Battle Report: Cygnar (Stryker2 Storm Division) vs Convergence (Father Lucant Clockwork Legions)

I had a game recently with a friend of mine who hasn't played Warmachine in nearly a year. The last game we did play, he was playing Circle, and he stomped me badly. He hadn't played a Convergence army in roughly 3 years, since before Mk3, so he was rusty.

Here are our lists:

Convergence (Clockwork Legion) "Lucant's Legions"

Father Lucant, The Divinity Architect
Conservator
Conservator
Corollary
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Obstructors (max)
Transverse Enumerator
Perforators (max)
Eradicators (max)
Reciprocators (max)
Clockwork Angels

Cygnar (Storm Division)

Stryker2
Squire
Hurricane
Storm Lances
Storm Lances
Major Katherine Laddermore
Arlan Strangewayes
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Journeyman Warcaster
Sentinel

I was putting my partially-painted Cygnar colossal on the table for the first time. The top half was still missing a lot of detail and cleaning up, and the bottom half was only primed. But I'd screwed on the base the previous weekend with two actual screws, and the magnetization was complete. I would also be fielding a second unit of stormlances I'd just gotten which weren't even primed yet.

Deployment

I won the roll and opted to go second, because Convergence in general is a very slow army, and mine was very fast. I wanted to pick the side without the big house that would get in the way of my colossal. That house and the two rubble pieces ended up being a monstrous pain for him, so there was some merit in my decision despite the fact that his army was far faster than I'd anticipated.

Convergence Turn 1
Convergence runs. The Obstructors and their CA, the transverse enumerator, head up the left (near) side of the map into the zone, and the reciprocators take refuge in the rubble at the right (far) side of the map. The clockwork angels hide behind the building, knowing that they can simply fly over it next turn if need be.

Cygnar Turn 1

The obstructors are looking a bit too close, so the Hurricane runs up, and Stryker arcs rebuke onto them, preventing them from running, charging, or using their shield wall. Stryker also puts up deceleration. Then the painted stormlances at my left move forward and are able to get two shots into the obstructors, killing both. The stormlances at the right move up to the edge of the zone, and the journeyman warcaster casts arcane shield on the painted unit of stormlances.


Convergence Turn 2

My opponent notes with frustration that the conservators are blocking much of what the army wants to do, so they walk back and around the building.

With nothing much else to do, the rebuked obstructors walk forward. The perforators on the right also walk forward and throw some sniped protean javelins at the hurricane. The dice spike, and they do a whopping sixteen damage. The reciprocators trudge out of the rubble, and the clockwork angels move up behind them. The eradicators move up behind the obstructors, being careful to stay more than two inches back from the obstructors, so as to avoid stormlance charges.

Lucant feats and casts deceleration. Two pairs of enigma foundries slowly and ominously glide up behind each wing of the army.

Cygnar Turn 2

It's Lucant's feat turn, so I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to do against the +4 armor.

The obstructors make a relatively soft target for stormlances, even with +4 armor, so the painted stormlances charge, planning to reposition back to safety afterwards. A single lance charges the two in the forest and kills them, and two other lances charge the eradicators behind the obstructors, planning to kill two obstructors each with impact attacks before hitting the eradicators. But despite needing only a 4 to hit and 6 to kill, the obstructors succeed in obstructing, the impact attacks fail, and two lances fail the charge. Thankfully, assault shots and Laddermore's lightning generator shot kill all but three of the remaining obstructors. But the eradicators remain untouched, and three lances are still left twisting in the wind, unable to reposition back due to poor dice and failed charges.

The hurricane activates and opens up with its lightning generator guns. They can only slam medium or small-based models, so to maximize what they can do, I start slamming the heavy infantry. I slam one perforator into another, and slam one eradicator into another, netting four knocked down models.

The unpainted unit of stormlances is hesitant to commit while Lucant is under feat, so they take a few pot shots and stay at the edge of the zone.

Stryker moves rebuke to the recipricators who are just coming out of the rubble, and recasts deceleration. Rhupert gives the stormlances tough, and the arcane shield moves to the hurricane.


Convergence Turn 3

The two obstructors move out of the way and into the forest, then the eradicators charge the stormlances, killing two, but leaving one that was within their reach alive. I forget to roll tough checks. The perforators open fire at the hurricane, but the fact that two were knocked down means that only three get to shoot, and only two hit. Also, the fact that the hurricane is now arcane shielded with deceleration means that they're shooting at an ARM 24 colossal. Armor piercing brings that down to ARM 15, but they do no real damage. The rebuked reciprocators walk up, and the conservators walk forward.


Cygnar Turn 3

Now it's time for Stryker's feat. With Lucant's feat out of the way, I can finally commit the lances who've been jockeying for position all this time, and get some work done. A questionable charge from my left lances last turn lost me two of them, and lost the potential for a charge with a third, but I needed to prevent them from jamming me out of that zone. I start planning an intricate Rube Goldberg plan to double dip on positive charge.

