Battle Report #43 - Haley2 vs Krueger2 (50)

:: Prologue ::

I have been toying around with the idea of a Haley2/Caine2 pairing. In this context, the idea is to have more specialized roles. Haley deals with things that are tricky and/or arm-skewed by virtue of simply slapping a double colossal down on the table. The question is, where does this leave matchups like Circle, Khador and Menoth who can be a bit of both worlds? I don't know yet, but this was a perfect opportunity to check it out. I believe Haley will greatly benefit from the Hurricane but seeing as it's not out yet I'll have to make due with double Stormwall in the meantime. Yes I know, poor me. Read on to see how the transformer-circus did against Krueger2!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +5
- Squire
- Stormwall - PC: 19
- Lightning Pod
- Stormwall - PC: 19
- Lightning Pod
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer - Officer 2
Tactical Arcanist Corps - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4

Opponent:

Krueger the Stormlord - WB: +5
- Ghetorix - PC: 11
- Gorax - PC: 4
- Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 10
Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 2
Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 2
Gallows Grove - PC: 1
Una the Falconer - PC: 3
- Rotterhorn Griffon - PC: 3
- Rotterhorn Griffon - PC: 3
Druids of Orboros - Leader & 5 Grunts: 7
- Druid of Orboros Overseer - Overseer 2
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 2
Tharn Bloodweavers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 5

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Just a couple of notes on the Haley list before I get to the game: The list pretty much writes itself. I see it as a scenario list primarily with a very strong attrition game. The lack of an Arc Node significantly weakens its assassination potential. TAC over B13th is probably a controversial choice but I believe TAC is amazing defensive value. Furthermore their abilities vs arm-skewed things isn't worse than B13th I believe and lastly I think B13th synergize better with Caine2 given the areas I envision these 2 lists to work in. I'll write a more in-depth post of my thoughts on the matter. 

Ok so onto the game itself: We were playing Incoming and I won the roll-off, opting to go first yet again. I deployed in a bit of an aggressive pattern with Stormwalls centrally placed, the bonded one towards his zone. In the ecstasy of playing a new list I forgot to swap out Effigy of Valor for Fuel Cache which I believe is better when you have double colossal. ATGM deployed super-centrally and TAC took a defensive position (SPD4 pretty much means they can never be part of an offensive plan). 

:: Game ::

I put up Temporal Acceleration on the Stormwall that wasn't bonded to ensure it could get a position that was sufficiently aggressive. The ATGM, having learned from yesterday's games, ran up in a super-tight formation. Without any aoe damage capable of reaching them they are perfectly safe in this formation.

Circle's response is a little defensive with Ghetorix far away on the left flank.

I contemplated my options but landed on the aggressive choice. When in doubt, push! It usually puts enough pressure on your opponent to create openings. The right Stormwall ran, Haley followed suit, put deadeye on ATGM and Temporal on the second Stormwall and feated. I had to take care with ATGM to get LoS to druids, range but outside of Storm Wall -and- create space for the second Stormwall to block Haley out. Suffice is to say this wasn't trivial but I managed by spending like 5 minutes on them alone. They shot down 3-4 Druids, just what I needed them to. The bonded Stormwall closed the gap. TAC ran up so they could cloud Haley T3.

Krueger then started his tricks and I must say it was a brilliant move: He feated to push Haley back 3", moved back and TK'd Ghetorix out of her feat. Said Ghetorix charged the Arcane Shield-less Stormwall. As it wasn't in range with the claw the Stormwall survived on ~15 boxes.

I put 4 focus on the bonded Stormwall and 3 on the other. The idea was to clear the 2 stones, the griffon, ghetorix and the objective. Tall order, I know. The problem was that I had a Blackclad in my zone and nobody could reliably remove him apart from Haley and she'd have to spend focus doing so. This meant that I couldn't spend 2 focus to Deadeye ATGM. Perhaps I should've given 1 less focus to one of the Stormwalls: ATGM deadeye could've bolted out the Griffon.

So I headbutt Ghetorix, kill him, kill the objective and boost a pod on the Griffon while landing a boosted attack on it. ATGM + Junior take care of the stones and the Griffon survives on 1 or 2 boxes. Haley kills the Blackcloud, TAC cloud up and Squire physically block LoS to Haley in case something miraculously gets in-between the Stormwalls. 2-0 and so very, very close to 3-0.

The Circle response is swift and hard. Gorax and Krueger pump out 3 Primals: Both Rotterhorns and the Warpwolf get pumped up. The damaged Stormwall goes down while the other one, stripped of Arcane Shield because of Bloodweavers, loses ~40 boxes. The remaining stone contests Haley.

With all 3 warbeasts frenzied my options are significantly better than last game. I put 4 focus on the Stormwall, headbutt the Stalker and boost a pod on the Griffon + Druid UA (who clouded instead of Elemental Protection), killing them both and knocking down the Stalker. ATGM with deadeye then followed up with pushing said Stalker out the zone with Thunderbolt. They also killed off a good few Bloodweavers. As I remembered that casters don't contest this time around (yay me!) I didn't bother with Krueger. Haley boosted the damage roll on the stone and TAC clouded her in.

4-0.

With the remaining Warbeasts both frenzying automatically and thus doing, well, nothing, it was nigh impossible for Circle to contest my zone which meant the game was over.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

So first of all: My first game with Haley2 double Stormwall. I must say that having one bonded and temporal acceleration as needed is a world away from Stryker1 double Stormwall. As expected, of course, but still worth mentioning. I was happy with how the list played and I what I managed to get out of it. The intention was to be primarily scenario-based and have a strong attrition game and I think this match showed just that.

When Krueger feated to push Haley back and then subsequently TK'd Ghetorix out of my feat range the only thing I could think was: "Was there no way for me to avoid this?". Of course there was an it hit me suddenly that I could've simply podded behind Haley. I can't believe I haven't thought of this before but as the pod can't be pushed this essentially anchors Haley in. We measured just for fun and indeed this would've been sufficient to prevent TK from pulling Ghetorix out. That's certainly a trick I'll keep in mind!

My turn 3, ie after Krueger feated and sent Ghetorix into the Stormwall, I should've taken more time to look for scenario point openings. Indeed killing the Griffon at this point in time is irrelevant. If I put 4 focus on the bonded Stormwall and 2 on the other the activation can go like this: Haley casts Deadeye on ATGM, boosts to hit on Blackclad and kills him. TAC cloud her up. ATGM push out Griffon and Crit Brutal/snipes\ the stones. Bonded Stormwall walks up, headbutts Ghetorix, buys 2 attacks once he's knocked down. 2nd Stormwall keeps putting hits on Ghetorix until he dies and then continues pounding the objective. The thing is that the objective can in principle *always* give up a point whereas controlling your opponent's zone is situational and therefore has to be prioritized in situations like these.

Overall yet another interesting game against Circle and I'm happy to see the double Stormwall Haley2 variant perform so well.