Taking on Wraithknights...

[Brother Heinrich]

Hey Mechanicus brethren,

 

Looking to invest in a Knight and I'm wondering if any of them stand a chance against the new Wraithknight. I like the Acheron a lot, as well as the new Knight Warden (from what I've seen so far) but one of the guys in our group runs a wraithknight and I'm worried about dropping $$$ only to get soundly whipped around the floor every match.

[munocat]

I want to hunt wraith knights with just vanguard. 10 vanguards should easily kill one, I love that sixes cause double wounds.

[munocat]

I would run a gerantius, which is errant, it is WS5, BS5, 3+ invul. White dwarf issue 24

[Brother Heinrich]

Nice, though I was thinking more generic Knights instead of named characters.

[munocat]

I ran the name character once, he was awesome, the reroll of 1 on the stomp table is very helpful. Having the extra stats.

[Aethernitas]

Your best chance is to pray that he doesn't roll sixes on the d-weapon table and closein fast to murder him in cc. I woul say 90% of all the Wraithknights will have the ranged d-weapin configuration so once you are in there is still the issue that the WK is S10 and Initiative 5. nasty Eldar bugger. The bigger problem is getting there as each shooting phase the Wk will strip an average of 3 hp from your Knight. If there is more supporting fire there is very little chance to ever reach cc even if the WK can't outrun you. Maybe the best shot in cc has the FW Lancer as he can run faster than a normal Knight and has the tools to safely deal with a WK in cc.

Another option is to field a all-in shooty Knight with Avenger Boltgun, the 8/3 carapace rocket launcher and the 2-shot battle cannon. You will do 2 unsaved wounds per shooting phase so the WK still outguns you by 1 on average which includes the possibility of him rolling a six. When that happens your Knight is just dead. As long as he doesn't get that six you actually outgun him with that weaponry.

One way or another- the sad truth is that the WK is extremely undercosted in this matchup (and imo also in general) and the Imperial Knight (whichever version) stands no statistical chance.

[Brother Heinrich]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought. :cussing GW strikes again. YOU HAD ONE JOB!!!

[Frater Cornelius]

Buying a Knight to counter a WK is the wrong attitude. There is a good chance (around 20%) that your IK will fold T1 against it.

You need to adjust your expenctations. You see, some of the elements in your army already counter a WK. Vanguard turn this thing into molten slag. If Dragoons catch it in melee, chances are great they will heavily damage it on the charge. S10 Onager wound it reliably as well. It has no invulnerable save and you have two negative cover modifiers in your army. Basically, there is little reason to buy an IK to deal with a WK. You have stuff that does reasonably well already.

The reason you want to buy a WK is that it literally disingerates the rest of the Eldar army. The Acheron or Crusader, for example, are capable of clearing the board of enemy Jetbikes in two turns. Hell, even one shooting phase will cripple them. Footdar will suffer even more.

The Eldar way of countering works very straight forward. Small stuff counters small stuff, big stuff counters big stuff. With AdMech is it fairly common that the big stuff decimates the small stuff, whereas the small stuff can reliably take on the big stuff. This is why inter-uni synergy is a big thing in this army.

 

Hope that helped ;)

[CommodusXIII]

For me, running Imperial Knights as primary means that if one Knight goes down, the others will avenge him.  Hell, I might just throw the rest of the match for the sake of pursuing kanly.

[Battybattybats]

In 30k take an enginseer auxilia or archmagos with machinator array and repair that knights hullpoints. it slows the knight down as the repair crew need to keep up but it is amazing. i have a 3+ with re-roll repair roll on my Archmagos and so can pretty reliably return a hull point back every turn.

In 40k you can get the repair from a techmarine, i assume aslo an enginseer from the Astra codex? And with luck from something in the Cult Mechanicus codex or the rumoured upcoming Imperial Armour book that should allow at least some Mechanicum units in 40k so hopefully a battlesmith option will be in there too.

