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Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User






To the Knight players, the railgun is busted. You can’t hide, you lose a Knight every turn because the Tau player has 2 hammerheads, you can’t shoot back that well because they’ll either be hiding, or you’re bracketed so you can’t hit the broadside of a barn, or you’re dead.
This got me thinking about something I thought about awhile ago.
What if you just bring an all armiger/war dog army?
You still get to play knights, but armiger class knights don’t have the titanic keyword. So they can hide.
I’ve done the calculations and you could run 14 armiger class knights in a standard 2k point game, and then equip half of them with autocannons.
Of course you’d have to buy 14 armigers, but they’re faster, are still quite tanky, and more expendable. Plus they all have obsec if you’re running mono knights, and they all count as 5 models for objectives.
I want to know if this is a decent counter play to the railgun if you still want to play mono knights.
   
Made in fr
Crazed Spirit of the Defiler






I don't know... The railgun profile sure does seem scary. But there are other ways around it. We still don't know how tough the Hammerheads will be. In the end, the game turns to "catch the shark" and since the railgun requires LOS it'll also be hard for them to hide it.

-"For the Ruinous Powers!" 
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins





Tacoma, WA, USA

Chaos Jim wrote:
To the Knight players, the railgun is busted. You can’t hide, you lose a Knight every turn because the Tau player has 2 hammerheads, you can’t shoot back that well because they’ll either be hiding, or you’re bracketed so you can’t hit the broadside of a barn, or you’re dead.
This is a bit of the sky is falling here. Assuming a Hammerhead as a BS 3+, it has a 59.3% chance of injuring a Knight with a shot of the Railgun (without additional rules being used). So firing two railguns at a single Knight has a very small chance of killing it (3% to be exact) and a decent chance of not even bracketing it.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





This is because Knights don't have their dex yet.

They'll get some form of mitigation against this attack- whether a modified FNP, and Damage reduction, or a per phase damage limit like Ghaz.

Comparing a 9th dex to an 8th is always going to be at least a little bit busted; that's why edition churn sucks as a business model, and we'd all be better off with persistent edition based on campaign seasons system that provides small incremental upgrades and modest model releases for every faction every year.

(PS: No, that's not saying it doesn't suck for knight players- it does. It's also not saying they have no right to complain- they do)

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/08 01:16:32


 
   
Made in de
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Ok, facts time:

1. Rail gun is limited by LoS.
2. It does not have character targeting.
3. It is on a t7 13 wound platform, currently.
4. Tau have a lot scarier things to knights.
5. Knights have a lot more scarier things than Tau Rail Guns.
6. Tau don't have a codex yet, and likely won't for at least a few months, so this isn't even an issue right now.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







This is why I play Knights in 30k and not in 40k.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, facts time:

1. Rail gun is limited by LoS.


I think this is the issue for knights players though- they're almost always going to have LOS vs a knight, because even obscuring terrain doesn't protect a knight unless it actually 100% blocks LOS to every antenna, gun barrel, or flag on the model, and almost no table has terrain that does this. Certain GW doesn't manufacture terrain that can do this.

That's the issue, not the actual power of the rail gun itself.

(Or rather, it's the combination of the two, not the power of the railgun by itself)
   
Made in hk
Longtime Dakkanaut





It may not be very easy to hide multiple Hammerhead gunships. Those things are huge. And if the Hammerhead stats are similar to what it is the the past, then its a relatively fragile vehicle. So, you bring 3 hammerheads, you could easily have 2 out of 3 getting heavily damaged or outright destroyed if the knight army goes first if you are not able to hide them properly and they get line of sight after moving.

And if that was your only anti tank solution because you are relying on the OPness of that new Railgun, then you are in serious trouble against a knight army after it goes first and blows 2 of your hammerheads up.

Take 3 actual Hammerhead gunships and try and fit all of them behind obscuring terrain on a typical board. Now factor in knights can move 12 inches before shooting. It is seriously going to be a big task to try and hide 3 Hammerhead gunships completely.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 02:27:24


 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User






 DreadfullyHopeful wrote:
In the end, the game turns to "catch the shark" and since the railgun requires LOS it'll also be hard for them to hide it.


