[mrknify]

Knights fluff builds them up as dragon slayers. I have developed a fantastic skirmish concept;

Knights vs dragons

The battle takes place on a planet located on / near a knight homeworld.

Defence mission:
Defender(s)
1 imperial knight (other walkers may be used in leu of the knight(s).)

Attackers
2+ heldrakes (you may use, Heldrake fear squadron from apoc2.)

Setup:
Required at least one building (tower, church, farmstead.. etc.)

Goals:
The knight will defend the "settlement" against the heldrakes.

Defender win condition:
Force all heldrakes from table; if all heldrakes leave the table its a win for the defenders.

Attacker win objective:
Destroy the knight, or
Destroy all buildings.

Rules:
Table size:
4'x4' prefered up to a maximum of 6' (suggested)

Buildings are set up a minimum of 12" from any table edge.

Knight is set up no further than 6" from the building(s)

Attackers will come on from the table edge furthest from the knight.(defenders side)

Use common sense for point costs. With that said, you can make it more challenging either way by adding more heldrakes / higher ranked knights. I'm sure it would be very interesting to see multiple knights vs many drakes.... the key is have fun.

(Edit; missing data. Ty @neferhet )
Building rules:
Wood av 10 structure points 3
Stone av 11 structure pts 6
Metal. Av 12 sp 6
Cerasteel av 12 sp 8

These are suggestions for the whole structure, each wall would be about 1/4 the structure points.

Edit -
Due to issues with "snap fire" the following rules are implemented.

- Its headed straight for me:
When a heldrake moves straight towards a knight within the knights firing arc, at least 12" before crossing the knight (ie meteoric / vector striking) the knight may opt to fire its main cannon, using its ballistic skill at the heldrake. This action removes the ability to use the ion shield for attack from that specific heldrake and only for one action from the heldrake (regular attack or otherwise).

Soul blaze:
The baleflamer fire will continue to burn after successfully striking its target as per the normal Soul Blaze rules, 1d3 to structures a turn, or 1 hull point a turn at weapon strength + 1d6 penatration. This will continue each round until failed. (At this point the fire goes out)

/end

Comments welcome.

 

[neferhet]

mmh...should give a fixed armour value for the building(s)
also, on a 4X4 board is pretty easy to have a dragon hop out the bouard if zooming. if not zooming...well, poor dragons!! otherwise, funny scenario, easy and direct
could be the centrepiece of a greater battle.
imagine a 2000 pts battle all around and one of the objective is the imperial cathedral midboard: the dragons must burn it and the knight has to kill the dragons

 

[mrknify]

I thought about that too with the 4x4, I imagined 3-4 heldrakes against a named knight / seneschal on a small table. Quite the flying circus.

Dragons would either take turns being off the table or be forced to hover, with the knight winning if all were off the table at tue same time.

As per flyers leaving the table they can come back; as long as there is one on the table, but with an end of turn any off the table give their points to the defender.

Fixed the missing info;


Cheers.

 

[mrknify]

The 2000 pts idea sounds smashing! Especially if you use the apocalypse 2 heldrake fear squadron formation.

 

[neferhet]

Dragons would either take turns being off the table or be forced to hover, with the knight winning if all were off the table at tue same time.

ooh, now i see! i was reading that if ANY dragons exit the board, they lose! Now it makes sense!

Yeah the fear squadron truly is made for this scenario :biggrin:

About the buildings, i'd say a maximum of 6 HP of structures per Knight involved, could be good.

 

[mrknify]

That sounds great! That allows 2 wooden structures for a knight and two heldrakes.

I wish they would make more stuff (dataslates, formations) for heldrakes, they are an amazing piece still with the re-balancing.

Edit-

Also looking at the ironstrider / dragoon looks like a good alternate for those lacking a knight titan.

 

[neferhet]

Absolutely. However, hte drakes sells so good, i doubt they will ever take any effort to make it even better with special formations and dataslates

 

[mrknify]

I have 2 myself; I'm currently building one for April's conversion contest and have plans for a 3rd in the works (I will have a fair amount of spare parts.)

 

[Stormxlr]

What type of knights are allowed ? None of them have skyfire, and some can't even snap shot.

 

[mrknify]

@Stormxlr, thank you for bringing this up.

Any knights;
as for snap shot, we can ignore that rule and use the guess rule instead.

Guess rule used for "ordinance" weapons. Player guesses the range then measures it out, and rolls scatter (2d6 - bs)

Most ammunition (fluff wise) is smart ammo that either explodes at a range,or in proximity.

While this makes it seemingly easier for the knight to hit the drakes, there is still a challenge to the shots.

I will look into a more suitable solution to this, while keeping the nature(heart) of this skirmish fun and challenging.

Cheers.

 

[Xabre]

I see one major issue with this.

Heldrakes don't have enough teeth in this case. Baleflamers literally won't help except against the weaker buildings, and the Hades Autocannons are only effective on 5s and 6s.

 

[neferhet]

i'd say that any Knight has also a "flakk ammo" for his primary weapon. Meaning he shoots a Heavy 2, Skyfire, Str 7, AP 4 shooting attack, but cannot later charge.

Otherwise the mission could have this rule:

"Storm of ruin": A storm is about to unleash upon the battlefield, while crackilng thunders zap along black clouds...any flyier or Flying MC that ENDS its turn in zooming mode takes D6 Str 7 Ap - hits, on its side arc. If a "6" is rolled then every unit in a 6" radius from the flyier base takes 1 hit as above.

 

[neferhet]

I see one major issue with this.

Heldrakes don't have enough teeth in this case. Baleflamers literally won't help except against the weaker buildings, and the Hades Autocannons are only effective on 5s and 6s.

that's why i suggested to make this the central part of a greater battle. Drakes VS Knights can be a slap fight.

 

[Creon]

Also, Knights have nothing they can Skyfire, being either stubbers or pattern weapons. I think this would be better with Flyrants instead.

 

[mrknify]

I see one major issue with this.

Heldrakes don't have enough teeth in this case. Baleflamers literally won't help except against the weaker buildings, and the Hades Autocannons are only effective on 5s and 6s.

You still have meteoric decent against the buildings, and knight. yes the biggest issue for the knights is actually striking the drakes. Even though ordinance cannot snap fire, that kind of removes only the 72" cannon. The other cannon can snap fire as it is not ordinance.

That being said, I will go through my notes and the books to sort out some "specialty" rules for the knight vs dragon skirmish.

Cheers.

 

[neferhet]

the other cannon is a melta blast. as blast, it cannot snapfire. so...meh.

 

[mrknify]

the other cannon is a melta blast. as blast, it cannot snapfire. so...meh.

Yes that is definatly true, but you can still assault.

Just finished re-reading the rules and it definatly looks possible and fun!

As for shooting I have a solution, I will edit the primry rules with this shortly.

Cheers and thank you for helping me out

 

[Xabre]

The Heldrake has a S7 Vector Strike or S7 Autocannon against AV 13/12, depending on angle. Not a lot there.

The Knights ONLY can use the Stubbers against flying targets. So not a lot there, either.

Slapfight indeed.

I think only the Castigator would have fun.

 

[mrknify]

The Heldrake has a S7 Vector Strike or S7 Autocannon against AV 13/12, depending on angle. Not a lot there.

The Knights ONLY can use the Stubbers against flying targets. So not a lot there, either.

Slapfight indeed.

I think only the Castigator would have fun.

S8 Hades autocannon. I've added some extra rules for the mission.

 

[mrknify]

I was going through a few other ideas. I especially love the new skitarii walkers, so I've added walkers to the defenders list. This should open up additional challenges for players, making the mission that much more intense.

Cc welcome and appreciated.