Dawnlord Vyros Tactica

[NEoJoe]

This is going to be me giving as good a rundown as I can on our buddy Vyros. In these posts I'm going to discuss some general stuff about him most people already know (just in case some don't or a new guy is reading), then I'm going to delve into nitty gritty stuff I've gleaned from experience. Obviously, that means a lot of this is going to be my opinion, even if I'm not putting IMHO at the end of, like, everything. I think this is beneficial enough for the Retribution forum goers, as it's sometimes helpful to see how someone is doing it as opposed to cobbling it all together from the options you've been given. Heh, especially with Vyros.

If you're new to the faction, I first suggest you read the Vyros article written by thecsharion/hausdorff space. When I first set out to solve the mysteries of Vyros, it was that article that gave me the most guidance. I am pretty sure it's because the author did a good job of illustrating the point that Vyros has a good number of aspects, that some of them can seem to pull his wants/needs in opposite directions, and that deciding what you're comfortable with in making this balance is key to playing Vyros well. A lot of this is going to be the decisions I made based on that advice and the games I've played.

If, however, you've been there already, take a seat. Or roll up your sleeves. Either or. I'm not demanding. What? Don't look at me like that!

Dawnlord Vyros

The quick and dirty

Vyros is a cool guy. He's a politician. A politician who murders dragons with giant white space robots. If you'll open your textbooks to page 64, you'll notice Vyros' stats. We'll be discussing those and other things shortly. If you'll look at page 65, you'll notice Vyros standing in front of a wall of fire, knights in tow, gritting his teeth and probably getting ready to murder the audacious bastard taking his picture. This is how Vyros rolls, and it's important to wrap your head around it. Vyros takes lives.

All that being said, Vyros is one of six in a stable of awesome Casters. Still, most of the hyperbole in this article is going to be aimed at making Vyros sound super awesome. I think that only makes sense, yeah?

Stats

Being a higher up in the knightly order of the Dawnguard, Vyros has stats you'd expect. He's a melee boss. Complimentary defenses adding up to 32, good MAT, and CMD as good as it gets. He's kinda slow and liable to shoot his own foot off when handling a gun, but when it's all said and done, he wins sword fights. And that's what you want out of him. Overall, his stats say "If you want me to lead men into suicide missions and beat people up, I will, because I'm really good at it."

His FOCUS stat is nothing special either way. He can pull off seven melee attacks due to his FOCUS. But Vyros still has some very special feelings about the use of focus, which will be covered later.

Weaponry

Vyros seems to personally dislike the use of guns, so he only keeps one weapon on him, his sword Justicar. I have no idea how to pronounce its name. There's precedent sort of with other words, I guess, so it's probably 'justice arr' ish.

Justicar is an average sword for someone of Vyros' station. POW 7, magic, and reach. No fancy tricks. Doesn't turn people into clouds of fire when you kill them, nor does it steal their souls or anything cool like that. Just POW 7, magic, and reach. Adding to his STR of 7, he comes out with a P+S of 14. Combine that with his MAT, and you get a nicely threatening Caster. With just these stats he's incapable of killing a great many (heavy) things, but he threatens light Jacks reasonably enough, and can stare your average Caster down with the threat of a game ending counter assault if they end close enough to him. That means he'll threaten pretty much all infantry and solos and the like while he's at it. Though, in an attempt not to mislead, I find Vyros rarely finds himself hunting any particular solo or trooper model. Targets of opportunity notwithstanding.

Abilities

Vyros finds himself in his special rules here. The foundation for these so far is that he is a competent melee guy with solid defenses, which is a groovy place to be.

He's got two abilities, Birds Eye and Flank [Faction Warjack].

Vyros likes birds. He names his groups after bird parts and has his own personal bird, Jyren, join him in battle and... well pretty much screw the enemy over pretty hard. Since Jyren is flying all over the battlefield making squawky reports, Vyros and all his Myrmidons are allowed to ignore guys when declaring attack targets, along with forests and clouds. And they extend their front arcs to 360 because why not?

Since his battlegroup's LOS cannot be screened by troops, clouds or forests, Vyros and company threaten many more things than usual. Unit attachments, clutch solos, Casters, and other sensitive things have to double their efforts to stay safe from Vyros' deadly guns and spells.

With circular front arcs, you also get some wacky results. You lose some of your ability to threaten areas with free strikes as now everywhere within 2" of your phoenix is free game for the enemy, as long as they don't leave it. This will cause a bit more strain on you to keep track of, but generally the 360 front arc is a boon. People can never deny you a charge with Telekinesis. People can never gain backstrikes on you (eat it, Croe). You gain some charge flexibility as well. Sometimes after a charge, facing your target directly will put other ancillary attack targets in your back arc. Not with Jyren constantly reminding you in his birdy way that there are guys behind you.

His other ability is the Flank. This means if an enemy is within melee range of one of your jacks (no matter which way the jack is facing!), Vyros will gain increased attack bonuses vs that enemy. This builds upon his solid melee foundation to make him really damn scary. At POW 14, 3 dice, he hits harder than a Sentinel, about as hard as a hard hitting jack, and definitely hard enough to kill almost anything. His accuracy, which was already good, gets a boost too, making hitting Caine not so hard anymore. A flurry of attacks from Vyros, not boosted at all either way, is something your opponents will strive to avoid if they know what they're doing. So you'll need to learn how to chase the cowards down and how to get a Jack on top of them. Our speed 6 Jacks make that second part pretty easy at least.

The abilities basically say Vyros likes his battlegroup so much that he'll give them the equivalent of a 3 cost, non-upkeep spell for free each turn, even under Mage Blight, and that his true melee potential lies within the positioning of his Jacks. And it's devastating.

[NEoJoe]

Spells

Vyros is packing five spells. Eliminator, Hallowed Avenger, Inviolable Resolve, Mobility, and Stranglehold make up his list.

Eliminator is a spell apparently not often cast by the Vyros playing community. As is, it's a spell costing a bunch of his focus, but it produces a small AOE and allows Vyros to scoot two inches for each guy it killed. The spell is a welcome one to his list IMO. Once in a while this spell can be cast and generate a huge shift in board state. That opportunity does not often present itself, but it's nice that it's possible. It's a good idea to keep this in mind.

Hallowed Avenger is a spell I seldom cast. Meaning I've only cast it once, sometime late 2010. I was under the impression that our Jacks were easy to kill, so giving my enemy the ability to get to them even faster didn't jive with me much as I came into Vyros. I would often just use Mobility to get the jump on things. But some good players cast Hallowed Avenger, and I know that I've learned enough to put this spell to good use. It's good on a Griffon, and it'll probably be good on the Sphinx too, as that thing's just a heavy for heavies sake and nice to use to jam up the other guy's turn.

Inviolable Resolve is cast turn one and upkept all game. +2 ARM and fearless is nothing to say no to really, and as of right now, Vyros is the only caster with access to an armor buff in faction. But to know what this spell really does, we'll need to keep in mind what else is in Ret. Our heavy infantry all like this spell, so that's already a nod towards Vyros running those guys. Halberdiers like armor. All of our Jacks like armor. This spell has lots of great targets, but the most exciting one is Vyros himself. This spell allows Vyros to camp 24 armor, putting him outside of so many capabilities it's not funny. Maximum use of this spell requires getting a game plan formed before the first turn of the game begins. You'll need to look at your opponent's army and decide where to put this spell turn one and keep it to maximize efficiency. For example, when fighting someone who's going to ignore your army and try to kill Vyros, put it there. If the enemy is going to try to ruin something else first and that thing, whatever it is, needs to survive to give you an edge, put it there first. I'll have more examples for this later. None of that, however, is to say you should never change the spell's target. Sometimes you're down to one phoenix, and it's clutch to keep it alive to maintain flank. If Vyros isn't in immediate danger, putting this on a phoenix is probably the right play in that instance.

