Knight Titans, hooooo!! We try these awesome new models out in a bat rep, Raw Dogger vs. Reecius’ Junkticrons! As always check out the Tactics Corner for more great videos!
So, the BRB says you can’t charge a vehicle you can’t hurt, the FAQ says you can, what do you guys think?
Co-founder of Frontline Gaming, and creator of the ITC, Reece Robbins has been a pillar of the tabletop community for over two decades. From developing Blood Throne to launching industry-leading hobby products and major events like the LVO, his career is defined by innovation and a lifelong passion for gaming since the 80s. Today, he remains a very active community organizer and business leader dedicated to the growth of the hobby.
Those were the rules for beasts in last edition I believe, the only other thing that walks 12″. I don’t know that it is addressed in the current edition of the rules anywhere. I took a look and couldn’t find it either :).
Did you guys stomp during combat? What is your opinion on “stomp walking?”
yhea it’s swing the D weapon and stomp.
I misread it as either or, my mistake.
Gotta swang dat D
Yeah, movement for super heavies is actually pretty unfortunate:
“Super-heavy Walkers can move 12″ in the movement phase unless specified otherwise. Apart from this they obey the movement rules for Walkers…”
Nothing in the Escalation rules prevents them from being slowed down by terrain, though they do have the Move Through Cover rule…
I’m pretty sure it’s covered in the apoc book that supers always move the distance…don’t have the darn book though:( I do have escalation though, which leads too…
you always get to stomp… it’s not a choice, swing the blade stomp afterwards:)!
Also, the knight does not grant victory points for the hull points lost. it’s not a Lord of war.
C’mon guys… I know your busy but I’m not sure if I’ve seen a super played with all the correct rules yet… at least not in a really long time?
One of my favourite things about the site and bat reps is that you play the rules well with nice tactics, It seems like you guys have a blind spot for anything in escalation and or super heavies.
…don’t worry still love your work:)
Yeah, you get to stomp and D-Slap, and it doesn’t concede points as that is a Lord of War rule, not a super heavy rule. Makes it even better. Almost wish I played an Imperial army because I like the Knight so much.
Well, in our defense, a lot of the rules are very ambiguous on this, the only one that was flat our wrong was the Stomp AND D weapon attacks. I just straight up misread it.
As for the Knight not granting VPs, I have not seen anything official that says that, only the FB post by a GW rep. It is probably true, but I didn’t see anything to that effect in the rules in the WD we read.
But this is a learning experience. We open the book and give it a go, we always acknowledge that in our first play through we may make mistakes as we said in this video.
This is from the “Escalation Secondary Objective” section, the rule that grants bonus VP’s is called “Through Attrition, Victory.” It’s not a rule that super heavies have, it’s a secondary Objective when playing Escalation missions. It says, “At the end of the game, you score 1 Victory Point for every 3 full Hull Points or Wounds that have been lost by an enemy Lords of War unit…”
Ah, then perhaps I just misread it.
page 20 of the escalation book: super heavy walkers can move 12 inch a turn apart from this , they OBEY the MOVEMENT rules for walkers, so only gets to move 2 D6 pick the highest to move through cover. with move through cover just let him roll 3 D6 and pick the highest
Yeah, we saw that, but it just seems odd that a 12″ unit halves it’s potential movement through cover. Feels like an oversight.
Yeah, it’s super rough, but maybe it’s intentional? At least you can use terrain to slow down a super heavy walker, instead of just letting them run right up into your lines?
Yeah, by RAW that is the rule, but it really feels like a mistake. We will see very soon, though.
Sure, when GW gets around to writing an FAQ… LOL
Really though, I don’t mind terrain slowing them down, it at least lets people try to out maneuver them. That’s far less frustrating than having a super heavy walker not be able to leave combat because that Reaver Titan is too busy fighting some grots to be bothered with firing it’s main weaponry!
Sorry, not quite on topic:
I’ve made a beer hammer t-shirt and a baby seal shirt … to be worn at tourneys, of course. I think I’ll make one that says,
“Ah, damn it.” – Reece.
And then it’ll show a dice with a ‘1’.
Too obscure?
Not too obscure, and quite funny! lol
It’s a super heavy walker and I believe that it had move thru cover. Also it was my understanding that you couldn’t charge something you can’t hurt.
GW made a change in the main rule book faq that allows you to charge anything.
I do not think this is accurate. The FAQ p.4 references charging a “unit” that you cannot harm regarding page 20 of the Rulebook.
However, the rules for vehicle assaults state:
“A unit can charge a vehicle in their Charge sub-phase. The charge move is conducted the same as charging other enemy units. However, a unit cannot charge a vehicle that it cannot hurt – it must have some possibility, no matter how small, of being able to inflict at least a glancing hit.”
This is not referenced in the FAQ by page number, or by wording, as vehicles are either vehicles or squadrons and not units. Vehicles have their own rules for everything, including assaults, and the FAQ specifically references p. 20, which is pertains to infantry. The vehicle rules override these, just as their rules for shooting, taking damage, ignoring morale do.
Yeah, that is what I was reading, too.
I’m pretty sure you had the movement wrong in cover for the superheavy. Whenever I’ve played gargantuan creatures we’ve decided they make regular rolls as if they have move through cover – so max move through cover is 6″.
Also… I don’t think that knights concede VPs for losing hull points, they’re not actually full fledged lords of war, just super heavy walkers.
There is nothing in the rules that says how to move them through cover, so we just winged it. It seems silly that they halve their movement through terrain.
Reece buddy, break the zoom button off of your camera!
I know, lol, Jason will not stop using it! haha
Stop being so old!
Dick! lol
As per Escalation, a super heavy walker gets it normal attacks AND its stomps at the end. So I think you might have killed a few more scarabs.
Yup, I misread it as either/or.
I love that Battlefield in a Box fountain. I used it on my display board at Stones this weekend.
Great Batrep, excited to see how the Knights perform. So far I am unimpressed, lol
They’re good, but I don’t think game breaking. Some folks are reading the stomp to hit everyone in combat with the Knight which would certainly break it, though.
Im just holding my breath for chaos knights… come on forge world!!
Me, too!
What bugsculptor said may be right. If there is nothing that says roll 3 and double the highest anywhere in 6th, then you default to the basic move through cover rules of roll three and take the highest. Again, I remember the double the highest from 5th, but can find it anywhere in 6th. It was originally in the beast rules because they were the ones that could move 12″. Now beast and cav ignore terrain so……
Yeah… it’s pretty irritating for gargantuan MCs. Like regular MCs they can pick up a toenail save from parking their foot in area terrain, but unlike regular MCs their movement is always more than halved to do so… with regular MCs you’ll only lose an inch or two of movement most time.
Or for all those super heavy walkers that my poor Chaos Marines have.
I do think it was designed to be a balancing factor, having a unit that can move 12″ a turn, charge into combat and kill most of what it touches not being slowed would really be devastating.
We found nothing in the rules that said how to move a 12″ walker through terrain so we just winged it.
Cool to see the big guy in action, looks like he’s pretty balanced and will make a nice addition to imperial armies. Obviously 2 Riptides are better but that’s because Riptides are ridiculously underpriced, not because the Knight is overpriced.
Good point.
I think this is the transition we needed to lords of war. Warmachine colossal and gargantuan creatures are scary until you realize you have been fighting smaller versions in the heavy warjacks. Just kill it if you can or ignore it and go for the mission or caster kill
boil that frog 🙂
LOL @ Sly Slippery Slope Reference!
Sweet batrep, but that’s not why I’m here: Reece, the Nids were saved this weekend! Rising Leviathan 2 is AMAZING! I think it’ll make you happy when you get around to reading it. 🙂
Yeah, I saw that! The Gargoyls swarm Formation is amazing!
Dude… I so need to go buy a bunch of FMC now…
Why does entropic strike not walk on the knight??
Because of the Invincible Behemoth rule.
Attacks that lower AV values do not work on any super heavy vehicles. The rule specifically mentions entropic strike.
Yup.
I think one is probably really balanced, I just worry that 2-3 is a bit much. I think you will see armies literally built around the knights. Assuming those Scarabs don’t tarpit him, (which the scarabs should be target priority 2 after the Monolith) he would have been free to bounce around from combat to combat, think he would have made a much bigger impact on the game. Prescience is a really big deal on him though to get consistancy out of his CC attack. Good to combo with any army that has access to it.
Yeah, armies of Knights seem like they can be quite good against some armies tha are not equipped to deal with them.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing though, from what I saw at the LVO, very few players were actually equipped to deal with much, if any AV over 12!
