Fixing Knights - What do they need?

[L192837465]

I agree with the post above. Take this:

10 knights. you get 5 extra attacks with the proposed second rank with lances attacking. Doesn't sound broken, and 11 attacks is hardly game breaking.

Now try 12 chaos knights 6 wide. suddenly you have 25 s6 attacks from a unit that should cost a lot more for that ability. What if they're frenzied? 37 s6 attacks is not balanced.

Lets take this to the extreme. 12 Blood Knights. 6 wide. do you really want 49 attacks at s7 and KB to hit anything? EVER? that unit would blast through anything in the game. It doesn't matter if it's Deamons or whatever. Try and think of something ranked.

that unit will hit 32.34 times, and wound 26.8 times. 4.4 of those will be KB. Lets see you try.

[Lord Azaghul]

I agree with the post above. Take this:

10 knights. you get 5 extra attacks with the proposed second rank with lances attacking. Doesn't sound broken, and 11 attacks is hardly game breaking.

Now try 12 chaos knights 6 wide. suddenly you have 25 s6 attacks from a unit that should cost a lot more for that ability. What if they're frenzied? 37 s6 attacks is not balanced.

Lets take this to the extreme. 12 Blood Knights. 6 wide. do you really want 49 attacks at s7 and KB to hit anything? EVER? that unit would blast through anything in the game. It doesn't matter if it's Deamons or whatever. Try and think of something ranked.

that unit will hit 32.34 times, and wound 26.8 times. 4.4 of those will be KB. Lets see you try.

Oh I had that thought! My first reaction was that the volumn of attacks sounds about right for DoC, VC, and DE, and of Course MoC.

But if some one wants to spend 700pts on a unit of chaos knights - my 4 dwarf warmachines have no problem killing that unit before it reaches my table edge.

The 2nd thought I had: just make it book specific - place in in the new empire book 0 problem solved!

[Faultie]

I agree with the post above. Take this:

10 knights. you get 5 extra attacks with the proposed second rank with lances attacking. Doesn't sound broken, and 11 attacks is hardly game breaking.

Now try 12 chaos knights 6 wide. suddenly you have 25 s6 attacks from a unit that should cost a lot more for that ability. What if they're frenzied? 37 s6 attacks is not balanced.

Lets take this to the extreme. 12 Blood Knights. 6 wide. do you really want 49 attacks at s7 and KB to hit anything? EVER? that unit would blast through anything in the game. It doesn't matter if it's Deamons or whatever. Try and think of something ranked.

that unit will hit 32.34 times, and wound 26.8 times. 4.4 of those will be KB. Lets see you try.

Go away, math! We don't need your reasonable solutions!

Honestly, though, I think that it would still work with the right caveats.

[Xas]

In my opinion the problem about knights isnt their charge but the fact that they dont do any damage afterwards. there are many units and whole armies who can shrug off any sort of human knight attack (and even those of chaos or bloodknights. althogh THOSE carve trough them on the follow up turns) and then kill/run them down with their static bonus in the rounds to follow.

what I'd like to see is that cavalry can ignore static modifiers to combat re soltuion if the loose combat (meaning your oponent has to kill more than you did or you just test on your normal lds) AND be allowed to willingly dissengage. this can be seen in many films that the cavalry runs in, fights a bit and then deissengages to regroup.

[wittdooley]

what I'd like to see is that cavalry can ignore static modifiers to combat re soltuion if the loose combat (meaning your oponent has to kill more than you did or you just test on your normal lds) AND be allowed to willingly dissengage. this can be seen in many films that the cavalry runs in, fights a bit and then deissengages to regroup.

Exactly. That was kind of my thought with the idea of a "through-charge." The knights should be able to get out of the combat if they want to. I still like the idea of a "through-charge," but after thinking about it, the knights should only get one impact hit and one regular attack, as they're charging through too fast to take the normal number of attacks.

[Aldramelech]

I have to say, I think Knights are about right as they are.

If the Warhammer world is loosely based on the late medieval/early Renaissance period then the Mounted Knight had lost the edge there too. The Pikeman had become king of the battlefield and English armies had all but abandoned using knights as cavalry for nearly a hundred years before that. I have always thought that there should be an option to dismount your knights in the game.

With large amounts of artillery and hand gunners with crossbows and longbows still hanging around the period best reflects the French wars of religion, and the most common and effective form of cavalry in that conflict were armored pistol armed cavalry i.e Pistoliers.

[Lord Azaghul]

I have to say, I think Knights are about right as they are.

If the Warhammer world is loosely based on the late medieval/early Renaissance period then the Mounted Knight had lost the edge there too. The Pikeman had become king of the battlefield and English armies had all but abandoned using knights as cavalry for nearly a hundred years before that. I have always thought that there should be an option to dismount your knights in the game.

With large amounts of artillery and hand gunners with crossbows and longbows still hanging around the period best reflects the French wars of religion, and the most common and effective form of cavalry in that conflict were armored pistol armed cavalry i.e Pistoliers.

THere effectiveness may feel about right to you, but if that's the case then their point cost is still far too high (human only).

I still don't think you get your points worth out of them: if you only 5 or so you don't have enough attacks to do enough damage to most any units.
If you take more you're paying an inefficient amount of point for 1 point of static rez.
The way I look at human knights is kind of 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't'

[Aldramelech]

But I think this fits.

Knights should be rare and expensive. The cost of a good suit of Armour in the middle ages wold cost the equivalent of a Super car in todays money. Also Knights as a rule were not the heroic charge anything that moves superheros that most people think they were. In alot of situations Knights would only charge an enemy if they were damn sure of winning and charging "Core" units would be right out... no money to be made there!

To use Knights properly they should skulk about the battle field looking for easy kills and cash making opportunities (i.e combat with other knights) or raiding the enemies baggage.

Now if you can dismount them and use them as detachments, well thats a whole other ball game.

[Spanky Harrison]

But I think this fits.

Knights should be rare and expensive. The cost of a good suit of Armour in the middle ages wold cost the equivalent of a Super car in todays money. Also Knights as a rule were not the heroic charge anything that moves superheros that most people think they were. In alot of situations Knights would only charge an enemy if they were damn sure of winning and charging "Core" units would be right out... no money to be made there!

To use Knights properly they should skulk about the battle field looking for easy kills and cash making opportunities (i.e combat with other knights) or raiding the enemies baggage.

Now if you can dismount them and use them as detachments, well thats a whole other ball game.

You seem to have the game we are talking about confused with some kind of 'historical'.

This is Warhammer. The knights are awesome heroic charging jerks.

As for empire knights, they have their advantages, in that they are actually cheap enough compared to other cavalry to take in large units. The down side is that in the current WH environment, ranked things suck.

Compared to other "good" units, static combat res is simply in-sufficient. Your either facing some kind of 'super-cavalry' that gets a billion strength 40 attacks and kills 10 or 15 guys, making your static res irrelevant, or your facing some kind of un-killable infantry of doom, who kill 3 or 4 guys, don't lose anyone, AND have full static combat res plus a bunch of random bonuses from who knows what.

At this point, if you want knights to be good, they need to get better not cheaper. Unless something gets changed drastically, 'cheaper' things will never be effective unless they are backed up by some weird thing that is super awesome and better that gives them super bonuses, like a character or warshrine/cauldron type thing.

[Aldramelech]

The inspiration for all Warhammer armies is historical actually..............