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I like that I can stick with my Custom House, but still use one of the Big Six, as a "Successor" since those custom house rules all kinda suck...

Herpetrex and Khomentis look real juicy.

Darkness tree seems like the best.

House Borgir! Death to all who oppose us!

Yeah those 2 caught my eye


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Also desecrator stealth buff to WS2 is nice

What are your favorite combinations? For me, there are two interesting parts that might not stand out at first glance.

Take a Knight Rampager. 2+ WS, 5 attacks base. Give it the Diabolous (+1 attack, reroll 1's to hit in melee) and Eager for the Kill (+1 advance/charge, +1 attack while partially within enemy's deployment zone) Warlord traits and the Teeth that Hunger relic (+1 attack with this weapon, +2 Str in both Strike and Sweep profiles). Make it Frenzied Invaders Iconoclast House (Iconoclast = +1 attack and AP in the first round of combat, Frenzied = exploding 6's to hit in melee). Give it one of the Mark's of Slannesh to unlock the Murderbliss stratagem (+1 attack when attacking 6+ models, +2 attacks if 11+ enemy unit). Activate the Reap and Rend stratagem so that your sweep profile is 4 hit rolls per attack (can't reroll hits). That's 44 hit rolls that explode on 6s, Str 10, AP -5, 2 damage.

The Slannesh part is fairly situational. You could swap over to Khorne for double exploding 6s instead. The two attacks from Murderbliss are fairly situational, and the Throne Mechanicum of Skulls is more universally applicable.

The House Vextrix relic Heretek Power Core gives +2 movement and +1 damage on melee weapons unless its the sweep profile. The Electroscourge and Balemace profiles of the new Knight Abominant are not labled as sweep but still offer the multiple swings per attack.

Soon ladies


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Preorder next Saturday!

There are a few ways from the codex to make our knights more tanky.

Put the 4++ relic on a Abhorrent class will make it 4++.

There is another relic that gives a Abhorrent class a 2+ save.

Tyrants also get 2+ save.

Can also take Idolators trait to make all AP 1 become AP 0. I think there is another one that gives all of knights light cover.

But some new ones that are significant come from the dark god blessings and psychic.

There is a psychic power to give a knight 5+ feel no pain on a WC6. That is extremely good and not hard to get off. You can make one knight have this psychic by just making him favored by Tzeetch so that he becomes a psycker and gets one of our new psyker powers. This alone makes a massive difference.

I would say this is better than the Nurgle blessing which started at 6+ FNP and we need to kill a fair number of models before we get to 5+ FNP. A tyrant needs to kill 15 models to become favoured. In comparision, its far easier to cast a WC6 spell to instantly get a 5+ FNP.

The other blessing is the one featured by the community. The dark God blessing that doesn't allow for any rerolls against us. That is definitely super good.

House wise, there is also the house that grants us +4W on our big knights, which is not a small thing. Suddenly, all our big knights have 28W! and our tyrants have 32W!

So, between the relics, blessings and all. I think we can easily make 2 big knights super tanky.

Like if we the +4W household bond. And a Tzeentch tyrant with the 5+ FNP spell. And then another unaligned Knight with the 2+ armor save relic and the Dark God Blessing.

Now we will have a 32W Tyrant with a 2+ save and a 5+ FNP. As well as a 28W knight with a 2+ armor save and people cannot reroll against it. And when favored, is even harder to kill.

And we can then just use 2CP to through on 4++ invul on which ever knight is getting the most high AP heat. Alternatively, if everyone is going so much high AP that even a 2+ save doesn't help as much. Then swop the 2+ save relic for the 4++ invul relic. Then we can make the tyrant 4++ with a 5+++ FNP while our knight is also 4++ all the time and no rerolls allowed.

I find that once we have made a super tanky or two super tanky knights. We can sort of use the new Harbringers of dread abilities that our entire army gets. Not only do we decrease the enemy leadership, and we can boost this aura to 15 inches. Darkness Harbringer abilities has interesting things like give enemy -1 to hit at range, in melee, and as soon as turn 2, force them to roll a dread test, and if they fail, they have to shoot at the nearest target instead.

This is not insignificant if we have made a tanky knight. If that dread harbringer ability goes off, enemy may find himself directing most of his firewpower into a Tyrant or a knight that has a 2+ save, a 4++ invul, and either cannot reroll or has a 5+++ FNP as well.

