Hermanista's Knights Mechanicus

[hermanista]

So in the end, I decided to stick with my year long promise - painted models only.

 

It turned more into a teaching session as his deathguard force was never built to face knights

 

Lancer

2 crusaders

Helverin and Warglaive.

 

And a few piccies for show.

 

[hermanista]

So taking the plunge, I'm going to give my first ITC tournament a go next weekend.

 

Cue some frantic painting to maintain my #playitpainted vow

 

SHD Krast

 

Lancer

Naked Crusader

Warglaives

 

SHD Vulker

Naked crusader

2x Helverin

 

AdMech Graia battalion

2x tech priest

3x5 rangers

 

Comes to 1995 points, so no playing with upgrades.

 

Usual choices - lancer warlord gets 2+/4++

 

Krast crusader probably Headsmans and first knight

 

Vulker crusader possibly Helm Dominatus amd/or the Vulker trait

 

As it seems traits can change between rounds, there's always options there.

 

So for the ITC crowd, any pointers?

[Stray]

Hmm, depends. How 'hardcore' do you expect the tournament to be?

 

If it's likely to be a local type tournament, that's just going to do the ITC points thing, you'll probably be ok. If it's likely to have some people show up with very competitive WAAC lists, I think I'd make space for more cheap bodies. I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here really, but board control/presence and objective control are huge, and I suspect in that area you'll struggle with 15 rangers.

 

Cheap screens for your Crusaders also wouldn't hurt, but again, it depends a lot on what kind of lists you expect to see, and what you want to 'achieve' yourself.

 

Good luck in either case buddy! Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

[hermanista]

From mates who have played there before, general comments are

 

They play itc missions - so aim just waiting to find out which pack they're using for it.

 

The painting level is pretty low, so I can live with that :-).

 

There's a mix of super competative and guys just there for a laugh, so I don't mind that. My general rule is just don't lose every game and will be happy, if I can go 3/2 wins/losses then I'll be ecstatic.

 

I'm there for the painting side, but also to get some itc experience to see if my events in future go to itc rules.

 

At the moment I've no troops actually painted, so plenty to do to get even those rusty 17 models done - lists are due in Friday so if they aren't done then I'll just take a pure knight force and to hell with it :-)

[Clingy]

Watching this with interest,

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

Interesting battlefield you chose. Are the cans meant to be silos for fuel or other chemicals, with the Special Rule where hitting one will make their contents explode and remove X number of Wounds from any units within Y inches? Or are they meant to be rock formations, and relatively harmless?

[hermanista]

 

 

Interesting battlefield you chose. Are the cans meant to be silos for fuel or other chemicals, with the Special Rule where hitting one will make their contents explode and remove X number of Wounds from any units within Y inches? Or are they meant to be rock formations, and relatively harmless?

Just rock formations, the opponent was a relative beginner so no need to confuse matters.

 

First time I got to use my terrain for a game myself, thing it did the job.

 

So today I'm off to the local GW for an itc practice game, chance to sample the rules with an army.

 

Think I'm gonna play pure knights for it and stick with the #playitpainted rule, and then rush to paint these AdMech for saturday

[hermanista]

Well screw Tau!

 

Screw their stupid communist fish-cow faces! Lol.

 

Just couldn't get enough damage past the shield drones, ho hum, lessons learned. And the streak of never having an enjoyable game against them in any edition continues, lol.

 

So bit of a list rewrite, working on the principle of getting it all painted by Friday night which is list deadline time.

 

Krast Lancer/crusader/crusader/helverin

 

Rusty 17 from Graia

 

3 Assassins, probably a Vindicare and Double Eversor blenders.

 

Add in a RFBC and a pair of ironstorms to the crusaders to deal with hiding troops and that's as good as a 2k list.

 

At least I got to try out the ITC secondaries, bit of revision needed now to decide on what'll be my mainstays to choose for most games.

Edited February 25, 2019 by hermanista

[Prot]

I’m not the biggest fan of ITC but Tau can play it really well with the right general. Pure Knights on the other hand is pretty tough in ITC. You need the binary 17 or the loyal 32.

