Well, I said that there were going to be delays due to the ongoing work at home. Please put this one down to that, as no one could hear a single thing anyone was saying, or their own thoughts, thanks to the relentless fucking hammering going on due to DIY. That and the lack of any actual office.
So, here we are with the units and their formations. The trouble with forming an Imperial Knights force up until now was that there was little in terms of their overall range. Sure, the basic Knights had a good basis for various weapons and builds, but it was akin to completely building an army out of Rhino variants. You could technically cover everything, but it lacked variety and had a few obvious blind spots. Even with additional AA support, the army lacked versatility, and the new rules' emphasis on infantry over vehicles or massive monsters (which I fully endorse, don't get me wrong) left them at a disadvantage. So, we ended up with both bigger and smaller units to cover the gaps.
Make no mistake, the mechanics behind the book were fighting an even bigger uphill battle than those writing the lore. Not only was the core meta working against them, but there was also the issue of trying not to break from a core theme behind the army of gigantic mechs while offering tactical versatility. Something even looking back into the original Knights would not wholly resolve.
Now, before we actually get onto the units themselves, there is something we need to look into - The special rules which dictate how they fight. You see, you have the opportunity to tailor your knights capabilities, at least to a certain point a-la chapter tactics style additions. Something I'm very thankful for, as this can be applied both to Freeblades and entire houses.
Household Traditions
Questor Imperialis
House Terryn - Gallant Warriors: As the Ultramarines stand-in for the book - right down to their blue - you might think that this allows them to do more tactical drops or planned advances. Well, not quite. Instead, you gain the ability to roll two D6 when advancing or charging and pick the highest result. This might seem rather underwhelming at first glance, but nine times out of ten it's going to be very useful. Most of your units are things you are going to want in melee to take advantage of their chainblades or to emulate the classic pick-up-and-throw actions via thunderstrikes gauntlets. Even when you're not doing this, the chances are that you will wish to pull damaged knights out of the battle and into cover, so a few extra inches can be a real bonus. So, while it's not all that flashy, it's a surprisingly effective practical option.
House Griffith - Glory of the Charge: You sacrifice most of your units to have your leader gain daemonic powers.
...
Alright, look, I went through the entire lore section without making a single Berserk joke in it, at least let me have that one. In all seriousness, this adds +1 to the Attack value of a model upon charging or making a Heroic Intervention. There's also the added bonus of allowing models to do Interventions as if they were characters. It's a good way to initiate some serious damage to break an enemy army in an opening charge, but it's not the best option on here. An assault heavy choice where you mob a few single targets before picking off the remnants. It leaves you a bit tactically limited on the whole, even if it can be effective.
House Hawkshroud - Oathkeepers: This is easily the best option for one easy reason - It directly counters the knights' greatest shortcoming. When you're calculating stats degradation and damage, you count your knights as having twice as many wounds, allowing them to remain extremely combat effective even on the verge of death. This really means that you can have a knight left with little more than a metal skeleton, and they will be fighting far harder than their counterparts. Honestly, this alone means we will likely see a fair few Hawkshroud armies in the years to come.
House Cadmus - Hunters of the Foe: This tradition offers you the chance to re-roll all failed wounds in the Fight phase when you're going up against anything with less than 12 wounds. This means you're going to be curb-stomping a few marines into the ground - literally, as your stomp abilities are going to inflict some serious damage against mobs. It's a nice general purpose option, even if it does lack some character.
House Mortan - Close-Quarters Killers: As you might guess from the name, Mortan is the house you go for when you want to make enemies take a twelve-meter long chainsaw to the face. While this is universally true of almost all knights, in this case, you gain +1 to all hits during the fight phase, when your units charge, are charged, or initiate Heroic Interventions. It's an alright bonus to have, and there are detinite situations where it is very helpful, but it's definitely the weakest on here.
Questor Mechanicus
House Raven - Relentless Advance: With Raven being the big Martian name of this section, this one subverts what you might expect by being more generally skilful than just giving them a big tech boost. With this one your knights do not suffer from penalties upon firing after advancing, as it immediately makes all of your ranged heavy weapons count as assault weapons.
This is the ying to House Terryn's yang, with a benefit to shooty options over getting in close and personal. While it does leave you with fewer opportunities to ensure the survival of your knights, it does still allow you quite a few substantial benefits in regards to mobile engagements. Crusaders and Armiger Warglaives are the most obvious ones here which will definitely benefit from this, and it means you can both sweep forward while providing covering fire, and perform swift withdrawals. It's a pretty good one on the whole, and it wouldn't a surprise to see certain Knights lists written to favour it.
