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 easysauce wrote:

Mr. Funktastic wrote:

Ion Bulwark and Sanctuary aren't mutually exclusive, one's a relic and one is a WL trait so you can absolutely have a Knight with a 3++ to shooting and 4++ in combat for 2 CP. .

Ion bulwark is shooting only, sorry, cant do that :(

Sanctuary gives a 5++ to melee, which you can use Rotate Ion Shields to turn it into a 4++. And since stratagems are limited to one per phase, you can Rotate Ion Shields in the shooting phase for a 3++ with Ion Bulwark (WL trait) and then do it again in the fight phase for a 4++ (via the Sanctuary relic). All for 2 CP.

 Goldenemperor wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I don't know why there is still this ongoing debate between Valiant and Castellan. One is specialised for long range titan killing. Another is specialised more for mid range killing and handles hordes much better. Its like comparing apples to oranges.

I love both, and my IK list literally has a place for both in it. I bring both. Why not, since they complement each other! When you have a shadowsword you must kill, you will love your castellan. When you have elite or chaff infantry blocking your way to one or more objectives, you will love your Valiant.

btw, don't think just because its a melta gun, its wasted on infantry. When the Valiant is right up close, and the only targets in range are infantry, then I would still happily blast its 4 melta guns and spear harpoon into infantry. Dead is dead. Better being able to use my 4 melta guns and harpoon (even if its on infantry models), rather than not being able to shoot them at all.

I mentioned this before. But in a prior game with my friend, he brought two batallions of IG. We are talking about 6 squads and 4 heroes. It was IK vs IK. So, the knights were mostly busy killing each other. So, I can say that my Valiant was the one that accounted for 4 squads worth of IG, and 2 heroes. And the Valiant basically took care of two objectives because although it could only sit on one, its reach was such that there was no way my friend could get troops on the other objective. (Not without them being cooked to death by the confrag cannon).

And it did all this while also contributing to killing enemy knights as well. Did my Castellan do more? I really don't know. My Castellan basically focused on killing big knights, but it also needed help. Its not like my Castellan soloed my friend's knights alone. It couldn't have done it without the help of my Valiant and my Gallant.

Both are great I feel and quite distinct in their roles.

I don't know what the debate is either. People too close minded or too inexperienced in the game want to claim that the Dominus they bought is so superior to the other Dominus. They are both excellent choices and I have used both in different style lists, each with success and failure.

Not really no...The valiant is flat out inferior to the castellan. Everyone overrates the flamer cannon. Fact is - is not even as good as the relic plasma cannon on the castellan. Str 9 ap-4 flat 3 damage is a much more reliable profile. Even if you only average less than 2/3's the hits the flamer does - you are doing it at 48" rather than 18". You wound big targets on 3's usually rather than 5's and you take away all armor saves instead of giving them 4+ or 3+ armor saves. Then what if I told you...that's the castellans second best gun. The volcano lance is quite literally the best gun in the codex. The harpoon on the other hand...is a giant pile of garbage.

Theres also the other things going for castellan...it's required relic is mechanics - where as the relic flamer is imperialis. Imperialis faction traits suck in comparison to Raven and Taranis - that is another HUGE factor. Valiant actually benefits more from being raven than taking it's relic weapon anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Godeskian wrote:

Mandragola wrote:


If you’re adding one knight to an existing army then it should definitely be a Raven Castellan. Actually the Raven house tradition doesn’t do much for it, so I think you’d be better off picking one of the other mechanicus houses if you’re doing a full lance. You definitely want Cawl’s Wrath though, so not an imperial (or renegade) house.

My vote would be Vulker. You'd be surprised how useful it is, because you can still do all the awesome things A Castellan can do, and sometimes you're rerolling one's


My two cents on running him with GK to give them the anti tank thru so sorely need

My opinion is any trait that can be overruled by simply moving a trash unit closer to the enemy sucks huge donkey.

IMO there are 3 good factions. This is their order of goodness.
Taranis (resurrect knights is OP) 6+++ is just icing on the OP cake.
Raven (advance and shoot all knights and assault turn 1 is OP) Best offensive stratagem.
Griffith (+1 attack per knight and heroic interventions even if they aren't characters is OP on Gallants) Gallant warlord with +1 attack has 21 attacks that hit on 2's....That's right...21.

all the reroll 1 army traits are trash can be duplicated by another unit (gman) or stratagem.

Godeskian wrote:

Mandragola wrote:


If you’re adding one knight to an existing army then it should definitely be a Raven Castellan. Actually the Raven house tradition doesn’t do much for it, so I think you’d be better off picking one of the other mechanicus houses if you’re doing a full lance. You definitely want Cawl’s Wrath though, so not an imperial (or renegade) house.

