Rahn v Witch coven and Ravyn v eKromac super fast batreps. Now with science!

Been about a month since I got to have any games. Trying to get some practice in before the October tournament and try out some list ideas.

I haven't committed to running Thyron. I want to I just think I won't get him in time. 

So today I played with:

• Rahn
• Pheonix
• Elara
• Moros
• Dahlia and Skarath
• HSBM
• Infiltrators with 3yriss
• Magister
• Arcanist
• Arcanist

Its a pretty terrible list but running it into Witch Coven was even worse.

I am pretty much shelving Rahn until Helios comes out. 

Deployment

So two turns in I was covincingly getting my shit pushed in and it was looking like a white wash, or brown wash.

Skarath was killed by one infernal machined jack and Elara was picked off by the charging stalker.

My battle mages and infiltrators were tied up in combat with ethereal jerks.

However he kill boxed himself, then kill boxed himself again the next turn.

Because 3 lots of warcasters are hard to manage I guess. So the Pheonix loaded up killed thr objective and I won on scenario, which I really REALLY should not have.

Second game

• Ravyn
• Imperitus
• Arcanist
• Artificer
• MHSF UA
• Invictors UA
• PEyriss
• Ghost sniper
• Ghost sniper
• Magister

This list went a little better. 

The Ghost snipers and Eyriss killed one shifting stone and Ravyn went central with the Artificer bubble and VoD up. So 17/18.

Invictors took snipe mini feated and combined 2 skinwalkers off the table.

Wold wyrd moved up rolled super well and left Ravyn on 4 hit points. Talk about squeaky bum moment.

Clockwork Oracle tells me that it was about average.

I whipsnapped Imperitus up to get an easy walk in on Ghettorix, went in with concentrated power missed Ghettorix twice so I contented myself with making 2 Skinwalkers tough and on fire.

With the Pureblood being tied up by the Remaining Strike Force. Kromak went in himself to kill Imperitus, who Pheonix Protocols then Ghettorix finishes him off.

If my opponent had been slightly more cautious he should have used the Winter Argus animus on Kromac and kept more transfers, letting Ghettorix finish off Imperitus twice.

He did not however. With 9 points of auto damage and a bit more from Ravyn the Invictors put combines down on Kromac and with lucky dice I get just enough to kill him.

Oracle tells me with 5 combines this should be easy. I guess I didn't get as lucky as I thought.

Ravyn vs Sturges 50 pts Battle rep

Elaras gig is up. Sturges the not so dead bowls down into town, where Ravyn and the young Elara are mulling around, thinking of something to do with the excess Manticore sitting about, Ravyn grins and Elara pouts.

 Enter the Cygnarian cut throat of a Warcaster, seeing a good fight, the gambler in him did wholly muster.

Hood concealing steely eyes, Sturges wagers a bet on lives. To which the elven women are easy to accept. But at the price of failure the cost of confidence is paid with debt, as the deft and still skillful  Sturges collects the bounty on Elara's head.

Ravyn, Eternal Light

Manticore

Manticore

Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard

Souless

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

Arcanist

Arcanist

Artificer

Heavy Rifle Team

Heavy Rifle Team

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Elara

Manticore

Phoenix proxy for the third Manticore.

Sturges

Runewood

Storm Smith

Gun Mages

Marshaled jack (aoe knock down gun)

 Storm nouns

Stormwall

Early casualties

 So by the second turn he sniped the Stormwall, didnt know about this. It sauntered up and shoot Elara right in the face. I was worried about the threat of the Gun Mages if I was really being careful I would have had Elara with the Artificer sitting behind the wall. But I didnt.
The HRT's were a bad choice over all but I wanted to try them, the draw back was I tried to protect them and tried to use the scenario to take advantage of them. If they were not there then Elara would have definitely had more cover, that and not thinking about his threat lost her early.
Gun Mages rolled up high, hitting Eyriss (who missed them) on the first roll of 9 and killing her outright. The others dropped a gunner each from the rifle teams. Not the best start for me, great for him.

Ravyn feats and fails. One point for objective one point from Arcanist on flag.

 Analyzing the weight of fire I could put down and not being aware that the Stormnouns did have arc shield on them Ravyns feat turn was lack luster. Aiyanna kissed the objective and Holt put 9 damage on it, but it took 3 more Invictors to finish it off. The other Invictors worked on the Stormnouns and did poorly due to an un marked Arcane Shield which I thought was on the Stormwall. First Manticore fires 3 times and nets 0 kills, the other nets 2 out of 3 shots. One Invictor didn't fire and advanced to the inert Manticore along with the Arcanist as we were not sure if once it was re activated the Jack Marshals could Marhsal it or if they had to activate it themselves.
Ravyn herself and the HRT in front of her fail to produce any kills, and the HRT to her left kills one and swift hunters to fill the gap. A foolish move for if the Marshaled Cygnarian jack had hit they would have all been knocked down.
 In that respect I got lucky.

Stormwall scores a point, the Stormnouns get another by killing my objective

 Runewood comes up and shoots off the Arcanist. The 2 Stormnouns take out the objective while his Jack misses its shot. The Gun Mages push back my Manticore with a few shots while the Storm Caller disrupts it. On the other side the Storm Pod goes down and zaps out Holt, then the Stormwall shoots Aiyana in the face.

Its about to all go bad.

 Seeing that extracting revenge for Elara is quite likely out of the question Ravyn retreats from the Gun Mages, if I was feeling more ballsy she may have just run in and engaged them, but that jack was giving me the heeby geebys.  Ravyn drops back and puts snipe on the HRT which rolls and does 0 damage. The disrupted Manticore shoots and nets 0 damage.
2 Invictors only are in range of Stormwall and combine for... 4 damage.
The Marshaled Manticore Charges and puts on 14 damage. The other Manticore gets Concentrated power and Charges with D+1 and nets a total of 19 damage over 3 attacks. Two of the other invictors shot at Runewood with dice for damage and leave him on one box.
I curse ceaselessly and hope the one wrecked arm I gave the Storm Wall will cut me a break from his amazing die rolls. My Artificer fails to connect with both attacks against his Stormnouns

Sturges Feats masterfully and nets 3 points to win.

So Sturges charges the Manticore he can see. He chain attack flashes to the far side of it and feats, it pulls the far Manticore away from contesting. It pulls in the Arcanist and 2 Invictors and this lets him net the kills and feed the focus to the Stormwall. He then goes on to wreck one Manticore and mess up the other with some amazing dice rolls before teleporting to the objective.
The Stormwall has no issue killing a half dead Manticore with 3 focus and the Stormnouns take out the Artificer easily.

Defeat! Cygnar: 5, Retribution: 2.

Thats game, I didnt quite expect it to go like that. One turn of below average rolling followed up by Sturges super awesome damage and movement took me by surprise. The HRT's really didnt perform and I was left at the end of the game wondering if I really should have taken either Strike Force or if 3 Manticores was just a bad gimmick.
My opponent professed that the covering fires were a pain and they put hurt on his Colossal but I was still skeptical. I felt like I needed more punch. However the fact of the matter is in most cases if they have a Colossal/Gargantuan I will likely run Ossyan or Kaelyssa, OR Ravyn with Strike Force for the assassination potential.
I think I can try it again, the three Manticore that is, not the HRT's and maybe drop the Invictors for MHSF and fitting in a Destor thane and some other bits. Maybe an AFG...

Elara. eVyros & Ravyn Batreps vs Aiakos & Sturges the Corrupted then Aiakos & pSkarre

Had 2 games vs Cryx if the title doesn't give it away.

1st game against Sturges the Corrupted against eVyros

Vyros, Incissar of the Dawnguard

Aspis

Hydra

Hydra

Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard

Soulless Escort

Arcanist

Arcanist

Dawnguard Scyir

Dawnguard Scyir

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

House Shyeel Artificer

Elara

Griffon

Griffon

Sturgis the corrupted
Skarlock
Death Jack

Nightwretch

Aiakos
Leviathon

Bloodgorgers full

Gerlack

Warwhich siren 

Necrotech & scrap thrall 

Saxon Orick

Wither shadow Combine 

Bile Thralls min 

The idea behind this list was....
uhm
yea no its a pretty bad list. Kind of, the Hydras didn't have much to do, the Aspis was there just cause and the Griffons were out of battle group so they were not helping with Synergy.
That said I didnt miss that too much, a Hydra with 3 focus and 3 Synergy links + concentrated power took out the Death Jack with a focus to spare.
Part of the problem may have been I just didn't play well, or didn't care because I have no love for eVyros, not sure.

Deployment

 Our first 2 turns were mostly positioning, he put the Bone Jack up ahead to arc a Blood Rain on to the Halbs the next turn, because of my Soulless attachment he needed to get pretty close. Eyriss popped up amongst the Halbs and shot it to disrupt. My Griffons with Battle Charg up mingled in amongst the Halberdiers looking for counter charge lanes.

