Let's Chat: Free Peoples

[Don Savik]

Hi everyone. First time posting here. I recently got one of the old school battalions (lucky ebay find) to start my freeguild army. Basically my current list is:

Freeguild General on horse

20 Guard with spears (monopose, so no superior sword/shield ones)

20 Handgunners

10 Knights

Cannon

What do you recommend I get next? Should I bother trying to build any of the battalions for going up to 2000 points? How mandatory are wizards as well? 

[arka0415]

17 hours ago, Don Savik said:

Hi everyone. First time posting here. I recently got one of the old school battalions (lucky ebay find) to start my freeguild army. Basically my current list is:

Freeguild General on horse

20 Guard with spears (monopose, so no superior sword/shield ones)

20 Handgunners

10 Knights

Cannon

What do you recommend I get next? Should I bother trying to build any of the battalions for going up to 2000 points? How mandatory are wizards as well? 

At least convert/proxy the Guard as Halberdiers- Sword/Shield is the best, but Halberdiers are a great choice too. Also, sadly, Empire Knights are very poor cavalry. You'd do better using them as Grail Knights, which are the best human cavalry. Otherwise, General, Handgunners, and Cannon are fantastic units!

Also, Wizards (called "Battlemages" for us Empire/Freeguild players) are extremely good but not mandatory. The fact that you choose their specialty during deployment makes them really versatile.

You can, if you want, build toward the Freeguild Regiment. It's really limiting though since the base cost for all the units is almost 1500pts.

[MrCharisma]

So I'm preparing for a 2,500pt tournament in August, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice in using a General on Griffon or The Green Knight?

I'm writing up a list which includes a few additional units to compliment my standard 2,000pt list.

I've included an Assassin who I think will add an interesting dynamic to my Guard.  

[Paul Conti]

On 7/14/2017 at 6:22 AM, MrCharisma said:

So I'm preparing for a 2,500pt tournament in August, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice in using a General on Griffon or The Green Knight?

I'm writing up a list which includes a few additional units to compliment my standard 2,000pt list.

I've included an Assassin who I think will add an interesting dynamic to my Guard.  

General on Griffon and Green Knight about both a big NO in my book. Both are way too much in points for what they do. You can spend your points much more efficiently elsewhere.

For the General - think of it this way. He's 300 points. 20 Greatswords is 320. Which is better? 41 attacks at Rend -1, or a big dumb bird? Hurricanum is also 320. Luminark is 240. Steam Tank is 300. So many better options. 

The Green Knight is bad for a variety of reasons. He's unreliable for coming onto the board at all. He's not cost efficient for his points. Most people seem to rule that his resurrection ability requires reinforcement points, so that ability basically isn't there. He's a unique character, so he can't take artefacts. A Lord on Pegasus is 140 with better offensive stats, slightly less durability, more mobility, doesn't have to roll a 4+ to get on the board, and isn't unique so he can take artefacts and command traits. For 60 points less than the Green Knight. 

If you're going to go with a Griffon, take Karl Franz. He's more expensive, but his command ability is bonkers with how accurate the attacks on your troops are. Brotherhood of Knights + Karl on Demigryphs charging makes for 28 attacks on the charge off of a 200 point unit that moves 10" and has +2" on the charge. Or use Karl on Grail Knights - 16 lance attacks 3+ rerollable to hit, 3+ to wound, 2 damage each and 15 horse hooves. And that's leaving out the abilities that buff hitting and wounding. You can easily get almost any unit to 2+/2+ in the Freeguild, so adding attacks is just basically adding more damage.  

[SpiritofHokuto]

If you're going for that sort of thing it could be argued that King Louen Leoncouer is a better choice.

He's cheaper, hits nearly as hard and more accurately, is nearly as resilient and is much easier to keep safe as his command ability and battleshock immunity covering the entire battlefield. His actual model also much smaller than Karl/Griffon General so it's possible to hide him behind larger terrain pieces.

Due to his command ability only working on Nobility units it does tie you in to using Grail Knights but they're probably the best Order cavalry except for Fulminators/Concussors. 

[Salyx]

13 hours ago, Paul Conti said:

General on Griffon and Green Knight about both a big NO in my book. Both are way too much in points for what they do. You can spend your points much more efficiently elsewhere.

