Hello, honored battle brethren! In an effort to help with playing into opponents you're likely to run into on your way to glorious victory, I'd like to do a deep dive into Imperial Knights. This is a continuation of the Know The Foe series of articles, just with a new name because it's more alliterative, because I am just that kind of nerd. One of the biggest barriers to winning games is the knowledge gap. Opponents will generally know what most things in our lists do because they're facing Space Marines all the time. The reverse is not always true, so I'm writing these articles to redress that balance.
Imperial Knights were a strong faction in the meta before the recent balance dataslate buff, and they are a top faction now. I'd say they're competing with Death Guard for the title of top faction, and as of this writing they were the top faction last weekend. They're also a popular faction, so the odds of facing Knights across the table are fairly high. To that end, it's good to be familiar with what to expect.
For sample armies, I used lists that went 4-1 at the Leeds Super-Major. That gave me a pool of 6 lists to refer to.
Army Rules
Code Chivalric
Knight players get to choose between two buffs for their army, depending on what Oath their army takes at the start of the battle. Each Oath comes with an ability and a Deed that, when accomplished, generates 3 bonus CP, and the army is Honoured, which buffs the army in ways detailed in other rules. The choices are as follows:
Oath: Lay Low the Tyrant
Ability: Every time a model under the effect of this Oath makes attacks, in the Shooting phase or the Fight phase, it can reroll one Hit roll and one Wound roll
Deed: Enemy Warlord is destroyed
Oath: Reclaim the Realm
Oath Ability: Models under the effect of this Oath gain +1" to their Move characteristic and add +1 to Advance and Charge rolls
Deed: Control an objective marker in opponent's deployment zone
I'm just going to say that it's going to be very unusual to see a Knight player take the Reclaim the Realm Oath. As a rule, little Knights move 12" and big Knights move 10". They don't particularly need the extra movement, and if they can park a Knight on their opponent's backfield objective they've probably tabled the opponent.
Lay Low the Tyrant is the Oath you can expect any Knight opponent to be taking. Rerolling Hit and Wound rolls is a huge buff to any army, and a lot of Knights pack low-volume, high-quality attacks. Ensuring they stick is a major advantage.
Bondsman Abilities
Big Knights, except the Castellan and the Valiant, have the Questoris Keyword (the other two have the Dominus keyword instead). Questoris models have Bondsman abilities, which are buffs they can hand out to little Knights (aka Armigers). During the Knight player's Command phase, each Questoris Knight can buff one Armiger within 12" of it. The buff lasts till the start of the Knights player's next Command Phase, and each Armiger can only be buffed by one Bondsman ability per turn.
Super-Heavy Walker
This applies to big Knights. Basically they can move over terrain and non-Titanic models, as long as they don't end a non-Charge move in Engagement Range of opposing units, and if they move over terrain greater than 4" in height, they stand a 1 in 6 chance of Battle-shocking themselves. It's important to note that this rule specifies Normal, Advance, and Fall Back moves, so it does not allow a unit to move through terrain when making a Charge move.
Freeblades
Allows one big Knight or up to three little Knights be fielded in an army with the Imperium keyword.
Detachment: Noble Lance
If you're playing with a Knights player, your opponent is almost certainly using the Noble Lance detachment. It's the Index detachment, and there is a Grotmas detachment, but hardly anyone uses it.
Detachment Rule: Indomitable Heroes
All Imperial Knight models in the army have a 6+ Feel No Pain, which improves to a 5+ if their army becomes Honoured. Don't let them kill your Warlord.
Enhancements
Mysterious Guardian (25 points)
The bearer gains Deep Strike and once per battle can uppy at the end of your turn and downy again in the Knight player's next Movement phase, subject to the usual terms and conditions (can't uppy if in Engagement range, has to be more than 9" away from your units when it downies). Out of the 7 lists I used as examples, this was in 6 of them. Being able to Deep Strike and uppy-downy a big Knight is a huge advantage.
Banner of Macharius Triumphant (30 points)
Stickies objectives in the Knights' player's Command phase if the bearer is on an objective the Knights player controls. This enhancement was in 5 of my 7 sample lists.
The rest of these enhancements weren't in any of my sample lists, though some of them seem good. Maybe Knight players find them too pricey.
Revered Knight (15 points)
6" aura of +1 Leadership. Becomes a 12" aura if the army becomes Honoured.
Mythic Hero (25 points)
Questoris model with Bondsman ability only. Can give a Bondsman ability to an additional Armiger per turn.
Unyielding Paragon (40 points)
Questoris model only. Permanent Armour of Contempt for the bearer. Seems good, but it's pricey
Stratagems
Valiant Last Stand (2 CP, Fight phase)
Guaranteed Fights-On-Death. Triggers before Deadly Demise. I wouldn't be too much of a stickler for making a Knight opponent play the strat before they roll for Deadly Demise, but I would insist in resolving any wounds from the Fight phase before Deadly Demise wounds.
Squire's Duty (1 CP, start of Knight Shooting phase or either Fight phase)
Targets 2+ Armigers and 1 enemy unit that is an eligible target for those Armigers
Improves Strength and AP of the targeted Armigers' weapons by 1.
If army is Honoured, improves targeted Armigers' weapons Damage by 1 as well
Thunderstomp (1 CP, Fight phase)
Target Knight cannot target Monster or Vehicle units. Target Knight's melee weapons gain Devastating Wounds
Shoulder the Burden (2 CP, Knight Command Phase)
Targets 1 Imperial Knight that has lost 1 or more wounds
Target Knight improves its Move, Toughness, Save, Leadership, and OC by 1
Target Knight adds 1 to Hit rolls
Lasts till start of next Knight Command Phase
Can only be played once per battle. May be played a second time if army is Honoured
Trophy Claim (2 CP, Knight Shooting or either Fight Phase)
Targets 1 Imperial Knight that has not yet attacked that phase, and one enemy Monster or Vehicle
Target Knight's attacks add +1 to Wound rolls
If target is destroyed, Knight player gains 1 CP
If target is not destroyed by the target Knight in that phase, this stratagem may not be used again for the rest of the game
Rotate Ion Shields (1 CP, opponent Shooting phase)
Targets 1 Imperial Knight selected as a shooting target
Target Knight has a 4+ Invulnerable save against Ranged attacks until the end of the phase
This seems like a pretty good set of stratagems, but three of them cost 2 CP, and one of those can be played, at most, twice per game. The 2 CP strats seem like they're priced for big Knights. I don't think most Knight players would play 2 CP to make a Warglaive Fight on Death, unless it would make a noteworthy difference in the game. If you see a lot of Armigers on the table, watch out for Squire's Duty - particularly on Helverins, whose main drawback is low AP on their autocannons. Thunderstomp seems pretty good for melee Knights in particular. Again, I'd think Knight players wouldn't play it on Armiger-class Knights very often, but the bigger melee Knights have multi-damage Sweep attacks that seem ideal to put Devastating Wounds on. Knight players will also pretty reliably play Rotate Ion Shields if they're going to take a big shooting attack, and it's cheap, so expect it.
Commonly Used Units
Canis Rex (380 points)
Canis Rex is in every one of my sample lists. He's been in every Imperial Knights list I've ever played against. I've even seen him allied to other Imperial armies. We could take Canis Rex in an army if we wanted to. So, you're apt to see Canix Rex if you play much 40K at all, and you'll certainly see him anytime you square up against an Imperial Knights player who is trying to be competitive.
He's got a typical profile for the big Questoris-class Knights, so get familiar with it. It's a tough target to take down, but you'd expect a pretty beefy profile for 380 points. Expect to need to commit multiple units to take down one of these bad boys. Just to give you an idea what to expect, a full Deathwing Knight squad into one of these guys, assuming average-ish dice and no other resources put into it, can expect to inflict 10 damage on a Questoris Knight before saves and FNP rolls. Lion Dad, again assuming average dice, will likely inflict 16-18 wounds by himself in the Fight phase, which Canis at least won't get saves against, but will negate at least a couple through FNP. Inner Circle Companions led by a character can expect to inflict 8-10 damage on a Questoris chassis, as they all seem to have the Character keyword. Plan your offense into these suckers accordingly.
