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 blackmage wrote:
if you build a list for tournament you cant tailor it for a specific opponent, often i think many people here never go to tournaments so they take for granted what they will face, in that case if you know you are going against Ik's for example , of course double thermal+stormspear can be the right choice, but if you attend to tournament and you face 3 hordes (last tournaments i faced 120 orks and about 120 tyr models and about 50 FW+34 drones)? What you do with your thermals? 4/5 orks dead/turn and the other 120? or worse if you face 90/120 plaguebearers? I know ITC meta is different but thank God the rest of the world play GW missions so you must consider it.

Last tournament I went to, a couple of weeks ago, I played 60 plaguebearers and 50 tazangors, 3 Daredeos, 3 heldrakes and 3 lord discordants and a tau triptide list with 30 fw and 5 broadsides. If I'd taken double avengers I'd have been only efficient in the first match.


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 Freeflow44 wrote:

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 small_gods wrote:

 Freeflow44 wrote:
It's a pretty big and fluffy Death Guard Army, I'm not a tournament player:
Dark Imperium (LOC, Malignant Plague Caster, etc.)
40 Pox walkers in total
15 Plague Marines
5 Blightlord Terminators
2 Plague Burst Crawlers
2 Foetid Bloat Drones with spitters
1 Myphitic Blight Hauler
1 Foul Blight Spawn
1 Biologus Putrifier
Typhus
Daemon Prince with Wings and 2 Malefic Talons

I'm teaming up with my buddy who also runs Death Guard, his army is very similar to mine, but he can also bring Nurglings, Plague Bearers, and a Great unclean one. Storyline is, the Death Guard are invading the planet Kaldova to create a new Garden for Nurgle. Our opponents are Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard), they are Vostroyans and they will be bringing a Super Heavy Detachment (multiple Super Heavy tanks) and a ton of infantry. Our campaign starts with a couple games of Kill Team, moves into 40K matches and concludes with an Apocolypse battle.

Sounds fun!

If they're bringing a ton of superheavies you'll want to use an iconoclast rampager. You can give him Vow of Dominance pregame so all those volcano lances are only wounding on 4+. If you make him a dreadblade you can also give him the pact that rerolls all hits vs. Titanic and Characters to save some CP.

If you have any wardogs (armigers) that would make it more useful again because you can get the iconoclast trait with a full super heavy detachment which gives you more attacks (so at least 18 stomps hitting on 2+) and might make them loose a model or two more to morale.

Finally you can't go wrong with extra relics and warlord traits. More likely +1 attack and the slanesh relic (for a bit of extra movement) would be useful

Thanks for the advice! Currently, I use my Poxwalkers as screening units to tie up vehicles while I close the gap with the PBC and Bloat drones, then I melt everything with Spitters. You think the same could work for the Knight? Poxwalkers, Nurglings and Plague Bearers screening and tieing up tanks until the Rampager can get in range and start charging the tanks? I'm not really worried about the Vostroyan Infantry, the Death Guard are very good at killing inexpensive troops

You should be able to get him into combat pretty quickly anyway, with full tilt and deploying on the line you'll be moving, advancing and charging an adverage of 24.5 inches so depending on deployment you could get a first turn charge. If you can keep the rampager alive he'll make mincemeat of AM tanks!

I dont see how a bunch of brimestones are going to stop a knight from getting to you.
If his list don't have the tools to take out such a flimsy warp, he is not a problem to begin with.

And really, you can't compare the ranged boosts to the melee ones.
Both households boost melee, either damage output of reaching it.
The dreadblade pacts are either melee, or non-spesific.
The stratagems are mostly melee oriented.
Most relics are melee, and the few that are ranged are either bad (the one that improves AP by 1 on 6s to wound), situational (ignore modifiers) or highly spesific (relic laser destructor) the 4++ against shooting is also arguably better shooty, but its on the pure CC household.


Basically, shooting knights got a tiny bit better with the codex, melee and hybrid knight got a WHOLE lot better.
The fact gatas got more expensive as well also hinders their edge a bit.

 small_gods wrote:

Last tournament I went to, a couple of weeks ago, I played 60 plaguebearers and 50 tazangors, 3 Daredeos, 3 heldrakes and 3 lord discordants and a tau triptide list with 30 fw and 5 broadsides. If I'd taken double avengers I'd have been only efficient in the first match.

