Well, I got the Castellan on the table tonight and I have to say that without a doubt I am hugely disappointed. Even with the relic plasma and the raven reroll all the 1s strat it was just so lack luster for it's points. I think it's pretty safe to say that it's going to get shelved unless it's for an apoc game or I forget how disappointing it was and try it again.
I think for the most part i am going to stick to running a Valiant and two crusaders plus something for 1750. What that 'plus something' is i'm not sure. I'm currently chewing over the viability of 3 assassins, probably a Callidus, Cullexus and Eversor. (partly because i have the first two and just need an excuse to pick up the 3rd.)
@Godeskian
You already know the counter to 3++ invuls, weight of dice and mortal wounds,
Re:Mortal wounds, It's not the answer you want to hear but if someone is putting 5 captains on a knight you're counter is explode. That being said, i don't rate Noble Sacrifice as being a viable spend on anything other than a Dominus, it's just to coinflippy on 1 dice, realistically it's a potential 3 cp spend for a null result..
The only other option worth talking about is Blessed by the Sacristans on an Avenger or on a Gallant's feet. I know it sounds stupid but realistically you're looking for the highest volume of dice, which it undeniably is, with which to generate mortal wounds.
This probably isn't even worth mention as it's a total gimmick set up and requires you to be the charging unit, but a knight with the Griffith warlord trait + Griffith relic.
So, what was so hugely disappointing about the Castellan? I am kinda curious. So many people praised it so much. So I kinda want people who have actually used either the Valiant or the Castellan on the tabletop to share their experiences with us.
Drider wrote: Well, I got the Castellan on the table tonight and I have to say that without a doubt I am hugely disappointed. Even with the relic plasma and the raven reroll all the 1s strat it was just so lack luster for it's points. I think it's pretty safe to say that it's going to get shelved unless it's for an apoc game or I forget how disappointing it was and try it again.
I think for the most part i am going to stick to running a Valiant and two crusaders plus something for 1750. What that 'plus something' is i'm not sure. I'm currently chewing over the viability of 3 assassins, probably a Callidus, Cullexus and Eversor. (partly because i have the first two and just need an excuse to pick up the 3rd.)
@Godeskian
You already know the counter to 3++ invuls, weight of dice and mortal wounds,
Re:Mortal wounds, It's not the answer you want to hear but if someone is putting 5 captains on a knight you're counter is explode. That being said, i don't rate Noble Sacrifice as being a viable spend on anything other than a Dominus, it's just to coinflippy on 1 dice, realistically it's a potential 3 cp spend for a null result..
The only other option worth talking about is Blessed by the Sacristans on an Avenger or on a Gallant's feet. I know it sounds stupid but realistically you're looking for the highest volume of dice, which it undeniably is, with which to generate mortal wounds.
This probably isn't even worth mention as it's a total gimmick set up and requires you to be the charging unit, but a knight with the Griffith warlord trait + Griffith relic.
The Castellan is good at killing tanks but not an awful lot else,
if you put the volcano lance into on Russ and roll average you kill it,
if you roll below average you don't kill it. If you overload cawls wrath you have to roll above average to kill it.
to get the most out of it it needs to be Raven for that house's strat. This takes 2CP a turn to fuel.
If you are against a mass of troops it is next to useless.
I found the D6 shots and 2d6 shots to be completely unreliable. If you don't have another good source of anti tank you are are kinda forced both main guns into 1 target to ensure the kill against bad luck.
If you are taking advantage of it's range you are not getting any value from the 4 melta guns.
If you are hitting invuls the high -AP value of it's main weapons is wasted.
Point for point I think the crusader is a better all rounder.
If you use bubble wrap then if the Castellan blows, it blows up in your own face due to the positioning that it wants to play to.
The Valiant is good at killing troops and I feel is the better all rounder of the two dominus knights.
it's widely acknowledged that dealing with hordes is an issue for knights, the valiant plays into this roll and helps prop up one of knight's weak spots.
Regardless of degrading, the flamer is always going to be good, another weak point reduced in severity.
negative hit modifiers, yup auto hit got that covered.
Being charged by scary CC units they have to face the most brutal overwatch in the knight codex.
My other knight is being charged, that's ok because i'm playing hawkshroud and i've kept my knights clustered to the point where a realistic charge distance is inside the valliant's flamer range and it can overwatch for it's buddy. Best Friends Forever.
The down side is that the harpoon often doesn't get it's value, but if you are actively trying to position to get harpoon value, you are also getting melta value because even if you hit invul with the harpoon, 4 melta guns stand a very good chance of getting the job done. It's a great synergy overlap,
Lastly, if you are positioning for melta/harpoon value chances are that you are also in a decent position for Noble Sacrifice value.
As far as list set ups go, you bring a valiant with conflagration cannon/traitor's pyre and 2 avengers and you've got a decent amount of horde killing that can be turned to mulch multi wound models or deal effectively with disgustingly resilient models or other such FNP.
On the other hand if you bring a castellan you are forced into tailoring the rest of your list to specifically to cover it's weak points. Even when it comes it it's anti tank ability i would rather have 2 thermal cannons backed up with 2 stormspears, if the first TC/stormspear doesn't get the job done then you have a second to put into the same target to secure the kill or turn to a different target without risking the bad luck of going after 2 things and killing neither.
But this is all just my opinion and maybe bias, Others are more than entitled to hold their own opinions and maybe it comes down to the fact sisters are my primary army and i just really really like the fact the valiant has a MASSIVE FECKING FLAMER THROWER!
Both are from knights I don't use so I totally forgot about them.
I always play Questor Mechanicus, and never field a Freeblade.
No worries! I usually use Mechanicus too, but I've recently been toying with adding an Imperialis or Freeblade to a 1,500 Custodes list so it was fresh on my mind to some extent.
RE: Valiant Vs. Castellan
I think a lot of it comes down to different worlds, right? If you're running all Knights and Armigers that heavy shooting might be more overlooked. If you're running big melee armies like Custodes, you're already swimming in Hurricane Bolters for hordes and massive assault damage. What you need are some huge, long range guns to bust hard targets.
@Godeskian
You already know the counter to 3++ invuls, weight of dice and mortal wounds,
Re:Mortal wounds, It's not the answer you want to hear but if someone is putting 5 captains on a knight you're counter is explode. That being said, i don't rate Noble Sacrifice as being a viable spend on anything other than a Dominus, it's just to coinflippy on 1 dice, realistically it's a potential 3 cp spend for a null result..
The only other option worth talking about is Blessed by the Sacristans on an Avenger or on a Gallant's feet. I know it sounds stupid but realistically you're looking for the highest volume of dice, which it undeniably is, with which to generate mortal wounds
Well, you’re not wrong about the mortal wounds. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and now that I’ve had a chance to think about it I’ve come to the unfortunate realisation that I let myself get panicked. Because I hadn’t fought his kind of hybrid build before, I let him push both the pace of the match, and the strategic initiative, meaning I spent the entire game reacting to him, rather than forcing him to react to me.
So here’s a few things I could have done differently, which could have won me the game assuming I’d not have to have conceded.
I could have interrupted his fight phase. When he charged my Crusader and didn’t kill it with the first smashfucker, I could have spent a CP and interrupted the fight phase, and stomped on two of the guys who hadn’t fought yet (or more likely, the guy with wings and one of the guys that hadn’t fought yet). Not only would this have denied him a set of attacks, and with only a little luck it would have meant that when he charged the remainder into the Valiant next turn, they’d have to eat overwatch.
If the stomps didn’t kill one or either of them, I could have further Thunderstomped whichever one survived for potentially more mortal wounds, and yes I could have used Noble Sacrifice to force yet more mortal wounds. Like you said I could have given him Blessings of the Sacristan to go along with the Armour of Sainted Ion which would have made him a much tougher nut to crack, as I probably could have levelled his shieldwalls long before they got into charge range.
For that matter, I could have deployed further back, taken Landstrider and run even further than I eventually did in order to kill the rest of is army. Sure I’d still have the Smashfuckers to deal with, but it would have forced him to split his attention between killing my dudes, and claiming the objectives that would let him win the game.
For that matter, not realising that Mephiston wasn’t his warlord, and the Aquila bearing squishy cadian was, would have helped, as I ended up baiting his CC element around one side of the board, I could have used Raven mobility to leg it round the impassable terrain in the center and decapitate his warlord, or spent for Oathbreaker Guidance System to nail him with a missile. Denying him the ability to feed of my command point usage would have been undeniably useful as he started with 8 and spent 22 by the time the game had ended. (He was regenning from his, from mine, and rolling an extra dice because of some blood angel relic, meaning that he was semi-frequently gaining CP by spending them.)
I’ll cop to the fact that I made plenty of mistakes in that game, mostly by concentrating on what had worked for me against other armies, and not fully thinking through what I needed to do in order to kill THIS army, but lessons learned for the future I suppose.
I think a lot of it comes down to different worlds, right? If you're running all Knights and Armigers that heavy shooting might be more overlooked. If you're running big melee armies like Custodes, you're already swimming in Hurricane Bolters for hordes and massive assault damage. What you need are some huge, long range guns to bust hard targets.
I think this is good analysis. The Castellan does do a job well. It is just super-specialised.
I’m not sold on either for all-round games. The Valiant is a bit more of an all-rounder, but is hampered by having to go close to the enemy. Against hordes both knights fire 3d6 shots, though the Valiant’s hit automatically and it gets one extra with the harpoon. But the Castellan has the huge advantage of a 48” range.
It’s often suggested that the Valiant has an advantage with its meltas in that it’s more likely to be in range, but that’s really not true. There’s nothing at all stopping a Castellan from going forward and melting things if it sees a bunch of IG tanks. It just doesn’t have to, because its firepower is enough to blow them all away without the meltas, from a range at which it’s much safer.
What we’ve all been finding so far is that both knights are really unreliable. Those D6s for number of shots are horrible. In the game I lost against DE I got a double 1 for number of shots from Cawl’s Wrath twice, and my Volcano lance got 2s for its number of shots over and over again - though on one occasion it still did 9 wounds to an Yvahra with a single wounding hit.
The problem is that the other end of the dice isn’t useful, so it doesn’t balance out. You can shoot a Leman russ for 30 damage, but so what? I quite often shot them for 0.
The same applies to the flamer. Sometimes you just fire 5 shots or so, and your target walks away.
I’m not sure if a Crusader is actually better, point for point. It does get more shots but not all that many more, once you remember the meltas and carapace weapons. A lot of my problems with the Castellan were caused by my lack of practice using it - not knowing when to advance and when to hang back. And it’s a very CP-hungry knight if you use the Raven stratagem.
It’s more an issue of the cost. If I bring a Castellan at 1750 then my firepower will suffer, because of what else I can afford. The list I took, with a TC crusader, Gallant and two warglaives was seriously low on anti-horde. If I replace the Castellan with a Crusader or Styrix then I can afford to turn the Gallant into a Warden. At 2k I think I’d put the Castellan back in.
Drider wrote: As far as list set ups go, you bring a valiant with conflagration cannon/traitor's pyre and 2 avengers and you've got a decent amount of horde killing that can be turned to mulch multi wound models or deal effectively with disgustingly resilient models or other such FNP.
On the other hand if you bring a castellan you are forced into tailoring the rest of your list to specifically to cover it's weak points. Even when it comes it it's anti tank ability i would rather have 2 thermal cannons backed up with 2 stormspears, if the first TC/stormspear doesn't get the job done then you have a second to put into the same target to secure the kill or turn to a different target without risking the bad luck of going after 2 things and killing neither.
But this is all just my opinion and maybe bias, Others are more than entitled to hold their own opinions and maybe it comes down to the fact sisters are my primary army and i just really really like the fact the valiant has a MASSIVE FECKING FLAMER THROWER!
Those 2 TC's and Stormspears cost somewhere around 900 points tho while the Castellan is 'only' 600.
For a full Knight army you might indeed be better off without a Castellan. Or indeed either of the Dominus Knights and just bring 4 Questoris instead. But when shooting at 'big stuff' I don't think any other knight is going to beat a Castellan in point effectiveness.
Drider wrote: As far as list set ups go, you bring a valiant with conflagration cannon/traitor's pyre and 2 avengers and you've got a decent amount of horde killing that can be turned to mulch multi wound models or deal effectively with disgustingly resilient models or other such FNP.
On the other hand if you bring a castellan you are forced into tailoring the rest of your list to specifically to cover it's weak points. Even when it comes it it's anti tank ability i would rather have 2 thermal cannons backed up with 2 stormspears, if the first TC/stormspear doesn't get the job done then you have a second to put into the same target to secure the kill or turn to a different target without risking the bad luck of going after 2 things and killing neither.
But this is all just my opinion and maybe bias, Others are more than entitled to hold their own opinions and maybe it comes down to the fact sisters are my primary army and i just really really like the fact the valiant has a MASSIVE FECKING FLAMER THROWER!
Those 2 TC's and Stormspears cost somewhere around 900 points tho while the Castellan is 'only' 600.
For a full Knight army you might indeed be better off without a Castellan. Or indeed either of the Dominus Knights and just bring 4 Questoris instead. But when shooting at 'big stuff' I don't think any other knight is going to beat a Castellan in point effectiveness.
I think that four big knights might be the best starting point. That gives you enough units to threaten a lot of the battlefield and decent durability across your army.
Dominus knights can be ok, but as they are expensive it isn’t easily possible to have one and still take 3 other Questoris knights at 1750. You can just manage a Castellan, Gallant and two Errants, or a Valiant, Gallant, Errant and Warden. I’m really not a fan of knights without guns though, as I’ve mentioned.
At 2k I think the Dominus guys become pretty viable. You could even go with a Castellan, Valiant and two Wardens. That would be a lot of fun, though perhaps not quite good enough against hordes. A more sensible approach would probably be to have one or other Dominus and 3 crusaders/wardens.
Drider wrote: As far as list set ups go, you bring a valiant with conflagration cannon/traitor's pyre and 2 avengers and you've got a decent amount of horde killing that can be turned to mulch multi wound models or deal effectively with disgustingly resilient models or other such FNP.
On the other hand if you bring a castellan you are forced into tailoring the rest of your list to specifically to cover it's weak points. Even when it comes it it's anti tank ability i would rather have 2 thermal cannons backed up with 2 stormspears, if the first TC/stormspear doesn't get the job done then you have a second to put into the same target to secure the kill or turn to a different target without risking the bad luck of going after 2 things and killing neither.
But this is all just my opinion and maybe bias, Others are more than entitled to hold their own opinions and maybe it comes down to the fact sisters are my primary army and i just really really like the fact the valiant has a MASSIVE FECKING FLAMER THROWER!
Those 2 TC's and Stormspears cost somewhere around 900 points tho while the Castellan is 'only' 600.
For a full Knight army you might indeed be better off without a Castellan. Or indeed either of the Dominus Knights and just bring 4 Questoris instead. But when shooting at 'big stuff' I don't think any other knight is going to beat a Castellan in point effectiveness.
I think that four big knights might be the best starting point. That gives you enough units to threaten a lot of the battlefield and decent durability across your army.
Dominus knights can be ok, but as they are expensive it isn’t easily possible to have one and still take 3 other Questoris knights at 1750. You can just manage a Castellan, Gallant and two Errants, or a Valiant, Gallant, Errant and Warden. I’m really not a fan of knights without guns though, as I’ve mentioned.
At 2k I think the Dominus guys become pretty viable. You could even go with a Castellan, Valiant and two Wardens. That would be a lot of fun, though perhaps not quite good enough against hordes. A more sensible approach would probably be to have one or other Dominus and 3 crusaders/wardens.
What about a Styrix instead of a Crusader?
Something like Crusader, Styrix, x2 Wardens
The rad-cleanser seems pretty decent and the guaranteed 5 shots is pretty appealing
Castellan (cawls wrath) stands back with Gaurd screening while the crusader (4++ WL trait and endless furry) supports the gallants.
I was all about the gallant but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just take a warden in their place. Getting those extra horde killing shots is super useful. And they can utilize the paragon gauntlet well since it doesn't have the -1 to hit anyway.
I've been losing sleep over which knights to buy and which parts to buy to finish up my second knight lol.
Currently thinking this might work best as an all around use at 2k.
House Raven or Taranis
Crusader - Endless/TC, Ion
Crusader - Avenger/TC, Blessed by Sacristans
Warden - Paragon
Warden - Thunderstrike
Stygies VIII or Metalica
x2 Tech Priest Enginseers
Naked Rangers
Naked Rangers
Vanguard - Caliver, Omnispex
I am pretty sure that (1) is always stronger than (2). Every tournament player is rushing out to buy and speed paint castellans. There has to be a reason. And your 1 gallant is enough to put the deathgrips out there.
I am pretty sure that (1) is always stronger than (2). Every tournament player is rushing out to buy and speed paint castellans. There has to be a reason. And your 1 gallant is enough to put the deathgrips out there.
Sure, but (1) comes to at least 1815 points. (2) is 1736. So that’s why (2) makes more sense at 1750 points. You can have 4 big knights, all with avengers on.
I think the best option with a castellan at 1750 is Castellan, two wardens and two warglaives.
I think you see a lot of people going out of their way to buy a Castellan because a Castellan naturally slots into a lot of armies, kind of like an IG batallion. A Raven castellan can be taken by itself in an auxiliary detachment and really doesn't lose anything for doing so since you take it for the strategems and warlord/relic traits. This makes it superior to say a shadowsword which does much of the same, except the shadowsword lacks the ability to reroll all it's ones, doesn't have access to a 4++/3++, a sneaky missile to one shot enemy battery characters, lacks a lot of handy strats like Noble sacrifice, machine spirit resurgent, etc. Etc.
Not to mention it doesn't require a lot of fancy play to make it work (no offense meant, I own one too). It's a natural fit for many players because you just slap it down and it will take care of the rest as long as you have half a brain and build a list that it works well with, like lots of IG infantry or fast elite cqc that covers it's weaknesses.
I picked up a Castellan and am building it for my AdMech and Guard force.
It will replace neutron onager Dunecrawlers as my primary antitank with basilisks running backup on “do the last 2 wounds the Cawls Wrath missed”. Infantry will be dealt with by way of Kastelan robots, and I prefer the 72 shots from 4 robots over the 12(~16 relic) + 2d6 shots from the Crusader.
I thought only one knight per detachment gets the freeblade bonus, even if the whole detachment is made of free blades.
If you're wanting objective secured high durability vehicles I feel you're just better with Russe's at that point, since they can get objective secured with a spearhead, still get regiment bonuses, and are still a good shooting platform that can be specialized to deal with any target, often for cheaper than the hellverins.
They're not even that much slower than a hellverins, heck they're actually faster with orders.
If you were going to go with objective secured Armigers I feel you'd want warglaives. Anything taking objectives will inevitably need to shift something off of them, which means close quarters.
If you outflank a Gallant you have to be at a distance greater than 9", so for arguments sake you are at 9.1".
To make the charge as you pointed out he has to be within an inch, 8" would get you to 1.1" meaning that the charge has failed. 9" would put you to 0.1"
It is a 9" charge because he has to start more than 9" away from the enemy (9.01"). When charging he has to end up less than 1" away. Rolling an 8 would put him just outside 1" since he had to start just outside 9".
It is the same for all units coming in from Reserve.
Don't worry about asking basic questions. We were all new players once.
Yeah the +2” charge is pretty great on an outflanking knight.
I think this is a strong reason to bring a freeblade. You can add an imperial freeblade to an admech lance, while still getting all the house benefits, stratagems and so on for your remaining knights.
The strongest argument against this is that it arguably gets you into combat later than if you just walk. You can’t set your knight up until turn 2, by which point a runnning knight (especially one with landstrider) should definitely have got there already. Indeed, if they use the full tilt stratagem, they can probably charge on turn 1.
Ideasweasel wrote: I was considering a house Terryn for the fight 2x stratagem. Turn 2 sucker punch?
Sure, but that’s a huge amount of CPs to pay. 3 to outflank and then 3 to attack twice. A normal knight with landstrider and full tilt can probably charge on turn 1 and fight a second time on turn 2 for only 2 CPs.
I do think there’s a case for bringing an imperial or freeblade knight to give you the option of this outflank. You could add a freeblade to a lance or, if you had 4 big knights, you could take an auxiliary from another house. It wouldn’t get its household tradition stuff but it could still use stratagems, relics and so on.
Castellan (cawls wrath) stands back with Gaurd screening while the crusader (4++ WL trait and endless furry) supports the gallants.
I was all about the gallant but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just take a warden in their place. Getting those extra horde killing shots is super useful. And they can utilize the paragon gauntlet well since it doesn't have the -1 to hit anyway.
I've been losing sleep over which knights to buy and which parts to buy to finish up my second knight lol.
Currently thinking this might work best as an all around use at 2k.
House Raven or Taranis
Crusader - Endless/TC, Ion
Crusader - Avenger/TC, Blessed by Sacristans
Warden - Paragon
Warden - Thunderstrike
Stygies VIII or Metalica
x2 Tech Priest Enginseers
Naked Rangers
Naked Rangers
Vanguard - Caliver, Omnispex
I don't really like the warden for me it's just a big bummer to not just make it a crusader. The gatling cannon is awesome but really brought down by the heavy flamer it must take. On the crusader at least you are getting another mega cannon when you pay that tax but on a warden you get a crappy fist you'll never use unless you give it a paragon (then that's another relic) which down the line is gonna cost you a stratagem.
I like your list with 2 wardens. Lets compare though.
Your list has (+3 Avengers +1 thermal cannon)
Mine has (Cawls wrath / volcano lance / 2 Mini battle cannons/ 2 ignore invo missles / 4 melta guns/ +3 ironstorms)
I'm not seeing a big firepower advantage there. The Gallants are certainly going to give my list >CC though.
Very similiar lists at the end of the day. I don't have the required knights to run your list though.
Is it possible for a Freeblade Knight to take the Landstrider Warlord trait? The wording says that the effect is given to friendly <household> units within 6”. If it’s a Freeblade then it would only affect itself. The question is, RAW can I do it?
Xenomancers wrote: Free-blades seems like a huge missed opportunity to me. Canis Rex being the biggest disappointment about freeblades in general.
The benifits to not outweight the negatives in most cases and you don't even get an army trait on top of it....They suck.
It all depends. I’ve made mine to get a free re-roll every turn for a missed hit / wound / charge / damage roll / or saving roll.
@That’s like having the Cunning Commander Warlord Trait every turn of the game.@
Downside being if I roll a 10 or higher at the beginning of my turn I can’t use Stratagems on the Knight and I have to charge the nearest opponent. You can always mitigate the charge one by ending closest to the enemy you want to charge (not hard to do).
Since I prefer to take just one Knight, the Freeblade works out well for me.
Castellan (cawls wrath) stands back with Gaurd screening while the crusader (4++ WL trait and endless furry) supports the gallants.
I was all about the gallant but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just take a warden in their place. Getting those extra horde killing shots is super useful. And they can utilize the paragon gauntlet well since it doesn't have the -1 to hit anyway.
I've been losing sleep over which knights to buy and which parts to buy to finish up my second knight lol.
Currently thinking this might work best as an all around use at 2k.
House Raven or Taranis
Crusader - Endless/TC, Ion
Crusader - Avenger/TC, Blessed by Sacristans
Warden - Paragon
Warden - Thunderstrike
Stygies VIII or Metalica
x2 Tech Priest Enginseers
Naked Rangers
Naked Rangers
Vanguard - Caliver, Omnispex
I don't really like the warden for me it's just a big bummer to not just make it a crusader. The gatling cannon is awesome but really brought down by the heavy flamer it must take. On the crusader at least you are getting another mega cannon when you pay that tax but on a warden you get a crappy fist you'll never use unless you give it a paragon (then that's another relic) which down the line is gonna cost you a stratagem.
I like your list with 2 wardens. Lets compare though.
Your list has (+3 Avengers +1 thermal cannon)
Mine has (Cawls wrath / volcano lance / 2 Mini battle cannons/ 2 ignore invo missles / 4 melta guns/ +3 ironstorms)
I'm not seeing a big firepower advantage there. The Gallants are certainly going to give my list >CC though.
Very similiar lists at the end of the day. I don't have the required knights to run your list though.
I agree the fist outside of Paragon isn't probably worth it. Likely would just keep a Reaper on the one without it.
