So Tourney was Yesterday
Went 1W-2L
My biggest takeaway is the Knights in practice are rough.
The final list I ran looks like this:
In every game 2 things happened, My archers more than paid for themselves. My knights died immediately.
The final list was this:
The Empire of Man - April - [1998pts]
Main Force [1998pts]
Characters [808pts]
Captain of the Empire [132pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Great Weapon, Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Full Plate Armour, Battle Standard Bearer
General of the Empire [261pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Halberd, Griffon, Heavy Armour, Serrated Maw, Wicked Claws, Full Plate Armour, General, The White Cloak
Wizard Lord [415pts]: Hand Weapon, Wizard Level 4, Illusion, Imperial Griffon, Heavy Armour, Serrated Maw, Wicked Claws, Lore Familiar, Mace of Helsturm
Core [510pts]
2x Empire Archers [40pts]:
• 5x Archer [8pts]: Hand Weapon, Warbow, Scouts
Empire Knights [116pts]:
• 5x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
Empire Knights [126pts]: Stubborn
• 5x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
2x Empire Knights [94pts]:
• 4x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
Special [285pts]
Demigryph Knights [133pts]:
• 2x Demigryph Knight [63pts]: Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Full Plate Armour, Lance
• 1x Demigryph Preceptor [7pts]
Empire Greatswords [152pts]:
• 12x Greatsword [11pts]: Full Plate Armour, Great Weapon, Hand Weapon
• 1x Count's Champion [8pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
Rare [395pts]
Empire Steam Tanks [265pts]:
• 1x Steam Tank [265pts]: Engineer Commander, Steam Cannon, Steam Gun
2x Flagellants [65pts]:
• 5x Flagellant [13pts]: Flail, Hand Weapon
So lets get into the games
Game 1: Mission 1
Opponent is a very good player and brought Ogres. Had 2 Cannon Chariots, a Mammoth, and a death-star of ogres. Turn 1 I was out of range for a dispell and his Level 4 incinerated my entire unit of stubborn knights with a fireball, it was an omen on how the rest the day would go. Scouts took 2 Ogres down before being rundown. MY Wizard killed the Mammoth (before being taken down himself) the rest of my knights got mulched by flame thrower template and then combat. This was my worst loss of the day.
Game 2: mission 2
Opponent brought a really sweet Slannesh army almost all of older sculpts lead by a keeper of secrets. Turn one started well for me with my wizard and tank killing a chariot, and my scouts took down a fiend in the shooting phase, and got well positioned for some charges. His turn one was mostly positioning, my scouts were charged by the fiends, which he failed and then in stand and shoot another fiend was plinked off. Next turn Combat began with 3 of my units of knights charging, including a combo charge on demonettes, A TOTAL of 2 casualties were delivered before my knights were destroyed and the demons overran into my flagellants on both sides of the table. This game ground on ( His keeper of Secrets did kill itself which was pretty great) Wizard performed very well here. Steam tank did Steam Tank stuff. But the mission was breakpoint, so if reduced to 25% you lose. I had 93 total unit strength on the table vs his 112 (mostly in infantry). Losing my Knights cost me almost 40% of my unit strength, and started the down spiral. ended up being a very close
Game 3: Mission 5
Opponent was running goblins with fanatics. Fantatics are scary but can be dealt with. Column of Crystal saved my middle line from the whirling doom that is fanatics. My Wizard killed his spider, My Scouts took out his doom diver. My Stubborn Knights got wiped out by a Template spell. My other 5 man squad charged a squig herd and held their own before a fanatic mowed them down. Two fanatics zoned out a unit of knights forcing them to turn around, and effectively took them out of the game. the best performance from knights was holding a mangler squig for 4 turns as we both kept rolling low. General wiped a unit of Goblins, and the game went to time. Ended up winning this match.
Take aways
General on Griffon- Is a tank, decent in combat and perfect for setting up flank charges. I didn't use him as aggressively as I should and I believe that cost me my game 2 win.
BSB on Demi & Greatswords - lumped them together, altogether pretty good, slow compared to the rest of this list. making them more of a mop up unit than a combat block. almost always traded or paid for itself.
Wizard lord on Imperial Griffon - This build is WILD, a bit of a glass cannon but it mopped up a unit of 33 Demonettes solo as well as bodied a Giant Spider Illusion Mace is nuts.
Knights - Knights are made of paper, low toughness and there is much more AP out there than I expected. When they did get in they did ok, before just getting pushed back hard. First Charge helped but not enough
Archers w/ Scouts - Good, the best return on investment in the list ill most likely always bring these guys
Demi - Also good, others have written more on this but they are an amazing choice
SteamTank - demands attention, causes disruptions and is good artillery
Flagellants - I didn't get a charge off with them in any game I played, they are nasty when they hit (from test games) I think for the points though the hellblaster is the better choice
All in all was a good event. And I have another in May, so ill update this with the list im theory crafting now!
Interested in your opinions from my observations
