A Knight's Tale - Knights vs. Imperil Fists Battle Report
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Warhammer 40,000 – The recent release of the Imperial Knight Codex has given the giant robots new life. Thankfully the new book looks to make the army playable. To put them to the test I built a basic Knight army with a Space Marine Battalion to give me access to much needed command points. (Note: This game was played prior to the FAQ having 15CP is going to be bonkers).
My list consisted of:
Space Marines - Raven Guard Battalion:
HQ - Chaplain
HQ - Lietenants w/ Combi-Plasma and Chainsword
TROOP - Scout Squad - 4x Sniper Rifles, 1x Heavy Bolter w/Camo Cloaks
TROOP - Tactical Squad - Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter 1x Heavy Bolter 3x Bolter
TROOP - Tactical Squad - Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter 1x Heavy Bolter 3x Bolter
Imperial Knights - House Raven Super Heavy Detachment:
WARLORD - Knight Gallant - Paragon Gauntlet, Ion Bulwark
SUPERHEAVY - Warglaive w/ Heavy Stubber
SUPERHEAVY - Warglaive w/ Heavy Stubber
SUPERHEAVY - Knight Crusader
SUPERHEAVY - Knight Paladin
My opponent brought a pretty solid all-around Space Marine army, two Razorbacks, a Landraider, some Landspeeders, Devastator Squad, Assault Squads and Tactical Squads.
I hadn't used the Open War deck in quite some time so we decided to bust that out and flip some cards for the mission. Since we had the same Power Level nobody got a ruse, we set up on the short edges and the win condition is the Power Level of what you kill, if the Warlord dies everything is worth double.
A bad roll saw me going second and losing a Warglaive that was to far forward. The scouts did their job and soaked up a ton of fire with their nifty 2+ save. I moved up with everything except my marines who stayed in the backfield to protect my deployment zone. I put a decent amount of wounds on the vehicles but failed to kill anything in turn one.
Turn Two saw a bunch of damage piled on my Knights but nothing died thankfully. I ran up with the remaining Warglaive and tried to blow it up with a stratagem. Sadly even after the re-roll I failed to get over a 2+ which was a giant was of Command Points on my part. The Marines in the backfield turned around to gun down the assault squads the dropped down behind them.
The third turn took my Paladin down to a single wound in his shooting phase. Stomping forward to engage it took out several marines before the Captain's powerfist finished it off. The ensuing explosion took out everything within 6" of it and severely crippled his flank.
Turn 4 saw some terrible rolling on both sides which saw nothing of note happen. At this point we decided to call the game because of the time and total up the Victory Points.
The End result was Imperial (Bone) Fists 45 vs House Raven 25.
I learned a few things in this game. First focus fire until something is dead. I spread out my fire and failed to completely eliminate units, while they may have been crippled they were still on the table which meant no VP for me. Second I need to pay attention to my stratagems and when they can trigger. Remembering I can "Rotate Ion Sheilds" after the dice are rolled does me now good. If he's focusing high damage shots on a Knight I need to use that right away.
With a little practice I think this will be a really fun army to play. I'm excited to see what the Helverins can do. I think the longer range shooting attacks might keep them alive a bit longer than the Warglaives. I'm also interested to see what my Forgeworld Knights can do since the keywords were updated. I think the Atrapos is going to see quite a bit of table time.
