Black Knight Tactics and Strategies

vikingerik

Active member
Nov 6, 2013
1,205
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Since we don't have this thread, I guess I'll start it, since I'm apparently one of the crazy few who likes Black Knight enough to seriously play it for score. I reached 50 million, good for #15 on the leaderboard.

Extra Balls: This is the primary goal. Completing all four drop target banks three times each lights Extra Ball. If you're good, it's possible to keep earning extra balls faster than you drain them and so play forever.

The instructions and pinball.org rulesheet say that a special (EB) is also lit by completing the upper playfield drops three times each. But that doesn't seem to work quite right, sometimes it happens with a different combination of banks or not at all. Don't worry about this, just keep going for whatever banks the game indicates need hits.

Upper playfield entry: The best entrance to the upper playfield is the left ramp, giving a clear shot at the lock lane. The right ramp is okay, difficult to hit with a moving ball, but easy from a catch. Don't bother with the middle ramp, it's nearly impossible to get any control for a lock shot. Trap the ball instead and shoot the right ramp.

Upper playfield exits: I don't seem to have the problems that many folks report with SDTM drains from the center. I'm on the Steam/Windows version where slap saves are very easy with keyboard controls, but even so, I don't need to slap save very often. Dead passing usually works. As for the other exits, just holding the lower flipper on that side will usually catch the ball from either the left or right exits.

Drop targets: Do not try to complete any drop target banks during single-ball play, unless you get lucky with a shot lined up and only one target left. Go for multiball instead.

Locking balls: This tip was posted not in the Black Knight forum, but over in Genie, and deserves calling out here.

Black Knight ... When you can start every game with a 3-ball multiball (plunge at maximum and keep both upper flippers upright and you have a controlled shot to the lock path for multiball), it only demands skill to relock the last remaining ball again, rinse and repeat.

This totally works and means you can keep multiball active almost all the time.

Multiball start: I always start multiball as follows:

Do a hold pass with each ball from the upper left to upper right flipper. Aim VERY LOW from the UR flipper, looking to bounce the ball off the idle UL flipper into the target bank. This works pretty reliably, completing the bank more often than not each time multiball starts. This also ricochets balls back into the lock often, getting more hold pass shots, and keeping balls upstairs for a while racking up some safe points before going down.

The exception is if the UL bank is fully completed but UR bank isn't, in which case I'll flail and whack at the UR bank instead.

Multiball strategy: I seem to get the best results by playing the upper playfield only when multiball starts. Other than that, focus downstairs. It's easy to get caught up by the table's speed and start flailing around, but don't. Keep your cool, trap balls, and use all your usual pinball multiball skills.

Don't try to play with one ball upstairs and one downstairs. The drop target banks are always your goal and you won't complete any that way. If this happens, and it does often, trap the lower ball and just work whatever you can with the other upper flipper until the upper ball drops down. Don't try to send the second ball up unless the UR bank is the last one you need, since odds are the first ball will drop down by the time the second gets up there. I find my multiballs last MUCH longer by making controlled traps and shots on the lower playfield rather than trying to send both up.

Multiball drop targets: Mostly I find I need to focus on the lower left bank, since the UL bank can be completed at multiball start and the UR and LR banks are fairly easy.

The easiest way to complete the lower left drops is to trap a ball on each flipper. Shoot from the right, which will often rebound into the turnaround or multiball start saucer, giving you time to post-pass left-to-right and shoot another target. Takes some luck to get control of a ball for the third shot, but usually happens.

Another way to go for the lower left bank is from the left flipper by rebounding off the middle bank. This works with some reliability, but be very ready with the left Magna-Save.

Mystery See-saw: That's my name for a particular multiball scoring tactic. Trap one (or ideally two) balls on the LR flipper, and get the other on the LL flipper. Shoot the middle ramp, letting the ball whack the backside of the UR flipper and drop back down. Hold the LL flipper and the ball will usually roll up the inlane to activate the mystery score. You have enough time to let the ball settle into a full catch. Shoot Mystery again, let the ball roll back down and up the inlane again, and repeat. This is somewhat risky but can score a LOT of points (million or more) in a hurry if you string together four or five shots.

Magna-Save: Use them a lot, they get relit easily. The most common and important usage is for a ball falling near but past the lower left drop targets (probably coming from a rebound off the middle bank.) When either magnet releases, just hold the flipper and the ball will settle to a full catch. You have enough time to shoot the lit spinner or mystery score this way.

Someone said to use Magna-Save preemptively any time three balls are flying around the lower playfield. I didn't find this useful, it's too easy for a second ball to newton the one on the magnet into the outlane. And then you feel like an idiot if you do need the magna-save a bit later when it's still unlit.

Bug recovery: Unfortunately, this is an essential part of playing this table on TPA. Sometimes the lock lane seems to get stuck and won't let balls in. I've found that a hard direct shot from the upper RIGHT flipper will push past the obstruction and get things rolling again. This happened twice during my 50M game.

Don't start multiball at the lower saucer. That seems to contribute to the problems where the game loses track of the ball count. Worst is when the game starts a 2-ball multiball when there's already two balls in the lock (because you drained.) Starting multiball here also means you can't use the strategy above for attacking the upper left drop targets. Just go upstairs instead and start multiball that way.

