It’s once again time for the first game with a new Codex!
Strictly speaking, neither part of that sentence is true. I
wasn’t really using the new Codex, because I’m not one of the chosen few who
get a review copy early. Instead, we were making do with information cobbled
together from some of the extremely-thorough reviews out there, which have
kindly talked through enough points and the details of rules for us to play. If
we got anything wrong though, please be kind because I literally hadn’t even
seen the book yet when we played this game.
This also isn’t actually our first game with the Codex (or
what we’re making do with). We played a quick test game with this same Imperial
Knights list against a fearsome House Herpatrix Chaos Knights army.
Unfortunately, my COVID was not great that night, and it was a super messy
game. I genuinely rolled my Helverins as having 2D3 shots total all game, to
say nothing of the dozens of other rules we missed. It was a fun game (a close Chaos
Knights victory) but not really worth writing up.
Hopefully this time around will be better though, as the
Freeblade Lance takes on a classic Drukhari Realspace Raid! Can the Exalted
Court overcome the raiders, or will the Cult of Strife be taking home some very
large prizes to the fighting pits?
Freeblade Lance, 8CP
Oaths: Defend the Realm, Refuse no Challenge
Canis Rex with Mythic Hero, Master of Justice for Paragons
of Honour for Lay Low the Tyrants, Revered Knight, Virtue of Courage, The
Knight’s Faith, and The Folly of Mercy 470 (Imp)
Knight Errant with Herald, Strike and Shield, Banner of
Macharius Triumphant and twin icharus autocannon 465 (Imp)
Knight Paladin with Monarchsward, Peerless Warrior, House
Taranis trait, Ion Bulwark, Armour of Sainted Ion 460 (Imp)
Armiger Helverin with Frontline Fighters 155 (Imp)
Armiger Helverin with Hunter of Beasts 155 (Imp)
2 Armiger Warglaives, one with Machine Focus and meltagun (Mech), other with Honoured Sacristans and stubber (Mech) 295
Have you ever wanted to play an army with more special rules than models? Well, I think the Freeblade Lance is the army for
you. I’ve perhaps-unwisely gravitated to the most complex way to play this army,
but we’re rolling with it because I think it looks super fun. This section is
going to be somewhat longer than normal, because this army has a lot
going on and it’s a new book.
At the list’s core, it’s three big Knights buffing four
Armigers to hitherto-unknown levels of stompy goodness. That starts with the
Bondsman abilities of the Errant and Paladin, which each give two Armigers -1D
and either advance/charge or reroll hits and wounds of 1. So all the little
boys are going to be much tougher, and either zipping around or hitting super
hard. The Paladin’s also handing out fight first in the same manner, while the
Errant is handing out 4++ saves to its chosen Armigers. Awesome. Then Canis Rex
gets to start his chants, potentially giving out an aura of 6’s exploding and
another aura of 6+++ saves (going to 5+++ if the Armiger is already being
buffed by one of the other Knights). He can also make an Armiger action and
shoot, which is sneakily relevant with the new Secondaries.
So my 4 Armigers are super durable if they stick close to
the big boys, but what’s to stop the enemy just focussing on the Questoris and
ignoring their little friends? Thankfully the Paladin has the answer. He’s been
upgraded to be a Monarchsward, letting him Bodyguard the big Knights nearby. So
as long as they’re within 3” of him and have another model closer to the enemy
(say, a super-durable Armiger) then they can’t be shot at. The Paladin can, of
course, so he’s been given a 2+/4++/6+++ via a succession of different relics,
warlord and household traits. He also gets to use an Epic Deed for free once
per game, which could be quite tasty.
On top of all that, my whole army will be starting on 3
Honour thanks to my relics and warlord traits, while Canis Rex himself will
start on 5 and get an additional Oath! So he’s starting the game with ObSec, an
extra free reroll, a free ‘turn one dice result into a 6 per battle round’,
advance and charge, alongside the +1 to hit in melee and extra CP that everyone in
the army gets.
