Playing Imperial Knights for the first time as allies.

[Gree]

So I played my Imperial Knight for the first time yesterday. It was an interesting experience. I was using a Knight Paladin allied with my Space Marines.

 

I’m looking for tactics and advice on using a Knight as an ally. I’ve searched a lot for Imperial Knight tactics, but the majority of them seem to deal with all-Knight armies rather than just taking an ally. So I’m looking for advice on how to improve my rather lukewarm performance with my Knight.

 

One of the things I noticed was how surprisingly fragile my Knight Paladin was, dying on Turn Two in both my games, both times due to multiple high-strength shots into the thinner side armor without the Ion Shield, which  took off most of its hull points in a single shooting phase. (In the second game it was a Chaos Predator that took off 5 hull points with three penetrating hits, one of which was an Exploded! Result.) In my second game due to a failed charge, my Knight didn’t even have a chance to do any meaningful damage to my opponent’ army.

 

Is there any particular advice to helping screen a Knight’s flanks or to help it survive longer? It certainly seems to be quite the fire magnet for me. I was wondering about the viability of using Rhinos to try and screen the Knight’s flanks, seeing as I usually go mechanized Marines.

 

I used this 2000pts list essentially against Chaos Marine armies.

 

(Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics)

 

Chapter Master

Librarian

Honour Guard in Land Raider

2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos

3 Centurion Devastators

Knight Paladin

Edited September 9, 2015 by Gree

[Jarl of Wulfen]

Remember you choose which side the ion shield is on, so try not to have enemies on multiple sides. I tend to keep mine near a Los blocking piece of terrain to cover a flank. Iirc the paladin has the long range gun so sit back and blast away. Also 1 knight will always be a fire magnet, so try to provide more immediate threats. Edited September 9, 2015 by OnyxGuard

[Gree]

Yes, I did think I was a bit too reckless with my Knight, as I took full advantage of it's 12 movement to move up as far as I could into the enemy army, so in both occasions my Knight basically sat in the middle of the enemy army after moving and charging as much as it could.

 

Should I have perhaps taken advantage of the Knight Paladin's vast range to sit back and shoot instead?

Edited September 9, 2015 by Gree

[jeffersonian000]

I like to run a Knight Errant with my Grey Knights. I do not keep the Errant at range, as that's a waste of a good Knight. What I do is use it as a 370 point wrecking ball to draw attention from my GK, shine my GK wreck face drawing attention from the Errant. Keeps all of my unit alive by force my opponent to divide to meet these threats because staying together let's me blood them out.

 

SJ

[librisrouge]

Keep allied knights on the flanks. They're fast enough that they'll still make it to the middle of the enemy's army but they'll survive to get there if they aren't surrounded. On the flank, you can turn to face them a bit and put your shield forward and cover most of the board.

 

Also, knights are far more fragile than most people give them credit for.

[MithrilForge]

 

I used this 2000pts list essentially against Chaos Marine armies.

 

(Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics)

 

Chapter Master

Librarian

Honour Guard in Land Raider

2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos

3 Centurion Devastators

Knight Paladin

OK so here's your list...

im guessing the Master,Lib & honour guard are all together in the LR so that is 1 unit...

+ 2 rhino's

+ 1 unit (or are they separate units?) of Centurions

+ 1 big fire magnet

all up that equals 5 units! no wonder your getting too much heat on him  ....

with 5 enemy units on the table i'd pour all my firepower into each unit as i saw fit threatwise 

that's the main point i see straight away  and then your comment of striding forwards to death or glory  way ahead of support...

perhaps treat the knight like a dreadnought for a little while,hold him in reserve and bring him on turn 2 or 3 if you can, and yes as mentioned shoot from afar with a 12" move he can stride forwards mid game if required to apply mid game pressure.

Knights are tough but even they can't cope with a full focus broadside from an army and not get scratched !

 

Mithril

[Gree]

Yes, I do generally tend twords small elite armies, although I wonder if I might have an army that was too small in this case, with that Honour Guard unit in the Land Raider holding about a quarter of my points cost in just that one unit. Honestly my normal list usually has the Knight swapped out for a 5-Man Sternguard unit with meltas in a drop pod and a Vindicator tank.

 

Should I focus on trying to get more units to spread out the target saturation if I'm going to be taking a Knight?

[MithrilForge]

Yes, I do generally tend twords small elite armies, although I wonder if I might have an army that was too small in this case, with that Honour Guard unit in the Land Raider holding about a quarter of my points cost in just that one unit. Honestly my normal list usually has the Knight swapped out for a 5-Man Sternguard unit with meltas in a drop pod and a Vindicator tank.

 

Should I focus on trying to get more units to spread out the target saturation if I'm going to be taking a Knight?

yeah there's going to be a couple ways you can play it...either make a few more min max units to divert shooting focus or you keep what you have and play cunning and sorta hide your Knight till its right...terrain will play a big part of the 2nd choice,if you have zero terrain(big stuff included) then its going to be hard to hide from shooting arcs... the third option which GW loves  is that you have 2 knights...cause 2 knights are Always better than 1  

 

cheers Mithril