At my local flgs we usually play 2k points. They other night I debuted my knights (crusader + 2 Armiger) alongside my usual Astra militarum, and I had a taker and we had a good game. It was well played, and even though I won it was a close match and we had fun.
However, people seemed a little put off that I brought a Knight to flgs night. So I have two questions since I know knights are good but not impossible to deal with.

Are Knights not FLGS friendly?
What is the primary concern people have when facing a knight?

 Smotejob wrote:
At my local flgs we usually play 2k points. They other night I debuted my knights (crusader + 2 Armiger) alongside my usual Astra militarum, and I had a taker and we had a good game. It was well played, and even though I won it was a close match and we had fun.
However, people seemed a little put off that I brought a Knight to flgs night. So I have two questions since I know knights are good but not impossible to deal with.

Are Knights not FLGS friendly?
What is the primary concern people have when facing a knight?

It depends on the FLGS and "Not enough anti-tank", which isn't really an issue now that you can chip away with any weapons.

Knights are (and have been, for a while now) a codex army. At 2k points, no one should be complaining, especially if you're bringing only one full sized knight and a couple baby knights. That is IMO a fair use of super heavies.

If it was 1000 points, I can see how people might be upset as it's harder to deal with super heavies at low point values, but nobody should ever be complaining about armingers, as they're basically dreadnoughts.

Nah, it shouldn't be a problem. If someone brings nothing but Tactical Squads to a game against you then it'll teach them to buy some anti-tank weapons.

I'm open to playing against anything. Although I'll admit that it's going to be a better game if you play tournament prep list vs tournament prep list and casual vs casual. A Knights list isn't necessarily a tournament list, but some of those Knights + Guard lists are really strong lists I would not want to run 20 Ultramarines Intecessors into.

It’s funny, a Knight list is generally accepted but Unit’s 3 Guard Superheavies list got all kinds of ZOMG CHEESE OP accusations on these here boards.

I do struggle vs single or two knights, but this is army specific and optimised list shouldn't have problems with knights, as long as it is not from a bad codex, or you don't run some crazy ally combo of knight, custodes and IG.

Multi-knights IS a bit cheesy for most flgs. Something like 2 Helverins, a Crusader, a Gallant, a Warden and Gulliman.

I can't imagine many casual lists standing a chance against that kind of thing.

But one knight? Nahhhhhh

 grouchoben wrote:
Multi-knights IS a bit cheesy for most flgs. Something like 2 Helverins, a Crusader, a Gallant, a Warden and Gulliman.

I can't imagine many casual lists standing a chance against that kind of thing.

But one knight? Nahhhhhh

Why do people throw Guilliman into lists with no Ultramarines for his aura. Just what.

meleti wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Multi-knights IS a bit cheesy for most flgs. Something like 2 Helverins, a Crusader, a Gallant, a Warden and Gulliman.

I can't imagine many casual lists standing a chance against that kind of thing.

But one knight? Nahhhhhh

Why do people throw Guilliman into lists with no Ultramarines for his aura. Just what.

He grants 3CP as warlord and regain on 5+ it a tough warlord to kill surrounded by knights and some of his buffs affect imperium keyword. Also he's not hamstrung by having overcosted units to buff. Though thats turn from a knights list towards a cheesey tournament list.

Ice_can wrote:

meleti wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Multi-knights IS a bit cheesy for most flgs. Something like 2 Helverins, a Crusader, a Gallant, a Warden and Gulliman.

I can't imagine many casual lists standing a chance against that kind of thing.

But one knight? Nahhhhhh

Why do people throw Guilliman into lists with no Ultramarines for his aura. Just what.

He grants 3CP as warlord and regain on 5+ it a tough warlord to kill surrounded by knights and some of his buffs affect imperium keyword. Also he's not hamstrung by having overcosted units to buff. Though thats turn from a knights list towards a cheesey tournament list.

He's also gotten really, really expensive for an army that isn't using his most powerful ability. The Imperium aura is not worth his point cost at all. Just take Celestine if you want a really punchy character, but frankly I don't think you even need that because you can just run a Guard battalion and get even more Command points while actually having objective holders. Knights are already very punchy on their own.

I don't disagree with Bobby G being overcosted, but he does bring extra movement which is important if your bringing a gallant. Also a gallant with 15 s8 attacks hitting on 2+ plus Guilliman in CC gives opponents a headache to deal with.

Ice_can wrote:
I don't disagree with Bobby G being overcosted, but he does bring extra movement which is important if your bringing a gallant. Also a gallant with 15 s8 attacks hitting on 2+ plus Guilliman in CC gives opponents a headache to deal with.

The Gallant's typically going to run out in front of Guilliman though. 12" move, advancing and charging, possibly with Landstrider or maybe House Terryn if you're going all-in on Gallants. Maybe you get that aura, but I suspect you'll outrun Guillman as often as not.

A lot of it is a holdover from 7th, when the old Armor Value system meant that Knights were effectively immortal vs. small arms. When all of your small arms bounced off of a Knight, that meant the only thing that could do work was heavy weapons, which were not always optimal to bring.

These days you can threaten knights with any weapons, although it's not always an ideal situation. But the days of a Knight being an unstoppable cheese monster are long gone, and most armies have tools to deal with them. They also get weaker and are less effective the more you damage them.

I recommend playing objective based games though, as they can be a major weakness for Knights and give you a handicap against players not specialized to fight you.

They're fine.

Well, it rather depends on the FLGs and the game size.

For starters, some are highly casual, while others are a bit more cutthroat.

And in either case, what is acceptable in 2000 points differ from at 500.

I think, like FW stuff, it has a bit of a stigma to it still from the past that will take some time to fade.

No problem at all with Knight armies in a drop in gaming scenario.

If you brought a Knight/Guard/Slamguinous one it could be a problem but that goes for any hyper optimized tournament level army stomping on casual fun games.

People need to toughen up, I'll play anything someone brings with the only caveat being I know what kind of list theyre bringing before hand (fun or competitive) and go from there

I look at it similarly to bringing a full tournament list to a FLGS for a pick up game. It's legal, no one should be mad about it, but it's not a bad idea to let the other player know you are wanting a competitive game and make sure they are on the same page. Especially if they are people you don't know.

This goes a lot more for a whole army of knights than just 1, but the reason I think it's similar is that knights armies seem pretty good almost regardless of how they are set up, to the point that I think a lot of the terrible armies real people tend to take to FLGS pick up games probably auto lose to them. So I'd want to make sure they were up for the challenge.

jcd386 wrote:
I look at it similarly to bringing a full tournament list to a FLGS for a pick up game. It's legal, no one should be mad about it, but it's not a bad idea to let the other player know you are wanting a competitive game and make sure they are on the same page. Especially if they are people you don't know.

This goes a lot more for a whole army of knights than just 1, but the reason I think it's similar is that knights armies seem pretty good almost regardless of how they are set up, to the point that I think a lot of the terrible armies real people tend to take to FLGS pick up games probably auto lose to them. So I'd want to make sure they were up for the challenge.

Funny you equate knight lists with tournament lists as tournaments are where they won't likely be that good.


So knights are too tournament for flg and too flg for tournaments?

This is the same kind of prejudgment stuff that forgeworld units goes true, but guess what, nothing is unfair to bring, even in a drop-in game.

In a game where anything can hurt anything and anti armor is more or less the core of any army, knights preforms worse and worse the more dmg they take.
Even in a 1000p mono codex force, taking one knight is just fine,
but if you want to bring 2 knights at 1000p, common sence is to alert your opponent before the game day.

and why should the IK player limit itself when soup runs rampage?

The shooty damage output of a Knight is mediocre.
This is were a Baneblade can excel with 30 shots S5, AP-1 and the battle cannon.

Well some armies don't have much anti tank. In my army it is the sword of titan and a thunder hammer, plus 2 psycannons. Neither of those work much.

Karol wrote:
Well some armies don't have much anti tank.

That's your problem. 40k has tanks, if you aren't bringing anti-tank units then you have no right to complain when you struggle with tanks.

Well, I think a well-rounded 40k army should have 40% anti-tank, 40% anti-infantry, and 20% special forces like infiltrators.

So to the people saying all-knights is fine at a local casual game night. Or that Knight shooting is meh...

Have you actually played against a Knight/Helverin list? They absolutely curb stomp a lot of competitive lists, let alone causal ones. A 50-man tourny in London last week had 4 out of the top 5 players running knight lists.

But it goes beyond asymmetry of power - because there is little in 40k as demoralising as fighting one with a normal 40k list. Knights have a good chance of going first, nuking AT elements and 1st-turn charging. What remains spanks off the 150 wounds of T7/8 Invuln. Those of you who say 'gitgud' are forgetting that you're probably competitive players yourselves, and aren't accounting for the fact that a local club night has noobs, kids, fluffbunnies, etc. None of these stand a hope in hell against all-knights. Autowin.

So yeah, if you like playing a game where you've made it impossible for you to lose, and also like other people in your local area being put off the game, and specifically, put off playing you, then sure. Pull out a crusader, a gallant, 2 wardens and 3 helverins vs that guy's Whitescar biker list. Should be ... fun.

 grouchoben wrote:
Those of you who say 'gitgud' are forgetting that you're probably competitive players yourselves, and aren't accounting for the fact that a local club night has noobs, kids, fluffbunnies, etc. None of these stand a hope in hell against all-knights.

Then perhaps those players should get better at the game and bring stronger lists. Why is the burden of changing list strength always on the "competitive" player? Why isn't the fluffbunny expected to bring a competitive list to make the game more fun?

 Peregrine wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Those of you who say 'gitgud' are forgetting that you're probably competitive players yourselves, and aren't accounting for the fact that a local club night has noobs, kids, fluffbunnies, etc. None of these stand a hope in hell against all-knights.

Then perhaps those players should get better at the game and bring stronger lists. Why is the burden of changing list strength always on the "competitive" player? Why isn't the fluffbunny expected to bring a competitive list to make the game more fun?

Not everybody has a huge collection of models to finetune his/her list against every possible opponent especially not against armour. If this opponent happens to bring along three imperial knights you can skip the game right away.

See issues like this are often resolved with a simple discussion on what army each player is bringing. You don't have to go into specifics but I think its more than fair in a casual pick-up game to know what army your opponent will bring and thus have some degree of ability to pick options that will have a benefit against that army; or leave out those that will have a disadvantage.

If someone insists or only has one army combination they can use then there is an onus on the opponent to adapt to that situation IF its proven that in the past the opponent has curb-stomped the other army with ease. That's just part of being a good sportman and respecting that not everyone can adapt their army (maybe they can't carry more models; maybe they are on a limited budget etc...)


And in the end sometimes you have to learn that Joe is really good at the game and going to win every time so its a case of either avoiding playing Joe or seeing if Joe can impart his knowledge and wisdom. Indeed I'd say any gamer who wants to see their local scene grow and improve should be willing to put time into helping others.

You can build fluffy lists that are still competitive; and indeed the concept that fluffy is always weak just depends on the natur of how one interprets "fluffy". Often as not its just that people who build weak fluffy lists are just putting down models they like and lack the ability to see how to read the stats on how models perform. Ergo because they can't easily "see" the mechanics of how the game works they can't make good choices (this often affects how they make target choices in game and means that they often have to trial by error - ergo they fire their unit at nearly everything and find out what takes the most damage and then focus on that in the future - which isn't always the best choice as it means they can get thrown on how to deal with a new unit type against them; plus th random nature of dice means that they might use a unit in the right way but do little damage because of poor dice; and vis versa a good dice roll might make them think a unit is much stronger against another than it really is.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Not everybody has a huge collection of models to finetune his/her list against every possible opponent especially not against armour. If this opponent happens to bring along three imperial knights you can skip the game right away.

Again, why are you assuming that only one player gets consideration here? Why is the knight player expected to buy a whole alternate army they can swap to while the "fluff" player has no obligation to buy an alternate army that can deal with knights?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
You can build fluffy lists that are still competitive; and indeed the concept that fluffy is always weak just depends on the natur of how one interprets "fluffy". Often as not its just that people who build weak fluffy lists are just putting down models they like and lack the ability to see how to read the stats on how models perform.

This is also a good point. A knight list is a fluffy list in the sense that it matches the background fiction very well, but certain players have the assumption that "fluff" is defined by being bad at winning games. Therefore a list that is good at winning games can not be "fluffy" even when it matches the background fiction, while a random pile of models with no coherent theme or ties to the background fiction is considered "fluffy" by default because it is bad at winning games. We should be honest in describing these lists: the weak list is not "fluff", it's just a weak list, often created by someone who doesn't really understand the game and doesn't want to learn.

