Looking over the rules for legacy Convergence, is there a reason that almost none of their AOEs work per the Mk IV rules? IMD’s Aperture Blast and the Reflex Servitors have standard profiles, but everything else seems to require a direct hit to do anything. The Cipher’s Bombardment shot only calls out blast damage (instead of just being POW 6/6 like a normal AOE), the Assimilator doesn’t have a normal AOE anymore (?), and we can no longer use Flare shots on stealth targets unless we’re already within 5" of them (making it fairly useless). I get that things got tuned down for the smaller army sizes, but this feels like overkill.
The Flare does seem the most problematic since it requires you get a slow jack within 5” of a Stealth target in order to target it with other models. Though I suppose with AOEs always hitting their target now the alternative is that it’s just a free debuff with no hit requirement if it works on an indirect hit.
The POW thing on the Bombardment is how it’s always worked, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure it’s always been just Blast Damage with no direct hit
Flare is one of the things COC was built around. Its the basic hit-fixing mechanic for infantry, and for warjacks in anyone but Orion’s lists. I get not wanting to be able to tag an entire squad with a missed Flare shot, but if the model targeted takes a hit 99% of the time from other missed AOEs, then why wouldn’t it get Flared?
Also, there are only two models with Flare. The Cipher is only really doing it on the way in to smash face, but until the catch-all Mk IV Army, it was the tax you payed to allow infantry (mostly Perforators) to actually hit high-DEF models. Then there are Attunement Servitors. At 7" range, while they care less about the Stealth rule, they pretty much get one shot before they get obliterated.
Ans yes, its always been a POW 6 blast damage roll. Its just weird that they don’t give it a simple AOE profile now that one exists.
I think that’s just down to how the special rules are formatted. I don’t think they ever just put a straight weapons profile in the text of a special rule, it’s always spelled out like that afaik.
One thing to point out is in the defences card there Re some terrain ways around Stealth. Things like the fire pit can be used for stealth area denial and help assist with that. While its not a flare, it does allow for compensation for this loss.
The fact that Bombardment does blast damage on a hit matters if the directly hit model has Resistance: Blast or something similar. There are similar cases, e.g. the Airburst spell has always done just blast damage. It’s by design. Similarly, there are some AOEs that do normal (non-blast) damage to everything hit by the AOE.
The Commodore Cannon is an example of models that actually have a weapon stat line in their special rules text. It’s absolutely possible.