Theoratically the tankiest knight you can make is to take the new knight Abominant which is already aa default psyker. Then you can take the Dark god blessing for no rerolls. and the relic for the 2+ armor save, and the +4W household trait,

So now, this knight Abominant has a 2+ save, allows no rerolls, gets 5+ FNP from psyhic and has 28W. And finally, you can use 2CP to give it a 4++ invul as well. Is going to be a nightmare trying to take such a knight down.

So... imagine forcing your opponent using the new harbringer ability to shoot at such a knight instead of your wardogs. He will cry.

I’m liking your enthusiasm it’s infectious

Like scrap code

You can also take an Infernal household to give you Ramshackle (-1 damage from Str 7 and below weapons) and there is a -1 damage in melee stratagem. The two don't stack, but its nice to have those options.

House Vextrix (Infernal) has Favor of the Dark Mechanicum for +2 wounds and regen 1d3 wounds per turn, and Infernal has the stratagem Bind the Souls of the Departed to possibly regen wounds in combat. You can also take a relic that upgrades the pterrorshades on an Abominant or the new War Dogs to grant a 4+++ vs mortals and when enemy models flee due to morale close to you you can regen up to 3 wounds, one per model that fled.

I'm honestly looking forward to testing the new Dread abilities to see how the new morale stuff works. I also think the Darkness tree for additional protection of our forces is the best way to go, but it will be neat to see if it helps against Tyranids for example. Its not a moral test, and they tend to have fairly awful leadership when they aren't immune to morale. Giving them half charge distance could be big.

What's the best balance (no. of Knights) for a 2000 pt list?

Super Heavy Aux. Detachment
Knight Rampager (Warlord)

Super Heavy Detachment (House Vextrix)
Knight Tyrant
3x War Dog Huntsmen
2x War Dog Stalkers

I'm not sure. Traditionally I would go with 2x big knights and 6x war dogs. However, if you give up on Favors you can get 3x big knights with thermal cannons and 5x war dogs at the 145 point range. Or one big knight and like 10 war dogs.

I think part of it will be play style and what models you have available.

bmsattler wrote:
I'm not sure. Traditionally I would go with 2x big knights and 6x war dogs. However, if you give up on Favors you can get 3x big knights with thermal cannons and 5x war dogs at the 145 point range. Or one big knight and like 10 war dogs.

I think part of it will be play style and what models you have available.

At this level, the number of Knights should not limit your army selection. My question is more from an optimization point of view.

And how many shooty and cc oriented War Dogs? I'd opt for an equal number.

I -really- like the Stalker with the Chaincannon and Chaintalon. Add in a couple Helverin's with their improved AP -2 and you've got a lot of anti-horde and anti-elite shooting. Then it's up to the big knights to do the anti-tank with things like a Tyrant or the Desecrator's Laser Destructor.

Right now I've got three ideas for lists I'd like to try.
3x Thermal Cannon/Melee weapon Despoilers and 5x Stalkers with Chaincannon/Chaintalon

Thermal Cannon/Melee Despoiler, Desecrator, 3x Executioners, 4x Stalkers Chaincannon/Chaintalon and some Favors

Abominant, 3x Executioners, 4x Stalkers, 3x Huntsman
Edit: This house would be interesting with Dark Forging Infernal Bond. Heavy 4, Str6, D2 Stubbers are basically another heavy gun. No AP, but you can still go fishing for 1s against marines.

According to the leaks, a few of the things we are talking about, like the 4++ relic isn’t available to tyrant classes, neither is the rotate ion shield I believe. Worth looking over in detail when we get a real book in hand.


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I’m right about the Veil of M, it’s “Abbhorent or WarDog class”

Tyrants can still rotate (bulwark), it just costs 2 CP for all nig knights now, it's only 1CP for war dogs.

Favors are surprisingly difficult to fit in. I keep making lists that come out to exactly 2000 points and realizing that I won't have any marks unless I drop a whole War Dog to do so.

bmsattler wrote:
Favors are surprisingly difficult to fit in. I keep making lists that come out to exactly 2000 points and realizing that I won't have any marks unless I drop a whole War Dog to do so.

But the favors are pretty important. From what I can see. A lot of the best defensive abilities we can add to our knights come from Favors.

So freeblades get bonds or households, anything else? Want to ally in 3 autocannon wardogs into my thousand sons, figuring out points for it now.

The Dreadblade bond is applied to the unit. Dreadblades do not get the Tratoris Ambition of Infernal or Iconoclast, just the bond. They do not get access to Warlord Traits or Relics unless your Warlord is a Chaos Knight.

