Trying some new things.

After a long break from tourneys, it's time to do some more work on my Vyros lists. I have two tournaments coming up this month, and I'd like to have a good showing at both. After some bad losses against Cryx in casual games with my standard list, I've started messing with Vyros lists to better deal with different armies. Here are the two lists I am working on currently:

List 1:

Vyros +6
-Phoenix 10
-Manticore 8
Dawnguard Invictors 10
-UA 2
--Griffon 4
Stormfall Archers
Arcanist 1
Arcanist 1

This list has a much longer threat, with the majority of my army able to do damage at range, and with the core of my army being a threat in melee as well. This list can also get around lists that abuse covering fire, like a 2xCyclone list I've seen popping up in my local meta. With the ability to simply shoot things while remaining behind the covering fire, it doesn't shut down my army like it does against my Sentinels. This list also has the capacity to deal with high-def low-arm models like Daughters or Kayazys.

List 2:

Vyros+6
-Manticore 8
-Phoenix 10
-Discordia 10
Sentinels 9
-UA 2
Arcanist 1
Arcanist 1

A straight beatstick army. There is absolutely nothing subtle about this list. 3 heavies at SPD 8, a full unit of Sentinels, and the arcanists to make those heavies scary. If feat turn goes well, I'll also have 3 heavies filled up with focus, 2 of which are doing +2 damage on melee rolls, more than enough to even make Khador sweat. The Sentinels, as always, are there to chop things and be ARM 19 with Inviolable Resolve. Discordia also gives me a credible threat to High-ARM stealthed models like Banes and Tartarus. The only issue I can see with this list is the lack of a Soulless, which means that I have no way of removing annoying enemy upkeeps from the Sentinels, should they get Crippling Grasped or such.

Also, I finally got hold of another Heavy Myrmidon Kit, and am just now putting together DISCORDIA! Hope to have painted pics up soon:

Steamroller 2nd Place and Lessons Learned (or: How I learned that eMadrak's feat is ridiculous)

I participated in a Steamroller tournament today at my FLGS, and did quite well for myself. Before I get into specifics, there are a few things I wanted to mention:

There were only 6 entries into the tournament. We seem to get the worst Saturdays for our Warmachine tournaments. Additionally, I am planning to skip the first two game reports, as there was nothing spectacularly interesting about either of them (and I tested out my Ravyn list in the first match). Now follows the report for the last game, as well as my list:

Dawnlord Vyros +6
-Griffon 4
-Manticore 8
-Phoenix 10
Dawnguard Sentinels 9
-UA 2
-Soulless 1
Stormfall Archers 5
Arcanist 1
Arcanist 1

And my Opponent's list (as I can remember it):

Epic Madrak +5
-Dire Troll Bomber 10
-Troll Impaler 5
-Troll Axer 6
Fennblades 8
Fell Caller Hero 3
Stone Scribe Chronicler 2
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew 1
Bog Trog Ambushers 5

Unfortunately there are no pictures, and my memory of the match is a bit jumbled and chaotic, so I'll summarize as best I can.

Scenario: Kill box

Turn 1
A lot of moving and shuffling on both our parts.

Turn 2
More moving and shuffling. My Griffon charges the Impaler, knocking out its Mind. My stormfalls drop some templates on the fennblades, hoping more for successful tough rolls than actual kills. Unfortunately, one dies, giving the Fennblades a vengeance move. The fennblades charge, killing a couple of sentinels and a Stormfall. My griffon is wrecked. the Bomber kills one more sentinel. Bog Trogs arrive, and move around, and he runs his Axer to engage my Heavies.

Turn 3
The sentinels bring the pain with Vengeance. I feat, and give the phoenix 3 focus and the Manticore gets 2. The phoenix proceeds to kill the bomber after receiving Concentrated Power. Vyros and the Manticore kill a bog trog and his Axer. His turn, his fennblades kill some more sentinels and stormfalls with their vengeance move and normal activation. The impaler hurts the Phoenix, the Bog Trogs and Chronicler hurt it a bit more. Then Madrak hits the phoenix, casts his extra dice on damage spell, and feats. Up until this point, I was extremely confident. I had more than half of my sentinels (including leader) left to his 4 fennblades, two standing warjacks (though the phoenix was looking a bit beat up), 2 stormfalls, and both arcanists. After the dust settled, I am left with Vyros, 2 arcanists, 2 sentinels, and a beat up Manticore.

Turn 4
Not looking so hot anymore, I spend focus to stand up after the crit slam, and I have the arcanists repair the manticore's damage (though one fails his repair check). Vyros and the Manticore kill another couple of bog trogs and the Fell Caller Hero, and the two sentinels kill the Chronicler. His turn, he finishes the Sentinels off with the fennblades, and the manticore off with his impaler.