The deathstars would all be fine to kill them, unfortunately =(
Yeah, Guided charging warlock bikers could actually do quite a number on a Knight.
Love your bat reps guys, keep em coming 🙂
Thanks!
I think you were playing “Stomp” wrong. The blast markers don’t determine number of hits, just which units are hit. The rules say, place template. Then for each unit, roll on the table. The table then says “Each model in target unit under the blast marker…” not each model under the blast marker. The Knight should have wiped the swarm in the first round.
That is a stretch of an intepretation if I’ve heard.
It’s not a stretch. That’s the way its written. Look at the entire paragraph of Stomp. Not just the chart. It says the “unit” gets Stomped.
The english language is not a computer programming language. You can parse it in different ways to come to different conclusions. Your conclusion not only ignores the existence of other ways to parse that single sentence (and ignore the context of the whole rule for stomp) it also is ludicrous enough to be all but ignored by the player base.
Actually it doesn’t ignore anything, particularly context. The entirety of the paragraph states that “units” are stomped, not models. Yes, it can be parsed. However, if one wants something to be parsed, commas are the most common way to go about it. I took the sentence as it is written, without the parsing that is non-existent. “Ludicrous” is a matter of perspective and ignoring something should never be a viable option. Is it really all that ludicrous to believe that they would put in a rule that would make it foolish to engage a Titan in combat with anything less than another Titan. Or, that they would structure it such that 195 points of Orks could lock a 2500 point Phantom Titan in combat for the majority of the game?
I do not agree with that reading of the rule at all, haha, that would be far too powerful. I read it as models hit, otherwise there would be no point to using the blast marker.
I would agree with you if anywhere in the entirety of the “Stomp” rules they said “Each model under the template…”, but they always say “each unit”, “Each model in the unit” and “unit partially under the template”
Fair enough, I see your point, but then why bother with the blast marker at all? The intent here, clearly to me, is that it is models under the template get stomped on, not the entire unit. Haha, then an entire 30 man unit of Boyz would be destroyed in a single round of combat. That’s just silly.
The purpose of the blast marker is so that if you only roll 1, you have a chance to stomp all of the units that have locked you in combat.
Oh, and “far too powerful”? You mean like D weapon powerful? You are a better person than I and have more faith than me.
I don’t know who you are agreeing with, but Lex is correct.
“A Stomp attack consists of D3 Stomps. To make the first Stomp, place a blast marker so that it is touching, but not over, the Super-heavy Walker model (or the Super-heavy Walker model’s base, if it has one). Each unit that has at least one model even partially under the marker is stomped. For each unit that is stomped, roll on the Stomp table (see opposite) to determine what happens to it.”
No mention of counting models under the template, only that a unit is stomped even one model is partially covered. What you would like it to say for balance reasons, and what it actually says aren’t always the same. It says one model covered, the unit is stomped. Roll once on the table.
Roll 2-5 on the stomp table :
“Non-vehicle Target – Kerr–runch: Each model from the unit being stomped that is even partially under the blast marker suffers a Strength 6 AP4 hit.”
Once again, no reference to the models under the template, only each model in the UNIT stomped takes a hit. You are stomped if one model is under the template and each model in the unit takes a hit. Sure it is powerful, but what in escalation isn’t better than all the regular instance of the BRB rules? It did introduce the dirty D after all.
Again, I understand the argument, but if you go with that reading of the rule you can forget about Knights ever coming into tournament play.
After re reading it, I guess I see an interpretation for both sides. Depends if you use the “partially under the blast” to define the units getting stomped or to define the models that take the hits. I’m not an expert in English sentence structure, so I don’t actually know what they intend.
They are notorious for writing unclear rules so don’t feel bad. I don’t sweat it at all when we have someone disagree with us on a rule, happens every time.
We as a community will have to figure out how to play it as we always do.
Yeah, I think you have to use prescient here, there are no attacks in the game that affect every model in a unit that is touched by a blast, only attacks that affect models under the template. As Reece pointed out, getting a single stomp attack on a blob of 50 guard should absolutely not be crushing every single guardsman.
I do agree that it should have probably included a couple commas so that it reads, “Each model, from the unit being stomped, that is even partially under the blast marker…” Don’t let the lack of a couple commas make you come to ridiculous conclusions. If you look for every instance where poor punctuation changes a rule in your favor, you’re going to run out of friends quickly.
Yeah, so much simpler to put “for each model even partially under the template from the unit being stomped….”
Sadly, the only super heavy walker I can get doesn’t even get the stomp rule, so no advantage for me…..
“Non-vehicle Target – Kerr–runch: Each model from the unit being stomped that is even partially under the blast marker suffers a Strength 6 AP4 hit.”
The subject of the sentence is “model”. “From the unit being stomped” does not change the subject of the sentence. When you remove the clarification, the sentence is properly read “Each model under the blast marker suffers a…”
Reece!! We need a do over on the batrep with a titan. This doesn’t count as stomp was played wrong and the D can swing as well. We can’t go by this batrep bro, sorry. Did you guys use the stomp table?
We misread it as saying either or, not both. Yes, the attack would have been more powerful and yes we used the stomp table, but Jason rolled a Strength 6 attack every time.
Great report guys. 2 main comments:
1. Scarabs cannot charge the walker. The FAQ lifts the restriction for charging a high Toughness unit that it cannot hurt. It does not lift the restriction for charging a high-armoured unit that it cannot hurt.
2. Super-heavies can both attack normally and then stomp. It doesn’t appear that you guys were doing that.
I was going off of the BRB FAQ for assaults which caused the confusion.
Oh, and yes, you can stomp and swing the D, I got that wrong, I misread it to say one or the other.
I thought VP’s were awarded for HP stripped from Lords of War, which the Knight is not.
It is unclear at this time if that will apply to Knights or not. The rules we have on them do not say.
Double check the rules in the Escalation book that grant the bonus VP’s, it’s under “Through Attrition, Victory” which is a scenario rule, not a rule on Super Heavies themselves, and it specifies Lords of War. 🙂
Thank you for the clarification!
Stomp:
Units that have at least one model even partially covered are stomped and roll on the stomp table.
The blast marker then indicates which /models/ take damage or are removed.
e.g. “6 Overrun: Each model from the target unit that is even partially under the blast marker is removed from play.”
With careful positioning of your models the first stomp might only hit 2 or 3 of your 30 Boyz, unless you’re short on space!
The blast template and the rules for stomp states the models under or partially under. Not the entire unit takes a hit. It’s pretty clear reading to me. My vote is with Reecius on this one.
It is not a “Blast” weapon, per se, so those rules are irrelevant.
Thanks, and the other reading of the rule is crazy-town.
I will point out that after 6th edition hit, but before the new Apoc book, Stomps could hit every model in the unit. Not only that, they were at the GC’s Strength and Ap. Granted, they had to roll to hit, but the most common result here is S6 Ap 4. The old stomp would be like S 8-9, Ap 1 and hit on base initiative. Here they are at I 1.
I noticed the Scarab-tar-pit mistake as well, but it has been thoroughly addressed. I just assumed (incorrectly) that you were relying on their AV degrading ability.
I would like to see a Coteaz + White Scars + Knight list in action (or some other semi-broken list). I know you get plenty of requests. This Death Wing list was fairly tame. I don’t expect anyone to be playing a Knight for the fluff. Some will, but in order to more accurately assess the Knight’s impact on the game, it needs to be dropped into a broken or semi-broken list of one sort or another to see if it can really break it….
Yeah, we just threw on the table what we had on hand. We figured we would just try it out in a “normal” game, first.
Just a general question. I know the dark angels player mentioned that the death wing are not very good. I know they are over costed relative to their other space marine brethren. Is there any thought that the mission format makes small, elite armies (Grey Knights included) and armies that are better when they have large units (orks for morale purposes) at a disadvantage compared to the MSU format armies and their 3 jet bike scoring unit shenanigans? If more missions implemented the kill point objective/purge the alien secondary it might make some of these armies better ( small numbers of hard to kill units that give up few VP). It seems that often these armies don’t have enough scoring units to compete when there are 5 or 6 objective to compete for compared to eldar or SM combat squads for example. Of course it would make Death Stars better, so I don’t know how to overcome that.
The issue you will run into with Terminators is that there is so much more dakka in the game now than a year ago that they go down under torrent of fire, AND have extra weaknesses to anything AP2. Mission type isn’t going to take away that dual weakness.
Exactly. You just throw dice at them and they die. They are twice as durable as a single Space Marine at almost triple the cost. It is a losing trade-off. I’d rather have 3 Space Marines.
I don’t care about the impact of a knight in 40K, I just want o paint one!
Great stuff.
They are awesome, aren’t they?!