Cities tier list!

[Celestantpants]

Hey everyone, how would you rank the cities in the cities of sigmar as far as how competitive they are?  I have a large stormcast collection and I'm just  starting collecting cities of Sigmar.  I've had one game so far as Hammerhal and I'm curious as to where they stand compared to other cities.  

[feraxil]

I personally think its 

1. Hallowheart
2. Tempest's Eye
3. Living City
4-7. Everyone else.

Just based on my less than 20 games with each.

[Tidings]

1: Tempest's Eye
2: Hallowheart
3: Living city
4: Greywater Fastness / Hammerhall
5: lol

My reason for Tempest's Eye being above Hallowheart is there are so many turn 1 charges in the game now. That alpha strike protection is really really good (even if it's only first turn instead of all game *cough* Petrifex). The bonus to movement is great, and Hawk-Eyed General is incredible for us and our plentiful shooting options. 

Hallowheart has the most broken mechanic out of all the cities, but it's kept in check by how easy it is to kill off the wizards, how hard it is to fill out the rest of your list after buying all the wizards and some endless spells, etc. On paper, Hallowheart is by far the best. In practice, it's MUCH harder to pull off consistently compared to Tempest's Eye. 

The other cities don't compare at a competitive level imo. Even Living City struggles against a good player, who can pretty easily deny any impactful ambushing. And healing 1 wound per turn is nothing compared to the volume of wounds you just prevent from +1 armor first turn in Tempest Eye.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Tidings

[willange]

1) Phoenicium
2) Anvilgard
3+) Not worth

Oh wait you wanted the list of GOOD cities?  Dang....

Edited December 12, 2019 by willange

[Kramer]

19 minutes ago, Tidings said:

stead of all game *cough* Petrifex). The bonus to movement is great, and Hawk-Eyed

Really? I reckon hallowheart is going to be the petrified counter army and therefore do quite well. Kind of like the Skaven magic heavy lists dominated shortly. 

[Rune]

1 minute ago, Kramer said:

Really? I reckon hallowheart is going to be the petrified counter army and therefore do quite well. Kind of like the Skaven magic heavy lists dominated shortly. 

I haven't played against OBR yet, but if they have crawlers they might be able to pick out a wizard or two in their first turn. Curious to see how it goes when I play them though.

[Tidings]

53 minutes ago, Rune said:

I haven't played against OBR yet, but if they have crawlers they might be able to pick out a wizard or two in their first turn. Curious to see how it goes when I play them though.

This has been my experience. The existence of the catapult means you either have to hide your wizards and they aren't able to do much (plus you maybe lose adjutant bonus), or you hide in cover and pray that you don't die (66% chance you will from a single of the 4 shots). Having 2 shots fired each turn at 2 battlemage/sorceresses means they will probably both die on turn one, definitely dead on his second turn. 

If you just say F it, I'll go Knight Incantors then you're better off but even more starved for points.

55 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Really? I reckon hallowheart is going to be the petrified counter army and therefore do quite well. Kind of like the Skaven magic heavy lists dominated shortly. 

In one of my games he had bad luck and couldn't kill my wizards before my Phoenix caught his catapult. I had amazing casting all game, constantly getting 9 MWs off with Burning Gaze, great splash from Raging Wildfire, etc. Killed lots of stuff but not as fast as he chewed through my fairly limited army (spamming wizards and spells means the rest of your army is smaller). Besides, doing 8 MWs to a unit or Mortek doesn't matter when he brings 6 back every turn. 

I've found that TE works best. They don't reroll saves against shooting, and Arkanaut wreck heroes and have great rending and damage output. OBR needs heroes to work well. 

Hope we didn't just derail the thread into being a "how to beat OBR" lol, but honestly OBR is one of the reasons Hallowheart is held back a bit I think. 

Edited December 12, 2019 by Tidings

[Kramer]

1 minute ago, Tidings said:

In one of my games he had bad luck and couldn't kill my wizards before my Phoenix caught his catapult. I had amazing casting all game, constantly getting 9 MWs off with Burning Gaze, great splash from Raging Wildfire, etc. Killed lots of stuff but not as fast as he chewed through my fairly limited army (spamming wizards and spells means the rest of your army is smaller). Besides, doing 8 MWs to a unit or Mortek doesn't matter when he brings 6 back every turn. 

I've found that TE works best. They don't reroll saves against shooting, and Arkanaut wreck heroes and have great rending and damage output. OBR needs heroes to work well. 

