Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Questoris Knight Crusade (30k)
The latest FAQ can be found here (February 2019)
Why Play Questoris Knights
FW have decided in their infinite wisdom to make it viable to be able to field an entire detachment of Imperial Knights, and so we get this, an army where you can have Knights actually be part of a regular force organization chart. You can have specialist Fast Attack Knights, Elite Knights. Heavy Support Knights and HQ Knights.
Admittedly, your models will be immune to small-arms fire and any melee attacks of S6 or less. However, this is no excuse to get complacent as each Knight lost will diminish your army considerably.
Special Rules
- Ion Shield - Your Knights get a 4++ save against shooting on a facing of their choice, chosen each turn.
- ALWAYS remember to position your Ion Shield for each knight at the start of your opponents shooting phase, don't wait for him to start rolling, otherwise he'll just assume it has the same position as the previous phase.
Questoris Knight Crusade Detachment
Nothing really special with this army, besides the whole KNIGHTS EVERYWHERE bit. Your FOC is kinda like Crusade detachment - 1; you lose one compulsory Troops choice meaning your army must consist of two knights minimum, and also loses a HS choice, HQ choice, elites choice and an FA choice. If you're truly desperate/filthy rich, you could make a legit Titan your Lord of War.
Warlord Traits
- Hell Rider - Warlord & Knights within 12" get +1 to Movement and to wound/armour penetration on turn 1 of a game.
- Glorious Renown - Friendly units within 12" may re-roll failed morale checks and enemies suffer -2 to Ld
- Favoured of Mars - One Knight's weapon gains Master Crafted
- Lord of the Abyss - Warlord gets Monster Hunter and Adamantium Will
- Puissant Commander - +1 to Seize the Initiative and -1 to enemy reserve rolls
- Indomitable - It Will Not Die. Enjoy being the 30K equivalent of Gerantius.
List Analysis
There is a special rule called Household Rank where each Knight must be selected for one of these force org slots, gaining special rules and additional costs based on the selection. Issue is that this is only available to a detachments made up using the Questoris Knight Crusade Detachment FOC or an Allied FOC and can't be used if you bring knights to other detachments or use other FOC types.
HQ Ranks
- 0-1 Seneschal - +1 WS/BS and +1 to ANY Invuls, better than 40K because some knights (ie: the Lancer) have close combat invulnerable saves which can now be improved, you want these guys in the lead. He also gives WT re-rolls so you may end up with a Master-Crafted D-weapon!
- 0-1 Lord Scion - +1 WS/BS. It's half the cost of the Seneschal for half the benefits. It's not a bad choice if you're strapped for options, but do aim for the one above moreso.
- Arch Magos Draykavac (Traitors only) - a non-Knight special character for your army who must be the warlord if this is your primary detachment, also fills that "costs nearly as much as a Land Raider" role, but thankfully it doesn't mean much in an army of Super-Heavy walkers. He's a Tech Priest with a Paragon Blade, Graviton Gun, is Relentless, has Toughness 6 and can be bought an Abeyant if you want to pay more points.
- He's great in a Knight Army because he can repair hull points due to the Battlesmith rule and allows you to bring Castellax as non-compulsory Troops and Vorax as Fast Attack which can provide your army much more flavour.
- Also, if he's the Warlord he adds +1 to Charge & Sweep distances for all walkers, superheavy walkers and monstrous creatures in his detachment in addition to his unique warlord trait of granting Preferred Enemy (Infantry) to EVERYTHING in his detachment as long as they're sitting within 3" of an objective.
Elite Ranks
- Preceptor - While this guy's alive, other knights in reserve get +1 on their rolls. In addition, all knights within 6" get Interceptor and can Overwatch with anything they have, even though it usually can't happen. If you have any Hellstorm weapons, they'll auto-score d6 hits.
- 0-1 Aucteller - You get to choose a sworn enemy: A Warlord, a LoW that doesn't fly, a Superheavy Walker or tank, or a GC. If your Aucteller kills it, you win d3 Victory Points. If someone else kills it, you win nothing, and if the sworn enemy's still alive, your enemy gets 1 VP. If your enemy ever kills the Aucteller, then the knight gets one last attack at initiative against the enemy before blowing up. Take the one guy you know can hold up in a fight if you know you're up against something titan-killy, or just take someone who can flatten the flimsy warlord quickly.
