Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This quote in the LI news and rumors thread got me curious:

SamusDrake wrote:
Also that James had pretty much designed AT as a titan combat simulator, and GW duct-taped Knight banners on to it.

I was never able to find AT by me, so I haven’t played it. For those of you who have, do you find it plays better with knights or without? Or is it a wash either way? Curious to hear your thoughts.

A good friend came over to mine for a game of AT today as it happens.
Small game; he had all titans, i included a single banner of 3 cerastus knights.
They ran up the flank nice and quick and they even weathered the apoc launchers of the enemy warlord with the ion gauntlet shield rule!
But it looked at them in a mean way with a volcano cannon and the banner disappeared somewhere
Ill tell you what we learned from the battle when they report back.

Cheers for the shout-out, Fugazi! You know you've made it when you finally get a shout-out.

After a few years of play testing we came to the following house rules to enjoy the Knights...

1) Run strict Legio vs Legio and House vs House games.
2) Cerastus Lancers are ideal for supporting a maniple of Titans.
3) Change House Lances to 2-3 banners, with the optional third banner allowing a different type of Knight.
4) Porphyrions; remove the auxiliary banner rule, but change the Magna cannons blast trait to ordnance and the missile pod rapid trait to carapace.
5) Save terminal space for additional banners by using a card/plasticard strip to hold a dice for structure points, order-dice and tokens.

...otherwise, its usually a disappointing experience.

Knights can be good for missions that need to retrive somethings they are fast and flexible.
Maybe good at getting some last shields down, and do last points of dammage. You wouldnt drive a car with a machinegun to challange a real battletank. IR.,

Knights issue isn't killing power. They kill titans just fine.

They have 2 issues. Volcano cannon and titan dying.

Knights are either too weak or totally broken. A core problem as well is how targeting works for a banner, you can basically see and bein range of 1 out of 9 but if the weapon is crazy powerful you can wipe a unit you see 1/9th of, its just silly.

At the same time knights do feel forced into the game, its like they're there to make the titans feel bigger/stronger/cooler and that works, but only if both sides even take knights. I quite like them in legions, because they feel a lot stronger and as such a few go a long way.

SamusDrake wrote:

4) Porphyrions; remove the auxiliary banner rule, but change the Magna cannons blast trait to ordnance and the missile pod rapid trait to carapace.

Interesting. May have to see if I can try that. We’ve got a sort of gentleman’s agreement at the club to not run them unless you’re either taking a knight household and even then, only take one, or you let the other player know so they can bring one to counter!

As an aside, what about the asterius? Any thoughts on what you’d adjust with that?

 zedmeister wrote:


Interesting. May have to see if I can try that. We’ve got a sort of gentleman’s agreement at the club to not run them unless you’re either taking a knight household and even then, only take one, or you let the other player know so they can bring one to counter!

As an aside, what about the asterius? Any thoughts on what you’d adjust with that?

Let me consult the books...

The best I can think of is to replace the tiresome (3"/5")Blast trait with Shieldbane. As the Porphrion becomes a "nutcracker" with the Ordnance trait, so then does the Asterius become a specialist in void shield removal.

For the Kracnos Mortar Battery, I'd at least add the Carapace trait to give smaller enemy knights a chance in melee. The Rending trait still feels a little bit brutal, so you might want to remove that altogether but it would then be too similar to the modified Porphyrion's missile rack.

Consider a penalty for their cannons, if an Acastus had moved in the movement phase. Maybe a -1 modifier to hit.