Edit:
 

 

For me, running Imperial Knights as primary means that if one Knight goes down, the others will avenge him.  Hell, I might just throw the rest of the match for the sake of pursuing kanly.

CommodusXIII, I salute you!

[marvmoogy]

Wraithknights are a nightmare and I was overjoyed when I got my Knight Errant and it tabled one....before the introduction of D-strength.  I even tried to convince my gaming buddy that D-strength has 2 meanings - with all imperial weapons, the 'D' means destroyer and with non-imperial, the 'D' means '*ick' and it reduces the WS, BS, S & T to a value of 1.....he nearly fell for it....

 

I'm going to try this as my next strategy....

 

Load of an elite unit with meltas and throw in as many 3++ (storm shields for me) as I can in the unit.  Drop nearby, and unleash the melta.  Then, try and charge it to tie it up.  The 3++ should help me keep it busy for a few turns, even if they don't manage to kill it.  This will then give my army chance to close the gap and a lot of it should be still alive as it won't have been shot at by the D-strength weapons it spouts.

 

Will give it a go at least...

[munocat]

I ordered the ik archeron, to deal with jetbikes, warp spiders etc the strength 7 ap 3 hell storm template will take care of those pesky bikes, my vanguard will foot slog near by to deal with MC GC that might try to kill the knight. Tempted to run infiltrators with this group. I like a fluffy ad Mech battle March.

[ronin_cse]

I'm actually the only Eldar player in my area (although it looks like at least one other will pop up soon) so chances are slim I will face one any time soon. As others have pointed out you shouldn't buy an IK as a counter to a WK as they are more expensive (pts wise) and hunting other big things isn't necessarily their job. That new knight Warden (or whatever it's called, the shooty one) will do much better against infantry than a WK.

 

That being said I have been running some numbers on Skitarii stuff vs one though and it isn't bad:

 

So vs an IK first since that seems to be the OP's first concern: If the WK shoots the IK it only has a 28% chance to get a hit through assuming the Ion Shield is facing the WK (and why wouldn't it) with a 9.259% chance of getting a 6 and destroying it outright. So on average a WK shouldn't do anything to an IK. If it's twin-linked that goes up to a 37% chance of getting a hit through which still isn't bad. 

Then the IK against the WK assuming it's the new shooty one with a battle cannon and the rocket pods: the Gatling cannon does 2.37 wounds after FnP, the battle cannon does 0.889 wounds after FnP, and the rocket pods do 1.333. We could be generous and add in the melta which would do another 0.296. All together we have 4.885 wounds on average after FnP. So on average the IK should do more to the WK  than the WK does to the IK in one round of shooting. If you have some other big guns like las cannons or onagers you should be able to take it out in one turn. Each laser onager has a slightly better than a 55.556% chance of wounding the WK and a twin-linked las cannon has a 43.21% chance.

If you manage to get into combat with one with an imperial knight with a melee weapon it definitely goes to the IK: the WK should only manage to do 1.333 hp to the IK in CC. The IK should manage to get 1.666 wounds back but they are D so they have the potential of doing more, and of course the chance of rolling a 6. If you happen to go against a WK with the Sword then really it is just about who gets lucky on the D rolls first with the advantage going to the WK since it is like Han and attacks first.

 

The IK isn't the only think we have though, as someone pointed out Vanguard can do decent damage to one, although one squad most likely won't take one out.

So with one base squad of vanguard (assuming a doctrine is used to give them 5+ bs): You'll do about 2 wounds after FnP. With 3 plasmas: 1.296 from the rad carbines and 1.667 from the plasmas for 2.963 wounds total. Overall not too bad either. Considering a base squad is 100 points you can take 3 for slightly more pts than the WK would be base (probably less since the WK will probably have scatter lasers) and they have a very good chance of taking it down in a turn. Again back them up with some heavy weapons and it's almost assured. Getting them within range is the main problem, but if you put them in a BA or SW drop pod that would certainly help.

