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Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

fe40k wrote:
People like super-heavies are broken.

People acting like skew-lists were never a thing.

People acting like TAC is viable in a meta where a list can go "all infantry", or "all vehicle/super-heavy".

People acting like the game isn't rock-paper-scissors with army lists at the moment.

They're super-heavies. They're a skew list, designed to win against lists who build TAC or anti-horde. It's just the nature of the game; Infantry. Armor, and Balanced/Gimmick. Lists win or lose by the matchup they're dealt; the models aren't unbalanced, the game is.

People acting like Warhammer 40k has every been balanced.

People acting like the game being rock-paper-scissors with army lists isn't an improvement, in 3rd and 4th it was rock-paper-scissors on force selection.

40k has never been even remotely balanced.

SirWeeble wrote:
The extra CP from an infantry blob is an advantage, but IMO, that CP blob is nothing but a CP blob. You're effectively paying that 200 pts just for CP. Also, kill the HQ, and no more CP generation.

Those infantry will be the target of every single standard trooper and anti-infantry weapon you have. They'd be lucky if an infantry blob lasts 2 turns. There's really nothing else to shoot unless you want to try to wound knights on 6s.

Additionally - remember you can tie up knights in CC with non-infantry/swarms. They can only walk over infantry/swarm types. They're also very vulnerable to CC.

I feel that knights are a valid correction to two problems - over-abundance of infantry swarms, and weakness of CC.

Knights are extremely strong in CC. In fact, I'd call them a CC army over calling them a shooting army.

Your unit either has to survive 15 stomps that hit like a battle cannon, or 5 fist [or chainsaw] attacks that deal 6 damage each. And then, if you're a single model and you're not dead, they'll use Deathgrip, to make sure you're dead.

Knight shooting on the Questoris platform is kind of crap for it's points. The only really good gun in the gatling gun.


You also overestimate the ease of getting to the two IG Company Commanders. They're tiny models, and won't just be relying on CHARACTER for protection.

Well you don't have any deep strike turn 1, so if the knight players go first, and why wouldn't he with his army consisting of 6-8 drops, you get the option to kill those cmds after 2 of his turns. After 2 turns of a knight player, the game is already done, because either he crippled the ability of his opponent to counter his knights or he didnt and will now lose.

While it can be attested that I’m not unbiased in this area (easily seen as I was the one who created the “Where are all Knight complaint threads?” Thread) I still heavily believe that knights are very OP.

First off Knights are dominating the tournament meta. They are being played a great deal and winning a great deal. The OP of this thread already pointed this out I just thought I reiterate this fact as tournament results are the best indicator of armies power.

I’ve seen 2 different arguments people have used an attempt to undermine this fact.

The first is that “Knights aren’t op, soup is!” This is a false equivalency. Just because soup is op, doesn’t mean it’s ingredients are not. I think people bring up this point to show that knights have weaknesses (lack of infantry for screening and board control, lack of CP generation needed to fuel their powerful stratagems to max effectiveness), but just because an army has a weakness or 2 doesn’t automatically make it not OP. Take everyone’s favorite whipping boy IG. All their units with effect fire power lack ++ saves, and their stratagems are much weaker than many Armies. I have to say everytime I play pure IG they feel powerful, but fair. The reason I bring this up is just because an army can have its weaknesses shorn up with soup, doesn’t mean it’s weak without it (as I see plenty of people complain about pure IG).

The second argument I've seen a TON of is “The Meta was horde based before Knights, so people haven’t yet ajusted their lists to handle Knights instead of just hordes. Once people start putting in more anti tank weapons into their list instead of just anti infantry ones the Meta will adjust.” While this sounds good, there is actually very little substance behind it. While there were plenty of cheap models in popular armies before the Knights codex dropped, there was also tons of tough models and units that dealt with them as well. Examples include dark elder Disi and talos spam, most IG tanks, plague-burst crawlers, oblit spam, dark reapers and hemlock wrath fighters, etc etc. Futhermore with this argument would expec Knights to start off strong then fade as people started to counter them. In reality, however, the exact opposite has happened. Knights did their best at the BAO, the most recent huge tournament. Knight players have adjusted their list to better deal win the meta, not the other way around. Time will tell whether the meta will ever learn to counter knights, but no real evidence has yet to prove that it can.

Shouldn't this poll ask:

1. Is a model with 26 T8 wounds and a 3++ and the ability to resurrect itself and bring itself to the top tier of its damage table broken?

