Battle Report #192: Sloan vs Caine2

:: Prologue ::

This weekend I had planned to play a lot. The fun started yesterday with 3 games and I got 4 games today. First up was a couple of Civil War matches, first of which was Sloan vs Caine2.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Captain Kara Sloan - WJ: +28
- Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 4
- Firefly - PC: 0
- Firefly - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 10
- Defender - PC: 16
- Defender - PC: 16
Gun Mage Captain Adept - PC: 5
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12

Opponent:

Caine2
- Stormclad
- Ace
- Reinholdt
Stormblade Captain
- Stormclad
Rhupert
Ragman
Pendrake
Rangers
Storm Lances (max)

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Extraction and I seize the initiative. I wasn't sure whether to go first here but figured I might as well try it. The deployment was fairly standard: I fully expected Caine to take the defensive position behind the house on the left so I intended to secure control on the opposite flank.

:: Game ::

I want the central trench with a Hunter. I reason that I want to start buying table space. I know Caine's shooting in return will hurt so I make a gamble by sending up the Lances on the left flank as well to hopefully keep the Hunter alone. I hope I won't need said Lances later on.

Caine indeed takes out the Lances with support from Rangers. The Hunter remains fully intact as a result.

It's go time! I decide to go for a feat turn and land a crippling blow. The goal is to kill Lances, a Stormclad and Ace. I get 2 Lances, all Rangers, Ace and the Stormclad. I also take care to keep Sloan outside of 4" of everything. I had to upkeep Refuge on her (which I think is key vs Caine2 to keep her on the move) so the feat damage output suffered a bit in return but nothing major here. A Firefly took up the Trench this time around to act as a forward anchor to play around. Storm Lances spread out with 1 finishing off Ace, one locking down Pendrake and the leader standing in-between. I put a jack on the right flag to secure a point unless my opponent committed something and he was kind of short on contest pieces.

One Lance dies to a free strike as they try and move up to set up for Trick Shots on Sloan. The other 2 charge the Firefly and deal quite a bit of damage. Caine however manages to not do significantly much. He did feat and take out a Hunter but he had to gatecrash away again to safety. The remaining Stormclad killed my forward Storm Lance.

As my opponent didn't contest me I went to 1-0. The goal this turn then was to just stay safe and keep on scoring points. I took both flag, the Defenders cleared out the Lances and I started putting hurt on the objective. 3-0.

With no theoretical angles on Sloan my opponent concedes the game.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

My first turn aggression was a little uncalled for and quite unnecessary. In hindsight I am pretty sure that the right play here is to simply stay outside of Caine's threat range. After all it's just 19" so I can still advance 12" and be safe, which buys me all the board space in the world. Ace cannot do enough damage for me to care so the central trench can be claimed T2 instead. Lesson learned, and an important one! If I were to go 2nd I believe my priorities would be clearer and the decisions easier. That is part of the reason why I wanted to go first and indeed I got what I wanted out of it. 

After this it was all systematic destruction and the pictures tell the tale pretty much. The game highlights my problem with Caine2: I don't know what kind of list he wants. He's a caster that is forced to spend focus on jacks (or leave them rather ineffective) when he is super focus greedy himself. My opponent attempts to utilize the accumulators in this list but the glaring weaknesses of heavies with a 10" threat range and nothing to help them in any way is his demise.