For the second evening in a row my opponent suggested that knights should have transports, you know.. a knighthawk! Sounds like fun, and reminds me of the Battletech Dropships like this one that was made for Mechwarrior - Aurora Dropship which could carry 4 mechs.

I think it might be a step too far for the knights, though, as it would make up for one of their glaring weaknesses and list design is about weaknesses and strengths.

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Hmm, giving Knights transport is an interesting idea in order to overcome the obvious mobility questions.

Would there be scope for providing an upgrade of "teleport" or Spaceship / Drop pod, possibly to a limited number of formations?

I would mention the concept of teleporting a knight formation might be outside the capability of the Imperium, but the GK do have their Dreadknights which I think can gain teleport.

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-Vaaish

Teleport or transport are both pretty bad ideas for this list. Given there were objections to weapon variety on castellans it seems crazy that those same people are suggesting completely making up options which are as far removed from knight fluff as you can get.

I would agree with Meer, my point in the previous post was that the only group that is known to be able to pull off something like this is a highly secretive order of super-space marines armed with as close to the best material the imperium can produce. While it's possible there could be another group out there doing this, I think it's pretty unlikely especially given the back world nature of knights.

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-Vaaish

Parachutes! From orbit!

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Your lancers could always tunnel Carlos!

Another game w/ this list, this time against Space Wolves.
Was losing 1-0 on the 3rd turn, but clinched it 2-1 in the 4th w/ TSNP and DTF to my opponent's BTS objective.
I won the initial exchanges, but then 4 things started to make the game turn towards the wolves:
1 - long fangs in buildings. Pretty much impossible for the knights to dislodge if supported and 12 dice at 4+ (sustaining) is painful.
2 - land speeders. Spread a bit thin and got cross-fired quite a bit! MW cross-firing knights is nasty.
3 - great companies (in this case w/ crusaders and termies) are tough. And knights can beat them, but they will come back and still be there in the end.
4 - buildings suck for the knights!
Only reason I won was because I'm a bit more experienced than my opponent and kept an eye on objectives for the fourth turn, i.e. played pragmatically. I also tried to restrict his activation count for that fourth turn by concentrating fire.
About my knights:
- took too many supporting knights and not enough mainliners. The fm of crusaders w/ vanquisher cannons was pretty useless against the wolves and so were the 6 wardens since he had only a single thunderhawk.
- 4-strong knight fms are too brittle to hold a battleline. 5-strong seems okay, but I want to try out bigger fms soon.
- the Baron is definitely killable! He's not fearless and has the same save as the rest of his buddies. Just get the right guns pointing his way and he will go, especially if x-fired. His points cost is about right, though, given his good stats, DC 2 and of course supreme commander.
- Wardens seem perfect for their role. Do a bit of AA, do a bit of putting barrages, do a bit of multilasering teleporting scouts and just be tough in general.
Changes to the list:
- Points values seem overall okay.
- Considering adding infantry to the list but then always doubleback to thinking that the list should have flaws, lack of inf being one of them.
- Inspired by the compulsory Space Wolf characters. Could we have customisable seneschals? I already have 1 seneschal for every mainline knight fm, but it'd be cool to customise them a bit either w/ special kit (long range knight cannon, twin-linked melta if an errant, double close-combat weapons, better save) or w/ special abilities (leader, infiltrator, etc.)

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G'day again.

Carlos, I like the alt knights proposed in the other thread and will try to find time to review them shortly.

After a long break from epic I'm digging the knights out of storage to take to a local tournament next weekend. I need to take a 4K list and a 3K list.

So far the 4K list looks something like:

6x Paladin w/ Senecshal
5x Errants w/ Seneschal
5x Paladin w/ Seneschal
4x Paladin w Seneschal + Baron

3x Lancers w/ Seneschal
2x Crusader + 2x Lt QC
2x Castellan + 1x Lt QC + 1x Laser Destroyer
Armiger Sentinels

Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
2x Warhounds (VMB, 2x IG, PBG)
2x Warhounds (VMB, IG, TLD, PBG) (BTS formation)

I'm yet to make the 3K list but I think I'll trim a set of paladins and a set of warhounds to drop it down to the 3K.

