Pure ranged army?

[Charlo]

There are *so* many missile units in CoS that I wonder if a pure shooting army is viable? Backed up by lots of spells too.

What do people think? 

[tripchimeras]

If by pure shooting you mean no combat troops of any kind that don't also cast spells or shoot, from a purely competitive perspective, probably not?  From a more casual perspective I am sure you are going to blow some people out of the water, but will struggle mightilly against others.  

It might be viable with like living cities or tempest where you are packing a lot of speed and manoeuvrability in your shooting units, the traditional pure unmoving gunline without combat screens to mop up, maybe not so much.  But I think you are going to be better off having at least a couple units of tough screeners/combat troops to compliment everything else in general, regardless of your approach (PG, hammerers, eternal guard, a horde of cheap infantry etc).  Usually competitively themed armies without enough consideration for balancing weaknesses end up scewing a little too far to ever really have good shot at good results without a lot of luck in matchups.

If you pile on units like pistoliers, scourgerunners, gyros, and shadow warriors, there might be some builds that work without any combat specific troops.  But then again a few of those units, like pistoliers kinda straddle that line as they are basically combat suicide bombers.

EDIT: What I will say again is casual is an entirely different world, and do whatever floats your boat there, as long as you are playing with people of a similar mindset.  Though I will say that no one enjoys playing against the guy that brings a static gunline.  A high manoeuvrability shooting army is a bit different, but the static gunline (8th edition dwarf style) is something no one appreciates whether good or bad.

Edited October 23, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Overread]

There are basically two ways to run a gun-line style army.

1) Fast movement and relocation. Fire and move. Basically aiming to stay out of close combat range by moving back or to the side whilst at the same time being able to fire shots at the enemy. Whittling them down and either breaking them or rendering them a null issue if they make it to close combat with your predominantly ranged units. In AoS this is a bit harder as you don't have transports, so units have to rely on their own movement and its easier for enemy close combat troops to close distance with them.

2) Tarpits. Weaker close combat units that are never the less hard to kill. They might not do much killing themselves, but they will hold the line. This lets you block off approach avenues and hold terrain whilst letting your ranged units shoot over with impunity. Whilst this breaks the idea of an all ranged army, it gives you protecting that you will sorely need and many ranged dominant armies that can't fast relocate, will make extensive use of tarpit units.

 

The third kind, of course, is entrenched defences. Such as a castle wall or trenches. Since AoS doesn't really use either of those in standard games its not a consideration for standard games. Were it to happen its basically increasing the time it takes for the enemy to reach ranged units, whilst at the same time letting those units fire into the enemy. Often as not it also confers a protective bonus on the ranged units to aid in protecting them from enemy ranged fire. 

[zilberfrid]

I'd start by adding Dark Riders and Irondrakes as save 4+ units. They will tarpit enemies quite a bit (though are a bit expensive to use this way)

Then use spells like Soulsnare Shackles and Shards of Valaghar to make it harder for enemy melee units to come closer.

Let's make a bit of a list:

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar - City: Tempest's Eye

LEADERS Celestial Hurricanum With Celestial Battlemage (280) (Celestial Visions)

Battlemage (metal) (90) - Spell : Lore of Eagles - Strike of Eagles (Tempest's Eye Wizard)

Runelord (90) - General - Command Trait : Hawk-eyed - Artefact : Seerstone Amulet

UNITS

20 x Dark Riders (360)

20 x Dark Riders (360)

20 x Dark Riders (360)

10 x Irondrakes (150) - City Role : Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)

10 x Irondrakes (150)

10 x Irondrakes (150)

 

Now I know I did not add any endless spells, but still, it's a list, and one that will make it a bit uncomfortable to try to take out the ranged units.

Edited October 23, 2019 by zilberfrid

[Myrdin]

Or you can run purely hybrid build of the two styles.

Static devastating gun line, with fast quick shooty units as chaff Harpoon cart, Pistoleer/Outriders, Dark Riders, Sisters of Thorn, Gyrocopters.

Essentially you would be playing old school Wood Elves at that point. Shunning away from combat and staying out of the way with your fast chaff, while your more powerful gun line removes enemy priority targets (anything that can either outrun/catch your chaff, or outshoot you).

