Warmachine & Hordes Battle report 50 points - Epic Thagrosh vs. Prime Haley

Hello everyone,

Today I am bringing a battle report with the newly built and painted leader of the Legion, Thagrosh the Messiah! I am taking a list that Ben Leeper ran at the WTC as I think it is brilliant and would like to see how it plays. So here is my list:

eThagrosh
Scythean
Scythean
Raek
Raek
Seraph
Succubus
Max Legionnaires with UA
Max Spawning Vessel
Shepherd
Forsaken
Spell Martyr

My opponent today was playing his Cygnar and his favorite caster in faction, pHaley. Now if I would ever in a tournament and saw my opponent brought pHaley, I don't think eThags would ever be my drop. Really, he struggles with a lot of what Cygnar brings to the table with their long range shooting that can often ignore defensive tech like concealment and stealth. But I really wanted to bring the big boss man out so he was going to be used no matter what. Plus, it never hurts to practice playing into the difficult matchups in case a scenario comes up where you get locked into the match!

So here is my opponents list:

pHaley
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
eEiryss
Guns Mages with UA
Max Tempest Blazers
Black 13th
Aiyanna and Holt
Gorman Di Wulf

A Haley list at its finest. A metric shit ton of shooting that get cranked up even further on feat turn. It was going to be a brutal list to face, but hopefully my overall high ARM can give her some fits.

The mission was the SR 2014 one with a friendly and enemy rectangular zone and an objective right in the center on each side.

I deployed with a Scythean on each side of Thagrosh and a Seraph on the left and both Raeks on the right. The legionnaires were all intermingled in between beasts in the battle group. The Spawning Vessel went behind. The solos went where needed.

My opponent had the Stormwall dead center with his Gun mages and Aiyanna and Holt on the left and his Tempest Blazers on the right. Haley, squire and the B13 were right next to the Stormwall on the right. eEiryss was placed in front and to the right of Stormwall (Big mistake).

I spent my first turn running and Slipstreaming everything forward and killing legionnaires to pop out a Shredder. He countered by running most everything forward but the Blazers, who advanced to just touch the enemy zone. eEiryss moved up behind his objective, and the Stormwall moved just to the left of the objective, so he was unable to allocate it focus the next turn. Haley cast temporal barrier and arcane shield on the Stormwall and moved up behind it. The journeyman put up arcane shield on the Tempest Blazers.

My opponent moved the Stormwall up too far and even though it was affected by Temporal Barrier, I had a Scythean within Slipstream walking range. I start off moving the Swamp Gobbers forward and put up a big cloud right in the middle of the table. My legionnaires were outside of Temporal Barrier range so they all ran forward and mini feat. Most the unit went into my friendly zone while one went in front of my objective and a few went behind. Thagrosh cast Slipstream and charged my Legionnaire, exploding him with ease. I now had clouds protecting Thagrosh from the right. My Scythean moved forward two inches. I cast Manifest Destiny and put Tenacity on both my Scytheans. I pop feat. My Shredder and Succubus put Tenacity on both Raeks on the right. The Seraph flies into the middle of the Legionnaires and tries to take a shot at Aiyanna, but fell short by about an inch. My Scythean activates and walks up to the Stormwall and engages a Blazer as well. Full stack of fury later, and I leave the left side with like six boxes. Other Scythean walks behind some legionnaires and the cloud the Gobbers made. One Raek moves forward and leaps to engage eEiryss, a Blazer, and all B13 members. It kills Ryan and misses the rest of its attacks. The other Raek leaps into two of the other Blazers and misses. With feat attack, the Scythean leaves the left side of the Stormwall on 2 boxes. Raek shifts forward and engages Haley, hitting her for like 4 or 5 damage. Other Raek is outside of control so no attacks. Seraph moves back behind the Legionnaires.

My opponent is flustered by not being able to allocate to Stormwall, but as we find out, he hardly needs it. Haley, B13, and eEiryss go first all taking shots at my Raek after putting up Temporal Barrier and feating. He has to activate the Tempest Blazers to finish off that Raek, and he fails to kill the other, leaving it with around 6 boxes. Stormwall goes, punching my Scythean and leaving it on about 10 boxes. The Gun Mages go and shoot Crit Knockdown shots at the Legionnaires and injured Scythean, pushing them back a way and knocking down my Scythean. Now Aiyanna and Holt go, Harming the Scythean and leaving him on like 4 boxes. He should have started with Aiyanna and Holt and my Scythean would have stood no chance. Live and learn though! Oh I forgot I had a Spell Martyr up behind a building on the far right and he moves the only Tempest Blazer around and picks the poor guy off...

So I have a lot more beasts around than I would have expected after a Haley feat turn. And having both Scythean's is bad news for my opponent. My Legionnaires vengeance forward into the Gun Mages and whiff. The Gobbers go up to a forest near the enemy zone and drop a cloud, creating a nice large area of no line of sight. Legionnaires go and kill a couple gun mages. One Legionnaire runs over near the forest in the enemy zone. The Seraph casts slipstream and flies into the middle of the board and kills a Blazer and damages the objective. I slipstream Thagrosh back a hair and within 2 inches of my undamaged Scythean. I moved him back to get out of Temporal Barrier range. Shredders activates and charges the Tempest Blazer than killed my Spell Martyr and was sitting in the enemy zone. He does 3 points of damage. Darn! I wanted to clear the zone to dominate. Thagrosh activates and heals both systems on the Scythean and one system on the Raek. He casts manifest destiny and slipstream and charges my Legionnaire by the forest, exploding him into a could. Thags is on zero camp but has about a 5 inch line in front of him that my opponent can't see through. My undamaged Scythean moves forward 2 inches from Slipstream. The two Scytheans put the Stormwall down. The Raek kills a Tempest Blazer. The Succubus puts Tenacity on Thags.

My opponent is completely on the ropes now. He goes for an unlikely assassination with the eEiryss knocking off Tenacity first, then all Tempest Blazers moving up and taking a shot at Thagrosh, doing about 7 points and spawning a Harrier. At this point my opponent concedes.

Thoughts on the game: Thagrosh has a lot of defensive tech that can keep him quite well protected. Even against the heavy shooting capability of Cygnar. Although a Naga would have been extremely valuable in this scenario, I don't think I would ever drop Thagrosh against Cygnar if I have the option. That much shooting and their caster control abilities are just not easy for him to deal with. And besides Cygnar, there aren't a lot of other armies with a lot of defensive buffs that need to be ignored. Overall I think I played the matchup well and capitalized on my opponents mistakes. I need to work on my deployment and keep the Spell Martyr in a more threatening position and more well protected. I look forward to playing the boss man some more!

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