Battle Report #11: Caine2 vs Haley2

This evening will be all blue on blue (or, in our case, purple on copper). We both have the same pairing and my opponent, Morten, wants to play Haley2. Mirrors are boring as hell, so I pick Caine2. 

I have modified my list every so slightly, again.

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)

Captain Allister Caine (+27)

* Reinholdt (4)

* Stormwall (39)

Journeyman Warcaster (4)

* Firefly (8)

Captain Arlan Strangewayes (4)

Gun Mage Captain Adept (5)

Lanyssa (3)

Ragman (4)

6 Rangers (9)

6 Trencher Infantry (10)

* 3 Trencher Infantry Rifle Grenadier (6)

Lynus Wesselbaum and Edrea Lloryrr (5)

Haley2 (75 points)

Haley2 (+25)

* Squire (5)

* Centurion (17)

* Ironclad (12)

* Thorn (13)

Captain Arlan Strangewayes (4)

Journeyman Warcaster (4)

* Hunter (11)

2 Arcane Tempest Riflemen (8)

Gun Mage Capain Adept (5)

Lanyssa (3)

3 Storm Lances (12)

Deployment

Interesting matchup, both casters have so many shenanigans! My Rangers take the forest and his Hunter takes the trench.

Turn 1

I move up the tunnel in the middle.

Morten goes in to contest the zone with the Centurion.

Turn 2

Caine2 goes to work. I deem Thorn to be the biggest threat here, so I go up, and using Applied Knowledge from Lynus and two boosted shots + boosted damage rolls he scalpels out Thorn's Arc Node and applies Grievous Wounds so he cannot repair it back. I also trick shot Lanyssa away. Caine camps nothing but with Thorn gone, I don't think there is much risk him dying. It will surely require a hell of a lot of 12's from his Riflemen to do anything.

The GMCA and Stormwall kill a Storm Lance.

I'm very happy about my position, lots of damage and he cannot hit me hard on his coming feat turn.

The Ironclad goes in and kills some Trenchers and several of my Rangers get shot. Haley2 feats, but Caine being so far up makes Morten play very carefully and a lot of my force, including Caine2 and Ragman, are not caught. The Centurion goes in and also kills a Trencher.

Turn 3

The Ironclad is very close to Caine and has to die. I feat and with Rags and the Firefly I kill it. I am way up and he has done almost no damage to my force.

Caine2 is within threat of the Hunter, so Morten wisely decides to go for an assassination. Poor placement on my part I think, slightly different placement I could have made the attempt way harder by forcing the Hunter to move before shooting, or getting concealment.

I guessed his chance was about 40% to land this one.

He tries to time bomb the Trencher next to Caine but cannot boost. It misses twice on a 7 with the Quire reroll, pretty unfortunate. After that the Hunter shoots two accelerated shots at Caine needing 10's to hit, but only 1 connects and it does not do enough damage.

I almost threw away the game there, but the dice were in my favor today!

Cygnar wins!

Assassination Calculation

Missing the time bomb: Less than 17%, probably only scatter 1 direction works, so about 14% (hard to calculate the exact chance of the scatter hitting).
Hitting both Hunter shots if Time Bomb misses: 39%
Hitting both Hunter shots if Time Bomb hits: 69%
Dealing at least 15 damage to Caine with 2 Hunter shots, one boosted damage: 60%

Hitting both Hunter shots: 63%
Total chance of assassination: 38%

My 40% estimate seems spot on. :D

The chance would have been only 20% if I had moved Caine behind the cloud, and half that if I had also put him inside the forest. Careless placement kills casters!

Post Mortem

Fun game. I got an advantage quickly with Lynus help. With Thorn's 19" run + TK + Reaction Drive move he has no reason to be within range of Caine.

Caine2 is squishy and it does not take much to kill him. I need to work on better placement to deny easy assassinations.