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Mavnas wrote:
You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...

Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?

Man, these fully-space-inside-melta-range-immolater-riding-priest-buffed-sisters-that-made-it-to-a-knight-unharmed sound pretty terrifying.

I'm sure other armies have scouts with melta guns.

That's all great theory craft now what do you do when there are two with any of the psychic powers that either. Make it invisible or give it a four plus reroll invulnerable or give the it will not die and the army has two fliers or whatever they become broken with. Certain buffs

Mavnas wrote:
I'm sure other armies have scouts with melta guns.

I really don't understand what scout is doing for you here. It's a 12'' gun with a 6'' bonus range. There's 24'' between both armies assuming everyone's on the line. You literally have to move 18'' to get in melta range, and if you have a scouting meltagun that can achieve this odds are Knights are not deploying on that line. If they are, your opponent is inept.

Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.

Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.

I find it interesting that everyone is trying to show that Knights are not broken by showing different ways for every army, except Nids and Orks, to take them out.

Mavnas wrote:
Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.

Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.

Cool, 3 guys with melta guns get out, 2 hit then 1 gets saved by the shield. The knight looses a couple HPs then kills the whole squad.

Mavnas wrote:
Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.

Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.

But that's not forcing them that far from melee. That's forcing you to drive into the enemy deployment zone. Knights outrange you. One has an effective 30'' melta every turn, that can fire an effective 48'' at base Str9 Ap2. The other is a 12'' moving battle cannon. You cannot out run it, not in a transport. A Knight is perfectly content to shoot you until the optimal charge presents itself. That's what its immense mobility allows it to do - the Knight picks when these fights happen, not you. Every turn you aren't shooting meltaguns at a Knight is a turn it's pounding you with its longer-range weapons.

 Happyjew wrote:
I find it interesting that everyone is trying to show that Knights are not broken by showing different ways for every army, except Nids and Orks, to take them out.

Don't know about bugs... Orks struggle with armour no matter what shape it comes in.

Running up and hitting them with a big klaw is the standard approach for armour. Sadly this isn't a great idea in this case.

Secondary approach is running up and hitting them with a solid metal rolla on the front of a tank. This option is still sound!

Battlewagon or Big Trakk with Rolla in your heavy support.
Mekboy Junkas with Rolla in your elites,
Maybe even some more battlewagons in your troops!
Stick a mek in here, those knights can't ignore his KFF cover save at range.

Then it's ramming speed all the way! They may get their 4+ invul, but never mind!

Grot tank mobs with Rokkit launchers are just too awesome to ignore!
And my personal favourite, the Grot Mega tank!
Both with an impressive 5+ invulnerable!

Plenty of Str8 range, Str10 rams and more targets than you can shake a Rapid-Firing Battlecannon at!

Even Blitza-bombers and Tank-Bustas may see more use.

haroon wrote:

Mavnas wrote:
Scouts move 12 in a vehicle, then 6 more on turn one, then disembark 6. Their effective melta range is 30" or 6" into enemy deployment zone. Forcing enemy knights that far from melee range is worthwhile in and of itself.

Actually I wonder how effective a void shield relay would be in forcing them to come at you.

Cool, 3 guys with melta guns get out, 2 hit then 1 gets saved by the shield. The knight looses a couple HPs then kills the whole squad.

That's ... actually a pretty good trade.

And for some reason the other three possible melta shots don't happen?

Still, I don't think Id field the combi-meltas if I wasn't min-maxing for anti-super heavy.

How much melta fire can a LotD squad bring? They can deep strike and shrug off the blasts with 3++, right?

Mavnas wrote:


How much melta fire can a LotD squad bring? They can deep strike and shrug off the blasts with 3++, right?

Thats not a bad idea, would have to run the math on that, lotd are pretty expensive and I feel the combination of the blasts plus the str D chainsword (which ignores their 3++) and the stomp might still kill them in 1 turn.

haroon wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Doms really are a nice answer to the imperial knights. They do good damage when in range and if the IK deploys way into the backfield to avoid them then it's damage output is definitely not 375 pts worth. Remember you get cover saves against it's weapons.

Another interesting way to deal with them would be 10 SoB units and a priest charging it or getting charged. The priest can use the reroll armour saves ability in the assault phase. The IK will do an average of 2 kills an assault phase if it didn't charge and ~2.6 on the charge. Taking ~3 game turns to break out against a relatively cheap unit will put a big damper on it and allow you to stretch your doms out further than otherwise.

