Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Imperial Knights (section)

=Counter Tactics=
*'''Escalation''' - If a player brings Knights to the table his opponent is permitted to roll on the Escalation Warlord Traits table instead of their usual selection. While some traits are better than others, each of the traits do help.
**In particular versus Knights, you should aim for the one that reduces Destroyer/Stomp/Blitz rolls by -1, which increases your survivability significantly by removing Deathblow from the list of results and increasing the chance of nothing happening at all to 33%.
*'''Stronghold Assault''' - Any Fortification/Fortification Network that grants access to Obstacles grants access to the best hard counter to Knights: Tank Traps. Ready the tear cups as Knights can not cross Tank Traps as written, nor can they Stomp over them. Of course, your TO may ban them entirely, or nerf their use, so check first.
*'''Skitarii / Cult Mech''' - All the Haywire you could ask for, Sicarian Infiltrators and Kastelan Maniples add their debuff aura and S10 power fists/smash to the table. TPDominus can also take knights apart. The Holy Requisitioner with its precision deepstriking ''and'' plethora of haywire shots can make quick work out of a knight or two.
*'''Eldar / Dark Eldar''' - Experience has taught that Haywire Grenades work well against Imperial Knights. Unfortunately '''Dark Eldar Wyches''' have become the whipping girls for GW across 6th/7th edition due to the introduction of overwatch, an overall improvement of the shooting game, and have lost widespread access to Haywire grenades. Their invulnerable save offers them protection against anything other than 6s on the Stomp/Destroyer tables, so they're more likely to survive combat than most other squads outside of some builds of loyalist/chaos terminators, but since only DE characters get Haywire they will be lucky to score a few hull points before losing combat. If your opponent has scourges, prioritise their removal, Haywire blasters with their manoeuvrability will not end well for your knights, ion shield or not. Swooping Hawks are no longer great vehicle hunters after the new FAQ since they can only use 1 haywire grenade per phase.  Revenant titans wreck knights quite quickly since any 6's rolled in D table destroy the knight automatically, and you get 4 tries every turn. Also, did I mention thanks to all Distort Weaponry getting Destroyer status that they can destroy knights in 1 volley? And the Wraithknight now has ranged D-weapons, so any 6s from range and the knight goes bye-bye. If you're worried about web-waying Wraithguard with D weapons, a counter tactic can be making use of Coteaz and some serious dakka to make sure they never see the table with enough force to take off your knights. Also, '''BEWARE HARLEQUINS!''' The Harlequin's Caress weapon on Player squads and especially Solitaires causes automatic glancing hits on any roll of a 6 '''to-hit''' in melee, and army-wide invulnerable saves means they couldn't care less about your Stomp and Destroyer attacks unless you get lucky. Kill them at range, because if one of your giant stompy robots gets assaulted by these nimble little fucks then it's game over for you, sunshine.
*'''Flyers''' - Flyers, the bane of many Knights over. All Flyers from Stormravens to Doom Scythes are a Knight's worse enemy. The big guns on the Knight (with two exceptions) are Template weapons, and their Heavy Stubbers at best are going to chip the paintwork. In short, most Knights have little to no defence against anything that flies, especially if it packs copious amounts of Anti Tank firepower. This goes double if you're playing regular 40K and have disallowed Forge World in your gaming circle But then you have probably banned Knights too so point moot. However, with the presence of the new Carapace mounted Guns, you can now upgrade any Knight to have a Twin-linked Skyfire and Interceptor Autocannon with the benefit of being a Superheavy, meaning the Knight can target fliers reliably while his big guns target something else. When lacking in Autocannons however, the Avenger Gatling Cannon's 12 shots should guarantee a few sixes on the to hit. If your group allows for Forge World, the Styrix, Castigator and Lancer can also stand in for AA purposes (though this is ill advised for the Lancer, as it is its only shooting attack and the Lancer needs to charge things, so only use it as a last resort).
*'''Chaos Space Marines''' - Throw Kharn at one of the knights. No seriously. Kharn, if he gets the charge off, can statistically blow up a knight through the sheer number of hull points he can shave off in a single turn. And due to his high initiative, he can do this before the knight has a chance to react. However the resulting explosion will more than likely pancake him so he's more like a one-use bomb. Still, considering he's a fraction of the cost of a Knight and a decent horde killer and tank popper, he's not a bad choice. Just make sure you choose carefully at which Knight explodes. Alternatively, damn near anything from Forge World available to CSM is considerably deleterious to Imperial Knights from the small (Blood Slaughterers) to the similarly sized (Kytan) to the fuck-huge. You can also use Be'lakor. A bit expensive, but with 6 S7 AP2 attacks on the charge with armourbane (with master - crafted weapon, in case you fail a 3+ hit) fellow will do nasty things to enemy knights, and he's impervious to most of the knight's shooting attacks, with 2+ jink and Eternal Warrior. Also, you know, invisibility to troll your opponent.
*'''Orks''' Tankbustas. Truckloads of Tankbustas. Warbuggies can also fair quite well as outflank can fuck with their Ion shield. Generally any walkers will get shredded before they reach the Knight or just die to him attacking first in melee as they are all I2 (even a Orkanaught will likely die before it strikes). If you've got a fetish for giant mech battles though you could also bring a Stompa. FW lets you custom build your own stompa and it's quite easy to make it deadly against any kind of superheavy.

*'''Chaos Daemons'''Plaguebearers . With on six glancing swords, able to come in 20 daemon, 2+ save when going to ground in cover, and can be given feel no pain with a herald and you have some '''FUN*''' knight crackers that have decent odds of getting there assuming they don't get tied up with other infantry units. Plus any army can use them with summoning, maybe not enough but enough to get a point off or distract it.

*'''Tau''' The Tau have some of the best options for dealing with individual Knights, with the advantage of deep strike, long-range high-strength weapons and resilient units there are lots of effective counters. Generally if an enemy is taking a Knight you don't have a choice but to prioritize it's destruction, it's too difficult to avoid close combat due to their speed.  The best way to kill one is to force the owner of the knight into a "no win scenario" by covering two or preferably three facings with lethal firepower. This is best done with deep striking fusion suits, deep striking fusion keels, a deep striking/swooping Y'Rhava or good deployment of broadsides, Hammerheads or Riptide/Rvarnas. They pick one (or two) facings for their shield and suffer for the rest, effectively guaranteeing one dead knight. Your best Knight killers are:
**'''Suicide Squad Fusion Suits:''' crisis suits with double fusion. Cheapish and with a fairly safe bubble of range to deep strike and shoot. Get marker support or a buffmander to assure that you hit (tank hunters helps too with the PENC). This squad will likely die but it's a worthy sacrifice.
**'''Fusion Ghostkeels:''' also deep strike dependent, they have a smaller window of safety so try to get a homing beacon. They get the same number of shots at better BS (take them in a team of 3) and you will have a durable, effective killing machine that will likely survive the next phase.
**'''Y'Vahra:''' If you have forgeworld dollery-do's get this bastard. His Ion Pulse cannon is absolute death to vehicles due to its haywire pulse rule and his mobility is amazing. He can rip apart a knight with one round of shooting, or at least knock it so low in HP that another squad can finish it off. It also can escape CC.  
**'''R'Varna:''' Another Forgeworld usurer, this bastard is a knight killer at its heart and soul. If it gets a stutter fire shot off on an shielded side of a knight, the knight is dead. With the potential of 12 st 8 hits in one round of shooting, this is a points effective knight hunter with great range.
**'''Riptides:''' these are actually poor knight hunters but they have the mobility to get into position and clean up someone else's mess. The biggest bet you have is to have some for intimidation sake to try and goad the enemy into facing their ion shield the wrong way.
**'''Stormsurges:''' alone they are adequate, if risky hunters of knights, the pulse driver dumping two demolisher cannons on them every round. The magic happens when you give them marker light support. D missiles eat Knights for breakfast. You only get 4 per surge, so be careful with how you use them 
**'''Ta'unar:''' Holy fuck what is wrong with you? I wanted to teach you how to beat knights not drive the other player into suicidal depression. The Supremacy armor is designed with the sole purpose of eating Knights and competing with Warhounds. It's massive blast D weapon combined with its 6 lascannon shots can wreck a Knight a round, if you give it fusion annihilators you may kill more but you are dangerously close to close combat. Never get in close combat with a Knight. Ever. Period.  And either way, you've basically gone and taken a warhound titan to kill a knight.  Nice.

[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(7E)]]

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