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Frankie tries out the new Helbrute formation in a Crimson slaughter list against Eric's Triple Knight army backed up by Marines!

That chaos army was beautifully painted. Nice batrep

On the pivot thing, I'd play it pretty much like you guys did. They can pivot to shoot at something and then pivot back to their starting position to blast some more stuff away.

The question is, if you shoot at two different targets...which one can you assault?

All these Knights popping up all over are showing how many insecure people there are out there

I would imagine it would work like split fire and you an assault either target. Great battle report even though it was a poor performance with the Hellbrute formation. Triple Knights would scare the crap out of my Orks as the only real way to handle them is in hand to hand. This is very dangerous as all it takes is one six and I'll be removing models without any save.

Dat vector strike...

Hilariously good rolling by Frankie to kill those knights. He needed it though-had he not killed off that last one this would have been even rougher to watch. Knights just poo poo all over combat, which is kind of bad for the game in my opinion. I know they have obvious weaknesses, but man their strengths are just as obvious IMO.

Great batrep and quite informative !

thanatos67 wrote:
Dat vector strike...

Hilariously good rolling by Frankie to kill those knights. He needed it though-had he not killed off that last one this would have been even rougher to watch. Knights just poo poo all over combat, which is kind of bad for the game in my opinion. I know they have obvious weaknesses, but man their strengths are just as obvious IMO.

My biggest gripe about Knights is that they completely invalidate a large portion of the enemy's list (while remaining competitive). A list that is 100% invincible to 80-90% of the enemy's list is stupid.

Yeah Everyone says knights are relatively balanced but I'm going to have to disagree.

While they aren't that hard to kill outside of combat they are exactly the opposite while in it. Shooting can take out those pretty easily, especially if you have it coming from different facings. They completely neuter Close Combat Armies (Daemons, Tyranids, Orks, Chaos to an extent) that rely on CC for a lot of their anti-AV13/14.

And the problem with this is that people who play armies that have reliable ranged anti-tank will say that they are balanced for their points.
No, no they are not balanced. Any Daemon list (unless it is the Flying Circus and you pick off a knight at a time) would be utterly crushed by any amount of knights. Orks can tie them up, literally nothing more. But stomp attacks are designed to mitigate that. Tyranids would have trouble with them anyway you design a list.
All the while eldar/tau/necrons/deldar/space marines can handle them.

I'm frustrated because they completely murder CC armies. I mean you saw one round of combat from the knights that killed two lords, 3 oblits, and 2-3 spawn from two knights.

I'm going to say that's about roughly 700 points of the Chaos army gone in one phase of the game. That doesn't really fit in in my mind.
And Frankie's anti-tank wasn't really at all in CC. Imagine if he had a majority of his anti-tank brought in CC. He would be boned beyond belief.

Finally, please consider what CC armies have to take down a knight:

and think about the poor armies of close combat that are already getting shafted by this edition the next time you say that imperial knights are balanced.

Weird seeing those Knights go down so quickly to such limited anti-tank. I guess not a single invul save was made

Good thing though as otherwise it would have been a turn 4 wipe for CSM.

thisisnotpancho wrote:
Yeah Everyone says knights are relatively balanced but I'm going to have to disagree.

While they aren't that hard to kill outside of combat they are exactly the opposite while in it. Shooting can take out those pretty easily, especially if you have it coming from different facings. They completely neuter Close Combat Armies (Daemons, Tyranids, Orks, Chaos to an extent) that rely on CC for a lot of their anti-AV13/14.

And the problem with this is that people who play armies that have reliable ranged anti-tank will say that they are balanced for their points.
No, no they are not balanced. Any Daemon list (unless it is the Flying Circus and you pick off a knight at a time) would be utterly crushed by any amount of knights. Orks can tie them up, literally nothing more. But stomp attacks are designed to mitigate that. Tyranids would have trouble with them anyway you design a list.
All the while eldar/tau/necrons/deldar/space marines can handle them.

I'm frustrated because they completely murder CC armies. I mean you saw one round of combat from the knights that killed two lords, 3 oblits, and 2-3 spawn from two knights.

