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Are Imperial knights, wraithknights and such other equivalent models too easy to kill? Or do weapons do too much damage?

I'm asking because I know I can take down a wraith knight in one turn of shooting, and I don't have the best list out there. With this new knight I'm worried it's not going to stay on the table long as I'm sure it'll be both a points and money sink.

I think that they will keep dying too easily as long as people are forced to bring enough anti-tank to handle even tougher targets like daemon primarchs. Those models become a lot harder to kill if people are bringing less anti-tank and more anti-horde to counter their local meta.

8th edition empowered shooting by allowing anything to hurt anything, and AP always serves a purpose...

Than then put a premium tax on toughness and wounds instead of shooting.

Hence crappy shooting can rule the day and hard targets sir on shelves.

I think part of it is the effect of random damage weapons. Defensive abilities tend to be static and easy to cost. But when 4 lascannon s have the ability to kill one of those models, it really drops their value.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
8th edition empowered shooting by allowing anything to hurt anything, and AP always serves a purpose...

Than then put a premium tax on toughness and wounds instead of shooting.

Hence crappy shooting can rule the day and hard targets sir on shelves.

This, plus:

1) They cant get cover 99% the time
2) MW's ignore Invuls and its easy to get MW's out,
3) They dont do enough in melee and hordes can surround them
4) They cant hold objectives very well

You need to build the rest of the army to support them. And even if you do they can still die

 Jidmah wrote:
I think that they will keep dying too easily as long as people are forced to bring enough anti-tank to handle even tougher targets like daemon primarchs. Those models become a lot harder to kill if people are bringing less anti-tank and more anti-horde to counter their local meta.

Yeah, with vehicles and monsters having the same type of stat line now “anti-vehicle” weapons are a solution to both and worth taking more of since they are likely to have viable targets in every game.

They are too easy to kill. Because they're so tall, it is super easy to draw LOS to them from any part of the table, so all the enemy lascannons can focusfire them. And of course they hardly ever get cover. GW has been really stingy with toughness. I really think that Knight-scale things should have at least toughness nine; it would help against their most common bane, the lascannons and variety of other weapons. Toughness eight is really common, relatively small vehicles like Vindicators and some Dreadnoughts have it, while toughness nine is almost unheard of.

GW should use more T9 and T10, not reserve only to FW titanic units.

They need to die reasonably quickly against special anti tank weaponry.
Otherwise they would just insta-win against any army that is not completely loaded with those kind of weapons.

 Crimson wrote:
They are too easy to kill. Because they're so tall, it is super easy to draw LOS to them from any part of the table, so all the enemy lascannons can focusfire them. And of course they hardly ever get cover. GW has been really stingy with toughness. I really think that Knight-scale things should have at least toughness nine; it would help against their most common bane, the lascannons and variety of other weapons. Toughness eight is really common, relatively small vehicles like Vindicators and some Dreadnoughts have it, while toughness nine is almost unheard of.

T8 isn't common at all. The only "small" vehicles that have it are those which are know for being exceptionally tough, like the vindicator with his huge siege shield, ironclad dreadnoughts or wraithlords. Pretty much everything else is T7.

 Jidmah wrote:

T8 isn't common at all. The only "small" vehicles that have it are those which are know for being exceptionally tough, like the vindicator with his huge siege shield, ironclad dreadnoughts or wraithlords. Pretty much everything else is T7.

All Leman Russ tanks have it. It just weird that toughness seems to progressively get better for larger stuff... until it reaches 8 and doesn't any more. For example compare the Eldar Wraith units: the Wraithguard are T6, (W3), their larger cousin the Wraithlord has T8 (W10), while the enormous Wraithknight is somehow still T8 (W24).

The really big stuff should be tougher. At the moment having one big, expensive vehicle instead of several, smaller, cheaper ones is usually just a liability.

 Crimson wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

T8 isn't common at all. The only "small" vehicles that have it are those which are know for being exceptionally tough, like the vindicator with his huge siege shield, ironclad dreadnoughts or wraithlords. Pretty much everything else is T7.

All Leman Russ tanks have it. It just weird that toughness seems to progressively get better for larger stuff... until it reaches 8 and doesn't any more. For example compare the Eldar Wraith units: the Wraithguard are T6, (W3), their larger cousin the Wraithlord has T8 (W10), while the enormous Wraithknight is somehow still T8 (W24).

The really big stuff should be tougher. At the moment having one big, expensive vehicle instead of several, smaller, cheaper ones is usually just a liability.

I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

If anything can wound anything, why not go above 8 or 10?

Just for reference from earlier editions, boltguns could only glance rhinos on 6s shooting it in it's rear spot. So should by that logic a rhino be T8?(If someone says previous editions are irrelevant for the current edition, then why are Marines T4?)

 fraser1191 wrote:

I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

If anything can wound anything, why not go above 8 or 10?

Just for reference from earlier editions, boltguns could only glance rhinos on 6s shooting it in it's rear spot. So should by that logic a rhino be T8?(If someone says previous editions are irrelevant for the current edition, then why are Marines T4?)

In that particular instance I think that boltguns being better against many vehicles than lasguns is actually a good thing. But yes, I agree with your overall point.

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

T8 isn't common at all. The only "small" vehicles that have it are those which are know for being exceptionally tough, like the vindicator with his huge siege shield, ironclad dreadnoughts or wraithlords. Pretty much everything else is T7.

All Leman Russ tanks have it. It just weird that toughness seems to progressively get better for larger stuff... until it reaches 8 and doesn't any more. For example compare the Eldar Wraith units: the Wraithguard are T6, (W3), their larger cousin the Wraithlord has T8 (W10), while the enormous Wraithknight is somehow still T8 (W24).

The really big stuff should be tougher. At the moment having one big, expensive vehicle instead of several, smaller, cheaper ones is usually just a liability.

I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

If anything can wound anything, why not go above 8 or 10?

Just for reference from earlier editions, boltguns could only glance rhinos on 6s shooting it in it's rear spot. So should by that logic a rhino be T8?(If someone says previous editions are irrelevant for the current edition, then why are Marines T4?)

Not every army can field lascannons, not every army can get bonuses to wound. What are you supposed to do if S8 is as high as you go?

And don't give me 'everything can wound everything' because that's the clarion call of being bad at math. A T9 24 wound model with a 5++ takes 47 melta gun shots to take down. A meq equivalent melta gun costs 17pts. MeQ bodies range from 9 to 'holy crap' points per model. That means it would take 1222 pts of units armed ONLY with anti-tank weapons minimum to kill it.

It would take 36 rapid firing, overchaging, reroll 1s Hellblasters (only 1188pts) to drop it.

The problem isn't toughness the problem is that large models tend to be overcosted and multi-damage weapons tend to do too much damage when they do hit and wound. Plus an uneven distribution of reroll auras.

 fraser1191 wrote:


I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

Huh?

Aside from Eldar there's like 5 or 6 S10 weapons. Tau and Eldar are the only ones with guns above S10 (and the Tau one is super limited). Everything else is on a titanic model.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:


I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

Huh?

Aside from Eldar there's like 5 or 6 S10 weapons. Tau and Eldar are the only ones with guns above S10 (and the Tau one is super limited). Everything else is on a titanic model.

SM have a bunch of over S10 stuff like Bobby G and dreads in CC.

 mew28 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:


I've said this probably a dozen times. They've been very liberal with Strength for guns going above 10, but toughness 9 is nowhere to be seen outside of FW

Huh?

Aside from Eldar there's like 5 or 6 S10 weapons. Tau and Eldar are the only ones with guns above S10 (and the Tau one is super limited). Everything else is on a titanic model.

SM have a bunch of over S10 stuff like Bobby G and dreads in CC.

Yea, but he was specifying guns. S10 melee is far less concerning except on fast moving primarchs.

I don't think they're too "easy" too kill, more the fact once you make something like that hi on 5s, it's essentially out of the game anyway. That paired they are a lot easier to bring down then they once were.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Huh?

Aside from Eldar there's like 5 or 6 S10 weapons.

Necron DDA : S10
AM Stormsword Siege Cannon : S10
AM Baneblade Demolisher Cannon : S10
AM Banesword Quake Cannon : S14
AM Dominus Triple Bombard : S10
AM Doomhammer Magma Cannon : S10
AM Hellhammer Cannon : S10
AM Shadowsword Volcano Cannon : S16
AM Neutron Laser Projector : S14
SM Vindicator Demolisher Cannon : S10

These are just ranged weapons, and not all, titanic weapons are not listed. There are dozens of CC weapons with S10+.

HMint wrote:
They need to die reasonably quickly against special anti tank weaponry.
Otherwise they would just insta-win against any army that is not completely loaded with those kind of weapons.

To some extent this is true, I think the issue is how easily and how luck based it is. Especially with the degrading profile, random damage on heavy weapons makes them unreliable. Sometimes they will just eat heavy weapon shots, mortal combat wounds etc, other times if dice go cold/hot they’ll die to a single lascannon deveststor squad. Their durability just isn’t dry consistent unlike blobs of infantry where it takes at least as many shots to kill as there are wounds in the unit. When investing a large chunk of points in something you w ant it to be dependable.

As Erjak explained, T9 comes with real problems.
I think many Titanic models could benefit from damage reduction: the damage of weapons hitting them is lowered by 1, to a minimum of 1, or maybe divided by two (rounded up), with a slight decrease of their wound characteristics. AT weapons have to be very effective against big models, but not to the point that a couple lucky shot can outright cripple them.

