Garryth and the Assassins Six

Hello everyone, glad to be contributing to rescuing of Scyrah from the vile magics of the humans. But seriously glad to be helping out you guys as much as possible. Today I'll be going over a Tier 4 Garryth army that includes six Mage Hunter Assassins, that's right six of those nasty solos. First, for those of you who don't know in MK II warcasters will have themed armies that are organized into four tiers, by meeting the requirements within each tier you get a bonus. Here is Garryth's tiers so you have a better understanding of the basis of this army:

Tier 1
Requirements: Have only Garryth, non-character Jacks, Mage Hunter Strike Forces and UAs, Mage Hunter Assassins, Nayl and Souless Escorts.
Benefit: Mage Hunter Strike Forces FA now becomes FA: U, Mage Hunter Assassin FA increases by 1 for each Mage Hunter Strike Force included.

Tier 2
Requirements: In addition to Tier 1 include 3 or more Mage Hunter Assassins
Benefit: +1 to Starting Roll.

Tier 3
Requirements: In addition to Tier 1 and 2 include 3 or more Mage Hunter Strike Forces each with a Soulless Escort attachment.
Benefit: Add Nayl for FREE

Tier 4
Requirements: In addition to Tier 1, 2, and 3 include only Light Wrajacks
Benefit: Battlegroup gain AD.

As you can see it is a really solid and interesting theme that allows for a lot of Mage Hunters of all varieties, but another thing you will notice is that Narn and Eiryss aren't allowed, disappointing: yes but nothing to lose sleep over. But without further wait the list itself:

Garryth
-Gorgon (5 Warjack Points from Garryth)
Mage Hunter Strike Force (minimum) [5 pts.]
-Souless Escort [1 pt.]
Mage Hunter Strike Force (minimum) [5 pts.]
-Souless Escort [1 pt.]
Mage Hunter Strike Force (minimum) [5 pts.]
-Souless Escort [1 pt.]
Mage Hunter Strike Force (minimum) [5 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Mage Hunter Assassin [2 pts.]
Nayl [FREE]
Total Points: 35

Now you may say "Assassins are only FA: 2" I would reply simply that in Tier 1 the FA increases by one for each Mage Hunter Unit and since there are four Mage Hunter units that FA goes up to six. Now that being said lets move along to tactics.

The main tactic associated with this army is that of Threat Saturation which is covered pretty well in the link to the Privateer Press forums, the Retribution Community over there is a great place for additional information. Not to say I wont cover Threat Saturation, I will, just at a later time. Away from that tangent, this army's strength lays in its in its ability to strike quickly and take down the enemy Warcaster. Each model basically has a role to fill within the army, the Assassins are to take down high wound models and if there is an opening the enemy Warcaster, Mage Hunters are to take down jacks and enemy infantry, because 24 RAT 6 shots is nothing to ignore. Nayl is there to disrupt the enemy caster, the Gorgon to hold down high threat models, and Garryth, well Garryth is there to do what he does best, killing Warcasters. (He is also there to support his army with things like Death Sentence and Mirage.) Now these are simplified usages of these models because they have quite a few diferent ones such as using Assassins as bait to pull out pieces of the enemy army so you can strike at other. This should work because if you spread out your solos it forces your opponent to try to deal with each as threat otherwise one will run up the side of their army and just make a mess of things. But again you can't account for an opponent's decision making but using logic I would do all I can to take out those Assassins before they got too close, which would hopefully open up holes in the defense of their Warcaster. But remember none of these are fool-proof tactics, they are more suggestions to what I believe is optimal use. Back on subject, the secondary strength of this army is its ability to put a wrench into the Warcaster's plan with Nayl, Garryth's Feat, and 75% of the units containing a Soulless Escort, spellcasting should take a pretty big hit. Which leaves your opponent in another vulnerable position especially when faced with such adept killers.

This army has very distinct and obvious strengths but also has very obvious weakness, the obvious weakness is AOEs. Unfortunately AOEs will absolutely decimate much of this army due to their low ARM on the majority of the models. In this casse you have to play fast and hard putting your opponent on their heals as you push to their lines before too much of your army is destroyed. Another weakness is armies that ignore stealth which should be dealt with in a similar way you deal with an AOE army close the gap between you and them to prevent excessive casualties.

This is a fairly simple introduction into Garryth's Assassin Spam, but should help you start thinking of even better ways to use it or modify it. So go out there and kill some Warcasters.

-MRHM



(It should be noted that there is an alternate version of this army that drops one Assassin and one unit of Mage Hunters and trades the Gorgon for a Chimera and increase two of the Mage Hunter Units to their maximum size, but Garryth and the Assassin Five didn't sound as catchy even though it is probably a better list since the arc node makes Garryth far more dangerous. But the six Assassins just seem more fun.)

House Shyeel Grows

I knew when I started this that I would not be alone for long. And now we have our second member of House Shyeel, Magnus' Right Hand Man. I'm definitely looking forward to the perspective that he brings to the table.

As for me; next month sees the start of a 5 month discussion on our warcasters. I'll be taking a month per warcaster to go into more depth as to their stats, potential army lists and combinations.

- Serraphim

Iosian Runes

This is courtesy of Erebos over on the PP boards. Here is a full list of all the Iosian runes that Have been translated.

