In this series, I’m sharing battle reports from my games with Team England Paddington at the Warmachine WTC 2025. If you missed the previous post, you can check that out here.
| Team | Sweden Fenris | England Paddington |
| Player | Andreas (Mustachi000) | Jamie Perkins |
| Army | Khymaera Shadowflame Shard | Khymaera Shadowflame Shard |
| Player Order | First | Second |
Scenario: PAYLOAD
A team with double Old Umbrey. Not a fantastic start for me because this is an army I’d asked to avoid. I end up instead paired up against another Shadowflame Shard player named Andreas, also packing a Shyryss list with a Trike.
When the matchup is determined, I get to choose the table we play on. I’ve experienced playing the mirror on an obstruction dense board. It can be very tricky and it really impacts where you’re able to position your colossal, even with access to ghostly via Host of Shadows. I’ve seen this type of terrain be weaponised in situations like this so I intentionally select the table with the densest concentration of obstructions.
List selection
We both end up dropping Shyryss (you can find my list here). Time to see if I was right about the Wyvern being good in the mirror!
Andreas’ list: Shyryss, the Flawless Dark
16 Skylla, The Abyssal Fury
9 CENTRAL HEAD – Skylla
4 SMALLER HEAD 1 – Horned Piercer
3 SMALLER HEAD 2 – Gnashing Fangs34 Trikhymaerax
12 ARCANE HEADS – Eyeless Head
RANGE HEADS – Flame Head
8 MELEE HEADS – Gulper Head
ARCANE TAILS – Negation Tail
8 RANGE TAILS – Frost Tail
6 MELEE TAILS – Stinger
4 Bellighul, Master of Pain
3 Pythia
4 Shadowmancer Scion
5 Wraithwing Paragon
7 Quick Fang Stalkers
9 Shades
7 Talon Lashers 1
7 Talon Lashers 2
4 Wyrmspine ShadowmancersCOMMAND CARDS
Blessing of the Gods
Break Through
Lucky Penny
Put the Fires Out
Sapper
TOTAL POINTS 100/100
Deployment
I notice Andreas has chosen not to take a Hunter’s Mark Vypex. Now, Hunters Mark has restricted use in this game since we’re both packing Banishing Ward and a Trike with Arcane Negation. However, not taking it at all still means I can threaten those charge distances depending on the game state, where Andreas can’t.
Andreas has also chosen to take the Eyeless Head on his Trike. This means I’ll need to constantly be aware of what can potentially be slammed into my Shyryss. The Wyvern is also vulnerable to this attack. If I’m not careful he could walk his Trike within range and slam the Wyvern towards his Trike to enable melee attacks on it.
The other thing to bear in mind here is Andreas has access to the Force Wall animus for Force Barrier. This can make picking off his units from range more troublesome and make his Shyryss more resistant to ranged assassination.
We both rack the same spells: Dragon’s Blood, Host of Shadows, and Silence of Death.
Andreas wins the starting roll and chooses to go first.
Andreas deploys his army just left of centre from my perspective, concentrating most of his force ahead of his 50mm and 40mm objectives, with both Lasher units slightly more to the right. He later advanced deploys his quickfangs also to the right.
I do more or less the same as Andreas and deploy in force closest to my 50mm and 40mm objectives with a unit of Talon Lashers and my Shades off to my left.
Turn one
Score: A0 – J0
Andreas has Shyryss cast Dragon’s Blood on his Trikhymaerax, Silence of Death on the central unit of Talon Lashers, and Force Wall onto the Quick Fangs, before running up to a position outside all my shooting ranges.
His army proceeds to run forward, hugging the obstructions and trenches for cover. His shades are far off to my left working their way around a particularly large obstruction. His Trikhymaerax cast Force Wall on the Shades before running directly toward my table edge just left of the centre of the battlefield, immediately securing his 40mm and 50mm objectives.
I note the central Lasher unit with Silence of Death on them might have run just close enough for a few early shots. I take a quick measure and see the lead Lasher is indeed within range. My Trikhymaerax moves up and boosts a Frost Tail shot at it, getting the crit for stationary and doing a little damage. I chose not to boost the damage roll so I could follow it with the Flame Head AOE shot and boost both blast damage rolls. This kills the lead Lasher, I spike a blast damage roll and kill a second, leaving the third wounded. The third Lasher is still within range so it gets finished off by another Frost Tail shot.
The rest of my army runs up the table, being respectful of Andreas’ shooting ranges. The Wyvern remains close to the Trike, just to its left. The Paragon and Shyryss all remain close to the Trike and the Wyvern creating a solid core of my positioning, flanked by Lashers and Shades. The Vypex is slightly more to the right, taking up position to start scoring my 50mm next turn.
When Shyryss moved up she cast Dragon’s Blood on my Trikhymaerax and Silence of Death on the Wyvern. I’m conscious to ensure she, along with the Trike and the Wyvern, remain within the Paragon’s warping winds aura.
