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 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I killed five IK in four turns with a non competitive take on all comers list... Only one guy has them at my local game store, and he lost every game he played in last Sunday's tournament. He got rolled by Eldar, Daemons, and my fluffy Tau. We played a few games after the tournament for fun using the same lists and he lost to Nob bikers and Dark Eldar as well... Don't get the collective freak out.

Could you elaborate on how your non-competitive Tau list took out 30 AV13 HP in four turns? I'm looking through the codex right now and I don't see much reliable S8+ volume of fire that isn't susceptible to the firepower output of 5 Knights. Also nothing really can stand up to in CC. Was the guy wasting the Thermal cannon shots on Kroot instead of Hammerheads?

Also is this guy a good player or not? He had 5 straight loses in a row, so it's just doesn't ease the tension of what 5 knights would do in the hands of someone who knew how to use them.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:
Its a giant walker. Poor players will struggle, players that actually like 40k and strategy will enjoy games against them.

I like how you imply that being poor and enjoying strategy are mutually exclusive.

I think he means bad players, not players who don't have a lot of money. Could be wrong though.

Still, having low skill and liking strategy is not mutually exclusive either.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I killed five IK in four turns with a non competitive take on all comers list... Only one guy has them at my local game store, and he lost every game he played in last Sunday's tournament. He got rolled by Eldar, Daemons, and my fluffy Tau. We played a few games after the tournament for fun using the same lists and he lost to Nob bikers and Dark Eldar as well... Don't get the collective freak out.

Could you elaborate on how your non-competitive Tau list took out 30 AV13 HP in four turns? I'm looking through the codex right now and I don't see much reliable S8+ volume of fire that isn't susceptible to the firepower output of 5 Knights. Also nothing really can stand up to in CC. Was the guy wasting the Thermal cannon shots on Kroot instead of Hammerheads?

Also is this guy a good player or not? He had 5 straight loses in a row, so it's just doesn't ease the tension of what 5 knights would do in the hands of someone who knew how to use them.

This was the list I used:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/581856.page

I fielded in a corner, Skyrayed one to death and took another down to 3 HP turn one. Turn two my outflanking commander's squad killed a one and my plasma squad deep struck in and killed the one that was wounded. Turn three I lost my fusion commander's squad, but he was still alive and took 2 hull points off one, my other commander killed it and my plasma squad did two HP of damage to the last one. Turn four my fusion Commander was assaulted, but took off two more hull points and my plasma squad was assaulted and wiped, but my Other commander's squad took off another HP, then my Skyrays rammed it for the win.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I killed five IK in four turns with a non competitive take on all comers list... Only one guy has them at my local game store, and he lost every game he played in last Sunday's tournament. He got rolled by Eldar, Daemons, and my fluffy Tau. We played a few games after the tournament for fun using the same lists and he lost to Nob bikers and Dark Eldar as well... Don't get the collective freak out.

Could you elaborate on how your non-competitive Tau list took out 30 AV13 HP in four turns? I'm looking through the codex right now and I don't see much reliable S8+ volume of fire that isn't susceptible to the firepower output of 5 Knights. Also nothing really can stand up to in CC. Was the guy wasting the Thermal cannon shots on Kroot instead of Hammerheads?

Also is this guy a good player or not? He had 5 straight loses in a row, so it's just doesn't ease the tension of what 5 knights would do in the hands of someone who knew how to use them.

Not to mention how he got managed 5 1850pt games in a day. Or how the Seneschal didn't seem to make a difference. Either that was a lie for the sake of commenting or they didn't play the game correctly. Because even drop poding Salamanders with Melta spaming would struggle against 5 knights after they hit the dirt.