House Taranis - Omnissiah's Grace: Your models gain a 6+ Feel No Pain roll against all non-mortal wounds. It's alright really, but aside from possibly covering for the inability to allow ion shields to provide protection at close range, there's nothing too fantastic about this one.
House Krast - Cold Fury: This one is identical to the main benefit of House Mortan with one definite big bonus here - It also counts as continually in effect when you are fighting units with the Titanic special rule. This effectively means that you're fielding a house of giant killers, well suited to initiating charges against most mobs, but having a distinct edge when bringing down other big opponents. It's not too brilliant, and much more could be done with it, but more than a few players will definitely find uses for this one.
House Vulker - Firestorm Protocols: This final one is another close-range option, which this time benefits shooting, at least with the nearest unit. When targeting the nearest model, you gain a re-roll to any 1s. This means that, when you are firing off a weapon which relies on a single lucky attack, you have a bit more of a safety net and it also helps for players to more freely use the overcharged Plasma Decimator on the Castellan. We'll explain that in a minute but basically 1 = boom! in that case.
On the whole, it's not bad. The big problem here is that it does lack ambition and has been written with an effort to try and cover every base in terms of general tactics or desirable bonuses. I can personally see why given how big of a shift this has been, but there was more that could have been done with some of these to make them stand out more. In particular, Vulker, Taranis, and Mortan at least could have benefited from designers re-thinking a few things. So, it's alright, but a bit flawed certainly.
Normally that would be it for most armies, but with Freeblades having such prominence here, there's an entire second list to go through. While this might seem gratuitous or as if it's padding, this actually makes a lot of sense in many regards. More than a few people fielded Knights as a bonus unit to their big armies, so by having a dedicated house focused list followed by rules more suited to individuals, you end up with the best of both worlds. People who want singularly strong knights can work with one, and those wishing to field full armies can utilise the other.
Freeblades
Qualities
These are the big bonuses of the section, each a benefit which buffs the Knight, only to be offset by the second list below.
Indomitable: You add a single Wound and one extra point to Leadership. Leadership can help when facing certain targets and a bonus wound isn't bad, but it's not exactly a great one.
Last of Their Line: Re-roll 1s to hit when facing units of 10 or more models.
This deactivates when the unit you face drops below ten models and only works in melee. Same comment as above, but it is more helpful when culling Tyranid swarms or the like.
Legendary Hero: One free re-roll for your hits, wounds, damage, charge or save per round.
Probably one of the best here, as you can apply the re-roll to any multitude of situations or desperate moments where one is needed, and it can further stack atop of other buffs. Definitely consider this one.
Mysterious Guardian: The Freeblade can now make Heroic Intervention as if it were a Character and has a distance of 6".
Peerless Warrior: Roll a D6. On a 1 to 3, you add add 2" to the model's overall movement. On a 4-5, add a single point to WS. On a 6, do the same but to BS.
While irksome given its random nature, most of these do have some benefit to them and helps to give the Freeblade a bit more of an edge in most battles. Not bad, but it feels as if the first result should have covered only 1s and 2s.
Sworn to a Quest: Re-roll 1s when trying to hit the enemy Warlord, and it allows the Freeblade to provide standard Objective Secured actions on targets, but you still only count as one(!) model while doing so. Not bad, but very skippable.
Burdens
Driven to Slaughter: The Knight's BS is reduced to 6+ and can no longer use Fall Back. This is useful on the more close combat built knights, but for the most part this is likely one you will want to avoid.
Exiled in Shame: You cannot use any strategems on a Freeblade. This covers all strategems across the board, both within the Knights code and others apparently, and as such it might cause a few problems with certain army builds. Overall, it's not too penalizing in the majority of cases.
Haunted by Failure: Any hits at range or in melee with the result of a 6 must re-roll their dice. This is mixed really, as on the one hand is can be very easily ignored, but on the other there are a multitude of attacks or results reliant on getting a 6 as a result. Situational to be sure, but it's a more desirable weakness than most.
Impetuous Nature: The Freeblade channels his inner Black Templars and begins moving towards the nearest enemy unit with each action, and must declare charges against any enemy unit within 12", unless it's already locked in melee. This makes it a good bullet magnet, but it does mean that you end up with a dead Freeblade nine times out of ten thanks to the inability to withdraw or hide them behind something.
Obsessed with Vengeance: This doubles up with Impetuous Nature but with an emphasis on dakka rather than running. It forces you to both target the nearest visible enemy unit in the shooting phase, and then declare charges only against this during the Charge phase. It's not too bad as it doesn't hamper you all that much, but it does mean that you might have to position your knight in a place where they will be facing off against a desirable unit to blow their way through.
