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.

More accurately, I got inspired by Duncan and have started an Imperial knight army that’s primarily made up of Guardsmen which I’m converting to look like men-at-arms. In my current list I have two Inperial Knights.
I’m putting this in the tactics section because I’d like to know, tactically, how many is a good number that’ll be cool and fun but isn’t in the my-opponent-wants-me-to-die-in-real-life area of competitive.

Cheers guys

I'm certainly no serious tournament player, but as a passionate Knight army collector I'll offer my two cents and you can see if it's useful to you.

Like you and Duncan, I run a primary Knight Household, using Guardsmen (Renegades in my case) as household support.
In a 2000 point game, I'll tend to bring a maximum of three knights (roughly 1500 points) and use the last 500 for support/chaff units.

I think in 7th, this would be seen by many as 'un-fun' - a Knight wasn't an easy thing for many lists to remove. In 8th... I think as long as your opponent is aware they'll be facing Knights, they shouldn't have a lot to complain about. They're simple enough to deal with for a competent player. Also, as has been said before, the dirty little secret about Knights that we don't like to mention is that, for the points, Knights actually don't have that much firepower. You can get bogged down dealing with swarm lists and similar especially throughly.

If you play with people that still complain or struggle, split the difference and take 2x Knights and 1000 points of retainers. Less than that (imho) and you're not really playing a primary Knight army - I feel as much as your opponent should enjoy the game, you should be allowed to play the army concept you've worked toward too!

How many points are you expecting to play?

To be honest, if you were going down a strictly competitive road, I'm told that Baneblades are scarier than Knights this edition, and that, in general, IG Infantry is scarier that pretty much everything else. So, hypothetically, the less you spend on Infantry, the better off your opponent will be.

If you're spending half your points on Knights, and half your points on other stuff, you're probably in a comfortable spot in terms of casual / TAC.

StrayIight wrote:
I'm certainly no serious tournament player, but as a passionate Knight army collector I'll offer my two cents and you can see if it's useful to you.

Like you and Duncan, I run a primary Knight Household, using Guardsmen (Renegades in my case) as household support.
In a 2000 point game, I'll tend to bring a maximum of three knights (roughly 1500 points) and use the last 500 for support/chaff units.

I think in 7th, this would be seen by many as 'un-fun' - a Knight wasn't an easy thing for many lists to remove. In 8th... I think as long as your opponent is aware they'll be facing Knights, they shouldn't have a lot to complain about. They're simple enough to deal with for a competent player. Also, as has been said before, the dirty little secret about Knights that we don't like to mention is that, for the points, Knights actually don't have that much firepower. You can get bogged down dealing with swarm lists and similar especially throughly.

If you play with people that still complain or struggle, split the difference and take 2x Knights and 1000 points of retainers. Less than that (imho) and you're not really playing a primary Knight army - I feel as much as your opponent should enjoy the game, you should be allowed to play the army concept you've worked toward too!

3 Knights and chaff is competitively way better than 4 knights without.

My usual advice to players who want to do a "themed thing" for both tactical and opponent's enjoyment, try to stick to half the list or just barely over half the total points value. So two pretty kitted out knights at 2k points, maybe 3 at 2.5k, and then have a good mix of infantry, ligth armor, etc for the rest of your points.

 Fueli wrote:

3 Knights and chaff is competitively way better than 4 knights without.

I don't disagree.
Pretty much common sense.

Awesome, thanks heaps for the replies guys. I'll primarily be going 2000pts, so I'll do 2 Knights then probably 40-50 infantry and the rest spent on stuff like tauroxes/sentinels and bullgryn or even rough riders

Screening units vs alpha strikes is good. Death company vs knights. ^_^

One knight -you've made your list substantially less good and so only include in a funzi list.
Two knights - you will really struggle against all but the worst players
Three knights Fun interesting to play as a list but not strong
Four knights - you really want to lose

Knights are not tournament competitive now
Knights are overcosted
Very vulnerable to most decent list firepower
And bogged down in hoards
Only ever consider them in casual

If you run them in guard take an enginseer

I think if you bring a full knight army against players in a casual environment though, It may easily render half or more of a casual player's army ineffective.

Tourney lists wouldn't be scared of them. But casual players may call cheese really. I saw a battle report. 3 super heavies vs a more standard casual deathwatch army. It was pretty brutal. the deathwatch player conceded. if not, he likely would have gotten tabled without taking down a single super heavy.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think if you bring a full knight army against players in a casual environment though, It may easily render half or more of a casual player's army ineffective.

Tourney lists wouldn't be scared of them. But casual players may call cheese really. I saw a battle report. 3 super heavies vs a more standard casual deathwatch army. It was pretty brutal. the deathwatch player conceded. if not, he likely would have gotten tabled without taking down a single super heavy.

the sad part is that's not really a problem with superheavies as much as deathwatch is currently just broken.

they do not have even close to the same toolset as basic marines without digging deep into forgeworld, and post-CA basic deathwatch infantry costs more than the equivalent number of models of primaris marines. They're vying with grey knights for the bottom of the barrel, and if you take away the primaris crutch they're limping along on, I'd say they're even worse than GK.

Absolutely agree knights are terrible but that doesnt mean there arnt worse choices and deathwatch is almost unwinnable without a lot of luck vs most lists

If you cant kill a superheavy a turn try list building again its not difficult even in casual 2 BA DC Cpt with thunder hammers will probably do the trick for just over 200pts alternativily take a load of lascannons or neutronagers

Tbh every single Knight is too much. They're just trash, which is sad because the models are awesome.

