Editing Warmachine/Tactics/Convergence of Cyriss (section)

===Warcasters===

*'''Aurora, Numen of Aerogenesis:''' While most other teenagers were off getting high, Aurora was learning how to fly!  She is the Iron Mothers flesh and blood daughter, so you can imagine what that would do to a person to have a metal squid as a parent...  She wants to become a clockwork vessel but her mom won't let her (typical parent!) so instead she focuses all her energy on killing the enemies of the great work (typical angsty teenager!).  Aurora is the factions extremely fast assassin caster.  Her fluff, special rules and tier list all tend to want more clockwork angel units than anything else.  

:'''''Field Marshal [Apparition]''''':  All of your jacks (and aurora herself) get an additional 2" at the very start of your turn.  This turns our mediocre spd 4 jacks into spd 6 jacks which isn't half bad.  Also helpful for bumping up our jacks 2" so that they can potentially sac movement to gain the aiming bonus which is always handy since her RAT isn't stellar. Also note that Apparation places the battlegroup instead of pushing or advancing, so you can use that to get your 'jacks out of melee and stuff.

:'''''(Feat) Eleventh Hour ''''':  Gives the army refuge.  The biggest thing this is used for is to try to assassinate the enemy caster when they think they're safe (When combined with her spell- flashing blade).  Spelled out- she starts her turn and apparitions up 2".  She charges 7"+3"+2"reach+2" diffuser beacon, hopefully onto an enemy heavy or something with low def. She uses her initial charge attack then ends combat.  Refuges forward another 7", going directly over the enemy heavy.  She is immune to free strikes in this second movement and she can fly directly over any models or terrain.  She then uses flashing blade to hit the enemy caster 6 times.  If this fails, then you have probably just lost.  So that's an assassination run from 7+3+2diffusor+2apparition+7refuge+2reach=23" away, flying over their screening models...  Before you start this assassination you need to move an angel into melee with whatever you're hoping to kill.  Aurora's flank ability gives her +2 to hit and an extra die of damage.  Without that, she's not going to be killing any caster that is camping any focus/ fury.

*'''Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer:''' Fluffed as a bat-shit insane leader of a minor cyriss off shoot.  When the main cyriss faction went to exterminate this minor offshoot, the Iron mother was so impressed by his bat-shit tendencies she decided to keep him.  Unlike most of the faction he is a fleshy human wrapped up in a metal suit (which means he can't be healed like several of the other casters)...but it means that he has hammers for hands...  His model is one of the derpiest in the game, so prepare for your opponent to make a thor reference, yell out HAMMER TIME, or to ask how this poor bastard gets his pants up.  As can be expected from a man with hammers for hands, his RAT (and thus the RAT of his battlegroup) is total garbage at 2 but his MAT is a sexy 7.  

:'''''Field Marshal [Counter-Charge]''''':  Gives all jacks (and himself) counter-charge which allows you to smash your opponent in the face pretty hard if they decide to get close.  This creates an interesting dynamic that forces you not only to plan your charge lanes but your counter-charge lanes in case your opponent gets feisty.  Plan your movement accordingly and know when NOT to use the ability as counter charging one enemy can leave your newly advanced model in range of other enemies that may have been out of range before... This field marshal ability LOVES the inverter due to its ability to knockdown opponents. <strike>"I made my charge"</strike> "I got the piss knocked out of me on my turn!!" Another interesting thing to do is to counter-charge with axis himself...who has beat back to push the enemy away from the model it charged and prevent that attack altogether! 

:'''''(Feat) Circumpotence ''''': Gives -2 STR and SPD to enemies and +2 STR and SPD to friendlies in his control area.  This feat is offensive...it's defensive...it's everything you want on a stick and more!! Pop it at the beginning of your turn to increase the threat range of every single model in your army and increase how hard they hit....did your assassination/ full frontal rape-fest not do the trick?  Well, now your opponent can't charge you and when they swing they are slightly more pillow fisted!  If you are able to get Axis in melee with the opponents army when he has full focus he should be able to tear them a new one ON HIS OWN!  Double strike gives him 14 POW 16 (on feat turn) attacks!! and he's able to move up the field while attacking so if there are infantry in the way...you beat back their corpses and get into the juicy center of their army where you continue going ape shit!...seems like suicide...until you consider he has a lot of robots swarming in behind him!! (Did we mention the bat-shit insane tendencies?)

