AoS 2 - Cities of Sigmar Discussion

[Double Misfire]

3 minutes ago, dekay said:

First, it's a beautiful army. Second, I just imagined a mostly dwarf military force with an evil sorceress serving as an advisor, advocating blood sacrifice as a viable option in any situation. Never mind the Cities are very conversion friendly, just a stock darkling model would be hilarious.

Greywater without any artillery, though? Shame!

Thanks! That means a lot coming from someone who's work I admire as much as yours!

Drukhastra (my Sorceress) is definitely more of a pretends to be nice type, but was leading Hrathnir the Runelord up the garden path the entire weekend, I think she gave him one command point over the course of five games! It didn't help that due to the way the event's rules worked in 3/5 battles she was able to sacrifice any models she wanted, and probably took out about 15 Lonbeards, reporting that they'd died of natural causes....

The lack of artillery's a conscious thing, as in my experience (or that of my regular opponents) long range guns that take off your biggest toy before you get a chance to use it aren't terribly fun to play against, so it's Steam Tanks and Gyrocopters for me!

 

Actually, this thread is as good a place to ask as any, Im currently planning on knoking up a unit of 10 Dreadspears for Drukhastra to sacrifice in normal games, should I use conventional aelves, or would this motley bunch I found in a drawer last week make more suitable ensorcelled sacrifices? 😇

[Arathorn185]

So this is a weird question to ask; is Cities of Sigmar, “Cities” of Sigmar, or “Freeguild”, “Corsairs”, “Darkling Covens”, “Wanderers”,  “Disspossed” w/ friends of Sigmar. The Battletome has a lot of cross synergy on an army/city level (Hawkeyes and various other aura Command traits). But then we have cities often by nature once you get past command traits are clearly tailored to certain faction builds highlighted by there Battlelions. 

Living City having a “if no move spell” coincides with a lot of the mechanics of Wanderers.  While some cities notably Grey Water Fastness, Hallowhart and Pheonician support mini less developed factions (Ironweld, Collegiaye Arcanum, and Pheonix Temple), save Pheonix Temple which is arguebly main faction, those factions are most assuredly “ally” Factions.

So here my question, is there enough in built cross synergy faction, across the main factions and the “ally” factions. Or is it that simply put Cities is honestly a book with “Main” Factions and their Friends? 

Should it be like that? 

[flamingwalnut]

5 hours ago, Arathorn185 said:

So this is a weird question to ask; is Cities of Sigmar, “Cities” of Sigmar, or “Freeguild”, “Corsairs”, “Darkling Covens”, “Wanderers”,  “Disspossed” w/ friends of Sigmar. The Battletome has a lot of cross synergy on an army/city level (Hawkeyes and various other aura Command traits). But then we have cities often by nature once you get past command traits are clearly tailored to certain faction builds highlighted by there Battlelions. 

Living City having a “if no move spell” coincides with a lot of the mechanics of Wanderers.  While some cities notably Grey Water Fastness, Hallowhart and Pheonician support mini less developed factions (Ironweld, Collegiaye Arcanum, and Pheonix Temple), save Pheonix Temple which is arguebly main faction, those factions are most assuredly “ally” Factions.

So here my question, is there enough in built cross synergy faction, across the main factions and the “ally” factions. Or is it that simply put Cities is honestly a book with “Main” Factions and their Friends? 

Should it be like that? 

It has enough synergy to support a main faction, and certain cities push that way, but you don't have to have ONE faction of synergy with some allies. Having a "Darkling contingent" where you have 10 Dreadspears to sacrifice to a Sorceress and a block of Darkshards for ranged support. Maybe a quarter of your list and that could be it. Then another contingent of Duardin with a Warden King and Runlord backing up a massive block of Hammerers and Irondrakes. 

But yes, you'd get more synergy by pushing one major faction and leaning in towards your city of choice, but it is all relative. Anvilguard is thematic to the Dark Elves and their mount trait stuff REQUIRES dragons, hydras, or a Kharybdis to even work, so not taking one gimps yourself. But outside of that one to get the free trait, you don't need it.

So, consider them more as guides. For optimal use it is easy to focus on a faction so as units and characters die you don't have a lone dude with nothing to buff or get buffed by. But variety is the spice of life and I think the best lists will really abuse the good deal of leeway Cities can have. 

[dekay]

11 hours ago, Arathorn185 said:

So this is a weird question to ask; is Cities of Sigmar, “Cities” of Sigmar, or “Freeguild”, “Corsairs”, “Darkling Covens”, “Wanderers”,  “Disspossed” w/ friends of Sigmar. The Battletome has a lot of cross synergy on an army/city level (Hawkeyes and various other aura Command traits). But then we have cities often by nature once you get past command traits are clearly tailored to certain faction builds highlighted by there Battlelions. 