The knight dosent get armor saves in CC. Also you are forgetting about the stomp, the stomp is what kills infantry. Infinarty weather it be melta guns or CC attacks just arent viable against the knight. Even if by the emperors mercy you some how kill it in CC it will exsplode in a str D large blast killing everything that killed it. Then you still have all the other knights to worry about.

Mavnas wrote:You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...

Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.


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Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?

This. Stomps are almost always AP4. Add this to model positioning to reduce damage (stomps need to not cover the SH base...this means if you get all your models in b2b the stomps only get 2 models each and if you take out casualties between so the models have space between then only 1 gets hit per stomp. Semi elite units with a nasty CC surprise are actually pretty good against knights.

Warmonger2757 wrote:I'm not sure people are taking the ranges of the knight's weapons into account. We have a guy in our store who has three of them and he allies them with marines. Three of them, 18 HPs worth, have never been destroyed in any of our games. He doesn't need to be at the front edge of his deployment zone because the Paladin has a 72" range and the errant has a 36" range. It's not rocket science for the knight player to figure out if you rush a unit up to the knight that the unit is probably a threat. You're not going to face just one knight when it comes to shooting but probably all three (if that is even necessary). With ordinance 2, STR 8 AP 3 large blasts, he easily destroys MEQ units. Our knight player doesn't need to get in melee to do damage, the large blasts are more than sufficient. And don't forget the 500+pts of marines that fill the biggest weakness which is air defense. Fliers are the scariest thing for a knight player as the only weapon they have that can hit a flier is a heavy stubber (str 4, ap 6). As for objectives, if the Knight player brings three knights and camps them on the objective on turn 4 or 5 after he's killed all the big threatening units, there isn't much that can be done. Vector strike from Crones has done some damage, melta bombs have done some damage, I think he lost one knight in a game so far but they are mighty resilient, even with only having av 13 on front.

For me, as a necron player, for 100pts, I can bring 4 storm techs with assault 4 haywire attacks. The trick is getting them to combat (the 5th tech can be a despair tech, bumping the cost to 160pt). I can also bring doomscythes that the knight player can't shoot back that will get two str 10 hits as well as the (mostly ineffective) tesla destructor shots. I give up my barges for DS, and have to take two overlords for two royal courts, but the knights aren't impossible. And chances are I don't need to kill them all to win, it is an objective based game afterall. The downside is that I don't have a TAC list since I just spent 535pts on DS and 320pts on two RCs. Mind you, I haven't had a chance to use this list against the knight player, he is getting a lot of challenges at the moment.

You are essentially talking about 6 LRBT when knights do that. They do become much more durable by keeping them back but they also loose board control and can have their damage heavily mitigated by cover and fortifications. Much of this is about getting objectives where they need to be placed and having sufficient terrain on the table so that it isn't a shooting gallery. If you do these two things no player can afford to castle up in their deployment zone if they expect to win more than ~1/6 of their games (KP and unbalanced objective might let them). Also make sure that the opponent has the knights as primary if they are scoring as those are the rules. Having them as primary means that their SM allies really cannot bring "plentiful" AA as indicated due to limited FOC slots.



As for what each army can do to counter them. This is getting kind of crazy as there is a thread for each army already and the options for each army are totally different. I will give a brief overview but specifics would be a lot of typing...so,

CSM
Low Risk: Heldrake vector strikes (1.5HP/drake), Scary CC IC in a 5-10 model CSM/Plague Marine unit, 2 melta 5 model CSM biker unit with biker lord (the biker lord does the real work but this is not a great option), Havoks are okay, Las Pred are decent, and there are also some good FW options that really open things up
High Risk: Be'Lakor can finish one with 4 HP or less very reliably, Daemon Weapon DP (~3 HP can be expected in a single assault)

CD
Low Risk: Some of the gifts are pretty good...lets be honest, this is Daemons everything is risky. Even putting a model on the board could cause them to explode. You can tarpit them reasonably well with cheap daemon units or take some allies if you want low risk.
High Risk: Be'Lakor to finish, vector strikes can do some work and multiple DP charging all at once will work. The thing is that clever use of terrain will be key as the DP more or less ignore it and the knights get slowed down to 1-6" of movement. The screamer star is ironically still pretty good against this SH.

