House Romlas strides forth...

[Lord_Ikka]

Knight House Romlas 

Title: The Jannissary Court of House Romlas

Household Rank: Secondus

Patent: Warrant of Imperial Immediacy recorded .930 M30. 

Allied Legions/Forgeworlds: Bound servants of Forgeworld Iskolaa

Warden Domain: The Locast Plains, Forgeworld Iskolaa

Cogonem: None

Motto: We are Bonded in Ruin!

Alliegence: Fedelitas Constantus

The tale of House Romlas is full of darkness and misery. Initially founded when a Knight World title was granted to the world of Peltan, House Romlas was one of five noble houses to settle on the world. Peltan was a relatively gentle world for a Knight House, with vast plains for agricultural herds and high mountains perfect for Knight keeps. The local fauna was dangerous to the human colonists, but with five strong Knight houses the conditions improved greatly. 

Unfortunately, the coming Age of Strife threw Peltan's pastoral lifestyle into chaos as multiple incurions by xenos raiders decimated the human forces. After millenia of struggle, records show House Romlas and their brethren at last broke the final xenos bands and reclaimed their world purely for humanity. This was not to last, as the treacherous xenos (still unknown to the Imperium, though the mysterious Eldar stand high in investigators theories) had seeded Peltan with a genetic timebomb. 

When the nearby Forgeworld Iskolaa sent out Explorator fleets, Peltan was discovered to have been changed beyond all recognition. Once grass-clad plains had become disease-rotted marshes, the air itself toxic and foul. Magos Biolagis adepts were startled to find the remants of the human colony clinging to life in the mountain fastnesses, reduced to near-feral levels of technology and culture. Locating what had been House Romlas' seat of power, the Locast Keep, the Magos of Iskolaa found buried in the mountainside an enormous sealed vault of Knight armor. Retrieving old databanks and combining them with the feral tribe's oral myths, the tech-adepts learned that the Knight Houses of Peltan had acted swiftly when the genetic plague erupted by sealing all their armor in Locast Keep and attempting to shepherd as many of the colonists as possible to the hopeful safety of the higher mountains. It is unknown what happened to the last scions of the Knight Houses, but the tribes' stories speak of ancient warriors that faced death clade in naught but skin, welcoming the deadly plague-spoors. 

The adepts of Iskolaa made the decision to take all the Knight armor and the remaining feral humans from Peltan, leaving the world to decay and rot. Forgeworld Iskolaa became the new home of the former Peltans, and soon the Taghmata Iskolaa took control of the tribes. The vast majority of the former tribesmen were inducted into the Skitarii of Iskolaa, to bleed for the Forgeworld in thousands of battles. A few though, were destined for greater things. 

House Romlas was birthed anew, on the renamed bedrock of the Locast Plain. The Magos of Iskolaa gene-screened and selected the best and brightest of the former tribes and  forgeworld workers to become the new House. Pyscho-indoctrinated and mechanically-augmented, these new scions strode to war in both the recovered Knight armor from the old houses and newly forged suits from the factorium of Iskolaa.

The Binary Council and the Lord-Korbaci

Perhaps unique among the Knight Houses, House Romlas is governed by a council of eight, headed by the elected  Lord-Korbaki. The Lord-Korbaki is not a King, but the first among equals, and has the final deciding vote on all matters pertaining to war. The Binary Council rules the Knight House, and wherever House Romlas strides so does the will of the Council.

The ruination of their ancient Houses and former homeworld has left House Romlas with a grim duty to scour the stars of the enemies of Man.  The motto of the House states both their purpose and status, "We are Bonded in Ruin", for the Knights of Romlas bring about burning destruction at the bidding of their Mechanicus masters.

The Lasthold and the Scarving

The Lasthold is the vast fortress of House Romlas. Massive tracts of desolate rock stretch from tall, black walls constantly washed in the oily hydrocarbon rains of Iskolaa. On these barren plains do the Knights of Romlas train in their arts of war. Gouts of fire, lances of energy, and the thudding reports of hard rounds echo on firing range, while massive servitor-forms in combat arenas get cut down by revving chain-weapons and crackling fists. 

Deep in the depths of the Lasthold is the Scarving chamber. The magos of Iskolaa use the chamber to bond the scions of Romlas to the will of the Mechanicus. Ranks of ancient steel cylinders line the chamber, each with room for a single Scion's body. The cylinders are comprised of psych-scourges, pain-goads, and memory blanking augers- this is the Scarving. By going through the Scarving, Romlas Knight pilots are permanently bonded to the Mechanicus of Iskolaa, loyalty coded and emotion-repressed deep in their brains. This process makes the scions cold and distant when interacting with their Imperial allies and has led to a reputation of a House that is utterly without emotion and capable of any act of destruction against their enemies. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Lord_Ikka

[Lord_Ikka]

The Knight Armigers of House Romlas

 

The armor panels of the House have deliberately messy/streaky washes on them, to represent the stains left by the hydro-carbon rains of Iskola. I'll upload my Cerastus Knight Atrapos and Questoris Knight Crusader tomorrow, don't have their weapons with me at the moment...

[Lord_Ikka]

Knight Atrapos and Knight Crusader

The full, for now, Janissary Court of House Romlas

 

Up next- probably another Questoris chassis or two, a Dominus, and probably some Moirax or more Helverins (have a couple extra Warglaive arms, so all my stuff is magnetized). 

[Lord_Ikka]

Having my first games with Knights tomorrow/today (I work night shift so it'll be this afternoon I guess) against a buddy. He will be running Imperial Knights for the first game (Moirax-heavy, probably House Taranis or Raven) and SM the second, either BA or SW. Here's my list, with what I have at the moment.

