Annyssa Ryvaal

Called the Talon of Everblight, Annyssa Ryvaal leads blighted Nyss raptors into battle atop a great armored ulk, adding her own poisoned arrows to the hellish rain of missiles unleashed by her fellow warriors. A hunter without peer, she brings down her chosen prey with the ruthless efficiency of a well-studied killer.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Cavalry
• Template:Gunfighter
• Template:Parry
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Stealth
• Template:Prey
• Template:Reposition 5
• Template:Veteran Leader

Weapons

Nyss Longbow
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		12			2			Template:-			10
Template:Poison
Nyss Claymore
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		1				4				10
Template:Weapon Master
Mount
File:Mount icon.jpg		RNG						POW
		0.5						12

Theme Forces

• Template:Children of the Dragon
• Template:Ravens of War

Thoughts on Annyssa Ryvaal

Annyssa Ryvaal in a nutshell

Annyssa Ryvaal is an assassin solo. Her unmatched mobility and plentiful special rules ensure that it is very hard to hide her prey from her arrows and blades. She excels against living models and with the right target selection she can be a thorn in your opponent's side, constantly threatening the flanks while escaping retaliation. Her not being auto-include in any Legion list stems from 3 reasons:

• she is strictly average against non-living targets
• she's mainly a ranged threat, severely hampered by anti-shooting tricks, while getting up-close may expose her to retaliation
• she costs as much as a minimum unit of Grotesque Banshees or Warmongers, and she can never be requisitioned for free.

Her main tool is Prey which requires lots of finesse to be played effectively - see Tips and Tricks. In short, you must employ her like a scalpel rather than a hammer to get the most out of her.

Combos & Synergies

• Bog Trog Mist Speaker - Allows you to have game into Stealth and/or Incorporeal targets.
• Blighted Nyss Raptors - She has some added utility with them via her Veteran Leader aura, but there must be very convincing reasons not to pay 2(5) points more for a much more versatile Blight Archon for that purpose. On the flip-side, the Archon can give Veteran Leader to Annyssa (since she cannot benefit from her own aura).
• Each and every version of Lylyth loves a range-focused solo with their respective toolkit:
  • Lylyth2 gives Annyssa three shots against her Prey, preferably tagged with Pin Cushion; with the right set up this can easily end even warcasters.
  • Lylyth3 can get a fair amount of use out of Annyssa's accurate shots for spreading her feat, and Annyssa is capable of keeping up with Lylyth3's extreme speed.
  • Lylyth4's Mortlity is a crazy good damage and accuracy buff while Deflection makes even elite gunlines with True Sight make a run for their money.
• Vayl1 - A force multiplier by herself, her Incite bubble amps up Annyssa's threat as well. Bethayne1 and bethayne2, along with Lylyth1 can also debuff Annyssa's target's ARM, while Craelyx can further hurt living models' DEF with his Weaken shots.
• Ravens of War - Lesser warbeasts give crucial accuracy buffs for your bows, which is basically +4 against Prey targets.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Expensive, and can't be taken for free.
• Prey requires lots of expertise to be properly used.
• Whatever gets through stealth may kill her easily - a boosted POW12 hit has ~50% chance of bringing her down.
• She lacks Dual Attack so won't be able to use her sword and bow at once.

Tricks & Tips

• Quick math guide if you need to choose between charging in with your sword or use bowshots: against non-living models a melee attack always causes more damage on average than your bow. Against living models choose the bow if you are at dice minus 6 or less and the sword if you are dice off 8 or more. If you are dice minus 7, you may cause the same amount of damage on average (8), however a bow has 2 shots which might be good to have a follow-up against Tough models, or that your target dies from the first bowshot's 4 damage.

Prey 101

• As a rule of thumb, try to Prey targets that must be close to the frontline so the enemy will be forced either to relocate them to the other side of the board, or assign extra protection for them. If that is not viable either (like playing against a warjack-heavy list in Black Industries), you may still put Prey on your opponent's warlock/warcaster - in that case, try to commit Annyssa only in the second half of the game where lines must close in and the opponent's warnouns may have fewer assets to keep themselves safe.
• Units are rarely ideal targets for prey since even a single member of them hiding behind can counter you from killing them all and get Prey re-assigned - even if said model is out of formation.
• Prey gets immediately shifted once the target has been killed. E.g. if you charge in, and the impact attack kills the target you can immediately select another target for your charge attack (though you must redirect it and abide all necessary restrictions).
• Impact attacks as well as mount attacks also benefit from the Prey bonus - this is not your friendly neighbour herbivore elk.

Other

Trivia

Released in Forces of Hordes: Legion of Everblight (2010)