Am I missing something? AV 13 front armor and 12 side and back isn't that hard to breach. Their save is only against shooting and they only get it on one facing. Most of their shooting isn't fantastic. Besides the assault Cannon, their shooting lacks the number of shots to be all that effective. They have Str D CC, but they give up their shield to do it. And all those hull points are meaningless when they can still suffer an explodes to lose a boatload of HP off a single shot.

Meanwhile, most Gargantuan creaturea come with a 2+ or 3+ Armor save. They frequently have access to an Invulnerable save, and come with FNP 5+ base. There are very few mechanics that let you strip multiple wounds off, and even then, they can probably ignore a good number of them. Their Invulnerable don't go away in CC. Their shooting can include Str D. Also, the two GW GCs (don't get me started on the brokenness of the Tau'nar) clock in at fewer points than any Knight save the Gallant.

I guess what I am asking is, why is the Imperial Knight considered broken? It isn't even in the same categort of power as a Wraithknight or Stormsurge.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I missing something? AV 13 front armor and 12 side and back isn't that hard to breach. Their save is only against shooting and they only get it on one facing. Most of their shooting isn't fantastic. Besides the assault Cannon, their shooting lacks the number of shots to be all that effective. They have Str D CC, but they give up their shield to do it. And all those hull points are meaningless when they can still suffer an explodes to lose a boatload of HP off a single shot.

Meanwhile, most Gargantuan creaturea come with a 2+ or 3+ Armor save. They frequently have access to an Invulnerable save, and come with FNP 5+ base. There are very few mechanics that let you strip multiple wounds off, and even then, they can probably ignore a good number of them. Their Invulnerable don't go away in CC. Their shooting can include Str D. Also, the two GW GCs (don't get me started on the brokenness of the Tau'nar) clock in at fewer points than any Knight save the Gallant.

I guess what I am asking is, why is the Imperial Knight considered broken? It isn't even in the same categort of power as a Wraithknight or Stormsurge.

I think in "general" people don't like the Knight because they can't just spam generic medium strength guns, they need anti vehicle/higher strength.

With that said, people who bring entire armies of Knights/Households etc, it can be very hard for an all comers list in general.

You are right though, GC and FGC gak all over Knights in surviveability.

You don't even need a Anti-vehicle to take down a Knight. Scatter Lasers and Assault Cannons can lay a Knight low quite easily, but still have the shots to be effective against Infantry. But due to Armor Saves and FNP, neither of those things are taking a GC down any time soon.

I'd say GMC's are tougher based on my own experience.
One Knight wasn't all that bad vs my Space wolves, TWC + thunderlord took care of the "wounded knight" easily enough.
Fighting 5 to 7 of them wasn't very fun for me. I still don't own one but would like to get two or three of them for larger games.
The way I see it what could make them broken is close combat. by which I mean the number of shots doesn't really matter. The Knight moves up and can shoot all it's weapons at several targets so long at it's stubbered something it wants to charge then it's all good. Especiallt now with the faq "Melta bomb/grenade nerf".
And stomps being clarified vs Invisible.
But I don't play near as much as a lot of other people so mileage may very.
Super heavy walkers and CMC's are 3rd edition mechanics stuck into 7th edition which can be quite the advantage.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
You don't even need a Anti-vehicle to take down a Knight. Scatter Lasers and Assault Cannons can lay a Knight low quite easily, but still have the shots to be effective against Infantry. But due to Armor Saves and FNP, neither of those things are taking a GC down any time soon.

"Quite easily" is rather deceptive. A single scatter laser at BS4 against an AV12 facing peels 0.44 of a hull point. In real-game terms, roughly a 50/50 shot of doing 1HP worth of damage. So you need twelve scatter lasers' (not twelve shots, twelve of the weapons) worth of shooting to drop it in a turn (assuming no cover or ion shield). This can also equate to a squad of three scatbikes shooting for four turns or two squads of three for two turns (and taking no casualties in the process).

The assault cannon is a bit more reliable given the rending value, it can shoot at the front armor as easily as the side - but it's also a more expensive weapon, shorter ranged, and harder to spam (outside of a double demi-company).

Wouldn't say either of these can "easily" drop a Knight, but they are viable options.

I don’t think a single IK is broken. If you take one in a TAC it makes for a solid centerpiece unit. It’s not easy to crack open, but not impossible. And it costs a reasonable amount of points for what it does.

The potential to spam them bugs me though. You end up with a very rock/paper/scissors game. Do you have enough AV to deal with multiple knights? Especially when what AV you do have is going to be at the top of the target priority queue.

They are also indicative of the general scale creep away from the infantry skirmish game that 40k was historically, into what used to be walled off in apocalypse games. They are not alone in this, but are part of it.

It's a skew problem. One Knight isn't an issue, but you can't play a TAC list against a full-Knights-Codex army.

It's not the generic knights it's the formations and the other versions of it if I remember right.

It's the same reason why MC are better than Walkers/Vehicles at the moment. you can't easily 1 shot a MC (only weapons with the ID rule can do it), but Vehicles can be blown up somewhat easily.

The Paladin & Errant are Sort Of Fine if taken individually or even in pairs, but after the third you start to see why they're problem; Each knight can reliably dent, or even destroy 2 targets every turn. As a highly mobile superheavy it means generally they can pick their targets, and flatten high priorities, or easy kill points as the game requires.

Consequently for MSU armies the problem is being simultaneously engaged on multiple fronts, while the deathtars have he obvious stomping and D problem. Knights are pretty much TAC on their own, but they layer over each other in effectiveness once you get past the 6th simultaneous target, which is generally the third knight or the second Crusader.

Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

Really? Three shots?

So you hit with two. Let's say they both pen. One gets blocked by the shield. The best result you can hope for is 4 HP (not enough to kill) and that will only happen 1/9 of the time. Most likely (2/3) you're getting a single HP.

Even if all three hit, pen, no save - the average result is 5 HPs. Not enough.

How many Assault cannons should it take o kill a knight? I've inflicted quite a few hull points on a knight with 3 tornado land speeders More than my opponent was expecting from them.
I've killed Land raiders with those speeders before in 5th edition.

Its a nice model with decent stats. Stomping needs to be considered as well.

A few problems I have with Knights (GMCs + SHW in general).
1. They are generally too good against all targets and lack inherent weaknesses. I am a person who likes units to have strengths and weaknesses while jack of all trades are versatile but not at all optimal at any one task. A lot of Knight loadouts are well equipped to take on a multitude of target types and are defensive against a great deal of threats. It doesn't make them auto win but they outclass a lot of things in the game which ruins unit diversity (a major issue with 40k in general).
2. Stomp is a gak mechanic. Stomp murders blobs and it can obliterate units out of existence on a 6. In general I don't like Apoc mechanics in standard 40k.
3. It can fire its weapons at different targets and opt to charge any one of them. While vehicles like Land Raiders, Leman Russ Tanks, Hammerheads, and Battlewagons have to fire all their weapons (PotMS being the exception) at the same target and those vehicles often have very haphazard weapon loadouts. Superheavies can pick and choose what each weapon fires at so those guns are firing at fairly optimal targets. Again it makes standard vehicles more irrelevant.
4. Ignores the vehicle damage table (except for the modified explosion result). Again standard combat vehicles get the shaft while super heavies get preferential treatment.
5. Not every codex has effective tools to deal with an AV13 SHW that has a directional invuln save. Because its good at so many things its hard for a lot of armies to take them down in a cost effective manner.

I am not saying they are OP auto win units by any means (in the grand scheme of things even an army of them isn't OP) but its what they do to the game that I strongly dislike. An army of Knights is a royal PITA to deal with because so many weapons have zero effect on them which makes a large portion of the non Knight player's army useless so they turn into speed bumps, tarpits, and objective campers.

My philosophy for taking down knights is multiple sources, multiple angles.

Drop pod melta in a key factor in that. But if the shield is pointing towards the back/side, it’s not protecting vs. the lascannons in my backfield, or the TML speeders shooting from the other side, etc.

No one unit can get the job done. We don’t have anything that hits that hard, and the 4++ makes it impossible to down it with just one source of firepower.

Knights are one of the main reason I’ve upped the AV firepower in my TAC lists. I should have enough to deal with one of them, but it’s going to take most everything I have.

First off, standard caveats on "X unit is not that powerful" threads:
#1 - There's always a counter. This is 40k after all, so saying "well just take this" doesn't mean jack. There's a saying in Magic; "dies to removal". This was a standard go-to response from many players to mean that certain cards can't be broken, because they could be answered. However, this isn't necessarily true, because not all removal was equally powerful, and wasn't always available, and if it had a big enough effect already in the game anyways, it could throw the game wildly off, even if it died.
#2 - Meta matters. What's powerful in your neck of the woods isn't necessarily what's powerful in my neck of the woods. In some places, having a list that's "not that powerful" means running a Decurion, and that person will be saying the truth as others are running things even stronger than that. Meanwhile, somewhere else, running a Decurion means you have an insurmountable advantage and you wreck face against everyone.


That said, I find Knights to have such a host of benefits that merely looking at their base stats doesn't cover why they're so strong. First off, they can move 12 inches per turn, shoot everything, and charge. This allows them to be very fast, and in a game like 40k, speed is critical. It's half of what makes Scatbikes so strong. On the surface, Scatbikes are just Space Marines in terms of how easily they die, and their Leadership is lower to boot, and they handle close combat worse too... but they're crazy fast, and even on planet Bowling Ball that will matter. Secondly, they can fire all their weapons at different targets, allowing them to maximize their weapon usage to a greater extent than most other armies can. There's a reason you often pay points for Split Fire, and that's because it's better to shoot anti-infantry stuff at infantry, and anti-tank stuff at tanks, rather than firing both at the same infantry or tanks. Thirdly, there's Stomp, which means that any Super Heavy walker is equipped with a free D-weapon, and this is effective against everything from small infantry to monstrous creatures. That's pretty incredible.

So, you've got something that can take on just about anything, with the speed to match, and is immune to lots of attacks. This means that, unless you have good counters, this just wrecks face. Now, do counters exist? Of course (see caveats above). But if this unit skews the game into a single question of "can you answer this?", well, I don't find that to be a particularly enjoyable game. I find most lists can handle one Knight-Paladin/Errant, but some of the others, or multiple Knights, is just... ugh.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I missing something? AV 13 front armor and 12 side and back isn't that hard to breach. Their save is only against shooting and they only get it on one facing. Most of their shooting isn't fantastic. Besides the assault Cannon, their shooting lacks the number of shots to be all that effective. They have Str D CC, but they give up their shield to do it. And all those hull points are meaningless when they can still suffer an explodes to lose a boatload of HP off a single shot.

Meanwhile, most Gargantuan creaturea come with a 2+ or 3+ Armor save. They frequently have access to an Invulnerable save, and come with FNP 5+ base. There are very few mechanics that let you strip multiple wounds off, and even then, they can probably ignore a good number of them. Their Invulnerable don't go away in CC. Their shooting can include Str D. Also, the two GW GCs (don't get me started on the brokenness of the Tau'nar) clock in at fewer points than any Knight save the Gallant.

I guess what I am asking is, why is the Imperial Knight considered broken? It isn't even in the same categort of power as a Wraithknight or Stormsurge.

One Knight is not a huge issue. It's when you're facing an entire army of Knights that they become an issue, they can just overwhelm any ability to deal with them at that point. This is why many if not most events have house rules about fielding all Knight armies.

 warhead01 wrote:
How many Assault cannons should it take o kill a knight? I've inflicted quite a few hull points on a knight with 3 tornado land speeders More than my opponent was expecting from them.
I've killed Land raiders with those speeders before in 5th edition.

Math says 27 BS4 assault cannons will one-round a Knight from the front, 13.5 from the side.

In 5th there were no hull points and you could get an Explodes! off of any pen (and Rending gave +AP against vehicles), it doesn't work so well anymore.

To bust a knight reliably, grav cents / grav devs are going to be needed, preferably with an attached libby to cast prescience.

Imperial Knights have never been consider overpowered, in fact they have been consider appropriately costed since they were introduced. However, a vocal fraction of the player base complain quite a bit about how boring they are to play against, or how you have to tailor to table them in one turn, or how their list just does not include the army options needed to counter armor for some odd reason. Yet every army currently in the game either can counter armor or are intended to ally anyway.

SJ

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

Really? Three shots?

So you hit with two. Let's say they both pen. One gets blocked by the shield. The best result you can hope for is 4 HP (not enough to kill) and that will only happen 1/9 of the time. Most likely (2/3) you're getting a single HP.

Even if all three hit, pen, no save - the average result is 5 HPs. Not enough.

Well you dont drop infront of the shield you silly bean!

Even if you dont blow it up, lets say we only hit with 2 and they are both pens. I only need to roll 3+ and i cripple the thing permanently 2 weapon destroyed? Ok, cool he just lost one of his main weapons. better yet, i only need to roll 4+ and boom!

Alternatively i could drop in with all grav weapons, and immobilize it.

I dont need to kill it, i just need to cripple the thing

To bust a knight reliably, grav cents / grav devs are going to be needed, preferably with an attached libby to cast prescience.

And that's the part I don't like at all. It's more difficult for armies with out those potions that creates the "extra strength" of the knight.
My balance would be one of a few things, maybe Knights go up in points costs. But I'd rather my Stompas came down a few hundred points... (I know it'll never happen and why should it haha.)

 warhead01 wrote:

To bust a knight reliably, grav cents / grav devs are going to be needed, preferably with an attached libby to cast prescience.

And that's the part I don't like at all. It's more difficult for armies with out those potions that creates the "extra strength" of the knight.
My balance would be one of a few things, maybe Knights go up in points costs. But I'd rather my Stompas came down a few hundred points... (I know it'll never happen and why should it haha.)

Honestly all this talk about knights being OP is nothing compaired to wraith knights being OP. Even toe to toe the wraith knight wins most of the time.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

Really? Three shots?

So you hit with two. Let's say they both pen. One gets blocked by the shield. The best result you can hope for is 4 HP (not enough to kill) and that will only happen 1/9 of the time. Most likely (2/3) you're getting a single HP.

Even if all three hit, pen, no save - the average result is 5 HPs. Not enough.

Well you dont drop infront of the shield you silly bean!

Even if you dont blow it up, lets say we only hit with 2 and they are both pens. I only need to roll 3+ and i cripple the thing permanently 2 weapon destroyed? Ok, cool he just lost one of his main weapons. better yet, i only need to roll 4+ and boom!

Alternatively i could drop in with all grav weapons, and immobilize it.

I dont need to kill it, i just need to cripple the thing

Super Heavy Walkers ignore all vehicle damage results except explode which does extra hull points instead.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

Really? Three shots?

So you hit with two. Let's say they both pen. One gets blocked by the shield. The best result you can hope for is 4 HP (not enough to kill) and that will only happen 1/9 of the time. Most likely (2/3) you're getting a single HP.

Even if all three hit, pen, no save - the average result is 5 HPs. Not enough.

Well you dont drop infront of the shield you silly bean!

Even if you dont blow it up, lets say we only hit with 2 and they are both pens. I only need to roll 3+ and i cripple the thing permanently 2 weapon destroyed? Ok, cool he just lost one of his main weapons. better yet, i only need to roll 4+ and boom!

Alternatively i could drop in with all grav weapons, and immobilize it.