You can expect the big Knights to have some pretty formidable offense too, and Canis certainly does. He's one of the versatile Knights, with both good shooting and good melee. His main gun is the Chainbreaker las-impulsor with two very handy settings. The high intensity setting is D6 Blast shots, will wound anything we can put on the table on at least a 3+, most things without an Invulnerable save won't get much of a save at all, and at 4 Damage a pop every failed save picks up an Outrider, or a Ravenwing Knight, or a Gravis-armored figure. Three failed saves will pick up almost every vehicle we have, save Repulsors and Land Raiders. It's one failing is it has kind of a short range, so it could be feasible to keep long range shooting units out if its reach for at least the early turns. It's got a longer reach with its low-intensity setting and would be good for picking up 2-wound models, but I doubt the Knight player will be using that before higher-priority targets are dealt with.
In melee Canis lays the smackdown with Freedom's hand, with a Strike profile having 5 attacks at Strength 20 that will 1-shot an Invader ATV, and a Sweep profile with 10 attacks at Strength 10 that will 1-shot Gravis Marines and ICCs. You want to try and not let him swing if you engage him in melee, which will mean softening him up some first.
Also bear in mind that all of Canis' attacks have Sustained Hits, and one of his datasheet abilities lets him crit on 5's, so expect his damage to spike.
His other datasheet ability is discounted stratagems when they're played on him, so he's likely to be the main recipient of those 2-CP strats we mentioned above.
Finally, Canis has this other cute little ability where, if he's destroyed, his pilot Sir Hekhtur pops out, and Canis is not considered destroyed until Sir Hekhtur bites it. Hekhtur is a Toughness 3, 3-wound character with a 4+ save, but he's got Lone Op, and a canny Knight player will position Canis close to a wall so they can deploy Hektur with the wall between him and your stuff if you bring Canis down. Then you need to send something to chase the little bastard down if you want to count Canis as destroyed for something like Bring It Down or Assassinate. Conversely, if you're playing Tactical Secondaries and don't have either of those active at the moment, you might just ignore him till you do. He's got some utility as an action monkey, but other than that he's not going to affect the game overly much, and he's potentially points on the hoof if you wait to deal with him till one of those Secondaries comes up.
Cerastus Knight Atrapos (390 points)
You won't find the Cerastus Knight Atrapos in Index: Imperial Knights. Instead, it's in Imperial Armour: Imperial Knights, available under the Imperial Armour tab in the 40K Downloads page on Warhammer-Community. It's essentially an entire extra index Knight players can pick units from. That doesn't make me salty at all. I totally don't mind the fact that the expensive resin Sicaran I bought from Forge World is now only usable in Horus Heresy, but Knight players can freely use their Forge World models in 40K.
Anyway, the Atrapos has the usual big Knight profile, two very nice guns, and a good melee profile. It's first gun, the Atrapos lascutter, has two settings, one good for cutting through Intercessor-style units with 2D6 shots at Strength 7 AP -1 Damage 2, and one good for slagging elite infantry, mounted units, and not bad into vehicles or monsters either, with D6 shots at Strength 14 AP -3 Damage 4. Both of those profiles have Sustained Hits 1 to boot, though neither has Blast, which you'd think it would.
The Atrapos' other gun is its Graviton singularity cannon, again with two settings, though they're functionally identical except for the addition of Devastating Wounds and Hazardous. Either way, it's D3 Blast at Strength 16 AP -4 Damage D6+1. It seems pretty unlikely a Knight player opponent would use the Dev Wounds+Hazardous profile on us unless they were really desperate to pick up some Deathwing Knights.
Those are some pretty effective shooting attacks. The only mitigating factor is that, other than the lascutter's low intensity setting, they're kind of short ranged at 24", but the Atrapos has a 12" move, so I doubt that's going to be very limiting, unless you're jailing the Knight player with some fast movers while keeping some Lancers or Annihilators as far back as you can to engage them at extreme range.
The Atrapos also has a good melee profile, which seems unusual for a 2-big-gun Knight. The lascutter can also be used in the Fight phase, with basically the same pair of profiles as its shooting attacks, only instead of 2D6 or D6 shots, it has 12 or 6 attacks, depending on if you're using it at low intensity or high intensity. And both profiles have Sustained Hits 1, so on average they're going to do a few more attacks per turn, and may spike for big turns.
For defensive abilities, the Atrapos has 2 more wounds than Canis Rex, and a 5+ Invulnerable Save that's always on, not just against shooting attacks.
The one place where the Atrapos seems a little underwhelming, at least from the perspective of a Dark Angels player playing against them, is in its datasheet abilities. It's got a Bondsman ability that is only of use against Titanic/Towering models, so that won't affect us unless we're using an allied Knight or an Astraeus super-heavy. Its other datasheet ability, Macro-extinction Protocols, gives it +1 to Hit against Monsters and Vehicles, and +1 to Wound if they're Titanic or Towering, which is fine and all, but our best units are neither Monsters nor Vehicles, except Lion Dad, who has Lone Op, so we're not really affected that much by it.
The Atrapos didn't appear in all of my sample lists, but he was only missing from one, and one of those lists used three of him.
Knight Crusader (390 points)
The Crusader was another big boy came up frequently in my sample lists. You can see the usual profile. He's a little slower than the Atrapos, but 10" is a typical Move characteristic for the big Knights. He doesn't have his own Invulnerable save, but can get one against shooting with Rotate Ion Shields. If you can tease it out elsewhere though, you might get a free round of shooting into this guy.
The Crusader is a shooting platform, with two big guns and an assortment of lesser ones. One of the big guns is always going to be the Avenger gatling cannon, as there is no option to swap it out. That thing will mess up 2-wound Infantry it can draw a bead on, with enough shots that the Knight player can reasonably expect to pick up a whole 10-man squad of Intercessor-equivalents with one salvo.
The other big gun you can expect this guy to be carrying is a Thermal cannon, which will wreck any Vehicle or Monster within 12" of it, and is a weapon to be concerned out to 24". Bear that 10" move in mind it's got during your Movement phase, if you're trying to keep your Gladiator Lancers out of its range.
It has the option of replacing the Thermal cannon with a Rapid-fire battle cannon, but none of the Crusaders in the sample lists I looked at did so.
Of the assorted other guns, the one to be most aware of is the Stormspear rocket pod, which was on all the Crusaders in my sample lists. It adds a little extra D6 damage shooting with a 48" range. It's not a huge threat to a fresh vehicle in cover, but could be used to finish off a damaged one, or bat cleanup on something that barely survived the Thermal cannon.
For melee, all it's got is its stompy feet, which aren't much, but don't expect to tie it up with a Scout Squad either, because that will not go well for the Scouts.
Cerastus Knight Lancer (395 points)
This actually isn't the first time I've mentioned the Knight Lancer in an article, because one of our brethren used an allied one in a list recently. The Lancer is the last big Knight that's appeared in more than one of the sample lists I'm using, so it's getting another mention here.
The Lancer is pretty close to a polar opposite to the Knight Crusader mentioned above, in that it's almost entirely a melee Knight. As you can see from its profile, it does have an okay shooting attack, but the most interesting thing about that is it has Sustained Hits 2. We don't have to be too concerned about it doing mass damage to our key units.
We do need to be concerned about the Lancer in melee, however. Its Cerastus shock lance has both a Strike and Sweep profile, as one might expect. The Strike profile is Strength 20 with Lance, and one shot from it will pick up an Invader ATV in one go. With its 5 Strike attacks, it has the potential to do 40 damage. That's likely to pick up even other Knights.
The Sweep profile is nothing to sneeze at either, 10 attacks at Strength 10 that are 3 damage a pop will mow through most elite Infantry or Mounted units.
Either way, the Lancer hits on 2+ in the Fight phase, and if it charges it's wounding anything in the game on 2+ with its Strike profile. The sucker is fast, too, with a 14" Move characteristic. At least it can't Advance and Charge, so you can position units outside its charge range with confidence. It's unusually tough too, with 28 Wounds and an unconditional 4+ Invulnerable save.
The Lancer's Bondsman ability lets it grant Advance and Charge to an Armiger, so watch out for any Warglaives that are going to be within 12" of one of these in the Knight Command Phase. For his own Datasheet ability, the Lancer can play Tank Shock on himself for free, so be prepared to expend Watchers when one of your units eats a charge from one.
Assorted Other Big Knights
This was not an all-inclusive list of all the big Knights that appeared in my sample list, but it is all the ones that were in multiple lists. Other big Knights that appeared were the Gallant, Warden, Castellan, and Errant. If you've got a Knight player in your area using one of those, or one I haven't listed, look it up. As of this writing, Knights are an Index army, so you can just go to Warhammer-Community to find their rules.
Armiger Helverin (130 points)
Armigers are the little Knights, the ones that are roughly equivalent to a Redemptor Dreadnought in size. They're Battleline units in a Knight army, and they're a lot more reasonably priced than the big Knights, so Knight players are likely to use them to mind Objectives if nothing else. I haven't talked much about OC yet, but even the little Knights are OC 6 when they're not bracketed, so you'll have to make a concerted effort to out-OC one on an Objective.
The Helverin is a ranged platform whose main sting are its pair of Armiger autocannons. Their primary utility is to pick up elite Infantry, but they have high enough Strength and Damage that you really don't want any of your vehicles eating their volleys either. For a secondary weapon, they can pack either a heavy stubber or a meltagun. In most of the lists I looked at, they had heavy stubbers, which makes sense because they're probably not going to be trotting even into midfield unless things are either going seriously wrong or seriously right for the Knight player.
For melee, the Armiger just has its kicky kicky feet, which aren't going to do much. Scouts that run in to harass and annoy it don't have much to fear from them.
I almost forgot to mention the Helverin's Datasheet ability. Skyfire Protocols grants the Armiger's autocannons Anti-Fly 2+ if it's in its own deployment zone or on an Objective the Knight player controls. As far as playing into us, it almost might as well not have a Datasheet ability, but it will occasionally be relevant.
All but one of my sample lists used Helverins, and the one that lacked them didn't use any Armigers at all.
Armiger Warglaive (140 points)
The Warglaive is the other Armiger you're likely to see in Knight lists, and if the list is focused on little Knights, you're likely to see a lot of them. Warglaives are meant to get in close and mix it up with their Thermal spear and Reaper chain-cleaver.
The Thermal spear is a pretty good anti-Vehicle, anti-Monster weapon. It's basically a multimelta with Strength 12 and Melta 4, so that's not a gun we want getting shot at things we care about. For its secondary gun, it also has the choice between a meltagun and a heavy stubber. Of the two, the meltagun appeared in all the sample lists I looked at, which makes sense to me, as it seems like it synergizes well with the Thermal spear.
The little blighters are pretty decent in the Fight phase too, with its Reaper chain-cleaver sporting a 4-attack Strike profile at Strength 8 AP -3 and Damage 3 and an 8-attack Sweep profile at Strength 8 AP -2 Damage 1. I suppose we're likely to mostly see the Strike profile unless a Knight opponent is trying to maximize his chances of taking out a single Infantry figure on its last wound. That Strike profile will be good into ICCs, Gravis units, and vehicles. It will take 2 attacks from one to take out a Deathwing Knight, but one of these suckers may take out Lion Dad if the Knight player is lucky and the Dark Angels player is not.
The Warglaive's datasheet ability is Impetuous Glory, which gives its chain-cleaver Sustained Hits 1 on the charge, so be aware its melee damage may spike. Try not to let them be the ones doing the charging.
Imperial Agents Units
One thing Knight players' two Indexes don't provide is cheap units to hold down objectives or score Secondaries, so they will often dip into Codex: Imperial Agents for action monkeys and something cheap to sit on the backfield objective.
Out of all my sample lists, the non-Knight unit that popped up the most frequently was the Callidus Assassin. I'm reasonably certain everyone is aware enough of the Callidus' abilities that it's easy to see why. If you're not, the Callidus is 100 points of uppy-downy Lone Op character with Deep Strike. That alone would be worth 100 points to a Knight player, and she comes with some other abilities that the Knight player can use to harass and annoy their opponent. If you're facing a Knight player using a Callidus as their action monkey, it's likely worth expending a resource or two to pick her up. Just be aware she's got Fights First and a decent melee profile, so try and get her with shooting. She's Toughness 4 with 4 Wounds and a 4++ save, so she's a lot squishier than even an Armiger, and eliminating her will really hamper the Knight player's ability to score action Secondaries.
Other Imperial Agents units that popped up in my sample lists were the Culexus Assassin, Voidsmen-at-Arms, a Ministorum Priest, and a Sisters of Battle squad with an Immolator. I've also seen players use a Navigator, which is a 75 point character with a 12" zone of exclusion.
I personally have seen the Sisters Squad+Immolator combo with some frequency. The Immolator allows the Knight player to split a 10-strong Sisters squad into two 5-strong squads, so you'll often see that with 5 Sisters with bolters minding a backfield objective and the other 5 with all the upgraded weapons in the Immolator. Their primary job will be to score Secondaries, but you might find yourself facing a few unexpected melta shots from them. The Immolator will likely come with a twin-linked multimelta, heavy bolter, and hunter killer missile too, plus it can strip cover from a unit hit by one of its guns, which is going to be of benefit to a Knight player.
Common Builds
With the drop in points for big Knights, the most common build appears to be 4 big Knights with some supplemental Armigers. At least, that was the most common built out of my sample lists. One list had 5 big Knights and no Armigers, and the last one had 2 big Knights and a whole pile of Armigers - 6 to be exact.
As previously mentioned, all the lists included Canis Rex, and all but one included at least one Knight Atrapos, with one list featuring 3 of them, so that was a greater than 1-per-list average. The one list that didn't have an Atrapos contained a Knight Castellan, which is 395 points of gun platform, so that player probably felt like they didn't need an Atrapos. Knights Crusader and Lancer also popped up in multiple lists, and some diverse one-offs appeared in some of the lists.
The all- or mostly-all big Knight lists seemed to lean one of two ways. Either all the big Knights were versatile platforms, adept in both the Shooting and Fight phases, or they employed a shooting-specialized big Knight, a melee-specialized big Knight, with the remaining big Knights being versatile platforms. The 4-big-Knight lists employed an average of 3 Armigers each, always with at least 2 Helverins, with 1-2 Warglaives popping up in a few.
The list with 2 big Knights and 6 Armigers featured Canis, and Atrapos, and an even 3-3 split between Helverins and Warglaives. That was also the list with the Ministorum Priest, the Sisters squad and the Immolator, freeing up all those Armigers to run around and be a nuisance for the Knight player's opponents.
If there's a takeaway to all this, it's that as long as long as you're pretty up to speed on the rules for Canis Rex, the Knight Atrapos, the Helverin, and the Warglaive, you're aware of what like 75% of the Knight units your likely to face can do. You'll probably only need to ask your opponent about 1 or two of their other units, and you'll be good to go.
Playing Into Knights
If you find yourself looking across the table at Knights, there will be a temptation to go Fixed Secondaries and pick Bring It Down and Assassination, because big Knights are both Vehicles and Characters, so killing them earns you points from both Secondaries, and during the course of play you only have to worry about scoring Primary and killing your opponent's army.
