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I've been looking through War Room at the Convergence of Cyriss deck, and I can't help but find myself thinking that some a fair number of things seem a bit broken, at least in theory. Making all 'jacks in the battlegroup into arc nodes or having all of them heal d3 points per round, in addition to the oftentimes excellent stats that the 'jacks get from being able to take their warcaster's MAT and RAT, just sounds a bit over the top.

Am I over-thinking things? Is there some hidden counterbalance or trade-off that I'm missing? Has anyone seen such things demonstrated in play?



Note: I'm not accusing the CoC of being broken. I'm just saying that from my standpoint they seem theoretically broken. I'm just hoping someone can give me insight into the topic.

Generally speaking, having them share MAT and RAT makes them weaker than other factions, rather than stronger. The majority of CoC jacks have ranged attacks, but only one caster has a statline of 6 mat/5 rat- everyone else is lower than that. 6 mat 5 rat is one of the lowest statlines available for other factions, I really don't know why you think it's good.

Then, look at their infantry choices. They are the only faction in the game that has infantry that cap out at pow 11-no-wm for small-based models. That's downright anemic. Their med. based models cap out at 12, which is also very, very poor. They /have/ to be using those jacks from above to do nearly anything.

Finally, their jacks aren't cheap. Their 'walker' chassis start at 8 points, and their hover chassis start at 6, but that's for a pow 14 heavy jack. Their 'walker' chassis jacks aren't bad, to be sure, but you really do pay for it, especially given their poor base stats.

Their warjacks are also pretty damned slow. The walker chassis is SPD 4 base, and with DEF/ARM 10/19, they will get shot up pretty bad. Diffusers and some warcasters help in this, but they are going to get chewed up a bit on the entry, and they need help from said light to not get ran circles around by some Factions like Legion, Circle, Skorne, Cryx or Retribution.

As noted, the MAT/RAT totals to a bit lower than some other Factions. This is the Protectorate statline, but without a Choir (although Flare from the bots help). They also have weird melee angle stuff. Only one heavy has Reach, and while the Invertor hits like a truck on one hit, it's follow-ups are aneimic barring specific warcaster effects. The Cipher, their bread-and-butter warjack, is PC 9, and caps at P+S 18 for its fists unless yous et things up (which thier casters can do, but it takes work).

The Faction has a bit of skillcap issues, and you need both things to start doing things right in order or you start tripping over yourself. I think Factions with good control, like Cryx, Circle or Cygnar give them issues. And while things like Prime Axiom can hit hard, they could have issues longer term against solid bunker-busting infantry or super-high ARM. I'm not sure they answer opposing Colossals very well save with one of their warcasters either.

So yeah, all and all, it's actually pretty subtle. A lot of stuff looks powerful on paper, but you have to realize that a lot of things often have to happen first before that happens. I have been finding that Circle Orboros at least has the control, range, and ocassional hitting power to do alright. I kind of wonder longer term how Factions like Skorne, Legion, Cygnar and Retribution do, but I think those Factions have pretty good game against the.

And stuff.

Yeah, the thing abut Convergance is that they actually by their base numbers are a bit sub-par, what makes them good is when all the bits function together - they have a jack that increase threat range, another that gives +2 to hit, most of the casters have ways to bring up damage output, and there's lots of focus to help with boosting (but only if you activate and use your jacks in the right order and close to other jacks).

They're not just a faction with clockwork soldiers, the whole faction *plays* like clockwork too, but if a gear is removed or out of place, everything starts falling apart pretty quickly. I think they're balanced quite well around that ideal, however it will take a bit more time (and the rest of their releases) to work out where they stand exactly.

Very good analysis from both Blaque and BoardroomHero, you guys are spot on! Have an Exalt!

I think that my issue in estimating the power of the CoC was that in my head I kept assuming ideal scenarios in which everything was working in perfect conjunction.

@BoardroomHero: I was more concerned with MAT than with RAT, since I had noticed that RAT scores were a bit lacking with the warcasters.

 grayshadow87 wrote:
I think that my issue in estimating the power of the CoC was that in my head I kept assuming ideal scenarios in which everything was working in perfect conjunction.

@BoardroomHero: I was more concerned with MAT than with RAT, since I had noticed that RAT scores were a bit lacking with the warcasters.

You can usually count on a target being knocked down or flared, basically all convergences shooting that isn't a spray is focused on hitting heavies anyway (or not hitting at all in the case of a cypher) which aren't exactly hard to hit

 grayshadow87 wrote:
I think that my issue in estimating the power of the CoC was that in my head I kept assuming ideal scenarios in which everything was working in perfect conjunction.

@BoardroomHero: I was more concerned with MAT than with RAT, since I had noticed that RAT scores were a bit lacking with the warcasters.

MAT still stretches from 7 to 5, and 6 is most common. High mat scores are associated with poor rat with one exception, as well, which is a real problem when nearly all your jacks come with ranged attacks that you're paying for.

That's on the low side, as compared to most factions.

 BoardroomHero wrote:

 grayshadow87 wrote:
I think that my issue in estimating the power of the CoC was that in my head I kept assuming ideal scenarios in which everything was working in perfect conjunction.

@BoardroomHero: I was more concerned with MAT than with RAT, since I had noticed that RAT scores were a bit lacking with the warcasters.

MAT still stretches from 7 to 5, and 6 is most common. High mat scores are associated with poor rat with one exception, as well, which is a real problem when nearly all your jacks come with ranged attacks that you're paying for.

I believe this is by design, most of your jacks come with weapons you dont care if they hit or not (cypher/terrain) or only have one shot so you might as well boost and hand off the focus (lights) the TEP and pretty much the best anti-jam infantry in the game (the mediums with bucklers and the super cheap spraybots) can take care of high defenses, or you just throw around puncture aoe's who dont care if they hit.

Its kind of a weird place to be, Iron mother does have a feat turn of crazy high RAT for her army if you chose to go that way.