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Just been absolutely stomped by a knight in a 800 point game and I'm wondering what I could have done to prevent it.
I knew the list I was playing would struggle but thought I should have been able to deal with it better than I did so not sure if it's bad luck, bad tactics bad list building, or a combo of the above. I will try to summarise the game with a bat rep and if anyone could offer any tips as to what I might have done differently I'd greatly appreciate it.

My list:
Samanders
HQ:
Vulkan Hestan
Troops:
10 man tac squad, multi melta, Melta, combi melta on sgt drop pod(combat squaded)
5 man tacsquad. Melta comi melta on sgt
Fast attack;
Storm tallon twin linked assault cannon, skyhammer missiles.
Heavy support:
5 man Devastator squad 4x las cannons

My opponents list (as I remember it.)
HQ: level 2 librarian
Troop: 2x 5 man tac squads one with missile launcher with flak missiles
Heavy support: 5 man Dev squad 2 lascannons plasma cannon, multi melta
Imperial knight with thermal cannon and heavy stubber.

Mission: purge the alien.

Deployment: we played on a 4x4 table with about 5 LOS blocking ruins. I won the roll off and elected to go second my opponent deployed his knight in the centre of his deployment zone flanked on either side by a tac squad. He put the Dev squad on the second floor of a ruin overlooking most of the table.
I placed my dev squad on the ground floor of a ruin out of line of sight.
Everything else was held in reserve. I didn't attempt to sieze.

Opponents turn 1:
Unable to see anything he moved the knight up field 12 and ran him past halfway he raised th ion shield against the rear armour.. The tacticals advanced 6 inch either side.

My turn 1:
I moved the devastators up to the 2nd floor where they could see but also be seen. My 10man squad arrived by drop pod assault I landed them in front of the knight at close range hoping to negate his invuln and take advantage of my master crafted melta. Despite firing all three weapons I managed to score a single hull point of damage on it. (I thought this would do more, am I being unrealistic?). The devastators fired the las cannons as snaps at its front armour but failed to inflict any damage.

Opponents turn 2:
His devastators picked off one of mine in the ruin. His librarian manifested psychic shriek on one of my combat squads killing 4 but suffering a perils in the process taking one wound. The Lone marine died to bolter Fire. The knight wiped out the other combat squad through shooting and assault and sweeping advanced up the table.another 6 inches.

My turn 2:
My stormtallon arrived from reserves and targeted one of his tactical squads inflicting a single wound. Sensing a tabling was on the cards I hid my devastators back out of line of sight to.

Opponents turn 3:
The devastators snap shot two lascannons at the stormtallon scoring 2 hits and blowing it up. The knight made it into assault against the devs killing all bar 1 who passed his morale check.

My turn 3:
Vulkan and the other 5 man tac squad arrived in the other drop pod, at this point I had given up trying to take out the knight so landed in his deployment zone behind the dev squad. And unloaded all the melta shots along with Vulcans flamer and the remaining bolters scoring 2 wounds. In the assault phase my remaining Devastator was pulped and the knight consolidated 6 back towards the other side of the table.

Opponents turn 4:
The Devastator squad shot at Vulkans unit killing 2 regular marines. The knight moved back downfield closing in on my remaining unit. In the shooting phase the knight blew up a drop pod.

My turn 4:
Vulkan and his squad moved into position to get a shot on his warlord instant deathing him with a melta. They then attempted a 6 inch charge on the rest of the unit but failed.

Opponents turn 5
He moved the knight closer and advanced his tac squads he killed another marine in shooting before assaulting with the two tac squads one of which made the charge. The knight failed its charge. Vulkan killed 4 of his in the assault but the remaining guy tied him up in assault.

My turn 5
Vulkan finished off the last Marine in cc at this point the game ended.

Score. My opponent got first blood plus 5 kill points for the 2 combat squads, drop pod, Storm tallon and dev squad. For a total of 6
I scored line breaker, warlord, plus 2 kill points for the Libby and tac squad for a total of 4.

I know 6-4 seems fairly even but honestly it felt like a mauling.

Appologies for long post and well done if you've stuck with it this far I just wanted to give as full a representation of what occurred as possible.
So what could I have done differently. Any feedback appreciated. Cheers.

Opponents turn 1: ... he raised th ion shield against the rear armour

Sounds like you may have been playing the knight incorrectly, it should get to pick the facing of it's invuln save at the beginning of your round of shooting, not during it's own turn. MM, or any heavy weapon, isn't usually a great choice for tac squads, since they are almost worthless when snap shooting.

I moved the devastators up to the 2nd floor where they could see but also be seen.