At least one bug works in your favor, when a ball jumps out of the table entirely and gets returned to the plunger lane. Enjoy your 1-ball multiball with double scoring still active. :)

(UL = upper left, UR = upper right, LL = lower left, LR = lower right)

So that's Black Knight in a nutshell. Yeah, probably nobody is really playing this one. If you want to play an early 80's speedy multi-playfield drop-target-whacky game, Black Hole is better. :)
 

Baron Rubik

New member
Mar 21, 2013
1,852
1
Great write up - I'm a fellow TPA Black Knight player even in it's broken scripted state.
Love your "Mystery See-saw", that never occurred to me despite having banged off the back of the upper right flipper a thousand times. Hold up the lower left, activate mystery, shoot centre ramp.
Spent a good half hour, just shooting this last night chuckling to myself.

Thanks for the tips.
 

superballs

Active member
Apr 12, 2012
2,653
2
I finally gave this table a really serious go, since I decided that I would go though the tables Alphabetically getting all the wizard goals. Having made it to this table I figured I better come up with something.

My last game got me 7 Million, 6 of those million on ball 3.

I followed a pretty simple strategy but it does follow pretty closely to vikingerik's

I start multiball early and often, as soon as I'm back to single ball, multiball is first priority.

Once multiball is started, i tend to just whack the balls around up top as much as I can and shoot anything back up whenever possible when they drop to the upper playfield. I focus on the upper left bank as I have the most trouble with that one given the vertical nature of the upper right flipper. If i have all three balls on the lower playfield i concentrate again on the left bank, which I find hardest to hit. Once I drop down to one ball, I immediately start shooting for locks again.

Note that when you activate the upper playfield extra ball, it clears one or two of your completed banks (not exactly sure, just started to catch on to this pattern later in my last game), you will need to light them again.

Of course, you want to increase your bonus and hit the turnaround loop for your multiplier.

This tactic will get you a decent score and your wizard goals, of course you can then refine this into vikingerik's strategy afterward.
 

neglectoid

New member
Sep 27, 2012
845
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the last tourney (ps3) got me playing this game. its pretty fun. im still trying to reproduce vikingeriks see saw.
 

Slam23

Active member
Jul 21, 2012
1,279
2
Good one VikingErik, I'm eagerly awaiting the BK2000 release for iOS. I got fairly good on the original TPA Black Knight and with the seeming similarities between layouts and possibly gameplay, I'm curious if some of my earlier experience will carry-over.

Some points that I remember from playing a while back:
- VikingErik mentioned my tip (thanks!) from the Genie thread, to refine that: keeping up both upper flippers will transfer a full-plunged ball from right to left flipper as mentioned, it then will do a little bounce and just right after that, you'll have a clear shot at the lock loop. This will speed up the locking process and is fun to get in a flow rhytm. You can also cradle the ball at the upper left flipper but I find that I then overthink how to shoot it. A preference thing for sure.
- Try to avoid shooting the lock area from beneath it (instead of feeding it properly from above), this can lead to a stuck ball and even a broken game. It pays off to try to feed the lock lane properly to see if you can nudge the stuck ball loose. I haven't had success with actually shooting it from underneath as VikingErik mentions to try to get the lock lane moving again, maybe a difference between steam/PC and iOS?
- Getting the multiplier up to 5x is most safely done when in multiball. Otherwise, it's possible to shoot the left targets from the right flipper (somewhat above the middle target) and bank it towards the multiplier U-turn, this will take the right to left loop and then feed the left flipper. If you shoot it directly from the right flipper, it will go left to right in the U-turn and then veer towards the left outlane.

I think BK is un underrated table that with getting a nice flow is actually quite fun to play. Although I concur with Black Hole being more fun in the long run, it's just a more diverse table while BK tends to be reduced to the one-trick Multiball pony.
 
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Potrzebie

New member
Sep 4, 2014
67
0
Multiball Strategy: As soon as you plunge the ball, press and hold the right flipper. The ball will always bounce to the left side of the upper playfield and slowly roll back down to the left flipper. Practice to find the sweet spot on the flipper to send it horse-shoeing directly into the ball lock. I hit the ball lock almost every time this way.
 

Storm Chaser

New member
Apr 18, 2012
432
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I haven't played this forever but I am currently going through my worst scores and try to improve them. I remember this was the first TPA-table that I really disliked and it all came back to me quickly why (with all respect to you who have nostalgic reasons to like it).

While the BK2000 has the coolest music ever this laser countdown made me mute my iPad instantly. Then the whole multiball-rinse-and-repeat. But worst of all, that center ramp drain (especially in multiball). It's ridiculous! About 50% of all multiball balls go to an insta-drain rendering most other tactics impossible!

Slap save, you say? Well, it's really not that easy on an iPad since you need to keep your fingers on the flippers to not let all others drain the same way as well.

Nuff with the ranting and the tactics then. I am not sure I agree with the go for extra balls. I mean, obviously extra balls are very, very useful in this game since it is quite linear in the scoring (the more balls you have, the more you score - pun not intended). But, actually shooting them in a controlled manner (especially during multiball) is quite risky and very tricky at times. I go for those targets when I have accidentally taken some down and have some sort of aimed shot to go for.

Basically, my tactic (on iPad) during multiball is to keep my eyes on the lower field and try to shoot them back to the upper field and flipping the hell out of the flippers at the same time. Stop flipping lets the balls slide down the center ramp with a predictable result... Trapping/cradling during multiball hasn't really done me any good either.

Oh yeah...and then we have the left-side-bonus-loop-to-instadrain-in-the-left-outlane as well...mmmm...No, I think I will settle for my #400 leaderboard score on this one. Too bad (and quite logically) all my worst high scores are on the tables I like the least.
 

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