Elara, Death's Shadow
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Elara, Death's Shadow |
Elara is one of the Retribution’s most skilled killers. She has refined her arcane abilities to suit the ancient traditions of the goddess, Lyliss, patron of assassins, and treats each death she inflicts as a tribute. Elara has mastered the essence of shadow, stepping through one to emerge from another, blades flashing in anticipation of the kill. Though she once considered herself a weapon best deployed on her own, she has learned to fight in perfect concert with her forces, bestowing her powers to quicken their actions and guide them toward the kill.
Basic Info
Elara2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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- Warcaster - All warcasters come with a stack of standard special rules - most notably being awesome. Click here for a newbie-friendly recap, or click here for the full rules.
Feat : Closing Darkness
Friendly models/units currently in Elara's control range gain Ghostly and are affected by Boundless Charge (refer to her spell list).
- Ghostly - A model with Ghostly can advance through terrain and obstacles without penalty and can advance through obstructions if it has enough movement to move completely past them. It cannot be targeted by free strikes.
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Tip ! |
Abilities
- Apparition - During your Control Phase, place this model anywhere completely within 2" of its current location.
- Field Marshal [Retaliatory Strike] - Warbeasts/warjacks in this model's battlegroup gain Retaliatory Strike.
- Retaliatory Strike - If this model is hit by a melee attack made by an enemy model during your opponent's turn, after that attack is resolved this model can immediately make one basic melee attack against that model. This model can make only one Retaliatory Strike per turn.
Weapons
Sickle Staff | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | POW | P+S | |||||||||||
2 | 7 | 13 | ||||||||||||
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Spells
COST | RNG | AOE | POW | DUR | OFF | ||
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Boundless Charge
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2 | 6 | - | - | Turn | No | |
During its activation, target friendly Faction model can charge without spending focus or being forced and gains +2" movement and Pathfinder when it charges. Boundless Charge lasts for one turn. | |||||||
Convection
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2 | 10 | - | 12 | - | Yes | |
When Convection destroys a living enemy model, you can give 1 focus point to a warjack in the spellcaster's balttlegroup that is in its control range. | |||||||
Marked for Death
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2 | 8 | - | - | Upkeep | Yes | |
Target model/unit suffers -2 DEF, loses Incorporeal or Stealth, and cannot gain Incorporeal or Stealth while affected by Marked for Death. | |||||||
Scything Touch
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2 | 6 | - | - | Upkeep | No | |
Target friendly Faction model gains Dark Shroud.
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Teleport
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2 | SELF | - | - | - | No | |
Place the spellcaster anywhere completely within 6" of its current location, then its activation ends. |
Theme Forces
- Defenders of Ios
- Forges of War
- Legions of Dawn
- Shadows of the Retribution. She gains "optional take down" in this theme.
Thoughts on Elara2
Elara2 in a nutshell
Elara is a straight-forward "in your face" type of caster. She has no means to protect her army, but she has the ability to get to the opponent fast with Boundless Charge. Scything Touch offers a damage-fixer while Marked for Death is a to-hit buff. Other than her feat most of what she does is single target so she likes self sufficient super solos and generally a smaller model count than some of her competition.
Feat thoughts
Her feat is a point and click sort of feat wherein you say "there be enemy, kick their ass!" or words to that effect and the melee core of her army does precisely that. On an already speedy army, Boundless Charge applied to everyone friendly within 14" of her, they move up the board in a hurry and clobber whatever's there.
Spell Thoughts
Whether she does it herself (unlikely) or via an Arc Node (more likely), she'll likely tag a key enemy piece/unit with Marked For Death to ease its removal (not least because -2 DEF and taking away Stealth is huge). She puts Scything Touch on a super fast model with 2" reach early on to gain as much coverage for that sweet -2 ARM.
Later on, she can use Blood Boon/Teleport to deal with lone models here and there and remain safe or chuck out an opportunistic Convection if needs be, and similarly with Boundless Charge.
Drawbacks & Downsides
- She does very little outside her battle group, outside of her feat and her debuffs.
- Retaliatory Strike is weaker for Retribution than most factions because Ret jacks rely on buffs from Arcanists, which don't apply to the Retaliatory attack.
- For all Boundless Charge is a great spell, other Ret jack casters (notably both Vyroses) brawl better.
- Remember that Sycthing Touch only affect models within the melee range of a single model. Two if you cycle it. Which causes some order of activation issues. You won't have the debuff everywhere at once.
Tricks & Tips
- Her melee is useful if a little risky - she has apparition and charge for a 13" threat range (15" if she casts Boundless Charge on herself, but that does leave her Focus stack a kinda empty looking) - and can use Blood Boon to Teleport and get clear (when she doesn't use Blood Boon to cast a spell deep into enemy lines).
- That said, she has all the tools for the occasion at her disposal (Scything Touch for ARM, Marked For Death for DEF and Apparition/Boundless Charge for distance)... just don't go off on one if you need all three at once!
- Because her feat specifies model/unit, you only need one model from a unit to actually be in her control range for the entire unit to benefit.
- Remember she, or more likely her arc-node, needs to be within 5" to mark Stealthed models for death. Otherwise the spell will miss automatically.
List Building Advice
Strategy
Her main method of winning is to get the alpha strike charge and then grind the enemy into a pulp in melee. She gets extra distance thanks to her feat so she hits most foes first and then she turns the fight into a ground and pound slugfest having got the first attack in complete with free charges.
Theme thoughts
Elara has the tools to run a Legion list that hits both hard and at breakneck speed that can abuse Boundless Charge and Flank on marshaled jacks.
