Battle at Lund: Invitationals #1 (#499): Haley2 vs Lylyth3

:: Prologue ::

The last day of the convention saw the Invitationals tournament kick off. The top 8 players from the previous tournaments were qualified. It was a very hard field with nothing but top players, rock hard lists and solid factions. 3 Cygnar players, 2 Mercs, 2 Legion and 1 Skorne. I chose to stay with the exact same lists I took to the Masters on Friday as I saw no reason to tool differently.

For the first game I was paired up against... Gustav! A rematch from the very last game we had played the day before. I knew he had learned a lot from that game as we discussed the matchup at length following its early end. The scenario was Entrenched which would have given Sloan Armory. Usually I'd be happy to drop Sloan here because of said Armory, but I had a gut feeling that Haley2 would be a safer matchup for me and that I'd find the necessary angles. The thing about Sloan is that it can be forced to be a dicey game and I hate that.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Cygnar - Technical Death Metal v4
[Theme] Heavy Metal
(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25]
- Charger [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:

Theme: Oracles of Annihilation
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Lylyth, Reckoning of Everblight - WB: +29
- Angelius - PC: 17 (Battlegroup Points Used: 17)
- Angelius - PC: 17 (Battlegroup Points Used: 12)
- Angelius - PC: 17
- Naga Nightlurker - PC: 8
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower - PC: 11
- Carnivean - PC: 19
- Seraph - PC: 14
Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion - PC: 0
Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion - PC: 0
The Forsaken - PC: 0
The Forsaken - PC: 0
Blighted Nyss Shepherd - PC: 1

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

I won the roll-off and took first turn. The sides were fairly even. There was an obstruction in the middle which would hurt my Stormwall's threat projection no matter what side I chose so I figured it would be better to get up the field and feat early to get around the entire thing or stay defensive and bait Legion out. I deployed so I could do both, depending on Gustav's reply to my top of 1 moves.

:: Game ::

Stuff runs. Fort Haley is created with a Sidekick'd Stormclad b2b with the 'wall.

Gustav chooses a cautious variant. From our game the previous day he has learned to spread out and there's a Hellion solo ready to contest my zone and 1 Angelii on each flank.

By advancing max and TK-ing, Haley can catch virtually his entire army in the feat, including the extremely-far-away Hellion on the right flank and the Angelius on the left flank. Perfect! This sets up so that I'll automatically go to 1-0 in his turn, scoring a second in my own shouldn't be a problem. I had a ton of options following this play I reckoned so I went for it.

This time there was no angle on Lylyth but I had an Angelius to fool around with. I thus spent the feat turn killing it and a Hellion solo in the center.

My Hammersmith and Stormclad were placed pretty far up and Gustav was afraid of their ability to launch a devastating alpha. He backed up a lot and left a single Angelius to contest his own zone.

I TK the Angelius out of his zone and kill the objective with the Hammersmith. Haley consolidates her position and the fort is built again. I move to 4CP.

A desperate contest play is made by running in an Angelius and the Hellion solo, both of which can be TK'd out (if not just downright killed).

The other flank is still contested by a single Angelius and it's within threat range of my Hammersmith so I load it up on full focus and go in. Double Beat Back and Chain Smite leaves it just within the zone sadly, but it hardly has boxes left. Junior's aiming Charger finishes the job though as it has but a couple of boxes left. Thus, I don't need to clear my own zone to get to 5CP.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

This matchup is rough for Lylyth when Haley gets to go first and apply a lot of scenario pressure. I had the perfect forts up defensively as well. The main things Lylyth needs to do is spread out even more. Windwall isn't that big of a deal here because I will typically TK stuff regardless to get the beasts from DEF14 -> DEF12. Knowing when and where the feat comes is crucial. There wasn't a lot of distance left for me to work with so moving the Hellion a little further right and the Angelius a little further left basically makes my play a lot less valuable.

The shooting alpha is a legit way for Haley to set up for the game I believe. I keep defaulting to my Mk. 2 mindset with Haley2 where I expected to get a lot of work done -on- her feat turn. In Mk. 3 I keep finding that her feat is often a lot more about setting up for the following turn actually. Kind of like Fyanna2 I guess.