++ Super-Heavy Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [102 PL, 3CP, 1,990pts] ++

Chivalric Oath: Oath: Defend the Realm, Oath: Refuse No Challenge

Game Type: 4. Chapter Approved: War Zone Nephilim

Questor Allegiance: House Raven, Questor Mechanicus

+ Lord of War +

Armiger Helverins [310pts]

. Armiger Helverin: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber

. Armiger Helverin: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber

Armiger Warglaives [-1CP, 300pts]

. Armiger Warglaive: Meltagun

. Armiger Warglaive: Heirloom: The Bastard's Helm, Heirlooms of the Household, Meltagun

Armiger Warglaives [300pts]

. Armiger Warglaive: Meltagun

. Armiger Warglaive: Meltagun

Cerastus Knight Atrapos [520pts]

Knight Crusader [-2CP, 560pts]: Character (Knight Lance), Exalted Court: Forge Master, Meltagun, Revered Paragon, Stormspear Rocket Pod, Stratagem: Warlord Trait, Thermal Cannon, Warlord, Warlord Trait: Blessed by the Sacristans, Warlord Trait: Ion Bulwark

++ Total: [3CP, 1,990pts] ++

 

The idea is for the Crusader and the Helverins to sit in the backfield (maybe slowly moving the Helverins up), while the Bastard Helm and his buddy flank one side and the Atrapos and other two Armigers work another side/middle. I know the Atrapos isn't great because it lacks synergy, but it's the model I have right now until I get another Questoris, or a Dominus. I chose Raven for my House because while the net-listers say Taranis' 6+++ is statistically 3-5 Wounds more effectively, I personally have terrible luck with rolling Feel No Pains and would rather just have the set bonus of being extremely mobile. I will try to put up a battle report here after the games, if I remember to take pics. 

[Lord_Ikka]

Alright, so I managed to get two games in with my friend. He played Knight both times, but switched up Houses, first playing House Griffith and then House Raven.

His list was- 

Knight Gallant Warlord

3x Warglaives w/stubbers

3x Moirax w/claw and volkite

2x Moirax w/double grav

1x Moirax w/double conversion beamers

1x Helverin w/stubber

 

First game (got pics/battle report)

Tide of Conviction, I won deployment and first turn

Setup pics 

1st Round

My shooting manages to kill one of the volkite Moirax on the left, a Warglaive next to his Gallant, and bring the Gallant down to 8 Wounds. No charges are possible, I control the three obs on my side.

 

His turn shooting takes out my Atrapos, but costs him most of his firepower to do so. In the fight phase his Gallant destroys a Helverin and one of his volkite Moirax hits but doesn't kill off my Bastard Helm Warglaive. He holds everything on his side.

2nd Round

In my shooting phase the second Helverin manages to kill off his Gallant, which explodes but doesn't knock off enough wounds to bracket anyone. My Crusader also takes out a grav Moirax. My fight phase has the Bastard's buddy kill the Moirax in combat with it, but the resulting explosion kills the Bastard. 

Last pic- his turn round 2

On his turn nothing dies from shooting and in the fight phase his leftmost volkite Moirax kills off my Warglaive, while I kill one of his middle Warglaives.

Round 3

My Helverin takes out the Moirax on the left, freeing up that objective while my Warglaive takes out his last Warglaive in the center of the board. No charges are possible.

His turn nothing happens- bad shooting rolls and he only has his double grav/beamer Moirax and Helverin left, so melee doesn't produce noticeable damage.

Round 4/5

I mop up the remaining Armigers, with my Crusader managing to kill off both the Helverin and the beamer moirax, while a Warglaive picks off the last grav Moirax in turn 5.

End result: 71-31

 

Second game (no pics, sorry) was Data-scry Salvage, which has terrible primary bonuses for Knights. I managed to win this one quite handily by the end of turn four, 92-55, though the rolls seemed very swingy in my favor. 

Takeaways- I really enjoyed playing the Knights. The secondaries were decent and I though Raven's movement very useful. I'm not super happy with the Atrapos, mainly because it doesn't really synergize with anything and basically was just a giant Warglaive/distraction piece. It did the job, and in the second game dueled the Gallant pretty well, but I would rather have an Errant or something else. My friend's list was very clearly designed as an all-rounder, and would most likely do much better against a non-Knight list.

[Lord_Ikka]

2 more members of the House added! Got another Questoris (showing Paladin configuration but magnetized of course) and the Bastard Helm-toting Warglaive (fancy Mechanicus symbol makes a good visual reference). Got a game on Tuesday to test out my newest tournament list, against a Deathwing/Ravenwing army, and I'm hoping it does well before the GT I'll be going to in a couple of weeks. I'll post up the list later, probably with a battle report from Tues if I can. Anyway, thanks for looking!

 

[Lord_Ikka]

 

 

++ Super-Heavy Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [1CP, 2,000pts] ++

 

Chivalric Oath: Oath: Defend the Realm, Oath: Refuse No Challenge

 

Questor Allegiance: House Taranis, Questor Mechanicus

 

+ Lord of War +

 

Armiger Helverins [310pts]
. Armiger Helverin: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Armiger Helverin: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber

 

Armiger Warglaives [-1CP, 290pts]
. Armiger Warglaive: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Armiger Warglaive: Heirloom: The Bastard's Helm, Heirlooms of the Household, Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber

 

Armiger Warglaives [435pts]
. Armiger Warglaive: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Armiger Warglaive: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Armiger Warglaive: Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber

 

Knight Crusader [-2CP, 515pts]: Character (Knight Lance), Exalted Court: Forge Master, Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber,Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon w/ Questor Cognis Heavy Stubber, Revered Paragon, Stratagem: Warlord Trait, Warlord, Warlord Trait: Blessed by the Sacristans, Warlord Trait: Ion Bulwark

 

Knight Errant [-2CP, 450pts]: Exalted Court: Master of Vox, Heirloom: The Heart of Ion, Knight Baron, Meltagun, Reaper Chainsword, Stratagem: Relic, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal

 

++ Total: [1CP, 2,000pts] ++

 

 

My tournament list. Not the most meta (as I was told multiple times via the competitive 40k sub-reddit, even though I said I wasn't going full meta), as that would be giving my Crusader Knight of Mars so that Calculated targetting would proc easy, and giving the Errant Landstrider WT instead of Heart of Ion relic, and moving the Bastard's Helm to a Helverin, but I'm happy with it. 

