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I expect my local FLGS will be open to some cinematic Knight games. See how many points it takes to bring three of them down, or some such.

I may just spam lascannon heavy squad with my Death Guard.

I'm thinking 4 Knights and a Projecting Void Shield installation. Kind of my way of saying, "Bring it on!"

SJ

Forgive the pun but its escalation. Even the best example of over-poweredness (2++ saves) has its flaws, chinks, pitfalls and liabilities. It also operates on the same realm as the rest of 40k; stuff.

Lords of War was too much, both in points and leathality. Knights are toned down just enough to make it feasible but its still way out there.

The only two problems are;
1) Str D weapons
2) Super-Heavy special rules.

A walker moving 12", crazy death-throes explosions, deadly CC abilities - were all possible with additional rules that didn't go too far. But alas, GW went Balls Deep and screwed it all up.

As for killing one; Out-kill the army - Deny it good targets from shooting and from assault; Destroy the rest of the army with all of yours. It hasn't got a ranged D weapon until you 'splode it soo... ignore it?

I can create a list in both my daemons and my DE where every single model can damage a knight (and about anything else..)

I'm looking forward to trying some of that out..

Also, if you play Stronghold Assault, the Aquila strongpoint would feth knights up severe, at least until they get close enough to smack it down.

 herpguy wrote:
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.

Well, it appears that D weapons have become a viable part of the game.

Games may become faster when the enemy fields two Knights or one Revenant Titan. Then the kills might stack up.

Some of the solutions here are more in a vacuum. With one Knight the enemy will have some other units to cover the Knight, say, not letting your Wyches come close enough.

I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?

SJ

I've seen the various posts about how 'nids would handle one of these things, but someone asked about 3-6, which is a stupidly valid question as this is actually a tactics discussion...not how much you hate D weapons.

A buddy of mine plays Tyranids and I gave him the Knight stats, he had to tailor a list to kill ONE reliably and that wasn't even worrying about the rest of the army with the Knight. Can you imagine 6 of these god damn things? I don't even play Tyranids and I'm stumped. Massed gaunts to tie them up? In 1850 I suppose you could do that and see about killing the rest of the army maybe?

Even playing Guard I'd be worried about facing six of these donkey-caves. Three? I've got it in the bag and I might even have some guys left over to hold an objective. Six? The only thing I can really think of is Vendetta spam and that's taking full 3 model squadrons, which I suppose wouldn't do too poorly.

But what about CSM? I can't recall anyone tossing any ideas out there to handle Knight spam using our neighborhood demon worshipers.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?

SJ

Weill, I think two Knights would be enough to cause a headache to each opponent.

 Frankenberry wrote:
But what about CSM? I can't recall anyone tossing any ideas out there to handle Knight spam using our neighborhood demon worshipers.

Triple-drake vector strike fun + autocannons to the rear?

Ally your own Knights?

Ally in/take LoW with Destroyer Weapons.

I got temporarily excited about using my Brass Scorpion, then realised how horrifically outclassed my 700pt model was by even a single Knight

 Frankenberry wrote:
I've seen the various posts about how 'nids would handle one of these things, but someone asked about 3-6, which is a stupidly valid question as this is actually a tactics discussion...not how much you hate D weapons.

A buddy of mine plays Tyranids and I gave him the Knight stats, he had to tailor a list to kill ONE reliably and that wasn't even worrying about the rest of the army with the Knight. Can you imagine 6 of these god damn things? I don't even play Tyranids and I'm stumped. Massed gaunts to tie them up? In 1850 I suppose you could do that and see about killing the rest of the army maybe?

Even playing Guard I'd be worried about facing six of these donkey-caves. Three? I've got it in the bag and I might even have some guys left over to hold an objective. Six? The only thing I can really think of is Vendetta spam and that's taking full 3 model squadrons, which I suppose wouldn't do too poorly.

I'm struggling to find any reliable Tyranid solution for this that doesn't involve a double-FOC full of Crones. Virtually anything getting into melee with one of these is toast*, and it's very unlikely that you'll be the one getting off the charge anyway.

A Harridan may be able to handle Knights fairly well, so long as it's not grounded. It Vector Strikes at S10 (ignoring the invuln save), and can unload up to twelve S10 shots straight after. These shots will undoubtedly attract the attention of the shield, so with a little planning you can position other units to fire at another facing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it should also be able to unload its Gargoyle brood while swooping in order to tarpit the Knight for a while. Obviously the drawback here is that a Harridan plus little dudes costs more than 2 Knights.

