Welcome back, fans of Warmachine, to our last gameplay deep dive in the run up to Warmachine 3D: Lost, Damned, and Salvation. This time we’re learning about changes to the military arm of the great machine — the Convergence of Cyriss!
The Convergence of Cyriss has seen moderate gameplay re-development as compared to the other armies included in the Lost, Damned, & Salvation FronTier campaign.
In this article we’ll touch on key changes to the army with a focus on why these changes have been made. We've also included a full changelog at the bottom of the article which covers all the changes coming in the campaign to all three armies.
What's new?
Convergence hasn't received any changes to their unique core rules. Interface Nodes, the way their warcasters lend their MAT and RAT values to Convergence warjacks, Force Induction, and a lack of Power Up are all still present as shown in Warmachine’s core rulebook. We’re happy with how each of these rules currently functions, so there’s no changes there.
There are, however, numerous changes to models in the Convergence army. So, let’s start from the top!
Warcaster Buffs
Archnumen Aurora
Aurora is one of the most stunning models in the Convergence ranks, and unsurprisingly a popular warcaster as a result. The gameplay issues we saw with Aurora were the need for a little simplification in her rules, and more ways to spend focus during her own activation to make her more interesting to play.
First off we simplified her Battle Plans. In theory these are three quite simple abilities, but they have a lot of text to make them work.
So, we removed Suppression Initiative and just gave the Unstoppable advantage to Aurora herself, Clockwork Angels, and Negation Angels. Additionally we reworked the rules language on Ascension Command and Phantom Protocol, but left the gameplay functioning exactly the same as it does now.
Aurora’s Inertial Destablizer ranged attack has increased from rate of fire (ROF) 1 to ROF 2, and gained Thunderbolt.
Lastly to round out her playstyle a bit more, she gained a new spell, Admonition.
Father Lucant, The Divinity Architect
The big man of Convergence becomes the biggest man, with an all new sculpt! Father Lucant is already arguably the strongest warcaster in Convergence, so the touches here have been quite light.
That's right, Father Lucant has been scaled up from a 50mm warcaster to an 80mm warcaster! Fitting his newfound stature, there are some gameplay tweaks we've settled on.
First, being an 80mm base means Father Lucant won’t get to benefit from as many environmental DEF buffs, like terrain or being engaged in melee. Instead he’s picked up 2 points of native ARM moving up from 17 to 19. Additionally, Lucant is now Sturdy in addition to being Steady, meaning he can’t be pushed.
Secondly, his melee attack, Apogee, has increased in POW from 16 to 17 and gained critical knockdown.
Lastly, we tweaked one of his spells, Discontinuity. Previously this was an upkeep on Lucant himself, which competed with Watcher, since a model can only have one friendly upkeep spell on themselves at a time.
Now, Discontinuity costs 2 and lasts for one round. This means Lucant will have to cast it every time he wants to use it, but it’ll no longer compete with Watcher as an upkeep spell.
Eminent Configurator Orion
Orion has such a great miniature! Sadly, Orion hasn’t been seen enough on the tabletop and we wanted to adjust that.
The main issue with Orion is that he’s very effective against warjacks, but noticeably less effective against other types of cohorts. We’ve made some adjustments to smooth that out.
The first place to look is his feat, Obligation Configuration. It's now both simpler, and more powerful: If an enemy model has any focus, fury, or essence on it, and is in Orion’s control range, his army gains additional attack and damage dice against them.
The second piece to this puzzle is Forced Induction. Formerly, this spell would cause an enemy warjack to gain a focus point, and then deal damage to it and models around it based on the amount of focus on it.
Now, Forced Induction interacts with focus, fury, or essence. This is a key way to guarantee Orion’s feat has relevant targets.
Iron Mother Directrix
Convergence’s iron lady has received a few adjustments to her spells list to increase her power level.
Backlash has been replaced by the similar spell, Feedback Loop, first seen on Tyrus as part of the January Update earlier this year.
Domination has been replaced by Telekinesis, for an across the board threat range extension to Iron Mother’s armies.
And lastly, she’s gained a whole new direct damage spell to round out her kit: Arkantrik Bolt!
Warjack Buffs
Corollary
This “mega-Squire” has gained a new rule to extend the range for Force Induction passing focus points around for all warjacks in its battlegroup from 9” to 12”.
Assimilator, Conservator, Modulator
This chassis has increased from DEF 11 to DEF 12 and gained 2 more health boxes. The Modulator has seen some notable damage output increases and the Assimilator swapped Critical Grievous Wounds for just straight Grievous Wounds.
Cipher, Inverter, Monitor
The Monitor is excellent already, so no changes there.
The Cipher’s gun has seen improvements both to rate of fire and damage output. Meanwhile, the Inverter is a melee monster: Cheaper, hits harder, and knocks down a whole lot more things with its Macropummeler.
Negator
One change here to help with army list building and to promote synergies between warjacks and units. The Negator swapped Flank [Negator] for Flank [Angel] meaning it loves to support units of both Clockwork and Negation Angels.
And big shout out to Spen's Painting for the awesome paint job on this slightly updated sculpt above! As a quick aside, he also had some lovely things to say about the army:
"The Convergence are such great models and so fun to paint. Their scheme is relatively simple which means you can really work through them quickly, but the mixtures of metals and the blue glow also mean you can also have fun experimenting with them. The sculpts are super easy to print even without playing with any settings. I can’t wait to work on the rest of the army!"
Solo Buffs
Attunement Servitors
Attunement Servitors now contain the abilities formerly belonging to Elimination Servitors and Reflex Servitors, as well as retaining their Attunement Servitor Flare shots.
What does this mean? It means they can choose between shooting a non-damaging Flare shot, or a d3 damage Puncture shot. They also have a single-use POW 14 melee attack that causes blast damage if it hits. Either way, whether this attack hits or not, using it will destroy the Servitor.
That is a heck of a lot of abilities to put all in one place, especially at the low, low price of 2 points per 3 Servitors. Because of that, they’ve also gained Inconsequential to prevent them scoring or contesting scenario zones.
Steelsoul Protector
More steel needed for this protector! It’s increased from 8 health to 10, from ARM 17 to 18, and its Iron Glaive now dishes out Grievous Wounds.
Unit Buffs
Clockwork & Negation Angels
As we mentioned above under Aurora’s section, Clockwork Angels and Negation Angels now have Unstoppable. The Clockwork Angel’s Binomial Beam also gained Thunderbolt to help clear scenario zones.
Perforators
Very nearly an excellent unit, they just miss out next to Reciprocators and Eradicators. As a result, Perforators have gained +1 range and +1 POW on their Javelins. Additionally, their Variable Empowered Attack now adds +2 damage to their melee attacks as well as their ranged attacks.
Obstructors & Reductors
It can’t be “all” about those medium bases. These units have both received +1 SPD and +1 ARM. The Obstructors’ Teleflails also hit 1 POW higher, and the Reductors have gained +1 RAT.
Command Attachments
Transverse Enumerator
Lastly, we wanted to bring this hero down to cost 1, however, that meant removing a few abilities that are well represented in other areas of the army, like Empower and Iron Sentinel.
Inspiration was also removed as part of ensuring the army remains in line with most Armies of Legend.
Lost, Damned and Salvation Changelog
Now that we've talked about the rationale behind key tweaks to the Convergence of Cyriss, it's time to get into the nitty gritty. We know what wargamers like... a big list to pore over! Check it out:
