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Each of the new 'big boy' units is interesting/terrifying in it's own right.

IMO, the Dreadknight is insanely overpowered, with the Riptide, most Tryranid MCs, and the Wraithknight nowhere near as dangerous as one of those (feel free to disagree if I'm looking at this wrong). That aside, is there a point level at which one of these things showing up doesn't feel "cheesy" to you? Is it 1000 points for one? How about 2? Is three ever 'appropriate' outside of an Apocalypse game?

Yes, this is a 'subjective' response I'm looking for. The group opinion. I know perfectly well that what's legal, and that some feel that "what's legal, IS appropriate." This isn't a rant or a whine against such units - just curious about how you feel when somebody shows up to a 500 point game with a Riptide, or two Dreadknights in a 1000 point game.

Thanks.

Does this really belong in army lists?

Its a bit of a TFG move to shoehorn a high-point model into a low.point game. It also runs a huge risk of being a huge points dump. A 250 point model is a huge part of a 1000 list, but it's not in a 2000 list.

In the good ol' days, the only comparison was really a land raider. The wonderful (or horrible depending on POV) thing was that it could be one-shotted by a 5 point melta gun.

These high T monstrous creatures are a different beast for sure so I feel the OP's inquiry has merit.

I do so love the topic police around here. Always so quick to chime in and so reluctant to contribute.

Where does it belong? Is it not a question about list construction?

Let me rephrase the question:

Heer iz my GK list. Iz it the awesum, or iz it full of the cheddar?

HQ - OM Inquisitor
Troops - Strike Squad x2
DREADKNNNNNNIGHT X2!
495pts!!!

There, happy now? Can I get some opinions - or should the conversation be axed at the start because someone else thought maybe it could be put under some other topic?

 Deuce11 wrote:
In the good ol' days, the only comparison was really a land raider. The wonderful (or horrible depending on POV) thing was that it could be one-shotted by a 5 point melta gun.

These high T monstrous creatures are a different beast for sure so I feel the OP's inquiry has merit.

Oh, there have always been monsters around that cause problems in low points games, if you are not tailoring your list to fight them. Ever fight three wraithlords or three Carnifexes at 1000 points back in 3rd edition? Your best hope was to stay out of reach and pray the game ended early. Or Splinter Cannons.

Yep - it felt cheesy then, which is why I'm sort of puzzled by the the simultaneous expansion of such offerings (cool factor drives sales - yeah, I get it) AND the lack of guidelines. In the old days, certain units had rules to the effect, "In games over X size, you may field _____". That's not being done on the rules end, so I wondered what the general opinion was.

Don't get me wrong, I love the new units. But I would not want to cheese someone off bringing by bringing a rocket launcher to a knife fight. At the same time, the things are stupid expensive (literally 'stupid') - so I don't want someone to feel they can't bring their expensive model they just bought, built, and painted.

It's not a deep philosophical question - just curiosity.

Any points level, really. Though something like a Riptide might give its player an obvious advantage, on the other hand I really don't like the idea that people should impose on others what they think is the "right" way to play - especially since, as you mentioned, such models have likely cost a lot of time and money.

I firmly believe that no matter if you take a strong or weak list, it comes down to attitude of the players. If you both have a good time and don't take it too seriously, even a one sided game can still be a pleasant social experience. And as mentioned above, the smaller the game the more points you're going to be dedicating to one big model in any case.

 VoidAngel wrote:
I do so love the topic police around here. Always so quick to chime in and so reluctant to contribute.

Where does it belong? Is it not a question about list construction?

Let me rephrase the question:

Heer iz my GK list. Iz it the awesum, or iz it full of the cheddar?

HQ - OM Inquisitor
Troops - Strike Squad x2
DREADKNNNNNNIGHT X2!
495pts!!!

There, happy now? Can I get some opinions - or should the conversation be axed at the start because someone else thought maybe it could be put under some other topic?

