A Question of "Meta" - Knights?

[Stofficus]

Hello all,

 

I recently moved to an area with a bit more of a competitive meta than I'm used to for 40k, which occured a few weeks after a fairly large team tournament in my old area which saw a lot of the competitive crowd come out to attend (about 60 people if I recall correctly), and what struck me immediately there, and again here (Ottawa, Canada, for reference, should that matter) is, well, there are enough Knights floating around to make it seem like Bretonnia never died. 

Now I understand, especially with the competitive circuit, that there is a certain amount of bandwagoning (I remember 5th, with a million and and one "counts-as Grey Knights") but I struggle to recall the same degree of ubiquity as Knights. In the last 2 months, I don't think I've played more than 2 or 3 games without one (or 3), and it's at such a point that any list I design without the ability to kill a Knight a turn, at a minimum, is doomed to failure. 

It's hard to argue that they are probably the most cost effective army out there, in terms of dollars to point, and points to durability - as well as I recently realized that they generate extra CPs on their own - the loyal 32 is just there to go from a "measly" 12 CP for a pure Knight army, to 15 + regen. 

 

I'll admit, I'm a bit salty about how often I have to face these things as Knights are a spoiler army without much in the way of vulnerabilities; I used to run an IG Armoured Company back in 6th, and while it was amusing and easy to play, and built from a similar cloth (big stompy machines go stomp!)  it usually lost due to not being able to do much with objectives, and dying to anything touching them in melee - and were one to do the same thing today, it would be much the same. Knights, however, have extreme mobility, extreme durability, count as ten models per for purposes of objective secured, generate more CP than pretty much anything shy of pure Guard, have good shooting, and excellent melee without sacrificing any of their shooting potential - aside from building every list around a giant pile of anti-tank weapons and protecting them behind chaff, I don't see a weakness to exploit - even playing the objective at the expense of fighting the enemy does not work due to their counts-as-10 mechanic, and ability to traverse the map with ease.

 

So I am left to wonder, what does one do in the face of such reckless hate? GW has shown absolutely no inclination to apply any heavy nerfs, seeming to prefer the route of gradually buffing everyone else, so what have you, the fine community at large, done to handle the seeming Age of Knights? Simply put, right now I'm just not having fun getting wrecked most games unless I bring S8+ spam. 

 

[Dracos]

Well, if it helps. One Space Marine model (Troop choice) is worth more than all the Knights in an army for purposes of Objective Secured.

[MARK0SIAN]

Target saturation works well against knights. If you play IG it’s quite easy to put more units on the board than knights can realistically deal with. Even if you can’t kill all the knights, you can still win on objectives.

[Azekai]

Knights make them money. You fight knights with knights or you get stomped (literally).

 

It wouldn’t be so bad if you could lock them in melee or reduce their shooting if you assault them. As it stands, knights don’t have any counter aside from crushing numbers to clog objectives or punishing firepower... and since those are good verses everything, that ain’t a counter.

[BlackTriton]

In comletitive play, the counter is to have the ability to deal with them or the numbers to ignore them.

 

The imperium deal with knight in melee: blood angel captain, Dark templar captain (with the vigilus detachment) or custode shield captain can usually trade favorably with a knight.

 

The fact is Knight are a bit overtunned and are hard to deal with for most take all commers army. We may see a shift in the meta if hordes (orc, nids) start stomping them.

[MARK0SIAN]

You can lock them in combat. It’s just hard to do. They can only step over infantry and swarms so if you assault them with something else that can block their exit they’re locked in melee. Custodes bikes can lock them in quite well.

 

Obviously they’re not really at a disadvantage in melee but at least they can’t shoot.