This is very true, if your skill levels arr vastly different you can probably swap armies and still have the same player winning.
Codex power and list building do factor into the power balance of that individual game, but when you understand or don't understand the subtleties of 8th edition mechanics you unlock a totally different level of power from a given list.

Precisely.

A lot of weaker lists are weak because the person basically hasn't learned how to build an army list. Sure they can add up point values, but they've no understanding how to read the stats on the units and to say "this is better than that" or even understand roles on the tabletop.

You can often see it in how they play as well and how they make choices. Often as not their deployment and strategy is very basic and they can be easily undone if you take out one or two key units in their army.



It basically shows a lack of understanding the fundamentals - however I don't blame them. Most groups focus on how to play as being a case of the mechanical side of the rules. How to move, shoot, how to resolve a special ability, what happens when two abilities clash etc..
Actually taking it a step further and learning how to read the stats, how to understand what they mean in terms of unit power and what effect is has on the table; how to build an army that has a focus and plan to it and how to adapt etc.... This is often less covered and I put it down to the fact that its an area where the market as a whole is ignorant of.


You just have to look at the books - there are loads on how to paint; loads of tutorials on how to model and paint. But very very few on how to think tactically; how to read unit stats et c..... It's a huge grey area which tells me a lot of players get there via trial and error and those who do know better lack experience in how to express their thoughts.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Not everybody has a huge collection of models to finetune his/her list against every possible opponent especially not against armour. If this opponent happens to bring along three imperial knights you can skip the game right away.

Again, why are you assuming that only one player gets consideration here? Why is the knight player expected to buy a whole alternate army they can swap to while the "fluff" player has no obligation to buy an alternate army that can deal with knights?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
You can build fluffy lists that are still competitive; and indeed the concept that fluffy is always weak just depends on the natur of how one interprets "fluffy". Often as not its just that people who build weak fluffy lists are just putting down models they like and lack the ability to see how to read the stats on how models perform.

This is also a good point. A knight list is a fluffy list in the sense that it matches the background fiction very well, but certain players have the assumption that "fluff" is defined by being bad at winning games. Therefore a list that is good at winning games can not be "fluffy" even when it matches the background fiction, while a random pile of models with no coherent theme or ties to the background fiction is considered "fluffy" by default because it is bad at winning games. We should be honest in describing these lists: the weak list is not "fluff", it's just a weak list, often created by someone who doesn't really understand the game and doesn't want to learn.

Why should the knight player feel obligated to buy another army? He/she will just have to play against veteran players in the club who are able to put up a challenging fight because of their vast collection. Little Timmy on the other hand with his cherished twenty Ultramarines will simply have to fight against another Timmy.

It's more likely that little timmy will be pushed out of the store/club.
Nobody has time to waste on little timmy these days.
Damn scrubs like timmy thinking they can just play.

ValentineGames wrote:
It's more likely that little timmy will be pushed out of the store/club.
Nobody has time to waste on little timmy these days.
Damn scrubs like timmy thinking they can just play.

That just made my day.

 Peregrine wrote:
Then perhaps those players should get better at the game and bring stronger lists. Why is the burden of changing list strength always on the "competitive" player? Why isn't the fluffbunny expected to bring a competitive list to make the game more fun?

Honestly? Lots and lots of reasons:

a) The competitive player already changes their list up. All the time. That's part of being competitive - reacting to and second guessing the meta, and finetuning lists to suit. The weaker player either doesn't have the models, the money, the inclination or the knowhow to do similar.

b) The competitive list always leverages the most overpowered elements in a given faction - a faction that is itself quite often chosen because it contains a large number of favoured overpowered elements. To say that all games, at all times, should be played according to this metric is to damn 75% of units to irrelevance. Maybe someone loves playing their painstakingly modded and painted Grey Knights. They, accordingly, are probably quite happy with being up against it in most games! But not to the extent of an autolose. Hence why I mentioned the dispiriting nature of coming up against all-knights when running a non-optimised list.

c) As the stronger player, the onus is on you to tailor your own power to suit the opponent. If you don't then you can only really play against other power players - anything else is a waste of yours and your weaker opponent's time. (Here, I mean clear disparities in power - eg a new player with Dark Imperium Primaris vs an all-knights list. In which case, don't complain when you come up against one - in such a situation you can stomp them or tune down. Your choice.

d) It's a demonstration of good character to be willing to show moderation and self-control. If you cannot help but slam down your most powerful list in every encounter, then that's a bit of a problem. There's nothing wrong with being competitive, but if it interferes with your good character, your moderation, your concern for your fellow player, then it's gone too far.

e) The fluff-bunny is constrained by the means they have at their disposal. While you can easily tweak a list to make it a bit more even, they may not have the models to hand to raise their power game. Are you suggesting that the appropriate response to any player who is not as capable as you is 'gitgud scrub, go paint up 2k of Alaiotic and then we can talk'? Seems unrealistic.

f) The competitive player probably understands the game much better than their weaker opponent; they may not understand what makes a good list, about balance of AT elements, obvous counters, latest changes, likely opponents, etc, etc, etc. Asking them to act according to something they don't understand is pointless.

g) Good players who temper lists, explain interactions, share their excitement for new models or rules, and encourage their FLGS opponents will actively grow their local scene, and thereby encourage more competitive play. Stomping bunnies may feel good in the short term but it is counter-productive in the longterm.

 Smotejob wrote:
At my local flgs we usually play 2k points. They other night I debuted my knights (crusader + 2 Armiger) alongside my usual Astra militarum, and I had a taker and we had a good game. It was well played, and even though I won it was a close match and we had fun.
However, people seemed a little put off that I brought a Knight to flgs night. So I have two questions since I know knights are good but not impossible to deal with.

Are Knights not FLGS friendly?
What is the primary concern people have when facing a knight?

Knights under 8th edition are really no different than any other army. In fact your opponents are going to have a better time taking you down because they have so many more models and so much more firepower. Knights are easily dealt with by massed firepower. You don't really need anti-tank, although it does obviously help.

I have yet to play against a full Knight list yet, even though two of my local club members have them already, but my concern ahead of time is simply can I still achieve victory playing to the mission or do I have to focus fire and win by destroying them all?

If your opponent plays imperial knights and your army hasn't has enough anti armour... play objetive games. With a good amount of LOS blocking terrain.

That way any army has a chance agaisnt imperial knights, even if they don't have any kind of anti tank.

 grouchoben wrote:


Honestly? Lots and lots of reasons:

a) The competitive player already changes their list up. All the time. That's part of being competitive - reacting to and second guessing the meta, and finetuning lists to suit. The weaker player either doesn't have the models, the money, the inclination or the knowhow to do similar.

b) The competitive list always leverages the most overpowered elements in a given faction - a faction that is itself quite often chosen because it contains a large number of favoured overpowered elements. To say that all games, at all times, should be played according to this metric is to damn 75% of units to irrelevance. Maybe someone loves playing their painstakingly modded and painted Grey Knights. They, accordingly, are probably quite happy with being up against it in most games! But not to the extent of an autolose. Hence why I mentioned the dispiriting nature of coming up against all-knights when running a non-optimised list.

c) As the stronger player, the onus is on you to tailor your own power to suit the opponent. If you don't then you can only really play against other power players - anything else is a waste of yours and your weaker opponent's time. (Here, I mean clear disparities in power - eg a new player with Dark Imperium Primaris vs an all-knights list. In which case, don't complain when you come up against one - in such a situation you can stomp them or tune down. Your choice.

d) It's a demonstration of good character to be willing to show moderation and self-control. If you cannot help but slam down your most powerful list in every encounter, then that's a bit of a problem. There's nothing wrong with being competitive, but if it interferes with your good character, your moderation, your concern for your fellow player, then it's gone too far.

e) The fluff-bunny is constrained by the means they have at their disposal. While you can easily tweak a list to make it a bit more even, they may not have the models to hand to raise their power game. Are you suggesting that the appropriate response to any player who is not as capable as you is 'gitgud scrub, go paint up 2k of Alaiotic and then we can talk'? Seems unrealistic.

f) The competitive player probably understands the game much better than their weaker opponent; they may not understand what makes a good list, about balance of AT elements, obvous counters, latest changes, likely opponents, etc, etc, etc. Asking them to act according to something they don't understand is pointless.

g) Good players who temper lists, explain interactions, share their excitement for new models or rules, and encourage their FLGS opponents will actively grow their local scene, and thereby encourage more competitive play. Stomping bunnies may feel good in the short term but it is counter-productive in the longterm.

(emphasis added by me)

To A & B. How are you defining a competitive player? I think that I'm a competitive player and I play GK. I don't play 3 GMDKs or flights of Storm Ravens. I play to win and enjoy playing against other players best efforts.

C is just Hipocrisy. Why is the onus on the stronger player to play down rather than the weaker player getting better? If the weaker player doesn't get better or up his game then he can only play against other weak opponents.

D cuts both ways. The fluff bunny can moderate his behavior and play lists that are more crunchy just as easily as the competitive player can tone down his list. Again, why is the onus on one side but the other side is immune from criticism?

E is totally bunkees. I have a very very small army and limited means to expand it at will. As said above I'm a competitive player. I know many fluff bunnies that have entire Chapters fully painted and in some cases I would think that they have a full Legion (or the equivalance thereof). The fluff bunny is just as likely to have a large amount of models/disposable income as the competitive player.

F - The better player probably understands the game rules/synergies better than the weaker player. Fluff/competitive doesn't enter into this statement.

G- Good players are good in the way you describe regardless of fluff/competitive level.

In a one off match I would say its a LOT EASIER for a better player to take a handicap or a weaker list than it is for the weaker player to suddenly "git gud".

So arguments that it should be on the weaker player to improve are only viable in the long term, assuming they stick around.

And I would say at any club the onus is on BOTH players to adapt their playing to suit the situation as best as they can to ensure a fun game for both paries.



In an ideal world the weaker would play with each other and the stronger with each other. In reality many clubs don't have a huge membership so the spread of skills might have gaps in it. Some clubs might be all newbies; others might be all top end pro players. Each has its problems and issues; but I'd still say there is a heavier pressure on better players who want opponents and want to support their local group, in training and helping weaker players learn the game.

Okay I'm coming at this from the perspective of a SOLID player. I know what is good. I know why it's good, and I know how to make stuff come together on the table. But I make a lot of choices for personal reasons to build the army i want to play. Let's look at my EC, I know I could make it more competitive by running more cultists and triple obliterators, but I don't do this because I enjoy the way other units look on the table and want to bring a varied list that is fun for me to play and fun for others to play against. It also means my list doesn't need to change that much from edition to edition. Sometimes there is a draw to playing a "pure list" and thematically you may enjoy playing something you know is weaker.

Okay. Why is the impetus on the competitive player you ask? Because it's a game, and we are here to have fun. Players who do a pick up game against an all Primaris list from Dark Imperium and curb stomp it while telling this wet behind the ears player to git good are a cancer. They make us look bad as war gamers, and they make the game not fun.

That newbie with Dark Imperium may get good. But he needs time, to build his miniatures, learn about internal synergy, and expand his collections. Many of these lessons are not able to be learned from games where he gets cleaned off the table in a turn from Avenger Gatling Cannons or Dark Reapers. The good player can in turn take time time to run a list of comparable power and explain the choices and synergy of both his own army and what the opponent can do to counter it. Helping their newbie opponent learn and get better. A competitive player has no obligation to do this, or even play that new opponent, but for the good of the community they should not go for a curb stomp.

If you want to practice with your GT list that is fine. But recognize you aren't going to get any meaningful practice against a newbie with the starter set. If you are actually a good player and want to prep for a major tournament, you will seek out a game against other hyper competitive lists and make sure both players are going all out. That is the only way you will get better and learn to compete.

In fact, I find that most people in local clubs that people have a problem with are "noob hunters". They are mediocre players themselves, that hate losing. As a result they find a net list that is good or won a major tournament and build it. Then seek out and play pick up games with newer opponents so they can get the rush of winning. Alternately these are the same players who casually ask what there enemy is playing and take as many hard counters as they can. These players give our community a bad name, and actively make it harder to get new players into the game. If you are one of these players look yourself in the mirror and stop.

 akaean wrote:
Players who do a pick up game against an all Primaris list from Dark Imperium and curb stomp it while telling this wet behind the ears player to git good are a cancer.