I don't think there's any need to be rude about it. If anything the "topic police" are helpful, as the people browsing the army lists forum may not want to discuss the topic at hand, in the same way that people in YMDC aren't there to talk about fluff.
I'm only too happy to contribute, but don't jump at someone just for trying to get you better responses from greater people, and preventing forums being clogged with topics people may not want to read.
As for the matter at hand, I don't think there is any cheese, although it does make for a hard game. One thing you must remember is that they can only target one unit per turn, so take advantage of this. Furthermore, instant death weapons (grey knights anyone?) eat riptides, knights and TMC for breakfast. Riptides and DKs are fairly easy to tarpit, too.

Normally I,d only start expecting knight units until at least 2000pts.

However I,m fine with these units in lower point games as long as there,s a good reason. I wouldn't mind Calgar and assualt terminators (in a LRC) facing off Eldrad and 2 knights with the players fluffed it a last ditch battle, for example

TG - It's not specifically you, though you did get the brunt of my frustration with this pervasive behavior here on DD. So often I open a topic (mine or someone else's) and the first thing someone does is say "this doesn't belong here - it belongs over there" (usually arguable) - and to top it off, they *don't ever actually respond to the question*.

If a mod does it, fine. That's what they are for. But when other members do it, it comes off as if they are appointing themselves "mini mods".

I do appreciate your explanation and level reply. Snark retracted.

Back on-topic: That is what makes the DreadKnight so overpowered. It's the darn force weapon on top of being STR 10, AP 1, 2+/5+...and all the silly extras you can give it.

I have 3. I have never fielded them all at once. I rarely field one, much less two (and mine are much cooler looking than the standard baby bjorn models...if I do say so myself).

Against the updated codizes it doesn't really matter.

Against most of the 5th ed codizes, I'd say not under 1,5k. At that point you can start taking some toys into the list to deal with other peoples toys.

 VoidAngel wrote:
TG - It's not specifically you, though you did get the brunt of my frustration with this pervasive behavior here on DD. So often I open a topic (mine or someone else's) and the first thing someone does is say "this doesn't belong here - it belongs over there" (usually arguable) - and to top it off, they *don't ever actually respond to the question*.

If a mod does it, fine. That's what they are for. But when other members do it, it comes off as if they are appointing themselves "mini mods".

I do appreciate your explanation and level reply. Snark retracted.

Back on-topic: That is what makes the DreadKnight so overpowered. It's the darn force weapon on top of being STR 10, AP 1, 2+/5+...and all the silly extras you can give it.

I have 3. I have never fielded them all at once. I rarely field one, much less two (and mine are much cooler looking than the standard baby bjorn models...if I do say so myself).

No worries
Anyway back on topic: sure the DK is pretty hard-hitting, but once you start giving it the tools it so desperately needs (teleporter, heavy incinerator, arguably the sword) to make it awesome, it gets very very expensive! I wouldn't even consider running one without a personal teleporter.
Furthermore, one of the main reasons it's so awesome now, is the S10 it now has in 6th. This is because in 5th DCCWs didn't give you x2 strength unless you were a walker, but in 6th that restriction no longer exists, which made DKs more awesome.
One final thing on the DK: it's super, super easy to kill with plasma.

The MC sized model that annoys ME in small games is the riptide. It's super cheap, has 5 wounds, 2+/5+ (can be increased to a 3++), and could have FNP. On top of that it can do everything: anti-tank? Ordnance and fusion blaster. Anti-horde? Pie plate. Anti-air? Has a velocity tracker. Anti-MEQ? the pieplate and the fusion. Anti-TEQ? Same.
And so on. In small points games it dominates the field.

Dreadknight with an incinerator costs less than a 10man Strike Squad. I'd say you're not being unreasonable as long as you're using less than 25% of your points on them. That means none at 500, 1 at 1000, maybe two at 1500, then whatever you want.

Any points level. Fielding three is a bit less cool but then you could say the same for helldrakes, landraiders etc.

Plasma - ha! Plasma is for people who have dice that don't hate them! (Seriously, I can't field plasma. I might as well just hand those models to my opponent at the beginning of the game).

