Can Knights rise again? Time to counter the Marine meta

[Karhedron]

The results from the LVO are in and not completely surprising. Marines featured heavily on the top tables taking 5 of the top 8 places. Iron Hands were particularly popular. Knight-heavy lists have passed the peak of their initial frenzy but it seems to me that Knights seem well placed to do well in a meta that has lots of Marine armies in. Here are my thoughts.

 

We don't really care about the Devastator Doctrine since all our units have a built-in 5++. Iron Hands an Dark Angels still get their super-doctrine on top of this but that extra point of AP on Heavy weapons simply makes very little difference in the majority of cases. I guess Heavy bolters and assault cannons are slightly more deadly but weapons like that are wounding on a 5+ and doing 1 wound each anyway.

 

We have the tools to really hurt Marines. Avenger gatling cannons, stomp attacks, Ironstorm pods, Plasma decimator etc. We have lots of weapons that are extremely efficient at killing elite infantry. Also, Marine vehicles largely lack Invulnerable saves. Thermal Cannons, Spears, Reaper Chainswords, volcano lance etc will make short work of most marine vehicles extremely quickly.

 

What do you think? Am I barking up the wrong tree or does a Marine resurgence mean that Knights are in a stronger place competitively?

[MajorNese]

Well...while I'd love to bring something other than marines to the table again, and my accidental knight house continues to grow, I don't see Knights as the viable counter, at least in competitive lists/combos/chapters.

 

The most obvious strong list is IH FW dread spam. An IH leviathan will, on average, overkill an armiger, and take out almost half a big knight - per turn. The other LVO list - Assault Centurion Issobomb - has a ridiculous amount of S10 AP-4 3D attacks in CC (combined with Deep Strike), which isn't exactly the kind of stuff a knight is good at soaking up or screening against.

There is no considerable damage reduction on knights, a 5++ is still situational, and only one knight per turn can rotate shields.

 

In contrast, Ironstone and Duty Eternal will ensure that even an overcharged relic plasma decimator will just inflict 1W per unsaved shot (same for every single other weapon you mentioned), and that with a stock 4++. And almost non-degrading statline and fixed 3W repairs.

 

Sure, the weaponry you mentioned is okay against what marines should have been in fluff - Tacs, Intercessors, boxnaughts, Predators or even Repulsors, but that's not anywhere near the stuff that actually makes marines stomp everything. And saying some buffs make "very little difference in the majority of cases" talks around exactly the cases that are the issue.

 

So no - while it would be fun to bring something else, Knights don't seem to be a viable counter. Not enough firepower, not enough models, not enough buffs and tricks to stuff into a unit.

[Focslain]

Interesting, I have a game versus an IH dread heavy list week after next. 

 

Yes I'm taking my knights, so I'll drop a report in two weeks on what happened. See if I can make a dent in him.

[Karhedron]

Hmm, maybe not quite as good as I thought. I wonder if the new FW codices will reign in Dreads slightly as they definitely seem strong for their points.

One thing we do get in our favour over Leviathans is range. Their longest range is 24" so we only have to deploy 6" back from the edge of our DZ for them to be out of range T1. If they get close then a Gallant would certainly put the wind up one. Their various tricks won't help much against a 8D thunderstrike gauntlet.

Also the shooting from a Leviathan isn't quite as bad as you make out. Yes it will be nasty vs an Armiger but dual Stormcannons will only do 8 damage vs a Questoris (6 with RIS) and that is assuming full IH buffs and rerolls. If he takes Grav Flux bombards (who does that?) then the range issue becomes more acute. Yes a Leviathan will shred an Armiger (who only costs half his points) but a Helverin can shoot it from 60" away while the Leviathan can do nothing but look cross. Also a Helverin charging a Leviathan will shut it down since most people run dual gun arms.

Yes Duty Eternal makes them very tough but it is only once per turn so has the same issues we have with RIS.

[Clingy]

Pray to the omnisiah that April is good to us fellow pilots.

 

I suspect our psychic awakening is more akin to what the Tyranids got and it’s weak at best.

 

The darkest of timelines

Edited January 31, 2020 by Clingy

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

Perhaps different houses are better suited for todays metta.  And WL traits. En stuff....

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Don't some of the IH Levi buffs not apply in the fight phase? What about a charging Gallant?

