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 Traditio wrote:
As you yourself have previously noted, if A is rock and B is scissors, then A shouldn't be "equal" to B. A should be more effective against B than B is against A.

The lascannons should be more able to kill the IK than the IK is able to kill the lascannon marines.

Here's where you're wrong. Lascannons are the rock to the scissors of tanks, but a knight with a battlecannon is the paper to the rock of MEQs. So the "should be more effective" factor cancels out, the lascannons are pretty good at killing the knight, but the knight is pretty good at removing the marines.

Also, your obsession with talking about lascannons in isolation is completely missing the point. The weapon is an anti-tank specialist, but the unit is a generalist tactical squad. You're applying the balance principles that would be more appropriate for a devastator squad with full lascannons, and expecting your tactical squad with a token lascannon to perform at that level just because both units have "lascannons". And that's just insane.

Remember there are force multipliers involved.

We know reserves in matched play are limited. It is reasonable to assume other extremes are as well.

There are objectives involved. You may not have to kill the knights to beat them.

Remember the blast are underwhelming thread where we realized shooting wasn't all that lethal?

Sure knights are hard to kill, that's the point of knights. They're also big points sinks that can be outplayed. This is why I dislike any sort of killpoint based system for matches.

Has he really been raging all night? Get some sleep man, it's good for your health!

And still obsessing over one-turn kills? I mean really, on average it takes 18 lasgun shots to kill a tactical marine, 180 to wipe a tac squad. Does this mean lasguns are utterly useless against Space Marines?

I'm sure we all know better, and we all know why. But hey, if Traditio is still utterly convinced that Knights are too durable, maybe he should tell us what it *should* take to kill one. I'm sure we'd find the answer... entertaining.

Based on the information we have, as long as knights cost somewhere between 400 and 500 points they should be fine. If you're facing a knight, you're going to have enough points to kill it.

"Power levels" are a good deal looser of course, because they're not meant for competitive play. They don't account for upgrades/wargear (or perhaps, more accurately they blend all the upgrade/wargear options into an average). If you're playing a PL game, well first of all you should be aware that you're sacrificing balance for speed, but second of all you ARE going to be kitting your guys out to the max. After all, not doing so would be leaving points on the table. Since infantry units tend to have a ton of upgrade options and Knights have few, obviously that's going to make PLs difficult to compare between them.

The question isn't "can this one unit kill one of this other unit in a single turn", that's basically irrelevant. You need to look at the big picture, how two whole lists fare against each other over an entire 5 turn game.

And you know what? When taking whole lists into account it looks like Knights aren't going to be broken. Still boring and gimmicky because they lack tactical flexibility, but not broken.

 ross-128 wrote:
Has he really been raging all night? Get some sleep man, it's good for your health!

And still obsessing over one-turn kills? I mean really, on average it takes 18 lasgun shots to kill a tactical marine, 180 to wipe a tac squad. Does this mean lasguns are utterly useless against Space Marines?

I'm sure we all know better, and we all know why. But hey, if Traditio is still utterly convinced that Knights are too durable, maybe he should tell us what it *should* take to kill one. I'm sure we'd find the answer... entertaining.

Based on the information we have, as long as knights cost somewhere between 400 and 500 points they should be fine. If you're facing a knight, you're going to have enough points to kill it.

"Power levels" are a good deal looser of course, because they're not meant for competitive play. They don't account for upgrades/wargear (or perhaps, more accurately they blend all the upgrade/wargear options into an average). If you're playing a PL game, well first of all you should be aware that you're sacrificing balance for speed, but second of all you ARE going to be kitting your guys out to the max. After all, not doing so would be leaving points on the table. Since infantry units tend to have a ton of upgrade options and Knights have few, obviously that's going to make PLs difficult to compare between them.

The question isn't "can this one unit kill one of this other unit in a single turn", that's basically irrelevant. You need to look at the big picture, how two whole lists fare against each other over an entire 5 turn game.

And you know what? When taking whole lists into account it looks like Knights aren't going to be broken. Still boring and gimmicky because they lack tactical flexibility, but not broken.

Exalted for truth.

Remembet they said power levels assume most upgrades are taken.

 Traditio wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
There's not going to be any restrictions on Matched Play, seeing as they weren't restricted in 7th or 6th and weren't broken then.