Mobility is well loved, and kind of unique on Vyros as far as the rest of the game is concerned. Amon uses this spell to speed up slow Crusader chassis jacks. Carver uses it to make sure Warhogs can bring their axes to bear asap. Vyros' jacks are already really damn fast, so he uses this spell to bring himself up to impressive levels and make sure nothing will stand in his group's way of getting a charge. Really, this spell facilitates a ton. Vyros' group is now perfectly suited for guerrilla warfare when you combine the effects of Mobility with the perks granted by Birds Eye. Vyros and crew can stalk anywhere they want and pretty much shoot/spell anyone they want. If you really want to pick your battles, you'll love Vyros. I will mention that I don't cast this spell often. I rarely cast it turn one or two. From there on it's cast on opportunity. I don't usually think my jacks need help getting into position during the positioning turns, but when it comes to getting the actual jump, this spell is always there when I need it.

I love Stranglehold. It's a basic pew pew with a crazy good control effect, but an extra hoop to jump through. Usually a spell just needs to hit, but with Stranglehold you need to damage as well. But whatever you do damage with this spell isn't likely doing much at all next turn. This spell means Vyros can pull, seemingly out of nowhere, total battlefield supremacy mid-engagement. The ability to stop a Bronzeback from counter wrecking your phoenix after it burns a lot of swordsman to death or something is super powerful. This spell is pretty costly and therefore not applied liberally, but it's a very useful tool to have on your belt and will flat make you win some fights. Finally, I've found one of the best and surprising uses for the spell is assassination. People do not see it coming, and if they do there's really nothing they can do about it thanks to Birds Eye. There aren't many ways to stay mobile, effective, and avoid getting targeted with this spell. I'll go into more detail with this later on probably, but I've spell assassinated with this like four times now.

His spells carry a theme of blunting enemy capabilities while greatly enhancing mobility. Three spells grant movement increases in some way or another, one spell limits the actions a model can take, one spell can put a jack in their face before they even act, and another spell increases armor, limiting the damage that can be dealt to the benefactor. The spell list does a great many things to compliment the idea I have about Vyros and what he is. Vyros, IMO, wants to create inevitability. Vyros wants to stomp across the battlefield and kill you, and he'd dedicating himself and his spell/abilities to making sure that's gonna happen, his way.

[NEoJoe]

The Feat - Perfect Execution

Vyros' feat is a hot topic. Most people are quick to dismiss it. Some people still, even if they're in the dismissal camp, strive to ensure that whatever list they're running can facilitate the feat. Some people are quick to defend the feat, typically claiming that it's 'not that bad' but never going so far as to say that it's amazing. And I've heard at least one person say it is amazing. Some have called it the worst feat in the game. Really, it's pretty astounding how much buzz this feat generates. I feel it probably does that with its swingy nature.

Basically his feat is kinda like Terminus'. When a faction guy is in Vyros' control area and kills an enemy, no matter where the enemy was, one of Vyros' jacks is allocated a focus. The usual bells and whistles that are tied to the word 'allocate' apply here, so no ten focus phoenix. That's pretty much it. It gives focus to jacks.

Oddly, for such a minor seeming effect, the feat means a surprising amount of things. Like...

Your Jacks can now pseudo-thresher. If your griffon walks into a bar and starts hitting dudes, he can nab the focus from each of those dudes himself and keep smashing till he's out of dudes/screws up enough. And your griffon has 360 arc, remember? Nice big pseudo-thresh range. That's kinda cool.

You can allocate three focus and turn it into like 12. Allocate some to one jack, and he burns that three focus into three for the next jack, creating a cool waterfall of focus effect (WoFE for short). That's kinda cool.

You can circumnavigate disruption/having jacks too far away at the start of your turn. If Eiryss pings a jack, you can have an arcanist cancel the disruption, feat, and fuel the jack right back up. If there is an agonizer pissing you off, kill it, feat, and give them the finger. An old favorite trick of mine from my early days of Vyros was to run a griffon to their caster. Just run him. They would note that griffon was like a billion miles away from my caster, so not likely to be a threat next turn, and disregard it. Then I'd feat, charge something, kill dudes, load up the griffon, and kill their caster with some boosted halberd swings. It's a cute parlor trick that I adored. That's all kinda cool.

Those were some of the neat little applications. The typical stuff for the feat is using it to camp and using it to overwhelm.

Because of his feat, Vyros can sit on his armor spell and all of his focus, charge something, feat, activate some other unit, kill things, then proceed to have a productive turn with his jacks. This is probably my most common use of the feat. It's solid because it enables aggressive board positioning without losing any real effectiveness on the way.

Alternatively, you can pretend it's Amon's feat. You usually do this when you're going for the throat. Vyros begins, takes his necessary preperations, feats, charges something, and slings a couple of strangleholds at the enemy caster, boosting each to hit (unless it's like Rasheth or something). Then you activate a unit, kill dudes, and each of your jacks proceeds to also fire on the enemy caster. This feat usage tends to win games, as it generates a ton of boosted to hit rolls on a caster, but the opportunities for it aren't really that common. I'd say 20-30% of games dictate this method of use. Really awesome when you get to do it though.

A lot of that was best case scenario stuff. Oftentimes you will face an enemy list that doesn't give a crap about your stupid feat. Darius and all Centurions laughs at you. Madrak can't help himself when three kriel warriors tough and RUIN what you had in mind for your Manticore. Karchev talks about you behind your back, etc.

Losing your feat against certain lists... really doesn't matter. The benefits from the feat will rarely achieve amazing results. I win the vast majority of my games without using my feat, and when I lose my games it's with my hands around the other caster's throat, feat or not usually. The feat is like Eliminator. It's a nice thing to have and sometimes it'll help you get a good shot in. Sometimes it'll help you completely roll the other guy. Usually though, it won't do much more than give a jack three focus. And hey, that's three stacking power boosts. Whatever, good enough.

There are casters in this game built completely off of their feats. There are casters people play because of their feats. There are casters that look forward to using their feat to great effect every game because it never lets them down. Vyros isn't one of those casters, and that's okay. He's still gonna trudge through the other guy's feat turn and wring his neck.

Putting it all together

So okay, all that's out of the way. Now what do we have to work with?

-Awe inspiring melee abilities,
-Terrific speed and threat range boosts,
-Access to the lion's share of attack targets in a faction full of shooty jacks,
-Exclusive access to an armor buff in a faction full of great targets,
-XTREME durability,
-Rewarding denial tricks (well, one good one and sort of Hallowed Avenger),
-and Very very versatile offensive abilities, capable of enabling multiple types of assassination.

What do we need to watch out for?

-Battlegroup dependency. Butcher doesn't care when his last Kodiak falls. Vyros gulps loudly when he's out of jacks.
-Arcanist dependency. When you're running this many jacks, the support points are mandatory. Especially if you camp.
-Weak to debilitating upkeeps. If Crippling Grasp lands on Vyros, it's more devastating than any other caster, as it removes the largest portion of his abilities. Even without the comparison, it's horrible. And the only way to get it off is to suck a bolt from eEiryss. Not a wonderful proposition.
-No gun. Vyros just won't be using his combat action sometimes, and that kinda sucks.

[NEoJoe]

The Volunteers

One thing people have to decide when they pick up Vyros is what to run with him. How many Jacks does he take? What units does he like? What kind of support is he gonna need? Who can he support best? Blah blah. The faction any given caster belongs to will have an incredible impact on how that caster plays. Vyros is obviously no different. And fortunately for Vyros, he was blessed to be put in Ret. What, didn't you know PP determined all this randomly?

I did a lot of experimentation with a lot of Ret stuff, but still haven't cleared it all. I tell ya, really hunkering down and exploring a caster to his/her fullest is taxing and slow. So I still can't say for sure how everything works, to the letter. But I know some things, ya dig?

Jacks

Discordia is a must for me, which is going to make character restricted environments... interesting. If we forget about those for a moment, I've not yet been willing to separate the two by choice. The main reason I do this is the imprint. Dat imprint... it's the foundation of the Discordia brick, and Vyros is a terrific contributor and benefactor when it comes to the brick.

Quick rundown: You take Discordia. Crowd dudes around it. Pop the imprint. Those dudes gain armor vs guns and blast immunity. Simple as that.

Vyros can now take some dumb high armor unit, make it's armor better, then put it under Discordia's big awesome umbrella, and march across the battlefield much safer than it could a second ago. This is something I do often with Vyros, and it's pretty damn effective. It gives Vyros a great edge against enemy shooty and is the only way to increase his armor to MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE.

