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Breng77 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its wierd that people are happy for the really cheesy broken units like Waves Serpents, Seer Counil, Riptides etc carry on but not Knights - or is that because people who win tournaments use the broken units...............

Actually I think you'll find the people who don't want to see Knights in tournaments are also the people who aren't happy with Serpent spam are also the people who aren't happy about both internal and cross codex imbalance.

100% spot on for me. Rather than put out a knights codex that adds more broken units to an already broken game I'd prefer to see them actually fix the broken things in the game.

If you don't want to spend money on the codex for the rules, that's fine as they were in white dwarf! Despite the availability of the white dwarf rules plenty of people at my local store have purchased the codex. I don't think you can argue against paying customers.

The entirety of the rules is not in a white dwarf.

A lot of people on this forum seem to forget there is more to a codex than just rules and this content is obviously a selling point for many people.

Codices exist primarily as a source for rules they have put out plenty of other fluff books to cover what they put in codex knights as far as fluff goes. Furthermore like I said to me (and this is my opinion) 1 unit does not an army make. They could have made a codex: knights, and actually put effort into the rules, and balanced the rules appropriately but they did not. They released a book filled with rules with the express purpose of pushing an extremely strong model, and multiples of that model (if it was a unit edition to an army people might buy one, now people will buy 3+ to run it as an army, furthermore because it was not added to specific armies more people will buy it) They are a company and allowed to make money, I just wish they put a little more thought into how they went about it.

All that is true.

Customers have the right to refuse to buy and play with toys they don't like.

As for people who don't like Wave Serpents and so on, there used to be a lot of tournaments that had "Composition" rules intended to help balance out the more abusive units. They were never perfect but they were a step in the right direction for trying to make the game a bit more even.

Ironically it was the 'Ard Boys tournament, created by GW, that was one of the key movers in doing down Comp. (As well as promoting grey armies.)

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its wierd that people are happy for the really cheesy broken units like Waves Serpents, Seer Counil, Riptides etc carry on but not Knights - or is that because people who win tournaments use the broken units...............

Actually I think you'll find the people who don't want to see Knights in tournaments are also the people who aren't happy with Serpent spam are also the people who aren't happy about both internal and cross codex imbalance.

100% spot on for me. Rather than put out a knights codex that adds more broken units to an already broken game I'd prefer to see them actually fix the broken things in the game.

If you don't want to spend money on the codex for the rules, that's fine as they were in white dwarf! Despite the availability of the white dwarf rules plenty of people at my local store have purchased the codex. I don't think you can argue against paying customers.

The entirety of the rules is not in a white dwarf.

A lot of people on this forum seem to forget there is more to a codex than just rules and this content is obviously a selling point for many people.

Codices exist primarily as a source for rules they have put out plenty of other fluff books to cover what they put in codex knights as far as fluff goes. Furthermore like I said to me (and this is my opinion) 1 unit does not an army make. They could have made a codex: knights, and actually put effort into the rules, and balanced the rules appropriately but they did not. They released a book filled with rules with the express purpose of pushing an extremely strong model, and multiples of that model (if it was a unit edition to an army people might buy one, now people will buy 3+ to run it as an army, furthermore because it was not added to specific armies more people will buy it) They are a company and allowed to make money, I just wish they put a little more thought into how they went about it.

All that is true.

Customers have the right to refuse to buy and play with toys they don't like.

As for people who don't like Wave Serpents and so on, there used to be a lot of tournaments that had "Composition" rules intended to help balance out the more abusive units. They were never perfect but they were a step in the right direction for trying to make the game a bit more even.

Ironically it was the 'Ard Boys tournament, created by GW, that was one of the key movers in doing down Comp. (As well as promoting grey armies.)

The problem with the Comp Tournaments is that they never actually worked nor actually seemed to come close to stepping in the right direction.

First off most of them would dance around the issue of whats strong, and thus they would create blanket bans or other comp things, like no amount of X or Y, despite it hurting several other armies.

Second, as part of the first they would add their own rulings to things that weren't bad to begin with, such as people penalizing Sisters of Battle for taking more then one exorcist (Yes there's a comp like this), that makes it seem worse.