The problem with all the firepower you listed is it's all random. You could roll badly and get no shots at all. Dealing with the vehicles is good but a TC can do pretty well on it's own. I've 1 shot tanks several times. On top of that you also have 50 Avenger shots which will make short work of infantry. The stomps are the most effective way to deal with infantry so there is no real CC benefit there. Now however I can shoot and charge infantry likely killing more models.
I like the castellan but I'm starting to think the Valiant or 4 Questoris knights really is the better option.
Trying to work on a list that also features Slamguinius and camo cloak scouts. Might be fun.
Canis rex is solid
+1WS
+1BS
Reroll every battle round
Reroll 1's vs large units
Chainbreaker (Meh but might save a model)
Free CC model when he dies
The relic gauntlet does on avg+1damage and with a command reroll is nuts
Doesnt count as a freeblade so the only way to get two in a detatchment
The preceptor gun is pretty solid and at 2+ BS its good
Disadvantage
on an 8 or less must move towards nearest unit(doing it anyway and shoot nearest) so only impacts you under half of the time and you can always reroll if its that bad. It can also be mitigated in the right list you can boost his ld to 10 reducing the risk significantly
+31pts
No armiger buff (I couldnt see myself running enough to make a preceptor worth it anyway)
No household or relics (As a 4th knight not such a problem)
Sure hes not broken or a good solo knight but has the final knight he certainly has a roll
My current 2k comp list
Is
Crusader
Warden
Styrix
Warglaive
+allies
And im seriously considerig canis over the warden (need more testing)
I was running this as castellan, crusader, gallant (cutting a captain). The fire power from the castellan was great, but facing hordes and MSU he really suffers. My crusaders have never failed to be good, even stomping stuff in a pinch, they are awesome. The warden seems almost useless, it just fits points wise and gives another gatling cannon. The potential is there for the warden, run him up midfield soaking fire and hopefully bring him back with the taranis strat and make him full profile next turn. It just seems so hard to get value out of the sword or fist. The list leaves over enough points to put the ignore los carapace gun on each which helps vs hordes and hiding hive guard, dark reaps etc.. What are everyone's thoughts on warden vs gallant, or just dropping a cap and squeeze in a 3rd crusader?
Ideasweasel wrote: I was considering a house Terryn for the fight 2x stratagem. Turn 2 sucker punch?
Sure, but that’s a huge amount of CPs to pay. 3 to outflank and then 3 to attack twice. A normal knight with landstrider and full tilt can probably charge on turn 1 and fight a second time on turn 2 for only 2 CPs.
I do think there’s a case for bringing an imperial or freeblade knight to give you the option of this outflank. You could add a freeblade to a lance or, if you had 4 big knights, you could take an auxiliary from another house. It wouldn’t get its household tradition stuff but it could still use stratagems, relics and so on.
You were correct. Sally Forth would have been overkill. I went with Taranis and ran him up the board. Turn 1 in an Admech versus Admech game he was my MVP. Smashed into opponents kastelans then set about deathgripping and character slaying.
I really love Gallants. If I ever build an all knight list I’m having Gallant as an Auto include
Ideasweasel wrote: I was considering a house Terryn for the fight 2x stratagem. Turn 2 sucker punch?
Sure, but that’s a huge amount of CPs to pay. 3 to outflank and then 3 to attack twice. A normal knight with landstrider and full tilt can probably charge on turn 1 and fight a second time on turn 2 for only 2 CPs.
I do think there’s a case for bringing an imperial or freeblade knight to give you the option of this outflank. You could add a freeblade to a lance or, if you had 4 big knights, you could take an auxiliary from another house. It wouldn’t get its household tradition stuff but it could still use stratagems, relics and so on.
You were correct. Sally Forth would have been overkill. I went with Taranis and ran him up the board. Turn 1 in an Admech versus Admech game he was my MVP. Smashed into opponents kastelans then set about deathgripping and character slaying.
I really love Gallants. If I ever build an all knight list I’m having Gallant as an Auto include
Great stuff. Glad if I helped.
Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.
Mandragola wrote: Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.
Really? I would have thought a Gallant would do well in that scenario. 15 attacks with its feet (18 if you take Knight Senschal) hitting on 2s and killing most horde models on a 2+. Then you have the Gauntlet handy to Deathgrip any nasty characters.
Most horde models max out at strength 4 so will only be wounding a Gallant on a 6. Take the 2+ save relic if you want and each hit from an S4 model will only have a 1-in-36 chance of wounding you.
Mandragola wrote: Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.
Really? I would have thought a Gallant would do well in that scenario. 15 attacks with its feet (18 if you take Knight Senschal) hitting on 2s and killing most horde models on a 2+. Then you have the Gauntlet handy to Deathgrip any nasty characters.
Most horde models max out at strength 4 so will only be wounding a Gallant on a 6. Take the 2+ save relic if you want and each hit from an S4 model will only have a 1-in-36 chance of wounding you.
The horde itself isn't the problem - though they are a very effective soak. You charge in and do something like 50 points worth of damage - if you're lucky. Not good. The horde probably does nothing back, or maybe a wound or two.
The problem is all the stuff behind the horde. For example, I recently faced a cultist horde that had Abaddon, Ahriman, two Tzeench daemon princes and a Slaanesh sorceror. They could spam mortal wounds at my Gallant and finish it off in melee.
To be honest, not many other knights would have done a lot better, but at least they could have done something. I think it'd have been more successful for me to hang back blasting for a turn or two, rather than feed my Gallant to the enemy for no real gain at all.
If there's a successful strategy for knights against hordes it's to focus them down. Keep the knights together and hit a unit a turn, extremely hard. That's why I'd like to have 4 avenger gatling cannons in my list at 1750.
I think the there are 3 tricks to this. Take a few smash captain with thunder hammer/stormsheild and/or some shield captains with Auric Aquilis. A single character is very unlikely to do enough damage to outright kill a knight on it's own and are going to be hard to deal with due to invul.
1: Not to charge into a position where you can be heroically intervened by multiple characters.
2: Interrupt, stomp a character into oblivion and Death Grip another.
3: Explode. If there's 4 or 5 characters meleeing your knight to death then that's a potential 4 or 5 d6 mortal wounds. You' don't have a chance to kill a shield-captain unless he was wounded before hand as he has 7 wounds, but you have a potential 1 in 3 chance to straight up kill an SM captain as they've got 5 wounds. Even if you roll average and don't kill any outright you've just done a substantial amount of mortal wounds, making them easier to deal with and might even have the psychological impact to cause your opponent to play a lot more conservatively with them.
Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!
Razzmatazz13 wrote: Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!
If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.
Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.
Razzmatazz13 wrote: Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!
If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.
Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.
Give the errant one of the thundersttikes.
Possibly buy a Gatling to make a Warden
Which one shall i drop so i can fit in the Warder?
Razzmatazz13 wrote: Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!
The answer to which Knights to build is always magnets. It will save you a TON of money when dealing with expensive kits like this. That said, Renegade is a huge cost savings, so picking up 2 boxes will give you a very solid core of a list with 4 Questoris chassis. Armigers are good as well and can easily get you to 2000 points once you add them to your 4 other Knights.
Razzmatazz13 wrote: Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!
If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.
Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.
Give the errant one of the thundersttikes.
Possibly buy a Gatling to make a Warden
Which one shall i drop so i can fit in the Warder?
Turn the Errant into a Warden and then change the RFBC on the one crusader to a TC.
Odd idea I had while messing with my list. Currently I'm painting:
Warden
Errant
2x warglaives
I was planning on adding 3 intercessor squads I have to get CP and have some bodies for holding objectives, rounding it out to 1750. But I started to wonder about doing just 3 custodes shield captains on bikes instead. This would give only 1 CP instead of 5, so a big hit there. But a single shield captain on bike is probably just as powerful as most squads, has obj secured while also being really mobile, and hard as nails to kill.
I think intercessors are actually a solid pick that's the road I have decided to go down with my 2k list.
Except I'm going Castellan, Crusader w/RFBC and Warden.
Raven Guard Intercessors should sturdy enough to move towards objectives and shoot some things and with the grenade launcher can contribute that way as well.
I think the Shield captains are strong but personally the CP is more important and the extra bodies on the board.
My clubs sister club just held a wee 1 day 3 round singles event as a test run larger future events so no ITC points were available. They invited a few of us down to fill out numbers a wee bit, so we ended up with 10 people. The format was 2.5 hours per round 1750, ITC Champions missions 1,2 and 3. and using the BCP app.
I took:
Hawkshroud
Valiant, Warlord, Traitor's Pyre, Ion Bulwark. 1 cannon, 4 missiles.
Crusader (spent 1 cp to bring endless fury every game)
Gallant (spent 1 CP for Land strider every game)
Gallant
Game 1, mission 1 vs a mix of black legion, slaanesh and thousand sons, tzeentch.
ahriman
Abaddon
3 Demon princes
4 units of cuists ( 2 units of 35, 1 unit of 19, 1 unit of 9)
2 units of tzaangors (19 in each)
Tzaangor Shaman
Got the table on turn 4 (i think) and finished 31-16 to knights
a combo of stomps, traitors pyre and endless fury were very very good. Staunch allies helped thin down some charging tzaangors going after my crusader and valiant, Got off a tactical nuke gallant explosion killing ahriman, the tzaangor shaman and knocking a few wounds off of a demon prince and 2 cultists units.
Game 2, Mission 2 Vs BA/Custodes/knights
I was really looking forward to this game due to some of the stuff that's been getting said on here concerning thesmash captains and shield captains combo.
BA 2 smash captains w/ SSTH 3 units of 5 scouts,
Custards
3 sheild captains on jet bikes
House raven
crusader w/ iron storm, RFBC, ion bulwark and armour of the sainted ion. (litterally no point in shooting this thing ever as it'll just rotate for a 3++)
2 warglaives
Game went full length
Turn 1 both gallants advanced, full tilted and managed to make a 10 inch charge into a single smash captain warlord while remaining out of range from the others, got intervened by the crusader but it didn't really do anything in melee to the gallant, Pancaked the warlord. took out 1 warglaive and took a chip out the other. then on his turn, crusader fell back, shot at the gallant along with the shield captains then charged by the shield captains, interrupted after the first shield captain fought and stomped one who hadn't fought yet to death, tried for a death grip on another and whiffed by that point i'd blown through my 7 remaining command points so no reroll. Took some big hits among all of this and hit degrading.
turn 2 fell back my in combat gallant to create space, severely degraded the remaining warglaive with shooting, brought the 2nd gallant into combat and brought the first back in as well.
did 18 wounds to the crusader. stomped another shield-captain to near death, I cant recall how that shield captain ended up dying but it did not long after that.
on his turn he fell back again, finished off the wounded gallant.
Turn 3,
finished off the armiger and crusader and wiffed throwing the crusader at the shield-captain.
He brought in his second smash captain and killed my second gallant.
turn 4 to turn 6 we were both frustrated by inability to deal with each other. He couldn't kill my remaining knights and I was having shooting issues, he had a unit of scouts hiding in ruins in the middle of the table which were untargetable for me due to the ITC FAQ ruins rules and they had been messing up my ability to shoot at the characters all game.
Game went full turns and ended with 40min left for the allotted time. Score was 24-20 to knights. Frustratingly i couldn't max out secondaries.
Game 3, Mission 3 Vs Deathguard grenade spam and alpha legion, nurgle.
DG stuff stuff
Chaos lord
Malignant plaguecaster
3 units of 5 plague marines with a P.fist and 3 plasma
biologus putrifier
foul Blightspawn
3 rhinos
alpha legion stuff
sorcerer in termie armour
2 units of havocs
obliterators
We were short edges with the pointy deployment, he deployed very back so even with an advance there was no chance of getting a charge off so i opted to close range and stay out of range of his mortal wound grenade trap and just took pot shots with the crusader, popped a rhino and killed some havocs.
He blocked with his 2 remaining rhinos, put a gallant on each and wiffed badly with one and only killed rhino. then wiffed the throw. Shot up some plague marines.he managed to chip one of the gallants to death but there wasn't enough stuff in a decent radius to get off a good value explode, id probably have done more wounds to myself than to him.
Finished off the other rhino and wiffed that throw as well.
BBQed some oblits, cleaned up most of the rest of his plague marines, a tactical nuke gallant got some good value without taking too many wounds off of my valiant and went about cleaning up.
Tabled on turn turn 5 with a harpoon into his last character.
Score. 31-15 to knights.
After scooping 3 wins I finished 1st and got a nice little trophy to take home.
Although not a hyper competitive environment it was a really good event, i love the 1 day 3 round format for being casually-competitive and it was good to get the knights on the table verses a variety of opponents. Game 1 and 2 were against people from the sister club and game 3 against a guy from my club who's played my knights before.
Some of my take aways:
I had been concerned that my list didn't have enough shooting especially vs horde, but i was pleasantly surprised in the first game.
A single gallant on it's own would not have been able to effectively deal with the smash/sheild captains as well as the crusader in the second game.
The untargetable scout unit in the center of the table was incredibly frustrating and neutered the shooting that i wanted to put into the characters, so that's something to be aware of in the future.
it's swings and roundabouts, if i had something that could deal with the scouts, i'd not have had the second gallant to deal with the captains.
I feel that the tactical nuke tactic is just as effective at dealing with massed or badly positioned characters as I've been proclaiming. both times it outright took out 2 characters, knocked some wounds off of others as well as some random stuff. it does suffer from RNG though, so a spare command point to get off the 4+ explode is almost a must to keep in the bank.
The value of landstrider on double gallent is decent. it's certainly viable without having the house terryn tradition. My use was to advance both gallant and full tilt the one that got further across the table. It helped me make a nice 10" charge to head shot a valuable character.
Oh, as an after thought, i lost both gallants every game and the most amount of damage i took was equivalent to 2.5 knights.
Thanks for an interesting report and congrats on your win. Well done on the horde in parcicular. I think the difference there might have been having no Abaddon making them all fearless. I had a nightmare against a cultist horde.
@Drider, nicely done, and thanks for the insights.
I do have a question- how often did you go first and how critical do you think that was for winning the games using Knights?
I ask because I am considering running 2 Gallants with a Warglaive in my mixed Guard / Custodes Force- it already has nearly 20 Drops. Obviously the Gallants would be on the deployment line, so will they make it if they go 2nd?
@mandrgola abandon was there. He was the second last unit to die. So yeah. I had to actually kill all 98 fearless cultists. Only a hand full of the trazagors actually died to moral. When I was building the list I was very worried that without a second crusader I wouldn't have the volume of dice required to deal with a horde like that.
@davidgr33n. I lucked out and got first turn every game. The only one that I think actually made a big difference was game 2 vs the smash/shield captain list.
@Drider - Hiw did you find the Valiant to be for the game? I don't run pure knights but I'm trying to figure out which Dominus class to run still. I think the Castellan is better for my opponents who typically bring vehicles and high T and high W models.
That with a Crusader and Warden and some DW Intercessors seems to be the path I'm headed. All being said just wanted to see how the Valiant was.
Have a guard player who always runs 4 LR and usually a few Hellhounds.
This was super helpful of a battle report, thanks for the writeup! I finished my Valiant construction last night, next is magnetizing everything, then paint. Perhaps by end of August I can join the ranks of the Knights.
Amazing. It's my favorite Knight variant. Period. It can punch and shoot. It performs splendidly every game. Thanks to ion bulwark + rotate ion shield it is also durable enough
So got back from ATC a bit ago, thought I'd share my Knight players experience with you.
Last year he took the Best Knight player at ATC, winning all 6 games, and placing 15th overall individually.
This year, he didn't repeat the achievement, mostly because of some nomenclature confusion, and agreeing to fight a list with 3 Castellans, when he thought they were Valiants. I'm sure you guys can see the problem with that call. Despite that though, he won his other 5 games, tabling his opponent each time.
His list is as follows.
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
IG Company Commander
IG Company Commander
IG Squad x10
IG Squad x10
IG Squad x10
Mortar Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Mortar Platoon
He took the Gatling cannon relic as his free relic, and always paid for the Aquila with the IG, and would mix and match others dependent on the game.
Rolled House Griffith. Only Knight player of the 40 or so guys who had Knights there who did so.
Do anyone know a good RESIN MOLD bits third party seller for knights ?
Unless shopping for very specific, small, ultra intricate and detailed parts, shapeways is just too expensive.
I mean I paid a lot for my TAU on Shapeways but the price was always justified.... however no way im paying more than 200€ per knight ON TOP of the knight kit price to get custodes style addons that are flat and with little to no detail but very expensive because of 3d printing...
Looking for any addons but especially looking for some banners/flag to put on top of the carapace.
"TaroModelmaker" on etsy is not bad but i'm still looking for more options.
djones520 wrote: Yeah Griffith, and yes it worked very well on anti-horde. For example, his last game was 240 cultists anchored by Abaddon and 3 daemon princes.
Tabled the guy in 4 turns.
This is a good point for Griffith. Realistically, I think Krast might have given him more attacks overall, but all the houses have merit.
It seems to me that beating hordes is the main challenge to knights. I’m not surprised to see that the best approach is therefore to maximise the dakka that you can send out. Those avengers and battlecannons are still great against vehicles – especially the lighter ones with invulnerable saves that Eldar tend to bring along. I imagine that all of those mortars helped too. If anything, this list was over-specced towards anti-horde – which is something you can do in a team tournament rather than when designing a TAC list.
The obvious downside is when you run up against other knights that are specced to kill you. I’m not too surprised to hear the result from meeting three Castellans – though I’m a bit surprised that someone brought them!
The difference between 1750 and 2k seems big for knights somehow. I’m not really sure why it feels like a bigger gap than for others. I think at 1750 it’s hard to design a TAC list with a dominus knight in it, but at 2k it’s perfectly possible.
djones520 wrote: Yeah Griffith, and yes it worked very well on anti-horde. For example, his last game was 240 cultists anchored by Abaddon and 3 daemon princes.
Tabled the guy in 4 turns.
This is a good point for Griffith. Realistically, I think Krast might have given him more attacks overall, but all the houses have merit.
It seems to me that beating hordes is the main challenge to knights. I’m not surprised to see that the best approach is therefore to maximise the dakka that you can send out. Those avengers and battlecannons are still great against vehicles – especially the lighter ones with invulnerable saves that Eldar tend to bring along. I imagine that all of those mortars helped too. If anything, this list was over-specced towards anti-horde – which is something you can do in a team tournament rather than when designing a TAC list.
The obvious downside is when you run up against other knights that are specced to kill you. I’m not too surprised to hear the result from meeting three Castellans – though I’m a bit surprised that someone brought them!
The difference between 1750 and 2k seems big for knights somehow. I’m not really sure why it feels like a bigger gap than for others. I think at 1750 it’s hard to design a TAC list with a dominus knight in it, but at 2k it’s perfectly possible.
a 250 point gap doesn't give you an extra Knight, it only lets you upgrade a (or multiple) knights into slightly more expensive ones.
Unlike other armies that get a unit or 2 extra.
I would like to point out he faced very few horde armies. Obviously the one that I talked about, and the Knight army as well, but he also curb stomped a Custodian Bike army, a Necron army, and a 1K sons Smite spam army as well.
We didn't steer him towards the hordes because we had other anti-horde lists. He was more TAC then anything else.
The obvious downside is when you run up against other knights that are specced to kill you. I’m not too surprised to hear the result from meeting three Castellans – though I’m a bit surprised that someone brought them!
Even against other Knights it is not bad at all. AP-2 is the sweet spot against models that have a 5++. RFBC has better damage output than a thermal cannon against models with an Invulnerable save and longer range too.
Admittedly trying to outshoot Castellans is not going to end well. You get RIS against the first Volcano Lance and then the other 2 target a different Knight. I can't imagine the Castellans doing well aginst an Abby Cultist blob though.
Yeah understood. I think my point is that to make a TAC knight army you need to make it as anti-horde as possible - because hordes are the biggest problem for knights.
After all, the avenger is the best anti-horde gun we have, but it's really a TAC gun - not a dedicated horde-killer like a punisher or hurricane bolter. It hits at S6, ap-2,.2 damage. It's a gun that you can very happily fire at Primaris marines and Custodians. Against a horde it's not really all that many shots.
If you go with more anti-tank stuff, as I did at the GT heat, you totally wreck vehicle-based opponents but struggle against people who bring numbers. And that ends up with games that aren't actually very much fun, because both players can see who's won and lost from the get go.
Agreed. That is my one problem with the Knight codex. It takes 40K's existing tendency to turn into rock-paper-scissors and dials it up to 11. An awful lot of matches will be big wins or big losses which are rarely satisfying.
Karhedron wrote: Agreed. That is my one problem with the Knight codex. It takes 40K's existing tendency to turn into rock-paper-scissors and dials it up to 11. An awful lot of matches will be big wins or big losses which are rarely satisfying.
yeah saw that hard with a friend of mine who started knights just before the codex, after the codex hit he went undefeated for quite some time until he faced a drukhari army with 9 talos with haywire and scourges with haywire
Karhedron wrote: Agreed. That is my one problem with the Knight codex. It takes 40K's existing tendency to turn into rock-paper-scissors and dials it up to 11. An awful lot of matches will be big wins or big losses which are rarely satisfying.
yeah saw that hard with a friend of mine who started knights just before the codex, after the codex hit he went undefeated for quite some time until he faced a drukhari army with 9 talos with haywire and scourges with haywire
So handling eldar stuff is why I am so all in on QUESTOR MECHANICUS. I am interested on everyone's take on this list. I am leaning towards running this at the BAO and I have a weekend RTT to try it this weekend.
MORDIAN battalion - Commander, PrimPsyk, 3x10 guards with bolter and plasma rifle
BLANGELS battalion - 2x slam captain, 3x5 scouts with storm bolter
RAVEN knights detachment - 1x Castellan, 2x Gallant
The RAVEN gallants are kind of off. RAVEN does not help gallants that much. The big alternative based on the models i have would be to run a CADIA brigade in place of the gallants to ensure I have enough CP to feed the castellan and the smash captains. Something like:
djones520 wrote: So got back from ATC a bit ago, thought I'd share my Knight players experience with you.
Last year he took the Best Knight player at ATC, winning all 6 games, and placing 15th overall individually.
This year, he didn't repeat the achievement, mostly because of some nomenclature confusion, and agreeing to fight a list with 3 Castellans, when he thought they were Valiants. I'm sure you guys can see the problem with that call. Despite that though, he won his other 5 games, tabling his opponent each time.
His list is as follows.
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
Knight Crusader with RFBC and Icarus
IG Company Commander
IG Company Commander
IG Squad x10
IG Squad x10
IG Squad x10
Mortar Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Mortar Platoon
He took the Gatling cannon relic as his free relic, and always paid for the Aquila with the IG, and would mix and match others dependent on the game.
Rolled House Griffith. Only Knight player of the 40 or so guys who had Knights there who did so.
I like the list, Crusaders are very brutal. A few questions for you. So he only ever took the cp relic for IG? Never the warlord so he could have the full cp battery combo? I assume the mortar platoons are mortar squad x3 with 3 mortars each?
More and more I look at it, it feels like poor gallants aren't just going to cut it. Castellan is the most useful knight by far, and crusaders and wardens shoot a fair deal. Gallants are way cheaper, but they can be completely blocked by cheap infantry, to do any damage they need to walk closer to be in range of smite and other psychic powers, they are useless against fliers, and they are surprisingly easy to kill in melee since it takes so many hoops to get them anything better than their marine save in melee. A single blood angel captain can almost completely wreck them in one round of fighting.
Postulent wrote: More and more I look at it, it feels like poor gallants aren't just going to cut it. Castellan is the most useful knight by far, and crusaders and wardens shoot a fair deal. Gallants are way cheaper, but they can be completely blocked by cheap infantry, to do any damage they need to walk closer to be in range of smite and other psychic powers, they are useless against fliers, and they are surprisingly easy to kill in melee since it takes so many hoops to get them anything better than their marine save in melee. A single blood angel captain can almost completely wreck them in one round of fighting.
Exactly. Gallants are too easy to block and too easy to kill. They are cool, but a trap unit. It's a trap I've fallen into myself, taking one to a tournament, and I really regretted it.
Karhedron wrote: Agreed. That is my one problem with the Knight codex. It takes 40K's existing tendency to turn into rock-paper-scissors and dials it up to 11. An awful lot of matches will be big wins or big losses which are rarely satisfying.
yeah saw that hard with a friend of mine who started knights just before the codex, after the codex hit he went undefeated for quite some time until he faced a drukhari army with 9 talos with haywire and scourges with haywire
So handling eldar stuff is why I am so all in on QUESTOR MECHANICUS. I am interested on everyone's take on this list. I am leaning towards running this at the BAO and I have a weekend RTT to try it this weekend.
MORDIAN battalion - Commander, PrimPsyk, 3x10 guards with bolter and plasma rifle
BLANGELS battalion - 2x slam captain, 3x5 scouts with storm bolter
RAVEN knights detachment - 1x Castellan, 2x Gallant
The RAVEN gallants are kind of off. RAVEN does not help gallants that much. The big alternative based on the models i have would be to run a CADIA brigade in place of the gallants to ensure I have enough CP to feed the castellan and the smash captains. Something like:
I think the Brigade list is stronger, but it plays much slower. What do you guys think? This is for super competitive ITC-BAO.
In this list I think you've got the balance wrong. Too many CPs powering not enough stuff. And Gallants eat CPs too.
I suggest dropping the guard. Upgrade your gallants to a Warden and Crusader, and get another knight of some kind. As Raven, you can still full tilt a Warden at people when that's the correct option, but you aren't locked into doing it.
I think every knight being able to fall back and then shoot and charge again is terrific and gives them all the ability to handle hordes to some extent, the key being to not let them get surrounded. The foot attacks are pretty good against most infantry., and even bikers and cavalry types.
I think the Gallant can take a carapace weapon right? That and a meltagun, at least something to lob at enemies on the way in.
From the sound of things maybe I should get some Castellan arms to magnetize for my Valiant.
How useful/essential is a psiker in the cp battery bataillon, attached to the knights?
It would seem very as mw hurts knights badly, but not seeing many list with it.
I'm building 2 lists and wondering if I should replace them.
1) lancer, crusader, warden, canis rex, house morten. IG bataillon of 3 squads, 1 commander, 1 psiker.
2)atropos, crusader, warden, deathwatch bataillon. 1 captain, 1 spyker, 3 vet squad (2 with stalker, 1 with an, all 3 with 1 stormshield).
So keep the psiker or upgrade the squads?
In both lists you wouldn't gain significantly from droping the psycher as you would need anothe HQ choice anyway.
I would keep some way of denying the nasty buffs or MW spam.
Karhedron wrote: Agreed. That is my one problem with the Knight codex. It takes 40K's existing tendency to turn into rock-paper-scissors and dials it up to 11. An awful lot of matches will be big wins or big losses which are rarely satisfying.
yeah saw that hard with a friend of mine who started knights just before the codex, after the codex hit he went undefeated for quite some time until he faced a drukhari army with 9 talos with haywire and scourges with haywire
So handling eldar stuff is why I am so all in on QUESTOR MECHANICUS. I am interested on everyone's take on this list. I am leaning towards running this at the BAO and I have a weekend RTT to try it this weekend.
MORDIAN battalion - Commander, PrimPsyk, 3x10 guards with bolter and plasma rifle
BLANGELS battalion - 2x slam captain, 3x5 scouts with storm bolter
RAVEN knights detachment - 1x Castellan, 2x Gallant
The RAVEN gallants are kind of off. RAVEN does not help gallants that much. The big alternative based on the models i have would be to run a CADIA brigade in place of the gallants to ensure I have enough CP to feed the castellan and the smash captains. Something like:
I think the Brigade list is stronger, but it plays much slower. What do you guys think? This is for super competitive ITC-BAO.
I think that second list suffer heavily against things like Custodes bikers. It looks like it lacks actual punch. A Castellan and 2 captains on their own are not enough.
Esp since the captains heavily suffer from diminished returns on stratagems.
Yeah, I am not liking all these guard brigades. Too many models. And the blood angels want so many CP. Games might not finish. Maybe something like this instead? I need just enough icarus shots to kill a flyer. And I have enough CP to play around with various WLT / Relic combos based on opponent. I am expecting YNAARI soup and guard megablob body counts. I have one castellan and 3x questoris classes on my shelf with all the magnets.
Wulfey wrote: Yeah, I am not liking all these guard brigades. Too many models. And the blood angels want so many CP. Games might not finish. Maybe something like this instead? I need just enough icarus shots to kill a flyer. And I have enough CP to play around with various WLT / Relic combos based on opponent. I am expecting YNAARI soup and guard megablob body counts. I have one castellan and 3x questoris classes on my shelf with all the magnets.
This list interests me. Who’s your warlord in the above? What traits/heirlooms are you sticking on the knights? I can guess Landstrider on one of the Gallants is probably a safe bet.
You taking Cawls Wrath and 4++ on the Castellan?
I like the potential of this list. I’ve smugly seen the damage one Gallant can do, but 3 smashing into an opponents lines is disgustingly funny to
Imagine!
*edit*
For tournaments do you have to declare what traits your knights take in advance? Or can you just rock up and use the stratagems pregame to tailor to your opponent?
Wulfey wrote: Yeah, I am not liking all these guard brigades. Too many models. And the blood angels want so many CP. Games might not finish. Maybe something like this instead? I need just enough icarus shots to kill a flyer. And I have enough CP to play around with various WLT / Relic combos based on opponent. I am expecting YNAARI soup and guard megablob body counts. I have one castellan and 3x questoris classes on my shelf with all the magnets.
This list interests me. Who’s your warlord in the above? What traits/heirlooms are you sticking on the knights? I can guess Landstrider on one of the Gallants is probably a safe bet.
You taking Cawls Wrath and 4++ on the Castellan?
I like the potential of this list. I’ve smugly seen the damage one Gallant can do, but 3 smashing into an opponents lines is disgustingly funny to Imagine!
*edit*
For tournaments do you have to declare what traits your knights take in advance? Or can you just rock up and use the stratagems pregame to tailor to your opponent?
In ITC, you must declare which model is your actual Warlord. But the actual WLT and free relic are selected at game time. And then all WLTs and Relics from stratagems necessarily must be selected after the game has started. No one can spend strategems if there isn't a game going! So my thinking would be:
Castellan - real warlord on the list, 4++/Cawl's [on list] Gallant 1 - landstrider/ 2+ armor [from strategems] Gallant 2 - either headsmans mark or the relic fist. Possibly +1 attack if I think I will get strategem denied. [from strategems]
Also, Headsman's Mark + KnightSeneschal + Krast_6+_hit strategem is beast mode! 18 stomps that deal +1/+2 damage with exploding 6s to hit and rerolling failed hits! That stomps out every TITANIC model in the game in one swing. I am pretty sure it one swings mortarian as well due to 6s getting 2 extra hits versus CHAOS.
Mortarian's 4++/5+++ should keep him alive against a Gallant's attacks - at least if he's still on full wounds at that point. Personally I think the Krast relic is much better used on a Crusader or Castellan - or maybe even a Valiant.
The nova that a Gallant generates is cool (unless it's directed at cultists) but it doesn't compare to the damage you'll do overall with a shooty knight, by firing every turn. Gallants die pretty easily so they don't get to do their hits all that often.
So I kept trying to come up with some kind of viable shooting knight list. The problem is that a crusader is 485 without a carapace weapon and a gallant is 354. In a majority knights list with a RAVEN castellan (which I regard as mandatory as I just painted mine up, see below), that means a shooty knight list has 3 shooting knights + some CP infantry. The best I could come up with is something like:
This list has 24 less knight wounds in order to get two shooting knights. The two crusaders aren't that bad in combat, and I would have effectively unlimited CP, but I don't have any true melee threats. The good thing about this list is that even when one knight dies, as long as one lives I can keep up the ORDER_OF_CHAMPIONS raven strategem going. But I feel like there are more lists that can simply ace this list by killing a knight a turn. 4 knights survive a bad first turn a lot better than 3 knights. Has anyone run a 3 shooting knight list?
Also, Headsman's Mark + KnightSeneschal + Krast_6+_hit strategem is beast mode! 18 stomps that deal +1/+2 damage with exploding 6s to hit and rerolling failed hits! That stomps out every TITANIC model in the game in one swing. I am pretty sure it one swings mortarian as well due to 6s getting 2 extra hits versus CHAOS.
Mortarian's 4++/5+++ should keep him alive against a Gallant's attacks - at least if he's still on full wounds at that point.
That attack would deal Morty an average of 12 wounds (assuming my maths is right) so I agree, it won't one-shot him. However it will be enough if he has been softened up a bit first.
Alternatively, you can use "Death Grip" to finish him off at that point.
Does anyone know how adamantium knight warlord trait works with wound modifiers? If someone uses veterans of the long war for example, do they still wound only on 4+, or do does the wound modifier override the warlord trait?
Postulent wrote: Does anyone know how adamantium knight warlord trait works with wound modifiers? If someone uses veterans of the long war for example, do they still wound only on 4+, or do does the wound modifier override the warlord trait?
I would say that the WL trait works alongside any modifers, as the modifers are a “set” figure – much like how Dark Reapers always hit on 3’s, the WL trait means you can only be wounded on a 4+.
In terms of getting +1 to wound, it would mean that any wound of a roll of a 3, would turn into a roll of a 4, and so would still wound the Knight.
Likewise, if something gave you a -1 to wound, a roll of a 4 would drop to a roll of a 3 and thus fail to wound.
So, this is the list I've been toying with. Basically 3 melee/ close range knights and a guard brigade for cps and objectives.
Possible changes are switching the paragon gauntlet to the gallant or switching his trait to blessings of the sancristants on his feet. But I like the idea of 7 2+ attacks with a +1 to hit on the charge. All them stomps.
The Lancerb isn't that awesome for the points, but he should be able to erase other knights in melee, and I put a lot of effort into that conversion.
++ Super-Heavy Detachment +3CP (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [66 PL, 1279pts] ++
+ No Force Org Slot +
Exalted Court: Exalted Court: 2 Extra Warlord Traits (-3CP)
Heirlooms of the Household: Heirlooms of the Household: 2 Extra Heirlooms (-3CP)
Household Choice: House Griffith, Questor Imperialis
+ Lord of War +
Cerastus Knight-Lancer [24 PL, 480pts]: Cerastus shock lance, Heirloom: Armour of the Sainted Ion, Warlord Trait: Landstrider
. Character: Warlord
Knight Errant [22 PL, 400pts]: Heavy stubber, Heirloom: The Paragon Gauntlet, Thermal cannon, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Ion Bulwark
. Character: Exalted Court Member
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 399pts]: Heavy stubber, Heirloom: Helm of the Nameless Warrior, Reaper chainsword, Stormspear rocket pod, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
. Character: Exalted Court Member
Wulfey wrote: So I kept trying to come up with some kind of viable shooting knight list. The problem is that a crusader is 485 without a carapace weapon and a gallant is 354. In a majority knights list with a RAVEN castellan (which I regard as mandatory as I just painted mine up, see below), that means a shooty knight list has 3 shooting knights + some CP infantry. The best I could come up with is something like:
This list has 24 less knight wounds in order to get two shooting knights. The two crusaders aren't that bad in combat, and I would have effectively unlimited CP, but I don't have any true melee threats. The good thing about this list is that even when one knight dies, as long as one lives I can keep up the ORDER_OF_CHAMPIONS raven strategem going. But I feel like there are more lists that can simply ace this list by killing a knight a turn. 4 knights survive a bad first turn a lot better than 3 knights. Has anyone run a 3 shooting knight list?
Spoiler:
If you're at 2k then it's totally possible to have a Castellan and three other knights.
Castellan with 4 missiles 593
Crusader with RFBC and Ironstorm 501
Crusader with TC and Ironstorm 473
Warden with fist and Ironstorm 432
That comes to 1999. I think adding in that Warden gives you a really useful option for dealing with characters like Abaddon with death grip. I’d always want to have a Thunderstrike gauntlet in my list, which I’d make into the Paragon Gauntlet a lot of the time – particularly for games against other knights.
I think I’d build future lists around Crusaders and Wardens. I’ve got a Castellan too, and I’ve gone to quite a bit of effort converting him to represent Cawl’s Wrath, but I can’t really fit him into lists at 1750. He’s good but the cost - dropping from 4 knights to 3 - is too high.
So what are everyones thoughts on running Cerastus Knights in a House Revan Detachment? I've been wanting to try out a list with the Atrapos (+4 invuln against shooting and +5 invuln in close combat built into the cost) and another Cerastus Knight, but I cant decide between the Castigator or Archeron. I'm leaving out the Lancer because now that the Gallent is WS +2, he just cant compete : /
MarkM wrote: I've had great results with the following:-
Castellan - Raven - 4++, Cawls Wrath - Raven strat every turn
2 x Wardens - Krast - 1 with Endless Fury
Gallant - Krast
Sprinkle in other Traits & relics as appropriate.
220pts spare which is currently a 180pt IG Farm and 2 missile pods on the Wardens.
17 CP, CP regen, 32 chaff models and 4 knights.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I think it is an improvement over the 3 gallants variation. KRAST wardens are super efficient since they get a lot of benefit from full rerolls on their 3+ stomps. Do you run the commander as a grand strategist? Or do you make the castellan your warlord to max out WLTs/Relics on the knights? If you aren't going grand strategist then a STYGIES battalion could be taken instead and could repair two wounds a turn. But overall, in terms of a 4 knight list, I think that is the best possible 4 knight list.
MarkM wrote: I've had great results with the following:-
Castellan - Raven - 4++, Cawls Wrath - Raven strat every turn
2 x Wardens - Krast - 1 with Endless Fury
Gallant - Krast
Sprinkle in other Traits & relics as appropriate.
220pts spare which is currently a 180pt IG Farm and 2 missile pods on the Wardens.
17 CP, CP regen, 32 chaff models and 4 knights.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I think it is an improvement over the 3 gallants variation. KRAST wardens are super efficient since they get a lot of benefit from full rerolls on their 3+ stomps. Do you run the commander as a grand strategist? Or do you make the castellan your warlord to max out WLTs/Relics on the knights? If you aren't going grand strategist then a STYGIES battalion could be taken instead and could repair two wounds a turn. But overall, in terms of a 4 knight list, I think that is the best possible 4 knight list.
I make the IG Commander the Warlord with Grand Strategist & Aquila. Then spend 1-3Cp on Court and ditto on relics, depending on the match up.
Can't go wrong with a Knight Castellan if you can swing 600 pts for one. Otherwise I'd look at a Crusader, Errant, or a Gallant depending on if you wanna hang back and shoot or prefer to get up close and personal.
I'd say split a Renegade box with someone, and magnetise. You can get yourself a scary knight who can have very good invulns, at much cheaper than a castallan, that doesn't munch through cp as quickly. Drop that redemptor and you're only 154pts off a Gallant...
The renegade set is great value, but it's a shame it only comes with one of the upgrade sprues. I like avenger gatling cannons on all of my knights, which means having to scrounge up more of them somehow. You also only get one fist, missile launcher and icarus cannon - though that's not such a problem.
One option would be to buy two sets of renegade and sell two of the knights, say to people who wanted Gallants.
Is the set that good of a deal? Seems too good to be true it's worth basically a little more then one knight but comes with 2 plus rules and terrain. Can I build a gallient and a castellan in that set?
Anyone tried running a proxy of Canis Rex in their games? Seems like the freeblade thing is generally worse (unless you’re already taking a bunch of other knights) than being in a house, but his access to Sally Forth, 2+ WS and BS and ability to Death Grip seem like he could be decent? I know most people have pegged him as just for casual games, but wondering whether anyone has actually tried him or has run any proper analysis on him or thought about particular uses?
ballzonya wrote: Is the set that good of a deal? Seems too good to be true it's worth basically a little more then one knight but comes with 2 plus rules and terrain. Can I build a gallient and a castellan in that set?
Not a Castellan, because that's a Dominus knight. You can build most combinations of two Questoris knights. Full weapons options you have are:
2 Thermal Cannons
2 RFBCs
1 Avenger
2 Reaper chainswords
1 Thunderstrike gauntlet
1 missile pod (built as either variety)
1 twin icarus autocannon.
It's certainly a really good value set. You get two sheets of knight transfers, plus another small one with Terryn and renegade symbols. The terrain thing is quite big. Mine didn't come with instructions for the terrain, and I've ended up using quite a bit of it to convert my Castellan's plasma gun into Cawl's Wrath.
ballzonya wrote: Is the set that good of a deal? Seems too good to be true it's worth basically a little more then one knight but comes with 2 plus rules and terrain. Can I build a gallient and a castellan in that set?
The Castellan is a different kit.
The renegade box comes with:
Two of the medium knights
2 chainswords
2 battle cannons
2 thermal cannons
1 warden sprue with:
--1 avenger gatling cannon
--1 gauntlet
--1 set of the three carapace weapons
You can buy a second warden sprue for about 40 bucks on eBay, though, which let's you build any variant, and is still only about 100 bucks per knight.
IG bataillon (spyker, commander, 3 squads, probably valhallans)
Lancer
Canis rex (3d printing the gun and decorations)
Crusader with thermal canon
Warden(not decided on sword or fist)
Not sure what trait to give lancer, or what house to go too.
Taranis with relic thermal and stratagem is a possibility but not sure.
Ps: I'm running 2 raven lists and one krast already.
Pps bought way too many renegade boxes on sale...
ballzonya wrote: Is the set that good of a deal? Seems too good to be true it's worth basically a little more then one knight but comes with 2 plus rules and terrain. Can I build a gallient and a castellan in that set?
It is a really good deal. You can definitely build a Gallant and a Crusader (not a Castellan). The limiting parts are the Avenger Gatling Cannon so you can only build 1 of a Warden or Crsuader (but not both) and the Gauntlet (so you can only build 1 Gallant).
superwill wrote: Anyone tried running a proxy of Canis Rex in their games? Seems like the freeblade thing is generally worse (unless you’re already taking a bunch of other knights) than being in a house, but his access to Sally Forth, 2+ WS and BS and ability to Death Grip seem like he could be decent? I know most people have pegged him as just for casual games, but wondering whether anyone has actually tried him or has run any proper analysis on him or thought about particular uses?
I’ve been proxying a Perceptor with a Dominatus Helm to buff my Helverins, but not Canis Rex. It might be a minority opinion, but I’m just not a fan of the Freeblade rules. As a speed gamer, I want baked in rules I can rely on, not random effects I have to remember for just that one unit. However, on paper Canis Rex looks like a beast!
Ok so now on to the explanations of how the army works. The only true set trait and relic is the bulwark and wrath for the castellan, but this will be
the most common setup during a tournament. Re-roll 1s to hit on a crusador is very strong, so that will be a common extra trait. However. I might swap that out for landstrider (+2 to your run and charge moves) on the crusader against gunline armies like tau. I don’t think i’ll every use both, since that leaves me at 3 starting CP, and I pretty much have to use full-tilt on the crusader when I use landstrider. Sainted is nice for the crusader because it helps protect aginst both low AP dakka, and high AP close combat attacks, something’s it should see a lot of. Endless fury is plug in play, especially with the Krast warlord trait. Also keep in mind the crusader is actually quite scary in close combat, as 12 re-roll hits battle cannon shots puts out a lot of hurt. You can even back out and shoot next turn (as well as charge).Just be carful what you charge with it (as its pretty fragile in CC). Hevlerins are there for utility and dark endear hunting.
Ordana wrote: 5 CP seems to low. I would drop the Armour relic to go up to 7.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. 2 CP is a steep cost, but I think you’re underestimating the usefulness of relic. It naturally increase the gallents save roll against range weapons of AP 0-AP 2 and melee attack’s of AP 0-AP 4. This is a good range of AP to be effictive against, as the gallent will often be situations which expose him to these types of attacks. He’ll often be in rapid fire range of your opponents basic guns, and he’ll
frequently be in CC where the relic is almost always useful. Additionally I plan to rotate mainly on the Crusader, as I really want to keep it alive for as long as possible. At this point all of my big knights surviblity has been buffed making it hard for my opponent to find a good target to shoot at. Even the fact that the relic has no effect on range guns with an AP 3+ can be seen as a small benifit for the following reason. Having your oppenent fire his AP +3 weapons at your distraction carifex is a good thing, even if they did it to nullify the Relic. Simple put the relic helps protects the Gallent and better allows it to draw fire from your oppenents High AP guns, worth the 2 CP in my opinion.
The AoSI relic is an absolute house. Killing a 2+ Knight, especially in melee combat, is a total pain in the ass and well worth even 2 CP.
I do wonder, though, if Landstrider on the Gallant would be stronger than First Knight on the Crusader. Landstrider is just such a clutch trait on your Gallant.
meleti wrote: The AoSI relic is an absolute house. Killing a 2+ Knight, especially in melee combat, is a total pain in the ass and well worth even 2 CP.
I do wonder, though, if Landstrider on the Gallant would be stronger than First Knight on the Crusader. Landstrider is just such a clutch trait on your Gallant.
My big problem with landstrider is that offten need the 2 CP cost full-tilt to get full value. Luckily since these are extra warlord traits I can switch them up based on matchup, so in some games I will be following your advice and use landstrider. (I could even drop sainted armor if I see a list with a lot high AP ranged weapons). That’s one reason I like this list, you sort of have a “side-board” of warlord traits and relics. Heck I might even swap the +atk warlord trait onto the Gallent in certain matchups.
The 3 Castellan idea got me tinkerin. Which List do you think is more competitive?
Super Heavy Detachment House Raven :
604 – Knight Castellan, Warlord: Ion Bulwark and Cawls Wrath
604 – Knight Castellan, Master of the Trial, Armor of the Sainted Ion
593 – Knight Castellan
604 – Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark and Cawls Wrath
515 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Twin Icarus, Armor of the Sainted Ion, Master of the Trial
501 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Ironstorm Missile Pod, Endless Fury
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
180 – 2 Company Commanders, 3 Infantry Squads (Warlord, Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquilla)
Adeptus Mechanicus Battalion:
199 – 2 x Enginseer, 3 x Rangers
1999 points - 19 CP – 7 CP (Free Relic on Castellan, 3 for Heirlooms, 3 for Exalted Court, 1 for Kurov's Aquilla)
Ebon wrote: The 3 Castellan idea got me tinkerin. Which List do you think is more competitive?
Super Heavy Detachment House Raven :
604 – Knight Castellan, Warlord: Ion Bulwark and Cawls Wrath
604 – Knight Castellan, Master of the Trial, Armor of the Sainted Ion
593 – Knight Castellan
604 – Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark and Cawls Wrath
515 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Twin Icarus, Armor of the Sainted Ion, Master of the Trial
501 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Ironstorm Missile Pod, Endless Fury
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
180 – 2 Company Commanders, 3 Infantry Squads (Warlord, Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquilla)
Adeptus Mechanicus Battalion:
199 – 2 x Enginseer, 3 x Rangers
1999 points - 19 CP – 7 CP (Free Relic on Castellan, 3 for Heirlooms, 3 for Exalted Court, 1 for Kurov's Aquilla)
The first list is interesting, but, I almost wonder if it’d be more worth running 2 Castallen and 1 Crusader, as opposed to 3 Castallen.
The 2nd list I’m not overly eager on. The Admech battalion feels pointless and I’d much rather drop the 5 CP and go in another direction with the 200 points. You also wouldn’t be able to get the 3 relics on the Knights, as you’d be limited to only having access to the stratagem for Knight relics due to your Warlord being the Commander.
The triple Castellan list was ETC no?
It works there because you can avoid Hordes, which are a horrible matchup that you will never get through.
In general tournament play your praying the entire time that you don't get paired against anything resembling a horde.
For the second list I would drop the Admech and add more Guard, stuff like Mortar teams.
Ordana wrote: The triple Castellan list was ETC no?
It works there because you can avoid Hordes, which are a horrible matchup that you will never get through.
In general tournament play your praying the entire time that you don't get paired against anything resembling a horde.
For the second list I would drop the Admech and add more Guard, stuff like Mortar teams.
This. I'd never take three Castellans. Two and a Valiant, maybe... but not really. No hope whatsoever vs hordes.
That said, if you wanted to run two Castellans then Krast is the way to go. Their relic is great on a Castellan or Crusader. Normally the second (and/or third) Castellan is pretty weak because it doesn't have Cawl's Wrath, but the Krast relic makes up for this.
Fielding more than one Castellan (and indeed, even a single one) will tend to result in quite binary games. They will murder big tanks, especially those without invulnerable saves, but lose badly to numerous enemies. I'm probably only going to run mine at games of 2k and above, so that I can still run 3 other big knights. I might try it with three wardens though.