Turn two
Andreas
Current Score: A0 – J0
When going first Shyryss will often feat on turn two to put maximum scenario pressure on the second player. However, in the Shyryss mirror (or other situations where both leaders have defensive feats) it’s wise to try to hold it to ensure you feat after the other player as that’ll put you in a stronger position in the later turns of the game.
Andreas knows this so is looking for ways to push up the table without needing to feat to protect his army. He upkeeps Dragon’s Blood for free with Pythia.
His Trike isn’t within range to shoot anyone, so moves up toward the centre, outside of my charge ranges, and puts up Force Wall on the Shades again. The Shades creep further around to my left, still very well protected by the obstruction. One of them sneaks around the nearside of the obstruction and sits between it and the Trike.
The Quick Fangs consolidate their position behind an obstruction on the right, largely out of line of sight, but easily within range to dart out and contest my 50mm objective next turn. The remaining Lashers sit in a Trench just behind them.
Shyryss moves up to claim Andreas’ 40mm objective and she places Force Wall on herself while also base to base with an obstruction to her right. The Paragon then moves up to cover Shyryss and the nearby Trike with warping winds. Skylla remains just behind both, securing the 50mm payload.
Jamie
Current Score: A0 – J0
Andreas’ positioning is solid, there’s nothing free for me to shave off his army without putting my own units at risk. I upkeep both Dragon’s Blood and Silence of Death before spending time measuring to see what units could attack the Quick Fangs and the Lashers. The answer being, not much. I need to deal with them soon while they’re relatively unsupported by Andreas’ battlegroup and to prevent them slowing down my control point scoring.
I move the Shades up to place one within melee range of the Quick Fangs and another within shooting range. Both miss their attacks. I reposition two backward and the other one remains engaged with the Quick Fangs.
My Vypex and right flank Lashers move up to support and secure the 50mm payload objective.
I move up my Trike to take some shots at the Lashers in the Trench, everything misses but I was looking for 12s so that’s not unreasonable. This places my Trike behind a medium sized obstruction that’s directly between our two Trikes. I place a 120mm proxy base to ensure Andreas’ can’t reach mine. They’re technically within 12” of each other in a direct line but this is where the densely packed obstructions and objectives really come into play. There’s no landing spots for his Trike to reach mine even with Host of Shadows allowing him to move through the terrain, there’s not enough space on the other side to land the 120mm base.
The Shade between Andreas’ Trike and the obstruction isn’t protected by warping winds. I take a measurement and I can reach it with my Wyvern’s breath attack. The 3” reposition won’t be enough to bring it back to safety, but I have a little trick that I like. I move up the Wyvern and boost the spray, needing 11s due to Force Wall. I hit this time and kill the Shade. The Wyveryn repositions 3” back towards the rest of my battlegroup.
I complete the turn by moving up Shadowmancers and Belighul to remove excess fury and my left hand Lashers mainly spread out and hug the obstructions to just remain a persistent threat while avoiding becoming easy targets for Andreas’ remaining Shades or Trike shooting.
Shyryss takes up position base to base with my Trike and I leave a very specific gap just to her left.
It’s about now I realise I’ve made an order of activation mistake. Shyryss can’t get close enough to my 40mm objective to score it, and I’ve now moved my Shades away from it, so they’re not scoring it. I could throw my Shadowmancers in but that feels very risky. I need my fury management operating to enable my Arcane Negation options.
I consider this for a moment. Then decide I’m okay to weaken my left flank a little to facilitate scoring and run my left hand Talon Lashers into a scoring position ahead of my Trike and Wyvern. I use the Duck & Cover command card on them to make removing them less trivial for Andreas.
Ending the turn, Andreas and I both score 2 control points before moving our objectives. Last thing, I trigger Made to Haul from the scenario special rules to reel my Wyvern into the gap just to Shyryss’ left, closing the line of sight gap to Shyryss and bringing it back inside the warping winds aura.
Turn three
Andreas
Current Score: A2 – J2
Andreas spends a few minutes inspecting the relative positioning of our two Trikhymaeraxes. He knows he can’t force aggressive positioning anymore without using Shyryss’ feat, which he doesn’t want to do, but explains that he doesn’t feel there’s another choice.
Andreas upkeeps Dragon’s Blood once again for free thanks to Pythia.
Andreas uses his Scion to cast puppet master on his Trikhymaerax. The Trike then advances towards my board edge, walking around the obstruction and ensuring that neither my Wyvern nor Trike can reach it with a full advance.
He fires the telekinetic slam gun at one of the Talon Lashers. He hits. I expect him to slam it into another model in the unit but he doesn’t. He chooses a direction away from the 40mm objective and doesn’t boost the damage roll. I realise how clever this is as it ensures that, if the rest of his attack rolls go poorly, I now can’t score my 40mm objective as one of the models is alive and outside contesting range.