 

Personally I think knights are themselves a meta shift and that’s been good for the game. For the bulk of 8th, horde armies have had a huge advantage and a lot of armies have adapated to either take advantage of that or deal with that. Knights have forced people to adjust and either give up some numbers for heavy hitting stuff or actually have to worry about bringing serious anti-armour firepower. I totally get the frustration with Knights but part of me thinks it’s nice to finally have some bigger vehicles that are worth their points and don’t die to a stiff breeze :)

[Stofficus]

You can lock them in combat. It’s just hard to do. They can only step over infantry and swarms so if you assault them with something else that can block their exit they’re locked in melee. Custodes bikes can lock them in quite well.

 

Obviously they’re not really at a disadvantage in melee but at least they can’t shoot.

 

Personally I think knights are themselves a meta shift and that’s been good for the game. For the bulk of 8th, horde armies have had a huge advantage and a lot of armies have adapated to either take advantage of that or deal with that. Knights have forced people to adjust and either give up some numbers for heavy hitting stuff or actually have to worry about bringing serious anti-armour firepower. I totally get the frustration with Knights but part of me thinks it’s nice to finally have some bigger vehicles that are worth their points and don’t die to a stiff breeze

Meta shifts are certainly for the best, but here's the rub at least insofar as Knights are concerned; they're a spoiler army. 

 

If you're facing off against some giant horde, you're still able to play with a TAC or themed army. You might be facing an uphill struggle, but unless you've brought all anti-tank, you can at least fight the horde, maybe outmaneuver it or otherwise just kill enough stuff to feel you've got some kind of accomplishment. The Knights, however, are almost always charging turn 2, potentially en-masse (I have yet to see anything but House Raven), and unless you have a large amount of dedicated anti tank, you won't do much more than annoy them, especially as the Rotate Ion Shields ability means you're almost always going to waste one unit's shooting against a specific knight before you can shift off. 

 

There is nothing I hate more in this game which takes an enormous amount of time, money and effort to get to the point where you can put models on the table only to face an army that unless you tailor against it, you can't do anything meaningful. It's why I stopped playing my Armoured Company back in earlier editions, because I knew that outside of pre-arranged games, it wasn't fun to play against. It's the same here, even if I build a list which will be able to fight Knights reasonably well, I'm simply not having fun. 

 

To be honest, for the time being I intend on not playing against Knights. They're a lazy army design which I don't enjoy playing against, win or lose (vs, say, Orks, where win or lose I always have fun) but to be frank, I strongly suspect that will profoundly limit who I will be able to play against. 

[Marshal Arthur]

Yeah I understand the frustration. I think they’re wonderful models and overall a good meta shift but playing against knights is dull. I feel like the game is decided early on and a well rounded list feels very limited. That said it’s still better than last edition where you army either couldn’t scratch them or utterly obliterated them with no middle ground. At least now you can potentially drown them in anti-infantry fire.

[Trevak Dal]

Oh GW wants to move kits. They are super powerful because they want to make bank, like the Heldrakes and Baby carriers and Wraithknights before.

 

Anybody memba when Wraithknights were the only Gargantuan creature in the game? And was non forgeworld and cheaply costed in points? Oh I :cussing Memba. Fun times that :cuss was.

 

It will get pushed back sooner or later, when geedub has some other kit to push (much like Heldrakes and wraithknight).

 

Meantime, you can counter this by playing Killteam, or smaller points games.

 

The punisher cannon on the imperial guard tank has a lot of shots right? If it wounds on 5s, just take multiples of them and OG Mudbone them in saves.

 

"Yo dawg, make 50 3+ saves"

[Finkmilkana]

Knights themselves are actually fine, slightly too cheap but nothing massive. Having some competent T8 armies that are not easy to bog down is exactly the counter the horde meta needed.

 

But the problem with (mostly) knight armies is that either you kill at least 1 a turn or you do not weaken them at all, thanks to the „fight as if at full wounds stratagem“. That stratagem alone means that while the knights slowly decimate your anti tank, their firepower stays constant. So even if both sides were about evenly matched turn 1, they are very much not so turn 2 if no knight died.

