About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

Featured Post

Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Konor Campaign is not fixed!

I've heard accusations from many people that the Konor Campaign is "fixed" and that Games Workshop had skewed it toward an Imperial victory. Fortunately, the Regimental Standard cleared up the issue.

Greetings, Guardsman! It has been deemed tactically prudent to allow Drenthal to fall into the hands of the Archenemy while we consolidate our forces elsewhere.*

* Please note that talk suggesting the campaign is somehow “a fix” or that the results were decided ahead of time are seditious and will be dealt with as such.

So yeah. Games Workshop didn't fix the campaign! Any heretic who suggests otherwise shall be dealt with in an appropriate manner in the form of my plasma pistol. I will be happy to fufil my Commissariat duties and keep an eye out for such libel! The Emperor Protects! And there is only one Imperial Truth!

Anyway, I hope I can pull something off with my Imperial Knights on Saturday for the last Konor mission. It seems to be for Lords of War...and that's exactly the Battlefield Role of my Imperial Knights!

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Revenge match

So I finally got my revenge match against Tau, and ugh...it was much closer than the last game, admittedly, but I still lost. Ouch.

Okay, let's first start with the list. I made sure to remember what my opponent brought. It was a Battalion Detachment and a Vanguard Detachment. 3 squads of 5 Fire Warriors, 2 squads of 10 Pathfinders, Farsight with 2 plasma rifles, 2 Commanders with 4 fusion blasters each (yeah, I didn't know they could do that), 3 Crisis suits with 3 plasma rifles each, 3 Crisis suits with cyclic ion blasters, another 3 Crisis suits with plasma rifles (I think), a whole bunch of gun drones and shield drones, and 1 Stormsurge with shield generator, stimulant injector, target lock or automatic targeting array, and a bunch of upgrades.

This time I brought 3 Onager Dunecrawlers with Icarus Array, with a Tech-priest Dominus to babysit them. Accompanying them are three Imperial Knights, a Knight Errant with Stormspear rocket pod, a Knight Warden with twin Icarus autocannon, and a Knight Paladin with Stormspear rocket pod.

The mission was the comet one, and we drew an Acid Rain card, which meant everyone had -1 to their hit rolls. Oh boy, that was really bad.

My opponent and I rolled off to see who would go first, and he won. I, unfortunately, failed to seize the initiative. Not that it would matter. Anyway, all the Crisis Suits, drones, Commanders and Farsight were placed in Deep Strike.

Turn 1

Thanks to the -1 to hits because of Acid Rain, it was an uneventful turn. My opponent was wary of the -1 to hits, so he did not Deep Strike his Crisis Suits, Commanders and Drones. He fired a few stuff, didn't hit much with his markerlights. I think his Stormsurge put 2 wounds on one Onager Dunecrawler, but that was about it.

My Knights went up the board, and I fired whatever I could with my Icarus arrays. However, thanks to the -1 to hit, my Onager Dunecrawlers were hitting on 5+ and I didn't do much damage. I only wiped out one Pathfinder squad (first blood!), 2 or 3 Fire Warriors and put a few wounds (4) on the Stormsurge.

Turn 2

My opponent rolled and the Acid Rain stopped! WOOHOO! Uh, no. Not good. Not good at all.

Basically, he Deep Striked Farsight and 3 Crisis suits with plasma rifles right behind my Tech-priest Dominus, then the remaining Crisis Suits, the 2 Commanders with fusion blasters right in front of my Onager Dunecrawlers and Knight. I can't remember much, but I think he managed to wound one of my Onager Dunecrawlers to 4 wounds or something, I can't remember. What I do remember is that he killed my Tech-priest Dominus with Farsight and the plasma rifle Crisis suits. Ouch. And I think he put a couple of wounds on my Knight Paladin.

I advanced my Knights, continued firing and killed a few more Pathfinders, and I took a few potshots at the Crisis Suits. I think I managed to kill one cyclic ion blaster Crisis suit and a whole bunch of drones. Not so bad, especially with one Onager Dunecrawler half-dead. Ugh.

Turn 3

My opponent continued pummeling the remaining Onager Dunecrawlers, and he killed two of them, including the wounded one. I don't think his Stormsurge wounded my Knights, and he ended up charging Farsight and the Crisis suits into my Onager Dunecrawler, but they failed to kill him in combat. Heh! I can't remember if it was in this turn that my opponent killed my Knight Paladin or in the next turn.

My Knights continued advancing up the table, and I reduced the Pathfinders to just 3 with my Knight Warden's shooting. I also wiped out the cyclic ion blaster Crisis suit squad, finally. I charged the Stormsurge and managed to stomp him to 4 wounds. I left my Onager Dunecrawler in combat, and he somehow survived!

Turn 4

So the Stormsurge fell back, as did the Crisis suits and Farsight, and they blew up my Onager Dunecrawler. Finally. I think we rolled for the comet because we forgot the comet last turn, and it was in the center of the table. Whoops. Well, anyway, I lost my Onager Dunecrawler and then they went and attacked my Knight Paladin and also destroyed him. I think. Or I lost him in the previous turn. I can't remember.

I killed the plasma rifle Crisis suits and the remaining drones, leaving just the 2 Commanders with fusion blasters behind, and then had my Knight Warden charge into the Crisis suits and my Knight Errant into the Stormsurge, and I killed the Stormsurge in combat. Yay! On the other hand, 1 Crisis suit survived melee with 1 wound, I think. Or maybe he didn't take any wounds. I think that was it.

Turn 5

I don't know what happened next, but basically the Commanders and Farsight killed my Knight Warden with their shooting and...BOOM! Every one of them took a mortal wound, and I think all the drones died. The Commanders took about 3 and 5 each, and somehow survived, the lone Crisis suit with the plasma rifle took 1 or 2 mortal wounds, and Farsight only took 2 mortal wounds. Oh wow. One Commander had gone down to snatch the objective with the plasma rifle Crisis suit.

My Knight Errant then moved on and fired. He erased the 3 Pathfinders with his heavy stubbers, and then using his Stormspear rocket pod did 2 wounds to the Crisis Commander with 3 wounds who had flown down to capture the objective, reducing him to just one wound. UGH. The thermal cannon vaporized the Crisis suit with the plasma rifles, so there was that.

And then my opponent won because he had the comet. Ugh. If I had roll a 3 or more with the D6 damage of the  Stormspear rocket pod, I would have forced it to a drew because neither of us would have anything on the objective. As it was, my opponent just barely scraped a victory. I still had one single Knight Errant standing, I killed his Stormsurge, Pathfinders and wiped out his Crisis suit teams, and he only had Fire Warriors, Farsight and 2 Commanders left. Oh well. It was a much closer game than last week, at least. I did succeed in killing his Stormsurge, so that felt good.

I wonder what I should have done to win the game. Maybe change up my units and not rely on my Knights so much? Hmm...

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Adeptus Mechanicus Index Tactics

Hello, fellow servants of the Machine-god! Today we will review the myraid of ways to kill our enemy with the blessed, exotic weapons bestowed upon us by the Omnissiah. I know we have a codex coming right up in September, close after the Codex: Death Guard release, but to tide the legions of the Omnissiah, I have decided to prepare this article for you.

No, it's not because I'm too lazy to do my pre-semester preparation for my graduate courses. My faith in the Omnissiah is too strong for that. Anyway, let's get down to it.

Differences between 7th and 8th Edition

The first difference that jumps out to us immediately when we switch over to 8th Edition is that our Adeptus Mechanicus factions have been combined into one army. That's right. We no longer carry around separate codexes for Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus. It's all Adeptus Mechanicus, baby! And even better, apparently the new codex that is gonna drop (and I will write a new review and tactics post for that one) will feature Questor Mechanicus, or basically Mechanicus Knights in addition to our existing Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus forces! WOOHOO!

One other noteworthy difference is that Skitarii has lost Doctrina Imperatives. That's right. No longer can you add 1 to your Ballistic Skill or Weapon Skill, or add 2/3 at the cost of 1/2 to the other skill. It used to make Skitarii more flavorful, but let's face it. 8th Edition is about cutting the bloat and getting rid of fancy rules. Besides, we might actually get it back in our codex, in the form of Forge World bonuses/tactics/traits.

Another thing is that the Canticles of the Omnissiah have been nerfed. Before you start crying about this, take note that this still makes Adeptus Mechanicus a very strong and viable army. Just because the Canticles are not as insane as they were in 7th Edition doesn't mean they are suddenly terrible now. It's a totally different edition, with none of those crazy Formations or whatever, so don't be disheartened. To be honest, I have to admit that the Canticles are basically useless. I never use them in my games. Perhaps I should learn to use them...but other than Shroudpsalm, they are pretty lackluster. Do take note that your entire Detachment has to be Adeptus Mechanicus in order to use Canticles of the Omnissiah. So if you take a Leman Russ tank for Heavy Support, you lose the Canticles. No big deal, to be honest.

Oh, and while Skitarii lost their Feel No Pain, they have 6++ invulnerable saves. No, actually, the whole army has a 6++ invulnerable save, including Kataphron Destroyers and Breachers. Kastelan Robots and Onager Dunecrawlers have 5++ invulnerable saves. And while we're add it, I might as well add the Imperial Knights' 4++ invulnerable saves in the form of the ion shield. Come on, we all know they're in the new codex, so let's just include them. But yeah, everything has at least 6++ invulnerable saves. Even the Tech-priest Enginseer, who's Astra Militarum, gets that sweet 6++ invulnerable save. Only the Servitors don't, but who cares about them? Can you say awesome?

No more Dunestrider, but the units have their movement buffed. Sicarian Infiltrators and Sicarian Ruststalkers now move 8" instead 9", which is fair, while Ironstrider Ballistarii and Sydonian Dragoons move a whooping 10". On the other hand, they lose their bonus to their charge distances, but giving Deep Striking Sicarian Infiltrators a +3 to their charge distance is a bit overpowered.

Faction Keywords

Do I really need a section for this? In addition to Imperium and Adeptus Mechanicus, each unit has a Forge World keyword, which will make a difference in the new codex. I can't wait to see what different strategies each Forge World has. Mars will be awesome! And you can pair them with House Taranis! And I think you will have Metallica and House Raven too. I'm so looking forward to this!

Ah, and apparently Skitarii still have the Skitarii Keywords and Cult Mechanicus have the Cult Mechanicus Keywords, which...don't really do anything, in my opinion. Not that I'm complaining. I'm so happy that everyone is now one big army, the Adeptus Mechanicus!

Canticles of the Omnissiah

All units with the ability gain a bonus during the battle depending on the Canticle of Omnissiah currently being canted. Take note you an pick which Canticle to use at the start of each battle round, so even if your opponent starts first, it'll be in effect during his turn and ends after your turn ends! So make sure to have Shroudpsalm in effect!

You can choose each Canticle once, unfortunately. Or you can randomly determine which Canticle of Omnissiah is in effect by rolling a D6 - if you do this, then you can use the same Canticle twice if you managed to roll it again. Groovy. Go get Belisarius Cawl.

And as I said earlier, if you have a Battle-forged army, units only receive the bonus if every model in their Detachment has this ability. So don't sneak in a Techmarine or Dreadnaught or Leman Russ tank into your Detachment. Baneblades and Shadowswords work, though! Since they'll be taken in a different detachment called the Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment. Same goes for Imperial Knights, who have their own Super-heavy Detachment.