And all too common unfortunately

I think it's generally in the better players interest to time down their list to match their opponents list, because why play a game for three hours when you knew you were going to win from the get go?

The reason I think this has to do with knights armies is that if you are bringing 3-5 knights plus pretty much anything, you have already achieved a certain level of competitiveness with your army. It's literally not possible to build a terrible knights list in the same way it is to build a terrible dark angels or Tau list.

I recently used my Slaanesh Daemons army to crush a Knight army.

My little Str 3 Daemonettes wound on 6's in combat, the Forbidden Gem can shut down any Character (and since with a certain stratagem tons of knights become characters...) including preventing them from falling back if used in the movement phase. And when Daemonettes get that 6+ to wound, it ignores Knight armor (-4 rend) and only one knight can have an invuln in close combat, and it's only a 5+. I used terrain to funnel multiple knights and an armiger into the middle of the board, then charged and surrounded the Warlord knight, using the Gem to keep it from falling back, and also surrounded the armiger. The other player could either have abandoned his Warlord (a 600-odd point Dominus class) and a Helverin Armiger (174 points) to being utterly annihilated, while also letting me get the charge next turn because they couldn't fall back, or charge in and try to rescue their Warlord.

Needless to say, they charged in to try to clean up, but 60 Daemonettes plus a Daemon Prince with the Soulstealer relic plus Zarakynel plus two Defilers (though only one by the time i got stuck in) was just too much.

I brought damn near 0 anti-tank that game.

"I brought damn near 0 anti-tank that game."?

Dude the army you brought is practically a direct counter to knights.
Cheap hordes with invuls take even knights time to clean up.
Daemonettes are great at wearing down big stuff and can be defined as anti-tank themselves.

Slannesh is not a weak army by any stretch to begin with, especially with Zara. there is a reason why she is priced like the dominus class knights herself-because she can mulch one in CC.

 BoomWolf wrote:
"I brought damn near 0 anti-tank that game."?

Dude the army you brought is practically a direct counter to knights.
Cheap hordes with invuls take even knights time to clean up.
Daemonettes are great at wearing down big stuff and can be defined as anti-tank themselves.

Slannesh is not a weak army by any stretch to begin with, especially with Zara. there is a reason why she is priced like the dominus class knights herself-because she can mulch one in CC.

Actually Zarakynel is fairly bad against Dominus class knights - doing an average of about 9 wounds to one, which doesn't even cripple it, and taking ~3 back, while having 0 guns and mediocre psychic powers. Zarakynel is overpriced by a good bit, actually.

And I would not call Daemonettes anti-tank units; in fact, they're generally considered inferior CC Daemons to Bloodletters.

Let me put it this way: if I was looking for anti-tank in my Chaos army, I wouldn't go "ah yes, daemonettes. Plenty of anti-tank there." The real source of my anti-knight abilities are my defilers.

People are gonna whine about that. Most of the time, it's the same attitude about Forge World- people are just buttmad because they don't have one.

Now, a knight is like a Baneblade. For a friendly game, let the dude know.

I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

This is just a consequence of the Lanchester square law.
If you double the tanks, you need four-fold firepower to take them down.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
"I brought damn near 0 anti-tank that game."?

Dude the army you brought is practically a direct counter to knights.
Cheap hordes with invuls take even knights time to clean up.
Daemonettes are great at wearing down big stuff and can be defined as anti-tank themselves.

Slannesh is not a weak army by any stretch to begin with, especially with Zara. there is a reason why she is priced like the dominus class knights herself-because she can mulch one in CC.

Actually Zarakynel is fairly bad against Dominus class knights - doing an average of about 9 wounds to one, which doesn't even cripple it, and taking ~3 back, while having 0 guns and mediocre psychic powers. Zarakynel is overpriced by a good bit, actually.

And I would not call Daemonettes anti-tank units; in fact, they're generally considered inferior CC Daemons to Bloodletters.

Let me put it this way: if I was looking for anti-tank in my Chaos army, I wouldn't go "ah yes, daemonettes. Plenty of anti-tank there." The real source of my anti-knight abilities are my defilers.

Zara is the best target in the game for Hysterical Frenzy (that she also casts), for dishing 9 extra wounds, so staying in CC with her is suicide. it makes any CC oriented knight charging her being a non-option.
Agonies can make her even harder to take down. or symphony to make one of the knights a far lesser threat
And even without psy powers- she takes out 9 of 28 wounds, he takes out 3 of 20. guess who is winning the fight?
Sure, she wont degrate him in one round, but he hardly harms her.

Zara is not top of the shelf, but she is NOT bad, she was just best used at dealing with things that are not the meta, high CC value big threats-guess what knights are?
I have no idea how you manage to think zara is bad against knights despite you literally JUST using her to utterly crush a knights player, who are some of the meanest things out there at the moment.
Dominus classes would not be an easy kill for her, but she CAN take a dominos class down on her own with decent rolls or good use of terrain. and a regular knight? easy food. to think she once costed like a regular knight...


And yes, the daemonettes are not the go-to anti tank, but they are better at it than most troop choice in the game. especially when it comes to dealing with superheavies.
When fighting a knight a, a lone daemonette would average 0.222 wounds on the knight, so every 9 would get about 2 wounds done.
Its not much damage-but its CHEAP, its TROOPs and it can (as you have) lock them in combat against a chaff unit they can't clear in anything resembling efficiency themselves

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Until the poor knight player runs into that one maniac that runs a 200 horro/poxwalker spam list XD.
I may not hurt you much, but good luck chewing all this chaff XD

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

To be honest a pure index list vrs codex needs need a handicap system at this point untill the final codex ar out. One we have at the flgs is no strategums against index armies, it hurts some lists more than others but it does atleast shorten the distance between index and codex armies.

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

You might not kill all knights but neither he will kill you. And they wil' hate grots. Dirt cheap walls he can't get throuih so has to spend 400pts knight to kill 90pts squad. Which they migght not even do and which can ignore moral

So 2 army who wont wipe each other. One has like 5 models though. Guess who has easier time getting objectives?

tneva82 wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

You might not kill all knights but neither he will kill you. And they wil' hate grots. Dirt cheap walls he can't get throuih so has to spend 400pts knight to kill 90pts squad. Which they migght not even do and which can ignore moral

Cant he just...shoot over them and kill the tank bustas? Theyre tall enough to see past the smallest model in the game. Besides, im not gonna bring a wall of grots in a standard list anyway

 Billagio wrote:
Cant he just...shoot over them and kill the tank bustas? Theyre tall enough to see past the smallest model in the game. Besides, im not gonna bring a wall of grots in a standard list anyway

What tank bustas?-) Point isn't to "buy time for tank bustas to kill knights". Point is to keep knights away from objectives. If he spends all his game in his deployment zone then you have already won the game by default! Da jump wall of grots(and besides if you don't have grots get them. They are damn awesome) and knight player finds himself front of a rather annoying roadblock(which incidentally is something like 60" wide so even knights 12" speed won't make it easy to go through and that's assuming table is stupid open billiar board). Sure killing them ain't trouble. But he has to invest ridiculous amount of points to clear one stinking unit of grots and has advanced very little. Then to add insult to injury orks could da jump yet another. And all the while there's that 200 boyz he will struggle to clear in time. Especially if ork player uses up bit of Mork's Kunning. You have trouble killing knight with boyz? Well don't charge. You just give them free overwatch and some stomps. If knight charge you do fall back. Don't give him 12-15 stomp attacks for bunch of attacks that wound on 6 and he has 3+ save. You don't NEED to kill knights as there's this thing called "scenario" which tends to have these things called "objectives". And orks have it lot easier than ~5 model knight army. Well maybe 7 if he has lots of armigers but even at most pure knight has 11 models and that's all armigers. And THOSE orks can actually kill by sheer numbers as wounding is 5+ vs them.

Whether you have tank bustas is fairly irrelevant for winning as your primary goal shouldn't even be killing those and fixating on killing them is exactly what can lose the game for you.

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

As long as you’re playing a game with objective scoring, all you have to do is park hordes of Boyz on the objectives. Knights will slaughter your Boyz without taking much in return but they will probably struggle to clear 180 Boyz off the board.

 mrhappyface wrote:
Nah, it shouldn't be a problem. If someone brings nothing but Tactical Squads to a game against you then it'll teach them to buy some anti-tank weapons.

Me. All the time

meleti wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

As long as you’re playing a game with objective scoring, all you have to do is park hordes of Boyz on the objectives. Knights will slaughter your Boyz without taking much in return but they will probably struggle to clear 180 Boyz off the board.

Is this a common thing in 40K to field nearly 200 models? I have never witnessed such a thing in 25 years.

 Strg Alt wrote:

meleti wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find that a Knight is seldom a problem, while an Knight army is frequently a problem. The issue is rooted in skew; if you put 25 T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down in front of my Deathwatch army I will grumble but I can deal with it, but if you put 100+ T8 wounds behind a 3+/5++ down there isn't enough anti-tank in my Codex to even pretend to give you a fair fight.

A single Knight (or even two, or a Knight and some Armigers) in an army with other stuff against an arbitrary 2,000pt list is fair and can usually be dealt with, but putting down an army consisting entirely of T8 models takes the whole concept of pick-up games and tosses it out the window by taking 1/2 to 2/3rds of an average all-comers list and rendering it irrelevant.

Yeah, as an ork player I dont know how I would deal with that. Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose.

As long as you’re playing a game with objective scoring, all you have to do is park hordes of Boyz on the objectives. Knights will slaughter your Boyz without taking much in return but they will probably struggle to clear 180 Boyz off the board.

Is this a common thing in 40K to field nearly 200 models? I have never witnessed such a thing in 25 years.

Competitive Ork lists in this pre-Codex meta are typically at least 4 max squads of 30 Boyz. Generally 180 Boyz, some Weirdboyz, some Kustom Mega Kannons, etc. You substitute some of the Boyz for Stormboyz if you really wanted.

For orks yes. 200 is even on the low side on 2k. Reason is simple. Orks have basically 6 things worth fielding. Warboss, weirdboy, boyz, gretchin, kustom mega kannon, stormboyz. Well big mek with kustom force field and painboy are allright. Note only non-characters there are boyz, gretchins, stormboyz and artirelly piece which top of that costs 36€ for 42 pts so not many field maximum 18(that would be very good albeit).

Only thing orks really CAN do is flood the table with cheap bodies, go for objectives and hope they don't get tabled. They live and die by numbers. And 200 models is dirt easy to have with boyz, gretchins and stormboyz. 30 gretchin is 90 pts. 30 boyz with upgrades will be around 200 pts. 120 boyz 1200 pts, 90 gretchins 270 pts.

tneva82 wrote:

 Billagio wrote:
Cant he just...shoot over them and kill the tank bustas? Theyre tall enough to see past the smallest model in the game. Besides, im not gonna bring a wall of grots in a standard list anyway

What tank bustas?-) Point isn't to "buy time for tank bustas to kill knights". Point is to keep knights away from objectives. If he spends all his game in his deployment zone then you have already won the game by default! Da jump wall of grots(and besides if you don't have grots get them. They are damn awesome) and knight player finds himself front of a rather annoying roadblock(which incidentally is something like 60" wide so even knights 12" speed won't make it easy to go through and that's assuming table is stupid open billiar board). Sure killing them ain't trouble. But he has to invest ridiculous amount of points to clear one stinking unit of grots and has advanced very little. Then to add insult to injury orks could da jump yet another. And all the while there's that 200 boyz he will struggle to clear in time. Especially if ork player uses up bit of Mork's Kunning. You have trouble killing knight with boyz? Well don't charge. You just give them free overwatch and some stomps. If knight charge you do fall back. Don't give him 12-15 stomp attacks for bunch of attacks that wound on 6 and he has 3+ save. You don't NEED to kill knights as there's this thing called "scenario" which tends to have these things called "objectives". And orks have it lot easier than ~5 model knight army. Well maybe 7 if he has lots of armigers but even at most pure knight has 11 models and that's all armigers. And THOSE orks can actually kill by sheer numbers as wounding is 5+ vs them.

Whether you have tank bustas is fairly irrelevant for winning as your primary goal shouldn't even be killing those and fixating on killing them is exactly what can lose the game for you.

I mean yeah obviously you can camp objectives with a gak load of boys, which is what any ork player nowadays would do. But the conversation was around bringing enough anti tank to KILL them, not how to win the game by not.

