Just for some background, we played this 3 times.
My 'normal' breakup is
Shield: Thrall Master, Mirrorblade with glaive, mindbound
Hammer: Luminate, Mirrorblade with glaive, mindbound
Dagger: Mirrorblade dueling swords, mindbound with double bladed sword
1st thrall goes in the dagger to even things up, 2nd in shield (has to have 1/3). Haven't got to a third thrall yet, but probably to help out the dagger as that is a bit weak ...
btw, this gives me a sweeping blade attack in each group, so no matter what comes on, I can use most of my abilities, and the luminate and thrallmaster are separate so can use the others too. Leader is always in the shield (in all my warbands) but thats a whole other discussion ...
In the first game, after a bit of discussion about whether we would 'know or not' (I argued that we wouldn't know) and I ended up putting 2 extra in the shield (so a 5 - 2 - 2 split) and Keith had all in his shield on the board and one in each of the dagger and hammer. End result, a complete slaughter to the cypher lords.
We agreed after that to split them up as per a normal game ... but if I had done a 7-1-1 split it would have been ridiculously easy (and agree, this would have been against the spirit of the rules). Note that some people stack their shield anyway, so a 5-2-2 split would not be too unusual as a standard setup ... Hence Keiths comments about loading the shield - but this goes both ways as Keith would have had less on the board as he would have had more off the board as well.
Again, as an aside, my Iron golems have the dominar, ogre and armator in the shield (always a leader, the ogre as he needs to be hitting quick, and can take a hit to protect the leader, and the armator is so slow I need him on the board to start with) plus potentially another on (needs 1/3 when I have 10) so that would also be quite hard to take down ... especially as the other could be the signifier to help boost the leader and keep him alive ... Actually I have been runnign a 4-3-2 split with these guys, but will be moving to a 3-3-3 (potentially 4-3-3 once I get another dude in ...)
So the second game we played again, and this time I used the standard 3-3-3 setup as above (I only had one thrall, a raptorix, in the dagger, so didn't come into play). So basically the thrall master, a mirrorblade and a mindbound. Keith pinned my leader with his double ability, and I got one guy to fly to a building, then next turn used a quad to move three times and get one guy away. Closer, but also a little easy (I sent one guy wide on each side and his fast guy (leader) could only chase one ...).
Third game, I had progressed to an extra thrall so the Shield had the extra thrall (a raptorix in the shield, fury was in the dagger). Then the twist gave me an extra one too (fury this time). Again, sent guy wide on each side and engaged in middle, and a quad in turn 2 meant I got away ... with 5 guys on the board it was easier to send people around to stay alive. The twist meant -1 Move unless you could fly, so maybe that made it too hard as well.
One more turn and I think Keith would have won the second game, but 3 turns just seemed a little tough (or a little easy to get one guy away). Most scenarios like this seem to have a limitation of not being within 4" of the table edge with the guys trying to survive ...
It should be noted that I won both my convergence (for Cypher Lords and Iron Golems) in first turn for both (or effectively in the first turn) ... so maybe that tainted the perception of the results a bit. Maybe I was a bit lucky ...
Next week we will try again and I will use the splintered fang (they have only had one game so far) and the Iron Golems.
I suppose the question is/questions are ...
Has anyone else found a disparity between the convergence scenarios? Or was it just a really unfavorable match-up (Cypher Lords v Unmade)? Or does this particular convergence need a slight tweak (not within 4" of board edge, or similar)? Has anyone won this Unmade convergence scenario and if so, what happened? Alternatively, are the Iron Golems and Cypher Lords convergence too easy (back to first point in disparity between scenarios)? Or do we both need to drink a cup of concrete and harden up?
