Friendly Tournament... or not.

[Focslain]

So going to my first official 40K tournament of 10th this weekend. Taking the knights because they have been over performing in my local group so I wanted a challenge. It’s a 2K, three round affair with custom primaries. They are using the Leviathan secondaries, with the deployments and mission rules per selected. List in the spoiler.

 

House walk (1995 points)
Imperial Knights
Strike Force (2000 points)
Noble Lance

 

CHARACTER

 

Knight Castellan (585 points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Plasma decimator
    1x Shieldbreaker missile launcher
    1x Titanic feet
    2x Twin meltagun
    1x Twin siegebreaker cannon
    1x Twin siegebreaker cannon
    1x Volcano lance
  • Enhancement: Revered Knight (Aura)

Knight Paladin (490 points)
  • 1x Questoris heavy stubber
    1x Questoris heavy stubber
    1x Rapid-fire battle cannon
    1x Reaper chainsword
    1x Stormspear rocket pod
  • Enhancement: Unyielding Paragon


BATTLELINE

Armiger Helverin (150 points)
  • 2x Armiger autocannon
    1x Armoured feet
    1x Questoris heavy stubber

Armiger Helverin (150 points)
  • 2x Armiger autocannon
    1x Armoured feet
    1x Questoris heavy stubber

Armiger Moirax (170 points)
  • 1x Armoured feet
    1x Lightning lock
    1x Rad cleanser
    1x Siege claw

Armiger Warglaive (150 points)
  • 1x Questoris heavy stubber
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

Armiger Warglaive (150 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

Armiger Warglaive (150 points)
  • 1x Meltagun
    1x Reaper chain-cleaver
    1x Thermal spear

 

I’ve done two test games against my friend’s Chaos Knights that he is going to use for this. He wanted the practice since he really hasn’t played much 10th and this was going to be his first bout in 10th with his knights. His list was as follows:

 

Despoiler - Double Battlecannon
Abominate
Rampager
2x Huntsmen
1 Executioner
1 Carnivore

 

First game was a wipe by turn 2 as was normal for my knights. It was Dawn of War deployment, got first turn, the Despoiler went down to focused fire from the Castellan. Paladin and the helverins critically wounded the rampager while the other armigars wounded most of the wardogs.  I managed to keep the distance between the paladin and the rampager, plus a poor advance roll kept him out of combat. The carnivore and a huntsman cornered a warglaive and took it down. My moriax survived fire from most of his army. Next round the castellan moved up and one-shotted the abominate with the volcano lance. The ramager dropped to fire from a helverin, a wardog to the other and the paladin nuked a second. The warglaive I had on the flank engaged the pair of wardogs that killed it’s squadmate and killed the huntsman with the thermal and meleed the carnivore.

 

Hot rolls on my part helped, but sweet emperor it was  a slaughter.

 

Second game he swapped the abominate for a desecrator, we also had corner deployment. While i got first turn again, he did better this time with a focus flank that caught most of my armigars. Amazingly my paladin survived a tag team between the rampager and descecrator. He managed to take out all my warglaives and the paladin was down to two wounds, but by my turn four he only had a huntsman left staring down my castellan. 

 

I haven’t had a chance to fight others with the army, at least post balance update. As long as the dice gods, and pairing gods, are kind to me I should do pretty well. Hoping for top five.

 

As a side note, I faced the chaos knight player twice more, once with guard and then Tau. Neither game ended well for him, but it got him the practice he needed. 

 

I will do my best to get pictures of the fights. For a look at the army in general there are pictures of the models in this thread

[Xenith]

On 9/26/2023 at 6:24 PM, Focslain said:

First game was a wipe by turn 2 as was normal for my knights

 

Ah, sweet game balance!

 

Good luck, not that you need it it seems! 

[Focslain]

6 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

Ah, sweet game balance!

 

Good luck, not that you need it it seems! 

I'm working on the report now, but....

 

TL:DR - Went 2-1, had my mechanical butt handed to me by an eldar player at the start, got an easy win against a player that was borrowing an eldar army, then a win against a SM player with a vehicle heavy force. 

[Xenith]

On 10/2/2023 at 9:48 PM, Focslain said:

easy win against a player that was borrowing an eldar army

 

[Focslain]

Sorry for the delay, between work and being sick this took some time to compose.

 

So had fun at the charity tournament last weekend. Went 2-1, only lose was to an Aeldari list which if your going to lose, might as well be to top tier. I also didn’t get any pictures as this was a timed event and wanted to get in a full game if possible. In hindsight that wasn’t an issue in my later two, just the first. These were also custom missions using the secondaries from the leviathan deck so I’ll include the scoring sheets I have modded for the special mission as needed. I do have at least a picture of the field for each game as the TO took pictures and posted to FB, bless him.