The Infernal Bond Biomechanical Fusion specifically grants a Dreadblade the Infernal ambition and gives them a 4+++ vs the mortals generated from the Infernal boost (and that only). That would be my go-to for a group of Executioner War Dogs, which I agree would be an excellent ally for Thousand Sons!

Edit: I don't think there is anything forbidding a Dreadblade from taking a Favor of the Dark Gods? If not, 15 points is a pretty good deal for Mirror of Fates and a CP regen option and would be fairly fluffy. Warp Born Stalker is also 15 points and would give you the option of deep-striking one to threaten back-field campers or just get a good line of fire with a guaranteed turn of shooting.

Hello stompy tactical types! We have another codex leak so it is a great chance to play a practice game. This time my Tyranids are taking on the new Chaos Knights. What tricks does this new knights codex bring to the table? Can the swarm continue against an army with no biomass?


Read the report here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/uhn2gs/new_tyranids_vs_new_chaos_knights_2000pt_written/


Let me know what you think and good luck in your future games. For the Hive Mind!

Something I noticed with the new codex is that even though our knights got slower our movement degradation is much more generous.

Despoilers:
12" 9" 6" -> 10" 8" 6"

War dogs:
14" 10" 7" -> 12" 10" 8"

Rampager knight:
12" 9" 6" -> 12" 10" 8"

Karnivor war dog:
14" 12" 10"

I hadn't picked up on that, and it's a good catch!

Something I just thought of. You can make a Tanky Abhorent melee focused class knight but give it defensive dark god blessings and relic. Charge him into close combat right into the middle of your opponent's army. He will smash and kill stuff and then when he finally dies, use the 2CP for the strategem Spiteful Demise.

This strategem has now been changed. Its now auto explodes, we don't need to roll. So your melee knight is already tanky, has drawn a lot of firepower because it was stompy and it charged straight in and has to be dealt with. And now, after it dies, it auto explodes at a 2d6 radius causing d6 mortal wounds all around (likely right in the middle of your opponent's army).

This sounds really fun.


Just to expand on this. You can give a Knight Rampager (400 points) the Tzeentch Pyrothrone favor for 35 points. Then go House Vertix. Give him the Vertrix relic for +2" movement and +1 melee dmg. Since House Vertrix is Infernal, you can use the Infernal ambition ability, take d3 MW and get the +3" movement. Warlord trait is flexible. But Eager for the Kill gives you +1 advance and +1 to charge.

A Rampager has 12 inch movement default. So, Turn 1, you can move 12+2+3 = 17 inches, and your warlord trait gives you +1 to your charge. A turn 1 charge is pretty achievable with this kind of movement. So, cast the 5+ FNP psyhic power, and then move 17 inches and then charge into your opponent's gills. Absorb all the firepower he can throw at you and if you survive, continue killing. If you don't, then autoexplode right in his lines for d6 MW in a 2d6 radius.

Or just go forgo protection from Tzeetch and go Khorne Rampager with the reroll charge blessing (Throne Mechanicum of skulls). So, now you have a movement of 17 inches and a rerollable charge with +1".

So unfortunately, it’s clear that the most competitive way to run this army is go 3 abominants: This is boring and not good from $$$ perspective, but it’s the truth. Here’s why. For 30 points more than standard knights, abominants get…

1) A much better melee profile than any non-pure melee knights, and even then you can push an abominants melee to be better than a rampager by being Khorne blessed/ stratagems/ warlord traits/ relics. Sure he’s got 3 base attacks and can’t use “heavy” attacks, but that doesn’t matter when he gets D3 throw-away attacks at other knights sweep profiles and his main attacks are at D3 vs D2 for everybody else. That D3 vs D2 makes all the difference, so much so that even if everyone else S10, AP -5, 2D I’d still prefer the abominants melee. We live in -1 D, hard to wound, high wound meta. You need D3. Speaking of…

2) The abominants shooting is about equivalent as other knights his size. It’s not fantastic, but neither is any other knights shooting. Being likely to do at least 3 wounds per weapons is fine rate in today’s meta. This is the least exciting standpoint of his kit, but I’d still trade 30 points for his improved melee vs the other knights and this shooting. So the last point is basically free.

3) He’s a good pysker. Even if you can’t cast the 2 standout powers with every knight in 3 abominants list, you can still use our special smite, and smite with all 3. That helps bolster the abominants range output to be solid, and now better than the other knights. The fact that they also get the 2 standout powers and a deny (great in this Tyranids meta) is just gravy.


It’s so weird that the new model nobody owns yet seems to be strictly better than the old knights people do actually own… Oh well I’m sure that wasn’t intentional.

