Revenge of the Imperial Knight

Last night I played George again.  Having won our last game I wanted to try out a different sort of 1000 point army.  This time my list was 2 Tactical Squads,  with one in a Drop Pod, a basic Librarian joining 6 Sternguard in another pod, a third pod with an Ironclad and finally a Stormtalon as the only flyer.  We hadn't discussed what armies we were taking, but I had a reasonable suspicion he would go with the same army as last time.  I was almost correct.  Although George was mostly using the same figures, he had swapped in some heavy weapons, including a flakk missile to counter my air force.  He was also running his Sons of Horus as Imperial Fists instead of Chaos.

In the morning I assembled a new Drop Pod for the Dreadnought and proxied the other two from my Salamanders and Space Wolves.  I knew this would be a tougher game and when we rolled Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment the odds were really against me, as with the 3 Drop Pods I had 9 KPs on the board to George's 5, including his super-heavy walker.

My deployment was a single squad in some ruins. George put his Knight right of centre, his Librarian in one squad behind a bastion left of centre and the other two tacticals on each flank.

As I was going first, I had to decide what to do with my first two pods.  My pre-game plan was to go for the alpha-strike with both elites and bring down the tacticals later.  In hindsight, perhaps a more defensive strategy would have been called for, but I opted to put the Dread down behind the squad on George's right, just in melta-range of the Knight, and the Sternguard next to it nearer his right board edge.  Both pods were on target.  In my shooting I reasoned that my four combi-meltas and one combi-grav would be best served against the 10-man squad using vengeance rounds, although perhaps I should have use the heavy flamer first, but I wanted more rapid fire shots.  In the event I lost one figure to 'Gets Hot', but took out six marines, including the flakk gunner.  A HK missile from the Ironclad also took a point off the Knight, but the melta-gun proved useless.

We had some discussion about the Ion shield going up, as it can easily be missed before the shooting starts.  I had no problem with him declaring it during my shooting, but I would suggest in a competitive match both opponents agreeing to declare when the movement phase ends, to enable the Knight player to deploy the shield at the right time.

In his turn George advanced his tacticals towards my end of the board, away from the pods, which he sent the Knight to deal with.  The battle cannon killed a couple of Sternguard and he cannily fired a heavy stubber at the Ironclad.  Even though this weapon couldn't damage it, this allowed him to declare a charge against the Dreadnought.  Although both were I4, the Dreadnought's weapons failed to scratch the Knight.  However, the Knight's D-weapon obliterated the poor ancient, and then the Stomp attack danced all over the Sternguard and a Drop Pod, with only the Librarian surviving, thanks to 'Look out sir'.  Again a rules question arose when the Librarian fled.  Normally, the Knight would have caught the Librarian, but my HQ was nowhere near base contact in the combat, but had run because of the stomp attacks, so the Librarian carried on fleeing instead of regrouping in combat.

George was already 4-0 up and it looked like he would quickly get another 2 for my warlord.  Luckily I could still use his +1 to reserve rolls trait, and both my Stormtalon and last Drop Pod came on in my second turn.  This pod went down on target again behind his other two full squads and the flyer came on just 18" to face the Knight's rear arc, just in its 24" weapon range.  Again we made sure the Ion shield went up at the right time, but I chipped away a couple more HPs.  My Librarian was doomed but heroically tried to kill one of the squad of 4 remaining from the Sternguard fight with his pistol and then failed the 12" charge needed to get into the relative safety of combat.  The Tactical squads then spent the rest of the game trading fire, trying to whittle each other down, helped by storm bolters from my pods.

In George's second turn he got 3 heavy stubber hits on my Librarian, who then promptly rolled 3 twos for his 3+ armour saves....  The Knight then turned its attention to smashing up another Drop Pod, helpfully allowing my Stormtalon to keep flying into its rear arc on the next turn, before hovering to finish it off on turn 4.

By Turn 5 I had managed to kill off two of his three tactical squads, helped by a lucky precision shot from my last sergeant, which accounted for a plasma cannon.  I had 6 marines, a pod and an undamaged Stormtalon to his 7 tacticals and terminator Librarian left when the game finished at the end of turn 5.  George was a clear winner 8-3 on kill points, but I was pleased my army was back in the game after a bad start.  With a bit of luck, I could still have tabled him.

Multiple flyers are definitely the answer to Knights, which need support from a reasonable amount of anti-air.  It would still interest me to see how multiple knights perform.  Practice with Drop Pods is something else I definitely need.