Post by matsif on Nov 7, 2018 3:52:22 GMT
ran the following tonight as a random test run since I've never used 4shade before:
Retribution Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Shadows of the Retribution
[Goreshade 4] Lord Ghyrrshyld, the Forgiven [+28]
- Aspis [6]
- Banshee [18]
- Phoenix [17]
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker [4]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Mage Hunter Assassin [4]
Mage Hunter Assassin [4]
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios [0(6)]
Mage Hunter Infiltrators (max) [15]
Mage Hunter Strike Force (max) [16]
- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander [4]
- Soulless Escort (1) [1]
Spears of Scyrah [9]
- Eiryss, Mage Hunter Commander [0(6)]
- Soulless Escort (1) [1]
basically I wanted to see how tough on a unit of spears with eiryss3 went and use the clouds to cloud wall and hopefully save these squishy mage hunters from getting charged. aspis is basically just there to fill out points, more on that later, but there is a reasonable synergy with keeping a focus on a shield guard jack that gets arcane vortex and can repair its shields.
my opponent played something roughly similar to this (going off memory here, might not be entirely accurate):
Cygnar Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm Division
[Stryker 2] Lord Commander Stryker [+28]
- Lancer [10]
- Ol' Rowdy [18]
- Squire [0(5)]
Journeyman Warcaster [0(4)]
- Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]
Stormblade Captain [0(5)]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Stormblade Infantry [10]
- Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard [5]
scenario: invasion
turn 1 I put dauntless resolve on my spears and just got things up the table. I should have spent some focus to put up some clouds from freezing mist, but I just sat on 5 focus. my opponent was scared of my ambush, so he moved all of his models centrally to stay out of the charge range on my MHI unit, put tough on a unit of storm lances with rhupert, and called it a day, willing to accept my alpha. he also minifeated his stormblade unit. basically nothing happened, we moved on, typical boring round 1.
turn 2 I ambushed my MHIs in and my arcanists got some focus on my phoenix and banshee, hoping to clear out a few models and then just accept whatever my feat gave me, knowing if he killed anything in melee I was countering his feat and getting more souls. phoenix took out stormblades and got in position to arc hand of ice and light of wrath at the stormblades and the unit of lances behind them with the captain, banshee killed a lance with its gun after getting ghost walked to get into a forest without penalty. 4shade activates, moves up a bit, feats, does his spells to get hand of ice and light of wrath off, and sits with 0 with an aspis nearby camping a focus for arcane vortex. my MHAs killed a blade and a lance, narn killed a lance and sprinted back, and I spiked 3 CRAs from the MHSF into the firefly, killing it outright. my MHIs just ran in to try to jam up the route to my MHSF, but with how he positioned I wasn't able to cut off things as much as I wanted with the 14" run. spears moved up to attack the blades (couldn't charge due to an obstruction), which got the soulless countercharged from rowdy, but he hits the tough check, and the rest of the spears and eiryss kill some stormblades. his turn he feats, takes out a bunch of my MHSF, MHI, the soulless and eiryss and 2 spears, and both my MHAs giving me a total of 7 souls, but otherwise an uneventful turn that left him with ol' rowdy stationary and within reach of my banshee.
turn 3 I have 14 focus as I let DR on my remaining spear drop, juice my jacks up, concentrate power on them, vengeance my remaining spear to kill a lance, and turn the game around after losing a lot of models. banshee gets ghost walk and kills rowdy, leaving a hole for phoenix to charge in and combust, killing the rest of the stormblades and then knocking out some lances with bought attacks. I revive 2 spears and use the last one to kill another lance, and then try to use my MHSF with some CMAs to kill the 2 stationary lances in the zone they were in, but they failed on damage pretty hard. I moved hand of ice to the lances on that side that I killed, although it turns out I should have just kept DR up and camped one. spending all 14 focus on the turn and leaving me with 0 turned out to be a lot riskier than I thought it would be, but with my aspis camping 1 nearby and a forest central to the table, I felt safe. MHI knock laddermore off her horse and kill the journeyman, and I end my turn feeling pretty safe considering the whole situation. but I underestimate how far stryker2 can get on a single turn and left a hole for him to charge my banshee and velocity himself to just within 2" of 4shade. opponent charges banshee and then velocities up to 4shade since I completely forgot wailing prevents casting, eating a nasty free strike from the banshee along the way (12 damage after he spent a focus to reduce), and gets 2 attacks into 4shade, but rolls way below average and leaves me on 7 boxes, and then concedes as between the banshee he left in his back arc and 4shade himself with a stationary weapon stryker wasn't living through that turn.
