Battle Report #467: Haley2 vs Makeda1

:: Prologue ::

My Skorne opponent was asked to try out Makeda1 against me by one of the players he regularly dojos with. I like Makeda2 into Cygnar from a Skorne point of view but I'm happy to test anything!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

"Technical Death Metal"
[Theme] Heavy Metal
(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25]
 - Minuteman [9]
 - Hammersmith [12]
 - Stormwall [39]
 - Thorn [13]
 - Squire [0]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Charger [9]
Lieutenant Allison Jakes [4]
 - Stormclad [18]

Opponent:

(Makeda 1) Archdomina Makeda [+29]
 - Basilisk Krea [7]
 - Mammoth [38]
 - Molik Karn [19]
 - Titan Gladiator [15]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Gremlin Swarm [3]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [5]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Legends of Halaak [8]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Outlast, Skorne seizes the initiative to my dismay. Idea? Classical Haley2. Take a flank, pressure scenario.

:: Game ::

Turns out a Mammoth with Quicked and Rush is fast. Who'd have thought?

The combined threat of the Mammoth and Molik was too much. Orin protected the former but not the latter so I took the opportunity to Time Bomb Molik. Thorn reaction drove back with a TK to get cover. I put my Minuteman in cover outside the red zone. If the Mammoth goes in here it's essentially game over unless Makeda covers him with dudes under feat, which certainly seems extreme.

Mammoth has other plans though! If it aims it goes to RAT6, meaning it needs a measly 12 to hit the Minuteman. Getting tons of shots and hitting the first to cripple movement sure helps and my poor light goes down. I'm speechless. Gremlin Swarm contests my zone.

I kind of struggle to see how I can get all my pieces into the places I want because of how I need to apply Haley's feat. however the Gremlin swarm is, interestingly enough, the solution to all of my problems: By TK-ing Haley and have her charge it everything is good! This works out perfectly! I send some shots into the Mammoth but ARM22 is a thing. I pod Makeda's zone. 2-0.

I came very close to being able to literally block Skorne out from contesting me but it was just not enough and so I set up for a longer game. The Legends got the job with a single unit member having enough range to do it. Makeda feated but couldn't go where she wanted to: To keep the Mammoth safe it had to go back This kept the contesting Legends member at the very edge of her control range. Molik also chilled out. Note that my pod was still alive, he didn't have any good answers for it so it contested still. Awesome!

The contesting Legends dude is trivial: TK towards me, kill. The other two needed to be brought down to 1 box each so that covering fires would deal with them (likely). I had a big problem: Lash. I could set up quite well by respecting Molik's 15" threat range with Rush and Quicken, however Lash on top of that. Ugh. The solution came to me in a Eureka! moment: By killing my own pod I could deprive Makeda of any targets whatsoever. I went through the CP math and figured this was a "safe" play. The plan worked out and I went to 4-2.

All hands on deck! Stuff ran like crazy to contest. The Mammoth could barely get in, as could Molik.  4-4.

Having various sources of shooting is awesome and this helped me clear out Orin first here. Following this Haley TK'd out Molik which left the Hammersmith, Stormwall and Stormclad - all on full focus - to kill the Mammoth. Not a problem!

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Interesting game! I'll admit that this was more of a game than I thought it would be. That being said, going first and taking out the Minuteman top of 2 are both huge for Skorne. The long story short is that I'm still more afraid of Makeda2 for sure.

Makeda's feat could conceivably have been used to try and physically block me off from the Mammoth in order to play it more offensively. Playing this badboy further up the table might've enabled my opponent to one-round the 'wall. With a proper alpha and Jackhammer there's a -ton- of damage output here. Issues for sure. The problem with this is that through a combination of TKs and the Hammersmith I'm not really sure this block can effectively happen. We're both inexperienced with the matchup though so certainly hard to say. Another option for me here is to simply sacrifice a jack somehow.

I wish the Minuteman had more time to shine here. With him messing about in the back lines I really don't know if Makeda could have kept key pieces alive without feating top of 2. Ah well, dice happen sometimes. I've had worse!