ValentineGames wrote:

 akaean wrote:
Players who do a pick up game against an all Primaris list from Dark Imperium and curb stomp it while telling this wet behind the ears player to git good are a cancer.

And all too common unfortunately

But something that has to happen. Sure, at the start of the game they're not suddenly going to get better, but they still learned something.
If they never improve, they're still going to get stomped. Sure the attitude behind "get gud" is toxic, but the idea that people should improve, and learn from experience aren't.

 Billagio wrote:
I mean yeah obviously you can camp objectives with a gak load of boys, which is what any ork player nowadays would do. But the conversation was around bringing enough anti tank to KILL them, not how to win the game by not.

Topic is @Are knights not FLGS friendly?". And I replied to you wondering what he can do. Well he can win against them. Are you fixated on winning game or making empty shows by destroying one even if it means losing game? Are you trying to win a game or destroy knight?

" Even if I brought all tank bustas I would probably lose."

Based on that you seem to be wondering how to win. Not how to destroy a knight. I told you how to win. Don't try to change topic.

As long as they are an addition to an army I wouldn't have an issue with knights, however when its a list just made of knights is boring as all hell to play against

 Smotejob wrote:

Are Knights not FLGS friendly?
What is the primary concern people have when facing a knight?

One Knight/LOW shouldn't be a problem but when your entire list is made of a single unit type (Green wave, Tank company, Knights, all flyers, etc.) it gives you an edge against the common all-comers lists. Sure you can shoot lascannon's at boyz and bolter's at knights, its just not very effective.
If both you and your opponent showed up with competitive lists, this is understood and part of the game. If you guys are taking a more casual approach you can start the game off with a pretty decent advantage and simply scurrying from cover to cover for 5 rounds and hiding isn't that much fun for the other guy even if he wins...

Also keep in mind that Knights play very few models and it often feels more rewarding to wipe a squad of guardsmen off an objective than deal 3 wounds to a knight.

Lastly Knights are shiny new and apparently have a good dex, people might still hold grudges against super heavies, feel uncomfortable facing the unknown or simply be a bit jealous. There should be no issue playing 2k knights, just make sure your on the same page or be flexible and bring a backup list with half knights/half allied infantry...

Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Killing 1 knight in an army is pretty easy.
Killing an army of them is a headache.

It really boils down to being able to hide your anti-tank so they can't blow it off the board before it can do the lord's work.

I do think that Knights are FLGS friendly. They are a skew list by nature, so you should inform your opponent that you'll be bringing knights and give them an opportunity to adjust accordingly if they like/can. Note: I always tell my opponent what army I'll be playing as well as general composition (tyranids monster mash, or Tau infantry-heavy)
On the topic of who's responsibility it is to adjust their list: both. Is there any sport where the stronger player will play at full strength during practice versus a newbie? Do you start dunking while teaching a 5 year old basketball? Do you check that 5 year old into a wall when teaching hockey? In martial arts, does the experienced student attempt to overwhelm their learning sparring partner? In any "competition sport", during practice the onus is almost always on the more skilled, experienced player to handicap themselves somehow, or not play to their full ability. If they can lower their skill to 110% of the newbie's level, this gives both a more interesting game as well as a better learning environment that encourages the newbie to "git gud" while also helping them do just that. This is a two player game, enjoyment is a shared responsibility.

If a knight list has a variety of stuff, including most importantly several of the mini-knights, and is not just a wall of over-optimized gunline, then I don't think it's any kind of a problem.

The little mini-knights help a lot making knights less of an always-skew list, because they can be wounded by S4 on 5s. Add to that the fact that helverins/armigers lack the "fall back and shoot" and light infantry suddenly has more to do than just try to achieve as many turns as possible lined up 1" in front of a big knight that wants to go somewhere.

People have a huge problem understanding that the objective of the game of 40k is not usually "kill the enemy army".

It depends on the community like a lot of people said.

Honestly, though, I think the casual player's biggest gripe will be the mix of Ion Bulwark + Rotate, and Hawkshroud.

I haven't played a game like that 2K, though. Someone brought 2 questorus and a dominus at 1500 points tho, that was rough.

Honestly, most players need to approach unwinnable games with a different attitude. Particularly in a casual setting, punting on the option of winning and just finding out what you can accomplish can be a lot of fun. Never give up, never surrender, go down swinging no matter the odds. You'll generate far more memorable games and suffer far less matchup anxiety if you learn to have fun being on the wrong side of a bad matchup.

 LunarSol wrote:
Honestly, most players need to approach unwinnable games with a different attitude. Particularly in a casual setting, punting on the option of winning and just finding out what you can accomplish can be a lot of fun. Never give up, never surrender, go down swinging no matter the odds. You'll generate far more memorable games and suffer far less matchup anxiety if you learn to have fun being on the wrong side of a bad matchup.

I admire and respect your attitude. I wish we all could share that. Personally I can't enjoy an unbalanced game. Once things get one sided and it's clear you are not gonna win things can get really funny as you do silly things for the heck of it and you can make the best out of the experience, but when you go to play a game and from the start you are just getting rocked its not fun. I've conceded and had people concede to me turn one because the outcome is clear and it's just not going to be fun. Personally I don't bother with games I don't want to play due to list strength disparity. Like I remember going to try and play a 1000 point Primaris list early in 8th and the only guy available insisted on running morty magnus and a renegade psyker and insisted it would be fine. Yeaaaahhh I didn't bother with that one lol.

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
Like I remember going to try and play a 1000 point Primaris list early in 8th and the only guy available insisted on running morty magnus and a renegade psyker and insisted it would be fine. Yeaaaahhh I didn't bother with that one lol.

Funny enough, I'm kinda expecting to play almost this exact scenario tomorrow. It's going to be rough.

The thing is, I don't go looking for lopsided games; I just would rather play the hand I'm dealt than fold. There's always something to learn from a game. I get crippled on turn one to a quarter of my army left; its still an opportunity to see just how much damage 500 points is capable of. Sure; I'm not going to win, but for the rest of the game I'm going to learn as much as I can with what I have and next game that's a chunk of my army that will do better than it did before. Sometimes you lose a model you think is key early. You can either feel and be defeated or get a chance to learn just how key that model actually is. On the flip side, watching your opponent operate at full capacity is a great way to understand how their army actually works.

Even if winning is really important to you, its worth losing as long as you learn from your failure. Being in a bad situation is where you learn to get creative and if you let yourself get pushed into the corner when nothing is at stake, you'll be far more capable of finding a way out when it actually matters.

Hmm... I thought there was another thread about "make melta good again" somewhere around here...

Ran into a Knight list and ran through a gallant like it was a cheesecake in front of an overweight gamer. Turn 1. I tend to bring modest amounts of melta every game, though.

Caveat that I bring a Valiant of my own, but the 12 melta is what really brought it down in a heap with some auxiliary damage from the rest of the army.

A full Knight list is rough. It is T8 spam. Invalidates large portions of an army. I realize a lasgun can hurt a Knight, but that's not going to help in game when starting 4 of them down. You don't have to nullify it to effectively invalidate the threat a unit presents.

Best them with masses of models, if they're really annoying you or taking over your meta. Stop playing eternal war kill point missions. Make better use of terrain and table space to not let them kill pocket your entire army.

Also, on the topic of throwing money at the hobby and respecting people who do not have the same resources: should I shelf my Sororitas army because I am pretty sure they are the dumbest army to pay for from a point to dollars perspective...

Money is a barrier for being able to list tailor or explore options (but I encourage proxying against me in casual games for people to explore the options before investing), but it should not be used to discriminate against the player who had been collecting for many years. I get it, you only can get a unit every few months, but why should I shelf the stuff I have put love and effort into as a result? Doesn't sound like I would want to play in that environment for very long.

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Purifying Tempest wrote:

A full Knight list is rough. It is T8 spam. Invalidates large portions of an army. I realize a lasgun can hurt a Knight, but that's not going to help in game when starting 4 of them down. You don't have to nullify it to effectively invalidate the threat a unit presents.

Then again you don't need to kill the 4 to win the game. Kill 1, damage one or two more enough to hit next bracket, knight army is suddenly pretty teethless.

It seems weird idea that "if you can't table the opponent then the army is broken" mentality has permeated gamers. People have forgotten entirely there's these things called "scenarios" which generally don't require killing units to win.

Too bad. Pure kill point games are boooring.

Any tips how to kill one, with an army that doesn't have any melta weapons ?

Your normal army? It's not like you need meltas and frankly meltas SUCK in this edition so if you take them you are doing something bad.

Are you troubled about killing leman russes? Are you giving up if you face 3 leman russ? Not that much different actually compared to knight in terms of survivability. 36 wounds vs 24 wounds with 5++. Shooting wise you would be looking at 6d6 S8 -2 Dd3 vs whatever knights are shooting. Paladins for example would be shooting whopping 2d6 equal shots...WHOO! Even avenger cannon which is the questor chassis's best gun shoots 12 S6 -2 D2 shots. Less shots than russes and less S. Better D value at least though.

People have been fielding 3-5 leman russ armies for ages and now 1 knight is trouble?

I have yet to win a game with my pure knights since the codex dropped. Maybe it's my gaming group? It is quite competitive. But I normally win most of my games and I run pure tzeentch daemons, which is not considered competitive, so I doubt it's that. Maybe they just know that they can stall my force and play the mission get a big enough lead and then switch to survival mode?

I'll say it again, if your plan to beat knights is to destroy them. You are doing it wrong. People seem to forget that the objective of the mission isn't kill the enemy army. It's to score more victory points than your opponent. Play the mission.

All knights do is force armies that are used to tabling their opponents to win into playing the mission. That's their meta shifting effect. Is that a bad thing?

Personally, I find getting tabled to be a pretty bad gameplay experience. So any armies that encourage people to build lists that can play the mission rather than building lists that can table their opponent is a good thing.

tneva82 wrote:
Your normal army? It's not like you need meltas and frankly meltas SUCK in this edition so if you take them you are doing something bad.

Not that much different actually compared to knight in terms of survivability. 36 wounds vs 24 wounds with 5++. Shooting wise you would be looking at 6d6 S8 -2 Dd3 vs whatever knights are shooting. Paladins for example would be shooting whopping 2d6 equal shots...WHOO! Even avenger cannon which is the questor chassis's best gun shoots 12 S6 -2 D2 shots. Less shots than russes and less S. Better D value at least though.

People have been fielding 3-5 leman russ armies for ages and now 1 knight is trouble?

I don't think I ever done more then 11 wounds to a knight in a turn, and that was in melee, and then on my opponents turn he counter charged me with two other knights and killed 9 out of 10 paladins that were engaging the first knight. Next turn draigo did some wounds to the wounded knight, but he shield saved it. and the 3 knights killed him and the last paladins. After that it was my paladins running away for 2 turn from his knights, but he was faster. And he killed my NDK turn 1, because he is too tall to hide anywhere on the table.

Are you troubled about killing leman russes?

Yes.

Are you giving up if you face 3 leman russ?

that is a trick question, we pay for table time, so I I would quit my opponent could just play against someone else, but I would still have to pay my half. So no we don't quit here.

I'll say it again, if your plan to beat knights is to destroy them. You are doing it wrong. People seem to forget that the objective of the mission isn't kill the enemy army. It's to score more victory points than your opponent. Play the mission.

I kind of a struggle with that. Before I was runing 5 units of paladins. Now I can run only 3, so a knight army often has more units then I do, and their shoting is a lot more effective, specially as far killing the NDKs goes. My turn one shoting does maybe 1-2 wounds, my opponent almost always kills either a unit or the NDK, unless I put him far away out of range, but then he is too slow to reach objectives or use his hvy weapons.

Well gee you are playing GK that's about one of the worst armies out there competing with orks for the title. Frankly GK will struggle against wet paper. Top of that you use TEN of the overpriced(even for GK) paladins?

If you bring up super thematic but weak list(even for GK) of a faction that's in dire need of update you will strugle to win against anything.

It would be much easier to fix GK codex to be more powerful than bring down power level of every single codex to GK level.

Strikes are better then terminators right? lets say I have 15 strikes instead of the termintors, How would it help? their hvy weapons are just as bad, and rhinos don't really help with killing knights.

Rhino's are bad for any marines so for starters drop them.