My vote would be Vulker. You'd be surprised how useful it is, because you can still do all the awesome things A Castellan can do, and sometimes you're rerolling one's


My two cents on running him with GK to give them the anti tank thru so sorely need

No, because a solo knight doesn’t get its household trait. A Vulker Castellan in a lance is pretty cool. On its own it is not.

The raven one is good because of its stratagem, which it gets even as an auxiliary. I don’t particularly rate house raven for a Castellan in a lance (though it’s not bad), but it’s by far the best option for a solo.

Third game with knights. Took ravens again with castellan(4++, cawl's wrath), warder(endless fury, fist), errant, helverin, armiger and then IG battallion with 2xcommander(you know what), 3 infantry squad(1 with heavy bolter and 1 with plasma gun as had points) and 3 mortars. Was up against ulthwe with 1-2 farseer and 1-2 warlock with jetbikes(3 psyker, don't recall which he had 2), 5 shining spear, autarch on bike, guardian squad with shuriken cannon I think, 2 squads of rangers, 5 wraithguard of flamer of doom variety in wave serpent, hemlock, 10 dark reapers, wraithlord with 2 bright lances, war walker. We rolled tactical gambit. Like 3rd time in a row on tuesday games with this scenario!

Terrain was fairly nasty for me with plenty of ruins for cover to him, some LOS blocking especially for small squads and multiple layers. But hey I can only have me to blame as I set up the terrain, asked if it's ok and barely glancing at it while unpacking army he said yes. So if it was unfair terrain for me I have only myself to blame

I screwed up deployment putting my warlord with mortars on my left. Also should have put castellan on center I think as I gave clearer path for shining spears toward it(possibly locking in combat) so to reduce that used huge terrain piece and helverin to reduce risk of getting escape path blocked.

He went first. Really my 1st turn dices are weird. With knights it's now 3 out of 3 I lose the roll off with +1. My orks meanwhile with opponent getting +1 either win it or seize with huge frequency. In small quantities dices can be funny.

He advanced forward with hemlock flanking my errant. Reapers arrived to his DZ from webway where he had put in case I get first turn. Alas hadn't deployed warlord yet to account for this so kurov didn't get to work. Lesson for future. Overall nothing crazy yet. Magic he guided reapers and took out mortars with farseer that had went and I realized my warlord is in serious jeopardy due to above mentioned deployment screwup. On shooting he split bit too much so hurt errant and warden which finally popped ion shields when reapers came in. Fairly light damage so far for knights, most of IG were dead. That -2LD from hemlock hurt as well.

I responded mostly staying put due to shining spears and that wave serpent. IG squad moved forward to intercept wave serpent. On left errant went on lone rush toward farseer hoping to save grand strategist. Helverin and castellan continued their hug the terrain to help in case bikes come in. Warglaive moves bit closer to get melta in range. Shooting. Raven strategem popped up. Errant and warglaive shoots meltas at wave serpent doing decent damage. Warder shoots at shining spears killing 2. Ulthwe trait saved 1 forcing extra wound finish the 2nd. Then castellan. Not sure what plasma did but volcano lance dropped hemlock out of the sky and carapace weapons finished off wave serpent(plasma might have went here). And I fired missile with strategem toward farseer warlord that had guided dark reapers. 1 to hit. Reroll due to strategem. Hit. 1 to wound. THANK GOD raven strategem. I wound. Opponent is shocked to hear no invulnerable and then I roll 6 for wounds. FNP doesn't save and his warlord had just died! FORESEE THAT! Errant popped up full tilt and charged farseer/warlock on left(I think farseer since it had executioner) but only stomped for 1 wound. Darn.

His turn 2. Wraithguard prepared to charge my infantry squad(he needed to kill in close combat to score objective). Bikes moved there as well preparing to charge warglaive. Farseer left disengaged and moved next to my warlord finishing it with executioner and smite. War walker appeared there as well. Shooting saw wraithguard flame warglaive hard and other shooting resulted to 1 wound left. Dark reapers fired at warder but ion shield strategy(after which I had 1 CP left) kept damage minimal. Combat infantry squad and warglaive were taken out without trouble.

My turn 2. Castellan and warden closes in to bikes. Errant circles toward enemy DZ. Shooting castellan fired at wraithguard that got -1 hit from somewhere. Lance killed 2, plasma killed 2 and hurt ME 5 times. Carapace guns don't recall but missile fired point blank range into autarch. Hit, wound, 6 damage, dead autarch. Opponent wasn't too pleased at my missile luck Warden peppered some guardians I think. Combat warden and castellan charged and killed shining spears.