One other point for the relic is that it turns its user into a character, a nice bonus as it allows the knight to heroically intervene.
Which leads me to a important point, remember to heroically intervene on your opponents turns! I keep hearing that knights are bad at scoring objectives, but heroic intervention helps them a lot against this. Imagine the following scenario; your Gallant has just charged a mob of 40 fearless cultist on a foward objective, he kills a good chunk, and put himself partially on top of the objective. The cowardly cultist fall back during your opponents turn, but (thinking themselves cleaver) make sure to stay within 3” of the objective. They will keep it for themselves, and avoid the Titan’s fury. Luckily, the fools forgot about heroic intervention. Being 3” or less away from of the objective means being 3” or less away from Gallant, meaning that those cultist will be taking quite a few stomps. In essence heroic inverention will punish your opponent for attempting to take your objective from under your knights, making it a valuable skill to have.
Just a quick question - if you have a super heavy detachment with three titanic knights of different houses, do you lose access to anything aside from their traditions?
Do they retain 6CP for a full lance?
Can they still access their household specific relics?
Can they still use their household specific strategems?
Can they select their household specific warlord trait?
Can mechanicus knights still use mechanicus specific stratagems?
If any/all of these are OK, there could be a lot of merit in running, say, a Raven castellan (for the strat), krast castellan (for the mark) and terryn gallant for fight twice.
DoomMouse wrote: Just a quick question - if you have a super heavy detachment with three titanic knights of different houses, do you lose access to anything aside from their traditions?
Do they retain 6CP for a full lance?
Can they still access their household specific relics?
Can they still use their household specific strategems?
Can they select their household specific warlord trait?
Can mechanicus knights still use mechanicus specific stratagems?
If any/all of these are OK, there could be a lot of merit in running, say, a Raven castellan (for the strat), krast castellan (for the mark) and terryn gallant for fight twice.
Yes to all of those.
You cannot mix Houses in a detachment as per page 106.
If your army is Battle-forged, all units in an
IMPERIAL KNIGHTS Super-heavy Detachment
(other than FREEBLADE units) must be from
the same Household,
ballzonya wrote: Rapid fire battlecannon or thermal cannon? Which one on the crusader is best?
TC all day. It's cheaper and much better vs tanks.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DoomMouse wrote: Just a quick question - if you have a super heavy detachment with three titanic knights of different houses, do you lose access to anything aside from their traditions?
Do they retain 6CP for a full lance?
Can they still access their household specific relics?
Can they still use their household specific strategems?
Can they select their household specific warlord trait?
Can mechanicus knights still use mechanicus specific stratagems?
If any/all of these are OK, there could be a lot of merit in running, say, a Raven castellan (for the strat), krast castellan (for the mark) and terryn gallant for fight twice.
You could...but the house traits are too good to pass up IMO.
superwill wrote: Anyone tried running a proxy of Canis Rex in their games? Seems like the freeblade thing is generally worse (unless you’re already taking a bunch of other knights) than being in a house, but his access to Sally Forth, 2+ WS and BS and ability to Death Grip seem like he could be decent? I know most people have pegged him as just for casual games, but wondering whether anyone has actually tried him or has run any proper analysis on him or thought about particular uses?
I’ve been proxying a Perceptor with a Dominatus Helm to buff my Helverins, but not Canis Rex. It might be a minority opinion, but I’m just not a fan of the Freeblade rules. As a speed gamer, I want baked in rules I can rely on, not random effects I have to remember for just that one unit. However, on paper Canis Rex looks like a beast!
SJ
I am with you - the free-blade rules are kinda bad. Then you consider you lose stratagem support and they are just garbage.
Canis Rex seems cool - but can't take carapace weapon...so that sucks - can't really get much out of his 2+ bs.
Ooh. That has possibilities then... I think I prefer the unique strats and relics to the household abilities. With a two-battalion IG command farm plus three big knights you could activate unique strats each turn plus have two warlord traits and relics.
I quite like the idea of a fight-again terryn gallant with landstrider, a Raven castellan with 4++ and cawls wrath and a krast crusader with the headsman's mark.
Might have to look through the stratagems of the weaker houses again to see if there are any other gems to cherry pick
I disagree on the freeblades they are not overpowered but they have merits especially on a galent errant or warglaive
1) you can control burdens a freeblade near an ld 10 inquisitor needs to role 9- with exiled in shame 10- and you can always command reroll
2) Canis rex is strong as a 4th knight which cant take relics (though not a first choice)
3) It lets one CC knight in a questor mechanicus detatchment take helm of the nameless warrior reducing the impact of haunted by failiur.
4) Sure it denies you use of a household strategem and trait but i can make a warglaive a freeblade and I probably wouldnt waste CP on it anyway. (In addition in a tarranis list its not getting as much from the household trait). The rest of the strats still target it.
5)As to speed well knight heavy list are amongst the fastest to play sure it adds complexity but your still one of the fastest lists
6) finnaly qualities legendary hero and peerless warrior are solid indominatable is if you dont have an inquisitor. Mysterious guardian is good if not a character say a warglaive. The other two are ok. I would always roll for 2 and reroll a double.
Mandragola wrote: Weirdly, you cannot take a lance with knights from different houses. They all have to be from the same house - though you are allowed freeblades.
That isn’t the case for most armies but it does apply to knights, for some reason.
Damn yes your actually right. You can't mix Houses in a detachment.
If your army is Battle-forged, all units in an
IMPERIAL KNIGHTS Super-heavy Detachment
(other than FREEBLADE units) must be from
the same Household,
ballzonya wrote: Rapid fire battlecannon or thermal cannon? Which one on the crusader is best?
Probably RFBC. Twice the RoF and twice the range. Thermal Cannon only edges out the RFBC against large targets at close range (and knights have plenty of other tools to crack large targets). As soon as you start facing anything with an invulnerable save, the AP-4 of the Thermal Cannon becomes wasted.
With Knights, you will pretty much always be outnumbered so concentration and projection of force is a big deal. Never underestimate the value of being able to reach out and bombard a target from 72" away.
I'm thinking the Crusader is money as a stand-alone Knight in an Imperial soup type list. It has less firepower than the Castellan, but it only costs 1cp to Rotate Ion Shields instead of 3, and it costs over 100 points less. It really depends on what it is supporting, and generally if you have a Castellan available, use that. But it is at least worth considering. Also, the Ironstorm Missile Pod is fun and great for blasting targets that are out of LOS, plus it is very cheap.
ballzonya wrote: Rapid fire battlecannon or thermal cannon? Which one on the crusader is best?
Probably RFBC. Twice the RoF and twice the range. Thermal Cannon only edges out the RFBC against large targets at close range (and knights have plenty of other tools to crack large targets). As soon as you start facing anything with an invulnerable save, the AP-4 of the Thermal Cannon becomes wasted.
With Knights, you will pretty much always be outnumbered so concentration and projection of force is a big deal. Never underestimate the value of being able to reach out and bombard a target from 72" away.
Ironically, that’s why I am liking the Ironstorm over the Stormspear, for the 72” no-LoS anti-Infantry. Sure, the Stormspear has great value against heavier targets, but being able to clear screens from afar is almost a must when throwing a Thunder Ball Gallant lance turn 1.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm thinking the Crusader is money as a stand-alone Knight in an Imperial soup type list. It has less firepower than the Castellan, but it only costs 1cp to Rotate Ion Shields instead of 3, and it costs over 100 points less. It really depends on what it is supporting, and generally if you have a Castellan available, use that. But it is at least worth considering. Also, the Ironstorm Missile Pod is fun and great for blasting targets that are out of LOS, plus it is very cheap.
I figure it would depend on the list. Some lists need that firepower only a castellan brings, while others would need a bit more of an all-rounder, which the crusader does better.
For example as IG and admech the kind of lists I run tend to have lots of infantry and tons of low-mid strength firepower Suh as lasguns, plasma, radcarbines, plasma callivers, etc. For me the Castellan is a natural choice because it fills a gap I need covered. If I was running something with way more high damage firepower, like neutron onagers, I'd be more tempted to take a crusader as my all rounder then specialize from there.
Well, in the event i'm going to this weekend, i'm running 1 Crusader with TC and Ironstorm, and 1 with RFBC and Icarus (would have been another Ironstorm, but, you don't get enough bits in a Renegade box to make more than 1 missile launcher :( :( and didn't have the spare points anyway for a Stormspear)
Was tempted to run them both with TC, but, i think the extra rate of fire at times will come in handy when dealing with larger squads.
A Crusader with TC and ironstorm pod is a great all-rounder. Honestly so is one with a RFBC. Ultimately I think they are both worth what they cost, and either is good. I think the RFBC is significantly better in a meta full of hordes and invulnerable saves, but it also costs quite a lot more. The extra stubber it comes with is sort of relevant against hordes too, though it’s unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing.
Basically, the extra 28 points you pay for a RFBC and stubber is worth it, but it’s a big enough amount of points that you might be able to buy something else useful with it instead. If you want dakka there might be a way to get more of it somewhere else.
I'm not a massive fan of the twin icarus but it's ok. If you're up against Custodes bikers it might even be worth going for the relic one, as it's almost as good against them as an avenger gatling cannon, averaging 3.33 wounds instead of 4 (so probably killing one guy). It's great against DE too, so probably worth having in your list.
A Crusader with TC and ironstorm pod is a great all-rounder. Honestly so is one with a RFBC. Ultimately I think they are both worth what they cost, and either is good. I think the RFBC is significantly better in a meta full of hordes and invulnerable saves, but it also costs quite a lot more. The extra stubber it comes with is sort of relevant against hordes too, though it’s unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing.
Basically, the extra 28 points you pay for a RFBC and stubber is worth it, but it’s a big enough amount of points that you might be able to buy something else useful with it instead. If you want dakka there might be a way to get more of it somewhere else.
I'm not a massive fan of the twin icarus but it's ok. If you're up against Custodes bikers it might even be worth going for the relic one, as it's almost as good against them as an avenger gatling cannon, averaging 3.33 wounds instead of 4 (so probably killing one guy). It's great against DE too, so probably worth having in your list.
Thanks!
The Icarus is one of those things where I didn’t have the bitz for another pod, and had some spare points that I didn’t want to throw into another squad of Guardsmen (though, Guardsmen would probably have been the better choice).
Weapons that get a +1 to hit vs fly are, imo, really good right now due to the over abundance of units with the fly keyword, but, only having 1 isn’t really that impactful. Won’t be using the relic version, as I took the choice of declaring my WL, trait and relic on my list, and the Icarus is on my WL with relic. (I could likely change it game to game, but it’d throw up issues when comparing to my submitted list and I don’t see it being that impactful anyway).
Something that definitely needs to be rectified going forward though. Will likely be – if I don’t take Ironstorm pods, I won’t take anything. But, we’ll see how things go.
A Crusader with TC and ironstorm pod is a great all-rounder. Honestly so is one with a RFBC. Ultimately I think they are both worth what they cost, and either is good. I think the RFBC is significantly better in a meta full of hordes and invulnerable saves, but it also costs quite a lot more. The extra stubber it comes with is sort of relevant against hordes too, though it’s unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing.
Basically, the extra 28 points you pay for a RFBC and stubber is worth it, but it’s a big enough amount of points that you might be able to buy something else useful with it instead. If you want dakka there might be a way to get more of it somewhere else.
I'm not a massive fan of the twin icarus but it's ok. If you're up against Custodes bikers it might even be worth going for the relic one, as it's almost as good against them as an avenger gatling cannon, averaging 3.33 wounds instead of 4 (so probably killing one guy). It's great against DE too, so probably worth having in your list.
Thanks!
The Icarus is one of those things where I didn’t have the bitz for another pod, and had some spare points that I didn’t want to throw into another squad of Guardsmen (though, Guardsmen would probably have been the better choice).
Weapons that get a +1 to hit vs fly are, imo, really good right now due to the over abundance of units with the fly keyword, but, only having 1 isn’t really that impactful. Won’t be using the relic version, as I took the choice of declaring my WL, trait and relic on my list, and the Icarus is on my WL with relic. (I could likely change it game to game, but it’d throw up issues when comparing to my submitted list and I don’t see it being that impactful anyway).
Something that definitely needs to be rectified going forward though. Will likely be – if I don’t take Ironstorm pods, I won’t take anything. But, we’ll see how things go.
I think that's fine. The relic icarus gun is far from essential. I've never used icarus guns - let alone a relic one - but I thought I'd run the numbers. I've sometimes drawn up lists where icarus cannons would be a good option, though my two sets are still on their sprues.
I glued on the front of a stormspear pod to one of my carapace launchers and now can't get it off! Annoying, as now I can only have one ironstorm.
The Icarus Autocannon mount makes a wonderful conversation point for an “Ironstorm” auto-mortar. I like to use a SM Missile Launcher with an ammo case on the mount, seems more “correct” than a direct-fire missile pod.
Yeah making your own weapons is totally appropriate, and I agree that the standard one doesn't look quite right, as it isn't elevated. Rather than trash an icarus though I'd probably make something else from scratch and just stick it on with a bit of brass rod through the hole in the knight's carapace.
There are quite a lot of nice options for missile launchers out there, which can easily be attached. I've used an ancient forgeworld whirlwind turret, which is about the right size. The missile launcher off a deredeo dreadnought would also be a good option, though it's not so easy to attach. The whirlwind Scorpius could be another option - just build it as a rhino and keep the turret. You could of course do the same with a GW whirlwind.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm thinking the Crusader is money as a stand-alone Knight in an Imperial soup type list. It has less firepower than the Castellan, but it only costs 1cp to Rotate Ion Shields instead of 3, and it costs over 100 points less. It really depends on what it is supporting, and generally if you have a Castellan available, use that. But it is at least worth considering. Also, the Ironstorm Missile Pod is fun and great for blasting targets that are out of LOS, plus it is very cheap.
Yes, the Crusader is a very decent fire-support Knight. It has less tank-busting power than the Castellan but more shots which means it can clear hordes quite well too (especially the RFBC version).
If you want a compromise, take the Krast Relic as your weapons do +1 damage against targets with 10+ wounds or +2 against Titanic targets. If you are facing an opposing Knight, your AGC now dishes out 4 damage per shot. Definitely food for thought.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm thinking the Crusader is money as a stand-alone Knight in an Imperial soup type list. It has less firepower than the Castellan, but it only costs 1cp to Rotate Ion Shields instead of 3, and it costs over 100 points less. It really depends on what it is supporting, and generally if you have a Castellan available, use that. But it is at least worth considering. Also, the Ironstorm Missile Pod is fun and great for blasting targets that are out of LOS, plus it is very cheap.
Yes, the Crusader is a very decent fire-support Knight. It has less tank-busting power than the Castellan but more shots which means it can clear hordes quite well too (especially the RFBC version).
If you want a compromise, take the Krast Relic as your weapons do +1 damage against targets with 10+ wounds or +2 against Titanic targets. If you are facing an opposing Knight, your AGC now dishes out 4 damage per shot. Definitely food for thought.
Honestly I hadn't considered the Krast relic. Thanks! I was only thinking of Raven and Endless Fury, but I might need something to be able to fight other Knights effectively. Hordes are my main concern in my list as it stands, though.
First off, my views will be coming from more of a competitive pov, rather than “will this give them a close fight” pov.
I’d question taking Hawkshroud vs Chaos, Orks and DA, unless you know 100% that the DA and Chaos are just going to spam lascannons.
It pains me, but I also have to ask about the Chimeras. I really want to start using them when I take guard, but, I just don’t see what they add for you in the army. It’s difficult to say, but, if they are for objective dashing later on, then, you may as well just swap them out for another 5 units of basic Guardsmen with 18 points spare. It also gives you a bit more screening etc.
As it stands though, I think the list will do very well vs most DA lists (if you can kill the Dark Shroud) and it’ll be matchup dependant vs Chaos. As for Orks, I’m not sure it’d be able to deal with a Green Tide style list at all, as you’re relying on deep striking scions (which will instantly die the turn after), 12 shots from the Warden and then 2d6 from the RFBC. The Helverins can help out turn 1 and maybe turn 2, but, I’d expect Orks to quickly lock them in combat.
The transports are there to carry the scions and provide anti infantry. I played around with tauroxs with The Gatlings good but it’s just too many point. Also looked at valkyries but again too expensive. Not cuttIng anything from the knights and I didn’t t want to have to field a billion little models but I need anti infantry fire. Thought about sisters and immolation but that’s real world money. Going today to pick up more models I’ve got 15x scions, three full guard squads (again for model count purposes I don’t like fielding). So it’s basicall down to getting one Valkyrie and going to a vanguard guard detachment, tauroxes and vanguard or battalion and chimera
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I’ll end up buy either:
2x taurox
1 Valkyrie
1 demolisher (punisher tank commander)
2x chimera
Why are you transporting scions?
Your deepstriking them.
If your not deepstriking them, why are you playing Scions.
Also, get rid of all those hot shot las pistols. range is useless, get bolt pistols for the same cost.
Remove a Chimera. upgrade the paladin to a Crusader.
Remove the other Chimera for 9 mortars.
Ordana wrote: Why are you transporting scions?
Your deepstriking them.
If your not deepstriking them, why are you playing Scions.
Also, get rid of all those hot shot las pistols. range is useless, get bolt pistols for the same cost.
Remove a Chimera. upgrade the paladin to a Crusader.
Remove the other Chimera for 9 mortars.
If you want to go full competitive, I would second this as a credited response.
The first list is interesting, but, I almost wonder if it’d be more worth running 2 Castallen and 1 Crusader, as opposed to 3 Castallen.
What about something like this?
Super Heavy Detachment House Raven :
604 – Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark and Cawl's Wrath
515 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Twin Icarus, Armor of the Sainted Ion, Master of the Trial
501 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Ironstorm Missile Pod (Rotate Ion Shield for 1 CP)
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
195 – 2 Company Commanders, 3 Infantry Squads w/ Mortars
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
185 – Company Commander (Warlord, Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquilla), Lord Commissar, 3 Infantry Squads
2000 points - 19 CP – 6 CP (3 for Heirlooms, 3 for Exalted Court, refunded on a 5+)
That'd be a tough list. I'm looking at running some thing similar but only 1 crusader, gallant, and the 2nd AM battalion is scions for the option of deepstriking. I think that will help give the list some flexibility
The first list is interesting, but, I almost wonder if it’d be more worth running 2 Castallen and 1 Crusader, as opposed to 3 Castallen.
What about something like this?
Super Heavy Detachment House Raven :
604 – Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark and Cawl's Wrath
515 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Twin Icarus, Armor of the Sainted Ion, Master of the Trial
501 – Knight Crusader, RFBC and Ironstorm Missile Pod (Rotate Ion Shield for 1 CP)
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
195 – 2 Company Commanders, 3 Infantry Squads w/ Mortars
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
185 – Company Commander (Warlord, Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquilla), Lord Commissar, 3 Infantry Squads
2000 points - 19 CP – 6 CP (3 for Heirlooms, 3 for Exalted Court, refunded on a 5+)
You cannot refund pre game stratagems. Please read up on the faq's.
Ordana wrote: You cannot refund pre game stratagems. Please read up on the faq's.
Gotcha, I see that now.
Also updated the list by dropping the missile pod, and adding 3 Mortars and a Bolter to my Warlord.
Super Heavy Detachment House Raven:
604 – Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark and Cawl's Wrath
515 – Knight Crusader, RFBC, Twin Icarus, Master of the Trial and Armor of the Sainted Ion
485 – Knight Crusader, RFBC (Rotate Ion Shield for 1 CP each turn)
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
196 – Company Commander (Warlord: Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquilla and Bolter), Company Commander, 3 Infantry Squads w/ Mortars
Astra Millitarum Battalion:
200 – Company Commander, Lord Commissar, 3 Infantry Squads w/ Mortars
2000 points – 19 CP – 6 CP (3 for Heirlooms, 3 for Exalted Court)
I ran something very similar to this last week at an IRC RTT and went 2-1. I tabled two opponents and lost a nailbiter game by one move versus VECT/ALAITOC/Hemlock soup. Just posting this before the BAO. I will provide updates.
This list spends down to 10CP at the start of the game and has full GS + Vitae CP farm. 4++, Cawl's, and Landstrider are my choices for my knights. Gallants must full tilt every game. I always roll to explode my knights. Smash captains do what smash captain do. I have a few bad matchups: eldar flyer spam (but I have smashcap), and chaos 4++ horror spam. But I will think I can compete with the list i Have. I have a good amount of troops and the gallants gonna do what they do. Plan is everything blows up but I have some troops on objectives at the end of the game.
Looks very strong. I would spend an additional CP to give the Warden Endless Fury at you have something like 19CPs in that list. Will you fit it all into 2000 points though?
IG clocks in around 200 points. BAs around 425 while the Knights come in around 1300 (depending on carapace options). I guess you could well be OK.
Ideasweasel wrote: BAO - knights did ok ish. 2 in the top 4 if I read that right on BCP?
Will await our very own daka reporter in the field wulfey with a story of what went down.
That's an understatement! The non-championship table in round 6 featured two "pure" knight lists. They both had a minimal guard batallion if I remember correctly but were 1800ish points knights. One of those lists therefore made it through the entire tournament undefeated.
The winner of BAO hadroughly 1200 points of death guard and 800 points of knights. (I think it was a double AGC crusader w/ Ironstorm & 2x Helverins)
I'd argue that knights were the single strongest faction there. That'll change when the meta adapts with them, I imagine psychic spam and invulns could be a solution but IK (and their renegade counterpart) did amazing at BAO
I barely won versus a total time sink 150 tyranid list. I barely lost versus my 4 knight teammate who ended up getting second place [ I went second and he had my list but a crusader instead of my BLANGELS, my knight suicide plan killed my critical objective holding scouts and swung a tight game ]. I got wasted by a 3 riptide 3 fusion commander 20 shield drone list that got first turn on the close deployment. I demolished a 35 drop guard infantry list. I won going second against a 4 ionHead/longstrike, 2x riptide, 4x markerlight, 1x missilecommander list [this was overall the best game, it was hard fought and was all over the board. My castellan drew audible laughs from onlookers when he full whiffed on a volley and killed like 2 shield drones total]. I hard tabled a chaos soup list when I got first turn and my castellan aced magnus in 1 round of fire.
Ended 29 of 130.
SUMMARY: my list was flatly suboptimal. The raven gallants were still gallants and when they made combat they always kicked hard ass, but they just aren't TERRYN or KRAST. The castellan, when he got his shots off with no -1 modifiers (BEWARE 18" from TAU commanders), he demolished whatever he felt like killing. But when he sucked, then I was stuck with two suboptimal gallants and mr whiffer the castellan.
This went 5-1 and only lost on time to my teammate who had 150 chaos models (this is just rude and lame, I know he is a teammate but srsly people stop bringing more than 100 models).
Assuming castellans are not nerfed, I think the future of castellan lists are either in hard knight lists like my teammate jons (castellan, crusader, gallant, gallant, cadia-battalion, and going first in his 5 hard games), or in some kind of double castellan + guard brigade shenanigans. Something like: guard-brigade, raven-castellan, mortan-castellan, both castellans with WLTs/Relics
How did he enjoy the 3 Terryn Gallants? I've been considering Lancer and 2x Gallant rather than Lancer, Gallant, 3x Warglaives, but I rarely see others using Terryn.
Cephalobeard wrote: How did he enjoy the 3 Terryn Gallants? I've been considering Lancer and 2x Gallant rather than Lancer, Gallant, 3x Warglaives, but I rarely see others using Terryn.
He swore by it. He gave it the acronym CPEA and demanded that if I used the list I had to use the acronym too. You only get the acronym in PM. The idea is, that if your opponent aces a gallant before your first turn, terryn gallants fight like two gallants when you give them CP. And they can die swinging if they don't explode. And they can make 32" first turn charges. So two surviving gallants consistently outfight other types of gallants. And if you get first turn, TERRYN is 100% inside of your opponents lines every turn. And the death company provide a 6th threat to double swing, whereas my list only ever had 5 threats and only my captains could double swing.
Cephalobeard wrote: How did he enjoy the 3 Terryn Gallants? I've been considering Lancer and 2x Gallant rather than Lancer, Gallant, 3x Warglaives, but I rarely see others using Terryn.