I dont need to kill it, i just need to cripple the thing

Super Heavy Walkers ignore all vehicle damage results except explode which does extra hull points instead.

Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad. The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Unless you have a GMC or tons of anti tank, they're pretty tough. Also, the main OP point, which GMC have, is the Stomp! Just lost about 750 points in a game to a 1 HP left Knight who got 3 Stomps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad. The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Super Heavies ignore explode, it only does D3+3 Hull Points instead. He will also most likely get his 4+ invuln against it (depending on which arc you shoot him from)

 jreilly89 wrote:
Unless you have a GMC or tons of anti tank, they're pretty tough. Also, the main OP point, which GMC have, is the Stomp! Just lost about 750 points in a game to a 1 HP left Knight who got 3 Stomps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad. The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Super Heavies ignore explode, it only does D3+3 Hull Points instead. He will also most likely get his 4+ invuln against it (depending on which arc you shoot him from)

Dropping in a hope rear lol

I prefer to just gun it down from 2 different angles and/or drown it in artillery-barrages.....
Also: I have a Knight Paladin too.

I could certainly not consider knights to be broken, and I'm not sure who would. Even all knight armies aren't unbeatable.

That being said, I think you are underestimating knights by quite a bit. Killing knights with scatter lasers or assault cannons is going to be well-nigh impossible - SLs, for example, can't even hurt them from the front, and ACs are still going to struggle.

And their stomps should not be discounted - it can be very useful. And while their apoc mega blast death explosion should be dangerous on paper, I've personally never see it do much. Once tankbustas shot a knight to death and it fell on the truck they had just gotten out of, that's about the most damage the explosion has ever done.

At any rate, I don't find knights to be broken, nor terribad - I think they're decent all around units for the points.

But you do have a point in that GCs are generally more dangerous and durable, I'd say.

Let me put it this way: It's easier for me to kill a knight than a single dreadknight, much less a stormsurge.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Dropping in a hope rear lol

I think you're forgetting (or unaware) that Knights get to choose the facing of their Ion Shield during your shooting phase. To guarantee the lack of a shield, you must attack simultaneously from two angles.

IKs are outright jokes compared to GMCs.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Drop pod in with multi melta, Melta gun, combie melta, Your gonna have a bad time.

Really? Three shots?

So you hit with two. Let's say they both pen. One gets blocked by the shield. The best result you can hope for is 4 HP (not enough to kill) and that will only happen 1/9 of the time. Most likely (2/3) you're getting a single HP.

Even if all three hit, pen, no save - the average result is 5 HPs. Not enough.

Well you dont drop infront of the shield you silly bean!

Even if you dont blow it up, lets say we only hit with 2 and they are both pens. I only need to roll 3+ and i cripple the thing permanently 2 weapon destroyed? Ok, cool he just lost one of his main weapons. better yet, i only need to roll 4+ and boom!

Alternatively i could drop in with all grav weapons, and immobilize it.

I dont need to kill it, i just need to cripple the thing

It's already been pointed out that Super Heavies ignore everything but Explodes.

Further, you might not know how the shield works. It doesn't matter what side you put your meltas on. At the beginning of the opponent's shooting phase, the Knight player chooses the side that the shield is on. If you pod in your MM, M, and CM, you're snap-shotting with the MM (so missing 5/6) and get 2 shots at a 3, so you're getting 1 or 2 hits on an average day.

The Knight gets his 4++.

So only 1 hit is getting through, doing 3 HP at most, if you roll a 5+ on the Vehicle Damage chart.

The knight then turns to that unit and it goes away either to the AP3 shots or in close combat.

Now, I'm not scared of Knights. I think, as has been pointed out, that GMCs are generally better (Tau and Eldar, especially). But they will take more than a Drop Podding tactical squad.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Unless you have a GMC or tons of anti tank, they're pretty tough. Also, the main OP point, which GMC have, is the Stomp! Just lost about 750 points in a game to a 1 HP left Knight who got 3 Stomps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad. The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Super Heavies ignore explode, it only does D3+3 Hull Points instead. He will also most likely get his 4+ invuln against it (depending on which arc you shoot him from)

Explodes results against Knights are D3+1

You can't count on even BA triple melta to get an explodes. That's why drop triple melta doesn't reliably pop a Rhino, much less down a Knight.

Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:


That being said, I think you are underestimating knights by quite a bit. Killing knights with scatter lasers or assault cannons is going to be well-nigh impossible - SLs, for example, can't even hurt them from the front,

Anecdotally, SLs do very well for me vs IK. 3 feet of range and their high mobility means I'm almost always able to fire at the sides/rear with Scatbikes.

I find most Knights get neutered by units being in cover - their shooting is drastically worsened by a +4 save. I regularly play against an opponent with a Gatling Avenger/Battle Cannon IK and it rarely kills more than three or four models lurking in ruins per turn.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Unless you have a GMC or tons of anti tank, they're pretty tough. Also, the main OP point, which GMC have, is the Stomp! Just lost about 750 points in a game to a 1 HP left Knight who got 3 Stomps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad. The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Super Heavies ignore explode, it only does D3+3 Hull Points instead. He will also most likely get his 4+ invuln against it (depending on which arc you shoot him from)

Just thought I'd point out, it's only D3+1 for Explodes results.

 adamsouza wrote:
Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

I've always maintained the key issue with IK is that if you turn up to a friendly game with a pure IK army unannounced, that's a pretty douchey move.

If you inform your opponent ahead of time, it is asking a lot of even the most fair minded player to not pass over anti infantry options in favour of anti armour ones when they know in advance that most anti infantry weapons will be a waste.

Therefore it's not possible to have a "fair" game with a pure IK list.

IKs die miserably to scatbikes and WKs. That fact alone keeps them out of top tier.

When they were released the meta was much different but as power creep moved on and the meta adapted they aren't so scary anymore. Like anything after its glory.

 adamsouza wrote:
Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

In relation to top tier Eldar builds they may not be broken, but for the mid and lower tier armies an all IK force is unreasonably difficult to deal with. Many if not most events put restrictions on all Knight armies and/or Knight types as well as running custom missions that Knights have hard times with, but if running straight rulebook missions with an all IK force against something like IG, Dark Eldar, GK's, CSM's, Orks, Sisters, BA's, non-TWC Deathstar SW's, Tyranids, etc then they quickly become a major issue. It's like dealing with a Russ tank company, but with stellar mobility and real CC teeth on top of lots of big guns and armor.

There are certain hardcounter matchups that generally knock IK armies out of contention for top spots at big events that do allow full IK armies in addition to the restriction issues above, but outside those hardcounters they tend to hardcounter most everything else when theres 5 of them in the field. Their balance as an army really is very poor.

Knights are fine. They're not even close to being broken. Certainly not in a "competitive" context where people are bringing Decurion or Gladius. In competition, they can be spammed and still be very fair.

And in a casual game, if you want to bring one, no problem, just tell me in advance, so I can be sure to break out my Wraithknight.

BossJakadakk wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:


That being said, I think you are underestimating knights by quite a bit. Killing knights with scatter lasers or assault cannons is going to be well-nigh impossible - SLs, for example, can't even hurt them from the front,

Anecdotally, SLs do very well for me vs IK. 3 feet of range and their high mobility means I'm almost always able to fire at the sides/rear with Scatbikes.

Eh, that's fair enough, I suppose if you have enough of them. Honestly, I'm amazed they don't have the same front and side AV value, I think that would help quite a bit. There aren't a lot of walkers I know of that have different side and front AVs. Them and sentinels are all I can think of.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

I've always maintained the key issue with IK is that if you turn up to a friendly game with a pure IK army unannounced, that's a pretty douchey move.

If you inform your opponent ahead of time, it is asking a lot of even the most fair minded player to not pass over anti infantry options in favour of anti armour ones when they know in advance that most anti infantry weapons will be a waste.

Therefore it's not possible to have a "fair" game with a pure IK list.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

When Knights, or flyers, or new Psychic powers, were first introduced, it was understandable that people were caught off guard and unprepared.

After a certain point, it becomes your fault if your force doesn't have the right tools.

Knights, Flyers, and 7E's Psychic powers are not new anymore.

Knights are defeated by the same tools one would use to deal with any other heavily armored vehicles. If one lacks those tools because "vehicles are crap in 7E and no one takes them" then one gambled, and lost, at the army building stage.

"Everyone" totally brings Scissors, so you bring Rock, and got suprised by Paper.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Well you dont drop infront of the shield you silly bean!

He positions the shield at the start of your shooting phase so how exactly do you position your pod to avoid the shield when he gets to angle the shield after you place your pod?

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Well even still, only need to rull a 5+ to get explode, which with melta, its not that bad.

You need to get multiple explodes results to kill it which isn't at all reliable with three shots, even more so when most of the time only one of those shots is going to do anything.

If all three hit, pen, failed save then you're still only averaging 5 HPs.

Have you even tried this?

 adamsouza wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

I've always maintained the key issue with IK is that if you turn up to a friendly game with a pure IK army unannounced, that's a pretty douchey move.

If you inform your opponent ahead of time, it is asking a lot of even the most fair minded player to not pass over anti infantry options in favour of anti armour ones when they know in advance that most anti infantry weapons will be a waste.

Therefore it's not possible to have a "fair" game with a pure IK list.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

When Knights, or flyers, or new Psychic powers, were first introduced, it was understandable that people were caught off guard and unprepared.

After a certain point, it becomes your fault if your force doesn't have the right tools.

Knights, Flyers, and 7E's Psychic powers are not new anymore.

Knights are defeated by the same tools one would use to deal with any other heavily armored vehicles. If one lacks those tools because "vehicles are crap in 7E and no one takes them" then one gambled, and lost, at the army building stage.

Not all armies are capable of covering the extremes of all possible threats, and IK's are very definitely an extreme. Defeating a single Knight is one thing, defeating an army of them often requires tailoring. Yes, vehicles have problems in 7E. Knights however have a great deal of mitigation of those issues as they can move and fire at full effectiveness, ignore damage table results, and have a a decent invul save to mitigate HP stripping. Defeating 30 HP worth of AV13 4++ Superheavy is not something just any TAC build can do.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Mechanically, I think IK are fine as is. An all IK force can't effectively control objectives, and doens't have the same firepower as a competitive force of the same point value.

If they were broken, then they would be considered a top tier codex, and I've never heard anyone accuse them of that.

I've always maintained the key issue with IK is that if you turn up to a friendly game with a pure IK army unannounced, that's a pretty douchey move.

If you inform your opponent ahead of time, it is asking a lot of even the most fair minded player to not pass over anti infantry options in favour of anti armour ones when they know in advance that most anti infantry weapons will be a waste.

Therefore it's not possible to have a "fair" game with a pure IK list.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

When Knights, or flyers, or new Psychic powers, were first introduced, it was understandable that people were caught off guard and unprepared.

After a certain point, it becomes your fault if your force doesn't have the right tools.

Knights, Flyers, and 7E's Psychic powers are not new anymore.

Knights are defeated by the same tools one would use to deal with any other heavily armored vehicles. If one lacks those tools because "vehicles are crap in 7E and no one takes them" then one gambled, and lost, at the army building stage.

"Everyone" totally brings Scissors, so you bring Rock, and got suprised by Paper.

Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless. An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless. A balanced army list (a TAC if you will) has some of everything. A good majority of armies lack the tools to deal with ALL of one thing that is immune to so much. In a pick up/casual game that isn't list tailored the person who didn't bring the IK army is most likely going to have a good chunk of their army that will basically stand around twiddling their thumbs or standing in the way acting as speed bumps so the IK have to waste time mowing them down which is honestly not all that fun to do when that's their only use and aren't intentionally taken as throw away units. The issue isn't about competitive balance but the fun of friendly casual play where two people (probably random players) sit down to play a game of 40k.

All of those things you listed are also functionally worthless vs gmcs as well. So stop using them.

Martel732 wrote:
All of those things you listed are also functionally worthless vs gmcs as well. So stop using them.

You cant run an entire army if GMC's the way you can run an entire army if Knights. GMC's have issues, very real and very powerful issues, but nobody is showing up to an 1850pt games with 5 Wraithknights, though in instances that are close (e.g. Eldar running 3 WK's) you get similar issues.

Yeah, very nice, eldar can blow them easy. But there are a world beside eldars!

For exmple, chaos and orks arevery bad vs them. In particular orks only can blow them at melee.... but the IK will blow the ork unit at melee faster jajaja. no mention that when the IK blow....surely will blow also your units close to him

For ork only one IK is close to autolose the game. 3 means give the hand to your rival and go home with no need of deploy xD

One turn wrecked knight combo. Sorta iffy (I think the odds come out to just over 50% success, but take two of these!)

Dark eldar archon with a webway portal and blaster
5+ wraithguard with wraith cannons

No scatter so you're guranteed to hit a side that doesn't have the shield, and you have 5 str D shots hitting him. 3 hits if we round down, which is a 50% chance of getting a 6 and insta gimping him, or you could kill with with the mass hull points that'll deal out from the 2-5 results on the table

And this tactic is borderline viable against other armies as well, I.E. wraithknights, riptides, ect.

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

What a horrible mindset that is.

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

What a horrible mindset that is.

Found the Fluff bunny!

BTW, if you have a problem with GW's reality, don't play their game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

What a horrible mindset that is.

Found the Fluff bunny!

BTW, if you have a problem with GW's reality, don't play their game.

There's nothing wrong with GW in that regard. There's a lot wrong with you.

Apparently taking any sort of specialist weaponry thats not effective against every unit in the game is bad and makes one a bad person now...

BA players are automatically bad people!

Martel732 wrote:
BA players are automatically bad people!

I've thought that since 3rd.! Nyuk nyuk. . .

No, Knights aren't bad unless they start taking up the bulk of points in an army. Then they can get annoying.

I'm seriously considering a third knight and running a household detachment plus BA at 2K pts. Obj sec on IKs is pretty sweet.

There not bad.

And have a good array of options.
Plus they're cool models to paint.

If you buy tthe new kits, you get tons of weaponry to magentize for your others

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

What a horrible mindset that is.

Found the Fluff bunny!

BTW, if you have a problem with GW's reality, don't play their game.

There's nothing wrong with GW in that regard. There's a lot wrong with you.

If you can't see an obvious joke, and are making things personal, I think you need to step off before I slap you with a R1 report...

I'm thinking two Wardens and a Paladin.

Please keep in mind that Rule Number One is Be Polite. Thanks!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Problem is an entire army of AV13/12 super heavy walkers makes every S6>, poison, sniper, fleshbane, etc weapon useless.

That stuff was made useless by cover and Sv3+ and AV9+, not IKs. If you are taking them for anything but fluffy comp points, you are a bad player and should feel bad.

What a horrible mindset that is.

Found the Fluff bunny!

BTW, if you have a problem with GW's reality, don't play their game.

There's nothing wrong with GW in that regard. There's a lot wrong with you.

If you can't see an obvious joke, and are making things personal, I think you need to step off before I slap you with a R1 report...

I'm thinking that's not an obvious joke.

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

That's what paper is for.

I'm not advocating you play casual games against Rock with your Scissors.

I just think TAC lists should have the tools needed for the job, and if they don't, then they are not really TAC lists.


Personally, most of my lists are devoid of dedicated Anti Air and Psykers, but heavy on Anti Armor. If I lose to a list with lots of Flyers or Psykers I don't consider my opponent "douchey" for bringing them.

