So I keep hearing that they are not selling the new dominus knights as a combo kit but instead as separate kits, which boggles my mind for something as simple as a weapon swap.

Now I have to make decision. Which Knight do I buy? I currently have 3 knights, one is set as a Paladin/Errant (the original knight kit) and the other 2 can switch around between the different types (yay magnets!) and 2 Armiger Warglaives.

Knight Valiant- He seems to be my go to for the moment, he has a nice hefty flamer that does a great deal of damage and looks like it can easily wreck light vehicles as well as horde infantry, which every knight army has issues with clearing out, plus those nasty -3 to hit eldar shenanigans. Plus the Thundercoil Harpoon will pretty much kill anything you shoot at with a min 11 damage, plus you're also in range of those 4 melta guns you are being forced to buy.

Knight Castellan- The long ranged option, The volcano lance is nice and basically makes him a more durable shadowsword, the plasma decimator is much more "meh" to me. Its a lot of guns but you are missing out on your quad melta and the shots are fairly limited.

As for the 3 hard points I think 2 siegebreaker cannons and a missile are the way to go, since those cannons seem to be a good all rounder. Character sniping sounds fun but you only have so many command points to play with.

I think the dominus class is going to be a massive bullet sponge no matter what, and as a Terryn player im going to want to be charging all day. Valiant really seems like the best option so far.

What do you guys think?

Castellan hands down. Cerastus knights are far better for moving up the board, the Castellan's fire power is far better and you get access to mini shadow sword cannon, D6 means you are better sitting it at the edge of your board and it will do more damage than the Harpoon without moving down the board getting in range of meltas and charges ect. The harpoon is amazing but, 4 attacks on a 4+ isn't that good.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Castellan hands down. Cerastus knights are far better for moving up the board, the Castellan's fire power is far better and you get access to mini shadow sword cannon, D6 means you are better sitting it at the edge of your board and it will do more damage than the Harpoon without moving down the board getting in range of meltas and charges ect. The harpoon is amazing but, 4 attacks on a 4+ isn't that good.

Correct, they aren't doing much in CC, but dont forget there is not much preventing the knight from walking out of CC and shooting again. My thought continues to be that the Dominus will always be a massive target so you might as well get as much bang for your buck out of it, especially since you are paying a 50pt premium on melta guns that will never be used on the Castellan. That Volcano lance is very very nice however, I will not fault you on that.

Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

Reviews say the knights are all sub 600 points so their not 200 points more than a shadowsword, more like 100 not to mention that you have a 4+ invulnerable which can be made 3+.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

As usual your grasp of how effective units are is lacking.

A shadow sword has a 10% chance of doing 24 wounds (regular knight) and 5.2% chance of doing 28 (dominus).

Hardly "with ease".

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

As usual your grasp of how effective units are is lacking.

A shadow sword has a 10% chance of doing 24 wounds (regular knight) and 5.2% chance of doing 28 (dominus).

Hardly "with ease".

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

Not to mention, guess who is gonna power slide onto the board turn one to avoid getting alpha struck. Starts with shadow, ends with sword.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (see below for correct numbers with reroll to wound included)

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines which can get really memey if you take tempests scions.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

As usual your grasp of how effective units are is lacking.

A shadow sword has a 10% chance of doing 24 wounds (regular knight) and 5.2% chance of doing 28 (dominus).

Hardly "with ease".

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

Not to mention, guess who is gonna power slide onto the board turn one to avoid getting alpha struck. Starts with shadow, ends with sword.

You could say that about any vehicle, they all get gimped the more wounds they take.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines

If you're power-sliding on then you're tallarn.

But I did forgot the reroll against titanic.

You've still got a 42% chance of not degrading a regular knight and 52.9% chance of not degrading a dominus.

Average is 13.64 and the standard deviation is 9.27 making that average pretty unreliable which you can see with the big flat spot in the middle of the distribution.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines

If you're power-sliding on then you're tallarn.

But I did forgot the reroll against titanic.

You've still got a 42% chance of not degrading a regular knight and 52.9% chance of not degrading a dominus.

Thats still a 58% chance to gimp a knight, and a 47.1% chance to gimp the big boy. For the price of a big boy and a regular knight, i can get a second shadow sword, im not even taking into account heavy bolters, and or laz cannons on top of them.

As i said in the other thread, i want knights to be good, but they are just way to pricey for what they bring to the table. If they were all 100 points cheaper, then yeah i could see them being pretty damn good.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines

If you're power-sliding on then you're tallarn.

But I did forgot the reroll against titanic.

You've still got a 42% chance of not degrading a regular knight and 52.9% chance of not degrading a dominus.

Average is 13.64 and the standard deviation is 9.27 making that average pretty unreliable.

Now I gotta know, Valiant or Castellan?

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines which can get really memey if you take tempests scions.

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

Ice_can wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines which can get really memey if you take tempests scions.

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

And how many of your very limited Command points did that take?

Which ever one looks best? Most fun? Fits your fluff?

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Thats still a 58% chance to gimp a knight, and a 47.1% chance to gimp the big boy. For the price of a big boy and a regular knight, i can get a second shadow sword, im not even taking into account heavy bolters, and or laz cannons on top of them.

As i said in the other thread, i want knights to be good, but they are just way to pricey for what they bring to the table. If they were all 100 points cheaper, then yeah i could see them being pretty damn good.

Two shadowswords just to reliably degrade a dominus is a long way from "one shot with ease".

Meanwhile the Castellan is doing rather more damage to the Shadowsword which is going to be in it's bottom tier with one average shot without using the missiles or meltas.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Now I gotta know, Valiant or Castellan?

What do you want to use it for?

Ice_can wrote:

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

Just a 4++ drops the chance of degrading from a shadowsword shot to 31.5%

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Thats still a 58% chance to gimp a knight, and a 47.1% chance to gimp the big boy. For the price of a big boy and a regular knight, i can get a second shadow sword, im not even taking into account heavy bolters, and or laz cannons on top of them.

As i said in the other thread, i want knights to be good, but they are just way to pricey for what they bring to the table. If they were all 100 points cheaper, then yeah i could see them being pretty damn good.

Two shadowswords just to reliably degrade a dominus is a long way from "one shot with ease".

Meanwhile the Castellan is doing rather more damage to the Shadowsword which is going to be in it's bottom tier with one average shot without using the missiles or meltas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Now I gotta know, Valiant or Castellan?

What do you want to use it for?

The volcano lance just has me worried because its a D6 weapon, thats a lot of points to just roll 1.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

The volcano lance just has me worried because its a D6 weapon, thats a lot of points to just roll 1.

FoB don't currently have an option for 3D3 damage (and working out the distribution by hand is really tedious) but you're looking at an average of 2.07 failed saves (88.6% of at least one, 61% of at least two, 35.7% of at least 3) each one doing 3D3 damage.

With the damage roll being more reliable that balances out. Shooting a shadowsword with it averages ~12 wounds pretty reliably.

Given that it's one of two main guns for not many more points that's pretty solid.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Thats still a 58% chance to gimp a knight, and a 47.1% chance to gimp the big boy. For the price of a big boy and a regular knight, i can get a second shadow sword, im not even taking into account heavy bolters, and or laz cannons on top of them.

As i said in the other thread, i want knights to be good, but they are just way to pricey for what they bring to the table. If they were all 100 points cheaper, then yeah i could see them being pretty damn good.

Two shadowswords just to reliably degrade a dominus is a long way from "one shot with ease".

Meanwhile the Castellan is doing rather more damage to the Shadowsword which is going to be in it's bottom tier with one average shot without using the missiles or meltas.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Now I gotta know, Valiant or Castellan?

What do you want to use it for?

Ice_can wrote:

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

Just a 4++ drops the chance of degrading from a shadowsword shot to 31.5%

Truthfully, I want a Dominus class Knight because they look amazing. I was hoping for a combo kit so I could use my magnetic skills, but that is not the case here. I am thinking that I will either play them stand alone with a knight army or with my Guard. With the guard I will always have plenty of ranged firepower, so the Valiant will be a good choice, especially with that flamer avoiding my problems with poor BS and things like Eldar. The castellan is also pretty cool, but it feels like its weapons are easily utilized by cheaper platforms, esp in a guard force,

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Thats still a 58% chance to gimp a knight, and a 47.1% chance to gimp the big boy. For the price of a big boy and a regular knight, i can get a second shadow sword, im not even taking into account heavy bolters, and or laz cannons on top of them.

As i said in the other thread, i want knights to be good, but they are just way to pricey for what they bring to the table. If they were all 100 points cheaper, then yeah i could see them being pretty damn good.

Two shadowswords just to reliably degrade a dominus is a long way from "one shot with ease".

Meanwhile the Castellan is doing rather more damage to the Shadowsword which is going to be in it's bottom tier with one average shot without using the missiles or meltas.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Now I gotta know, Valiant or Castellan?

What do you want to use it for?

Ice_can wrote:

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

Just a 4++ drops the chance of degrading from a shadowsword shot to 31.5%

Truthfully, I want a Dominus class Knight because they look amazing. I was hoping for a combo kit so I could use my magnetic skills, but that is not the case here. I am thinking that I will either play them stand alone with a knight army or with my Guard. With the guard I will always have plenty of ranged firepower, so the Valiant will be a good choice, especially with that flamer avoiding my problems with poor BS and things like Eldar. The castellan is also pretty cool, but it feels like its weapons are easily utilized by cheaper platforms, esp in a guard force,

Oh man yeah the dominus does look sexy as hell.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Truthfully, I want a Dominus class Knight because they look amazing. I was hoping for a combo kit so I could use my magnetic skills, but that is not the case here. I am thinking that I will either play them stand alone with a knight army or with my Guard. With the guard I will always have plenty of ranged firepower, so the Valiant will be a good choice, especially with that flamer avoiding my problems with poor BS and things like Eldar. The castellan is also pretty cool, but it feels like its weapons are easily utilized by cheaper platforms, esp in a guard force,

I think that's a good summary - as an accompaniment to Guard then probably Valiant. For a knight army, I'm leaning towards Castellan.

My knight army currently has one of each of the standard knights plus scions and taurox primes as household infantry so I'm adding a Castellan, two shooty Armigers and a Preceptor (when they're available).

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:

Truthfully, I want a Dominus class Knight because they look amazing. I was hoping for a combo kit so I could use my magnetic skills, but that is not the case here. I am thinking that I will either play them stand alone with a knight army or with my Guard. With the guard I will always have plenty of ranged firepower, so the Valiant will be a good choice, especially with that flamer avoiding my problems with poor BS and things like Eldar. The castellan is also pretty cool, but it feels like its weapons are easily utilized by cheaper platforms, esp in a guard force,

I think that's a good summary - as an accompaniment to Guard then probably Valiant. For a knight army, I'm leaning towards Castellan.

My knight army currently has one of each of the standard knights plus scions and taurox primes as household infantry so I'm adding a Castellan, two shooty Armigers and a Precepter (when they're available).

for some reason the scale of this picture make me think im looking at epic models.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines which can get really memey if you take tempests scions.

Except it won't be a 5++ it will be a 4++ or 3++ at which halfs that avarage damage down to 7 so no degradation.

And how many of your very limited Command points did that take?

the 4++ costs 0 or 1 CP one way of doing it or 3 the other . The 3++ costs 3 or 4CP and who gives a monkeys about CP 180 points brings 5CP and regain and steal on a 5+

 Backspacehacker wrote:

for some reason the scale of this picture make me think im looking at epic models.

This one should give you the opposite impression (lots of texturizing so that the smooth surface doesn't break the impression of scale)

You guys have only seen 1/2 the strats yet?

A properly built castellan with the right house and strats completely blows a shadowsword away, and can even take on 2.

Proper castellan should be doing on average nearly 40 damage a turn to titantic units without the meltas.

I’m going to echo the Castellan sentiment. While the Valiant has a lot of tools to be excellent job up close, it needs to get there first. Spending around 600 points on a unit that doesn’t shoot its most powerful guns until at least turn 2 just doesn’t sound all that great. The Castellan’s threat range simply puts it above the Valiant. Plus while the base plasma gun is underwhelming, the relic version is quite strong. The overcharged version (2d6, S 9, AP -4 3 D) is actually better than 2d6 las cannons, as 3 D is comparable to D6 D (slightly less D on average in exchange for consistency ) and AP -4 vs AP -3. This plus the volcano lance gives the castellan quite a bit of hitting power , and making it your warlord with 4+ inv causes it to be quite durable as well.

The Castellan certainly looks like the easiest to use, but really it's only selling point is the volcano lance (there are easier ways of putting down lots of plasma shots), and unless you have a target rich environment it's going to be quite inefficient at shooting up msu marines with a titan killer gun.

The Valliant's primary weapons look alright, but of more interest to me is that by hiding at range the Castellan will deny itself 4 melta shots and 12 titanic feet attacks per turn (I assume Dominus pattern knights will also get these). I'm not convinced that the Castellan primary guns are superior by 16 str 8 attacks that the Valiant is more likely to make use of. Also, whatever pattern of Dominus is taken it will be a fire magnet - an auto hitting primary weapon will be somewhat of a safeguard against the guaranteed degrading stats, so for now I'm leaning towards the Valiant.

I would have said Valiant all the way, but I am liking this plasma relic thing way too much !

 godardc wrote:
I would have said Valiant all the way, but I am liking this plasma relic thing way too much !

Now I just found out there is also a conflagration flamer relic that lets you reroll wounds! Both sound pretty great now!

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

With an average of 11.65 and a standard deviation of 8.74 it's more likely that you won't degrade a dominus with one shot than that you will. (55% chance of doing less than 12 wounds)

Well lets just assume statistical average for everything

Average shots for a Shadow sword: 6
Average hits: 3
Average wounds: 83% chance + rerolls since its going to be 2s on 2s. So really you can assume average is going to be all hits
3 saves on a 5++ average is 1 wound is going to be saved
And assuming average wounds, its going to be 14 wounds.

Thats if we assume EVERYTHING is average. That also not taking into account regimental doctrines which can get really memey if you take tempests scions.

Guess what? That knight is in all likelyhood going to rock 3++ vs you. Factor that.

Also you assume shadowsword is everywhere and that shadowsword can do everything. Wrong and wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

And how many of your very limited Command points did that take?

0 for 4++, was it 1 or 2 out of 11 for 3++


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

The volcano lance just has me worried because its a D6 weapon, thats a lot of points to just roll 1.

That's why you start shooting phase with it. Reroll strategem for that if needed

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

As usual your grasp of how effective units are is lacking.

A shadow sword has a 10% chance of doing 24 wounds (regular knight) and 5.2% chance of doing 28 (dominus).

Hardly "with ease".

a knight that looses half its wounds is effectively dead at that point, gimped movement, gimped attacks, and gimped BS. You just payed 400+ points of guard shooting with marine weapons. RIP.

Not to mention, guess who is gonna power slide onto the board turn one to avoid getting alpha struck. Starts with shadow, ends with sword.

That depends on the knight house used, one of them doubles the effective health total needed to cripple it. Meaning even if you half their health turn one, they are at full effectiveness still, plus 1CP allows them to fight at full effectiveness for a turn even at 1HP. Just like any other army, they have dogmas/chapters/whatever and stratagems that allow them to be more effective. Based on the reveals I have seen of the IK codex, a competitive list can easily be made, and used to devastating effect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
So I keep hearing that they are not selling the new dominus knights as a combo kit but instead as separate kits, which boggles my mind for something as simple as a weapon swap.