For the General - think of it this way. He's 300 points. 20 Greatswords is 320. Which is better? 41 attacks at Rend -1, or a big dumb bird? Hurricanum is also 320. Luminark is 240. Steam Tank is 300. So many better options. 

The Green Knight is bad for a variety of reasons. He's unreliable for coming onto the board at all. He's not cost efficient for his points. Most people seem to rule that his resurrection ability requires reinforcement points, so that ability basically isn't there. He's a unique character, so he can't take artefacts. A Lord on Pegasus is 140 with better offensive stats, slightly less durability, more mobility, doesn't have to roll a 4+ to get on the board, and isn't unique so he can take artefacts and command traits. For 60 points less than the Green Knight. 

If you're going to go with a Griffon, take Karl Franz. He's more expensive, but his command ability is bonkers with how accurate the attacks on your troops are. Brotherhood of Knights + Karl on Demigryphs charging makes for 28 attacks on the charge off of a 200 point unit that moves 10" and has +2" on the charge. Or use Karl on Grail Knights - 16 lance attacks 3+ rerollable to hit, 3+ to wound, 2 damage each and 15 horse hooves. And that's leaving out the abilities that buff hitting and wounding. You can easily get almost any unit to 2+/2+ in the Freeguild, so adding attacks is just basically adding more damage.  

I do not agree with you.

You compare units with different battlefield roles to each other. 

The Freeguild General on Griffon is a very mobile Monster (15 "), dealing a lot of damage( in fact it is the only Freeguild unit who can deal D6 damage). So he is a damage-dealer, an area denier, he can support one unit and can grab and hold Objectives on his own. 

In comparison to that, Greatswords are slow Infantry dealing a lot of damage but still being too slow to be aggressive. 41 attacks will very rarely occur, because of causalties or just because there is not enough space or movement to get everyone in. For me a nice unit, but in competitive mission play a no-no. 

Hurricanum is definately one of the best Order units. However, its main role is to support and some area denial due to its mortal wounds. It has difficulties in conquering objectives and puts no pressure on the enemy.  The same goes for the Luminark. 

 

A Steamtank is- compared to a Griffon rather slow, has a strong, but quite unreliable shooting attack and mostly serves as a tarpit, because its damage output is not that big. 

So the Griffon Lord serves several purposes the other units can not fulfil as good as he does: He is fast, heavy-hitting and can put up pressure on the enemy. 

Taking Karl Franz as a Griffon Hero is a good idea. However, I do not think that he is worth the extra 160 points. Jep, his Command ability is good. Nevertheless, it wil only shine in big units, which we normally do not have. Immunity to battleshock is also a large plus, although Free People have few problems with battleshock, especially with a War Banner on the battlefield. Karl Franz is a slightly besser fighter and has a slightly better protection, but is all that worth 20 Guards or almost 5 Grail Knights or a Cannon or a Bretonian Lord +20 more points?  I prefer taking two Freeguild Generals on Grifon instead ;P

Getting everything to 2+/2+ is also not that easy. There are several buffs to hit like large numbers for Guards or Hurricanum or the Command ability of both Freeguild Generals or the Bataillon. However, you will mostly only have 1-2 of them ready on 1-3 units. Hold the line only works if a unit is standing still, which you do not want from close combat units most of the time. And what buffs improve the to wound roll? Only Hold the line and the Beast Mage`s spell. 

Considering I have a cavalry-based army with some support, a Freeguild General on a Griffon is a good addition giving me some much needed punch on the frontline. 

 

[MrCharisma]

Interesting points lads. 

I've played four 2k games last weekend and I was impressed with both the Green Knight and General on Griffon.

I'd love to take our glorious leader Karl Franz, however; his abilities effect FREE PEOPLE and not FREE PEOPLES. 

Each game I was able to get the Green Knight on the board by turn 2. He ignores rend -1 which I found very durable and could bring him on to strategic positions to challenge or secure objectives. In one battle he would take out a screaming skull catapult and tie up a zombie dragon for 3 turns, in another he would take our marurders and a chariot sitting on an objective (escalation), as well as tying up and significantly wounding a Magmadroth holding up a unit of 5 Blood Knights from an objective. 

