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So some backstory here. this is just me and 3 other friends who all got in to the warhammer a few years ago. we each pick a different army 1 Tau, 1 Guardsman, 1 neuron and 1 Khorne. we dont play out side of the group . anyway over time the guardsman play semi stopped playing his guardsman and started to bring a knight in his army. well fast ward to now and his army has turned in to 4 Knights. the rest of us a kinder over it but the tau player is now at the point where he wont play him anymore if he brings even a single knight. the Guardsmans player argument is he is sick of losing all the time (i was playing Khorne in the middle of 7th edition which i won like a total of 10 games in over like 100 and never complained once) and his a bad sore loser to the point where if he loses 2 knights. even being like 5th round he gives up and starts to pack up.

anyway are we being a bit over the top or is he being to cheap with 4 knights?

Sounds to me like there are no innocent players here, refusing to play someone's army seems kinda lame, on the other hand it sounds like your knight player is pretty classless as well

What knights are he bringing?

BrianDavion wrote:
Sounds to me like there are no innocent players here, refusing to play someone's army seems kinda lame, on the other hand it sounds like your knight player is pretty classless as well

its not so much that we want to refuse its just nothing changes in his list. so we play the same exact game each time we play

justin12270 wrote:
So some backstory here. this is just me and 3 other friends who all got in to the warhammer a few years ago. we each pick a different army 1 Tau, 1 Guardsman, 1 neuron and 1 Khorne. we dont play out side of the group . anyway over time the guardsman play semi stopped playing his guardsman and started to bring a knight in his army. well fast ward to now and his army has turned in to 4 Knights. the rest of us a kinder over it but the tau player is now at the point where he wont play him anymore if he brings even a single knight. the Guardsmans player argument is he is sick of losing all the time (i was playing Khorne in the middle of 7th edition which i won like a total of 10 games in over like 100 and never complained once) and his a bad sore loser to the point where if he loses 2 knights. even being like 5th round he gives up and starts to pack up.

anyway are we being a bit over the top or is he being to cheap with 4 knights?

It sounds like your guard player picked the wrong army. It sounds like he wants a durable army, and picked a horde/attrition army. And then he went to the other extreme. 4 Knights probably means no Guard, and Knights have a hard time on Objective VP.

I also wonder if you play with enough terrain. If guard are getting dogpiled, and Khorne got dogpiled last edition, maybe there isn't enough terrain provided cover saves.

I'd try a couple things, make a concerted effort to add more terrain. When you feel like you have enough terrain, add more. When you feel like you have too much, add more. When you literally can't move a model across the field because there's no room, then you added too much. I'm being facetious but terrain is huge for all armies. The elite/low model count armies like Marines/Custodes/Sisters need Terrain to block the midrange weapons like Plasma, etc. The horde model count armies need terrain for the cover saves. Everybody needs terrain to make the knight armies take the long away around to an objective and have to work at it.

The second thing I'd try is making a concerted effort to focus on Objectives and Victory Points. Its way way too easy for players to get tunnel vision on the killing/combat aspect of the game. I'm guessing your Guard player went full Knight because they kill a lot, and die slow, while his guardsmen individually died fast and didn't kill much of anything. What Guard and other hordes can do is score objective victory points like nobody's business.

justin12270 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Sounds to me like there are no innocent players here, refusing to play someone's army seems kinda lame, on the other hand it sounds like your knight player is pretty classless as well

its not so much that we want to refuse its just nothing changes in his list. so we play the same exact game each time we play

keep in mind that a knight model costs over 150 USDs when that happens, having extra models that you can swap in and out "on a whim" isn't exactly easy.

Sadly this sorta happen to us with knights, People got sick of them and just stopped playing.
Not as bad now, but i still think they lead to very boring games.

Got to sit down and find out where both players can find compromise, if they can :(
But if the knights player starts packing up like that, I not sure the tau player is so in the wrong. That would be extremely frustrating. And i would not play a player like that with Knights.

