Had my first game of 10th yesterday! I only played 9th a couple times so I am pretty new to the hobby overall. The lists:

Drukhari (me)

Archon (Blast pistol Huskblade) with Art of Pain

Kabalite Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster, Shredder, Splinter Cannon, Blast Pistol Power Sword on the Sybarite)

Voidraven Bomber (2x Void Lances)

Cronos

Ravager x2

Raider

Scourges x2 (One unit with 3x Heat Lance and 1x Dark Lance, one unit with 3x Haywire Blasters and 1x Dark Lance) [I prefer to play WYSIWYG and these are the models I have at the moment, so I went with these loadouts; no value judgment on upgrades that don't match models]

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Imperial Knights

Knight Preceptor (Questoris heavy stubber, Icarus autocannons) with Unyielding Paragon

Armiger Helverin x2

Armiger Warglaive x2

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My buddy picked the Lay Low the Tyrant code chivalric ability because Reclaim the Realm triggers off of controlling an objective marker in your enemy's deployment zone, and we didn't place any in my deployment zone. (I have the Fronteris Nachmund terrain with a big satellite dish and an Admech transmission tower, so we mostly put the objective markers on or near these terrain features for lore reasons.)

We rolled off and I got attacker. I put the Archon and the Kabs in the Raider, which meant the only things in my force without Deep Strike were the Cronos and the Voidraven. The Voidraven is required to start in strategic reserves anyway, because aircraft, so I put the Cronos there too for the flavor of the Drukhari appearing out of nowhere to attack this Imperial transmission station. This meant his Imperial Knights were alone on the board. In hindsight, I should have put the Cronos on the board for its pain aura from turn 1 on, but eh, sometimes you go for flavor over tactics.

We did do scoring for this mission technically incorrect; we should have scored at the end of each our command phases starting from round 2 on, but we did 9th-style scoring at the top of each round. This comes into play in the final result.

Round 1

We rolled off and I got first turn. I deep struck in the Raider, Ravagers, and Scourges. I decided to be spendy with my pain tokens, so I empowered everything in my shooting phase except the Ravagers, deciding to let their ability to reroll ones on shooting rolls of 3 to hit against unwounded targets keep them consistent. As it turns out, Dark Lances and Haywire Cannons are incredible. I killed both Warglaives in the alpha strike.

Now, I have not played against Imperial Knights before, ever, and I did not know the Helverins have anti-air 2 when in their deployment zone or on an objective marker they control. Had I known this I definitely would have changed my target priorities, because anti-air 2 is incredible against a list that is 100% flying except for the Archon and the Kabs. The Helverins killed the Raider, dumping the Archon and the Kabs out, but I only lost one model to the ejection. The Knight Preceptor killed off a couple of my Scourges from each unit. Overall, at the end of round1 I was in a commanding position.

Round 2

We both scored 1 point since we were both on 1 objective marker. In hindsight I should have Deep Struck the Scourges onto more objective markers, but I was trying to concentrate my fire for the alpha strike, and the alpha *was* quite successful, so. I don't think it was wrong, necessarily, though I do think going for more objective control might have been more correct.

Still not realizing how potent the Helverins were going to prove against my fliers, I decided to focus down the Knight Preceptor. My Cronos and my Voidraven Bomber showed up this round. I basically operated the bomber at half strength the entire game because I forgot that it has 2 Void Lances, not 1, despite there being 2 guns physically on the model. So much for WYSIWYG helping my memory! I poured everything I had into the Preceptor, but my buddy used the Knights' strategem to boost its invulnerable save against ranged to 4 . I managed to bring it down to 6 out of 22 wounds, but it ended my turn still alive. Shout-out to the Scourges again, this time getting the Heat Lances into Melta range did good work.

His Helverins did bloody murder to my Scourges, wiping them out, and also oneshotted one of my Ravagers. The Preceptor focused down my Kabalites, but I had them in cover and I used Quicksilver Reactions, so despite facing the full fury of its guns I managed to keep the models with the Dark Lance and the Blaster alive. (Also the Sybarite, but, well, I forgot how useless he is.)