The thing I’m worried about is point cost, and you pretty much always get LoS on a knight. If the points are low then it’ll be an auto include and if you’re playing Tau against knights you’re going to want as many as you can take. If the Tau player goes first, the knight player will be down a model straight off the bat which is a about a good chunk of the knight army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldenfirefly wrote:
It may not be very easy to hide multiple Hammerhead gunships. Those things are huge. And if the Hammerhead stats are similar to what it is the the past, then its a relatively fragile vehicle.


Fair enough, I’m just worried about how much the hammerhead will cost.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 02:49:18


 
   
Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





United Kingdom

The thing with the Hammerhead is that they're realistically only going to fire once. The Hammerheads will cripple but probably not kill one knight, at which point they turn around and blow them to bits and they don't have to worry about them any more.

A Hammerhead is something like T7 W13 S3+? That's not going to stand up to any sort of dedicated AT fire, especially when they're the primary threat to your Knights.
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User






FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, facts time:

3. It is on a t7 13 wound platform, currently.
4. Tau have a lot scarier things to knights.
5. Knights have a lot more scarier things than Tau Rail Guns.
6. Tau don't have a codex yet, and likely won't for at least a few months, so this isn't even an issue right now.


Yes the hammerhead isn’t very tough right now.
Most of the other options are going to be overshadowed by the railgun if the points are low enough.
The very big scary knight weapons are on the dominos pattern knights which are 600 points.
I have a friend who plays Tau, I don’t want him to be the guy that no one wants to play against.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
PenitentJake wrote:
This is because Knights don't have their dex yet.

They'll get some form of mitigation against this attack- whether a modified FNP, and Damage reduction, or a per phase damage limit like Ghaz.

Comparing a 9th dex to an 8th is always going to be at least a little bit busted; that's why edition churn sucks as a business model, and we'd all be better off with persistent edition based on campaign seasons system that provides small incremental upgrades and modest model releases for every faction every year.

(PS: No, that's not saying it doesn't suck for knight players- it does. It's also not saying they have no right to complain- they do)


Yes but GW would be walking a fine line here, I’m fairly sure everyone doesn’t want a repeat of 7th edition. GW would have to keep themselves in check to avoid another railgun panic scenario.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 03:07:06


 
   
Made in hk
Longtime Dakkanaut





I would see how the new Tau actually play against knights before I worry so much. Historically, Tau are just really bad in combat. Its like once you touch them in combat, they are in big trouble.

Knights can step over infantry models when they fall out of combat and charge something in the back round as early as turn 2. And wardogs/armigers are so fast (14 inch move) that if they aren't blocked, they can easily be charging a backline unit on turn 2 as well.

Given knights are a skewed army (all vehicle, T7/T8) army. At least half or more of the Tau army's guns will be very inefficient shooting against knights, even if the railgun is super good. Sure, the knight army will take some licks on turn 1, 2. But then, turn 2, almost the whole knight army may be crashing into combat against the Tau. Tau may literally get to shoot for only 2 turns (or maybe even 1 turn) against a knight army before a ton of its stuff is stuck in combat with a knight army.

Like we worry about how a Tau army goes first and blows up one knight. But what if the Tau army took only 3 Hammerhead gunships and everything else is mostly anti infantry guns. Now if we go first, we stomp up the field, get line of sight and blast 2 hammerheads into scrap. The Tau army now has only 1 turn of shooting. Maybe that 1 hammerhead hits and wounds, and the rest of the army plinks enough small shots to kill off 1 knight. Turn 2, the whole Tau army now gets shot at and then charged by 2 knights and 3 or 4 wardogs. (Pretty sure the last Hammerhead will be gone in that turn). Game over at that point?

I mean, a Tau player going first against a knight army is of course worrying to the knight player. But in the same vein, a Knight army going first against a Tau player too would feel pretty scary too (see my example above). I mean, once the anti armor stuff is locked in combat or destroyed by shooting, there is very little in a Tau army that can stand up in close combat to knights or wardogs. Have you seen fire warriors fight knights in melee? Its pretty sad for those fire warriors.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/08 03:17:13


 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User






 alextroy wrote:
Chaos Jim wrote:
This is a bit of the sky is falling here. Assuming a Hammerhead as a BS 3+, it has a 59.3% chance of injuring a Knight with a shot of the Railgun (without additional rules being used). So firing two railguns at a single Knight has a very small chance of killing it (3% to be exact) and a decent chance of not even bracketing it.