---
conclusions:
I probably could drop sylys for FKG or just 4 more points to do something else with. that 1 extra focus isn't a huge deal when you can turn around and get more focus from feat turn, and you can juggle upkeeps to not really need sylys' free focus. lanyssa ryssyl's hunter's mark as a threat extender to the already large threat spears or the jacks fits nicely in there, as could an eilish for puppet master. or even running the banshee on elara1 to speed of death a banshee, ghost walk it through an obstruction, beat on things, and then walk it back through the obstruction. or potentially a lys healer to stop knockdown on my tough spears, potentially making them even sillier.
I absolutely could have saved some models with better usage of freezing mist (eiryss, my MHAs, my spears), which I didn't cast once despite wanting to use a cloud wall as half the reason to run 4shade, but then again having a 14 focus turn let me do a ton of work that more or less won me the game despite not having those models on the board. the potential for a stupidly strong cloud wall after 4shade's feat is potentially really annoying with high-DEF infantry on the other side of the clouds, as even if your opponent moves in to attack them they're likely eating a -2 to attack rolls. things to learn with a new caster.
overall this was a whole bunch of fun. the squishy mage hunter infantry charges up 4shade's feat really well, which lets you turn around and have a brutal turn afterwards while bringing back a few of your other infantry to compensate for their squishiness. tough on spears and eiryss3 is mean. definitely going to run it again next week, probably with a few changes as I learned from today depending on whether I play into one of my current meta's 3 cygnar players or not.
Retribution Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Shadows of the Retribution
[Goreshade 4] Lord Ghyrrshyld, the Forgiven [+28]
- Aspis [6]
- Banshee [18]
- Phoenix [17]
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker [4]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Mage Hunter Assassin [4]
Mage Hunter Assassin [4]
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios [0(6)]
Mage Hunter Infiltrators (max) [15]
Mage Hunter Strike Force (max) [16]
- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander [4]
- Soulless Escort (1) [1]
Spears of Scyrah [9]
- Eiryss, Mage Hunter Commander [0(6)]
- Soulless Escort (1) [1]
basically I wanted to see how tough on a unit of spears with eiryss3 went and use the clouds to cloud wall and hopefully save these squishy mage hunters from getting charged. aspis is basically just there to fill out points, more on that later, but there is a reasonable synergy with keeping a focus on a shield guard jack that gets arcane vortex and can repair its shields.
my opponent played something roughly similar to this (going off memory here, might not be entirely accurate):
Cygnar Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm Division
[Stryker 2] Lord Commander Stryker [+28]
- Lancer [10]
- Ol' Rowdy [18]
- Squire [0(5)]
Journeyman Warcaster [0(4)]
- Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]
Stormblade Captain [0(5)]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Stormblade Infantry [10]
- Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard [5]
scenario: invasion
turn 1 I put dauntless resolve on my spears and just got things up the table. I should have spent some focus to put up some clouds from freezing mist, but I just sat on 5 focus. my opponent was scared of my ambush, so he moved all of his models centrally to stay out of the charge range on my MHI unit, put tough on a unit of storm lances with rhupert, and called it a day, willing to accept my alpha. he also minifeated his stormblade unit. basically nothing happened, we moved on, typical boring round 1.