Turn 3. By now it was clear I was ahead in killing war and would be looking at tabling him while he was waaaay ahead on objectives(like 15-3 by now) so it was going to be can he survive or not. His turn wasn't that eventful as by now he was pretty much out of firepower to hurt me. Bright lances did something, dark reapers were negated by ion shield(he got 3 wounds, I rolled 4, 4 and 5 for saving throws). My turn castellan vaporized wraithlord, warden took out dark reapers bar exarch, errant stomped one squad of rangers that had been scoring lots of objectives. Helverin finished off farseer from my left.

Turn 4. He ran around circles trying to hide stuff. Notable annoyances were last wraithguard that was hiding behind wall, war walker and warlock and lone dark reaper and the guardians. Thing is he had lots of small squads here and there I needed to hunt...Errant went back toward my DZ to hunt the wraith guard and warwalker. Alas I didn't even KILL the war walker with charging errant on first go. 2 6's on FNP. Warden advanced trying to reach dark reaper and guardians. Castellan had to spend entire firepower to take out one squad of rangers as they were protecting warlock. Say something about overkill! Warden let go and finished off guardians.

Turn 5 he just hid as best as he could but really best he could do was ensure no charge and stomp from castellan to warlock. Then it was my turn(due to time this would be last turn anyway). I needed to a) kill wraithguard with 1 wound b) kill war walker with 2 wounds c) kill 1 dark reaper d) kill that warlock with it's 3++.

Errant fired at wraithguard. This was excelent chance to lose. I was down like 30-10 in vp's so no tabling, I lose. Luckily I got 4 shots and unsurprisingly wraith guard was molten slag.

Warden ripped the dark reaper apart. Good luck surviving endless fury.

Castellan fired at the warlock. Lance failed to get past inv save. Plasma on overload however burned warlock to cinder.

So it was errant vs war walker. I opted to stomp for safety. Nearly screwed it though. Just 2 past saves. 3 wounds. IF he rolls 2 6's out of 3 dice he wins. He didn't. Win by tabling, lose on vp's.

Phew. So what I learned:

a) more careful with warlord with fast eldars. I thought LOS blocking was safe. Didn't expect solo farseer sniping attack here
b) castellan is awesome. That range and big pile of guns each capable of doing useful means he's threat always. That range advantage is HUGE. Turn 1 valiant would have been hard pressed to hit that flier and would have hurt knights late game. And of course that warlock would have been 100% safe from him so I would have been relying on helverin to win the game for me.
c) helverins are indeed great. Decent firepower and they can be used to hit small targets too small for bigger knights to bother. Speed was great
d) raven trait is pretty darn awesome. I was advancing a lot here and needed that extra move to get around LOS blocks and ensure next turn I could charge. I would have been struggling to hunt down all these sneaky eldars without it
e) imperial knights have hard time with objectives. Few units so hard to get to objectives, no super fast units and every unit needs to be killing at full strength as much as possible. With objectives I was having to do decisions "do I want to charge those shining spears or take VP?" or other similar. Also of course any "take 3 objectives" are pretty hard. Even killing like 3 units is pretty hard. Coupled with some bad luck with cards(kill flyer...Gee only flier left was warlock behind rangers. Or defend objective behind his lines but nothing there for me to bother to go kill) or make morale test fail...I was very fast behind those.

If his farseer warlord hadn't died to that missile I would probably have lost. Don't think I could have killed another jetbike character. Not impossible(I still had that helverin left and I could have split castellan a bit) but lot harder and there was already plenty of ways that last turn could have failed.

f) knights are CP hungry as hell. I burned like over 6 CP before 2nd round started. Albeit 2 was due to my deployment mistake which forced attempting full tilt charge I wouldn't have done otherwise.

Mandragola wrote:

Godeskian wrote:

My vote would be Vulker. You'd be surprised how useful it is, because you can still do all the awesome things A Castellan can do, and sometimes you're rerolling one's

My two cents on running him with GK to give them the anti tank thru so sorely need

No, because a solo knight doesn’t get its household trait. A Vulker Castellan in a lance is pretty cool. On its own it is not.

The raven one is good because of its stratagem, which it gets even as an auxiliary. I don’t particularly rate house raven for a Castellan in a lance (though it’s not bad), but it’s by far the best option for a solo.

I think a solo Castellan can still take the Vulker Warlord Trait to rerolls 1s if you spend a CP for it pre-game. Rerolling all 1s to hit is probably more important then rerolling misses in CC, especially for a Castellan.

