TACTICS TALK: INTRO TO ITC

Most of us are aware of the ITC, or Independent Tournament Circuit, and that it is a huge factor in the Warhammer community.  It has become the generally accepted default way to play Warhammer in any sort of large capacity and if you are planning to go to any of these events, you will want to know how it works.  This is going to run down the basics, and some of the not so basic ways to play in the ITC format using the "Champion's Missions".

The ITC mission scoring format is a progressive scoring system that basically uses the same formula in each mission.  There is a primary mission, 3 secondary missions, and a bonus mission.  Completing the objectives in these missions will score you points as the game progresses and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The Primary missions is simple in concept.  If you control an objective at the end of your turn you score a point, if you kill an enemy unit during your turn you score a point, if you control more objectives than your opponent at the end of the battleround you score a point, and if you have killed more units than your opponent has at the end of the battle round you score a point.  That means, over the course of a game, you can score up to 24 points for the Primary mission.  The only thing that is different from game to game is where and how the objectives are placed.

The Secondary missions get a little more complicated.  You get to choose 3 objectives from a list of 11, and each one can earn you up to 4 points for a total of 12 points for Secondary missions.  The 11 missions are:
Head Hunter - Score 1 point for each character you kill.
Kingslayer - Choose an enemy character.  Score 1 point for every 2 wounds inflicted on that character, or 1 point for every 4 wounds if the character is a monster or vehicle.  Earn an additional point if the character is killed and is the enemy warlord.
Marked for Death - Choose 4 enemy units of PL of 7+, score 1 point for each one killed.
Big Game Hunter - Score 1 point for each monster or vehicle with 7+ wounds killed.
Titan Slayer - Score 1 point for every 8 wounds lost by titanic units.  These wounds can be spread throughout titanic units, so if you take 4 wounds off of one and 4 wounds off another, you score a point.
The Reaper - Score 1 point for every 20 enemy models killed.
Recon - Score one point if you have at least one unit in each table quarter at the end of your turn.
Behind Enemy Lines - Score one point if you ave at least one unit wholly in the enemy deployment zone at the end of your turn.
Butcher's Bill - Score one point if you destroy 2+ enemy units in a player turn.
Ground Control - Score 1 point for each objective held at the end of the last battle round.
Old School - Score 1 point each if you kill an enemy unit in the first battle round, slay the enemy warlord, have a unit in the enemy deployment zone in the last battle round, and kill something in the last battle round.

Finally we have a bonus point that can be scored at the end of your player turn.  They are all objective related and requires you to hold a certain number of objectives, specific objectives, or hold them with specific models like characters, for a bonus 6 points

To sum up the missions we have a grand total of 42 possible points.  30 of these points are what I call "equal opportunity" points, meaning that anyone can score them.  Each player can earn the "kill" and "hold" objectives, and each player has the opportunity to score their secondaries and the bonus points.  The 12 points that only one player can score are the "hold more" and "kill more" points.  Since you can't rely on your opponent being incompetent and picking poor secondaries, it's these 12 points that are going to really determine the outcome of the game.

Now that we know the missions, we have to take a look at what works best to accomplish said goals.  Through hundreds of games of play testing these missions have been devised, and they are designed in the attempt to give every army the possibility of competing.  Now of course, this does not mean that every single army list will have a shot and these missions have given way to 3 main army styles, Denial, Horde, and the Beat Face list.

Not what I meant by army style...

Denial armies are designed to prevent you from scoring points.  They typically consist of elite durable units and can reliably kill 1-2 enemy units per turn while not dying, Custodes and Death Guard are good examples.  This helps them score "hold", "kill", and "kill more" for 3 Primary mission points and makes it hard for you to score "kill" and "kill more".  In missions with smaller number of objectives they can even score "hold more" as they don't need to spread out so much.  They are really focused on denying the opponent secondaries as many of the missions require killing things.  In fact, only 2 of the 11 secondary objectives are not focused on killing something so having extremely durable units makes sense.

