Battle Report #248: Caine2 vs Vlad1

:: Prologue ::

I don't get to play Khador as much as I would've liked to, but today I had the opportunity to get in no less than three games! First up was Caine2. Haley2 doesn't like being shot so the working idea here is that if Khador doesn't go arm-skew in their pair, perhaps Caine2 is the drop?

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Captain Allister Caine - WJ: +27
- Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 4
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 27)
- Lightning Pod
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 4
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 4
- Charger - PC: 9
Gobber Tinker - PC: 2
Ragman - PC: 4
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress - PC: 3
Rangers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12

Opponent:

Vladimir Tzepesci, The Dark Prince - WJ: +28
-    Behemoth - PC: 24 (Battlegroup Points Used: 24)
-    Ruin - PC: 17 (Battlegroup Points Used: 4)
-    Rager - PC: 11
-    Rager - PC: 11
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich - PC: 4
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor - PC: 5
Winter Guard Rifle Corps - Leader & 5 Grunts: 8
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
Winter Guard Rifle Corps - Leader & 5 Grunts: 8
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
-    Winter Guard Rocketeer - PC: 2
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts: 3

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Line Breaker and Khador moves first. Based on terrain I anticipate him having a hard time attacking my right flag so I skew a little left.

:: Game :: 

Khador runs up.

I put the Stormwall within feat + charge range of Ruin. I reasoned that it would be fine with tanking Ruin to the face as long as Behemoth doesn't get in as well. If I could do that and trade off I'd probably be in a good spot. The left Lances went towards the center while the right Lances set up for a possible scenario move.

Turns out Ruin + Winter Guard support shoot hard enough to just one-round a 'wall when backed up with Signs and Portents. Ooops. Should've taken my time to do the math here. Ruins is basically 4x8 = 32. 5 Rockets add another 25 and that's it. He even has Behemoth. Wow, ok.

So Ruin needs to die and in killing him I need to -not- lose anything else in return. I have no idea how that's going to work out. The Lances on the right can't help out here at all so they decide to go for the scenario pressure anyway. I'm hoping I can trade off to remove all the jacks somehow and get a scenario lead so that we'll have a lategame Caine2 vs the world scenario more or less but even that is looking dicey at this point in time to be honest.

I move up Ragman with Death Field and the Charger on full focus moves in to start hitting Ruin. It takes it down a bit. The central Lances get a charge on Ruin which does a fair bit of damage while the other charges a hunter's marked Behemoth. I follow up with what I have on Ruin but Caine has to help the right Lances complete their scenario play move so Ruin survives on like 3 boxes or so.

Ruin with Signs and Portents backed by Rifles with boosted attack rolls remove my Lances in the center and the Charger. A Rager contests the right flag.

Scenario is absolutely dead but crucially Caine can get an angle to Vlad. This is a serious misplay by my opponent as he's massively up and anything but putting Vlad within 19" of Caine is basically a win. I have no other angles here so I go for him. That means taking out the objective first but that's all ok. I get a ranger within 5" and Caine feats to take him down.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

A very poorly evaluated gambit turns this entire game on its head as early as top of 2. In general drawing out a beatstick with the Stormwall can be/is a good idea as you get a massive advantage in board control and possibly scenario. It fails miserably when said beatstick is able to kill the 'wall though.

In hindsight the mistake is obvious but this is why you simply gotta play matchups. We can't always stop and think about every little thing and calculate all the odds, many of the things we do we do on intuition (or gut feeling if you prefer). In any case it is an obvious blunder in hindsight. It should be noted that I was just barely within 13". This is kind of unnecessary because Vlad doesn't have the focus to fully fuel Ruin if he wants to charge him longer than 13" and still get Signs and Portents.

This game begs the question: If the Stormwall can't be within 15" of Ruin more or less, how does Caine approach it? Can he somehow create pressure on the table so that Ruin within 15" doesn't necessarily matter?