Currently there are not any examples of J, M, Q, X and Z. Enjoy

Loving the art work

Got my book from my ninja shopper. Reading through the fluff right now. I'm really impressed with the quality of the book. And the fluff is awesome

Retribution Spoilers - Solos

Now on to my favourite part of this army, the Solos:

Dawnguard Scyir
Commander, Jack Marshal, Coordinated Strike (This model and the jack it controls ignores Dawnguard for LOS and can move through them), Drive: Reroll (Warjack and reroll one attack), Flank, Iron Sentinel (+2 Arm when B2B with faction warjack), Reach.

- The griffon was made for this guy. The two of them are going to pair up incredibly well, especially given his drive (again, rerolls are fantastic). But then you tack on +2 ARM in B2B and flank and we have a very solid combo. Almost like having our own lesser warcaster.

Arcanist
Special Actions
Concetrated Power – RNG 5 targe warjack gets +2 to melee damage rolls.
Power Booster – RNG 5 if jack has no focus it gains 1 focus. If it was disrupted it is no longer disrupted.
Repair – D6 damage.

- Repair is good. Getting rid of disruption is good. A free focus for a jack that has none is good. +2 to damage is good. FA 2 is good. 2 points is good. And he has a huge frakking wrench for a weapon. What is there not to love about this guy. Sure, he's gonna be squishy, but really do you care? By the time he gets turned into fine elven paste you should be on you assassination run. In fact, you run should be over before he dies.

Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen
Dragoon, Rapid Strike (one additional attack), Righteous Fury (+2 arm when friendly faction models within command are destroyed), Magic Weapon, Reach, Weapon Master, Blessed.

- I love this guy. Two weapon master attacks on a Blessed, reach weapon is nice, combined with tall in the saddle, this guy is a great solo/UA hunter. Righteous fury just helps him hit harder and survive longer. A nice character model for us, and hopefully a really nice model.

Nayl
AD, Fearless, Stealth, Souless, Arcane Annihilation (when it destroys a model, enemy models within 8″ lose focus and fury points and cannot cast spells, channel or use animi), Spell Ward. Magic Weapon, Reach.

- Holy disruption grenade. Well, not really a grenade, more a land mine. Your opponent has to pop Nayl for Arcane Annihilation to go off, so they can work around it. Against hordes the removal of all fury within 8" will hurt them more than machine players as they'll be gimped the following turn too. Otherwise, he's a nice solo, we just need to see what his P+S is.

Mage Hunter Assassin
AD, Pathfinder, Stealth, Arcane Assassin, Weapon Master, Chain Strike (4″ melee during activation), Chain Weapon, Decapitation (Damage is double, no tough roll)

- She has SPD 7, so that is a 14" threat range with arcane assassin so she ignores any DEF/ARM buffs and Weapon Master and Decapitation. Wow, I know that she is going to die to a stiff breeze, but the sheer amount of terror she will cause you opponent by her merely being on the table will be more than worth it. There is also a way to get 6 of the in a 35 point list, which I'll cover in another post.

Ghost Sniper
Pathfinder, Stealth, Camouflage, Swift Hunter (elylyth), Deadly Shot (like snipe but 3 points of damage)

- Auto 3 damage is really nice. Swift hunter means that he can move out of cover, pop off a shot, and then move back to avoid retalliation. Plus, the model just rocks.

House of Shyeel Magister
Magic Ability 7, Force Bolt – POW 10 RNG 10 pushes D3″, Whip Snap – RNG 6 POW 12 friend model within 3″ can advance up to 3″, Beat Back, Combo Smite

- MITTENS. Like his battle mage brothers, its going to be hard to tell just how good he is due to the fact that I don't know his raw stats. But looking at the spoiler he continues our ability to move our enemies to where we want them. Beat back twice, and then combo smite for another D3" on a heavy (D6 on anyone else) will give us an average of 4"(5") at the end with is better than just combo smiting for distance.

Dawnguard Destor Than (cav solo)
Commander, Gunfighter, Unyeilding, Virtuoso (Holt), Mulit-fire (like esorsha’s gun)

- Yes, we get a cav solo that can shoot up to 3 times, in combat and the attack with his melee weapon if anything is still alive.

The solos are what really push this army into craziness. Like our units, most of our solos don't require any additional support, you can trust them to get their job done. Now all we are really waiting for is the models to be previewed.

Let me know what you guys think about our revealed units.

Retribution Spoilers - Units

The Units plus their UAs:

Invictor UA
Officer – CRA, Officer, Defensive Line, Extended Fire (+4 RNG) mini feat.
Flank. Granted Combine Arms. If attack misses for a CRA it can reroll that attack once.
Standard Bearer – Defensive Line.

- Extended fire is very nice on a ranged unit, especially during the opening turns of a game where normally everyone would be out of range. The extra 4" will allow you to pop off an early CRA into something dangerous, or even to start the destruction. Combine Arms gives me a reason to always CRA, even if it's a 2 man shot. Rerolls are incredibly helpful, even when i comes to hitting DEF higher than you would normally.