Quick aside, if you've not noticed, Ret is a pretty anti-shooty faction, and this can be applied to each other Ret caster. They lack the armor buff, but Kae blocks magic, Ravyn makes a cloud, Quicken exists, etc.

Phoenix is as phoenix does. Runs around and does phoenixy things. Most notable interactions are the fact that stranglehold could need arcing sometimes and Mobility increases the threat on combustion. Others include combustion being pretty rad with the feat, reach covers more ground for Flank, and the gun. At 10", it's kinda short (experience has taught me that shooting casters with phoenix, even with Birds Eye helping, isn't as common as I'd like to be), but it still comes into play often. Forgetting about Birds Eye, phoenix's gun is really awesome. For the deep penetration Vyros allows, it's not as good as some other faction choices, but I killed Severius with it. Phoenix means they have to play back farther, and whatever, that's cool. Oh, and being so resilient, phoenix allows Flank to hang around longer than it normally might.

Manticore might secretly be the best jack. He's one of the ones I've not gotten a ton of test time in with, but that's coming up real soon. Manticore adds some great things to compliment Vyros' style. Covering fire templates assist Vyros' minor but impactful battlefield control abilities and his fists beat stuff to scrap. It's ROF 3 gun can get a bunch of mileage out of his feat too. The most important thing about the Manticore from my perspective is the range 12 combined with the extra ROF. Usually a couple of boosted shots win games, and Manticore can put out more at a longer range than Phoenix and Discordia. 12" is really far and I love me some hand cannons. In the games I have played Vyros with Manticores, the covering fire was the biggest deal, so I know that much. But I'm looking forward to that gun.

Hydra was a pet project of mine and I've tested it thoroughly. My feelings ended up being that I love the Hydra with Vyros. It almost wasn't like that at first! But after two dozen games I realized that the assets the Hydra brings to the table work well enough for me, and always keep pressure on my opponent. The biggest issue is it's hard to quantify what the Hydra does each game. No model I own has killed more Journeyman Warcasters, taking jacks in it's battlegroup offline and making Arcane Shield drop. That's hard to measure when determining whether or not he 'earned his points back,' which is a notion I don't entirely agree with to begin with, but the stuff in the list has to be doing what it's there for, and what it's there for has to be worth it. He usually plugs casters for ten damage a game. I'd say that happens about 60% of the time actually. It's fairly common for the Hydra to shoot a caster. It's pretty common for him to kill annoying Solos too. Oh, oh, and Hydras LOVE battle engines. Big wraith? Shoot it. Battle Carriage? Shoot it. Lighting Spider? Shoot it. It puts pressure on all of these things. It's actually been my best asset against them really. Sentinels usually kill the battle engine for sure, but Hydra gets em weak and in position. In case any of it was confusing, Birds Eye is pretty good on a 15" pow 15 gun. And he's not hard for Vyros to run either. I'll write a Hydra article someday.

I used to run Griffons all the time, but don't so much anymore. Used to run two instead of a heavy (back when I wanted the most focus for my feat turns, of course). I don't really anymore, but my respect for the griffon hasn't waned. It's an amazing light, a great scalpel, and I will probably be breaking them out again soon. Sweet assassin bots.

I don't know much about the other two lights with Vyros. Vyros doesn't really ever need an Arc Node and if griffon was no longer making the cut, I didn't see gorgon getting there. I do, however, know some good players that really like the Gorgon. So not saying there's no reason to ever run the guy. There is testimony to do so, I just am not well versed in it's application.

I've not proxied to test any unreleased jacks as of this writing. So any theory you've read or experience from people who have proxied is going to be at least as good as anything I could say, if not better.

[NEoJoe]

Volunteers Continued

Units

In my opinion, Vyros needs a unit. Units are generally good at tarpitting and helping dictate the flow of battle. If there aren't units, the opponent flies straight at your support, jacks, and caster. Vyros wants none of those things to die, but doesn't care much if units die, as long as they took stuff with them.

Now don't get me wrong, the point isn't to just tarpit and let stuff die (remember, the Discordia brick means guys don't die on the way up).

I think the best stuff for my play style is a unit of MHSF and a unit of Sentinels. However, flexibility is a huge aspect of Vyros, and Destors and Invictors both know how to play that tune. I've come close to using Halberdiers straight up in place of Sentinels, but haven't gotten around do it. I've instead used units without a UA to tarpit while the Sentinels got into position. That ultimately didn't work out.

Why those choices? Well, I admit, I actually enjoy the Strike Force for the feat. They're mostly there to keep my opponent from ever really going a turn without suffering a lot of attacks. Between them and a Hydra shot or whatever, the opponent will be under fire from first contact till someone's dead. Since they deny the enemy the ability to organize the way they want and can clear out the chaff, they play into Vyros' play style very nicely. The sentinels just do sentinel things. They charge and murder and go on a rampage, and with IR and Discordia, they survive pretty much all incoming fire. The best thing is, with Vyros' input, not even Bile Thrall purges, Mage Storm, and electro leap are guaranteed to remove these guys or Invictors. Arm 19 against all things normally, 21 against the bile purge initial damage, 21 against initial lighting gun shot, 19 against the leaps, and 1/3 chance they'll survive corrosion. Fire rolls need 8s to kill them. Mage storm also needs 8s. Really pretty impressive considering those things are known for auto-killing. Halberdiers work fine in this role too.

Really, Vyros enjoys flexibility, durability, self sufficiency (as he really only helps via CMD 10 and an armor spell that he might just hog himself) and interference from his guys. Fortunately, Ret is, like, made of guys that do all that. See why he likes being in Ret so much? Armor granting Jacks? Everything's got guns? Super good units? Two power boosters? Man, he's in heaven.

Support

Unfortunately, Vyros cannot run 30 doomreavers and have a go at you (though he does have his first tier...). Vyros isn't as bad as Menoth in the non-combat support guy department, but isn't as well off as eButcher or whatever. The point I'm making is that I don't like running non-combat support models that much. I can like the model and everything it does and laud it for it's abilities, but I'm more at home when my 50 point list is bristling with killing power everywhere. I have a feeling our Jacks were designed with Arcanist in mind (Gasp, right?) and Vyros is so proficient at killing things, things that give him more of an edge will push him over the top. It's hard to play without that stuff.

I think his favorite support pieces are Madelyn, Arcanist, Sylys, and eEiryss (I count her since her role is disrupt/upkeep protection/upkeep denial/solo killer). That's already a lot of points if I field all of that, but sometimes I do (that actually has me looking forward to character restrictions though).

Instead of going into these guys right now, I'll explain what they do as I explain what Vyros really wants to do.

[NEoJoe]

The Endgame

So okay. We know what Vyros does. How does he win?

Vyros, funnily enough, is a straight up assassin. He was released alongside a battlemage and three mage hunter veterans. He's the big dude in armor with a bird. No stealth suit or anything, armor and a bird. But out of all of the casters, Vyros is the most proficient melee assassin as far as I'm concerned. Kaelyssa has her moments, but she's mostly about her gun and spells. Garryth... is stuck on MAT 8. He can get Death Sentence up, especially easier with Sylys, but he'll have to wait till the next turn to strike unless he can do the job with three or so focus. And he doesn't do nearly as much damage as Vyros under good conditions if the enemy is naturally high armored. Vyros is capable of closing with the enemy and incredibly capable of putting them down. But first, you've gotta figure out how to do that.

He charges ten. Okay. He can mobility for 12 and pathfinder. Okay, pretty good. If there are enemies in his way, he cannot acrobatics or fly over them. That's a damper. But where those enemies are matters. If they're directly in front of Vyros, damn. If they're in front of his target, there's a good shot he can get to his target anyway. And there's also a good shot he can get a jack to the target to flank. This is one of the hugest reasons to love power boost. Everything the arcanist does is lovely, but Vyros wants all the focus he can get if he's aiming to close the game. Power boost saves him an allocation, so you can run your critical jack up there to seal the deal as tight as possible.

