Battle Report #296: Haley2 vs Issyria

:: Prologue ::

Time for the rematch! Going into this game I had a couple of angles I knew I needed to beware.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
- Squire - PC: 5
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
- Lightning Pod
- Thorn - PC: 13
- Ironclad - PC: 12
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 4
- Firefly - PC: 8
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress - PC: 3
Ragman - PC: 4Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12

Opponent:

Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn - WJ: +29
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker - PC: 4
- Hyperion - PC: 36 (Battlegroup Points Used: 29)
- Chimera - PC: 8
Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2
Arcanist Mechanik - PC: 2
Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen - PC: 8
Elara, Tyro of the Third Chamber - PC: 4
- Discordia - PC: 18
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution - PC: 6
Heavy Rifle Team - Leader & Grunt: 4
Heavy Rifle Team - Leader & Grunt: 4
House Vyre Electromancers - Leader & 2 Grunts: 8

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

One of the problems in the previous game was that weighing my right flank so heavily "forced" me to take the trench since the woods were blocking me from spreading out. In this game I wanted to have the option to put my models further back and use distance as safety instead of relying on +6 DEF, which was not enough for dear Thorn.

:: Game ::

Retribution run up and this time nothing is within the Stormwall's threat range apart from the electrobros, who choose a hyper-aggressive move to try and draw something out from me.

While the electrobros did next to nothing last game and are very hard to get work out of in this matchup, I figure picking them off early is worth the risk. True, I don't get Temporal nor Deflection as a result, but I can get Thorn in range -and- reaction drive him outside of Hyperion's threat range, thereby denying the same alpha my opponent had last game. It costs Haley all her focus but it works out. Lances take care to be outside of Skeryth's charge threat range.

Part of the problem in this matchup has been that no matter what it seems like the Stormwall eventually gets to charge the Hyperion on a flank under Shift which just ends the game. To try and avoid this my opponent saves his feat but sets up to deny me my alpha: Eiryss assaults the Ironclad to disrupt it and Skeryth runs in to block the Stormwall. The HRTs move up in position and the Chimera moves to the Rubble with Admonition. Together with Discordia this makes it impossible for me to get a proper flank off on Hyperion.

I end up deciding that I simply cannot go for Hyperion. However there is an angle for Discordia so I decide to go for the alpha + feat regardless, just a different variant of it. Skeryth is killed by Thorn + Lances with help from Ragman's Death Field. Stormwall goes in but fails to kill Discordia. Ironclad takes care to not be within 10" of Hyperion nor 14" of HRTs.

Part of the beauty of the blocking move from my opponent in his previous turn was that it allowed him to get a ton of work done on the Stormwall without risking Hyperion. Now he had an interesting play: Could he feat and take out the Stormwall's weapon systems or cortex boxes with shooting? He went for the play and came kind of close as the picture below shows:

If that gambit had worked I think it's game over for me really. I'm not sure how the dice were either this turn or the last but the shooting sure is impressively hard. In any case, with the Stormwall alive and well and both Ragman + Ironclad and a Lance in threat range I manage to kill the Hyperion. We play it out as though he survived on a couple of boxes and I still eventually won the grind.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

It looks close and it -is- close. My inability to force a scenario angle here makes it a pure game of attrition and the shooting is so scary from Retribution. It is important to remember though that there are a ton of things which can work out better for me context-wise so this really is worst case and it still feels like it's in Cygnar's favour, if even only slightly.

In this game I managed to learn a lot from my mistakes in the previous game. I was able to utilize the space on the left flank a lot better to protect my models and got the angles I needed without losing a horrible amount in return. I suppose my opponent made a couple of mistakes as well and indeed he might have taken this one away if he had managed to keep Discordia out of alpha threat range. With his arcanist placement it really is impossible for me to deny him repairs and repairs mean a sad, sad Stormwall.