Horde armies flood the table with bodies, and in some cases can be a type of Denial army.  They try to keep you from moving around the table and scoring objectives while mobbing all the objectives they can with a ton of bodies.  Unlike traditional denial lists, they engage with the enemy as quickly as possible to reduce the amount of fire power they take.  Cultist heavy CSM, Daemons, Orks, Tyranids, and IG can all pull this off.  IG will tend to hemorrhage kill points though as they have many 10 man units which are usually easy to kill.  This can be a bit of an advantage though as any time a unit is overkilled, those are wasted wounds that would have otherwise killed another Ork or Cultist.  These armies will try to score the "kill",  "hold" and "hold more" Primary points in the early game, then switch to "kill" and "kill more" while still scoring "hold" and sometimes "hold more" around mid game.  With their units being so large, they typically don't start giving up "kill" points until mid game when their units are depleted, but things start to get hairy from then on as killing a couple models is not hard to do.

Then there are the lists that completely ignore the mission and simply look to destroy the enemy army.  Eldar, Tau, and Knights are examples of these, and IG can fit into this category as well.  They tend to spend turns 1-3 focusing on killing the enemy and worry about objectives later.  These armies tend to do pretty well in ITC because you can make it so that 24 of the possible 42 points you can score revolve around killing stuff.  They tend to actually focus on the objectives later in the game when it's safe for them to move freely.  These armies are usually not very durable, and thus really rely on getting the first turn to do maximum damage before taking any in return.

So we know the missions, we know the armies, now to look at some tactics in order to maximise your points, starting with the secondaries.  As I have mentioned before, most of them rely on killing things, so if your army is good at that then it shouldn't be too difficult to grab those points.  This is going to go back to Target Priority, which becomes very important now.  Pay attention to what you need to do to with the game, which units you have to kill to survive, and choose your secondaries accordingly.  For example, if you are playing against a Ynnari double Shining Spears/Reapers list you could choose Marked for Death and pick those units.  Yes they are pretty tough units, but you will be wanting to kill them to stay alive anyway, earning points off of it makes it all the more necessary.  That goes for other armies as well, cheap "deck chair" objective holder are easy to hide and can avoid you if needed.

Another thing you need to prepare for is games not going the full 6 turns.  If you are playing a horde army and/or your opponent is playing a horde army, know that you may be pressed for time which will make scoring some of the secondary missions really tough.  Recon, Behind Enemy Lines, and Butcher's Bill require at least 4 turns in order to score all 4 points.

Now for my biggest point of advice, and I touched on it earlier.  Work to get those "hold more" and "kill more" points.  All of the other points can be scored by both players, so when you get a point you get one point.  However, by getting "hold more" you deny him the ability to score that point, essentially doubling the worth of that point.  For this, taking the second turn is a huge advantage.  It allows you to remove his units from objectives and lets you know how many units you need to kill.  Knowing this information will help you greatly in your target priority.  I highly recommend that you practise lots taking the second turn, learn to deploy your units in safety and still be able to move out and accomplish the goals you have set out.  Sometimes, if you can picture how a game will end, reset after turn 2 and go right into deployment again.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learnt something from it.  Get out there and play games, as many as you can in this format, it takes some getting used to as you need to remember the missions throughout the whole game and score them when you can.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

My sponsor for this episode is, once again, Idle Hands CPU.  Donny is a good friend of mine and has been painting models for a long time, that's why he's so damn good at it.  Don't take my word for it, have a look at these actual models that he actually painted.

Lord of the Ultramarines, Robute Guilliman

Tylos Rubio from Forgeworld

Gabriel Angelo, Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens from Forgeworld

If you want something in your army, or your whole army, looking as good as these models, Donny is your guy.

TACTICS TALK: TARGET PRIORITY

Hello everyone, today we are going to talk about a really difficult subject, target priority.  The reason it's so difficult is that every army treats every threat differently.  This thread is going to stay pretty basic and keep it's focus on choosing targets, but it should give you what you need to make an informed decision and hopefully make you a better player.

NOTE:  I will not be discussing exactly how you will kill the targets, but how to choose your target to optimise your chances of winning the game.  How you kill the target is going to be up to you.  You will find that as you determine your target priority, you may need to adjust your list in order to be able to accomplish these goals.

There are a few things to take into consideration when choosing your targets.  At the most fundamental level you need to ask yourself 3 things, "What is the mission, will it kill me, can I kill it?"

