Battle Report #1: Haley2 vs Haley3

For the first battle we go blue on blue (or an my case, purple). I play Haley2, and Lars plays Haley3. Messing with the space-time continuum leads to such stuff, I hear.

The Lists

Haley2 Rookie Squad (75 points)

My experimental Haley2 list.

Haley2 (+25)
- Squire (5)
- Centurion (17)
- Ironclad (12)
- Thorn (13)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
- Firefly (8)
Jakes1 (4)
- Thunderhead (20)
Lanyssa (3)
Ragman (4)
6 Trenchers (10)

Haley3 (75 points)

This is fairly standard type of Haley3 list, nothing unusual in here.

Haley3 (+25)
- Ironclad (12)
- Thorn (13)
- Stormclad (18)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
- Charger (9)
Piper (4)
Ragman (4)
5 Storm Lances (20)
10 Trenchers (16)

Lars, my opponent

Pre battle thoughts

The scenario is Outlast.

Both our lists have a similar basic strategy: Advance with our army protected by clouds, and try to do damage without retaliation, to shift the attrition in our favor. Both of us can do fairly long range assassinations.

My opponent was wary about Thunderhead, and I made sure to point out the tricks with threat range and the auto hitting.

The good

•  I have better melee threat ranges.
•  Haley3 has lots of fryable infantry targets, including the Echoes when they are corporeal.
•  Thunderhead ignores DEF skew, which is Haley3's main attrition trick.

The bad

•  His long spell threat ranges (15" Thorn move) and True Sight on the Echoes puts Journeyman and Jakes in danger.
•  His Lances are lightning immune, so I cannot fry the most valuable targets.
•  It's a bit tricky for me to defend both objectives.

First Game

Our first game was a total mess due to a rules error (True Sight does not work while channeling, so my opponent could not get me by arcing through my clouds). We reset the match and went for it again. At least, now we knew better what the other list did.

Second Game

Setup

My plan when setting up was to have Thunderhead central to try to blow up as many Trenchers as possible, and then have the rest of the Warjacks close by in order to deal with any retaliation. I would try to clear the right zone and start scoring as soon as possible.

A challenge with my list is the low model count, which can make it hard to contest split objectives like this one. I could split off the Journeyman and Firefly but I think it would be hard to defend them properly. Next time I think I will have the Centurion closer to whatever zone I am not gunning for.

Turn 1

He wins the roll and moves up and clouds.
I do the same.

Turn 1: Haley3 moves up the board

Turn 2

Lars could not really get much done with my cloud wall up, so he advanced again and shot and killed two Trenchers. He had one possible move with running Thorn into my clouds, arcing one spell to move it 3" more, and then trying to pull out a Warjack to get the alpha. But it's possible that the Echoes would not close enough to arc through it then. Past walks up to see my Firefly through the clouds, and blasts away both Lanyssa and Ragman with one spell. This was a mistake on my part, they could have been a bit further back and still have helped in the ensuing melee.

I see an opening. I clear out a blocking Storm Lance, move Thunderhead up, and fry a handful of Trenchers and Haley Past. I then run Thorn into his clouds and dominate his Stormclad, making it walk into his clouds and present ass. Haley feats and moves up. I do not manage to completely kill the 'Clad, leaving it at a few boxes, but since it has its back turned he is unable to retaliate under my feat. I don't contest left, so Lars scores 1-0.

Turn 3

My feat has shut Haley3 down completely. Everything is caught, and since Lars must revive Haley Past he cannot do any slam shenanigans this turn. Maybe it would have been better to feat anyway and try to dominate one of my jacks into position so he could kill it. He ends up just shooting the Firefly a little, and I can go bananas with Thunderhead again next turn. Lars still holds the left zone, and scores 2-0.

The assassination angles are real.

Looking at the board, I just need to clear out one Stormlance and one Trencher to open up space for Thorn to move up within 8" of Haley Prime. I do so. Haley2 is at 5 focus and tries to Telekinesis Prime into Thunderhead range. Her first attempt comes up snake eyes, but on the next I connect with the boost.  The chances were excellent, I needed 10+ on 3D6 with two attempts and one reroll (this gives roughly a 95% chance of success). Haley also presents ass to Thunderhead, who walks up and fries her down to 4 boxes (some bad rolls there). Jakes takes a potshot, connects, and Prime is dead. I also had a fully loaded Ironclad that could reach her so this was all very likely to work.

If the teleport had failed, I would probably have aborted the assassination and sent up the Ironclad to kill something. I would have been in real danger of being spell assassinated by the Haleys in that case.

Cygnar wins by assassination!

Post game thoughts

Well, this was a good start! The threat skew is extreme. I got the two turn Pulse off as planned, and it was devastating. I think that keeping the Journeyman and Jakes alive might be hard work, so I will really have to learn all enemy threat ranges with this list.

Covering both objectives is hard. The forest here made it even harder. I am not quite sure how to handle it, I should probably just have the Centurion toe the zone.

I has a discussion with Jarle (one of the better Cygnar players on the planet) of Courage of Caspia fame afterwards, and he suggested that I swap Centurion + Lanyssa for Dynamo + Gobber for more armor cracking potential and a better shooting game. It seems like it would be an improvement. I have neither of those minis yet, though, and I really prefer playing with my own painted minis. Anyway, I think I should try the list some more times before changing it!

Thanks to Lars for a great game!

Things I forgot

1. Haley and her battlegroup can choose to boost after rolling. I forgot this several times, but Lars kindly reminded me!
2. Centurion has Critical Sustained Attack and Ironclad has Critical Knockdown. I forgot to check for critical hits all game.

Corrections

Jarle correctly pointed out that I could not have killed Haley Past with Thunderhead, since magic attacks do not remove Incorporeal.