Battle Report #6 - Haley2 vs Asphyxious2 (50)

:: Prologue ::

Doubly-whammy against Cryx tonight! I will start with the second game because it was, in my opinion, the least interesting one due to a misunderstanding on my opponent's part which drastically changed the game.

Going into Gaspy2 is a challenge for Cygnar. I've learned to try and deal with the army piecemeal. If I can do this and keep the other ABCs (e.g. the caster needs to be safe) then I'm usually ok. If I stretch too wide, I usually struggle. What have I learned from my recent endeavours? Read on!


:: 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:

Lich Lord Asphyxious
* Deathripper
* Helldiver
Satyxis Raider Captain
Bane Lord Tartarus
max Satyxis Raiders
* Satyxis Raider Sea Witch
max Bane Knights
Warwitch Siren
Orin Midwinter
Saxon Orrik
min Bile Thralls
* Skarlock Commander
Bane Riders

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Fire Support. I had Fuel Cache, he had Armoury. He won the roll-off and decided to go first. Right off the bat his deployment was extremely aggressive and weighted towards my side. If Cryx wants to pull something like this off, 3 conditions need to be met: He needs to ensure that my T2 potentially-scoring-points-quick is in check (doubly so because I can feat whilst doing this), he needs to ensure Gaspy is safe and he needs to be sure of his ability to attrition me down. Based on his deployment I couldn't see how he'd deal with a counter-aggressive move on my part so I deployed accordingly:

:: Game ::

Cryx moves up but it's a bit of a cautious advance. Gaspy puts down 3 clouds next to the woods and the Riders hide behind.

I want to start knocking off Raiders as soon as possible. I didn't pay attention to his movement but from guesstimating with Haley it looks as though the Rider behind the wall might just be close enough to the Stormwall. I decide to go for a cautious move with the bigger portion of my army, tempt out the Riders and set up for a big, 3-0 T2. With shuffling the entire army right I don't see what Cryx can do about that. I try for the Rider with the Stormwall but it's too far away.

I forgot covering fire but with this being a friendly I was allowed to put it up:

So Cryx keeps advanced on all fronts and the Riders move into the Stormwall: He sets up a Satyxis Raider in front which his leader charges and then curses the Stormwall so he can actually reach it. Nice! One dies to double covering fire (only way he could get in melee range) and the other rolls snake eyes to hit. Wow!

Getting the Stormwall into the objective is absolutely crucial. I mess around more than a bit unfortunately with taking out the one Rider blocking me: I put 2 focus on the Stormwall (1 for charge, 1 in case of dice flukes) and I have to TK Haley to charge and thus get B2B with the flag. This leaves fairly little to deal with the Rider. I boost TK to drag him out and junior aims + boosts. It's a bit of a risky move because I've already spent B13th + TAC to clear out biles around the objective, meaning that ATGM would have to step up if junior had failed. That's sort of a tall order and in hindsight I should've spared B13th and cleared with ATGM instead. Anyways Junior seals the deal. I was too eager starting this turn which meant B13th moved before I had decided what to do. Note to self: Don't activate anything before the entire order is ready, especially not with focus-sensitive issues (which taking out an ARM18 5-box model in melee certainly is).

The Stormwall charges and takes out the objective. Haley feated. Thorn sticks around and Alexia runs towards Haley. ATGM fill the gaps and push knights away. I hoped to score crits to leave them dead in the water but no such luck.

As my opponent starts his turn he tells me that he forgot that you could dominate the opponent's flag for 2CP in this scenario. We've been playing 4 other scenarios intensively recently because of Challenge which was this weekend (Outflank, Close Quarters, Destruction and Recon) and with the flags being relatively close length-wise he thought they were neutral (as with Incursion). It makes sense that he thought he'd have time but to be honest I'm not sure that'd be enough because in that case I could've kept Haley in a way safer position and still gone for the scenario. Regardless, he was left with trying his best to contest the flag, which is no easy thing to do under Haley's feat. He got in one Rider and the arc node, which I removed with Power Strike and TAC in my ensuing turn.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

In a recent loss vs Gaspy2 I realized that there are 2 things I generally need to beware of during deployment: ATGM need to be put down as centrally as possible so they can run T1 and bring their thunderbolts/snipe to bear with the things the rest of the army struggles with T2. If I commit them to a flank they can frequently get ignored or forced to spend their shots on Bane Knights (which I generally don't like to kill early because of Vengeance) or Bane Riders (which they are really poor against without significant support). Furthermore I need to have control elements on both flanks, typically Thorn on one and B13th/TAC on the other. While the latter aren't necessarily control per se, they frequently go with Haley and clouds + their sheer damage output is often control enough. 

Apart from that there's only one big issue in this game and that is how I handled the Rider T2 blocking my Stormwall. Taking him out was absolutely crucial to my win and I handled it way too carelessly. The problem with evaluating the rest is that Cryx played on the premise that I could only score 2 points in T2, with 1 point in the following rounds at most. This would of course have been a drastically different game.