Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Never?

All going to depend on your opponent.

At 1,500 points, your foe may lack the firepower or hittiness to threaten your Knight before it's smashed up his lines.

It's not just that they're tough, but depending on equipment they can do over four units a turn. Let's take the Crusader. Battlecannon gets two S8 AP3 pie plates - there's not a lot that can't knock a hole in. Gatling Cannon - not as universally useful, but can do horrible things to side armour. Rocket Pod up top - can either bother infantry, or threaten light-medium tanks if you go with the Krak version. Heavy Stubber? OK, that probably won't be killing much. So you instead use it for desultory fire on a unit you're wanting to charge.

That's a really commanding presence in such small games - and may be too much for your opponent to deal with and still have a fun game.

I'd suggest getting it anyway, because you like the models - that's reason enough. But, when you want to field it, pack two lists - one with, one without. If your opponent really objects, you can work round it with minimal fuss.

Pretty much any time at 1500 or higher. Probably go to 2 maximum at 2000 then 2500+ is anything goes anyway usually.

Dok - keep in mind bud that a knight with that layout won't be cheap.
You could easily replace it with the Russ or its variants to have more effect for less cost.

A lot of armies can run things that cause the same damage, if not more for a lot less points.
Some of which are more survivable too.

If someone lacks the firepower to kill a knight then they can't handle most armoured vehicles either.

As I said earlier, if it had higher armour then I could see the issue, but it's fairly low armoured.

I typically bring one every time I go out to play, but I will only field it in a 2000 point game unless the other person brings one in a lower point match. We had a WWE Knight off one game and it was hilarious. The knights were only allowed to combat each other until one died.

Otherwise I keep it in reserve for the resident Necron cheese player (this guy just can't make a list that doesn't have 4 C'tan and his monolith. AND his tesseract vault). Or the Tau guy that frequently has been bringing a riptide wing and a stormsurge to 1500 points.

I bring a Knight to balance power. I play Sisters of Battle and don't run the singular competitve list, so a Knight can easily balance out the rest of my girls without being too good.

When you're playing a 1,500-2,000pt game with an army that needs the help (...GK, for instance...) a Knight is fine. Knights don't usually become an issue unless you're trying to field a lot of them.

Honestly never, super heavies and GMC's should not be in sub 2k games. They were designed to appear in apoc games not standard games. I have discoved that what happened is who ever was making 7th really liked apoc and said lets make that the template for the rest of the game.

The issue is super heavies can wipe out a whole squad in a single round of shooting or more. In apoc, not a big deal i still have a crap ton of guys, in sub 2k, not so much.

A battle cannon does the same to a unit of tyranid warriors, what's the difference?

The topic is specific to knights, not all superheavies.
You can build the equivalent in a knights shooting abilities through most armies units for the same cost or less.

This isn't about huge constructions dropping D templates everywhere, just knights.



Now a serious question for anyone (related to the topic)
Would your army be capable of destroying a unit of 3 leman russ?

Most balanced 1,500 point lists should be able to deal with a single knight. At that level, it’s not unreasonable.

While in general I’d prefer that stuff of that ilk stayed in apoc games, we are where we are. And there are far more unreasonable things you can do at this point then a single knight. I’d rather face a IK then an invisible deathstar, or some re-rolling invulnerable thing.

IKs are actually fairly costed for what they bring. Sure, they are mean, but you pay for it. My only real issue with them is if they are spammed. Then the game is just rock/paper/scissors. No amount of AV in a TAC list can deal with that, so the only option is playing another skew list, which I dislike.

You don't need AV to kill IKs, so TAC lists do just fine. The popular anti-infantry weapons of 7th ed glance them out just fine.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Superheavies belong in Apoc.

This

It is always okay to use an Imperial Knight!
Crush those heretics beneath your iron boots and grind their bones to dust!

But, to be honest. You can play with an Imperial Knight at almost any point level.
They are quite balanced and if you tell your opponent that you will use one (or more) then they can tailor their list to it.
Pretty much every army has something to counter Knights with.

I am playing in a small campaign tournament at the moment (500pts), while taking a Knight Gallant with the Skitarii Ironstrider Cavaliers formation.
It is a fun and a very melee heavy list and I have yet to encounter an opponent who was like: "Oh no, a Knight. I forfeit".
Most people find it a ton of fun to try and evade the towering monstrosity while picking up objectives.

Martel732 wrote:
At any rate, anyone who thinks IKs are not fair around 1250 or 1000 better hope they don't see Riptides, either. Same problem, but 5X worse.

speaking for myself, I no longer own a riptide...
...but I just got my second stormsurge.

 carldooley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
At any rate, anyone who thinks IKs are not fair around 1250 or 1000 better hope they don't see Riptides, either. Same problem, but 5X worse.

speaking for myself, I no longer own a riptide...
...but I just got my second stormsurge.

Which is actually less durable and far less durable/pt. The Stormsurge is very strong, but it isn't as hair-pulling obscene as the Riptide.

One major thing to consider is that as points scale down, the battlefield scales up.

It's a lot easier to maneuver around very hard targets on a 6' x 4' board when you only have 1000 points each.

In that sense, and since the IK isn't that bad, I'd say 1500 is more than enough.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Superheavies belong in Apoc.

This. Agree 100%. Knights and superheavies do not belong in "regular" 40K.

Regular 40k includes knights now and superheavies.
This is part of 7th edition.

Not sure if it's just me, but I really have no issue facing any superheavies atall.
It's part of the game.

Never seen someone turn down a game because of one either.


If it's a friendly game and your running 2+ then by all means, warn whoever your facing.
In a competitive environment, expect to see them every game.

Most recent tournament I attended had 2 people running a hound at 2k.
Both armies didn't make the top 3.


The only time I'd see an issue is if you expect to foot slog the entire table and actually make it there alive.
In which case, I have no sympathy atall.

Also, completely forgot about Stomp.

A favourable roll on that can see your Knight demolish the enemy - including units it's not actually in combat with, and your opponent thought we safe.

Yes, LoW are absolutely part of 40k these days, and there's no point kvetching about that.

But so is Sportsmanship. Some opponent will enjoy the challenge a Knight poses. Others might feel completely unequipped to deal with it (for instance, Tyranids can have a sod of a time - any unit held in 'back up' to counter charge the Knight risks being Stomped, and possibly removed from play).

Hence my two list suggestion.

I'd say ask your local opponents, it's up to them. You're seeing casual players here as well as competitive, that's why your getting a range from "NO!" to "any point level is fine".

Again, ask the people you play with. If we play together and I don't want to play against knights and you bring one without asking me first, I'm likely not playing you again unless we're already good friends. I'd also suggest that if they are nervous, talk with them about how to handle the knight. Maybe even go through scenarios, including the dice rolls, to show them how to deal with it! For example, if they're SM, what happens when you drop pod a bunch(same point value as the knight) of sternguard with meltas behind them? How many rounds of lascannon shooting to get through the shield and kill it?

To be fair, nids do suffer unless your running TL dev flyrants.
In which case you mock the knight before emptying into it.

Although thropes and hive guard also tend to put a ton of damage on them pretty easily.
They just are nowhere near as safe from it.


But that's a far cry from eldar sitting back and glancing it to death or crons doing the same, so I see your point there bud.

In casual play, if your list is nice and mixed, a knight fits in great. They are only problematic when your list is JUST Knights.

Iknights are very "okay" when the list isn't built around abusing them, similar to Magnus the red. When the list is built to competitively abuse them, games become uneven.

lol so a knight is off limits to some, land raiders, daemon princes, blood thirsters, riptides, etc are not?

A knight is AV 13 with 6 hp, it's ain't that hard to kill folks.

I use IKs as the world's most inefficient distraction carnifex. I don't see the problem with that, except for me.

 Jackal wrote:
Dok - keep in mind bud that a knight with that layout won't be cheap.
You could easily replace it with the Russ or its variants to have more effect for less cost.

A lot of armies can run things that cause the same damage, if not more for a lot less points.
Some of which are more survivable too.

If someone lacks the firepower to kill a knight then they can't handle most armoured vehicles either.

As I said earlier, if it had higher armour then I could see the issue, but it's fairly low armoured.

The difference between an IK (or any other superheavy vehicle) and say, other tanks such as Russes, Predators or Land Raiders is that you can immobilise and strip the weapons off normal vehicles. You can shake them and you can stun them which can hamper their firepower. And they can only fire at a single target. So you can stop them, strip away the weapons that threaten you or potentially hamper their firepower for a turn or two. If you can immobilise them and assault them they're generally easy pickings as well.

