AoS 2 - Living City Discussion

[NauticalSoup]

1 hour ago, Jaskier said:

A Living City list with 4 Fulminators and 4 Stormdrake Guard just took 1st place at the LVO (it finished in the top 8 of the 180 player event, qualifying it for the subsequent 8 person finals tournament which it then won.) It bears mentioning that a lot of GW's balance ethos centres around what is taking out the top spots at GTs, and seeing as the LVO is arguably the biggest 'partnered' GW tournament in the world, it's a safe bet Living City is about to get a whole lot of scrutiny from the rules team. You can find the full list on AOS Coach's Twitter if you're curious. It's mean. 

It would be very GW to come after LC for having access to two extremely overtuned units in SCE.

[Thugmullet]

2 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

It would be very GW to come after LC for having access to two extremely overtuned units in SCE.

Yes. Living City I suspect was one of the reasons that Allerielle has lost her access to all her sylvaneth spells outside of sylvaneth and as to why trees can no longer be placed in 3 seperate places at once. In both these cases they were very fair nerfs for LC I think and easily done by altering warscroll. But I'm not sure what they can do in the case of these Stormcast units that will stop LC using them with out a fundamental change to how LC works. And that's a real worry I think. To me LC isn't a problem, the problem is that Fulminators can do just so much massive damage on the charge and that large units of dragons are obviously very affective as well.

The worry is it wouldn't be the first time GW has changed the horse when they should have changed the wagon.

Someone at GW has obviously decided that SCE as the poster boys and girls  for AOS should be a proper competitive army (as they should be). So when comfronted with having to either change new SCE warscroll or LC battletraits I think there's a good chance they'll edge towards changing LC.

Or maybe not, it's GW after all. 50/50 they'll just do nothing. Which in this case would be great.

 

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Thugmullet said:

Yes. Living City I suspect was one of the reasons that Allerielle has lost her access to all her sylvaneth spells outside of sylvaneth and as to why trees can no longer be placed in 3 seperate places at once. In both these cases they were very fair nerfs for LC I think and easily done by altering warscroll. But I'm not sure what they can do in the case of these Stormcast units that will stop LC using them with out a fundamental change to how LC works. And that's a real worry I think. To me LC isn't a problem, the problem is that Fulminators can do just so much massive damage on the charge and that large units of dragons are obviously very affective as well.

The worry is it wouldn't be the first time GW has changed the horse when they should have changed the wagon.

Someone at GW has obviously decided that SCE as the poster boys and girls  for AOS should be a proper competitive army (as they should be). So when comfronted with having to either change new SCE warscroll or LC battletraits I think there's a good chance they'll edge towards changing LC.

Or maybe not, it's GW after all. 50/50 they'll just do nothing. Which in this case would be great.

 

or maybe they will go the way of Chaos and nerf the coalition rule for cities so that coalition units don't benefit from allegiance abilities (like, 1/4 stormcast don't get the LIVING CITY keyword but an useless one, like LIVING CITY STORMKEEP or whatever)

[Jaskier]

I like the idea (not mine) that Stormcast work the way Chaos coalition stuff does, but things like Sylvaneth in Living City or Kharadrons in Tempests' Eye stay as 'full' coalition units.

[readercolin]

8 hours ago, Jaskier said:

I like the idea (not mine) that Stormcast work the way Chaos coalition stuff does, but things like Sylvaneth in Living City or Kharadrons in Tempests' Eye stay as 'full' coalition units.

No.

There are 2 HUGE problems with this idea.

The first, is that there is no way in heck that GW would go ahead and modify the coalition rules to only push out stormcast and not just turn it off for everyone.

Second, the only stormcast units that are problematic in Cities armies are also problematic in stormcast armies.  Are Stormdrake Guard good?  Unquestionably yes.  Are they good in the Cities?  Yes.  Are they good in stormcast?  Yes.  Same for Fulminators.  Are they good in the cities?  Yes.  Are they good in stormcast?  Again, yes.  If these units are "too good" in the cities, I would also argue that they are "too good" in stormcast as well.  Hit those units with the nerfbat, not the cities.

[Jaskier]

9 hours ago, readercolin said:

No.

There are 2 HUGE problems with this idea.

The first, is that there is no way in heck that GW would go ahead and modify the coalition rules to only push out stormcast and not just turn it off for everyone.