1. Incantation of the Iron Soul: You can re-roll failed Morale tests for affected units. Given how my Skitarii infantry collapsed after sustaining heavy losses...I think this is useful.

2. Litany of the Electromancer: Roll a D6 for each enemy unit that is within 1" of any affected units. On a roll of 6, the unit being rolled for suffers D3 mortal wounds. This is a nice bonus if you're playing Electro-priests and Sicarian heavy. Throw your Sicarian Infiltrators and Sicarian Ruststalkers into combat and lock up as many units as possible to throw out mortal wounds! On the other hand, with only a 1/6 chance of getting this, it's unlikely. Still a nice bonus if you pull it off, though.

3. Chant of the Remorseless Fist: You can re-roll any failed hit rolls of 1 for affected units in the Fight phase. Again, a pretty good bonus if your army has lots of melee units like Electo-priests and Sicarian Infiltrators and Sicarian Ruststalkers. Or even Kastelan Fists Kastelan Robots. :)

4. Shroudpsalm: Affected units gain the bonus to their armor saving throws as if they were in cover. Well, doesn't affect units already in cover, but granting your Kastelan Robots and Onager Dunecrawlers a 2+ armor save is sweet. Best Canticle of the Omnissiah right here. Never fails to make me happy.

5. Invocation of Machine Might: Affected units have +1 Strength. Awesome. Another useful ability for combat. Eh, what? So the Adeptus Mechanicus is actually a melee army in secret?

6. Benediction of the Omnissiah: You can re-roll failed hit rolls of 1 for affected units in the Shooting phase. This is also another useful Canticle of the Omnissiah, except that your Tech-priest Dominus already provides an aura that does exactly the same thing. Save it for when your Tech-priest Dominus is killed, or if you have units out of range of the aura that really needs these re-rolls.

Forge Worlds

No, not the online shop offshoot of Gamesworkshop that sells expensive resin models. Yes, I'm going to buy the Battle-automata from them one day once they release Imperial Armor: Fires of Cyraxus. But what Forge World does is probably grant your Adeptus Mechanicus armies specific bonuses or traits similar to that of Adeptus Astartes's Chapter Tactics or Heretic Astartes's Legion Traits. Looking forward to this when the new codex drops!

Unit Anaylsis

HQ

Belisarius Cawl: The awesome Archmagos from the Triumvirate of the Imperium. Remember when you first bought him during the Fall of Cadia? I do. Now he's back! He's a beefy beatstick, with 2+ for both BS and WS and also his armor save! He has a whooping 8 wounds and Toughness 6, so it's going to take a lot of firepower to bring him down, and even if you bust through his 2+ armor save, he has a 5++ invulnerable save. And even if you do wound him, he can heal D3 wounds at the beginning of each of my turn. Heh. He's no slouch in melee either, with Strength 5 and 4 Attacks, which will effectively mean 4 Strength 6 Attacks at AP -2 and 2 damage with his Omnissian Axe. With his Mechadendrite hive, he can make 2D6 additional attacks with his normal Strength 5, but only at AP 0 and 1 damage. Still good against hordes. He also has an arc scourge that doubles his Strength to 10 and has AP -1, but only 1 damage against non-vehicles. However, it does D3 damage against vehicles, so it's still pretty awesome. Don't throw him against a Knight and expect him to survive, though.

But that's not why you're taking him. Nope, you're taking him for his shooting aura and support abilities. He can repair any friendly Adeptus Mechanicus model with D3 wounds within 3" - I'm looking at you, Onager Dunecrawlers and Kataphron Destroyers - and allow any friendly Mars units within 6" to re-roll any hit rolls in the shooting phase. Suddenly your Kastelan Robots are a lot deadlier with their Protector Protocol. Oh, and you can add or subtract 1 when rolling on the Canticles of the Omnissiah table, just so you can get that Shroudpsalm again.

His shooting is cool, I mean for a 12" Assault D3, it puts out a lot of firepower. Strength 10 AP -4 and D3 Damage is nothing to sneeze at. And if your target is within 6", it does D6 Damage instead. Wow.

People say he's a must-take, but I've been playing fine without him. Probably because my main army is Imperial Knights.

Tech-priest Dominus: They are still pretty good, with their 3+ WS and 2+ BS and 2+ armor save. Pretty survivable with Toughness 4, 5 Wounds and a 5++ invulnerable save. He's decent in melee - I had my Tech-priest Dominus behead Sanguinary Guard and Inceptors in melee before - the Omnissian axe's 2 Damage is awesome. He can also heal D3 wounds per turn and repair D3 wounds on any Adeptus Mechanicus unit within 3". Again, Onager Dunecrawlers and Kataphron Destroyers. Heh. His other support ability, while not as amazing as Belisarius's Cawl re-roll all hit rolls, still mitigate those plasma overcharge risks by allowing you to re-roll hit rolls of 1s if they're within 6". So overcharge your Kataphron Destroyers and drown the enemies of the Omnissiah in 3D6 plasma culverin shots. Feel the fury of the Omnissiah!

Wargear options are pretty cool. Other than the Omnissian axe that I mentioned, he can take either the Volkite Blaster for reliable shooting - it always makes 3 Strengh 6 AP 0 shots that deal additional mortal wounds on a 6+ - or the eradication ray for more punch - D3 Strength 6 AP -2 shots that deal 1 Damage, but utterly destroys foes within 8" with AP -4 and D3 Damage instead. For a sidearm, he has either the macrostubber that fires 5 pistol shots - and you can't fire it with your main weapon, bleah. But you can fire it during the shooting phase if you're locked in melee. Its 5 shots at Strength 4 AP 0 are still decent, because of the dakka. On the other hand, you have the phosphor serpenta that is assault instead, and does Strength 5 AP -1, but ignores cover, so take that if you want to fire both weapons.

Troops

Kataphron Breachers: They have power armor save at 3+, and also a 6++ invulnerable save. They are pretty tanky with their Toughness 5 and 3 Wounds, but they are slow and their BS and WS are mediocre. On the bright side, they can move and shoot their heavy weapons without penalty, so yay. So what are those heavy weapons, you ask? Well, first is the heavy arc rifle wthat fires 2 heavy shots at 36" at Strength 6 AP -2 and dealing D3 damage. Sure, they lost the old haywire rule and don't damage vehicles as reliably as before, particularly the heavy ones like Toughness 7 Predators or Toughness 8 Land Raiders, Leman Russ tanks and Imperial Knights, but if you do get a wound through, they deal D6 damage like eery lascannon. Make sure the targets are vehicles, though. On the other hand, with Strength AP-2, they are much better at killing infantry now, especially multiple-wound models like Terminators and Primaris Marines, even if it's just D3 damage. For melee, they have an arc claw, which increases their Strength from 5 to 6, gives them AP -1 and deals D3 damage to vehicles and 1 damage to everything else.

You can replace the heavy arc rifles with torison cannons, but why would you do that? They have worse range at 24", and only fire one shot - not exactly encouraging given the Breachers' BS 4+. On the other hand, they have a superior Strength 8 and AP -4 and deal D6 damage straight. So it's for monster hunting? It's basically a multi-melta without the melta rule. As for melee, you can swap the arc claw for a hydraulic claw, which doubles the Breachers' Strength to 10, and Damage D3 while maintaining AP -1, but at the cost of its to hit rolls. Basically unwieldly. So depends on what you want. I would say that's a more reliable way of hitting vehicles, to be honest...except that you'll only be hitting 1/3 of your hits.

Kataphron Destroyers: Well, they're a bit less sturdy than their Breacher cousins, with only a 4+ armor save, but otherwise have an identical profile except that they have 1 Attack and the Breachers have 2. This is the shooty variant, and they are not to be underestimated, no matter how many articles, posts or analysis you read online claiming that they're the worst Troops choice and you should only take Vanguard. They come with a plasma culverin, and that thing is a beast. No, seriously. 3 D6 shots of plasma will incinerate any foe. I've used them and they single-headedly wiped out Sanguinary Guard, entire squads of Terminators and Devastators, and even wrecked vehicles by overcharging their plasma culverins. Just plop down a Tech-priest Dominus next to them and you can safely re-roll Gets Hot! rolls of 1 for the supercharged plasma culverins. It's worth the risk, I tell you. Don't bother with stastistics or online posts and just try them out for yourselves like I did. They are brutal.

They also come with a phosphor blaster that is rapid fire 24", Strength 5 AP -1 and ignores cover, but I prefer the cognis flamers that fire D6 shots at 8" because they automatically hit, and can take care of hordes, and are awesome for overwatch. You can swap the plasma culverins for heavy grav-cannons for more reliable weight of fire since they do a flat heavy 5 instead of D6, but given how grav has been nerfed this edition I would say plasma culverins are better. The heavy grav-cannons are still decent, with their Strength 5 AP -3, that deal 1 damage to hordes and D3 damage to anything with an armor save of 3+ and better. Basically still a Terminator killer, and better at wiping out Primaris Marines. But I still prefer the cheaper plasma culverins.

Skitarii Rangers: The iconic Skitarii unit, with their awesome hoods and stuff. Gone is their 6+ Feel No Pain, but they gain a 6++ invulnerable save instead and is 1 point cheaper than last edition. Their galvanic rifles are nerfed. They still retain their 30" range and rapid fire but are now Strength 4 AP 0. Damage 1 is okay, and if you roll a 6 for to wound rolls, you get an AP -1 bonus. As usual you can take omnispex, which now straight up ignores cover. Woohoo! They are meant to be shooty, since you have a decent 3+ BS, abuse it! But the galvanic rifles aren't the reason why you take them. You take them because 2 in a 5-men squad and 3 in a 10-men squad can swap those galvanic rifles for transuranic arquebus, which is a 60" sniper rifle with Strength 7 AP -2 and D3 Damage. Meaning, you use these bad boys to snipe enemy Characters from far away. Not only that, thanks to sniper rules, any To Wound roll of 6+ will inflict a mortal wound in additoion to its normal damage. Sweet! Combined with the Rangers' standard 30" galvanic rifles, you usually park them on a backfield objective, camp them down there and shoot from afar. You have to do that because you can't fire the transuranic arquebus if you moved them during that turn.

Skitarii Vanguard: The other excellent troops choice for Adeptus Mechanicus, the Skitarii Vanguard forms the vanguard of the armies of forge worlds. In addition to their decent 3+ BS, they also have the same 6++ invulnerable save as almost everyone else, and they have rad-saturation whch reduces the Toughness of enemy units except vehicles by 1 if they're within 1" range (meaning in combat). But that's not why you're taking them. They have awesome radium carbines which literally shoot cancer - the 18" range might be lackluster, but make no mistake, anything that comes within range will eat radioactive bullets with a profile of Assault 3 Strength 3 AP 0. Every time you make a wound roll of 6+, the Damage increases from 1 to 2, so it's not the horde killer it used to be, but will take down vehicles pretty quickly, and are useful against Terminators and multi-wound models. They can take omnispex to ignore cover, like the Rangers, and swap their weapons. Personally I recommend the plasma calivers, which are also 18" range, but Assault 2 instead of 3 from last edition. They are a lot cheaper though, and still deal the usual plasma damage. Have a Tech-priest Dominus nearby and they can overcharge their plasma calivers for Strength 8 AP -3 2 Damage shots. Woohoo!

