Hey everyone, it’s Adam from TheDiceAbide.com. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Imperial Knights, but damn, Freeblade has inspired the crap out of me! Be sure to check out the Tactics Corner for more great articles!
I’m not your normal player by any means of the imagination, instead of trying to take what’s good, I often am taking what’s good enough, but also hilarious or interesting to play with. I’ve talked before about running Space Marines, Adeptus Mechanicus and even Legion of the Damned as allies, but what about the “other” Imperials?
Knights + Assassins
First up we have what is possibly the smallest possible army in all of 40k! Taking 4 Imperial Knights plus an Assassin means you wont have a lot of models to keep track of, but at the same time, it means nothing is even remotely close to being expendable!
Household Detachment
- Cerastus Knight-Atrapos: Warlord: 435
- Cerastus Knight-Castigator: 380
- Knight Crusader: Rapid-fire battle cannon, meltagun, stormspear rocket pod: 475
- Knight Paladin: meltagun, stormspear rocket pod: 420
Officio Assassinorum Detachment
- Culexus Assassin: 140
Total: 1850
The Atrapos has given Imperial Knights a new model that is just fantastic for a Warlord. It carries two ranged weapons so you can charge a different target than attacked with it’s primary weapon, has an Ion Flare Shield and HP7 which makes it insanely durable, and even has a 6+ chance to recover a HP every turn. The Castigator is still an amazing tool to handle hordes, while the Crusader and Paladin are both dishing out a massive amount of firepower. One of the biggest threats to this army is the notorious Death Star. While stomps in combat can help with them, relying on that 6 isn’t what I could consider a reliable plan, so my choice of assassin is the Culexus, who can try to run up and turn off enemy buffs, before you charge into the unit with multiple Knights. If Death Stars aren’t popular where you live, I would recommend a Vindicare instead to help kill power fists, melta bombs, and melta guns that can threaten your Knights when they get close.
But what if you want ALL the Assassins?
Household Detachment
- Cerastus Knight-Castigator: 380
- Knight Crusader: Rapid-fire battle cannon, stormspear rocket pod: 475
- Knight Warden: Warlord, meltagun, stormspear rocket pod: 420
Assassinorum Execution Force
- Callidus Assassin: 145
- Culexus Assassin: 140
- Eversor Assassin: 135
- Vindicare Assassin: 150
Total: 1845
Similar to the list above, but sacrificing the Atrapos for 3 more assassins! Between the Castigator cannon, the Warden and the Crusader’s avenger bolt cannons, you’ll hopefully be popping open enough transports a turn to let the assassins brutalize the juicy insides. I haven’t dared put this on the field yet, so results are not guaranteed, but it does seem fun as all hell at the very least!
Imperial + Grey Knights
Last edition book, this was my bread and butter. Imperial Knights needed help dealing with transports, as well as putting fast pressure onto the enemy, and I didn’t want to deal with foot slogging a bunch of infantry across the board, but how do they work in a 7e list?
Household Detachment
- Cerastus Knight-Atrapos: Warlord, Mark of the Omnissiah: 465
- Knight Crusader: Rapid-fire battle cannon, stormspear rocket pod: 470
- Cerastus Knight-Castigator: 380
Nemesis Strike Force
- Grey Knight Librarian: Mastery Level 3: 135
- 5 Grey Knight Terminators: 2 Nemesis Daemon Hammers, Incinierator: 195
- Nemesis Dreadknight: heavy Psycannon, Nemesis greatsword, personal teleporter: 205
Total: 1850
The biggest difference you can see right off the bat, comparing the list to the picture, is that it loses a Nemesis Dreadknight. That’s kind of a bummer, but it’s the price you pay for new toys! This Atrapos warlord is as hard to kill as you can get, with both a 6+ chance and a 5+ IWND, to regain HP every turn, it will be a bitch to kill. Additionally, this list sees the Paladin upgraded all the way to the Knight Crusader, which brings quite a bit more firepower than the NDK was offering, though is a bit weaker in combat. With two Cerastus knights in the list it doesn’t look like a conventional knight army on the table, but it will still hit like a ton of bricks. Flyers will always be a problem, but the twin-linked castigator can help in a pinch, as can the Crusader (especially with Prescience).
Knights + Inquisition
Why? Because you hate the way armies are normally built and want to totally mess it up. That aside, it’s actually the only way to get multiple scoring units, on top of taking 4 Imperial Knights… What?! That’s right, you heard me. Inquisition units come cheap, dirt cheap, and with only 140 points to spend, you can actually still get a handful of scoring units to support your Knight army.
