Cities tier list!

[Saxon]

4 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

Which, that's kind of the key really. HH forces a more 'bunker' playstyle which could mean you'll be losing out on objectives unless you wipe everything off the board T1\2... and this game is won on objectives so if you can't do that then.. well. 
 

I strongly resonate with this. I have massive mobility problems for objective games with my freeguild hammerhall list. 

[Gwendar]

3 minutes ago, Saxon said:

I strongly resonate with this. I have massive mobility problems for objective games with my freeguild hammerhall list. 

Well, I meant Hallowheart (I think we need new abbreviations) due to their Battalion and overall playstyle forcing them to be near each other. I haven't seen or heard of anyone really running Hammerhal... it's the kind of thing that was almost good, but too many battleplan territory layouts make it lackluster.

I will say, I initially wanted to run an all Demigryph\Dark Rider list for a fun mobile list but.. again I just asked 'why not use TE for the save and movement?'.

[Saxon]

1 minute ago, Gwendar said:

Well, I meant Hallowheart (I think we need new abbreviations) due to their Battalion and overall playstyle forcing them to be near each other. I haven't seen or heard of anyone really running Hammerhal... it's the kind of thing that was almost good, but too many battleplan territory layouts make it lackluster.

I will say, I initially wanted to run an all Demigryph\Dark Rider list for a fun mobile list but.. again I just asked 'why not use TE for the save and movement?'.

Ah my mistake. I haven't really looked into anything other than hammerhall or greywater fastness to be honest. I run pure freeguild so to achieve anything all my units need to be near each other. 

The ignore battleshock wholly within your territory has worked wonders for my terrible bravery shooty boys. 

I purchased Demigryphs but have never been able to get them to work. I have always wanted to run a pistollier/outrider heavy list but the general on a horse is no longer a thing  

[Tidings]

Just now, Saxon said:

I have always wanted to run a pistollier/outrider heavy list but the general on a horse is no longer a thing  

They are battleline in TE!

[Saxon]

Just now, Tidings said:

They are battleline in TE!

It's more for the fluff of having a general on a horse lead a cavalry charge and the new pistolliers rules are pretty cool. Oh i wish we could have knights back 

[Gwendar]

3 minutes ago, Saxon said:

Ah my mistake. I haven't really looked into anything other than hammerhall or greywater fastness to be honest. I run pure freeguild so to achieve anything all my units need to be near each other. 

The ignore battleshock wholly within your territory has worked wonders for my terrible bravery shooty boys. 

I purchased Demigryphs but have never been able to get them to work. I have always wanted to run a pistollier/outrider heavy list but the general on a horse is no longer a thing  

I'll sell you all 30 of mine that I built so I can fund my Dwarf list instead 😉 Can't help with the general on horse though.. I think the Griffon is a great choice though as it can keep up with them and carry around Hawk-Eyed.

GWF was initially what many people seemed to be sold on until we all collectively shed a tear with how bad the Steam Tanks and artillery are... that said I think they're a great fun build and some do still have some competitive success with the battalion and ~4 Rocket Batteries mixed with whatever other shooting you like. It's another situation where I think it was just off and increasing the range on everything and not just Ironweld stuff would've been better. Still, no matter how you look at it, it's hard to compete with the speed, shooting, and defensive capabilities of TE for any unit really.

[feraxil]

A quick treatise on city abbreviations:

I propose 

HM - Hammerhal
GF - Greywater Fastness
LC - Living City
PH - Phoenicium
TE - Tempest's Eye
HH - Hallowheart
AG - Anvilgard

[soots]

I honestly think Cities is a high drop army. So you will most likely go last, which poses a massive issue for our shooty lists which usually max out at 24" crossbows. This is really bad for Sisters, Irondrakes, etc which need extra help to make use of turn 1.

Also greywater getting no love for the +3" range. That is insane for a lot of units that require us to stand still. 3" lets our big shooty units shoot from deployment and really buffs the gyrocopter into T1 levels.

My rating

T1 Hallowheart Total power x2 spell casts. unbreakable army item. Magic ward. 

T4. Tempest Eye, Living City, Greywater. Help with the high drop army. All 3 have options to do something first turn.

T5 Hammerhaal. Unbreakable and attack twice as well as very synergistic cheap and fast and hard hitting melee units. Would be higher if not for poor drop rate and requirements for the abilities. Very competitive if you generalship around those 2 requirements.

