Adam's Imperial Knights recap of LVO 2015

Well, I'm back!  Last weekend was an amazing marathon of 40k action. I didn't make it to the finals, but 6 games in 2 days is still a lot of Warhammering. This year I brought my Imperial Knights, which I painted just in time for the event. My list was intended to be a straight forward and intimidating army:

Imperial Knight Errant (Warlord) Imperial Knight Paladin Cerastus Knight Castigator

Grey Knights Librarian: 110 5 Grey Knight Terminators: 2 falchions, 1 halberd, 2 hammers, incinerator: 205 Nemesis Dreadknight: Heavy psycannon, great sword, personal teleporter: 205 Nemesis Dreadknight: Heavy psycannon, great sword, personal teleporter: 205

Total: 1850

Outside of the tournament my biggest issues were against massed flyers, especially flying Hive Tyrants, as well as mission #2, the Relic, which has 0 maelstrom points for killing enemy units.

Round 1: vs Space Marines with Imperial Knights

My first game was against a really nice guy named Oliver with Space Marines, including 3 Sicarans, backed up by two Imperial Knights (both Errants IIRC). Unfortunately, it was a very rough game for Oliver, my Nemesis Dread Knights mopped up two of his Sicarans and Master of the Forge, while my 3 Knights handed his two. He was a fantastic guy who came back that night for Beerhammer, so I'm glad that my 10-0 victory wasn't disheartening.

Round 2: vs Iyanden Eldar

Game 2 was a disastrous match up for me, I was going against an Eldar player who was running literally nothing but Wraithguard, Spirit Seers and Wave Serpents.  Normally that's not such a nightmarish army to face, but when a majority of your army is a vehicle, that volume of S10 firepower is incredibly intimidating. It was a rough game for both of us, losing a lot of valuable units left and right, though I managed to steal victory by dropping the relic at the end of turn 5, putting his contesting units out of range, but the game continued and I wiped out the units that were capable of contesting on turn 6. I can't stress how close this game was and I believe that if my opponent had slept the night before and had a better grasp of the intricacies of the rules around the relic (there really are some shenanigans you can pull), I think it could have gone very differently. This game ended in another 10 point victory for my Knights.

Round 3: vs Tau with Cadre Firebase

The last game of Day 1 was against Frontline's very own Adam Merlic, one of the top Tau players in the US. His army contained 3 units of Broadsides and 3 Riptides, some of which came from his Firebase Cadre, so a lot of tank hunters going on. We had talked previously that day and he didn't want to face my Knights just as much as I didn't to face his Tau, haha. I knew my only chance to win the game was to jam all my knights down his throat as quickly as possible. His firepower was incredibly overwhelming, though it doesn't take much to make Tau crumble in close combat, the game came down to a 5-5 tie, which both of us were satisfied with, though we had to add it back up a couple times to be sure it was indeed a draw. This meant I finished day 1 at 2-0-1, so yay me!

Round 4: vs Imperial Knights with Hive Fleet Leviathan

Day 2 would turn out to be my undoing. I must have pissed off the dice gods, because what was about to happen in game 4 was an abomination. I was up against an Adamantine Lance (1 Paladin, 2 Errants) as well as 3 Flyrants (devourers, but no egrubs) and 3 Mucolids. I was actually fairly confident going into the game, I know very well how to handle an Adamantine Lance, and I've played against flyrants enough times to know what they were about. Throughout the game, I managed to get myself into position to shoot against unshielded sides of his Knights, line up charges that should cripple his knights, but none of that made any difference. My dice rolling was so abysmal that literally all I managed to kill was a single Mucolid by turn 4. The game would end on turn 5 after we talked and wanted to see if he could successfully table me, it was totally pointless, I was utterly crushed, having not been able to do any meaningful damage, but we wanted to see some explosions, so he charged in all 3 of his knights into my Warlord, obliterating him, as well as 2 of his own knights in the process. At least the resultant explosion gave me 1 point for killing his warlord. I lost 10-1.