Weary Machine Spirit: You count only half of your remaining wounds when judging via the Damage Chart, meaning that your Freeblade's stats degrade at twice its normal speed. It's probably the worst of the bunch, but this can be offset in a number of general ways such as with the Mechanicus Knights via Machine Spirit Resurgent.
Burdens
Driven to Slaughter: The Knight's BS is reduced to 6+ and can no longer use Fall Back. This is useful on the more close combat built knights, but for the most part this is likely one you will want to avoid.
Exiled in Shame: You cannot use any strategems on a Freeblade. This covers all strategems across the board, both within the Knights code and others apparently, and as such it might cause a few problems with certain army builds. Overall, it's not too penalizing in the majority of cases.
Haunted by Failure: Any hits at range or in melee with the result of a 6 must re-roll their dice. This is mixed really, as on the one hand is can be very easily ignored, but on the other there are a multitude of attacks or results reliant on getting a 6 as a result. Situational to be sure, but it's a more desirable weakness than most.
Impetuous Nature: The Freeblade channels his inner Black Templars and begins moving towards the nearest enemy unit with each action, and must declare charges against any enemy unit within 12", unless it's already locked in melee. This makes it a good bullet magnet, but it does mean that you end up with a dead Freeblade nine times out of ten thanks to the inability to withdraw or hide them behind something.
Obsessed with Vengeance: This doubles up with Impetuous Nature but with an emphasis on dakka rather than running. It forces you to both target the nearest visible enemy unit in the shooting phase, and then declare charges only against this during the Charge phase. It's not too bad as it doesn't hamper you all that much, but it does mean that you might have to position your knight in a place where they will be facing off against a desirable unit to blow their way through.
Weary Machine Spirit: You count only half of your remaining wounds when judging via the Damage Chart, meaning that your Freeblade's stats degrade at twice its normal speed. It's probably the worst of the bunch, but this can be offset in a number of general ways such as with the Mechanicus Knights via Machine Spirit Resurgent.
So, with that over and done with, let's delve into these units and see how they hold up in this new edition.
Sir Hekhtur “The Chainbreaker” and Canis Rex
Now this one was a surprise. After several editions of treating each knight effectively as something to be retooled with each army, to have one specifically highlighted as a named character was quite a shock. While there had been one or two in the past, these were typically dedicated to specific campaigns, this was the first to truly be highlighted in their own codex. Aside from some questionable lore behind his actions, he's actually quite an interesting take on the Knights and a good central piece for an army thanks to his rules.
Any Imperial units which flee within 6" of his model get the opportunity to roll a dice, and on the result of a 6 they do not flee. This means that you can have him positioned in a place to easily block fleeing cannon fodder and give your units a chance to get back into the fight before your line breaks. With the smaller Knights this makes him useful for obvious reasons, but the fact it can cover Guardsmen as well makes him a very desirable choice.
His modified Knight Preceptor is armed with a gigantic microscope a Las-Impulsor, a multilaser, and a uniquely powerful version of the thunderstrike pimp hand which hits at 2D6 damage, making him a very fun unit to throw against tanks. Or throw tanks at people. This would be decent enough for a general model, but most impressively is that his stats do not degrade past a certain point when damaged. Both WS and BS starts at 2+ and will not drop below 4+, meaning he will remain fairly effective even when he's metaphorically on his knees. Oh, and when he does topple over, guess what? He gets out personally and starts shooting at things with a pimped out Strength 5 AP 2 pistol, while still retaining all his rules. This does mean he's not as effective as before, but he can still hurt a few things.
Knight Crusader:
The dakka mecha of the army, the Crusader is armed with both an Avenger gattling cannon and either a thermal cannon or repeating battle cannon. It's an option best used as a way of culling troops and crowd control - especially as mobs tend to be one of the big threats to Knight in many key battles - as one weapon can quickly pop open transports while the other cuts them all down. Even without this, it's still a good general purpose response unit at range, as it will cause the likes of Predators some serious damage if positioned correctly. It's one best kept to cull the Orks and Tyranids when you end up facing them.
Knight Errant:
This one is much more of a dedicated tank hunter, and a good way of quickly countering most heavy armour lists, especially those of the Imperial Guard. The thermal cannon is short ranged, but will melt through the front armour of just about any major offensive tank it is pointed at. Simultaneously, as the ion shield offers a good general defense at range, you have no reason not to get in close and hack your foe to bits with the reaper chainsword. Combined with its generally cheap price and the option to add in the famed pimp hand of doom, it's a solid overall choice.
Knight Gallant:
Besides the +2 WS this Knight has over its contemporaries, having five attacks standard and two sets of close combat weapons means that this is a frontline fighter. Your main tactics will typically involve getting in as close as possible to an enemy, with as little damage, before punching them in the face. While it can be fitted with the standard carapace weapons, in most battles these will be completely wasted on this vehicle, while the optional heavy stubber just takes up a slot that will never be of real use to you.
These guys are almost certain to draw the most firepower from any enemy force, as they're the ones typically at the head of any attack. Get them in close and they will reap a heavy toll on enemy troops before going down, while their two main weapons are among the best options for quickly dispatching monsters. With some extreme luck and even a few buffs (such as House Terryn's benefits), you can end up making a turn one charge on some smaller boards. Just keep in mind that you might want to keep them back for a short while or using them to deny enemy advances, before throwing them away in a one-man attack.
Knight Paladin:
This is the standard knight you see in most artwork, outfitted both with the blade weapon and battle cannon. It's not quite the jack of all trades some drum it up as, but in the recent edition, the combination of 84" firing range and strong melee makes it viable for most situations. It's likely that in most games you will end up using it in one of two roles - Either getting in close and personal very early on, or hanging back and initiating supporting fire before ripping the foe a new rear end. For the most part they serve as a good method of denying enemy movement, as they can lay down considerable supporting firepower, while the chainsword is nasty enough to make enemies refuse to approach it. In addition to this, they serve as good AA platforms for their autocannon turrets, as they're fast enough to quickly reposition themselves, but will have plenty of opportunities to remain in static positions. Oh, and there's the bonus that it's cheaper than the Crusader as well.
Knight Warden:
This is an option that's even more of an all-rounder than the Paladin, with a gatling cannon in place of the battle cannon. While it has a greater divide between the roles of its weapons, the raw damage output of each makes it good for countering one type of foe at a time, either multiple gun fodder at a range or a brick shit house in melee. It's probably the best option to be given a fist as well, thanks to its substantially cheaper price. This means that you can more easily field a counter to heavy armour units such as Land Raiders, while also having enough room to field more knights. Given the already limited tactical flexibility of these armies, this makes the Warden a definite must for most lists.
Knight Preceptor:
Taking up the only big change to the standard build of Knights, the Preceptor is another weapons swap design which outfits the unit with a las impulsor and a chainsword. Common stuff, but the bonus here stems from its specialist Mentor rule, which allows nearby Armigers to re-roll 1s to hit. This is an interesting one, in that it both reflects something seen in the Imperial Knights novels and also gives a few new building options for certain lists. For the most part, however, you will typically find yourself only fielding this and two or three Armigers due to the costs involved. It's a good way of getting some extra firepower, but I can see the novelty of it becoming something of a trap for those who don't fully account for all facets of this Edition's rules.
Armiger Knight Warglaive:
The smaller scale Armigers are more or less what you would expect here, as they both are more numerous and less durable on the whole. With 12 Wounds plus a 3+ standard and 5+ invulnerable save, but the Toughness 7 stat means that it will be able to avoid being truly hurt by the likes of heavy bolters with ease.
The Warglaive version is outfitted with both a Thermal Cannon and a reaper chainsword downsized, a Thermal Spear (30" S8 AP-4 Assault) and Chain-Cleaver respectively. While this might seem like an odd choice given their squisher status than the normal Knights, these guys can still take a fair amount of punishment and also have a 14" movement to overcome this small detail. They have four attacks standard which makes their general strikes in melee quite effective, but it's all the more so when you account for how their weapons can be used. The cleaver can be activated in one of two ways, either to Strike (which doubles the Knight's Strength 6 standard blows along with AP-3) and also Sweep (which hits at AP-2, standard Strength and doubles the number of hit rolls you can make). This allows them to both severely hamper units engaging them in melee while mobbing attacks on light vehicles or opposing walkers. They lack the versatility or adaptability of the likes of Dreadnoughts, but they also have enough power and speed to cause most foes serious problems.
Armiger Knight Helverin:
With one melee version, you can probably guess that this is the dakka version here. Rather than having a set of weapons, it's outfitted with two autocannons with a few upgrades to them. With an astounding 60" range, they have 4D3 shots at Strength 7 each. The range here is especially important, as combined with their speed it allows them to serve as a quick response and sniper unit, either ripping through heavy infantry such as Terminators or whittling away against stronger targets. They also serve as a good anti-air option, as their sheer volume of shots immediately offsets the -1 result to hit while the strength will keep causing problems.
