Battle of Westridge, 10-11 september (battles 7-11)

Hello,

today's blog post will be about a tournament called Battle of Westridge, which was played in the middle of September. Why the delay, you ask, avid reader? I've had shitloads to do at university for the weeks following BoW, and after that, WTC, and after that, shitloads to do again. Prioritising real life? That is, to quote myself (which I have gathered is a bad thing to do), sickening, I know.

These were my lists:

Haley2
- Thorn
- Stormwall
- Ironclad
- Squire
Min Storm Lances
Ragman
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Journeyman Warcaster
- Firefly

Haley3
- Thorn
- Grenadier
- Grenadier
- Ironclad
Max Trenchers
Max Storm Lances
Ragman
Rhupert
Journeyman Warcaster
- Charger

Anyway, it was a cool tournament. We wound up 40 players I believe, which is a bit smaller than last years BoW. I think the main organiser of last year's success was slacking off to be honest. The gaming hall is a big hall in a local High School in Västerås (pronounced like Westeros, but luckily without dragons) with loads of free air above us, making it the one and only tournament without gaming stank and lack of oxygen. Splendid times were had, as a result.

GAME 1
Gaming-wise, similarly great times were had. My first game was versus Magnus Forslund from up north somewhere (I'm not great at Swedish geography), playing mercenaries. 

This was a long time ago, so I won't remember the exact lists. I faced Damiano with Idrians with UA, Steelhead Halberdiers, Steelhead Riflemen, Aiyana & Holt, a heavy of some sort, a Freebooter or Mariner, and 3 light warjacks. 

Scenario was Recon I believe, so my plan is pretty much to advance into the zone so I won't lose on scenario somehow and then just slowly whittle his army down. I rely on Haley3:s OP-ness to carry the day here. 

Deployment, except Damiano moved of course.

 I cloud up as a reponse. The forest helps me be a little more spread out behind the clouds.

Magnus ran a light into my lines here and jammed some trenchers and the right grenadier. I couldn't figure out a way to get the smoke down after killing it, so the smokewall is less than perfect. The proxy base next to Past Haley is my Ironclad.

I missed taking a picture after his turn. He sent a heavy into my Ironclad, and missed the second attack for his chain-attack: smash and grab. The heavy dies in retaliation. I think I decide to drop Tactical Supremacy by now, it's too annoying and I rather want trenchers doing work here.

 Magnus jams me again, killing some stuff I guess.

Thorn and Ironclad slowly working their way through idrians and steelhead riflemen. Storm lances with echo support are eventually winning versus a light and halberdiers. 

End of the game. Damiano is the only bad guy left.

Victory!

What wound up happening was pretty much Magnus got choked on the temporal flux-enhanced army of Haley3 and couldn't grind through it all. I did have a tough time getting through all of this stuff as well, mostly because Past Haley suddenly couldn't even deliver the beatdown to a light with a shield properly. What the fuck. 

His list did have a good shot at attritioning down Haley3 though. Deadeye goes a long way to clear my stuff, and Damiano apparently has some kind of aoe-thing on his gun which Magnus utilised very well. 

This isn't exactly a fancy, strategical game. You just have to rely on Temporal Flux to get you there eventually, while keeping Prime Haley safe and trade well.


GAME 2 
My second game was versus fellow WTC-player Stefan Benediktsson. He brought cryx, Deneghra1 and Coven. I sort of wanted to drop Haley2 here, but I was a bit afraid of Deneghra1 shooting the shit out of my stormwall, and well, everything else as well, if I did that. The Haley2 list doesn't have incredible ways of punishing stealth models either, which put me a bit off. On top of that, I had played versus Stefan quite recently, where I ground out a scenario/attrition win with Haley3 versus Coven. All these things in concert made me choose Haley3. 

Stefan dropped Coven. He ran Deathjack, Barathrum, 1 node, 2 stalkers, full Soulhunters, Withershadow. Maybe something more, but that was generally it.

What happened in this game is pretty much that I fucked up late-game. The scenario is Extraction, which is neither a fast nor a slow scenario in my experience. My game plan is to give up 2 scenario points to get him to expend his feat, and then contest heavily from there. 

So first half of the game is pretty much according to plan, even though we jockey for position a turn longer than I had expected. I give up two CP, but I even get 2 for free since Stefan killboxes himself on accident. What needs to happen following this is I get lots of models including the echoes up to contest, as I hinted at before. What I do instead is, well, I don't contest heavily enough. The one side I clear out to the degree that Stefan can't reliably get to at all, BUT the other side I only get like thorn, a grenadier +1 trencher and a storm lance into. 