*'''Iron Mother Directrix:''' The squid mother was recently elected to lead the Convergence.  She decided that full scale war would be the best bet...pretty solid plan seeing as the rest of the land is already mobilized for war and Cyriss really doesn't have any standing forces at the moment, but I digress.  The iron mother elected transform into a clockwork form early in life and has taken to improving her form much over the years.  She is currently in the form of a man-sized-blade-squid that randomly spawns balls to follow her into battle.  THAT'S RIGHT! She spawns metal balls for when she goes into battle!  She misses her human form (which is why she doesn't want Aurora to transform yet) but she can't tell anyone that lest she be viewed as a non-devout.  

:'''''Field Marshal [Arc node]''''': She and her battlegroup are all arc nodes. This is amazing.  Her balls also gain arc node because they are part of her warcaster unit and therefore part of the battlegroup.  This means that when she activates the two balls can move in opposite directions and then cast spells for the mother as long as they don't run (if they run then that means the unit ran).  Her arc node ability comes in really handy when you fight other warmachine factions especially due feedback and dominate. Do note that if you issue a run/charge order, you can have Iron Mother charge one of your balls, then have the charged ball fly off to where you need an arc node. This precludes the use of your chest gun, but allows you to cast spells exactly where you need them. 

:'''''(Feat) Mathematical Perfection''''':  Her MAT and RAT both become her Focus stat for one turn.  This means that for one turn every vector in your army can hit anything and everything (MAT/ RAT= 8).  And this is not to mention the fact that you should probably have attunement servitors or ciphers spitting out marker lights everywhere to make you an effective MAT/ RAT 10!  This feat can help win a game but in and of itself is not game breaking (though the idea of a colossal at MAT/RAT 8 having drag and POW 20 fists is pretty scary).  Note that if Denny1 lowers your focus with her feat then your MAT/ RAT will only go to 6... 

*'''Father Lucant, Divinity Architect:''' The old man of the faction.  Literally created the first functional clockwork vessel a couple hundred years ago.  He has taken a back seat in the religion of Cyriss and is content to watch events unfold.  Having said that, many consider him to be one of the strongest casters Cyriss has to offer.  

:'''''Field Marshal [Shield guard]''''': He and all of his vector buddies can take ranged hits for each other or other models in the army.  This adds a level of survivability to some of the more fragile elements of the list.  If your opponent ever wants to shoot at the servitors/ optifexes/ light infantry you can have a heavy step in the way of the shot which is great considering Lucant's feat.

:'''''(Feat) Clockwork Reinforcement''''': All ff models in his control range get +4 ARM and repair checks auto-pass.  This takes your light jacks to a beastly ARM20!!  Not only that but you will also have a turn of beefing your health back to full.  This is a purely defensive feat that will go a long way to countering your opponents feat (hopefully). Timing this feat properly allows you to overextend your army a bit and weather the retaliation very well, which is the main reason why Lucant can wrest back territory in a scenario despite his army's typically slow speed. 

*'''Forge Master Syntherion:''' Fluffed as a savant completely disconnected from his humanity that hates leaving his workshop and ruthlessly disposes of any who fail him, making him the steampunk robot equivalent of every engineering professor you've ever had.  Syntherion is a 'jack heavy warcaster in a 'jack heavy faction, and it's not hard to see why: between an array of strong vector-centric upkeeps (that he can upkeep for free thanks to Resourceful) and minimal support for infantry, you generally want to load up with as many vectors as you can feasibly run.  This isn't to say that infantry don't have a place, but Syntherion's ability to cover many of his bases with the best overall offensive stats for a Convergence warcaster (6/5) and the various tools provided by his vectors means that taking them is more down to taste rather than necessity.  Keep in mind, though, that an army full of SPD 4/5 vectors will not be beating anyone to objectives or zones, so you will generally be building around assassination or grinding it out rather than hoping to sweep your opponent by scenario.

:'''''Field Marshal [Auto-Repair]''''': Models in Syntherion's battlegroup heal D3 every turn.  Simple and effective, this allows you to shrug off incidental damage advancing up the field and turns your vectors into pseudo-warbeasts (where any vector that isn't dead is only 1-2 points of healing away from being a significant threat again).  Note that this happens after focus allocation, so you won't be able to directly allocate focus if a vector begins the turn with its induction node disabled: given the various ways you have to move focus onto vectors though, this is no great loss.

:'''''(Feat) Technological Superiority''''': models in Syntherion's battlegroup can charge for free and gain Weapon Platform.  In case you were confused by the roughly half-dozen variants PP has for "you can shoot your gun in melee", Weapon Platform allows you to target models in your melee range with ranged attacks, but you [[derp|still suffer the target in melee penalty against them]].  You'll generally want to use this rule to shoot at targets not engaging the firer, unless you ignore the in-melee penalty (Prime Axiom, for being a colossal) or you don't care about directly hitting (Cipher).  Also remember that you have to use ALL your initial attacks (both ranged and melee) before you buy additional attacks, or you lose them.  Finally, you still have to do everything in order, so no fire gun->charge target->melee attacks.

