Haley2 vs. Iona1 Austria 2 Rock me Omodamos – WTC Round 1

Hello everyone after a long break!

It was difficult to find time between painting models and playing tons of games. I finally can write and publish 😉 as many reports as I can.

Firstly, I will focus on my 6 games that I played on WTC. I find all of them incredibly interesting. Despite being thrown 3 times under the bus I managed to stand my ground in an uneven match up and prove that Cygnar can bite (well, it doesn’t necessarily mean I won those games haha) 😉

After publishing 6 battle reports from WTC I will get back to the list development, give an insight on the whole preparation process and describe most of 34 games I played between the WTC boot camp in Krakow in early August and WTC in Blankenberge. In part of those games we relied heavily on proxy usage, so I will just mention them without describing the game step by step.

Great, now let’s get to the first round of WTC 2019!

You can find the pairings here.

We were paired against Austria2 – Rock me Omodamos, without any Infernal players, sadly. We lost the roll and got to pick pairings, I guess. Shortly after we realized that I will most likely end up with a bad match up, no surprise there 😀 and finally I got to play against Daniel – a cool Circle player. Moreover, I got the worst table possible, with a huge forest in the middle. I was totally fine with that, as long as my friends win 3/4 other games.

Daniel had Iona and Wurmwood. I was pretty sure that due to Mage Sight on Siege1 Daniel will avoid picking the Tree and that Haley might delay his army long enough that I would be able to deal with all Tharns. Finally, we ended up playing Iona against Haley2.

Daniel’s Iona1 list:

Circle
[Theme] The Devourer’s Host

[Iona 1] Iona the Unseen [+28]
– Storm Raptor [34]
– Tharn Blood Shaman [4]
Gallows Grove [2]
Gallows Grove [2]
Hermit of Henge Hold [5]
Lord of the Feast [0(6)]
Tharn Ravager Shaman [4]
Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron [5]
Bríghid & Caul [7]
Tharn Ravagers (max) [15]
– Tharn Ravager Chieftain [0(5)]
Tharn Ravagers (max) [15]
– Tharn Ravager Chieftain [0(5)]
Well of Orboros [10]

My Haley2 list:

Cygnar
[Theme] Heavy Metal

[Haley 2] Major Victoria Haley [+25]
– Centurion [17]
– Stormclad [17]
– Thorn [13]
– Squire [0(5)]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0(4)]
Hermit of Henge Hold [5]
Journeyman Lieutenant Allister Caine [0(5)]
– Thunderhead [20]
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen [10]
Storm Strider [18]

We played King of the Hill.

Deployment

I lost the roll and Daniel decided to pick the side and start scoring first.

I deployed my Storm Strider on the right, alongside with Stormclad. On the other side I put Centurion and Thunderhead. Thorn, Haley, and all the other models were placed in between.

Daniel deployed his Well close to the left side to guard the rectangular zone. Storm Raptor was deployed centrally. Two units of Tharns were deployed on the opposite sides. Galows groves on both flanks. Iona was deployed in front of the bird together with the Twins and Tharn Blood Shaman. LotF sneaked into the trench.

My plan was to cast Time Bomb on the bird to spoil Daniel’s plans. I also didn’t want to feat too early, I needed to lower the numbers first. I wanted to take care of Tharns first, then if I will still have resources, take care of the bird.

Round 1 Turn 1

I cast 4 TK times and moved forward. Caine0 cast FFE on Thead and moved forward. Alexia created a Thrall. All the rest ran forward, outside of the threat ranges. In a retrospection I should have put both electro-immune jacks on one side, and Centurion on the other. Daniel forgot about his pray, but I didn’t oppose and let him pick his pray.

Round 1 Turn 2

Daniel spread his Tharns all across the right flank. Tharns on the left maintained safe distance from Thunderhead. The bird ran forward, behind the forest. Iona cast Sure Foot on the leftmost unit.

Round 2 Turn 1

I had to engage somehow, but without triggering Vengeance, or at least that was the idea. I decided that was the moment to cast Time Bomb against Storm Raptor. I was planning to feat next round. Thorn ran forward and Haley cast Time Bomb dealing something around 13 damage to the bird lol I also TK’ed one of the Tharns, so he wouldn’t be able to charge Thorn. I switched to Thunderhead too early, and Daniel allowed me to move Thorn 3” from reaction drive, now we were even ; ) Thead advanced forward and shot the Well couple of times. Caine0 used Spirit Door and teleported him back. I realized that the gargantuan (even with speed 5) still can get an angle to Haley2 so I covered her with Thead and Stormclad. Centurion moved forward and used Polarity Shield. Storm Strider shot one of the Gallows grove down. Thrall ran very far to contest the zone, but that wasn’t necessary.

Round 2 Turn 2

Daniel wanted to get rid of Thorn. Lord of the Feast with Puppet Master managed to miss Thorn twice, and I could dodge even farther away, that was quite lucky. Later on, Tharns on the right charged in and killed my objective. The Well shot my Thrall and got a corpse token, I shouldn’t have let that happen. Leftmost unit moved into the forest in the middle and occupied the zone on the left. The bird moved toward the right edge. Daniel scored 1 point, 0:1.

