Wrath of the Rock: First Use

Hello battle brethren! I'm excited to tell you I used the new Wrath of the Rock detachment for the first time at an RTT this past Saturday, at Phantasm Gaming in Branford CT. If you're within a reasonable driving distance, I highly recommend it. They have a good setup on 40K days, with high tables so you don't kill your back, the tables have extra space for staging your stuff, they have good terrain, plenty of space to move around, and the registration fee for RTTs includes pizza for lunch. Anyway, there were 26 players at the event. I went 2-1 and took 4th place. You can see the BCP entry for the event here.

Just as a reminder, I did a review of the detachment last week, which you can see here. I included a first idea for a list, which I modified somewhat before it hit a table. Here's the version I played on Saturday.

Rocky Wrath Flavour 1.21
Azrael - Warlord
Sammael
Ravenwing Command Squad: Lord of the Ravenwing
Assault Intercessors: 5 choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys

The idea I built the list around was that the Deathwing Knights would move out first, stomping onto midfield objectives and forcing opponents to come out and deal with them. Then the Ravenwing Knights bomb out, advancing shooting and charging by dint of Sammy's in-built ability for one unit of Black Knights, and using the Tactical Mastery strat to allow the other one to do the same. Obviously at least one of those units would exploit Relics of the Dark Age, and I also had some intentions of using Inescapable Justice to have a second Oath target on my go turn. The Darkshroud made it into the list on the theory that with the debuff the detachment rule inflicts on enemy offense, every failed shot or succeeded save it generated counts for more. The Assault Intercessors were my backfield objective holders - I had to take them instead of Intercessors because I needed to shave off 5 points. The Scouts were my uppy-downy utility units. 

First game I went 80-69 against War Horde Orks. Mission O - Terraform, Stalwarts, Crucible of Battle. Remember that plan I built the list around that I described above? Yeah, I didn't do that. My opponent infiltrated a big unit of Kommandos into the middle of the board, and I got the first turn and went fangs out, going after it with one of my Ravenwing Knights bricks. That obliged my opponent to deal with a big robust unit right outside his deployment zone, which gave me time to move up my other stuff, and basically keep him on the back foot all game. My opponent scored better than me on Secondaries, but I more than made up the difference on Primary, actually managing to Terraform a couple of the objectives over the course of the game.

Second game I took a 56-95 loss against Reaper's Wager Drukhari. Mission L - Take and Hold, Hidden Supplies, Search and Destroy. Once again, I went fangs out first turn, and it didn't work for me nearly as well. I had some bad luck, losing 2 bikes to Hazardous tests when I supercharged with the plasma talons to dump a Raider. The Raider also contained my opponent's Court of the Archon with an attached Kabalite unit, which I was then obliged to charge, which didn't go well. The Kabbies are basically ablative bodies, but the Court of the Archon is a pretty stabby melee unit with Fights First, and while my opponent struggled to get out of his deployment zone the first couple turns, that unit was instrumental in turning the game around for him. 

My third game was actually a mirror match against the other Dark Angels player at the event, Chris Titchenell. We played Mission D: Scorched Earth, Swift Action, Tipping Point. He was also using the Wrath of the Rock detachment, and as you can imagine, our lists were pretty similar.  We both had three units of Deathwing Knights, Azrael attached to 10 Sternguard, and two Scout Squads. Where his list differed from mine was that instead of the Ravenwing units I brought, he brought a 6-man unit of Inner Circle Companions with a Judiciar, and a unit of 6 Aggressors with a Gravis Captain. He also had a Terminator Chaplain with Deathwing Assault to attach to his sword Knights, and a Combi-Weapon Lieutenant.

Again I got the first turn, and I finally played it a little cagier, letting the DWKs go first like I'd originally intended, tucking my Ravenwing units into the V of one of the midboard terrain features, with the Darkshroud in front of the bike squads in case Chris sent a unit through the wall. Chris did in fact send a unit of DWKs through, probably with the intention of picking up the Darkshroud and consolidating into my bike units, which was a pretty good move. I countered by having my center unit of DWKs Heroic into his DWKs so he couldn't consolidate them into my bike units.

My second turn was nuts. I Oathed his Azrael+Sternguard unit, which had come out from behind terrain, had my bikes go around the DWK vs DWK scrum, and take out the Sternguard, leaving only Azrael alive. Then the game became a massive scrum. Going from my left to right, I had one unit of DWKs charge his Itnercessors, who had stickied his backfield objective and come forward. I had my Azrael+Sternguard charge his DWKs that were stuck in with my DWKs. Sammy and his RWBKs charged Azrael. My other Black Knight brick charged his second unit of DWKs. Chris played Heroic Intervention to charge his Aggressors into my Black Knight Brick. That pulled them close enough for me to charge with my sword Knights, which put them close enough for Chris to play Leonine Aggression and charge them with his Jucidiar-led ICCs. 

Sammy finished off Chris' Azrael, which let me play Inescapable Justice to Oath the DWKs my Azrael and Sternguard were in combat with. That fight eventually went my way, whereas the big scrum on the other side of the mid-table objective eventually went Chris' way, but having both Azrael's Sternguard and Sammy's Black Knights intact gave me a decisive shooting advantage. We wound up burning every objective on the table except the center one. I took Chris' with Sammy and his Black Knights, Chris took mine with his sword DWKs and Chaplain, who dropped into my backfield via Deep Strike. I was able to hold Chris down on Primary points though, which told in the final score.

At the end of the game, we swapped notes. Chris was favorably impressed with my Ravenwing units, whereas I was favorably impressed with the Judiciar-led ICCs. He played his game well, I just had more mobility to draw on.

Event Post Mortem

Overall, I was pretty happy with the detachment and my units. The detachment rule makes everything in the list quite tanky, and Deathwing Knights were already one of the tankiest units in the game. The Ravenwing Black Knights worked well with this detachment, giving it an element of mobility and firepower that the Deathwing Knights lack. 

I feel like Sammael finally came into his own in this detachment. In a Gladius, Stormlance, or Company of Hunters, his Grand Master of the Ravenwing rule just adds +1 to Advance and Charge rolls, which is nice, but for the same price a Ravenwing Command Squad does that and adds a lot more offense, defense, and utility to a unit. In this detachment, it lets his unit Advance+Shoot+Charge, which gives me the ability to have two units do that, the second with Tactical Mastery. I pretty rapidly figured out it's useful to put him at the back of the unit, because his plasma cannon has a 36" range, so it makes it easier to get the whole unit's firepower on target if he's in the back.

Speaking of Tactical Mastery, it was the strat I used the most during the event. I also used Leonine Aggression, Inescapable Justice, and of course Armour of Contempt. I don't recall playing Lion's Will, and I didn't wind up playing Relics of the Dark Age, but Lion's Will had an effect in that at least opponents had to account for it. Not having to use Relics was just happenstance. I certainly expected I would, and I imagine I will in the future.

About the only thing I really don't think did much for the list was the Darkshroud. There are just so many rerolls in the game, a -1 To Hit is not much of a debuff. I think it's getting cut, and the next version of the list will have Heavy Intercessors, plus the Ravenwing Champion gets Ancient Weapons instead of Lord of the Ravenwing. I'm also thinking about dropping a Deathwing Knight squad to try ICCs with a Judiciar.

That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. I hope my experience with the Wrath of the Rock detachment helps you with your choices for your list and how to play it when it hits the table. May all your games with the detachment lead to glorious victory. For The Lion!