Beating an Imperial Knight

My Howling Griffons played in a quick 1000 point game against George's new Imperial Knight tonight. He was using it allied to his FW Sons of Horus army, using the Chaos codex. We knew this combo was not official, but it was just a trial game.

The rest of his army was 3x10-man squads with 2 plasma guns each and a terminator sorceror, all of which he had also just finished assembling.

I reasoned that if he was using a super-heavy, I would use my Stormwing formation, along with a 10-man tac squad, a 5-man tac, 5 sniper scouts, a rifleman dread and a basic librarian.

We played Big Guns with 5 objectives on a 4'x4' board. I got to place 3 objectives and also deployed and went first. Even so I did very little first turn, as I just hid in my deployment zone out of range or sight of his units.

George advanced his units first turn, but the Knight couldn't see the tactical marines and failed to kill any scouts either, as they went to ground for a 2+ save with their cloaks.

Luckily my formation turned up turn 2, so I put the Raven in front of the Knight and the two talons either side.  Of course the Ion Shield went up facing towards the Raven. I knew the Stormtalons weren't facing it with their Skyhammers, but fortunately their assault cannons can fire 360°. The Ion Shield saved him from the multi-melta but the assault cannons took off 3 HPs.

George's outflanking squad from his warlord trait then arrived on the scouts' side of the board and also started trying to shoot the young marines off their objective.  Again the 2+ cover made the snipers hard to shift.  He also backed off the Knight, so I couldn't get all 3 flyers shooting armour 12.

Turn 3 I unloaded my dread and meltagun combat squad from the Raven and then hovered all the flyers circling the Knight to make sure I could use all their weapons.  In the end this proved to be overkill.  The Ion Shield went up towards the Raven and one Talon, but the meltas, autocannons and the other Talon accounted for its last 3 HPs.  First blood to me, although I did get worried the apocalyptic blast would catch the hovering flyers, but they were quite safe.

At that point we both had two objectives and linebreaker, but my first blood meant I was 8-7 ahead.  We called it there, as our time had run out and George couldn't really do much against my flyers, beyond some lucky plasma shots.

Knights can't touch flyers with armour 11 or more unless they hover, so really need protection with some anti-air allies and a more balanced army to guard their flanks and rear from multiple threats.

It was very satisfying to kill off the Knight, but it did feel a bit like playing rock-paper-scissors.

Howling Griffons Stormwing Formation

Flying machines have always been one of my passions and I have regularly used a Stormtalon in my Space Marine lists.  In addition to my Storm Eagle I have now assembled my Stormwing formation and also started basecoating it.  This will be fun!

Even with the new rules allowing Forge World models, I will rarely get the chance to field all 5 flyers at the same time, unless I play more Apocalypse.  So I'm trying to work out how best to include the Stormwing in 1.5K points.

All of my Stormtalons have Skyhammer missiles, as they always do well for me and aren't too expensive.  The Stormraven has the multi-melta, assault cannons and hurricane bolters.  My basic formation would therefore come to 480 points, so nearly a third of the total.

The next problem is that I now can't decide if it's worth putting any other units in the raven. Even a basic Tactical Squad and Dreadnought would be exactly half of my points stuck in reserve, possibly until Turn 4.

The rest of my list will need to soak up all the opposing fire until the flyers show up, so a fortification with a comms relay might be needed to give me a solid firebase.

Anti-air is another worry, especially Riptides, so a Command Squad on bikes with grav guns might be my best option, although my usual HQ is a biker MOTF with a conversion beamer. I would either need a different HQ or take two.  This would again limit my points for other units.

I have some decisions to take, but I plan on having fun testing out my options, whilst I get the models finished.

Space Marines Battle Company (and new Space Marines incoming)

Having been working on my Howling Griffons all summer I now have enough figures to field a full company.  Not only that, I can either field a standard Battle Company (6 Tacticals, 2 Assault and 2 Devastator) or a full Devastator Company (10 Devastator).