 

Played a practice game yesterday against a Deathwing/Ravenwing army and went 89-46. Should have been 92-46, but I forgot to do the Renew Oaths action once because I'm dumb. Army did really decent, especially against the stupid Deathwing transhuman junk (I also have DA, so I'm happy they have it when I play them...). Hands down the MVP was one of my Helverins who managed to tank against a 5-man Deathwing Knight squad for two whole turns. Damage reduction from Bondsman combined with Taranis' 6+++ really kept him going. 

 

Takeaways from the game- if the enemy has any knowledge of Knights, my Bastard Helm Warglaive is going to get focused. Need to play him in a combination of defensive and distraction. Another note- glad I took Taranis over Raven, as I only had to Advance one Warglaive the entire game, and he was under the Errant's Bondsman ability anyway, so I got much more use out of the Taranis trait than I would with Raven. 

 

Got another game next Tuesday, for a final practice game before next weekend's tournament. Looking forward to seeing how they do!

 

Last pic, full House.

 

Thanks for looking!

Edited November 3, 2022 by Lord_Ikka

[INKS]

what tokens are you using there and what does it represent?

[Lord_Ikka]

They are some acrylic tokens off etsy. They are generic 40k tokens like +1 to Hit or Fight First, but I just wrote on the back to represent Bondsman abilities. I originally tried to have every buff depicted, but decided to just do the Bondsman stuff after that first game (too cluttered).

[INKS]

This is a great idea. I am sure it would help me remember things better. thanks

[Lord_Ikka]

It was very helpful during my GT this weekend. 

[Lord_Ikka]

So, I'll do a quick recap of my recent tournament- the list is a couple of posts up for those that are interested. I'll preface this with the self-observation that while I'm a decent player especially in a casual/small tournament environment, I am not experienced enough with either Knights or as a true competition-level player to really be a good indicator of either my competitors' generalship or my own performance. I was playing in the Denver Fight Club GT, and Denver has a pretty nice competitive scene right now, so the tournament was both fun and competitive with some really good, gentlemanly opponents. 

 

One thing to note is that the Fight Club guys have done something slightly different with their pairings/rankings- rather than just going pairings through the normal method (W/L -> Battle Points -> Random), they have decided to do W/L -> Opponents Win % (or Win Path) -> Random for the first four rounds, then W/L -> Opponents Win % -> Battle points for the last two (with that also being the final placing rubric). It's an interesting form of pairing that is generally designed to not focus on players "gaming" the system by farming VP to get higher ranked (Goonhammer does a pretty good breakdown here of the various styles of tournament pairings), but rather ranking players based on the caliber (winning percentage) of the opponents they faced. 

 

Round 1

Mission- Recover the Relics

Opponent- Thousand Sons (Nico)

My Secondaries- Yield No Ground, Renew the Oaths, Abhor the Witch

 

 Ouch, this one was hard. Pretty much the worst mission in the tournament right off the bat and against an army that Knights are terrible against. Nico was running a pretty standard TSons list that included a big brick of termies, 3 squads of flamers, and some sorcerous support with the chief sorcerer himself, Arhiman. While I went first (a theme in this tournament, getting 66% of the games first turns), I wasn't able to do much against the mortal wounds and flamers- I lost two Armigers first turn and it just continued downhill from there. Taking Abhor the Witch was a trap for myself, as I only scored 6VP on it and probably would have done better with the Knight's own Honour the House. Overall I was proud of my final score, as I lasted out the whole game and managed to impress Nico, as he hadn't had an Imperial Knights player do better than 35 before me. 

 

Result- Loss 68-96

Nico wound up going 4-2 and being the highest placed opponent I fought in the tournament

 

Round 2

Mission- Data Scry-Salvage

Opponent- Necrons (Joe)

My Secondaries- Yield, Renew, No Prisoners

 

My other "competitive" army is Necrons, so I knew what they could do going into this match and was fairly ready for them (I assumed). In actuality, Joe was running a Necron list that I hadn't encountered before, for while it was the standard Eternal Expansionist dynasty he deliberately had a firepower based list with two big bricks of flayer Warriors, a Ghost Ark with some reaper Warriors, and massive scarab squads with only one squad of Skorpekh Destroyers and a Transcendent C'tan to provide melee support. Knowing that while Necron firepower might be decent against some other lists but was weak against Knights, I played very aggressive and swarmed No Man's Land. I knew his scarabs would be a pain, along with his one squad of Skorpekhs/C'tan posing the only real damage potential, so targeted them down very early (the C'tan took four rounds to get down, but also flubbed his powers so wasn't really a problem the first couple of turns). Joe's Reanimation rolls were impressive and netted him back a ton of Warriors and scarabs, which allowed me to hit the No Prisoners VP limit early, but weren't enough to force me off the objectives to get a lot of primary points. I had a good chat with him during/after the match about his list and playstyle, was interesting to find a Necrons player who plays pretty much the exact opposite of my lists. 