Now I have to make decision. Which Knight do I buy? I currently have 3 knights, one is set as a Paladin/Errant (the original knight kit) and the other 2 can switch around between the different types (yay magnets!) and 2 Armiger Warglaives.

Knight Valiant- He seems to be my go to for the moment, he has a nice hefty flamer that does a great deal of damage and looks like it can easily wreck light vehicles as well as horde infantry, which every knight army has issues with clearing out, plus those nasty -3 to hit eldar shenanigans. Plus the Thundercoil Harpoon will pretty much kill anything you shoot at with a min 11 damage, plus you're also in range of those 4 melta guns you are being forced to buy.

Knight Castellan- The long ranged option, The volcano lance is nice and basically makes him a more durable shadowsword, the plasma decimator is much more "meh" to me. Its a lot of guns but you are missing out on your quad melta and the shots are fairly limited.

As for the 3 hard points I think 2 siegebreaker cannons and a missile are the way to go, since those cannons seem to be a good all rounder. Character sniping sounds fun but you only have so many command points to play with.

I think the dominus class is going to be a massive bullet sponge no matter what, and as a Terryn player im going to want to be charging all day. Valiant really seems like the best option so far.

What do you guys think?

Knight Valiant is the only one I have seen in batreps right now, and if he is made the warlord with the relic conflagration cannon then he is a monster. Autohits with rerolls to wounds means he effectively gets most of the wounds in, and at 2 damage a pop, can clear even characters out. With their super cool stratagem that allows them to not only intercept a charge, but do overwatch instead of the chosen charged unit, he can force an important character to take the full brunt of his superflamer. This isnt including the harpoon, not my favorite, but if it hits it HITS, and both twin meltas, plus the siegebreaker cannon, and a shielfbreaker missile, he has a lot of options to drop characters.
Neither are particularly good in melee, but the Valiant warlord with the iron bulwark WT can survive long enough to tiptoe out of combat and retaliate hard. I don't find the Castellan's plasma weapon that impressive, and since most of what makes these new knights good are their two main weapons, if one isn't that good, unless you take the relic, then why use them?
Numbers wise, I would choose the relic superflamer over the relic superplasma, but that is my personal preference, they will eventually get charged, and I just prefer the ability to guarantee a lot of wounds to maybe one or two.

If you use relic flamer why not relic plasma?

My problem with valiant(apart from goofy look of harpoon) is short range(not really turn 1 shooting and turn 2 against main target isn't quaranteed) and 1 shot. With misses and inv saves annoyingly swingy. Volcano cannon has less total whiffs. Harpoon has often more than 50 chance of total whiff and average damage is still about same. But castellan has long range and quaranteed turn 1 shot

tneva82 wrote:
If you use relic flamer why not relic plasma?

My problem with valiant(apart from goofy look of harpoon) is short range(not really turn 1 shooting and turn 2 against main target isn't quaranteed) and 1 shot. With misses and inv saves annoyingly swingy. Volcano cannon has less total whiffs. Harpoon has often more than 50 chance of total whiff and average damage is still about same. But castellan has long range and quaranteed turn 1 shot

The reason the Valiant, in my mind, is better, is the Conflagration Cannon is good on its own, without the relic, the relic just makes it stupid good. The Castellan REQUIRES the relic to make its plasma even usable, without it, its a standard autocannon, why supercharge and potentially wound yourself when knights struggle to get wounds back, and if you are taking that relic, you are Mechanicus and not Imperialis. I have not seen any Mechanicus houses that compete with House Hawkshroud and their ability to double the wounds characteristic to determine what effectiveness your knight is on the damage tables. They have to be at 6 wounds to be a mid-effectiveness with that house, 6.

So to sum it up, if you want that plasma to be useful, you have to be Mechanicus, and choose from their meh houses, making the Castellan also meh. The Valiants superflamer works well on its own, but taking Imperialis, you can take Hawkshroud and the superflamer relic, it just makes sense to me, but this is all my opinion based on information I gleaned from videos on the early release of the codex. Not to mention I would take a Crusader and Errant, give them both relics, and make them warlords for basically all my CP, so I would have the ranged support I need with the Crusader and Helverins, and the melee with the Errant and the Valiant to back him up.

Yes plasma might not be that awesome without relic(that you can take) but then you get vastly superior tank buster. Average damage of volcano is about same as harpoon but thats after factoring to hit and to wound. Which harpoon still has to do. And it's more steady against inv. Plus quaranteed turn 1 shooting. Harpoon might not shoot good target before turn 3!

Is there an easy way to get reroll ones to hit? That's kinda important for the plasma.

tneva82 wrote:
Yes plasma might not be that awesome without relic(that you can take) but then you get vastly superior tank buster. Average damage of volcano is about same as harpoon but thats after factoring to hit and to wound. Which harpoon still has to do. And it's more steady against inv. Plus quaranteed turn 1 shooting. Harpoon might not shoot good target before turn 3!

You are assuming that the Castellan and Valiant are the only shooting games in town, tank busting isn't that important, and all knight weapons can hurt pretty much everything. Even the Conflagration Cannon can hurt a vehicle through sheer number of wounds it can put out, same with Endless Volley I think its called, the relic that takes the place of the 12 shot gatling cannon on the Warden or Crusader that gets bumped up to 14 shots and can get additional hits on rolls of 6. Also, the Crusader gets an anti-tank weapon as well, its not as balls to the walls as the volcano gun, but its still anti-tank at range. Not to mention the volcano gun only seems to shine against other titanic units, so niche use, where the harpoon is good against monstrous units and vehicles, which you will see far more of, and the addition of mortal wounds, damage that cannot be saved against unless the enemy has FNP.

Sorry, but there is an overwhelming amount of bonuses to the Valiant over the Castellan, and like I said, which you seem to not be getting, is you can only take the plasma relic if you choose Mechanicus houses, if you take an Imperialis house you CANNOT take the plasma relic. So if you run a Castellan and use the Hawkshroud house, you get the bog standard crap plasma, and your only saving grace is that volcano gun. On the flip side, if I decided to take a Mechanicus house, I guess for healing, no other reason to, and I run a Valiant, I cannot take the superflamer relic, but the Conflagration Cannon is still 100% viable and good, and the harpoon is functional. Both weapons of the Valiant, without a relic, are either really good, or functional, the Castellan has one good gun, and one meh gun that requires the upgrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
Is there an easy way to get reroll ones to hit? That's kinda important for the plasma.

From what I have seen, I think there is a stratagem or a B level warlord trait, otherwise, nothing you would want to take over something else, or waste the CP on. The plasma gun is just bad compared to any other knight weapon, it is outdone by the gatling cannon and the rapid-fire battle cannon.

House Raven Castellan with cawls wrath will be a staple. Reroll 1s on everything, has the crazy good ignore damage stratagem, 5++ vs mortals plus you get a good plasma decimator and a good volcano cannon. Out shoots a shadowsword, has a 3++ and is only 50 points more.

That variant will be the 'typical one' imo and beats anything a valiant can do.

Jpr wrote:
House Raven Castellan with cawls wrath will be a staple. Reroll 1s on everything, has the crazy good ignore damage stratagem, 5++ vs mortals plus you get a good plasma decimator and a good volcano cannon. Out shoots a shadowsword, has a 3++ and is only 50 points more.

That variant will be the 'typical one' imo and beats anything a valiant can do.

I mean if that is what you believe, I just haven't seen a single Castellan yet in a batrep so I have no additional information other than what I can read, which is you are spending a lot on a big knight that once charged, will barely be able to defend itself, and have a very weak overwatch. Like I said before, neither variants are good in melee, but the overwatch is night and day between the two, one guaranteeing wounds, the other on good rolls only.
Make no mistake, I want to see a Castellan in a batrep, but as it stands, I have seen a Valiant go toe to toe with a Primarch and win, again, all luck of rolls, but that's how 40k is played, RNG.
With the knowledge of the Armiger Helverins being super cheap compared to what they used to be, I can't see forcing your big knight into a corner as your main dakka when a Crusader and a couple Helverins can do the job just fine, if not better.

Surely valiant - dub an enemy target Moby dick and go harpoonin'

With regards to the shadowsword discussion, it gets +1 to hit vs TITANIC. So 4 hits, not 3

CelticKodiak wrote:
I mean if that is what you believe, I just haven't seen a single Castellan yet in a batrep so I have no additional information other than what I can read, which is you are spending a lot on a big knight that once charged, will barely be able to defend itself, and have a very weak overwatch. Like I said before, neither variants are good in melee, but the overwatch is night and day between the two, one guaranteeing wounds, the other on good rolls only.
Make no mistake, I want to see a Castellan in a batrep, but as it stands, I have seen a Valiant go toe to toe with a Primarch and win, again, all luck of rolls, but that's how 40k is played, RNG.
With the knowledge of the Armiger Helverins being super cheap compared to what they used to be, I can't see forcing your big knight into a corner as your main dakka when a Crusader and a couple Helverins can do the job just fine, if not better.

Here's the reality of the situation; both the Valiant and the Castellan are meta busters in their own way. The Valiant plus the House-specific Overwatch stratagem (which, mind you, is on a House that the Valiant doesn't get the most out of seeing as the flamer gun isn't worried about a degrading profile anyway) means you can force Custodes Jetbike Captains into some horrible situations, and generally screw over character-led assaults in that vein. Also a good counter to Alaitoc/Raven Guard shenanigans even by virtue of messing up where Alaitoc flyers can move. Meanwhile, the Castellan sitting in the backfield has all the same tools as a Shadowsword, just better because you can - and will - give it a 4++ as a free Warlord Trait, increasing that to a 3++ if needed, and Shadowswords are currently the most popular Lord of War choice in the game (a big upcoming tournament in Australia has Shadowswords in such ridiculous numbers that you'd think you're reading cloned lists) for a reason. Plus, the Questoris Mechanicus household that gives the Castellan that re-roll 1s for everything in a Shooting phase (which is a stupidly good buff), while not directly buffing the Castellan in particular unless it needs to scoot away from something, is a house that benefits the midfield Knights (i.e. Wardens, Valiants) better than it's analogue in House Terryn in a lot of ways. This isn't to say "Questor Mechanicus households are superior" but, again, under-mining what makes them good without understanding all the tools available in the context of a competitive game isn't the best approach to list-building advice.

They have completely different roles. If you're facing super heavies of any type - which the Imperial Knight codex will make even more popular - and particularly Shadowswords - which the Imperial Knight codex will make even more popular - then the Castellan is your best bet. If you're going up against another Knight army, for example, the Castellan doesn't have to worry about closing with models that will eviscerate it in combat, whereas the Valiant obviously does - the relic Conflagration Cannon still won't save you against a Gallant - or, heck, even Warden/Paladin/etc - charge. In some match-ups, this is critical, especially on a Knight that needs to close to 18" to bring most of its firepower to bear, and with a 12" Harpoon that is statistically worse than the relic plasma weapon of the Castellan too. The Valiant, despite its Overwatch potential, is also much more susceptible to getting "tied up" - a few high tier factions can bypass Overwatch or use clever positioning (i.e. making a charge from a ruin where you don't have Line of Sight) to deny you Overwatch - and with units that don't allow the Knight to retreat and shoot as normal. On the flip side, that Custodes trio on Jetbikes and any other potential assault elements are going to tear their hair out trying to make way against a well placed Valiant, and it acts as a giant midfield no-go zoning tool. Aeldari players that brought Hemlocks and Voidravens instead of Crimson Hunters and Razorwings will be having fits as you can make it extremely difficult for them to get into proper firing/bombing positions against their preferred targets without being immediately roasted, and the Harpoon - while the most unreliable of all the guns either Dominus class Knight can bring - is a nightmare for vehicles/monsters that lack invulnerable saves. Honestly, as much as some on here criticize the Harpoon for how swingy it due to the mere existence of invulnerable saves - among other things - having a weapon that reliably destroys Leman Russ tanks in a single shot is still awesome, and even tougher vehicles with strong invulnerable saves like Leviathans will be sweating profusely when facing down the barrel of one.

Understanding the place both might have in an army is absolutely crucial, and selling either of them short as you are is not smart in the context of competitive play. Seeing as you seemingly don't rate the Castellan, think of how popular Shadowswords are, and what makes them popular. Now, factor in a Knight that can easily attain re-roll 1s for to-hit, to-wound, damage and randomized shot number rolls, is magnitudes harder to destroy between either a 4++ (Warlord Trait) or 3++ (Warlord Trait plus Full Tilt) against shooting (with a potential 5++ against melee attacks via Sanctuary) plus a potential 5++ against mortal wounds (stratagem), has a comparable (but weaker) main gun, comparable or superior secondary anti-tank/anti-elite firepower from the turrets that then exceeds the Shadowsword at close range thanks to the twin-meltas, an extra main gun that - if you take the nigh mandatory Relic version and combine it with the re-roll 1s stratagem - is also extremely scary regardless of whether it is Overcharged or not, all for roughly 50-100 (depending on turret usage) points more, and that Knight can Outflank too (one of the Shadowsword's biggest selling points) without having to use a specific House. Provided you build the Knight properly (meaning passive 4++ with possible 3++ when needed, relic plasma, etc) you can and will win a firefight with a Shadowsword regardless of who shoots fist, which is fantastic. Also, don't undersell the value of a mobile weapons platform that doesn't have to be within 18" to bring most of its firepower to bear, for the exact reason Guard (and other infantry) bubble-wrap exists, even on a 28 wound Knight with a 4++ or 3++ denying your opponent as many avenues to destroy it as you can is crucial.

Also, your assertion that Helverins in conjunction with a Crusader will "do the job just fine, if not better" is amusing. A Crusader armed with the Rapid-Fire-Battle-Cannon is around 100 points less than a Castellan, and it's comparable anti-tank firepower regardless of which relic gun you take on it is laughable. Assuming you take the best relic weapon available to each and follow the most common load-outs (ergo Avenger + RFBC on Crusader) meaning the relic gatling cannon for the Crusader and the relic plasma for the Castellan, the relic plasma is a flat upgrade to the battle cannon - same number of shots, much better AP, and guaranteed Damage 2 or 3 (and Overcharging when you use that re-roll 1s stratagem is hardly a worry except against to-hit modifying armies) - and the lance is obviously a much better tank-killer than even the relic Avenger. For secondary armaments, the Crusader gets....Heavy Stubbers (with an optional Meltagun) and a Heavy Flamer, while the Castellan gets a nice combination of super-charged autocannons and special krak missiles that bypass invulnerable saves on top of four meltaguns. Where the Crusader has the Castellan beat is general infantry/elite clearing duties, especially with its improved melee capabilities (WS3+ instead of WS4+), and durability for the points, but as a long ranged tank hunter...not even close. Even if the Crusader takes the thermal cannon in place of the battle cannon, it still doesn't stack up well at all to the Castellan for tank hunting. Helverins are definitely good, but seeing as you can't actually fit one in alongside a Crusader for the same or less points than a Castellan, and Armigers crucially don't provide CP in Super Heavy detachments, your initial claim rings hollow.

