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So they are! Bit beyond my monthly budget but might as well!

You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?

Their weapons are strong for how much they cost. They're also slower and weaker than Titans, and will face much greater impediments from terrain - unless you're playing on Planet Bowlingball, you're going to have to be a very Clever Girl to go "Reaver hunting" with these guys, since a lot of the time the Reaver you're hunting will be able to get a solid couple of turns worth of fire into you before you're able to see it properly over/around 2-story buildings. Plus they still have, to a degree, the same flaw all Knights have, in that they drop dead if a Warlord decides to take a serious look at them, and further they won't do hugely well up-close with melee Knights, so fire your Knight screen right into them and they'll have to choose between defending themselves or continuing to attack your engines.

Look I get some people are disappointed that the game isn't exclusively Titans, and that Knights are more than a minor inconvenience that your favoured big stompy deathbots can just wade through, but the way it is is the way it is.

Will any of these cards and dice have limited availability?

I wants to get the Knights, command terminal cards and (probably) the dice right now but I'd prefer to wait a couple of months getting the rest of the cards.

Chopstick wrote:


Ionstorm rocket pod is not a rapid firing weapon nor does it fire out 6 shot while the model itself only have 5 ready warheads

The model has a missile pod with lots of smaller missiles, just use that.

 Nostromodamus wrote:

Chopstick wrote:


Ionstorm rocket pod is not a rapid firing weapon nor does it fire out 6 shot while the model itself only have 5 ready warheads

The model has a missile pod with lots of smaller missiles, just use that.

That is also not a rapid firing weapon nor does fire 6 shot in any publication of 40k. If there are anything to compare it's (the helios defense missile) a stormspear rocket pod that was made to target flyer instead of ground target.

Even if that was true, rule writer should not be confused between the weapons, just like how the sculptor for the knight upgrade kit can't tell which one is a Stormspear rocket pod, and which is an Ionstorm missile pod.

 crnaguja wrote:
So, some genius thought that 16 potential hits with str 9 at 48" for 200 is a good idea? Warhound with twin megabolters is 200 points, and it spits 12 shots at range 20". Acastus seems to be quite a bit underpointed

Well, they are the same geniuses who thought various FW characters and heresy tanks / dreadnoughts (costing anywere between third to half less than comparable 40K units, on top of having way better stats) are ""balanced"". So yeah, sounds about right, if anything, it's pretty tame by their standards.

Now waiting for the arrival of 'm-my leviathans deredeos acastus spam list i-is p-perfectly fine and anyone who hates it is just e-elitist j-j-jerk!' brigade

Chopstick wrote:
Except for the Gatling weapons, which is a mess.

To be fair here, 40K range and accuracy of titan gatlings is based on firing on human, at worst squad sized targets. Titan sized target would make accuracy issues much lesser problem.

 Yodhrin wrote:
You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?

You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?

Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...

Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.

Regardless of the overall price, the two weapon sets should not be the same price when one is outright better than the other.
At this time the only reason to take the magna-las build is because that’s what the kit comes with and you don’t want to convert or proxy. And that should never be the case.

 Irbis wrote:

To be fair here, 40K range and accuracy of titan gatlings is based on firing on human, at worst squad sized targets. Titan sized target would make accuracy issues much lesser problem.

By range the Avenger got 24", which convert to equivalent of artillery tier weaponry. Their "real" range is 12". Meanwhile higher tier Gatling weapon like the 10 barrel Castigator and Vulcan Bolter have LESS range than the avenger. The Castigator cannon also had incorrect range, they'r the same as the Avenger.

By attack the Avenger despite having only 6 barrels shoot more than 10 barrels Vulcan Mega Bolter, despite all publication of 40k say otherwise, It did have more shot than Castigator Bolt cannon in 7th edition (less in 8th), because the Castigator have twin linked instead.