There is an argument to be made for this strategy, but it's not as clear cut as you might think. For starters, you're very unlikely to max Assassination. As a Fixed Secondary it's only worth 4 points per character, so an army with 4 big Knights can only possibly yield 16 on Assassination, unless they have some Imperial Agent characters running around.
Then there's Bring It Down, which one can definitely max out on against Knights. Killing 3 big Knights or 2 big Knights and 3 little Knights will net you 18 points, and that seems like it should be achievable. Certainly if you don't, you're in for a hard time.
That said, big Knights are units that don't want to die. We're talking about high-toughness models with 26 wounds (the Forge World Knights have 28) and a Feel No Pain, plus some of them have Invulnerable saves, or can get one from shooting with Rotate Ion Shields. That is not a unit that is going to go down easily.
Let's do some math. Let's say I'm playing against a Knight player, and I manage to put a fresh squad of macey boy Deathwing Knights into one of the big Knights. We'll make it Canis Rex, because every list is going to have Canis Rex in it. Absent Oath or any other resources, when rolling dice for Hits, Wounds, and Saves is all done, I've likely done 10 wounds, but that's before Feel No Pain rolls. That means you can't expect to pick up a fresh big Knight even if you charge it with two full Deathwing Knight squads, which represents at least 100 more points than any of the big Knights cost. Lion Dad by himself isn't going to pick up a big Knight either. He theoretically could - he can do 32 damage with his Strike profile if he hits and wounds with every attack, but absent Oath he's probably going to miss a couple attacks, and then only wound with 2/3rds of those. Lion Dad AND a Deathwing Knight squad could probably pick up a fresh big Knight between the two of them, but that's assuming the Knight player doesn't spike saves and Feel No Pains against your attacks.
I guess all of this is my way of saying unless you've deliberately teched into picking up big Knights, you probably can't rely on picking enough of them up to score reasonably well on fixed Bring It Down and Assassinate. If you're playing an all-comers list, you've likely included some units for scoring positional and action Secondaries that won't do you a lot of good into that particular Fixed Secondaries game.
There is an argument to be made for teching into picking up big Knights in particular. Imperial and Chaos Knights between them are bullying the meta and more players are playing the two of them than are playing Death Guard, the most popular single army in the meta at the moment. Being able to reliably pick up big Knights is never going to be a bad thing, so there's worse ideas than bringing a list that can reliably score Bring It Down. I'd just plan on a positional Secondary instead of Assassination.
In my head, Establish Locus is probably the best bet for a fixed positional Secondary into Knights, because you can reasonably near-max it with units you'd likely take anyway. A Scout Squad can score it for you Turn 1 in the center of the board. Then, for Turns 2 and 3, you could include Jump Intercessor squads, stick them in Deep Strike Reserve, and drop them on those turns. Then, have a couple Scout Squads you can uppy into Reserves and downy in your opponent's deployment zone. If you want to save like 70 points, instead of Jump Intercessors, you could include a couple Lieutenants in Phobos Armour - he's a 55 point character with Deep Strike. Once he's scored your Secondary points, he's eminently expendable. You could sent him to try and pick up whatever weedy unit the Knight player stuck on their backfield, or run him out to chuck a Grenade at something.
That said, unless you have teched into picking up big Knights, you're probably doing yourself a favor by playing Tactical Secondaries. Then what you'll want to do is try and go after your opponent's utility units. Those might be Armigers, or they might be Imperial Agents units, but either way they'll pick up far more easily than the big Knights. Then your opponent will have to make some choices about whether to use his big Knights to score Secondaries or to kill your stuff. Then the idea is to hold your home objective and your expansion objective and make up the difference in points on Secondaries.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. I hope you find it helpful. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Games Workshop bumps the points on Knights of both stripes sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, we'll do better into them if we're well informed about what they can do. Regardless of who you face, strive ever for glorious victory! For The Lion!
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