 

Result- Win 81-63

Joe went 3-3, losing all his first day matches but coming in hard the second day for an even record

 

Round 3

Mission- Abandoned Sanctuaries 

Opponent- Necrons (Chad)

My Secondaries- Yield, Renew, No Prisoners

 

Ha, the only other Necrons player in the tournament and I get him. A much more standard list this time, with the Silent King, Nightbringer, and a couple of Skorpekh squads providing the power backing up another set of big scarab swarms. In this match, I was on the back foot the entire match- while I scored very well on my secondaries (12,14,15), I was unable to push the Necron blobs off of the primary objectives. The Nightbringer was also much more potent than the Transcendent from the earlier round, easily killing off a couple of Armigers and tying up the Errant long enough for some Skorpekhs to help out in killing it off. A good match, but a definite showing in how over-tuned the Necrons secondaries are. 

 

Result- Loss 63-100

Chad wound up also finishing 3-3

 

Round 4

Mission- The Scouring

Opponent- Adeptus Custodes (Tom)

My Secondaries- Yield, Renew, Honour the House

 

I haven't played against Custodes in a long time, as very few players around me are fielding them, so this was a fun match. Tom was running a lot of dreads with 3 Contemptors and 3 of the spear ones (can't remember the name), along with 2 Calladus grav-tanks and some bikes. He only had one Obsec unit, a three-man Guardian squad, but it really didn't matter with the amount of damage those dreads/bikes could push out. My Armigers just melted to the charging bikes and then the follow-up from the dreads (who were dead-hard to kill off). Very good game, with a great opponent who I was able to chat with for about an hour, given that our game was over very quick.

 

Result- Loss 70-94

Tom went 3-3 overall

 

Round 5

Mission- Tide of Conviction

Opponent- Harlequins (Chris)

My Secondaries- Yield, Renew, Grind Them Down

 

This was a terrible match- just a mass of murder-clowns that ran up and slaughtered me. The opposing list had six minimum squads and three big squads of Twilight Harlies that were able to tie-up my Armigers and just kill them off via fusion pistols, mortal wounds, and a crap-ton of attacks. The nice thing was my Armigers wound up blowing up 5 times out of 7, so they did far more damage in death than they did in life. 

 

Result- Loss 37-100

Chris also went 3-3, so the majority of my opponents had an even record

 

Round 6

Mission- Secure Missing Artefacts 

Opponent- Knights Renegade (Caelen)

My Secondaries- Yield, Renew, Bring It Down

 

Another army that I hadn't played, Chaos Knights were one that was really on my wishlist to fight this tournament and I managed to get them last round. Caelen was running one Knight Desecrator and 12-13 Wardogs, and it was a really good match. My Crusader popped off Calculated Targeting (for really the first time in the tournament due to CP issues/enemies having FNP saves vs mortals) and managed to take out one Wardog entirely and bottom bracket the Knight Desecrator. Lucky rolls, and strategic re-rolls, kept my Crusader alive as we traded my Errant for the Desecrator and various Wardogs for Armigers. My Bastard Helm Warglaive did a good job of stomping up and Renewing the Oaths as the match wound down, and I finished the tournament on a win.

 

Result- Win 99-83

Caelen wound up a 1-5

 

 

Overall, for my second big tournament I was very pleased with my performance. My goal going in was 2 wins and 300 points, which means a base level of scoring 50VP per game and that is a decent job, for me, of scoring. Going 2-4 with 418 points meant I definitely accomplished my goal, and the tournament was a good showing for an army that I had less that twenty games with at the time. I think if I had run my Necrons I would have done much better, but I've been feeling the big stompy Knights and it was good to take them out. Only one game was really non-competitive and I really don't see how I could have done any better in that game (aside from not taking Grind, that was dumb). I'll be running my Knights off and on for the next little bit, and I've got at least two big tournaments next year that I may take them to (depending on what the next GT pack does). Anyway, thanks for looking!

[Lord_Ikka]

Going to the Rocky Mountain Open this weekend- it will be the biggest tournament I've ever gone to and my first tournament of the year (first since November actually). Going with a different list from my previous one, though it will have some similarities. 

 

Imperial Knights Army List

2000 points, 1 CP

Bring It Down VP - 20

House/Allegiance: House Taranis; Omnissiah’s Grace- When a wound is lost, roll d6- on 6 Wound is not lost. Does not cover mortal wounds. Mechanicus Allegiance;  +1 to Wounds (+2 if TITANIC), at the start of your Command phase regain 1 Wound

Chivalric Oaths: Defend the Realm, Refuse No Challenge

Pre-deployment Stratagems- Relic (-1CP), Warlord Trait (-1CP), 1x Knight Baron (-1CP); gain a WT/Character, Heirlooms of the House x2 (-2 CP); gain a Relic

Arks of Omen Detachment (Lords of War)

Armiger Helverins (310pts, -1CP): 2x Cognis Heavy Stubber, 4x Armiger Autocannon. RELIC (Heirlooms of the House): The Bastard’s Helm

Armiger Warglaives (450pts): 3x Thermal Spear, 3x Meltaguns, 3x Reaper Chain-Cleaver

Armiger Warglaives (290pts): 2x Thermal Spear, 2x Cognis Heavy Stubber, 2x Reaper Chain-Cleaver.

Knight Errant (470pts, -2CP): Thermal Cannon, Meltagun, Twin Icarus Autocannon, Thunderstrike Gauntlet. Exalted Court: Master of Vox, WARLORD TRAIT (Knight Baron): Knight Seneschal, RELIC (Heirloom of the House): Armor of the Sainted Ion.

Knight Paladin (480pts, -2CP): 2x Cognis Heavy Stubber, Twin Icarus Autocannon, Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon, Reaper Chainsword.  Exalted Court: Master of Lore (The Folly of Mercy Teaching), WARLORD, WARLORD TRAIT (Warlord Trait): Ion Bulwark, RELIC: Sancuary.