 

Other notes about the tournament, there were 28 players, of which I placed 9th. The top three were, GSC, Necrons, and nids. The top eldar player (the guy I fought in game 1) only got 6th. I’ll include the score sheet after the round report. 

 

First round was against Aedlari, I hadn’t actually fought them in 10th yet, so this was an eye opener. His list from what I can remember:

Round 1 (1970 points)
Aeldari
Strike Force (2000 points)
Battle Host

CHARACTERS
Avatar of Khaine (335 points)
  • 1x The Wailing Doom
Death Jester (90 points)
  • 1x Jester’s blade
    1x Shrieker cannon
Farseer (80 points)
  • 1x Eldritch Storm
    1x Shuriken pistol
    1x Witchblade
Illic Nightspear (70 points)
  • 1x Aeldari power sword
    1x Shuriken pistol
    1x Voidbringer
Spiritseer (80 points)
  • 1x Shuriken pistol
    1x Witch staff
  • Enhancement: Fate’s Messenger 
The Yncarne (350 points)
  • 1x Swirling soul energy
    1x Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls

OTHER DATASHEETS
Lynx (180 points)
  • 1x Lynx pulsar
    1x Shuriken cannon
    1x Wraithbone hull
Rangers (110 points)
  • 10x Ranger
    • 10x Close combat weapon
      10x Ranger long rifle
      10x Shuriken pistol
Rangers (55 points)
  • 5x Ranger
    • 5x Close combat weapon
      5x Ranger long rifle
      5x Shuriken pistol
Rangers (55 points)
  • 5x Ranger
    • 5x Close combat weapon
      5x Ranger long rifle
      5x Shuriken pistol
Swooping Hawks (75 points)
  • 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
    • 1x Close combat weapon
      1x Lasblaster
  • 4x Swooping Hawk
    • 4x Close combat weapon
      4x Lasblaster
Swooping Hawks (75 points)
  • 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
    • 1x Close combat weapon
      1x Lasblaster
  • 4x Swooping Hawk
    • 4x Close combat weapon
      4x Lasblaster
Swooping Hawks (75 points)
  • 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
    • 1x Close combat weapon
      1x Lasblaster
  • 4x Swooping Hawk
    • 4x Close combat weapon
      4x Lasblaster
Wraithguard (340 points)
  • 10x Wraithguard
    • 10x Close combat weapon
      10x Wraithcannon

 

 

I got first turn, but he had hide his wraithguard behind a large building. I moved up a bit, knowing I didn’t have a charge and wanted to give him a long charge if I could. I managed to take out a ranger squad, maul another one, cripple the lynx and wound the Avatar.  Since he didn’t start with any units on objectives, I failed in Overwhelming force and only scored once on No Prisoners. He on the other hand drew like a champ, getting Secure No Man’s Land and Cleanse. So after passing all his battleshock, used a hawk unit and the now two man ranger squad to clease the objectives on obosite, then moved the wraithblob to the center objective. He focus fired and destroyed the moriax which was next to my castellan to pop the Yncarne in it’s place. The wraithguard then erased one of the helverins. The Avatar charged a warglaive and dropped it with ease. I lucked out in the Yncarne needed 5s to wound the castellan, only scoring one wound and a low damage one at that. The castellan killed the avatar with the lance, got in some more damage with the plasma and missiles into the lynx, but failed to hit the ycarne with the meltas. The remaining warglaive facing the avatar turned to engage the Yncarne and failed to hit with it’s weapons, both ranged and after charging, melee. The Yncarne beat it to a pulp in response, but that was one turn it didn’t attack the castellan. The helverin did nothing to the lynx, trying to finish it off. The warglaive on the far flank wiped out a squad of hawks between shooting and assault. I had moved the paladin close to the wraithguard blob and made a bad decision. I didn’t fire fearing the shoot back, I did charge in and only managed to kill one due to the -1 to wound and trying for a sweep shot. 

 

His response wasn’t as deadly, kind of. While he didn’t do any damage in melee he fell the wraithguard back, using the strat to fire and killed the other helverin to complete a secondary. The lynx managed to nearly cripple the last warglaive with a few lucky shots. The Yncarne got a good hit on the castellan bringing it to half. At this point I was like frak it. Marched the warglaive after the lynx, failing to get a hit, but within assault range. The castelling got a hit on the Yncarne, but he just fated the save. The missile missed the Lynx and everything else pumped into the wraithguard. I got six of them down and they fired on the paladin. He got three good hits, but not enough to kill it. The paladin killed three more in shooting and the spiritseer and last one in melee. The Yncarne got another good hit in bringin the castellan below half health. The warglaive managed to assault the lynx (just barely) and finished it off, which it then exploded and killed the warglaive. Final round was called and he spent his last turn grabbing secondaries and nearly killing the castellan (down to 4 wounds). 