I don't run batallions so my single artifact usually goes to the Hurricanum (Phoenix Stone), and I found Hold the Line combo's nicely with the General on Griffon (I run the standard General on horse as my lord commander).

Ultimately, I'm running my Griffon in conjunction with a Carmine Dragon juiced up by a Lore Master and kept healed by a Battlemage with Lifesurge.

 I'll retest the Steam Tank and Greatswords to compare value to points. 

Cheers for the ideas;

 

[someone2040]

13 hours ago, MrCharisma said:

I'd love to take our glorious leader Karl Franz, however; his abilities effect FREE PEOPLE and not FREE PEOPLES. 

I think this largely just depends on your group. Many people play that the keywords are the same, regardless of whether they are singular or plural. I think this has largely come from the Warhammer App putting everything with the same keyword (regardless of plurality in the same faction (i.e if you look at the Free Peoples section in the Warhammer App, you see Brettonians, Empire and Free Peoples).

I think most people play it as the same keyword, but hopefully something that's actually clarified with GHB2 FAQs (In all honesty, I thought it was already in the FAQs, but it must've just been a Facebook post on their page rather than in the official FAQs).

 

Interestingly for the future. If they do count as the same keyword, it means that you can still take War Machines like the Empire Cannon in a purely FREE PEOPLES army due to the Crew having this keyword. This becomes more important in GHB2, where we hopefully are going to get Allegiance Abilities of our own.

[stato]

18 hours ago, MrCharisma said:

I'd love to take our glorious leader Karl Franz, however; his abilities effect FREE PEOPLE and not FREE PEOPLES. 

See I never understood that because that error is everywhere;

In the old Stormcast Extremis book the LC on Dracoth buffs STORMCAST ETERNALS, but all the units are STORMCAST ETERNAL, no S. Not sure if that was fixed in Eternals.

In the new Kharadron book too, SKYFARERS vs SKYFARER, SKYVESSEL vs SKYVESSELS

loads more examples in other factions too.

 

 

[bottle]

On the subject of the General on Griffon, I absolutely love him. The most important thing is giving him the Quicksilver potion so he can always strike first. I find him essential for Three Places of Power and in Tournaments mine has racked up an impressive tally of kills and high profile models. 

For Allegiance Abilities, I don't want a "Freeguild" allegiance ability unless the factions are getting an overhaul. No set of battle-traits is going to be enough for me to give up my Wizards and artillery! (And Dwarfs and Elves and Sky Duardin....)

[MrCharisma]

@stato and @someone2040: with friends and the local games club the keyword isn't an issue, however; it's not accepted in tournaments. There are a heap of breaks like this between The Empire & Free People... Markus Wolfhart's ability effects Empire Archers, State Regiment battalion formation not being legal I'm matched play, etc.

I'm with you @bottle with allegiance abilities, I don't want a pure Free People army. I love running the old Empire with a mixture between Free People, and Collegiate Arcane. 

I would love a small formation.... Free Guild General + 1-3 Guard units. Something that will still let me use mixed Order.

I'll need to try Quicksilver potion. I'm pretty set in my ways with Strategic Genius command trait and Phoenix Stone.

[stato]

4 minutes ago, MrCharisma said:

@stato and @someone2040: with friends and the local games club the keyword isn't an issue, however; it's not accepted in tournaments.

It is though, just cherry picked from which ones people notice and moan about.

Kharadrons, the newest battletome... Aetheric Augmentation is the biggest buff used, illegal by strict keyword ruling as no unit has keyword Skyfarers

[stato]

Unless we are saying the keyword Free Peoples is different as both Free People and Free Peoples both occurred in the Keyword box (so people argue they are distinct), where as Skyfarer has been in Keyword box but Skyfarers has not, and is only used to refer to Skyfarer units?

[MrCharisma]

That's an interesting pick up @stato. Correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that anything in bold is a keyword which must match exactly. 

You could argue in our favour too with a lot of Free People units now sitting in the Free Peoples section in the AoS app. 

In my case, I guess you need to work with your TO.

[Paul Conti]

8 hours ago, stato said:

Unless we are saying the keyword Free Peoples is different as both Free People and Free Peoples both occurred in the Keyword box (so people argue they are distinct), where as Skyfarer has been in Keyword box but Skyfarers has not, and is only used to refer to Skyfarer units?

