10th ed Test Game 2! Vs Dark Angels

 Another fun Test Game!

I had the pleasure of playing Brett today. A new player to 40k and a fantastic player. I see great growth potential! Just needs more games. 

Brett brought his Dark Angels, he is a huge fan of 9th ed strats so not having access to his Weapons of the Dark Age was a bit of a damper but he was a fantastic opponent regardless. 

Lists are as follows and we used 9th ed points at roughly 1000pts (I was a little over but 10pts is minor):

Brett's Dark Angels: (Link is to the Excel that I made for stats)

Captain in Termiantor Armour: 

• Thunder Hammer & Relic Shield

Techmarine

• Grav-Pistol, Servo-Harness, Omnissian Power Axe

Deathwing Terminators

• Dual Lightning Claw SGT
• 4x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shields (Storm Shields were +1W)
• Cyclone Missile Luancher, Storm Bolter, Power Fist

Redemptor Dreadnought

• Macro Plasma Incinerator, Icarus Rocket Pod, 2s Fragstorm Grenade Launchers, Onslaught Gatling Cannon

Assault Squad

• 4x Astartes Chainswords, 4x Bolt Pistols
• Grav-Pistol, Thunder Hammer

Hellblaster Squad

• 6x Assault Plasma Incinerator, 5x Bolt Pistols
• 1x Plasma Pistol

I brought:

Knight Abominant

War Dog Stalker

• Diabolus Heavy Stubber, Thermal Spear, Slaughtclaw

War Dog Stalker

• Diabolus Heavy Stubber, Thermal Spear, Reaper Chaintalon

War Dog Stalker

• Diabolus Heavy Stubber, Avenger Chaincannon, Slaughtclaw

War Dog Stalker

• Diabolus Heavy Stubber, Avenger Chaincannon, Reaper Chaintalon

The Mission:

We played Tempest of War in order to simulate the random secondaries of 10th as normal. Set up was Dawn of War and Mission was Hold 1 and Hold more with bonus points at end of game for every additional objective you held. 

Pregame:

In the pregame we went over terrain, what was in reserves (Terminatos for him, Abominant for me... which now that I think about it, I may have accidently cheated. I will have to check... yup, a quarter of your points can go into Strat Reserves... lessons learned.)

Objectives were placed prior to reserves following Tempest of War rules. We discussed Towering models being able to shoot through Ruins and enemy models shooting Towering through ruins themselves. 

Space Marines T1:

Space marines won the roll off. He jets his Assault Squad to hold the side objective he placed on my left.

The Redemptor moved over his Hellblaster Squad (it can do that now!) and gets LoS to my far right war dog. 

It was a bit of a day getting to this game so I had completely forgotten about Oath of the Moment. I think one of the main issues with doing these tests is that I REALLY need to remember all the phase and rules interactions. It leads to things getting missed too easily. 

So due to this I didnt lose a War Dog to the Redemptor's shooting though all he had in range was the Plasma but that still stripped 4 wounds. The new Hazardous is GOOD, I will go over the number of plasma shots but Brett rolls no ones for any of his Hazardous tests 

Chaos Knights T1:

Following that plasma onslaught, I move the War Dog behind the terrain. We had agreed on following the outline of the terrain so technically the War Dog was behind Ruins and could not shoot nor be shot at. The other two war dogs went up to shoot the assault marines and killed 2 in total from 3 War Dogs. OH!, before I forget, there was one change to stats with the Chaincannon, I kept it at AP-2 due to the Despoilers Gatling being AP-2 still. It is 50-50 that it will keep AP-2 but it would be nice overall. 

Space Marines T2:

Brett does not commit at this point. This is a common error I see with more players who have faced knights only a few or even no times before. They will soft commit and this leads to the Knight player gaining board and tempo control which is costly. 

If I had even recalled that Space Marines had a Detachment Rule I would of brought it up. My mind is only recalling Oath of Moment and forgot that Combat Doctrines existed. He could of advanced and maybe got the Redemptor into position to shoot the War Dogs. Instead he slows the pace and stays hidden. Interesting decision.

If we were to play this game again, I would print out all strats, detachment, and army rules and organize them by phase for my opponent. This would take some of the burden of remembering all the rules myself. 

