And wow….
It was a total massacre.
2 Knights with Battle Cannons
1 Knight Seneschal (upgraded HQ version) with the outflank Warlord Trait and the uber-melta cannon.
3 units of Drop Pod Marines (HQ and 2 Troops)
2 Storm Talons (Only 1 Storm Talon, my mistake -ed)
Thunderfire Cannon
The Knight player faced off against a tournament tested Triptide Tau list with Kroot, Crisis Suit troops, and plenty of marker lights. The result was an absolute blowout, with the Knight player steamrolling the Tau player.
As we watched the game unfold, the Tau player made some really big mistakes that were the root cause of the game being so lopsided. He castled in a corner when he really didn’t need to. He was intimidated by the new army and didn’t play as well as he normally does. The Battle Cannons posed very little threat to his Riptides with a 2+, and he was able to hide or reserve his Crisis Suits and Pathfinders.
The Outflanking Knight was the key though, as he came out of reserves right on top of the Tau castle and was dropping Melta pie all over the place and putting huge pressure on the Tau. Theother two knights arrived to back him up in time to assault into the Tau castle where the stomps and D slappers made short work of the clumped up Tau units. Exploding Knights were also brutally effective and destroying things. Once the castle was breached, it was all over.
Had the Tau player instead spread out, and taken some licks form shooting, he would have been able to flank the Knights and get around the Ion Shields, to blast them with superior firepower and stay away from the deadly Knight assault. He would have also forced the Knight player to spread out his units and therefore diffuse the impact of a multi-Knight assault. Even with the drubbing he was taking, the Tau player was able to drop 2 of the Knights but it was already too late as the Marines took objectives and the T-Fire Cannons and Storm Talons hunted down any straggler Tau units.
So, first impressions of the Knight army is that especially with solid support units, the army is 100% tournament viable. It will have a lot of shock and awe value the first time folks play against it, but movement and thinking a turn or two ahead are the keys to taking these units out, as applying the right tools against them does destroy them. Tactics will beat Knights, you just have to get a feel for how to go about doing it with your list.
Plus, the army looks absolutely bad ass on the table!
I’m interested in running 2-3 knights debating who can support them the best looking at space wolves ATM to get some good powers from the rune priests on em
Yeah, or Inquisition is what we’re thinking.
Why Inquisition? Other than the henchman being great scoring units and coteaz, Knights/Inq would still have a problem against flyer armies.
Better odds to go first, cheap scoring units, Divintation.
Dark Angels would be good too for the Power Field Generator.
I assume the Marines were allies? How did the list include 2 Stormtalons?
He may have allied the Knights to the Marines, actually.
Couldn’t have been Marine primary since the knight had the warlord upgrade and a trait
Maybe he just made a mistake.
Hey Reece, Droozy here, I was running 3 knights primary and 2 tac squads in pods with a chapter master, 1 storm talon and one thunder fire cannon… it was all legit, sorry I had to bounce out right after the game, had to get back to my lady
No worries dude, thanks for jumping in!
Probally, not a big deal really doesn’t sound like the flyers are what won the game, besides that’s what play testing is for so you don’t make those mistakes at tournaments 🙂
Try it against a Seer Council next! Hopefully it’s a meta buster.
Yeah, that is what we’re hoping, too!
Sounds awesome. I’m dying to play against a triple knight list
I’ve played with just one knight so far, W/battle cannon and I use him almost always as a home field/midfield bully beating up outflankers, infiltrators, and deep strikers, and the range on his cannon let’s him shoot the oppenents side also
When ever I fire my battle cannon it always effective lol, that aside I like the 2 BC knights to the one thermal cannon knight, would you change that composition at all? And the space marine allies are top notch, at that close range which chapter tactics would you think work best?
No, I like that mix, too.
Table must have looked amazing with all the Knights and Riptides! I’d love some kind of big mech tabletop game, like a Mechwarrior / Battletech game but with Knight/Riptide/Wraithknight sized models.
That is exactly what it looked like and with our awesome, custom terrain for the store, too!
Shouldn’t the marine only have one Storm Talon?
Knights Main
Then Ally Marines?
He may have been running Marines Primary, Knights as allies.
I can’t figure it out because you can’t have a knight for a warlord if they’re not primary, and if they were allies, then 1850 would be those 3 knights, a naked librarian, 3×5 naked tac squads in pods, 2 skyhammer talons and 1 thunderfire, which would be awfully slim on scoring (since knights are only scoring in primary detachments).
It could have just been an error.
Yeah, that’s what I figured… Anyhow, get a video bat rep of a 3 knight game next time!