There are 3 types of missions typically played, end game, progressive, and a combination of the 2.  End game missions have a win condition that is determined at the end of the game,  This means that the whole 5 turns before don't necessarily mean anything, what matters is who is scoring the objectives after the last turn is played.  Your average objective based missions that we all grew up on are the perfect example of these.  Progressive missions score points for players as the game goes on.  Maelstrom of war and the ITC missions are Progressive missions, each turn being critical in earning points and denying them to your opponent.  The third type is a combination of the 2 earning points both throughout the game and at the end.

So step one when choosing your targets is to figure out what units your opponent is using to win the mission.  For example, if your opponent is charging up the table with everything he has except for a few "deck chair" units holding objectives, then you need to take out those units.  Prime examples of "deck chair" units are nurglings, scouts, cultists, and guardsmen.  In end game mission you have til the end of the game to deal with them, but the longer you wait the less army you will have to deal with them.  On the flip side, if you are playing progressive scoring, then you are going to want to take those units out ASAP as they are scoring your opponent points every turn you ignore them.

Next on our list of things to kill is things that are going to kill us.  Those units that are charging up the table, they are looking at taking your objectives from your model's metaphorical, cold, dead, hands.  If those things are going to kill you NOW, then you have some adjustments to make.  Sure, killing those deck chair units is going to help you win the game, but so is having an army.  You do need to make sure that if you are going to change up your priorities, you actually need to.  Trying to bring down a Hive Tyrant to stop it from killing an attack bike is not a smart change of priorities.  What you want to focus on is the things that can actually hurt you on the next turn.  These are the units that you will generally want to target if you get the first turn, if you can.

Our last question is "Can I kill it?"  Well, this isn't entirely the best way to phrase this question, more like what is the best way to kill it?  Quick example, if you have a Carnifex and a bunch of Termigaunts nearby, you would direct your anti-infantry weapons at the gaunts and bigger weapons at the Carnifex.  Simple, right?  Well, not entirely.  Lets throw out a different scenario.  Your opponent is playing Ynnari and has a bunch of Grostesques and Shining Spears both ready to wreck your face.  Lets assume they are both in position to do equal amounts of damage, so there is no difference which unit you wipe out.  You are playing Marines and have 10 Helblasters, but don't know what to shoot at.  Lets take a look at the profiles, and we will see really quickly which unit we should target.  The Grotesques have T6 (when they are next to a Haemonculus), 4W, a 4++, and a 6+FNP save while the Shining Spears are only T4, 2W, and 4++.  Odds are you will only kill 1 (maybe 2) Grotesque but you will kill 5 Shining Spears.  Guess what, 5 is higher than 1.  I double checked.

Of course throughout a game you will be presented with several options and you may be able to act on many of them at the same time.  Multiple units will be able to engage multiple units, which now brings us to what to shoot first.  Once you have determined the order of what targets you will engage, start shooting with unit that have the fewest options.  For example, if you have a Tactical squad that can only see enemy unit A, and a Devestator squad that can see enemy unit A and B, fire with the Tactical squad first.  That way, if by some run of luck the Tactical squad does a significant amount of damage that unit A is no longer a threat, you can then put the Devestator squad into unit B and eliminate 2 units.  Had you fired the Devestator squad at unit A and wiped it out, the Tactical squad would not have a target.  Or if you fired the Devestator squad at target B first and the Tactical squad wiffed it's shooting, unit A is still alive.

There are times where you don't want to kill a unit.  Yes, it sounds crazy, but if you're playing a good player, and he puts something that's kind of important somewhere you could kill it if you move out of cover, or jump forward, you're being baited.  I won't tell you specifically not to kill it, but you are going to have to weigh your options and decide if you want to sacrifice something to kill his sacrifice.

My last word of advice is to play a ton of games.  Practise, practise, practise.  I've even played against myself.  I actually kind of like those games because I can reset a turn and choose a different target, or intentionally fail to kill unit I should have killed or a charge I should have made just to see if I could come back from it if it happened to me in a real game.  Failing that, there are a ton of big events with amazing players streaming games live and posting games on Youtube.  Watch and learn.