Hope we didn't just derail the thread into being a "how to beat OBR" lol, but honestly OBR is one of the reasons Hallowheart is held back a bit I t

Really! Just out of curiosity because you have tried it and I haven’t. But with 9 mortal wounds you can take out those heroes as well right? 
But yes arkanauts are amazing. Personally don’t think it will last that you can take 3 skyhooks per ten thigh. 

[Tidings]

5 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Really! Just out of curiosity because you have tried it and I haven’t. But with 9 mortal wounds you can take out those heroes as well right? 
But yes arkanauts are amazing. Personally don’t think it will last that you can take 3 skyhooks per ten thigh. 

No, the 9 MWs from Burning Gaze is because the target unit had 20+ models in it. It's actually pretty hard to reliably dump MWs on the heroes, especially if they are spread out. You can do it over 2 or 3 turns but it's more or less too late at that point, he'll already have moved onto more objectives with the +3 move discipline points and if you have anything in combat, he'll have made his guys win. 

I was able to kill a few of his heroes that game by turn 4 but I had already lost the objectives and was too far behind. If I had Arkanaut, the math says I'd have like a 90%+ to kill 2.5 petrifex heroes each turn. In my experience using Arkanaut in TE with +1 to wound, shooting after running, etc, you have a MUCH larger threat range than with casting that your opponent has to respect. If he doesn't, then Arkanaut can reliably shoot anything they want off the table in 1 turn, often 2 things.

The other great advantage to taking 30 Arkanaut (at least until KO is updated) is that for him to STOP your damage output, he has to kill 21 of them first, since all your damage is coming from the 9 Skyhooks + Khemist. In Hallowheart all he has to do is kill a 5 wound hero with a 6+ save. He doesn't care about Look Out Sir because he's hitting on a 2+ with rerolls. 

Getting back to the ranking discussion, I think the tiers will shift after points are adjusted this month and again when KO get's their new book, since that impacts TE a lot. 

[Gwendar]

31 minutes ago, Tidings said:

I think the tiers will shift after points are adjusted this month and again when KO get's their new book, since that impacts TE a lot. 

This is largely why I've been hesitant on making my shoot-heavy dwarf list; Arkanauts are a given for me to take but I'm certain they won't be keeping their Skyhooks in their current form\numbers per unit. Taking something like Riggers to give a fast melee\shooting unit would be great as well for a similar cost.

I'm on board with the Hallowheart argument as I know from experience that a single Crawler (killed 2 Sorceress' T1 with 4 shots) or other long range shooting will easily put a stop to that and the rest of the list just crumbles afterwards most of the time. Even with my Pistolier list I've held reasonably well and I consider it a casual list.. so I think it's just as likely for TE to be the new hotness depending on how these next couple of months shape up. The remaining updates (Seraphon, KO, Tzeentch, STD) and Big FAQ will likely change the meta.

[Tidings]

@Gwendar Yep exactly, whatever the current tier list is will change soon anyways. I'm working on Arkanauts just because I love the KO models anyways and it's a great excuse to branch into that army!

I'm worried that Hurricanum/PG/Battlemage/Sorc will all go up in points and make Cities pretty bad. We don't have battalion options (or even many good ones), and we don't have crazy special rules outside of Hallowheart, which is pretty easy to counter. The main strength of Cities comes from the awesome unit and playstyle diversity and some pretty solid stand-out units.

Edit: and we aren't even a top tier army, so I don't feel we really deserve any nerfs haha. Just a couple adjustments!

Edited December 12, 2019 by Tidings

[Thiagoma]

Disclaimer, i neverplayed with CoS but used to play by the Warscroll with GA: Order and Phoenix Temple.

Once this book was anounced i was sure i would play Phoenicium, but since i only play about 3 or 4 times a year, i had a lot of time to think where would my elven boys go. 

I was thorn between Living City or Hallowheart and decided for the second with the list i managed to paint. A 1500 pts list with 2 mages and 2 endless spells (balewind and Emerald lifeswarm). The idea is to go crazy suicide with a Flamespyre to block the  enemy with 10 phoenix guards and use the spells as a buff/heal for my forces.  The list also have 20 PGs with a Frosty and 10 Shadow Warriors to sneak around .

I belive the 4 spells a turn plus the resistance to magic with 5+is good enough for me to field my list on the city. Will check it out on the next few days. Living city deep strike also looks fun on paper. 

As i said, i lack practical experience and the benefits of Tempests Eye seen a bit more complex to pull of in the field, but feels like it would work out really well if Order Draconis was still around.

