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You have to remember that the Stomp occurs while your units HAVE to be consolidated for close combat. The small blast template can at max kill 9-13 guardsmen (the hole does NOT need to be centered on a model). The only restriction is the the template cannot overlap the IK's base, and the following stomps must be within 3" of the preceding stomp.

In addition, yoru precious sargeants/commisar can be sniped out of combat by said stomp attacks. So unless the IK rolls 1-2 on the number of stomps, and a 1 on the Stomp Table, then theres a good chance you are going to lose your stubborn/melta bombs for future phases (though if you lose stubborn, there will be no future phases).

Also remember that the Paladin has 2 heavy stubbers in addition to the RFBC, increasing the number of wounds you are going to take in shooting.

I'd say a blob squad would be a risk, considering it's healthiness/damage potential is so reliant on a few models that can be sniped out in such a manner

Biophysical wrote:


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.

Guardsmen will likely be the go-to support for knights, making them even more difficult to tackle.

But to use them against Knights, you will have to wade through large blast templates on your way to the Knight. It will be moving away from you faster than you can move toward it on foot. When/If you do reach it, your guardsmen will consolidate toward B2B contact before the I1 step, when you make your maximum of 4 melta bomb attacks. At the same I1 stage of your melta bombs, the Knight responds with up to 3 small blasts on top of you models that are forced to be as close to each other as is physically possible. If you don't kill the Knight, plan on rolling snake eyes to pass your leadership test.

I get that you can have a lot of guardsmen, but they will not make it across No Man's Land in any condition to be effective.

im thinking for SM, besides the drop poding Melta, a good unit would also be a 5 man legion of the damned unit with combi-melta, melta and multi melta. They get to reroll their deepstriking, with relentless the MM gets to fire at bs 4, and with a 3++ they should be a bit more survivable as long as they dont get D killed.

they arent able to do it on their own, but at 155 points total, i think they could help.

If I can see Kharn in a blob of cultists kill one I can die happy.

10 DE witchs with haywire would do alright vs IKs.

with a 12 inch +2d6 CC threat range(if they are in a boat)and the ability for 10 of them to put out about 6 hull points of damage before reprisal. Not to mention the invul will help with stomps if you cant drop it on the charge leaving them to be wiped out on the IKs turn for you to finsh off with lances shooting.

too bad I dont have DE lol

Are the knights immune to explosion?

Oof, I guess I didn't realized the timing of stomps. That would pretty much make Guardsmen assault a losing proposition.

What about an inquisitorial retinue? A bunch of crusaders or acolytes to take hits, a handful of priests with Eviscerators. You charge out of a Land Raider, use the Priest's smash ability with the Eviscerator to get 2 re-rolled S10 armorbane attacks per priest. Lets say on Priest sings the re-roll saves song, you'd get 2 4++ chances against the stomp, plus a 4+ LOS! That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.

It struck me a bit as dortof the same situation we had with flyers, some people just going 'Heeeell no' to the inclusion of super-heavies. But know most players field them or are okay with their presence.

I think it's just a question about getting used to them. In my gaming community we used to ask before a fight who was gonna bring flyers, and now they're common place.

Biophysical wrote:
That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.

It does, I was going throw out an idea about DoA BA MSU with lots of melta + storm ravens, but for the points in a TAC list you are gimped vs hordes.

I think if you want to CC them you must be I5 AND have some sort of haywire or melta bombs. They must also be cheap enough that when the D blast goes off you can lose the unit and still consider it a win.

Thats why I think 10 haywire witchs in boat with a 3 lance ravager for back up would do nicely. Other wise you'll have to bring enough long ranged anti tank to drop them.

Really after thinking about counters. I feel these IKs may be a bit much. If the 4++ ion shield was removed or even the 12" movment they would be a bit easier to deal with.

Disclaimer: I am almost never one to cry for nerfs and whine about the OPness of units.

First0f0ne wrote:

Biophysical wrote:
That starts getting nearly as expensive as the Knight, though, and really needs to get those chants off for good effect.

It does, I was going throw out an idea about DoA BA MSU with lots of melta + storm ravens, but for the points in a TAC list you are gimped vs hordes.

I think if you want to CC them you must be I5 AND have some sort of haywire or melta bombs. They must also be cheap enough that when the D blast goes off you can lose the unit and still consider it a win.

Thats why I think 10 haywire witchs in boat with a 3 lance ravager for back up would do nicely. Other wise you'll have to bring enough long ranged anti tank to drop them.

Really after thinking about counters. I feel these IKs may be a bit much. If the 4++ ion shield was removed or even the 12" movment they would be a bit easier to deal with.

Disclaimer: I am almost never one to cry for nerfs and whine about the OPness of units.

I would probably be mildly satisfied if they simply exploded like regular vehicles, and not with a S: D hit. It's just not fun when you get utterly punished for killing one.

Best way to kill a knight? Flyer spam, another superheavy with ranged D, or lots of high str low AP shots.

