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Yeah, there is nothing wrong with the reach of a Valiant. A Tesseract vault has guns which are all range 24 inches, and almost all of its ctan powers are range 12 to 24 inches. So, the tesseract vault is now considered a bad LOW just because of this? No way, ask necron players if they think the tesseract vault is good or not. I think the common belief is that the Tesseract vault is great!

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

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.

a) knights have lot less units to deploy. Ergo he can put stuff in deep strikes etc until you are deployed. Pure knight army and it's very likely you have deployed your entire army before enemy puts up SINGLE unit to the table. And if they deploy it's stuff like warlord in corner safety or mortar team or fire prism behind LOS screen and well far away etc. You would need like 2 battallion of IG's worth of guys to get meaningful targets for valiant to come up first. And then assume they put it far forward which is far from safety as point b) below says.
b) even before valiant comes forward why he would deploy as far as possible? You don't have to. Why would he do what you want when he doesn't have to? Sure I can assume I'm playing against braindead idiot. But generally I assume I'm against reasonably sensible opponent. There's very little most units gain by standing exactly on the deployment line.

I dont' consider it deploying tactically by assuming opponent is braindead idiot who cannot do even basic deployments. I assume they can do that. Thus no matter what I'm not going to be 24.1" away. Deploying exactly on deployment line is sooo '80's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Yeah, there is nothing wrong with the reach of a Valiant. A Tesseract vault has guns which are all range 24 inches, and almost all of its ctan powers are range 12 to 24 inches. So, the tesseract vault is now considered a bad LOW just because of this? No way, ask necron players if they think the tesseract vault is good or not. I think the common belief is that the Tesseract vault is great!

You realize right that 24"+8" is "bit" more than 10"+12"? And is even longer than 18"+10"?

Simple math please. 32" is "bit" different than 28" nevermind 22". 22" is NEVER reaching 1st turn anything if you go first. And 28" enemy doesn't need to deploy more than 4.001" behind DZ line and you aren't reaching with that either. And that assuming he deploys straight ahead.

And even then later it's different as you have to move toward enemy to reach ranges. To get within 12" you don't have luxury of going toward objective if opponent doesn't want. You need to go toward enemy instead. Which puts you further away from other units which means harder time reaching targets next turn. Obviously enemy will not clump ideal targets next to each other unless it benefits him(and when something benefits opponent it hurts you). 12" range and 10" movement is notably worse than 18" range and 4" movement.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Lol. Sorry buddy but epic fail.

So... 32 inches is good enough? But (18+10) 28 inches isn't? The difference between the two is just 4 inches.

Ok, if somehow, that magically transforms it from bad to good, then just take house raven and take land strider. Now, your valient is moving 10 inches, advances 2+d6, and can still fire all weapons with no penalties.

So, now the reach of that confrag cannon is (18+10+2+d6). Which works out to 33.5 inches on average, wow, its further than 32 inches now! So, now Valiant is good ?

Now thats certainly not true. If your playing unlike in 7th when you were always 24" from the enemy many of the new maps can have you at 18" apart

Secondly many armies
Such as
BA
AM
SM
Admech

Just to name the imperial side deploy infiltrators and so 22" is reguarly enough to shoot something. Maybe not the best target but something


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So... 32 inches is good enough? But (18+10) 28 inches isn't? The difference between the two is just 4 inches.

Ok, if somehow, that magically transforms it from bad to good, then just take house raven and take land strider. Now, your valient is moving 10 inches, advances 2+d6, and can still fire all weapons with no penalties.

So, now the reach of that confrag cannon is (18+10+2+d6). Which works out to 33.5 inches on average, wow, its further than 32 inches now! So, now Valiant is good ?

No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

So if adding a castellan and 2 hellverins to an ad mech army what house would you guys go for?

Taranis you cant beat survivability

It's gotta be Raven. The stratagem is just /that/ good with the Castellan, and the trait isn't bad either.

A solo knight should be Raven for the Stratagem, I think. Taranis starts to be really good when you've got a lot of knights.