T15. Phoenician. Dying as preqrequisite

T27. Anvil.  Fluffy.

 

[SwampHeart]

10 hours ago, soots said:

I honestly think Cities is a high drop army.

Doesn't have to be - GWF can do 4 drop reliably, my TE list is 6 and could go to 5 pretty readily as well. A lot of Cities lists are high drop but it certainly isn't a requirement for the army. 
 

11 hours ago, soots said:

So you will most likely go last, which poses a massive issue for our shooty lists which usually max out at 24" crossbows. This is really bad for Sisters, Irondrakes, etc which need extra help to make use of turn 1.

Access to empowered Soul Scream Bridge (which is very easy to reliably cast in CoS, likely out of turn one unbind range) negates this concern. It does mean you're spending about 250 points in most lists towards making sure SSB is viable and available but that's a cost worth spending given the ability to punish your opponent for making you go first. And its even better now that SSB entirely survived the Dec. FAQs intact. Also TE negate this weakness entirely by giving you access to KO with m7 in turn one. 
 

11 hours ago, soots said:

T1 Hallowheart Total power x2 spell casts. unbreakable army item. Magic ward. 

Post nerf there is simply no way HH is the most viable city in CoS. The bonus to casting becomes much more unreliable post Dec. FAQ. 

[stus67]

1. TE

2. HH

3. LC/PH

 

Easy pz. I've played a boatload of games with Hallowheart using a lot of different lists, and every list had the same issues against heavy alpha strike or shooting armies which make up like 80% of the current meta. If you don't get the first turn you can expect at least one or two of your wizards to be dead, and if it's the hurricanum then it's pretty much gg from there. It's also not easy to hold board control when you have so little bodies.

I don't have enough experience with TE myself, but I know it can handle other shooting armies effectively, and it has a lot of alpha strike potential. It's also really fun playing with a pistolier and outrider heavy lists so it has that going for it too.

As for LC and PH I've seen some nasty things come from them, but they don't hold a candle to HH/TE in the meta. LC has an easier time if the pilot is more experienced and big brain but even then it can be screened out by another big brain player. The other cities are bottom of the bucket though.

[SwampHeart]

13 minutes ago, stus67 said:

The other cities are bottom of the bucket though.

Greywater is probably right around HH in viability honestly. 4 drop lists, huge reliable alpha strike with amazing range. Still suffers from lower body count and mobility isn't amazing so it misses some of what TE picks up but GWF I think is 4-1 army all day. 

[Gwendar]

26 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Greywater is probably right around HH in viability honestly. 4 drop lists, huge reliable alpha strike with amazing range. Still suffers from lower body count and mobility isn't amazing so it misses some of what TE picks up but GWF I think is 4-1 army all day. 

Curious, what would you fill the remaining points with? It's already assumed you'd take a Cogsmith, Hurricanum, Ordinator, 4 Rockets and the Battalion. I would struggle to bring Dwarves in this regard as I would also want to throw in a RL + 20 Drakes w/ Bridge. Maybe a King if you plan to run Hammerers as well but you likely can't afford that. Most seem to gravitate towards pure Freeguild when it comes to GF but surely there could be better options..

Edited December 18, 2019 by Gwendar

[SwampHeart]

6 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

Curious, what would you fill the remaining points with? It's already assumed you'd take a Cogsmith, Hurricanum, Ordinator, 4 Rockets and the Battalion. I would struggle to bring Dwarves in this regard as I would also want to throw in a RL + 20 Drakes w/ Bridge. Maybe a King if you plan to run Hammerers as well but you likely can't afford that. Most seem to gravitate towards pure Freeguild when it comes to GF but surely there could be better options..

My 'at a glance' GWF list is something like

-Cogsmith
-Battlemage
-Celestial Hurricanum
-2 units of 30 Handgunners
-1 unit of 20 Handgunners
-4 Helstorms
Battalion
Soul Scream
Extra CP 

There's room to improve there to be sure but that's a 6 drop list with 80 bodies that are reliable shooters, the ability to bridge as needed, a nice little MW generator in the hurricanum, and a brutal 24 3/3/-2/d3 re-rolling 1s to hit first turn shooting phase. 