Also...

Not to mention the volcano gun only seems to shine against other titanic units, so niche use, where the harpoon is good against monstrous units and vehicles, which you will see far more of, and the addition of mortal wounds, damage that cannot be saved against unless the enemy has FNP

What This is one of the most non-sensical statements I've read in a while. So a gun that kills titans effectively - meaning it ALSO kills vehicles and monsters effectively - is "niche" but the single shot 12" range Harpoon isn't by comparison? The long-ranged Volcano Lance that maths out to be better than the Harpoon against the majority of potential targets and doesn't need to be within 12" to be used is somehow....more niche? Rough math incoming; even without factoring in re-rolls to wound against Titanic units, if you were to shoot at T7 3+ - the most common vehicle/monster stat bracket in the game - the Volcano Lance averages out to (median rolls for random values) 3 hits, 3 wounds at AP-5 with 3D3 per shot for Damage, averaging out to about 18 Damage. Besides being far less reliable by virtue of being a single shot weapon (mind you, a D6 shot weapon isn't terribly reliable either, but that's what CP re-rolls are for), the Harpoon averages out to 12 Damage (10+D3 mortal wounds) against the same target type. Factoring in invulnerable saving throws only swings the equation further in favour of the Volcano Lance. Even at T8 3+ - one of the other very common stat brackets - the Volcano Lance still averages 2 wounds for 12 average Damage, the same as the Harpoon, and against targets with invulnerable saves, you're average damage is quite a bit higher. Let's not forget that the Lance can hit more than one model at a time and has over six times the range. Also, while it's nice that the Harpoon does mortal wounds, it only does those mortal wounds if it inflicts any Damage....meaning that your single shot Harpoon has to get past invulnerable saves anyway should they be present, thus rendering your "damage that cannot be saved" point utterly moot because dealing those mortal wounds is dependent on getting past potential saves.


As far as the topic creator is concerned, take the Dominus that best suits your army. If you need charge defence and area denial, take the Valiant. If you need long range fire support, take the Castellan. Or, take both because they complement each other very well

CelticKodiak wrote:
[. Not to mention the volcano gun only seems to shine against other titanic units, so niche use, where the harpoon is good against monstrous units and vehicles, which you will see far more of, and the addition of mortal wounds, damage that cannot be saved against unless the enemy has FNP.

Against those volcano still is causing about same as harpoon if it hits and wound. Ie after those well more. From turn 1 rather than 2-3 harpoon. And is more stable.

Volcano is flat out superior against all targets compared to harpoon. Without even thinking about range which gives 1-2 turns more shooting. Harpoon could be dead before shooting. Not even unlikely if you go second

Shadow sword should probably be 800 pts kitted out, and this discussion would be more moot.

Yeah, it really depends on your army and what you're seeing locally. My local shop has a crapton of Jetbike Custodies flying around, and dropping a Valiant onto the table is going to make their lives extremely difficult when they have to deal with that flamer.

The raw anti-flyer potential shouldn't be ignored either - Eldar fliers are going to scream at the idea of getting within firing range of a 3d6 rerolling flamer that wounds it on 3s.

Insularum wrote:
The Castellan certainly looks like the easiest to use, but really it's only selling point is the volcano lance (there are easier ways of putting down lots of plasma shots), and unless you have a target rich environment it's going to be quite inefficient at shooting up msu marines with a titan killer gun.

The Valliant's primary weapons look alright, but of more interest to me is that by hiding at range the Castellan will deny itself 4 melta shots and 12 titanic feet attacks per turn (I assume Dominus pattern knights will also get these). I'm not convinced that the Castellan primary guns are superior by 16 str 8 attacks that the Valiant is more likely to make use of. Also, whatever pattern of Dominus is taken it will be a fire magnet - an auto hitting primary weapon will be somewhat of a safeguard against the guaranteed degrading stats, so for now I'm leaning towards the Valiant.

Only selling point is the valcano lance, its a valcano lance with the plasma decimator, saying that the plasma isn't good just because there is a lot of other units with plasma is faulty logic, the damage output is far more than the valiant and it can do that at long distance. The valiant is better than all the other knights as a shock/close combat knight. If you just take the two main weapons the valcano lance and the plasma vs the hookshot and the conflagration it's 86 damage vs 76 damage and the 76 is limited by its range. The valiant is much better against other super heavies but even against them you are missing a whole turn of shooting, its very situational.

Valiant.

I know all the players that think they know the game best are going to come out of the woodworks and talk about how awesome it'll be to have a Castellan that sits in one spot all game and deletes a unit every turn, but that's BORING. LAME. IT'S BEEN DONE. If you want to sit in place and shoot things, there are a billion and a half other models that do just that.

Take a Valiant, the largest GW produced Knight with the biggest flamer in the game and a freakin' HARPOON LAUNCHER and laugh as you just roll 3d6 hits. Average, of, what, 9 or 10? That's auto hits. Wounding just about everything on 3's. What's that? You can re-roll wounds with a relic? WHY WOULDN'T YOU??? That's 9 wounds. That's a dead terminator squad. And that's not counting all the other guns this beast has on it.

Get into melta range, get into close combat range. Laugh as you get 3d6 auto-hits when your opponent tries to charge you to 'lock you in close combat' or tries to get his meh powerfists into range of you. You still get your stompy attacks before retreating and shooting him all over again.

What's that? Your Castellan is only hitting on 5's or 6's thanks to a degrading statline as you get wounded?

VALIANT STILL AUTO-HITS.

I don't care that it's only 18". If I'm not putting this thing as close to my opponent as possible, then I'm playing the whole game wrong anyway.

drbored wrote:
Valiant.

I know all the players that think they know the game best are going to come out of the woodworks and talk about how awesome it'll be to have a Castellan that sits in one spot all game and deletes a unit every turn, but that's BORING. LAME. IT'S BEEN DONE. If you want to sit in place and shoot things, there are a billion and a half other models that do just that.

Take a Valiant, the largest GW produced Knight with the biggest flamer in the game and a freakin' HARPOON LAUNCHER and laugh as you just roll 3d6 hits. Average, of, what, 9 or 10? That's auto hits. Wounding just about everything on 3's. What's that? You can re-roll wounds with a relic? WHY WOULDN'T YOU??? That's 9 wounds. That's a dead terminator squad. And that's not counting all the other guns this beast has on it.

Get into melta range, get into close combat range. Laugh as you get 3d6 auto-hits when your opponent tries to charge you to 'lock you in close combat' or tries to get his meh powerfists into range of you. You still get your stompy attacks before retreating and shooting him all over again.

What's that? Your Castellan is only hitting on 5's or 6's thanks to a degrading statline as you get wounded?

VALIANT STILL AUTO-HITS.

I don't care that it's only 18". If I'm not putting this thing as close to my opponent as possible, then I'm playing the whole game wrong anyway.

What are you talking about the Castellan only hits on 5's or 6's? The Acheron fills this roll so much better, it moves 14, which is so much better seeing that its using a flamer and its flamer is 2d6 st7 -2 D3, its reaper chainfist is nearly as good, and its far cheaper. The Castellan beats all the other knights at long range firepower except for the porcupine.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
The valiant is much better against other super heavies but even against them you are missing a whole turn of shooting, its very situational.

How is valiant really better? Volcano causes bit under 10 wounds in average vs T8 3+ target. Harpoon 7.5. Flamer 4.6666. Plasma 1.3 or 3.88 if you overheat. So 10.6333 or 13.22 vs 12.1666. Oh and more for castellan if you are shooting titanic target. And inv save makes harpoon super swingy. Often smaller steady damage over on/off is preferable also.

As for overheat yes it can cause mortal wound but average is about 1. Same as riptides btw take voluntarily all the time. Not that big deal and if you are shooting at super heavy that's worth it without shadow of doubt. How often that 1 wound is going to be really tipping the game...Tau at least clearly aren't thinking so seeing they are taking that mortal wound without trouble.

And harpoon is never getting worthwhile target on turn 1 if enemy doesn't want. Even FLAMER isn't quaranteed to reach anything but chaff on turn 1. You might not even live long enough to shoot harpoon!

Now is valiant useful? Yes. But I wouldn't go so far as say it's automatically better. If you are facing plenty of fliers(especially eldar) then yeah flamer is going to be darn useful. Whatabout if, like me, you don't even face foot eldar all that much let alone flier ones? I'm more worried about ability to blow up tanks from distance as that's what I face more often. Repulsor, leman russes, riptides. Stuff that are going to be standing far back, often behind screens and quite possibly moving away. Guess which one has easier time targeting those? 12" harpoon and 18" flamer than knight that has 48" range so basically can touch anywhere in the battlefield from T1...

Oh and as for battle reports...Well gee codex isn't even OUT yet so how many even have them? How many BR there are even with knight codex?

Castellan is the winner in damage output for sure. Valiant excels by other metrics though.

Knight players know that the most common way their knights go kaboom is through CC (or Shadowswords, yeesh). A squad of THs, Zerkers, Morty, Slamguinius or Magnus all spell doom for your knight as it is degraded beyond effectiveness. The Castallan is slightly less likey to be in CC due to board positioning, but really, if you're slapping a Dominus down, it's going to draw elite elements of your oppoenent's army to deal with it, so at best hiding in backfield buys you one turn of not being pranged with big hammers.

The Valiant brings the single best overwatch-gun in the game to the table. The relic version drops 6 MEQs, or (4.6 TEQs with no SS) on overwatch. Captain Slam will never make it into CC with him. Even a sacrificial charge, from a full-health Rhino, to take the overwatch is most likely (61%) going to result in a burning hulk. So it projects a huge no-no bubble wherever it goes.

So I don't know, what tool do you need? High damage potential or area denial and CC denial? Two great profiles, with both giving you a great deal for the points, imo.

tneva82 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
The valiant is much better against other super heavies but even against them you are missing a whole turn of shooting, its very situational.

How is valiant really better? Volcano causes bit under 10 wounds in average vs T8 3+ target. Harpoon 7.5. Flamer 4.6666. Plasma 1.3 or 3.88 if you overheat. So 10.6333 or 13.22 vs 12.1666. Oh and more for castellan if you are shooting titanic target. And inv save makes harpoon super swingy. Often smaller steady damage over on/off is preferable also.

As for overheat yes it can cause mortal wound but average is about 1. Same as riptides btw take voluntarily all the time. Not that big deal and if you are shooting at super heavy that's worth it without shadow of doubt. How often that 1 wound is going to be really tipping the game...Tau at least clearly aren't thinking so seeing they are taking that mortal wound without trouble.

And harpoon is never getting worthwhile target on turn 1 if enemy doesn't want. Even FLAMER isn't quaranteed to reach anything but chaff on turn 1. You might not even live long enough to shoot harpoon!

Now is valiant useful? Yes. But I wouldn't go so far as say it's automatically better. If you are facing plenty of fliers(especially eldar) then yeah flamer is going to be darn useful. Whatabout if, like me, you don't even face foot eldar all that much let alone flier ones? I'm more worried about ability to blow up tanks from distance as that's what I face more often. Repulsor, leman russes, riptides. Stuff that are going to be standing far back, often behind screens and quite possibly moving away. Guess which one has easier time targeting those? 12" harpoon and 18" flamer than knight that has 48" range so basically can touch anywhere in the battlefield from T1...

Oh and as for battle reports...Well gee codex isn't even OUT yet so how many even have them? How many BR there are even with knight codex?

I never said the valiant was better, I said it was better at super heavy hunting. Read all my comments, I said the Castellan is much better and explained why the Valiant isn't, the Valiant is only better in terms of hunting other super heavies, getting in CC and wrecking them.

Probably depends a lot on the rest of your army.


Castellan should almost certainly be Questor Mechanicus for the Relic, thus losing Hawkshroud, but probably is Taranis for the 6+ FNP. With a tiny bit of AdMech, you can Knight-of-the-Cog him a 1-reroll or Shroudsong, the former for the one round you really wanna overcharge. Of course, Questor Mechanicus also gives you the shoot-at-top-profile-even-with-only-one-wound Stratagem and the Taranis the stand-a-dead-knight-back-up-Stratagem. If you bring the 200 point cheap-o AdMech Detachment for Shroudsong and those extra CP, you'll also have an Enginseer to repair a wound a turn as long as you can keep your Castellan-spot free of enemy close combat.

Full-knight army aside, Castellan should do well as the only big guy in an AdMech force, getting Knight-of-the-Cog, Enginseer-repairs, Machine-Spirit-Resurgent, Taranis 6 FNP, etc.., etc.. while Diver-bots, Dragoons, etc... keep the cc away as long as possible.

Still, paying for 4 melta-guns you'll hope to never use still sucks.


Valiant would need Questor Imperialis if you want to maximise him with the relic, which almost certainly means Hawkshroud. He'll degrade slower, but no repairing. Even when he's degraded, the flamer still does the business, of course. Hopefully being into the enemy lines by the time he (inevitably) goes down, blowing him up instead of reviving him Mechanicus-style is probably the better call anyhow (and your only one). Shield Captains & co will still chew through him quickly and Slamguinius, most Solitaires spearheading a Harly-force and a few others cannot be overwatched, so be careful.

 grouchoben wrote:
Castellan is the winner in damage output for sure. Valiant excels by other metrics though.

Knight players know that the most common way their knights go kaboom is through CC (or Shadowswords, yeesh). A squad of THs, Zerkers, Morty, Slamguinius or Magnus all spell doom for your knight as it is degraded beyond effectiveness. The Castallan is slightly less likey to be in CC due to board positioning, but really, if you're slapping a Dominus down, it's going to draw elite elements of your oppoenent's army to deal with it, so at best hiding in backfield buys you one turn of not being pranged with big hammers.

The Valiant brings the single best overwatch-gun in the game to the table. The relic version drops 6 MEQs, or (4.6 TEQs with no SS) on overwatch. Captain Slam will never make it into CC with him. Even a sacrificial charge, from a full-health Rhino, to take the overwatch is most likely (61%) going to result in a burning hulk. So it projects a huge no-no bubble wherever it goes.

So I don't know, what tool do you need? High damage potential or area denial and CC denial? Two great profiles, with both giving you a great deal for the points, imo.

Captain slam WILL get to him. You know why? No overwatch...Then comes in his friends. Auto hits for overwatch helps you squash do when you can't overwatch to begin with!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I never said the valiant was better, I said it was better at super heavy hunting. Read all my comments, I said the Castellan is much better and explained why the Valiant isn't, the Valiant is only better in terms of hunting other super heavies, getting in CC and wrecking them.

So how come lower damage output is better? Even without titanic keyword for the super heavy the castellan will outshoot against super heavies. With titanic keyword advantage goes better. And that's assuming you are in range. Valiant will be out of minimum 1 turn of harpoon fire, quite possibly 2. Flamer meanwhile is 0-1 turns out of shooting.

Higher output=better hunter. So castellan wins down. Even when you get into range with valiant. Harpoon good yes. Mini volcano better. Flamer good but it's not as good over plasma as to compensate enough. Factor in more shots for castellan and advantage is even better for castellan who is almost quaranteed to shoot at least once. Only times it won't is when valiant is just as dead!

