Battle Report #3: Haley2 vs Iron Mother Directrix

Third Haley2 game is against Iron Mother Directrix. I have actually never played against Convergence, so I have no idea what is going on.

The Lists

Haley2 Rookie Squad (75 points)

I was happy with the list from last time.

Haley2 (+25)
- Squire (5)
- Defender (16)
- Ironclad (12)
- Thorn (13)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
- Firefly (8)
Jakes1 (4)
- Thunderhead (20)
Arlan (4)
Ragman (4)
6 Trenchers (10)

Iron Mother Directrix (75 points)

OK. That is a lot of armor and boxes.

Iron Mother (+27)

- Prime Axiom (38)

- Assimilator x3 (48)
- Corollary (6)

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex (2)

Attunement Servitors (4)

Optifex Directive (4)

Deployment

Incursion and same terrain as the last battle. Iron Mother wins the dice-off and goes first.

He places his forces centrally. I divide my forces in two to go around the forest - Defender and Thorn to grab the left flag, and the brick in the center. Trenchers split up to Smoke in front of both groups.

My main issue here is the pulls that his Prime Axiom can do. Except for that, I have far better threat ranges.

Golden Convergence vs Purple Cygnar. Fight!

Turn 1 

He moves up.

I move up and fire two Accelerated shots into the leftmost Assimilator. He has a bunch of shooting so Deflection goes up.

I place the solos a bit behind the clouds so they cannot be Ground Pounded.

Turn 2

He shoots three of the Trenchers and backs up his heavies.

My opponent's placing is very defensive. I cannot manage to get in both Thunderhead and the Ironclad. Since he has so little infantry I decide to engage his Prime Axiom colossal with Thunderhead, and feat.

We discussed my move afterwards and agreed that it was poor. I should either have killed off an Assimilator, or but the unpushable Thunderhead in the center with the other jacks behind so nothing could be pulled. I do some boxes, but no major damage.

I shoot away two Optifex Directives and the Ironclad and Thorn grabs two flags. The Firefly gets close to the rightmost flag, but is missing an inch. This is something I must remember to measure in the future.

2-0 and Haley has feated, this is looking good.

Turn 3

Iron Mother feats. Prime Axiom goes bananas, pulls in both my other Jacks, murders Thunderhead, and cripples the melee weapons on both the Ironclad and the Defender. The rest of his force does little damage, but tries to contest as well as it can.

Desperate Convergence move to contest

Haley2 time bombs a few defenders and moves his only contesting Assimilator away with Telekinesis. Thorn and the Firefly cleans up around the other flags and Arlan caps the center.

Cygnar wins 5-0 on scenario, Haley2 style!

My esteemed opponent

Post Game Thoughts

I think this matchup is hard for Convergence. While playing defensively blunts my alpha, it also makes it extremely hard for him to contest scenario.

I made a couple of mistakes. I did not need to put the defender within his pull range, it as 13" and I can shoot 16", My thought was to be within range to engage in melee next turn, but of course the pulls made me engage a lot sooner.

Also, I overlooked how good Jakes + Thunderhead is against his pulls, even if my opponent graciously pointed it out before we started playing.

Cygnar Tactics Page Added

As I make mistakes (or good plays), I will make a note in my new Cygnar Tactics Page.

Battle Report #2: Haley2 vs Rask

For my second Haley2 game I face Rask, played by Halvor. I haven't played him before. His threat ranges are long, but I mine are a bit longer. My plan is to get up quickly, deploy smoke, engage and feat. I should by then be so close that Rask's feat has little effect.

The Lists

Haley2 Rookie Squad (75 points)

I adjusted the list slightly. With my long threat ranges I think that both Lanyssa and Centurion are overkill. I swap them for Ragman and Defender, for a better ranged game and more armor crushing.

Haley2 (+25)
- Squire (5)
- Defender (16)
- Ironclad (12)
- Thorn (13)
Journeyman Warcaster (4)
- Firefly (8)
Jakes1 (4)
- Thunderhead (20)
Arlan (4)
Ragman (4)
6 Trenchers (10)

Rask (75 points)

Rask (+27)

- Backhide Wrastler x2 (32)

- Swamp Horror (14)

Wrong Eye & Snapjaw (17)

Bog Trog MIst Speaker (4)

Lanyssa (3)

Maximus (4)
Saxon Orrik (4)

Farrow Slaughterhousers (11)

Gatorman Bokor (11)

Swamp Gobbers (2)

Deployment

We play Incursion.