Third: The cherrypicking is so bad at times that some comps seem like they were specifically made because they got beat by X and thus that's penalized worse then complete meta changers.

Fourth: As part of third some are just blanket bans for things the owners don't like, Imperial Knights is no worse then Triptides or Serpent spam and yet when you hear "IK will always win against X!" without actual testing, despite the fact that once again Triptides and Serpent spam shut down some armies entirely worse then that and it's like...

Well I would argue that Imperial Knights are a harder counter to many things than Riptides or serpents. But I also think that there are current things that should get erratas for balance as well (Riptides are actually not among them, but some shenanigans that you can pull with them are, riptides in the absence of Marker lights/Buff commander are really not that powerful).

I wouldn't, considering that Triptides and Serpents defined the current meta harder then anything else, the IK are harder as a result because of those two due to the fact you've got to design around them, making it harder to gain a proper TAC list. Generally it's why melta far went out of use as you needed something with multiple shots (To deal with skimmer) and AP2 (to deal with triptides)

You really don't need AP2 to deal with Riptides (if they are not joined by other models). Further I would argue that deathstars define the current meta more than Serpents and Riptides.

Essentially I feel that more units have answers to serpents and riptides (I can assault a serpent and kill it comfortably, this is also frequently true with riptides.)

Essentially what I think people miss with knights is people look at 5 as their own army. I don't think that is the larger issue. The issue is Gunlines taking them to counter assault units, because most assault units (that are good otherwise) cannot deal with a Knight, and get beat down by it badly. What people need to look at are Tau Gunlines + Knights, Serpent Spam + Knights, IG artilery + knights. Knights are essentially the Deathknell of assault armies IMO because most things cannot successfully assault them

Most things cannot successfully assault Taudar et al now. Why would they bother taking a points inefficient knight when they can take better stuff from BB Allies?

I dont think people are "missing" anything with knights.

If you ban IK, then you should also ban Tau and Eldar. Both are as "broken" [actually much more so because of their ally capability] as IK. If youre going down the househammer route, go all the way

A return to comp? Only if people writing comp were any good at game design. Hint: theyre not, it just results in not actually impacting the lists you want to discourage, or creates a new imbalance. Fixing 40k is a hard problem, and weekend amateur games designers are not competent enough to do it, in my opinion

I assault tau dar successfully all the time with a variety of things...more or less all of which are hard countered by Knights.

As for game design I find it laughable that you think fixing 40k (reasonably well) is super hard, it is not that hard. Also asking for people doing it to be good at game design when we don't ask the same from the company making the game. (Hint: GW it worse at game design then many people in the hobby)

Also if I wanted to Ban comp (I really don't as I don't think it is super constructive, but changing rules is harder), I could easily ban one or 2 units from each codex, and effectively ban knights without banning Tau or Eldar.

Not saying it is a great list but here is all it would take to ban knights in a ban comp environment

Players may not take
Warlocks on jetbikes
Wave Serpents
Riptides
Broadsides
Knight Paladin
Knight Errant
Fateweaver
Screamers
.
.
.
etc

So I banned 2 units from each codex. It just so happens that that account for the entire knight codex.

I'm not saying the above it good, I would rather re-write rules to fix the game if I was going to go super far into comp, and it is not hard to do so and introduce a lot of balance into the game.

I think restricted/banlists are a much more effective system than comp.

Well they are better/more effective. Then blanket comp because they are targeted. But targeted rules changes that still allow people to bring their toys are the best of both worlds.

Personally I would like to see them banned as I don't think they belong in 40k (outside of Apocalypse). However it's a slippery slope as they are a full "codex" and banning them could open the floodgates to "no Riptides" or "No Eldar" and the like, which ironically is why I believe that GW had ulterior motives in releasing the Knights as a way to get more and more people to be okay with superheavies in normal, non-Apoc games and thus ease into allowing Escalation in normal games as well.

which is what I hope does not happen. D weapons don't lead to fun games.

Breng77 wrote:
Well they are better/more effective. Then blanket comp because they are targeted. But targeted rules changes that still allow people to bring their toys are the best of both worlds.