Sentinel UA
Officer – Officer, Drive: Pronto, Granted Vengeance (bane knights)
Standard Bearer – Defensive line

- Pronto is awesome as a Drive as it continues to push the speed of the Ret, which is a lot faster than looks on paper. But the real reason that you are going to want the UA is Vengence. Once you get this unit stuck in, they are going to start wrecking face. The sentinels and UA re really going to love IR from Vryos as ARM 19 Bane Knights are gonna scare just about everybody

Mage Hunters Strike Force
CMA, Pathfinder, Stealth, Arcane Assassin and Jack Hunter (Additional die to melee and range damage rolls against jack) perfect for Kaelyss. Mage Hunters are rat 6 with range 12 guns. Light jacks beware PoW 10 shots with 3d6. Warcaster beware if it’s backlashed. POW 9 +4D6 if they charge a jack. If they CRA it it would pack a big punch against a heavy.

- Wow, in a game that has gone jack heavy, we have the only unit that specifically does more damage to jacks. The extra die on damage from a POW 10 means an average of 2 points on an ARM 18. Now if we combine this with Kaelyssa, we have the perfect unit for a Backlash assassination. A full unit will do 20 to the jack and 10 to the caster, and I'm not even counting what Kaelyssa herself can do.

Mage Hunter Strike Force UA
Mage Hunter UA gives them AD and Phantom Seeker.

- Wait, now the Jack hunters start closer and have Eiryss' phantom seeker bolt. Cue Bond villain hand wringing.

Dawnguard Destors (Cav unit)
Gun fighter, Dual Shot, Unyielding (+2 arm while engaged)

- I'll be honest, the Destors confuse me a little. They are a cav unit so you want to keep them moving, but dual shot means you want to keep them still. Although, you can forfeit your move in melee to shoot twice. Hmm, I guess this is another unit that I am really going to need to my book before I make any decisions about. But if they look anything like their picture, then its guaranteed I am going to buy them.

Stormfall Archers
Range 12 power 12 3 inch AOE weapons, May choose on of the following attacks (doesn’t have to be as a whole).Brutal Shot, Snipe, Star Strike – no damage but suffers fire.

- It's been spoiled that they are RAT 5, so the chances of a brutal shot going off are slim unless the target is KD'd or a stationary jack due to Kaelyssa. Snipe makes them Range 16 AoEs which is really nice in the opening stages. Star fall looks powerful, but you'll only get 3 of them on average rolls and if you're up against eFeora you're just feeding her feat.

Souless Escort
Attachment any Retribution Unit, Disbinding (enemy upkeep spells expire), Flank, Mage Static (-5 range to magic attacks against this unit) Souless, Tag Along (does not gain unit abilities except AD)

- Want to make you Cryx buddy cry? Include 3 of these little guys. -3 RNG on a RNG 8 spell hurts a lot. For only 1 point, the escort is a great WA. He's awesome at making sure your unit survives against anything but a serious magic assault. And with the new unit formation rules, you can keep him 6 - 8" behind the unit he is supporting.

Houseguard Halberdiers
CMA, Ranked Attacks, Shield Wall, Reach, Brutal Charge, Set Defense

- These guys are my go to cheap meat shields. 15/18 against a charge is better than TFG and +2 damage on a charge is really nice on those few times you are going to be charging.

Houseguard Halberdiers UA
CMA, Officer, Granted: Reform (after completing action models can move 3″) Ranked Attacks, Team Effort (Once per game +2 attack and damage rolls again enemy models in melee range of another model in unit), Standard Bearer, Reach, Brutal Charge Set Defense

- This UA is really nice, but I don't feel it is as much of an auto include as the sentinel, invictor and Riflemen UAs. The mini feat is nice if you want to put a hurting on something. I would pop it the same time that I charged something beefy, like a jack. The extra 3" move helps them keep up with the rest of the army, as your only going to be walking in shield wall.

Houseguard Riflemen
CRA, Ranked Attacks. Rang 14 power 10.

- The ranked attacks mean that you can get your entire unit in on the CRA, which is nice on a RNG 14 POW 10. A full 10 man CRA will net you a POW 20, more than enough to start threatening Khador Jacks.

Houseguard Riflemen UA
CRA, Officer. Granted: War Tempered (can make CRA models in melee), Ranked Attacks, Whites of Their Eyes (mini feat, gain additional die on range attack rolls against models within 8″).

- There is no reason to ever no take this UA. The mini feat is cool if you are make a bunch of single of 2 man shots. But the greatest thing about this unit is War Tempered. The biggest limitation on CRAs has been that you cant CRA into melee. Well we can, and we can do it with a POW 21 with +11 to the attack roll. Very, very few casters are going to walk away unscathed from that hit. Butcher, Skarre with a good sac lamb roll camping focus and feated, and Karchev are the only ones that come to mind.

Battle Mages
Magic Ability 6
Force Bolt – RNG 10, POW 10 magic on pushes d3 on crit KD.
Beatback.

- The unit of mittens. Really unit I can see their MAT and PS there really isn't a lot to go on. Force bolt is helpful in opening holes for assassination runs.

There isn't a unit that from stats a lone looks like junk. I want to include every single one of these in every list that I make. We have a lot of strong, independent units. If you notice there isn't a lot of inter unit synergy like you would see in Menoth or Cryx. Nor are we a hammer like Khador. We are a snipers bullet, and the only thing in our cross hairs is the enemy caster.