[Ishagu]

If you move away from ITC missions you'll find that Marines aren't as dominant.

 

I do think Knights are good against Marines, but some lists can deal with them better than others. I wish the Castellan hadn't received that point hike. The invul was nerf enough, GW costed it out of the game.

[MajorNese]

Don't some of the IH Levi buffs not apply in the fight phase? What about a charging Gallant?

Duty Eternal halves all damage for that phase, and is locked to once per phase, just like RIS.

Meaning a charging Gallant would force the Levi user to spend another CP (reducing a Gallant's CC weapons to 3D), but Ironstone still works until start of next round (so only 2D), and it still has to get through the 4++.

 

Which inflicts an average of 2.7W on the Levi per fight phase, at the cost of 3.4W (>8" charge) or 5W (heavy flamer range) lost on the Gallant in IH overwatch (assuming there is no Chapter Master nearby).

 

In short: A Levi does more percentual damage (percent of total wound count) to the Gallant during overwatch than the Gallant does in CC. An IH Levi would kill a Gallant by falling back and overwatching, as long as CP don't run out.

Edited February 5, 2020 by MajorNese

[Clingy]

I love a Gallant but let’s be honest - how many times has a Gallant been a wrecking ball against a savvy opponent. They tend they shine against newer players or those that don’t have the screen or firepower to deal with them, and in that case you are maybe already winning

 

New rules are needed. I would love to include a Gallant in my lists but even with crusaders(best of the bunch imo) it can be a Rock Paper Scissors against the wrong army

Edited February 5, 2020 by Clingy

[Sword Brother Adelard]

 

 

Don't some of the IH Levi buffs not apply in the fight phase? What about a charging Gallant?

Duty Eternal halves all damage for that phase, and is locked to once per phase, just like RIS.

Meaning a charging Gallant would force the Levi user to spend another CP (reducing a Gallant's CC weapons to 3D), but Ironstone still works until start of next round (so only 2D), and it still has to get through the 4++.

 

Which inflicts an average of 2.7W on the Levi per fight phase, at the cost of 3.4W (>8" charge) or 5W (heavy flamer range) lost on the Gallant in IH overwatch (assuming there is no Chapter Master nearby).

It was Cogitated Martyrdom I was thinking of, which isn't really a massive issue compared to all the rest.

[Ishagu]

The IH Levi is an unfortunate outlier that doesn't have any practical solution aside from patience on our part. GW will get around to it.

[MajorNese]

Yeah, Martyrdom is kinda unnecessary for the Levi - it's designed to soak up multiwound shots that would target a character. Considering how hard a levi is reducing multiwound shots already, it would be irrelevant for the current case. And locked to characters, which offers not much else for a levi, unlike the (as characters untargetable) <10W dreads.

But yes, it's the one thing that explicitly only works in the Shooting Phase.

 

Even ignoring the Levi, Astartes have enough tools and default AP to pick apart knights. IF are quite famous for their AT, BA for smashing single targets. And I know my Raptors would enjoy facing an army with low model count, inability to CC stuff on the 2nd floor, and character keyword on the most relevant models. My current favorite QRF of 8 bolter Inceptors alone would kill half a character knight per turn...

[sneakybamsen]

If you move away from ITC missions you'll find that Marines aren't as dominant.

 

I wouldn't agree with that. Even without the ITC rulespack applied, IH and RG (successors) are very much ruling supreme, at least where I play. The last tournament (ETC) I went to was won by a guy who had won a similar tournament the day before with the exact same IH list. My club buddy got to play against it in the second round. Even his RG successors with assault centurions got obliterated.

[brother_b]

Yup power creep is horrendous as is rules bloat. Tournament balance is a hard thing to accomplish. IH even heal better than our priests it’s an uphill battle. My infantry don’t feel strong enough.

 

For knights it seems really easy to focus fire down because they have so few targets. How about more armigers providing more targets?

[MajorNese]

For knights it seems really easy to focus fire down because they have so few targets. How about more armigers providing more easier weaker targets?

Fixed that.

Armigers with just T7 are a prime target for those stormcannons, and will be wounded twice as much by the blobs of IF/IH stalker bolters compared to T8. Those are definitely not the solution...

[brother_b]

 

 

For knights it seems really easy to focus fire down because they have so few targets. How about more armigers providing more easier weaker targets?

Fixed that.

Armigers with just T7 are a prime target for those stormcannons, and will be wounded twice as much by the blobs of IF/IH stalker bolters compared to T8. Those are definitely not the solution...

Didn’t think about that. I’ve got 6 Armigers or so on the build table. Do you not take them at all in your knights list? I’ve only played twice with knights using a friends. I’ve played a ton of games with Admech only though.

 

What is the Armiger’s roll in armies then? I would think the Helverin is quite the counter to marine intercesors and other high save high wound infantry.

 

I’ve got two warglaive, two Helverin, and two moirax.

Edited February 9, 2020 by brother_b

[hermanista]

Helverin is overrated since the lightning lock arrived.

 

That -2 ap makes a huge difference and it's a certain 12+ potential shots a turn is massive.

[MajorNese]

 

Didn’t think about that. I’ve got 6 Armigers or so on the build table. Do you not take them at all in your knights list? I’ve only played twice with knights using a friends. I’ve played a ton of games with Admech only though.

Never played a pure knights list - I've stocked up on centerpieces that don't make up a well-rounded, playable army. Even less so once the Asterius is done.

Armigers were prime candidates for my AdMech lists - the pure profile is very similar to Onagers (T7 3+ 5++), so I used Warglaives to distract from Onagers and Helverins to do roughly the same as Onagers. Those vehicles are not solid enough to survive, so I bring more.

 

But it has been quite a while since I've played AdMech, I'd guess 8 months. Lack of options makes armies boring for me, nothing new to try out. I'm just getting back on track and filling the gaps to get AdMech up to speed again.

 

Helverin is overrated since the lightning lock arrived.

 

That -2 ap makes a huge difference and it's a certain 12+ potential shots a turn is massive.

Just did the math. Helverin is better for two things - against T7 models with 3W (or multiples of 3W), which is quite a selection of vehicles and monsters. Otherwise, the total damage is the same as Lightning Lock, or less if the target has only 2W per model. Second thing would be flyers, which are not just usually T6/7, but also easier to hit with Skyreaper Protocols.

 

So yes, Helverins lost quite a bit of roles due to Lightning (which also doubles as the ultimate horde lawnmower), but as AT and with longer range are certainly not wasted.

[hermanista]

Which is why the Locks win out, I've had mine butcher loyal 32s and tau fire warriors when clearing out picket lines is needed for the big boys, then don't feel bad when they sneak that last one or two wounds from a model that a crusader has hosed but not quite finished off.

 

Saturation bombardment on a Vulker moirax is even better.

 

For a more fun game, one of these days I'm gonna chuck Headsmans mark on one as a Warlord for giggles. Running out with 12 shots at Damage 3, -2 vs a knight will be quite funny

[MajorNese]

For a more fun game, one of these days I'm gonna chuck Headsmans mark on one as a Warlord for giggles. Running out with 12 shots at Damage 3, -2 vs a knight will be quite funny

Can't check right now, but IIRC Exalted Court was restricted to Dominus and Questoris pattern, so no Armigers. Not even Acastus/Cerastus, which would make more sense...

 

And yes, for horde clearing the Lightning ones are the best thing we have, especially on that price point. My favorite Astartes unit (bolter Inceptors in tac doctrine) behaves quite similar (just S5 instead of S6), and the number of shots paired with good strength and AP do bring down anything it's pointed at. Takes longer on vehicles, but numbers and AP make it somewhat reliable.

[Focslain]

 

For a more fun game, one of these days I'm gonna chuck Headsmans mark on one as a Warlord for giggles. Running out with 12 shots at Damage 3, -2 vs a knight will be quite funny

Can't check right now, but IIRC Exalted Court was restricted to Dominus and Questoris pattern, so no Armigers. Not even Acastus/Cerastus, which would make more sense...

 

 

True you can't target an armigar with Exalted Court, but you can make one your primary warlord to give it a trait.

[hermanista]

 

 

 

 

For a more fun game, one of these days I'm gonna chuck Headsmans mark on one as a Warlord for giggles. Running out with 12 shots at Damage 3, -2 vs a knight will be quite funny

Can't check right now, but IIRC Exalted Court was restricted to Dominus and Questoris pattern, so no Armigers. Not even Acastus/Cerastus, which would make more sense...

True you can't target an armigar with Exalted Court, but you can make one your primary warlord to give it a trait.

That was the intent yeah :)