Deathwing Knight's, how good are they?

[march10k]

Always take a land raider.  Moving flat out for a turn gets you into charge range of any target you want, and lets you charge on turn 2 without being shot at.  You can charge on turn 2 off of a turn 1 DWA, but you have to let yourself be shot to pieces first, and then, unless you take belial in the knight squad, you have to deal with scatter or spend points on a telehomer unit AND have that telehomer unit survive long enough.  On the other hand, if you put the knights in a crusader, you'll want a second crusader, since once is a target, but two will overwhelm the enemy's anti-AV14 capacity...and then you put belial and a second melee termie squad (not knights-scoring!) in the second crusader, and he's got a scylla and charybdis problem.  Go after the transport carrying the telehomer and warlord, or the transport carrying the beatstick? Tough choice...when there are two DWAing tactical terminator squads relying on the telehomer...

 

This tactic lets you focus 1850 points against a fraction of the enemy's strength (and you go second to force him to deploy first, so you get to pick your target), gutting his combat power through the vicious application of local superiority, and then picking off the rest as they straggle over in a foolhardy attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

[Aegnor]

But what if you're playing 1250 or 1500 points? Are Knights worth it in when trying to optimise at that level.

 

Also, I most regularly* play Imperial Guard. They don't really have a hammer/monster unit like most other armies do. Obviously a squad of DWK will make a mess of a Leman Russ on their smite turn but they're expensive tank hunters compared to a MMAB. Whenever I try to do a list at 1500 or below to face the Guard, I start with DWK in, but then drop them for something else.

 

Not questioning that DWK are an excellent choice in most situations for all the reasons described, just wondering about those couple of scenarios.

 

* = 'most regularly' still sadly equals one game maybe every couple of months. Damn real life getting in the way.

 

Edit: they're/their mistake. Hang my head in shame...

[march10k]

~shrug~  Against IG, you smite the demolisher, and then laugh...AP4 is all you need!  Keep in mind that knights are only 4PPM more than standard deathwing.  When they're being torrented, T5 more than justifies the 20 points, even if they never smite anything.

 

I agree that they're not for small games...any more than a DWCS is.  You simply can't afford even a single non-scoring terminator squad below 1750.  It has nothing to do with their points cost or weapons, or rules, and everything to do with them not being a scoring unit.

 

And you may recite the Canticle of Perpetual Readiness for 24 hours as your they're/their/there pennance!

[AngelVeto]

As an aside, if you do DWA them in your opponent will look at them, promptly remove the brick from the seat of his pants, and pour fire onto them. While it sucks that even with a 2+/3++ if your rolling 50-60 saves some guys will die, the rest of your army goes mostly unmolested for a whole turn.

 

If you use DWA I'd put the knight master at the very front. No character means no challange which means every guy in the enemies squad is capable of being hit with smite. No challange to avoid it scenario.