Anyway, my friend brought 2 Super-heavy Detachments. I think his first Detachment was a House Raven detachment with a Knight Valiant, which he gave the Warlord Trait Ion Bulwark or something. He was paired with 2 Armigers Helverin. The 2nd Super-heavy Detachment was a House Krast one with his Knight Gallant being the Warlord, having First Knight Warlord Trait and Paragon Gauntlet. The second was a Knight Castellan who had the Cawl's Wrath Relic. The final Knight was a third Armiger Helverin.
Against that, I brought my House Yato. My Warlord was the Cerastus Knight Lancer, with Ion Bulwark and Mark of Omnissiah. The other two Knights in his House were a pair of Armigers Helverin. The other Super-heavy Detachment was three Titanic Knights, with a Knight Gallant having the Seneschal Warlord Trait and Paragon Gauntlet. I think I forgot all about the Seneschal Warlord Trait, though...whoops. A Knight Errant with a meltagun and a Knight Crusader filled the other two slots, which brought me up to 12 Command Points in total (10 after I deducted the Warlord Trait and Relics Stratagems). House Yato uses Grace of the Omnissiah, the same Household Tradition as the revered House Taranis. They have a close relationship with the forge world, Draconis IV, after all. Too bad I didn't field my Secutarii Hoplites and Draconian Skitarii with them this time.
We rolled off, and my friend got to go first. His Warlord, the Knight Gallant, advanced, but was still out of charge range of anybody. Whoops. He pumped quite a few shots into my Knight Lancer, but his Helverins didn't do much damage, if I remember correctly. In any case, I fired off a Rotate Ion Shield Stratagem, so he took about 4 damage at most, from the combined shooting from the Helverins and the Knight Castellan's Cawl's Wrath and siegebreaker cannons and shieldbreaker missile. If I'm not mistaken, I failed my Grace of the Omnissiah's rolls, but only the Shieldbreaker missile did any damage. The Knight Valiant had advanced, but as he was House Raven, he could hit my poor Knight Errant with his conflagration cannon. As usual, I failed most of the Grace of the Omnissiah's rolls and he took 7 wounds. The Knight Castellan fired his volcano lance at the Knight Gallant, but I think he did 6 damage at most. Even so, I failed most of my Grace of Omnissiah's rolls again (I probably didn't even get a single 6).
But funnily enough he failed to kill any of my Knights. So no First Strike to him. My Knights were wounded, but none of them were down to their second bracket. What a miracle!
My turn came and I moved everyone up, advancing my Knight Gallant. My Cerastus Knight Lancer did absolutely nothing with his shock blast. Oh well. The Knight Errant fared a bit better, dealing 6 damage to the Knight Valiant with his thermal cannon, but failing to wound with his meltagun. Hey, the thermal cannon did decent this time, but rolling 1 and 3 for the first damage roll and 3 and 3 for the second damage roll meant that he wasn't rolling very well. As usual. My two Armigers Helverin took about 9 wounds off one of my opponent's Armigers Helverin. My Knight Crusader destroyed one Armiger Helverin with his Avenger Gatling cannon and put about 6 wounds on the other with his rapid-fire battle cannon. As usual, I was rolling pretty badly for the damage D3 rolls.
On the other hand, my Knight Gallant used the Full Tilt Stratagem and charged into my opponent's Knight Gallant, and with his Paragon Gauntlet, he wrecked the Knight despite only landing 4 out of 5 hits (this was where I forgot about the Knight Seneschal Warlord Trait, he should have 6 hits, not 5), and wounding 3 out of 4. With AP -4, the opposing Knight Gallant couldn't make any saves, having also taken a Paragon Gauntlet instead of Sanctuary, and 8 damage per strike meant that he was destroyed. I rolled a 3, though, so no picking up the destroyed Knight Gallant and hurling it at the Knight Valiant. My Knight Lancer ate a few shots in overwatch, but still made it in with 14 or more wounds left, and my Knight Errant joined the charge shortly. Between the two of them, I did 18 damage, with the Knight Valiant making a couple of saves (and I was rolling pretty badly since I needed 3s to wound as opposed to 2s). That brought the Knight Valiant down to 4 wounds left, and his stomp attacks left very little to be desired. Oh, well...
First Strike and Slay the Warlord to me, though!
The second turn was a lot more brutal for me. The wounded Armiger Helverin put 3 wounds on my Knight Lancer, and I think the other one did as well. My opponent used Machine Spirit Resurgent for the wounded Knight Valiant so that he could hit with his siegebreaker cannons and twin meltaguns and Thundercoil Harpoon. I can't remember, but I think the last shieldbreaker missile from the Knight Valiant destroyed my Knight Lancer, and my opponent scored Slay the Warlord as well. The Knight Valiant managed to take out a big chunk of wounds from my Knight Errant with the Thundercoil Harpoon, leaving him with about 6 wounds or so. I think the second Shieldbreaker missile (I think he had to re-roll the wound roll) and Volcano Lance from the Knight Castellan and Conflagration cannon from the Knight Valiant also put my poor Knight Gallant to 6 or so wounds, but I can't remember. I know I failed a lot of my Grace of the Omnissiah rolls, making none of them. Oh, and my Knight Crusader took a couple of wounds from Cawl's Wrath. By the time the shooting phase was over, my Knight Gallant had about 3 wounds or so left, and my Knight Errant had 4. The Knight Valiant charged my Knight Errant and stomped 2 or 3 wounds off him (and once again I failed my Grace of the Omnissiah's rolls). I retaliated with my reaper chainsword and my Knight Errant destroyed him. In response, my opponent triggered Noble Sacrifice and he rolled a 5 and a 1, which meant his Knight Valiant blew up in 2D6", killing both my Knight Errant and Knight Gallant while putting a couple of mortal wounds on his own wounded Armiger Helverin. Ouch.
