Series Overview
In this Champion Guide Series, we will give you a quick breakdown of each champion. This is geared mostly towards people who have not played with this champion much, so it’s not an in-depth tactical treatise. This is more of a quick breakdown and assessment of the champion.
We will grade each champion’s offense, defense, support, mobility, and control. We’ll explain each grade and then give you a quick vision of a dream activation for that champion.
Intro
About the Author
Hi everyone! My name is Ben and I've been a Godtear enthusiast for about two and a half years. During this time, I've played in almost all of the continuously run Discord community tournaments, hosted the Twin Cities Godtear Open, dabbled as a YouTube Godtear content creator, and flirted in and out of the top 8 players on Longshanks. At of the time of writing, I happen to be the #1 Kailinn player on Longshanks (she has definitely been the “centaur” of my attention recently), and can boast a 10-0 tournament record with the champion over the past year (which is MUCH more illustrative of how strong she is than my own skill). Objective Hex is the only reason I bought into Godtear, so I’m very excited to be able to submit this article!
What is Kailinn’s playstyle?
Kailinn's key strengths are her mobility and damage. Her playstyle has been well described by the exceptional New Player Intro To Every Crew article:
“Kailinn flies all over the board and unleashes very powerful attacks. She lacks the sheer attack volume of other maelstroms, though, and can only target up to three followers per clash phase without using her ultimate. Still, her attacks hit hard and can take out large followers and even enemy champions efficiently. Kailinn is highly mobile and can enter hexes occupied by followers, pushing them around as she sees fit. However, Kailinn can never enter objective hexes, which restricts her movement and ensures that she can never threaten enemy banners.”
A note for new players…
Kailinn breaks a lot of the typical rules in Godtear and is an extremely polarizing champion. New players often struggle to play against her, and can find the play patterns frustrating and unfun. I don’t think this is insurmountable, but generally don't recommend playing Kailinn against less experienced players.
Cards
Ratings
Here is the grading scale for each category:
Awful
Bad
Average
Good
Outstanding
Offense: Outstanding
Kailinn is often referred to as an “orange champion”, meaning that she is a Maelstrom (yellow) that is also very strong at pressuring and slaying champions like a Slayer (red). Kalinn’s attacks are extremely flexible. She can advance four hexes (five if a Virtue has given her a movement boon) and still make two 6 damage attacks against a champion (with one being a 7 damage attack if a Virtue has given her a damage boon). Or she can leverage her Centaur passive trait to finish her advance in an objective hex with three small enemy followers, dispersing each into a different hex, and attack two with Flashing Blade and the third with the free action Brutal Charge.
On top of the potential three attack rolls from Kailinn, her Virtues can advance and still each generate an independent attack. This makes a potential five very flexible attacks per round from the crew, which is significantly above average for both the number of attacks and the raw amount of damage dice thrown.
Oh, and Brutal Charge being a bonus action after an advance means that Kailinn can rally after being KOed, advance four hexes, and still get an attack off.
Defense: Average
Kailinn’s 7 health is respectable, but her 3 dodge with 2 protection is widely considered the worst defensive profile in the game. The Virtues share Kailinn’s defensive profile, and have a measly 4 health. This crew is not hard to hit, and not hard to wound. There are some saving graces though… The Virtues Patience skill means that Kailinn can be granted a dodge and/or protection boon, and their Serenity skill means that they can grant themselves a dodge boon. Additionally, when Kailinn needs to play defensive, she can often use her speed to retreat to safety (ideally somewhere she can also set up an uncrushable banner).
Support: Good
Kailinn is deceptively good at support. Ending her advance in an allied small followers hex can often grant a free hex of movement for them. Kalinn’s Thundering Hooves skill grants an allied champion an additional hex of movement, and can double dip to also give a group of allied small followers an additional hex of movement by using the skill to move one into their hex. One additional hex of movement is easy to undervalue, but it roughly doubles the number of hexes that can be reached!
The Virtue’s Compassion skill may only target a single model and not an entire hex, but it still has lots of great uses for units that don’t need to be clumped, to spread other followers and fill more hexes, or to assist in escaping Mournblade’s Knightshades (as the movement is not an advance action, it is not affected by the Knightshade passive).
Mobility: Outstanding+
Kailinn’s mobility can’t even be rated on the same scale used for other champions. Four movement speed in both phases is already the highest in the game, and it is almost double the average total movement of other champions… but Kailinn can also be granted a movement speed boon by the Virtues, move an additional hex as part of her Impaling Horn ultimate or Thundering Hooves skill, or use Powerful Leap to place herself anywhere within 2 hexes (that isn’t an objective hex)… AND she can move through small followers… AAAAAAAND she can end her movement in a hex already occupied by small followers? IS THIS REAL LIFE?
When the Virtue’s use their Compassion skill on themselves in the plot, they can move a total of 6 hexes. This is more than any other unit in the game can move in a single phase and would normally be incredible, but it barely registers as a blip compared to the Thanos level cosmic power of Kailinn’s mobility.
You heard it here, straight from the horse's mouth, Kaillin can really hoof it. The game developers did not do a single thing to rein in her movement. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but Kailinn is not a one trick pony. The gap between her and the average champion is one of… neigh… is THE biggest gap in the game, and that speed can really make you feel like a foal.