Knights should have a 4+ invuln sv. They are ~450 pts. A knight is not a tank, they should more resilient to anti tank weapons. I also like the damage reduced by 1 idea.

 p5freak wrote:
Knights should have a 4+ invuln sv. They are ~450 pts. A knight is not a tank, they should more resilient to anti tank weapons. I also like the damage reduced by 1 idea.

No, they already got a 4++ with 1 CP Stratagem and if you buff it to baseline 4++ it would be highly OP to have a 3++ for such cost

Massed fire from non-anti tank weapons could possibly be mitigated to some extent by reworking how Knight Void Shields operate. Honestly I haven't spent all that long thinking about it, but maybe we could have a situation where you get BOTH the armour save, and invuln in the case of Void shields? Anti-tank weapons would be largely unaffected as you're likely to mostly negate the armour save anyway, but it'd stop a good portion of massed, basic infantry fire stripping wounds quite so casually (and without the 'I'm completely invulnerable to small arms fire' situation of 7th).

As far as the degrading profile, I think we have to hope the codex streamlines things with regard to stratagem access. This is still a big problem for anyone running Forge World Knights, Renegade lists, or even just Imperial, non Mechanicum varieties.
...That, or you bring lists made up of Acherons, as it's main gun could care less how far down the degraded profile you've gone (wouldn't exactly be an ideal force to field!)

I rarely play my renegade knight any more because it dies far too easily and gets targeted by everything turn one. If it can't last at least two or three turns with it's stat line it's not worth the points. An increase of Toughness to 9 or 10 would make sense but GW would increase the points for it to the level that it would not still be playable.

 p5freak wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Huh?

Aside from Eldar there's like 5 or 6 S10 weapons.

Necron DDA : S10
AM Stormsword Siege Cannon : S10
AM Baneblade Demolisher Cannon : S10
AM Banesword Quake Cannon : S14
AM Dominus Triple Bombard : S10
AM Doomhammer Magma Cannon : S10
AM Hellhammer Cannon : S10
AM Shadowsword Volcano Cannon : S16
AM Neutron Laser Projector : S14
SM Vindicator Demolisher Cannon : S10

These are just ranged weapons, and not all, titanic weapons are not listed. There are dozens of CC weapons with S10+.

So, we have baneblades, forgeworld stuff, the vindicator, and the doomsday ark.

If something gets to melee your knight with S10+, there are two solutions:
a) don't let it get there
b) melee it first

Toughness is indeed overpriced vs shooty-killyness atm in 8th.

First of all, it's good to see this thread - one of my comments was how taking a single lonely Baneblade is generally just asking for it to get insta-killed. I agree that Knights are even worse than Baneblades, but either way, the large Lords of War are easy to kill, even the "good" ones like the Baneblade chassis.

Second of all, I think this has to do with people's perceptions of how units should work. A common claim I've heard is that a unit "should" be able to make its points back in a single turn. This especially came up in a thread earlier where I was talking Ork Tankbustas. People were lamenting how bad Ork Tankbustas were because it "cost 870 points to remove a Baneblade from the table in a single turn."

In my opinion, that's actually pretty amazing. If I was a game designer, I'd make "all purpose" guns (like a Leman Russ Battlecannon) needing a 4-1 ratio against most targets (e.g. you need 4x the points of a Leman Russ with Battlecannon to completely destroy a unit worth 1x points). Specialized guns (e.g. the Exterminator autocannon against multi-wound infantry) would need a 3-1 against their specialist targets (so only a 3x points advantage to totally wipe a unit in one round of shooting) and a 5-1 against suboptimal targets. Then, hyperspecialized units (e.g. Ork tankbustas) need a 2-1 to wipe a unit of their preferred target type, and a 6-1 to wipe a unit of another type.

The problem with the reasoning of "does it make its points back in a turn" is that, if it's taken to its logical extreme, it means a 2000 point army will be able to destroy an enemy 2000 point army in one turn. The ramifications of this philosophy can be seen now, with the skyrocketing lethality of weapons.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In my opinion, that's actually pretty amazing. If I was a game designer, I'd make "all purpose" guns (like a Leman Russ Battlecannon) needing a 4-1 ratio against most targets (e.g. you need 4x the points of a Leman Russ with Battlecannon to completely destroy a unit worth 1x points). Specialized guns (e.g. the Exterminator autocannon against multi-wound infantry) would need a 3-1 against their specialist targets (so only a 3x points advantage to totally wipe a unit in one round of shooting) and a 5-1 against suboptimal targets. Then, hyperspecialized units (e.g. Ork tankbustas) need a 2-1 to wipe a unit of their preferred target type, and a 6-1 to wipe a unit of another type.

The problem with this theory is that many specialized units may only get a single attack each game. If they can't trade at least 1:1 in a single turn there's no point in taking them, they'll never justify the points you spent on them.