Internal Affairs Mk. IV Game 1 (#204): Haley2 vs Severius1

:: Prologue ::

First game of the day and Protectorate were facing me! I had Sloan and Haley2 and was facing Vindictus + Severius1. Haley2 is kind of an auto-drop into Protectorate so that was a no-brainer. My opponent chose Severius1 and we were good to go!

:: 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:

Grand Scrutator Severius - WJ: +28
-    Hierophant - PC: 3
-    Blessing of Vengeance - PC: 0
-    Reckoner - PC: 1
Vessel of Judgment - PC: 18
Initiate Tristan Durant - PC: 4
-    Redeemer - PC: 11
The Covenant of Menoth - PC: 4
Vassal Mechanik - PC: 1
Vassal of Menoth - PC: 3
Wrack - PC: 1
Wrack - PC: 1
Choir of Menoth - Leader & 3 Grunts: 4
Temple Flameguard - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
-    Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard: 4
Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & Honor Guard - Rhoven, Gius & Cassian: 9

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The scenario was Line Breaker and I had the initiative. The idea was to send the Stormwall up centrally and use it to block LoS to the squishy things behind coupled with the woods. 

:: Game ::

I run up. I take care to place unimportant models closest to the easy Ashes-to-ashes targets so that he can't get any juice things.

The Protectorate forces have a slow start, which suits me just fine as I get yet another turn of setting up.

I am happy with biding my time because I have the superior ranged game here. I decide to try and shoot up the Battle Engine and put up temporal acceleration on the Stormwall. With 3 focus and 3 hits 3 boosted shots later and I've dealt... 0 damage. Wow. I even forgot to put down covering fires in my amazement of being unable to roll 6+ on 3d6 three times in a row. Again I'm positioned so that 4" ensure no juicy targets.

Temple Flameguard move up with minifeat + Shield Wall. Jacks try and ping the Firefly but both miss.

I have a huge opening and decide to go for it: I can Dominate the Reckoner and send in the Ironclad and have the Stormwall charge the objective/Battle Engine. I make 2 big mistakes: First of all I'm too greedy and I don't realize how absolutely game breaking my feat is here so I elect not to use it. Secondly I forget to move Haley2 a little further behind. She thus ends up within 4" of Lanyssa. While Lanyssa does have Stealth, Rhoven doesn't care and that could be a big problem. I should also have switched Arcane to Haley at this point in time simply because the Stormwall is pretty much unkillable bearing in mind what he has left.

I'm trying to calculate his chances of taking Haley2 out, however as I do that my opponent forgets to allocate to his Redeemer and abandons the attempt entirely. Phew! He does a few boxes on the 'clad but nothing of value was lost.

There's certainly no reason to delay the feat any longer so I crash into the Protectorate lines under Shift this time. I take care to have all my jacks within 14" in case he feats in return (and why wouldn't he?). I put up Arcane on Haley this time around. Storm Lances + Firefly leap and kill multiple TFG.

At this point in time the game is largely over but my opponent damages the Ironclad some more. Severius feats.

I clear out the rest and start scoring.

My opponent gets a couple of more CP and then I win the game.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

I think both Severius1 and Severius2 need to capitalize on their power with strong, shooty lists. This list is more suited to handling infantry. While its shooting and spells can be painful for such lists, my Stormwall is unimpressed. I think this matchups given the lists we had inevitably boils down to whether or not the Protectorate can get a bead on Haley. He did indeed after a set of really bad decisions on my part in an otherwise devastating round.

The Thornwall is still very much a powerful battlegroup for Haley2. I find that the Ironclad allows the jacks to do a lot of work and I can switch around the focus depending on what I need. In this match I spent a lot of focus letting the Ironclad hand out MAT7 PS18 attacks and it helped thinning out my opponent's models mid-game without having to commit the Lances 100% (which is dicey as there are so few of them).

My list has very few models and can rarely afford to lose anything. When I first started playing Haley2 in Mk. 3 I found it very hard to protect them all. It still might be in some cases for sure, but I've noticed that I have more games now when my list stays intact for longer. Managing the same vs Severius1 is for sure something I'm happy with.