Hmm, I don't know. With armor of contempt, Abominants are only good if they are Iconoclast. Otherwise, terminators will just laugh at the AP2.

I actually think Desecrator with a reaper chainsword is good. You can use strategems to get 4 hits per swing. And the basic Desecrator is only 400 points? Then add a blessing of the dark gods.

3 Abominants is overkill. You can only cast that FNP psychic once. Its not like you can get that on all 3 Abominants. And if you want that 5+ FNP power on something other than an Abominant, you can just give the blessing Pyrothrone to the titanic you want it on.

Salt donkey wrote:
So unfortunately, it’s clear that the most competitive way to run this army is go 3 abominants: This is boring and not good from $$$ perspective, but it’s the truth. Here’s why. For 30 points more than standard knights, abominants get…

Personally, I find our big knights underwhelming. Wardogs are much better. I'd be surprised if you seen many lists running two big knights let alone three. My list runs one big knight and ten wardogs. The Abominant is ok. But personally I prefer the desecrator, sure his ranged weapon is swingy, but he's WS2+ and his re-roll 1s in shooting aura is great on the wardogs.

Currently, I run iconoclast with worthy offerings (+1 to hit against vehicles, monsters and characters). That makes the Desecrator BS2+ against most of the things it wants to shoot, with the relic laser destructor thats 3 shots hitting on 2s. I normally, keep him in reserve (as my only big knight), comes on turn 2 kills something to trigger favour of the dark gods and he's good to go. Normally you can't shoot anything turn 1 anyway and with rotate ion shields being 2CP it's cheaper to reserve a big knight than rotate twice (if you go second, you skip two of your opponents shooting phases, whilst only missing one of yours). Desecrator is 20PL, a brigand is 8PL, so for 3CP you can put both in reserve (depends what blessing you take as most of them are 2PL, but you get the idea).

I'm just curious, does anyone know if the new War Dog models are about the same height as the AOS Ghorghon/Cygor model? I'm asking them because I'm thinking of kitbashing some Ghorgons with knight weapons to try to recreate the Tyrant/Cyber Demons from the Doom games.

 Mushkilla wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
So unfortunately, it’s clear that the most competitive way to run this army is go 3 abominants: This is boring and not good from $$$ perspective, but it’s the truth. Here’s why. For 30 points more than standard knights, abominants get…

Personally, I find our big knights underwhelming. Wardogs are much better. I'd be surprised if you seen many lists running two big knights let alone three. My list runs one big knight and ten wardogs. The Abominant is ok. But personally I prefer the desecrator, sure his ranged weapon is swingy, but he's WS2+ and his re-roll 1s in shooting aura is great on the wardogs.

Currently, I run iconoclast with worthy offerings (+1 to hit against vehicles, monsters and characters). That makes the Desecrator BS2+ against most of the things it wants to shoot, with the relic laser destructor thats 3 shots hitting on 2s. I normally, keep him in reserve (as my only big knight), comes on turn 2 kills something to trigger favour of the dark gods and he's good to go. Normally you can't shoot anything turn 1 anyway and with rotate ion shields being 2CP it's cheaper to reserve a big knight than rotate twice (if you go second, you skip two of your opponents shooting phases, whilst only missing one of yours). Desecrator is 20PL, a brigand is 8PL, so for 3CP you can put both in reserve (depends what blessing you take as most of them are 2PL, but you get the idea).

I think the big knights have a role too. But I probably won't go 3 or 4 big knights. Just 1 or 2 even in a full chaos knight army. Have enough war dogs to run around causing problems everywhere and taking objectives and such are almost essential. However, the big knights can be built to absorb a huge amount of damage. And they can't be ignored, because they hit so hard in melee they will likely erase whatever is on the objective. So if you have a big knight on an objective, you have to deal with it.

A big chaos knight that forces you to deal with it then distracts you from having to deal with the various otehr wardogs out there. Say you have a Well built Rampager with the blessing of the Dark Master (enemy cannot reroll against you) and both the warlord trait infernal quest (obsec) and diabolus (+1 attack). That thing will obliterate whatever it charges on an objective. And then you now have a counts as ten model knight sitting on an objective that you have to kill or that objective is just gone. Ignore him? Then I move a cheap wardog onto that objective, and the Rampager now goes off to charge and obliterate yet another squad sitting on another objective. He moves 12 inches! And he hits so hard! Can you really afford to ignore him? Like in Iconoclast, this Rampager has 7 attacks, and you can then use a strategem to let it sweep attack for 4 hits instead of 3. That's 28 attacks at AP4. It will cleave through just about anything.