My 1750 point army has a Castellan, two Questoris and two Armiger knights. So that's 100 wounds. The Taranis trait adds about 20 wounds to the army. For a single Castellan it adds about 5 or 6 - which is actually quite a few so it's really not bad.

Raven favors single, shooty knights.

If you choose taranis for survivability, you should doublecheck your playstyle.

Krast makes a valiant/castellan/crusader good in combat, and helps vanilla fistfighters to hit on their 4+. Decimating your enemy is way better than staying safe from their shots. (less enemy models = less wounds to save)

And if you dont use your knights for cc (even with a crusader) you are doing it wrong.

 _Ness wrote:
Raven favors single, shooty knights.

If you choose taranis for survivability, you should doublecheck your playstyle.

Krast makes a valiant/castellan/crusader good in combat, and helps vanilla fistfighters to hit on their 4+. Decimating your enemy is way better than staying safe from their shots. (less enemy models = less wounds to save)

And if you dont use your knights for cc (even with a crusader) you are doing it wrong.

There’s lots here I disagree with.

Yes, to get the maximum killing power out of your knights you want them kicking things as well as shooting things. That much is pretty obvious.

Equally obvious is that lots of enemies are much more dangerous up close.

It’s true that it’s better to kill the enemy faster, so as to reduce incoming damage. But you should not be reckless about how you do it. Sometimes it’s better to leave a unit alive rather than kill it but expose your knights to a massive retaliation.

Often, the best option is to get stuck in right away. But not always. If you see an army with Guilliman hidden in the middle (or loads of comparable things) then charging in is just throwing your knights away. Far better to gun down a few razorbacks and hellblasters at range first.

you are right. i didnt say you should "allahu akbar" right in the enemy forces. but thats the tactic part of this tabletop game. should be obvious. pick your fights, and play your opponent.

PS: seems like you agree more than you disagree with my post

Taranis take 19% more damage and can potentially stand up again when they die. Sure they are not as bursty in a single turn but they will often get to fire an extra time making up for it

 Alexonian wrote:
So if adding a castellan and 2 hellverins to an ad mech army what house would you guys go for?

Probably has to be Raven for the stratagem. Ion Bulwark and Cawl's Wrath and you are good to go.

So question scions with hot shot volley guns as a supplement or skitarii with transuranic arquebuses ?

So I caved and bought a castellan. What do you guys think about this list?

RAVEN - castellan (4++/Cawl's)

KRAST gallant+skyreaper 1 - landstrider / 2+armor
KRAST gallant+skyreaper 2 - depending on opponent, seneschal + fist/mark
KRAST gallant+skyreaper 3 - nothing

STYGIES - 2x enginseer, 2x7 rangers, 1x6 vanguard

This list plays fast and has a weakness against flyers, but I have some autocannon options if I need them. I know that skyreapers are not as good as stormspears against almost all targets, but they are better specifically against T6 -1/-2 fliers with invul saves, which are the exact weakness of the gallant herd.

Any love for gallants with stormspear rocket pods? Seems like you keep a powerful gun (a little less powerful than the avenger/RFBC/melta) but get to keep the extra attack and WS

Seeing everyone rave about the Castellan, is it really that good for the points? At ~600 pts I would've thought it was a bit overpriced compared to the Questoris classes for some extra dakka, not much more durability and worse CC ability. Not to mention Rotate Ion Shields is 3 CP which is a big investment if you're not running an AM CP farm. If you're bringing a single big Knight to supplement an army along Armigers to round out the SHD, I would've thought a Questoris class would be the right choice for the point/CP efficiency. with Am I missing something here or is the Castellan's dakka really that ridiculous to completely justify the ~600 point investment?

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
Seeing everyone rave about the Castellan, is it really that good for the points? At ~600 pts I would've thought it was a bit overpriced compared to the Questoris classes for some extra dakka, not much more durability and worse CC ability. Not to mention Rotate Ion Shields is 3 CP which is a big investment if you're not running an AM CP farm. If you're bringing a single big Knight to supplement an army along Armigers to round out the SHD, I would've thought a Questoris class would be the right choice for the point/CP efficiency. with Am I missing something here or is the Castellan's dakka really that ridiculous to completely justify the ~600 point investment?

