When Not to Knight Rush
If your opponent picked his faction instead of using Random, you can decide whether or not to Knight rush right off the bat. The rush is less effective against Goblins than most other factions, because masses of Goblin Warriors cause the Knights to slow down quite quickly and become useless. Keeping just one or two battalions of Goblin Warriors in a Tunnel allows them to pop out and counter your harassing Knights (always attack the back of a Tunnel when facing Goblins with this strategy), and the fast Goblins can reach your base so quickly that they have extra time to destroy your resource buildings before you can get out Soldiers of Gondor. It's also not good to use the Knight Rush against an opponent who picked Angmar, as his ability to choose which unit to summon after the Thrall Master has been built will allow him to get Rhudaur Spearmen quicker than other factions to counter you, not to mention Gundabads can get to your base quickly like Goblin Warriors.
The rush
can work against both those factions, but using it against an opponent who has scouted you is a recipe for disaster, as it can easily be countered with the technique described below. The Knight rush is an excellent alternative to the Soldiers of Gondor rush
only if you are not scouted.
Countering the Rush
If you know your opponent is going to use the Knight rush, the most obvious counter would be to start with pikemen; however, they don't work as well against this rush as against a normal cavalry rush. Against a traditional cavalry rush, you can use your pikemen to harass your cavalry rushing opponent's resource buildings without him being able to counter you at all, but against this strategy, the Men player will be able to get Soldiers of Gondor out early enough to stop the pikemen from destroying more than one Farm. Nevertheless, if you scout out a Knight rush, it's definitely a good idea to buy some pikemen to protect your base.
A better counter to this rush is a
fast start. Instead of using the generally superior two resource building start, start with just one resource building and a production building instead. This allows you to get your units into the Men player's base fast enough that he can't get Soldiers of Gondor out in time. Be sure to build pikemen, though, because if you use normal infantry, they will arrive before the Gondor Knights have left your opponent's base, and will be trampled. A
fast pikemen start can be lethal to the Gondor Knight rush, while a normal pikemen start is only partially as effective.
Discuss this guide in our forumsUpdated July 16, 2011