So Vyros can charge 12, he can charge all wacky like thanks to Birds Eye, and he can swing right through people that would normally block LOS. This combined with his amazing durability is how I win most of my games. Vyros is a melee assassin, and as far as I'm concerned, that is his primary win condition. So any way we can make this more surefire?

That's where Madelyn comes in. Lanyssa as well. Madelyn can be pretty hard to remove from the board, easy to proc, and can give Big V a precious three inch boost. She requires difficult enough positioning though, and the enemy can interfere well enough. They just need to clog guys in front of Vyros so he has nowhere to go during maintinence. Covering Fire can help dissuade your enemy from making that move, but otherwise, if they see what's coming, it's going to happen. You can take advantage of this by basically forcing your opponent to throw guys into a grinder in order to survive. As long as they aren't pressing you too badly in any other way, you're still likely winning in that scenario. But you're not winning right there. And every turn you're not winning is a turn they can turn things around.

Lanyssa has her downsides, but there are all sorts of ways to make her functional. Due to Vyros' charging flexibility, Lanyssa just has to hit something kind of close by with her Hunter's Mark. DesertSpiral has already posted some stuff about that, and charging with Vyros in general, in this thread. Which is awesome, cause now I don't have to make diagrams. It's very helpful and I suggest checking it out.

Vyros has more than one kill condition though. The other way I commonly win is by virtue of having lots of ranged attacks that see through stuff. A while ago I saw Stryker hiding behind a wall with blur on himself. eLylyth popped her feat and shoot a bunch of stuff at him and boosted it all. We were all sure Stryker was fine, but he died. It proceeded to happen each time someone played that Lylyth list. They would rely on defense, not armor, to withstand the onslaught, and always died. A motto kind of came from that. If it's hard to do, roll enough dice and you'll do it. Throw dice at things. Generate enough results and you'll get the good ones. Yeah, that's ignoring a lot of things. If I need twelves and can't boost I won't worry about it. But if I need 12s and I can get four shots at it, one of them Sylys helps? Now we're talking, especially since that Hydra shot earlier means only one has to hit.

So you don't usually need 12s. A caster will generally be around DEF 16. Any lower is just awesome. Higher can be bothersome but not the end of the world. Discordia is RAT 6 like a boss and Vyros is FOC 6. Those guys need tens. Any non aiming Jack needs 11. Discordia might only need an 8 if it aims. That's basically a bunch of 50/50s, and you usually only need two to connect. You won't usually get this alpha strike to land on feat turn, but when you do, anything's possible. Othwerwise, you're looking at two boosted strangleholds, one Arcane Secrets, and power boost enabling two jacks to boost. That's four attacks, with potential for more or less. This, in addition to upkeeping the spell for 25 armor, is where Sylys becomes must have. Also range 12 strangleholds that always have LOS is amazing.

I've never not killed an enemy caster doing the above shots if they're DEF 16 or so. I once failed to kill eHaley because a misplay on my part didn't let me get in as many shots as I should have gotten, so I didn't really get to pull it off, but you learn from stuff like that.

The point is, both of these assassination methods are pretty unique to Vyros, and both are quite effective. In fact, if Vyros makes it to this stage in the game, he's more or less won already. I find that when Vyros loses, it's when his forces take the initial assault of the enemy. If you win the battle of the bulge type deal that'll happen turn two or so, you're probably in great shape. Most of my losses are when my heavy unit gets destroyed by something and Vyros ends up having to endure the assault from the entire enemy army with little assistance, or use his Jacks to shield himself, potentially losing them. It's pretty important, if you play this way, to make sure that line holds. If it does, you're gonna have a dead caster on your sword in no time.

What's left

Sorry for the textwalls. Gonna format this better soonish. Till then, hope it helps period. I don't feel like I put forth as many new ideas as I'd like, but I guess that's asking a lot really. I hope at least seeing someone take a stand with certain aspects of Vyros is helpful too. From here on I'd appreciate it if you guys told me where I was wrong or what I missed and discussed in general. I know a Vyros discussion just happened in the other thread to some extent, and I'll understand if people are burnt out. But hey, if you ever feel like you've something to say/add... please do?

Vyros is a good caster (god, just realized I didn't even touch on scenarios, dammit). He's fun to play and harsh to play against. He takes our Jack design philosophy of flexibility and runs with it like no one else. In that regard, the man represents all of Ret itself. And while I used to be a big fan of Khador and Cryx jacks, disdaining all those in between because other games have taught me that specializing is the way to go, it's Vyros, and Ret at large, that showed me how good jacks are when they can apply themselves to any battlefield situation. It's a thrill to play this stuff.

Thanks for reading... but don't stop yet!

My two old lists and the list they ended up evolving into

Vyros' speed boosting options

How I play his battlegroup and why I chose Sentinels in my lists

More Sentinel discussion that might be useful

[DesertSpiral]

It's nof as glamourous as yours, but here is something I wrote a while ago about Vyros. Maybe it will help by giving a second yet surprisingly similar perspective. That being said over the last year, re-reading it I have certainly evolved some of the approaches presented.

http://www.rankingshq.com/public/blogpost.aspx?Id=5195

Cheers

DS

[NEoJoe]

It's nof as glamourous as yours, but here is something I wrote a while ago about Vyros. Maybe it will help by giving a second yet surprisingly similar perspective. That being said over the last year, re-reading it I have certainly evolved some of the approaches presented.

http://www.rankingshq.com/public/blogpost.aspx?Id=5195

Cheers

DS

Oh yeah, total thanks. Dig up all the stuff you can. I'm not going to do this perfectly and as I'm writing this I often think "I hope the responses help me with this..."

So thanks bunches! Keep it up if you can.

[Murkhadh]

Entertaining read, but you forgot that he also murders traitors turned eldritches at the beginning part. :-P

[Asheth]

Entertaining read, but you forgot that he also murders traitors turned eldritches at the beginning part. :-P

Does that count as murder? He is already dead after all. perhaps Necrocide should be a thing?

[Murkhadh]

Does that count as murder? He is already dead after all. perhaps Necrocide should be a thing?

hehee, he was still an elf when Vyros mortally wounded him, he would have died but instead turned himself into an Eldritch. So since he wasn't yet an Eldritch, I don't think its Necrocide. But still funny.

[PG_Dawnlord Ed]

If you'll open your textbooks to page 64, you'll notice Vyros' stats. We'll be discussing those and other things shortly. If you'll look at page 65, you'll notice Vyros standing in front of a wall of fire, knights in tow, gritting his teeth and probably getting ready to murder the audacious bastard taking his picture. This is how Vyros rolls, and it's important to wrap your head around it. Vyros takes lives.

This may be the best thing I've ever read in this forum.

[Tainted Coil]

Great read. I've been toying with Vyros but felt like I was missing something. This fills in the gaps nicely.

[NEoJoe]

Entertaining read, but you forgot that he also murders traitors turned eldritches at the beginning part. :-P

I thought about doing some fluff rap or another, but decided I was already crushing people under massive text weight.

Really hoping those two get a rematch soon, ya know?

[NEoJoe]

Great read. I've been toying with Vyros but felt like I was missing something. This fills in the gaps nicely.

Yay, I helped a player!

Quota filled. Thank you and goodnight.

[Demeritus]

Solid writeup there Neo. Some of your things coincide with the way I use him and others have given me food for thought.

[Murkhadh]

I thought about doing some fluff rap or another, but decided I was already crushing people under massive text weight.

Really hoping those two get a rematch soon, ya know?

Blah, if your already crushing them them whats a little more? lol

And yea I hope to see those 2 fight again as well. Ossyan already pretty much got his *** beat. I want Vyros to be the first to go epic. Based on his previous fight that cost him his eye or based on one that hasn't' happened yet.

[PG_Dawnlord Ed]

I think a Vyros/Gorshade rematch is probably in the works. I'm concerned though. When Vyros first bested him, he was simply a powerful elf and it cost him an eye. Now he's an eldritch lord. Furthermore, Cryx is on a roll. So long as Nyssor gets home, I'll be ok, but I hope Vyros upgraded Justicar to "evil undead elf beatstick."

[Murkhadh]

NeoJoe, you have given a great rundown on different models and how they are good with Vyros, what are some typical lists you field with him at 35 and at 50?