He swore by it. He gave it the acronym CPEA and demanded that if I used the list I had to use the acronym too. You only get the acronym in PM. The idea is, that if your opponent aces a gallant before your first turn, terryn gallants fight like two gallants when you give them CP. And they can die swinging if they don't explode. And they can make 32" first turn charges. So two surviving gallants consistently outfight other types of gallants. And if you get first turn, TERRYN is 100% inside of your opponents lines every turn. And the death company provide a 6th threat to double swing, whereas my list only ever had 5 threats and only my captains could double swing.
Congrats to your teammates, hope you guys had fun.
So if you had to do it all again, what would you change?
OK, so, it's a bit late, but here's my write up of how my list did at the NWO last weekend.
My list was a slight curve ball and did reasonably ok when i wanted it to. It was -
Super Heavy Detachment (Mortan) -
1 Crusader with RFBC and Icarus - Warlord - Mortan WL trait. Banner of Macharius Triumphant relic.
1 Crusader with Thermal Cannon and Ironstorm pod - Ion Bulwark WL trait. Endless Fury relic.
1 Gallant with Ironstorm pod - Landstrider WL trait. Armour of the Sainted Ion relic.
1 2x Helverin with Stubbers
Battalion (Vostroyan) -
1 Company Commander with Bolter - Aquila relic.
1 Lord Commissar with pistol and power sword
2 Infantry squads - sergeant with bolter and chainsword
1 29x Conscript squad
1 Astropath
Ok, so the event didn't need WL, trait or relic picking pre event, but i did so anyway, and stuck to it matching my list - which i think worked out as a mistake in the end. Started each game with 7 out of 14 starting CP.
I picked Mortan for the stratagem and WL trait, expecting to come up against a lot of Aeldari/Drukari. Vostroyan for the extra 6" range and the order to fire while stuck in combat. The stratagem is also pretty nice as well.
Game plan was essentially to have the Conscripts at least running around with Ld 10 thanks to the Relic Banner buffing the Lord Commissar up to Ld 10. Needless to say, this worked maybe once in 5 games and was a complete waste of a relic slot. The obsec did help massively in one game though.
It is also worth noting that i used chess clocks in my game 1 and 2. After that i realised it wasn't really necessary as we were finishing games easily within the 3 hour time slot - even when going to turn 5 on both games. (i think both me and Mike ended up with over 30 minutes left on the clock game 2 as well)
Game 1 - ITC Champions mission 3.
I played vs Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle.
Celestine
1 Seraphim unit
2 Dominions with stormbolters
1 Rhino
1 Knight Errant
It was a great game, but, heavily in my favour. Unfortunately the GKs couldn't do much, even though they won the roll to go first, and when they finally got a couple of units into combat with my Gallant it was without Hammerhand buffs and i just wrecked him when attacking back. My conscripts survived Celestine for a couple of turns (i tried the Vostroyan order and stratagem combo here and it did absolutely nothing, even with 24 rapid firing lasguns - i think i gave up on the combat after this). I also got super lucky in that his Errant only did a couple of wounds turn 1, while my Thermal cannon Crusader did significantly more in return. The hardest thing here was killing Celestine. However, thanks to the Helverins massive range i was able to kill her twice within a full turn (combat his turn, shooting mine). I ended up tabling him on turn 5. Won the game 38-12.
Game 2 - ITC Champions mission 2.
So, i played Mike Porter. LGT best General winner and his Imperium Soup list.
Spoiler:
Guard Brigade - Catachan
Straken
1 Commander - WL full cp farm
3 Prim Pyskers
6 Infantry squads
3 Hellhounds
1 Priest
2 Plat Commanders
3 Mortar teams
BA battalion
3 Smash Captains - 1 with cp farm, 1 with Angels wings
3 Scouts
Custodes Supreme command
3 Bike Captains - 2 with 3++
So, first off, it was an ABSOLUTELY terrible table for me. Every piece of terrain on the table with a "ruined" 2 level building with 4 complete walls on each piece. Essentially my Knights could not shoot or charge anything on the table while they were inside the buildings. I gave him first turn, hoping to try and draw him out towards me and risk a full on turn 1 all in, but, he played it safe. Essentially for turns 1-2 he didn't kill anything but was able to start building up objective and recon points, while i was able to fire my 2 Ironstorm pods into his mortar teams. Turn 3 i had to open up and bait my Gallant in order to start picking up more points. My biggest issue here is that i completely forgot about the fight again/fight after dying stratagems on BOTH the Custodes and BA. While i was able to kill 2 of the 3 Smash Captains and all 3 Shield Captains in combat and shooting in turns 3-5, the simple fact of him fighting twice killed me. 1 Crusader managed to take on all 3 Shield Captains and win over the course of 2-3 turns. I also made the mistake of going for the Reaper secondary. I only picked up 1 point on this, after it took a Helverin 2 turns to kill 1 squad (the other died in a charge of 30 infantry models backed up by the priest and straken lol). In the end i was tabled by the end of turn 5. I lost 31-17 (It's also worth noted that i finished the game with 8CP even though i was burning through them thanks to him starting with 21 cplol)
Game 3 - ITC Champions mission 5.
Up against my first Aeldari soup list
Spoiler:
1 archon
2 Scourge with haywire
3 dis Ravagers
2 Archon - blasters
2 Kabalites x10 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
3 Raiders with Dark Lances
Ok, so i didn't get first turn again. I had a bit of luck, in that he left my Thermal Cannon Crusader alive on 1-3 wounds after everything had shot. However, my first turn saw me fail to get my Conscripts and Commander onto the central objective, so i didn't start picking up the bonus points early. I killed a couple of Raiders but also made a massive mistake when i forgot the flyers were Alaitoc Crimson Hunters instead of Razorwings (they were painted in a DE colour scheme, but no excuse as i had his list in front of me ) As a result i didn't kill enough turn 1.
Turn 2 saw him kill my Gallant and the 1 wound Crusader. My WL and, to an extent, the Helverins however kept me in the game. Using the Mortan stratagem my WL was able to take out both Crimson hunters in a turn, while the Helverins picked off wounds on the Scourges and Ravagers. By the end of the game i only had my Lord Commissar and WL Crusader left alive.
My biggest mistake this game was picking Headhunter as a secondary. I didn't get a single point in it as i didn't have the ability to target the characters, let alone has the spare fire power to actually target them if i could. Likewise, by failing some movement distances turn 1, i also missed out on some key recon and bonus points.
In the end i lost 30-24 in a game that naturally ended after turn 6.
Game 4 - ITC Champions mission 1
Pure Durkari this time!
Spoiler:
2 Archon - blast pistols
2 Kablites x5 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
2 Incubii x5
2 Raiders with Dark Lance and grenade launcher
Urien
1 Haemonculus
3 wracks x5 with hex rifle and ossefactor
1 unit of Talos
1 Cronos
Leith
2 Reavers x6 with grav talon and heat lances
1 Hellions x9
Ok, so a completely different DE list. I didn't get 1st turn again, however, this lead to me getting a 1st turn charge off with the Gallant without needing to use Full Tilt. Not much to say on this game other than my dice were extremely good, and his wounding rolls were unfortunately shocking. In the end i tabled him without losing a Knight in turn 5. A great guy to play against, but, not really an enjoyable game to play simply due to dice. I won 36-14.
Game 5 - ITC Champions mission 4.
My first, and only Knight v Knight game
Spoiler:
1 Castellan with 4 missiles
1 Crusader with RFBC
1 Gallant
3 BA Smash captains
2 Company Commanders
3 Infantry squad
So. he was running Krast. I wasn't.
Again, i gave up 1st turn this game as we were playing Spearhead? deployment - Pointy hammer and anvil. It was a big mistake but wouldn't have changed the game. I was out of range with everything, his Castellan wasn't. After 2 turns of brutal firing, 2 of my Knights were on 7 and 4 wounds each, and after creating some gaps to bait in the smash captains, my WL was hurting as well. However, my WL was able to pick up kills on 2 smash captains before going down. best moment of the game was having a Gallant v Gallant fight as we both knew who was going to win by this point. Even with 7 wounds remaining, my Gallant was about to do 24 damage in the first turn of combat alone thanks to Mortan's +1 WS. Needless to say, the Gallant exploded and put me down to 3 wounds, so it died pretty quickly after! Even though i was outclassed in terms of damage output, he played it smart for mission points so it ended with a loss of 30-20. As you can imagine, all 6 turns took less than 1 hour.
One thing that is important to note, is that the NWO and LCO events don't use the ITC 1000 points for a win scoring. Instead, each win is worth 40 points, and a draw 20. This, as you can imagine, keeps things pretty close in the standings.
So, all in all, with 2 wins and 3 losses i finished 30th out of 64 - finishing ahead of some people that won more games than me.
It was a great event, run incredibly well with lots of great people, armies and the tables were fantastic. (bar the 1 pure city table that screwed me over hahahaha!!!) I think there was only 1 army there that was a easy to spot "rushed job".
Take aways for my Knights.
The banner relic didn't do what i wanted except in 1 game. Not worth it, but i am glad to tested it in an event.
Mortan is good, especially vs Aeldari and armies that was to get in your face (smash captains and shield captains). I didn't really get much success out of Death Grip, cos the first time i used it i rolled a 1 on the first roll off and he rolled a 6...so... I didn't really need it at all in the other games.
Vostroyan, nice, but i didn't need the range except once where the 15" rapid fire helped, the order wasn't really worth it, and the stratagem never really got used as i didn't feel the need to merge the 2 infantry squads or didn't have a good enough target that the conscripts needed the buff for. Probably best to just run Valhallan next time.
Helverins. Ok, so, i don't think i'll be running them again. They did ok in some games, but then were incredibly poor in others. In the end i was using them more for their 14" movement to get up the table and score points than i was for their firepower - and if i'm going to do that i might as well just run Warglaives or spend a small amount of extra points on a 2nd Gallant. They are great for shooting things like Ravagers, but, beyond that i felt they were struggling to make back their points cost vs the other armies i fought.
Landstrider. I didn't feel like i needed this either. I took it as a "just in case", but without going first in any of my games it didn't really come into play. I'd have had a lot more use from the +1 attack WL trait, as when the Gallant got into combat nothing really survived.
Next steps is probably dropping both Helverins and just adding in 2 Smash Captains and scouts. It REALLY pains me to say or think that, but, the different between the 2 sets of units is massive.
That said, i'm not sure i'll take Knight again to my next event - or if i do, it'd probably be on a smaller scale of 1 Gallant and 2 Warglaives. They have the ability to do really well, but i feel like it depends on so many other things that are outside of your control.
Highest place list with a Knight detachment came 2nd. It included a Raven Castellan, Warden and Gallant, alongside a Shadowsword and a guard battalion.
I think there was only 1 pure Knight list at the event and it finished 28th.
All in all a good event, and i'm looking forward to the LCO in January. The NWO was a 70 person event (though people dropped out as the Squid Badgers' secret weapon is challenging people to keep up with their drinking games and a lot of people... suffer. lol! ) but the LCO will be either a 120 or 150 person event held in a convention centre in Southport. So, if you're looking for some practice prior to heading over to Vegas a couple of weeks after, then i fully recommend trying out the event!
Kdash wrote: OK, so, it's a bit late, but here's my write up of how my list did at the NWO last weekend.
My list was a slight curve ball and did reasonably ok when i wanted it to. It was -
Super Heavy Detachment (Mortan) -
1 Crusader with RFBC and Icarus - Warlord - Mortan WL trait. Banner of Macharius Triumphant relic.
1 Crusader with Thermal Cannon and Ironstorm pod - Ion Bulwark WL trait. Endless Fury relic.
1 Gallant with Ironstorm pod - Landstrider WL trait. Armour of the Sainted Ion relic.
1 2x Helverin with Stubbers
Battalion (Vostroyan) -
1 Company Commander with Bolter - Aquila relic.
1 Lord Commissar with pistol and power sword
2 Infantry squads - sergeant with bolter and chainsword
1 29x Conscript squad
1 Astropath
Ok, so the event didn't need WL, trait or relic picking pre event, but i did so anyway, and stuck to it matching my list - which i think worked out as a mistake in the end. Started each game with 7 out of 14 starting CP.
I picked Mortan for the stratagem and WL trait, expecting to come up against a lot of Aeldari/Drukari. Vostroyan for the extra 6" range and the order to fire while stuck in combat. The stratagem is also pretty nice as well.
Game plan was essentially to have the Conscripts at least running around with Ld 10 thanks to the Relic Banner buffing the Lord Commissar up to Ld 10. Needless to say, this worked maybe once in 5 games and was a complete waste of a relic slot. The obsec did help massively in one game though.
It is also worth noting that i used chess clocks in my game 1 and 2. After that i realised it wasn't really necessary as we were finishing games easily within the 3 hour time slot - even when going to turn 5 on both games. (i think both me and Mike ended up with over 30 minutes left on the clock game 2 as well)
Game 1 - ITC Champions mission 3.
I played vs Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle.
Celestine
1 Seraphim unit
2 Dominions with stormbolters
1 Rhino
1 Knight Errant
It was a great game, but, heavily in my favour. Unfortunately the GKs couldn't do much, even though they won the roll to go first, and when they finally got a couple of units into combat with my Gallant it was without Hammerhand buffs and i just wrecked him when attacking back. My conscripts survived Celestine for a couple of turns (i tried the Vostroyan order and stratagem combo here and it did absolutely nothing, even with 24 rapid firing lasguns - i think i gave up on the combat after this). I also got super lucky in that his Errant only did a couple of wounds turn 1, while my Thermal cannon Crusader did significantly more in return. The hardest thing here was killing Celestine. However, thanks to the Helverins massive range i was able to kill her twice within a full turn (combat his turn, shooting mine). I ended up tabling him on turn 5. Won the game 38-12.
Game 2 - ITC Champions mission 2.
So, i played Mike Porter. LGT best General winner and his Imperium Soup list.
Spoiler:
Guard Brigade - Catachan
Straken
1 Commander - WL full cp farm
3 Prim Pyskers
6 Infantry squads
3 Hellhounds
1 Priest
2 Plat Commanders
3 Mortar teams
BA battalion
3 Smash Captains - 1 with cp farm, 1 with Angels wings
3 Scouts
Custodes Supreme command
3 Bike Captains - 2 with 3++
So, first off, it was an ABSOLUTELY terrible table for me. Every piece of terrain on the table with a "ruined" 2 level building with 4 complete walls on each piece. Essentially my Knights could not shoot or charge anything on the table while they were inside the buildings. I gave him first turn, hoping to try and draw him out towards me and risk a full on turn 1 all in, but, he played it safe. Essentially for turns 1-2 he didn't kill anything but was able to start building up objective and recon points, while i was able to fire my 2 Ironstorm pods into his mortar teams. Turn 3 i had to open up and bait my Gallant in order to start picking up more points. My biggest issue here is that i completely forgot about the fight again/fight after dying stratagems on BOTH the Custodes and BA. While i was able to kill 2 of the 3 Smash Captains and all 3 Shield Captains in combat and shooting in turns 3-5, the simple fact of him fighting twice killed me. 1 Crusader managed to take on all 3 Shield Captains and win over the course of 2-3 turns. I also made the mistake of going for the Reaper secondary. I only picked up 1 point on this, after it took a Helverin 2 turns to kill 1 squad (the other died in a charge of 30 infantry models backed up by the priest and straken lol). In the end i was tabled by the end of turn 5. I lost 31-17 (It's also worth noted that i finished the game with 8CP even though i was burning through them thanks to him starting with 21 cplol)
Game 3 - ITC Champions mission 5.
Up against my first Aeldari soup list
Spoiler:
1 archon
2 Scourge with haywire
3 dis Ravagers
2 Archon - blasters
2 Kabalites x10 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
3 Raiders with Dark Lances
Ok, so i didn't get first turn again. I had a bit of luck, in that he left my Thermal Cannon Crusader alive on 1-3 wounds after everything had shot. However, my first turn saw me fail to get my Conscripts and Commander onto the central objective, so i didn't start picking up the bonus points early. I killed a couple of Raiders but also made a massive mistake when i forgot the flyers were Alaitoc Crimson Hunters instead of Razorwings (they were painted in a DE colour scheme, but no excuse as i had his list in front of me ) As a result i didn't kill enough turn 1.
Turn 2 saw him kill my Gallant and the 1 wound Crusader. My WL and, to an extent, the Helverins however kept me in the game. Using the Mortan stratagem my WL was able to take out both Crimson hunters in a turn, while the Helverins picked off wounds on the Scourges and Ravagers. By the end of the game i only had my Lord Commissar and WL Crusader left alive.
My biggest mistake this game was picking Headhunter as a secondary. I didn't get a single point in it as i didn't have the ability to target the characters, let alone has the spare fire power to actually target them if i could. Likewise, by failing some movement distances turn 1, i also missed out on some key recon and bonus points.
In the end i lost 30-24 in a game that naturally ended after turn 6.
Game 4 - ITC Champions mission 1
Pure Durkari this time!
Spoiler:
2 Archon - blast pistols
2 Kablites x5 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
2 Incubii x5
2 Raiders with Dark Lance and grenade launcher
Urien
1 Haemonculus
3 wracks x5 with hex rifle and ossefactor
1 unit of Talos
1 Cronos
Leith
2 Reavers x6 with grav talon and heat lances
1 Hellions x9
Ok, so a completely different DE list. I didn't get 1st turn again, however, this lead to me getting a 1st turn charge off with the Gallant without needing to use Full Tilt. Not much to say on this game other than my dice were extremely good, and his wounding rolls were unfortunately shocking. In the end i tabled him without losing a Knight in turn 5. A great guy to play against, but, not really an enjoyable game to play simply due to dice. I won 36-14.
Game 5 - ITC Champions mission 4.
My first, and only Knight v Knight game
Spoiler:
1 Castellan with 4 missiles
1 Crusader with RFBC
1 Gallant
3 BA Smash captains
2 Company Commanders
3 Infantry squad
So. he was running Krast. I wasn't.
Again, i gave up 1st turn this game as we were playing Spearhead? deployment - Pointy hammer and anvil. It was a big mistake but wouldn't have changed the game. I was out of range with everything, his Castellan wasn't. After 2 turns of brutal firing, 2 of my Knights were on 7 and 4 wounds each, and after creating some gaps to bait in the smash captains, my WL was hurting as well. However, my WL was able to pick up kills on 2 smash captains before going down. best moment of the game was having a Gallant v Gallant fight as we both knew who was going to win by this point. Even with 7 wounds remaining, my Gallant was about to do 24 damage in the first turn of combat alone thanks to Mortan's +1 WS. Needless to say, the Gallant exploded and put me down to 3 wounds, so it died pretty quickly after! Even though i was outclassed in terms of damage output, he played it smart for mission points so it ended with a loss of 30-20. As you can imagine, all 6 turns took less than 1 hour.
One thing that is important to note, is that the NWO and LCO events don't use the ITC 1000 points for a win scoring. Instead, each win is worth 40 points, and a draw 20. This, as you can imagine, keeps things pretty close in the standings.
So, all in all, with 2 wins and 3 losses i finished 30th out of 64 - finishing ahead of some people that won more games than me.
It was a great event, run incredibly well with lots of great people, armies and the tables were fantastic. (bar the 1 pure city table that screwed me over hahahaha!!!) I think there was only 1 army there that was a easy to spot "rushed job".
Take aways for my Knights.
The banner relic didn't do what i wanted except in 1 game. Not worth it, but i am glad to tested it in an event.
Mortan is good, especially vs Aeldari and armies that was to get in your face (smash captains and shield captains). I didn't really get much success out of Death Grip, cos the first time i used it i rolled a 1 on the first roll off and he rolled a 6...so... I didn't really need it at all in the other games.
Vostroyan, nice, but i didn't need the range except once where the 15" rapid fire helped, the order wasn't really worth it, and the stratagem never really got used as i didn't feel the need to merge the 2 infantry squads or didn't have a good enough target that the conscripts needed the buff for. Probably best to just run Valhallan next time.
Helverins. Ok, so, i don't think i'll be running them again. They did ok in some games, but then were incredibly poor in others. In the end i was using them more for their 14" movement to get up the table and score points than i was for their firepower - and if i'm going to do that i might as well just run Warglaives or spend a small amount of extra points on a 2nd Gallant. They are great for shooting things like Ravagers, but, beyond that i felt they were struggling to make back their points cost vs the other armies i fought.
Landstrider. I didn't feel like i needed this either. I took it as a "just in case", but without going first in any of my games it didn't really come into play. I'd have had a lot more use from the +1 attack WL trait, as when the Gallant got into combat nothing really survived.
Next steps is probably dropping both Helverins and just adding in 2 Smash Captains and scouts. It REALLY pains me to say or think that, but, the different between the 2 sets of units is massive.
That said, i'm not sure i'll take Knight again to my next event - or if i do, it'd probably be on a smaller scale of 1 Gallant and 2 Warglaives. They have the ability to do really well, but i feel like it depends on so many other things that are outside of your control.
Highest place list with a Knight detachment came 2nd. It included a Raven Castellan, Warden and Gallant, alongside a Shadowsword and a guard battalion.
I think there was only 1 pure Knight list at the event and it finished 28th.
All in all a good event, and i'm looking forward to the LCO in January. The NWO was a 70 person event (though people dropped out as the Squid Badgers' secret weapon is challenging people to keep up with their drinking games and a lot of people... suffer. lol! ) but the LCO will be either a 120 or 150 person event held in a convention centre in Southport. So, if you're looking for some practice prior to heading over to Vegas a couple of weeks after, then i fully recommend trying out the event!
Thank you for the extensive write up. Actual game experience reports I think is the best info. Do you feel a castellan would have helped a bit since you faced so much armor across the games?
Kdash wrote: OK, so, it's a bit late, but here's my write up of how my list did at the NWO last weekend.
My list was a slight curve ball and did reasonably ok when i wanted it to. It was -
Super Heavy Detachment (Mortan) -
1 Crusader with RFBC and Icarus - Warlord - Mortan WL trait. Banner of Macharius Triumphant relic.
1 Crusader with Thermal Cannon and Ironstorm pod - Ion Bulwark WL trait. Endless Fury relic.
1 Gallant with Ironstorm pod - Landstrider WL trait. Armour of the Sainted Ion relic.
1 2x Helverin with Stubbers
Battalion (Vostroyan) -
1 Company Commander with Bolter - Aquila relic.
1 Lord Commissar with pistol and power sword
2 Infantry squads - sergeant with bolter and chainsword
1 29x Conscript squad
1 Astropath
Ok, so the event didn't need WL, trait or relic picking pre event, but i did so anyway, and stuck to it matching my list - which i think worked out as a mistake in the end. Started each game with 7 out of 14 starting CP.
I picked Mortan for the stratagem and WL trait, expecting to come up against a lot of Aeldari/Drukari. Vostroyan for the extra 6" range and the order to fire while stuck in combat. The stratagem is also pretty nice as well.
Game plan was essentially to have the Conscripts at least running around with Ld 10 thanks to the Relic Banner buffing the Lord Commissar up to Ld 10. Needless to say, this worked maybe once in 5 games and was a complete waste of a relic slot. The obsec did help massively in one game though.
It is also worth noting that i used chess clocks in my game 1 and 2. After that i realised it wasn't really necessary as we were finishing games easily within the 3 hour time slot - even when going to turn 5 on both games. (i think both me and Mike ended up with over 30 minutes left on the clock game 2 as well)
Game 1 - ITC Champions mission 3.
I played vs Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle.
Celestine
1 Seraphim unit
2 Dominions with stormbolters
1 Rhino
1 Knight Errant
It was a great game, but, heavily in my favour. Unfortunately the GKs couldn't do much, even though they won the roll to go first, and when they finally got a couple of units into combat with my Gallant it was without Hammerhand buffs and i just wrecked him when attacking back. My conscripts survived Celestine for a couple of turns (i tried the Vostroyan order and stratagem combo here and it did absolutely nothing, even with 24 rapid firing lasguns - i think i gave up on the combat after this). I also got super lucky in that his Errant only did a couple of wounds turn 1, while my Thermal cannon Crusader did significantly more in return. The hardest thing here was killing Celestine. However, thanks to the Helverins massive range i was able to kill her twice within a full turn (combat his turn, shooting mine). I ended up tabling him on turn 5. Won the game 38-12.
Game 2 - ITC Champions mission 2.