If there are points restrictions, you understand that I'm going to quote this posting and mock you later, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, the more I think of it, the more the sneak peaks scream "Restrictions in matched play."

There are no options to take a LoW in any of the three detachments they showed us before.

Why give us the option to take 3-5, but not one?

Curious.

Very curious.

Because you need a specific detachment to do Imperial Knight armies, you walnut.

Guys! Guys! Guys! The real culprit is the undercosted Eldar wraith knight. That guy is even tougher than an IK because of better invul saves and have better offensive capability.

How is thread still going? Ah, nevermind. I have had one of the main instigators of the argument on my ignore list... actually made it somewhat pleasant to read through it all.

 Roknar wrote:
Everybody keeps talking about lascannons.
A unit of 5 khorne terminators with chainfists can put down a knight a turn.
Right now, on the charge they have 20 attacks and if fricken rubrics hit on 3+ you can bet your ass these will too.
So 10 attacks will stick, now it's virtually guaranteed they will have some kind of furious charge buff so they'll wound on 3s netting a pessimistic 6 wounds with no save.

Chainfists were the melta equivalent in melee so we can realistically either expect d6 wounds per or d3 re-rollable, so easily 3 wounds a piece.
So even in the worst case scenario they're causing about 18 wounds, crippling the knight. And that's not taking into the account any combi meltas they might be able to fire first, or that this will likely be much cheaper than a knight.
So their transport , if any, could also pour in some wounds.

But on the topic of lascannons, a spartan could end up shooting 8 lascannon shots as well as a multimelta. That knight ain't looking so hot from where I'm sitting.

Ah see, that's where you went wrong. You used logic AND units traditio won't use for... reasons. Probably so he doesn't have to update his 5th ed rhino rush list.

I'm not sure we're using enough grots in these calculations. My full grot green tide army will never be able to take down an imperial knight in a single turn and it makes me crazy.

Actually I kind of wonder what the math is with that now. If a knight is 300 points..how many wounds would it take from 100 grots? Clearly that knight will NEVER get through that army. It wouldn't even be able to escape the literal flood of tiny bodies because it wouldn't be able to place it's base beyond them.

Also Knights confirmed not OP. No matter the math, a Knight can't beat grots.

Earth127 wrote:
Remember there are force multipliers involved.

We know reserves in matched play are limited. It is reasonable to assume other extremes are as well.

There are objectives involved. You may not have to kill the knights to beat them.

Remember the blast are underwhelming thread where we realized shooting wasn't all that lethal?

Sure knights are hard to kill, that's the point of knights. They're also big points sinks that can be outplayed. This is why I dislike any sort of killpoint based system for matches.

this, over all, GW has designed 8th edition to be a little less lethal. and vehicles to certainly be tougher then the, frankly laughable status they where in 6th and 7th.

Hmm, true, I didn't take into account grots. Way more efficient. Just carpet bomb grots around them.

 Roknar wrote:
Hmm, true, I didn't take into account grots. Way more efficient. Just carpet bomb grots around them.

I guess by Traditio's reasoning that grots are just the most powerful unit in the game now. You can take far far more than his tac squads and they probably have a way better chance to incapacitate a knight than anything he would bring.

 Roknar wrote:
Everybody keeps talking about lascannons.
A unit of 5 khorne terminators with chainfists can put down a knight a turn.
Right now, on the charge they have 20 attacks and if fricken rubrics hit on 3+ you can bet your ass these will too.
So 10 attacks will stick, now it's virtually guaranteed they will have some kind of furious charge buff so they'll wound on 3s netting a pessimistic 6 wounds with no save.

Chainfists were the melta equivalent in melee so we can realistically either expect d6 wounds per or d3 re-rollable, so easily 3 wounds a piece.
So even in the worst case scenario they're causing about 18 wounds, crippling the knight. And that's not taking into the account any combi meltas they might be able to fire first, or that this will likely be much cheaper than a knight.
So their transport , if any, could also pour in some wounds.

But on the topic of lascannons, a spartan could end up shooting 8 lascannon shots as well as a multimelta. That knight ain't looking so hot from where I'm sitting.

Fists have -1 to hit. So, i'd expect that you might want more than 3 termies to cripple a knight. Also, we have no idea how marks and bonuses would work. And what would chainfists do. I'd expect d6 but it might be something else.