Valiant is better at hunting infantry

I'm a huge fan of the valiant. That flamer is cash-money. I'm actually going to try giving him 2+ armor and take the WL trait where he gets to pick a weapon that wounds of 6 cause MW's in addition for the first few games. But the really big thing is not having to worry about -9001 to hit because of army tactics, stratagems, and high-flying-ness that are showing up everywhere.

Hawkshroud for the awesome greater good stratagem and degrade mitigation.

Maybe it's just because, as a BA player, I love close-range combat, but I think the val will be better since he can get in there, toss out a lot of pain, chun-li kick a unit while he's there, and threaten enemy objectives while having an absolutely scary defense against being charged.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the valiant. That flamer is cash-money. I'm actually going to try giving him 2+ armor and take the WL trait where he gets to pick a weapon that wounds of 6 cause MW's in addition for the first few games. But the really big thing is not having to worry about -9001 to hit because of army tactics, stratagems, and high-flying-ness that are showing up everywhere.

Hawkshroud for the awesome greater good stratagem and degrade mitigation.

Maybe it's just because, as a BA player, I love close-range combat, but I think the val will be better since he can get in there, toss out a lot of pain, chun-li kick a unit while he's there, and threaten enemy objectives while having an absolutely scary defense against being charged.

True. But if "all" you want is a really big distraction Carnifex, there's a case for just running down a 354 Knight Gallant (or 2?) at the enemy. Gallant is a nearly 250 points cheaper for just 2 wounds less and now hits on 2+ in cc with 5 attacks base (15 Stomp attacks on 2+ if you need to clear chaff on the way in). Give him maybe Hawkshroud, the Warlord Trait that refunds a CP and as relic either a 5++ in cc or a 4+++ against smite and let him go.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the valiant. That flamer is cash-money. I'm actually going to try giving him 2+ armor and take the WL trait where he gets to pick a weapon that wounds of 6 cause MW's in addition for the first few games. But the really big thing is not having to worry about -9001 to hit because of army tactics, stratagems, and high-flying-ness that are showing up everywhere.

Hawkshroud for the awesome greater good stratagem and degrade mitigation.

Maybe it's just because, as a BA player, I love close-range combat, but I think the val will be better since he can get in there, toss out a lot of pain, chun-li kick a unit while he's there, and threaten enemy objectives while having an absolutely scary defense against being charged.

For me valiant would be often not in range of targets I want to shoot and to get them often has to go to direction opponent dictates. Which means less control over taking objectives. Less turns blowing up riptides etc, harder time controlling objectives as I need to decide do I want to be in range with flamer or go for the objective.

tneva82 wrote:


For me valiant would be often not in range of targets I want to shoot and to get them often has to go to direction opponent dictates. Which means less control over taking objectives. Less turns blowing up riptides etc, harder time controlling objectives as I need to decide do I want to be in range with flamer or go for the objective.

On the other hand, if you have something like an Astra Militarum army, CPs out of your nose and perhaps no other juicy target for that Blood Angel captain, you could spend the 3 CP to deepstrike the Valiant on turn 2, 9" away and unload, after the Guard (hopefully) cleared the screening in turn 1

Not sure if it's viable, but I think it'd be kinda hilarious.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the valiant. That flamer is cash-money. I'm actually going to try giving him 2+ armor and take the WL trait where he gets to pick a weapon that wounds of 6 cause MW's in addition for the first few games. But the really big thing is not having to worry about -9001 to hit because of army tactics, stratagems, and high-flying-ness that are showing up everywhere.

Hawkshroud for the awesome greater good stratagem and degrade mitigation.

Maybe it's just because, as a BA player, I love close-range combat, but I think the val will be better since he can get in there, toss out a lot of pain, chun-li kick a unit while he's there, and threaten enemy objectives while having an absolutely scary defense against being charged.

True. But if "all" you want is a really big distraction Carnifex, there's a case for just running down a 354 Knight Gallant (or 2?) at the enemy. Gallant is a nearly 250 points cheaper for just 2 wounds less and now hits on 2+ in cc with 5 attacks base (15 Stomp attacks on 2+ if you need to clear chaff on the way in). Give him maybe Hawkshroud, the Warlord Trait that refunds a CP and as relic either a 5++ in cc or a 4+++ against smite and let him go.

He would lack the ability to do anything to flyers or units behind other units though, and would get smacked around by enemy melee units that charge unless there are multiple units giving him a chance to interrupt. I don't view the val as a distraction carnifex buying time for other units, but rather a unit in there doing the work himself. He also has the hawkshroud strat, meaning if he's alongside other knights or my BA on the front lines, he gives me a large denial zone of "Feth your charging unit that wants to counter-charge my DC!"

I'm not saying he's ultra-competitive. That title in the book definitely goes to the little helverins. But he plays like I want a ~570 point unit to play. Active, relevant, and doing something in nearly every phase.

tneva82 wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Castellan is the winner in damage output for sure. Valiant excels by other metrics though.

Knight players know that the most common way their knights go kaboom is through CC (or Shadowswords, yeesh). A squad of THs, Zerkers, Morty, Slamguinius or Magnus all spell doom for your knight as it is degraded beyond effectiveness. The Castallan is slightly less likey to be in CC due to board positioning, but really, if you're slapping a Dominus down, it's going to draw elite elements of your oppoenent's army to deal with it, so at best hiding in backfield buys you one turn of not being pranged with big hammers.

The Valiant brings the single best overwatch-gun in the game to the table. The relic version drops 6 MEQs, or (4.6 TEQs with no SS) on overwatch. Captain Slam will never make it into CC with him. Even a sacrificial charge, from a full-health Rhino, to take the overwatch is most likely (61%) going to result in a burning hulk. So it projects a huge no-no bubble wherever it goes.

So I don't know, what tool do you need? High damage potential or area denial and CC denial? Two great profiles, with both giving you a great deal for the points, imo.

Captain slam WILL get to him. You know why? No overwatch...Then comes in his friends. Auto hits for overwatch helps you squash do when you can't overwatch to begin with!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I never said the valiant was better, I said it was better at super heavy hunting. Read all my comments, I said the Castellan is much better and explained why the Valiant isn't, the Valiant is only better in terms of hunting other super heavies, getting in CC and wrecking them.

So how come lower damage output is better? Even without titanic keyword for the super heavy the castellan will outshoot against super heavies. With titanic keyword advantage goes better. And that's assuming you are in range. Valiant will be out of minimum 1 turn of harpoon fire, quite possibly 2. Flamer meanwhile is 0-1 turns out of shooting.

Higher output=better hunter. So castellan wins down. Even when you get into range with valiant. Harpoon good yes. Mini volcano better. Flamer good but it's not as good over plasma as to compensate enough. Factor in more shots for castellan and advantage is even better for castellan who is almost quaranteed to shoot at least once. Only times it won't is when valiant is just as dead!

Valiant is better at hunting infantry

What are you on about, I already agree with you, the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as with the Castellan you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. Whatever you are going after in CC this will most likely kill it, For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
What are you on about, I agree with you the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

Huh? I actually have no idea what you're trying to say. How is the Valiant better in close combat? Both are WS4+ with the same Strength, Attacks and melee weapon (Titanic Feet). The Castellan and Valiant are thus entirely equal in close combat. However, the Castellan outshoots the Valiant against any form of vehicle/monster/big target that doesn't impose negative to-hit modifiers - and it probably still wins out against some of those, depending on what specific unit it is. Are you trying to say the Harpoon is a close combat weapon? It isn't. Facts are the Castellan is the better titan-killer and both I and others have shown maths to prove that.

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
What are you on about, I agree with you the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

Huh? I actually have no idea what you're trying to say. How is the Valiant better in close combat? Both are WS4+ with the same Strength, Attacks and melee weapon (Titanic Feet). The Castellan and Valiant are thus entirely equal in close combat. However, the Castellan outshoots the Valiant against any form of vehicle/monster/big target that doesn't impose negative to-hit modifiers - and it probably still wins out against some of those, depending on what specific unit it is. Are you trying to say the Harpoon is a close combat weapon? It isn't. Facts are the Castellan is the better titan-killer and both I and others have shown maths to prove that.

How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

I see what Delv is trying to say, but he has been misinformed of something.

The harpoon is a 12" shot, not a melee weapon.

That should fix it.

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

Whoops, my bad, I thought that harpoon was a CC weapon, only heave 1 at 12", okay the Valiant sucks now.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

Whoops, my bad, I thought that harpoon was a CC weapon, only heave 1 at 12", okay the Valiant sucks now.

It does have a native re-roll to hit when targeting monsters/vehicles, which are obviously its intended targets. But man, don't underestimate that flamer and the ability to effectively say "NO" to 95% of melee units in the game.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

Whoops, my bad, I thought that harpoon was a CC weapon, only heave 1 at 12", okay the Valiant sucks now.

It does have a native re-roll to hit when targeting monsters/vehicles, which are obviously its intended targets. But man, don't underestimate that flamer and the ability to effectively say "NO" to 95% of melee units in the game.

Like I said earlier the Acheron does just as good a job, (better on damage but less in output) and its way cheaper, plus it has extra movement 14" which is really crucial for a flamer weapon. plus it's great in CC, plus it gets the 5+ regain wound dealy.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

So one thing in the game may or may not be slightly more effective - ergo a new unit has no place in anyone's army anywhere?

K.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Neither, they are going to be over costed. Shadow sword, 200 points less, just as survivable, and can one shot a knight with ease.

So one thing in the game may or may not be slightly more effective - ergo a new unit has no place in anyone's army anywhere?

K.

Yup, The Dominus' might not have the same firepower, but they are very versatile, tonnes of weapons, a weapon for every mood. I'm definitely going to get one. Those shieldbreaker missiles are going to be groovy.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
[

What are you on about, I already agree with you, the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as with the Castellan you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. Whatever you are going after in CC this will most likely kill it, For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

You: The valiant is much better against other super heavies

You claim the flamer/harpoon variant is better against other super heavies.

Ummm no. He's worse. Less damage. At shorter range. Less damage is not better. Even when you are in range(which you always are) CASTELLAN DOES MORE DAMAGE! Without even titanic keyword help.

1 attack is lot less consistent than volcano. 1 attack is super non consistent. If you want consistent damage output you take castellan.

Oh and valiant isn't any better in CC than castellan.

A Castellan with the relic plasma weapon will reliably destroy a Shadowsword in a single shooting phase from what I can tell and that's just from the two arm guns so not including the shoulder mounted weapons and four meltaguns, that's crazy good efficiency as you're free to shoot all those other nasty guns elsewhere. The Castellan also trades incredibly well with a Shadowsword thanks to an easily obtained 3++ (costs 3CP though, but you'll only need it for 1 turn if the opponent is reliant on a Shadowsword to destroy your Castellan) that means the Shadowsword is unlikely to drop the Castellan down a damage bracket in a single shooting phase. Not bad at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
[

What are you on about, I already agree with you, the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as with the Castellan you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. Whatever you are going after in CC this will most likely kill it, For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

You: The valiant is much better against other super heavies

You claim the flamer/harpoon variant is better against other super heavies.

Ummm no. He's worse. Less damage. At shorter range. Less damage is not better. Even when you are in range(which you always are) CASTELLAN DOES MORE DAMAGE! Without even titanic keyword help.

1 attack is lot less consistent than volcano. 1 attack is super non consistent. If you want consistent damage output you take castellan.

Oh and valiant isn't any better in CC than castellan.

Already addressed, he/she mistakenly thought the Harpoon was a melee weapon. All cleared up now.

tneva82 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
[

What are you on about, I already agree with you, the Castellan is better. In CC the Valiant is better though and it would chew through any other super heavy in CC with ease, in CC doesn't do as much total damage as the Castellan does but it consistently would do more damage on average, as with the Castellan you are rolling D6's to see what attacks you get and rolling D3's to see what damage you are doing etc. which can end up in very low output, whereas the Valiant does a solid 10 damage per unsaved wound and an extra d3 mortal wounds for every unsaved wound. Whatever you are going after in CC this will most likely kill it, For its points its a gak infantry killer, you can do more with less points, its best use is for killing big game in CC.

You: The valiant is much better against other super heavies

You claim the flamer/harpoon variant is better against other super heavies.

Ummm no. He's worse. Less damage. At shorter range. Less damage is not better. Even when you are in range(which you always are) CASTELLAN DOES MORE DAMAGE! Without even titanic keyword help.

1 attack is lot less consistent than volcano. 1 attack is super non consistent. If you want consistent damage output you take castellan.

Oh and valiant isn't any better in CC than castellan.

Read the comment where I said I thought the harpoon was a CC weapon.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

Whoops, my bad, I thought that harpoon was a CC weapon, only heave 1 at 12", okay the Valiant sucks now.

It does have a native re-roll to hit when targeting monsters/vehicles, which are obviously its intended targets. But man, don't underestimate that flamer and the ability to effectively say "NO" to 95% of melee units in the game.

Like I said earlier the Acheron does just as good a job, (better on damage but less in output) and its way cheaper, plus it has extra movement 14" which is really crucial for a flamer weapon. plus it's great in CC, plus it gets the 5+ regain wound dealy.

I don't really mind 75 more points for an extra d6 flamer shots, the harpoon, 4 melta shots, 4d3 mini-battlecannon shots, and a couple shots of "screw your invuln" missiles that could stratagem to try and assassinate characters. Plus the option of taking the relic flamer for reroll wounds. I will admit the acheron flamer having 3 damage is kinda neat though. But the melee weapon feels like a waste given that you stomp 90% of the time anyway.

But the acheron is more expensive cash-wise, I don't like the look of the cerastus knights when next to my more dwarf-style GW ones, and there's always the anti-forge-world crowd that will shout to the high heavens that you are waac tfg satanspawn for daring to buy one.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Caederes wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
How on earth are they equal in in CC... They don't have the same strength or melee weapons.

Ok, I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or not.
Go and check their profiles. The Castellan and Valiant have identical profiles, the only differences between the two are the arm-mounted guns. The only close combat weapon that either of them has is Titanic Feet.

Whoops, my bad, I thought that harpoon was a CC weapon, only heave 1 at 12", okay the Valiant sucks now.

It does have a native re-roll to hit when targeting monsters/vehicles, which are obviously its intended targets. But man, don't underestimate that flamer and the ability to effectively say "NO" to 95% of melee units in the game.

Like I said earlier the Acheron does just as good a job, (better on damage but less in output) and its way cheaper, plus it has extra movement 14" which is really crucial for a flamer weapon. plus it's great in CC, plus it gets the 5+ regain wound dealy.

I don't really mind 75 more points for an extra d6 flamer shots, the harpoon, 4 melta shots, 4d3 mini-battlecannon shots, and a couple shots of "screw your invuln" missiles that could stratagem to try and assassinate characters. Plus the option of taking the relic flamer for reroll wounds. I will admit the acheron flamer having 3 damage is kinda neat though. But the melee weapon feels like a waste given that you stomp 90% of the time anyway.

But the acheron is more expensive cash-wise, I don't like the look of the cerastus knights when next to my more dwarf-style GW ones, and there's always the anti-forge-world crowd that will shout to the high heavens that you are waac tfg satanspawn for daring to buy one.

Where Is it only 75 more points, I thought it was going to be costing 600 as most people were saying. Looks like I'll have to get the codex.

(skipped quoting to stop the pyramid)
According to my source, it's 559 for two missile racks and one mini-cannon or 582 for the reverse.