So, i played Mike Porter. LGT best General winner and his Imperium Soup list.
Spoiler:
Guard Brigade - Catachan
Straken
1 Commander - WL full cp farm
3 Prim Pyskers
6 Infantry squads
3 Hellhounds
1 Priest
2 Plat Commanders
3 Mortar teams
BA battalion
3 Smash Captains - 1 with cp farm, 1 with Angels wings
3 Scouts
Custodes Supreme command
3 Bike Captains - 2 with 3++
So, first off, it was an ABSOLUTELY terrible table for me. Every piece of terrain on the table with a "ruined" 2 level building with 4 complete walls on each piece. Essentially my Knights could not shoot or charge anything on the table while they were inside the buildings. I gave him first turn, hoping to try and draw him out towards me and risk a full on turn 1 all in, but, he played it safe. Essentially for turns 1-2 he didn't kill anything but was able to start building up objective and recon points, while i was able to fire my 2 Ironstorm pods into his mortar teams. Turn 3 i had to open up and bait my Gallant in order to start picking up more points. My biggest issue here is that i completely forgot about the fight again/fight after dying stratagems on BOTH the Custodes and BA. While i was able to kill 2 of the 3 Smash Captains and all 3 Shield Captains in combat and shooting in turns 3-5, the simple fact of him fighting twice killed me. 1 Crusader managed to take on all 3 Shield Captains and win over the course of 2-3 turns. I also made the mistake of going for the Reaper secondary. I only picked up 1 point on this, after it took a Helverin 2 turns to kill 1 squad (the other died in a charge of 30 infantry models backed up by the priest and straken lol). In the end i was tabled by the end of turn 5. I lost 31-17 (It's also worth noted that i finished the game with 8CP even though i was burning through them thanks to him starting with 21 cplol)
Game 3 - ITC Champions mission 5.
Up against my first Aeldari soup list
Spoiler:
1 archon
2 Scourge with haywire
3 dis Ravagers
2 Archon - blasters
2 Kabalites x10 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
3 Raiders with Dark Lances
Ok, so i didn't get first turn again. I had a bit of luck, in that he left my Thermal Cannon Crusader alive on 1-3 wounds after everything had shot. However, my first turn saw me fail to get my Conscripts and Commander onto the central objective, so i didn't start picking up the bonus points early. I killed a couple of Raiders but also made a massive mistake when i forgot the flyers were Alaitoc Crimson Hunters instead of Razorwings (they were painted in a DE colour scheme, but no excuse as i had his list in front of me ) As a result i didn't kill enough turn 1.
Turn 2 saw him kill my Gallant and the 1 wound Crusader. My WL and, to an extent, the Helverins however kept me in the game. Using the Mortan stratagem my WL was able to take out both Crimson hunters in a turn, while the Helverins picked off wounds on the Scourges and Ravagers. By the end of the game i only had my Lord Commissar and WL Crusader left alive.
My biggest mistake this game was picking Headhunter as a secondary. I didn't get a single point in it as i didn't have the ability to target the characters, let alone has the spare fire power to actually target them if i could. Likewise, by failing some movement distances turn 1, i also missed out on some key recon and bonus points.
In the end i lost 30-24 in a game that naturally ended after turn 6.
Game 4 - ITC Champions mission 1
Pure Durkari this time!
Spoiler:
2 Archon - blast pistols
2 Kablites x5 with blaster
1 Kabalite x5
2 Incubii x5
2 Raiders with Dark Lance and grenade launcher
Urien
1 Haemonculus
3 wracks x5 with hex rifle and ossefactor
1 unit of Talos
1 Cronos
Leith
2 Reavers x6 with grav talon and heat lances
1 Hellions x9
Ok, so a completely different DE list. I didn't get 1st turn again, however, this lead to me getting a 1st turn charge off with the Gallant without needing to use Full Tilt. Not much to say on this game other than my dice were extremely good, and his wounding rolls were unfortunately shocking. In the end i tabled him without losing a Knight in turn 5. A great guy to play against, but, not really an enjoyable game to play simply due to dice. I won 36-14.
Game 5 - ITC Champions mission 4.
My first, and only Knight v Knight game
Spoiler:
1 Castellan with 4 missiles
1 Crusader with RFBC
1 Gallant
3 BA Smash captains
2 Company Commanders
3 Infantry squad
So. he was running Krast. I wasn't.
Again, i gave up 1st turn this game as we were playing Spearhead? deployment - Pointy hammer and anvil. It was a big mistake but wouldn't have changed the game. I was out of range with everything, his Castellan wasn't. After 2 turns of brutal firing, 2 of my Knights were on 7 and 4 wounds each, and after creating some gaps to bait in the smash captains, my WL was hurting as well. However, my WL was able to pick up kills on 2 smash captains before going down. best moment of the game was having a Gallant v Gallant fight as we both knew who was going to win by this point. Even with 7 wounds remaining, my Gallant was about to do 24 damage in the first turn of combat alone thanks to Mortan's +1 WS. Needless to say, the Gallant exploded and put me down to 3 wounds, so it died pretty quickly after! Even though i was outclassed in terms of damage output, he played it smart for mission points so it ended with a loss of 30-20. As you can imagine, all 6 turns took less than 1 hour.
One thing that is important to note, is that the NWO and LCO events don't use the ITC 1000 points for a win scoring. Instead, each win is worth 40 points, and a draw 20. This, as you can imagine, keeps things pretty close in the standings.
So, all in all, with 2 wins and 3 losses i finished 30th out of 64 - finishing ahead of some people that won more games than me.
It was a great event, run incredibly well with lots of great people, armies and the tables were fantastic. (bar the 1 pure city table that screwed me over hahahaha!!!) I think there was only 1 army there that was a easy to spot "rushed job".
Take aways for my Knights.
The banner relic didn't do what i wanted except in 1 game. Not worth it, but i am glad to tested it in an event.
Mortan is good, especially vs Aeldari and armies that was to get in your face (smash captains and shield captains). I didn't really get much success out of Death Grip, cos the first time i used it i rolled a 1 on the first roll off and he rolled a 6...so... I didn't really need it at all in the other games.
Vostroyan, nice, but i didn't need the range except once where the 15" rapid fire helped, the order wasn't really worth it, and the stratagem never really got used as i didn't feel the need to merge the 2 infantry squads or didn't have a good enough target that the conscripts needed the buff for. Probably best to just run Valhallan next time.
Helverins. Ok, so, i don't think i'll be running them again. They did ok in some games, but then were incredibly poor in others. In the end i was using them more for their 14" movement to get up the table and score points than i was for their firepower - and if i'm going to do that i might as well just run Warglaives or spend a small amount of extra points on a 2nd Gallant. They are great for shooting things like Ravagers, but, beyond that i felt they were struggling to make back their points cost vs the other armies i fought.
Landstrider. I didn't feel like i needed this either. I took it as a "just in case", but without going first in any of my games it didn't really come into play. I'd have had a lot more use from the +1 attack WL trait, as when the Gallant got into combat nothing really survived.
Next steps is probably dropping both Helverins and just adding in 2 Smash Captains and scouts. It REALLY pains me to say or think that, but, the different between the 2 sets of units is massive.
That said, i'm not sure i'll take Knight again to my next event - or if i do, it'd probably be on a smaller scale of 1 Gallant and 2 Warglaives. They have the ability to do really well, but i feel like it depends on so many other things that are outside of your control.
Highest place list with a Knight detachment came 2nd. It included a Raven Castellan, Warden and Gallant, alongside a Shadowsword and a guard battalion.
I think there was only 1 pure Knight list at the event and it finished 28th.
All in all a good event, and i'm looking forward to the LCO in January. The NWO was a 70 person event (though people dropped out as the Squid Badgers' secret weapon is challenging people to keep up with their drinking games and a lot of people... suffer. lol! ) but the LCO will be either a 120 or 150 person event held in a convention centre in Southport. So, if you're looking for some practice prior to heading over to Vegas a couple of weeks after, then i fully recommend trying out the event!
Thank you for the extensive write up. Actual game experience reports I think is the best info. Do you feel a castellan would have helped a bit since you faced so much armor across the games?
Erm, the Castellan would have helped in the final game to the point where i could probably switch the Crusader i was using as my WL to it without too much of a loss overall. However, beyond that i don't think i struggled too much to take down all the other vehicles with what i had - bar the odd range issue. Str 6 was enough in a lot of cases, but, if you're expecting to face more T7-T8 things then i think it'd be worth it. It just hurts going from 12 shots to 2d6 though as it could make things a little more swingy - especially if you just need to wipe out the last 5 infantry models etc.
Took this army up against a 140+ ork ghazghul list Sunday. Nearly Board wiped them but it took 5 turns. Would have lost thanks to objectives and da jump but game continued so I focus fired down a weird boy. Dealing with ork hordes is not as much of a problem as feared
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also hilarious moment cake when the chimeras and two big knights charged the last remaining ork squad and a bunch of characters including the weird boy. Basically encircled them and killed everyone except the weird boy who promptly looked down at the shatter corpse of what used to be ghazghul (who got death gripped) and said “well screw this im out”
Alright today I will be going into a topic that hasn’t gotten too much talk, but is a very powerful tool that all knight players should take advantage of. That tool being sideboarding relics and warlord traits.
For those unaware, sideboarding is concept that comes from TCGs. Essentially players go to tournaments with a main deck and a smaller sideboard of cards. Each match during a tournament is determined by a best out 3 game seres. After playing the first game with their main deck, players have the option to mix any cards from their main deck and sideboard. This is extremely valuable as certain cards might range from game —breakingly powerful in one matchup, to absolutely worthless in another. To put it simply, sideboarding allows a certain degree of matchup tailoring that previously didn’t really exist in 40k.
So how does concept of sideboarding transfer into 40k? Well in ITC the only set desicion you have to make for every match regarding warlord traits and relics is a set relic for one character, and deciding who will be your walord. Everything else is decided after you already know your opponents list. This includes what trait your warlord gets, who gets extra relics and traits, and what traits and relics those guys get. This is extremely powerful as it gives Knight players a lot of objections to Tailor their lists.
A good example of a sideboard relic is the Krast relic huntsman’s mark. Simply put it increases the damage of EVERY weapon of the bearer against models with a wounds characteristic of 10 or more by 1, and gives +2 agisnt titanicic units. This makes the relic perfect in some matchups while completely useless in others. With this I was able to kill a buddies full wound 4++ gallant in single round of shooting from a crusader. A lot of luck was involved to fully kill it, but it wasn’t unreasonable for me to expect around 15 wounds from that volley (as I also had the krast warlord trait to re-roll 1s).As you can see the mark is fantastic at its top potential, but can also be worthless against lists with no 10 or wound models. Hence the relic showing off the sideboard concept in 40k.
While huntsman mark does an excellent job of showing off the extreme side of the sideboard concept, pretty much any trait or relic can be bad in a certain matchup . For example pretty much everyone knows that ion bulwark (4++ ion shield) is the best Warlord trait in the book, but I can give you matchup where it’s bad. Jeff (InControl) Robinson brought a Custodies list the BAO (large tournament) which featured 1 gun where bulwark would be very useful against (a shield captain salvo launcher). Against that list, bulwark just simply isn’t worth it. And before anyone asks, Geoff was extremely close to winning the tournament. So if bulwark can be sided out you have to think pretty much any trait or relic can be sided out.
Thanks for getting through this wall of text. My overall point is just consider the concept of sideboarding when building a list for a tournament. Also Krast is for sure the best house. Obviously much weaker strat than Raven and a worse household tradition than 6++++ (although I think the re-rolls to hit in close combat is severely underrated). The kicker however, is that Krast has the best house relic and warlord trait by far, giving krast he overall advantage.
WarmaHordes has a concept of sideboarding that I think might be nice to have in 40K. Basically, you can show up to an event with two (or three, depending on the event) army lists. Each round, you get to see the opponent's lists and then secretly and simultaneously you each pick one to play.
In WarmaHordes, all of your lists have to be the same faction. For 40K, you might have to adjust that a little bit and say something like "The highest-point-value detachment in each list must have a shared keyword with the highest-point-value detachments on the other lists that is not one of the following.: Imperial, Chaos, Eldar, Tyranid".
The idea is, if you have a list that is bad against Guard or Tyranids or whatever, you can have a second list that is more geared for that and you'll know to switch. It's kind of list tailoring, but controlled and formalized so that it's less cheat-y.
There was a rumor that one of the editions (I think it was 7th) would have sideboards. Turned out to be false. However, the psychic phase (including summoning) proved to effectively be one.
In 8th all armies can do something similar with relics and strategems, it’s just that the IK relics have much more of an impact in specializing the knights and you can affect a bigger percentage of your army with them (vs a 200 pt warlord).
I agree that the idea of laying out all your relics and warlord traits prior to starting each game is a good way to adapt to each game (if the event rules allow you to make those kind of changes from game to game).
It'll take a fair bit of practice for players to feel comfortable swapping and changing game to game, but, it'd be a worthwhile thing to pick up.
They let us do this at the UKGT, and I did - to various degrees of success. So you take landstrider against shooty lists but not those that are rushing you. Endless fury most of the time, but occasionally paragon gauntlet or 2+ save. And very often by the end of the game I’d be annoyed with myself for having picked the wrong thing!
I made a printout with common relic spends and buys for my various characters. It filled it out differently based on the opponent. From experience, Landstrider is 100%. Take the Paragon Guantlet versus knights.
Yeah unfortunately sideboarding really only applies to knights, due to the exalted court stratagem being exclusive to This codex, the fact that individual models are so expensive, and just generally having access to a range of good relics and traits (rather than just 1 or 2 that are clearly better than the rest.) A reason brought this up is because many people love to claim that knights are easy to play, and while that true to degree (a new player with knights will beat another new player with just about any other army) stuff like this takes skill. In other words it’s easy to be pretty good with knights, but hard to be very good with them.
On another note I have to say I’m not very impressed with the paragon gauntlet, Its very likely that you will be able kill another knight fully with just a gallents basic fist , so as it has a CC household and a command point re-roll.
The paragon gauntlet is probably more use on a Warden than a Gallant. I really don’t like Gallants, so for me it’s definitely an option to consider as a sideboard option.
One consideration is that there are quite a lot of things out there with 8 wounds exactly, like dreadnoughts and Carnifexes. It’s really good to have a weapon that will kill one of those in a single wounding hit. Even where kicking things might do more wounds on average you might have a better chance of a kill with the gauntlet. So if I see a carnifex-heavy list opposite me I might well choose to give one of my wardens the paragon gauntlet.
Mandragola wrote: The paragon gauntlet is probably more use on a Warden than a Gallant. I really don’t like Gallants, so for me it’s definitely an option to consider as a sideboard option.
One consideration is that there are quite a lot of things out there with 8 wounds exactly, like dreadnoughts and Carnifexes. It’s really good to have a weapon that will kill one of those in a single wounding hit. Even where kicking things might do more wounds on average you might have a better chance of a kill with the gauntlet. So if I see a carnifex-heavy list opposite me I might well choose to give one of my wardens the paragon gauntlet.
Yeah I can absolutely see the value of the gauntlet on a warden so perhaps I jumped the gun with my anti-gauntlet rant. I guess it’s more so I haven’t been running wardens in general. I like that they are cheaper than crusaders and get access to death grip, but as a whole I just like crusaders more for a couple of reasons. The first is that they get max synergy out of the krast warlord trait and relic. More guns means more shots of 1’s to re-roll. As far as the huntsman relic goes I can very reliably kill any other knight after a single round of shooting and CC since all my shots are at least 3 damages, and that’s just the stubbers! After that I’m charging with 12 S 8 AP -2 d3 +2 damage attack’s, which are hitting on 3s re-rolling. This is long winded-way of saying I really like Krast crusaders, and that’s keeping me from using wardens. Don’t get me wrong I think wardens could be good, i just feel like there are a lot of match ups where the extra gun the crusader gets is worth the points you pay for it over the fist.
With ITC holding onto 2000.points, is there a place for 5-knight lists? You can do a gallant, errant, paladin, and 2 wardens for 1994, or even 4 gallants and an errant for 1811 (if you want a guard battalion or just a bunch of carapace upgrades). The loss of CP is an obvious downside, but adding another 24 T8 3+ wounds to your list seems like it might give you a bit more staying power. Just curious what people’s thoughts are.
Mandragola wrote: The paragon gauntlet is probably more use on a Warden than a Gallant. I really don’t like Gallants, so for me it’s definitely an option to consider as a sideboard option.
One consideration is that there are quite a lot of things out there with 8 wounds exactly, like dreadnoughts and Carnifexes. It’s really good to have a weapon that will kill one of those in a single wounding hit. Even where kicking things might do more wounds on average you might have a better chance of a kill with the gauntlet. So if I see a carnifex-heavy list opposite me I might well choose to give one of my wardens the paragon gauntlet.
Yeah I can absolutely see the value of the gauntlet on a warden so perhaps I jumped the gun with my anti-gauntlet rant. I guess it’s more so I haven’t been running wardens in general. I like that they are cheaper than crusaders and get access to death grip, but as a whole I just like crusaders more for a couple of reasons. The first is that they get max synergy out of the krast warlord trait and relic. More guns means more shots of 1’s to re-roll. As far as the huntsman relic goes I can very reliably kill any other knight after a single round of shooting and CC since all my shots are at least 3 damages, and that’s just the stubbers! After that I’m charging with 12 S 8 AP -2 d3 +2 damage attack’s, which are hitting on 3s re-rolling. This is long winded-way of saying I really like Krast crusaders, and that’s keeping me from using wardens. Don’t get me wrong I think wardens could be good, i just feel like there are a lot of match ups where the extra gun the crusader gets is worth the points you pay for it over the fist.
Oh yeah crusaders are great, and Krast ones especially so - or at least the first one to use the relic. I think it’s worth having at least one fist in a list though, to death grip people.
I’m looking at a 1750 list featuring two TC crusaders and two wardens with fists. I like the idea of rocking four avengers. The TCs, while not amazing, make sense as I’d want some AT - but more importantly I can’t afford BCs. I could go for three wardens and a RFBC crusader but that seems worse. My guys are Taranis. I think I’d make one of the crusaders my warlord, with 4++ and endless fury.
Running 5 knights at 2k does make sense. I’d probably go for 4 wardens and a Gallant. I’m not sure it’s all that good a list if honest - it somehow manages to have less firepower than my 1750 list. Maybe try 4 knights and a couple of armigers.
Given that one warlord trait and relic needs to be written down for your actual warlord, why would that not be Ion Bulwark?
I'd have thought in a Knights list that every unit you have is a target, so it's not like making a smaller support character the warlord in order to be a little more relaxed where you send a serious fighting character - so having the now even harder to kill thing be the warlord almost works in your favour. Might be the odd match up where it's less useful, but I can't think of many more ubiquitous warlord traits that aren't for more expendable stuff like Gallants.
Some value in having the flexibility to decide which gets the ion bulwark I guess, but if you had to pick one trait that you'd use 80% of the time and 80% on one specific model - seems like that'd be Ion Bulwark on the official warlord.
Though on the topic of sideboard-esque things, I've also been wondering about the value in Freeblade armigers once they were brought up earlier. It's not like they were going to be targets for stratagems anyway - so a pair of Helverins (split between two detachments) both Sworn to a Quest (with some random burdens), seem like they'd add a lot by being fast obj secured units securing your back lines. As could adding Heroic intervention to a Warglaive.
Penniless nobles from another house sworn to your banners to serve as Armigers until they prove themselves worthy enough to be granted a greater class of Knight to return to their house with.
Yes, absolutely. The Warlord should be given Ion Bulwark because it’s great, so you’re always likely to want one of your knights to have it, and because you want to protect your warlord.
So when you have to state your Warlord’s trait and relic go for Ion Bulwark and a suitable relic. Cawl’s Wrath on a Castellan or Endless Fury for a Crusader are both always going to be good.
That reminds me. Rather than going for 5 knights at 2k what I’d do is bring in a Castellan. I’d probably go for a Castellan, two Crusaders and a Warden. I’d consider a Styrix, though probably not actually take it. You can have a Castellan with 4 missiles, a TC crusader with ironstorm pod, a Warden with fist and ironstorm, and either a BC crusader with ironstorm or a Styrix.
The Styrix is a good option for me as a Tanaris player I think. It’s seriously durable, and crucially gets a 5++ in melee. For most other people the Crusader would probably be a better option. And to be honest I don’t like the model all that much, and I’ve got too many knights already really, so I don’t think I’ll bother. The RFBC Crusader is great.
Mandragola wrote: The paragon gauntlet is probably more use on a Warden than a Gallant. I really don’t like Gallants, so for me it’s definitely an option to consider as a sideboard option.
One consideration is that there are quite a lot of things out there with 8 wounds exactly, like dreadnoughts and Carnifexes. It’s really good to have a weapon that will kill one of those in a single wounding hit. Even where kicking things might do more wounds on average you might have a better chance of a kill with the gauntlet. So if I see a carnifex-heavy list opposite me I might well choose to give one of my wardens the paragon gauntlet.
Yeah I can absolutely see the value of the gauntlet on a warden so perhaps I jumped the gun with my anti-gauntlet rant. I guess it’s more so I haven’t been running wardens in general. I like that they are cheaper than crusaders and get access to death grip, but as a whole I just like crusaders more for a couple of reasons. The first is that they get max synergy out of the krast warlord trait and relic. More guns means more shots of 1’s to re-roll. As far as the huntsman relic goes I can very reliably kill any other knight after a single round of shooting and CC since all my shots are at least 3 damages, and that’s just the stubbers! After that I’m charging with 12 S 8 AP -2 d3 +2 damage attack’s, which are hitting on 3s re-rolling. This is long winded-way of saying I really like Krast crusaders, and that’s keeping me from using wardens. Don’t get me wrong I think wardens could be good, i just feel like there are a lot of match ups where the extra gun the crusader gets is worth the points you pay for it over the fist.
Oh yeah crusaders are great, and Krast ones especially so - or at least the first one to use the relic. I think it’s worth having at least one fist in a list though, to death grip people.
I’m looking at a 1750 list featuring two TC crusaders and two wardens with fists. I like the idea of rocking four avengers. The TCs, while not amazing, make sense as I’d want some AT - but more importantly I can’t afford BCs. I could go for three wardens and a RFBC crusader but that seems worse. My guys are Taranis. I think I’d make one of the crusaders my warlord, with 4++ and endless fury.
Running 5 knights at 2k does make sense. I’d probably go for 4 wardens and a Gallant. I’m not sure it’s all that good a list if honest - it somehow manages to have less firepower than my 1750 list. Maybe try 4 knights and a couple of armigers.
You could also go with 3 wardens, a preceptor, and 2 armigers for 2k on the nose
I kind of think that with that many Questoris knights, a Gallant with the survival buffs (Ion Bullwark and Sainted Ion), though ideally not your actual warlord.
It's an obvious target that's going to draw a ton of fire on the first turn, so let it. It's not a real distraction carnifex in that letting that thing get to your lines is going to cause serious problems so buffing it's toughness now whilst the rest of your knights focus the enemy AT.
Unbuffed Gallant can still do a lot of damage even if it's not operating in some larger mission (clearing chaff for Valiants etc). So if it actually makes it, there's a role and it's certainly not something to be ignored.
Can you fit something other than a warden (rule of 3)? But if so I think I'd keep the Gallant.
Tastyfish wrote: Given that one warlord trait and relic needs to be written down for your actual warlord, why would that not be Ion Bulwark?
I'd have thought in a Knights list that every unit you have is a target, so it's not like making a smaller support character the warlord in order to be a little more relaxed where you send a serious fighting character - so having the now even harder to kill thing be the warlord almost works in your favour. Might be the odd match up where it's less useful, but I can't think of many more ubiquitous warlord traits that aren't for more expendable stuff like Gallants.
Some value in having the flexibility to decide which gets the ion bulwark I guess, but if you had to pick one trait that you'd use 80% of the time and 80% on one specific model - seems like that'd be Ion Bulwark on the official warlord.
Though on the topic of sideboard-esque things, I've also been wondering about the value in Freeblade armigers once they were brought up earlier. It's not like they were going to be targets for stratagems anyway - so a pair of Helverins (split between two detachments) both Sworn to a Quest (with some random burdens), seem like they'd add a lot by being fast obj secured units securing your back lines. As could adding Heroic intervention to a Warglaive.
