About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

Featured Post

Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Saturday, November 30, 2019

New Mechanicus flyer!

Some of the reveals from Warhammer Open Day are out, and I just have to report on this!



Adeptus Mechanicus is getting a new flyer! They will be coming in three variants, as a gunship, a transport or a bomber! I have no idea how it will turn out eventually, but this looks cool!



They call it the...Archaeopter. No, I'm not kidding. That really is the name. You can check out more of the Warhammer Open Day reveals at Warhammer Community.

I'll keep an eye out for more stuff. I heard there might be some news on Adeptus Titanicus, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for that too!

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Steel Dragons

I thought I might as well post pictures of the Steel Dragon while at it.


As you can see, it's a mostly mechanized based army, with Impulsors and Razorbacks. So all my infantry get to ride in Armored Personnel Carriers or Infantry Fighting Vehicles! I especially love the Impulsors!




Oh, and I have a kitbashed Inquisitor somewhere in there just because.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Renegade Open 2019

Okay, everybody! I finally have the chance to sit down and actually begin writing on the Renegade Open tournament. I don't think I'll go into too much detail - there are 5 matches to cover, so I'll briefly sum up each of them (I can't remember what happened anyway). Besides, I don't think you guys want to read a super-long post. Assuming that anyone is actually reading this blog in the first place, and sometimes I suspect no one reads it (so why do I even bother posting?).

Basically I participated in the Babican Salient Campaign, set during the events of the Horus Heresy. So the Traitor Titan Legions are attacking, and it's up to the Loyalists to deny them from destroying the city. I personally took command of an Imperial Knight Household Force, with supporting Titans, to attempt to stop their rampage...and needless to say, I failed. Or almost succeeded, depending on whether your glass is half-full or half-empty. Speaking of which, I sent an email regarding the Knight Household Forces and whether they are allowed to bring supporting Titans as reinforcements, and I was told that they would do a FAQ really soon. How soon, I have no idea, but they requested that I wait for the eventual FAQ.


Anyway, match one was against a Myrmidon Maniple (that's 2 Warlord Titans and 1 Reaver Titan) with 2 supporting Warhound Titans and a few Questoris Knights. I did my best to hide my Titans aand Knights from the four Belicosa volcano cannons, and I'll be honest. I don't remember what happened throughout the game, except that I rolled the mission for Hold the Line or Engage and Destroy. I can't remember. I know, by the time the fourth or fith turn rolled on, I had essentially tabled him, destroying both of his Warlord Titans with my Knights and Warlord Titan, while my Reaver Titan...killed his Warhound Titan? I think? He didn't have much left on the table, and I managed to claim an overwhelming victory, scoring over 40 points to his 20 or so.



Match two was against an Axiom Maniple with a bunch of Knights (Questoris, I believe). This time, my Acastus Knights got wiped out in the first time by the enemy Warlord Titan's Belicosa volcano cannons. I got Honor and Glory, so I put everything into that Warlord Titan and utterly wrecked him. The opposing Reaver Titan, who possessed a chainfist, walked right into my lines and began hammering my poor Reaver Titan, who suffered critical damage. The Reaver Titan, ironically enough, survived, but the enemy Reaver Titan then walked up to my Warlord Titan and gutted him. Surprisingly enough, my Warlord Titan blew and I think I took the Reaver Titan along with him, while the rest of my forces wiped out his 2 Warhound Titans and Knights. Eventually, he was left with a single Reaver Titan while I still had most of my Knights ("most" being relatively, given that my Acastus Lance had been annihilated in the first turn, but I still had a healthy number of Cerastus Knights and Questoris Knights). Thanks to me getting 15 points for killing his Warlord Titan in the first turn, scoring Vengeance and Decapitating Strike, as well as 3 points for being in one corner of the table, I was able to score 26 points to my opponent's 20 or so, and scraped by a victory. Would have been more if I had used Full Stride for my Knights to run over to the other quarter of the table to deny him more of his Hold the Line objective while gaining another 3 points for myself, but I decided not to do that, because you know...good sportsmanship and all that. Besides, it's a narrative event that we were doing for fun. Why should I care about claiming an overwhelming victory? It was more important for the both of us to enjoy ourselves.



