Game 7: Kaelyssa vs Kryssa

Game 7 – Vs Dan Price – Legion of Everblight – 25/03/17

My list:

Kaelyssa, The Night’s Whisper

-Sylys

-Helios

-Banshee

Arcanist

Arcanist

Artificer

House Vyre Electormancers

House Vyre Electromancers

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Officer and Standard

-Soulless Escort

His List:

Kryssa, Conviction of Everblight (Oracles of Annihilation)

-Succubus

-Angelius

-Angelius

-Azrael

-Naga Nightlurker

-Neraph

-Neraph

-Seraph

Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Blighted Nyss Sorceress and Hellion

Spell Martyr

Spell Martyr

Spell Martyr

The Forsaken

The Forsaken

Gat 1-1 in the tournament and having used my Helynna list for both games I had made the decision going into this game that I would be using Kaelyssa whatever I was up against. I had made this promise to enough people that would mean my looking foolish if I backed out. Dan had a double Oracles of Annihilation pair and chose to drop Kryssa into me. He won first turn and off we went.

Lordy those beasts are quick, Dan’s force is projecting well up the table and I’m under pretty significant pressure right off the bat. I have 2 choices available to me. I am definitely feating this turn, and whilst the stealth element of it is pretty worthless against Legion, I need to work out whether to hold back out of advance and attack range, or not give up a whole load of scenario space. I choose the latter and advance pretty aggressively, putting Blur on the Sentinels to try and further protect them.

This was probably the wrong call. A couple of beasts are able to advance and make melee attacks before sprinting away, others have spray lines through the Sentinels and in total I lose about 6, triggering Vengeance but causing me serious issues. The Hellion in the middle of the table with the spell to deny shooting is also causing me issues and I have to find a solution to remove it.

Dan has been smart enough not to leave any models within 5 of the Sentinels so Vengeance is all about positioning for charges. A Neraph in front of the Banshee is target number 1 and I was hoping to kill it with the Banshee alone, allowing the sentinels to charge through into the Hellion. Bad dice rolls meant this didn’t happen and the Sentinels had to finish the beast. This meant I had to rely on electro-leaps to kill the Hellion. The electromancers on the right flank could shoot into Helios and 2 leaps would see them reach the Hellion. 2 made it but couldn’t do enough damage to get rid of the model. This was a frustrating turn and I think it may have affected my decisions for the rest of the game.

My mindset for the remainder of this game is pretty well summed up by the fact that I barely took any pictures. On the right flank Kryssa’s feat turn destroyed Helios, whilst on the left things were going slightly better, with the Hellion and another beast dead in return for all of my Sentinels. The game was then pretty well poised on scenario but with me rapidly running out of ways to deal with any heavy he put in my zone, with only a badly beaten up Banshee really able to crack armour. I opt to try and jam him out of my zone whilst offering him an Electromancer a turn to keep his scoring at bay, but it doesn’t feel like a great situation to be in.

The last time I played Dan, right near the start of Mk3, he seemed pretty uncertain in terms of when to push on scenario, but at some point over the past year that has changed and he played out the game excellently. The two beasts in the right zone cleared it out in order for Kryssa (my word she can move fast when she wants to) to move in and dominate. Azrael finished off the Banshee before repositioning into my zone to contest. I don’t really have enough left to kill it.

The last picture shows my sheer desperation as I tried to kill the beast. Sylys charging in needing to roll triple 6 to remove it, and even then I think I would have lost on scenario in the end!

DEFEAT

Not a great game for me personally. It was a bad match up and some dice did go against me but that was no excuse for my head to go as it did. I must apologise to Dan as I’m sure I wasn’t much fun as an opponent but he played a very strong game.

The matchup does seem extremely bad, but it was good to finally get another Retribution list on the table and start going through some reps as to how it plays. The final round of the Steamroller is coming up, with me well out of contention.