Battle Report #213: Haley2 vs Rahn

:: Prologue ::

On Saturday I had a game vs Vyros2 with Haley2 for my second round of the tournament (report link). I agreed with my opponent that we should play Haley2 vs Rahn as well when we had time to see how this matchup is. Today we were both available and we agreed to play a matchup which we both anticipated to be an angle headache and a lot more interesting than Haley2 vs Vyros2. Let's see how this played out.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25]
- Thorn [13]
- Stormwall [39]
- Squire [5]
- Ironclad [12]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
- Firefly [8]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [4]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [3]
Storm Lances (min) [12]

Opponent:

Adeptis Rahn - WJ: +26
-    Chimera - PC: 0
-    Sphinx - PC: 0
-    Sphinx - PC: 8
Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2
Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2
Ghost Sniper - PC: 3
Ghost Sniper - PC: 3
Lys Healer - PC: 3
House Shyeel Artificer - PC: 5
-    Hydra - PC: 15
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress - PC: 3
House Shyeel Battle Mages - Leader & 5 Grunts: 10
House Shyeel Battle Mages - Leader & 5 Grunts: 10
Dawnguard Sentinels - Leader & 5 Grunts: 11

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

I had first turn here and the idea was to claim as much as the table as possible and protect my important assets: Namely Thorn and Haley. I deploy them so that they can move behind an obstruction for cover and the rest in the middle/slightly on the other flank. Rahn goes toward the other flank, largely as expected.

:: Game ::

I place Lanyssa + Ironclad in a cloud on the hill and throw up Decel. Thorn runs to the right and the Cavalry + Firefly move to the left.

Sphinxes run up and form a "mini-fort-Rahn" next to the woods. The one in the front has Polarity Shield on it.

I look for game breaking angles for a long time and fine none. Thorn is too far away, quite simply. I would've wanted to send the Stormwall in, disrupted the Chimera and killed 2 heavies. Not impossible with Thorn in the right spot considering my Lances + Ironclad + Lanyssa are all in very good positions for such an assault, but it was not to be. Furthermore Haley could not get through to feat on a significant part of my opponent's army so I discarded the idea. More on this under evaluation.

Instead I went for a bit of a passive play. My next turn would almost guaranteed be a feat turn. As such I set up for giving Rahn a very poor feat turn of his own with no juicy targets involved but a serious commitment needed if he wanted to get anything significantly done. The Stormwall shot up the front Sphinx quite a bit with its big gun and the rest of the list chilled out.

Rahn elects not to feat, which is in my opinion the correct decision. He also skips Polarity Field, giving it to the left Battle Mages instead. They move up and try to drag a Lance but fails to beat my DEF15. The sentinels run up in the middle with 2 blocking the Stormwall's path.

I spend a very long time setting this turn up. I end up deciding to go for the Chimera - a big kill if I can get it. I proxy Haley to be outside of 15" of the marshalled Hydra. She feats and casts Temporal on the Stormwall. Lanyssa lands Mark on the Artificer. Lances kill the 2 Sentinels blocking the Stormwall and the Sphinx on the flag. Firefly takes out a couple of battle mages. The Stormwall charges the Artificer and kills it, before killing the Chimera as well (future sight!) and half of the second sphinx. Electro leaps take out a bit of support and the pod kills an Arcanist.

To end my turn I put up the Ironclad to block LoS to Haley2. Crucially I make a mistake as I don't do the same with Thorn.

It's all or nothing time for Rahn. He feats and moves up. TK on himself is needed to get within 10" of Haley. What I had not remembered was that of course his own spells are boosted from the feat as well. Because of this He has 4 focus left and 2 TK attempts after the Ironclad has been placed out of the way. Haley is sitting on DEF20 so he needs a 12 to hit. If he does he has a Battle Mage within 12" which can possibly drag her into range of yet another and so on. Luckily for me, Rahn misses both TKs and with that, the game is over.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Deployment was a bit overly cautious on my part here. Rahn is pretty insane in terms of angles but like Haley2 it is quite unlikely for him to get any work done bottom of 1. As such I should've had Haley2 on the hill instead of behind the obstruction so that I could've moved around freely and gone for an alpha top of 2. At least having the option is nice. Likewise Thorn should've been in a position to move in range. Far out on the right flank near the obstruction might be the right place for him in a more defensive role but in this game I have the initiative and pure range is sufficient to protect him early on.

Given this mistake I think I played T2 well. I spent too much time looking for openings so the clock was a bit of an issue but it didn't matter in the end, luckily. If I had resigned myself to the fact that this was a passive turn earlier I would've saved a lot of time. Anyway, I left Rahn with no strong openings and was happy with letting him score but a single point. It's worth noting that if Rahn had a Magister in his list this move would have been a lot more questionable.

The feat turn was more or less perfect apart from not pre-measuring Rahn's ability to TK Haley2. It was extremely close and I could've easily avoided this. Lesson (hopefully) learned. No reason to give him this angle.

I was very happy with the game and my take away is that Haley2 at the very least has game into Rahn. That is worth knowing! After playing more than a little against Retribution my initial conclusion is that Haley2 can likely play into most of their lists/casters and expect to have game. That is interesting and very cool!