As for more conventional solutions, massed Exocrines may be viable. You can put down 2 per Knight and try to ensure the shield can only protect from one at a time. Don't forget to Overwatch when the Knight inevitably charges them...

Hopefully the upcoming re-print of IA4 will open up some options for Nids.

*even Hierodules. Yep, even the melee-focused GC that costs 50% more will most likely die before striking back

 xttz wrote:
*even Hierodules. Yep, even the melee-focused GC that costs 50% more will most likely die before striking back

I wondered that sort of thing after looking at the GBS, but (shockingly) I don't keep the books at work. D-CCWs really should have been strike-at-Initiative-1.

If your enemies only taking one, as Chaos take an allied Chaos Demons Skarbrand.

Try to tie up or occupy the Knight with cultists or some other throw-away unit, and give Skarbrand the charge in. He's a demon of Khorne, so he has FC for +1S to his first turn of hitting (so S7), Hatred gives him re-rolls to hit on the first round (when he's WS10), and Rage gives him +2 attacks for that first phase, bumping him to 8 attacks instead of the standard 6.

Oh, and he strikes at Initiative 10 with an armourbane AP 2 weapon.

Out of the wide ranges of monstrous creatures, he stands a good chance of gibbing an Imperial Knight in CC before the Imperial Knight even has a chance to hit back. So while he may well get hit by the D strength explosion (and thats assuming it doesn't scatter), it would have to roll well to instantly kill him (a 6 on the D weapon table).

So of the models I can think of to handle ONE knight, Skarbrand tops my list. And at 225 points, he's a bargain to the Knight's 375.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm still waiting for people to realize they need to have a plan for dealing with 3 Knights, not 1. Yes, yes, we all know that 495pts in units can kill a 375pt Knight, whoopty-doo. How does your 1850pt army deal with 3-4 Knights bubble-wrapped in fast infantry?

SJ

You hit the nail on the head that most people are missing. I'm sure any army could kill a Knight. That's not the issue. As somebody else said, I would probably gladly pay for a 375pt brick that could sit on an objective with 6 HP that can't be one-shotted, with a directional 4++ and has a 15" blast when it dies. The fact that it is the scariest CC monster in the game and has a 2 shot battlecannon is just icing on the cake.


Anyways, Heldrake spam as a solution for CSM? There aren't enough turns in the game for that to work. How are you going to get autocannons to its rear exactly?

Also, sure a Daemons list *could* hurt it, but what happens when your 350 pt character gets sent to the warp as a reward for killing one of these? (which its entirely unlikely to accomplish in the first place)




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kir44n wrote:
If your enemies only taking one, as Chaos take an allied Chaos Demons Skarbrand.

Try to tie up or occupy the Knight with cultists or some other throw-away unit, and give Skarbrand the charge in. He's a demon of Khorne, so he has FC for +1S to his first turn of hitting (so S7), Hatred gives him re-rolls to hit on the first round (when he's WS10), and Rage gives him +2 attacks for that first phase, bumping him to 8 attacks instead of the standard 6.

Oh, and he strikes at Initiative 10 with an armourbane AP 2 weapon.

Out of the wide ranges of monstrous creatures, he stands a good chance of gibbing an Imperial Knight in CC before the Imperial Knight even has a chance to hit back. So while he may well get hit by the D strength explosion (and thats assuming it doesn't scatter), it would have to roll well to instantly kill him (a 6 on the D weapon table).

So of the models I can think of to handle ONE knight, Skarbrand tops my list. And at 225 points, he's a bargain to the Knight's 375.

God forbid Skarbrand takes any damage before attacking the Knight. There's a reason nobody takes him... he sucks. Plus he's way slower than a Knight so if he catches one that's a bad play by your opponent.

Xyptc wrote:
For Tyranids, I'm still leaning towards a somewhat high-risk strategy of Monstrous Creature Smash Attacks". Provided I am faster than the Knight, it should go down with a few penetrating hits?

The trouble here is that even with Smash, you will rarely do enough attacks to outright kill a Knight in one round of combat. After a bit of Math-hammer, the most likely unit to succeed is a Hive Tyrant with Crushing Claws and another melee weapon, but not using Smash. That's going to average 2.9 HP damage, with a reasonable chance of inflicting further HP thanks to Explodes damage results.