The problem is that most armies cant build a TAC list capablr of dealing with a full Knight army and still otherwise remaining TAC.

Especially if they're also trying to fit within the confines of faction background.

Even if you do,t use all 3 at once. Fully magnetized it gives you lots of options, if older kits. More weapons.

Plus you can have fun painting up a knight and maybe converting.

Go with what makes you happy.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

That's what paper is for.

I'm not advocating you play casual games against Rock with your Scissors.

I just think TAC lists should have the tools needed for the job, and if they don't, then they are not really TAC lists.


Personally, most of my lists are devoid of dedicated Anti Air and Psykers, but heavy on Anti Armor. If I lose to a list with lots of Flyers or Psykers I don't consider my opponent "douchey" for bringing them.

Well for one you can still snap fire at flyers (making a flyer jink is basically half the battle) or shoot/chop psykic enhanced units (invisible 2+ rerollble save gak stars are entirely a different problem though). Its not as optimal but its still does something. Bolters for example being used against a Riptide is unlikely to harm it but there is a definite possibility to knock a wound off of it with enough dice or a bit of luck. So while ineffective they still can do something instead of stand around just being speed bumps. A billion Heavy Bolters though will do absolutely zero damage to an IK so it literally is useless against it. The issue isn't trying to make countered unit work but that only having IKs in an army makes certain things have 0% efficiency and there are zero valid targets for them to be used against for the entire game.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

 Vankraken wrote:
This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

That's a very glass half empty point of view of the situation.

Embrace the challenge.

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

agreed, if you can't handle a Knight you can't handle a lemen russ or a land raider either. what if I took a space marine armored task force?

BrianDavion wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

agreed, if you can't handle a Knight you can't handle a lemen russ or a land raider either. what if I took a space marine armored task force?

Well, then you are just a WAAC D-bag, obviously!

People are missing the key point I'm trying to make. An army of ONLY AV13/12 super heavy walkers is unfun to play against when your using a TAC style list in a casual game because a good chunk of your army (unless your one of those lucky codexes that have good at everything type weapons) is unable to do anything against them. A single GMC or SHW isn't the problem.

Again to make it extra clear this is talking about an army of ONLY IMPERIAL KNIGHTS.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

If your army cant handle one IK then its too weak. You dont even need meltaguns or melta bombs.

Even nemesis dread knights, MCs, and walkers can hit the front av13 with str 10 ap2, pen on a 4+ and make a IK lose d3 hp on an explode result.

IKs are super weak. The only reason why i use one is because I spent the money and try to lie to myself I made a good investment decision when I really just threw away hundreds of dollars.

If you are a player and you b**** about IKs, then you need to git gud son.

If the enemy has multiple IKs, he just did you a huge favor. You can grav cannon hp off. You can meltabomb at i1 at the same time stomp goes off b4 his piddly 4 attacks. cheaper walkers with dccw power fists str at initiative with str10 ap2.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
If you are a player and you b**** about IKs, then you need to git gud son.

Uh, oh. Telling people that they need to L2P tends to make them very unhappy... Even if it's true. I foresee

Really, this is just more reason why 40k is a casual game, not a competitive one.

I think both the content of the post, the username and the apparent disregard for the many factions that don't have access to grav (or even melta bombs) will give most people all the clues they need to handle that post.

Whoa, no L2P necessary here!

My big thing is, a single Imperial Knight is not a big deal. A good TAC list can still handle one. And in most cases, at a lower percentage of points than the Knight takes up. And honestly, dedicated Anti-AV is still going to be able to take down other stuff too. Meltaguns still pop other stuff. Lascannons still pop other stuff. But you can blow up an Imperial Knight in a single round of shooting with those things, however unlikely. GCs don't suffer the same fate, and I really take issue with Knights getting lumped into the same category as GCs. The only way a single shot weapon can strip more wounds off a GC is if it has Remove From Play, and we all know how common that is (like Unicorn common...).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

sure but what about IG armor lists, or space marine armored might lists? knights are far from the only army capable of deploying a list comprising of pure armor.

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

sure but what about IG armor lists, or space marine armored might lists?

Gladius is indeed inherently unfair, but...

IG Armor lists? Ha! You should be so lucky to face them as such! They are grossly overpriced and underdelivering compared to Knights that are harder to kill, don't suck in HtH, and give up nothing in firepower. And if they're meching the infantry, even better!

Vaktathi can cover the IG Armor side in more detail, but I doubt he disagrees with my summary.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

sure but what about IG armor lists, or space marine armored might lists?

Gladius is indeed inherently unfair, but...

I said armored might lists, not Gladius. the armored might list is a space marine armor decurion.

I could quite literally field an army of nothing but space marine tanks if I wanted to.

Also the Gladius isn;t unfair. the space marine BATTLE COMPANY varient of it may be, but the gladius itself isn't terriably strong. I know it's easy to miss with all the people complaining but the gladius doesn't give free transports unless you take 2 core demi-companies

Just remember that we can complain about Imperial Knight lists making half of your weapons in a TAC useless, but swarms do the same thing. Yeah you're hitting those Gaunts and Boyz with Lascannons and Melta Guns. And? That's just false hope rather than just knowing you can't hurt an Imperial Knight with Bolters or Flamers.

"Your guns being physically incapable of hurting my units is just as bad as I have it because my guns are overkill" is a rather...unique argument...

 Vaktathi wrote:
"Your guns being physically incapable of hurting my units is just as bad as I have it because my guns are overkill" is a rather...unique argument...

Anti-Infantry is wasted against an Imperial Knight Army in the same way Anti-Tank is wasted against horde armies. Look at the cost of imperial heavy weapons, most of which are tailored against tanks. Not only are they expensive but make the unit super inefficient at killing horde armies.

It's basically the same thing outside of removing two Gaunts a turn with Lascannons.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
"Your guns being physically incapable of hurting my units is just as bad as I have it because my guns are overkill" is a rather...unique argument...

Anti-Infantry is wasted against an Imperial Knight Army in the same way Anti-Tank is wasted against horde armies. Look at the cost of imperial heavy weapons, most of which are tailored against tanks. Not only are they expensive but make the unit super inefficient at killing horde armies.

It's basically the same thing outside of removing two Gaunts a turn with Lascannons.

Also, keep in mind that the two Gaunts dying has a negligible effect on the strength of the horde at large.

Indeed. Although taking the example of a gaunt swarm, there is (usually) either a multi-wound squad (warriors) or a mid-level monstrous creature (tervigon) at the heart of it, so there is something for your antitank guns to be doing.

A green tide, or daemonkin cultist wave, however, can be just expendable dudes - and yes, firing antitank guns into that mass is just as much of a waste as firing bolters at an imperial knight. Which, I guess, is why people fixate on the S6 massed-rate-of-fire scatter laser, assault cannon, and the grav-cannon, because they can do both at no real downside (a grav-amped grav-cannon is better at killing guardsmen than a heavy bolter).

I'm seriously considering a third knight and running a household detachment plus BA at 2K pts. Obj sec on IKs is pretty sweet.

Having played with Objective Secured Tervigons, I'd heartily recommend it. Big tough stuff that has to be killed to be got off the objective is reassuringly good.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Imperial Knights have never been consider overpowered, in fact they have been consider appropriately costed since they were introduced. However, a vocal fraction of the player base complain quite a bit about how boring they are to play against, or how you have to tailor to table them in one turn, or how their list just does not include the army options needed to counter armor for some odd reason. Yet every army currently in the game either can counter armor or are intended to ally anyway.

SJ

har har har. Take this as sarcasm if you want, but it actually happened yesterday:
One of the kids at my LGS asked me to teach him how to play 40k, it isn't recent, but actually has been after me for a couple weeks to learn. I brought 4 500 point lists: AM, Tyranids, Tau, and a knight. You might ask, 'How did you get it to 500 points?' well, Crusader, RFBC, the Carapace Missile Launcher, and Mark of the Omnissiah. The last was a mistake; while I dealt ~5 HP of damage to it, he rolled really well on his IWND rolls.
I used my nids, and called it when he stomped my flyrant in CC and rolled a 6 (the only models left on the board were 3 spore mines in a cluster). I should have used my Tau.

Next week, he is interested in playing a slightly larger game at 1k points, and I told him that I would bring all my knights and let him build his own army (out of a Renegade box, magnetized with an additional Avenger and an Acheron) and this time I'm going to bring my tau. Question is, should I bring my stormsurge?

The firat time I played my knight was against a salamander army. First turn a drop pod fell right by its side. A sternguard squad with meltas and combine meltas exited and lit it up. Needless to say, it exploded on the first turn, taking out the sternguard and some of my army.

Knights are like a baneblade, they are good (not great). They are fragile though and will die quite easy these days with meltas, d weapons, chainfists, etc. Hell deathwatch armies could deepstrike a squad of ac terminators behind it (av11); it would be quite easy to rip it up with a s6 shred weapon.

Are they worth it? Not to me for the heavy point sink, but they are cool models and I still own some.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
"Your guns being physically incapable of hurting my units is just as bad as I have it because my guns are overkill" is a rather...unique argument...

Anti-Infantry is wasted against an Imperial Knight Army in the same way Anti-Tank is wasted against horde armies. Look at the cost of imperial heavy weapons, most of which are tailored against tanks. Not only are they expensive but make the unit super inefficient at killing horde armies.

It's basically the same thing outside of removing two Gaunts a turn with Lascannons.

I get that to some degree, but there's a difference between a weapon being overkill and being totally useless. At the same time, even amongst Horde armies, there are typically good targets for such weapons, I can't recall a horde army that didn't have some good target for a Lascannon, be it the Hive Tyrant leading the Gaunt swarm, a Killa Kan squad running with the Green Tide, or some other such thing, they never are completely devoid of targets.

TBH I've never fought an all IK list. I've fought a single IK list, and it didn't prove scary in any way. I have every reason to dislike IK's as a guard player since they can D my vehicles to death and stomp/blow up my infantry pretty handily, but they don't worry me. In fact I don't even think a full IK list would worry me too much. If a TAC army is built correctly, then it will be a challenge, but you should still be competitive against knights, that's why it's called a TAC army. You can take all comers. I know with my TAC lists I generally have enough str 10 and 9 ordnance, melta, etc.. to deal with a lot of vehicle spam, or enough bodies to tie them up until the emperor wakes up. Just my two cents.

 chrispy1991 wrote:
TBH I've never fought an all IK list. I've fought a single IK list, and it didn't prove scary in any way. I have every reason to dislike IK's as a guard player since they can D my vehicles to death and stomp/blow up my infantry pretty handily, but they don't worry me. In fact I don't even think a full IK list would worry me too much. If a TAC army is built correctly, then it will be a challenge, but you should still be competitive against knights, that's why it's called a TAC army. You can take all comers. I know with my TAC lists I generally have enough str 10 and 9 ordnance, melta, etc.. to deal with a lot of vehicle spam, or enough bodies to tie them up until the emperor wakes up. Just my two cents.

The problem is that, with the extreme that IK's occupy of being nothing but AV13 superheavy walker units, many factions aren't capable of building a TAC army that can successfully deal with Knights and remain "TAC". Knights can deal with bodies trying to tie them up quite well through Stomps and blast weapons, especially most IG units, and likewise packing enough AT to deal with 30HP's worth of AV13 4++ shielded walkers is difficult while trying to remain "TAC", especially if you're relying on something other than highly variable short range suicide melta.

The Leman Russ tank company armies have always had this issue, but crucially lacked mobility and close combat capability. IK's can do it all.

Played against my first Knight on Saturday. Managed to get a charge onto it with my Leviathan Dread that had a siege drill. Managed to drop it in one round fortunately. But then again, it's anti armor based, nearly as many points or more with pod.

It's not surprising that the leviathan dread can take it out easily.

agreed, if you can't handle a Knight you can't handle a lemen russ or a land raider either. what if I took a space marine armored task force?

What!? No. There are plenty of ways to handle a Russ or a Land Raider that would be ineffective against a knight. Not to mention that the damage output of your average LR is laughable and you can pretty much ignore both the Russ and the LR and there's not much of a penalty to that. Plus the knight has the D Stomp, can ignore most of the damage results AND has the ion shield. Beyond the fact that all three have Hull Points, there's almost no basis for comparison between those units. Go ahead and ignore that Knight and see how long it takes you to realize you can't ignore it ...

I don't necessarily think Knights are OP when taken alone or in pairs. It's when you're running something like Orks (who would struggle to deal with a single Knight), and you run into an Ad Lance that they start to feel over the top. I don't think that's a necessarily a fault of the Knight though, so much as it is the rules in general. With the game becoming increasingly more "Paper/rock/scissors" (as others have pointed out) since 6th ed, certain lists are always going to struggle against other lists. Knights are just one of those units that really makes that clear. There are some armies that just don't have the tools to face them.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
TBH I've never fought an all IK list. I've fought a single IK list, and it didn't prove scary in any way. I have every reason to dislike IK's as a guard player since they can D my vehicles to death and stomp/blow up my infantry pretty handily, but they don't worry me. In fact I don't even think a full IK list would worry me too much. If a TAC army is built correctly, then it will be a challenge, but you should still be competitive against knights, that's why it's called a TAC army. You can take all comers. I know with my TAC lists I generally have enough str 10 and 9 ordnance, melta, etc.. to deal with a lot of vehicle spam, or enough bodies to tie them up until the emperor wakes up. Just my two cents.

The problem is that, with the extreme that IK's occupy of being nothing but AV13 superheavy walker units, many factions aren't capable of building a TAC army that can successfully deal with Knights and remain "TAC". Knights can deal with bodies trying to tie them up quite well through Stomps and blast weapons, especially most IG units, and likewise packing enough AT to deal with 30HP's worth of AV13 4++ shielded walkers is difficult while trying to remain "TAC", especially if you're relying on something other than highly variable short range suicide melta.

The Leman Russ tank company armies have always had this issue, but crucially lacked mobility and close combat capability. IK's can do it all.

ten points of a melta gun or melta bomb has a small chance to drop d3 hp off a IK.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
TBH I've never fought an all IK list. I've fought a single IK list, and it didn't prove scary in any way. I have every reason to dislike IK's as a guard player since they can D my vehicles to death and stomp/blow up my infantry pretty handily, but they don't worry me. In fact I don't even think a full IK list would worry me too much. If a TAC army is built correctly, then it will be a challenge, but you should still be competitive against knights, that's why it's called a TAC army. You can take all comers. I know with my TAC lists I generally have enough str 10 and 9 ordnance, melta, etc.. to deal with a lot of vehicle spam, or enough bodies to tie them up until the emperor wakes up. Just my two cents.

The problem is that, with the extreme that IK's occupy of being nothing but AV13 superheavy walker units, many factions aren't capable of building a TAC army that can successfully deal with Knights and remain "TAC". Knights can deal with bodies trying to tie them up quite well through Stomps and blast weapons, especially most IG units, and likewise packing enough AT to deal with 30HP's worth of AV13 4++ shielded walkers is difficult while trying to remain "TAC", especially if you're relying on something other than highly variable short range suicide melta.

The Leman Russ tank company armies have always had this issue, but crucially lacked mobility and close combat capability. IK's can do it all.

ten points of a melta gun or melta bomb has a small chance to drop d3 hp off a IK.

It's not that small. 12% is pretty good to knock off an average of half its hull points.

