New FAQ impacts Knights...

[Gaz1858]

Correct

[Link2edition]

I was very excited to see "Knight of the cog" get fixed. Str 9 stomps? Free rerolls? Cover?

Why is no one talking about this? I run a knight detachment with my admech (crusader and 2 warglaives) and I was always frustrated with the "knight of the cog" wording that made it useless for my build. Now it isnt.

[jbrebel]

I was very excited to see "Knight of the cog" get fixed. Str 9 stomps? Free rerolls? Cover?

 

Why is no one talking about this? I run a knight detachment with my admech (crusader and 2 warglaives) and I was always frustrated with the "knight of the cog" wording that made it useless for my build. Now it isnt.

 

A welcome buff/clarification. I've only been running one knight with my AdMech anyways, per ITC faction rules. No change for me.  

[Stray]

So if Cawl now allows rerolls in Overwatch, that'd imply the Dominus allows reroll 1's too, since their aura also states Shooting Phase.

 

Probably. Re-roll Auras like these likely do have an effect, but there hasn't been the Overwatch change that was being first thought. There has been some digging into this and (greatly needed) clarification provided elsewhere. Basically, the FAQ was rather poorly worded:

 

IF Overwatch did allow all normal shooting phase buffs as had been thought to be the case now, you end up in a scenario where Dark Reapers would hit in Overwatch on a 3+...

 

...Let that sink in a moment.

 

GW specifically call out the contrary in the Eldar FAQ:

 

'Q: The Dark Reapers’ Inescapable Accuracy ability no longer mentions Overwatch. Does this mean that they can hit on Overwatch on rolls of 3+? 

A: No. Inescapable Accuracy only affects attacks made in the Shooting phase.'

 

Buuut, they just said Overwatch WAS effectively the shooting phase! Meow. Confusing non?

 

Remember, Overwatch is a special rules condition. It specifically and implicitly calls out in the great tome of rules that Overwatch attacks only ever hit on a 6, regardless of any other modifiers. That rule supersedes any other factor. 

 

Re-roll auras look like they should take effect during Overwatch (but beware GW suddenly ruling the other way...), and definitely be careful regarding re-rolls in general:

 

'Page 178 – Re-rolls 

Change this paragraph to read: 

‘Some rules allow you to re-roll a dice roll, which means you get to roll some or all of the dice again. If a rule allows you to re-roll a result that was made by adding several dice together (e.g. 2D6, 3D6, etc.) then, unless otherwise stated, you must roll all of those dice again. 

You can never re-roll a dice more than once, and re-rolls happen before modifiers (if any) are applied.’

 

So no re-rolling just the lower value of your 2D6 charge roll (for example), unless your re-roll ability specifically says otherwise. >O.o<

 

...but seriously, a pox on the individual who wrote the other section in the main FAQ document, because it's already causing people confusion :/

Edited May 1, 2019 by Stray

[Nusquam]

But what do the rerolls have to do with knights?

[Gaz1858]

If you give an Iknight canticles he can get whatever canticle benefits you have active. Its a stratagem

[Stray]

But what do the rerolls have to do with knights?

 

Same as any other unit really if you're asking about auras. There are a few out there that effect them - Rowboat Gorillaman's re-roll 1's in shooting applies to any Imperium unit for example.

[Charlo]

Canticles on knights is pretty cool. Even shroudpsalm is pretty funny.

[Mushkilla]

The big one for me is flyers (aircraft) don't block movement. Mono knights were practically unplayable against 3+ flyers (elder in particular). You basically got hemmed in turn 1-2 and then lost the mission. For me this is a huge change as it removes one of the biggest weaknesses that knights had.

 

The other welcome change is jinx and doom only affect craftworld eldar so no more doom haywire harlequin bikes or jinx dark lance spam.

 

The 3++ never really mattered for me as my opponents would just target the knight with 5++ instead. Also it was tied to CP, so we can now just use those CP for other things (so its more of a lateral change rather than a nerf).

 

The castellan getting nerfed is also a welcome change for mono knights, as the castellan was in some ways the strongest counter to knight lists that didn't run their own castellan.

 

All in all I'm really happy with these changes.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Mushkilla

[Clingy]

Agree with you mush, well said

[Link2edition]

My admech takes 1 Crusader and 2 Warglaives. I take Ion Bulwark on the crusader, so it never has to rotate. This means I can spend CP on the baby knights to make them more annoying, which is their job.

[Frostglaive]

Has the FAQ affected anything else of AdMech, other than the Overwatch thing?

[Charlo]

Seeing as we don't have any flying units, not really! However screens will need to be skillfully positioned now to avoid enemy FLY units jumping over them.

 

I suppose our Skitarii are a little safer from Hurricane Bolters on vehicles with their need.

[Clingy]

Has the FAQ affected anything else of AdMech, other than the Overwatch thing?

If you ran Graia electro priests they are now worse

 

The ruling is that the Graia save doesn’t stack with the FNP save I believe

Edited May 2, 2019 by Clingy

[Gaz1858]

 

Has the FAQ affected anything else of AdMech, other than the Overwatch thing?

If you ran Graia electro priests they are now worse

 

The ruling is that the Graia save doesn’t stack with the FNP save I believe

 

 

Yeh thats true. Probably just to speed up the game and not take 3 different saves for each model!

[chapter master 454]

Personal opinion: Castellan is still worth the points hike though it wasn't needed. You don't need to use cawl's wrath to make it effective ether and by all accounts...the thing was over 600 points guys come on...another 100 points for the thing ain't exactly much at that point!

