Help vs Empire Uber Knights

[fuel4life]

I have palyed 3 x 3k games vs a mate who plays empire.

His new toy is a 1000pts unit of knights, immune to psychology with a 1+ save.

He also always plays morters x2 and connons x2

He keeps beating me (and the ogres I sometimes play).

How do I kill these knights?

Please help

[pk-ng]

stardragon with foebane? but mite get shot
or 2 AM
1 with BoH n hope for Spirit of the forge
the other with silver n spirit of the forge
no more knights

[Minsc]

His new toy is a 1000pts unit of knights, immune to psychology with a 1+ save.

More info please.

"1000 pts of knights" is abit vague - better to give us an estimate of the number of knights and how they are fielded.
Are they Inner Circle?
If they are ItP that means theres a Templar Grand Master in them - what does he usually have?
Are there a Warrior Priest in there?

A that large unit of knights seem very unwieldy and not really that impressive to be honest. (As Empire Knights are still Empire Knights - 1+ AS is good, then there's not that much more impressive things about them.)

Charge them with a Dragon, Melt them with Lore of Metal, combocharge them with infantry units, pelt them with singleshot RBT's, etc etc. I see many ways of dealing with this unit from a HE perspective.

[fuel4life]

Sorry for being so vague:

His unit is around 20+ knights. They are definately inner circle knights, in 3 ranks with a 3 or 4 in the 4th rank.

I'm not sure exactly the heroes in the unit but I know one is Luthor Huss and another is grand master (I think).

The unit causes fear and re-rolls all to hits (Righteous Fury?), they have a magic resistance and he uses the rod of power to store dice from magic. Not sure if its imune to panic also.

Sorry about the vagueness I have really tried my best to describe the unit.

He just marches it accross and squishes my units. I have got it down to characters only once but it took all my army.

Going to take a look at the Bret montly special sticky

[pk-ng]

that big units of knights can be a problem to handle. you can redirect very easily. flank n rear charge it. march block it at the start and shoot it down as much as possible.

[Minsc]

Flank them with an eagle (pref where he doesn't have his TGM/Luthor), loose combat, break and then smile as he has to pursue you in the wrong direction thanks to Righteous Fury.

Now when his units are looking in the wrong direction, smile even more, as you flank his 'uber' unit with a unit of White Lions/Swordsmasters/Phoenix Guard/Stardragon.

He'll have 2 CR (Standard, Outnumber, possiblty Warbanner).
In the case of flanking him with PG/WL/SM, you'll have at least 3 CR (Flank, Standard, Rank), but can easily obtain more due to more ranks and kills.
Using a ~400 pts unit of our Elite Infantry (25 + FC) + a 50 pts Eagle in order to take out a 1000 pts unit of Knights sounds fair to me.

The unit causes fear and re-rolls all to hits (Righteous Fury?), they have a magic resistance and he uses the rod of power to store dice from magic. Not sure if its imune to panic also.

I dont think the unit causes fear (because that banner is crap). Luthor causes fear, but it's a big different between US2 Fearcausers and US40 fearcausers.
And Righteous Fury gives the unit Hatred, so only reroll in the first turn of combat. Only the Knights and Luthor himself gets hatred however, since RF don't affect other characters.

[dabber]

If the entire unit causes fear, it only causes fear on the charge (the banner sucks).

Use Eagles. Park one in front of the unit, at an angle. He either charges or sits on his butt doing nothing. Take the charge. He has to pursue/overrun, meaning goes somewhat sideways. Where you have a big unit of Phoenix Guard ready to flank him, and another unit to walk up the other side and trap him on US5 when he breaks.


In general, a big unit of breakable cavalry should not be very difficult to deal with. Too many points in one place. Outmanuever it, kill the rest, win easy.

[Act of God]

Alternately to all these suggestions about charging his knights with various units in various ways, you could just take 4 rbt, botsf, and let loose 5 single shot bolt throwers per turn into this unit. Remember, his knights are only T3 with a fancy 1+ AS but no WS, and if they're in a long bus like that you could potentially pop the unit in one shooting phase (though it would more likely take 2). If you're worried about his speed, just park back a bit more than usual, say 30 inches away from his unit (they have a 14" charge) and march block him with shadow warriors and/or ellyrion reavers (I prefer shadow warriors for this roll because it's better to have him march blocked from turn 1 and if they die, they're cheaper than reevers anyway), if done properly, he won't be able to touch you with this unit, if they're marchblocked from turn 1 then it will be at least 4 turns before they get to you (7"+7"+14"=28" not far enough) which gives you three turns of shooting or 15 bolt thrower shots at the unit before they'll get to you, then you have 3 more turns to wrap up the rest of his army.

[fuel4life]

Ok then. Liking it.

My list for tomorrow (my 4th 3k) vs his empire was:

Teclis, Lvl 4 AM + boh (Both metal for knights), 16 pg +bos (for mages to sit in), 3x10 Archers (to mop up his peasants), 12x sm+cmd+wb, 25x wl+cmd+wb, 2x 5 ER+bow, 2x5 sw, 4x rbt, 2 eagles = 2995 (did have less wl and a noble with BB which I have changed given advice).