The thing is it’s not just the railgun, they have the railguns and then the rest of the flipping owl. They still have the rest of their entire army to shoot with, and with the other leaked rules, it looks like Tau are going to become quite good at shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fair, but I’ve got a Tau player as a friend who’s built his army to deal with vehicles, because I play a bit of knights and with the new rule that lets battle suits shoot in combat helps make up for lack of combat proficiency. Not too mention the other new rules for the Tau that help their shooting in different ways, and the rest of the codex that has yet to be seen.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 03:27:28


 
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






Dont forget, railguns are NOT the most powerful gun they have.

whats also not mentioned is the fact the hammerhead can fly, so it can hide behind stuff, pop out, with zero impunity to shooting said rail gun.

Tau basically hard counters knight lists with no real way around it. Its just a feels batman.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Chaos Jim wrote:
What if you just bring an all armiger/war dog army?


Every Knight army should have Armigers. Taking four Knights is just boring to play and boring to play against.

I do imagine, however, that Rotate Ion Shields could become some sort of Transhuman for Knights. Some minus to wound mechanic, minus to damage, half damage, etc. It sucks to have to deal with this issue without a quick patch for sure.
   
Made in it
Longtime Dakkanaut





Don't get scared by big numbers.
The HH railgun isn't that good of an AT weapon, even against a target with an invul like a knight.

Even assuming that those things will have a BS3+, which is far from certain, they inflict 6,39 damage on average per turn.

For the same points, eradicators without any kind of buffs do 9,58! And those are infantries!

Knights have lived in a game with much more scarier forms of AT so far!
   
Made in gb
Automated Rubric Marine of Tzeentch





UK

Spoletta wrote:
Don't get scared by big numbers.
The HH railgun isn't that good of an AT weapon, even against a target with an invul like a knight.

Even assuming that those things will have a BS3+, which is far from certain, they inflict 6,39 damage on average per turn.


Assuming correct, that's good to know

[1,800] Chaos Knights | [1,250] Thousand Sons | [1,000] Grey Knights | 40K editions: RT, 8, 9, 10 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/dreadblade/  
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

You lose a knight every turn.... if the tau player has 4 hammerheads, assuming averages rolls and not insanely lucky ones.

And after one turn of shooting those hammerheads will be in LOS and the knight player can shoot most of them off the board.

Eradicators spam at the beginning of 9th was much more of a threat to knights, did the sky fall down then?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 11:43:51


 
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






PenitentJake wrote:
I think this is the issue for knights players though- they're almost always going to have LOS vs a knight, because even obscuring terrain doesn't protect a knight unless it actually 100% blocks LOS to every antenna, gun barrel, or flag on the model, and almost no table has terrain that does this. Certain GW doesn't manufacture terrain that can do this.

That's the issue, not the actual power of the rail gun itself.

(Or rather, it's the combination of the two, not the power of the railgun by itself)


Speaking from my rather limited experience of regularly facing and fielding knight-class models, but not whole armies of knights, this seems like less of an issue in practice. If you have a big ruin (obscuring) right in front of you and there is a second big terrain piece in between it's still perfectly possible for models like morkanauts, a questoris class knight, Magnus or Mortarion to be completely invisible because of perspective.

Of course, it's a lot easier to line up shots, but that usually comes at the price of not being perfectly hidden from a flanking unit, even forcing you to sit in plain sight of one. You'll rarely be able to hide fully out of sight and shoot unhindered like LoS ignoring models do, especially not with three models of that size.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Stealthy Dark Angels Scout with Shotgun




I'm not sure looking at the average damage for Hammerhead Shots is a great way of looking at them. Assuming BS3 a Hammerhead has a 58% chance of inflicting 10-12 wounds to a toughness 8 Knight. At BS4 it has a 49.5% chance of doing 10-12 wounds. The average isn't that useful because if the weapon hits and wounds you get smashed, but if it doesn't then nothing happens. Squads with multiple shots are going to have less skew in their results. I'm not saying the sky is falling when it comes to Tau as there is not enough information out there to make a judgement about anything.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





Only thing is we're comparing 9th edition Tau rules against 8th edition rules + patches for Imperial / Chaos Knights. The situation might change when their 9th edition codices arrive...