The FAQ said that it's the same thing and basically just an error or oversight that one had an S on the end.

[Paul Conti]

12 hours ago, bottle said:

On the subject of the General on Griffon, I absolutely love him. The most important thing is giving him the Quicksilver potion so he can always strike first. I find him essential for Three Places of Power and in Tournaments mine has racked up an impressive tally of kills and high profile models. 

For Allegiance Abilities, I don't want a "Freeguild" allegiance ability unless the factions are getting an overhaul. No set of battle-traits is going to be enough for me to give up my Wizards and artillery! (And Dwarfs and Elves and Sky Duardin....)

Yeah I see this as a major issue too. Although mixing old Bretonian units and compendium scrolls give you a ton of options. 

Empire Cannons are probably the best artillery already, and the Engineer on Mechanical Steed still works to activate rerolls. There's at least 3 wizards I can think of, you still get a Warrior Priest with Luthor Huss and Volkmar. Trebuchets are also a solid artillery option. 

I think overall Free People isn't losing a ton from having to stay in allegiance, but it will take some adjustments.

[MrCharisma]

On a different note, I just picked up the Path To Glory book and it has Human... yay! It's essentially The Empire with mix of the human factions rolled into one. 

[Paul Conti]

On 7/21/2017 at 8:58 PM, MrCharisma said:

On a different note, I just picked up the Path To Glory book and it has Human... yay! It's essentially The Empire with mix of the human factions rolled into one. 

This is really interesting. So it includes humans from devoted of sigmar, etc?

 

I've been wondering if the allegiance we get in GHB2 is going to be freeguild or human. Maybe this is a hint?

[MrCharisma]

14 minutes ago, Paul Conti said:

This is really interesting. So it includes humans from devoted of sigmar, etc?

 

I've been wondering if the allegiance we get in GHB2 is going to be freeguild or human. Maybe this is a hint?

That's correct Sir. Within the Human selections you can take Flaggelants, Volley Gun, Greatswords, Battlemage, and Guard (as an example). It's almost the entire Empire range actually. 

I'd love a return of mixed human. Keep the faction bonuses if GW has to but this new world doesn't incentive me to take units from Ironweld or Devottee ATM. 

[someone2040]

3 hours ago, Paul Conti said:

I've been wondering if the allegiance we get in GHB2 is going to be freeguild or human. Maybe this is a hint?

I see them as different things.

It's important to note, that *essentially* only armies with battletomes got separate Path to Glory tables. There are some notable exceptions in that Slaves to Darkness, Nurgle and Slaanesh all got separate tables. I think you can factor this into that the two latter will no doubt in future get their own combined battletome, which essentially leaves 'Slaves to Darkness' as the rest of the mortal Chaos forces. If you don't have a battletome, you were bundled together into a group of related entities (Beasts of Chaos, 'Armies of Azyr', Destruction, Death).

While on the other hand, we know for a fact that Nighthaunts are getting their own allegiance ability in GHB2 while they have been bundled into 'Death' in Path to Glory.

 

Overall, I hope we don't get Racial Allegiance abilities, as I think it goes against the grain of what AoS is trying to do. AoS is trying to split armies into factions that have a unique identity, aesthetics and goals. Dial that up to 11, and make an army around that. Or go Grand Alliance if you want to collect a more diverse array of units. 

So I don't want to see Freeguilds with the same Allegiance Ability as Devoted of Sigmar. Why? Because the armies should play completely differently and thematically. Free Guilds are about strict training, working together so the sum is greater than the parts. Devoted of Sigmar should get rules about hating chaos, hating wizards, whatever. Throwing bodies into the mess to prove that their faith in Sigmar will protect them. There is nothing other than Race that links these two factions together.

 

What I do think is that GW needs to decide what they're going to do with factions like Collegiate Arcane and Ironweld Arsensal. Are they going to turn them into full factions that can stand alone, or are they going to remain auxillaries? If they are to remain auxillaries, then my opinion is that you should be able to ally in Auxillary factions without breaking allegiance. If they're going to be a full faction, well, then in that case they're probably going to be interesting enough to run on their own anyway.