Match three was the final Adeptus Titanicus match. The other Loyalist Titan Legions had fallen and I was the last one left. Also, funnily enough, I had destroyed all the other Traitor Titan Legions, so we were pretty much the last Legions standing. We could have both chosen Engage and Destroy, but I decided to pick Hold the Line because it was more narratively thematic and off we went!



This time, the match took place in a pretty dense hive city, so for the first couple of turns, we couldn't do anything to each other because we simply couldn't see each other. The opponent had one Warlord Titan, one Reaver Titan and two Warhound Titans (an Axiom Maniple), plus a Cerastus Knight banner of 4 Knights and 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrions. In the first turn, we lost a single Knight Porphyrion each. The destruction began to ramp up as we began to move toward each other, but I had my Knights sneak up to his lines by hugging the edge of the battlefield and hiding behind the buildings while using Full Stride. Eventually, they reached my opponent's deployment zone and I had my Knights destroy the last Acastus Knight Porphyrion, the Reaver Titan, before they went to assault the Warlord Titan. The opposing Cerastus Knight banner advanced toward the Knights Porphyrion, but I shot them off the table, while my Reaver Titan took serious damage from combined shooting from the Warlord Titan and other enemy Titans (who could see him). Eventually the Reaver Titan was blown up by the Warlord Titan before I could destroy him with my Knights, and when my Knights did destroy him, his weapon magazine detonated, and being armed with a Belicosa volcano cannon (2 of them, in fact), he utterly annihilated all of my Knights. The Warhound Titans also destroyed my Acastus Knights, who had previously destroyed the Reaver Titan who had charged my Warlord Titan, and I was left with just the High Seneschal (Acastus Knight Porphyrion). The game sort of ended there, and I only had 41 or 42 points or so, even when taking into account Decapitating Strike and Vengeance. In contrast, my opponent had 46 points or so. The kicker was that, if I had chosen Engage and Destroy, I would have gotten 47 points and won the game, because I destroyed so many of his units. Oh well. Obviously I wasn't going to whine about it, so I accepted my loss, and somehow I got second place in the Adeptus Titanicus Renegade Open event, and achieved Best Loyalist. Yay!

The next day, we moved into Horus Heresy games proper, with my Questoris Knight Crusade army making an appearance. Wait, what? Why? ...because, frankly speaking, that was my only army that can double as a Horus Heresy one. I don't have any of the old Space Marine Legions, I don't have a Solar Auxilia army, my Leman Russ tanks were not appropriate for Imperial Militia (they were Leman Russ Executioner tanks and had sponsons, something that Imperial Militia and Horus Heresy tanks don't have), and my Mechanicum army was not up to scratch, with only a couple of Magi Dominus, 10 Secutarii Hoplites, 4 Castellax battle-automata and a Vultarax stratos-automata. I didn't even bring my Thanatar siege-automata. Not enough for a full army, and I would be bringing Knights to make up the rest of the points anyway, so I might as well bring a full army of Knights. Additionally, I thought it would be interesting - these were the same Imperial Knight House that had stood by the Loyalist Titan Legions and fought to defend the cities from Traitor Titans. Smarting from their defeat the previous day, they vow to enact vengeance on the Traitors by protecting the city. So they broke off from their Titan group (well, it was mostly a Knight Household Force to begin with) and descended to the Hive City to fight on the ground with the others.



So the first game was against Dark Mechanicum forces as the Traitors poured through the breach that my failed defense of the Hive City had left. Fortunately, my Knights stood strong against the screeching tide of daemonic scrap code and insanity. The opponent brought 2 Krios Venator tanks (I think, the ones that can fired 4 Ordnance Strength 9 AP2 shots), a bunch of Thallax with multi-melta on top of their standard lightning guns, a bunch of Ursarax, and a Magos Prime with conversion beam cannon. Oh, and 20 Tech-thralls in a...Tiraros Conveyor. The game did not go that well for me at first, with both of our shooting missing everything (because of fog and radiation, we all had a -1 to our shooting for the first turn). Instead, melee was where I did the most damage, where my Knight Errant and Knight Crusader stomped the poor Ursarax to oblivion before they could swing back with their power claws, while also taking out a couple of Thallax. On the other end of the table, my Knight Lancer charged and wrecked the Tiraros Conveyor with his lance, destroying it and causing quite a few tech-thralls to die.



