The Dawn Lord

Dawnlord Vyros

• Intorduction


• Base Stats and Abilities


• Spells


• Feat


• Synergies

Introduction

Dawnlord Vyros is one of the Retribution of Scyrah’s premiere War casters. By this I mean simply that he was included in the initial roll out, rather than any assumptions about his power. As far as Retribution casters from the same release go Vyros is typically the man apart. Along with Rahn, Vyros is the slowest caster at speed five and they are also the only two that lack innate ranged weapons. But whereas Rahn is very comfortable behind the front lines as a manipulator, Vyros is (on paper at least) a lot more hands on.

The reason for this very common perception is that he is very capable in melee. At POW 14, with flank [Faction Warjack], MAT 8 and reach Vyros has a very high potential dps (Damage per Strike) output in melee. Coupled with his spell list and passive aura it is very easy for him to be in the right location to deliver that payload as well. This, however, is for the most part the biggest trap associated with Vyros. Often times he is committed far too early and despite his superior base defensive stats (The addition of DEF and ARM where the base line is 29-30, Vyros being on the top end at 32), if he is burning focus to attack he becomes very easy to assassinate.

Once a player has more games and experience with Vyros, or indeed the game in general they become better able to determine when to apply that force and when to keep it in reserve. For the most part, despite his imposing stat line Vyros is better disposed at enabling his force. That is to say, even though his tweaks might appear minor they are in fact in most cases the tipping point that will allow his forces to go from good to exceptional. This includes everything from the provision of Bird’s eye, to well-placed use of hallowed avenger.

Base Stats and abilities

Dawnlord Vyros has a superior base stat line to most casters. His defensive stats are better than Cryx and on par with Epic Makeda and Epic Feora. Whilst he has no ranged ability in melee even without flank he exceeds Epic Stryker, and with it he eclipses the Butcher which is a feat few other casters can match. His focus stat is expected for the rest of his package, and allows him to run sufficient jacks to capitalise on the rest of his goodies. His command of ten is also something that’s reassuring in RET as the lack of fearless can at times be very difficult.

Weapons:

Justicar: Melee, POW 7, P+S 14, Reach, Magical

Abilities:

Flank [Faction Warjack]:

This ability along with his passive aura and battle group spell (Mobility) are all part of what sometimes incorrectly pigeon holes Vyros as a jack caster. An excellent ability to have, it is sometimes seen as the bastard cousin of Weapon Master and in most respects that is correct. The one exception to this is that granted, the ability is only on in certain circumstances but it also offers the bonus two MAT which in the right instance can mean the difference between victory and defeat. As a faction RET has only a single spell that directly increases the chances of a model to hit its target (Garryth’s Death Sentence), the other three ways are all extremely conditional two of them being feats and the last a drive on the Scyir. So any ability that increases the chance of a model to hit its target has to be taken at greater than face value due to the lack of it in faction. Admittedly Vyros usually will not have problems hitting in melee with his base MAT of 8, but against anything with a defence of fourteen or higher the bonus from flank will make all the difference, as a missed attack in cases where you are risking your caster can often be fatal.

Bird’s eye: Models In Dawnlord Vyros’ battle group, and in his control area have their front arcs extend 360 degrees, and ignore forests, cloud effects and other models for the purposes of drawing LOS.

The first thing to clarify about this ability is that it does not ignore the defensive bonuses of models in those features. It only allows you to see, and more importantly target them. The second is that a canny opponent can and will manipulate this to manoeuvre more easily through your lines as they will be less prone to free strikes. This in particular affects the phoenix and griffons as they have reach. Now that the ‘negative aspects’ of Bird’s eye have been covered on to the positives.

The first and most obvious plus of Bird’s eye is that it allows you to see pretty much anything, anywhere. About the only thing that will deny you LOS are obstructions and they are generally small enough that they can be navigated away from. The tactical applications of this are huge. Firstly it lets you shoot through trees or screening models, something that is particularly apt now that all the Menoth players are salivating about being able to hide the harbinger behind their battle engine. This doesn’t stop at shooting though; it works in melee giving your battle group a superior version of tall in the saddle. And it prevents models from ignoring free strikes via LOS prevention.