[IRSMARTLIKEROCK]

NeoJoe, you have given a great rundown on different models and how they are good with Vyros, what are some typical lists you field with him at 35 and at 50?

I'll second this motion. I have a couple ideas from what you've listed but I'm curious to your Terminus background list style.

[ChadeFIN]

Concerning Vyros' future I'd like to see him face Goreshade again, beat him and lose his second eye when doing it because in miniature world that just makes one a better fighter. Take Eltharion from Warhammer Fantasy Battle High Elves for example. When he was blinded his weapon skill went from 7 to 8. So one blind Epic Ninja Vyros coming!

That or medium base mecha-armoured killer Vyros!

[NEoJoe]

I think a Vyros/Gorshade rematch is probably in the works. I'm concerned though. When Vyros first bested him, he was simply a powerful elf and it cost him an eye. Now he's an eldritch lord. Furthermore, Cryx is on a roll. So long as Nyssor gets home, I'll be ok, but I hope Vyros upgraded Justicar to "evil undead elf beatstick."

Yeah, Goreshade's quite the elven boss. Maybe Vyros has gotten much better since then as well though? Perhaps he defeated Goreshade with your typical Sentinel sword? Or not, dunno. He does need to upgrade Jusicar. Goreshade has a sword of our Divine Court. Vyros is a bit outmatched in the weaponry department. I hope his epic storyline has something to do with Goreshade, either something new happens before the fight (He becomes Narcissar for some reason then leads an assault on some Cryx place) or it's as a direct result of the fight. I just wanna see them fight (You did hit up on one of my favorite aspects of Vyros though; he's just a dude. He doesn't have an athanc, he's not a lich/vampire elf, he doesn't wear a warjack for armor, and we don't know much about his specialties outside of Jyren and Dawnguard training. His main thing is that he's a politician. He's a dragonslaying politician. That's how I think about him).

List posting is probably a good idea, thanks for mentioning that Murkhadh and IRSMARTLIKEROCK. I also need to do a scenario report, information on his theme forces, and the Vyre Jacks when they come out. Probably gonna post those wherever the thread may be at that time and put links in the initial posts.

As for the lists...

Here's the most generic Vyros lists on my iBodger

35
Dawnlord Vyros +6
- Discordia 10
- Hydra 9
- Sylys 2
2x Arcanist
10 Dawnguard Sentinels 9
- Sentinel Officer and Standard 2
- 2x Soulless Escorts 2
eEiryss 3
House Shyeel Magister 2

50
Dawnlord Vyros +6
- Discordia 10
- Phoenix 10
- Hydra 9
- Sylys 2
2x Arcanist
10 Dawnguard Sentinels 9
- Sentinel Officer and Standard 2
- 2x Soulless Escorts
eEiryss 3
10 Houseguard Halberdiers

These are lists I've played pretty heavily for the past two months. The end discovery of that trial is that these aren't the best lists for me. But I learned plenty from these, and this is what I'm doing now.

50
Dawnlord Vyros +6
- Discordia 10
- Hydra 9
- Manticore 8
- Sylys 2
2x Arcanist 2
10 Dawnguard Sentinels 9
- Sentinel Officer and Standard 2
- 2x Soulless Escorts 2
eEiryss 3
Madelyn 2
6 Mage Hunter Strike Force 5
- Commander 2

A little talk about the first two lists. I hate that Eiryss is damn near mandatory for this faction. At 35 points, that's 3 points I'd really enjoy putting into my army and not just damage control. *sigh* One day I'm gonna suck it up and just not play her for 6 weeks. Hopefully I can come back and say "Guys, good news! We can win without getting rid of Spiney Growth, Defender's Ward, Crippling Grasp, Tenacity, Arcane Shield, etc!" But I'll probably just lose a whole lot.

Anyway, I'll do this in a strengths/weaknesses fashion, then discussion.

35 list strengths

- Simple. You've got one big unit, two jacks, and support.
- Proper support. You've got a dude to speed Vyros (or anyone) up, Arcanists, magical support from Sylys which enhances defenses and killing potential, and Eiryss. These are the things you want your support to do. The only real choices come for the speed boost part as we've got several options for that.
- A big powerful unit. As I said, Vyros needs a unit, and Sentinels are pretty good for this. They're also versatile for list building needs, as you can spend anywhere from 6-14 points on the unit. And the escort thing is awesome, I dunno why more people don't do it (aside from the cost, which is probably why) but that's a different article. All in all, even with strictly melee capabilities, Sentinels threaten a large range of models, and Vyros likes that. By far not the only unit in the game he likes, but it's a good backbone for any list.
- Jacks, it has them. This list was when I made the leap: no reach jacks. I had actually designed this list to maximize his jack shooty potential and test out the Hydra for a credible Caster killing gun. Potentially the most important discovery overall though was that I still flanked, like, all the time. No game really went by where I didn't have flank. Our Jack's speed of 6 combined with two solos that let them run for no cost to Vyros, further combined with the way this list dictates jacks be played (more on this later) means I'd always have a jack and could always get it where I needed. This means Vyros doesn't have to compromise his list design by always having something with reach. If he likes the jacks, he can take them. All that stuff along with the great jobs those two jacks perform (big gun/safety umbrella/accurate good pow beatstick/dude murdering spray/lots of two handed throw potential) means they are a great two jacks to run at 35.
- Flexibility. I try to aim for this all the time. As is, this list has good speed/mobility, spell damage potential, battlefield control potential, high pow/accuracy attacks in spades, credible ranged threats, and very dependable assassination capabilities.

Weaknesses

-One unit. Since the Dawnguard comprise most of the list, any weakness they have, the list will have. Meaning Pathfinder. You've got a battlegroup and support guys that don't really care, but you almost always want your knights taking the brunt of what the enemy can offer, as they're super good at it. If terrain or spells makes that rough, the game will be rough.
- Flexible, but not super flexible. You only have two guns, and while the special nature of those guns is great, it's only two guns. Guns can do lots of things, and these guns can do things most guns can't do, but they can't do everything guns can do. For instance, you can kill Casters and support solos/UAs really well, but you can't shoot a unit of bane knights to death. Being able to do that would greatly assist your knights in the coming conflict. Full MHSF in place of the Hydra and a Soulless would be a good way to get this in, and might be the superior way to do the list in general, but there are arguments against doing this as well (before, Gun Mages had nothing to shoot at, now they do). One thing worth mentioning: If you do that, you only have Discordia for the feat, but remember, DO NOT really consider the feat when building a list unless proper experience has proven to you that I'm wrong.
- No real infantry clearing role. Dawnguard can rip through a unit of infantry. I've done it plenty of times. But not Iron Flesh Kayazy and any similar combo. You have no autohit attacks in this list, and as a Ret player you know the joy of burning everything to death. For the record though, you handle medium based elite infantry like a champ.

50 Strengths/Weaknesses

Pretty much same as the 35, except you pick up another Birds Eye gun, giving you a much stronger assassination gun flurry and combustion eliminates the Kayazy problem. You pick up another unit as well, but considerable testing has proven that it's not the right choice. They've done me some good, that Halberdiers unit, but something can do much better. Halberdiers are great, but when they're not the primary unit in a list or working alongside something with AD, they are too slow without the UA. So I often times ran them and played them like steelheads. They'd get annihilated so something else wouldn't have to. But there's probably a unit that can do that and take something with it.

The Current Unit

The list I'm using now swaps out Phoenix for Manticore and the Halbs for min Strike Force + Commander, netting me two points for Madelyn. The reasoning is covering fire, more gunshots, movement increase, and more meaningful second unit that will distract the enemy while I move into position, potentially removing support pieces or murdering your average 12/15 unit. Plus it just adds more guns. The extra ROF on the Manticore and the seven crossbows means Vyros' list will be making more attack rolls earlier, so less stuff in the way when Vyros gets his charge. Ultimately all of that assists how I play Vyros. I've got more versatility, more speed, and overall a much better assassination threat. I will talk more about this list when all of this goes from more or less theory to more or less experience.