It's more of the "Cities". Army building is clearly designed to make a varied force. How do we know? Well, both Wanderer and Dispossessed (and occasionally Phoenix Temple) players repeatedly tried to build solo forces when the book came out and they mostly turned out.. suboptimal, to say the least. Pure humans are probably doable, but you're still missing out then.

Most reasonable City lists seem to have few distinct blocks of units, performing different functions within the army. They more often than not come from different subfactions, as @flamingwalnut said.

As for city specialisations, it depends.

Hammerhal is universal. Their battalion is freeguild heavy, but apart from that, you're basically free to use whatever you like.

Hallowheart - as long as there are wizards, it's cool. It can be battlemages, it can be sorceresses, you can use stormcast support, there's even a build with nomad prince general to make Sisters battleline. Wizards are a support element anyway, so you're free to choose what they'll be supporting. Hell, Hallowheart Runelord is a thing I see popping up, so you can even go not particularily magicky dwarves with this one.

Tempest's Eye - battalion is freeguild, mostly, but we've seen lists based on dispossessed, darkings, shadowblades, wanderers, ironweld even. You also can (but don't need to) use arkanauts and khemist as a core of your force.

Living City - it obviously seems to work best with wanderers and sylvaneth, but no one really seems to like the battalion, and their skills work just as well with freeguild, dispossessed, shadowblades, even a rarely seen Serpentis dreadlord suddenly gains a lot of utility in there despite being mostly overshadowed by griffon in other cities.

And now to the specialised ones:

Anvilgard - seen as one of the weaker ones, but still can work. It tends to end up scourge privateer heavy, but that's mostly because their battalion can give you 9 scourgerunner 1 drop army core. And if you're taking it, all your battleline is corsairs. Plus you have a fleetmaster already. And you can take a kharybdiss and why wouldn't you if it gets an extra upgrade for free? But really, many things can work in Anvilgard - one of their main strengths is vitriolic spray spell, cast either from a fast wizard or through the spellportal. And it supports low rend-high volume shooting units the best. We have those in freeguild, darklings and wanderers.

Phoenicium: yes, you *will* need phoenix temple for that one. I mean, you can not, but you're handicapping yourself pretty hard. However, even if core of your force is built of phoenix temple units, tere are many ways to support them. Some argued that phoenicium is actually the best city to use black ark corsairs, not anvilgard, because they work well with sacrifice rules. But you can use flagellants, too. Or sacrificial darklings. Your choice, really.

Greywater Fastness - they like their warmachines. However, it can mean artillery, it can mean tanks, gyrocopters... plus, artillery is limited, so you need the rest of the army too. Both dispossessed and freeguild work well, but there's nothing stopping you from using wanderers or darklings instead. However, you probably concentrate on shooting, the city doesn't have much in a way of melee support.

[Lebenski]

I’m looking to run my old Phoenix Guard models in the new Cities book and after spending a fair bit of time exploring Phoenicium i’m left feeling underwhelmed.

They seem like an ideal retinue for an Anointed on foot but i’m struggling to find a good home for that in any of the other Cities.  Has anyone figured out a good build for an Anointed general with a Phoenix Guard retinue outside of Phoenicium?

I’m keen to hear any other general thoughts on useful synergies for Phoenix Guard.
 

[Acid_Nine]

15 minutes ago, Lebenski said:

I’m looking to run my old Phoenix Guard models in the new Cities book and after spending a fair bit of time exploring Phoenicium i’m left feeling underwhelmed.

They seem like an ideal retinue for an Anointed on foot but i’m struggling to find a good home for that in any of the other Cities.  Has anyone figured out a good build for an Anointed general with a Phoenix Guard retinue outside of Phoenicium?

I’m keen to hear any other general thoughts on useful synergies for Phoenix Guard.
 

haven't played it but hammerhal seems like it would be a good place. Blood of the twelve and the Twinstone on the anointed can help buff the phoenix's guard attacks by adding 1 to hit, and save on command points with re-rolling 1's to wound. Plus, we always have a chance to gain command points with banners, which can boost our combat even more.

[dekay]

10 hours ago, Lebenski said:

 Has anyone figured out a good build for an Anointed general with a Phoenix Guard retinue outside of Phoenicium?

Hammerhal, Tempest's Eye and Hallowheart are your universal cities. Phoenix temple core will work well in all of them.

Hammerhal will give them extra +1 to hit and a lot of command points

Hallowheart has a great magic support and if you  take a frostheart to support them, he likes the spells a lot. Access to +1 to wound buff.

Tempest's Eye gets them to the fight quicker, boosts their toughness even further in the first turn and gives them access to charge re-rol and +1 attack aura.