The second turn was more devastating, with the Krios Venator and the Magos Prime's conversion beam cannon destroying and blowing up my Knight Lancer. Ouch. My opponent had just scored a massive advantage there. Funnily enough, my Knight Lancer's explosion scattered right on top of the poor Tech-thralls and wiped out every single of them out with Strength D hits (and the other hits as well). Ouch. Talk about lucky. At least my Knight Lancer's explosion didn't scatter back to my Armiger Knight Moirax! Next, my Knight Errant charged the Magos Prime while my Knight Crusader slaughtered the fleeing Thallax, who had fired their jetpacks to fly away. I failed to do any damage to the Magos Prime, even with my Strength D reaper chainsword, especially since he made all of his 3++ invulnerable saves. Ouch. However, funnily enough, I rolled a 6 for my stomp, and the dude was removed from the table. Just like that. Slay the Warlord for both me and him.

The Knight Crusader continued advancing forward and damaging the Krios Venator, one of them having crew shaken and can only fire snap-shots. Even so, they left my Armiger Knight Moirax with just 2 hull points and immobilized him. Fortunately, between the thermal cannon shots and my Knight Crusader's dakka, I succeeded in destroying both Krios Venators eventually by turn 4, tabling my opponent and winning 8 points to 4 or something.

The campaign had something called breakthrough, where you can have your forces move up the table and show up on another match somewhere, to help your allies. With my opponent tabled, my Knight Crusader and Knight Errant moved on to the next table, right behind enemy lines, and wiped out a bunch of Thousand Sons who were assaulting poor Dark Angels, thus saving the beleaguered defending Loyalist Legion, and almost tabling the poor guy (who only had a Contemptor Dreadnought left, if I'm not mistaken). Heh! The Loyalists fared pretty well, winning half of the battles and achieving a draw (3 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses or something to that effect, or 2 losses, I can't remember).



The second match, on the other hand...was pretty funny. I faced off against a Renegade Blackshield force, where the mission was for the dudes to get to my end of the table and escape. He gets 2 Victory Points for each unit who successfully gets off my edge of the table. So...what he did was put everything in Reserves, so I had a pointless first turn where I couldn't do anything but move and advance with no clue as to where he would show up. Then he drop pod his dreadclaws or dread talons (I can't remember what they're called, the flying drop pods that can still move around even after they come on from reserves), putting most of his army in there (3 squads, plus 2 HQ). He had 3 of them. He also had a special teams squad with combi-plasma packed inside a Termite Drill, and had 2 dreadclaws and the Termite Drill and a single Falchion appear from Reserves in the first turn. Funnily enough, despite all that firepower, he failed to kill even a single Knight, the combi-plasma taking about 2 or 3 wounds off my Knight Crusader. The Falchion fired his double volcano cannon at my Knight Gallant...and did no more than a couple of wounds. Then he fired the dreadclaws and had both of them fly off the table with their 18" movement during the shooting phase. So basically they came from reserves and flew off all in the same turn, without me being able to do anything to stop him, whether it was to shoot, assault or whatever.

...oh, well.

At least I destroyed his Falchion, wiped out the Veterans except one, and destroyed the Termite Drill. His third and last Dreadclaw swooped in, along with the Avenger Strike Fighter, but once again he failed to kill any of my Knights, with me making all of my ion shield saves. The Dreadclaw, as usual, flew off the table in the same bloody turn, without me being able to stop it. Thanks to my Knight Crusader being a Scion Albaster, he had Skyfire if he doesn't move, so he promptly shot the Avenger Strike Fighter out of the sky, while my Knight Lancer killed the last remaining Veteran before he could run off the table.

I tabled my opponent, but I lost on victory points. I had 6 Victory Points to his 16 (2 x 8 units that flew off the table). Wow. Just wow. Oh, well. I don't blame him. I had Knights, so it would be tough for him to stand and fight the army. It was very smart of him to run, and I probably would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes, heh, play to the mission and all that. So it was all good. Honestly, I was more amused and ended up laughing at how ridiculous the mission got than miffed.

That was the last mission I played. Well, since I tabled him by turn 3, technically I could have all my Knights run off the table and do breakthrough, but because it seemed pretty imbalanced the other time, they decided to limit it to one Knight this time, but he got blown up by Terminators shooting their missiles into his back and me being unable to make my saves because Knight Lancers don't have an invulnerable save to their backs. Whoops. Couldn't do a single thing. Oh well.