Arent superheavies immune to the Melta rule?

DirtyDeeds wrote:
Are the knights immune to explosion?

They're immune to everything except "Explodes!" on a pen roll, instead of exploding they take D3 more hull points.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Best way to kill a knight? Flyer spam, another superheavy with ranged D, or lots of high str low AP shots.

Arent superheavies immune to the Melta rule?

DirtyDeeds wrote:
Are the knights immune to explosion?

They're immune to everything except "Explodes!" on a pen roll, instead of exploding they take D3 more hull points.

Of course bringing ranged D would kill them, but that really doesn't solve the problem here.

True, I think just shooting it to death is the best option, you dont want to get into close combat with them, not only cause of the D Saw, but if you do kill it, it still hits you with a D blast

Maybe the right answer is the 4th edition answer: Lascannons

It only takes 4 lascannon hits to take a hull point off front armor with the 4++. Any army that can generate 12 or so lascannon hits each turn can drop a Knight in a couple of turns, and they're good against pretty much any other big nasty out there. So that means only 24 lascannons in an IG army. So, you know, 8 heavy weapon teams. Some of those are bound to be on side armor and avoid the 4++ also.

I'm being facetious.

Biophysical wrote:
Maybe the right answer is the 4th edition answer: Lascannons

It only takes 4 lascannon hits to take a hull point off front armor with the 4++. Any army that can generate 12 or so lascannon hits each turn can drop a Knight in a couple of turns, and they're good against pretty much any other big nasty out there. So that means only 24 lascannons in an IG army. So, you know, 8 heavy weapon teams. Some of those are bound to be on side armor and avoid the 4++ also.

I'm being facetious.

That's what I've been thinking, but lascannons have dropped off the radar for a reason. It's a severe handicap to have to take lascannons when they are subpar against everything else. Plus there are plenty of armies that really don't have that option. Daemons for one have no way to kill these barring sacrificing their own big guys which cost almost the same amount of points.

 herpguy wrote:
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.

Ravenwing can bring a ton of Meltas.

At the LVO, I brought 8 meltaguns, 4 multimeltas, and speeders lobbing 12 CML shots.

That list ain't 'fraid of vehicles anything.

IKs are fine, as is. They can be hard countered by common units, yet are a hard counter to units in the game that are tough for most people to deal with, all at a reasonable cost point.

Ironically, back in the day when GW had published vehicle construction rules, the Knight I built were pretty close to these guys, only at 400pts per unit, although mine had a better power field and 2 heavy bolters instead of stubbers. Still had a TCCW, rapid fire Battle Cannon, and 2 Structure Points. So, yeah, I think GW really did play test them.

SJ

I don't know man. The fact that they are scoring and can be brought as a primary detachment is pretty ridiculous.

In the flyer analogy above, people were frustrated with the advent of Flyers because most codexes didn't have an answer to them. That answer being units with skyfire special rule and flyers of their own.

So flyers being the answer to flyers, the obvious extension to this situation is that D weapons are the answer to superheavies with D weapons.

I just don't like where this is going. When the Tau and Eldar codexes first dropped, it already seemed to me that GW was having issues with power scaling. With the advent of Knights I feel like they've wilingly thrown themselves and 40K into a vicious

cycle of unchecked power scaling. This could get ugly.

I do recall there being an official GW comment at some point not long ago where they said something to the effect of "we don't care about competitive 40k". So, it's not too surprising.

At the end of the day, own one if you like the model and if the folks at your FLGS or local tourneys let you field them. Don't if none or one of the above doesn't apply. Frankly, nothing about Knights is any different from escalation save that one is a model and one is a book. You can just as much say "no playing with codex: knights" as with Escalation or even Eldar.

astro_nomicon wrote:
I don't know man. The fact that they are scoring and can be brought as a primary detachment is pretty ridiculous.

In the flyer analogy above, people were frustrated with the advent of Flyers because most codexes didn't have an answer to them. That answer being units with skyfire special rule and flyers of their own.

So flyers being the answer to flyers, the obvious extension to this situation is that D weapons are the answer to superheavies with D weapons.

I just don't like where this is going. When the Tau and Eldar codexes first dropped, it already seemed to me that GW was having issues with power scaling. With the advent of Knights I feel like they've wilingly thrown themselves and 40K into a vicious

cycle of unchecked power scaling. This could get ugly.

I feel the same way, it's been spiraling out of control.
Somebody on BOLs has a good theory where he says he think GW may be doing this in retaliation due to a large chunk of the community realizing how ridiculous Escalation is and banning it from events. It's not so easy to ban an actual army.

I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.

465 points nets you:
3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits
9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous)
So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.

Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.

So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.

 rabid1903 wrote:
I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.

465 points nets you:
3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits
9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous)
So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.

Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.

So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.

Doesn't 'Nids have that no LOS str8 gun? If so, spam those... unless they're stupendously expensive.

 whembly wrote:

 rabid1903 wrote:
I'm trying to think of reliable ways for Tyranids to take out Knights, and I'm not having much luck other than triple Crone lists.