3 knights primary and 2 tac squad in drop pods with a chapter master, 1 storm talon and one thunder fire cannon. Reece had a pretty intense battle going on while we were playing plus I changed the list last minute to play with 3 knights. Originally I was going to run two knights with space marine primary; three tac squads in drop pods, chapter master, 2 storm talons and two thunder fire cannons but I wanted to try the knight warlord so I tweaked
Ahhhh, my bad, I saw the 2 Storm Talons and that is what threw me off.
What did you think about the army, Droozy?
It was tons of fun. Can’t wait to get it painted. Super easy to use, even for someone who’s never played with either codex before.
Are you going to keep teasing us with how awesome it looked? 😛 Surely someone must have taken a photo, even if it’s just a mobile phone cam?
To get pics/ the whole content of the battle report, you have to buy the frontline gaming picture supplement!
( this is a dig at GW codex/supplement scheme, and meant as a joke)
We didn’t have a chance to photograph it or film it, unfortunately, I was too busy.
do a video bat rep
We don’t have the Knights in the shop at the moment to do it.
Dude, tell me when and what points you want to play at and I’m there
Let’s do it! Bring yo Knights!
Maybe tomorrow, I can’t talk the old lady into two nights in a row, I’ll let you know
Let’s do Sunday if that works, I will be gone tomorrow.
well melta spam in wave serpents here i come, oh wait…….. that is what i do hahahahahaha
You always knew your list would come back around! lol!
There’s a guy at my game store who runs 3 and an astartes storm wing. I’m going to take it on with the beast star and we’ll see how that goes.
Let us know!
Should’ve used the Tau formation, free Tank Hunters FTW.
Also, the Knight can’t put up his shield to protect against Interceptor shots.
Actually, as soon as the model is deployed it is allowed to choose an arc for the ion shield, it can then change the arc at the start of each opposing side’s shooting phases before any attacks are carried out.
My buddy cashed out and got 5 Knights, at 1850 he can field all 5 of them stock.
I played him with my Tigurius/Grav-centurions/Land-Raider bomb list, this is a pure TAC list and by the end of the game there was a single Knight left alive.
I lost but it was very close, the grav cannons with all the rerolls were punishing as well as the basic melta-tacticals and quad lascannon devastators. Everything else was essentially worthless though so it came down to timing the doctrines carefully and some good rolls on the damage chart. Fun game overall.
That sounds like a lot of fun!
Yeah have to agree with Adam. Not to big of a deal, but especially since either the space marine player was cheating by using a warlord trait out of his allied detachment or he was cheating by having 2 stormtalons.
Either way I’d like to see more play tests using three knights. Maybe one vs 2++ or vs melta spam alpha strike marines.
I wouldn’t say he was cheating, I’d give the marine player the benefit of the doubt, first time using any army can lead to some confusion.
Just to clear my name, there was a bit of confusion over the list. I’m the knight player in question, this was the list I ran:
Knights primary, space marine allies
Hq:
Knight errant(rolled and got outflank warlord trait)
Chapter master(artificer armor, ss)
Troop:
Knight paladin x2
Tac squad(lascannon)x2
Drop pod x2
Fast attack:
Storm talon(skyhammer)
Heavy support:
Thunderfire cannon
Hope this clears up the confusion
Thanks, and yeah, totally my fault on the confusion.
No worries, I’ll try and swing by Sunday early to get that batrep if you’re still down
DO IT! DO IT!
No cheating, just an error on my part as the writer.
@droozy Im sorry for the accusation. I never meant to call you out as a cheater. Nice list! I hoe we can play some time.
@reecius sorry for stirring shit up. I simply thought that this was one of the not to rare occasions that a player unintentionally cheats. In my experience this makes for a fun and interesting game outcome haha
Oh yeah, no worries, I just didn’t want Droozy to get flak for my mistake =)
No worries man, that’s not how I took it. Just wanted to clear up the confusion
Sounds awesome. Now if only you guys weren’t sadists and had shared a video batrep with this. Alas, you clearly want the readers to feel sad they didn’t get to see it. 😉
I am pretty sure the knight list is illegal. It is almost marines + storm wing formation but lacks the stormraven. It cannot be knight allied as the warlord is a knight (and you mentioned the warlord trait was important and that it is a senechal which has the 3+ save and was probably a big difference). Sounds like the knight player messed up what the “codex” allows and used the primary options in an allied detach. I recommend a rematch with a camera present to show off how cool they look…oh, wait that wouldn’t be a very sadist thing to do. My bad.
We were unable to film, sorry, but yeah, may he may have just goofed on the list. Oh well, it happens. Really didn’t make a difference, honestly, the Knights did everything.
I was there to confirm the most important part: LOOKS AWESOME.. such gorgeous models.
