SmogCon: Masters D #1 (#427): Nemo3 vs Xerxis2

:: Prologue ::

Day 2! I got a spot in Masters D heat so another chance at qualifying for the top 8. Friday night was an absolute blast, following the final game against Stryker1 we were a bunch of people just chilling out and discussing all things Cygnar. For some of us it did get way too late before we eventually went to bed, but that's another story. In any case, to summarize the Cygnar discussion so I can move on with these reports I made a change in my 3-list pairing:

Yeah, no Haley3. The more I've played Nemo3 the less and less I experience that I really need Haley3. Factions and casters she used to answer can often be handled by Nemo3. Furthermore Stryker1 feels like he's able to cover some of her matchups as well. I went for the double Charger configuration instead of a Firefly because I believe the mirror is a big, big deal and having double Chargers make the Lance Wars™ tilt so heavily in your favour.

Anyway! Game 1 on Saturday was against Skorne. Steve was my opponent and he had Xerxis2, Zaadesh2 and Rasheth. Zaadesh looked like something any of my lists could handle. Xerxis2 had 4 (!) huge-based models and Rasheth looked vanilla-ish. I figured Nemo would be the way to go. I didn't see how any of his lists could deal with the lightning very well. Boy was I in for a surprise...

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Theme: Storm Division
(Nemo 3) Artificer General Nemo [+25], Bunker
- Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch
- Squire [0]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Dynamo [18]
- Lancer [10]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]

Opponent:

(Xerxis 2) Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28]
 - Desert Hydra [38]
 - Mammoth [38]
Siege Animantarax [17]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Line Breaker. I wasn't anticipating this to be a scenario game anyways so I didn't matter that much. I got to go first and my idea here was basically to rush up, avoid the worst shooting and alpha hard, the sooner the better.

:: Game ::

Stuff runs up and I'm still completely oblivious to what I have coming for me.

The huge-based Skorne army moves up and my opponent asks for SPD and RNG across the board. He then proceeds to use 13" as the main thingy. I kindly point out to him that 6 + 10 is a lot more than 13, to which Steve replies that he has a spell which reduces all of my shooting by 3". You what? I was sure I'd read Xerxis' card before I dropped my caster. Wtf? Oh right, Hordes have animi. Desert Hydra. Ok, that is problematic considering how strong his shooting is and how far he threatens stuff in melee...

I suddenly had a fairly big problem on my hands. Launching an alpha against something like that is a completely different thing. Suddenly I need to make a play for scenario. That play can happen on the left flank. Hydra threatens 12" in melee so I position Lances at 12.5" ish. I keep the rest of my forces outside of his heavy shooting and just pray that the clouds don't go away. I need to keep the pressure up. Luckily it stays.

The Hydra moves over to the lances because although it threatens 12" in melee it threatens 13" with pretty legit shooting. My opponent is a bit over-confident though and manages his fury somewhat poorly so I only lose a single lance. Feating here could possibly have broken the game.

Time to make a move! What I want to do here is kill the Hydra and the objective. Easy, right? It's sad not gettng to shoot with Dynamo on feat turn but hey, what can you do? They both go down and I form a wall in front of Nemo with 2 Lights and Laddermore.

Xerxis feats, kills the Firefly in the middle and sprints to the Lances. This was not pre-measured and he ends up in a really awkward spot, not only does he not even engage me, he also blocks his own beast handlers from running to contest.

His Mammoth decides that this game needs some more problems for Cygnar so it starts shooting Laddermore. He unhorses her in the first shot and then kills the dismounted girl in the second. Of course he rolled 4 shots so now he has LoS to Nemo with 2 shots left. The dice keep being pretty crazy but luckily I have focus camped and I survive on a handful of boxes, phew!

Since the beast handlers could not contest on the left flank I move to 3 CP in his turn. I need to secure the right flag to win the game. The Lances can run and take it so I allocate focus to all jacks. They remove the battle engine and the Lances run in to take the 5th point.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Wow, that sure got real interesting real fast! Inexperience with the matchup can have effects like this for sure and the Desert Hydra completely caught me off guard. Luckily I was in a position to put scenario pressure on the game, despite playing Line Breaker. More than anything this has to do with Steve's army working against him: Having only 4 huge bases and support does not you spread out very well and removing 1 element creates a huge vacuum.

