Irrestitable Attraction, or how to magnetize your CoC

Hobby article! How the mighty have fallen.

When I started buying Convergence vector kits, I had a bit of trouble finding good articles about magnetizing the warjacks and what kind of magnets to use.  I found some decent videos on youtube (eg. Crippled System and Fresh Coast Gaming) which weren't concise enough for my tastes, so here is my summary:  

What you need

• 3mm x 1mm rare earth/neodymium magnets
  These are really strong magnets that you need for this stuff to hold together. These by law cannot be displayed in stores in NZ (kinda like tobacco products) due to issues with small children swallowing them. I had to order them from an online distributor, but make sure you are VERY CAREFUL with these as they are very small and easy to lose. 3mm is the perfect size for the Hover Vectors (you barely need to use a drill.
• Drill bits! 1mm and 3mm are what I used. Basically you need one drill bit for pinning, and one drill bit to drill shallow holes for the magnets.
• A good hand drill or small dremel drill. Hopefully big enough to fit the 3mm drill bit, because the two I had weren't. Using your fingers as a pin vice is very time consuming and not all that fun.
• Paper clips or whatever you use to pin things (and something to clip them)
• Super glue (obviously)
• A positive mental attitude 

 

Tips on preparing your pieces

• See the photo dump below for specifics.
• Most preparation ends up drilling wholes where stumps are on the original model. The weapons should also be put together.
• For the walker vectors, you want to put the shoulders together.
• Make sure you double check the polarity of the magnets before gluing them. They are VERY hard to take back out after the glue has set due to their size. 

Untested Advice!
The Walker vector's right arm is a bit special. There are 3 pieces that can potentially go there:

1. Cipher's Piston Spike
2. Monitor's Saw flinger
3. Inverter's Phallic Dongalator

The reason it is wierd is that the Saw Flinger piece includes the whole shoulder piece, and the Dongalator piece includes the swivel part that is glued into the shoulder piece (see the first picture below for what I mean).
While I chose to set up the right arm just like the left arm (thereby cutting the Dongalator swivel part away), I theorize it would probably be better (both visually and practically) if you did not glue the swivel part into the shoulder piece and instead glue the swivel part permanently onto the Cipher's Piston Spike attachment.
Then you can magnetize the Dongalator's and the Piston Spike's respective swivel parts, which would be a stronger and tighter joint by far, reducing weapon flaccidness on the table. Nobody likes a flaccid Dongelator.

Walker Vector:

Left + Right shoulders - glue in the lower piece.
Pin inserted for stability.

Walker body side - notice the pin hole.

Walker body front.

Walker heads

This piece is the reason the shoulders aren't glued on: the Monitor's right arm is a complete piece. I guess you could glue the Vector's left shoulder on as all the left arm pieces are detachable (see below)

All the left arm pieces. Notice the use of green stuff to fill the hole, as it is a little too deep by default.

Hover Vector:

Body for the Hover Vector. There is a magnet under each arm, where the little stumps were.

Reverse of the Hover vector. This magnet is entirely for the Modulator backpack. It's not necessary but it looks cool, and when painted shouldn't show much.

Modulator backpack. After everything has been glued, you can put this in hot water or under a strong light for a few seconds to lightly bend the cables to the appropriate place.

Some of the Hover weapons. The hole fits magnets almost perfectly by default.

Bad photo of a Hover head with magnet showing.

Now you just need to undercoat everything, and weep in pain at the trauma you have just inflicted on yourself.

Eat a Box of CoCs

Starting right at the beginning, like a noob. I've managed to play a few Battlebox games with Convergence and thought I should write my thoughts on the matter, to tag along with some pictures of my CoC :O

Bright red CoC, ready to party

Overview

I think the CoC Battlebox is actually quite strong and well put together compared to some of the others (1). It has a good single target damage output thanks to the Cipher and the Synergy spell, it has good survivability thanks to Syntherion's toolkit and Field Marshall bonus, and has good control options with the Cipher and Mitigator's guns. It does suffer a bit in that it lacks ranged damage output, and the two lights hit like wet noodles compared to other Battleboxes so if you lose the Cipher, your CoC is deep in a hole.

Syntherion

The first thing to point out about Syntherion is that he quite respectable defensive capabilities in the Battlebox, largely because he is able to camp quite a bit of focus thanks to Induction and is Repairable (by the Galvanizer and his Field Marshall). This makes him quite hard to kill. He also is pretty good in melee, with 2xP+S 14s thingos to swing with (which can get pretty threatening with Synergy).

His abilities are also quite sweet - Resourceful allows him to upkeep for free (even more focus efficiency to allow him to camp more focus) and Field Marshall: Auto Repair, which makes a huge difference in a format where things are not usually one-rounded.

His feat Technological Superiority - average at the best of times - is certainly not stellar in the Battlebox. It is used primarily for free charges but that extra pseudo focus can make all the difference to your charging Cipher as it is effectively an extra attack. The Weapon Platform effect is situationally useful. The main thing to remember is that although you can shoot while engaged, if you shoot something that is engaged, you get a -4 to hit. I find the best use of it is to get extra range on a KD/Flare shot via the Mitigator/Cipher, or to throw out a Crater shot on a potential counter-charging warjack. It is also pretty much a guaranteed +2 to hit for your Cipher when he throws it on his charge target and it deviates 0".

Horrible sculpt/model, but I think the red baboon face gives him some personality.

Moving onto spells, he has 3 shining stars:

• Reconstruct is amazing in a Battlebox game when put on your Cipher. This is because a lot of Battlebox games basically come down to who loses their heavy first, since it is rare for other models to be able to deal enough damage to take out a healthy heavy. Furthermore, because of the low number of attacks, it is actually quite likely that your opponent will not have enough attacks to finish off the Cipher. Next turn the Cipher auto repairs, you stack Synergy, and get their heavy, then probably manage to win (especially if you can repair the Cipher up some more).
• Synergy is quite good in Battlebox games despite the limited number of models - it is worth the upkeep slot at a mere +1/+1. Even the Galvanizer becomes (somewhat) threatening at MAT 9 P+S 15. 
• Last but not least, Magnetic Hold is a generally nut-stompingly good debuff that simply becomes ok in a Bbox game. The catch is that without arc nodes, Syntherion has to get pretty far up to cast it, and that means you probably want to charge and kill whatever you put it on or risk losing your caster. Thus the -2 SPD and upkeep aspect mean very little. Regardless, +2" of charge threat and -2 DEF is quite good and can win games.

He does have two spells which are more or less 'useless' (aka. 5% spells) in the Battlebox format - Hot Shot and Convection. Convection is basically a shitty 2 cost nuke with no opportunity to grant an extra focus (which with Induction is actually quite valuable) and Hot Shot only really affects Syntherion since the Mitigator only ever does 1pt of damage, and the Cipher has a POW 6 blast AoE that can't really harm anything in a Bbox format outside the squishiest casters.

Cipher

The Cipher is your heavy hitter. It has 2xPOW 18 Penetrator Pistons that stack up very nicely with Synergy. What the Cipher does bring which hard hitters usually don't is buckets of utility, primarily via its phallic face gun.

• The most important shot of the three available in the Battlebox format is the Crater shot. If your opponent lacks pathfinder, this basically takes a model out of the game for a round.
• Secondly, our gun-faced friend can also throw out a POW 6 blast damage AoE. Great for churning up lightly armored high DEF infantry, but in a Battlebox game this is pretty useless unless you're just fishing for boosted damage on a caster when you have focus to waste.
• Finally, Flare is also very helpful if for some reason the target can't be KD first by the Mitigator or in combination with Syntherion's feat as mentioned before.
• Oh, he is also RoF: 2. Neato. Throwing out 2x 4" Craters on Turn 2 can seriously slow down an opponent in a Battlebox match.

Having a gun for a face is certainly logical.
What need does a machine of war have for a face?

Last point - remember that the Cipher is Steady. This means you can do some cool stuff with it, like hitting it with your Mitigator's Bola to unengage it from nearby models so it can walk off and kill something.

Mitigator

This little dude is pretty sweet. I find I get a lot of work out of his gun to KD things. The AoE Puncture does very little in Battlebox games but it is regardless very useful just for the KD. Chewing up your opponent's resources on shaking makes a big difference to your survival in Battlebox games - that's one less attack on your heavy or caster if they get the jump on you!
Furthermore, although he is terrible in melee, you can still use him to build Synergy stacks - even better if you do so via a push or slam. 