Nice list.
Skyrayed one to death?
I'm sorry, but how? Av13 vs S8 means you're glancing on 5's pen on 6. 6 shots, assume BS5 for 5 hits, 5 hits gets 1.67 glance/pens, which half get saved for a total of 0.83. No bonus for AP, so to get an explosion you need a pen (0.278) followed by getting past the shield (0.14) and then a 6 on the pen chart (0.023). That's insanely lucky.
I'm hesitant to accept a Skyray taking 2HP off a Knight let alone killing one out right.

Plasma hitting on 2's still needs 6's to glance.
6 plasma rifles, 12 shots total. 12 shots, 10 hits, 1.67 glances assuming the shield isn't facing them. That still leaves that Knight with a HP left.

The three fusion suits seem up for the task, I'm wondering how they survived returning fire. Did the guy just forget he had a shield?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Nice list.
Skyrayed one to death?
I'm sorry, but how? Av13 vs S8 means you're glancing on 5's pen on 6. 6 shots, assume BS5 for 5 hits, 5 hits gets 1.67 glance/pens, which half get saved for a total of 0.83. No bonus for AP, so to get an explosion you need a pen (0.278) followed by getting past the shield (0.14) and then a 6 on the pen chart (0.023). That's insanely lucky.
I'm hesitant to accept a Skyray taking 2HP off a Knight let alone killing one out right.

Plasma hitting on 2's still needs 6's to glance.
6 plasma rifles, 12 shots total. 12 shots, 10 hits, 1.67 glances assuming the shield isn't facing them. That still leaves that Knight with a HP left.

The three fusion suits seem up for the task, I'm wondering how they survived returning fire. Did the guy just forget he had a shield?

Sometimes I really wonder if people realize it is a dice game and sometimes what should statistically happen just doesn't... And it was 2000 point tourney that lasted 10 hours at 3 hours a round... Most games nearly got to turn 4, but IK make turns go quick considering they only have 5 models, or at least he did.

And remember a 6 to pen on them does 1+D3 HPs damage... I rolled quite a few 6's... Not saying I plan on beating his list every time I play it, but it is possible for non competitive lists to pull it off, just make sure the dice gods are with you.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
It would probably be more fun than playing against Riptides, Wraithknights and rerollable 2+ saves.

My Shock Attack Gun got a double 6 on the SAG chart against the riptide I was playing against last night. Awesome to just be able to remove a vehicle like that of the board.

I thought for sure I'd scatter off the board but I rolled a 2-1 so it was basically a direct hit.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
Do nids not have flying monstrous creatures that can take them out? Or a high initiative, high strength creature that could beat them in melee? I am asking because I genuinely do not know. I know very little about the new nid book.

To answer all of your questions, no Nids do not have these things. We DO have FMC that can VS at S8 which is probably the BEST way to deal with them...but they are T5 W5 with a 4+ Save....so force a grounding check with stubbers and they get shredded like wet paper.

We do not have high initiative high strength creatures. Our high initiative creatures are mid range strength, our high strength creature, the carnifex, is slower than the Knight. The best option is to charge a Knight with 3 carnifex rocking crushing claws, they might kill the Knight but if they do manage to survive it will be one wounded carnifex on average that likely will die from the explosion. Now if there are THREE Knights you better hope that you can bring all 9 Carnifex to the table and HOPE they can all make it into melee with them.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

Sometimes I really wonder if people realize it is a dice game and sometimes what should statistically happen just doesn't.

Statistically speaking 2 Skyrays should remove 1.67 HP from a knight. You managed over 5 times that amount. Yes, there is luck, but just because you got really lucky doesn't mean that a noncompetitive Tau list like that has a statistically balanced chance of taking down 5 knights. Which seemed to be the point of your initial post. You didn't say "I got incredibly lucky with a non-competitive Tau list and took down 5 knights" you said you took down 5 knights with a non-competitive tau list, which is leaving out major context.

And remember a 6 to pen on them does 1+D3 HPs damage... I rolled quite a few 6's.

And remember he needed 4+ to ignore that. The dice game argument rolls both ways, excuse the pun. You rolled a lot of 6's. Like a lot by my math. Like double what you should have been rolling. I think you should get them checked out before you start praising the gods of luck.

