AoS 2 - Cities of Sigmar Discussion

[Cynric]

Is it permissible to bring a battalion within a living city?  I do not see anywhere it is written that you have to for example be sylvaneth allegiance to bring a sylvaneth battalion, did I miss something?

Here is what I am thinking.

Allegiance: order / living city / realm to taste for artifacts that are not trash.

3x Dryads 

2x branchwraith

Forest folk

Harvestboon

Rest of points to taste...

Per harvestboon one of the wraiths can take tear of grace as an artifact which grants an additional spell that is selected from the deep wood spell lore.   That spell would be verdant blessing of course solving the wildwood problem.  Is this legal/did I miss something?

 

[SpiritofHokuto]

Battalions do work with the Firestorm Living Cities, but in a weird roundabout way. A not so recent FAQ changed it so all units under a battalion are considered to be of the allegiance that the battalion belongs to, regardless of any other keywords or allegiances they may possess (completely screwed over the Tzeentch Fatesworn Warband army I was putting together). Living Cities get around this, by using your army as an example it's technically a Sylvaneth allegiance army, but you've chosen to take GA:Order allegiance abilities which qualifies you to use  a Living City allegiance. At it's heart it's still  Sylvaneth allegiance army, but you've chosen to forgo the Sylvaneth allegiance abilities in favour of GA:Order allegiance abilities with the added bonuses of a Living City "tacked on". Much the same thing can be achieved by just being a GA:Order army, but on the off-chance that you want to retain Sylvaneth battleline choices the above reasoning still lets you do that.  

[Beliman]

4 minutes ago, SpiritofHokuto said:

Living Cities get around this, by using your army as an example it's technically a Sylvaneth allegiance army, but you've chosen to take GA:Order allegiance abilities which qualifies you to use  a Living City allegiance.

I think that you can't. It was FAQ'd that when you have a legal option to take an exlusive Allegiance Abilities for your army, you must take them. So, if you can take Sylvaneth Allegiance Abilities, you must take them (removing the option to take GA: Order). One option is to take other battlelines (ex.: Wanderers) breaking any possibility for your army to be Sylvaneth only. At this point I'm a little lost, because I think that you could take specific battalion from other armies and still be Order? This battalions must be taken like allies for GA: Order? What's the Allegiance of this battalion, Order or their specific keyword? 

[Cynric]

6 minutes ago, SpiritofHokuto said:

Battalions do work with the Firestorm Living Cities, but in a weird roundabout way. A not so recent FAQ changed it so all units under a battalion are considered to be of the allegiance that the battalion belongs to, regardless of any other keywords or allegiances they may possess (completely screwed over the Tzeentch Fatesworn Warband army I was putting together). Living Cities get around this, by using your army as an example it's technically a Sylvaneth allegiance army, but you've chosen to take GA:Order allegiance abilities which qualifies you to use  a Living City allegiance. At it's heart it's still  Sylvaneth allegiance army, but you've chosen to forgo the Sylvaneth allegiance abilities in favour of GA:Order allegiance abilities with the added bonuses of a Living City "tacked on". Much the same thing can be achieved by just being a GA:Order army, but on the off-chance that you want to retain Sylvaneth battleline choices the above reasoning still lets you do that.  

Thanks for the reply. 

The "other points to taste" would be wanders with 2 units from the woodelves compendium drug in under allies (as they are order and thus allowed) so it's far from sylvaneth allegiance.   Wish it could be sylvaneth and have more than a token wanderer allie as their spell lore/special rules/wildwood before setup/artifacts are all better than generic order. 

Mostly this is a scheme to put something that looks like the old wood elf army back on the table.  This scheme seems to provide a way to put wildwoods on the table at a fairly low cost as the dryads pay the battleline tax and branchwraiths are a bit of a bargin and harvestboon is pretty good on its own merits.

[Cynric]

5 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I think that you can't. It was FAQ'd that when you have a legal option to take an exlusive Allegiance Abilities for your army, you must take them. So, if you can take Sylvaneth Allegiance Abilities, you must take them (removing the option to take GA: Order). One option is to take other battlelines (ex.: Wanderers) breaking any possibility for your army to be Sylvaneth only. At this point I'm a little lost, because I think that you could take specific battalion from other armies and still be Order? This battalions must be taken like allies for GA: Order? What's the Allegiance of this battalion, Order or their specific keyword? 

Ok, so to clarify the scheme... the dryads, branchwraiths and battalions still leaves a lot of points for the rest of the army.  That rest of the army would mostly be wanderer, with a TLA or possibly a treeman and the allies points would grab two units from wood elves compendium (forest dragon and an eagle for example or wardancers and waywatcher unit or avatar of hunt and hounds, lots of choices).  This would force "generic order" which then leaves the dryads without a method to get wildwoods on the table.  Hence the interest in the harvestboon item that lets a wraith cast verdant blessing.  Combined with a TLA and it might work... it's not going to win tournaments but that is not the intent... the goal is to bring an oldschool army without it being grossly handicapped.

[Lavieth]

Hello,

 

I am building towards a Hallowheart free city and need some advice. A point of note is I am going for visual theme and rule of cool with this army. As far as I can tell it should be legal. 

Dragon mage (general)

Loremaster

Archmage

Archmage

4 units of 10 Swordmasters (battleline)

Frostheart phoenix (behemoth)

2 units of 10 sisters of the watch (allies)

That leaves me with 80 points to spend on endless spells. I was leaning towards soul snare shackles, quicksilver swords and either ravenaks jaws or the geminids. Are there better options? I am not sure as to what artifact or command trait to give the dragon mage. Some of the realm specific ones are really interesting. Alternatively, I could swap out the dragon mage for a standard archmge on dragon. 

What are your thoughts tga community? 

 

 

[Aden]

7 hours ago, Beliman said:

I think that you can't. It was FAQ'd that when you have a legal option to take an exlusive Allegiance Abilities for your army, you must take them. So, if you can take Sylvaneth Allegiance Abilities, you must take them (removing the option to take GA: Order). One option is to take other battlelines (ex.: Wanderers) breaking any possibility for your army to be Sylvaneth only. At this point I'm a little lost, because I think that you could take specific battalion from other armies and still be Order? This battalions must be taken like allies for GA: Order? What's the Allegiance of this battalion, Order or their specific keyword? 

I can't find this in the FAQs so I think someone gave you bad intel. 

Page 8 of the Core Rule Errata says:

Warscroll battalions that share the same allegiance as an army can always be taken as part of the army, and if they include any allied units, these units do not count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (or against the points limit that can be spent on allies in a Pitched Battle). An army can include a warscroll battalion of a different allegiance to the rest of the army, but if it does so the units in it do count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (and the points for the battalion and the units in it count against...

I'm still a bit confused too. We should all probably start quoting sources to avoid it. 

 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Aden
New new information

[Beliman]

16 minutes ago, Aden said:

I can't find this in the FAQs so I think someone gave you bad intel. 

Generals Handbook Official Errata:

Page 62 – Pitched Battle Profiles, Introduction Add the following section: ‘ARMIES WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE ABILITIES If a faction army does not have a set of allegiance abilities, then you can use its Grand Alliance allegiance abilities instead. For example, if you had an Eshin army you could use the Grand Alliance Chaos allegiance abilities, and if you had an Order Draconis army you could use the Grand Alliance Order allegiance abilities. Note that if allegiance abilities exist for a faction army, you must use them.’

Btw, your quote answered one of my questions. All battalionns (because we don't have generic ones for GA: Order) must be taken like normal allies for any free city. So expensive ones are not an option anymore.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Beliman

[Aden]

@Beliman

So, I think your quoted passage is referring to armies without inherent allegiance abilities instead of Free Cities as this passage from Warhammer Community says otherwise:

"The only change is that you won’t be able to stack the allegiance abilities from Firestorm with any others apart from the Grand Allegiance abilities. For instance, a force of Dispossessed could either choose the Dispossessed allegiance abilities from the General’s Handbook 2017 OR the Order allegiance abilities and the Hammerhal allegiance abilities. They could not take the Dispossessed and Hammerhal allegiance abilities together."

Source: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/06/firestorm-matched-play-rules-update/

i.e. I suppose this  faction army is superseded if you take Allegiance: Free City. 

[Cynric]

2 hours ago, Aden said:

Page 8 of the Core Rule Errata says:

Warscroll battalions that share the same allegiance as an army can always be taken as part of the army, and if they include any allied units, these units do not count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (or against the points limit that can be spent on allies in a Pitched Battle). An army can include a warscroll battalion of a different allegiance to the rest of the army, but if it does so the units in it do count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (and the points for the battalion and the units in it count against...

I'm still a bit confused too. We should all probably start quoting sources to avoid it. 

 

I am confused too.  The warscroll battalions in the sylvaneth book  do not have keywords.  But even if they did have a keyword "sylvaneth" that would still be native to the living city so use of allie points on the battalion does not seem right.

[Beliman]

 

2 hours ago, Cynric said:

I am confused too.  The warscroll battalions in the sylvaneth book  do not have keywords.  But even if they did have a keyword "sylvaneth" that would still be native to the living city so use of allie points on the battalion does not seem right.

I'm afraid that Sylvaneth don't have that option, so if you want to take amy Sylvaneth Battalion using GA: Order, then you need to pick them as allies and build a legal list  to use GA: Order Allegiance Abilitites  (and then ally with Sylvaneth for that battallions).

I remember that BoC had some type of problems with their God Specific battalions that coudn't be taken with their respectively Allegiance (khorne, Slaanesh, tzeenth and Nurgle). Maybe someone that knows better how they fixed that problem could exlain a bit what happened and see if there is any "legal" hole to fix this problem about Batttalions.

4 hours ago, Aden said:

So, I think your quoted passage is referring to armies without inherent allegiance abilities instead of Free Cities as this passage from Warhammer Community says otherwise:

"The only change is that you won’t be able to stack the allegiance abilities from Firestorm with any others apart from the Grand Allegiance abilities. For instance, a force of Dispossessed could either choose the Dispossessed allegiance abilities from the General’s Handbook 2017 OR the Order allegiance abilities and the Hammerhal allegiance abilities. They could not take the Dispossessed and Hammerhal allegiance abilities together."

That was FAQ'd later (see my quote above, that was from Desembre 2018). So you can't chose anymore because you must take your own Allegiance Abilitites (read the last sentence: "Note that if allegiance abilities exist for a faction army, you must use them." 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Beliman

[Thalandor]

6 hours ago, Lavieth said:

Hello,

 

I am building towards a Hallowheart free city and need some advice. A point of note is I am going for visual theme and rule of cool with this army. As far as I can tell it should be legal. 

Dragon mage (general)

Loremaster

Archmage

Archmage

4 units of 10 Swordmasters (battleline)

Frostheart phoenix (behemoth)

2 units of 10 sisters of the watch (allies)

That leaves me with 80 points to spend on endless spells. I was leaning towards soul snare shackles, quicksilver swords and either ravenaks jaws or the geminids. Are there better options? I am not sure as to what artifact or command trait to give the dragon mage. Some of the realm specific ones are really interesting. Alternatively, I could swap out the dragon mage for a standard archmge on dragon. 

What are your thoughts tga community? 

 

 

I've tried an Eldritch Council Hallowheart. The problem is, that you got no way of making the first charge as you have no movement increasing abilities and no good screening units except for the frostheart.  Everything else will get destroyed by any fast melee army out there.

[Aden]

I'm not trying to be argumentative  but it seems to me if the design intent was to enforce more esoteric lists they would have stated such explicitly. Further, considering that Free Cities do have specific allegiance abilities/traits wouldn't it be equally legal to take those as opposed to native constituent faction(s)? I admit I'm not really familiar with anything other than order so I might be missing something regarding why they wouldn't let you simply choose between native AA versus Firestorm AA.

[Somanlius]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for suggestions on an Anvilguard list that contains Darkling Covens and Stormcast units. A balance between the two would be ideal. My friend and I are going to be playing a game with me as Nurgle and him as Anvilguard. I have all the Stormcast units to supply him and he has the Darkling Covens and we're looking for a cool match up between the two. I was thinking about fast mobile units and footmen to surround the Nurgle forces and force them to run/die with the Anvilguard Alliegence ability? Any advice would be great!

[Beliman]

23 minutes ago, Aden said:

I'm not trying to be argumentative  but it seems to me if the design intent was to enforce more esoteric lists they would have stated such explicitly. Further, considering that Free Cities do have specific allegiance abilities/traits wouldn't it be equally legal to take those as opposed to native constituent faction(s)? I admit I'm not really familiar with anything other than order so I might be missing something regarding why they wouldn't let you simply choose between native AA versus Firestorm AA.

Don't know.

Imho, GW needs to upgrade Firestorm rules(and build more cities for Destruction, Chaos and Death). With less restrictions and more tools to build crazy (optional) lists with awesome new rules (like Stoneklaw's Gutstompas) with artifacts+weapons and maybe even battalions.

[Cynric]

1 hour ago, Aden said:

I'm not trying to be argumentative  but it seems to me if the design intent was to enforce more esoteric lists they would have stated such explicitly. Further, considering that Free Cities do have specific allegiance abilities/traits wouldn't it be equally legal to take those as opposed to native constituent faction(s)? I admit I'm not really familiar with anything other than order so I might be missing something regarding why they wouldn't let you simply choose between native AA versus Firestorm AA.

