Tournament Summary and New Knights

I came, I went, I stomped. It was fun and I really enjoy playing an army like Knights where I don't have to juggle a million things. Still, you have to be careful when your army is only five models since you can lose a lot fast.

In other interesting news, Imperial Knights are getting an update.

Still Wish They'd Have Gone With This

I went against Necron Warrior spam, which worried me, but I was able to blast his fast elements and charge the slow ones, barely not losing a single Knight and coming out on top.

I followed this up by facing Iron Hands. They had THAT chapter master, four dreads (two venerable, one contemptor, and one deredeo), and grav cents, amongst others. It did not go well in the early game. His CM did four hull points on turn one with a lucky orbital bombardment. I the charged said chapter master and proceeded to do...nothing. This followed up with the lancer dying and doing nothing with the explosion. The rest of the game evened out a bit with me losing a Knight a turn (damn grav cents) but starting to wreck him back. On the last turn, I have one hull point left on my paladin and he has only the deredeo. If I survive, or the game ends, we will tie. He shoots, I live, I do nothing back but the game continues, he shoots, I blow up, and am tabled. He wins by one point, with one model left. A real brutal game of attrition.

I played some SW last. He had some min troops choices in stormwolves, supported by three min thunderwolves squads (SS/PF on all), and a thunderlord and three iron priests on thunderwolves. I was quite a bit afraid because of all the flyers plus almost the rest of the army was fast and able to hurt me in melee. Thankfully, most of my fear was unfounded because I was able to out range his early ground forces to the point where melee was even out a lot. His flyers came on and damaged me a bunch but did not kill anything. I spread out and bait him with the tempting target of my warlord's rear, which he will need to go into hover to hit. He takes the bait, killing the lancer and a paladin, but loses one to an explosion and the other two were in charge range of two knights that just finished off some iron priests. He is now down to a few troop models hiding out of LoS and I have three, albeit damaged, knights. I'm ahead on maelstrom so we basically just wait out the turns and I get some points and the win.

I end up getting third place, out of ten players, with the guy I lost to taking fourth. Not too bad.

What I learned:

• The lancer's range 18" is a lot more limiting than I thought and often kept him from acting on turn one at all.
• The perceptor's intercept ability was very limited by walker's limited line of sight. Not an unbalanced ability at all.
• Arbalaster having skyfire was nice but I'm not sure it is really game changing. That being said, it didn't come up much and Tank Hunters was far more valuable, letting him just wreck lighter armor.
• The Questoris Battle Cannon is fun as heck. I only rarely found myself wanting the additional strength but always liked the additional shot.
• Objective Secured Knights is a blast.
• Without Adamantine Lance, people are A LOT less inclined to consider knights broken and not one player commented negatively on my army.

On the topic of new knights, I like the new rules, that have been leaked thus far, but I wished they'd have gone with the old school chassis instead of just modifying the Questoris. Still, the carapace options are sweet. For those not following this, it looks like all the questoris chassis knights can take, without replacing anything:

• Whirlwind Launcher (Rhino-5 Points)
• Twin-linked, Skyfire, Interceptor Autocannon (Rhino Points)
• Three Shot Krak Missile Launcher (Rhino+5 Points)

They're a bit too expensive for my tastes but the AA option is needed enough that I might still model a couple for my Paladins or Errant. In addition, it looks like stubbers can be swapped for meltas for a measly 5 points! I don't know if I will, I like the dakka, but it sure is tempting.

What I want to see is the melee centric knights, the Gallant. If he is cheap enough, and without a gun he might be, then I might have a five knight army at 1850 that can do serious work. Plus, they haven't shown things like the knight relics (heirlooms, great name) or what appears to be a freeblade or two. Exciting things for Knight players out there.