Edit: we realised after the game that we’d forgotten about
the additional Pledge and Troth that came with this trait. I think that
I’d probably have ended up becoming Virtuous a turn later, but that could have gone
the other way. Not sure. At any rate, we made another mistake in the opposite direction, so potentially I should have actually become Virtuous earlier than I did anyway.
Oh, and did I mention that literally everyone has a unique Household trait, because they’re all Freeblades? I’m sure you can see how this broke my brain in our first game with it.
Cult of Strife/Kabal of the Black
Heart/Artists of the Flesh Realspace Raid, 7CP
Battalion
Archon with Ancient Evil, Blast Pistol, The Djin Blade,
Splintered Genius 95
Haemonculus with Master Regenerist, The Animus Vitae,
Alchemical Maestro 90
Succubus with Adrenalight, Competitive Edge, Triptych Whip,
Show Stealer 95
Court of the Archon with 4 Slyth, 4 Ur-ghul, Lhamean 152
5 Hekatrix Bloodbrides with Grave Lotus 75
5 Kabalites 40
5 Wracks 40
3 x 5 Grotesques 525
2 x 5 Incubi 180
2 x Ravagers 260
Raider with grisly trophies 110
Venom 75
Patrol
Drazhar 145
5 Wracks 40
5 Mandrakes 75
Thankfully, Matt’s list is much simpler than mine. It’s got all the standard Drukhari hits, with plenty of murder characters and some throwaway chaff backing up a wall of efficiently-costed meat. 15 Grotesques and a Court is a lot of durability, and the rest of the army will be murdering me and scoring points while I deal with them. Brutal. No real tricky combos, just good statlines and lots of scary melee.
Secondaries and Deployment
Playing on Conversion, I’ve got a pretty clear gameplan of
running up the middle and bullying Matt off the objectives. If I can bully him
off the centre and one flank, awesome. If I can bully him off his home
objective, then he probably needs to actually kill that Knight to take it back.
To that end, my obvious first pick was Stranglehold, because
I kind of need to be scoring it anyway for my Oaths. Next up was Renew the
Oaths, a new faction-specific Secondary that makes me do actions within 6” of
the centre for up to 5VP per action. It’s a big ask to give up a Knight’s
shooting for a turn, but thankfully my Armigers can do it and shoot if they get
the right buffs from Canis Rex. Finally, Grind is the logical choice. I
honestly don’t like Grind in general, because if you go first you’re probably
capped at 12 at best, but it’s likely to be an easier route to a respectable
score than No Prisoners or Assassinate .
For Matt, Bring it Down slots in as the first choice. It’s
not quite as easy to max as Titanslayer, but it gives him more flexibility
about which Knights he downs. The question then became how confident Matt was
in his capacity to keep my Knights pinned back. By the time I’d explained some
of my combos, Matt’s eyes were beginning to water, so he went with Engage and
RND. Better to take the points he can control than hope he can kill me and fall
prey to something he doesn’t understand. Or, quite possibly, something neither
of us understood till we saw it play out.
Deployment is pretty standard for Matt, with everything trying to stay relatively hidden. Some Wracks and Kabalites go in reserve to score RND/Engage later, and the Grotesques take the riskiest positions because they’re the lowest-risk targets. Better a Grotesque soaks up shots than a Ravager, after all. My deployment is sneakier, with my Paladin and Armigers taking advantage of LoS blockers to hide. That leaves my Errant and Canis Rex out in the open, but they’re cunningly wedged within 3” of the Gallant. Thanks to Monarchwarden and the forward Armigers, that means they’re nicely untargetable.
Untargetable Knights. I love this game!
Edit: I've since realised that Monarchsward stipulates 'closest eligible target', so it's impossible to actually hide your whole army and use it. Oh well, lucky I went first!
Knights Turn 1, 20:10
My turn starts with plenty of Command Phase activity.