Effectively you either need to be able to potentially table knights or or might as well not shoot at them all and just hide on objectives. Which IS a valid counter to knights, their anti horde and objective holding power is actually pretty bad. It’s just not a fun way to play. For something like ITC it’s a lot harder since knight armies inherently make it very hard/impossible to fully score most secondary objectives that do not include „kill a knight“ in some way.

 

The punisher cannon on the imperial guard tank has a lot of shots right? If it wounds on 5s, just take multiples of them and OG Mudbone them in saves.

 

"Yo dawg, make 50 3+ saves"

Sadly, punisher cannons are actually pretty bad against knights. A tank commander or vulture ‚only’ has 40 shots, which only translates to 6.6 saves to be rolled and 2.6 unsaved wounds on a knight. I mean it’s ‚ok‘ damage against a knight that rotated shields (being about equivalent to a battle cannon in that case), but it can in no way effectively trade shots with them. For comparison, an roughly equivalent number of points in rapid fire lasgun shots (guardsmen + orders) does 3.33 damage (ignoring the challenge to get them all into rapid fire range for a moment).

[Scammel]

I've always preferred DeDeDe.

[Dosjetka]

DeDeDe? :huh:

[Finkmilkana]

I would guess he made a joke about the threat title sounding like the character Meta Knight from Kirby, where King Dedede is another character.

[Stofficus]

Knights themselves are actually fine, slightly too cheap but nothing massive. Having some competent T8 armies that are not easy to bog down is exactly the counter the horde meta needed.

 

But the problem with (mostly) knight armies is that either you kill at least 1 a turn or you do not weaken them at all, thanks to the „fight as if at full wounds stratagem“. That stratagem alone means that while the knights slowly decimate your anti tank, their firepower stays constant. So even if both sides were about evenly matched turn 1, they are very much not so turn 2 if no knight died.

Effectively you either need to be able to potentially table knights or or might as well not shoot at them all and just hide on objectives. Which IS a valid counter to knights, their anti horde and objective holding power is actually pretty bad. It’s just not a fun way to play. For something like ITC it’s a lot harder since knight armies inherently make it very hard/impossible to fully score most secondary objectives that do not include „kill a knight“ in some way.

 

The punisher cannon on the imperial guard tank has a lot of shots right? If it wounds on 5s, just take multiples of them and OG Mudbone them in saves.

 

"Yo dawg, make 50 3+ saves"

Sadly, punisher cannons are actually pretty bad against knights. A tank commander or vulture ‚only’ has 40 shots, which only translates to 6.6 saves to be rolled and 2.6 unsaved wounds on a knight. I mean it’s ‚ok‘ damage against a knight that rotated shields (being about equivalent to a battle cannon in that case), but it can in no way effectively trade shots with them. For comparison, an roughly equivalent number of points in rapid fire lasgun shots (guardsmen + orders) does 3.33 damage (ignoring the challenge to get them all into rapid fire range for a moment).

 

 

There's a flaw in the logic of them countering the horde meta though. 

 

By your own admission, your only way to play against them is either a) have enough AT firepower to kill 1 a turn minimum, or b) play the objectives and ignore them. 

 

Since Knights count as ten models, with objective secured, you need pretty substantial bodycount to be able to play the objective game, as boring as it is. Hordes are the only ones who can realistically do that; giant cultist blobs, tyranids en masse, guard hordes, green tide, these are the only things cost effective enough per wound to outlast a Knight on an objective. Sure, neither one of these will do much damage overall against one another, but the horde can certainly outlast. Your point on how Knights don't really degrade unless you kill one entirely, whereas a normal army will attrit is key here, as the horde is much the same. 

 

The only thing Knights hard-counter is balanced lists, because they are a hard spoiler - and that's absolute garbage game design in my opinion. 

 

Throw me against 120 genestealers, or a green tide which covers the entire deployment table - sure, my balanced list will probably lose, but at least a) it looks awesome, b) I got to kill buckets of enemy models which dying to a man in a heroic last stand. 