[Gwendar]

@SwampHeart I like... but it's a shame I'll likely not kitbash 80 bodies worth of Freeguild heads + Admech guys anytime soon 😉

 

[SwampHeart]

5 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

@SwampHeart I like... but it's a shame I'll likely not kitbash 80 bodies worth of Freeguild heads + Admech guys anytime soon 😉

 

You could fiddle around with it and maybe snag from Freeguild guard over one of the big handgunner units for a more effective screen or drop the body count a bit to slot in dwarf infantry instead. 

[soots]

10 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

Doesn't have to be - GWF can do 4 drop reliably, my TE list is 6 and could go to 5 pretty readily as well. A lot of Cities lists are high drop but it certainly isn't a requirement for the army. 
 

CoS dont have a big Shark, Witchelf, Stormfiend, vulk, ark type unit. So generally they get lots of decent msus. of course you can limit the drop, but it would definitely be a more unorthodox min-max all or nothing build.

10 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

Access to empowered Soul Scream Bridge (which is very easy to reliably cast in CoS, likely out of turn one unbind range) negates this concern. It does mean you're spending about 250 points in most lists towards making sure SSB is viable and available but that's a cost worth spending given the ability to punish your opponent for making you go first. And its even better now that SSB entirely survived the Dec. FAQs intact. Also TE negate this weakness entirely by giving you access to KO with m7 in turn one. 

Post nerf there is simply no way HH is the most viable city in CoS. The bonus to casting becomes much more unreliable post Dec. FAQ. 

Youre betting on 500+pts to get an endless spell off as your main trump card.Im not saying it wont work. Im just saying its going to fail more than it has to, especially since you dont rate hallowheart who have the best chance in the game to get it off. The other cities struggle to get modifiers.  Your also going low drop, Its sounds like an all or nothing solution.  I think CoS is one of the most dynamic and flexible armies in the game with T1 shooting, T1 magic and decent melee.

Thats why i rate hallowheart, they can get the move spells off easier than any army in the game. Then they also have the best unbreakable solution in the CoS book, then if you want to go defensive, they get an army wide 5+ ward against magic which is priceless against skaven/tzeentch etc. The +1 spell to cast is essentially double value for all your mages as well. Im not saying TE, GWF, LC, HAM are bad. its just Hallowheart is really great. The CA did get nerfed, but its still usable. get an 11+w caster (lum,huric,mounted) to cast it, then heal it back immediately. If you roll basically a 4+, you are freecasting double spells like cyclone and heal and not even Nagash could stop you.

[Kaime]

On 12/18/2019 at 3:57 AM, soots said:

Also greywater getting no love for the +3" range. That is insane for a lot of units that require us to stand still. 3" lets our big shooty units shoot from deployment and really buffs the gyrocopter into T1 levels.

 

Greywater only buffs the range on ironweld arsenal units, not the crossbows and such

[zilberfrid]

20 hours ago, Gwendar said:

@SwampHeart I like... but it's a shame I'll likely not kitbash 80 bodies worth of Freeguild heads + Admech guys anytime soon 😉

 

Greatswords are cheaper per head than guards or crossbowmen. Even Pistoleers are, by the way. 

[Gwendar]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

 Even Pistoleers are, by the way. 

Oh hey... I forgot I have a bunch of heads left over from the 30 I made so that works just fine.
 

13 hours ago, soots said:

Youre betting on 500+pts to get an endless spell off as your main trump card.Im not saying it wont work. Im just saying its going to fail more than it has to

Where are you getting 500? I assume you're counting the unit that's getting teleported but I think that's a given to have a large shooting\melee units regardless of if you bring bridge or not. All you really need is a Battlemage\Sorceress and the Bridge but almost everyone takes a Hurricanum or Battlemage\Sorceress in a list anyway. This is why you build list in such a way that even if it doesn't go off, you have the tools to mitigate the next turn. The Dwarf list I've thought about includes a Bridge, Hurricanum and Battlemage but quite frankly I can make T1 work whether I'm made to go first or not and if Bridge doesn't go off I can still position just fine.

The Bridge isn't good just for using it T1 to hit something far away, it's good throughout the game for getting units across the board when needed. I'll gladly pay 80 points for that piece of utility.

[zilberfrid]

6 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

Oh hey... I forgot I have a bunch of heads left over from the 30 I made so that works just fine.

I think 30 pistoleers net you 60 extra heads, Pistoleers and Greatswords are quite generous in their parts.