I misposition my storm lances badly here, getting them stuck behind that huge obstruction for the late-game. They should probably all be more central instead.

This is the last turn I played well, I think.


I fuck up my positioning and don't even get past Haley there because I somehow decide it's more important to lay the beatdown on Deathjack (who only loses like 3/4 of his boxes anyway, much disappoint). As a result, Stefan clears everything out (needing Malice to come drag Thorn out of there, which she easily gets done). Had I gotten the echo in there, I might've been fine, and had I decided to charge both echoes there I probably would have been. 

Apparently the best I could do, contesting wise. I'm a scrub.

Malice with the clutch drag-shot!

Crushing defeat.

All isn't on me in this game though! Stefan played very well, and had learned more from our last game than I had (not uncommon, I find that the winner typically learns less, all other things equal). 

By the time the late-game had started, there were a small crowd watching our game since it probably was one of the most high-profile game this early in the tournament. Cygnar and Haley3 in particular is very disliked amongst my gaming buddies, so quite a few heckling comments and wishes that I lost were thrown around, all in jest. We have a discourse where this is acceptable behaviour so no hard feelings towards them, but I must admit it did get to me some and I probably played worse than I would have otherwise. 

Either the following round or the one after that, Stefan got paired versus Olov who runs identical lists to mine. Olov dropped Haley2 and trounced Stefan quite convincingly from what I was able to gather, so maybe I dropped the wrong list. 

GAME 3
Round 3 I'm up against Hugo Svanborg and his mercenaries. He runs Magnus2 and Damiano Kingmakers as his pairing. I think Haley2 probably also would have been fine here, but being more comfortable with Haley3 that's what I go for. 

Hugo runs 3 nomads, a buccaneer to knock Damiano down every turn, 2 full trencher units with ua, rangers. I think he had min Boomhowlers ambushing, but forgot to bring them on? I can't remember really; there were no trolls on the board so if he had them he forgot to bring them in. 

As far as over-arching plans go, this game was similar to the first game in my eyes. I wanted to get my ironclad and on echo into my zone to lock that down, and then get storm lances and another echo plus the trenchers who live long enough into Hugo's zone. Again, Damiano has a decent shot at grinding versus Haley3, except that Tactical Supremacy gives me a huge leg up. A specific note for Damiano Kingmakers is that the buccaneer can knock Damiano down every turn, allowing him to spend focus A LOT more safely. Cute piece of tech in my eyes!

Hugo goes mainly for his friendly zone as can be seen from the first picture below, probably the correct choice.

First turn with aggressive advances from both of us. I can't remember who went first. The forest is good to me, considering how far I can extend my LoS-blocking this way. 

At this point I have gotten some trenchers down in his zone with some potshots and the charging storm lance. I think it did some damage to the objective here. On my right, I remember the grenadier getting 3 focus and shooting out the cortex and right arm of the nomad. Hugo was mighty salty. 

I missed a turn in between here, but where Hugo had his trenchers on my left put down smoke to allow Damiano and the heavies to stand unmolested from the storm lances. What I managed to get done this turn was getting Future Haley into his zone (I think Hugo is at 2 CP here), Past Haley into my zone, and most importantly, I got Thorn into both his heavies by triggering his reaction drive and then walking there through his cloudwall. We're both pretty low on trenchers here, me losing a couple every turn and then this particular turn downing like 8 of his. 

Hugo, hating Haley3 with the fire of a thousand suns, tilts too hard after getting both heavies disrupted. The following turn he can MAYBE kill Future Haley but definitely not Thorn. He runs Damiano towards my Storm Lances, turn around, and say "do whatever you want". 

So yeah I kill him. 

Victory!

Nothing much to say here, the list does what it does.

GAME 4
For the last round of the day I get paired up against Niclas Ledin, whom I haven't played that many times. Sadly I only seem to get to face him the last round of the events we play, so I'm always pretty tired, and with that often comes some sloppy playing, not in a cheating way, mainly in bad placement on my part. I'm pretty sure that happens to most people in this game, but I often seem to get it very bad versus Niclas in particular. He's a good sport about it though and doesn't seem to mind much when I get bitchy because I'm disappointed in my playing.

Niclas, being the gentleman he is, runs Doomshaper3 and one of the Grissels. No Madrak2 here! He chose Doomshaper, who ran with Krielstone, Janissa, double Fire Eaters, Mulg, Mauler, Dozer&Smigg, Axer, Lanyssa pretty much.

