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Hey guys,

I'm looking at some of the newest releases for Knights and I'm getting a bit excited for them. The Armiger Warglaive is ADORABLE. It's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be (standing about the same height as a Sydonian Dragoon), but that just increases its appeal in my opinion. Then you've got the Castellan coming out soon with the new IK Codex with rumors of more Armiger versions and potentially more options on the Castellan too.

That aside, what are Imperial Knights lacking? Why aren't we seeing them on tables in tournaments? Are they better off as a one-knight addition to an Imperium list, or can a full Knight list work right now?

What would you do to improve them? What sorts of 'Household' rules do you think they'd benefit the most from? Stratagems?

I think the main issues are having so many eggs in one basket and a lack of board control.

If you just take one, the enemy is likely to kill or at least heavily damage it on the first turn. T8 is nice, but 3+5++ isn't amazing at resisting things like las and missile launchers.

It's hard to take 2 with the way detachments are and still get many CPs, and 3 can have issues with controlling the board and holding the objectives.

I am hoping the new smaller ones are in more of a middle ground spot when it comes to their price and durability, and you'll be able to add 1-2 of them to armies to add some flavor and whatnot.

I think not letting enemy units deep strike and such within 12" would be a nice boost as far as board control goes

They need a -1 to Hit relic badly. The problem is they're way too squishy for their points.

Improving the armor to 2+and letting the Ion Shield be 4+ in melee would also go a long way.
EDIT: probably still good to keep melee ion shield on certain variants rather than blanket though. Helps keep the flavor.

If my experience with Baneblades is any indication, the biggest issue with Knights is the proliferation of anti-tank.

Board Control is a huge issue for mono-Knights too for obvious reasons, so I don't feel like I have to go into detail about that.

Neither a Baneblade nor a Knight simply can endure the focused anti-tank firepower of a tournament TAC list, in my experience. This means that, on a bad first-turn roll, the Knight list is down 1/4th of its points or so right off the bat. Furthermore, most enemy AT units are either comparatively durable (Shadowsword) or very spread out (devastators with lascannons / multiple Onagers / tankbustas in three trukks / whathaveyou), meaning the return fire from the Knights is going to struggle to eliminate enough enemy AT to avoid having a second knight crippled or killed Turn 2. Once the 2nd Knight is ineffective or destroyed, the third Knight probably won't be able to be victorious alone.

Now, the last bit applies less to Baneblades - first of all, they're cheaper, so easier to bring other units with, which can help them deal with enemy anti-tank units. Also crucially, they trade a bit of close combat power for a dramatically increased shooting capability, further enhancing their ability to eliminate AT. Lastly, Baneblades have access to dedicated support units - I don't just meant the units I mentioned earlier (e.g. skitarii squads). I mean full-d3 repair units (enginseers), re-rolls (relics/Trojan support vehicles), to-hit buffs (vostroyan stratagem/Salamanders), and doctrines, etc. So Baneblades are considerably better off, and one would hope that the IK codex includes these things.

Knights lack firepower (though the Castellan may address this) to compete, and their enhanced CC ability is hard to use in the face of extreme anti-tank shooting before they are badly damaged or destroyed.

What do Imperial Knights need?

Allies. Nothing special, just grab an IG battalion with some infantry and mortars and you'll be set. Oh, and stratagems and Household traits and relics and better/cheaper wargear and all that great stuff that comes with being a codex army.

drbored wrote:
Why aren't we seeing them on tables in tournaments?

I think they just cost too much for what they do right now. If Knights were as efficient as Baneblade variants like Shadowswords or Banehammers, they'd see some play just like we see the Guard super-heavies occasionally. There's nothing particularly wrong with them, they're just less efficient than other Imperium stuff so people gravitate towards using those. If they got some discounts, or some additional rules, I think they'd very easily start appearing more.

drbored wrote:
Are they better off as a one-knight addition to an Imperium list, or can a full Knight list work right now?

(Almost) every Imperium army is better off playing as Imperial Soup. I think if Knights improve with their codex you would see those 1-3 Knights in armies more often. But pure Knights armies will be rare, especially in tournaments, because it's so easy and effective to run a more balanced army by mixing in other Imperial detachments.

Going pure Knights is always going to be pretty rough when someone can show up with 200 models and just camp on objectives until you lose.

Well the codex is coming out soon, probably sooner than the other 2. Which probably means chapter tactics for the houses and rules for free blades.

Frankly I can't think of what they would give them, as a standalone unit they are super units.

-1 to hit would be great but it would have to be constant as you want most knights up close.

Ignoring brackets via cp or trait would be good. More anti infantry as well.

A points cut. A rule that lets them take objectives over Obsec, since they are a giant stompy robot. Or count them as twenty models for the purposes of determining who controls an objective in a pure Knights list. A rule to let you protect the Warlord Knight with other Knights.

drbored wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm looking at some of the newest releases for Knights and I'm getting a bit excited for them. The Armiger Warglaive is ADORABLE. It's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be (standing about the same height as a Sydonian Dragoon), but that just increases its appeal in my opinion. Then you've got the Castellan coming out soon with the new IK Codex with rumors of more Armiger versions and potentially more options on the Castellan too.

That aside, what are Imperial Knights lacking? Why aren't we seeing them on tables in tournaments? Are they better off as a one-knight addition to an Imperium list, or can a full Knight list work right now?

What would you do to improve them? What sorts of 'Household' rules do you think they'd benefit the most from? Stratagems?

I think we're not seeing them on tables in tournaments for two reasons: they're still and index army and the most competitive lists can all spam a huge amount of anti tank.

I've always considered the imperial knights as single additions to imperium armies, the 4 dudes list IMHO should never exist. It's no different to the "stormravens only" list, except the fact that you can't autolose having only flyers on the table.