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A Comedy of Errors Part Two: 9 Knights of the Round Table

Conor Lobb

Day two! After a night out with the boys, I was ready to play, Wraithguard and all.

After a healthy breakfast of Mcdonalds burritos and coffee, I swaggered up to my table and saw my old friend, the triple Knight list. This version was piloted by Jacob, who, ironically, was Dave’s teammate (my round two opponent.) Here is Jacob’s list:

Krast Super Heavy Detachment

Space Marine Battalion (Whirlwind of Rage, Hungry for Battle)

AdMech Battalion (Graia)

Some cool ranger conversions

Jacob selected Headhunter, Pick Your Poison (Avatar, both Nightspinners, Warlock on Bike) and Butchers Bill. I selected Titan Slayers, Behind Enemy Lines, and Engineers.

This is the game where the holes in my list really began to show. Since we rolled Dawn of War deployment, I couldn’t out-range much of Jacobs army. There was only one good ruin to hide behind in my deployment zone. I decided that I wanted both my Guardian squads in deepstrike to maximize the hitting power against those Knights, so I deployed the Wraithguard on the board. That was my first mistake.

I castled the entire army, except for one Nightspinner and five Rangers, on the ruin side of the board. I put the Rangers and Nightspinner behind a decent wall on the other side of my deployment zone. Something I realized after deployment, is that the Wraithguard are too slow to ruin-hop and make it out of line of sight of the Knights with the thermal cannons (which pick them up easily.) I also didn’t have anything to screen out his Smash Captain with.

Hiding out

Jacob ended up going first. He moved his Knights and scouts into the midboard. He destroyed the Nightspinner on the opposite side of the board from my castle with one of his Knights, and turned the clock to me.

My second mistake involves the Avatar…and a smash captain. I was forced to use the Wraithguard to screen my forces so Jacob couldn’t drop his smash captain on my castle in his turn two. In my psychic phase, I used Quicken to double move the Wraithguard. I got greedy, and wanted to lay a couple of shots from the Wraithguard on his Knight in the mid-board, and, in my bloodthirstiness, moved them too far forward and left a hole in my screen for his captain to slide into. I didn’t do much in this turn other than that colossal screening mistake. My Nightspinner killed a scout squad, and after I realized my mistake in screening at the end of my turn, I prepared my soul for heartbreak.

KAn ill fated plan


Jacob rolled into his turn two and promptly stomped his two midfield Knights into the table quarter with all of my characters hidden in that corner ruin. After that, he quickly saw my screening  error and plopped his captain and librarian 9 inches away from my Avatar of Khaine while tears poured from my eyes. He picked up all but three of the misplaced Wraithguard with the shooting from his Knights, and took a few wounds off my last Nightspinner. Fortunately, I was able to pull the remaining Wraithguard out of charge range of the Knights.

He was starting to leap ahead on points, and in his charge phase he stuck the charge into my Avatar and beat him down with the smash captain. I tried to save my good ol’ shard of Khaine with the Avatar Resurgent stratagem, but I didn’t think about the fact that his captain could just fight twice and kill my Avatar for good, which sucked. Khaine is one of my answers for knights, and, without him, it was going to be super duper tough to take the metal monstrosities down.

In my turn two I had some problems to contend with. First and foremost, there was a smash captain in my lines who was dangerous by himself, but would also soak up a couple of smites I needed to fling at the Knights. My recourse at this point was to Doom and Jinx a Knight and pray that a Guardian unit could drop in and blow it up. That is pretty unlikely against a Knight with full wounds.

Since the game was going south quick, I needed a way to rack up some points. I blitzed my Solitaire across the map, towards one of the objectives I placed. If I held that and my home objective, I could score the bonus point! It was being held by a unit of Jacob’s Rangers. Once the Solitaire got there, he would be able to hold the objective and score a behind enemy lines point for three points a turn with the bonus. While the game was going badly, I could at least scrounge out some points for my overall standing.

So, unfortunately, the only units I killed that turn were the captain and the librarian. The Solitaire didn’t quite make his charge to the Rangers and my Guardians and the Wraithguard brought one Knight down to five wounds. Womp womp.

This is going to hurt


In Jacob’s turn three he pushed onward. He was in full control of the board and the game. He scooped the Wraithguard and the Guardians that turn, leaving me with only my characters on the table and a Guardian bomb in reserve. His Knights were in my lines. My elves were scared. I was sweating.

In my turn three, I dropped my final Guardian bomb on the table, shuffled characters into buildings or behind the G-bomb, and my Solitaire made it into his Rangers to start scoring behind enemy lines points. Jacob set his Knights up so the healthier one screened out the Knight with only five wounds left, and since I didn’t have anything in the way of counter charge now that the Avatar was dead, I dropped my bomb as far away as possible from his army in the hopes that I could kill one Knight, and be out of charge range of the other. Unfortunately, I was still unable to kill a Knight in my turn. My tears continued to fall. They began to pool on the floor. I was knee-deep.