 

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Thiagoma said:

Disclaimer, i neverplayed with CoS but used to play by the Warscroll with GA: Order and Phoenix Temple.

Once this book was anounced i was sure i would play Phoenicium, but since i only play about 3 or 4 times a year, i had a lot of time to think where would my elven boys go. 

I was thorn between Living City or Hallowheart and decided for the second with the list i managed to paint. A 1500 pts list with 2 mages and 2 endless spells (balewind and Emerald lifeswarm). The idea is to go crazy suicide with a Flamespyre to block the  enemy with 10 phoenix guards and use the spells as a buff/heal for my forces.  The list also have 20 PGs with a Frosty and 10 Shadow Warriors to sneak around .

I belive the 4 spells a turn plus the resistance to magic with 5+is good enough for me to field my list on the city. Will check it out on the next few days. Living city deep strike also looks fun on paper. 

As i said, i lack practical experience and the benefits of Tempests Eye seen a bit more complex to pull of in the field, but feels like it would work out really well if Order Draconis was still around.

I have been lurking about TE a bit, and it has its merits. Arkanauts are good damage dealers at the moments, and Pistoleers bypass fight first/fight last by dealing most of their damage before entering melee.

The +1 save seems to do more to soften turn 1 chargers than it seems (though keeping it the whole game would be better, like PE gets).

 

I do not have actual experience with them though.

[Raffonerd]

19 hours ago, Tidings said:

1: Tempest's Eye
2: Hallowheart
3: Living city
4: Greywater Fastness / Hammerhall
5: lol

My reason for Tempest's Eye being above Hallowheart is there are so many turn 1 charges in the game now. That alpha strike protection is really really good (even if it's only first turn instead of all game *cough* Petrifex). The bonus to movement is great, and Hawk-Eyed General is incredible for us and our plentiful shooting options. 

Hallowheart has the most broken mechanic out of all the cities, but it's kept in check by how easy it is to kill off the wizards, how hard it is to fill out the rest of your list after buying all the wizards and some endless spells, etc. On paper, Hallowheart is by far the best. In practice, it's MUCH harder to pull off consistently compared to Tempest's Eye. 

The other cities don't compare at a competitive level imo. Even Living City struggles against a good player, who can pretty easily deny any impactful ambushing. And healing 1 wound per turn is nothing compared to the volume of wounds you just prevent from +1 armor first turn in Tempest Eye.

As long as spell portal + cyclone and 2 cast for 90 points exists hallowed will be the best. With 4 drop you can cast those 2 spells and erase 60 arakount in turn 1.

And also against 4 keeper of secrets/Fec lists, you end will be the same.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Raffonerd

[Gwendar]

@Raffonerd On the flip side if those Arkanauts go first and you mess up deployment\hiding them then they will be the ones erasing you T1.

TE does hold up better in my opinion against things like Slaanesh, the problem is that unless you wipe off all those hero's with a double turn they will get some\most back. It's hard to talk about now with the big FAQ potentially coming in the next couple weeks... at that point not only will our lists change, but things like Slaanesh will (hopefully) be far less scary, also prompting list changes.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Gwendar

[Tidings]

3 hours ago, Raffonerd said:

As long as spell portal + cyclone and 2 cast for 90 points exists hallowed will be the best. With 4 drop you can cast those 2 spells and erase 60 arakount in turn 1.

And also against 4 keeper of secrets/Fec lists, you end will be the same.

It's impossible to kill 60. It only effects models from a single unit, so that generally means 30 max (sometimes 40). And it only effects models wholly within 12". So you're looking at about 15 MWs on average against a big unit. That's great, but that's only against big units. Doesn't do anything against the heroes and stuff that you really want to kill. 

30 Arkanaut do an average of 25 wounds against a 4+ save, with a 38" threat range on turn 1. That's more damage, more reliable, and against priority targets instead of just the big units. It also means your opponent either takes first turn or deploys all spread out and cautious cause he's terrified of that damage.

I'm not sure what you mean about the end being the same against KoS and FEC cause at my most recent tourney I played against FEC, Slaanesh and Cities in that order and had major victories against all 3. And I wasn't even using Arkanauts.  

EDIT: just to add, all the enemy has to do to shut down Hallowheart is kill a few squishy wizards. Against Tempest Eye, he has to chew through 21 Arkanaut with +1 armor before he makes any impact on the Skyhooks. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Tidings

[Tidings]

3 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

@Raffonerd On the flip side if those Arkanauts go first and you mess up deployment\hiding them then they will be the ones erasing you T1.