Good work guys. Sounds like it was awesome.
Well over at thewarmaster.com someone played his jetsser council against 5 knights and he won both games easely. He said that knight get eaten by the council. Seers have armorbane… http://thewarmaster.com/index.php?topic=2653.15
But i can see the knights countering the other deathstars pretty nicely, since they struggle with AV13.
I thought about that, too, Armorbane and I5. However, if you hit the Council with multiple Knights at once, you should be able to do some work on them.
Yeah, I’ll be surprised if the knights do much to the meta beyond pushing anti-tank up a notch in importance.
So it’s a fast moving, expensive unit that is immune to most shooting, that destroys things in assault, that you can beat by planning a few turns in a row.
IE: another deathstar.
It’s hardly immune to most shooting, heck a multi laser can glance it on a lucky day
Ahhh, in a sense, but I think this is many orders of magnitude less impactful on the game than true Deathstars.
You can’t kill any other Deathstar in the game with 2 Melta Gun shots.
The specific details and weaknesses are different but conceptually they play exactly the same. Eliminate threats to the unit early, dominate the midfield, crush the opponent in a one sided game
It’s another deathstar, almost exactly the same. I personally don’t care, you’ll beat Knights using the exact same tactics as you do a deathstar. It’s just funny seeing people hate on say the seer council then love the knights. It’s the same thing
I disagree. We have been playing with them a lot and so far, they die in almost every game. Deathstars do not die. There is actual interaction between units. Whereas a Seerstar will go, literally, unscathed the entire game, a Knight will get beat up and blown up. We have only had 1 game where a Knight survived the game and that was this last one with 3 of them.
I agree that there are some similarities, but in general, these are a LOT easier to deal with and more fun to play with and against.
Keep in mind I’m not arguing against knights here…
(Wish I had brought a computer on my weekend trip, stupid phone is stupid)
You guys are caught up on specifics. For one, a seer council is closer to three knights in points total to one… So more like 4-6 melta shots, which is a red herring anyway, because thats not actually going to happen.
It’s not the exact same deathstar as a seer council and I never said it was, so saying “it’s not a deathstar because this detail is different” is not a valid argument. It’s obviously not as durable (although it’s far more durable to say a grav star or ovesa star shooting), but in some ways it’s damage output is much greater. It’s also more durable than a Gravstar, but it’s damage output is nowhere near as good. Knights are deathstars, they play the same way and have the same tactical strengths and weaknesses. They will overwhelm a lot of armies and make for one sided games
If a knight list plays a grav star it won’t get scratched but a seer council would get nuked. Doesn’t mean the seer council isn’t a deathstar. Knights are more of the same animal and apparently all this game is going to be now
I understand what you’re saying and in concept you are right, but it is a matter of degree. An army of Knights does share similar characteristics to a Deathstar army but to a far lesser degree. The Knights actually die, true deathstars are practically invulnerable.
And a Gravstar would totally fuck Knights up. With Grav Amps, and twin linked, possibly misfortune, too, they will tear Knights up. Albeit, not at the same rate they would other vehicles, but they certainly are not going to leave a Knight unscathed. 4 Grav Cents with prescience hit with 18 shots and take 5-6 hull points on average dice. The Knights shrug off half, typically. However, the Gravstar also has brutal Orbital Bombardments which will often be Twin Linked and bypass the Ion Shield, meanging that you are very, very likely to drop 1-4 HP per shot. That combined with the grav weapons means a dead Knight in one shot, typically.
But, no reason to split hairs. My point is that you really can’t compare the Seercouncil to a Knight Army. The Seercouncil will walk through a game without taking a single wound, Knights go down. We played another game last night, and all 3 Kngihts got destroyed by turn 3.
I’m with Reece on this one, I got to play against a Knight for the first time last night, and drooped it with 3 Brightlances. Show me a deathstar I can do that too. I would way rather play against 5 Knights than 1 seer council. At least I have hope of killing enough knights to make a difference in the game.
Yeah dude, I’m with Reece here…
No Deathstar can die to 2 shots, no matter how insanely lucky you are. No Knight can contest 4 Objectives, no matter how hard you try.
At the end of the day, a Knight is a 6 HP vehicle with medium armour, that’s plenty killable by things which every army in the game has access to.
In fact the knight cannot contest any objectives being a vehicle.
The most important part is if that it is 3 knights for the pts of a normal deathstar…by definition that isn’t a deathstar because it is multiple units that cannot be joined together. There is after all only one deathstar at any single time. There would not have been Star Wars 5 and 6 if there had been 3 deathstars 😉
It also lacks the biggest hallmarks of all the nastiest deathstars, no hit and run or rerollable saves!