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Hey guys,

One of the people in my playgroup has recently decided to become That Guy and start playing a full IK list. I played a few games against him and every game he completely destroys all my armor in the first turn and I have nothing but my infantry left and no way to destroy even just one of his knights. Do you guys have any tips on how to play against a list with nothing but imperial knights?

I play Imperial Fists btw. Against this kind of list two quad-lascannon Preds, two twin-lascannon VenDreads, 15 Hellblasters and the rest are HQ force multipliers and troops.

Well you have the proper force for taking on knights. The only one that would be better would be ravenguard. You want to stick in the heavy doctrine so primaris with stalker bolters, thunderfire cannons, whirlwinds, autocannons, these things help. But pure infantry with heavy weapons like heavy bolters and stalker bolter rifles would help a lot.

Playing the mission, focusing on a single knight at a time till it's dead, these things help a lot.

 Jhaeros wrote:
Hey guys,

One of the people in my playgroup has recently decided to become That Guy and start playing a full IK list. I played a few games against him and every game he completely destroys all my armor in the first turn and I have nothing but my infantry left and no way to destroy even just one of his knights. Do you guys have any tips on how to play against a list with nothing but imperial knights?

I play Imperial Fists btw. Against this kind of list two quad-lascannon Preds, two twin-lascannon VenDreads, 15 Hellblasters and the rest are HQ force multipliers and troops.

Tactics against a pure knight list I would recommend:

-You want to draw out his "rotate ion shields" stratagem. Once he uses that on one knight, all the rest of his knights cannot use it to protect themselves, so you will have a much less difficult time fighting him. I would use a unit of Hellblasters first, since those are much less effective than the lascannon units, and fire it at one of the knights you DON'T want to kill that turn. Hopefully, he uses that stratagem to protect it, then you switch to attacking the one you do want to take down with your lascannon units. Using the devastator doctrine bonus for IFs, you should be able to down a regular 5++ knight with 3 of your lascannon wielding units, not even needing any hellblasters to assist. He's more likely to be willing to use the 1CP version of the ion shields stratagem than the 3CP version, so using the hellblasters against a melee-oriented questor knight will probably draw out the stratagem, then you can pivot and target a Castellan.

-Prioritize destroying ranged-only knights first, especially Castellans, play the keepaway game with the melee-only knights using your troops. That is what your troops should be doing against the knights - impeding the movement of the ones who want to get you into melee. Walk up to them, stand 1" away, do not charge him, just shoot him.

-Remember your S4 weapons are twice as effective versus the T7 Armiger knights than the T8 questoris knights. If he's got Armigers, every boltgun should go into those guys.

With if don"' dismis heavy bolter vs knight. Without extra hit bonus vs rotate shield knight hb is 0.666 wound. Lascannon 1. Hb costs less. You can simply wear them down. Focus on mission. Consider dropping hellblasters as they are glass jaws.

If he's playing pure knights it's not even most competive way to play knights

Give up on 8e and Play Apoc.

I'm not being pithy, 8e is destroyed by Superheavies (knights in particular) and you can play Apoc at the 100PL-150PL level just fine.

Do not stand 1” away-he can Heroically Intervene then.

Right seeing as you ain't get much response.

Knights are cooked. They've have their day in the sun. Because they are easy to play hey'll make a scrub player good. They'll never be great.

Your army is probably first equal with Raven Guard at smoking Knights.

Preds, Lascannons and Hell blasters are not the way to go.

Centurions, Aggressors Repulsors and less for you but still good is Smash Captains.

You want Volume of shots as you are adding 1 Damage to all your weapons. Centurion Heavy Bolters with triple hits on 6s we are talking of a bucket load of dice.

IF. You do not own these models already then wait 1 month. Although it is unlikely CA will be unkind to SM due to how new SM are I'd still say hold off.

I'm not being pithy, 8e is destroyed by Superheavies (knights in particular) and you can play Apoc at the 100PL-150PL level just fine.

And don't listen to these guys. There is like no LoW that is breaking the game.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Do not stand 1” away-he can Heroically Intervene then.

More like do not stand within 3" of them

What missions and how much terrain are you using?

Maybe just done play him if you haven't got the tools to deal with it.