Another alternative for both the Vanguard and Rangers is the arc rifle. They are much cheaper than before, at 4 points, and has decent Strength 6, AP-1 and 24" rapid fire. Again, lackluster against vehicles with D3 Damage that won't go through with their high Toughness and good armor save, but will be deadly against infantry. Very funny. The haywire weapons are going haywire with their roles.

Elites

Tech-priest Enginseer: What is this guy doing here? Well, yeah...he's Adeptus Mechanicus, but he's mostly attached to an Imperial Guard regiment, especially tank regiments. He's a cheap unit that has mediocre shooting and melee, but that's not why you're taking him. You're taking him to spam cheap units to repair your Onager Dunecrawlers and other vehicles. Just make sure they're within 3". This guy is flexible enough in that he can repair Astra Militarum vehicles in addition to Forge World vehicles, so you can stick him in the Imperial Guard to repair those Baneblades and Leman Russ tanks instead.

Fulgurite Electro-priests: A good melee unit with 5++ invulnerable save that uncreases to 3++ when you wipe out an enemy unit in the Fight phase. Not just until end of turn, mind you. For the rest of the battle. Can you say awesome? Oh, and they get Feel No Pain, so they can ignore even mortal wounds on a 5 and 6 (why not just say 5+?).

If you charge them, you roll a D6 for each model in the charged unit, and deal a mortal wound for every 6 you roll. Not exactly reliable, but fun. They're armed with Electroleech staves that increase their Strength 3 to 5 and give them AP -2 and D3 Damage. Every time you make a wound roll of 6+ with this weapon, the target suffers D3 mortal wounds instead of the normal damage. Can you say awesome? These guys got buffed pretty heavily!

Corpuscarii Elecro-priests: The shooty version, they also get a 5++ invulnerable save and the same Feel No Pain as their Fulgurite brothers. And yeah, the same deal a mortal wound for each rolls of 6 when you successfully charge an enemy unit and roll for each model in that unit. They don't have the 3++ invulnerable save when they wipe out an enemy unit in combat, but they do have shooting capabilities tgat are 12" Assault 3, Strength 5 AP 0. They also deal the same in melee. But each hit roll of 6+, whether melee or shooting, causes 3 hits instead of 1, so they are basically tasers. Cool!

Servitors: Uh, they seem pretty out of place. They have terrible BS and WS - basically Orks, but if you put them within 6" of any friendly Tech-priests, Tech-priest Enginseer included, their Leadership goes up from 6 to 9, and their Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill go up to 4+. Their basic loadout is a servo-arm, which doubles their strength to 6 in combat and gives AP -2 and 3 damage, but because it's unwieldy, you have to subtract 1 from the hit roll, making it WS 5 again. You can replace the servo-arm with a heavy bolter, plasma cannon or multi-melta and have them camp far away to shoot those heavy weapons at BS4+ but you've better options than that.

Sicarian Infiltrators: They are back, and they're badass as ever! Sadly, their neurostatic aura got nerfed, and they only affect enemy units within 3" (read: in combat) and give them -1 to their Leadership. On the other hand, they have the same 6++ invulnerable save and 2 wounds each, but can Deep Strike more than 9" away from enemy units instead of the old Infiltration rule. They lost their Feel No Pain rule, but they are a lot cheaper and just as deadly in combat. Load them with flechette blasters, which deal 5 pistol shots at 12" Strength 3 AP 0 - while the Strength has gone up, they lost the Shred ability. Pair it with the taser goads, which raises their Strength from 4 to 6, but sadly lacks the AP. But that's not why you want taser goads. You want them because each hit roll of 6+ gives 3 hits instead of 1, and while they have been FAQed to only have 2 Attacks for the normal Infiltrators and 3 Attacks for the Princeps, that's potentially a lot of hits. And if you still can't kil them in combat, you can shoot them with their flechette blasters during the shooting phase. They are a lot cheaper than in last edition, costing about 2/3 of their original points, so don't worry about the nerfs. They are still solid in combat.

The other option is power sword and stubcarbines, which are decent and cheaper. The stubcarbine has greater strength and range, but does only 3 shots. On the other hand, the power sword does grant AP -3 at the cost of Strength, but it doesn't have that wicked taser rule to give 3 hits for every rolls of 6. So it depends on what you want. Better shooting and AP? Stubcarbines and power swords. Volume of shots and melee attacks? Flechette blasters and taser goads.

Sicarian Ruststalkers: Like their Infiltrator cousins, they lost their Feel No Pain but retain their 6++ invulneable save and 2 wounds. Unlike the Infiltrators, the Ruststalkers still have the 3 Attacks each and 4 Attacks for the Princeps because they're a dedicated melee unit. They come stock with transonic razors and chordclaws. Chordclaws can only make one attack each time the model fights, bur you deal D3 mortal wounds with each to wound of 6+ you make for it. Otherwise it's just Strength 4 AP0, but D3 Damage. The transonic razors are also Strength 4 (user's Strength) AP0, but again you deal a mortal wound with every to wound roll of 6+, so that's actually pretty good. You can swap the chordclaws and transonic razors for transonic blades, which grant an extra Strength but does pretty much the same thing. Given how the Chordclaw deal D3 mortal wounds, I wouldn't advise it. They can be brutal if you can get them in combat. They are also a lot cheaper than last edition, about 2/3 their cost, but they lost the Mindscrambler Grenades. Considering they don't need those, and you can only throw 1 grenade per turn, it's not a big loss, and we get a huge discount in points!

Cybernetica Datasmith: A fairly cheap model and Character you take to babysit your Kastelan Robots. That's it. You're not taking him for his gamma pistol, which only shoots at 12" and Strength 6 AP -3 with 2 Damage and re-rolling failed wound rolls against vehcles. Let's be honest, if he's that close to an enemy, he's probably dead despite his 2+ armor save and 5++ invulnerable save. Nor are you taking him for his power fists which take away 1 from his to hit rolls while granting him a decent Strength 8 AP -3 and D3 Damage - with only 2 Attacks, he's not going to do much. No, you're bringing him along to repair your Kastelan Robots - D3 wounds per turn - and also to change the protocols for your Kastelan Robots.

Fast Attack

Ironstrider Ballistarii: Moved to Fast Attack from Heavy Support and most deservedly so, this is a not-so-cheap weapons platform that has the same 6++ invulnerable save as everyone and gives nearby friendly Forge World units +1 to their Leadership if they're within 3". You can take up to 6 of them in one squadron. His twin cognis weapons have been nerfed. Instead of firing Overwatch on BS 5+, they now only allow your dudes to fire if they Advance, but subtract 2 from the hit rolls if they do. The twin cognis autocannons fire 4 Strength 7 AP -2 shots that deal 2 Damage, but the twin cognis lascannon while more expensive fires 2 Strength 9 AP -3 shots that deal D6 damage. You would most probably take this as a long range weapon platform, but most likely the Kastelan Robots and Onager Dunecrawlers are much better at shooting than these guys, so you'll only need them for their fast 10" movement, Advance, and fire. They're good at outflanking, claiming objectives and being a nuisance, I suppose.

Sydonian Dragoons: Another melee-orientated unit, you usually take them in mass. In other words, don't just take one of them, take 6! They have Incense Cloud, which subtracts 1 from your opponents' To hit rolls and causes them to be Incensed. 6++ invulnerable and same morale bonus as the Ironstrider Ballistarii above. But this is a more melee orientated unit. Sure, you can equip them wiith a phosphor serpenta that fires Strength 5 AP -1 attacks at 18" range and it ignores cover, but the main reason is their taser lance, which like the Sicarian Infiltrators' taser goads, deal 3 hits instead of 1 on every to hit roll of 6+ in combat. They increase the Strength of the Sydonian Dragoons from 5 to 8, but sadly remains at AP 0. They do 2 damage though, so still pretty cool, and with 3 Attacks each, you'll be stomping over hordes.

They can also swap their taser lances for radium jezzails, which has a 30" range and 2 shots. Not as good as the 60" transuranic arquebus because it is only Strength 5 AP 0 and 1 Damage, but has the same additional mortal wound on a wound roll of 6 as other sniper weapons. Not really recommended, and besides it doesn't look as cool as the taser lance.

Heavy Support

Kastelan Robots: Starting out at a minimum squad of 2, you can take up to 6 of them, and why the hell not? Well...because it's not fun if they get tied up in melee, with the loss of Monstrous Creature rules and Smash. Anyway, they are tough to kill, with a whooping Toughness 7, 6 Wounds and a 3+ armor save and 5++ invulnerable save that can go up to 2+ and 4++ if you left Aegis Protocol on. No more Feel No Pain, sadly enough, but hey, I'll take the bonus. Because each time you roll a 6+ for the invulnerable save, you can deal a mortal wound to the unit who shot him. In other words, you can reflect mortal wounds if you roll a 5 for your invulnerable save!

They come stock with an incendine combustor, which is a 12" heavy flamer that deals the standard D6 auto-hits at Strength 5 A -1 and 1 Damage, and astelan fists, which increases their Strength from 6 to 10, grants them AP -3 and deals 3 Damage flat. This, when combined with Conquerer Protocols, allows the Kastelan Robots to kick ass in melee not once but twice. That's 6 Attacks hitting at WS 4+ per turn, and with the minimum 2 Kastelan Robots, that's 12 Attacks. 4? That's 24. At Strength 10 AP -3 and 3 Damage. That's insane.

But most people would prefer to turn their Kastelan Robots into a gunline. With Protector Protocols, you can have them fire twice. This is where you swap the incendine combustor and Kastelan fists for 3 heavy phosphor blasters. Normally each Kastelan Robot fires 9 Strength 6 AP -2 shots per turn. But activate Protector Protocols, that turns into 18. With a minimum of 2 Kastelan Robots, that's 36 shots, doubling to a whooping 72 if you have 4, or 108 if you have 6. Add in Belisarius Cawl to re-roll your hit rolls, and well...you get the picture. Take note you need a Cybernetica Datasmith to be within 6" to change the Protocols, and you have to roll a D6 and get 2+ during your movement phase in order to change them the next batttle round. Oh well.

Also beware. While throwing out 108 dakka shots of Strength 6 AP -2 might sound amazing, replacing the Kastelan fists means they suck in combat. Strength 6 is nothing to slouch at, but their attacks will all be resolved at AP 0 and 1 Damage instead, which will prove costly if they get tied up in melee.

Onager Dunecrawler: Ah, our very own spiderbots, ripped off from the Monkeylord of Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance notoriety. They are pretty tough, with Toughness 7 and 11 Wounds, a 3+ armors save and a 5++ invulnerable save. They can also re-roll invulnerable saves of 1s if you put them within 6" of each other, and also grant the same old Leadership bonus as the other Skitarii vehicles. They also ignore the -1 penalty to hit rolls for heavy weapons if you move them, so awesome. Can't Advance more than D3" though, but that's the Ironstrider Ballistarii's job. Take note you can't squadron them anymore, so they will eat up your Heavy Support slots pretty quickly. But that's why you're taking the Spearhead Detachment like me.

