Battle Report #199: Haley2 vs Caine2

:: Prologue ::

To round up this weekend's games, I was facing Cygnar in another civil war. We chose Haley2 vs Caine2 as the matchup, which would prove to be interesting!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25]
- Thorn [13]
- Stormwall [39]
- Squire [5]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
- Charger [9]
Gastone Crosse [4]
- Buccaneer [6]
Ragman [4]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [4]

Opponent:

Caine2
- Reinholdt
- Hunter
- Hunter
- Hunter
Rhupert
Ragman
Trench Buster
Trench Buster
Trenchers (max)
- UA
Rangers
Stormblades
- UA

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

I was going 2nd so I set up for the classic Haley2 2CP lead. Caine made a grave mistake by deploying way too much on his left flank, leaving fairly little to contest me with. I made a big mistake in deployment as well as I should've had Thorn on Haley's side in this case, there is no work for him to do on the left flank.

:: Game ::

Caine moves up. He casts Bullet Dodger on himself and Fire For Effect on a Trencher.

I want to see if I can cripple a Hunter. The Charger receives TK + Temporal and 3 focus (1 from Arlan). Crucially, it misses one shot and the Hunter, although having lost quite a few boxes, has all systems go still. I couldn't risk junior because Arcane Shield is huge in this matchup so he had to move more than 6" away from the Charger, unfortunately. I started running Thorn towards the right side but I should have ran him even further. I was a little too afraid of those Hunters. Haley put up Deflection and went behind the wall. I put 2 Lances on either side of said wall so they could be TK'd if needed. Also, DEF19 is a thing for them. Gastone + Buccaneer took the hill, the former taking care to stay outside of Hunters' threat ranges.

The clouds push up and a CRA goes into the Stormwall from the FFE dude. Along with the Hunters I lose 12-15 boxes or so. Caine camps a single focus after trying the Stormwall himself but dice -10 is hard, as he found it.

So I start this turn off by claiming that Caine is dead. I can throw a Lance directly on him, with the new rules and pre-measuring throws are quite ridiculous. I can follow this up with 4 Arcane Bolts, one of which boosted, since Thorn can easily make it into the clouds. So we "mini-feat" a swap between Bullet Dodger and Heightened Reflexes, which is fair I think. Instead I TK both Hunters out of the zone and clear up the rest quite easily. The Lances set up to counter T3 and Haley feats, making sure to get Caine2 and most of his army. The Buccaneer moved to contest the zone.

Caine sees one opening and that is to threaten the entire zone himself. He thus moves up next to the pod I placed to take out Ragman with Busters on either side. This meant the Buccaneer lived so no CP for Caine.

I could have played this safe and put Haley behind the wall. It's irrelevant whether you move to 3 CP or 4 CP in most cases as a last turn domination puts you at the 5+ required anyway. However I was tired and wanted to finish the game so went for an assassination instead. Caine was parked next to the pod for +4 DEF, however that also meant an easy Time Bomb target. Lances + Thorn cleared the zone and path for the Stormwall, Haley Time Bombed the pod to hit Caine and remove his melee bonus, before TK-ing him around. The Buccaneer assaulted a Buster and knocked it down. Gastone had his lovely backstrike bonus but he missed one of his shots and the other was shield guarded. It was all up to the Stormwall then but his 3 focus + 2 initials proved enough as he needed 7+ to hit after Time Bomb + TK.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

I tried Haley2 into Caine2 because I was eager to see if she has game. Caine's big problem is getting a battlegroup which can do work for him. I honestly have no idea how to build lists for him and that's largely why I've temporarly re-assigned him to the shelf. 

In this game I found that Haley2 has massive scenario game but I fear that was partly because my opponent deployed his Trenchers behind the wrong zone. It is pretty much impossible for me to clear a zone with tons of Trenchers and/or clouds with stuff behind it. Since they have AD he could easily have responded to my skew.

While Caine's list definitely struggled with the Stormwall here, everything else was rather fragile. Every model lost hurts a lot for Haley. This means it's a race against the clock as I don't have the defensive tech to keep stuff alive outside of my feat. I believe that the matchup is really close if Caine can keep his Hunters safe (could easily be done by AD-ing them behind the Trenchers and thus provide them with clouds) and contest the zones. It's probably in his favor and my conclusion is thus that Sloan is probably my best bet for a mirror matchup. It depends on the pairing, of course.

A great weekend with tons of games! I learn a lot and really enjoy these quality games, but I'm also left with a lot of questions, thoughts and ideas. Expect another musing post soon.