2. Should Company Commander Johnson and his 3 infantry squads be influencing the tactics and functionality of a Dominus Class Titan?

3. Does anyone in the universe, who doesn't own a knight, enjoy playing against knights right now?

Salt donkey wrote:
While it can be attested that I’m not unbiased in this area (easily seen as I was the one who created the “Where are all Knight complaint threads?” Thread) I still heavily believe that knights are very OP.

First off Knights are dominating the tournament meta. They are being played a great deal and winning a great deal. The OP of this thread already pointed this out I just thought I reiterate this fact as tournament results are the best indicator of armies power.

I’ve seen 2 different arguments people have used an attempt to undermine this fact.

The first is that “Knights aren’t op, soup is!” This is a false equivalency. Just because soup is op, doesn’t mean it’s ingredients are not. I think people bring up this point to show that knights have weaknesses (lack of infantry for screening and board control, lack of CP generation needed to fuel their powerful stratagems to max effectiveness), but just because an army has a weakness or 2 doesn’t automatically make it not OP. Take everyone’s favorite whipping boy IG. All their units with effect fire power lack ++ saves, and their stratagems are much weaker than many Armies. I have to say everytime I play pure IG they feel powerful, but fair. The reason I bring this up is just because an army can have its weaknesses shorn up with soup, doesn’t mean it’s weak without it (as I see plenty of people complain about pure IG).

The second argument I've seen a TON of is “The Meta was horde based before Knights, so people haven’t yet ajusted their lists to handle Knights instead of just hordes. Once people start putting in more anti tank weapons into their list instead of just anti infantry ones the Meta will adjust.” While this sounds good, there is actually very little substance behind it. While there were plenty of cheap models in popular armies before the Knights codex dropped, there was also tons of tough models and units that dealt with them as well. Examples include dark elder Disi and talos spam, most IG tanks, plague-burst crawlers, oblit spam, dark reapers and hemlock wrath fighters, etc etc. Futhermore with this argument would expec Knights to start off strong then fade as people started to counter them. In reality, however, the exact opposite has happened. Knights did their best at the BAO, the most recent huge tournament. Knight players have adjusted their list to better deal win the meta, not the other way around. Time will tell whether the meta will ever learn to counter knights, but no real evidence has yet to prove that it can.

GenCon was dominated by IK. In a couple weeks in STL, Siegeworld is shaping up to as well. The field looks like it's going to be 30-50% IK.

They are models that live through xeno shooting. Of course they were common.

The main detriment for fielding them is how long it takes to do an adequate job putting them together and painting.
I even magnetized the arm and carapace weapons.
Building and painting without the armor (masking the mounting points) and painting separately was a lesson in patience.
Getting better with practice they have a ton of detail and is a crying shame to slap-dash them together.
The Knight Warden with the gattling cannon and the fist with a carapace weapon seems to kick butt a fair bit.
The heavy flamer added for fun does not hurt.

Anyway, with the work put in, I hope the obvious effort removes some of the sting of fielding the big guys.

A.T. wrote:
Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

Yeah, a lot of standard anti tank stuff is garbage against Knights. The vaunted Tau fusion Commander does on average fewer than 3 wounds to a Knight with a 3+ invulnerable save.

meleti wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

Yeah, a lot of standard anti tank stuff is garbage against Knights. The vaunted Tau fusion Commander does on average fewer than 3 wounds to a Knight with a 3+ invulnerable save.

Or you could just use that 40inch move to grab objectives and win without worrying about killing any knight's.
Getting that first wound down is hard but if you can you pop the tau strategum for +1 to wound 5 markerlights and go to town. Nova HBC hitting on 3+ wounding on 4+.

Ice_can wrote:

meleti wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

Yeah, a lot of standard anti tank stuff is garbage against Knights. The vaunted Tau fusion Commander does on average fewer than 3 wounds to a Knight with a 3+ invulnerable save.

Or you could just use that 40inch move to grab objectives and win without worrying about killing any knight's.
Getting that first wound down is hard but if you can you pop the tau strategum for +1 to wound 5 markerlights and go to town. Nova HBC hitting on 3+ wounding on 4+.

Stomp the meta at NOVA this month with one amazing trick that Knights players don't want you to know about!

meleti wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

meleti wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

Yeah, a lot of standard anti tank stuff is garbage against Knights. The vaunted Tau fusion Commander does on average fewer than 3 wounds to a Knight with a 3+ invulnerable save.

Or you could just use that 40inch move to grab objectives and win without worrying about killing any knight's.
Getting that first wound down is hard but if you can you pop the tau strategum for +1 to wound 5 markerlights and go to town. Nova HBC hitting on 3+ wounding on 4+.

Stomp the meta at NOVA this month with one amazing trick that Knights players don't want you to know about!

Nova won't be Imperial.Knights lists though it will be Imperial Soup and Choas Soup and Aldari Soup.
But if its a Castellen beat on it in CC. A Knight Gallant should one round it easy the hard part is killing the CP farmer to stop it just burning 3CP for another turn.

Ice_can wrote:

meleti wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

meleti wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Part of the issue is with skewed anti-tank options in 8th.
A lot of the old armourbane, lance, etc stuff is just AP -4, fairly poor against knights especially when paired with S8 or lower.

Some armies can maul them, others just don't have the tools.

Yeah, a lot of standard anti tank stuff is garbage against Knights. The vaunted Tau fusion Commander does on average fewer than 3 wounds to a Knight with a 3+ invulnerable save.

Or you could just use that 40inch move to grab objectives and win without worrying about killing any knight's.
Getting that first wound down is hard but if you can you pop the tau strategum for +1 to wound 5 markerlights and go to town. Nova HBC hitting on 3+ wounding on 4+.

Stomp the meta at NOVA this month with one amazing trick that Knights players don't want you to know about!

Nova won't be Imperial.Knights lists though it will be Imperial Soup and Choas Soup and Aldari Soup.
But if its a Castellen beat on it in CC. A Knight Gallant should one round it easy the hard part is killing the CP farmer to stop it just burning 3CP for another turn.

I’m going to have disagree with you here. I suspect that more than 30% of the field will have a Knight primary detachment.

The NOVA invitational field is around 50% Knights, mostly of the AM/BA/IK variety. I assume some of the Chaos lists will be running Renegade Knights as well.

NOVA Open lists will include a few more casual lists as big tournaments always do, but the top tables will end up reflecting the strength of Knights as well.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Biasn wrote:
As a Necron player i cant field enough good anti tank to compete with them so... yes they are broken imho.

How well does you codex do against armoured vehicles like russes etc?
I'd sat its more the necron dex is more in the doldrums of power beside the marine codex.

Doomsday Ark does great against russes, the problem is that all of our anti-tank relies heavily on high AP which the knight ignores with its invuln save.

Btw, the people suggesting wraiths seem to forget that all knights come with a high volume, high strength, zero AP melee attack in their Stomp, which is perfect for killing wraiths.

The real problem of DDA is you WILL roll 1 for the D6 number of shots, and another 1 for the D6 dmg. That happens to me every game so I drop the DDA and start spamming Destroyers now.

The extreme swinginees of the Doomsday Ark is a problem, though it can really go both ways especially if you spend your CP on the # of shots. Destroyers still have the same problem of being a high AP unit that the knight just ignores. Necrons are effectively the armor pen faction which is... not useful.

Karol wrote:
Well you don't have any deep strike turn 1, so if the knight players go first, and why wouldn't he with his army consisting of 6-8 drops, you get the option to kill those cmds after 2 of his turns. After 2 turns of a knight player, the game is already done, because either he crippled the ability of his opponent to counter his knights or he didnt and will now lose.

Because it's not automatic even with +1.

(funny fact. My knights have yet to go 1st in 4 games while my orks go over 50% times first so far. go figure)

tneva82 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well you don't have any deep strike turn 1, so if the knight players go first, and why wouldn't he with his army consisting of 6-8 drops, you get the option to kill those cmds after 2 of his turns. After 2 turns of a knight player, the game is already done, because either he crippled the ability of his opponent to counter his knights or he didnt and will now lose.

Because it's not automatic even with +1.

(funny fact. My knights have yet to go 1st in 4 games while my orks go over 50% times first so far. go figure)

Taking into account seizing the initiative, the player who finished deployment first is about 60% to go first. So yup, nowhere near guaranteed.

Stux wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well you don't have any deep strike turn 1, so if the knight players go first, and why wouldn't he with his army consisting of 6-8 drops, you get the option to kill those cmds after 2 of his turns. After 2 turns of a knight player, the game is already done, because either he crippled the ability of his opponent to counter his knights or he didnt and will now lose.

Because it's not automatic even with +1.

(funny fact. My knights have yet to go 1st in 4 games while my orks go over 50% times first so far. go figure)

Taking into account seizing the initiative, the player who finished deployment first is about 60% to go first. So yup, nowhere near guaranteed.