And how would it help? Well you would have 3 squads rather than 1. You will struggle to kill knights(thanks GW for the codex) so you will be going for the scenario. Which means ability to be on multiple places gives more objectives and more survivability. Helps also being smaller than paladins so you can find LOS blocking bit easier.

Alas GK codex is in serious deep trouble. Knights are not by far only thing they struggle. If you have trouble with 3 leman russ then...I need 3 leman russ if I want to be fairly sure at least one of them gets to shoot if I go 2nd!

I have yet to see terrain that helps vs knights they are so tall they can draw LoS to anywhere on any table. Plus If I have NDK, 3 strikes in rhinos, draigo and some sort of points filler, and they have 2 knights, 1 big knight and 3 knightlings Then they have more units then me, specially after turn 1-2 when they started to kill stuff. Plus they always get first blood and kill the warlord.

Good sized building wall assuming it's not riddled with holes ala GW ruin will protect anything behind it from even warlord titan.

You have weird amount of units. The knight list is just about 2k though pretty much requires gallant there. But for GK that sounds small. 3 grand master on dreadknight(these are GK's best units so better max out on them...It's not called codex GMDK without reason), 3 strike squads, 2 interceptor squads and stormhawk would be around 1650 pts. Add in some upgrades and maybe another squad. 9 units there already.

Those GMK's will really hurt knight in combat(no inv save there while you posses 4++ minimum). You should get at least 1 of knights with those.

That flier will strip wounds and be somewhat resilient. Might be off with that one but seemed like it could work. Alternatively more squads to hide around.

But best advice is hope for CA to give major boost to GK. They desperately need it.

To beat Monsters, you have to take Monsters. GMDKs will kill Knights (and get killed by Knights). Use tall terrain, get your Strikes off the ground, and First to the Frey your GMDK(s) into Assault.

You don’t have to kill all the Knights in one turn, you just have to tie up enough Knights throughout the game to win the mission.

Also, probably play some Knights of your own. GK aren’t in a good place until they get a significant buff in a future Chapter Approved.

SJ

Played knights for the first time today. He had 1 melta knights and one cannon knight, his leader was a big knight with a harpoon and flamer. He also had some IG units.
First turn he moved everything up shot the melta at draigo, and killed him. The cannon shot at my rhino. His harpoon blew up another rhino and his flamer took down my strike marines. I ingored the knights at shot at the IG that all run to objectives. Killed 3-4 from each unit with my storm bolters and put my big 10 man units on the closest objective. On his turn two he moved and shot everything at my terminators, and charge all the units that were left alive. Ah and before he charged he shot my NDK down, which gave him some special objective. I was trying to hold back the NDK to counter charge with it.

I am going to play him again tomorrow, so any tips would be awesome.

How did his Valiant get within 12” of your Rhino on turn 1?

How was Draigo onnthe table on turn 1? He starts off the table and can only arrive starting turn 2 per the Beta rule.

Are you not using terrain?

SJ

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

meleti wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

GK are supposed to battle daemons and not mecha. If they suck against giant robots then GW did an awesome job writing the GK codex.

I thought that in their fluff they kill multiple deamons, and to become a paladin a GK has to kill a demon, naked without any weapons or armor. Seems like they should be able to kill some tanks that walk. They shouldn't be tougher to kill then a bloodthirster or keeper of secret.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
How did his Valiant get within 12” of your Rhino on turn 1?

How was Draigo onnthe table on turn 1? He starts off the table and can only arrive starting turn 2 per the Beta rule.

Are you not using terrain?

SJ

We are running an event and every army is allowed to infiltrate two units, I infiltrated the rhino and the strikes inside it, he infiltrated IG on a far objective and the knight with the cannon to the middle of the board. He killed draigo by drawing line of sight to him. We play with a lot of terrain half the board is some sort of terrain, only knights see over it or it has doors, windows etc So they shot through those.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Good sized building wall assuming it's not riddled with holes ala GW ruin will protect anything behind it from even warlord titan.

You have weird amount of units. The knight list is just about 2k though pretty much requires gallant there. But for GK that sounds small. 3 grand master on dreadknight(these are GK's best units so better max out on them...It's not called codex GMDK without reason), 3 strike squads, 2 interceptor squads and stormhawk would be around 1650 pts. Add in some upgrades and maybe another squad. 9 units there already.

Those GMK's will really hurt knight in combat(no inv save there while you posses 4++ minimum). You should get at least 1 of knights with those.

That flier will strip wounds and be somewhat resilient. Might be off with that one but seemed like it could work. Alternatively more squads to hide around.

But best advice is hope for CA to give major boost to GK. They desperately need it.

I have only 5 strikes, and I do take them. And only 1 dreadknight, but he isn't a grandmaster, no idea if GW even sells those. Maybe they are FW, and at my store they don't play with FW stuff. I have termintors that I run as paladins, draigo, the ndk and the strikes in a rhino. I could also run an inqusitor in termintor armor, but I don't have their codex, and was told he has the wrong base size to be legally used.

 Strg Alt wrote:

meleti wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

GK are supposed to battle daemons and not mecha. If they suck against giant robots then GW did an awesome job writing the GK codex.

I'm not sure I can describe how wrong I find this statement. Every faction should be effective against all other factions. Why else would you even play the game.

jcd386 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

meleti wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

GK are supposed to battle daemons and not mecha. If they suck against giant robots then GW did an awesome job writing the GK codex.

I'm not sure I can describe how wrong I find this statement. Every faction should be effective against all other factions. Why else would you even play the game.

Because your definition of "faction" is so outdated its not even funny. IoM is a faction, not GK.
GK, in their origin, where a specialized anti-daemon force meant to be used as allies.
In their fluff they are a specialized anti-daemon force meant to strike in small numbers to "assist" another group, rather than lead their own wars.

A bunch of gray knights going off to hunt orks, tau and necrons-who have nothing to do with daemons, is odd flavor-wise, and is not necessary to be "fair"
Just like bringing only nati-tank will make you weak against hordes, bringing only anti-daemons should make you struggle when there are no daemons to be found.

Because its a simple fact-daemons are a big thing, and are a BIG part of chaos. heck, even within the CSM codex a hell lot of units are classified as daemons.
And if you make GK "fair" against everyone, and then again makes them experts against daemons-then they are outrageously overpowering daemons, basically phasing them out of the game.

You cant have it both ways, there is just no way.
Either they are fair against everyone and utterly crushing daemons, or they are good against daemons but struggle otherwise
You other option is to make them fair against everyone and nothing special against daemons-and if you went that path, why bother having them in the setting to begin with? we got plenty of "even speclialer marines" around.


GK were a design mistake to make an independent codex to begin with.
When they were paired with inquisition and assassins in the same codex, it was less of a burden-but they have NEVER been an independant codex in a ruleset that didn't include allied-because they are expected to be (usually) used in cohesion with other IoM armies.

We are past the age of all codices being self-containing self-sufficient all-comer armies, the game went FAR too big for it and there are FAR too many specialized small factions to keep bitching about the fack GK are, and always were, a specialized small faction.

jcd386 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

meleti wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

GK are supposed to battle daemons and not mecha. If they suck against giant robots then GW did an awesome job writing the GK codex.

I'm not sure I can describe how wrong I find this statement. Every faction should be effective against all other factions. Why else would you even play the game.

The GK codex is pretty much superfluous from a background perspective. GK were a SINGLE elite unit clad in terminator armour to combat daemons. Period. Nothing more and nothing less. And they excelled at their job. A few years later GW corporate jerks come along and force game designers to create another codex out of thin air because 40K lacks a healthy amount of power armoured goons. Then we were blessed with the GK codex including aweful baby-carriers and Draigo Superman. This was the beginning of truly atrocious fluff. I couldn´t care less, if they suck or not. But one thing should be clear: Killing daemons which are mostly cc foes requires a different skill set and resources than to fight giant mecha. Every imperial general who wastes precious daemon hunters vs. those robots should be executed on the spot for total stupidity. If you want to take down lots of armour, you call the guard.

Harlequins are in the same boat like GK. Just a nonsensical unit bloat in order to sell gamers a new codex. What will come next? Codex Kroot? Nah, that would be silly. But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

I get that, but once GW makes a faction into a full codex, i think they owe it to the players to make it good. GK aren't even good against daemons, let alone anything else. And that isn't because of a fluff reason, it's just GW's poor understanding of the game and inability to balance things correctly.

Fluff < actual gameplay, once you put something into the game.

And just because you don't like that faction doesn't mean that people who do shouldn't be able to enjoy it as a real army.

 Strg Alt wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

meleti wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Rolsheen wrote:
Honestly people complaining about full Knight armies and Lords of War in general seem to be holding grudges worthy of a Dwarfen King. Lords of War can be killed just as fast as anything else in 8th, just need to play better.

Do you have any tips, how to kill three knights with a GK army?

Yep. You most likely will not win because a pure Knights list is a hard counter to GK. If you’re looking for a TAC faction right now in 8th ed, pure GK is the wrong thing to play.

My advice would be to bring a Tallarn Supreme Command detachment with a Shadowsword. Or a Knights detachment with a Knight Castellan.

GK are supposed to battle daemons and not mecha. If they suck against giant robots then GW did an awesome job writing the GK codex.

I'm not sure I can describe how wrong I find this statement. Every faction should be effective against all other factions. Why else would you even play the game.

The GK codex is pretty much superfluous from a background perspective. GK were a SINGLE elite unit clad in terminator armour to combat daemons. Period. Nothing more and nothing less. And they excelled at their job. A few years later GW corporate jerks come along and force game designers to create another codex out of thin air because 40K lacks a healthy amount of power armoured goons. Then we were blessed with the GK codex including aweful baby-carriers and Draigo Superman. This was the beginning of truly atrocious fluff. I couldn´t care less, if they suck or not. But one thing should be clear: Killing daemons which are mostly cc foes requires a different skill set and resources than to fight giant mecha. Every imperial general who wastes precious daemon hunters vs. those robots should be executed on the spot for total stupidity. If you want to take down lots of armour, you call the guard.

Harlequins are in the same boat like GK. Just a nonsensical unit bloat in order to sell gamers a new codex. What will come next? Codex Kroot? Nah, that would be silly. But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

Daemonhunters on 3rd had the strike squad and the terminators + vehicles and a couple of hqs, but they were correctly used as one of 2 allies books and aimed as a wing of the inquisition. The teleporting and exo skeletons came in 5th.

I believe they were a single terminator unit in 2nd but unsure. Either way they've grown steadily, it's not like it popped up overnight. I'd argue they need more new stuff.

 BoomWolf wrote:


You cant have it both ways, there is just no way.
Either they are fair against everyone and utterly crushing daemons, or they are good against daemons but struggle otherwise
You other option is to make them fair against everyone and nothing special against daemons-and if you went that path, why bother having them in the setting to begin with? we got plenty of "even speclialer marines" around.


GK were a design mistake to make an independent codex to begin with.
When they were paired with inquisition and assassins in the same codex, it was less of a burden-but they have NEVER been an independant codex in a ruleset that didn't include allied-because they are expected to be (usually) used in cohesion with other IoM armies.

We are past the age of all codices being self-containing self-sufficient all-comer armies, the game went FAR too big for it and there are FAR too many specialized small factions to keep bitching about the fack GK are, and always were, a specialized small faction.

I remember reading an article where someone from the GW design team said that in this edition aka 8th ed, they want to make factions stronger and make it more worthwhile to play a faction. Also GK are horrible vs demons, so we are not having it any way. In fact aside for eldar, demons are the stupidest match up for GKs.

As faction goes, if you see IoM as a faction and not GK or some other codex faction. You may as well remove most of them. Nothing a GK codex with ally can do, can't be done with a combination of same ally and some other codex faction. In fact a lot of times it works better, because GK have 0 synergy with other IoM units, while something like a custodes can bring a banner that helps IG survive etc

Also if the goal of GW is for people to play multi faction, then why can eldar or IG play mono lists just fine. Same with dark eldar.

Karol wrote:


Also if the goal of GW is for people to play multi faction, then why can eldar or IG play mono lists just fine. Same with dark eldar.

does the same hold true for harlquins though?
Because they are the more fair comparison of a small-scale codex representing an uber niche force.

How about thousand sons? are they really holding their own without allies to a meaningful level beyond the magnus crutch?
Heck, they are even the same niche of magic marines. and I'm fully aware that as long I keep my TS pure (and I do, because I feel like it)-Im not going to be top tier and have every matchup be "fair".

solo inquisition?

Sisters?

