Jayda

Jayda is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most flexible models in the game.

Jayda’s card.

Aside from healing, Jayda can try her hand at pretty much any facet of the game. Need some melee damage? She boasts a respectable 4 melee, +1 piercing damage and fantastic signature. Need a long-range damage dealer? She can 'Shoot Bow'. Need a harvester? 4 non-weakling energy and two passive abilities which augment her movement will sort that! But how best can you make use of these abilities and potentially buff her even further?

Dual Faction

The first thing worth noting when considering Jayda's use is her status as a dual faction model. With both the Leshavult and Commonwealth symbols she can play for either of these factions and each will appreciate her in a different way. It is also the case that she will be buffed by both factions in a different way too. Generally, Lesahvult will be making the most of the fact she is a faun whilst Commonwealth will often leverage her soldier trait. Therefore, a great model to take alongside her in Leshavult is Hoff who will be able to bump up her melee stat as well as provide her with additional movement tricks. Conversely, in Commonwealth Sir Guillemot Poppycock can provide her with similar melee and movement tricks. In fact, in Commonwealth Jayda can make use of both these models as Hoff is also part of the Commonwealth. This can yield a 6 melee Jayda, with two uses of Swift and two out of activation movement abilities but can sometimes lead to a redundant Hoff if Jayda dies and he's left with no other fauns to help.

‘Dagger’ and ‘Mercy Kill’

“I do not wish to fight you, but I will if you insist.”

But why would you want a 6 melee Jayda? Because she has excellent melee potential! Her first ability to help with this is her 'Dagger' which increases piercing damage by +1. This will make her 'Rising attack's and 'Thrust's that little bit more dangerous. Usually, models with increased piercing damage can be quite predictable in combat because of this and hence damage from them can be minimised by 'Low guard's quite easily. Jayda can play around with this usual disadvantage of piercing damage with her signature which deals piercing damage on a 'Falling swing', taking 'Low guard' users completely by surprise! This can be further augmented when Jayda takes on her favourite targets, badly wounded ones. If utilising her signature against a target with 4 wounds or less, Jayda will deal a minimum of 3 piercing damage, up to a maximum of 6 piercing damage before crits. Furthermore, if this attack kills her target she will gain energy thereby immediately refunding the energy she spent on the attack! She is still at risk of losing wounds though due to her melee range of 1", 7 wounds and no armour so she wants to avoid taking as many hits as possible.

‘Shoot Bow’

Jayda's next method of causing damage however doesn't risk Jayda suffering wounds and can therefore be perfect for setting up quick melee kills. 'Shoot bow' has an excellent range of 10" so Jayda can jog, step, then shoot to threaten models within 15" with X+1 piercing damage. As well as setting up her own melee kills Jayda can also rely solely on the bow itself to make her a reliable ranged damage dealer. In Commonwealth, this isn't too valuable due to their other more efficient ranged damage dealers like Flintlock and Quarrel, but in Leshavult this can be deadly. One weakness of Leshavult is a lack of reliable ranged attackers which can make enemies like airships a menace. In addition to shoring up this weakness for the Leshavult, the Leshavult can in turn offer the best support to Jayda in pursuing this playstyle. Using Chubs' 'Rouse', Jayda can reach an impressive 6 energy. With this much energy, Jayda can fire her bow twice at a single target, wounding it very badly for an easy kill in melee next turn or outright killing them.

‘Swift’ and ‘Light Footed’

Sometimes though Jayda is faced with a target that is too heavily armoured, too healthy or otherwise not possible for Jayda to engage. In these instances, Jayda can fall back on her brilliant mobility buffs and tricks. 'Swift' has been seen on several other models before in Moonstone, but on Jayda it is particularly powerful due to Hoff. As well as having 'Swift' by default, Jayda can also gain 'Swift' from Hoff which turns it from once per turn into a twice per turn! This can make her a massive pain to slow down as any models trying to engage her will have to deal with two 2" movements. During her own activation, Jayda can utilise 'Light footed' to move into water features and wooded patches to get away or ambush models which can't traverse this terrain as easily. She can also use her large stockpiles of energy to move a considerable distance. Alternatively, if she's not in danger there is a better use for all her energy. With 4 non-weakling energy Jayda makes a great harvester, especially in Commonwealth which traditionally uses many 2 or 3 energy models.

All in all, Jayda is a very speedy, all-round, fragile model. She can easily finish off badly wounded enemies sometimes replenishing her energy. If close-quarters melee is not feasible she can instead pepper her foes from afar with arrows. In addition to this, she can use any leftover energy for 'Swift' to avoid disadvantageous engagements or to harvest moonstones and thereby bring her troupe one step closer to victory!