Knights aren't really all that scary.
The guns are average, armour isn't great but the aren't bad in CC.

I generally run knights in 30k and they get torn to shreds pretty quickly.

The only one I've had a complaint about is the Atrapos.
And that's mainly due to rolling a 6 2 turns in a row.
And vortex blasts really aren't fun for anyone.

But none the less, most knights are levelled easily.
In 30k your kitted to nail Spartans, which seem a damn site harder to remove.

But as said, there's an issue somewhere if you can't kill a single knight.



I've never had a complaint about my lancer anyway, and that's what I run most games.
While it is highly destructive in CC, its mainly a fire magnet.

Tycho wrote:

agreed, if you can't handle a Knight you can't handle a lemen russ or a land raider either. what if I took a space marine armored task force?

What!? No. There are plenty of ways to handle a Russ or a Land Raider that would be ineffective against a knight. Not to mention that the damage output of your average LR is laughable and you can pretty much ignore both the Russ and the LR and there's not much of a penalty to that. Plus the knight has the D Stomp, can ignore most of the damage results AND has the ion shield. Beyond the fact that all three have Hull Points, there's almost no basis for comparison between those units. Go ahead and ignore that Knight and see how long it takes you to realize you can't ignore it ...

I don't necessarily think Knights are OP when taken alone or in pairs. It's when you're running something like Orks (who would struggle to deal with a single Knight), and you run into an Ad Lance that they start to feel over the top. I don't think that's a necessarily a fault of the Knight though, so much as it is the rules in general. With the game becoming increasingly more "Paper/rock/scissors" (as others have pointed out) since 6th ed, certain lists are always going to struggle against other lists. Knights are just one of those units that really makes that clear. There are some armies that just don't have the tools to face them.

How do you figure? You're having to rely on stripping HP most of the time anyway and Knights don't magically stop that outside the Shield that might not necessarily be on the correct side.

And they're 350 points for 6 HP. If you can deal with a Land Raiders you can deal with a Knight.

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

sure but what about IG armor lists, or space marine armored might lists? knights are far from the only army capable of deploying a list comprising of pure armor.

...Expensive, underarmoured vehicles, without the 4++, with AV 10-11 on some facings, that are weak in close combat?

A full-tank list from elsewhere is annoying, yes, but is in a very different league on the skew front than an Imperial Knight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Tycho wrote:

agreed, if you can't handle a Knight you can't handle a lemen russ or a land raider either. what if I took a space marine armored task force?

What!? No. There are plenty of ways to handle a Russ or a Land Raider that would be ineffective against a knight. Not to mention that the damage output of your average LR is laughable and you can pretty much ignore both the Russ and the LR and there's not much of a penalty to that. Plus the knight has the D Stomp, can ignore most of the damage results AND has the ion shield. Beyond the fact that all three have Hull Points, there's almost no basis for comparison between those units. Go ahead and ignore that Knight and see how long it takes you to realize you can't ignore it ...

I don't necessarily think Knights are OP when taken alone or in pairs. It's when you're running something like Orks (who would struggle to deal with a single Knight), and you run into an Ad Lance that they start to feel over the top. I don't think that's a necessarily a fault of the Knight though, so much as it is the rules in general. With the game becoming increasingly more "Paper/rock/scissors" (as others have pointed out) since 6th ed, certain lists are always going to struggle against other lists. Knights are just one of those units that really makes that clear. There are some armies that just don't have the tools to face them.

How do you figure? You're having to rely on stripping HP most of the time anyway and Knights don't magically stop that outside the Shield that might not necessarily be on the correct side.

And they're 350 points for 6 HP. If you can deal with a Land Raiders you can deal with a Knight.

Again. A Knight.

And if you're comparing this to a hypothetical list consisting entirely of Land Raiders I'd have to ask when the last time you saw a Land Raider do enough damage to justify trying to build a list solely out of their shooting was.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
An entire army of rock makes every scissors useless.

This is the very important bit so please focus on this part.
---Its not fun to play a game where half your army is useless against everything in your opponent's army list---

So...basically any army that includes a SHW or GC. Especially if they include a GC, since they can largely ignore most weaponry, between absurdly high Toughness, Armor/Invulnerable Saves, and baseline FNP. If SHW had the ability to mitigate damage the way a GC can, the hatred toward them would be more deserved.

Here's the thing, people talk about their TAC armies not being able to deal with a SHW like a Knight. But honestly, how can one say they are running a TAC list without including anti-armor?

...A TAC list can handle A Knight just fine, it's when the all-Knights army shows up the problems start.

sure but what about IG armor lists, or space marine armored might lists? knights are far from the only army capable of deploying a list comprising of pure armor.

...Expensive, underarmoured vehicles, without the 4++, with AV 10-11 on some facings, that are weak in close combat?

A full-tank list from elsewhere is annoying, yes, but is in a very different league on the skew front than an Imperial Knight.

The AV12 of a Knight is pretty much just as weak as the AV11 of the sides of those other vehicles with the weapons you were planning to use. Bait the shield and kill it quickly.

Seriously if you can't deal with Knights there is a minor amount of L2P here, and you know how much I hate saying that.

The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. A Russ also isnt going to charge *you*. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

1. Does that really matter with the new Grenade change?
2. What really gets into melee that doesn't have bigger weapons than S6?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

1. Does that really matter with the new Grenade change?
2. What really gets into melee that doesn't have bigger weapons than S6?

It's less if an issue with the grenade change, but still relevant. An S8 powerfist from a tac sergeant has a not inconsiderable chance of killing a Leman Russ right off the charge, whereas against a Knight he may average 1 HP every two turns or so, and all those S4 attacks from the basic Tacs can kill a Russ. A full Tac squad with a powerfist is averaging 3.6 HP's against a Russ tank even without Krak Grenades (resulting in a kill), and should have no difficulty getting to grips with the slow tank and are at no risk of being hit back, whereas that same squad will inflict an average of 0.5HP's charging a Knight as great risk of annihilation and if the Knight doesnt want to be in CC it can avoid it relatively easily.

The AV12 of a Knight is pretty much just as weak as the AV11 of the sides of those other vehicles with the weapons you were planning to use. Bait the shield and kill it quickly.

Seriously if you can't deal with Knights there is a minor amount of L2P here, and you know how much I hate saying that.

Right ... "Bait the shield" .... So to do that I need a minimum of two equally powerful threats in place and ready to go on the same turn. If you're trying to drop it in one round you'll need more than two. That can be challenging but not overly so. The next issue is that you need those units to survive and keep up with the Knight. Most armies aren't dropping it with one or two units in one turn and whatever the Knight hits on its turn will almost certainly die. Whether from the guns, the D stomp or CC. Then you have to keep up with the thing as Knights are incredibly fast. Next you have to be able to deal with the fact that, as a SH walker it ignores the Vehicle damage table. So at this point in the story, you've dedicated 2-4 units to kill it, at least half of those died in response and now it's simply walking away from the other threats. All while continuing to hammer everything else totally unabated. That's ONE Knight - which most here admit isn't that big a problem. Now go back and repeat all of that but instead of one Knight, your opponent brought 3-5. Good luck ...

Compare that to a Russ where I can have someone march up to the rear armor, smack it with a PF and drop it in a turn. All the while the Russ is not doing anywhere near the damage the Knight is. If you're looking at this from a strict "Hull point stripping" point of view, you're really missing what makes Knights scary. Again, the key word "Knights". I will agree that one Knight isn't so bad. Scary, and very tough, but not overly powerful.

Aye, one Knight is generally fine, it's when there's a gaggle of them that they become odious

so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

Tycho wrote:

The AV12 of a Knight is pretty much just as weak as the AV11 of the sides of those other vehicles with the weapons you were planning to use. Bait the shield and kill it quickly.

Seriously if you can't deal with Knights there is a minor amount of L2P here, and you know how much I hate saying that.

Compare that to a Russ where I can have someone march up to the FRONT armor, smack it with a PF and drop it in a turn. All the while the Russ is not doing anywhere near the damage the Knight is. If you're looking at this from a strict "Hull point stripping" point of view, you're really missing what makes Knights scary. Again, the key word "Knights". I will agree that one Knight isn't so bad. Scary, and very tough, but not overly powerful.

Fixed that for you.

BrianDavion wrote:
so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

People are spoiled by GMCs, whose demise can't be reasonably accelerated in any way.

so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

No one has even implied that. Where are you getting that from? At least in my case, I was simply pointing out that dropping a Knight is WAY different than dropping a Russ. They just aren't comparable. No, the fact that you can't "one shot it" doesn't make it bad. As I said, one Knight isn't terrible.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

1. Does that really matter with the new Grenade change?
2. What really gets into melee that doesn't have bigger weapons than S6?

It's less if an issue with the grenade change, but still relevant. An S8 powerfist from a tac sergeant has a not inconsiderable chance of killing a Leman Russ right off the charge, whereas against a Knight he may average 1 HP every two turns or so, and all those S4 attacks from the basic Tacs can kill a Russ. A full Tac squad with a powerfist is averaging 3.6 HP's against a Russ tank even without Krak Grenades (resulting in a kill), and should have no difficulty getting to grips with the slow tank and are at no risk of being hit back, whereas that same squad will inflict an average of 0.5HP's charging a Knight as great risk of annihilation and if the Knight doesnt want to be in CC it can avoid it relatively easily.

If a Tactical Sergeant managed to get THAT close with a Power Fist you honestly deserve the popped Russ. End of discussion. Melee upgrades are gak on them.
As well, the Knight is around 350 points. Of course they're inflicting less HP damage because it's more durable. We're not talking about a Knight the price of a Russ.

BrianDavion wrote:
so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

THANK YOU.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

1. Does that really matter with the new Grenade change?
2. What really gets into melee that doesn't have bigger weapons than S6?

It's less if an issue with the grenade change, but still relevant. An S8 powerfist from a tac sergeant has a not inconsiderable chance of killing a Leman Russ right off the charge, whereas against a Knight he may average 1 HP every two turns or so, and all those S4 attacks from the basic Tacs can kill a Russ. A full Tac squad with a powerfist is averaging 3.6 HP's against a Russ tank even without Krak Grenades (resulting in a kill), and should have no difficulty getting to grips with the slow tank and are at no risk of being hit back, whereas that same squad will inflict an average of 0.5HP's charging a Knight as great risk of annihilation and if the Knight doesnt want to be in CC it can avoid it relatively easily.

If a Tactical Sergeant managed to get THAT close with a Power Fist you honestly deserve the popped Russ. End of discussion. Melee upgrades are gak on them.

Setting aside the ability of SM's to deliver such units next to a Russ on turn 1...the point was that things like Russ tanks are hideously vulnerable even to units which are relatively poor at CC, Knights are not.

As well, the Knight is around 350 points. Of course they're inflicting less HP damage because it's more durable. We're not talking about a Knight the price of a Russ.

Even accounting for the difference in cost the gap in capability here is huge. If we toss twice or three times as many Tac marines in, the Knight will still probably ultimately destroy all of thosee units between its D attacks and Stomps, and be battle capable afterward, while matching the firepower of an equal number of points in Russ tanks.

BrianDavion wrote:
so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

The point was that other units used in comparison are dramatically easier to deal with using a much wider array of units. A charging tac squad will kill a Russ tank no problem off a charge with no risk to themselves whereas against a Knight that same unit, even with twice the numbers or more, is probably going to whiff entirely and get obliterated for the effort.

Point for point, the Knight has dramatically greater resilience, mobility, and dramatically more CC capability, with equal firepower, relative so something like a Russ tank, and the threat presented by multiple Knights is not something every army is equipped to deal with.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. A Russ also isnt going to charge *you*. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

I can't believe we need to cover the fact that equal points of Knights are categorically superior to Leman Russes in every single way one could possibly imagine within the 40k game context.

But as we're going down that road, how about a few words on Objectives and Scoring and Kill Points... Knights are better at ALL of those things, too...

The only thing that Russes are better at?

Dying.

Just like Cybermen vs Daleks.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. A Russ also isnt going to charge *you*. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

I can't believe we need to cover the fact that equal points of Knights are categorically superior to Leman Russes in every single way one could possibly imagine within the 40k game context.

But as we're going down that road, how about a few words on Objectives and Scoring and Kill Points... Knights are better at ALL of those things, too...

The only thing that Russes are better at?

Dying.

Just like Cybermen vs Daleks.

Russes can squeeze out an extra pieplate per 450 pts. Russes also have access to more ignores cover weaponry. They can also throw more natively AP 2 fire down the field. All pretty weak, but they're there. Russes are more durable per point against haywire attacks.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big distinction with Knights is that, unlike say, a Leman Russ company, you dont get to auto hit AV10 (or at best 11 on a couple models) in close combat, but rather AV13, and the Knight hits back like a Truck while the Russ just stands there and takes it passively and is hit by everything automatically on 3's. Likewise, a Russ cant exactly move much of anywhere, a Knight can potentially travel 4x as fast as a Russ in a single turn, and is much easier to keep just that frontal arc toward thr enemy barring DS units or the like. Land Raiders dont have the CC armor vulnerability and can move faster, but otherwise suffer all the same downsides.

Knights are a very different beast to handle than tanks are.

1. Does that really matter with the new Grenade change?
2. What really gets into melee that doesn't have bigger weapons than S6?

It's less if an issue with the grenade change, but still relevant. An S8 powerfist from a tac sergeant has a not inconsiderable chance of killing a Leman Russ right off the charge, whereas against a Knight he may average 1 HP every two turns or so, and all those S4 attacks from the basic Tacs can kill a Russ. A full Tac squad with a powerfist is averaging 3.6 HP's against a Russ tank even without Krak Grenades (resulting in a kill), and should have no difficulty getting to grips with the slow tank and are at no risk of being hit back, whereas that same squad will inflict an average of 0.5HP's charging a Knight as great risk of annihilation and if the Knight doesnt want to be in CC it can avoid it relatively easily.

If a Tactical Sergeant managed to get THAT close with a Power Fist you honestly deserve the popped Russ. End of discussion. Melee upgrades are gak on them.

Setting aside the ability of SM's to deliver such units next to a Russ on turn 1...the point was that things like Russ tanks are hideously vulnerable even to units which are relatively poor at CC, Knights are not.

As well, the Knight is around 350 points. Of course they're inflicting less HP damage because it's more durable. We're not talking about a Knight the price of a Russ.

Even accounting for the difference in cost the gap in capability here is huge. If we toss twice or three times as many Tac marines in, the Knight will still probably ultimately destroy all of thosee units between its D attacks and Stomps, and be battle capable afterward, while matching the firepower of an equal number of points in Russ tanks.

BrianDavion wrote:
so basicly because you can't one shot a 400 point knight with a unit that costs maybe 150 points, it's bad?

The point was that other units used in comparison are dramatically easier to deal with using a much wider array of units. A charging tac squad will kill a Russ tank no problem off a charge with no risk to themselves whereas against a Knight that same unit, even with twice the numbers or more, is probably going to whiff entirely and get obliterated for the effort.

Point for point, the Knight has dramatically greater resilience, mobility, and dramatically more CC capability, with equal firepower, relative so something like a Russ tank, and the threat presented by multiple Knights is not something every army is equipped to deal with.

1. Marines can't charge after getting out of a pod. So the Russ aims and gets half its points back? Even then, Russes aren't known for being good. Plus let us look at Tactical Marines in your situation realistically. You're either running them in a 5 man squad and therefore even the Punisher (one of the better ones) has a decent chance of popping them by itself (it kills 3 Marines on average maybe without upgrades) or they're being in a 10 man squad to hide your Power Fist you wanted for whatever and therefore the Executioner (one of the better ones) can a good chance of hitting the only important members of the squad. Now a squad of Sternguard popping out of a pod is a different story, but you're spending easily more than a Russ to pop it.
2. Russes are still garbage for the points, so the Imperial Knight is more realistically costed than the Russes. That said, it is still only 6HP to strip.
3. And not every army can fight summoning lists as they're not equipped to deal with it nor are all armies able to fight Green Tide as not all lists are equipped to handle it. See how this goes? You can't fight every list at once; you can only try to prepare for the extremes each time.

Russes are trash for the points, IKs are adequate for the points.

1. Marines can't charge after getting out of a pod. So the Russ aims and gets half its points back? Even then, Russes aren't known for being good. Plus let us look at Tactical Marines in your situation realistically. You're either running them in a 5 man squad and therefore even the Punisher (one of the better ones) has a decent chance of popping them by itself (it kills 3 Marines on average maybe without upgrades) or they're being in a 10 man squad to hide your Power Fist you wanted for whatever and therefore the Executioner (one of the better ones) can a good chance of hitting the only important members of the squad. Now a squad of Sternguard popping out of a pod is a different story, but you're spending easily more than a Russ to pop it.

The point is, that's ONE squad of Marines. Yes, the Russ might take them out. Chances are it won't, and that one squad has a real good chance of killing the Russ. You need a minimum of two squads just to get past the shield of the Knight, and the Knight WILL kill the Marines.

2. Russes are still garbage for the points, so the Imperial Knight is more realistically costed than the Russes. That said, it is still only 6HP to strip.

Yes. "only" 6 HP ... once you get past the shield, the D weapons, the incoming fire, the CC attacks and the speed of the Knight ... It seems like you're deliberately ignoring the things that really make Knights tough ... Here's a hint - It's NOT the Hull Points.

3. And not every army can fight summoning lists as they're not equipped to deal with it nor are all armies able to fight Green Tide as not all lists are equipped to handle it. See how this goes? You can't fight every list at once; you can only try to prepare for the extremes each time.

This part's true to an extant. Like I said before, 40K really has become paper/rock/scissors and few other things make that more clear than an all Knight army. I really don't think the true TAC list still exists in 40K anymore. That said, you will still have a chance (admittedly a very slim chance) of beating a horde or summoning army that you aren't equipped to handle. If you aren't set up to face multiple Knights, you have ZERO shot. If you ARE set up to face multiple Knights, you don't have much of shot against the other "power" lists. They just really exploit that flaw in the current design philosophy.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. Marines can't charge after getting out of a pod. So the Russ aims and gets half its points back?

"Yes...6HP woth high enough frontal AV to be immune or highly resistant to most S based HP stripping weapons with a like 4++ that doesnt have to worry about being shaken, stunned, losing weapons, getting autohit on rear armor on 3's etc. "

And still require a third of the firepower compared to Riptide. All for double the cost! What a deal!

Before we get too far out into the weeds of a one-on-one comparison I'd like to say again.

ONE Imperial Knight is not a problem.

[MANY Imperial Knights are a problem.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Before we get too far out into the weeds of a one-on-one comparison I'd like to say again.

ONE Imperial Knight is not a problem.

[MANY Imperial Knights are a problem.

sure but this gets back to my point, Imperial Knights are not the only such army out there these days. both the Imperial Guard, and Space Marines have decurion options that allow them, if they so desire, to deploy armies of nothing but armor IG with the Hammer of the Emperor super formation, and Space Marines with the Armored Might super formation.so even if you ignore IKs, you need to, these days take in consideration the possiability of fighting a army that consists entirely of vehicles.

sure but this gets back to my point, Imperial Knights are not the only such army out there these days. both the Imperial Guard, and Space Marines have decurion options that allow them, if they so desire, to deploy armies of nothing but armor IG with the Hammer of the Emperor super formation, and Space Marines with the Armored Might super formation.so even if you ignore IKs, you need to, these days take in consideration the possiability of fighting a army that consists entirely of vehicles.

As has been illustrated ad nauseum at this point, taking out an all tank army simply isn't even close to taking out an all Knight army. Both you and Slayer fan appear to be deliberately ignoring the very significant differences between your typical AV 13 style wall and an all Knight list. Comparing an army of SH walkers to an army of tanks just isn't quite apples to apples in this case. I can still build as close to a "TAC list" as current 40k will allow and have a shot at taking out your AV12/13/14 wall. I can't say the same for fighting 3-5 Knights.

You're correct, but the big difference is that those armies collapse might quick to some dedicated assault units that can close the gap or reliably get behind the force and shove a gak load of krak grenades up tail pipes.

Knights on the other hand fight back and aren't exactly slouches.

Tycho wrote:

sure but this gets back to my point, Imperial Knights are not the only such army out there these days. both the Imperial Guard, and Space Marines have decurion options that allow them, if they so desire, to deploy armies of nothing but armor IG with the Hammer of the Emperor super formation, and Space Marines with the Armored Might super formation.so even if you ignore IKs, you need to, these days take in consideration the possiability of fighting a army that consists entirely of vehicles.

As has been illustrated ad nauseum at this point, taking out an all tank army simply isn't even close to taking out an all Knight army. Both you and Slayer fan appear to be deliberately ignoring the very significant differences between your typical AV 13 style wall and an all Knight list. Comparing an army of SH walkers to an army of tanks just isn't quite apples to apples in this case. I can still build as close to a "TAC list" as current 40k will allow and have a shot at taking out your AV12/13/14 wall. I can't say the same for fighting 3-5 Knights.

sure except those armies ALSO make bolt guns etc useless. the "half my armies weapons are useless" complaint applies.

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Before we get too far out into the weeds of a one-on-one comparison I'd like to say again.

ONE Imperial Knight is not a problem.

[MANY Imperial Knights are a problem.

sure but this gets back to my point, Imperial Knights are not the only such army out there these days. both the Imperial Guard, and Space Marines have decurion options that allow them, if they so desire, to deploy armies of nothing but armor IG with the Hammer of the Emperor super formation, and Space Marines with the Armored Might super formation.so even if you ignore IKs, you need to, these days take in consideration the possiability of fighting a army that consists entirely of vehicles.

The issue with those IG and SM armor is that they are much easier to succesfully engage, are generally much more static, and have fewer attack vectors than the Knights do. IG have had AC list since 3E, but they were always really awkward to run, while Knights suffer almost none of the drawbacks when fielded as an army. Boltguns might be mostly useless (though can at least do something to rear armor in most cases, for instance dropped via pod if they have nothing better to shoot at) but barefisted close combat attacks are not, there are a whole lot more options for engaging these types of armies than there are for Knights.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. Marines can't charge after getting out of a pod. So the Russ aims and gets half its points back?

Right, but if we're talking a BC russ (closest match to Knight armament), assuming no cover and good scatter sure, otherwise...

Even then, Russes aren't known for being good.

In large part because of vehicle rules Knights dont have to worry about.

Plus let us look at Tactical Marines in your situation realistically. You're either running them in a 5 man squad and therefore even the Punisher (one of the better ones) has a decent chance of popping them by itself (it kills 3 Marines on average maybe without upgrades) or they're being in a 10 man squad to hide your Power Fist you wanted for whatever and therefore the Executioner (one of the better ones) can a good chance of hitting the only important members of the squad.

We'll leave aside the fact that an Executioner is also likely to kill itself over the course of a game...

But ultimately the point wasnt to get bogged down in details of various Russ loadouts and highly variable tactical minutae, it was to highlight the dramatically greater mobility, versaility, and resiliency of the Knight in relation to units its often compared with.

2. Russes are still garbage for the points, so the Imperial Knight is more realistically costed than the Russes. That said, it is still only 6HP to strip.

Yes...6HP woth high enough frontal AV to be immune or highly resistant to most S based HP stripping weapons with a like 4++ that doesnt have to worry about being shaken, stunned, losing weapons, getting autohit on rear armor on 3's etc.

3. And not every army can fight summoning lists as they're not equipped to deal with it nor are all armies able to fight Green Tide as not all lists are equipped to handle it. See how this goes? You can't fight every list at once; you can only try to prepare for the extremes each time.

and I have just as much of an issue with lists like those. My point ultimately was that it's not possible for all armies to deal with multiple Knights with a TAC list and as such do present a balance issue beyond just players inability to command their forces, and that should be acknowledged. Tailoring lists is still looked down upon and isnt always possible.

sure except those armies ALSO make bolt guns etc useless. the "half my armies weapons are useless" complaint applies.

Um ... that's a non-starter IMO. I don't really care that my boltguns are useless against a tank army. What I care about is that my anti-tank stuff isn't useless, is easily delivered to those tanks, and can be reliably spread across multiple tanks at once and still work to solid effect. I can still bring down your armor reliably and without too much risk to myself. That's with just using a more "TAC" list that wasn't built exclusively to kill armor. That same "TAC" list simply isn't going to do jack against 3 Knights. That's what everyone is trying to explain.

I take that "TAC" list (or at least as close to TAC as I can get with the current meta) and run against your tanks - I can still win. I can then take that list against a lot of other armies and still be in the game. I take that TAC list against an all Knight army and I'm toast. Zero chance. So I take an army dedicated to killing Knights and I win that game. That "Knight killer" list isn't likely to fare well against ANY other list INCLUDING your AV wall "all tank" example. THAT is where Knights currently present an issue. I personally feel they are really just inadvertanlty exposing a flaw in the game itself, but there you have it.

If you sincerely don't understand the difference at this point I'm not sure what to say ...


EDIT:

I feel like a lot of the "All tank armies are just as hard as all Knight armies" are being posted by people who may not actually have faced a lot of either? I just don't get how people aren't seeing the differences unless their arguments are based on pure theory.

 Vaktathi wrote:
IG have had AC list since 3E, but they were always really awkward to run, while Knights suffer almost none of the drawbacks when fielded as an army.

3E IGAC was better than the infantry-heavy alternative, that's for sure. Halfway competitive. Can't say that today.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
IG have had AC list since 3E, but they were always really awkward to run, while Knights suffer almost none of the drawbacks when fielded as an army.

3E IGAC was better than the infantry-heavy alternative, that's for sure. Halfway competitive. Can't say that today.

That was back when Ordnance was Armourbane, too.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
therefore the Executioner (one of the better ones) can a good chance of hitting the only important members of the squad.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - the executioner kills the nearest models, not the models under the blast markers. It's only for barrage weapons that wound allocation selects models closest to the center of the marker.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
The even nastyer combo is grav cannon, grav gun, and multi grav and just unleash hell on it.

Since Tacticals aren't relentless you've got 7 shots.

You need hit, then get a 6 and then he gets the shield.

The average result is zero damage. Grav guns are worse against knights than meltas.

From the position of having both 5 knights and 15~ russes and support vehicles of various configurations, I can say the following:

The mobility element alone tips the balance in favor of the knights.

Beyond and above armament, the capacity to dictate the direction of combat renders even the missile Gallant more valuable in a point grab situation than equivalent points of any Russ. While the russes can very easily sway a battle for you, they do so by straightforward party wipe applications, and there will be, if you're facing competent opponents, situations where that's not enough. Or at least not what you need for a given situation, i.e. 3 secure objective 5s drawn by your opponent.

The 12 +12~ move of a knight grants it the capacity to effectively cross the board almost 3 times during the length of an average game, or on the 4x4/6x4 tables that tend to be the standard, walk to every single objective point in a circuit, and often force movement of anti armour elements when that would not be desired by your opponent.

I think that there are some important points getting lost in the argument over if mass tanks are better than mass Knights and the L2P noobness.

The central are Knights that powerful question really boils down to how casual/competitive of a game is being played.

In a casual pick up game, one Imperial Knight is reasonable. All factions have enough anti-tank to deal with a single Knight without tailoring for it. 2-3 Knights gets more iffy, and will depend mostly on your gaming group. In my club, showing up with 3 Knights means you want a casual game. At the new players night, it's a d**k move. More than 3 Knights and you've moved into competitive play, meaning you shouldn't be playing against opponents who don't want a tournament style game.

In competitive play, Knights (that is, 4-5 of them) are mid tier and tend to be very rock paper scissors. Some armies can't handle them and mostly just hope to not play against them, other armies have easy solutions and look at the Knights as a free win. In small events the Knight player can hope that nobody brought the tools to kill him/dodge the bad match up. In major events, that's much less likely, particularly as the current dominant armies all have the tools to deal with them. Evidence for this is the thing were Imperial Knight builds rarely win GT's.

Compared to mass Leman Russes/Armored Company builds, Knights are better, because those armies are outdated and have major flaws. Compared to GMC, Knights are worse, because the only two GMC anyone cares about (Stormsurge and Wraithknight) are really really good. If you are at a tournament and you don't have the tools to deal with several Knights, your likely going to loose to Knights and to the neckbeard who brought all of the Leman Russes he painted up in 1998. If you are having a casual game, you can always ask the other player to take out some Knights, or play fewer points, or simply decline the game.

In my area more then one LOW of any type and you get dirty looks.

Oldmike wrote:
In my area more then one LOW of any type and you get dirty looks.

Yeah I know. Dante is so broken.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
In my area more then one LOW of any type and you get dirty looks.

Yeah I know. Dante is so broken.

Well, Dante paired with a Sanguinary Priest equals a lot of AP2 attacks at his high initiative. But he is not even in the same category as a Knight or, god forbid, a Stormsurge or Wraithknight.

I'm pretty sure Slayer-Fan was attempting humor

 adamsouza wrote:
I'm pretty sure Slayer-Fan was attempting humor

I know he was.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
In my area more then one LOW of any type and you get dirty looks.

Yeah I know. Dante is so broken.

Yeah, imagine using 2 CAD's to take Dante and Gabriel Seth! Sweet Emperor's teeth, your enemies would have no chance!

 Drasius wrote:
Yeah, imagine using 2 CAD's to take Dante and Gabriel Seth! Sweet Emperor's teeth, your enemies would have no chance!

As an Imperial Guard player, it is broken and wrong that you guys get Lords of War choices in your codex at all. Unfair!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Yeah, imagine using 2 CAD's to take Dante and Gabriel Seth! Sweet Emperor's teeth, your enemies would have no chance!

As an Imperial Guard player, it is broken and wrong that you guys get Lords of War choices in your codex at all. Unfair!

just because it flew in under my radar, you're familer with codex: Cadia right?

Nope, I just play Imperial Guard. With an Allied Knight.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Yeah, imagine using 2 CAD's to take Dante and Gabriel Seth! Sweet Emperor's teeth, your enemies would have no chance!

As an Imperial Guard player, it is broken and wrong that you guys get Lords of War choices in your codex at all. Unfair!

As an Inquisition player, it is broken and wrong that you have in-faction superheavies with plastic kits.

Your point?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Nope, I just play Imperial Guard. With an Allied Knight.

basicly it's a supplemental codex that add s decurion style formation to IG players and incldues the up to date stat sheets for the baneblade family of super heavies

Oh, OK. I remember people talking about IG getting formations a while back, but I completely ignored it, as I wasn't about to buy a supplement on top of the Codex. If/when GW makes a new IG Codex with formations built-in, I'll reconsider.

