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 Ideasweasel wrote:
We both picked the king of the hill style secondary (forgot the name) I picked the banners one, and then the kill vehicles one. Cant recall my opponents 3rd secondary but he picked titan kliller one cause why wouldn't he. I just found that when I plonked guardsmen on an objective (even two squads at one point) he had enough volume of fire to kill them. The dreads each had over 20 shots with reroll shenanigans and he had moved into the centre of the board. The dreads were no slouch in melee and capable of bitch slapping my knights. it made the fight for the centre tricky. I needed my knights to contribute to holding the centre and whilst I tried I had to then strategically fallback as they where in danger of getting punched to death.

I think for a future list im going with more firepower and something to be aggressive in the middle. Non LOS stuff like a manticore is fine but it feels less useful in not being on an objective. Just killing stuff alone isnt enough. So perhaps a tank commander or something melee based will be my next addition

By King of the Hill, I assume you were playing the No Man's Land mission with its secondary. I don't mean to backseat game, I hope you don't mind if I just consider the puzzle in abstract. I agree your assessment on list changes. My own experiences have led me to add more melee. I think you can probably swap the Warden to a Gallant, and switch the Manticore for more anti-tank. You can probably bring a Lascannon in every infantry squad, which would make that firepower really hard to degrade.

 Ideasweasel wrote:
Going second really hurts. I am not a fan of the pregame format. the roll for who wins deployment seems pointless if you are playing a balanced tournament map. one positive is obscuring terrain didn't make too much of a difference though. I think maybe I over thought that one and its not as terrible for us as initially thought

The roll for winning deployment is literally just to make players place terrain fairly. Like if you have two kids cutting a cake, the first kid cuts both pieces but the second gets to pick. It's a prisoner's dilemma that encourages fair play. So to your point, yeah, it doesn't do anything in tournament play if the boards are already symmetrical.

 grouchoben wrote:
I agree, I think the glaring letdown with 9e is first turn asymmetry, especially when we'd got to the point in 8e ITC where going second was very often to be preferred...

The problem is hard-baked into their scoring system. If the progressive scoring occurred at the end of the battleturn, I think that alone might be enough to balance 1st and 2nd.

I would not be surprised if we go back to scoring at the end of the battle round for ITC anyway, at least for the Primaries.

 Tastyfish wrote:
With the new missions, is there scope for a Freeblade Armiger, Sworn to a Quest (reroll 1s against warlord, Obj Sec)?

Fast moving unit with a big base like a Warglaive seems like it'd be useful on the surface, or making your backfield Helverin need enemy troops to push it off an objective.

You'd not losing as much from your House traits as you would with a Questoris Freeblade.

I think this is definitely an option for pure Knights. I wouldn't use it on a Warglaive, since they need the Household tag for both their Stratagems. I think it's unlikely that the Warglaive is going to steal a midfield objective anyway. I think it's definitely a good idea to run it on a backfield Helverin though, since it stops fast units from contesting. Amusingly, the Helverin's Thin Their Ranks strat doesn't require <Household>, so you don't lose anything. The best burdens are probably Exiled in Shame and Haunted by Failure. Obsessed with Vengeance and Impetuous Nature can totally screw you (unless 9th's codifying "remain stationary" as a movement option nullifies Impetuous Nature, in which case it becomes the best option). Driven to Slaughter is often -3 BS, Weary Machine Spirit is often -1, and Haunted by Failure is -0.33.

@darkhound

I like analysing games and seeing where I can improve etc. I’m appreciative of all the feedback.

The mission was number 5 from the GT book. There are 8 missions I believe and this map is called the scouring. It’s a hammer and anvil one.

The secondary I picked that is like king of the hill is actually named investigate sites - so it’s an infantry only king is the hill style thing.

