Thorn- how to get the best out of him playing eHayley

[CygnarWar]

Hi all, pretty bad Cygnar player here. Been playing warmachine for a few months now so not a complete noob in the sense of time spent playing, but my win record would easily be under 30% (might even be under 20%), and in all of those games I've been using eHayley who is apparently a pretty decent caster. My 50pts (using Hayley's tier) is this:

eHayley

Stormclad- 10pts

2 Storm Striders- 18pts

Gun Mages+UA- 8pts

Storm Lances- 7pts

1 Storm Tower- 2pts

3 Stormsmiths- 2pts

Thorn- 8pts

(the reason for the 3 stormsmiths for 2 points is that I'm using Hayley's tier, where you get a free stormsmith for every storm tower purchased).

Now every since I've started playing, people have said to take Thorn. But the thing is- he NEVER seems to do anything. I can literally count on one hand the times he has provided any useful input to a game at all. Usually he charges an enemy warjack, takes out its cortex, then gets destroyed by the opponents army next turn. And yeah sure a jack without a cortex aint too much use, but when Thorn usually costs more than said warjack it's not such a good trade. Being able to use him as an arcnode seems to be a very marginal benefit in my games. Usually Hayley is sat behind the two storm striders, and casts deflection and temporal acceleration (either on the stormclad or one of the storm striders, depending on circumstance). That's leaving 2 focus and you'll normally want to give the stormclad at least 1 focus so it can run or charge. In an actual battlefield situation it seems Thorn's abilities to channel spells never really get used. Don't get me wrong, occasionally there's a great moment when he rushes up and you use him to cast TK on an enemy warcaster to drag them out into the open to get pummelled by the storm striders, but those moments seem few and far between.

The thing is, I can't really drop him, since the tier requires his inclusion, so if I don't take him I lose out on all those power tokens which would be a huge loss. At the same time, I can't really afford to have 8pts of junk just sitting there before getting destroyed by something that just looked at him. I've already got enough useless rubbish in the list with the storm tower (seriously this thing is abysmal, but again, it's a tier requirement that I take it).

So how does he become this mighty feared arcnode? Because right now the problem is that while his weapons seem to demand combat with jacks, in reality he can't hold his own against a decent enemy heavy, and he costs about the same as them. When I contrast his effect on the game (at 8pts) to that of a storm strider or a stormclad (only a couple of points more), the difference is like night and day. The gun mages (which cost the same points) always outperform him, and sometimes even that useless storm tower gives him a good run for his money at a whole 6 points less!

[Iceman8352]

Well to begin with, Thorn isn't a 'jack that needs to go charging into battle every game. He is far from 'mighty feared'. Thorn likes to play forward so eHaley can play far behind. Half of Haley's spells are range 8 or less. Throwing out a Temporal Acceleration is going to be a lot more dangerous when you're only six inches behind that Stormclad that you're targeting. Thorn also allows you to cast those spells while Haley is staying safely out of line-of-sight behind those two battle engines. And Thorn gets even more beneficial when the enemy runs something into combat with him and he can STILL arc those important spells onto your Stormclad or Gun Mages.

Thorn is not a battle 'jack. He is not going to go toe-to-toe with 'jacks of equal and greater cost. His good MAT and decent melee abilities don't change the fact that he is not meant for heavy combat. He may take out some infantry or another light jack, but Thorn's niche is to allow Haley to do her job, and that job is to sit back and support her army. Thorn is well worth those 8 points.

Here are some links to the boot camp tacticas that may help you out.

eHaley
Thorn

[Joasht]

Thorn is a brilliant jack, and I've never been disappointed with it when I took it with eHaley. Its done some amazing stuff, including killing pButcher, but that said, you don't actually generally want to use it offensively like a combat jack, which sounds like what you are doing.

When Thorn gets into combat, its either out of necessity, or its very late in the game, your heavy is dead, and you need something dead. Other than that, its all about that arc node, then its down to your own imagination/ability as a player to figure out what to do with them, simply because eHaley's spells give her practically endless options.