Round 3

The Knights scored 2 points this round to my 1. I knew I needed to make a big move, since my force was getting ragged, so I moved the bomber over the Preceptor to try to Void Mine it to death. I was prepared for it not to work, and it didn't, because Void Mine is the swingiest Goddamn thing ever. Still, even at half strength because of my reading the datasheet wrong, the bomber finished off the Preceptor with void lance blasts. I moved the Cronos and my one remaining Ravager up the board to one of the objective markers being threatened but not yet controlled by one of the Helverins. However, I failed to do anything significant to either of the Helverins because I forgot to spend my pain tokens at the start of my shooting phase! Shit! In desperation I charged the Helverin near the objective marker with my Cronos and Ravager. They did jack shit in melee, but they also tanked the Helverin's return attacks, and they controlled the objective marker.

On my buddy's turn, he chose to make the Helverin that had been in melee fall back, meaning it didn't shoot. The one Helverin that did shoot, though, one-shotted my last Ravager. Those anti-air 2 , 3 damage guns are absolute murder.

Round 4

I scored 2 points to the Knights' 1, bringing us both to 4 points. I had the Cronos try to hide in a corner near the objective marker. At this point I was down to it and my Archon Kabs that were hiding behind a big building on top of an objective marker. I knew I could move them out and rely on their sticky objective rule, but they were too far away from any other objective markers to make leaving cover worth it. No shooting from me this phase.

My buddy camped Helverin #1 on one objective marker, even with no shots, and had the other move up. It took its entire shooting phase as well as a charge into melee, but it did finally kill my Cronos, leaving me with just my Archon and his three remaining Kab bodyguards.

Round 5

We both scored 1 point, bringing us both to 5. Now, because we were already scoring incorrectly and didn't know it, we also figured you score one more time at the end of the final round. Given that, I knew my only hope was to shoot one of his remaining Helverins with my Kabs to try to take it out. I moved the Archon and Kabs up into shooting range, figuring I could do a Strike and Fade to get them back into cover to avoid being tabled. Pain Token, Dark Lance Blaster. Both hit, both wounded, and he failed both saves. Damage: d6 1 for the Blaster, d6 2 for the Dark Lance. I hit a 6 on the Blaster and 5 on the Dark Lance for a total of 14 wounds. The Helverin had feel no pain 6 and 12 wounds; my buddy needed 3 6s on 14 dice. He got 2. Command re-roll failed. Boom. An entire Helverin gone to two Drukhari with big guns. I kept the Kabs where they were because their new position meant they were now out of LOS from the remaining Helverin, and sticky objectives meant I would still have the one marker controlled.

He moved his Helverin up to control one marker and had no shots. Our first game of 10th, therefore, ended on a draw, which felt incredibly good. No losers that day! I don't know if that would have happened if we'd been scoring correctly, but, well. At the end of the day the point is to have fun, and we did.

Final thoughts: Ravagers and Scourges are incredibly strong. Dark Lances are fantastic. Haywire Blasters are also fantastic. And the Heat Lances, once they got the Melta 3 for being within 9", were killer, but given that the Haywires are 24", I definitely would bring them over Heat Lances against vehicle heavy lists like Knights if I had to pick and choose. The Heat Lances will be great against big monsters though.

The Bomber is a gorgeous model and I was excited to run it. Having to show up on turn 2 does mean that you're losing out on turn 1 shots, and 195 points is a lot; I could have done a third Ravager and a 3-man unit of Reavers for less points than that and they probably would have done more. Then again, pretty models make the lizard brain go brrrr.

I did use the Archon's Vect ability on the Knights 4 invuln save strategem, and that was nice, but he didn't do much otherwise apart from generate free pain tokens, and once the Cronos was on the board I literally had more than I could spend. I suspect I won't be quite so flush with them in a 2k game, but in a 1k game where I forgot to use them on one shooting phase I ended the game with 6 of them. Still, 2 Kabs bodying a Helverin in one shooting phase was an incredible stroke of luck, and I think the unit as a whole is quite good for the points. I look forward to trying out the 2 Kabs, 2 Venoms, 1 Raider combo in a 2k game. I also want to try running Lelith Wyches at some point, or Drazhar Incubi, but in a 1k game I chose to focus on shoot-and-scoot, and I'm glad I did.

So much of our army flies, folks. Kill the shit with anti-air first.

Thanks for reading such a long post!