Realistically, you need to be charging a Knight with multiple FMCs to kill it before it can strike back.

I love the thing and may get one, but there's no way in hell I'd play a normal army against two or more of those things. If the other guy complains I'd shake his hand, tell him he won and be done with it.
For special scenarios or whatnot, sure. Sounds like fun. I'd play against them to see how they roll. There simply isn't enough dakka in a regular army to take out several of these things. (regular meaning no d-weapons or escalation whatevers.)

xttz wrote:

Xyptc wrote:
For Tyranids, I'm still leaning towards a somewhat high-risk strategy of Monstrous Creature Smash Attacks". Provided I am faster than the Knight, it should go down with a few penetrating hits?

The trouble here is that even with Smash, you will rarely do enough attacks to outright kill a Knight in one round of combat. After a bit of Math-hammer, the most likely unit to succeed is a Hive Tyrant with Crushing Claws and another melee weapon, but not using Smash. That's going to average 2.9 HP damage, with a reasonable chance of inflicting further HP thanks to Explodes damage results.

Realistically, you need to be charging a Knight with multiple FMCs to kill it before it can strike back.

I originally thought of this before with Daemons, but then I realized you're very likely for them all to get wiped out by the ensuing Strength D explosion. It's quite redonkulous.

MWHistorian wrote:I love the thing and may get one, but there's no way in hell I'd play a normal army against two or more of those things. If the other guy complains I'd shake his hand, tell him he won and be done with it.
For special scenarios or whatnot, sure. Sounds like fun. I'd play against them to see how they roll. There simply isn't enough dakka in a regular army to take out several of these things. (regular meaning no d-weapons or escalation whatevers.)

That's what I would likely do. I would probably give them a go at least once to see how OP they are but if somebody showed up with these I would just say "Congratulations, you bought yourself a win, hope you feel good about yourself." I expect the guy who magically has "Been a White Scars player since forever" when the new SM codex came out who plopped down 30 freshly built and unpainted bikes to have a few of these pretty soon.

While the Strength D Death-Throes explosion is a threat, I think people are overestimating it.

First, it follows Scatter rules, with the exception of no BS reduction. So if it scatters anything more than 3", you are out of the Strength D hit (assuming you were in base contact). If you weren't in base contact, it would have to scatter in your direction for the D portion of the blast to hit. The outer rings of the blast are still dangerous, but to monstrous creatures that only means 1 wound. 1 Wound is survivable.

In addition, the Strength D blast has a 1/6th chance to do nothing, and a 4/6 chance to do 2-4 wounds. Its only on a roll of 6 that you take the "you're now gibbed" D6+6 wounds.

So the Death Explosion is bad on standard infantry and vehicles due to its size, but for monstrous creatures its mostly a matter of bad luck if you get caught in the explosion, and even worse luck if you get hit by the worst result.

As it is, I'm thinking a pair of Bloodthirsters (500pts), a pair of Flying Demon Princes (400 pts) or Skarbrand(225pts) should be just fine for knocking out a single Imperial Knight.

While they can move 12", between terrain and other models there are ways to bottleneck and control such large enemy units to get it where you want it.

Who ever uses a pair of blood thirsters? or skarbrand? Unfortunately these ideas just aren't things people use very often because they're terrible options vs every other opponent.. What in the world is the point of blood thirsters anyway? Lord of change is S8 with the staff and has psychic powers.

I expect you'll see knights backed up with infantry in front and flyers/flyer defense.

We aren't asking what super-popular kids on the block are going to be good at killing imperial knights, its what will bring down an Imperial Knight.

As for why bloodthristers? They're Khornate demons, and I was primarily looking in at the Khorne stuff for killiness in CC. If the same can be pulled off with a Lord of Change, that could work too.

If the Knight gets bubble wrapped by infantry protecting it, its both slowing it down and risking said infantry if something were to kill it.

Besides, just because something is useless against whats popular now doesn't mean it will be useless against what will be popular going forward. When enough people are saying that the current popular format can't deal with Imperial Knights, that itself implies that the popular lists are going to change. And that opens the door to different units/unit combinations working.

Good options are good options regardless of if "popular kids" are using them or not. Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.

The answer is the same as usual, shoot it until it's dead. Getting a MC in CC with it is very risky due to how Strength D works. Khorne units are fairly pointless vs any opponents unless it's dogs, so might as well shelve those options and look towards the better used units (which are useful against all opponents).