[Stephan Garmark]

First off, I really like your list. It's solid enough, but it's obviously lacking the most important piece for eHaley, which is her squire. I do realize you can't have him in there due to the tier restriction, and that's why the tier isn't as good as not going tier.
I started out with eHaley as well (not the tier mind you) and I lost almost all my games as well until I started asking my friends and this forum what I did wrong and got some great input.
The basics of Haley, if there are such a thing, is cast cast cast. You need to take advantage of her offensive capabilities, which is Dead Eye and TK and you need to keep Haley alive. Enter Thorn.
You want to cast Dead Eye on your Gun Mages every turn to keep the pressure on the enemies infantry, so always activate Haley before gun mages. Just make it a habit. I know it sounds stupid, but I've often gone "gun mages will hit without DE because I need to activate them first so I can do silly stunts with Haley afterwards", don't do it. Just activate her first for a while. Often I don't have Haley near my mages, so I use Thorn to arc the spell and then move him the 3" to put him in a favorable postition.
Learn to TK is also important. Just generally disrupt your opponents plans with surgical TK strikes by turning his models around or move them out of engaging your own models and so on. It's hard to get the best uses out of TK, but it's just such a powerful spell and you want it to be shot upfield quite often, this is where you need Thorn.
Thorn is an arc node, he's not a powerhouse killa jack, you have Stormclad for that. He's just a jack who can arc spells where you need them and he can take a punch to his mouth and still stand and even kill off a couple of Solos or the occational cankerworm if need be.
But seriously, Squire is SO important with Haley that I'm not even kidding. The +2 control area for her feat alone is well worth the points, 9 focus with her is nuts and the power to reroll a failed spell each turn is incredible.
I would probably go no tier and try her out with Squire if I where you.

[DontStop]

I dont understand why most EHaley lists only include one heavy? Why wouldn't you want two? Better for the assassination run and holding points.

[MollyHatchet]

I dont understand why most EHaley lists only include one heavy? Why wouldn't you want two? Better for the assassination run and holding points.

Because 99% of the time the points that would go for another Heavy are sunk into somthing else.

Alot of our stuff is expensive... Welcome to Cygnar.

(AS OF NOTE: Dont take this as an invitation on talking about our point costs. We have been down that road way too much already as of late.)

[PG_Bubblybrew]

Hey, you say this is list for Haley's tier? I didn't think you could put Storm Lances in her tier list?

Also, you should try to fit 2 min units of mechanics in there, it's great for the tier.

[CygnarWar]

Hey, you say this is list for Haley's tier? I didn't think you could put Storm Lances in her tier list?

Also, you should try to fit 2 min units of mechanics in there, it's great for the tier.

I've been told by a friend (who knows more about the detailed rules) that you can, but I've never actually read the No Quarter article with Hayley's tier in, so I couldn't say for certain. Up until yesterday I was actually using 2x field mechaniks (4pts), another storm smith (1pt) and a storm tower (2pts), but decided to ditch them for the lancers as what generally seems to happen is that when the opponent targets one of my battle engines, they'll throw everythi at it until it's dead in that round (because of the power tokens it gets when hit). Therefore the mechaniks never actually get a chance to repair the battle engines before they're dropped. But if storm lancers aren't possibly I guess I'll have to figure out something else to replace them with- I'll ask again at my next gaming session.

First off, I really like your list. It's solid enough, but it's obviously lacking the most important piece for eHaley, which is her squire. I do realize you can't have him in there due to the tier restriction, and that's why the tier isn't as good as not going tier.
I started out with eHaley as well (not the tier mind you) and I lost almost all my games as well until I started asking my friends and this forum what I did wrong and got some great input.
The basics of Haley, if there are such a thing, is cast cast cast. You need to take advantage of her offensive capabilities, which is Dead Eye and TK and you need to keep Haley alive. Enter Thorn.
You want to cast Dead Eye on your Gun Mages every turn to keep the pressure on the enemies infantry, so always activate Haley before gun mages. Just make it a habit. I know it sounds stupid, but I've often gone "gun mages will hit without DE because I need to activate them first so I can do silly stunts with Haley afterwards", don't do it. Just activate her first for a while. Often I don't have Haley near my mages, so I use Thorn to arc the spell and then move him the 3" to put him in a favorable postition.
Learn to TK is also important. Just generally disrupt your opponents plans with surgical TK strikes by turning his models around or move them out of engaging your own models and so on. It's hard to get the best uses out of TK, but it's just such a powerful spell and you want it to be shot upfield quite often, this is where you need Thorn.
Thorn is an arc node, he's not a powerhouse killa jack, you have Stormclad for that. He's just a jack who can arc spells where you need them and he can take a punch to his mouth and still stand and even kill off a couple of Solos or the occational cankerworm if need be.
But seriously, Squire is SO important with Haley that I'm not even kidding. The +2 control area for her feat alone is well worth the points, 9 focus with her is nuts and the power to reroll a failed spell each turn is incredible.
I would probably go no tier and try her out with Squire if I where you.