 

The main idea is that unlike my last list, I won't have a Questoris Knight stuck in my backfield the entire game- now I have two big boys ready and willing to mix it up mid-field while supporting the Warglaives. My Secondaries will likely be Honour the House, Renew the Oaths, and Yield No Ground, though I will remove Yield depending on my opponent (Deepstrike-heavy armies like BA or GK I will switch it out for something else). I've found the Paladin putting his Teaching on an Armiger to Move/Shoot/Action to be really useful for pulling off a Renew Action while not completely tying up a unit for an entire round, and having both the Errant and Paladin available to stomp and action in the middle if needed is a great way to get 5VP, especially round 1 if the enemy is hunkered down and round 4/5 to get some final VP out of a damaged Knight. The Errant swapped out his chainsword for a slapping gauntlet on the idea that I'll most likely be facing quite a few SMs with termies, having a 3 damage weapon capable of one-shotting them makes up for the difference in number of attacks for me. I chose to take Icarus autocannons because I had the points and would rather have a 2 damage weapon able to shoot into melee and I'm aiming to have the big Knights in melee as often as they can. 

 

My Oaths have been chosen to maximize my Knights' utility; Defend the Realm is something I want to do anyway (have half the objs) while the bonus CP and possible ObSec/model advantage bonuses in Virtous are really useful down the line. Refuse No Challenge is trickier, as it gives me the possibility of a troth if I Fall Back (though that synergizes with Yield secondary to make Falling Back something I really don't want to do) and the requirement to kill 2 units in melee is difficult to accomplish 1st/2nd rounds depending on the opponent. However, the +1 to Hit in the first round of combat (or when I get charged) really helps my Knights and Armigers in combat even when they are bracketed and I like it better than the other two Oaths- Lay Low the Tyrants I've never liked as it seems really dependent on your opponent bringing an army with proper targets (and the troth seems all too likely to be inflicted), while Protect Those in Need is alright but can be used by a canny opponent to force your Armigers to Heroic into something you really don't want them to just to avoid the troth.

 

So far my test games have gone fairly well- I've mainly been playing against GK, who are one of my boogeymen as far as Knights go due to my lack of psychic defenses and their ability to teleport all over the damn place. I'm feeling fairly confident and have set my goals accordingly - win 3 games with a total score of 300. Its a 6 game major, so that means I need to win half my games and get an average of 50 points in each. I believe that is eminently doable given my previous score of 418 and going 2-4, especially since I've had a lot more practice with this army than I did with the previous one and I'm feeling solid with how my maneuvering ability is and my understanding of how my army plays. 

 

I'll try to write up a decent report next week (most likely Wednesday night) and will let you know how it turns out. 

 

[Focslain]

List looks good. I was about to suggest swapping the Exalted courts, but I see what you are going for.

 

Just as a reminder to do your paladin bondsman last since they stack on other bondsman abilities due to Master of Lore. makes the helverin tagged by your bastard even better.

[Lord_Ikka]

Yup!

[Lord_Ikka]

Looking forward to the tournament- scanning the lists there aren't that many super-nasty threats to Knights i.e.- unstoppable rail rounds from Votann/Tau, while there are 9 Votann and 6 Tau I'm only seeing 4 magna rails and 5 railheads. There are 6 each of DA/SW/Iron Hands with lots of melta/heavy firepower, the rail rounds were more worrisome because they go right through invulns and a couple of them have the chance of dropping a Questoris a turn. With that worry somewhat mitigated, and there only being 4 Aeldari/1 TSons/3 Chaos Daemons/1 GK lists , I'm also not super worried about psyker shenanigans. There are a lot of SM, quite a few IG, and a decent amount of both Chaos and Imperial Knights. Should be a very interesting tournament.

[Lord_Ikka]

Very good tournament, Frontline Gaming did great with the setup, running, and their hobby store was very nice (managed to snag a Sisters Repentia and Escher gangers box for 35 bucks altogether!). Overall, good games and great opponents, even though I didn't get the amount of wins I wanted. I just realized writing this up that I went second all six games, weird.

 

Round 1 vs Matt (Sisters of Battle)

Theme- Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Outcome- Loss, 93-87

Coming into the tournament, I hadn't played against SoB in a long time, especially not the meta Bloody Rose lists. This was a very, very good game that turned out extremely close. Matt played well, but his two units of multi-melta Retributors had to come into the open to fire on my Knights and managed to only blow up a Helverin and half damage my Paladin after a round and a half of shooting. His Repentia bounced off of a couple of Warglaives, but Matt slowly began to whittle down the other Armigers and Morvenn Vahl finished off my Paladin- then spent the rest of the battle smashing my Errant to pieces. The Errant came back to life after his Fight phase in round 4 and even with the Machine Spirit Resurgent couldn't finish off Vahl my shooting phase. Battle round 5 starts and the only thing he needs to do to win is kill off the Errant again, as the errant is sitting on his Sacred Ground objective. Morvenn Vahl does her thing and manages to again kill the Errant, sealing the win for the Sisters. Pretty much exactly the opener I wanted for the tournament, a great opponent and a neck-in-neck match where a roll on one side or the other would have tipped the game.

 

Round 2 vs Aaron (Leagues of Votann)

Theme- Ymyr Goodstuff

Outcome- Loss, 94-41

Another army I hadn't played, this one went so much worse. Nothing against Aaron, as he was a nice guy, but I never want to fight Votann again with Knights. Those Judgement tokens allowing auto-wounds completely invalidates Knights' real defense in their Toughness, and going second I wasn't even able to start off with Bondsmen damage reduction or able to take off his Pioneers before they tagged my various Knights with more JTs. Ugh. Errant down turn 1, Paladin down turn 2 (and failed to stand back up...), and by turn 3 I had one Warglaive left alive. Frankly, I'm happy and surprised I managed to get 41 points, as by the end of my first turn I was extremely unhappy and looking at an almost complete blowout. Anyway, this was my worse game of the tournament and just showed me how over-tuned Votann are against Knights- even without a magna-rail in the list the amount of damage they can put out is crazy, and with  all their guns at either -1 or -2 AP my Knights' saves just couldn't keep up. Terrible matchup for me, and the score shows it.