I'm going to say that's about roughly 700 points of the Chaos army gone in one phase of the game. That doesn't really fit in in my mind.
And Frankie's anti-tank wasn't really at all in CC. Imagine if he had a majority of his anti-tank brought in CC. He would be boned beyond belief.

Finally, please consider what CC armies have to take down a knight:

Spoiler:

not much

and think about the poor armies of close combat that are already getting shafted by this edition the next time you say that imperial knights are balanced.

Is this a joke? Knights don't do anything that deathstars don't do already. I'll take facing 3 knights over Seerstars, O'vesastars, and screamerstars anyday. Even the farsun bomb is more broken than knights.

Knights aren't that bad, honestly. You can tarpit them in combat, and you can quite easily shoot or assault them to death. We have over 10 games with Knights under our belts and in almost every game they have all been destroyed. They die left and right.

@Noah

Deff Rollas, son! They will crush Knights.

When you also consider how much they dictate enemy movement, then they're quite unbalanced. 12" move and so he's in close combat turn 2 with a nice strength D weapon which just have to hit and thus destroying whatever it meant to hit, being it Land Raiders or Monstrous creatures... Seems like a nice no-brainer unit to use.

Thought about it can use its' stomp attack against Wraithknights which are taller?

Consider that you have to declare targets with all weapons simultaneously. With this consideration how do you declare you will shoot two targets that will not be valid targets at the same time?

Reece I think you guys are the only ones who will be able to show people the armies that are supposed to be hard countered by Knights according to the Internet are not. People just don't get terrain limiting movement of Knights or how good crones are.

I did think about the Deff Rolla Reece and I was worried about Death or Glory since that is almost a guarantee destruction of my Battlewagon. I then forgot that you get 2d6 Deff Rolla hits if they Death or Glory so more than likely you're going to trade a Wagon for a Knight.

IamCaboose wrote:

Is this a joke? Knights don't do anything that deathstars don't do already. I'll take facing 3 knights over Seerstars, O'vesastars, and screamerstars anyday. Even the farsun bomb is more broken than knights.

It just depends on what army you play how powerful you think the knights are. Yeah, they are balanced against shooting and mixed armies. But can you design any Daemon/Ork/Tyranid list trying to be competitve against other armies and knights? It's few and far between

Seerstars, Screamerstars, and O'vesastars do not wipe your models out without any deviation in combat. Literally nothing can stand up to a knight in close combat barr 2-3 Monstrous creatures charging into one at the same time with higher initiative than the knight and not charging through terrain. That's a lot to ask for for 350 points.

The knights are mostly balanced, but they take one phase completely out of the game for the opponent. And if that's the phase your army relies on to win, there is nothing you can do.


Strength D has no place in competitive 40k. I stand by that opinion

Johnnytorrance wrote:
The question is, if you shoot at two different targets...which one can you assault?

Any. Super-heavies can assault any target within range (except flyers), even ones that they don't shoot at. So a IK can shoot at Unit #1 with its battle cannon, Unit #2 with its heavy stubber and then charge Unit #3.

 y0disisray wrote:
I did think about the Deff Rolla Reece and I was worried about Death or Glory since that is almost a guarantee destruction of my Battlewagon. I then forgot that you get 2d6 Deff Rolla hits if they Death or Glory so more than likely you're going to trade a Wagon for a Knight.

Don't have my rulebook with me now, but I don't believe you can tank shock a walker nor can it do a DoG. With vehicles vs vehicles, it's a Ram, not a tank shock.

I completely agree with you thisisnotpancho. All these battle reports showing how knights are apparently "balanced" are against armies that seem to be tailored to fight Knights. I'd like to see a battle of Knights vs. Hound Rush, any Tyranids, any Ork army, a CSM army not built around as many obliterators as possible, even Flying Circus will pretty much have to fly around and hope they don't get grounded. Soul Grinders are pretty much built to die against Knights.
I mean, I can't see how Tyranids are not completely and utterly boned against a Knight Army, I mean there is really not much they can even do excepy vector striking crones, but those are really not hard to kill, and definitely couldn't kill 3-4 Knights on their own.

Against a shooty army with plenty of long range AT, Knights do seem balanced, but against armies that do not possess these qualities, their whole list is completely invalidated. It's easy to say daemons can kill one by sending in Be'Lakor, but a 350 point character that after whiffing is pretty much toast come the Knight's swings, and dead if the D blast hits it, that's not a good tradeoff at all.

