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Goobi2 wrote:
A dual knight charge has 12 S10 attacks. 7 hits, 2 at AP2. That looks to be 3.5 pens and a glance. It wouldnt be a stretch to assume one explodes is rolled on a 5+. With one explodes that is minimally 5 hp gone (but just as likely 6-7) without worrying about shooting the S10 guns.

The Avatar is the one needing the most alignment, especially to simply make it into combat. Assuming he is charged he should hit twice. Those two attacks have great odds of pening with the reroll. Here you will likely only have 1 explodes, but respectable odds for 2. Assuming 1, thats an average of 4 hp damage. The knight should hit 1.3333 times on the charge doing around 4 wounds.

Oh, dual Knight charge. Well sure, charge 370pts with 480.

I don't see your respectable odds for two explodes on the Avatar. AP2, unless I miss my mark. Even if he's AP1 that's one explodes and one other. So you killed have the Knight with him, after which your five wounds get hammered into. Anything by the Chainsword can't be invul'd, and then there's the Str10 Hammer of Wrath.

 Spellbound wrote:
2) Someone said you can't charge a unit you can't hurt. This was FAQ'ed to be allowed. A bunch of S3 guardsmen could absolutely charge a knight to attempt to lock it in combat even if they didn't have any means of hurting it, and it's a valid tactic with termagaunts or fearless cultists and such. [/quo9te]

Isnt a vehicle different from a unit in this regards.

 thecapn226 wrote:

 Spellbound wrote:
2) Someone said you can't charge a unit you can't hurt. This was FAQ'ed to be allowed. A bunch of S3 guardsmen could absolutely charge a knight to attempt to lock it in combat even if they didn't have any means of hurting it, and it's a valid tactic with termagaunts or fearless cultists and such. [/quo9te]

Isnt a vehicle different from a unit in this regards.

Page 76, BRB.

I don't understand the whole "put the paladin in the corner" routine. It is just as tough as the errant, and just as powerful in cc. It has the range to make it more versatile, but don't be fooled into thinking it is a leman russ who needs to keep its distance, doing so wastes half its potential.

As for taking one out? Sure, easy enough, taking 4 out however is a different matter entirely.

Using a drop pod list, with 2 meltas and a combi melta per squad, it is easy enough to take one out on the turn you come in. However after this you will get hit by the explosion, and then wiped out in the next turn by the other 3.

The problem with knights is not their individual toughness (as it is for wraithknights and riptides), but rather because they can take a whole army of knights, which renders most units in an opposing force obsolete. Once your anti tank units have gone, even if you have killed a couple of knights, the remaining ones will have free reign of the table.

 SRSFACE wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
Considering a knights warlord is probably a knight,

There are all sorts of silly dumb things people can do if they use Knights as Allies, too. Personally I plan to get one and run him alongside my Dark Angels. 4 rolls on the divination table between my two librarians. If I get the Ignores Cover power, GG your troops are all dead. He takes several hull points of damage but doesn't go down? Good thing for me I'm planning on getting a few techmarines.

Except for the part where Perfect Timing can only be cast on the Librarian and his unit. Which means you can't cast it on a Knight Titan, Contemptor Mortis, Vindicator...

Charging 370 points with 480 is smart and will let them shoot and charge another 370 or some other juicy target. Using more points to overpower is the basis behind most deathstars and even often the knight itself.

Goobi2 wrote:
Charging 370 points with 480 is smart and will let them shoot and charge another 370 or some other juicy target. Using more points to overpower is the basis behind most deathstars and even often the knight itself.

You misunderstand (or tone doesn't convey over text). I said that in the way of; "of course that's going to give the edge to the wraithknights". I'd still prefer to kill them at range than in CC, because a StrD explosion doesn't mess around.

 obsidiankatana wrote:

Goobi2 wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:
Wraithknights with their stock guns are better off shooting it to death even if there's the 4++ invuln. At best you cause a hull point with the hammer of wrath before it gets to go, and land some simultaneous hits against it. You're hoping for mutually assured destruction.

Avatar is kind of in the same boat but has significantly less range and doesn't Hammer of Wrath at S10.