BrianDavion wrote:

justin12270 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Sounds to me like there are no innocent players here, refusing to play someone's army seems kinda lame, on the other hand it sounds like your knight player is pretty classless as well

its not so much that we want to refuse its just nothing changes in his list. so we play the same exact game each time we play

keep in mind that a knight model costs over 150 USDs when that happens, having extra models that you can swap in and out "on a whim" isn't exactly easy.

That's why you should always magnetise expensive models.

This sounds more of a player issue than a list issue, if he's packing up when he looses 2 knights ecen if it's turn 4+, I don't see anything that can be done about it.

Playing pure knights isn't as easy or fun as people think. What it does tend to be if quicker.

Also if your playing objectives etc be it either ITC or either CA missions 2018 especially are almost certainly going to be won by the no knight list.

Pure knights also is a massive skew list.
Which when unprepared makes for a misserable match.
Additionally that preparation forces people into partaking in the Arms race.

If he's a friend, have an honest chat about it. Explain how you feel and I would suggest doing it 1 to 1 so it isn't confrontational.

Either he'll understand where you're coming from and make adjustments in his attitude. Or he won't, and that means he's probably not that good a friend.

The game has to be a two way thing, and I wouldn't want to play someone who can't understand that.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Pure knights also is a massive skew list.
Which when unprepared makes for a misserable match.
Additionally that preparation forces people into partaking in the Arms race.

Another person not understanding that you don'tneed to beat knights by killing them all in 2-3 turns. This is why they are being nerfed to an unplayable codex.

You beat knights by objectives and playing the mission, if you can kill 2 out of a 4 knight list by turn 3 your probably going to winning that game unless you buikd a glass cannon list.

Where most people go wrong is they don't play any missions they just play to kill stuff.

Ice_can wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Pure knights also is a massive skew list.
Which when unprepared makes for a misserable match.
Additionally that preparation forces people into partaking in the Arms race.

Another person not understanding that you don'tneed to beat knights by killing them all in 2-3 turns. This is why they are being nerfed to an unplayable codex.

You beat knights by objectives and playing the mission, if you can kill 2 out of a 4 knight list by turn 3 your probably going to winning that game unless you buikd a glass cannon list.

Where most people go wrong is they don't play any missions they just play to kill stuff.

Another person not understanding what was stated.
Winning by objectives alone makes neither for a good nor fun experience.
Secondly you need to have enough units to survive and hold onto objectives. And the armies in this group do not have the meat available to do so. Except maybee the IG one.
Thirdly due to their inherent skewing nature you are forced to react to knights in the meta, and going from a balanced list that you like to play to a list that has to be tailored to stand a chance is neither fun nor good game design.

Fourth. Feth size creep.

Knights have their own codex now so bringing 4 knights is legal and allowed and even encouraged. As a result its a legal army that you could encounter and on that line it shouldn't be taken as cheese or abuse of the game.

I think one aspect is that the Imperial player has adapted and changed their game and army to meet with issues they've found in the local games. You don't mention yourself and the others nor the Tau players reactions. Have you lot evolved your armies? Is the Tau player sitting there with the same army (that used to win lots) and is refusing or unable (not got any free money) to add to their army to evolve it to meet the new challenge.


I've seen some people build one working army and then get really hostile when it stops auto-winning and might even shift to auto losing when others in the same group adapt. Part of the game is list building; part of it is adaptation. If you know your opponent is taking a knight army then that's super easy to work out what they might take and what you can take to counter them - more so than most other armies as Knights have a very limited pool of models and most are in the same or similar class. It's not like Tyranids where a player could go full swarm or full large creatures (the two extremes).