 

Round 3 vs Christopher (Imperial Fists)

Theme- Bolter fists? (Fire Raptor, Repulsor and Executioner, Centurions, and Heavy Intercessors)

Outcome- Win, 98-66

As much as a textbook matchup for a win for Knights as you can get. Christopher was a good opponent, but running an admittedly inferior list (the rest of his army was getting painted as we played, but he brough what he had- to be fair, his commission painter did an excellent job and they were the best looking army I played against all tournament, especially the Fire Raptor). He had a couple of things that were scary for my Knights, the Repulsors' las weapons and a trio of melta ATVs, but I was able to kill off two ATVs and the Repulsor turn 1 and then the Fire Raptor turn 2 (after it did quite a bit of damage to my Errant), and after that it was just mop up. I got 100% of my VP, as Honour the House will only give a max 13, for a good end to my first day of the tournament. 

 

Round 4 vs David (Alpha Legion)

Theme- Sneaky boys (Knight Abominant, Raptors, Termies, Possessed, 3x 1 Obilterators)

Outcome- Tie, 81-81

The theme of the tournament continues, facing off on armies that I haven't played before (which may be more about my normal lack of varied opponents than anything else). Anyone else know that the AL can take away your deployment objective? No? Well, apparently they can and it sucks- completely changed the game. First two rrounds were fairly good, though his Abominant was extremely durable with its version of Transhuman and not being able to re-roll against it, but it finally died in my Fight phase of the second round and it was looking up for me (Paladin was dead but everything else was ok) and then he took away my deployment objective with a sneaky Fall Back and Action Raptor sergeant that a Warglaive couldn't kill off. This forced me to push up with everything and it became a blood bath between my assaulting Warglaives and his Daemon Prince/Chaos Lord's mortal wound output. My untouched Errant managed to kneel down turn 5 to max out Renew and get me one last Yield No Ground VP to eke out a tie (almost forgot to score that YNG point and take a loss). Extremely close game that was very fluffy and fun- Alpha Legion are tricky traitors and David couldn't have been a better opponent.

 

Round 5 vs Brian (Black Legion)

Theme- BL Goodstuff (Abaddon, 2x Disco-Lords, lots of MSU legionnaire units with lascannons, and 3 plague marine squads)

Outcome- Loss, 86-66

Disco-Lords and Abaddon equal a bad time for my Knights. This match was good, but the amount of mortal wounds that can be pumped out by those units (and a Sorceror) just blasted my big Knights away. Positioning was key here and I managed to survive much longer than I, or Brian, expected, as a couple of Warglaives clogged the center and forced the trio of Abaddon and Discos to cut through them before hitting the Errant/Paladin. Brian did an excellent job of protecting those three with Look Out, Sir, so I was unable to kill them off in an effective manner, and when I did get some shots off my dice seemed to not want to hit at all. A fun game, and I did much better scoring than I was hoping, but not an optimum list to go against for me. Still, if I had a couple more rolls that went my way....

 

Round 6 vs Mike (AdMech)

Theme- Mars Anti-tank (8x Las-Chickens, 3x Neutron Spider-walkers, lots of little gribbly squads)

Outcome- Loss, 78-74

Another extremely close game that came down to the last round. Mike's Las-chickens (Ironstriders) were diffidently his MVPs, as they managed to near-kill my Paladin Turn 1 and then kill the Paladin and Errant turn 2. After that, my Armigers came to play, taking out six of the chicken and two of the dunestriders while fending off arc-rilfe wielding Vanguard squads. Top of Turn 5 I had three Warglaives left alive, each controlling an objective- if Mike didn't kill off two he would lose. He did manage to kill off two, while my Final Warglaive was able to survive on one wound (rolled a 6 for his final FNP in the last Fight Phase!) to keep control of his objective and score me 5VP. A very good end to the tournament, especially since it looked very similar to the Votann game going into the top of round 3, but my Armigers just managed to hang on and make the game close.

 

 

Overall

Tournament was a blast- six games in two days is a lot and my back is not happy with me now, but I would really recommend going to a major or GT to anyone thinking about it. Only one game was bad for me and that was down to the matchup being terrible rather than the opponent being a jerk, so better than my last big tournament in that regard. Slightly disappointed that I couldn't better my 2-4 record from last time, but my VP was 447 which means I roughly got 74 points per game and that is very good for me. Got another GT coming up in a month, the Frontier Open in Cheyenne, and since I'm really happy with how this list played I will most likely be taking it again and just hoping I don't see Squats! Getting to play a variety of armies was fun and interesting, and I'm quite satisfied with my results- even if my record wasn't a winning one I know that in three of my losses/draws it was literally down to a few dice rolls; that's the sort of tournament that I really enjoy as each game seemed to matter and could swing either way. 

 

Anyway, look for another report in about a month and a half, and until then keep hunting!

 

P.S.- I might be getting a Dominus soon, so possibly a pic or two eventually...

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks for the battle reports and I don't think there is any reason to be disappointed with your results - you mixed with the best of them (including a terrible match up) and came out middle of the pack + you had fun, which adds up to a win in my books. 

 

If we were in the same neck of the woods I would love to put my spiky boy knights up against your corpse worshippers. 

[Lord_Ikka]

I really enjoy Knight vs Knight matches- nothing like giant mechs smacking the crap out of each other for a good time.

 

I'm happy with my results. Obviously I'd like to have a better record, but I can't complain about my games and the tournament itself was a good time. 

[Lord_Ikka]

Frontier Open batrep

 

I don't do pictures, so sorry about that. Tournament was held at the Red Lion Hotel in Cheyenne WY, part of the Cheyenne Gaming Convention. Venue and everything wea great, friendly staff and the tournament was run fairly smoothly. I was running the same Knight list as last time, so my list something that I knew and was familiar with. One thing that changed was the terrain- here it was the old ITC terrain like at Adepticon, which meant a lot more terrain than I was used to. I'm used to what I consider the standard competitive terrain (2x big "L" ruins, 4x smaller ruins, 2x dense cover sections, 2x 3-munitorum containers), and there was a lot more here (some tables had between 6 and 10 medium/large ruins) that really hemmed up my movement. When there is only a couple of viable pathways through the board, its pretty easy to block off Knights and tarpit them. That aside, the games were fun and I didn't have a single opponent who was a WAAC-jerk, so I consider the event a success. 

 

Round 1 (Tear Down Their Icons)

Opponent - Jake (Space Wolves)

Theme - Pressure (lots of calvary/wolfen/sky claws)

Result - Loss, 36-100

     Not a great start to the tournament. Jake wound up getting first turn and was able to pull off a couple of first turn charges to pin me in my backfield. I hadn't faced an extremely fast SM list like this ever and it showed. I didn't pick great secondaries, using all the faction ones, and would have been better served to pick No Prisoners rather than Renew the Oaths due to not being able to even do Renew once and killing off enough Thunderwolf Calvary/Wolfen to at least have scored 7-8 points on No Prisoners. My lack of experience versus this kind of pressure list will come back to haunt me the second day. 

 

Round 2 (Abandoned Sanctuaries)

Opponent - Brian (Thousand Sons)

Theme - Standard Tsons..? (I don't know Tsons meta, but he had lots of warpflamers, some Rubric, a load of characters, and a big brick of termies)

Result - Win, 90-79

     I have a fear of psyker armies when I play Knights, and one of my tournaments last year had me facing them game one and getting stomped. Here, it was different largely because the terrain worked to my favor. I was able to get Brian to channel his main group (the termies, some Rubric, Ahriman, and another sorcerer) onto my weak flank. With the mission only having five objectives, I was able to feed the Tsons a couple of Warglaives while smasing through the other flank and center. Taking both Abhor the Witch and No Prisoners meant I was able to focus my entire battle on just killing off the enemy rather than doing actions. A good game, against an opponent I've played before and know is a good player. 

 

Round 3 (The Scouring)

Opponent - Jeff (League of Votann)

Theme - Ymir Goodstuff (1 Land Fortress, Pioneers, 2x Sagituars, beserks)

Result - Loss, 66-100

    Yet another army that I don't like fighting as Knights. Same thing happened here as what happened vs Votann in the RMO last month, I got worn down by the auto-wounding Votann and shot off the board. A great opponent, seriously Jeff was the best opponent I had, just a really fun guy to play against, but an extremely frustrating game. It wasn't all down to the Votann rules though, my dice were conspiring against me- 14 melta shots (all armigers and 4 shots from the Errant's thermal cannon) went into the Land Fortress turn 1 and I only managed to wound twice. Because of his bokar tech-dude, I did a massive 6 wounds that were healed up over the next two rounds. So annoying. Nothing really else to say to this one, the terrain was actually fairly open on this board (to my detriment, I would have preferred another terrain-heavy board vs space dwarves) and the gameplan I had was I think the best that could have been done. 

 

Round 4 (Death and Zeal)

Opponent - Jason (Imperial Knights House Terrayn)

Theme - meta Knights (Crusader and Errant backed up with 6 Armigers)

Result - Win*, 90-0

   Day two starts with a matchup that I was looking forward to- Knight vs Knight, and one that I think would have been a big challenge. Jason's list was heavy on the mortal wound output, with his Crusader being Blessed by the Sacristans and using the Hunter of Beasts Martial Tradition to help kill off vehicles. However, Jason had played two of his previous games on particularly bad terrain tables (a massive centerpiece that was something like 12 x 14) that were very harsh to Knights and we wound up on another pretty bad terrain table (the same one I had game 2 actually). He decided to withdraw, as he was already facing a 5-hour drive back to his home, and I got a win with points averaged from the winners' of round 4. I felt bad for the guy as I know how much the terrain was impacting my play and I am someone who just wants everyone to have a good time at a tournament. I didn't want to pick up a win this way, but there it is.

 

Round 5 (Conversion)

Opponent - Ryan (Word Bearers)

Theme - Possessed Bomb (big unit of possessed backed up by warp flamers and a nasty daemon prince)

Result - Loss, 43-98

    Guess what, my last game was much the same as my first, just with spikey Space Marines rather than wolfy ones. Ryan didn't completely pin me in my deployment zone, but it didn't matter as the Word Bearers just rolled over my Knights like a wave. His Daemon Prince managed to kill off three Armigers all by himself (the ignoring damage reduction stuff is nasty) and he had some sort of Master of Executions that just wound up pouring mortal wounds into both my big boys. Another example of how even though Knights are big and tough, their lack of a decent melee invuln can get them overwhelmed by lots of lower-strength but high AP (-2/-3) attacks. Anyway, Ryan was a good sport and good guy to play against, even when it was clear he was going to wipe me from the board after the second turn. 

