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I recently played a game of SM vs 3 IKs ans Necrons. I wiped out the Necron troops and HQ. My problem was the Knights. I had 3 centurions with Tiggy combo. I was able to put 8 hull points on a knight in one shooting turn but with the damn Admantine lance formation only one went through with the re-rollable 4++. With the Knight's 12 inch move it didn't take long until I was charged and the grav cannon's 24 inch range didn't help with that either. I did put missiles on the cents that got hits but the stupid shield deflected most of those. There is no option for melta bombs on Centurions. I was very frustrated as I was gradually chained and stomped to death over several turns of failed "our weapons are useless" retreats. I had a 5 man squad of Termies, yes I know they suck. I tried to tarpit one knight midfield with them. They were D stomped before they could even swing at I1. I had a cheap scout squad camping nearby that also got charged. The sgt whiffed twice with melta bombs before he was killed. So my question is how do you deal with IKs in close combat? Usually only the sgt can take melta bombs and hammers and fists go at I1 if you live to make it that far. One Knight can be tar pitted and ignored but 3? It was 1620 pts and I lacked the MSUs to use as speed bumps. So shooting them to death is easier said than done. I had Tiggy/Cents with grav cannons, 5 man termie, basic sterguard in pod (no combis) which did their job wiping out troops from objectives, Grav bike squad which got pie plated at range with failed jinks, scout squad as troop tax, tactical squad with melta in pod and storm talon. All sgts had melta bombs. The storm talon got behind but still takes a 6 with assault cannon. I stripped a few hull points but once they were in CC it was game over. Mission was the one with one objective each and Hammer and anvil. It was a tourney but damn I was not expecting 3 Knights at 1620. Had I known I was facing that I would obviously had longer range antitank but still have the shield to deal with. I would have put combi melta on my sternies but then you start having a very expensive one shot suicide unit that might get lucky and take out one knight only to get curb stomped by the remaining 2. What TAC list would you suggest and how do you deal with these PITA units in CC? Even smashf@$#%^ would get removed with a D stomp on a 6.

Well 3 knights is pretty cheesy at 1600 points, so it will be hard to beat. Your terminators should still have got to attack btw, even if they were stomped, as they both happen at I1.

For your original question, the easiest answer is don't. You can't reasonably take a knight down in cc without another knight or specialist unit. Even if you do there is always a chance that a lucky stomp with take your unit out, or the thing will blow up and kill everyone when it dies. Ranged solutions are the best. Your biggest issue was relying on 1 unit to do all of your anti tank. Against this the adamantine lance is pretty strong, as they can focus it, and once it is done they have total board control. Drop pod meltas or outflanking bikes would help. Maybe a stormraven or other anti armour flyer.

Hit them from multiple angles and they go down surprisingly fast.

The formation is a little unwieldy, as the knights need to be within 3 of another knight to get the re-roll on their shield. This means that they must be giving up alot of board space to do this, meaning you can try to take out all his other stuff and play the objectives. Difficult with 3 knights, but not impossible. It just depends how many 6's he gets on those stomp rolls.

The only thing I have ever seen beat Knights in CC are the Ctan superheavy and those dudes from the Dark Angels codex that get S10 on initiative once per game.

Thunderhammers can finish a knight off. Soften it up with a squad of melta in a drop pod and then hit it with terminators.

The knight would be lucky to kill 1 terminator a round of combat. Its only got 3 attacks and you still get your invuln save. Only variable is if he rolls a 6 on a stomp.


Lets say you have 5 TH/SS terminators charge him.

The Knight has 3 attacks. So he might kill 1 terminator on average dice. Assuming he does kill that 1 Terminator(unlikely)

4 Terminators have 12 attacks. 6 hits, 2 damage results. 1 pen has a 1/6 chance of causing D3 hull points instead of 1.

A character with a Melta bomb will also be a danger to the Knight. If its a Librarian he could also be giving your squad rerolls to hit from Divination.

1 pen has a 1/6 chance of causing D3 hull points instead of 1

It actually does D3 more hull points in addition to the one lost for the penetrating hit. Making pens more dangerous than this.

TH/SS models are a good way to bring them down if they can catch the knight. The catching it is the tough part. Most terminators would need a landraider to reach the knights if they know what is coming.

How were the termis D stomped before the could swing? The stomp also happens at I1.

Yup, you still get attacks even if you get stomped to death.

The probability of him rolling a 6 on one stomp is also only around 30%. And if you are properly spread he should only get 2 models at most.

I have taken one down with a Mega-nob squad on the chagrge. I think all of the mega nobs died though, maybe one lived?

Be'lakor will take em down.. Quick too

People freak out over StrD melee, but then forget that it still only has 3 attacks. That means, best case scenario, it kills 4 models on a turn it charges. Discounting Stomps of course. But really Stomps aren't scary if you have 3+ armor or better. Sure, it might roll a 6 and squish all your expensive ICs, but more likely it totally bounces.

It was my first real close encounter with Knights. I was was told the chain sword attack was strength 10 AP2. So that put the hurt on me as I did not have assault Termies with storm shields. I also did have a librarian and got invisibility cheese but was told stomp template could still hit. I didn't know the stomp was at I1. Next time I'll know. I usually ally AM with lots of long range high strength shots. I won't make that mistake again.

