Grey Knights vs Imperial Knights

Disaster looms.

A unique challenge! Yesterday I played against Imperial Knights. Long range anti-tank is something my army sorely lacks, but I can usually make up for it with psychic powers and melee. Knights are arguably the pinnacle of tough units, though, so this match was going to put my capabilities to the test.

We played Vital Intelligence from the core book, which has a somewhat annoying set up as far as objectives and deployment goes.

Credit Games Workshop

Took us a minute to figure that out and set up terrain, but then we were ready to go. I bet it would be very annoying to set that kind of battlefield up at a tournament where everyone is pressed for time. I'm still a little disappointed about the order of operations for setting up a matched play game in 9th edition, which asks you to roll up the mission and place objective markers before creating the battlefield. I think this is good for balance reasons (so objectives aren't placed on top of buildings where only Eldar can reach them), but I usually love setting up a really intricate battlefield the night before complete with aquarium rocks and things.

Grey Knights list at the bottom of the page.

Today I swapped out a Dreadknight for an Astral Aim Venerable Dreadnought with twin-las and a missile launcher. I also traded in my Paladin Ancient with the Banner of Refining Flame to increase my mortal wound output. Him plus the Kamehameha Apothecary should be able to reliably bracket a Knight in the psychic phase, assuming everything goes well.

Unfortunately, due to my limited models, I had to once again bring my falchion Terminators (Squad Viscerion). Not only are they 20 points more than any of my other Terminator squads, but against Knights they were going to be wounding on 6s. I loaded them up with Hammerhand to hope for the best.

I had 28 points free after all was said and done, so I threw a unit of Servitors in there to take actions and hold objectives.

My overall plan here was to engage the Knights in melee as soon as possible and hold objectives where my opponent couldn't. I knew he'd be bringing only 4-6 models, so the shear number of tough ObSec bodies I had should've done really well for me. Unfortunately, Vital Intelligence has a special rule: "If you control an objective marker at the end of your Command phase, it remains under your control unless your opponent controls it at the end of any subsequent phase, even if you have no models within range of it." What this meant was the Knights had to just touch an objective to hold it forever, unless I dedicated units to take them back. From what I understand, one of the biggest weaknesses Knights face is holding objectives. This special rule helped them out a lot!

House Heartroot

Imperial Knights list at the bottom of the page.

What beautiful models. I've said this many times before on my blog, but my buddy Matthew is an exceptional hobbyist. All of these Knights are joys to behold.

A few things I noticed from his list that stuck out to me:

• There are a lot of characters with huge bases, and thus a lot of Heroic Intervention coverage across the board.
• The Helverin was going to be almost a non-factor. I intended on staying in the Tide of Shadows the whole game, so I'd always be saving on 2s against his autocannons.
• That Knight-Lancer was going to absolutely obliterate anything that got in Engagement Range with it.

I had to chew through exactly 99 wounds at T8 this game. I had my work cut out for me.

Raise the Banners High would turn out to be a poor choice of secondaries.

Rolling for attacker and defender ended with me getting the short end of the deployment stick, so I had to stuff all of my units behind a single ruin in case Matthew went first. He deployed very forward with his Knights.

My Paladins would go on to soak all of his turn one shooting, only losing two models in the process.

As seems to always be the case when playing Matthew, he got first turn! His Knights moved up the board without fear of exposing themselves. The Knight-Lancer went to engage the Dreadknight that I had placed separate from the rest of my forces.

A veritable wall of steel and guns.

Soaking overwatch.

 The Knight-Lancer proceeded to obliterate my Dreadknight. He never stood a chance. Any time I end up having to rely on Crux Terminatus saves it means I'm doomed.

As predicted, the Armiger's shooting was inconsequential. My entire army (except for the Dreadnought) had a 2+ save and was in cover the whole game. I safely ignored him.

My opponent's first turn killed one Dreadknight and two Paladins. This sucked, because my Dreadknight was the one rocking Hammerhand and would've been essential for my Paladins to reliably wound Knights in melee.

Oh shit.

Not that it mattered! I Gated my Paladins into his backline and failed my charge. I didn't place them in ruins because I had been relying on getting them into melee, which was dumb. The odds of succeeding a charge are low, and planning around a successful charge meant that I just left all my Paladins in the open with no support.

The two Knight Wardens turned around and began punishing my Paladins. I burned fully nine Command Points before my second turn even started just to try and keep my Paladins alive (2 for Transhuman Physiology, 4 for Redoubtable Defence twice, 1 to ensure a successful cast of Armoured Resilience, and 2 for rerolls).

It was semi-successful! Two Paladins were alive by the time my second turn rolled around, which... worth it, maybe? I had redirected two of the Wardens from smashing into my deployment zone, and hopefully clear them off of objectives.

On my second turn, my deep strikers arrived. I spread them out a bit to grab Engage on All Fronts. My Kamehameha Apothecary came in just behind the Paladins using Dynamic Insertion. I debated having him roll to revive a Paladin, but I didn't want to risk him being turned off for the rest of the turn and not casting Inner Fire. As always, The Sanctic Shard plus Inner Fire plus Powerful Adept worked fantastically and shaved 11 wounds off of one of the Knights. Just based on total number of wounds, my Apothecary destroyed 10% of Matthew's army in one psychic cast. That combo is so good. I love doing it, and I wonder why I never see it in other battle reports. It seems exceptional for such a small investment in points and CP.

My GMNDK and the squad of Terminators both succeeded at their charges, which was a nice shift! Unfortunately my GMNDK whiffed on his swings and only took 3 wounds off the Warden, leaving himself open for return punches. His 3++ from Sanctuary kept him alive, though.

Surrounded!

 In his second turn, Matthew moved his Knights into to tighten the noose on my Sons of Titan. The Paladins were all but gone, and my characters were spread out after the Terminators charged in. One Warden went after my Apothecary, and the other went after my GMNDK assisted by the Knight-Lancer.

My GMNDK fell. He simply could not stand against so many attacks wounding him on 2s. Especially from the Knight-Lancer. 8 damage is insane.

My Apothecary, however, soaked all of the incoming shooting and the Thunderstrike Gauntlet attacks with nothing but his 5++ Crux Terminatus. He swung back and felled the Warden that had charged him.

On my turn my Apothecary moved forward and vaporized the second Warden with Inner Fire (and some assistance from the Astral Aim VenDread across the board). He had two Knight kills to his name so far, and was looking to get a third with the Lancer.

Awesome detail 

A lone warrior stands resolute,

 The Knight-Lancer charged my Brother-Captain, who somehow managed to survive the lance that had slain my GMNDK. I only had a few characters left, but I was ratcheting the game back. Matthew only had two Knights left! Some clever Gating and movement, and I could win.

However, things fell apart on my fourth turn. My Apothecary stepped up to try and slay his third titan, and at the end of my Movement Phase I chose for him to use his Narthecium on himself to remove his lost wounds. In retrospect, I don't know why. Any hits that went through from the Knight-Lancer would have killed my Apothecary anyway. But I chose for him to heal himself, rather than the Paladin Ancient who had 1 wound left. When I went to cast the Paladin Ancient's Smite, he Perils'd. Two 1s. Normally I'd just let him take it, but the Perils would kill him and then he'd explode, damaging my Apothecary anyway and probably taking out my BroCap who was on 2 wounds. That would be two more characters dead, which would have given Matthew 6 more points. I couldn't let him have that, so I spent my last CP to reroll that Perils... into a failed check. The Smite didn't go off, and now I didn't have the CP to extend the range of Inner Fire beyond 1". So I dealt zero mortal wounds to the Knight-Lancer in the Psychic Phase. I had no chance of killing the Lancer now. My Apothecary charged in and took off 3 wounds.

Turn five lasted maybe ten minutes, and the battle was won decidely in favor of the Knights. It doesn't look like it, but I think it was pretty close! Once I took down the first Knight things became much more manageable. If I had succeeded that turn one charge with the Paladins, things would've been very different. More importantly, if that last Psychic Phase hadn't been such a huge blunder then I think I might've been able to almost tie it up. I would've claimed the two objective near the Knight-Lancer (+10 points) and I would've gotten +1 extra point from Engage on All Fronts at the end of my fifth turn. So... No, I still would've been short by 14 points. Gah! Raise the Banners High was such a poor choice. I don't know what I was thinking. When would I want a Terminator squad to sacrifice their whole turn performing an action?

All in all, this was a very fun game that taught me a lot. I need to reassess my strategy against giant-ass models! I don't have a whole lot that can deal with T8, except for my psychic powers.

You know what I need?

More Terminators.

THE 7th BROTHERHOOD - Grey Knights List

+ Stratagems +

• Armoury of Titan [-1CP]: 1 Additional Relic

+ HQ +

• Brother-Captain [7 PL, 118pts]: Storm Bolter, Nemesis Force Sword
• Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight [11 PL, 225pts]: 4: First to the Fray, Dreadfist, Dreadknight teleporter, Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Greatsword, Sanctuary, Warlord

+ Troops +

• Terminator Squad [11 PL, 190pts]: Gate of Infinity
• Grey Knight Terminator Justicar: Storm bolter, Nemesis Force Sword
• 2x Terminator (Halberd): 2x Nemesis Force Halberd, 2x Storm Bolter
• 2x Terminator (Sword): 2x Nemesis Force Sword, 2x Storm Bolter
• Terminator Squad [11 PL, 190pts]: Gate of Infinity
• Grey Knight Terminator Justicar: Storm bolter, Nemesis Force Halberd
• 4x Terminator (Halberd): 4x Nemesis Force Halberd, 4x Storm Bolter
• Terminator Squad [11 PL, 206pts]: Hammerhand
• Grey Knight Terminator Justicar: Storm bolter, Nemesis Falchions: 2x Nemesis Falchion
• 3x Terminator (Falchions): 6x Nemesis Falchion, 3x Storm Bolter
• Terminator (Sword): Storm Bolter

+ Elites +

• Apothecary [5 PL, 95pts]: Inner Fire, Sanctic Shard, Nemesis Daemon Hammer
• Paladin Ancient [6 PL, 103pts]: Banner of Refining Flame, Storm Bolter: Storm Bolter
• Paladin Squad [30 PL, 515pts]: Sanctuary
• 7x Paladin (Halberd): 7x Nemesis Force Halberd, 7x Storm Bolter
• 2x Paladin (Warding Stave): 2x Nemesis Warding Stave, 2x Storm Bolter
• Paragon: Storm Bolter, Nemesis Daemon Hammer:
• Servitors [2 PL, 28pts]
• 4x Servitor
• Venerable Dreadnought [8 PL, 155pts]: Astral Aim, Missile launcher, Twin lascannon

+ Heavy Support +

• Nemesis Dreadknight [9 PL, 175pts]: Dreadfist, Dreadfist, Gatling Psilencer, Hammerhand, Heavy Incinerator

+Secondaries+

• Titan Slayer
• Engage on All Fronts
• Raise the Banners High

++ Total: [111 PL, 11CP, 2,000pts] ++

HOUSE HEARTROOT - Matthew's Imperial Knights List

Household Choice: Questor Mechanicus . House Krast

+ Stratagems +

• Exalted Court [-1CP]: Exalted Court: 1 Extra Warlord Trait
• Heirlooms of the Household [-1CP]: Heirlooms of the Household: 1 Extra Heirloom

+ Lord of War +

• Armiger Helverins [9 PL, 175pts] . Armiger Helverin: Heavy Stubber
• Cerastus Knight-Lancer [23 PL, 460pts]
• Knight Paladin [24 PL, 500pts]: Character (Knight Lance), Heavy Stubber, Stormspear Rocket Pod, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord, Warlord Trait (Krast): First Knight . Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon w/ Heavy Stubber: Heavy Stubber, Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon
• Knight Warden [23 PL, 435pts]: Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: Endless Fury, Thunderstrike gauntlet
• Knight Warden [23 PL, 430pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: Armour of the Sainted Ion, Reaper Chainsword, Warlord Trait: Blessed by the Sacristans

+ Secondaries +

• Abhor the Witch
• Attrition
• Assassinate

++ Total: [102 PL, 10CP, 2,000pts] ++