Shadows of the Retribution musings

maleficoru
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Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 13, 2017 20:57:05 GMT

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Post by maleficoru on Jun 13, 2017 20:57:05 GMT

Hey Everyone,

With the prevalence in my local meta of Ghost fleet of late it seemed time to come up with solid answer for it while still having a list that isn't useless into other match ups.

Our Shadows of the retribution theme seems to fit the bill though it can be tricky to make work outside of just praying on recursion heavy match ups, with this in mind and the models that are legal within a few themes seem to pop up which are: a lack of hit, damage or survivability vs the normal anti infantry tech.

To counter this problem I have been playing around with using either Issyria or Ossyan to fix this weakness as both have some sort of movement buff to help get around the survivability issue by at least delivering them and both have a hit / damage fixer in their feats and abilities but am stuck between the following two lists and was hoping for some input from my fellow elves!

War Room Army

Retribution of Scyrah - Ossy Shadows

Theme: Shadows of the Retribution

3 / 3 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army

Lord Arcanist Ossyan - WJ: +28

- Hypnos - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 18)

- Sphinx - PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)

Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2

Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2

Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios - PC: 0

Mage Hunter Assassin - PC: 0

Mage Hunter Assassin - PC: 0

Mage Hunter Strike Force - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16

- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander - PC: 4

Mage Hunter Strike Force - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16

- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander - PC: 4

Mage Hunter Infiltrators - Leader & 9 Grunts: 13

- Eiryss, Mage Hunter Commander - PC: 6

Spears of Scyrah - Leader & 2 Grunts: 9

And

War Room Army

Retribution of Scyrah - Issy shadows

Theme: Shadows of the Retribution

3 / 3 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army

Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn - WJ: +29

- Hemera - PC: 16 (Battlegroup Points Used: 16)

- Phoenix - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)

Mage Hunter Assassin - PC: 0

Mage Hunter Assassin - PC: 0

Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios - PC: 0

Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2

Mage Hunter Infiltrators - Leader & 9 Grunts: 13

- Eiryss, Mage Hunter Commander - PC: 6

Mage Hunter Strike Force - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16

- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander - PC: 4

Mage Hunter Strike Force - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16

- Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander - PC: 4

Spears of Scyrah - Leader & 2 Grunts: 9

Notes on the two lists:
These would be paired with a Rahn list running double sents and double mages or the vyros2 griffon spam list to handle most of hordes or lists that particularly punish squishy infantry.

Ossy list will generally put quicken on the mhi and fortune on one of the mhsf and can use shatterstorm when running into lists like ghost fleet.

Ossy's sphinx is just a cheap beater nothing else.

Issy is a lot less black and white with her buffs and it will change depending on the matchup but generally one jack gets admo and one gets resolve.

Local meta is Khador Cygnar Cryx heavy with at least one of every other faction at our tournaments

Both lists play very well into Cygnar as a bonus and tend to punish gunlines in general.

nightflier
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Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 8:18:02 GMT via mobile

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Post by nightflier on Jun 14, 2017 8:18:02 GMT

Both lists look great!!!! My only question is why narn/2assassins and no eyriss? (probably 2 though 1 could be better into hordes) due to stationary/disruption being dirty into warmachine, 2 has decent melee into ghost fleet and against cygnar could be useful for dealing with the junior (not that the entire list except for one relevant model has blessed or anything)

Knowlage is power

thetomikaze15
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Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 12:25:20 GMT via mobile

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Post by thetomikaze15 on Jun 14, 2017 12:25:20 GMT

Jun 14, 2017 8:18:02 GMT nightflier said:

Both lists look great!!!! My only question is why narn/2assassins and no eyriss? (probably 2 though 1 could be better into hordes) due to stationary/disruption being dirty into warmachine, 2 has decent melee into ghost fleet and against cygnar could be useful for dealing with the junior (not that the entire list except for one relevant model has blessed or anything)

Eiryss is in both lists attached to a mage hunter unit.

My thoughts on this are, if you're already taking ossyan you don't necessarily need to be in shadows. He already provides rfp. You could consider him in defenders with 2 units of house guard rifleman and then just hotswapping shatterstorm. Sure having rfp on the infiltrators is great so I guess it just needs to be tested.

