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I am looking to start a Horus Heresy army and am looking at two options:

1. Knight Households
2. Adeptus Custodes

I have decided to start with the knights first as that will be easier on the wallet. I think I will need the custodes gyrfalcon jetbikes for AT and they are incredibly expensive at £33 a pop!

If I decide to go with the Knights, sounds like I can only go with a full on all Knight list or do mechanicum which I am not that interested in.

What are the issues with a Knight list and what type of Knights should I be getting to cover all bases i.e. against horde armies, really tough deathstars, flyers, etc.?

Also how do Knights do in objective missions? Any help is much appreciated!

I figured that a questoris household has two modes of play - one for fighting other knight households, the other for a 'normal' army.

When playing against 'normal' forces the household ranks provide a couple of good abilities which are bubbles of effects - the scion arbalester gives a chassis skyfire and pairs well with a castigator or styrix, but can also make a warden or crusader (with stormspear pod) a more serious threat to flyers; this should be kept nearby a Preceptor which gives interceptor to any knight in 6" for some proper anti-air support!

The other thing the preceptor rank does is grant the ability to fire overwatch (including flamestorm cannon!) to every knight chassis within that 6" too.

So, after you have your skyfire/interceptor blob (probably with the seneschal at the front in 6") you need to think of how to hold objectives - the ones which can hold are the plain-jane scion martial ranks which are obsec for no extra outlay of points.

Don't bother trying to save points for another knight by using the scion aspirant rank - you'll need to downgrade ELEVEN knights to get a free one (rules dictate that household is comprised of 22 knights!!) - just downgrading one to get a stormspear pod is questionable thinking imho.


Against other knights your priorities change; the HQ should stil be the seneschal but the ranks of the rest will be either be scion martial for objective scoring or arbalester to give a knight the tank hunters rule for improved shooting results.
Anything outside that is personal taste - a bit bland but you need to score objectives since CC between knights tends to be a suicide risk due to apré-CC explosions.

The thing to consider when fighting another household is; which chassis is best for the job? The benefits offered by the differing chassis far outweigh those from the household rank in my experience.

I like Knight Wardens to act as Arbalesters and a Cerastus Lancer for a Seneschal?

What types of Knight are best suited for scion martial do you think?

I am looking for an allcomers list.

The warden doesn't do too well as an anti-tank option thanks to the S6 main weapon sadly - consider the more expensive, but much more capable Crusader.

In 30k the crusader is 435 base, but 445 will replace the heavy stubbier with a meltagun and exchange the gatling cannon (S6 AP3 heavy12 rending) with a rapid-fire battlecannon (S8 AP3 ordinance2)



Of course at this point cost the atrapos becomes very viable, but may break the piggy-bank.



I'm pleased to say that the best option for your troop choices are the very fluffy paladin and errant chassis' - decent firepower, D weapon in CC, and some other acoutrements for killing infantry; paladin for hordes, errant for vehicles and terminator equivalents, low cost for what they do and can take carapace weapons for that bit of extra dakka - the only negative is they seem stuck with blast weapons for doing the majority of the work which can be their achillies' heel.


Personally i play mine as knight household Col'Khak which have many more styrix and magaera than any other household, so magaera are my troops and styrix are my preceptors.

edit: the cerastus lancer is a perfectly capable seneschal - it trades the CC TL-ness of the castigator or the CC re-rolls of the atrapos for a CC invuln save that with the seneschal rank becomes a 4++; Huzzahs all round!

Against a legion list Knights should do very well, against a good Mechanicum list that is geared up to take out heavy armour you will have a very bad day. Such a list typically tables me by turn 3 if there isn't a ton of large scenery on the table.

I wouldn't rule out the aspirant rank completely, it is useful when you are marginal on points to be able to squeeze in another Knight. If you are playing objective based games you want as many Knights as possible in the troop category anyway.

At 2000 points I aim for 5 Knights, as I like my Acastus Knight Porphyrion I can only do so if I make 3 of my Knights aspirants. The Porphyrion is very good in 30k, tough to remove, good damage output with great range, so you can keep it back in your deployment zone near an objective.

I like the Lancer a lot as a HQ, it particularly makes sense as a Seneschal as it can use the +1 to its invulnerable save in both shooting and CC attacks.

I also like the Acheron and the Atrapos. The former makes a lot of sense to me as a aspirant as it has the huge flamer that auto hits so the loss of BS doesn't hurt it so much. You have to be aggressive with the Atrapos to make the most of its short ranged D shooting attack.