I'm not sure I follow. The biggest problem in my experience of that tau match up is the fire warriors and drones. The fire warrior are deadly against knights once they trigger focus fire. The next is the drones preventing you from damaging the riptides. So clearing those out is a priority and double avengers doubles the speed at which you can clear them out.

I take it you were relying on death hex to strip the riptides 3+ invulnerable saves? Cause otherwise those thermal cannons aren't going to be the most reliable even once you clear out the drones.

Tau don't have psychic defence so pre codex I just summon a poxbringer with the -1 toughness power. It makes avengers brutally effective against riptides, you don't even need to use death hex at that point. These days that isn't even necessary as Daemonic power on an avenger is more than enough to chew though a riptide once it's drones are down.

But that's just my experience.

I've just moved my 1000 point list over from Index: Renegade Knights to Codex: Chaos Knights:

++ Super-Heavy Detachment (Chaos - Chaos Knights) [54 PL, 3CP, 992pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Battle-forged CP [3CP]

+ Lord of War +

War Dogs [18 PL, 324pts]
. War Dog: 4. Warp-haunted Hull, Character (Traitoris Lance), Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Thermal spear and Reaper chain-cleaver, Tzeentchian Pyrothrone, Warlord
. War Dog: Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Thermal spear and Reaper chain-cleaver

War Dogs [18 PL, 334pts]
. War Dog: Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Thermal spear and Reaper chain-cleaver
. War Dog: Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Two War Dog autocannons

War Dogs [18 PL, 334pts]
. War Dog: Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Thermal spear and Reaper chain-cleaver
. War Dog: Heavy stubber, Infernal Household, Two War Dog autocannons

++ Total: [54 PL, 3CP, 992pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

I took Ahriman, Magnus and two TS daemon princes so I had death hex fairly well covered

But I'm not sold on summoning with knights, even if you summon just the right thing for the situation you've stood still and missed out on your 400+ points knight getting into mele.

They're generally better in combat than at shooting but at their best when doing both. If you're summoning you should use a 70 point daemon or csm hq so you've not traded too much for the flexibility.

As for fire warriors and drones, the best way to deal with them is shoot, charge and stamp 15+ times, fall back and repeat.

every competitive army has a way to screen valuable targets, i always laugh when i read "i charged with my xyz model 1st turn those AM tanks" only if you play with a brainless opponent that can happen, you need ALWAYS a way to deal with screens, is not like 5ht edition.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I dont see how a bunch of brimestones are going to stop a knight from getting to you.
If his list don't have the tools to take out such a flimsy warp, he is not a problem to begin with.

If you summon a screen of horrors in front of knight you limit its movement towards you to 8" in the movement phase (summoned unit needs to be 9" away, and you can't move within 1" of an enemy unit). The shooting phase happens after the movement phase, your opponent couldn't shoot the horrors earlier in the game because they didn't exist. So the fact that your opponent can kill the horrors in his shooting phase doesn't really matter, as they have already done what they needed to disrupt their movement phase. Another trick is to summon a beast of Nurgle for 34pts, it easy to summon (power level 2) and has a large base so its perfect form putting between two pieces of terrain and blocking the path of a melee knight.

The aim is to reduce the movement of the enemy knight in its movement phase not its assault phase. If you want to do that you are better off summoning blue/pink horrors and split them or plague bearers, but both of those option cost more point and are dependent on your opponent not being able to clear the screen in his shooting phase.

 BoomWolf wrote:

And really, you can't compare the ranged boosts to the melee ones.
Both households boost melee, either damage output of reaching it.
The dreadblade pacts are either melee, or non-spesific.
The stratagems are mostly melee oriented.
Most relics are melee, and the few that are ranged are either bad (the one that improves AP by 1 on 6s to wound), situational (ignore modifiers) or highly spesific (relic laser destructor) the 4++ against shooting is also arguably better shooty, but its on the pure CC household.


Basically, shooting knights got a tiny bit better with the codex, melee and hybrid knight got a WHOLE lot better.
The fact gatas got more expensive as well also hinders their edge a bit.

I don't see how a shooting knight is any different from a hybrid knight in your examples? They both have titanic feet and both benefit from all of those melee bonuses. That's part of my point shooting knights are melee knights. Just because you have two ranged weapons doesn't mean you hang back and shoot with your knight, it means you have the flexibility to do so if you need to. Most of the time my double ranged weapons knights are shooting and charging as much as they can, so they benefit just as much from boosts to melee as a hybrid knight. The only difference between the two is the chainsword/gauntlet, which only come into play against very specific targets (other knights mostly) outside of those specific targets hybrid knights and shooting knights benefit the same. Generally, if it doesn't make sense for a melee/hybrid knight to charge a unit then it doesn't make sense for a shooting knight to charge a unit, the key difference is that the shooting knight has more options in that situation.