They come stock with the eradication beamer, which is okay. It fires heavy D6 shots at 36", dealing Strength 8 AP -2 and D3 Damage. But if your opponents are within 12", you reduce eit to D3 shots, but the AP goes up to -4 and the Damage to D6. Not too bad. You can swap it for the twin heavy phosphor blaster, which isn't too bad, but honestly, those are better on the Kastelan Robots where they are cheaper and can fire more dakka. And twice

No, instead you only take Onager Dunecrawlers because you want the awesome neutron laser, which also comes with a cognis heavy stubber - which can be fired even if you Advanced with a -2 Penalty, but nobody cares about that. The neutron laser only fires D3 shots, but it's Strength 10 AP -4 and D6 Damage, which does a minimum of 3 Damage even if you roll a 1 or 2. Can you say awesome? I blew a couple of Land Raiders up with these guys! And they have 48" so you can just park them in one corner and hurl neutron lasers from afar!

Or you can also take the Icarus array, which honestly is the best anti-air weapon in the game. Daedalus missile launcher that fires a Strength 7 AP -3 shot that deals D6 damage? Check. Gatling rocket launcher that fires 5 rockets at Strength 6 AP -2? Check. Twun Icarus aytocannon that fires 4 Strength 7 AP -1 Damage 2 attacks? Check. The Orks don't have dakka on us. 10 anti-air shots that fires on Flyers with to hit rolls on 2+, on Flyers with Hard to Hit rule on 3+ and non-Flyers on 4+. Hell, even if your opponent doesn't have Flyers, the amount of dakka these guys pump out will wipe out hordes of infantry. You can't go wrong with this weapon.

Lord of War

Imperial Knights: You know them, you love them. I won't talk much until I get a good look at the Questor Mechanicus in the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex, but these guys are beastly. They have won me almost every game I played, except that Tau game where Farsight and the 8 destroyed them. Ouch. Other than that, they are pretty durable, with Toughness 8, 24 Wounds and a 3+ armor save and 5++ invulnerable save. They are a great Distraction Carnifex that forces the opponent to throw everything they have at killing them while the rest of my army wipes them out (except the Tau, ugh). They are awesome. There are five variants, the Knight Crusader, the Knight Gallant, he Knight Paladin, the Knight Errant and the Knight Warden, but let's face it. They can just be one unit on their own. Only difference is their weapon options. Either you equip them with two melee weapons, the Thunderstrike Gauntlet or Reaper Chainsword, or just one melee weapon and one main weapon. They can also step over infantry, can fall back and shoot and charge again the same turn, and do not suffer the penalty to shooting Heavy weapons. The main weapons are the thermal cannon, which melts Terminators and vehicles to slag at Strength 9 AP -4 and D6 Damage, the rapid-fire battle cannon, which throws out 2D6 shots at Strength 8 AP -2 and D3 Damage, and the Avenger Gatling cannon, which hurls 12 Strength 6 AP -2 shots that deal 2 Damage each, and comes equipped with a heavy flamer as a bonus. You can even take carapace weapons, like the Stormspear rocket pod that fires 3 Strength 8 AP -2 missiles with D6 Damage, the Ironstorm missile pod, which fires D6 shots at Strength 5 AP -1 and 2 Damage and can target units not visible to the shooter from 72" away, and the twin Icarus autocannons, which fire 4 Strength 7 AP -1 and 2 Damage shots with the Skyfire rule. In other words, hitting Flyers on a 2+ unless they have Hard to Hit, which then makes it 3+, and 4+ against anything else.

I wonder if the Mechanicus Household will grant them bonuses that allows them to benefit from Canticles or allows them to be repaired by Tech-priests...

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Adeptus Mechanicus codex next to be released

OH MY OMNISSIAH!!!!!

Guess what?! Today, when Warhammer Community released their First Look at Codex: Death Guard, they came with the most amazing announcement ever! The next codex to be released is...you guess it, Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus!!!!

WOOHOO! Praise the Omnissiah! Hail the Machine God! Glory to the Machine God! Give into the Motive Force! Our prayers to the Omnissiah have been answered!



And this is what Warhammer Community has to say about our new codex:

The Adeptus Mechanicus are being re-armed for the new edition with their best codex ever. This book will contain rules for fielding the Cult Mechanicus, the Skitarii and the Knights of the Questor Mechanicus, alongside – for the first time – powerful faction rules for seven forge worlds.

Not only do we get rules for my Cult Mechanicus, Legio Cybernetica and Skitarii, we even get rules for our Knights of the Questor Mechanicus! I can use them to field my Knights of House Yato! Woohoo! All hail the Omnissiah!

Apparently Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus will not be far behind Codex: Death Guard. I'll be keeping my eye on this and will let you guys know when I get more information. Now the only news I'm missing is the Imperial Armor: Fires of Cyraxus. Let's hope the Omnissiah blesses us with more stuff in the near future. I wonder if we'll get new units? Maybe new transports and stuff.

Monday, August 21, 2017

Belisarius Cawl

I finally managed to assemble Belisarius Cawl today!

As you probably already know, I bought the Triumvirate of the Imperium earlier this year (January, to be exact), and now I finally had the chance to open the box and assemble Belisarius Cawl. I went to Dreamers Vault, bought the cutters and Citadel glue there, and began assembling it. In the end, I used a friend's glue because apparently Citadel glue melts plastics and isn't good for my models. I didn't really mind, so I used Citadel glue after my friend went home.

In any case, I have Belisarius Cawl. I sold the sprues for Celestine and Greyfax because I don't need them. I'm an Adeptus Mechanicus guy. Belisarius Cawl is good enough for me. Now I can run a 2,000-point Adeptus Mechanicus army with a Battalion Detachment and a Spearhead Detachment, or I can swap out 3 Onager Dunecrawlers and 1 Tech-priest Dominus for an Imperial Knight, depending on what I want.

I was supposed to play against that friend with Tau, but unfortunately I spent too much time assembling Belisarius Cawl that he left before we could play. He had work early tomorrow, so he had to leave early. In the end I just had a random 3-way battle. One opponent had a Vanguard Detachment of Dreadnaughts and a Techmarine, a Spearhead Detachment of a Tech-priest Dominus and 3 Onager Dunecrawlers, and a single Knight Errant. The other opponent had Ghazghul Trakka (or however you spell it), a Painboy, a couple of Warbosses, 2 squads of 30 Boyz, 1 squad of 20 Boyz, 9 Burna Boyz, 2 squads of 10 Nobs, a squad of 10 Tankbustas, and a Gorkanaut.

I just brough my usual 3 Imperial Knights and 3 Onager Dunecrawlers with neutron lasers and a Tech-priest Dominus.

Well, we only played one turn, I fluffed all my shots and didn't deal much damage. My opponents just went at each other because they deployed pretty close, and let's be honest, the Dreadnaughts were more of a threat to the Orks and vice versa than my Knights. My Knight Errant took heavy damage and was left with less than half his wounds. Ouch. My other Knights also took a few damage here and there, but they were still standing strong by the end of turn 1. I killed about 15 Boyz, and damaged an Onager Dunecrawler and the Gorkanaut, but that's about it. The other guy killed another 9 Boyz and damaged the Gorkanaut further, and yeah, that's how my Knight Errant went down to half his health. It's thanks to the Onager Dunecrawlers' neutron lasers and the Dreadnaughts' twin lascannons. The Orks then shaved off some health from my Knight Warden and Knight Paladin, but he killed the other guy's Techmarine who's the Warlord, destroyed one Dreadnaught, did about 9 wounds to the other guy's Knight Errant, damaged an Onager Dunecrawler and another Dreadnaught severely, and yeah. Who says Orks aren't strong? They are very strong this edition!

But then we never got to turn 2 because time was up and the store had to close. Oh well. That sucks. I saw another game where someone brought a Shadowsword, an Imperial Guard army and Primaris Marines allies. He fought against 4 Imperial Knights and Space Wolves. Man, I wish I joined the game. Oh well.

Lots of great stuff here, I look forward to playing more games. Maybe I'll get to play my Tau friend on Saturday. I'll keep you guys posted!

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Crushing defeat

Well, finally I played against a proper opponent who has the right tools to deal with Imperial Knights, and my mighty list crashed into a massive defeat.

Yeah, I finally managed to get a game at Dreamers Vault in Minneapolis, Hiawatha Avenue. I played against a great guy with a great Tau army. Well, I spent the first hour watching him crush a new player who used Orks. It was a fun battle, but the new player made a few tactical mistakes that saw him tabled before he could kill a single unit. Well, he killed a squad of Fire Warriors...I think.

Basically, the Ork player had a bunch of Boyz in 2 Battlewagons, 3 Trukks, and a squad of Nobs in one Trukk, along with a Painboy and Ghazghul. You know, the guy who's forever fighting Lord Commissar Yarrick on Armageddon before Chaos came in and took over. He had 20 Boyz in each of the Battlewagons, apparently.

The opponent brought 3 5-men squads of Fire Warriors, 2 squads of 3 Crisis Suits, a Crisis Commander (or 2 of them, I can't remember), Farsight and the 8, 2 squads of 10 Pathfinders, a bunch of Shield Drones, Markerlight Drones and Gun Drones, and a Stormsurge. Needless to say, he wrecked the Battlewagons, killed the Boyz and uh, killed Ghazghul with overwatch when the Ork Warboss charged the Stormsurge. Holy...

Poor kid. He never stood a chance.

I wanted to play against that list. It didn't matter if I lost. I saw how strong it was and I wanted to learn. And I did learn a lot from the game today. I brought my usual army of 3 Imperial Knights, and a Patrol Detachment of a Tech-priest Dominus, a 50-men Skitarii squad, a Cybernetica Datasmith and 3 Kastelan robots.

The first turn started out well enough for me. I got first blood when I erased a squad of Pathfinders with combined shooting from my Knight Warden's Avenger Gatling cannon and Kastelan robots' heavy phosphor blasters, put several wounds on the Stormsurge with my Knight Errant's thermal cannon and Knight Paladin's Stormspear rocket pod, killed about 3 Fire Warriors with my Knight Paladin's rapid-fire battle cannon, and that was it.

Then came the deep strike. The Crisis suits, Farsight and the 8 crashed down in front of my Knight Errant and obliterated him. In one turn, I lost a single Knight. Ouch. The Knight Warden was reduced to 4 wounds from just a bunch of fusion blaster shots. Ouch. I basically lost a Knight in one turn. Almost two, actually.

I tried to salvage what I could with my remaining Knights, killing a squad of 3 Crisis suits, lots of Drones, and a squad of Fire Warriors with my Kastelan Robots. My Knight Paladin killed 4 Pathfinders, and I think that's about it. I tried to charge with my Knight Warden, but the Crisis suits blew him up on overwatch with their fusion blasters. In just 2 turns I lost 2 Knights. Ouch.

Then I lost my Knight Paladin to the Crisis suits and the Stormsurge. I have nothing more to add.

We played on, with me trying to salvage something with my Kastelan Robots. I killed another 2 Crisis Suits and a couple of Drones with them, but failed to do anything else. Then my opponent advanced with his Crisis Suits and utterly wrecked my Kastelan Robots, killing all 3 of them in one round of shooting. I fluffed my invulnerable saves. I don't think I even made one of them. The Stormsurge then killed my Tech-priest Dominus and 2 o my Skitarii Vanguard.