By power all the gatling should be equally capable of piercing through void shield according to their 7th ed rule. But due to the different approach to void shield in AT, they had to be tone down, along with attack number to avoid stripping shield too fast.

Even if it was for balancing, keep the power level between the guns correctly, lower tier gun had weird superiority over higher tier gun make no sense. Maybe at 12" range, the correct S and a price jump they wouldn't be as "OP" as rule writer think they are.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Incidentally, is there any reason to buy two rules-sets if the wife and I are both going to be playing? I imagine a 2nd set of dice and consoles isn't a bad idea, but getting stuck with the extra, pricey, hardcover kind of feels inefficient.

Basically just trying to figure out if it is better to buy that, or the individual weapon/console packs? I suppose I could just photocopy the one set and laminate them...?

FWIW, we started by buying terminal packs and weapon card packs individually. However, we eventually picked up two Rules Sets because each set is kinda designed on the assumption only one player is using it. (Same deal as the X-Wing starter set.)

You can get by just fine with only one set, but you'll have to share a few things, like the arc templates, the battlefield asset plastic models (so you can't both take the same asset), the strategem cards and so on. The strategems are especially annoying because they include mission objective cards for Matched Play. This means that if both sides choose the same mission, you can't both take the same mission card for handy reference--which is also awkward since you're meant to choose secretly. Fortunately the mission objectives are in the rulebook too, so one player can use the cards and the other can refer to the book... but it's a little inconvenient.

It's also handy to have two rulebooks so you can both look things up during a game. Or rather, get frustrated flicking back and forth because the rule isn't in the place you thought it would be.

I wouldn't worry about it yet until you're sure you like the game. The thing is, if you do like the game, you're eventually going to want more terminals and weapon cards anyway. At some point it will become cost-effective to get a second rules set and get all the extras in a bundle--while also solving all the minor niggling firstworldproblems of only having one set.

In your case, since you've bought two battlegroups, you'll definitely need two extra terminals for the Warhounds and some extra Warhound weapon cards. (The Rules Set only includes enough for a pair of 'hounds.) But you can just use the printable PDF versions of the terminals from the Warhammer Community site for now, and photocopy the weapon cards if you like.

Also, make sure you check out the FAQ/errata document. There are several important rules fixes in it, including victory points for mission objectives.

And don't underestimate the power of blu-tack for holding Titan armour plates and weapons on, so you can play games before you've finished painting everything.

 Irbis wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?

You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?

Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...

Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.

Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.

All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.

Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.

So do I understand correctly that a Magna + Mortar build is not legal rules wise?

Why put the Mortar front on the sprue then

Either include all weapons options or only put one build on the sprue.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?

You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?

Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...

Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.

Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.

All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.

Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.

They just seem like a too much firepower for to little points. I mean, their gun has twice the firepower of reaver volcano cannon. And larger blast? I mean sure ok (although I think magma and ironstrom might be better then conversion beamer and mortar). Only thing these knights are afraid of is belicosa. And even then it one-shots them only on 5+. Just like the titans can have cover and hide, so can knights. Except knights dont have movement restrictions. I might be wrong, but when I compare 2 of porphyrion to a warhound, I dont see why would I take warhound (I will still take warhound cause they are cool). I mean they also have 36" vulcan megabolter. So there is a real possibility they will strip warhounds void shield even before they fire with magma cannons. And I am afraid that warhound without shields will have a hard time surviving a barrage from magma cannons. If it survives it will be heavily damaged.

 TBD wrote:
So do I understand correctly that a Magna + Mortar build is not legal rules wise?

Why put the Mortar front on the sprue then

Either include all weapons options or only put one build on the sprue.

It's not mortar, it's the helios defense missile. The mortar look very difference, it's 3 rows of exposed warheads.

 TBD wrote:
Why put the Mortar front on the sprue then

It's not on the sprue - the Porphyrion has different missile options (Ironstorm Missile Pod or Helios Defence Missiles) which look different:



I assume the Helios AA missiles are future-proofing the model.

 crnaguja wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?