[Alaric83]

Hello guys,

I have a question that I feel stupid to ask. Been looking around (here and on reddit) for answer, but nobody seems to be asking it. Apologies, English is not my native tongue.

My question is regarding the allies that some Cities can take (Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Kharadron). It says "Only 1 in 4 units can be [faction name]".

Does it mean you can take, for exemple, one Kharadron unit and three TempestEye non-Kharadron units? Or does it mean that you first need to take 4 non-Kharadron Tempesters, and then you can add a fifth unit which can be Kharadron?

Thank you very much in advance, I've had this question for a while and it has been quite a problem for list-building.

[smartazjb0y]

4 minutes ago, Alaric83 said:

Hello guys,

I have a question that I feel stupid to ask. Been looking around (here and on reddit) for answer, but nobody seems to be asking it. Apologies, English is not my native tongue.

My question is regarding the allies that some Cities can take (Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Kharadron). It says "Only 1 in 4 units can be [faction name]".

Does it mean you can take, for exemple, one Kharadron unit and three TempestEye non-Kharadron units? Or does it mean that you first need to take 4 non-Kharadron Tempesters, and then you can add a fifth unit which can be Kharadron?

Thank you very much in advance, I've had this question for a while and it has been quite a problem for list-building.

It means you take 3 non-KO units, and 1 KO unit. 

[Rune]

2 minutes ago, Alaric83 said:

Hello guys,

I have a question that I feel stupid to ask. Been looking around (here and on reddit) for answer, but nobody seems to be asking it. Apologies, English is not my native tongue.

My question is regarding the allies that some Cities can take (Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Kharadron). It says "Only 1 in 4 units can be [faction name]".

Does it mean you can take, for exemple, one Kharadron unit and three TempestEye non-Kharadron units? Or does it mean that you first need to take 4 non-Kharadron Tempesters, and then you can add a fifth unit which can be Kharadron?

Thank you very much in advance, I've had this question for a while and it has been quite a problem for list-building.

It means the first thing you said.

 

As an example of something that is OK:

- 1 unit of arkanauts

- 3 units of long beards

 

You can, however, also do this:

- 1 stormkast unit

- 1 Kharadron 

- 2 Cities of Sigmar units

 

 

[Alaric83]

Thank you very much for your quick answer. That is the best answer I was hoping for! 🙂

[Grunaldi]

Can CoS take SCE/Trees/KO battalions ?

[Rune]

18 minutes ago, Grunaldi said:

Can CoS take SCE/Trees/KO battalions ?

No

[Double Misfire]

Everyone here is likely getting pretty sick of me using this thread as a Warhammer Achievements dumping ground, so here's my full event report, with a promise not to post about it again until next year's:

https://doublemisfire.blogspot.com/2019/11/event-report-grewyater-fastness-and.html

[Grunaldi]

17 hours ago, Rune said:

No

Can you point me to rule that shows that ?

[SwampHeart]

2 hours ago, Grunaldi said:

Can you point me to rule that shows that ?

You can never take SCE battalions because they're not a legal ally choice. You could take KO Battalions as an ally choice in every city except Tempest Eye (where KO are not a legal ally) and you can take Sylvaneth Battalions as an ally choice in every city except for Living City and Grey Water Fastness (where Sylvaneth are not a legal ally). 

Here are the legal ally selections. 

 

Edited November 8, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Grunaldi]

But why can't you take battalions as a part of ur army and not as ally ?

Edited November 8, 2019 by Grunaldi

[SwampHeart]

2 minutes ago, Grunaldi said:

But why can't you take battalions as a part of ur army and not as ally ?

Because they aren't Cities of Sigmar Battalions. I've attached the relevant FAQs. 

[Grunaldi]

so this FAQ changes rule of the battalions ...

... ok thx for clarification

[Arkhanist]

Basically, yes. Since CoS has special (overall more beneficial rules) for our 'not-allies' like stormcast that means they can't be taken as conventional allies, we can't take the battalions, even though we can take the units that make them up and they have the CoS keyword!

But yes, we're not the first tome to have issues with battalions because of that particular FAQ. Beasts of Chaos battalions was a mess until they fixed them as a special case in their Errata; it's still fairly broken for several Death factions if I remember correctly.

[Thiagoma]

On 11/6/2019 at 8:07 PM, Lebenski said:

I’m looking to run my old Phoenix Guard models in the new Cities book and after spending a fair bit of time exploring Phoenicium i’m left feeling underwhelmed.

They seem like an ideal retinue for an Anointed on foot but i’m struggling to find a good home for that in any of the other Cities.  Has anyone figured out a good build for an Anointed general with a Phoenix Guard retinue outside of Phoenicium?

I’m keen to hear any other general thoughts on useful synergies for Phoenix Guard.
 