 

Infiltrators unfortunately won't do that well as they should get 0.691 wounds through (mostly due to the armor save on the WK). Ruststalkers do a little better since to wound rolls of 6 are AP 2 and should do about 1.556 wounds on average for the first round. Of course the WK would go first in both cases and will do 1.389 wounds (killing outright), or 0.833 wounds if you put them on a princeps with a conversion field. You could lower that to 0.926 and 0.556 respectively if you use the +3 WS doctrine and you have Infiltrators within 6". Then of course you have the stomps which could very well take out the rest of the squad.

 

A squad of 3 lance dragoons will do 1.185 wounds on the charge.

 

Finally (for now) a squad of 2 of the upcoming robots should do 1 with the double shooting doctrine and full phosphor blasters.

 

 

So while not great, at least the Skitarii have some tools to hurt a WK. Really that's fairly impressive for such a small codex as some of the full size ones will probably struggle more than us. Keep in mind this is just the straight math, it is a tool for deciding what to take and what to target but it shouldn't be the only data you use. Most of the stuff about will also totally destroy Jetbikes for instance, and in most cases I would argue that would be the better target. When there are big units like this it is usually best to ignore them and go for something else first. I know when I use my Wraith Knight I run it up the center and I hope my opponent will fire everything at it, even if it dies it did it's job because all my other, and frankly more dangerous, stuff wasn't shot at. That shooty IK will do soooooo much more damage to the list if it takes out a unit or two of jetbikes than if it just puts everything into the WK. The best idea is to tie it up in combat. Take 3 or so Dragoons as separate units and charge it. Chances are it will only kill one a turn unless it gets really lucky with stomps. Dragoons are fast enough that they will probably be able to catch it too.

 

Anyways hope this helped, and who knows, maybe we'll get more tools to deal with them with the Cult Mechanicus stuff. Maybe electro priests will be a hard counter or something ;)

[Aethernitas]

That being said I have been running some numbers on Skitarii stuff vs one though and it isn't bad:

 

So vs an IK first since that seems to be the OP's first concern: If the WK shoots the IK it only has a 28% chance to get a hit through assuming the Ion Shield is facing the WK (and why wouldn't it) with a 9.259% chance of getting a 6 and destroying it outright. So on average a WK shouldn't do anything to an IK. If it's twin-linked that goes up to a 37% chance of getting a hit through which still isn't bad. 

Then the IK against the WK assuming it's the new shooty one with a battle cannon and the rocket pods: the Gatling cannon does 2.37 wounds after FnP, the battle cannon does 0.889 wounds after FnP, and the rocket pods do 1.333. We could be generous and add in the melta which would do another 0.296. All together we have 4.885 wounds on average after FnP. So on average the IK should do more to the WK  than the WK does to the IK in one round of shooting. If you have some other big guns like las cannons or onagers you should be able to take it out in one turn. Each laser onager has a slightly better than a 55.556% chance of wounding the WK and a twin-linked las cannon has a 43.21% chance.

If you manage to get into combat with one with an imperial knight with a melee weapon it definitely goes to the IK: the WK should only manage to do 1.333 hp to the IK in CC. The IK should manage to get 1.666 wounds back but they are D so they have the potential of doing more, and of course the chance of rolling a 6. If you happen to go against a WK with the Sword then really it is just about who gets lucky on the D rolls first with the advantage going to the WK since it is like Han and attacks first.

The chance of destroying the Imperial Knight in one go is 22% per WK shooting phase - 2 shots, 1,333 hits and if he rolls a 6 on any hit he ignores every safe and just instant kills you. No shield, no cover, just dead.

 

Some of your numbers are way off - it seems like you forgot to account for some step in the calculation or somethin. Can't really tell what it is exactly. For example the Gatling shoots 12 shots, 8 hit, 1,333 wound and after FnP thats 0,888 wounds on average. All you unsaved wound numbers are too high by quite a margin. I did some math-hammering myself in post #6 (I rounded for easier reading) and if you find an error there please tell.

