Caster Deep Dive: Helynna

Greetings nerds,

So Helynna has been out for almost two years now (damn, does time always move this quickly after your mid 20's?) and only now am I really starting to dig in to her. Back when she was released I didn't like how much she seemed to require Forges of War, limiting her to what I consider to be the lesser of our two 'jack chassis and no screening infantry.

These days though, with the Vyre lights, the changes to Unyielding, and the opening up of Defenders (yes I know I'm like 8 months behind) I'm starting to look at her again, so I wanted to open up a discussion for the community to really dig in to the robot queen and talk about what makes her tick. I want to clarify that this is all my opinion and I am not claiming to be a particularly good player. 

To summarize, Helynna is support caster with a focus on warjacks buffing and movement tricks. A summary of her stats are below for those unfamiliar; I've bolded the rules that I think are the key parts of her kit.

SPD 6  | MAT 6 | RAT 5 | DEF 15 | ARM 15 | FOC 7 | 16 HP

Redirection Blast (Ranged): RNG 12 | ROF 1 | POW 11 | Magical
Redirection (Melee) RNG 2 | P+S 11 | Magical

Repair D3+3

Redirection and Redirection Blast: Force Grip - Instead of causing damage, an enemy model hit by this attack can be pushed up to 3" in any direction

Spells:
Deceleration: COST 3 | RNG SELF | DUR RND |
While in the spellcaster's control range, friendly Faction models gain +2 ARM against ranged and magic attack damage rolls. Deceleration lasts for one round. 

Force Strike: COST 2 | RNG 8 | AOE - | POW 12 | DUR - | OFF Yes |
On a critical hit, the model hit becomes knocked down.

Hand of Destruction: COST 2 | RNG 10 | DUR Up | OFF Yes|
Friendly models in this model's battlegroup gain an additional die on attack and damage rolls against target model/unit. Discard the lowest die in each roll.

Obliteration: COST 4 | RNG 10 | AOE 5 | POW 15 | OFF Yes|

Rhythm of War: COST 3 | RNG Self | AOE CTRL | DUR Up | 
Warjacks in this model's battlegroup that are in its control range can advance up to 3" after all friendly models have ended their activations on your turn. 

Feat: Arcantrik Aptitude
Remove all damage points from the force fields of Friendly Faction warjacks in Helynna's control range. While in Helynna's control range, friendly Faction models gain +3 ARM and do not suffer the effects of crippled systems. Arcantrik Aptitude lasts for one round. 

---------------------------------

Why Bring Helynna?
So what seems to me to be her key abilities are Rhythm, Deceleration, Hand of Destruction, and Force Grip.

Protection:
Rhythm of War is an extremely powerful spell that allows her to either play the spacing game by utilizing the wide stable of jack guns available to her to shoot and step back from retaliation or shove heavy armor down the enemy's throat. A key part of RoW is that it has nothing to do with what the warjack did in it's activation; running, failing charges, being effected by SPD debuffs, etc have no bearing on whether or not the model can move with Rhythm, which allows you to pull tricks like running Fleeted Griffons deep into enemy lines and then using Rhythm to push them deeper. Helynna herself doesn't move though, so be sure not to leave her exposed. 

Deceleration is the only buff she has that effects infantry models. +2 ARM on the approach across her whole force is great for her warjacks but it does require some specific infantry choices to shine. Anything with a base ARM of 14 or less isn't going to see a ton of benefit in my experience, which leaves Ryssovass Defenders (ARM 17 should protect them from small arms fire) and Dawnguard models. All three Dawnguard units can get up to ARM 19 under the Decel bubble, with the Sentinals jumping up to 22 if they chose to minifeat the turn before they charge. Probably essential the first two turns, but unless your opponent has a ton of shooting this spell has probably done it's job by the time turn 3 rolls around and you need to start allocating in earnest. 

Hand of Destruction: Her chief way of getting damage out on the board. Target priority seems to be the trick with this and is something I definitely haven't nailed down yet; I often end up casting it on a target (usually a heavy) and then overcommitting resources so it ends up dead long before I planned and leaves me with models and/or focus out of position to be of use. Since it's an upkeep you can, in theory, put it on a model/unit and work through it over time but I usually end up sticking it on whatever I want dead ASAP and killing it immediately. Definitely stronger with guns since it can be difficult to get multiple jacks into melee with the target. 

Force Grip: On both her melee and ranged attack this is just a super flexible ability. Since you can chose the direction it can be used as a threat extender (though at RNG 12 the jacks should probably already be closer than Helynna), a scenario tool, a defensive tool, and who knows what else. There's really no time when an omnidirectional push is bad. The only downside is that it's tied to her middling MAT and RAT scores, she can't arc it, and if she's close enough to melee things are probably pretty bleak. 

Feat: Removing force field damage is cute, but the big part of this feat is ignoring crippled systems and giving her entire army +3 ARM. This is the only part of her kit besides Decel that really does much for infantry and again lends her to taking high-ARM troops so she can jack it up even further. It seems to me like feating turn 2 is usually the best plan, the times I've tried to wait until there is force field damage to heal I've ended up taking too much damage in the intervening turn, often crippling a jack that then is functional for my feat but not afterwards. 

So the package we end up with is a mid-to-backline support caster who excels at protecting her army, especially her battlegroup, and leveraging maneuverable jack gun platforms to harass the enemy at range. She herself is very squishy and often wants to spend a lot of her Focus, so survivability is an issue.