It seems like a half implemented feature.  For example freecity has no artifacts or command abilities so although they give you an allegiance ability you still need another allegiance to get the other two.  To my thinking it's closer to being a battalion than an allegiance or I suppose it could be thought of as dual citizenship.

 

[Cynric]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

I'm afraid that Sylvaneth don't have that option, so if you want to take amy Sylvaneth Battalion using GA: Order, then you need to pick them as allies and build a legal list  to use GA: Order Allegiance Abilitites  (and then ally with Sylvaneth for that battallions).

I am constantly suprised by rules that I did not know existed so I am not doubting you, but I would like to know where it says battalions are paid for in allies.  What if we simplify it and lose the freecity (can add that back later after rules are more clear), and create an order army that is 50% one faction and 50% another faction (wanderers and sylvaneth in this case), wouldnt the battalion just be paid for with normal points just like the sylvaneth units that are wrapped within it?

[Beliman]

@Cynric I'm not sure if there is a rule for GA: Order, but from Core Rules Errata:

"An army can include a warscroll battalion of a different allegiance to the rest of the army, but if it does so the units in it do count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (and the points for the battalion and the units in it count against...".

Imo, that means that GA: Order is not Sylvaneth, so Sylvaneth battalions will use "ally points" for GA: Order.

English is not my main language and I hope I'm wrong, so if someone knows anything more to skip that restriction, It will be nice.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Beliman

[JackStreicher]

Has anybody found any juicy Battalion/combination for Anvilgard? 🙂

[Cynric]

58 minutes ago, Beliman said:

@Cynric I'm not sure if there is a rule for GA: Order, but from Core Rules Errata:

"An army can include a warscroll battalion of a different allegiance to the rest of the army, but if it does so the units in it do count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (and the points for the battalion and the units in it count against...".

Imo, that means that GA: Order is not Sylvaneth, so Sylvaneth battalions will use "ally points" for GA: Order.

English is not my main language and I hope I'm wrong, so if someone knows anything more to skip that restriction, It will be nice.

English is my first language and what exactly they mean is not clear to me either. 

To me it is not clear how spending points on a sylvaneth battalion is different than spending on a treelord; I don't see why they would come from a different pool. 

My guess is the bit from the errata is talking about situations such as a wanderers alliegence  army that decides to bring a sylvaneth household battalion.  The units in the household would of course come from allies as they are not wanderers.  They also might have been talking about  battalions that include non native units such as winterleafs 0-1 order unit although that is even less clear and it would I think make the guardians of allariel battalion unworkable as it would require either really high points or force the army to be generic order.  That battalion requires 460 points of stormcast with units a minimum size.  That said the sylvaneth book has a battalion called sylvaneth war grove which requires something like 9 battalions as members (1 lords of clan, 3 household, 3 forest folk, 1 outcasts and 1 free spirits.)  I cant imagine how silly that game would be or how many points would be required to put it on the table so perhaps the rule writers are imagining situations of a scale far beyond the games I play.

[Beliman]

7 hours ago, Cynric said:

To me it is not clear how spending points on a sylvaneth battalion is different than spending on a treelord; I don't see why they would come from a different pool. 

I have my doubts about freecities too. My reason to not use the same points of Dryads or Treelord with battalions is becaude Dryads and Treelords are units, and units (Core Book) only need one keyword to be legal to be played for an Allegiance (Dryads and TLA has "Order" keyword in their warscroll). But battalions don't have keywords and the only rule that explains them is that they are "from" the battletome where they are written (Sylvaneth battletomes have "Sylvaneth" over their battalion's name, so they are a bit more clear than other battalions without any word nor keyword). And the only FAQ that explains a bit how to take battalions using other Allegiance is the one that we are talking about (that, like you said, it seems to aim to other type of armies, but is generic enough to be relevant in our exemple with Sylvaneth).

 That was "my" logic behind my argument. I'm not saying that your are wrong btw, but the rules for freecities are a bit unclear and I want to be sure that I understand everything.

Edit: BoC battalions couldn't be picked with specific god Allegiance even if the models gained their keyword. It was FAQ'd later but before that, all that battalions were just exclusive for BoC.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Beliman

[Yoshiya]

All battalions have the allegiance of their grand alliance too is the major distinction. I can't remember where this was written and I'm at work so I can't search at the moment but it came up when people weren't sure about whether or not the Everchosen battalions can be used at all anymore since the units inside weren't Everchosen units.

The BoC battalions were different because the battalions themselves belonged to BoC but gave the units inside keywords for other factions leading to confusion. The errata for them thus cleared this up allowing them to be taken in their respective factions (it may be the same errata they confirmed the grand alliance thing? Either that or the Everchosen one?)

[stato]

On 2/3/2019 at 8:05 PM, Aden said:

I'm not trying to be argumentative  but it seems to me if the design intent was to enforce more esoteric lists they would have stated such explicitly. Further, considering that Free Cities do have specific allegiance abilities/traits wouldn't it be equally legal to take those as opposed to native constituent faction(s)? I admit I'm not really familiar with anything other than order so I might be missing something regarding why they wouldn't let you simply choose between native AA versus Firestorm AA.

Unfortunately what people are saying is correct.  If your army composition lets you take (example) Stormcast Allegiance, you must take it. You cannot take Order Allegiance, and therefore as you are not Order Allegiance you cannot add Free Cities Allegiance.  To get around this there are 2 options;

 

1.  Take allies not in your faction allies table (this option doesnt work for Stormcast obviously as they like everyone)
   1. Note this would mean no battleline-if would be allowed as you would not have that allegiance.
   2. Factions without any allegiance abilities (Order Draconis for example) can only take Order Allegiance abilities, its currently unclear if this lets them take Free Cities Allegiance as they technically have an Oder Draconis Allegiance (and battleline-if) but just use Order Allegiance abilities.
2. Take no more than 1599 pt (in 2000 pt battle) total of main faction, so breaking you allegiance.
   1. Note this would mean no battleline-if would be allowed as you would not have that allegiance.
   2. Note to ensure final army met free city criteria minimum of 1600pt would need to be spent on factions from the free city.
   3. Although now free cities can take allies, so upto 400pt of your army could still be any Order ally.

 

Examles;  (as above this assumes no Battleline-if are used)

• Tempest Eye Allegiance - Legal (Stormcast below legal for their allegiance, dispossessed and Stormcast are tempest totalling 1800pt, Btreonnians are legal Tempest allies)
  • 1500pt Stormcast
  • 300pt Dispossessed
  • 200pt Bretonnians (Order allies)

• Tempest Eye Allegiance - Not legal (Army is valid for Stormcast allegiance as Bretonnians are legal allies for Stormcast)
  • 1800pt Stormcast
  • 200pt Bretonnians (Order allies)

• Tempest Eye Allegiance - Legal (as Bretonnians are not legal allies for Dispossessed, but are for Tempest eye)
  • 1800pt Dispossessed
  • 200pt Bretonnians (Order allies)

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by stato

[stato]

5 hours ago, Yoshiya said:

All battalions have the allegiance of their grand alliance too is the major distinction. I can't remember where this was written and I'm at work so I can't search at the moment but it came up when people weren't sure about whether or not the Everchosen battalions can be used at all anymore since the units inside weren't Everchosen units.

 

Yep.  Its all in the core rules FAQ

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Core-Rules-and-Bases-Sizes-EN.pdf

 

Battalions have their Faction Allegiance keyword (odd fact, its not actually written on any of the Stormcast ones in the new battletome)

Battalions have their Grand Allegiance keyword.

All units within the Battalion gain the battalions faction Faction Allegiance keyword.

Edited February 5, 2019 by stato

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, stato said:

Factions without any allegiance abilities (Order Draconis for example) can only take Order Allegiance abilities, its currently unclear if this lets them take Free Cities Allegiance as they technically have an Oder Draconis Allegiance (and battleline-if) but just use Order Allegiance abilities.

I believe that you can. The oficial Errata for FireStorm (december 2018) says that to be available to pick Firestorm Abilities or warlord traits, you must use Allegiance Abilities from your Gran Allegiance. So, an Allegiance that don't have their own Abilities can use GA Abilities and I understand that this allows you to pick Freecities Abilities too.

Looking more about this, if you ara Allegiance: Scourge Privateers using Anvilgard, you can't take Dispossessed even if they are GA:Order because you are still using Allegiance: Scourge Privateers (even if they can be taken by Anvilgard lists). 

6 hours ago, Yoshiya said:

All battalions have the allegiance of their grand alliance too is the major distinction. I can't remember where this was written and I'm at work so I can't search at the moment but it came up when people weren't sure about whether or not the Everchosen battalions can be used at all anymore since the units inside weren't Everchosen units.

Thanks a lot! One less restriction to break, let's go for another one!!!