At that point, the game ended. I had nothing but a single Cybernetica Datasmith and 3 Skitarii Vanguard left, so I couldn't do anything. Oh well. I was all but tabled by Turn 4.

This was a humbling experience, but I'm actually quite pleased. First, it proves that Imperial Knights are not overpowered. Second, I learned a lot from this game, and it was fun to play against an opponent who didn't get steamrolled by my Knights for once. Sure, I was crushed one-sidedly, but I'm sure I'll be able to play better next time. I'll be facing him again on Monday, and this time I'll bring Onager Dunecrawlers instead of Kastelan robots. Maybe they will fare better with their Icarus arrays. We shall see.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Victory on Nethamus

Seems like my Skitarii and Legio Cybernetica did make a difference after all!

After a gruelling week of fighting, Nethamus remains in the hands of the Imperium. We've repelled Daemon Engines and Chaos forces. According to the Warhammer 40,000 website, the legions of Skitarii and war machines sent from Konor - the military maniples of Draconis IV being one of them because we worked so hard to reclaim Konor - proved vital to the defense of Nethamus. So yay! They recognized the efforts of my Skitarii and war machines (cough, Kastelan robots and Skitarii Onager Dunecrawlers, cough) in playing a part in wiping out the Traitor Astartes. Great!

I went to Dreamer Vaults yesterday, but I couldn't get a game. Apparently the busiest days are Saturdays and Mondays, so I'm determined to go on Saturday again. Let's hope I can play another part in the attack on Vanitor! We've to reclaim the world from Chaos. I can't wait! :)

So next world: Vanitor. Let's hope our efforts to reclaim Konor from Chaos weren't in vain!

Let's hope my Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights get as much mileage in Minneapolis as they did in Singapore!

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Cadiascreed and Elite40k (Charlie), Imperial Guard

Anyone has any news on Cadia's Creed or Elite40K (Charlie)? It's been months since the blogger for Cadia's Creed, Grumpy Guardsman, has posted anything. Charlie is another thing, since it's been less than a month since he posted on the Elysian Drop Troops. But after the mathhammering he did and the analysis, I would have thought he went off to play games to test his statistics or get a good idea on how his analysis and theories worked out. But...nope. After all those analytical posts, I didn't see any battle reports or news from him. Where did he go?

I'm curious as to know how Imperial Guard is doing in this edition. Other than the Conscript spam, of course. Ugh. I've decided to sell off most of my Imperial Guard stuff and just keep my Leman Russ tanks and Shadowsword. I'll probably grab a couple of Hellhounds and 3 Armored Sentinels to play an Armored Company - I don't care if it's not competitive, I'm a fluff player and my Imperial Guard is a tank or armored regiment. With that said, I'm pretty interested in seeing how Leman Russ tanks fare in the new edition. My Imperial Knights are doing a lot better than expected, crushing a lot of armies one-sidedly. So has my Adeptus Mechanicus army, which...yeah, has tons of firepower. But I don't think that's representative of the meta, and I'm also a little invested in how Imperial Guard performs. When I return to Singapore next year, I'll be taking my Leman Russ tanks and Shadowsword from my friend (by force if necessary, heh - I'm a Commissar, after all), and adding the Hellhounds and Sentinels.

So let me know if you guys have any news regarding the Grumpy Guardsman or Charlie. I would love to know if they have gotten any games under their belt for 8th Edition and how Imperial Guard is performing. I would prefer not to hear about Conscript spam, but if that's what you got, I'll be happy to listen to your stories about how your blobs of Conscripts overwhelmed your opponents with wave after wave of bodies.

And so I'll be traveling back to Minneapolis, and this time I'm bringing my Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus with me! Heh, with the way I'm going for the past few months and probably for the next 9 months, it seems that I really am Admech Knight, what with my Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights army...

Friday, August 11, 2017

Disaster on Nethamus

Well...I went to have my final game in Singapore before returning to the States on Monday (will be bringing my Imperial Knights and several of my Adeptus Mechanicus forces with me), and it was a disaster.

For my opponents, that is.

We had sort of a 2v1 game, where my opponents joined forces to patch together a 102-power rating army while I had a 101-power rating one. They were both Imperium, so one brought Primaris Space Marines from the starter set (2 Intercessors squads, 1 Inceptor squad, 1 Hellblaster squad, 2 Lieutenants, 1 Ancient with standard, and 1 Captain in Gravis Armor), and the other brought 2 Land Raiders and 2 Vindicators. Spearhead Detachment, in other words.

As for me, I scrapped together an Adeptus Mechanicus army with 3 Tech-priests Dominus (proxied one of my Cybernetica Datasmith as a Tech-priest Dominus), 2 squads of Skitarii Vanguard - 1 with 2 plasma calivers, the other with 1 and both with omnispexes. 1 squad of Skitarii Rangers with 2 arc rifles, a Cybernetica Datasmith as himself, 4 Kastelan Robots, 3 Onager Dunecrawlers with neutron lasers and 1 Knight Errant. I wasn't actually planning on using my Knight, but I didn't have enough models for a 100-power level game, so I threw him in to make up the points. Thanks to that, I have a Battalion Detachment, a Spearhead Detachment and a super-heavy auxiliary detachment.

Needless to say, despite the Land Raiders and Vindicators and the Inceptors gunning down 2 of my 3 Skitarii squads and whittling the last Vanguard squad to 2 men, I basically tabled my poor opponents. The final score was 13-2 - I had 13 points and the both of them had 2 points from killing 2 Skitarii squads with the new guy's Inceptors.

The bad news is that I seemed to have been counted as Chaos for this game, so my Knight is a Renegade Knight and my Adeptus Mechancius forces are Dark Mechanicum. Thanks to that, Chaos has gotten a fotohold in Nethamus.

Uh oh...holy Omnissiah, what have I done!?

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Konor Campaign Battle Report 4

Well, the local gaming store that I went to dangerously swung under the influence of Chaos during the weekend. As a loyal servant of the Imperium and a faithful crusader of the Omnissiah, I set out to make that right. I actually planned on delivering vengeance to the Omnissiah's enemies yesterday, but I fell sick. Thankfully, thanks to the grace of the Emperor, I recovered today and made the trip down to my local gaming store.

I brought my Imperial Knights...cough, but obviously I didn't use them. The only reason why I brought them along was because I was clearing out my locker in the other local gaming store and getting ready to bring my Knights to the United States. Oh, and I told my friend to sell all my Imperial Guard stuff except my Shadowsword. I'll be getting a new Imperial Guard army next year when I return. Hopefully he gets some good cash for my Imperial Guard guys. And my Knight Crusader. I'm not crazy enough to play 4 Knights...might as well sell off the Knight Crusader. I mean, nobody will play against 4 Imperial Knights. Nobody.

Not sure what I'm going to do about my Shadowsword though. Maybe get Malefic Lords from Renegades and Heretics and ally it to a new Thousand Sons army. Or I'll get 5 Primaris Psykers to spam Smite. We shall see. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Let's get on to the actual Battle Report!

I dropped in all of a sudden and I managed to convince a bunch of people to play. We ended up doing a 2v2 battle with power rating of 50 for each player (so 100 per side). Sounds good to me.

Our opponents were Death Guard and a bunch of corrupted Tau who decided to fall under the influence of Chaos for some reason (gah, who cares? Just assume they're anti-Imperium and their attacks coincide with the Death Guard). The Death Guard player brought a squad of 7 Plague Marines as Troops, a Plaguecaster as his HQ, a Hellbrute with twin lascannons, a Chaos Predator with twin lascannons, heavy bolters and havoc launcher and a Chaos Land Raider with 2 twin lascannons, heavy bolters and havoc launcher. It turned out to be a patrol detachment, so no command benefits for him.

The Death Guard and all their tanks and heavy armor!
The Tau player brought a lot of stuff. First he brought Commander Farsight, who for some reason had fallen to Chaos and was beseiging Konor (uh, what?). Accompanying him is Longshot, the dude in the Hammerhead. Wait, since when was Longshot a comrade of Farsight? Never mind. Then 3 squads of 5 Fire Warriors, 1 squad of 5 Pathfinders, a bunch of gun drones and shield drones, which totalled to 8 drones, 3 Crisis Suits with 2 flamers and 4 plasma rifles and...that's about it. That was a Battalion detachment, so 3 extra Command Points for the enemy team!

On the side of the Imperium was a Ynnari Vanguard detachment - my ally. Paralleling Belisarius Cawl's alliance with the Ynnari and Harlequins in Fall of Cadia and the Gathering Storm thing, the Ynnari and Adeptus Mechanicus have once again banded together to fight the Great Enemy. My teammate brought a Farseer on a bike, a Warlock also on a bike, 2 squads of 5 Wraithguards - one with D-scythes and the other with D-cannons or whatever those Wraithguard 12" weapons are called, 1 squad of Wraithblades with shields, and finally a Harlequin Solitaire who was pretty awesome. No kidding. He is awesome.

Rounding up the forces of the Imperium was my household of Imperial Knights...cough, I mean Adeptus Mechanicus forces. No Imperial Knights this time folks. I'm scaring my opponents away with them. So instead I brought a Spearhead Detachment. My HQ was the Tech-priest Dominus, and he was accompanied by a Cybernetica Datasmith babysitting 4 Kastelan Robots with 3 heavy phospohor blasters each, and 3 Onager Dunecrawlers. As usual, I brought 2 neutron lasers and 1 Icarus array. Since it was power rating rather than points, I decided to buy extra Cognis heavy stubbers for my neutron laser Onager Dunecrawlers. Thanks to that we have 2 extra Command Points.
Adeptus Mechanicus Spearhead Detachment!
So we deployed, and the corrupted Tau failed to seize, rolling a 1. That's what happens when you consort of unholy powers!

Turn 1

My ally and I moved our units up, but somehow my Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array still wasn't within range of Longshot (or was it Longstrike?) because the Tau dude had put him way, way back in their deployment zone. My teammate decided to blitz her Solitaire forward, and she rolled a 1. Ugh. But then she used a Command Point and blitzed a 5 this time - worth spending those Command Points. The Solitaire ended up right in front of the Tau Fire Warriors and Plague Marines. Her Wraithguard and Wraithblades, with the former's ridiculously short range, couldn't do much but move and advance. Only 2 of her Wraithguard were within range of the Plague Marines, but I think they fluffed their shots because of the -1 penalty to assault weapons when advancing. Too bad.

Oh, and in the psychic phase, I think she casted Doom on the Plague Marines or something, but it didn't work because she missed her shots. On the other hand, she buffed her Wraithguard and Farseer, forcing the opponent to -1 to their shots against them. There was one other power she casted, but I think she failed the psychic test.

Then came the shooting phase. And Adeptus Mechanicus shooting phase is devastating.

My Onager Dunecrawler didn't do much with his neutron laser against the Land Raider. I think I failed to wound it. Ouch. And that was after rolling a 1 with the D3 shots, so...yeah. Bad, bad rolls. My Cognis heavy stubber shots also didn't do much to the Plague Marines. The 2nd Onager Dunecrawler couldn't see the Land Raider, so he fired at the Plague Marines instead. The Cognis heavy stubbers, as usual, did f all, but the neutron laser took out at least 2 of the Plague Marines, reducing them to 5.

The Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array was out of range for Longshot, so he targeted the Crisis suits instead. Thanks to Crisis suits having Fly but no supersonic, he hit them on a 2+. I wiped out about 3 drones and put 2 wounds on a Crisis suit. I think.

Then my Kastelan Robots fired. 2 of them fired at the Pathfinders and wiped them out. First Blood! The other 2 Kastelan Robots fired at a squad of Fire Warriors and annihilated them. 2 units wiped out in our first turn, netting us 2 victory points...which doubled to 4 because my Kastelan Robots have a 3+ armor save.

Deployment - the Adpetus Mechanicus is the hammer and the Ynnari the anvil!
The Solitare then charged the Fire Warriors hiding up a building with the Plague Marines. She actually wanted to charge him into the Plague Marines, but then her Solitaire would have to eat overwatches from three units. As it was, she decided to charge the Fire Warriors, so only the Crisis suits fired overwatched thanks to supporting fire rule. The Solitaire managed to survive the flamer shots and the plasma rifle and pulse rifle shots missed. He took only one wound, but my teammate went and spent 3 command points to make sure he re-rolled those 3 failed saves to reduce that to 1 wound. He then blitzed into the Fire Warrior squad, only to fluff most of his attacks and only kill a mere 3 Fire Warriors despite having 8 attacks. Ouch.

Our opponents then did a lot of stuff, having the Fire Warriors fall back, the Crisis suits move up, the Land Raider move a bit forward, the Predator deeper into cover, and the Helbrute up. Oh, and Farsight jumped all the way forward, and his shield drones joined the gun drones that I massacred earlier during my turn.

Our opponents rolled pretty poorly. The psychic phase was a disaster for them, and my opponent spent a couple of command points to re-roll them. He succeeded in casting the same -1 to To Hit rolls buff on his Chaos Predator, and despite successfully casting Smite on the Solitaire, my teammate made her Deny the Witch rolls and countered it. Ouch. Despite Longstrike being BS2+, he rolled a 1 to hit, and then despite spending a command point to re-roll it, rolled a 1 again. Ouch. That's what you get for consorting with fell powers. The Plague Marine with a plasma gun overcharged and fired on my Kastelan Robot, prompting my teammate to laugh at the Death Guard player for living dangerously. Fortunately, he didn't roll a 1, and even made a hit. Unfortunately, he rolled a 1 for his To Wound roll and failed to wound my Kastelan Robot. Heh. Farsight killed a Kastelan Robot with his fusion blaster - despite Aegis Protocols helping me make 2 of my 3 invulnerable save, he rolled a 6 for the D6 damage, and one Kastelan Robot died immediately. Ouch. The smart missile system on the Hammerhead, heavy bolters from the Chaos Predator and Land Raider, and pulse rifle from the 3rd Fire Warrior squad killed about 1 Wraithblades and 1 or 2 Wraithguard (I think). The lascannons from the Hellbrute, Chaos Predator and Chaos Land Raider killed a 2nd Kastelan Robot (ouch) and knocked 2 wounds off a third. That was extremely painful. I was weeping over my fallen Cybernetica constructs.

The Commander Farsight then charged the Solitaire, and...the Solitaire passed all his invulnerable saves. The Plague Marines also charged the Solitaire and despite dealing 3 wounds, the Solitaire's superhuman reflexes kept him alive. I told you the guy is amazing. His 3+ invulnerable just kicks ass. Then he fought back and put 3 wounds on Commander Farsight. He is one brutal combatant in melee. Heh.

Turn 2

The Wraithblades continued to move and advance, and the Wraithguard also moved, but only the ones with D-Scythes advanced because they're still out of range. I moved only my Onager Dunecrawlers so that they can see the Chaos Land Raider while my Icarus array Onager Dunecrawler tried to get closer to Longstrike, but I was still barely out of range. No matter. Oh, and I rolled a 4 for the D3 wounds, so I could heal the 2 wounds on my wounded Kastelan Robot and restored him back to full health. Yay!

My teammate fluffed her psychic phase and I don't think any spells went off. In fact, the Warlock went and perils himself and suffered 1 or 2 wounds. Ouch. The Farseer also fluffed his psychic spell, but he successfully cast Smite, only for a drone to successfully intercept the mortal wound (because it apparently counts as Feel No Pain and so can be used to save against mortal wounds). With the psychic phase ending in disaster, we decided to open fire.

Using a combination of the shuriken cannon on the bikes, the Farseer and Warlock, along with the first Wraithguard squad with the 12" cannons killed a bunch of drones and erased a unit (one unit of drones was with the Crisis suits, and a separate unit was with the Crisis suits). That allowed her to soulburst her Wraithguard and shoot even more stuff, reducing the unit to just one drone and one or two Crisis suits. I can't remember if she succeeded in killing one or two Crisis suits.

With that done, I fired on the Crisis suits, and surprisingly enough, he failed a one save against my Cognis heavy stubber shots, and took a wound. Wow. The Icarus array did the rest, killing the drone and then wiping out the Crisis suit team for good. This allowed my teammate to use Soulburst again, and her Solitaire fought as if in the Fight Phase, and put another wound on Farsight. He, uh, fluffed his To Wound rolls. Ouch.

The Onager Dunecrawlers then fired their 2 neutron lasers on the Chaos Land Raider, and I think I only managed to take out 6 wounds in total? I can't remember. It was either 3 or 6, because I rolled pretty badly. On the other hand, my surviving Kastelan Robots fired and erased the 3rd Fire Warrior squad.

The Solitaire then killed Farsight in combat in the normal fight phase. Good thing my teammate soulburst earlier because Farsight failed exactly 2 of his saves - just barely enough to kill him. The Plague Marines then swung at the Solitaire with their power fists and plague knives, but despite hitting, the Harlequin nimbly jumped out of the way and made all his invulnerable saves. Good man. I think he still had 2 wounds left or so. Not bad.

Unfortunately, his luck eventually ran out when the Plaguecaster casted Smite on him and did the 2 mortal wounds needed to take him out. Poor guy. We'll always remember you and your bravery on the battlefield, taking on a squad of Fire Warriors, braving the overwatch of Crisis suits, besting Commander Farsight in combat and surviving a rampage from Plague Marines.

The Adeptus Mechanicus forces continue to stand strong over the forge world of Konor!
The shooting, thankfully, was less brutal now that there were so little Tau Empire left. The Plague Marines fell back so that they could shoot the Solitaire, but that was moot now that the Plaguecaster had Smote him with mortal wounds. Either way, they couldn't shoot. Longstrike took a potshot at my Onager Dunecrawler and hit with his BS 2+, only to fail to Wound...because he rolled a 1 to wound even though he only needed a 2+ to wound. Just not his lucky day, is it?

I can't remember, but the havoc launchers, the smart missile system, the heavy bolters took out another Wraithblade and wounded a Wraithguard, but that's all they did. My teammate still had 3 Wraithblades remaining and 4 Wraithguard, I think. The lascannons did more damage, but thanks to me deciding to stick to Aegis Protocols instead of switching over to Protector Protocols, I managed to make a couple of saves against the lascannons and even reflected a shot with the Repulsor Grid and did a single mortal wound to the Chaos Land Raider. Way to go! But he eventually took 3 wounds, which was 1 more than the wound he took last turn. I think that was all our opponents were able to do.

Turn 3

The Wraithblades continued their steady advance up the table toward Longstrike, while the Wraithguard moved closer to the Plague Marines and the Deathguard. Once again, the Farseer and Warlock fluffed their psychic phase, rolling 1s and 2s and failing to pull a power off. Psychic extraordinaires they are not. Oh well.

On the other hand, the Farseer was much better at shooting. While the Warlock failed to kill the 2 remaining Fire Warriors in that squad the Solitaire charged in Turn 1, the Farseer killed them both and allowed the Wraithguard to Soulburst. The Wraithguard actually fired their D-scythes first and did 15 auto-hits and 11 wounds. The Death Guard player made some 6+ armor saves (with cover bonus), and then made about 6 or 7 Disgustingly Resilient saves, which meant he only lost 2 Plague Marines to the initial volley. However, the Soulburst allowed the Wraithguard to fire a second salvo, and even though their only did 10 auto-hits and 9 wounds this time, they finally succeeded in wiping out the Plague Marines. I think the other 4 Wraithguard also took shots at them. I can't remember. Anyway, we wiped out both the Plague Marines and all 3 Fire Warrior squads by then.

With nothing else in range, I had both my Onager Dunecrawlers fire their neutron lasers on the Chaos Land Raider and took out another 7 wounds. With nothing to lose (and nothing else to shoot at), I fired my cognis heavy stubbers - 12 shots - and I actually put a wound on the Chaos Land Raider when he rolled a 1. That left the Chaos Land Raider with 1 or 2 wounds left, I believe. My Kastelan Robots then fired at him to finish him off, and they actually succeeded despite being on Aegis Protocols and not Protector Protocols. The Land Raider blew up - the Death Guard opponent rolled a 6, but thankfully it seemed nobody was within range to catch the blast...I think? The nearest unit was the Chaos Predator, but it was further than 6" away.

By this time, the opponent's side of the table is looking really empty. Nah, the photograph is in the wrong chronological order because I should have 2 Kastelan Robots dead by this turn. Sorry.
At that point, our opponents called it. We were leading by 19 victory points and they only had 2 from killing a solitary Solitaire. The Tau opponent only had one unit left - Longstrike/Longshot in his Hammerhead. The Chaos guy fared better - he only lost his Plague Marines and Chaos Land Raider, but still had his Plaguecaster, Chaos Predator and Helbrute in play. But they seem to think they wouldn't be able to make the difference, not with the Wraithguards inexorably advancing on the Helbrute and Chaos Predator and the Wraithblades nearing the Hammerhead. Plus I still had 3 Onager Dunecrawlers and 2 Kastelan Robots. So they decided to concede because they knew they couldn't catch up.

I asked them to allow me one last shot since the Icarus array hadn't fired yet, to see if I could kill Longstrike. They good-naturedly allowed me to do so, and despite the Icarus array's devastating...uh array of weaponry, I only put about 7 wounds on the guy, leaving him with just 4. Oh well. Still not too bad. After that, the Chaos forces withdrew and it became an Imperial victory. Or combined Imperial and Ynnari victory. Thanks to our mysterious Ynnari allies, the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii and Cybernetica legions of forge world Draconis IV have successfully defended Konor! Let it not be said that we don't help our priestly brothers from other forge worlds! (even brought Imperial Knights to help, but the Emperor decided to be merciful to the Great Enemy - know his holy benevolence!)

Thanks to that, the balance at the local gaming store swung back toward the Imperium! For the Emperor! The Omnissiah be praised! Woohoo! Konor is safe! Or so I hope...there's still 1 day and 14 hours left...brr...I hope my victories made a difference in the imperial war effort to liberate Konor from the forces of Chaos!

Saturday, August 5, 2017

No one wants to play against Knights

So I was trying to get a game at my local gaming store today, and my friend who works at the store and organizes stuff, sent me a message.

"no, sorry, but no one wants to play against Knights."

