Game 39: Helynna vs Ossrum (CID)

Game 39 – Vs Mark Ellis – Mercenaries – 07/06/17

CID – 2017 Steamroller Pack used

My list:

Magister Helynna (Forges of War)

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Hyperion

-Hydra

-Chimera

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Manticore

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Magister

His List:

General Ossrum

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Ghordson Driller

-Ghordson Driller

-Ghordson Driller

-Wroughthammer Rockram

-Grundback Blaster

-Grundback Blaster

-Grundback Blaster

Anastacia di Bray

Gobber Tinker

Gobber Tinker

Ragman

Thor Steinhammer

Max Horgenhold Forge Guard

Horgenhold Artillery Corps

Having twice played against a heavy-spam Helynna list at the weekend I wanted to put my own twist on the list. The weakness I felt of the list is that in wide scenarios that are going to become more prevalent in SR2017 it has nothing to anchor a flank and stop Control Points slipping away. Because of this I wanted a Colossal in the list and ended up picking the Hyperion, partly because with Helios I would only be spending 99 points on Jacks, and partly because adding to an already strong and mobile shooting force could lead to difficulties for my opponents. My first game with the list was against regular opponent Mark, who himself was using a rework of his Ossrum list. Despite him having Anastacia I still won the roll to go first and got moving.

Due to the theme benefit I started with Rhythm of War in play, so Helynna simply fuelled up the Hydra ready for later turns, cast Deceleration in case of errant shots, and ran up the board with her jacks. With Rhythm of War moves the Retribution heavies are in theory able to get to 2 inches from the half way line, but I held back from this to give myself more time for shooting.

Mark runs his forces up with Snipe on Rockram and Fire For Effect on the Artillery. He keeps the Forge Guard out of 15 inches of the Hyperion to avoid Critical Consume and keeps the rest of his forces out of 10 inches of my jacks.

With Mark outside of my melee threat but his jacks far out-threating mine with Ossrum’s feat I spent my turn shooting away and then feating to take the Alpha. Hand of Destruction went on the Forge Guard and after Hyperion and 2 of the Manticores had shot into them the front 6 were dead, with the back 4 well out of threat range. The Hydra and the big Hyperion shot both went into the closest left Driller, taking out it’s right arm, and the last Manticore rolled well to do significant damage to Rockram. In order to stay out of threat ranges I had nothing contesting the right zone, so it was very likely that he would start scoring on his turn.

With my feat up Mark can’t see a good way to get a great amount of work done with his heavies. He repairs his jacks with Thor and the Gobbers and moves the heavies into aggressive positions before jamming with the Blasters and feating. A mispositioning on my part means that the Artillery is able to shoot the Magister off the table (I forgot about Arcing Fire so she wasn’t in Shield Guard range). Mark scores on the right zone to lead 1-0.

A slight misplacement from Mark means that I have an assassination run on Ossrum. The run involves the left Manticore killing the left Blaster, Helynna moving round to cast Hand of Destruction on Ossrum, before pushing him with her gun into charge range of Hyperion. We dice the run out without moving models and everything works out, killing Ossrum.

We back up to play out the attrition game. The left Manticore kills the middle Blaster, a second kills the right Blaster, freeing the right Manticore up to charge the Driller in the right zone, dealing significant damage but not taking out any systems. The Hydra shoots into the Rockram, dealing further damage, and the Hyperion puts it’s firepower into the central Driller, with the Critical Consume triggering and removing the Artillery from play.

Mark looks at his position at the start of the turn. Between his heavies, 2 are almost completely destroyed, one has it’s cortex out and the leftmost is out of his control. With no way to kill my heavies, much less Hyperion, Mark shakes my hand and calls it a day.

VICTORY

Whilst a lot of Mark’s list didn’t really have any targets and so were pretty worthless I thought this was a good start for this list. It can put out a whole lot of mid to high power shooting that really started to take its toll on the Rhulic jacks, so that by the time my feat was gone and they were ready to engage there just wasn’t enough to get work done. I need further testing but at the moment I am really liking this list as a pair to the Kaelyssa Sentinels list.

Game 38: Kaelyssa vs Zerkova2

Game 38 – Vs Jim Gradwell – Khador – 03/06/17

My list:

Kaelyssa, The Night’s Whisper

-Helios

Arcantrik Force Generator

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

His List:

Obavnik Kommander Zerkova & Reaver Guard

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Marauder

-Behemoth

Koldun Lord

Min Greylord Outriders

Min Greylord Outriders

Greylord Ternion

Great Bears of the Gallowswood

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

-Koldun Kapitan Valachev

My first final with Ret saw me up against England WTC player Jim, who had come to our little one day event to club some baby seals. He was playing Zerkova1 and Zerkova2, so the list selection felt fairly list-chickeny, with one of my lists being able to deal with Zerk1’s clouds and the other being neutered by it. I feel like I got the upper hand on lists when the matchup was Zerkova2 against Kaelyssa, but had never played against her. Jim won first turn so I picked the side with the trench to hide in.

Jim ran up with everything, staying outside of AFG advance and shoot range, and cast Telgesh Mark on one of the Outriders.

I move up into threatening positions and feat. Kaelyssa casts Blur on Helios, Refuge on the AFG and Banishing Ward on herself. Eiryss shoots a Purgation shot at the Telgesh Mark Outrider, but only does 3 points of damage. AFG lays down a single difficult terrain to make life harder for the Khador forces.