You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?

Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...

Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.

Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.

All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.

Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.

They just seem like a too much firepower for to little points. I mean, their gun has twice the firepower of reaver volcano cannon. And larger blast? I mean sure ok (although I think magma and ironstrom might be better then conversion beamer and mortar). Only thing these knights are afraid of is belicosa. And even then it one-shots them only on 5+. Just like the titans can have cover and hide, so can knights. Except knights dont have movement restrictions. I might be wrong, but when I compare 2 of porphyrion to a warhound, I dont see why would I take warhound (I will still take warhound cause they are cool). I mean they also have 36" vulcan megabolter. So there is a real possibility they will strip warhounds void shield even before they fire with magma cannons. And I am afraid that warhound without shields will have a hard time surviving a barrage from magma cannons. If it survives it will be heavily damaged.

Again though - the 3 esses; size, speed, survivability. Acastus are slightly smaller than the Warhound and their paired guns require unobstructed LOS from both to fire without penalty. Acastus are slower than Warhounds, and to engage at appreciable distance or against enemies in partial cover they need to be stationary and on orders. They're hefty for Knights, but still not anything like a proper Engine.

A Warhound can dash from cover to cover without exposing itself and still do its job as a skirmish-harasser providing as I said the table is done properly. A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range. Plus, almost all the "worst case scenario" situations for the enemy of an Acastus also leaves the Acastus completely exposed to that enemy, so if you must confront them it's up to you to ensure you do it with an Engine that can handle their alpha and flatten them in return.

This is why I think their actual impact on the table is not going to be titans exploding willy nilly every turn, it's going to be area denial. They can put out a scary amount of fire in the right scenario, but you can avoid that scenario without too much trouble, the key is whether avoiding it will deny you a section of the board you wanted to exploit as part of your battle plan. And that sounds pretty spot-on to me in terms of a unit like this - they're as strong as they need to be to be a genuine threat, but that threat is avoidable with some thought. If they were any weaker they wouldn't be enough of a threat to be worth avoiding, and the Knight player would only have diminished their force by including them.

There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?

Count me in the 'concerned' camp. On paper (cardboard), the Acastus do look undercosted and overpowered to me. Keen to hear people's actual experiences with them.

Does anyone know if the Acastus were playtested during the original development of the AT rules (which had extensive testing by GW/FW standards), or if they've only been added on since Hewitt left?

 Yodhrin wrote:
... A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range.

I'm having trouble picturing this scenario. If the Reaver or Warlord can see the Acastus, why can't the Acastus can see and shoot it right back?

OK, the Titan might be partly obscured by terrain--say a building that comes up to its waist, or a tall but skinny bit of terrain that leaves only the weapons exposed to aim at the Knight. That means the Acastus will suffer a to-hit modifier when it returns fire. But it can still have a crack at the enemy.

And both Titans and Acastus have barrage weapons to ignore LOS.

I concede that volcano cannons and apocalypse launchers have longer range than Acastus weapons, but Matched Play games are on 4'x4' tables, so it won't come up that often.

And if you're using the terrain-destroying rules, Acastus would be pretty good at clearing away inconvenient buildings...

---

The main thing that worries me is that because Knights break many of the basic game rules, they're unaffected by some of the risk/reward mechanics and limitations built into the Titans. It's not just the 360 degree fire arcs.

For instance, Knights don't have plasma reactors. On the Titans, the draining and maximal fire traits offset the more powerful weapons. Warhounds with twin plasma blastguns can be devastating, but if you power up the shots you may overheat and blow up. Reavers and Warlords firing their volcano cannons need to choose their shots carefully and won't have as much reactor power for movement, boosting shields, etc. I have a Reaver with twin volcano cannons and he's a lot of fun, not to mention quite useful as a psychological terror weapon, but he needs very cautious play (and usually a power-generator battlefield asset nearby) to keep him from going nuclear.