Looks like I became THAT guy after crushing everyone one-sidedly with my Imperial Knights despite not meaning to do so. Uh oh. Sorry. So until I find new opponents and a new local gaming store (actually, I already did!), there will be no battle reports for a while. Sorry.

For the Emperor! Ugh...Knights really are...strong.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Konor Campaign Battle Report 3

Hell, yeah! I finally had a proper Fate of Konor Campaign game today! As my friend in Battle Bunker was too busy taking stock and doing lots of other jobs to be able to help me log my battle, I decided to visit another place that was actively participating. This time, I dropped by Games@Pi in Orchard Road. Phew! I finally could contribute to the defense of the Konor system!

I had the fortune to play against a very sporting person at Games@Pi, who had to use a makeshift Death Guard army because I just dropped in out of nowhere after finding no opponents in Battle Bunker. Phew. Unfortunately, his list wasn't optimal for taking on 2 Imperial Knights, and those were practically the only guys I brought (I brought 3 Imperial Knights, typical of me). Apparently Games@Pi were under Chaos control last week during the Astaramis campaign, and Chaos won there (though the Imperium eventually secured an overall victory, phew), so I brought my big guns, thinking there would be a formidable Chaos army waiting for me.

Instead, I faced a Death Guard army of 2 Lords of Contagion, 2 Maligant Plaguecasters, 2 Noxious Blightbringers, 4 squads of 10 Poxwalkers, 2 squads of 7 Plague Marines (why 7? because those were the only models available to him), and 2 Foetid Bloat-drones. That army had a power rating of 88 points, apparently. To exploit the Command Points, he divided his army into 2 Battalion Detachments so that he can have up to 9 Command Points. Woohoo. Fun times. He spent every last one of them.

The deathly Death Guard guards the forge world, Konor.
I originally decided to just bring 1 Imperial Knight - so my Knight Warden, supported by a Patrol Detachment of Adeptus Mechanicus forces. They included a Tech-priest Dominus, a squad of 5 Skitarii Vanguard with 2 plasma calivers and omnispex, 4 Kastelan Robots with 3 heavy phosphor blasters each, and 1 Cybernetica Datasmith. Funnily enough, I only had 63 power rating, so to match my opponent, I brought a 2nd Knight Paladin to bring the power rating up to 87. My Knight Warden and Knight Paladin took their respective carapace weapons of twin Icarus autocannon and Stormspear rocket pod. After the beating they received during that 3-way battle where my Knights got wrecked by Death Guard's smite and Necrons' tesla weaponry, I was taking no chances.

Taking them by utter surprise are two Imperial Knights.
...I really am turning into that guy, am I not?

Anyway, we deployed, and as usual I got to go first. My opponent attempted to seize the initiative, only to roll a 5, and...whoops. No go. So I started first. We did this 1/4 deployment where we deployed in one-quarter of the table 9" away from the center. If that makes sense. We were following an actual Konor Campaign mission where I played the attacker and my opponent played the defender. The mission is Seek and Destroy. It was mostly kill points, so we get 1 point for each unit we killed, Slay the Warlord, and if I'm not mistaken, we get an extra point if we wipe out an entire unit with our own units that have a 2+ or 3+ armor save. Meaning, if my Kastelan Robot with a 3+ armor save kills the last model in a Plague Marine squad, I get an extra point for that. I think. It's the victory condition entitled Heavy Duty Onslaught.

Turn 1

Well, this was quite the devastating turn for me. First off, I made a roll to change the protocols for my Kastelan Robots from Aegis to Protector, which would only take effect during my next turn. My Skitarii Vanguard fired their 3 radium carbines and 2 plasma calivers, and so did my Tech-priest Dominus with his Volkite blaster, but they probably only took out 6 Poxwalkers or something? Then my Knight Warden fired at a second squad of Poxwalkers, but despite the heavy flamer and Avenger gatling cannon, he only erased 9 of them and failed to kill the last one. The guy tanked the heavy stubber shots. My Knight Warden then fired his twin Icarus autocannon at one Foetid Bloat-drone, but failed to do any damage.

My Knight Paladin also fired his heavy stubbers at that last remaining Poxwalker, but that guy was disgustingly resilient, tanking every single shot and surviving despite all odds. It also helped that I fluffed my rolls for my heavy stubbers. He then turned his attention to another squad of Poxwalkers and killed about 6 of them with his Stormspear rockets and rapid-fire battle cannon. In the end, the real VIP was my Kastelan Robots, who erased an entire squad of Poxwalkers by himself. No First Blood for this Konor Campaign specific mission, though. Oh well.

Kastelan Robots are awesome!
My Knight Warden then charged in and stomped the 4 remaining Poxwalkers in the first squad with his Titanic Feet, so I succeeded in erasing 2 units.

My opponent tried to advance the 4 Poxwalkers that survived my Knight Paladin's rage, moving them within range of my Skitarii Vanguard (unfortunately). He also moved his Noxious Blightbringer and his warlord Lord of Contagion up to support them while buzzing the first Foetid Bloat-drone away. He also moved his Plague Marines out into view to get them closer to my Knight Warden, and had his Maligant Plaguecasters cast Smite on my poor Imperial Knight, dealing 6 mortal wounds to my Knight Warden. Ouch, that was painful. The second Foetid Bloat-drone buzzed somewhere behind my Knight Warden, but I don't think it was within range. The single Poxwalker stayed where he was, and that was about it.

The Plague Marines opened up on my Knight Warden, but failed to wound him. Any wounds they dealt, I think I managed to save. Phew! Oh, and the 2nd Noxious Blightbringer fired his overcharged plasma pistol on my Knight Warden, but failed to wound him. The first also fired on my Knight Paladin, and also didn't wound him. Knights are tough!

Hilariously enough, one of the Plague Marines fired his plasma gun into my Knight Warden but rolled a 1 when he supercharged, killing himself. All he showed for his efforts was a fluffed roll that failed to wound my Knight. Poor guy.

I think the Lord of Contagion charged in first and ate all the overwatch shots, only to not suffer any wounds. The Plague Marines and the Blightbringer also charged in, and I think the Lord of Contatgion swung his axe and dealt a bunch of wounds to my Knight, bringing him down to 12. Ouch. On the other hand, I killed a couple of Plague Marines by stomping them to death with his Titanic Feet.

Turn 2

As I said earlier, my opponent had made the unfortunate mistake of moving his Poxwalkers within range of my Skitarii Vanguard. Ignoring the Poxwalkers, my Knight Paladin stomped toward the Noxious Blightbringer. My Knight Warden also moved away from combat so that he could shoot them. His shooting proved...ineffective. Well, not really. Surprisingly enough, his and the Knight Paladin's heavy stubbers were able to remove that last Poxwalker and helped me erase 3 units.

My Skitarii Vanguard then fired on the last squad of Poxwalkers and annihilated them with radium rounds and plasma blasts, which meant every single Poxwalker is dead. For the Omnissiah!

Again, my twin Icarus autocannon didn't do much to the Foetid Bloat-drone. Maybe 2 damage at the most, or none at all, I can't remember. That thing is hard to kill. My Kastelan Robots fired and erased the first squad of Plague Marines with their Ignores Cover heavy phosphor blasters, taking out all 7 of them. I then fired a second time - thanks to Protector Protocols - on the remaining Plague Marines that had charged my Knight Warden earlier, and wiped them out.

Wait, what? Did I just destroy 6 of my opponent's units in 2 turns? Holy Omnissiah...

My Knight Warden's and Knight Paladin's shooting, however, were ineffective, and I ended up charging. My Knight Paladin and Knight Warden, despite revving up their Reaper chainswords, couldn't kill the Noxious Blightbringer or Lord of Contagion because of their invulnerable saves. Ouch.

My opponent left his dudes to be stuck in combat with me. I think he casted Smite, took 3 wounds off my Knight Paladin, and another few wounds off my poor Knight Warden. His Foetid Bloat-drone floated away to harrass my Kastelan Robots, and put a single wound on them. The combat continued, but thankfully the Knight Paladin received no damage from the Blightbringer. On the other hand, my Knight Warden was reduced to just 4 wounds after taking a few hits from the Lord of Contagion's axe, and was teetering dangerously close to exploding.

I opted to stomp with their Titanic Feet, and this time, I succeeded in stomping the Lord of Contagion and the Blightbringer to death. Phew.

Death to the Death Guard! Death to all Traitors!
Turn 3

I adjusted the movements again, and somehow I was forced to shoot at the Foetid Bloat-drone with my Skitarii Vanguard and Kastelan Robots and finally brought it down. I couldn't kill the 2nd Noxious Blightbringer with shooting, so I charged my Knight Warden in. My Knight Paladin also couldn't bring down the Warlord Lord of Contagion with shooting, so he also charged in. By stomping with their Titanic Feet, I managed to bring about both Characters' demise, leaving just the 2 Plaguecasters and a single Foetid Bloat-drone left on the table. I failed to change Protocols for my Kastelan Robots, though, so they remained in Protector Protocol.

My opponent used Smite, but he was pretty unlucky this time and took only 2 wounds off my creaking and failing Knight Warden, bringing him down to 4. Despite his Foetid Bloat-drone shooting him in the back, he failed to wound, and thus my Knight Warden continued to stand. Grandpa Nurgle had frowned upon his champions and abandoned them, it seems. The Foetid Bloat-drone, not to be outdone, charged my Knight. It failed to wound. My Knight also did some damage to it, but other than that, not much else could be done and both models survived.

Turn 4

Theere was not much that could be done. My Knight Warden, with only 2 wounds left, retreated. He fired on the Foetid Bloat-drone, did some damage, but that's about it. My Knight Paladin chased down the Maligant Plaguecasters, wounding one of them with his shooting, and then the two of them charged, and killed their respective targets with their Titanic Feet. Phew.

My opponent, left with only one Plaguecaster, ran and advanced him to within 8" of my wounded Knight Warden and Smited him to death, scoring a great moral victory. At that point we called the game. With only one model left, there was little my opponent could do, and I still had 4 Kastelan Robots, 1 Cybernetica Datasmith, a Knight Paladin with 21 wounds left, 5 Skitarii Vanguard and 1 Tech-priest Dominus. Even if we count his killing of my Knight Warden as 3, he would only score 3 points. 6 since his Plaguecaster has an armor save of 3+. In contrast, I had killed 13 of his units so far, was on the way to tabling him, and given how most of my kills were by my Knights or Kastelan Robots, I would easily have 24 or 25 points. Oh, don't forget. My opponent scored Hold Your Ground by running his Plaguecaster all the way to his deployment zone...though, truthfully, if we had continued onto turn 5, I would have stomped on him with my Knight Paladin, but let's not rub salt in his wounds. On the other hand, I have Slay the Warlord, and my very own Warlord is still alive. So it's actually 7 points for my opponent and 25 or 26 for me. Still an overwhelming victory for the Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights. But not a victory I can be proud of because...well, my opponent was caught off guard by my list and didn't have any anti-tank weaponry.

Oh well...that was one-sided. Thankfully, my opponent was sporting enough and had fun with his moral victory. For now, Konor has been successfully retaken by the Adeptus Mechanicus forces of Draconis IV and the Imperial Knights of House Yato. I have scored a victory for the Imperium and made a difference! YAY!

See that 100% Imperium right there? That's all thanks to me!