[IRSMARTLIKEROCK]

- Flexible, but not super flexible. You only have two guns, and while the special nature of those guns is great, it's only two guns. Guns can do lots of things, and these guns can do things most guns can't do, but they can't do everything guns can do. For instance, you can kill Casters and support solos/UAs really well, but you can't shoot a unit of bane knights to death. Being able to do that would greatly assist your knights in the coming conflict. Full MHSF in place of the Hydra and a Soulless would be a good way to get this in, and might be the superior way to do the list in general, but there are arguments against doing this as well (before, Gun Mages had nothing to shoot at, now they do). One thing worth mentioning: If you do that, you only have Discordia for the feat, but remember, DO NOT really consider the feat when building a list unless proper experience has proven to you that I'm wrong.
- No real infantry clearing role. Dawnguard can rip through a unit of infantry. I've done it plenty of times. But not Iron Flesh Kayazy and any similar combo. You have no autohit attacks in this list, and as a Ret player you know the joy of burning everything to death. For the record though, you handle medium based elite infantry like a champ.

Why not use Invictors? Basically by dropping a Soulless you can interchange the 2 units. You lose a bit of Charge Damage potential but you gain more Pow 12 Guns which as you later point can take out those pesky 12/15 units the turn before they get to you making it easier for you to break the opponents list. Also if you had a Reach Jack Flank makes them Mat 9 which will better your odds against high DEF models. Or you can do standing CRA's for rerolling 10's which hit even Bob & Weave'd + Iron Flesh Winter Guard Infantry on average.

The list I'm using now swaps out Phoenix for Manticore and the Halbs for min Strike Force + Commander, netting me two points for Madelyn. The reasoning is covering fire, more gunshots, movement increase, and more meaningful second unit that will distract the enemy while I move into position, potentially removing support pieces or murdering your average 12/15 unit. Plus it just adds more guns. The extra ROF on the Manticore and the seven crossbows means Vyros' list will be making more attack rolls earlier, so less stuff in the way when Vyros gets his charge. Ultimately all of that assists how I play Vyros. I've got more versatility, more speed, and overall a much better assassination threat. I will talk more about this list when all of this goes from more or less theory to more or less experience.

Why Madelyn instead of Magister? While Intrigue is easier to pull off since it doesn't require a roll. Being able to Combo-Smite/Whip Snap/Force Bolt ( The later 2 making up for Intrique ) has been a god send for me. There've been several games where a Combo-Smite has Knocked Down a caster ( by slamming a near by model, even one of my own over them ) for my MHSF or other models to hit their caster.

In fact this was the list I was mulling over which is surprisingly close to your list:
35pts:
Dawnlord Vyros (*6pts)
* Discordia (10pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

Pheonix gives that auto-hitting Combustion, and an AoE to deal with Kayazay. Invictors for that decent ranged anti-Infantry guns for non-super high Def models.

[NEoJoe]

Why not use Invictors? Basically by dropping a Soulless you can interchange the 2 units. You lose a bit of Charge Damage potential but you gain more Pow 12 Guns which as you later point can take out those pesky 12/15 units the turn before they get to you making it easier for you to break the opponents list. Also if you had a Reach Jack Flank makes them Mat 9 which will better your odds against high DEF models. Or you can do standing CRA's for rerolling 10's which hit even Bob & Weave'd + Iron Flesh Winter Guard Infantry on average.





Why Madelyn instead of Magister? While Intrigue is easier to pull off since it doesn't require a roll. Being able to Combo-Smite/Whip Snap/Force Bolt ( The later 2 making up for Intrique ) has been a god send for me. There've been several games where a Combo-Smite has Knocked Down a caster ( by slamming a near by model, even one of my own over them ) for my MHSF or other models to hit their caster.

In fact this was the list I was mulling over which is surprisingly close to your list:
35pts:
Dawnlord Vyros (*6pts)
* Discordia (10pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

Pheonix gives that auto-hitting Combustion, and an AoE to deal with Kayazay. Invictors for that decent ranged anti-Infantry guns for non-super high Def models.

At work on phone, will try to do your questions justice, but might have to wail till tonight. I take the blame for some of this, since I haven't explained how the jacks play in the lists I posted. But the biggest part is just that I prefer what Sentinels do over what Invictors do. Tonight after work I will explain, in greater detail, the differences between Invics and Sentinels in a Vyros list. A lot of it has to do with how you play the jacks.

For now, you can rest assured that Invictors rule with Vyros. But so do MHSF. And Stormfalls even. Our fantastic unit line is a boon to him. Any time I list a unit that I play with Vyros and then list its weaknesses, someone can address the issue by suggesting a unit to cover those weaknesses, but they will lose the unique strngths of the initial unit, or solo or jack for that matter. It's really up to you to try out whatever you can and see what you prefer.

[Murkhadh]

Yea the eEiryss thing, I think character restriction hurts ret more than most other factions because of how much we HAVE to have Eiryss in most lists.

[NEoJoe]

At work on phone, will try to do your questions justice, but might have to wail till tonight. I take the blame for some of this, since I haven't explained how the jacks play in the lists I posted. But the biggest part is just that I prefer what Sentinels do over what Invictors do. Tonight after work I will explain, in greater detail, the differences between Invics and Sentinels in a Vyros list. A lot of it has to do with how you play the jacks.

Okay, let's do this.

Vyros Speed Support

First, I'll start by going into more detail about all the speed buffs available to Vyros, outside of his own. His options are Madelyn, Lanyssa, and Magister.

-Lanyssa is a cool chick. In Vyros, you're probably taking her for Hunter's Mark. She does other stuff like shooting ice and cancelling pathfinder, hopefully from the safety of concealment/cover, but Hunter's Mark is her shtick. The spell targets a single model and let's warnouns charge or slam it for free and everyone that charges it gets +2" movement.

This has two major benefits for Vyros. First is that his jacks gain a bit of efficiency. Now phoenix basically get boosted damage against an enemy model hit by this spell. That's cool. They gain the speed bit, which is usually unnecessary, but can allow some crazy stuff with effective speed 10 jack charges. That can be useful sometimes.

Second is the all important Vyros charge gets its range increased to 14". That's as far as a MHA, and you know how charges from those guys go. He doesn't have the flexible 4" melee reach, but he's got his own host of wacky charge shenanigans already covered in this thread. There are a few issues with getting this to work. First is that she needs to hit. Casters are almost always a bad target for this, but Vyros wacky charge shenanigans help out a lot. Thanks to Vyros never having a back arc and other things, Lanyssa just has to hit someone standing anywhere remotely close to the caster. 5" horizontally will about do it. She still has to hit though, and that can ruin the whole thing. Secondly, she can just get killed. If she's not prowling, she's dying, and she might even die then. You can keep her on the Disco Bubble to remove one of her weaknesses, but now you can get positioning issues on railing turn. And she can still just be shot if a hole opens up. She's not 100% screwed each game, but carrying her to the end will require some effort unless the opponent is extremely helpful.

-Magister is a bro. As mentioned, he does a bunch of things. He punches bane thralls to death. He force bolts and accomplishes the million things that spell accomplishes. He slams dudes over while hitting almost as hard as Vilmon. Finally, via the use of both of his spells, he makes Vyros get there. He does all this while wearing a cool hood and ignoring blast damage and bad shots. If you don't own and use two magisters at least once in a while, buy them and play them. They oftentimes see a return, and sometimes they do way more than they should. The tactical applications of the lil guys are really awesome and super satisfying, and no other faction really has a guy like him. If you can't tell, I love the hell out of the magister and pretty much consider him the best two point combat unit in the faction. As you may have noticed, I had one in my first posted list.

What Vyros likes the most out of him is Whip Snap (I mean personally, not for the whole list). Like Lanyssa, its benefits are amazing for jacks and the man himself. Getting Discordia the Face Wrecker into a good position for some Discordian Face Wrecking is a great use of the whip, and getting Vyros into said position is good game. Whip Snap can even help the jack get to the enemy if Vyros can already get there just fine but the jack can't (any situation where there is heavy rough terrain, as Vyros can't grant pathfinder to a jack before going in).

If you want to play magisters for their immense tactical application, hitting power, two attacks with effective Overtake, knockdown ability, and speed boosting, do it. You won't be disappointed.