Round 5: vs Chaos Daemons

After that crushing defeat, I was slightly relieved to pull up against a flying circus daemon army. I figured my bad luck must be gone, as the one time my opponent remembered to use the warp storm, it was double 1's killing Be'lakor. We were both fairly certain that I had won the game, as it was going very well for me and not well at all for my opponent, Greg Swanson. He was getting Perils left and right, and my shields were keeping me alive. Things started to shift at the bottom of turn 4 though when my Terminator squad fighting against the Keeper of Secrets rolled straight 3's for their 4+ invulnerable save (I got sanctuary off). Shortly after that I had lost two knights, and all I had left was 2 NDK's and the Castigator. He was on the ground though with his Lord of Change, Daemon Prince of Slaanesh and Keeper of Secrets, with a total of 6 wounds left between them. With no options left, I sent an NDK into the Keeper, NDK into the Lord of Change and Castigator into the Daemon Prince. We were both fairly sure it was curtains for him, then it happened again, as if to prove a point, my dice once again turned on me, and it meant for the second time in a row, I would get tabled...

Round 6: vs Grey Knights and Space Marines, Draigo-star

I wasn't really excited to play a 6th game, since at this point I had already played 5 and ran the two-round Beerhammer tournament the night before. I was exhausted, and somewhat satisfied with my perfectly middling 2-2-1 record so far, but I figured it would be unfair to my opponent to drop. My final game was against a Draigo-star, with Sevrin Loth to ensure invisibility, and another GK Librarian for giggles. I had always heard about the infamous Draigo-star, and while I've never faced against one, I figured that my Imperial Knights were more or less impervious... and I was right. Turn 1 he used gate to get his Grav-centurions within range of my warlord, him figuring that his best bet was to focus all that he could into my warlord and take out a knight turn 1. Unfortunately for him, that didn't happen, I had positioned myself out of sight of his Sicaran, and only one of his NDK's could shunt into range, putting my shield up against the Centurions and with the NDK in my front, I only sustained a single HP of damage. In return, I charged 2 knights into the Centurions, as well as one of my own NDKs. My warlord issued a challenge, forcing Draigo to attack him. My warlord got the 5 he needed to hit in melee, then followed it with a 6 on the Destroyer table, good night Draigo. After that, it was just a little bit of mopping up to do, the Centurions folded quickly, as did the Librarian, only leaving Loth with his pesky 2+ invulnerable save, until I managed another 6 with the Destroyer attack to finish off the unit. Meanwhile across the board my second NDK and Castigator moved up towards his small fire base in the back corner, wiping out his Strike squad, tactical squad and Sicaran. We called it on the end of turn 3, his Storm Raven hadn't even arrived yet, though all he had left on the board at this point was an immobilized rhino. 10-1 victory, because we actually both accomplished First Blood at the same initiative step (his NDK killed my NDK, but my Knight killed his NDK at the same time).

Results

Overall I finished 3-2-1, which I think is quite respectable, considering that while I think I had a good list, it wasn't the best I could have done. I also got a 4/6 on painting, which was fairly high for the event, though I can only assume that using Grey Knights is pretty challenging to get max points, they never seem to be well respected for paint outside of going pure NMM or something impressive tacky like that. I was second best Imperial Knights, and would have won it if Pascal beat the guy who tabled me Round 4 like he was supposed to, haha!

With my success as Imperial Knights, I believe that I will be running them for the 2015 ITC season.  I really wanted to do Chaos Marines for ITC, but it appears that some people might only be running a Sorcerer and 2 units of Cultists as their "Chaos Marine Primary" in addition to whatever cheesy army they can bring, so I've decided that Imperial Knights will be a much more sporting venture, since it requires spending at least 1110 points in the Imperial Knights themselves.

Keep your eyes peeled for Nick, Chris Cole's and Pete's thoughts on the Las Vegas Open!