AoS 2 Cities of Sigmar Discussion: Hallowheart

[Calebexnihilo]

8 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Hey everyone, Nighthaunt player here sneaking into your thread. I've got a special request for you all.

I want you to destroy me.

My friend and I play 1500 point lists, give or take 20 points, and ever since I figured out my niche against him he's been unable to really fight back. We're going on some 6 or more games now where I've pretty much won by turn 2 or 3. And these aren't close calls, either.

I want him to have fun, and it's not fun when you're staring down what you feel is an inevitable loss. And he's no slouch, himself, but he's just not been able to dedicate the time to research and experiment to the best of his ability. And that's not his fault, for reasons I can't really get in to. I want to give him a break in the form of a formidable list and a strategy that goes with it, and I'm hoping by asking the experts we can do this for him.

Give me your best lists that tear apart Nighthaunt. Bring your A game. Target my heroes, deal massive mortal wounds, keep me away from your fleshy units, or whatever it is that gives you guys an edge over me.

Make it hurt.

Vs Nighthaunt, I would want to avoid paying for rend... so I would MAX out Darkshards. Quantity over quality.

Hurricanum

2 Sorceresses

90 Darkshards (that's 180 shots, I can get 80 of those at 2/3/-/1)

Purple sun (to nuke your hordes)

Balewind (so by Hallowheart horde busting spell can reach you)

Spell Portal (to hit your heroes with mortals)

1520 pts

[Rune]

9 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Hey everyone, Nighthaunt player here sneaking into your thread. I've got a special request for you all.

I want you to destroy me.

My friend and I play 1500 point lists, give or take 20 points, and ever since I figured out my niche against him he's been unable to really fight back. We're going on some 6 or more games now where I've pretty much won by turn 2 or 3. And these aren't close calls, either.

I want him to have fun, and it's not fun when you're staring down what you feel is an inevitable loss. And he's no slouch, himself, but he's just not been able to dedicate the time to research and experiment to the best of his ability. And that's not his fault, for reasons I can't really get in to. I want to give him a break in the form of a formidable list and a strategy that goes with it, and I'm hoping by asking the experts we can do this for him.

Give me your best lists that tear apart Nighthaunt. Bring your A game. Target my heroes, deal massive mortal wounds, keep me away from your fleshy units, or whatever it is that gives you guys an edge over me.

Make it hurt.

What's your list?

[EnixLHQ]

2 hours ago, Rune said:

What's your list?

There's no one list. I've had successes with a few crazy ones and a lot of standard ones.

You can usually expect to see from me a Knight Shrouds on Ethereal Steed, Dreadblade Harrows as a general, a Guardian of Souls or a Spirit Torment, and a Vampire Lord, all supporting Chainrasps and Bladegheists.

If I'm not feeling traditional, then I go in with the Dolorous Guard/ Forgotten Scions combo where the KoSoES is the general, buffed, and supported by the Hexwraiths who are the targets of all the increased attacks, and they screen some Chainrasps that camp objectives.

Not to put a too fine if a tip on it, the usual issues against me are that my mobility means I'm on an objective early in any game, and he has to then remove me. Whatever my threat units happen to be, I'm not afraid to invest my CP into All Out Attack, All Out Defense, and more likely Forward to Victory, trying to land that Wave of Terror charge. I can be very aggressive, target squishy units like his crossbowmen, and take out the general.

[readercolin]

14 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Hey everyone, Nighthaunt player here sneaking into your thread. I've got a special request for you all.

I want you to destroy me.

My friend and I play 1500 point lists, give or take 20 points, and ever since I figured out my niche against him he's been unable to really fight back. We're going on some 6 or more games now where I've pretty much won by turn 2 or 3. And these aren't close calls, either.

I want him to have fun, and it's not fun when you're staring down what you feel is an inevitable loss. And he's no slouch, himself, but he's just not been able to dedicate the time to research and experiment to the best of his ability. And that's not his fault, for reasons I can't really get in to. I want to give him a break in the form of a formidable list and a strategy that goes with it, and I'm hoping by asking the experts we can do this for him.

Give me your best lists that tear apart Nighthaunt. Bring your A game. Target my heroes, deal massive mortal wounds, keep me away from your fleshy units, or whatever it is that gives you guys an edge over me.

Make it hurt.

I haven't played nighthaunt with my Cities army yet, so I don't have personal experience with the matchup.  However, here would be things that I would be looking at.