Even IK only work to any degree as solo codex because they are all T8 and benefit from oversaturating AT guns.


GK are. and always have been, a mini-dex.

jcd386 wrote:
I get that, but once GW makes a faction into a full codex, i think they owe it to the players to make it good. GK aren't even good against daemons, let alone anything else. And that isn't because of a fluff reason, it's just GW's poor understanding of the game and inability to balance things correctly.

Fluff < actual gameplay, once you put something into the game.

And just because you don't like that faction doesn't mean that people who do shouldn't be able to enjoy it as a real army.

I only dislike the forced new creation of unnecessary codices. GK terminators teleporting down to the battlefield to slay greater daemons is an integral part of 40K. All the other stuff associated now with GK is imo just dumb stuff.
It is really heartbreaking to read that they can´t even battle daemons properly. I guess it has something to do that hordes flourish in 8th due to the removal of blast and template weapons. Ah, edition changes always cause such dramatic upheavals.
Grumpy GK players should just use the old daemon hunter or 2nd codex. It definitely beats ragequitting and buying a new army.

GK do have a number of anti-vehicle options though: Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, and the Flyers, in addition to stuff like Paladins with Daemon Hammers.

Of course, most of these options are mediocre, but that's more of a problem with unit/codex balance than GK lacking options.

 Strg Alt wrote:


Harlequins are in the same boat like GK. Just a nonsensical unit bloat in order to sell gamers a new codex. What will come next? Codex Kroot? Nah, that would be silly. But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

Codex Ratlings

a short appearance.

meleti wrote:
GK do have a number of anti-vehicle options though: Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, and the Flyers, in addition to stuff like Paladins with Daemon Hammers.

Of course, most of these options are mediocre, but that's more of a problem with unit/codex balance than GK lacking options.

GK are very rare. Each and everyone is supposed to grab his storm bolter & nemesis weapon to hunt denizens from the warp. Just the thought of wasting their potential by ordering them to pilot vehicles is mindboggling. But I am sure the codex writers have a convenient excuse for this at hand like these guys didn´t pass the final test or are auxillary staff.

BoomWolf explained it already perfectly. GK, Harlequins and Deathwatch are all commando units. Elite and small in number trained to perform a very specific task. You add these units to a regular army but they should never be an army by themselves. If everybody is elite then none is. Now 8th came around and punished overcosted elite infantry with 1 wound. What do you do as GW? Address these problems in a way that helps owners of these minis? Nope, they create a new elite army with more wounds than 1 to boost sales.

Are Knights FLGS friendly? Well, giant robots have been introduced to 40K and they will stay. This was imo a bad decision but what do I know. These Knights can still have good games vs. other giant walker lists (IK or even Wraithknight or Gorkanaut lists in the future) or armoured companies which have a decent amount of AT. Though against all other kind of lists it would create a tedious game.
People wrote that you just have to play the objective game and outlast the opposition but where is the fun in that? You paint up 200 grunts, park them on objectives and show the four knights the middle finger because the framework of the rules won´t allow him to crush these ants due to a constrained game length. This is a recipe for a bad game and very unimmersive.
Just imagine the movie Pacific Rim with this kind of modus operandi. Instead of giant robots to combat the Kaiju threat you send in waves and waves of cannon fodder units.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Karol wrote:


Also if the goal of GW is for people to play multi faction, then why can eldar or IG play mono lists just fine. Same with dark eldar.

does the same hold true for harlquins though?
Because they are the more fair comparison of a small-scale codex representing an uber niche force.

.

they have fewer units then GK have, why should they have it better then GK. They have 1 transporter , 1 unit and some characters. We have 2 termintor units, 4 units in power armor, more heros, land raiders, rhinos, rhinos with hvy weapons and Sturmravens, on top of that we have NDKs, two dreads.

Hard to win right now with solo grey knights. They just don't counter enough but are easily countered by most armies.

Dreadknights need to double or triple team an imperial Knight to beat it. The rest of the army is pretty rough vs knights. I've had voldus do good work vs knights in a small detachment and just throw 6-8 mortal wounds at it a turn with smite+purge soul+vortex of doom. If he gets into cc and doesn't die... He can usually put 6 wounds on a knight a turn. But one solid hit from a knight chainsword will end his life.

Grey knights have one advantage on knights inn close combat... invul saves in combat.

This may also sound weird but... With hammerhand our regular troops wound on 5 with typically ap-2 and d3 wounds. You could chip through a knight fairly well like that. It's just the "not dying first that is the issue.

A hammer handed soul glaive user will get about 75% of his to be wounds.

Also, focused smites on to one Knight could pull off quite a few wounds a turn. Knight heavy armies tend to not have much chaff out in front of them. If placement is smart you could put voldus doing approx 6 mw + mw from the rest of your army. But you would have to spam it. Again, against popular belief, a brother captain can help here.

Also... Don't play with the beta test rules.

 Strg Alt wrote:

People wrote that you just have to play the objective game and outlast the opposition but where is the fun in that? You paint up 200 grunts, park them on objectives and show the four knights the middle finger because the framework of the rules won´t allow him to crush these ants due to a constrained game length. This is a recipe for a bad game and very unimmersive.
Just imagine the movie Pacific Rim with this kind of modus operandi. Instead of giant robots to combat the Kaiju threat you send in waves and waves of cannon fodder units.

Worked well enough for the Red Army.... Quantity has a quality all its own. You know, the Soviet Union may very well have defeated the Kaiju with sheer numbers and force of will alone.
But you are correct, Imperial Knights make the game very bianary, the opponent has enough anti tank to stop them, and you can have a game. The opponent doesn't, and its just either delaying the inevitable or a crushing defeat as the Knights run rampant.

I don't know. An all custodes army is going to rough to face as well. Same thing. So, should we outright refuse to play certain codexes? Pity the boy that sunk all of his savings on a pure custodes or a pure knights army. Now no one will play him...

Karol wrote:

I have only 5 strikes, and I do take them. And only 1 dreadknight, but he isn't a grandmaster, no idea if GW even sells those. Maybe they are FW, and at my store they don't play with FW stuff. I have termintors that I run as paladins, draigo, the ndk and the strikes in a rhino. I could also run an inqusitor in termintor armor, but I don't have their codex, and was told he has the wrong base size to be legally used.

Is there some sort of model difference between strikes and regular squad?

As for grandmaster dreadknight it's conversion thing but you can get that by just painting something leadershippy looking colour scheme.

If you play one of the worst if not the worst codex and dont' even field only unit worth anything in the codex no surprise you strugle.

And as for bases if it's base it originally came with it's 100% legal according to GW.

With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

About as much as I would like to play against anybody who tailors lists. Winning army is hell of a lot easier if you tailor lists against it.

List tailoring is cheating. So, no.

If I'm playing at the LGS, and my opponent admits his list has no realistic point of being able to win, I'd encourage him to list tailor to give me a stronger game.

If I can play against a handicap in practice, I'll get better, till actual tourney play feels easy.

Point handicaps are MUCH better than knowledge handicaps.

What is your rational?

Well, if you give someone say 15% more points, they still have to plan and build a well-rounded list as opposed to serving the enemy army on a silver platter.

How did you arrive at 15%? How does that work better than saying Ohh, swap out that 30 man squad and that 30 man squad for some AT options?

I just made it up. I'd handicap new marine players vs Drukhari at 33%. Or even 50%.

 Humble Guardsman wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:


Harlequins are in the same boat like GK. Just a nonsensical unit bloat in order to sell gamers a new codex. What will come next? Codex Kroot? Nah, that would be silly. But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

But I expect Codex Ratlings in the future to make a short appearance.

Codex Ratlings

a short appearance.

I apologize. Germans are not supposed to have a sense of humour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

How you organize your games is up to you. If I am going to have a tabletop game at a weekend, I´ll make damn sure that it is not a colossal waste of time. It would be stupid for my Catachan Jungle Fighters to square off against four IK. Therefore I will have a chat with my acquaintance about points, army composition and scenario. Nowadays 40K has units with widely differing strengths and doing blind pick-up games seldom results in a satisfying game.

 Strg Alt wrote:

How you organize your games is up to you. If I am going to have a tabletop game at a weekend, I´ll make damn sure that it is not a colossal waste of time. It would be stupid for my Catachan Jungle Fighters to square off against four IK. Therefore I will have a chat with my acquaintance about points, army composition and scenario. Nowadays 40K has units with widely differing strengths and doing blind pick-up games seldom results in a satisfying game.

I think I am to this point in the game. I have no interest in playing a game where the object is to remove 50-66% of the opposing army before the other player gets a turn. Some armies just seem geared for that turn 2-3 win, and it is fine. But when I see that coming, I just extend my hand and say "good game". I'm definitely not having a good time at that point, and the game is definitely not what I expected out of it... so instead of letting them sadistically get their jollies off on an army more thought out for narrative and playing against more combined arms... I'll just shake on it and save us both the bad time

There is definitely a line between "well put together casual list" and "I'm going to throttle you competitive". Sometimes people cross over than line unexpectedly, though usually in the more pick-up oriented games... it seems like a throwback to 7th where everyone just wants to jam their opponent into submission with their newest collection of busted stuff. No interest in that :(

edit: not that I think Knights themselves are into this territory. I think they are solid and beatable. It was more an analysis on how satisfaction with pick-up games is going down due to a rise in competitive gaming at the tables.

Purifying Tempest wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

How you organize your games is up to you. If I am going to have a tabletop game at a weekend, I´ll make damn sure that it is not a colossal waste of time. It would be stupid for my Catachan Jungle Fighters to square off against four IK. Therefore I will have a chat with my acquaintance about points, army composition and scenario. Nowadays 40K has units with widely differing strengths and doing blind pick-up games seldom results in a satisfying game.

I think I am to this point in the game. I have no interest in playing a game where the object is to remove 50-66% of the opposing army before the other player gets a turn. Some armies just seem geared for that turn 2-3 win, and it is fine. But when I see that coming, I just extend my hand and say "good game". I'm definitely not having a good time at that point, and the game is definitely not what I expected out of it... so instead of letting them sadistically get their jollies off on an army more thought out for narrative and playing against more combined arms... I'll just shake on it and save us both the bad time

There is definitely a line between "well put together casual list" and "I'm going to throttle you competitive". Sometimes people cross over than line unexpectedly, though usually in the more pick-up oriented games... it seems like a throwback to 7th where everyone just wants to jam their opponent into submission with their newest collection of busted stuff. No interest in that :(

edit: not that I think Knights themselves are into this territory. I think they are solid and beatable. It was more an analysis on how satisfaction with pick-up games is going down due to a rise in competitive gaming at the tables.

I think knights, and just about every other big model in 40k is in the same category. They might not all be as useful as each other, but they all have similar effects on opponents. If I plop down a bunch of greater daemons in a pick up casual game, I might get some moaning and groaning (I do it often, and get moans often) however if I plopped them down in a tournament or competitive settings, I would be seen as a poor list builder. Mortarion has been in this position for quite some time, super awesome dude, giant fire magnet, and whatever he touches will probably die. However he lives in the area between competitive and casual. Too spooky to play against a new player, too squishy to play against a veteran player.

This is part of the reason I love maelstrom missions in pick up games. If I bring my monster mash list, I struggle to choose between objectives and murdering stuff. Eternal war missions are pretty much "kill as much as you can without moving off the objective" Knights will have a tough time with objectives, buuuut a lot of casual players I see just play kill points, which knights and monster mash do very well.

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Just to add - it can be a learning experience for a new player getting stomped. The difference between a bad game where you're rolled over and a good game where you were rolled over is how your opponent handles their advantage. If you're facesmashing a new player, take the time to explain different elements of your army, why you took them, and why you're targeting what you are when you are. It will leave a decidedly sweeter taste in your opponet's mouth to have actually taken something away from the game. Whereas if you just kick his teeth in while chuckling all the way and pulling out any "gotchya" moves you have, that poor player will come away thinking you're a dick, your army is OP, and/or that the hobby isn't for them.

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

 Larks wrote:

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Just... no... here is the thing. Warhammer 40K is a game that requires a substantial time commitment. If I play a game, I will be committing typically at least 2 hours, but often between 3-4 depending on how much talking and socializing is going on. This is not a computer game like Dawn of War where the expected time of a game is between 25-40 minutes depending on how intense it is. Table Top gaming is a social game, and both players should be having fun. Curb Stomping a newbie for 3 hours shouldn't give you jollies unless you are a sociopath, and nobody finds being curb stomped fun either.