Well both options have higher initiatives tham the knight and should attack first. Smash will help the Avatar to get Pens in with AP1. The Knight does an average of 3 wounds to an Avatar in CC. 1 attack should hit, most results do 2-4 wounds. If by some magic the Avatar gets in fairly intact it may well win out in that combat.

Wraithknights can take the in coming fire much better and can easily avoid charging through terrain whilst doing damage with their guns. They would do much better working in tandem systematically taking on one knight at a time.

You forget stomps, which remove both Avatar and Wraithknight on a 6.

The Knight could kill an Avatar or Wraithknight before, in cc. It just has to wound thanks to D weapons in cc.

D weapons don't cause instant death though do they?

When fighting a wraithknight and you hit, you roll a die, on a 1 nothing happends, 2-5 they take D3+1 wounds (think that's right), and on a 6 they take D6+6 wounds.
On average 2 hits on the knight should be enough to kill it, but when you are hitting on 4+, this may take more than 1 turn.

I would be worried about wraith knights if I was playing knights. Their 4-5 attacks are at I5, so have a good chance to hurt you before you get to attack.

 Dracos wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Does anybody know a Tau player who runs only a single Riptide?

*cough* That would be me.

Also me

I don't even use one.

Goobi2 wrote:
Charging 370 points with 480 is smart and will let them shoot and charge another 370 or some other juicy target. Using more points to overpower is the basis behind most deathstars and even often the knight itself.

Normally I would agree with you, however in this case it is the opposite of smart.

See when a Knight Dies, its most likely killing everything within some close distance to it due to the D explosion. Therefore if you charge a knight with more points chances are you are doing the knight player a favor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
D weapons don't cause instant death though do they?

When fighting a wraithknight and you hit, you roll a die, on a 1 nothing happends, 2-5 they take D3+1 wounds (think that's right), and on a 6 they take D6+6 wounds.
On average 2 hits on the knight should be enough to kill it, but when you are hitting on 4+, this may take more than 1 turn.

I would be worried about wraith knights if I was playing knights. Their 4-5 attacks are at I5, so have a good chance to hurt you before you get to attack.

D weapons don't cause instant death, and statistically a Knight wont kill a 6 wound, or even 5 wound remaining wraithknight from 1 D hit.

 Spellbound wrote:
2) Someone said you can't charge a unit you can't hurt. This was FAQ'ed to be allowed. A bunch of S3 guardsmen could absolutely charge a knight to attempt to lock it in combat even if they didn't have any means of hurting it, and it's a valid tactic with termagaunts or fearless cultists and such.

Not true I'm afraid.

You can charge a unit you can't hurt.
However you can't charge a vehicle you can't hurt.

Str. 2 Grots can't hurt a T8 Wraithlord. However the FAQ allows them to still charge.
This does not change the restriction on vehicles however, which still has a rule preventing the charge.

I am running an errant with my white scars (play aggressive and get use out of the D sword). I have cleared 16 deathwing terminators in one game and cleared a seercouncil and continued to table the opponent in another game . The IK has been great. However I would just like to point out two instances of my IK being 1 shotted before he got to attack.

[The following report is off the top of my memory]

On turn 2 I have had Belakor vector strike for a few glances then penetrating twice, who the player then rolled 6s on for more hulls points off destroying him in one turn before my IK got to swing
(My opponent was rolling hot )

Another game against Blood Angels, Memphiston pops wings, moves up, 1st turn charge fails, he rerolls for fleet and gets Makes the assault, and does his str 10 moves, pens, gets more and also destroyed my IK before getting to swing his D sword.

The IK has been a taken a beating in many games and made his points back frequently, but I quickly found that some characters with some luck are stripping away all 6 hull points at a higher initiative. I forget the deployment name when you play long way down the table and both players have the 24" deployment area, but now I deploy him 1" off the front line to avoid such alpha strikes. IK can be killed easily by the right attackers..

To be fair though, if they are using the likes of mephiston and Be'lakor (who is only 20 points cheaper than your errant) to assault it, then they are probably losing that model to the resulting D explosion, so it's not all that bad.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
To be fair though, if they are using the likes of mephiston and Be'lakor (who is only 20 points cheaper than your errant) to assault it, then they are probably losing that model to the resulting D explosion, so it's not all that bad.