As I'm saving all the devs for Armies on Parade, I took the Battle Company formation to GW Newbury for an all-day Apocalypse game yesterday.  It was a long day but great fun.  The result was a very close 19-20 loss for my side, which was the only downer.  My partner had a Leman Russ company and one super-heavy.  Our opponents had Wolves, Eldar and Tau and 5 super-heavies.  As new players arrived during the afternoon we were allowed to recycle units to keep things balanced.  One plucky marine was all that survived from my original deployment to the end.  He will be getting a promotion soon!

Of course, as a Space Marine player, I'm also looking forward to getting my hands on the new codex.  The Tactical and Sternguard sprues look particularly promising.  I'm even impressed with the Vanguards and all their plastic Thunder Hammers.  However, as I've spent the last few weeks assembling and painting all that power armour, I'm not planning on painting much more in the near future. I may get a Stalker for my Armies on Parade board, but I already have to finish painting the board, scenery and a Storm Eagle (which has taken me a good few days just to assemble...!)

Summer madness

As the song says, 'School's Out for Summer!', so I have some decent hobby time ahead.  My wife has even suggested I take some figures away with us when we go for a week in France.  I still can't quite believe that one!

Anyway, there are a couple of events ahead for me.  The first is the next Invasion tournament at Warhammer World on the 19th August.  Matt has been running a practice league and I have updated my list as first detailed here.  The only change is that I have dropped the Landspeeder Storm.  Whilst the Outflanking and ability to move the Scouts about at speed is nice, the multi-melta proved very unreliable at only BS3. Instead I am taking a basic Predator at 60pts (and giving the Tactical sergeant melta-bombs with the spare 5pts), as AV13 should hopefully soak up a bit more fire and give my Master of the Forge something to hide behind when deploying.

Due to its value, the Predator was in my first ever list for the Howling Griffons and I have had one for a while.  Unfortunately, I built it with HB sponsons.  Luckily, I had a Whirlwind kit unmade, which I am now assembling so I can swap weapons with the Predator.  This list has done quite well with various partners, including Tau, Eldar and DA, although I am not totally sure yet who my ally will be, let alone what they will be taking.

The second event I am getting ready for is Armies on Parade on 14th September.  I had thought about dusting off my guard army and doing something involving a Skyshield and Vendetta, but I shall stick with my Howling Griffons again this year, as I'm enjoying them a lot.  Of course, with the rumoured new codex in September, I'm not abandoning them now.

With Apocalypse 2.0 just out, the Space Marine Company formation appealed to me, as I had always wanted to build a whole company, even if it requires 107 marines and 3 Dreadnoughts!  I also couldn't resist the Master of Relics model, so it looks like I'll be doing the 9th Company.  This may be somewhat over-ambitious of me, but would look really cool and put out a lot of firepower.  Not sure how much chance I will get to play them ever, but I'm not worrying about that for now.

On my desk at the moment are six more heavy weapon marines to add to the six I already had.  With bolter marines, I have about enough for three squads so far - seven to go.  I will also have to paint the Captain and another Dreadnought.

It will take quite a bit of time, especially with the quartered colours, and also cost a bit to do, but nowhere near as much as the £448 GW is advertising in their one-click collection.  Obviously, I already have a few of the units, but even if you are starting from scratch, you really don't need 10 Devastator boxes, when the Company (only?) needs 40 heavy weapons.  Four boxes is enough, as each box has five marines, but eight heavy weapons.  Eight Tactical boxes would provide the rest of the marines and eight more heavy weapons. If I have worked this out properly, that would equal three missile squads, one with multi-meltas and two each of plasma cannons, lascannons and heavy bolters.

To carry on the 'useless purchases' theme, the one-click collection includes the boxed commander, rather than the new model anyone making this formation would actually want.  I suppose this comes in at £14 instead of £15!  But, if my maths is correct, you can get the formation for £406 at GW prices, with the new captain.

I don't understand GW's marketing sometimes.  They are trying to promote their products, but making them more than 10% more expensive than they need be.  The old Apocalypse 1.0 boxed formations actually worked out cheaper than buying models separately, which was a first for GW.  It's a shame they now seem to be doing the opposite.