Game 194: Kaelyssa vs Dreamer

Game 194 – Vs Laurens Tanguy – Grymkin – 19/05/18

My list:

Kaelyssa, The Night’s Whisper (Legions of Dawn)

-Helios

Arcanist Mechanik

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Dawnguard Sentinel Scyir

Dawnguard Destor Thane

Dawnguard Destor Thane

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

-Soulless Escort

Max Dawnguard Sentinels

-Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and Standard Bearer

-Soulless Escort

Min Dawnguard Destors

His List:

The Dreamer (Dark Menagerie)

-Cage Rager

-Cage Rager

-Cage Rager

-Crabbit

-Gorehound

-Rattler

-Skin & Moans

-Skin & Moans

Gremlin Swarm

Gremlin Swarm

Gremlin Swarm

Gremlin Swarm

Lady Karianna Rose

Death Knell

Round 1 of the Welsh Masters sees me drawn against Laurens, one of the Belgian contingent that had come over for the event. He was using Grymkin which, as I decided against Elara2 Shadows, pretty much meant I was going to drop Kaelyssa for her ability to deal with Gremlin Swarms. He dropped The Dreamer, and with me winning first turn we got moving.

This is a fairly dead scenario in my view, especially with Laurens having 4 Gremlin Swarms to effortlessly contest with, so I settle in for a protracted attrition game. Refuge goes onto Kaelyssa and Banishing Ward on Helios to protect against Weaken before everything runs up, with the Destors flanking hard on the left.

The Grymkin move up in a brick, with one of the Gremlin Swarms taking up a position to contest the right zone straight away. Dreamer puts down an Artifice of Deviation and casts Mirage onto one of the Skin & Moans.

Time for a fairly standard Kaelyssa Feat turn. She puts up Phantom Hunter on Helios who walks up and pulls the Cage Rager into range of the Sentinels who charge and kill it. Eiryss has little to do in this matchup so just charges and kills a Gremlin Swarm. The Destor Thane has an amazing series of dice rolls to almost kill off the Rattler, but he survives on a few boxes. The Destors flank even more.

Laurens kills what he can under my Feat with the Destor Thane and Eiryss both going down to Manifest Destiny attacks before a Cage Rager Tramples up to kill off a couple of Sentinels from the right unit. The rest of the battlegroup holds back in what was developing into a fairly cagey game.

This is the turn where I need to get a lot of work done so I take a bit of time to make sure I get it right. One of the Destors on the left can get a charge on the wounded Rattler, but has to take a Free Strike from the jamming Gorehound, which sadly takes it out, the rest of the Destors fight the light beast in a battle that goes on basically all game. That leaves me with no chance but to give Laurens an option on Arcana; Helios goes in and kills the Cage Rager, meaning that he can either Sacrifice to heal the Rattler, or save it for Pandemonium to stop the Sentinels charging. Recognising the importance of the Rattler in the matchup he goes for the former, allowing the Sentinels to charge into the right Skin & Moans, but some attacks missing means that it is left alive. Nobody scores.

Laurens retaliates by taking out most of the remaining Sentinels from the right unit, moving the second Skin & Moans over to do so. He was hoping to clear a way for the right Skin & Moans to get to Helios, but doesn’t quite manage to do so. Nobody scores.

I start the turn with 2 Gremlin Swarms base-to-base with Helios so need to clear at least one off to give Helios a chance at getting work done this turn, so Kaelyssa charges in and kills one, getting to Refuge to safety before All Fall Down triggers. I have to commit Helios, and unfortunately Laurens hits the -2 to attack rolls on Helios, the one thing I wanted to avoid, so I don’t get a lot of work done on the Skin & Moans. On the left we continue to play with threat ranges and nothing much happens.

Fairly predictably Helios goes down to the 2 Skin & Moans and my right flank is starting to look a bit quiet. But still, nobody scores.

At this point Laurens has very little time left on his clock, and so can really only win by getting 5CPs clear, so the left unit of Sentinels just spread out to contest zones as annoyingly as possible. The Destors kill the Gorehound!

Laurens kills the objective to take a 1-0 lead, but is going to clock before the end of the game.

I run some models to contest more, ensuring that I will win the game, and take out his objective with Destors to level at 1-1.

With only seconds left Laurens manages to clear my right zone to score, but then loses on Deathclock.

VICTORY

This was a really fun game against a great opponent, but absolutely not the 2 hour grind you want at the start of a 4 game day. There were definitely things I did wrong in this game; I should have moved at least some of the right Sentinel unit over to assist in the centre and maybe abandoned going in with Helios once he got the -2MAT. Still, nice to get off the mark with a win, and ready to go into round 2.