So why don't I? Well, my Terminus background is showing.

-Madelyn is a love of mine.

Here's the typical Terminus Support Squad (T.S.S):
Withershadow Combine
Darragh Wrathe
Madelyn Corbeau
Saxon Orrik (unless the list is all Bane Knights)

Back when I played this often, Madelyn was the one that got me to the caster when no one expected it. With all that crap Terminus has a 15" threat range, immunity to enemy upkeeps, +2 ARM vs living models, and a free reroll. 15" threat range on a huge super killy flying dragon is pretty nuts. That's where I got my first taste of Madelyn's power (for the record, she hung around Wrathe since he could be Suckered into taking her shots, and avoided Big T since she was freaking terrified of him).

So anyway, Madelyn can also force bad guys to move and increase command. But that's not why you play her. You only play her for Intrigue. You never really use seduce (unless it comes up, only a bad player truly writes off an ability), but her command buff is pretty nice. When she's hanging on Vyros, he damn near makes everyone in the list fearless. Once my battle mages fleed twice in the same game. If he's fielding something that isn't already fearless, this ability can easily come into play (I fight the Avatar a lot).

Intrigue says if, during your maintenance phase, there is an enemy model within 9" of Madelyn, a warrior model gets to scoot 3" for free. This isn't close to strictly better than the other two speed boost options, but it has advantages, so it comes back to a matter of preference. Madelyn can't help jacks move faster. The enemy must comply for Madelyn's ability to proc (though your list can persuade them to play along) and she only ever benefits one model, unlike Force Bolt and Mark. But the reason I make my choice is I have lots of experience with Madelyn, experiences where she gives me exactly what I want this slot in my list to do. She's missing bells and whistles, but she's a very reliable three inches for me. She will make Vyros threat 15" very often for me. And finally, she's actually harder to kill than the other two. You can't shoot her and you can't AOE anyone around Disco. Spells, slams, Magic Bullet, and Mage Storm/BOC will still get her, but guess how many times my Madelyn has died? Never. She's too far damn back, and anything that kills her dies next turn, and no one ever feels like trading a 6 point arc node/the Black 13th/a heavy jack for her. I don't really need to mention why she's harder to kill. Succinctly, she's safely hidden while the other two solos have to brazenly fight the enemy to some degree or another.

So which one are you gonna take? I dunno. I dunno which you should take either. But I subscribe to the belief that in this game, the models you know best are more powerful than the models you don't. And I know my Madelyn.

[NEoJoe]

Why not use Invictors?

Now, this. As I've said, I'm going to need to delve into how the jacks play out.

Playing the Jacks

I've spoken a lot about how I don't have any issue getting the Flank on with Vyros. I usually just chalk it up to the speed 6 jacks, and that only really implies how I do things. If running jacks 12" is such an asset to me, where are my jacks? Most jacks are fighting guys and only need to trample to the caster or whatever.

I played Vyros a lot. In the early days, playing him sucked so much. There were a ton of days at my LGS where I would complain about Vyros being so bad it's not even fun. My jacks always died, and Vyros likes jacks, right? On the forums people were confirming that our jacks are indeed flimsy. Liking jacks was something Vyros did, and seemed to be something a good caster just wouldn't do in Retribution.

I don't know the exact process, but as time went on I arrived to where I am now. Our jacks freaking have guns. Use them. All the damn time, use them.

And that's how I play my jacks.

The generals of it are this. When I'm playing, the Sentinels go in. The jacks hang back and shoot guys. My opponent isn't engaging my whole list at this point, but he certainly is fighting my whole list. After the Sentinels have either all died or beaten through the first wave (usually the latter), Discordia will probably go in and take the head off of some enemy heavy. Hydra (and pheonix/manticore at 50) continue to shoot (this is a general thing, sometimes all my jacks mix it up in melee at this point, but not usually). The game will end with Vyros getting through and smashing the enemy to death or all of my ranged attacks/spells blasting their caster to death. I guess another indication that my jacks didn't melee much was that I claimed to oftentimes win by shooting my enemy to death. Can't do that when all my jacks are stuck in melee from like turn two on.

I legitimately feel like this is how Retribution jacks were meant to be played. The guns are a huge asset, and do so much for them it makes my head spin.

Now maybe everyone already knew that part. "Of course you hang back and shoot forever before engaging, even in that specific fashion, you twit."

Well, it's still important information, because it's why I play Sentinels.

Sentinels Vs Invictors, in Regards to my Vyros Style

To be clear, this isn't a general dispute. Both are awesome and this isn't the thread for that. Just being clear.

IRSMARTLIKEROCK mentioned a bunch of reasons why Invictors are good with Vyros, and he had some really damn good reasons. The fact of the matter is Invictors are good with Vyros. But I think it's a different type of Vyros list that wants them, not what I've posted.

Invictors in my list are super lackluster at fulfilling their melee jobs compared to Sentinels. They aren't self sufficient for fighting hard or medium targets. They take care of small, single would infantry like no one's business, but they lack Heavy killing capabilities. It is true that they wreck heavies when flanking (VERY true, done it lots of times), but remember, my jacks aren't mixing it up for a while. And when they do mix it up, it's Discordia killing Mulg or something. It doesn't really need help. The Sentinels kill battle engines, heavy jacks, light jacks, gatormen posse, cetrati, men-o-war, etc all by themselves. If they get help, it's via the Hydra Hyper Beam or a timely spray. The self sufficiency is key. I want to give them help with my jacks, not be forced to enable them. If I play Invictors in this list, I will usually have to commit one of my heavy jacks earlier than I'd like, which puts them at considerable risk. Not to mention the usual stuff, like the Sentinels having a much greater threat range in melee, wider coverage for locking things down (important for keeping heat off of Vyros and my jacks), and huge amount of melee attacks via Vengeance. I'm not guaranteed picking the right unit in general, as I give up considerable infantry killing power by choosing Sentinels. But for this list with these jacks, I'm confident I'm making the right choice.

If you want to do Invictors for Vyros, you totally can. Unfortunately, my expertise on this matter is lacking, but I'm pretty sure a Griffon is going to be key. This gives you a jack to enable a clutch Invictor charge early game, which means you wouldn't have to lose a more important heavy. Now you're basically looking at a mirror of my list. My list isn't an infantry killing slaughterhouse, but it can deal with them. This list won't be a heavy crushing force, but it can deal with them. My list owns heavies, this list owns infantry.

Um... I never said it, but most of that was assuming 35 points. At 50, each list has a much easier time covering it's weaknesses. For instance, I now play MHSF at 50. I might even tweak the list to get it to a full unit, but even seven crossbow shots will go miles for my list.

I feel like I didn't cover this enough, but I hope I did.

So, hope that helps.

EDIT: Also, great and sincere thanks to IRSMARTLIKEROCK for questioning my list choices. This topic did need covering, thanks for pointing that out.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I think a Vyros/Gorshade rematch is probably in the works. I'm concerned though. When Vyros first bested him, he was simply a powerful elf and it cost him an eye. Now he's an eldritch lord. Furthermore, Cryx is on a roll. So long as Nyssor gets home, I'll be ok, but I hope Vyros upgraded Justicar to "evil undead elf beatstick."

I have not read this story. Could anyone tell me where it is?

[Murkhadh]

Retribution book. Ret fluff is only in a few books

[Murkhadh]

If you were playing char restricted, and HAD to have the Discordia in a different list, what would you replace it with, with Vyros.

[The Key of E]

For a while I've been interested in taking Cygnar as a second faction after Ret, so I've hung out on their forums and studied their tactica and Battle College entries. Basically what I'm getting out of this discussion is that Vyros should be played like eStryker. I never would have made that connection on my own.

Most of the lists I build use myrmidons for melee punch with secondary shooting and Invictors for ranged punch with secondary melee. I did have the problem you mention where my 'jacks get wrecked too quickly, but somehow it never occurred to me to have the 'jacks stay back and shoot while the infantry engages.

When I first started Ret, I played a few games on VASSAL with Vyros and didn't like him. I moved on to other 'casters and basically wrote Vyros off. This tactica thread has convinced me to give him another try.

