Battle Report #483: Sloan vs Lylyth3

:: Prologue ::

Time for the second game! I was recently told that Sloan into Lylyth3 is massively in favour of Sloan. Considering this is the opposite of what I thought I had to try this out. I mean, why can't Lylyth just slowly walk up, be a Windwall center and just take it from there? Sooner or later the melee beasts will tear Sloan's list apart. Those were my thoughts prior to the game, anyway. Let's jump in!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Cygnar - Firing Solution v4
Theme: Heavy Metal
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Armory - Steamroller Objective
Captain Kara Sloan - WJ: +28
- Squire - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Hunter - PC: 11
- Stormwall - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 28)
- Lightning Pod
- Firefly - PC: 8
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 11
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Hammersmith - PC: 12

Opponent:

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

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The Pit, I go first. Idea? Spread out lights, create a fort with Stormwall and Hammersmith.

:: Game ::

Stuff gets into position. Refuge on Sloan.

Lylyth shifts everything left, does nothing but cast Windwall and have her beasts stay within. Not nearly all beasts have to run so coupled with fury management there are no frenzy issues.

I figure I cannot feat because that leaves Lylyth too much freedom to try and get work done. However I am not out of time quite yet so I can take a turn of pot-shots with Sloan and the 'wall. The latter however is way too close, he'll get ripped to pieces at 10.1" away from Angelii. They threaten 14" base and I want to force Lylyth to activate first if they want to try anything. Otherwise he can go with Angelii first and literally trample up 12" and cast Windwall and I cannot touch him.

So I back off and target the middle Angelius. It loses 20 ish boxes.

A mistake on my part not to contest the zone. I should've placed the Firefly in the zone rather than on the flank. No biggie though, it dies to shooting anyway so it wouldn't have mattered. Lylyth shifts towards her own flag and goes to 2-0.

I have to send the Stormwall in now to contest. If I don't the game is over no matter what I do. I consider feating, but the problem with feating is that I can only get 2 heavies at most, and if I do the remaining two heavies can take out the 'wall and Lylyth is safe with Windwall, yet again.

What I do is save the feat. I'm hoping to take out a heavy without. If that happens, I can conceivably win a game of attrition. Not sure what I'll do about scenario, but first things first.

I fail to kill a heavy and keeping Sloan safe at all is extremely difficult here.

Heavies engage and I lose Stormwall, Hammersmith and a Hunter. this is what I feel inevitably happens in this matchup and why it's bad for Sloan.

I go for a last assassination attempt on Lylyth, but she camps her 2 fury and has Windwall up so she lives.

Sadly, a Loss for the Swans.

:: Evaluation ::

This game went more or less like I anticipated it would. We ran some numbers and Sloan has to be very lucky to get enough work done before Lylyth can force the issue like she did here. One-rounding a heavy outside of feat is unlikely and I feel as though you need three heavies down to justify feating, considering Lylyth gets so much more space and freedom if you spend the feat. Given the situation however, I should have feated top of 3. We played this out with the Carnivean (who btw is my primary target here) and an unhurt Angelius going down. What happens then is that Lylyth simply tramples up with Windwall, lesser beasts block out Stormwall and the remaining Angelii kill Sloan.

I was hoping to get more work out of the Hammersmith but I found I had to use him as a piece to provide Sloan with a safe haven. Sloan has to commit to a part of the table rather early because if she's exposed she dies. If she dies it's obviously game over, however you basically also need both Jakes and Arlan to live (at least the latter!). This means you have a serious backline to keep intact whereas Lylyth has no such weaknesses. Bot of 1 she literally had her entire army wrapped in Windwall. With proxying it up it's simply very straight forward and easy to do. As long as the Legion player doesn't get greedy and plays the slow pressure game there is no work for the Hunters to do.

What can conceivably work is strategically giving up the Stormwall. The problem with doing this is that if the Legion player finds a way for Lylyth to catch her heavies in Windwall after the 'wall has died it's game over. With an objective based scenario I think this matchup is easily playable because you get the critical volume both to attrition through Windwall and to threaten assassination. However without it feels like Sloan is just short of what she needs. It does depend on the Legion player being patient and not looking for crazy angles, but if he knows what he's doing I feel this is pretty clearly in his favour.