TE does hold up better in my opinion against things like Slaanesh, the problem is that unless you wipe off all those hero's with a double turn they will get some\most back. It's hard to talk about now with the big FAQ potentially coming in the next couple weeks... at that point not only will our lists change, but things like Slaanesh will (hopefully) be far less scary, also prompting list changes.

It doesn't matter. If he goes first and gets a great cyclone off and kills 20 Arkanaut, he's still going to lose all his heroes cause none of the Skyhooks are dead. And he HAS to go first or have his heroes hidden behind something, at which point TE just speeds to objectives and shoot the rest of the army off the table. 

I've played the match up, and it's an autowin for TE who counters heroes, since Hallowheart is 100% hero focused. 

[Gwendar]

@Tidings Good point... I've yet to run Hallowheart simply because my Skaven already have a magic based list without all the squish of 5 wound heroes. Tzeentch update will be interesting and could potentially spell the end for HH and their magic dominance which will further increase the amount of heavy shooting or T1 charging TE lists... particularly with Darkling Coven units + a Sorceress for Run + Charge\Shoot. The KO update will definitely change where TE ranks on this list and I think it's something for people to look out for.

Remember when I said I didn't want to start my Dwarf list yet? I mean, I don't want Arkanauts but if Endrinriggers stay relatively the same (or get better)?

Oh boy.. that's a lot of damage coming through on a highly mobile unit which is great combined with a teleporting 20-man Irondrake unit 😉

 

[Raffonerd]

19 minutes ago, Tidings said:

It doesn't matter. If he goes first and gets a great cyclone off and kills 20 Arkanaut, he's still going to lose all his heroes cause none of the Skyhooks are dead. And he HAS to go first or have his heroes hidden behind something, at which point TE just speeds to objectives and shoot the rest of the army off the table. 

I've played the match up, and it's an autowin for TE who counters heroes, since Hallowheart is 100% hero focused. 

You are still missing half of the strategy. 

Hallowed also has bridge with 30" range, Ciclone + spell portal has illimited range. So, first ciclones kills you the first half, then he jumps on the bridge with anykind of shoting unit with hit buff and wound buffs, then kills all the heroes that you have. In the end you have to test one the arkanouts. You are dead. This is the broken thing of this city. On top of this, if you play accoring to rules (10 sceneries for each table), you can understand how easy is to make unviseable a battle mage (and he has unlimited range with endless spells).

Edited December 13, 2019 by Raffonerd

[Tidings]

7 minutes ago, Raffonerd said:

You are still missing half of the strategy. 

Hallowed also has bridge with 30" range, Ciclone + spell portal has illimited range. So, first ciclones kills you the first half, then he jumps on the bridge with anykind of shoting unit with hit buff and wound buffs, then kills all the heroes that you have. In the end you have to test one the arkanouts. You are dead. This is the broken thing of this city. On top of this, if you play accoring to rules (10 sceneries for each table), you can understand how easy is to make unviseable a battle mage (and he has unlimited range with endless spells).

Sure. I don't think anything I say will convince you lol, but I've beaten the exact Hallowheart strategy you are talking about with TE. Bridge is countered by screening, since it has to respect the 9". Very easy to keep the Hallowheart army from having anything other than Phoenix Guard to shoot. You won't get to shoot the Arkanaut or heroes if your opponent knows how bridge works and just positions with a little forethought. 

I'm not worried about a single mage throwing 1 spell each turn through spell portal. That's not going to do enough. I've played a lot of Hallowheart and done just that, it's just not enough damage and your 4 or 5 drop army is hopelessly outnumbered because it's ~800 points less models on the table. 

Hallowheart casting is really fun, but it's also really easy to counter at a competitive level by smart play.

[feraxil]

38 minutes ago, Tidings said:

Sure. I don't think anything I say will convince you lol, but I've beaten the exact Hallowheart strategy you are talking about with TE. 

But how does TE stand against the meta vs how HH stands against the meta?

Being able to beat one style of build/city with another in the same book doesn't answer a lot.

[Rune]

13 minutes ago, feraxil said:

But how does TE stand against the meta vs how HH stands against the meta?

Being able to beat one style of build/city with another in the same book doesn't answer a lot.

 

52 minutes ago, Tidings said:

Sure. I don't think anything I say will convince you lol....

 

I don't think it's fair to consider it as a "Tempest Eye will beat Hallowheart", which is not a point you (Tidings) initially brought up, but I don't see much use in having that conversation, unless if TE starts dominating the meta. 

 

It's pretty common knowledge that shooting is a counter to Hallowheart. So in that sort of Mets Hallowheart will struggle. I don't know enough about the meta if that is the case.

[Rune]

I won't get into an argument about which city is best, as I have no clue. I've not had the opportunity to play enough games at all. I think it's also a bit pointless to compare cities as there are so much diversity in the armies that can be made. Which is, to my knowledge, unlike many other factions.

For someone to know they would have to have played or gathered statistics from games with each city, with multiplie lists, and against the meta armies. I don't know how many people in this little community has done that already. I'm sure a few have.

 

1 hour ago, Tidings said:

EDIT: just to add, all the enemy has to do to shut down Hallowheart is kill a few squishy wizards. 

I would love to try a game against you, so that I could see the weakness of my own Hallowheart list. It's been doing wonderfully in the few games I have had. I haven't lost once, which is something considering I just got into AoS. Perhaps it speaks more to my opponents though! Hah.

 

1 hour ago, Tidings said:

I'm not worried about a single mage throwing 1 spell each turn through spell portal. That's not going to do enough. I've played a lot of Hallowheart and done just that, it's just not enough damage and your 4 or 5 drop army is hopelessly outnumbered because it's ~800 points less models on the table.

For the point about being 800 points less in models I think that's a pretty wild exaggeration. How'd you get to that? The typical Hallowheart list I have seen brings about 250-300 points in endless spells and 4-5 heroes. Wound count albeit low armour save is something like 130.

[Gwendar]

@Rune It's not really; typical lists run at least 3 Battlemages\Sorceress' + a Hurricanum which is already 550 points and some will add in a Knight-Incantor\Other SC wizard to bring the Comet. Throw in the battalion and 4-5 Endless spells (potentially adding in the comet) and you're already at or exceeding 800 points usually.

Now, unlike TE and other CoS units, most of your damage is coming from these Wizards aside from maybe 1-2 units getting buffs like PG, Irondrakes, etc... but the point is that those units tend to be better in other Cities like TE and you need only bring a couple of buffing hero's as they tend to do most of their damage on their own and over greater distances.

I don't think we meant to say TE will always dunk on HH or anything, but by a direct comparison (which is the topic of this thread) it is better overall for various reasons given.

[Tidings]

1 hour ago, feraxil said:

But how does TE stand against the meta vs how HH stands against the meta?

Being able to beat one style of build/city with another in the same book doesn't answer a lot.

Well, we're a bit off topic but coming full circle now. In my original post I explained why I think TE is stronger in the current meta because there are a lot of 1st turn charge armies, a lot of ambushing, teleporting, etc. Because shooting is growing in importance, TE's command ability and the +1 to wounding with shooting aura is very strong. Hallowheart has objectively stronger rules, but unfortunately those don't matter if the squishy heroes get shot/killed, which is becoming more common. More and more tourney lists are focusing on having an answer to heroes.

In competitive terms, those lists would be called "gatekeepers" to most Hallowheart lists. 
 

25 minutes ago, Rune said:

I would love to try a game against you, so that I could see the weakness of my own Hallowheart list. It's been doing wonderfully in the few games I have had. I haven't lost once, which is something considering I just got into AoS. Perhaps it speaks more to my opponents though! Hah.

For the point about being 800 points less in models I think that's a pretty wild exaggeration. How'd you get to that? The typical Hallowheart list I have seen brings about 250-300 points in endless spells and 4-5 heroes. Wound count albeit low armour save is something like 130.

It might be that you are positioning your casters perfectly, or that your opponents are not great, or that they aren't playing one of the several strong armies that have easy answers to Hallowheart. There are plenty of armies that CAN'T reliably stop the casters and in those match ups, Hallowheart is very strong! 

I didn't do the math, I just threw a number out there. But here's the units you commonly see in Hallowheart lists that I wouldn't put in a TE list for example. Incantor, extra battlemage and sorc, Sisters of the Thorn, and I split the difference on your endless spells estimate. That adds up to 725 points. With 725 points I can replace those 3 characters, 5 Sisters and the spells with 30 Phoenix Guard and an Annointed on a Flamspyre Phoenix. Or 60 Shadow Warriors. 

That's just an example, but if you are doing a low drop Hallowheart list, your opponent WILL have a lot more bodies on the table than you. If you get 1 or 2 less wizards and stick with only 1 or 2 endless spells, it's not as bad.