Another Thursday Thrashing RTT!

 So I attended yet another Thursday Thrashing RTT today, and...well, I didn't exactly get thrashed, but let's just say it didn't end well for me, yet at the same time it was actually okay. I was fielding an Imperial Knight list, as usual, but...yeah. Let's just say Knights are really, really bad at objectives. In any case, let's get to the actual event. My list consists of Knights and a small Skitarii Patrol Detachment for objectives, but as it turns out, the Skitarii were horrible at holding objectives. For the last two games, anyway. Anyway, here's my list:

Imperial Knights Super-heavy Detachment (Glorified History, Slayers of Beasts, Questoris Imperialis)

Dominus Knight Castellan, Ion Bulwark, Armor of Sainted Ion

Questoris Knight Preceptor, Sanctuary

Cerastus Knight Lancer, Strike and Shield

2 Armigers Moirax with volkite veuglaires

Skitarii Patrol Detachment (Expansionist Forge World: Accelerated Accentuators, Rugged Explorators)

Skitarii Marshal

2 squads of 5 Skitarii Rangers with omnispex, transuranic arquebus

5 Skitarii Rangers with omnispex

I swapped the Armigers Warglaive out for the Armigers Moirax because...quite frankly, the Warglaive variant sucked. They didn't do anything last weekend, always dying and whiffing their D3 melta shots. I was getting sick and tired of their horrid roles and low number of attacks, so I switched back to the Armigers Moirax for quantity over quality. Hopefully my rolls would be better for them. So yeah.

Match 1

For some reason, I can't remember what the first mission was. I think it's Retrieval, but yeah. In any event, I was facing a Tyranid player who went with a Nidzilla list, so we were basically enacting Pacific Rim. Heh! This was his list, and if I'm not mistaken, he went with Hive Fleet Kraken.

Tyranid Battalion Detachment (Hive Fleet Kraken)

Hive Tyrant with wings and Chameleonic Mutation

Hive Tyrant with wings

Broodlord with Resonance Barb (I think?)

4 squads of 10 Termagaunts (or was it 3?)

3 Ripper Swarms

6 Hive Guard with Enhanced Resistance

2 Lictors

Maleceptor

2 Dimachaeron

Exocrine

I believe that's about it. Anyway, we rolled off, I went first, and I whiffed my Knight Castellan's shots. on the other hand, I did kill about 10 Termagaunts, wiping out 1 squad, and taking out another 5 somewhere thanks to my Armigers Moirax. The Knight Lancer injured 1 Dimachaeron, I think, and I think failed to kill it. I can't remember. I brought one of the Hive Tyrants down to 2 wounds, and I think that was about it. The Hive Guard, along with psychic powers, managed to wound my Knight Lancer and bring him down to less than half his health, if I'm not mistaken, and the Dimachaeron and Hive Tyrant charged 1 Armiger Moirax and ripped him apart...only for him to blow up and kill the Hive Tyrant, heh. The Knight Lancer was also able to kill the second Hive Tyrant while my Knight Castellan finally slew the Dimachaeron. I was able to wipe out all of the Termagaunts eventually, thanks to my Skitarii, who also raised banners in the first turn, and when the Rippers appeared in front of 1 squad, they killed them. Phew. I also finally killed the Maleceptor with the Knight Castellan after the Hive Guard destroyed the Knight Lancer, who basically tanked like 2-3 turns of shooting because I somehow made all my Ion Shield saves (there was one time I rolled 3 5+s, Holy Terra). The Knight Preceptor refused to go down too, and he took out the Broodlord. The Knight Castellan then killed the Exocrine, but not before they finally took out my Knight Preceptor. As the game drew to a close, my opponent only had the Hive Guard left because they were out of line of sight, while my Knight Castellan and remaining Armiger Moirax helped me capture objectives. I all but tabled him, except for his Hive Guard. Phew. That was an insane game.

I won like 93 points to 42, thanks to Banners, Abhor the Witch and Bring it Down!. And getting the Primary Objectives also helped. I think my list, especally with Slayers of Beasts, was a hard counter to the poor Tyranids Nidzilla list, since I have a +1 to my melee against them.

Match 2

The second mission was Overrun. This time, I went up against a T'au player (who won the whole thing eventually, beating Imperial Guard, my Imperial Knights and Death Guard to win everything). What did he have? Farsight Enclaves.

T'au Battalion Detachment (Farsight Enclaves)

Commander Farsight

Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit

1 Strike Team of 5 Fire Warriors

2 Breacher Teams of 5

2 Devilfish

3 Stealth Battlesuits

8 Crisis Battlesuits with missile pods? I think it's 8, I can't remember.

Riptide

5 Pathfinders

Lots and lots of Drones.