Correct. But rerolling just 1's on to hit isn't that good. Yeah it helps but with lone raven castellan you reroll 1's on EVERYTHING. And that's a lot of dices you get to reroll. Lance shots. Lance to hit, to wound. Then 3d3 per and all 1's from those 3 dice. Then 2d6 plasma shots, their to hit, to wound. Melta to hit, to wound, d6 damage and of course shoulder guns shots etc and missile. Today's game(well yesterday by now actually) that ability alone saved my neck as it ensured I got that missile into farseer. With just 1 to hit rolled I would have botched that to wound roll. Lance rolling 1 shot isn't nice. And 4 meltas it's too easy to miss one or two and then fail yet another. Low number of dices that knights roll leaves you scarily vulnerable to even narrow bad luck. Raven strategem makes it very hard to roll bad enough to get screwed. I don't think I have yet used anything near as reliable thing buster except Pask and potential of Pask isn't anywhere near Castellan(Albeit costs less than half the points!). I can reliably decide at least 2 targets I want get deleted. With just reroll 1's to hit it would be lot riskier on that front.

Albeit that costs CP but I find that well worth it. Also you can give 4++ for the knight instead.

Oh and btw that raven warlord trait...Anybody can think any real use for it? I'm hard pressed to come up with it. Maybe I could take it against army with tons of -1 rather than land strider but 4++ is obviously better so you need BOTH of those to make raven trait worth it.

I'm hard pressed to come up any reason to take other house than raven for solo castellan. On full detachment others can help others enough it's worth not having that castellan-made strategem but on solo raven all the way! Even one turn with that can make the difference.

So I had a bit of a thought yesterday. Let's say you have house raven Castellan. You use their stratagem on it. You took 2 cannons and 1 missile rack. You get ready to fire, determining the number of shots on the plasma 2d6 re-rolling 1's, the volcano lance, 1d6 re-rolling 1's. Now we get to the siegebreakers. Do you re roll the "1's" (natural 1 or 2) on the 1d3 roll? Or just the 1s on the dice? Same for the d3 damage rolls, just the natural 1 on the die or the result of 1? Indeed a conundrum to me.

tneva82 wrote:
Correct. But rerolling just 1's on to hit isn't that good. Yeah it helps but with lone raven castellan you reroll 1's on EVERYTHING.

For sure the Raven stratagem is better but since it costs 2CP a time, you would really hope it should be. The benefit of the Krast Warlord trait is that you don't need CPs to keep it powered. If your Knight survives the opening couple of turns, it can continue to overcharge its plasma Decimator with only minimal risks of overheating.

Knights do not get an invulnerable save in melee.

Everyone keeps saying the Castellan is better. Alright, fine, you can make all the arguments you want about why. Better damage, higher strength, blah blah blah.

The Valiant is awesome and nobody is going to convince me otherwise. I've deleted too many things with it in just a handful of games to shelve it in favor of a Castellan. The bottom line is that the flamer will reliably delete any 10-man troop squad. The meltas+harpoon will delete any light/medium vehicle or monster that gets too close. The cannons and missiles let it reach out and touch troublesome things in the opponent's back line. It creates such incredible area denial and has an answer to knights weakness: melee. Yes, yes, if you get the charge off, you'll likely kill whatever you charge, but the fact of the matter is that a good opponent will happily keep out of range of your charge only to counter-charge. A failed charge leaves you wide open to get thunder hammered to death. The Valiant don't care. The Valiant annihilates anything that tries to charge it. Terminators. Dreadnoughts (except space wolf ven dreads, funnily enough), just about anything will wither under that cannon, and if anything else happens to hit, it's all the better.

Then you throw on Hawkshroud, the Traitor's Pyre, and use the extra-overwatch stratagem that Hawkshroud gets to defend your screen or buddy knight from getting charged and the area denial only increases.

The Castellan can't do that. The Castellan is point-and-shoot. That's it. It's boring. Yes, yes, the guns are mega powerful. Yes Cawl's Wrath is impressive. Blah blah blah. It doesn't change up what Knights do. It doesn't change up what shooting armies do in 40k. You sit somewhere and you shoot things and that's freakin' boring.

When the Valiant gets across the table, all eyes are on it. The gaming club hears 'harpoon' and they all come rushing over to see if, miraculously, it'll manage to hit and kill something that time around. Even if it doesn't, the threat of the harpoon is palpable in the air. It happens every time you use that harpoon and it's a fantastic feeling.

That doesn't happen when you shoot the Castellan. You might as well bring a Baneblade. Remember when people were excited about Baneblades being added to the game? In my experience, it was a flare of excitement, and then that was it. People realized how OP they were and groaned in disappointment when they saw a baneblade across the table. Yeah, it has more shooting than anything else in the game, but that's just the same as the Castellan. It's just a walking Baneblade. Booooring.