I’m fully willing to accept in addition to a wonky list, in game miss plays, I’ve also definitely not figured out what sort of secondaries are good to go for

Although this game I did ok with secondaries, only being on 1-2 objectives meant I was a good 10-15 behind him at the games end. You really have to be on at least 2 for all 5 turns. And because he pushed up it meant I had to come off the second objective to avoid getting charged

He has deployed aggressively on the line as well as winning the roll so he just moved the dreads up

I’ll stick a photo of deployment in my dakka file if you want to see


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*gallery file

There is a significant amount of proxies in this game and the photo quality is terrible - just as a disclaimer haha

The majority of my guardsman are hiding in various terrain pieces and turn 1-5 I flung them up and onto objectives whilst moving the knights up.

Opponent was also cagey with his troops.

Oh man, that is an entirely different proposition then. I can't see the gallery image, but color me hugely impressed you kept the game that competitive.

For those that don't have access to the GT book, the mission has 5 objective markers, all outside the deployment zones. You score 5 VPs for controlling 2 objectives, 5 for controlling 3, and 5 more for controlling more than your opponent. So if you manage to hold 3, you score 15 and your opponent scores 5 rather than 10. You have to throw yourself at the center with reckless abandon to keep your opponent from scoring 15 and building an insurmountable lead.

Pure Knights just don't have the tools to deal with this mission. You're actually pretty fortunate you had so many scoring troops. The 3 Vanguard list would have been an even worse match. Going second was also a huge blow, like you said. You have the tools to clog an objective with bodies, but not to get on to one. You did make an error since you can't take both Raise the Banners High and Investigate Sites because they're the same category.

Strategically, your best hope is to feed an infantry squad to the grinder each turn to keep your opponent from holding 3. That makes the game score 20-20, though realistically your opponent will control more once for 20-30. He's going to score 15 for Titan Slayer and about 10 for Investigate Sites, and 10 for another secondary. For you, I'd expect 10 or less for Raise Banners, at least 10 for Bring It Down, and maybe 6 points for Investigate Sites if you're lucky. So I'd estimate 45-55 in his favour, in the best case. I imagine you got the last 5 points for Bring It Down/Investigate and your opponent held more twice for 10 more points, which brings your scores to 50-65.

For this match-up, since can't hold more, I'd focus on killing. I'd go straight for Thin Their Ranks and Bring It Down. I'd actually take the GT exclusive Deploy Scramblers rather than Raise the Banners for Shadow Operations, since your opponent can't mess with it. You can reserve one infantry squad and deploy them in your opponent's deployment zone on turn 3 to score it. Otherwise, tactically, the name of the game 'deny his points'. You'll also prevent him from scoring Investigate Sites each time you contest the primary.

Optimistically, you can keep the primaries at 20-20 which necessarily also means he scores 0 for Investigate. He'd score 15 for Titan Slayer and ~10 for whatever other secondary. You'll score 10 for Scramblers, so you have Thin Their Ranks and Bring It Down to score 16-30 points to make up any differences for the win. It's not impossible, but it is one hell of an uphill battle. I think 60 infantry is a huge boon, and gives you options for contesting objectives. You just need more assault and anti-tank elements. Like I said, a Gallant and a lot of Lascannons.

Cheers dude.

Not sure why the photo didn’t upload, I tried again and it’s still not doing it. Weird.

Ah whoops, I’ve just seen the banners one is on the same bit as investigate sites. That’s what I get for saving images on my phone. It will be easier once I have the physical copy in my hands

As for thin their ranks, I actually never realised the change. With all his 10+ dreads I could of scored a lot of points there. You are spot on. That was a missed opportunity. I did max out bring it down though.

I’ll get back to tweaking on battlescribe


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Oh and my opponent chose deploy scramblers and he scored the final bit turn 5.

Despite the loss is wasn’t so disheartening cause there was a lot that I could of done different in the game and in the selections before hand/deployment

Yeah, my pleasure. I think practicing evaluating secondaries in abstract is going to be a useful skill in 9th so you can form concrete pre-game plans. I'll have to think about how my projected 2k pt army would handle that match-up too.