Chaos Knights T2:

At this point, I bring up the War Dogs and kill the last 3 Assault Marines on the left objective. The Chaincannons are doing good work but the AP is being reduced and while Brett did not pop Armor of Contempt yet he is saving CP up. This leaves me in a good board position to go just about everywhere but Brett surprises me a little.

Space Marines T3:

Brett makes a push with his Terminator + Captain brick. The one thing that I think Brett made an error on was where he put the Oath Target. He placed it on that Center War Dog and if we had went that way, or positioned the Dreadnought a turn earlier to punish it could of been bad but sadly he didnt check LoS or Premeasure so was out of sight. This is a failure on my part as I should of given better advice. 

The Terminators did drop down and strip 2 wounds with their Cyclone Missiles (wounding on 5's with no rerolls HURTS!). They sadly failed the charge even after reroll which led to what happened next... something I thought was not likely...

Chaos Knights T3:

My War Dogs move into position, I touch buildings, slide over for slim LoS shots and the Abominant came in via Strat Reserves.

This next part I did not expect at all. In the start of the Shooting Phase, the Abominant forces one enemy unit inside of 12" to take a Battleshock test via Vortex Terrors. The Terminators rolled a 5! This means they failed and now every Knight I have gets +1 to wound. Which is great dont get me wrong (though +1 to hit would be quite impactful as well).

This leads to my Chaincannons wounding the Terminators on 2+! Ap-2 out of cover Terminators really don't like this one thing! (joke)

This leads to my War Dogs popping the new Tormented Wrath strat  Dread Hounds which I nominate all War Dogs to shoot into the Terminators and nothing else. 

This led to things like double 6's to hit on my Snakey Boi having 4 Thermal shots wound which Brett passes 2 (4++ is very nice at times). In the end, between the Volkite on the Abominant, and the 4 War Dogs, I drop all the terminators and strip a wound from the Captain. A VERY productive turn but really unexpected as the Terminators on a 7+ LD should have just better than a coin flip on passing. 

One really can not equate for luck. 

Space Marines T4: 

The Captain moves up to engage the Abominant, the Redemptor slides back over and the Hellblaster's prep to shoot the Abominant. All in all they take the Abominant from 22 wounds to 8. Just 1 shy from losing 5 OC and -1 to hit. The Captain dies in melee to the Abominant as he failed his Battleshock test so the Abominant was wounding on 2+ (though I forgot the -1 to be hit by him, it was irrelevant as Full Rerolls is STRONK!)

Chaos Knights T4:

The Abominant moves up, the rest of the knights moves into position to shoot, this is where I should of recalled the Overwatch strat and recommended the Redemptor put all shots into the Abominant. It would of slowed the game down a little for me but overall it would of been a WELCOME breather. This is on me. 

Through the shooting of 3 War Dogs and the Abominant the Redemptor is dropped to 3 wounds and on the charge I TON SHOCK!  it dealing 5 Mortals on 10 dice! This kills the Redemptor who was at full at the start of the turn. Good for me as that thing would of shredded my Abominant in melee. 

The Abominant kills 3 Hellblasters in melee. In return they strip 3 wounds from him with their rerolls and me rolling a 1, 1, 2, for saves! PAIN!

Space Marines T5:

Its T5 and my opponent seems to have had a blast, he decides to shoot his pistols in melee and doesn't wound even with Oath. The Abominant fights first and kills everything he is in melee with and lives on 5 wounds.... what a game!

Chaos Knights victory, 55 to 40! Now I didnt go over the cards that we drew but overall, I had 30pts in secondary and Brett had 25pts in secondaries. 

Overall Thoughts:

This was an exciting Test. A lot for me to go over and learn in teaching 10th edition. Especially since I plan on running Escalation Leagues to teach 10th and help new players build their forces. The game was fast, little downtime, we spent an hour and a half playing. Now most of this was me knowing the stats back and forward but still, good game. 

The Important part, opinion on Chaos Knights known rules:

My first test game was prior to knowing the rules of the Chaos Knights. Now that we know the Detachment rules and the Army Rules it is interesting. I am not 100% sold but the durability is mostly there. Forcing multiple Battleshock tests helped this game out a ton. Sure the Redemptor passed his from the Abominant and Forged in Terror is good but difficult to use (due to the opponent still getting Insane Bravery) it is rather good. 

It is still hard to quantify just how good the Army Wide is but hopefully more testing will bring about more information!

Thanks for reading and remember the war against the Gray is winnable!