Dirhavel
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Posts: 118

Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 14:28:53 GMT

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Post by Dirhavel on Jun 14, 2017 14:28:53 GMT

I feel like Ossyan in Shadows is a bit overkill against Ghost Fleet, and it doesn't help him survive the Denny assassination when he and his jacks are the only non-stealth models in the list. Also I'm not sure he plays well into the offlist, which in my meta has been witch coven with satyxis for a couple months (one of our best players started playing ghost fleet and dominating with it a long time ago).

I personally have been playing Shadows with Kaelyssa in a similar build to yours. It's not as good against GF without shatterstorm but I feel like it is better overall against Cryx and a lot of warmachine while still having some game against GF with the theme bonus and Kaelyssa’s defensive techs. The threat of backlash with MHSF shots + a couple of Phantom hunter shots from hydras and kaelyssa herself makes for a huge amount of assassination pressure that can be carried out over several turns. I've played it 4 times so far, twice against Menoth and once against Khador and Cygnar and it has worked out very well. The caster kill threat is enormous and ignoring LOS with almost 3/4 of the list is very nice in SR2017. Just watch out for things that wipe out high def low arm infantry with little effort like mass AOEs, eleaps and the like, but that's always gonna be a problem with Shadows lists I think.

Kaelyssa
-Hydra
-Hydra
-Chimera
Max MHSF + CA
Max MHSF + CA
Max Infiltrators
Spears of Scyrah
Free Eyriss1
Free Narn
MHA
Arcanist
Arcanist

maleficoru
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Posts: 38

Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 21:12:11 GMT

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Post by maleficoru on Jun 14, 2017 21:12:11 GMT

Thanks for the replies everyone!

thetomikaze15

True Ossy doesn't need to be in shadows to get good work done as shatter storm is very powerful however 30+ AD models puts on a lot of pressure very fast and if you get first turn you are so far up the board most opponents are going to be in for a lot of tough choices.

Personally i'm not a fan of him in defenders as you lose out on MHSF AND Electromancers, I generally play him like so to great effect:

Ossy
Hypnos
Sphinx
MHSF w/commander x2
Electromancers x2
HRT x2
Arcanistx2
MHA

Dirhavel

No such thing as overkill

but from testing as mentioned above most players have a tough time getting through the 30+ ad models to land said assassination and I am generally conservative with Ossy's feat and wont go for a risky feat assassination as failing will leave the rest to Ossy's victim stats

.

The side list I see the most of is the same as your meta with coven though I anticipate that to shift as soon as bane theme comes out (I'm not sure ive seen a single casual day without every cryx player playing CID banes). That being said for the time being creating a sacrificial screen with a few models and walking backwards on their feat seems to work just fine though not exactly what I would call an optimal situation.

On backlash, I find it can put pressure on colossal and jack spam lists but into cryx the only jacks I see are arc nodes that sit way back until they are ready to suicide run a spell somewhere, otherwise its usualy a trap even to try and use it.

Just for the sake of argument I may try the following to see how it works out:

Kaebae
Banshee x2
MHSF w/commander x2
MHI w/E3
Spears
Arcanist x2
Whatever solo I find in my bag first when pulling out the rest of the list.

Once I have the chance to test this ill share post testing thoughts.

thetomikaze15
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Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 21:56:28 GMT via mobile

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Post by thetomikaze15 on Jun 14, 2017 21:56:28 GMT

Yeah I suppose you get a higher probability of hitting with the MHSF without doing CRA's I'm just wondering what you would pair the ossyan list with and what else you would be comfortable dropping ossyan into? Can this ossyan list cover the second list for cryx?

maleficoru
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Shadows of the Retribution musings Jun 14, 2017 22:39:33 GMT

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Post by maleficoru on Jun 14, 2017 22:39:33 GMT

Both Ossy lists are very strong into H2/3 Nemo3 as well as Ghost fleet and CID banes, shadows is better into banes and the electromancer version into witches as walking a jack into a ball of satyxis and shooting it in the but with electromancers tends to cook them very easily.

Other matchups that are a bit more even are most khador lists minus steel legion as you can murder WG pretty easily with them and jack spam lists while tricky you can usually get an assassination though its not a preferred matchup.

My pairing will always include one of my two rocks, Rahn or V2 as I'm very comfortable with them and will play them into almost anything(Especially Rahn as going war-noun bowling on turn2 is something my inner troll can't resist), however neither one really wants to see ghost fleet as a general rule.