I quite like the glowing crotch lamp. Nice touch PP.

The relatively short range of his gun means you have to play him a little further forward than you might like to with a ranged-only jack, but you have so few models in this format that this doesn't matter too much and you can use him to roadblock a bit.

Galvanizer 

Very cute. He doesn't do much, except threaten that he might do something as a result of Synergy stacks. And he can repair everything in your list, which is cool. Grievous Wounds can also be super sweet against Hordes, since taking out an aspect will be quite meaningful. Or taking transfers away. Basically I just use him as a gadfly on the flank, a synergy stack for Syntherion/Cipher, or a friendly little repair bot you can always deal some pain on the counter charge.

Galvanizer's best side.

Conclusion

So the overall generic strategy is to put Reconstruct on the Cipher, Synergy on Syntherion and run everything turn 1 (for 1 focus!). After that, you want to try to kill their heavy-hitter with your Cipher and try to control their models as much as possible with KDs and Crater shots to limit retaliation and give you the opportunity to have good board positioning. Use your lights and terrain to try to control charge lanes, and always keep your eyes on the assassination.

Remember your win conditions - you win when their caster is dead OR all their warjacks are dead. The CoC Battlebox isn't especially great at achieving the former, is decent at achieving the latter, but is quite good at stopping both from happening!

(1) This isn't hard since I think most of the Battleboxes are crappy, especially the Hordes ones.

Reboot... Initiated

First post on this new blog. Just wanted to say hi and lay down some guidelines (pretend this is a sweet rap and I am not a pasty white guy).

This blog is likely to be very similar in structure and feel to my other Warmahordes blog, Rot 'n' Roll. Namely, it will primarily be about my opinions, thoughts and experiences painting, playing, theorymachining and simply enjoying CoC in all its phallic glory.

Some things you can probably expect to read here in the forthcoming months:

• Tactica articles for models (written in my inimitable style, after I actually get to play them)
• Rage posts
• Pictures of stuff I've painted
• Limited BatReps as a method for demonstrating certain finer points or anchoring a rage post
• Theorymachine
• Really bad CoC jokes (possibly mixed with dad jokes for a ruthless, brainmelting combo)
• More rage posts

Why I chose CoC

Recently my wife gave birth to twins, which essentially means that the next few months of my free time are 99% taken up with looking after them. After that, probably only about 85% for a few years. Long story short I currently have decent amounts of free-but-not-really-free-time at random hours of the day (2-7am is currently really popular) which are wonderfully filled by easy-to-drop activities like painting, modelling, playing guitar (unplugged, like a peasant), reading, watching TV and listening to podcasts. Basically anything that keeps me awake + aware and I can stop doing within 5 seconds to deal with spontaneous crying fits or vomit.

To help keep myself (partially) sane, I decided to start another army since Gators get very few releases. This army is the Convergence of Cyriss. But why CoC?

 1. Games Design

I've wanted to play a Warmachine faction since dropping Khador many years back. There was always one problem though - the focus mechanic is simply boring compared to fury (1).  It isn't dynamic at all and jacks are an inefficient use of resources in most factions.
There are two exceptions to this observation: PoM and CoC. PoM gets around jack focus inefficiency by spending army points on awesome support pieces to make the jacks significantly better (ie. Choir/Vassals) and produce more effective focus (ie. Reclaimers). CoC gets around this by modifying focus allocation and use via Induction (and the Corollary), which not only makes it efficient (over 100% more efficient) but makes it interesting! CoC is basically a huge piece of Hordes penetrating into Warmachine's dried-up womb.

Secondly, I believe that on average, competitive Hordes lists are more balanced than Warmachine lists, with again the aforementioned two factions. CoC allows you to play a decent number of warjacks with any caster without huge loss, thanks to Induction, the Corollary, and the Field Marshall bonuses. You have some casters that run more optimally when spamming infantry (Axis tier), and casters that really prefer having heaps of jacks (Syntherion) but overall the balance is far better than Cryx, Khador, Cygnar, Ret or Mercs.