Until then, if I want to play Decurion-style formations, I'll work on getting the missing bits for my Eldar.

Imperial Knights aren't that powerful. They don't shoot enough to thin out Eldar/Tau and don't have enough CC attacks to stop throwaway CC units like Ork Nobz while being an AV13 vehicle in CC and an AV12 one when they get shot at. Their only strength at this point rests in being able to make them Obsec, but the dirty little secret is that in most missions nowadays your opponent only has to kill 2/5 knights to make it impossible for the Knight player to win. You need more than 3 units on the board to win most of the time., and there are many solutions to dealing with Knights that cost far less than they do. Like other units they can be buffed (invisibility, forewarning, etc) but by themselves they are less menacing than an equal points value of scatterbikes or warp spiders.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Oh, OK. I remember people talking about IG getting formations a while back, but I completely ignored it, as I wasn't about to buy a supplement on top of the Codex. If/when GW makes a new IG Codex with formations built-in, I'll reconsider.

Until then, if I want to play Decurion-style formations, I'll work on getting the missing bits for my Eldar.

You're not missing anything on the decurion from but a couple of the formations are okay.

They are not super powerful if you account in the most cheesy lists. In a way, they are good for the game, as they force your opponents to think what to put in their list if they meet one. They also counter the lame deathstars a bit.

It's a rare game where a Knight brings back it's points cost, it requires expertise to use to get everything out of it each turn. Too often you see a Knight who Stomps some unit of Guardsmen, shoots one Leman Russ and that's all she wrote during the whole match. Against powerful lists they can be easily oneshot, becoming a huge amount of "wasted" points.

Meh, they're nothing too strong in a vacuum, but in essence your just playing rock paper scissors, get matched against an army with a plethora of AT weapons and then you're doomed but if you face a TAC list then you'll probably wreak face...

Today's game, we had Knights & Guard Infantry against Orks. And yeah, the Knights did very well. I'm not so much impressed by the FW variants over the regular plastics. Still, the Knights did an impressive job of board control, clearing the center to take those objectives.

A single Knight on its own is poerful but can be dealt with. The real issue comes when someone deploys an entire army of them in a game and basically renders anything with less than S7 invalid.

 master of ordinance wrote:
A single Knight on its own is poerful but can be dealt with. The real issue comes when someone deploys an entire army of them in a game and basically renders anything with less than S7 invalid.

On the flipside, if you build your army to handle GMCs and Superheavies rather than dumping all your points into a Deathstar, someone fielding all Knights just handed you a free win. Rock meets Scissors while complaining Paper is OP.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
A single Knight on its own is poerful but can be dealt with. The real issue comes when someone deploys an entire army of them in a game and basically renders anything with less than S7 invalid.

On the flipside, if you build your army to handle GMCs and Superheavies rather than dumping all your points into a Deathstar, someone fielding all Knights just handed you a free win. Rock meets Scissors while complaining Paper is OP.

SJ

or perhaps its more that many armies simply are not capable of making lists able to engage 5 Knights and remaining "TAC". Knights are something many armies have to tailor for when facing a full army of them, which isn't always an option.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
A single Knight on its own is poerful but can be dealt with. The real issue comes when someone deploys an entire army of them in a game and basically renders anything with less than S7 invalid.

On the flipside, if you build your army to handle GMCs and Superheavies rather than dumping all your points into a Deathstar, someone fielding all Knights just handed you a free win. Rock meets Scissors while complaining Paper is OP.

SJ

Well, if I optimise my army to face nothing BUT vehicles then yes, it would be rather more easy. On the other hand every other army would stomp all over me.

Mine always seems to die turn 1 or turn 2 at the best. I've stopped fielding it.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
A single Knight on its own is poerful but can be dealt with. The real issue comes when someone deploys an entire army of them in a game and basically renders anything with less than S7 invalid.

On the flipside, if you build your army to handle GMCs and Superheavies rather than dumping all your points into a Deathstar, someone fielding all Knights just handed you a free win. Rock meets Scissors while complaining Paper is OP.

SJ

Well, if I optimise my army to face nothing BUT vehicles then yes, it would be rather more easy. On the other hand every other army would stomp all over me.

So, how do you normally play that you cannot deal with vehicles easily?

SJ

There's a difference between having sufficient AT for most games and sufficient AT for 5 Superheavy walkers sporting invul saves with dramatically more mobility than most other vehicles and both assault phase and shooting phase attack vectors. What would clear Russ company off a table wont necessarily function against Knights.

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's a difference between having sufficient AT for most games and sufficient AT for 5 Superheavy walkers sporting invul saves with dramatically more mobility than most other vehicles and both assault phase and shooting phase attack vectors. What would clear Russ company off a table wont necessarily function against Knights.

I disagree. The ability to deal with massed Russes is the same ability to deal with mass Knights. If you can handle one, you can handle the other.

SJ

Hehe. /popcorn This should be good.

Point for point, Knights outclass Russes. They are much faster, have better survivability with their shields, and most importantly, don't insta-die in HtH. There is a huge difference in cracking WS4 AV13 in HtH vs WS1 AV10/11. And that's before we factor in the A3 S(D) attacks & d3 Stomps...

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's a difference between having sufficient AT for most games and sufficient AT for 5 Superheavy walkers sporting invul saves with dramatically more mobility than most other vehicles and both assault phase and shooting phase attack vectors. What would clear Russ company off a table wont necessarily function against Knights.

I disagree. The ability to deal with massed Russes is the same ability to deal with mass Knights. If you can handle one, you can handle the other.

SJ

Well, you know what they say. That's the good thing about America, you can disagree and have an opinion all you want, doesn't make you right though.

I disagree. The ability to deal with massed Russes is the same ability to deal with mass Knights. If you can handle one, you can handle the other.

Have you read the pages prior to this one? We've covered that subject in detail already ...

All this being said, I think all IKs are rather a bit overcosted, so spamming them is not likely to yield good results.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Today's game, we had Knights & Guard Infantry against Orks. And yeah, the Knights did very well. I'm not so much impressed by the FW variants over the regular plastics. Still, the Knights did an impressive job of board control, clearing the center to take those objectives.

Castigators work very well vs horde armies in my experience.

I'm biased though, I love the model.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's a difference between having sufficient AT for most games and sufficient AT for 5 Superheavy walkers sporting invul saves with dramatically more mobility than most other vehicles and both assault phase and shooting phase attack vectors. What would clear Russ company off a table wont necessarily function against Knights.

I disagree. The ability to deal with massed Russes is the same ability to deal with mass Knights. If you can handle one, you can handle the other.

SJ

Not true at all. Russ tanks can be shaken, stunned, immobilized, and lose weapons. Russ tanks cannot engage multiple targets. They dont have inherent invul saves. They are exceedingly, absurdly easy to kill in CC being WS1 and in most cases AV10 (11 at best) when attacked in CC (though, if the FAQ grenade change makes it through to the final version, they will be less ridiculously easy to kill), and can't run from or avoid anything with a maximum move of 6" a turn.

None of these things are true with Knights. If your idea of AT is just raw volume of lascannon fire, sure, they're pretty equivalent. Outside of that they are wildly different beasts when it comes to engaging them.

Knights cannot be shaken or immobilized, they can shoot at multiple targets, they have invul saves to block incoming fire, they are very powerful in CC and much harder to hurt there than Russ tanks being WS4+ and are hit in AV13, and can traverse up to 24" of tablespace in a single turn and can avoid enemy units with far greater ease if they choose.

The Castigator is OK, but laying down 2 Large Blasts anywhere on the table turn after turn also solves a lot of problems before they reach BtB!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The Castigator is OK, but laying down 2 Large Blasts anywhere on the table turn after turn also solves a lot of problems before they reach BtB!

The acheron is good vs crowds too....it also happens to be usually the first one of my knights I lose in a game.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The ability to deal with massed Russes is the same ability to deal with mass Knights. If you can handle one, you can handle the other.

SJ

If your idea of AT is just raw volume of lascannon fire, sure, they're pretty equivalent.

Not really. AV13/Sv4++ is strictly better than AV14.

The weapons and tactics it takes to kill a tank in 40k are the exact same weapons and tactics it takes to kill a Knight. The only different is that you are dealing with 1/3 the number in Knights versus tanks, and need to dedicate 3x the effort per Knight. You aren't killing all 5 on turn 1, you are killing or mitigating 1 per turn.

And yes, I have read the thread. And posted several times. Asking the question implies you haven't read the thread.

SJ

An Imperial Knight weighs in around 400 pts, less than 3x the points cost of a typical Leman Russ hitting the board. Point for point, Knights are more durable than Russes.

Imperial Knights lose firepower more slowly as well. If you destroy 1 Russ of a Knight, the Knight keeps firing. The Russ is destroyed. And that's just the destroyed result, ignoring the impact of Shakes & Stuns that Knights completely ignore.

Quite frankly, you don't understand the Knight v Russ difference well enough to be posting what you're posting. Much less talking smack to other posters here.

Knights go down fast on their sides. Way faster than a 400 pt model should. If you are using HP scrubbing, IKs are far less durable/pt on the side compared to a LRBT.

OK, I'll bite. What other 400 pt models are you comparing the Knight to?
____

Oh, I see you clarified it to be HP scrubbing. Which is a bit odd, as the Russes will be taking Pens and Shakes and Stuns that the Knight is going to largely ignore.

Not really. It's actually pretty hard to pen AV 13. Yeah, there's melta, but most commonly, the Russ will be doing its thing until it runs out of HPs.

For a single 400 pt? I'm not sure. But let's look at the 295 pt WK or say 400 pts of TWC. It's not even close who is more durable. Thinking about the pool of available power units in the game, IKs are definitely below average in that crowd. Maybe bordering on bad, actually, because of their cost.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The weapons and tactics it takes to kill a tank in 40k are the exact same weapons and tactics it takes to kill a Knight. The only different is that you are dealing with 1/3 the number in Knights versus tanks, and need to dedicate 3x the effort per Knight. You aren't killing all 5 on turn 1, you are killing or mitigating 1 per turn.

And yes, I have read the thread. And posted several times. Asking the question implies you haven't read the thread.

SJ

Except Knights strike back in Melee and can Stomp. My Greater Unclean Ones, Daemon Princes, and Bloodthirster fear no Leman Russ, but fear Knights.

I think for people planning to shoot them to death, it's a lot more like fighting a tank than for people who plan on assaulting them. Knights neither strike back, nor stomp when you are scrubbing them to death on their AV 12 sides with no ion shield.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The weapons and tactics it takes to kill a tank in 40k are the exact same weapons and tactics it takes to kill a Knight.

If you're talking shooting lascannons from across the board...sure.

Aside from that, they are very different.

You cannot suppress a Knight the way you can a tank like a Russ.

A Russ dies in CC as soon as anything with even thr most basic anti armor gear makes it into base contact, and cannot hit back at all. A Knight is a fearsome CC machine.

DS melta has to contend with an invul save and usually requires setting up a competing threat to hit the Knight from multiple angles to bypass thr Invul or requires devoting significantly more DS melta resources to overcome the additional HP and invul save.

HP stripping doesnt work particularly well on either unless you can get to a Knights side.

The knight has dramatically superior mobility to avoid threats and engage targets on its terms, whereas a Russ can do neither.


I mean, if you want to provide detail on how they're exactly the same, be my guest, but aside from just stating that the weapons and tactics are identical repeatedly, you havent provided any arguments to back that up nor any response to any of the points previously laid out.

The AV 11 rear Russes got a lot better after the grenade FAQ, though. Depends on whether we are talking assault marines or TWC charging them.

Martel732 wrote:
The AV 11 rear Russes got a lot better after the grenade FAQ, though. Depends on whether we are talking assault marines or TWC charging them.

only 3 variants have rear AV11 though, most are rear AV10 :(

That said, yes if the grenade change holds through the final FAQ, it will be a good boost to the rear AV11 russ tanks, the rear AV10 russ tanks can still be taken down absurdly easily by massed S4 hits.

Only 3... sigh. We're already using all the FAQ's so I'm used to it already. I guess I see those 3 a lot.

The thing about the side AV 12 is that the Eldar can get absurd amounts of S6 anywhere they want easily. While shooting through the front with D weapons. Although the ion shield functions against 66% of D weapon shots.

babelfish wrote:
I think that there are some important points getting lost in the argument over if mass tanks are better than mass Knights and the L2P noobness.

The central are Knights that powerful question really boils down to how casual/competitive of a game is being played.

In a casual pick up game, one Imperial Knight is reasonable. All factions have enough anti-tank to deal with a single Knight without tailoring for it. 2-3 Knights gets more iffy, and will depend mostly on your gaming group. In my club, showing up with 3 Knights means you want a casual game. At the new players night, it's a d**k move. More than 3 Knights and you've moved into competitive play, meaning you shouldn't be playing against opponents who don't want a tournament style game.

In competitive play, Knights (that is, 4-5 of them) are mid tier and tend to be very rock paper scissors. Some armies can't handle them and mostly just hope to not play against them, other armies have easy solutions and look at the Knights as a free win. In small events the Knight player can hope that nobody brought the tools to kill him/dodge the bad match up. In major events, that's much less likely, particularly as the current dominant armies all have the tools to deal with them. Evidence for this is the thing were Imperial Knight builds rarely win GT's.

Compared to mass Leman Russes/Armored Company builds, Knights are better, because those armies are outdated and have major flaws. Compared to GMC, Knights are worse, because the only two GMC anyone cares about (Stormsurge and Wraithknight) are really really good. If you are at a tournament and you don't have the tools to deal with several Knights, your likely going to loose to Knights and to the neckbeard who brought all of the Leman Russes he painted up in 1998. If you are having a casual game, you can always ask the other player to take out some Knights, or play fewer points, or simply decline the game.

I think this is the best look at the issue.

IK are a pro-am army, in that they're not quite good enough for the highest levels of competitive play, but they'll wipe the tables with most casual to semi-competitive builds. Virtually every example of how easy it is to deal with IKs presupposes that the player is using a high level codex: Eldar, Space Marines, or Tau. And, to those armies, there are pretty straight forward answers.

For a lot of armies, not only is the game not competitive, it's incredibly frustrating. And that's what people remember.

Orks in particular don't find Knights super fun I know. Lootas are very sketchy vs the front AV 13 4++, and the lootas will likely be targeted for elimination quickly.

Imperial Knights are strong, but they only get "too powerful" when you start taking more than one of them. One is manageable, more than one turns the game into a larger scale version of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Martel732 wrote:
I think for people planning to shoot them to death, it's a lot more like fighting a tank than for people who plan on assaulting them. Knights neither strike back, nor stomp when you are scrubbing them to death on their AV 12 sides with no ion shield.

Not exactly, because the difference being that a Knight can crush a lot of things within 20" simply by assaulting it - a Russ cannot ever do that. The Russ can only ever shoot back. Same with the big movement advantage - the Russ is simply a lot slower to get out of a fire lane or kill box. That is a huge difference in the combat calculus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
The thing about the side AV 12 is that the Eldar can get absurd amounts of S6 anywhere they want easily. While shooting through the front with D weapons. Although the ion shield functions against 66% of D weapon shots.

And if you didn't happen to bring a mass-S6 / multi-D Eldar army, what then?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Orks in particular don't find Knights super fun I know. Lootas are very sketchy vs the front AV 13 4++, and the lootas will likely be targeted for elimination quickly.

