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So assuming the FW Knights don't change in points, are they still worth considering with access to household traditions, WO traits, relics, and stratagems? At 555 pts the Atrapos is pretty pricey but it does offer a lot in the way of anti-Titantic and anti-vehicle while being pretty good at melee and ranged and durability.

I see two winners in the FW knights.

RAVEN Acheron that can advance and flame.

TERRYN lancer with landstrider that makes a first turn charge 100% of the time. 14" move + 3d6+2 drop lowest advance + 3d6+2 drop lowest charge is something like a 34" threat range.

I get how the atropos is good because it has that 4++ base. But damn does it cost some points for having the shooting it does. The Acheron's shooting seems more relevant and the Lancer has that 100% first turn charge utility.

Don't discount a Hawkshroud Acheron, as well. The strat with one is bonkers strong.

That being said, yes, Terryn Lancer 100% is the goal. Really hoping we get the FAQ soon.

Tanaris Porphy coming back on a 4+ sounds quite spicy to me

 Ideasweasel wrote:
Tanaris Porphy coming back on a 4+ sounds quite spicy to me

If we give Daddy mech a price drop of considerable proportions, that could be interesting!

Wulfey wrote:
I see two winners in the FW knights.

RAVEN Acheron that can advance and flame.

TERRYN lancer with landstrider that makes a first turn charge 100% of the time. 14" move + 3d6+2 drop lowest advance + 3d6+2 drop lowest charge is something like a 34" threat range.

I get how the atropos is good because it has that 4++ base. But damn does it cost some points for having the shooting it does. The Acheron's shooting seems more relevant and the Lancer has that 100% first turn charge utility.

The Atrapos has a 4++ against shooting and a 5++ in melee, so it's like it has Ion Bulwark and Sanctuary already baked into it which frees up a WL trait and relic. The Lancer is only more durable in melee but I think the Atrapos is actually more dangerous in melee with rerolling failed hits and wounds against monsters, vehicles, and buildings, which I think comes out ahead of the Lancer. It's also far more deadly in ranged. I'd personally run a Raven Atrapos with Landstrider and Mark of the Omnissiah so it has a good shot at a turn 1 charge, able to get in range and shoot with everything, and then charge with Full Tilt. All the while recovering at least 1 wound every turn with a potential to recover 4 wounds a turn if you roll well with Blessed Autosimulacra and Mark of the Omnissiah together.

Hmm yeah ... hmm ... well ... if the atropos isn't nerfed yeah I see why my buddy kept saying it was the best knight. I kind of hope that it doesn't stay the best knight because i don't feel like shelling out $300 to run knights. I like that GW made plastic kits broadly superior to resin in tournament play. If it stays better ... yeah ... guess I will need one at some point.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 Ideasweasel wrote:
Tanaris Porphy coming back on a 4+ sounds quite spicy to me

If we give Daddy mech a price drop of considerable proportions, that could be interesting!

What do you think would be a fair amount for a tricked out Porphyrion?

I don't know if, necessarily, a Porphy would even be good right now. It's all about mass rate of fire, not a few super high power shots.

If it had a crazy bolter instead of the volcano cannons, then we could talk.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 Ideasweasel wrote:
Tanaris Porphy coming back on a 4+ sounds quite spicy to me

If we give Daddy mech a price drop of considerable proportions, that could be interesting!

Alas he's more likely to get 50%+ price upping come the CA than price drop :-/

Would 750 be an acceptable price price for the porphyrion? Still a large chunk of points, but more reasonable as it frees up a bit of points for other things.

I feel that a Valiant isn't just about the confrag cannon, it has all its other guns as well. Its not a dedicated horde killer. Its more of a generalist. If you are looking to compare it to something that has a dedicated role, then the Valiant would be too expensive. But if you are taking a list against all comers, then a Valiant is good because it can handle a much bigger variety of foes.

That harpoon is godly against vehicles. Are there lists with no such vehicles? of course there are. But against lists that do have Rhinos, predators, etc, vehicles with no invul save, then that harpoon would one shot them.

