Who makes the best allies for Knights?

[Shadoestar]

Sweet another Knight player

Witch one of the new detachments are you using? If you use anything else than the House Hold detachment your gonna need troops that can hold objectives while the Knights are off stomping on peoples faces. I have a detachment of Storm Troopers I use their cheap but with enough Meltas to make the other guy take pause long enough for a Knight to come to the rescue. I've been looking at the Skitarii as well simple because they have a Arc weapons with Haywire and I can use a Onager with the Icarus Array to keep pesky flying things from tearing up my Knights.

It really comes down to what do I need to cover down for that the Knights can't do for me.

Honestly, I just like running a knight warden, give him the AA option on his back. Run the assassins with him and flush out with either Grey Knights or Imperial Guard. Again with GK your not going to get a lot of model coverage, and if this is a concern then don't run GK, run IG. With guard you will get a lot of models, but easy to kill troop units unless you armor them up a bit. My favorite way to take IG infantry, give them a auto cannon team and flame thrower inside a chimera. As a point I ALWAYS take a FW variant Hydra (for 5 extra points, you get a model that ignores jink saves...screw you elder...) Then if I have enough points ill either a couple of heavy weapon squads with either las or auto cannons. Put enough AC/LAS shots down range even at BS 3 your going to score some solid hits. Your knight will be something they CANT ignore, you assassins will be something they CANT ignore. Doesn't matter whatever else you take, with those units being a huge focus of theirs, it gives you the ability to move around your other units to do whatever you want with them.

Imperial Knight and Assassin unit is almost 1000 points yes, but at 850ish points still, you can build a solid block. Remember, you have to viable threats that your opponent can not ignore. Everything else while maybe filler, can still be effective. The reason I personally advocate the lower model count Grey Knights, is to add is some warp dice to counter their (elder) shenanigans with their 15-25 warp charge base pool each round.

Anyways, there's my 2 cents worth.

Alternatively, you can just rock a Necron army and capitalize on the 4+ re-animation rolls with a knight in the backfield as a ally (maintain your distance so you don't have to worry about any stupid one eye open rolls) I have tried this, and it is VERY effective. Their STR D weapons don't negate your re-animation rolls, and lets face it, if they are within 24" you will definitely bring their warlock on bike squads down or any other bike squads with sheer volume of shots AND still get your re-animation. Oh..and the backfield knight they have to deal with at same time.

Enjoy..

[SilverSaint]

why would you ever take an Imperial Knight over a Wraithknight?

I mean if you compare a Sword n' Board WK with dual scatter lasers vs a Knight Gallant (if you are only running 1). You are paying the exact same points for:

1) A difference in survivability: AV 13/12/12 w/ 4++ on 1 facing vs T8 3+, 5++, & FnP. A Knight ignores Str 6 on the front and 5 period, whereas a WK only ignores Str 4. Most things shooting a WK generally ignore its armor save so the main value of a Knight vs WK in surviving is that a Knight simply ignores more of your opponents army while the WK has better saves because of FnP.

2) Much worse shooting (2 SL vs 1 heavy stubber)

3) Worse movement (jump vs non)

4) Worse in melee due to I 5 on WK vs 4 on Knight

So really what you are doing is paying for the the AV factor in survivability. This matters less with 1 Knight, but with 2/3 it starts creating a skew. Skews are pretty deadly as they create auto-win scenarios.

So lets then consider the Gallant Lance formation vs 3 Wraith Knights w/ dual SL, the costs are exactly the same except to get 3 WK requires taking the Craftworld Warhost formation, which is going to create a tax vs the straight value of the Gallant Lance, the WK also gain almost nothing from the Craftworld Host formation.

The Gallants now become better in melee then a WK vs anything...but a WK with their Rage, Crusader, and Full Tilt, while remaining worse at shooting. Due to skewing your list with 3 you have naturally increased their survivability. With just the 3 formations bonuses a single Gallant is at least equal to a WK, maybe better IMO. The obvious downside is you have to take 3 Gallants, but the skew is only beneficial. This is all for under 1K so you can spend the rest on your main army (this is an ally portion IMO). Another advantage to the Knights is many tournaments will leave Knights legal because they don't want to ban a 5 model codex, while the WK won't be due to being a LoW...which seems silly to me.

In a vacuum of comparing a WK vs any of the single Knights...yes the WK seems undercosted, by about 30-50 points, but when you consider the formation bonuses the WK seems pretty similar in cost to the Knights. An obvious focus can also be on the D weapons loadout instead(the one people focus on cause its Ranged D bro), which greatly reduces the WK in melee as it goes from AP - to AP 2 from the sword, but in turn has much greater shooting potential. The reality is that is 2 shots/turn, generally 4-6 shots in a game if locked in combat, which can last quite long with average stomps and no glaive. Assuming you even hit with these 6 shots, they have to not be saved by an invuln or cover save, and even then the only real problem is rolling a 6 (many tournaments have mitigated this considerably). Besides the random 6 rolls on the destroyer table(like I said most tournaments have this seriously mitigated to only D2/D3 or only the full D6+6 within 12") I would say WKs with the wraithcannon loadout are pretty comparable to a straight Knight Gallant(let alone with formation bonuses) and IMO are actually worse because they can get bogged down in melee so hard and now just lack an invuln saved at ranged period.

[jeffersonian000]

WraithKnights are undercoasted by 100-120pts, actually

On Knights and allies, I run a Knight a Errant with GK as kind of a "super" DK, and have a lot of fun doing so. As I'm adding new Knights to my collection, the question on what to use to back fill to points has been on my mind, as well. Been playing around with Legion of the Damned squads DS'ing onto problem area as hard distractions, or working up some knightly themed SM Bikers or SW TWC as screens. Skitarii dust walkers can keep up with their +3" move, and Onagers are great for support.

However, I keep getting pulled back to adding a fourth Knight.

SJ

[Alaric]

Im a fan of Inquisition as well, mainly because the Inquisitorial allies are going to be the better units of the army you bring them in from (i.e. HQ/Elite/Fast...no troop requirement, cant bring heavy though). On the opposite side of that, you will end up with a very low model count army, BUT; you should be able to put together a very effective all comers list. Another good option, bring all 4 assassins. Individually they will cause enough headache that your opponent will be forced to deal with them. You cant ignore them. And they are pretty survivable as well.

I go for lots of bodies meself so I usually outnumber my opponent. They have tinfoil armor tho so they dont last too long, nice thing aboot the knight tho is they gotya shoot it instead usually.