Bondsmen buffs go on all the Armigers to soup them up, followed by Canis
chanting the 5+ shrug Litany (although he botches the ‘action and shoot’ one). One
Warglaive is then sent to each of the central and left objectives, while Canis
and a Helverin line up shots. The Errant thunders forward to within 6” of the
middle, and, with nothing to shoot at or charge, starts my action to Renew the
Oaths. That’ll finish at the end of my turn for a sweet five points, as well as
a 4+ chance to gain an Honour that we forget all game long. Ah well.
In Shooting, Canis and the two nearby Armigers open up on
some Grotesques and kill 4. It won’t be scoring me Grind, but it’s nice to get
these early kills. Also, I gain an Honour point (up to 4) for holding more
objectives than Matt. Virtuous here I come!
Drukhari Turn 1, 20:14
I’ve basically asked Matt a question here: can he take my
central Armiger off the objective, or am I going to score a 12 on Primary? 2
weeks ago the answer would have been ‘Yes, obviously a Drukhari list can kill an Armiger’, but now that Armiger has
a 4++ and -1D. That makes the Incubi and characters massively less reliable
into it, and the Ravagers could very plausibly whiff. And if they do, then
Matt’s just exposed his best shooting units to my return fire.
Drukhari ponder how to kill my Warglaive
The solution is to send forward the Court of the Archon to give it their best crack, as their damage output is basically unaffected by my Bondsman abilities, while supporting them with a squad of Wracks to provide the ObSec to flip the point.
It’s a sound plan, and it secures the central
objective, but I pop the ‘+1 armour save in combat’ strat on the Armiger. In
concert with its ‘ignore AP-1’ Household trait, that sees me take only a single
wound from Matt’s 38 attacks. I then swing back and kill three of the Court,
making Matt really pay for taking this objective.
Elsewhere, Matt sends Grotesques towards both of the
outlying objectives, while RND-ing in his backfield. Finally, the Ravagers
manage to line up shots on my Paladin from behind obscuring terrain. They hit 5
times, wound twice, and I save them both. A free 4++ is very pleasant indeed.
Imperial Knights Turn 2, 38:14
Alas, no 12 for me. The Command phase goes largely as before,
with all the Armigers being Bondsmen and Canis getting off both the ‘sixes
explode’ and ‘5+++’ chants. I send all three big Knights into the centre, where
the Paladin starts my action again and the other two move to charge the Court. The
central Warglaive uses a 2CP strat to fall back and shoot, forfeiting me an
Honour point but vaporising an Ur-Ghul for my trouble.
The rest of my shooting is pretty devastating, wiping out the Wracks squad and the nearby Grotesques, as well as chipping two more models off the further Grotesques and whittling down the Court a little. A Helverin even draws LoS to the Venom and blasts it to pieces, helped by having +1 to hit against vehicles from its Household trait.
The Court then get the joy of being
charged by Canis Rex, the Errant and a Warglaive, and are promptly wiped
out by Rex alone. 10 attacks translates into 12 hits, 11 wounds, 9 failed saves
and a very dead Court.
I score points on Stranglehold and Renew the Oaths, but my
Honour stays static on 4 because my falling back cancels out holding more objectives
than Matt. Booooo.
Drukhari Turn 2, 41:30
Matt knows he needs to make something happen this turn, as
otherwise I’m going to just sit in the middle and score 12’s all game. A
cursory talking through of the defensive buffs on my lead Armiger (-1 D, a 4++,
a 5+++ shrug, ignore AP-1) convinces him that that’s not going to happen, at
least in any efficient manner. It had even healed the one wound he dealt with
his Court!
Instead, Owen uses his Drukhari capacity to advance and charge to yeet Drazhar, three Grotesques and a squad of Incubi into Canis Rex. Rex is the most exposed of my big Knights, and if he goes down then I could be in a difficult position.
That effort is also assisted by the Ravagers, who manage to
chip 4 wounds onto him from behind obscuring terrain once again.
