Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Imperial Knights (section)

==Why Play Imperial Knights==
Perhaps you were a fan of all those giant robots from those Japanese cartoons when you were little. Maybe it's because you always liked the fight between Mecha-zilla and Godzilla and wanted to see that in a wargame, or maybe its because you just love giant robots that carry fuckoff huge flamethrowers and harpoons like its some sort of whale hunting expedition. Let's face it, you like the fatties. That's what knights are for.

Has that tank been bothering you? Predator cannon on top making your life hell? Grab a knight and charge the thing, kick it over with your huge fucking robot feet, then smash it with your giant metal fist and chuck the turret at the enemy captain. Maybe you should instead give it a goddam chaingun and eat chunks out of that squad of terminators while pointing a crack-sniffing melta gun at your opponent's superheavies. If you want to drop $140 on a model that will pair with just about any imperial faction and be the centerpiece of your army, you get a knight. 

===Modeling and painting Pros===

* Cool models. As in "psychologically-intimidating" cool. Putting a Knight on a table will cause your opponent to internally go into "aww shit" mode.
* Can be magnetised so that you can customise your knight depending of the opponent/meta, although not so much of an option with forge world models. They’re also surprisingly easy to build and paint, painting in particular is made so much easier by the presence of nice large armour panels, the ability to build the knight in separate sub assemblies, and nice sharp details which take highlights very well. 
* Many online stores, including Forge World, sell conversion bitz specifically for knights, allowing you to construct them in any flavor you need to. Space wolf, Custodes, Mechanicus, even chaos versions if you don't like the new heretical models.
* Lots of large prominent areas for freehand painting, or making custom transfer. In theory you could put print out's of whole miniature painting's onto some surfaces, It's been done with a Steam tank of all thing's so it's provably possible.
*A higher ratio of points/cost then most armies. While, yes your individual models are expensive, they also cost a lot in game so a knight army overall is cheaper. A knight may cost 170 dollars, but it alone can make up 1/4th an army point cost. An equivalent amount of dollars of guardsmen or even space marines do not come close to make up so much of an army by themselves.
*If your fat fingered and find assembling models tricky, Knights are a good choice as an easy project since most of there parts are all large and chunky. 
* Chicks. Dig. Giant. Robots.

===Gameplay Pros===

* Tough as nails. With 24 wounds, T8/3+/5++ vs shooting, it'll take on average 23 BS3+ lascannon shots to take one down. Waltz it forward at the front of your army and watch it soak up entire turns of shooting. (Just be careful if the Guard player sets down a Shadowsword.)
* They make for an excellent Imperial ally in 2000 point or more games, especially more as it can be more efficient having a couple of slightly weaker knights running around killing stuff than a single warhound Titan. 
**While you would never really put some imperial factions together (sisters of battles and marines for example) there is no imperial faction which does not gain something by the presence of a Knight (although every time this is to perform the role of “a giant fuck off robot with big guns”, but who doesn’t need a giant robot on their side)? 
*Knights have all of the ranged firepower, possessing strength 9 ranged weapons for your MEQ chewing needs, high rate of fire strength 6 guns for your GEQ chewing needs and even more heavy firepower in the dominus class.
*Some of the best [[Forge World]] support of any faction. While others might get a few units which are ultimately superfluous, the forge world knights are/can be more powerful than the basic varieties and come with some very unique and interesting weapons.
**The Imperial Armor Compendium for Forge World has changed up a few things, several of which are for the better!
* Chicks. Dig. Giant. Robots.

===Modeling and painting Cons===

* Price, per model. Your ''cheapest'' models are the Armiger knights at a cool $75 USD/£47.50 GBP. Your standard Questorius class knights run at $157/£100 and the Dominus knights are a non-multikit bearing ''$170/£105!'' Lube up your wallet if you go Forge World--with knights averaging at '''$300/£201'''. Depending on the faction this isn't actually much more expensive than a regular army considering you only need 3-4 Questorius models to function, but it certainly ''feels'' more expensive.
* A neutral aspect more than a con, but while knights can take simple paintjobs, they thrive in the design and freehand painting fields. Look up imperial knights on google and you'll be smitten with dozens of beautiful paintjobs. If you put your knight down with three colors and no decals you're kinda missing out on some spectacle for your army. Thankfully, provided you either A) Paint the colors on smooth and with decent contrast or B) weather the hell out of them, your knight will look good without sacrificing your limbs to the machine god for better dexterity.

===Gameplay Cons===
* Damage Tables mean that your Knights get slower and less accurate the more worn down they are from combat.
* Although tougher than they were in 7th edition, they've also gotten a lot pricier; a bare-bones Gallant runs 400 points, while a fully-kitted Crusader weighs in at ''555''.
*Most of your models are '''Titanic''' and more than 5" tall.  If ruins are frequently used terrain pieces, you'll find yourself being shot at by infantry armies while not being able to shoot back at times.
* Knights die surprisingly easily and hit surprisingly weakly.  Expect to take a lot of wounds and miss a lot of shots.  As mentioned in the '''Pros''' section, their best weapon is the sheer intimidation factor of the models. Speaking of intimidation...
* You won't win the psychological warfare against level-headed opponents. Your Knights might be scary as fuck to noobs but not to those who keep their calm.
* A 3+ armour and 5++ (ranged) invulnerable save is nothing special to write home about, especially as most knights don’t get their invuln against melee attacks. Unless you’re up against “small arms” fire you will take a surprising amount of damage very quickly. Stuff like Tesla guns with +1 or +2 to hit will do an obscene amount of damage despite your saves.
* They will need help dealing with hordes even if the revised chainblades and fists do help address with most of your concerns. 
* Hammernators and equivalent melee units will still wreck your shit mercilessly and almost look cost-effective doing it (although thunder hammers are slightly less effective than in 8th.)
*Dedicated anti-tank guns will bring them down with shocking rapidity.  With the changes to ion shields, static gun lines threaten them quite a bit.
* You have to ally with the Mechanicus to get Engineseers and other Techpriests to repair Knights at a reduced efficiency (1 wound instead of D3, although the right warlord trait can boost that to 2), and even that limits which households you can take.
* You're big, but there are even [[Titan_(Warhammer_40,000)|bigger]] [[Skarbrand|kids]] on the block, and the firepower and melee capability these beasts can bring to a battle makes your knights look like an Ork trukk by comparison.
* 9th mission structure doesn't lend itself to knights, although new secondaries in the codex may help with this.