Retribution Spoilers - Warcasters

Warcasters:

Adeptis Rahn
Focus 8.
Feat: +2 range to non channeled spells at magic attack and damage rolls are boosted to everyone in ctrl.
+2 def again range attack and no blast damage. Beat Back, Critical Smite, Reach, Magic Weapon
Spells
Chain Blast – 3″ AOE that rolls an addition 3″ aoe deviation.
Force Blast – Target battlegroup model. Enemies are pushed 4″ directly away.
Force Field – Self – doesn’t suffer b last or collateral damage, no KD, if an AOE attack deviates you choose the direction.
Force Hammer – Slams non incorporeal models d6″a and suffers pow 12.
Polarity Shield – Like the cent.
Telekinesis – Like eHaley.

- Rahn looks like an interesting caster. 8 Focus is really nice, hitting DEF 15 on average rolls. One thing that is definitely obvious is that he really wants more focus. He has such a nice tool box of spells, you're going to have to really plan out your casting. Polarity shield works amazingly with our ranged troops giving us an added protection against retaliation. Force Blast is also an amazing spell for getting our jacks out of sticky situations. As of now his feat seems to only apply to himself and other House Shyeel models. Whether or not this is going to be a useful feat remains to be seen. I do like Rahn, being able to couple a TK with a FH while still upkeeping a couple spells is really nice. He continues our theme of moving our enemies into the most advantageous positions for us.

Ravyn, Eternal Light
Foc 6
Feat: Fire Storm – Models in CTRL gain boosted attack rolls and swift hunter.
Gunfighter, Quick Work (after destroying model with melee can make a range), Swift Hunter, Virtuoso, Magi Weapon, Blaster (may spend a focus to turn into AOE), Thresher.
Spells
Eliminator
Locomotion
Snipe
Veil of Mists – 4″ AOE cloud that doesn’t affect friend models, give friendly pathfinder, move through obstructions while in it
Vortex of Destruction – Damage rolls against enemy modes in SELF range are automatically boosted.

- Ravyn is another of our casters that look really interesting. Thresher + Vortex of Destruction will absolutely demolish troops in her melee range. Snipe is just one of those golden spells for a faction with a lot of range, and once you see our ranged units you'll why its so gross. Veil of Mists is a really nice cloud effect due to the fact that it's a 4" cloud giving much, much greater protection to our lightly armored models. I'll have to wait for my book to see if Quick Work procs off every kill, which in essence will double the amount of attacks she can make due to her gunfighter rule. Actually forget that, if it works the way that I think it does, thresher and then fire off a bunch of ranged shots at something, which can also be turned into an AoE for a focus. Nasty if you think about it.

From everything I've seen, it looks like we don't have a type cast caster. Vyros isn't really a Jack caster, Rahn and Ravyn aren't troop casters. All 5 of our casters are asking for combined forces, they can all use a node, maybe a heavy and with our amazing troops and solos, you re going to want those too.

I personally can not wait to start getting models.

Wow

Everyone knows that Gencon week is an awesome week for announcements and SPOILERS. So thanks to Larkin Vain over at Miniature Mayhem we now have RoS MkII spoilers, and let me just say that they are very, very tasty. I'm going to take today to digest all this new information and I'll start posting my thoughts tomorrow.

All quiet

It's been a little while since I last posted, mainly due to the fact that I've started school again (and some commission work that I've been doing).

I have to say I love the fact that Privateer previews models for us with the awesome 360. It looks like the full line is almost completely up, and when it is ill repost them here for you guys, but I'm going to refrain for making any rules comments until we've seen all the rules for them.

RoS vs CoO Batrep

Another Sunday has passed and another round of games for me. As we're pretty much done with our CTA league, we were just playing games to play games, so I thought why not try out my beloved Elves. So after getting photocopies I went a put a list together:

Vyros
- Manticore
- Manticore
- Phoenix

6 Invictors
6 Invictors
10 Sentinels
A&H
Eiryss

749/750

vs

Baldur
- Megalith
- Woldwarden
- Woldwryd

Wrong Eye
- Snapjaw

Dahlia
- Skarrath

Farrow Bone Grinders
Stoneward & Woldstalkers
Gatormen Posse

Deployment:

I won the roll off and deployed first. I had the Phoenix and 1st Manticore a little to the right of center with the other Manticore about 10" away from them. Behind the 2 groups of Jacks were both Invictor units, with A&H in the middle, Vyros behind the Invictors on the right and the Sentinels and Eiryss off to the hold the right flank. He pretty much placed everything in front of me hiding behind a building, with the Woldstalkers opposite the Sentinels.

Turn 1:
RoS - Vyros cast Mobility and then moved to catch the Sentinels with Invoilable Resolve. The Jacks moved up with both Manticores dropping their covering fire in front of the Woldstalkers. The Sentinels ran and both units of Invictors moved up but they were not able to take a shot on anything. And I had forgot to activate Eiryss who was hiding really well in a building.
CoO - Moved everything up. Woldstalkers moved around the templates and shot at the Sentienls, but couldn't get passed their ARM 19. The Warden moved up and Earthspiked the Phoenix knocking it and the Manticore next to it down. Megalith then moved up and Earthspiked the Invictors killing the unit leader.