Is the porphyrion the 6th knight in that list?

At 2000 points I take 5 knights, would love to be able to get 6 in for that!

My list at a recent tournament (I came 9th out of ~56, should have come 5th if I had won a game I should have won but lost because I mucked up rather than the list struggling):
Lord Scion - Lancer
Scion Martial - Porphyrion - Helios defence missiles
Scion Martial - Atrapos
Scion Aspirant - Paladin
Scion Aspirant - Paladin

I would be tempted to swap a Paladin for a Gallant so I can swap the other Paladin for the Acheron. I couldn't quite get the Acheron in when taking a Porphyrion.

I like the number of blast templates that a Paladin can drop per turn at a good range as it is more than enough for most basic troop choices, but the Acheron might be the more effective choice.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the 'young blood' rule for the aspirant rank says you cant have more aspiramts than all other ranks in an army - this means the most aspirants you can have in a five knight list is 2.

Which tournament was that Lookey Likey?

Is a knight list that badly hurt against Mechanicum? What weapons / units should we be really careful of against Mechanicum. I had hoped that the 4+ ion shield would be somewhat helpful in that respect...

The HH Grand Tournament @ Warhammer Fest.

Mechanicum can remove Knights really quickly if setup to remove heavy armour. So castelax with meltas or dark fire cannons (a few of the latter don't bother me, its when they go all in), massed conversion beamers, Krios Venators, Kracken missiles on a Lightning, all the graviton with haywire they can pack, they have other ways to get haywire as well. Can you tell I dislike haywire?

Going first really helps, proper deployment helps (you want to minimise the distance to their conversion beamers, hard when deploying 5 knights in the smaller deployment zones), tables with lots of scenery helps, castling helps (you want only one facing visible for each knight and the other facings hidden by scenery/each other). Once you survive the first round of shooting from them you need to be on top of them ASAP, most of their units are slow to hit in CC, but their robots hit hard, so you need to do the job first time before they get a chance to swing back.

I've found that knights work best as a smaller main Detachment allied with solar auxilia (which can be easily represented with cheaper plastics like skitarri with a bit of conversion work like a headswap). I like using the knights as a quick in your face Force, while the solar auxilia elements huddle behind their aegis and apply long range small arms fire or tank mounted weapons and score. Has been a winning combo for me anyway.

Thanks Lookey. Are there any other bad matchups for Knights?

Sounds like we should deploy well and then just go hell for leather against a shooty mechanicum and pray we survive the onslaught!

There aren't many other lists Knights would struggle with wholesale. Individual units, such as the terminators with chain fists (particularly if given invisibility) that I mentioned early are difficult to deal with. It is massed armour bane/melta that we struggle with, or if they can really overload on lascannons.

Thanks buddy.

Do you know what list won the Horus Heresy GT? I heard it was Custodes.

I wish I knew as I didn't play them and they didn't upload their list to the smart phone app GW used for all the tournaments that weekend, just 2 blank pages. There was some scuttlebutt that the guy was changing their list to suit the army they were facing but I didn't see their army at all let alone see them play so take that with a large amount of

I don't have any problem with Custodies with Knights as long as I take out the dreads ASAP, I tabled the custodies guy I played at that tournament by first half of turn 3 with some good rolls.

Nidzrule! wrote:

Do you know what list won the Horus Heresy GT? I heard it was Custodes.

As far as I remember he ran something like:
Valdor
Tankibune (warlord)
Shield captian (tankibune loadout)
2x 3 Sentinel Guard
Contemptor-Acchillus
2x 3 Agamatus Jetbikes with las-pulsars

I had a minor loss against him with my Knights.
Seneschal Atropos
Martial Porphyrion
Perceptor Acheron
Alabaster Crusader

He ran his HQ's with one of the Sentinel units, which made them impossible to kill due to lots of 3++ saves and wound shenanigans.
But it was a nice game overall.

As long as he hasn't managed to sneak in eternal warrior then the Porphyrion should be killing one of the tankibunes or the look out sir patsy first time it fails a save? I like my Paladins against Custodies infantry as three pie plates and four heavy stubbers each a turn on the same unit they have to fail a save or two a turn even with rerolls and look out sir on top of the instant death of the Porphyrion.

I haven't played against the Custodies Jetbikes yet, how did you find those?