The points regarding terrain are also important, many groups often end up playing with very little to no terrain which means shooty armies often dominate (esp armies like Tau); but can also mean that close combat ones really suffer (its part why GW keeps squeezing in all these turn 1 and 2 assault abilities into armies). It might be that you're just putting too little down; or that you're not blocking enough line of sight with what you are deploying. The game expects you to fragment the battlefield and break up the line of sight




In the end games are about compromise so there's give and take on both sides to come to the table. Sometimes you compromise very little and just agree to use the core rules of the game and the armies as you wish; other times you might agree to handicaps or the like if one player keeps losing and appears to have no means to win - this might reflect army build issues but also simple skill variation within the group.

It's interesting to me that the Tau player seems to be most upset about your friend bringing knights. I feel like tau have some of the most effective anti-knight units with riptides and broadsides. When I first started collecting I was annoying about playing knights, but that was simply because I didn't own the units required to beat them. But now if I went up against knights, I know that I have the tools for them.

I'm with the other posters that are asking if you all have evolved your lists to deal with knights. If this is a guy that starts a whole new army because he is losing. Doesn't seem like it would be difficult to just beat his knights until he switches to a better list.

Knights certainly don't make for very interesting games.

Your list has the tools to beat 4 Knights, Knight player will have a miserable game, or your list doesn't have the tools, then you will have a miserable game.

It's a skew list, just one weirdly more "legitimised" than 9 flyers or 150 Plaguebearers or some such, because the Codex (pure) cannot do much else.



Not sure who's to blame in that small group, but I don't think you'll get out of it with those lists. E.g. the Tau player builds to kill 4 Knights, then he'll probably table the Knight players 9 games out of 10 .. or he doesn't and the Knight player will table him 9 games out of 10.

A single Knight with guard should probably make for better "back and forth"-games that are interesting to play in a friendly environment.

balmong7 wrote:
It's interesting to me that the Tau player seems to be most upset about your friend bringing knights. I feel like tau have some of the most effective anti-knight units with riptides and broadsides. When I first started collecting I was annoying about playing knights, but that was simply because I didn't own the units required to beat them. But now if I went up against knights, I know that I have the tools for them.

I'm with the other posters that are asking if you all have evolved your lists to deal with knights. If this is a guy that starts a whole new army because he is losing. Doesn't seem like it would be difficult to just beat his knights until he switches to a better list.

All our list have evolved over the times. Main thing is no matter what kind of style of game we play. He plays 4 knights and just plays to kill. Which means our list never can really change or we get table before the end.

justin12270 wrote:

balmong7 wrote:
It's interesting to me that the Tau player seems to be most upset about your friend bringing knights. I feel like tau have some of the most effective anti-knight units with riptides and broadsides. When I first started collecting I was annoying about playing knights, but that was simply because I didn't own the units required to beat them. But now if I went up against knights, I know that I have the tools for them.

I'm with the other posters that are asking if you all have evolved your lists to deal with knights. If this is a guy that starts a whole new army because he is losing. Doesn't seem like it would be difficult to just beat his knights until he switches to a better list.

All our list have evolved over the times. Main thing is no matter what kind of style of game we play. He plays 4 knights and just plays to kill. Which means our list never can really change or we get table before the end.

I mean your options are:
A) Talk to him see if he will make some list changes
B) List tailor against him so that he never wins
C) Don't play him anymore

 Stux wrote:
If he's a friend, have an honest chat about it. Explain how you feel and I would suggest doing it 1 to 1 so it isn't confrontational.

Either he'll understand where you're coming from and make adjustments in his attitude. Or he won't, and that means he's probably not that good a friend.

The game has to be a two way thing, and I wouldn't want to play someone who can't understand that.

okey, but how is the talk suppose to go down? if he plays the same list over and over again, you would have to more or less force him to buy new units or a new army. I get not having when playing against someone, I really do, but telling someone they need to get a new army is a bit much. Plus he can always tell you, that if you are not having fun playing vs his army of knights, why not you buy a new army and not him.

Karol wrote:

 Stux wrote:
If he's a friend, have an honest chat about it. Explain how you feel and I would suggest doing it 1 to 1 so it isn't confrontational.

