Hey all,
I'm wondering why Saurus Knights get such a bad reputation on the forums? A unit of knights have the same amount of wounds as warriors and do the same number of attacks as warriors.
I mean I guess they need to charge to deal their mortal wounds but can't you just cycle charge them to maintain that bonus? I do admit their base size might make it a problem to pile in with them but on paper they don't seem worse than warriors so why aren't more people using them as the core of their army in a firelance or tail?
If I sound salty, I want to apologize because making MW so prevalent is probably one of the most annoying things in the game (RIP my guards but thank you based shadowstrike).
My Knights have been doing nicely for me in our escalation league so far. I do believe that we need to look at what they can do rather than trying to force them into a role they struggle to fill.
They are a good objective grabbing unit, more expensive than Skinks but more durable and very often faster. The reliable 14" movement gets them around the table pretty fast. Yes skinks can go faster if they charge but then you are going to have to use one of your valuable early activations to Wary Fighters them to avoid fragile skinks from getting smashed in combat. Knights can just move 14" without making charge/run rolls which lets you plan objective grabs without relying on dice or your opponent putting units where you can slingshot off them.
A word on that durability - it may not seem a big deal but smaller units are near-immune to battleshock with their Seraphon bravery.
Unlike skinks the Knights can actually do damage. Units of 10 skinks reliably do no damage for me all game, Knights if they make contact will push a few wounds onto a target. If you have a Saurus Hero nearby and a bunch of CP then Knights can go mental - at the upper levels of possible CP availability they can make Ripperdactyls look underpowered. I would not want to run a 2000 point list with Knights as my heavy hitters but the fact that my objective grabbing battleline unit carries a potential threat just helps with me putting threat overload on my opponent.
Their limitations are also real:
They have no rend and no real way to get rend. Against targets with good saves they are fairly helpless. The mortal wounds are beyond unreliable, assume you will get none and then when you roll that 6 it is a nice bonus. I have not rolled a single 6 on the lances in 4 games so far.
In some situations the base size is awkward, although to be fair 32mm bases on warriors has always been pretty awkward for me also.
You pretty much have to choose between decent mobility or trying to attack with them. If you want to try to charge they are kinda slow. In practice this means you need to get lucky with LoSaT and/or charge rolls to get the charge with them. Luckily the bonus for getting the charge is so unreliable that you will hardly miss not getting it. This is why firelance starhost is so good for them but it is expensive and you are sinking points into a unit that still will not kill that much unless you have a supporting hero and CP to burn.
Saurus Knights are not a terribly
impressive unit but I find they have a lot of utility.
