2500pt Heresy Battle Imperial Fists and Knights vs Knights and Lunar Wolves

I had the opportunity recently to catch up with a friend, and play against his Knights. I've only used Knights twice, so I was interested to see how it would go playing against them. The good thing is we played with completely painted armies on a completely painted board, so it was great to see it all in action.

The mission we rolled up was from Betrayal.
Mission: Dominion
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

We had 3 objectives (all mid-field) worth 3pts each, Slay the warlord, First Blood, Attrition (extra victory point if you destroy more enemy units than your opponent). In addition everything except Independent Characters, Flyers and Dedicated Transports were scoring.This did mean the roads would be brutal going down.

This is my 2500pt army. I knew I was going against Knights,  I just didn't know what type and how many, so I went for as much anti-tank as possible.

Imperial Fists with Allied Knights

Legion Praetor Adalwulf
-Terminator Armour
-Storm shield
-Digi-lasers
-Paragon Blade

Primaris Medicae Omni
-Terminator Armour
-Storm Shield
-Solarite Power Glove

6 Huscarls
-3 Thunder Hammers
-2 Chainfists
-6 Storm Shields

Spartan
-Flare Shield
-Armoured Ceramite

Tactical Squad I
Sergeant with
-Power Fist

Tactical Squad III
Sergeant with
-Power Fist

Land Raider Proteus

Land Raider Proteus

Imperial Knight Paladin

Imperial Knight Errant

Knights with allied Luna Wolves
 Cerastus Knight Lancer Seneschal (Warlord)

Questoris Knight Errant Scion Aspirant

Cerastus Knight Acheron Preceptor

Questoris Knight Styrix Scion Arbalester

Luna Wolf Allies:
Chaplian
-Power Maul
-Artificer Armour
-Bolter
-Jump pack

10 Tactical Marines
Sergeant with
-Heavy Chainsword
-Meltabombs

7 Destroyers
-jump packs
-meltabombs
Sergeant with
-Thunderhammer

5 Reavers
-jump packs
-power fist
-2 power swords
-plasma pistol
Sergeant with
-power maul
-hand flamer

The scene is set...

  The traitor deployment.

Imperial Fists deployment.

The traitors get the first turn.

They move everything up. A few shots go off against my Knights, but to no lasting effect. The template on my paladin is a grav template.

Imperial Fists Turn 1

My Knights move up to shoot at the opposing knights. They manage to do 4 hull points to the Styrix, though its flare shield soaks the rest of the shots.

The Spartan 'Victory' unloads on the Errant, along with the Land raider 'Dauntless'. They manage to do 4 Hull points again. The last Land Raider 'Indomitable', can't draw a bead on the Errant, and instead takes some ineffective pot shots against the Lancer.

Traitor's Turn 2.

They moved up their knights, take off quite a few hull points of my Paladin, and then all 3 assault in. His Errant obliterates my Paladin. My Paladin, despite going at the same time, misses with all his attacks. The resulting explosion finishes off the Styrix.

Some new craters to add.

The battle against my Errant goes even worse, despite attacking first (as the knights went through cover), my Errant again misses with all his attacks. He is then quickly annihilated.

Imperial Fists Turn 2. At this stage, I have lost two knights and my friend has lost 1. The Spartan 'Victory', unloads the terminators, and shoots point blank into the Errant, but not enough to kill it. My terminators, then assault it, taking 3 casualties. They succeed in destroying the Errant, but the resultant scatter of 3 inches towards my Terminators, kills them all but my characters and 1 Huscarl. At this stage, with still 2 knights to fight, along with his marines, things were looking shifty.

My other Land Raiders line up and fire on the Knight Lancer, but only succeed in doing 1 hull point damage.

Traitor Turn 3. The Acheron moves up to my Terminators, and manages to splat them convincingly in the assault phase. The Jump Pack marines movie to assault my Spartan. At this stage I wasn't worried as I had armoured ceramite, however, melta bombs are not 'melta', but armourbane, so my spartan just destroyed by my ignorance. The lancer moved to the Land Raider 'Dauntless', and quickly smashed it to pieces, with my tactical squad make a quick disembark.

Clearing the streets.

Imperial Fists Turn 3 sees my Last Land Raider disgorge my tactical squad to shoot at the marines in front of them. I believe I killed 1, maybe 2 from the literal hail of shots pumping into them. The Land Raider again shoots at the Lancer, and scores 1 hull point damage.

My other Tactical squad moves up to the chaplains squad and unloads into them, killing 1 I believe. It was at this stage I thought, perhaps, I might be in trouble.