He responded by putting a scrap thrall center and charging it with his caster, feating and picking up Eyriss and a couple halbs, this fueled up the Death Jack, pulled my army closer to his and pulled my Griffons out of Elaras control. Then he Teleported back behind some concealment.

I was looking to try things out so assassination was completely out of my mind, scenario was secondary to just making things work and killing stuff. I got jammed up with Blood Gorgers while stuff died.

 I killed some stuff, and feated, he killed some stuff and I walked away. He charged my Manticore with the Leviathon,Aiakos' jack and the 2 Griffons counter charged it. They hit and did well doing about 16 points of damage and taking out its gun arm, sadly not its melee arm so the Hydra took a pounding but was left standing, just.

 The Withershadow Combine came up, took out the Griffon and turned it into a light jack for him, which unfortunately failed to hit the Hydra. With the damage the Hydra took however it lost its cortex and the 4 Focus it had stored up.

 So with a lack of inspiration I load up a Griffon and fail a charge on the Withershadow and then do no damage to the Leviation. The Aspis steps in and takes out a Blood Gorger and Elara kills one and kills a Bile Thrall. So Vyros is kinda bored and charges the Withershadow and a War Witch. He snakes the impact hit and kills the War Witch with his charge, he buys to kill one Withershadow and quick works another but misses. Camps 2 and sucks it up.

 Stoogie the Corrupted charges over and after some serious theorymachine over parasite, chain attack dark shroud and just what is needed to get the job done he pulls it off, just barely. It was an Garythesque assassination at its best.

Me and my opponent both admitted to feeling pretty average about our casters and our lists, so in the end it made it for a good game but still. eVyros was just uninspiring and he found Stuey the Colgate kid pretty boring. Not bad just, not all there.

 Game 2

Ravyn, Eternal Light

Manticore

Manticore

Dawnguard Invictors and UA

Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Mage Hunter Commander

Arcanist

Arcanist

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Magister

Elara

Griffon

Griffon

PSkarre 

Skarlock 

Helldiver 

Harrower 

Aiakos 

Seether 

Satyxis Raiders 

Satyxis Sea Which (UA) 

Satyxis Captain

Bane Thralls full 

Bane Thrall UA 

Bane Lord tartarus

Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls  

Deployment

 I was feeling confident about this game, as opposed to nonplussed about the last one. I had already decided I was not going for a ranged assassination, again wanting to get some use out of Elara. Late in the game I figured if I held my feat I may have been able to get one down but Skarres stats were pretty solid and I wanted to make a game of it.

 He ran the Satyxis full tit at my front line so I did something I never did with Ravyn, feated first turn.. JOKES (although I did) no actually I cast a Veil of Mists to cover her and Elara, the Griffons charged through the MHSF that were engaged and freed them up, then with Snipe on the strike force I cleared out the Satyxis.

My opponents reaction was something like this

 After picking our minis back up he walked forward with Skarre, feated and ran his army at me.

 I charged my strike force in and failed a command check so they did nothng, my reaction was something like this

 

This man was in serious need of a table.

Seriously tho those Mage Hunters fail Command checks so much its just like having your mum cancel your WoW account. 

Anyway my stuff dies and he roflcoptars his way into a good position. Right Manticore puts some hurt on the crab jack and then stands around after breaking its arm. The Griffons got chewed up by 2 banes each
I have a dysfunctional turn starting with realizing I cant see through my own guys with VoM up, anyway.
Ravyn goes up and gun katas her way through about 5 Banes and then swift hunters behind a smashed up Griffon. Elara goes forward and cant roll over a 5, giving one focus to the Griffon with its cortex only. That Griffon does nothing but move back and covers Ravyn. The left Manticore drops a covering fire and covers her flank.

 He mans up and tries to kill Elara and the Griffon on 4 boxes with a Satyxis thing, which fails so he uses his caster then charges Ravyn with Tartarus. I illegally make a 3d6 damage roll from a combination of Covering Fire and Vortex of Destruction, which kills Tartarus. However actually it wouldn't have, because the damage occurred before he was inside VoD range although he was in it when he ended movement. Anyway my opponent pretty much conceded at that point because he was still banking the assassination on hitting with a 7 and killing with a 19 on 4d6.

So he conceded.

Morale of this story?

