Battle Report #12: Haley2 vs Caine2 (match 1)

Blue on blue, part deux. This time I play Haley2, and my new opponent, Lars, takes Caine2.

Major Victoria Haley (75 points)

I'm playing the same all-girl Warcaster squad as I played previously. Can Caine2 handle all these deadly women?

Major Victoria Haley (+25)
* Squire (5)
* Defender (16)
* Ironclad (12)
* Thorn (13)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
* Firefly (8)
Jakes1
* Thunderhead
Arlan (4)
Ragman (4)
6 Trenchers (10)

Captain Allister Caine (75 points)

I have my doubts about this list. I think Laddermore might be unneccesary here, with all the accuracy that the Rangers provide. Also, Rags is missing.

Captain Allister Caine (+27)
* Reinholdt (4)
* Stormwall (39)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
* Firefly (8)
Laddermore (8)
6 Rangers (9)
5 Storm Lances (20)
6 Trencher Infantry (10)

Deployment

I win the roll. I want that sweet trench for the girls to camp in. Lars goes first.

It seems hard to score on this scenario since none of our casters want to be anywhere near the flags, and that huge zone is easy to contest. I just deploy to have a long line behind the smoke wall and prepare to slug it out.

My opponent places Trenchers in the Rough, forgetting that they do not have Pathfinder. Better to put them on either side.

Turn 1

We both move up. I forget to move Thorn, silly me. I sometimes forget I can move him again after the first 5" TA + Reaction Drive.

Turn 2

The shooting starts. Caine and all his infantry kills every single Trencher. A bit sad to not have one or two alive for another round of cloud cover, but they did prevent him from killing anything else. Also, Caine2 is now in the middle of rubble, and his threat is now down to around 15", which is very bad.

I scalpel out a Trencher to make a hole for Thunderhead. I cast Deflection and accelerate the Ironclad, camping 2, and feat, not catching Caine but almost all the rest of his force. Thunderhead Pulses and barbecues everything but 1 Ranger and 2 Trenchers. The Ironclad murders two Lances.

This is the position I want - a Thunderhead that cannot realistically be killed standing within 17" of the enemy caster.

Turn 3

Caine feats and does not back off. He fires on the Ironclad but breaks off  to camp 2 focus, leaving it alive.

Assassinations don't get much more certain than this. I run up the Firefly, Energize + Accelerate Thunderhead, and after a POW 14 Pulse and two more POW 16 autohits shots Caine is dead. I had one more boosted autohit left to go. Average dice damage on this is something like 41 boxes.


An alternative play would have been to hit the Colossal with everything, but I could not get Ragman in range, and then with no buffs ARM22 could be too much.

The Funderhead!

Post Mortem

I explained the Thunderhead trick before we started, but just as with Caine2's assassination, it's a bit hard to see it coming anyway unless you have been at the receiving end once before.

This Haley2 list is pretty well tailored to kill infantry swarms + average armor, so I was probably at an advantage from the beginning. This game went fast, so we decided to gave another go!