Battle Report #23 - Haley2 vs Vayl2 (50)

:: Prologue ::

Some Haley2 vs Vayl2 action today! The first game was Two Fronts and I was intending to try a bit of an aggressive playstyle here to see if Haley might pull off a scenario rush.

:: 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:

Vayl, Consul of Everblight - WB: +6
- Succubus
- Angelius - PC: 8
- Angelius - PC: 8
- Angelius - PC: 8
- Angelius - PC: 8
- Ravagore - PC: 9
- Seraph - PC: 7
Blighted Nyss Shepherd - PC: 1
Blighted Nyss Shepherd - PC: 1
Spell Martyrs - PC: 1
Spawning Vessel - Vessel & 6 Grunts: 3
THEME: Machinations of Shadow - Tier 4

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Vayl2 Tier 4 allows for endless amounts of pain. While I feel fairly comfortable playing Haley into this I frequently mess up: Cygnar has to bring an extremely precise game here and any mistakes made can be pounded upon with game-breaking effect. Going for a scenario rush approach then is not exactly the safest play, but one I wanted to try out. Legion deployed a bit skewed behind their own zone (ish) and I mirrored him to bring Haley and ATGM into offensive positions. Vayl as per usual got T1.

The flat pieces are hills. The piece in my zone is a trench.

:: Game ::

So the Angelii flew up, the spawning vessel got out a tenacity dude and the flying circus were thus DEF15 ARM18 + possibly elevated...

One thing I've often learned to prioritize vs Legion is to get Deceleration up. In this situation however I think doing so was a mistake: I have to start breaking this Angelii apart and I simply can't spend as much as 3 focus on defensive measures because *something* is going to die anyway. I sent up Alexia aggressively because I figured it'd take an Angelius to kill her, which I'm fine with seeing as I intend to cripple a little over one per turn on average (basically when T2 is over I want 2 more or less dead and the other 2 at least partially damaged). With so much soulless stuff around Alexia can't be expected to do much, unfortunately. With getting up deceleration though I couldn't put as much focus as I wanted to on the Stormwall because I had to Time Bomb to keep the Angelii away. Since they were tightly packed I hit 3 with one boosted bomb. ATGM went wide and B13th took a defensive position. It's not like I could've reliably hit DEF17 anyway.

Given that the rightmost Angelius did not have Refuge Vayl would have to activate first to push Haley out. That she did, but there was too little followup to hurt her significantly and my opponent knew this. Instead the Angelii didn't actually accomplish that much and I could even TK the one the furthest behind to get it out of Vayl's control area!

I made a big mistake this turn as I didn't feat. The thing is that when Angelii are allowed to move-hit-refuge-move-animus for a ridiculous threat range to push Haley away there's just hardly any defense. I did however TK one Angelii out of control and started putting some hurt on the rest, killing one.

Vayl2 went up super-aggressively to try and assassinate Haley but the Angelius who pushed her to set it all up ended up pushing her so that I was in melee range of the frenzied Angelius, thus getting me +4 DEF anyway. Because of this the run failed and Vayl was left in the middle of no-where with 4 fury. Thorn lost his Arc Node and Vayl had Admonition.

So, kill Vayl? Easy. Except it's not. I put 4 focus on the Stormwall and 5 on Haley. I cast Deadeye on Eiryss to ensure I could shoot off admonition and boosted TK on Vayl to turn her around. The ATGM + B13th followed up with some hits on her, bringing her down to 4 boxes and 3 fury. All the Stormwall had to do was walk up and do some work. I failed to roll enough 7+ however, Vayl survived and I conceded. It's ridiculous how much harder it is to kill someone with fury than with focus in situations like this. 

:: Evaluation :: 

The reason this game got so messy in the first place was because I went for an aggressive scenario play from the deployment phase onwards. As you can see from the T2 picture I was no-where near the signature Haley2 move of moving into the opposing zone + feat for 3-0. It's just a fault tactic against Vayl2 I believe. While it's true that the game was very close, I think I attrition better than Legion here with the correct play and Haley really needs to be protected at all times. Also, with the feat up and running when it should've been Thorn would've been safe (he was down to 4 boxes or so). 

When playing against Legion I have to ensure that I'm not afraid of feating early. Getting the upper hand in the attrition game is crucial and if you can continue keeping said advantage up, it's often game. Also, Deceleration is often the wrong choice because actually doing damage is more important than trying to keep stuff alive. With only 1 Ravagore the Stormwall can't be significantly damaged and spending those 3 focus points on something to actually keep the Angelii away/simply killing them off is better. 

Overall an exciting game with lots of learning points. First and foremost: Against Vayl2, play for attrition!