Turn 1

I win the roll-off and decide to take as much space as possible by going first.

I deploy Thorn on the left to contest / take the left flag, planning to take the other flags with my brick. I then ignore the left flag completely the whole game. As we will see, ignoring scenario is bad bad bad.

Trenchers run up. I cast Telekinesis on 4 jacks.

The rest of the army bricks up behind the clouds.

Rask advances and clouds. Saxon Orric runs up on the left.

Haley2, what to do.

 Turn 2

Thunderhead moves up and the left but fails to do much damage. Defender kills Maximus. I move my jacks up and feat, catching everything.

Rask cannot do much under my feat. He moves up to get his beasts into position.

I ignored the left objective and Saxon scores. 0-1.

In position

 Turn 3

Wrong Eye has gotten to close to Thunderhead, I trample across some Slaughterhousers and punch him to death, removing Snapjaw,

I make a crucial positioning mistake with Jakes. He cannot safely go within 8" of Thunderhead to give focus the next turn. This means I should have kept him way back instead of hanging him close to the front. I cloud up but forget that a minion solo can hand out Eyeless sight.

The Ironclad moves up to the right side Wrastler but fails to kill him, leaving him at 3 boxes.

Thorn tries to kill the Swamp Horror but has no chance, even with Ragman helping.

Again, I ignored the objective. 0-2.

He fails to kill the Ironclad in return.

Saxon scores again 0-3.

 Turn 4

I have killed much of his stuff but the Gator that ate Jakes is very close to Haley. I plan out that I have to cast Telekinesis on Thorn to contest... but focus all on killing the Wrastler and forget to do so during my turn.

So, I have basically killed almost his entire army and lost 2 models! But Saxon scores again!

0-5

Saxon Orrik MVP

Cygnar loses by stupidity (I mean, scenario).

Post game thoughts

My three major blunders were not paying attention to Saxon and the scenario, losing Jakes by keeping him too far forward, and of course forgetting to make a crucial move on the last turn.

I should have focused more on making sure that Warbeasts die. I got a bit too greedy with that right side Wrastler, he would have died if I had focused more firepower on him.

Except for that, the game went well. I like the changes to the list. With a better play on my part I think Rask will have big troubles surviving my double alpha.

Thanks to Halvor for a great game!

My new custom purple Cygnar tokens are under way from Frozen Forge

A custom purple-colored Cygnar token set to match my purple Cygnar army are on the way to me from Frozen Forge! Here is the uncut token sheet:

Frozen Forge makes the best looking tokens. You get enough tokens for all mercenaries, and with enough duplicates to cover pretty much any possible army. Journeyman Warcaster spell tokens are even different from the Warcaster ones!

Painting: Lieutenant Allison Jakes

I can't have an army with only one miniature left unpainted. Here's Allison Jakes!

Front View

Straps. So many straps. And ammo belts. The amount of detail on this miniature is just crazy.

Rear View

Allison Jakes, at your service!

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.

List #1: Haley2 Rookie Squad

The Idea

After some discussion on the Cygnar forums I got an idea for a Haley2 list. I love Thunderhead, but old Nemo2 got a lot worse in Mk3, and with all her threat range shenanigans Haley2 is the perfect match. She also makes it fairly easy to do the same trick twice with her feat.

The List

Haley2 Rookie Squad (75)

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)

Strategy

"Too much of a good things is wonderful", as they say, so I put Thunderhead on Jakes for an amazing theoretical 19" Pulse threat range, or 17" without any attack rolls needed. This also frees up some focus for Haley2.

The Journeyman + Firefly module got added for extra electrical damage and making the jack bullets harder to kill.

With all these squishy spellcasters that need to be (too far) up front, I added a min unit of Trenchers to maybe protect them for a turn or two.

For armor cracking I put in Centurion, Ironclad, Ragman, and Lanyssa for free charges and even more threat.

Haley2 never leaves the house without Thorn and Squire.