8e - Knights (+ Super Heavy Detachment)

So the Imperial knights focus dropped this afternoon: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/19/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-imperial-knights/

Some interesting stuff revealed, mainly in the number of wounds, etc of Knights, but also in Stomp being replaced with Titanic Feet, a set of close combat weapons.

What caught my eye at the bottom though is the Super Heavy Detachent.
3-5 Lord Of Wars of the same Faction, and you get three Command Points.
WHat intrigues me here, is thatthe Detachment as shown doesn;t say the Lord Of Wars have to be Super-Heavy, only that they have to be of the same Faction.

From the Datasheets article, we can see that there are multiple Factions. Rubrics for example have Chaos, and Heretic Astartes amongst others.

So 3-5 Lord Of Wars, wh are all Imperial, as a single Detachment.

That could be tanks, but that could als be characters. That could in theory be Guilliman, Calgar, Dante, Azrael and.....I don't know, a Shadowsword.
As a single Detachment of their own.

Gratned the utility of such a Detachment could be called into question, but the fact that its possible raises my eyebrows, especially when it comes to Deathstar bubbles from multiple characters special abilities.
Considering what Guilliman can do currently as an aura, what extra auras might these others characters have that can cross the Imperial or Astrates divide and create death-bubbles of doom?!

Great, the single biggest mistake Games Workshop ever made stayed in.

3-5 Imperial Knight armies was one of the simplest, cleanest examples of 7th edition's rampant "rock paper scissors" problem and 8th has not improved it.

I for one look forward greatly to needing to fire 648 poison shots at a single IK to take it down. One of my favorite parts of 40k has always been when GW allows armies to invalidate all but one of the enemy's weapons in the list-building phase of the game, turning the battle into a simple "did you bring this many anti-tank guns? If so you win, if not you lose" contest. I'm just plain overjoyed that it stayed in.

Well, it looks like I'll still be able to use my 3 wraithknights, assuming they're still good.

14 dark lances to kill a knight, assuming no cover.

Buffs to ravager should help.

Scaling movement, WS and BS for the knights should also help us. Damage them and run

24 wounds, T8, 3+/5++ in shooting.
Each lance does 3.5 average damage: ~6.85 lances.
Each lance has 50% chance to wound: ~13.7 lances.
Each lance has a two thirds chance to hit: ~20.6 lances.
Each lance has a one third chance of being saved: ~30.8 lances.

You need about 31 lances to kill a knight, assuming no cover, not 14.

We'll have to see how much damage can do a talos or grots. CC weapons seems stronger than ranged weapons.

Do we have any information about facing direction? Since side and rear armor is removed from the chart, I suppose there will be an equivalent?

I could imagine that you get +1S if you attack from the sides and +2S if you attack from the rear.
Because with a system like this we could still wound the knights on a 3+ instead.

I will get seriously mad if they removed this aspect of the game for the sake of "simplification".

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Do we have any information about facing direction? Since side and rear armor is removed from the chart, I suppose there will be an equivalent?

I could imagine that you get +1S if you attack from the sides and +2S if you attack from the rear.
Because with a system like this we could still wound the knights on a 3+ instead.

I will get seriously mad if they removed this aspect of the game for the sake of "simplification".

Facings are completely gone.

It's amazing how hard it is for some people to understand this.

Soldiers and units don't have facings for getting shot at or for getting charged so in a game where you're allowed to pivot however you'd like(fliers excluded), I don't think it really matters. You could play your entire army backwards in protest though.

I think that you are missing out on the more wounds caused on vehicles also effect their output. I play a heavy coven list and i believe i have adequate firepower to deal with some imperial knights and we have not seen what changes they have made to more of our armour or high toughness hunters. Once again we are looking at this picture with only a glimpse of our fighting potential.

Granted we do not know points yet for ik or dark lances. Going against 3+ ik's is pretty daunting task. 5ik - 120 wounds, effective against s8 with 5++ 152 DL shots. In what world wouldn't the ik player focus our Dl first.
Situation would be even worse for bs 4+ armies.
I hope we will see some David vs Goliath rule or serious point compensation, eg. in 2k pts army you could max fill with 3 ik's.

The only thing I gleaned from this was that I will finally be able to make my dream come true. I'm gonna make a battleforged list consisting of nothing but Baneblades.

mynamelegend wrote:

I for one look forward greatly to needing to fire 648 poison shots at a single IK to take it down.

On the bright side, T8 ain't the barrier it used to be. If disintegrators keep S5 then they'll wound on 5+, and do 2 damage per wounding shot. A few dissies, some dark lances, add poison to taste, and maybe charge with a Klaivex for the lulz and you'll get there.

Pity they don't suffer any I'll effects until they've lost 12 wounds though. It would have been nicer if it kicked in at 75% wounds.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Well, it looks like I'll still be able to use my 3 wraithknights, assuming they're still good.

SOmehow that hadn't even entered my mind!

With all Detachments being open for all armies, this Super-Heavy Detachment means I could could take an army that literally is 3 Wraithknights, plus BOTH Avatars! (Khaine and Yncarne)
Wow, that is..........oh no..................

All we need now is an Avatar of the Laughing God, and three Avatars is a legal Detachment of its own!

mynamelegend wrote:

24 wounds, T8, 3+/5++ in shooting.
Each lance does 3.5 average damage: ~6.85 lances.
Each lance has 50% chance to wound: ~13.7 lances.
Each lance has a two thirds chance to hit: ~20.6 lances.
Each lance has a one third chance of being saved: ~30.8 lances.

You need about 31 lances to kill a knight, assuming no cover, not 14.

You're right! Forgot "to wound" roll. That's brutal

RedRegicide wrote:

You're right! Forgot "to wound" roll. That's brutal

And yet, it's still better than the average 36 dark lance shots needed in 7ed to kill a Knight. Plus, the rest of the army will now get to help!

I guess you're right, extra help, deep strikes guaranteed (I think), and they weaken over time

Creeping Darkness wrote:

RedRegicide wrote:

You're right! Forgot "to wound" roll. That's brutal

And yet, it's still better than the average 36 dark lance shots needed in 7ed to kill a Knight. Plus, the rest of the army will now get to help!

I never actually faced a Knight before, and assuming your math is right this shocks me but I am glad if it is indeed the case that Knights are now easier to bring down with Lances.

However, we do not yet know the utility of Haywire blasters and Heat lances. Could be awesome could be not.

I think it is fairly easy to speculate on at least the Heatlance: I am predicting the following profile:

Range 18", Strength 6 (maybe 7), AP -5, Damage d6 or 2d6 and pick the highest at half range

Assuming this is the case, does anyone know how many Heat Lances will bring down an IK? I don't know how to do the 2d6 pick the highest math. Thanks in advance.

Just over 24 Heat Lances to down a Knight if your stats are right.

In terms of the average damage calculation, if you roll two dice and take the highest, there are the following possibilities of getting the result N:
Roll double N (1 way to roll on two dice)
Roll N on the first dice and a smaller number on the second dice (N-1 ways to roll on two dice)
Roll N on the second dice and a smaller number on the first dice (N-1 ways to roll on two dice)
Probability of the highest roll being N = (2N - 1) / 36

Therefore, the probabilities:
N Probability
1 1/36
2 3/36
3 5/36
4 7/36
5 9/36
6 11/36

Average result = 161/36

And to calculate the average number of Heat Lances required:
1 shot * 2/3 hits * 1/3 wounds * 161/36 damage = 161/162 wounds per shot
To do 24 wounds requires 24.2 Heat Lances

if heat lance does not do mortal wounds, ik still gets invu.

Fair point, so assuming they still have a 4++ then that would be 48.3 Heat Lances required.

it's a 5++ invuln, and you don't have to choose a facing anymore... all round protection

edit: if it were a 4++, every imperial army would have at least 1!

I don't think Knights will be difficult to fell considering they get substantially worse once you crack those first 12 wounds. They also seem like they'll be paper tigers. Knights don't have many ranged weapons, so those they do have will need to pump out a lot of shots, probably at only 2-3 targets per Knight. Anything that reduces their chance to hit, especially doing damage to weaken their shooting, will make them substantially easier to evade.