Combat goes badly for Matt, however. I pass both of my
leadership checks to avoid fighting last, and Drazhar fails to do more than
three damage to me after I pop the ‘+1 save in close combat’ strat again. What
I’d do to access the Chaos Knight version, which gives -1D
instead! After Drazhar had performed his first set of swings, I interrupt for
free thanks to Canis’ Revered Knight warlord trait. I swing hard for Drazhar
and cause three wounds. Matt passes the first save, fails the second then fails
it again on the CP reroll! The Master of Blades is dead before he can activate
for a second time, and though the Incubi and Grotesques successfully reduce me
to 8 wounds, I’m feeling pretty good about the combat.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, 5 Kabalites come in and score
RND, and the Grotesques make it into cover on the far-left objective. I figure
they can probably have it.
Imperial Knights Turn 3, 67:30
After Matt’s big swing and miss last turn, I’m feeling in a
commanding position. All three big Knights push forward a little, although they
make sure to stay within the central compound to give me options into the
Drukhari Matt has committed there. I also make the bold call that I have enough
damage output this turn to kill what Matt has committed, so the Errant finishes
off Renew the Oaths instead of shooting or charging. It’s a lot of damage
output to give up, but I’m now on a 15 for that Secondary, so it feels
worthwhile.
The front Warglaive goes surging forward into Matt’s backfield, where it vaporises a Ravager with some pinpoint firepower before charging into the Bloodbrides.
The other Warglaive hurtles around the corner to line up the Haemonculus, as well as crippling a Raider with its melta fire on the way in. Then the Helverins absolutely turn it on, gunning down the newly-arrived Kabalites before wiping out the whole 3-man Grotesque squad in a single volley.
The Frontline Fighters trait on one Helverin for S8 on its guns was critical, getting me over the Artists of the Flesh hump to gun down the squad. The big Knights are less exciting, merely destroying the damaged Raider, but that’s honestly about all they can see anyway. I have a vague suspicion they killed the Mandrakes this turn too, but can't see them in any of my screenshots. At some point those Mandrakes died, that's the main thing.
Rex and the Paladin charge into the Incubi and wipe them pretty easily, before the central Warglaive slices the Haemonculus up into some very small pieces.
Of course, those pieces reassemble at the end of the phase, but it’s a start.
Finally, the
Warglaive on Matt’s objective uses Chainsweep to pummel the Bloodbrides with 12
attacks. He hits 9 times, inflicts 7 wounds, and then watches as Matt saves 5
of them. Still, it’s enough to mean I hold Matt’s objective, scoring me a juicy
4 bonus points on the Tertiary, as well as reducing him to a 4 on Primary. We
aren’t entirely sure, but decide that the Haemonculus dying then coming back to
life probably fulfils my Oath to kill two units in combat, taking me to
5 Honour and making me fully Virtuous.
This turn has likely sealed the win for me, but we decide to
play out another to see if Matt can get himself some revenge.
Drukhari Turn 3, 70: 41
Matt doesn’t have a whole heap left, but he really wants to
take down at least a couple of Knights. To that end, the Bloodbrides fall back
from my forward Armiger, with the surviving Ravager and Incubi both moving to
support. In the centre, meanwhile, the Archon, Succubus and Haemonculus all move
forward to try and bring down Canis Rex at last. Finally, the last Wracks come
in deep in my backfield, where they RND and await their fate.
That’s about the only thing that goes right for Matt, however. The Ravager can only deal three wounds to the Armiger on his objective, and the Incubi can only bring it down to 6 before it swings back and wipes them all out.
In the centre, Matt misses with his one use of the Animus
Vitae, needing to spend his last CP to reroll it and score a single mortal
wound. Ancient Evil cancels out Canis Rex’s fight first to let the Archon
swing, but even with the Djinn blade he is unable to get past the Knight’s T8.
Moreover, Rex then spends 2CP to interrupt and absolutely pulverise the
Succubus, and neither the Archon’s second round of attacks nor the Haemonculus’
strikes are able to do any damage to the rampaging super-heavy. Thanks to the
Freeblade trait, Rex will now start next turn on more wounds than he
ended my last one. Brutal.
At the end of Matt’s turn he scores Engage, RND and the Tertiary, but also loses 1 point for not holding his home objective. It’s been that kind of game.