Control: Bad
Not much to say here. Kailinn can force movement of enemy small followers, but has no ability (outside of the action denial of KOing enemies) to interact with champions, large followers, or banners (which she can’t even crush).
Pregame
Allies
Champions that are good at crushing banners are a strong complement to Kaillin’s natural weakness. Kailinn’s bad scenarios and matchups are REALLY bad. So when you don’t know what scenarios or champion matchups you will be playing, it is very advantageous to avoid other polarizing champions. Generalists with minimal bad matchups like Rangosh, Raith, Styx, and Finvarr are always solid choices. Additionally, champions with complimentary scenario and matchup strengths, most notably Rhodri, can be great to pair with Kailinn in constructed list formats.
Enemies
For a more detailed look at good and bad matchups, take a look at the matchups article category. As of the time of writing, https://www.objectivehex.com/post/maelstrom-matchups-november-2023-edition-by-dave-m is the most recent analysis:
Scenarios
Kailinn likes scenarios that are spread out (to abuse her speed), are battle ladder centric (to minimize the impact of her inability to crush), and that avoid large clusters of objective hexes (which can make it difficult to get in position).
Quest: Outstanding
Heck yeah. A slightly smaller battle ladder (8 points), but her speed and mobility provide unrivaled flexibility for the scenario.
Death: Outstanding
Three objective clusters, full battle ladder (10 points), and a battle ladder centric end phase mechanic? Sign me up.
Change: Good
Three objective clusters, near full battle ladder (9 points), and hard to restrict movement? Solid. The only thing keeping Change from being outstanding is that the shifting hexes provide additional opportunities for opponents to exploit her inability to crush.
Life: Average
Neutral (which is still a good thing) to bad depending on how good of crushers Kailinn is paired with and playing against. It does feel quite a bit better when Kailinn is paired with a shaper that can easily move objective hexes and open up lanes between objective clusters.
Chaos: Bad
I personally find this one of the harder scenarios for Kailinn. Lots of flexibility for opponents to exploit her passive, cluster up for retaliation, or generally mitigate the benefits of her speed.
Construction: Bad
Good battle ladder (9 points), but increasing banner points and the ease of evading Kailinn my moving through the density of objective hexes makes this her second worst scenario in my opinion.
Knowledge: Awful
Bad. Very bad. Shrinking battle ladder and banner focused? Definitely a very, VERY niche pick.
Rules FAQs
Do Kailinn’s Powerful Leap, Thundering Hooves, and Impaling Horn allow Kailinn to enter small followers hexes?
Yes! Kailinn’s Centaur trait specifies that Kailinn “may enter small followers hexes”, not just advance into small followers hexes. This means that each of these skills (in addition to advance actions) may displace friendly or enemy small followers in the hex she ends in.
Can Kailinn’s Flashing Blade skill target champions?
Yes! Flashing Blade is a “skull skill”, which by default is limited to targeting an enemy champion or follower. It does not have the common “Must target followers.” templating, so the “may target up to two followers that are in different hexes” is an additional option and the skill can be used to target a champion, a single follower, OR two followers that are in different hexes.
Can Kailinn end a move in a hex containing followers if there are no hexes for the followers to be moved to?From the official SFG FAQ: No, Kailinn can only end a move in a hex containing followers if there are hexes she can move the followers to. This must be a hex they could normally move into.
NOTE: This also means that Kailinn can't end her movement in a hex occupied by Rhodri’s Household Guard if they are adjacent to Rhodri, as their Shield Wall trait means they can't be moved out of the hex.
Example Activations
Example Plot Activation
The possibility of planting on a remote hex too far for enemy champions to reach but close enough for Kailinn to get back to the action and still score battle ladder points is very obviously strong, but I want to focus on a less obvious tactic I have used multiple times… clearing an enemy blockade in the plot.
Below is a setup very similar to a recent game I played on the Change scenario. Kailinn ended the previous clash phase adjacent to a remote hex cluster with the intent of planting and advancing back to the fray. The enemy went first in the plot, planting a banner and blocking my Finvarr from any objective hexes.
Rather than following my original plan of planting with Kailinn, which risks Lily activating first and pushing Finvarr out of potential crushing range, I advanced Kailinn and displaced two of the problematic Thornlings.
Then, I used Kailinn’s Impaling Horn ultimate (I could also have used Powerful Leap or Thundering Hooves if I didn’t want the action economy of earning battle ladder points in the plot), moving her back out of the way and scoring me 3 points from a Thornling KO.
This opened a lane for Finvarr to crush Lily’s banner and plant an uncrushable banner of his own. Combined with the 3 plot phase battle ladder points from Kailinn’s Impaling Horn ultimate, the round and game were easily won.
Example Clash Activation
Here we can see a setup on Death where Rangosh started just to the right of where he planted his banner, attempted a retreat, and gathered the Red Bandits to KO a Virtue with Ambush.
Kailinn advances on top of the Red Bandits, displacing them to separate hexes, and uses a free action Brutal Charge to KO Rangosh.
Kailinn then uses Flashing Blade to target two of the Red Bandits, choosing to leave the Red Bandit that can’t be advanced outside the threat range of both the surviving Virtue and a potentially recruited Virtue.
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