First Thoughts on Haley3

Hello All! For my first post, I thought it would be worth going back to my roots as a Cygnar player to give the new Haley3 a try. First off, many thanks to my shadow buyer at Lock and Load so that I didn’t have to have two more months to give her a shot. I honestly hadn’t been keeping up too closely with release news and previews, so I didn’t have many expectations going into her.

For my first game, I wanted to squeeze in a game with a close friend of mine who is moving on to a bigger and brighter meta. He’s a Legion player who likes to play against the grain, so it was not a huge surprise when he played his Kallus into Haley3.

My list was made up of only Cygnar (I’m a bit of purist, most of the time).

Haley3 (+3)

-Thorn (8)

-Dynamo (10)

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages w/ UA (8)

Full Storm Lances (11)

Full Sword Knights w/ UA (8)

Journeyman Warcaster (3)

Black 13th (4)

Stormsmith Stormcaller (1)

My opponent played:

Kallus (+5)

-Shredder (2)

-Afflictor x 2 (8)

– Succubus (2)

Full Blighted Nyss Swordsmen + UA (11)

Full Spawning Vessel (3)

Full Blighted Nyss Legionnaires + Frailor (9)

Blackfrost Shard (5)

Full Warspears + UA (10)

Blighted Ogrun Warchief (3)

Blighted Nyss Deathstalker (2)

The scenario was Recon, and we both picked the Effigy of Valor as our objectives. Kallus won the roll to go first and decided to go second to deny the Haleys a trench. That’s fine with me, though – Haley Future and Past wouldn’t want to spend their whole visit to the present sitting in a trench anyway.

I neglected to take pictures, so there will not be a battle report. The battle went well into 6 rounds due to Kallus’s fantastic grinding capability and overall well-played game on my opponents’ behalf. The game ended on a draw (assassination of Kallus likely) due to time constraints. The game was extremely grindy, and I can see the significant attrition and scenario power Haley3 brings to the table. Her assassination game is a little weak, however.

In the end, I had an overall favorable impression of Haley3. Fitting with her theme, I get the impression that she is a caster that rewards (and requires) foresight to be an effective caster. She wants to get work done, and most certainly can, but you have to be aware of your opponent in a unique way. Not only do you have to plan many of your moves on round in advance in order to have the right spells available, but you need to consider your opponent’s moves as well to make sure that the right tool is in the right place.

Can players find marginal success using her as a Repudiate and Temporal Flux bot? Sure. Will they find greater success by leveraging her wide variety of spells and abilities through careful estimation and preplanning? Most certainly.

One thing I found frustrating was that Haley has no damaging nuke available until Haley Past has entered and cast, and between the two spells, she lacks a viable spell damage threat. Haley Past herself is an amazing contributor to the fight, though, with boosted blast damage on Chain Blast all game long. Haley Future is probably the most situational, as sometimes Ghost Walk and Revive don’t help you in a meaningful way.
In the end, I think Haley3 is a solid caster who could see competitive play given enough practice given her deep toolbox. However, given the other, more defined gameplans available in Cygnaran Caster, I think that, at least for this Swan, she fits squarely in 3rd list status. Expect to see a more interesting report soon.