The idea that kitting the DK is expensive is true...but doesn't seem to be a barrier. And the two Force weapons on the ends of his giant baby hands just pop other KEQs (Knight Equivalents - is that a thing yet?) like soap bubbles.

I'm with Bigfashizzel - I think that is the "right" attitude. It seems the most sporting.

 VoidAngel wrote:
Each of the new 'big boy' units is interesting/terrifying in it's own right.

IMO, the Dreadknight is insanely overpowered, with the Riptide, most Tryranid MCs, and the Wraithknight nowhere near as dangerous as one of those (feel free to disagree if I'm looking at this wrong).

You are very very wrong.

The Dreadknight is nowhere near as powerful as a Riptide or Wraithknight.

The Riptide has insane amounts of ranged firepower, while the Wraithknight is practically impervious to a lot of shooting attacks(Toughness 8 means even krak missiles and melta weapons only wound it on 4+) while also being almost as good in melee and much better at shooting.


The Dreadknight is good at killing vehicles, small squads of infantry, and monstrous creatures with a lower initiative. It gets tarpitted fairly easily and dies to AP2 shooting(or volume of medium strength shooting)

Its good, but not broken. It costs 260ish points for a properly kitted Dreadknight.



The Dreadknight can kill the Wraithknight, if it manages to get into melee with full health. Unlikely since the Wraithknight is shooting at it with Str10 AP1 shots. And then the Wraithknight can punch it first with its Str10 AP2 melee attacks.

If the Eldar let the DK into melee with the Wraithknight that Eldar player simply isn't very good.

I usually play 1500 and take one riptide because I like the model and it can fill a niche role in my army that other units either can't fill easily or else wouldn't be playing to their highest strengths if they did fill. But mainly just because I like the model. The fact it performs well is an added bonus.

Tactical_Genius wrote:
If anything the "topic police" are helpful, ....

They're really not.

A helpful response is to hit the Mod Alert button so we can move the thread to the correct part of the forum if necessary. There is no need to post that the thread is in the wrong place... that will be self-evident if and when we move it.

i dont think theres a limit at all.

I ran a 500pt game with a friend a couple days ago since we both had about that many pts not packed up yet. I thought about pulling the riptide out since its sitting in the box on top of the pile of boxes, but when i crunched the numbers i felt like i was hurting myself more than screwing him over since i would not have enough points to support it and still have enough kroot and/or firewarriors to actually take objectives.

Thinking about it further, i honestly dont feel safe bringing one till i hit 1000 and at that point it would be the core of my army, not an asset.

I agree Dreadknights are more deadly, but in a different way. Both are crazy tough with T6 2+ 5++ and a crapload of wounds, but they excell in opposite ways. One is a melee monster whose best gun is a torrent flamer, the other is a table-long sniper that pens all armor and wrecks most vehicles. Dreadknight would have an issue with a greentide at low points, but thats it. Riptide would be able to handle more BUT at low point games you wont have the proper support for it, and that means its a huge risk to field.

Probably one per 1,000pts is a reasonable guideline, I've had bad experiences with games at 500pts where one person brings a Riptide or a flying Daemon Prince and the other side can't effectively counter it so the monster wins the game; either that or the other side gets lucky with a force weapon or hits you with Jaws of the World Wolf and you don't have anything else that can do much.

Dreadknight is one of the few competitive things left in the book since 6th came around, I will always use 2 in any list, even at 1k as coteaz and cheap henchman can balance out the troops section. 1850 or 2k I will take 3 unless I want to run something different like raiders or dreads.

If Im going to be shunting these things into my opponenets face turn 1, only having a single knight is not going to cut it.

(Although for friendly games I would maybe take just one or none at all to mix things up)

Yeah local friend at any points refuses to buy more than 1 DK because of the cost. And every game he 30" teleports the damn thing and burns my lootas off of a building (havent faced him with my tau) and i immediately charge and murder it right afterwords. I wouldnt do that so blindly if there was a 2nd one sitting there lol. Even with Ghazzy which devours all MCs he gets his hands on except the swarmlord (which he can still put a lot of hurt on)

Good stuff. My sincere thanks for your opinions.