Battle Report #14 - Haley2 vs Lylyth2 (50)

:: Prologue ::

In my ongoing project to figure out whether Haley has game into Lylyth2 I had another chance today. This time my opponent was playing Lylyth2 ADR because we are preparing for a season 3 tournament in January. That means considerably more quality over quantity shooting than we often see otherwise. How would Haley2 fare against this?

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +5
- Squire
- Stormwall - PC: 19
- Lightning Pod
- Thorn - PC: 8
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution - PC: 3
Alexia2 - PC: 4
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team - Lynch, Ryan & Watts: 4
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer - Officer 2
Tactical Arcanist Corp - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4

Opponent:

Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight - WB: +5
- Succubus
- Naga Nightlurker - PC: 5
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower - PC: 6
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower - PC: 6
- Ravagore - PC: 10
- Ravagore - PC: 10
- Ravagore - PC: 10
Blighted Nyss Shepherd - PC: 1
Blighted Nyss Shepherd - PC: 1
The Forsaken - PC: 2
Strider Deathstalker - PC: 2

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Outflank. Since I wanted to stress-test this matchup (i.e. how bad can it be?) I gave away first turn. Going first here is absolutely crucial because in doing so you typically dominate the pace of the game. Thus it was time to put this to the test!

I pre-deployed the Stormwall centrally and Legion responded with a slight skew. I skewed Haley in the opposite direction, actually intending to go for the scenario. I deployed ATGM opposite the main part of the Legion forces. 

:: Game ::
Legion ran up towards the left circle. Shadow Pack went up, of course. 

I responded with an aggressive run from the ATGM. They basically took up positions toing the hill on all sides. Alexia ran towards the other circle as did the jacks. Haley took cover with Eiryss starting a flanking move to force the central Ravagore to either "care about her" or risk having her tear up the back lines. 

Basically, Legion had to either feat to kill all ATGM or hope that I'd fail a CMD check. With deceleration they were sitting on DEF19. While Wraithbane took care of this to an extent it can't be cast on everyone. 4 guys died, I passed CMD. The central Ravagore took out Eiryss. 

Ok, so bottom of 2 and my zone was uncontested. While the last turn took a toll on my flanking units I was in a perfection position from a scenario point of view. I sent up TAC to screen Haley with the Stormwall going base to base with the one on the flank. ATGM moved up and thunderbolted a couple of Ravagores. It was actually kind of close to me getting a point for his zone as well but I had no chance of getting Thorn into the mix despite his awesome threat range so I quickly gave up on this idea. 

Alexia in front of TAC was a precaution in case he wanted to feat and go for Haley. She basically meant he'd have to hit a lot of angles. He spent his feat however, killed Alexia and the ATGM. While Alexia might seem like a bit of overkill here, I fear she might not have been enough in fact: By having 1 Ravagore target her, a Bolter taking out a TAC the central Ravagore can then finish target Haley. It's probably dicey. Regardless, Legion didn't go for it. Losing Alexia isn't that big of a deal, without infantry (which were taken out due to ADR) she can't easily get souls and get back off to the Stormwall/Haley to utilize Arcane Vortex. 

2-2.

I lost my Squire to careless positioning. To be honest I didn't think he'd even matter with feat (i.e. I thought Lylyth would only go for Haley if she feated). Oh well, a bit of a pain to be honest. Anyway, with 2-2 the plan was pretty clear: Get the Ravagore out of the zone, camp on Haley, lock stuff down and feat to a 4-2.

I put 2 focus on the Stormwall and 1 on Thorn. The latter ran up in-between the zones. The Stormwall moved 7" up and podded next to Lylyth. In the heat of the moment I lost sight of the objective in this game and got obsessed with a move I'd been wanting to try ever since I killed Vayl2 in a recent Legion-game: Throw something on the pod instead of the actual caster/lock you are trying to kill. So I performed a double handed throw on the Ravagore, boosted to hit and... Killed the pod. Without anything to contest the zone with, I basically gave away the game. 

The sad part is it didn't even matter if Lylyth was knocked down. There was no follow up and it was irrelevant where the Ravagore landed (i.e. a scatter off of Lylyth would not have mattered in the slightest). My opponent forgot the fact that I didn't contest his zone and activated the Bolt Thrower first. However he moved him close to the Ravagore because he was intending a crazy plan of Thunderbolting Thorn away. When he realized what had happened he responded with his own two-handed throw: The Ravagore tossed the Bolt Thrower into my zone to contest. 

With that, I got a loss and a lesson I'll hopefully not forget any time soon. 

:: Evaluation ::

In my opinion, Haley2 vs Lylyth2 is reminiscent of chess in the sense that the one who controls the center of the map typically determines the pace of the game (and usually has the upper hand). In this game, the Legion deployment determined a more cautious approach which gave me the breathing space I needed T1 to set up for my scenario game with all the vital pieces safe. 

From T2 onwards the game basically played itself. A few minor issues here and there but I was firmly in control of the game and would've taken a comfortable win had it not been for the stupid podding mistake. The good thing is that I'll remember this loss because of that mistake, which hopefully means I won't do something like that again.

All in all this game was not what I'd hoped it would be because it didn't help me understand the nature of the matchup -if- Lylyth puts pressure on Haley2 by taking the center of the table T1. It was interesting to see that in a more traditional skewed-vs-skewed deployment I have the advantage, but this was no surprise because my feat is infinitely better for control than Lylyth's and furthermore going second in Outflank is often an advantage for a scenario-based approach.