40k: Engine War – 5 Best Imperial Knight Stratagems
Engine War is tuning up the Imperial Knights with potent new abilities. These are our favorites.
Engine War is here and with it comes the big stompy sounds of the Imperial Knights getting some improvements. We have seen Knights have a mercurial path this edition, starting slowly, then exploding after their new codex and the new models. They dominated with Knight Castellans for a time before being FAQed and repointed back into line.
But Engine War is here and at long last they too get their moment in the sun with a bunch of new updates and upgrades. You get everything from 14 new strats, to new Allegiance Oaths and Warlord Traits. Oh, and don’t forget that Name Generator. We went through the Strats (everyone’s favorite part) and picked out our favorite 5. Here we go.
Best of the Best
What I really like about these is GW gave all the older Knights who don’t see as much action something cool that differentiates each of the classes.
Not too shabby. The Castellan’s two Siegebreaker Cannon are solid weapons, combining range 48″ with S7 Heavy 2d3 AP-1 and D3 damage. They are routinely already wounding on 3+ versus most of the game’s elite infantry, and 4+ or 5+ against the really mean stuff. A +1 to wound with that many shots will really make these guns nasty, and not moving isn’t a loss for the big, bad Castellan.
That’s a neat trick. The Warden with it’s mixed melee and gatling gun tends to get in close. Now once you get into “wrastlin” range, you can burn 1CP to automatically get 12 hits with the Avenger. It can soften up any target, and as you don’t even bother to roll – is an especially unpleasant surprise for anyone who was relying on negative modifiers, or rules tricks to avoid being hit.
How do you make an already mean, aggressive, and pugnacious knight that comes straight at you even more unsettling? How about giving it 6″ pile-in and consolidation moves. When this guy is coming at you, don’t bother running; you’ll just die tired. Gallant’s were already solid. Now they are even better!
Very cool, very flexible, and flavorful all at once. The all guns all the time Crusader is commonly used as a mid to rearline fire support anchor. Now you can burn 1CP to strip the Overwatch ability off any unit you nail with one of your primary arm weapons from across the table. This will let you hang back and suppress difficult assault targets for your other units to charge into safely. Who needs Howling Banshees when you have these guys around?
Again, this takes the original old classic Paladin and makes its battle cannon do 50% more damage, and more reliable. It’s cheap, and just what players who want more regular results out out their damage wanted. It’s also super mean for all those units of W2-3 models who will get blasted off the table more efficiently.
We’ll have to wait and see how all of these shake out with point vales in 9th Edition, but it’s a good start!
~ For the Emperor