Yeah before I startd using the tier I had the squire and he was good. I have actually won more games using the tier than not using it simply because of the 3 power tokens on each jack, but the squire is a big loss- I've noticed 18 inches of control range makes a great deal of difference compared to 16 inches. No Black 13th under the tier also sucks a bit.

If I were to decide to drop the tier (and get rid of the storm tower in place of a squire), would it be best to drop Thorn at that point as I'd no longer be under a tier obligation to include him? Could replace him with a defender jack marshalled to the gun mages if I got rid of a stormsmith, and when I wasn't using the tier I used to do this- the defender with the snipe or critical brutal shot was frequently lethal. The storm striders normally function as my anti-jack force but I imagine without power tokens they'd struggle against heavy armour.

Well to begin with, Thorn isn't a 'jack that needs to go charging into battle every game. He is far from 'mighty feared'. Thorn likes to play forward so eHaley can play far behind. Half of Haley's spells are range 8 or less. Throwing out a Temporal Acceleration is going to be a lot more dangerous when you're only six inches behind that Stormclad that you're targeting. Thorn also allows you to cast those spells while Haley is staying safely out of line-of-sight behind those two battle engines. And Thorn gets even more beneficial when the enemy runs something into combat with him and he can STILL arc those important spells onto your Stormclad or Gun Mages.

Thorn is not a battle 'jack. He is not going to go toe-to-toe with 'jacks of equal and greater cost. His good MAT and decent melee abilities don't change the fact that he is not meant for heavy combat. He may take out some infantry or another light jack, but Thorn's niche is to allow Haley to do her job, and that job is to sit back and support her army. Thorn is well worth those 8 points.

So are you saying keep Hayley in the deployment zone, and run Thorn where I would normally run Hayley? What I do every game is keep Hayley behind the two battle engines, and keep the gun mages relatively near the engines as well. This normally works well for keeping Hayley protected- until one of the engines dies, and that's when trouble begins. Are you saying I should run Thorn behind the engines instead (and leave Hayley waaaay back where she can't be got to easily). That would save me against the type of stuff that normally ends up killing my caster (sprays through the battle engines and magic that doesn't need line of sight seem to have been 2 big problems recently). But the cost is pretty high for that- 8 points, and of course if you're keeping Hayley back, you're not going to be catching many enemy models when you use her feat. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

[PG_Bubblybrew]

Ok, you need to go find that No Quarter. You actually can have the B13! I find their flare beacon is indispensable with the storm striders.

This guide that I wrote lists what you can and cannot take. Note that it never says "storm knight" but rather "storm blade". http://privateerpressforums.com/show...lysis-(Pop-Pop!)

[TerTer]

I've been told by a friend (who knows more about the detailed rules) that you can, but I've never actually read the No Quarter article with Hayley's tier in, so I couldn't say for certain. Up until yesterday I was actually using 2x field mechaniks (4pts), another storm smith (1pt) and a storm tower (2pts), but decided to ditch them for the lancers as what generally seems to happen is that when the opponent targets one of my battle engines, they'll throw everythi at it until it's dead in that round (because of the power tokens it gets when hit). Therefore the mechaniks never actually get a chance to repair the battle engines before they're dropped. But if storm lancers aren't possibly I guess I'll have to figure out something else to replace them with- I'll ask again at my next gaming session.

No you can't take storm lances with her, they aren't in her tier. So don't listen to your friend, get the No Quarter

For me thorn sometimes performs very good other times not so much. I like to keep him near 1 side of the board for spells on that side, other side is covered by Haley her self. So you can position Haley better defensivly and not take the risk, sometimes hes good to block lanes or to hold off some heavys/beast if you need.