Dreadknight
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 | This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen. |
"Yo dawg, I heard you like power armor, so I put power armor around your power armor so you can be armored while you're armored." -- Techmarine Xzibitus of the Grey Knights.
The Nemesis Dreadknight is a Grey Knight suit of armor that allows its wearer to go toe-to-toe with a Greater Daemon of Chaos on his own. Yes, the regular plot armor does have its limits, and even an above-strength chapter can't always send the hundreds of Battle Brothers that would normally be required to contain such a powerful daemon.
Wearers are recognized as being the most formidable of Knights; unfortunately for them, this means that they get stuck with the really dangerous missions.
Rage
The existence of the Dreadknight is not problematic in itself -- a Dreadnought-sized suit of armor that doesn't require the operator to be near-dead is a reasonable thing for a chapter to have. This is especially true for the Grey Knights, as they regularly take on massively powerful daemons with relatively few Knights, and prefer to let their battle-brothers have their eternal rest rather than keeping them half-alive in a Dreadnought.
The problem is that that it looks really silly. As in, "the pilot looks like he's in a baby carrier" silly. Combine this with the crunch giving the Dreadknight the saves of Terminator armor and the look of the pilot already wearing Termie armor, meaning by all accounts whenever he's getting hit, everyone with half a brain on the enemy's side is shooting him out of the middle, and you get a look so incompetently-designed that even "because grimdark" can't explain why it turned out that way. It really does look like the designer was watching Alien at the time and thought that the Grey Knights needed power loaders. Well, if the Imperial Guard gets tractors with cannons it's only fair the Grey Knights get forklift trucks with feet...
Add the Grey Knights' checkered reputation with the community up until 6th Ed and you get what could be the undisputed champ of units kneecapped by fluff. Awesome as a Space Marine wearing a fuckoff-huge suit of armor to go beat up really big things could be, if it's not another toy for the shiny special snowflake chapter, it's one that doesn't even look sensibly designed. Cue mockery.
Tactics
The bad rep masks what's not a bad unit, all things considered. It's expensive, but then again everything in the Grey Knights' arsenal is, and it gets customization options and status as a Monstrous Creature with the current rules. While it's the only MC that doesn't get Fearless, with S10 and Terminator-level durability it's not a bad choice, all things considered, and by virtue of being that combination of tough, strong and ugly you can guarantee the guy on the other end of the table will immediately try to kill it and ignore everything else in your army. Give it close combat upgrades, wade into battle and watch as your Termie on stilts puts a hammer up the ass of high-point units out on their own, as long as you don't get hit with Tank Shock or some similar effect.
All in all, it requires more attention than other MCs, and though you can put guns on it it won't be helping the Knights get any shootier at range, but it's at least got its uses, especially in close range combat. It also can bring along a personal teleporter, which while sounding like a welcome addition for a quality-over-quantity army like the Grey Knights and a fair trade for having a MC that can be Tank Shocked, costs more than half as much as the entire vehicle stock, so think about if you can afford the cost and if you really expect to lose your Dreadknight before bolting it on.
Hilariously enough, taking one of these things in your army, using a HQ with Grand Strategy and picking Unyielding Anvil means it can potentially take objectives. You'll probably tack the effects onto Paladins instead, but something with 2+ Armor and 5+ Invuln is still pretty trolltastic to hold something down with.
Getting Shit Fixed
As a sidenote, this neckbeard has witnessed a local GK player modeling their Derpknight by attaching its limbs to the chassis of a dreadnaught to make it look somewhat less retarded. Bonus points for an Ironclad chassis, points off for the exposed-head Venerable chassis. In fact, a quick Google search suggests that NoughtKnight conversions are either on the rise or a short-lived yet epic fad among the conversion crowd.
Gallery
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In the grim, dark future, carrying babies is serious business.
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It's like one of those nesting dolls, but more retarded.
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What the Dreadknight should ACTUALLY look like.
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Dreadknight and baby.
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GW being original.