Confrag cannon is great against a large variety of foes, especially those with the fly keyword. Not to mention the defensive capabilities of that cannon. It creates a dead zone 18 inches around the Valiant because of its threat range. That's a huge bubble.

We have to stop thinking the only other lists we are fighting are IK lists. There are tons of other sorts of lists. The Valiant is a swiss knife. What if you meet a list with three storm ravens? The Valiant would be more useful than a crusader then.

What if you meet a harlequin list? Same thing, the Valiant would be really scary to a harlequin list, while it might not be quite as scared of a crusader.

If I wanted to tailor an IK list to another IK list, just bring all Gallants or a mix of just gallants and Castellans. Don't need to bother with avenger cannons or valiants at all since a str 6 or str 7 gun is suboptimal against an army of T8 models.

Not everyone you play is going to understand how deadly that confrag cannon is. I am sure there will be some players who would charge it with something like a squad of berserks or a squad of wulfen and would then blink as that confrag cannon erased the entire squad from the overwatch. And if they are so afraid of it (because of said experience), then you have your moving 18 inch threat bubble around the Valiant.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I feel that a Valiant isn't just about the confrag cannon, it has all its other guns as well. Its not a dedicated horde killer. Its more of a generalist. If you are looking to compare it to something that has a dedicated role, then the Valiant would be too expensive. But if you are taking a list against all comers, then a Valiant is good because it can handle a much bigger variety of foes.

That harpoon is godly against vehicles. Are there lists with no such vehicles? of course there are. But against lists that do have Rhinos, predators, etc, vehicles with no invul save, then that harpoon would one shot them.

Volcano lance is even godlier against vehicles.

Not everyone you play is going to understand how deadly that confrag cannon is. I am sure there will be some players who would charge it with something like a squad of berserks or a squad of wulfen and would then blink as that confrag cannon erased the entire squad from the overwatch. And if they are so afraid of it (because of said experience), then you have your moving 18 inch threat bubble around the Valiant.

Ummm I don't play against idiots and frankly I don't feel making plans on the assumption I face one is smart idea. If unit requires opponent to play stupidly to be good it's not good thing.

Volcano lance is better against vehicles, and other titans for that matter too. But the confrag cannon is then better against hordes, which the castellan isn't. It just reinforces my point, A Valiant is a swiss knight, it is not a dedicated titan killer like the Castellan.

Are you designing your army as a take all comers or are you designing it with the idea that you will not meet hordes, or flyers, etc etc.

I will take tools that work against. Valiant isn't even that good against hordes due to price. And it's not like big knight is only thing that I have. Castellan can destroy big things that I will also face. Then others can deal with hordes more effectively than valiant could. If I take valiant instead I deal with big things AND hordes less effectively.

Valiant can easily even end turn 1 doing nothing except shoot with siege breaker cannons. Woo!

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I feel that a Valiant isn't just about the confrag cannon, it has all its other guns as well. Its not a dedicated horde killer. Its more of a generalist. If you are looking to compare it to something that has a dedicated role, then the Valiant would be too expensive. But if you are taking a list against all comers, then a Valiant is good because it can handle a much bigger variety of foes.

That harpoon is godly against vehicles. Are there lists with no such vehicles? of course there are. But against lists that do have Rhinos, predators, etc, vehicles with no invul save, then that harpoon would one shot them.

Confrag cannon is great against a large variety of foes, especially those with the fly keyword. Not to mention the defensive capabilities of that cannon. It creates a dead zone 18 inches around the Valiant because of its threat range. That's a huge bubble.

We have to stop thinking the only other lists we are fighting are IK lists. There are tons of other sorts of lists. The Valiant is a swiss knife. What if you meet a list with three storm ravens? The Valiant would be more useful than a crusader then.

What if you meet a harlequin list? Same thing, the Valiant would be really scary to a harlequin list, while it might not be quite as scared of a crusader.

If I wanted to tailor an IK list to another IK list, just bring all Gallants or a mix of just gallants and Castellans. Don't need to bother with avenger cannons or valiants at all since a str 6 or str 7 gun is suboptimal against an army of T8 models.