Imperial Knights Turn 4, 88:41
My turn is basically just cleanup. The Helverins in my backfield combine fire on the Wracks that had just popped up, obliterating them in a hail of autocannon fire.
My unengaged Warglaive trots onto Matt’s home objective and detonates the last Ravager with a hail of accurate melta fire, while the Archon and Haemonculus find themselves facing the firepower of two whole Knights and are wiped out.
Finally, the Errant goes speeding off across
the field to charge the last Grotesques, killing two with its Thunderstrike
Gauntlet for no damage suffered in return.
On the flipside, the Hekatrix Bloodrides continue their
streak of hot saving throws, passing 6/7 4+ saves to keep two Bloodbrides alive.
We call it there, just rolling out the last combats of
Matt’s turn to see whether the Grotesque and Bloodbride die immediately, or
whether I can kill them one turn later to score three more on Grind.
Both get absolutely destroyed in combat, closing out a
brutal 94:37 win to the Imperial Knights!
Post-Game Analysis
Well, neither brand of Knights seems to do close games very
often. So far they’ve basically just produced massacres in one direction or
another, at least when not playing against each other.
If that’s the first major takeaway from that game, then the second is that the new Knights Codex has some serious teeth. Everything hit so hard, and those Armigers were terrifyingly durable as well. The core plan of ‘buff some Armigers to high heaven, stop the enemy killing my big Knights’ worked a treat, and I was honestly surprised at how useable my combos felt on an actual battlefield. Combo-hammer doesn’t normally work as well on the field as it does in the army list!
It took me quite awhile to get this deployment right!
In saying that, I think the matchup was a helpful
one for me in this regard. Matt didn’t really have the long range firepower to
take out my big Knights, so he was forced to either commit piecemeal against
them or throw everything against the buffed up Armigers. Had I been up against
something like an Asuryani or T’au gunline, then I imagine that Paladin might
have fallen pretty quickly, defensive buffs or no defensive buffs.
Alternatively, losing a couple of Armigers on Turn 1 would have left me with
heaps of buffs but nowhere to put them.
So that’s what worked; what didn’t go as well as I expected?
Honestly, the Errant’s advance/charge for Armigers literally never felt
relevant. I contemplated using it twice, but both times I was more interested
in getting in some melta shots than being a bit more ambitious with my charges.
I’m sure that was partly a result of Matt wanting to play an aggressive game
into me, but I honestly got a lot more value from the Paladin than the Errant.
Some of my Freeblade traits also never came up, although some of the others
(+1S within 18”, a free reroll on shooting attacks, even ignores AP-1) were
pretty clutch.
S8 was huge against Artists of the Flesh
Other new mechanics I really liked: the Oaths felt
really cool and exciting, I loved the feeling of progressing up the ladder by
completing valorous acts. It made it a fun little minigame when deciding
whether to fall back, or what I wanted to kill in combat versus shooting. My
combo on Rex to get him an additional Oath and start on 5 Honour was
pretty awesome, he felt super solid with all his rerolls and auto-sixes. Honestly,
he was maybe my MVP, he just kept soaking up charges then interrupting with his
fights first and obliterating something. Very solid model, definitely a pick in
any Freeblade Lance. Who would have thought Fights First would be so useful?
I also liked the new Secondary. I expected to be using an
Armiger to do it all game, but honestly I often felt like I didn’t need one of
my big Knights. Unless your opponent is committing everything to a slogging war
in the middle, you’re likely going to have one Knight who can’t draw LoS on
anything good or who just isn’t needed to help you clean up what you can see,
so being able to get 5VP just for standing in the middle felt pretty awesome. It
would have been even better if I’d remembered to roll for some extra Honour
points at the same time!
Hopefully you enjoyed this first battle report with the new
Imperial Knights. I think this book is super exciting, and I’m really looking
forward to playing it some more over the coming months. Let me know what you
thought of the lists and all the wombo-combos, and how you think these Knight
Codices are going to shape up.
Until next time, may your Armigers always have their Bondsman abilities!
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