Journeyman Warcaster. Elara (Jayl Bayt) Tyro of the third chamber.

Its with convenient timeliness that Retributions first Journyman Warcaster, has been released shortly after I had been play testing and theorizing Jack Marshals in Ret.

Elara will be released with the Warmachine game as part of a kick starter package. As far as I understand it she has a limited edition sculpt, the one shown. Then the molds will be broken and a new less good sculpt will be available. I'm quietly suspicious that the new sculpt will also be good.

Elara being a journeyman warcaster is rather young, I think her title Tyro might be elvish for jail bait. Being of the third chamber however it does relate to her position within the temple of Scyrah. I think I'll go on to call her Elara Jayl Bayt Tyro to elvenize it up a bit.

I think I cant legally put stats up so shes in here.

Anyway Most of the same things in my previous post about which casters you could run jacks out of battle group with without giving up too much still apply.

The theory machine dojo training started early with my sparring partner with him taking the similar forum stance of the Hater. I came at it with more of a OMFGTHISISAMAZING approach and tried to tone it down.
He hit me with a "but you can just kill her so you dont want to invest too much in her." approach. To this I said "I suppose, but she shouldnt be in a place where she is easily killable." 

If your playing Retribution properly you will either have Discordia or an Artificer and maybe an Aspis. This means she could be def 17 or arm 16 + foc so... the only way you could easily get her is spelling her, or delivering something in melee. Well counter charge gets around the melee part.

Anyway I proxied her up in a couple of games in my latest Garyth list.

Garryth, Blade of Retribution

Phoenix

Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard

Soulless Escort

Arcanist

Arcanist

Dahlia Hallyr & Skarath

Dawnguard Scyir

Dawnguard Scyir

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Magister

Elara

Griffon

Griffon 

Now Garyth is Garyth so there was only so much the list is capable of but all she really did was sit around keeping her counter charge upkeep alive on the 2 Griffons and made them horribly frustrating for my opponent to deal with while trying to engage my Sentinels.

Griffons charging for free is pretty sweet, the bonus mat combined with pathfinder and reach means they are likely to get the charge off and hit hard and accurately.  

She didnt draw any heat from my Skorne opponent who found the lights a nuisance but not a major worry, thus she was great for holding and contesting points. With only the 8 points invested in the lights he didnt really care to go out of his way to kill her. That being said they did a fine job of killing his Nihilators.

 I cant say this enough, Counter Charge is super sweet. With the 2 jacks and herself that was 3 potential counter charges in a turn, that can really hurt someones engagement plans.

Jacks to run her with. 

A great advantage of Ret jacks is their guns, if the jack (Myrmidon) has a good gun then it can be focus efficient and run easily with 1 or 2 focus.

Banshee:

     Counter charge with this can be good for the same reason hallowed avenger works. You get it into positions where Wailing is more of a problem. 1 Focus will let it kill things using its momentum cannon in base to base easily, 2 Focus will help it kill a caster. For 10 points however its a hefty investment for Elara to run with if your worried about her staying alive. Its also 10 points of beat stick thats not under your casters control so if its your only heavy hitter and she goes down you have issues.

Hydra:

     Counter charge is not so amazing, but Focus Battery is. Elara can happily fuel this guy up and then keep her focus to do other things while it stands around and zots things with its cannon. This works for me, heck she could run 2 very well. By turn 2 you can be allocating one focus to each one as it shoots. They will be keeping back field and so will she. The main problem is the Hydra is slightly over costed for what it can achieve and again, losing her loses the jack/s

Manticore:

     A cheaper investment at 8 points. One can run well on 3 focus, they are focus hungry jacks but thats why putting one with Elara is so great, she is bonus focus after all. This lead me to a mad skew list with Ravyn and 4 Hydras 2 in each battle group. I'll go on about this in a bit more depth soon.

Gorgon:

     Ok so it is a light with a gun, but its a crap gun and its a crap light. Counter charging with force lock is a little amusing but the thing is the model that has advanced into counter charge range has probably stopped in a place that force lock wont effect anything anyway. Nope this jack is still bad.

Chimera:

     I skipped the Pheonix because its too big of an investment to run in her battle group and it has the arc node. But lets not forget that Elara does have convection so, she could use an arc node, theoretically, and counter charge could be followed up by its own appiration to give it a potentially new charge angle or disengage, this has potential.

Griffon:

     I didn't mention it before but counter charge is made especially sweet with reach. This guy seems to be built for her. Forget eVyros Griffon spam, its Elara Griffon spam 4 lyfe.

Aspis:

     Nice to have one around, doesnt need to be stuck with her tho. Not focus hungry so doesn't benefit from having its own caster, counter charge with beatback is nice but without reach much harder to do.

Warcasters to run her with

Ossyan:

     If she is running jacks with guns, the big ones then its solid, Ossyans feat works on anything, the only things your missing out on are Chronomancer and Admonition . I could see her running the Banshee, or a pair of Hydra, quicken her for more survivability and put Hyperion or Hypnos in Ossyans battle group.

pVyros:

     Normally you do want jacks in his battle group so she may not be the best with him, however if she has even one light, say the Aspis she can use the Extraction ability on her blades under Vyros's feat turn to fuel up her jack and simultaneously something in Vyros' battle group, potential here.

eVyros:

     Vyros can move her with Tides of War, again you want things in his battle group for Synergy but with Tides movement you can have some crazy counter charge going on. If you didnt build to maximize synergy but a more balanced list I can see her running a light while Vyros took the heavy hitters to make more use of the +1's.

Garyth:

     Garyth doesnt care about having things in his battle group, so the more he doesnt need to give out his focus the happier he is. Death Sentance means she has more of a chance to land those melee attacks, but being honest you dont want her in combat, treat her like you would your caster, keep her safe. 

Rahn:

     Here again I wouldnt give her many if any jacks, loosing potential Force Blast targets is not worth it. However maybe just maybe a Chimera. The main idea I see working with Rahn is he sets up a nice assassination, slams and or telekinesis and she finishes it off with Convection under his feat. Could work. Fully boosted + collateral pow 14 slam + 2 fully boosted 12's... more of a clutch play perhaps.

Kaelyssa: 

     Aside from making Elara more survivable through Banishing Ward and a nifty feat I cant immediately think of any synergies these 2 have. You don't necessarily want to remove jacks from the battle group because you lose witch hound.

Ravyn:

     Now I can see these two getting along famously. Elara is a bit weak in the p+s department, and mat 6 is sufficient but not amazing. Ravyn herself is no slouch in combat but with Vortex of Destruction up Elara can potentially cut through a few pesky infantry with little effort. I can see them running tandem inside a Veil of Mists both benefiting from the concealment but also being able to draw LoS and move through each other to maximize your melee potential. Also during Ravyns feat any jacks with guns Elara may be controlling will get all of the same benefits. It was in this that I saw 4 Manticore laying down covering fire, 2 in advanced positions and the 2 controlled by Elara sitting in front of Ravyn and herself, ready to counter charge into something that attacks the front Manticore. With 2 focus a Manticore under Ravyns feat can deliver a lot of accurate power 12's, with this combo you can have all 4 of them fueled up, and they are hard hitters in melee also.

I see Elara being a solid 3 point investment in most lists, whether she be a super solo or running several lights for lots of counter charge, or a pair of heavies with big guns.

Potentially as sweet as this picture.