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So I'm writing a space wolf list at 1850. A friend of mine plays taudar, mainly for access to wraithknights. So I want to counter it with a big scary looking hard hitter. A lot of lists I see take imperial knights. Are they really that good? I don't have my rule book with me, as I'm at work for the next 11 hours. So I wonder if dakka could help me. Are they really 370 points worth?

One thing I definitely can't remember is how far they can move. In my head, being a super heavy Walker should mean they can move 12". But I have a feeling it's 6". If it is 6,surely everyone can avoid the D strength chain sword?

Help me dakka! You're my only hope....

They can definitely be worth it. They bring a lot to the table, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind with Knights.

As a pure shooting platform they are overcosted. You must use them for board control and melee otherwise it is a lot of wasted potential. If you aren't moving and pressuring your opponent every turn with them you are doing it wrong. You can easily pack more shooting into most armies for less so use everything the IK brings to the table.

You can fire at two different targets, fire your primary at a choice target, then use your Heavy Stubber to allow you to charge the second unit.

Avoid terrain. IKs move 12" and have move through cover, but when moving through cover they move as a walker with move through cover so 3d6" take the highest. With their huge base you need to be very conscious in the movement phase. A savvy opponent will outmaneuver a knight forcing it to lose a turn to movement or get bogged down. Base turning and position can be used here. Knights can be baited into terrain with a throwaway unit.

You have to point your weapon at your target, you've only got a 45 degree angle, so you have to be careful that when you are turning your base to avoid terrain, you don't turn out of your shooting arc.

Ion Shield, literally doubles the Knights resiliency from a single Arc. Use it wisely. Good opponents will outmaneuver the knight and force you to choose. Always always put the Shield towards the highest number of Melta, or any high rate of fire S7 guns from the rear.


The IK is about as point and click as it gets, but if you aren't careful in the Movement phase good opponents will punish you for it. Deployment and the Movement phases are the most imortant aspect of the game for IKs.


Everything I've covered is even more true for the Adamantine Lance Formation which is even tougher to move.

I thought Walkers had a 360 degree angle for shooting?
My Knight can rotate on its legs, so I'm not sure if you are correct.

It also tend to explode big style so good to be aggressive and explode on them rather than on you

I thought so to Kangodo. Or atleast that they could pivot after moving.

Kangodo wrote:
I thought Walkers had a 360 degree angle for shooting?
My Knight can rotate on its legs, so I'm not sure if you are correct.

Then you have been playing that incorrectly.

SHWs follow the rules for Walkers for Shooting. Specific exception being no Overwatch.

The rules for Walkers tell us how to fire its weapons. As these are more specific rules they take precedence over the mounting rules for vehicle weapons. Line of sight from the weapon and can swivel a total of 45 degrees Horizontal and Vertical. These are the exact same limitations for Dreadnought and other Walkers.


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 knightofkob wrote:
I thought so to Kangodo. Or atleast that they could pivot after moving.

Nope, no free pivot at the beginning of Shooting. That was an old rule that no longer exists. In fact, it is now spelled out in the Movement Section for Walkers that their facing matter and affects their ability to Shoot.


With Walkers you must end their movement with your intended target within a 45degree total arc from the weapon barrel.

Many people are playing this incorrectly.


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 Mr Morden wrote:
It also tend to explode big style so good to be aggressive and explode on them rather than on you

Yes, yes they do.

I'm still waiting for the destruction of one IK to kill another right next to it.....

OK, so with a 12" move I can see a definite use for one in my list. Especially for board dominating and drawing firepower.

i believe it was a rule where they simply pivoted on the spot but in 7th at least it does say 45 degree arcs, however they may fire overwatch at any angle unless immobilized (superheavies obviously cant do that since they dont fire overwatch).

So tactically speaking it is best to use them for board domination? What about using them as a sheep dog to herd your opponent into a killing zone....

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
So tactically speaking it is best to use them for board domination? What about using them as a sheep dog to herd your opponent into a killing zone....