465 points nets you:
3*D3+3 vector strikes = 9 hits
9 hits on AV 13 = 2 pens 1 glance (being generous)
So we'll say best case scenario it averages out to 4 HP gone.

Add in 3 haywire shots = 1.5 hits which will add another HP pretty reliably.

So in one turn there's a good chance to knock out 5 HP, meaning that either luck or other units will need to take care of the last one. That's all for more points than the Knight though.

Doesn't 'Nids have that no LOS str8 gun? If so, spam those... unless they're stupendously expensive.

True, there are Hive Guard. 55 points a pop though, and each will average 1 hit per at 24". Even if you maxed out your elite slots with them (495 points) that still the exact scenario above but without the haywire shots to add on (plus a 4+ invul to go through.)

Zoanthropes or lucky Hive Tyrant psychic powers I'm starting to look more at. Warp Blast actually can peck away at them decently well, but definitely not a sure thing.

 obsidiankatana wrote:
I do recall there being an official GW comment at some point not long ago where they said something to the effect of "we don't care about competitive 40k". So, it's not too surprising.

At the end of the day, own one if you like the model and if the folks at your FLGS or local tourneys let you field them. Don't if none or one of the above doesn't apply. Frankly, nothing about Knights is any different from escalation save that one is a model and one is a book. You can just as much say "no playing with codex: knights" as with Escalation or even Eldar.

Yeah I get that, but I would never say flat out "no" about a legitimate codex or any of the units therein. I don't call two models whose only difference is the main weapon an army or codex or anything of the like. That's why I find it so preposterous that you can actually take them as a freaking primary detachment.

Whatever, call me a nagger, a neighsayer, or a nincompoop, this kind of stuff ruffles my Jimmies and I wouldn't play with it or against it.

I don't see any reason that tournament organizers would have a different reaction to this than what happened with the escalation and stronghold assault rules, and I hope that's the case. It just frustrates me to see that this is the direction GW is taking 40K. They're turning it into Battle Tech for Dummies.

The problem with Knights, Escalation and Stronghold Assault is and will continue to be Strength D weapons. They're completely ridiculous and terrible for the game.

Imagine if Knights had a Str 10 AP 1 weapon, a 6 on a Stomp caused a Str 10 AP 1 hit and the center of their explosion was a Str 10 AP 1 hit. It would still be a great unit, without being an I-Win button in melee combat.

The solution to rerollable 2++ saves is to errata that insanity out, not to ratchet it up a notch.

One of the rumors I've heard is that this is games-workshops way of dealing with the super-deathstar units (fateweaver) and help speed up how much slower 6th is. D weapons solve invuln saves out the waaazzooo, while also speeding up games by wracking up the kill counts.

And to the idea of people "letting" you field legitimate codex's and units.....yeah. That'll happen when I can tell Chaos Players that they can't take anything Nurgle for the +toughness (or fateweaver and his schenanigans), or that the Tau can't take their riptides. It isn't a cafeteria choice. If its part of the main rules, you have to deal with them ALL, not just the ones you *like*

The rules for the Imperial Knight have every appearance of being a giant middle-finger to the portion of the community that banned Escalaction and Stronghold Assault. Games-Workshop *wants* people to use these units and rules. Decided that you don't need Escalation & Stronghold Assault? Fine, here are some super-heavies that AREN'T Lords of War, that score, and have a D weapon.

Everything I have seen seems to indicate that these are directly meant to be faced by Escalation book Super-Heavies. Nothing else either has the survivability or efficiency to reliably do it, especially when you consider someone can take a force of 4-6 of these.

Lol are you really complaining about Chaos? Mark of Nurgle? Those are not winning tournaments.

Anyways, of course games go faster when you just pack up your models without getting to do anything.

D weapons don't belong in the game at all.

No, I was not seriously complaining about Nurgle Chaos, I was using it as an illustrative example of cherry picking something out of a legitimate codex as something someone might not like, and thus decide they won't play it.

Like it or not, Games-Workshop has decided that D weapons and Super-Heavies are now going to be part of the Standard Game. Period.

So at this point it is more constructive to suggest and debate what the most effective anti-imperial knight weapons and units will be (which at this point I think will be Escalation Lord-of-War units), rather than debating the Imperial Knight's legitimacy (which is a futile endeavor because we do not influence that decision, that is Games-Workshop)

Nids can deal with one (with difficulty), but 3. Or even 6? No way to even remotely deal with that. 3 Crones and 2. Flytyrants is great until You have 12 heavy stubbers shooting 36 shots at them for grounding tests. Plus The IG or whatever bubble wrap units that they will take as allies. (or vice versa).

some people will see them as a challenge, some people will play them once and decide that they arent really and enjoy the game without Auto-win buttons. then there will be that guy who drops 700 bucks on five of them, goes all like "Who wants a peice of this" and the rest of the guys are like "ha, F*** you, lol, who wants a round of warmachine"