Thanks for the %. Haven't calculated it that exactly. But yeah you have advantage but still trying to rely on it is risky.

I still get laugh that my orks are somehow more adept at getting the drop than my knights

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The extreme swinginees of the Doomsday Ark is a problem, though it can really go both ways especially if you spend your CP on the # of shots. Destroyers still have the same problem of being a high AP unit that the knight just ignores. Necrons are effectively the armor pen faction which is... not useful.

I would trade like 2-3Points of AP for double the shots in a heartbeat especially for our only semiviable anti tank unit (DDA)

I think it’s important to clarify what a “knight list” is when discussing them. Even as recently as ETC Spikey Bits (and members of this forum) vaunted the dominance of imperial knights because the winning list took one...which amounted to 600 pts of a 1750 pt list (he also had 1000 pts of AM). To me, a knight list is at least plurality knights, and frankly I’d say it only stops being “imperium” if it’s got 70ish+ percent from the knight codex.

I play knights a bit. I can't in all conscience deny that they are broken in their current form. Playing the game, watching the game, looking at tournaments all lead to this as a pretty solid conclusion for me.

Yes, soup enable a lot of their dirtier stuff, but that's _part of the design space_ ... Knights have to be measured in the field that they were created for and balanced for. That is, part of an Imperium metafaction, and capable of taken batallions. It's not just IG - scout BA, admech, even sisters could all work alongside Knights. Pure Knights with Rowboat can spaff CPs to days too.

Whoever said their strats are 'average-to-good' is having a laugh. I don't think any other Codex can compare in terms of strats at this point - maybe Druhkarii? Above all, the standard Castallan build is in dire need of a nerf.

So yeah, I like em, I play em, I want them to be strong. I just don't want them dominating over half of all lists in competitive play.

 grouchoben wrote:
I play knights a bit. I can't in all conscience deny that they are broken in their current form. Playing the game, watching the game, looking at tournaments all lead to this as a pretty solid conclusion for me.

Yes, soup enable a lot of their dirtier stuff, but that's _part of the design space_ ... Knights have to be measured in the field that they were created for and balanced for. That is, part of an Imperium metafaction, and capable of taken batallions. It's not just IG - scout BA, admech, even sisters could all work alongside Knights. Pure Knights with Rowboat can spaff CPs to days too.

Whoever said their strats are 'average-to-good' is having a laugh. I don't think any other Codex can compare in terms of strats at this point - maybe Druhkarii? Above all, the standard Castallan build is in dire need of a nerf.

So yeah, I like em, I play em, I want them to be strong. I just don't want them dominating over half of all lists in competitive play.

Nerf the Castallan and a lot of the meta lists would probably stop having knights in them. But I agree a Castallan is undercosted and stacking cawls wrath ontop is filthy.

The other possible nerf is to not allow the 4++ on dominus class knights. Rotate is 3CP a turn but you can have a permanent version for warlord trait, anhone taking a dominus is auto taking that.

Pure knights are a lot weaker than soup knights however, if you play objectives or scoring if your playing kill the most they've probably not got a good answer but thats more because killing more units as a victory condition is weaksauce.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Btw, the people suggesting wraiths seem to forget that all knights come with a high volume, high strength, zero AP melee attack in their Stomp, which is perfect for killing wraiths.

Play wraith as nihilakh, surround the knight, play reclaim a lost empire on your wraith, giving them a 2+ inv sv, the knight is trapped and cant fallback, because wraith arent INFANTRY nor SWARM.

I thought they are undercosted - currently it makes more sense to run a knight than a superheavy, especially with the better to hit and the love of eldar armies with -x to hit.

Just take them out of the imperial faction, and without the IG CP battery they are a lot less powerful. With the farm they are too efficient.

I think soon as the Wolves hit for the new Flavor of the month, Knights will be less in the spot light as the show stopper.

Reemule wrote:
I think soon as the Wolves hit for the new Flavor of the month, Knights will be less in the spot light as the show stopper.

Doubtful, every previous marine release went out with a whimper because they provide very little to the imperial soup, with the exception of blood angels because they had the miniature nuclear bomb known as the smash captain. 8th edition is not kind to power armor so unless space wolves provide some strategems and powers that straight up cheat like warptime or double-shoot I don't expect the meta to change much.

(begins planning an army featuring nine Rapiers with Conversion Beamers...)