Silence Squadron or Allied Imperial Knight?

[Epher]

I have not played since the release of the new codex but I am planning the next edition to my army.  I am contemplating the addition of one of the new Imperial Knights or the Silnce Squadron.  I have done a little reading on the IK but have also never played agains one, they seem to be a common allies choice.  Most forum users would state that the Dark Angel's fliers are less than stellar but they would be the fluffier addition to a DA army.  Their points costs are about the same to field. 

 

So here are my thoughts:

 

Imperial Knight

A large imposing destructive force on the board.  It would be in the game from turn one, meaning all guns get to fire right away.  Hard to kill because of armour values and ion shields.  Brings a variety of weapons to the table with the ability to target different units.  Can also throw killed vehicles and monsterous creatures with the gauntlet (one of the coolest things going for it).  It would also be a dakka magnet.

 

Silence Squadron

Three units with a total of 9 hull points. AV11, average for fliers.  Higher mobility but a little harder to manuever due to the nature of fliers.  Excellent anti infantry but may have problems with AV14 (one rift cannon shot and two TL las cannons).  Opponent will require anti air capabilities.  Also squadron would be great for anti-flier rolls.  Due to being a squad, they must all fire at the same target. 

 

The fliers could aslo be taken individually in the Ravenwing Strike Force or in a CAD.  With magnetization, a player would have the option of taking either three Nephilims or three Dark Talons.  Three Dark Talons with a Dark Shroud might make them more survivalble.  Too bad the Banner of Devastation is gone. 

 

So the floor is open.  What do you think?

[Malakithe]

I have a magnetized knight that is normally a warden or crusader. The crusader has a ton of firepower while the warden has the glove or strD chainsword. Both can use carapace guns too for AA or more pew pew. I usually take knights over everything

[Finn]

From my experience, survivability of a single Knight is dubious. If you field only one, be prepared to bubble-wrap it against deep striking monstrosities fully capable of taking one out in a single round of shooting. You'd probably need a horde of scouts or some IG allies to do that.

To give you an example: CWE fire dragons deep strike in a raider with a no-scatter Archon. The raider is placed in such a manner that it covers two ion shield zones. Your opponent declares that the fire dragons will try to pop the Knight. You declare which zone you'll be protecting. Fire dragons can shoot from any part of an open-topped vehicle such as their raider, so they choose to unleash 8 meltaguns on the unprotected side. POOF. Your Knight melts like butter.

 

Our vampire cousins can do something similar by dropping two cheap assault squads with 4 melta shots each.

EDIT: I guess you can also invest in some serious interceptor firepower to blow them off the table before they can pull the trigger and relieve your list of 375 points.

[Stormxlr]

Silence Squadron definitely, immune to grav and most shooting. Most people dont bring Anti Air. 

[Jazzhands]

Love my magnetised knight! Yes it's a dakka magnet and yes it can be killed (would be boring if it couldn't ) but generally always brings the pain.

 

Flyers are great and bringing down three is going to tax most armies but if you don't make that reserve roll they might not even reach the battle until turn four

[Frater Cornelius]

IK all the way. I use a single IK all the time, mostly Paladin with Ironstorm. It just loses around 3-4 HP every game, but makes enough of an impact to be worth it. The Silence Squadron is just too 'meh' for its points in my eyes. I may be bias, but I never regret taking a Knight.

[Dark_Master]

The Squadron is a lot of points, would rather take one of each in a Ravenwing detachment that guarantees them coming in turn 2.

 

DM

[WellSpokenMan]

I think Dark Master is right.  The flexibility in taking those fliers outside the formation is better than the buffs the formation gives them.

[HolyAngelX]

Question about the first post on the Silence Squadron.  Other than the name what makes this formation a squad?  As far as I can tell its just a formation plain and simple unlike other formations that actually lay out that each vehicle squad is a squad such as the Hammer of Caliban formation with 3 preds, ww, or vindis or the Raven Wing Support Squad with 3 speeders.  So the Silence Squad is not locked down by shooting at only one unit unless collectively I jacked that rule up.

 

Additionally, playing devils advocate because I fielded this formation recently, twinlinked reserve rolls on the whole formation got me on the board turn 2 and being able to auto hit bomb run the tyranid warlord was awesome.  He failed his 7- initiative test rolling a 6 and a 3 that 2d6 init test is amazing.  Lastly on bombing run its an attack roll you do in the movement phase which still frees up your weapons for other targets in the actual shooting phase as per the main rule book.  The rerolls on black sword missiles and the buff is nice and all flyers having strafe is nice too.  Now the Dark Talon doesn't have to hover to strafe.  Anyway that's just my .02 cents.

[Master Sindiferous]

I usually run an IK with DW as serious fire support.  Generally a Paladin version, but will be upgrading to a Warden soon (just purchased a second kit but wish I would have seen the DA writing on the wall sooner Dark shrouds would have been purchased instead) with carapace missiles or Icarus for ground to air fire power.   I have lost it in games when I have run it into close combat by getting mired down.  However, when I set back and fire at targets to soften them up he collects his share of the hate my opponents dish out.  The other thing I use is a tech marine on a bike.  He hangs around my IK for help when someone does get the hit on him and keeps him rolling for the most part.

 

However I do not have a silence squad.  I have the Storm Talon and Storm raven squad I use as an allies once in a while, but always hated using points that take bodies off the board.