Their range is likely to assist the obvious disadvantages faced in melee, as they can be much more easily overwhelmed by a solid unit of anti-vehicle infantry units or even opposing walkers. While the extended range might make them seem like a hard hitting option, they do go down surprisingly easily to thunder hammers, or a dedicated melee walker such as a wraith-blade equipped Wraithlord or Furioso Dreadnought. As such, you're more likely to keep them back as snipers or ambush predators rather than using them as a source of firepower. They make for good harassment options and distractions, but their tough but brittle build means that they can easily fall apart under unfavourable circumstances.
Dominus Knight Castellan:
The Dominus are the biggest of the new Knights, and are more akin to a down scaled Warlord Titan than a true Knight. Well, okay, they're not quite at that point and they at least avoided going so far as Forge World did, but the sheer number of guns and boost in size helped this thing to stand out from its opponents. The Dominus' baseline stats are what you would expect from something of its build. The Knight is much slower and with Toughness 8 and 28 wounds it's not likely to die any time soon. However, they have not been built with close combat in mind, as their WS 4+ leaves them at a notable disadvantage, and they should be treated more as mobile gun platforms than something to spearhead assaults on targets.
The Castellan is the long range version of the two here, as its guns are intended to cover as broad a series of distances across the board as possible. The two Plasma Decimators have a range of 48" and count as Heavy 2D6 Strength 7 AP-3 D2 and can even be overloaded for some extra damage (just with the plasma gun style backfiring risk working against them if they do this). However, on top of this you also have a downsized volcano cannon by the name of the Volcano Lance which hits at Heavy D6 Strength 14 AP-5 D 3D3 when striking at 80". Oh, and then atop of that you also have a set of twin-linked melta turrets, and three hard points for turrets which can be fitted with either range 48" Heavy 2D3 Strength 7 AP-1 Damage 3 Siegebreaker Cannons or Shieldbreaker Missiles which ignore invulnerable saves. The latter option can only be fired off one at a time, and can only be used once per game, but their Heavy 1 Strength 10 AP-4 D D6 at 48" range means that they will inflict some serious damage if they hit.
When these things were announced, people thought that they were getting this:
Actually, it seems they were getting this:
Most of this might seem as if it is heavily weighted in the machine's favour, but they do have several notable weaknesses. The first and most obvious among these is that they tend to fold quickly in close combat, especially against opposing super heavy walkers. Infantry aren't too much of a problem in most situations, but a suicide attack by penal battalion units armed with melta bombs or even a mass teleportation of Terminators could easily ruin your day.
The other issue worth mentioning is that it's definitely trying to keep too many plates spinning at once. It can cover a lot of bases, that's for certain, and its weapons will seriously hurt anything they end up pointed toward. However, with that being said, it will likely need some help finishing off anything which isn't a Titanic target, as most of its weapons are intended to cover a different role within the army. For example, the Siegebreaker Cannons and the Plasma Decimator look like potent weapons on paper both to deal with swarms and high toughness targets such as marines. Yet, it isn't quite capable of killing enough of them compared to the more dedicated Knight Crusader or the other cheaper options. As such, it should be treated as a way to counter massive singular targets such as opposing super heavies, but it needs to be held back for higher point games. Ones where you have enough units which can mop up its targets and cover its flanks.
As weaknesses go, it's actually a good one, as it means you can't have a single big unit and a few throw-away options and expect to win a game. As such, it serves as a powerful weapon, but not a win-everything cudgel to smash away whole armies.
Dominus Knight Valiant:
While the Castellan proved to be a dependable artillery piece, the Valiant exchanges ranged firepower for point blank annihilation. The vast bulk of its weapons are extremely short ranged, but make up for that with sheer damage output. Just to cite the two big ones, the Conflagration Cannon hits with a Flamer style 18" Heavy 3D6 Strength 7 AP-2 Damage 2 attack, while the brilliantly named Thundercoil Harpoon offers up 12" Heavy 1 Strength 16 AP-6 Damage 10. Yes, you did read that correctly. This thing has Strength 16, and doesn't so much shoot vehicles as hit them so hard that the shockwave alone flays armour plating from their superstructures. Not only does the latter option re-roll hits against monsters and vehicles, but it adds on an extra D3 Mortal Wounds to those targets if a hit successfully gets through.
This would normally be the point where I start ranting about how damn broken this machine is, but it has one very obvious weakness: Its range. This thing is tough enough that it will likely survive to reach your lines if you maintain a static position, but a mobile army like the T'au Empire or various Eldar factions will likely keep dancing out of reach of its guns. Furthermore, even those which are more likely to stand their ground have a few ways of dragging it down, either with massed lascannon bombardments, Razorback spamming or the odd Strength 10 weapon. That's also without assuming there's nothing kept in reserve to deliver a killing blow, such as teleporting Terminators or the like.