Turn 2:
RoS - I gave 2 to the Manticore on the ground and upkept IR. Sentinels charged the Woldstalkers and wiped them all out except for the druid. I then moved the left most Invictors up to take a pot shot at the Woldwryd and only did a couple points to it. The other Invictor unit just advanced up. Activated Vyros and moved him up and then cast Mobility. The Phoenix then moved to get a better shot at Baldur but missed. A&H moved up and Aiyanna Harmed the Woldwarden. Then Manticore with 2 focus then moved into Melee with the Woldwarden and in one swing took out both its Mind and Spirit. 4D6 +5 was insane. The other Manticore moved around to counter charge if necessary. And again I forgot about Eiryss.
CoO - Megalith then charged in and caught both Manticores in his melee range and proceed to wail on them both, but failed to disable the first Manticore. Snapjaw then charged in and finished off the already heavily damaged jack. The Warden moved up onto the wreck marker to swing on the Manticore and took out the rest of its field and did a couple points to the hull. while the second Manticore received a charge from Skarath, and took a little damage from it too. The remaining druid ran from the Sentinels and the Gatormen repositioned to charge the next turn. Baldur moved behind the building and stone skined the Warden.

Turn 3:
RoS - Moved the full Invictor unit around to take a shot at Megalith in combat and did a couple points to its body. The Phoenix moved again to catch Baldur and shot with it going wide. Vyros arc'd an Eliminator through the Phoenix onto Dahlia killing her. I then used the 2" place to get Vyros in Charge range of Megalith and feated then charged in, but failed to get rid of Megalith. The Invictors then killed 2 of the Bone grinders giving the 2 focus to the Manticore. Aiyanna moved around to catch Baldur in her no spell zone, and Holt tried to do some more to the Wryd. The Manticore then 2 Hand threw Megalith at Baldur but missed.
CoO - The Wyrd shot Vyros and then Snapjaw took him out in combat.

Impressions -

As my first game not all that bad. Vryos wants/needs more focus to be a serious Jack caster, which to be honest I don't think that's what he is. I truly believe that he is a combined arms caster. You definitely need the mix of troops and jacks to make the most of his feat.

The Manticore was just wow, this jack can seriously put a hurting on anything it comes within 0.5" of and I love the board control that covering fire gives me. I love this Jack. Whereas the Phoenix really didn't need to be in this list. I could have used a Gorgon or even a Hydra (as the Node situationally useful with Vyros).

I deployed the Sentinels way too far away for them to make any kind of difference, and while the Invictors where really nice, there really wasn't many opportunities for them to shoot due to the terrain on the table.

All in all, I think the Retribution is shaping up to be a really nice army, but it's going to be impossible to tell as there is just not enough options right now.

Apologies

I'm going to apologise to everyone for my over reaction to the loss of the ranged flank. I really wasn't thinking clearly and I posted in that state.

The Invictors are a really good ranged unit, the problem I see is that we have at least 2 more ranged units that we need to see the stats for. My other issue is what the Invictors can do, the Sentinels can do better and cheaper.

So again, apologies for the outbursts on the PP boards.

Flank Typo

PPS_DC wrote:
Please add:
Invictor "Flank" should be worded exactly the same as Vyros' Flank.

Thank you.

I understand that they want to keep rules with the same name the same, but the problem that I have with this is it truly reduces the reason to take Invictors over Sentinels.

• Invictors are more expensive
• POW 10 vs POW 12
• In order to get the 3rd D6 there needs to be a jack in melee, increasing the cost of the unit again.

Now I'm not saying that I won't be getting the Invictors, I love the models, but outside of a Kaelyssa backlash list and a themed Dawnguard list, I'm failing to see a reason to take them now. I am sincerely hoping that PPS_DC is wrong and that they are supposed to have flank with their ranged shots.

Forth Round of Reviews

So this is the last article in which I review the previewed stuff in NQ 25. It's been a fun ride looking at everything that we're going to be using come September. In this last article I will be looking at the 2 units and 1 solo that are previewed. Firstly we have our 2 Dawnguard units, the Invictors and Sentinels and NARN (whose name shall always be capitalised), our most bad ass mage hunter.

Dawnguard Sentinels

The Sentinels are our melee experts being P+S12 weapon masters with Reach. The nice thing with reach is it's going to allow us to get more of our models into melee with whatever we're hitting. And for the most part, what we're hitting is dying. A charge from the Sentinels is doing 12 + 4D6 damage against you target, which against an ARM 18 jack they're doing 8 points a piece, which is more than enough for the whole unit to scrap 2 jacks in the turn that they charge.

Normally they are ARM 15 which coupled with their DEF 12 won't ensure that they last that long, but they do have Defensive line which will give them a +2ARM boost as long as they are in B2B. This is really nice as it means that at least half of the POW 10s that are going to be targeting them aren't doing anything. Couple this with Inviolable Resolve from Vyros and we now have a nice ARM 19 brick.

Their last ability is Jack Marshall (1). The is always a running debate as to whether or not jack marshalling is useful. For the most part it's not as jack's will always perform better with Focus. Given that, I still believe that the Hydra is best for jack marshalling as its ability to gain focus outside of a caster is essential for marshalling. Plus the chain attack: Smash and Grab will combo really nicely with the Sentinels as you can head butt that jack down and then trash it with the Sentinels charge. The is also a good one due to the fact that it has a reach weapon (and the only other reach weapon we have is on a node). The one drawback to all these abilities and potential is the fact that they are an expensive unit, expect to drop over a 100 points on a full unit of 10.