An army that makes most of your army paperweights without tailoring is very bad.

Could I beat a Knight army? Sure. Could I do it while remaining competitive against other armies? Probably not.

 herpguy wrote:
I mean, I can't see how Tyranids are not completely and utterly boned against a Knight Army, I mean there is really not much they can even do excepy vector striking crones, but those are really not hard to kill, and definitely couldn't kill 3-4 Knights on their own.

Sounds like I'm going to have to take out my bugs against a knight army. Show you all how it's done.

 herpguy wrote:
I completely agree with you thisisnotpancho. All these battle reports showing how knights are apparently "balanced" are against armies that seem to be tailored to fight Knights. I'd like to see a battle of Knights vs. Hound Rush, any Tyranids, any Ork army, a CSM army not built around as many obliterators as possible, even Flying Circus will pretty much have to fly around and hope they don't get grounded. Soul Grinders are pretty much built to die against Knights.
I mean, I can't see how Tyranids are not completely and utterly boned against a Knight Army, I mean there is really not much they can even do excepy vector striking crones, but those are really not hard to kill, and definitely couldn't kill 3-4 Knights on their own.

Against a shooty army with plenty of long range AT, Knights do seem balanced, but against armies that do not possess these qualities, their whole list is completely invalidated. It's easy to say daemons can kill one by sending in Be'Lakor, but a 350 point character that after whiffing is pretty much toast come the Knight's swings, and dead if the D blast hits it, that's not a good tradeoff at all.

An army that makes most of your army paperweights without tailoring is very bad.

Could I beat a Knight army? Sure. Could I do it while remaining competitive against other armies? Probably not.

Hm. I don't see your viewpoint to be honest. Because a couple reasons:

You mention Flying Circus. I think actually Flying Circus would do fine against Knights. The Knights can only hope to hit on 6s...with a few Heavy Stubbers here and there? I'll take those odds. I assault, ignore the Ion Shield, gang 2 princes on 1 Knight just to make sure that I don't get slapped by a D, then Knight goes bye bye. I don'te see Knights as unbalanced at all TBH. are some armies going to be hard-countered by them? Yes, but that is the case for just about every army out there

Hm. I don't see your viewpoint to be honest. Because a couple reasons:

You mention Flying Circus. I think actually Flying Circus would do fine against Knights. The Knights can only hope to hit on 6s...with a few Heavy Stubbers here and there? I'll take those odds. I assault, ignore the Ion Shield, gang 2 princes on 1 Knight just to make sure that I don't get slapped by a D, then Knight goes bye bye. I don'te see Knights as unbalanced at all TBH. are some armies going to be hard-countered by them? Yes, but that is the case for just about every army out there

Then the D blast kills your daemon princes that cost almost as much as it? Sure it doesn't happen all the time but the fact is can easily happen is not good.

 jy2 wrote:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
The question is, if you shoot at two different targets...which one can you assault?

Any. Super-heavies can assault any target within range (except flyers), even ones that they don't shoot at. So a IK can shoot at Unit #1 with its battle cannon, Unit #2 with its heavy stubber and then charge Unit #3.

 y0disisray wrote:
I did think about the Deff Rolla Reece and I was worried about Death or Glory since that is almost a guarantee destruction of my Battlewagon. I then forgot that you get 2d6 Deff Rolla hits if they Death or Glory so more than likely you're going to trade a Wagon for a Knight.

Don't have my rulebook with me now, but I don't believe you can tank shock a walker nor can it do a DoG. With vehicles vs vehicles, it's a Ram, not a tank shock.

Either way it's in the Ork FAQ that you still get the Deff Rolla hits whether you Ram or Tank Shock. Checking the rules for Walkers they cannot make the Death or Glory attack. So effectively this is THE best way for Orks to deal with Knights.

And Nids with their Flyrants can glance out the Knights while being almost immune to them

 y0disisray wrote:
Either way it's in the Ork FAQ that you still get the Deff Rolla hits whether you Ram or Tank Shock. Checking the rules for Walkers they cannot make the Death or Glory attack. So effectively this is THE best way for Orks to deal with Knights.

