Railgun vs Knights

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Voss**

Gadzilla666 wrote:
I find it interesting that people are freaking out that this thing blows right through a knight's invul, but no one seems to care that it also blows right through a 2+ save. Personally, I kinda like that this thing tears knights up just as easily as it does other LoWs. Knights already get enough advantages already.

Blowing through a 2+ save isn't that unique, and its also understandable in terms of the setting's physics and game rules
Ignore Invulnerable is rare and usually attached to melee, psychic powers or other nonsense that can be countered in some fashion. It isn't just 'fast iron' from a standard, mass-produced tank gun.

It makes the 'threat of the warp' look like a joke, because almost everyone has the tech to make a chunk of iron go really fast.

**Gadzilla666**

Voss wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote:
I find it interesting that people are freaking out that this thing blows right through a knight's invul, but no one seems to care that it also blows right through a 2+ save. Personally, I kinda like that this thing tears knights up just as easily as it does other LoWs. Knights already get enough advantages already.

Blowing through a 2+ save isn't that unique, and its also understandable in terms of the setting's physics and game rules
Ignore Invulnerable is rare and usually attached to melee, psychic powers or other nonsense that can be countered in some fashion. It isn't just 'fast iron' from a standard, mass-produced tank gun.

It makes the 'threat of the warp' look like a joke, because almost everyone has the tech to make a chunk of iron go really fast.

Yeah, but knights don't get their invuls from "the threat of the warp", they get it from a force field, those can be overloaded. If gw would have given vehicles like knights 2+ saves instead of invuls they wouldn't have had to write this silly rule for a gun like the railgun. Then things like daemons and psykers could have their invuls. I was specifically addressing knights, which is what this thread is about. Big vehicles like knights should fear AT weapons, and giving them rules to avoid that was a mistake.

**sanguine40k**

I'm beginning to think that super heavies need to either have damage reduction higher than 1 or they need the old 1st/2nd ed rule where they made their saves on 2d6 rather than 1d6...

**Voss**

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Voss wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote:
I find it interesting that people are freaking out that this thing blows right through a knight's invul, but no one seems to care that it also blows right through a 2+ save. Personally, I kinda like that this thing tears knights up just as easily as it does other LoWs. Knights already get enough advantages already.

Blowing through a 2+ save isn't that unique, and its also understandable in terms of the setting's physics and game rules
Ignore Invulnerable is rare and usually attached to melee, psychic powers or other nonsense that can be countered in some fashion. It isn't just 'fast iron' from a standard, mass-produced tank gun.

It makes the 'threat of the warp' look like a joke, because almost everyone has the tech to make a chunk of iron go really fast.

Yeah, but knights don't get their invuls from "the threat of the warp", they get it from a force field, those can be overloaded. If gw would have given vehicles like knights 2+ saves instead of invuls they wouldn't have had to write this silly rule for a gun like the railgun. Then things like daemons and psykers could have their invuls. I was specifically addressing knights, which is what this thread is about. Big vehicles like knights should fear AT weapons, and giving them rules to avoid that was a mistake.

Eh. I can't think of time when Knights didn't have shields (even if they weren't as good as void shields), so it doesn't seem like a mistake.
That its a force field rather than psychic doesn't really address anything. Nothing else gets 'overloaded'- not wyches dodging or the pile of other vehicles with invulnerable saves, so... dunno what the issue is.
Having some chance of not auto-losing your big piece to massed weenies with melta or even plasma doesn't strike me as a bad thing, and that was always the 1-round fate of any big stuff in apocalypse games. Since that can (rather absurdly) be replicated in modern 40k, it seems reasonable to keep the defensive they've had since their inception and not just randomly lose them for no reason.

**alextroy**

Daedalus81 wrote:
[
2 HH: 4%, with a 52% chance to bracket

I really like this disingenuous argument. At first glance, 4% looks low... Until you consider 'bracket' in this context means pretty much 'dead' (the few remaining wounds can be plinked off by even softest units in Tau army, or the knight can be ignored entirely because at this point it has 5/6+ to hit back with whatever it has). ~300 points of models have 57% chance of neutralizing 600-700 point model instantly. Claiming this somehow is OK state of affairs is so warped I have no words.

The whole premise of HH killing a few infantry models making it good at killing chaff is a bit absurd and the strat will be one HH. Killing 20 points of an infantry squad is hardly worthy of a 160+ point model.

This is two HH shooting a knight.

68% of the results in the table below leave the knight on 12+ wounds. 4% kills it outright. 28% leave it crippled. This changes based on when and where you can apply a CP reroll. If you have to reroll the wound then you won't be rerolling damage. If you leave it crippled there's a good chance we'll see the Knight go top bracket via strat and retaliate.

No one is saying Knights are safe. They need tools to deal with this as do Greater Daemons. What people are saying is that the Rail Gun is by no means an absurd design for a weapon. There's other considerations that can make the HH stupid, but it's really impossible to discern where it will land and I'm betting other parts of the codex will be the bigger problem.

Also, FYI, knights are generally sub 500 points right now, so, "600 to 700" points is a stretch.

I'm not sure this chart is showing what you want us to see. My mathhammers says the following for 2 HHs:

0 Damage: 165

10+ Damage: 84%

11+ Damage: 68%

12+ Damage (aka bracketed): 52%

20+ Damage (double bracketed): 36%

21+ Damage: 32%

22+ Damage: 24%

23+ Damage: 12%

24 Damage (Destroyed): 4%

So Daedalus81, my Bracketed number isn't disingenuous. There is a significant drop-off in the chance of doing 12 damage and the chance of doing 20, with getting 12 damage being at the coin-toss level of likelihood. Failing to bracket nearly 50% of the time is not a reliable plan for dealing with a Knight, even if you have other options to try and get those extra few wounds in. T8 3+ 5++ isn't easy damage for S5/6 AP 0/-1 attacks.

**Backspacehacker**

Strg Alt wrote:
Chaos Jim wrote:
To the Knight players, the railgun is busted. You can’t hide, you lose a Knight every turn because the Tau player has 2 hammerheads, you can’t shoot back that well because they’ll either be hiding, or you’re bracketed so you can’t hit the broadside of a barn, or you’re dead.
This got me thinking about something I thought about awhile ago.
What if you just bring an all armiger/war dog army?
You still get to play knights, but armiger class knights don’t have the titanic keyword. So they can hide.
I’ve done the calculations and you could run 14 armiger class knights in a standard 2k point game, and then equip half of them with autocannons.
Of course you’d have to buy 14 armigers, but they’re faster, are still quite tanky, and more expendable. Plus they all have obsec if you’re running mono knights, and they all count as 5 models for objectives.
I want to know if this is a decent counter play to the railgun if you still want to play mono knights.

Many people and myself have spent quite a while building and painting our IKs. Suggesting we shouldn`t use them because an opponent can bring weapon X to the table is bad advice.

Im being dead serious with this, dont play knights in 40k, play them in 30k. Knights in 30k are so much more fun.
Knights have always been the meta checkers in the game, but with this, i dont see how they can check a tau meta.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sanguine40k wrote:
I'm beginning to think that super heavies need to either have damage reduction higher than 1 or they need the old 1st/2nd ed rule where they made their saves on 2d6 rather than 1d6...

I mean, in my opinion.
Knights should reduce the AP of weapons by 2 if the weapons strength is 1~4, reducing the weapons AP by 1 if the strength is 5~7, and weapon with str 8+ get their full rend.

My big issue with knights is that, they pretty much only survive on a 5+ invuln because for some reason GW decided "Hey, lets just give AP to freaking EVERYTHING" so despite the knight having a 3+ you almost never take it. Like, in all my games with knights, i think maybe, MAYBE 10% of my saves are actually off my armor, the rest are off of the 5++

**carldooley**

I don't suppose that anyone has gamed giving knights Void Shields instead of Ion Shields?
Say a T8-9 wound that comes back on a 4+ that has to be removed before more damage can be dealt on an Armiger, and 2-3 on a questoris?

**Backspacehacker**

carldooley wrote:
I don't suppose that anyone has gamed giving knights Void Shields instead of Ion Shields?
Say a T8-9 wound that comes back on a 4+ that has to be removed before more damage can be dealt on an Armiger, and 2-3 on a questoris?

I mean at that point we are just introducing more rules to dance around the issue.
The answer to this issue is, you should not have a massive damaging weapon that just flat out ignores invluns as a built in mechanic.

**Kanluwen**

Or we could just, y'know, bring the Aegis back as a directional "unmodifiable" Invulnerable Save.

**Backspacehacker**

Kanluwen wrote:
Or we could just, y'know, bring the Aegis back as a directional "unmodifiable" Invulnerable Save.

that would mean they need to bring facings back.

**tneva82**

sanguine40k wrote:
I'm beginning to think that super heavies need to either have damage reduction higher than 1 or they need the old 1st/2nd ed rule where they made their saves on 2d6 rather than 1d6...

Hah that would be fun when you then have to make 20+ save per phase

2d6 rolling worked when you had less rolls to make. It was slow in 2e already. In 9e with silly # of dices..

Single unit of arco flagelants in, make 2d6 save roll 22 times. Fun fun fun.

**Ordana**

Backspacehacker wrote:
carldooley wrote:
I don't suppose that anyone has gamed giving knights Void Shields instead of Ion Shields?
Say a T8-9 wound that comes back on a 4+ that has to be removed before more damage can be dealt on an Armiger, and 2-3 on a questoris?

I mean at that point we are just introducing more rules to dance around the issue.
The answer to this issue is, you should not have a massive damaging weapon that just flat out ignores invluns as a built in mechanic.

I'd argue the real issue being danced around is that Knights have no place in 'normal' 40k.

**Blackie**

Ordana wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote:
carldooley wrote:
I don't suppose that anyone has gamed giving knights Void Shields instead of Ion Shields?
Say a T8-9 wound that comes back on a 4+ that has to be removed before more damage can be dealt on an Armiger, and 2-3 on a questoris?

I mean at that point we are just introducing more rules to dance around the issue.
The answer to this issue is, you should not have a massive damaging weapon that just flat out ignores invluns as a built in mechanic.
I'd argue the real issue being danced around is that Knights have no place in 'normal' 40k.

Exalted!

**Tyel**

Ordana wrote:
I'd argue the real issue being danced around is that Knights have no place in 'normal' 40k.

I feel bad for the people who like them - but it is a bit
"Haha, I'm going to play an army of T7/T8 3+/5++ vehicles"
"okay I'll bring anti-tank then."
"Oh no, we should be resilient against Anti-Tank"
"How about you just cease to exist?"

The basic issue with Knights is they are inherently a skew. If they are priced efficiently they inevitably serve as a gatekeeping list that warps the whole meta.

Metawise you can sort of try and make it work (arguably Knights are better today than 12 months ago, because people generally aren't running around with massed MMs/Eradicators) - but Knights should be annihilated if they run into massed anti-tank. Which can mean casual games are a blowout. Equally however if you run into a list with very few such weapons, it can easily be a blowout the other way.

**kodos**

Knights are like the 4 Land Raider list (which was a mistake that was removed, the same as Knights being a stand alone army instead of just the support option for AM and Chaos)

if your opponent has enouh Anti-Tank you are gone, if not, your only chance is to win by objective

now going that Knights VS AT should not be that clear so that they still have chance, the same should be valid for Hordes VS Anti-Horde weapons, W2 units against D2 weapons, etc.

**sanguine40k**

Backspacehacker wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sanguine40k wrote:
I'm beginning to think that super heavies need to either have damage reduction higher than 1 or they need the old 1st/2nd ed rule where they made their saves on 2d6 rather than 1d6...

I mean, in my opinion.
Knights should reduce the AP of weapons by 2 if the weapons strength is 1~4, reducing the weapons AP by 1 if the strength is 5~7, and weapon with str 8+ get their full rend.

Or maybe have GW admit that saves shouldn't stop at 2+.

Give armigers a 2+, mid-weights 1+ and Dominus 0+. You still fail on 1's, but it means they still get a decent save versus high str/low AP weaponry.

(A 0+ needs AP-5 to get to the 5++, meaning that only truly dedicated AT weapons would force an invuln save on a Dominus chassis)

**Spoletta**

We already have some 1+ saves in the game, and they mostly work.

They are also good to have in the game because they offer a flaw to AP-1 weapons. Usually the jump from 0 to -1 has a huge effect on a weapon output. The more 1+ and Ignore AP1 rules are in the game, the less this is true.

**tneva82**

Better not introduce 1+ save until GW fixes core rule which means 1+ save characteristic is same as 2++

Now 2+ with +1 to saves is another thing.

**Chaos Jim**

Tyel wrote:
Ordana wrote:
I'd argue the real issue being danced around is that Knights have no place in 'normal' 40k.

I feel bad for the people who like them - but it is a bit
"Haha, I'm going to play an army of T7/T8 3+/5++ vehicles"
"okay I'll bring anti-tank then."
"Oh no, we should be resilient against Anti-Tank"
"How about you just cease to exist?"

I agree knights should die faster to anti tank, but at least normal anti tank still gives them a chance to save and play the game for longer. The railgun just says no to everything the knights are, that being massive walking armored gun platforms that should be able to take a hit and keep going for a bit, they’re not the type of faction that’s supposed to just die, that’s the horde list factions job. The railgun is just not interactive, it just does stuff with no counter. The HH also has built in hit re-rolls and no reason to not spend your CP on a wound re-roll if necessary.

**Unit1126PLL**

Hammerheads are hardly "massed anti-tank" since they're pretty much as good as a Basilisk (i.e. not an anti-tank gun) against non-tank targets (better against some like t5 3w). They also quintuple or more a Basilisk's AT value, but people really are underestimating how good the HH is against non tanks.

They're not a dedicated AT platform; they're pretty good against everything.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
A Leman Russ Punisher against Marines does almost exactly the same as a Hammerhead that hits (4.4 wounds, 2.5ish dead Marines being generous).

The Punisher is sort of the quintessential anti-infantry gun...

Against 10 guardsmen, the Wyvern mortar (4d6 blast weapon) kills 4 on average. The hammerhead also kills 4 if it hits.

the hammerhead is not a specialized anti-tank weapon

**Slipspace**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hammerheads are hardly "massed anti-tank" since they're pretty much as good as a Basilisk (i.e. not an anti-tank gun) against non-tank targets (better against some like t5 3w). They also quintuple or more a Basilisk's AT value, but people really are underestimating how good the HH is against non tanks.

They're not a dedicated AT platform; they're pretty good against everything.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
A Leman Russ Punisher against Marines does almost exactly the same as a Hammerhead that hits (4.4 wounds, 2.5ish dead Marines being generous).

The Punisher is sort of the quintessential anti-infantry gun...

Against 10 guardsmen, the Wyvern mortar (4d6 blast weapon) kills 4 on average. The hammerhead also kills 4 if it hits.

the hammerhead is not a specialized anti-tank weapon

I agree. One other thing to note is that Tau are pretty good against light infantry (Guard, Eldar, other Tau etc) with all their massed S5 AP0/AP-1 shooting and the railgun covers both anti-tank and anti heavy infantry really well. It seems like it's a weapon profile Tau are really going to want, to help them out against any elite heavy infantry as they can struggle there at the moment since they lack access to D3 weapons for the most part. The RG giving them 2 dead Gravis, Terminators or other W3 nasties per shot is really good for them.

**Spoletta**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hammerheads are hardly "massed anti-tank" since they're pretty much as good as a Basilisk (i.e. not an anti-tank gun) against non-tank targets (better against some like t5 3w). They also quintuple or more a Basilisk's AT value, but people really are underestimating how good the HH is against non tanks.

They're not a dedicated AT platform; they're pretty good against everything.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
A Leman Russ Punisher against Marines does almost exactly the same as a Hammerhead that hits (4.4 wounds, 2.5ish dead Marines being generous).

The Punisher is sort of the quintessential anti-infantry gun...

Against 10 guardsmen, the Wyvern mortar (4d6 blast weapon) kills 4 on average. The hammerhead also kills 4 if it hits.

the hammerhead is not a specialized anti-tank weapon

This doesn't exactly seem a good example.

So a vehicle which costs now 160, after the dex probably more, in the most ideal situation of it having BS3+, has a 73% chance to do what a 135 point vehicle does from Out of LoS?
Why are you pointing the "quintessential anti-infantry gun" at something it isn't made to kill? Point at those guardsmen and see how it kills a full squad (9.5) while being T8 and 2+.
The Hammerhead cannot compete with neither of your examples, simply because it is bad against infantry.

The hammerhead is an inefficient AT weapon which becomes good when pointed at targets with an invul save. So good in fact against 4++ saves, that in that situation it becomes even efficient against heavy infantries.
That's it. Let's not say very wrong stuff about it being good against infantry (apart from the stratagem obviously).

**deTox91**

The HH can also equip smart missile systems which while not overli impressive at S5 0 1 have a high volume of fire out of LoS, that plus the railgun strat makes them not awful at shooting hordes, though they'll definitely prefer pointing the big gun at 4++s

**Kanluwen**

Backspacehacker wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Or we could just, y'know, bring the Aegis back as a directional "unmodifiable" Invulnerable Save.

that would mean they need to bring facings back.

It really doesn't.

**sanguine40k**

Spoletta wrote:
We already have some 1+ saves in the game, and they mostly work.

They are also good to have in the game because they offer a flaw to AP-1 weapons. Usually the jump from 0 to -1 has a huge effect on a weapon output. The more 1+ and Ignore AP1 rules are in the game, the less this is true.

I don't believe there are any Base 1+ saves in the game? 2+ with save bonuses from things like stormshields are not exactly the same.

As to 1+ or better saves having weird interactions, I would expect GW to clarify it at the time it was introduced to prevent people trying to abuse it

**Spoletta**

There is one model actually with a 1+ save. In AoS though.

And in there it works exactly like a 2++, and there is a FAQ to specify that it is perfectly intended like that (the model loses armor with wounds, so it makes sense).

**Rihgu**

Spoletta wrote:
There is one model actually with a 1+ save. In AoS though.

And in there it works exactly like a 2++, and there is a FAQ to specify that it is perfectly intended like that (the model loses armor with wounds, so it makes sense).

That was true in 2.0, but as of 3.0 it doesn't work like that any more. Sadly

**Backspacehacker**

Ordana wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote:
carldooley wrote:
I don't suppose that anyone has gamed giving knights Void Shields instead of Ion Shields?
Say a T8-9 wound that comes back on a 4+ that has to be removed before more damage can be dealt on an Armiger, and 2-3 on a questoris?

I mean at that point we are just introducing more rules to dance around the issue.
The answer to this issue is, you should not have a massive damaging weapon that just flat out ignores invluns as a built in mechanic.
I'd argue the real issue being danced around is that Knights have no place in 'normal' 40k.

Nah knights are fine because they act as the game meta checker, since playing knights you are playing a different game. I think if anything GW needs to lean into "Knights cant really hold an objective, and really when fielded their entire goal is win by table"
Knights only lists are not an issue, the issue thats happening is GW is making rules that specifically gimp the one thing knight lists were meant to do, which was check the meta.

**Voss**

Knights exist because GW designers thought they'd be cool, not for a 'meta check'

They (as usual) got excited by what they could do with miniature designs and didn't give a second thought to game issues. Same reason superheavies wandered over from Apocalypse in the first place.

**Platuan4th**

Yeah, pretending Knights were meant for anything other than being big stompy mechs because people love big stompy mechs is deluding yourself.