Turn 5.
Vyros kills the remainder of the bog trogs and finishes the Impaler. My arcanists run up to block charge lanes from the Fennblades and Madrak. On his turn, he tries to kill the arcanist blocking Madrak's path, but rolls snake eyes. Madrak kills both the arcanists, then ends his turn.

Unfortunately, this was where time was called. Madrak and Vyros were both hurt a bit, but I am confident that Vyros could have killed the warlock with few problems on my next turn. In a shocking twist of events, my opponent wins on VPs, due to the untouched swamp gobbers being in the kill box. Without them, it would have been a dead tie.

Thoughts on the game:
eMadrak's feat is insane. I was definitely not expecting to have the game shift that quickly, but I think I recovered as best I could from the nastiness. Everything did the job it was supposed to, but I think that if I had to do it again, I would have tried to wipe out the fennblades before the feat. The Bog Trogs were never a real threat to Vyros, especially without a charge and sent in piecemeal the way they were (though they did manage a few boxes). I also would have considered holding my Griffon back until later. The impaler can hurt, and the crit slam can impair my ability to be focus efficient, but having that missile in my back pocket also wouldn't be a bad idea. I am also reminded how much of a beatstick Vyros truly is. In this game, he killed 5 bog trogs, a troll Axer from full to zero, and a troll Impaler. While in this game "Leading from the front" is rarely a good idea, it's worth remembering that things that slip past can be taken care of by my leader.

Getting this started right.

Finally getting around to making posts for this blog, and I wanted to start it off right, so here's a basic summary of my Vyros list and how it's been doing in Blighted Shadows (first league I've used the current list in).

First of all, the list itself:

Dawnlord Vyros +6
-Griffon 4
-Manticore 8
-Phoenix 10
Dawnguard Sentinels (1 leader and 9 grunts) 9
-Sentinel Officer and Standard 2
-Soulless Escort 1
Stormfall Archers 5
Arcanist 1
Arcanist 1

It's a very straightforward list, which is what I like about it. Sentinels chop things, jacks kill things, vyros casts his two main spells (Mobility and Inviolable Resolve), and the stormfalls blow up low ARM troops, or drop brutal shots on warjacks. The main drawbacks are that the only really fast thing I have is the griffon, and the only real shooting I have is the stormfalls, but they have yet to let me down. On to the (very basic) game summaries!

Game 1: Retribution Vs. Pirates!

All in all a very basic game. Stormfalls shot at his 'jacks, Sentinels held the line, then killed a bunch of Sea Dogs and Press Gangers, and much focus was spent standing myrmidons back up after commodore cannon shots. The game was won on the back of a lowly Griffon, charging Shae 13" with reach for the game (lucky rolls and the stormfalls softening him up definitely helped). The game never felt like I was in an especially precarious position, even if my assassination had failed, Vyros was at full boxes, Shae would have been engaged, and his two units had been torn up pretty bad by my Sentinels. The Commodore Cannon is annoying, but I'm confident that I could have survived another round of its shots and killed Shae the following turn.

Game 2: Retribution Vs. Cygnar

Another fairly standard game. I don't want to look too far into it due to my opponent being fairly new and making a couple of newbie mistakes, but from a list perspective, my army did exactly what it was supposed to. Stormfalls killed his Journeyman and a couple of members of the Black 13th, Sentinels tied up the Ironclad and lancer, and I got the assassination off of a Phoenix charge the turn after Stryker's feat.

Game 3: Retribution Vs. Khador

Rough game. I made a lot of mistakes, and won on the back of a mistake of my opponent's. Butcher t4 is rough, and I'm still figuring out exactly how to beat it without luck and exploiting my opponent's mistakes. Major lesson learned here is, if all else fails, charge with Vyros. An extra damage die and MAT 10 (due to flank) is nothing to sneeze at, and Vyros managed to kill the Butcher.

Game 4: Retribution Vs. Menoth

The Menoth player is a good friend of mine, but still fairly new to the game, and makes mistakes as a result of it. He was testing out pSeverius, but didn't include anything that was particularly threatening to ARM 19 Dawnguard. Highlights of the game were scrapping Blessing of Vengeance and a Reckoner on turn 3, Stormfalls killing Rupert, the Hierophant, and a couple of Choir members in one lucky round of shooting, and charging Sev with 2 Sentinels that had killed the nearest flameguard with their Vengeance attacks. Basic thoughts are what I had mentioned above, his Crusader and Reckoner were really the only things that could hurt my Sentinels (and about the only things that did), and that the league Flameguard UA is really annoying, especially with the Covenant.

Overall thoughts: I love this list. The Sentinels are just pure awesome, and the Stormfalls cover a lot of weaknesses the sentinels have, especially dealing with High DEF, low ARM units. The warjack combination really works well for me, and even the soulless gets to kill the occasional Sea Dog or unlucky Black 13th member.