Warmachine: Obstructors Tactics
Convergence gets its first full 10-man unit (well, 10-construct anyway) in the form of the Obstructors. Are they good for more than just getting in the way?
Ultimately, not really… which is just fine. At 6 points for 10 bodies with reach, the Obstructors are a cheap way to threaten free strikes, jam up the enemy, and keep them from getting to the juicier parts of your army. At a middling MAT 6 / POW 11, you’re not going to be using them as a primary source of hitting power. Like Legionnaires, no one is going to look across the table and be scared that you brought a single unit of Obstructors. But thanks to combined melee attack, they are just threatening enough against a variety of targets that they can’t be ignored, either.
Their thematically appropriate interlocking shields provide the Shield Wall ability, bringing them up to ARM 18 when base to base. You’ll often want to forgo using it, in favor of running up the board more quickly or spreading out to avoid continuous effects and blasts. But it is quite useful for surviving your typical POW 10 anti-infantry shooting. Interestingly, their teleflails are chain weapons, meaning they can ignore enemy shields and shield wall.
One exception to their mostly workmanlike stats is a pitifully low command score of 7. On the face of it, this is a bit of an issue for spreading them out sufficiently to occupy space. But this drawback is almost completely outweighed by the Construct rule. They never have to worry about failing command checks, and will defend scenario zones to the last. More than that, there are a huge number of in-game effects that only apply to living models, which they can handily ignore:
Anatomical Precision
Annihilating Gaze
Ashen Veil
Awe
Bleed
Blood Thirst
Breath Taker
Carnivore
Corpse Token
Death Toll
Paralysis
Poison
Reanimation
I’m sure I’ve missed some, there are so many it’s hard to keep track of them all. Effects that only work against Constructs, on the other hand? Uh, well, there’s… Erosion… and… yeah. Construct is a good thing.
Of the casters that are currently released, Obstructors definitely work best with the two humans, Axis and Aurora. Syntherion can use them as a blocking unit, but normal infantry isn’t allowed in his theme force. His tier bonuses are too good to pass up, in my opinion. On the other hand, both Axis and Aurora can hand out army-wide pathfinder every turn, which is a great ability for infantry. Aurora can let them walk 7″ in shield wall, and Transference means you don’t have to worry about rolling double ones on that critical CMA. Axis’ feat gives them one turn of hitting as hard as Iron Fang Pikemen, at a greater threat range.
Speaking of Axis, once the Enigma Foundry is released, you’re sure to see at least some people trying out Axis’ theme force with a ton of obstructors. 10 obstructors may not pose a problem, but you can bet that many armies are going to have an issue facing 30 obstructors. Especially 30 obstructors that get advance deploy and can bring 12 models per turn back to life. And that’s less than half his army points, leaving plenty to spend on Reductors to spray down anything that gets hung up on the Obstructors.
So how are you planning to run your Convergence – giant stompy robots, or swarms of inexorable machine men?
