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 TheMostWize wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'm thinking House Tyranis
Castellan 2x Cannon
crusader Melta/Ironstorm
gallant Ironstorm
gallant Ironstorm

IG battalion (Bolters on commanders)

is going to be my go to.

Castellan (cawls wrath) stands back with Gaurd screening while the crusader (4++ WL trait and endless furry) supports the gallants.

I was all about the gallant but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just take a warden in their place. Getting those extra horde killing shots is super useful. And they can utilize the paragon gauntlet well since it doesn't have the -1 to hit anyway.

I've been losing sleep over which knights to buy and which parts to buy to finish up my second knight lol.

Currently thinking this might work best as an all around use at 2k.

House Raven or Taranis
Crusader - Endless/TC, Ion
Crusader - Avenger/TC, Blessed by Sacristans
Warden - Paragon
Warden - Thunderstrike

Stygies VIII or Metalica
x2 Tech Priest Enginseers
Naked Rangers
Naked Rangers
Vanguard - Caliver, Omnispex

I don't really like the warden for me it's just a big bummer to not just make it a crusader. The gatling cannon is awesome but really brought down by the heavy flamer it must take. On the crusader at least you are getting another mega cannon when you pay that tax but on a warden you get a crappy fist you'll never use unless you give it a paragon (then that's another relic) which down the line is gonna cost you a stratagem.

I like your list with 2 wardens. Lets compare though.
Your list has (+3 Avengers +1 thermal cannon)
Mine has (Cawls wrath / volcano lance / 2 Mini battle cannons/ 2 ignore invo missles / 4 melta guns/ +3 ironstorms)
I'm not seeing a big firepower advantage there. The Gallants are certainly going to give my list >CC though.
Very similiar lists at the end of the day. I don't have the required knights to run your list though.

Is it possible for a Freeblade Knight to take the Landstrider Warlord trait? The wording says that the effect is given to friendly <household> units within 6”. If it’s a Freeblade then it would only affect itself. The question is, RAW can I do it?

A freeblade isnt a household? so it could take it but it does nothing

U02dah4 wrote:
A freeblade isnt a household? so it could take it but it does nothing

The Freeblade keyword replaces the <household> keyword in all instances.

Free-blades seems like a huge missed opportunity to me. Canis Rex being the biggest disappointment about freeblades in general.

The benifits to not outweight the negatives in most cases and you don't even get an army trait on top of it....They suck.

 davidgr33n wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
A freeblade isnt a household? so it could take it but it does nothing

The Freeblade keyword replaces the <household> keyword in all instances.

Did I miss that somewhere? I thought they had the house keyword but didn't get the benefit?


edit nvm just saw it

 Xenomancers wrote:
Free-blades seems like a huge missed opportunity to me. Canis Rex being the biggest disappointment about freeblades in general.

The benifits to not outweight the negatives in most cases and you don't even get an army trait on top of it....They suck.

It all depends. I’ve made mine to get a free re-roll every turn for a missed hit / wound / charge / damage roll / or saving roll.

@That’s like having the Cunning Commander Warlord Trait every turn of the game.@

Downside being if I roll a 10 or higher at the beginning of my turn I can’t use Stratagems on the Knight and I have to charge the nearest opponent. You can always mitigate the charge one by ending closest to the enemy you want to charge (not hard to do).

Since I prefer to take just one Knight, the Freeblade works out well for me.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 TheMostWize wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'm thinking House Tyranis
Castellan 2x Cannon
crusader Melta/Ironstorm
gallant Ironstorm
gallant Ironstorm

IG battalion (Bolters on commanders)

is going to be my go to.

Castellan (cawls wrath) stands back with Gaurd screening while the crusader (4++ WL trait and endless furry) supports the gallants.

I was all about the gallant but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just take a warden in their place. Getting those extra horde killing shots is super useful. And they can utilize the paragon gauntlet well since it doesn't have the -1 to hit anyway.

I've been losing sleep over which knights to buy and which parts to buy to finish up my second knight lol.

Currently thinking this might work best as an all around use at 2k.