But a Valiant... You pick yourself up a Valiant and you're gaming in style. You're murdering tanks with the harpoon and roasting heretics and xenos with that flamer and the feeling of getting those hits off and having your opponent's shots bounce off of the Valiant's Ion Bulwark is so much better than the feeling of having your Castellan charged by some Terminators, assault marines, or heck, even stormboyz, and dying pathetically and predictably because it doesn't have a giant freakin' flamer to discourage it.

In short, I'm tired of people crapping on the Valiant when it is the superior Dominus. Maybe not in firepower, or mathhammer, or whatever else the WAAC players are saying... but in raw fun. And isn't that important when you're playing a game?

lol well, the harpoon does generate a lot of drama every time it shoots. The sheer power of that thing if it gets through and damages is breath taking.

I don't expect it to hit every time, but when it does... hehe. so fun.

 Karhedron wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Correct. But rerolling just 1's on to hit isn't that good. Yeah it helps but with lone raven castellan you reroll 1's on EVERYTHING.

For sure the Raven stratagem is better but since it costs 2CP a time, you would really hope it should be. The benefit of the Vulker Warlord trait is that you don't need CPs to keep it powered. If your Knight survives the opening couple of turns, it can continue to overcharge its plasma Decimator with only minimal risks of overheating. Plus the Vulker stratagem of exploding 6s is quite tasty for just 1CP.

You don\t need that strategem more than 1-2 times so it's not that bad and it's well worth it. Vulker trait costs meanwhile you 4++ which being castellan being one huge bull's eye is very pricey for me. With 4++ I find people are hesitant to even fire it.

And I'm not particularly worried about the overheats. I'm more worried about lance shots, simply misses and failed wounds or 1's on damage rolls.

Vulker strategem is nice but I would want more shots than castellan which does not fire that many shots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StarHunter25 wrote:
So I had a bit of a thought yesterday. Let's say you have house raven Castellan. You use their stratagem on it. You took 2 cannons and 1 missile rack. You get ready to fire, determining the number of shots on the plasma 2d6 re-rolling 1's, the volcano lance, 1d6 re-rolling 1's. Now we get to the siegebreakers. Do you re roll the "1's" (natural 1 or 2) on the 1d3 roll? Or just the 1s on the dice? Same for the d3 damage rolls, just the natural 1 on the die or the result of 1? Indeed a conundrum to me.

You roll the '1s on result. d3 has results of 1, 2 and 3. You reroll those 1's.

The valiant in theory is more fun. But then you’ve got it on the tip of your deployment zone and go 2nd against a gunline. You’re picking that bad boy up before you can even move it. Not fun :(

Looking at the google doc for ETC someone is bringing 3 castellans and a small batallion of ad mech. Wonder how it will do.

Jean Borrower wrote:
The valiant in theory is more fun. But then you’ve got it on the tip of your deployment zone and go 2nd against a gunline. You’re picking that bad boy up before you can even move it. Not fun :(

Looking at the google doc for ETC someone is bringing 3 castellans and a small batallion of ad mech. Wonder how it will do.

Fun for other is boring for others. I don't find having to move knight where opponent wants fun. And I find it fun to see opponents face pale when castellan fires.

As for ETC thing remember this is ETC TEAM tournament. As teams have degree of control on opponent it won't be good showcase for more normal. 3 castellans would get ran over by hordes obviously. But guess what? Unlikely it will be facing one. Instead they will be aimed to go against stuff that has vehicles or monsters. Tyranid carnifex swarms etc. So rather well.

It's skew list to give crushing victories against armies they are designed for. Similar skew lists are out there but in reverse by being armies that struggle to win but are very unlikely to lose big. These will be put in forward to deal with lists team doesn't have good tools or be first in so that no matter what comes massacre loss there is unlikely.

drbored wrote:
Everyone keeps saying the Castellan is better. Alright, fine, you can make all the arguments you want about why. Better damage, higher strength, blah blah blah.

The Valiant is awesome and nobody is going to convince me otherwise. I've deleted too many things with it in just a handful of games to shelve it in favor of a Castellan. The bottom line is that the flamer will reliably delete any 10-man troop squad. The meltas+harpoon will delete any light/medium vehicle or monster that gets too close. The cannons and missiles let it reach out and touch troublesome things in the opponent's back line. It creates such incredible area denial and has an answer to knights weakness: melee. Yes, yes, if you get the charge off, you'll likely kill whatever you charge, but the fact of the matter is that a good opponent will happily keep out of range of your charge only to counter-charge. A failed charge leaves you wide open to get thunder hammered to death. The Valiant don't care. The Valiant annihilates anything that tries to charge it. Terminators. Dreadnoughts (except space wolf ven dreads, funnily enough), just about anything will wither under that cannon, and if anything else happens to hit, it's all the better.

