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I have a good selection of Space Wolves and I have been thinking of picking up a Imperial Knight for games. Except, I have heard of no one playing them at all. I have seen at least 30-40 different players with tons of armies of every kind and never seen a single Knight anywhere. No one talks about them and no one even owns one or from those I talked too, has never even considered buying or or even knows what they can even do.

Are they worth it? Why is everyone so indifferent about them so much?

I personally like them. High AV, lots of AP, and the forgeworld ones have some cool weapons.

The issue with the Knights is that unless you're using FW variants the 2 unit choices in the codex limits how much you can change things up and limits you to playing games of fixed increments. The dollar price per model plays a part and wanting to use the FW models only makes that a bigger issue. There are a good number of people fielding individual Knights in their armies.

Which of the forge world imperial knights would be good?

Magaera looks kind of bad ass , but it says its classified as a titan? Is that the same thing? Not sure what the knights are actually classed as since they are so big.

Knights are super-heavy walkers. They're occasionally referred to as "Knight Titans", but they aren't actually Titans.

Fluff-wise, knights are considered titans, but this doesn't mean much. 40K has had titans creeping into it for a while now: the tyrannofex is the smallest bio-titan the tyranids field and it works a-okay in regular 40K.

Knights are pretty good for their points. They're relatively tough and pack a punch in close combat, but kind of lack in the shooting department.

When it comes to fielding knights, you should always look at what your army has and what it lacks. If you have no trouble with vehicles, you probably shouldn't field a vehicle-busting knight errant.

Knight paladins are the bread and butter unit, they're great against infantry and MEQ, can also deal with transports well thanks to ordnance and will kill most things in close combat.

The knight errant is all about tankbusting, this is what you take when you have trouble with land raiders and the like.

The magaera is the tank. Really difficult to take down, but sadly doesn't do much else.

The castigator is a great all rounder. The bolt cannon is alright at dealing with low AV vehicles and infantry, and can also be used against flyers because it's TL. This is the only knight that lacks a destroyer weapon, but more than makes up for it - the sword the castigator wields will destroy hordes easily.

The lancer exists to destroy other lords of war and the like. They are duelists. Their weapon can also be used as emergency AA, but it's not as good as the castigator bolt cannon.

The acheron is a nasty piece of work. It's good against infantry and MEQ, but can also wreck any vehicle it comes in contact with. Pretty expensive for what it does, but worth it if you want to burninate everything.

 Mumblez wrote:
Fluff-wise, knights are considered titans.

And the can of worms is opened

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mumblez wrote:
Fluff-wise, knights are considered titans.

And the can of worms is opened

Let me correct myself: knights are knights and they are occasionally referred to as knight titans. Better?

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Knights are super-heavy walkers. They're occasionally referred to as "Knight Titans", but they aren't actually Titans.

GW disagrees. It says 'Imperial Knight Titan' in the box.


As for using Knights, you need to use them aggressively to get their points worth of destruction. If you just stay back and shoot, you're wasting the CC power. Because they can fire multiple targets, you can fire the main weapon to one target and the heavy stubbers in the target you wish to charge; this can be quite effective. Main weakness is, that they're still rather easy to kill (getting around the shield is not too difficult), and are rather lot of eggs in one basket. I got totally crushed in my last game, when the opponent managed to destroy the knight in early in the game, and that was almost third of my army gone.

 Crimson wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Knights are super-heavy walkers. They're occasionally referred to as "Knight Titans", but they aren't actually Titans.

GW disagrees. It says 'Imperial Knight Titan' in the box.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Knights are super-heavy walkers. They're occasionally referred to as "Knight Titans", but they aren't actually Titans.

A Knight is no Godmachine, and is not part of nor controlled by the Legio Titanicus/Collegia Titanica or a Titan Legion. The name "Knight Titan" is a holdover from the very early times (Epic, I think), when they were simply the smallest kind of Titan. In the current state of the fluff, I imagine a Tech-Priest would be offended by the notion. They're even (somewhat) independent of the Mechanicus!

Knights are big and impressive, but they're really not powerful enough to be called "Titans". This is irrelevant to whether or not they should be added to an army, the answer to which is yes. Knights are cool, and they actually turn out fairly balanced for their points. They're a joy to look at, too.