IG
The big thing here is that the IK will have trouble damaging most air cav and foot guard lists making this a tough fight for the IK.
Low Risk: Shooting. Seriously shoot it with your artillery, lascannons, tanks, and anything else S7+. There are too many options to go into detail but vendettas and manticores are nice. Use speed bump IS to keep the thing from doing too much damage.
High Risk: Melta of practically all variety, melta bomb or meltagun. They work well but they also put you into a position to get hurt. Mechvet will probably depend on melta and can do just fine as long as they use terrain and positioning to get those cover saves and match up 2 melta unit to every 1 knight at any one time. Not as hard as you might think considering the pts difference between IK and a mechvet unit.

SM
Interestingly enough the SM are very resilient to the IK melee attacks due to Sv3+ vs the stomps AP4. People always think that battle cannons kill SM well but not really; they tend to hit ~2.5 SM, wound 2.1, and after cover kill 1.4 SM so ~3 SM a shooting phase for a 375 pts unit. Against bikers it is worse due to 4+ cover and large bases but the price difference sort of makes it up.
Low Risk: Imperial Fists Dev Centurions work well with some 5 model TAC speed bumps works well, stormravens will be useful
High Risk: 5 model melta bike squads w/ a melta bomb will be pretty good, DS melta (sternguard or LotD)
SM in some ways have the most options but in otherways they will require the most drastic changes in their lists as most of these are not popular

Necrons...haywire, tesla, yeah they are pretty good. You may see some more defensive wraith who are less interested in getting into melee. Those cowardly machines.

DE
Dark lances, haywire blasters, blasters. Haywire wyches might see some love and a few venoms might get replaced with their dark lance cousin.

CWE
I don't think most people are that worried for CWE. They are highly resistant to the IK shooting and fast enough to be difficult to pin down in melee. The interesting thing though is that the traditional serpent spam lists will struggle to kill IK with their serpent shields so you might actually see something more than S7 spam.
Firedragons might go back into lists! wraithcannons, jetseer, doom + S7 spam, bright lances, heavy wraithcannons, lots of options just not really the trusty scatter laser serpent.

Tau
Missilesides w/ max drones, tank hunter, and 2 markerlights has an excellent chance of killing a IK a turn, firewarriors w/ emp grenades will probably anger a lot of IK players, fusion crisis suits, HBC riptide with reroll 1's and tank hunter...really anything that strips HP from the Tau codex will do great. Tau players are going to have to learn how to deal with melee units that actually make it into melee, or what IG players like to call speed bumps.

GK
This might be an interesting one. Vindicare assassin might be fairly annoying but probably not. Henchmen squads with melta are cheap enough that they can be suicide melta and it won't matter. Dakka dreads can put down decent damage, MM stormravens can help. GK will have to use a multi tier approach to deal with these and strip them down with a finisher. Draigowing can interestingly enough afford to get charged (2 dead paladins) and as long as they have 3-4 HH hammers to hit back they can kill it. The problem is if the IK gets the 6 result on a stomp it is going to hurt. Red hunters and book inquisitors could really help the situation by providing tank hunter for a turn each as this puts a 4 psycannon unit in a great position to strip an IK down in a single turn.

Close enough, SoB have already been talked about and the SM+1 will have to sort themselves out as that was a lot of typing.

On a charge the knight kills <2 MEQ on average. It's only WS4 so only half chance to hit and then 5/6ths chance to remove after that. Stomps are less scary against small squads that can spread out a bit and still pile into base contact.

A guard blob swarming it would get stomped hard. MEQ shouldn't lose more than one on average unless they're a tightly packed in blob or he gets lucky and rolls 6s.

But really the biggest thing is shooting them from multiple sides.

 obsidiankatana wrote:

Man, these fully-space-inside-melta-range-immolater-riding-priest-buffed-sisters-that-made-it-to-a-knight-unharmed sound pretty terrifying.

Sigh....

No-one is trying to argue that Melta Doms in Immolator = dead knight. Simply that they are a real threat to one, and that most AS lists will likely be running multiple squads of these along with more heavy firepower in the form of exorcists.

Before Escalation and Codex: Knights no-one had to plan counters for superheavies into their lists. Now we do. This thread is here to discuss ways of bringing them down preferably, I assume, without compromising the balance of the rest of your list. AS don't really need to alter their lists: They are already incuding the units that give them the best chance of killing one.. There really is nothing else we can take without list tailoring.