Killing a knight won't be any different than killing a land raider really. It's only AV13 and a 4+ invul isn't a big deal as it's not like that is totally unheard of. Melta hits do D3+1 HP on a 4+, so it'll probably die to 2 melta pens which is nothing to worry about.

A knight simply isn't special, just use same SOLID tactics for destroying tough vehicles and the outcome will be similar. Gimmicks are never a good idea.

Well, pretty much all that matters is how you can kill a Knight with an all comers list. So far it's not looking good at all.

Thanks for the blast clarification, that helps... a little. It's still a S D 5" blast and scattering helps it actually because then it's not just on the base that nobody can be within anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Probably the best Knight killer I can think of is Kharn in a blob of cultists. However it would take a concerted effort because it's entirely reliant on them getting the charge off. However statistically he should easily kill one on the charge and has all the cultist bodies in case something goes wrong.
Be'Lakor has a similar damage output (slightly less) but doesn't have any cushion in case something had happens.

 Kirasu wrote:
Good options are good options regardless of if "popular kids" are using them or not. Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.

The answer is the same as usual, shoot it until it's dead. Getting a MC in CC with it is very risky due to how Strength D works. Khorne units are fairly pointless vs any opponents unless it's dogs, so might as well shelve those options and look towards the better used units (which are useful against all opponents).

Killing a knight won't be any different than killing a land raider really. It's only AV13 and a 4+ invul isn't a big deal as it's not like that is totally unheard of. Melta hits do D3+1 HP on a 4+, so it'll probably die to 2 melta pens which is nothing to worry about.

A knight simply isn't special, just use same SOLID tactics for destroying tough vehicles and the outcome will be similar. Gimmicks are never a good idea.

A Knight actually is special, primarily due to being a superheavy and the special case of the Ion Shied. The former makes it immune to 1-5 on a the pen chart and grants it a lovely 12'' move, so your meltas better do the job in one shot, be quick enough to keep up with it, be durable enough to withstand the return fire, or a combination of the three. The latter is chosen during enemy shooting phase. So if I SEE a melta drop, I'm putting the shield on that end. Half your shots now do nothing, so you need four shots to ensure two get through, both had better pen, get a 4+, then roll at least a 2 on D3. Not likely. If you doubling up and hitting it from both sides that's another matter, but that also assumes your opponent left two sides of his Knight entirely exposed and deserves to lose it.

A 4+ save on a vehicle is nothing new was my point. Just because it's called an Ion Shield doesn't make it special. It also isn't any faster than a lot of units, it's easy to keep up with it because it's probably going to be moving at you.

Wave serpents have a 4+ against most meltas and plenty of other vehicles. The point is, as I mentioned, you simply need to roll a 4+ twice against it with a melta gun.. So you gotta be able to kill 2 vehicles which isn't horribly difficult.

against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?

If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty

 Kirasu wrote:
Skarbrand is one of the worst options against pretty much all lists, he's slow and doesn't do impact the game.

Haha perhaps when you've seen him in action. My current Khorne list is built around him and he is amazing for 225 points.

And Bloodthirsters are better at killing a lot of things than a Lord of Change. Anything they can instant death with their Axe of Khorne with for example.

They're also capable of having a lot more attacks:

3 (6 halved for Smash)
+1 (weapon in each hand)
+3 (Eternal Blade)
+2 (Rage from Skarbrand)

So nine Strength 10 Attacks, striking first, hitting on 3+ with a reroll from Skarbrand. 4+ to penetrate, with a reroll because of Smash.

I'm looking forward to playing a Knight list with my flying Khorne Daemons.

The numbers have been run countless time on The Lord of Change vs Bloodthirster debate. A Bloodthirster is only marginally better in combat than as LoC while a Lord of Change doesn't need to drop down and expose itself into combat to do anything.

There is a lot of hyperbole on this thread. It should be noted that 4 knights are 1500 pts by themselves. People saying that you will face 6 knights against 1 FOC are being disingenuous or don't know the pts values. This means that at 1750 pts you cannot fit another knight in and you can barely fit even a modicum of AA into your list. Forget further ranged support.