 

Being charged turn one almost regardless of where you hide by a giant robot that's difficult to kill on its own, backed up by 3-5 more, with some chaff sitting on objectives you'll never reach is anything but fun. Even when I beat Knights, I don't enjoy myself. 

[Finkmilkana]

 

Since Knights count as ten models, with objective secured, you need pretty substantial bodycount to be able to play the objective game, as boring as it is.

The only thing Knights hard-counter is balanced lists, because they are a hard spoiler - and that's absolute garbage game design in my opinion.

 

Usually kights are only a single model that is not even objective secured. They have a relic for counting as 10 obj. secured models, but that comes with the usual opportunity cost of giving up another relic for it and only working on one model. I actually dont think I've ever seen anyone use it, but that might be local meta.

 

The counter to turn 1 charges is, as always, screens. Against knights specifically, hiding in ruins is also a great tool. The single knight that has a great charge range will further usually die if he charges alone. In my experience, there are simply too many meele anti tank characters in game for that to be viable. A single smash captain or jetbike can seriously hurt a knight that overextents.

 

I still agree that fighting knight armies can be very frustrating, but I still think it would be better if bracketing the expensive scary robot would feel like a success instead of just ... useless.

[chapter master 454]

DeDeDe?

 

Kirby Joke. The game series has two main villains, one called King DeDeDe and the other called Meta-Knight. I'll let you figure the rest.

 

 

As far as the topic is concerned:

I do agree that knights have a strong "uninteractive" gameplay style that is feast or famine really in terms of how they do. As much as people will say "ah but you can play the objective game against knights"...uh-huh...cool tell you what, you go for those objectives as best you can while I blow away your army. Oh, that's your objective? no, it's mine...by the power of knight obsec (by which I mean our insane firepower of both range and melee). "but you are wasting firepower on infantry"...after first turn...there isn't many worth while targets to be fair, only target practice.

I am speaking from a knight players perspective here. I don't even play uber-competitive (not 3 gallants + armigers. I like running a castellan + 3 other questoris class that aren't gallants) and anytime I face people, it has always been the same story: What's your anti-tank? Cool, that dies turn 1 and after that, it's clean up!

 

I have faced my friends tau multiple times and to be frank, only stormsurges and riptides have proven able to tank knights to the face with any real chance of surviving as anything other than those (who can take invulnerables) just evaporate. Faced down a typhon siege tank, wrecked it. Faced a spartan siege tank that got to fire off it's quad las...wrecked it with one shot of the volcano lance. I mean, what can you do to knights that means anything really? Kill their massive dominus class knight? Oh no...I lost a big stompy dude that killed everything and all I am left with is...oh wait, 3 more big stompy dudes that kill everything.

 

They are AWESOME to field as they will stomp any and all into the dirt. When fully painted and assembled, looked amazing and to be honest I take great pride in mine (feel free to look at them...please do!) but they are a problem army. Each unit they field is just...well...too rounded. What can a knight NOT kill? Nothing. Unless you have invulnerable saves you are going to die at first salvo of ranged firepower OR will die in combat to them stylin' all over you.

 

Unfortunately, Knights can only be balanced by points. Arguable that the recent change to the eldar wraithknight is actually a better points cost for knights (around 300) and not 285. It also isn't helped that knights are all fairly samey. I have expressed a notion that each knight should have a benefit relating to their class (like say a paladin having a bonus to their RFBC) because the gallant has a variance to it for some reason yet costs the same despite being stat wise better (it still costs 285 but has WS2+ and 5A). It should have to pay for those stats.

[Focslain]

 

 

Since Knights count as ten models, with objective secured, you need pretty substantial bodycount to be able to play the objective game, as boring as it is.

The only thing Knights hard-counter is balanced lists, because they are a hard spoiler - and that's absolute garbage game design in my opinion.

 

Usually kights are only a single model that is not even objective secured. They have a relic for counting as 10 obj. secured models, but that comes with the usual opportunity cost of giving up another relic for it and only working on one model. I actually dont think I've ever seen anyone use it, but that might be local meta.