/sigh

Okay, let's set this one straight. Imperial Knight Titans are in fact Titans from their earliest introduction to the 40k universe through to today. In the old fluff, Knights were Knight-class Scout Titans crafted by Forge Worlds for use on Agri Worlds that support those Forge Worlds with food. In the current fluff, Imperial Knights are ancient designs that pre-date all other Titan designs and are used by a third Human Empire as its iconic mode of battle. No where in the current fluff is the old fluff retconned, overridden, or revoked. Imperial Knights remain a class of small, single crew Titans that fulfill a battlefield role normally associated with Warhound Titans, yet bring with them the pagantry of mounted Knights of old, operation in Households rather than Colleges, and tend to mount lighter weapons than their heavier cousins.

In chronological order, Titans by age of design are as follows:

Knight-class (pre-diaspora)
Reaver-class (post-diaspora, Golden Age of Technology)
Warhound-class (Dark Age of Technology, AI War)
Warlord-class (Unification of Terra)
Emperor-class (Grand Crusade)

While there are a number of other Titan designs that have appeared in fluff, none can be said to be older than the utility Mech design early sub-light colonists took with them out to the stars, the utility Mechs at the heart of every Knight-class Titan. The Reaver is fundamentally an upsized Knight equipped specifically for warfare, while the Warhound was designed specifically as a heavy skirmisher and chase unit. The Emperor Himself requested the Warlord to spearhead His siege of reluctant Hive City, an order supplied by Mars. Mars designed the Emperor Titan in honor of the Emperor's Grand Crusade to unite the Human worlds of the galaxy.

In short, no matter how many times you say an Imperial Knight is not a real Titan, it never makes you correct. Knight are Titans, have always been Titans, and will remain Titans until such time as Geedub stops putting "Titan" on the box set any literally prints "Imperials are not Titans".

SJ

The whole "titan" - "not a titan" argument came from a single quote of fluff that effectively said "Knights though similar aren't the same as titans." This confusion on the titanic nature of Knights further is because in Epic 40k Knights were not categorically classed as "Titans."

The problem is the quote when cited and taken out of context ignores the rest of the paragraph which discussed some of the technology distinguishing Knights from other titans. The quote referred to the technology inside of Knights as being distinctive from the technology in side "Titans"... thus this semantic argument.

One can then throw in the fact that the only occasion that a Knight is referred to as a Knight Titan in print by GW is on the box (something I maintain was a deliberate troll by someone at GW) and in every other instance through the Codex and Companion they are referred to as Suits, plus the Warhound is explicitly referred to as the "smallest class of titan" in the Imperial Armour entry for it's rules, and the "Knights are Titans" campaign doesn't have a huge pool of evidence to draw upon.

I wish I had bought an Imperial Knight. They look so cool. Good thing Christmas is around the corner. I'd like to see a game with an imperial knight and khorne tank facing off. Would be epic.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Knights are super-heavy walkers. They're occasionally referred to as "Knight Titans", but they aren't actually Titans.

Yes they are.

The GW box even says "Imperial Knight Titan"

Knights are simply the smallest class of Titan, occupying the Scout designation along with Warhounds. Although the nature of the Knights themselves means they aren't used in quite the same way as Warhounds.

Someone didn't read the thread.

@ Vasarto: I'm assuming a major reason people are blasé about Imperial Knights is the fact that you pay $140 for the model (stunning as it is) and then another $50 bucks for a codex with one unit entry (no, a separate weapon for the errant doesn't count as a true second entry).

That and they have the reputation for game-inflation. They aren't necessarily game-breakers by any means, but they're like the gateway drug on the highway to fielding titans in a 28mm game. Some people think you can use the drug [knights] without risks of getting into harder things, but others think that's a slippery slope.

 Mumblez wrote:
The acheron is a nasty piece of work. It's good against infantry and MEQ, but can also wreck any vehicle it comes in contact with. Pretty expensive for what it does, but worth it if you want to burninate everything.

But will it burninate the country side and thatch roofed cottages?

And the acheron comes IN THE (K)NIGHT!!!

 Mumblez wrote:
And the acheron comes IN THE (K)NIGHT!!!

Exalted for that.