Back from playing Knight World at ETC, and unsurprisingly the topic of "Knights" came up a few times.
One giant issue with Knights is that the main rules have not really been written with these types of formations in mind. This has led to some pretty problematic issues over line or sight and such, which if played in a "Rules as Written" way would make Knight-lists almost unplayable.
As I see it, Knights now in practice play as a hybrid between AV and WE, which means that they really should be considered their own type. These are issues that are fairly OK to deal with in real gaming situations with experienced players. I think it's safe to say that there has developed common sense informal standards over how to deal with WE 2 War Engine formations, particularly in assault situations, and when the formations are being shot at. Shortcuts are being taken so as not to bog down the game too much.
I do think however that these informal standards are at the risk of breaking down with the large sizes of the A-T knights (which people are going to use to play all Knights lists, not just Questoris Mechanicus). The terminator size bases of the new Knights just make everything twice as bad, so in order to reduce the worst absurdities of these bigger base sizes I'd like to propose the following formulation (at least for the Questoris Mechanicus list):
Quote:
Light War Engine Formations
Formations with two or more War Engines that have 2 DC and Walker do not obstruct line of sight or provide "hull down" within the same unit, meaning that shooting and FF line of sight is treated as a non-War Engine formation within (but not through) the unit.
In addition, formations with 2 or more War Engines with 2 DC do not have to roll their Fire Fight and Close Combat dice one at a time, but can roll each separate type of attack collectively. Their fire fight hits can hit any enemy unit, while close combat hits can only hit units in base contact. War Engines with 3 or more DC within such formations however function as normal War Engines (blocking LOS, giving "hull down" etc.) and need to be accounted for separately.
So to reiterate, the idea here is simply to codify what I think is the most common way of playing Knight-type formations that I'm familiar with. But perhaps there are other ways of looking at this that I have not come in contact with?