So... we know that AS and DE can pretty much just run their normal lists and attempt to take on a Knight or two. What about the other armies? flyer spam for everyone? :3 EDIT: Or just read a couple of posts up!

Mavnas wrote:
You mean the AP 4 stomps vs rerollable 3+? I mean sure, you could certainly roll a 6 and autoremove some models, but the priest and superior could also pen with melta bombs...

Cheap fearless 3+ infantry fares pretty well against knights. Heavier infantry suffers from the D weapon removing more points per swing. 4+ units get almost auto-stomped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Large blast should hit at most 3 marines at full spacing, right? Less if it scatters too much?

It will hit 3 marines if you have them in a long line, if there is any terrain on the board, that changes a lot. If you are going against a Paladin, that is still 6 Str 8 AP 3 wounds since the paladin gets two shots.

Sorry I forgot nids and orks in my previous post

Nids
The crone is boss against these things. Essentially invulnerable until a grounding test is failed, haywire missiles, and high Str vector strikes. Just great. Electroshock grubs are great against vehicles but under represented due to more useful options. I multiple tyrant charge is a high risk high gain tactic. Tarpitting it with a tervigo spawning gaunts is also a great solution. These are the best options I know having played against nids, please expand any nids players.

Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.

 ansacs wrote:
Sorry I forgot nids and orks in my previous post

Nids
The crone is boss against these things. Essentially invulnerable until a grounding test is failed, haywire missiles, and high Str vector strikes. Just great. Electroshock grubs are great against vehicles but under represented due to more useful options. I multiple tyrant charge is a high risk high gain tactic. Tarpitting it with a tervigo spawning gaunts is also a great solution. These are the best options I know having played against nids, please expand any nids players.

Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.

Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.

Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.

Firepower won't make much of a dent, unless you are rolling hot.

CC has D str attacks, but at I 1, whereas the Knight has the same at I 4 iirc.

Odds are the stompa won't even get to swing.


If it does survive until I step 1 the knight will go through some bad moments though...

Warmonger2757 wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.

Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.

Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.

Yes a Stompa will give 1 knight a run for it's money... at twice the cost!
Against 2 my money won't be on the Stompa.

Personally, Deff Rollas and Grot tanks. And those are just great fun at all times.

If someone takes down a Knight with endless legions of Grot Tanks, that will be AWESOME.

 grendel083 wrote:

Warmonger2757 wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Orks
Okay, orks are seriously dated. About the best option I can give for orks is lootas and several of you PK models and units. The green tide will also not take as much damage as they might otherwise from IK. Honestly of all the 40K dexs Orks are the one I think needs an update worst. Get a stompa with meks to repair and laugh? I haven't played many ork lists lately, sad really.

Bring a stompa from Escalation. I won't lie, I don't know the rules that well for stompas but I would hope that it is beefy enough to give at least one knight a run for it's money, even if it is way more points.

Does make me wonder if there will be a counter to knights in the new ork codex that is supposed to come out this year.

Yes a Stompa will give 1 knight a run for it's money... at twice the cost!
Against 2 my money won't be on the Stompa.

Personally, Deff Rollas and Grot tanks. And those are just great fun at all times.

Forgot about deff rollas. Those could work.

The stompa alone doesn't work well against 2+ knights. The cutom stompa from FW can have a D weapon and so is a bit better.

What could make a stompa work well is multiple meks and a small speed bump unit inside it. The speed bump blocks all but 1 IK's direct path and the meks regenrate all the stompas HP every turn. The stompa could very well go through multiple IK this way. The stompa also has a much better set of ranged weapons but is much more expensive as well.

 SisterSydney wrote:
If someone takes down a Knight with endless legions of Grot Tanks, that will be AWESOME.

Let's see...
6 Grot tanks in a squad, all armed with Rokkit Launchers comes to 300pts with Kommanda upgrade.

Take 3 full squads in a Dred Mob Primary, then ally in Orks and take a forth squad in their elite slot. Add a Grot Mega tank (all rokkits) to the Allies FA slot to Lead the Grotzkrieg!

You'll need 2 HQ, and 3 troops. Mek and Grots being the cheapest option to meet the requirements.

Grand total: 1560pts
Shave off an upgrade or two and you could fit it into a 1.5k game.