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Astaramis stands!

Well...thanks to my local gaming store not logging the results because my friend is busy taking stock, and the American guy I sent to for Fantasy Flight Games didn't respond at all to my submissions, my results for the Konor Campaign last week weren't counted.

Yeah, I know. That sucks. I'm extremely bitter and disappointed. But hey, whatever. I guess I'll use those battle reports for some Adeptus Mechanicus (and Imperial Knights) versus Necrons story.

On the plus side, it seems that the Imperium has won. Astaramis stands strong. We have won! Just barely. Now, it's Konor's turn, and the Adeptus Mechanicus forces of Draconis IV will aid their brothers in the priesthood of Mars and defend the forge world from the forces of Chaos!

You can read the results and find out about the second week's missions here.

As for me, I think I'll be going to a different local gaming store tomorrow to make sure my results for the campaign are counted this time.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Konor Campaign Battle Report 2

Hello, and welcome to the second battle report for Konor Campaign where my Imperial Knights continue to stand guard over the hive world of Astaramis!

This time it was a 1,500-point list, and I'm sure my opponents are sick of me bring so many Imperial Knights by now, so I cut down the number to 1. I wanted to bring 2 or 3, but I'm pretty sure my opponent would flip the table if I did that. So I instead brought an Adeptus Mechanicus Spearhead Detachment, supported by an Imperial Knight Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment.

On the other hand, my opponent brought Necrons - this time it is the true owner of the Necrons that I played against on Saturday, so he could bring 1,500 points and his Resurrection Orb. Uh oh. Anyway, he brought 2 Command Barges, 1 Cryptek, 4 Immortal squads - 3 of them had 10 Immortals, and the 4th one only had 7 because he didn't have enough points, 1 Triarch Stalker and 1 Doom Scythe. Scary list.

The Necrons are all hiding in cover like the cowardly xenos they are!
From the Knight House of House Yato comes a single Knight Errant, supporting a bunch of Adeptus Mechanicus forces from the Forge World Draconis IV. A single Tech-priest Dominus with a volkite blaster leads a squadron of 3 Onager Dunecrawlers - 2 with neutron lasers, 1 with Icarus array, 4 Kastelan robots with 3 heavy phosphor blasters each and 1 Cybernetica Datasmith to change their protocols and repair them.

The Adeptus Mechanicus forces of Forge World Draconis IV and the Imperial Knights of House Yato march to war!

We decided to have a simple game of killpoints because we don't have the objective cards and didn't want to waste time claiming objectives. So simple is best. Thanks to me having fewer models, I got to go first, and my opponent failed to seize the initiative. Lucky me.

Turn 1

Turn 1, quite unexpectedly, turned out to be a pretty bad turn of shooting for me. My Onager Dunecrawlers did diddily with their neutron lasers, and I began regretting equipping them with such. Note to self. Neutron lasers suck against infantry. I should have fired against the Triarch Stalker, but the quantum shielding meant that it would save its wounds against a high-damage weapon like neutron lasers that deal a minimim damage of 3. My Knight Errant probably only killed one or two Immortals with his Thermal cannon, and like the neutron laser Dunecrawlers, did absolutely squat. The Onager Dunecrawler with the Icarus array fired on the Doomscythe and despite the volume of shots it made - because the Doomscythe was behind cover, it made most of its saves and I think I only did 2 damage to it at most.

The only ones that did real damage was the Kastelan robots, who erased 4 Immortals from the 7-strong squad, but one of them promptly stood back up from Reanimation Protocols next turn. Thankfully, I managed to pass my roll to change the Protocol from Aegis to Protector so that will come into effect next turn.

My opponent had hidden everyone except the Doomscythe and that 7-men Immortal squad in cover, but now he was moving everything out of cover and advancing one squad toward my Knight Errant. The Doomscythe swooped over because of its minimum movement speed, and then everything that could shoot at my Knight, including the single squad of Immortals that advanced, shot.

The Triarch Stalker hit with its twin heavy gauss cannon...only for my opponent to roll snake eyes for the To Wound rolls - he rolled 2 ones, despite it being a Strength 9 weapon. Ouch. In the end, it was the Doomscythe who did the most damage, along with several tesla shots, that reduced my poor Knight to 13 wounds. Ouch. But he was still standing after soaking up an entire army's worth of shooting, so I'm relieved.

Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights versus an awakening tomb world of Necrons - the war is on!
Turn 2

Turn 2 was a lot better for me. I moved my Knight Errant in, but as usual his thermal cannon only killed 1 or 2 Immortals. The Onager Dunecrawlers also fired on the same squad and probably took out 1 or 2 at most, and eventually they would stand back up. The Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array managed to put about 6 more wounds on the Doomscythe, but failed to destroy it thanks to some armor saves, but it was a lot better than the 2 wounds it dealt last turn.

Then my Kastelan robots opened up with 72 shots - their Protector Protocols enabling them to shoot twice - and they all but erased a single squad of 10 Immortals by themselves. My Knight Errant then charged into the squad of 4 Immortals and stomped them into oblivion with Titanic Feet. First Blood to me, and 2 units down!

Then my opponent struck back. With his remaining units, including the Triarch Stalker and Doom Scythe, he destroyed my Knight Errant...who promptly blew up when I rolled a 6 and did D6 mortal wounds to everything within 6" of him (I rolled a 5 and a 1 for the 2D6" distance). I ended up dealing 4 mortal wounds to the nearest Immortal squad and my opponent spent 2 Command Points to make sure they don't fail their morale test. I did 6 mortal wounds to one Command Barge but only 1 mortal wound to the Warlord in the Command Barge. Ouch. Oh well.

With my Knight down, things were not looking too good for me.

Turn 3

My Kastelan robots were out of range, so I had to roll to change protocols, only for me to roll a one. Whoops. No shooting for them this turn.

My Onager Dunecrawler managed to take out the Doomscythe - finally! - with his Icarus array, but he was the only one who did something, because the rest of the Onager Dunecrawlers did little to no damage with their neutron lasers. I begin to regret equipping them with neutron lasers. Icarus array, though with the -1 penalty to their shooting, has a lot more dakka.

My opponent moved his guys up, all of them, and took potshots at my Onager Dunecrawler in the far corner. I think he did enough damage that he had 6 wounds left. However, by moving, he exposed one squad of Immortals to the range of my Kastelan robots. YAY!

Turn 4

This time I rolled and passed the test for changing their protocols, but...well, I couldn't move them this turn as the change in protocols only take effect next battle round. Ugh. 3 of my Kastelan robots could see the Immortals, and they promptly erased the 7 or so Immortals with their 54 heavy phosphor blaster shots. Yay! Another unit down, which made it 4 killpoints for me!

The Onager Dunecrawlers' neutron lasers and my Tech-priest Dominus's volkite blaster did nothing much to the squad of Immortals. On the other hand, I had my Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array shoot the Warlord in the Command Barge. Apparently the Command Barge has the Fly special rule, so my Onager Dunecrawler received a +1 to his hits thanks to Skyfire. Thanks to that, I put about 6 wounds or so on him. Not enough to kill him, but whatever.

My opponent then moved his Triarch Stalker and the rest of his Immortals closer, but this time he split his fire because he realized just how dangerous my Onager Dunecrawler with the Icarus array was. That guy is my MVP, taking down the Doomscythe and threatening his Command Barges. But he only took out 5 wounds on my Icarus Array Onager Dunecrawler, leaving him with 6 wounds. On the other hand, the Immortals' Tesla pinged off 2 wounds from my neutron laser Dunecrawler in the corner, leaving him with only 4 wounds. Uh oh.

Turn 5

I could finally move my Kastelan robots up and they could see the Triarch Stalker and fire at him, though they suffer -1 penalty to their BS for moving (heavy phosphor blasters are heavy weapons) and needed 5+ to hit. Even worse, only 2 or 3 could see the guy, because the 4th one's line of view was blocked. Still, I took off about 6 or so wounds from the Triarch Stalker, which meant he had to hit on 4+s now.

Needless to say, my neutron laser Onager Dunecrawlers and Tech-priest Dominus did nothing. The wounded one missed all his shots, but the unscathed one managed to kill 1 Immortal. Whoopeedo.

My Icarus array Onager Dunecrawler then shot down the Command Barge with the Warlord, gaining me another killpoint as well as Slay the Warlord. Woohoo!

Needless to say, the Triarch Stalker wiped out the wounded Onager Dunecrawler and the Command Barge put 5 wounds on the poor Onager Dunecrawler. On the other hand, the surviving Immortals fired on my Icarus array Onager Dunecrawler with their tesla weapons, and did 5 to 6 wounds...only for me to make all my armor saves. He survived! Woohoo!

Turn 6

My Tech-priest Dominus only managed to heal 1 wound from the neutron laser Dunecrawler next to him, and I was about to fire on the Triarch Stalker and last squad of Immortals when my opponent conceded out of frustration. He had nothing much left that could kill my Kastelan robots and my remaining Onager Dunecrawlers, while my Kastelan robots were posed to either destroy his Triarch Stalker or Immortals, and my Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array would have destroyed the remaining Command Barge, which only recovered about 3 wounds (so taking 3 wounds thanks to the 6 mortal wounds at the end of turn 2) by now. There was little he could do, so he forfeited out of frustration.

I feel sorry for him. Even though I cut down on the number of Imperial Knights and only brought 1 game, it seemed that the Adeptus Mechanicus list of heavy support units are pretty...strong. My opponent had used up all 6 of his Command Points by then, and I only spent 2 out of my 4 by the end of the game. Huh...

This is weird. Is Adeptus Mechanicus supposed to be this strong? Keep in mind, this isn't even an optimized list, my Kastelan robots were out of position for quite some time, and I had 14 points to spare. I probably would have done better if I had swapped one neutron laser for another icarus array and swapped my Knight Errant for a Kngiht Warden. That would probably drive my poor opponent even crazier.

It also helped that he had some crazy rolls. Rolling snake eyes with his Triarch Stalkers at least twice and failing to wound my Kight Errant and Onager Dunecrawler. Oh well. I asked if he wanted to reroll those but he rather spent his Command Points elsewhere, which he did. I think he spent one on the Doomscythe to make sure it killed my Knight Errant. Other than that, it was a pretty bad game for him, and I felt bad for making it so one-sided. Even though I only brought one Knight Errant this time, it was a pretty...lopsided match. Must be the rolls. He would have done more damage if his Triarch Stalker didn't roll those ones, but it was not meant to be.

At least he killed my Knight by turn 2. So moral victory for him there.

In the end, I won the killpoint game 7 to 4 (my opponent gets 3 points for killing a super-heavy). I killed 5 of his units, had a point from First Blood and another from Slay the Warlord. My Onager Dunecrawler probably was close enough to get Linebreaker, so it could have gone up to 8. Yeah. That was bad.

Anyway, I had fun, and the Imperial Knights of House Yato and the Adeptus Mechanicus forces of Forge World Draconis IV have successfully protected this part of Astaramis from the Necrons this week! This Saturday I will hopefully get to play against a Chaos army, and I'll make sure to bring out my big guns (my 3 Imperial Knights) so stay tuned!

Why 3 Imperial Knights this time? Well...because my opponent is bringing a Renegade Knight! This will be fun.