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Yesterday's game was fun, and a world of difference from the 1.3 and 1.4 lists, in a good way.
I took the following formations:
Knight Houshold - 745pts
- 4x paladins
- 2x errants
- 1x baron
Knight Household - 505pts
- 3x paladins
- 2x errants
- 1x seneschal upgrade (paladin)
Knight Household - 505pts
- 3x paladins
- 2x errants
- 1x seneschal upgrade (paladin)
Lancer Household - 595pts
- 6x lancers
- 1x sensechal upgrade (lancer)
Warden Household - 300pts
- 3x wardens (AA variant)
Sentinels - 100pts
- 4x sentinels
Sentinels - 100pts
- 4x sentinels
Thunderbolts - 150pts
- 2x thunderbolts
Which brought me in at 8 activations, with my core formations carrying 10-14 total DC "wounds" each.
I was up against Onyx's Iron Warriors v2.4 list, and OTOH, Ed brought:
1x Havocs (4 havocs, 2 land raiders, 1 stalker, 1 supreme commander)
2x Defilers (4 each)
2x Raptors (4 each)
2x Armored Companies (6 vindicators each)
1x Obliterators (5)
1x Chosen (4 + dreadnought)
1x Ordinatus Medrenguard
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The Medrenguard is a beast (which should shock no one), and 9BP Disrupt pretty much meant that Ed either broke a formation per turn, or sufficiently primed a formation (even with 5-7 knights in them) to then follow up with enough shooting to finish the break.
The ordinatus started off in a corner, screened by the chosen. I'd weighted that side of the board pretty heavily, with the Lancers (took turn one's Ordinatus barrage), and my BTS/Command Household. On Turn two I had to decide between having my BTS push on semi-unsupported to try to reach the Ordinatus through a screening line of Vindicators and the Chosen, or double back to deal with the Obliterators who'd teleported in behind to set up a crossfire. I elected for the latter, which meant I had nothing unbroken that could effectively challenge the Ordinatus... so I spent the rest of the game trying to mop up other formations and keep him off of objectives. It ended after turn 4 with nothing left unbroken in my army but the one Sentinel formation (sitting on his Blitz!), and with Ed's Iron Warriors in fragmented reduced formations that had mostly managed to rally after getting mauled for 3 turns camping the midfield objectives and in striking distance of my Blitz (my BTS had finished dying early in Turn 4).
Mixed formations worked well. I'd been regretting the Errants in with the Paladins...right up until late in Turn 2 & into Turn 3, when they were into range to do some serious damage both shooting and in assault. 75cm battle cannons on the Knights are great; you get a lot of reach and can throw some blast markers on distant foes from pretty early in the game if you maneuver for sight lines on your way in, but it's definitely no substitute for getting into assault.
The Knight shield, as written, was pretty balanced. 4+ on the Knight shield, going to a 5+ "reroll" against non-macro meant I wasn't just stupidly saving every single shot, and with DC2 war engines, I could soak a little more damage. Honestly, my single biggest complaint with the 1.3 and 1.4 lists was that survival and success was absurdly streaky. I'd either never fail a save, or I'd lose entire formations in a turn. With DC2 Knights, fighting effectiveness degraded in a more linear fashion, and I could actually survive an artillery barrage with some losses, rather than either coming out unscathed or obliterated.
The hardest-fought assault of the game came when I got a fresh paladin/errant household stuck in with a formation of 4 raptors intermingled with 3 defilers, with a unit of vindicators close enough to provide fire support. I won it, but just barely, and it left me with about 1.5 Knights in exchange for clearing the middle of the board. Errants don't have to get into hand-to-hand to be quite effective, but I also got _really_ lucky on my First Strike rolls (for honestly the first time in 4-5 games). Firefight 5+ felt pretty fair for Paladins and Errants; I didn't get nearly as good results if I couldn't make it into base-to-base (which felt right).
Wardens: don't underestimate the power of 12 AP5+ (going to AP6) shots after a Double. Quantity has a quality all its own, as one of the Raptor formations discovered to its dismay. They honestly did the most to clear infantry off the board, even as nominal AA units.
Lancers: I really didn't get to use this formation at all this game. When last I'd played Ed, it was the 1.3 list and he'd brought his White Scars. He REALLY didn't like the idea of a unit that could double 60cm while toting battle cannons, so they broke on the first round of fire from the Medrenguard (failed a few saves and oh dear god the blast markers...), and were kept suppressed and shot to pieces over the course of the game by anything that could reach them once they finally rallied. I won't get into the Medrenguard in this thread, but if I'd taken bombers, or successfully moved a Knight unit into range past shielding terrain sooner in the game, it would have been much less of a threat.
Crowing about successes aside (even in a lost game), the artillery was brutal. The Medrenguard did exactly what it was supposed to do, and many of my Knight formations either spent the game on the knife edge of breaking from fire or broken and trying to rally. It's lucky I neither of us bothered much with aircraft, or things might have been similarly one-sided. If I were going up against this list again, I'd drop a paladin and a lancer here or there, the thunderbolts and try to bring 2 formations of Marauders.
Parting thoughts: Take formations of 5+. I got to see a little bit of the other games over the course of the fighting, and believe me, 3xDC2 breaks just as easily as 3xDC1 "quasi-space marine" did back in 1.3 and 1.4. You can't win the activation fight against anything, but larger formations packed to the gills with strong CC and FF attacks can actually weather a turn or two of shooting and make it into Engage range.
The bookkeeping was really simple. I just stuck a wound token on a Knight's base when it lost a wound, and rolling for Criticals cost me 2-3 Knights over the whole game (which was probably about right). Yeah, I was able to cycle wounded Knights to the "second line," but it sounds better in theory than it works in practice when you're still only using 3-5 knights and can take fire from the sides as easily as the front. Nothing lasted more than 1 additional turn with a wound on it.
Ed and I had a really brutal attrition game in Turns 1-2 that turned into a heavy maneuver game for Turns 3-4. We both walked away really enjoying that fight, when compared to our previous game under the 1.3 list. The ability to reach out and touch someone with a 75cm battle cannon forced him to play creatively with cover and let me prep a few formations (not that it mattered much against Initiative 1+), and with DC2, a 5+ save and a 4+ Knight shield, the rules were easy to explain.
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