I briefly considering choosing Haley2 for this game, thinking that she probably can work with brick style armies such as the ones Niclas is running. I end up choosing Haley3 though, mainly because I'm better with her than with Haley2.

Close Quarters being the scenario, with a big forest protecting my flag, I think I can slowly tick this down on scenario. Niclas deploying heavily towards his flag makes this an even more likely proposition. 

Niclas went first, and this is past my turn 1. I push forward a bit cautiously, not being a huge fan of losing Trenchers to fire eaters early. 

Niclas went for a cool throw-play which I didn't even consider he had. He casts implacability and tries throwing Mulg twice. The second throw fails though, so Mulg just has to walk up towards my lines. 

I got lucky! Had the second throw got off I would have lost a grenadier and some trenchers definitely, a huge set-back for my attrition plans. Anyway, since Niclas feated, I won't get much done at all this turn. I think my storm lances tangle with some fire eaters, and I push up slightly on my right flank.

This is past Niclas turn again. Mulg failed to kill Past Haley. Believe it or not, that's not too unlikely. He needs 11:s to hit, and then hitting at plus a couple (Haleys have Arcane Shield by now) he needs like a 8 or 9 to kill considering the echo is camping. The rest of his stuff is too far back to really work versus my army at this point.

This should be after my following turn. I'm too scared to advance Prime up to dominate the flag yet, but I kill a fire eater at my flag. And Mulg of course. I spent feat to accomplish this. I have no idea why the pictures are so different suddenly.

This is following my next turn. I have advanced Prime onto my flag, killed the last fire eaters, and started pushing into his flag. During the course of the game I do tons of damage to the mauler in particular, but he can snack a couple of models each turn sadly. Considering my scenario position this doesn't bother me overly. Niclas did score first, but he has no models to contest my flag with. 

Slowly working my way around the forest. I don't remember exactly how many turns this part of the game took, but I scored on his turn at least once.Thorn is barely within Flux range at this picture, making him hard as fuck to shift.

Niclas is moving the Stone very far away from me here. This is to preserve his heavies attrition-wise, which does work, but on the other hand he gets down to having no models to contest my flag with instead. 

This is the end of the game, with me winning 5-3. Thorn finally went down, and a grenadier got thrown away from the flag. I think Niclas did score this final turn, but at this point I have pretty much just used the rest of my army to jam him away from my flag. I boxed in my Ironclad last turn or he would've killed Dozer. No matter.

Victory!

Had the throw-Mulg-plan come together better for Niclas things might've looked differently come mid-game. As it was, this game felt very much under control, even though I played my models poorly. 

GAME 5
First game day two, I get paired versus Mercenaries, AGAIN. This time it's double dwarves, Gorten and Ossrum. These fine short-legged fellows were piloted by Benjamin Hyvönen, from the north. I forgot to take any pictures at all for day 2, but it'll have to do. Luckily, this is the game I remember best from the tournament, so get ready for a wall of text I guess.

Both Benjamin's lists are similar, running a high number of light warjacks. He drops Gorten, which has like 3 heavies, 6 lights and a unit of Forge Guard and Aiyana & Holt. 

I'm not entirely sure I have what it takes to chew through that kind of list with Haley3, so it's time for Haley2. The scenario is Outlast, which being rather live I think is good for me. 

I get to go first, and push up very aggresively turn 1. Stormwall in the middle, storm lances on the left, ironclad and thorn on the right. Benjamin answers by advancing too, but he's a dwarf so it's not very aggresively. He keeps his jacks a bit back too, being very cautious of Haley's ability to steal a jack.

My turn two I go hard for scenario on my left side. I push Haley forward, feat aggresively, catching everything except his Aiyana and Holt I think. Maybe Gorten gets away, being far to my right. I kill the light warjack in the zone, and two outside it. Thorn gets placed sort of haphazardly in the middle, originally to keep a light warjack out of my left zone, but the robot got killed by the stormwall so he's in the wind more or less.

Even worse is my placement of my ironclad. I run him up a bit, still in the right zone, to pressure Benjamin for the next turn.

What winds up happening is that the Ironclad is placed perfectly to be drug into Benjamin's forge guard, a heavy and Gorten. It dies, unsurprisingly. 

