| Tactica: Empire Knightly orders |
Many thanks to Lord Calsius for this article.
The Empire knightly orders are the most powerful combat unit available to an empire general, with mobility, armour and high strength attacks on the charge, these guys are a force to be reckoned with.
Inner Circle
The inner circle upgrade available for the knightly orders is a must have. These give your knights strength four, six on the charge. This can make all the difference between getting kills and not, especially when/if you charge toughness four opponents (3+ to wound at strength 5, 2+ to wound at strength 4.) I would aways take the inner circle upgrade, you will be wounding just about every basic and elite regiment you can think of on a 2+ onthe charge then.
Armour
Imperial Knightly Orders are some of the most well protected soldiers in the game, with an impressive 1+ armour save. However, this can be modified, just like any other armour save in the game, which means if you charge strength three or more units with great weapons, or strength four units with halberds your 1+ save suddenly becomes a 3+ or less, meaning your knights will be falling in much greater numbers. If you do charge an enemy unit like this, you have to wipe out the front rank or leave only one or two troops left, so you suffer minimal, if not no damage when they strike back.
Getting the Charge
As with most, if not all heavy cavalry, getting the charge is the most important thing for them to do, if they are charged, superior strength of attacks and striking first is no longer available, so your attacks back will be weaker, so your combat resolution number will be very small, it is highly likely you will be outnumbered and also likely your opposition will have a few ranks as well. When you charge, don’t forget to check about potential enemy counter-chargers, these will force your knights to panic and possibly seeing them running away and being run down, a waste of 200pts or more!
Characters
Something I have found useful when using my knights is to add some powerful combat heroes to lead them. I often add a warrior priest with a great weapon and/or a captain with the sword of power, to provide yet more strength six attacks to ensure my enemies are cut down without any difficulties. A very good character addition would be a templars grand master. These make your knights immune to psychology and also provide a further four strength six attacks on the charge. Not only do warrior priests provide more attacks but they also make your knights hate chaos, which is highly useful when you need to kill the well-armoured and immensely skilful chaotic minions. A battle standard with the banner of sigismund would be highly useful if you want to stick around for a longer while.
The Command Group
First Knight – These champions provide the unit with an extra attack, which means that on a regiment with a front rank of four you get 5 rather than four attacks and so on. I would always take this upgrade, even if it were just for the reasons of having a leader.
Musician – If you go charge headlong into a block of infantry it is inevitable that they will have a musician, which will help them out if you have a bad round and don’t inflict enough kills to win. To counter this you need a musician of your own, so definitely worth taking if you are planning to make sure you are prepared for anything should the worst happen.
Standard – These are a must have. While providing +1 to your combat resolution, which basically counts as an extra kill, so you can win the combat, they can also have a magic banner worth up to 50pts. The banners worth considering are the war banner (+1 combat resolution), the steel standard (+D3 inches to charge moves), the standard of arcane warding (magic resistance 2) and the banner of valour (immune to panic). All of these are self explanatory in why they should be useful for your purposes.
Where to deploy them and what to do with them
There are two places in my opinion on where to deploy them. One of them is to deploy them in the dead centre, to swiftly engage the best of the best units that your opponent has to offer, the other is to deploy them on the flanks, to let them annihilate your opponents own flankers and then gradually move around the flanks of each enemy unit. Beware of fliers and skirmishers when doing this. if going for the centre, characters provide vital more powerful attacks and leadership that you will need if you intend to defeat the best enemy units. If on the flank never deploy too many character with them, you will need their leadership with your infantry with the lower leadership in the centre.
Do’s and Don’t when using knightly Orders
DO
1. Charge
2. Rear/flank charge when possible
3. Break the enemy
DON’T
1. Charge anything unbreakable, these will win any war of attrition against your knights
2. Be charged
3. Charge units which cause fear/terror
4. Charge stubborn units.
All of these would fit any unit in any army, but are particularly important with knights.