So 87 more for the more expensive version compared to the stock acheron. (I did misremember it as being 570 for some reason, maybe he pulled a ninja-edit on me!)

Realistically - with Aliotoc being as strong as it is. Auto-hit weapons are a must have. If your army can't deal with buffed spears - it doesn't belong in competitive.

Also I think some crucial houses are being ignored for the Valiant. Raven honestly seems best to me. The have advance and charge stratagem - and can advance and shoot the super flamer. This also gets 4 meltas into action faster. It's easily the best trait IMO.

It is a bummer that the harpoon kinda of sucks but in the end it's going to be 1 shoting most tanks without an invo. Moving 12+d6 every turn.

Castelan is a beast - don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan on D6 shots on weapons though - they CAN NOT be counted on to do anything.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Realistically - with Aliotoc being as strong as it is. Auto-hit weapons are a must have. If your army can't deal with buffed spears - it doesn't belong in competitive.

Also I think some crucial houses are being ignored for the Valiant. Raven honestly seems best to me. The have advance and charge stratagem - and can advance and shoot the super flamer. This also gets 4 meltas into action faster. It's easily the best trait IMO.

It is a bummer that the harpoon kinda of sucks but in the end it's going to be 1 shoting most tanks without an invo. Moving 12+d6 every turn.

Castelan is a beast - don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan on D6 shots on weapons though - they CAN NOT be counted on to do anything.

If they made the harpoon a shooting and a melee weapon than I'd reconsider taking the Valiant.

Well played gentleman! I think both have their merits based on the application. As a long time guard player I think I have plenty of long range shooting available to me (as well as a few shadowswords!)

I will however be playing the Valiant because I realized the relic plasma was Questor Mechanicus only and I am a loyal vassal of House Terryn, never to be associated with those Omnissiah loving cogboys!

Plus giant flamers are cool

 Xenomancers wrote:
Realistically - with Aliotoc being as strong as it is. Auto-hit weapons are a must have. If your army can't deal with buffed spears - it doesn't belong in competitive.

Also I think some crucial houses are being ignored for the Valiant. Raven honestly seems best to me. The have advance and charge stratagem - and can advance and shoot the super flamer. This also gets 4 meltas into action faster. It's easily the best trait IMO.

It is a bummer that the harpoon kinda of sucks but in the end it's going to be 1 shoting most tanks without an invo. Moving 12+d6 every turn.

I *am* having a really hard time between hawkshroud and raven. The degrade-mitigation is awesome, and I really like a valiant protecting other units with the hawkshroud strat by pretending to be a Tau and then hopping in to chun-li kick.

On the other hand, raven would help the val get into ideal range faster, and that raven-specific strat makes for an absolutely boss turn of fire.

And I kinda like the harpoon. 74% success rate at one-shotting most of the marine/chaos tanks with no save, along with a lot of nid monsters and others.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Castelan is a beast - don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan on D6 shots on weapons though - they CAN NOT be counted on to do anything.

more than heavy 1 though. Yes sometimes you roll 1 but thats what rerolls are. 1 shot weapons are always very unreliable though. And when you get one chance even more so. When you get within 12" you need it to succeed to hit wound and get past inv save

Plus plenty targets harpoon aint one shotting ever

tneva82 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Castelan is a beast - don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan on D6 shots on weapons though - they CAN NOT be counted on to do anything.

more than heavy 1 though. Yes sometimes you roll 1 but thats what rerolls are. 1 shot weapons are always very unreliable though. And when you get one chance even more so. When you get within 12" you need it to succeed to hit wound and get past inv save

Plus plenty targets harpoon aint one shotting ever

Not the same - it gets a reroll vs any target it wants to shoot at and that shot is going to wound on a 2. It reliably kills rhinos in a single shot by loading all of it's power into 1 shot that will likely hit and wound. It's not the weapon I want but it's a nice supplement to the 3d6 flammer which is an absolute must. Lets also not forget 4 melta guns. How does the Mini Volcano compare to the harpon plus the 4 meltas which the Castilian is probably not going to be utilizing. I don't think it's gonna be winning that damage comparison.

Castellan has same meltas. And 1 shot is still 1 shot. Very unreliable. And sorry but rhinos isn't my primary target. Many who are won't get one shotted by harpoon and 4++ or even 3++ makes harpoon very unreliabae when you get one chance.

Castellan outdamages valiant against vehicles. Valiant is better vs flvers(particularly eldar one and elite infantry.but those aren"t everywhere. I need weapons to torch tougg targets that aim to be over 30" as a principle.

One is a stand back and shoot.

The other is ‘get up close and rain down hell upon them’.

Castellan is the one that least needs a favourable situation to be useful.

Valiant? Well, I really quite like it. The Flamer is devastating. Effective 28” range, no rolling to hit. But it’s the Damage 2 that’s tickled my pickle with it. Bikes, Heavy Infantry, Light to (in a pinch!) medium vehicles are all in big trouble. Even with a relatively poor roll for the number of shots can be mitigated thanks to Battleshock potential. Harpoon isn’t as great as when your first see it’s stats, but it’s still a good threat against Transports and heavier units. Spend a CP if you must for some re-roll goodness. 11-13 Wounds is never anything to be sniffed at.

Add in the ancillary Weapons, and it’s a mobile threat your opponent has to deal with. Now nobody has mentioned the Flamer on Overwatch, so I suspect I’m missing something (no Overwatch for Superheavies perhaps? Inform me peeps) - but there’s a relatively decent chance that it can wipe out charging units, or at least de-fang them enough that their close combat attacks end well blunted. Quick bit of tap dancing, and even Horde units can be whittle down very quickly. And if I manage to pull off an Overwatch hit with the Harpoon against a Character, I reserve the right to laugh a lot!

It does overwatch, and there was a fun battle report where an unharmed daemon prince charged it and was annihilated.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One is a stand back and shoot.

The other is ‘get up close and rain down hell upon them’.

Castellan is the one that least needs a favourable situation to be useful.

Valiant? Well, I really quite like it. The Flamer is devastating. Effective 28” range, no rolling to hit. But it’s the Damage 2 that’s tickled my pickle with it. Bikes, Heavy Infantry, Light to (in a pinch!) medium vehicles are all in big trouble. Even with a relatively poor roll for the number of shots can be mitigated thanks to Battleshock potential. Harpoon isn’t as great as when your first see it’s stats, but it’s still a good threat against Transports and heavier units. Spend a CP if you must for some re-roll goodness. 11-13 Wounds is never anything to be sniffed at.

Add in the ancillary Weapons, and it’s a mobile threat your opponent has to deal with. Now nobody has mentioned the Flamer on Overwatch, so I suspect I’m missing something (no Overwatch for Superheavies perhaps? Inform me peeps) - but there’s a relatively decent chance that it can wipe out charging units, or at least de-fang them enough that their close combat attacks end well blunted. Quick bit of tap dancing, and even Horde units can be whittle down very quickly. And if I manage to pull off an Overwatch hit with the Harpoon against a Character, I reserve the right to laugh a lot!

It should really deny invo saves but it doesn't.

Saucy!

So yeah, with 3D6 shots at S7, -2 D2, there’s a lot of armies out there I can imagine wouldn’t even want to charge the thing in the first place.

Even TH/SS Terminators ought to pause (dunno if they’re still any cop like, don’t get to play much), because of that Damage 2. Every blobbed save is a Terminator that’s snuffed it.

Use the rest of your army right, and you can shoot up likely chargers to the point where if your opponent is daft (or plain inexperienced enough) to declare multiple charges, the chances of absolute carnage are mental.


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 Xenomancers wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One is a stand back and shoot.

The other is ‘get up close and rain down hell upon them’.

Castellan is the one that least needs a favourable situation to be useful.

Valiant? Well, I really quite like it. The Flamer is devastating. Effective 28” range, no rolling to hit. But it’s the Damage 2 that’s tickled my pickle with it. Bikes, Heavy Infantry, Light to (in a pinch!) medium vehicles are all in big trouble. Even with a relatively poor roll for the number of shots can be mitigated thanks to Battleshock potential. Harpoon isn’t as great as when your first see it’s stats, but it’s still a good threat against Transports and heavier units. Spend a CP if you must for some re-roll goodness. 11-13 Wounds is never anything to be sniffed at.

Add in the ancillary Weapons, and it’s a mobile threat your opponent has to deal with. Now nobody has mentioned the Flamer on Overwatch, so I suspect I’m missing something (no Overwatch for Superheavies perhaps? Inform me peeps) - but there’s a relatively decent chance that it can wipe out charging units, or at least de-fang them enough that their close combat attacks end well blunted. Quick bit of tap dancing, and even Horde units can be whittle down very quickly. And if I manage to pull off an Overwatch hit with the Harpoon against a Character, I reserve the right to laugh a lot!

It should really deny invo saves but it doesn't.

But we all know if you’re gonna fail your INV, it will be at the worst possible moment

Each flamer does 3d6 hits, which is 10.5 on average.

Against Termis with TH/SS, that's 7 wounds, for about two failed saves. Four, often five if you have two flamers.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Each flamer does 3d6 hits, which is 10.5 on average.

Against Termis with TH/SS, that's 7 wounds, for about two failed saves. Four, often five if you have two flamers.

As a well known Spawny Get when it comes to my dice?

tneva82 wrote:
Castellan has same meltas. And 1 shot is still 1 shot. Very unreliable. And sorry but rhinos isn't my primary target. Many who are won't get one shotted by harpoon and 4++ or even 3++ makes harpoon very unreliabae when you get one chance.

Castellan outdamages valiant against vehicles. Valiant is better vs flvers(particularly eldar one and elite infantry.but those aren"t everywhere. I need weapons to torch tougg targets that aim to be over 30" as a principle.

What are you worried about? Shadow swords? Yeah - you are going to struggle against criminally undercosted things that are designed to destroy you. Just write those games off.

Realistically I am probably going to be running both super knights an armager with autocannons and a gaurd brigade.


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The autocannons are going to be more effective vs the thunderhammers. Plus - it's a great place to shoot your missle that denies invo saves .

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Insularum wrote:
The Castellan certainly looks like the easiest to use, but really it's only selling point is the volcano lance (there are easier ways of putting down lots of plasma shots), and unless you have a target rich environment it's going to be quite inefficient at shooting up msu marines with a titan killer gun.

The Valliant's primary weapons look alright, but of more interest to me is that by hiding at range the Castellan will deny itself 4 melta shots and 12 titanic feet attacks per turn (I assume Dominus pattern knights will also get these). I'm not convinced that the Castellan primary guns are superior by 16 str 8 attacks that the Valiant is more likely to make use of. Also, whatever pattern of Dominus is taken it will be a fire magnet - an auto hitting primary weapon will be somewhat of a safeguard against the guaranteed degrading stats, so for now I'm leaning towards the Valiant.

Only selling point is the valcano lance, its a valcano lance with the plasma decimator, saying that the plasma isn't good just because there is a lot of other units with plasma is faulty logic, the damage output is far more than the valiant and it can do that at long distance. The valiant is better than all the other knights as a shock/close combat knight. If you just take the two main weapons the valcano lance and the plasma vs the hookshot and the conflagration it's 86 damage vs 76 damage and the 76 is limited by its range. The valiant is much better against other super heavies but even against them you are missing a whole turn of shooting, its very situational.

In no way do I think the Castellan is bad, but I'm afraid I don't agree with the faulty logic claim. There are better sources of plasma, over any range, and the lance does only shine when facing titanic units - versus a non titanic T8+ target it isn't much better than any other good AT weapon. I think the Castellan is solid, but it just doesn't jump out at being best in class at anything - just a big dependable unit.

The bigger case of faulty logic is complaining about the hookshots range (love the reference, am keeping that ), by hanging back with the Castellan you forfeit 4 meltas and 12 stomps which is more than enough to close the 76/86 damage differential. The output over time will also continue to swing in the Valiants favour as it's main gun does not degrade, it laughs at hit modifiers, it uses all of the weapons you have paid for, and is simply ridiculous at overwatch.

Insularum wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Insularum wrote:
The Castellan certainly looks like the easiest to use, but really it's only selling point is the volcano lance (there are easier ways of putting down lots of plasma shots), and unless you have a target rich environment it's going to be quite inefficient at shooting up msu marines with a titan killer gun.

The Valliant's primary weapons look alright, but of more interest to me is that by hiding at range the Castellan will deny itself 4 melta shots and 12 titanic feet attacks per turn (I assume Dominus pattern knights will also get these). I'm not convinced that the Castellan primary guns are superior by 16 str 8 attacks that the Valiant is more likely to make use of. Also, whatever pattern of Dominus is taken it will be a fire magnet - an auto hitting primary weapon will be somewhat of a safeguard against the guaranteed degrading stats, so for now I'm leaning towards the Valiant.

Only selling point is the valcano lance, its a valcano lance with the plasma decimator, saying that the plasma isn't good just because there is a lot of other units with plasma is faulty logic, the damage output is far more than the valiant and it can do that at long distance. The valiant is better than all the other knights as a shock/close combat knight. If you just take the two main weapons the valcano lance and the plasma vs the hookshot and the conflagration it's 86 damage vs 76 damage and the 76 is limited by its range. The valiant is much better against other super heavies but even against them you are missing a whole turn of shooting, its very situational.

In no way do I think the Castellan is bad, but I'm afraid I don't agree with the faulty logic claim. There are better sources of plasma, over any range, and the lance does only shine when facing titanic units - versus a non titanic T8+ target it isn't much better than any other good AT weapon. I think the Castellan is solid, but it just doesn't jump out at being best in class at anything - just a big dependable unit.

The bigger case of faulty logic is complaining about the hookshots range (love the reference, am keeping that ), by hanging back with the Castellan you forfeit 4 meltas and 12 stomps which is more than enough to close the 76/86 damage differential. The output over time will also continue to swing in the Valiants favour as it's main gun does not degrade, it laughs at hit modifiers, it uses all of the weapons you have paid for, and is simply ridiculous at overwatch.

Indeed this. Also the Castellan doesn't fill any role that I can't already cover. Predators, ranged dreads, knight crusaders and helverins, my reaver Titan in big games etc etc. The val represents something with its close range fire and scary overwatch I can't really duplicate in the rest of my collection.

Well, it is not that Castellan absolutely must sit back. If the enemy has no melee units that can realistically threaten a Knight (and many armies don't) then it can freely move closer and use the meltas and stomps too. Valiant on the other hand has to always move close in order to do anything worthwhile.

I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

The problem is with just 22" you probably won't hit anything worthwhile with the harpoon. If your opponent is gunlining with 36"+ range units you may not even get a chance in turn 2.

While I think the flamer is probably the most interesting weapon, I am not sure it carries enough to make up the difference versus the plasma & volcano lance.

Tyel wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

The problem is with just 22" you probably won't hit anything worthwhile with the harpoon. If your opponent is gunlining with 36"+ range units you may not even get a chance in turn 2.

While I think the flamer is probably the most interesting weapon, I am not sure it carries enough to make up the difference versus the plasma & volcano lance.

A lot of players will be highly considering raven house, so you could add a d6 to all the moves in that case. On a good advance he's now looking at 4" deep of opponent deployment zone with the harpoon and melta, and certainly could reach anything on t2, except for like the very back few inches on hammer and anvil.

