There's been a bit of talk about some boost to the resilience to breakage/BMs, another suggestion being that they count double for numbers. Not a big fan of boosting their actual assault capabilities (as they are fairly impressive in an of itself).

The "Disciplined Retreat" thing looks reasonable, but I'm concerned about the quasi-fearless concept. During the development of FrogBear's WorldEaters, he had his Terminators with Fearless. This lead to several situations where breaking them actually IMPROVED their performance. Because they could twice move to a position where if they rallied, they could assault into CC, whereas if they didn't get broken, they would have been of minimal impact. I don't mind the effect, but I think it'd probably require a tweaking of the stats or a price increase.

Morgan Vening
- KnightWorld SubChampion

I like that idea, too. As Matt mentioned, after the first turn (and after he had stopped moaning in anguish ), he broke the formations and killed my Knights with blast markers.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

there was definitely some wailing and beating of chest too.

I was actually surprised how effective a simple change in tactic was - from losing to winning in a single decision. Could be that playing Knights requires quite a different playstyle to that which people are used to. I imagine you'd need a few sentinel fms for screening and activation count boosting, then use the Knights for probing hit'n'run style attacks without exposing them to lots of fire. Add some obligatory thunderbolts for AA duties and some artillery for suppression and it might work.

certainly steaming in and leaving the knights out in the open doesn't seem the right way to go, due to the whole breaking and dying thing

If it takes a (elegant) special rule to fix the knights so that everyone is happy and they are playable, then so be it.

The whiners and moaners about such things are usually the people that provide no playtest imput anyway. Just go with what works.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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Imagine me playing against those 3 Manticores last Monday... Every time they fired it was a knight formation (usually worth more than the manticores) instantly broken. I like the idea of a rule called Knightly Valour which would be a toned down ATSKNF. It could either be as mentioned something that comes into effect after they've broken, or, perhaps more fluffily, that they take double the normal BMs (so we can cater to DC2 knights too), to break. Still a fraction of the ATSKNF rule and seems fluffy enough. Points cost could perhaps remain the same as it's an army that doesn't have a lot of flexibility (no teleporters or planetfallers to deal w/ enemy artillery for example).

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Just spit-balling here, but what's the drawback to having knights (and knights only - not the 'auxiliary' troop types) having ATSKNF in their stat line? That seems like a good middle ground between the status quo and slapping fearless on everything. It doesn't sound like anyone wants the latter anyway, but using ATSKNF avoids having to make up a new rule.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Having across the board Fearless would be terrible. Knight-only ATSKNF seems okayish. Something that could be tested quickly w/out any other major changes to the list.

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I think the issue is that ATSKNF will give the Knights a huge boost in combat resolution, when they're already pretty amazing in combat (FS MW EA up the wazoo). 2 BMs to cause a casualty when broken would be fine though, they are giant walking robot things after all. That would also stop the cheesy "AP fire kills a WE" trick that I used to such good effect against Tim, which really doesn't seem right.

2 BMs to break might be a bit of a stretch though - they're not Astartes and Imperial titans don't have that benefit. Plus there would be weird interactions with Knight fm size and cost too (same deal with large Marine fms).

Imperial titans are fearless though, which in some respects is better. Yeah, knights aren't Astartes, but they are very confident dudes walking around in mini-titans with their own brand of void shields. You might have to fiddle with the costs, but incorporating ATSKNF shouldn't be world-beating. The formations are still pretty small.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

certainly steaming in and leaving the knights out in the open doesn't seem the right way to go, due to the whole breaking and dying thing[/quote]


Why that sounds so very british in play.... just like the 21 lancers, or better yet, how the british conducted armor battles during 1940-41. steam ahead, and do your best to plow through your enemy with fire. CHAAARRRGE...

Last time i did that over open ground.. it was messy... and not for my enemy.

I know that the difference between what Matt said is very subtle sometimes.. 2 BM's to break, compared to taking 2 BM's to avoid destruction when your broken. Is it that much of a difference? As i said before, i do like the way that the haughty and noble knights would have the ATSKNF rule in some regard. besides,, those knight pilots never will run a proper titan and are usually restricted to inter house combats anyways... Oh gods.. i have a great idea... Knight Tourny's. Knight army vs Knight army.. Jousting and the grand List anybody...

true, I just think that trialling the 2BMs to kill a broken Knight thing would be easier to play test, given that you can keep all the other variables the same. If it still doesn't fix things, then Morgan can go the whole hog and as ATKkljhjhk, jiggle the costs and probably drop the assault stats by some degree. That would need a whole lot of testing though, which is something this list (and others, I'm not picking on this one) struggle with before people are happy playing it.

me, subtle? that's funny, usually I'm offending people

the issue with ATSKNF vs. the 2 BMs to die thing is that ATSKNF has a lot of other stuff associated with it - BMs count for 1/2 in assault resolution, 2 BMs each to break, 2 BMs each to suppress (think about that on the castellans) in addition to the 2 BMs to die thing (I've probably forgotten other stuff), all of which will make a HUGE difference to the army. As an example a 6 strong Knight fm will now need 12 BMs to break and essentially count as a 12 strong formation in assaults, along with all the FS EA they have (plus being able to use both their FF and CC attacks if in BtB as war engines), and it would hang around in your back field slaughtering stuff for a lot longer. Given that it's such a large jump, smaller steps might be easier first, even if it means inventing a new special rule.

Go with Resolute or whatever it's called, the one that gives you a save against BM crumbling.

So its you who has been causing the distrust on the forum. I knew it!

Good points about the other effects of ATSKNF, but I'm not sure those side effects are all out of whack with what knights are. IMO they should be harder to break and suppress. Fiddling with the points and perhaps dropping some weapons abilities and other special rules may be in order if ATSKNF is adopted (very hypothetical - and I realize that coming in late to the conversation and suggesting major changes to the list might be the sort of thing to drive Morgan insane). That aside, I think a straight playtest just changing some units to mega-Astartes (I'm tired of writing out the acronym, you know what I mean) may be informative. I nominate Dwarf Supreme for 20 playtests. He told me he could do it, honest.

I guess at the bottom of it all is I dislike new special rules, especially if there's an existing one that (almost) fits. Besides, needing two BM's to kill a broken unit doesn't really address the fact that the FM's are easy to break in the first place.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean