Ravenguard (Shadowspear) vs. Emperors Children (Coterie) – Warhammer 40,000 Written Battle Report

I’m learning a new archetype! Which is to say that all I’ve ever played is melee pressure lists (Knights and Wolves) to any good success, and it’s time to change that.

To that end, I’ve picked up Ravenguard because the new detachment is super cool and will be taking it to a GT. I’ve played about 15 games with it, and won two, but the improvement is coming and blowouts have largely turned into close games.

This time, I’m playing into Emperors Children for the first time against my regular opponent Chris who is playing them for the first time. Let’s see if we can learn from mistakes on both sides!

Full disclosure, I still don’t remember most of the names of the EC models so this will be interesting.

I won the attacker/defender roll off and chose to deploy first. I put the 2×3 Bolter Inceptors in deep strike along with the Captain leading the pistol unit of Vanguard Veterans.

Chris put his “stand back up” Daemon prince in deep strike.

I deployed my Scouts mid-board to deny his scouting Rhinos the ability to move up.

He put one unit of Infiltrators on the bottom objective.

My deployment from top to bottom was Plasma Inceptors, Shrike’s unit, the Combi Lieutenant, a hidden unit of Intercessors on the other side of the wall, the Devastator Centurions, Shaan, Jump Pack Intercessors, and Incursors out front (I took this after my scout moves)

Top to bottom for Chris was a Rhino with melee battleline models, two units of Noise Marines, a Daemon Prince, shooting battle line dudes and a third unit of Noise Marines AND a unit of Flawless Blades (I remembered these guys), Lucius on the line, a Rhino on the line post scout move, and then in the bottom ruin I believe there was another unit of ranged battle line dudes and more Flawless Blades.

The above is the original deployment, and we ended the game and reracked after a unit of Scouts with Oaths of Moment, Grenade, and a little good luck one-phased Lucius. Since Lucius was Chris’ Warlord, that meant his entire faction rule turned off, so we reracked.

Turn 1A:

I drew A Tempting Target and Secure No Man’s Land. Chris tempted the top objective, so my Scouts spread out and took that and the center. I staged them so they could reactive move more than 1.1 inches off the wall on the center left ruin.

On the bottom, I think I made a mistake. I decided to move my Incursors back and send my JPI after the ranged battleline unit there. They were my Oaths target, and I think the Incursors would have been a much better choice here as between their melee attacks and ranged attacks, I think the unit is on good odds to die still AND the JPI being OC 2 would have been highly relevant later in the game.

Battleline unit died, I took all three objectives and passed the turn over.

Turn 1B:

Chris drew Marked for Death and Assassinate. He’d pledged two kills at the beginning of the round. I marked Shaan, the Combi-Lieutenant, and my Intercessors. He gamma marked my Scouts.

His army came out to play, with both units of melee battle line and their characters coming out of the Rhinos to threaten/kill off stuff. I reactive moved the Scouts back into the ruin.

He moved up the Demon prince into the crook of his expansion L, brought Flawless Blades out to the center, and moved to the shooting phase. I rapid ingressed the Captain unit in my midboard, but I was far, far too conservative with them – I didn’t want to take shots from his unit of melee battleline, so I put them outside 12 of everything, but I really should have just put them outside 12 of the Daemon Prince and been ready to threaten it with the entire unit of melta shots the following turn.

He charged in, barely making it to my Scouts, and eviscerated both the Scouts and the JPI as his characters used their once per game to ensure both kills.

I picked up Shrike’s unit, the Dev Cents, the Callidus Assassin, and

Turn 2A:

I scored 5 on Primary, put Oaths on his Daemon Prince and re-roll charges as well, and drew Assassination and Sabotage.

Sadly, I whiffed really hard this turn. My Dev Cents killed 4 battle line duders with all of their shooting, my entire centerboard (six plasma inceptors, intercessors, etc.) killed exactly 5 battle line dudes, leaving the character on 2, and my midboard shooting did 3 damage to the Daemon Prince and killed all three Flawless Blades that had failed their prior turn charge (I dropped a unit of Bolter Inceptors up top to help).

Notable thing – Chris rapid ingressed the second Daemon Prince behind the first one.

I charged in – rerolling with Shaan’s ability so as to not trigger a heroic intervention from the second Daemon Prince – and continued the whiff train, leaving the Daemon Prince on 3 (he killed 5 Van Vets back), the bottom character on 3 (he killed two Incursors back) and barely killed the 2 wound middle board character with the Intercessors.

Turn 2B

I’d kept Chris to 5 points also, and he drew Establish Locus and Engage on all Fronts.

This turn, he fell back with the hurt Daemon Prince to right up next to my Intercessors and I overwatched it with Inceptors and killed it (phew).

The other one moved forward as well, holding the center objective.

One of his top units of Noise Marines advanced up to the top objective, and Flawless Blades did the same on the bottom. They got within 9″ of the Incursors, who reactive moved away since the character had fallen back from them, giving the Flawless Blades a 9″ charge.

Lucius came to hang out behind the wall in the center, with intentions of charging the Intercessors.

His remaining battle line unit moved up to where the mostly-dead Vanguard Veterans were hanging out, so at the end of his movement phase I used Rapid Ingress to get Shrike’s squad onto Chris’ home objective, more than 12″ from everything.

His shooting phase took out 2 of 3 Inceptors on the top, every single remaining Vanguard Veteran (the Captain died to a Havoc Launcher in disgrace) and then his charge phase saw the Flawless Blades fail their re-rollable 9, Lucius fail his 6, the Rhino make its 8 and then Tank Shock one Incursor down, and the Daemon Prince charge both the Intercessors and the Combi-Lieutenant.

The Noise Marines charged the remaining Inceptor up top.

I lost the Combi-Lieutenant to the Daemon Princes impact mortals, but the Intercessors just threw a bunch of 5+ saves and survived, the Incursors tanked the rest of the tank (heh), but my poor Inceptor got beaten to death by guitars.

Chris scored two on Engage on All Fronts and pitched Establish Locus.

I picked up the Dev Cents and the Callidus Assassin.

Turn 3A:

I scored a nice 10 on Primary and drew Display of Might and Engage on All Fronts. Chris had like 8 units in No Man’s Land, so that wasn’t happening, but Engage was okay.

I had a cunning plan to kill the Daemon Prince with shooting and then charge it with Shaan, so I had him marked as my Oaths target.

I moved all the Inceptors up within 12″ of Lucius, and popped Shaan out to come play with the Daemon Prince. The Intercessors fell back, and I opted to spend a CP so they could shoot and charge.

The Shrike unit moved towards the Noise Marine unit behind the wall and got obliterated by Overwatch. Side bar – I think I made 10% of the save rolls I made for the Van Vets this game, which does somewhat balance out the nice saves I’d had on my Intercessors the turn prior.

I lost 6 Vets in the unit to the single Overwatch, so I decided that I really needed to commit resources to killing that unit of Noise Marines and dropped a unit of Bolter Inceptors to help. I left the Incursors engaged because I didn’t want the Rhino to be able to move AND dump Noise Marines.

The Dev Cents dropped at the bottom (sorry for the angle switch, I was moving a lot of stuff down here at the end of the turn) and the Callidus dropped within 12″ of both the Prince and the forward Noise Marines to make a lovely Vect Aura.

Everyone did their jobs except the Bolter Inceptors, and they tried real hard. The Devastator Centurions killed every noise Marine and the Daemon Prince, who came back on 4.

The Inceptors obliterated Lucius and didn’t lose anyone to Hazardous.

The Bolter Inceptors handed the other unit of Noise Marines 8 or 9 saves and Chris just powered through almost all of them, I think failing one or two.

Shaan and friends charged the Daemon Prince, Shrike and Vets charged the Noise Marines, and while the Daemon Prince went down, the Noise Marines trucked along, leaving two plus the Character alive and killing two more Vanguard Vets on the crackback.

Because I had to drop my Inceptors on the Noise Marine Side of the wall, I only scored two for Engage, pitched Display of Might, and called it a turn.

Turn 3B:

No Primary again, and bad secondaries (Defend Stronghold and Cleanse), Chris used Insane Bravery on the Noise Marines, and they fell back onto the objective where the previous unit had been. The Devestator Centurions did quite poorly on Overwatch, but did sneak three wounds through and killed all but the Character.

The Flawless Blades moved up to kill the Incursors, the Rhino fell back and I reactive moved Shaan such that it couldn’t see him anymore.

The gun battleline unit whose name I refuse to look up still moved into the center.

The random remaining battle line character attachment from two turns back advanced to go take care of the Bolter Inceptors on Chris’ home objective.

The Firing Deck Rhino picked off two more Plasma Inceptors, the Lord Cacophenous (?) shot at and hurt another Inceptor, and the ranged battleline unit took out two or three Intercessors in shooting.

The charge phase saw the Intercessor unit wiped, but the Bolter Inceptors on Chris’ home objective only lost one model. Shrike and friend survived the Rhino punching them.

I picked up the Devastator Centurions and the Callidus Assassin.

Turn 4A:

I scored 10 more on Primary and drew Extend Battle Lines and No Prisoners. I’d made the Rhino near my deployment zone my Oaths of Moment Target.

The plan was simple here – use the Inceptors to kill the Rhino (it was on 8, go Incursors) and then use the Devastator Centurions to kill most of the noise Marines and all of the Flawless Blades so that Shaan could clear everything else in the middle. Meanwhile, the Inceptors were going to fall back on the enemy home objective and kill the character with Bolters, and Shrike and co. would keep slapping a Rhino.

Amazingly, this all worked out. The Plasma Inceptors blew the Rhino up, the Devastator Centurions killed off the Flawless blades and all of the Noise Marines, and then even though the Bolter Inceptors didn’t kill the character in shooting, they charged him to take his last wound off while Shaan polished off the remaining dudes in the center.

Going into the end of my turn, I was scoring max on both Extend Battle Lines and No Prisoners and Chris had a single Rhino left, so we called the game in that position.

I feel like I’m slowly starting to understand how to play a list that isn’t really planning to go stand in a place and survive or to charge into an enemy list and force them to never move. It’s a different kind of thinking wherein you have to draw your opponent into your threat ranges with things you can afford to lose and then punish them for it while exposing as little as possible.

I’m excited to have this list painted* in the next week and to take it to a GT on the 1st of November, and I’ll try and be more active about writing my games up in the future.

In the meantime, if you want to get some sweet gaming aids for your armies you can check out my store for sweet lasercut widgets and tokens (and terrain soon! I made the stuff in these reports!), and we will see you in the next one.