The offense and perks of Black Knights

[Abhorash.]

So. I have been playing since 6th and have probably played 60+ games with VC in 8th edition. This is hard for me to admit, but I do not see exactly everyone's love for Black Knights. Granted I do not use them as much as other units - I want to know just what about them makes them tick for you?

Now, I am no fool, I realize healing 1+ Wizard level on a T4 2+ armor save knight is amazing, as is there ethereal movement, and they are well priced. My only concern is their combat effectivity. I know the Vampires in their units are the ones that do the killing; but what else makes them so good in your opinion? I do not think by any means they are bad, I just find it hard to add them into my lists sometimes, and I'm not sure why.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

They're cheap, durable wound counters for your Vampire and his Hero escorts that can be resurrected so quick it's nasty, and they're fast. Not to mention the new models are the coolest thing even ever.

Also Killing Blow.

 

[Blutsauger]

They're cheap, durable wound counters for your Vampire and his Hero escorts that can be resurrected so quick it's nasty, and they're fast. Not to mention the new models are the coolest thing even ever.

Also Killing Blow.

This is exactly it. Black Knights themselves aren't that scary or useful. It's their ability to protect your Vampires and provide quick movement that is good.

A Vampire on foot loses mobility, and loses the protection of a barded steed. A Vampire outside of a unit gets sniped very quickly by warmachines or spells. So we need to put him in a unit, and we need that unit to be cavalry to provide that 2+ Look out, Sir! roll. That only leaves Black Knights or Blood Knights, and since Black Knights are just as tough for half the price AND easier to resurrect, it's a no-brainer. Black Knights all the way!

 

[eggsPR]

I use my Core to deliver my Vamps, thus giving my Core more utility than chaff/tarpit... thus leaving ALLLL the points in Special for stand-alone support units.

But BKs are cool too

 

[Abhorash.]

Yes I see it. I do like Black Knights and running the BK bus has been very effective in the past. I guess I'm just more like eggsPR in the fact that I would rather keep my Vamps in an infantry unit to keep a bunch of points for special units. Like Horrors.

 

[Minam]

Are you sure they have bad combat effectivity ? (I have no fight experience yet...). I mean they have kiling blow and the possibility to get +1 to hit by a banner (which is expensive, right ?) or even better you could take the book of arkhan on your vampire to improve your killing blow skills.

I plan on building a black knight unit. Because
- they are knight and that's cool
- they are cheaper than an effective (and so huge) unite of grave guards
- Soon I will have a nice mounted vampire lord, so I have no choice
- and my favorite reason : because I like mantic

However, you are a 60+ game experience player and I am a 0- one. So I may reconsider...

 

[vampiricshaman]

well how i see it you can either make them a delivery system for vampires and vampire lords or with swiftness on them try and take on opposing heavy cav with the exception of grail knights chaos knights and monstor cav

 

[Lynks]

It's a matter of playstyle really. Contrary to popular belief there are few do or die choices in our army book- basically any army build you can slap together will be relatively viable and if you don't like the way black knights work just don't use them. I myself have always favoured blood knights over black knights despite most people going the other way.

 

[Skittelz1981]

Well abhorash. I tend to agree with you.
I guess it depends alot on which army you play against but i too dont find the blackknights to be as valuable as other players do.

Some armies simply rape the blackknights, bleeding insane CR for nothing. Some armies get raped by blackknights, crushing your foe beyond recognition.

What i find to be a hard case is that it becomes this expensive unit with characters (usually multiple) and your whole strikingforce is packed into that single unit. If by any chance you get cockblocked by redirectors, or a spell lands on your bus that eithers decreases their effectivity or bashes their numbers, its just not so powerful at all anymore.

Also putting your lord in it and placing it as a flanking unit usually makes an army that cant march, which im not a fan of.

Ws3? wow that is so sucks, armoursave 2+ is nice but boltthrowers, doomdivers, lore of metal and plenty of other things tend to simply deny that or decrease it so much that a few will still die. Making you dependant again on succesfully casting IoN, something you can be sure will tend to be dispelled/scrolled at the moment you need it most.


My guess is that im not good enough at it. That its just not really my playstyle to have this bus or that i havent found the right way to use it just yet. I just keep running into enemies that quite easily find ways to decrease its effectivity. Its why i always wonder how others on this forum speak so easily about it. Especially when it comes to the highly needed magicphases and land that IoN or VDM.... something that i almost never get when its actually needed.


Maybe thats also your case.... it might just not be your playstyle or you just need alot more practice with it and try out slightly different angles in how to play with them.

 

[Count Matthewzilla]

Eggs, how are you setting up to deliver your vamp with core. I find that an infantry vamp in core just bleeds cr.

 

[eggsPR]

Just 2 ethereal charActers suffices... No need for 5 wraiths for a wall (it's gimmicky, overkill and leaves no room for arcane items IMO).

This way ethereals and command group take of up the front rank.

Vamp Lord makes way into CC, leaving 1 rank/file skelly... Doesn't leave much room to bleed CR.

Against DoC you can bail the ethereals in a bunker and keep them out of CC.

Hope this helps

 

[Fodderboy]

Eggs, how are you setting up to deliver your vamp with core. I find that an infantry vamp in core just bleeds cr.

As Eggy said above, plus keep your frontage narrow so you limit the number of enemy models in B2B.

 

[najo]

Eggs, how are you setting up to deliver your vamp with core. I find that an infantry vamp in core just bleeds cr.

With vampire core, it doesn't matter if you bleed cr. You will win the war of attrition since their attacks go into your fodder, leaving your vampires untouched. Unless they can heal, you will just keep killing them and healing your own quickly.

 

[Kingside_Bishop]

Eggs, how are you setting up to deliver your vamp with core. I find that an infantry vamp in core just bleeds cr.

With vampire core, it doesn't matter if you bleed cr. You will win the war of attrition since their attacks go into your fodder, leaving your vampires untouched. Unless they can heal, you will just keep killing them and healing your own quickly.

Seconded. Having a backup caster to help spam invo helps a lot, as the enemy then must choose either to stop your excellent buffs, which help turn the core useful, or stop the invocations, which give your characters more time to grind it out.

 

[najo]

Also, a unit of 9-14 black knights with a banner of the barrows and a tooled up wight king can be fairly effective without a vampire in them. Just give the wight king an ogre blade or its like. Keep the unit in range of your general to max its movement and make sure once combat starts its within IoN range.

 

[LifeEnder]

Also, a unit of 9-14 black knights with a banner of the barrows and a tooled up wight king can be fairly effective without a vampire in them. Just give the wight king an ogre blade or its like. Keep the unit in range of your general to max its movement and make sure once combat starts its within IoN range.

Do you have success playing a unit of BK with a WK in competitive environments? it seems to me that unit will just get raped by other heavy-units... they will hit first since BK have a crappy I3 and they will be hit hard couse of the WS3 aswell. 2+AS is also nothing to brag about against harder units.

Also not being able to use them as a flanker restricts their movement way to much as they are cav...

although this is just my experience, if you got some good tips/answers please let me know. I love the BK/WKbuss fluff-wise (servering their undead master for eternity..)

Cheers

 

[Ripper]

I love them. Killing blow all day. Banner of the Barrows also helps my Wight King land with his great weapon, upping the chances of him knocking an enemy character's head off.

 

[Burnanation]

When I take them I take 5 or 6 of them, which isn't often, and leave them pretty bare bones. I use them with the ethereal movement to cross, terrain that no sane person would put their cav in the middle of and pop out ready to threaten a flank.

That does not mean I insta-charge. Some times I might not charge with them until turn 6 so they can remain a threat to help dictate enemy movement. Regardless of punch, or lack thereof, most people are not inclined to expose a flank to a cav charge of any kind.

 

[Falahk]

in the old days they used to be quite mandatory, but in all honesty, with the current rules you are probably better of spending your points on crypt horrors or hexwraiths