Either he'll understand where you're coming from and make adjustments in his attitude. Or he won't, and that means he's probably not that good a friend.

The game has to be a two way thing, and I wouldn't want to play someone who can't understand that.

okey, but how is the talk suppose to go down? if he plays the same list over and over again, you would have to more or less force him to buy new units or a new army. I get not having when playing against someone, I really do, but telling someone they need to get a new army is a bit much. Plus he can always tell you, that if you are not having fun playing vs his army of knights, why not you buy a new army and not him.

That's a fair point, however it's clear from the OP that they have (or at least had) a full guard army.

Assuming that they are continuing to collect new units too, maybe it would affect their purchases going forward. If they want to keep buying Knights that's obviously ultimately up to them, but if games against them are miserable for the other players involved then they need to know that and be able to make a fully informed decision.

hmm maybe he could mix it up then. though am not sure if an army of two knights and 1000pts of IG would be more fun to play against. There is a big chance it maybe even less fun, because the whole part of him quiting when he loses will go away, while at the same time nothing will help the other guys get a higher chance of wins or even just games when they do something to him. I haven't played in 2 months, so I could be out of the loop on guard+knights, but prior to summer knights with IG were way up there as good lists.

Karol wrote:
hmm maybe he could mix it up then. though am not sure if an army of two knights and 1000pts of IG would be more fun to play against. There is a big chance it maybe even less fun, because the whole part of him quiting when he loses will go away, while at the same time nothing will help the other guys get a higher chance of wins or even just games when they do something to him. I haven't played in 2 months, so I could be out of the loop on guard+knights, but prior to summer knights with IG were way up there as good lists.

Winrate is by no means the only factor in whether you enjoy playing though. Playing against Guard means you should be able to take some of your opponent's models off the table reliably. That is in itself quite fun!

The issue with him packing up if it's not going his way is a problem independent of army I feel, and requires him to gain some awareness of how his attitude is impacting other people. Even if he's winning a lot, if he's a good winner then people won't mind losing to him anywhere near so much.

It is not, unless you are losing all the time non stop, playing with indentical armies on , probably, same looking tables. After sometimes you just don't want to play the game. Doesn't stop you from spending time with friends, if you happen to have them, but game wise it feels like a waste of time. Can probably have as much fun looking at other play. That is why people drop from certain competitions in sports. In a weight class above my there is a dude who is olympic material, half the people drop out of competition when he is on the line up. The fact that the dude is an donkey-cave matters little, no want wants to be beat up, with a chance of injury knowing that the first 3-4 places are going to be taken by people from his school.


I do think also that the only way to fix the situation is to play other people. Otherwise someone is either going to have to buy an new army, or play something they do not want to play. Being a person outside of that game group, it doesn't really matter to me, if the person buying the new stuff is going to be the one that was winning or losing. The gap between armies in w40k is huge sometimes, and I doubt people want the winning armies to be played bad, just so thay have a chance to win. That , for me, would be even worse then someone throwing a game or whooping my armies butt.

justin12270 wrote:
So some backstory here. this is just me and 3 other friends who all got in to the warhammer a few years ago. we each pick a different army 1 Tau, 1 Guardsman, 1 neuron and 1 Khorne. we dont play out side of the group . anyway over time the guardsman play semi stopped playing his guardsman and started to bring a knight in his army. well fast ward to now and his army has turned in to 4 Knights. the rest of us a kinder over it but the tau player is now at the point where he wont play him anymore if he brings even a single knight. the Guardsmans player argument is he is sick of losing all the time (i was playing Khorne in the middle of 7th edition which i won like a total of 10 games in over like 100 and never complained once) and his a bad sore loser to the point where if he loses 2 knights. even being like 5th round he gives up and starts to pack up.

anyway are we being a bit over the top or is he being to cheap with 4 knights?