First, Nighthaunt ignore rend.  This means that the staple of teleporing a bunch of irondrakes with rend -3 forward isn't going to be as effective.  The army also has a lot of 4+ or 5+ saves, has decent mobility, and flies everywhere.  This means that I want to focus on volume of fire, and mortal wounds.

The first part of the army I'll focus on then is the mortal wounds.  Luckily, Hallowheart does this quite well.  I would definitely look to run 3-4 wizards, possibly with whitefire retinue.  I would also look to run the spell portal endless spell for throwing out roaming wildfire and elemental cyclone.  As for wizards, a battlemage from Aqshy or Azyr would be decent for their own spells, while sorceress's are good for word of pain.  Both the Hurricanum and Luminark are also great for dishing out a ton of mortal wounds from both spells and abilities.  From the stormcast side a Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger has a spell that can heal itself and is a great target for Arcane Channeling, and can make the best use of Arcane Bolt from all the casters available.  The Knight-Incantor can also be quite good as a tanky caster who is also carrying an auto-dispel scroll.

Moving on from wizards, we look at the other models that can dish out mortal wounds.  Here we have some incidental damage here and there from units like the black dragons, or doing some flyovers with the flamespyre phoenix and gyrocopters/gyrobombers.  We can also get more massed mortal wounds from Executioners/Hammerers/Greatswords, with the ability to easily deliver them via bridge (or just run and charge with executioners), as well as ranged mortal wounds from sisters of the watch.  Lastly, we can bring in some more stormcast for mortal wounds, like a Stardrake, or bringing in some of the Drakesworn Templars (Concussors, Fulminators, Desolators), or just dropping some evocators and letting them go all jazz hands on you.

Lastly, there is the option for sheer volume of fire.  Like Dwarfs?  How about ironbreakers/hammerers attacking with 3 attacks each?  Humans?  A blob of 20 crossbowmen are unleashing 40 shots at 3+/2+ as long as they don't move and have the freeguild general using his command ability on them (or a 2+/2+ if you add in a hurricanum buff).  Elves?  Darkshards can also pump out 40 shots from a unit of 20, though they will have a 3+/4+ to hit (can make that 3+/3+ with the use of warding brand, or 2+/3+ by also adding in a hurricanum), and they can do that while running forwards thanks to a sorceress.

Overall, I can see a few different builds that will give nighthaunt trouble.  The first is a dark elf focused build:

3x Sorceress
1x Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger
Whitefire Retinue
2x 20 Darkshards
1x 20 Executioners
Umbral Spellportal

This army comes in at 1360 points, leaving 140 points for more endless spells or another 10 darkshards/executioners.

... Sadly, I now have to run, so I'll have to offer up other army lists later.

[Rune]

7 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

There's no one list. I've had successes with a few crazy ones and a lot of standard ones.

You can usually expect to see from me a Knight Shrouds on Ethereal Steed, Dreadblade Harrows as a general, a Guardian of Souls or a Spirit Torment, and a Vampire Lord, all supporting Chainrasps and Bladegheists.

If I'm not feeling traditional, then I go in with the Dolorous Guard/ Forgotten Scions combo where the KoSoES is the general, buffed, and supported by the Hexwraiths who are the targets of all the increased attacks, and they screen some Chainrasps that camp objectives.

Not to put a too fine if a tip on it, the usual issues against me are that my mobility means I'm on an objective early in any game, and he has to then remove me. Whatever my threat units happen to be, I'm not afraid to invest my CP into All Out Attack, All Out Defense, and more likely Forward to Victory, trying to land that Wave of Terror charge. I can be very aggressive, target squishy units like his crossbowmen, and take out the general.

Now I haven't played against Nighthaunt, but with that many low wound heroes that are crucial for your army to work I would just think that would be AMAZING to play against. Most of those heroes need just statistically 6 wounds taken to die (correct me if I am wrong).

Most battleplans he can choose to go second, but if it's something like shifting objectives I'd guess he would have to go first as you can sit on all 3 objectives.

SCE Wizard with a comet will deal 3-4 MWs to a hero or two before you can do anything. 
Put a Sorceress on a balewind with roaming wildfire and Word of Pain that's on aveage 4 MWs more, one of those has a 50% chance to deal more to other nearby.
Chain Lightning can be cast through a spell portal from a Hurricanum if more hero damage is needed, if not, elemental cyclone would offer more.
Add 2*30" handgunner shots on top of that.

That adds up to about 12 wounds, easily more. A lot of that is AoE, so that could easily take out a couple or three of your heroes. 

Sorceress
Hurricanum
Battlemage
Lord-Exorcist (would prefer a Knight-Incantor but can't do it on the points)

Handgunners 30
Handgunners 10
Bleakswords

Whitefire Retinue

Everblaze Comet,
Umbral spellportal
Soulscream Bridge
Balewind Vortex
1500 points on 4 drops

 

There are many ways to go about it honestly.
 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Rune

[Aelfric]

You could also consider a couple of units of Shadow Warriors.  Being able to deep strike behind you could be a good counter to aggressive play.  Put them in cover and their shooting gets much better and they're not bad in melee either.

Also, has your friend considered using a different city?

[EnixLHQ]

1 hour ago, Rune said:

Now I haven't played against Nighthaunt, but with that many low wound heroes that are crucial for your army to work I would just think that would be AMAZING to play against. Most of those heroes need just statistically 6 wounds taken to die (correct me if I am wrong).

Not wrong. Most of our heroes are 5 to 6 wounds, 12 at most and that's rare and expensive. We do get a save after save, though, so I'd add half as many wounds back in just to make sure the chances are in your favor. Knight of Shrouds on Steed, for example, I'd hedge 9 wounds to make sure he's truly dead.

20 minutes ago, Aelfric said:

You could also consider a couple of units of Shadow Warriors.  Being able to deep strike behind you could be a good counter to aggressive play.  Put them in cover and their shooting gets much better and they're not bad in melee either.

Also, has your friend considered using a different city?

I do get used to not having to watch my flank and that'd certainly put me on the back foot.

And, yes. He's thrown Hallowheart, Hammerhal, and Phoenix Guard at me. Hallow gave me the most trouble.

[Aelfric]

41 minutes ago, EnixLHQ said:

And, yes. He's thrown Hallowheart, Hammerhal, and Phoenix Guard at me. Hallow gave me the most trouble.

He could try running a missile heavy Tempest Eye list: +1 save and +3 move in the first round, General with +1 to wound for missile weapons command trait, maybe a Nomad Prince with some Sisters of the Watch for the stand and shoot.  TE has command ability to grant run and shoot so getting in range turn one is not as much of an issue.  Sorceress has this on her warscroll as well if he wants to run Darkshards, but her's also grants run and charge as well which would work on Bleakswords who generate 2 hits on a hit roll of 6 (and are only 90 for 10 or 320 for 40).  

It would be interesting to hear what he picks and how your next battle goes.  Will you give us an update?

[EnixLHQ]

16 minutes ago, Aelfric said:

It would be interesting to hear what he picks and how your next battle goes.  Will you give us an update?

Of course I will. If I can swing it, I'll have a full blog post with pictures.

[EnixLHQ]

Also, I have question. If you are able to get your bonus to cast up, like say to +8 with your various means, and you roll a 12, then is the cast total an actual 20? So an unbind attempt would have to be 21 or better, somehow?

I get that it's a risk/reward sort of thing, but I want to give good advice and be accurate when I package all this up for him. Also, telling him that my, at best +3 to unbind/dispel, can't touch him if he's that lucky will be a nice bonus.

[Aelfric]

5 minutes ago, EnixLHQ said:

Also, I have question. If you are able to get your bonus to cast up, like say to +8 with your various means, and you roll a 12, then is the cast total an actual 20? So an unbind attempt would have to be 21 or better, somehow?

I get that it's a risk/reward sort of thing, but I want to give good advice and be accurate when I package all this up for him. Also, telling him that my, at best +3 to unbind/dispel, can't touch him if he's that lucky will be a nice bonus.

Yes, bonus is added to the dice roll and any unbind would have to beat the total.  If this is regarding the Hallowheart command ability, the FAQ changed it so you only get a bonus for each MW that is not negated. Thought I'd mention it in case you didn't know. Many people seem to like a Mage on Hurricanum/Luminark so there's no chance of killing the wizard.

[Alessio]

Do you know guys if I can teleport my wizard on balewind vortex across the soulscream bridge?

[readercolin]

10 hours ago, readercolin said:

3x Sorceress
1x Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger
Whitefire Retinue
2x 20 Darkshards
1x 20 Executioners
Umbral Spellportal

This army comes in at 1360 points, leaving 140 points for more endless spells or another 10 darkshards/executioners.

Coming back with some time for more potential lists beyond the above.