I completely disagree, the whole point is that you don't want them to bring their "toys" because of how overpowered they are and how it isn't any fun to play against them. A player who is destroyed by a Taudar list in a comped event isn't going to have any more fun than a player destroyed by Taudar in an event without comp just because said Taudar player is getting a low comp score. Comp is the worst of both worlds.

My point is that if you change the rules so they don't get destroyed by that player it is the best of both worlds. They can still take those toys but they are not quite so uber powerful.

For instance if you take change:

Tau

- markerlights to -1 Cover save per light, and don't work during overwatch.

-A Tau commander can only activate one Signature system per turn.

- ICs cannot Join Riptides (unless the riptide is also an IC)

And for Eldar

- Fortune = 4+ feel no pain
- Serpent Shield is 1 use only (you have a shield and if you fire it it is spent)


Essentially the issue with bans is where do you stop? And at some level you begin to tell players that they cannot play at your event.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Fourth: As part of third some are just blanket bans for things the owners don't like, Imperial Knights is no worse then Triptides or Serpent spam and yet when you hear "IK will always win against X!" without actual testing, despite the fact that once again Triptides and Serpent spam shut down some armies entirely worse then that and it's like...

IMO the thing about IK isn't just that they are powerful (against many armies, they aren't), it's that you can hardly call them an army and certainly not a balanced army. If you take an IK army, every model in the opponent's army that isn't S7 or higher is relegated to "stand there looking stupid" duty. It doesn't make for good games IMO which is why I'd be happy enough to see them banned from tournaments.

At the end of the day, IMO at least, GW have made a really crappy ruleset from the perspective of tournaments. It's horrible, unbalanced, army-level rock-paper-scissors (opposed to unit-level rock-paper-scissors), they've made it so the rock-paper-scissors thing is too broad to make good TAC lists (rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock-plastic-dog-cat-bee-wasp-dragonfly-fred flintstone), they've introduced supplements that are horribly unbalanced (you can't say Escalation is balanced with a straight face), the codices aren't even balanced internally let alone cross-codex, an allies system that really isn't balanced, I'm sure someone could think up lots more.

So, the choices are play terrible tournaments with the rules GW gives us, give up on 40k as a tournament game, or try and modify the rules to make them more appropriate for tournament play. Given there's not really any game to replace 40k and I think just using the rules as given isn't a great option, we are left with modifying the rules to make the game better.

Banning the IK codex is, IMO, not an "arbitrary" line. It's a codex that is not a full army (I'm sorry but 1 model repeated 6 times does not an army make), it's a codex that renders most the enemy models useless (which might be entertaining the first 1 or 2 times you face it, but after that is just going to make for crappy games), it's the only codex that has a super-heavy and D weapon in it (which while I don't think the Knights themselves are terribly unbalanced, I do think the super-heavy and D weapon rules suck) and again I'm sure there's lots of other non-arbitrary reasons.

Breng77 wrote:
which is what I hope does not happen. D weapons don't lead to fun games.

nor do mutiple Riptides and Wave Serpent spam - why are they not being banned?

D weapons are much worse generally speaking than either of the above. And if you read above I'm for modifying those units. I don't get the riptide hate though without buffing units they are not all that scarey.

Banning the IK codex is, IMO, not an "arbitrary" line. It's a codex that is not a full army (I'm sorry but 1 model repeated 6 times does not an army make), it's a codex that renders most the enemy models useless (which might be entertaining the first 1 or 2 times you face it, but after that is just going to make for crappy games), it's the only codex that has a super-heavy and D weapon in it (which while I don't think the Knights themselves are terribly unbalanced, I do think the super-heavy and D weapon rules suck) and again I'm sure there's lots of other non-arbitrary reason

How many actual different units are used with Cheese Serpent lists - its not very many? How much fun are they and Seer Council's to play against? Multiple riptides - joy.

@Breng 77 - Thats good - if all problem units are looked at - the issue here seems to be that mny people feel that Codex entries are sacred - except of course when they don't.

I just had an insight. Was the IK codex a burnt out gw designer satirising the tournament unit spam mentality?

GW des: hmm, no matter how much work we put into a codex the players only seem to take the best couple of options and fill any cracks in their list with allies. I may as well embrace this as I can't avoid it.

Theres nothing wrong with making an army up of just the models you like.

