Battle Report #69 - Kraye vs Issyria (50)

:: Prologue ::

Following Kraye's interesting start vs Mohsar, I was looking forward to playing a caster and faction I know well, particularly one that doesn't spawn buildings in my face every single turn! With the recent Errata my opponent was wondering whether Destors might be worthwhile. Other than that, the list was pretty standard. Game on!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Captain Jeremiah Kraye - WJ: +6 (Effigy of Valor)
- Squire
- Stormwall - PC: 19
- Lightning Pod
- Sentinel - PC: 4
- Sentinel - PC: 4
- Ol' Rowdy - PC: 9
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Anastasia di Bray - PC: 2
Savio Montero Acosta - PC: 3
Sword Knights - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
Tactical Arcanist Corps - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4

Opponent:

Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn - WJ: +6
- Chimera - PC: 6
- Hyperion - PC: 18
Arcanist - PC: 1
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution - PC: 3
Houseguard Halberdiers - Leader & 9 Grunts: 7
- Halberdier Officer & Standard - PC: 2
Dawnguard Destors - Leader & 4 Grunts: 11
House Vyre Electromancers - Leader and 2 Grunts: 4
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt: 4

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We played the same scenario because we were lazy. Retribution won the turn roll-off and opted to go first. I put down Stormwall on my anticipated strong flank, Knights on the other and Rowdy in-between.

:: Game ::

Stuff runs, Knights are aggressive! They receive Inviolable Resolve.

Stormwall gets 3 focus and takes out 2 Knights. Kraye puts Full Tilt on Rowdy since I realized that it's more flexible (upkeeping it on the Stormwall means no shooting, furthermore Rowdy can often use the charge for various things that the Stormwall cannot commit to). Arcane on Stormwall. Kraye chills, Sentinels move up, Knights spread out and TAC make ready to cloud up towards the flag mid-game.

Knights go into the first line of Swords and kill a few. Acosta gets Swift Vengeance. Halberdiers jam behind. Hyperion makes a bit of a miss-step as he places himself so he cannot charge past the objective. Eiryss2 is in front of him, interesting.

Acosta uses Swift Vengeance to hit the closest Knight. No effect. Rowdy moves up with focus and kill both Knights. Swords get a run order and jam the living daylights out of the Halbs. The Stormwall receives 2 focus. Kraye puts Mage Sight on top of Eiryss. TAC + Acosta kill Chimera. Stormwall kills the last Destor and tries to boost a Metal Storm shot on Eiryss but fails to meet the 10+ to hit.

The Sword Knights' jam keeps my jacks safe. Easily worth it considering they lured out the Destors as well. Eiryss tries to block both my jacks from getting focus. In itself a smart move but Rowdy counter-charges and kills her with a lucky 8+ hit roll. Had she survived I'd probably have a headache.

There's an annoying Halberdier jamming the Stormwall. I try removing him with TAC but to no avail. Acosta ends up killing him but this forces the Stormwall to charge the Hyperion at a suboptimal angle. I use my support + Sentinels to clear the middle a bit, Rowdy tramples and kills a couple and suddenly the Stormwall is free to go in. I feat with Kraye and kill a little over half the boxes on the Hyperion, taking out the Arcanist as well. On top of all this I manage to get off Espionage, giving Rowdy another attack to take out the objective and the Stormwall hits the Hyperion one last time.

Hyperion hits me back and with Halbs mini-feating the Stormwall is left on ~20 boxes. Arcane Shield probably kept me alive here.

 ¨
I kill off the Hyperion but not by much (it had inviolable resolve up). It was too close for comfort to be fair. I clean up the rest barring a single Halberdier and we call the game.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Well, we confirmed that Destors didn't exactly jump to godlike status. In my opinion they are a weird unit because they excel at taking out medium-arm single-box things that are too highly armored for POW10 to effectively bring down. This is not a big problem though and their P+S13 hits come at a very hefty price. Sure Quick Work helps but they simply don't have that many targets where they are effective. On top of all this unyielding means they kind of want to be in combat which they simply aren't a lot of the time. I don't think we'll see a lot of these guys unless someone figures out a niche roll for them to fill.

I felt I was in control of the game but when I decided to go for the Hyperion I realized how much this list needs more hitting power. Having a Hyperion nearly survive 2 full rounds of pounding from a Stormwall and a few hits from Ol' Rowdy simply shouldn't be possible if I'm tooling for arm-skew. The same goes for Sentinels in a way: Though they did shield guard a couple of POW18s they were probably not the best spent 8 points in this particular matchup.

Overall I was left with largely the impression I was worried about from the game against Mohsar: Kraye can do a lot but he lacks hitting power and he lacks the focus battery to switch gears sufficiently quick. I haven't given up on him completely, but he either needs another role or another configuration (this configuration is heavily inspired by trying to find a Lylyth2 counter).