turn 2 I ambushed my MHIs in and my arcanists got some focus on my phoenix and banshee, hoping to clear out a few models and then just accept whatever my feat gave me, knowing if he killed anything in melee I was countering his feat and getting more souls. phoenix took out stormblades and got in position to arc hand of ice and light of wrath at the stormblades and the unit of lances behind them with the captain, banshee killed a lance with its gun after getting ghost walked to get into a forest without penalty. 4shade activates, moves up a bit, feats, does his spells to get hand of ice and light of wrath off, and sits with 0 with an aspis nearby camping a focus for arcane vortex. my MHAs killed a blade and a lance, narn killed a lance and sprinted back, and I spiked 3 CRAs from the MHSF into the firefly, killing it outright. my MHIs just ran in to try to jam up the route to my MHSF, but with how he positioned I wasn't able to cut off things as much as I wanted with the 14" run. spears moved up to attack the blades (couldn't charge due to an obstruction), which got the soulless countercharged from rowdy, but he hits the tough check, and the rest of the spears and eiryss kill some stormblades. his turn he feats, takes out a bunch of my MHSF, MHI, the soulless and eiryss and 2 spears, and both my MHAs giving me a total of 7 souls, but otherwise an uneventful turn that left him with ol' rowdy stationary and within reach of my banshee.
turn 3 I have 14 focus as I let DR on my remaining spear drop, juice my jacks up, concentrate power on them, vengeance my remaining spear to kill a lance, and turn the game around after losing a lot of models. banshee gets ghost walk and kills rowdy, leaving a hole for phoenix to charge in and combust, killing the rest of the stormblades and then knocking out some lances with bought attacks. I revive 2 spears and use the last one to kill another lance, and then try to use my MHSF with some CMAs to kill the 2 stationary lances in the zone they were in, but they failed on damage pretty hard. I moved hand of ice to the lances on that side that I killed, although it turns out I should have just kept DR up and camped one. spending all 14 focus on the turn and leaving me with 0 turned out to be a lot riskier than I thought it would be, but with my aspis camping 1 nearby and a forest central to the table, I felt safe. MHI knock laddermore off her horse and kill the journeyman, and I end my turn feeling pretty safe considering the whole situation. but I underestimate how far stryker2 can get on a single turn and left a hole for him to charge my banshee and velocity himself to just within 2" of 4shade. opponent charges banshee and then velocities up to 4shade since I completely forgot wailing prevents casting, eating a nasty free strike from the banshee along the way (12 damage after he spent a focus to reduce), and gets 2 attacks into 4shade, but rolls way below average and leaves me on 7 boxes, and then concedes as between the banshee he left in his back arc and 4shade himself with a stationary weapon stryker wasn't living through that turn.
---
conclusions:
I probably could drop sylys for FKG or just 4 more points to do something else with. that 1 extra focus isn't a huge deal when you can turn around and get more focus from feat turn, and you can juggle upkeeps to not really need sylys' free focus. lanyssa ryssyl's hunter's mark as a threat extender to the already large threat spears or the jacks fits nicely in there, as could an eilish for puppet master. or even running the banshee on elara1 to speed of death a banshee, ghost walk it through an obstruction, beat on things, and then walk it back through the obstruction. or potentially a lys healer to stop knockdown on my tough spears, potentially making them even sillier.
I absolutely could have saved some models with better usage of freezing mist (eiryss, my MHAs, my spears), which I didn't cast once despite wanting to use a cloud wall as half the reason to run 4shade, but then again having a 14 focus turn let me do a ton of work that more or less won me the game despite not having those models on the board. the potential for a stupidly strong cloud wall after 4shade's feat is potentially really annoying with high-DEF infantry on the other side of the clouds, as even if your opponent moves in to attack them they're likely eating a -2 to attack rolls. things to learn with a new caster.
overall this was a whole bunch of fun. the squishy mage hunter infantry charges up 4shade's feat really well, which lets you turn around and have a brutal turn afterwards while bringing back a few of your other infantry to compensate for their squishiness. tough on spears and eiryss3 is mean. definitely going to run it again next week, probably with a few changes as I learned from today depending on whether I play into one of my current meta's 3 cygnar players or not.