The Valiant is at its most effective in environments where there is little room to manoeuvre and an immense amount of cover. City battles with broad streets tend to favour this environment, as do boards littered with ruins. Yet, those can also work against it, as they provide environments for armies to split up and hide, and for other groups to chip away at its wounds with attacks from different angles. The best use of this one is to keep it moving forward and use its threat to define where the enemy army moves, while also using the other Knights to flush out targets or prevent them from withdrawing. As such, it's an effective tool, but one which takes luck, skill and some general planning to actually make decent use out of, and even then you might still have it die without earning back its points.
Sacristan Forgeshrine:
This was something of a surprise, as the Forgeshrines were mentioned in passing and had appeared in prior material, but they had largely been ignored up to now. These are the installations which are used to repair and re-arm Knights, and serve as a means to buff their capabilities. Among other things, this means that they can offer a Knight an extra 6" of movement when advancing beyond its nearby range, offer more shots to non-relic cannons, and re-arm any previously fired Shieldbreaker missiles. It's an interesting option, but it is largely immobile and is extremely costly as well. Furthermore, while it can repair damaged Knights, they need to sacrifice a turn of shooting in order to accomplish this.
In siege situations or defensive positions, this one has a definite place in the game, but for the most part it's something you'll likely ignore in favour of most direct damage options.
So, that's the units over and done with. For the most part, it's a pretty reasonable selection. The majority of the Knights translated to this new version of the game with few changes, while the new selections have obvious strengths, but enough shortcomings to avoid the super heavy emphasis that the previous metagame fell into with nothing to effectively counter them. On the whole, it's not as good as one might hope, but infinitely better than what many feared we'd end up seeing.
So, next time we'll be finishing this up with the remaining parts. I can only hope it's sooner, and that I can actually get a few minutes to hear myself think.
The dakka mecha of the army, the Crusader is armed with both an Avenger gattling cannon and either a thermal cannon or repeating battle cannon. It's an option best used as a way of culling troops and crowd control - especially as mobs tend to be one of the big threats to Knight in many key battles - as one weapon can quickly pop open transports while the other cuts them all down. Even without this, it's still a good general purpose response unit at range, as it will cause the likes of Predators some serious damage if positioned correctly. It's one best kept to cull the Orks and Tyranids when you end up facing them.
Knight Errant:
This one is much more of a dedicated tank hunter, and a good way of quickly countering most heavy armour lists, especially those of the Imperial Guard. The thermal cannon is short ranged, but will melt through the front armour of just about any major offensive tank it is pointed at. Simultaneously, as the ion shield offers a good general defense at range, you have no reason not to get in close and hack your foe to bits with the reaper chainsword. Combined with its generally cheap price and the option to add in the famed pimp hand of doom, it's a solid overall choice.
Knight Gallant:
Besides the +2 WS this Knight has over its contemporaries, having five attacks standard and two sets of close combat weapons means that this is a frontline fighter. Your main tactics will typically involve getting in as close as possible to an enemy, with as little damage, before punching them in the face. While it can be fitted with the standard carapace weapons, in most battles these will be completely wasted on this vehicle, while the optional heavy stubber just takes up a slot that will never be of real use to you.
These guys are almost certain to draw the most firepower from any enemy force, as they're the ones typically at the head of any attack. Get them in close and they will reap a heavy toll on enemy troops before going down, while their two main weapons are among the best options for quickly dispatching monsters. With some extreme luck and even a few buffs (such as House Terryn's benefits), you can end up making a turn one charge on some smaller boards. Just keep in mind that you might want to keep them back for a short while or using them to deny enemy advances, before throwing them away in a one-man attack.
Knight Paladin:
This is the standard knight you see in most artwork, outfitted both with the blade weapon and battle cannon. It's not quite the jack of all trades some drum it up as, but in the recent edition, the combination of 84" firing range and strong melee makes it viable for most situations. It's likely that in most games you will end up using it in one of two roles - Either getting in close and personal very early on, or hanging back and initiating supporting fire before ripping the foe a new rear end. For the most part they serve as a good method of denying enemy movement, as they can lay down considerable supporting firepower, while the chainsword is nasty enough to make enemies refuse to approach it. In addition to this, they serve as good AA platforms for their autocannon turrets, as they're fast enough to quickly reposition themselves, but will have plenty of opportunities to remain in static positions. Oh, and there's the bonus that it's cheaper than the Crusader as well.