In melee this ability can really shine too. By having both a 360° arc and being able to ignore intervening models for LOS this can allow you a huge degree of flexibility when charging, something that is particularly relevant in a faction that can move possibly further, easier than anyone else in the game with the exception of certain Cryx casters and Molik Karn. For instance:

The above diagram aptly demonstrates something Vyros and only a handful of other models can do (none of which typically have reach or the threat of Vyros). In the diagram, Vyros is eight inches away from the trooper, and their caster is three inches behind it. With mobility up, Vyros has a charge range of ten inches, and where this comes even greater into play is with the addition of models such as Lynyssa Ryssyl who can ramp his threat vs. a unit, to get to the juicy centre behind it. The thrust of this scenario is that even though Vyros can see the caster via Bird’s eye and they are an eligible charge target. So Vyros can charge across the axis to get at his chosen prey.

Where the real elegance of this situation comes into play is if the ranges are extended even further. If say for instance the caster was greater than the current 12 inches away or if they are protected by polarity shield then Vyros can bounce off of the unit to subsequently attack the caster behind. The reason why this works is because normally you cannot charge such that your target leaves your front arc, however, as Vyros has a 360 front arc this is never the case and so by sling shotting off of targets he can use the range extension to attack his chosen prey. Lynyssa Ryssyl’s hunters mark is particularly effective here as it allows for two inches of extra threat, but since casters are typically hard for her Magical 7 to hit a unit, or jack is a much easier solution.

The last key thing about Bird’s eye is that it means that jacks with shields are always going to get the benefit of their shield, as well as never being subject to Magnus’ back strikes. Whilst this might appear obvious, the thing that players might not realise it that it also means a griffon can glide through the enemy lines and any free strike is going to be against the full ARM 18. For Vyros, this means that with a griffon he can more easily get that all important flank bonus.

Spells:

As a focus 6 caster Vyros has a typical spell suite that consists of 5 different spells. The scope is very balanced including two attack spells, two buff spells, and one counter point.

Inviolable Resolve:

This is a very straight forward buff spell. Probably the weakest of the defensive buffs, it still holds a very important part in the RET arsenal being the only flat armour buff available in faction. Whilst not as effective as defenders ward, or iron flesh the fearless aspect of inviolable resolve is particularly important for a faction whose only fearless models are unique solos. Generally RET’s command is quite high, and particularly Vyros’ but being sure that a command check will be passed is at time invaluable.

Mobility:

Vyros’ second buff is the battle group spell mobility. Possibly one of the best spells for getting what you want where you want as is provides path finder and plus two speed. The big point is that since it gives speed rather than movement you get to double dip on runs. Allowing a Griffon to run 18” if it uses its fleet. One of the other biggest things about mobility is that it is essentially hidden threat. That is it’s off board bonuses which whilst yes they are in plain sight, sometimes they will not be mentally accounted for and that in itself can be an asset. Whilst I’m not sanctioning duplicity, I am more suggesting that an opponent can fail in their mental assessment of your capabilities. Lastly an in built method to give a melee caster two additional inches of threat as well as path finder, especially considering he can see through forests is always an asset.

Hallowed avenger:

Hallowed avenger is a tricky spell to use, but in a very select set of circumstances can be quite useful. Whilst I have never personally used it for profit, theoretically it is possible to get some use from it. The two main down sides are that it only affects battle group jacks and that the trigger has to occur within five inches. The main problem with this last point is that generally if your jacks are in a position to have the trigger it means that they are likely going to be gummed up by your other troops and unable to capitalise off the spell. Also since mobility only lasts for the turn they won’t have access to path finder. I find that theoretically this spell is best used on lights as they will have the manoeuvrability to get through your lines for a meaningful charge, or to in turn gum up the enemy lines. A heavy can get out there and do a big hit, but is likely only going to get itself killed by a canny opponent. A Gorgon on the other hand can force your opponent into choices by locking down key pieces; even if it fails on the charge it can still prevent them moving.

Stranglehold:

Stranglehold is perhaps the best non-specific magic missile in the game. Range 10, POW 11 and only costing 2 focus it has ok numbers to begin with, but couple in that the damage trigger is forced forfeit and it quickly becomes very good. Coupled with KD (Very accessible within faction) it can quickly become a controlling factor. Having to forfeit is also one of the things that can’t be shook off so it is a somewhat reliable de-buff – even more so vs. melee jacks.

Eliminator:

Eliminator might look like it is too great an investment for Vyros’ focus of six – but upon taking a closer look it is actually a very effective AOE. Only costing three and POW 13 are good numbers as it means that all the blast damage hits at POW 7. This is a key point, as it means that ARM 13 will likely be killed by the blast. ARM 13 of course being significant as this covers everything but shield bearing SWI, or medium infantry. On top of this though for every model killed in the attack Vyros gets to move two inches. Granted it is an expensive spell at 3 costing half of Vyros’ focus, but if it kills one person it’s as efficient as mobility as if two are killed it can drastically improve Vyros’ threat range, three becomes ridiculous giving him an effective 16” threat range. Again the good thing about this spell is that it is often over looked and most opponents will not necessarily expect it to be used. Given its high bas range as well as number of arc nodes in faction it can be easy to find a suitable target for the spell. Another tactic that can be used with eliminator is to charge something and then at the point between the end of motion and the charge attack eliminator cast well can shunt Vyros into a much more suitable target. If he has flank triggered two strikes should end most casters.

Feat:

Perfect Execution:

When a friendly faction model in Vyros’ control area destroys an enemy model, you may allocate 1 focus to a jack in Vyros’ battle group. Perfect execution lasts for one turn.

So right away, just by looking at it on face value Vyros’ feat is definitely the weakest point about this caster. It is very easy in fact to overlook the feat as it is at its simplest a particularly weak ‘win more’ feat. By killing enemy models your jacks are juiced up enabling you to kill more enemy models.

That is of course the simplest explanation of the feat. By looking more closely at it though there are some very subtle points which make this feat a lot more useful than it might at first appear.

Firstly it is always of benefit to have more focus, and a feat that allows you to have more focus has to have some merits. For instance, Prime Asphyxious’ feat allows gives him seven more focus and a very weak AOE pulse. In the case of Asphyxious though, no one doubts the utility or power of his feat. Kromac also has a very similar feat although it is much more limited than Asphyxious or Vyros’s.

There are three particular uses for Vyros’ feat and they are all quite different in their application.

The first is that it allows him for a turn to be greedy and still effectively power all of his jacks. This is always an asset as it allows him to play a lot further forward than you might otherwise by being able to camp all the extra armour that you might otherwise have needed to spend gaining that board position. Having a push that inevitably whittles your opponent’s forces but still allows you to present your caster as something of a decoy is good. Whilst it might be somewhat risky, a good threat assessment will let you know if you can pull it off within expectations or not. In this case you might have to play the odds a little but a cool head should see you through to profitable returns.

The second useful application of Vyros’ feat is that it effectively gives his battle group berserk. Berserk is a great skill to have, and when it’s completely voluntary it’s even better. The other thing that is really good with this aspect of the feat is that it provides a great amount of crowd control especially for the reach jacks, and as every RET jack has a non-combat way to spend focus be it shield regeneration or one of their field dependant abilities even if the jacks find themselves without foes to kill there is something to do with overflow of focus. This is really the win more element of the feat because if you get a griffon or a phoenix into their lines and start firing away then you have really good odds at being able to inflict massive casualties when you otherwise might not.

One of my favourite things to do with a Phoenix under Vyros’ feat is to have a Phoenix Trample up the field. As the following illustration shows, this can allow a phoenix in particular to cause a tremendous level of attrition.

In the above illustration a Phoenix is able to trample, reap any focus from trample damage and then keep going against the models within its melee reach, each fresh kill generating more focus.

The blue models are hit by the initial trample, the red are targetable by the post trample reach. If the Phoenix has three focus to begin, then it spends one for the trample leaving it with two. As the trample attacks are simultaneous, any focus generated will come at the end. This might seem bad but it is actually good as it allows the phoenix to blow its whole tank on the trample targets. After the first three targets have resolved spending focus to hit the last two is good as that will almost assure the focus is replenished. By the time the phoenix is done it should have a full tank again (unless the targets are very high DEF in which case you’d combust). Then you have three focus to attack the models in red at your leisure. In this example you can effectively target ten models, rather than the six from the straight trample or the five from just attacking with its three focus.

The last thing that Vyros’ feat is good for is damage control. By this I don’t mean as I did in the first instance by allowing him to survive. In this I mean that it allows you to overcome obstacles like P Severius feat. His feat prohibits focus regeneration and spell casting, this would normally have you at a disadvantage. With Vyros’ feat though it lets you mitigate it by still giving your jacks the opportunity for focus. Also in this case if your jacks are disrupted they can still function. An arcanist can remove the disruption effect and allocate a focus, but under Vyros’ feat if you really just need that one jack to be able to attack properly then that is a worthwhile application of a feat. With PE, and an arcanist you can fully load a jack that would otherwise have been unable to act properly for the turn. This can often be the breaking point in a gam if used correctly as an opponent thinking that a jack is disrupted and unable to act is likely to leave it otherwise alone. Since Vyros has the tools to manoeuvre jacks as well as let them acquire their targets, coupled with the feat it allows for a layer of reliability against the opponent interfering or countering your plans.