There is a Forge World Knight that has a Str10 AP2 sword instead of Str D. It's gun is a bolt cannon and not battle cannon or melta cannon.

Its sword also does one additional hit for every unsaved wound it causes, and it can choose to automatically hit every model in base contact with a hit instead of its normal melee attacks.

Not relevant to the OP, but Screamers will also abuse Knights pretty handily.

broo wrote:
Be'lakor will take em down.. Quick too

Took my opponent at least 2 turns. Belly needs a wingman to take down an IK.

Orks can do it - use Tankbusters. Each Tankbuster is armed with a Rokkit Launcher and Meltabombs. Knights only have 3 attacks, of which on average half will miss anyway (WS4 vs WS4 means you are hitting on 4s). If you can get a decent size unit of Tankbusters in, which is not difficult at all since Orks have cheap assault vehicles, then you can really mess it up at Iniative1.

Sisters can do it somewhat handily too, with Repentia (each model has an Eviscerator which will be S6 Armourbane attacks), but have problems with getting the unit into CC due to a lack of assault vehicles.

Of course no melee unit is likely to survive the Knights normal attacks, then stomps/catastrophic explosion, but hey you just killed a Knight.

As someone who puts an Imperial Knight on the table, one of the most effective ways in dealing with that shield is to make them have to choose which shield facing they want and to make either choice a bad choice. Every time my Knight has been brought down, it's because of this.

And as everyone else pointed out here, your hammers should of still hit even with the stomp attacks going off.

 Grey Templar wrote:
There is a Forge World Knight that has a Str10 AP2 sword instead of Str D. It's gun is a bolt cannon and not battle cannon or melta cannon.

Its sword also does one additional hit for every unsaved wound it causes, and it can choose to automatically hit every model in base contact with a hit instead of its normal melee attacks.

Someone pointed out to me that the lance formation only can use paladins and errants. The other versions would not fulfill the lance requirements. Did they change it so the knight castius or lancer etc. can be part of the formation now?

No, it's still Paladins and Errants only.

SJ

For what it's worth, I have a long blog post up here on fighting with and against Knights, that was also reposted on 3++:

http://www.rocketshipgames.com/blogs/tjkopena/2014/09/stompin-time-notes-on-knights/

Thanks for the posts. You mentioned krak grenades in your blog. How do these hurt AV 13? Is there a different rule for armor facing in cc vs knight?

Krak grenades can't scratch a Knight, being a Walker you always go against Front Armour in combat.
And they won't be getting immobilised.

There were a couple of mistakes on that blog post.

People have already spotted the krak grenade one, also:

it’s quite a bit easier to bubble wrap a Knight on the move without sacrificing its mobility since it moves as normal infantry—so slow!—

IK are super-heavy walkers, so move 12 inches a turn. They were also FAQ'd to be better at going through difficult terrain now too.

Knights that only move 6 a turn would be much easier for people to deal with.

Yeah, don't do cc with Imperial Knights. I recommend lascannons.

You can't kill a Knight without both shooting and melee, unless you have a TON of shooting from multiple angles.

Its best to soften it up with shooting and finish it in melee. Once its down to 2-3 hull points its quite easy to kill in melee.

 Matthew wrote:
Yeah, don't do cc with Imperial Knights. I recommend lascannons.

This is probably the best bet. Imperial Knights are hard to take down in CC and even the most CC heavy Infantry fold to them. I have bested more than my fair share of CC models including Lucius. The best way is heavy weapons especially a Sternguard squad with melta.

Assault centurions will cut through them like a hot knife through butter (and it's before they get to stomp), only issue is damn explosion of the knight, and the need of a assault vehicle to get them into combat.

From a mathhammer perspective MEQ with a couple melta bombs should drop most knights unless he gets lucky with stomp or your guys end up super clumped up. AP4 on the stomp makes it not very scary.

That said, units that are typically good in melee are too expensive to fight knights. Expensive characters should avoid them like the plague. Each swing of that sword could remove a 100-200 point dude or a 14 point tactical marine.

Mavnas wrote:
From a mathhammer perspective MEQ with a couple melta bombs should drop most knights

A couple of bombs? Think you need to re-check your math!

Assuming the chain blade doesn't kill any of these 2 melta bombs, it's a 50/50 chance they'll hit. It's then a 1/3 chance for an Explode! result, followed by a 1/3 chance to cause a max of 4 HPs of damage.

You need more than a couple

People keep saying that the stomp is nothing to worry about vs MEQ, and shrugging it off as if it is not a threat.

Whilst it won't kill almost everything it hits when targeting an MEQ squad, it is still very able to pile on wounds.

Pile in move + blast template + str 6 will usually result in around 6 wounds a turn on a minimum squad, possibly more if the squad is larger, or if 3 stomp attacks occur.

This means an MEQ will lose around 2 marines a turn to stomps. Nothing amazing, but actually on par with its D-chainsword in terms of kills per tun.

You can however, before the assault, spread your guys out so your pile in moves don't clump you as much. There are ways around the danger of the stomp.

But even if its killing 2 guys a turn, its still going to take 2-3 turns to chew through a tactical squad.