IMO Board control is extremely important and the best use of a IK. Their mere presence will control your opponent's movements in most scenarios, denying an area of the board and forcing them somewhere else are effective and both covered in board control.

The Knight also must advance every turn and look to engage in Melee a high priority hard target laying down firepower on advance. Remember it is possible to use your main weapon against one unit, and target a closer unit with the Heavy Stubber and assault the Stubber unit even if the Stubber won't do anything, it opens up two potential assault targets. Only being able to target 5-7 units a game is a limitation and that trick is the only way to get around it.

Throw the knight at something your opponent wants to keep alive. Its tough so even if he throws everything at it its sitll going to take a while to get down. Your knight will always have a big "shoot me" sign hanging from his chest. Once you are close enough to engage throw it at any high value target. Your D chain sword will murder MCs and vehicles in CC. And when you are all done you get D3 stomps that get a chance REMOVE A MODEL FROM PLAY. This one is big for if you fail your bid to smash that Greater Daemon you can smoke him with your big ol feet. Additionally, if he sucks big time with rolls like my knight sometimes does he can still die and make a massive D/10/6 explosion, and if you are lucky and you've closed the gap it will scatter right into that big mass of troops hiding behind the aegis and turn them into a fine red mist. So yeah, knights are pretty darn cool, and fun to paint. I won't play mine every game, but it certainly adds a bit of fun to the game and lets you try new tactics.

I play a pure imperial knight army, and the above advice is pretty much spot on. The other thing I would add is that since they can score they make an awesome contesting unit. Just remember that with only 6 hull points they can indeed die.

Play necrons and laugh at knights. Seriously. I've played against them three times. Once 2, the other times 1. Every time I downed the knights easily with cron cheese and the rest of the army was easy to handle. Guy at the tournament who was playing 2 persuaded the TO that they move through cover 3d6, pick the highest AND THEN DOUBLE IT! I can understand his desire for that to be the case. Keeping terrain between you and knights really screws them up. Any skimmer/Jetbike army can avoid them. Haywire, gauss, sweep attacks.


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I suppose I'm saying I don't think they are worth the points the way a wraithknight is.

Riptides and wraithknights are better for the points. It's kind of sad that the imperial answer to them is 370+ points when those models check in between 180-280 depending on upgrades. You could have 2 riptides for the price of 1 knight. I think the points are better spent elsewhere. Certain tournaments have run mission styles that make IK good in that meta but just playing rulebook missions I think they're too pricey, especially after the nerf to D weapons.

But riptides and wraithknights aren't readily available to imperial armies really. Not when you want to stay battle brothers. I also don't think D weapons are all that terrible. Considering it can end a riptide with a single swipe of his Chainsword. And if the wraithknight doesn't punch it to death it can do the same to that....

Plus they look cool.

Toofast wrote:
Riptides and wraithknights are better for the points. It's kind of sad that the imperial answer to them is 370+ points when those models check in between 180-280 depending on upgrades. You could have 2 riptides for the price of 1 knight. I think the points are better spent elsewhere. Certain tournaments have run mission styles that make IK good in that meta but just playing rulebook missions I think they're too pricey, especially after the nerf to D weapons.

I wouldn't say Riptides and Wraithknights are better than a Knight. Riptides can be more shooty, but require support and do not exert the amount of board control nor Melee threat. Wraithknights are immensely powerful, around 2/3 the points, are less of a Melee threat and bring less effective shooting plus have some other counters.


I'd rate them all on par with each other, with the Riptide falling slightly short to the Wraithknight, and the Imperial Knight being around as good as the Wraithknight. Dreadknights will enter the mix and will be better than the Riptide and on par with the Wraithknight.

How many obliterator do i need to kill 1 imp knight in 1 turn?

Damn necrons can use any gauss! Why they so over powered! 1 warrior at 13 flash lights can glance a knight. I have to pay atleast 70 flash light for a lascannon and only for every other turn!

Gauss isn't the best for Knights. 25 pt Stormtek has 4 BS4 Haywire shots. Two generally ends a Knight.

Wtf? For just 25 pts. A storm tek can destroy a imp knight! Thats real good. I been playing the wrong army.