Then you throw on Hawkshroud, the Traitor's Pyre, and use the extra-overwatch stratagem that Hawkshroud gets to defend your screen or buddy knight from getting charged and the area denial only increases.

The Castellan can't do that. The Castellan is point-and-shoot. That's it. It's boring. Yes, yes, the guns are mega powerful. Yes Cawl's Wrath is impressive. Blah blah blah. It doesn't change up what Knights do. It doesn't change up what shooting armies do in 40k. You sit somewhere and you shoot things and that's freakin' boring.

When the Valiant gets across the table, all eyes are on it. The gaming club hears 'harpoon' and they all come rushing over to see if, miraculously, it'll manage to hit and kill something that time around. Even if it doesn't, the threat of the harpoon is palpable in the air. It happens every time you use that harpoon and it's a fantastic feeling.

That doesn't happen when you shoot the Castellan. You might as well bring a Baneblade. Remember when people were excited about Baneblades being added to the game? In my experience, it was a flare of excitement, and then that was it. People realized how OP they were and groaned in disappointment when they saw a baneblade across the table. Yeah, it has more shooting than anything else in the game, but that's just the same as the Castellan. It's just a walking Baneblade. Booooring.

But a Valiant... You pick yourself up a Valiant and you're gaming in style. You're murdering tanks with the harpoon and roasting heretics and xenos with that flamer and the feeling of getting those hits off and having your opponent's shots bounce off of the Valiant's Ion Bulwark is so much better than the feeling of having your Castellan charged by some Terminators, assault marines, or heck, even stormboyz, and dying pathetically and predictably because it doesn't have a giant freakin' flamer to discourage it.

In short, I'm tired of people crapping on the Valiant when it is the superior Dominus. Maybe not in firepower, or mathhammer, or whatever else the WAAC players are saying... but in raw fun. And isn't that important when y ou're playing a game?

Pretty much my view too. And against most opponents, do far, the Valiant has been the star player, do YMMV

 Primark G wrote:
Knights do not get an invulnerable save in melee.

FW ones do, also relic gives one codex knight a 5+ and house trait gives one house a 6+fnp.
They can also +1 that invulnerable save for cp.

 Karhedron wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

Godeskian wrote:

My vote would be Vulker. You'd be surprised how useful it is, because you can still do all the awesome things A Castellan can do, and sometimes you're rerolling one's

My two cents on running him with GK to give them the anti tank thru so sorely need

No, because a solo knight doesn’t get its household trait. A Vulker Castellan in a lance is pretty cool. On its own it is not.

The raven one is good because of its stratagem, which it gets even as an auxiliary. I don’t particularly rate house raven for a Castellan in a lance (though it’s not bad), but it’s by far the best option for a solo.

I think a solo Castellan can still take the Vulker Warlord Trait to rerolls 1s if you spend a CP for it pre-game. Rerolling all 1s to hit is probably more important then rerolling misses in CC, especially for a Castellan.

Ahh I see the confusion. Rerolling 1s is actually the Krast warlord trait, not Vulker. That's not a bad trait for a Castellan, but I think Ion Bulwark is better on a solo. You've got to expect every AT gun the enemy has to be pointed at it.

Krast Castellans are good. In addition to the standard Cawl's Wrath/Ion Bulwark set up they can also have one with The Headsman's Mark relic and First Knight warlord trait. It's the only house where taking two Castellans is possibly a good idea. The rerolls to hit in close combat increase its stompy power by 50% too.

I 100% agree with the argument that Valiant's are more fun than Castellans. Burning and harpooning things is clearly cooler than standing back firing a volcano lance and Cawl's Wrath. I'll get one eventually, even though my House Tanaris clearly doesn't have great synergy with it. It's not the right unit for me right now, trying to make a tournament list with House Tanaris, but it's still kind of awesome. And it will draw fire away from my Castellan!

It does draw all the fire. I'm looking forward to let my inner giant ham out at GT this weekend when my Valiant, Castellan and Crusader come to play.

Do I expect to win lots? Not especially, though I imagine I'll do okay. Do I expect to loudly and in a pirate accent ' fire the Harpoon at them there heretics'.....

Oh yes

Jean Borrower wrote:
The valiant in theory is more fun. But then you’ve got it on the tip of your deployment zone and go 2nd against a gunline. You’re picking that bad boy up before you can even move it. Not fun :(

Looking at the google doc for ETC someone is bringing 3 castellans and a small batallion of ad mech. Wonder how it will do.

