I'm not sure, but I believe this is my first ever Best Coast Pairings Rogue Trader Tournament ever. At least I think so, I don't remember being recorded for my Thousand Sons in Best Coast Pairings like, I don't know, many moons ago (I think it was last year, just before shutdown due to Covid19). So I guess this is my first time?
So I brought my Imperial Knights because...well, because I'm an Imperial Knights player. Period. It's a 1,000 point Incursion game held at Phoenix Games at East Moore Lake Drive, Minnesota. Awesome place, hope more people go there to play when things return to normal and everything reopens.
There were 3 rounds, taken from the Grand Tournament Pack 2020, so I played 3 games. First mission was Reconnaissance, then Rise of the Machine Spirit, and finally Raid. Let's just say they weren't in my favor and Knights have horrible, horrible Secondaries. Especially at 1,000-point games where I simply don't have enough models to contest objectives or get 4 quarters of the map like Engage on all Fronts (damn), and I don't have infantry to perform actions. And obviously, this being 1,000 points, Bring Them Down! doesn't work for me because my opponents rarely have any vehicles (unless they are playing Imperial Guard, which is a different story, but whatever).
Game 1: Reconnassiance
So yeah, let's start with Reconnaissance. Since I have 3 matches to cover, I'm not going to write super-long (I don't think anyone has the stamina to read them, anyway, and I certainly don't have the stamina to write 3 battle reports in a row, ha ha). I faced an Adeptus Custudes player who brought Forge World models. She had two shield captains, one on a jetbike, and Veletarii (if I spelled that correctly), 2 squads of 3 Custodian Guards, and an Anchillus Contemptor Dreadnought.
I brought a Knight Preceptor with multilaser and Ironstorm missile pod, Knight Errant with meltagun and Ironstorm missile pod and an Armiger Warglaive with meltagun. As you can see, I have a grand total of three models for a 1,000 point game. Heh. But I love my big Knghts, so...yeah. I know it's more practical to drop a Questoris Knight for more Armigers (probably should bring 4 of them), but NO! I WILL STICK WITH MY BIG QUESTORIS KNIGHTS! MUAHAHAHA!
Well...the game wasn't so bad, actually. It was really fun. So my opponent got first turn and she left one squad of Custodian Guards on one of the objectives while moving the other - and the Shield Captain on foot to capture a second. The Anchillus Contemptor Dreadnought moved forward to the center, while the Shield Captain on jetbike surged forward in another direction to grab an objective. The Veletarii were in Deep Strike.
She had points for her Secondaries - of course everyone is going to want Titan Slayer against my Knights. I can't remember the rest of her Secondaries, but I believe it was Engage on all fronts and Domination. Thankfully, there were only 4 objectives so even though I only had 3 models, I could somehow match her on Domination and deny her on points and the primary objective. Nothing much happened, I think maybe a Knight lost a couple of wounds in the first turn, but that was it? My Questoris Knights charged up the table while my Armiger rested on one objective. I failed to take down the Shield Captain on Jetbike despite shooting him with a thermal cannon and charging him. Damn. I think my Knight Preceptor failed to destroy the Contemptor Dreadnought with his shooting, though I took off a wound from the shield captain on foot with a multilaser, I think? The Ironstorm missile pod from both Questoris Knights just bounced off the Custodian Guards camping in the back of my opponent's objective, so...damn. And my Knight ate another couple of wounds.
Fortunately, in the second turn, while they remained locked in combat, my Knights managed to destroy the shield Captain on the jetbike and the Anchillus Dreadnought. Before that happened, though, the Veletarii deep struck in my deployment zone and took 6 wounds off my Armiger Warglaive with their shooting. Ouch. I had my Knight Errant stay where he was to camp on the objective, but despite his shooting and the Armiger Warglaive's too, I killed maybe 1 or 2 Veletarii? Then my Knight Preceptor failed to kill the shield captain on foot, but he did kill one Custodian Guard on the right objective. He charged, but didn't do much. I think I did one or two wounds to the camping Custodian Guards with the Ironstorm missile pod, but that was it! 2+ armor save is just insane (3+ because of AP -1).
In the third turn, though...the Veletarii shot and charged my Armiger Warglaive, destroying him. Damn. Then the shield captain destroyed my Knight Preceptor, only for the poor bugger to blow up, dealing D6 mortal wounds in 2D6", which I rolled a 7. The shield captain ate 4 mortal wounds and died (he had taken some wounds from the earlier battle against my Knight), the 2 remaining Custodian Guards on the right ate 6 mortal wounds (I rolled a 2nd 6!) and were wiped out, and the Custodian Guards camping on the objective in my opponent's deployment zone took 2 mortal wounds and one guy died - remember my Ironstorm missile pod wounding one of them earlier?
I then had my Knight Errant shoot and charge the Veletarii and kill them to reclaim the objective, but with only one model, there was little I could do. For the remaining 2 turns, we just stayed where we were, staring each other down while my Knight fired his Ironstorm missile pod from afar, but other than maybe doing one or even zero wounds to the remaining Custodian Guard, I did absolutely nothing. Maybe I should have gone for a tabling, heh, but I doubt my Knight would have done anything and I was way behind on points anyway. There was no guarantee I could have taken them out. But it was fun! Ha ha ha! Especially that gigantic nuclear explosion that took out two units! That was awesome! In any event, I lost the first match on points, with 60 something points to my opponent's 70+ or 80+ points. I can't remember, but there was only a difference of 10+ points that separated us. I couldn't get much for Engage on all Fronts because I only had one Knight left, while I did get 5 points for While We Stand, We Fight, and 2 points for Bring them down! Perhaps I should have chosen Assassinate, which would have given me 6 points instead, but I wouldn't have won either way - the deficit was too much. Or Slay the Warlord, since I literally killed him on the second turn. But whatever.
Game 2: Rise of the Machine Spirit
In the second game, it was Rise of the Machine Spirit! This time, my opponent was Imperial Guard, with 2 Valkyries, 2 Taurox Prime with 10-men squads of Tempestus Scions filled to the brim with either 4 plasma guns or 4 hot-shot volley guns (well, I think one of the squads was in the Valkyrie, actually), and two five-man squads, one in a Taurox Prime. Kappic Eagles and mechanized infantry for the win! Two Tempestors Prime round out the list. My opponent got first turn (I would have let him gone first anyway, I'm more of a defensive player). Secondaries...Titan Slayer, Engage on all Fronts and Deploy Scramblers for my opponent, and I took the same as earlier (because we have terrible secondary objectives for Knights), Engage on all Fronts, While We stand, We Fight, and Bring them down!
I was rolling terribly on my saves and my poor Knight Errant ate a lot of shots, yikes. One five man squad camped at the back to grab one of four objectives. The Valkyries, plasma scions and Tauroxes Prime were hitting him with everything they got. My Knight Preceptor also took a couple of wounds, but that's about it, I think? On the other hand, I did badly and only took out one Taurox Prime for my Bring them down objective. One Valkyrie still had 8 wounds left while the other had 3 (ouch). I did manage to kill a 10-man squad with plasma by stomping them to death with Titanic Feet, heh. I did manage to get 2 out of four objectives thanks to two Knights grabbing them and my Knight Errant contesting an objective, but yeah.
Second turn, my opponent loaded the hot-shot volley gun squad into a valkyrie and flew them away before landing them right behind my Knight Errant, then continued pinging away at my Knight, reducing him to maybe 1 wound? I think he charged my Knight with both his Valkyries out of desperation, while one Tempestor Prime deployed scramblers somewhere and the second five-man squad jumped out of the Taurox Prime to get him Engage on all Fronts. He did land a blow on my Knight with his Valkyries and I failed my save...so my Knight died, giving him Titan Slayer. He didn't blow up. I then destroyed one Valkyrie and one Taurox Prime, while slowly taking out the camping squad with the Ironstorm missile pod. My Armiger Warglaive then charged and killed the scions with the hot-shot volley guns, so yay.