Unless its cheesy.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Banning the IK codex is, IMO, not an "arbitrary" line. It's a codex that is not a full army (I'm sorry but 1 model repeated 6 times does not an army make), it's a codex that renders most the enemy models useless (which might be entertaining the first 1 or 2 times you face it, but after that is just going to make for crappy games), it's the only codex that has a super-heavy and D weapon in it (which while I don't think the Knights themselves are terribly unbalanced, I do think the super-heavy and D weapon rules suck) and again I'm sure there's lots of other non-arbitrary reason

How many actual different units are used with Cheese Serpent lists - its not very many?

More than 1

Have any of you been reading the threads on how to kill Imperial Knights? Every army in the game has an answer to the "Knight Problem", some easier than others. Every Knight player that wants to succeed is poring over those threads to work out counters to the net's anti-Knight wisdom.

Do you know what the conclusion is? Knights are hard to win with, easy to counter for a smart opponent, and is a meta charger due to requiring a different counter than we are use to. Its almost like the sky isn't falling, Chicken Little.

Its a new unit, a new paradigm in the game, and GW put their "legal for 40k play" stamp on it with the release of the Codex: Imperial Knights. They are here to stay.

As to TOs, it will behoove them all to move to a mission format of tournament play, where the missions reward skill and force players to make hard choices rather than point-n-click their net-lists. And have more LoS blocking terrain. Way more.

SJ

I'm having issue finding these threads care to link them? All I see are tactics and I really don't see how a well constructed army with knights will be hard to win with. But maybe that is just me. I also disagree that "Every army has an anser to the "knight problem" " What is Daemons answer? Get into CC and hope it doesn't kill you?

Yes actually and Daemons can do that quite well.

With What? Really interested in what Daemons have that can reliably kill knights and not just die in the process.

I think a lot of minor tournies will try allowing it, and seeing what happens before passing judgement. Lots of tournies allowed Escalation and Stronghold... then stopped allowing it. and I mean a LOT of them tried this. it was a "thing".

I think Imperial Knights are a Codex so I unfortunately don't foresee a lot of tournies being able to really say no to it. I mean... It's a CODEX. While I personally do not understand why they crossed over that threshold, it's a done deal now. So....

Breng77 wrote:
With What? Really interested in what Daemons have that can reliably kill knights and not just die in the process.

Skarbrand, the Bloodthirster with the Eternal Blade. Lord of Change with Prescience. Large units of Plaguebearers. Any Daemon Prince if they've lost a few HPs already.

You might also be surprised that the catastrophic blast doesn't always hit the Knights killers with its D part.

But essentially you need to risk almost losing as many points to the knight as it costs, and if you fail to kill first round you likely die....if it stands in terrain you likely die.

Take skarbrand he is 6 attacks base with armor bane, so 9 attacks on the charge.

Is 8 hits, needing a 6 to glance on 2D6, so that averages about 1 glance and 5 Pens. So he does fine. But is generally terrible and how did he get into combat, in the first place? and if he charges through terrain he gets hit twice with a SD weapon and most likely is dead before he swings. He is also a subpar choice against every other army.

Bloodthirster needs to smash to do good damage, so 3 attack + charge + D3 is an average of 6 attacks = 4 hits = 2 pens, and maybe a glance...so unless you roll high on the damage dice you die. And again no grenades.

Lord of Change has pretty much the same issue, but is at least a decent HQ choice.

20 plauge bearers (which how do they get the charge?), you lose 2 on average before you swing. so 36 attacks on the charge 18 hits= 3 glances...then stomp likely kills 4 more...then you take instability.

DP are the same as above.

Sure if you can damage them before combat it helps...but daemons struggle with that quite a bit.

Throw in the possibility that the D blast could kill you and it is a lot of risk and that might kill one knight.

Essentially I see Daemons reduced to 1 build FMC...and you fly around avoiding the fight as much as you can.

I'm also not aware of any reliable way nids can take down a Knight in anything resembling a TAC army and even with a dedicated anti-Knight army the odds aren't great.

More or less their best chance is the same as Daemons Spam FMCs, and stay in the air, but at least Nids can vector strike at S8.

Id be interested to know how many people that feel so strongly about knights (either for or against) have actually played with the army or against the army?