Ravenguard vs. Knights II

A second game against Mrdiealots Knights in Tabletop Simulator. Here are our armies:

Ravenguard

DEVASTATOR [425] - Four Devastator units, Supreme Commander, Hunter
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
STERNGUARD VETERAN [275] - Four Sternguard Veteran units, Razorback
VANGUARD ASSAULT VETERAN [300] - Four Vanguard Assault Veteran units, Captain
VANGUARD ASSAULT VETERAN [300] - Four Vanguard Assault Veteran units, Chaplain
LAND SPEEDER [250] - 2 Land Speeder Typhoon, Land Speeder Tornado, 2 Land Speeder Tempest
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
STORM TALON SQUADRON [300] - 2 Storm Talons
THUNDERHAWK GUNSHIP [200] - One Thunderhawk Gunship

Knights

INFANTRY PLATOON [400] - 1 Levy Command, 8 Infantry Levy, Aspirant, 3 Thudd Gun, 52cm of Trench and 52cm of Razor Wire, 2 Infantry Levy, 2 Snipers
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [390] - 4 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [390] - 4 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [390] - 4 Knight Paladin
WARDEN HOUSEHOLD [360] - 4 Warden
WARDEN HOUSEHOLD [360] - 4 Warden
WARDEN HOUSEHOLD [360] - 4 Warden
ROUGH RIDER PLATOON [175] - 6 Rough Riders, Aspirant
ROUGH RIDER PLATOON [175] - 6 Rough Riders, Aspirant

Deployment

Standard  setup with blitz objectives fairly centered and T&H objectives close to center line. Ravenguard objectives are the red statues (left and right) and the Knights use the black pillars in the center and on the road.

Knights garrisoned their BTS on the blitz and Ravenguard garrison both Scout formations, Sternguard Veterans and Land Speeders.

Turn 1

K1.1: Ravenguard wins initiative and let the Knights go first. A Warden formation with demolisher cannons double down the road and shoots the garrisoned Scouts in the left ruin. All hits are saved and only 1 BM received.

RG1.1: The Scouts advance and puts a BM on the Wardens.

RG1.2: Retaining the Sternguard Veterans engage the Wardens in a firefight. They win the combat by 3-1 but roll snake eyes in combat resolution, lose one infantry unit in hackdown and break.

K1.2: Paladins engage the Scouts that advanced a bit too far when setting up the clipping assault for the Sternguard. They lose two Storms in the fight and the other two to hackdown and break.

RG1.3: The Storm Talons hit the Rough Riders on the left but only kills one.

K1.3: The Rough Riders tries to marshal, fails and removes BMs.

RG1.4: The Supreme advances into the nearby ruins and shoots the Wardens on the road for 1 DC.

K1.4: Paladins advance down the center and shoots at the Land Speeders for 1 BM

RG1.5: The Land Speeders gets out of there, doubles down the left flank. With some lucky dice they kill one of the Paladins.

K1.5: The Wardens on the right flank fail and move.

RG1.6: The Warhound on the left advances and kills one more knight. They break and fall back.

K1.6: The final formation of Wardens double into the Ruins by their center T&H.

RG1.7: The remaining Warhound advances and kills one Warden from the formation on the road, breaking the formation.

K1.7: Rough Riders on the right flank fails and moves forward.

RG1.8: Scouts double toward the Wardens in the center ruin and places a BM.

RG1.9: Retaining the Vanguard Assault Veterans engages from their Thunderhawk. The thunderhawk takes a DC on the way in, but the combat goes to the marines (7-0) and the Wardens are wiped out.

K1.8: Paladins on the right close in on the ruins and places a BM on the Scouts.

K1.9: The BTS puts another BM on the Thunderhawk .

All broken formations rallies!

Round 2

K2.1: Knights win initiative, not great for the Vanguard assault marines who are not only intermingled with each other (intentional) but also with the nearby Scout formation (accidental)... Paladins engage the Scouts from the right and intermingle the Vanguard Assault Captain. The Knights win the combat and three assault marines and two Land Speeder Storms runs away broken.

K2.2: Knights to the left of the ruin retains to finish off the Vanguard Assault Chaplain but fails to activate, shoots and kills one marine.

RG2.1: Storm Talons kills four Rough Riders on the right flank, breaking the formation.

RG2.2: Land Speeders kill two Rough Riders on the left flank, breaking the formation.

K2.3: The Wardens on the road marshals and moves

K2.4: Retaining the last formation of Wardens engage and wipes out the Vanguard Assault Chaplain.

RG2.3: A Warhound advances to try to break the rallied Paladins on the road, but only manages to place a BM.

K2.5: The paladins tries to marshal, fails and breaks.

RG2.4: The second Warhound engages the Paladins in the center ruin. 2-0 to the marines and the Paladins break.

K2.6: The BTS sustains on the broken Scouts on the right flank, wiping them out.

RG2.5: In return the Thunderhawk wipes out the Rough Riders on the marine right flank.

RG2.6: Scouts marshal

RG2.7: Sternguard Veterans marshal but only removes 2 out of 4 BMs

RG2.8: The Supreme Commander advances and places another BM on the Paladins in the center.

Overview after turn 2:

Broken paladins fails to rally. Vanguard Assault Veterans rally.

Turn 3

RG3.1: Ravenguard wins initiative and the Scouts on the left doubles to defend the nearby Knight T&H and place a BM on the Wardens

RG3.2: Warhound on the left flank engages the Wardens. 2-0 marines, but the assault goes to a second round and the Wardens manages to drag in the Scouts. 5-1 marines after the second round and this time the dice favor the marines. The Wardens are wiped out.

K3.1: The Paladins in the center fails and moves to contest the left Ravenguard T&H.

RG3.3: The second Warhound advances to contest the Knight T&H in the center. It shoots at the Paladins on the right flank, doing enough damage to break the formation.

K3.2: The BTS sustains fire at the Land Speeders on the far left, killing the Tornado. 

K3.3: The three surviving Rough Riders retain and engage the Land Speeders. 4-3 to the marines but once again the marines have bad dice and lose the combat. But two of the Rough Rides was killed and the lone survivor also breaks.

RG3.4: The Vanguard Assault Veterans doubles to secure the T&H on the right flank.

K3.4: Final activation for the Knights. The wardens fail to activate and moves to contest their T&H in the center.

RG3.5: The Sternguard Veterans engage the Paladins contesting the left T&H with Scouts and a Warhound in support. 2-1 marines and the Paladins break.

At this point Ravenguard have T&H and must secure one more victory condition to end the game in turn three. My options are defend the flag or they shall not pass. To secure DTF I have to break a full Warden formation with a single BM, but TSNP looked achievable with only a broken Rough Rider and three Paladins with a single DC each on my half of the table.

I sent in Storm Talons and the Thunderhawk, but both failed to do any damage, other than hackdown, to the Knights and I had to use the Supreme Commander, my last activation, to kill the final Paladin. This meant that the game came down to a 5+ rally roll on the Rough Riders. The Knights failed and the game ended 2-0 to the Ravenguard.

Ravenguard vs. Black Legion

Another game in Tabletop Simulator against Mrdiealot, and another playtest of the Ravenguard chapter. This time I brought a very different army than I did last time. No air assaults at all.

TACTICAL [375] - Four Tactical units, Supreme Commander, Hunter
TACTICAL [200] - Four Tactical units
ASSAULT [245] - Four Assault units, 2 Land Speeder Tornado
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
STERNGUARD VETERAN [275] - Four Sternguard Veteran units, Razorback
LAND SPEEDER [230] - 3 Land Speeder Tornado, 2 Land Speeder Tempest
LAND SPEEDER [200] - 5 Land Speeder
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
MARAUDER SQUADRON [250] - 2 Marauder Bombers
THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [175] - 2 Thunderbolt Fighters

This time I was facing a somewhat unusual Black Legion list, no daemons and a Banelord titan:

BANELORD TITAN [800] (Chaos Undivided)
HELL BLADES [200] - 3 Hell Blade Fighters, (Chaos Undivided)
RETINUE [375] - 4 Chaos Space Marines, 4 Cult Marines, (Nurgle), Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander)
RETINUE [275] - 8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord
CHOSEN [145] - 4 Chaos Space Marine Scouts, (Chaos Undivided), 2 Rhino
CHAOS TERMINATORS [275] - (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 4 Chaos Terminator
HAVOC RETINUE [225] - 4 Havoc units, (Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 2 Rhinos
ARMOURED COMPANY [235] - (Chaos Undivided), 4 Chaos Predator, Chaos Vindicator
ARMOURED COMPANY [235] - (Chaos Undivided), 4 Chaos Predator, Chaos Vindicator
ARMOURED COMPANY [235] - (Chaos Undivided), 4 Chaos Predator, Chaos Vindicator

I played corners from the bottom right:

My T&H objectives are spread out, one on the bottom left and on to the top right. I manged to place the second T&H in such a way that the BL player could not place his second objective 30 away from his first, so there was no way for the Banelord to hold both T&H objectives. My blitz is in the bottom right corner and the BL blitz is on the left table edge. There were a lot of formations gathered in the top right, to BL retinues, to Scout formations and two Land Speeder formations.