Savageconvoy wrote:
I don't honestly understand the approach of "Just let your opponent know what you're bringing."

I think it's probably something along the lines of, high command has some idea whether their forces will be deployed against a planet with an ork infestation, or a planet defended by a knight household. As such, they equip your army appropriately.

The idea of going into any battle with no idea of what you're facing is somewhat ridiculous from any sort of fluff perspective.

To expound upon your examples...

"You're bringing IK. Okay, I'll list tailor to beat that."

Can be perceived as, "We're going into battle with several titans, so your small arms will be mostly useless. You should visit the quartermaster and refit your tanks with anti-titan guns".

Everything beyond this step has no basis in any sort of story. You tell your opponent what codex/codecii you will be playing, and they tell you the same. After that, neither of you have an advantage the other does not, and you avoid the kind of silly games that result from having no idea what your army might face.

Even considering that, it seems rather unfair to the IK player.
"I'm bringing IK, what are you bringing?"
"Now I'm bringing a lot of deep striking melta."

In a Rock/paper/scissor match up someone decides to take all Rock, so then the opposing side just minimizes their Rock and scissors and puts as many points into paper as possible. It's just a terrible idea. That's why I like TAC lists. No list tailoring.

I do think the system does need a dedicated sideboard in place. Quick swapping special weapons before games, but point values make this difficult right now.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Even considering that, it seems rather unfair to the IK player.

And yet not allowing it seems incredibly unfair to the other player. Let me see, I'm bringing an army where all your weapons < S7 are absolutely useless, and then I demand that you make your list without knowing that, so I can play my 2000 points against your 600 points that might actually hurt me.

It's not like most armies out there can avoid taking things that will be useless in this matchup. If I'm playing space marines, I am required to dedicate a n absolute minimum of two troop choices that are 8/10 men unable to hurt the titan. Even if the marine player knows he is playing against knights, he's required to waste roughly 200 points on models that can't hurt it (and that's a bare minimum). His mandatory HQ is also unlikely to impact the game at all, short of possibly taking a meltabomb and hoping. And you say to this, poor IK player?

What army can actually maximize this knowledge and avoid taking any wasted points? Because the knights have no wasted points in any matchup. Their D weapons make a mockery of heavy-hitters, their stomps prevent tarpitting and address hordes, and their ranged weapon choices seem good against any opponent. Meanwhile, everyone facing them, even knowing they're coming, is probably down 25% points on mandatory things that can't hurt the knights.

 Redbeard wrote:
And you say to this, poor IK player?

Yeah. The IK player didn't make the terrible decision to release a hard counter unit as it's own independent army.

But I think I'm not explaining my point right. Yes there are some things that you can do to make it a better matched game. One of the things is giving the other player the ability to tailor his list, while the other really doesn't have that option. That's not really that fair, but because it's so imbalanced as it is then it gives the appearance of being fair. If I mention I'm bringing Tau then I could be running any number of practical lists. If I mention I'm running enclaves, even more so. If I mention I'm running IK, then you just have to wonder how many errants or paladins I'm going to bring.

But this was mentioned in another thread. The studio doesn't give a fart in the wind about balance. They want to release models and they want to release books. They can use the excuse that you'll just have to talk it out with your opponent and make up an arbitrary system of balances on your own... I mean forge a narrative.

On the subject of tailoring: I play ABG. I always warn my opponent to bring extra AT before the lists are drawn. In my local group. It is only proper sport. Now on a tournament i will bring the same list and give no quarter because my opponents will have their cheesiest thing available... Flying Circus, Riptides. No mercy there I' m afraid.
And IMO 1 knight is fair, any more than two is unfair without tailoring...

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
Do nids not have flying monstrous creatures that can take them out? Or a high initiative, high strength creature that could beat them in melee? I am asking because I genuinely do not know. I know very little about the new nid book.