 

At the end of the day, you can make mixed Empire armies under the Grand Alliance rules anyway. There's just not much of a reason to bring Devoted out at the moment with their buffs only effecting the Devoted. There may be better reasons in future not to bring mixed Human though when allegiance abilities come around. But I think that overall, will be a choice that needs to be made.

[MrCharisma]

I mentioned earlier that I'm preparing for a 2,500pt tournament. With a month to go, this is the list that I'm looking to field.

Comments and thoughts are always appreciated.

RCGT-20-32-1.pdf

[Duck1986]

On ‎29‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 0:09 AM, MrCharisma said:

I mentioned earlier that I'm preparing for a 2,500pt tournament. With a month to go, this is the list that I'm looking to field.

Comments and thoughts are always appreciated.

RCGT-20-32-1.pdf

Looks good, and with points to spare! The only comment I was about to make was the lack of mobile non-hero units, but then I spotted your prosecutors so I think you'll be fine!

 

On another note... I'm playing a friend in a 2000 point battle soon and we're still playing legacy scrolls. I have enough handgunners, guard (halberdiers and swordsmen) and crossbowmen  and now greatswords/outriders to play "State Troop Detachment", but it's costly at 120 points.

Below are my options of who I could play, and their current best stats as I've worked them out without the state regiment buffs (also excluding champions) - a few of these however rely on not a single model dying during the combat to keep their existing buffs...):

20x Freeguild Guard - swords - 2/3/-/1 (20+ in the squad, hold the line)

20x Freeguild Guard - halberds - 2/3/-1/1 (20+ in the squad, hold the line)

20x Handgunners - 2/2/-1/1 (20+ in the squad, not moving and hold the line)

20x Crossbowmen - 3/3/-1/1 (Hold the line - double shots if not moving and 20+)

10x Greatswords - 2/2/-1/1 (Hold the line - near a hero)

5x Outriders - 3/3/-1/1 (Not moving, Hold the line).

 

Sooo, the question is... is it worth playing "Empire State Detachment" at the cost of 120pts? If so, which 3 regular and one heavy unit would be best to play?

 

 

 

[SpiritofHokuto]

State Detachment is most definitely worth it. People seem to concentrate on the +2/+2 Handgunners which admittedly are good but there something to be said for Crossbowmen and their high number of shots vs low save hordes.

Greatswords are ok but not particularly great and Freeguild are hurting for decent units with mobility. Outriders aren't the best but they're certainly not bad.

The other other thing I think is sometimes overlooked is the fact no one flees on a 1 or 2 for battleshock, pair this up with a Freeguild General with Stately War Banner and giving him the Inspiring command trait and you've got units that are essentially immune to battleshock roughly 75% of the time.

This makes sword and shield Freeguild Guard excellent tarpits that can reliably buy you one or more turns of shooting.

The thing is with the GHB2017 coming out in a few weeks we'll have to wait and see what allegiance abilities and command traits are going to be available. Although I'd say there's a pretty good shout of there being something equivalent to Inspiring. 

[Duck1986]

Thanks for all the advice! I've realised (I'm relatively new to AoS) that the rules of 1 mean that me getting over-excited at the idea of autohitting with handgunners is redundant, but I guess even if I'm on 1/2/-1/1 with 1's being misses, that's good because if I lose one of the other bonuses (20+ bonus perhaps) then I'm still at a 2 to hit.

That's a good point about the stately war banner - battleshock has been one of my problems recently so good shout

 

 

[MrCharisma]

Thanks for the feedback @Duck1986. I've spent a good 18 months refining this list but I'm definitely open to thoughts. I believe I'll be able to challenge all scenarios, with a few counters for Skyfires,  Stormfiends, Stonehorns, and all the other general nastiest in the Mortal Realms.

I agree mostly with @SpiritofHokuto.  

- Outriders are a quick unit to start challenging for objectives early. Cracking for scenarios like Escalation. 

- Greatswords combine nicely with the Freeguild General (check the warscroll). You need to protect them because they are expensive casualities

- Consider splitting your handgunners into units of 10, and take advantage of an additional longgun. Great for sniping characters with a long range... and you lose your +1 once they go from 20 to 19. I use them to also hang on the flanks of my swordmen and keep them within 3 inches to activate counter-charge shooting

- I see halberds playing a similar role to the Greatswords. I would take 1 of them