Focus on him ? He is tough to kill! And even if you killed it, he can auto explode for 2CP right in the middle on your opponent's army doing d6 mortals all round. I see the big chaos knights as focal points in our army. They are the ones that are buffing all our war dogs, attracting all the enemy firepower, and doing all manner of carnage meanwhile if they are being ignored. And when they are finally taken down, they are going out with a big bang and taking people with them! Going infernal is interesting on him too, because you can give him extreme mobility. If you skip Iconoclast and go Infernal instead gives the option of letting him +3 inch move. If you give him the slanaash favour he can advance and charge. He could potentially do turn 1 charges, and turn 2, he can literally be charging a backline enemy objective. Somehow, I think people will not focus on your wardogs so much if they are staring down this massive rampager right in their backline on turn 2 ... lol

And the Desecrator gives reroll 1s to hit at range to our wardogs. That's not a small thing if you are running with a lot of wardogs. I bet many of them will have a ranged weapon. And with a reaper chainsword, it hits hard in combat too, plus it has a WS2!

Meanwhile, the Abominant with Iconoclast ambitions still slaps hard in combat (AP3 on the charge with many attacks). And its a psyker. So you get that 5+ FNP power. You can even do something cheeky like take a psychic secondary like warp ritual against an opponent with no psychic. I am gonna now gonna run the abominant right into the center of the board and do psychic ritual. Either you kill it (which is not an easy ask), or it will not only do my psychic secondary, it will still get to shoot and then kill stuff in melee as well.

Besides, plonking down a massive chaos knight right in the middle of the board on a center objective (Perferably after murdering everything on that objective) makes a huge statement. And it just looks so cool. It just screams "This objective is now mine!" 10/10 for style points. hehe

 Mushkilla wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
So unfortunately, it’s clear that the most competitive way to run this army is go 3 abominants: This is boring and not good from $$$ perspective, but it’s the truth. Here’s why. For 30 points more than standard knights, abominants get…

Personally, I find our big knights underwhelming. Wardogs are much better. I'd be surprised if you seen many lists running two big knights let alone three. My list runs one big knight and ten wardogs. The Abominant is ok. But personally I prefer the desecrator, sure his ranged weapon is swingy, but he's WS2+ and his re-roll 1s in shooting aura is great on the wardogs.

Currently, I run iconoclast with worthy offerings (+1 to hit against vehicles, monsters and characters). That makes the Desecrator BS2+ against most of the things it wants to shoot, with the relic laser destructor thats 3 shots hitting on 2s. I normally, keep him in reserve (as my only big knight), comes on turn 2 kills something to trigger favour of the dark gods and he's good to go. Normally you can't shoot anything turn 1 anyway and with rotate ion shields being 2CP it's cheaper to reserve a big knight than rotate twice (if you go second, you skip two of your opponents shooting phases, whilst only missing one of yours). Desecrator is 20PL, a brigand is 8PL, so for 3CP you can put both in reserve (depends what blessing you take as most of them are 2PL, but you get the idea).

Admittedly, it’s possible you have a point on the wardogs. Since they improved the most in the new book, I’d say it’s possible they’re the best thing in it. That said, they needed to get a lot better to even be usable from where they where, so there’s still a chance they won’t be good enough. Big knights still hit harder and have much better durability after all. Also, a list with 10 wardogs and 1 big knight is awkward because you can hide the dogs, but not the big guy. That will either force you to play very cage with the big guy, or give your opponent a very easy time at finding what to shoot. Your reserve solution is a good idea, but that costs a lot of resources and means you still need to play cagy until your turn 2. Still a shot that this is the best list, but I don’t think it’s clear.

What my point should have been (and what I stick by)is that the Abominant is flat out superior to all other big knights. desecrators are never going to be better in melee than an Abominant. A 2+ WS is worth far less than D3 on the main weapon, especially since it’s extremely easy to get the 2+ WS on the Abominant. For example, assuming you value any Khorne blessing as being worth its points, a Khorne blessed Abominate is just a desecrator with D3 extra side attacks and Damage 3/AP -2 vs damage 2/AP -3. I’m fairly certain Iconoclast is still better than inferno by default so now that AP difference is really -3 vs -4. Eldenfirefly might like to pretend this AP difference matters in a noticeable way, but it really doesn’t. At the very least it’s not in the same league as D2 vs D3. To address an example firefly made an abominant might give terminators a 3/4+ vs a 4/5+ save a chainsword allows (if the terminators don’t have a 4++), but every unsaved wound kills a terminator or requires 1 less wound to go through if those terminators are -1 D. That’s 200% to 150% wound efficiency the abominant has which would be the equivalent of a model going from a 4++ to nothing, or going from a 3++ to a 5++ in -1 D example.

