Battle Report #22 - Haley2 vs Morvahna2 (50)

:: Prologue ::

For our second game we were playing Destruction. This scenario often opens up some crazy angles for Haley and I was intending to look for them! My opponent had a few take-aways from Game 1 as well and was eager to see if he could improve his game.

:: 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:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow - WB: +5
- Gorax - PC: 4
- Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 10
Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 2
Gatorman Witch Doctor - PC: 3
Reeve Hunter - PC: 2
War Wolf - PC: 1
War Wolf - PC: 1
War Wolf - PC: 1
Gallows Grove - PC: 1
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 2
- Stone Keeper - Keeper 1
Warpborn Skinwalkers - Leader & 4 Grunts: 8
- Warpborn Alpha - PC: 3
Reeves of Orboros - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
Tharn Bloodtrackers - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Nuala the Huntress - Nuala 2

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

I've recently been experimenting with Effigy of Valor for cover reasons. Destruction is a good test for this. I won the roll-off and took second turn because that's just brutal in this scenario with Haley. I pre-deployed the Stormwall centrally and circle responded with more of a balanced deploy this game. I opted for Haley on the right flank for cover with TAC + B13th while the rest went on the left flank. 

The flat terrain pieces are hills

:: Game ::

This time the Bloodtrackers figured B13th would be a good target for prey. Circle ran up but again a bit of hesitation. I wonder how I would've dealt with more aggressive Bloodtrackers. Fog of War was cast, obviously.

In response I sent up Alexia to get souls and Thorn was reaction driven after casting Temporal Acceleration on the Stormwall and ended up in cover behind the Effigy as well. Said Stormwall, having learned his lessons from last game, started targeting Skinwalkers. The Wolves were killed, 2 souls for Alexia, Skinwalkers had started taking damage and my right flank was solid. Unfortunately my ATGM to the right of the Stormwall were a little tightly packed. 

Morvahna tried her AoE spell through the Grove on said ATGM but missed, lucky me. Skinwalkers contested the zone and Bloodtrackers tried their luck on TAC, taking off 4 boxes of the leader (deceleration + cover made this a real pain). I had my opening...

So the plan was simple: Kill everything in the zone, jam high, cloud Haley's flank and feat while dominating the zone. TL;DR this is what I did. My position was perfect and I was able to bring about just my entire army to bear on the few unlucky models in the zone. 

Morvahna had to counter-feat and again sent 3 Wolves into the Stormwall. The zone was jammed with 7 models or so:

So Haley gives 2 focus to the Stormwall which kills off the Wolves. Thorn walks up to the Skinwalkers and TKs out 2. Alexia summons Thralls which kills one. The last Skinwalker is bounced out of the zone by way of Thunderbolts. 5-0 and...

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Destruction is a scary scenario to face Haley2 in when she goes second. You have to be so aggressive T1 to deny her space (T2 is often too late) and this in turn plays into her army's primary strength: Ranged superiority. The threat range of most models in this list is huge and thus moving up too aggressively often costs you a lot. In this game my opponent was a bit on the cautious side and my reaction was pretty classic Haley2. 

I was expecting more trouble from the Bloodtrackers here. I thought Alexia and maybe Thorn would have to leg it full speed towards the right flank to control them but when they were hesitant to move up (which is understandable given pod + mage storm, ATGM + deadeye and TAC with Deceleration (they really suck against these guys)) I basically controlled the entire table. 

Lastly I'd like to point out that yet again my ATGM are the ones enabling these plays. Reliably removing enough Skinwalkers otherwise would be a pain. Furthermore what I did T2 to set up everything to be killed was basically to thunderbolt around until the Stormwall could engage 2-3 models and the objective (its original charge lane was blocked). Don't underestimate the little guys, they sure are pulling their weight here!