That's it.  It's pretty basic and fairly straightforward when you type it all out.  But there are so many other features to the game that I can't possible cover them all in a single post, so keep a eye out for other such tactics articles.  If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

This article is brought to you by:

Donny is a good buddy of mine and has been doing commission painting for quite a while.  Have a look at some of the recent items he's done and gauge his skills for yourself.  If you think you want to have an amazing piece of art painted by him contact him on his FACEBOOK PAGE.

Lady of Corruption from Creature Caster

Obliterated Warrior Mutants from Wargames Exclusive

Ogre Kahn from Avatars of War

IMPERIAL KNIGHTS: BIGGER AND STOMPIER

This book has made a bigger splash in the meta than a Carnifex being hurled back into a spawning pool after being crushed by a thunderstrike gauntlet.  Why you ask?  Well, my friend, you have come to the right blog.

sploosh

Lets get into the basics of a Knight, they are big and tough.  T8, 3+ save, 5++ save against shooting attacks, and 24 wounds.  To throw some math at you, you'll need 24 lascannon shots, 55 overcharged plasma gun shots, or 15 attacks from a thunderhammer wielding Blood Angel Captain to bring one down (assuming no additional buffs).  Not only are they tough, but they are deadly in both the shooting and assault phases.  Now here is where I can't throw some easy number at you because knights come in many different styles, which is a pretty good place to start our journey.

The first set of knights are basically several different ways to arrange 4 guns and 2 combat weapons.  You've got the Preceptor, Paladin, Errant, Gallant, Warden, and Crusader with various configurations of the las-impulsor, rapid fire battle cannon, thermal cannon, avenger gatling cannon, reaper chainsword, and thunderstrike gauntlet.  I'm not going to get into which one can carry which weapons cause that is not really important, but there are 2 slight differences and that is that the Preceptor gives a re-roll 1's to hit aura to nearby Armiger class units (more on them later) and the Gallant has a WS of 2+ to start.  The important thing to discuss is the weapons.

First up we have the las-impulsor, which is a new weapon and available only to the Preceptor.  It has 2 fire modes, low intensity (36" heavy 2D6 S6 AP-2 D3 damage) and high intensity (18" heavy D6 S12 AP-4 D6 damage) which is nice because it gives you options.  It is only available to the Preceptor though, but if you're planning on taking a number of Armigers, you might want to think about taking this guy.  Next we have the rapid fire battle cannon which is 72" heavy 2D6 S8 AP-2 D3 damage.  This is a good reliable weapon with great range and diversity.  It has a good number of shots, high S, decent AP and multiple damage.  It works well against light vehicles and light - medium infantry.  The thermal cannon gets fewer shots at a shorter range, D6 at 36", but it's S9 AP-4 and D6 damage (with the melta rule) makes it more ideal for taking out vehicles and tougher monsters without invul saves.  The last gun is the avenger gatling cannon which excels at taking out infantry and lighter vehicles with it's 12 S6 AP-2 D2 shots.  The reaper chainsword and thunderstrike gauntlet are not that different, the former being S14 AP-3 and 6 damage while the latter is S16 AP-4 6 damage with a -1 to hit.  The gauntlet has an additional little trick, if it kills a vehicle or monster it can cause D3 mortal wounds on an enemy unit within 9" on a 4+, which is kinda neat.

The Armigers are a new design of knight that come in 2 varieties, Halverines and Warglaives.  They are significantly easier to kill than their larger counterparts with only T7 and 12 wounds, thus their nickname of baby knight.

The Halverines are armed with 2 armiger autocannons, 2D3 shots each at S7 AP-1 and 3 damage makes them a threat to medium and large sized targets with average saves.  The Warglaives come equipped to deal with more heavily armoured enemies rocking a thermal spear, a 30" assault D3 meltagun.  It is also toting around a reaper chain cleaver, a melee weapon with 2 modes of attack, Sx2 AP-3 and 3 damage OR AP-2 and 1 damage but 2 hit rolls per attack.  There is a key point here to remember, and that's that the thermal spears are assault weapons, meaning they can advance and still shoot them.  There are some really nice combos with stratagems and traits and such, but I will get into those after I talk about...