That ended my involvement for the campaign, that being the last game played for the day. I didn't show up on Sunday because of personal issues, so I don't know the eventual outcome, but I think it was fair to say the Loyalists lost pretty badly. In the second round, the Loyalists won only one match but lost six matches. It was pretty lopsided in favor of the Traitors. Ouch. Maybe I should have just gone the next day, spend another $30 on Uber, but I decided not to, because I also had things to do. I'll never know, but I'll check with my friend and see what happened in the end. From what I heard, the Traitors won, and the city was in ruins. Good thing my Knights got off the planet and went elsewhere before the end (I'm joking, of course). They all survived to fight another day!

Monday, November 25, 2019

Some pictures from the Renegade event

I don't have time to write up a full battle report just yet, but I thought I should put some pictures for fun.

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Yes, those Knights on the right belong to me. As does the Christmas-themed terrain.

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The Knights of House Yato shall stand strong against the Traitor Titan Legions!

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You can just barely see my Acastus Knights Porphyrion hidden behind the buildings.

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Of course, you can't forget about my supporting Warlord Titan who marches along with my Knight Household Force!

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Plus the High Seneschal's Acastus Knight banner, taking aim and executing First Fire!

It was such a great event! Even though I lost the final battle, I had a lot of fun! No regrets, and I did my best! And yeah...I know I look incredibly stupid in this photo, but the photographer told me to make a funny expression (or a troll expression), so I obeyed. Well, whatever. Don't focus on my face, focus on that sweet award! I got Best Loyalist! YAY!

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And my Knights, my 2,000-point Household army that includes Titan support (because I don't have enough Knights for 2,000 points, unfortunately). Two Knight Lances and 2 supporting Titans!

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Artillery Knight Lance (Breath of Draconis)
Acastus Knight Banner with 2 Knights Porphyrion (High Seneschal)
Acastus Knight Banner with 2 Knights Porphyrion
Acastus Knight Banner with 1 Knight Porphyrion

Hunters Knight Lance (The Shogun's Sword)
Cerastus Knight Banner with 2 Knights Lancer (High Lord Scion)
Questoris Knight Banner with 3 Knights Errant
Questoris Knight Banner with 3 Knights Crusader

Supporting Warlord Titan with paired turbo-laser destructors, Sunfury plasma annihilator and macro gatling cannon
Supporting Reaver Titan with carapace Vulcan mega-bolter and 2 melta cannons

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Knight Household Battleforce

I will write about Renegade another day. Needless to say, I was wiped after two days of playing, but whatever. Anyway, Warhammer Community has posted on the Knight Household Battleforce!



A bit too late for me because I already have all the Knights I need (I think?). So I doubt I'll be getting any of these. But hey, we'll see. I think.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Renegade

Sorry, I was so exhausted that I passed out the moment I came home, so I wasn't able to update much. I literally just woke up not too long ago. I wanted to write an entire article on the Adeptus Titanicus event in the Renegade Open held in Plymouth (Minnesota), but...I fell asleep and I'll probably be going for the event again today. I doubt I'll be playing much today except Adeptus Titanicus (again) if people want to do that, but...well, the important thing is that the Loyalists lost yesterday. Despite my best attempts (ha ha!), I fell short of denying the Traitors their advance into the city, and lost the final game last night. Whoops.

At least I managed to get the Best Loyalist for Adeptus Titanicus award, so there was that. Despite being outnumbered three Traitor Legions to two, the Knight forces of House Yato valiantly fought to the last, denying them several critical objectives and even destroying two Traitor Legions in the process, but was ultimately unable to prevent the Traitors' push into the city, falling short in the last battle.

Well...I did my best. Managed to get second place, surprisingly enough...though I probably just got lucky (and there were pretty few participants when compared to the 40K Doubles or other narrative events). We need to make Titanicus more popular! Hopefully Forge World's promise for more stuff will bring in more players, and I really look forward to see what they will release. I honestly doubt they will release an Imperator Titan, but one can always hope! Realistically, I suspect we'll be seeing stuff like the Nemesis Warbringer Titan being released, and the alternative options for the Acastus Knight (the Asterius) and the Cerastus Knights (the Acheron and Castigator).