For a ranged-focused list that is leaning heavily on Sister's of the Watch, take a look at this:

Nomad Prince
Celestial Hurricanum w/ Battlemage
Battlemage
2x 20 sisters of the watch
2x 10 Eternal Guard
Soulscream Bridge

This list comes out to 1470 points, and has the bridge for immediately pushing the sister's out into position to unleash 40 shots at a 3+/3+, or a 2+/3+ if you have the hurricanum in range or use the nomad prince's command ability.  In case you are wondering, for a 5+ save one unit of 20 sister's will be doing ~22 damage on average.  For the same number of points, a unit of 30 darkshards without a hurricanum buff would be doing about ~13.4 damage on average, which means that this setup gives you a lot more ranged punching power than the above, but it comes at the cost of less magical punching power.  An alternative to this list would be to drop the wizards and run living city instead, possibly with drycha coming in to help out too.  Sister's coming in from board edge's can be scary.

Enough of elves, lets look at what some good men can do.

Freeguild General
Luminark w/ Battlemage
Battlemage
2x 20 Freeguild Crossbows
2x 40 Freeguild Guard
Soulscream Bridge

Alternatively, drop each unit of guard to 20 to give you another 20 crossbows.  This list comes out at exactly 1500 points (if you are ok going slightly over, you can swap the luminark for a hurricanum, and the list will function similarly).  The key trick here is to have the guard screen, and use the general's command ability on the crossbows (and a unit of guard because... why not) and the crossbows will get 40 shots at 3+/2+.  That is a bit less damage than the sister's from above, but you get more bodies to screen with (also, 60 crossbows will deal the same damage as 40 sister's to a 5+ save, and cost about the same number of points as well if you prefer to focus on range).

Lastly, for a little dwarf action.  Normally here, you would expect a load of Irondrakes.  However, their rend isn't as good against nighthaunt, so instead, lets see how many hammerer's we can get on target eh?

Warden King
2x Battlemage (ghur)
Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger
2x 30 Hammerers
Soulscream Bridge
Umbral Spellportal
Everblaze Comet

Here, the bridge gives us the ability to bring the hammerers into range.  A ghur battlemage gives us wildform, which gives us +2 to run and charge rolls (hence doubling up), while the musician gives us +1.  This means that we only have to make a 6" charge roll.  If we want to guarantee that a bit more, we can bring in cogs (and drop a unit of hammerers to 20) so that we only have a 4" charge to make, but since that also helps our opponents there is a good chance this will backfire on us.  Warden King gives us +1 attacks, and ignite weapons gives us +1 to wound.  This means that 30 hammerer's can be doing ~48 damage on average to a 5+ ethereal save.  Then, on the other side we can drop the comet and cast the spell portal.  Comet dropping gives us 1-3 wounds in a 10" radius, while spell portal can be placed and we can cast Roaming Wildfire through it.  If we get lucky, this alone might be able to pick off a hero or two, otherwise we have a reasonable chance of eliminating hero's starting the second battle round with just the spells.  This becomes much more likely if we can go second and the opponent has to take the comet hit and take the damage at the start of battleround 2.

Hopefully these idea's all help in some way.  There are definitely a lot more idea's and ways to play this out than the above, these were just a few themed ideas that I thought might have a reasonable chance of beating nighthaunt.

[EnixLHQ]

51 minutes ago, readercolin said:

Coming back with some time for more potential lists beyond the above.

Thank you guys so much!

So far I've got a magic-heavy approach to try to get a lot of MWs done at max range to try to nuke my deployment zone, a range-heavy configuration that will do more consistent damage, but have to deal with my saves and save-after-save, and a whole lot of info on how to deliver it.

The Soulscream Bridge and the Umbral Spellportal will change his game drastically.

Okay, last question before we see if he can nuke me this weekend: What do you guys do when it starts to go south on you? What tools do you have to correct mistakes or try to turn a bad game around?

[Rune]

5 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Thank you guys so much!

So far I've got a magic-heavy approach to try to get a lot of MWs done at max range to try to nuke my deployment zone, a range-heavy configuration that will do more consistent damage, but have to deal with my saves and save-after-save, and a whole lot of info on how to deliver it.

The Soulscream Bridge and the Umbral Spellportal will change his game drastically.

Okay, last question before we see if he can nuke me this weekend: What do you guys do when it starts to go south on you? What tools do you have to correct mistakes or try to turn a bad game around?

I don't know what list he is going for, but if he is going for mine, then split the sorceress out with the bleakswords on one side alone, and the rest together in the middle. 

The sorceress deployed on the edge of deployment zone if he then uses the balewind 1" into the neutral zone, adding the size of the base and the 6" his spells has 29" range. 

The rest are grouped, SCE wizard has a 36" range on the comet, spell portal unlimited, and with the bridge he should be able to get his 30" handgunners in range too.

If the spells fails. He should play conservaly, just get what he can out of it but don't overcommit.

[readercolin]

8 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Thank you guys so much!

So far I've got a magic-heavy approach to try to get a lot of MWs done at max range to try to nuke my deployment zone, a range-heavy configuration that will do more consistent damage, but have to deal with my saves and save-after-save, and a whole lot of info on how to deliver it.

The Soulscream Bridge and the Umbral Spellportal will change his game drastically.

Okay, last question before we see if he can nuke me this weekend: What do you guys do when it starts to go south on you? What tools do you have to correct mistakes or try to turn a bad game around?

It depends upon the list.  From the ones that I listed:

Sorceress list:
This list will have a sorceress accompanying each unit of darkshards, and another accompanying the executioners.  The Lord-Arcanum can be doing whatever.  Everyone would start bunched up for turn 1 to maximize the spell casting bonuses, and then split up as needed to get objectives.  Realistically, the objectives determine how things are going to go south, and how that can be dealt with.  But by having 3 independent forces, you should be able to be mobile enough to react where needed.

Wanderers list:
This army doesn't really have a good way to turn things around if things start going south.  Realistically, it is going to split up into two forces, each containing a unit of sisters and then having a unit of eternal guard to screen them.  However, the list is relying on the firepower of the sisters to pull things off, and has the downside of not being particularly mobile, as both the eternal guard and the sisters get better if they don't move (note, bridge is a re-deploy, not a move, so they can be bridged and still get those bonuses).

Freeguild list:
This list is relying on bodies.  As listed, it has 100 bodies if you go with 60 crossbows, or 120 bodies if you have 40 crossbows.  Once again, the list isn't particularly mobile, as the crossbows want to sit still to maximize their firepower.  But, if you give those guard swords+shields, then you have large blocks of bodies with a 4+ save, which is going to be tough to chew through and give you the time to deploy your firepower as needed.  Therefore, you should be able to have time to react to whatever changes you need.

Dwarf List:
If things start going bad for you... roll better?  The list is a little inflexible, but you are basically going to split your forces in 2 with the warden king and 1 unit of hammerers going forwards (maybe with a wizard), and the second sitting back a little bit more to defend your other wizards who are lobbing in long-ranged damage.  But it is definitely relying on the fact that 30 hammerers will have a tendency to obliterate whatever they end up in combat with, and having a 4+ save makes them somewhat durable to return fire as well.

[Stega314]

Hey guys,

Just joined the community. Loving it so far. I used a Hallowheart list against a friend last week in the batlleplan "Knife to the heart". It worked really well as a defensive army, and I won not by stealing his objectove but my sitting on mine and smashing him from afar. He was playing BoC and I got rid of a unit of 30 ungors with elemental cyclone in the first turn!

List was:

Freeguild General - 100 (veteran of the blazing crusade, agloraxi prism) the 18" no battleshock was insanely good and he buffed my shooty units with his command ability. 

Freeguild general on Griffon - 320 - ignax's scales

Fire battlemage - 90 (roaming wildfire, cyclone)

Chamon battlemage - 90 - (adjutant)(ignite weapons/warding brand)

Shadow battlemage - 90 - (sear wounds/wildfire)

Greatswords x 10 - 160

Greatswords x 10 - 160

Handgunners x 10 - 100 (long rifle)

Handgunners x 10 - 100 (long rifle)

Crossbowmen x 10 - 100

Crossbowmen x 10 - 100

Guard w shields and swords x 40 - 280

Whitefire retinue - 140

Spellportal - 70

shackles - 40

quicksilver swords - 30

palisade - 30

Total: 2000

Parked my big unit of 40 on my objective and let them soak up damage from his mercenary cannons and ungor raiders whilst my mages dished out loads of wounds! 40 shots with the crossbows at +1 to hit and wound was insane. So much potential with this army! I really want a hurricanum now but I've got such a backlog of painting already haha...

[Geoffreyvt]

Hi people of hallowheart! 

So, this will actually be my first post in the community and I'm looking for some advice. 

Untill now I played TE, based on a combination of duardin and freeguild elements, since these were my armies back in the old days. Loving TE, and the punch it can give! 

But I'm looking forward to expand more into the magical realm and hallowheart seems like the perfect way to do this. 

I was thinking about an (almost) pure '' elven'' army for this. Not going full magic since I like to have some boots on the ground. 

