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Well they would have 2 shots each for 80pts... still slim though I suppose.

I'm just going to make sure I have my warhound ready in case someone starts bringing too many to the club.

And for the record, a fearless swarm IS a good thing to use against it. While the swarm is still "swarmy" it kind of sucks - that blast from the stomps will take out a BUNCH. But after a couple of rounds, when the swarm has piled in around it in a thin line, that blast is killing like 3 models each. That's between 3-9 models per assault phase, and on a 1 nothing happens. A termagant or ork boy tarpit isn't bad, really.

Problem is I haven't found a rule that prevents superheavy walkers from sweeping, which means should the swarm ever become un-fearless, you'll have a problem. Losing combat by 7 or more is hard to remain in place from, and they're I4 so pretty good at sweeping.

Hive Crone vector strikes followed up by a Tyrant assault for 4 Smash attacks is looking pretty promising to me so far. I may have to switch Shreddershard for Electroshock Grubs on my melee Tyrant as well for an extra free Glance.

What is the AV of the Knight on the rear by the way?

13 12 12 for the Knight, but since it's a Super Heavy Walker, in Melee you'd have to strike the front. Am I correct in this assumption?

Caestus assault ram?

One thing to remember as well is that you can only charge a MC you can't hurt, not a vehicle. So you can't charge a bunch of ork boyz (and before anybody says power klaw Nobz those are still terrible this edition) or gants into one.

The Imperial Knight is a Super-Heavy Walker, so uses its Front Facing AV value to close combat (assuming its not backing to an enemy unit). Remember that as a Super-Heavy (while also NOT being LoW), it is immune from being immobilized and losing weapons.

Also remember that the Ion-Shield does NOT effect close combat attacks, only shooting.

So the *best* unit to attack/kill an Imperial Knight would be a unit that gets many High Strength (S 8 or 9) attacks, preferably with an initiative value above 4, though anything above 1 will work. As that I don't play Space Elves in either flavor, would anyone be able to tell me if they have access to such a close combat unit?

Also keep in mind that the Imperial Knight is rediculously wide for how deep the model is, giving it a very skewed cross section for determining its vehicular facings. Its Front facing will be at least twice as wide as its side facings.

What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?

 Araenion wrote:
What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?

A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).

A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4

You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.

Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.

Indeed. But since it's a previously apoc rule, it wasn't so hard to believe. Anyway, that explosion is just scary. This thing isn't any bigger than a LR, so why doesn't LR explode like that? IMHO, that's just too much. Otherwise, I really like the rules of these mini-titans.

Having seen one at my Local GW store, I can say that they are in fact a fair bit larger than a Leman Russ. Also, remember the leman russ has its engine (which is run on liquid fuel) stuck on its rear. Whats inside the russ are the crew compartments, and ammunition for its dinky (by comparison) weapons.

The Imperial Knight on the other hand is Piloted by one person, the weapons are separate from its body on its arm, and its power plant is a a piece of Dark Technology fueled by Peace, Justices, and The American Way. Or something to that effect.

So, yeah, I can see several people using knights in a rather kamikaze fashion, rushing forward at max speed to get into CC for kills, then extra kills from its death-throes. Actual playing should see if this pans out or not.

 kir44n wrote:

 Araenion wrote:
What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?

A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).

A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4

You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.

Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.

Welp, completely scratch my past recommendation of charging it with multiple FMCs. That's just so stupid that anything that kills it gets rewarded with a D hit to the face. That's just beyond dumb and makes it almost impossible to kill safely. They can basically charge forward and if your army doesn't kill it it kills anything it wants but if your army does kill it they just get blown up anyway. Catch 22. I give up.

 herpguy wrote:

 kir44n wrote:

 Araenion wrote:
What I'm interested in is what is this about it exploding in a 15" radius after it's destroyed? And if true, how strong is such a blast?

A Super-Heavy dieing rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table included in the Escalation book (part of why I think Escalation will be rolled into the rumored 7th edition, considering Imperial Knights *aren't* Lords of War).

A roll of 1 yields a strength D/4/2 hit at AP 2/4/6 (the blast is 15" at the outer edge, 10" on the middle ring, and 5" for the center ring)
A roll of 2-3 is a strength D/8/4 hit at AP 2/3/5
A roll of 4-6 is a strength D/10/5 hit at AP 2/3/4

You Place the Template, then roll the scatter die to see where the walker trips over and explodes at. (So endeavor to NOT kill an Imperial Knight in the middle of your own army.

Also, its a 15" DIAMETER, not radius explosion. A 15" radius (thus 30" diameter" explosion would cover an insane amount of the board.