Plus, with plasma blastguns and melta cannons, their limited range means there's always the risk that a missed shot will scatter back into your own models, causing hilarity for young and old. It's like snooker with miniature suns.

But a banner of Acastus can cheerfully blast away with conversion beamers all day long without breaking into a sweat. Say you have a single Acastus. That's four 5" blast markers anywhere on the enemy's half of a Matched Play table within LOS. No reactor draining risk of overheating or limitation on movement (apart from wanting to get the order bonus). And not much worrying about scatter danger at long range.

Titans also fire their weapons one at a time when they activate. This is true even of squadrons--you activate one model at a time, and fire one weapon at a time. Say a Warhound fires its twin blastguns. If you don't go for a targeted attack on a specific location (which would mean a severe to-hit modifier), you're unlikely to hit the same location with both weapons. And blast weapons can't do targeted attacks anyway. That's why volcano cannons, plasma blastguns, melta cannons and inferno guns are great for damaging a Titan's structure, but not much good for finishing it off. For that you need a 'rib-kicker' like a lasblaster or a sunfury, which can target a damaged location and zap it for the killing blow. (You can also use a high-dice, low-Strength weapon for this to offset the to-hit modifier, if the location is already severely damaged and you're in a side or rear arc.)

But... if you have a full banner of four Acastus, that means sixteen 5" blast markers. And any blast that centres the hole over the target scores two hits rather than one. That's potentially 32 hits from a Strength 9 weapon.

OK, sure, say half of them miss and don't clip the target (or other enemies) despite being a big blast. That's still about 16 hits. Our void shields won't last long against firepower of that magna-tude. ( )

And unlike a Titan or a squadron, the beamers all fire at the same time. You treat all the weapons of the same type in a banner as a single firing weapon and add up all the dice for a single roll. All those beamers count as the equivalent of a single Titan gun. So if the enemy has already lost its shields, you only roll once for the weapon location. Every single one of those Strength 9 blasts is going to hit the same location. All your opponent can do is pray you hit a weapon, disabling it but inflicting no further damage (although we can assume it's really, really disabled). Because if it hits the head, body or legs, that's a dead Titan.

Of course, you can't knock the shields down and destroy the Titan this way, because all the beamers fired at once. But hey, that's OK, we have secondary barrage weapons too! Fire those first to get rid of the shields.

Or, because the best kill is overkill, you could mix magna lascannon Acastus with conversion beamer Acastus into the same banner (assuming they're Household Support). Two different weapons--so you fire one after the other. That gets you three 'firing weapons' instead of two for shield/structure combo-ing. Use the rocket weapons first, then the lascannons, then the beamers. Oh, and you're on Split Fire orders? Don't mind if I do.

Somebody please find some holes in my argument, 'cos I don't like where this is going.

I mean, it struck me as odd that the Warlord Titan's sunfury plasma annihilator doesn't have a blast despite it being traditional for GW plasma weapons. But if it did have a blast it would probably be too powerful. Four shots = four blasts = eight potential hits per sunfury = a Warhound with twin blastguns strapped to your arm, except all the hits would strike the same spot, which is usually even better. (It would also mean no really good rib-kicker for a Warlord arm weapon, of course.)

Yet now we have these crazy Knights with their crazyguns for cheaps. I am uneasy and ambivalent.

That's not to say they're invincible. You could activate first (or with first fire) and wipe them off the board before they get a shot in. It might still work.

Maybe.

We should go back to "news and rumour"

Actually, that’s a point; I understand the Warlord plasma gun doesn’t have the blast rule simply because it covered too much real estate in markers in testing; how’d these guys slip by? I just don’t have that many…

Eumerin wrote:
There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?

We're happy to give it a shot.

I'll pit my mandatory Venator maniple(1 Reaver, 2 Warhounds) against 7 Acastus - using Questoris as substitutes. I shall play to win as the maniple(its my pride and joy) and my brother will do the same as the Acastus(he prefers the simplicity of Knights).