 

But I know your pain facing Tau. I play against them frequently, and you’ve discovered that you absolutely must take indirect fire. For the most part I ignore Riptides and just try to dismantle the rest of the army to stop them from having table control if possible....unless you get into CC.

 

Throwing any multi damage at Riptides is almost a waste. If you were playing AdMech Kastelans, you might be able to dry them out of drones.

[Focslain]

When facing tau with the drone/riptide combo I target the drones specifically if possible. Also order of weapon fire is a must. Example w/ the castellan:

 

Seigecannons target drones, then plasma to the suit, then lance to the suit.

 

Hopefully the chaff has been cleared by the time the lance fires, especially with the multi-damage from the seigecannons (or any multiple damage weapon) requires several FNP saves instead of the 1 needed after an intercept.

 

I use light weapons to tag drones before moving to the heavier weapons against the suits. Also anything that has a marker light is a priority target.

[MajorNese]

While I agree with the order of fire (kill drones separately - they're separate units unlike last edition), the multi-damage is handled differently. To quote the Tau FAQ example on redirecting lascannon wounds from battlesuit to drone:

 

 

Instead of resolving the damage normally against the Drone unit (i.e. taking a saving throw, and if it is failed, inflicting damage equal to the weapon’s Damage characteristic – in this case D6), the Drone unit  suffers 1 mortal wound, typically resulting in the destruction of a single Drone model.

So no, any multi damage is entirely wasted on drones. Even a damn belicosa shot can only ever kill one drone.

 

Until now, I haven't had much trouble with Tau - playing infantry-based Raptors (-1 to hit, 2+ armour in cover) takes out so much of their firepower, it's rather frustrating for the Tau player (2k of shooting to barely kill 5 primaris in one turn). This is so much different from knights though - the only solution I see would be lots of S4/5 AP0 shots to kill shield drones in droves in one corner, and then shoot the battlesuit hiding there - 3" drone range means the vicinity can be emptied, but 14+d6" movement means there will be new ones next round.

[H311fi5h]

I think he is talking about firing multi-damage weapons directly at the drone unit to force multiple FNP rolls. Obviously you can still kill only one drone per shot.

[hermanista]

Aye,

 

The general principle was where opportunity presented

 

Helverins fire first to try clear drones, cue godly saves and very few deaths.

 

Crusaders fire the stubbers and Avengers, with the thermal aimed at the suit.

 

I just has a torrid time of it, but, as above lessons were learned.

 

So in comes the admech battalion - ready for undercoating shortly - and two Eversors and a Vindicare for plinking away.

 

Means if I encounter tau or ig commanders at the weekend, I can try and pick them off, and the Eversors work as blenders on bigger squads

[MajorNese]

I think he is talking about firing multi-damage weapons directly at the drone unit to force multiple FNP rolls. Obviously you can still kill only one drone per shot.

You're right, that way should work, I interpreted it as taking multiwound damage off the battlesuit. It's just a shame to waste multi-damage weaponry on drones, I guess skitarii would work well for that. And rangers countering fire warriors with their more useful stats and identical range.

[Focslain]

 

I think he is talking about firing multi-damage weapons directly at the drone unit to force multiple FNP rolls. Obviously you can still kill only one drone per shot.

You're right, that way should work, I interpreted it as taking multiwound damage off the battlesuit. It's just a shame to waste multi-damage weaponry on drones, I guess skitarii would work well for that. And rangers countering fire warriors with their more useful stats and identical range.

 

 

H3llfi5h got it.

 

Generally when fighting drone covered riptides a better method is:

 

If S is <8 fire at the drones, weapon S equal to or greater then 8 fire on the suit. Fire weapons in order of weakest to strongest.

 

So as an example an AGC requires a 5+ to wound a riptide, then he gets his save, followed by the drone save then the drone FNP (and only one save at that), while if you fired at the drone directly your wounding on 3+ and a failed save means 2 FNP rolls they have to pass, better chance of a failure.

[hermanista]

Question now, as I haven't got to them yet - still painting the skitarri and priests first.

 

Which combo of 3 assassins should make the cut?

[hermanista]

In other news

 

Tonight has been painting legs - all that effort that won't really be seen/covered with weathering pigments when added to their resin bases.

