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Including FW in this obviously because otherwise it's a silly coin flip.

I like the Castigator currently because yay no strength D or the Lancer because of the no-rear shield and almost nonexistent ranged attack. What are your thoughts on the matter?

At anything above 1500 or so, I'd say a single Knight of any kind is fair. Any army that could handle a pair of Russes or Land Raiders should be able to deal with one Knight, it's when you get multiples below 2k points (or one below about 1400) that it goes into cheese territory.

We've played a single knight at 1250 and it seems fine. Both knights are fairly balanced. If you can handle 2 leman russes you can handle a knight

IMO, most of the knights are about the same; the Acheron is one I could see getting called for cheese due to it's AP3 hellstorm template. As others have said though, bringing a knight at low points value is cheesy for the same reason as bringing a stormraven or land raider at low points...you can either kill it, or you can't.

Which one is the least cheesy? The one you don't take.

I think that the least 'cheesey' imperial knight is eigther the lancer or the castigator.

lancer; weakness in the lack of rear shielding, decent shooting attack but at 18" range and all it's strong points are all for fighting GC's and other SH vehicles. shield save in CC doesn't raise any eyebrows because it drops in strength.

castigator; no shield in CC main gun uses a hellstorm template, it's other gun is 36" range - despite the strength of the hellstorm template the mauler pattern bolt cannon is not too much of a threat


both are nasty in CC but thier decidedly blunted shooting attacks allow your opponent to have a couple of rounds of shooting before the hurt appears.
As an opponent, i would prefer to be facing one of those two because they have to actually reach you before they become a serious problem for you.

Paradigm wrote:Any army that could handle a pair of Russes or Land Raiders should be able to deal with one Knight

luky7dayz wrote:If you can handle 2 leman russes you can handle a knight

Unless of course you play Tyranids or an army that relies on CC to take out armour.

 SirDonlad wrote:


castigator; no shield in CC main gun uses a hellstorm template, it's other gun is 36" range - despite the strength of the hellstorm template the mauler pattern bolt cannon is not too much of a threat


.

Castigor don't use a hellstorm template, it is heavy 8. The hellstorm is for the Archeron.

My main question about the Knights is not about the chease but you use them again what?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Paradigm wrote:Any army that could handle a pair of Russes or Land Raiders should be able to deal with one Knight

luky7dayz wrote:If you can handle 2 leman russes you can handle a knight

Unless of course you play Tyranids or an army that relies on CC to take out armour.

I don't get this. Before playing against them the first time, I was under the impression the dang things were practically immune to cc. I played against one as Orks, knocked I think 2 HP off with shooting, then rolled in with a MANz bomb and it was toast no problem. Even blew up a much of enemy stuff along with it. It folded quite easily to cc, it's just a good use for those kinds of cc units that would overkill a normal tank.

If id done the same thing to 2 Russes, I would have only killed one and the other would have killed my MANz.

The acheron is generally considered the most cheasy when taken as a lone knight. Despite its relatively short range ( for a knight that is) is has a cerastus frame so its getting within range to shoot and charge by t2 at a minimum.
The hellstorm template at s7 ap3 is godly for any meqs and anything that relies on cover saves for support.
Having a heavy bolter is good because you generally want to use the flamer weapon on a unit you want to destroy, and then charge a target that the template won't kill which means you need to fire at that other target with the heavybolter. If either the lancer pr the castigator had a weaker gun to use in this way they'd be infinitely better.
The castigator is less useful now after the wave serpent Nerf, but its cannon would usually pop a wave serpent or even a flyer a turn due to 8 twinlinked s7 shots. The downside is that you rarely get to use the super cool cc ability because if it shot it was probably going to kill the target and just stand there.
The lancer is the WORST knight imo. It can't shield it's rear, it's invulnerable save in cc is kind of pointless as the ideal target for a lancer is either another knight of a gargantuan creature, which will be toting sD weapons. He also suffers the lack of ability to shoot his big gun, and have a target to charge like the castigator.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ER cheesy not cheasy.

the_scotsman wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Paradigm wrote:Any army that could handle a pair of Russes or Land Raiders should be able to deal with one Knight

luky7dayz wrote:If you can handle 2 leman russes you can handle a knight

Unless of course you play Tyranids or an army that relies on CC to take out armour.

I don't get this. Before playing against them the first time, I was under the impression the dang things were practically immune to cc. I played against one as Orks, knocked I think 2 HP off with shooting, then rolled in with a MANz bomb and it was toast no problem. Even blew up a much of enemy stuff along with it. It folded quite easily to cc, it's just a good use for those kinds of cc units that would overkill a normal tank.

If id done the same thing to 2 Russes, I would have only killed one and the other would have killed my MANz.

MANZ are probably one of the better CC units to charge it with as they get pretty good high Str attacks per point compared to most units. Though I still wonder how many MANZ you charged it with, on average it takes 4 MANZ to inflict 1 HP of damage per turn while the Knight kills 1.25 per turn with regular attacks + however many it kills with Stomp (harder to predict).

So unless you charged it with a great pile of MANZ (in which case it makes me wonder why the Knight player let it happen ) you probably just got lucky.

But most CC anti tankers either rely somewhat on hitting weaker armour and/or are themselves very susceptible to a Knight's D attacks and/or stomp and/or they are easily avoided (move slower than a Knight).

Three, actually. Boss with Killsaws, two with Klaws. Got one pen, two glances, and the pen caused an explode result which finished it off. The knight hit two, and he caused 1 wound to 1.

Stomp wouldn't have made a difference, as stomp goes simultaneous with my attacks.

I mean sure, it's gnarlier in cc than two tanks but the tanks bring more flexibility and more firepower. I'm really not convinced they're the game-breaking monstrosities most people make them out to be.