To quote Capcom's 1943...May we fight bravely!

SamusDrake wrote:

Eumerin wrote:
There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?

We're happy to give it a shot.

I'll pit my mandatory Venator maniple(1 Reaver, 2 Warhounds) against 7 Acastus - using Questoris as substitutes. I shall play to win as the maniple(its my pride and joy) and my brother will do the same as the Acastus(he prefers the simplicity of Knights).

To quote Capcom's 1943...May we fight bravely!

So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.

Zenithfleet wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
... A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range.

I'm having trouble picturing this scenario. If the Reaver or Warlord can see the Acastus, why can't the Acastus can see and shoot it right back?

OK, the Titan might be partly obscured by terrain--say a building that comes up to its waist, or a tall but skinny bit of terrain that leaves only the weapons exposed to aim at the Knight. That means the Acastus will suffer a to-hit modifier when it returns fire. But it can still have a crack at the enemy.

And both Titans and Acastus have barrage weapons to ignore LOS.

I concede that volcano cannons and apocalypse launchers have longer range than Acastus weapons, but Matched Play games are on 4'x4' tables, so it won't come up that often.

And if you're using the terrain-destroying rules, Acastus would be pretty good at clearing away inconvenient buildings...

You measure LoS from the weapon in AT. Most people I've seen have tended to agree that the "elbow" is the best place to draw a line from, since that mostly ignores the weapon's posing and removes any nonsense about titans waving their guns above their head to get better LoS from the tip of the barrel.

Given that and the height difference between them, it's entirely possible to position a Reaver such that intervening terrain allows your guns to draw LoS to the Acastus, while their guns - their main arm guns at any rate - cannot draw LoS back. And, again, since the arm weapons are Paired the negative modifiers can stack up very quickly - firing half the dice at 6's to hit is quite a lot less scary.

Most of your objections, and this is a theme among people I've seen decrying the Acastus, seem to be less about the Acastus and more about the fact Knights exist at all as anything more than something Titans step on. Knights don't follow the rules in the same way as Titans, no. That's rather the point, they provide a different style of play, and demand a different kind of tactics. I wonder how all the people who lament Knights "breaking the game" by not acting in exactly the same manner as Imperial Titans are going to react when they eventually do add Xenos engines? Seriously, go play BFG against an Eldar fleet some time if you want a taste of what's to come, by the end you'll think playing against Knights is akin to a glass of lovely cold cider on a hot sunny day by comparison

Chopstick wrote:
So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.

Its the Kobashi Maru, Chopstick! The challenge has been laid down and I shall take as much of the enemy with me!

Seriously, that is a good point. I've overlooked the Ferrox light maniple, which would allow for close-range attack bonuses. Titandeath features a third option - the "Janissary" maniple - with the same titans, but I don't own a copy of Titandeath for its specific rules. The Lupercal maniple would also be a good test - 3 titans vs 6 knights for a 660 point match. The rules for them were posted in news articles from January, and I do have a third "DIY" hound to use...

SamusDrake wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.

Its the Kobashi Maru, Chopstick! The challenge has been laid down and I shall take as much of the enemy with me!

Seriously, that is a good point. I've overlooked the Ferrox light maniple, which would allow for close-range attack bonuses. Titandeath features a third option - the "Janissary" maniple - with the same titans, but I don't own a copy of Titandeath for its specific rules. The Lupercal maniple would also be a good test - 3 titans vs 6 knights for a 660 point match. The rules for them were posted in news articles from January, and I do have a third "DIY" hound to use...

Janissary allow you to choose a knight banner within 6" of a titan in movement phase, after that titan moved you can activate the banner.

With overcharged cannon and ferox light it's not hard to delete an acastus or two with the plasma gun. But if the battlefield is too big the hound might not be able to get within range

Chopstick wrote:

Janissary allow you to choose a knight banner within 6" of a titan in movement phase, after that titan moved you can activate the banner.

With overcharged cannon and ferox light it's not hard to delete an acastus or two with the plasma gun. But if the battlefield is too big the hound might not be able to get within range

Much appreciated.

I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.

I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower. An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.

It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.

Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.

Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.

This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.

Mandragola wrote:
I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.

I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower.

Then what have we been doing for the last few pages? There's plenty of disagreement over that claim.

An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.

They have enough firepower to perform their role, which IMO is area denial and punishing Titans that just strut around believing Knights aren't worth their bother. Make them weaker and Titans will ignore them. Make them more expensive and you'd be better just going back to spamming regular Knights. Rather than comparing one weapon to another in isolation, try considering the unit as a whole and in its proper context.

It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.

In what universe is it bizarre to point out terrain as a factor - if your Acastus is hiding it almost certainly isn't shooting and, fun fact: tall things can see over obstructions small things can't, while still being hidden from the small thing by said obstruction. As for moving, if it's "kiting" then it's not on Orders and so *at best* will have a 50/50 chance of hitting, assuming its enemy is advancing directly towards it down a completely open corridor at optimal range. Which actually leads into...

Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.

Huh, it's almost as if the entire point of the unit is to give rise to situations where the Knight player has the opportunity to make the Titan player choose between sub-optimal courses of action, rather than just autopiloting through the game deleting banners. Target priority, in MY wargame?

Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.

This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.

Yup, only belicosas, nothing else. Well, except for "don't play on Planet Bowlingball". And "deploy your Engines so that the ones that can handle Acastus fire are the only practicable targets". And "use terrain to maneuver to minimise their opportunities to fire at you". And "use terrain to push in a couple of Warhounds in a pincer and maximal plasma them in the face". And running a screen of your own Knights with themal cannons and a meltanipple or two.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.

I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower.

Then what have we been doing for the last few pages? There's plenty of disagreement over that claim.

I’d characterise what we’ve been doing as arguing, not debating. The factual analysis is entirely one-way. There’s one group of players observing that up to 16 S9 hits a turn from a 100 point model looks excessive, with various comparisons, tests and modelling (not much of it on this forum, to be fair). Another group says everything will be fine and we shouldn’t worry.

I find this outlook extremely odd. I guess if GW/FW had a history of perfectly balanced rules then we could be asked to give them the benefit of the doubt. This obviously isn’t the case. It’s very easy to play the “grownup” by laughing at all the people who are worried about what looks like bad rules – but it doesn’t automatically make you right. There have been lots of occasions in the past when GW really have messed up rules, resulting in some models or factions dominating games. It’s obviously possible that they’d have done it again in this case.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.

They have enough firepower to perform their role, which IMO is area denial and punishing Titans that just strut around believing Knights aren't worth their bother. Make them weaker and Titans will ignore them. Make them more expensive and you'd be better just going back to spamming regular Knights. Rather than comparing one weapon to another in isolation, try considering the unit as a whole and in its proper context.

Ok so your point isn’t that the Acastus has more firepower than titans that cost two or three times as much. You just think that’s ok. I disagree.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.

In what universe is it bizarre to point out terrain as a factor - if your Acastus is hiding it almost certainly isn't shooting and, fun fact: tall things can see over obstructions small things can't, while still being hidden from the small thing by said obstruction. As for moving, if it's "kiting" then it's not on Orders and so *at best* will have a 50/50 chance of hitting, assuming its enemy is advancing directly towards it down a completely open corridor at optimal range. Which actually leads into...

Line of sight is two-way. If you can see me then I can almost always see you. The shape of the Acastus is such that it’s going to be extremely difficult to see it without its guns getting a line of sight on you back, as they are mounted pretty high up on it. If you can’t see its guns it’s going to be at least 50% obscured and you’ll be at -2 to hit. You might be able to see only one of its guns but that’s just as likely when firing back at the titan.

