Games Tomorrow & List Musings

Tomorrow I'll get to play Cryx again (and hopefully another interesting matchup or two). According to the tags from my BRs, I lack practice vs Cryx, Khador and Trollbloods (as well as mercs, minions and convergence, but those 3 are less popular). My Haley lists have gotten quite a few games now and I'm tweaking both lists a little. Haley2 will make an interesting trade to get back ATGM whereas Haley3 will ditch Lanyssa and Gorman in favor of Acosta. I'll get up the specific lists tomorrow.

I've been thinking long and hard about Haley2. Part of what I set out to do was to find out if it's possible to just squeeze in as much shooting as possible, after taking Thornwall in the battlegroup. The results thus far have been very promising, to the point where I view many, many matchups as very favourable. This also shows in my reports: Haley2 gets a lot more games. Haley3 is nice for sure, and some of her matchups are absolutely devastating. Her main problem is that she runs into more list chicken scenarios and her weak matchups are often horrible (one of the best examples is Severius1 I believe). For this reason alone I'm not the biggest fan but I have too little time to change my pairings for the next tournament as it is now.

As per usual though I have started looking further ahead. Given that the Haley2 shooting-list-from-hell takes care of most things (i.e. everything from Cryx, Khador, Protectorate, Cygnar, Mercs, Minions, Convergence, Trollbloods and Skorne), which I literally believe she does, I'm left with the common issues to fill: Legion and Retribution (and possibly Bradigus). Part of the problem with the Haley2 list is that, as I noticed prior to NM, she takes up so many vital solos that creating a strong, secondary list becomes really hard. Doubly so if you want said list to deal with factions that we typically struggle with. That said, we have certain casters who excel at these things. Stryker1 was my former go-to guy but experience has shown that once skilled Retribution and Legion players learn how he works, he gets taken apart. The lack of speed and "tricks" are his main drawbacks.

I've looked at Siege and Stryker3. A few interesting variants in there. Perhaps Kraye should be considered again as well? Neither Retribution nor Legion require the "extra punch" I felt he lacked in my previous playtesting rounds and I believe they can quickly find themselves struggling with the speed of his jacks. On the other hand he is focus deprived most of the time and both factions are rather good at handling upkeeps, which he kind of relies on.

I'll get back to specific lists sometime later. For now I have to focus on Haley2 and Haley3 ;)