Ya i definately agree, they were rolling well. I was just waiting to live through their attacks for my chance to swing that D weapon, but that chance didn't come up. Both times they rolled mostly s

My knight took got in a cc fight with a wraithknight and did not fair well. Hammer of wrath triggered the wraithknights shield that causes blindness and he failed his init test. Wraithknight did 4 hull points on his init 5 then the imperial knight whiffed all of his attacks then stomp did not hurt the wraithknight either. Next turn imperial knight blows up. You center the blast over the middle of the knight and then scatters. With no scatter it does not even reach the sides of the base and barely goes out from the front so depending on the angle you charge the knight from there is a very good chance you are not getting hit by the worse part of the explosion. I think it killed 2 of my marines that were locked in combat with the wraithknight already and it was from the 2nd non d part of the explosion.

It depends. If you drop a command squad next to it and get a few hits remember that the IK ignores rolls of 1-5 on the penetrating hit table. (Still takes a hull point away though)

Your best bet is to pray you get 6 glances or a couple of good 6's. You see if you get 6 on the penetrating hit table, it's a D3 hull points lost. That's on top of the hull point you just took off so theoretically up to 4 hull points gone from one shot.

If you fail you're going to get stomped really bad

Hope he doesn't have a second IK

With melta guns you're looking for 4+ on your pens. Not that hard. The key is to have multiple sources hit from different sides.

Mavnas wrote:
With melta guns you're looking for 4+ on your pens. Not that hard. The key is to have multiple sources hit from different sides.

You may want to actually try this in an actual game. Hitting it from different sides, as in with melta squads? So all I need to do is get two different squads on two different sides within 6"? Wow, sounds easy!

 TedNugent wrote:

Mavnas wrote:
With melta guns you're looking for 4+ on your pens. Not that hard. The key is to have multiple sources hit from different sides.

You may want to actually try this in an actual game. Hitting it from different sides, as in with melta squads? So all I need to do is get two different squads on two different sides within 6"? Wow, sounds easy!

Drop pod meltas do not understand your sarcasm. Melta gun bikes could also get there in a good time.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 TedNugent wrote:

Mavnas wrote:
With melta guns you're looking for 4+ on your pens. Not that hard. The key is to have multiple sources hit from different sides.

You may want to actually try this in an actual game. Hitting it from different sides, as in with melta squads? So all I need to do is get two different squads on two different sides within 6"? Wow, sounds easy!

Drop pod meltas do not understand your sarcasm. Melta gun bikes could also get there in a good time.

Still sounds way easier said than actually done.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 TedNugent wrote:

Mavnas wrote:
With melta guns you're looking for 4+ on your pens. Not that hard. The key is to have multiple sources hit from different sides.

You may want to actually try this in an actual game. Hitting it from different sides, as in with melta squads? So all I need to do is get two different squads on two different sides within 6"? Wow, sounds easy!

Drop pod meltas do not understand your sarcasm. Melta gun bikes could also get there in a good time.

Still sounds way easier said than actually done.

Sure, as is anything. However dropping meltaguns next to a vehicle as a method to destroy it is very efficient, and imperial knights are no exception. Drop pod meltas and melta vets in vendettas are good vs knights for a few other reasons:

Because they have to be close, it is quite viable to have one squad threatening two facings of the vehicle due to the tight angles, this limits how effective the shield will be.

A full knight list often has little to no supporting infantry. Because of this there is a lot of potential board space to bring your meltas down in with less chance of mishaps.

The downside of meltas is that they run quite a high chance of killing themselves in the resulting explosion.

About using the Imperial Knight, doesn't every tactic, when using the Imperial Knight, include getting as close to the enemy as possible? Not just for getting into close combat but to maximise the damage when it blows up.

My thoughts are: sure it would be cool to keep it alive, but if the enemy aren't spread that much out and aren't fast then a turn 2 charge is possible and then you would go for the enemy unit which will kill it fast, so enemy units will not have run far away. That would make the Imperial Knight a point and click unit.

This leads to my next question, are you sure that the Imperial aren't OP? I mean, when I read about people discussing if it's OP or not it's been mentioned how fast it can be killed or how much damage its' weapons can deal, but it's not often it's mentioned how much it will dictate the enemy movement. Let's face it, every unit will have"running away to avoid D-weapon/super heavy explosion" as first priority if the enemy doesn't have a squad which is big enough to slow it down.
To dictate enemy movement like this and a guarantee that everything near it will die when it explodes is worth a lot and should have made the Imperial Knight much more expensive.

Chaospling wrote:
About using the Imperial Knight, doesn't every tactic, when using the Imperial Knight, include getting as close to the enemy as possible? Not just for getting into close combat but to maximise the damage when it blows up.

My thoughts are: sure it would be cool to keep it alive, but if the enemy aren't spread that much out and aren't fast then a turn 2 charge is possible and then you would go for the enemy unit which will kill it fast, so enemy units will not have run far away. That would make the Imperial Knight a point and click unit.

This leads to my next question, are you sure that the Imperial aren't OP? I mean, when I read about people discussing if it's OP or not it's been mentioned how fast it can be killed or how much damage its' weapons can deal, but it's not often it's mentioned how much it will dictate the enemy movement. Let's face it, every unit will have"running away to avoid D-weapon/super heavy explosion" as first priority if the enemy doesn't have a squad which is big enough to slow it down.
To dictate enemy movement like this and a guarantee that everything near it will die when it explodes is worth a lot and should have made the Imperial Knight much more expensive.

Ive had my IK blown up a few times now with various characters and squad within inches.. The explosion hasn't really been that significant for either player..

You have to remember the knight is pretty big. I've read that you can be in base contact on the side facings and not get hit by the Str D part of the blast.

Mavnas wrote:
You have to remember the knight is pretty big. I've read that you can be in base contact on the side facings and not get hit by the Str D part of the blast.

You are very correct. In actuality, hardly anything besides that which is in immediate base contact with the front or back would be hit by the str D blast if it does not scatter. Busted out my camera for yall!

How about running a Eldar Corsair list to deepstrike a 10 man squad of fire dragons for the lulz?

 Ryan_A wrote:
if it does not scatter.

Yeah, if it doesn't scatter.

 obsidiankatana wrote:

 astro_nomicon wrote:
^^ yeah but they are snap firing.

8 shots * (1/6) chance to hit = 1.33 hits.

don't know the math, but lets say its likely you pen with your 1 hit.

Then 1/2 chance the shield is facing the shot and 1/2 he passes his save.

Then another 1/2 chance that you get an explodes result.

Then a 1/3 chance that you take an additional 3 hull points.

That's 4 hull points down, and the Knight in question is still just as angry and killy as ever.

Edit: Ninja'd. I was referring to BrianDavion.

So a 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/3 chance of this happening. An 8% chance of this scenario taking place. Sure, you run those pods.

Exactly. I was agreeing with you that the proposed scenario was a ludicrous way of dealing with them. 8% chance that the contents of the pod does 4 hull points to the Knight and even then it's still standing


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I finally witnessed one in game yesterday.

1750 eldar vs IG with one knight.

Eldar player had 3 serpents, a 6 man Fire Dragon squad, 2x 5 man DA squads, 3x 6 Warp Spiders, and a blob of 10 wraith guard with spirtseers, farseer. IG was the Knight, and pretty much all infantry besides that. oh and a vendetta.

Anywho, the knight weathered an alpha strike from the fire 'dragons and like half of the wraith guard plus a serpent that was getting side armor and only lost 4 hull points. It responded by nuking the wraith guard with a double tap and swatting the fire dragons in combat. It died the next turn to shooting from Serpents and Spiders, then fell over and Strength D'd all over a squad of spiders.

Now bear in mind that neither of the lists was an optimized, cutthroat tourney list (the IG list especially so), but the amount of control that the ONE Knight exerted over that game was a little ridiculous in my opinion.

 astro_nomicon wrote:

but the amount of control that the ONE Knight exerted over that game was a little ridiculous in my opinion.

That's what I talked about...