I like Elara with counter charging stuff, but I need to try some games where shes running a heavy to see if it legitimately relieves the Focus strain of my Warcaster. Shes still nice to have around but taking her with the 2 Griffons as a unit in supplement to another proper unit isn't the best option. We have a lot of good troop choices, sometimes its ok but I need to focus on having her as a more efficient way of running multiple heavies for a while.

Ravyn batrep 1 vs Epic Morvahna

Had a 50 point game vs Circles new caster, Epic Morvahna

The lists:
Ravyn
MHSF + UA
Invictors + UA + Souless
Discordia
Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath
Magister
Artificer
Destor Thane
Arcanist
Mage Hunter Assassin
Mage Hunter Assassin

I was planning to run Hyperion and the Arcantric Force Generator however I left the AFG at a friends place so went with this alternate list. I like Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath and the anti living tech they bring to the table, Skarath is also a solid beast on its own.


Epic Morvahna
Full Wolf Riders
Full Skinwalkers + Skinwalker Alpha UA
Shifting stones
Shifting stones + Stonekeeper UA
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Stalker
Stalker
Goraxe
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove

The skinwalkers getting 2 attacks each at mat 8 with the UA and Carnivore now are a real big threat. I was thinking to either shoot them away or get the sprays down on them. Overall I figured Morvahna was failry wek to ranged assassination and planned to use the feat turn to put as much damage on her to either kill her, hurt her beasts and or make it hard for her to feat effectively.

My first turn the Strike Force bunched up around the artificer  for defense as they were preyed by the Wolf Riders. With snipe I landed several shots and manged to kill 2 wolf riders. The Mage Hunter Assassin out the front charged a Gallows Grove and removed it from the table.

Unfortunately in his counter turn the Skinwalkers engaged the strike force, even without their +2 bonus speed, and made the full unit fail its command check, the remaining wolf riders just assaulted, killed a few and engaged more with light cav moves.

Even without the Strike Force I quickly assessed assassination potential. If I was able to clear one skinwalker with say, Ravyn, Discordia, a Mage Hunter Assassin and potentially an Artificer I can get the full unit of Invictors + the Destor Thane under Ravyns feat to fire on Morvahna, camping 5 transfers, that's 5 combines and potentially 5 more rat 7 3d6 power 12 damage at d-3 shots.... seemed good.

The mage hunter assassin missed, Discordia failed to damage it, I left the Assassin too close so when Ravyn moved in and feated she also failed to kill it. I went with the Thane anyway and couldnt clear the hedge while staying inside feat range, so he couldn't contribute.

Considering what was going to happen next turn I went on with shooting Morvahna to soften up the beasts, because with Fog of War up they were perma stealth. With snipe and the mini feat Extended Fire on the Invictors I tagged Morvahna for about 10 damage and made her transfer 4 times.

So the next turn the stalkers come in, wreck Discordia and take a chunk out of the strike force, the Skinwalkers also come in and kill most of the Invictors and Carnivore heals up Morvahna. He has left however both of his stalkers in reach range of Ravyn. The Strike Force rally, now that half of them are dead. Ravyn steps up and threshers the Stalkers and starts going Gun Foo on them, she kills one and leaves the other on about 10 boxes. The strike force step in and leave it on one box, phenomenally bad dice rolls.  Skarath charges accross and boosts and attack, and fails to hit, buys and boosts again and fails again.

So the Magister which was killing and pushing around WolF Riders slams Skarath over the Strike Force engaging the Stalker and into the Stalker, killing Skarath and Killing the Stalker and killing about 3 strike force. Cool move but not what I wanted to really do.

Morvahna responds by feating and throwing more stuff into the zone.

At this point he is on about 3 control points and I have 2. If I could have run Dahlia into the Zone to control and used Ravyn to clear the friendly zone to Dominate I would win, but I pointed out that after I killed Skarath and the rest of the strike force had melted he actually scored a point and took the win on scenario by simply ending his turn.

Failing command checks on Strike force with Ravyn before you Feat is super lame.

Emorv is pretty neat but I don't think she is super sweet, Will Pagani won a tournament with her and with pretty much this same list. He is Will Pagani, I remember him winning this time last year by warpathing a Gnarl Horn and killing Thyra. I think he is just good at applying strategy and tactics quickly to get ahead of his opponents, and EMorv would have been a nice example of a Curve-ball new caster in the hands of a very skilled player. He can also write some semi decent lists and apply them well without much practice.

I mentioned to my opponent that being aware I cant attrition that battle I would be going straight for assassination and a 15/15 caster on a large base that is want to cut herself is a pretty good target, however he seems adamant that he can keep her safe.

We will see in future games.