Let's Chat: Free Peoples

[ArtyomTrityak]

Hey folks!

I'm thinking about starting AoS Free people army but have some questions:

How Freeguild Handgunners and other models feel like? They are very old and how to they look / assembly etc compared to new kits like stormcast for example?

I haven't find color schemes i like, maybe anyone has something for inspiration?

[Vexcor]

a friend of mine Plays free People with 30 crossbows , 20 soldiers at the front and 1 General on horse to buff them.

this crossbows are really ****** awesome and ist hard to get in Close combat vs them.

how do you handle them?

[Graftonianman]

You can engage units without charging. Charge something else nearby and then pile into the xbows. It’s a difficult maneuver, but possible.

Or shoot them, spell them, etc. 

They don’t do well after some die: they lose their bonuses. 

[SilverJelly]

What are everyone’s thoughts on using Militia instead of Sword and  Shield? This is for a second Great Company. GC2 will consist of 10 archers, 40 guard (either militia or s&s) backed by 30 handgunners. With Militia, save is a 5+ rerolling 1’s, 4+ with Mystic Shield and 6+ ward save from Luminark. Adding 14in range attack and melee attack. 

S&S, 4+ save reroll 1’s, 3+ with Mystic Shield and 6+ Ward Save from Luminark.  Keeping just the melee attack.

Depending on General placement save could be a 3+ for militia and 2+ for s&s. 

[Duck1986]

A bit last minute, but I'm defending in a 2k siege match later on against Ironjaws. We're playing "The Relief Force" scenario.

Has anyone played this with free people?

The game requires an equal number of units in the relief force and the main force.

I'm thinking:

Main defending force:

General on Warhorse (holding the line, obviously!)

20x Guard (Sword and Shields) [Grand Company]

30x Handgunners

30x Crossbowmen

 2x Cannon

 

Relief Force:

General on Griffon (To speed into the fray once he arrives)

5x Outriders (likewise)

10x Guard (Swords and shields)

10x Greatswords

10x Greatswords 

 

 

I'm going to be playing heavily on the Grand Company and using the cannons in the hope of picking off the enemy at range. Sadly, playing the Free People allegiance, I cant squeeze in a gunmaster...

 

I also have at my disposal, but not intending to use...

30x Bowmen

20x Guards with halberds

5 x Retributers [allies]

10x Liberators [allies]

1x Battlemage [allies]

1x Hellblaster volleygun [allies]

1x Mortar (is this even a thing anymore?)

 

Would anyone swap anything here?

Cheers!

Duck

[Tittliewinks22]

Likely picking up a free guild army for an upcoming 2.0 slow grow league, the handgunner/crossbow are out of stock on GW website, and have been for a while it seems. Anyone know if these have ever been restocked? 

[kenshin620]

Woop woop, Free People can get the chance of more CP! Demigryphs and Greatswords are also getting cheaper.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/30/30th-may-faction-focus-free-peoplesgw-homepage-post-3/

 

Also it mentions Steam Tank has gotten a price drop too making it an easier ally.

[Mandzak-Miniatures]

I am happy Free People got a preview article. Would be a nice surprise to have 'knights' come back into the fold.

[someone2040]

So the points decrease on Greatswords and Demigryphs are definitely useful. But they still have a problem in that the allegiance abilities just promote focusing on the shooting units due to double dipping hold the line and extra shooting phases.

I just don't know when Demigryphs will become useful. The lack of rend on their Knight weapons and the fact they hit on 4's just makes them soooo bad sometimes. The amount of times my Demigryphs have whiffed is just astounding. That being said, if they drop to 140 points it's possible they might have a place as mobile objective holders.

Greatswords though I think could be very interesting. What's interesting on the Mystic Shield nerf is that it means casting that spell on Freeguild Guard is useless, while it's not on Greatswords. Depending on how much they go down by, I think there's potential that Greatswords could become a fair value hybrid tank+killy unit. That being said, if they only go down to 140 I'm not sure it's enough.