In just one turn, I lost three Knights. That was a heavy blow. I only had one Knight Crusader who had taken 7 wounds or so, and 2 Armiger Helverins left. And this was just the second turn. My opponent, on the other hand, still had a Knight Castellan, who had taken 5 mortal wounds from rolling ones after supercharging his Cawl's Wrath.
Both my Armigers Helverin moved up, and I destroyed the wounded Armiger Helverin with my first one. The second one wounded the other, dealing about 6 wounds if I recall correctly, but not enough to destroy the guy. Surprisingly, my Knight Crusader did a ton of damage with his Avenger Gatling cannon and rapid-fire battle cannon. Actually, he did more damage with his Avenger Gatling cannon because I only rolled 4 shots for the battle cannon, but surprisingly enough I hit most of them and did quite a few wounds. In total, I managed to deal a total of 18 wounds, which brought the Knight Castellan down to his second bracket, and left him on 10 wounds or so.
In the third turn, my opponent used Machine Spirit Resurgent again, and fired on my Knight Crusader with the Volcano Lance. I Rotated Ion Shields and saved my Knight Crusader, and even though the ones that got through did a total of 7 damage or more, I rolled a couple of 6s, and was able to reduce the damage to 12 total, leaving my Knight Crusader with exactly half his wounds (12). The Cawl's Wrath did 3 damage to one of my Armigers Helverin, while the wounded Armiger Helverin basically fluffed his shots.
Sensing blood, I moved both Armigers Helverin up and opened up with their Helverin autocannons, and between the pair of them, I did a total of 9 damage (would have done more, but my opponent used a Command Re-roll to make a save that he otherwise failed). The Knight Castellan had just 1 wound left, but my Knight Crusader had yet to shoot. He was on his second bracket, and I had plenty of Command Points left, so I just used Machine Spirit Resurgent. Again, I basically fluffed the rapid-fire battle cannon shots and despite my opponent using Rotate Ion Shields, I didn't do much damage and he saved all of them. The Avenger Gatling cannon, on the other hand, tore through the Knight Castellan's last wound without much effort, my opponent failing 3 saves. And the Knight Castellan went down. I then charged the Armiger Helverin, who failed his overwatch but managed to deal 3 damage to my charging Knight Crusader (which brought him down to 9 after I failed all 3 Grace of the Omnissiah rolls) and I promptly stomped the wounded Armiger Helverin to death. Or I would have, but my opponent conceded the game before I could roll the Titanic Feet stomps. With 6 wounds and 12 attacks coming at the Machine Spirit Resurgent bracket, Strength 8 wounding on 3+s and dealing D3 damage each, he saw that he had no chance of victory (not to mention Armiger Helverin can't fall back from combat and shoot, unlike their Titanic cousins).
So I won the Knight Joust with a wounded Knight Crusader and a couple of Armigers Helverin. What a tale to share with aspiring Knights! Not to mention that the protagonist of my Knight story, Sir Tanaka, is the pilot of the Knight Crusader, and he was the sole survivor of the Titanic Knights! Have to say that my Knight Lancer was a little disappointing in combat with only 4 attacks, but he ate a lot of shots before going down. Plus he might do better against another army. I completely forgot that Titanic enemies should suffer a -1 to hitting him in combat, but I don't think the Knight Valiant actually hurt him, and I don't remember making any saves for him (because he has a 4++ invulnerable save in combat).
I can't wait to have more Knight jousts in future! They are fun, quick and fast. We completed the game in less than 2 hours, so it wasn't exhausting at all, and pretty easy to play. Flows very fluidly and quickly, without wasting much time. There was no infantry or little models to move about except the Armigers Helverin, but even those guys are easy to move. Not much to remember for shooting, except for the Dominus-class Knights' awesome amount of dakka. And I managed to mitigate that with Rotate Ion Shields and having lots of Knights. Wished my Knight Lancer fared better in combat and wrecked the Knight Valiant, though...but I guess that was cool. And my friend probably had a good laugh when he literally nuked two of my Titanic Knights with his Knight Valiant's valiant sacrifice (okay, Noble Sacrifice and not Valiant Last Stand, but you know what I mean).
The pictures show T'au, but the T'au player had to leave early so we ended up playing without the T'au or Adeptus Mechanicus. Oh well...anyway I hope to get more games with my Knights! They are so fast and fun!
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