If your opponent took Scramblers and Investigate, then they also made a mistake since those are the same category too.

He was sharing the same photos as me so that excuses him.

I’ll maybe need to look at tank commanders again. I used to run a guard double punishers Batallion with 3x crusaders before. That was fun

I then swapped to a more artillery focused list

Not to monopolize the thread, I did another game with an iteration of my list and got some interesting anecdotes. I had felt like the Preceptor wasn't quite doing enough. It was very rarely buffing the Warglaives after their first shooting turn and made for awkward positioning. It also stood out as a reliably available target for any anti-tank weapons on the field. I think you need at least two Knights plus allies or Warglaives. I also felt inspired by the Guardsman spam and wanted some more infantry to throw around on objectives.
My opponent was Ultramarines using roughly the following.We played Battle Lines from the GT book. Since he doesn't have bodies to spare for actions, his secondaries were Bring It Down, Engage on All Fronts, and the mission-specific Vital Ground. His plan was to fight me on both middle objectives to score 4 for Vital Ground and 3 for Engage on All Fronts per turn. I took Vital Ground as well, but also Line Breaker and Deploy Scramblers. My plan was to push one side of the board and into his deployment for 5 points on Vital Ground and 4 points on Linebreaker.

He deployed fairly evenly across his zone, but held his Eradicators to deploy last. I reserved one Warglaive, since there wouldn't be enough cover to hide them all. I deployed my Dunecrawlers and HQs together near the middle of my deployment and delayed revealing my plan to put all 3 Warglaives on one flank. He deployed his Eradicators centrally to split the difference, but this meant he wouldn't have great LoS going into turn 1. All my 3 Warglaives and most of my infantry went on my right flank.

I lost the roll-off and went second and immediately felt the difference of not having the Knight. He pushed everything forward, and only one of his Eradicators could get LoS to my Warglaive, the other had to settle for a Dunecrawler. If I had a Knight, it would have eaten both of them and bled wounds. His total shooting put 9 wounds on both the Dunecrawler and the Warglaive, despite Rotate Ion Shields. He advanced an Intercessor squad on to each objective, with the Aggressors, Dreadnoughts, and characters pushing across the center toward my right flank. The Aggressors shot and killed 4 Ruststalkers, which were in cover towards the middle of my deployment.

In response, I double-repaired the Dunecrawler and used Daedalosus to restore 8 wounds, while the Warglaive repaired itself back to its middle bracket. Daedalosus marked one of the Dreads for death by Dunecrawlers, which had re-roll 1s Canticle and Magos exploding 6s; they barely managed to get the last couple wounds on to kill it. The Warglaives killed a couple Eradicators and managed to get 2 charges into the Aggressors in the midfield, I think the total distance was ~22" and I used command re-roll and Pack Hunters. Pack Tactics just barely got Warglaives to kill all 5. Two squads of Vanguard also advanced and killed 3 of the Intercessors to take the right objective.

I'll save you the turn-by-turn description. Going into turn 2, he vaporized those two Warglaives. The Dreadnought and 4 characters got into a giant brawl on the right objective with the Ruststalkers, 2 Warglaives and a squad of Vanguard. It was a bloodbath that I eventually lost. The two other Vanguard squads ran off into his deployment zone to score Linebreaker/Scramblers. He was expecting my Dunecrawlers to duel his Eradicators, but instead they killed the 5 Intercessors on the left objective. I was threatening to capture his home objective with my Vanguard, and the Eradicators were closer to that objective. So he moved back to reinforce it to try to deny me Vital Ground, rather than try to peel 2 Dunecrawlers and 2 characters off an objective with 3 Eradicators. It worked, I never did get on his home objective.

The primary score ended up 40-35 and 8-6 for Vital Ground. At the start of turn 3, he had just lost the left objective and was only holding home for 5 points. At the start of my turn 3, my Dunecrawlers were already on the left objective, but his melee had contested my right objective so I scored 10 instead of 15. He scored 15 on Bring It Down, and 10 on Engage on All Fronts. I scored 10 for Scramblers, and 12 for Linebreaker. That gave me the win with 80 to 76.