I'm going to need to make sure as many models as possible are within Stryker's feat, and make sure to move the hurricane and the stormlance that's base-to-base with it out of the way if I want to put positive charge on the sentinel and run it over to help out the stormlances and laddermore. Also, I plan to have the hurricane make a sweep power attack, which means I need to get rid of one of those recipricators in order to get in place to reach that back row of models.

The journeyman warcaster aims and boosts damage, then Stryker takes two unboosted magnum shots at it (did you know that Stryker2's gun is ROF2?) but none of these do nearly enough. Stryker feats, casts positive charge on the sentinel, and after some debate he decides to camp three rather than cast deceleration, as he's really leaving himself out there, and I'm going to have his shield guard running all the way to the other side of the map.

The unpainted lances charge. Two go after clockwork angels, and the other three go after recipricators. Between cavalry charges and e-leaps, the angels are toast, and those two stormlances reposition to be within Stryker's feat. Next, the painted stormlances need to activate to move that one stormlance out of the way. They charge obstructors and eradicators, tearing them up.

The hurricane doesn't have an ideal landing spot, and so is only able to power attack: sweep five models, and only hits four of them. With a POW22 attack, he kills everything he hits. Boy do I wish I could have gotten him a bit further forward. He buys two more attacks to finish off everything else in his melee range.

The sentinel runs over to give positive charge to the painted stormlances, and Laddermore charges, making use of it. Her two lightning generators, impact attacks, and the positive charged lance take out a lot.

Then comes Stryker's feat, which is the main reason I'd gotten positive charge in place where it was. Two of the three lances and Laddermore each make a MAT 8 POW 16 attack, and Laddermore gets another lightning generator, which finishes off all the eradicators. Due to the enigma foundries, three obstructors remain.


Convergence Turn 4

Despite me moving one stormlance into its position specifically to prevent the conservator from attacking the hurricane, it's able to get positive charge and walk in a circle around the stormlance, staying in its front arc, as it didn't need to charge in order to get there. With the two conservators attacking at POW19 under hand of vengeance and positive charge, rolling dice minus four, they're able to take out the already-damaged hurricane. Interestingly, they barely manage to do this, rolling four damage on the final attack to take out its last four boxes, which means that if Arlan had repaired d3 boxes on the hurricane the previous turn rather than giving it a focus it didn't need, the hurricane might have survived.

A newly reborn wave of obstructors charge into Katherine Laddermore, trying like hell to kill her. But she has ten boxes, and by the end of the turn they've only taken out eight of them. The still-rebuked recipricators aren't able to do much to the unpainted stormlances.

Cygnar Turn 4

This is absolutely a game that could still go either way, but it's late at night, and I feel like I've got a good shot at an assassination.

The lynchpin is getting that leftmost conservator out of the way so that Stryker doesn't need to take a free strike on the way in. My slam guns are gone, so the best plan would be to give the sentinel pathfinder and have it slam the conservator to knock it down, but in order to do that, I'd have had to make the sentinel toe the forest to get line of sight, which I didn't do. So that's out.

I spend a bit looking for other angles, but the end, Stryker needs to make the run and take the free strike. He draws the last focus from the squire, going to 7 focus, and gets arcane shield from the journeyman, then overloads. He takes 11 damage, knocking him down to 6 boxes, and rolls the same twice, getting 11 additional points of strength, bringing his weapon to POW26. He charges the conservator and does a weak four points of damage. Then he casts velocity to move the six inches further he needs to reach Lucant. The conservator gets a free strike and hits. Stryker has arcane shield and focus, so he can burn 5 damage, so it will take 11 damage to kill him. My opponent rolls exactly an eleven, and the Conservator drives an ablator blade through Stryker's back. A magically accelerated corpse lands near Lucant's feet.

Final Thoughts

• Had Stryker lived, he'd have had a decent chance at an assassination. He was going at Lucant with a number of POW 26 attacks. Lucant was 14/17 with 21 boxes, camping 3, which is pretty damn tough. I plugged it into Oddsmachine, and if Stryker had burned a focus on the way in and had three attacks, it would have been a 48% chance assassination. If the Conservator had missed and Stryker went in with 4 attacks, he had a 68% chance to get it.
• Heavy Infantry have always been something I've seriously struggled with in Cygnar. This list is the one that I'd have played into that if given the choice.
• If nothing else, writing up this battle report helped me learn a lot about Convergence infantry. Perforators, eradicators, reciprocators, velociraptors, who can keep track of these names?
• With a colossal, two 20-point units, and an 8 point solo, I'd gone for a low model count army, thinking it would play quickly. But stormlances have quite a lot going on between impact attacks, assault shots, cavalry charges, and e-leaps.