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Hello Everyone! I may be fighting an Imperial Knight for the first time this weekend. The main army will be Imperial Guard.

I plan on bringing my Necrons to the battle but I wanted to know just how effective is gauss vs an Imperial Knight? Would the doomsday cannon be a better option? Any other suggestions? Thanks!

I

Wouldn't recommend the Doomsday Ark against a Knight in particular. If anything, the Doom Scythe would be a better option (The Knight can't hit it, it has Lance, and Tesla, and can easily get in a side ark to trick the shield)

But typically, Gauss is rather effective against it, just remember to flank it as much as possible to negate it's shield effectiveness.

So the shield only covers their front? How much damage can it do? I want to figure out if I should put the Imperial Knight as a main priority or not.

I'm thinking about making a Decurian list with 80 Warriors supported by 2 Ghost Arks. I could bring two Doom Scythes to take on the IK. Also I'm thinking about deepstriking a bunch of flayed ones behind the enemy lines.

The Knight usually comes with a two-shot battle cannon, its main threat is getting in melee (where it will wreck most targets).

That said I have seen a warscythe deathstar demolish a Knight in melee; it's possible.

Is the Imperial Knight a walker or a monsterous creature? Would Canoptek Wraiths be a viable option for melee combat?

Shoot it dead from multiple angles....
The shield only goes on one facing that he has to call out at the beginning of shooting.

You just need to glance the thing 6 times. so i figure ghost arks and bodies would do decently well.

The knight is a walker. front armor is 13 so a wraith needs to rend (st5 right?) But then the follow up attacks are generally D and or always ST10 ap1 so you are going to need to make saves. and the following stomps if a 6 is rolled will feth them up big time.

EDIT: oh but no invul in CC so thats not bad.

I wrote up a quick thing about it here: http://reqcrons.blogspot.com/2015/03/removing-vehicles-necron-anti-tank.html

With Knights, they choose the facing of their Invuln save on your shooting phase, so you need to position your forces to cover multiple facings. Heavy Destroyers are good, since they have a lot of mobility to get to multiple facings and then have the firepower to drop the thing easily. We don't have a whole lot of other "dedicated anti-tank" guns other than the Doom Scythe, just lots of massed Gauss, which can work. If you're running vehicle spam, massed ABarges and Flyers will put out enough S7 shots to eventually drop it, but they're no more effective than Gauss for the most part.

Best shooting option is Heavy Destroyers in a Destroyer Cult formation. Hitting on 3s rerolling 1s, glancing on 4s in front, 3s in side, rerolling all of those rolls. And AP2. If you take the max of 6 in the cult, they'll strip most of it's HP in a turn, then mop up with regular Destroyers and Warriors/Immortals.

In Assault, you have to be able to weather its 4 Strength D attacks per turn. The best way to do this is with Orikanstar + Warscythes (that is, Orikan + Shieldguard + Warscythe Lords/Overlords). The Shieldguard have a 3++ rerolling 1s, so against all D hits other than 6s they're pretty well fine. And Warscythes will open up the tin can in no time flat, especially if you have boosters like the Voidreaper or a Destroyer Lord in there for Preferred Enemy.

Wraiths are a poor choice as they need Rends, and 2 wound models means nothing if a Strength D hit gets through. You need 9 Wraiths to take down a Knight (statistitcally), so if you're running mass Wraiths you can do it, but it's not optimal. Warscythes will drop it in a round or two.

tl;dr - Warscythes are the most effective in assault, massed Gauss and Heavy Destroyers will make short work of one.

lots of warriors will do best.

If you want to be a snowflake, Deathbringer Flight (2-4 Dooms Scythe for +BS bonus), or a Pylon if it's a huge board.

I appreciate all of the advice everyone! I haven't toyed around much with Destroyers so I may go that route to see how well they do. Once I make my list, I'll post it here to see what everyone thinks.

Requizen, thank you for the link. That was a great read!

 Xenomancers wrote:
lots of warriors will do best.

Not best, but good.

Without modifiers (like Destroyer Lords, Zahndrekh, or Stalkers), a Gauss Flayer has a 1/9 chance to glance. If it's against the Ion Shield side, that's a 1/18. Which means to drop a Knight, at best, you need 54 shots, so 54 Warriors (or 26 in Rapid Fire range). If he puts the shield against them, then it's 108 (54 in Rapid Fire range). So you need somewhere between 26 - 108 Warriors to take it down in one round, depending on Ion Shield facing and distance. Doable depending on your list, but far from the best.