So 24 Grot Tanks, throwing 28 Str.8 Rokkits at Bs3 (huge accuracy for Orks!)
Another 5 Rokkits from the Mega tank.

All those tanks with a 5+ invul save.
Few grots to camp objectives.

Where's your God Emperor now

Ha! Rokkits are S:8 AP:3, right? So no bonus on the damage table (why, GW, why do you make this so complicated?) but they'll glance on 5 and penetrate on 6.

And BS:3 hits half the time.

So, in the worst case -- you're all firing straight at the front of the Knight -- 33 Rokkits, 16 hit (rounding down slightly), 8 get through the Ion Shield, of which 1.3 glance and 1.3 penetrate: 2.6 HP stripped there.. The 1.3 penetrations have a 22% chance of an Explodes! result, which would on average do 2 more HP: 1.3 * 0.22 * 2 = 0.57.So with average rolls you're stripping 3.2 HP per turn....

....well, until those blasts or the rest of the enemy army start taking out Grot Tanks en masse, 5++ or no.

If you can swarm the Knight and start getting around the shield, your odds go way up, of course. If you miraculously get entirely around the shield (in which case you'll need a larger army to provide a really nasty anti-tank threat as a distraction), you doubt your hits, double your damage, and kill the Knight in one massive volley.

The problem is your entire army is Grot Tanks armed with anti-tank weapons and the odds are that at 1,500 points the enemy has infantry to keep you from flanking the Knight. Or they have three Knights, which would on average take you six turns to kill, assuming they never do any damage to your tanks.

Sigh. Sadly, Grot Tank Horde is probably not an advisable list against Knights. Or against most things.

But I would love to see it.

edited to fix minor math error

Many posters seem to have missed this thing having smash - making stomp attacks AP2...

But it's an army of grot tanks!

That alone has "win!" Written all over it

But some more plus points...
1). Having so many driving round the field you're going to get around the shield a lot. They can only protect from one angle.
2). They are a nightmare for the knights to kill. Vehicle squadrons have a 4" coherency instead of 2". A hit from a large blast will hit only one (a scatter can hit 2).
3). They're tanks! That means Tank Shock. Infantry will be herded like cattle from multiple shocks, or flee before their mighty (!) tank treads!
4). Did I mention it's an army of Grot tanks?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Massaen wrote:
Many posters seem to have missed this thing having smash - making stomp attacks AP2...

Thats because it doesn't.
It's described as an attack, never a close combat attack.
And why would they bother sticking Ap4 on the chart, when there is nothing that can stomp that doesn't also have smash?

If it's not a close combat attack what is it? It happens in the combat phase and has initiative 1.

Maybe we will see a super heavy without smash in the future - who knows? I see no reason why smash would not work - why have it at all otherwise?

It's exactly like a greater daemon with a sword or axe still gaining ap2 from smash in addition to its other rules

Well since we're not in the rules forum, let's talk intent.

Do you honestly think they intended Smash to apply to Stomps, given that they give a set AP value on the chart? Given that Stomp is a rule for Super-Heavy walkers, and every Super-Heavy Walker comes with Smash? Seriously?

And as to it being a close combat attack, does it follow even a single rule for a close combat attacks? It follows part of the initiative step rules, but none of the rules for attacking.

The Assault phase rules include things like initiative steps, then Pile-ins, who can fight, unengaged models etc..
The rules for when a close combat attack are actually used start with "Number of Attacks", "Rolling to Hit", "Rolling to Wound", "Allocate Wounds" etc, with all the little sub rules in between. Not one of those rules are actually used in a Stomp attack. So no, I'd say it isn't a Close Combat Attack, but an Attack as it's rules describe.

Then why have smash at all? It's simply not relevant at that point. And are you seriously saying that a reaver Titan would not be Ap2 if it stood on you?

 Massaen wrote:
Then why have smash at all? It's simply not relevant at that point. And are you seriously saying that a reaver Titan would not be Ap2 if it stood on you?

A Reaver titan has close combat attacks before it makes a Smash attack. THOSE would be at AP2, even without a dedicated titan close combat weapon, so yes it's a very relevant rule. A punch from a Reaver should be AP2 and it is.

As to the Stomp, being stood on is represented by a roll of a 6 on the chart. Removed from Play is an accurate way of describing a Reaver stamping on someone.