What will the future hold for Adeptus Titanicus? We'll find out as the new year beckons!

Friday, November 22, 2019

Remaining Warlord Carapace Weapons up for pre-order!

Don't ask me why I'm still awake at this ungodly hour. I don't have time to sleep, so I won't. I need to prepare for Renegade.

Anyway, thanks to that, I saw this. AWESOME!

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Early Christmas gift from Forge World? Posted by mistake? No idea. This was posted on Forge World's Facebook page, so look out for it. The main Forge World page has them now! It's a pretty sweet bundle, and I can't wait to buy it!



They will be officially on sale on November 29th, but you can pre-order them today! YAAY!

Preparing for Renegade

I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow (or later today since it's already past midnight and is November 22nd), but I am going to attend Renegade. Hell, yeah! I think.

One thing that I know for sure will happen is me participating in Adeptus Titanicus. I can't wait for that! I plan to run 2 Knight Lances and a couple of Titan reinforcements (if they'd allow me), and I want to see how it will go. It'll be fun! I'll probably be the only one running a Household Force like the other time in the Adeptus Titanicus tournament last month. We'll see!

However, it's also possible that I might join the Horus Heresy campaign, but I don't know. I haven't registered for that event (I registered for the Adeptus Titanicus one), but I might just sign up tomorrow. I do have a Knight Household that I can run as a Horus Heresy army (Questoris Knight Crusade). I also have a small Mechanicum Legio Cybernetica force if I really need to, but chances are, if I do participate, I'll run a pure Knight list. Because I'm a Knight player. Even so, I got my Magos Macrotek Enginseer and his servo-automata painted up, and they looked really cool! I probably botched the paint job as always, but at least they fulfill the three-color rule and look presentable. Yay.


My Armiger Moirax Knights are also ready, and both of them are armed with 2 volkite veuglaires each! I can't wait to see how they play out on the tabletop. They are cool but not very impressive in 8th Edition 40K despite the potential to deal a lot of mortal wounds, but I have no idea how that translates to Horus Heresy. I haven't played many Horus Heresy games and my 7th edition knowledge is very rusty. I actually prefer 8th edition to 7th edition, honestly, but I expect that some people might be upset about that. Sorry.



Anyway, I'll get ready for Renegade and I'll let you guys know what happen when I get back!

Saturday, November 16, 2019

More Cerastus Knight Lancers and Magos Macrotek Enginseer!

I managed to get more Cerastus Knight Lancers for Adeptus Titanicus and painted them, so they look like this now. Yay! So now I can run 3 Cerastus Banners of 2 Knight Lancers each or 2 Cerastus Banners of 3 Knight Lancers each. I have an entire Knight Lance of Cerastus Knight Lancers ready to roll out!


I also built a Magos Macrotek Enginseer and his servo-automata, which I plan to run as Servitors in an Adeptus Mechanicus army (or Space Marines or Imperial Guard army). They look so much cooler and better than the usual Servitors, so I prefer to use them. Not only that, I also have a Magos Macrotek Enginseer as my alternative Tech-priest Dominus model. YAY! I've also ordered a volkite charger, which I plan to use as his volkite blaster. This will be so cool! I hope. I have yet to paint them yet, so they are still mostly black, but I hurriedly did their bases with Martial Ironearth (because I borrowed the paint from someone) and also painted the Magos Macrotek's robes red, because...you know. Skitarii. Adeptus Mechanicus. They wouldn't be Skitarii or Adeptus Mechanicus without the red, which I found to my cost a long time ago. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and the shop was about to close, so I had to abandon my efforts midway. Oh well. Not to worry. I'll continue painting them again...soon. Though how soon, I have no idea. Hopefully Monday, but we'll see.



That's all I have for you guys today. Sorry.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Warhammer 40,000 Instructions Adeptus Titanicus Cerastus Knight Lancer and Acastus Knight Porphyrion

I don't have a Reddit account, so anyone with a Reddit account, please feel free to add this to the Warhammer 40,000 Instructions thread. Sorry.