 

My knights will have support from brave and definitely loyal followers of the Bladed Omnissiah, even if they sport a strange bladed cog motif

 

 

[hermanista]

So decision is made, a sensible man would take an AdMech or guard battalion with his knights and play to the meta because it's the sensible and right thing to do.

 

I however am neither a sensible or right person, I'm a knight player. That's what go me to my mid table obscurity in tournaments bigger than 16 players before, it can do it this time again!!!

 

I don't need 32 meatheads or 17 rusty half-men to be mediocre on a 40k battlefield, my 7 knights can do that all by themselves like real heroes!

 

Huzzah!

 

 

2k list then has no little men, instead I'll run my standard list.

 

Krast shd

Lancer Warlord, traits/relic undecided atm

Crusader with RFBC and headsman/first knight or ion bulwark

2x Warglaive

 

Vulker she

Naked crusader

2x helverin

 

 

Traits/relics/Warlord can change between rounds at this weekend's tournament.

[synthaside]

Good luck Sir

May blessings of the Void dragon fall upon you and your beautiful machines of war.

Based on my experience it's very possible to place very highly with the right build of knights  in fact pure knights were doing very well at the heats where people had built anti Infantry spam lists ... I think the sensible move is to take out their threats early , If you go first especially in Official Warhammer world's chapter approved eternal war games format.  Its quite hard to guarantee first strike against knights ... they are very very strong in the kill more mission and the hold objectives with Characters mission .

Lets not speak of said said anti invuln mission  where the total number of models in the middle count :-) or the one that Fly counts as super objective secured.

[hermanista]

This is for an itc tournament so slightly different missions/secondaries.

 

They may hurt a bit, but it'll be a laugh and I get to play with my favourite models at least

Edited March 1, 2019 by hermanista

[hermanista]

Here we go then...

 

The illustrious House of Hearts from the Knights of Ni. Out went the little men, in comes the seven samurai and fingers crossed for luck. It's a tweaking of my normal list, first tournament of running the dual detachment properly - Krast and Vulker.

 

Let's see what the weekend brings

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Beautiful work on those Knights. I appreciate the fact you converted each Armiger Helverin to bear two twin autocannons- to me the standard Helverin always looked like it's begging for its foes to outgun him.

[hermanista]

Beautiful work on those Knights. I appreciate the fact you converted each Armiger Helverin to bear two twin autocannons- to me the standard Helverin always looked like it's begging for its foes to outgun him.

Cheers man,

 

They need more work painting wise, these were just a quick fix so more will be done for the next tournament in April.

 

So day ones results I went 1-2

 

When I looked through BCP two lists stuck out as "I don't fancy playing them"

 

I played both in a 28 player event... dammit...

 

First mission vs double Castellan, gallant and a battalion each of AdMech and guard.

 

Took out the gallant before it moved and the warllrd castellan but the other didn't go down.

 

Lost 31-16

 

Second round beat a Raven guard+ guard combo 27-24

 

Round three vs Abbadon, arhiman and their 200 mates.

 

Mucked up my shooting round 1 and then a few other moments in the opponents favour did for me - with hindsight him getting treason off on one crusader who shot the other crusader down a bracket and then kicked the lancer down a bracket was funny but frustrating.

 

Think I might be in with a shout painting wise though, we'll see later.

 

I do have some pictures, including my seven Spartans vs nearly 200 models that I'll add in tonight.

 

Let's hope for two wins today to finish 3-2

[hermanista]

Well, I didn't get my 3-2... I didn't get 2-3 either...

 

Round 4 saw me against Girlyman and round 5 vs a Shadowsword and his mates... ho hum, lol.

 

Lots learned about ITC gaming, I can see what mistakes I made from lost selection and beyond, however I stick to the #playitpainted commitment and won't break that.

 

But on that front, at least this happened to soften the blow somewhat.

 

 

Which is quite nice.

 

Third painting award for the knights now, one GT nomination and wins in two events

[Stray]

Congrats on best painted Herm - really well deserved buddy!

 

What are your thoughts on ITC vs GW/Vanilla tournaments now you've experienced both?