I love Mercer's X vs Y series so I apologise to him for hijacking it on this occasion. This comparison might seem a little offbeat since we have two very different units on the table here. However, I recently found myself in a toss up between the two for one very specific reason. But we'll come to that in a moment. Let's break it down....
Wraithknight
We're gonna talk about the cheapest Wraithknight (double wraithcannon) here as this is where the comparison with Nightspear comes in. Forget the shuriken cannons mounted in the picture - he can't fire them!
At 240 points he ain't cheap, but T8 and 6 wounds means he can weather a fair bit of normal fire power (beware anything causing instant death however). Being a jumping monstrous creature, his heavy wraithcannons have an effective range of around 54" - not too shabby but he as to jump in to 36" range to do this. Still not too shabby. Two shots at BS4, S10 AP2 and with the D rule (instant death on a 6) - there's about a 66% chance one of those shots will miss, but you should hit with something, and maybe twice. Clearly this is a nasty weapon but so low on shots... what's the best target for it? A T5 demon prince would be nice yes. AV13+ vehicles are not a guaranteed kill. We can forget fliers. It might total a Tervigon with a good roll.
Still not particularly amazing. It can hit important things hard which is perhaps more reliable, and it may draw fire on account of being huge (as Mercer said, being a bullet magnet may not be enough to justify its cost, but it's not inconsequential as long as the opponent cannot ignore the knight). In this sense, the ghostglaive and shield, though odd, may be a better bet since it clarifies and enhances the knight's purpose, but that means spending even more chips and putting it in the way of the largest category of instant death causing weapons - melee.
But back to the wraithcannnon and the focus of our comparison. Threatening an opponent's big monstrous creatures by reaching out and touching them with D weapons (not to be confused with Apocalypse...) is nice. Which leads me neatly to...
Illac Nightspear
For 140 points you get this Ranger Phoenix Lord Supremo. Even with shrouded he is clearly not as survivable as the knight, nor does he pack a wallop in cc. For a hefty price he can make your Rangers Pathfinders, who are then deadly at picking out enemy models of choice with auto precision shots. Rangers andPpathfinders can also deep strike to his location and he can deploy anywhere. All this has been covered already in codex reviews. Whether this is really useful is debatable as he really wants to be striking from afar, but it does give you some options on far flung objectives, and that is always nice. You probably don't want him as a warlord as he is too squishy.
But the true sauce here is voidbringer - his rifle - and like the wraithcannon it has the Distort rule, meaning rolls of 6 will instant death or auto pen. It is AP2 and 48" in range to boot. Given his ridiculous BS of 9 he will probably hit about as much as the Knight (but no chance for two hits here) and he can reroll 1s against Necrons. Admittedly the hits are not S10 and that makes them strictly worse than the knight's. He can pick out enemies of choice easily, but still faces warlord Look Out Sir rolls (rather annoyingly).
One sneaky tactic might be using pathfinders to strip away the bodyguards around the warlord (they must be within 6" to get LOS rolls) and then Illiac the big guy. Combined with the presence of nightspinners and fireprisms in the list (forcing spread out deployments) this is an expensive but possible trick. 5 pathfinders + Illiac comes in at a similar price to the Knight.
Final Thoughts
If you want some nasty far-reaching Distort goodness in your list, I think Illac is the way to go. He is far cheaper (you can more or less get two small ranger squads to go with him - or a single pathfinder unit - all for the price of the knight - which allows you to score and pick apart infantry squads) and has much more utility - options are always nice. Cover-denying weapons are an issue (FEAR the drake) but he can easily stay out of range of most.
The Knight is pricey and really needs to hit stuff to be worthwhile - but then you are not using the wraithcannons so much. Whatever it can destroy with the cannons, it can probably just as well muller in melee. It is far more mono-dimensional and although survivable and distracting, expensive. I do think the knight has a place if used very aggressively, but I really need to test it out more before working out if it's worth it.
In the end, I think both Illiac and the Knight are best used going after enemy monstrous creatures which they are likely to make go pop over the course of a game. The knight has a greater threat profile, but the need to charge what you shoot reduces the real effectiveness of this. The knight can also do more against vehicles. However, in the end...for cost effectiveness and the options he gives me...
Winner = Nightspear
What are your thoughts? Can the lone gunman really stand up to the knight?
by Mephistoned