I' m quite unsure which spells to select and would like to have some advice on the following army. The idea is to have a center of eternal guard and hurricanum (which my regular opponents like to focus on) and have the black guard and dragon (because he looks cool) to deliver some melee punch. 

I'm not slinging that much spells which feels a bit wrong in hallowheart, but I'm not familiar with endless spells at all (the old dwarf inside me, I guess 😁) 

++ **Pitched Battle** 2,000 (Order - Cities of Sigmar) [2,000pts] ++

+ Leader +

Assassin [80pts]- going with the black guard and jumping out for extra damage. 

Dreadlord on Black Dragon [300pts]: Exile Blade and Tyrant Shield - distraction carnifex, heavy hitter which can go on his own. 

+ Battleline +

Black Guard [280pts]:[/b] 2x 10 Black Guard, Drummers, Standard Bearer - turn 1 buffed by battlemage and sorceress to cross the board and wreck havoc. 

 

Darkshards [200pts]:[/b] 2x 10 Darkshards, Honoured Retinue, Hornblower, Standard Bearer - ranged damage, second target for the sorceress ability and sacrificial unit to empower her. 

 

Eternal Guard [260pts]:[/b] 2x 10 Eternal Guard, Horn Blower, Standard Bearer - rule of cool, will defend the hurricanum since I know my opponent will target it. 

 

+ Other +

Shadow Warriors [110pts]:[/b] 10 Shadow Warriors - pop out, be annoying and rather good shooting which in the end cannot be ignored. 

 

Sisters of the Thorn [130pts]:[/b] 5 Sisters of the Thorn - buff the eternal guard and run around. Will probably give them a damage spell from the white fire lore. 

 

Battalion: Whitefire Retinue [600pts]

. Battlemage: General's Adjunct, Ghur - buff the black guard turn 1 

. Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage[/b]

. . Celestial Battlemage - be at the center of attention, literally. Will castle with the eternal guard in front and the darkshards and sister on either side. 

. Sorceress: General, crusade as trait. - buff the black guard and stay near them so they hit harder. 

Allegiance

. Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar: Hallowheart

 

Endless Spell: Balewind Vortex [40pts] - not sure about this one. 

++ Total: [2,000pts] ++

 

So, what do you guys think? 

Thank you! 

[Duke of Gisoreux]

On 1/21/2020 at 6:15 AM, Alessio said:

Do you know guys if I can teleport my wizard on balewind vortex across the soulscream bridge?

It's the same mechanism (remove the unit from the battlefield and set it up again) as the Skaven spell Skitterleap and the Skaven FAQ says that he takes the Balewind Vortex with him, so this should also apply here.
 

Quote

Q: Does a Balewind Vortex with a Skaventide Hero atop it travel with the Hero if they use Skitterleap? A: Yes.

 

[Alessio]

6 minutes ago, Duke of Gisoreux said:

It's the same mechanism (remove the unit from the battlefield and set it up again) as the Skaven spell Skitterleap and the Skaven FAQ says that he takes the Balewind Vortex with him, so this should also apply here.
 

 

Thanks! And a wizard on the balewind can use the portal too? 

[Rune]

Am I crazy for not wanting to use the Whitefire Retinue? I know some people rate it highly.

I've decided to not optimize for low drops as it is punishing me on many battleplans. I'm not able to hold objectives and have a screen if I need to use 2 small units to hold objectives. Thus I am not getting the benefit of having a low drop army regardless.

• +1 cast/dispel, and
• Artifact (Pretty useless ones, not had one that gave an impact), and
• Command point, and
• Prismatic Palisade

vs. 

• 10 Handgunners, and
• 10 Guards

I've got a sorceress with Bleakswords whos always at +2, and a Hurricanum/Luminark combo to give themselves and my Battlemage +1/+1. I don't really think I need that extra +1 to cast much.

[readercolin]

10 hours ago, Rune said:

Am I crazy for not wanting to use the Whitefire Retinue? I know some people rate it highly.

I've decided to not optimize for low drops as it is punishing me on many battleplans. I'm not able to hold objectives and have a screen if I need to use 2 small units to hold objectives. Thus I am not getting the benefit of having a low drop army regardless.

• +1 cast/dispel, and
• Artifact (Pretty useless ones, not had one that gave an impact), and
• Command point, and
• Prismatic Palisade

vs. 

• 10 Handgunners, and
• 10 Guards

I've got a sorceress with Bleakswords whos always at +2, and a Hurricanum/Luminark combo to give themselves and my Battlemage +1/+1. I don't really think I need that extra +1 to cast much.