Household Detachment
- Cerastus Knight-Atrapos: Warlord: 435
- Cerastus Knight-Castigator: 380
- Knight Crusader: Rapid-fire battle cannon, ironstorm missile pod: 460
- Knight Paladin: meltagun, stormspear rocket pod: 420
Inquisitorial Detachment
- Ordo Malleus Inquisitor: 3 Servo Skulls: 34
- Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband:
- 3 Acolytes: Boltguns: 15
- Razorback: twin-linked heavy bolter, psybolt ammo: 45
- Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband:
- 3 Acolytes: Boltguns: 15
- Razorback: twin-linked heavy bolter, psybolt ammo: 45
Total: 1849
This is one of my favorite recent machinations. Not only does it have 4 knights, but it also has a small handful of units capable of scoring backfield objectives with no qualms. It brings the same 4 Knights that the assassin list had, so there’s no real loss of fire power, and the additional units with transports will go a long way in scoring Maelstrom objectives. Lately, as I’ve been playing my Daemonkin, I’ve discovered that Servo Skulls are amazing for keeping scouting tar pits like Flesh Hounds away, while simultaneously making your firepower more accurate with the rest of the army . I wish it had enough points to get something interesting on the units, but them’s the breaks!
It’s going to take a lot more than playing Infinity to get me to stop thinking about Imperial Knights! Naturally, it didn’t help that I’ve become addicted to playing Freeblade… which holy crap, if you haven’t played it yet, go do it, NOW! As much as I positively hate fremium games, this one has hit me right in my weak spot and I’ve succumbed to the awesome glory of stomping around on Orks and Khorne Chaos Marines.
Featured Imperial Knight army from Spikey Bits.
cool list ideas 🙂 I actually really like the final one. Those razorbacks are SOOOOOOO down on priority for the opponent and they can contribute/score.
Too bad they’re no longer ObSec.
But now the Knights are, lol.
Thanks dude. I’m looking forward to trying both this list, and one with only 3 Knights but adds in a culexus, coteaz with plasma Servitors, and upgrades the heavy bolters to S7 assault cannons. 🙂
Strength 7 assault cannons no longer exist. Psybolt isn’t in the updated inquisition book
I always love your Knight write ups as a fellow knight player, I’ve been running them for my itc faction so far this year :). But the new IA:11 giving out cheap barrage D in spades to eldar for a fraction of the cost of a superheavy has soured me on running 3 Low that bleed points. Do you guys have the same issue were you are? Or is it just up north?
Yeah, my solution is that we’ve stopped playing with the ITC penalty points for running Lords of War, lol. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do besides *not* running a Knights list to prevent giving up those points. Maybe they’ll change it one day, I really hope so. The lists with INQ help for getting some more points, but unless your opponent is really bad at Maelstrom, after you’ve lost 1-2 knights, the chances of making up the points are basically nill.
Regarding ranged D, if you’re talking about the Warp Hunters, they fortunately can never score a 6 on the Destroyer chart, making them a bit less deadly. At the end of the day though, facing mass ranged Destroyer is obviously always going to be the hard counter for Knights. Getting the first turn against these armies is very important, which is why I’m now working out a list with Coteaz (which also helps mitigate the also FAQ’d out of the game rule giving the enemy +1 to seize).
Dude. These look hilariously awesome. If I ever get around to picking up some FW Knights like I’ve been meaning to, I’m definitely running some variations on these. Thanks!
Obsec Knights are awesome, I’ve won a lot of games where I’ve told my opponents that they are obsec and last turn I snag objectives and I get ” your Knights are obsec” lol
oh, how I love the knight atrapos, going to get two painted this summer…mmmm
Yeah, it’s a brilliant model.
I’m not a knights player, but I might steal that inquisitor + henchmen detachment. For 190ish points, you get some much-needed mobility.
I’m thinking about it for my IG list (which already has a solo inquisitor).
Adam,
I was wondering if you have any experience with the Knight Archeron at all? I have been wanting to run one in a competitive list for quite a while and would like some insight from someone with a lot of knight experience. Thanks.
Also, have you tried the combo of 3 multi-melta servitors, 3 acolytes with plasma-guns, and 2 jokero? It clocks in at 142 points, and has a good chance of getting the +12″ range on guns thus making the meltas 36″ and the Plasmas double-tap at 18″? Just a thought. I found it is a hard hitting cheap unit in the past.
I’ve run the Acheron quite a number of times in the past; its superflamer is really good for giving Bikes, Jetbikes, and MEQs a hard time and can really be a nightmare for some armies. It also has the all-important second gun for firing at your charge target and has the bonuses of the Lancer chassis (3d6″ run and +1Attack). The extra attack, combined with the improved D weapon, means that rarely will it fail to kill vehicular targets in a fight, even superheavies.
On the flip side, even with 12″ movement and the sheer size of the Hellstorm template, its main gun doesn’t have all that much range, so it’s not uncommon to miss out on 1-2 turns of shooting with it. The size can also work against you if you’re close to your target (as you can easily miss many models in the unit) or if you have models of your own nearby (since you can’t touch any of them with it.) It’s also a fair bit more expensive than the other Knights- for just a handful of points more, you could get a Crusader to have two main guns instead. Also, unlike the codex Knights it can’t get any of the top-mount guns, which can be annoying at times.