Traitor Turn 4. The assault marines fly into my tactical marines, and get beaten back, and sent fleeing. The Acheron fluffs its assault move into my Land Raider, buying me one last turn to try and bag their warlord Lancer. My other tactical squad, with El Fisto, gets sandwiched between the chaplains assault squad and the Knight Lancer. Unsurprisingly they get wiped out.

Imperial Fists Turn 4 sees very little. My marines fire heroically into the back of the fleeing jump marine, failing to do anything. The land Raider gets his final shot against the Lancer. If he bags this, then I would have at least have killed his Warlord. I manage to get though with 1 lascannon shot, and do, again, 1 hull point, leaving the Lancer breathing safely on just 1 hull point left.

Despite no other pics, you can certainly see what happened next. Everything dies and that is the game!

Final Victory points
Knights/Luna Wolves: 6
Imperial Fists/Knights: 0

I just couldn't take out the 4 Knights. I do feel my own luck with my knights (them not hitting anything at all), did not make things easy for me. That and not having the first turn, with an extra round of shooting, also meant that the Knights were in combat with only 1 round of shooting into them. The melta-bomb thing was also a good lesson to learn, so I'm glad that came up. Will remember that next time!

So after that slaughter, I did take away a few valuable lessons, and have bumped some things up on my painting table, so I have some more anti-tank weapons.

Still, despite the loss, it was great to play on such a great table with cool models and have a most enjoyable evening. And of course I now know how hard Knights are to play against!

Thanks for looking

Cheers!

More Imperial Fists

Got some more hobby done this holiday. I realised after taking the photo of my lastest squad I didn't give my sergeant the red helm and stripe, so I felt compelled to change that and update that. Here he is with the adjusted helm.

 Here is a closer look at his heraldry. I have all my veterans and characters with their own little heraldic shield on them. Just think it looks cool, and I like doing the designs.

I also painted up two more Huscarls with chainfists for an upcoming game. I have had said game, and will post it up with the game photo's soon. It was a game against a lot of Knights, so I thought some chainfists would be in order.

Next up I will write up the battle report of my 30k Imperial Fists and Knights vs Knights and Lunar Wolves. It was a brutal fight!

Thanks for looking.

Cheers!

MK VI Tactical squad complete!

Well, found some good mojo and finished off the 3rd Tactical squad, all in Mk VI armour, my favourite type. Very pleased that I got them finished.

Here are the pics.

This adds another tactical squad to my forces. Though I'm thinking, for them to fit with the rest of my tacticals, they will need a Rhino as well. Good thing is, my Razorback, which I can't use in 30k, I magnetized back in the day, so I'll just replace the doors and add a combi-bolter/storm bolter and they are good to travel! Guess I know what is next!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Hobby update - Imperial Fists II

Another update on my Imperial Fists. Finished the next two marines for my 'El Fisto' squad III.

Here they are.

This now puts me up to 5 marines painted. I am currently wokring on the next 2, so will post them up when they are done.

Thanks for looking!


Cheers!

Hobby update - Imperial Fists

I am ardently trying to be more prolific in the posting this year, not that that really matters. Still I thought I'd throw up a hobby update.

As some may be aware, I have started a new campaign with my friend against his Alpha Legion. So that has meant that I have a bit of a hobby drive to get things painted, which is what I find I need. When I paint, I need an end objective, and usually its for a game in the future, usually.

So I dug around my box of bits, as I wanted to have another tactical squad in the future, and lo and behold, I still had a lot of my old Blood Angels marines. I really thought I sold them all, but was very pleased when I found them. This meant that I could now field a squad entirely in MK 6 armour, my favourite mark.

So I painted up a few! Here are the first lot.

 First three MK 6 marines.

 These two are on the painting table now, hoping that if my progeny are not too sick tonight, I will get a chance to get some yellow on them.

The rest of the squad, with the extra bits added on to turn them from my old Blood Angels, to my new Imperial Fists Tactical Squad III. In the centre is the Sgt, aptly named El Fisto. I think only one of my friend knows the story, but this one model was responsible for the most jammy luck and kill streak I have ever seen in a game from a 1 wound model, so I was delighted beyond words when I discovered I hadn't sold him.

Here is the tale of El Fisto. In one game, he and his squad were escorting a Librarian, and attacking some Orks. They made it to some ruins, and saw a Battlewagon, with a Warboss in 'Eavy armour, along with 20 Skarboyz pile out and rush his squad. They went to the top of the ruins, and proceeded over the course of the game to slowly wipe out the Skayboyz, culminating with El Fisto killing the warboss.

