need help with Empire Knights

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Etancross
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need help with Empire Knights

Post by Etancross »

ok let me start by stating i have read though this several times
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=63571

In my last 4 games against Empire the knights have been tearing me a new one. With a 1+ save i haven't been able to do ANYTHING against them at all.

I read in there that magic is a great way to get rid of them, but honestly my magic phases since ive started playing dark elves has maybe killed a combine total of around 250+ points of my enemies forces from every game ive played all together (10+) and thats fact! thats including several games where i've taken a supreme sorceress.

Every time i read anything about Drucii magic being good or even decent, it makes me want to laugh because mine hasn't been worth a damn and has had the roaring fury of a baby throwing a diaper.


I need a reliable way to take down Empire knights because they get to my lines, i shoot at them with bolt throwers, crossbowmen, dark riders, and that does nothing, they get to me tear my lines apart, get behind my lines and rip everything to pieces and this after getting wrecked with canons, and rocket batteries all game long.

how have you guys been taking out empire knights cause im stupped and with my limited knowledge of dark elves am getting tired of getting raped.

Following the advice i got from you guys, I started pulling off massacres against my orges oponent i hope lighting strikes twice and you guys can help me with this problem, because from what i understand i should be able to put a hurtring on his army after i manage to take care of this knight menace.
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Post by Zenith »

Hi mate,

Magic against empire only works if you take the metal lore of the rulebook. I do hope you used metal magic..

If you want a more reliable way of ditching them think along these line.

-ASF black guard with the killing blow blessing from the cauldron of blood, and soulrender for the champion.

-Let them charge some of your dark riders, flee with the dark riders as a charge response and manage your units so, that you can charge him with your own superior cold one knights, or even better flank them.

And my personal tacktis is this.

I have a block of regular warriors, a dreadlord with the dagger of hotec, and the potion of strengt. the unit carries the banner of murder. i am happy if some knights charge me! the moment i reveal my 5 strengt 7 attacks!!!
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Post by Calisson »

Harpies are your friends against Empire.
They charge cannons and wipe them off.
They march-block cavalry.
They prevent knights from charging anything else.

Another tactics: Tar pit and KB.
KB-maxed assassins. Especially in BG.
BG without assassin. Especially with ASF and KB, the Empire will fear them.
Hydra: can receive a charge and survive... especially if it has received KB.
GW-Shades with a KB assassin. Wait for a flank-charge.

You can use psychology. Most Empire troops (including knights) have a rather low psychology.
Hydra breathing at them. Hopefully frying 25% of the unit. Then terror test. Then fear test before charging.

For the magic, that is strange.
How do you deal your magic phase?
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Post by Vulcan »

First and foremost: You Cannot Let Imperial Knights Get The Charge. This when they are at their best and they, as you have noticed, will tear you a new one.

Make sure you charge them instead, period, end of statement.

It helps enormously if you combo-charge them with an SCR block of some sort (an anvil) and a high-strenght killing unit (a hammer) at the same time. Failing that, make it an SCR block big enough to hold for a turn while the hammer gets into position for its own charge.

For hammers, I reccomend either Cold One Knights, or Executioners. Cold One Knights will reduce that 1+ save to 4+ on the charge. Executioners will reduce it to 4+ as well... and have killing blow to boot. Catch those knights on the flank and you should roll them right up.
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Post by Bies »

Empire knights- really? Tear a new one in combat?!

I'll try not to touch on what other people have said.

1st- how do you deploy your Boltthrowers. It's a very common (error) to deploy them so they're shooting straight. This is wrong. Deploy them towards the flanks of your army (even if it means ignoring that hill in the centre of your deployment).

This increases the chance of getting a flank shot and single shot bolt throwers mean no AS. So 3+ to hit (4 if at long range) 2+, 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ you stand a pretty decent chance of killing most of a unit of 5 then.

Ninja Assassin could also work, 2+ to hit, 2+ to wound 3+ AS
Killing Blow Assassin

Hydra in the flank SHOULD do it (however I've had a hydra loose combat and get run down after charging Empire knights in the flank...)

Dragon Lord will (yes I say a Dragon Lord will fix all problems because frankly I love this guy) deal with them as well.

Steal soul, Black horror, even doombolt could do damage to them.

whats the rest of your mates Empire list?
Not another 1...
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Post by Eglard »

A mobile empire army can be very hard to beat. Pistolers are just amazing and will shred any dark riders who come within 24 of them.

A unit of BGs will stay put against a knightly charge, but if you can't counter charge they won't do much to the knights. Exes with a hag bsb carring ASF banner on the otherhand will kill most knight units on the spot. I usually give my exes the banner of murder to make them even better.

What kind of list are you playing? Shooting, apart from bolt throwers, won't damage the knights. You have to take the initiative and charge them. Harpies should ensure that you are the one who will get the charge. Coks led by a master should bash through any nilla knights. Standard of slaughter works wonders also.
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Post by The virgin forest »

Whats the problem with empire knights?

Use dark riders to redirect their charges for optimum firing lanes for your RBTs and flank charges.

Thats was the complicated tactical solution. Lore of Metal and/or a dragon should sort out the problems without breaking a sweat.
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Post by Minsc »

How can Empire Knight's "tear you a new one"?.
They are not killy in one bith (1 WS4 S5 attack + horse each, whopedoo!), their strenght lies in their 1+ AS.

Screen and redirect with Harpies.
Redirect with Dark Riders.
Hit them with Metall-Magic.
Hit them with CoK's and/or Executioners. (Banner of Murder greatly helps.)
Flank them with a Hydra.
Flank them with a large unit of spears. (Actually, fronting them with spears work as well since they will wither the knights down with SCR.)
And anything that's recieved a CoB blessing works as well.

RBT's work if you got no other target.
Don't waste RxB's on them unless you don't have another target.

Dragon is a bit of a overkill unless he got characters in them.

If they are Inner Circle Knights they cost as much as our CoK's, but are worse in every aspect except for their 1+ AS. (And lack of stupidity.) - But deal with them the same way.
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Post by Eglard »

IC knights are often led by a warrior priest granting them hatered. Empire can also get a very good full cav. army which is not easy to tackle. I would like to know what the empire player uses, and what is your list.
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Post by Laina »

Having played empire for over 5 years now I think possibly the best way to deal with empire Knights is ignore them. If they are the standard 5 knights with a muso 5 str 5 attacks with WS4 isn't really going to do much unless its against shades/dark riders/harpies which shouldn't be hit anyways! However I myself run 5 IC Knights with fullcommand warbanner and a warrior priest. I don't use this unit for 'killy; purposes, just for staying power and points denial. They will never get enough kills to take up a ranked unit. Vs the IC knight/Warriorpriest combo I'd use two units of either dark riders/harpies to redirect and even sacrifice to make them run off in other directions.
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Post by Bounce »

While Empire Knights can't kill much themselves they are annoyingly difficult to kill in return.
Shooting just bounces off them.
Redirecting them with Harpies is a nice idea but this means your Harpies arent attacking his Cannons. Plus he may have more units of Knights then you have harpies.

Most of our units can defeat them ina 1 on 1 due to static combat res but they aren't going to just charge in where we like most of the time.

The Best way to do it i have found is Knights and Chariots.
Executioners are also good but only if they can get the charge or have the ASF banner.
Something not mentioned so far try Blade of Ruin on a Dreadlord on Dark Steed. He should kill 3 Knights on the charge. :)
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Post by Minsc »

If they are led by a WP, flank them with harpies, loose combat and force them to pursue in the wrong direction, wich will open up a nice little flankcharge from either of your units.
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Post by Laina »

Minsc wrote:If they are led by a WP, flank them with harpies, loose combat and force them to pursue in the wrong direction, wich will open up a nice little flankcharge from either of your units.


Always forget about the WP's hatred conferring over to the unit. Well there you go then, probably alot easier than thought to deal with that unit!
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Post by Etancross »

This is what’s been happening when I play empire:

- Empire is the reason I stopped taking Black Guard, they had gotten blown to pieces before they even get to combat by cannons and helblasters so by the time they could do something they were either just avoided, or by the time they got in combat there wasn’t enough of them to really do much so I started taking 2 big blocks of spearmen.

- Empire wizards constantly and consistently out performs my wizards the object where he can keep power/dispel dice is ridiculous, people complain about the ROH I can’t believe no one says anything about this thing.

- As he sits back shooting his knights come forward and I just can not and haven’t been able to kill them at all, the only success ive had with them so far is march blocking with harpies, and ignoring them and hoping they don’t kill to much when they get there because they always get there.

- Once every unit is torn apart and my lines look helpless that’s when he starts moving forward

- Cannons have killed my hydra every time, I can leave it in woods but then its sitting in woods for 2 – 3 turns not moving, it comes out and then dies and that’s about that.

- Shades were amazing against Ogres but against empire because of the poor save, they have died to a hellblaster, handgunners shooting, a magic fireball spell, and last week to a unit of flagellants that they hit in the flank.

- I've completely lost faith in magic as a DE player and still have to say i haven't even had a "decent' magic phase since I stopped playing Vamps.

Last time we played I managed a draw, but my usual Empire opponent just got a steam tank so it looks like things are getting ready to get a whole lot worse.
Last edited by Etancross on Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Minsc »

- Shades were amazing against Ogres but against empire because of the poor save, they have died to a hellblaster, handgunners shooting, a magic fireball spell, and last week to a unit of flagellants that they hit in the flank.


Just out of curiosity - You (and your opponent) does know that the hellblaster needs to roll to hit right?
Killing a bunch of Shades with a hellblaster is a impressive feat,
(hitting on 4+, then 5+ for shooting at skirmishers, then 6+ for long range, and lastly 7+ if you're in a forest.)

How does his lists usually look like, and for that matter, how does your lists look like?
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Post by Etancross »

Minsc wrote:

Just out of curiosity - You (and your opponent) does know that the hellblaster needs to roll to hit right?


im sorry i should have been more clear, it killed 5 of an 8 man unit and the rest ran all the way back home.
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Post by Laina »

6th edition Helblaster didn't need to roll to hit however the new 7th edition empire army book requires the helblaster to roll to hit so remember to do that. Tbh I don't think the helblaster is even a threat anymore!
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Post by Bounce »

When your opponent consistently rolls over 14 for its attacks and it is at close range anyway it is definitely a threat to our lightly armoured units!
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Post by Layne »

Right. The threat is within 12". Outside of that, you pretty much don't fire the thing, it being likely to kill more of your own models in that situation. So don't put your light troops in that zone. Dark Riders and Harpies can go there because they can charge from long range.
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Post by Minsc »

Layne wrote:Right. The threat is within 12". Outside of that, you pretty much don't fire the thing, it being likely to kill more of your own models in that situation. So don't put your light troops in that zone. Dark Riders and Harpies can go there because they can charge from long range.


QFT.
I rarely shoot my HBVG against anything more than 12" away unless it's a large target and/or very expensive/dangerous. (Chaos Knights and similar things.)

I did even have a game where I didn't shoot it untill turn 6, and that was against a unit of Warhounds with a Chaos Lord in it.
Best part was that I missfired at once, rolled 6 = 30 shots, dead hellblaster and dead unit of Warhounds. Chaos Lord fails his Ld9 /w reroll panic test, and proceeds to fail to rally in his turn, wich was the last turn of the game. :roll:

Hellblasters are the new comic relief in WFB. I've lost count on how many times it's missfired on the first barrel, rolled 6 on the missfire chart and shot 30 shots against a Hydra.
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Post by Dread_knight666 »

- Cannons have killed my hydra every time, I can leave it in woods but then its sitting in woods for 2 – 3 turns not moving, it comes out and then dies and that’s about that.

Try killing the cannons with harpies, DR, RBT, Shades, magic etc before you expose your hydra.

- I've completely lost faith in magic as a DE player and still have to say i haven't even had a "decent' magic phase since I stopped playing Vamps.

Maybe the problem is your expecting it to perform like vampire uber magic, or still trying to play that way.