'nids have FMC's, not FMC's that can take them out. The Hive Crone can Vector Strike at S8, but because it moves 24" and then can only do a single 90 degree turn, it's only going to be able to strike the same Knight once or twice over the course of a game and there'll be turns where it can't VS anything. It does also have 4 haywire missiles, but once you mathhammer it all out, you realise that it would take several Crones to bring down a Knight and at 150pts each and taking a Fast Attack slot each (very few armies are going to rock up with 3 Crones unless they tailor to fight Knights) then you aren't really in good standing.

Walking MC's can have a crack, but most of them you are investing more points than the Knight is worth to bring one down, and given the Knight moves 12", they should be able to stay out of combat for a while.

Zoanthropes and Hive guard have a chance, but again statistically not great and they are 18" range and are prime targets for battle cannons (Zoans instant die to battle cannons, Hive Guard don't, but 2 battle cannons should be racking up enough hits in a round of shooting to kill a couple of them).

Tyranids can probably bring down 1 Knight using a typical competitive list, but unless you tailor the list I don't see them taking on an army of them and even if you do tailor it's still far from a sure thing.

If you took a Tyranid army of nothing but Termagaunts (to score), Carnies, Crones, Zoans, Hive Guard and Flyrants, it would probably be a more interesting game, but it wouldn't be a standard competitive list either.

FMC don't have the movement restrictions of flyers. It can do a 180 each turn and hit the Knight.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
FMC don't have the movement restrictions of flyers. It can do a 180 each turn and hit the Knight.

Nope, it can't. It can only do a single 90 degree turn before it swoops, then must move directly fowards between 12 and 24". It's the 2nd dot point of "Swooping" on pg 49.

If you choose to glide (move like a jump creature) instead of swooping, yep, you can turn... but now you don't get the protection of being in the air so can be blown apart easily or assaulted (given the IK has quite a long assault radius).

I stand corrected.

I'm thinking of maybe starting a knight army, I'd probably just leave the games as objective capturing instead of kill points to start with while everyone got a feel for it. Makes it more balanced probably since if things will struggle to kill them it wouldn't be an automatic loss for armies unable to deal with the armour.

That wouldn't really help though. Knights are all scoring and could easily claim objectives with their movement speed, base size, and their CC ability.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
And you say to this, poor IK player?

Yeah. The IK player didn't make the terrible decision to release a hard counter unit as it's own independent army.

But the IK player chose to play an army that is dramatically unbalanced (not in terms of game balance, but in terms of army balance). The IK player who says to his opponent, "you should bring a TAC list" is a player who knows that his army is immune to many weapons in a TAC list, and consequently is looking for an easy, unfair game. The IK player knows this, whether or not it was his reason for choosing the army. Now, if he's a decent sport and is looking for a fun game, he offers his opponent the ability to take more weapons that actually have an impact on the game, and fewer that do not. If he's a WAAC player, he demands that his opponent take a lot of weapons that are useless against his list.

There are lots of variants on this. I've seen players look to face TAC lists with nothing but land raiders, knowing their opponent won't have enough anti-tank to handle it, and on the other end of the spectrum, extreme horde lists, knowing most TAC lists can't kill 200 models in a game. Does this lead to a fun game for either player? I can't imagine so.

But this was mentioned in another thread. The studio doesn't give a fart in the wind about balance.

I'm not sure I agree with this assessment. I'm fairly certain that they're not competent enough to balance their game. Certainly they give some lip-service to caring about it, as they do assign point costs to units. They're just really really bad at it.

Me and the wife ran some game and substituted some knights vs IG and it was hit and miss with a none tailored list. With a tailored list though the knight fell in short order unless they hunkered down in cover. All in all it was fun but then again we knew about the knights beforehand, if it was totally random in a FLGS I might be abit hesitant.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
We had a local tournament recently where someone was given the okay to bring the IG armored company. That was the worst game I've played in a while.
"Oh, so you have a majority of AV14 vehicles, a few chimera chasis and artillery hiding out of LOS. That's okay, I think my suits and Riptides should be fine for Anti-tank. Oh. Beast Hunter shells and battle cannons on everything. Nevermind. Nice trying to have a game."

The justification for that being okay was because the TO knew someone was bringing 6 vendettas and that would be a good counter to an all tank army. I'm starting to see it where people are look at something and if there is a hard counter available they give it the "balanced" stamp.

The AB list isn't all that bad. the Beast Hunter shells are very limited in availability (only available on HQ and Elite tanks taken as Vanquishers), and the list isn't going to bring any more battlecannons than what you could face from a Codex IG army. Concentrate on the few scoring units (remember those LR tanks in Troop slots don't get to score, and in Big Guns Never Tire they're not HS so don't score there either) and the list has to play for a draw, and if you get *anything* across the board, the tanks die (6" move max, no Overwatch, a squad with kraks/EMP/haywire/etc grenades will usually have few problems killing a 3HP rear AV10 tank).

If you're trying to sit across the board from it and win a pitched shooting battle, the AB will win because that's what it's best at doing. Don't do that.

With how easy tanks are to kill in 6E, Armored Battlegroup lists get eaten alive by most common tournament armies, certainly anything Biker oriented, Drop Pods, Eldar, or mobility/DS centric Tau, and usually anything with more than a couple FMC's will have an easy time against most AB lists. I've been on both sides playing with and against them, and once stuff crosses the board the AB collapses. If things get into melta and CC range, the AB will fold quickly, as it dies very quickly to these things, it's other tanks and hulks block LoS through each other (for non-squadroned vehicles), and it can't place templates touching its own vehicles, making it very difficult to land shots with battlecannons and the like.

Knights are a bit different, they are more mobile, can engage in CC quite well and don't have to worry about scoring units. That said, they don't have the same armor thickness or variety of weapons/capabilities and provide a smaller number of targets to concentrate on. A pure Knight army has no answer to a flight of Vendettas for example.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Even considering that, it seems rather unfair to the IK player.
"I'm bringing IK, what are you bringing?"
"Now I'm bringing a lot of deep striking melta."

In a Rock/paper/scissor match up someone decides to take all Rock, so then the opposing side just minimizes their Rock and scissors and puts as many points into paper as possible. It's just a terrible idea. That's why I like TAC lists. No list tailoring.

I do think the system does need a dedicated sideboard in place. Quick swapping special weapons before games, but point values make this difficult right now.

I'm a fan of giving the opponent SOME knowledge, along the lines of "I'm bringing space marines with IG allies"


he doesn't need to know my space Marines are a bike army and my IG is a vendetta air cav unit, but he knows what COULD be on the battlefeild and could plan around it.

I also have no trouble with quick swaps to account for suprises like allowing someone to trade his tatical marine squads vetern sergent for flakk missiles in his missile launcher.

the problem with that is IKs are a 2 unit codex, if that.
that said I'm of the opinion IKs, LotD, Inq, sure they're all seperate codexes but they're really intended to be used as allies,

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

Sometimes I really wonder if people realize it is a dice game and sometimes what should statistically happen just doesn't.

Statistically speaking 2 Skyrays should remove 1.67 HP from a knight. You managed over 5 times that amount. Yes, there is luck, but just because you got really lucky doesn't mean that a noncompetitive Tau list like that has a statistically balanced chance of taking down 5 knights. Which seemed to be the point of your initial post. You didn't say "I got incredibly lucky with a non-competitive Tau list and took down 5 knights" you said you took down 5 knights with a non-competitive tau list, which is leaving out major context.

And remember a 6 to pen on them does 1+D3 HPs damage... I rolled quite a few 6's.

And remember he needed 4+ to ignore that. The dice game argument rolls both ways, excuse the pun. You rolled a lot of 6's. Like a lot by my math. Like double what you should have been rolling. I think you should get them checked out before you start praising the gods of luck.