::Edit:: I was wrong about the Sentinels having Flank, but it really still doesn't change the overall damage that this unit can put out. They're just a solid melee unit that will fit into any of our lists.

Dawnguard Invictors

What the Sentinels do for melee the Invictors do for ranged. RAT 6 RNG 10 POW 12 is a very nice stat line for a ranged unit, most infantry are going to be taking heavy losses from their shooting attacks. What really pushes the damage out put of this unit is their flank ability, which is worded to work with their ranged attacks, the drawback being you are now shooting into melee, upping the DEF of your target by 4, which the flank bonus and aiming bonuses take care of. The real trick though is to either KD/stationary what you are shooting at; Head butt, slam, throw, arcantrik bolt and then move the jack into melee. Now you are doing POW 12 +3D6 to the KD/stationary target meaning that almost all of your shots are going to hit (barring the odd snake eye roll). Using flank, the Invictors are going to be doing 4.5 damage to an ARM 18 jack, couple this with backlash from Kaelyssa, and your opponent’s caster is going to take a hurting before that jack is trashed.

Like their Sentinel brothers they are only ARM 15, but they also have defensive line. Pushing their ARM up to 17 as long as they remain in B2B, making them a pretty tough ranged unit.

They also have Jack Marshall (1) like the Sentinels, not something I would normally use, but if you do again the Hydra is going to be best, mainly for smash and grab to try and KD your flank target so that you can put the hurting on it.

NARN

NARN is essentially the Melee version of Eiryss. Basically you want to point him in the direction of the enemy caster and let him do his thing. SPD 7 with pathfinder, acrobatics, sprint (when he kills an enemy model in melee he can make a full advance) and advanced deployment mean that he's going to get where you want him to. DEF 15 and stealth will help him survive the trip there. MAT 8 and 2 P+S 11 weapon master attacks with wraith bane and arcane assassin means he's going to hit and put the hurt on that caster. Warlocks will have a slightly easier time as they can still just transfer damage.

All in all he's a nice little cruise missile, but unless my opponent leaves their caster exposed, I'm probably going to use him to hunt down solo's, number 1 being my enemy's Eiryss.

So again, let me know what you guys think. Also, what combos/tactics have you all come up with?

Third round of Reviews

For this article I will be talking about the three light jacks that have been previewed. The Chimera, the Gorgon and the Griffon. One thing to note before we begin is that these jacks only have 6 boxes on their force field and a smaller damage grid as all light jacks have.

Chimera

The Chimera continues the high mobility theme with its ability to be placed anywhere withing 2" during the control phase. Now normally this would just be an interesting ability, but couple this with the fact that the Chimera has an arc node, we now have a jack that opens up a whole range of assassination vectors. It also forces your opponent to think differently when engaging as it can just pop out of combat at the start of your turn.

The Generator also adds some extra protection by adding the number of focus on the jack to it's DEF against ranged and magic attacks, so full on focus it's going to be a DEF 15 jack which puts it up there with the Cryx jacks.

The Chimera does have combo strike and 2 P+S12 open fists. It's not going to be doing a lot of damage but the fact that it has 2 open fists means that you can 2 hand throw whatever is engaging you to disengage and free up that node.

Along with the Phoenix we have some very, very threatening arc nodes, that are going to be able to get places most armies can only dream of.

Gorgon

The Gorgon is an interesting denial jack. The Force lock allows it to keep whatever is in melee with it in melee, but it doesn't have reach, most likely to limit any potential abuses for this ability. I'm still trying to think of uses for this aside for the obvious keep something still while my heavy beats it into its component parts.

It's ranged attack is a RNG 10 ROF 1 POW 10 wraith bane shot that prevents the model hit from charging the Gorgon. It only prevents the model from charging the Gorgon, the model will still be free to charge anything else. I can see it being useful to prevent a heavy from scraping the jack, or to use the jack as a screen for your caster as a medium base isn't the easiest to charge around.

Just like the Chimera, the Gorgon has 2 P+S12 open fists with Combo strike.

I feel like this is a defensive jack, meant to hang around and screen your caster, but I'm not to sure how well it's going to do in that role. It's missing an extended control area to truly be a flanking jack. This is just going to be a jack that I'm not going to figure out until I get some play time in.

Griffon

P+S13 spear with powerful charge and reach. So take a SPD 6 jack, add another 3" for the charge, add another 2" for reach. That'll give us an 11" threat range, awesome. Now add another 2" for a focus (once per turn) due to its ability from the generator. Now we're up to 13". Now we can add either movement hi-jinks from witch hound from Kaelyssa or the extra 1" (2" in MkII) from Vyros' mobility and we have a first strike jack that can go very, very deep into your enemies territory. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it has pathfinder. Now do you want to throw your light all the way out there like that? Depends, never underestimate the power of throwing your opponent off guard. And lets not forget that this is all on an ARM 18 light jack.

