Warmachine: Attunement Servitors

Attunement Servitors will be nearly omnipresent in any Convergence of Cyriss army.  Whether you’re playing with them or against them, it’s good to know how they work.

by battlemechanik

The primary reason Attunement Servitors are going to be everywhere is one rule on their card: Flare.  Any model hit by a weapon with Flare suffers -2 DEF for a round.  Convergence RAT tops out at 5, so the faction is balanced around this ability, in much the same way Menoth is balanced around the Choir’s Hymn of Battle.

Normally, needing to hit with a RAT of 5 in order to trigger a DEF debuff would be a problem, but the Attunement Servitor’s gun has a 4″ AOE.  So as long as a servitor gets within 4″ of the target, the flare is guaranteed to deviate onto the target even if it misses.  They don’t have gunfighter, so make sure not to get in melee range of the target.  Getting where they want to be generally isn’t a problem with pathfinder and speed 6.  Basically this means anything starting within 10″ of a servitor can be debuffed, absent screening models or running to engage them.

At 3 models for 2 points, if all they did was flare, they’d probably be worth including.  However, they’re still solos, and highly mobile ones at that, with all of the normal uses of a solo.

2/3 of a point isn’t as cheap as Accretion Servitors, but it’s still the same cost per small base as a cheap 4/6 unit, with the advantage of individual activations.  They can’t make free strikes, but can still serve as effective lane blockers.  Two of them running can pin a model to prevent Enliven.  One of them can serve as a charge target for your own model.  With Syntherion’s feat in particular this can be used to get 5″ additional ranged threat.  They’re immune to knockdown, so can screen other more valuable small-based models (basically just Aurora at this point).

Most importantly, make sure you’re aware of scenario scoring rules relating to multiple-model solos that cost less than a point each.  Steamroller 2012 had fairly complex restrictions, but SR2013 has changed that to simply “A player controls a zone if he owns one or more models that are not immobile, fleeing, wild, or inert within it and no opponent contests it. There are no additional requirements for solos..”.  Of course they can contest normally as well.  There are effects on 3rd and 4th tiebreakers for points in a zone, but they’re pretty straightforward (basically, 1 out of 3 servitors remaining isn’t worth a point, 2 out of 3 is).

Finally, from a modeling point of view, they’re great.  Easy to assemble, easy to get a good glow effect around the “eye”, lighter to carry around than an equivalent number of humanoid small base figs.  The flight stands are good as well, just make sure to insert the taller ones towards the front of the base slot, not the rear, or they’ll tip.

So, how is Convergence faring in your neck of the woods?