Lords of War & Imperial Knights in 7th questions

[George Labour]

So trundling through the new rule book and it does indeed include rules for super heavies, gargantuans, and massive fortifications. It also includes a lord of war as a slot in the Combine Arms detachment when you're building a Battle Forged force. There are also mentions of Imperial Knights being of a different (codex specific) battlefield role than is listed in the core book. However the extra rules from Escalation such as the warlord trait table, and the rule for extra getting extra VPs by damaging a Lord of War are absent from the core book.

So with that said here are the questions my mind dredged up and mulled over. Some I've already figured out but it'd still be interesting to get some other thoughts on this to make sure I'm not utterly wrong.

1) Do we still use the rules for Lords of War from Escalation? Or do we simply pick something that has a Lord of War icon, plop it into our list, and get on with things?

2) If we do use the rules from Escalation does this also apply to unbound armies who do NOT make use of battlefield roles when choosing what they can and can't use in their list? Obviously that should be a yes, but meh I'd love to see someone try to Rationalize a No for this one.

3) As Knights are their own battlefield role and do not specifically have HQs, Troops, etc, etc then they can not make use of the command bonuses from either the Combined Arms, or Allied detachments correct?

4) All Knights whether in a allied or Primary detachment can now contest, and score like everyone else?

5) RAW Lords of War can now score and contest just like any other vehicle correct? So parking my baneblade on an objective and daring my opponent to shift me off of it is now a 'viable' strategy?

[Melon-neko]

As far as imperial knights go, you should look at the imperial knight codex, not escalation. A knightly detachment consists of 1-3 knights and is not an "allied detachment".

1) Pretty sure you don't use escalation for knights. Not sure about for other lords of war.
2) not sure. We only use super heavies in apoc so haven't read much in escalation.
3)knights taken as an imperial knight detachment would not get any battle forged bonuses (Only primary and allied detachments do). I'm not sure if you could take knights as just a standard allied detachment. I think the Imperial knight detachment rules supercede the normal ally rules, but not sure.
4) Yes, pretty everything scores/contests now. I think the only things that don't are units that say they don't and unclaimed buildings.
5) yes. looks like it.

[katanarahl]

You need to think of escaltion and stronghold assualt as effectively codex super heavies and fortification just now some of the basic rules have been updated. So to use a lord war you will need the lord of war rules and the models dataslate as these arent in the brb.

So basically you need escaltion and to follows its rules as you would for a codex.

Imperial knights as said just use there rulebook has all there rules :)

Hope this helps!

[George Labour]

Oh I kind of figured that was the case myself katanarahl especially since the MRB makes reference to stronghold assault as a source of both building rules and datasheets. However in the case of Lords of War it just says that they are a battlefield role, and that more of them can be found in future codexes (which is interesting), and Escalation. However no mention is made of using the rules from that book.

So it's easy to see someone picking up the Forgeworld PDF, an Imperial Armor book, and just assuming they can include one as is into their list. Especially if they're new or otherwise unaware of the Escalation book and its place in the rules framework.

On the other hand if that's the worst issue I could find in the new rule set then I'm not to worried.

[John Bower]

Remember that what they have done is to leave certain things out or people with those books would have been a bit miffed (me included as I have SA though not Escalation), you can still use a Lord of War; you don't need Escalation for that; you would however need the relevant dataslate for it which if you have Apocalypse is likely to be in there, (it's one reason I didn't buy Escalation, not enough in there to warrant the ridiculous price tag over and above SA which had more in it that wasn't found somewhere else). Personally I still don't hold with nerfing super heavies and d weapons just to shove them into normal games; but they are, so I have to live with it or miss out on the good changes.

[George Labour]

Looks like the new FAQs answered almost all of the questions here. As a bonus they also fixed the wording for void shields in stronghold assault to prevent rules lawyering

So now it's perfectly fine to take a Lord of War without using the Through Attrition, Victory rule in normal games. Only in escalation missions do you use that, or the special warlord trait table in the book.

To summarize:

1) You plop it on the list unless playing a scenarion from the Escalation book or otherwise says to make use of that warlord chart or secondary objective.

2) The yes is still a yes.

3) Knights don't get to use the combined arms detachment and are effectively their own formation. However the FAQ gives them a few nifty tricks involving making one of them your Warlord even if they're not the primary detachment.

4) Ayep. no more being brushed off an objective by a single Gretchin.

5) Superhavies parking on an objective and preventing folks from getting within 3" while also scoring on it is now a thing

[Charon]

So basically to cater the WAAC crowd :D

[George Labour]

Because alll the power timmies own Malcador Vanquishers and have just been dieing to use them eh? :P

[Charon]

Drop a 3++ invul knight onto an opponent? Check.
Using a LoW without consent? Check.
Getting no benefits for having a LoW dropped on you? Check.
Not having to worry about scoring units anymore when you drop a LoW/Knight? Check.

[George Labour]

If you're going to try and derail a thread with this spammy grousing could you at least get one rule right? Start with the one you posted first, and then go down the list. Preferably after taking into account that 'sometimes' and 'always' are two very different terms.

[SnakeChisler]

At the club we play Lords of War / Imperial Knights / 40k approved / Escalation by consent only as in you'd do the courtesy of informing whoever you wanted to play that you'd like to use them.

Or you'd pre-organize with someone else who wants to play an escalated list, to be fair most guys would negotiate the filth level they want to take anyway so my mate would say fluff today or we'd agree it was smackdown no holds barred list day.

As for Club comps this year we've had quite a few with different rule sets/restrictions and even a 1999+1 for the Escalation Lords of War 40K approved brigade. Most local competitions are run on the basis that the GW book is a framework and restrict/expand it to meet different needs.