There is also a strange disconnect in the knights killing power. They have 3(or 4) attacks which are Str D. This means they will likely connect and damage with 1(2) Str D attacks. This is followed by 1-3 stomp attacks which will usually be S6 AP4. This means they are really good at killing MCs and vehicles and are pretty good at killing Sv4+ or worse blobbs. They do however fall pretty flat against anything like a 5 man TAC SM squad where you will average 2-3 dead SM per assault phase. You can actually further reduce this damage by pulling alternate models from b2b so the stomp becomes less effective. This is a strange dichotomy where small units of ~5 models with 1 wound and a good armour save remove much of the killing power of the IK. Units on large bases and good saves also have little to fear from stomps and as long as they can deal with 1-2 deaths an assault phase they will be okay.

Units like jetseer star will have little difficulty with IK as they take 1-2 casualties and then hit back with 8+ S9 attacks (possibly more on the charge). Even if they fail to kill it they will take very little damage from the stomps due to their base size and save.

You will say to me that the death explosion will kill said unit. However there are many ways to limit this or remove it entirely. The jetseer star above would HnR out and try to kill the knight at range. Most units are cheap enough that loosing them to kill a 375 pts scoring unit would be worth it.Most of the Chaos units that will work well will be an HQ with a small unit of marines or cult marines to absorb the D weapon hits. These units can put the ablative wounds in b2b and let the HQ trail behind so it is within 2" of a model in b2b. This will allow the big hitters to hit while keeping them safe from both the D (in case the opponent rolls high) and from the explosion.

What is much more likely is to see 1-3 knights allied to a more traditional type army to give the AA and additional troop killing.

A 1 knight list won't change anything. It is just another AV13 vehicle with a 4+ save and most lists should be fine.

A 2 knight list will bring enough support to not have any hard counters, probably in the form of vendettas or sabre platforms with whatever IG becomes. This is the list that might shift the meta as you can still kill 2 knights reliably but you will need dedicated units to crack that much AV. Luckily all the dexs do have solutions which are cheaper than the knights. The important part will be to pin down the shield so that one of the units can get full output or to have enough firepower to shoot through the shield.

The 3 knight is an unbalanced list which will stomp some lists but will in turn be stomped by others. There is just too many points in AV13 vehicles who have relatively limited killing potential. A good example of an entirely hard counter to such a list is necron bakery. This could change depending on what IG dex does though as IG will probably be the best ally to bring cheap AA, etc. I play several lists that could deal with this and not sweat but some of my other lists would definitely feel the pain.

Additionally until an actual codex is released I find all this panic to be a bit comical. Right now we have a white dwarf entry that doesn't actually have any alliance matrix and doesn't have them as scoring. You then have some facebook posts saying they are scoring though the same source is often wrong about rules and seems to never know what is happening in GW. I find this entire thing to be ridiculous and will not be buying or playing with them until they have real rules. I will play against them but we are playing by the official rules not rumors and speculations unless you want to play against my warhound.

All the knight lists are going to have serious issues with a tank hunter+broadside missile side+drones with a few MLs who can reliably kill a knight a turn. The Tau player just needs some speed bump units who ironically could provide overwatch opportunities. A list which can be hard countered by a data slate is not my idea of unstoppable.

 IHateNids wrote:
against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?

If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty

Infantry is removed from play on a 2+ without any kind of save permitted.

How does the Lynchgard get him into combat?

 wuestenfux wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
against infantry, does the D weapon remove from play or remove as a casualty on a 6?

If it is the latter, I believe a unit of Warscythe Lychguard could kill it quite easily in combat. And as any good Knight player will scoff sat the sight of Lychguard, he will focus on the wraiths ripping the rest of his army apart, and be chopped into pieces, then the Lychguard simply stand up and move on after the D hit. If they are removed as a casualty

Infantry is removed from play on a 2+ without any kind of save permitted.

How does the Lynchgard get him into combat?

Lychguards probably will not catch a knight that does not want to be caught. Even if they do you need three of them to hit it in order to have a decent chance of winning the combat.
A night scythe drop coupled with other threats may do the trick but lychguards will be hard pressed to reach it unless the knight lets them at which point I do not like their chances.

I have a hard time finding a way of dealing with one, let alone multiple knights. This looks like a vehicle that is really tough to take down with gauss spam alone (54-108 shots depending on the shielding, probably right in between). Stormtek drops coupled with warriors as well as doom scythes seem like the likeliest measure to bring down a knight, coupled with the fact that those are good units in more than one way.