Then.

El Fisto gets out of the ruins (with only 1 squad mate left), and proceeds to attack and destroy the Battlewagon. It was insane as most of the kills from the squad, were in fact, El Fisto's.

Lets see what else I can add to his saga!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Alexis Polux

Well I have been busy getting my forces ready for the next campaign game. Since the next game is a Zone Mortalis, Polux is the natural 'fluffy' choice. Although I have had the model awhile, I'm glad I got him all done up.

Here he is.

I also added some OSL the lights on his base. I think they may be a little bright, but I'm fine with it, least I can see them and admire them during game play.

Next on my painting table is a ruin for the table. Its been assembled for close to 10 years, so its going to be great to get it done.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers!

Duty and Shadow - Horus Heresy Campaign

As mentioned previously, my friend and I are starting a campaign, My Imperial Fists vs Alpha Legion. We are going to use the campaign system from the Conquest book.

We decided on 3 warzones, Ancient Ruins, Rad Wastes and a Space Station. Last night we managed to play the first game, in the Rad Wastes. He was attacking, and if he won, he would claim an campaign point. I was just there to stop him. We did a scenario, no idea what, but basically the three buildings in these Rad Wastes were valuable (very good cover from the radiation storms I recon). They accrued VP's each turn, so they were quite valuable.

We decided for the first few games to make it only 1000pts, as he was just beginning his force. Here are my 1000pts.

Praetor Lachdannan
Iron Halo
Digi Lasers
Solarite Power gauntlet

Tactical Squad 1
Power Fist
Rhino

Tactical Squad 2
Power sword
Rhino

Land Speeder Squadron
Heavy Flamer, Multimelta

Land Raider Proteus

Alpha Legion (from memory)
Armillus Dynat

5 Alpha Legion Headhunters
Drop Pod

5 Cataphractii Terminators
Chainfist

Tactical Squad Gamma
Meltabombs
Drop Pod

Tactical Squad Sigma
Meltabombs
Drop Pod

Deployment. All my forces embarked or in reserve. This zone was rather brutal, as if you are in the open and don't have an invulnerable save, then if you fail a toughness test at the beginning (or end, forget which), of your turn, you take D3 wounds on the unit, no Armour Saves. Oh there is also Rad storms blowing about as well, which can hit you with a pie place of AP3. Transports seemed like the order of the day for this zone!

Sneaky Alpha legion. Nowhere  in sight.

Turn 1 they crash down on two objectives.

My turn, I move my flanking Rhino's forward, and the land Raider takes some pot shots at the traitors.

Alpha Legion 2nd Turn, the rest of their forces drop down in middle, and the tactical Squad makes a long range charge to my Land Raider, and destroys the right Lascannon.

Imperial Fists Turn 2.

Praetor Lachdannan gets out, ready to do some damage, where the Rhino's double back and disembark Squad 2, to fire at the Headhunters. The Land speeders scatter 11, and miss with their shots. All said though, the weight of fire took out the Headhunters, leaving the character Armillus Dynat, on his own.

Alpha Legion 3rd turn, the Terminators come in to back Dynat up. The Tacticals on the right, unleash Fury of the Legion, and score 2 wounds against Praetor Lachdannan.

Imperial Fists 3rd Turn, everyone disembarks and lines up their shots on Dynatt and the Terminators. At the end of it they all fall. Dynat himself gets vaped with 2 Multimelta shots.

Praetor Lachdannan charges in...

...and wipes them out.

Alpha Legion Turn 4 sees them take some pot shots to no effect. They still have an impressive lead in victory points, due to the consistent camping on objectives. Imperial Fists turn 4 sees some Drop pods dead, and Tactical Squad 2, running for the other objective.

Last turn of the game sees little to no action, with tactical squad 2 still running for the objective.

Alpha Legion: 6
Imperial Fists: 4

End game sees that despite the horrific casualties they suffered, the Alpha legion won the day with their objectives. Although I did get slay the warlord and another bonus for killing more units (which did give me a bonus of 2D3) I rolled a 1 on each of them. However we did roll for things post game, and it seems Dynat died due to his injuries. A harsh roll for the first game! Still, at least I did achieve something.

It was a fun game though. My next objective is to get some stuff painted for the next campaign game (Zone Mortalis with Space Hulk tiles), and actually start painting some terrain as it is starting to annoy me.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers!