AoS 2 - Cities of Sigmar Discussion

[swarmofseals]

13 minutes ago, stus67 said:

Why would you think it can be overpowered @swarmofseals?

Gotta be brief at the moment but it basically comes down to two things:

1. Hallowheart magic. Hallowheart can get a silly amount of casts at absurd casting bonuses, and can do so in a drop efficient manner. The wide selection of casters also means that they can generally ensure everything has two spells worth casting even without taking a huge number of endless spells.

2. Efficient shooting. Early on in AOS, shooting was at a pretty unhealthy level. With 2.0, it got curtailed very heavily with the inclusion of look out, sir and a general scaling up of melee efficiency and scaling down of ranged efficiency. The ranged efficiency numbers in CoS are very, very high. Numbers at this level existed before with Freeguild, but that was kept in check by the fact that Freeguild had very poor speed, very poor melee options, no viable battalions and a complete reliance on allies for magic. Now that shooting exists in a shell with none of those problems.

[zilberfrid]

I though of a few lists with Gotrek in Meeting Engagements. Not viable ones, bit still, lists.

1: Hammerhall:

Spear: Gotrek, Sisters of the Thorn (650 pts) gets city spell Wings of Fire

Main: Freeguild Guardx2, Battlemage (Amber) (240 pts) (Thermalrider cloak to get close to Gotrek, or Wand of Restoration if that's no issue)

Rear: Scoure Chariots (60)

This leaves 60 points for endless spells, not cogs, but you can already give +3 to run, so Emerald Lifeswarm seems good.

Another one:

Gotrek, Sisters (only way to get casters there) 650

Scourge chariots *2, Fleetmaster 180

Battlemage (amber) 90

Now we're talking! 80 points left for spells, so cogs will be active. This would work best with Living City, to set up the battlemage close to Gotrek.

For the first, I would suggest using Blood Bowl cheerleaders as guards, and have their banners just say "Go Gotrek!", For the second, fill the chariots with water bottles to keep aur mohawked friend running.

[overtninja]

It does seem that even with shooting being potentially too strong in certain lists, it does seem like you have to go into it fairly heavily if you want it to work properly - investing in a hurricanum for hit buffs, the right selection of units in the right numbers, proper heroes to command buff, and a few other considerations that would make bringing other strong things difficult.

Most of the good shooting units are priced pretty high - with the notable exception of Shadow Warriors, which are going to be showing up all over the place for hero sniping with their 2+/3+/-1 ranged profile from cover with a deepstrike, without support. You can expect these to be in every list just to blow up people's buffing characters. With that said, this is essentially what people use magic prayers for - reliable unsaved wounds on the specific targets you need it on.  If you're piling on the Shadow Warriors in the numbers you'll need to get the job done, you'll have trouble bringing all the goodies you might want for magic or melee or durability.

[Mikelomba]

Guys with the living city ability to deepstrike and the ability to shoot and move . You can place a unit that can shoot on deepstrike a d then make a move so the charge only eill be 3"?

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Mikelomba said:

Guys with the living city ability to deepstrike and the ability to shoot and move . You can place a unit that can shoot on deepstrike a d then make a move so the charge only eill be 3"?

Yes. Expect a double durthu bomb until they nerf this interaction

[Floom]

Does anyone know how existing battalions would work with CoS? Does the city's keyword overwrite the ability to use the Grudgebound War Throng and such? 

[Arkhanist]

In theory nothing stops you taking a battalion from the GH if you can meet the requirements with CoS keyword units, I.e. the new warscrolls. No way to do a grudgebound war throng though; no mandatory unforged in CoS, and (old) dispossessed aren't on the allies list. So he'd block you taking the CoS allegiance.

Obviously you can still do it using the squatted units and doing Order or dispossessed allegiance, but CoS is far stronger.

We'll see what happens with legacy units (and battalions), they probably won't make it into GH2020.

 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Floom said:

Does anyone know how existing battalions would work with CoS? Does the city's keyword overwrite the ability to use the Grudgebound War Throng and such? 

