Internal Affairs Mk. XI Game 3 (#523): Haley2 vs Elara2

:: Prologue ::

Day 2. Game 1 sees me pair up vs Retribution. My opponent has Rahn in Forges and Elara2 in Defenders. I drop Haley2 and receive Elara2. I've never played against her nor the theme before so I was excited!

:: Lists ::

:: Cygnar ::

"TimeStorm"
Theme: Heavy Metal
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
- Squire - PC: 0
- Firefly - PC: 8
- Thorn - PC: 13
- Hurricane - PC: 39 (Battlegroup Points Used: 25)
Storm Strider - PC: 18
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Firefly - PC: 8
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Reliant - PC: 14
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0

:: Opponent ::

Elara2, Defenders of Ios
- Banshee
- Sphinx
AFG
2x Thane
2x Arcanist
Skeryth Issyen
3x Max Halberdiers w/UA

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The scenario was Outlast 2 and Elara went first. I skewed heavily to one side to allow my Storm Strider a safe haven. There's no way it can go centrally here with Elara's feat making her entire army threat 15". They'll shred it to bits. This meant giving up a lot of board space. I was hoping my attrition game would be strong enough to open up the center before Elara could run away in terms of CP.

:: Game ::

Advanced move + desperate pace + reposition 3" meant the Halbs could get up awefully quick despite going in Shield Wall.

The pressure was on so high that I contemplated feating turn 1. I found another play though which let me hold my feat for a turn and then get back into it later. It's a risky play because if Ret manages to play this cautiously and bide out the time it can be very hard for me to get back from yielding this much table space.

Luckily for me, my opponent keeps advancing. I feel pretty secure now that I can clear out his infantry in time.

I try and find an angle where Thorn can go in and get work done, but it's impossible without risking him. I simply cannot do that! The AFG in the center is a big deal right now, it really has a command position and my opponent has managed to spread out perfectly: I am quite simply unable to find an aggressive play here.

Instead I settle for the conservative approach: Take some pot-shots, clear out dudes, keep my things safe.

Remaining Halbs on the left jam me. They are so fast despite my feat being up!

I run Thorn up, Dominate the Sphinx closer, TK out the AFG, clear some Halbs, kill Sphinx in melee, rotate Strider towards the center. I make one horrible mistake: Haley moves left instead of right. I go for the "innate safety" of the rock, what I need is quite frankly to put distance between myself and the Halberdiers. In panic I run up the Squire to blocker her out after my Reliant fails to kill Halberdiers with boosted damage rolls on a Trample.

Luckily for me, my opponent doesn't go for Haley. He's pretty far down at this point so I think it would've been his best chance. He tries to kill the Reliant however to keep scoring and maybe have a chance here. Alas, his dice are beyond terrible and Reliant stands.

At this point the game's virtually over, it's a mop-up for me.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Man, SR2017 is so different! It's like learning to play all over again. Some pretty crazy plays are doable and you have to reconsider everything you thought you knew. The Storm Strider was really hard to get value out of in this matchup, so incredibly exposed and with such a big footprint he is a big, clumsy piece of metal. As per usual his big ranged game makes up for it, sort of anyway.

Elara2 Defenders was an interesting list. I think my opponent went too aggro top of 1. I was able to deal with his attack in waves and applied a lot of firepower as early as bottom of 1. His win condition here is to drag out the game I think, which forces me to yield table space. However to do so he needs to conserve his models, which he was unable to do here. A couple of more turns of scoring in the left zone and this game would've been a lot harder.

Our team finally won a round! Every player won his game, which was just amazing. A perfect start for the last day following a very rough day 1.