Haley2 Musings

The Sword Knights, while significantly better than in mk. 2 due to increased range and reposition, are not the unit I'm looking for in this list. They are simply too expensive and too slow for what they provide. I find that a threat range of 10" in this game just isn't enough, not for Cygnar anyway. True, you can TK a target closer but that typically means the Stormwall is going to town as examplified in my game 2 yesterday with Megalith.

The question is, what do we need instead? One option is to go all out shooting and I might explore that sooner or later. However for now I want to have a unit/module/whatever with melee punch to sort of try and fulfil the role the Sword Knights had. There are multiple options here but one that
really stands out in my opinion and that is a unit of Storm Lances. They were already quite good in mk. 2 and with their buffs now they just got even better. They have a longer threat range and are less dependent on fighting near jacks to do more than deliver POW10s. They are also harder to take out and with cavalry having reposition now the idea is that they can set up for 2 consecutive alphas with Temporal Shift.

To make room for these we need to free up a few more points. I'm in love with Arlan, providing a focus and being able to repair are both great options to have. As such I really don't want to part with him. That leaves Ragman and the Gun Mage Captain Adept as possible solos to drop. Going through the matchups I intend to play Haley2 into I realized that one of them stands out a lot more on paper than the other. Protectorate, Convergence, Khador, Skorne, Trollbloods: Neither of these strike me as particularly good at taking out a solo at a distance and all of them can skew ARM pretty hard. Shooting Flare is often a waste here as the defense levels across these armies are typically low. As such Ragman will stay for now and the GMCA will take a break. This frees up points to also
include the Gobber Tinker, which gives me 2 sources of repair. Including the Gobber Tinker illustrates how much more prevalent repair is in Mk. 3 and indeed I think Alten Ashley might be an increasingly popular choice, especially for ranged dominance based lists.

To summarize then, the new Haley2 list looks like this:

Haley2
- Squire
- Stormwall
- Thorn
Junior
- Charger
Ragman
Gobber Tinker
Arlan Strangeways
Storm Lances (max)

There are other alternatives out there. An interesting variant is to simply swap the Stormwall for 2x Stormclad and find a way to spend the last points. This gives the beatstick(s) greater threat range since they can now be TK'd, and more flexibility since you can split up. Other options including going for more shooting or perhaps more troop heavy. The short version of why I'm trying this variant is because I have a bit of paranoia when it comes to heavy warjacks and their inherent weaknesses compared to a colossal and I really love the stability of the Thornwall setup despite the Bond going away.