:Despite all this, this feat is deceptively powerful.  Free charges are always nice, but Weapon Platform is amazing given how many vectors have guns attached to them.  Critically, Weapon Platform makes being engaged in melee mostly irrelevant for your gun-vectors: the Monitor can still snipe that critical solo and the Cipher can use its Bombardment shots to clear the chaff humping its legs or flare the target it's going to punch.  A Prime Axiom becomes a ballcrusher under this feat, as it can make a whopping '''nine''' attacks (3 shots from the Accelespiker, two tow cable attacks and their follow up melee attacks, THEN its two initial melee attacks) before spending a single point of focus, which will reliably skullfuck anything unfortunate enough to be in tow cable range.  The best time to pop the feat will depend on opponent and your build: in general you'll want to use it when you're bogged down by the opponent or you're about to get stuck in, but you can do some fun tricks (e.g. charge a target, THEN use the extra distance you got from the charge to fire your gun at another target your opponent thought was too far away to get sniped) where you may want to keep it in reserve. One more thing to note is that this feat extends the drag threat of the Prime Axiom by quite a bit (with Magnetic Hold & Diffuser shot, charge 12" + shoot 11" = 23" drag threat). This can turn out to be quite the gotcha if you get a +3~+4 bonus from Synergy going.

:'''''Spells''''':
:*''Convection'': a 2-cost spell that does a single POW 12 and dishes out a focus if you finish the target off.  Meh.

:*''Hot Shot'': Target battlegroup model gains boosted ranged attack damage rolls.  Works on any ranged vector (or even Syntherion himself), but you'll get more mileage out of a target that can force multiple damage rolls every turn.  Ciphers are probably the best choice by default, as the ability to throw out two 4" AOEs with fully boosted damage (even if only POW 6 base) will go a long way towards keeping all but the most heavily-armored infantry in check.  Assimilators are good targets as well, though you trade the Cipher's quantity for the flexibility of Ground Pounder.  Cycle this spell between two Ciphers and watch light infantry everywhere piss their pants.

:*''Magnetic Hold'': -2 SPD and DEF for the affected model/unit, and friendly constructs gain additional movement when charging an affected model.  Would be worth it just for the SPD debuff alone, as being able to deny a unit of weapon masters the charge makes your vectors that much more survivable.  The obvious downside is that this spell costs half of Syntherion's focus: boost or Flare your target to ensure that it sticks, because you don't want to be casting it twice if you can help it.

:*''Reconstruct'': the Warmachine version of Saeryn's spell, slightly better as most vectors have more systems than warbeasts have aspects.  As with Saeryn you don't want to plan too heavily around this spell: while in some cases your vector might die on the very last attack and heal up without threat of further damage, in just as many the spell will trigger and your opponent will use one more attack to destroy it anyway.  Still, with all the Repair in Convergence it doesn't hurt to have it up if you can spare it: Syntherion's field marshal ability plus the large amount of Repair in faction means that your vectors can come back from near destruction to somewhat-pristine very quickly, and if nothing else this will force your opponent to commit more to destroying the affected vector than he might otherwise have been willing to use.

:*''Synergy'': While it's tempting to look at this spell and decide to RUN ALL THE GALVANIZERS in imitation of [[Warmachine/Tactics/Retribution_of_Scyrah|eVyros]] or [[Warmachine/Tactics/Protectorate_of_Menoth|Amon Ad-Raza]], resist the urge.  While Syntherion may have a superior mechanic in focus induction, Vyros and Amon have both better lights (compare the raw combat ability of the Galvanizer to a Griffon/Repenter/Dervish) and non-Synergy damage buffs (Arcanists, Choir) that allow them to run a herd of light warjacks that don't need to rack up a huge synergy chain before they can even hope to begin penetrating heavy targets.  Instead, view this as a nice passive ability that you get for free (since it is the only upkeep that Syntherion can have on himself, unless you give him Hot Shot for some odd reason): most of your SPD 4 walkers and the Prime Axiom come with strong melee weapons by default, so you only need a couple Synergy stacks before they reliably start trashing most targets in melee.  Bringing a Galvinizer or three for the Synergy boost isn't necessarily wrong, of course, but make sure you're getting enough utility out of them otherwise to justify not taking another heavy instead.  Also remember that Syntherion is a part of his battlegroup, and so benefits from (and can count towards) Synergy in a pinch.