You create this weird and frankly insulting dichotomy between new players and competitive players and state that competitive players essentially owe it to the community to put new players in their place every now and again. Except the competitive players who do that are the bottom of the barrel trash that struggles to place at real competitive events. A real competitive player, a good one, isn't going to waste his time playing his Imperial Guard CP Battery, Supreme Command Blood Angles, and Imperial Knight cutting edge competitive list playing against some poor sap with an Imperial Fists army made of roughly 2x Dark Imperium and some Repulsor Tanks. The competitive player gets literally nothing out of that game, and the new player just experiences a crushing defeat with little he can do to mount a counter attack. So what you will find is that an actually good player will either;
1) Find someone else to play with if he is prepping for a GT. Like maybe someone with a cutting edge Chaos Soup with Nurgle Daemons + Thousand Sons Supreme Command, etc.
2) Tone down his list to something more casual, and have a laugh throwing units he would never usually field onto the table.
The only people who actually show up to a club and curb stomp newbies are average to below average wannabe competitive players with large egos who aren't creative enough or smart enough to compete at tournaments. But their ego dictates that they hate losing, so they take their net list that won last years GT and take it to a FLGS to bully newer players with. If they were actually good players they would understand, as outlined above, that they are getting NO PROBATIVE VALUE out of the game.

Here is the thing. A competitive player is capable of toning down their list. A newbie player is not necessarily capable of turning up their list, because of very real constraints of knowledge, experience, and well, money and collection. In order for this 3+ hour game experience to be actually enjoyable (unless the "competitive player" is a nihilistic sociopath and the "newbie" is a sadomasochist) than the responsibility is on the stronger player to adjust down to help foster an enjoyable game.

You talk about wanting to grow the game, and grow the competitive environment. You can still do that. But you do that through nurturing. Most people want to win, most people have a drive to get better. You want to take that and encourage it. Whenever I play a game vs a new player, i typically don't run my most WAAC list. I'll take something that is thematic and looks good on the table. I will go through the game and explain my tactical choices, and I'll stop my opponent and correct any tactical errors they may make, and explain why they should or shouldn't do something. Essentially I take it upon myself to monitor both armies. In fact, giving players a taste of victory and explaining to them the tactical decisions that you helped them make can leave a positive taste in their mouths, make them more amenable to becoming more competitive themselves, and helping to expand the toolbox they can draw on with new strategies that are directly relevant to their chosen army. If you as a good player truly care about growing the hobby you need to take it upon yourself to be more open and help mentor players. Explaining how you are curb stomping is one thing. But playing down to their level and helping coach them on their army takes it to the next level and helps them get better immediately.

Obviously this doesn't apply to games in tournaments, or games explicitly stated to be tournament prep. It doesn't apply to grudge matches or any other social scenario where the gloves are expected to come off and both players go all out. What I am saying is that there is a time and a place for truly competitive games and armies. That time and place is not a casual pick up game against some guy who started a few months ago.

Back on topic, I think list tailoring is generally more open in Knights is because of the Rock Paper Scissors Elements. For a casual pick up game, facing a list not capable of dealing with multiple titanic units can make the game tedious and not fun to play. As such, the rule of thumb is for a casual game to give the opponent a heads up so that they can build an army that can actually face off against a Knight. Obviously this doesn't apply to competitive games, and once again is just to make an individual casual game more enjoyable. As with anything, a lot of this comes down to etiquette with a new group of players and holding yourself out as a "good guy" who people want to play games with, especially when meeting new players at an FLGS. Etiquette varies within every group, and you'll quickly learn how competitive or casual a group of people are. So disclosing the presence of multiple Imperial Knights will depend on the group. Some groups are constantly prepping for their next tournament, and vs those players you'll always go out and list tailoring is forbidden. Other groups are very casual and play things like Space Marine Demi Companies and Striking Scorpions with Karandaras as a central theme. Etiquette dictates that against the second group the tournament player should tone it down and even tailor his list to have a disadvantage for the sake of the game. If he doesn't want to do this he can find a different group with a social contract more to his liking. Unless the player is a poisonous sociopath with a false sense of superiority who gets his jollies from bullying narrative or new players.


It may seem like I'm being overly harsh, but lets be clear I have nothing against competitive players. What people need to understand though, and sometimes mental block, is that there are multiple ways to play the game. Its easy to get into a feedback loop of believing that competitive is everything. And competitive is a valid way to play the game, but its not the only way. Semi Competitive games are fun, pure faction games are fun. Competitive Players should absolutely hone their craft and learn to be better and stronger players and remain on the edge. But they should also not reveal their full power level at every chance they get. My problem is with bullies who think they are doing a public service by beating up new players with net lists. Its not making the glorified bully a better player, its not helping the newbie get into the game. Just, uh, don't be a bully.

I'm completely against the idea of list tailoring whether it be against knights or any other army. The issue you see on this forum is thinking there army is bad when it cannot deal with every other conceivable list. Lists should have bad matchups and people can include units to help mitigate that or just accept that some games are gonna be played on hard mode. I look at it a lot like running different decks in hearthstone. You never want a deck that beats every other deck out there. You're simply trying to build one that has an over 50% win rate against over 50% of the decks and yes every once in a while you're going to run into a deck that you only have a 10-15% chance to beat. But that's part of the game and usually, that person has a horrible overall win rate because a skew deck will get blow out by the majority of other decks. This also keeps the meta consistently fresh as people are constantly trying to counter the top deck and this shifts the types of decks being played. For example, if everyone starts bringing knights then everyone will start to include more heavy weapons. This then increases how good hordes are so people start bringing more hordes. People bringing more hordes mean people start bringing more chaff clearing stuff. This pushes more lists into a more centralized build that can handle both decently and actually leads to more balanced games in the long run.

Agreed. Tailoring teaches terrible habits.

Losing is a learning experience, getting stomped is not.

You may not believe it, but if you go to someone you just utterly crushed and then start explaining HOW you crushed him, you come out as a smug jerk and nothing you say will come across-even if you are 100% right.


Yes, when you play in a tournament a non-competetive player needs to step up his game, but as others have noted, everyone can step down their game for a weaker opponent-the weaker opponent may not have the capability to step up, may be due to lack of models, experience or understanding of the systems.
And telling people to "git gud" doesn't make them improve, it makes them quit.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Losing is a learning experience, getting stomped is not.

You may not believe it, but if you go to someone you just utterly crushed and then start explaining HOW you crushed him, you come out as a smug jerk and nothing you say will come across-even if you are 100% right.


Yes, when you play in a tournament a non-competetive player needs to step up his game, but as others have noted, everyone can step down their game for a weaker opponent-the weaker opponent may not have the capability to step up, may be due to lack of models, experience or understanding of the systems.
And telling people to "git gud" doesn't make them improve, it makes them quit.

I don't think anyone is arguing that you should go around pub stomping. But list tailoring is not only bad for the health of the game but also for a new player to learn. If all a player ever does is bring a 100% tailored list so that he has an advantage over every opponent he plays hes never going to get better or learn to build a balanced list

Karol wrote:
Well some armies don't have much anti tank. In my army it is the sword of titan and a thunder hammer, plus 2 psycannons. Neither of those work much.

ally some empirium units, GK isn't clearly made like a stand alone codex.

No, its not.

Tailoring, like self-regulations, have a time and a place where they make the game BETTER.


For example, I've got a good friend I often play against.
He knows the things I love to bring, I know the things he love to bring.

I know, that in most of his lists I can expects destroyers and a warrior blob (or two) with a supporting cryptek and ghost ark (or two) and play defensivly, so in response I bring character sniping and things to handle the destroyers (or nullify them like a screen of horrors that defends my characters from targeting by mean guns).
He however, knows I know he is likely to bring them, and then analyses what I might do to counter him, and in turn thinks about how to counter me in return.
And so the wheel turns, he counters me, and I counter him in return, and so forth.

This leads to the fact we never play quite the same lists against each other-becuase we know the other knows our last list and is prepared for it.
And it makes it so much better for both of us-because we keep having fresh games, despite playing each other (with the same armies) dozens of times.

In a tournament where we could not afford to do this tailor dance against each other though? I can practically write his list and be 90% or more accurate, maybe even 100%, and he can do the same to me. because we know each other's playstyles and preferences so well.
If we had not tailored against each other-we'd face our regular "turnament lists" each and every time.
And it would suck...



Tailoring has a place in the game.
Where both players simultaneously tailor against each other.
Heck, its even thematic. a military commander isn't a moron, and should have a general idea of what he is up against, and prepare accordingly.

I still don't think that's a good idea.

 BoomWolf wrote:
No, its not.

Tailoring, like self-regulations, have a time and a place where they make the game BETTER.


For example, I've got a good friend I often play against.
He knows the things I love to bring, I know the things he love to bring.

I know, that in most of his lists I can expects destroyers and a warrior blob (or two) with a supporting cryptek and ghost ark (or two) and play defensivly, so in response I bring character sniping and things to handle the destroyers (or nullify them like a screen of horrors that defends my characters from targeting by mean guns).
He however, knows I know he is likely to bring them, and then analyses what I might do to counter him, and in turn thinks about how to counter me in return.
And so the wheel turns, he counters me, and I counter him in return, and so forth.

This leads to the fact we never play quite the same lists against each other-becuase we know the other knows our last list and is prepared for it.
And it makes it so much better for both of us-because we keep having fresh games, despite playing each other (with the same armies) dozens of times.

In a tournament where we could not afford to do this tailor dance against each other though? I can practically write his list and be 90% or more accurate, maybe even 100%, and he can do the same to me. because we know each other's playstyles and preferences so well.
If we had not tailored against each other-we'd face our regular "turnament lists" each and every time.
And it would suck...



Tailoring has a place in the game.
Where both players simultaneously tailor against each other.
Heck, its even thematic. a military commander isn't a moron, and should have a general idea of what he is up against, and prepare accordingly.

What your talking about is the opposite of list tailoring. What you have is a developing and shifting meta (even if its the meta of 2 people). You have players trying to guess what they might need to beat opponents and then bringing what they can to try to be competitive against players in their area (even an incredibly small one). List tailoring is saying "oh your bringing 5 knights let me remake my list so i can bring 60 Las cannons" oh now im about to play you ork green tide player "ill just change my list to all mortars and vulture gunships with punisher cannons this should be easy". trying to anticipate what people play in your area and getting a list that can deal with as much of it that you can, is not list tailoring.

akaean..... fantastic Post !

its a damn shame it was all but ignored after you posted it.

If we all strived for this sort of attitude the game would be in an ever better place then it is.

kudos !

 akaean wrote:

 Larks wrote:

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Just... no... here is the thing...

You seem to not understand my position at all. I find it helps to thoroughly read a post before ranting in reply, but you may do as you wish.

I said it can be a good experience if the person who is the better player takes the time to help the newer player learn. I did not say that they deserve to be beaten down, nor that I enjoy experienced players smashing their opponents.

The game is better with better players. Teaching people that the "default" action should be that anyone better than them should automatically try and play down to them is what is detrimental to our community. You don't seem to understand that one can have no desire to smash new players and get easy wins yet still have no desire to list tailor for other players.

Talking about this has become akin to discussing politics. If one says they didn't vote for "X", then folks like you assume they automatically support "Y". There are more than two positions here.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Losing is a learning experience, getting stomped is not.

Everything is a learning experience if you treat it as such. I generally learn more about a game from getting completely obliterated than anything else. Probably learned more about 40k from a recent 0-4 tournament run than I have from just about anything else. Personally, I find it invigorating. Now, I understand that not everyone wants to learn, but I also know that's not a mindset that ever leads to a happy or healthy experience. If you want to have fun, you really need to either be open to learning from every game and accepting that sometimes you're just going to lose to things above your level and have fun with it regardless.

Perhaps part of the split opinion on this is also due to a generation gap with some older players coming back I with 8th. You were expected to ask about running names characters or LOW in older editions where barely an army leaves the house without now.
Still I'd be inclined to agree with Akaean, “facing a list not capable of dealing with multiple titanic units can make the game tedious and not fun to play.”

 Larks wrote:

The game is better with better players. Teaching people that the "default" action should be that anyone better than them should automatically try and play down to them is what is detrimental to our community. You don't seem to understand that one can have no desire to smash new players and get easy wins yet still have no desire to list tailor for other players.