My lesson from that game was I would absolutely not have won with my last list. My Knight would have been dead by turn 2 and I wouldn't have been able to stop it. Instead, I was able to rotate the smaller vehicles out of LoS and conserve them. Plus, due to list construction, I wouldn't have had enough Vanguard squads to both ObSec the right objective for a turn and flee into his deployment zone. My opponent also really felt the pain of not having enough discrete units to control the board, especially after he lost the left objective. I definitely regret reserving the Warglaive. I'd have rather deployed him further away and unable to charge, but at least able to shoot turn 1.

I just had a fun game with the below against newcrons(using the new leaked obsec rules)

Taranis

Crusader Errant with stormspear Gallant 4x lightning lock moirax’s

I won convincingly but I suspect that’s more down to my opponents bad dice and necrons ability to deal with T8

Fun list to play though - going to try it out against a more evil army like marines or something


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@darkhound.

Good news on the win! Monopolise away. I do enjoy hearing about people’s games and the tactics they are musing over. I’m sure most people do too

 Ideasweasel wrote:
I just had a fun game with the below against newcrons(using the new leaked obsec rules)

Uuh what leaked obsec rules?

tneva82 wrote:

 Ideasweasel wrote:
I just had a fun game with the below against newcrons(using the new leaked obsec rules)

Uuh what leaked obsec rules?

One of the dynasties gets objective secured on everything and 2x on troops. They also get to shrug off AP -1 in their deployment zone.

Aaa so leaked dynasty codes. I would be vary of using those as a) they include stuff we have no idea how they work b) we have no idea whatsoever what OTHER changes come. Did he also use say 2++ lychguard or wraiths? That might and odds are good will be going away in return so no 2++ obsec wraiths...

He’s a good friend and yeah he asked if I’d let him try some leaked rules

Yes we don’t have the complete picture and we probably played it wrong but....it’s necrons and he feels the same way about playing knights as I do playing tau

I can’t remember the last time I lost a game to necrons If I’m honest. His list yesterday wasn’t strong but he’s previously played various necron cookie cutters builds and they all falter.

So that’s something - we might not be great for 9th versus strong armies but at least we still $hit on necrons so far....till the full codex anyway hehe

Anyone else tested any games of 9th with knights yet?

Im aware I’m a chatty so and so just now but competed two games today so thought I would share

Game 1

Castellan
Crusader
Warden
Warden

3 ironstorm missiles

Game 2


Gallant
Warden
Crusader

And a space wolves patrol
Ragnar
30 intercessors
2 impulsors

I played against eldar. Won both.

My take aways are space wolves obsec is busted strong, impulsors need a points hike, pure knights is super chill but is Rock Paper Scissors. Either you win strong or get crushed on primaries.

Soup remains on the menu for me.

You mean 15 intercessors? Otherwise you're 300pts over. I really like that SW patrol list, it's almost exactly what I play! (Castigator <3 )

I had two games this morning with a very different AdMech/Knights list. Ideasweasel saw in the AdMech thread, but I thought I'd post it here too. One of those games was my first 100 VP game no less.
I can talk in more detail about the games if you'd like. It floods your opponent with T7 3+/5++, and everything regenerates a wound per turn. The Raiders are cheap wounds that help board control and screen against charges. The real stars are the Fusilaves. These things utterly shred light infantry, which can be a sore spot for Knights if they can't stomp them. Since Dunecrawlers are mostly Helverins but cheaper, I could see this package being a strong addition to a Knight list:That leaves plenty of room for stompy Knights. You could fit a couple of them and an Armiger in 1500 points, or you can bring more AdMech artillery. I'm of the mind that more individual units is better, hence my version with max Armigers and Dunecrawlers.

 grouchoben wrote:
You mean 15 intercessors? Otherwise you're 300pts over. I really like that SW patrol list, it's almost exactly what I play! (Castigator <3 )

15 yeah. I got that wrong. I plagiarised your list idea to give it a whirl. It’s pretty strong with the obsec.