I managed to go first and took out his Riptide in a single round of shooting. Holy hell, the damned thing had a 3++ invulnerable save, so I made sure to destroy him first before he can overcharge. I can't say I could do much, though I killed a Pathfinder team, slew some Drones when trying to kill the Crisis suits, and also killed 1 Stealth suit. Uh...wow?

He managed to shoot back and destroy my Knight Lancer, who...didn't blow up, unfortunately. Eventually, I managed to kill everything except 1 bloody Crisis Suit and the Coldstar Commander and 2 Stealth Battlesuits, I even succeeded in killing Farsight himself! But the Crisis Suit and Coldstar Commander gave my opponent points for To the Last, which I should have taken because I had both my Knight Preceptor and Knight Castellan by the end of the game (then again, I scored like 8-9 points for No Prisoners, so it wasn't that much of a difference). Unfortunately, he wiped out all of my Skitarii and destroyed 1 Armiger Moirax, but despite me taking his objectives on his half of the table, I wasn't able to outscore him on objectives, while he scored lots of objectives. Damn, the Skitarii were useless, they didn't get me much points for banners...at least I don't think so.

I lost the game 64-78, despite having 3 Knights (2 titanic) left on the table, and him having literally 4 models (a Crisis Suit, Coldstar and Stealth Suit) remaining. Damn it.

Match 3

The third mission was Sweep and Clear, and I was up against Drukhari this time. The list is so complicated that I don't think I'll be able to remember it. I know he at least had Drazhar, an Archon, a Haemoculi, a Sucuubus, 4 Raiders, 2 Venoms, lots of Wyches, 2 squads of Incubi (one elite), a bunch of Wracks, a bunch of Hellions, and...Kabalite Warriors, maybe? Like I said, I can't remember.

I managed to go first and blew up 2 Raiders, injured another severely, and basically wiped out 1 Wych squad and killed enough to leave just 1 in the other. I killed the Haemoculi to get Assassinate, but he got back up on a 2+. Damn. Anyway, after his Drazhar, Incubi, Wracks, etc. charged into my Knight Lancer, they left him with 5 wounds. My Knight Preceptor also took hits from Incubi and ended up with 5 wounds. In the first turn. I was failing all of my saves, it was terrible. But I can't complain, considering I made all my saves against Tyranids, so...it evens out in the end.

My Knight Lancer killed Drazhar in combat, and both he and the Knight Preceptor continued to tank until they had 1 wound each. After all that fighting, he finally died...and blew up, killing the Archon, wounding the Haemoculi, destroying a Venom and...yeah. The Succubus had charged and killed my Skitarii before doing like 4 wounds to my Armiger Moirax, who promptly erased her with volkite. Meanwhile, the other Armiger Moirax died. Well, yeah. The Knight Preceptor went down in the end, but at least he took out quite a few Incubi. The Knight Castellan did most of the heavy lifting, destroying all the Raiders, the second Venom, killing infantry after infantry (my remaining Armiger Moirax helping him out) until all was left were the Wracks (I think?), the Haemoculi and the single Wych who had hidden out of line of sight to camp on an objective.

Despite wiping him out, I didn't have anything else, so...yeah. My Skitarii Marshal helped me camp on a single objective the whole game, but my Skitarii were completely wiped out. Ouch. I don't know what to say. I lost on objectives despite all but tabling my opponent (and he couldn't do anything to my 2 remaining Knights with his Wracks), with the score being 63 to 82. Ugh...I don't know what objectives I could have gotten. There were no good objectives that I could have gotten. None. Not a single one. It was just so painful.

I don't know what I could have done. Oh, well. I think I'll lean more into Knights next game and see how it goes. The Skitarii are just too fragile (even Lucius wouldn't have helped them). So I'll take them out and go pure Knights next game. That seems to be my style. The question is...what can I squeeze into my list? What Knights should I take out? What Knights should I put in? More long-range Knights? The Knight Castellan seems to be the best, to be honest. Sure, he screws up in the first few turns, but as the game goes on, it averages out and he starts destroying stuff. Like, a lot of stuff. He's a beast. Also, I needed shooting that doesn't require line of sight (like the Ironstorm missile pod), which would have denied my opponent objectives and thus lower their points (and allow me to score more). Oh, well. We'll see. This is a learning experience, as usual, and I'll just have to learn from my mistakes and do my best next time.