In hindsight I'm not sure what the best drop is. Skorne has enough power to simply force their way through Stryker's defensive tech. Rasheth's no-arc spell is a disaster for Haley2 and I don't know if she can work around it. Maybe Nemo is the best drop, after all this did work out in the end. Very interesting to face new things for sure!

SmogCon: Masters A #5 (#426): Haley3 vs Stryker1

:: Prologue ::

There were 4 people left undefeated: Circle list-locked into Kaya3, Cryx and a fellow Cygnar player. I would be very comfortable with both of the two former, but the Cygnar mirror I saw very much as an uphill battle. Not only did my opponent have Stryker1, my opponent was Patrick Dunford. For those of you who don't know him Pat's basically schooled me on Cygnar since SmogCon 2016 (which he won). As I'm sure you'll have guessed by now I did not luck out in the pairings and indeed drew Pat. Fuck.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 3) Major Prime Victoria Haley [+25], Bunker
- Grenadier [9]
- Grenadier [9]
- Thorn [13]
- Defender [16]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
- Charger [9]
Ragman [4]

Opponent:

[Theme] Storm Division
(Stryker 1) Commander Coleman Stryker [+30]
 - Charger [9]
 - Stormwall [39]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The scenario was Recon and I contemplated for a long time what to drop. Normally Haley2 is my dedicated Cygnar drop but I don't see what on Earth she does against Pat's Stryker1 list, especially not on Recon. Pods ensure contest so flags are impossible to win by taking. Furthermore Cygnar's really bad at dealing with an ARM22 colossal and the ARM27 variant Stryker can bring is quite simply impossible to kill for Haley2. On top of that he has Arlan for repairs and better shooting and protection to win the war between the Lances.

I decided to drop Haley3 because I didn't see how Haley2 could get the necessary angles here. The way I see it the only way for me to win this game is to kill Stryker. Neither Haley2 nor Haley3 have any other win conditions in my opinion. It's late, fatigue is a thing, people tend to be stressed out about Haley3 so I hoped Patrick would make a mistake and give me an angle. Getting first turn would surely help, so I took that out of the equation by rolling a '1' to Patrick's '2'.

:: Game ::

Lances run up, Arcane Shield on both. Blur on Laddermore.

I deliberately keep the clouds far back. I want Patrick to commit if he wants to leap onto me, getting me those angles and starting the stress which Haley3 does so well. The Defender received a focus and tried its luck on Laddermore. I connected with the 11+ needed to hit her, but the 12+ to unhorse her sadly wasn't there.

Snipe on the Stormwall allows 14" Covering Fires. I could see it coming from a mile away but what do I do about it? If I had gone first there might've been options but now I just have to sit back and take it. The 'wall also pods and the leaps into my lines start. Patrick is running the worst series of dice I've seen in a while though, between something like 5 leaps and a lightning generator the net result I think is 6 boxes to a Grenadier.

This game is slowly turning against me. I am not getting anything done so I have to create something. By putting Past in the zone there's a an issue for Stryker to clear the zone and score. She's also very hard to take down and hopefully, just hopefully, this can give me something to work with.

Patrick goes for a play to kill Past by Earthquaking a Lance next to her and having Arlan provide the Stormwall with magical attacks. Odds Machine puts this move at 67% to kill Past and given the nature of this matchup I'll take that. Stryker obviously feats but if he Past doesn't die there are some legit angles for me. However Past -does- die, but even though she does Patrick messes up his positioning and there's a very clear line to Stryker, who's camping 0 focus...

I can get both Grenadiers, the Defender, Future and Prime onto Stryker. This sounds like a lot, but 16/20 with 17 boxes is no joke. Odds Machine says it's basically a coin toss. This is easily the best chance I'll ever get so I go for it. I make a technical mistake by carelessly not putting Future exactly on the proxy base I had for her so she engages a Lance. My mistake so I take the consequences of losing the couple of shots she had. Unfortunately the run fails and Stryker survives. We roll out Future's dice to see "what if" and it still fails. Oh well, at least I tried.

Sadly, a Loss to the Swans. 

:: Evaluation ::

Quite obviously Stryker1 is super legit in the mirror match. As I wrote about recently in a Cygnar Musings blog post, I have a lot of faith in Stryker1 but simply haven't had the time to play him. I was confident others would test him and help me understand him. Patrick certainly did that and in hindsight he should've been a part of my 3 lists for sure. Patrick's a great player and it was awesome to finally play him. He won SmogCon last year, and this year he went undefeated throughout the entire event: Securing his place in the Sunday finals by beating me, winning the Iron Gauntlet Qualifier on Saturday and then winning the whole Masters on Sunday. Amazingly well done!

I was obviously disappointed by not securing a qualifying spot. I did manage to get an opening following a big mistake on my opponent's part (seriously, everyone makes mistakes) and that made it interesting. It came down to dice. Last year I could not believe how much luck I had in major events. This time it was not to be. And you know what? That feels perfectly fine. Sometimes the dice are in your favour, sometimes they are not. It was a good game anyways and I did what I could do. Thanks for a great end to day 1 Patrick and congratulations on your win!

I'll admit that even these few games made me think a -lot- about my lists and the meta. I had a new chance to qualify on Saturday and after luckily being loaned a couple of models I needed to try something out I was ready to go again...

SmogCon: Masters A #4 (#425): Haley3 vs Coven

:: Prologue ::

I got lucky and drew Cryx for my 4th game. This allowed me to comfortably drop Haley3, which in turn didn't list-lock me for game 5. I am very comfortable with Haley3 into Cryx, it is in my opinion my game to lose. I learned a few valuable lessons at ClogCon also and as fate would have it I was playing Extraction yet again.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 3) Major Prime Victoria Haley [+25], Bunker
- Grenadier [9]
- Grenadier [9]
- Thorn [13]
- Defender [16]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
- Charger [9]
Ragman [4]

Opponent:

(Helleana 1, Morgaen 1 & Selene 1) The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26]
 - Egregore
 - Deathripper [6]
 - Deathripper [6]
 - Stalker [8]
 - Stalker [8]
 - The Withershadow Combine [9]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
 - Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [3]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
 - Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [3]
Soulhunters (max) [18]
Machine Wraith [2]
Machine Wraith [2]
Ragman [4]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

I am playing Andrew's Coven. It is very similar to the build I faced at ClogCon, except of course it's Coven and not Deneghra1. That means that attrition is probably even more in my favour, but I need to be more careful with Prime. Andrew won the roll-off and wanted to choose sides. Given the terrain and the fact that scenario is possibly his biggest win condition I think this makes sense. Letting Haley3 go first is of course not exactly what you want to have happen, but sometimes it's just the lesser evil. 

:: Game ::

Having learned from ClogCon that I need to focus on contesting one flag and not both I skewed to the left. Trenchers dug in, I wanted to have the cloudwall as far up as possible top of 2.

Cryx run their stuff up and on my right flank there's a Soulhunter all the way engaging me!

I Ghost Walk the Trenchers and put up the Cloudwall. The Lances then deal with the Soulhunter. I contest the left flag with a Grenadier. Sure, Andrew can move to 2-0 but it requires a commitment so big from him I think it'll break his back and cost him the game. The right flag is hardly contested. Prime moves out of the killbox and I block LoS to her as best as I can. The Grenadiers and Defender try a couple of shots and kill a model or two.

The Soulhunters run to engage me and the Satyxis on both flanks spread out. No points are scored for Cryx, but a Witch is in the killbox so I (!) move to 2-0.

I want to feat and get work done. However with so many Satyxis deep on the table I need my cloudwall still. Future and Prime allocate focus to jacks to let them get work done while Past intends to show off her melee powers. I clear up the jam around me, cloud up and contest the left flag with Future. I did contemplate going for a scenario move here since I had an unexpected 2 points but figured attrition is both better, safer and easier.

With Past's incorporeal lost Andrew made a play to get rid of her. Unfortunately for him 18/17 with camp was too much to get through and she survived. The Machine Wraiths both committed themselves to the fray.

Time to drop Tactical Supremacy. This time it's Future's turn to get work done so Past allocates to jacks. I clear up the wraiths with Future and the Trenchers all shoot. I move up my lines significantly to claim the table and score a point, taking me to 3 CP.

I had to stop taking pictures here because time was becoming an issue. I won in the next turn by killing the objective and clearing the flag, taking me to 5 CP.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Yeah, Haley3 against Cryx just feels super legit. I was too passive with Thorn and that cost me some melee presence and independent activation order flexibility mid-game but apart from that I think this game was textbook example of why this matchup is so heavily in my favour. I honestly don't know what Cryx could've done differently. At ClogCon I managed to take out Satyxis quickly with Lances. That did not happen here so Andrew forced the grind to go on for longer, but in the end that hardly matters as there are so few models capable of getting work done anyways. The cloudwall's just too strong and the feat (which was popped early) is hardly even a thing at all for my list. The -2 MAT/RAT is a nuissance at worst with Temporal Distortion.