OK, so let's change the direction of this tactics thread slightly then. How about the viability or strengths of knights as a Detachment. So running a pure knight army? My friend and I have just started playing 1850, and for that I can take 5 knight errants for 1850 on the nose. How strong is this list build?

 Filch wrote:
Wtf? For just 25 pts. A storm tek can destroy a imp knight!

That is a very unlikely result for one shot.

The biggest problem with a Knight is that it is a vehicle and not a MC. MCs are still the most broadly survivable units in the game. Necrons pose a hard counter to IKs and other point sinks into vehicles. Grav guns and drop pod melta strikes also pose problems.

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
OK, so let's change the direction of this tactics thread slightly then. How about the viability or strengths of knights as a Detachment. So running a pure knight army? My friend and I have just started playing 1850, and for that I can take 5 knight errants for 1850 on the nose. How strong is this list build?

You will do quite well if you dont play Maelstrom. 5 Errants will generally remove a couple of units a turn between them. Run two pairs, and then the remainder send as a distracting "kill me or be killed"

I would like to interject with another question: what do people think better; Errants or Paladins?

I might be wrong, as I am also at work and dont have my brb handy, but I thought in 7ed they made is so that a non-immobilized walker no longer had to pivot at all to shoot at its targer (similar to infantry). Ergo you can leave the facing in the direction you want your AV13 on and still shoot something behind you.

 Gideon999 wrote:
I might be wrong, as I am also at work and dont have my brb handy, but I thought in 7ed they made is so that a non-immobilized walker no longer had to pivot at all to shoot at its targer (similar to infantry). Ergo you can leave the facing in the direction you want your AV13 on and still shoot something behind you.

Absolutely not. I've referenced the relevant sections above.

When moving Walker Facing matters.

Walkers fire from the weapon with a total 45 degree Horizontal and Vertial LoS arcs.

Walker Shooting Rules overrul general vehicle weapon rules for determining LoS.

Super Heavy Walkers overrule Walker's permission to fire Overwatch.

The only time a Walker can fire outside of its weapons LoS is when firing Overwatch, they have specific permission to do so. Of course SHWs remove the permission to fire Overwatch.



To the OPs new questions, I'd rather go 2 Knight Detachment and an Adamantine Lance formation. Even if you split after Turn 2, its still a huge boost to Defense.

5 Knights is a super tough army and works extremely well against super elite armies, but they have their limitations. For instance, an 18+ ObSec Marine list can still quite easily win an Objective Based Mission or Maelstrom for that matter.
There definitely are builds out there that are a pretty hard counter to a full IK army. Its an army that will stomp most people, but not one that can't be beaten.


I for one wouldn't enjoy playing it or playing against it.

a knight one shot my baneblade on front armor, so i guess there is that. of course the guy I was playing said no D weapons, yet when it came time for him to attack, he allowed d weapons in melee only. cheating bastard

I run a lancer, 2 paladins and 2 errants; pretty tough except vs. fliers.

 IHateNids wrote:
I would like to interject with another question: what do people think better; Errants or Paladins?

I think that really depends on your army.
On Necrons I usually have enough Gauss.
On my Blood Angels I have enough Fists and/or Melta-weapons.

So for me I would benefit most from some long-range weaponry and I prefer the Paladin.

Yeah, the Paladin seems better overall, but there's an awful lot of hate on them due to an "only AP3" main gun. I reckon a Paladin makes one of the best single anti infantry units going at the moment, as it will comfortably remove an awful lot of anything in a single volley.

 IHateNids wrote:
Yeah, the Paladin seems better overall, but there's an awful lot of hate on them due to an "only AP3" main gun. I reckon a Paladin makes one of the best single anti infantry units going at the moment, as it will comfortably remove an awful lot of anything in a single volley.

And an equal number of points in Stock Leman Russes is harder to kill at range and puts out way more dakka against more units.


Knights are a points inefficient shooting unit in general, but at least the Errant fills an Anti AV niche with Melta. Knights need to control the board and assault something choice.