Played a small solo game this afternoon. It’s experimental vs. experimental so not great for playtesting data, but then it was solo play anyway. However, I wanted to get a general feel for DC2 knights and I’d been meaning to give the new fist list a try for a while.

Summary: knights get boxed into a corner by speeders, fellblade gets to sustain on them for three turns while the knights slowly break out again to scrape a narrow win on turn 4 points.

Imperial Fists 2000/8 armour heavy
devastators 225 +SC 100 + las raz 25 BTS
thunderfire 250
vindicators 225
predator annihilators 250
speeders 200
speeders 200
fellblade 350
thunderbolts 175


knights 2000/8
3 paladins 300 + baron 175 BTS
3 errant 300
3 errant 300
3 castellans 350
6 rough riders 150
5 rough riders 125
tbolts 150
tbolts 150


warning, tense changes ahead, this is just notes of each activation rather than a write up

Table and deployment as pictured. Set terrain up then rolled dice to determine which sides. All terrain is area terrain.

terrain:


deployment:


Thunderfires garrison in the middle, two speeder formations run a scout screen line right across the table. One rough rider formation garrisons in the buildings on the right, the second elects for main deployment.

Knights deploy heavily on the right flank, away from the impassable area terrain (my mistake here, thought ruins were impassable to WE … )

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Turn 1
marines win init

thunderfire garrison sustains on errants with disrupt ammunition, 5 BM on hits and one from coming under fire breaks them instantly and a knight loses 1DC on an unsaved hit. Knights retreat across the backline to somewhere more out of sight.


right flank speeders retain, single into roads between ruins and shoot the rough riders, 0 hits

remaining errants single and shoot thunderfires, moving into a diagonal line so that any crossfire only has one target from the sides (terrain covering rear). 1 hit results in a kill.

knight thunderbolts retain to ground attack left flank speeder screen, three hits of which two are saved

fellblade doubles along the roads and fires on the errants, but only places 1 BM
vindicators double up the the ruins behind the speeder screen to AP IC the rough riders … only get one hit which is saved on 6+ armour

custodians single up and draw a line between hills and woods on the fellblade, chipping off 1DC

knight thunderbolts retain and attack the predators, which save the single multi-laser hit

marine thunderbolts intercept and wipe out a pair of knight thunderbolts

rough riders advance to screen table midline

devastators single and fire on the right flank rough riders, four sixes to hit resulting in three kills, breaking the scouts

paladins and baron double up in a column, allowing them to shoot everything at the thunderfires whilst only presenting a single target to the fellbalde. One thunderfire dies and the formation breaks.

speeders single forwards, ZOCing the paladins and killing two rough riders, breaking the rough riders

predators double up behind left flank speeders and shoot the custodians, 4 hits, three saved on shields and one on RA.






all units rally except for the non-broken errants, aircraft disengage

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

T2 marine initiative

right flank speeders double, ZOCing the paladins and errants in the middle and shooting paladins, no hits


predators retain after conformation from the SC and sustain crossfire the paladins. One paladin dies from a crit and another loses 1 DC. Paladins left 1BM from breaking.

paladins marshal, move back and remove all BM.

errants assault the speeders ZOCing them, shock lances miss, but the firefight kills two speeders and with no hits on the knights. Resolution ties. *question* do shock lances work in second round?
Speeders are wiped out in the second round with help from paladin supporting fire, an errant loses 1 DC. Errant consolidate into a column.

devastators double, fire on rought riders and break them

custodians sustain, transforming the predators into a line of smouldering wrecks on the hillside.

the two remaining thunderfires triple back towards marine blitz

rough riders single to contest objective with teh devastators

vindicators single through ruins to land on top of an objective and place a BM on errants.

knight tbolts cap

fellblade sustains on the errants, killing the only one visible at the head of the column, breaking them.

errants (ones that broke start of turn one) double directly towards the fellblade and kill two of the speeders screening it.

speeders fail to rally (Sc already used)

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Turn 3
marine initiative

fellblade sustains on errants, wiping them out
speeers retain and move directly at the three remaining knight formations, ZOCing two and BMing the paladins

the non-ZOC'd errants assault the speeders, wiping them out

devastators single to wipe the rough riders from the objective and place a single BM …

custodians shuffle about a bit, moving one back to be within range of their blitz, leaving the other two to fire on the vindicators, popping one

paladins double at vindicators and their objective, breaking them with two battlecannon kills

marine thunderbolts attack rough riders, they only get one kill but break the formation
knight thunderbolts attack thunderfires, wiping them out

rough riders triple away from the devastators and onto the now clear blitz

Objectives: knights: blitz, marines: none
all rally (vindi needing SC) and disengage

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Turn 4
marien init

fellblade keeps its position on the objective and wipes out an errant formation on sustain, just like it did last turn.

devs retain, singling and shooting paladins, the baron saves both hits. pointless waste of an activation …

paladins double to contest two center objectives with their 10cm cohesion, both baron shots hit the lone marine vindicator, but it saves both

vindi sustains on paladins, baron saves the hit

knight tbolts cap

marine tbolts ground attack anyway, going for the 2 rough riders holding the marine blitz. knight thunderbolts CAP with 0 hits. marine thunderbolts kill one stand of rough riders, stripping knights of blitz.

custodians single on SC re-roll, shuffling about a bit to hold blitz and fire on fellblade, which takes 1 DC.

rough riders attempt to triple to contest fellblade's objective, but fail activation and break.

objectives: 0, tie, no turn 5 on roll

marines get full points for the following formations
3 errant 300
3 errant 300
6 rough riders 150
5 rough riders 150
tbolts 150
1050 total


knights get full points for
thunderfire 250
pred anihil 250
speeders 200
speeders 200
… and half points for…
vindis 112.5
fellblade 175
1189.5 total

narrow knight win


initial thoughts:
Messing about the knight LOS WE blocking didn't get very far, arranging one way meant getting cross fired from the other. Fellblade is a bit of a beast, a knight assault should have calved it up but ended up needing to strip the scouts out and out of CC range. Overall should have lined up knight assaults more aggressively, deploying them into a corner slowed that, compounded by then getting scouted into the same corner. I'd certainly aim for four strong knight formations at higher points levels.

comments welcome. I'm not the strongest of players, so please advise on moves or rules mistakes if you have any thoughts!

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

all looks good from a rules/tactics PoV, can't see anything major

thanks for the report Apoc

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Great report! Thanks!

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