Tyel wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

The problem is with just 22" you probably won't hit anything worthwhile with the harpoon. If your opponent is gunlining with 36"+ range units you may not even get a chance in turn 2.

While I think the flamer is probably the most interesting weapon, I am not sure it carries enough to make up the difference versus the plasma & volcano lance.

The problem with the Volcano Lance is that it is way too swingy. Variable damage blows. Yes, the Conflagration Cannon is also fairly swingy, but only on shot numbers. I hate variable shot and variable damage weapons. And the plasma suffers the same problems that the plasma cannon does, it only does one damage on a variable number of shots. As for the Harpoon, it is a neat weapon regardless. I really wish it had a melee profile too.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One is a stand back and shoot.

The other is ‘get up close and rain down hell upon them’.

Castellan is the one that least needs a favourable situation to be useful.

Valiant? Well, I really quite like it. The Flamer is devastating. Effective 28” range, no rolling to hit. But it’s the Damage 2 that’s tickled my pickle with it. Bikes, Heavy Infantry, Light to (in a pinch!) medium vehicles are all in big trouble. Even with a relatively poor roll for the number of shots can be mitigated thanks to Battleshock potential. Harpoon isn’t as great as when your first see it’s stats, but it’s still a good threat against Transports and heavier units. Spend a CP if you must for some re-roll goodness. 11-13 Wounds is never anything to be sniffed at.

Add in the ancillary Weapons, and it’s a mobile threat your opponent has to deal with. Now nobody has mentioned the Flamer on Overwatch, so I suspect I’m missing something (no Overwatch for Superheavies perhaps? Inform me peeps) - but there’s a relatively decent chance that it can wipe out charging units, or at least de-fang them enough that their close combat attacks end well blunted. Quick bit of tap dancing, and even Horde units can be whittle down very quickly. And if I manage to pull off an Overwatch hit with the Harpoon against a Character, I reserve the right to laugh a lot!

You can stand back and shoot with Castellan but you don't have to. If it's safe enough to approach for valiant it's safe enough for castellan. Difference being one NEEDS to get close. Other can start raining hell from the get-go. (btw realized the big knight is even slower than smaller knights so threat range goes away. Turn 1 flamer shoot is def not a quaranteed against gun lines. Especially against anything worth shooting at)


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 JNAProductions wrote:
Each flamer does 3d6 hits, which is 10.5 on average.

Against Termis with TH/SS, that's 7 wounds, for about two failed saves. Four, often five if you have two flamers.

'
What 2 flamers? Valiant is armed with harpoon and flamer. Doubtful the knights can double up. Since codex is already out for some who are leaking stuff they would have mentioned. And that would solve issue of plasma weapon for castellan. Twin volcano's!

(and since big knights are flat price plus shoulder weapons that means double volcano would cost same as plasma+volcano)

You can't do double weapons on the Valiant or Castellan. I really think the Valiant should have a melee weapon besides its feet (that harpoon gun should have a melee profile, but since Knights can go in and out of melee easily, no huge loss). But oh well. It's weapons synergize better with the Twin Meltaguns. The Castellan pays points for two weapons it will never use.

 Xenomancers wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Castellan has same meltas. And 1 shot is still 1 shot. Very unreliable. And sorry but rhinos isn't my primary target. Many who are won't get one shotted by harpoon and 4++ or even 3++ makes harpoon very unreliabae when you get one chance.

Castellan outdamages valiant against vehicles. Valiant is better vs flvers(particularly eldar one and elite infantry.but those aren"t everywhere. I need weapons to torch tougg targets that aim to be over 30" as a principle.

What are you worried about? Shadow swords? Yeah - you are going to struggle against criminally undercosted things that are designed to destroy you. Just write those games off.

Realistically I am probably going to be running both super knights an armager with autocannons and a gaurd brigade.


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The autocannons are going to be more effective vs the thunderhammers. Plus - it's a great place to shoot your missle that denies invo saves .

Basically any main battle tank, rip tide, contemptator dreadnoughts, sicarans. Even basic land raider if one comes up. Basically anything that has long range gun. Not even worry as in "I'm going to get blown to bits by one shot" but "stuff that are worth my time shooting". Those will be lobbing shells at you from 36"> when valiant threat range is 28"+advance so you are never shooting flamer vs those T1, some will deny you shooting on T2. And harpoon will be having hard time. Even on advance you are looking at turn 2 threat range of 37". Not enough to really hit them on T2.

Turn 1 I would expect to be able to shoot at stuff like imperial guard troopers, fire warriors...Good targets for near 600 pts knight eh? Turn 3 knight is likely dead if opponent feels it's worth taking out over smaller variants.


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Insularum wrote:

In no way do I think the Castellan is bad, but I'm afraid I don't agree with the faulty logic claim. There are better sources of plasma, over any range, and the lance does only shine when facing titanic units - versus a non titanic T8+ target it isn't much better than any other good AT weapon. I think the Castellan is solid, but it just doesn't jump out at being best in class at anything - just a big dependable unit.

Better against non-titanic than the harpoon.

The bigger case of faulty logic is complaining about the hookshots range (love the reference, am keeping that ), by hanging back with the Castellan you forfeit 4 meltas and 12 stomps which is more than enough to close the 76/86 damage differential. The output over time will also continue to swing in the Valiants favour as it's main gun does not degrade, it laughs at hit modifiers, it uses all of the weapons you have paid for, and is simply ridiculous at overwatch.

Umm...who says castellan is going to be hanging back? Difference is you are wasting 1-2 turns of not shooting with ANY guns with valiant. Especially against targets. Against MBT's etc harpoon is often firing on turn 3 earliest. Volcano and plasma will be firing them from the get-go AND will be reaching with meltas and stomps about same time.

so castellan: will be shooting 1-2 turns more and all the weapons. It's not forfeiting any weapons. Yes degrade hurts but there's trait against that and I find often enough when my knight gets degraded it's going to blow up either right away or turn later anyway so 1 turn of degred firepower. That's still better than 1-2 turn of NO shooting. Well except maybe against 60 pts infantry squads!


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 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is not that Castellan absolutely must sit back. If the enemy has no melee units that can realistically threaten a Knight (and many armies don't) then it can freely move closer and use the meltas and stomps too. Valiant on the other hand has to always move close in order to do anything worthwhile.

And if something threatens knight in h2h then it's not really ideal place for valiant to be in either. Yes the flamer overwatch is nice but many things that wreck knight will survive it. Or it will be first charged with something cheap that CAN survive. Or will be denied overwatch to begin with by some ability(several armies that can realistically threaten knight in h2h has such ability).

It's nice weapon no doubt and doubtless I'll get one one day but it's hardly be-all end-all weapon.

BTW incidentally using 1CP reroll castellan main guns will in average put tad short of 9 wounds against alaitoc crimson hunter(or comparable T/save -2 to hit target). Add in pair of the mini battlecannons and that's one sorry state flier minimum. More if you are willing to risk the overheat wounds.


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 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

24" between armies. Opponent doesn't have to set up to the edges. Halfway on their DZ is already 30". And of course he doesn't have to deploy straight front of your knight but can put diagonically.


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 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Tyel wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I like the Valiant. With a pair of Siegebreaker Cannons on the back, it has plenty to do while it trudges up the field. The Conflagration Cannon has an effective range of 28", so it isn't like you won't be using it in most deployments on turn 1. Maybe if your opponent is sitting on their back edge.

The problem is with just 22" you probably won't hit anything worthwhile with the harpoon. If your opponent is gunlining with 36"+ range units you may not even get a chance in turn 2.

While I think the flamer is probably the most interesting weapon, I am not sure it carries enough to make up the difference versus the plasma & volcano lance.

The problem with the Volcano Lance is that it is way too swingy. Variable damage blows. Yes, the Conflagration Cannon is also fairly swingy, but only on shot numbers. I hate variable shot and variable damage weapons. And the plasma suffers the same problems that the plasma cannon does, it only does one damage on a variable number of shots. As for the Harpoon, it is a neat weapon regardless. I really wish it had a melee profile too.

What? You call plasma and volcano swingy and think harpoon which is by far most swingy weapons of the 4 main guns as neat weapon?

If you hate swingy weapons you absolutely must avoid harpoon at all cost. Heavy 1 is epitome of swingy weapons. Especially when you are looking at one that gets basically one chance to take out target. Who often have inv save to begin with. Yey there's the riptide. Let's hit on 3+. Wound on 2+. Okay that's nice. Then he saves on 3++. Oh and has CP reroll to help as well. Sure if all that works you hurt it but getting that 1 wound is not something you can rely on.

(Assuming tau player is kind enough to let you reach riptide to begin with)


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 casvalremdeikun wrote:
You can't do double weapons on the Valiant or Castellan. I really think the Valiant should have a melee weapon besides its feet (that harpoon gun should have a melee profile, but since Knights can go in and out of melee easily, no huge loss). But oh well. It's weapons synergize better with the Twin Meltaguns. The Castellan pays points for two weapons it will never use.

Never use except same amount of turns valiant can.

Castellan isn't immobile nor does it actually get any extra firepower from being back. It can stay back but unlike valiant it's not forced to do anything. It can and often should be moving forward since you want those stomp attacks as well as meltas AND you want to be going for objectives since you have so few models to begin with.

Don't make mistake of thinking castellan sits back in corner without moving. It won't. But unlike valiant it doesn't have to go full speed ahead to direction enemy dictates to reach with it's weapons to shoot. Castellan can sit or move and even better move direction YOU want rather than where enemy moves the targets you want to shoot. Valiant will be often having to decide shoot with guns or go for objectives.

If you are going up against Titanic units, Castellan is better. But if you are not, then I would say probably Valiant is more useful. If you face a full horde army, your Castellan isn't going to do much as you use your titan killing gun to kill off cheap infantry models. And do you really expect to face titanic units every game?

Valiant is a lot more multi purpose. Even if you are facing other titanic units, your valiant can get into range and wreck havoc. Its not like it doesn't have other guns other than its huge flamer and that harpoon. Its 4 melta guns are all the armaments on its shoulder pads will do plenty against titanic units too.

Valiant is so anti horde its not even funny. I can't imagine any horde army that wants to charge a Valiant. And while it isn't as good as the Castellan against other knights or say a Tesseract vault. Its not totally useless either. It will still do plenty of damage at that sweet spot range of 12 inches.

So, unless you have a very specific role in mind for your Dominus class (its only going to stand back at max range and shoot), and you are fairly confident you will be facing titanic units really often, otherwise, I think that the Valiant is alot more general purpose.

Playing a shooty army? Your valiant can be the sole countercharging unit while still contributing at long range with its other guns. Playing a more close in army? Then your valiant loves it. Be it facing horde, vehicles, etc etc, Valiant will never feel inadequate.

So, yeah, I think Valiant is more useful. Castellan is for list tailoring.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
If you are going up against Titanic units, Castellan is better. But if you are not, then I would say probably Valiant is more useful. If you face a full horde army, your Castellan isn't going to do much as you use your titan killing gun to kill off cheap infantry models. And do you really expect to face titanic units every game?

Ummm...There's targets other than titanic/horde. Like...You know? Tanks? Monsters? All those carnifexes, greater daemons, riptides, predators, leman russes etc where castellan owns valiant. By the time valiant gets to shoot(assuming it's not already dead) castellan has already blown 1-2 of them and possibly hurt another or two.

In what meta you play if after horde infantry next biggest thing is titanic models O_o

Valiant is a lot more multi purpose. Even if you are facing other titanic units, your valiant can get into range and wreck havoc. Its not like it doesn't have other guns other than its huge flamer and that harpoon. Its 4 melta guns are all the armaments on its shoulder pads will do plenty against titanic units too.

Same meltas and shoulder pads castellan has...

Valiant: "Yey I have meltas and shoulder guns"
Castellan: *points to identical guns*

My point is that Valiant is more multi purpose because it is also good against hordes. I don't really think Castellan is that great against hordes.

Sure, there are other targets. But you haven't seen armies made up of nothing but horde like models? I have seen lists like that. Nothing but characters and infantry type models. Zero vehicles, zero titanic units.

Castellan likes to hang back and shoot, so those melta guns are often wasted. Valiant likes to close in and shoot, so the melta guns are not wasted. The biggest weakness of going closer to shoot (that of being charged in melee) is much reduced for the Valiant because its Confrag cannon is so devastating. I am just saying that the Valiant is good in a lot more situations than the Castellan. And even against titanic units, which the castellan is better, I think the Valiant is not really that far behind if it gets into that sweet spot 12 inch range where it can bring its 4 melta guns into play. Sure, you could argue that the Castellan can also use those same 4 melta guns, but if you are playing the Castellan, would you really be trying to move it into close range?

I like the Valiant because it auto hits flyers with a high strength weapon that doesn't care about the degrading profile and because it's made to advance and hopefully end up in a huge explosion inside the enemy lines. If I had to choose between one of these knights and a shadowsword, i'd rather go with the knights since the chances of them surviving the first turn are a lot higher.

This is such a circular argument that I really just want to point everyone back to a middle ground.

Both are super duper good. The Castellan is there if you're facing Shadowswords, other Knights, Daemon Primarchs, vehicle spam armies (primarily Leman Russes), etc, which, if you've been paying attention to the tournament meta, are all common enough to where having a viable solution to dealing with them at long range from a Knight army is a big deal. Seeing as Shadowswords are people's usual answer to super-heavies, Daemon Primarchs tend to be a great counter to Knights, and Knights in general will get more popular thanks to having a good codex, it's not hard to see why the Castellan will generally be a very good pick heading into a tournament. A (well priced) Knight being able to kill or at least severely degrade a Mortarion/Magnus before either of those can reach it is unheard of, as is the ability to efficiently trade with a Shadowsword without having to worry about getting past all the space-fillers.

On the flip side, the Valiant is there for Custodes in general but specifically the Biker Captains, Daemon Princes, flyers of all varieties but especially the Aeldari ones, hordes, light to medium vehicles, any kind of army that relies on to-hit penalties, assault armies that lack Overwatch-denying abilities or can soak up its Overwatch and tarpit it, etc. Hordes are more common than anything else at tournaments, and Custodes' Captains are present in nearly every tournament-worthy Imperium army nowadays, so having a unit that handles both roles well is great. Now, that's not to say the Valiant is super efficient against hordes...it's just better at dealing with them than the Castellan. It will reliably kill between half and two thirds of a 30-strong squad a turn from shooting then hopefully most of the rest of the squad with Titanic Feet. Besides that, however, the main thing about it is its area denial, especially with the Hawkshroud Overwatch stratagem, as has been proven in a few battle reports already. Board control wins games and the Valiant does a better job at it than the Castellan.

Also, let me dispel something really quickly; just because the Castellan has long range guns does not mean it wants to sit back the entire game. Look at how people have always used Knights in this edition; even those that have mediocre Overwatch potential or lack a dedicated melee weapon still push up the field because their Titanic Feet are scary as hell, and this is true even for the Dominus class Knights and their weakened WS4+. Just don't blindly rush it forward into a bad situation....as is the case with literally every other high value model in the game. Plan ahead, be smart, stay safe. Tactics 101. Saying the Castellan won't be using it's four meltagun shots and doesn't want to get close to enemies is way off the mark and completely untrue. Hell, the Valiant won't always want to close with the enemy either because some armies don't care about that Overwatch and will kill it like they do any other Knight - in melee. Some of those counters are present in top tier tournament builds too, so saying "well the Valiant will be using those meltagun shots but the Castellan won't" as if that is some universal dogma still rings hollow.

They're both really good against certain aspects of the current tournament meta, especially if you assume that you take the nigh mandatory relic flamer and relic plasma on each applicable variant. Castellans will easily win firefights with Shadowswords provided you correctly buff their invulnerable saves up, give your army a means of dealing with Daemon Primarchs (Castellan with 1CP re-roll ones stratagem active will fairly easily kill unbuffed Magnus turn one, should severely cripple Mortarion provided Deathshroud (if any) are dealt with first) and other big nasty fast moving targets from afar before they can reach you, are a fantastic candidate for the House Raven re-roll-all-ones stratagem, and generally will clear the field of vehicles and monsters extremely quickly if left unattended. A well-positioned Hawkshroud Valiant screws Custodes Captains over so hard that it might be an auto-pick for anyone running Knights (just remember that it will still get kicked in by Slamguinius/Blood Angels Captain that ignores Overwatch, so be careful), this also applies to Daemon Princes and other high damage characters who hide behind their sub-10 Wounds characteristic and Overwatch generally not being scary to leave their mark. You also completely mess up those Alaitoc Hemlock wing lists by dictating where they can move if they want to survive thanks to their low 16" range guns, and generally will make most opponents squirm under the pressure it applies with fewer applicable counters than would be present for any other Knight variant.

Which one is "more in the meta" is a fairly easy question to answer; it's the Valiant. All those tournament-winning Imperium and Aeldari armies tend to be built around gimmicks the Valiant counters (except Slamguinius, sadly). However, if the meta shifts even more to Knights and other super heavies - you wouldn't believe how prolific Shadowswords can be at some tournaments - the Castellan will definitely carve out a place by virtue of being able to tango with them and win. The Castellan can comfortably win super heavy duels and other forms of anti-tank barrages by virtue of attaining a 3++ against shooting to survive a first turn alpha strike, something the Shadowsword can't do. Being able to plop a big model down and not be worried about whether you go first or second with regards to potentially losing it can be a big psychological tax on your opponent.

GW just needs to add Pistol to the Harpoon’s keywords, so it can fire into melee. That would be fun.

SJ

They need to add a space whale model for Chaos and put it in a box set with the Valiant.

And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Eldenfirefly wrote:
And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Unless a 40K faction gets a space whale (which, from looking at AoS recently might be a possibility...).

Caederes wrote:
This is such a circular argument that I really just want to point everyone back to a middle ground.

Both are super duper good. The Castellan is there if you're facing Shadowswords, other Knights, Daemon Primarchs, vehicle spam armies (primarily Leman Russes), etc, which, if you've been paying attention to the tournament meta, are all common enough to where having a viable solution to dealing with them at long range from a Knight army is a big deal. Seeing as Shadowswords are people's usual answer to super-heavies, Daemon Primarchs tend to be a great counter to Knights, and Knights in general will get more popular thanks to having a good codex, it's not hard to see why the Castellan will generally be a very good pick heading into a tournament. A (well priced) Knight being able to kill or at least severely degrade a Mortarion/Magnus before either of those can reach it is unheard of, as is the ability to efficiently trade with a Shadowsword without having to worry about getting past all the space-fillers.

On the flip side, the Valiant is there for Custodes in general but specifically the Biker Captains, Daemon Princes, flyers of all varieties but especially the Aeldari ones, hordes, light to medium vehicles, any kind of army that relies on to-hit penalties, assault armies that lack Overwatch-denying abilities or can soak up its Overwatch and tarpit it, etc. Hordes are more common than anything else at tournaments, and Custodes' Captains are present in nearly every tournament-worthy Imperium army nowadays, so having a unit that handles both roles well is great. Now, that's not to say the Valiant is super efficient against hordes...it's just better at dealing with them than the Castellan. It will reliably kill between half and two thirds of a 30-strong squad a turn from shooting then hopefully most of the rest of the squad with Titanic Feet. Besides that, however, the main thing about it is its area denial, especially with the Hawkshroud Overwatch stratagem, as has been proven in a few battle reports already. Board control wins games and the Valiant does a better job at it than the Castellan.

Also, let me dispel something really quickly; just because the Castellan has long range guns does not mean it wants to sit back the entire game. Look at how people have always used Knights in this edition; even those that have mediocre Overwatch potential or lack a dedicated melee weapon still push up the field because their Titanic Feet are scary as hell, and this is true even for the Dominus class Knights and their weakened WS4+. Just don't blindly rush it forward into a bad situation....as is the case with literally every other high value model in the game. Plan ahead, be smart, stay safe. Tactics 101. Saying the Castellan won't be using it's four meltagun shots and doesn't want to get close to enemies is way off the mark and completely untrue. Hell, the Valiant won't always want to close with the enemy either because some armies don't care about that Overwatch and will kill it like they do any other Knight - in melee. Some of those counters are present in top tier tournament builds too, so saying "well the Valiant will be using those meltagun shots but the Castellan won't" as if that is some universal dogma still rings hollow.

They're both really good against certain aspects of the current tournament meta, especially if you assume that you take the nigh mandatory relic flamer and relic plasma on each applicable variant. Castellans will easily win firefights with Shadowswords provided you correctly buff their invulnerable saves up, give your army a means of dealing with Daemon Primarchs (Castellan with 1CP re-roll ones stratagem active will fairly easily kill unbuffed Magnus turn one, should severely cripple Mortarion provided Deathshroud (if any) are dealt with first) and other big nasty fast moving targets from afar before they can reach you, are a fantastic candidate for the House Raven re-roll-all-ones stratagem, and generally will clear the field of vehicles and monsters extremely quickly if left unattended. A well-positioned Hawkshroud Valiant screws Custodes Captains over so hard that it might be an auto-pick for anyone running Knights (just remember that it will still get kicked in by Slamguinius/Blood Angels Captain that ignores Overwatch, so be careful), this also applies to Daemon Princes and other high damage characters who hide behind their sub-10 Wounds characteristic and Overwatch generally not being scary to leave their mark. You also completely mess up those Alaitoc Hemlock wing lists by dictating where they can move if they want to survive thanks to their low 16" range guns, and generally will make most opponents squirm under the pressure it applies with fewer applicable counters than would be present for any other Knight variant.

Which one is "more in the meta" is a fairly easy question to answer; it's the Valiant. All those tournament-winning Imperium and Aeldari armies tend to be built around gimmicks the Valiant counters (except Slamguinius, sadly). However, if the meta shifts even more to Knights and other super heavies - you wouldn't believe how prolific Shadowswords can be at some tournaments - the Castellan will definitely carve out a place by virtue of being able to tango with them and win. The Castellan can comfortably win super heavy duels and other forms of anti-tank barrages by virtue of attaining a 3++ against shooting to survive a first turn alpha strike, something the Shadowsword can't do. Being able to plop a big model down and not be worried about whether you go first or second with regards to potentially losing it can be a big psychological tax on your opponent.

Well - technically a shadow-sword can avoid alpha strike with tallarn outflank stratagem.

However - I totally agree with your assessment here. Valiant is just the better choice for a single knight if you can only take one. The two options do complement each other quite nicely though. I will probably bring both.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Unless a 40K faction gets a space whale (which, from looking at AoS recently might be a possibility...).

It'd be Tzeentch of course. Those manta rays need some friends.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Unless a 40K faction gets a space whale (which, from looking at AoS recently might be a possibility...).

Just last night I saw a flying sea-turtle model....

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
You can't do double weapons on the Valiant or Castellan. I really think the Valiant should have a melee weapon besides its feet (that harpoon gun should have a melee profile, but since Knights can go in and out of melee easily, no huge loss). But oh well. It's weapons synergize better with the Twin Meltaguns. The Castellan pays points for two weapons it will never use.

What? That is so lame.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
You can't do double weapons on the Valiant or Castellan. I really think the Valiant should have a melee weapon besides its feet (that harpoon gun should have a melee profile, but since Knights can go in and out of melee easily, no huge loss). But oh well. It's weapons synergize better with the Twin Meltaguns. The Castellan pays points for two weapons it will never use.

What? That is so lame.

None of the other knights allow double weapons so I'm not sure why this is a surprise.

Yeah, fair enough. I just wish I could rock double flamers.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah, fair enough. I just wish I could rock double flamers.

Or double avengers. Or double volcanos.

Even double thermal or double RFBC would be quite good.

Got to go Chaos for that.

Caederes wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Unless a 40K faction gets a space whale (which, from looking at AoS recently might be a possibility...).

It'd be Tzeentch of course. Those manta rays need some friends.

Kind of tempted to use the Harpoon on a Haruspex.

Right.

Down.

The.

Gullet.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Caederes wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
And so, my conclusion to 4 pages of arguments and counter arguments? .. just take both! lol

Unless a 40K faction gets a space whale (which, from looking at AoS recently might be a possibility...).

It'd be Tzeentch of course. Those manta rays need some friends.

Kind of tempted to use the Harpoon on a Haruspex.

Right.

Down.

The.

Gullet.

Unfortunately - It still probably wont 1 shot it with the harpoon but it's pretty close. If it's not leviathan you gotta a good chance to have a Haruspex kebab

4 pages into this thread and I still can't decide.

I know. I think I'm going Valiant but that lance doh...

It's an easy question if you plan on running two Dominus' as the two are really good together, just very pricey and pretty much lock you out from running an effective four Knight (not counting Armigers) list.

Individually, it's meta based. Assault armies that specifically don't have Overwatch denial or easy ways to stop you falling back? Valiant. Enemy super heavies that are hard to reach? Castellan. Aeldari/Raven Guard/any army with lots of negative hit modifiers, especially ones loaded up on flyers? Valiant. Tanks everywhere? Castellan. Board control? Valiant. Daemon Primarchs? Castellan. Hordes? Valiant. Enemy Knights? Castellan.

Whichever Dominus ticks most of those categories is the one you should play.

My reasoning at the moment is that since I am 100% waiting for the Sisters reboot, flamer all the way.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
My point is that Valiant is more multi purpose because it is also good against hordes. I don't really think Castellan is that great against hordes.

Sure, there are other targets. But you haven't seen armies made up of nothing but horde like models? I have seen lists like that. Nothing but characters and infantry type models. Zero vehicles, zero titanic units.

Castellan likes to hang back and shoot, so those melta guns are often wasted. Valiant likes to close in and shoot, so the melta guns are not wasted. The biggest weakness of going closer to shoot (that of being charged in melee) is much reduced for the Valiant because its Confrag cannon is so devastating. I am just saying that the Valiant is good in a lot more situations than the Castellan. And even against titanic units, which the castellan is better, I think the Valiant is not really that far behind if it gets into that sweet spot 12 inch range where it can bring its 4 melta guns into play. Sure, you could argue that the Castellan can also use those same 4 melta guns, but if you are playing the Castellan, would you really be trying to move it into close range?

Yes. But you have other knights for horde clearing. There's no other model as adept at clearing vehicles and monsters as castellan.

Castellan only likes to hang back and shoot because YOU decide so. Note it actually gains nothing from it. It can move and shoot without penalty nor does it have beneficitial rule requiring to sit back. IT CAN MOVE AND SHOOT EQUALLY GOOD! So you are wasting it's potential by sitting back and shooting. Sure you CAN shoot yourself on foot like that but you know other players want to use 100% of it rather than 70%.

And yes I will be moving and shooting. More guns and objectives to control. Knights don't have models enough to sit back and shoot. don't fall into trap thinking just because it has 48"+ range it has to stay that far. Those ranges allow castellan to hurt enemy from turn 1 rather than turn 2-3 like valiant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Caederes wrote:
It's an easy question if you plan on running two Dominus' as the two are really good together, just very pricey and pretty much lock you out from running an effective four Knight (not counting Armigers) list.

Individually, it's meta based. Assault armies that specifically don't have Overwatch denial or easy ways to stop you falling back? Valiant. Enemy super heavies that are hard to reach? Castellan. Aeldari/Raven Guard/any army with lots of negative hit modifiers, especially ones loaded up on flyers? Valiant. Tanks everywhere? Castellan. Board control? Valiant. Daemon Primarchs? Castellan. Hordes? Valiant. Enemy Knights? Castellan.

Whichever Dominus ticks most of those categories is the one you should play.

Fliers. Castellan actually pretty much cripples alaitoc flier without even looking at meltagun/shoulder guns. With shoulder guns one shotting one is hardly impossibility. Especially if you are willing to risk average of 2 mortal wounds to yourself(and don't have reroll 1's which is possible to get)

It is pretty simple.

I pick the Castellan because I will play House Taranis. As Mechanicum Knight I can pick the Plasma Relic.


As Imperial House player I would pick the Valiant because of the Flamer Relic.

I'm also a big fan of the valiant because of the idea of getting up in their grill and then heroic sacrificing. A very likely 2d6 (and possibly 3d6) radius d6 mortal wound nuke going off in the middle of their dudes is a game winning play, and the only tactic most armies can use to avoid it is to just not kill your dude, which is obviously not a great plan. I plan on going raven to send him advancing in full speed while firing everything and having the mechanicus strats available.

I mean yeah the catellan can do it too, but is a lot more vulnerable to melee threats without the boss flamer.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm also a big fan of the valiant because of the idea of getting up in their grill and then heroic sacrificing. A very likely 2d6 (and possibly 3d6) radius d6 mortal wound nuke going off in the middle of their dudes is a game winning play, and the only tactic most armies can use to avoid it is to just not kill your dude, which is obviously not a great plan. I plan on going raven to send him advancing in full speed while firing everything and having the mechanicus strats available.

I mean yeah the catellan can do it too, but is a lot more vulnerable to melee threats without the boss flamer.

That doesn't make much sense.

The last sentence.

If you are trying to get the knight killed for a Nuke, you want the vulnerability to melee threats.

Don't get me wrong; the valiant is still better suited to up-close and personal, or at least that is where he wants to be. So this tactic is great for him(your opponent is left with a no-win decision: do I kill is and get nuked, or let it run rampant?)

I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

Agreed 100%. As a professed master of magnetism this irks me to no end, especially considering their predilection to making dual kits these days to minimize mold making. I guess they figured since it was a big ticket item they would maximize sales. Makes me wonder if the same thing is happening to the Armigers (which is why I did not magnetize the ones I got in Forgebane, knowing shenanigans would happen).

You don’t actually have to magnetize Armigers other than the top weapon, as the arms have a bayonet lock.

SJ

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

Agreed 100%. As a professed master of magnetism this irks me to no end, especially considering their predilection to making dual kits these days to minimize mold making. I guess they figured since it was a big ticket item they would maximize sales. Makes me wonder if the same thing is happening to the Armigers (which is why I did not magnetize the ones I got in Forgebane, knowing shenanigans would happen).

Armiger variants are own boxes as weil. Helsingers comes now, warglaives sometimes later in year. For now forgebane is only source for them

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

Agreed 100%. As a professed master of magnetism this irks me to no end, especially considering their predilection to making dual kits these days to minimize mold making. I guess they figured since it was a big ticket item they would maximize sales. Makes me wonder if the same thing is happening to the Armigers (which is why I did not magnetize the ones I got in Forgebane, knowing shenanigans would happen).

