How do we deal with the New Knights?

[harleyxjguy]

So Knights are a thing now.

How do you plan to deal with so many tough wounds?

[Indominus]

Smite, Rupturefex, Hive guard, Tarpitting.

In terms of the Dominus class knights, the Valiant seems to be the better of the 2 knights, so the Castellan could probably be charged with only minor casualties from OW. The Valiant is a trickier problem, and charging it isn't an advisable option due to its 3D6 autohit weapon. Psychic powers seem to be one of the best ways of dealing with them seeing as we don't have much in the way of powerful long range artillery. Its a toughie, especially for us because we don't have much of an equivalent.

If you ever come up against one, don't try and kill it as quickly as possible. It will become a bullet magnet otherwise, which isn't going to die to all your firepower by the time it gets to where it needs to be. Try and knock it down a wound bracket or 2 at least over the course of the first 2 turns, cause that does make it less effective (unless its being used as that one Knight Household that counts as double its wounds for damage chart purposes.)

So: If its the Castellan, try and charge it with several scary CC units, or tarpit it. Its long range, so keep your important firepower behind cover.

If its the Valiant, try and knock it down with artillery and Psychic spam. Don't let it get close to your monsters, it will not hesitate to use the Harpoon. It will mow down hordes, but if you can engage it in CC, make sure it cant escape.

[acehilator]

Smite is helpful, but total wound output is a problem with the new Smite rules.

Rupturefexes might work if you have 3+ of them under Malantrophe cover, running one or two is just giving the Knights good targets for their hardcore AT weapons.

Hive Guard is still a good bet, but losing 50% of damage output in the wound step alone (S8 vs T8) is a problem. 36" range is also a problem, Knights are pretty fast and tall (easy to get LoS) and can ignore regular bubblewrap too.

Tarpitting doesn't work at all, all the regular Knights are <TITANIC> with the usual bonuses that go along with that keyword (fall back & shoot + charge, can move over <INFANTRY>, after watching several reviews looks like they finally patched the loophole and added <SWARMS>).

GS with TS and hope your opponent does not bring a Valiant, and maybe BLs and HTs with MRCs, and Fexes with HVCs/spores/senses. And enough psykers with The Horror.

But honestly I feel that at least for non-tournament play Knights are in a weird spot now, pretty much all TAC lists (maybe apart from Alaitoc Eldar) will struggle really bad against Knight lists... not talking lists with a single Knight, but lists with 3-5 of them. Essentially you are forced to play the mission, and good luck if you are playing Eternal War missions with only 4 objectices, or none at all, lol.

[mattblowers]

Same way you kill all big things: chip away at them. We have tons of options to deal with them. Just like in 7th hinder their movement and outscore them. Take GSC allies and kill a knight with another knight (that harpoon looks awesome to mind control take out 10 wounds on another knight, plus you shoot 1 of their 4 per game shield breaker missiles). Rupture t-fexen and hive guard look good. This also makes the case for HVC harpies. Hide all your guys on upper floors of ruins. It helps tone down the meta as you have to have a way to deal with them now so an all hellblaster or plasma army is meh.

TL/DR: Take a deep breath and play some games.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

I recently played in a LGS's 40k league and the match against three knights was the closest match I had.
Some caveats:
1) this was pre FAQ so smite was still really powerful
2) the TO decided to run power level to see how it worked

My list consisted of 3 neurothropes backing up 18 zoanthropes and a 90 devourer gaunts. Smite was reasonably effective but I only managed to take down two knights during the game. The game went to seven turns and ended with my one neurothrope surviving a round of attacks from his final knight. I won it on points (9 to 7 I think).

From that game, I'd say you have to play the objectives against knights. Psychic powers alone won't be able to take them down. The horror works wonders (unless your opponent rolls insanely well). Invul saves are great against their weapons as it invalidates their AP (yeah, they have that one strategem that works on a specific weapon but if we can get them to burn some CP it might go our way). Knights also can't move through ruins so we can use that to tarpit them and protect certain units, especially in terrain heavy deployments.

[purestrain]

I think biovore will shine vs pure knights, force them to waste some decent shooting to get rid of little mortal wounds or continually eat (please do not swear) from the mines...

Besides, 6 of my 9 biovore are 2ed so they're tiny as all hell 😁.

Malanthropes in leviathan seem legit against them, boasting that -1 hit and 6+++ for anyone in synapse with character protection, babysit the rupturefex 😀

[hivefleetskorpios]

Shock-guards are great vs Knight!

[kazetanade]

Ditto on shockguard, we just dont take them due to non-vehicles being prevalent.

GSC Hypnopsys, Mind Control, Horror, and double shoot HG and Rupture Fex will control any 3 knight list. But always build to deal with the meta.

[nidzy]

I think the spammed HVC carnifex and spammed hive guard list I am running currently should do pretty well. Flat 3 damage is nice. I will let you guys know how I fare as I start to build my knight list. I have owned 2 since the original kit and a third since the warden variant was added in. I am going to pick up a valiant and a couple of helverns to go with my 4 armigers so I have lots of options as well.

[harleyxjguy]

Excellent ideas everyone, thanks.

[arsonfire]

I had a game against a Castellan. It left an impression.
I imagine if one of these is on the board, it's pretty much always going to be packing the relic plasma cannon. That thing is just really good.
It changes the profile to be natively S8 Damage 2, which can be overcharged to S9 Damage 3.

I had two turns of shooting before it reached a position where it could see behind my cover. Then in that one turn the plasma cannon vaporized a unit of 5 hive guard, the volcano lance killed a tyrannofex, the four meltas dropped a carnifex, and a missile would have taken out another damaged carnifex, but luckily missed.

[autoxidation]

If you make a fodder unit eat overwatch first, Stonecrushers are by far and away our best anti-vehicle melee unit.

[kazetanade]

Jun 8, 2018 5:05:03 GMT autoxidation said:

If you make a fodder unit eat overwatch first, Stonecrushers are by far and away our best anti-vehicle melee unit.

More effective than Shockguard with SMA?

[autoxidation]

Jun 8, 2018 5:51:40 GMT kazetanade said:

More effective than Shockguard with SMA?

I never felt like Hive Guard were particularly good in melee, but to each their own.

But in terms of points efficiency, yes. A Stonecrusher averages 7.7 damage against the Knight for 13.5 points per wound, while a single Shockcannon Hive Guard will average 1.33 damage for 29.25 points per wound. That doubles/halves with SMA to 2.66 and 14.6.

That's not including the tail attack from the Carnifex or the Chitin Rams rule from charging either. And if the Carnifex somehow survives you can make it fight again with Adrenaline Surge.

Old One Eye might ultimately be better if you stack him with stratagems, but you can only have one of him, and OOE is likely to die in the process.

Edit: OOE is less points efficient but deals more damage. 10.4 damage for 19.3 PPW, a respectable 20.8 wounds with Adrenaline Surge or Death Frenzy, but this costs 3 or 4 CP. No reason to not use OOE and some Stonecrushers if you're playing against Knights.

[LordPathos]

Jun 8, 2018 5:51:40 GMT kazetanade said:

Jun 8, 2018 5:05:03 GMT autoxidation said:

If you make a fodder unit eat overwatch first, Stonecrushers are by far and away our best anti-vehicle melee unit.

More effective than Shockguard with SMA?

Anti-vehicle MELEE unit.