Battle Report #166: Caine2 vs Vyros2

:: Prologue ::

Retribution today! Along with Khador I believe this is one of the best factions in Mk. 3. At least they look like the two top dogs from my point of view now. Theme lists may change things of course, as could a number of other things. Anyway I love a challenge and part of the design behind Caine2 was that he was supposed to be able to deal with this. While I anticipated and hoped for Ossyan, I got Vyros2 which is also a huge X factor for my list. Let's get right to an exciting game!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Caine2
- Reinholdt
- Stormwall
Junior
- Charger
Rangers
Trenchers (max)
- UA
Trench Buster x2
Ragman

Opponent:

Vyros2
- Imperatus
- Sphinx x2
- Griffon x4
Arcanist x3
Sentinels (min)
- UA

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We were playing Close Quarters and I went first. As with yesterday I had an idea that the Trenchers would run ahead of the Stormwall etc and be used to absorb the initial impact and/or charge out on their own. I put Rangers on Caine's flank and one Trench Buster on either flank. Stormwall went down centrally though in hindsight I think this is a matchup where he should probably be looking to flank. More on that later.

:: Game ::

Stuff runs, I take care to space out my Trenchers. Pre-measuring with a medium proxy base makes this very easy and quick to do. Caine gets up Bullet Dodger on himself and Shield goes up on Stormwall.

Retribution advance in return with mini-feated Sentinels. Vyros gets Synergy up and casts Deceleration.

I decide to try and go for the Sentinels because I have so much shooting, including lots of boosted POW12s, CRAs and even the Sniper. I reckon I can wipe them all out so that Vengeance doesn't matter (the ones behind the wall are too far away). Dice disagree however.

The Sentinels take out a couple of front-line models but nothing big. The jacks advance to be just outside of Stormwall threat range.

I contemplate going all in, going back or doing something in-between. I decide for the latter, sending the Stormwall back and the Trenchers in. The reasoning is that my shooting is doing so little and the Trenchers will slowly be whittled away. I have lots of good angles with them now and can get in a Buster as well. The idea is to buy time and hope that the assault + firepower can start whittling away the right flank so I can hopefully push up Caine a little further. The Stormwall doesn't accomplish much though and neither does the rest of my shooting. The Trenchers do ok but the damage is too spread out.

Trenchers are wiped, just a couple of models left. The pre-measuring allows Imperatus to stay safe from Stormwall.

I finally kill a warjack. Just one, though. Deceleration is so good for Vyros2, it makes all the difference in this kind of matchup as there are just too many boxes to punch through.

Imperatus has found a trick! Double Griffons is not something I can deal with so Imperatus can push them up and stay safe behind and thus force me further and further out. As the picture below shows, I am running out of flanks to threaten and places to back off towards.

Desperate times, desperate measures. I have an angle onto the remaining Sphinx with the Stormwall. I figure I take it and with a little luck it might go down as it was previously hurt. If I roll poorly I can hopefully disrupt Imperatus instead and maybe buy some time that way. I roll poorly but at least I get the disrupt on the Imperatus. That means the Arcanist there has to remove the disruption instead of power boosting him. Caine2 is very exposed though as I didn't upkeep Bullet Dodger. I was kind of afraid that he'd simply build up synergy on the Stormwall and go for assassination.

Retribution is content with killing a colossal. I breath a sigh of relief as Caine still lives. It doesn't make much of a difference though to be honest, but Vyros2 forgot to reposition in the middle of it all and as such, there's one last desperate chance for me to take the game.

I have 1 Trencher, Junior, Charger and Caine which can target Vyros. He is sitting on 4 focus. A Ranger runs in to give me +2. Junior misses. The Charger, aiming and boosting, also misses a shot. The Trencher misses. Caine misses a shot. With 4 focus then I simply can't punch through. Vyros is left on 3 boxes and I concede as there's no reason to play this out. 

:: Evaluation ::

Very much an uphill fight. From T2 onwards I had no idea what to do and I just couldn't put the damage on him. Dice seemed crazy at times but I don't think they were that far off. It's the Deceleration for Vyros which makes all the difference. POW12s are so different vs ARM20 than vs ARM18. It's basically more or less twice as good. That is a game changer in itself, on top of that Vyros basically gained a ton of focus through power up and the improved Arcanists. Caine really starts falling off in terms of effectiveness when he has to start boosting. He doesn't want to do that but in this matchup he has no choice. 

The list performed ok, it simply doesn't have the melee power to punch through here. I don't know how many lists in Caine's set of matchups can put this much arm into a strong list though. Vyros2 looks very strong now and I anticipate to see more of him. I don't see how Caine can be built to effectively take him on, perhaps unless you specifically tailor for him, simply because he is an ineffective caster vs ARM. 

What I could perhaps have tried to do was to flank with the Stormwall instead and thus ensure he couldn't create a semi-circle around me and deny me from advancing with it. However a SPD5 colossal with no boosts takes forever to pull off such a manoevre. Not sure if it had been viable but I certainly didn't get enough out of it as we were now. 

All in all a very interesting game full of learning points. Retribution is going to be a headache for us for a long time I believe, as they were in Mk. 2 as well. Back to the drawing board!