Again I'm not saying hybrid knights don't have a place in chaos knight lists. I'm saying that shooting knights benefit just as much from the majority of the Chaos Knight Codex melee buffs because against most targets they have the exact same profile and weapon profile as a hybrid knight.

 small_gods wrote:
But I'm not sold on summoning with knights, even if you summon just the right thing for the situation you've stood still and missed out on your 400+ points knight getting into mele.

Summoning doesn't always stop you from charging, If you are holding a key objective with a knight your opponent often has to send troops to contest.

I find the argument about not being able to do something with a 400+ model a bit misleading. If I'm standing still to summon with a 400+ knight it means I've decided that summoning is more likely to help me win the game than charging into melee. If I'm performing the action that is most likely to win me the game then it doesn't matter how many points the knight costs, or that the opportunity cost is that he's not in melee.

 small_gods wrote:
They're generally better in combat than at shooting but at their best when doing both. If you're summoning you should use a 70 point daemon or csm hq so you've not traded too much for the flexibility.

I completly agree. I run a chaos daemon battalion with my knights, and often it's the characters from that battalion that will do the summoning. However, having more characters that can summon espeically large hard to kill models that tend to hold favourable positions on the board, just gives me more options. There's also an element of knights being undivided so they can summon form the entire pantheon, unlike daemon characters which are limited to summoning units from their allegiance. Sometimes the best unit to summon with is a knight. I've had games where summoning some flamers turn 5-6 to kill a unit so that I can target the characters behind with my last remaining knight was the winning move. It's about options, and in my experience summoning gives me those options. That being said all my chaos armies this edition have had an element of summoning, so I'm a bit biased.

summon is very tactical and many dont completely understand it's value is a strong tool in capable hands. Do you run 3 Ik's?
I tried this

Clearing screens isnt a problem if your running 3 deredeo's, which is why in that list my shooty is a double thermal. A despoiler melee and a wardog autoC.

With that combo you have all your bases covered.

Strong melee, good tank slayer, anti horde and anti flyer.

Rounded out with nurglings for quick and cheap scoring from the 1st turn.

What are some good cheap screening units available that can keep up with a mobile melee knight to prevent deepstrike and alphas?.

Cultists and Nurglings are too slow. Plague drones are too expensive.

I'm thinking Spawn? Maybe Furies? (one we get those new models)

Did anybody playtest the desecrator and dual RFBC despoilers?

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
What are some good cheap screening units available that can keep up with a mobile melee knight to prevent deepstrike and alphas?.

Cultists and Nurglings are too slow. Plague drones are too expensive.

I'm thinking Spawn? Maybe Furies? (one we get those new models)

Bikes are relatively cheap, fast, have long bases so you can block well and good at clearing screen! Am thinking of squeezing some in to my knights and cosairs.

Bikes would have been a great suggestion! I truly regret selling off my Bike army at the start of 8th edition, when SM Biker Troops got dropped.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
What are some good cheap screening units available that can keep up with a mobile melee knight to prevent deepstrike and alphas?.

Cultists and Nurglings are too slow. Plague drones are too expensive.

I'm thinking Spawn? Maybe Furies? (one we get those new models)

Seekers? 15 points/model, with a 14" move.

A large unit of Alpha Legion cultists can be moved up to 15+d6" by the end of the your first turn. More if you use Warptime.

Broly33 wrote:
Did anybody playtest the desecrator and dual RFBC despoilers?

i think better configuration is gatling+rfbc and infernal household, so depending by match you improve one of your weapons damage and strenght, rfbv str 9 and d3+1 damage can be nice if you face mechanized lists, gatling keep hordes at bay.

Broly33 wrote:
Did anybody playtest the desecrator and dual RFBC despoilers?

Not tried them but I think you're paying a premium for it's 72" range for a d3 damage weapon. Thermal and avenger gatling are both better choices imo, one has more many more shots and the other has similar or better damage for 40 less points.