It's guns really are that powerful and numerous. It far outperforms a Crusader.

Also, most forces won't slap in Armigers if just running a single Knight I think. Even if you run a Crusader, you're still getting pretty close to 1,000 points invested in a spin-off detachment at that point.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Any love for gallants with stormspear rocket pods? Seems like you keep a powerful gun (a little less powerful than the avenger/RFBC/melta) but get to keep the extra attack and WS

I have been pushing that for a while now. Contrast two setups that cost practically the same points:

Gallant - 5A, 2+WS, 3x str8,-2,d6
Errant - 4A, 3+WS, d6 str9, -4, d6melta

Give me the gallant all day every day.

EDIT: to the below, yes, that is why you see so many solo RAVEN castellans. You usually don't need to advance and shoot a castellan so the household tradition isn't missed.

If you want the benefits of a household, you need a SHD and the easiest and cheapest way to fill it out is to add 2 Armigers to one big Knight. And for a Castellan, I can imagine Raven is a huge boon to it giving it more mobility and the Order of Companions stratagem. Otherwise you're running a Freeblade.

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
If you want the benefits of a household, you need a SHD and the easiest and cheapest way to fill it out is to add 2 Armigers to one big Knight. And for a Castellan, I can imagine Raven is a huge boon to it giving it more mobility and the Order of Companions stratagem. Otherwise you're running a Freeblade.

You get the stratagem anyway since the Knight codex does not limit it to non-auxillery detachments. Only for the household traditions and those are frankly not worth a 300+ point tax.

U02dah4 wrote:


No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

People complaining about the Valiant again? I swear, when will people learn that not everything is down to how long the harpoon can fire or how math works or doesn't.

1. It's got 28 wounds and you can give it Ion bulwark to give it a 4+ invul save. What more do you want? Sure you can take those other machines, if you want to be a pleb.
2. The harpoon re-rolls hits against vehicles and monsters. That's as reliable as it can get. If you're not hitting, get new dice.
3. Counter charge? What counter charge? Oh, you mean those toasted marshmellows that got too close that you flamer'd up nice and good in overwatch?
4. Never been a problem. It deletes a squad of 100-200 point troops a turn, plus a tougher unit, plus whatever wounds it gets with its cannons. Across two or three turns, you've got more than your points back, plus the strategy involved in using it.
5. That's the same to be said against any shooting army. Doesn't help them hold objectives in your deployment or in the middle of the board. If they are deploying to hide from your Valiant, that's a win to me.
6. You've also got the cannons, the melta guns, the missiles, and worst case scenario, you can charge in and stomp something to death. Yeah you're not hitting as often, but it'll be enough damage to finish off some space marines that got too close.

The Valiant is a nuanced beast. There's reasons it's so expensive. The flamer can delete a troop unit of nearly any size and save a turn. The harpoon adds to the firepower of the short-ranged melta guns that the Castellan will NEVER use, and the missiles and cannons on the shoulders that everyone seems to forget are great for reaching out and touching those things that are 'hiding' from your Valiant. With 10" of movement, the Valiant is already moving faster than most troops in the game. Yeah it's not going to win any races, and yeah the harpoon may not be in range turn 1, but if your opponent is deploying and moving to avoid your Valiant, you've already won the game. You can deny so much space with that thing, hold objectives (which people complain knights suck at, despite evidence to the contrary), and create a massive 'No U' zone that other knights can't. The Conflagration Cannon also fixes the Dominus' main weakness: close combat. I.e. it doesn't allow anything to get into close combat with it.

I've yet to have a game where my Valiant doesn't make its points back. I've yet to have a game where I think to myself "Man, I wish I had 2 Gallants instead, or a Castellan." I've yet to think "Jeez, this thing is overpriced."

You know what I have realized though? The only people that think the Valiant is overpriced are the people that haven't put one on the table and played it out.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Any love for gallants with stormspear rocket pods? Seems like you keep a powerful gun (a little less powerful than the avenger/RFBC/melta) but get to keep the extra attack and WS

These have got to be raven so you can still advance (which you do every turn 1 with a gallant) and still shoot. Otherwise just give it a ironstorm because it's just so cheap and good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

drbored wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:


No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

People complaining about the Valiant again? I swear, when will people learn that not everything is down to how long the harpoon can fire or how math works or doesn't.

1. It's got 28 wounds and you can give it Ion bulwark to give it a 4+ invul save. What more do you want? Sure you can take those other machines, if you want to be a pleb.
2. The harpoon re-rolls hits against vehicles and monsters. That's as reliable as it can get. If you're not hitting, get new dice.
3. Counter charge? What counter charge? Oh, you mean those toasted marshmellows that got too close that you flamer'd up nice and good in overwatch?
4. Never been a problem. It deletes a squad of 100-200 point troops a turn, plus a tougher unit, plus whatever wounds it gets with its cannons. Across two or three turns, you've got more than your points back, plus the strategy involved in using it.
5. That's the same to be said against any shooting army. Doesn't help them hold objectives in your deployment or in the middle of the board. If they are deploying to hide from your Valiant, that's a win to me.
6. You've also got the cannons, the melta guns, the missiles, and worst case scenario, you can charge in and stomp something to death. Yeah you're not hitting as often, but it'll be enough damage to finish off some space marines that got too close.

The Valiant is a nuanced beast. There's reasons it's so expensive. The flamer can delete a troop unit of nearly any size and save a turn. The harpoon adds to the firepower of the short-ranged melta guns that the Castellan will NEVER use, and the missiles and cannons on the shoulders that everyone seems to forget are great for reaching out and touching those things that are 'hiding' from your Valiant. With 10" of movement, the Valiant is already moving faster than most troops in the game. Yeah it's not going to win any races, and yeah the harpoon may not be in range turn 1, but if your opponent is deploying and moving to avoid your Valiant, you've already won the game. You can deny so much space with that thing, hold objectives (which people complain knights suck at, despite evidence to the contrary), and create a massive 'No U' zone that other knights can't. The Conflagration Cannon also fixes the Dominus' main weakness: close combat. I.e. it doesn't allow anything to get into close combat with it.

I've yet to have a game where my Valiant doesn't make its points back. I've yet to have a game where I think to myself "Man, I wish I had 2 Gallants instead, or a Castellan." I've yet to think "Jeez, this thing is overpriced."

You know what I have realized though? The only people that think the Valiant is overpriced are the people that haven't put one on the table and played it out.

People keep saying this about it's overwatch. Yeah it's not pleasnt to charge it BUT any vehical with t7 can pretty much absorb it. Shinning spears with 3++ saves and 5+FNP don't give 2 shigs about it and take you out the the rest of the game. Autarcs and captain smash can take overwatch away from you. It's really a statement of overconfidence.

The harpoon sucks because invo saves exist. A single wound? 4++ save with a reroll....okay...GG - 0 wounds.

Yeah - it's pretty good against space marines...who have practically no invo saves - lots of 2 wound models that need to get close to do damage...essentially the worst army in the game has no chance against a monster like the valliant. Most other armies do.

I play the valiant so my opponents have a chance and for no other reason.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
If you want the benefits of a household, you need a SHD and the easiest and cheapest way to fill it out is to add 2 Armigers to one big Knight. And for a Castellan, I can imagine Raven is a huge boon to it giving it more mobility and the Order of Companions stratagem. Otherwise you're running a Freeblade.

You get the stratagem anyway since the Knight codex does not limit it to non-auxillery detachments. Only for the household traditions and those are frankly not worth a 300+ point tax.

A single castellan can do without them that is true. Though I wouldn't really consider 2 herines a tax. I would consider it an asset.

I’m going to have a go with a gallant tonight. I think it might be better to have a crusader and gallant rather than an errant and warden. Same exact price, as I was putting afist on the errant anyway.

I basically realised that even though the gallant might not want to charge, I’m not really losing anything because I’ve got the same firepower anyway. I doubt my crusader will be shot early on as I’ve still got a Castellan.

Last game I just ran two wardens, which is also cool. This saves me the points for a stormspear pod, to tackle sneaky ripper swarms and mortar squads.

U02dah4 wrote:
Now thats certainly not true. If your playing unlike in 7th when you were always 24" from the enemy many of the new maps can have you at 18" apart

Secondly many armies
Such as
BA
AM
SM
Admech

Just to name the imperial side deploy infiltrators and so 22" is reguarly enough to shoot something. Maybe not the best target but something


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So... 32 inches is good enough? But (18+10) 28 inches isn't? The difference between the two is just 4 inches.

Ok, if somehow, that magically transforms it from bad to good, then just take house raven and take land strider. Now, your valient is moving 10 inches, advances 2+d6, and can still fire all weapons with no penalties.

So, now the reach of that confrag cannon is (18+10+2+d6). Which works out to 33.5 inches on average, wow, its further than 32 inches now! So, now Valiant is good ?

No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

If the valiant is bad, than so is the castellen. The valient is stronger is the current meta as it is a hard counter to a shield captain or demon prince (or a slam captain without the ability to turn off overwatch)

If knights shift the meta enough to make it so that knights and units that counter them (shadowsworsd) are common, then the castellan is better

And it is possible n other of them are worth the points

The Valient gets 1 shot and an overwatch. it has a 20% chance to kill a Shield captain on bike, 8% if its the warlord with 5+ fnp.

Or they charge with a squad of bikes and lose 1,5 to 2 bikes.

Meanwhile the Castellan will likely get 3 shooting phases before its in combat thanks to its 48" range.

 Xenomancers wrote:

People keep saying this about it's overwatch. Yeah it's not pleasnt to charge it BUT any vehical with t7 can pretty much absorb it.

Valiant with the relic flamer kills a rhino in overwatch.

stratigo wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Now thats certainly not true. If your playing unlike in 7th when you were always 24" from the enemy many of the new maps can have you at 18" apart

Secondly many armies
Such as
BA
AM
SM
Admech

Just to name the imperial side deploy infiltrators and so 22" is reguarly enough to shoot something. Maybe not the best target but something


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So... 32 inches is good enough? But (18+10) 28 inches isn't? The difference between the two is just 4 inches.

Ok, if somehow, that magically transforms it from bad to good, then just take house raven and take land strider. Now, your valient is moving 10 inches, advances 2+d6, and can still fire all weapons with no penalties.

So, now the reach of that confrag cannon is (18+10+2+d6). Which works out to 33.5 inches on average, wow, its further than 32 inches now! So, now Valiant is good ?

No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

If the valiant is bad, than so is the castellen. The valient is stronger is the current meta as it is a hard counter to a shield captain or demon prince (or a slam captain without the ability to turn off overwatch)

If knights shift the meta enough to make it so that knights and units that counter them (shadowsworsd) are common, then the castellan is better

And it is possible n other of them are worth the points

I think you will find sheild captains and daemon princes are going to fall out of style. Over-watch is easy to avoid. A gallants relic fist is not. Could easily kill 3 shield captains in a single round by slipping 2 wounds through and death gripping the other - and SC have a hard time wounding a knight also.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cadian16th wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

People keep saying this about it's overwatch. Yeah it's not pleasnt to charge it BUT any vehical with t7 can pretty much absorb it.

Valiant with the relic flamer kills a rhino in overwatch.

Aint no one taking the relic flamer. The best stratagems are in mechanicus. Imperialis is 100% non competitive (except for maybe gallants). You telling me you are going to give up the abilitity to resurect a knight...or advance and shoot your mega flamer so you can reroll wounds on a weapon you aren't even shooting turn 1? No way.

drbored wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:


No the valiant is still not good
1) it doesnt have enough W to justify its points - its too many eggs in one basket (I mean 2 gallants or 4 warglaives isn't much more points wise.
2) Its harpoon while cool is about as inconsistant as a weapon can get and most of the time will score 0W (it makes the deathstrike look consistant.
3) It has to get close enough to CC to fire its weapons that it is vulnerable to a counter charge and its weak in CC in comparison to other knights
4) Due to its high pts cost it will struggle to make its points back.
5) you opponent can still deploy backfield and ignore 1st turn shooting on a lot of maps
6) one reasonable weapon in range doesn't fix a vehicle which is not great for so many other reasons.