 

I'm sorry to diminish hope here but the match-up against a WK is much worse than ronin is presenting (not intentionally ofc) it here so don't get you hopes up. There are plenty units that can kill a WK point efficiently but the IK is not one of them.

[ronin_cse]

 

That being said I have been running some numbers on Skitarii stuff vs one though and it isn't bad:

 

So vs an IK first since that seems to be the OP's first concern: If the WK shoots the IK it only has a 28% chance to get a hit through assuming the Ion Shield is facing the WK (and why wouldn't it) with a 9.259% chance of getting a 6 and destroying it outright. So on average a WK shouldn't do anything to an IK. If it's twin-linked that goes up to a 37% chance of getting a hit through which still isn't bad. 

Then the IK against the WK assuming it's the new shooty one with a battle cannon and the rocket pods: the Gatling cannon does 2.37 wounds after FnP, the battle cannon does 0.889 wounds after FnP, and the rocket pods do 1.333. We could be generous and add in the melta which would do another 0.296. All together we have 4.885 wounds on average after FnP. So on average the IK should do more to the WK  than the WK does to the IK in one round of shooting. If you have some other big guns like las cannons or onagers you should be able to take it out in one turn. Each laser onager has a slightly better than a 55.556% chance of wounding the WK and a twin-linked las cannon has a 43.21% chance.

If you manage to get into combat with one with an imperial knight with a melee weapon it definitely goes to the IK: the WK should only manage to do 1.333 hp to the IK in CC. The IK should manage to get 1.666 wounds back but they are D so they have the potential of doing more, and of course the chance of rolling a 6. If you happen to go against a WK with the Sword then really it is just about who gets lucky on the D rolls first with the advantage going to the WK since it is like Han and attacks first.

The chance of destroying the Imperial Knight in one go is 22% per WK shooting phase - 2 shots, 1,333 hits and if he rolls a 6 on any hit he ignores every safe and just instant kills you. No shield, no cover, just dead.

 

Some of your numbers are way off - it seems like you forgot to account for some step in the calculation or somethin. Can't really tell what it is exactly. For example the Gatling shoots 12 shots, 8 hit, 1,333 wound and after FnP thats 0,888 wounds on average. All you unsaved wound numbers are too high by quite a margin. I did some math-hammering myself in post #6 (I rounded for easier reading) and if you find an error there please tell.

 

I'm sorry to diminish hope here but the match-up against a WK is much worse than ronin is presenting (not intentionally ofc) it here so don't get you hopes up. There are plenty units that can kill a WK point efficiently but the IK is not one of them.

 

 

I was a little off on how likely the WK is to take out the IK in one shot, it's actually an 11% chance of hitting and then rolling a 6. It is still only a 33% chance of getting a single wound through the IK's shield if it isn't a 6 though. So I still stand by my statement that on average the WK shouldn't do anything to an IK in shooting.

 

Ah I thought the Gatling cannon was str 7 so that's the issue there and I had the FnP roll set at less than or equal to 5 instead of less than......Well that sucks :(

 

Still think the Vanguard are a decent choice. As I said in my post I don't think an IK is a decent choice to counter a WK either as they are much more effective against other targets.

[Dusktiger]

Since i plan to use a Castigator in a match on sunday, i've been reviewing all of the special rules the IK come with.  I feel some of you are either overlooking or all out missing one of the rules the IKs come with. Namely Invincible Behemoth. "any attack that says the model is destroyed, wrecked, Explodes! or is removed from play instead will inflict D3 Hull Points of damage on this Super-Heavy.  In Addition, any attacks or abilities that permanently lower the AV of the target do not affect this Super-Heavy. Though ones that count it as a lower value when rolling to penetrate, such as the Lance rule, will still behave as normal."

