Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think knights skew the weapons more than just the amount of anti tank weapons. Knights make meltas and lascannons bad due to their ++ saves so it forces you to use other weapons. And that is almost worse for weaker vehicles. Like if you had only a few really heavy anti tank weapons in a list then the opponent could try to avoid them or try to focus them down. But now you try to get as many heavy bolter, autocannon and plasmas or equivalent to those that they are all over the place. Most units can shoot a light vehicle down or kill it in melee with ease unless its a unit just there for screening/cp. High rof also works well against negative to hit modifier since they wont be as swingy as single shot lascannons.

4++ saves, hit modifiers and random damage all have a huge impact and knights are one of the reasons.

Klickor wrote:
I think knights skew the weapons more than just the amount of anti tank weapons. Knights make meltas and lascannons bad due to their ++ saves so it forces you to use other weapons. And that is almost worse for weaker vehicles. Like if you had only a few really heavy anti tank weapons in a list then the opponent could try to avoid them or try to focus them down. But now you try to get as many heavy bolter, autocannon and plasmas or equivalent to those that they are all over the place. Most units can shoot a light vehicle down or kill it in melee with ease unless its a unit just there for screening/cp. High rof also works well against negative to hit modifier since they wont be as swingy as single shot lascannons.

You've stated that people not taking weapons such as Lascannon, is bad for 'weaker vehicles', because the alternatives are too effective against them... You think that if that is so, Knights disappearing will alter that? The meta will almost always move toward the most effective tactic. I don't intend any offense, but you see the cognative dissonance in your statement here right?

It isn't Knights that make weapons like Lascannon sub optimal. It's the mechanic of invulnerable saves in 8th.

However I don't think this is really about Knights and how they impact the game. Many elements have similar, or greater, impact. I think from the posts in this thread, and others, it's far more about the 'aesthetics' of Knight type units within peoples perception of the 40K they'd like the game to be. That's totally fine, but I think things would be healthier if we didn't pretend it were otherwise.

40K contains Knights and their equivilents. That isn't likely to change (they're apparently the best selling model range after marines - that alone says much about how people feel about them).

 StrayIight wrote:
40K contains Knights and their equivilents. That isn't likely to change (they're apparently the best selling model range after marines - that alone says much about how people feel about them).

"I win Buttons" do tend to sell like hotcakes.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 StrayIight wrote:
40K contains Knights and their equivilents. That isn't likely to change (they're apparently the best selling model range after marines - that alone says much about how people feel about them).

"I win Buttons" do tend to sell like hotcakes.

Fair point

That said, they haven't always been great choices. Pre-codexes for example, they were often seen as quite poor units. On the other hand, they've seemingly always sold well.

Truly lovely and exciting models tend to sell like hot cakes too.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 StrayIight wrote:
40K contains Knights and their equivilents. That isn't likely to change (they're apparently the best selling model range after marines - that alone says much about how people feel about them).

"I win Buttons" do tend to sell like hotcakes.

Ahh yes the if your argument fails resort to calling anything you dont like an "I win Button"
Souping pre marine 2.0 was always an I win option compaired to mono.

Alitoc Airforce is an I win option.

Simply put hating on Knights is seen as cool and hence people will do it to be part of the crowd.

People complain that they squew the meta, what exactly do you think 200+ ork and Guardsmen spam lists do.

Knights codex on it's own is easier to win against than a number of other codex's.

The issue is people have their vision of what 40k is and anything else is just wrong and should be banned from the game.

People need to complain less and look at how other players always seem to br able to wipe the floor with these internet boggy men codex's.

Ice_can wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 StrayIight wrote:
40K contains Knights and their equivilents. That isn't likely to change (they're apparently the best selling model range after marines - that alone says much about how people feel about them).

"I win Buttons" do tend to sell like hotcakes.

Ahh yes the if your argument fails resort to calling anything you dont like an "I win Button"
Souping pre marine 2.0 was always an I win option compaired to mono.

