2000 Points, Imperial Knights for a League

[chapter master 454]

So with a league occurring in a wargaming club I go to, I thought I would take a go at it with my knights because...well I thought I would be a silly goose and see how far I can get in an environment where tournament players are the normal and thus likely get rocked. However I love my knights and they deserve a chance...and I also like playing an underdog.

 

Super Heavy Detachment

 

Questor Allegiance: Mechanicus

Household: Taranis

 

Knight Warden

Ironstorm Missile Pod, Thunderstrike Gauntlet, Heavy Stubber

Warlord Trait: Ion Bulwark

Relic: Sanctuary

Points: 450

 

Knight Gallant

Melta Gun

Warlord Trait (Exalted Court): Land Strider

Relic (Heirlooms of the Household): Armour of Sainted Ion

Points: 405

 

Knight Preceptor

Ironstorm Missile Pod, Thunderstrike Gauntlet, Multi-Laser

Points: 425

 

Armiger Warglaive Squadron

3 Armiger Warglaives with Heavy Stubbers

Points: 405

 

Armiger Helverin Squadron

2 Armiger Helverins with heavy stubbers

Points: 310

 

Total: 1995

Command Points after strats at game start: 10

 

 

So this entire list got revised so I decided to just wipe the old post effectively and do this fresh though I will make some notes towards the former list.

First the cutting of the castellan is down to not feeling the lack of numbers. While it certainly will delete targets it is a lot of eggs in one basket that I don't need, I don't need that sort of firepower for my list. This was further confirmed once the league lists were locked in (which this is the final list now as it is) as there is only one other Imperial Knights in the league and while there are a fair few Death Guard, there isn't a lot of heavy armour going around that such weapons would be needed, Avenger Gatling Cannon and the Las-Impulsor with capacitor charge stratagem will be more than enough to delete armour.

 

I decided to pull on what other tournament lists seem to lean into but I wanted to take some variety with my list believing in the firepower of knights from the core codex, both because while I do like the visuals of the lightning cannon in my head, I couldn't justify it in my heart. I will get a Maegera when I WANT one, not when the meta dictates it. So I fell back on the Warden with the Avenger Gatling Cannon, the ever faithful and anti-everything gun that it is plus the stratagem from engine war making it pretty vicious to get close to (makes it auto-hit but range becomes 8"). The Preceptor is an odd choice but chosen for points AND weapon effectiveness, the damage typing on the Las-Impulsor is very good, the low power shot being D3 damage means even death guard could get some bad luck against it for their infantry and the stratagem for the high power making just raw 6 shots makes the thing near enough a discount volcano lance.

 The Gallant is taken as the "beep beep, coming through" unit where it is designed to just barrel into the centre and just stop on whatever is gets into, being a really annoying threat you have to deal with and due to being a gallant, is hard to fight. It was considered to have +1 attack instead but I chose consistency over offence power because...I have offence power in excess already.

The armigers further augment frontline and backline positioning, the Helverins adding meaty range threat and anti-infantry clearing while the warglaives give more melee pressure that is fairly throw away. The two shooting knights also take the Ironstorm Missile pod, a consideration for having access to ignore LoS weaponry, as knights could have a hard time getting stragglers due to how cover works so these weapons are taken to help clear out units that are hiding away or deal with lone models who think they can hide on an objective somewhere.

 

Main issues will be objectives. Looking at field, it is fairly diverse in opponents meaning I can't really rely too much on one objective being good against all. There is a thousand sons army there so...that helps for one game however my first game will be against tyranids. In this regard I mainly intend to take "while we stand" (or "to the last" whichever it is called") and that has been manipulated within my list. Normally he gallant would of been cheaper than the armigers but thankfully the meltagun pushes it to being equal and thus I get to chose between them. Thus my 3 big knights are the targets for this, followed by taking ether Engage on all Fronts OR line breaker, depending on what I am facing. Linebreaker if I feel the enemy is light on chaff and being able to road-block me and in all other cases engage on all fronts.

 

Hopefully, my knights can put a bit of elbow grease in and overcome the lack of ObSec by means of "you can't have ObSec if you aren't alive", thus going for full objective clears and using their large bases to hopefully make it harder to approach and get close.

Edited October 3, 2021 by chapter master 454