I really don't think you're approaching this very well Dave. Rather than building on the strengths of the existing Developmental list that's been worked on for a number of years, you seem to be throwing it out and pretty much starting from scratch, proposing different special rules, doubling the DC of the knights and significant changes to what's in the list such as adding infantry, removing titans or asking if the list should have sentinels when these have a core element of the armoured walker theme of the list for years now.
The list has had at least several reported playtests and been used in at least 3 tournaments, but you weren't aware of this and seem not to have done much research on the development of the existing list before disregarding it. I'm not aware of any great dissatisfaction with the existing list and going back to basics so much seems disrespectful to the players and developers of the list till now. Knights are a bit of a niche army as not that many people will have large numbers of them to run an army with, so I doubt there'll be that many player's testing knights no matter what list it's under and starting again could take longer to balance and get the list approved than making smaller changes to the existing list.
I disagree with the 'looks like a 40k army so must mix in infantry' argument. The old knight models don't look anything like anything from 40k. The list allows all knight armies to be run if a player chooses, but the more competitive lists will include sentinels and artillery too, providing some obviously smaller units along with them too. Good modellers will include trees, ruins, vehicles, ect on the bases of their Knights that help get across the scale when people look at them too. It helps to base them on the same height bases as other epic models too, rather than using 40k bases.
Dave wrote:
GlynG wrote:
What's the motivation for wanting to add infantry Dave?
The majority. The list has had two themes, I'd like to pick one and stick with it
I question that. It's not a matter of fact that there have been two different themes for the Knights, you've just categorised into a couple of different ways in this thread.
You seem not to like it, but the existing list has a strong theme of it's own already – walking piloted fighting vehicles: knights, sentinels (aspiring to be knights) and titans, plus supporting artillery and aircraft.
You've asked people to choose between two different directions you've defined without including the existing direction as an option. Asked a question to choose between two some will give their favoured of the two, whereas if you had asked them to choose between
three and presented the current list direction as an option some might have chosen that instead. Running a poll would have been more scientific. In any case I count 6 people in this thread saying they like the existing list theme that doesn't have infantry in, it's clearly contentious rather than clear cut.
A crucial issue at the core of this is - why should a Knight World PDF not fight with Titans? The background for Knight World is that they are closely economically and militarily allied with Forge Worlds and they supply large amounts of food to heavily industrialised/polluted Forge Worlds. It seems
much more likely that a Forge World would choose to send it's titans to help a Knight World under attack rather than to help SM or IG. AM are quite insular, look out for their own and send their limited military aid careful where their interests are at stake (as per the AMs involvement in military actions in multiple Imperial Armour books or the 40k roleplay sourcebook about the AM, I can dig up specific examples if desired).
Before making changes I suggest running two separate polls on 'Should a Knight World army include infantry?' and 'Should a Knight World army include titans?'. That would be a better/fairer way to more accurately gauge the feeling and desire of the community of these issues.