House Raven or Taranis
Crusader - Endless/TC, Ion
Crusader - Avenger/TC, Blessed by Sacristans
Warden - Paragon
Warden - Thunderstrike

Stygies VIII or Metalica
x2 Tech Priest Enginseers
Naked Rangers
Naked Rangers
Vanguard - Caliver, Omnispex

I don't really like the warden for me it's just a big bummer to not just make it a crusader. The gatling cannon is awesome but really brought down by the heavy flamer it must take. On the crusader at least you are getting another mega cannon when you pay that tax but on a warden you get a crappy fist you'll never use unless you give it a paragon (then that's another relic) which down the line is gonna cost you a stratagem.

I like your list with 2 wardens. Lets compare though.
Your list has (+3 Avengers +1 thermal cannon)
Mine has (Cawls wrath / volcano lance / 2 Mini battle cannons/ 2 ignore invo missles / 4 melta guns/ +3 ironstorms)
I'm not seeing a big firepower advantage there. The Gallants are certainly going to give my list >CC though.
Very similiar lists at the end of the day. I don't have the required knights to run your list though.

I agree the fist outside of Paragon isn't probably worth it. Likely would just keep a Reaper on the one without it.

The problem with all the firepower you listed is it's all random. You could roll badly and get no shots at all. Dealing with the vehicles is good but a TC can do pretty well on it's own. I've 1 shot tanks several times. On top of that you also have 50 Avenger shots which will make short work of infantry. The stomps are the most effective way to deal with infantry so there is no real CC benefit there. Now however I can shoot and charge infantry likely killing more models.

I like the castellan but I'm starting to think the Valiant or 4 Questoris knights really is the better option.

Trying to work on a list that also features Slamguinius and camo cloak scouts. Might be fun.

Canis rex is solid
+1WS
+1BS
Reroll every battle round
Reroll 1's vs large units
Chainbreaker (Meh but might save a model)
Free CC model when he dies
The relic gauntlet does on avg+1damage and with a command reroll is nuts
Doesnt count as a freeblade so the only way to get two in a detatchment

The preceptor gun is pretty solid and at 2+ BS its good

Disadvantage
on an 8 or less must move towards nearest unit(doing it anyway and shoot nearest) so only impacts you under half of the time and you can always reroll if its that bad. It can also be mitigated in the right list you can boost his ld to 10 reducing the risk significantly

+31pts

No armiger buff (I couldnt see myself running enough to make a preceptor worth it anyway)

No household or relics (As a 4th knight not such a problem)

Sure hes not broken or a good solo knight but has the final knight he certainly has a roll

My current 2k comp list
Is
Crusader
Warden
Styrix
Warglaive
+allies

And im seriously considerig canis over the warden (need more testing)

Current List:

2x smash captains
3x scounts

IG cp battery battalion

2x crusader
1x warden


I was running this as castellan, crusader, gallant (cutting a captain). The fire power from the castellan was great, but facing hordes and MSU he really suffers. My crusaders have never failed to be good, even stomping stuff in a pinch, they are awesome. The warden seems almost useless, it just fits points wise and gives another gatling cannon. The potential is there for the warden, run him up midfield soaking fire and hopefully bring him back with the taranis strat and make him full profile next turn. It just seems so hard to get value out of the sword or fist. The list leaves over enough points to put the ignore los carapace gun on each which helps vs hordes and hiding hive guard, dark reaps etc.. What are everyone's thoughts on warden vs gallant, or just dropping a cap and squeeze in a 3rd crusader?

I think every knight list wants at least one fist just to access death grip to remove an annoying model

Why not turn the warden into a gallant and then bling out the crusaders with stormspears?

Mandragola wrote:

 Ideasweasel wrote:
I was considering a house Terryn for the fight 2x stratagem. Turn 2 sucker punch?

Sure, but that’s a huge amount of CPs to pay. 3 to outflank and then 3 to attack twice. A normal knight with landstrider and full tilt can probably charge on turn 1 and fight a second time on turn 2 for only 2 CPs.

I do think there’s a case for bringing an imperial or freeblade knight to give you the option of this outflank. You could add a freeblade to a lance or, if you had 4 big knights, you could take an auxiliary from another house. It wouldn’t get its household tradition stuff but it could still use stratagems, relics and so on.

You were correct. Sally Forth would have been overkill. I went with Taranis and ran him up the board. Turn 1 in an Admech versus Admech game he was my MVP. Smashed into opponents kastelans then set about deathgripping and character slaying.

I really love Gallants. If I ever build an all knight list I’m having Gallant as an Auto include

 Ideasweasel wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

 Ideasweasel wrote:
I was considering a house Terryn for the fight 2x stratagem. Turn 2 sucker punch?