Alitoc Airforce is an I win option.

Simply put hating on Knights is seen as cool and hence people will do it to be part of the crowd.

People complain that they squew the meta, what exactly do you think 200+ ork and Guardsmen spam lists do.

Knights codex on it's own is easier to win against than a number of other codex's.

The issue is people have their vision of what 40k is and anything else is just wrong and should be banned from the game.

People need to complain less and look at how other players always seem to br able to wipe the floor with these internet boggy men codex's.

There does seem to be a heightened degree of moralizing when it comes to

-Any strong list build that involves shooting to the exclusion of anything else

-Any strong list build that involves knights

-Any strong list build that involves Eldar

Whenever those things come up in the competitive build rotation.

Any super-skewed list is going to be more boring to play against faster than any person who either brings a varied collection or brings a varied list. But the vast majority of the competitive knight-focused builds we've seen in 8th have been single knight with light infantry support, not pure knight skew builds. Which is...not a skew list. It's a very strong TAC list. It doesn't rely on making some of your weapons not work to be successful, if you have lasguns, there's usually about a Brigade of guardsmen or cultists or plaguebearers standing out in the open for you to shoot those guns at.

So either we are talking about a competitive, tournament level knight list where they have 20+ CPs to throw around, their statline is T8 3+ 4++ and their firepower is off-the-charts potent, OR we're talking about a casual knight skew list where their statline is actually T8 3+ 5++ and lascannons are *exactly* as efficient to shoot at them as they are to shoot at a T7 3+ target (Vs the T8 3+ 5++ target 1 point of AP is wasted, vs the T7 3+ target 1 point of strength is wasted). In the latter, they've got 9CP to play with, and that equals maybe 1-2 turns of one single model in the army having the 4++ statline and the good firepower.

I've played against people who are dedicated Imperial Knight players in a casual setting. They had 4 armiger-class models, a battalion of Admech providing CP, 1 big lad knight and 2 medium lad knights. That feels like about as much of a skew list as a standard space marine mechanized list with tanks, rhinos, dreadnoughts and 1 land raider. My TAC list fights against it in exactly the same way. It's got light infantry targets and heavy vehicle targets and medium vehicle targets.

I would like Knights to have a place in 40k... but unfortunately right now they are too weak, and not worth fielding. They just get destroyed by any moderately competent army. Let's list the things that can utterly trash them....

* Eldar Flyer Lists
* Ork Shokk Attack Guns
* Ork Mek Guns
* Space Marine Smash Captains
* Space Marine Executioners
* Space Marine Autocannons
* Space Marine Centurions
* Imperial Fists Heavy Bolters
* AdMech Kastellans
* AdMech Kataphrons
* Chaos Mortal Wound Spam
* Chaos Disco Lords
* Tau Riptide Spam
* Tau Seeker Missile Spam
* Guard Leman Russ Commanders
* Genestealer Cult Rocksaw Acolytes
* Genestealer Cult Abberants

These are all things that utterly CRUSH Knights. Tournament level Knight lists are a thing of the past, they are obsolete. They join the Baneblade, in the ranks of units that are really cool, not good in tournaments, but reviled by the judgmental "casual" players who have no idea how to actually play this game but just want to complain about things they don't like.

 Horst wrote:
I would like Knights to have a place in 40k... but unfortunately right now they are too weak, and not worth fielding. They just get destroyed by any moderately competent army. Let's list the things that can utterly trash them....

