Game 9: Kaelyssa vs Bart

Game 9 – Vs James Hockney – Mercenaries – 05/04/17

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:

Captain Bartolo Montador

-Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker

-Galleon

-Nomad

-Nomad

-Nomad

-Buccaneer

Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile

The Commodore Cannon & Crew

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

After the steamroller I wanted to have a few more games with Kaelyssa to work out what she can do. The last game into a fast Legion force was such a bad matchup that nothing can really be learned from it. James was looking for a game with his Mercenaries do we threw down Bart vs Kaelyssa. I went first, put Blur on the Sentinels and Refuge on Kaelyssa and ran up the board, keeping out of non-drifting threat ranges. James puts Hotshot on the Galleon, casts Batten down the Hatches, and runs back.

On my turn 2 I spot an opportunity to take out one of the Nomads with Helios. Being under Batten means that the tractor beam hits very reliably, and even though I couldn’t live the dream of having the last push move him out of range for the armour buff I was still easily able to destroy it with my 5 attacks. On the other side of the table I advance with the Sentinels, leaving 2 up the table to trigger Vengeance and Kaelyssa feats.

Due to my feat being up James is able to achieve very little in his turn. He kills one of the Sentinels, recasts Batten and Hotshot (Kaelyssa had shot it off the turn before) and passes the turn back to me.

Here is where mistakes are made that probably lead to my eventual downfall in the game. I think that there is an assassination on the table and so base most of my turn around making that work. The plan is based around running an electromancer up to Bart, getting him knocked down due to the feat, and using the Banshee to slam him over Bart. Helios would then drag him in and finish him off. All of this plan went perfectly until James told me that Bart couldn’t be knocked down due to Batten. This left me in a very difficult position and my turn became a scramble to improve my position. I calculated that Galleon wouldn’t be able to 1 round Helios so moved aggressively upwards to threaten next turn whilst the Sentinels flanked hard to wait for an opportunity.

Whilst I was correct that the Galleon couldn’t kill Helios alone, I had left him within range of the Nomad, and so Helios went down. At this point the game felt very bad with me but I know how strong Kaelyssa is in terms of assassination so I started looking for solutions.

With Phantom Hunter ignoring the trench that Bart was sat in I had the opportunity to get some electromancer shots into him if the Banshee could knock him down. As he had not cast Batten this meant that I needed to roll an 11 to hit. I didn’t realise that Phantom Hunter was battlegroup only (this mistake is made next game as well) and so cast the spell on an Electromancer that would be able to get a shot off. The point was moot however as the Banshee missed the shot. Backlash on the left Nomad let the Sentinels put 4 points of damage on Bart but there was no longer an assassination on the table and I simply had to make James’ life as difficult as possible.

The Artificer in the way made the assassination somewhat awkward as it messed with his order of activation but he was able to come up with a route that needed the Galleon to hit a boosted 9 on Kaelyssa. This was successful and she was put in the ground.

DEFEAT

Mistakes were made in this game both in terms of strategy and rules, but I really enjoyed the game and think the list has a lot of strengths. The Electromancers were a constant threat and the Sentinels under Blur and/or her feat can be delivered reliably. I am leaning away from taking her to the Welsh Open as the ADR options are looking very tempting but I will certainly be looking at her again afterwards.