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daismith906 wrote:
having issues with objectives with my knight list - valliant, crusader & gallant

what would be a good option for objective holders

thinking 3 squads of scions with 2 commanders to DS in turn 3

I’ve been running a valiant crusader and gallant with a helverin and a battalion of stygies 8 ad mech. I have got to actually test it since I updated it but it seems better. I have an enginseer TDP 2x rangers and 1x vanguard with a 5man infiltrator squad. Mostly running the admech because it’s all I have tho

 Ordana wrote:

daismith906 wrote:
cheers guys whats the best heavy weapons/special weapons if any to load ouit the standard x3 infantry squads?

Mortars are amazing for their cost and if your playing ITC they are important to deny secondaries (unit size 9 instead of 10).
I wouldn't bother with any of the other options.

Mind you that itc thing is gone with new rules. Plus for inf squad you aren#t out of los so i would take heavy bolter

Just wanted to say thanks to you guys for giving me tips (as Drukhari)... I was competitive against IK/helverins list this weekend.

I really don't like the shooty helverin... lots a shots for flat D3 at range.

I’ve been reading the new space wolf codex. They’ve got an awesome stratagem called Chooser of the Slain that lets a “friendly” unit (crucially not just a space wolf unit) fire at an opponent’s unit that sets up as reinforcements. You just need a rune priest that can see the enemy unit and for 2CPs he gets to pick a friendly unit within 6” to fire at them, with -1 to hit.

It seems to me that the unit within 6” of the rune priest ought to be a knight – preferably a dominus knight or a crusader – though anything but a gallant or armiger knight would do.

Rune priests can also do useful stuff like deny enemy psychic powers. As space wolves they get to heroically intervene 6” and this could be useful because they can take a relic suit of armour that makes a unit within 1” fight last. They have a decent set of psychic powers, many of which cause mortal wounds. Not many of them need to be cast on knights to succeed.

This all adds up to a pretty strong deterrence against people charging your knights, when there’s a rune priest nearby. If they deep strike they get shot at, then if they charge the rune priest can intervene, slow the enemy’s attacks and let the knight stamp on them a few times before they fight.

So I’m pretty sure that at least one rune priest would make a good addition to a knight army. It might be worth it to get a battalion for the CPs, if the rumours of the nerfs to the guard CP battery are true. The problem there is that wolf scouts aren’t troops, and in any case don’t have the same deployment rules as normal space wolf scouts. So I’d have to use intercessors, blood claws or grey hunters. Of the three I think I prefer intercessors, because they will tend to live a bit longer than the other options, but grey hunters look ok. I’ve thrown together the following 2k list.

Knight lance (+6CPs)

Castellan (warlord) with two turrets, two missiles, Ion Bulwark and Cawl’s Wrath. 604

Crusader with RFBC, endless fury (-1CP) and ironstorm pod. 501

Warden with Thunderstrike gauntlet and probably landstrider (-1CP). 416

Wolf battalion (+5CPs)

Primaris Rune Priest with Armour of Russ (-1CP). 103

Primaris Rune Priest. 103

5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91

5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91

5 Intercessors with grenade launcher and chainsword. 91

So that leaves you with 11CPs at the start of the game. I think this list would work best as Raven, for the stratagem and to let the warden get into combat on turn 1 if you want.

It could well be that a supreme command detachment is a better option than a battalion, but CPs are good. I’ve found my Crimson Fist intercessors to be fairly good, though space wolf ones would be a little bit worse due to not ignoring cover.

I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on whether wolves and knights looks like a good match.

I wouldn't invest money yet least faq nullify that. People were pouring over deep striking primarch with daemon codex until gw changed rules in faq

Fair point - it’s arguably too good. That said it’s identical to an Eldar stratagem and that allows them to fire with a scorpion.

But does eldar one allow fire with non eldar? I think i would wait like 2 weeks for faq before investing money. Daemon thing was clear ok by rules before faq as well. As faq's comes so fast feels prudent to wait. Of course if you have models different.

Wonder how many bought primarch when daemon codex came

No, it’s <craftworld> only - though that’s not really a problem as the superheavy can be from the same craftworld as the farseer. It does mean the space wolf one is more flexible though.

I might not buy stuff, but to be honest I wouldn’t have to for now. I’ve got quite enough primaris guys to proxy the list.

That Rune Priest stratagem does look nice. We will have to wait for the FAQ to find out if it is too good to be true. Intercessors are good troops and quite durable for the points. I quite like Grey Hunters too. For the same price as Tactical Marines they get chainswords thrown in so get twice as many attacks in melee.

I would be tempted to go with regular Rune Priests rather than Primaris ones and to give them Jump Packs. This helps them keep up with the Knights if necessary and helps them levarge that 6" HI.

Yeah grey hunters are an interesting troop choice. I tend to think that they wouldn't be all that good in small numbers, but that a bunch of them could be effective. I prefer the durability of intercessors as allies for knights, especially since most of the big guns will be pointed at knights, leaving small arms to remove the intercessors.

