Countdown to Cyriss - Week 12

You thought I forgot about our regular Wednesday appointment, didn't you? I sort of did, but I finally made it! This week DC wrote sort of a capstone to his own Cyriss series, skipping the reveals and instead discussing three "pillars" of the Convergence of Cyriss army design.

I take this to mean that our Countdown to Cyriss is coming to a close. I don't know if they'll be releasing any more weekly content for it, but this may close a series I've honestly had a lot of fun with. As we look forward to Cyriss's release, I'd like to talk about all the things that have me excited about the army, and I hope you guys will chime in with some of your own!

• Unique focus management. While many are waiting for PP's eventual release of a new resource, Cyriss's ability to cycle a single focus between all of its jacks adds more depth to focus allocation and goes beyond what we're used to.
• True battlegroup support. Generally speaking, supporting the warjacks is left up to the Warcaster. While that's usually fine since there's not much to support, the fact that Cyriss is so friendly to its jacks is encouraging. Every release we've seen so typically fell in to 3 categories:
  
  1. Warcasters/warjacks
  2. Tools to boost the battlegroup or shore up its weaknesses
  3. Cannon fodder to deliver the warjacks.
  
  Yes, there were things like the Clockwork Angels that were more specialized, but overall the entire army is built around taking big tough things and making them tougher.
• An army of robots.  Many of us got in to Warmachine in the hopes of controlling a bunch of those big metal dudes we saw in all the artwork. While I wouldn't say that the game has failed to deliver a fun experience, I did feel a tinge of disappointment when I realized that I couldn't run a field of Juggernauts backed by Mechaniks. Cyriss has all the tools in place to truly support a sea of large bases, and it's going to be a whole new way to play from both sides of the table.
• Easy to paint. I'll be honest, my backlog of personal painting projects is overwhelming. I have a selection of Khador left, my Cygnar that I'll likely never get to, Skorne, and Circle. While I have my airbrush to do the grunt work, there's still a lot of brush work to be done, and that's the real time drain. With Cyriss, much of the army will be handled with the airbrush. Whatever's left will be small details or different colors of metal which are considerably easier to paint and highlight.
• Limited releases. What?! This is coming from the guy who nearly bailed on the army because of this? Let me just say that this crow is delicious. But seriously, having this be a small army means that it will be easy to finish and build lists for. I often find that there are fun pieces I'd like in an army, but there's so many other models that are functionally better that they have to wait. With Cyriss, there's not a bloat of models that you may or may not want. You have a limited selection of tools for your army, and you have to make do. Not that the army seems remotely limited, but there's no need for PP to release "fluffy" models that are neat but hard to make room for. We get jacks, units, solos, warcasters, and two huge bases from the get go, and we'll likely get light releases as time goes on.
• Worthwhile big purchases. This remains to be seen, but the battle engine and colossal seem really good. PP seems to have learned from their successes and failures regarding big bases, and these big bases seem to be PP's commitment to making a giant model that looks great and plays well.
• Servitors. Yes this is battelgroup support, but I really do love these things. Single point models that simply have a job on the battlefield is awesome. There's no way to misuse them because they can't really do anything else. Whether their job is to walk forward and explode, make a target easier to hit or damage, or just chump block a charge lane, they are very simple and you'll have a lot of them on the table.
• Warcasters with stated goals. While the army itself is incredibly complex to operate, you'll know going in whether you're playing a melee, ranged, or magic game. Their stats and granted abilities affect their entire battlegroup, and the warjacks needs to be used optimally according to what the warcaster is doing for them. It could potentially get monotonous, but each warcaster is unique enough that simply switching that single model will completely change how a list is played.
• Oooh, shiny. It's the new hotness, and that's always exciting.

That's not all there is to Cyriss, but that's the stuff that really has me pumped to throw money at Privateer Press. The army may not win tournaments in the long run, but they seem very rewarding to play in local games. Look forward to more Convergence of Cyriss content in the future, whether it's discussing more news from Privateer Press, painting tutorials, or just battle reports.

See you tomorrow!

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