I think the other thing that's a killer on Greatswords at the moment is they can't be the leader of a Great Company. I think if they able to be the main unit in that, then there's an interesting place for them in the army.

 

Overall though, I think Freeguilds are going to suffer from the same issues they do currently. Almost all their damage is high quantity low quality attacks (Rend -1 at best). Majority of it comes from shooting which is getting some nerfs and counters, and to make matters worse ours is all mid range and most effective when we don't move. Lastly we're restricted to 400 points of allies which is going to be even less flexible than before due to spellcasting being more important (Which means most likely you're spending at least 1/4 of those points on a 100 point battlemage or some other wizard).

 

I hope that the points decreases we get on Greatswords and Demigryphs are significant enough to put them back on the map, as well as points decreases on Outriders and Pistoliers. The army is just far too immobile at the moment and all the buffs and allegiance abilities promote playing such a game.

 

At the moment I'm waiting to see all the details, but my fear is that the changes at the moment are just pushing Free Peoples more behind the curve than before.

[kenshin620]

I just kind of wished Devoted of Sigmar were freeguild. How many people actually run a DoS army? They have 1 sole unit, ONE.

[MrCharisma]

On 5/31/2018 at 11:34 PM, kenshin620 said:

I just kind of wished Devoted of Sigmar were freeguild. How many people actually run a DoS army? They have 1 sole unit, ONE.

I have 2k of DoS. 

Personally I'd rather Ironwield and/or Collegiate Arcane sat under Free People over DoS

[MrCharisma]

On 5/31/2018 at 10:52 PM, someone2040 said:

At the moment I'm waiting to see all the details, but my fear is that the changes at the moment are just pushing Free Peoples more behind the curve than before.

I think in the new edition your entire ally points needs to go into magic, otherwise you'll get dominated. 

The wizard on Griffin could be a tremendous addition to a FP army that compliments our builds well. 

I'm not inspired to add Greatswords BUT a few points reductions might make it better for us to take a batallion for the additional command point

[Taffster]

Hopefully at some point in the new edition will bring out some more usefully battalions and combine Collegiate, Ironweld and DoS under the same banner (battletome soon please! ).  Having to use those 400 ally points for Magic to be competitive is annoying (Stormcast don't have this problem now they have everything under their keyword, a sign of thing to come to other armies possibly?).. But this is GW we're talking about so fixing the whole splintered faction thing probably isn't going to happen..

Looking at the faction focus there's really not a lot happening for Free Peoples and they'll remain pretty much the same, although I really like using Demigryphs and Greatswords from a more fluffy perspective, I always try to include them so the points reduction should help with that.

[Chickenbits]

I'm REALLY hoping that the Freeguild Regiment battalion sees a points drop. I really like it as a concept, but it is just to expensive right now.

 

Sure, both the Demigryphs and the Greatswords will see a points reduction.. but it won't do much.  I'd really like for it to drop to 100 or at least 150 points. Way too many tax units to justify 200 pts.

[Josh]

i think its just a matter of sucking it up until we get a book tbh, they will get the moment in the sun one day

but yeah i think the army needs some mortal wound capability & some mobility 

but hey! gotta play with the cards you have been delt

[AKING]

I think a few Knight-incantators as allies will be very useful. Some casting + ability to autodispell is going to be crucial!

 

[someone2040]

I think we just have to wait and see the impact of Malign Sorcery on the game. IMO there's a lot of unknowns about it at the moment, in particular as to whether it's going to be accepted as standard in Matched Play or not.

My initial impression was that it was going to push us even further behind the curve and have to spend all our points on allies. Lately I've been thinking even if it is norm, there are only so many spells the enemy can cast, and stuff like Tzeentch already has a ****** ton of good spells to cast anyway. I think it's more likely to raise the middle of the pack upwards (Stuff like Bonesplitterz, Darkling Covens, Seraphon, etc).

I also think that potentially what shifts us more towards magic anyway is not strictly the fact magic is getting better/more interesting, but also that shooting is getting worse. Hellstorms and Luminarks are taking a hit because with look out sir, it's now less likely they'll be able to snipe out enemy heroes. The luminark still has a spot IMO (I mean, the unbind rules make it better than ever), but I think my poor Hellstorm might finally get the chop.

 

That being said, allies will sort themselves out on the meta. They'll always be our 400 points of trying to adapt to what's strong or boost our own game plan with Azyros. I'm more interested to see where our points end up (Hopefully big chicken stays at 260). I'd love to see Pistoliers and Outriders drop as well to say like 100 points so I can truly use them as chaff and harassing fast cavalry.

As mentioned, I'd also like to see our allegiance ability changed to Greatswords can be a main unit in it. A big blob of 30 Greatswords with price reductions could be an interesting tank, consider mystic shield is now useless on the Freeguild Guard.

[kenshin620]

I kind of doubt Free People will get a book, but if they do I suspect then it also might be to remake free people to be more in line with KO. More steam punky than renaissance, like warmachine factions.

[Kamose]

So I've been toying with the idea of starting Free Peoples for a while now and I think I finally have a theme that will inspire me to start the army. I have a couple of quick questions for the experienced generals here.

I'd like my Free Peoples to represent the Militia of the town Hogsface in the magical land of Foon. What this means is no guns or artillery (they don't have these things in Foon)!  I'm thinking a Great Company or two composed of Guard, Greatswords, and Archers. They would be supported by Demigryphs,  a General on a Griffon and another on a horse, and allied Battlemages. Crossbows are also a possibility.

In your opinion(s), how will this handle? Are handgunners, artillery, and gun-toting horsies vital? Also since this is the "Militia" of Hogsface, how is the Militia Weapons option for the Guard? I've never heard anyone talk about it since the default option seems to sword and board.

Thanks! ?

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

I find I always go through the same thought process whenever I think about Free Guild.

I love the rules and the idea of playing the regular guys in the Mortal Realms.  I have the out-of-production Marius Lietdorf model that I've never gotten around to assembling.

Then I see the crossbowman/handgunner models and I hate them so much.  So frigging much.  The damn pajama party.  Out of curiosity would it be possible to use Archers instead of Crossbowmen/Handgunners and still have a snowball's chance?

[Broken Netcode]

4 hours ago, Thalassic Monstrosity said:

I find I always go through the same thought process whenever I think about Free Guild.

I love the rules and the idea of playing the regular guys in the Mortal Realms.  I have the out-of-production Marius Lietdorf model that I've never gotten around to assembling.

Then I see the crossbowman/handgunner models and I hate them so much.  So frigging much.  The damn pajama party.  Out of curiosity would it be possible to use Archers instead of Crossbowmen/Handgunners and still have a snowball's chance?

Have you had a look at Forge World's Freeguild Ironsides? Theyre bloody gorgeous models.

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

5 hours ago, Broken Netcode said:

Have you had a look at Forge World's Freeguild Ironsides? Theyre bloody gorgeous models.

Yeah, the Ironsides are damn lovely.  I'd considered getting them but haven't for a number of reasons.

[kenshin620]

You could also use crossbow/handgun arms on archers I suppose. No idea how good that looks though.

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

2 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

You could also use crossbow/handgun arms on archers I suppose. No idea how good that looks though.

Might be tough, I would have to cut off a hand on the archer to mesh, I think. And hope they lined up.

[MacDuff]

On June 7, 2018 at 6:04 PM, kenshin620 said:

I kind of doubt Free People will get a book, but if they do I suspect then it also might be to remake free people to be more in line with KO. More steam punky than renaissance, like warmachine factions.

It will happen, and Cog Forts suggest some major evolutions.