 

Not my best work or start to this, but it was bloody. His death jester kept hiding from the warglaive, which kept it out of position, so ok. 

 

Scoring:

Game 2
So I was dropped to the lower bracket due to my lose, next up was Aeldari again, but not as deadly… kind of. The guy was there for the auction and a buddy of his loaned him a force to play with at the tournament. Something ‘easy’ that he didn’t have to think much on. 

Round 2 (1980 points)
Aeldari
Strike Force (2000 points)
Battle Host

CHARACTERS
Death Jester (90 points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Jester’s blade
    1x Shrieker cannon

OTHER DATASHEETS
Revenant Titan (1100 points)
  • 1x Cloudburst missile launcher
    1x Revenant feet
    1x Revenant pulsar
    1x Sonic lance
Scorpion (410 points)
  • 1x Shuriken cannon
    1x Twin Scorpion pulsar
    1x Wraithbone hull
Warlock Conclave (60 points)
  • 2x Warlock
    • 2x Destructor
      2x Shuriken pistol
      2x Witchblade
Wraithlord (160 points)
  • 2x Aeldari flamer
    2x Bright lance
    1x Ghostglaive
    1x Wraithbone fists
Wraithlord (160 points)
  • 2x Aeldari flamer
    2x Bright lance
    1x Ghostglaive
    1x Wraithbone fists

 

 

Yeah, you read that right, I was surprised as well. I helped him thru the motions as he was still a new player overall, at least in the mechanics. If he moved something wrong I wasn’t going to stop him tactically. So anyway there was lots of blocking terrain on these boards. Made sure to set up with only one or two fire lanes. Then after he got first turn found out the titan had close range weapons… so he rushed it. Then fired all of it against the front of my lines, being the paladin. Thankfully due to cover and Unyielding paragon I was dealing with 4+ saves without having to rotate. With both rerolls I only took 11 damage, bless the ominmessiah. He had moved his wraithlords and deathjester out towards objectives, the warlocks moving to do investigate signals. The wraiths didn’t do much thanks to their lower BS and he rolled poorly for the scorpion against the single helverin he could see, scoring only one wound which I lucked into only feeling half of it.

 

I closed in with most of my army, hitting it with everything from the castellan, paladin, warglaive, and helverin but only managed 13 wounds. On the other side of the field, a warglaive cripples one of the wraithlords and the helverin returns fire against the scorpion, scoring two solid hits. The paladin and a warglaive charged the titan, the paladin getting in three heavy strikes and cleaved the Revenant in two. So glad those thing’s invals are ranged only. To top it off he didn’t explode either. A warglaive did the same to the wounded wraithlord, clearing the flank. Since he had both No prisoners and assassinate as secondaries he focused on the paladin. His jester climbing the central building to avoid getting caught in melee and to get plunging. Which didn’t really help considering with devastating his 6’s would auto-pen. Between the wraithlord, scorpion, and jester he only did four more wounds to the paladin.  

 

I closed in with some of my force, holding back two armigars in case i needed some-one at the home objective for secondaires. The moriax and paladin closed into striking distance of the death jester, between the moraix and paladin’s heavy stubbers the jester was taken out. More fire was pumped into the scorpion dropping it to near death. His last wraithlord moved to engage the paladin, wanting to kill at least it. It was shot dead by a lucky overwatch shot from the nearby warglaive. Six to hit with the thermal, with lethal (bonded), failed save and got a six on the damage… within melta range.  No more wraithlords. The wounded scorpion fails to get a shot thru the paladin’s shields and it was over, the paladin returned fire and detonated the scorpion, causing damage to a nearby warglaive and killing the pair of warlocks, we both had forgotten about. I spent the next two turns scoring what secondaries I could because i actually had time. 

 

Scoring:

Game 3
Next was an Iron hands force, list below:

Round 3 (1945 points)
Space Marines
Iron Hands
Strike Force (2000 points)
Gladius Task Force

CHARACTERS
Apothecary Biologis (80 points)
  • 1x Absolvor bolt pistol
    1x Close combat weapon
  • Enhancement: Bolter Discipline
Iron Father Feirros (95 points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Bolt Pistol
    1x Gorgon’s Wrath
    1x Harrowhand
    1x Medusan Manipuli
Primaris Techmarine (65 points)
  • 1x Forge bolter
    1x Grav-pistol
    1x Omnissian power axe
    1x Servo-arm

BATTLELINE

Intercessor Squad (85 points)
  • 1x Intercessor Sergeant
    • 1x Bolt pistol
      1x Bolt rifle
      1x Thunder hammer
  • 4x Intercessor
    • 4x Bolt pistol
      4x Bolt rifle
      4x Close combat weapon
Intercessor Squad (85 points)
  • 1x Intercessor Sergeant
    • 1x Astartes chainsword
      1x Bolt pistol
      1x Bolt rifle
  • 4x Intercessor
    • 4x Bolt pistol
      4x Bolt rifle
      4x Close combat weapon
Intercessor Squad (85 points)
  • 1x Intercessor Sergeant
    • 1x Astartes chainsword
      1x Bolt pistol
      1x Bolt rifle
  • 4x Intercessor
    • 4x Bolt pistol
      4x Bolt rifle
      4x Close combat weapon