Superheavies?

Immune to Shaken and Stunned. Can't be immobilised. Can't destroy weapons.

Can fire at as many different targets as it has weapons. And if it's a walker? It gets a chance of D stomping all over units.

There's a difference between a player struggling to deal with a Leman Russ or two and having to deal with an IK. With the russes you can strip the threatening weapons off turning them into metal boxes or you can immobilise them and restrict their fields of fire. Hell, with an AP2 or AP1 weapon you can potentially destroy them outright.

A superheavy? That won't do much at all. Even rolling 'destroyed' results in D3 HP being lost.

Superheavies, GCs and D-weapons really have no place in 40k outside of Apocalypse to be honest.

Land Raiders are garbage...

 sfshilo wrote:
lol so a knight is off limits to some, land raiders, daemon princes, blood thirsters, riptides, etc are not?

A knight is AV 13 with 6 hp, it's ain't that hard to kill folks.

I can strip the weapons off a Land Raider with a weapon destroyed result. Can you strip the weapons off a Knight? No.
I can immobilse a Land Raider - heck, Grav Weapons can do it even easier. Can you immobilise a Knight? No.
I can destroy a Land Raider with a single lucky AP2 or AP1 penetrating hit. Can you destroy a Knight with a single hit? No.

An immobilsed Land Raider cannot threaten objectives with what it transports.
A Land Raider stripped of certain weapons cannot threaten certain units efficiently.
A destroyed Land Raider threatens nobody.

A Knight will always be able to move and what a distance it moves too. You cannot immobilise it in a bad spot, you cannot immobilise it to screw over its arc of fire.
A Knight will always have its weapons. It will never be hampered in firing them since it cannot be stunned or shaken and can target seperate units.
A Knight will take D3 HP from a destroyed result. If you're unlucky that equals 1. But it will still function at full capability.

If an army struggles with armour in general (Orks and Tyranids sort of have this as an inbuilt weakness, some armies only have short range anti-armour capabilities) then a Superheavy is a problem squared. Because even the conventional tactics of bogging down or stripping away threats doesn't work.

Stripping or immobilising the weapons of 3 russ but can't take 6 HP of a knight?
I don't see it, sorry.

You never remove the weapons or immobilise a vehicle then leave it as it's points sat there.
If your army can't remove 6 HP off AV13 (if for some reason you shoot the front of it) with the chance of doing 3 HP in 1 go then your army has a big issue.


While people are saying the should be apocalypse only units, this isn't 6th any more.
There are far more devastating units that can be taken that aren't super heavy, GC or use D weapons.

Considering what grav cents can do to any vehicle.
Riptides that ignore most shooting.
Flyrants which can be a sheer pain.
Scatterbikes for massed shooting.

None of the above fit the apocalypse criteria, yet all of them are far more effective in a list than a knight is.

 Jackal wrote:
Regular 40k includes knights now and superheavies.
This is part of 7th edition.

Not sure if it's just me, but I really have no issue facing any superheavies atall.
It's part of the game.

Was part of 6th too thanks to escalation, I believe it's a similar hold up to the "no forgeworld" mentality that's persisted since 4th at least; largely the units are overestimated because of the label of superheavy or forgeworld and the kneejerk reaction is to never adapt to it. Which is still fine if that's how you're group wants to play it, since neither side will have fun if they try to enforce their view of the game on the other; even though they should be fully prepared to face such things these days if they do decide to venture out of their bubble.

However things like wraithknights are a different thing all together; it's less the label and more the pricing there. But then there are things like that that don't even have the benefit of being gmc or superheavy. Which should be looked at more closely as well, yet are less feared due to not having these labels. Like, I'd actually be happier facing a knight than 400 points of scatterbikes.

First instinct is it is "always" ok if it is fully painted. (that is the painting "snob" speaking).
Second instinct is "When would it not be ok? It is ok according to the rules." (that is my competitive side speaking).
Third is "Why not take three or four??" (that is my jerk side that does not get out much).
Final say: I want a close game and for some reason, people are just not prepared for these things so I do not field them much. Shame really.

 don_mondo wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Superheavies belong in Apoc.

This. Agree 100%. Knights and superheavies do not belong in "regular" 40K.

Except Imperial Knights were written specifically for regular 40k