So losing a heavy on Haley2 feat turn is fucking TERRIBLE, and to make matters worse, I didn't jam his lights properly so one can get into the left zone. I don't score on his turn, while he does control the right zone. He also got a fair bit of damage done to Thorn, knocking his arc node out.

Luckily I score 2, dominating the left zone next turn. I also get to run my squire into his the right zone, wasting to of its free focus, since I gave away the ironclad for free. I kill 2 lights or something here. Thorn is stuck in front of his forge guard, after disrupting a heavy, since I forgot about the arc node being out. I had a great plan to TK him, reaction drive, nuke both Aiyana and Holt and thus score 3 on this turn. Alas, it was not to be. At this point I'm even more annoyed with myself.

So considering I only contest with my Squire, it comes as no surprise that Benjamin scores. He moves Gorten in to dominate, to get up on the scenario clock. He also sends in a bokur and a heavy to kill half the stormwall, and gets a light into the left zone. 3-2 to Benjamin.

My only chance at winning here is to score 3 this turn. Luckily my zone is easy; Haley can charge a bunny and TK it out of the zone. I need to control the right zone too though. Since I accidentally jammed Benjamin with first my ironclad and then thorn, I'm running out of models. As an upside, he hasn't gotten very far up the board, being occupied with killing high-value models. He's got Aiyana, Holt and 2 forge guard in the zone, and Gorten. An intense couple of minutes of planning later, the Firefly is the designated hero. He gets fully allocated from his buddy the journeyman, gets telekinesised, temporally accelerated. Stormwall has to shoot down 2 forge guard. Sadly for the firefly, the stormwall steals some of her thunder and kills his dwarves and Holt. All that remains is for the Firefly to charge Aiyana, stab her and the game is mine.

Victory!

After a couple of shaky plays early and mid game, I salvage the game with a great last turn. Haley2 really is a great caster. A Gorten jackspam list is sort of rough on Cygnar, I think, but Haley2 has a decent game at worst, and a rather good one if the scenario is favourable as it was here. 

This turns out being the last round of the tournament as our pair-down loses. I go 4-1 but with bad SoS puts me at 8/40. Unexpectedly so, honestly, since all my opponents tend to do well at tournaments. Hugo dropped after the first day, and the rest sort of underperformed sadly. But moving past that, I went 4-1 versus good opponents so I'm feeling pretty good about myself going into the WTC, two weeks after this tournament.

Battles 2-6: WTC Practice

Hi again!

This past Saturday we had a small-ish WTC practice day for the players of the Swedish teams who live in or close to Stockholm, plus Christoffer Wedding who apparently is the only one living far away with proper priorities. That means we're 8 people in total; 6 from Stockholm, 1 from Västerås, 1 from Gothenburg. We should've ideally been 9 but sometimes people prioritise real life. Sickening, I know.

The weekend started off at Rickard's (the famous Arlaharen) place with what was supposed to be a couple of games with drinks and nachos. At least we had drinks and nachos.

For the weekend the only match up I had requested to try was Lylyth3 to see if it really was as bad for Haley3 as "people" was saying. I got the chance to play it 2,5 times roughly, and in addition I faced Madrak2 and Haley2.

Since it's been a few days and I've not been great with taking pictures, the battle reports won't be as eloquent as I would have preferred, but I'll try my best to describe the games played and particularily my thoughts and plans.

Anyway, let's go!

GAME 1 & 2: Versus Gustav Berggren.

This is going to be two games reported simultaneously for reasons which will be made clear as you read (I got killed top of 2 first try and we reset just a little bit, haha).

Haley 3 [+25]
 - Grenadier [9]
 - Grenadier [9]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Thorn [13]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
 - Charger [9]
Ragman [4]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]

This is the list used for every Haley3 game in this post.

Lylyth 3 [+29]
 - Naga Nightlurker [8]
 - Nephilim Bolt Thrower [11]
 - Seraph [14]
 - Typhon [24]
 - Succubus [4]
Rorsh [15]
 - Brine0]
 - Battle Boar [7]
Strider Deathstalker [4]
Strider Deathstalker [4]
The Forsaken [4]
Blighted Nyss Shepherd [1]
Annyssa Ryvaal [8]

And this is the Lylyth3 list used for game 1-3 this weekend. Gustav isn't a big fan of Lylyth3, believing her to be more of a noob-stomper than anything else, but he took one (or a couple) for the team so to speak. 

Scenario is Entrenched.

First game (or first half of game 1 if you prefer) was over quickly. Lylyth advances with her army in a semi-circle around herself under windwall. 

I advance too, get in the trench, flux up, figuring DEF 22 is going to be okay. I've got my storm lances away on my other flank to contest his zone, trenchers go down the middle and a grenadier, thorn, ironclad and the Haley unit is aimed towards keeping my zone clear.

Turns out this wasn't a safe space.

Lylyth wraithbanes herself, hits the first boosted 12 under her feat, and I'm dead from her third shot.

We change up the game a little bit, put three storm lances in front of Haley, like so. In return the ironclad has to shift off towards the left.

Then Lylyth gets a bit cocky and advances to here. Two storm lances are in range, a couple of trencher charges, a few spells from Haley and she goes down. I suggest we reset a bit again, but Gustav rightly suggests we just rerack and go from the start again. 

Draw (or something)!

GAME 3: Versus Gustav Berggren.

Same lists and scenario as above. Lessons learned from the first game; keep 3 arcane shielded storm lances in front of Prime Haley at ALL times. The leader of the unit can't be one of them, he and the last lance has to be able to do something.

I sadly didn't remember to take a lot of pictures of this game, so it'll be more for memory and less of a turn by turn report.

We're at the same sides as before but I chose to deploy Haley more towards my left. This will decrease my scenario pressure by almost 100 % but the forest can help me stay a bit more safe this way.

The first couple of turns Lylyth advance with windwall and her beasts covered by it. I can't shoot back (obviously) but with temporal distortion up my army is mostly unharmed. Outside of Lylyth herself, his army just doesn't get enough good shots off to work its way through mine very fast.

By the mid-game we've advanced closer to each other, me to get any possibility of getting something done to him, and him to 1) not get pressured off his own scenario zone, and 2) keep the pressure up versus Haley Prime. 

At this time, I decide I'm just going to charge my grenadiers into the windwall since they're doing jack shit otherwise. Two charging trenchers, the grenadier and a storm lance does 2/3 of typhon's boxes, another grenadier does a bit over half of Brine. 

After this, Brine gets primalled and goes off for my Ironclad. Being 14/18 he doesn't take too much damage, but Typhon helps bring him down to 1 box. I think the only real play Gustav had at this time was to go off after the scenario, but since typhon sprays down a storm lance and ironclad, the seraph isn't enough to get it done, and Lylyth doesn't move over there anyway. 

This is the end of the game. I think the proxy base is where Typhon was, and past Haley with Ragman just killed Brine. The left grenadier decides to shoot Lylyth herself to get her to transfer into the nephilim but Gustav choses not to prolong the game.

Victory!

I was told beforehand by Olov, a good friend and player on Sweden's WTC Team Nobel that he thought Lylyth3 was unplayable with Haley3. I wasn't convinced but couldn't really articulate a counter-argument to his, which was that Lylyth's windwall and decent ability to deal with high defense would shut down Haley3. After playing the match up a couple of times I believe it's a decent match, but keeping Prime alive while getting the echoes active is a tight rope to walk. 

After a great lunch at the local Greek restaurant I was matched up against trollbloods.

GAME 4: Versus Niklas Bergmark.

Niklas is a team mate of mine on Team Sweden Bofors, our third time. This means this game is of utmost importance; establishing the pecking order within the team is more important than winning the WTC after all.

Haley 2 [+25]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Thorn [13]
 - Stormwall [39]
 - Squire [5]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
 - Firefly [8]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [3]
Ragman [4]

Niklas plays a Madrak2 variant. Very unexpected..

(Madrak 2) Madrak Ironhide, World Ender [+28]
 - Dire Troll Mauler [15]
 - Mulg the Ancient [19]
 - Troll Bouncer [9]
 - Trollkin Runebearer [4]
Trollkin Warders (max) [17]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
 - Stone Scribe Elder [3]
Fell Caller Hero [5]
Thrullg [6]
Pyg Burrowers (min) [8]
Alten Ashley [5]
Gremlin Swarm [3]

Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [3]

I have to admit, Madrak2 scares me a little bit. I know he's not impossible to beat by any means, but it's like I fail my personal CMD check (Mk 2 lingo - kids, ask you parents what it means if you don't understand). I also want to see how hard he is to kill. I learn better by failing than by reading.

Scenario is Recon.

I decide to go second to get the first opportunity at scoring. I deploy a bit haphazardly with my Stormwall across from Madrak and Mulg. 

After my first turn this is the board state. My stormwall got Temporal Acceleration and advanced and shot two pygmies down, since they were the only worthwhile targets within range. Maybe I should've tried pegging Madrak just to get him to either take some damage in preparation or get some damage on a Shield Guard.

Niklas advances warily a little bit into the zone, keeping a fair few Grim Salvation targets around Madrak. Anyway, in the quest of knowledge I want to give Madrak a fair beating. I can TK him around, hit him with Hunter's Mark and send in a Stormwall with Temporal Acceleration.

He doesn't die, well, at all. I get a pod to try to kill the stonebearer but he toughed. It would only have helped to bring his ARM down by 2, the TK got him far enough for the stone to not be a valid Grim Salvation target, but 3 pygs and 1 warder was. He at least had to transfer a medium sized hit to Mulg and took 3 damage himself. I feated to protect the Stormwall.

Following this, Niklas gets nothing done really. He runs warders, stonebearers and everything in to protect Madrak, who also camps 3. At this time I decide to change gear entirely and go for a scenario play. It's probably what I should've been setting up for last turn anyway. I kill the 4 warders in the zone, TK the mauler out. The Ironclad moves in and kills the objective and also manages to get in a good hit at the mauler. However, I notice the pyg in the far end of the zone and only manage to get one attack at him, which he toughs...

Mulg does a ton of damage to my stormwall, the ironclad dies. At this time I can easily clear what is contesting and go to 3-0, but too little too late. I can give killing Madrak a try again though. Ragman goes up, Haley kills a model, thorn kills lots. It's pretty much a dead assassination even as I start, and I fail and concede.

Defeat!

Oh well. I played badly and deserved to lose. Flip flopping between plans to victory really isn't a way to play, but in my defense part of what I wanted to achieve is get a feel for how close I can get to killing Madrak in different situations (so that I don't get tricked into trying in an important game...). I think this is a very playable match up if I decide to go for scenario properly turn 2 rather than whacking away at Madrak ineffectually. Haley2 likely has enough control to keep Madrak and his BG busy for long enough.

For the last game of the day it's decided I play something I've put off for a few weeks - the cygnar mirror. I dislike playing faction mirrors (not to mention caster ones, but that didn't happen here). I face off against Olov and he says we should play Haley3 versus Haley2. 

GAME 5: Versus Olov Winroth.

Fresh off of winning the Iron Moot Invitational Olov is as always a daunting opponent. I have earlier struggled a bit with playing against players who are a "big deal" in Sweden but as I've gotten to know them better it's become easier. Olov and I talk about Cygnar a fair bit too. 

I play Haley3 as above. Olov plays the same Haley2 list as I played last game. 

In theory I think Haley3 vs Haley2 should be rather even. Haley3 has the stronger attrition game by far, but Haley2 has great scenario pressure, and with the Stormwall being able to throw accurately a long ways her assassination game is strong as well. My plan is therefore to keep Haley3 behind the wall to deny throws into her, and stall scenario with Bunker forcing a melee commitment and echoes being general PITAs while grinding Olov down. As soon as the Stormwall is close to my lines without Temporal Shift covering it it should go down to my shooting combined with Past Haley beating the crap out of it.

I win the starting roll and chose to go 2nd to give me a wall perfectly within the killbox (or outside? I never learn) as well as deny Olov the ability to score bottom of 2. 

Early game nothing much happens. I advance warily under smoke (but I don't leave enough room for one trencher to get back behind the smoke, as you can see), Olov can't do much as a result. Top of 2 he puts down a pod to bounce off with the Firefly, but I think he only got one Trencher or something. His stormwall advances quite aggressively though (left of the trench, pretty much), and he feats and jams both my grenadiers, the right one with 2 storm lances and the left one with Thorn.

I think I have an unusual opportunity to get work done under Temporal Shift, costing me only my feat. Past Haley advances laterally, right next to Olov's Storm Lances and Force Hammers one into the other. The original target dies (unsurprisingly - hell yeah raw talent) and the second one is shot down by Future Haley and the Charger. This frees the Grenadier to down the third Storm Lance, at this juncture positioned at my right flag. In a rare display of impotence, the little robot fails me though.

Failing to kill the 3rd Storm Lance gives Olov an opportunity to score 3 this turn though. I contested the left flag with a Trencher and the right one with but a Storm Lance. Had I gotten the last storm lance Olov could only really have gotten 2 CP here which would be fine. 3 however, might be too many.

Karmic justice (or blind luck) saved me though, and Olov's lance failed to kill my contesting one. The Stormwall goes in and punches the shit out of my objective though, and throws down a pod to disrupt my Charger AND kill Ragman. 0-2 and I'm in a good position even though Ragman went down.