[NEoJoe]

If you were playing char restricted, and HAD to have the Discordia in a different list, what would you replace it with, with Vyros.

Right now, I don't know for absolute certain. I used to do a two phoenix list and have some success with it. I think that will be easier to figure out once the Vyre jacks hit. Till then, I dunno what's best, but I'd probably take another manticore, off the top of my head.

Heh, let me guess, would you take Disco with Ravyn? That's not meant to razz... I would too.

[Murkhadh]

lol I didn't think you meant to razz at all, The things I field with Ravyn, have severe weakness to blast damage, the Disco fixes this. Also the disco's spray under ravyn's feat is down right godly. I don't think I would get much argument that ravyns feat does more for the disco's spray than bird's eye. Even though spraying things hiding on the other side of forests is tons of fun.

I think the Vyre jacks are going to shake things up a bit for Vyros. The Banshee will be awesome with just about any caster. Also the Daemon I think will make a lot of Vyros lists. The way his shot works should power Vyros's feat quite effectively.

[NEoJoe]

lol I didn't think you meant to razz at all, The things I field with Ravyn, have severe weakness to blast damage, the Disco fixes this. Also the disco's spray under ravyn's feat is down right godly. I don't think I would get much argument that ravyns feat does more for the disco's spray than bird's eye. Even though spraying things hiding on the other side of forests is tons of fun.

Yeah, the synergy with Ravyn's feat and the rest of her list demand Discordia more than any other Caster in my mind as well. Vyros doesn't really need the spray as much. Once I get more games in without Discordia I will report the results, since that'll change how I view his support and brick options.


Also, The Key of E... why didn't I think of that?! That's a wonderful comparison! Yes, eStryker is a good Caster comparison. They have differences, but duh. He's probably a good guy to keep in mind as you find out what those differences are and what they mean.

[IRSMARTLIKEROCK]

EDIT: Also, great and sincere thanks to IRSMARTLIKEROCK for questioning my list choices. This topic did need covering, thanks for pointing that out.

Oh I appreciate the shout out. Really I just wanted to get some insight from your point of view. I came from Menoth and I also play Farrow. Which are more upfront armies, that attrition their way through. Retribution from what I've learned over the past year is about defanging key models. Since as a general rule Retribution isn't that great at attrition.

I played the list I posted earlier but tried it with Sentinels, and in both games they were carrying the list. I had switched to Halberdiers for a long time as my main melee unit that I had forgotten how crazy Sentinels could be. The one issue I ran into which is our overall issue was Pathfinder really hurting me when there was a linear obstacle.

[NEoJoe]

I played the list I posted earlier but tried it with Sentinels, and in both games they were carrying the list. I had switched to Halberdiers for a long time as my main melee unit that I had forgotten how crazy Sentinels could be. The one issue I ran into which is our overall issue was Pathfinder really hurting me when there was a linear obstacle.

No problem.

Yep, that's Sentinels. Put a wall in front of them and now you've gotta struggle to get around it. Their reach helps them beat on low defense guys across the wall at least, but... that's pretty much it. I've used Vengeance to try to circle around a wall so that I can make something productive out of them, but that's had mixed results. When the wall is static, this means they can't take cover behind walls unless getting stuck in that spot will be good for some reason. When the wall is generated via troll solos and dwarf casters, well that's gonna suck to some degree. Not to mention regular ol' pathfinding problems like trees and Inhospitable Ground.

However, in most games, they'll straight up murder everything and take the enemy assault in stride. And that's what you want out of them.

[joelker41]

Good read.

My issue with Sentinels in 35 is units like widowmakers. The only needing 5s to auto kill them is rough.

Not that you can't get around that, just saying the lack of a dedicated ranged harasser is usually a problem. Eiryss can only kill one at a time and you certainly can't dedicate full rounds at a time to having your Jack's shoot them.

[NEoJoe]

Good read.

My issue with Sentinels in 35 is units like widowmakers. The only needing 5s to auto kill them is rough.

Not that you can't get around that, just saying the lack of a dedicated ranged harasser is usually a problem. Eiryss can only kill one at a time and you certainly can't dedicate full rounds at a time to having your Jack's shoot them.

Yuck. Good point. Yet ANOTHER thing I forgot to mention, though it is more of a Sentinel article thing. Mentioning the Disco Brick as a Vyros aspect, which I believe, means it's pretty important to cover this.

My friend, who apparently doesn't read about the game that much, recently read about something neat Khador can do. Fortunately, he just started Khador, so he was all ready to rock it. If you play 4 Widowmakers, pEiryss, Kell, and a Widowmaker Marksman, for 11 points you get, like, infinite dead models a turn. Or ten accurate damage on a jack! How awesome!

Naturally I had to fight this mess. His caster was pSorscha and he was also playing a battle carriage, behemoth, destroyer, and man-o-war bombardiers. And Sylys. If there's anything else, I forgot. I played my standard Vyros fare, cept this was the first game I tested Destors in place of Halberdiers. This was also the game where I learned, once and for all, that walls suck.

I know it's probably hard to believe that I'm not just making up some magical game where snipers AND walls, the two topics just discussed, screwed me, but I promise, this all happened like two weeks ago.

So I think I got to go first and there were these two stupid damn walls like 8" from each of our deployments. So, not thinking, I got my sentinels up to the wall. About four of them, the rest crowded in back, with Discordia humming and Vyros standing somewhere in there. Destors took the left flank and Hydra addressed the right. Phoenix hung out somewhere in the Disco Bubble.

He went and stuff got stupid. Snipers, all with AD (think Kell's got it) ended up swinging around and shooting up some sentinels anyway. Some shots did miss because of the wall, but the ones behind the ones in cover got shot up a bit. Don't remember how many I lost, but it was definitely more than usual. One thing that saved me was his next misplay. He activated his gun carriage and wheeled up to fire, but he didn't plant a giant rough terrain crater right on all my sentinels like he should have. One even clipped the Hydra giving me focus. Rest of his turn doesn't matter. Disco shut off all bombardier and Behemoth shots (otherwise this game would have been Sentinels vs Everything Sentinels Hate).

My front line guys leap the wall with their free three inch movement and kill the carriage, a man-o-war or two, and tie up the men-o-war. Hydra takes out Kell. Think I killed Eiryss somehow. The rest is fuzzy. Over the course, a lot of his stuff died, some of my stuff was Frozen, I kill everything on his board that can possibly kill Vyros, except behemoth, who has like two health left. We ended up calling the game, but I was totally going to win.

The Sentinels did a ton that game still. Everyone there saw the like one sentinel left continue to charge and kill things until dealt with. It was pretty amazing.

So basically, even the worst game they could seemingly be matched against didn't just smash them into uselessness. Though a misplay on his rough terrain placement made all that possible.

The worst game my Sentinels have ever had was against two Storm Striders, but it was a misplay on my part. A stray lightning jump killed my escort after the first strider wiped out all of my halberdiers. Vengeful Sentinels killed it, but I forgot to keep them grouped up. At only 17 armor, they all got wiped out, and I was literally dazed when it came back to me and I had no sentinels to move around. I had like two left, and they were time bombed. *Sad trombone*

[joelker41]

Well in the games in question. Against a Guy at my LGS I played him 3 games over two weeks in league, both times rolling out my sentinels.

The first game he pelted the crap out of me with Widowmakers but I eventually killed them. Game ended when the Manticore decided to throw the Juggernaut at Sorscha and Kaelyssa did the rest.

The other two games the following week he clumped his widowmakers and I simply roasted them with an Eliminator both times (guess he misjudged the range an apparition+running chimera+ Eliminator can have).

I can confirm a report of Karchev getting hook-sworded in the face with my Jack in front of him. I rarely see a caster that can solo Karchev in a turn. Vyros totally did. Twice.

Also anyone who complains Khador armor can't be cracked reliably is nuts. Sentinels+concentrated power on a heavy = something will be knocked out.

[Siranaul]

Great writeup NEoJoe. One thing I would like to mention about Vyros fielding Gorgons. The combination of the gorgon's force lock ability and 360 degree line of sight. Not to mention the extra speed from mobility. So that it can run into tarpit units like pirates, or into other warjacks to buy yourself an extra turn or two to fire into other targets.