I was going to magic the ass off the uber knight unit but I really like the simplicity (and taking time to place correctly) the eagle / large infantry idea.

Maybe dont need so much magic now? maybe metal and heavens (spell 4 and 5 for artillery and spell 2 for rerolls on missed rbt shots?) instead of both metal.

Need to take out his morters also quickly as they decimate my infantry.

Is this list OK?

The Elves comunity rocks! Thanks guys.

[Act of God]

Ok then. Liking it.

My list for tomorrow (my 4th 3k) vs his empire was:

Teclis, Lvl 4 AM + boh (Both metal for knights), 16 pg +bos (for mages to sit in), 3x10 Archers (to mop up his peasants), 12x sm+cmd+wb, 25x wl+cmd+wb, 2x 5 ER+bow, 2x5 sw, 4x rbt, 2 eagles = 2995 (did have less wl and a noble with BB which I have changed given advice).

I was going to magic the ass off the uber knight unit but I really like the simplicity (and taking time to place correctly) the eagle / large infantry idea.

Maybe dont need so much magic now? maybe metal and heavens (spell 4 and 5 for artillery and spell 2 for rerolls on missed rbt shots?) instead of both metal.

Need to take out his morters also quickly as they decimate my infantry.

Is this list OK?

The Elves comunity rocks! Thanks guys.

As you already pointed out earlier, the unit has magic resistance, thus I wouldn't recommend trying to go magic heavy against them. Your best bet at bringing down empire knights is war machines (as I said, 4 rbt and the botsf), they die, and there is no possible threat to you outide of combat, besides, even with a bunch of high strength cc attacks, they still get saves, and then the get to swing back, if you just shoot the crap out of them with bolts, they drop like flies.

[Minsc]

The unit causes fear and re-rolls all to hits (Righteous Fury?), they have a magic resistance and he uses the rod of power to store dice from magic. Not sure if its imune to panic also.

How can they have Magic Resistance? Is it because the TGM's items or do they have the MR(2) Banner?

And since they are ItP, they are also ItPanic.

[WarpPhoenix]

Ok here's what you do if you REALLY want to win the game. It is VERY simple and will most likely be something your friend complains about for a long time. If you have any questions what so ever about how to use it feel free to ask, but for now I'll just give you a list of musthaves.

Teclis - Take Lore of Metal.
Big unit of either White Lions or Phoenix Guard to hide Teclis - 14-19 would be ideal. Maybe 24 if you're really scared.
Banner of Sorcery on either Dragon Princes or Phoenix Guard.
A level 1 scroll caddy, MAYBE two.

- NO OTHER MAGIC -

4 bolt throwers
2 eagles
A Prince with the Seafearer bow on either a dragon of some kind or something that flies.

This is all you need to defeat that particular 1000 point unit of knights.

[pk-ng]

can I ask why is MR going to be a problem with Teclis and BoH AM? They both get IFs? and that's what you're betting on???

[WarpPhoenix]

A book of Heoth mage will take away dice from teclis or will only get one spell off. and you really want Teclsi to do it all becasue he has miscast protection.

[fuel4life]

Ok.

I went with Warp Phoenix's advice based on my origional list i.e. changing the lvl 4 am with boh for a lord on eagle with sotsf. Botsf was brill with the high bs and ability to flank.

Teclis got metal spell 6 off to totally decimate the night unit.

Left sm out to dry a little by not getting them into combat quickly enough and did get flank by 3 knights that rallied into the unit of 24 WL. Ended up with a SV.

First win hopefully of many.

Thanks for all the advice.

(Just updated my signiture )

[WarpPhoenix]

Good going man, glad my advice helped. Looks liek you used it all just fine without any tactical advice, which is great.

You shouldnt really think of rushing swordmasters into combat, they are great in combat and i can see why you'd want them there as quickly as possible, but I always like to think that if my swordmasters go the whole game without getting touched and never see combat then I am up 105 points and contesting a table quater, so holding 205 points on their own. If they get shot then you cant do much about it other than help hide them. I find that swordmasters are better used as a detterant to stop people springing traps they had planned, if you deny your opponents options then you force him into certain situations, and thats when you can start really winning.

When you can control your opponents mind, you have already won

[Elaithnir]

Nice going on the win.
Big uber blocks (this goes for non-ranged Deathstars as well) should never be a problem. Feed them eagles and keep them out of combat until you can flank/rear them, or ignore them while you mop up the rest of the army.

[lathian]

I love those blocks. They hurtle towards my line only to be thwarted by a lone eagle at a funny angle, soon to be hit by a block of swordmasters in the flank, with an eagle in their flee path.

[fuel4life]

My first time Vs dark elves this week. A new challenge and way I need to think. I love this game.

Thanks again everyone esp phoenix