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Hello, dakkdakka.

I have 2 Iks now and want take some Skitarii to support for fluffy reasons. What unit would have better synergy with Knights Vanguards or Rangers or maybe even infiltrators?

I think the main weaknes of Knights is point grubs and table prescence so some MSU Skitarii will help close that gap. What do you think?

Well first Knights aren't admech, although like all things in the IoM they depend on the mechanicus for their construction and upkeep. The point remains that Knights are not titans, not part of the titan legions.

I dont think Skitarii syngergize well with Knights. Rangers and Vanguard fall over to bolter fire. Less so for infilitrators but still an issuse, their weak spot is str6 AP4. Not the kind of stuff that threatens a knight. So they do not end up diverting attention away from each other.

Rangers have the ability to fight at 30" although their damage output isnt great. Precision shots might kill a meltagunner before your knight gets close.

Vanguard are extremely deadly for basic troops, but have a max range of 18". Vanguard can delete squads of poorly armored troops easily. They also can help deal with MCs.

Mechanicus definetly have their own Knits though)

On the topic: so I will go with Vanguard then.

What about Ballistari and Onagers (I'm not sure if i spell their names correctly).

Knights started on mars, though it's true they aren't all separate from the ad mech. A lot tend to have a connection to them though, primarily due to the "mind washing" within many of the knights.

As for them being titans, its debated a lot and they are actually the knight class of titans. Then for fluff reasons they do match up as the skittari are well known for fighting on foot around larger warmachines like knights and titans.

This is based solely on the games I have played using Skitarii without allies, but I find Ballistari not to be worth it. Dragoons are a bigger threat because they are up in the opponent's face and can reliably make a charge on turn 2, if left to their own devices.

I run 2 seperate dragoons and they have never failed at diverting fire from other targets. My opponent knows that if he doesn't deal with them, they'll end up killing squads/vehicles he doesn't want me to kill.

I have not tried Onagers myself, but I've heard nothing but praise for the Str 10 blast guns in squads of 3.

Why not both? If you've got the points of course.

Rangers and Vanguard both have their strengths to lend to a pair of knights, and I think having both makes for excellent synergy. I've often seen them run as a large unit of vanguard w/ plasmas, having the sergeant as the warlord for PE, with two smaller units of rangers with some arquebuses for fire support.

I think vanguards and rangers definatly has a good place. Orangers are going to occupy a similer niche to your knights most likely as your big firepower, HOWEVER this isn'ta bad thing. as they'll give you some more tank killing power your enemy has to deal with and thus likely draw some fire.

if you where taking Onarger's however I'd not bother with the Icarus array unless you have a very heavy flier meta. the anti air autocannons you can plunk on a Knight should be more then sufficant. and you won't have an entire unit dedicated only to AA.

Honestly I think the Imperial Knight has now gone from "weak vs AA" to "possiably one of the better choices for AA fire in the IoM"

 Exergy wrote:
Well first Knights aren't admech, although like all things in the IoM they depend on the mechanicus for their construction and upkeep. The point remains that Knights are not titans, not part of the titan legions.

I dont think Skitarii syngergize well with Knights. Rangers and Vanguard fall over to bolter fire. Less so for infilitrators but still an issuse, their weak spot is str6 AP4. Not the kind of stuff that threatens a knight. So they do not end up diverting attention away from each other.

Rangers have the ability to fight at 30" although their damage output isnt great. Precision shots might kill a meltagunner before your knight gets close.

Vanguard are extremely deadly for basic troops, but have a max range of 18". Vanguard can delete squads of poorly armored troops easily. They also can help deal with MCs.

I'm quite new but i do agree with this. One of the benefits of having all the same army or picking between space marine chapters is that you just make some of your enemies fire power pointless. Alll the enemy's none ap 3 weapons now get save against if your all space marines.

If you have knights and skitarii your troops give your enemies low ap weapons a perfect target that they are very affective against. That said the walkers and crawlers of the skitari could work well with the knights. These heavy armor units need some more agressive 6+ str fire power to deal with. Further more kngihts, dragoon, and crawlers all have saves that are harder to work around than a simple armor save. This means they will be very tough to kill.

If you Have a pair of knights they coudl advance with a 4+ sqaud of dragoons while you ahve a unit of 3 crawlers or maybe 2 units of 2 crawlers in the back throwing out some fire power. I'd split roles between the knights and crawlers. The Give 1 knight anti tank or anti elite infantry power, then give your other knight something to compliment. Do the same with the crawlers. This way your oppent has to have long range anti mech staff to deal with crawlers, and close range anti mech stuff to deal with the knights. He can't just deal with the knight or just the crawlers becuase they cover eachothers roles.

The dragoons usualy go well in anti infantry/horde and anti tank role, but can't really fight against enemy Elite units like TWC and other powerful stars.

Edit: fluff wise, pretty much ad mech has acess to almost every machine in the imperium. All the machines are maintained, fixed, and the new ones are built by Admech. Even in the old fluff admech made new knights for the knight world, and in the new stuff i understand admech have their own knights who are wholly independent of knight worlds. So any admech codex is pretty fluff with any army containing lots of mechs. Even more so with knights though.

BrianDavion wrote:
if you where taking Onarger's however I'd not bother with the Icarus array unless you have a very heavy flier meta. the anti air autocannons you can plunk on a Knight should be more then sufficant. and you won't have an entire unit dedicated only to AA. Honestly I think the Imperial Knight has now gone from "weak vs AA" to "possiably one of the better choices for AA fire in the IoM"

I completely disagree.

A single TL autocannon will do little or nothing to any real aerial threat. A storm raven doesn't care about it at all. 2 shots at S7 AP4 also don't scare most FMC. The Onager is perhaps the most points efficient and effective AA platform the IoM has access to. Consider the fact that you are paying more for the single TL auto cannon on the night than the entire Icarus array on the crawler! The reason the crawler is so good for AA is its cheap, durable and effective. I would go so far as to say the ONLY way you should run the crawler with knights is the Icarus build. Every other thing you can put on the crawler is either better on other platforms or simply out classed by the knights weapons themselves.

The Knights went from incapable vs flyers to weak vs flyers with the addition of the hull auto cannon.