Knight Defender
SWORD: what Knight Defender kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 385 pts kill ~123 pts in one activation.Typical shooter: 44 per 100
Best against heavy infantry, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Imperial Knights
Across the game· shooters
SHIELD: how hard Knight Defender is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 385 pts take ~1289 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical shooter: 298 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Imperial Knights
Across the game· shooters
What reviewers say
7 reviewers- Cuts damage on Armigers beside it 5 of 7
- Protects knights behind it with cover 4 of 7
- Points cut made it better value 2 of 7
- Reliable heavy shots at a premium 1 of 7
- Competes with Crusader and Castellan for slots 2 of 7
- Slow-tempo piece, still unproven 1 of 7
- Draws melta fire 1 of 7
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knight Defender385 pts | B | Bottom 20% | Top 33% | 10of 62 |
| Knight Valiant390 pts | C | Bottom 45% | Bottom 39% | 12of 62 |
| Knight Crusader395 pts | A | Bottom 15% | Bottom 38% | 22of 62 |
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Knight Defender, 385 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Freeblade Company. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
385 pts → kills ~123 pts → 32 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~1289 pts → 335 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 407 shooters. How we score.
The letter
The average of 7 reviewers' newest Imperial Knights tier lists: Recon By Fire (Knight Intelligence weekly meta reports, 14 and 27 Oct) (27 Oct), Tabletop Battles / formerly Goonhammer (Sep dataslate review and Competitive Innovations, 25 Sep to 30 Oct: 12 described IK lists) (30 Oct), Art of War 40k (11th Edition Competitive Tier List, IK segment by Brian Jones) (27 Oct), Mana Down Under (Imperial Knight Tier List, 11th Edition) (3 Sep), Vanguard Tactics (Ranking every Imperial Knights unit, with a top IK player) (21 Jul), Auspex Tactics (Imperial Knights Tier List, 11th Edition) (11 Jul), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, written before the dataslate) (30 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
62 public Imperial Knights tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.