I think you want the battalion if you are running around with Wizards who aren't getting any bonuses to cast (ex. Knight-Incantor), or you are trying to maximally stack buffs without having to use their command ability.  So for example, here is a group of wizards who I wouldn't be too worried about bringing the battalion for:

Hurricanum
Luminark
2x Battlemage

Note here that if you keep everyone near your hurricanum/luminark, everyone gets a +2 to cast (+1 from Hurricanum, +1 from Luminark, both affect themselves and any other battlemages within 12" of them).

However, here is a setup that I would bring the battalion for:

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger
Knight-Incantor
Sorceress

Here, the Sorceress can buff herself to a +2, but the Knight-Incantor and Lord-Arcanum don't have any way of buffing themselves. Here, you can get the +1 to cast from being in the Battalion, and then you need to decide if you want to use the command ability as well.  If your Lord-Arcanum is perfectly healthy, then sure, but if he's not you might want to use the sorceress to cast sear wounds and get that to go off before using the command ability to buff the rest of your spells.

[Rune]

17 minutes ago, readercolin said:

I think you want the battalion if you are running around with Wizards who aren't getting any bonuses to cast (ex. Knight-Incantor), or you are trying to maximally stack buffs without having to use their command ability.  So for example, here is a group of wizards who I wouldn't be too worried about bringing the battalion for:

Hurricanum
Luminark
2x Battlemage

Note here that if you keep everyone near your hurricanum/luminark, everyone gets a +2 to cast (+1 from Hurricanum, +1 from Luminark, both affect themselves and any other battlemages within 12" of them).

However, here is a setup that I would bring the battalion for:

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger
Knight-Incantor
Sorceress

Here, the Sorceress can buff herself to a +2, but the Knight-Incantor and Lord-Arcanum don't have any way of buffing themselves. Here, you can get the +1 to cast from being in the Battalion, and then you need to decide if you want to use the command ability as well.  If your Lord-Arcanum is perfectly healthy, then sure, but if he's not you might want to use the sorceress to cast sear wounds and get that to go off before using the command ability to buff the rest of your spells.

Thanks for the reply!

Just a correction, you wouldn't get +2 to cast from Hurricanum and Luminark as the Luminark only adds +1 to unbind. 

I'm running with Hurricanum, Luminark, Sorceress (alone with bleakswords probably anyway), Battlemage and Knight-Incantor. So a bit of a mix between your two examples. I can see your point with the KI not getting the extra +1 to cast being bad, but is that worth 140 points?

It's low odds to just get +1 from the CA. On the other hand, if I roll 4-6 then +1 is often just redundant. 

The reason I am asking is because I have often found myself with too much to cast. And that extra 20 dudes in front just means your enemy will take another turn to get to you.

(Just a specification, the command ability has to be used at the start of the turn, so no sear wounds and then using it. That would take a full battleround to setup).

 

What if it is:

- Whitefire Retinue vs Geminids + 10 Guard

Edited January 24, 2020 by Rune

[readercolin]

4 hours ago, Rune said:

Thanks for the reply!

Just a correction, you wouldn't get +2 to cast from Hurricanum and Luminark as the Luminark only adds +1 to unbind. 

I'm running with Hurricanum, Luminark, Sorceress (alone with bleakswords probably anyway), Battlemage and Knight-Incantor. So a bit of a mix between your two examples. I can see your point with the KI not getting the extra +1 to cast being bad, but is that worth 140 points?

It's low odds to just get +1 from the CA. On the other hand, if I roll 4-6 then +1 is often just redundant. 

The reason I am asking is because I have often found myself with too much to cast. And that extra 20 dudes in front just means your enemy will take another turn to get to you.

(Just a specification, the command ability has to be used at the start of the turn, so no sear wounds and then using it. That would take a full battleround to setup).

 

What if it is:

- Whitefire Retinue vs Geminids + 10 Guard

Now that I read that more closely... why in the world did they split up the cast/unbind bonus between the Luminark/Hurricanum?  Just give it to both of them so that they both provide +1 to each, and if you are that worried about it, then make it so its within 12" of either?

Anyways, I think that there are two ways to look at this.  The first is that you want to run the battalion so that way you can get a bonus on units that otherwise wouldn't have it.  The second is to get enough bonus's that you don't need to use the command ability, saving your command points for other uses in your army.