What has been impressing me the most about the rules is just how fast our army is. We can play the hit and fade game as well, if not better, than both legion and circle. Let me know what your thoughts are and stay tuned for round four when I look at the units and NARN.

Monday, Monday, Monday

I am still working on part 3 of the reviews for you guys, but I just wanted to give a quick update. I am trying to work on a banner for the site, as well as a small one for the Iron Agenda so that they can link straight here. This is what I have so far:



Now I'm not all that good with photoshop type programs, so adding text has been a little difficult for me, so if any one has any tips on how I can go about doing that, that would be awesome. I don't have photoshop here at work, I use Splashup.

Also, I wanted to share these 2 photos from my game last night. There were taken from my phone so not the best quality, but you can see that one of the dice is laying on its corner.

Year of Ear

Iron agenda just got back to me about syndicating my blog. Awesome. This isn't the year of gear. It's the year of ear

Patience is not my Virtue

Talked to my LGS and I'm going to have to wait until next week for my NQ. Was hoping to get some vassal games in

High serraphim

Second round of reviews

A new day has come, and today I'm going to be looking at Privateers first plastic jacks. Our three heavies. Again, thanks to Demeritus and Loveless from the PP boards for these spoilers.

The is something incredibly important that needs to be mentioned when we talk about any of our jacks, and it's their force field. Yes my friends, our jacks have a force field to help mitigate some of the damage that they are going to be taking from all the other jealous factions. The way that the force field works is that it is a separate damage grid that needs to be filled in before any damage can be applied to the actual jack's damage grid. Sounds a very interesting especially considering how our jacks are actually really squishy once you get past the field. Now the really nice thing about the force field is that it can be regenerated for a focus. As I don't have the NQ I don't know if it's either D3 or D6, but either way this greatly adds to the survivability of our jacks.

The Force Field is tied to their field generator systems (noted by a G on their damage grids). Once the generator system is down the field stops functioning. The field generator also gives our jacks access to some very unique abilities, the number one being a ranged attack.

Hydra

This jack is a Marshalls wet dream due to the fact that if this jack takes damage from ranged or melee attacks it gains a focus up to 3. From the wording it's enemy attacks so you cant pop it in the back to gain a quick 3 focus at the start of the game. The Hydra is also able to retain its focus from turn to turn, meaning that if you end a turn with 2 focus on him, he starts the next turn with 2 focus, and with the fact that he's gaining damage from attacks, you're looking at a jack that is always going to have 3 focus on him until the generator system is taken out.

For weapons it has 2 P+S 14 open fists giving it the full range of power attacks, and chain attack:smash and grab which means if the jack hits with both its initial attacks it can then perform; a throw, a double handed throw, a headbutt, a weapon lock or push. Giving this jack a lot of options when it comes to dealing with your enemy. The Hydra's ranged attack is tied to it's field generator (like all myrmidons), and is basically a ROF 1 handcannon. The nice thing is that it gains +1RNG/+1POW for each unspent focus on the jack. So with 3 focus its a really nice option. Oh, and the gun has wraith bane to take care of those annoying incorporeal running around everywhere.

The Hydra is a really nice versatile jack. While his range option isn't a powerful as some other jacks it's still a threat due to the fact that it has wraith bane on it. The biggest draw of me is that fact that you can over come a lot of the draw backs to jack marshalling due to the fact that it can generate its own focus. True your opponent can just not attack the Hydra, but then you have a P+S14 heavy running amok. Fun times for us indeed.

Manticore

I love this jack, well I love all our jacks, but where the Hydra is more of a rounded jack the Manticore is straight Beatface. He has 2 P+S 15 open fists with combo strike, so we can put out 1 P+S 20 hit, or we can burn a focus to gain +3 STR and have 2 P+S 18 open fists. Consider that most non-Khador jacks top out around 18/19 ARM, that's going to be a lot of hurt. A full focus Manticore can do 20 points on average rolls to an ARM 18 jack when boosting damage.

His ranged attack is a wraith bane ROF3 Handcannon that has a special action called covering fire that lets you place a 3" template anywhere within 12"ignoring intervening models. Anyone entering or ending their movement inside the template takes a POW 12 hit and the template lasts for a round or until the Manticore is destroyed.

I love the fact that the Manticore has a ranged attack for when you get hammered but the lock feats, such as Baldurs or Saeryns feat. It gives the jack a nice second option, but where this jack is really going to shine is going up against heavy ARM targets as it'll be able to put the hurt on pretty much anything it comes across.

Phoenix

Heavy arc node. Yes my friends, we have a heavy arc node. We have a heavy arc node that automatically replenishes D6 boxes to its force field in the maintenance phase. I'm going to say that we have one of the toughest arc nodes in the game now. The fact that it auto regens its field is amazing, and I'm assuming/hoping that we can burn a focus to pump the field back up to full.

The normal solution to an arc node is to engage it as it cant channel then, but the Phoenix gives us a solution to that problem. It can combust, yes my friends it stole the castigators move. The nice thing with it being on the Phoenix, aside from the fact that not a lot of infantry can survive a POW 12 hit, is that it'll help to clear out engaging models and free up the node.

It is also a heavy with a P+S17 reach, auto-fire, wraith baned sword and a P+S13 open fist with crit fire, so it is definitely no slob in melee and its ranged attack is just as nice. Its a RNG 10 POW 14 AOE 3 with crit fire.