Third, not being able to take Mercs is awesome. Primarily because you don't have to buy any! It greatly reduces your model pool and greatly improves your design space within that faction. All the OP Merc solos have been making Cygnar and Khador significantly less interesting for while a while, at least in my eyes. Plus I hate them. This is where CoC starts to edge out PoM in my book (2).

Fourth, CoC is currently free from the games design plague that is Tough. As far as I can see, there is ZERO tough in the faction. Instead, PP has used revolutionary concepts like 'repair', 'ARM buffs' and 'revive' in order to make things more survivable and grindy. F*ck Tough.  

Finally, CoC always wins ADR. With such a small pool of casters, who are all viable and competitive (to different degrees, but they are all above the mark), you can't lose. I've yet to play ADR and probably won't for another season, but the idea of it warms my heart.

Basically, what I am getting at is that CoC is the best designed faction in the game at the moment by a significant margin. It is probably where Gators would be if a) they weren't mercenary and b) they weren't lumped in with Pigs. This isn't really surprising, considering CoC were designed 100% with Mk2 in mind and were DC's brain child.

Looking down the steep hill at CoCs.

2. Aesthetics

I didn't like the models a lot at first (primarily because the Bbox molds are kinda crappy flashspams and I had bad experiences with the early PP plastics) but I think the TEP turned me around with its sweet hard plastic shaft. The jacks look pretty cool when fully-painted up and the heavy infantry is legit (I really like medium infantry, which is part of the reason I like Gators).

Another thing I like about the models is that they are representative of the faction's aesthetics and philosophy - modular, synergistic and potentially complicated as hell.

When the Convergence was announced, I didn't think too much of the fluff I had read. Which isn't saying much, since I stopped really enjoying WM fluff after the Kromac fluff drama and the general lack of permanent death in a war-torn environment. However during my sizable stay in hospital earlier this year, I managed to read through the entire CoC book on my phone (yes, this is as time consuming as it sounds) and I surprisingly really liked the Lucant origin story and the Cyrissian aesthetics and philosophy. The sweet irony of a religious order of physical scientists worshipping a science deity was also pretty cool.

This die is thorougly CoC-ed.

3. Practical Reasons

This is perhaps where I do most of my decision making. I have to like painting the models and playing the faction for sure, but practicality is where CoC distinguish themselves from competitors in my mind.

First, they mostly have plastic models. This is good because plastic is light, and pretty chip proof. Just varnish your models and throw them in a box, and you're good to go. Sweet. Also painting plastic feels very different to painting metal in my experience. Since Minions are almost 100% metal (resin battle engines aside), this is a good change for me. Also magnetizing jack kits is awesome (it saves money). I generally dislike painting plastic models, but I managed to solve this problem by buying some really good primer spray and choosing a color scheme and paint style that require only one uniform black undercoat.

Second, CoC is not a main faction and it was made quite clear by PP that they wouldn't get regular releases. Then PP releases AT LEAST 2 things for them next book (caster + 2nd Colossal). So basically as many releases as Gators. Sweet. 4 Warmahordes releases per year is cool for me and easy to keep up with, after the large initial time + money investment. And if CoC gets nothing, then it's not like there were any expectations in place. It's like you get all the benefits of being a real faction, without any of the downsides. And unlike Gators, it is actually a real faction.

Third, I can make penis jokes.

Fourth, I was looking at buying into Pigs as an alternate thing to do at 3am, but figured playing a real faction would be a better use of my resources, since Pigs are still craptacular and give me seizures just reading their stat cards. Thus I conclude that Pigs are much more valuable to me as a running joke than a Steamroller option I never chose to drop.


So there you have it - prepare for a really slow excretion of terrible reading material and increasingly horrible jokes.

A glorious CoC in its majestic state of dominance.

(1) Khador had Butcher2 who sort of makes up for it, but playing only one caster for over a year grinds you down eventually.
(2) PoM was actually my first 'serious' army. I was initially playing Cygnar for my first 10 games or so, but after getting a huge nerd boner over eKreoss' art in Apotheosis, I bought into PoM pretty hard and played that for about 2 years. I sucked at it, primarily because I liked to take jacks in Mk1 and their casters are boring in Mk2 (by design).