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I had a 2k point game recently of Imperial Knights VS Chaos Dinobots (Literally every codex Daemon Engine + a forgeworld model), and...Did Imperial Knights always lack so much when it comes to being a super heavy? They can fall back and shoot, but NOT shoot in melee like a few other super heavy models I know. They also have a 5+ invuln...but ONLY in shooting. So it came as a hard suprise to me when my Lord of Skulls essentially was cleaving down one knight at a time.

I am pretty sad about this, honestly. I know it's hard to balance giant models like this when 90% of the game is about a quarter of the size...But aren't these meant to be things that can take on entire battalions by themselves? It just seems weird that even though they've appeared in the AM codex, they didn't really get hit with much of any codex creep.

Yes, they're not particularly good at the moment from what I've read. Probably not bad as an additional unit to boost another army, but I haven't heard much good about knights.

Yeah, I did field an IK at the start of 8th but switched to literally any other chaos SH model: the IK's weapons are so lack luster, at least with the Lord of Skulls or Brass Scorpion if they don't make it into combat they'll still have pumped out a round or two of good firepower.

As said above, weapons are the true issue. They are somehow durable (not exceptionally, but in an "ok" way). Their stopping power in hand to hand is good, and they play the role of vehicle/character killers properly.
Also, their mobility vs infantry is wonderful in a beta so full of hordes.

Real issue is that, except that Avenger Gatling, their weapons are too too much random for a model so pricy. And, also, their Thermal Cannon is basically a joke, and the "double" battle cannon shoot exactly like a Leman Russ.

It's a problem of shooting power, mostly. Other stat and rules are ok I guess

I hope they stay underpowered, if they are. I don't miss the days when EVERY Imperial army included at least one Knight.

I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

I field a Renegade Knight in my DG army, so essentially the same thing as an Imperial one. Under 7th it was a really good unit. It would eventually go down but it would do it's job. Under 8th I find it very lackluster as every opponent throws everything they have at it first turn and it just never gets to make it's points back. I feel that they need something to get a little more survivability.

I run an Acheron in my AdMech army, and it ends up working quite well because I use it with a big unit of Dragoons and a big unit of Fulgrites, so if my opponent focuses everything on my Knight they'll kill it in 2-3 turns, but by that time it's gotten up close and done some damage, and if they've focused enough on it to kill it fast they've got some pretty scary melee units they haven't focused enough on to deal with.

v0iddrgn wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

IK was one of my armies. I didn't find it boring in the slightest.

They need more shooting power with no cost increase, currently. Wraithknight needs help too.

v0iddrgn wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

You kinda missed the entire FW line.

Knights got better in the ad mech codex as compared to their index, but still kind of under performing. One of the big issues is not enough dakka, but hopefully the mini-me knight will hopefully add some cheaper dakka.

Oh, and if you want to feel good...look at Eldar Wraithknights. I almost got one because I want a model centrepiece, but even as a filthy casual that...is one lackluster unit.

A little lacking in offensive power for cost as people mentioned, loss of blast templates hurt them as bad/worse than IG and sadly they've not really gotten much compensation for it.

Hopefully their codex changes things, the fact they are going to add mini knights is an interesting development as well. It's been speculated IK might end up being a bit more rounded out as a faction for those that find it less than satisfying.

 Elbows wrote:
Oh, and if you want to feel good...look at Eldar Wraithknights. I almost got one because I want a model centrepiece, but even as a filthy casual that...is one lackluster unit.

They don't really make me feel good, but I haven't seen a WK this edition yet, and I'll take what I can get.

I feel the wraith knight is better than IK especially considering theres an eldar stratagem that lets them heal it up 2d6 wounds. Once took one down to 5 wounds in 1 turn. 2 turns later it was back up to full wounds. Whatever it may lack in punch it more than makes up for in durability.

the issue with IKs is that so many people reacted to them in 7th as if they where uber powerful OP, (they where good but not great. I thought they where reasonably balanced) that I think GW nerfed em come 8th as a result.