I would not infer anything about Knights from the ETC. The nature of how lists are matched against opponents means that you will avoid most, if not all, of the lists that counter Knights.
You don't get that luxury in a normal tournament.

A rulespack can effect how good units are who knew

U02dah4 wrote:
A rulespack can effect how good units are who knew

The ability to outright avoid bad matchups is well beyond how most rulepacks influence how good units/armies are.

Mandragola wrote:
I 100% agree with the argument that Valiant's are more fun than Castellans. Burning and harpooning things is clearly cooler than standing back firing a volcano lance and Cawl's Wrath. I'll get one eventually, even though my House Tanaris clearly doesn't have great synergy with it. It's not the right unit for me right now, trying to make a tournament list with House Tanaris, but it's still kind of awesome. And it will draw fire away from my Castellan!

Standing back? Castellan doesn't stand back. It stomps forward projecting aura of destruction and threat forward dictating actions on opponent rather than being dictated by opponent like valiant. Stomping forward you watch your opponent go pale as a ghost when he realizes you are about to delete at least 2 units per turn from his army almost regardless of where they are and not paltry 10 strong infantry squads but tanks, monsters, fliers or monster infantry like wraith guard.

Mandragola wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:

I think a solo Castellan can still take the Vulker Warlord Trait to rerolls 1s if you spend a CP for it pre-game. Rerolling all 1s to hit is probably more important then rerolling misses in CC, especially for a Castellan.

Ahh I see the confusion. Rerolling 1s is actually the Krast warlord trait, not Vulker. That's not a bad trait for a Castellan, but I think Ion Bulwark is better on a solo. You've got to expect every AT gun the enemy has to be pointed at it.

You are right, thanks for pointing that out. I have gone back and fixed the OP.

I was typing when tired.

tneva82 wrote:

Standing back? Castellan doesn't stand back. It stomps forward projecting aura of destruction and threat forward dictating actions on opponent rather than being dictated by opponent like valiant.

I WISH the Castellan stomped forward. I would summarily execute it if it did. In every game I've played against one (about 6 in a row now) my opponent has managed range and kept my DP/ Jumpcaps/ Gallant etc at arms length and with units in the way.

Racing your castellan towards a combat type where it hits on 4+ and has no invuln save is lunacy, the way lists are currently gearing up to deal with knights.

As soon as I get my castellan I am thinking about all the opportunities for cover it will have. It has 48" range without its meltas. And it is tall. If you can peak a gun barrel over a big piece of terrain and put the base 'toe in cover', then it can get a 2+. EDIT: assuming the shooting stuff is on the other side of the wall. I have even heard of straight up shenanigans like putting a gallant in front of a castellan, then putting the castellan's base 'toe in cover' and getting a 50% obscured save.

I think the point is the Castellan can hang back and shoot if that is required or stomp forward to bring its meltas (and feet) to bare if the opportunity arises. The Valiant is commited to marching up the table to get anything apart from its carapace weapons into range.

So I've joined the knight club, was a guy on facebook selling 4 castellans and 2 valiants,

impulse bought a castellan, thinking about adding 2 armigers, and then either ad mech or tempestus.

 Karhedron wrote:
I think the point is the Castellan can hang back and shoot if that is required or stomp forward to bring its meltas (and feet) to bare if the opportunity arises. The Valiant is commited to marching up the table to get anything apart from its carapace weapons into range.

Precisely. Castellan can do whichever helps you most. Valiant has to go where opponent decides it goes.

Tuesday game castellan was MVP and largely due to range. I could stand back and shoot when it was useful(1st turn to ensure no shining spear shenigans locking it in combat). I could move forward when it was needed but in direction *I* chose. Get LOS where I wanted, meltas in range and then charge against stuff it could deal with in combat. Then on the double more to bring in meltas in range of new stuff and later yet more to go around LOS blocking terrain and bring LOS to elusive character that was using speed to dodge me best it could.

Valiant meanwhile...Well T1 either it would not shoot at the flier or he would have had to race toward bad direction. This would have hurt me on objective scoring and killing stuff later costing me death of rangers on turn 4 and that final character turn 5. Incidentally would have meant loss of game.

Oh and that range makes it also great flier hunter. People talk about how valiant auto hit flamer is great flamer hunter. And sure! It's great. Problem is with 18" range you struggle to do it(And 1st turn obviously never happen as fliers go to furthest corners) and to do so you have to go into where opponent moves. Fliers have often enough range and definitely speed to move around.

And in terms of firepower castellan still packs enough to blow out alaitoc flier out. Standard flier with -1 to hit isn't even hard one. -1 to hit eldar one is something volcano lance eats for a lunch as was shown up. Might invest some more firepower against more robust flier to be on safe side.

Range on castellan is great. It gives options and allows you to dictate what castellan does. Valiant is going where opponent goes. I hate having 600 pts go where opponent wants it to go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alexonian wrote:
So I've joined the knight club, was a guy on facebook selling 4 castellans and 2 valiants,

impulse bought a castellan, thinking about adding 2 armigers, and then either ad mech or tempestus.

Not bad idea. Castellan for tank busting, then probably 2 helverins. They provide nice flexible long range firepower and warglaives provide generally dedicated tank busting and unless you are in super vehicle heavy meta where 2 vehicles/turn kill rate from castellan isn't enough you don't really NEED dedicated heavy tank power. Helverin provides already decent light tank firepower to help with say dark eldar vehicles and non-wave serpent eldar vehicles.

For ad mech or tempestus focus on objective controlling and infantry. Your knight section will deal with tanks efficiently but infantry is bigger issue.

tneva82 wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
I think the point is the Castellan can hang back and shoot if that is required or stomp forward to bring its meltas (and feet) to bare if the opportunity arises. The Valiant is commited to marching up the table to get anything apart from its carapace weapons into range.

Precisely. Castellan can do whichever helps you most. Valiant has to go where opponent decides it goes.

Tuesday game castellan was MVP and largely due to range. I could stand back and shoot when it was useful(1st turn to ensure no shining spear shenigans locking it in combat). I could move forward when it was needed but in direction *I* chose. Get LOS where I wanted, meltas in range and then charge against stuff it could deal with in combat. Then on the double more to bring in meltas in range of new stuff and later yet more to go around LOS blocking terrain and bring LOS to elusive character that was using speed to dodge me best it could.

Valiant meanwhile...Well T1 either it would not shoot at the flier or he would have had to race toward bad direction. This would have hurt me on objective scoring and killing stuff later costing me death of rangers on turn 4 and that final character turn 5. Incidentally would have meant loss of game.

Oh and that range makes it also great flier hunter. People talk about how valiant auto hit flamer is great flamer hunter. And sure! It's great. Problem is with 18" range you struggle to do it(And 1st turn obviously never happen as fliers go to furthest corners) and to do so you have to go into where opponent moves. Fliers have often enough range and definitely speed to move around.

And in terms of firepower castellan still packs enough to blow out alaitoc flier out. Standard flier with -1 to hit isn't even hard one. -1 to hit eldar one is something volcano lance eats for a lunch as was shown up. Might invest some more firepower against more robust flier to be on safe side.

Range on castellan is great. It gives options and allows you to dictate what castellan does. Valiant is going where opponent goes. I hate having 600 pts go where opponent wants it to go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alexonian wrote:
So I've joined the knight club, was a guy on facebook selling 4 castellans and 2 valiants,

impulse bought a castellan, thinking about adding 2 armigers, and then either ad mech or tempestus.

Not bad idea. Castellan for tank busting, then probably 2 helverins. They provide nice flexible long range firepower and warglaives provide generally dedicated tank busting and unless you are in super vehicle heavy meta where 2 vehicles/turn kill rate from castellan isn't enough you don't really NEED dedicated heavy tank power. Helverin provides already decent light tank firepower to help with say dark eldar vehicles and non-wave serpent eldar vehicles.

For ad mech or tempestus focus on objective controlling and infantry. Your knight section will deal with tanks efficiently but infantry is bigger issue.

You know; you keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Gallant and Valiant are bad because opponent dictates target.

There is very much a disconnect between actual deployment rules and your claims, along with Target choices for Valiant.

Deployment is an I-GO-You-Go format in this edition.

reserve your gallant/valiant for when there is a good targt unit close to range. or, if the opponent is scared of the given knight; use that to your advantage.

in other words: deploy tactically, or use tactics because the game is not List vs List auto-win; get better at using your units properly or quit playing.

 Ordana wrote:

Jean Borrower wrote:
The valiant in theory is more fun. But then you’ve got it on the tip of your deployment zone and go 2nd against a gunline. You’re picking that bad boy up before you can even move it. Not fun :(

Looking at the google doc for ETC someone is bringing 3 castellans and a small batallion of ad mech. Wonder how it will do.

I would not infer anything about Knights from the ETC. The nature of how lists are matched against opponents means that you will avoid most, if not all, of the lists that counter Knights.
You don't get that luxury in a normal tournament.

I played knights on ETC in 7th...my captain paired me vs Tau which were direct counter to them...from big bot missle of death, to ghostkeel we shoot you in the ass and avoid your shields, or if you protect back then we juat ahoot you in the front...didn't end well for me at all...though I crushed all other opponents, and I never played knights before that event, nor 7th I think,lol