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.