Turn 1

Black Legion teleports Terminators (no BMs) next to the Warhound and Sternguard Veterans on the Ravenguard left flank. Ravenguard wins initiative.

RG1.1: Assault Marines doubles into the center ruin and places a BM on the Terminators.

RG1.2: Sterguard Veterans retain and engage. Bad armour saves on both sides and two Terminators go down and three Marines. 5-3 for the Ravenguard but bad dice and the fight goes to a second round. At this point the Terminators managed to contact and drag in the Warhound. Disaster! the Warhound takes two wounds, one of them is a crit and bye bye Warhound. BL wins the combat and the Sternguard Veterans break without further losses. Terminators also break from BMs.

First two Ravenguard activations: one formation crippled and broken and another one killed. Great success ;)

BL1.1: The Havocs double down the road and places a BM on the Land Speeder Tornados.

BL1.2: Hellblades go on CAP

RG1.3: The remaining Warhound advances down the right flank and shoots at the retinue in the open, killing three.

RG1.4: Scouts retain and engage. They kill 2 Chaos Marines and lose one LS Storm, 6-1 and only the two remaining fearless Plague Marines survive, including the Supreme Commander.

BL1.3: Predators march down the left flank

RG1.5: Marauders hit the remaining retinue. They are intercepted and saves all three hits from the Hellblades. The bombs fails to kill any Chaos Marines.

BL1.4: The Banelord doubles towards the action on the right flank and kills four units from the second Scout formation with Macro barrage.

RG1.6: Thunderbolts intercept the Hellblades. 3 hits, 3 saves.

BL1.5: The Chosen doubles down the left flank and places a BM on the Assault Marines.

RG1.7: Land Speeders doubles towards the broken BL Supreme, hoping for a lucky six, but no...

BL1.6: Predators doubles towards the Land Speeders and takes out one.

RG1.8: The Supreme Commander doubles up the field and kills one Terminator with a BM. 

BL1.7: Another Predator formation doubles. Black Legion armour is closing in from the left...

RG1.9: Land Speeder Tornados doubles in behind BL lines and catches the Havocs in a crossfire but fail to hit anything. They take overwatch from the retinue but gets away with a BM.

RG1.10: Tacticals double towards the Retinue

RG1.11: The Scouts surviving the Banelord barrage removes two! BMs.

End phase: All broken formations fail to rally.

Turn 2

Black Legion wins initiative

BL2.1: Predators advance on the Assault Marines but only kills on Tornado.

BL2.2: Predators behind the Banelord sustains and kills two Land Speeders, they break.

RG2.1: Land Speeder Tornados does a pop-up attack, killing both Rhinos in the Havoc formation. The Havocs break.

RG2.2: Supreme Commander sustains on the Chosen, but only kills one Rhino.

BL2.3: The Banelord doubles and fires four of his missiles on the Warhound, auto-breaking the titan. He also wipes out the broken Land Speeders hiding nearby.

BL2.4: The Chosen marshals, removing all BMs and placing one more on the Assault Marines.

RG2.3: Marauders break the Chosen and clips a Predator formation for 2 BM.

BL2.5: The Retinue advances and fired on the Land Speeder Tornados. One speeder is lost.

RG2.4: Tacticals doubles towards the left flank and places a BM on a Predator formation.

RG2.5: Assault Marines fail to engage the Predators, and removes all BMs

BL2.6: The last Predator formation doubles towards the Ravenguard Supreme and kills the hunter.

RG2.6: Thunderbolts stand down

BL2.7: Hellblades stand down

RG2.7: Scouts on the top right places a BM on the Banelord.

RG2.8: The second Scout formation doubles home to defend their Blitz. They kill one Chosen and wipes the formation.

Overview after turn 2:

End Phase

Havocs, Terminators, Warhound and Sternguard Veterans rally

Turn 3

RG3.1: Ravenguard wins initiative and the Tacticals engage the nearby Predators. 5-0 Marines and the formation is wiped.

RG3.2: Assault Marines retain and engage the other Predator formation (which received a BM from supporting a lost assault). Again, 5-0 to the Marines and the formation is wiped. Left flank cleaned up...

BL3.1: The Banelord advances and kills two marines and a Rhino from the BTS, including the supreme.

BL3.2: The Retinue sustains on the Land Speeder Tornados, but they save all four hits.

RG3.3: The Marauders hit the rallied Havocs, killing two and breaking them.

BL3.3: The Hellblades finally breaks the Land Speeder Tornados, killing two (only formation in range of the BL Blitz)

BL3.4: Predators retain and double towards the Ravenguard BTS. They kill one Rhino and the formation breaks.

RG3.4: Thunderbolts kill the last Terminator.

RG3.5: The Warhound sustains on the Predator formation killing three and breaking them.

RG3.6: Scouts march towards the BL objectives (to grab them next turn)

RG3.7: Sternguard Veterans fail and removes BMs.

RG3.8: Scouts on the top right contests an objective and places a BM on the Banelord. 

End Phase

Predators and Havocs fail to rally, both moves to screen the BL blitz. Ravenguard BTS rallies.

Turn 4

RG4.1: Marauders manage to catch both Havocs and Predators under their barrage and wipes both formations.

RG4.2: The BTS runs away from the Banelord, but runs to a stupid position...

BL4.1: The Banelord sustains on the Ravenguard BTS and catches the nearby Scouts with his barrage. No casualties but both formations are one BM away from breaking.

BL4.2: Retaining the Hellblades finishes the job and breaks the Scouts.

RG4.3: The Warhound advances to contest an objective and kills few marines from the retinue.

BL4.3: In a final attempt to deny Ravenguard the victory the Retinue doubles to shoot the Rhinos from the Tactical formation that is still within marching distance of their Blitz. They fail to kill anything.

I am now one 2+ activation roll from winning the game. The marines follow orders and the Tactical formation secures BL blitz. Assault Marines march to grab the T&H on the left flank and Ravenguard wins 2-0 in turn 4.

Summary

I got off to a rough start, and Black Legion played very aggressive and had me cornered. I was able to turn the tide, but not fast enough to get to any objectives in turn three. I could have played better in turn four and secured the victory in a safer way, but the dice did not fail me this time and I still  managed to win the game.

The Black Legion list was a bit weak without daemons, and the Armoured Companies are very fragile in assaults.

Ravenguard is lots of fun to play and they fit my play style. The Scout formations in Land Speeder Storms are a real threat in assaults and has great threat range, great for clipping stuff. Assault Marines with land Speeder support also worked out well in this game. The small tactical formations feels fragile and it's hard to find a good BTS in this list, but that fits the list. To play an optimized Ravenguard list I probably should have included at least one air assault thou...

Ravenguard vs. Knights

I have recently started playing Epic Armageddon using Tabletop Simulator. It is an excellent way of getting some extra games in between tournaments.

This is a playtest of the developmental Space Marine Ravenguard list. Specifically I wanted to test the Vanguard Assault Veterans air assault, as this seems like a very powerful option. This is the list I used. Few activations but powerful air assaults.

 

Ravenguard

VANGUARD ASSAULT VETERAN [300] - Four Vanguard Assault Veteran units, Captain
VANGUARD ASSAULT VETERAN [300] - Four Vanguard Assault Veteran units, Chaplain
VANGUARD ASSAULT VETERAN [300] - Four Vanguard Assault Veteran units, Chaplain
ASSAULT [225] - Four Assault units, Captain
THUNDERHAWK GUNSHIP [200] - One Thunderhawk Gunship
THUNDERHAWK GUNSHIP [200] - One Thunderhawk Gunship
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
SCOUT [250] - Four Scout units, 4 Land Speeder Storm
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
WARHOUND [275] - 1 Warhound Class Titan
DEVASTATOR [425] - Four Devastator units, Supreme Commander, Hunter

Unfortunately I was facing an opponent that would make it hard to use the air assaults, a Knight army with a lot of small Paladin formations and a lot of activations:

 

Knights

KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [300] - 3 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [300] - 3 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [300] - 3 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [300] - 3 Knight Paladin
KNIGHT HOUSEHOLD [300] - 3 Knight Paladin
INFANTRY PLATOON [350] - 1 Levy Command, 8 Infantry Levy, Aspirant, 3 Thudd Gun, 52cm of Trench and 52cm of Razor Wire, Snipers
INFANTRY PLATOON [250] - 1 Levy Command, 8 Infantry Levy, Aspirant, 2 Thudd Gun
INFANTRY PLATOON [250] - 1 Levy Command, 8 Infantry Levy, Aspirant, 2 Thudd Gun
AA GUN BATTERY [125] - 3 AA Guns, 3 Gun Transporters
AA GUN BATTERY [125] - 3 AA Guns, 3 Gun Transporters
MARAUDER SQUADRON [250] - 2 Marauder Bombers
THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [150] - 2 Thunderbolt Fighters

 

Deployment

I choose corner deployment, lower right corner,  and the T&H objectives (statues) spread out in the corners. The Knights placed the objectives fairly centered.

