Uh, looks like we have a high Gothic or Latin name too. Questor Imperialis. WTF?! Please...no. First it was the Imperial Guard being called "Astra Militarum" and Stormtroopers becoming "Militarum Tempestus" Scions, blah, and now Imperial Knights have "Questor Imperialis". WTF, Games Workshop, that's so pretentious. I don't know if it's some weird idea to trademark your intellectual property or names, but I honestly can't bring myself to calling my Knights Questor Imperialis. That's so...lame.
Fortunately, the rules are not as lame. Currently, as I know thanks to me playing with my Imperial Knights, either they rofl stomp armies, or they die to Flying Hive Tyrants and meltaguns. And Thunderwolf Calvary. Basically, they either kill quickly or they die fast. Not fun at all to play with. That's why I ended up switching from an Imperial Knight army to an Adeptus Mechanicus army. Much more fun to play with, and more flexible (and less...uh, fragile) too.
Armies that can't touch Knights can now hurt them on 6+. Yay. For them, anyway. Sucks to be an Imperial Knight player like me. On the other hand, we're much tougher now. Instead of a mere 6 hull points, we have 24 Wounds now! YAY! Oh, and a 3+ armor save, plus a 5+ invulnerable save on all sides thanks to our ion shields. They are much more durable than before! Phew! Let's take a look at their stats, and keep in mind they're also Strength 8 and Toughness 8! The Strength is a nerf, down from 10, which is a bit sad, but hey, it's better than nothing.
Well, the damage table is quite the huge nerf. On the other hand, wow...we have 4 attacks now. So there are some boosts. The problem is keeping more than half your wounds, otherwise your attacks will all miss. That will suck, ugh. No complaints though, I think that's how it should be played. It won't be fair otherwise.
23 points also seem quite the...hmm, reduction in points, comparatively. I think? It's about 5 times the cost of a tactical squad, if I remember correctly. I could be mistaken.
Reece gave us some tidbits on the thermal cannon. It's heavy D3 (I wonder if Knights suffer a penalty to their shooting of heavy weapons when they move?), Strength 9, Ap -4 and D6 Damage. It also has the melta rule, which is now roll 2 D6 and take the highest when under half range (for Damage). Funny, I thought that would be To Wound, but apparently not. I'm assuming the range is still 36" as per the current thermal cannon. Yeah, heavy D3 hits seem like a nerf, but then Reece adds that the thermal cannon does D6 shots against units with 5 or more models, so the large blast template returns in the form of D6 hits. Not so bad, I mean, D6 shots against a single model would be kind of...well, overkill. Kind of sucks when I'm trying to kill 4 models, though.
We no longer have Stomps. Instead we gain something called Titanic Feet (really? REALLY!?). I don't know how this works, but apparently you can choose to use those or the reaper chainsword or thunderstrike gauntlet. So you can't use both? Aw...isn't that a nerf? I mean, we could Stomp after using the reaper chainsword or thunderstrike gauntlet before. Now we can't!? Anyway, both reaper chainsword and thunderstrike gauntlet replace Strength D with dealing a flat 6 Damage per successful attack. Nice. Thunderstrike gauntlet retains the hurl ability, where you can throw a destroyed Monstrous Creature or vehicle at another enemy unit 9" away. You've to roll a 4+ to deal D3 mortal wounds, though, so there's a 50% chance you can't do anything. On the other hand, the 50% chance ensures you deal wounds that cannot be saved by any kind, so that's kind of cool.
Trygons will absolutely wreck my Imperial Knights in melee, so I've to make sure they stay far, far away from Tyranids' dedicated melee units. Definitely should still continue to avoid Thunderwolf Calvary, Genestealers and guys with Force Weapons. Trygons can deal multiple D6 damage melee attacks, and I bet they aren't the only ones. Gulp.
Good news is that my Knights can walk over infantry units. Wow. Better news is that my Knights can leave combat and still fire their weapons. AWESOME! YAAAAY!
Apparently you can take an entire army of Imperial Knights (and I suspect Baneblades or Baneblade variants) in a Super-Heavy Detachment. I mean, it says same Faction, so I think all Imperium Super-Heavy Lords of War are fair play. I wonder if we can take two or more Detachments, so you have one Battle-forged Detachment in the form of say, a Patrol Detachment, and then you ally in a Super-Heavy Detachment. Something like that. Who knows? And you get 3 Command Points for fielding a Super-Heavy Detachment! Cool!
I just hope they are cheaper so that I can field all of them. I wonder if they will still have Faction-specific Stratagems or bonuses like the Baronial Court or Exalted Court. We shall see. Till then! The Emperor protects!
I'm really glad the "mass super-heavy" detachment is available to everyone, really makes the game more fair. While I'm not looking forward to Wraithknight spam, I'm glad I'll have options to counter it.
ReplyDeleteOh boy...I hate Wraithknight spam. That will be such a pain to play against. At least they won't be packing Destroyer weapons this time. I think.
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