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Hi everyone!

So let me start with the disclaimer that I have never played Warhammer 40k before in my life. Not once. I used to play Fantasy a bit many years ago, however. I am hoping to enter the scene because of a friend of mine who has recently gotten into the game.

When I looked at the 40k armies, I was instantly drawn to the Imperial Knights because their fluff was the closest to Bretonnia. I am a huge fluff nerd. I love all thing knightly and Paladin in basically every game ever. So I couldn't resist these guys. That said, the Grey Knights had a similar fluff so I decided to incorporate them as allies (and spare my wallet a little to boot). Let me know what you think of this 2k point army or if you have questions about what I am hoping to accomplish with it. I am really curious to see the feedback:

Imperial Knights
Baronial Court Formation

1x Knight Paladin
-Selected as Baron.
-Helm of the Nameless Warrior as Heirloom (Rampage)
-Stormspear Rocket Pod upgrade.
445 points with upgrades.

2x Knight Crusaders
-Twin Icarus Autocannon upgrade on both
460 points each with upgrades.

Imperial Knight Point Total: 1365

Grey Knight Allied Detachment

1x Librarian
-Psyker 3
-Domina Liber Daemonica
-Weapon upgrades to Nemesis Daemon Hammer
(Hoping to virtually ensure I get Gate of Infinity and can use it to Deep Strike the Paladins)
165 points with upgrades

1x Paladin Squad (5 Paladins)

1 Apothecary
-Narthecium upgrade

2 Paladins
-Psilencer upgrade from Terminator Armor list (as 5 Paladins in squad) so they keep melee weapons

1 Paladin
-Banner of Brotherhood instead of melee weapon

1 Paladin
-Nemesis Daemon Hammer instead of Nemesis Force Sword

360 points with upgrades.

1x Strike Squad
-Totally vanilla, no upgrades.
110 points.

Ideally, I want to park the Crusaders near 1 or 2 objectives and use them as heavy fire. The Paladin would lend fire support and charge anything that got too close. The Strike Squad gives some extra bodies with objective secured to pick up/safeguard far flung points and the Paladin squad can hopefully Deep Strike with the Librarian.

Please let me know what you think and give your advice/feedback!

How do your friends feel about Imperial Knights? Many casual players resent them because they're so powerful, and many tournament formats restrict them to two, one, or even zero. Competitive players are usually fine because they bring tools to handle them. And of course this force is only ~55% Knights, and Grey Knights are not that scary anymore.

Most things that will voluntarily get close to an Imperial Knight are things you don't want your paladins near.

Invisibility may be more valuable than Gate in many games.

axisofentropy wrote:
How do your friends feel about Imperial Knights? Many casual players resent them because they're so powerful, and many tournament formats restrict them to two, one, or even zero. Competitive players are usually fine because they bring tools to handle them. And of course this force is only ~55% Knights, and Grey Knights are not that scary anymore.

Most things that will voluntarily get close to an Imperial Knight are things you don't want your paladins near.

Invisibility may be more valuable than Gate in many games.

Well, that is a bit of a bummer to learn. Wouldn't you be able to handle them by capitalizing on anti-armor or mobility? That's why I wanted to root the Crusaders with overwatch: takes less move to pivot.

As for my friends, they have never played 40k before either so we are just excited to build these things and see how the numbers actually play out on the table. No idea what to expect

Anyway, back to the list. What should I be worried about getting that close to the Paladin? Should I try and raise the model count?

Thanks for taking the time to answer so far.

Jesus you sound just like me, the only difference being that I'm doing GK with Imperial Knights allies. Anyway, to answer you question, you don't need two Icarus arrays. It is very situational and you only need one. Secondly, paladins can deepstrike just to let you know, as they are in terminator armour. And paladins aren't very good. They're too expensive, especially as you're running Imperial Knights, and you could bring two terminator squads with some special weapons plus some for the strike squad, getting the few extra points from the loss of one Icarus array. Also, have you considered taking a tech marine, no upgrades. He's 90 points so you may have to lose some special/carapace weapons but he could keep your knights alive that bit longer.

axisofentropy wrote:
How do your friends feel about Imperial Knights? Many casual players resent them because they're so powerful, and many tournament formats restrict them to two, one, or even zero. Competitive players are usually fine because they bring tools to handle them. And of course this force is only ~55% Knights, and Grey Knights are not that scary anymore.

Most things that will voluntarily get close to an Imperial Knight are things you don't want your paladins near.

Invisibility may be more valuable than Gate in many games.

Are you kidding me?

Restricted to 2 IK or 0?

anti tank weapons are plentiful. Heck you can glance side av12 with scat bikes.

They really need to restrict Wraith Knights to 1 or 0. 1 Wraith Knight can wreck 3 IKs in combat at once.

axisofentropy wrote:
How do your friends feel about Imperial Knights? Many casual players resent them because they're so powerful, and many tournament formats restrict them to two, one, or even zero. Competitive players are usually fine because they bring tools to handle them. And of course this force is only ~55% Knights, and Grey Knights are not that scary anymore.

Most things that will voluntarily get close to an Imperial Knight are things you don't want your paladins near.

Invisibility may be more valuable than Gate in many games.

I can understand not wanting to bring 3 knights to a casual game unless your opponent is cool with it but I can't say I've ever heard of a tournament restricting them in that way. Even the ITC who restricts LOWs to one per force allows an exception for knights so they can be run as as an army. The thing about Knights in casual games is that if you clear it with your opponent before hand, the odds are that they are going to tailor everything they have to kicking your butt. In my experience this usually results in the knight player (me) not doing to well. In a tournament setting they are fairly hit or miss. You will either come up against opponents who can't deal with all the armor or ones that can obliterate you. Overall though, Knights are not a super strong army on their own. While they can dish out massive firepower, they are fairy vulnerable to assaults and they suffer from low model count. Losing a knight hurts, especially when they are making up the majority of your army. Just some thoughts

My area has a limit of one super heavy or gargantuan creature with the exception of imperial knights which are allowed up to 3(though we are arguing for no restrictions yo allow full use of the dex).

Multiple knights against other who have never played 40k before will almost certainly ending up with you winning every game in a landslide.

Even then, the more knights you take, the more it becomes less of a game, becuase they either brought enough anti tank and you get wrecked without being able to do much to them in 2-3 turns, or they didn't bring enough anti tank, and you face roll them while they have almost no way to hurt you.

It doesn't make for a fun game either way.

God forbid you play against orks without a bunch of Klaw nobs or killsaw meks/meganobs or any DE build that doesn't involve spamming dark lances liek they're going out of fashion. That's one of the most onesided match ups in all of 40k, and it simply involves them removing models and you rolling dice.

Just to highlight the point further, Knights are not really for starting out 40k with, and certainly not more than one. Can you do it? Yep, totally legel. Should you do it? Nope, won't be fun for either side unless you inderstand how to counter knights.