I felt exactly the same way. The Phoenix city that benefits from taking non PT units. Sight...

 

I took my birds to Hallowearth.  You dont really need many Wizards. I take 2 and Emerald Lifeswarm as my only endless spell.  You can even take your old SeaGuard/Spireguard as Dreadspears and a Sorceress (with a "high elvish" paintjob) as an option.

My observation is that Hallowhearth Lists doesnt exactly need to be full of endless spells or even Wizards. Two casts each is HUGE since they got acess to great spells.

PG rolling 3+/2+ -1 1 dmg? Yes please.

Paudrons of Living Flame and Warding Brand on a Suicide Flamespyre bird? Oh yes! (d3 mortals on all enemies around it +1 mw for every dmg it takes)

And lifeswarm just to being those d6 pesky Phoenix Guards back 🤣

[TheArborealWalrus]

Hey, bit of a specific question. So in the last couple of games my free guild general (who might be a bit too much of a lynch pin currently) has been getting sniped first turn with very little I could do about it. Even with look out sir and a bodyguard he got obliterated first by ironblasters and then by bone reaper catapults. (forgot to say he was not in front, that's the goons' job) My city is from the realm of light so hallowheart felt right and then I of course picked the battleshock immunity trait (feel like the others should be better so there's more of a choice, but that's not the point of this post) which made him my opponent's top priority. I'm not sure how to protect him outside of using a dwarf as my freeguild general (which feels very wrong) to be invisible behind his human guards. Maybe make someone less valuable be the army general so at least I can keep his command ability? That's more mitigation of damage though. Plus I like the thematic nature of it being our regal leader to make the peasants fearless.

Might just be a matter of luck, but any ideas?

Edited November 12, 2019 by TheArborealWalrus

[GM_Monkey]

7 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

Hey, bit of a specific question. So in the last couple of games my free guild general (who might be a bit too much of a lynch pin currently) has been getting sniped first turn with very little I could do about it. Even with look out sir and a bodyguard he got obliterated first by ironblasters and then by bone reaper catapults. (forgot to say he was not in front, that's the goons' job) My city is from the realm of light so hallowheart felt right and then I of course picked the battleshock immunity trait (feel like the others should be better so there's more of a choice, but that's not the point of this post) which made him my opponent's top priority. I'm not sure how to protect him outside of using a dwarf as my freeguild general (which feels very wrong) to be invisible behind his human guards. Maybe make someone less valuable be the army general so at least I can keep his command ability? That's more mitigation of damage though. Plus I like the thematic nature of it being our regal leader to make the peasants fearless.

Might just be a matter of luck, but any ideas?

Couple of ideas...

Hide him behind some LOS blocking scenery?

Keep him out of range by deploying him far back in your deployment area?

[Rune]

8 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

Hey, bit of a specific question. So in the last couple of games my free guild general (who might be a bit too much of a lynch pin currently) has been getting sniped first turn with very little I could do about it. Even with look out sir and a bodyguard he got obliterated first by ironblasters and then by bone reaper catapults. (forgot to say he was not in front, that's the goons' job) My city is from the realm of light so hallowheart felt right and then I of course picked the battleshock immunity trait (feel like the others should be better so there's more of a choice, but that's not the point of this post) which made him my opponent's top priority. I'm not sure how to protect him outside of using a dwarf as my freeguild general (which feels very wrong) to be invisible behind his human guards. Maybe make someone less valuable be the army general so at least I can keep his command ability? That's more mitigation of damage though. Plus I like the thematic nature of it being our regal leader to make the peasants fearless.

Might just be a matter of luck, but any ideas?

You can't just use a smaller model instead of the correct one to hide your unit. Besides, if it was a dwarf, the general would still be targetable.

 

Also how does Ironbreakers get in range on turn one? 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Rune

[Double Misfire]

8 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

Hey, bit of a specific question. So in the last couple of games my free guild general (who might be a bit too much of a lynch pin currently) has been getting sniped first turn with very little I could do about it. Even with look out sir and a bodyguard he got obliterated first by ironblasters and then by bone reaper catapults. (forgot to say he was not in front, that's the goons' job) My city is from the realm of light so hallowheart felt right and then I of course picked the battleshock immunity trait (feel like the others should be better so there's more of a choice, but that's not the point of this post) which made him my opponent's top priority. I'm not sure how to protect him outside of using a dwarf as my freeguild general (which feels very wrong) to be invisible behind his human guards. Maybe make someone less valuable be the army general so at least I can keep his command ability? That's more mitigation of damage though. Plus I like the thematic nature of it being our regal leader to make the peasants fearless.

Might just be a matter of luck, but any ideas?

Bigger bodyguards. We've got Stormcast as an option for a reason