I don’t even think it’s a good idea to make an Abominant Khorne since this version overkills (especially with further buffs) most things in melee and giving up being a psyker + another favor costs too much. But being that much better in melee than all the other knights is just too much for them to overcome IMO, even if they give out random aura buffs.

You all ready for GW in the next CA to go:

"Hmm, players seem to be playing a lot of armigers at the expense of larger knights. Clearly, instead of making the bigger knights somehow more appealing and relevant to the meta, the solution is to nerf the wardogs".

Eldenfirefly wrote:

... A big chaos knight that forces you to deal with it then distracts you from having ...

All very good points!

My problem is big knights are just a big target turn 1. A lot of our defensive buffs can't be activated when going second, so in my experience I'm always going to be losing a big knight turn 1. If I run one knight and reserve it, my opponent doesn't get to shoot anything turn 1.

The real problem is the terrain rules. Titanic models can always be seen, so can always be shot. They are also slow because of terrain (why I think Korvax is such a good house). Your melee knight even with infernal is not going to be able to get a first turn charge. The problem with this is that your big melee knight needs to survive two turns of shooting. Our big knights struggle to survive one.

People talk about our defensive buffs, but our knights even with Blessing of the Dark Master are just not that survivable. I'd argue our wardogs are much more survivable because they are faster and benefit from terrain so can actually use terrain to limit incoming fire.

The only reason I'm running a big knight is cause it gives me an extra 3CP (which I then use to reserve it and a wardog to free up space). But, part of me does wonder whether I should just run 13 dogs and take the CP hit.

Salt donkey wrote:

I don’t even think it’s a good idea to make an Abominant Khorne since this version overkills (especially with further buffs) most things in melee and giving up being a psyker + another favor costs too much. But being that much better in melee than all the other knights is just too much for them to overcome IMO, even if they give out random aura buffs.

Interesting argument about D3. If you're not going all in on khorne doesn't a desecrator or rampager have similar output for less with the claw?

Iconoclast rampager: 12 attacks WS2+ S10 AP-3 D3 (10 hits)
Iconoclast desecrator: 10 attacks WS2+ S10 AP-3 D3 (8.3 hits)
Iconoclast abominant: 12 attacks WS3+ S8 AP-3 D3 (8 hits)

The rampager and desecrator come out ahead and that's before taking into account S10 vs T5. Haven't factored in the balemace because we are arguing on the premise that D2 is underwhelming, so d3 D2 attacks are not going to change much.

This has made me consider the claw as a decent option though!

There is the blessing "Warp Borne Stalker". For 30 points, your Abhorent class knight can start from deep strike. This will guarantee you get to do something. I would prefer this on maybe a Tyrant class Harpoon type knight though. Then would get all its guns in range the turn it deep strikes in.

Whether our knights get taken out (even if we go second), depends on the matchup too. Some armies don't have such a devastating first turn shooting, then we can safely start on the board.

I would argue that even in a outright shoot out, we can make our army so anti tank heavy that even with the loss of one knight, we would obliterate the enemy's anti tank shooting in our return fire.

For example, say we run 2 titanic knights and 7 wardogs. You can literally run full daemonbreath spears if you are worried about antitank. So let's say they get turn 1 and expose all of their anti tank. I will give it to them and let them blow up one of my titanic. Now their anti tank is exposed to 7 wardogs with melta guns and daemonbreath spears and one titanic return fire. Just from the wardogs, that's 21 melta shots plus the titanic's guns. Would likely destroy most of their anti tank attack after that return fire.

Other armies need to sacrifice something to tank anti tank guns. Like obsec, mobility, etc. The good thing about our army is we don't sacrifice anything to take anti tank guns. An amiger class wardog still fights great in close combat while shooting 3 melta shots per turn and is obsec. Similarly, a titanic is equally versatile. Can fight in melee, can destroy armour easily too. Counts as 10 models on a point.

I reckon that outside from a few skew armies, we can pack far more anti tank guns into T7, T8 forms than any army out there. Because if we wanted to, our entire army can pack anti tank guns and it would still be a reasonably competitive list. So why should we be so fearful of an anti tank shootout in that case?