I think you really need to reconsider your general game plan, because most of the stuff your struggling against isn't that hard to beat. And allot of what your describing just shouldn't be happening IMO.

For instance if you are loosing so much of your army to cannons and other shooting, then you need to think of a way to eliminate this problem immediately. You shouldn't be loosing your infantry blocks and hydra to cannon fire.

When I play against many war machines, I tend to hide anything worth shooting at until they are neutralized. With DR's and Harpies you should easily be able to get rid of them fast. and if handguns are an issue, simply move your harpies and DR into their flanks, handguns are move or fire, against me they are useless.

I suggest posting a list, I could probably give you better advice if I knew what your army looked like.
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Post by Eglard »

Acctually hellblasters are str 5 and armour piercing even on long range. In sixth ed. it was str 4 on long range. Heavy cavarly shouldn't advance into it's line of sight. On long range it will kill on avrage 2,7 cold one knights.
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Post by Drek »

I'm going to advise something different from everyone else, and that is this:

Be patient.

What I mean is, play the game with patience. He has the edge in movement, so you have to delay and redirect him to seize the initative. He can control the battlefield with artillery, so you have to be patient until you can kill it with harpies or shades. I think you need to realize that playing fast is to his advantage. Slow the game down. Delay/redirect the knights, give your warmachine hunters time to do their work, then pull out your heavy hitters. He'll crumble.
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Post by Etancross »

dread_knight666 wrote:- Cannons have killed my hydra every time, I can leave it in woods but then its sitting in woods for 2 – 3 turns not moving, it comes out and then dies and that’s about that.

Try killing the cannons with harpies, DR, RBT, Shades, magic etc before you expose your hydra.

- I've completely lost faith in magic as a DE player and still have to say i haven't even had a "decent' magic phase since I stopped playing Vamps.

Maybe the problem is your expecting it to perform like vampire uber magic, or still trying to play that way.

I think you really need to reconsider your general game plan, because most of the stuff your struggling against isn't that hard to beat. And allot of what your describing just shouldn't be happening IMO.

For instance if you are loosing so much of your army to cannons and other shooting, then you need to think of a way to eliminate this problem immediately. You shouldn't be loosing your infantry blocks and hydra to cannon fire.

When I play against many war machines, I tend to hide anything worth shooting at until they are neutralized. With DR's and Harpies you should easily be able to get rid of them fast. and if handguns are an issue, simply move your harpies and DR into their flanks, handguns are move or fire, against me they are useless.

I suggest posting a list, I could probably give you better advice if I knew what your army looked like.



This is so frustrating because every time i say ANYTHING about struggling with Ogres, or Struggling with empire Knights/Artillery i keep hearing "you shouldn't have trouble against this, how are you losing to ogres, how this how that" and if DE's are susposed to be such a scaple ready to cut the heart out of our oponents then i can't find a place to make the inital incision with empire.

Ok I don’t know if you guys say my other thread about ogres but because of some suggestions in that thread I changed my style of play, I stopped taking big blocks (although I do love spear elves, I have 75 of them and would love to make them work but im not at that point yet) and over all my game has improved 75% and I don’t think ill have much trouble with ogres from now on but empire is completely different.

As far as charging his cannons with harpies, he keeps a detachment of handgunngers on the hill in front of the cannons to keep them from being taken out with ease, ive been able to successfully pull off a charge on his cannons once or twice but he wised up and put those handgunngers there so ive tried several times to charge them with harpies and that has resulted in harpies getting shotdown on the way there.

He usually brings 2 cannons and sets them on a hill with handgun detachments around them to keep them safe, so ive tried running dark riders at them, ive tried running harpies at them, and they die so everyone saying its that easy, im not seeing it as easy I see it as a major problem.

The only thing I haven’t tried is putting shadowblade in his cannon units but that seems nuts cause he’s 300pts but the only luck ive had is shooting bolt throwers at them and over the course of 3 – 4 turns because of randomization I might kill one.


The last time my Hydra died it was hiding in the woods from cannons and to get closer to his units, it hoped out (couldn’t charge because it started more than 2” in the woods) and flamed a unit of ? with spearmen detachments, hit 5 guys and got 2 of the 4 partials (7 in all) and killed 2, it was charged and killed. I was frustrated and was told that shouldn’t have happened but it did.

I keep RBT’s on the far flanks so I can have a crisscross view of the table

The last time my Shades worked well against empire, they where hiding in the woods to try and take out some knights on the way towards my lines/RBT’s it held them up a turn but I “had” to move the shades out because a unit of flagellants 10 wide in 2 ranks (he said he had never done this before and wanted to see what would happen) were moving twords my lines and I didn’t want to charge them with COK’s because I knew I couldn’t break them so I had to chose shades that may or may not be able to get to his knights or, charge then with COK’s and hope they wouldn’t get stuck.


I could tell by the way he was moving he thought I was going to charge them with the COK’s so I hit them in the flank with shades and from the front with… dark riders because the next closest unit to them had my sorceress inside so the shades didn’t die but they were getting cut down slowly but surely not at all had I wanted to use them but just had to make that decision on the fly.


Let me talk more about magic because the guys in my gaming group are constantly telling me that my magic is actually pretty good but what ends up happeing is just bad luck or shouldn’t be happening. I usually take 2 wizards (mostly for magic defense because ive accepted they don’t do anything else) magic time…

I give Sorceress F the darkstart cloak, and give Sorceress D either the Sac Dagger or nothing, depending on spells ill give Sorceress D either one extra dice or just let her keep the pool and roll for her zero level spell and the last few games she’s rolled under 7 and its been dispelled so she has 2 dice to work with and Sorceress F has 3 so ill roll her spell whitch usually fails to go off or is dispelled because the empire’s “ONE” wizard has like 5 or 6 dispell dice.


With Sorceress F’s spell ill try to roll on 3 dice usually ends up being dispelled or like the last time the spell went off with double 6’s, it was Bladewind on one of his Knight units, I still remember this because of all the laughter in the room at what happened. I said “OMG maybe magic is FINALLY gonna do something for me”! I got 13 hits, 9 wounds…. Guess how many died.. “0” (that’s when everyone laughed) once again I was told there was no way that should have happened... I had to laugh to keep from crying.... and before im asked "why dont i use lore of metal" I usually give Sorceress D lore of metal but I have nothing to type here about it because it doesn't go off or is dispelled everytime.

Ive been taking Brazilian Jiujitsu for awhile, and one thing one of our instructors tells us is if you have no faith in what your doing is going to work, then its not going to work well with magic im always hoping its going to work but I have NO faith in it at all and I would love to run one of those lists ive seen where people just don’t take magic, but the guys I play against take lots of magic and as soon as they found out I had none, that would be a nightmare.

Its funny I KEEP hearing OVER and OVER that what’s happening when I play shouldn’t be happening, or I shouldn’t be having problems against the things im having problems with, yet I do what im told to do and the unit fails, or get shot down. I hear it from my opponents all the time and then it just consistently happens game after game.


Well im not getting massacred anymore and our last 3 games two were minor victories to him, the other was a draw so that is improvement and obviously im getting better, now I really believe if I could just do something about the knights and the cannons I will be fine (until he puts his steam tank on the board) because even though I believe DE magic is garbage I have faith in the rxb’s, cok’s, and spearmen and im pretty sure I can kill everything else.

***Edit***

Thanks Drek i didnt see what you posted untill after I had written up my responce...
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Post by Borog »

If he has handgunners in front of the warmachines, then simply charge the warmachines? They are on a hill, so you can see them. If it's not enough room between the cannons and the handgunners then land behind the cannons and charge him the next turn, so that you overrun into the handgunners if you are lucky. I have found harpies to be quite effective against empire detachments, but maybe I've just been lucky.

don't shoot reapers at the cannon, If the problem is the detachments around the cannons, then shoot them! ;)
It should be fairly easy to force at least one panic test on one unit each round. that could lead to a ripple effect around his warmachines.

And bladewind is probably the worst spell you could chuck at knights :P
I've taken them out with soulstealer and Black horror, both works wonders!
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