This is the assembly instructions for the Cerastus Knight Lancer and Acastus Knight Porphyrion. I'm talking about the Adeptus Titanicus plastic models, not the massive resin models from Forge World (though Adeptus Titanicus is under Forge World). Feel free to peruse them, in case you bought a single model off Ebay or something, have just the sprue but no assembly instructions. I did that - for example, I just wanted a third Knight Lancer for my Cerastus Knight banner instead of getting 4. Or a 5th Acastus Knight instead of getting 6. I hope this will be helpful.

Cerastus Knight Lancer assembly instructions







Acastus Knight Porphyrion assembly instructions




Again, feel free to post them on Warhammer Instructions in Reddit or wherever, and if you happen to buy a single Knight instead of the box off Ebay, but only get the sprue and no instructions, please make use of these.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Battle Report 38

Welp, I guess it's time to type out the disastrous battle report for my Steel Dragons. Whoops, I really shouldn't be giving away spoilers right from the start, but I think you guys already know how this is going to end.



Not well for me, that's for sure.


Anyway, let's start off with what my opponent brought. He had an awesome Drukhari army! I think he had a Kabalite Cult of 3 squads of 10 Kabalite Warriors in Raiders (I think, those big ship things), led by 2 Archons, both of whom loaded up in a Venom. He had an additional 2 5-men squads in 2 Venoms. He had a Wyche Cult that included 2 Ur-ghuls and a unit of Scourges, and maybe a squad of Wyches? I can't remember. I know he had a bunch of Reavers...I think? The small jetbike dudes. All led by a Succubus. They were also accompanied by a bunch of Mandrakes, which were really scary. Then he wrapped up with a Haemonculus Coven that had the dude leading 3 Grotesques and 3 Talos. Scary. He placed the 3 Raiders with their Kabalite Warrior squads, the Mandrakes and Scourges in Deep Strike.



Because I still hadn't gotten my second Repulsor Executioner yet, I had to use proxies, and thus...the Skorpius Disintegrator pretended to be my second Repulsor Executioner. The rest were what you see is what you get. A Primaris Captain, a Primaris Chaplain, a Primaris Librarian, 3 squads of Intercessors, 2 Impulsors with shield domes, 1 plasma Devastator squad, a Razorback with twin assault cannons, 2 Contemptor Mortis Dreadnoughts with dual plasma cannons, and 2 Repulsor Executioners. Yeah, very low model count. The Steel Dragons are full of steel and plasma, as you can see. I think we had Vital Intelligence for the mission.



I got first turn, my opponent didn't seize the initiative and the game began! He cleverly hid all of his Dark Eldar stuff out of line of sight, so I couldn't bring my prodigious firepower to bear even though I had so much plasma. Don't forget that he had a ton of stuff in Deep Strike too, so there was no way I could shoot anything in the second turn. Whoops. The only thing I could shoot at were the Grotesques and Talos, but between their 4++ invulnerable and 6+++ Feel No Pain, I couldn't kill any of them. Only 1 Repulsor Executioner and 1 Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought could fire at them, and obviously the single Impulsor that went to grab an objective only had a single ironhail heavy stubber, which quite frankly, couldn't do anything. Even the Intercessors who piled out of the assault vehicle didn't put a dent on any of them...maybe took off a few wounds. No First Strike for me. My Impulsor and Intercessors attempted to grab the Objective that would be worth 2 (or was it 3?) points this turn, but alas, it was not to be.



My opponent moved all his Drukhari upward, especially the Talos, Grotesques and Venoms. They unloaded everything into the Intercessors and wiped them out to grab the objective, while also hitting the Repulsor Executioner with their blasters or dark lances or something. The poor thing was reduced to about 3 wounds or so. Poor guy. Anyway, he got First Strike thanks to destroying my Intercessors. His Talos and Grotesques then charged and assaulted the Impulsor...and thanks to his 4++ invulnerable save because of the shield dome, the guy didn't take any damage except losing 1 wound to a Venom desperately charging him. That was hilarious. Seriously. The Impulsor was a beast! On the other side, another Venom charged my Contemptor Dreadnought, and even though I did the Optimized Repulsion Protocols Stratagem, I failed to kill it, and the poor guy got locked in combat. Oh well.

The Impulsor just refused to take any damage!
Unfortunately, my opponent grabbed the greater objective, and his Ur-ghouls were sitting on 2 objectives while I only had 2. With First Strike, he surged up to 5 points to my 2 and took a huge lead from the start.