A Heavy Destroyer in the Destroyer Cult (for rerolls to pen) has a 7/12 (~58%) chance to do a hull point in the front armor, 56/81 (~69%) chance to do a hull point to side armor. And those can Explode!, granting d3 more Hull Points. Much more reliable.

 Ferros wrote:
If you want to be a snowflake, Deathbringer Flight (2-4 Dooms Scythe for +BS bonus), or a Pylon if it's a huge board.

I wish I had the Pylon models! That would be awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My opponent is playing Imperial Guard with an Imperial Knight so I'd have to assume there will be lots of tanks and a Valkyrie as well.

Pylon can be "made", if you're good with modeling. There are some guides out there using the stand off a globe.

Deathbringer flight might be good for you. Plenty of shots to hit the Valkyrie, and loads of high BS Tesla + 10/1 Lance/Blast for tanks and Titans. Very expensive, but if he has little to no AA and you kill the Valk clearly, you'd probably own the board.

Having said that, a Doomsday Ark is far superior for tank clearing, but is far inferior for Knight and AA.

Pylons are more or less garbage now since they have Skyfire/Interceptor. Until Forgeworld lets them choose whether they shoot at air or not, they're not worth the points.

One knight isn't so bad. I've been trying out doom drops (45 warriors in three night scythes) and managed to take one down. I suspect ghost arks would work better, but I don't own any.
I'm not sure what I would do against multiple knights though...

Requizen wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
lots of warriors will do best.

Not best, but good.

Without modifiers (like Destroyer Lords, Zahndrekh, or Stalkers), a Gauss Flayer has a 1/9 chance to glance. If it's against the Ion Shield side, that's a 1/18. Which means to drop a Knight, at best, you need 54 shots, so 54 Warriors (or 26 in Rapid Fire range). If he puts the shield against them, then it's 108 (54 in Rapid Fire range). So you need somewhere between 26 - 108 Warriors to take it down in one round, depending on Ion Shield facing and distance. Doable depending on your list, but far from the best.

A Heavy Destroyer in the Destroyer Cult (for rerolls to pen) has a 7/12 (~58%) chance to do a hull point in the front armor, 56/81 (~69%) chance to do a hull point to side armor. And those can Explode!, granting d3 more Hull Points. Much more reliable.

....That... doesn't sound quite right. Hmm, I think I'll work out some numbers. Good thing I do math for fun!

So, now we take our "kill rate" of Warriors vs AV and apply it to the following conditions:

Rapid Fire Range, no Ion Shield
Rapid Fire Range, Ion Shield
Out of Rapid Fire, no Shield
Out of Rapid Fire, Ion Shield
Well, derp. I guess those numbers were right.

Hmm, I think what through me off was that it appears that you're also factoring hitrate into the equation before determining final killrate.

In any case, Warrior blobs to do the heavy lifting- or provide scary "Oh noes, all da Gausses!!1!" moments to force your opponent into a hard choice about which facing he puts his Ion Shield on.

I would, however, generally recommend against trying to tie a Knight up in combat... it isn't likely to work well for the kinds of things that would tie it up; this is, however, different from throwing Warscythe Lychguard into the jaws of a Knight, as said Lychguard have a good chance of actually killing the Knight.

Warscythe Lychguard absolutely DEMOLISH Knights in combat. In fact, they kill basically everything in combat. A unit of 10 Scytheguard is basically the killiest unit in the entire game.

Of course, getting them to where they need to be before they're focused is difficult. The only practical way to get as many into combat as you can is to either move them upfield quickly via deep strike or Night Scythe, and then use Solar Staff to Invis them for a turn. Once they're in combat, they're bascially murder machines to everything except mass AP3 weapons (and even then they have 4+ RP with the Cryptek).

I would consider running 10 Lychguard with a Chronotek and zap them from a Monolith next to the knight, then he either shoots you, trying to get through the 5++/4+++-rerolling-ones-if-warlord-close saves of the lychguard, or he charges, and you kill it there and then

Doom Scythes and try to hit it where the the ion shield isn't.

Requizen wrote:
Warscythe Lychguard absolutely DEMOLISH Knights in combat. In fact, they kill basically everything in combat. A unit of 10 Scytheguard is basically the killiest unit in the entire game.

Of course, getting them to where they need to be before they're focused is difficult. The only practical way to get as many into combat as you can is to either move them upfield quickly via deep strike or Night Scythe, and then use Solar Staff to Invis them for a turn. Once they're in combat, they're bascially murder machines to everything except mass AP3 weapons (and even then they have 4+ RP with the Cryptek).