After my response this is what the board looks like:

The Stormwall went down as expected after repudiate strips Arcane Shield, Olov's last Storm Lance died and my right flag is secured (albeit not scored on yet). I again chose to contest with only a Trencher on my left flank, I don't think Olov is going to get to 5 CP before I can grind him down. Olov's Thorn is tangling with a Grenadier as well as my Thorn, which I'm feeling okay about. Thorn is more important for Haley2 than Haley3, especially so when Haley2 is trying to close out a scenario.

Olov scores his third control point in his next turn but can't kill much else.

After my next turn I've scored my 1st control point after killing the firefly. Both echoes charged into the ironclad and kills it (though I think the charger helped a lot as well, beforehand). I run the rightmost grenadier towards the left flag to help contest, but in a bout of failure I neither declare intent nor measure the distance to the flag. I'm just out of 4'', like a scrub.

Olov charges Haley2 in to score his 4th point by stabbing past Haley in the back and TKing Future Haley away from the flag. Lanyssa runs from the left flag to contest the right, denying me a second CP.

I manage to kill Haley2 in retaliation, shooting her down with Future Haley, the charger and the grenadier even before the storm lances can activate. 

Victory!

As predicted Haley3 can win out in a long grind versus Haley2 but can be pressured on the scenario. Had Olov decided to go for attrition instead of the scenario top of 3 I think the game would've dragged out for a while with a similar conclusion, though maybe the stormwall could have survived a turn longer had it chosen to kill a grenadier instead, or maybe just shot down 2 storm lances. Haley2 feat is very strong versus Haley3, effectively shutting the cloudwall down. 

After 4 (and a half) games I felt finished and was glad we were done for the day. My pairing of Haleys 2 & 3 has served me very well lately not leaving any obvious holes that I've encountered so far. I've yet to play versus Skorne in Mk 3 though, and Mercenaries, so maybe there's something I haven't encountered yet.

Next opportunity I have to game is at Battle of Westridge, the 10-11th of September. I'll 100 % be running these lists at that tournament. 

These reports were likely shit from lack of pictures, rambling style of writing and lack of experience battle reporting.

Good night, readers!

Battle Report 1: Cygnar vs Cryx

Welcome to my first attempt at writing a battle report! 

This is obviously new to me so I guess I'm going to write a few bad reports before I start getting some kind of hang of it. I'm trying to remember to take pictures while playing, but for this first game I didn't get all of them. So sometimes there will be a start of my turn, sometimes a start of my opponent's turn and so on. It will have to do.

So this game was set up against a friend playing Cryx who wanted to practice versus Haley3. I was happy to oblige, as you can imagine. He was going to play the Witch Coven of Gharlghast, with a new list for him.

I ran Haley3 as I wrote about earlier:

Major Prime Victoria Haley [+25]
 - Grenadier [9]
 - Grenadier [9]
 - Ironclad [12]
 - Thorn [13]
Journeyman Warcaster [4]
 - Charger [9]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]
Ragman [4]

NOTE; I proxy the two grenadiers for this game, using a hunter and a firefly.

This was Stefan's list:

The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26]
 - Egregore [0]
 - Deathripper [6]
 - Deathripper [6]
 - Deathripper [6]
 - Barathrum [15]
 - Deathjack [23]
 - Scavenger [7]
 - Scavenger [7]
 - The Withershadow Combine [9]
Soulhunters (max) [18]
Ragman [4]

We both use the objective which is harder to shoot down.

As for what Stefan's list does, I didn't really know beforehand except that it assassinates squishy spellcasters well. Luckily I only brought 3 of those..

Stefan set up a scenario for us, and choses Extraction from SR 2016. We roll of for starting and I win with a 3-1, so I go first. Stefan choses the side with the incredible forest hiding the objective, but at least I get a hill a little bit off center.

Deployment and Cygnar turn 1:

I simply advance and cloud up top of 1. I dislike having to cloud up top of 1 but versus arc nodes running 18 and bolting 8 more inches it's necessary. The two heavies with AD also pushes me back a fair bit without clouds too. I've already misplayed a bit here; thorn should be more centrally, pretty much where the Ironclad is. For this turn Arcane Shield is on the storm lances, as is dirge. 

End of Cygnar Turn 2:

Okay so here's an example of me forgetting to take a picture. Coven has feated here, st up Egregore, Deathjack and a node in a Veil of Mists and pushed forward agressively. Had I had Thorn more centrally I could've scared Deathjack back a fair bit by threatening a domination into shooting death. For my turn 2 I can't really get anything done due to his feat. I push the cloudwall up an inch or two, leave a trencher in his cloud to contest both flags. Storm Lances threaten Deathjack's position. 

I've left the grenadiers a bit back from the cloud wall to maintain their Dig In and stay away from walking threat of his heavies. An important note here is moving Arcane Shield to the Haley unit; without it dying over the course of two turns (or even one if unlucky) to a few Stygian Abysses is far too likely.

Start of Cygnar turn 3:

Stefan scores 2 on his turn, charging the two trenchers with a Scavenger each. One of them can't get away due to tough, so a soulhunter kills the left trencher while a node has to run up and score the flag. I'm down 0-2 but this isn't that big a problem, Haley3 stalls scenario very well. My plan is to take the 2 scavengers and the arc node, score on the left flag. I also want to feat for a Force Hammer onto the Soulhunter in front of Barathrum and shoot the jack with my Grenadier and Charger. 

End of Cygnar turn 3:

Past Haley missed her boosted 8 for the Force Hammer so no damage done to Barathrum. Occultation means I haven't really been able to punish his Soulhunters either. I position my Storm Lances badly here, the back two are far too close. Haley has to drop Tactical Supremacy for two reasons: I want the focus to camp and I can't think of a way to get meaningful attrition work done with my grenadiers while maintaining a cloudwall. The lights die very easily. The ironclad has moved up to present a target to lure something in. 1-2 on scenario.

Here I really forgot to take a picture after Stefan's turn 3 which really ruins this battle report to some extent. Stefan had a play for 3 points on scenario winning immediately, but felt it relied on three or four sort of dicey plays so he decides to go for a great attrition turn instead. Barathrum charged and killed my rightmost grenadier, he clears my left flag (including a Withershadow Combine member one-shotting a storm lance..) but cannot score it and the soulhunters kill the ironclad with the help of Curse of Shadows.

End of Cygnar turn 4:

So for my turn 4 I have to accomplish something big. I decide to kill Barathrum (who used to be right in front of where Thorn is), a soulhunter or two and get lots of damage done on Deathjack. The clouds where Prime Haley is standing shouldn't be there anymore. My trenchers get shit all work done, except the one managing to stab down a soulhunter engaging my grenadier and the one which toughs a freestrike from Barathrum to unengage him. The charger, journeyman and thorn kills Barathrum. I thought past Haley would have to help here, but midturn I decide to charge both echoes into Deathjack after the grenadier shoots it up a bit. Sadly it survives on 1 box.. Womp womp. 

I AGAIN forget to take a picture of Stefan's turn. He throws Stygian Abysses at my two echoes, crit blinds both. Past gets killed by a charging Soulhunter while Future actually survives the bolt and the deathripper since she camped 1. Deathjack healed a few boxes from killing trenchers, much to my chagrin.

End of Cygnar turn 5:

By now the game is done bar me getting assassinated. I shoot down Ragman so he can't contest the right flag, clear out 2 more soulhunters, an arc node and Deathjack. I decide to resummon past Haley - I probably shouldn't here and just camp since the game really is on lockdown anyway, but I like her so much. 2-2 CP.

End of Cryx turn 5:

Stefan kills Future Haley for fun, runs the arc node and tries to kill Haley3 with two Stygian Abysses. I'm only at def 20 so he hits both but with AS and 1 camp he can't get close at all. Stefan concedes at this point since I'm killing most of his things and winning on scenario next turn.

Victory!

Like many games when playing Haley3, keeping Prime alive and just carrying on killing works well. I think the match up is slightly favouring Cygnar, Cryx can't punish the smokewall well enough. 

As for my own play, this game leaves a fair bit to be desired. I positioned badly on several occasions, most notably Thorn, but I got Ragman stuck too far back so he couldn't come up and help the turn I wanted to kill Deathjack. Thorn being too far right really cost me the ability to Repudiate off Occultation and get working on the Soulhunters, but on the other hand that would mean not camping anything so maybe my positioning mistake just saved me from making a bigger mistake. 

Versus spellcasters like Coven (and casters like Lylyth1 shooting a couple of 12s) it's key to not get greedy and wait for too long to switch over arcane shield and dirge of mists (or tough) to Haley3. Turn 2 is usually when I go for it; rather safe than sorry and all that. 

Lesson learned, keep Thorn central.