Second, the only stormcast units that are problematic in Cities armies are also problematic in stormcast armies.  Are Stormdrake Guard good?  Unquestionably yes.  Are they good in the Cities?  Yes.  Are they good in stormcast?  Yes.  Same for Fulminators.  Are they good in the cities?  Yes.  Are they good in stormcast?  Again, yes.  If these units are "too good" in the cities, I would also argue that they are "too good" in stormcast as well.  Hit those units with the nerfbat, not the cities.

I mean, while that's a valid point on Fulminators and Stormdrakes being overtuned, one could definitely make the claim that they are more problematic in Cities than they are in Stormcast (moreso Fulminators.) Fulminators were already popular in LC before the new warscroll came out, certainly more popular than they were in Stormcast if I'm not misremembering. The issue is if GW nerfs them appropriate to how they perform in LC, it might be an over-nerf for how they perform in Stormcast allegiance - keyword is might. The other thing is if I'm looking for coalition units in almost any city, I'm generally going for Stormcast over the other options simply because they benefit more from the expanded allegiance rules as they already have strong warscrolls, contrary to say Sylvaneth stuff that have weaker scrolls pointed with their own allegiance rules in mind. 

The reality is that the Chaos coalition change was mostly only needed for Archaon, but they instead decided to slap down everything. I don't think any of us want that, and I don't mind the suggestion that they do a half-touch by only doing that to Stormcast coalition stuff. 

For the record, I want the coalition rules to stay as-is, but here's my perspective; if GW wants to take a hard look at them (which from what I'm hearing is very likely) then I'd rather only Stormcast get the Chaos treatment for Cities than all the factions suffering similarly. And you saying GW would never do a half-measure is funny given it's GW we're talking about 😁

 

[readercolin]

9 hours ago, Jaskier said:

For the record, I want the coalition rules to stay as-is, but here's my perspective; if GW wants to take a hard look at them (which from what I'm hearing is very likely) then I'd rather only Stormcast get the Chaos treatment for Cities than all the factions suffering similarly. And you saying GW would never do a half-measure is funny given it's GW we're talking about 😁

Yes, GW is well known for doing things... poorly.  That being said, if they slap down an errata the easy solution is to just nerf everything, not just the stormcast only portion.  Otherwise they are going to have to go back in and FAQ the errata, and that requires WAY too much effort compared to a half-ass slapdash "coalition units don't gain the cities of sigmar/city keywords".

And that is my problem.  If GW does go in, they are going to keep it short, simple, and not think to hard about it.  And that is going to ****** up approximately 12k points of coalition units that I own for my cities, which is why I would MUCH rather go in and nerf my 4 fulminators and 4 stormdrake guard than shoot the other 11k points of coalition units in the foot.  (ok, I will admit, all 12k points aren't specifically for coalition... but I have purchased stormcast, KO, Sylvaneth and Lumineth for use in coalition armies, and then because I bought enough fun stuff for coalition also picked up some battleline/support hero's for those factions to run them independently)

[Popisdead]

On 1/30/2022 at 6:59 PM, Jaskier said:

 it's a safe bet Living City is about to get a whole lot of scrutiny from the rules team. You can find the full list on AOS Coach's Twitter if you're curious. It's mean. 

So long as the scrutiny is fixing how weak Wanderers (outside SotW) are then okay.  I'm not sure they will honestly give it much scrutiny, if any.  

[NauticalSoup]

The problem is that SCE and Cities don't mix well from a design perspective when you can use units in one inside the other's allegiances. SCE have typically very efficient warscrolls coupled with very poor/limited allegiance traits, while Cities have some pretty dense allegiance traits with a lot of inefficient units. So although thematically it's neat to mix them a ton of SCE units gain more benefit from a Cities allegiance trait than they do from an SCE one, and you almost never want to put cities units in Stormkeeps cuz you're giving up some of the better allegiance traits in the game to become just a bog standard overpriced infantry unit that can't do anything SCE can't do themselves.

There's some exceptions but I think CoS just need a full rewrite if they're really meant to be paired so closely with SCE so they have better differentiated stronger warscrolls and less of the army's utility is offloaded to crazy stuff like doublecast wizards, deployment shenanigans and buff combos.

[EntMan]

On 2/9/2022 at 5:15 PM, Popisdead said:

So long as the scrutiny is fixing how weak Wanderers (outside SotW) are then okay.  I'm not sure they will honestly give it much scrutiny, if any.

Even SotW got a 3.0 nerf with the unleash hell related changes.

[Popisdead]

On 2/10/2022 at 10:53 PM, EntMan said:

Even SotW got a 3.0 nerf with the unleash hell related changes.

They indirectly did, sure.  Not directly.  But any other unit that leveraged Unleash Hell and leaned on it heavy did.  GW didn't directly address those specific units.  

Again, plays more into GW doesn't really address Wanderers in anyway.  However LC getting a nerf could be likely, Wanderers won't.

[Lord Krungharr]

I don't think LC deserves a nerf.  The moving after shooting is a CA which requires a CP and of course can only be done to a single unit per turn anyways.  It's not like every unit can do that all the time.

Chaff screen units are key against any unit that needs to charge to do its thing like Fulminators.  That's just true in any army, any mission, any matchup.  The truly needed nerf to Stormdrakes would be to get rid of the once per game free move, which is needlessly excessive; or barring that raiser their points to like 400-440 per pair, or have a 4+ armor save instead of the 3+.

Another possible idea for reigning in coalition units, and even allies, is that perhaps they should not be able to use reinforcement points?  So no units of 4 Fulminators or Stormdrakes, or no units of 10 allied Grundstok Thundrers for example.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

16 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I don't think LC deserves a nerf.  The moving after shooting is a CA which requires a CP and of course can only be done to a single unit per turn anyways.  It's not like every unit can do that all the time.

Chaff screen units are key against any unit that needs to charge to do its thing like Fulminators.  That's just true in any army, any mission, any matchup.  The truly needed nerf to Stormdrakes would be to get rid of the once per game free move, which is needlessly excessive; or barring that raiser their points to like 400-440 per pair, or have a 4+ armor save instead of the 3+.

Another possible idea for reigning in coalition units, and even allies, is that perhaps they should not be able to use reinforcement points?  So no units of 4 Fulminators or Stormdrakes, or no units of 10 allied Grundstok Thundrers for example.

I personally also don't think that a nerf to the Living City allegiance is warranted at this point. Living City was not even clearly one of the top three cities in the book for most of its life span. That tells me that if there is a problem, it's not due to inherent power level, but due to meta shifts. In this case, we are in a shooting meta, where ambushing (starting off board) and shooting-related abilities are both more potent. Also, Living City healing got better because of higher saves all around.

However, the real source of the problem is how over-tuned some Stromcast units are. I think it's plainly obvious that Stormcast just has bunch of units that are too efficient as a self-contained package. This is a problem with the design of the new Stormcast book. Stormcast are an army of efficient warscrolls and comparatively weaker allegiance abilities, which is easier for beginners. But they gain access to much more potent and complex allegiance abilities in Cities. There is always going to be a high chance that Stormcast will excel in Cities because of this. I don't think the possibility of certain Stormcast units being better outside of their own allegiance can be 100% avoided unless GW turn off allegiance abilities for coallition units alltogether. Which would be a shame, because that's part of what makes them fun to use in Cities in the first place.

[Doko]

Living city is fine,the problem are sc units undercosteds and new tomes that have almost 0 alegiances,enhacements etc and so is better run sc units in a 2.0 tome than in his nerfed\simplified 3.0 book

[Lord Krungharr]

Next game I play will be using forest-friendly Dwarves:

Warden King (general/Druid of the Everspring/Arcane Tome)

2 Runelords (both with Curse)

Celestial Hurricanum (Amulet of Destiny/Lifesurge)

Gotrek

20 Ironbreakers

20 Irondrakes

10 Hammerers

2 Gyrocopters

Emerald Lifeswarm

Hold the Line

Living City will help compensate for their general slowness.  Not a hardcore army but when my Ancestral Runicanum is all done, it'll look all purely Duardin

 

[Popisdead]

Rob on the Honest WArgaming talked about this list going 4-1 recently

 

nomad prince

knight incantor

lord celestant on star drake

3 x 20 Sisters of the watch

2 x 5 trevs

battle regiment

 

 I like seeing the 60 Sisters.  I've run 30 and man they are good.  Pretty sure I have 60 archers.  I don't have a star drake but a couple wood elf dragons.  I wonder if there is a build I could change it up for a tanky black dragon.

[Jaskier]

On 3/25/2022 at 5:35 AM, Popisdead said:

Rob on the Honest WArgaming talked about this list going 4-1 recently

 

nomad prince

knight incantor

lord celestant on star drake

3 x 20 Sisters of the watch

2 x 5 trevs

battle regiment

 

 I like seeing the 60 Sisters.  I've run 30 and man they are good.  Pretty sure I have 60 archers.  I don't have a star drake but a couple wood elf dragons.  I wonder if there is a build I could change it up for a tanky black dragon.