He shoots and kills a second Lasher and wounds a third.
Shyryss moves up next and feats. She throws daggers at and kills the wounded Lasher. She casts Force Wall on herself, and repositions backwards to score the 40mm objective. She’s then joined by Skylla and the Paragon.
The Lashers on the far right charge and kill one of my Shades, repositioning back and to behind the obstruction. The Quickfangs then follow up and kill the remaining two while contesting my 50mm payload.
Andreas scores 2 more points and I score 0.
Jamie
Current Score: A4 – J2
I spent most of the back half of Andreas’ turn doing some math. I was trying to work out whether a trampling Wyvern under Silence of Death, along with a trampling Trikhymaerax under Enrage and Silence of Death deals enough damage to kill Andreas’ Trike. I come to the conclusion it’s in the region of about 54-56 damage which feels like enough.
Additionally Andreas has left Dragon’s Blood on his Trike which actually helps me a bit. The difference in damage between the Arcane Head with Purgation and the Gulper Head assuming Blessed is placed on it is fairly similar. However, I want to use Blessing of the Gods on the Wyvern, and Purgation also makes my Trike less likely to miss its attack rolls.
I upkeep Silence of Death and drop Dragon’s Blood. I use Put the Fires out on my remaining Lasher and run it to contest both of Andreas’ objectives since he’s moved his 50mm closer to his 40mm.
My Wyvern takes Blessing of the Gods and tramples toward Andreas’ Trike. My first two attacks roll above average but the third misses. I pause to recalculate my odds (if it’s too far off I’ll not bother sending the Trike in). It’s close enough to still go for it, so we press on.
Shyryss feats, moves Silence of Death over to the Trike, casts Host of Shadows. She then moves to the far side of an obstruction on my right flank. She’ll be covering the Trike with her feat, but this will leave the Wyvern outside of her control range. I consider this, but if this plan works it’ll push the attrition game out of Andreas’ reach and assassination will be his main way to win. I reason it’s worth risking the Wyvern frenzying to ensure Shyryss’ safety, especially when only camping 1 fury.
Belighul enrages my Trike who then tramples over and buys three Arcane Head Purgation attacks, killing Andreas’ Trike on the last attack.
I then turn my attention over to the right flank. My Vypex moves up and kills most of the Quick Fangs while remaining in a scoring position. My other unit of Lashers charges Andreas’ unit of Lashers and kills them all plus the remaining Quick Fangs.
My Shadowmancers move to the left and condition 1 fury from my Trike and 2 fury from the Wyvern to give it a fighting chance of passing its threshold test.
I score 1 more (I don’t manage to score my 40mm) and Andreas scores 0.
Turn four
Andreas
Current Score: A4 – J3
Andreas has a good look at seeing what, if anything, he can get to my Shyryss and comes up short.
All he can do at this point is throw everything he can at my Trike and see if he can bring it down. He uses the Paragon to kill my contesting Lasher.
He has Shyryss throw a shadowbind dagger at it and hits. He casts Hand of Destruction on it. I cancel it with Arcane Negation. He ponders whether to cast another Hand of Destruction or Silence of Death onto Skylla. He opts for Hand of Destruction. Then throws two poisoned daggers at it and deals minimal damage.
Skylla walks to engage my Trike but can only get within 2” for the main head’s attacks. Over 5 attacks he deals about 2/3 of my Trike’s health. Some of his damage rolls were quite poor.
He sends some other models into the Wyvern including the Shades I think and deals about half its damage there too.
At this point Andreas has only seconds left and he knows victory is beyond him. He offers to discuss what else I would kill if I played out my next turn (I had about 20 minutes left on my clock), we mark that down as the game score and shake hands on the result. Officially I win by deathclock.
Conclusions
Andreas and I had a good conversation about the mirror and what a bizarre game it is to play because of how standoffish the two Trikes often are. They can kill each other in melee if they charge. They can barely do any damage to each other at range due to commonly taken fire and cold resistance on them in combination with rapid healing. It’s therefore very difficult for one Trike to pressure another Trike into a position where it can be charged and killed.
Having run at this problem a few times is actually what led me to include the Wyvern in my Shyryss army list. The more I played with it in different situations, the more I came to love the configuration and how it allows me to play the army.
Andreas, like myself, has been around the game for a long time but we’ve never crossed dice before. He was an excellent opponent. A super friendly guy that I’d love to play more games with in the future.
Team wise, Chris managed to get a win with McCoy against Sikora Winter Korps with only seconds remaining. Zilva ground out a win against Horruskh with Zaateroth. Unfortunately Jacob and Golly both lose to slightly long odds Old Umbrey assassinations but ultimately we take the round 3:2.
Battle report 2 is coming soon! In the meantime, there’s an overview in this episode of Warmanchester Radio:
Warmanchester 
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