Sure, but that’s a huge amount of CPs to pay. 3 to outflank and then 3 to attack twice. A normal knight with landstrider and full tilt can probably charge on turn 1 and fight a second time on turn 2 for only 2 CPs.

I do think there’s a case for bringing an imperial or freeblade knight to give you the option of this outflank. You could add a freeblade to a lance or, if you had 4 big knights, you could take an auxiliary from another house. It wouldn’t get its household tradition stuff but it could still use stratagems, relics and so on.

You were correct. Sally Forth would have been overkill. I went with Taranis and ran him up the board. Turn 1 in an Admech versus Admech game he was my MVP. Smashed into opponents kastelans then set about deathgripping and character slaying.

I really love Gallants. If I ever build an all knight list I’m having Gallant as an Auto include

Great stuff. Glad if I helped.

Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.

Mandragola wrote:
Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.

Really? I would have thought a Gallant would do well in that scenario. 15 attacks with its feet (18 if you take Knight Senschal) hitting on 2s and killing most horde models on a 2+. Then you have the Gauntlet handy to Deathgrip any nasty characters.

Most horde models max out at strength 4 so will only be wounding a Gallant on a 6. Take the 2+ save relic if you want and each hit from an S4 model will only have a 1-in-36 chance of wounding you.

 Karhedron wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
Still not a huge fan of Gallants. If you're facing a gunline then a sprinting one will do great work. Against a horde with nasty characters inside tehy'll die fast.

Really? I would have thought a Gallant would do well in that scenario. 15 attacks with its feet (18 if you take Knight Senschal) hitting on 2s and killing most horde models on a 2+. Then you have the Gauntlet handy to Deathgrip any nasty characters.

Most horde models max out at strength 4 so will only be wounding a Gallant on a 6. Take the 2+ save relic if you want and each hit from an S4 model will only have a 1-in-36 chance of wounding you.

The horde itself isn't the problem - though they are a very effective soak. You charge in and do something like 50 points worth of damage - if you're lucky. Not good. The horde probably does nothing back, or maybe a wound or two.

The problem is all the stuff behind the horde. For example, I recently faced a cultist horde that had Abaddon, Ahriman, two Tzeench daemon princes and a Slaanesh sorceror. They could spam mortal wounds at my Gallant and finish it off in melee.

To be honest, not many other knights would have done a lot better, but at least they could have done something. I think it'd have been more successful for me to hang back blasting for a turn or two, rather than feed my Gallant to the enemy for no real gain at all.

If there's a successful strategy for knights against hordes it's to focus them down. Keep the knights together and hit a unit a turn, extremely hard. That's why I'd like to have 4 avenger gatling cannons in my list at 1750.

I think the there are 3 tricks to this. Take a few smash captain with thunder hammer/stormsheild and/or some shield captains with Auric Aquilis. A single character is very unlikely to do enough damage to outright kill a knight on it's own and are going to be hard to deal with due to invul.

1: Not to charge into a position where you can be heroically intervened by multiple characters.

2: Interrupt, stomp a character into oblivion and Death Grip another.

3: Explode. If there's 4 or 5 characters meleeing your knight to death then that's a potential 4 or 5 d6 mortal wounds. You' don't have a chance to kill a shield-captain unless he was wounded before hand as he has 7 wounds, but you have a potential 1 in 3 chance to straight up kill an SM captain as they've got 5 wounds. Even if you roll average and don't kill any outright you've just done a substantial amount of mortal wounds, making them easier to deal with and might even have the psychological impact to cause your opponent to play a lot more conservatively with them.

Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!

Razzmatazz13 wrote:
Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!

If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.

Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.

Give the errant one of the thundersttikes.

Possibly buy a Gatling to make a Warden

 TheMostWize wrote:

Razzmatazz13 wrote:
Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!

If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.

Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.

Give the errant one of the thundersttikes.

Possibly buy a Gatling to make a Warden

Which one shall i drop so i can fit in the Warder?

Razzmatazz13 wrote:
Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!

The answer to which Knights to build is always magnets. It will save you a TON of money when dealing with expensive kits like this. That said, Renegade is a huge cost savings, so picking up 2 boxes will give you a very solid core of a list with 4 Questoris chassis. Armigers are good as well and can easily get you to 2000 points once you add them to your 4 other Knights.

