[40k/HH] Is it True that everyone hates playing against Imperial Knights?

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**Lathe Biosas**

I've been discouraged from playing Imperial Knights in 40k/HH.

The interwebs make it sound like playing against them is no fun... and it's my weird belief that both sides of the table should have fun playing.

Am I overthinking things again, or should I just use my one Knight Castigator as an ally and shelve using more stompy guys?

**ZergSmasher**

That sounds like utter bs to me. Knights are a bit of a rock/paper/scissors army, so playing them vs. an army that's optimized only to kill infantry will give a lopsided game, but in a TAC scenario I think they're fine. It should be noted that the faction really isn't that good according to tournament stats currently, so they're hardly oppressive or anything.

**Nevelon**

They are a skew list. So lend themselves towards bad matchups.

I’ve never had a problem with one included in an army. But I’ve never faced a whole army of them to judge. I suspect it would be less fun then a game vs a more balanced list, especially if going in blind as a pick up game.

**RaptorusRex**

I certainly hate them on their own. As an addition to an army, a TAC list can still punch against them. My sibling likes to mix Armigers in. Can you tell?

**aphyon**

Depends on loads of things. what edition/rule set is the biggest. your right that they could be no fun. it is the reason the original FW rules for titans (imperial armor 1 circa 3rd/4th ed) and superheavies required player permission/notification so your opponent could deal with them. in our 5th ed group i have fought them before. it isn't all that scary with that rule set. they are just baby superheavies and a good roll on the pen chart can kill them in one go by stripping both their structure points (they only have 2 in the old rules). more often than not they draw fire but only perform average. an entire force of them tends to make every loss a huge penalty for the knight player as so much is tied up into them.

The play environment is also a big factor. skew list tournament play, well yeah it is supposed to be strong and your not really considering the fun of the other player in that setting. among friends for a laugh is something else entirely.

**Murenius**

I played against them only a few time, but always managed to outplay them. I may not have killed many of the models, but I won. When I played them together with my Grey Knights (back when allies were a thing) I never had the impression it was easy mode.

**shortymcnostrill**

I'll use the time I fielded my take all comers list against an infantry horde as an example. My points spent on antitank were practically wasted right out of the gate. Only the part of my army that was reserved for anti-infantry capabilities could really threaten my opponent. My opponent wasn't braindead, so my infantry threateners were focused on and destroyed. I was then no longer able to meaningfully interact with my opponent's army, making the game pretty onesided (and therefore boring).

Knights are like that infantry horde, except they skew to all-vehicles instead of all-infantry. Your opponent may end up in a similar situation as the one described above more frequently than not.

And personally, winning on objectives while my heroic army gets sacrificed piecemeal to occupy/move block practically invulnerable demi-titans isn't the experience I'm looking for in a game. As a one-off, sure, but not every game.

**Slipspace**

Knights are, by definition, a skew list. Skew lists often lead to frustrating games because they often come down to whether the opponent can deal with the skew. If they can, they win easily. If they can't, it's often a non-game for them. A single Knight isn't really a problem as it's just a tougher tank, for the most part.

The only people who can really answer this question are your regular opponents. Some groups will have no problem playing against anything. Others may find it frustrating or noninteractive. There are a lot of other variables too, including game size, amount of terrain you use, whether players have large collections to allow them to adapt against a changing local meta, etc.

**ccs**

I don't hate playing against Knights.
But then I also bring a good dose of AT weapons...

Against mixed forces of big & small Knights I've had good/bad/in between games.
Against the 11+ Wardogs/other small Knights many Chaos players in my area prefer? Win or lose, not one game has been entertaining. They're side of the table is clogged with the same model, I destroy an average of 3 per turn, & then we count VP.
It's not that I can't deal with them, it's that it's boring.

**vipoid**

Knights are indeed an anti-fun army. Not because they're necessarily powerful (depends on edition and matchup), but because they are irredeemably boring.

Maybe if GW hired developers with actual talent, then playing against Mechwarriors could be an entertaining battle. Alas 'talent' and 'competence' are GW's watchwords.

Thus, expensive models that should have interesting mechanics (allocating power to different systems, taking damage to different areas/systems etc.) are instead abstracted to the point that they are just walking bricks that interact with as few mechanics as possible.

They're like a boss in a video game that doesn't do anything special but is immune to almost every negative effect and has a ridiculously-large health bar. So you're reduced to hitting it with your sword until either it kills you or keels over and evaporates in a puff of disappointment.