Penniless nobles from another house sworn to your banners to serve as Armigers until they prove themselves worthy enough to be granted a greater class of Knight to return to their house with.
While I absolutely agree that bulwark will be used in 95% of games, you’re actually incorrect in having to write down your warlord trait. As it written in ITC mission pack “Before any dice are rolled, players adjust and define terrain on the board, then both players choose Warlord Traits, Psychic Powers, spend pre-deployment command points, and any additional Relics they will use. These should be written or notated clearly for reference in game” so while you have define who your warlord is throughout a tournament, you have the choice of what trait he gets from game to
game.
I am amused by the idea of a knight swarm.
Two Gallants, three Helverins, and four Warglaives. 2000 on the nose. Split the Gallants across two superheavy detachments with the Helverins and Warglaives filling out the mandatory slots (stick two Warglaives into one squad to side step the rule of 3.)
9 CP before expenditures. 132 wounds of tough 7/8. Could go with more armiger class knights over the two Gallants, but you lose your CP. Might be feasible if you jam in a cheapo guard CP farm battalion, letting you run around 10 or so various armigers.
After several games I’m not sure sideboarding is gonna help, I’ll pretty much always be taking: ion bulwark+sanctuary and armor of sainted ion + landstrider
Since I only run two big knights that seems most efficient
Verdict on Cerastus knights being able to use the WL and Relic strat? Still a no go?
Been a little out of the loop for a bit.
A Cerastus can be a WL, so there’s that. You have to select one model in each Imperial Knight Detachment to be a character, and that character is eligible to be a Warlord. Once a Warlord, you can give them a trait, and any character can have a Relic (given strats and CP).
It doesn't seem like they did. Exalted court specifically says Questoris or Dominus class, and I don't believe Cerastus Knights have those keywords and I see nothing in the FAQs. Oh well.
Cephalobeard wrote: It doesn't seem like they did. Exalted court specifically says Questoris or Dominus class, and I don't believe Cerastus Knights have those keywords and I see nothing in the FAQs. Oh well.
All FW Knights have the Imperial Questoris keyword as of the recent FWFAQs. It’s in both their Knight FAQ and their AdMech FAQ, which means the Porphyron is a Questoris, not a Dominus, so they get the 1 CP Rotate Ion Shield strat.
I'm speaking, very specifically, to the stratagems that allow Knights to become characters, warlord, and gain relics. Those stragems, specifically, are worded in a very specific way to only allow "Questoris Class" and "Dominus Class" models to use them.
FWFAQ absolutely allows FW Knights to use their stratagems, but they are still "Cerastus Class" <Questoris> Knights, by my current understanding. No FAQ has made them Questoris, Dominus, or allow those stratagems to be used on Cerastus chassis.
Again, I totally understand that it shouldn't be needed, but that was never the context of the question.
I shouldn't have to run into a scenario where I run out of gas, but I'd like to know how long my car can go on E before it dies on the side of the road. Lol
All good, folks, I think I answered my own question.
I'm speaking, very specifically, to the stratagems that allow Knights to become characters, warlord, and gain relics. Those stragems, specifically, are worded in a very specific way to only allow "Questoris Class" and "Dominus Class" models to use them.
FWFAQ absolutely allows FW Knights to use their stratagems, but they are still "Cerastus Class" <Questoris> Knights, by my current understanding. No FAQ has made them Questoris, Dominus, or allow those stratagems to be used on Cerastus chassis.
That's the information I'm looking to clarify.
Your correct the exalted court and heirlooms strategums don't work on Cerastus Class
Hawkshroud or Ad Mech?
This question is beginning to haunt me. Hawkshroud means I don't have to camp extra CP for keeping my most damaged knights functional and can instead spend freely on RIS, death grip, that melee buildings strat, extra relics and warlord traits, etc. Ad Mech lets me make my knights house Raven and therefore increase mobility or pick Taranis to have them stand back up when wrecked. I'm not taking any house specific relics or traits so that is irrelevant. It's just a question of what do I choose?
For reference, I plan to run 3ish questoris class knights, probably wardens with stormstrike missiles, with ion bulwark, blessed by the sacristans, endless fury, and the fancy gauntlet. They're supported by random stuff, either a battalion of guard or marines or a slew of armiger (Helverins) class knights.
I think Krast is always better in cc than hawkshroud. On any given bracket it’s better to get rerolls than count as one bracket better - so for example 5+ with rerolls is better than 4+. This applies most of all when undamaged of course!
The reason to go hawkshroud is for a valiant. You get the relic flamer and the stratagem to let it overwatch on behalf of friends. That’s one of two potentially non-awful ways to run a valiant. The other is with house raven, probably with landstrider, so itcluld run around and actually be in range of things.
Settled on Hawkshroud with the inclusion of Helverins. Too many degrading stat lines to rely on a 1x turn stratagem. Not looking forward to painting all that yellow.
Maybe I'll paint them some other color and call them a vassal house or something.
Well, it looks like around half of the field at the Nova invitational are running some variation of IG+BA+IK so it's going to give us some data about how to run those lists!
grouchoben wrote: Is anyone else a bit worried about Knight fatigue?
I do suspect that atleast the Castellen will see a points increase in the FAQ or CA, I think it's justified. However I am worried that they won't stop there as knights plus Allies covers a pure knights list massive weakness of no obsec and low model count.
The problem isn’t the Castellan itself, but the Castellan combined with the Raven stratagem. I don’t think the knight wants its cost raised - it’s fine for other houses (and arguably weak for imperial ones). The stratagem wants nerfing.
It's just that tournaments are seeing such a high number of knight soup lists. A friend told me about his latest big tournament where over 50% of the lists had at least one knight in it. That's more pronounced concentration than we've seen in 8th edition to date I reckon. It smacks of the dark days.
My fear is that they WON'T do something about it, because the kits are selling so well, and will let a knight meta solidify until spring 2019.
I agree, the issue isn't currently with Knights or the Castellan specifically, but, with how CP is right now. Most lists with a single Castellan revolve around dumping all the CP into the 1 Knight every turn and watching it take out it's targets, while then farming most of them back again.
Knights still die - Castellan or not. As we move forward i do expect more and more anti Knight units/weapons to appear in a lot of lists.
I also think the number of Knights in lists is simply because it is a simple "plug and play" that is very effective right now. Arguably one of the weaknesses of the standard Imperial Soup is good ranged anti-tank, a Knight helps with that whilst still giving you a Guard CP farm and a Blood Angels CP farm + smash captains.
I suppose, what could be done, is to make each Knight taken in a Super Heavy Auxilary detachment a Freeblade. But i doubt that'll happen either.
whembly wrote: Hey guys... I'm going to a large tournament in a few weeks (SeigeWorld) with a Dark Eldar army. What are things that scares you about Dark Eldar?
Traditionally, I spam out disentigrators with a few dark lances... am I handicapping my self here against IK soup lists?
Not really. Knights will tend to out-shoot ravagers anyway. The thing they fear in a DE army is 9 taloses with 4++ saves and fnp - especially if they have haywire blasters sprinkled around.
A good DE army is a serious threat to knights, but it’s not really viable to shoot them dead. Knights die a lot faster in cc.
whembly wrote: Hey guys... I'm going to a large tournament in a few weeks (SeigeWorld) with a Dark Eldar army. What are things that scares you about Dark Eldar?
Traditionally, I spam out disentigrators with a few dark lances... am I handicapping my self here against IK soup lists?
A Harlequins Skyweaver outrider. They’re a ridiculous beating.
I think Knights are doing well right now as they are powerful and people often do not take enough anti-tank to counter them as the meta has been tilted towards hordes for some time.
grouchoben wrote: It's actually very hard to bring enough AT to deal with Knights while still remaining viable as a TAC list, as far as I can see.
This is where I think most people are making a mistake you don't need to kill knights to win just out score them which given they have no native obsec, and such a low model count they need to win the stand up fight to have a chance at winning game's.
If they can't they auto loose objective games every time.
whembly wrote: Hey guys... I'm going to a large tournament in a few weeks (SeigeWorld) with a Dark Eldar army. What are things that scares you about Dark Eldar?
Traditionally, I spam out disentigrators with a few dark lances... am I handicapping my self here against IK soup lists?
Not really. Knights will tend to out-shoot ravagers anyway. The thing they fear in a DE army is 9 taloses with 4++ saves and fnp - especially if they have haywire blasters sprinkled around.
A good DE army is a serious threat to knights, but it’s not really viable to shoot them dead. Knights die a lot faster in cc.
I'm bringing only 3 HWB Taloi (it's all I have)... and a squad of 4x HWB scourges. Other than that, it's your general 3 Ravager list with 2x Razorwing, 1x Reaper and 1x Voidraven bomber list.
Another question... what IK strategem is worth me using Agent of Vect? (I'm likely only going to get 2 uses, if at all).
grouchoben wrote: It's actually very hard to bring enough AT to deal with Knights while still remaining viable as a TAC list, as far as I can see.
This is where I think most people are making a mistake you don't need to kill knights to win just out score them which given they have no native obsec, and such a low model count they need to win the stand up fight to have a chance at winning game's.
If they can't they auto loose objective games every time.
I agree, objectives are king, but most of the time you do indeed need enough AT to knock 3++ knights out of action, whilst dealing with 3 slamguiniuses, 15 scouts and 30-odd guardsmen, or the like. I mean, that's a typical list, or some approximation of it, that are rising to the top atm. Against pure knights you're on a shorter clock before you get wiped out, so it's a straight race to snaffle enough VPs to make your decimated army the eventual victors, but as you say you can win the obsec game. But against the common top-tier soup lists the task is more complicated, as you're facing decent obsec yourself and a fearsome CC counter punch from the caps, combined with an early VP haul from the scouts. I've yet to figure out a way to come close to dealin with this, but them I'm not a top table player.
Anyway, I'm not trying to rain on the parade or anything, just noticing, along with a lot of other peeople I suspect, the sheer number of knight lists atm.
grouchoben wrote: It's actually very hard to bring enough AT to deal with Knights while still remaining viable as a TAC list, as far as I can see.
This is where I think most people are making a mistake you don't need to kill knights to win just out score them which given they have no native obsec, and such a low model count they need to win the stand up fight to have a chance at winning game's.
If they can't they auto loose objective games every time.
I agree, objectives are king, but most of the time you do indeed need enough AT to knock 3++ knights out of action, whilst dealing with 3 slamguiniuses, 15 scouts and 30-odd guardsmen, or the like. I mean, that's a typical list, or some approximation of it, that are rising to the top atm. Against pure knights you're on a shorter clock before you get wiped out, so it's a straight race to snaffle enough VPs to make your decimated army the eventual victors, but as you say you can win the obsec game. But against the common top-tier soup lists the task is more complicated, as you're facing decent obsec yourself and a fearsome CC counter punch from the caps, combined with an early VP haul from the scouts. I've yet to figure out a way to come close to dealin with this, but them I'm not a top table player.
Anyway, I'm not trying to rain on the parade or anything, just noticing, along with a lot of other peeople I suspect, the sheer number of knight lists atm.
Thats the unfortunate thing with the 8th edition ally system, no downside to best of everything from 3+ codex builds.
Now if that castellen didn't have knight strategums it would be a bit better balanced.
whembly wrote: [
Another question... what IK strategem is worth me using Agent of Vect? (I'm likely only going to get 2 uses, if at all).
Tough question. Rotate Ion Shields early game is a good candidate while you still have your full compliment of Dark Lances. Most Knight players will rotate early and often and a 3++ save early on will make it hard to burn down a Knight in a turn. Other stratagems are often house-dependent.
The other candidate is the the House Raven stratagem "Order Of Companions stratagem", particular if played on a very shooty Knight like the Castellan or Crusader. The ability to reroll all 1s during the shooting phase (hits, wounds, number of shots and number of wounds) makes a huge difference to the damage output of the Knight.
The Taranis strat that allows a dead Knight to resurrect with 1 wound on a 4+ at the end of the turn is another game-changer that can be worth preventing, particularly if it is followed by "Machine Spirit Resurgent" to allow it to fight as if at full effect.
whembly wrote: Hey guys... I'm going to a large tournament in a few weeks (SeigeWorld) with a Dark Eldar army. What are things that scares you about Dark Eldar?
Traditionally, I spam out disentigrators with a few dark lances... am I handicapping my self here against IK soup lists?
Not really. Knights will tend to out-shoot ravagers anyway. The thing they fear in a DE army is 9 taloses with 4++ saves and fnp - especially if they have haywire blasters sprinkled around.
A good DE army is a serious threat to knights, but it’s not really viable to shoot them dead. Knights die a lot faster in cc.
I'm bringing only 3 HWB Taloi (it's all I have)... and a squad of 4x HWB scourges. Other than that, it's your general 3 Ravager list with 2x Razorwing, 1x Reaper and 1x Voidraven bomber list.
Another question... what IK strategem is worth me using Agent of Vect? (I'm likely only going to get 2 uses, if at all).
@thread: thanks for the input!!!!
If you are going up against multiple Knights and you don't kill 1 turn 1, then you could start to struggle. Talos are good, but a Knight can still kill them in combat and with Death Grip. That said, having several units of them becomes a pain.
Biggest issue for me in the last event i played, was deep striking Scourges. Dealing with 3 Ravagers,a couple of dark lances and a handful of blasters on top of 2 flyers turn 1 (admittedly with doom and jinx as well) hurt enough, but then, add in 2 squads of haywire scourges and it was a tough thing to deal with. It was a close game though, and i lost it on points.
grouchoben wrote: It's actually very hard to bring enough AT to deal with Knights while still remaining viable as a TAC list, as far as I can see.
This is where I think most people are making a mistake you don't need to kill knights to win just out score them which given they have no native obsec, and such a low model count they need to win the stand up fight to have a chance at winning game's.
If they can't they auto loose objective games every time.
I agree, objectives are king, but most of the time you do indeed need enough AT to knock 3++ knights out of action, whilst dealing with 3 slamguiniuses, 15 scouts and 30-odd guardsmen, or the like. I mean, that's a typical list, or some approximation of it, that are rising to the top atm. Against pure knights you're on a shorter clock before you get wiped out, so it's a straight race to snaffle enough VPs to make your decimated army the eventual victors, but as you say you can win the obsec game. But against the common top-tier soup lists the task is more complicated, as you're facing decent obsec yourself and a fearsome CC counter punch from the caps, combined with an early VP haul from the scouts. I've yet to figure out a way to come close to dealin with this, but them I'm not a top table player.
Anyway, I'm not trying to rain on the parade or anything, just noticing, along with a lot of other peeople I suspect, the sheer number of knight lists atm.
Thats the unfortunate thing with the 8th edition ally system, no downside to best of everything from 3+ codex builds.
Now if that castellen didn't have knight strategums it would be a bit better balanced.
I was playing horde and could easily out play knights everygame outside a tourney however in a tourney time frame (and especially if theres clocks) its just too stressful. The balance problem isn't due to multiple codexs if tourneys drop points to 1500 and maintain timeframes knights wouldn't be such a problem
grouchoben wrote: It's actually very hard to bring enough AT to deal with Knights while still remaining viable as a TAC list, as far as I can see.
This is where I think most people are making a mistake you don't need to kill knights to win just out score them which given they have no native obsec, and such a low model count they need to win the stand up fight to have a chance at winning game's.
If they can't they auto loose objective games every time.
I agree, objectives are king, but most of the time you do indeed need enough AT to knock 3++ knights out of action, whilst dealing with 3 slamguiniuses, 15 scouts and 30-odd guardsmen, or the like. I mean, that's a typical list, or some approximation of it, that are rising to the top atm. Against pure knights you're on a shorter clock before you get wiped out, so it's a straight race to snaffle enough VPs to make your decimated army the eventual victors, but as you say you can win the obsec game. But against the common top-tier soup lists the task is more complicated, as you're facing decent obsec yourself and a fearsome CC counter punch from the caps, combined with an early VP haul from the scouts. I've yet to figure out a way to come close to dealin with this, but them I'm not a top table player.
Anyway, I'm not trying to rain on the parade or anything, just noticing, along with a lot of other peeople I suspect, the sheer number of knight lists atm.
Thats the unfortunate thing with the 8th edition ally system, no downside to best of everything from 3+ codex builds.
Now if that castellen didn't have knight strategums it would be a bit better balanced.
I was playing horde and could easily out play knights everygame outside a tourney however in a tourney time frame (and especially if theres clocks) its just too stressful. The balance problem isn't due to multiple codexs if tourneys drop points to 1500 and maintain timeframes knights wouldn't be such a problem
Are you talking a nothing but knights army or the soup armies, as Castellen with CP farm and Dawneagle Dbags cover most lists but both the knight and Slamquinius's are using as much CP per turn as their own armies without allies would have for a full game.
Pure knights arn't IMHO a top table army they are a good army but they get a lot better as part of soup.
I ran AM/BM/IK at BAO. I like the list. It has so much CP and all kinds of abilities to deal damage. I ran RAVEN - Castellan + gallant + gallant. I found the gallants to be suboptimal and I am going to replace them with the following:
I think the helverins have a more consistent performance against all lists. Gallants often have bad turns, or modest turns where they stomp a 60 point troop squad to bits. THey can have stupendous turns where they kill another knight in a single round of combat. But that is once a game. However, every turn a Helverin is alive it is doing good damage to something.
What's the verdict on the Styrix? Initially I wasn't crazy about it but looking back it seems pretty damn good. Ion Bulwark and Sanctuary are already baked into it, so you can choose whatever WL trait and heirloom you want, the Volkite Chieorovile is a solid anti-tank weapon, the twin rad-cleanser seems like a surprisingly good anti-charge deterrent and option vs elite infantry, good invulnerable saves, and the like. I think taking it as Krast and choosing the First Knight trait to reroll all 1's to hit and either Mark of the Omnissiah for extra tankiness or the Headsman's Mark for big game hunting seems like the way to go. Thoughts?
Wulfey wrote: I ran AM/BM/IK at BAO. I like the list. It has so much CP and all kinds of abilities to deal damage. I ran RAVEN - Castellan + gallant + gallant. I found the gallants to be suboptimal and I am going to replace them with the following:
I think the helverins have a more consistent performance against all lists. Gallants often have bad turns, or modest turns where they stomp a 60 point troop squad to bits. THey can have stupendous turns where they kill another knight in a single round of combat. But that is once a game. However, every turn a Helverin is alive it is doing good damage to something.
Interesting idea. At my last event I saw plenty of Knights with 3 Smash Captains and a Guard battalion. It does well, but I’m personally staying away from the token Captains.
As for the Helverins, I was personally considering dropping them entirely. In my last event they either pulled out clutch moves, or really struggled for the entire game. All in all, they certainly didn’t make their cost back in 4 of the 5 games.
whembly wrote: [
Another question... what IK strategem is worth me using Agent of Vect? (I'm likely only going to get 2 uses, if at all).
Tough question. Rotate Ion Shields early game is a good candidate while you still have your full compliment of Dark Lances. Most Knight players will rotate early and often and a 3++ save early on will make it hard to burn down a Knight in a turn. Other stratagems are often house-dependent.
The other candidate is the the House Raven stratagem "Order Of Companions stratagem", particular if played on a very shooty Knight like the Castellan or Crusader. The ability to reroll all 1s during the shooting phase (hits, wounds, number of shots and number of wounds) makes a huge difference to the damage output of the Knight.
The Taranis strat that allows a dead Knight to resurrect with 1 wound on a 4+ at the end of the turn is another game-changer that can be worth preventing, particularly if it is followed by "Machine Spirit Resurgent" to allow it to fight as if at full effect.
I find the rotate not that useful. Usually maybe it helps a bit, maybe it don't but one knight takes some damage and then rest goes elsewhere. Maybe local meta is bit unusual in having AT in multiple sources so it's not big deal having one source face improved. As it is it could result in no damage anyway due to rolling 5 or 6 to inv save and then there's no point often shooting at that anyway but switch target. As such I have found myself NOT using that as much. I find myself struggling with CP's so maybe stopping 1 attack feels not that good.
If you are facing raven castellan then that strategem is IMO pretty much no brainer to negate. That is such a huge effectivity multiplier it's insane. Especially if you have ~4 wound character you would really hate as it also will help the shieldbreaker missile if he feels it worth it. Alongside busting like 2 DE vehicles a turn(or at least cripple them).
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Kdash wrote: As for the Helverins, I was personally considering dropping them entirely. In my last event they either pulled out clutch moves, or really struggled for the entire game. All in all, they certainly didn’t make their cost back in 4 of the 5 games.
Hmm. I have found them pretty good. Nice shooting, fast. Warglaive shooting has too few shots and too short range and I don't generally want small ones in combat. Some more points and another warden could be nice but then again no flankers etc to push deep strikers further from big knights.
Does anyone here own a forgeworld Styrix? Would the weapons be comparable size wise on a normal gw questoris Class?
So my reasoning being if I had a Magnetised knight and acquired just the Styrix guns could I magnetised them and got them to my normal gw knight easily enough?
Ideasweasel wrote: Does anyone here own a forgeworld Styrix? Would the weapons be comparable size wise on a normal gw questoris Class?
So my reasoning being if I had a Magnetised knight and acquired just the Styrix guns could I magnetised them and got them to my normal gw knight easily enough?
Has anyone attempted such a thing?
You could do that pretty easily, yes. The only slight issue is that the Styrix's gun has a cable that goes to the knight's back, but if you put a second magnet there it would be fine.
I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
Ideasweasel wrote: Does anyone here own a forgeworld Styrix? Would the weapons be comparable size wise on a normal gw questoris Class?
So my reasoning being if I had a Magnetised knight and acquired just the Styrix guns could I magnetised them and got them to my normal gw knight easily enough?
Has anyone attempted such a thing?
You could do that pretty easily, yes. The only slight issue is that the Styrix's gun has a cable that goes to the knight's back, but if you put a second magnet there it would be fine.
I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
Cool, I might just save up for a Styrix or have a think about cutting the cable off
Ideasweasel wrote: Does anyone here own a forgeworld Styrix? Would the weapons be comparable size wise on a normal gw questoris Class?
So my reasoning being if I had a Magnetised knight and acquired just the Styrix guns could I magnetised them and got them to my normal gw knight easily enough?
Has anyone attempted such a thing?
You could do that pretty easily, yes. The only slight issue is that the Styrix's gun has a cable that goes to the knight's back, but if you put a second magnet there it would be fine.
I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
Interesting. What matchups did the helverins do poorly in? I found my castellan was very good at killing them. But I am thinking of taking them in place of the gallants because the gallants struggled so much against the eldar models in ruins or tau models in ruins matchups.
Ideasweasel wrote: Does anyone here own a forgeworld Styrix? Would the weapons be comparable size wise on a normal gw questoris Class?
So my reasoning being if I had a Magnetised knight and acquired just the Styrix guns could I magnetised them and got them to my normal gw knight easily enough?
Has anyone attempted such a thing?
The FW questoris knights are the same kit as the GW plastic ones except for the weapons, armor plates, and head (which are resin).
Mandragola wrote: I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
I would say helverins should be less vulnerable to that issue. Warglaive has short ranged gun(especially for full effect) and also cc weapon so it kinda makes it go FORWARD to be able to use the weapons. Helverin meanwhile has effectively unlimited range gun and isn't packing h2h weapon so less need to go forward. So the helverins are behind wall of big knights meaning to in combat with helverins they have to go THROUGH bigger knights. That or deep strike(turn 2+) behind.
Mandragola wrote: I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
I would say helverins should be less vulnerable to that issue. Warglaive has short ranged gun(especially for full effect) and also cc weapon so it kinda makes it go FORWARD to be able to use the weapons. Helverin meanwhile has effectively unlimited range gun and isn't packing h2h weapon so less need to go forward. So the helverins are behind wall of big knights meaning to in combat with helverins they have to go THROUGH bigger knights. That or deep strike(turn 2+) behind.
I'm not really sure which is more vulnerable, but both share this problem. The armiger can at least fight its way out of some problems.
I don't think there's much point comparing the two, as they are such different units. I do think that Helverins will get stuck, even in games where you've got a lot of knights of your own. It's true they will be reasinably well defended but some things are just unstoppable, like plaguebearers if there's a tree to let them fall back and charge, alpha legion cultists or orks using da jump.
In a mixed army, say something like admech or IG, then you could protect Helverins with screens. In a pure knight force I think it's better to go for an army where nothing can be pinned in place.
