Playtest 3 of the new version Emperor’s Children 4.0 (experimental)

Built the list based upon knights being in the WE section. I played them as initiative 2+

Lists:

Codex Space Marines, 3000 points (NetEA 2012 Tournament Pack):
1. Tactical, Supreme commander, hunters, rhinos (BTS)
2. Terminators, Chaplain
3. Predator annihilators
4. Tactical, dreadnought
5. Thunderhawk
6. Devastators, rhino
7. Bikes, attack bike, Chaplain
8. Thunderbolts
9. Thunderbolts
10. Thunderbolts
11. Scouts, rhinos

Emperor’s Children 4.0x, 2995 points:
1. Retinue, Warlord, Rhinos, Stalker, pact 380 pts.
2. Retinue, rhinos, stalker, pact, 330 pts
3. Retinue, rhinos, stalker, pact, 330 pts
4. Terminators x5, pact, 335 pts
5. Hell knights (6) 450 pts
6. Hell Talons 225 pts
7. Noise Marines x8 320
8. Chaos Thunderhawk 200
9. Retinue, rhinos, champion of Slaanesh, pact, 330
Daemon pool: 10 lesser daemons, 1 Keeper of Secrets

(I might have been a bit over 3k with the daemons)

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

hmm. keep getting internal server errors when I try to post today, maybe because lots of [IMG] tags?

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

TURN 1
Strategy: SM





T-bolts go on CAP


Retinue doubles up to some buildings



More T-bolts go on CAP. Dave lets his feelings known about my lack of trust in his lame 2D tokens



Another retinue doubles


Third FM of T-bolts ground attacks, and lays a BM


Hell Talons intercept them, leaving nothing but grease spots on the desert


Devastators double and lay a BM


Knights double up and relieve them of their transport. Your welcome, you wanted to walk anyway.


Bikes double up and lay a BM


Another retinue doubles and returns the favor on the bikes


The BTS doubles and kills a rhino as well. There will be a lot of pedestrians this game.


Another retinue doubles


Annihilators double and take out a knight


Snowflake the t-hawk makes his second career appearance and survives the CAP. He deploys noise marines in a veritable orgy of FF3+ goodness against the bikes




The noise marines are victorious, losing only one unit.


The land speeders double up and relieve a retinue of a stalker and a rhino, and ZoCs them. Worth repeating here: Dave’s a jerk.


The scouts double to ZoC the knights and lay a BM on them


Subjugators T-hawk’s turn. Tactical plus dread air assault the now-footslogging retinue:


And is victorious. The retinue hides in a building while the tactical basks in glory



The t-hawk safely exits. The hell talons were so exuberant over their kills that they neglected to see the hunter missile fly up one of their tailpipes. The remaining fighter exits with BMs. T-bolts stand down from CAP and “good” t-hawk leaves with a BM

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

EC Terminators teleport in, no BMs


SM Termies follow suit, with 1 BM

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

TURN 2



Strategy: SM (EC player rolls a 1 and loses 3 daemons from the pool)

BTS advances and lays a BM on the knights


Devastators do the same


(I forgot to take a picture, but the knights double out of the SM fire sack to the other side of the ridge, near the T&H objective)

Retinue with the Champion summons daemons (due to not being able to summon a WE greater daemon into a building – does the GD have to go exactly where the champion’s unit was?), and engages the termies. I selected steeds because they were faster, forgot THEY couldn’t go into buildings either, so they ended up being meat shields. Apparently I needed every single one because I failed a lot of saves…)




The termies countercharge, mostly survive the first strike attacks, and lose after killing most of the daemons.



Land speeders ZoC the EC termies


T-bolts fail activation and stand down


Noise marines advance and lay a BM on the scouts


Tactical with dread doubles and lays some hurt on a retinue


Snowflake straffes the tactical, exacting revenge by killing a couple units


The hell talon stands down after failing on a retain


T-bolts also spend a turn flying in circles, contemplating life


Retinue sustains, taking out a rhino in the SM BTS


Another retinue doubles and takes out a pred.


The preds sustain and take out a stalker and a rhino


A retinue marshals


The thunderhawk returns, lays a BM on the termies, and picks up the devastators


The EC termies advance out of ZoC, and lay a BM on the landspeeders


Scouts kill the EC supreme commander and break his retinue

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

TURN 3



Strategy: SM (6 turns of playtesting over 2 games, and only win strategy twice; That’s a whole barrel of fun right there)

Land speeders again ZoC the EC termies, catch the knights in a crossfire, and take out two, breaking them:


BTS advances and lays a BM on the EC termies



The mighty mighty noise marines bring the cacophony with a sustain that will puncture eardrums and sanity alike. The scouts are no match for the storm of sensation that will overwhelm them and surely turn them to Chaos if they survive! They cannot possibly endure the overload of pain and pleasure of –wait, what? Oh, they sustain and lay a BM. Awesome.


The champion sacrifices himself and brings forth the keeper of secrets (f-ing finally!) and engages the tactical. Despite piss-poor MW performance all around, they are victorious and the tactical retreats, sans dreadnought.




T-bolts strafe a retinue


Another retinue sustains, showing the useless pervert noise marines how its done. They break the land speeders, un-ZoCing the Termies


…On a retain the EC termies engage the BTS and wipe it out for no losses. I forgot to take pictures of my army’s one highlight. Oh well.


T-bolts strafe the retinue again, breaking it


Snowflake strafes the terminators and kills one, breaking it.



None of all that crap matters because the t-hawk lands the devastators on the EC blitz. Marines win 2-1, T&H/Blitz vs. BTS. No end of game shots were taken, I forgot again.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Impressions: I was tired of the WE heavy list build from the first two playtests (already) so I went with retinues with a daemon pool and some air cover. IMO this is a more rational (I won't use the word 'balanced' as its a loaded term in this context, ha) build than all those knights and titans together. As I noted in the other playtest against the orks, perhaps timidity accounted for the knights' poor showing. I don't think I was very timid here, and they ended up being in a shooting gallery. Since SM have a lot to lose (compared to low-save opponents like orks and IG) against a MW-ff opponent, he has been avoiding them in engagements. This is still too small of a sample size of course to draw many conclusions, but the tactic of avoiding them and laying BM's seems to be effective up until now.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Another way the Knights could be used, is to use their speed to get into range and prep an enemy formation. Then they can provide MW FF support to an a retain/engagement. Rather than viewing them as a "lead" formation, they could be viewed as a "support" formation. Just a thought.

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"Live off the land. Go to find war. Kill wot comes close. The old ways are best." - Grodd, Ork Snakebite Runtherd

Great report Capt and excellent miniatures as usual - I love the NMM effect you've done on snowflake

Interesting to hear the thoughts on knights, I think the supporting option also has merit and is something I'm trying to figure out how to do best with my own army were MW attacks are limited to 15cm.

Thanks for putting this up.