eFeora 35pts v3 vs Jay's Kaylessa

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper

 - Discordia

Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)

 - Griffon

 - Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard

Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts)

 - Mage Hunter Commander

Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Mage Hunter Assassin

Jay wins the roll off and decides to deploy first. Sentinels line up across the middle with Discordia on the right side and the Griffon on the left. MHSF plop down into a forest on my right flank and MHA on the other side. Archers and Kaelyssa form up behind the Sentinels. My deployment is a loose gunboat with the Avatar and Templar in front, Redeemer in the middle, TFG on both flanks, support and Feora behind.

Turn one Jay advances up into position. I respond by moving the gunboat laterally closer to the MHSF. Redeemer takes its three 16" shots, just short, but with some decent scatter rolls, kills I believe two of the dirty elves and sets a Sentinel on fire. Vassals enlivens my two ARM 21 walls, Choir sings passage, Covenant says no knockdowns, and Choir and Mechanic hang in the back.

Turn two. Jay kills a Vassal and two Choir boys with Phantom Seeking Stormfall Archers. Forgot what the MHSF did this turn, wasn't really important I think? Sentinels and the rest move behind a linear obstacle some 11" away from my line. On my turn I decided it was time to try and wipe out the MHSF with feat. Redeemer turns its incendiary rocket spam on the bunched up Sentinels but with some bad deviations and some really high damage rolls, I was only able to get four fire tokens on enemies. Feora activates, charges a mechanic up field, fire steps, loses her charge target and makes an attack against her Templar to set it on fire. Pop feat, kill 5 MHSF, and sits at ARM 23. Rest of the gunboat gunboats.

Turn three. Jay loads up Discordia with focus and charges the DEF 15 ARM 23 Feora. Miss, miss, hits and despite being  dice-6, puts 8 points on the firelady. Sentinels get one charge on Feora, three on the Avatar, and five on TFG. Nothing on Feora, superficial damage to the Avatar, and lose the TFG on that flank. MHA positions herself to charge next turn. Archers and MHSF take out the rest of my Choir and Vassals. My go and I'm poised to wipe out Jays Army. Templar gets 2 focus, Avatar rolls 3. Feora aims and sprays the Avatar to catch three Sentinels and an Archer, misses two of the Sentinels. Templar activates and manages to hit Discordia once in four 6+ attacks. Avatar, inspired by the Templar, flails around ineffectually and leaves Discordia with one point of movement remaining. Redeemer walks over and drops a point blank AOE on a group of Sentinels, setting a few on fire. Oof.

At this point I messed up. Jay asks me if Discordia can headbutt Feora without focus and I said yes. It didn't even dawn on me until I got home that you do need to spend a focus to use Power Attacks. Too used to playing against Khador with all their free power attacks I guess. The headbutt ended up hitting and knocking down Feora. After that MHSF swooped in like the vultures they are and squished her with some good rolling. Without the knockdown Jay still had a shot at winning with the MHA but it would have been dicey and depended on him giving the MHA phantom seeker inside of the Covanent's no spells aura.


 --Jay's version--

Patrick and I played a thirty-five point caster kill game after work tonight. Patrick's list was:
And mine was:

Kaylessa
Discordia
Griffon
10x Mage hunter strike force + UA
10x Dawnguard sentinel + UA
4x Stormfall archers
Mage hunter assassin

Retribution won the roll-off and setup centrally. Mage hunters setup left flank in a forest. Assassin setup right, behind some buildings (again). Menoth setup castled, center. Choir made all the 'jacks untargetable (whee!), so Retribution started moving forward to engage in assault. Then Redeemer and Feora started turning up the temperature. Feora ran forward and commenced burnination. EVERYTHING WAS ON FIRE. Oh, it burned.

About half the Retribution army reached the Menoth lines. The remaining archers and mage hunters started popping choir and vassals. Sentinels charged temple flameguard, Avatar, and Feora, dropping the flameguard. Discordia charged Feora (oops!), standing right between the Avatar and Templar, and gave her a few good punches. Not enough. Kaylessa sniped Feora for a few points (and stealing two focus), then turned her attention to Gorman and dropped him.

Avatar and Templar, lessened by the loss of the choir, laid into Discordia, missing too many swings and leaving it standing with one box. Feora flamed all the sentinels, incinerating another three.

Last turn. Discordia rolled the bones and head-butted Feora to the ground. Rar! Kaylessa prep'd to cast Phantom Hunter on the assassin so she could attack Feora *through* the Avatar, but it wasn't necessary. The mage hunters advanced and finished Feora off. Game to Retribution!

Lessons learned:

1. Feora burns! Oh, the horrible, horrible burning. Make it stop.
2. Sometimes a knocked down enemy caster is better than an injured one.
3. Sequence kills with reach weaponmasters to allow them to attack units they didn't charge (but are still in range).
4. Kaylessa can see through stealth! Die, Gorman, die!
5. Stormfall archers remain amazing. Would rather have had four more than Griffon in this match.
6. Patrick strongly recommends Ayana & Holt for Retribution against Menoth.
7. Never give up. Never. Ever. Discordia with one box left won the game.

Tense game! Great advice. Learn so much more, the more I screw up.

Thanks, Patrick!