Not everyone you play is going to understand how deadly that confrag cannon is. I am sure there will be some players who would charge it with something like a squad of berserks or a squad of wulfen and would then blink as that confrag cannon erased the entire squad from the overwatch. And if they are so afraid of it (because of said experience), then you have your moving 18 inch threat bubble around the Valiant.

Problem is most armies that want to charge you have some sort of sacrificial unit to charge in first if they absolutely have to take the valiant down.

I'm actually curious, what's the odds of something like a rhino surviving the overwatch of a valiant? Between the flamer, 4 meltas, the harpoon, and 2 shoulder cannons, I wouldn't be surprised to see a valiant drop even a tank on overwatch.

That said, with the amount of things that can ignore overwatch now just assuming you'll get it is to plan for failure. Raven guard and blood Angels both have ways to outright shut it down and I'm sure more will appear over time. Other armies will just sacrifice a vehicle or do something like charge it with a ton of Boyz to make sure their actual combat unit gets in unscathed.

Harald Deathwolf says hi to the valiant in overwatch.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Problem is most armies that want to charge you have some sort of sacrificial unit to charge in first if they absolutely have to take the valiant down.

I'm actually curious, what's the odds of something like a rhino surviving the overwatch of a valiant? Between the flamer, 4 meltas, the harpoon, and 2 shoulder cannons, I wouldn't be surprised to see a valiant drop even a tank on overwatch.

That said, with the amount of things that can ignore overwatch now just assuming you'll get it is to plan for failure. Raven guard and blood Angels both have ways to outright shut it down and I'm sure more will appear over time. Other armies will just sacrifice a vehicle or do something like charge it with a ton of Boyz to make sure their actual combat unit gets in unscathed.

BA, raven guard, eldar. I wouldn't be surprised if tyranids had something as well. If not just charge with something like 20 hormagaunts to soak up firepower before real meat comes in.

Valiant can be easily charged by wave serpents or heavier tanks then followed by their melee powerhouse.

Yeah. Wave serpent has about 85-90% chance more or less to charge safely. Less if knight player uses to reroll 1 dice needing 6+. If the harpoon hits and wounds wave serpent is dead but that's 16% chance to hit(30% with reroll).

How common bansheesh are? Faced them yesterday and they made mincemeat out of my IG with their charge out of bazillion inchesh and no overwatch. That would also prevent valiant from shooting making safe to charge with big hitters.

Even most tanks will actually be in serious danger charging a valiant unless there’s a way to avoid the overwatch. If it’s got the relic flamer it does 10.5 wounds to a t7 3+ save vehicle with that alone. Then it’s got 5 shots with meltas and the harpoon. If one of those comes up a 6 things are pretty bad.

The better way to tie it up is with a horde unit. Nurgle can cause massive problems if they can have plaguebearers charge and then surround it with non-infantry stuff like drones. To be fair that’s probably the worst case scenario and won’t always come up.

Yeah I would either charge with enough wounds it can't kill all or something that denies overwatch. Wave serpent is unique in that it will likely survive if harpoon doesn't hit. flamer going to D1 and 6+++ should keep it alive enough. As long as that 9+d3 causing harpoon doesn't hit...

My main complaint with the Valiant and Gallant isn't that they don't do enough damage. It's that they force you into advancing towards the enemy, which isn't always the best idea.

It's pretty easy to get a first turn charge off with a Gallant, if you build your army around it and blow at least 2 CPs on the full tilt stratagem. But it's an awful lot less likely that it'll get its points back with that charge, and it's just made itself a really easy and obvious target.

You could argue that this forces your opponent's hand. They now have to kill the Gallant. That's true up to a point, but the problem is that you've also gifted them a chance to bring all of their most powerful weapons to bear on a single model, virtually guaranteeing that it dies.

The Valiant doesn't have to go quite as nuts as the Gallant, but ultimately both you and your opponent know that it's got to get within 12" of something valuable if it's going to get close to its points back.

This doesn't apply at all to other knights. Even something like an Errant can spend a turn or two hanging back and do real work with its thermal cannon. It obviously won't do as much damage as if it went storming forward, but sometimes that's ok if your opponent's damage is reduced by more than your own.