So it would seem that around two 20-strong Warrior blobs, some Warscythe Lychguard, and some Heavy Destroyers would be a good way to kill a Knight- Warriors+Heavy Destroyers force the Knight to pick a facing to Ion Shield that really ends up with a no-win situation, and Lychguard can close in for the kill if necessary.

Reminder: If you do go with wraiths: Go with transdimensional beamers.

Edit: Or get a vault or 2 and pray for a 1, 5, or 6. Preferably the latter two.

Requizen wrote:
Warscythe Lychguard absolutely DEMOLISH Knights in combat. In fact, they kill basically everything in combat. A unit of 10 Scytheguard is basically the killiest unit in the entire game.

Of course, getting them to where they need to be before they're focused is difficult. The only practical way to get as many into combat as you can is to either move them upfield quickly via deep strike or Night Scythe, and then use Solar Staff to Invis them for a turn. Once they're in combat, they're bascially murder machines to everything except mass AP3 weapons (and even then they have 4+ RP with the Cryptek).

How does the Lynchguard get into combat with a Knight?
This thing is much faster and can pick it's targets.

Necrons are the one army that I feel should have no problem taking on Imperial Knights. Take as much Gauss you can, getting the rapid fire range and unload on them.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Warscythe Lychguard absolutely DEMOLISH Knights in combat. In fact, they kill basically everything in combat. A unit of 10 Scytheguard is basically the killiest unit in the entire game.

Of course, getting them to where they need to be before they're focused is difficult. The only practical way to get as many into combat as you can is to either move them upfield quickly via deep strike or Night Scythe, and then use Solar Staff to Invis them for a turn. Once they're in combat, they're bascially murder machines to everything except mass AP3 weapons (and even then they have 4+ RP with the Cryptek).

How does the Lynchguard get into combat with a Knight?
This thing is much faster and can pick it's targets.

It is difficult, but not undoable. Best way is a Night Scythe. Get something that lets you manipulate reserves (Zahndrekh or Imotekh for warlord traits and/or a Comms Relay) if necessary.

If you don't need to shoot with the unit, you can move up 36", unload 6", and then run. That should basically let you surround a Knight, even though you can't charge. As the Knight is a walker, it can't move over them, so even if it moves around or backwards you will still have a relatively easy charge range. And with the Solar Staff you don't have to worry about getting shot to death. Even if the Knight charges them, they'd win in combat.

You can pull that turn one if you use Zahndrekh, Obyron and a Cryptek with the veil of darkness.

Strike Zahndrekh and a small unit across the board, strike Obyron with precision one inch from the Knight, run.

Pop a solar staff in Obyron's unit and you have a thoroughly dead knight.

changemod wrote:
You can pull that turn one if you use Zahndrekh, Obyron and a Cryptek with the veil of darkness.

Strike Zahndrekh and a small unit across the board, strike Obyron with precision one inch from the Knight, run.

Pop a solar staff in Obyron's unit and you have a thoroughly dead knight.

Yeah, the double Veil combo with Zahndrekh and Obyron is powerful. Unfortunately it's also really expensive. Zahndrekh, Obyron, a Cryptek with Solar and a Lord with Veil are already 425, that's before adding in the Scytheguard (250 for 10) and whatever you bring as Zahndrekh's retinue. So 675+ and Zahndrekh's first DS has a chance to scatter, which can screw up Obyron's DS (by going back towards your table edge) or worse, mishap and kill him and his unit.

If you're careful, it's amazing, but it's also pretty risky and expensive.

Hello! I just wanted to give everyone an update on my battle with the Imperial Knight. We played the Maelstrom mission deadlock. I was able to kill off the Imperial Knight during the bottom of round 3 with a heavy amount of Gauss. I feel like I devoted too much firepower to take him out but he was a high priority since he was doing massive damage.

The biggest highlight for me, other than killing the IK, was when 4 Flayed Ones charged a blob of Imperial Guards and caused 14 wounds and then an additional 17 wounds through sweeping advance.

Unfortunately, the dice were not in my favor this game. I failed a lot of RP and the game ended on turn 6, Imperial Guard victory. 12 to 9

The Knight did its job by taking up your resources to kill it, reducing your ability to play to the mission. Learning how to balance that out is a good thing. Sometimes, it's better to ignore it, other times it's better to tarpit it in cheap throw away units, yet still there are times when killing it now is the best route. The choice on what to do is based more on what you got and what you need, than what your opponent has or needs. Stalling out a 370+ point unit while you dismantle the rest of the army is much more satisfying than killing the unit only to lose the game.

SJ