This is definitely going to be my go to arc node. Yes the Phoenix is expensive points wise, but what you are going to be gaining for those points is awesome and it is hands down the best looking heavy that we have.

Wow, just wow!!

Welcome to the House Shyeel, a warmachine blog dedicated to the Retribution of Scyrah faction.
This week has been an awesome week for us elves out there with a lot of new models being previewed as well as NQ 25 being leaked on the PP boards. Now granted I haven't personally seen the stats, nor have I had any table time with them, I will still give my thoughts on what has been posted. I will do a more in depth review once I've had a little play time with the army. Also credit for this goes to bothDemeritus and Loveless

This post, I'll start with the most important part of your Army; the Warcaster.

The NQ gives us rules for both Dawnlord Vyros and Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper as well as the MkII rules for Garryth, Blade of Retribution. I'm going to concentrate on the MkI rules for now as there is still a lot of time to play under the MkI rules before we make the shift.

Dawnlord Vyros:

He is definitely a Myrmidon caster, with the standard Jack caster 6 FOC. He has a really decent stat line with a MAT 8, P+S14 Reach sword, DEF 15 and ARM 17. So you're not going to have to worry too much about boosting hit rolls, although you're probably going to want to boost the damage on opposing casters/jacks. Add to that he has flank Myrmidon (unknown if its heavy, light, or just myrmidon right now), he's going to be putting a severe hurting on whoever he decides to go after.

One of his major abilities is the fact that all models in his control area and in his battle group have a 360 LOS and ignore clouds, forests and models for determining LOS. With the fact that all Myrmidons have a ranged attack, this is a particularly powerful ability.

Feat:

His feat is definitely a game changer. The way it reads is for every enemy model killed by a faction friendly model in his control place one focus on a jack in his control. This could very easily max out all the jacks in his control, who can then turn around and start ripping everything in sight to shreds.

Spells:

Eliminator: 3 focus rng 8 aoe 3 pow 13 and for each model destroyed by the attack, Vyros can move 2". This has some awesome potential for either getting Vyros out of danger, or to move him to a better position for a charge.
Hallowed Avenger (see Testament of Menoth): This is far more useful on Vyros than ToM, due to the fact that we're (probably) going to runing a lot more jacks with Vyros.
Inviolable Resolve (see Epic Kreoss): Fearless is always good.
Mobility (see Amon): MKI mobility is nice, but it is a move not a SPD increase, but our jacks are already incredibly fast. The main benefit is the granting of pathfinder, and the getting up for free.
Stranglehold: a model damaged by stranglehold forfeits its movement or action during its next activation. Amazing ability to hold a model in place.

All in all, I like the way that Vyros looks. He's going to push a really mobile army to its limits, so we're going to have to make sure that we don't over extend ourselves.

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper:

A RAT 7 ROF 3 RNG 12 POW 10 True sighted caster with energy siphon. Wow, just very simply wow. Granted POW 10 isn't going to be making a lot of models sweat, but on a caster or jack/beast with focus/fury on them you're basically getting a free boost. Another really nice ability of her's is the fact that she stole Witch Hunter from Reznik. Again we have another caster that can increase the mobility of our army. Do you really want to cast a spell on that jack, when I have another one close to your caster? I definitely love these damned if you do, damned if you don't casters.

Feat:

Grants everyone in her control stealth and makes it so they can not be charged. Now I'm assuming that the no charge applies to models that ignore stealth.

Spells:

Arcantrik Bolt: 2 focus spell that when a warjack is damaged by it, it becomes stationary for one turn. This is a little more limited than Vyros'lock spell,but when coupled with backlash makes for a really powerful combo.
Arcane Reckoning: 3 focus friendly upkeep that makes it so whenever a friendly faction model/unit is missed with a magic attack, the attacking model becomes the target and is automatically hit and if its an aoe the attacking model has the aoe centered on them. Basically its a castable version of whiplash, nice, but I can really only see it being useful on models with a high DEF as even a 5 FOC caster can hit DEF 15 on a boosted roll. I also wouldn't bother casting this spell if your up against Sevvy, Harby, or the Coven as they have such a high FOC stat they won't be missing much, if anything at all.
Backlash: 3 focus offensive upkeep that says whenever target enemy warjack is damaged, its controlling warcaster suffers 1 damage point. Now, I just want you to sit there for a minute and think about paring this with Arcantrik Bolt. . . . . Got it? Good. Couple these 2 spells with Invictors, mage hunters, any model with snipe and you can very, very easily take out the opposing caster.
Banishing ward same as Zerkova. It costs 2 focus
Phantom Hunter: 2 focus upkeep that allows any model in her battle group to declare charges, slams, ranged and magic attacks without LoS and the affected model ignores cloud effects cover and concealment. Basically the same thing that Vryos does, but on a single model. Still useful on a Node at the beginning to make sure that you can always arc a spell where you need it.
Rift: 4 focus spell that is rng 10 pw 13 aoe 4 and is offensive and upkeep, it treats the aoe as rough terrain and remains in play for one round. Another denial spell that fits really nicely with her feat.

So there we have it. 2 very interesting casters to start our war against the lesser races. Let me know what you all think.

Enjoy

High Serraphim