New Player: Ember Wolves and Knights help

[General Strike]

Hey all, I'm pushing the local scene to get into AT, as we have a bunch of people who have stuff and don't yet play. I love Warhounds and Knights, so want to focus on Ember Wolves. I recently bought a box of Warhounds, Knights, two boxes of terrain, and the rule starter box with gauges and everything. I was thinking I should get another box of Warhounds to get me to 1000 points to start.

 

Should I do my Knights as a separate entity and build a Knight house?

 

Any advice on weapon load outs and purchases will be appreciated.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

My friend plays Audax, usually 6 or more warhounds, plus lancers as support. He runs claws on most of them.

 

Audax claws are really decent. It only takes two hitting to be in with a chance of damaging a Warlord and even one has good odds of damaging Reaver legs. So buy some claws.

[General Zodd]

Building knights into a whole separate household is an interesting question. If I were you, I’d build some knights as support units for your Audax, but paint them in whichever house you like the look of. Household forces are a little peculiar in the fact they basically play completely differently to any normal Titan-based force. The rules (if you want all of them) are scattered across about four different books as well, and there’s a big question mark over which stratagems they can take now, and whether they should have been updated in line with analogous Titan stratagems.

 

I basically got one of each knight to use in support of my Titan Legio, then when I realised I’d made enough for a household force by accident, I made a High King and Standard Bearer, but I’ve only ever fielded them like that once. I think the knight household rules were a bit of an afterthought, and have never really been properly supported by the rules team so far. They are fun, mind you!

Edited April 10, 2022 by General Zodd

[Mandragola]

Firstly, welcome to GW’s best game. You’ll love it.

 

Ember wolves are very popular due to their fiction and they’re pretty effective in AT. Personally they’re not the legio id recommend for first getting started. Having access to only one class of titan seems like it would be a bit dull for purposes of painting and playing. I’d tend to recommend a Legio like Vulpa instead. One unfortunate thing is that the plasma blast gun and Vulcan mega bolter are far better than the other options (perhaps except for an Audax claw) and that can mean you have a lot of very similar engines.

 

That said, if Ember wolves are your favourite then by all means go for it. They work well, helped by the fact that Warhounds are just generally pretty good.

 

In terms of the knights, I’d paint them as a single household but hold off on making them into a household at first. Painting-wise there’s nothing you’d really do differently anyway. The only thing is that you might want to have banners armed all the same as that’s a requirement in household banners that are part of lances (sort of maniples of 3 banners). But you generally want that anyway.

 

Whatever you decide to go for, have fun. I look forward to seeing your results.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Oh yeah, on the knight front the only thing you'll want to do is make sure you have enough of each type to arrange the banners into single loadout.

 

For instance, in a support banner taken by a titan legio, you can take a questoris banner with a mix of weapons, straight out of the box. Which you can't do in a Lance banner, the two options are to buy 9 questoris, build three of each and then you can build three Lance banners and mix and match at will.

I did the other option which was to convert the avengers into spare battle cannons and thermal cannons using plastic rod and spare meltaguns. (Avengers are a bit useless outside of knight households)

[General Strike]

Firstly, welcome to GW’s best game. You’ll love it.

 

Ember wolves are very popular due to their fiction and they’re pretty effective in AT. Personally they’re not the legio id recommend for first getting started. Having access to only one class of titan seems like it would be a bit dull for purposes of painting and playing. I’d tend to recommend a Legio like Vulpa instead. One unfortunate thing is that the plasma blast gun and Vulcan mega bolter are far better than the other options (perhaps except for an Audax claw) and that can mean you have a lot of very similar engines.

 

That said, if Ember wolves are your favourite then by all means go for it. They work well, helped by the fact that Warhounds are just generally pretty good.

I initially chose Ember Wolves because Warhounds are my favorite titans, I love their design! I really like the Iconoclast as well, but couldn't find much info on how they fit into AT.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I've yet to see an iconoclast in person tbh. I've got a standard warmaster, he's seen the table once and it was... Distinctly underwhelming.

[Mandragola]

Iconoclasts are auxiliary titans. The rule is that you can have one of these for every maniple you bring. It isn't part of the maniple though.

 

Auxiliary titans are both types of Warmaster, the Warbringer (though some maniples have those in) and Psi-titans, which are Loyalist-only.

 

Ember wolves aren't allowed Iconoclasts anyway, or anything Reaver-sized or bigger. I think they'll be able to field the dire wolf when it eventually appears.

[General Strike]

Ah, so I maybe shouldn't do Ember Wolves if I want to run the Iconoclast then. I love the Warhound, but don't want to be fully locked into it.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Oh you definitely could run one. It just couldn't be an Audax one. Which doesn't really make much difference rules wise, as it can't go in a maniple anyway. It could be an attached iconoclast from another legio.

 

Then you'd have to choose between it being an Iconoclast from another legio with rules, or no rules. I'd probably lean towards taking no legio rules on it, as for every set of legio rules you field, your opponent gets two extra stratagem points.

[Mandragola]

Ah, so I maybe shouldn't do Ember Wolves if I want to run the Iconoclast then. I love the Warhound, but don't want to be fully locked into it.

This is my point about Audax. Any Legio can run a lot of Warhounds if you want, but Audax are only allowed to run Warhounds. It's a very severe restriction.

 

Solaria are an interesting choice. They can replace compulsory Reavers in any maniple with Warhounds. This allows them to field things like all-warhound Ferrox or Corsair maniples (though if you want full 5-engine maniples some would have to be Reavers). But also there's the all-warhound Lupercal maniple that any Legio can take.

 

In all honesty, the most fun way to play (in my opinion anyway) is to have a bit of a mix of engines. Mix in a couple of Reavers, which are way more reliable if you want your orders to go off or your engines to not overheat. The starter set really is an excellent way to get started in this game because it gives you a perfect starter army. 

[General Strike]

I followed your guys advise, I plan to get the starter set whenever it becomes available in the States. I got a Reaver for cheap on Ebay, so that will give me some Maniple options.

[schoon]

Reavers are great, the Swiss Army Knife of Titans!