Monday 8 April 2013

Merc Solo Profile: Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

eiryss-alt.jpgOne of Mk 1's best assination tools Eiryss has the potential to shut down and disrupt an opponent's jacks from a distance, whilst being able to survive in melee. In Mk 2 Eiryss remains a great asset either to deny the use of a Jack for a turn or to set up an assassination run on casters, still performing best at range thanks to the abilitiy Invisibility becoming Stealth with the transition to MK 2.

In terms of stats Eiryss is relatively fast, has the highest RAT in the game a decent DEF and a low ARM with a few damage boxes, this means that while most shots will miss Eiryss if she gets clipped by a stray AOE chances are she'll be damaged, but not killed on average unless the damage is boosted. In melee Eiryss is reliant on her higher than average DEF to survive, if your opponent has ways of getting around this chances are that Eiryss will not survive.



Eiryss' weapons support a ranged play style with a good RNG and decent POW, her crossbow is far and away the weapon Eiryss will most commonly be using, it has three different shots available. Death Bolt, similar to the sniper ability except it deals three points of damage and you must still roll for which column it is placed. Disruption Bolt, the original caster kill button, upon hitting the target all focus is lost and any model with Focus Manipulation (the mechanic that allows casters to gain focus at the beginning of each turn)doesn't replenish focus next turn, this makes even the most armoured casters look incredibly squishy for a turn, meaning your opponent will either use their turn to shield their caster or attempt to go for broke and attempt an assassination of their own, on top of this there is still the damage to go on top of the effect though due to the low POW the damage roll is more likely to trouble casters (including Cygnar's Journeyman Warcaster) than jacks. Finally she has Phantom Seeker, an ability common to the Retribution models, allowing Eiryss to ignore LOS, concealment and cover, making it far more difficult to hide models from Eiryss as this shot type (as it ignores LOS) provides an answer to Stealthed models. Otherwise she has a sword and blade which while weak provide a way of getting Eiryss out of combat if the need arises, however if Eiyrss does end up being in melee it's generally wise to use other models to break her out of the combat, then activate her once she is freed up as she is likely to fall to free strikes.

In terms of her abilities Eiryss comes with Advanced Deployment (extra distance on deployment) and Pathfinder both making Eiryss' threat range far greater as not only does she start further up field, but she also ignores the terrain penalties. In order to increase her survivability she also has Stealth and Camoflauge (granting a slight DEF buff whilst benefiting from cover or concealment, pushing Eiryss' DEF into the range of being nigh unhittable by ranged attacks). Eiryss also comes with Fearless, ensuring she doesn't run in the face of models with Terror or Abomination and also comes with the ability Retribution Partisan, meaning that if fielded as part of a Retribution of Scryah army she counts as a Retribution model, making it possible to target Eiyrss with spells that can only target friendly faction models,whilst this doesn't affect her in a Khador army, it is worth noting as Retribution casters have several spells as well as feats that really benefit Eiryss, such as Ravyn's Snipe spell as well as Ossyan's feat. A slightly quirky final ability Technological Intolerance, this is quite important when fielding Eiryss outside of a Retribution army, if she moves within a set distance of any non-Myrmidons (Retribution Warjacks) her activation ends, while this shouldn't happen all that often, with casters such as pVlad, Strakhov or Karchev speeding up their warjacks, the jacks can end up limiting where Eiryss can move without wasting her activation.

Eiryss tends to find her way into a lot of armies, both due to her points cost and her ability to independently cause a great deal of annoyance for an unwary opponent. If you want a model that is able to rush forward, take away a caster's focus and either set up an assassination run or limit an opponents ability to use their warjacks to their fullest then by all means use this variant of Eiryss, however if you find this version a little inflexible and prefer to be able to used a combined arms approach, being able to mix it up in melee as well as being able to dash about whilst taking potshots, take a look into trying eEiryss instead, at the same points cost she'll fit into any list her prime counterpart does and in some cases works far better dependent on what the army she is fielded with is geared towards.

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