giving Knights a good game

One of my best friends, and an excellent gamer, a Rogue Trader veteran, has just bought 6 Imperial Knights, 3xGW and 3xFW.
Ever since the days of Epic he has been looking forward to playing his House.

I want to give him.a good game: I presume my all-comer list won't do, and that I'll be list-tailoring, which I am usually loathe to do.

How would you avoid a dull Rock-paper-scissors game here? 1,500 could be 12 Lance Ravagers, or 12 Hayscourge squads, but that's not going to be fun.

I'm expecting to use Proxies, so any model could be in; what would you do? Corpseclaw? Harley troupe? Lots of Grots?

I'm interested in finding a good game for both of us, and I don't want any big models. (apart from a Verminlord...those things are sooo pretty..!)

Well, the first thing to help people out would be to tell us what point total it will be at. 6 base Knights is a 2,250 point game, and that precludes him doing anything fancier and also can vary depending on which FW variants he has as they tend to bounce around the 400-ish mark and thus are more expensive.

There is also the question of - is that all he's fielding?

Finally there is a question of - define 'good game'? Because my concept and yours might be very different.

I would strongly advise against bringing Corpsethief Claw, Harlies, or Grots to deal with Knights...though maybe with Haywire the Harlies could do something, i suppose, but the other two are practically helpless, especially the Grots who I think can only possibly hurt a Knight with +1 Str via Grotesquierie, and having furious charge going and rolling 6s.

I'd also say don't bring Venoms.

I'd avoid an all flyer army unless you want to paste him.

There are ample tools within our codex to otherwise maul machinery though.

I guess my definition of a good game would be one with changing fortunes, that goes to six rounds, and that with the same matchup the following day, the other player wins!

I know very little about Knights thus far, I'm expecting him to field 4-5, at around the 2,000pt mark.

Im thinking anti-tank shooting to soften, with Taloi going in for cleaning. Still seems a difficult challenge though!

I'm not averse to going unbound and adding things from other codecii: I consider Knights to be inappropriate for 40K, due to their being too powerful, but I want to rise to the challenge of giving my buddy a good game for his £400+ of new toys!

Bringing Talos for cleaning up will leave you with dead Talos's They need 6's to glance him, and in return he will hit them with Strength D. T
One thing DE can do in close combat against these are Archons with 2+ invuln and Haywire Grenades, and that only if the knight doesn't roll 6's to wound and you don't roll 1's to save.
Otherwise, you can bring Wyches to tie them up in close combat, if you want. They at least have the invuln save as well.
Reavers with Cluster Caltrops have a decent chance to remove a few hull points as well.

Shooting IS the way to go, though. Haywire works the best, because the knights mostly ignores the damage table anyways.

Edit: I haven't tried facing this many knights myself yet, but if you bring a battleforged army, I don't think you'll be auto winning if you go all in on anti-tank. In fact I think you'd still be quite hard pressed.

If your not opposed to using allies or another CAD for CWE then take 5 men units of fire dragons in FA venoms. They can DS and disembark between two facings and wait for him to declare his ion shield and just battle focus into the other arc. It's honestly the most efficient Knight killing combo in the game that I have seen so far. 110+55=165 pt knight slayer unit lol.

When I run Fire Dragons with my DE, I tend to have them paired with an Archon w. WWP and Blaster, myself. Same basic principle, but with no risk of scatter.

Thor665 wrote:

When I run Fire Dragons with my DE, I tend to have them paired with an Archon w. WWP and Blaster, myself. Same basic principle, but with no risk of scatter.

But you lose battle focus. I'd rather save points and be able to avoid the ion shield personally. It's only a 1/9 risk to hit the knight on a scatter.

You deep strike so the open topped vehicle is on both side and rear. he chooses where the shield is and shoot from the other side of the vehicle per open topped shooting rules.

Red Corsair wrote:

But you lose battle focus. I'd rather save points and be able to avoid the ion shield personally. It's only a 1/9 risk to hit the knight on a scatter.

I run mine with a WWP archon as well letting me make deepstrikes right on a board edge or anywhere else that would normally be too dicey. The games I am up against a knight, I just let the firedragons disembark and keep the archon in the vehicle so battlefocus isn't lost. Scattering onto the knight often isn't the only risk.

Well its up to you but I would rather not pay a 100 point tax for the archon on a unit that is dead after delivery anyway. Plus you need a raider to utilize an archon inside a transport which I find less useful on the drop and harder to place.

Red Corsair wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

When I run Fire Dragons with my DE, I tend to have them paired with an Archon w. WWP and Blaster, myself. Same basic principle, but with no risk of scatter.

But you lose battle focus. I'd rather save points and be able to avoid the ion shield personally. It's only a 1/9 risk to hit the knight on a scatter.

With 6 models you can control the ion shields in any case via non scattering deepstrike.

Thor665 wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

When I run Fire Dragons with my DE, I tend to have them paired with an Archon w. WWP and Blaster, myself. Same basic principle, but with no risk of scatter.

But you lose battle focus. I'd rather save points and be able to avoid the ion shield personally. It's only a 1/9 risk to hit the knight on a scatter.

With 6 models you can control the ion shields in any case via non scattering deepstrike.

You'll lose half the shots though. Melta is great for armor but not that great when your facing 6hp's, you need to assume some misses and failed pens. I think the scatter risk is more acceptable then the risk of rolling less shots against its exposed facing.

How will I lose half the shots? From the ion shield? Even if that was an issue, fire at a different model in the formation. And if he's not in the formation I doubt I'm losing half my shots, and even if he's in the formation and went full shields wit all of them facing my melta unit, then it still did a good job because it means the rest of my army can now plink away at leisure and the melta unit will *still* get some hits through barring particularly unusual dice results and I could still fire at the facing on the one that lacks the shields because I dropped down splitting a facing - so it's impossible to shield from me in any case. I don't get how I'm losing half my shots - clarify?

Melta is also good versus 6hp when it comes with a +2 adjustment to the damage roll allowing me to cause additional HP loss.

Cheap Dark Artisan formation with 2 upgrades, the +1 fnp and haywire gun on talos. Int 5 for the 2 important ones. Lots of raiders with blasters inside and night shields. Fire dragons deep striking in a raider and disembarking to then use battle focus to pick a shield side is fun. lots of small squads that can threaten them. Ravagers with DL and night shields. surround and shoot the side which doesnt have the shield. Talos with haywire guns are nice maybe a bit too overpriced but they can withstand some fire.

You think DA qualifies as a threat to Knights? I'm not really with you on that one. I agree with the rest as workable though.

It allows an easy hull point off before the knight swings. So you can finish off a knight that has 1-2 hps left. Also it has a TL haywire blaster which is always nice.

DA is fairly proof to their shooting, but it isn't THAT easy to take the HPs off in close combat, though. You have to hit (3+), then make the hurt (also 3+, I'm assuming a Smash attack, since otherwise you only glance on 6's)) for the Talos and 4+/3+ for the Cronos.. Now I don't know about your experience, but a single 3+, followed by 3+, with no rerolls, is a long shot that will whiff as often as it will succeed. And if they fail, they will both go down instantly to S:D attacks and stomps.

And even IF they're lucky enough to take it's final Hull Point, odds are they will all get cought in the Apocalyptic Explosion it leaves behind.

Smash allows rerolls for armor pen unless I am completely wrong.

Thor665 wrote:

How will I lose half the shots? From the ion shield? Even if that was an issue, fire at a different model in the formation. And if he's not in the formation I doubt I'm losing half my shots, and even if he's in the formation and went full shields wit all of them facing my melta unit, then it still did a good job because it means the rest of my army can now plink away at leisure and the melta unit will *still* get some hits through barring particularly unusual dice results and I could still fire at the facing on the one that lacks the shields because I dropped down splitting a facing - so it's impossible to shield from me in any case. I don't get how I'm losing half my shots - clarify?

Melta is also good versus 6hp when it comes with a +2 adjustment to the damage roll allowing me to cause additional HP loss.

If you DS in with 6 models including an archon then you lose battle focus, meaning once your shooting phase starts they just declare their ion shield on the facing you deep struck into. I say half because I am assuming you understand this and would warp in on the line between two facings, meaning your losing shots on any guys on the wrong side of that line. I suppose you can get around this buy using a raider since your shots can come from any point on the hull but I just really don't like the expense the unit becomes at that point for the matchup. It's worth throwing that unit away against an IK but so not worth it against most other armored threats.

The risk of mis-happing with a venom is actually pretty small, especially when you consider you can disembark and battle focus if you scatter into one facing.

I guess it is just a difference between our play styles though. I accept a certain amount of risk in order to keep my units reasonably priced. I just can't stomach the cost of an archon wwp carrier. I mean, you clearly should equip him as well, probably a blaster + shadowfield. That makes him roughly the cost of another unit of firedragons and close to another venom.