I don't think bringing 4 knights is a problem.

The whole packing up after losing 2 is. While I wouldn't make my opponent keep playing if they're on the verge of getting tabled, the points gap is insurmountably high, and there's no path to victory, I also think that being quick to concede when things just slightly turn against you and there's still and chance is kind of poor sportsmanship. This is a wargame, there will be casualties, getting upset about taking losses is something I find annoying. [To be fair, a 4-knight list may not be looking at any path to victory with 2 down, since they're looking at being fairly unable to score objectives]

I have had this conversation with my friend.

It started off with me asking if his games with Knights felt “satisfying” as a game experience. We go back a long way, having played games together for years with lots of back and forth. He acknowledged that he didn’t find the games to be as fun as facing “normal” armies.

My compromise was that if he wanted to take more than one Knight at 1500, or more than 2 Knights at 1850, he just had to let me know and I’d make a list with that number of Knights in mind. It put a lot of onus on me to make a “tailored to equal” list that wouldn’t specifically kill Knights Uber-efficiently, but instead gave a fairly equal chance of winning to both of us. The games improved, though playing against more than one Knight is a chore, for me.

My best suggestion is to have a conversation on a not-game night, if you hang out for other reasons. If not, after the game is probably a good time. You’re friends, and your friend appears to like playing Knights, but if both players aren’t having fun, something should change. Ask him (?) if he’d be willing to try a half-point Knights, half-points Other list.

And make sure to let him proxy whatever Other army he likes. Guard isn’t for him, but maybe he would like marines, or mechanicus. Once he finds a non-knight army he likes to play, weaning back to just one per game, unless he lets you know so you can come prepared shouldn’t be an issue.

But is it really just a slight turn against the knight player. If it is the end of turn 2-3 and you lost 2 knights, and the game is 4 more turns, and you know that even if you were to delete a squads a turn you won't outscore the opposing army, why play the extra 4 turns wasting your time on something you know how it ends? It is not a question of being uppset, but game reality when you play a skew list. And there are a few skew lists like a 4 knight one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:


And make sure to let him proxy whatever Other army he likes. Guard isn’t for him, but maybe he would like marines, or mechanicus. Once he finds a non-knight army he likes to play, weaning back to just one per game, unless he lets you know so you can come prepared shouldn’t be an issue.

And what do you do if he really likes just knights? Force him to buy in to ad mecha or marines, so others had better fun time, when he has worse, when he already bought in to one army he did not like?

justin12270 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Sounds to me like there are no innocent players here, refusing to play someone's army seems kinda lame, on the other hand it sounds like your knight player is pretty classless as well

its not so much that we want to refuse its just nothing changes in his list. so we play the same exact game each time we play

So just beat him. Do that enough and he'll figure out he needs to vary or lose

@ Karol:

I think you may have misunderstood my suggestion, that he need not buy new models (right away, at least) while he tries out a few other armies to see what fits for him.

Maybe nothing does, and that’s a bummer, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Everyone can bring whatever they want to a table and ask for a game, but it’s a two player (or more) game. If both parties aren’t enjoying the game, consistently, then concessions need to be made. Perhaps Knight player would enjoy playing against “softer” lists with his Guard, and since the other players don’t want to play against full Knights, they agree to tone down so the game is on a healthy balance.

It’s all communication, and that gets better when all parties agree to experiment with house rules / modifications. If IG player gets roasted every single time, maybe he needs more points to get more even results. If a person is winning less than 30% of the time, tweak the rules to try to get them up to a 40% win rate. Once there, you can all agree to maybe wean back some of the perks / bonuses to get the player with the weaker army to improve their skill / list building.

If you aren’t in a tournament, and particularly if you play at “home”, your enjoyment of the game is up to you and your opponent. So work together to have fun.

People have pretty well covered my main points already, but I'll chip in all the same.