**TangoTwoBravo**

Lathe Biosas wrote:
I've been discouraged from playing Imperial Knights in 40k/HH.

The interwebs make it sound like playing against them is no fun... and it's my weird belief that both sides of the table should have fun playing.

Am I overthinking things again, or should I just use my one Knight Castigator as an ally and shelve using more stompy guys?

It is not true that everyone hates playing against Imperial Knights. They can be a "stat check" list where if somebody has not accounted for dealing with them (or massed tanks) they are in for a rough game. They've been around for long enough, though, that most players do account for facing one.

I don't play Knights, but I certainly play against them. Some of my more fun and memorable games have been against them. They have a "That still counts as one!" vibe when you fight them.

Negative Play Experience (NPE) tends to be with armies that win without the chance for the opponent interacting with them. Lists with Jump Shoot Jump, evading charge rules, massed indirect fire etc are much more likely to be the subject of dislike. Heck, my Deathwing Knights in 9th Ed before the final nerf were much more hated than Imperial Knights due to the DW survivability and busted secondaries that could be scored without interaction.

So collect and play Imperial Knights if that brings you joy.

**CynosureEldar**

Solo Knights is awful to play against, as other posters have stated. There is no depth to those games, and 90% of the time you don't even have to past looking at lists to know who's won the game. Either the Knight player loses all four models they were able to put on the board in two turns, or the opposing player has the 1/3 of their army that can meaningfully interact with knights mowed down in the first shooting phase and the rest of the "game" is skipping both shooting and assault phases for the opposing player.

Be a good TAC player and use a mixed army instead. Save IK bs for events that have people that "enjoy" "playing" skew lists.

**SamusDrake**

For the sake of both 40K and 30K, both Imperial and Chaos Knights desperately need a Household guard kit. It would also introduce both factions to Kill Team, Combat Patrol and 30K:Zone Mortalis.

If they must insist on giant robots only, then they need to introduce an Armiger that can be taken as a Warlord. They have this for Chaos Knights, and if they don't sort it out next year then I'll cut my losses with a final purchase of a Wardogs kit.

**Lathe Biosas**

I've always thought that an armiger and some support staff would make an excellent combat patrol box set

I'd buy one.

Heck, the Titan Legions get ground troops, why not the Imperial Knights.

**SamusDrake**

Absolutely. I've seen GW artwork of Chaos Knights accompanied by their foot soliders, and just like the Cavillrine its feels sooooo right.

**Dudeface**

Oddly it seems preferred when I play knights because of my innate ability to only roll under a 4 for everything and the knights means failing bigger/faster.

**SamusDrake**

One largely overlooked benefit to Knights in the many games they appear in is that they make ideal opponents for soloists...

1) They're tough, which is usually what you want for a solo game.
2) They're few in number. The less time automating the hostiles, the sooner you get back to playing your part.
3) Even a lowly Armiger or Wardog is a Lord of War, by all rights a character. Drawing certain playing cards, each unit on the table can have different objectives in the game; stubborn defense of an objective, targeting a certain unit from your army out of spite. A coward! Run them down before they escape! Make it so that they win points for achieving their personal goals.
4) Knights are faster to assemble and paint - points wise - than most other factions. For a second army this is very attractive after finishing your first.
5) Cheap "index" rules are most sufficient for solo play - rules that are currently free right now, and will probably continue to be compatible with 11th edition unless that's another complete re-write.
6) A box each of Armigers and Wardogs - magnetized to share weapons - will provide both bodies and variety to get started quickly, if playing Chaos Knights. Even better if Imperial Knights get their own version of the Wardog's weapons.
7) A large Knight is a boss fight! Bring it down! BRING IT DOWN!!!

...also, getting back to competitive play, its noted that some players won't always turn up with enough fire power to deal with your Knights. Invest in a box of Armigers, so that they can be used as either Armigers or Wardogs for your opponent to swap in to support their force. Even the smallest Knight can make a powerful ally...

Obviously this only works for an opponent with Imperial or Chaos factions, and there are some small changes between the Helverin & Executioner and Warglaive & Huntsmen. At least for now the index rules are free, and even with the codices appearing next year there is still the possibility of a "gentleman's agreement" to use the index rules for this one exception - you're being generous in providing these models for your opponent in the first place. In other circumstances you can use these models in your own army as Freeblade/Dreadblade units.

**Wyldhunt**

I'm late to the discussion, but I'll throw my two cents in and say I don't like knights for the same reasons mentioned above.