Well considering I caught him without his shield up for one of the skyrays, and got side armor with one dealing two glances and two pens. Which by my calculations would make it statistically likely. And the plasma rifles and fusion caught him without his shield one turn each I doubt the results will be that hard to duplicate. Besides I learned a trick in that game, charge melee with Firewarriors. Eight Firewarriors with stubborn and Ld 10 thanks to my Ethereal that was standing behind them held up a knight for three turns in melee. And since anything that can't hurt something in melee can leave whenever they want. I see tar pitting becoming a serious issue for IK players.

Those Fire Warriors would be smashed into fish sticks after one or two rounds let alone the 6 you mention. Did he forget about Stomp attacks?

I didn't know there was a stomp attack... What does it do? And yes apparently he did... Though I can hardly fault him I forgot to use the over charge on my riptides the first two weeks I had them.

One of my favorite unit is quite expensive (point-wise), and not very powerful, especially in the current meta, at least where I play. But it is extremely flavorful for my armu, and with good rolls, if my opponent makes a mistake, it can do hilarious damage. It is a dominion squad with 4 flamethrowers, one combi-flamethrower, and it used to have even an extra simulacrum on top of it when the Act of Faith still worked with flamethrowers, before GW replaced stupid idiocy with another stupid idiocy.
This unit cannot damage a knight. Well, actually, that unit can only damage a Knight by throwing ONE krak grenade each turn, and only when not facing the front. That unit cannot even capture objectives either, while the knight can.
I have never played against an Imperial Knight army before, but I do not expect it to be fun at all.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I didn't know there was a stomp attack... What does it do? And yes apparently he did... Though I can hardly fault him I forgot to use the over charge on my riptides the first two weeks I had them.

In close combat the knight stomps, place D3 blast markers within 3" of each other, the first marker has to be touching the knight's base, the rest can be anywhere within 3" of the previous one.

For each unit hit by a blast marker roll a D6 (and you roll each blast market separately), on a 1 nothing happens, 2-5 every model touched by the template takes a S6 AP4 hit, on a 6 every model under the blast marker is removed.

Combined with it's 3 strength D close combat attacks, it should be wiping out at least a handful of Fire Warriors each melee phase.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

Well considering I caught him without his shield up for one of the skyrays, and got side armor with one dealing two glances and two pens. Which by my calculations would make it statistically likely. And the plasma rifles and fusion caught him without his shield one turn each I doubt the results will be that hard to duplicate. Besides I learned a trick in that game, charge melee with Firewarriors. Eight Firewarriors with stubborn and Ld 10 thanks to my Ethereal that was standing behind them held up a knight for three turns in melee. And since anything that can't hurt something in melee can leave whenever they want. I see tar pitting becoming a serious issue for IK players.

You fielded in a corner yet managed to get a different facing with your skyrays? The only other two units capable of harming the knights were in reserves. I don't understand the geometry involved in this scenario.

Even unshielded for both skyrays. 12 shots, 10 hits, 1.67 glances and 1.67 pens, 0.28 chance to get an explosion. Total of 3.9 HP.
On side armor without a shield: 10 hits gets you 1.67 glances and 3.33 pens, 0.55 explosions. Total of one dead Knight after exhausting both skyrays into side/rear armor with no shield in place.
SO the statistically likely scenario is really if your opponent doesn't realize that you have no other anti-tank on the board and has trouble deciding which direction to face shields.

Plasma shooting into rear armor no shield, assuming BS5: 12 shots, 10 hits, 1.67 HP.
Wait. The fusion and plasma got no shield?! You had no other anti-tank on the board. How did he not face all shields towards fusion?

Wait. Your Skyray rammed the last knight? What did he spend 5 Knights worth of shooting on turn 1?
This confirms it for me. You were playing against someone who doesn't know what Melta weapons are. Or what Knights are for that matter.