That said, Armigers are definitely undervalued due to their mobility, are still Lords of War themselves and can now occupy objectives. Its worth mentioning that in Combat Patrols they're the only option for a Knight player; so they'll be going up against the Hammerhead anyway in that situation.

Speak of the devil; while I'm waiting for the Knight codices, my two warglaives could do with a helverin to back'em up and make up a patrol. Its a shame they don't have their own Household soliders to fill in the odd points...

Casual gaming, mostly solo-coop these days.

 
   
Made in gb
Power-Hungry Cultist of Tzeentch




So given current codex configuration, 3 HHs + Longstrike which is BS 2+ and makes HHs 2+ too with innate reroll, adding in a CP reroll for a failed wound roll, what's the odd of loosing 2 knights turn 1? Not forgetting that this still leave the Tau with 1300 more pts for the rest of the army and to pink off eventual last wounds, if a knight is left with 4w after two rail gun shots you'd definitely not shoot the third railgun at it

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 12:15:24


 
   
Made in gb
Automated Rubric Marine of Tzeentch





UK

 Blackie wrote:
You lose a knight every turn.... if the tau player has 4 hammerheads, assuming averages rolls and not insanely lucky ones.


Are we talking tournaments here? I very much doubt I'll see 4 hammerheads at my FLGS.

[1,800] Chaos Knights | [1,250] Thousand Sons | [1,000] Grey Knights | 40K editions: RT, 8, 9, 10 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/dreadblade/  
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






ihockert wrote:
I'm not sure looking at the average damage for Hammerhead Shots is a great way of looking at them. Assuming BS3 a Hammerhead has a 58% chance of inflicting 10-12 wounds to a toughness 8 Knight. At BS4 it has a 49.5% chance of doing 10-12 wounds. The average isn't that useful because if the weapon hits and wounds you get smashed, but if it doesn't then nothing happens. Squads with multiple shots are going to have less skew in their results. I'm not saying the sky is falling when it comes to Tau as there is not enough information out there to make a judgement about anything.


There are already are guns like the SAG who have very similar math. A roughly 50% chance of doing nothing and a 20% chance to blow away a knight in one go.

In the end, those things never end up being played because this cuts in both directions. Losing a game and thus ruining all your chances of placing well in a tournament because your three single-shot knight killers all picked the wrong side of the coin is not an option for competitive play.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Getting past how it's technically impossible to see a list with 4 HHs, I think we can skip to the point where a Knight can bracket/if not destroy)1-2 hammerheads per turn, and maybe get bracketed themselves on the reply. Still a worthy tradeoff in my eyes.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/08 13:12:29


 
   
Made in us
Painlord Titan Princeps of Slaanesh




I don't see how it's impossible to field 4 HH. You take 3 regular slots (each with 1 HH) and 1 HQ slot (Longstrike who is also a HH unit). To my math 3 + 1 = 4.
   
Made in gb
Automated Rubric Marine of Tzeentch





UK

It depends who you normally play. Just because its possible to put together a skewed T'au list doesn't mean it's going to be commonplace. Most people don't even have a T'au army. Apart from competitive tournament players, do people really buy a complete new faction to benefit from what is probably a temporarily OP list until it gets nerfed?

[1,800] Chaos Knights | [1,250] Thousand Sons | [1,000] Grey Knights | 40K editions: RT, 8, 9, 10 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/dreadblade/  
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






I'd wager that most people don't even have 3 hammerheads to begin with.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in ie
Longtime Dakkanaut




Ireland

 Jidmah wrote:
I'd wager that most people don't even have 3 hammerheads to begin with.


A lot of old Tau players will have more than 3 I'd say... now how many of them have Railguns and not Iron cannons is the real question.

Hammerheads will no doubt be eating Knights for breakfast for a few months... then bam! The Knights will get a shinny all singing, all dancing new powerful Codex.

And thus the cycle of imbalance will forever continue in 40k.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/08 14:11:49


The objective of the game is to win. The point of the game is to have fun. The two should never be confused. 
   
Made in de
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Excuse my mistake, I didn't know a Long strike was a thing, and just saw 4 of a single data sheet, which made me think Rule of 3.
   
 
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