 

Overall, another good tournament. I feel that I'm playing my Knights as well as can be expected (aside from the secondary flub on the first round), but that they are just not up to par in the competitive arena. I know that out of the four Imperial Knights players in the tournament (including @TechCaptain from here, nice to see a face to a screenname!), my friend/tournament partner managed to go 3-2 and wind up 16th, but nobody did better than that. It is a hard army to play right now, but still fun to see the big stompy boys rampage around a board. I did manage to get selected to the second round of paint judging, which was an unexpected honor given the amount of talent that was there. I didn't win, but my second round opponent Brian won with his excellent Tsons. I had a good time but I think I'm going to back off of 40k for a while until the next edition drops, or at least back off of Knights. There is a local 1k tournament sometime in June to give 9th a last hurrah, so I might throw together a melee Necron list for that. Anyway, thanks for looking!

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Lord_Ikka

[Lord_Ikka]

Farewell 9th, Hello 10th 

 

Played a small, 1500 point tournament Saturday that will be my final 9th ed tournament. It was a friendly, six player tournament using AoO rules and a few different missions (mixing Strike Force and Incursion was fun). Played pretty much my same list, though I dropped the Errant and changed the 3-man Warglaive unit to stubbers rather than meltas to fit into the 1500 point limit. Each mission had two secondaries rather than 3, so max points for each match was 85. 

 

Round 1 (Abandoned Sanctuaries) 

Opponent - Lang (Astra Militarum, Born Soldiers)

Theme - Catachan (4x Catachan squads, 1 plasma russ, 2 Sentinels, Ogryn, Gaunt's ghosts and some commissars)

Result - Win, 64 - 27

Felt a little bit bad about this one, as Lang was playing a very fluffy list that didn't have enough anti-tank firepower to hurt me. He's one of the FLGS' TOs and does a lot for the local miniature gaming scene, so he's more of a shallow-but-wide player rather than focused-but-deep like me in regards to knowing about 40k (I have 2/3 games I play, but I know them very well, while Lang has about 10 that he runs/dabbles in). Anyway, we made it to battle round 3 and there was not much left of the Catachans aside from a half of a command squad, a couple of Ghosts fighting a Warglaive, and a pair of troops holding his deployment objective. Still a very fun game as Lang is a great guy and knew coming into the match that he was at a severe disadvantage but fought valiantly till the end.

 

Round 2 (Recover the Relics)

Opponent - Nic (Imperial Knights, House Raven)

Theme - Big Boys (Knight Castellan, Knight Errant, Knight Gallant)

Result - Win, 85 - 24

Nic is my buddy and wargaming partner, so this was a super fun game. We both were coming off working night shift, so got about 4 hours of sleep before the tournament- thus his really simple, fun list and my choice to play something that I knew backwards and forwards. He packed on relics and warlord traits, but the outcome was never any doubt. I lost two Warglaives the entire match and won by round 3. Game took 33 minutes all told, which is the fastest 40k game I think I've ever played. I was kind of annoyed, because while Nic consistently beats my win/loss ratio in tournaments while I pretty much win 60% of our practice matches, I can't really view this result as beating him in a tournament because he was playing such a fluffy list. Still, it was a fun game and I always enjoy fighting other Knights. 

 

Round 3 (Cleanse the Land)

Opponent - Cody (Druhkari)

Theme - FW fun (Tantalus, 2x Reapers, 2x Incubi squads in Venoms, Draz, Archon w/court)

Result - Loss, 77 - 79

Cody is one of my bugbears. He's a very, very good player- was in number 2 for Drukhari in ITC last year and has been in the top 3 for the last few local big (65-195 players) tournaments. Last time I played him in a tournament a couple of years ago he walloped my Necrons 97-40. Even with him playing a pretty fluffy list, he was a beast- the Reapers and Tantalus, while not especially great in the overall 9th edition meta, turned out to be very good against Knights, knocking down a couple of Armigers first turn and allowing his court to charge into my front lines and tie up two more Armigers for a couple of turns. Luckily, I managed to kill off Draz in an amazing display of Cody's dice totally failing him (failed 4/5 4+ invulns in melee...), so I was able to whittle him down over the last three turns. Unfortunately, my dice wound up betraying me and my last, 1-Wound left Armiger couldn't survive a Venom/Kabalite squad shooting attack and went down- if he had survived it wouldn't have been a 5-point swing in Cody's favor (2 for Bring it down and 3 for the mission secondary) and I might have pulled off a win. Anyway, it was a really good, close game that was fun to play.

 

Overall I wound up getting 2nd out of 6 and feeling that it was a great way to end the edition. It was a no pressure, no WAAC tournament that just made the end of 9th fun. Now on to 10th, I'm looking forward to it and seeing what my three main armies (Knights, Necrons, Primaris) will look like and play like. See you next time!

 

[Lord_Ikka]

Since the Cerastus Knights are now pretty good, my Atrapos is coming back and getting ready for battle. Currently looking at this for my list- 

 

2k Knights  (1990 points)
Imperial Knights
Strike Force (2000 points)
Noble Lance

CHARACTER

Cerastus Knight Atrapos (420 points)
  • 1x Atrapos lascutter
    1x Graviton singularity cannon
  • Enhancement: Mysterious Guardian

Knight Paladin (420 points)
  • 1x Icarus autocannons
    1x Questoris heavy stubber
    1x Questoris heavy stubber
    1x Rapid-fire battle cannon
    1x Reaper chainsword
  • Enhancement: Banner of Macharius Triumphant

Knight Warden (445 points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Avenger gatling cannon
    1x Heavy flamer
    1x Icarus autocannons
    1x Meltagun
    1x Thunderstrike gauntlet
  • Enhancement: Mythic Hero

BATTLELINE

Armiger Helverin (145 points)
  • 2x Armiger autocannon
    1x Armoured feet
    1x Questoris heavy stubber

Armiger Warglaive (140 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

Armiger Warglaive (140 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

Armiger Warglaive (140 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

Armiger Warglaive (140 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear