Imperial Knights may be winners in the 9th Edition 40k updates department, so here’s what you need to know about playing them!
Now that 9th Edition has had time to be digested among the community, it’s time to look at how Imperial Knights faired in all the updates. We’ll be checking out what Stratagems we recommend using as well as some secondary objectives to be aware of.
Let’s jump into the breakdown of what it’s like to play mono-Knights in 40k.
Playing Knights in 9th Edition 40k: What to Know
Largely, we saw the weapons of Imperial Knights get heavily reduced. While things did get more expensive across all factions in 40k, Imperial Knights slipped under all the heavy-handed point jumps. Chaos had it rough initially, however, recent FAQs fixed a couple of the weapon costs if you’re a Traitor.
So let’s get into it. If you’re running Knights, you obviously have the killing potential covered in your list. The major drawback of bringing an army of giant walkers is board control. You may have anywhere between four to six(ish) models depending on how you view Armigers at 2,000 pts. With secondary objectives being more popular methods of scoring in 9th Edition, it’s good to have all of your bases covered.
As we said before, your weak point is that you can’t expect to have all of your models exactly where they need to be at once. Plus, if you lose a model in the early stages, that can cripple your board presence later on. So how do you fix this?
Two Ways to Gain Board Control With knights
One method you can do, which is highly recommended, is to spend the 3CP to make all of your Knights characters via Exalted Court. They’ll all get their own Warlord Traits which is nice but it also lets your Knights Heroically Intervene.
Now, if you’re just out of reach from an objective and your opponent positions their units poorly, it’s totally possible to pimp walk onto the objective. Stomp the models off of it. Then in your Hero Phase, BOOM you get points for holding. Nobody really wants to charge a Knight except for a couple of units out there… And they especially won’t be using Knight killers to grab a risky objective.
Overall, this is a little dependent on how aware your opponent is, but any T8 walker hovering around an objective will make them think.
Also, don’t be afraid to make full use out of that massive base. You’ve got a footprint that can block off certain portions of the map so be sure you’re aware of how you face your Knights and how you put them on an objective.
Another strategy you can use is bringing Armigers. The Helverins in particular cost 175 pts but you get 4D3 60″ 3-damage shots on a T7 platform that moves 14″. You can keep these cheaper units on objectives toward the back of your deployment while still staying relevant thanks to their ridiculous range.
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This frees you up to take your TITANIC Knights further down the board to apply pressure.
Stratagems To Possibly Build Your List Around
There are some spicy Stratagems that you can find in the Knights Codex and Engine War. However, pulling just a couple out that you may want to consider are:
If you do bring some Helrverins don’t forget that you can max their shots for 1CP. This is a fantastic way to get full value out of a unit for 1CP. You just have to target a unit that has 6+ models. Think about how much damage this Stratagem could do on a max unit of Aggressors running up the board…
Because we are moving into a two-wound meta with Primaris as well as the official word that regular Marines are getting an extra wound, Avenger Gatling Cannons are looking even better. But for 1CP on a Knight Warden, you can also auto-hit everything. Yup. That’s 12 S6 2-dmg wounds. It gets even better when you consider a degraded Knight trying to shoot. You can instantly get full value out of a unit that could possibly be hitting on a 5+.
Secondaries to Watch For
There are some secondaries to watch for if you’re playing Knights. Unfortunately, GW made it very easy for people to max out a secondary against Knights. Titan Hunter gives 10, 12, and 15 points consecutively for each TITANIC Knight that was killed. This is very easy for most lists to score these days. Plus, an auto 10 points is pretty nasty even if they just kill one.
Abhor the Witch is great if you’re going against a Chaos list. You’re already playing a killy list thanks to being all Knights. But if you see Magnus, Morty, or a soup of Daemon Princes, Abhor the Witch gives you 5 points for each Psyker you kill as long as you don’t have any Psykers in your list. Definitely easy to do, especially since most Chaos lists run some number of Daemon Princes to deal with heavy armor.
Grind Them Down is great as it checks to see which player lost more units. Since you’re running maybe six units in a game combined with the killing power that all Knights have, you should be able to comfortably score this in every game. (Unless you’re going against a Knight mirror match).
There’s a whole host of other secondaries out there but these are just a few that have reliably come up in our games.
Overall, Knights seem like a solid option despite Primaris lists running three max squads of those new Eradicators. Just stay away from them and you should be fine… SHOULD BE.
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What do you think about Imperial Knights in 9th Edition? Which Household do you play? What combination of Knight Builds do you use?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