Along with Tankbustas and Meganobz. Otherwise, not a big deal.

"And if you didn't happen to bring a mass-S6 / multi-D Eldar army, what then?"

Is there another kind?

The Eldar book has lots of choices, and there are non-Eldar books. Showing that there is one Rock to this Scissors army in a sea of Paper doesn't help you. If anything, that particular Eldar build is the exception that proves the rule, as Polonius noted.

If you are saying people need a top-tier competitive army to beat Knights, maximizing the best units from what is considered a top-tier Codex, then that pretty much shows that Knights are obviously a superior choice.

BTW, at this point, I think it's obvious that you're trolling.

Superior to what? Russes? Pretty damn low bar.

Martel732 wrote:
Orks in particular don't find Knights super fun I know. Lootas are very sketchy vs the front AV 13 4++, and the lootas will likely be targeted for elimination quickly.

Assault them with Nobz/bullyboyz. AV13 with no save is a wet paper bag against S10, with or without armorbane. Knights can only kill 3 (4 for the forgeworld ones) before you get to strike back. Even if the stomps kill you, it's a good trade.
For math reference: 5 attacks WS5 s10 vs AV13 (aka1 nobz charging) gives 3.33 hits, 1.67 pens and 0.55 glances. That doesn't factor in additional hullpoints for Explodes results, or the effects of killsaws. If you charge a knight with 5 Nobz, he will kill 1.5 of them at I4 (round up for 2) before you hit back with enough hullpoints to kill it outright. When I play my Grey Knights against them, I just hit them with hammers and dreadknights for a similar effect.

The best way to kill a knight is CC if you have high strength weapons; they simply don't have enough attacks to kill you before I1. However, in this edition many armies also have enough shooting to flank it and wittle it down, shield or not. And remember, you don't have to kill all 5...just 2-3 and then you can control the board and win on objectives.

Yeah, Killsaw Nobz were what our group came up with as well.

Orks can lock a Knight down with a squad of Snotlings, and keep it locked down all game by simply feeding it a cheap squad every turn. Nids can do the same with Gaunts. In point of fact, plentiful cheap infantry are the bane of Knights. They can't kill 20+ cheap infantry fast enough to stop 10 more from showing up. And while that Knight is stuck in a tarpit, the Knight next to it is getting it's hull points stripped. And the three others? They are stuck trying to get around terrain because you were smart enough to use wall, and tall line of sight blocking ruins.

Did you take flyers? You know, those units most Knights can't deal with?

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Did you take flyers? You know, those units most Knights can't deal with?

SJ

but but fliers are ALSO an evil of 6th/7th edition! How dare you suggest I take them!

When playing Eldar one or multiple knights don't make a lot of difference to me. Usually two Hemlocks, two D-cannon batteries and one WK with wraithcannons can do the job. If not a Sh.Spear charge will finish the job.
Imperial Knights are a nice model which seems appropriately costed (not like the WK). I greatly consider including one in my GK list as fire support for them. (and I really like the model).

I find Knights completely terryfining and bought one, solely to counter my opponent's IK. Theire firepower is immense, they have split fire, a two shot Melta cannon with huge range and a tasty rocket launcher to boot. A lot of HP's and AV 13/12 is a lot in my books, not to mention the shield. Knights are scary man.

 greyknight12 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Orks in particular don't find Knights super fun I know. Lootas are very sketchy vs the front AV 13 4++, and the lootas will likely be targeted for elimination quickly.

Assault them with Nobz/bullyboyz. AV13 with no save is a wet paper bag against S10, with or without armorbane. Knights can only kill 3 (4 for the forgeworld ones) before you get to strike back. Even if the stomps kill you, it's a good trade.
For math reference: 5 attacks WS5 s10 vs AV13 (aka1 nobz charging) gives 3.33 hits, 1.67 pens and 0.55 glances. That doesn't factor in additional hullpoints for Explodes results, or the effects of killsaws. If you charge a knight with 5 Nobz, he will kill 1.5 of them at I4 (round up for 2) before you hit back with enough hullpoints to kill it outright. When I play my Grey Knights against them, I just hit them with hammers and dreadknights for a similar effect.

The best way to kill a knight is CC if you have high strength weapons; they simply don't have enough attacks to kill you before I1. However, in this edition many armies also have enough shooting to flank it and wittle it down, shield or not. And remember, you don't have to kill all 5...just 2-3 and then you can control the board and win on objectives.

Nobz are never Strength 10 (they are strength 8/9 with PK) and only have 5 attacks at high strength if they're charging with two killsaws. S10 is a lot better than S8/9 but you're right, Bullyboz with killsaws are a decent counter to Knights.

The weapons and tactics it takes to kill a tank in 40k are the exact same weapons and tactics it takes to kill a Knight. The only different is that you are dealing with 1/3 the number in Knights versus tanks, and need to dedicate 3x the effort per Knight. You aren't killing all 5 on turn 1, you are killing or mitigating 1 per turn.

And yes, I have read the thread. And posted several times. Asking the question implies you haven't read the thread.

A single post on the first page and then nothing until you make a statement that has been demonstrated in the previous 3 pages worth of posts to be inaccurate ... Most would forgive me for assuming you missed the relevant section I think ...

Orks can lock a Knight down with a squad of Snotlings, and keep it locked down all game by simply feeding it a cheap squad every turn. Nids can do the same with Gaunts. In point of fact, plentiful cheap infantry are the bane of Knights. They can't kill 20+ cheap infantry fast enough to stop 10 more from showing up. And while that Knight is stuck in a tarpit, the Knight next to it is getting it's hull points stripped. And the three others? They are stuck trying to get around terrain because you were smart enough to use wall, and tall line of sight blocking ruins.

The only time I run a Knight is as a lone ally to my Skitarii. Even with just one Knight (which I think we can all agree is NOT a OP unit)I've never had trouble with cheap massed infantry. I can only imagine how much easier that becomes with 5 Knights. How do you even get a squad of snotlings across the board to catch something that can clear 24" of table in a turn while also dropping large template blasts?

Bullyboz with killsaws are a decent counter to Knights.

We don't have too many Bullyboys players in my area, but this I could see working with some careful orchestration.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
I find Knights completely terryfining and bought one, solely to counter my opponent's IK. Theire firepower is immense, they have split fire, a two shot Melta cannon with huge range and a tasty rocket launcher to boot. A lot of HP's and AV 13/12 is a lot in my books, not to mention the shield. Knights are scary man.

huh? they do NOT have split fire - but each weapon can target a different unit. Just remember that one of the weapons has to shoot what you are going to charge. The Melta Cannon has one shot, while the Rapid Fire Battle Cannon has 2 shots.

Martel732 wrote:
"And if you didn't happen to bring a mass-S6 / multi-D Eldar army, what then?"

Is there another kind?

The kind you play if you want to play a second game. Last I checked.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
I find Knights completely terryfining and bought one, solely to counter my opponent's IK. Theire firepower is immense, they have split fire, a two shot Melta cannon with huge range and a tasty rocket launcher to boot. A lot of HP's and AV 13/12 is a lot in my books, not to mention the shield. Knights are scary man.

The melta cannon has only one shot. That might contribute to your perception of the knight as terrifying.

When I run an all-Knight army, I run a baronial court with my Lancer as the baron/warlord. I typically include the lancer, an acheron, and a castigator plus an errant or paladin with anti-air cannon or if I want to just laugh at how useless it is, I'll include my magera. In bigger games, I'll also run an adamantine lance with two errants and a paladin with the paladin as warlord; the lancer will still be the baron. Whole thing, 7 knights, winds up being just under 3000 pts.

I've lost games, I've won games but I always pre-warn my opponent and don't mind list-tailoring in the least. I like big, stompy robots.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The weapons and tactics it takes to kill a tank in 40k are the exact same weapons and tactics it takes to kill a Knight. The only different is that you are dealing with 1/3 the number in Knights versus tanks, and need to dedicate 3x the effort per Knight. You aren't killing all 5 on turn 1, you are killing or mitigating 1 per turn.

And yes, I have read the thread. And posted several times. Asking the question implies you haven't read the thread.

SJ

Not really, Russes can be stunned, immobilised, lose weapons, etc. They can only move 6" as opposed to a Knights up to 24" and rely on cover to survive.
Your Knight can run, shoot, charge and murder just about anything. And it also takes nearly twice as many shots to kill a knight as it does a Russ as the Knight pretty much ignores 50% of damaging hits owing to its Ion shield. I f you want to kill a Russ you either Lascannon/Melta it or you just assault it and laugh. With a Knight you first have to get within Melta range without being charged or stomped (seriously, who gave a Stomp attack that long a range?) and even they your Lascannon or Melta has a 50% chance of doing nothing thanks to the Ion Shield, so you have to dedicate about twice the firepower needed to kill a Russ squadron just to bring down a single Knight.

If you are getting to melta range on the Knight, you are going to hit the side with no ion shield.

If you are getting to melta range on the Knight, you are going to hit the side with no ion shield.

Only if there's an even greater threat on a different side that cause the Knight player to have to decide which weapon hits him. This also assumes the timing worked out so that he doesn't just mulch the greater threat (or possibly BOTH threats) and then put the shield on the melta side.

Tycho wrote:

If you are getting to melta range on the Knight, you are going to hit the side with no ion shield.

Only if there's an even greater threat on a different side that cause the Knight player to have to decide which weapon hits him. This also assumes the timing worked out so that he doesn't just mulch the greater threat (or possibly BOTH threats) and then put the shield on the melta side.

While that's true, I just think people are spoiled by vehicles not having saves typically. The average GMC takes 2-3 times more firepower to bring down than a Knight, and costs the same or less. All GMCs have a stacking 5+++ save on top of everything else for starters. If you force to IK to put the shield on a side, you should be able to HP it out through the front then. Compare to Stormsurge that gets 4++/5+++ from all directions.

As has been mentioned, the real strength of IK is not in the unit's points/model efficiency, it's in the ability to easily take as many of them as you want in almost every game setting (friendly, tournament, etc.), whereas its GMC counterparts often have many limits, either set within the game or as house rules. Not many people will play with you (or consider it a fair game) if you want to play an unbound list of a half dozen wraithknights and a revenant or stormsurges and Ta'unar's or whatever, and you certainly wouldn't get them into any competitive environment. On the other hand, 5, 6, 7 Knights? There might be some moaning, but generally, people will consider the army fair game.

The other issue is just that the playing a half dozen knights is just a whole lot easier and forgiving than commanding an army of 60-100 models. And, you won't miss any models

The average GMC takes 2-3 times more firepower to bring down than a Knight, and costs the same or less. All GMCs have a stacking 5+++ save on top of everything else for starters. If you force to IK to put the shield on a side, you should be able to HP it out through the front then. Compare to Stormsurge that gets 4++/5+++ from all directions.

Not sure how you arrived at those numbers, but using any one of my "TAC" lists I'll happily face GMCs and Stormsurges all day long over IKs. Because poison and because I can reliably get to CC against GMCs and Stormsurges and I can reliably tie them down even if I can't kill them easily in CC. Stormsurges aren't clearing 24" a turn in movement and GMCs aren't delivering D attacks on my way in. Comparing those units to an army of 3-5 Knights? No thank you. I'll take the 'surge/GMC every time. I mean I totally get what you're saying about the invul saves and you're not wrong, but the problem is that every single person in this thread who has argued that Knights are "easy" to deal with, has chosen to isolate one single aspect and ignore everything else. You really have to look at the whole picture IMO to see what 3-5 Knights is a seriously "win big/lose big" pain in the butt army to face. They are very strangely unique when compared to other units in the game and I'm not sure they have a true counterpart.

Poison does not do well against GMCs.

Tycho wrote:

The average GMC takes 2-3 times more firepower to bring down than a Knight, and costs the same or less. All GMCs have a stacking 5+++ save on top of everything else for starters. If you force to IK to put the shield on a side, you should be able to HP it out through the front then. Compare to Stormsurge that gets 4++/5+++ from all directions.

Not sure how you arrived at those numbers, but using any one of my "TAC" lists I'll happily face GMCs and Stormsurges all day long over IKs. Because poison and because I can reliably get to CC against GMCs and Stormsurges and I can reliably tie them down even if I can't kill them easily in CC. Stormsurges aren't clearing 24" a turn in movement and GMCs aren't delivering D attacks on my way in. Comparing those units to an army of 3-5 Knights? No thank you. I'll take the 'surge/GMC every time. I mean I totally get what you're saying about the invul saves and you're not wrong, but the problem is that every single person in this thread who has argued that Knights are "easy" to deal with, has chosen to isolate one single aspect and ignore everything else. You really have to look at the whole picture IMO to see what 3-5 Knights is a seriously "win big/lose big" pain in the butt army to face. They are very strangely unique when compared to other units in the game and I'm not sure they have a true counterpart.

I've fought 3-5 knights. It's much easier than dual WK. Or Stormsurge with Riptide wing. Once you kill 3 out of 5 knights, they physically can't score enough points to win.

Poison is useless vs GMCs and HTH is almost the same as IKs. D is overkill vs most targets except guess what? MCs and GMCs.

 Talys wrote:
As has been mentioned, the real strength of IK is not in the unit's points/model efficiency, it's in the ability to easily take as many of them as you want in almost every game setting (friendly, tournament, etc.), whereas its GMC counterparts often have many limits, either set within the game or as house rules. Not many people will play with you (or consider it a fair game) if you want to play an unbound list of a half dozen wraithknights and a revenant or stormsurges and Ta'unar's or whatever, and you certainly wouldn't get them into any competitive environment. On the other hand, 5, 6, 7 Knights? There might be some moaning, but generally, people will consider the army fair game.

The other issue is just that the playing a half dozen knights is just a whole lot easier and forgiving than commanding an army of 60-100 models. And, you won't miss any models

There were a number of factors that drew me to a knight army:
1. Easy to paint with my poor skills and small patience.
2. Fun to put together.
3. Few models so less painting and less hauling.
4. Love of big, stompy robots.

My one regret, I bought them before GW released the new versions and now have several without carapace weapons since GW doesn't sell the sprue separately.

@agnosto - your reasons for liking a knight army are great ones, and I suspect that this draws a lot of people other than the GMC advantages.

They are also very well-tooled models as far as big-stompy robots go -- meaning all the fidly bits fit together painlessly, and the model holds together well for gameplay. The Knights are also nice in that whether you spend a little time or a lot of time on them, you can make them look distinctive and nice-looking.

OTOH, when you compare them with other big giant stompies (riptides, wraithknights, stormsurges and a big chunk of the FW stuff), I think they're not as good singly for the points cost. Which is just fine to me; I think it makes the Knight armies much more palatable.

On the issue of the sprue -- I agree -- it would be wonderful if the extra sprue sold separately! On the bright side, the 2-knights game is a fantastic value. I just wish it came with better decals, or that GW sold Knight decal sheets.

I've fought 3-5 knights. It's much easier than dual WK. Or Stormsurge with Riptide wing. Once you kill 3 out of 5 knights, they physically can't score enough points to win.

Poison is useless vs GMCs and HTH is almost the same as IKs. D is overkill vs most targets except guess what? MCs and GMCs.

