Indian Summer Game 4 (#241): Haley2 vs Haley2

:: Prologue ::

A friend of mine who plays Cygnar only started playing miniature games in February this year. We spar a lot and he's taken a liking to some of my ideas. So much in fact that his Haley2 list is a carbon copy of mine. What possibly looks like the most boring mirror in the world on paper turned out to be a very exciting and close game in practice. Haley2 vs Haley2, let the best time controller win!

:: 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:

(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]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The scenario was Incursion and I lost the roll-off and had to move second. Again a very open map, however one side had a hill, a Trench and a wall close to the right flag. The other side also had 2 pieces of rough and I know how much my list hates this so the choice was easy. The idea was to look for an opening on one of the flanks depending on his turn 1 move and hopefully get control of the Lances and/or Thorn as quickly as possible.

:: Game ::

My opponent runs up. Thorn on the left with Lances, Ironclad + Firefly on the right, Stormwall centrally.

My idea this turn is centered on trying to take out Thorn's Arc Node. He is within 21" of my Stormwall. I contemplate running my own Thorn to try and dominate his but I can't get meaningful work done out of it. I make a mistake though as I move up to shoot Thorn with Temporal Acceleration: I place the Stormwall within 12" of him so that he can't move out of range with a single dodge, unfortunately this means being within 18" of Lanyssa... The third shot misses and I have done no significant damage, unfortunately.

The opening is real and my opponent goes for it. My Stormwall gets reduced to a little less than half a side and "evil" Haley feats. She makes sure to just catch Arlan to prevent repairs.

With "evil" Haley camping 1 focus, I contemplate assassination. However there is nothing but spells around and the 8+ to hit her is dicey, even with future sight and squire. POW11 isn't that much. An alternative is Time Bomb but it still feels iffy without a follow up. I put it aside and decide that there are 2 other possibilities. One is going for Junior. This is possible with TK + Reaction Drive on Thorn I believe. The other is getting his Squire so that Arlan can move up and repair. I could just TK Arlan but taking out his squire is so much better. I go for the Squire move and feat. TA is up on the Stormwall and I roll pretty well, doing roughly as much damage as he did (that is minus one charge attack, basically). Storm Lances crippled Thorn's Arc Node and helped out a bit vs Stormwall.

Now I just have to hope my Stormwall lives through the turn.

A huge mistake I made which I didn't see before it was too late was that my non-charging Lance (i.e. the one caught in "evil" Haley's feat) is an absolutely amazing throw piece onto my Haley. I had 0 focus, reasoning that "evil" Haley can't reliably kill me without a Squire, but a throw changes all of this, obviously. Luckily my opponent didn't see the angle and went for the Stormwall instead.

Then dice happened. He did have a crippled arm and he did not have Temporal, but that's still 4 attacks and he ended up doing... 6 boxes!

I breath a sigh of relief. I manage to take out his Stormwall now and start scoring. With the Stormwall out of the picture it's basically game over and my opponent concedes.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

The reasoning behind being 12" away from Thorn and thus not care too much about Dodge is sound enough in itself, but when this means being 18" away from Lanyssa as well it's just way too risky. He needs a 5+ to hit me under Deflection and that usually goes well. This sets up the entire game and my opponent gets a huge lead, which he then fails to capitalize on from not seeing the throw-assassination and then rolling dice which it's been a long time since I saw the likes of.

This matchup is very much about Thorn. The fact that he can be dominated is huge and if you can somehow capitalize on that, it's very, very hard for an opponent to get back. I played my Ironclad pretty bad, same for Lanyssa (which died to his Firefly shooting his Ironclad in the back top of 2), as these were needed in a closer spot. Having to keep Haley outside of 4" of the Stormwall because of eleaps (literally all my other models there bar the Squire were electro-immune) was a real pain when I feated for example and there was no more power to throw into the "evil" Stormwall.

Overall a great game from my opponent but dice saved me. Not much one can do about that.

EDIT: My opponent writes a blog as well and his report from this game is now posted. You can read it here: PlayTestedForYears - Haley2 vs Haley2