4-0 and 1 game left. A win would see me qualify for the top 8 finals on Sunday! 

SmogCon: Masters A #3 (#424): Haley2 vs Irusk2

:: Prologue ::

The third game saw me face Khador in the hands of Matt. I noticed Harkevich but before I could mentally prepare myself for a long, long grind I saw that said Harkevich only had a single Kodiak. The other two casters were Sorscha1 and Irusk2 so this was an easy Haley2-drop all the way. I received Irusk2 in return. Interesting!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25], Storm Division, Fuel Cache
- Thorn [13]
- Stormwall [39]
- Squire [0]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]

Opponent:

(Irusk 2) Supreme Kommandant Irusk [+27]
 - Behemoth [25]
 - Juggernaut [12]
Iron Fang Uhlans (max) [20]
Winter Guard Infantry (max) [10]
 - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6]
 - Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard [4]
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (max) [13]
 - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6]
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich [4]
Gobber Tinker [2]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The scenario was Take and Hold. Terrain was highly favourable for me with lots of places for Haley to go hide on both sides. A lot of rough terrain features meant my Lances would struggle to assault but I think that in this matchup it's all about having them shoot anyway so that didn't worry me too much. I think this game is mine to lose, if I play cautiously and just make the right plays I think the dice need to be beyond crazy to allow Irusk a win.

Right off the bat I decided to not bother with scenario here. I wanted to drag this out and make it a game of attrition. By removing key pieces and feating early I am confident that can give me what I need to whittle Matt's forces down.

:: Game ::

I start off the game of skill by forgetting to activate Laddermore. It's not like her lightning generator is important here. Wait, what?

Khador troops fan out. Artifice is put down to deny Lances charging in on the left flank. Uhlans block the Stormwall from capitalizing on Domination in the center. The WGI on the right flank hang back.

I want to establish myself in the left part of the table. The idea then is to feat now, lock stuff down, send the 'wall in to hit horsihorsies and then pod to have the Lances shoot WGI. Temporal Acceleration on the Firefly should also help to clear out infantry. I continue the game of skill by forgetting to pod. What on Earth am I doing? This is so bad. Regardless the Firefly and Lances manage to start getting some work done. It's not a disaster yet and that says a few things about how strong this matchup is for me: If I had done everything I should have by now the left flank would be history for Irusk.

The Infantry run to cover the right flank. Uhlans jam the 'wall again and the center keeps still. The shooting targets the Firefly. While its movement is crippled neither its gun nor its cortex are taken out.

I spend a minute or two looking for angles on Behemoth. I figure out it's not the play, better to back up and have the 'wall shoot stuff instead. Laddermore and Lances clear jamming Uhlans, Stormwall shoots Infantry and big Lances + TA Firefly clear up the left flank. It's looking good now and with Haley having Force Field up behind a big piece of obstruction I feel very confident.

Irusk feats and sends in the Juggernaut. Behemoth moves to threaten it (the proxy with the two big sticky thingies). From here on out I just dominate Behemoth every single turn and keep shooting infantry. The grind is eventually won on scoring on my opponent's flag to 5-0.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

As I anticipated this is a very favourable matchup and despite some initial setbacks I was able to quite comfortably bring this game home. I am pretty sure that Irusk2 is not the way Khador should deal with Cygnar. Harkevich with triple Kodiaks and Vlad1 both feel better for example.

The mistakes with Laddermore and the missing pod in the early turns annoyed me pretty much, but I was able to get past it and play a better game from turn 3 onwards. It's important to let mistakes go and focus on the table as it is, not as it could have been.

3-0 and with only 2 games left I was really hoping for a matchup where I could drop Haley3 to not be list-locked in the very last game.

SmogCon: Masters A #2 (#423): Haley2 vs Kraye

:: Prologue ::

The second round of the day saw me face a Cygnar mirror match. I was up against Jon who had a couple of interesting builds. including Stryker1 doublewall in Storm Division and Kraye with all the jacks in the world (also in Storm Division). The scenario was The Pit and I realized immediately that this could be an incredibly hard matchup: If Stryker1 was dropped he could just push the two colossals up the table and I'd struggle to deal with them. I decided to drop Haley2 because I think her Lances can possibly wrap around and give Stryker problems personally. At least that was the hope.

Much to my surprise Jon dropped Kraye in return. My immediate relief due to not facing Stryker soon turned to worry when I realized how much shooting he had...

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25], Storm Division, Fuel Cache
- Thorn [13]
- Stormwall [39]
- Squire [0]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]

Opponent:

[Theme] Storm Division
(Kraye 1) Captain Jeremiah Kraye [+30]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Charger [9]
 - Charger [9]
 - Charger [9]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Charger [9]
Storm Lances (max) [20]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

The Pit is a great scenario for Haley2. The terrain was also super favourable here. I won the dice-off and went first. Jon deployed fairly centrally, a bit surprising to me as there was little terrain to help him there, but it did present a nasty threat projection towards my flag. My idea was to use the forest in front of my flag to LoS-block Haley out and feat early for attrition.

:: Game ::

I had run all my things basically and Jon started skewing slightly right, as anticipated. The angles towards Haley here were pretty obvious. Curiously he had left 2 (!) Ironclads within the Stormwall's charge range.

I send the 'wall into the Ironclads, killing one. An Ironclad on the left flank is dominated to move over and hit the Charger. No serious damage is done but this moves it so far away that it cannot contest me. Haley feats and Lances all position themselves to assault whatever wants to build pressure.

Unable to contest Jon spends his time under Temporal Shift to try and set up for killing Haley next turn. At least that is how I interpret his moves.

I need to do one thing here and that is keep Haley alive. I am winning on attrition and the scoring is running away, in my favour. The Lances on the left assault the Ironclad and reposition to LoS-block as good as they can. I then TK the Ironclad and finish him with the Firefly and Lances on the left. The Stormwall kills another Ironclad (just 1 left now) and I block up LoS as good as I can. Haley is camping 2 focus and sits behind a concealment-granting feature.

Unable to find an angle to shoot Haley, even with feat, Kraye resolves to trying to get some points instead by killing the Firefly and Lances.

I cruise in to a 5-0 CP victory. In reality it's an attrition win as Kraye has very few pieces left.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Kraye was surprising here, I must say. It's the first time I've seen Mk. 3 Kraye in play and I can totally see him being a thing in a theme (though I think Heavy Metal is what he wants). Reposition 5 is huge and he can bring some highly interesting configurations to the table.

In this game Jon was unable to bring the Chargers' might to bear on either the Lances or Haley. I'm not sure how he could've gone about it differently, perhaps the matchup is just very hard, but my plan to have the Stormwall as a big deterrent to keep the rest safe worked very well.

A very interesting game and 2-0 is obviously a great start to day 1!

SmogCon: Masters A #1 (#422): Nemo3 vs Lylyth3

:: Prologue ::

I just got back from SmogCon. It was a huge event with literally hundreds of players. The venue was great and I had a weekend full of good times. I'm not sure the picture below properly conveys how big this event is, but I tried to capture the sheer size of it:

The big thing at SmogCon is the Masters. It's a huge tournament with somewhere around 200-250 players. These are spread out into 4 heats of max. 64 players. Each heat lasts for 5 rounds and the top 2 (undefeated) players move on to the finals for the top 8 on Sunday. Heats A and B run on Friday while heats C and D run on Saturday. 

I was signed up for Heat A. My preparations for SmogCon weren't optimal, I have not had enough time to properly test the lists into the current meta. The Stryker3 experiment to NM meant I didn't start playing the Haleys until February and I haven't had the time to look into the possible powerhouses Stryker1 and Maddox. That being said I was confident in my 3 lists (Haley2, Haley3, Nemo3), I just weren't sure how they'd match up against what everyone else was bringing. 

For my first game I was matched up against a Legion player: Cole. Cole studies in the UK but is originally from the USA. He had a vanilla Lylyth3 list and it didn't take me long to settle on Nemo3. As expected I got the shooty-shooty caster in return and thus my SmogCon 2017 adventure had begun!
:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Theme: Storm Division
(Nemo 3) Artificer General Nemo [+25], Bunker
- Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch
- Squire [0]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Firefly [8]
- Dynamo [18]
- Lancer [10]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
- Firefly [8]

Opponent:

(Lylyth 3) Lylyth, Reckoning of Everblight [+29]
 - Naga Nightlurker [8]
 - Nephilim Bolt Thrower [11]
 - Ravagore [19]
 - Typhon [24]
 - Seraph [14]
 - Succubus [4]
Annyssa Ryvaal [8]
Blighted Nyss Shepherd [1]
Blighted Nyss Shepherd [1]
Strider Scouts [9]
 - Strider Scout Officer & Musician [4]
Blighted Nyss Shepherd [1]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Outlast and I got to go first. The terrain is pretty legit for me, there are places to hide and good lanes for the Lances to assault. I also see that it can be hard for Legion to reliably contest. My aim here is to play the long game and simply wait for a mistake. 

:: Game ::

Annyssa preys the small Lances. I hold them back because I don't want to lose them. Big Lances receive Arcane Shield and run up on the right flank. I'm hoping that their sheer presence will make it dicey for Lylyth to move right at all.

The Scouts more or less sacrifice themselves. The damage is negligible.

While Lylyth's position is defensive, she has the range and speed to take a scenario lead if I don't take steps to prevent it. I ensure that both zones are properly contested and clear out the Scouts. I did look for an alpha angle by slamming the Typhon into the Ravagore but I didn't have enough shooting in range to follow up to make it worthwhile. I'm biding my time as best as I can!

Lylyth feats but it is a very lacklustre turn. If memory serves there were some technical mistakes involved here like order of activation.

I lost the Lances on the left flank because I underestimated Anyssa. Bad mistake. However as I far as I can tell, Lylyth is super-exposed. I run the numbers in Odds Machine and it's somewhere above 80%. In terms of attrition I am somewhat spread out. In a nutshell I don't know if I can actually kill beasts or just wound them. The scenario is too slow as well because Nemo quite frankly cannot go to either of the zones. I figure out that assassination is probably the best way to win the game and go for it.

What I had not considered is that the Naga is fairly close to Lylyth. If she dies, Lylyth gets more fury. Oh-oh. Luckily for me the bounces aren't there to kill said Naga, and Lylyth goes down to the lord of lightning.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Although I have some experience with this matchup now, it always feels iffy. In this game I had several angles which felt "sort of close". Instead of the assassination I could have tried to take out Ravagore + Typhon and had Dynamo try to clear the Bolt Thrower for example. However to me being spread out and the small Lances being basically given away I wasn't sure I had the volume. Top of 2 there was also a solid play to run up the Lancer and slam the Typhon into the Ravagore, but the follow-up volume simply wasn't there.

I think this is something I need to be more aware of in split scenarioes against Lylyth3. I depend on having my forces concentrated. We both have terribly destructive alphas and I need to use mine to keep her forces in check.

Cole put up a good fight and gave me a lot to think about. I don't know if he has experience with Nemo, but assuming he does not the ensuing assassination which won the game is incredibly hard to see if you have not been through it before. Nemo's pretty cray-cray sometimes! I shall also admit that there's no small satisfaction in actually assassinating Legion casters, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy...

Battle Report #421: Haley3 vs Wurmwood

:: Prologue ::

Another quick report! Same map and scenario, I go first yet again.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Vanilla Haley3

Opponent:

Same Wurmwood as #420

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Delay the fight, draw out souls, make the shooting work for me.

:: Game ::

No point in clouding top of 1 vs Wurmwood in my experience. Dig in instead. Less time, taunts Circle to make mistakes. Spread out.

No commitment from Circle. The central forest is used for Fort Wurmwood. Sentries advance. I could kill for Stealth removal. Cloud up, bide my time. One Grenadier picks off a Shifting Stone. Great success! Thorn terribly positioned, have to make up for it.

Circle keep pushing...

I kill Sentry left side with Future, right side with Lances. Push cloudwall.

Circle tries to consolidate around their fort, but table space is being lost at an alarming rate. Feat.

I withdraw.

Clock is running out, in an act of desperation more than anything Megalith it sent up.

I kill Megalith with shooting alone, contest and begin pushing cloudwall again.

A couple of turns with grinding...

...and I win on scenario!

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Skill-intensive game where time is of the essence. I win the attrition fight but have a feeling my opponent missed a few openings. He prioritized hellmouthing Trenchers, which isn't half bad, but it's rarely enough. I still don't feel confident playing Haley3 into Wurmwood. It's an ok game. Regardless I have better choices available so I'm not worried. Even if I'm locked there are definitely worse matchups out there!

SmogCon next! I wish I had more time and games to prepare but it is what it is. Really excited go go now!