You made it sound like you were talking ONE 'Surge and One Knight. Yeah dude, Riptide wing sucks to play against unless you're prepared for it. No one has argued that. No one has even argued that Knights are the be-all end all. The point most have been making is that 3-5 Knights presents a very unique challenge that becomes extremely "paper/rock/scissors".

 Talys wrote:
As has been mentioned, the real strength of IK is not in the unit's points/model efficiency, it's in the ability to easily take as many of them as you want in almost every game setting (friendly, tournament, etc.), whereas its GMC counterparts often have many limits, either set within the game or as house rules. Not many people will play with you (or consider it a fair game) if you want to play an unbound list of a half dozen wraithknights and a revenant or stormsurges and Ta'unar's or whatever, and you certainly wouldn't get them into any competitive environment.

On the other hand, 5, 6, 7 Knights? There might be some moaning, but generally, people will consider the army fair game.

The other issue is just that the playing a half dozen knights is just a whole lot easier and forgiving than commanding an army of 60-100 models. And, you won't miss any models

Unbound is legal play, per the rulebook. If you want to play ALL the WKs & Stormsurges and other Lords of War, GW says you can. Right there in the 40k Rulebook. You may have effectiveness issues from Come the Apocalypse & Unbound vs Battle Brothers & Battleforged, but you can field the models in every game setting that actually follows the 40k Rulebook. Now, if people are applying house rules or event rules, that's different. At that point, THEY ARE NO LONGER PLAYING WARHAMMER 40K as the designers intended or wrote.

Knights are about 400 pts each, so that 5-7 Knights is for a game of 2,000 - 2,800 pts. That's a lot more points than I'd prefer. However, if we're playing such large games, it becomes even more appropriate to take a half-dozen Knights.

And thos 2k-3k games? Smaller model count definitely improves speed of play. As opposed to 3,000 pt hordes on each side.

Tycho wrote:

I've fought 3-5 knights. It's much easier than dual WK. Or Stormsurge with Riptide wing. Once you kill 3 out of 5 knights, they physically can't score enough points to win.

Poison is useless vs GMCs and HTH is almost the same as IKs. D is overkill vs most targets except guess what? MCs and GMCs.

You made it sound like you were talking ONE 'Surge and One Knight. Yeah dude, Riptide wing sucks to play against unless you're prepared for it. No one has argued that. No one has even argued that Knights are the be-all end all. The point most have been making is that 3-5 Knights presents a very unique challenge that becomes extremely "paper/rock/scissors".

I still think AV 12 is sufficiently vulnerable to so many things in the game that they're very manageable at their price point. Now, if they were WK cheap, I'd agree 100%.

I think every list in the game can deal with AV 12, whereas there are half a dozen lists that can't scratch the paint on Riptide wing, even if they list tailor. CSM are still helpless even after the lastest update vs Riptide wing.

I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

As opposed to landing Drop Pods like normal people?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

As opposed to landing Drop Pods like normal people?

It all depends on what changes they are making to the Assault Marine datasheet. Also, the Jump Packs will aid in the AM being more mobile after dealing with the Knight. Footslogging with a Jump Pack is a lot more effective than just plain footslogging.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

As opposed to landing Drop Pods like normal people?

It all depends on what changes they are making to the Assault Marine datasheet. Also, the Jump Packs will aid in the AM being more mobile after dealing with the Knight. Footslogging with a Jump Pack is a lot more effective than just plain footslogging.

I doubt they'll make any changes to the datasheet. so far none of the revised books have changed stats.

BrianDavion wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

As opposed to landing Drop Pods like normal people?

It all depends on what changes they are making to the Assault Marine datasheet. Also, the Jump Packs will aid in the AM being more mobile after dealing with the Knight. Footslogging with a Jump Pack is a lot more effective than just plain footslogging.

I doubt they'll make any changes to the datasheet. so far none of the revised books have changed stats.

Lady Atia (one of the renowned rumormongers that is close to 100% accurate) has said that the Assault Marine datasheet is being updated (I am guessing with access to stuff like the Eviscerator), so that is as good as gold to me. As long as my BA Assault Marines keep access to Special Weapons and Combi-Weapons, I will be happy.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really hope that the new Blood Angels stuff allows for Assault Marine spam. I want to drop in with Meltaguns on either side of a Knight and pop him, and then move on to the next one.

As opposed to landing Drop Pods like normal people?

It all depends on what changes they are making to the Assault Marine datasheet. Also, the Jump Packs will aid in the AM being more mobile after dealing with the Knight. Footslogging with a Jump Pack is a lot more effective than just plain footslogging.

I doubt they'll make any changes to the datasheet. so far none of the revised books have changed stats.

Lady Atia (one of the renowned rumormongers that is close to 100% accurate) has said that the Assault Marine datasheet is being updated (I am guessing with access to stuff like the Eviscerator), so that is as good as gold to me. As long as my BA Assault Marines keep access to Special Weapons and Combi-Weapons, I will be happy.

yeah my guess is it'll be updated to "new kit status" reflecting the options found in the kit

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Talys wrote:
As has been mentioned, the real strength of IK is not in the unit's points/model efficiency, it's in the ability to easily take as many of them as you want in almost every game setting (friendly, tournament, etc.), whereas its GMC counterparts often have many limits, either set within the game or as house rules. Not many people will play with you (or consider it a fair game) if you want to play an unbound list of a half dozen wraithknights and a revenant or stormsurges and Ta'unar's or whatever, and you certainly wouldn't get them into any competitive environment.

On the other hand, 5, 6, 7 Knights? There might be some moaning, but generally, people will consider the army fair game.

The other issue is just that the playing a half dozen knights is just a whole lot easier and forgiving than commanding an army of 60-100 models. And, you won't miss any models

Unbound is legal play, per the rulebook. If you want to play ALL the WKs & Stormsurges and other Lords of War, GW says you can. Right there in the 40k Rulebook. You may have effectiveness issues from Come the Apocalypse & Unbound vs Battle Brothers & Battleforged, but you can field the models in every game setting that actually follows the 40k Rulebook. Now, if people are applying house rules or event rules, that's different. At that point, THEY ARE NO LONGER PLAYING WARHAMMER 40K as the designers intended or wrote.

Knights are about 400 pts each, so that 5-7 Knights is for a game of 2,000 - 2,800 pts. That's a lot more points than I'd prefer. However, if we're playing such large games, it becomes even more appropriate to take a half-dozen Knights.

And thos 2k-3k games? Smaller model count definitely improves speed of play. As opposed to 3,000 pt hordes on each side.

Not to nitpick, but Knights start at 325 (and those aren't bad), and games of 2000 points aren't really that unusual. But pick a point level: 600, 1000, 1200, 1500, 1850 -- if you fill a big chunk of those points with 325-450 point (or slightly higher) knights, the skill level required to play decently (and therefore, chances to win, if you're less skilled) is much lower than if you play a lot of other armies.

Sure, Unbound is officially part of the rules. But so is having to agree with your opponent on what you're going to play, which essentially comes down to, "You wanna play 1500 points of Wraithknights against my Orks? Thanks but no thanks, dude, ciao." Practically no tournaments allow unbound, and most tournaments like ITC limit GMCs (and therefore WK and SS), but explicitly allow IK armies even though they are GMC. Why? Their player base wants it. If competitors generally wanted to make WK armies a thing, they would be, too. But I'll bet even if the base cost of a WK were 350 points, that wouldn't be the case.

My point isn't really to bitch at Knights being overpowered, but rather, I'm just pointing out that in the realm of armies that are generally acceptable to field, they're a pretty easy and forgiving army to play. Which isn't a bad thing, either.

IKs are SHW, not GMCs. They'd be a lot better if they were GMCs. They allow IK lists because IKs are overcosted or at best, fairly costed. GMCs are all universally undercosted by 20% or more.

I dunno about all of them being undercosted.
The scythed hierodule is probably the weakest of the tyranid GMCs. A little under 550 points gets you something nearly identical in statline to a wraithknight. Minus a couple of points of I, but with a few extra attacks. Armed with a S6 Ap3 hellstorm.

Do you really think it should cost more?
If so, should the wraithknight be double what it is now? I usually see people saying it should be around 400.

Martel often says all normal MCs are underpriced, OP, unfair units that need to be nerfed to be less impressive than a Space Marine Chapter Master. These over-exaggerations are normal with him.

carldooley wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
I find Knights completely terryfining and bought one, solely to counter my opponent's IK. Theire firepower is immense, they have split fire, a two shot Melta cannon with huge range and a tasty rocket launcher to boot. A lot of HP's and AV 13/12 is a lot in my books, not to mention the shield. Knights are scary man.

huh? they do NOT have split fire - but each weapon can target a different unit. Just remember that one of the weapons has to shoot what you are going to charge. The Melta Cannon has one shot, while the Rapid Fire Battle Cannon has 2 shots.

Yeah, it's even better that way. I was wrong about the Melta, I've meant the Cannon thingie.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
I find Knights completely terryfining and bought one, solely to counter my opponent's IK. Theire firepower is immense, they have split fire, a two shot Melta cannon with huge range and a tasty rocket launcher to boot. A lot of HP's and AV 13/12 is a lot in my books, not to mention the shield. Knights are scary man.

The melta cannon has only one shot. That might contribute to your perception of the knight as terrifying.

Sorry, my bad. I was thinking about the cannon. Anyway, even with a single shot Melta this thing is still badass.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
Sorry, my bad. I was thinking about the cannon. Anyway, even with a single shot Melta this thing is still badass.

Actually, the melta gun is the worst weapon option for the Knights. It isn't nearly as scary as it sounds.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
Sorry, my bad. I was thinking about the cannon. Anyway, even with a single shot Melta this thing is still badass.

Actually, the melta gun is the worst weapon option for the Knights. It isn't nearly as scary as it sounds.

I will second this. The cannon, on the other hand, is utterly terrifying to Infantry on foot.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Martel often says all normal MCs are underpriced, OP, unfair units that need to be nerfed to be less impressive than a Space Marine Chapter Master. These over-exaggerations are normal with him.

I"m 100% correct about GMCs. They get way too many rules for free.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Arson Fire wrote:
I dunno about all of them being undercosted.
The scythed hierodule is probably the weakest of the tyranid GMCs. A little under 550 points gets you something nearly identical in statline to a wraithknight. Minus a couple of points of I, but with a few extra attacks. Armed with a S6 Ap3 hellstorm.

Do you really think it should cost more?
If so, should the wraithknight be double what it is now? I usually see people saying it should be around 400.

I said undercosted by 20% or more depending on the exact GMC. Yes, the Hierodule should probably cost more because of the rules for GMCs.


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 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Martel often says all normal MCs are underpriced, OP, unfair units that need to be nerfed to be less impressive than a Space Marine Chapter Master. These over-exaggerations are normal with him.

I"m 100% correct about GMCs. They get way too many rules for free. AP 2 for free and no damage table is pretty hot for regular MCs.

Martel732 wrote:
IKs are SHW, not GMCs. They'd be a lot better if they were GMCs. They allow IK lists because IKs are overcosted or at best, fairly costed. GMCs are all universally undercosted by 20% or more.

Yes, of course you are right; IK's are SHW. I was just abbreviating limits on Superheavies (of any sort) and GMCs as rules for most tournaments, that I'm sure everyone is familiar with.

I don't think IK's are overcosted or undercosted, frankly; I think they're costed just right. In some matchups, the come out ahead, in others, not so much, but it's never a horrible disadvantage, except against models that ARE undercosted. They're not the perfect instruments of war, or an insta-win army, but they have the advantage of being pretty darned easy to play.

Hrm, they absolutely can put many armies at a huge disadvantage and be instawin depending on the matchup. They take "win big lose big" to something of an absurd degree. Nobody has an issue with 1 Knight really. Multiple Knights, especially with powerful formation freebies, are often something many armies cannot deal with without heavily tailoring a list.

You give up obj sec for those bonuses though.

Let me put it another way: If I take my Guard or any of my friends take their Marines for a standard pick up game and the opponent brings a full Knight army, we will instalose unless we have optimised ourselves to kill Knights (and even then Guard will have a nightmarish time).

IG are better off vs knights than many. Most knight weapon systems are pretty inefficient vs guard.

Standard marines can beat mass knights.

Martel732 wrote:
IG are better off vs knights than many. Most knight weapon systems are pretty inefficient vs guard.

You mean weapons like the rapid fire battle cannon, the dualdakkaofdeath gatling, the many stomps per turn, the carapace "I remove that many models" weapons or the tank throwing fists? The ones that shred Guard armies in one to two turns?

Martel732 wrote:
You give up obj sec for those bonuses though.

ObSec is not the end all be all ability it is often portrayed as, it's useful but hardly critical unless you are building the army around it and the opponent doesnt have it and is trying to play for objectives. If an opponent isnt attempting to contest objectives that you hold with units that have the ObSec rule, then it's irrelevant, and those cases are many.

ObSec is great in a Gladius army with two dozen ObSec units. It's often of minimal importance to most Eldar armies, and Necrons do just fine with Decurions and no ObSec.

For Knights, doesn't make a huge difference most of the time.

Most of my wins with ba comes from stealing vps with fast obj sec. But maybe that's just ba.


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 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are better off vs knights than many. Most knight weapon systems are pretty inefficient vs guard.

You mean weapons like the rapid fire battle cannon, the dualdakkaofdeath gatling, the many stomps per turn, the carapace "I remove that many models" weapons or the tank throwing fists? The ones that shred Guard armies in one to two turns?

None of the knight ranged weapons are really good vs guard on a per point basis.

Martel732 wrote:
Most of my wins with ba comes from stealing vps with fast obj sec. But maybe that's just ba.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are better off vs knights than many. Most knight weapon systems are pretty inefficient vs guard.

You mean weapons like the rapid fire battle cannon, the dualdakkaofdeath gatling, the many stomps per turn, the carapace "I remove that many models" weapons or the tank throwing fists? The ones that shred Guard armies in one to two turns?

None of the knight ranged weapons are really good vs guard on a per point basis.

Well, actually they are, especially as about 90% of the Guard armoury is utterly useless against Knights.

That's not true either.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
Sorry, my bad. I was thinking about the cannon. Anyway, even with a single shot Melta this thing is still badass.

Actually, the melta gun is the worst weapon option for the Knights. It isn't nearly as scary as it sounds.

Definitely. The 12" range makes it all but useless. Always take the Heavy Stubber in the hull.

As for the big gun, it's hard to go wrong with the RFBC. Or the Gatling Cannon.

That said, if you've got a couple RFBCs and/or GCs on the board, then taking a single Thermal Cannon isn't a terrible idea. It's 3 steps up from a Multi-Melta, having 36" range vs 24" range, 5" Blast vs no AOE, and base S9 to top things off! Very solid weapon for the occasional Sv2+ unit that you don't want to engage in HtH.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not true either.

Lascannons, Melta Guns, vanquisher cannons and Missile Launchers. Or, and Autocannons - IF we can flank them.

Martel732 wrote:
IG are better off vs knights than many. Most knight weapon systems are pretty inefficient vs guard.

Standard marines can beat mass knights.

I'd like you to back up that statement. IG are a weak Codex, and what exactly are the IG going to do against an all Knights formation?

Standard Marines get 10 Free ObSec Transports, and can beat just about anybody. They are a top-tier army, and you conveniently ignore that fact.

Guess what? The other top tier armies (Necrons, Tau & Eldar) can also beat Knights. That means nothing for the Guard.