Good news everyone!
We have managed to get our schedules together and begin stress tests of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Imperial Knights. Adeptus Mechanicus had a rebuild when we converted them to Final Drafts, and Imperial Knights got the same treatment.
Adeptus Mechanicus tested pretty solidly as expected. They have excellent medium Infantry and Vehicles. Their two Infantry options for Troop Slots performed well! The Rangers have a Gauss rifle that lets Auto Wounds get stacked up against the target. Triggering on 6+ To Hit, they are a good way to put a bit of extra chipping damage against all targets, including Vehicles.
Their second Infantry choice, Vanguard, brings powerful Poisoned (2+) carbines! With only Assault 1, they are not capable of dishing out the power like the Dark Eldar with their Assault 2, Poisoned (3+). Despite that, they have VERY consistent damage. Combined with their Scout rule, they can get into the centerfield before the battle even starts!
I ran some of their Electo Priests as well. These have been a challenging unit to balance thanks to the rather eccentric ideas GW came up with. With no armour they struggle to take small arms fire effectively. Thanks to their electricity channeling, they do generate a 5+ Invulnerability Save. This allows them to take powerful shots in the open with a moderate chance of survival. Their threat of Tesla weapons against the Grot Hordes (seriously we killed over 200 over them) drew them a ton of fire on Turn 1. While we did not get to test them, the amount of fire they drew while they Went To Ground in Cover helped the rest of the army.
I also ran some Infiltrators to test them out. Previously they did not work well, so with the rebuild I had higher hopes. Their tiny caliber machine pistols looked cool so I decided to run those. They are one of the only S2 weapons in the game, but with Pistol 3 that get a lot of reliable Overwatch shots on 5+ and can shoot in Melee! Running into T2 Grots was a nice surprise, since I could actually hurt them on a 4+. They did well through a combination of luck and Grots being, well, humble Grots. They even managed to finish off an injured Custodes on a Dawneagle Bike!
Continuing with the theme of dabbling with a bit of everything, I ran some titan bodyguards for my Imperial Knight teammate. I ran the Hoplites with the aggressive Castellan Knight. Using their Stormshields they were able to weather the worse of the blast damage and small arms thrown their way. They never did run into any Vehicles to use their Haywire weapons, but it was fun to try and slap the Custode with EMP weapons on a 6+.
I ran their shooting variant to stay in the back and protect the Knight Commander. The Peltasts had some nasty fire power. For the most part the Orks were getting hammered and screen by the Kastelans, so they did not get to shoot very much. A heavily injured Dawneagle Bike came zooming up the flank, and suffered several damage during Overwatch, only to be finished off at the last second by the Champion’s Power Sword.
Neither Bodyguard unit needed to actually intervene, but it got really close with the Knight Commander (at which point I was so excited about the carnage I forgot to protect him with Bodyguard when the two Battle Wagons smashed into him). Each had a Manipulus run with them to provide maximum repair efforts on the Titans, which worked wondrously!
Lastly I ran two units of three Kastelans to screen a Knight each. Kastelans come out as medium Monsters by A4R standards, and did exactly as expected for their point costs. The Grots struggled to do any serious damage to them (as expected), but those Battle Wagons had some nasty bite to them! They were just tough enough to push back lone unsupported Custode models, and with three of them ganging up on one they could take some damage, and then brutalize them! Their Heavy Flamers incinerated tons of Grots and their Fists also let them collapse onto the Battle Wagons and completely overkill them!
Next tests for them will be exclusively attempts to break Imperial Titans being brought to normal games. At this point I have no concerns for their models being to powerful in combinations with the rest of their Codex.
Imperial Knights are arguably the hardest Codex to balance for A4R. As a Codex that can exist exclusively as Titanic models or even just hordes of normal sized Combat Walkers, a balanced list needs to be able to win the Objective game against them in a fair tournament setting. You don’t have to wipe out Imperial Knights to win, just keep them from scoring Objective Markers and using their lack of models and flexibility against them.
I LOVE the idea we came up with about their Ion Shields forever ago. They get a 5+ Invulnerability Save, but it only applies against Ranged Attacks OR Melee Attacks. It cannot be changed until your next Command Phase. The Custode Dreadnought was able to put pressure on the Knight Commander when it fired highly dangerous shots at him on the same turn the Battle Wagons were about to Charge! It really put the Knight in a bad spot and was a good example of how an army that is flexible can put the hurt on them by limiting their options.
We cheated for this scenario. At 1500 points per player, a Knight player can basically just bring The Knight Commander and a couple of baby knights or a basic Knight (like 4 combined Datasheets) and one baby knight. We have those already figured out.
To test more variants, particularly the most dangerous, he brought A Castellan Knight. One of the only FA14 Knights, it also brings an immense amount of smaller secondary weapons. It worked well when sheltered by half of my army, but if he would not even make it to the game in the size of force that was brought, and even if he did fit he would be vulnerable to being focus fired to death.
The Knight Commander did well. As a balanced unit limited to one per force (much like a Chapter Master), they are nasty but manageable. Even then, it was nearly slain in a single turn! Only some lucky last minute saves kept it from being left with a handful of Wounds (and that is tough to do in A4R!). Knights are very potent, but definitely vulnerable.
I am very excited, as I think I finally got Knights working! Further tests will be required of course. There are a few more of concern that need addressed. All part of the stress testing! I hope to have that Narrative Battle Report up this week for your viewing entertainment.
However you choose to enjoy your 40k experience, we hope its a good one!
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