- Legendary Freeblade - This allows you to slap in a Knight with any other rank as an Elites choice at the same cost. If you ever see a need to fit in something from the FA/HS slots and lack the room for it, you could try to fit it in here. However, the wording of this is rather vague, so avoid if possible.
Troop Ranks
Note: Troop Knights all gain the ability to score in Age of Darkness Missions, or Objective Secured in Maelstrom of War / Eternal battles mission.
- Scion Martial - your basic Knight, costs you nothing extra but gains no other special rules, use to fill compulsory troops slots and claim objectives.
- Scion Aspirant - drops the WS, BS and Ion Shield invulnerable save by 1 at a saving of -35 smackeroos, The downside is that you can never have more of these guys than any other knights (in total), so you can't plan on using the savings of several knights just to cheese up one particular monster knight, but in particularly large games you can fill your troops slots with them so long as you have an equal number of knights across other slots.
- Scion Auxilia - A Knight Armiger talon exclusive these loners don't play nice and such they do not benefit from bonuses from your warlord trait that target other friendly Knights or models.
- Scion Amuntar - A Mechanicum Knight Moirax exclusive household rank that says the unit may not be hold in reserve, and must be deployed further than 6" away from any friendly Questoris Knight if possible.
Fast Attack Ranks
- Scion Dolorous - Re-roll all failed charges and sweeping advances. Essentially, make this a melee specialist, because they need to charge at everything they see. With the errata allowing for the 7E Knights, this makes Gallants a handy fit.
- Scion Uhlan - While free, you have to lose 1 AV to the front to gain Scout and Hit & Run. They also lose the ability to reliably shoot at long distances, being forced to snap-shots at targets more than 24" away, which means Blast weapons cease to function (since they can't be snap-fired).
Heavy Support Ranks
- Scion Arbalester - You get Tank Hunter and if you don't move, you also get Skyfire. Fucking murder with the proper setup. Is Golden on when parked next to a Preceptor to gain interceptor.
- Scion Implacable - Get +1 to all building damage and can re-roll stomps. It also gains a 5+ invul against melta bombs and granades, but it can never sweep.
Unit Analysis
Questoris Knight Armiger Talon
A solid non-compulsory troop choice for Questoris and a nice way to bring additional scoring units of which this army often in short supply, stick with the Autocannon and hunt light vehicles and entrenched medium infantry/artillery as the Thermal spear loses a lot of its luster with Armored Ceramite on most heavy Armour.
Combined with the nice movement boost of Longstride these guys can swoop in to save the game if the enemy ignores them for your larger engines.
Mechanicum Knight Moirax Talon
An even more solid non-compulsory troop choice than your normal Armigers for Questoris, up to 4 Knights per Talon. They must select Scion Amuntar as their Household Rank are slower than the Knight Armiger due to not having Longstride; the Knight Moirax make up for this with their increased durability and array of unique weapon choices. As Scion Amuntar, they cannot be placed in reserve and have to be deployed at least 6" away from any friendly knight.
They come equipped with the Ionic Flare Field, a weaker version of the Shield that the bigger Mechanicum knights have. This provides a 5++ save against all shooting attacks and reduces all incoming blast or template weapons strength by 1. They are also equipped with two construct shields that act as weaker non-recharging void shields that work even in melee but can't be saved with invuns. These shields provide an extra two AV11 hullpoints to this warmachine; bringing this walker to an effective 6 hullpoints.
Moiraxs can be equipped with any combination of Siege claw with built-in Rad Cleanser, Volkite Veuglaire, or a Lightning Lock. The Volkite Veuglaire has more shots and better AP than a Culverin but at slightly reduced range. The Lightning Lock is a Rending Shredding S6 AP3 small blast, perfect for killing Space Marines. Greuso Protocols will allow you to shoot a single weapon per Moirax if a friendly Siege-automata, War Construct, Ordinatus or Questoris Knight within 12" are declared charge targets. Note that this is not a snapshot. They are also equipped with a Rad Furnace.
New weapon options. The Armiger Conversion Beam Cannon is the same C-beam like on the Contemptor, sadly you could only take one of these. The second new weapon is the Graviton Pulsar a 24", Heavy 2, small blast, concussive, grav pulse, HAYWIRE weapon. And you could take two of these babys! These turns the Moirax into an awesome tank killer. A talon of two with this loadout ruins the day of every Spartan paintrain coming your way.
Questoris Knight Paladin
Your basic Knight with a "Questoris Battle Cannon", which unlike the 40k counterpart is a Strength 6, Ordnance 3 weapon, but it can be replaced with the more familiar (and higher strength) Rapid-Fire Battle-cannon for free.
Its 2 Heavy Stubbers may also be upgraded to Bio-Corrosive Rounds which reduce its range by 6" but grant them the Poisoned special rule, making them a "bit" more of a threat against high toughness units (such as Primarchs or Monstrous Creatures), but mostly this has no significant impact vs MEQ... and it has its Reaper Chainsword for hitting things with.
Both types of cannon are the general purpose weapons that fire multiple AP3 large blast templates and are Ordnance, meaning it gets several chances at trying to penetrate vehicle armour. In particular, the Questoris cannon is also very good at wiping out large units of enemy soldiers (I'm looking at you Legion Marine squads.) But for more general uses switch to the Battle-Cannon instead since it does better against vehicles,
While the Chainsword is entirely overkill against most things, you're better off with the stomp attacks unless you are fighting a superheavy, monstrous creature or high value enemy warriors such as Primarchs. But you get both Stomp Attacks and chainsword anyway, so you're very likely to chew things up in melee, just be aware of what your opponent is bringing against you.
Questoris Knights may also be upgraded with Occular Augmetics which grant Night Fighting but the epic ability to re-roll 1s on Vehicle damage tables AND on Destroyer tables so long as the target was within 12", meaning death to things struck by your sword ranged weapons only.
Paladins make decent Knights for pretty much any Household rank.
Questoris Knight Errant
Very similar to the Paladin, though with a Thermal Cannon which is S9 AP1 for chewing up Terminators & Land Raiders. For all other tasks look to the Paladin instead.
The shorter range means that it's going to be much closer to the center of the table where it will inevitably start taking your opponent's heavy weapons fire and is also more likely to get drawn into close combat. So it is a good option for a Seneschal/Lord Scion to give him more stamina against enemy heavy weapons and better odds in melee.
Either that or use it as a flanking Aucteller (to benefit from its good chances of killing things in one-shot) or Dolorous (since it's going to be close anyway) and stalk up one side of your opponent's battle line looking for good targets.
Like the Paladin, you can buy Occular Augmetics & Bio-Corrosive rounds.
Questoris Knight Gallant
With only a Heavy Stubber/Melta as ranged support without dipping for Carapace weapons, the Gallant needs a role that emphasizes on close combat. With a Chainsword and a Thunderstrike Gauntlet, which can throw things it wrecks, it will not slack off in battle.
A Dolorous is an easy choice for ranks, while Preceptor can make it a good source of Interceptor for your army, even if it can't benefit much. The Uhlan is also a very fitting choice, allowing it to hit and run after dealing two potentially-devastating blows and granting mobility.
Questoris Knight Warden
It's a Knight with a Gatling Cannon (S6 AP3 Heavy 12 with rending) and a Chainsword with the option for a Thunderstrike Gauntlet. Like the other GW Questoris Knights, it can mount carapace weapons.
Its high-fire weaponry makes it a handy addition as Arbalester or Preceptor.
Questoris Knight Crusader
It's expensive as all hell, outstripped by the Atrapos for ten points. However, its weapons are a damn lot more pleasing. It gets a Thermal Cannon, and the option between a Gatling Cannon with 12 S6 AP3 rending shots or Battle Cannon to pile on another serving of hurt.
The gatling alone makes it worth making it an Arbalester just to see how many of those shots flyers can jink away from. Just be sure to steer from making it an HQ if only to save you points.
Questoris Knight Magaera
One of the "standard" sized (compared to the Cerastus) Imperial Knights, armed with a host of funky new archaeotech gear:
First, his Ion Shield also reduces the strength of incoming shots and it also has equivalent to IWND (6+ instead of 5+), meaning it has a bit more survivability than your regular knight.
It also has a larger variety of ranged weapons than your regular knight too; it's main cannon is a Lightning Cannon, which is S7 so it can't insta-gib things like the Battle or Thermal Cannon can, but it does have shredding and rending, so it is more likely to wound things and is probably better for you against terminators than the Knight Paladin but worse than the Errant.
As for support weapons, it's got a Plasma Fusil from HH, allowing you some S6 AP3 salvo goodness for dropping MEQ, which it does considerably better than the heavy stubber. However, it lacks the carapace weapons the GW Knights can buy for anti-air purposes.
In the melee side, you can replace the chainsword with the Siege Claw, which arguably does exactly the same, since D melee weapons are D melee weapons. It only gives you bonuses against fortifications, which were screwed beforehand anyway. But the claw does come with an arm mounted weapon: it's got one of those Rad Cleanser weapons too, which is basically a fleshbane flamer, with the added bonus of dropping the toughness of multi-wound models by 1 if they have taken a wound (doesn't stack). 25 points for a rad cleanser? Definitely not.
As for everything else, it's more likely to go nuclear when it dies, but you don't want to stand next to a dead super-heavy anyway, so that's not a terrible thing. And it does have initiative 2, meaning it's gonna strike last against everything bar fists and hammers which tend not to come in huge numbers. Though the thing to look out for then is melta/haywire bombs, but since Haywire mostly comes with Eldar you were striking last anyway.
Finally, what sort of rank should it hold? It's an infantry killer and fortification buster and NOT a tank hunter or character slayer. So if it's not doing jobs its suited for then it's just a Zombie Knight wandering around being nigh-useless. Use it for forward line-breaking and not trading shots in the back of the field.
Avoid using it for HQ slots unless you absolutely have to due to a lack of models for other jobs as WS upgrades are neither here nor there when the damage output is practically the same as any other knights (except that I2 will see it dead before it swings against another Knight) and the BS upgrade could be FAR better spent on anything else.
Makes for a good Scion-Implacable, since the added bonus to buildings will combo with its Siege Claw and literally bring houses down. Whilst the re-roll on stomp attacks and added defense against grenades & bombs will mitigate slightly against its poorer melee capabilities.
Questoris Knight Styrix
Just a bit more expensive than the other Questoris, but with a Volkite Cherovile: a 5-shot, Strength 8, AP3 weapon. It also has a Graviton gun, so you can trap people wherever you want so you could set them up for the Volkite goodness.
Like the Magaera it has a Flare Ionic Shield, 6+ IWND and can come with a Siege claw with a Rad-Cleanser, which comes with all the risks implied above, since this is a mere template gun instead of something like Hellstorm or Torrent.
It can also go kaboom more likely, so keep a distance from it if you fear it going boom.
The Styrix is the OTHER candidate for promotion Arbalester (after the Castigator), due to getting skyfire & Tank Hunter on the Cherovile, but is probably more suited for the Preceptor rank, as optimum use of Volkite deflagration depends on targeting infantry.
Questoris Knight Dominus
The Dominus is an interesting knight. Brought over from 40k and given a basic ruleset to keep us going until it gets a more "established" ruleset, we have a 7HP knight with AV 13 on the front AND side, and a choice of 4 different main weapons to carry into battle. The main weapons are the following:
Conflagration Cannon Identical to the Acheron Flamestorm Cannon, this thing will incinerate anything not in terminator armour that gets within range. Rocking the lovely Ordnance rule means that it'll also be a threat to light armour such as Rhinos and Predators showing their side armour. This weapon is a very solid choice, and to be honest I would say it's one of the best weapons you can give this knight; a pair of these and you'll be able to keep any infantry well away from a flank for a whole game. In addition it's the cheapest weapon you can equip, so a pair of these means you're at around 420pts at the most. Bargain!
Plasma Decimator This is a tasty weapon indeed! S8 AP2 Large Blast is a beautiful statline, as you'll be instakilling marines, wounding Castellax on 3's and Thanatars on 4's. The only downside this weapon has is the pesky "Gets Hot!" rule, which will limit your firing on it. But, as it's a 1/6 chance then you should be finding this thing firing for 3 or 4 turns at least which is still an impressive weapon to be throwing around. Plus, being the most expensive weapon you can pick makes this a solid albeit pricey choice.
Thundercoil Harpoon Don't take this, seriously don't waste your points on it. It's the second most expensive weapon you can pick, and despite having nearly every single rule in Heresy, the fact you can only fire this every other turn is a crippling weakness on a BS4 platform. If you hit something, you'll probably ruin it's day but as 4++ saves are common on Primarchs, Leviathans and even Cataphractii terminators, you have a lowish chance of actually doing anything. But, if it does get through the fact you can instakill a Primarch is still pretty impressive. It isn't worth it though, take something else.
Volcano Lance Oh boy this one's wierd. Imagine an 80" range Lascannon with a small blast. Now imagine you have it on a superheavy, and that it's supposed to be a miniature version of the Bellicosa Volcano Cannon. You're probably thinking it's gonna have at least Sunder, Ordnance, Tank Hunter, Lance, or any combination of these right? Wrong. It's Heavy 1. Seriously Forgeworld, make this thing have Ordnance. It's not a bad choice, it's just outshadowed by the Decimator, unless you want to hang back and plink small blast Lascannons from the other end of the board.
Secondary Weapons It's also equipped with 2 twin-linked meltaguns and a choice of either twin linked autocannons or a pair of S9 AP3 one-use missiles that ignore invulnerable saves. The missiles could be cool for dealing with Leviathans, but to be honest they're single-use missiles that can't explode vehicles. Glacing Leviathans on a 4+ is handy but again it's a little too variable to be an auto-include.
Depending on it's loadout, it hangs out in the region of 20-60pts more expensive than a Crusader, but with a more impressive array of weaponry to pick from.
Cerastus Knight Lancer
Faster and with a completely different load-out to the traditional types of Knight.
The Shock Lance has no blast, and is essentially a rapid fire plasma gun, so it is not as effective against vehicles at range and doesn't really give any benefit against vehicles in melee either over the Reaper Chainsword other than the +1 to Initiative.
Don't forget it's shooting attack has concussive. So it can hunt MC's and other big things reliably.
What you want to do with this one is get it stuck in to squads of dudes and tear them apart. It is helped here by having an invulnerable save in melee which the other Knights don't get, more attacks, a -1 to hit penalty on enemy superheavy walkers and Gargantuan Creatures, and extra initiative on the charge.
More likely to be shot at by your opponent. Being bigger means it is more likely to present a target, but also being an expensive piece of Forgeworld kit means that it is also a more attractive target for your opponent. Plus, it can't move its shield behind itself.
Makes an acceptable Scion-Arbalester, since its multi-shot S7, tank hunting plasma gun will fry most aircraft easily, but a Castigator or Styrix could both do that job better, and this is your primary melee Knight and you don't want it standing still just to get Skyfire. Also as one of the few knights with a good AP ranged attack (the other being the Errant) you want it focussing on high value targets like terminators or characters.
Makes a good Seneschal since it would then gain a 4+ invulnerable save in melee, and creating a WTF moment when your opponent finds the many of his attacks just bounce off the thing!
If you already have HQ slots filled by something else, then consider the Aucteller, since the Lancer is one of the few knight patterns that is really going to have a good chance at killing that "one guy"
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets/knight-lancer.pdf
Cerastus Knight Castigator
This guy has a 8 shot str7 bolt cannon which -much like the Fire Raptor's Avenger Bolter- makes a good job of killing MEQ out in the open or knocking hull points off of mid-AV vehicles.
His sword is also pretty nifty, if only S10, with Deflagrate and Sunder rather than a destroyer weapon. Deflagrate + tempest attack means that it can theoretically kill every single model in base to base contact with itself and then some more (S10 brings ID even to Custodes), this works better both against large units of weaker enemies and smaller, more resilient units as they will likely pile in to your base before I2 - right to their doom. The only situation the D is better is against some really resilient Monsters or other Superheavies. Also - there is always Stomp attacks.
This guy's real weakness, though, is that he only has the bolt cannon. You need to charge the thing you shoot at, and whatever he shoots at is going to be hurting a lot anyway, so you are going to have issues of overkill when you shoot up 8 Tactical Marines, and charge them just to kill the two leftover guys, not the next unit over.
As for making seneschal? The answer is no The the Castigator doesn't really need WS/BS 5 to make it any better, since Tempest attack hits automatically and its gun is already quite accurate.
Is a top candidate for being a preceptor (or being close to one) or arbalester, due to getting overwatch and/or skyfire on the bolt cannon.
Making it an Arbalester is a good option, sure, Tank Hunter is redundant in melee as his sword has Sunder, but having Skyfire on a S7 massive fire-rate weapon that re-rolls failed armour penetration will tear aircraft out of the skies.
Cerastus Knight Acheron
This thing is an absolute monster. It is equipped with a Hellstorm S7 AP 3 flamer that will wipe out anything that isn't in Terminator armor. Being a template, it ignores cover, meaning anything in power armor that comes near it might as well just be swept off the table. Since it's a Cerastus Knight, it has flank speed, allowing it to run 3d6". Between that and its 12" movement, you should have no problems getting into place to use the flamer to devastating effect.
Its chainfist of absolute death allows it to reroll 1's on the D table whenever you are hitting something with AV. Essentially, if you punch it, it dies, but that was already true for a D weapon. With Machine Destroyer, this is the Knight that you want to charge Titans with, as they will be almost guaranteed to do some damage. Also, it has a heavy bolter as a secondary weapon, not a heavy stubber, giving you a tiny bit more punch.
It's an effective horde manager and pairs well with the longer ranged knights, or with an Errant to kill off any Terminators that get close to it. The biggest drawback to this monster, other than having to buy it at forgeworld prices, is that it costs 40pts more than a paladin, and it can't hit anything more than 16" away. You pay a premium, and you are going to have to work to kill people every turn.
Because of it's close ranged nature, making the Acheron your Seneschal is worth considering. It has to get in close to use it's weapons, and a 3+ Invulnerable will vastly improve it's chances of reaching the enemy. That said, the Acheron will lose it's Invulnerable in Melee, unlike the Lancer.
It actually makes a really good Uhlan too, since its shorter ranged weapons aren't really affected by the reduction in ranged distances (the Heavy Bolter is twin-linked, so still retains a bit of function if you really HAVE to shoot has something out of flamer range), whilst the ability to scout coupled with its already increased speed (due to being a Cerastus) means you are going to get the best use out of that flamer.
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets/AcheronFW.pdf
Cerastus Knight Atrapos
This is your answer to any superheavies in your way. It gets Twin-Linked against Superheavies or Gargantuans, and considering that one of its weapons is a Strength D Lascutter that can be fired at short-range or in combat and it is a freaking beam weapon 8" line of pure death, it WILL see use, even if it's just to break buildings because of Wrecker. And the other gun, oh, it's just a Graviton Singularity Cannon which is a S8 AP2 large blast, has Armorbane and Concussive. Also, you roll a d6 before firing that singularity - a 1 means you lose an HP, a 6 turns this singularity into a goddamn VORTEX. On top of that it has 7 HP, IWND 6+ and a Ionic Flare Shield meaning anything not D or haywire can fuck off and die.
All considered, this is a 0-1 option for every 2000 points in this army because you seriously don't want to be on the wrong side of this thing's gun. For these reasons, throwing him in as Actueller or as an Arbalester would probably be the smartest move as those would make the most use of the vehicle-demolishing weapons.
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Horus_Heresy/Cerastus-Knight-Atrapos.pdf
Acastus Knight Porphyrion
Because the Mechanicus saw the Deredeo Dreadnought, and thought, "Man, this would be even better as a superheavy." The newest knight to join the Questoris family, the Porphyrion weighs in at 495 points - raised to a hefty 560 points as of the latest Horus Heresy FAQ, and it's a baby Reaver Titan. It's a dedicated shooting machine meant for clearing out vehicles and/or large sections of the board in short order. It's slightly gimped in the assault (and why would you even put it there if you can help it? Weirdly despite being the same size and weighting as a Warhound it is better in combat so eh?), but compensates with BS5, and a beefier 14/13/12 and 8 HP. It also comes standard with Household Rank (With the exception of Uhlan, Martial or Aspirant), and can upgrade with the dirt cheap Occular Augmetics (Which are only useful for Night Vision unless you've made a terrible terrible mistake and let an enemy get within 12" of you). It's main weapons are 2 pairs of Vindicators strapped to your sides in the form of 2 TL Magna Lascannon (72" S10 AP2 Ordnance 2, Large Blast) on each arm, and an Ironstorm Missile Pod (72" S6 AP4 Ordnance 1, 7" Blast) on its back, which can be swapped with Helios Defense Missiles (60" S8 AP2 Heavy 2, Skyfire, Interceptor) for free. It's secondary weapon is not a heavy stubber, but two autocannons, which can be individually upgraded to Irad cleansers to lay down the hurt on infantry who decide to get close, or lascannons, because you really need to be able to deal even MORE damage to vehicles and monstrous creatures than you already do.
As far as shooting power goes, this thing is a monster. No really, it is. Anyone who tries to argue the point and says this thing doesn't kick out the hurt every turn its left alive hasn't faced one. The only thing that can reliably threaten this monster at range are Titans, Drop-Melta (In sizeable numbers), Blood Angels Moritats with Phase Walkers and Basilisks (Purely because hitting you from the house nextdoor is one way to keep out of range). Other things that have good anti-tank shooting place themselves in the precarious position of being within the Porphyrions range, and anything that has the word "Lascannon" or "Neutron Pulse Laser" in its list of wargear are top of the menu when the Porphyrion is picking targets.
In melee things are simple - you die. No question. If you are charged by things that can hurt armour you are probably dead (5 Chainfists on a Terminator Squad are enough to kill you easily) and anything resembling a Knight won't even pause for breath when hitting you. The best trick is just put this thing in a corner, and hit every part of the board with your double-range double-vindicator cannons and your nipple guns and you're golden.
Please Note: This Knight becomes officially disgusting if you give it the Seneschal rank, as BS6/WS5 is pretty crazy for it, but a 3++ on a facing of its choice is just BONKERS and will result in your receiving injuries from your friends if you field it against them. Do not do it unless you wish to embrace the Chad Porphyrion as your own (and are wearing body armour).
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/Acastus-Knight-Porpyhrion.pdf
Acastus Knight Asterius
Just like every flavour of Knight (from Armigers to Questoris to Cerastus) has a Mechanicum version, now so does the Acastus chassis. The result is the Acastus Knight Asterius. A dangerous looking motherfucker with rules that do not quite live up to its intimidating visage. The Asterius rocks two twin-linked souped-up Conversion Beam Cannons, that are deadly in close range, but even deadlier from afar. The cannons keep their Str 10, but the further the target is, the higher the AP and the better the selection of special rules get and the larger the blast. At maximum range (42"), this mad lad fires two twin-linked Str 10 Ap1 massive blasts with wrecker and sunder. On top of that (literally, in this case) it rocks a Karacnos mortar battery, the exact copy of what the Karacnos tank gets. A lacklustre mortar battery with a plethora of special rules like fleshbane, rad-phage, ignores cover and pinning.
Despite this, the Porphyrion is still the better pick.
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets//Acastus_Knight_Asterius.pdf
Allies
- Solar Auxilia: With their access to numbers and plenty of anti-horde firepower, the Solar Auxilia is the PERFECT ally for a Knight Crusade. A Nanyte Blaster Legate with Volkite Charger Veletaris sitting in an Arvus lighter is essentially Kryptonite to tarpits, and will cause them to experience critical existence failure in the span of a single shooting phase. And if you don't like the idea of waiting until turn 2 to remove tarpits with extreme prejudice, then 300 points worth of Lasrifle Sections can do pretty much the same thing, pumping out 120 shots as 36" Heavy 2 Lasguns.
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