This is a little belated. February and March games consisted of mainly Convergence of Cyriss. I absolutely love the aesthetic of this army, and am overjoyed that I’m not limited to a mere three warcasters to choose as leader. Or four, if we had a huge based caster. While I toyed with Crucible Guard and Infernals, my main for the beginning of the year was Convergence.
March Tournament
In March, our LGS (Isle of Games, in Tucson) held a 50-point steamroller. I brought two lists thinking I needed something to handle Protectorate of Menoth’s retaliatory strike dudes, maybe some armor cracking for handling Khador (which hasn’t made an appearance here yet), or for a certain someone’s Wolfe list with three Strykers, and some ranged stuff for some fast movers. Here’s my lists:
List 1: Locke ’em out
- Locke
- Inverter (14)
- Inverter (14)
- Mitigator (6)
- Reciprocators (8)
- Reductors (6)
- Transverse Enumerator (2)
- Cards
- Break Through
- Hit & Run
- Infiltration
- Old Faithful
- Power Swell
List 2: Forge on
- Forge Master Syntherion
- Cipher (14)
- Monitor (14)
- Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex (2)
- Attunement Servitors (4)
- Reciprocators (8)
- Reductors (6)
- Transverse Enumerator (2)
- Cards
- Break Through
- Hit & Run
- Infiltration
- Old Faithful
- Power Swell
Game 1 vs Circle
This Krueger list was interesting. It didn’t move very quickly, but it had some decent armor and healing capability. I think it went like this:
- Krueger the Stormlord
- Woldwarden (13)
- Woldwarden (13)
- Stone Keeper (2)
- Stone Keeper (2)
- Stoneward and Woldstalkers (8)
- Warpborn Skinwalkers (7)
- Warpborn Skinwalker Alpha (3)
I deployed pretty centrally. We were doing steamroller, after all, and the zones are set up for a larger point game (something of the order of 120 points if my math is right). I had the advantage, and chose sides, taking advantage of the wall with stairs.
Circle ran in, and I set up my Reciprocators to take the left zone, and Reductors to take center. I pretty much left the right zone alone, figuring that my opponent didn’t have enough models to take it either. Circle opened turn two by running to engage my lead warjacks and taking out some reductors with a few sprays and a Lightning Storm.
The Wolds are really good. I forget they have the animus and a spell casting ability. For 13 points, too. Thing is, they do have to decide whether they’re going to sling a spell or do melee. It costs fury to do either very well.
Convergence hit back hard. The flares from the servitors landed where I needed them, and the Cipher pushed in against the skinwalkers. The monitor likewise pushed up, and very little was left of the wolf wannabes. Meanwhile, the reductors and reciprocators kicked hard against the little woldstalkers. I would gain a point for the zone. My clock was eaten away, but not too badly. My opponent would have to take out my jacks and things quickly.
I forget to take some pictures. I manage to stay in the lead, using Syntherion to score the opposite circle zone, using magnetic hold to effectively nix the woldwarden’s ability to move around. Krueger tries to put the hurt on Syntherion, but fails. My own attempts are pretty effective, leaving Krueger on a sliver of life. I was in the lead, and Krueger was almost dead. Things were looking pretty good.
But…
At the beginning of the game, during deployment, I stopped to help set up the app for my partner in crime, and it may have took a couple minutes. Minutes that I would not have at the end of the game! Whoops! That’s my bad. At the end of the game, I lost to clock, not having enough time to roll my attacks on Krueger. Oh well.
Game 2
Next game was into Cygnar, led by Siege. This was another game that went to clock, this time in my favor. I ran Locke, trying to use all her threat range and coordinate her order of activation. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that game. Triumph was taken down quickly. The Reductors did really well. A unit of commandos took out all but two reductors (one bot and one attachment), who returned the favor by destroying all but two commandos. Huh. If only I had managed to hit them first!
Game 3 – Crocs!
This was a typical Maelok list, like Brett used to run in Dallas. I didn’t have troll champions to handle the gators this time, being a convergence army, so I played super aggressive with my reductors and warjacks. Dropping Locke, I planned to feat early to benefit from the multiple sources of magic spells and fury spending.
Locke barely used the Mitigator. Unfortunately, the gators had no knockdown, and I couldn’t reach the solo keeping them standing. The push into the forest really caught my opponent off guard. That’s what road to war and redline does; it gives a jack an extra 5 inches of movement.
Into turn 2, I was able to clear the zone and score on the left. Because of the extra defense and armor, my warjacks stuck around, and ultimately killed Maelok. Assassinations take a long time, and you don’t have a lot of it in a 50 point game, so I really wasn’t paying attention to how much damage Maelok had. It only took a quick hit from a jackhammer with a meteor hammer to crush him in the end.
In conclusion, I think I need to play 50 pointers differently. Maybe just engineer the assassination. Quit looking for score. I don’t know. If you get behind in time, it can be devastating.
A 50-point list in Convergence is really tight, too. We don’t have a lot of good ranged options, so melee is where we end up doing most work. That means we don’t have a high volume of attacks unless we take infantry. And our infantry looks like it needs a little help on the damage doing, if I’m trying to use their guns.
Casters that depend on layering and have precise order of activation can be a disadvantage. Their timing means you have to get it right every time. Casters with lots of tools can cause decision paralysis, which isn’t good on a short clock either. If I were still working trolls, I’d probably hit up Borka 2, simply because he has one game plan — get into an enemy caster and kill them.
For Convergence, a 50 point game would probably be better played with an Aurora 2 or Axis. They have a similar plan, with a good amount of reach, and can bring a lot of things to do the work without being too dependent on jacks. Just rush forward, and get that caster close enough for your own leader to end the game.
In a way, Locke can do that as well, but you absolutely have to remember to use her MAT buff!
That’s all for today – thanks for reading.