However it does look cool and even if the harpoon only W once a game its awesome when it does

People complaining about the Valiant again? I swear, when will people learn that not everything is down to how long the harpoon can fire or how math works or doesn't.

1. It's got 28 wounds and you can give it Ion bulwark to give it a 4+ invul save. What more do you want? Sure you can take those other machines, if you want to be a pleb.
2. The harpoon re-rolls hits against vehicles and monsters. That's as reliable as it can get. If you're not hitting, get new dice.
3. Counter charge? What counter charge? Oh, you mean those toasted marshmellows that got too close that you flamer'd up nice and good in overwatch?
4. Never been a problem. It deletes a squad of 100-200 point troops a turn, plus a tougher unit, plus whatever wounds it gets with its cannons. Across two or three turns, you've got more than your points back, plus the strategy involved in using it.
5. That's the same to be said against any shooting army. Doesn't help them hold objectives in your deployment or in the middle of the board. If they are deploying to hide from your Valiant, that's a win to me.
6. You've also got the cannons, the melta guns, the missiles, and worst case scenario, you can charge in and stomp something to death. Yeah you're not hitting as often, but it'll be enough damage to finish off some space marines that got too close.

The Valiant is a nuanced beast. There's reasons it's so expensive. The flamer can delete a troop unit of nearly any size and save a turn. The harpoon adds to the firepower of the short-ranged melta guns that the Castellan will NEVER use, and the missiles and cannons on the shoulders that everyone seems to forget are great for reaching out and touching those things that are 'hiding' from your Valiant. With 10" of movement, the Valiant is already moving faster than most troops in the game. Yeah it's not going to win any races, and yeah the harpoon may not be in range turn 1, but if your opponent is deploying and moving to avoid your Valiant, you've already won the game. You can deny so much space with that thing, hold objectives (which people complain knights suck at, despite evidence to the contrary), and create a massive 'No U' zone that other knights can't. The Conflagration Cannon also fixes the Dominus' main weakness: close combat. I.e. it doesn't allow anything to get into close combat with it.

I've yet to have a game where my Valiant doesn't make its points back. I've yet to have a game where I think to myself "Man, I wish I had 2 Gallants instead, or a Castellan." I've yet to think "Jeez, this thing is overpriced."

You know what I have realized though? The only people that think the Valiant is overpriced are the people that haven't put one on the table and played it out.

1) 600pts for 28 or 350 for 24 sure (well 450 probably) pts per wound wise you make my pt
2) anything worth harpooning in my lists has a 4++ and if I know you have a harpoon thats a command reroll and a 75% fail rate based on invul alone - 85% miss rate total
3) ever seen a BA CPT no overwatch and 12-16Attacks and they are neverplayed so i suppose your Good (note I wont list every good CC unit
4) So yeah you make my point it never makes its points back its not lasting more than 2 turns either your opponents dead or it is
5)difference us with your egfs in 1 basket its then only geting 1 turn of shooting it will be your opponents first kill
6) yes the 17pt melta guns that dont get to fire you have convinced me its broken or not...... the missiles are ok but not for an extra 100pts

If you genuinely have yet to have a game where ots not died in 2 turns you need to playtest vs stronger opponents

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
Seeing everyone rave about the Castellan, is it really that good for the points? At ~600 pts I would've thought it was a bit overpriced compared to the Questoris classes for some extra dakka, not much more durability and worse CC ability. Not to mention Rotate Ion Shields is 3 CP which is a big investment if you're not running an AM CP farm. If you're bringing a single big Knight to supplement an army along Armigers to round out the SHD, I would've thought a Questoris class would be the right choice for the point/CP efficiency. with Am I missing something here or is the Castellan's dakka really that ridiculous to completely justify the ~600 point investment?

This should answer your question.
https://pastebin.com/Ps6DPNFK
Note I didn't double check the math. To much work for me right now.

Results Highlight (strategem refers to Raven's Companion one)
A Castellan is does about twice the damage of a Crusader.