In the first case, you would be wanting it to get small bonuses to cast and make casting a little bit easier in the early game, so that you can still get your spells off even when you roll a 1 on the command ability.  Then in the late game, if they are still alive, you might not want to use the command ability because you've taken damage/your MW sponge is dead, etc.  The battalion still lets you keep your consistency throughout the game.  I would say that if this is what you are doing, you are probably running a mixture of stormcast units and battlemages, and you might have decided to leave the luminark and/or hurricanum at home.

In the second case, think about a sorceress.  Getting a +3 bonus to cast, do you even need to use the command ability?  What if you decide to run 3 sorceress's?  Sure, you are eating 3 bleakswords a turn to get your bonuses, but needing to roll literally anything but snake eyes to get off any of your Hallowheart spells means that you can save your command points for other things - like run and shoot with your darkshards, or run and charge with your Black Guard, or Hold the Line with a freeguild general.  It is very easy to be command point hungry with Cities of Sigmar, and despite having the Adjutant and Warden of the Flame giving you command points on a 4+, it can be easy to run out of them with Hallowheart.  But losing one of your biggest expenditures and starting the game with 1 more because of the battalion could give you the points that you need elsewhere in your list.

Overall, after having thought about the subject a bit more, I'm inclined to think that the second way is what you really want to be looking for when deciding whether or not to run the battalion.  As you said - if you roll a 4-6 on the CA, a +1 is rather redundant.  And if you already have +1-2 to cast from other things, then the command ability basically says "Your spells go off, good luck unbinding that".  But, it costs a command point.  And if you want to spend the command points on other things, well, you need to find ways to either get more, or reduce expenditures.  So your list that is running a Hurricanum, Luminark, Sorceress, Battlemage and Incantor... you probably aren't running much else that demands the command points because of how much you have invested in your casting.  So drop the battalion, get more screens, and use your command points to buff your casting through the roof.  However, if you decide to change your list up because you want to spend those command points on other things, then consider running the battalion.

[Rune]

2 hours ago, readercolin said:

Now that I read that more closely... why in the world did they split up the cast/unbind bonus between the Luminark/Hurricanum?  Just give it to both of them so that they both provide +1 to each, and if you are that worried about it, then make it so its within 12" of either?

Anyways, I think that there are two ways to look at this.  The first is that you want to run the battalion so that way you can get a bonus on units that otherwise wouldn't have it.  The second is to get enough bonus's that you don't need to use the command ability, saving your command points for other uses in your army.

In the first case, you would be wanting it to get small bonuses to cast and make casting a little bit easier in the early game, so that you can still get your spells off even when you roll a 1 on the command ability.  Then in the late game, if they are still alive, you might not want to use the command ability because you've taken damage/your MW sponge is dead, etc.  The battalion still lets you keep your consistency throughout the game.  I would say that if this is what you are doing, you are probably running a mixture of stormcast units and battlemages, and you might have decided to leave the luminark and/or hurricanum at home.

In the second case, think about a sorceress.  Getting a +3 bonus to cast, do you even need to use the command ability?  What if you decide to run 3 sorceress's?  Sure, you are eating 3 bleakswords a turn to get your bonuses, but needing to roll literally anything but snake eyes to get off any of your Hallowheart spells means that you can save your command points for other things - like run and shoot with your darkshards, or run and charge with your Black Guard, or Hold the Line with a freeguild general.  It is very easy to be command point hungry with Cities of Sigmar, and despite having the Adjutant and Warden of the Flame giving you command points on a 4+, it can be easy to run out of them with Hallowheart.  But losing one of your biggest expenditures and starting the game with 1 more because of the battalion could give you the points that you need elsewhere in your list.

Overall, after having thought about the subject a bit more, I'm inclined to think that the second way is what you really want to be looking for when deciding whether or not to run the battalion.  As you said - if you roll a 4-6 on the CA, a +1 is rather redundant.  And if you already have +1-2 to cast from other things, then the command ability basically says "Your spells go off, good luck unbinding that".  But, it costs a command point.  And if you want to spend the command points on other things, well, you need to find ways to either get more, or reduce expenditures.  So your list that is running a Hurricanum, Luminark, Sorceress, Battlemage and Incantor... you probably aren't running much else that demands the command points because of how much you have invested in your casting.  So drop the battalion, get more screens, and use your command points to buff your casting through the roof.  However, if you decide to change your list up because you want to spend those command points on other things, then consider running the battalion.

Thank you so much for your perspective. You are very right that I have purposefully build the list so I don't have any other crucial command abilities to use.

I'm going to try without the batallion today and see how it goes. Cheers!