* Eldar Flyer Lists
* Ork Shokk Attack Guns
* Ork Mek Guns
* Space Marine Smash Captains
* Space Marine Executioners
* Space Marine Autocannons
* Space Marine Centurions
* Imperial Fists Heavy Bolters
* AdMech Kastellans
* AdMech Kataphrons
* Chaos Mortal Wound Spam
* Chaos Disco Lords
* Tau Riptide Spam
* Tau Seeker Missile Spam
* Guard Leman Russ Commanders
* Genestealer Cult Rocksaw Acolytes
* Genestealer Cult Abberants

These are all things that utterly CRUSH Knights. Tournament level Knight lists are a thing of the past, they are obsolete. They join the Baneblade, in the ranks of units that are really cool, not good in tournaments, but reviled by the judgmental "casual" players who have no idea how to actually play this game but just want to complain about things they don't like.

Every time I take my GSC into Knights, they get smashed because to really get the knight-killing combos, you need to get past the loyal 32 screens and have enough models survive the knight's overwatch to attack. I wouldn't call that one much of a hard counter.

Also, I've never seen Tau Seeker Missile Spam in a tournament setting. Seekers are generally seen as pretty crap by tournament tau players?

Definitely agree that the IF meta isn't super kind to knights at all. IF heavy bolters do mean nasty things to T8 3+ 5++.

Fwiw, I almost never have problems with Triptide lists. Just played a competent Tau player at a GT and I tabled him.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Horst wrote:
I would like Knights to have a place in 40k... but unfortunately right now they are too weak, and not worth fielding. They just get destroyed by any moderately competent army. Let's list the things that can utterly trash them....

* Eldar Flyer Lists
* Ork Shokk Attack Guns
* Ork Mek Guns
* Space Marine Smash Captains
* Space Marine Executioners
* Space Marine Autocannons
* Space Marine Centurions
* Imperial Fists Heavy Bolters
* AdMech Kastellans
* AdMech Kataphrons
* Chaos Mortal Wound Spam
* Chaos Disco Lords
* Tau Riptide Spam
* Tau Seeker Missile Spam
* Guard Leman Russ Commanders
* Genestealer Cult Rocksaw Acolytes
* Genestealer Cult Abberants

These are all things that utterly CRUSH Knights. Tournament level Knight lists are a thing of the past, they are obsolete. They join the Baneblade, in the ranks of units that are really cool, not good in tournaments, but reviled by the judgmental "casual" players who have no idea how to actually play this game but just want to complain about things they don't like.

Every time I take my GSC into Knights, they get smashed because to really get the knight-killing combos, you need to get past the loyal 32 screens and have enough models survive the knight's overwatch to attack. I wouldn't call that one much of a hard counter.

I agree with what is said above.

It's likely important though to point out that there is a difference between pure Knights and Knights as a soup ingredient. Much of the negative Knight commentary in this thread doesn't implicitly make any such distinction.
In either Knight codex, I think the internal codex balance is reasonably good. Knights are expensive units, they should be appropriately powerful, and they are. They also have glaring and obvious weaknesses, and they should...

...Unfortunately many of those weaknesses are utterly nullified when you add units from outside those Codexes. Knights are very vulnerable in melee for example, but as described, the moment you add a screen, that goes away for the most part. You can say much the same about their poor objective game, and Psychic vulnerabilities - it's simple to add soup elements that remove those weaknesses.

I don't believe Knights are a problem in 40k. But like so much in todays game, when you mix together elements which we can reasonably suspect were never balanced or examined together, we get issues which we then often project onto 'whipping boy' units by the community (The Scotsman provided a pretty good list of these). Often, it's not the unit in isolation that's at fault. What you reasonably do about that though... *shrugs*

This is the issue pointed out many times for 40k: Can it make up it's mind on being a squad based game (<30 models) or company sized (50-100 models)?
I look to Bolt Action as a game that seems to keep the squad based combat "about right".
This is why Kill Team seems to do so well: it makes for a smaller but more detailed game.

For the topic at hand, Knights and Titans are meant more for the Apocalypse or battalion sized games of some 100-300 models.
I agree that their inclusion really makes weapons choices all or nothing: you need to specialize for horde (mass shooting) or armor (high armor multi-wound units).
It seems too much like tanks or infantry trying to engage a battleship: why would you? (Other than grimdark reasons).
This could happen to a limited extent with "Epic" 40k but was usually a pretty sad result.