KaBoom


In Jacob’s turn three, something genuinely funny happened. We both knew the game was about over. He was dominating the scoreboard, and still had almost all of his army left. His third Knight had cleaned up the skeleton crew I had set up on the other end of the table—(Nightspinner and a squad of Rangers.)

On a side note, those Rangers would have been a perfect turn one screen for me instead of having to use my Wraithguard.

Jacob controlled the middle and was picking up the vestiges of my army from long range while his other two Knights dove into combat. Combat is where the funny stuff goes down. I killed that 5 wound knight from turn two in overwatch! Jacob and I had a laugh about that. And then he spent some cp to have that thing blow up on a four plus, which it did, and it’s death promptly killed a Troupe Master and my support platform hidden in my corner castle ruin. His second Knight actually made combat, and wrecked the rest of the Guardian squad, with the two or three guys left fleeing from morale since Khaine had been vanquished by that plucky smash captain.

‘Twas a bleak moment for the Eldar. I was down to characters. Which can actually be ok in an endgame scenario if my opponent is also low on stuff. But, a few characters vs two knights and a bunch of scouts holding objectives is a losing proposition.

Enter the second funny moment of the game, and have a moment of silence for my Solitaire. I went all in on trying to kill Jacob’s second Knight. It only had a couple wounds left after I smote it a few times with my Farseer and Shadowseer, so I sent the solitaire in to finish that big metal sucker off. Remember that Jacob is Dave’s teammate.

The Solitaire was smoked again in overwatch by a member of team Dakkafish. This time, by a thermal cannon. Jacob was apologetic. I was catatonic. We agreed to name the solitaire Tim. Tim is a chump, and I am building a new Solitaire model at this very moment.

Devastation



Final score 33-22

Another rough loss. But, Tim the Solitaire and I walked away from the table with our heads held high, knowing that it’s all a part of the process. Then, I got my round three pairing. Three more Knights! And some Space Marines! This was clearly a challenge from the universe. Could I take out Knights seven through nine?

Here is Roberts list:

Krast Super Heavy Detachment

Raven Guard Battalion

Robert selected Headhunter, he Marked my Avatar, Guardian Squads, and Wraithguard for Death, and picked two of his Intercessor squads to be Engineers. I selected Kingslayer on his character Crusader, Titan Slayers, and Recon.

We played mission number 3, and rolled up Hammer and Anvil deployment, which isn’t bad for me. It lets me hide my stuff in the NOVA L and allows the Nightspinners to sit out of range of the Knight’s guns, for at least a turn. Plus, if any of the Knights want to come and play, they have to get in threat range of my stuff hiding inside that L.

Lying in wait


I ended up going first and I ran my Guardians and characters into the L and waited. Robert would have to come out the the middle objectives to propel the game. I also kept the Nightspinners out of range like I’d planned.

In Robert’s turn one, he ran one of his Knights up the middle, right into threat range of my ball of death in the center of the board, which left me feeling very strong about my turn two. He didn’t pick up a kill, but did score an objective before passing the clock to me.

Sidenote on clocks—I played every game on a clock because it is just good for tournament games. There are no feel badsies on time, I don’t obsess over small decisions, and using a clock gives me a sense of urgency that is invaluable in tournament 40k. You have to make at least 5 turns if you want a decent number of points—win or loss.

On my turn two, I actually picked up a Knight! I dropped my Wraithguard on his Knight that was running up the left side of the board, and jumped out of the L with my Guardian squad that was lurking already on the board. I used the Wraithguard to draw out the Rotate Ion Shield stratagem on his their Knight, and used all the shots and smites my army can produce to kill the other one.

Sneaky elves just sneakin’ around

I have to admit that is one useful function of Wraithguard. Knight players are scared of that d6 damage, so they are handy to draw out that strat. Then you can focus the rest of your army on your real target. And my Wraithguard did 8 wounds to the Knight they were targeting, which is not bad at all.

I used Fire and Fade to tuck my Guardian bomb along the side of the L they had jumped out of, so only one of his Knights could draw a bead on them. With Celestial Shield, I wasn’t too concerned about that shooting. I could take a few casualties with another bomb still in the webway. That’s the real strength of the Guardian spam to me. You have so many shots and so many bodies, which is something that people don’t normally expect out of Eldar.

My goal against Knights, and basically every shooting army, is to give them as many non-interactive turns as possible while maintaining board control. NOVA Ls are perfect for this and Fire and Fade is a favorite stratagem for me in these situations.

Robert killed about half of the Guardian squad in his turn two. He kept one Knight back in his deployment zone, and moved his second Knight further up field to gain range on one of my Nightspinners, which he promptly destroyed. He charged my Wraithguard with that same Knight. I snuck a wound through on overwatch, and chipped the Knight down four more damage. The Wraithboys also survived the Knights charge, denying him a kill for the turn. Other than those losses, my plan was going well. I was in control of the board, and ready to strike with my reserves.