Not a clue what kinda list to make, or what extra bits to buy and need your help Currently own:

30 Cultists
1 Knight w 2 Gatling Cannons
2 Wardogs
2 Venomcrawlers
1 Arch Discordant

Gonna defo nab a Rampager, just not sure what else I may need to round out a list...

anyone rocked the guantlet relic yet?

on an iconoclast with +1 attack WL on the charge vs an enemy knight you have 7 attacks hittin on 2's with a reroll, wounding on 2's with a re-roll -5 (so no save) and 6dmg each

thats about what an average of what 40 wounds?!? guess ye opponenet is not letting him get into HTH

edit: hmm might be 6 attacks because 'technically' you dont have a normal guantlet anymore for the +1 attack, but i expect that will be faq'd in favour of the +1

So everyone’s thoughts for best build of the Castellan tyrant?

Quick question with the psyker relic, are you able to choose a psyker power or does it just allow it to use smite and deny a power?

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
Quick question with the psyker relic, are you able to choose a psyker power or does it just allow it to use smite and deny a power?

Yes, the Tzeentchian Pyrothrone artefact gives you smite and deny. Add the Warp-Haunted Hull warlord trait for a second deny

Anyone this list has any legs to it?

2k

Super Heavy Detachment <Iconoclast>
Despoiler (2x Avenger Gatling, 2x Heavy Flamers, Heavy Stubber) 485 <-- prob takes the vow of carnage
Despoiler (2x Rapid Battle Cannnons, 3x Heavy Stubbers) 471
Despoiler (Chainsword, Gauntlet) 370 <-- takes big gauntlet, is WL with whatever trait

Spearhead <purge>
Warpsmith (Meltagun, Flamer, Combi-Melta, Power Axe, Mechtendrils) 75
Deredeo Dreanought (Butcher, Greater Havoc, Twin Heavy Bolters) 198
Deredeo Dreanought (Butcher, Greater Havoc, Twin Heavy Bolters) 198
Deredeo Dreanought (Butcher, Greater Havoc, Twin Heavy Bolters) 198

knights hurt stuff and because purge the deredeos get some re-rolls to hit.
clears hordes, can take on armour, can take on flyers, can do CC and is fairly resilient.

So another find from some more games. Some of you might have noticed the new wording of Trail of destruction means it can now be used during overwatch.

At first I dissmised this, thinking it would be a waste of CP. But it almost doubles the damage of your overwatch going from 16.6% hits to 30% hits. With double avengers this means going from 4 to 8 hits. When combined with double heavy flamers, stubber and a carapace weapon this can be quite potent. Also if you've use Daemonic power then it still applies.

The best part though is that it applies for the whole phase. So if the charging unit fails the charge or gets destroyed by overwatch. Then any subsequent overwatch fired by that knight for the rest of the phase gets re-rolls to hit. I find knights most vulnerable when getting charged, having decent overwatch can really help mitigate this. It can make a big difference against the more dangerous assault units in the game like smash captain , Daemon princes etc (as long as they can't ignore overwatch).

Interestingly the path to glory pact that allows re-rolls to hit against characters also works on overwatch. Could be pretty brutal against a charging knight if your own knight has twin thermal cannons.

 Mushkilla wrote:
So another find from some more games. Some of you might have noticed the new wording of Trail of destruction means it can now be used during overwatch.

At first I dissmised this, thinking it would be a waste of CP. But it almost doubles the damage of your overwatch going from 16.6% hits to 30% hits. With double avengers this means going from 4 to 8 hits. When combined with double heavy flamers, stubber and a carapace weapon this can be quite potent. Also if you've use Daemonic power then it still applies.

The best part though is that it applies for the whole phase. So if the charging unit fails the charge or gets destroyed by overwatch. Then any subsequent overwatch fired by that knight for the rest of the phase gets re-rolls to hit. I find knights most vulnerable when getting charged, having decent overwatch can really help mitigate this. It can make a big difference against the more dangerous assault units in the game like smash captain , Daemon princes etc (as long as they can't ignore overwatch).

Interestingly the path to glory pact that allows re-rolls to hit against characters also works on overwatch. Could be pretty brutal against a charging knight if your own knight has twin thermal cannons.

Good find, I don't think it will get used much but I think if you could catch an opponent off guard with it. Especially if they try to tie up your knight for their mele damage units to charge in without overwatch. Like using a rhino to eat overwatch for your skullreaver daemon prince.

What are everyone's opinions on dual Thermal Cannon Despoiler?

I'm a little torn on whether or not they might be competitively viable. On one hand they're stupidly cheap for their firepower, coming out to only 20 points more than the "Gallant" version of the Despoiler, but on the other hand they're nearly 400 points for an average of 7 slightly improved Lascannon shots + the Knight chassis.