 

Besides the fact I love to run my Knight is hard to get over, especially since they gave them carapace weapons.  What's not to like.

 

Probably didn't help much, but love my IK almost as much as my Death/Raven Strike forces.

 

Never Forget! Never Forgive!

[Epher]

Thanks for all of the insight that everyone has provided!

 

I decided to go with an Imperial Knight because I can get it on the table on the first turn and make it rain fire and brimstone upon all of the heretics.  There are some large pie plates of destructing that come with it too.  The higher AP was also a selling factor and the fact that it is a pretty cool looking model.

 

The Silence Squadron would have to come in on the second turn and thus a delay in bringing out the fire power.  They may be a bit more versatile but lack the long range high strength weapons capable of dealing with heavy armour. 

 

I can also justify picking up a Nephilim here or a Dark Talon there.  I had the cash to sink into an IK so I had to jump on it while I could.

 

Thanks again, my fellow Battle Brothers!

[Loar]

turn 2 and being able to auto hit bomb run the tyranid warlord was awesome.  He failed his 7- initiative test rolling a 6 and a 3 that 2d6 init test is amazing. 

 

what warlord was this?  If it was a tyrant that is a very bad use of the bomb unless you were using the rules wrong.  You would need to roll a 6 to wound on only a single hit and then he would need to fail his armor save (and maybe FNP if he has it, thats a separate rules debate), in order to even have to take the initiative test.  The bomb has to cause an unsaved wound to work, seems very unlikely against a T6 creature as its only strength 4.

[NuclearSnowyOwl]

Question about the first post on the Silence Squadron.  Other than the name what makes this formation a squad?  As far as I can tell its just a formation plain and simple unlike other formations that actually lay out that each vehicle squad is a squad such as the Hammer of Caliban formation with 3 preds, ww, or vindis or the Raven Wing Support Squad with 3 speeders.  So the Silence Squad is not locked down by shooting at only one unit unless collectively I jacked that rule up.

 

I wanted to follow up on this question. I'm toying with different list building ideas and am worried that the Silence Squadron Formation does indeed count as a Vehicle Squadron and would therefore only be able to target one enemy unit per shooting phase.

 

Additionally, what exactly qualifies a group of vehicles as a Vehicle Squadron? For example, if I'm using a Combined Arms detachment and want to have 2 Dreads in my list, I can use up just 1 Elite slot by getting them together with the "May include up to two additional Dreadnoughts" line. But does that now make the 2 Dreads a Vehicle Squadron? It seems like it would because I'm slotting them in 1 unit together to not use up 2 separate Elites slots. Following that line of thinking it would seem to me that the Silence Squadron would indeed have to be considered a Vehicle Squadron, which would seem to make it an awful choice.

[Epher]

To try to answer your questions...

 

The Silence Squadron, despite its name, is a formation of single vehicles and each flyer can act independently of each other.  If you look at the entry for the Nephilim there is no option to create a unit of them by adding more.  If they were a unit or "squadron" as the BRB would put it, the entry would say "one unit of..." like land speeders for the RWSS or Predators in the Hammer of Caliban.  So with the rules as written in the DA codex, the Silence Squadron consists of three independent fliers that are able to target different units.

 

Since the codex makes no mention of vehicle squadrons I would assume a unit of predator tanks or dreadnoughts would be the same as calling them a squadron.  From what I read, the BRB does not mention vehicle units but there are a few pages on vehicle squadrons. 

 

So if you have a CAD and take two dreadnoughts, you can group them as a unit and then they would have to follow vehicle squadron rules in the BRB.  If you have the slots available you could separate them but they would take up two elite slots.  You could take up to 9 dreadnoughts in a CAD, 3 units of 3 dreadnoughts (that would be a fun list to play).

 

The difference between the dreadnoughts and the Silence Squadron is that the Silence Squadron is a formation like the Demi-Company or Hammer of Caliban and each unit listed operate independently but a unit of dreadnoughts (or any vehicle type) is vehicle squadron and must be treated as such. 

 

I hope this helps!

[NuclearSnowyOwl]

Actually yeah, that does answer all of my questions. Everything you said makes perfect sense. Thank you kindly!

[Epher]

I am happy that I could help! I actually have both the Silence Squadron and Imperial Knight but both are far from complete. So no reviews on performance either.

[Wrath of Bruinen]

I would add here that the new death from the skies supplement coming out this week appears to replace the silence squadron with an 'abductor squadron'.

 

As I understand it, it's still unclear how 'optional' this supplement will be, but it's something to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting one, as the formation rules/bonuses are different, despite having the same model requirements

[JJD]

I think the best suggestion is to wait and see what comes from the new death from the sky's. Leaks are starting to spill out but so far I haven't yet seen the rumored new DA formation.

[SnakeChisler]

They renamed it the silence squad to the abducter squad

 

Back on topic you can get the Imp Knight cost right down to just over 300 by cutting down on the guns using him as a big distracting wrecking ball

 

Then fetch in a couple of Flyers in the Ravenwing, I can't see any bonuses being worth having to roll for reserves though, auto deployment is huge

[Brother Syddraf]

The naming difference is down to the silence squadron not being a true squadron but a formation.

Where the abductor squadron is a proper squadron.

Which is cool we have two way to use the same unit