I think through Rule of Cool and not having to roll on the damn D table I'll field a Castigator.

For shooting purposes, the Castigator is rather weak, in comparions to the others. But it shines in CC. Because, according to several posted emails from Forgeworld in the various threads the question has come up in, the Deflagrate rule does apply to the special CC attack it can do.

 hellpato wrote:

 SirDonlad wrote:


castigator; no shield in CC main gun uses a hellstorm template, it's other gun is 36" range - despite the strength of the hellstorm template the mauler pattern bolt cannon is not too much of a threat


.

Castigor don't use a hellstorm template, it is heavy 8. The hellstorm is for the Archeron.

My main question about the Knights is not about the chease but you use them again what?

WHOOOPS! massive brainfart! i meant Acheron!


duuuuuuh....

 SirDonlad wrote:

 hellpato wrote:

 SirDonlad wrote:


castigator; no shield in CC main gun uses a hellstorm template, it's other gun is 36" range - despite the strength of the hellstorm template the mauler pattern bolt cannon is not too much of a threat


.

Castigor don't use a hellstorm template, it is heavy 8. The hellstorm is for the Archeron.

My main question about the Knights is not about the chease but you use them again what?

WHOOOPS! massive brainfart! i meant Acheron!


duuuuuuh....

Ok, now they need a new knight with bolt cannon and an archeron flamestorm cannon

Yeah, i'm definetly feeling the need for a gunboat knight - these CC d-weapons force you to charge the thing headlong rather than keep one back for fire support for the others.

I liked the anti-air knight that was done for that guy's 'house cadmus' that got put up on dakka this week i think?

Any knight that doesn't start with "wraith" is pretty reasonable for the points

If an opponent thinks 1 is cheesy, he's going to find them all cheesy. Take the one you like that fits the needs of your list.

the_scotsman wrote:
Three, actually. Boss with Killsaws, two with Klaws. Got one pen, two glances, and the pen caused an explode result which finished it off. The knight hit two, and he caused 1 wound to 1.

Stomp wouldn't have made a difference, as stomp goes simultaneous with my attacks.

I'd say you mostly got lucky that the Knight player didn't identify the threat of the MANz and then got an above average number of hull points off it in 1 combat.

Also unless I'm missing something the Knight should not have caused 1 wound to the Nob, it should have instant deathed it.

Also when it exploded it probably should have killed the rest of the Nobz unless you got lucky.

I mean sure, it's gnarlier in cc than two tanks but the tanks bring more flexibility and more firepower. I'm really not convinced they're the game-breaking monstrosities most people make them out to be.

More firepower? Depends on the tanks you're comparing it against. More flexibility? No way. The Knight doesn't have the weak rear armour of most tanks, it can move much faster while still shooting and it can squish most things in CC.

As for being "game-breaking". Well I never said they were "game-breaking". I don't really think they're game-breaking nor do I think they are terribly overpowered for their points... what they are is unbalanced. In a game which already has terrible balance I guess the Knights are fine, GW have already thrown off the combat boots in exchange for clown shoes.

Technically, the Magaera is the least "cheesy", because it's the worst of the Knights. It's an over-costed under-performer with neat options and special rules that make you think it might be worth it, but totally isn't.

SJ

I'd actually say the paladin. The lancer has its speed to get into combat, but it's the paladin which is basically just generalised. It has SD in melee but really that's still not so great compared to the things that can tarpit it. Dedicated tank hunters should be able to take it down fair enough if it does get tarpitted then in apoc games the paladin actually seems to perform best as a tarpit unit for actual titans, such as if it can manage to catch a revenant.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Three, actually. Boss with Killsaws, two with Klaws. Got one pen, two glances, and the pen caused an explode result which finished it off. The knight hit two, and he caused 1 wound to 1.

Stomp wouldn't have made a difference, as stomp goes simultaneous with my attacks.

I'd say you mostly got lucky that the Knight player didn't identify the threat of the MANz and then got an above average number of hull points off it in 1 combat.

Also unless I'm missing something the Knight should not have caused 1 wound to the Nob, it should have instant deathed it.

Also when it exploded it probably should have killed the rest of the Nobz unless you got lucky.

I mean sure, it's gnarlier in cc than two tanks but the tanks bring more flexibility and more firepower. I'm really not convinced they're the game-breaking monstrosities most people make them out to be.

More firepower? Depends on the tanks you're comparing it against. More flexibility? No way. The Knight doesn't have the weak rear armour of most tanks, it can move much faster while still shooting and it can squish most things in CC.

As for being "game-breaking". Well I never said they were "game-breaking". I don't really think they're game-breaking nor do I think they are terribly overpowered for their points... what they are is unbalanced. In a game which already has terrible balance I guess the Knights are fine, GW have already thrown off the combat boots in exchange for clown shoes.

That may have been our mistake. When we rolled a 1 on the StrD D3 I asked about instant death and he said he didn't think they inflicted it (because it wouldn't make much sense since you are rolling a D3 for wounds why bother if you're just instagib ing stuff). Even if I had lost a nob, though, I'd have tarpitted it for one turn and could have had my tankbustas and Mekgunz wipe it on my turn.

And yeah, he did kill the Nobz in the explosion. Also took out a chunk of his own infantry. I'll trade 160 points of nobs for 450 points of knights and stuff any day.

Rumour has it that the Knights are getting a new codex very very soon, so I'd wait and see what drops. It's looking like there are about to be two more variants reintroduced, so all the Knight haters are in for a bad time.
On topic though, I'd say the Paladin is the least 'cheesey' it's a good back field shooting unit, but that means you rarely get to use the Reaper Chainsword, which is the most fun part! I'm a big fan of the Errant, that thing is a tank's worst (k)nightmare.