 

The counter to turn 1 charges is, as always, screens. Against knights specifically, hiding in ruins is also a great tool. The single knight that has a great charge range will further usually die if he charges alone. In my experience, there are simply too many meele anti tank characters in game for that to be viable. A single smash captain or jetbike can seriously hurt a knight that overextents.

 

I still agree that fighting knight armies can be very frustrating, but I still think it would be better if bracketing the expensive scary robot would feel like a success instead of just ... useless.

 

To add to that the freeblade quality of Oath to Quest also gives them Obsec, so at most your looking at two knights getting obsec and that is only if they are Imperialis. 

[Lysere]

 

DeDeDe?

 

Kirby Joke. The game series has two main villains, one called King DeDeDe and the other called Meta-Knight. I'll let you figure the rest.

 

 

As far as the topic is concerned:

I do agree that knights have a strong "uninteractive" gameplay style that is feast or famine really in terms of how they do. As much as people will say "ah but you can play the objective game against knights"...uh-huh...cool tell you what, you go for those objectives as best you can while I blow away your army. Oh, that's your objective? no, it's mine...by the power of knight obsec (by which I mean our insane firepower of both range and melee). "but you are wasting firepower on infantry"...after first turn...there isn't many worth while targets to be fair, only target practice.

I am speaking from a knight players perspective here. I don't even play uber-competitive (not 3 gallants + armigers. I like running a castellan + 3 other questoris class that aren't gallants) and anytime I face people, it has always been the same story: What's your anti-tank? Cool, that dies turn 1 and after that, it's clean up!

 

I have faced my friends tau multiple times and to be frank, only stormsurges and riptides have proven able to tank knights to the face with any real chance of surviving as anything other than those (who can take invulnerables) just evaporate. Faced down a typhon siege tank, wrecked it. Faced a spartan siege tank that got to fire off it's quad las...wrecked it with one shot of the volcano lance. I mean, what can you do to knights that means anything really? Kill their massive dominus class knight? Oh no...I lost a big stompy dude that killed everything and all I am left with is...oh wait, 3 more big stompy dudes that kill everything.

 

They are AWESOME to field as they will stomp any and all into the dirt. When fully painted and assembled, looked amazing and to be honest I take great pride in mine (feel free to look at them...please do!) but they are a problem army. Each unit they field is just...well...too rounded. What can a knight NOT kill? Nothing. Unless you have invulnerable saves you are going to die at first salvo of ranged firepower OR will die in combat to them stylin' all over you.

 

Unfortunately, Knights can only be balanced by points. Arguable that the recent change to the eldar wraithknight is actually a better points cost for knights (around 300) and not 285. It also isn't helped that knights are all fairly samey. I have expressed a notion that each knight should have a benefit relating to their class (like say a paladin having a bonus to their RFBC) because the gallant has a variance to it for some reason yet costs the same despite being stat wise better (it still costs 285 but has WS2+ and 5A). It should have to pay for those stats.

 

 

To be honest I think most of the knights are pointed just fine, except maybe a few stand out cases (Castellan and Gallant) they are good but not amazing. Normally the boosted stats for the Gallant would be fine since it lacks range but it's not impossible to get a turn one charge with one for 2cp so that isn't much of an argument. Their Armor and toughness is the same as a Russ, and while they do have a natural invulnerable save it's not that great unless you use a strat or warlord trait, or both.

 

That combo is the main reason people complain about the lone Castellan more than anything.

 

Smart deployment and weight of dice can do a lot to blunt a knight army, as can mortal wound heavy lists. Armies that can get bonuses to wounds can stack up damage fast, like Tau. A Pure Knight list is of course heavily skewed and will invalidate certain matchups but there is only so much damage a knight can do a turn so exploit that to take objectives. Penalties to hit can do a lot to reduce their damage since they have very few ways to negate them.

 

Also never forget that knights with relics or warlord traits are characters and have heroic intervention, never stand within three inches of them.