In the third turn, my opponent tried to hide his Tempestus Scions in the woods to get cover in dense terrain, but it didn't work. He flew his Valkyrie over as well, I'm not sure if he was trying to grab the objective, but it's an aircraft, so...? Yeah. I did manage to kill both 5-man squads by shooting them with the Knight Preceptor's weapons (including the Ironstorm missile pod at the campers), my Armiger Warglaive killed both Tempestors Prime and took out the Valkyrie by charging it...and that was game. I managed to win on points but just barely, it was a much closer game than we thought. I can't remember if the game took like 3 or 4 turns, I might have missed the 2nd turn, but that's the gist of what happened, and it was a lot closer than I described it. My opponent scored a lot of points on Engage on all Fronts, 10 points from Titan Slayer and Deploy Scramblers each. So he had like 60+ points to my 70+? I can't remember. So that's pretty cool. I did manage to get a single win, though, so...yeah, consolsation win! Maybe...
Game 3: Raid
The less said about this game, the better. My opponent brought Dark Angels this time, so he brought like 2 squads of 5 Intercessors, Belial, one squad of Assault Terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields, one squad of Deathwing Knights with their maces of Absolution, a Ravenwing attack bike with multimelta and a Deathwing Apocethary Terminator.
He moved his Terminators and advanced his Ravenwing, but failed to wound my Armiger Warglaive, but he did take 6 wounds off one of my Knights. My Knights then moved, but they failed to kill the Deathwing Knights despite pumping all their shots into them and then charging them. Not only does Transhuman Physiology and the Deathwing Inner Circle give them that stupid "can't wound them except on a 4+", they have 2+ armor saves that negate -1 AP because of storm shields, 4++ invulnerable saves and a damned Apocethary that can revive them and gives them 6+++ Feel No Pain. Needless to say, his Deathwing Knights ripped apart my Knight Preceptor in combat over the next three turns, though like before, I blew up and wiped them out with mortal wounds. Heh! The Knight Errant had pulled away on the second turn to try and kill the Intercessors...and I failed horribly, killing 2 in one squad and 3 in another, rolling horribly for my Titanic Feet and shooting. Damn. My opponent also made all his armor saves, so yeah. Not a good day for me. The Deathwing assault Terminators then moved up and hammered my Knight Errant to death with their thunder hammers, but he didn't blow up. This being turn 3, the Assault Doctrine came into effect...and the Deathwing could now reroll wound rolls against vehicles, which my Knights are. What the f...yeah, I was screwed. Both of my Knights died in turn 3 because of that. Then they shot the poor Armiger Warglaive to death over turns 3 and 4 with the cyclone missile launcher, which I failed like every save, costing him 6 wounds in turn 3...and he died in turn 4 after taking 4 wounds from the missiles, then eating another few wounds from also taking a couple of shots from Belial's special storm bolter. I was effectively tabled in turn 4, scoring 0 points because I only had 3 models to grab 6 objectives, and I had not much secondary objectives to help me. Damn it.
That was it...I literally had 0 points in my third game. Ouch. Tabled, with 0 points. What a way to end the tournament. And it was much more fun in the last two games, and closer too, but that third game was rough. Oh, well. Next time I'm just going to keep my distance from the Deathwing Knights or something. I have no idea how to deal with them as Knights. In future, we'll see. Maybe I'll ally in Adeptus Mechanicus next time. I don't know...I really don't know. As I said, we'll see. But it's really rough for Knights right now, what with our secondary objectives being poor, not being able to contest objectives when there are 6 and I only have 3 models (or perhaps I should have dropped a Questoris Knight for more Armigers, so it's just me being stubborn). We'll see...we'll see. I'll just process this loss for now...and try again next time. There's still Waaaghfest in June, so we'll see about that!
I ended up being in 11th place out of 14, having one of the least number of points and having only one win out of three. Oh, well, it happens. Better luck next time! I hope. Maybe the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex will give me more tools. I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment