Fighty Knights! (And try hard guard) AKA: Knight Facepunch

[nidzy]

I am playing in another RTT this weekend. I am excited because it has several regional 40k heavy hitters attending.

Obviously FAQ required some rethinking. I first settled back on Taranis for the extra wounds via 6+++. I dropped the Helverin and the marines which got me the rusty 17 back and a gallant which also gave me points for an assassin.

After a couple of play tests the gallant was getting completely ignored and also not pulling his weight vs the infantry heavy lists I have been facing. I dropped the mortars to up him to a Warden. This change helped me to see I could really maximize output by switching back to Krast and using all the good relics so the warden is also carrying endless fury and the first knight warlord trait while the crusader has headsman mark and ion bulwark.

19 CP has also been a big deal as even with the assassin and knight expenditures I am playing with 2 more than I had in previous iterations. I rarely have to use any to rotate in early turns as folks focus on the atropos and the crusader. Overall I am happy with where it is as but this weekend will be the real test before my end of June major. I have seen most of the lists as they are up on BCP and it is a strong group for sure. DE, assassin spam, Slaanesh with 100 daemonettes, another daemon player with ksons splash and massed plague bearers(plus summoning points) and a couple of strong ork lists in addition to a pure altaoic player with 3 CHE.

The biggest change I could see making is switching back to Taranis for the durability and adjusting the relics to match that fact.

Knight Lance: Krast

Warden: endless fury, first knight
Crusader: RFBC, Headsmans Mark, Ion Bulwark
Atropos: Warlord: Knight Seneschal

Catachan Battalion:
3x3 CC
5x10 infantry

Admech Battalion: Graia
2 engineseer
3x5 skitarri

[nidzy]

I lost 2 games to 60+ plague bearers as a troop core after crushing a marine player in game 1. The first one was pure nurgle/dg 30-27(the overall champ in this tourney) in that loss and then a chaos undivided look with a tsons battalion. I made big mistakes in this game, lost 21-13. Took eversor instead of culexus, took engineers instead of...well basically any other as my guardsmen weren't able to hide far enough away.

I am dropping the skitarri and going 2 guard battalions to make points to go double crusader and keep the assassin.

[nidzy]

I think I have settled on decidedly unfighty knights. Try hard guard are still in effect. This army kinda turned into a horde. I feel confident i better able to employ certain admech shenanigans post faq.

Knight Lance: Taranis(3cp)

Crusader: battle cannon, ironstorm missile
Crusader: thermal lance, ironstorm missile
Helverin
Helverin

Cadian Battalion

company commander
company commander

6x10 infantry

3x3 mortar

Skitarri Battalion: Graia

enginseer
enginseer

4x5 rangers

85 points for assassin.

The shenanigans here is that you can use the admech stratagem Knight of the Cog to give canticles of the omnissiah to the knights. It is a "beginning of battle round" stratagem so you can use the strat multiple times. So you get reroll 1's with the crusaders. The admech FAQ said that you don't have to have the whole detachment effected by the strat to get the benefits of You can pop the other strat to do a canticle again so for a heavy CP load you get two turns of reroll 1 with the knights. Shroudpsalm also offers cover to the titans so you could declare shroudpsalm when going first and then switch to reroll 1's in your turn.

[nidzy]

I went 3-2 at the boise cup with a variation of the Krast knights list above in the thread. Got crushed by tau, lost a close to to tzeentch/nurgle flavored soup to a person who ended up in the top 10 or so. Tabled 3 opponents. Best lol of the tournament was seizing on a mirror match. The guy had the hubris to put all 3 of his knights at the front of his DZ. So naturally I put my atropos at the front of mine just hoping to survive with a wound so I could punish those knights. So when I seized I advanced him and used full tilt to murder his crusader, double profiling his other crusader with mine and effectively winning even though he still managed to kick back and kill 2 knights in turns 1/2 he was out of gas and my Crusader was able to just walk through the rest of his army (admech).

Anyway, every time I play a test game with nids against an optimized mid or high tier list I am getting my teeth kicked it, thus I am continuing with these knights most likely throughout this itc season.

The Crusaders create a board wide death zone and if one dies early I am still swinging pretty hard. The Atropos has one of the highest crit ranges in the game and can threaten 30+ inches on turn 1. Against certain match ups the guard are a crucial screen, most of the time if I can get 2 turns of recon and some dead infantry out of them by turn 3 they have done their work smashingly. Really what I am looking for from them it to just be there long enough for my knights to neutralize enough threats that it is cool to send the Atropos a'jousting into my opponent. I always concede 2 full secondaries in kingslayer and titan slayer but this list is capable of dominating primary missions and has the output to score any secondaries my opponent gives me in addition to being very consistent on recon. This is about as optimized as I think I can get in keeping 3 big knights.


Knight Lance: Krast

Crusader: RFBC, Ironstorm MP WL: First Knight, Heirloom: Headsmen's mark
Crusader: RFBC, Ironstorm MP WL Trait: Ion Bulwark, Heirloom: Endless Fury
Atropos: WL Trait: Knight Seneschal

Cadian Battalion

CC
CC
3x10 infantry: sarg w/chainsword, grenade launcher

Cadian Battalion:

CC
Primaris psyker

Infantry Squad: sarg w/chainsword, mortar team
Infantry Squad: sarg w/chainsword
Infantry Squad: sarg w/chainsword

2x3 mortars