Knight Warden:
This is an option that's even more of an all-rounder than the Paladin, with a gatling cannon in place of the battle cannon. While it has a greater divide between the roles of its weapons, the raw damage output of each makes it good for countering one type of foe at a time, either multiple gun fodder at a range or a brick shit house in melee. It's probably the best option to be given a fist as well, thanks to its substantially cheaper price. This means that you can more easily field a counter to heavy armour units such as Land Raiders, while also having enough room to field more knights. Given the already limited tactical flexibility of these armies, this makes the Warden a definite must for most lists.
Knight Preceptor:
Taking up the only big change to the standard build of Knights, the Preceptor is another weapons swap design which outfits the unit with a las impulsor and a chainsword. Common stuff, but the bonus here stems from its specialist Mentor rule, which allows nearby Armigers to re-roll 1s to hit. This is an interesting one, in that it both reflects something seen in the Imperial Knights novels and also gives a few new building options for certain lists. For the most part, however, you will typically find yourself only fielding this and two or three Armigers due to the costs involved. It's a good way of getting some extra firepower, but I can see the novelty of it becoming something of a trap for those who don't fully account for all facets of this Edition's rules.
Armiger Knight Warglaive:
The smaller scale Armigers are more or less what you would expect here, as they both are more numerous and less durable on the whole. With 12 Wounds plus a 3+ standard and 5+ invulnerable save, but the Toughness 7 stat means that it will be able to avoid being truly hurt by the likes of heavy bolters with ease.
The Warglaive version is outfitted with both a Thermal Cannon and a reaper chainsword downsized, a Thermal Spear (30" S8 AP-4 Assault) and Chain-Cleaver respectively. While this might seem like an odd choice given their squisher status than the normal Knights, these guys can still take a fair amount of punishment and also have a 14" movement to overcome this small detail. They have four attacks standard which makes their general strikes in melee quite effective, but it's all the more so when you account for how their weapons can be used. The cleaver can be activated in one of two ways, either to Strike (which doubles the Knight's Strength 6 standard blows along with AP-3) and also Sweep (which hits at AP-2, standard Strength and doubles the number of hit rolls you can make). This allows them to both severely hamper units engaging them in melee while mobbing attacks on light vehicles or opposing walkers. They lack the versatility or adaptability of the likes of Dreadnoughts, but they also have enough power and speed to cause most foes serious problems.
Armiger Knight Helverin:
With one melee version, you can probably guess that this is the dakka version here. Rather than having a set of weapons, it's outfitted with two autocannons with a few upgrades to them. With an astounding 60" range, they have 4D3 shots at Strength 7 each. The range here is especially important, as combined with their speed it allows them to serve as a quick response and sniper unit, either ripping through heavy infantry such as Terminators or whittling away against stronger targets. They also serve as a good anti-air option, as their sheer volume of shots immediately offsets the -1 result to hit while the strength will keep causing problems.
Their range is likely to assist the obvious disadvantages faced in melee, as they can be much more easily overwhelmed by a solid unit of anti-vehicle infantry units or even opposing walkers. While the extended range might make them seem like a hard hitting option, they do go down surprisingly easily to thunder hammers, or a dedicated melee walker such as a wraith-blade equipped Wraithlord or Furioso Dreadnought. As such, you're more likely to keep them back as snipers or ambush predators rather than using them as a source of firepower. They make for good harassment options and distractions, but their tough but brittle build means that they can easily fall apart under unfavourable circumstances.
Dominus Knight Castellan:
The Dominus are the biggest of the new Knights, and are more akin to a down scaled Warlord Titan than a true Knight. Well, okay, they're not quite at that point and they at least avoided going so far as Forge World did, but the sheer number of guns and boost in size helped this thing to stand out from its opponents. The Dominus' baseline stats are what you would expect from something of its build. The Knight is much slower and with Toughness 8 and 28 wounds it's not likely to die any time soon. However, they have not been built with close combat in mind, as their WS 4+ leaves them at a notable disadvantage, and they should be treated more as mobile gun platforms than something to spearhead assaults on targets.
The Castellan is the long range version of the two here, as its guns are intended to cover as broad a series of distances across the board as possible. The two Plasma Decimators have a range of 48" and count as Heavy 2D6 Strength 7 AP-3 D2 and can even be overloaded for some extra damage (just with the plasma gun style backfiring risk working against them if they do this). However, on top of this you also have a downsized volcano cannon by the name of the Volcano Lance which hits at Heavy D6 Strength 14 AP-5 D 3D3 when striking at 80". Oh, and then atop of that you also have a set of twin-linked melta turrets, and three hard points for turrets which can be fitted with either range 48" Heavy 2D3 Strength 7 AP-1 Damage 3 Siegebreaker Cannons or Shieldbreaker Missiles which ignore invulnerable saves. The latter option can only be fired off one at a time, and can only be used once per game, but their Heavy 1 Strength 10 AP-4 D D6 at 48" range means that they will inflict some serious damage if they hit.
When these things were announced, people thought that they were getting this:
Actually, it seems they were getting this:
Most of this might seem as if it is heavily weighted in the machine's favour, but they do have several notable weaknesses. The first and most obvious among these is that they tend to fold quickly in close combat, especially against opposing super heavy walkers. Infantry aren't too much of a problem in most situations, but a suicide attack by penal battalion units armed with melta bombs or even a mass teleportation of Terminators could easily ruin your day.
The other issue worth mentioning is that it's definitely trying to keep too many plates spinning at once. It can cover a lot of bases, that's for certain, and its weapons will seriously hurt anything they end up pointed toward. However, with that being said, it will likely need some help finishing off anything which isn't a Titanic target, as most of its weapons are intended to cover a different role within the army. For example, the Siegebreaker Cannons and the Plasma Decimator look like potent weapons on paper both to deal with swarms and high toughness targets such as marines. Yet, it isn't quite capable of killing enough of them compared to the more dedicated Knight Crusader or the other cheaper options. As such, it should be treated as a way to counter massive singular targets such as opposing super heavies, but it needs to be held back for higher point games. Ones where you have enough units which can mop up its targets and cover its flanks.
As weaknesses go, it's actually a good one, as it means you can't have a single big unit and a few throw-away options and expect to win a game. As such, it serves as a powerful weapon, but not a win-everything cudgel to smash away whole armies.
Dominus Knight Valiant:
While the Castellan proved to be a dependable artillery piece, the Valiant exchanges ranged firepower for point blank annihilation. The vast bulk of its weapons are extremely short ranged, but make up for that with sheer damage output. Just to cite the two big ones, the Conflagration Cannon hits with a Flamer style 18" Heavy 3D6 Strength 7 AP-2 Damage 2 attack, while the brilliantly named Thundercoil Harpoon offers up 12" Heavy 1 Strength 16 AP-6 Damage 10. Yes, you did read that correctly. This thing has Strength 16, and doesn't so much shoot vehicles as hit them so hard that the shockwave alone flays armour plating from their superstructures. Not only does the latter option re-roll hits against monsters and vehicles, but it adds on an extra D3 Mortal Wounds to those targets if a hit successfully gets through.
This would normally be the point where I start ranting about how damn broken this machine is, but it has one very obvious weakness: Its range. This thing is tough enough that it will likely survive to reach your lines if you maintain a static position, but a mobile army like the T'au Empire or various Eldar factions will likely keep dancing out of reach of its guns. Furthermore, even those which are more likely to stand their ground have a few ways of dragging it down, either with massed lascannon bombardments, Razorback spamming or the odd Strength 10 weapon. That's also without assuming there's nothing kept in reserve to deliver a killing blow, such as teleporting Terminators or the like.
The Valiant is at its most effective in environments where there is little room to manoeuvre and an immense amount of cover. City battles with broad streets tend to favour this environment, as do boards littered with ruins. Yet, those can also work against it, as they provide environments for armies to split up and hide, and for other groups to chip away at its wounds with attacks from different angles. The best use of this one is to keep it moving forward and use its threat to define where the enemy army moves, while also using the other Knights to flush out targets or prevent them from withdrawing. As such, it's an effective tool, but one which takes luck, skill and some general planning to actually make decent use out of, and even then you might still have it die without earning back its points.
Sacristan Forgeshrine:
This was something of a surprise, as the Forgeshrines were mentioned in passing and had appeared in prior material, but they had largely been ignored up to now. These are the installations which are used to repair and re-arm Knights, and serve as a means to buff their capabilities. Among other things, this means that they can offer a Knight an extra 6" of movement when advancing beyond its nearby range, offer more shots to non-relic cannons, and re-arm any previously fired Shieldbreaker missiles. It's an interesting option, but it is largely immobile and is extremely costly as well. Furthermore, while it can repair damaged Knights, they need to sacrifice a turn of shooting in order to accomplish this.
In siege situations or defensive positions, this one has a definite place in the game, but for the most part it's something you'll likely ignore in favour of most direct damage options.
So, that's the units over and done with. For the most part, it's a pretty reasonable selection. The majority of the Knights translated to this new version of the game with few changes, while the new selections have obvious strengths, but enough shortcomings to avoid the super heavy emphasis that the previous metagame fell into with nothing to effectively counter them. On the whole, it's not as good as one might hope, but infinitely better than what many feared we'd end up seeing.
So, next time we'll be finishing this up with the remaining parts. I can only hope it's sooner, and that I can actually get a few minutes to hear myself think.
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