It's definitely a cool list. I've come back around to the Stardrake given just how flexible it is but also because it's the biggest model we can ambush - it is a clear advantage over Karazai/Krondys if you're looking for a dragon option. A model that big (even if its output is a bit anaemic for 500 points) popping out of a board edge can be super intimidating.

Another one I liked the look of went 4-1 in Australia recently, running an Anointed on Frostheart, Gotrek, 6 Fulminators (1x4 and 1x2) and some mild shooting. I'm planning on running a very similar list soon, trading out the small unit of 2 Fulminators and a bit of shooting for the Celestant Prime. I love the idea of a model with a guaranteed 24" threat range to 'pair up' with other units shoot-moving, as well as the big mind games you can play having that kind of power able to arrive anywhere you need it. 

[The Red King]

So due to medical expenses I am going to be selling my quite lovingly crafted cities army and since the list of models and conversions is pretty specific to the living city I thought I would let yall know here. If I recall the rules disallow posting links to sales so if anyone is interested just IM me and I'll get you the link once I post it.

 

The list is:

Sylvaneth
Alarielle [with skull mask]
Durthu [with deer skull mask]
Kurnoth hunters ×3 [with beast skulls from the skulls kit]
Tree revenant ×10 

Stormcast
Fulminators ×6 [2 have been converted into mini forest dragons with wild rider helms]

Cities
Nomad prince 
Sorceress/battle mage ×2 [one converted from a witch aelf and the other the silver tower mistweaver]
Runelord [with dryad mask and sylvaneth hand weapon]
Dreadlord on black dragon [not for sale due to a wonderful donation by @Neil Arthur Hotep]
Dreadspears×10 [skull/root heads]
Eternal guard×20 [with dryad face masks]
War hydra
Sisters of the thorn ×10
Sisters of the watch ×30
Wild riders [on fenrisian wolf mounts] ×10
Wildwood rangers ×20
Gladeguard ×16
Finecast Orion

 

 

Please feel free to remove if this post isnt okay.

Edited March 30, 2022 by The Red King

[Jaskier]

I gave Karazai a whirl today (instead of Fulminators, change of pace) and woof I've never had a centrepiece model perform that well on their debut. He finished the game with +3 to run and charge and +3 attacks to all his melee profiles. Suffice to say nothing survived a round of combat with him; small Ossiarch heroes and 'medium' units like Necropolis Stalkers were just food for him. In fact, outside of one instance where he charged three units, he always wiped out whatever he attacked just with his Annihilating Jaws. 

Even though he had an outstanding showing, it did cement what I've long thought about him; if I play against any kind of list that can offer significant threat with ranged damage or capably pull off turn one charges with extreme melee threats, the inability to safely hide and 'deliver' him via ambush renders him a liability. However, outside of those matchups - and especially with a Frostheart backing him up - the potential 28" movement to just zoom over to wherever there's a vulnerable hero/medium unit/objective and power up/score then just be an absolute tank in combat (-1 attack to all melee weapons, -1 to-wound if near the Phoenix, potential 2+ stacked save) means in some matchups he can just dominate a game with little way to really punish him. 

I ran him with the usual Frosty Anointed (Ironoak Artisan, Arcane Tome, Lifesurge) Gotrek, 3x10 Dreadspears, 20 Crossbowmen and 10 Shadow Warriors. I'm gonna try and work out a list where I can fit him, the Phoenix and my 4 Fulminators in at the cost of Gotrek (the issue is getting to 8 units to satisfy 1 in 4 for having 2 Stormcast units.) The other consideration I noted is that a Celestant Prime's Ghal Maraz is equivalent to his Annihilating Jaws if you drop him on turn three, and being nearly half the points means I can fit a lot more other stuff instead of focusing on Karazai alone. Probably not the most optimal, being potentially very matchup dependent in terms of being so vulnerable to getting taken off in one turn with no option to protect him via ambush, but heaps of fun and downright terrifying if not handled. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Jaskier

[Popisdead]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:30 AM, The Red King said:

So due to medical expenses I am going to be selling my quite lovingly crafted cities army

There is a buy sell thread on TGA also.  

 

Good luck with what you are going through.  life is hard.

[Trickflo]

I've been thinking about getting a Nomad Prince but I'm not a huge fan of the model specifically the face, I've been using an old wood elf hero as a proxy but I was wondering if anyone has any good conversion Ideas for a Nomad Prince could be a simple head swap or a full conversion poked around and couldn't find a lot of unhelmeted heads that would look wood elfy but possible I missed something. Appreciate any ideas.

