Join me after the break for my thoughts about Convergence, where I'm currently at with the faction, and where I'm considering taking it.
Faction Wanderlust
Across the many years I've spent playing Warmachine, I've tried a number of different factions. I tried out Cygnar around the time of Superiority, and I recently had a brief stint into Retribution. When Hordes came out I picked up Legion as my primary Hordes army and I stuck with that until relatively recently (I sold the lot of it around the time Gargantuans came out). I also dabbled a bit in Skorne and Trollbloods, but I never got very far with either of them.
Khador has been the one fixture faction throughout the years. Part of the reason is "firsties" syndrome, and part of that is the fact that Khador fits me very well in some regards. I really appreciate how well the faction represents a combined arms approach to offense, and although Khador isn't the reigning champ of hitting power anymore, it's still a faction that can bring the hammer down very, very hard when it wants to.
However, for as much as I always have enjoyed Khador, there is one thing about the faction that I get tired of every now and again.
Army Introspection
Khador's battlegroup elements are almost always supplementary. Khador warjacks very rarely have the raw stats or abilities to contribute significantly to the game, and it's even relatively rare for Khador 'casters to be able to give them the help they'd need to be the stars of the show. I appreciate that this is by design - at it's most simple, Khador is a faction where the warjacks are either anchors or resource drains on your opponent.
That is somewhat unfortunate for me because I don't like to run a lot of infantry. Even in the hoary days of Mk. 1, I often favored solos, small units with UAs (back when you could scale your units between 6 and 10 models as you wished), and marshaled warjacks over large swathes of infantry. I find that I can manage that approach a lot more effectively, and I feel much more comfortable with those types of armies.
Hordes was initially very appealing because it allowed me to run the trimmed down, battlegroup focused lists I had always wanted to. Over the years, however, it became apparent that Legion wasn't really the faction for me (it's powerful and fun to play, but not really my preferred style). Skorne and Trollbloods may have been better fits mechanically, but I ran into the issue of not liking the aesthetics of the army, which is a bummer when one of my goals is to paint anything I plan on using semi-frequently.
So for awhile I was just running Khador, and trying desperately to find something in that faction that would give me an alternate approach to the game (one of the things that fueled my Harkevich fever last year). Khador has a wonderfully deep bench of 'casters, but unfortunately very few of them reward you for bringing more than the bare minimum of warjacks, and even the addition of Malakov (an absolutely awesome melee warjack enabler) didn't get me to the kinds of lists I wanted to run.
Eventually, I wised up and realized that I was trying to jam a square peg through a round hole. Khador may yet get a fantastic battlegroup 'caster (the faction already has some "fair" ones), but if I'm having frustrations with the faction due to the way it plays that's a problem with me, not it. I've known what Khador "is" for quite awhile now; if I want something else I need to look elsewhere.
Which, incidentally, is the primary reason my foray into Retribution ended after building and painting only one list. The faction is at an excellent point of growth and is starting to become scary in the competitive scene, but it's also too similar to Khador in approach and list structure (give or take a Vyros2, who was very tempting) to be something I want to really invest in.
Plotting a New Course
If I'm going to strike out and build up a second faction, it needs to be something that plays in a way that Khador can't replicate. I'm also one of the "old heads" of Warmachine who got into the game back when the promise was "big stompy robots." I'm not one of the jaded veterans who hates where the game has gone, but I have always been a little sad that the warjacks I was so excited to use have ended up being effectively garnish.
I've also come to realize (as mentioned previously) that I am indeed a big stompy robot kind of player; not a big stompy monster kind of player. For as great as Hordes is (and it is a very fun, rewarding system to play), none of the factions are compelling. At the time I sold off my Legion, that left me with not a lot of options for a replacement secondary faction.
Thankfully, last year Privateer Press released a new faction for Warmachine that hits pretty much every bullet point of what I'm looking for perfectly.
Looking back, I actually wasn't that impressed or interested in Convergence when it was first announced. The battlegroup focus of the faction was intriguing, but I didn't really appreciate the flexibility and value of Induction as a mechanic, and the aesthetic didn't really wow me like it did some people (though I didn't dislike it either).