Synergies:

Even though he is not strictly a jack caster Vyros works particularly well with an abundance of jacks. This of course has to be balanced against the fact that Vyros does only have 6 focus, and all of his jack related abilities are also tied to his battle group.

Over experience I have found that the tipping point seems to be either two heavies or a heavy and two lights, my particular favourites being a Phoenix and two griffons, or a Phoenix and Discordia. The reasons that i favour these matches are as follows:

In the first all of the jacks have reach and that lets them take advantage of the feat more easily that non reach jacks. The griffons are also robust and because they don’t suffer as much from free strikes can manoeuvre with their great speed into a position (preferably the enemy caster) that allows Vyros to deliver a coup de’ grace. The phoenix in this case just does everything extremely well and as Vyros is such a tactically flexible caster that works to his advantage.

The second load out of Phoenix and Discordia is one that I have been using a lot recently. I’m finding that whereas the previous choice was geared towards a melee stance by where Vyros could get in and mix it up this is a lot more fire friendly. Discordia is just an exceptional jack and able to mix it up under a lot of circumstances. Add in the defensive field and she really caters to Vyros quite well. Also in this list, especially at fifty points a marshalled jack can get in there and trigger flank for Vyros. This lets the two heavies concentrate on manoeuvring until a ranged option presents itself on the enemy caster. With Birds eye and mobility this is quite easy to do, and mostly a matter of patience with cat and mouse tactics.

Another Jack load out for Vyros, and one that I am not particularly enamoured with (due to low success rates) includes using the Hydra. This strategy can be particularly effective out of the NQ35 tier for Vyros due to the advantages it brings to the strategy. A pair of Hydras with two 15/15 cannons can put the scare onto a lot of casters even if they don’t do it over one turn it is likely to make the opposing caster wary about sticking their head out. The only really thing holding this strategy back is that the Hydra’s have a relatively low RAT of 5 which means that any high DEF caster 16+ will be relatively safe from the attacks. Especially since Bird’s eye doesn’t ignore concealment or cover.

One last strategy that I have heard of is using Vyros with 5 Griffons. Personally I do not put much stock in this as I feel it relies too heavily on a feat that cannot provide the Griffons with any method to reliably hit mass infantry.

Having covered Jacks, there is a variety of infantry that work very well with Vyros. In particular Sentinels and Invictors are fitting as they are both heavily armoured and benefit well from IR. The Invictors are particularly good as they allow a degree of versatility on the feat turn as well as the ranged threat they provide. This projection of force is quite good for a force that otherwise is very melee centric.

The house guard units don’t particularly play to Vyros’ strength, however, the Halberdiers can be extremely effective given their reform ability. Being able to charge the opponents first line and then reform out of the way allowing sentinels or any second wave to move up and deal with the opponent’s next line is quite effective.

Of the other units in RET’s arsenal, the Storm fall archers can be quite good for the same reason as the Invictors. Firstly they provide a ranged punch that with brutal shot can even do respectable damage to jack and other heavy targets, but has a degree of tactical flexibility with the snipe or star strike options. MHSF aren’t necessarily as good a choice for Vyros because he does nothing to support them and outside of being themselves they don’t conform to his strengths. Also they are likely to be far enough ahead that they won’t be able to trigger the feat.

Solos in RET are mostly down to personal choice as they are all good and have corresponding advantages. Given the points though my first pick is most always arcanists for the obvious benefits they bring followed by Epic Eiryss. Next on my list are usually Magisters for the flexibility and control options they bring to the table. Mage hunter assassins are always good, but in a list that generally has a lot of heavy hitting melee already they aren’t as crucial. When picking solo’s I tend to look for ones that will change the flow of battle rather than just providing another high powered strike. For the same reasons the Scyir’s don’t generally find a place with Vyros for me. Although they do have a very good drive and are one of the better ways to field a hydra in a RET force. In general though for marshalling the Sentinels Pronto is more effective than re-roll from the Scyir.

**Removed the 'stat' box, anyone reading this probably has the card.