Meanwhile of course it’s entirely possible for the Acastus to get a building between itself and a titan, in such a way that the titan’s arms aren’t able to see it. An Acastus can weather things like apocalypse missiles very easily. Most of its guns fire blasts, so even some of the ones that scatter will hit.

If you’re moving around terrain it helps to be small, to have 360 degree line of sight and to have weapons that don’t need to see their targets. Terrain therefore helps the knights more than it helps the titans.

Then of course there’s the simple fact that there will be more knights than titans. If the knight player has any sense at all they’ll be spread out, with lines of fire covering lots of the board from different directions. So you might hide from some of them but hiding from them all will be challenging. If you do manage to get yourself behind some kind of redoubt then you’ll eventually have to get yourself out again too if you want to advance, which might not be easy.

The point on orders is flat wrong, obviously. The Acastus also gets BS 3+ on split fire orders. It can still move in any direction because it has no facings. It can still fire all its guns at one target if it wants, or maybe fire its arm guns at something without shields while stripping them from another titan with its missiles/mortar.

All of which is to say that yes, terrain makes a difference. It helps the knight more than it helps the titan.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.

Huh, it's almost as if the entire point of the unit is to give rise to situations where the Knight player has the opportunity to make the Titan player choose between sub-optimal courses of action, rather than just autopiloting through the game deleting banners. Target priority, in MY wargame?

It’s not really a question of target priority. You have to kill the melee knights first because they are in the way, and the Acastus aren’t in range anyway. But this means the Acastus get free shots at your titans. The titan player isn’t making choices about priority – they are taking the only option available.

But actually, why would you take melee titans now? What’s the point in paying 170 points for two lancers, who could potentially get 8 S8 hits if they manage a 12” charge, when you could have a Porphyron for 70 points less that can get 8 S8 hits every time it fires? Why bother running all that way just to do something you could achieve from your deployment zone?

You can field 18 Acastus knights at 1750 points. How would you beat that list, assuming a competent player was running it?

 Yodhrin wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.
This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.

Yup, only belicosas, nothing else. Well, except for "don't play on Planet Bowlingball". And "deploy your Engines so that the ones that can handle Acastus fire are the only practicable targets". And "use terrain to maneuver to minimise their opportunities to fire at you". And "use terrain to push in a couple of Warhounds in a pincer and maximal plasma them in the face". And running a screen of your own Knights with themal cannons and a meltanipple or two.

Yes, only bellicosas. Nothing else can kill an Acastus outside of 24”, except very slowly with lasers (which can’t get better than a direct hit). To get closer than that you need to get past the other knights, which will be mean to you. You might get to them eventually with other engines but even then you’re realistically looking at plasma weapons and meltas to threaten them.

Plasma hounds can threaten Acastus knights, if they get close enough. Two double-plasma hounds cost about as much as five Acastus knights. To get their squadron bonus they have to both target the same one. That one knight is probably dead, but the other four (or like 3.8) are fine.

By the way, what do you imagine that those questoris knights are going to accomplish against Acastus knights?

Oh and what are these units that “can handle Acastus fire”, exactly? A warlord costs about as much as five of these things. It can’t just ignore through 30 S4 attacks and 20 S9 blasts (potentially up to 80 S9 hits if they first fire. 80!!). Oh but that's ok because somehow the 5" tall model with a 4" move that can do a single turn is going to outmanoeuvre 5 smaller, faster models that can move and fire in any direction. The warlord player can just use terrain. Easy peasy.

Well, if anyone was like me and didn't jump on the stratagem cards right away, they're now sold out.

This is not how you grow a game or support vets, Gee Dub.

 gorgon wrote:
Well, if anyone was like me and didn't jump on the stratagem cards right away, they're now sold out.

This is not how you grow a game or support vets, Gee Dub.

Yes, the best way to grow a game is to... have less demand than supply