Razzmatazz13 wrote:

 TheMostWize wrote:

Razzmatazz13 wrote:
Hello guys im thinking of buying 2 Renegade Boxes and one box of Armiger or Helverin. Is that enough to make a semi competive 2000p list or shall i aim for standalone Knights? Thanks in advance!

If your going for 2k I would likely build 2 Crusaders, Gallant and an Errant.

Give one Crusader a Thermal Cannon and the other a RFBC.

Give the errant one of the thundersttikes.

Possibly buy a Gatling to make a Warden

Which one shall i drop so i can fit in the Warder?

Turn the Errant into a Warden and then change the RFBC on the one crusader to a TC.

Also definitely magnetize if you can.

Odd idea I had while messing with my list. Currently I'm painting:
Warden
Errant
2x warglaives

I was planning on adding 3 intercessor squads I have to get CP and have some bodies for holding objectives, rounding it out to 1750. But I started to wonder about doing just 3 custodes shield captains on bikes instead. This would give only 1 CP instead of 5, so a big hit there. But a single shield captain on bike is probably just as powerful as most squads, has obj secured while also being really mobile, and hard as nails to kill.

I think intercessors are actually a solid pick that's the road I have decided to go down with my 2k list.

Except I'm going Castellan, Crusader w/RFBC and Warden.

Raven Guard Intercessors should sturdy enough to move towards objectives and shoot some things and with the grenade launcher can contribute that way as well.

I think the Shield captains are strong but personally the CP is more important and the extra bodies on the board.

My clubs sister club just held a wee 1 day 3 round singles event as a test run larger future events so no ITC points were available. They invited a few of us down to fill out numbers a wee bit, so we ended up with 10 people. The format was 2.5 hours per round 1750, ITC Champions missions 1,2 and 3. and using the BCP app.

I took:
Hawkshroud
Valiant, Warlord, Traitor's Pyre, Ion Bulwark. 1 cannon, 4 missiles.
Crusader (spent 1 cp to bring endless fury every game)
Gallant (spent 1 CP for Land strider every game)
Gallant

Game 1, mission 1 vs a mix of black legion, slaanesh and thousand sons, tzeentch.
ahriman
Abaddon
3 Demon princes
4 units of cuists ( 2 units of 35, 1 unit of 19, 1 unit of 9)
2 units of tzaangors (19 in each)
Tzaangor Shaman

Got the table on turn 4 (i think) and finished 31-16 to knights

a combo of stomps, traitors pyre and endless fury were very very good. Staunch allies helped thin down some charging tzaangors going after my crusader and valiant, Got off a tactical nuke gallant explosion killing ahriman, the tzaangor shaman and knocking a few wounds off of a demon prince and 2 cultists units.

Game 2, Mission 2 Vs BA/Custodes/knights
I was really looking forward to this game due to some of the stuff that's been getting said on here concerning thesmash captains and shield captains combo.

BA 2 smash captains w/ SS TH
3 units of 5 scouts,

Custards
3 sheild captains on jet bikes

House raven
crusader w/ iron storm, RFBC, ion bulwark and armour of the sainted ion. (litterally no point in shooting this thing ever as it'll just rotate for a 3++)
2 warglaives

Game went full length
Turn 1 both gallants advanced, full tilted and managed to make a 10 inch charge into a single smash captain warlord while remaining out of range from the others, got intervened by the crusader but it didn't really do anything in melee to the gallant, Pancaked the warlord. took out 1 warglaive and took a chip out the other. then on his turn, crusader fell back, shot at the gallant along with the shield captains then charged by the shield captains, interrupted after the first shield captain fought and stomped one who hadn't fought yet to death, tried for a death grip on another and whiffed by that point i'd blown through my 7 remaining command points so no reroll. Took some big hits among all of this and hit degrading.

turn 2 fell back my in combat gallant to create space, severely degraded the remaining warglaive with shooting, brought the 2nd gallant into combat and brought the first back in as well.
did 18 wounds to the crusader. stomped another shield-captain to near death, I cant recall how that shield captain ended up dying but it did not long after that.
on his turn he fell back again, finished off the wounded gallant.

Turn 3,
finished off the armiger and crusader and wiffed throwing the crusader at the shield-captain.
He brought in his second smash captain and killed my second gallant.

turn 4 to turn 6 we were both frustrated by inability to deal with each other. He couldn't kill my remaining knights and I was having shooting issues, he had a unit of scouts hiding in ruins in the middle of the table which were untargetable for me due to the ITC FAQ ruins rules and they had been messing up my ability to shoot at the characters all game.

Game went full turns and ended with 40min left for the allotted time. Score was 24-20 to knights. Frustratingly i couldn't max out secondaries.

Game 3, Mission 3 Vs Deathguard grenade spam and alpha legion, nurgle.

DG stuff stuff
Chaos lord
Malignant plaguecaster
3 units of 5 plague marines with a P.fist and 3 plasma
biologus putrifier
foul Blightspawn
3 rhinos

alpha legion stuff
sorcerer in termie armour
2 units of havocs
obliterators

We were short edges with the pointy deployment, he deployed very back so even with an advance there was no chance of getting a charge off so i opted to close range and stay out of range of his mortal wound grenade trap and just took pot shots with the crusader, popped a rhino and killed some havocs.

He blocked with his 2 remaining rhinos, put a gallant on each and wiffed badly with one and only killed rhino. then wiffed the throw. Shot up some plague marines.he managed to chip one of the gallants to death but there wasn't enough stuff in a decent radius to get off a good value explode, id probably have done more wounds to myself than to him.

Finished off the other rhino and wiffed that throw as well.

BBQed some oblits, cleaned up most of the rest of his plague marines, a tactical nuke gallant got some good value without taking too many wounds off of my valiant and went about cleaning up.

Tabled on turn turn 5 with a harpoon into his last character.

Score. 31-15 to knights.

After scooping 3 wins I finished 1st and got a nice little trophy to take home.


Although not a hyper competitive environment it was a really good event, i love the 1 day 3 round format for being casually-competitive and it was good to get the knights on the table verses a variety of opponents. Game 1 and 2 were against people from the sister club and game 3 against a guy from my club who's played my knights before.

Some of my take aways:
I had been concerned that my list didn't have enough shooting especially vs horde, but i was pleasantly surprised in the first game.

A single gallant on it's own would not have been able to effectively deal with the smash/sheild captains as well as the crusader in the second game.
The untargetable scout unit in the center of the table was incredibly frustrating and neutered the shooting that i wanted to put into the characters, so that's something to be aware of in the future.
it's swings and roundabouts, if i had something that could deal with the scouts, i'd not have had the second gallant to deal with the captains.

I feel that the tactical nuke tactic is just as effective at dealing with massed or badly positioned characters as I've been proclaiming. both times it outright took out 2 characters, knocked some wounds off of others as well as some random stuff. it does suffer from RNG though, so a spare command point to get off the 4+ explode is almost a must to keep in the bank.

The value of landstrider on double gallent is decent. it's certainly viable without having the house terryn tradition. My use was to advance both gallant and full tilt the one that got further across the table. It helped me make a nice 10" charge to head shot a valuable character.

Oh, as an after thought, i lost both gallants every game and the most amount of damage i took was equivalent to 2.5 knights.

Thanks for an interesting report and congrats on your win. Well done on the horde in parcicular. I think the difference there might have been having no Abaddon making them all fearless. I had a nightmare against a cultist horde.

@Drider, nicely done, and thanks for the insights.

I do have a question- how often did you go first and how critical do you think that was for winning the games using Knights?

I ask because I am considering running 2 Gallants with a Warglaive in my mixed Guard / Custodes Force- it already has nearly 20 Drops. Obviously the Gallants would be on the deployment line, so will they make it if they go 2nd?

@mandrgola abandon was there. He was the second last unit to die. So yeah. I had to actually kill all 98 fearless cultists. Only a hand full of the trazagors actually died to moral. When I was building the list I was very worried that without a second crusader I wouldn't have the volume of dice required to deal with a horde like that.

@davidgr33n. I lucked out and got first turn every game. The only one that I think actually made a big difference was game 2 vs the smash/shield captain list.

@Drider - Hiw did you find the Valiant to be for the game? I don't run pure knights but I'm trying to figure out which Dominus class to run still. I think the Castellan is better for my opponents who typically bring vehicles and high T and high W models.

That with a Crusader and Warden and some DW Intercessors seems to be the path I'm headed. All being said just wanted to see how the Valiant was.

Have a guard player who always runs 4 LR and usually a few Hellhounds.

This was super helpful of a battle report, thanks for the writeup! I finished my Valiant construction last night, next is magnetizing everything, then paint. Perhaps by end of August I can join the ranks of the Knights.