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Im just putting together my imperial knight right now. Trying to think how to protect it. I was thinking of allying in space marines to get telion for his precision strike and put him on a quad gun and taking out melta troops. But that is 180pts just used for precision fire and 2+ cover save sniper scouts. Don't know how else to protect him considering my primary army is IG and I am using artillery spam.

My fear is drop podding/ deep striking melta as well as meltabombs.

What seems like the obvious answer to me is simple infantry bubble wrap. If you want them to be effective you can bring a platoon with some plasma guns, and if you just want bodies 80 points gets you 20 conscripts to completely surround your knight with. If you're a real jerk you can always place your knight in the corner of the board, surround it with conscripts completely, and then place an Aegis Defence Line in front of that.
Another option would be a Skyshield landing pad with the flaps up, you'll get a permanent 4++, and the height of the pad will do a lot in keeping you out of melta range.

notrabies wrote:
What seems like the obvious answer to me is simple infantry bubble wrap. If you want them to be effective you can bring a platoon with some plasma guns, and if you just want bodies 80 points gets you 20 conscripts to completely surround your knight with. If you're a real jerk you can always place your knight in the corner of the board, surround it with conscripts completely, and then place an Aegis Defence Line in front of that.
Another option would be a Skyshield landing pad with the flaps up, you'll get a permanent 4++, and the height of the pad will do a lot in keeping you out of melta range.

Oh, I had the exact opposite use for my knight. My whole army is going to sit back in the corner wrapped in infantry, the knight is going to be in the middle, that way they have to chose where to deploy their melta, either to take out my knight or my artillery. I was wondering how to protect my knight as he charges the enemy lines, use his Str D weapon a few times, then explodes in the enemies face.

Edit: and wrapping in infantry wont help since it will be moving 12" a turn.

You don't want your knight near your lines, especially if you are guard. If it gets destroyed and goes nuclear it will wipe out so much of your own army.

Send it forward and be aggressive with it blasting the enemy, keeping a cheap conscript bubble around it will keep deep striking melta out of half range and take out any backfield threats with your artillery.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
You don't want your knight near your lines, especially if you are guard. If it gets destroyed and goes nuclear it will wipe out so much of your own army.

Send it forward and be aggressive with it blasting the enemy, keeping a cheap conscript bubble around it will keep deep striking melta out of half range and take out any backfield threats with your artillery.

Lol, yeah I know, thats what I just said in the post above yours haha. But I dont know about wrapping it in conscripts since then how will it be able to move 12" a turn?

Well, you're only going to be worrying about alpha strike in the first turn or two, so wrap it up, then shed the conscripts and get going on the march up the field.

DA allies with a librarian on a bike with PFG and 5 scouts with snipers for troops. 175 points total, will give your knight + other things within 3 inches a 4++ save.

If you want to invest more than you could take a ravenwing command squad to protect the librarian.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
DA allies with a librarian on a bike with PFG and 5 scouts with snipers for troops. 175 points total, will give your knight + other things within 3 inches a 4++ save.

If you want to invest more than you could take a ravenwing command squad to protect the librarian.

Knights already have a 4+ invul save to a facing that you can select during your enemies shooting phase, so it wouldnt add much of a benefit to the knight.

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
DA allies with a librarian on a bike with PFG and 5 scouts with snipers for troops. 175 points total, will give your knight + other things within 3 inches a 4++ save.

If you want to invest more than you could take a ravenwing command squad to protect the librarian.

Knights already have a 4+ invul save to a facing that you can select during your enemies shooting phase, so it wouldnt add much of a benefit to the knight.

If you wish to push your knight up the midfield, then you will be exposing more than one facing to the enemy, so there is a benefit to the save. Either the PFG or invisibility allow you to expose your knight more, and make the enemies' shooting phase more forgiving.

Edit: A further point: Both of these buffs would be beneficial in cc. The knight normally has no save in cc, so the PFG increases its durability by 100%. Invisibility allows the knight to better fight off wraithlords and the like, by forcing them to hit on 5's, and making your attacks hit on 3's.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
DA allies with a librarian on a bike with PFG and 5 scouts with snipers for troops. 175 points total, will give your knight + other things within 3 inches a 4++ save.

If you want to invest more than you could take a ravenwing command squad to protect the librarian.

Knights already have a 4+ invul save to a facing that you can select during your enemies shooting phase, so it wouldnt add much of a benefit to the knight.

If you wish to push your knight up the midfield, then you will be exposing more than one facing to the enemy, so there is a benefit to the save. Either the PFG or invisibility allow you to expose your knight more, and make the enemies' shooting phase more forgiving.

Edit: A further point: Both of these buffs would be beneficial in cc. The knight normally has no save in cc, so the PFG increases its durability by 100%. Invisibility allows the knight to better fight off wraithlords and the like, by forcing them to hit on 5's, and making your attacks hit on 3's.

Im not familiar enough with pfg or invisibility with DA, could you explain how many points I would have to spend and which models do what?

If you take a Guard blob with a vox caster, you can be pretty sure of getting your orders off every turn. The the blob's platoon command squad can keep issuing Move! Move! Move! each turn to give them a 3D6" (take the highest) run move. That would keep them close to the Knight, at least enough to guard flanks and rear from deep-striking meltas. That lets you keep your shield in front, and lets you counter the melta squads with plentiful lasgun fire instead of diverting the Knight. If you really need frontal melta defense, a couple of Chimeras up front are pretty cheap, and should provide enough clearance.

In all cases, you can keep the Guard infantry pretty cheap if you want to, probably just with a special weapon. They'll clear the chaff, shield you from stuff you don't want to face in close combat, and score objectives if there's anybody left.

If you don't want to do Guard, cheap inquisitorial retinues in Razorbacks can do similar things, but you only get three of them in the detachment, so your coverage is lacking.

I'd recommend a DA librarian on bike with a PFG. The bike is so he can keep up with the knight, and the PFG gives all models in 3' a 4++ save. This will cost 115 points.
You could make him a level 2 psyker and try to get invisibility, this will cost 35 points.

Also, he has access to divination, which has some very good synergy with the knight. Divination also has a 4++ save power, has a power to ignore cover (a big weakness of knights), and of course prescience to make sure those battle cannon and D chainsword attacks actually hit.

For the compulsory troops choice you could take 5 scouts with snipers for 60 points. So at minimum this set up would cost 175-210 points.

Of course the librarian is quite vulnerable on his own, so a Ravenwing command squad would be a good addition. 5 bikes, although they are a very good unit, will cost 200 points however, making this an expensive choice.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
I'd recommend a DA librarian on bike with a PFG. The bike is so he can keep up with the knight, and the PFG gives all models in 3' a 4++ save. This will cost 115 points.
You could make him a level 2 psyker and try to get invisibility, this will cost 35 points.

Also, he has access to divination, which has some very good synergy with the knight. Divination also has a 4++ save power, has a power to ignore cover (a big weakness of knights), and of course prescience to make sure those battle cannon and D chainsword attacks actually hit.

For the compulsory troops choice you could take 5 scouts with snipers for 60 points. So at minimum this set up would cost 175-210 points.

Of course the librarian is quite vulnerable on his own, so a Ravenwing command squad would be a good addition. 5 bikes, although they are a very good unit, will cost 200 points however, making this an expensive choice.

I dont think this would work with my army, the librarian would be too exposed without the ravenwings, which take up too many points for my liking. Thanks for the ideas though, Im sure it would work great in some other lists!