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Soft imperial knight armies?


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Just wondering, does the 7th edition imperial knight army have any options which could make a pure knight army be considered a soft army, or otherwise a more casual army?

 

I'm not really discussing fluff or compeditiveness, but in terms of playing against other soft armies in a casual environment.

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Well under the old codex the Knights had obsec as well. Two Knights would becomes "troops choices" and one Knight would become a Seneschal and an "HQ choice". 1 HQ and 2 Troops would become a CAD, and thus grant obsec. 

 

And stock Imperial Knights are not bad. They are not overpowering, other than people get it into their head they are. As for bad matchups? Yes. But every army has bad matchups. Some armies are going to have a hard time with an IG tank army.

 

My SM army got eaten alive by the old Necron codex.

 

And my Knights would have a very hard time with the new one.

 

Heck, a Tau army heavy on firewarriors could be rough on a Knight army since they all come standard with haywire grenades. 

 

There is always going to be a hard counter to the army that you are playing. Knights are countered by any army that can get into melee with haywire grenades. Or chainfists. Or melta grenades. Or Smite hammers. Or D weapons. Or, or, or....

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Well D weapons don't carry wounds over into the wound pool. So when being assaulted by infantry, Knights can only kill four models a turn (outside of stomp). So infantry spam can still off Knights pretty effectively. 

Sure, but they die to every other list. 

 

I don't tailor lists to deal with one army; I write lists to deal with as many armies as I can.

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Under the old dex you couldn't get objective secured as they had their own detachment that allowed you to field multiple. You could not actually use the main rule book detachments. Uhg so much misinformation, I'm actually really excited about the new book as it cleans up somethings that people screwed up.

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Well D weapons don't carry wounds over into the wound pool. So when being assaulted by infantry, Knights can only kill four models a turn (outside of stomp). So infantry spam can still off Knights pretty effectively. 

 

"Outside of Stomp" is a pretty big caveat, since that's typically how Knights do most of their damage in close combat. That's like saying "aside from their Scatter Lasers, a squad of Eldar Jetbikes doesn't have very good offense."

 

Go ahead and throw a blob of Orks or Guardsmen at a Knight; maybe, if you have that S10 Klaw or lots of Meltabombs (and position carefully) you might kill the Knight, but it will kill your squad.

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Guest Mr. Bigglesworth

Yeah but knight takes blob squad after shooting three other units. Blob squad dies from knight going boom, knight made back points and then some of it makes an assault on a blob squad.

 

Saying other armies have bad match ups, doesn't compare, as many of the ways to mitigate a bad match up are not going to help you against Knights.

 

I love Knights and welcome them to the table, but they are a tough workhorse that can be intimidating to many players. Until they have had more time like fliers just be prepared to have them viewed as tougher than they probably are. This time next year they maybe more welcome.

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Heck, a Tau army heavy on firewarriors could be rough on a Knight army since they all come standard with haywire grenades. 

 

There is always going to be a hard counter to the army that you are playing. Knights are countered by any army that can get into melee with haywire grenades. Or chainfists. Or melta grenades. Or Smite hammers. Or D weapons. Or, or, or....

Have you really been having issues with the above?

 

I understand the hard counter point you are making, but none of the above stand out as viable solutions to imperial knights, and I've tried all of them. Issues are several:

 

First, you have to get into melee with something that can move 14-24" per turn (that is 12" move and 2-12" charge).

 

Second, you have to not die to the shooting of something you can barely reach in melee. Imperial knights aren't exactly lacking in shooty options nor do they have range issues. 

 

Third, even if you manage get it stuck in assault, it has initiative 4 with D melee and initiative 1 melee-blast weapons (stomp). On the list of weapons above, only the smite mode weapons are going to swing at initiative, and those are still only going to swing at equal initiative.

 

Forth, if you do manage to kill it in assault, I'm looking at further D weapon attacks in an apocalyptic blast on my assaulting unit and models around it.

 

Basically, whatever I use to assault the knight will very likely die trying to kill the knight, whether they succeed or not. In conclusion, melee is a really costly way to remove the imperial knights and basically requires equal or greater points sacrificed to destroy them.

 

Destroying them at range is really the only viable solution, unless you happen to have within your army a reliable AT unit/weapon which can strike at higher initiative than the knight. Ideally something with wings or that can be transported in an assault vehicle flyer.

 

Chaos daemons and tyranid MCs are at the forefront of viable options against imperial knights in melee. That would be a daemon prince, greater daemon, or flying MC. Even there, it needs armor bane, rending, or S7+ to reliably solo one of the knights. And, once again, destroying the knight will still likely require sacrificing a like number of points to destroy it.

 

The hard counter to imperial knights is other super heavies, flying MCs, apocalypse units, or armies with excessive AT options (Necrons, Admech, skitarii, Tau).

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I was really hoping for this as well. Also wondering if, in the 40K universe, kids get toys of famous Imperial war machines and stuff.

love it.

 

But the point was that Sugarlessllama was talking about imperal knight armies in the other thread and it occurred to me that I've only faced the imperial knights of the last codex, so it seemed possible that GW allowed knight players to build soft lists, but it appears this was a false hope.

 

@Sugarlessllama: I think what knight players need to do, is to found an ITC-like set of rules for apocalypse tournaments, so those pure super heavy armies don't seem so out of place.

 

And before you say it, 40k and apocalypse are already beer and pretzel games, so if they can make 40k competitive, there isn't reason that we couldn't get competitive apocalypse....

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I just realized a big part of my different experience is that I'm using a different model. My base is over sized and the crashing to the ground ends up not doing much, my base is bigger than the d part of the destruction explosion.

 

The thing that always works against my knights is putting those units that can't hurt them in their way and swing the shooty unit out wide make it so that the Knight either has to point where it wants to go, or where it wants to shoot. Once you have it split like that it is no longer able to shoot dangerous stuff and assault something else.

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I was really hoping for this as well. Also wondering if, in the 40K universe, kids get toys of famous Imperial war machines and stuff.

 

We need 40k-ception.  Someone model a kid playing with a baneblade or something...

 

Oh wait, didn't someone do that space marine painting a space marine already?

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