As I understand it, batallions belong to a faction, so you'd have to ally them all in. For the Regiment, that's a bit hard to do (that was the only Freeguild faction)

[Rentar]

8 hours ago, stratigo said:

Yes. Expect a double durthu bomb until they nerf this interaction

The nerf is that it's impressively hard to take a battalion in Living City... And that battalion is impressively bad. To pull off the Double Durthu, you need 2 CP, and that's pricy in a high model count army with terrible CP generation (even with an adjutant, it's still bad).

Also, Durthu isn't really fantastic without woods giving +2 sword attacks.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Rentar

[swarmofseals]

10 hours ago, overtninja said:

It does seem that even with shooting being potentially too strong in certain lists, it does seem like you have to go into it fairly heavily if you want it to work properly - investing in a hurricanum for hit buffs, the right selection of units in the right numbers, proper heroes to command buff, and a few other considerations that would make bringing other strong things difficult.

Most of the good shooting units are priced pretty high - with the notable exception of Shadow Warriors, which are going to be showing up all over the place for hero sniping with their 2+/3+/-1 ranged profile from cover with a deepstrike, without support. You can expect these to be in every list just to blow up people's buffing characters. With that said, this is essentially what people use magic prayers for - reliable unsaved wounds on the specific targets you need it on.  If you're piling on the Shadow Warriors in the numbers you'll need to get the job done, you'll have trouble bringing all the goodies you might want for magic or melee or durability.

I think you are underestimating what is needed to make a terrifying gunline. For 1000 points you can take 90 Freeguild Crossbows and a Freeguild General, which will put out an average of about 101 rend 0 wounds per turn of shooting... and it takes care of your battleline. That doesn't factor in any allegiance abilities either -- it's just what's on the warscrolls.

EDIT: for 760 points you can get a Nomad Prince and 40 Sisters of the Watch. 11.4 mortal wounds an 57 rend 0 wounds per round of shooting with Tempest Eye Command Trait.

For 1410 you can get 40 Irondrakes, 10 Longbeards, 2 Runelords and a Hurricanum. Again with Tempest Eye that's 5 mortals, 6.5 rend 3 damage (more against monsters), and 61.5 rend 2 damage.

None of these factor in using the rr1's to hit with shooting CA.

Yes, these are all fairly heavy investments, but we aren't talking about "work properly" numbers, we're talking about delete the majority of your opponent's army in one turn numbers.

Edited October 4, 2019 by swarmofseals

[Maturin]

13 hours ago, stratigo said:

Yes. Expect a double durthu bomb until they nerf this interaction

What's that ?

[XReN]

7 minutes ago, Maturin said:

What's that ?

Spirit of Durthu is a rather powerfull melee fighter that can also shoot AND is a hero, so he can be set up from reserve, shoot and push himself with Living City's CA making an easy charge

Edited October 4, 2019 by XReN

[Charlo]

I'm fully expecting the 3" charge from deep strike to be nerfed or clarified as impossible in the "2 week" FAQ. It's very strong and is out of line with the rest of the game.

Also no older battalions in the Cities, much in the way Legions of Nagash cannot take Nighthaunt battalions as they require Nighthaunt allegiance.

[Tiger]

2 hours ago, Charlo said:

It's very strong and is out of line with the rest of the game.

I see it a little different than Gavriel. 🤔 I think the teleport through the bridge, shot and move back shenanigan is stronger. 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Tiger

[Arkhanist]

2 hours ago, Charlo said:

I'm fully expecting the 3" charge from deep strike to be nerfed or clarified as impossible in the "2 week" FAQ. It's very strong and is out of line with the rest of the game.

Also no older battalions in the Cities, much in the way Legions of Nagash cannot take Nighthaunt battalions as they require Nighthaunt allegiance.

That's taking a new battalion from a new battletome, and trying to put it into an older one. The equivalent would be trying to put a CoS battalion into an old Freeguild army, which won't work because they're tied to a specific city keyword.

In this case, it's taking old battalions from Grand Alliance: Order and using them in a CoS keyworded army. The listed battalions in GA Order specify units, but not a common keyword requirement. The Freeguild Regiment, for example is usable in theory as all the necessary units (bar archers, but they have alternates of crossbows or hangunners in the detachment) are available as Cities of Sigmar units.

I don't have the CoS book though yet, so it may say specifically that other battalions other than the included ones are not allowed. But if not, and it's not FAQ'd, I see no reason why they shouldn't be usable in the rules as written. And for RAI, the Freeguild regiment description - "When the cities of the Free Peoples are threatened they can call upon the disciplined ranks of the Freeguilds, stalwart warriors that stand shoulder to shoulder against enemies of Order".

[SwampHeart]

1 hour ago, Arkhanist said:

. The Freeguild Regiment, for example is usable in theory as all the necessary units (bar archers, but they have alternates of crossbows or hangunners in the detachment) are available as Cities of Sigmar units.

It isn't that they aren't allowed - they would be allies. The Freeguild Regiment isn't from the Cities of Sigmar faction and thus must be taken as an ally for CoS. 

Edited October 4, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Arkhanist]

Ah gotcha. Yes, looking again, the Freeguild Regiment belongs to the Free Peoples, which is not a faction keyword on the CoS warscrolls.  I stand corrected!

[zilberfrid]

25 minutes ago, Arkhanist said:

Ah gotcha. Yes, looking again, the Freeguild Regiment belongs to the Free Peoples, which is not a faction keyword on the CoS warscrolls.  I stand corrected!

It's also a minimum of 1390 points

[Arkhanist]

Never said it was a _good_ battalion 😁

[zilberfrid]

4 minutes ago, Arkhanist said:

Never said it was a _good_ battalion 😁

I think it would be a good Hammerhal batallion, lots of banners, no battleshock on 1, +1 to hit, +1 bravery, and very fast deployment. With a Hurricanum also giving +1 to hit, and a few other buffs, I think it could be quite viable.

The issue is that, well, Free people isn't an ally, and as I understand it, all the points of the batallion count as ally points. So even if, you'd need a 7k army to make it 20%

Edited October 4, 2019 by zilberfrid

[Zanzou]

Rewinding time back to the Cities of Sigmar Great Culling for a minute.  Why doesn't the AoS community ever receive the amount of detailed information and warning that this 40k Last Chance to Buy warning gives???

 

What the...???

 

A good chunk of the models in the great culling were permanently out of stock before they even went up on last chance to buy.  All of those models went up there with no timeline  warning and were gone in a weekend.  Entire factions before that have been cut without so much as a word ever out of GW.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Zanzou

[SwampHeart]

23 minutes ago, Zanzou said:

*snip*

Because GW's production doesn't always allow for the kind of information. With Sisters they're aware of the back stock, the exact date for the end of production and what they're willing to produce up until that point. A lot of CoS units were being spun down far in advance of the Last Chance purge and were probably out of stock in some countries at the time of the announcement. PIM is very different from Resin as far as 'print on demand' costs are concerned. 

This is all speculation based on what I do for a living (I deal with the production of plastic automotive parts). 

[michu]

Exactly @SwampHeart, I think that CoS cull was done earlier than planned, because most of those kits were already out of stock and there was no point in casting them again.

And with that SoB article - maybe GW just learned their lesson.

Edited October 4, 2019 by michu

[Zanzou]

33 minutes ago, michu said:

And with that SoB article - maybe GW just learned their lesson.

This would be the dream, I was floored that they actually  gave exact dates regarding the end of production. Whether or not that will extend to AoS though...

[zilberfrid]

42 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Because GW's production doesn't always allow for the kind of information. With Sisters they're aware of the back stock, the exact date for the end of production and what they're willing to produce up until that point. A lot of CoS units were being spun down far in advance of the Last Chance purge and were probably out of stock in some countries at the time of the announcement. PIM is very different from Resin as far as 'print on demand' costs are concerned. 

This is all speculation based on what I do for a living (I deal with the production of plastic automotive parts). 

One of the two sets that was out first may just have been expended. I have two General on horse kits, and the one I purchased through ebay has quite a bit of flash more than the one I purchased from a friend.

It was listed as available but did not work when trying to add to basket close to a week before the "last chance to buy" went up. Archers were also quite early to go. Sadly, I have no reference material save for a single body if unknown age.