I tried to destroy a bunch of his Talos with my Repulsor Executioner and Razorback, while my Devastators essentially wiped out the jetbikes thing (Reavers?) along with my Intercessors from my second Impulsor shooting at them. I should have fired the Intercessors' bolt rifles at the Ur Ghoul, but I forgot they couldn't charge. Stupid of me. My first Contemptor Dreadnought retreated, and the other Repulsor Executioner and Contemptor Dreadnought killed the Venom, as well as took out the Grotesques, leaving...about 2 or so Talos, I think. I also killed a few of his 5-men squad Kabalite Warriors, but it wasn't enough. It will never be enough. I was hoping my Intercessors could camp on the major objective this time, but it wasn't to be. The resilient Impulsor flew off and failed to kill the Ur-Ghoul. Damn it. At least I was contesting the objective now.

The Drukhari's reinforcements arrived from Deep Strike and decimated everything. My Repulsor Excutioner was destroyed, the Intercessors were wiped out by shooting from the Raiders and the Talos charging into them (and the Contemptor Dreadnought) and thus I was denied the objective. The other Contemptor Dreadnought was also charged by another Talos and the Haemonculus guy after taking not much damage from the Scourges. The Mandrakes killed a Devastator and charged the Primaris Chaplain, only to get smacked about by him. Or something like that. Actually, I think both of my Repulsor Executioners were destroyed this turn from combined fire from the Raiders, and I pretty much had nothing left except my Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Primaris Librarian on that side.



I can't remember what happened, but my opponent surged up to 8 points to my 3 or something. The lead was growing, and fast. Ugh.

Without my Repulsor Executioners and most of my forces wiped out, there wasn't much I could do. My Primaris Librarian used Smite and killed a Talos who had only one or two wounds remaining. YES! My Intercessors up the table killed the Ur-ghoul and took that objective, but my Impulsor still failed to kill the other Ur-ghoul. The Razorback moved up and wiped out a squad of Kabalite warriors with his twin assault cannon while my Devastators killed the last Talos. However, that was all I could do, with 3 Raiders in my deployment zones and all the Kabalite Warriors in them, plus the Scourges. Ugh. The Devastators charged into the Mandrakes, and along with the Primaris Chaplain, they wiped the Mandrakes out.

Then he destroyed my first Contemptor Dreadnought in combat. I think he tried to charge the second with his Venom...and I killed it with overwatch using Optimized Repulsion Protocols. Finally something going my way for once. But his Raiders killed my Devastators and Primaris Chaplain. The Primaris Librarian was also taken out by the Raiders...the Scourges didn't even have to do anything. My forces were dying. The Archon charged my Razorback, and even though I scored a bunch of wounds and hits, the bloody bugger's 2++ invulnerable save tanked all of the rounds and he tied the poor guy up in melee.



I only had one objective, with my Impulsor still doing absolutely nothing to the Ur-ghoul, and he basically had free reign all over the board and was obtaining like 11 or 12 points to my 4. That wasn't counting Linebreaker. Ugh. Well, I probably did get Linebreaker as well, small comfort that was.

At that point, we called it. I had no choice but to surrender. I just didn't have the forces to grab objectives and catch up to my opponent, and he had nearly tabled me. There was more than half his army left, what with all those Kabalite Warriors and Scourges, but all I had was a single Intercessor squad, the Primaris Captain, one Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought (who would no doubt die next turn), 2 Impulsors and a Razorback - two of which were tied up in combat. The Impulsors were really resilient, but they lacked the firepower to cleanse my deployment zone of enemies, and the one with the firepower. my Razorback, was locked in combat with the damned Archon. Well, there was still my Contemptor, but honestly...what can he do? Maybe kill a Raider if I'm really, really lucky? Not much else, unfortunately.



Well...I must really suck if I got crushed so badly despite using Iron Hand Successor Chapter Tactics. Not that I care, I mean, it's not as if I play to win, and I'll just look forward to the next game! Probably will have to learn from this mistake and do my best in the next game! Maybe next time I'll bring in my Knights! I'm much more familiar with my Imperial Knights than any other army anyway. So maybe I'll do better with my Knights!

