Ghyrrshyld's Return: Ossyan

Game 124 – Vs Aaron Edwards – Grymkin – 17/12/17

My list:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan (Legions of Dawn)

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Hypnos

-Banshee

Dawnguard Sentinel Scyir

Arcanist Mechanik

Max Dawnguard Destors

Max Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters

-Soulless Escort

His List:

The Heretic (Dark Menagerie)

-Cage Rager

-Crabbit

-Gorehound

-Skin & Moans

Lady Karianna Rose

Gremlin Swarm

Min Dread Rots

Death Knell

Final round of the Chorley Christmas Steamroller and I again face Grymkin, this time with Aaron running Heretic and Child. As per the first game I feel that there is too much anti-magic on the table to drop Rahn, especially with Heretic having Sacred Ward. I drop Ossyan, Aaron drops Heretic, and he goes first.

Aaron runs up all his forces, leading front and centre with the 3 Skin and Moans. The two Gorehounds flank hard on either side of the table and the support pieces hang out behind the front lines.

I wonder whether I can take out an early Gremlin Swarm, and so put Quicken on Hypnos, advance him up and shoot his gun towards the nearest Swarm. It scatters in the wrong direction but does Shadow Bind 2 Dread Rots. The rest of my forces run up, with Fortune on the left unit of Destors and Admonition on the Banshee. Ossyan moves towards the right flag to hopefully start scoring as soon as possible.

Aaron knows that he is massively out-threated by me and so continues to push up into my face, knowing that he has to take the alpha strike. The left Gorehound takes out the furthest up Destor before Sprinting further into my lines with Lightening Strike. Fury is put on the Dread Rots ready for a later turn.

I need to get in a strong alpha to take control of the game, and the order of activations is difficult. Ossyan Feats and switches around some upkeeps, before the Nyss start shooting, dealing decent damage into the front Skin & Moans. The Blue Destors charge through the other unit to take out the left Gorehound and finish off the Skin & Moans. Hypnos simply clears out a Gremlin Swarm, triggering the Trump Arcana, before the Fortuned Destors charge into the left Skin & Moans, killing it through sheer volume of attacks. The Banshee finishes the turn by charging the last Skin & Moans, leaving it on about half life. It felt like a very strong turn but I was going to lose stuff in response. Nobody scores

Aaron retaliates and tries to take some scenario presence. He kills off all of the Destors, but can barely get to Hypnos to make use of his Feat. The living Skin & Moans heals itself and takes out the Banshee. The right Gorehound runs up to engage a load of the Nyss. The Crabbit fails to take out my Scyir, meaning that I contest the left zone and nobody scores.

In hindsight I didn’t play this turn particularly well. I threw the left Destors in for fairly minimal gain and leave them in a position to be removed. I trigger Shadow to have a temporary Skin & Moans hit the table, but I am able to walk Hypnos round it to get into the permanent one, finishing it off. The Nyss try to take out the Gorehound, but can’t roll enough 8s to hit and the beast lives. Hypnos backs off to safety and nobody scores.

Aaron pushes up on the left, taking out 2 of the Destors and clearing the area around the flag, only there is no solo on the flag to score it. The Gorehound kills a Nyss and Sprints away to a more annoying position. The Shadow beast takes out Hypnos, removing my last really heavy hitter from the table.

This game is going to go long, and so Control Points are going to be very important. I put Fortune on the Nyss and they finish off the Gorehound, clearing the flag for an Arcanist to score it. The Destors but some damage on the Heretic and flood the zone, with my support pieces contesting it in the rear. I move into a 1-0 lead.

Aaron tries to clear out the left zone, but can’t get to the Arcanist in the rear corner, and so has to be satisfied with scoring the flag. He runs his right most Gremlin Swarm to contest my flag to move the score to 1-1.

Ossyan moves into the right zone and takes out the Gremlin Swarm with his gun. I charge a load of Nyss into the Cage Rager dealing some damage to it. I am unable to contest his flag but I score mine and the zone, to take a 3-2 lead. If I can keep contesting then scoring last should mean I can win but I need to keep the Cage Rager out of my zone.

Aaron’s turn 6 sees the Cage Rager trample over the Nyss, killing a number of them and taking some damage from a free strike. The Heretic finishes clearing out the left zone, and we both score 2 points to leave me a point ahead at 5-4.

My turn 6 and I am really running low on time. I move Ossyan to safety behind a wall and shoot the Cage Rager with his gun to slow him down. I spread the Nyss, one blocking the Cage Rager, one contesting the zone and another the flag. I score 2 more points to lead 7-4.