- Dawnguard Sentinels are your screening units and excellent at setting up Scything Touch and Flank thanks to their 2" reach and Vengeance in combination with Ghostly (immunity to freestrikes) and Boundless Charge.
- Dawnguard Sentinel Scyir - He's a great solos in his own right, but giving him a jack to marshal turns it into a great assassination piece.
- Consider a humble Harpy: Under Feat, she gains the combination of Flight and Ghostly (which is effectively Parry, Pathfinder and Acrobatics), Swift Vengeance and Boundless amount in a +5 movement buff, letting it threaten 13". Thanks to the free charge from Boundless she can charge for free and recieve Crush! With Flank and Scything Touch you are then looking at two initial MAT 8 POW 17 weaponmaster swings and one POW 15 weapon master swing from her light claw, after which she can buy or boost thanks to Arcanist Mechaniks, who can also buff her damage further.
- Imperatus another fantastic Scything Touch target. A very durable frame, SPD 6, MAT 8(!), 2" reach and effective P+S 19 hurts! A lot!
- Dawnguard Trident - Also a flying model, and an excellent one at that. A threat range of 22" with Flight and Ghostly is no slouch, especially with a slam melee weapon and up to 9 POW 13 shots and Reposition
All she does for mymirdons is Boundless Charge and her Field Marshal. Both are fantastic on any mymirdon but not enough to warrant losing the tactical nuisance of the Vyre chassis typically.
- House Shyeel Arcanists They are a Req option and they make up for how focus starved Elara can be.
- Houseguard Halberdiers are your best platform for all your offensive buffs. Under feat, Desperate Pace and Hunter's Mark they theaten 15" (effective Parry and Pathfinder), and can hit hard with effective P+S 16 (Scything Touch, minifeat and Brutal Charge.)
- Obviously you need the Houseguard Thane and Lanyssa Ryssyl for this to work.
- Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen is a fast, durable solos with 2" reach. The perfect candidate to deliver Scything Touch where it's needed.
- Arcantrik Force Generator Slam something over with it's momentum cannon, then tear it to shreds with ghostly Halberdiers.
- Sylys free upkeeps on Scything Touch is good, since you'll want to cycle it often. The extra die on attack rolls is also really usedful to land Marked for Death on high DEF models (aka where it counts). The extra range is only situationally useful since she wants to channel a lot.
- Anything shooty; Ghost Snipers, Heavy Rifle Teams, AFGs, ect. will apprechiate her removal of stealth from enemies.
She can do a fair bit here, too, partly fixing the one thing they struggle with, on top of their Remove From Play capabilities. Like the Defenders' lists it has even more raw basic speed, if less hitting power, but scarier solo support (Mage Hunter Assassins and the character Mage Hunters) and good models to put Scything Touch on (The Spears of Scyrah).
- Eilish can be used for his Puppet Master if you really, REALLY, want to hit that Marked for Death.
- For all that it's worth J.A.I.M.s charges 12" under her feat and is an effective P+S 13 weapon master under Scything Touch.
Battlegroup
Elara prefers melee myrmidons with reach, to better use Retaliatory Strike and Scything Touch, as well as benefit from her feat and Bounding Charge. She also like Arc Nodes for channeling Convection and Marked for Death... so basically, she is a big fan of the Phoenix.
- The Sphinx is a good, cheap heavy brawler with reach. Lower Def and higher arm than the Phoenix is better for Retaliatory Strike but it doesn’t have the utility of an arc node.
- The Griffon Elara is fast but fleet and boundless charge create some pretty big threat ranges.
- The Aspis speed and aggression is mainly what Elara offers her army running a few cheap shield guards can be taxing on her focus pool but worth it in the long run.
First Purchases
- Battle Engine: Dawnguard Trident (1 or 2)
- Battle Engine: Arcantrik Force Generator (0 or 1)
- Warjack: Harpy (2 or 3)
- Unit: House Vyre Electromancers (1 or 2)
- Solo: Arcanist Mechanik (1 to 3)
- Solo: Ghost Sniper (0 to 2)
- Solo: Eiryss1
- Solo: Scythe
- Solo: Hermit
- Solo: Void Archon
When you're running Elara2, you might want to adjust the above list by Placeholder
Other
Trivia
- Rules released 2016.10 ... ish
- Model released 2017.06
Other Retribution models
Video Battle Reports
- 2018.12 Arcane Assist 75 points vs Wurmwood1
- 2018.01 Brutal Damage 35 points vs Lylyth2
- See also Category: Video Battle Reports for more casters with videos.
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification : Feat: Closing Darkness
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Rules Clarification: : Warcaster (Edit) | ||||
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Rules Clarification: : Magical Damage (Edit) |
* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling)
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Rules Clarification : Blood Boon and/or Rites of Blood and/or Ritual Slaughter and/or Soul Food and/or Blood Weaver (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Apparition (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Field Marshal (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Retaliatory Strike (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Ghostly (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Boundless Charge (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Convection (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Marked for Death - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Scything Touch (Edit)
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- Mage Hunter
- Retribution of Scyrah
- Model
- Warcaster
- Ghostly Feat
- Boundless Charge Feat
- Apparition
- Field Marshal
- Retaliatory Strike Field Marshal
- Retaliatory Strike
- Magical Damage
- Blood Boon
- Boundless Charge
- Convection
- Marked for Death
- Scything Touch
- Teleport
- Defenders of Ios
- Forges of War
- Legions of Dawn
- Shadows of the Retribution
- Placeholder
- Incomplete Articles
- Video Battle Reports