Not neccessary that easy except for Terryn. 12"+5.5"+9"=26.5". Enemy parks over 28" and you already need to roll higher than average. Starting over 30" isn't that hard especially since enemy likely gets to deploy most of his stuff(and all front) after gallant has done.

Unless you have 2d6 pick highest advance or 3d6 pick 2 highest for charges AND land strider it's far from auto charge. Especially against anything that's beefier than 10 IG troopers.

Mandragola wrote:
You could argue that this forces your opponent's hand. They now have to kill the Gallant. That's true up to a point, but the problem is that you've also gifted them a chance to bring all of their most powerful weapons to bear on a single model, virtually guaranteeing that it dies.

This is called a "distraction carnifex", and part of why the Gallant is the cheapest Knight.

Your opponent must either focus-fire on gallant or or allow it to run rampant in his lines. In the meantime all your other knights are lighting up his units like the 4th of July.

Yes, the Gallant is a very expensive distractionfex, at generally near a quarter or a third of your knight models; but most players would gladly allow the opponent to fully degrade or destroy a single 454 point model than degrade 2 more expensive knights.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
You could argue that this forces your opponent's hand. They now have to kill the Gallant. That's true up to a point, but the problem is that you've also gifted them a chance to bring all of their most powerful weapons to bear on a single model, virtually guaranteeing that it dies.

This is called a "distraction carnifex", and part of why the Gallant is the cheapest Knight.

Your opponent must either focus-fire on gallant or or allow it to run rampant in his lines. In the meantime all your other knights are lighting up his units like the 4th of July.

Yes, the Gallant is a very expensive distractionfex, at generally near a quarter or a third of your knight models; but most players would gladly allow the opponent to fully degrade or destroy a single 454 point model than degrade 2 more expensive knights.

I understand the concept. I just don't think it's a particularly good idea with knights. The purpose of a distraction carnifex is to take the focus away from more valuable targets, but a Gallant isn't sufficiently less valuable than other knights to make it worthwhile. Meanwhile, it's exposing itself to very significantly more incoming damage, without doing very much harm of its own.

It doesn't actually matter where your distraction unit is, anyway. It doesn't need to be right in your opponent's face - what it has to do is present a threat that they can't ignore, forcing them to get rid of it. A Gallant right on their doorstep certainly does that, but arguably so does a Castellan with Cawl's Wrath pretty much anywhere.

Overall your objective must be for enemy units to die faster than your own do. I don't think a Gallant helps with this. It dies quickly, probably without killing very much, eating CPs.

The point with the Gallant is to combine the 2: A Gallant and A Crusader cost as much as a Warden and a paladin/errant(depending on crusader's gun)

Gallant Charging into the lines while the crusader attacks scarier enemy units. Opponent has to choose which threat to deal with.

Taking that Cawl's Wrath Castellan makes the choice even more difficult for the opponent, since that is even scarier than the crusader.

But my point was that you are not just wastefully throwing away your gallant while doing nothing with the rest of your army; you are effectively sacrificing the Gallant to give them a free turn.

I should also through into the mix the thought that with armigers warglaives you can turn a gallant from distraction carnifex into a speartip. Your shoot elements still shoot but instead of just one CC threat it can overload a front as just killing the gallant won't relive the pressure.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
The point with the Gallant is to combine the 2: A Gallant and A Crusader cost as much as a Warden and a paladin/errant(depending on crusader's gun)

Gallant Charging into the lines while the crusader attacks scarier enemy units. Opponent has to choose which threat to deal with.

Taking that Cawl's Wrath Castellan makes the choice even more difficult for the opponent, since that is even scarier than the crusader.

But my point was that you are not just wastefully throwing away your gallant while doing nothing with the rest of your army; you are effectively sacrificing the Gallant to give them a free turn.

But other knight than gallant can be even better distraction carnifex by actually threatening to kill more than chaff enemy would feed gallant with. Rathes than threat and suicide knight that you make easier to destroy you would have 2 threats which both are tougher than gallant

Kind of a random question, but does anyone think it's worth spending a CP to throw a Culexus in for psychic defense?