Aaron has too many models to clear out to score and stop me contesting next turn. He goes for a very long odds assassination instead, which fails. The Cage Rager gets into my zone to contest but nobody scores.

I don’t need to do anything, so simply end my turn to win the game.

VICTORY

A real grind of a game but I’m really pleased that I am able to grind out these games now. This was a great fun game and Aaron was a great opponent throughout. I’m not convinced by my list, but it is very good fun to play. I finished the event in 5^th place out of 16, going 3-1, which was a nice way to finish the year. Next big event is the UK Invitational in February, so I need some time to work out an exact list pair for that. I’m certainly interested in going for Rahn, but I’m not sure how to build a pair around him.

Game 121 – Vs Martin Conaghan – Grymkin – 17/12/17

My list:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan (Legions of Dawn)

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Hypnos

-Banshee

Dawnguard Sentinel Scyir

Arcanist Mechanik

Max Dawnguard Destors

Max Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters

-Soulless Escort

His List:

The Wanderer (Bump in the Night)

-Gorehound

-Rattler

-Skin & Moans

-Crabbit

Lord Longfellow

Witchwood

Max Dread Rots

Murder Crows

Max Hollowmen

-Lantern Man

Max Neigh Slayers

Last year in one of my final events with Cygnar I played at an event in Chorley and had a great time, meeting some of the people that are my clubmates now. I went back this year to defend my crown, and to complete my challenge of playing every Retribution caster in the year. Game 1 put me up against Grymkin, and the sheer anti-magic of the lists made me avoid Rahn. I dropped Ossyan into Wanderer and won first turn. My apologies for this one, we got to bottom of 2 before I remembered to take pictures.

With +2 inches of deployment and 3 fast units, this list gets up the table very quickly. Ossyan casts Quicken on the Nyss, Fortune on the left Destors, and Admonition on himself, and everything runs up the table, staying out of threat ranges for the most part.

Martin advances up the table, again keeping back out of my threat ranges where he can. The tree teleports up, Bewitches one of my Destors to walk him in, and smacks it into the ground.

The Destors on the right go in, and with Fortune deal some pretty decent damage into the Grymkin forces. They take out several Dread Rots and a couple of Neight Slayers, as well as the Witchwood, putting me into what feels like a strong position on that flank. The Nyss shoot off another Neigh Slayer and keep themselves as safe as possible. On the left I hold back, attempting a few potshots into the Hollowmen. I shouldn’t have bothered and just repositioned my forces away from that flank.

Martin punished me hard for my mistake. CRAs from the Hollowmen rolled well and took out 3 of the Destors on the left, leaving the rest out of threat range. On the right Martin does a good job of unjamming himself and takes out all but one of my Destors. Ambushing Murder Crows come on, removing one of the Destors and reinforcing his strength on that flank. A number of Nyss are taken out as well and I move a long way behind on attrition, but I do score my zone to take a 1-0 lead.

Despite losing a lot of my force I spot an outside chance of an assassination. I can move Ossyan up to within 14” of all his flags, and hopefully find enough shots to take him down. Unfortunately the first part of the plan involves slamming a Nyss into Wanderer. I need to roll a 3 to reach the caster, and fail. I realise that the game is up and start fighting for control and victory points, I take some shots into the objective and do about half damage to it. I score my zone again to move into a 2-0 lead.

Martin continues his attrition on my force, finishing off all of my infantry. A huge CRA from the Hollowmen takes a big chunk out of the Banshee. He scores twice to even up to 2-2.

I kill what I can, taking out the Gorehound and Rattler with my heavily injured Banshee. I am able to score my own zone again but still finally go behind on scenario 4-3.

Neigh Slayers charge into the Banshee and finish it all, and a Beaconed Skin & Moans gets into Hypnos, destroying it in a few attacks. Martin floods my zone and scores both circle zones to lead 7-3.

I have no way out of the game so I decide to just go mad with Ossyan. He casts Shatterstorm on himself and charges into the Grymkin infantry, killing several models despite pretty grim dice. I can’t contest any of his zones so lose 10-3 on scenario.

DEFEAT

Martin played a super-solid game here, he got up early and never took his foot off the gas. It is always disappointing to start an event with a defeat, but Grymkin casters are just something you have to see a few times to get your head around. I threw too much up too early, as that’s how in my head this list had to be played, and as a result lost out on attrition very early. The good thing about losing early on though is that the pressure really gets taken off, so shoes off and ready to see what the rest of the event brings.

Ghyrrshyld's Return

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Thursday, 21 December 2017

Game 124: Ossyan vs Wanderer

Game 121: Ossyan vs Wanderer