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Almost tabled by Knights turn 3


Master Antaeus

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Played a buddy who brought the following:

Knight Castellan,

Knight Crusader with AVGC/RFBC and Icarus

2 armiger helverins

1 tank Commander with heavy bolter punisher

2 company commanders with plasma pistols and power swords

4 infantry squads with flamers

Command squad with plasma guns.

 

House was hawkshroud, regiment was mordian.

 

I brought

Gravis captain as chapter master

Primaris lt

10 intercessors with hammer

10 intercessors with fist

10 Infiltrators

Captain with fist and primarchs wrath

Librarian with scryers gaze and telepathic assault

3 tac squads with lascannons

 

Techmarine

Relic contemptor with there's

Ven Dread with multi melta

Ven Dread with twin Las

Ven Dread with heavy plasma

10 reivers with grav chutes

 

 

The game:

Open war with the deployment zones touching halfway up the table (so 36x48 dz). Objective was burn and pillage.

 

Knights get first turn and I know I'm going to have a rough turn. He kills 3 dreadnoughts and most of my fist intercessors and Infiltrators.

 

I kill a single armiger, most of the guard and put a handful of wounds on the Castellan.

 

I combat squadded the reivers because I had a pretty good idea of how the game would go, one team landed on one objective unopposed and burned it. The other had to land near the tank Commander and assault it to get near the other objective, which I burned.

 

Turn 3, he reduces me to 5 models on the table and I squeak out a win by assaulting the last objective, killing the co cdr on it and burning it for the win.

 

If I had not achieved the sudden death criteria of the objective, I would have been tabled turn 4. I know not all of my units were super competitive, but how the hell do you keep anything alive against knights for more than a turn?

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Knights are a good hip-check list if you want to see if you list can hold water against odd balls. Due to their extremely biased stat-lines towards that of being...well...lords of war they take a lot more effort to bring down. When they first hit scenes people said "take objectives from them, they can't secure"...true...I have no troops but neither do you after my shooting and fighting phase!

 

The big thing knight lists can prey upon are "balanced" lists where the armaments are more designed to deal with a good spectrum of issues with the expectation of the lower gear being able to help out on the other side of the spectrum to offset issues. With knights though, not the case. If going standard issue, Lascannons are likely the most direct path for what you are looking for but other options do exist for units that can pack a punch and take a licking and keep ticking.

 

Devastator Centurions. These boys can take ether lascannons for reach and cost (though to be fair, 100 points for 12 bolter shots, 2 lascannons, T5 and a 2+ save sounds more like a new primaris light vehicle than it does an infantry model of old marines) or Grav-cannons for great effect thanks to the stratagem. With 4 wounds a go, even an avenger gatling cannon can have a slight issue getting through these thick boys, especially if in cover. The return crack back from even 3 of these guys, especially with grav-cannons can be something of a terror. Just remember to back them with the usual set of re-rolls from captains and lieutenants.

 

Good ol' Hammernators. Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields are the epitome of "dragon slayers" in marines and while they may not be the best, the teleporting in by themselves means they can always deliver like mister alphabet does, and he gets it to ya. Since knights lack their invulnerable in melee, the AP3 can actually hurt badly and with raw 3 damage a swing these guys can quickly cripple any knight. However they can be pricey and somewhat clunky but once put somewhere, they generally own that spot due to 3++ being such a pain to cut through on 2 wound models.

 

Repulsor Executioner. As much as I am loathe to mention this floating breadbox with a PVC pipe strapped to a turret that I can only describe as a budget version of a challenger's, it really does bring all the right tools. Lots of guns and good ones. The main armament being the laser destroyer that it can double tap with and since it sets a minimum damage of 3, each shot can be sure to take something away with it. Coupled with being on par with a land raider for staying power, bringing a set of these Hovis Best buys is another option (and hey, I need to mention something primaris or Ishagu will rail me for it!)

 

Ofcourse depending on your choice, loyalty and local strictness there are other chapters and methods to go through that come about due to each supplement. Raven Guard enhance centurions of both flavours due to being able to deep strike them, Imperial Fist just shoot so many bullets at tanks they sculpt them into their depiction of Lord Adornable and Iron Hands make a levi dreadnought invincible against all nought navy class weaponry (and even then there is a slight chance it may ask if that is all you got).

Take your pick and ofcourse run with what you like but be aware that knights are polarising and are among a small group of codexes with few options on how they can play (the other two that spring to mind for me are Harlequins and Custodes. There is a third in Grey Knights but that method of playing is simple: Don't).

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Knights are one of those armies that can cause lists to struggle. They simply don't interact favourably with most weapons, and require additional AT firepower to be considered in lists.

 

I typically run 12 Las cannon EQ shots scattered around units in my list, as well as other means to chip away some wounds.

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The thing is, if a Knight wants something dead in a turn, it will probably do it (and it should in most cases) because it’s a 400 odd point Lord of War.

 

If you’re focusing on trying to find a way to keep things alive against them you might be approaching it from the wrong angle. Instead, just think about how you beat them. You beat them by either killing them or beating them on objectives like you did. Your units will die though so if a unit is vital to your plan you need two or three of them.

 

I’m not saying it’s impossible to keep things alive against knights, just that you’ll have more success if you focus on either destroying them or having the redundancy to score those objectives.

 

To be honest though, it sounds like you already did the right things in your game and it’s not unusual for lots of diffierent armies to be able to table you by turn 4 so you probably just need a bit more AT in your list. :)

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