A Major Problem is that they pay big points for their Close combat abilities which they tend to never use properly. They're good against other superheavies or vehicles in Close combat but they tend to never reach it because they're not quick enough. They do not have enough Dakka to be a Major threat to anything. They're not exactly durable too.

Compare them to a shadowsword. Fully kitted out it has 10 Heavy bolters, 4 lascannons and a Volcano Cannon. The Volcano Cannon alone kills one vehicle a turn easily. 10 Heavy Bolters hurt any footsloggers, 4 Lascannons are enough to kill a second vehicle in one turn. Combined the Volcano Cannon and the Lascannons are more than able to kill a Knight dead in one go. For a Knight to kill a Superheavy in one go it has to have a Thermal cannon, rocket pod and after using those it it has to Charge to finish the Job because the Shooting is rather lackluster. Even then it doesnt have 10 heavy bolters to use on other Targets.

1 Knight is dead or crippled first turn, 2 Knights and your army suffers from lack of bodies and firepower, 3 Knights... dont even bother.

By the way, IG sucks at synergy with Knights. IG doesnt do anything for them. If you really want to field Knights Mechanicum is the way to go. At least you get some Special rules that way. In all honesty tho, I'd sell those Knights and buy Baneblade Chassis. MUCH better.

Honestly, I read this thread just to see how long it would take for someone to say "one". I'm pleasantly surprised by the constructive criticism on offer and the lack of current meta soap boxing. Nice. To me, the most important thing about Knights is that they're frickin cool. I wanted Knights in 40K from the moment I first laid eyes on on them in Epic.

From an enjoyablity and playability standpoint I think I'd probably aim for about 50% points on Knights as a rough measure. That leaves you enough points to try and solve other problems (mostly related to alpha strike and lakka dakka).

Fortunately I’m not that much of a competitive player. I play for flavour and rule of cool. To a point though I want my army to be able to win sometimes, as I’ve used armies that just suck and it’s no fun for anyone. So knowing Knights are good in casual games is good enough for me

I like to play cool units too! So I am really glad that super heavies are no longer considered cheese, and in fact, are considered not quite competitive in the current meta. So, I can finally play my Khorne Lord of skulls super heavy without remorse. In fact, it may even be seen as slightly uncompetitive compared to the Mortarions and Magnus that chaos armies can field.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I like to play cool units too! So I am really glad that super heavies are no longer considered cheese, and in fact, are considered not quite competitive in the current meta. So, I can finally play my Khorne Lord of skulls super heavy without remorse. In fact, it may even be seen as slightly uncompetitive compared to the Mortarions and Magnus that chaos armies can field.

Yeah I'm the same. I thought it was still considered over powered to take lots of Knights but now that I know they are actually a bit crap, I feel a lot better haha. I've always wanted to use Knights

 Tiberius501 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I like to play cool units too! So I am really glad that super heavies are no longer considered cheese, and in fact, are considered not quite competitive in the current meta. So, I can finally play my Khorne Lord of skulls super heavy without remorse. In fact, it may even be seen as slightly uncompetitive compared to the Mortarions and Magnus that chaos armies can field.

Yeah I'm the same. I thought it was still considered over powered to take lots of Knights but now that I know they are actually a bit crap, I feel a lot better haha. I've always wanted to use Knights

Just dont overdo it. 3 superheavies in a 2k point game is still considered kind of a dick move. It makes for pretty boring games for both sides

I don't know, three knights really isn't very good, despite how intimidating it looks. It's way less cheese than three SH Tanks anyway. Two knights at 2K still sounds like the right balance for playing a Knightly Household list.

I can see 3+ knights being boring to face, even if it’s not competitive. So I’ll probably stick with 2. Not sure I’d be able to face painting more than two anyway haha

One knight and three create interesting games 2 and 4 are usually boring because your too weak to hold your own

(4 cant complete objectives and 2 is too vulnerable

Why is one knight less vulnerable than two?

Also, what are scout/heavy sentinels like? Was thinking of chucking some in as lesser nobles

Bring one with at least 2-4 le man russ'es for target saturation and the rest infantry would be my preference.

As others have pointed out knights are in a bit of a tough spot. They are not thrash like Riptides, Wraithknights and Stompas. They are tough enough that many casual players will feel trolled, but competitively they are not the strongest option. The move to more objective based missions with scoring every turn has hurt Knights, and a lot of the early meta was in fact dominated by 3 knights+Magnus style troll builds that everybody needed to learn how to deal with.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Why is one knight less vulnerable than two?

Also, what are scout/heavy sentinels like? Was thinking of chucking some in as lesser nobles

Knights generally make your army more vulnerable because because your investing large points numbers in bad units that dont make there pts back therefore the more the worse your army is.

They get a boost at 3 due to warlord trait relic and many armies not having enough AV.

Scout sentinal may help to keep DS melee units away from the knights.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

pismakron wrote:
Bring one with at least 2-4 le man russ'es for target saturation and the rest infantry would be my preference.

As others have pointed out knights are in a bit of a tough spot. They are not thrash like Riptides, Wraithknights and Stompas. They are tough enough that many casual players will feel trolled, but competitively they are not the strongest option. The move to more objective based missions with scoring every turn has hurt Knights, and a lot of the early meta was in fact dominated by 3 knights+Magnus style troll builds that everybody needed to learn how to deal with.

Except frontline did a great review of the stats and while they may have been played they didn't win.