Game 306: Helynna vs Harbinger

Game 306 – Vs Nick Hancox – Protectorate of Menoth – 15/02/19

My list:

Magister Helynna (Forges of War)

-Chimera

-Discordia

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Manticore

Dawnguard Trident

Dawnguard Trident

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

House Shyeel Arcanists

House Shyeel Arcanists

-Soulless Escort

His List:

The Harbinger of Menoth (Exemplar Interdiction)

-Hierophant

-Reckoner

-Sanctifier

Exemplar Bastion Seneschal

High Exemplar Gravus

Scrutator Potentate Severius

-Dervish

Min Choir of Menoth

Max Exemplar Bastions

Max Exemplar Cinerators

-Exemplar Cinerator Officer

Max Exemplar Errants

-Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard

At the recent UK Invitationals two things came to light. The first was that my 3-2 performance was enough to get me a place on England Roses for the upcoming WTC, and I am delighted to be back on the team for another year. The second was that I lost a bet, resulting in my having to play Helynna at the next 2 day event I play in, which will be in York in early March. Not wanting to go in completely unprepared I wrote up a list that is similar to her old style, but with the additional tricks that we can pull now that we have the Trident and Discordia in the Forges theme. My first practice game is against Nick with his Menoth, and with me getting the first turn we get moving.

With Rhythm of War starting in play from my theme benefit, and Deceleration being pretty much useless due to all the Blessed weapons I don’t need to do anything with Helynna this turn, so everything just runs up the table, with Discordia putting out her Kinetic Field.

Harbinger also doesn’t have much to do with her Focus on turn 1, and so just gets up the table. Nick takes a few shots with Errants into my lines but gives up when he realises they are going to be pretty useless following my Feat.

I really want to hold my Feat for a turn, and so I decide just to hold back and shoot, putting some Covering Fire in front of the Errants. A number of the Bastions are out of Martyr range, so they go down quickly, with Nick choosing to save health on Harby rather than overly Martyr the rest. I Rhythm back to relative safety and hope that I survive the next turn in reasonable shape. On the left my Trident shoots off the Dervish.

The reasoning for Nick not Martyring the Bastions much was so that he could use his health resource to charge the Errants through the Covering Fire before my Feat was up. He does so and between them and Gravus they take a huge chunk out of one Manticore, and chip some damage onto another. The Cinerators move up on the left but it doesn’t feel that that will be where the game is won or lost. Harbinger ends the turn on around 10 health and with the score at 0-0.

The key for me this turn is to clear out the front line, take out the objective and Feat to really blunt Nick’s response. I know how much Nick wants to keep Gravus alive, so punch him down until he can’t afford to Martyr any more. I move the Reckoner in closer with a push from Helynna and a Smite from the left Trident, who also rolls some hot dice to take out the objective. The rest of my Battlegroup clear out the Errants and the right Trident pushes up to deal some damage to the Sanctifier. I score 2 to lead 2-0.

Nick now has the unpleasant task of playing an uphill attrition game into Helynna’s Feat. He puts every attack he can into my Tridents, but can only reduce both of them down to 5 boxes. In realisation that the game is lost, he tries to see if Harbinger can finish them both off. He rolls the boosted 12 needed to take out the right, but cant get close enough to get the Pow needed on the left, and leaves it on a couple of boxes. With Harbinger on no camp and 2 boxes in front of my army, Nick concedes.

VICTORY

Nick is new to Harbinger and probably didn’t play a perfect game here, but I was still really pleased with how I dictated the pace of the game and held my Feat back an extra turn. Doing do would have essentially given me two full turns of attrition, which was more than enough to win the game. I really enjoyed playing the list, which is a real change form how boring I found her pre-CID, so I was looking forward to getting in some more games.