It sounds like the main issue is that the IG/Knight player built a skew list that can consistently beat everyone else's army. Unless winning is the only way the knight guy can have fun, I would think he'd prefer to play close games rather than blowouts.

Sit down and say, "Hey. We want to keep gaming with you, but the 4 knight lists have been really one-sided. Could you tone your list down to be a better match for us? Maybe swap out some of the knights for some of your guard?"


Something you learn when you've gamed long enough is that playing more optimized lists doesn't make someone a villain. People get different things out of the hobby. Some people like building optimized armies. If optimizing his army is one of the main things he gets out of the hobby, you might suggest that he try optimizing but with extra constraints on himself. For instance, he might enjoying optimizing a list but with the constraint that he has to build a mechanized infantry themed list or that at least X% of his points have to be guard or something. This can be a fun way to stretch the optimization muscles in a new way while also toning your list down.

If he really just wants to play as optimized a list as he can and gets no joy from playing anything else, well, that could mean that his expectations for the game just aren't compatible with yours.

Him quitting the game when he loses a second knight halfway through the game is a thing. I don't know the specifics, but it seems like he might have trouble letting units die. One of the lessons I had to learn about 40k is that there will often be THAT turn that goes really sour for you. But just because you have a bad turn doesn't mean you've lost the game. Maybe he's bad at estimating what his chances are after losing the second knight? The only other explanation that comes to mind is that he wants to have really one-sided games, and that's a bad look.

I will say that I kind of feel for the tau player here. Back in 5th edition, I got so sick of playing against parking lots that I politely refused to play against fully mechanized armies. I was sick of having to take nothing but tank busting units to the exclusion of more interesting units and more diverse lists.

Knights spam is a skew list that presents a similar problem. You either tailor your list to handle them, or else you lose when you face them. As others have pointed out, you can still win the game by playing the objective, but you're probably not playing 40k as advertised at that point. Instead of armies trading blows, it's more about one army getting a merciless beating and hoping that it wins by standing in the right spot for a while. If one of the things you get out of the hobby is a back and forth battle, knights can prevent you from having that particular enjoyment.

Basically, you shouldn't have to spend tons of money and field armies you're not excited about just because one guy in your group happens to be playing a more optimized list.

TLDR; Identify what everyone enjoys about the game. Unless what the knight guy enjoys is, "One-sided victory with a list that is more optimized than yours," you can probably find a way to make your games more enjoyable. And from the sounds of it, the easiest solution is just to have the knight guy swap out some knights for some IG.

Both players need to be having fun. You aren't obligated to spend several hours having a miserable time getting stomped on by knights just so the knight guy can enjoy himself.

It's a game, not a job. If you're not having fun (for whatever reason) you're not obliged to play. You can be adults about it and have a conversation, and just let him know that your games with his Knight army are boring or unfulfilling, etc. I stopped playing 40K maybe 4-5 months ago because I played five or six games in a row and simply wasn't enjoying myself. Solution? I'm taking a break or stopping altogether. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

My group had a slow but similar power creep, and the codex/model/army power creep is something I'm not interested in matching/going along with. I started being able to use fewer and fewer of my units (i.e. to not get wiped off the table my codex was being shrunk by necessity).

So I switched over to other hobby projects/games, etc. Regardless of what people say on the internet, any game is an agreement between players. It's a cooperative instance where two people are trying to enjoy a game together. What structures that agreement will differ. Tournament players have both agreed to attend a tournament, abide by the regulations, and have a similar goal in mind. Casual players do the same - you've got a similar interest and you're there to have fun. When the fun stops, what's the point?

You can voice it a number of ways, so obviously don't just tell him "Dude your list is lame and it sucks playing against you.", start with "Man, we're really struggling to enjoy playing against this Knight list you bring..."

Well if you wanted to be a bit cheesey I guess...completely impractical but hey ho...bring an Ordinatus Minoris to the table.

If you can in 40K. That should wreck knights and you can drink sweet salty tears as you remove a scrub from your group.