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
I feel the wraith knight is better than IK especially considering theres an eldar stratagem that lets them heal it up 2d6 wounds. Once took one down to 5 wounds in 1 turn. 2 turns later it was back up to full wounds. Whatever it may lack in punch it more than makes up for in durability.

That stratagem (tears of isha) only gives 1d3 wounds back. You should ask your opponent to reread his stratagems lol. To add to that, Wraithknights actually lose a weapon in order to gain a 5++ and they cost even more for even less output. Wraithknights wish they were cool like Imperial knights.

Edit: if he was also using a bonesinger, a pure healbot char, he could achieve a total of 2d3 wound regen in a single turn. The strat is 2cp tho, and a bonesinger is 70pts.

BrianDavion wrote:
the issue with IKs is that so many people reacted to them in 7th as if they where uber powerful OP, (they where good but not great. I thought they were reasonably balanced) that I think GW nerfed em come 8th as a result.

A single IK was meh (IMO)
They did however get exponentially more powerful the more of them there were on the field simultaneously

It also did slightly depend on what you were fighting them with too (Tyranids basically may as well not have bothered), and if they were advancing or cowering at the back

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

You kinda missed the entire FW line.

If it's not in the codex I don't count it. FW should be used in Narrative or Open play only IMHO.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

New smaller walker due soon - as usual BL novels have interesting support elements but unlikely to appear in the table

At a tournament I played this weekend My first round(and only win) was against a list that had 3 Wraithknights. I killed 2 and halflifed the third one, woulda killed it had we not run out of time. The other time I've gone against them, I punked one out with a blood slaughterer.

I just got myself a Renegade Knight, I'm hoping they might get some buffs in the near future. Barring that, I'll still play it at small local tournaments every now and again.

BrianDavion wrote:
the issue with IKs is that so many people reacted to them in 7th as if they where uber powerful OP, (they where good but not great. I thought they where reasonably balanced) that I think GW nerfed em come 8th as a result.

In 7th the bigger issue with Knights was that
1. Tripartite Lance could be game breaking if you cast psychic buffs on them (invis)
2. Stomp and Str D weapons where annoying in a game system that wasn't really meant for that stuff to exist outside of apoc (stomps made it so blobs couldn't tarpit the heavy hitting unit like you would against a dread while Str D basically made AV useless). Also the "roll 6 to win" nature of Str D and Stomp made them really luck based and not in the silly Ork RNG weapons kind of way.
3. Whole army of Knights basically nullified a good chunk of weapons in the game so it made anybody packing anti infantry weapons might as well go park on an objective or become fodder to bog down the knights because they can't hurt the things. Not that i like everyone having the equivalent of gauss aka 8th but whole army AV13/12 does make a lot of units/weapons pointles).
4. Point 3 basically makes playing against a Knight army basically boil down to "do you have a lot of anti vehicle weapons?" If yes you probably will win, if no then your either going to lose or your going to be sitting through a lot of boring melee fights where your only concern is bogging down those knights and taking casualties to minimize the effectiveness of stomps."

I wouldn't say they where OP (a single Knight while strong was hardly game breaking) but its symptomatic of one of 7th's bigger issues of GW trying to force super heavy vehicles into the game in a fairly hamfisted manner.

The only thing IKs need at the moment to improve their performance is a 100 point drop to their base cost. This with bring them in line with their current offensive and defensive capability.

SJ

I'm not even sure 100 points, one of the massive issues is how varied in their randomness they are.

v0iddrgn wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

You kinda missed the entire FW line.

If it's not in the codex I don't count it. FW should be used in Narrative or Open play only IMHO.

Ah yes. Let's keep only broken GW stuff and ban the much more balanced FW stuff. That makes sense!

Like it or not FW is just as valid as GW stuff.

Imperial Knights are in a weird place right now.

Their shooting is not worth the points you spend, just straight off. They're too expensive as gun platforms.

In close combat, though, they are incredibly vulnerable without an invuln and die like chaff.

So either they're weak or they're vulnerable. Either way, it's kind of crap.