Yea, hence the 50% attacks hitting. 3+ WS going to 4+.
We know furious charge is still around with khorne daemons and icons are still there too, so I'm pretty confident we can still get that strength buff, which suddenly matter a great deal more than it did with powerfists and their ilk. In this case wounding the knight on 3s as opposed to 4 like "normal" fists.
Either way, I think it's pretty safe to say that you don't want to get into CC with them/fist units with multiwound units.

BrianDavion wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
I never understood the problem with knights. They were some of the most fairly costed models in the game. They have clear weaknesses, especially when fielded as their own faction and actually except for the knight crusader and the knight renegade have very limited damage potential.

They weren't broken or op which is why none of the top 5 armies ever bothered to use them. They were a decent crutch for things like SoB or IG though.

they where super heavies, which for some people was all it took .

The famous line of Boris the Bear before he mows down the Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hampsters with an M-60, "They might not mutants, and they might not be ninjas, but they were fast and young, and that's good enough for me."

SJ

BrianDavion wrote:

Earth127 wrote:
Remember there are force multipliers involved.

We know reserves in matched play are limited. It is reasonable to assume other extremes are as well.

There are objectives involved. You may not have to kill the knights to beat them.

Remember the blast are underwhelming thread where we realized shooting wasn't all that lethal?

Sure knights are hard to kill, that's the point of knights. They're also big points sinks that can be outplayed. This is why I dislike any sort of killpoint based system for matches.

this, over all, GW has designed 8th edition to be a little less lethal. and vehicles to certainly be tougher then the, frankly laughable status they where in 6th and 7th.

I would argue that it's way more lethal, but that things are not disproportionately affected the way they were.

I mean the swarmlord is basically inflicting 'critical existance failure' on anything it gets in base contact with, it's just everything is about the same level of vulnerable to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fun fact, if the knight has a gauntlet a unit of repentia with an sob priest on the charge (205ish points after upgrades) will kill something like 3-4 knights in a round, even at S6.

Looks like a unit of 20 genestealers with a broodlord will now wreck one in a turn.

I think the lascamnon issue is the invuln. It's muchote tough against shooting than CC.

As a side note for traditio, I have figured out how best to explain why lascannon marines aren't efficient enough for your liking at taking down a knight, and it is actually rather simple.

You are paying for other things on the models your lascannons are equiped to.

If a lascannon at bs 3+ could be purchased for 25 points each, then they could do exactly what you want them to. They would (if every other stat was at a baseline of 1 or 6+) be able to completely dominated knight on a pure damage to target level.

But unfortunately this game requires you to buy the entire unit, and all the defense and morale rating in the world won't help you kill knights off any easier.

Your idea of balance is not without merit, equal points of antitank guns should (and would) drop a knight a turn. But because you are paying for melee ability, speed, morale, saves, special rules, and less viable weapons on those models they will never be as viable as you would like them to be.

The only answer, and I do mean only, is to lower your expectations of what a viable level of damage per turn per point (or power level) is. Your marines will survive, they will score points, they will be hard to break due to morale, and they will take on a large variety of units in the game. What they will not do is overcome an imperial knight, or my other large unit in the game without more efficient package for the weapons than the marines.

A couple twin lascannon dreadnaughts will do the job, for example. They could take shots at the knight while closing and deny the knight easy access to your weaker marines. I would bet their melee weapon is no slouch either (even if it matches the new powerfist, it would double strength to a 12 making it sound on 3+) so you would be able to get some work done there.

TLDR: I see where you're coming from, but what you're asking for in the game is impossible if you want to actually play the game.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:You are paying for other things on the models your lascannons are equiped to.

If a lascannon at bs 3+ could be purchased for 25 points each, then they could do exactly what you want them to. They would (if every other stat was at a baseline of 1 or 6+) be able to completely dominated knight on a pure damage to target level.

But unfortunately this game requires you to buy the entire unit, and all the defense and morale rating in the world won't help you kill knights off any easier.

What you are saying is basically accurate, and this is one of the reasons why IKs are just bad game design.

What you are trying to express is the notion of "opportunity cost." If I want to take a lascannon, I have to pay an "opportunity cost," namely, a pre-requisite points cost for a unit simply for the opportunity to take that lascannon as an additional upgrade.

In 7th edition, for space marines, that opportunity cost is about 70 points for either a tactical or a devastator squad.

Imperial Knights don't HAVE an opportunity cost.

That's unfair, and it's bad game design.

