40K: How-To Deal With Knights
The Knight Codex will drop sometime soon* no doubt, and accompanying it, all the tough 7+ 20+ wound models you can hope to manage. Sporting enough weapons for even an Ork Nob, these things will be tough–so how will *you* deal with them?
Imperial Knights can be a problem for any army that’s not prepared to deal with them. When the codex comes out, it’ll be interesting to see how the game changes. Because being able to deal with Knights is a pretty good benchmark for an army’s firepower. Odds are good if you can take down multiple knights, your army’s in good shape. Now the obvious answer might seem to be just bring all of the Melta weapons you can–but that will only get you so far. After all Melta weapons are only one shot, and that’s a big problem.
Dark Reapers
I mean, there’s a reason these guys are around, still. Sure they’re a little less kill-y now that the FAQ has hit them, but they can put out a significant volume of heavy firepower. Enough that your opponent might actually fail some of those saves. And with each hit dealing multiple wounds, they’re in a great spot to put the hurt on a Knight.
Venomthropes
Alright, so this isn’t exactly one for actually killing the knights–but more for keeping your enemies safe when you do. A Knight army is bound to have fewer models than yours, so being able to penalize them means that you’re imposing a penalty on a much larger percentage of your army. That -1 to hit, especially when combined with other powers that penalize Knights means that you’ll stand a much better chance of getting your units where you want them… probably not in close combat.
Solitaire
As we pointed out earlier, a Harlequin Soliaire can just roll up and wreck a Knight’s face if it rolls well. Mind you that’s if it rolls well–and you want to be sure you take it out, because it’ll be a hard time surviving the punch back. But still, getting a hard hitting melee unit in there can hurt.
Chaos Sorcerers
Especially if you’re the Thousand Sons. You’ve got access to a lot of Smite–but Knights are protected against that. What they aren’t protected against are the other abilities you have that can deny a Knight a big portion of survivability. Things like Death Hex, or if you are running Nurgle, Miasma of Pestilence, again can deny the Knight their biggest assets.
Imperial Knight
I mean, if you can’t beat them, you may as well join them. And then also beat them. Nothing like a Knight to take down another knight–they’ve got the firepower for it. Knights are curiously suited for taking out other knights.
Now obviously this is just a small cross-section of the tools available to armies to take down Knights. Some armies will find it easier than others. Orks might be very sad to face off against one of these tiny titans, for instance, but who knows–their codex is a ways off too. What orkgenuity might bring down a Knight? Only one way to find out.
How will your army handle Imperial Knights? Let us know in the comments
*So about two months from its scheduled release, according to the Big FAQ’s “soon.”