Round 3 Turn 1

That was the turn when I needed to get the scenario advantage. I allocated 3 focus on Thorn; Caine upkept FFE. Haley moved first and used hear feat on 7 models (Twins, Lotf, bird included). Later, she cast TA and TK on Thead and TK on Stormclad through my Arc Node, so Thorn moved 3” forward to get the angle on LotF. Thead walked 7” forward and zapped 3 Tharns, plus shot once at the objective. Caine teleported Thead back and shot with trick shot twice but failed to kill the Tharn in the middle. He repositioned afterwards. Thorn charged LotF but failed to kill him… they’re both worth each other in this game. He knocked down the other Tharn with his shield at least. Alexia created a Thrall who charged in and killed the Tharn. Storm Strider had the time of its rather short life by charging in and zapping several Tharns clearing the zone this way. Centurion charged the objective, killing it and two more Tharns. I ended up scoring 3 points in total, 3:1.

Round 3 Turn 2

Daniel due to my feat couldn’t get too much done this turn. Iona moved in and used her feat. LotF finally managed to hit and kill Thorn. Tharns on the far right managed to kill my battle engine. The Well shot once aiming to get a good blast deviation but didn’t hit anything. We later realized that Daniel forgot to spawn a solo to contest the zone. Hermit moved in and used his -2 ARM ability. Only one of the Tharns managed to charge Stormclad but he survived (I guess I used Hermit then). We both scored a point, 4:2.

Round 4 Turn 1

In my turn, Centurion managed to kill the well to the box, and I won the left flank. I needed to put another jack in the middle zone, otherwise the Twins would one-round whatever was left there. Alexia created another Thrall who contested the rightmost zone. Haley cast TK and TA on Thead and moved backwards, to be safe from the bird. Said jack walked in and zapped a couple of Tharns. Stormclad killed the ones Thunderhead couldn’t see. Caine0 finished LotF and repositioned to safety. I scored 1 point, 5:2 with only 6:40 on my clock.

Round 4 Turn 2

We figured out that Zaptos cannot move over the wall, what was great. Tharns cleared the zone and the birde flew over the wall and stayed in the zone. The Twins charged in and wrecked Stormclad easily. They also destroyed both Theads’ arms, 5:3.

Round 5 Turn 1

I was running out of time, so I didn’t have time to find the best solution. Centurion killed the Blood Shaman in the zone. Caine used his trick shots bouncing off Hermit and killed the pray twin. Thead instead of taking a free strike, tried to hit with his fists and even with foc from Arlan he failed killing the bigger Twin. Squire and one of the Thralls ran to contest the zone next round. We both scored 1 point, since I couldn’t get any model to contest the other zone, 6:4.

Round 5 Turn 2

That was the turn when Circle bounced back. Shaman engaged both Thrall and Squire. The remaining Tharns managed to get rid of Thead, the bird killed my Hermit and Circle scored 3 more points (two zones and the flag) and I scored 1, 7:7.

Round 6 Turn 1

Well, the game changed its tide and I had to figure sth out. Centurion managed to kill those nasty Tharns, Arlan ran there to contest. I took two free strikes and Squire and the Thrall died miserably, no contesting this turn. We both scored 1 point, 8:8.

Round 6 Turn 2

This turn Daniel couldn’t kill anything, Arlan was electro immune and Centurion was out of sight. Again, we both scored a point, 9:9.

Round 7 Turn 1

If only I had more time than 36 seconds, I would probably figure out how to play it better. Instead, I ran everything into the circular zone and flipped the clock and we both scored a point again, 10:10.

Round 7 Turn 2

Daniel simply ran his bird to my zone and scored 2 points (caster do not contest) winning the game 10:12. What a grind!

Afterthoughts

After counting the Army points carefully, even with contesting my zone and tying the game 11:11 I would lose on the third Tie Breaker. I needed to kill the croc pot and the last remaining Tharn and only then I would win the game, ehh.

In general, I was satisfied that I took the game up to 7^th round and had a real chance of winning the game. I took the worst table and the worst match up for my team and it totally payed off, because we won it 4:1.

Sadly, my mistakes in the late game decided that we did’t win 5:0. For instance, I should have taken the free strike with Thead (with 11 boxes left he would still be ok after taking it) and zap all the models (cripping arms doesn’t prevent him from shooting). Spreading Squire and Thrall further apart would help a lot and allow me to contest the rectangular zone next round. I believe I could avoid those mistakes by simply having more time. Things like this need to be calculated and sometimes are not intuitive. Not contesting my zone with Caine0 for examply, is something totally different and it shouldn’t happen, even with 13sec on the clock.

Well, lesson learned. Iona is not as bad MU as I thought, but I need to avoid such grave mistakes. It is important not to be too intimidated by the opponent’s list and to play with open mind. On the other hand, I got lucky couple of times too, so it is not that obvious.

Playing against Daniel was a pleasure and I really enjoyed the game. It was a seriously close game and I liked every part of that thriller. What’s more, my team was very proud of how I handled the game, and even I lost it, I felt I did my job well.

Cheers,
Piotr