To be honest I don't think they are boring to play with or against... old edition glasses here.

Differently from 7th the actual consolidation and movement in fighting phase make really challenging for the opponent to move and position his/her HQ and elites and tanks.
But this is really their only edge, that is easily countered by bikes, monster or careful positioning.
And that's unfortunate: IK should be a counter meta army, they could be perfect to disarticulate and wreck horde army buffed by character... "could".

Anyway, any actual IK player play for the model, so whatever.

 vaklor4 wrote:
I had a 2k point game recently of Imperial Knights VS Chaos Dinobots (Literally every codex Daemon Engine + a forgeworld model), and...Did Imperial Knights always lack so much when it comes to being a super heavy? They can fall back and shoot, but NOT shoot in melee like a few other super heavy models I know. They also have a 5+ invuln...but ONLY in shooting. So it came as a hard suprise to me when my Lord of Skulls essentially was cleaving down one knight at a time.

I am pretty sad about this, honestly. I know it's hard to balance giant models like this when 90% of the game is about a quarter of the size...But aren't these meant to be things that can take on entire battalions by themselves? It just seems weird that even though they've appeared in the AM codex, they didn't really get hit with much of any codex creep.

You've run an army of versatile vehicles vs an army of anti-vehicle vehicles, what else were you expecting.

 Vankraken wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
the issue with IKs is that so many people reacted to them in 7th as if they where uber powerful OP, (they where good but not great. I thought they where reasonably balanced) that I think GW nerfed em come 8th as a result.

In 7th the bigger issue with Knights was that
1. Tripartite Lance could be game breaking if you cast psychic buffs on them (invis)
2. Stomp and Str D weapons where annoying in a game system that wasn't really meant for that stuff to exist outside of apoc (stomps made it so blobs couldn't tarpit the heavy hitting unit like you would against a dread while Str D basically made AV useless). Also the "roll 6 to win" nature of Str D and Stomp made them really luck based and not in the silly Ork RNG weapons kind of way.
3. Whole army of Knights basically nullified a good chunk of weapons in the game so it made anybody packing anti infantry weapons might as well go park on an objective or become fodder to bog down the knights because they can't hurt the things. Not that i like everyone having the equivalent of gauss aka 8th but whole army AV13/12 does make a lot of units/weapons pointles).
4. Point 3 basically makes playing against a Knight army basically boil down to "do you have a lot of anti vehicle weapons?" If yes you probably will win, if no then your either going to lose or your going to be sitting through a lot of boring melee fights where your only concern is bogging down those knights and taking casualties to minimize the effectiveness of stomps."

I wouldn't say they where OP (a single Knight while strong was hardly game breaking) but its symptomatic of one of 7th's bigger issues of GW trying to force super heavy vehicles into the game in a fairly hamfisted manner.

1. Invisibility was broken on everything. Not something specific to Knights here. Next.
2. They're like 400 points. What stats did you expect the MELEE weapons to have for that price? As though SD was bad on melee weapons...
3. Except nobody was taking real Anti-Infantry weapons to begin with. You were packing to deal with vehicles and monstrous creatures. Nobody cares you had nullified Bolters and Lasguns because, guess what, you weren't loading up on those to begin with.
4. Knights were 6HP on basically Predator armor. If you couldn't deal with that, your list couldn't deal with even 5 Predators could it?

Your complaints are bad, sorry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

v0iddrgn wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I mean, an army composed entirely of super heavy walkers is never going to be balenced. In no game, or reality, is an army composed of one unit type in exceptionally small numbers particularly viable.

Even in Mechwarrior, they have other units...

This is probably why I hated the idea of the Imperial Knights in the first place. How boring can a faction be if they are all the same thing just with different weapons load-outs?

You kinda missed the entire FW line.

If it's not in the codex I don't count it. FW should be used in Narrative or Open play only IMHO.

I don't care what you think SHOULD happen. I care about what DOES happen.

Under your logic I don't count anything from the Index either right? Those broken FW Knights along with those Rough Riders and Autocannon Dreads! Super scary huh?