 

The change to the saves is pretty good. In a similar boat though to others here though, I only ever play pure knights when I field them really (well pure so long as you don't pay attention to the 32 gaurdsmen round a camp-fire over yonder there) so the 4++ save change isn't a big deal since I would prefer to spread the 4++ and due to be Taranis again, not only do I have MSR to use but also the fact I have Our Darkest Hour so you know, not bothered (because real men use Taranis!)

 

Will say I am a little sad about the death-grip change, to be honest I feel it is a little bit cheap because the odds have gone up massively for escaping which in my opinion can only be head canoned as all enemy units now lube themselves up before facing any knight (Basically if you were a str3 character that got rubber ducky treatment you had a 1/36 chance of escape). Now everyone has that 1/6 of getting out which to me feels kind of meh and un-needed. Clearly someone in the playtest group got their favourite company commander Goku-ed ("Those are my ribs breaking"). Yes...I refer to death grip as the Rubber Ducky attack because what do you do to a rubber ducky? Squeeze it to hear it squeal for mercy.

As a side note, I would push for the Rotate Ion Shield stratagem to be reduced in CP for Dominus knights now since they can't be pushed beyond 4++ anymore. Maybe 2CP instead now. Oh and want to point out GW gave us knights more CP with the detachment changes but then soon after hiked all CP costs that actually mattered...whats the meme? "Outstanding Move"

 

Now to wait for the Valiant nerf when someone in their playtest group somehow snipes a monster or tank with it as intended. "We found that the Harpoon was doing its job, the job it was designed for specifically, too well as any weapon designed to do well does and so we decided that since Jimmy doesn't like getting his tanks one shotted by a model worth 3-4x the tank it just exploded, we have decided to hike the cost of the model by 100 points. Meanwhile, we were informed by Phil that Eldar are still underperforming and his crayon signed waivers from totally real survey takers who were all randomly called Phil agree with this."

Sorry, needed to get an Eldar Kidney jab in there.

[Clingy]

[Feral_80]

Not exciting.

Casteallan at +100 ok, I can live with that although really poorly designed.

Rotate shield nerf ok, but then again remove that nonsensical 3CP cost now.

Death grip, fine, whatever.

 

All the nerf weaken IK as a faction because they have been abused as allies (or, with allies). IK alone suck, plain and simple. The rationale behind these nerf is this quite sad.

 

Overall nothing crippling, but all quite clearly showing that what GW publishes as codexes is nothing but rubbish.

[Stray]

Death Grip was exceptionally powerful, but also pretty situational. I'd honestly have left it as is and just raised it's cost. It's a damn good strat that was probably too cheap at 1CP. I'd happily pay 2-3 for the ability to delete a character roughly once a battle (probably a reasonable realistic amount of uses in an average game imo).

[Stray]

All the nerf weaken IK as a faction because they have been abused as allies (or, with allies). IK alone suck, plain and simple. The rationale behind these nerf is this quite sad.

 

Overall nothing crippling, but all quite clearly showing that what GW publishes as codexes is nothing but rubbish.

 

Hmm, can't really agree here buddy. IK don't 'suck'. Solo they're not a top tier army on the competitive scene, but they're very much a solid mid tier army (which is frankly where we'd like all armies to be in an ideal world right?) They're balanced really very well in that they hit hard, are tough, but have to work much harder than most armies to score within the objective game.

 

I'd have made slightly different adjustments to GW, but I'd not agree that it's a bad FAQ. In fact, though not perfect, it's getting quite a lot of loud acclaim as one of the better FAQ's/updates so far! For the most part, that seems quite a fair assessment in my view.

 

As a Knight player, I've long known that changes were bound to come due to Castellan abuse in other armies. But I don't see these changes hurting mine, or any other pure Knight list in any dramatic fashion in all honesty. Business as usual - the sky ain't falling yet ;)

[Feral_80]

Well in an objective-based game pure IK do suck I think. You can't expect much from a 7-model army, especially after the most recent missions and the acceptable casualties rule.

 

I am fine with nerfs to the Castellan and some strats, but then again I would expect a buff to those parts of the codex which are obviously underwhelming. Overall, I am all pro nerfing and limiting soup. But I'd expext GW to address that not by specifically crippling those parts of an army that tend to get souped! That is unfair to people who plain pure armies.

[Stray]

Well in an objective-based game pure IK do suck I think. You can't expect much from a 7-model army, especially after the most recent missions and the acceptable casualties rule.

 

I am fine with nerfs to the Castellan and some strats, but then again I would expect a buff to those parts of the codex which are obviously underwhelming. Overall, I am all pro nerfing and limiting soup. But I'd expext GW to address that not by specifically crippling those parts of an army that tend to get souped! That is unfair to people who plain pure armies.

 

It's likely the most challenging aspect of Knights for sure. Objectives are tricky for us. That said, there are ways to deal with it (those big bases come in handy, freeblade trait on an Armiger etc) and I wouldn't want much of a buff in this area because I think this weakness is part of balancing. We get strengths in other areas due to it.

 

I'm still of the opinion that the Castellan wasn't problematic as a unit. You never see a Renegade Castellan because it's deeply average without Cawls Wrath and the Raven strat. The issue is CP. Knights are not meant to be swimming in CP generated by allied detachments. Our codex gives us powerful, impactful strats, but deliberately makes them costly, AND limits the CP pure knights can generate. IMO, it's internal balance is near perfect.

 

The problem, as always, is soup adding benefits that completely negate that balance.

[Nusquam]

Been thinking on this. I'm glad that RIS is max 4++; makes me want to take WLTs other than Ion Bulwark on some things. It also makes the Atrapos and Stryx worth a bit more of their expensive price tag because of the built in 4++. I use Taranis rules for the 6+++ so my Castellan is getting shelved for my Shadowsword because I don't use the Raven Wrathstellan but if th enew Apoc ruleset is fun it'll come back out to play.