I didn't have very much to deploy. The Scouts garrisoned one formation on each T&H and the Knights garrisoned on Infantry Platoon on each T&H. This is what the deployment looked like:

K1.1: Knights won the initiative and placed one AA Gun Battery on overwatch.

R1.1: Ravenguard advanced the Warhound on the right flank towards the nearby Infantry Platoon and kills two units.

R1.2: Retaining, the nearby Scouts engage the Infantry Platoon, which remained on overwatch to keep their cover saves. This proved to be a wise choise as they saved three out of four hits. In return they killed one of the Land Speeder Storms and 3-3 in resolution. I rolled snake eyes and the Scouts ran away broken, losing two more speeders in hackdown.

K1.2: The Infantry Platoon marshal, and moves closer to the T&H

R1.3: The second Scout formation doubles and places a BM on the Paladin formation in the center.

R1.4: Retaining the Tunderhawk with mixed Assault and Vanguard Assault Marines engages.

Very bad dice from the Ravenguard and some awsome saves from the knights. The massive amout of attacks, including support, results in 1 DC on a single Paladin. In return the Paladins kill 5 marines. The Knights wins the combat massively and all three Ravenguard formations are wiped out...

K1.3: A Paladin formation advances into a ruin. One Paladin fails the difficult terrain test and dies from a crit, but the remaining two kills one Land Speeder Storm each from the Scout formation.

R1.5: The second Warhound doubles dowards the T&H on the marine left flank and kills one unit from the Infantry Platoon.

K1.4: A Paladin formation doubles towards the Warhound and takes out one shield.

R1.6: The Supreme Commander doubles his Devastators and places a BM on the Paladins

K1.5: The second AA gun formation fails and removes BMs

R1.7: Encouraged by the previous success of the Ravenguard engages the remaining Thunderhawk, loaded with assault veterans, engages the Paladins next to the Warhoud.

They have better success with their attacks, and manages to kill all the Knights. But they aparently forgot their power armour at home and only a single Chaplain survives the combat. At his point the Ravenguard has no more activations...

The Knights spent their remaining activations on hunting down the second Thunderhawk which was within 15 cm of the Infantry Platoon. It took two Paladin formations, Marauders and Thunderbolts to finally break the Thunderhawk. Both Marauders and Thunderbolts lost one aircraft each to the Hunter.

The Knight formation that was supposed to be broken long ago by the assault marines, engages and wiped out he Scout formation after the Knight BTS had shot down all the Land Speeder Storms.

Disaster for the Ravenguard in turn one. I was down to 5 formation out of which 2 were broken. We discussed if we should end the game here but decided to keep playing. The broken Scouts rallied but not the Assault Chaplain. Overview after turn 1:

Turn 2

At his point my only goal was to hold on for as long as possible...

Turn two can be summarized very fast. The remaining Ravenguard forces moves out of engagement range of the Knight formations and places BMs. The Warhound on the top right sustains on the infantry platoon is one BM away from breaking the formation.

The Knights fails 6 out of 11 activations and slowly advances towards the surviving Ravenguard.

Overview after turn 2:

Turn 3

Again, more of the same from the Ravenguard. Moving away from the Knights and placing BMs. The top right Warhound finally breaks the infantry platoon. And by the end of turn three the Knights manages to corner the other warhound and kill it in an engage.

Again, Knights fail to activate three out of four Paladin formations and doesn't mange to secure any objectives. Overview after turn 3:

Turn 4

BTS Devastators and the remaining Warhound starts by moving out of engagement range of nearby Paladin formations. The Scouts are wiped out by nearby Paladins and with my final activation my Assault Chaplain moves to contest a Knight T&H.

At this point the Knights has 8 activations to win them the game. I have one Warhound guarding one of their T&H, a lone assault marine on the other and my Devastators guarding the Blitz. In the end, the Knights were to far away from the objectives and did not have enough firepower to kill the Space Marines by shooting. They took T&H by breaking the Warhound and the Assault Marine but they could not do anything about the Devastators on the Blitz. None of the Knight formations was close enough to the upper right objective to claim DTF. In the end phase the Assault Marine rallied and denied TSNP. 1-0 and a winning draw for the Knights. End game screenshot:

Summary

Very strange game. Everything failed for the Ravenguard in turn one, and they were forced to play defense from there on. If not for the extreme amount of failed activations, this would have been a clear victory for the Knights.

What I can say about the Vanguard Assault Veterans is that while they can do masive amounts of damage, they feel very fragile. A few failed armour saves and the formation is reduced to something that can at best contest objectives.

I am the first to admit that this was not the best play test, but I'm hoping to do more of them in the near future.