Conversion to Convergence
My interest in Convergence piqued when - forgive the pun - the gears really started turning on what the faction was actually capable of. Part of that was reading and listening to more in-depth theory about the faction, but what sealed the deal for me was facing off against it.
One person in our group dove into the faction when it came out and we started having dojo sessions about possible Syntherion lists. As the conversation continued and the list evolved, I started to see more and more wonderful, terrible things that could be done with just that 'caster, let alone everything else in the faction!
At that point I started to debate whether or not I really wanted to buy into Convergence. There were several months of dancing around it, but eventually I managed to catch up on my Khador models, and right about that time I was going crazy trying to make Harkevich work. When I really sat down and evaluated how interested I was in Convergence, a number factors sealed the deal:
1) Convergence is/was a limited release. Unlike all of the other Warmachine factions, Convergence wouldn't necessarily be expanding with every anthology release. That makes it a much less daunting prospect to buy into and potentially keep up with.
2) Convergence is mostly a faction of plastic models. Some of those plastics are better than others (the floating Vectors look good while the walking Vectors are a nightmare to clean) but overall it's a faction that is very kind to one's back and shoulders. Lugging around my now very heavy Khador cases makes me very appreciative of the prospect of lighter model materials.
3) Convergence is a faction that was designed, tested, and released decently deep into the Mk. 2 cycle. The biggest benefit to that is that Convergence managed to dodge the "sophomore slump" of mediocre models that flowed out in the early Mk. 2 books. It feels like the developers had a much stronger grasp on what makes different types of models desirable and/or effective in the context of the game. The result is a book that has very, very little "cruft" or undesirable content.
4) Convergence was conceived, designed, and released as a standalone project. That meant that Convergence needed to answer a lot of relevant metagame questions right out of the gate, it had to do so using only internal faction resources, and it had to be effective enough to be able to hold up as the other factions continued to gain yearly releases. I get the sense that the designers understood this challenge (and possible massive failure point) because the initial release of Convergence models is damn solid and capable right out of the gate. Contrast that with the initial Retribution release, which felt more like PP was establishing a foundation to build on.
5) Warjacks, warjacks, warjacks. Or, more accurately: vectors, vectors, vectors. Convergence seems like equal parts apology and love letter to anyone out there who is a fan of Warmachine (i.e. the robots, the Focus mechanic) who felt let down by how warjacks usually end up working out on the table. Convergence has decent infantry (supported by a phenomenal recursion engine) but it's evident right from the start that the focus of many Convergence armies is going to be on the battlegroup. Warcasters are tightly coupled to their battlegroup through the stat sharing mechanic, Induction and the Corollary allow the 'casters to actually fuel large battlegroups, and easy access to Flare AoEs all combine to make an army that runs warjacks like no other.
6) A personally important factor: most Convergence armies aren't particularly large in terms of number of models on the table. This makes it much easier to collect (especially since plastic models are often cheaper than what their metal counterparts would have cost), store, and paint up a full Convergence list or two in a reasonable amount of time. Moreover, the small size of the faction leads to a lot of crossover in models between lists, so expanding between different 'casters can often be easy.
Forging a List
With my course decided, the next step was to purchase some models and get to it! I decided to start with the man-chine that brought me to the faction in the first place: Forge Master Syntherion.
Syntherion - T4 Theme:
Forge Master Syntherion (*6pts)
* Corollary (3pts)
* Diffuser (3pts)
* Galvanizer (0pts)
* Assimilator (8pts)
* Assimilator (8pts)
* Cipher (9pts)
* Inverter (8pts)
* Monitor (8pts)
Optifex Directive (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts)
Optifex Directive (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts)
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex (1pts)
Attunement Servitors (2pts)
Attunement Servitors (2pts)
Syntherion is one of those wonderfully skewed 'casters where you need an extremely good reason to go outside of his theme list, and frankly I'm not convinced it exists in his case. You get absolutely everything you want in theme and the benefits are fantastic.
A Prime Axiom is popular with Syntherion, and while I understand why (as well as agree), I wanted to start out with a list that would give me more vectors to use across the board. That battlegroup loadout gives me all the heavy vectors I want to run almost any other list I can think of, which makes it a great starting point for me in terms of collecting and painting.