Considering the dual Avenger Gatling Despoiler is almost 100 points more than it, my instincts say it could see some use in a triple Knight army but I'm not entirely sure.

I'm taking one of each on my Despoiler...

Pakman184 wrote:
What are everyone's opinions on dual Thermal Cannon Despoiler?

I'm a little torn on whether or not they might be competitively viable. On one hand they're stupidly cheap for their firepower, coming out to only 20 points more than the "Gallant" version of the Despoiler, but on the other hand they're nearly 400 points for an average of 7 slightly improved Lascannon shots + the Knight chassis.

Considering the dual Avenger Gatling Despoiler is almost 100 points more than it, my instincts say it could see some use in a triple Knight army but I'm not entirely sure.

I really think mixed weapons is the way to go. Think of it this way. If I play orks and see a dual agc and dial thermal. I kill the agc first and laugh as the big stompy dual thermal knight kills 4 boyz a turn.

If I'm playing knights I kill the dual thermal and it then takes the dual agc knight 5 turns to kill me back.

If they're mixed it doesn't matter nearly as much when you loose one knight as you still have some of the weapons you need to do the job.

Personally, I would go double Thermal cannon over a melee knight for Chaos knights because the melee chaos knight and rampager seems to be more expensive. For just a bit more, you get double thermal cannons, and in most melee situations, you are likely to be using stompy feet anyway.

There are lots of ways to get +1 attack, and strategems for reroll to hit would probably be just as good as WS2+. (in the situations where its that crucial).

 small_gods wrote:

I really think mixed weapons is the way to go. Think of it this way. If I play orks and see a dual agc and dial thermal. I kill the agc first and laugh as the big stompy dual thermal knight kills 4 boyz a turn.

There are pros and cons to both. Having the same weapon on the same knight makes them more effective for things like stratagems, relics and pacts. For example putting the helm of warp-sight on a dual avenger knight, or taking path to glory on a dual thermal cannon knight, or vow of carnage which is best on a double avenger knight (etc). Having specialised knights also leads to more interesting target priority considerations for your opponent. Maybe he really wants to kill that double avenger knight but the thermal knight is closer etc. Similar to how gallants are often not the most important target but they are the most immediate threat.

 small_gods wrote:
If I'm playing knights I kill the dual thermal and it then takes the dual agc knight 5 turns to kill me back.

5 turns? Point differences aside (avenger being 44 points more) there isn't that much difference in damage when comparing a thermal cannon to an avenger (against a knight).

Thermal cannon: 3.5 shots, 2.33 wounds, 1.55 unsaved wounds (5++), 5.4 damage (6.92 in melta range).
Avenger: 12 shots, 4 wounds, 2.66 unsaved wounds (5++), 5.3 damage.

So the thermal cannon is only really superior in melta range. For me it's not superior enough that I feel the need to bring it (outside of it points limitation, I.e if I can't fit the second avenger then the thermal cannon is a perfectly reasonable option). I find that daemonic power avengers especially when combined with shrivelling pox -1 toughness, and stormspear rockets give me enough anti knight.

Even when you assume both knights are infernal and the target knight has shrivelling pox etc. Then the difference in damage between a knight with two avengers and a knight with one avenger and a thermals cannon is 0.1 damage outside of melta range and 1.63 damage inside melta range. So this notion that a thermal cannon and single avenger knights are vastly superior at killing knights than a double avenger knights seems a bit exaggerated to me.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Personally, I would go double Thermal cannon over a melee knight for Chaos knights because the melee chaos knight and rampager seems to be more expensive. For just a bit more, you get double thermal cannons, and in most melee situations, you are likely to be using stompy feet anyway.

There are lots of ways to get +1 attack, and strategems for reroll to hit would probably be just as good as WS2+. (in the situations where its that crucial).

Yeah that's where dual thermal cannon becomes interesting, as an alternative to gallants. The increase in cost of the gallant now means that the Errant is the same price (372) making him another option for a cheap knight.

It's mainly a points consideration that thermal allows you to buy a stormspear for (virtually) the same points of one agc. And 45 points is a lot per weapon. If you're running 3 dual agc knights that's 270 points that's a daemon battalion with 9 nurglings and 2 bloodmasters. So 5cp, so useful utility and 44 wounds.

Not to say thermal is the best weapon in the game by any stretch and agc definately benifits from infernal trait more. But one agc benifits as much as two.

The inly argument I can see is for vow of carnage.