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Clarification regarding the "ban" on Porphyrions at Warhammer World's Adeptus Titanicus tournament

Spikey Bits, in their usual provocative fashion, posted this news regarding Warhammer World's Adeptus Titancus tournament today, claiming that Games Workshop banned Acastus Knights Porphyrion at the Legio Walks event. As you would expect, this sparked a lot of outrage and furious comments from people on Facebook when they saw this article pop up on their newsfeed.

I'm here to clarify, because I'm heavily invested in Adeptus Titanicus (you can see the triple Adeptus Titanicus battle reports I just posted a few minutes ago) and was keeping an eye on this event (even sent an email to ask about Adeptus Titanicus rules), that this is not true. Wesley Floyd basically wrote a clickbait title and posted in hyperbole...probably to generate readership, or for some unknown sinister, nefarious reason, or maybe he has a grudge against Games Workshop. I do not know, and I do not care. But this is irresponsible reporting, and the spreading of blatantly false information.

Are Acastus Knights Porphyrion restricted? Yes. Heavily restricted, if you're really pedantic about it. But are they banned? NO. It's nowhere as drastic as Floyd makes it out to be. Not unless I'm misunderstanding the word "ban" or that restrictions have somehow become a syonym for "bans".

To clarify, the tournament packet at The Legio Walks event does not distinguish between Acastus Knights Porphyrion and Acastus Knights Asterius. They are all just termed as Acastus Knights. I should know, I downloaded the tournament packet and literally read them on Friday, just two nights ago.

The rules clearly allow you to bring a single banner of Acastus Knights, Porphyrion or Asterius, for a single Knight Lance, so long as you nominate the Lord Scion in that banner to be your High Seneschal. Note, since you can only have one High Seneschal (they are different from High Lord Scions) per Household Force, this effectively means you are only allowed one Acastus Knight banner in one Lance, no matter how many Lances you bring.
HOWEVER, you can still bring a second Acastus Banner for your Household Force if you take them as Freeblades. Keep in mind, though, the ruling indicates that you can only take a maximum of one Acastus Banner as a Freeblades. So effectively, you can bring two Acastus Banners, but obviously the Freeblade Acastus banner will not benefit from the Lance Orders (and the +3 bonus to command checks) because they are not part of the same lance.
To reiterate, the tournament packet says nothing about Porphyrions being banned, and does not distinguish between Asterius and Porphyrions. It just classifies them as Acastus Knights. No more, no less. If you don't believe me, you can read the full tournament packet here.
I'm putting this out here before everyone does the same old kneejerk reaction and complains about Games Workshop banning models and whatever when they did no such thing, and encourage people to actually read the post or find out the truth for themselves. No doubt Floyd's clickbait title and hyperbolic statements have generated a significant amount of outrage, so he should shoulder part of the blame for this reaction. But this is why writing articles responsibly is so important. Not that Floyd or Spikey Bits will care about my comment. Best of all, when I tried to write in the comments section of that article, clarifying that the Acastus Knight Porphyrion has not been banned, my comments were flagged and removed by the moderators. That seems...suspicious.
People should be more responsible about reporting stuff, because their words have very big impact on how the playerbase will respond or affect participation in this event. There will be consequences - already I see the outrage on Facebook where commenters criticized Games Workshop without even realizing that Floyd was being hyperbolic and wildly inaccurate. Games Workshop is essentially taking flak for unjustified reasons, because the commenters didn't find out the truth and just took Floyd's words at face value (I suspect some of them didn't even bother reading his article and just jumped onto the bandwagon of rage and hatred when they saw his clickbait title). I mean, just the other day, some idiot posted on social media the false accusation of a couple of poor South Asian guys kidnapping somebody, it went viral on Whatsapp, and a mob hungry for "justice" went and murdered both of those men in cold blood before they found out that the accusations were fabricated. Innocent people died because of false reporting. This isn't as drastic, I know, but still...if Floyd can write a hyperbolic post on this, that says a lot about his attitude toward truth. One day he might just write an inflammatory post that gets him into trouble with lawsuits and slander. Or not. Whatever happens to him is none of my business, but I'm more annoyed about him posting false information regarding an event I'm looking forward to.
Regardless, if you're going to report on something, do so responsibly. This is just a hobby blog and it's not a big site like Spikey Bits or Bell of Lost Souls, but I write this post in hopes that people know the truth and don't just start posting outraged reactions and railing at Games Workshop for something they did not do.