Magic could be conidered shooting for all intents and purposes, as it always has been in these scenarios. But still your character selection will be limited.... unless of course you consider Dreadlord on Black dragon, packing a xbow a shooty unit .... In which case take 2-3 to get at least some anvil to throw the enemys way. Other than that, you are stuck with Battlemages, Battlemage Hurricanum and Cogsmith.

But lets be honest here - characters are characters. When taking purely shooting army, they are not included in that. You really want that Freeguild general, or Nomad prince if you are going to run this setup. Yeah.

I think its perfectly feasible. Some armies will make your day really sad (fast, alpha strike armies, and ambushers mostly), but unless you are planning on going to play this in a competitive meta I think it might work. ....heck it might work even in competitive meta. Who knows.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Myrdin

[SentinelGuy]

Even old school wood elves needed a combat unit or 2 to really work. 

[stratigo]

Actually handgunners make a reasonably good screen, able to deliver some damage to the enemy before they are destroyed. Now you are banking hard on crippling the enemy your first shooting phase, but I think this army is possible at a competitive level

[Charlo]

Ironically, I kind of fired and forgot with the topic

Appreciate the responses though guys.

For context I suppose I'd go Hallowheart and I do count magic as shooting!

[Rune]

Played the following 2000pts list of Hallowheart vs Legion of Nagash today. Basically tabled him on turn 2, by when he surrendered. Slightly different list did the same to Gloomspite Gitz last week.

Hurricanum
Knight-Incantor
Battlemage
Battlemage
Freeguild General

40 freeguild guards
30 Handgunners
20 Crossbowmen
5 Pistoliers

Soulscream Bridge
Geminids
Everblaze Comet
Balewind Vortex

Only thing I would change is Balewind to Shackles.

[swarmofseals]

There are many ways to build viable and even highly competitive shooting lists with Cities. A purely shooting and magic list won Blood and Glory. 

You can build a shooting core around Irondrakes, Sisters of the Watch, Handgunners/Crossbows, Outriders, or Darkshards. All are viable.

[Aezeal]

On 10/23/2019 at 4:52 PM, Charlo said:

There are *so* many missile units in CoS that I wonder if a pure shooting army is viable? Backed up by lots of spells too.

What do people think? 

I think not. You'll have a hard time contesting objectives early and probably have to melt away from the ones you own if oppenent approaches (if that is even possible). When wanderers had the teleport whole army every turn I had some damage output and was somewhat save.. but challenging objectives was a big problem. Even then I had some throw away tarpitty/speedbump EG.

[swarmofseals]

5 hours ago, Aezeal said:

I think not. You'll have a hard time contesting objectives early and probably have to melt away from the ones you own if oppenent approaches (if that is even possible). When wanderers had the teleport whole army every turn I had some damage output and was somewhat save.. but challenging objectives was a big problem. Even then I had some throw away tarpitty/speedbump EG.

Wanderers shooting was absolutely terrible in comparison to what Cities can do. A unit of Glade Guard with the old Nomad prince buff had a one turn offensive efficiency of .063, dropping down to .033 after that.

Cities ranged units easily break the .1 mark every single turn. 

[Tidings]

14 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Wanderers shooting was absolutely terrible in comparison to what Cities can do. A unit of Glade Guard with the old Nomad prince buff had a one turn offensive efficiency of .063, dropping down to .033 after that.

Cities ranged units easily break the .1 mark every single turn. 

Yeah this is so painfully true. Wanderers were/are probably the WORST shooting faction in AoS, excluding armies that have no shooting to begin with. 

[Lord Krungharr]

I'm going to try out my Legion of Azgorh as a Greywater Fastness army sometime soon, just to see if 5 steam tanks and 40 irondrakes can pull their weight at all.  The magickal army of Hammerhal sounds pretty awesome, though my Tzeentch single drop battalion army might get angry about making that.   

I also count super fast flying hardhitting units as ranged attacks....like the aelf phoenix heroes.  

[Maturin]

On 11/10/2019 at 10:46 PM, swarmofseals said:

There are many ways to build viable and even highly competitive shooting lists with Cities. A purely shooting and magic list won Blood and Glory. 

You can build a shooting core around Irondrakes, Sisters of the Watch, Handgunners/Crossbows, Outriders, or Darkshards. All are viable.

Would be kind enough to give me a link where I could read that list please ?

[Maturin]

Wrote a batrep in the wring subsection!

Edited November 23, 2019 by Maturin