Knightworld 2.0 Vs Speed Freaks
Managed a 3k game on friday night to test out the new knight list. Previously to this I had played the same list against two developmental lists, the Squats and Saim Hann Eldar. The game against the Squats was a 2:1 win and against the Eldar we called the game at the end of the second due to time and the almost total destruction of the knights. The game would have been an easy 4:0 to the Saim Hann.
Lists for this game:
Knightworld 2:0
Paladins + 2 Paladins + Senechal + Baron
Paladins + Senechal
Paladins + Senechal
Errants + Senechal
Custodians
Lancers + Senechal
Levy Infantry Platoon + 3 Thudd guns
Sentinels
Roughtiders + 1 Roughrider
AA Battery
Burning Death Speed Freaks
Kult of Speed (8 warbuggy)
Kult of Speed (2 Skorcha 6 warbuggy)
Kult of Speed (4 Skorcha 4 warbuggy)
Kult of Speed (4 warbikes, 4 buggies)
Big Blitz Brigade (2 Mekboy Speedstas, 2 Flak wagons, 6 Gunwagons)
Big Blitz Brigade (2 Mekboy Speedstas, 2 Flak wagons, 6 Gunwagons)
Warbike outrider horde
Warbike outrider horde
Big Fortress Mob (Mekboy Bad Ork Biker, 5 Gunfortresses)
Fighta Squadron (4)
Fighta Squadron (4)
Fighta Squadron (4)
TURN 1 - Orks win initiative
Fighta bombers ground attack the AA battery, flak fire misses and orks kills 2 breaking the formation.
Sentinels then advance over objective on right flank and take cover behind hill.
Fighta bombers then ground attack a unit of 3 paladins on my right flank, 2 hits but no kills
Rough riders advance and move up into cover of scrub.
3rd lot of fighta bombers ground attack the same set of paladins but again just casuse a BM.
The lancers then advance on the left flank and kill 2 war buggies.
A kult of speed on my right then doubles into cover behind the hill.
Paladins in centre advance and fire on another kult in the centre but cause no kills.
Kult on the left marshalls and moves up behind another hill removing the 3BM it had.
The errants look to find cover behind a building and double up.
Then the central Kult of speed doubles forward into the city area.
The castellans on my left go onto overwatch to cover the two Knight objectives and the lancers advance.
One of the Blitz doubles to fire on an errant in cover and reduce it to 1 DC.
The Baron and his paladin bodyguard advance and I loose a paladin to the swap (snake eyes difficult terrain..) They then shoot poorly at the central Kult of speed, and the 2 hits are saved.
The left hand ork warbikers then double and move up close to the Errants, their shooting causes a BM (didn't realise they had a ranged attack..)
The orks then retain and move up the second group of warbikes who managed to cross fire the errants in their hiding spot. Without their shields, and reduced to a 6+RA save 1 errant is killed and the remaining two fall back towards my blitz.
The levy troops sustain fire on the warbikes but only kill 1.
The Fortress mob then doubles down the road and after a bucket of (loaded?) dice the roughriders are no more.
Finally the last blitz doubles onto the left flank ready to take on the lancers.
In the rally phase all the fighta bombers make it off their own edge, the Kult, AA & errants also rally but the warbikes outriders fail.
TURN 2 - Knights get the initiative.
The sentinels attempt to double in order to screen the right flank but fail their activation, wanting to hang onto the SC reroll the take the BM and advance.
The ork outriders then double across my front and shoot the sentinels placing a BM.
Orks retain and a sqwadron of fighta bombers strafes the sentinels, killing two. The remaining two withdraw back to my centre and take cover on the edge of the swamp.
The rallied errants then double up to shoot on the closest outriders, they kill two and the unit breaks but them only move back far enough to screen the blitz and fortress mobs.
The right hand most paladins charge the outriders that shot at the sentinels and kill them all for the loss of a DC, then they consolidate away from the orks.
The blitz brigade then double and destroy 2 of the same unit of kinghts (thanks to a critical), they knights then pull back further behind the swamp.
A KOS moves up in the middle.
They are shot by my other 3 man paladin team and are broken, falling back to the ork blitz.
The baron and Co then try to slow the fortress mob but fail to activate, a reroll sees them form into a firing line but they only cause a BM
A kult of speed then doubles up causing a DC on the errants.
The lancers move to the right to support the baron, their long range shots though only cause a BM.
Bombers then ground attack the errants, one dies and the remaining broken errant pulls back to the left flank.
A blitz doubles to shoot on the lancers but the Crusaders fire OW on them, sadly the only cause 1 kill. Return fire from the blitz is saved.
Last few move see the remaining KOS try to box in the Lancers and contest the knight objectives on the left hand side. A fighta bomber group is forced to stand down and the Fortress mob fails to activate even with reroll, they clear BM.
Rally phase, all ork formations fail, all knights pass but things are looking grim.
TURN 3 - Orks win initiative
The on the right the Blitz brigade double and kill a paladin from the baron's formation but importantly get into 15cm.
The orks then retain and engage with the warbike heavy KOS to assault the baron's formation. The knights loose 3 paladins, for 4 warbikes. They then loose another from hackdowns. All that is left is the Baron and a wounded Senechal, they fall back towards the blitz.
The crusaders then double forward to try and thin out the buggies and make room for the errant to double or engage. Unfortunately they only kill 1 buggy.
The lancers then engage the blitz mob to try and force them away. They miss with all 6 attacks and are wiped out.. (this is getting frustrating...)
With the lancers gone and the KOS on the left doubles back to secure an objective from cover.
The sentinels attempt to march to slow the orks push but fail to activate and so make a standard move to screen/delay the fortress mob.
The fortress mob double and try to shoot the remaining formation of paladins but for once their armour and shields work.
A rallied paladin moved into the swap to cross fire the fortress mob but misses, then the three paladins that were shot at by the fortress mob engage them. The engage draws in the single paladin and a blitz brigade. The orks do well (more loaded dice?), the knights suck. The orks loose a fortress to difficult terrain (its a sticky swamp) and 1 is killed by the three knights in CC. In return all 4 knights are killed. This did raise a question on MW allocation which I'll bring up shortly.
Now its just mop up work for the orks, their fighta bombers attack the baron at range so only he is within 30cm. A rocket through the cockpit ends his frustrating night. The senechal runs off due to suppression.
Another lot of bombers kill the remaining errant before he can activate.
The levy formation attempts to kill the ork warlord - because he's by himself but the thudd guns can't find the range and he survives the single hit - smug Cad!
The orks make some final moves, kill the sentinels and finish up with a 4:0 win (TSNP, DTF, BTS and T&H)
All the knights have left is the Castellans and levy infantry. The orks on the other hand are barely scratched.
Luck did play into the game somewhat but the knights struggled from the outset to deal with the number of orks. They also really suck on the receiving end of a charge which against the likes of orks, eldar and marines is very hard to avoid.
I'll post summaries of the other two battles shortly but you'll see the eldar similarly tore the knights apart in short order. The number of lance and macro weapons they have kill the knights quickly and their skimmer tech + hit & run keeps them safe from assaults.
In the further I'll take more AA and some arty. The levy are good and cheap, the lancers are disappointing as usual, and the senechal and baron adds little to the engage - this does feel a little wrong.
Personally I'd prefer to see the power lance as a FF EA+1, MW rather than the super charged shock lance that it is now and see the knight shield work against FF and not CC attacks in any engage, regardless of who charged who. The lancer's speed is great but I'm struggling to see that he is worth his points in comparison with the paladin and errant who are only 5cm slower and much more effective in the assault.
In my experience, the power lance rarely hits to make its FS ability useful, the lancers can't use it to support fire - which they would be very good at due to doubles etc, and their ability in the assault is limited.
Basically I'd like to trial them as :
Knight Lancer
WE Speed: 30cm A: 5+ CC:5+ FF: 4+
Battlecannon 75cm 4+AP/4+AT
Powerlance 15cm (small arms) EA+1, MW
2DC, Knight Shield, RA, Walker....
This then makes them a little more consistent and give them a role as the fast cav, firefight unit whilst the errant takes down tough stuff up close and the paladins form the generic "infantry" or jack of all role. I don't think the FS ability on the power lance makes that much sense either. FS generally represents something thing that you can't see coming or hits just before contact in CC. Usually units that have FS make use of stealth or some other means of attacking you before you get a chance, and generally its easier to explain on a CC attack. To me, this makes sense with the shock lance as its triggered the moment before impact. The Lancer/Baron with a power lance to me doesn't get this, even on the charge, its as big as a house so you know its coming. Consider the assault is supposed to represent a whole game of 40k, how would this lancer work in a 40k sense to justify a FF FS capability in epic. Anyhow enough on the lancer.. he's in my bad books.
I need to go away now and restructure my list to make it better against air and hordes. I'm learning that the knights can't deal with hordes, either shooting or assaults as they just don't generate enough hits. The solution might be a howitzer formation instead of the rough riders & AA battery, thunderbolts instead of the lancers and maybe another unit of Castellans if I can fit them in. Wardens are interesting but I don't think they are worth 300 when for 50pts more I get significantly more ability in the Crusaders or Castellans.
The question with MW hits in the assault was this: The knights had the warboss and 2 fortresses in close combat. The knights caused 5 standard hits and 3 MW hits. Allocating the standard hits, the ork player can then allocate all 5 to the fortresses - which he did. 1 fortress saves its two hits whilst the one that took 3 hits saves two. Now to allocate MW hits, with the rules as written he could allocate all 3 MW hits to the fortress with only 1 DC left, effectively wasting 2 of the MW hits. Is this correct, by the rules is seems fine, fundamentally if feels a bit wrong, and robbed the knights of a 2 or more point swing in combat resolution.