Welp, completely scratch my past recommendation of charging it with multiple FMCs. That's just so stupid that anything that kills it gets rewarded with a D hit to the face. That's just beyond dumb and makes it almost impossible to kill safely. They can basically charge forward and if your army doesn't kill it it kills anything it wants but if your army does kill it they just get blown up anyway. Catch 22. I give up.

Well crap. Up until this point, there wasn't anything standard 40k that I wasn't willing to fight (I'm willing to tangle with screamerstars from time to time). But I don't see any way a balanced army could possibly fight back against this. 3 of these played by a moderately competent player (1100-1200ish points?) would be able to demolish just about any TAC army I've ever created. (I tend to win if not place at most of the FLGS tourneys I attend). Fighting Equal points of these would just be obscene.

Admittedly most of my strategies for army design revolve around building for durability and to outlast my opponent. D weapons just invalidate that entire approach (c'mon my 2+/3++ EW chapter master is just as easily removed by strength D as a grot)

Yep, I feel the same as you. I think everybody has been optimistic about fighting these up until this point but everybody has mostly forgotten this piece of information.

I'm going to go ahead and say it: Knights will break the game completely and utterly. I will say there is NO WAY to counter them unless you have extreme long range ability, and I will say that NO ARMY will be able to stop 5 or even 3 of these at long range before they get to the lines. Even if you can somehow muster that you will be entirely unbalanced against any army.
An all flyer army can't even do anything because you're going need to get troops on objectives and every Knight is scoring.

This went even farther than Escalation.

How many StrD attacks has it got? And is the D6 roll instead of its to-wound roll?

Finally, how likely will like Explode StrD - all the time or just somtimes?

I still reckon CC is the way to go.

Mostly true enough..

That said if you KILL all the knights, you win regardless of objectives

I'll wait until i've fought them a few times before i get too depressed.

I'm optimistic that i can lance them down, but we'll see how that plays out.

This is only a theory, but it is my belief that the inclusion of Imperial Knights as they are now, is intended to force players to use Stronghold Assault and Escalation units. Up to this point, many players only field or accept them in "escalation" or "stronghold" games when Games-Workshop intended for these to be a part of the standard game as an addition to the standard ruleset. The books do not say "ask if your opponents like fortifications or super-heavies." They say "roll off to determine if you use the special missions involved with these books or the standard missions."

By including new Super-Heavy units that are like mini-lords-of-war, they can force players to get super-heavies to stay competitive. Your opponent is using 4 Imperial Knight Paladins in a 1500 point list? Laugh if you play as IG and use a 455 point Shadowsword (or 505 if you use the Lascannon sponsons like you should), and sling a D weapon shot across the board at them every turn. Or take the Vortex Missile Silo from the Stronghold Assault Book and use its ridiculous weapon to start nuking those Knights to kingdom come.

While Knights aren't unkillable, everything related to them makes them a tough unit to deal with, and that gets worse when you consider people can use them all by themselves as an army. This has the potential to completely mess with the meta and how people play, depending on how many people convert into using Knight-based or Knight-supported armies.

To Razerous:
It has base 3 attacks at Strength D, so 4 on the charge, + HoW attack on the charge, finishing with D3 stomps against small stuff at Initiative 1. The D roll is used instead of to would. 1 = no wounds, 2-5 = D3+1 wounds, 6 = D6+6 wounds, for vehicles it becomes 1= penetrating hit, roll as AP 2 on Vehicle Table, 2-5 Superheavies take D3+1 HP, Vehicles automatically explode, 6 Superheavies suffer D6+6, Vehicles still explode.

As for the Catastrophic Explosion, its whenever a Super-Heavy dies. It always happens. And as that a 4-6 yield the most damaging explosion, that means that theres a 50% chance it is a truly dangerous explosion.

Hmmm... Me thinks this serious armored threat may just be what all those infantry lists have been needing for breathing room. If you think about it up until this point in 6th most armies have chosen to forgo heavy anti tank in favor of massed medium weapons. Maybe now with the possibility of running into an army of all heavy armor some points should be diverted towards dealing with that instead of dealing with light vehicles and monsterous creatures in a TAC list.

If IG has anything going for it it's the fact that if something exists a Leman Russ is there to ruin it's day. (I got that from 1d4chan). In this case, a Las/MM Vanquisher would do well against this thing considering it's speed. Pair the Vanquishers up with a Vendetta and someone is about to have a really bad day. Drop Stormies and Al'rahem platoons would add additional pressure.

Another set up I can see is having an Inquisitor buff a platoon of MG/Lascannon guys with a group of SITNW Conscripts to screen them. Space them out and 20 guys can make the Knight Player lose a turn of assault which is where they want to be. I wouldn't take too many Conscripts since you do want them to lose combat so you can shoot at them.

For SM.. Grav-Gun bikers. Grav-Gun bikers would have a field day with these guys.

Oh, btw what really sucks is that as they are not lords of war you don't get an extra vp for every 3 hp

What's the problem? Just don't play vs them

 koooaei wrote:
What's the problem? Just don't play vs them

Well, you could do that. But this is not the point here.

It appears that there is not a perfect answer for bringing down a Knight, especially when the enemy fields two or more.

A unit of Assault Termies with hammers could do it. The Knight will strike first with 3 or 4 attack, say killing 2 Termies.
Then the Termies can swing back at the same time they will get stomped.

If super heavies are immune to imobolized then grav guns won't strip many hp.

The most amusing way would be IG demo vets in cc. It's a double suicide mission between stomps and the explosion, but it would be so funny to see guardsmen take one down in cc.

Another answer would be tiggy and a tau buffmancer ina unit of 6 tl lc/ml cents. 6 tl lc 12 tl krak all with tank hunter and div to force rerolls on sucessful invo saves.

However, keep in mind that only explode results induce further damage. All other damage result only strip hull points.

The main problem here is that killing one pretty much auto removes anything with 5" of it, so nullifies many army's abilities to kill one.

If I see some i'll bring my pylon, and see them weep as it shoots one to kingdom come every turn.

On the other side Necrons just laugh with those silly walkers... Gauss, Haywire techs, and Tesla cannons will rip them appart.

 wuestenfux wrote:

It appears that there is not a perfect answer for bringing down a Knight, especially when the enemy fields two or more.

A unit of Assault Termies with hammers could do it. The Knight will strike first with 3 or 4 attack, say killing 2 Termies.
Then the Termies can swing back at the same time they will get stomped.

CC is not a viable strategy for killing an Imperial Knight. Your 275 point terminator squad, even if it does kill the Knight (which is nothing to be relied upon), is guaranteed to die in the process (whether through stomp attacks or through the ensuing sD explosion). You just spent 275 points to kill 370. Now, how did those terminators get to that Knight that has a 12" movement? They certainly didn't walk up to it. The Knight's sD melee also very likely killed their Land Raider, meaning that you are now 155 points in the hole.

The only unit that it is even reasonable to send into CC with an Imperial Knight are units that are cheaper but can still cause damage. That pretty much means IG Veterans with melta bombs or some screwy choices from the DE codex.

The perfect answer to bringing down a Knight is high strength, long range shooting. The problem is that such shooting either doesn't exist or that taking such shooting in the required density is ineffective against other opponents.

So, the real solution to Imperial Knight is taking Imperial Knights and rolling well.

 kir44n wrote:
...
The Imperial Knight on the other hand is Piloted by one person, the weapons are separate from its body on its arm, and its power plant is a a piece of Dark Technology fueled by Peace, Justices, and The American Way. Or something to that effect.
...

That's sig'able, do you mind?

Also, as far as killing a Knight I'm thinking with such a big footprint Guard's mass blast templates should have no problem killing them, even if you encounter a pair. I'm figuring on my codex SM's having the easiest time of it, given the mass droppod nastiness they can throw out.

If they only moved 6" like regular walkers you would be able to shoot them down before they got to you. With a 12" move that is going to be nearly impossible. Especially since you can't stun them or destroy their weapons.

There is no good way to kill these things, at least no ways that aren't costing you more than the Knight itself and make you unable to fight any other armies. You could maybe shoot down 1, but any more than that and you are pretty much screwed no matter what.

I've been thinking the Guardsmen horde is the best friend and one of the worst enemies of the new Knights.

Say you've got 40 Guardsmen, with 4 meltabombs on the Sergeants, and an Inquisitor to give Prescience and Stubborn (255 points total). In support of the Knight, you prevent close range melta drops and unfavorable assautls by bubble-wrapping, and you can clean up the leftovers of the battle cannon shots with the lasguns.

Against the Knights, you spread out, denying some of the Knight's mobility, and make its battle cannons chew through 5 pt Guardsmen. If you can engage it in assault, it's got to eat through so many bodies with its stomps, all the while getting pegged with meltabombs from the sergeants. You're averaging three meltabombs hits per close combat phase, so maybe 2 penetrations that get through each turn? If it blows and kills every last guy, you're still up by about 100 points. I guess it will depend on how fast stomping can kill the guardsmen.