I also agree that close support aircraft are appropriate (similar roles as helicopters today).
High speed aircraft are a bit much, we already have the "orbital strikes" that are treated almost the same as airstrikes in Bolt Action.

It all boils down to not wanting to bring a knife to a gun-fight... you feel like you missed the memo that the "big boyz" were going to play.

the_scotsman wrote:


Every time I take my GSC into Knights, they get smashed because to really get the knight-killing combos, you need to get past the loyal 32 screens and have enough models survive the knight's overwatch to attack. I wouldn't call that one much of a hard counter.

Also, I've never seen Tau Seeker Missile Spam in a tournament setting. Seekers are generally seen as pretty crap by tournament tau players?

Definitely agree that the IF meta isn't super kind to knights at all. IF heavy bolters do mean nasty things to T8 3+ 5++.

I've seen this countered 2 ways by GSC... one is Nid allies with Genestealers + Swarmlord, turn 1 can charge and remove a solid 20 Guardsmen minimum, turn 2 charge in a second unit and remove the rest, turn 3 bring in the rocksaws to the now vulnerable Knights. Or, 20 man Acolyte flamer squad deep struck 3" away, clear the screens, then bring in the Rocksaws. I've also seen Guard allies with mortar teams and punisher vultures used to decent effect to remove the loyal 32 screen. Just be patient, wait till the screens are down, then bring in the heavy hitters, and it's GG Knights.

I fought Devin Swann's seeker missile spam list with my Knights at a tournament. In a single round of shooting, he took out 2 Crusaders... after I went first. Prepared positions + some not great rolls on my part meant I did very little damage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 chimeara wrote:
Fwiw, I almost never have problems with Triptide lists. Just played a competent Tau player at a GT and I tabled him.

Were you able to shoot his shield drones? The best Tau players castle in such a way that you cannot shoot at them directly, so you have to shoot at the T7 riptides... making it very, very hard to actually kill drones. Meanwhile you lose 1 Knight per turn to focus fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 StrayIight wrote:


...Unfortunately many of those weaknesses are utterly nullified when you add units from outside those Codexes. Knights are very vulnerable in melee for example, but as described, the moment you add a screen, that goes away for the most part. You can say much the same about their poor objective game, and Psychic vulnerabilities - it's simple to add soup elements that remove those weaknesses.

I don't believe Knights are a problem in 40k. But like so much in todays game, when you mix together elements which we can reasonably suspect were never balanced or examined together, we get issues which we then often project onto 'whipping boy' units by the community (The Scotsman provided a pretty good list of these). Often, it's not the unit in isolation that's at fault. What you reasonably do about that though... *shrugs*

Most "good" armies have ways to remove the screens. You cannot effectively screen Knights against GSC or Smash Captains if the other player is determined to get past them, unless you invest significantly into Space Marines to take Infiltrators... that might work, but it needs more testing.

With the weapons in my list Tau doesn't have any drones after about T2. Dual lightning locks are great for clearing screens.

As a long time knight player I often get my butt kicked on objectives. Heck with every loss my list becomes substantially weaker. Im not the best player out there but if Knights were as powerful as you say they are I should have curbstomped my opponents without difficulty. I would rarely have an "easy" game unless my opponent played stupidly. I think knights have skewed the game somewhat but they are far from some "I win" button especially now that things like Imperial Fists and Iron Hands are lurking around.

The difference is that I am usually taking 3+ gallants, a Valiant, a Helverin, or a combination of those. No loyal 32.

I don't think they have a place in regular 40k no. All the super heavies I thought and feel are too much in general 40k. They skew the game in an odd way and I miss back when I saw a land raider and was like " Oh my, this will be wild ". Now, you're like " Eh, thats nice "