When they're splashed into a more conventional army, they're mostly fine. But as a standalone faction, they're just automatically a skew list. And for the same reason skew lists of any other faction are a pain to play against, so are imperial knights. It isn't fun to basically be told you can't meaningfully damage your opponent's army with any of your S4 attacks.

Some people like to counter and say, "Oh, well you outnumber them so just toss your anti-infantry units into the meat grinder to stand on objectives and win the game."

But that's just not the type of 40k experience I'm interested in.

Knights really probably shouldn't be their own faction. And while adding house retainers to the faction is an interesting idea, it would really only help if people had a reason to field a bunch of them instead of just opting to run skew lists.

**Lathe Biosas**

I still want to play them, but every build I see online is a variation of the same list. Hopefully the new codex fixes things, but I doubt it.

Oh well I guess I'll play with some giants in AoS.

at least that's not a skew list.

**Wyldhunt**

On that note, do giants run into the same skew list issues that knights do in 40k? I know that to-wound rolls are rolled against a fixed value, so theoretically your regular infantry units aren't fishing for 6s against giants the way bolters are fishing for 6s against knights.

**Dysartes**

The fixed to-wound roll in AOS remains a stupid design choice.

**Selfcontrol**

Wyldhunt wrote:
On that note, do giants run into the same skew list issues that knights do in 40k?

It's less of an issue. Giants are very different from IK/CK. They are big guys made of flesh with little armor or protection. It means they also don't have good saves overall. Everything can reliably damage them.

They are still tough to kill since they lave lots and lots of wounds (that's how AoS deals with a fixed to-wound roll : by increasing the wound count) and bringing high damages units is still preferable. But they don't feel as bad to face as IK/CK.

They are also funnier to fight than IK/CK since they are at 99% a melee army. Though they can still be frustrating to face but that's because they are a "very low number of models per army" type faction, meaning sometimes, you won't feel the damages you inflicted to them while you lose entire units. It's inherent to these type of factions.

**waefre_1**

Has something like IK/CK every really been an issue for AoS/WHFB? I never really got into WHFB, but the general feeling I got was that the wounding mechanics and magic spells meant that the Fantasy offerings never had the kind of lack of interactivity that plagues Knights in 40k (excepting possibly Ethereal(?) or 2+/2++/2+++ shenanigans vs. low-magic armies).

**Kid_Kyoto**

Until the giants became their own AoS faction there wasn't anything like this in Fantasy. Big monsters were just garnish for blocks of infantry.

**Mozzamanx**

WFB has occasionally had issues with deathstars, where a unit is so packed out that it cannot realistically be fought using the normal combat mechanics.
In 7E:
Dark Elf Shades- Naturally high mobility and high firepower, and then put in several characters with unit-buffing magic items. You result in a unit that cannot be effectively shot or cast at, and will begin every round of combat with 80+ shooting attacks and then 10+ ASF Great Weapon attacks.
Tzeentch Chosen- Some way of manipulating the Eye of the God's table with Warshrines and Favour to all but guarantee a 3+ ward save across the whole unit.

8E:
White Lions with Alarielle and the World Dragon Banner- Frustratingly tough, Alarielle keeps them going with Life magic, and then throw out 40+ WS5 S6 I5 Attacks. Also they can Fly if you want to roll High magic.
Witch Elves with Cauldron- Nowhere near as tough, although the 5+ ward helps. But they are a Core unit, throw Mindrazor on and they'll kill anything they can catch.
Ironguts- Not the same level as the other deathstars on this list, but they work straight out of the box with minimal investment and it all counts towards Core.
Savage Orc Big Uns- Feels odd to see Orcs on a list but they were the best part of the OG list. Just exceptionally cost-efficient and it only uses points that you were already going to spend (Core and a L4).

**Lathe Biosas**

What if I brought donuts to give to my opponent before I opened the case and showed them I'd brought Knights to play with?

Would that be alright?

**Col. Dash**

HH- In early Heresy Knights were screwed. Everyone was bringing multiple units of heavy support squads with lascannons which mince vehicles including knights with the ability to fire multiple times per opponent's turn through reactions.

Now as the community has self regulated itself over time, far more than 40k has ever even thought about doing, people bringing multiple lascannon units or even one at all plus other "oppressive" units are looked down upon as a "that guy" kind of thing. So Knights, while still gimped by the vehicle rules of non-homeruled HH2.0, survive better now than they were doing by virtue of the community. Now if you are in one of those oddball groups that still goes hard core and doesnt care about comp and self regulation, you will be at a major disadvantage.