Battle Report #156: Haley2 vs MacBain

:: Prologue ::

It's been a while! Mk. III has taken away a lot of the motivation to keep playing Mk. II, but we have one last tournament coming up in about a month. Besides, the game is still great! Today I was scheduled to play Minions but stuff came up and I ended up facing Mercenaries instead. As I was facing off against MacBain, a caster I've never played before, I was happy with the game regardless. Let's get to it!

:: 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
Gastone Crosse - PC: 3
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 1
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - Lady Aiyana & Master Holt: 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

Opponent:

Drake MacBain - WJ: +6
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker
- Galleon - PC: 18
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution - PC: 3
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor - PC: 2
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile - PC: 2
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen - Alexia & 9 Risen Grunts: 5
- Thrall Warrior - PC: 0
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 9 Grunts: 10
Kayazy Assassins - Mercenaries - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Kayazy Assassin Underboss - Mercenaries - PC: 2
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt - Lady Aiyana & Master Holt: 4

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Recon and the Mercs went first. My idea here was to take out the Kayazy as soon as possible, contest the zone and just wait out his feat and let my shooting do its thing. I intended to have Thorn close to Effigy T2 to avoid being dragged in which put Haley on one flank (with a hill) and Thorn on the other. Shooting was spread out. We also played with pre-measuring to get a feel for the upcoming system.

:: Game ::

Mercs ran up. Eiryss was put 21" away from ATGM. Perfect! I TK 2 of them and cast Deadeye. Eiryss goes down. I put up Decel and the rest advance. I put up POW12s in the zone. Some Kayazy die.

MacBain feats and stuff runs up.

I was too cautious with Eiryss and she's out of range. If I want to threaten him with taking off his upkeep then he needs to be able to reach her with his own shots, it's just that simple really. Anyway I start TK-ing out a Kayazy and put up Temporal on the 4-focus Stormwall. I then Thunderbolt Kayazy away and feat. I make a mistake with the Stormwall: As it's not my intention to necessarily wreck the Galleon anyway I forget to charge it its left side to force it to forfeit the PS21 attacks. Strictly speaking he could've turned it around and used Jackhammer but it still costs him 2 attacks which is significant. Anyway the Galleon lands on 4 boxes.

It is not often that I lose the Stormwall under Haley's feat but some pretty good damage rolls, involving back-to-back box cars, allows the Galleon to overcome even Arcane Shield. True, the Nyss helped out with a big CRA as well as Alexia boosting a Hand Cannon shot, but the Colossal went down.

Regardless though I wasn't that worried. I had control of the game I felt as the Galleon only had 4 boxes left. Eiryss + Gastone took him out. Thorn cleared out nearby and used Imprint: Disengage. I shot apart most of the Kayazy and a few Nyss. Jr put Arcane on Thorn.

My opponent tries to take out Thorn but he's just too tanky with Arcane Shield. He takes 10-12 boxes or so and even then my opponent rolled well.

It's time to mop up. Thorn receives 3 focus. Haley TKs Alexia around and put Deadeye on B13th before she moves to the flag. A+H and Gastone take out the objective. Thorn kills Alexia1. Ryan mage storms Thorn and kill the rest with the POW12. I move to 3 CP.

One long-shot assassination attempt was all my opponent had left and as he needed a 10 with just Arcane Secrets to hit Haley, which he didn't make, the game was over.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

A little rusty and a few poor mistakes in terms of model positioning, getting in my own way etc. By and large a good game though and the only semi-big blunder I made was not engaging the Galleon further to the left to deny him PS21. While he shouldn't take out the Stormwall unless the dice are hot, spikes do happen and it's a pointless risk to take.

I think MacBain should've weighed further left in the beginning of the game. Nyss are very hard for me to deal with quickly if he plays Kayazy + Alexia1 right. With an earlier start on the scenario game I might be forced to commit in an unfavourable manner. The way the game evolved though his list was basically taken apart one piece at a time and even the Stormwall going down didn't make too much of a difference in the end.

Pre-measuring was pretty big for flanking elements and extreme ranges. As I'm used to it from Warhammer I expect I'll adapt quickly and not spend too much time over-thinking what to measure and not. I look forward to this becoming the norm!