This list is dangerously close to being ready for the table: I own all of the models for it and everything is (almost) completely assembled. The last thing I really need to do is sit down and paint it up, which thankfully shouldn't take too long; the entire army is only 22 models. At minimum, I need to paint up all of the floating models so I can get them on their super-fancy-floating bases, but I really want to handle Convergence as I did Retribution: paint it before you can play it. I'm not letting another Legion painting situation happen again.
Being A Momma's Boy
To compliment that Syntherion list, I chose another battlegroup focused 'caster: Iron Mother Directrix.
Directrix - T4 Theme:
Iron Mother Directrix & Exponent Servitors (*4pts)* Corollary (3pts)
* Assimilator (8pts)
* Assimilator (8pts)
* Monitor (8pts)
* Prime Axiom (19pts)
Optifex Directive (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts)
Elimination Servitors (2pts)
Elimination Servitors (2pts)
Elimination Servitors (2pts)
This is another theme list army, though unlike Syntherion I can see possibly going outside of Directrix's theme list (since it precludes you from almost all infantry units). It is a very fun looking theme, however, so I opted to use it for my initial build with her.
Ideally, this list would compliment Syntherion's list by offering a potent anti-infantry list that still has solid hitting power. Practically, I'm not sure how well that will play out. Directrix was popular initially in Convergence theory, but she's fallen pretty far down the curve over the past year or so. Her reliance on battlegroup ranged attacks in a meta that is becoming more and more hostile towards that approach probably doesn't do her any favors.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to playing her. This is the kind of list I've always wanted to run, but is hilariously impossible to do effectively in Khador. The biggest factor are the vectors themselves: Assimilators have solid anti-infantry guns with decent melee, the Monitor has a potent direct shot, and the Axiom can act as the centerpiece to the whole thing by kicking out shots itself and reeling in dangerous enemy heavies it can then punch to death.
I had originally just brainstormed this list as an eventual second list for Syntherion, but the holiday season gave me some bonus cash to work with, which allowed me to pick up the few models I'd need to run this list (Directrix, the Axiom, and the Servitors). I still need to get through Syntherion's list first, and damned if I don't weep at the idea of painting another colossal, but I am looking forward to getting this list up and running eventually.
Future Plans
It's going to take me enough time to get those two lists up and running that I'm not entirely sure where I'll go next with Convergence. There will assuredly be new Khador releases in 2015 that will pull me away for awhile (at the painting table, if not the gaming table), and there is the looming possibility that Convergence itself may be getting some new toys (based on things seen in the Convergence cards for High Command).
The "collector" part of me died a long time ago - i.e. that nerd impulse to own everything in a faction just to say that you do. I ended up with way too many junk models for Khador and Legion that I knew were bad going in, but I just had to have because "I already own everything else, so why not?" As a result, I'm going to focus on buying things for Convergence that I have actual list plans for, as opposed to just collecting one of everything and then trying to shoehorn things in later.
There are a number of different builds I can try out with Syntherion and Directrix that wouldn't involve a lot of extra expenditure. I'm also definitely picking up Lucant at some point - even if he wasn't a powerhouse, I absolutely love a potent, grindy attrition list, and he does it the best of anyone in the game - and I have an eye on Aurora eventually (I really liked some of the medium-based infantry spam ideas with her). Axis is the only one that doesn't interest me, but that shouldn't be surprising considering his play style is the closest to Khadoran of all the Convergence 'casters. Still, I'll almost certainly end up with sufficient models to run a good list with him eventually, so I'm sure he'll make it onto the pile. And MAT 7, Counter Charge'ing vectors sounds like a good time.
Overall, I'm very excited to get my Convergence up and running and on the table. I'm sure they'll be tricky to use due to positioning requirements, but that's also some of the appeal of the faction. And the promise of being able to actually run multiple heavy vectors and have them do a decent job on the table top is very exciting. I even stumbled into a paint scheme idea I like!
So keep an eye out for more Convergence stuff in the future. I'm going to move onto painting them once I'm finished my current project (Misaki's crew for Malifaux) which should be soon, so hopefully I'll have some models to share in the coming months.
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