The real shame is I would have bought both a Dominus and Armiger kit without thinking about it if I could swap the weapons around. Attempting to get me to buy both is currently causing me to buy neither.

I just ordered mine.

Help me decide, dakka dakka, you're my only hope.

I want it to blow stuff up while I make pew pew noises and I lurve plasma weapons.

 kronk wrote:
I just ordered mine.

Help me decide, dakka dakka, you're my only hope.

I want it to blow stuff up while I make pew pew noises and I lurve plasma weapons.

If you just ordered one; you have already decided. You get the one you ordered.

Oh, they don't have both guns in each box? I guess I haven't been paying attention. gak.

Better go look and see.

Edit: I bought the Knight Castellan. Pew Pew noises attained.

With this not being a dual purpose kit, I think the Castellan has the "easiest" arms to fabricate of the two so magnetising might not be off the table. Would be interested to see scale shots of the Dominus next to thermic plasma regulators as they have similar proportions to the front half of the decimator, and a RFBC suitably extended/minus the shield might get the job done as a lance?

Does anyone know yet if you are able to take 3 of the same carapace hardpoints or is it always 2:1? I'm thinking 3 siege cannons would be the go to in low CP/exalted court lists.

tneva82 wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

Agreed 100%. As a professed master of magnetism this irks me to no end, especially considering their predilection to making dual kits these days to minimize mold making. I guess they figured since it was a big ticket item they would maximize sales. Makes me wonder if the same thing is happening to the Armigers (which is why I did not magnetize the ones I got in Forgebane, knowing shenanigans would happen).

Armiger variants are own boxes as weil. Helsingers comes now, warglaives sometimes later in year. For now forgebane is only source for them

Didn’t they say they are releasing the Armiger warglaives next week too?

Or did I misread something. Hmm

With getting almost 2 wardens for the cost of a dominus - I see no reason to take the dominus now.

 Xenomancers wrote:
With getting almost 2 wardens for the cost of a dominus - I see no reason to take the dominus now.

Not sure where you're getting that kind of pricing. Warden is min cost 411, Dominus is minium 500.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
With getting almost 2 wardens for the cost of a dominus - I see no reason to take the dominus now.

Not sure where you're getting that kind of pricing. Warden is min cost 411, Dominus is minium 500.

Ive seen the codex. Dominus class is 510 base without weapons. Warden I want to say was 295 and with weapons comes out a little over 400.

I think he meant money wise

Warden is 411 minimum, Valiant is 585 minimum and Castellan is 595 minimum (though Valiant and Castellan will likely always be 594 and 604 respectively as two Siegebreakers and two Shieldbreakers looks to be much better than one Siegebreaker and four Shieldbreakers). You get just under one and a half Wardens for the price of a Valiant or Castellan.

Reason to take the Dominus' is because they look awesome, but both also offer something other Knights can't efficiently replicate (which may change if Forge World lowers the points costs of their variants).

Of course, something to note is that a House Krast Crusader with the +1/2 damage relic can actually make short work of a lot of things, even other Knights.

How many models can you get with two Dominus at 2k points?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
With getting almost 2 wardens for the cost of a dominus - I see no reason to take the dominus now.

Not sure where you're getting that kind of pricing. Warden is min cost 411, Dominus is minium 500.

Ive seen the codex. Dominus class is 510 base without weapons. Warden I want to say was 295 and with weapons comes out a little over 400.

You don’t pay for the arm weapons. Definitely can’t get close to 2 wardens for a dominus


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I think he meant money wise

Sadly you can’t make 2 wardens from the renegade box. The avenger is one of the weapons you only get one of.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Primark G wrote:
How many models can you get with two Dominus at 2k points?

With Guard quite a few

If you mean questors it’s possible to fit 2 more.

Insularum wrote:
With this not being a dual purpose kit, I think the Castellan has the "easiest" arms to fabricate of the two so magnetising might not be off the table. Would be interested to see scale shots of the Dominus next to thermic plasma regulators as they have similar proportions to the front half of the decimator, and a RFBC suitably extended/minus the shield might get the job done as a lance?

Does anyone know yet if you are able to take 3 of the same carapace hardpoints or is it always 2:1? I'm thinking 3 siege cannons would be the go to in low CP/exalted court lists.

Always a 2/1 one way or the other. Shame I'm sure it will be fine in game bit three cannons would have looked way better to me.

Ordered the Valiant last night.
So I guess I am committed now.

I am probably still going to magnetise - at some future point there might be a combined kit or an upgrade sprue or a 3d printed customisation or a whole load of green stuff.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
With getting almost 2 wardens for the cost of a dominus - I see no reason to take the dominus now.

Not sure where you're getting that kind of pricing. Warden is min cost 411, Dominus is minium 500.

Ive seen the codex. Dominus class is 510 base without weapons. Warden I want to say was 295 and with weapons comes out a little over 400.

You don’t pay for the arm weapons. Definitely can’t get close to 2 wardens for a dominus


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I think he meant money wise

Sadly you can’t make 2 wardens from the renegade box. The avenger is one of the weapons you only get one of.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Primark G wrote:
How many models can you get with two Dominus at 2k points?

With Guard quite a few

If you mean questors it’s possible to fit 2 more.

I meant pure knight.

Pure Knight, if you do two dominus (since you're talking 1200~ points taken up by those) you can potentially fit in 2 of the cheaper medium size knights, or maybe like 4 of the armigers.

Well the eBay sale forced my hand as I couldn’t pass up 40% off retail. So a Castellan it is! I chose long range fire support as most of my Knights currently are fairly short ranged. I’ll get the Valiant eventually, or just magnetize and hope for some 3rd party options soon.

Caederes wrote:
Warden is 411 minimum, Valiant is 585 minimum and Castellan is 595 minimum (though Valiant and Castellan will likely always be 594 and 604 respectively as two Siegebreakers and two Shieldbreakers looks to be much better than one Siegebreaker and four Shieldbreakers). You get just under one and a half Wardens for the price of a Valiant or Castellan.

Reason to take the Dominus' is because they look awesome, but both also offer something other Knights can't efficiently replicate (which may change if Forge World lowers the points costs of their variants).

Of course, something to note is that a House Krast Crusader with the +1/2 damage relic can actually make short work of a lot of things, even other Knights.

I see now how I am mistaken.
Ahh I see - twin melta guns are free....how unbelievably stupid. GW just needs a new rules team straight up. Meltagun - 17 points. Twin meltagun - 0 points?

 Xenomancers wrote:

Caederes wrote:
Warden is 411 minimum, Valiant is 585 minimum and Castellan is 595 minimum (though Valiant and Castellan will likely always be 594 and 604 respectively as two Siegebreakers and two Shieldbreakers looks to be much better than one Siegebreaker and four Shieldbreakers). You get just under one and a half Wardens for the price of a Valiant or Castellan.

Reason to take the Dominus' is because they look awesome, but both also offer something other Knights can't efficiently replicate (which may change if Forge World lowers the points costs of their variants).

Of course, something to note is that a House Krast Crusader with the +1/2 damage relic can actually make short work of a lot of things, even other Knights.

I see now how I am mistaken.
Ahh I see - twin melta guns are free....how unbelievably stupid. GW just needs a new rules team straight up. Meltagun - 17 points. Twin meltagun - 0 points?

Are they not in the base cost of the Knight?

drbored wrote:
Pure Knight, if you do two dominus (since you're talking 1200~ points taken up by those) you can potentially fit in 2 of the cheaper medium size knights, or maybe like 4 of the armigers.

You'll almost certainly want a Questoris so you can keep your command points. At that point 2 Armigers fit for a total of 5 models.

In terms of sheer maximum body count, I think if you take 2 Valiants with twin Stormbreakers, it leaves enough room for 5 Warglaives with a little room to spare.

Yeah...but why? Just reduce the base cost of the knight and pay for the meltaguns...that is how it supposed to work.

It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

pm713 wrote:
It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

It's really not easier. When some weapons cost points and some weapons don't - that is more difficult. They need to be consistent across the board with this stuff.

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:
It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

It's really not easier. When some weapons cost points and some weapons don't - that is more difficult. They need to be consistent across the board with this stuff.

I'd vote for consistency as well. The logic seems to be "its built in unless you can swap for it, then its not" but that logic isn't as consistent as "its not built in ever".

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:
It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

It's really not easier. When some weapons cost points and some weapons don't - that is more difficult. They need to be consistent across the board with this stuff.

I'd vote for consistency as well. The logic seems to be "its built in unless you can swap for it, then its not" but that logic isn't as consistent as "its not built in ever".

Well with baneblades you pay for a demolisher cannon even though it has no other option. There are more examples I just can't think of any.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:
It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

It's really not easier. When some weapons cost points and some weapons don't - that is more difficult. They need to be consistent across the board with this stuff.

I'd vote for consistency as well. The logic seems to be "its built in unless you can swap for it, then its not" but that logic isn't as consistent as "its not built in ever".

Well with baneblades you pay for a demolisher cannon even though it has no other option. There are more examples I just can't think of any.

I suppose its technically true of all the Questor variants, but that's largely because of their weird, pointless breakdown into multiple datasheets.

Valiant if you are giving the relics to other models, Castellan if you are planning on giving whichever a relic, IMO. The Valiant is an up gunned Acheron, but the Acheron moves faster, has a good combat weapon, can heal itself (now and then) and is cheaper.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Yeah...but why? Just reduce the base cost of the knight and pay for the meltaguns...that is how it supposed to work.

That is not "how it is supposed to work".

Meltaguns are optional upgrades, Twin Meltaguns are only on the Big guys and cannot be changed.

Just like Bolters or Lasguns cost 0 points in the armies where they are the basic weapon of the troops(space Marines and Guardsmen); the cost of the model includes the basic gun.

I can't decide. I've had either one or the other in mind off and on all week.

Leaning Castellan right now as the biggest threats to Kiniggits tends to be big powerful models that the Castellan is made to slag.

But the Valiants board control and solid answer to - to hit stacking and melee threats.

Argh!

 Ideasweasel wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm impressed at how difficult of a choice this is. I am annoyed that I can't just magnetize the arms and be able to switch between the two freely.

Agreed 100%. As a professed master of magnetism this irks me to no end, especially considering their predilection to making dual kits these days to minimize mold making. I guess they figured since it was a big ticket item they would maximize sales. Makes me wonder if the same thing is happening to the Armigers (which is why I did not magnetize the ones I got in Forgebane, knowing shenanigans would happen).

Armiger variants are own boxes as weil. Helsingers comes now, warglaives sometimes later in year. For now forgebane is only source for them

Didn’t they say they are releasing the Armiger warglaives next week too?

Or did I misread something. Hmm

That release info came after I posted. I was under impression they come with the special character who is later in year. Well good news they come sooner rather than later.


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 Xenomancers wrote:

Caederes wrote:
Warden is 411 minimum, Valiant is 585 minimum and Castellan is 595 minimum (though Valiant and Castellan will likely always be 594 and 604 respectively as two Siegebreakers and two Shieldbreakers looks to be much better than one Siegebreaker and four Shieldbreakers). You get just under one and a half Wardens for the price of a Valiant or Castellan.

Reason to take the Dominus' is because they look awesome, but both also offer something other Knights can't efficiently replicate (which may change if Forge World lowers the points costs of their variants).

Of course, something to note is that a House Krast Crusader with the +1/2 damage relic can actually make short work of a lot of things, even other Knights.

I see now how I am mistaken.
Ahh I see - twin melta guns are free....how unbelievably stupid. GW just needs a new rules team straight up. Meltagun - 17 points. Twin meltagun - 0 points?

Hey you think that's weird? VOLCANO CANNON 0 pts

The price is baked into hull. If nobody else can use that weapon it's baked into cost of the hull.


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 Xenomancers wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:
It's easier? It stops the risk of you making a mistake making a list when you just add the unit.

It's really not easier. When some weapons cost points and some weapons don't - that is more difficult. They need to be consistent across the board with this stuff.

I'd vote for consistency as well. The logic seems to be "its built in unless you can swap for it, then its not" but that logic isn't as consistent as "its not built in ever".

Well with baneblades you pay for a demolisher cannon even though it has no other option. There are more examples I just can't think of any.

That's because demolisher cannon is usable on leman russ...

It’s easy to decide. You already know which faction you prefer, so if it’s Mechanicus get the Castellan first, if it’s Imperial get the Valiant first. And then get the other one later on.

If you cannot decide on the faction, don’t get either.

SJ

Neither. Get a Cerastus Lancer with hawkshroud, landstrider. First turn charge with the right stratagem. Its personal preference.

I already have one. Went with Castellan as it's almost always the right call to go with the shootiest option with the biggest guns.

 Eldarain wrote:
I already have one. Went with Castellan as it's almost always the right call to go with the shootiest option with the biggest guns.

I got both - made castellan first - played it in a 2k game with a bunch of other more agressive knights. It was completely ignored with it's 4++ save from warlord trait.

It's kill tally? 8 wraiths - 6 heavy destroyers - 10 immortals - 4 lychgaurd. In 3 turns. It did pretty well I'd say.

I've got to play a game with the Valiant, but not in a full knight army. It was Hawkshroud and the opposing army was fairly aggressive on moving into the field of play (enables the shorter ranged weapons sooner).

It was an absolute blast to play. Probably didn't make its points back in kills, but definitely screened my army for 2 full turns and went out with a blast (Valiant Last Stand is spectacular with the Relic flamer). There was also a couple of misplays on my part that downed how useful the knight was.

I’m thinking of magnetising it and then giving either a shot. I suspect The Castellan is the more sensible choice. That said the Valiant just looks so much fun!

 Ideasweasel wrote:
I’m thinking of magnetising it and then giving either a shot. I suspect The Castellan is the more sensible choice. That said the Valiant just looks so much fun!

Unfortunately unless you come across the weapons online (unlikely) you wont be able to do that unless you plan on building your own weapons from scratch

Sooooo - any update on the verdict? I was really close to getting a Valiant but the whole „full effectiveness from turn 1“ eventually swung me the other way. Plus the option of getting close to the enemy or not instead of having to do it.

I think the answer is still - it depends on the rest of your army.

The castellan is certainly the safe choice though.

If you are talking competitive, I suggest you play spot the Valiant in the hundreds of lists for the ATC and ETC events.

So what's the odds that the castellen gets a points increase in either the FAQ or CA2018?

Ice_can wrote:
So what's the odds that the castellen gets a points increase in the FAQ?

0% - they have stated they do not do points changes in FAQs

Ice_can wrote:
So what's the odds that the castellen gets a points increase in CA2018?

>0% but still low. And any change is unlikely to be dramatic. They are not unfairly costed and certainly won't get some kind of mental nerf 3 months after release.

 Silentz wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
So what's the odds that the castellen gets a points increase in the FAQ?

0% - they have stated they do not do points changes in FAQs

Ice_can wrote:
So what's the odds that the castellen gets a points increase in CA2018?

>0% but still low. And any change is unlikely to be dramatic. They are not unfairly costed and certainly won't get some kind of mental nerf 3 months after release.

Erm... There were points changes in the March (April) Big FAQ actually.