I've had one warm up game against Cal's Space Wolves. The game went well for the knights with a 2:0 win in the 3rd. Dice were against Cal but I think his wolves suffered from a lack of mobility after they committed heavily to drop pods and the space ship barrage/pod attacks thankfully missed the majority of my force. I was rather troubled by Cal's Reaver but the knights did well at close in shooting and most assaults. They do struggle assaulting the bigger SW formations because there are so many hits coming back at them. I got cross fired once and it hurt loosing the knight shield.

Regarding the above list if anyone has any points on army build or tactics then please let me know. My ability to change formations is somewhat limited at this late stage but I could move the numbers around somewhat.

I would have liked to take wardens and maybe even some howitzers but my french built warden proxies are as big or bigger than my old school warhounds, so I left them out even though they are excellent models and I don't have a decent howitzer proxie as yet. I want something that looks like a cross between a towed arty piece and a modern crane with support legs deployed into the ground - anyone got any good ideas?

As for the list itself, I think the changes to 5+ RA and a standardized shield for all knight types is a big improvement over the last time I played this list. The only main thing I missed was not having Lancers as a main line unit and that the crusader/castellan formations have dropped to 2 man teams without option for Seneschal. This makes them somewhat more fragile and one formation spent the entire game broken after a single casualty early on. I suppose this was done to limit them to a max of 4BP MW attacks? (which still hurt mind you!). I'm also a little curious as to what the Lancer's FF value should be. I guess 5+ keeps the powerlance in check but it does hurt the chassis now that its limited to units of 2 or 3 and when you finally get it into an assault it misses with 2/3 of its attacks even though it is arguably at its optimal range. Does it not have the same fire power as the paladin/errant? Happy to leave its CC at 5+.

Keen to hear other people's thoughts
Cheers

Is there a reason why Seneschals are free(or is that a typo at +0 points)? Inspiring and Commander on one character that is free to essentially every formation that is meant to Engage seems OTT. There's no reason not to take them.

Also IIRC, doesn't Inspiring stack, thereby giving multiple formations of Knights a multiple bonus in an Engagement for free?


Or just reduce them to 1BP each given they are MW too....

Tournament Update.

I played a "warm-up" match against Dobbsy on Saturday at 3K a side. The general feeling from organiser/players was that the free seneschal upgrades was unfair so I dropped some knights and paid 25pts for the upgrade. The 3K game was a win for the knights.

Dobbsy ran his beautiful tau army but I went after his marker light formations when they came fwd to light up my knights. I still lost a number to seeker missiles and MW Hammerheads but in general the knight shield stopped a lot of Tau firepower (some good rolling helped). In the end I think I got a 2:1 win in the 4th, TSNP and T&H Vs BTS. The Tau were pretty badly mauled at the end whilst though I'd lost my BTS I still had a large unit of Paladins and the Errants.

In our first tournament game today Dobbsy and I again squared off. This time I took the above 4k list minus a Paladin and Errant formation to cover the cost of 25-50pt seneschal upgrades. I think Dobbsy was probably a little pesimistic going into today's game after the loss the day before so he hid a lot more and I had to move a lot to get lines of sight to his models. I went heavy on my left flank and killed a lot of Tau around my two objectives and his Blitz. The tau meanwhile did there best to inflict damage whilst avoiding any decisive engagements. In the end I probably left the other flank too light on an the Tau were able to manoeuvre around my forces to grab my blitz and T&H objectives. I was working for a 4th turn win but a good delaying move by his stealth suits and two failed 2+ activations by myself gave Dobbsy a 2-1 win late in the 3rd. In terms of VP for units killed/broken the knights were well ahead but just didn't hold enough key objectives despite having the majority of tau broken.

The 2nd game today was against Cal's Space Wolves. Our last game was a sound win to the Knights but Cal had gone away and revisited his list, scrapping the strike cruiser and drop pods for a heavy mech list backed up by two thunderhawks and a reaver.

Given both our forces were suited to the 45cm or less close fight turn one most mostly some double or advance moves to gain ground. I did loose a unit of Crusaders to the Reaver and lost a warhound to a bunch of bloodclaws conducting an air assault but did minor damage to his lighter fomations instead and dropped a few shields on his reaver.

Turn 2 Cal got the initiative and used it to good effect. 2 good shooting activations straight up saw the knights getting torn up and from there it was all down hill. Cal's gaining of the initiative, good maximization of firepower and agressive recon screen saw a number of knight formations broken. By mid turn 3 I was down to only a handful of knights and a broken warhound. 4-0 to the SW and a decisive 2275pts to only 350pts when counting up the damage.

So what went wrong? forgot that SW are a LOT tougher than Tau in the Assault (especially the big formations) and probably allowed the Reaver to dominate the mid field. I did try to shoot it down and did strip a few DC but as a result his other big formations were relatively unscathed because I spread my shots around rather than following my own usual tactic of hammering enemy formations until they are dead/broken and out of the fight.

One more game tomorrow against a guard tank legion that is packing numerous SHTs.

Thoughts/Points so far:

General
Free Seneschal is probably a bit much, especially for the formation with the Baron gaining a +2 to assault res straight up. Perhaps seneschal could swap inspiring for leader to help clear BM but not be OTT in assaults (*note I'm paying 25pts+ to cover this possible oversight and keep things friendly)

Knight shield saves so may knights but we were unsure if the intent was to allow it in CC and against FF attacks. Given the RAW only preclude its use during crossfire, we allowed it but this could be more clearly articulated in the special rule. I thought CC attacks might bypass the shield like they do against other titans?

Bravery did help on 2-3 occasions but generally I wasn't assaulting superior numbers.

Lancers
The Lancer needs to be FF4+. He sucks compared to the Errant and Paladin. A number of times I got them into the ideal 10-15cm engagement range clipping assault, only to cause minimal damage due to them needing 5+ to hit. I'm happy with his CC to remain 5+ but given he's the firefight specialist I really think he that power lance needs a better chance to hit. Equipment wise he's arguably better that the errant/paladin thanks to two shooting weapons? The max squad size of 3 also hurts these guys. I think than they can still work well as a spt knight formation but we should consider allowing greater numbers, especially if the FF is to remain at 5+ (i hope not)

Errant
Not sure the TK is required on the power fist, it does seem a bit rude. If you feel the drop back to MW is undervaluing the unit then up the CC of unit to 3+ maybe? In general I'd probably prefer a better chance to hit anyway.

Custodes
Twin linked laser destroyer is nasty (2x AT2+ with sniper for +0 pts on crusader/castellan) either up the cost or ditch the sniper I think. Its awesome for picking of hunters/skyrays etc.
I personally don't think the 2BP MW light quake is OTT though as its direct fire an the slow speed of the support knights makes it harder to employ. I often had to double in order to find LOS to targets, reducing the to hit to 6's and 7's.
I like the weapon options but I think sticking with the scout titan weapons + Light Quake is the way to go and easier to balance.

Army list construction
I missed not having any indirect weapons, especially in turn one against the wolves and all turns against Tau.

2 units of warhounds in the 4k list gave me a lot of reach to help shape and contain the tau. Against wolves they need knight support though to stop them being over run.

Thunderbolts alone are not enough AA to defend against a marine THawk.

Small units like sentinels and Tbolts are essential to keeping activation count high and allowing knights to shape the enemy into favorable assaults and also help against crossfire.

Thats it for now, no doubt some more tomorrow. Hopefully the others will also get on and post their opinions.

Cheers

My concerns from playing it were basically they get a 4+ invulnerable then a 5+ reinforced save then if you're lucky to do any damage they get Marine BM assignment. When I actually managed to damage the things (Tau... apparently the "shootiest" army list going... :| ) they didn't break because they needed 2 BM per unit to break thus allowing them to charge on.

Ortron's smaller formations were easier to deal with however.

Thanks for all the great feedback and testing. I will go back and have a look and try to tweak it a bit, especially the lancers.

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