In my turn, I dropped my second Guardian bomb in to finish off the Knight that my Wraithguard had been working on. I was able to tuck them in between the two Ls, so his remaining Knight was unable to move up and draw LOS on the squad after I move-blocked a little bit with the 10 or so Guardians I had remaining in the unit that started on the board. I got Doom and Jinx off. Between the smites and the Guardian firepower I dropped that Knight! I was ahead by a couple of points, and feeling very strong. I was ready to accept the countercharge on my smaller Guardian unit, and then strike with all of my characters and the Guardian bomb I had hidden between the Nova Ls

One point I could have improved on in this game is my Nightspinner target priority. Those Eliminators Robert had were the primary threat to my characters and there were a couple of turns that I shot Intercessors instead. That made the endgame for this match nerve wracking, because once my characters were committed to fighting, the Eliminators could start popping d3 damage and mortal wounds on them once they had line of sight to the characters.

In Roberts turn he shot up my Guardian screen, but was unable to kill all of them with his firepower, and unable to target any of my characters ( most of my squishy ones were hidden between the Ls from smiting his other knight.) His last Knight had moved up to charge the squad, and with a few Guardians left after shooting, he wasn’t able to move past them and charge my characters. So, the Knight gobbled up the Guardians in combat and we moved into my turn four.

Preparing to counter attack

I dropped the hammer on his Knight with my remaining Guardian squad and all of my characters. I also used Quicken to grab some more movement with my Guardian bomb with the idea of wrapping and trapping one of his Intercessor squads, I figured it would be better to just get punched by the marines, not shot and punched. They were my last screen and I needed to keep them alive for as long as possible. The Knight didn’t go down to the psychic and shooting, so my Avatar and Troupe Masters stared that bad man down and ran in yelling.

The Knight only had 8 wounds left, so the Avatar handled that situation pretty easily (5 attacks, ap-4, 2d6 pick the highest for damage). Robert did use the two cp strat to blow the Knight up, and he killed both of my Troupe Masters with the explosion. He also did three wounds to the Avatar. A few inches away, my Guardians made their tri-tip, and lost a few elf souls (hopefully not to slaanesh) to the Marines punching their lights out.


From here the game got grindy. I was down to about 15 Guardians and a bunch of characters. Robert had nine Eliminators, 10 Intercessors, a Lieutenant, and a Captain. With the new marine rules, that is no joke.

Positioning for the bonus point


In Robert’s turn he threw some wounds at my characters with his Eliminators. Fortunately my invlun saves were strong, and no one died. The Avatar came very close, but walked away with one wound remaining. He also did a number on my Guardians in combat, leaving me with about eight left for the endgame.

In my turn I blitzed my Solitaire (Tim), and ran up to one of Roberts Eliminator squads in his deployment zone ruin. Those guys had to go if I wanted to pull this win off.

I had removed my combat casualties from Robert’s turn so the Guardians were left out of combat and able to shoot and recharge in my turn. This was just to stop his marines from shooting. I boosted my Farseer on jetbike over to two of his Eliminator squads that were in the building opposite the three that Tim the Solitaire was leering at (he redeemed himself a bit and killed the Eliminators.) I also moved my Warlock on bike to an objective, and with my Spiritseer sitting on the objective on my backfield, I had the bonus point after my Guardians killed a couple marines, and outnumbered them on the objective they were both standing on.

My Farseer took out an Eliminator squad with Smite and Executioner, and I dropped most of an Intercessor squad with Guardians and Shadowseer. I re-wrapped his second Intercessor squad to stop their shooting again. My Guardians were able to survive another combat phase and guarantee that my characters couldn’t be shot and charged. I was also able to hold the objective and bonus again. That was the point swing I needed to pull the game out. On my turn 6, My Solitaire and Shadosweer scored another kill, and I locked the game in. Character spam wins the end game again! (Well, ⅖ times.) This game definitely had me sweating at the end, and I was really stoked to pull it out vs Robert.

Final score 30-25

And that was the end of a great weekend. I love a good GT, and Crozius was fantastic. There was prize support out the wazoo. Even with my shoddy record, I still got some stuff; and who doesn’t love stuff? My prize was a ticket to the Barnyard Brawl tournament this coming April, which I will certainly be writing up, and definitely not bringing Wraithguard to.


Some thoughts I’m taking away from the tournament are that my list lacked screens. The Wraithguard seemed cool in testing, but they fell very short for me. It could be that I played them wrong, but they are also hard to support in a list that also has Guardians who compete for psychic buffs like Protect and Fortune. Also with how expensive they are, I didn’t have any cheap units to screen with, other than my single Ranger squad. Moving forward, I’ve dropped the Wraithguard in favor of a third Guardian bomb (what can I say, I love Guardians) and three units of five Swooping Hawks. I love those guys. I recently took the revised list to an RTT and went 3-0, even beating the dreaded Raven Guard assault centurion list!

I’ve got another GT coming up in December, so stay tuned!

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!

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