most of the Chaos units that will work well will be an HQ with a small unit of marines or cult marines to absorb the D weapon hits. These units can put the ablative wounds in b2b and let the HQ trail behind so it is within 2" of a model in b2b. This will allow the big hitters to hit while keeping them safe from both the D (in case the opponent rolls high) and from the explosion.
What is much more likely is to see 1-3 knights allied to a more traditional type army to give the AA and additional troop killing.
A 1 knight list won't change anything. It is just another AV13 vehicle with a 4+ save and most lists should be fine.
A 2 knight list will bring enough support to not have any hard counters, probably in the form of vendettas or sabre platforms with whatever IG becomes. This is the list that might shift the meta as you can still kill 2 knights reliably but you will need dedicated units to crack that much AV. Luckily all the dexs do have solutions which are cheaper than the knights. The important part will be to pin down the shield so that one of the units can get full output or to have enough firepower to shoot through the shield.
The 3 knight is an unbalanced list which will stomp some lists but will in turn be stomped by others. There is just too many points in AV13 vehicles who have relatively limited killing potential. A good example of an entirely hard counter to such a list is necron bakery. This could change depending on what IG dex does though as IG will probably be the best ally to bring cheap AA, etc. I play several lists that could deal with this and not sweat but some of my other lists would definitely feel the pain.
Additionally until an actual codex is released I find all this panic to be a bit comical. Right now we have a white dwarf entry that doesn't actually have any alliance matrix and doesn't have them as scoring. You then have some facebook posts saying they are scoring though the same source is often wrong about rules and seems to never know what is happening in GW. I find this entire thing to be ridiculous and will not be buying or playing with them until they have real rules. I will play against them but we are playing by the official rules not rumors and speculations unless you want to play against my warhound.
All the knight lists are going to have serious issues with a tank hunter+broadside missile side+drones with a few MLs who can reliably kill a knight a turn. The Tau player just needs some speed bump units who ironically could provide overwatch opportunities. A list which can be hard countered by a data slate is not my idea of unstoppable.
IHateNids wrote: against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?
If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty
Infantry is removed from play on a 2+ without any kind of save permitted.
IHateNids wrote: against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?
If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty
Infantry is removed from play on a 2+ without any kind of save permitted.
How does the Lynchgard get him into combat?
Lychguards probably will not catch a knight that does not want to be caught. Even if they do you need three of them to hit it in order to have a decent chance of winning the combat.
A night scythe drop coupled with other threats may do the trick but lychguards will be hard pressed to reach it unless the knight lets them at which point I do not like their chances.
I have a hard time finding a way of dealing with one, let alone multiple knights. This looks like a vehicle that is really tough to take down with gauss spam alone (54-108 shots depending on the shielding, probably right in between). Stormtek drops coupled with warriors as well as doom scythes seem like the likeliest measure to bring down a knight, coupled with the fact that those are good units in more than one way.
herpguy wrote: There are too many people recommending tarpits. Those won't work. You can't spread out in combat and D3 small blasts placed anywhere around it will destroy your troops. The S6 AP4 hits will be bad enough but if a 6 is rolled for the stomp EVERYTHING UNDER IT IS REMOVED FROM PLAY. No pass, no go, do not collect $200. If you assault it with something you better make sure said assaulter has a pretty good chance of killing it outright before the I1 step.
Ever thought of stringing a large cheap unit out into a line 20" long before assault to limit casualties?
The stomps occur at Initiative Step 1, so you will have had to consolidate into nice, meaty blobs by the time the Stomps come out. In addition, the stomps can move forward into the mass, as long as the stomp is within 3" of the preceding stomp.
Knights are seriously not that hard to take out with ranged AT. Point per HP they are worse off compared to most battle tanks of similar AV, somewhat mitigated by super heavy status.
And quit making such a big deal out of the shield! Unless you only play against really bad players you should be used to having opponents rolling cover saves on their vehicles. A 4++ is no different!
Your traditional lascannons and lance weapons will do fine! If anything Knights may force many players away from S6/7 spam and back to high S AT, given that Knights can be fielded by anyone.
I have a hard time finding a way of dealing with one, let alone multiple knights. This looks like a vehicle that is really tough to take down with gauss spam alone (54-108 shots depending on the shielding, probably right in between). Stormtek drops coupled with warriors as well as doom scythes seem like the likeliest measure to bring down a knight, coupled with the fact that those are good units in more than one way.
Several units working in concert could do the trick. But if you face two Knights, the effort wil be four-fold by the Lanchester square law.
Hm, anyone used daemons against them yet? While sure I can stay in the air and vector strike all day I'm pretty sure that will either not kill them or let them live long enough to get to my troops.
arinnoor wrote: Hm, anyone used daemons against them yet? While sure I can stay in the air and vector strike all day I'm pretty sure that will either not kill them or let them live long enough to get to my troops.
How about Daemonettes? Their rending could take one Knight with ease. But Daemonettes are too slow and may not get him into cc.
However, fast moving Daemons could do it. But the stomp phase could do some serious damage.
Moreover, if I'd ran a Knight, I would ran two of them making it even harder to cope with them.
arinnoor wrote: Hm, anyone used daemons against them yet? While sure I can stay in the air and vector strike all day I'm pretty sure that will either not kill them or let them live long enough to get to my troops.
How about Daemonettes? Their rending could take one Knight with ease. But Daemonettes are too slow and may not get him into cc.
However, fast moving Daemons could do it. But the stomp phase could do some serious damage.
Moreover, if I'd ran a Knight, I would ran two of them making it even harder to cope with them.
Daemonettes will never ever be able to touch a Knight. CC attacks go against their front armor since they are walkers.
Plus the problems with daemons is that they have to kill one in CC, and the only things in the codex capable of doing that are Greater Daemons, DPs, and Soul Grinders. The latter will probably never be able to strike, doesn't have enough attacks, and can also be auto exploded by the stomp on a 2+. The other big dudes suffer from the problem of being very expensive and unlikely to even do the trick. Even if they do do it they can easily get insta-gibbed by the ensuing blast.
Could be fun dropping a ring of plaguebearers around one, ideally with a bit of cover.
Unless their weapons at range have Ignore Cover, they aren't going to take out that many plagueies, and if you can drop the hoop over them (icons good!) they have no-where to go as they can't go over your models as far as i'm aware.
Plagues can then get their rust on. Sure, they'll lose some to stomps and D, but they'll still make a dent.
Of course you do still need to be able to isolate the git from whatever else is on their side....
Ascalam wrote: Could be fun dropping a ring of plaguebearers around one, ideally with a bit of cover.
Unless their weapons at range have Ignore Cover, they aren't going to take out that many plagueies, and if you can drop the hoop over them (icons good!) they have no-where to go as they can't go over your models as far as i'm aware.
Plagues can then get their rust on. Sure, they'll lose some to stomps and D, but they'll still make a dent.
Of course you do still need to be able to isolate the git from whatever else is on their side....
The problem is twofold: 1. Plaguebearers aren't really a good all-combers choice 2. In combat I'm sure you'll start losing a lot more to daemonic instability tests than stomps and CC attacks.
AS might be the army that has the least problems taking these things down. Even a TaC list will sport at least one unit of doms with 4-5 meltas and probably a couple of exorcists... not to mention there will likely be even more melta riding around on/in transports.
That's a lot of S8 AP1, and it has a lot of reach thanks to scout/outflank. Should be relatively easy to threaten more than one facing and force it to either expose itself to twin-linked melta shots or a bunch of missiles.
I'm coming back around to the big guard blob with meltabombs on the Sergeants and meltaguns in the special weapon.
-First, it's a solid unit in it's own right, so you're not building a Knight-only counter.
-Second, the stomps will happen at the same time as the meltabombs, so you'll at least get a chance to use them once. The meltabombs on the Sergeants will be spread out, so only one will die for each stomp maximum, but possibly fewer with LOS and rolls of 1 to wound.
-Third, the meltaguns stand a pretty good chance of stripping some hull points before-hand so you don't need to take all 6 with the meltabombs
-Fourth, if anybody survives the resulting explosion (likely, there's bound to be a few 1s rolled to wound), they're still scoring, and therefore valuable.
Finally, the unit can't really be considered a Knight-hunter, but it can be a Knight-denier. Ailaros has described massed infantry meltas as something like a pike formation, and that's basically what it is in this case. You can't stop the Knight from hanging back with it's battle cannon, but that's okay. You can stop the Knight from coming up, wrecking your army in close combat, and scoring on your objective. That matters.
It also has the super-cool imagery of guardsmen climbing up the things legs and fixing charges onto critical spots.
I'm tempted to charge them with FWs with EMP grenades. It might not be that effective, but just imagine the look on your opponent's face when you take out 375 points with a 2ppm unpgrade.
I'm not really afraid of facing a single Knight in combat. My TAC list includes Terminator Lord with a Chainfist, Chaos Terminators with 2 Combi-Meltas, 4 PFs and 1 CF, a team of Melta Raptors, a Tri-Las Predator, a Chaos Vindicator and lastly, a Quad Cannon. The moment the Knight comes into the middle of the no-man's zone, he's getting to be shot at from several sides. To be honest, even engaging him into CC with the Terminators isn't that bad an idea. The Knight would kill 2 on average with the Reaper Chainsaw, and Stomp would really matter only on a roll of 6. All the while being bitch-slapped with CFs and PFs.
But, as some people have already mentioned, it's when there are 2 or more where it becomes much more difficult. At this point I suspect that more work-around tactics would be better, rather than a direct confrontation. Also, note that the more Knights the enemy has, the less he has of anything else.
I would love it if a Knight at 375 points were in close combat with a Lord of Skulls at 888+ points and see if the single Knight took out a Lord of Skulls on its own. Way to go, idiots at GW, to make models redundant. Now all the big guys from Chaos are afraid from this thing... Brass Scorpion, Lord of Skulls etc. There's just too much profit when such a cheap model have a D-weapon.
Are we sure that Knights are scoring when they're allies? It makes sense if it's just them as they don't have troops as such, but not when they're allies.
My marines: I always run a full unit of melta sterns.
Always have done since they were available, even with the big meta change and people shifting to plasma.
My DE: I have enough lances, but wyches with haywire grenades strip it pretty well.
My necrons: Gauss, lots and lots of gauss.
Possibly the odd shot from a stronger weapon here or there, but no point really.
Failing that, scarabs to strip the armour, heck, even some guard with warscythes will do the job.
If this thing had a 2+ and some wounds, it really would be scary.
Just glad they gave it armour unlike recent large critters.
Jackal wrote: My marines: I always run a full unit of melta sterns.
Always have done since they were available, even with the big meta change and people shifting to plasma.
My DE: I have enough lances, but wyches with haywire grenades strip it pretty well.
My necrons: Gauss, lots and lots of gauss.
Possibly the odd shot from a stronger weapon here or there, but no point really.
Failing that, scarabs to strip the armour, heck, even some guard with warscythes will do the job.
If this thing had a 2+ and some wounds, it really would be scary.
Just glad they gave it armour unlike recent large critters.
Scarabs don't work. It's immune to Entropic Strike.
Jackal wrote: My marines: I always run a full unit of melta sterns.
Always have done since they were available, even with the big meta change and people shifting to plasma.
My DE: I have enough lances, but wyches with haywire grenades strip it pretty well.
My necrons: Gauss, lots and lots of gauss.
Possibly the odd shot from a stronger weapon here or there, but no point really.
Failing that, scarabs to strip the armour, heck, even some guard with warscythes will do the job.
If this thing had a 2+ and some wounds, it really would be scary.
Just glad they gave it armour unlike recent large critters.
Scarabs don't work. It's immune to Entropic Strike.
Does ES perminatly lover AV or just for one attack? I'm ignorant of this.
Jackal wrote: Ah, scratch scarabs from my list then.
Im yet to actually get involved with apoc. or escalation rules.
Im assuming haywire still works though?
Yep.
This is the rule in question.
INVINCIBLE BEHEMOTH
Any attack that says that the target model is destroyed, wrecked, Explodes! or is
otherwise removed from play inflicts D3 Hull Points of damage on a Super-heavy
vehicle instead. In addition, any attacks or special abilities that permanently lower the
Armour Values of a target vehicle do not affect a Super-heavy vehicle. Note that
attacks or abilities that count the Armour Value as being lower, but do not actually
change it, work normally.
Thank you very much So lance works as normal too, which is pretty sweet.
I can see the use of sweep attacks from a CCB coming into this now.
S7 + 2D6 armour pen on 3 attacks should atleast take down 1 HP minimum.
May also roll out the pask vanquisher and his 2 friends with my guard.
Not had to use those since people spammed mss land raiders in my area.
Granted they wont kill it in 1 turn, but they should strip HP pretty well.
Ill be honest, i rather fight one of these than its equal points in riptides.
The rules seem pretty solid from what ive seen.
Good enough to use, but not broken good.
I would love it if a Knight at 375 points were in close combat with a Lord of Skulls at 888+ points and see if the single Knight took out a Lord of Skulls on its own. Way to go, idiots at GW, to make models redundant. Now all the big guys from Chaos are afraid from this thing... Brass Scorpion, Lord of Skulls etc. There's just too much profit when such a cheap model have a D-weapon.
Are we sure that Knights are scoring when they're allies? It makes sense if it's just them as they don't have troops as such, but not when they're allies.
Yeah, you need Ang if you want to beat face as IIRC it's I4 and goes before Scorp and LoS. Or take a Chaos Reaver with a laser blaster, turbo laser and either another laser blaster or a power fist. EDIT: and MoT.
Jackal wrote: Thank you very much So lance works as normal too, which is pretty sweet.
I can see the use of sweep attacks from a CCB coming into this now.
S7 + 2D6 armour pen on 3 attacks should atleast take down 1 HP minimum.
May also roll out the pask vanquisher and his 2 friends with my guard.
Not had to use those since people spammed mss land raiders in my area.
Granted they wont kill it in 1 turn, but they should strip HP pretty well.
Ill be honest, i rather fight one of these than its equal points in riptides.
The rules seem pretty solid from what ive seen.
Good enough to use, but not broken good.
The concern most people have now is what happens when it dies. Three tier explosion ring. Center is Str D, Inner and Outer rings vary depending on rolls. So this thing runs headlong at you lobbing melta or battle cannon shells. If you don't kill it, it starts stomping and chopping MCs and tanks while shelling hordes. If you do, it goes supernova, obliterating a measure of units that way. So unless you kill it a mile from your army, bad things happen.
Jackal wrote: Thank you very much So lance works as normal too, which is pretty sweet.
I can see the use of sweep attacks from a CCB coming into this now.
S7 + 2D6 armour pen on 3 attacks should atleast take down 1 HP minimum.
May also roll out the pask vanquisher and his 2 friends with my guard.
Not had to use those since people spammed mss land raiders in my area.
Granted they wont kill it in 1 turn, but they should strip HP pretty well.
Ill be honest, i rather fight one of these than its equal points in riptides.
The rules seem pretty solid from what ive seen.
Good enough to use, but not broken good.
The concern most people have now is what happens when it dies. Three tier explosion ring. Center is Str D, Inner and Outer rings vary depending on rolls. So this thing runs headlong at you lobbing melta or battle cannon shells. If you don't kill it, it starts stomping and chopping MCs and tanks while shelling hordes. If you do, it goes supernova, obliterating a measure of units that way. So unless you kill it a mile from your army, bad things happen.
Well, I doubt that you can kill it from far.
With the right facing of the iron shield, the effort will be huge.
How many long range weapons do you have to strip off hull points from an AV13 walker?
Jackal wrote: Thank you very much So lance works as normal too, which is pretty sweet.
I can see the use of sweep attacks from a CCB coming into this now.
S7 + 2D6 armour pen on 3 attacks should atleast take down 1 HP minimum.
May also roll out the pask vanquisher and his 2 friends with my guard.
Not had to use those since people spammed mss land raiders in my area.
Granted they wont kill it in 1 turn, but they should strip HP pretty well.
Ill be honest, i rather fight one of these than its equal points in riptides.
The rules seem pretty solid from what ive seen.
Good enough to use, but not broken good.
The concern most people have now is what happens when it dies. Three tier explosion ring. Center is Str D, Inner and Outer rings vary depending on rolls. So this thing runs headlong at you lobbing melta or battle cannon shells. If you don't kill it, it starts stomping and chopping MCs and tanks while shelling hordes. If you do, it goes supernova, obliterating a measure of units that way. So unless you kill it a mile from your army, bad things happen.
Well, I doubt that you can kill it from far.
With the right facing of the iron shield, the effort will be huge.
How many long range weapons do you have to strip off hull points from an AV13 walker?
Well, to be honest. That thing is really tough to deal with using the regular codex. A Pylon equipped with a Gauss Exterminator should do the trick though. Outside of using escalation units that thing is really hard to take down, and if you are using escalation units it suddenly is not very impressive.
Edit: I wonder if getting several Stormteks would do the trick. Putting them in Night Scythes might work, but 2 or 4 in Ghost Arks might work better since you can deploy them from the beginning and you will not have to risk dropping them in unsafe locations.
There is a somewhat strange estimation of the damage output of a knight against a 10 man unit. The knight should on the charge average do 1 Str10 HoW, 2 StrD hits, and the stomp should get 2-3 models per marker as the models should be able to string out in b2b with the knight (average 5 AP4 wounds). If we remove the outlyers (rolling a 1 and 6) then you are looking at 6 wounds you get to make saves against and 2 you do not. Against a 10 man TAC squad that is 4 dead SM on average and even against an IG IS you would really have to mess up your model positioning to get a wiped squad. Which is both great as you will want the unit to break and run so you can shoot the thing in your turn.
Wait. Are people actually saying that two AV13 vehicles with a 4+ save are impossible to take down at range? That is essentially what a knight is, two vindicators with 4+ saves.
All of the dexs I play as have an answer. The interesting thing about this is that they have been seen less on the tables recently due to the trend toward infantry lists. Though most of the panic over killing an AV13 vehicle at range is that people expect a unit for less points than the target to kill it in a single turn...how could that possibly be balanced? My general rule is that to kill something in a single turn usually will cost 2-3x its price. Seeing as how very few units in the dexs are 375 pts or more then it should be expected that some combination of them is necessary to do the job. It also should be expected that being able to essentially table a 3 knight list in 2 turns would also not be balanced. This means to not allow the knights into melee range of your "army" you need to look at the important units in your list as your "army" and put out speed bumps to block the knight's movement. Speed bumps are ideally units who will flee from 1 round of combat with a knight but could be reused with an order or by being a SM.
+IG: Manticores, Medusa w/breachers, demoslishers, lascannon spam (vendettas most likely), pask vanquisher, etc.
+DE: Dark lances and more dark lances with perhaps some haywire scourges
+CWE: Bright Lances, perhaps someone will actually bring a battery of D cannons now?, crimson hunter, wraithknight standing in cover, DS spiders, 2 serpents on entirely different sides of the knights
+Tau: missile sides with tank hunter and drones will brutalize these things. A full unit will kill an average if 1 knight a turn with the 4+ invulnerable
+SM: dev cents w/ tank hunter, combi sternguard, devs, stormraven MM, predators, vindicators
+CSM: Oblits, las preds, eye of haywire, termicide (doesn't matter if they die)
+GK: dakka dreads, MM stormravens, psycannons, proper positioning and nemesis hammers+Hammer Hand paladins (2.7 dead paladins is acceptable for a dead IK if it comes to it), monkeys!
+Chaos Daemons: These are the hardest ones. Either you play with escalation and stronghold assault and you have access to icarus quad las vengeance battery or a daemon lord or you are playing a SH without similar access. In the first case there are a number of ranged solutions but in the second case you will either need allies or you will probably end up engaging it in melee. A combined charge by multiple DP/Great Daemons will work, a screamer star will almost assuredly kill it in one turn, and some of the psychic powers can help to mitigate it but non of these are perfect solutions in and of themselves. Daemons as it turns out are random
ansacs wrote: There is a somewhat strange estimation of the damage output of a knight against a 10 man unit. The knight should on the charge average do 1 Str10 HoW, 2 StrD hits, and the stomp should get 2-3 models per marker as the models should be able to string out in b2b with the knight (average 5 AP4 wounds). If we remove the outlyers (rolling a 1 and 6) then you are looking at 6 wounds you get to make saves against and 2 you do not. Against a 10 man TAC squad that is 4 dead SM on average and even against an IG IS you would really have to mess up your model positioning to get a wiped squad. Which is both great as you will want the unit to break and run so you can shoot the thing in your turn.
Wait. Are people actually saying that two AV13 vehicles with a 4+ save are impossible to take down at range? That is essentially what a knight is, two vindicators with 4+ saves.
Ansacs, some of what people are concerned about is that IMperial Knights are immune to shaken, stun, Wep Des and Immob results on the damage table. Yes, you can still glance/pen them for hull points, but you can never remove its potential short of killing it.
Let us compare the following.Using 4 Lascannon Heavy Weapons Teams, I shoot 6 shots each at two vindicators that somehow have a 4++. I'll average 3 hits, then we can throw out roughly half of those hits for the invuln save. Now, I'm going to be generous and call it 1 shot makes it through on each, and each pen. Now lets assume one of the shots is nice and lucky, and gets an explode result. The other one is only a stun. The end result is one vindicator is completely gone, the other has lost a hullpoint, and more importantly it can't do anything important on their next turn. While I could continue shooting at it to make it super-dead, I don't need to. As that its already neutered for a turn, my shooting can move on to other targets.
If we apply the exact same results to an Imperial Knight, and you still have a Knight that has between 1-3HP left (an explosion result removes D3+1 hullpoints). And more importantly, you have a Knight that is still just as dangerous as when you started shooting at it. The imperial knight will not stop until it is dead.
And, when compared to say, two vindicators or two leman russes', makes the Imperial Knight much tougher.
ansacs wrote: There is a somewhat strange estimation of the damage output of a knight against a 10 man unit. The knight should on the charge average do 1 Str10 HoW, 2 StrD hits, and the stomp should get 2-3 models per marker as the models should be able to string out in b2b with the knight (average 5 AP4 wounds). If we remove the outlyers (rolling a 1 and 6) then you are looking at 6 wounds you get to make saves against and 2 you do not. Against a 10 man TAC squad that is 4 dead SM on average and even against an IG IS you would really have to mess up your model positioning to get a wiped squad. Which is both great as you will want the unit to break and run so you can shoot the thing in your turn.
Wait. Are people actually saying that two AV13 vehicles with a 4+ save are impossible to take down at range? That is essentially what a knight is, two vindicators with 4+ saves.
Ansacs, some of what people are concerned about is that IMperial Knights are immune to shaken, stun, Wep Des and Immob results on the damage table. Yes, you can still glance/pen them for hull points, but you can never remove its potential short of killing it.
Let us compare the following.Using 4 Lascannon Heavy Weapons Teams, I shoot 6 shots each at two vindicators that somehow have a 4++. I'll average 3 hits, then we can throw out roughly half of those hits for the invuln save. Now, I'm going to be generous and call it 1 shot makes it through on each, and each pen. Now lets assume one of the shots is nice and lucky, and gets an explode result. The other one is only a stun. The end result is one vindicator is completely gone, the other has lost a hullpoint, and more importantly it can't do anything important on their next turn. While I could continue shooting at it to make it super-dead, I don't need to. As that its already neutered for a turn, my shooting can move on to other targets.
If we apply the exact same results to an Imperial Knight, and you still have a Knight that has between 1-3HP left (an explosion result removes D3+1 hullpoints). And more importantly, you have a Knight that is still just as dangerous as when you started shooting at it. The imperial knight will not stop until it is dead.
And, when compared to say, two vindicators or two leman russes', makes the Imperial Knight much tougher.
Thank you. This is exactly what people aren't realizing.
Maybe it's tougher than two Vindicators, but tougher than 2 Russes? I don't think so. Armor 14 completely ignores a whole slice of very popular weapons (S6/7), AV 13 on the side means even if you get it flanked, you're still having trouble. Russes can be taken down at range with lascannons, but it's not very efficient, and substantially more difficult than Knights. Two stock Russes are also 70 points less than a Knight, with the same firepower. Nobody thinks they're broken. For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up. Moving up exposes multiple sides to fire, making it a lot easier to bring down.
Biophysical wrote: Maybe it's tougher than two Vindicators, but tougher than 2 Russes? I don't think so. Armor 14 completely ignores a whole slice of very popular weapons (S6/7), AV 13 on the side means even if you get it flanked, you're still having trouble. Russes can be taken down at range with lascannons, but it's not very efficient, and substantially more difficult than Knights. Two stock Russes are also 70 points less than a Knight, with the same firepower. Nobody thinks they're broken. For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up. Moving up exposes multiple sides to fire, making it a lot easier to bring down.
Ansacs, some of what people are concerned about is that IMperial Knights are immune to shaken, stun, Wep Des and Immob results on the damage table. Yes, you can still glance/pen them for hull points, but you can never remove its potential short of killing it.
Let us compare the following.Using 4 Lascannon Heavy Weapons Teams, I shoot 6 shots each at two vindicators that somehow have a 4++. I'll average 3 hits, then we can throw out roughly half of those hits for the invuln save. Now, I'm going to be generous and call it 1 shot makes it through on each, and each pen. Now lets assume one of the shots is nice and lucky, and gets an explode result. The other one is only a stun. The end result is one vindicator is completely gone, the other has lost a hullpoint, and more importantly it can't do anything important on their next turn. While I could continue shooting at it to make it super-dead, I don't need to. As that its already neutered for a turn, my shooting can move on to other targets.
If we apply the exact same results to an Imperial Knight, and you still have a Knight that has between 1-3HP left (an explosion result removes D3+1 hullpoints). And more importantly, you have a Knight that is still just as dangerous as when you started shooting at it. The imperial knight will not stop until it is dead.
And, when compared to say, two vindicators or two leman russes', makes the Imperial Knight much tougher.
Last I checked, Russes aren't immune to the usual damage table, can't hide in melee, and can't move up to 24" per turn. So no, they're not broken.
Biophysical wrote: Maybe it's tougher than two Vindicators, but tougher than 2 Russes? I don't think so. Armor 14 completely ignores a whole slice of very popular weapons (S6/7), AV 13 on the side means even if you get it flanked, you're still having trouble. Russes can be taken down at range with lascannons, but it's not very efficient, and substantially more difficult than Knights. Two stock Russes are also 70 points less than a Knight, with the same firepower. Nobody thinks they're broken. For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up. Moving up exposes multiple sides to fire, making it a lot easier to bring down.
Two Russes also don't have the same firepower. They lack StrD melee and stomp attacks. And they don't have an invul save, so unless you're hiding them in marine-allied-techmarine-fortified area terrain of ruins, they have a 5+ that can be ignored by top tier armies to the Knight's 4++ which cannot.
Russes will flat out ignore a lot of the shots that can hurt a Knight thanks to one higher AV. They don't ignore the damage table, they just can't get hurt, or are only glanced. They will probably also get a 5+ cover save, so it's not that much worse than the single direction 4++ for the Knight. Both dual Russes and the Paladin both have two Battlecannon shots +/- heavy stubbers and snapshot heavy bolters, which is the same firepower at range, apologies, for not including close combat ability as "firepower". My point, which you pretty much made by highlighting the Knight's close range power is (from my previous post):
"For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up. Moving up exposes multiple sides to fire, making it a lot easier to bring down."
I should also add that moving up makes it that much easier to engage with melta weapons.
I guess what I'm saying is that the Knight can be really hard to kill (for the points), or it can be really scary (for the points), but it really can't be both.
Biophysical wrote: Russes will flat out ignore a lot of the shots that can hurt a Knight thanks to one higher AV. They don't ignore the damage table, they just can't get hurt, or are only glanced. They will probably also get a 5+ cover save, so it's not that much worse than the single direction 4++ for the Knight. Both dual Russes and the Paladin both have two Battlecannon shots +/- heavy stubbers and snapshot heavy bolters, which is the same firepower at range, apologies, for not including close combat ability as "firepower". My point, which you pretty much made by highlighting the Knight's close range power is (from my previous post):
"For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up. Moving up exposes multiple sides to fire, making it a lot easier to bring down."
I should also add that moving up makes it that much easier to engage with melta weapons.
I guess what I'm saying is that the Knight can be really hard to kill (for the points), or it can be really scary (for the points), but it really can't be both.
A LRBT is only AV13 in the sides and AV10 in the back. As long as you are not shooting front armour (not a hard thing to do) russes are easy to take out. Also being are to kill and being "scary" are not exclusive. Some times it's the same thing. A knight ignore all damage table rolls other than explodes. Tau will easily ignore your cover.
Plus look at how wide a Knight is. Its side armor band is not wide at all. Plus a 4++ just flat out ignores half of damage. There is so much ignores cover out there cover is a joke now.
Biophysical wrote: For the Knight to be worth it, you've got to move up.
I do not think that this is really true, a knight can do very well as a back line objective claimer. A paladin has the range to contribute decent firepower to the main battle line, has the speed to redeploy to weak points as needed and is a very good counter assault. One of these hidden inside a gunline makes it a much harder nut to crack, as there is now a very large threat that is well bubble wrapped and can be a major headache to assault units.
The scoring is also a massive boon. I have considered using a knight paladin as my only scoring unit in an ABG list, which has notoriously weak scoring. It removes the reliance on weak armoured fist squads to score, whilst not compromising too much on firepower and adding to the high AV saturation.
Why are people trying to compare a walker to a tank, let alone with a points difference?
This thing is pretty unique as it is since it should be fairly common due to a cheap ish price.
£300 tends to put people off of warhounds, but £85 for a knight?
I see alot more people going for this.
Since im mainly running my necrons now anyway, gauss will quite happily work for me since im used to just stripping HP.
If i do start running into issues with it and find its quite common, ill just run another lord with 5 stormteks to solve the issue.
20 haywire shots per turn should do decent damage.
Trickstick: I'll concede that a knight providing fire support in a gunline and acting as counter-attack is a pretty difficult to kill unit. Isn't this a shooting edition, though? Do gunlines really have a lot of trouble with assault units reaching them? I know there are a few re-rollable save deathstars out there that will care, but is this thing really changing how gunlines play? It's firepower per point is really not that good.
I do think the Errant version with a super-melta brings something pretty interesting to the table (shooting-wise), though.
The whole "this is a shooting edition" thing is only true to a certain extent. There are lots of fast, deadly assault units that can put a lot of pain into a gunline, especially if your opponent uses LOS properly in order to close the distance.
I'll never bring a Knight, simply because I know it will ruin games and I play with people I actually like the vast majority of the time.
However, I do think it will be a good case for Medusas with BB shells. Not too often they are the best port of call, but they stand a good chance of hurting a Knight badly. Yay for oversized artillery pieces.
I think people are misinterpreting some key rules here.
First off, if you destroy a knight in CC it scatter 2d6 inches. So yeah, it has a chance of not striking the models that blew it up at all with the STR D blast. If a hit is scored it still scatters regardless anything above 6 inches away and you are pretty okay you'll suffer from some possible out edge blasts but that's it.
The next is
Anything that is in a Flying Monstrous Creature with a STR of 7 or More can knock the crap out of these guys. People say Tyranids can't deal with them, uh yes they can. Vector Strike, hits side armour allows them no save.
The next is
Barrage!!!
Anything that is Barrage Heavy or has a STR of 6 or more and can be fire out of LOS wrecks them. Barrage acts as if it strikes the vehicle on the side armour regardles of where the blast template is.
It only has a 4+ save against a facing of its choosing.
I pair of thunderfire cannons for 200 points could blow one of these up and it couldn't do anything about it if it was out of LOS. Also that base is HUGE on anything more than 4 it still hits it.
Honestly it's a super balanced unit. It's not quite a glass canon but still kind of close.
As an eldar player I will gladly be fielding my Vauls Artillery with some D-cannons. S10 Ap 2 with barrage will be making short work of an expensive model. In return my warlock shrouded artillery unit will be snickering behind a building.
CorpseCommander wrote: As an eldar player I will gladly be fielding my Vauls Artillery with some D-cannons. S10 Ap 2 with barrage will be making short work of an expensive model. In return my warlock shrouded artillery unit will be snickering behind a building.
Down with meta!
2 choices
cower out of range of the vauls and give up the knights mobility/cc
bumrush the vauls with more than 1 knight. they can get there in 2 turns, but will probably lose 1 to the vauls. won't work if you go crazy with multiple vauls, but that's a very static short ranged list.
Does the Eldar's 'Disarming Strike' ability work on the IK's D weapon? So for example could I attack it in melee with an Avatar and possibly disable it's ability to use strength D melee attacks to wipe out the Avatar (assuming it survives the Avatar's smash attacks)?
J.Black wrote: AS might be the army that has the least problems taking these things down. Even a TaC list will sport at least one unit of doms with 4-5 meltas and probably a couple of exorcists... not to mention there will likely be even more melta riding around on/in transports.
That's a lot of S8 AP1, and it has a lot of reach thanks to scout/outflank. Should be relatively easy to threaten more than one facing and force it to either expose itself to twin-linked melta shots or a bunch of missiles.
Heh. And a Priest can give a blob squad Fearless, though as people have said blobbing Knights is probably a suicide mission.
Cross-posted from the Sisters of Battle tactics thread, where we've been discussing counters:
SisterSydney wrote: 6 HP for 375 points? Ahahahahahahahahaha..... That's enough for three Exorcists, with 9 HP, firing 3d6 (average 10.5) S:8 AP:1 shots a turn from three different angles so at least one gets around the shield.
The Knight's better by far beyond 48" and in melee, of course. But in a lot of setups the Exorcists can either start within 48" of the Knight so they can shoot back or behind cover so it can't shoot them. And then it has to walk through your zone of fire if it wants to hit you with that lovely Destroyer close combat weapon.
Automatically Appended Next Post: PS: Not saying the Knight is terrible, it's really interesting, but it's hardly game-breaking and may often be a bad choice for points spent, kind of like a Land Raider, and because of a similar schizophrenia about roles: If you want to use the Destroyer CCW you have to give up your range advantage, if you want to exploit your range advantage -- and stay alive, given your 6 HP -- your CCW might as well be a paper sword with sparkles glued to it.
SisterSydney wrote: I'm playing pure theoryhammer here, I don't have the model, and being wrong is another of my hobbies, but:
The Knight's shield only covers "one facing." That means if you can get a crossfire on it, it has to choose which side to protect. Ideally you want your three Exorcists on the far left, center, and far right while the Knight obligingly walks right up the middle so you can hit both sides and the front facing at once.
A more cautious Knight will cling to one corner of the board, but if you spread your Exorcists out enough you should still be able to threaten two sides at once.
These side shots are much easier to get on a wide, narrow battlefield -- eg Dawn of War or Vanguard Strike deployment -- where you can really spread your Exorcists out and they'll probably be in range from turn one. Hammer & Anvil is your enemy here, since it makes side angles harder and lets a Knight-Paladin camp out in the corner behind the shield and take shots at you from beyond your 48" maximum range. That's when you want your Exorcists in a reverse-slope position behind a LOS-blocking ridge, ready to roll up into firing positions when the Knight advances... or when something else advances you've got to deal with, at which point the Knight picks you off. Ugly.
For a corner-camping Knight Paladin, I'd suggest deep striking Seraphim with Melta Bombs... I'd be worried about it blowing up outflanking Domions before they can reach it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: No, wait, I'm an idiot: Serpahim would get stomped to death before they could take away enough HP with melta bombs and inferno pistols. Outflanking Dominions in TL Multi-Melta Immolators would probably strip away more Hull Points before dying.
Yes, I may be an idiot about other things as well, of course.
The Knight just has to turn at the end of it's move so that the imaginary line that separates the front arc and one of the side arcs points directly at the opposing table edge.
That means the front facing 180 degrees consists of 90 degrees best armour and 90 degrees Ion Shield.
On that basis the 10.5 shots basically drop out at ~1 glancing/penetrating hit.
Baragash wrote: The Knight just has to turn at the end of it's move so that the imaginary line that separates the front arc and one of the side arcs points directly at the opposing table edge.
That means the front facing 180 degrees consists of 90 degrees best armour and 90 degrees Ion Shield.
On that basis the 10.5 shots basically drop out at ~1 glancing/penetrating hit.
Two versus AV13, one a glance and one a pen. Assuming the void shield is on an AV12 side and the AV13 side hits it. And no cover for the Knight. So, your one pen then has to roll a 4+ on top of that to give you a significant damage result.
Ok, that's nasty. Looks like the Exorcists' job may be to keep the Knights' shield facing front while Dominions in multi-melta infiltrators scout/outflank... or vice versa.
Yes, that's way more points than a Knight costs, but it's also something most take-all-comers Sisters armies have already, and it's best to concentrate fire on such a dangerous target to kill it as fast as possible.
The problem I keep seeing is people naming one or two units that can bring down a Knight, without realizing the defensive math behind this machine.
Take your number of special weapons in the squad you're oh-so-certain will kill a knight. Assume they're BS4. So multiply your weapon count by 2/3 for misses. Now, cut your number of weapons in half for the void shield. I'm not certain of the math behind the penetration for say, a meltagun, but let's go ahead and hit the new number with another 2/3 multiplier. Or 5/6, if it makes you feel better, to account for penetration.
That's how many special weapons are actually going to do something. Half that number again for AP1 weapons, and that's tangible damage.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So, every meltagun you bring is roughly 5/18's of a meltagun. Not accounting for penetration results, which turn it into 5/36's of a meltagun.
Hmmm. I'll have to run the math when I'm not feverishly on deadline. A single Dominion squad in an Immolator can fire four meltaguns and a twin-linked multi-melta, all at BS:4, but that 4++ Ion Shield sure is nasty.
Apparently, someone mentioned rolling Telekinesis on the Chaos Side if doing Flying Circus.
If you have Be'lakor, you shouldn't need to roll on Telepathy anymore.
Slaanesh Princes should have lashes for Biomancy and hope for Iron Arm.
Any other Princes w/ Telekinesis in hopes of getting Crush, Objuration Mechanicum, and Vortex of Doom to have at least some chance of stripping Hullpoints.
Allied Heldrakes w/ Hades Autocannon for Hull-point stripping.
The combination of Vector Strikes and slow HP removal should be enough eventually. A weakened knight can be assaulted safely to take down the final HPs if you wish to trade in your FMC but if they survive, good for you.
I figured that a unit of 3 stormteks and a veiltek (for something like 135p) would be able to hurt a knight without giving up a solar pulse or destroyer lord. Combined with gauss fire that should help. Of course in order to really murder them in a round you will need two courts. Can still run two solar pulses in that list, but no destroyer lord for the wraiths.
Not too familiar with super heavies though. The blast may take them with it. And I am assuming haywire works against them.
So how do they fare in the near-optimal scenario where everyone with melta gets into melta range and fires at once?
(Calculations spoilered below; please point out any errors! Edited to fix error -- the real result is actually nastier to the Knight by half a glance. Many thanks to Mavnas for catching my mistake.)
Spoiler:
1. What shoots? The melta bombs don't come into play in shooting, obviously, and the Immolator can't move up with the Dominions, fire its multi-melta, and fire its hunter-killer missile, so only the Exorcist gets to fire its HK. Assume everything else gets to fire.
BZZAP BZZAP WHOOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH BZZAP! (Uh, those are melta beam and missile launch sound effects, m'kay?)
2. What hits? That's 1d6 S:8 AP:1 but-not-melta Exorcist shots, also at BS4. Average of 3.5 shots, 67% hit = 2.345 hits. Also the Exorcist fires its hunter-killer missile, because why the feth not, so that's 0.67 hits at S:8 but only AP:3. So the Exorcist averages 3.015 S:8 hits, though not all will get the damage table bonus for AP:1.
The Dominions & co. give you 7 S:8 AP:1 melta shots: one at BS:3 w/ a 50% chance of hitting (the priest), 5 at BS:4 with a 67% chance (Dominions), and one twin-linked BS4 with an 89% chance of hitting (the Immolator). That gives you an average of 0.5 + 3.35 + 0.89= 4.74 hits.
Clearly the melta weapons are the much bigger threat, so any sane Knight player would have his Ion Shield pointed towards them, with a 50% chance to nullify a hit: We're down to 2.37 melta hits.
Assume the Exorcists' missiles are coming in more than 90 degrees offset from the Dominion squad, so they don't get cut down by the Ion Shield.
3. What hurts? But let's not get too confident about getting side angles, so let's say all our hits impact the front armour, also it's simpler this way and I'm tired: AV13.
The Exorcist: S:8 glances AV:13 on a roll of 5 and penetrates on a roll of 6, each of which happens 16.7 percent of the time: with 3.015 hits, that's average of 0.5 glances and 0.5 penetrations. (Let's assume it's the HK missile that doesn't penetrate so we don't have to worry about different AP values having different damage table modifiers; yes, that slightly favors the Exorcist here, but then we're also assuming it didn't get the side armour).
The meltas: S:8 melta glances AV:13 only 11.1 percent of the time, because you're rolling 2d6. 2.37 hits yield a whopping 0.26 glances. S:8 melta penetrates AV:13 on a 6+, which on 2d6 happens 72% of the time. (Yay, melta). 2.37 hits yield 1.7 penetrations.
So we're at a total of 0.76 glances and 2.2 penetrations. That's 2.96 hull points stripped right there -- the Knight, on average, is halfway to dead.
Then we get to roll twice on the vehicle damage table -- but only a "6: explodes!" result matters (boo, superheavy vehicles). But we get a +2 modifier (yay, AP1), which means a 4, 5, or a 6 actually get an "explodes" result: That's 50% of the time.
So on average, we Explode! once, and do an additional 1D3 damage: 1.52 hull points.
Total damage: 4.464.96HP.
The average result? Your Knight is still fighting at full capacity -- so we can expect some of our shooters to go away violently the next turn -- but it's down to only one Hull point1 or 2 HP remaining, more likely 1, and not long for this world.
Obviously getting all this melta within 6" of a Knight takes tactical skill (or an inept opponent) and decent luck. But this scenario also assumes the Sisters player only goes after the Knight with an equal points value force, not concentrating fire at all, which requires tactical ineptitude (or an adept opponent) and poor luck.
What's more, a Sisters list can afford one Exorcist and one Dominion-Immolator squad for each Knight it faces, and a take-all-comers Sisters army probably will because lots of Exorcists and Dominions is the currently favored build.
I'm not saying a Sororitas force can routinely wipe the floor with Knights, far from it: Their long-range firepower and melee brutality make them serious threats at the two ranges Sisters have the most trouble with, i.e. beyond 24" and within 1". I'm just saying that Sisters have a good chance of killing their own point value of Knights in a single round of shooting and a high probability of killing a single Knight if they get to concentrate fire on it.
Sisters are probably going to be the best at this, as J. Black said, thanks to all their Scouting/Outflanking meltaguns but I suspect most other armies can come up with a similar package of anti-armor firepower that can be used against Knights or other targets (i.e. you don't have to specialize in Knight-killing at the expense of everything else)
Conveniently, a Knight's 12'' movement gives it plenty of options for not being in 6'' melta range. Specifically, hover 18'' away. Either receive shots from 18'' (oh no!), or at 12'' (oh no!). Follow both by advancing twelve, shooting, and charging.
Getting to within 6'' of a Knight on your movement with a full-capacity squad takes just shy of a miracle unless it's deep striking.
McManiak wrote: I was chatting with a friend about this. He has ordered 4 (works for GW so 50% helps). That us his 1490 list. 2 paladins and 2 errants.
That one line alone makes me want to work part time for GW for them savings!!!
obsidiankatana wrote: Conveniently, a Knight's 12'' movement gives it plenty of options for not being in 6'' melta range. Specifically, hover 18'' away. Either receive shots from 18'' (oh no!), or at 12'' (oh no!). Follow both by advancing twelve, shooting, and charging.
Getting to within 6'' of a Knight on your movement with a full-capacity squad takes just shy of a miracle unless it's deep striking.
Remember the Sororitas Dominions can Scout (probably the best option if you get first turn) or Outflank (best if you go second). They can also drive up 6" in their Immolator, dismount 6", and shoot 6" -- which puts the target within melta range of the Immolator's multi-melta -- so that's an 18" total threat radius.
Knights are fast and hard to catch, definitely, but it's by no means impossible. Again, I'm arguing they're actually a better balanced unit than many people have been fearing.
Remember the Sororitas Dominions can Scout (probably the best option if you get first turn) or Outflank (best if you go second). They can also drive up 6" in their Immolator, dismount 6", and shoot 6" -- which puts the target within melta range of the Immolator's multi-melta -- so that's an 18" total threat radius.
Knights are fast and hard to catch, definitely, but it's by no means impossible. Again, I'm arguing they're actually a better balanced unit than many people have been fearing.
No doubt, the things aren't immortal. But I firmly believe any single squad short of a dedicated haywire squad cannot be relied upon to kill a knight. Even the Dominion, with their 18'' threat range on first turn (scouting). If I face off against them, I'm putting the Knight >24'' away and shooting until you get within 18''. Then doing the aforementioned, advance 12'' shoot and charge.
Oh, absolutely, the Dominion-in-Immolator combo can't bring down a Knight by itself: It'll get one turn of shooting, strip some hullpoints, then die. It's multiple Dominions squads and/or Exorcists concentrating fire that are the threat.
Knights are fast and hard to catch, definitely, but it's by no means impossible. Again, I'm arguing they're actually a better balanced unit than many people have been fearing.
Exactly.
They would only seem to be game breaking if someone takes more than 2. Even then, if they run into an airforce they're in serious trouble.
As SisterSydney points out, I wasn't trying to argue that AS can just take knights in their stride and blow them up whenever the opportunity presents itself, just that the most common TaC lists will almost certainly have the firepower to deal with 1 (maybe even 2 )
I can't wait to fight against one of these things; tactical postioning will be extremely important. Assuming the knight player doesn't just sit back and blast away at range, they're going to be coming forward which just means you have to be careful with pre-measuring and make damn sure that wherever it goes to cause trouble it's going to be putting itself into a position where it will be threatened on multiple facings with S8 Ap1 firepower. This not only gives you a good chance at killing it (or wiping out a good portion of it's precious hull points) but kind of limits it's impact against the rest of your forces. I'm not normally a fan of splitting up my army (I like to play in a slightly distributed castle formation where all my units can support each other) but if facing one of these things i'd be sorely tempted to put an exorcist and a melta-Dom team on either side of the board and force it to either attack one of them - and expose it's side armour to the other - or try to play more carefully and reduce it to blasting away from range until it can safely advance (i.e. one side of my army has been neutralised).
Funnily enough, I think taking a knight against AS will just reduce your chances of winning! If you play an army with lots of ignores cover, ap2/3, medium to long range S7-8 firepower, and mobility, chances are that you were going to have a great chance of winning anyway as those are all pretty hard counters to any AS army.... taking a knight just wastes points that could have been better spent elsewhere. If you don't have those tools, the AS will melt your army and have all the tools to deal with that 400pt beast you brought along.
A beatstick IC in a mid sized unit of 10 to 20 models should do the trick.
D weapon hits=allocate hits to peons. After 4 rounds of cc a 3a knight will only average 6 hits v equal ws or 8 hits v lower ws. draigo, Abby, or any IC with loads of high attacks like a chapter master. It will also require a chainfist, deamon weapon, or inquisitor with hammer hand to buff the hits up to s10 to wreck it as s8 not enough to rapidly wreck the knight.
stomps are over rated against a unit with a beatstick ic. First off allocate d weapon hits to the most clustered areas of peons. Against a 10 strong meq unit they won't get many hits. against a blob or zombie horde allocate stomps to decluster first, then start los the hits away from the beatstick or tank with a 2+ armor save. even with pile ins the 2nd round won's be as bad as the first. After 2 rounds of d weapon hits and the first round of stomps the 2nd and subsequent rounds of stomps shouldn't be that bad. The weakness of the plan is everything goes to gak if the 1 in 6 chance of str d stomps happens on round 1.
Knights should use their speed to avoid IC that can buff up to s10 hits or armorbane.
He get's D3 stomps, and that template can be placed over the IC, it specifically says models under the blast template. Stomp will kill IC.
Also, I think you can cast Endurance on it. Although I am unclear on rules of psychic powers and Super Heavy Walkers.
If you can then welp, enjoy playing against Invisible, It will not Die, and whatever else blessings can be cast on Super Heavy Walkers. I mean really all you need to do is get him Invisibility and that pretty much solves most of the problems. It has a 4+ I think Cover Save, Plus can choose a side for its shield and if you charge it you strike at WS 1
They're not broken on their own they become a little brokey when you can cast psychic buffs on them.
You can't choose the order of stomps vs. normal attacks, initiative does that for you.
That said the most common stomp result is AP4... Not so scary to MEQ.
In the dominion + exorcist vs. knight scenario... You were off by .5 (average roll on a d3 is 2 not 1.5). Also if the knight shoots the exorcist it has <50% chance of exploding it then it charges a squad with two melta bombs in it, guaranteeing its own destruction?
Mavnas wrote: You can't choose the order of stomps vs. normal attacks, initiative does that for you.
That said the most common stomp result is AP4... Not so scary to MEQ.
In the dominion + exorcist vs. knight scenario... You were off by .5 (average roll on a d3 is 2 not 1.5). Also if the knight shoots the exorcist it has <50% chance of exploding it then it charges a squad with two melta bombs in it, guaranteeing its own destruction?
Two melta bombs does not a guaranteed dead knight make. Not at all.
Mavnas wrote: You can't choose the order of stomps vs. normal attacks, initiative does that for you.
That said the most common stomp result is AP4... Not so scary to MEQ.
In the dominion + exorcist vs. knight scenario... You were off by .5 (average roll on a d3 is 2 not 1.5). Also if the knight shoots the exorcist it has <50% chance of exploding it then it charges a squad with two melta bombs in it, guaranteeing its own destruction?
Two melta bombs does not a guaranteed dead knight make. Not at all.
Nope, but if you go back to SisterSydney's previous post.... you might see why it makes a difference
Nope, but if you go back to SisterSydney's previous post.... you might see why it makes a difference
So, in a scenario where a Knight eats full melta fire from a squad inside melta range then voluntarily charges the full-count squad toting melta bombs, it will die. Sure. An extremely unlikely scenario, however.
Nope, but if you go back to SisterSydney's previous post.... you might see why it makes a difference
So, in a scenario where a Knight eats full melta fire from a squad inside melta range then voluntarily charges the full-count squad toting melta bombs, it will die. Sure. An extremely unlikely scenario, however.
The point is that knight is probably dead without outside units saving it. If it fires at the squad, an exorcist and immolator will finish it, if it shoots at the vehicles, then there's an intact tank-murdering squad on the loose. Really it's best bet is to run away, try to blow up the immolator so the squad loses its transport and then play keep away, but a knight that's reduced to just shooting is a very crippled knight.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think the real moral of the story is a Sisters of battle army facing a knight should try to pack a priest and and sister superior with melta bombs in every squad it can, and then not worry overmuch about knights.
Yeah, Sisters are definitely nasty for Knights, if played skillfully. (I don't think I could pull it off...).
Now: can people who know other armies well come up with a comparable package of forces that can kill a Knight without being so specialized it's useless in a take-all-comers list?
Nope, but if you go back to SisterSydney's previous post.... you might see why it makes a difference
So, in a scenario where a Knight eats full melta fire from a squad inside melta range then voluntarily charges the full-count squad toting melta bombs, it will die. Sure. An extremely unlikely scenario, however.
The point is that knight is probably dead without outside units saving it. If it fires at the squad, an exorcist and immolator will finish it, if it shoots at the vehicles, then there's an intact tank-murdering squad on the loose. Really it's best bet is to run away, try to blow up the immolator so the squad loses its transport and then play keep away, but a knight that's reduced to just shooting is a very crippled knight.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think the real moral of the story is a Sisters of battle army facing a knight should try to pack a priest and and sister superior with melta bombs in every squad it can, and then not worry overmuch about knights.
I don't think you fully understand the capabilities of the Knight. It can shoot the squad with its primary weapon if it so chooses (double tap battle cannon, anyone?), target the immolater with a heavy stubber, then charge the immolater and crush it with a D weapon - extinguishing two targets. Alternative the errant will reverse these roles, shooting the immolater primary with the thermal cannon to cause the damage while shooting the sisters with a stubber and charging them. Therein lies the problem with depending on short-ranged weapons to kill a Knight - that means it's also in range.
The heavily damaged knight charging the squad is exactly what that squad wants. It's losing 2-4 sisters and inflicting 2 wounds in return. The melta blast has about a 40% chance of killing the immolator assuming insufficient scatter to take the template off.
Mavnas wrote: The heavily damaged knight charging the squad is exactly what that squad wants. It's losing 2-4 sisters and inflicting 2 wounds in return. The melta blast has about a 40% chance of killing the immolator assuming insufficient scatter to take the template off.
What has heavily damaged it? 12'' movement. It can safely stay out of even multi-melta half-range until it wants to charge. 19'' is the golden range, proving for a 7'' charge (average of 2d6). Even easier for meltaguns. And that 40% chance is an infinitely better chance than the Sisters can hope for in destroying the Knight. Further, a stunned/shaken/weapon destroyed is almost just as good as destroying an Immolater (unless they have a secondary weapon, then you've a 50/50 shot of disabling the tank).
I repeat, short ranged weapons are not ideal for engaging Knights. Not unless they come in from deep strike. The Knight's mobility is a HUGE advantage.
Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of the "please charge me I have melta bombs" tactic.
It's totally worth the 5-10 points per squad to load up on them as a last resort for all sorts of targets, but if they're your primary anti-armour weapon -- let alone your primary anti-Knight weapon -- you're doing something wrong.
canadianguy wrote: My sobs pack 3 exorcists, 18 mg and 6 tlmm at 2000 points. Bring on the knights not an army I fear.
You should be a knight army which would be 6 knights at that point level would wreck that army. Your MM is no threat as you will never be in range, and 12 battle cannon or 6/ large blast melta shots per turn is going to take exorcists pretty easily. The warlod knight has a 3++ dont forget about that.
Doms really are a nice answer to the imperial knights. They do good damage when in range and if the IK deploys way into the backfield to avoid them then it's damage output is definitely not 375 pts worth. Remember you get cover saves against it's weapons.
Another interesting way to deal with them would be 10 SoB units and a priest charging it or getting charged. The priest can use the reroll armour saves ability in the assault phase. The IK will do an average of 2 kills an assault phase if it didn't charge and ~2.6 on the charge. Taking ~3 game turns to break out against a relatively cheap unit will put a big damper on it and allow you to stretch your doms out further than otherwise.
ansacs wrote: Doms really are a nice answer to the imperial knights. They do good damage when in range and if the IK deploys way into the backfield to avoid them then it's damage output is definitely not 375 pts worth. Remember you get cover saves against it's weapons.
Another interesting way to deal with them would be 10 SoB units and a priest charging it or getting charged. The priest can use the reroll armour saves ability in the assault phase. The IK will do an average of 2 kills an assault phase if it didn't charge and ~2.6 on the charge. Taking ~3 game turns to break out against a relatively cheap unit will put a big damper on it and allow you to stretch your doms out further than otherwise.
The knight dosent get armor saves in CC. Also you are forgetting about the stomp, the stomp is what kills infantry. Infinarty weather it be melta guns or CC attacks just arent viable against the knight. Even if by the emperors mercy you some how kill it in CC it will exsplode in a str D large blast killing everything that killed it. Then you still have all the other knights to worry about.
canadianguy wrote: My sobs pack 3 exorcists, 18 mg and 6 tlmm at 2000 points. Bring on the knights not an army I fear.
You should be a knight army which would be 6 knights at that point level would wreck that army. Your MM is no threat as you will never be in range, and 12 battle cannon or 6/ large blast melta shots per turn is going to take exorcists pretty easily. The warlod knight has a 3++ dont forget about that.
Okay fine enough talking about Sisters for feth's sake. Let's talk about all the other armies in the game and how they can deal with Knights without fielding ludicrously overspecialized lists or just taking superheavies of their own.
(Yes, I'm a Sororitas fan saying there's been too much emphasis on Sisters in a 40K discussion. Who'd have thought we'd ever see the day?).
I'm not sure people are taking the ranges of the knight's weapons into account. We have a guy in our store who has three of them and he allies them with marines. Three of them, 18 HPs worth, have never been destroyed in any of our games. He doesn't need to be at the front edge of his deployment zone because the Paladin has a 72" range and the errant has a 36" range. It's not rocket science for the knight player to figure out if you rush a unit up to the knight that the unit is probably a threat. You're not going to face just one knight when it comes to shooting but probably all three (if that is even necessary). With ordinance 2, STR 8 AP 3 large blasts, he easily destroys MEQ units. Our knight player doesn't need to get in melee to do damage, the large blasts are more than sufficient. And don't forget the 500+pts of marines that fill the biggest weakness which is air defense. Fliers are the scariest thing for a knight player as the only weapon they have that can hit a flier is a heavy stubber (str 4, ap 6). As for objectives, if the Knight player brings three knights and camps them on the objective on turn 4 or 5 after he's killed all the big threatening units, there isn't much that can be done. Vector strike from Crones has done some damage, melta bombs have done some damage, I think he lost one knight in a game so far but they are mighty resilient, even with only having av 13 on front.
For me, as a necron player, for 100pts, I can bring 4 storm techs with assault 4 haywire attacks. The trick is getting them to combat (the 5th tech can be a despair tech, bumping the cost to 160pt). I can also bring doomscythes that the knight player can't shoot back that will get two str 10 hits as well as the (mostly ineffective) tesla destructor shots. I give up my barges for DS, and have to take two overlords for two royal courts, but the knights aren't impossible. And chances are I don't need to kill them all to win, it is an objective based game afterall. The downside is that I don't have a TAC list since I just spent 535pts on DS and 320pts on two RCs. Mind you, I haven't had a chance to use this list against the knight player, he is getting a lot of challenges at the moment.
You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...
Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?
Mavnas wrote: You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...
Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?
Man, these fully-space-inside-melta-range-immolater-riding-priest-buffed-sisters-that-made-it-to-a-knight-unharmed sound pretty terrifying.
That's all great theory craft now what do you do when there are two with any of the psychic powers that either. Make it invisible or give it a four plus reroll invulnerable or give the it will not die and the army has two fliers or whatever they become broken with. Certain buffs
Mavnas wrote: I'm sure other armies have scouts with melta guns.
I really don't understand what scout is doing for you here. It's a 12'' gun with a 6'' bonus range. There's 24'' between both armies assuming everyone's on the line. You literally have to move 18'' to get in melta range, and if you have a scouting meltagun that can achieve this odds are Knights are not deploying on that line. If they are, your opponent is inept.
Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.
Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.
I find it interesting that everyone is trying to show that Knights are not broken by showing different ways for every army, except Nids and Orks, to take them out.
Mavnas wrote: Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.
Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.
Cool, 3 guys with melta guns get out, 2 hit then 1 gets saved by the shield. The knight looses a couple HPs then kills the whole squad.
Mavnas wrote: Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.
Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.
But that's not forcing them that far from melee. That's forcing you to drive into the enemy deployment zone. Knights outrange you. One has an effective 30'' melta every turn, that can fire an effective 48'' at base Str9 Ap2. The other is a 12'' moving battle cannon. You cannot out run it, not in a transport. A Knight is perfectly content to shoot you until the optimal charge presents itself. That's what its immense mobility allows it to do - the Knight picks when these fights happen, not you. Every turn you aren't shooting meltaguns at a Knight is a turn it's pounding you with its longer-range weapons.
Happyjew wrote: I find it interesting that everyone is trying to show that Knights are not broken by showing different ways for every army, except Nids and Orks, to take them out.
Don't know about bugs... Orks struggle with armour no matter what shape it comes in.
Running up and hitting them with a big klaw is the standard approach for armour. Sadly this isn't a great idea in this case.
Secondary approach is running up and hitting them with a solid metal rolla on the front of a tank. This option is still sound!
Battlewagon or Big Trakk with Rolla in your heavy support.
Mekboy Junkas with Rolla in your elites,
Maybe even some more battlewagons in your troops!
Stick a mek in here, those knights can't ignore his KFF cover save at range.
Then it's ramming speed all the way! They may get their 4+ invul, but never mind!
Grot tank mobs with Rokkit launchers are just too awesome to ignore!
And my personal favourite, the Grot Mega tank!
Both with an impressive 5+ invulnerable!
Plenty of Str8 range, Str10 rams and more targets than you can shake a Rapid-Firing Battlecannon at!
Even Blitza-bombers and Tank-Bustas may see more use.
Mavnas wrote: Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.
Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.
Cool, 3 guys with melta guns get out, 2 hit then 1 gets saved by the shield. The knight looses a couple HPs then kills the whole squad.
How much melta fire can a LotD squad bring? They can deep strike and shrug off the blasts with 3++, right?
Thats not a bad idea, would have to run the math on that, lotd are pretty expensive and I feel the combination of the blasts plus the str D chainsword (which ignores their 3++) and the stomp might still kill them in 1 turn.
ansacs wrote: Doms really are a nice answer to the imperial knights. They do good damage when in range and if the IK deploys way into the backfield to avoid them then it's damage output is definitely not 375 pts worth. Remember you get cover saves against it's weapons.
Another interesting way to deal with them would be 10 SoB units and a priest charging it or getting charged. The priest can use the reroll armour saves ability in the assault phase. The IK will do an average of 2 kills an assault phase if it didn't charge and ~2.6 on the charge. Taking ~3 game turns to break out against a relatively cheap unit will put a big damper on it and allow you to stretch your doms out further than otherwise.
The knight dosent get armor saves in CC. Also you are forgetting about the stomp, the stomp is what kills infantry. Infinarty weather it be melta guns or CC attacks just arent viable against the knight. Even if by the emperors mercy you some how kill it in CC it will exsplode in a str D large blast killing everything that killed it. Then you still have all the other knights to worry about.
Mavnas wrote:You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...
Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?
This. Stomps are almost always AP4. Add this to model positioning to reduce damage (stomps need to not cover the SH base...this means if you get all your models in b2b the stomps only get 2 models each and if you take out casualties between so the models have space between then only 1 gets hit per stomp. Semi elite units with a nasty CC surprise are actually pretty good against knights.
Warmonger2757 wrote:I'm not sure people are taking the ranges of the knight's weapons into account. We have a guy in our store who has three of them and he allies them with marines. Three of them, 18 HPs worth, have never been destroyed in any of our games. He doesn't need to be at the front edge of his deployment zone because the Paladin has a 72" range and the errant has a 36" range. It's not rocket science for the knight player to figure out if you rush a unit up to the knight that the unit is probably a threat. You're not going to face just one knight when it comes to shooting but probably all three (if that is even necessary). With ordinance 2, STR 8 AP 3 large blasts, he easily destroys MEQ units. Our knight player doesn't need to get in melee to do damage, the large blasts are more than sufficient. And don't forget the 500+pts of marines that fill the biggest weakness which is air defense. Fliers are the scariest thing for a knight player as the only weapon they have that can hit a flier is a heavy stubber (str 4, ap 6). As for objectives, if the Knight player brings three knights and camps them on the objective on turn 4 or 5 after he's killed all the big threatening units, there isn't much that can be done. Vector strike from Crones has done some damage, melta bombs have done some damage, I think he lost one knight in a game so far but they are mighty resilient, even with only having av 13 on front.
For me, as a necron player, for 100pts, I can bring 4 storm techs with assault 4 haywire attacks. The trick is getting them to combat (the 5th tech can be a despair tech, bumping the cost to 160pt). I can also bring doomscythes that the knight player can't shoot back that will get two str 10 hits as well as the (mostly ineffective) tesla destructor shots. I give up my barges for DS, and have to take two overlords for two royal courts, but the knights aren't impossible. And chances are I don't need to kill them all to win, it is an objective based game afterall. The downside is that I don't have a TAC list since I just spent 535pts on DS and 320pts on two RCs. Mind you, I haven't had a chance to use this list against the knight player, he is getting a lot of challenges at the moment.
You are essentially talking about 6 LRBT when knights do that. They do become much more durable by keeping them back but they also loose board control and can have their damage heavily mitigated by cover and fortifications. Much of this is about getting objectives where they need to be placed and having sufficient terrain on the table so that it isn't a shooting gallery. If you do these two things no player can afford to castle up in their deployment zone if they expect to win more than ~1/6 of their games (KP and unbalanced objective might let them). Also make sure that the opponent has the knights as primary if they are scoring as those are the rules. Having them as primary means that their SM allies really cannot bring "plentiful" AA as indicated due to limited FOC slots.
As for what each army can do to counter them. This is getting kind of crazy as there is a thread for each army already and the options for each army are totally different. I will give a brief overview but specifics would be a lot of typing...so,
CSM Low Risk: Heldrake vector strikes (1.5HP/drake), Scary CCIC in a 5-10 model CSM/Plague Marine unit, 2 melta 5 model CSM biker unit with biker lord (the biker lord does the real work but this is not a great option), Havoks are okay, Las Pred are decent, and there are also some good FW options that really open things up
High Risk: Be'Lakor can finish one with 4 HP or less very reliably, Daemon Weapon DP (~3 HP can be expected in a single assault)
CD
Low Risk: Some of the gifts are pretty good...lets be honest, this is Daemons everything is risky. Even putting a model on the board could cause them to explode. You can tarpit them reasonably well with cheap daemon units or take some allies if you want low risk.
High Risk: Be'Lakor to finish, vector strikes can do some work and multiple DP charging all at once will work. The thing is that clever use of terrain will be key as the DP more or less ignore it and the knights get slowed down to 1-6" of movement. The screamer star is ironically still pretty good against this SH.
IG The big thing here is that the IK will have trouble damaging most air cav and foot guard lists making this a tough fight for the IK.
Low Risk: Shooting. Seriously shoot it with your artillery, lascannons, tanks, and anything else S7+. There are too many options to go into detail but vendettas and manticores are nice. Use speed bump IS to keep the thing from doing too much damage.
High Risk: Melta of practically all variety, melta bomb or meltagun. They work well but they also put you into a position to get hurt. Mechvet will probably depend on melta and can do just fine as long as they use terrain and positioning to get those cover saves and match up 2 melta unit to every 1 knight at any one time. Not as hard as you might think considering the pts difference between IK and a mechvet unit.
SM Interestingly enough the SM are very resilient to the IK melee attacks due to Sv3+ vs the stomps AP4. People always think that battle cannons kill SM well but not really; they tend to hit ~2.5 SM, wound 2.1, and after cover kill 1.4 SM so ~3 SM a shooting phase for a 375 pts unit. Against bikers it is worse due to 4+ cover and large bases but the price difference sort of makes it up.
Low Risk: Imperial Fists Dev Centurions work well with some 5 model TAC speed bumps works well, stormravens will be useful
High Risk: 5 model melta bike squads w/ a melta bomb will be pretty good, DS melta (sternguard or LotD)
SM in some ways have the most options but in otherways they will require the most drastic changes in their lists as most of these are not popular
Necrons...haywire, tesla, yeah they are pretty good. You may see some more defensive wraith who are less interested in getting into melee. Those cowardly machines.
DE Dark lances, haywire blasters, blasters. Haywire wyches might see some love and a few venoms might get replaced with their dark lance cousin.
CWE I don't think most people are that worried for CWE. They are highly resistant to the IK shooting and fast enough to be difficult to pin down in melee. The interesting thing though is that the traditional serpent spam lists will struggle to kill IK with their serpent shields so you might actually see something more than S7 spam.
Firedragons might go back into lists! wraithcannons, jetseer, doom + S7 spam, bright lances, heavy wraithcannons, lots of options just not really the trusty scatter laser serpent.
Tau
Missilesides w/ max drones, tank hunter, and 2 markerlights has an excellent chance of killing a IK a turn, firewarriors w/ emp grenades will probably anger a lot of IK players, fusion crisis suits, HBC riptide with reroll 1's and tank hunter...really anything that strips HP from the Tau codex will do great. Tau players are going to have to learn how to deal with melee units that actually make it into melee, or what IG players like to call speed bumps.
GK This might be an interesting one. Vindicare assassin might be fairly annoying but probably not. Henchmen squads with melta are cheap enough that they can be suicide melta and it won't matter. Dakka dreads can put down decent damage, MM stormravens can help. GK will have to use a multi tier approach to deal with these and strip them down with a finisher. Draigowing can interestingly enough afford to get charged (2 dead paladins) and as long as they have 3-4 HH hammers to hit back they can kill it. The problem is if the IK gets the 6 result on a stomp it is going to hurt. Red hunters and book inquisitors could really help the situation by providing tank hunter for a turn each as this puts a 4 psycannon unit in a great position to strip an IK down in a single turn.