Mandragola wrote: I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
I would say helverins should be less vulnerable to that issue. Warglaive has short ranged gun(especially for full effect) and also cc weapon so it kinda makes it go FORWARD to be able to use the weapons. Helverin meanwhile has effectively unlimited range gun and isn't packing h2h weapon so less need to go forward. So the helverins are behind wall of big knights meaning to in combat with helverins they have to go THROUGH bigger knights. That or deep strike(turn 2+) behind.
I'm not really sure which is more vulnerable, but both share this problem. The armiger can at least fight its way out of some problems.
I don't think there's much point comparing the two, as they are such different units. I do think that Helverins will get stuck, even in games where you've got a lot of knights of your own. It's true they will be reasinably well defended but some things are just unstoppable, like plaguebearers if there's a tree to let them fall back and charge, alpha legion cultists or orks using da jump.
In a mixed army, say something like admech or IG, then you could protect Helverins with screens. In a pure knight force I think it's better to go for an army where nothing can be pinned in place.
You do realise that a number of codex's contain models that are perfectly capable of locking fullsize knights in CC anyway.
Mandragola wrote: I haven't used Helverins but I took a couple of Warglaives to a GT heat. I found them to be a bit of a liability if I'm honest, and I think that Helverins would be at least as bad.
The problem is that against Horde armies they can be surrounded pretty easily. They can't escape or fight their way out. The horde unit can then hold an objective (or maybe even more than one, depending on the rules you're using and scenario) and there's very little that you can do about it. An army with a Castellan, some IG infantry, scouts and smash captains wouldn't contain anything that could help.
Helverins provide very efficient shooting, and are particularly good in a meta with quite a lot of things like Eldar paper planes. But the moment something gets into cc with one that's it.
I would say helverins should be less vulnerable to that issue. Warglaive has short ranged gun(especially for full effect) and also cc weapon so it kinda makes it go FORWARD to be able to use the weapons. Helverin meanwhile has effectively unlimited range gun and isn't packing h2h weapon so less need to go forward. So the helverins are behind wall of big knights meaning to in combat with helverins they have to go THROUGH bigger knights. That or deep strike(turn 2+) behind.
I'm not really sure which is more vulnerable, but both share this problem. The armiger can at least fight its way out of some problems.
I don't think there's much point comparing the two, as they are such different units. I do think that Helverins will get stuck, even in games where you've got a lot of knights of your own. It's true they will be reasinably well defended but some things are just unstoppable, like plaguebearers if there's a tree to let them fall back and charge, alpha legion cultists or orks using da jump.
In a mixed army, say something like admech or IG, then you could protect Helverins with screens. In a pure knight force I think it's better to go for an army where nothing can be pinned in place.
You do realise that a number of codex's contain models that are perfectly capable of locking fullsize knights in CC anyway.
Sure. There are some models that can lock a full size knight in combat, though not all of them would choose to put themselves in combat with one in order to do so. But unlike a full size knight a Helverin does nothing much in close combat, and any unit can trap it. So instead of having a unit of bikes or something trap a knight, and seeing them get trodden on by it, your opponent can surround a helverin with cultists and keep it there all day.
Those cultists need something special way to get to helverin. About worst unit to try. Slow so they have hard time getting past big knights to helverins about foot minimum behind big knights.
Sure, the cultists might not be able to get there on turn 1 – though alpha legion ones may well be able to. Units can go a very long way once they’ve moved, charged, piled in and consolidated.
I’m not trying to say that cultists are the best counter to helverins. I’m saying that loads of units are a problem for them. If the helverin kills 4-5 cultists, ork boyz or whatever a turn in turns 1 and 2 before getting swamped it’s still not a useful contribution to the game.
If you read back through this thread you’ll find a few accounts from people who’ve used helverins at events. Their stories back up what I’m saying. The Helverins did pretty well in some games but were useless in others, and overall were not really worth it.
Then again I have found helverins to be useful in every game while warglaives have sucked.
And cultists? Why you would be shooting them at cultists? Don't remember game when there wasn't some vehicle or beefier infantry on the opposite side than cultists. Only exception being orks but then again as my orks have found 8+ autocannon shots per model hurt anyway. Especially when they have effectively unlimited range so have no trouble avoiding combat.
Well I’ve played several games where the only available target was 1-200 orks. cultists, plaguebearers or whatever. It’s pretty common for armies to comprise chaff infantry and characters.
I’m not saying that Warglaives are good, and I’m not comparing Helverins to Warglaives. They are obviously totally different units that do different jobs in different ways, so it’s never a choice between one or the other. I’m saying both are a liability against hordes. They offer your opponent a safe place to put his guys – in combat with your armiger.
And of course it’s not just hordes that are the problem. Eldar can get jetbikes anywhere on the board in a turn. Smash captains can re-deploy. A random raven guard intercessor squad could use SftS and potentially lock down a Helverin for the whole game, unless you send a big knight to help.
GSKs, Wolves and Orks are getting their codexes soon, and there’s bound to be more bad news for Helverins in there.
This problem certainly isn’t limited to knights. Right now I don’t think that any shooty unit in 40k that can’t fall back and fire is truly competitive. One of the weirder changes in 8th has been that tanks have gone from being scary metal things that might run you over to soft cuddly things that you wanted to hug.
Well. If smash captain goes hunting helverin it has done it's job and more. I rather lose helverin(at which point btw being tagged isn't worry) than full knight which BA smash captain is more than capable of one shotting. Actually that goes to lots of stuff. If they want to redeploy to rear(after clearing up IG screens from there which btw means no T1 helverin tag) and go hunt for lone helverin feel free. Less pressure to big knight.
Fair point. A smash captain list will just kill your actually dangerous units first, while letting your helverins kill ~20 points worth of IG a turn each.
Actually helverin is nice to have around to blow that smash captain once it's killed big knight. Tons of shots so good way to get through that 3++ and -1AP doesn't bother. Flat D3 meanwhile is nice for hunting those.
Though those buggers are still annoying as short of IG screen around you(which will at least save you 1 turn) there literally is nothing you can often do but hope for dices. Put in 9", charge with high chance, no overwatch, knight dies or at least is crippled. Not much more you can ask for hunting knight :-/
Yeah, hopefully smash captains will be nerfed heavily, and other marine stuff will be improved to be worth taking.
I recently played a guy with 5 smash captains (2 of them deathwatch) and Mephiston. They hid behind an IG screen and a unit of 10 crusaders with 2+ invulnerable saves. Fun.
So, Helverins are fantastic vs Drukhari. They really put the hurt on their Ravagers and Raiders etc. But, when they are faced with only standard infantry squads (regardless of type or faction) they start to struggle. 8 shots on average is nice, yes, but you’re only hitting with 5 of them and probably wounding with 3-5 of them. A unit in cover will likely survive, and a 10-man basic infantry squad will just carry on afterwards.
When they work, they work really well, but I’ve found that in a lot of event games, they aren’t fantastic.
I’ve seriously started considering switching to Warglaives for the melta to pop vehicles, and then running another Knight with Gatling Cannon for the horde/light vehicle killing.
I also agree that big, durable horde style armies are still a “big thing” right now, however, I feel like it is starting to shift/will shift soon – however, the Ork release might change that again.
As for smash captains, I’d argue they’ve done their job better if they get in and kill a big Knight only to then die to a Helverin. I’d take that trade every day of the week. A Knight can potentially destroy your army. A Helverin can usually, at best, kill a couple of units.
Going to have to disagree with Helverins being bad.
Yes certain machups are worse than others, but i’ve never found my helverins to be useless. I feel like your overestimating how easy it is trap them. First, keep in mind Helverins don’t mind board hugging as a 74 (+d6 if raven) inch threat range gets nearly everywhere. This means that a 32 +2d6 charge range might not actually get you to a Helverin. Which brings me to my next point. It’s lot really that bad of thing if your opponent goes after them. For example, a quickened shinging spear unit will usually only be charge and kill one thing if they go after the Helverins. That means the rest of your knights are much safer. (Btw Helverins are pretty good at killing shining spears, one shot kills if they fail their +4/++4 save.)
Slam captains should always go after big knights, so I’d be quite happy to have a Helverin absorb one of their charges. And unless it’s genesteler cult most hords will have a hard time getting to the Helverins. At the very least they’re fast objective grabbers, which is always useful.
Finally, I’d like to point that a lot of armies find Helverins. The last game I played my helverins Helped finish off a couple of oppesing knights. 3 damage is a lot and adds up after enough hear and there shots get through. I believe it’s best not to dimiss a unit until after playing 4-5 games with it (unless there’s something that clearly is strictly-better than it.)
I’ve seriously started considering switching to Warglaives for the melta to pop vehicles, and then running another Knight with Gatling Cannon for the horde/light vehicle killing.
I find helverin decent even for that. Yeah -1AP only but flat D3 and lot more shots(8 vs 2 in average...) and ton more range. Reach from anywhere and no need to be within dirt close range for full effect.
As for smash captains, I’d argue they’ve done their job better if they get in and kill a big Knight only to then die to a Helverin. I’d take that trade every day of the week. A Knight can potentially destroy your army. A Helverin can usually, at best, kill a couple of units.
True that but alas not much you can DO except screen to delay. Killing them in advance you have pretty much shieldbreaker only and even with raven strategem that's super dodgy and requires them to not use DS to strike. However helverin at least can migate damage by providin way to get rid of it cheaply before it kills ANOTHER knight. Other option is gatling cannon but that's more expensive solution.
Fast, reasonably cheap, effectively unlimited range and flat D3 is pretty good.
3xhwt mortar as that gives you some anti hoard and helps your backfield letting your infantry squads move move move to the midfield objectives 99pts
Next up a unit or 2 of rough riders to sweep in and grab an objective away from your starting lines 60pts with plasma guns
Scions are poor objective holders because they are squishy less tanky for their points and while they are certainly good for ds in and plasma spam they are not living more than 1 turn
daismith906 wrote: having issues with objectives with my knight list - valliant, crusader & gallant
what would be a good option for objective holders
thinking 3 squads of scions with 2 commanders to DS in turn 3
It depends on the mission scoring your playing progressive scoring I'm not sure scions will help, end game maybe, but realy cheapest of the cheap infantry squad that posses no threat would be a good choice or scouts but your giving up a lot loosing Grand Strategists and Kurov's not to mention a msu marine battalion is 300 plus points, however if marines get price drops or Guard get nerfed come FAQ or CA they could be a good option though I see most people jumping to ad mech
Guard are a fair price for what you get add a pt per man they would still see as much use in soup only mono guard players would suffer. Add to much and you replace guard with the next cheapest option.
U02dah4 wrote: Guard are a fair price for what you get add a pt per man they would still see as much use in soup only mono guard players would suffer. Add to much and you replace guard with the next cheapest option.
Its the grand strategist trait thats the issue
I wasn't trying ro go off topic with the whole guard farm issue, more putting a qualifier that while basic infantry squads guard farm is currently the best the FAQ or CA could have a huge impact or no impact depending on what GW's change.
Just started magnetizing my Warglaives and was curious if I should magnetize the weapons for the potential to switch them around with helverins? Is that the only difference between the models, just the weapons loadouts?
Also,
tneva82 wrote: Actually helverin is nice to have around to blow that smash captain once it's killed big knight.
daismith906 wrote: cheers guys whats the best heavy weapons/special weapons if any to load ouit the standard x3 infantry squads?
Mortars are amazing for their cost and if your playing ITC they are important to deny secondaries (unit size 9 instead of 10).
I wouldn't bother with any of the other options.
Facisminthe41m wrote: Just started magnetizing my Warglaives and was curious if I should magnetize the weapons for the potential to switch them around with helverins? Is that the only difference between the models, just the weapons loadouts?
They don't need to be magnetized really. The arms have a sort of slot-fit arrangement so you can mount them, pose them as you like and even remove them to swap them. No magnets required.
Facisminthe41m wrote: Just started magnetizing my Warglaives and was curious if I should magnetize the weapons for the potential to switch them around with helverins? Is that the only difference between the models, just the weapons loadouts?
They don't need to be magnetized really. The arms have a sort of slot-fit arrangement so you can mount them, pose them as you like and even remove them to swap them. No magnets required.
but can you get them on and off with the shoulder guards in place? I can do it on my questorus but I don't it for my Helverins.
daismith906 wrote: having issues with objectives with my knight list - valliant, crusader & gallant
what would be a good option for objective holders
thinking 3 squads of scions with 2 commanders to DS in turn 3
I’ve been running a valiant crusader and gallant with a helverin and a battalion of stygies 8 ad mech. I have got to actually test it since I updated it but it seems better. I have an enginseer TDP 2x rangers and 1x vanguard with a 5man infiltrator squad. Mostly running the admech because it’s all I have tho
daismith906 wrote: cheers guys whats the best heavy weapons/special weapons if any to load ouit the standard x3 infantry squads?
Mortars are amazing for their cost and if your playing ITC they are important to deny secondaries (unit size 9 instead of 10).
I wouldn't bother with any of the other options.
Mind you that itc thing is gone with new rules. Plus for inf squad you aren#t out of los so i would take heavy bolter
I’ve been reading the new space wolf codex. They’ve got an awesome stratagem called Chooser of the Slain that lets a “friendly” unit (crucially not just a space wolf unit) fire at an opponent’s unit that sets up as reinforcements. You just need a rune priest that can see the enemy unit and for 2CPs he gets to pick a friendly unit within 6” to fire at them, with -1 to hit.
It seems to me that the unit within 6” of the rune priest ought to be a knight – preferably a dominus knight or a crusader – though anything but a gallant or armiger knight would do.
Rune priests can also do useful stuff like deny enemy psychic powers. As space wolves they get to heroically intervene 6” and this could be useful because they can take a relic suit of armour that makes a unit within 1” fight last. They have a decent set of psychic powers, many of which cause mortal wounds. Not many of them need to be cast on knights to succeed.
This all adds up to a pretty strong deterrence against people charging your knights, when there’s a rune priest nearby. If they deep strike they get shot at, then if they charge the rune priest can intervene, slow the enemy’s attacks and let the knight stamp on them a few times before they fight.
So I’m pretty sure that at least one rune priest would make a good addition to a knight army. It might be worth it to get a battalion for the CPs, if the rumours of the nerfs to the guard CP battery are true. The problem there is that wolf scouts aren’t troops, and in any case don’t have the same deployment rules as normal space wolf scouts. So I’d have to use intercessors, blood claws or grey hunters. Of the three I think I prefer intercessors, because they will tend to live a bit longer than the other options, but grey hunters look ok. I’ve thrown together the following 2k list.
Knight lance (+6CPs)
Castellan (warlord) with two turrets, two missiles, Ion Bulwark and Cawl’s Wrath. 604
Crusader with RFBC, endless fury (-1CP) and ironstorm pod. 501
Warden with Thunderstrike gauntlet and probably landstrider (-1CP). 416
Wolf battalion (+5CPs)
Primaris Rune Priest with Armour of Russ (-1CP). 103
Primaris Rune Priest. 103
5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91
5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91
5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91
So that leaves you with 11CPs at the start of the game. I think this list would work best as Raven, for the stratagem and to let the warden get into combat on turn 1 if you want.
It could well be that a supreme command detachment is a better option than a battalion, but CPs are good. I’ve found my Crimson Fist intercessors to be fairly good, though space wolf ones would be a little bit worse due to not ignoring cover.
I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on whether wolves and knights looks like a good match.
But does eldar one allow fire with non eldar? I think i would wait like 2 weeks for faq before investing money. Daemon thing was clear ok by rules before faq as well. As faq's comes so fast feels prudent to wait. Of course if you have models different.
Wonder how many bought primarch when daemon codex came
No, it’s <craftworld> only - though that’s not really a problem as the superheavy can be from the same craftworld as the farseer. It does mean the space wolf one is more flexible though.
I might not buy stuff, but to be honest I wouldn’t have to for now. I’ve got quite enough primaris guys to proxy the list.
That Rune Priest stratagem does look nice. We will have to wait for the FAQ to find out if it is too good to be true. Intercessors are good troops and quite durable for the points. I quite like Grey Hunters too. For the same price as Tactical Marines they get chainswords thrown in so get twice as many attacks in melee.
I would be tempted to go with regular Rune Priests rather than Primaris ones and to give them Jump Packs. This helps them keep up with the Knights if necessary and helps them levarge that 6" HI.
Yeah grey hunters are an interesting troop choice. I tend to think that they wouldn't be all that good in small numbers, but that a bunch of them could be effective. I prefer the durability of intercessors as allies for knights, especially since most of the big guns will be pointed at knights, leaving small arms to remove the intercessors.
You could be right about the jump pack option. My problem with it is that you pay quite a lot more for a model with a sinnificatly worse profile. But maybe that profile isn't all that important. I'm not sure there's all that much risk of even a guy on foot being left behind by a castellan or crusader, though thinking about it I am suggesting house Raven here, so maybe they'll be quite fast.
I also think Njal is worth considering. Personally I don't think he's worth it. Your rune priests are there more for the stratagem than their psychic powers (which are certainly great to have). However if you have three priests in a supreme command detachment I think there's a stronger case for one of them being Njal, for that boosted living lightning stratagem. The trouble there is that you need even more CPs, and you only get 1 from a supreme command instead of 5 for a battalion.
Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?
RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade
This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.
Wulfey wrote: Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?
RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade
This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.
Part of the reason you don't see two Castellans that often is because the second one is so much worse than the first one. You can only put the 4++, relic plasma, and rotate ion shields on one of them, or split it between them somehow and have two mediocre castellans. It's much better to just take 1 knight and some other army, or to at least take a lot of different knights and spread the relics around.
Wulfey wrote: Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?
RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls) MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor) CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade
This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.
Part of the reason you don't see two Castellans that often is because the second one is so much worse than the first one. You can only put the 4++, relic plasma, and rotate ion shields on one of them, or split it between them somehow and have two mediocre castellans. It's much better to just take 1 knight and some other army, or to at least take a lot of different knights and spread the relics around.
So yes, the second one is fully worse (lower damage) than the first. But in this case, the second one is tough as nails (-1/2+) and ignores modifiers for 1CP. The idea with this list would be it is specifically designed to target the current meta of ynnari / IK_BA_Castellon / drukari. Ignore modifiers baits out twice as many vects as the current meta list and two castellans will outshoot one. And yeah, smash captains are scary, I run them, but they aren't getting through 60 guard bodies if you make a real bubble wrap. Just make sure your 2++ ogryn bodyguard is waiting by the knights to catch those thunderhammer swings.
I'm running a IG Battery + Castellan + Custode bike list and was wondering what knight players are doing to deal with smash captains.
I was at Nova last weekend and the higher you went up in the ranking the more often you saw 2 or 3 of these guys. My strategy was to bubble wrap with my mortars but they die when there's a stiff breeze and are slow compared to the knight. My new strategy I think will to be to bubble wrap with one of the Custode bike units as they can keep up and are as tough as nails although that means they are tied to the knight until the smash captains are no longer an issue. So that's my strategy until it fails miserably - what's yours?
I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.
Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?
It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would appreciate any feedback on it anyways.
Spiky Norman wrote: I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.
Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?
It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.
Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...
Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf
Spiky Norman wrote: I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.
Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?
It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.
Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...
Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf
So not worth the money and time to go that route?
Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?
Spiky Norman wrote: I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.
Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?
It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.
Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...
Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf
So not worth the money and time to go that route?
Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?
It's not top tier, but you also can't really always be chasing the top tier stuff as it keeps changing.
Generally I think knights +Scions have potential, since you can keep the Scions cheap and drop them in turns 2-3 for some board control and still benefit from the schew nature of a T8 knight army.
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
tneva82 wrote: One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
tneva82 wrote: One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
Not if you hold them off the table.
I guess it depends a bit on the missions scoring, but maybe Helverins can help hold some objective in our own backfield
tneva82 wrote: One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
Not if you hold them off the table.
Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights
tneva82 wrote: One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
Not if you hold them off the table.
Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights
Right. But they are pretty cheap and a pure knight list doesn't have screens anyway.
Infantry squads are definitely better, no argument there. But it's not like you're hamstringing yourself by taking scions if you like them.
tneva82 wrote: One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well
Not if you hold them off the table.
Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights
Right. But they are pretty cheap and a pure knight list doesn't have screens anyway.
Infantry squads are definitely better, no argument there. But it's not like you're hamstringing yourself by taking scions if you like them.
Having played a Knight Gallant alongside my Dark Angels and (borrowed) Astra Militarum in two different tournaments and a couple of other games, I can say that it makes a pretty effective distraction and puts early pressure on your opponent. For 354 points, it is extremely effective, especially with the 2+ armor save relic. The Paragon Gauntlet is another solid choice, and allowed my Gallant to actually kill a Warhound Titan in one round of combat today (actually yesterday as it is past midnight as I write this).
Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?
Can't comment on scions but I've been playing around with a bare bones elysian battalion plus a couple of vultures alongside my knights and quite enjoy it, which might have some similarities. I don't bother with the cp regen abilities as I often keep them back till turn 3 when gaps have opened up on the board for them to grab objectives, though against lighter armoured armies they can offer some useful fire power by being able to deeps trike into frfsrf range.
Vultures are hit and miss but they allow me to meet 50% on the board with out being a squishy target for the enemies anti-infantry weapons, and they are enjoying the large amount of dark eldar vehicles at the moment.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wulfey wrote: Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?
RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade
This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.
I'd be tempted to make the mortal castellan a crusader, stops you becoming over saturated with anti-vehicle weaponry making you a bit more versatile but still has enough punch to make use of the stratagem, the slightly better ws also means he's more happy getting in CC making use of the house hold trait.
So, some of you may remember the tragedy of my last grand tournament, where I had to forfeit my last two games due to a plumbing emergency and missed out on a finals spot by one point?
Well, I was able to snag a returned ticket for this Saturdays heat 2, and a shot at redemption.
The downside is I haven't done a lick of painting since then due to demotivation, so I'll be bringing Castellan, Valiant and Crusader as that's all that's been painted.
I've also not been paying attention to the meta, so any suggestions on what to look out for will be appreciated
Godeskian wrote: So, some of you may remember the tragedy of my last grand tournament, where I had to forfeit my last two games due to a plumbing emergency and missed out on a finals spot by one point?
Well, I was able to snag a returned ticket for this Saturdays heat 2, and a shot at redemption.
The downside is I haven't done a lick of painting since then due to demotivation, so I'll be bringing Castellan, Valiant and Crusader as that's all that's been painted.
I've also not been paying attention to the meta, so any suggestions on what to look out for will be appreciated
Great news.
I'm not sure if the meta has changed much since heat 1, though it's likely you'll face more people who are prepared to meet knights.
I think you might be better off with House Raven. Their stratagem on a Castellan seems to have been identified as a real game-changer, and they are also better at getting your Valiant into range. You could consider landstrider on one of your guys to get even more of a speed boost.
Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?
Can't comment on scions but I've been playing around with a bare bones elysian battalion plus a couple of vultures alongside my knights and quite enjoy it, which might have some similarities. I don't bother with the cp regen abilities as I often keep them back till turn 3 when gaps have opened up on the board for them to grab objectives, though against lighter armoured armies they can offer some useful fire power by being able to deeps trike into frfsrf range.
Vultures are hit and miss but they allow me to meet 50% on the board with out being a squishy target for the enemies anti-infantry weapons, and they are enjoying the large amount of dark eldar vehicles at the moment.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wulfey wrote: Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?
RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade
This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.
I'd be tempted to make the mortal castellan a crusader, stops you becoming over saturated with anti-vehicle weaponry making you a bit more versatile but still has enough punch to make use of the stratagem, the slightly better ws also means he's more happy getting in CC making use of the house hold trait.
I don't think Scions really add a lot to a knight list to be honest. They aren't good at killing things that the knights aren't already good at killing, but they do give your opponent a bunch of easy targets for small arms fire and close combat units. I'd steer clear.
Also, in the mixed Raven, Mortan and Catachan list the Mortan knight won't get a household trait anyway, so that's kind of irrelevant on the Castellan/Crusader decision. Crusaders are good, of course.
On the whole I think it's better to go for a knight Lance and battalion rather than two individual ones and a brigade. You get almost as many CPs but the knights get their traits and there's an awful lot less tax for you to pay. I think I'd take either one knight or three, basically.
Do you know what house he was playing?
) As a result i didn't kill enough turn 1.
