Battle Report #149: Haley3 vs Siege

:: Prologue ::

Time for a couple of final practice games before I'm off to another event in 2 days! Seeing as I decided to go back to the Haleys for the remainder of Mk. II, it was only fitting that I got to play each of them today in 2 good games.

First up: Haley3 vs Siege!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Major Prime Victoria Haley - WJ: +3
- Squire
- Lancer - PC: 6
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Haley Future - PC: 0
Haley Past - PC: 0
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - PC: 2
Captain Maxwell Finn - PC: 3
Ragman - PC: 2
Alexia1 & The Risen - PC: 5
Savio Montero Acosta - PC: 3
Storm Lances - Leader & 4 Grunts: 11
Trencher Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
Horgenhold Forge Guard - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Captain Jonas Murdoch - Murdoch 2

Opponent:

Major Markus "Siege" Brisbane - WJ: +5
- Squire
- Stormwall - PC: 19
- Lightning Pod
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Stormsmith Stormcaller - PC: 1
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 1
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 2
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer - Officer 2
- Charger - PC: 4
Rangers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 5
Tempest Blazers - Leader & 4 Grunts: 10

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Incursion and I got first turn. For this game the idea was to use recursion Storm Lances to take on the Stormwall and slowly pressure his lines with Alexia and Forge Guard. Keeping Haley safe was of course also a priority but without an arc node and with my high, natural defense I wasn't overly worried about that.

:: Game ::

Cloudwall moves up and abuses the central forest to extend the no-sight line towards the Storm Lances on the right. I guessed he wouldn't put units on the right flank due to the impassable and I was correct.

Siege spreads out his forces towards the left. No damage is dealt.

2 Storm Lances assault the Stormwall and take out 2 Gun Mages with e-leaps. The Lances have Arcane Shield so it's a dicey proposition for him to shoot them out reliably, besides they'll just come back. Alexia and Forge Guard start working on the exposed Rangers and I take care to have Haley far, far away.

I realize I probably should've put Haley in the woods for +2DEF since it's more than 3" wide anyway but whatever. Siege is too far away as he can't charge over the obstacle. Blazers try and clear out stuff on the right with the Rangers but they're fairly inefficient at doing so because of the nearby Trench, Flux and natural high arm + go to ground on Forge Guard. Siege feats, much to my surprise, and takes out a few models with Ground Pounder. Alexia gets souls and Acosta gets Swift Vengeance.

Due to fearing Repudiate he never cast Arcane Shield on the Stormwall. A bit too conservative because Junior can't die to 1 Repudiate and unless he takes 3 boxes he can heal for the last focus not spent to cast Arcane to at least force me to spend focus on Repudiating the Shield off. So anyway: This was definitely a feat turn. His shooting with the feat took out the 2 forward Lances and the one near the flag (even the leader nearly died as my opponent had some pretty decent rolls). To get the most out of my feat I needed Past into melee with Stormwall which meant Prime would be far up. Thus I switched Arcane over to them along with Flux and Dirge. Prime also camped a focus. The Stormwall took a terrible beating as I also got in Ragman with Death Field, unfortunately Past couldn't benefit from this because I had to revive Lances to get the benefit of said Death Field (which means activating Haley before Ragman takes effect).

On the left flank I kept clearing stuff out and I spent half my Forge Guard protecting Prime from shenanigans.

Siege goes for gold by taking out Prime but only does 2 damage. 19/18 is, needless to say, hard to deal with.

Stormwall goes down, Lances do a little more job and I do my best to ensure Prime's safety with a couple of focus camped and DEF20 from the woods.

Siege tries one last time to get Prime but he fails to do so and my opponent concedes the game.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

In a weird way this game kind of felt like a few games where I played Haley3 without the Lancer. The arc node is such an enabler for Force Hammer shenanigans. Without it, I felt powerless a lot of the time. Without one now, I felt I could easily protect myself from Siege. True, wasting his feat early certainly helped.

The game played out more or less as I had hoped. I continue to be less than impressed with Blazers but then again I suppose they were on the wrong flank. Against Storm Lances they might have been a little more painful but if they had gone there I could've revived to kept the Lances engaging them (not to mention that with Arcane Shield they struggle to do a lot of damage) -and- Alexia1 would've been free on the left flank, threatening both the collapse of that side and scenario.

All in all I feel Haley3 is a decent mirror drop and I was pleasantly surprised to find how hard she could make the life for a Stormwall. Other casters might present other/bigger problems for her, but the lack of shooting wasn't a big deal despite facing shooty Cygnar. There are some tricks Cygnar has against her cloudwall, for example the one I used against Haley3 with Caine2 a while back (run Alexia2 into clouds with Arcane Shield then start shooting her up with magic bullets to feed her to ARM22), but they are few and far between. Even Siege with Mage Sight and Ground Pounder found it very hard to do meaningful damage to me.