 

bearing in mind what Invincible Behemoth does, you cannot lose an IK to a single D shot that rolls a 6.  you merely lose D3 HPs instead.  Super-heavies are too massive to be wiped out by destroyer attacks, they simply have a chance of losing multiple HPs to a single lucky shot.

 

Something to keep in mind when you're playing your mathhammer on the two units.

[CommodusXIII]

Rolling a 6 on the Destroyer Attack table takes 6+d6 hull points and inflicts a Penetrating Hit - and circumvents our ion shields.  Worst-case scenario, a very lucky Destroyer attack could take 15 hull points from a super-heavy in a single blow.  Regardless, a 6 on the Destroyer Attack table is a guaranteed deathblow to a Knight.

 

Destroyer weapons were designed for the expressed purpose of combating super-heavy vehicles and Gargantuan creatures.

[Dusktiger]

ahhh, i see. so its a matter of the 6s removing so many hull points automatically, not that 6s cause a "remove model from play" result.  I haven't had cause to read up on the destroyer charts since none of the local players are willing to play against something with it.  they keep insisting if you field a model with Destroyer, it gets nerfed to Str 10 AP 1.  Ergo why i chose to field a Castigator to circumvent this ridiculousness that we should arbitrarily change entire rules and weapon profiles because someone doesn't like having his feelers hurt when his death star unit gets mulched in one blast.

[Aethernitas]

I was a little off on how likely the WK is to take out the IK in one shot, it's actually an 11% chance of hitting and then rolling a 6. It is still only a 33% chance of getting a single wound through the IK's shield if it isn't a 6 though. So I still stand by my statement that on average the WK shouldn't do anything to an IK in shooting.

 

You are kinda right. I was wrong with the 22% cuz I calculated 2 shots so I should have halved that chance. In the end it's either the Wraithknight does 1,111 unsaved HP to the Knight per shooting phase (so less then the Knight does in return) OR he rolls that six and destroys the Knight in one go with a 11% chance of that happening.

[ronin_cse]

 

I was a little off on how likely the WK is to take out the IK in one shot, it's actually an 11% chance of hitting and then rolling a 6. It is still only a 33% chance of getting a single wound through the IK's shield if it isn't a 6 though. So I still stand by my statement that on average the WK shouldn't do anything to an IK in shooting.

 

You are kinda right. I was wrong with the 22% cuz I calculated 2 shots so I should have halved that chance. In the end it's either the Wraithknight does 1,111 unsaved HP to the Knight per shooting phase (so less then the Knight does in return) OR he rolls that six and destroys the Knight in one go with a 11% chance of that happening.

 

 

I think you're still a little high on how many hits a WK should get through: 2 shots at 3s to hit so 1.333 get though, then 2+ to wound so 1.111 get through, then the 4++ of the knight so 0.556 get through, with 0.222 of those being 6s on the D chart (that's before the 4++ since you wouldn't get it) so we have about a 39% chance of doing something to the IK. On average the WK shouldn't do anything to the IK.

 

Looks like you aren't accounting for the IK's Ion Shield for the less than 6 rolls.

[Aethernitas]

 

 

I was a little off on how likely the WK is to take out the IK in one shot, it's actually an 11% chance of hitting and then rolling a 6. It is still only a 33% chance of getting a single wound through the IK's shield if it isn't a 6 though. So I still stand by my statement that on average the WK shouldn't do anything to an IK in shooting.

 

You are kinda right. I was wrong with the 22% cuz I calculated 2 shots so I should have halved that chance. In the end it's either the Wraithknight does 1,111 unsaved HP to the Knight per shooting phase (so less then the Knight does in return) OR he rolls that six and destroys the Knight in one go with a 11% chance of that happening.

 

 

I think you're still a little high on how many hits a WK should get through: 2 shots at 3s to hit so 1.333 get though, then 2+ to wound so 1.111 get through, then the 4++ of the knight so 0.556 get through, with 0.222 of those being 6s on the D chart (that's before the 4++ since you wouldn't get it) so we have about a 39% chance of doing something to the IK. On average the WK shouldn't do anything to the IK.

 

Looks like you aren't accounting for the IK's Ion Shield for the less than 6 rolls.

 

 

I am accounting for the Ion shield - you are not accounting for the average of 2 HP the Wk does with his D-weapon attacks which you have to account for if you are shooting for the average dmg. If you additionally account for the 9,5 HP the WK does with his sixes then you arrive at my rounded 3 HP (2,999 HP to be precise).

[Zembar]

 

 

 

I was a little off on how likely the WK is to take out the IK in one shot, it's actually an 11% chance of hitting and then rolling a 6. It is still only a 33% chance of getting a single wound through the IK's shield if it isn't a 6 though. So I still stand by my statement that on average the WK shouldn't do anything to an IK in shooting.

 

 

You are kinda right. I was wrong with the 22% cuz I calculated 2 shots so I should have halved that chance. In the end it's either the Wraithknight does 1,111 unsaved HP to the Knight per shooting phase (so less then the Knight does in return) OR he rolls that six and destroys the Knight in one go with a 11% chance of that happening.

 

I think you're still a little high on how many hits a WK should get through: 2 shots at 3s to hit so 1.333 get though, then 2+ to wound so 1.111 get through, then the 4++ of the knight so 0.556 get through, with 0.222 of those being 6s on the D chart (that's before the 4++ since you wouldn't get it) so we have about a 39% chance of doing something to the IK. On average the WK shouldn't do anything to the IK.

 

Looks like you aren't accounting for the IK's Ion Shield for the less than 6 rolls.

 

I am accounting for the Ion shield - you are not accounting for the average of 2 HP the Wk does with his D-weapon attacks which you have to account for if you are shooting for the average dmg. If you additionally account for the 9,5 HP the WK does with his sixes then you arrive at my rounded 3 HP (2,999 HP to be precise).

Actually, it's 3 to be precise, as 2.999... is exactly equal to 3, but only approximately 2.999 ;)

[Aethernitas]

Actually, it's 3 to be precise, as 2.999... is exactly equal to 3, but only approximately 2.999

YES

[Frater Cornelius]

Hm, all that math hammer. I just shoot it and if its still alive, shoot it again :D

 

But verdict, you IK is not to hunt the WK. It is there to decimate the rest of the army in record time. Your small guys are the ones taking down the WK. Always remember your little dudes. They are the true heroes ;)

[ronin_cse]

Alright I guess we're kind of saying the same thing, just going about averages in a different way. I still prefer my way of getting the average though, and being we're on the Ad. Mech. board I think saying technically the same thing in technically a different way and disagreeing over slight changes in math are what we are supposed to do :p

Hm, all that math hammer. I just shoot it and if its still alive, shoot it again

But verdict, you IK is not to hunt the WK. It is there to decimate the rest of the army in record time. Your small guys are the ones taking down the WK. Always remember your little dudes. They are the true heroes

Yeah exactly.

Also FYI I just played a couple games with my Eldar today using the new codex against Blood Angels. Honestly the WK isn't much worse than he was before. It's nice being able to shoot separate targets, and being able to stomp is a bonus, but he is still only 6 wounds with a 3+ save. Grav Weapons especially take it down fast. On my first game an alpha strike from 3 grav. cents. took it down to 1 wound. Throughout both games his Str. D Wraith Cannons whiffed more often than not and since he didn't have many vehicles most D shots were kind of wasted. Even with stomps he was also pretty prone to getting tied up in combat since he only has 4-5 attacks.

I also took D-Scythe Wraithguard with a DE Archon with a webway portal in the first game. Now THAT is devastating. That unit WILL erase what it hits unless you are just extremely lucky with rolls. If anyone ever faces both, ALWAYS go after the Wraithguard first. I didn't feel bad about using the Wraithknight, but I felt really bad about the Wraithguard.

On that note the Shooty IK should be really good at killing Wraithguard once they are on the table since they only have a 3+ save with no invul.