I agree that better/more experience players are more fun to play. However, if we're talking FLGS games where there is nothing to gain but an enjoyable afternoon I absolutely prefer a close game with equal strength forces to a free win/loss due to list building/skew. Whether that means the other guy switches in some more big guns or I swap in some infantry versus the new guy with the pair of starter boxes. Nobody needs to play down (use wrong target priority, poor positioning etc.), as we can still teach/learn from effective maneuvers. Unless playing down means not using this FAQ cycles most under costed units. If the only thing being conveyed is how to build a better list or which units to take to face Knights, I believe a discussion is better than a one sided multi hour game. Of course facing a competitive list can in itself be an eye opening experience and not terrible assuming both players are good sports...

If the game/atmosphere is tournament prep, competitive, give it all you got; then obviously the goal wouldn't be to build equal strength lists.

 Larks wrote:
This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Logically though, if you demand to know what you will be facing before presenting your own list, then your opponent gets to do the same and can theoretically out-tweak your tweaks.

Which just gets silly.

Fictional wrote:

 Larks wrote:
This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Logically though, if you demand to know what you will be facing before presenting your own list, then your opponent gets to do the same and can theoretically out-tweak your tweaks.

Which just gets silly.

Maybe it's because it's late, but are you trying to refute what I said? Because your post highlights exactly what I find wrong with the concept of adjusting lists to one's opponent.

Years ago at our local FLGS the few players that could actually afford flyers when they were coming out never used them in matches. It was generally agreed you didn't bring one unless the other player had one. Our gaming group in general didn't have the cash flow to go out and pick up dedicated anti-air units.


Most players, but particularly younger or newer players, simply can't afford to tailor their list or step up their competitiveness.

 Larks wrote:

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Just to add - it can be a learning experience for a new player getting stomped. The difference between a bad game where you're rolled over and a good game where you were rolled over is how your opponent handles their advantage. If you're facesmashing a new player, take the time to explain different elements of your army, why you took them, and why you're targeting what you are when you are. It will leave a decidedly sweeter taste in your opponet's mouth to have actually taken something away from the game. Whereas if you just kick his teeth in while chuckling all the way and pulling out any "gotchya" moves you have, that poor player will come away thinking you're a dick, your army is OP, and/or that the hobby isn't for them.

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Why would a veteran player waste his time, on a new player who isn't playing the game on his level, both list and skill wise? Maybe if the noob was another players brother or son, but I can not think of any other situation where the veteran player would want to spend even a minute longer then needed playing a noob.

Karol wrote:

 Larks wrote:

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Just to add - it can be a learning experience for a new player getting stomped. The difference between a bad game where you're rolled over and a good game where you were rolled over is how your opponent handles their advantage. If you're facesmashing a new player, take the time to explain different elements of your army, why you took them, and why you're targeting what you are when you are. It will leave a decidedly sweeter taste in your opponet's mouth to have actually taken something away from the game. Whereas if you just kick his teeth in while chuckling all the way and pulling out any "gotchya" moves you have, that poor player will come away thinking you're a dick, your army is OP, and/or that the hobby isn't for them.

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Why would a veteran player waste his time, on a new player who isn't playing the game on his level, both list and skill wise? Maybe if the noob was another players brother or son, but I can not think of any other situation where the veteran player would want to spend even a minute longer then needed playing a noob.

Community work? Because is rewarding to help a new player to learn the game? And that player will be one more for the group in the future?
After your anecdote of one guy broking the models of other player in the tournament.... With what kind of people do you play? Counter Strike players?

Two things.
Generally:
A) depends massively on the ammount of knights and the types. Amiriegers for exemple are a lot less tough, therefore less a problem.

@Karol
B) The community of the game lives and dies ultimately with young blood, it does simply not matter where they end up on the spectrum afterwards. For exemple the next competitive tournament winner or the garage hammer narative kind guy, or the collector.
In the end if no one new joins the game will ultimately die out, therefore wasting time as a Veteran on a newbplayer as you put it, is the wrong mindset and the mindset that ultimately will kill off the hobby.

 Larks wrote:

Fictional wrote:

 Larks wrote:
This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Logically though, if you demand to know what you will be facing before presenting your own list, then your opponent gets to do the same and can theoretically out-tweak your tweaks.

Which just gets silly.

Maybe it's because it's late, but are you trying to refute what I said? Because your post highlights exactly what I find wrong with the concept of adjusting lists to one's opponent.

Not at all. I am using your post as the example, that I fully agree with as it shows the absurdity of the WAAC approach.

Its just that such things should, logically, go on ad infinitum, assuming both participants can keep finding tweaks to make.

I had this argument last week with a couple of friends. One of them just got two helverins and the shooty dominus. That plus 2 regular knights was 1850. He proposed a game of his knights versus my new Necrons and another friend's necrons. I accepted because it had been a few months since we three met to play. However I inmediately exposed my concern about the matchup. Necrons are not a top Codex by any means, and our armies are diverse and not shooty. I have two Forgebane sets and some extra Inmortals and an Overlord, and my buddy has quite a few troops, a couple of characters, a flyer and a single Doomsday Ark; so no destroyers to play. I talked to him and we both agreed we could change up the mission and armies to make it more fun. I was thinking about just playing more free troops etc, as let's say 40 warriors won't really make a change, let's be honest. We adressed this to our friend and well, he's a nice guy but can be a bit picky when playing games. I explained to him I'm all about the fun and cool games, that we didn't care about the result and could make it really fun for all if we just did a necron horde against his knights. He argued more points was "too much" and wouldn't even play his knights as Freeblades for fun. In the end it felt like he was being cool for giving us 10 extra warriors and playing the 6+++ house. We were at the club already so I decided not to argue more and just play it cool. As for my ally, he's not very experienced and you can clearly tell when he plays. As for me, I'm a fluffy player and more relaxed (although I must say I can be picky with some rules, like everyone). So, in the end we played the game. He went first and did little on his first turn. 10 inmortals and 3 wraiths mainly. 0 charges. We spent the cp's to get the wraiths back and on 4+ only revived one... Anyway I managed to charge a crusader but because I had lost 2 couldnt tie him up (he can't fall back through Monsters).
We called it at our turn 3, having lost all Wraiths, Lychguard, the flyer and many troops. We managed to bring one Helverin down, and almost the crusader. It wasn't a fun game: most of our army couldn't do much and the firepower was exhausting to go through; just a boring, pointless game.

Yesterday, I played against IG for the first time with my Necrons, 1500 points. I managed to get turn1 and charge 10 Lychguard+6 wraiths. I had had the same argument with my opponent (my best friend and usual opponent), so he decided to run 70 guardsmen+25 scions, along a tank commander and two Taurox Primes. He had to leave early so we only played 3 turns. After the game we talked about how he plays, which was realy helpful for him, but I won't go further. As for me, I realised I could certainly push my way through a regular IG cadian list (I say regular, 3 russes max with some arty and much infantry), so next time he will surely bring his russes, and surely my necrons will pull off what my fluffy marines struggle to kill.

For me it's all about balance between the intention of the game (casual, narrative, competitive) and both player's armies. If you're playing casual against a friend, make it interesting, play the whatever you want but consider what he could do if you feel he/she doens't have much variety to play. If it's competitive, well, do whatever you want, soups, I don't care!

I hope I've explained myself properly.
Cheers


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
Why would a veteran player waste his time, on a new player who isn't playing the game on his level, both list and skill wise? Maybe if the noob was another players brother or son, but I can not think of any other situation where the veteran player would want to spend even a minute longer then needed playing a noob.

I'm sorry but that's really dumb and selfish. When I started 40k in 2012 my brother's physical therapist was a long time player (15+ years). He was a competitive player and still is a very good player. I was yet another ultramarines 12 year old but he still offered himself to play with me and teach me. He was way older than me but he was okay with that, so we started playing very frequently. I learnt a lot, and to this day, he's one of my best friends. Who would have said my brother's physical therapist played 40k, and that we would become friends?
Since I started playing I have also introduced some people to the hobby, and I have no problem with playing with a "noob" and repeat the rules all the time. I've met many new players at the club who were just looking at a game I was playing and ended up helping them building their armies and learning the basics. On thursday I'm facing a newbie's "soviet guard" for the second time. He's really nice and we had a blast last time. Today for instance, he sent me pics of his very difficult victory agaisnt dark angels. I'm really proud I could help him learn.
Playing with new players or veterans new to your local community is part of the hobby and will reward you with much more than just playing super-ultra-competitive WAAC players because you don't want to "waste your time".

Karol wrote:

 Larks wrote:

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Just to add - it can be a learning experience for a new player getting stomped. The difference between a bad game where you're rolled over and a good game where you were rolled over is how your opponent handles their advantage. If you're facesmashing a new player, take the time to explain different elements of your army, why you took them, and why you're targeting what you are when you are. It will leave a decidedly sweeter taste in your opponet's mouth to have actually taken something away from the game. Whereas if you just kick his teeth in while chuckling all the way and pulling out any "gotchya" moves you have, that poor player will come away thinking you're a dick, your army is OP, and/or that the hobby isn't for them.

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Why would a veteran player waste his time, on a new player who isn't playing the game on his level, both list and skill wise? Maybe if the noob was another players brother or son, but I can not think of any other situation where the veteran player would want to spend even a minute longer then needed playing a noob.

To paraphrase myself (in the post you quoted) - I want to see the game grow, and better players make for a better game.

Such a toxic attitude you have towards new players.

 Galas wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Larks wrote:

Volkmair wrote:
With people saying they would like a heads up if facing a Knight force, while they are a polarising army would people be expecting a heads up of other polarising armies like massive hordes. In any case from the perspective of a Knight player would you want to play against someone who will only play against you if they can tailor their force to beat you?

This is my problem with the idea that any player needs to inform their opponent of anything "scary" they're taking. For some reason, the community really seems to accept the idea of list-tailoring against big models.

Whereas if I walked into a game and said, "I need to know what you have so that I can make any adjustments necessary to ensure I can kill you." (the same damn argument), it's seen as a WAAC attitude - and it is - but it is no matter which direction the tailoring goes.

Just to add - it can be a learning experience for a new player getting stomped. The difference between a bad game where you're rolled over and a good game where you were rolled over is how your opponent handles their advantage. If you're facesmashing a new player, take the time to explain different elements of your army, why you took them, and why you're targeting what you are when you are. It will leave a decidedly sweeter taste in your opponet's mouth to have actually taken something away from the game. Whereas if you just kick his teeth in while chuckling all the way and pulling out any "gotchya" moves you have, that poor player will come away thinking you're a dick, your army is OP, and/or that the hobby isn't for them.

I, for one, want the game to continue to grow. However, I think it's detrimental to get new players into the idea that if their army is non-competitive, that others need to "play down" to them, and not the other way 'round. Good players make the hobby better.

Why would a veteran player waste his time, on a new player who isn't playing the game on his level, both list and skill wise? Maybe if the noob was another players brother or son, but I can not think of any other situation where the veteran player would want to spend even a minute longer then needed playing a noob.

Community work? Because is rewarding to help a new player to learn the game? And that player will be one more for the group in the future?
After your anecdote of one guy broking the models of other player in the tournament.... With what kind of people do you play? Counter Strike players?

@Karol:
Christ, you must think of me as the most stupid slow in the whole hobby. Why? Well, I am teaching noobs BB on fairly regular basis. What is my motivation? Roflstomping them? Nope, I usually make sure that I get hold of two beginners which will play against each other. These guys/gals are the future of the hobby. It´s as simple as that. Without my initiative they might end up as sociopathic video gamers and nobody wants that. Amirite?
As other posters already pointed out, you display an unhealthy attitude towards property and new players. Aren´t you ashamed of yourself? Your post about breaking the models was more vile than any kind of mudslinging/trolling which happened on this board.

My biggest community assets are the guys who are going out and winning the competitive tournaments in the area. My biggest headaches are the guys who go to and constantly think about competitive tournaments, but always end up mid to low tables.

A real dedicated competitive player understands that their role in non-competition matches is to teach, build a community, and foster the next generation to think tactically like they do. They take a chill match as an opportunity to bust out old favorite units that have been shelf-warmers for a long time or to swap lists with their opponents and teach them the way they'd run the units they have. If they're interested in a top tier throwdown, they'll do it with their group of buddies who they know are of the same caliber as them, because anything else is just a waste of time.

The tournament losers that turn up with their three-color minimum netlist looking to boost their ego in the name of "practice" are the scum of the earth and the scourge of anyone trying to build a community.