And then basically Jim feated and killed me. We didn’t bother moving any models to show it but the run was put out in proxy bases and dice rolled. Essentially the cavalry and Greylords ran up, Zerkova advanced and feated, using her free spell to cast Occult Whispers and the cavalry sprayed Kaelyssa into the ground with several to spare.

VICTORY

Mistakes made that hopefully I won’t repeat. You sometimes have to play these things to see how they work. Realistically had he not killed me that turn he would have been struggling so I should have been camping far more. In addition, Banishing Ward was basically irrelevant. Because the assassination run is all in sprays Jim could just target another model and catch Kaelyssa anyway. A much better play would have been to put Blur on Kaelyssa to put her up to DEF19, leaving the sprays needing boosted 13s to hit and essentially taking the assassination off the table. It is a shame that I had to learn this on a final table but at least it wasn’t on a stream anywhere!

I was pleased with my performance in this event, going 3-1, finishing 3^rd and winning best painted model for my AFG. I am not happy with how the Vyros feels so I think I’ll go back to the drawing board on that one, but I do like the Kaelyssa list a lot, and can see that being what my pairing is built around as we build to the UK Nationals, a 3 list event in September. Other things I want to try are Rahn, some kind of Defenders of Ios list, and a Helynna list similar to the 2 I played earlier but with a Hyperion to anchor a flank. Retribution feels like a great faction to be part of at the moment with new stuff coming out very soon and so many viable casters to choose from.

Game 37: Kaelyssa vs Helynna

Game 37 – Vs Paul Sheald – Retribution of Scyrah – 03/06/17

My list:

Kaelyssa, The Night’s Whisper

-Helios

Arcantrik Force Generator

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

His List:

Magister Helynna

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Hydra

-Phoenix

House Shyeel Artificer

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Game 3 of the Steamroller saw me matched up against my regular opponent and pointy-eared comrade Paul. We were both aiming for 3-1 at this event and so this game at least guaranteed that one of us would reach our goal. Like my last opponent, his pair was Helynna and Rahn (though the latter out of tier) and similarly he dropped Helynna. For the same reasons as last match I picked Kaelyssa and I won the roll to go first.

NOTE: In this game I got my Hyperion out of the box instead of Helios. We didn’t notice until the game was basically over. Apologies.

I ran up with the usual upkeep suite of Blur on Helios and Refuge on the AFG. I learned my lesson from the last game and split the two units of Sentinels up to make it difficult for Paul to block them in with Covering Fire templates.

Paul moves up with his jacks in a line ready to contest both zones and puts down 5 Covering Fire templates from the Manticores. Helynna casts Deceleration and has Rhythm of War up from the theme. His jacks are spread out in such a way that each one only has 1 or 2 Shield Guard options, which definitely opens up some possibilities for Helios plays to take an early jack.

I can move Helios up to a position where he would need 2 pushes to pull in one of the Manticores, and so the AFG and Kaelyssa work on making sure the 2 Shield Guards in range have either been used or incapacitated with Stationary or Knockdown. In doing so they also managed to Knock Down the target Manticore, so Helios pulled it in and killed it. This removed one of the Covering Fire templates which allowed the left Sentinels to move into a more aggressive position. Both Sentinels use Mini-feats and Kaelyssa feats, hoping to protect my force from reprisal.

Under my feat Paul doesn’t have a great deal to do and so mostly backs off and reapplied Covering Fire. His jacks on the right clump closer together to improve Shield Guard options, but the two Manticores on the left are starting to look quite isolated.

My aim this turn is to clear the left zone and start scoring. Helios is given 3 focus but uses them all to push the Def12 jacks, moving one Manticore out of the zone, and the other to a position where 6 Sentinels could charge and destroy it. Eiryss Disrupts the other left flank Manticore to make the zone a bit safer. Kaelyssa shoots a jack and Refuges towards the zone, but stays outside of it, figuring that at this stage 1 point is as good as 2, and she was much safer sat in the forest behind Helios. On the right the Sentinels ran in to jam, with a number holding back to hopefully Vengeance next turn. I score to lead 1-0

Paul isn’t really sure how to proceed at this point and so just concentrates on clearing the right zone. I didn’t think he would have enough to kill all the Sentinels but he comfortably does, leaving only one left outside the zone for Vengeance. On the left the Manticore moves into the zone and attacks the Helios for a bit of damage. Helynna feats to try and protect from my next turn. She dominates the right zone to lead 2-1.

This turn is about getting the huge bases into the zone, killing the Manticore, and dominating to take a 3-2 lead, which will put me in a very strong position. Helios tramples directly to the right an then uses his push guns to move the Manticore closer to the Sentinels. Kaelyssa makes the Mantircore Stationary and moves to the edge of the zone to dominate. The Sentinels charge it and kill it. The AFG advances to toe the zone out of range of any of his jacks so there is no way he could kill both is and Helios, and so the best case is for him to contest my zone, but then I could kill whatever it was to win on my turn. I lead 3-2

Paul realises the game is up and chooses to just kill Helios and the last Sentinel for victory points. I score 2 more points to win 5-2.

VICTORY

I think when compared to the last game this is a far better scenario for my list. I also played the Sentinels a lot better and felt fairly confident from pretty early in the game. I probably should have taken the 2 points instead of the 1 when they were on offer on turn 3 because it could easily have ended up as a 5-6 or 6-6 game had some things gone differently. Still, I progressed to the final and succeeded in my target of 3 wins with a game to spare.