@darkhound Armiger spam does seem to be stronger. I’m just so stubbornly attached to the 3x questoris model. Really hard for me to shift that mindset haha

"I’m just so stubbornly attached to the 3x questoris model. Really hard for me to shift that mindset haha"

Me too buddy! Even thinking of trying 4 with a minimal obsec patrol...

Yeah my pure knight's lists are revolving around 4-7 armigers with between 2-3 larger knights but generally relying on making 1 tanky as possible and outflanking/reserving the other.

This need to rely on armiger is definitely the worst news about 9th... And just after I finished my Household!

Jokes aside, someone tried a Quaestoris with Objective Secured? Or the wording on the rules (at least 1 ObSec AND more bodies... Even without ObSec) maketh that useless too?

Anyone else tempted to run a Castellan now that they’ve confirmed the 620 point cost?

Yeah.

I played Castellan, warden, warden, crusader 3x Ironstorm missile pods.

Absolutely crushed my opponent but I managed to delete his anti tank and his list wasn’t super competitive.

Castellan may get hamstrung by terrain and being a giant target to get nuked down. It also wants to hang back and shoot. I think 9th wants more of a push up in the middle playstyle.

Further testing is needed but it’s fun bringing it out now and then

Just because a Castellan has range doesn't mean he wants to hang back. His stomp is still pretty damaging, he has 4 meltaguns you would be wasting otherwise and he can walk out of most combats anyway.

You probably don't want him leading the charge, but there is no real need to hang him back.

Hehe reminds me of when codex comes up and I was arquing that point when people were comparing it and valiant.

"Castellan is wasting those meltaguns. Valiant gets to use".

And I'm "why not move forward as well with valiant? Ability to shoot from distance doesn't mean you have to. Valiant main guns have no minimum range".

Planning to dust off my knights again. How essential the PA book is for them?

Thinking of krast with 2 helveirns, 2 warglaives, crusader, gallant and warden each with relic and warlord trait. Now need to find my models and fix the one that got broken last time I fielded knight alongside sisters.

Lol. I don’t just stick him on one spot for the whole game but he definitely wants to use his range to his advantage.

Getting good firing lanes can be tricky in 9th with lots of terrain and the ever frustrating obscuring rule.

I like the Castellan and I am planning on trying out the below

Castellan
Crusader Ironstorm
Crusader Ironstorm

Graia patrol

Enginseer
3x5 skitarii
Bomber (for aura shutdown)

Assassin


No idea how it will perform but I like those models

Another change I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that the Banner Relic that grants Objective Secured now counts the Knight as 10 models like the Chaos Knight's version does. That allows us to at least toe into holding an objective.

I still think that some allies are needed to make Knights work though.

That’s not a change as far as I know. It’s always counted the knight as 10 models unless there was some FAQ I missed.

But yes, I think we need allies for more bodies if nothing else. I’ve been adding an Admech patrol with an engineseer, 2x5 vanguard and 2x10 Hoplites to my lists, but haven’t got to play yet and see how they do.

Bad news is it looks like Thunder hammers are now D4 flat base so Knight's durability is looking ever sketcher and they weren't durable for most of 8th.

Phew, agreed! Knights are in a lot of trouble, doubly so without soup to screen, if you ask me.

Ice_can wrote:
Bad news is it looks like Thunder hammers are now D4 flat base so Knight's durability is looking ever sketcher and they weren't durable for most of 8th.

Where are these leaks ? And they are for what upcoming release ? Space marine codex?


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BTW, can I check something? Are we allowed to play 1 knight and 8 amigers? or are we limited to 6 because of the rule of 3. In that same vein, does this mean we can't play 5 gallants also because of the rule of three ? (Theoratically, 200 points can squeeze in 5 bare bones gallants).