The Dominus class Knights.  If the Armigers are the Baby Knights, then the Dominus would be considered the Daddy Knight.  Again, there are 2 varieties, the Castellan and the Valiant and they both tote two twin-meltaguns and a variance of siegebreaker cannons (48" Heavy 2D3 S7 AP-1 DD3) and shieldbreaker missiles (48" Heavy 1 S10 AP-4 DD6 it ignores invulnerable saves).  The shieldbreaker missiles are a little strange in that they can only fire one per turn, and they are one use only, but they are a really good inclusion for reasons I will get to.  They don't have access to any of the combat weapons that Questoris Knights have, and their WS is not as good, but they have 4 more wounds and their main weapons are DEADLY.

The Castellan is armed with a plasma decimator (48" Heavy 2D6 S7/8 AP-3 D1/2) and a volcano lance (80" Heavy D6 S14 AP-5 D3D3) and has been one of the most favourite units in the game as of late.  This big guy excels at taking our larger targets and elite units at a range, safely behind a wall of infantry.  If you don't want to sit back, then you can have a go with a Valiant and rock up with an 18" heavy 3D6 S7 AP-2 D2 auto hitting conflagration cannon.  If that's not going to cause enough damage then how about the thundercoil harpoon, 12" heavy 1 S16 AP-6 D10.  Yeah, 10 Damage!  On top of that the TCH re-rolls failed hit rolls when targeting monsters or vehicles and then, to add insult to injury, does D3 mortal wounds if it has inflicted any damage.  I really love this combo as it gives you some really strong anti infantry firepower followed up by a dick smash to the moon.

I have gone over the basics of the 3 different knights, and while all that seems pretty cool, they have a whole set of special rules and abilities that make them WAY better.  Lets start with the "chapter tactics", or Household Traditions.  These are further divided into Questor Imperialis and Questor Mechanicus.  This doesn't really mean much except that there are certain stratagems that work for one or the other, and Questor Mechanicus ally better with Adeptus Mechanicus, but that is a discussion for another time.

House Terryn roll an extra D6 when advancing and charging and discard the lowest result.  When you combine this with the Landstrider warlord trait(add 2" to advance and charge rolls), and the Full Tilt stratagem (charge after advancing) you will be getting across the table really quickly.  This is an amazing combo for a Gallant, easily getting him across the table and into the enemy lines for a first turn charge.  Once you're in their lines you can spend 3CP and attack again with the Terryn stratagem Glory in Honour.

House Griffith get an extra attack in a turn where they charge or perform a Heroic Intervention.  Oh, and they can all perform Heroic Intervention.  If you want to know some of the benefits of Heroic Intervention, check out my Tactics Talk on Heroic Intervention.  How many times can I say Heroic Intervention in one paragraph?  Tack on the Bonded Oathsmen stratagem and your Armigers are moving 6" when they perform a...you know what.

House Hawkshroud doubles the number of wounds remains when determining what profile they use on the damage table.  This is pretty handy for since they don't get access to the Machine Spirit Resurgent stratagem.  This house also has a pretty awesome stratagem that allows them to turn into Tau for a while and fire overwatch if an enemy unit declares a charge against an Imperium unit that is within 12" of the knight.  This works pretty damn awesome with the Valiant and it's super duper heavy flamer.

House Cadmus re-roll wound rolls of 1 in the fight phase when attacking units which only contain models that have 12 wounds or less.  This is ok for those times where you go tap dancing on a bunch of marines and then roll half a dozen 1's to wound, it won't come up often, but it's a killer when it does.  Their personal stratagem allows them to shoot at a unit that arrived as reinforcements within 12" of them.  This is a 3CP strat but you will likely kill whatever comes in unless it lands near a Gallant.  Their warlord trait reduced wounds taken by 1 to a minimum of 1, this really adds to their longevity as most of the weapons targeting them will likely do multiple damage.

House Mortan adds one to hit rolls in the fight phase if it charged, was charged, or performed a Heroic Intervention that turn.  The good thing is that there are a handful of stratagems that can make HI available to your Knights.  This is a pretty great House if you choose to go with a bunch of Gallants, bringing their to hit back up to 2+ with those thunderstrike gauntlets.  Now their stratagem is a bit messed up, it allows a unit to ignore ALL modifiers, good and bad, for a shooting phase.  This does not specify that it's only hit rolls, so I would assume that this also applies to cover and any psychic powers that modify the toughness, saves, or to wound rolls.  This would not apply to re-rolls, as they do not modify the roll at all.  BUT, if it applies to all those modifiers, it would also apply to the AP of the weapons firing, as they apply a modifier to the save, so that's where the fucked up part comes in.  If that is the case, then this really is only useful against Harlequins.  Ironically the Mortan warlord trait gives a -1 to hit modifier when targeting it from more than 18" away.

House Raven are for those players who like to keep their models on the move.  When they advance they treat all heavy weapons as assault, then they ignore the penalties for advancing and firing assault weapons.  This is pretty great for those models with combat weapons who want to get close and fast, particularly the Warglaive Armigers who are already tearing it up the field.  Raven has a pretty fancy stratagem that allows them to re-roll all 1's for that model in the shooting phase.  This includes hit rolls, wound rolls, damage rolls, and rolls made to determine the number of shots a weapon makes.  This is a prime candidate to be used on a Castellan Knight as nearly all of it's weapons are a random number of hits, and many of them are random damage.  This houses warlord trait is pretty cool in that it basically ignores AP-1.  Now you might not think that this is that big of a deal but auto cannons, including the ones on the Halverines and on Predators which are damage 3, just got a whole lot harder to hurt you.

House Taranis gets 6+ FNP.  Now, that does not sound like much but with 24 wounds it's likely to save 4 wounds.  Taranis is also a Questor Mechanicus house, which means that Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priests can repair them and with the right warlord trait and stratagem you can repair up to 4 wounds each battleround.  You can then give them the Ion Bulwark warlord trait which gives them a 4++, or you can give them Sanctuary which is a relic that gives them a 5++ that they can use in combat as well.  You can boost those to a 3++ or 4++ respectively with Rotate Ion Shields.  There is also the relic Armour of the Sainted Ion which gives the knight a 2+ save.  If you don't want better saves, then Mark of the Omnissiah just gives you wounds back at the start of your turn.  Either way you split it, you are looking at a nearly indestructible beast.  If the worst should come to bear and your knight is taken down, then Taranis have their own very special stratagem.  Our Darkest Hour is played once a knight is reduced to 0 wounds and does not explode, on a roll of 4+ the knight stands back up at the end of the phase (that's important) with D3 wounds remaining.

House Krast re-roll failed hit rolls in the fight phase in any turn it charged, was charged, or performed a HI.  If the target has TITANIC keyword then you re-roll all the failed hit rolls all the time.  Those re-rolls will help you with their stratagem Controlled Agression which turns each unmodified hit roll of 6 into 2 hits, or 3 hits if the target is a CHAOS unit.  Imagine a Gallant with the Knight Senaschal warlord trait (+1 A) and the Headsman's Mark relic (+1D vs unit with 10+ wounds or 2D vs unit with TITANIC).  He's like a Renegade Knight hunter.  Their warlord trait is meh as it lets them re-roll hit rolls of 1, which is ok for shooting, but just overlaps their house rules.

House Vulker re-rolls hit rolls of 1 with ranged weapons when you target the closest enemy unit.  Combine this with their stratagem Saturation Bombardment, which turns hit rolls of 6 into 2 hits, and with the relic Endless Fury which is an avenger gatling cannon with the same rule, hit rolls of 6 become 4 hits!  Now the Vulker warlord trait is an odd one, but it could really go along way to keep your knight safe from those really big hitters.  Wound rolls of 1, 2, and 3 made against your knight automatically fail.  Here is the weird part, is this considered a modification to the wound roll?  If your opponent can re-roll failed wound rolls, does this rule take place after re-rolls happen or before?  I don't know, but I would argue that it's a modification, so re-rolls would happen before this effect would be applied.  Really this would only apply to things that are S16 that can re-roll to wound.

So we have gone over the meat of the book, now we come to the trimmings.  All those tasty side dishes and appetisers that take a meal from good to great, and there are a lot of them.  In fact, for a book with so few units, it has the most stratagems and relics of any other book I have reviewed, a full 8 pages in total and because of that I will not go over them all, but I will touch on a few favourites.

The first group of stratagems are all ways to get in a few extra attacks and deal some mortal wounds to your target.  Thunderstomp, Chainsweep, and Deathgrip are all 1CP and a really great way to get in some mortal wounds, which is a bit of a sore spot for this army.  They are all activated immediately after fighting with a knight, which means that if it's your turn, this stratagem will circumvent getting interrupted which is critical.  Thunderstomp is decent because you don't need a combat weapon to pull it off, so the Dominus class guys can use it.  On a roll of 4+ one unit within 1" takes D3 wounds.  Sure it's not great, but it's a clutch play if you can take the last couple wounds off of that BA Slam-Captain before he can swing.  Chainsweep can be done by any knight with a reaper chainsword or one of the relics, you roll a D6 for each enemy model within 3" and it's unit takes a mortal wound on a 6.  This one is pretty great for taking out a couple more plaguebearers before they can get all their multiple wound shenanigans off and wreck face, as they typically come in pretty big numbers.  Death Grip, oh boy do I love this one.  Immediately after the knight attacks, and has a fist or relic fist, it can make an extra attack against a unit that consists of a single model with 1", if it hits the model takes D3 mortal wounds.

We are not done though, because next you roll off adding your respective strength characteristic and if you win the target takes another D3 mortal wounds... then you keep doing that strength roll off until he ties or beats you, or dies.

This means you can direct your full compliment of attacks against the thing you want to kill and use this strat to pick off that character.  Now, the target of the Death Grip has to be a unit that was declared as a target of the Knights Charge, so you can't grab anything more than 12" away, but if it's a single model character there is usually not much harm in declaring it as a target of a charge.

Here is something crazy to think about, a House Terryn Gallant Knight charges, fights, uses one of the strats, then fights again with Glory in Honour and uses another strat for more mortal wounds.  Sure that's 5 CP you're spending to make that happen, but it's worth it.  I guess you don't really have to fight first to use the extra attack strats, but the extra pile in and consolidation will help you with targets.

Heirlooms of the Household and Exalted Court stratagems allows a Questoris or Dominus Knight (or 2) to take a relic or warlord trait.  It also turns them into a someone by making them a CHARACTER  You will likely see this in every Knight detachment that consists of more than one knight because there are some great relics and warlord traits.

The Oathbreaker Guidance System has some potential to be a real serious game changer.  It allows a Dominus Knight to target a character regardless of if it's the closest model, or if it's even in line of sight, with a shieldbreaker missile.  Yes you can only shoot one of these missiles at a time, most Knights have only been taking 2 of these missiles, and it is a 3 CP stratagem, but being able to pick off the warlord regardless of where he is on the table is pretty damn strong.

The last strat on my list is the one that frustrates the hell out of me.  Devastating Reach is a resolution to a stupid problem.  If you're in the dark on this I'll elaborate.  Models that are in ruins and above the ground floor can't be hit in combat by a knight, it's stupid I know, but that's how the rules are right now.  This stratagem allows a Knight with a combat weapon to attack a model in a ruin if it ends it's assault phase 6" vertically from it.  So the target of the charge can be on a level 6" above the table and the Knight can still attack it.  THIS SHOULD BE A GENERAL RULE!  NOT A FUCKING STRATAGEM!  It doesn't even really work that well, it might seem like it's a decent patchwork solution, but when you read it you can find a glaring hole.  If there are any models from the target unit on the ground floor then the Knight can't use this stratagem.  Now you are probably thinking "Well if they are on the ground floor then what's the big deal?"  Knights can't go through walls, so all the other player has to do is put one model on the bottom floor on the other side of the wall and the rest of the models can go in the upper floors and they are totally safe from being assaulted.  Maybe I'm being picky, but this feels like a very patchwork slapped together bandaid of a solution to a problem that they created in the first place.  Devastating Reach should be a general rule that is given to certain models of a certain size, like Mortarion, Magnus, most Knights, and probably most Lords of War.  Hell, even Dreadnoughts and monsters should have a 3" version of this rule.

I've talked about many of the relics already in this article, but there are still a few that need some attention.  There are a bunch of weapons, most weapons have a relic version or 2 which is basically a better version of the original, no real surprise there so I won't waste much time on them.  I do want to point out House Griffith's relic, the Mark of the Lance, which deals D3 mortal wounds on a 2+, or 3 mortal wounds on a 6, after the bearer completes a charge.  That's cool, but you can also combo that with the Griffith Warlord trait, Master of the Joust, that deals D3 mortal wounds on a 4+ after the knight charges.  That means, after the knight charges, on a 2+ it deals D3 mortal wounds, on a 4+ it does 2D3 mortal wounds, and on a 6 it does 3+D3 mortal wounds.

Another great relic is the Helm Dominatus, admittedly you will have to design an army around it in order to take full advantage of it.  Once per battle round, at the start of your shooting or fight phase you can shoot an enemy unit within 24" of the bearer (Questoris or Dominus class only) and all Armiger class Knights get +1 to hit against that unit.  This is a great combo with Skyreaper Protocols or Pack Hunters, having a pack of robotic giants tear apart a nearby target or blast it from the sky with overlapping fields of fire.

That's all for the nuts and bolts of the Imperial Knight, but before I move on, I would be a fool if I did not mention Renegade Knights.  These bad boys don't get any of the relics, or stratagems, or warlord traits, or house rules, which sounds bad, and it is.  BUT, their 2 stratagems are actually pretty good (Rotate Ion Shields and re-roll all failed hit rolls in shooting OR fight phase) and the Charcater Knight of your detachment CAN SUMMON DAEMONS.  One other fairly significant difference is that the Renegade Questoris Class Knights can take any combination of the ranged weapons available to them.  Meaning they can take 2 of the same gun, which is something the loyalists can't do.

Are they worth it?  Well it's not going to be a surprise when I tell you yes, you've seen them all over the place at every tournament since the book was released.  Even with the FAQ increasing the CP of a couple of their key stratagems and making the CP you do have far more valuable, they are still incredibly powerful.  They have the firepower of a Leman Russ (without sponson weapons), and actually, with the increased BS and the ability to move your full range and still shoot 2D6 battle cannon shots it's more like 1.5 Leman Russ and that's if it only has one gun arm.  It's more durable than 2 Leman Russ's with it's invulnerable save.  It's combat prowess is about equal to that of 2 Death Company Dreadnoughts. Lastly it can walk out of combat and still shoot and charge, which fixes the problem that most things have that can shoot and fight.  They typically spend their time doing one or the other, while the Knight can efficiently do both

There are a couple of things that Knights struggle to deal with, hordes and objectives.  While a Knight is able to lay waste to a multitude of giant monsters, a 500 point Knight with battle cannon and gatling gun arms is only capable of killing 12 guardsmen or cultists, add 8 more if he can charge into combat.  Now sure that seems like a lot of dead models, but it's only about 80 points worth, and less than 200 points worth of guardsmen or cultists can do the same. When armies are starting to have 100+ models, that are only really there to die, you're going to be in trouble when the rest of his army is designed to kill you.  This actually goes hand in hand, in many ways, with the second issue, holding objectives.  With only 4-8 models on the table (if you take Armigers), you are likely going to be outnumbered, which makes holding objectives hard especially when you start losing knights, and you will.  There is a relic that will help you with that, giving one Knight "objective secured" and making it count as 10 models, but that is not going to help that much

While it is possible to take a pure Knight army and win games, even against hordes, Knights really get a chance to excel when they have help.  AdMech can repair them when they take damage and are pretty decent at dealing with hordes of weak infantry, but they struggle with durability.  IG can kill pretty much anything, but have a soft spot for combat where they start to fold like origami.  Space Marines got a decent boost with the new Prepared Positions stratagem and they are a pretty well rounded army, sort of a jack of all trades master of none, but they are not very points efficient compared to other things in this game. Knights can fill in all these gaps in these armies, while they fill the gaps in the Knights army.

Now go forth with this knowledge and lead the great and terrible mechanical beasts onto the battlefield, or use it to destroy them.  Either way is fine with me.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

Maxx Collectible is starting up another escalation league starting in Orktober at 500 points.  The last league was a resounding success and we are looking forward to a repeat season.  Swing by if you live in the area and sign up.  It only requires you to play Warhammer and have fun, that's easy!  Running along side the 40K league is a Kill Team league, and not only is there a league but there will be demo games being held on some weekends by a local player.  Warhammer isn't the only thing happening at Maxx's, there's tons of games and hobby materials.

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