That's why IKs (and vehicles and MCs in general) should cost way more than they do now. It's not enough to price them based on their actual abilities. You also have to take into consideration the opportunity cost that a comparable unit would have had to have paid to get those same abilities as an upgrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean, really, based on wounds alone, IKs should have had a power level of about 50.

Tactical marines are T4 with a 3+ armor save, 1 wound each.

IKs are T8 (twice as good as marines) with a 4+ armor save and have 24 wounds.

You do realize that MCs and Imperial Knights have a couple options that require them to cost additional points, right? You have to pay for the base model and it's equipment and then pay for upgrades just like everything else. So by your definition, they are good game design. But something like Typhus is bad because he has no additional options to pay for.
Not all units are equal in terms of strength. Lots of things tend to be rock, paper, scissors. You shouldn't be able to kill a knight in one turn without tailoring your list to do so. And you should never be able to do so with a tac squad.

 mmzero252 wrote:
You do realize that MCs and Imperial Knights have a couple options that require them to cost additional points, right? You have to pay for the base model and it's equipment and then pay for upgrades just like everything else. So by your definition, they are good game design.

Your point is utter nonsense.

What are you even trying to say?

That you have to pay extra for upgrades for MCs, vehicles, etc.?

That's irrelevant to the point that I was making.

A specialist model/unit as such pays less, if any, of an opportunity cost than a comparable non-specialist unit.

 Traditio wrote:

 mmzero252 wrote:
You do realize that MCs and Imperial Knights have a couple options that require them to cost additional points, right? You have to pay for the base model and it's equipment and then pay for upgrades just like everything else. So by your definition, they are good game design.

Your point is utter nonsense.

What are you even trying to say?

That you have to pay extra for upgrades for MCs, vehicles, etc.?

That's irrelevant to the point that I was making.

A specialist model/unit as such pays less, if any, of an opportunity cost than a comparable non-specialist unit.

You literally mentioned point "opportunity costs" and described it as paying for a base unit just for an opportunity to take additional options. Then you said knights don't have that so they're bad. I was pointing out that you're wrong and that they do have that.

You've been trying to compare apples to grapefruit the entire thread. Buy a few new units for your army, seriously. You won't get anywhere by putting a million tac squads on the field. Actually you might if you actually field a million tac squads in every game. Take REAL anti-tank units. Take units designed to actually hurt knights on a comparable or reasonable level. Stop being an idiot and trying to one turn kill something that has no right being one turn killed by a tactical squad. That or bring 100 grots like I pointed out. You will invalidate the knight for probably the entire game.

mmzero252 wrote:You literally mentioned point "opportunity costs" and described it as paying for a base unit just for an opportunity to take additional options. Then you said knights don't have that so they're bad. I was pointing out that you're wrong and that they do have that.

You've either intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood the points that I was making.

Reread and try again.

That said, I would like to point out that I have no expectation that you'll come around to my point of view, given the fact that you apparently own 4 IKs.

And you apparently also play SWs and Skaven Daemons?

Seeing as how you're resorting to going off topic and picking out things in my signature to try and win your point across in an internet forum, you've already lost.

I basically never even use my imperial knights. I've never run more than a single one in a game and most of the time my opponent actually tells me to bring one along. But I also play SoB which at the moment heavily need a boost like that just to compete with certain armies.

But please, continue to go off topic and ruin your credibility further.

 Roknar wrote:
Yea, hence the 50% attacks hitting. 3+ WS going to 4+.
We know furious charge is still around with khorne daemons and icons are still there too, so I'm pretty confident we can still get that strength buff, which suddenly matter a great deal more than it did with powerfists and their ilk. In this case wounding the knight on 3s as opposed to 4 like "normal" fists.
Either way, I think it's pretty safe to say that you don't want to get into CC with them/fist units with multiwound units.

There are likely no bonus attacks on the charge. Well, MoK Might give one. But you should also take it into consideration. 3 combi-meltas are likely to deal a bunch of wounds to a knight at half range. It's statistically ~1.5 that lands a wound after to-hits and 5++. So, it would be some damage. Than the fists will be swinging and dealing some more damage. I'd expect you to have at least 10 termies with close to average rolls with all combi-meltas and a bunch of axes, fists and chainfists to one-shot a knight.

 Traditio wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:You are paying for other things on the models your lascannons are equiped to.

If a lascannon at bs 3+ could be purchased for 25 points each, then they could do exactly what you want them to. They would (if every other stat was at a baseline of 1 or 6+) be able to completely dominated knight on a pure damage to target level.

But unfortunately this game requires you to buy the entire unit, and all the defense and morale rating in the world won't help you kill knights off any easier.

What you are saying is basically accurate, and this is one of the reasons why IKs are just bad game design.

What you are trying to express is the notion of "opportunity cost." If I want to take a lascannon, I have to pay an "opportunity cost," namely, a pre-requisite points cost for a unit simply for the opportunity to take that lascannon as an additional upgrade.

In 7th edition, for space marines, that opportunity cost is about 70 points for either a tactical or a devastator squad.

Imperial Knights don't HAVE an opportunity cost.

That's unfair, and it's bad game design.

That's why IKs (and vehicles and MCs in general) should cost way more than they do now. It's not enough to price them based on their actual abilities. You also have to take into consideration the opportunity cost that a comparable unit would have had to have paid to get those same abilities as an upgrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean, really, based on wounds alone, IKs should have had a power level of about 50.

Tactical marines are T4 with a 3+ armor save, 1 wound each.

IKs are T8 (twice as good as marines) with a 4+ armor save and have 24 wounds.

Why do you keep comparing two units with different roles? Tac marines are your objective holders, not your dedicated AT/AI units. They're basically there to grab an objective, and maybe take potshots, but never a complete game changer by themselves. It's like taking a LR Vanquisher and complaining that it sucks at killing infantry. Or that Genestealers suck at shooting.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
Guys! Guys! Guys! The real culprit is the undercosted Eldar wraith knight. That guy is even tougher than an IK because of better invul saves and have better offensive capability.

There is some truth in this (and I admit this as an Iyanden player). One thing the WK lacked was the ability to combine decent firepower and CC potential on a single model, you had to choose between a shooty and a punchy variant. That lack of tactical flexibility was partially behind its lower cost IMHO. IKs could take a big gun and a Strength D CC weapon.

I am sure GW are aware that the Wraithknight was a bit too good for its points in 7th and it will be tweaked appropriately in 8th to bring it in line with other similar models. The fact that Iks now have wounds already weighs in its favour. Also it looks like Gargantuan is no longer a thing so you won't be stacking T8 3+/5++/FNP in the same way anymore.

My main hope is that it is still possible to include a single LoW in a mixed army. I don't want to spam them, but a single big hitter forming the centerpiece of an army looks really cool (and also fluffy, at least for Iyanden ).

 Karhedron wrote:
I am sure GW are aware that the Wraithknight was a bit too good for its points in 7th and it will be tweaked appropriately in 8th to bring it in line with other similar models. The fact that Iks now have wounds already weighs in its favour. Also it looks like Gargantuan is no longer a thing so you won't be stacking T8 3+/5++/FNP in the same way anymore.

My main hope is that it is still possible to include a single LoW in a mixed army. I don't want to spam them, but a single big hitter forming the centerpiece of an army looks really cool (and also fluffy, at least for Iyanden ).

Well knight will probably up it's wounds in 8th ed as well. And single LOW possible is pretty much quaranteed.

tneva82 wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
I am sure GW are aware that the Wraithknight was a bit too good for its points in 7th and it will be tweaked appropriately in 8th to bring it in line with other similar models. The fact that Iks now have wounds already weighs in its favour. Also it looks like Gargantuan is no longer a thing so you won't be stacking T8 3+/5++/FNP in the same way anymore.

My main hope is that it is still possible to include a single LoW in a mixed army. I don't want to spam them, but a single big hitter forming the centerpiece of an army looks really cool (and also fluffy, at least for Iyanden ).

Well knight will probably up it's wounds in 8th ed as well. And single LOW possible is pretty much quaranteed.

you'd almost have to have a 1 LOW option. if they didn't it's a HUGE hole given that most armies are built around just 1 LOW, but it a single knight, wraith knight, or Robute Gulliman. I can't imagine GW telling Space Marine players that if they wanna take Gulliman they need to take a Baneblade and Marius Calgar. also it's a fair question what units will be LOWs in 8th edition as it is, will Calgar, Dante etc continue to be LOWs? will they be restored to HQs? what about Land Raiders? Land Raiders could make the transition to 8th as being nearly as good as some units that where super heavies, will they now be LOWs? etc