[Popisdead]

On 4/2/2022 at 2:55 AM, Trickflo said:

I've been thinking about getting a Nomad Prince but I'm not a huge fan of the model specifically the face, I've been using an old wood elf hero as a proxy but I was wondering if anyone has any good conversion Ideas for a Nomad Prince could be a simple head swap or a full conversion poked around and couldn't find a lot of unhelmeted heads that would look wood elfy but possible I missed something. Appreciate any ideas.

Tree Revenant?  Find someone who built Spite Revs.

Sister of the Watch?

Shadow Warriors?

Eternal Guard sans helmet?

Old Glade Guard heads?  The hooded one?

What about anything from any other plastic Elf range?  Sorceress?   Uh,.. man there have been and are so many.

TBH any old Wood Elf Hero with a Spear is a fine model.   

 

[Trickflo]

Didn't think about tree revs think I have some of those around thanks for the ideas.

[Marcvs]

played a Living City list in a Team Tournament this weekend. The event used the AoS Worlds rules. My team (me very much included) had 0 experience with team tournaments and for most of us it was also our first 2-days event in AoS 3.0, so this surely had an impact, in particular in our ability to do the parings.

Anyway, my list was meant to be a can opener to throw against armies which want to tank on the objectives (gargants, certain nurgle lists etc). As such it's very much skewed for damage and has very bad matchups. It also had to respect the restrictions of the team format -no duplicate warscrolls or artefacts, which for me meant no stormdrake guards and no arcane tome. Here's the list:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
- City: Living City
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Inspired
Runelord (100)*
- General
- Command Trait: High Priest
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
Battlemage (115)*
- Artefact: Deepmire Cloak
- City Role: General's Adjutant
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Lore of Leaves: Lifesurge
Knight-Vexillor (120)*
- Pennant of the Stormbringer
30 x Irondrakes (510)*
- Reinforced x 2
10 x Longbeards (105)*
- Great Axes
10 x Longbeards (105)*
- Ancestral Weapons & Shields
- City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)
5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
- Spell1: Lore of Leaves: Ironoak Skin
4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (460)*
- Reinforced x 1
Celestial Hurricanum (230)*
Soulscream Bridge (70)
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1945 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 111
Drops: 1
 

Games went as follows:

Round 1: Tzeentch (40 pinks, kairos, bridge...) in Tooth and nail. I was "suicided" by my team on this one. It was a bad matchup (no hope to get the bridge off), on a bad scenario (no reserves), against a much more experienced player (the AoS Worlds Solo champion of last year). In the end, thanks to the vexillor and a lot of avoiding the big 30 pink pack, I managed to scrape a 7-13. Funnily enough, this is the result I am most proud of for the whole event.

Round 2: Gargants (3 gatebreakers and 2 minis) in Apex Predators. Scenario was of course very bad, but the matchup was so good it didn't really matter. By tourn 2 all the gargants were dead and my 5w characters could walk on the objectives for a 18-2 win.

Round 3: Nurgle (GUO, 20 plaguebearers, couple of beasts) in Power in Numbers. Another good matchup, he protected his flanks very well so I had to use the vexillor to get my fulminators where I wanted them, but then the irondrakes killed the guo and the fulmis cleared the 20 plaguebearers in one go and it was more or less game over. 20-0 for me.

Round 4: Idoneth (new warscrolls with old book) in veins of ghur. Here I took one for the team, horrible matchup, lost the priority roll as we were both 1 drop, lost initiative 1->2, and I had nothing left by then. 0-20 loss, ouch, luckily my team profited from my sacrifice so in the overall result of the round was not a disaster.

Round 5: Nurgle again (2 GUOs, plaguebearers, lord of afflicitions + blightlords) in Power Struggle. The tournament ended with another good matchup. He deployed symmetrically the guos and plaguebearers and sent the flies in. These were cleared by the fulminators, then vexillor sent them after one of the GUOs while the irondrakes cleared the plaguebearers. Next turn, move, shoot, move and another GUO and all his plaguebearers went down, leading to another good (19-1) victory.

 

All in all I was very happy with the list, it did what it was meant to do, although of course it is not at all a list for a solo tournament. I loved the inclusion of the vexillor, which was key in 4 out of 5 matches. The stupid 115pts battlemage casting the bridge at +3 (or +4 with arcane in one game) was also fun

Edited April 4, 2022 by Marcvs

[Popisdead]

HOw we

On 4/4/2022 at 1:55 AM, Marcvs said:

 

  Hide contents

5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
- Spell1: Lore of Leaves: Ironoak Skin
 

How did the Sisters of the Thorn perform?