Right, it is still a very viable solution for orks in dealing with the Knights, but it's only 1D6 S10 hits rather than the 2D6 with DoG.

@Noah

Walkers can't Death or Glory per the BRB. A Deff rolla will doo doo on a Knight!

@HerpGuy & Thisisnotpancho

Guys, trust me, Knights are not unbeatable. We have played them up, down, left and right and rarely do they survive a game. They almost always get wiped out.

They are very good, no doubt, but they are not OP. Orks will thrash them with Klaws, Deff Rollas, Lootas, etc.

Nids will dookie on Knights with Crones alone. Literally, a single Crone can kill every knight on the table. But baring that, hit a Knight with a Harpy and then assault with 2+ MCs, and it is as good as dead, it won't even swing.

Any MC that swings first stands good odds of killing it. Hit it with two, and forget it.

D weapons don't auto-kill multi-wound creatures. They average 3 wounds per hit.

Knights are good, but not game breaking by a mile. Any army can deal with them.

I think a couple Battlewagons with Deff Rollas tag teaming a Knight will bring it down but can they bring down 3?...probably not. Trying to Powerklaw it to death seems suicidal knowing that the Knight can explode and take everything with it. Boarding Planks might see their way back into my list though they have to end there movement within 8" for that to happen. Reece if you could I would really like to see an Ork list against triple Knights.

 Reecius wrote:

Any MC that swings first stands good odds of killing it. Hit it with two, and forget it.

D weapons don't auto-kill multi-wound creatures. They average 3 wounds per hit.

Knights are only I4, and the "Stomp" goes at I1, so Reece is right, most DP's can tag team and "Smash" a knight to bits. Belakor or Skarbrand can do it even better with that free Armorbane. Now what is really annoying is how fast those Dreads went down. You'd also think a Maulerfiend stock would be a good fight, but with I3 and WS3 its really not, unless you took the Lasher Tendrils maybe...

thisisnotpancho wrote:

IamCaboose wrote:

Is this a joke? Knights don't do anything that deathstars don't do already. I'll take facing 3 knights over Seerstars, O'vesastars, and screamerstars anyday. Even the farsun bomb is more broken than knights.

It just depends on what army you play how powerful you think the knights are. Yeah, they are balanced against shooting and mixed armies. But can you design any Daemon/Ork/Tyranid list trying to be competitve against other armies and knights? It's few and far between

Seerstars, Screamerstars, and O'vesastars do not wipe your models out without any deviation in combat. Literally nothing can stand up to a knight in close combat barr 2-3 Monstrous creatures charging into one at the same time with higher initiative than the knight and not charging through terrain. That's a lot to ask for for 350 points.

The knights are mostly balanced, but they take one phase completely out of the game for the opponent. And if that's the phase your army relies on to win, there is nothing you can do.


Strength D has no place in competitive 40k. I stand by that opinion

you overstate the strength of the knights. a black mace dp onthe charge averages 5 hits through smashing followed by 3.75 pen + .4166 glance. which averages out to a little more than 5.36 hp. the knight hits back hitting on 5s averages 1 hit or 2.6 wounds(rounding down the destroyer to wound on a roll of 6 to 4 since a dp only has 4 wounds). DP cant be stomped is more maneuverable and would tend to charge one that has already been damaged(-2hp to be safe) thus may take no damage at all(i 8). I think you highly undervalue the power of the daemons/ csm combo codex's. ohh and said dp is 265 points. I think that a flying circus could easily kill 1-2 a turn (especially considering how aggressive the knights need to be to be worth the points) and as shown by the finals of the championship at adepticon yesterday( fmc daemons vs fmc daemons) are well rounded enough to beat many other competitive armies.

I would also argue that its great that the deathstar tactics of a few armies are at stake because it at least make people have to think about

1) protecting their star
2) evaluating if the deathstar tactic is even worth it anymore

Many lists over time have come to power and then slowly lost it (razor spam, leaf blower, ect) and so at least now we can see the game again evolve.

Good battle report... but you used your left hand to handshake XD

@Silent

Yeah, that is because I hold the camera with my right =)

@Ray

We have only ever had the explosion do anything cool twice. Usually it doesn't do much of anything at all, honestly.