OTHER DATASHEETS
Aggressor Squad (200 points)
  • 1x Aggressor Sergeant
    • 1x Auto boltstorm gauntlets
      1x Fragstorm grenade launcher
      1x Power fist
  • 4x Aggressor
    • 4x Auto boltstorm gauntlets
      4x Fragstorm grenade launcher
      4x Power fist
Gladiator Reaper (150 points)
  • 1x Armoured hull
    2x Tempest bolter
    1x Twin heavy onslaught gatling cannon
Inceptor Squad (115 points)
  • 1x Inceptor Sergeant
    • 1x Close combat weapon
      1x Plasma exterminators
  • 2x Inceptor
    • 2x Close combat weapon
      2x Plasma exterminators
Inceptor Squad (115 points)
  • 1x Inceptor Sergeant
    • 1x Close combat weapon
      1x Plasma exterminators
  • 2x Inceptor
    • 2x Close combat weapon
      2x Plasma exterminators
Land Raider (240 points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
    2x Godhammer lascannon
    1x Twin heavy bolter
Redemptor Dreadnought (210 points)
  • 1x Icarus rocket pod
    1x Macro plasma incinerator
    1x Onslaught gatling cannon
    1x Redemptor fist
    1x Twin storm bolter
Redemptor Dreadnought (210 points)
  • 1x Icarus rocket pod
    1x Macro plasma incinerator
    1x Onslaught gatling cannon
    1x Redemptor fist
    1x Twin storm bolter
Redemptor Dreadnought (210 points)
  • 1x Icarus rocket pod
    1x Macro plasma incinerator
    1x Onslaught gatling cannon
    1x Redemptor fist
    1x Twin storm bolter

 

 

So he had his Reaper and techmarine on one flank, the landraider and a redemptor in the center and two redemptors, Ferros and an intercessor squad on the other flank, two other intercessor units in the back corners, one holding his home objective. He got first turn and oathed one of my helverins, which died to combined fire from the land raider and redemptor. On the flank with the dreads, one warglaive was critically wounded by fire from that group. Two warglaives and the moriax assaulted the position, the moraix taking out most of the intercessors, one warglaive critically wounded a redemptor and the other was close enough to target Ferros and melt him to slag with a well placed thermal shot. The pair then assaulted the wounded dread and the intercessor, killing both and causing the dread to explode and took the warglaive with him. The remaining redemptor tried to blast the remaining wargliaive, but failed to do damage to the warglaive, failing his hazardous as well. On the charge I overwatched and managed to hit and wound with the thermal, taking the dread out in a lucky series of events. The warglaive went to assault the enemy homebase, killing the other techmarine with a thermal shot before assaulting the intercessors huddled in the ruins of the objective, killing them over two turns.

 

The moriax moved to assist the center, there the paladin had taken a shrapnel hit from the destroyed helverin. It moved up to engage the armoured column, the castellan providing fire support as it focused and destroyed the land raider. The aggressor unt dropped out into the paladin’s fire, losing only two before the knight charged the redemptor. The Emperor protected it as the reaper chain sword glanced off its armour (1 hit, no wound). The dread only gave a glancing blow in return. The dread backed off to hit the paladin with it’s main weapon, the knight being the next oath target. The player went fishing for 5+ for lethals, only two getting thru the knight’s armour. The dread charged back in and did a bit more damage and the paladin wiff again on the return swing. I backed the paladin away, but still on the center objective, the castellan popped the dread with the lance and wiped out the aggessors with the plasma cannon.  

 

On the other flank, after taking a good five wounds from the shredding fire of the reaper, the warglaive moved up with a helverin in tow. The helverin failed to pen the tanks armour, but the warglaive melted it to slag. It then went to hunt down the last intercessor squad and grab that objective.

 

By turn 3 the iron hands player pretty much gave up and we mathed out the last two turns. He didn’t bother deploying the inceptors as he didn’t think they would do anything to effect the battle. 

 

Scoring:

 

Overall not bad.

 

Getting into the top ten and managed to walk away with a Valkyrie from the silent auction ran during the tournament. Technically also nab a ridgerunner, but passed it to my sister who is working on GSC shortly and she didn’t win anything (also placed 22nd as nids, but none of her games got to turn 3 due to time). 

 

After this I’m going to let the army rest as I need to practice with Tau for an event in december and I’m going to bring them and marines to the next charity event next month. 
 

[Lord_Ikka]

Thanks for the report, always good to see Knights on the field!