You could be right about the jump pack option. My problem with it is that you pay quite a lot more for a model with a sinnificatly worse profile. But maybe that profile isn't all that important. I'm not sure there's all that much risk of even a guy on foot being left behind by a castellan or crusader, though thinking about it I am suggesting house Raven here, so maybe they'll be quite fast.

I also think Njal is worth considering. Personally I don't think he's worth it. Your rune priests are there more for the stratagem than their psychic powers (which are certainly great to have). However if you have three priests in a supreme command detachment I think there's a stronger case for one of them being Njal, for that boosted living lightning stratagem. The trouble there is that you need even more CPs, and you only get 1 from a supreme command instead of 5 for a battalion.

Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?

RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade

This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.

Wulfey wrote:
Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?

RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade

This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.

Part of the reason you don't see two Castellans that often is because the second one is so much worse than the first one. You can only put the 4++, relic plasma, and rotate ion shields on one of them, or split it between them somehow and have two mediocre castellans. It's much better to just take 1 knight and some other army, or to at least take a lot of different knights and spread the relics around.

jcd386 wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?

RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade

This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.

Part of the reason you don't see two Castellans that often is because the second one is so much worse than the first one. You can only put the 4++, relic plasma, and rotate ion shields on one of them, or split it between them somehow and have two mediocre castellans. It's much better to just take 1 knight and some other army, or to at least take a lot of different knights and spread the relics around.

So yes, the second one is fully worse (lower damage) than the first. But in this case, the second one is tough as nails (-1/2+) and ignores modifiers for 1CP. The idea with this list would be it is specifically designed to target the current meta of ynnari / IK_BA_Castellon / drukari. Ignore modifiers baits out twice as many vects as the current meta list and two castellans will outshoot one. And yeah, smash captains are scary, I run them, but they aren't getting through 60 guard bodies if you make a real bubble wrap. Just make sure your 2++ ogryn bodyguard is waiting by the knights to catch those thunderhammer swings.

I'm running a IG Battery + Castellan + Custode bike list and was wondering what knight players are doing to deal with smash captains.

I was at Nova last weekend and the higher you went up in the ranking the more often you saw 2 or 3 of these guys. My strategy was to bubble wrap with my mortars but they die when there's a stiff breeze and are slow compared to the knight. My new strategy I think will to be to bubble wrap with one of the Custode bike units as they can keep up and are as tough as nails although that means they are tied to the knight until the smash captains are no longer an issue. So that's my strategy until it fails miserably - what's yours?

Wrap with infantry(you need plenty to face inevitable mortars, likely double layer) and fast character of your own like...well ba smash captain

I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.

Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?

It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would appreciate any feedback on it anyways.

Spiky Norman wrote:
I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.

Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?

It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.

Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...

Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf

 necron99 wrote:

Spiky Norman wrote:
I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.

Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?

It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.

Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...

Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf

So not worth the money and time to go that route?

Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?

Spiky Norman wrote:

 necron99 wrote:

Spiky Norman wrote:
I am considering dropping some money at Forgeworld for some Solar Auxila to use for count-as Scion to complement my Crusader, Warden and 2 Helverins.

Before I commit to that, I would like to estimate how far below the curve it would be to run a Scion battalion along with the knights?

It would be a shame to end up with beautiful models that wont see play in a relatively competitive community.
I know its an impossible to give a decisive answer to, but I would any feedback on it anyways.

Before the plasma price nerf and command squad nerf hit I was running a ton of 4-man command squads with plasma. It was pretty silly. My only complaint was that they were really squishy. They'd deepstrike in kill something and then die...

Post all of the nerfs I have a very well painted scion army full of plasma sitting next to my commissars on a shelf

So not worth the money and time to go that route?

Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?

It's not top tier, but you also can't really always be chasing the top tier stuff as it keeps changing.

Generally I think knights +Scions have potential, since you can keep the Scions cheap and drop them in turns 2-3 for some board control and still benefit from the schew nature of a T8 knight army.

One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

tneva82 wrote:
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

Not if you hold them off the table.

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

Not if you hold them off the table.

I guess it depends a bit on the missions scoring, but maybe Helverins can help hold some objective in our own backfield

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

Not if you hold them off the table.

Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights

tneva82 wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

Not if you hold them off the table.

Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights

Right. But they are pretty cheap and a pure knight list doesn't have screens anyway.

Infantry squads are definitely better, no argument there. But it's not like you're hamstringing yourself by taking scions if you like them.

What about a unit of Bullgryns or 3 Ogre bodyguards as a screen, small as it is?

I am eyeing those Solar Auxilia Ogryn Charonite models, that are really great looking, and could probably count-as or be converted to fit.

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One issue will be adding relatively expensive models that will be prime targets for enemy anti infantry weapons. Think they work better if you have other infantry as well

Not if you hold them off the table.

Which keeps them safe max 3 turns and means no screens for knights

Right. But they are pretty cheap and a pure knight list doesn't have screens anyway.