Close enough, SoB have already been talked about and the SM+1 will have to sort themselves out as that was a lot of typing.
On a charge the knight kills <2 MEQ on average. It's only WS4 so only half chance to hit and then 5/6ths chance to remove after that. Stomps are less scary against small squads that can spread out a bit and still pile into base contact.
A guard blob swarming it would get stomped hard. MEQ shouldn't lose more than one on average unless they're a tightly packed in blob or he gets lucky and rolls 6s.
But really the biggest thing is shooting them from multiple sides.
Man, these fully-space-inside-melta-range-immolater-riding-priest-buffed-sisters-that-made-it-to-a-knight-unharmed sound pretty terrifying.
Sigh....
No-one is trying to argue that Melta Doms in Immolator = dead knight. Simply that they are a real threat to one, and that most AS lists will likely be running multiple squads of these along with more heavy firepower in the form of exorcists.
Before Escalation and Codex: Knights no-one had to plan counters for superheavies into their lists. Now we do. This thread is here to discuss ways of bringing them down preferably, I assume, without compromising the balance of the rest of your list. AS don't really need to alter their lists: They are already incuding the units that give them the best chance of killing one.. There really is nothing else we can take without list tailoring.
So... we know that AS and DE can pretty much just run their normal lists and attempt to take on a Knight or two. What about the other armies? flyer spam for everyone? :3 EDIT: Or just read a couple of posts up!
Mavnas wrote: You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...
Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?
It will hit 3 marines if you have them in a long line, if there is any terrain on the board, that changes a lot. If you are going against a Paladin, that is still 6 Str 8 AP 3 wounds since the paladin gets two shots.
Nids
The crone is boss against these things. Essentially invulnerable until a grounding test is failed, haywire missiles, and high Str vector strikes. Just great. Electroshock grubs are great against vehicles but under represented due to more useful options. I multiple tyrant charge is a high risk high gain tactic. Tarpitting it with a tervigo spawning gaunts is also a great solution. These are the best options I know having played against nids, please expand any nids players.
Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.
ansacs wrote: Sorry I forgot nids and orks in my previous post
Nids
The crone is boss against these things. Essentially invulnerable until a grounding test is failed, haywire missiles, and high Str vector strikes. Just great. Electroshock grubs are great against vehicles but under represented due to more useful options. I multiple tyrant charge is a high risk high gain tactic. Tarpitting it with a tervigo spawning gaunts is also a great solution. These are the best options I know having played against nids, please expand any nids players.
Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.
Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.
Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.
ansacs wrote: Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.
Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.
Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.
Yes a Stompa will give 1 knight a run for it's money... at twice the cost!
Against 2 my money won't be on the Stompa.
Personally, Deff Rollas and Grot tanks. And those are just great fun at all times.
ansacs wrote: Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.
Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.
Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.
Yes a Stompa will give 1 knight a run for it's money... at twice the cost!
Against 2 my money won't be on the Stompa.
Personally, Deff Rollas and Grot tanks. And those are just great fun at all times.
Forgot about deff rollas. Those could work.
The stompa alone doesn't work well against 2+ knights. The cutom stompa from FW can have a D weapon and so is a bit better.
What could make a stompa work well is multiple meks and a small speed bump unit inside it. The speed bump blocks all but 1 IK's direct path and the meks regenrate all the stompas HP every turn. The stompa could very well go through multiple IK this way. The stompa also has a much better set of ranged weapons but is much more expensive as well.
SisterSydney wrote: If someone takes down a Knight with endless legions of Grot Tanks, that will be AWESOME.
Let's see...
6 Grot tanks in a squad, all armed with Rokkit Launchers comes to 300pts with Kommanda upgrade.
Take 3 full squads in a Dred Mob Primary, then ally in Orks and take a forth squad in their elite slot. Add a Grot Mega tank (all rokkits) to the Allies FA slot to Lead the Grotzkrieg!
You'll need 2 HQ, and 3 troops. Mek and Grots being the cheapest option to meet the requirements.
Grand total: 1560pts
Shave off an upgrade or two and you could fit it into a 1.5k game.
So 24 Grot Tanks, throwing 28 Str.8 Rokkits at Bs3 (huge accuracy for Orks!)
Another 5 Rokkits from the Mega tank.
All those tanks with a 5+ invul save.
Few grots to camp objectives.
So, in the worst case -- you're all firing straight at the front of the Knight -- 33 Rokkits, 16 hit (rounding down slightly), 8 get through the Ion Shield, of which 1.3 glance and 1.3 penetrate: 2.6 HP stripped there.. The 1.3 penetrations have a 22% chance of an Explodes! result, which would on average do 2 more HP: 1.3 * 0.22 * 2 = 0.57.So with average rolls you're stripping 3.2 HP per turn....
....well, until those blasts or the rest of the enemy army start taking out Grot Tanks en masse, 5++ or no.
If you can swarm the Knight and start getting around the shield, your odds go way up, of course. If you miraculously get entirely around the shield (in which case you'll need a larger army to provide a really nasty anti-tank threat as a distraction), you doubt your hits, double your damage, and kill the Knight in one massive volley.
The problem is your entire army is Grot Tanks armed with anti-tank weapons and the odds are that at 1,500 points the enemy has infantry to keep you from flanking the Knight. Or they have three Knights, which would on average take you six turns to kill, assuming they never do any damage to your tanks.
Sigh. Sadly, Grot Tank Horde is probably not an advisable list against Knights. Or against most things.
But some more plus points...
1). Having so many driving round the field you're going to get around the shield a lot. They can only protect from one angle.
2). They are a nightmare for the knights to kill. Vehicle squadrons have a 4" coherency instead of 2". A hit from a large blast will hit only one (a scatter can hit 2).
3). They're tanks! That means Tank Shock. Infantry will be herded like cattle from multiple shocks, or flee before their mighty (!) tank treads!
4). Did I mention it's an army of Grot tanks?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Massaen wrote: Many posters seem to have missed this thing having smash - making stomp attacks AP2...
Thats because it doesn't.
It's described as an attack, never a close combat attack.
And why would they bother sticking Ap4 on the chart, when there is nothing that can stomp that doesn't also have smash?
Well since we're not in the rules forum, let's talk intent.
Do you honestly think they intended Smash to apply to Stomps, given that they give a set AP value on the chart? Given that Stomp is a rule for Super-Heavy walkers, and every Super-Heavy Walker comes with Smash? Seriously?
And as to it being a close combat attack, does it follow even a single rule for a close combat attacks? It follows part of the initiative step rules, but none of the rules for attacking.
The Assault phase rules include things like initiative steps, then Pile-ins, who can fight, unengaged models etc..
The rules for when a close combat attack are actually used start with "Number of Attacks", "Rolling to Hit", "Rolling to Wound", "Allocate Wounds" etc, with all the little sub rules in between. Not one of those rules are actually used in a Stomp attack. So no, I'd say it isn't a Close Combat Attack, but an Attack as it's rules describe.
Then why have smash at all? It's simply not relevant at that point. And are you seriously saying that a reaver Titan would not be Ap2 if it stood on you?
Massaen wrote: Then why have smash at all? It's simply not relevant at that point. And are you seriously saying that a reaver Titan would not be Ap2 if it stood on you?
A Reaver titan has close combat attacks before it makes a Smash attack. THOSE would be at AP2, even without a dedicated titan close combat weapon, so yes it's a very relevant rule. A punch from a Reaver should be AP2 and it is.
As to the Stomp, being stood on is represented by a roll of a 6 on the chart. Removed from Play is an accurate way of describing a Reaver stamping on someone.
I guess I will just disagree and leave it at that. To me, S6 AP2 gives ++ save models a chance to live but still represents a marine is toast when a Titan steps on him. The roll of 6 is the uber crush no chance of survival...
schadenfreude wrote:Might not be too much of a problem for white scars. They are fast enough to get into the side arcs to avoid the 4+ invo. Imobolized from grav guns sounds pretty good, and mm attack bikes can get within 12" on turn 1.
Deamons and necrons can tar pit the ones without a d weapon in cc with a 3++ invo unit. Necrons are in great shape, they could strip a lot of hp with 5 gauss + 2 voltaic staffs jumping out of a night scythe. Average rolls are 5.5555 hp stripped easily avoiding the shield.
Ork boys and a blob seem like a hopeless tarpit if they only have 3/4 attacks, and blobs can be loaded with melta. Like WK they have speed to avoid a tarpit, but the tarpit can area deny them.
Eldar can flat out a wave serp loaded with wg or fire dragons. It would only have 1 turn to get past a 4+ jink with serpent shield.
IHateNids wrote:A Royal Court consisting of 4 StormTeks and a VeilTek is a lot cheaper than a Scythe + 5 Warriors + 2 StormTeks, and can kill two Knights in the same time as it takes the scythe to arrive and kill one.
How about a Scarab Blob?
Ten bases, attacks from titan kill max 8 with Spacing, 2 remaining scarabs drop it to AV 11 an average
AFAIK superheavies are immune to Entropic Strike and Immobilise results.
Massaen wrote:Many posters seem to have missed this thing having smash - making stomp attacks AP2...
Massaen wrote:I guess I will just disagree and leave it at that. To me, S6 AP2 gives ++ save models a chance to live but still represents a marine is toast when a Titan steps on him. The roll of 6 is the uber crush no chance of survival...
Consider that a nurgle DP can get a nova psychic power which it can use in CC. Do you think smash works for that? No because it is not a close combat attack. The stomp attack is not a close combat attack and is a special ability which happens in the assault phase at Init 1. For you to argue it as RAW it would have to be called a close combat attack in some way, shape, or form.
I won't even have to change things up that much. So at least there's that...
)
I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.