You'll usually want to make sure the Devs can fire every turn without snapshooting. Make sure there is a decent piece of terrain in each deployment zone when you are setting up the table.

Sensing a tabling was on the cards I hid my devastators back out of line of sight to.

Not sure about this move...looks like the devs carried most of your offensive punch, but never got a solid round of shooting.

I played against one with harlies/DE the other day and Haywire scourges and a dropping squad with 2x haywire nades and 2x meltas demolished it in one round.

Problem is you snap fired a LOT with special weapons.

Thanks for Some good feedback I do agree I may have been best trying to avoid the knight and dealing with everything else. It's just hard to avoid that monster potential 18" move ignoring terrain.
I Feel I should justify inclusion of multi melta on tac squad as I generally agree on the point of heavy weapons. I just wanted to maximise use of melta to get the most of vulkans special rule and felt re rolls might mitigate the fact I'm snap shooting to an extent.
As for the las cannons I agree they were points wasted in this game. Problem was to allow for the drop pod deployment I felt I needed to protect them from first round shooting as the knight could have taken them out and tabled me before my reserves had chance to arrive.

800 points is a little low for playing a knight.

A lot of the time it is rock paper scissors. Either your army will have enough to deal with it, or it won't.

The Lanchester's square law rules here.
If you double the Knights, you have to four fold your fire power.

I wreckt knight with 20 boyz and nob with pk and bigmekk with pk in squad , my 8 str9 atacks did it job, I tried to shoot it down with rokits but he's armor and invuls are to jard to crack ! So I'd say go mele


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For marines I guess storm shield termies can be just the right guiz to do the job , and finaly be vorth taking again!

Knights are tough. Even if you tie them up all game it's going to cost you a few hundred points. Why in the world did he give devs a multi melta?

Get rid of melta, get plasma for range. Cheaper HQ more lascannons. If you're going to make the knight a priority, and boy is it hard not to, then kill it by turn 2. Melta's are great AV but not whe that AV can assault you the next turn and the bonus on the damage chart can't blow it up like with the knight. Take shots with all your high strength AP from as far away as possible. Taking second turn here was a mistake too. Making it so you had to put your devs so that they had to mve to shoot was a mistake as well. I understand it after you choose to go second but that exactly why would don't go second. You bought lascannons and iddnt get to use them



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 darkflame182 wrote:
I wreckt knight with 20 boyz and nob with pk and bigmekk with pk in squad , my 8 str9 atacks did it job, I tried to shoot it down with rokits but he's armor and invuls are to jard to crack ! So I'd say go mele


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For marines I guess storm shield termies can be just the right guiz to do the job , and finaly be vorth taking again!

No they're initiative is lower and chances are they die. The only time I saw this work was when they had invisibility cast on them


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 darkflame182 wrote:
I wreckt knight with 20 boyz and nob with pk and bigmekk with pk in squad , my 8 str9 atacks did it job, I tried to shoot it down with rokits but he's armor and invuls are to jard to crack ! So I'd say go mele


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For marines I guess storm shield termies can be just the right guiz to do the job , and finaly be vorth taking again!

This is actually one of the few melee approaches I'd endorse without using it myself against the knight. The orks I mean. Terminators your just trading 200 pts for two hullpoints

Actually, melta-bombs might be good to have on every squad. If he assaults the squad, you'll probably ding him up a bit each time, and it's only 5 points per squad.

Remember the sword only swings so many times, and the stomp is AP4 most of the time. You should be getting 2 rounds of hitting him with that melta bomb before he wipes out your 5 marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah, against knights you want cheap guys that can do damage to it. Spending too much on invuln saves won't help you when he rolls a 6 on his D weapon or stomp.

A tactical squad should take him more than a turn to get through unless he rolls well and you're forced to pile in very tightly (remember his base is big, you can put a small number of people in base to base without them touching eachother and you can remove your casualties from the sword in such a way that you spread your survivors out so stomps aren't hitting multiple people).

Well knight has only 3 atacks I think so 5 thunderhammers could get more than 2 hullpoints , because he kills them only on 6 and 3 up saves some times unbreakable so yeah , what about a comby melta stenguards surprise droppod in hes back?

Blood-for-the-blood-god wrote:


Opponents turn 2:
His devastators picked off one of mine in the ruin. His librarian manifested psychic shriek on one of my combat squads killing 4 but suffering a perils in the process taking one wound. The Lone marine died to bolter Fire. The knight wiped out the other combat squad through shooting and assault and sweeping advanced up the table.another 6 inches.

Just as a question, do you mean he consolidated up the table 6"? Or did he kill your Marines with Sweeping Advance (Which he cannot do due to ATSKNF)