Infantry squads are definitely better, no argument there. But it's not like you're hamstringing yourself by taking scions if you like them.

Well pure knight list doesn't have scions either

Having played a Knight Gallant alongside my Dark Angels and (borrowed) Astra Militarum in two different tournaments and a couple of other games, I can say that it makes a pretty effective distraction and puts early pressure on your opponent. For 354 points, it is extremely effective, especially with the 2+ armor save relic. The Paragon Gauntlet is another solid choice, and allowed my Gallant to actually kill a Warhound Titan in one round of combat today (actually yesterday as it is past midnight as I write this).

Spiky Norman wrote:


Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?

Can't comment on scions but I've been playing around with a bare bones elysian battalion plus a couple of vultures alongside my knights and quite enjoy it, which might have some similarities. I don't bother with the cp regen abilities as I often keep them back till turn 3 when gaps have opened up on the board for them to grab objectives, though against lighter armoured armies they can offer some useful fire power by being able to deeps trike into frfsrf range.
Vultures are hit and miss but they allow me to meet 50% on the board with out being a squishy target for the enemies anti-infantry weapons, and they are enjoying the large amount of dark eldar vehicles at the moment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wulfey wrote:
Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?

RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade

This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.

I'd be tempted to make the mortal castellan a crusader, stops you becoming over saturated with anti-vehicle weaponry making you a bit more versatile but still has enough punch to make use of the stratagem, the slightly better ws also means he's more happy getting in CC making use of the house hold trait.

So, some of you may remember the tragedy of my last grand tournament, where I had to forfeit my last two games due to a plumbing emergency and missed out on a finals spot by one point?

Well, I was able to snag a returned ticket for this Saturdays heat 2, and a shot at redemption.

The downside is I haven't done a lick of painting since then due to demotivation, so I'll be bringing Castellan, Valiant and Crusader as that's all that's been painted.

I've also not been paying attention to the meta, so any suggestions on what to look out for will be appreciated

Godeskian wrote:
So, some of you may remember the tragedy of my last grand tournament, where I had to forfeit my last two games due to a plumbing emergency and missed out on a finals spot by one point?

Well, I was able to snag a returned ticket for this Saturdays heat 2, and a shot at redemption.

The downside is I haven't done a lick of painting since then due to demotivation, so I'll be bringing Castellan, Valiant and Crusader as that's all that's been painted.

I've also not been paying attention to the meta, so any suggestions on what to look out for will be appreciated

Great news.

I'm not sure if the meta has changed much since heat 1, though it's likely you'll face more people who are prepared to meet knights.

I think you might be better off with House Raven. Their stratagem on a Castellan seems to have been identified as a real game-changer, and they are also better at getting your Valiant into range. You could consider landstrider on one of your guys to get even more of a speed boost.

Good luck, and watch out for smash captains!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ragnorack1 wrote:

Spiky Norman wrote:


Anyone else have some input on Scions worth as a battalion to support knights?

Can't comment on scions but I've been playing around with a bare bones elysian battalion plus a couple of vultures alongside my knights and quite enjoy it, which might have some similarities. I don't bother with the cp regen abilities as I often keep them back till turn 3 when gaps have opened up on the board for them to grab objectives, though against lighter armoured armies they can offer some useful fire power by being able to deeps trike into frfsrf range.
Vultures are hit and miss but they allow me to meet 50% on the board with out being a squishy target for the enemies anti-infantry weapons, and they are enjoying the large amount of dark eldar vehicles at the moment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wulfey wrote:
Has anyone considered a double castellan list? Assuming it isn't nerfed in the FAQ, has anyone been thinking of something along these lines?

RAVEN - 1x castellan (4++/Cawls)
MORTAN - 1x castellan (-1 to hit at 18"/2+ armor)
CATACHAN - mans and mortars brigade

This gives you the devastating RR1 strategem on the RAVEN knight, and the IGNORE_MODIFERS strategem for the MORTAN knight. Would you even need smash captains if you have that kind of firepower? Just body block the melee with your 60 bodies. Every turn the two castellans will pick up 4 enemy units or 100% kill an enemy castellan/bashbro/knight/lordofwar.

I'd be tempted to make the mortal castellan a crusader, stops you becoming over saturated with anti-vehicle weaponry making you a bit more versatile but still has enough punch to make use of the stratagem, the slightly better ws also means he's more happy getting in CC making use of the house hold trait.

I don't think Scions really add a lot to a knight list to be honest. They aren't good at killing things that the knights aren't already good at killing, but they do give your opponent a bunch of easy targets for small arms fire and close combat units. I'd steer clear.

Also, in the mixed Raven, Mortan and Catachan list the Mortan knight won't get a household trait anyway, so that's kind of irrelevant on the Castellan/Crusader decision. Crusaders are good, of course.

On the whole I think it's better to go for a knight Lance and battalion rather than two individual ones and a brigade. You get almost as many CPs but the knights get their traits and there's an awful lot less tax for you to pay. I think I'd take either one knight or three, basically.