Playing Cities of Sigmar: are you really?

[dekay]

38 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

I kept the Bridge in because it can really help you deal with a gap in enemy positioning/late game scoring, etc.

It's not that I don't see bridge's utility here, I'm just unsure if it's really an 80 point utility. But, yeah, maybe without scourgerunners or any other very mobile unit it's a good idea...

[SwampHeart]

4 minutes ago, dekay said:

It's not that I don't see bridge's utility here, I'm just unsure if it's really an 80 point utility. But, yeah, maybe without scourgerunners or any other very mobile unit it's a good idea...

Yeah my change kept in some different elements than yours so bridge brings some options otherwise missing movement trickery. But different strokes and all, part of why Cities is such a great book (and one of the reasons TE is such a great city). 

[Wulfrik the Wanderer]

I find in my CoS lists, I use lots of Stormcast to fill my holes. A Lord Celestant on Star Drake with Iron Oak Artisan in Living City is a tanky-killy hammer of a unit that helps deliver solid distraction and is useful to fight other large units on the board. I couple this with ranged Irondrakes and a Runelord painted in a scheme that complements my Stormcast. Sometimes, if I feel particularly shooty, I bring in a unit of 9 Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows. My battleline consist of Longbeards, sometimes Pheonix Guard with a Emerald Lifeswarm if I feel like it. The amount of wounds brought to the board are high, and there is no points limit to the size of units of Stormcast you can bring, but rather a unit count limitation. 

You see, you can play your "Dispossessed" or your "Pheonix Guard" and might not have all the units you need to make it wholly a "Darkling Covens" list, but you can supplement Stormcast, or Kharadron Overlords and Sylvaneth respectively. It just seems to be that the right tools for the job are simply not being taken in people's lists. A Darkling Covens army might not have enough Darkshards, but might be heavy in Drakespawn knights. I say just ally in some Vanguard-Raptors which are about $30 a box and not expensive. If they lack cavalry, bring in some Fulminators. A unit of 2 for $50 will do nicely. If you need solid monsters/biguns, Hydra's in a Living City army are especially tanky and can deliver quite a punch! But if you need more, bring the Celestant-Prime to deliver an incredible amount of damage. 

I have found CoS to be highly competitive with solid choices of 1 wound battleline for relatively cheap (both money wise and points wise) that can easily be brought back with an Emerald Lifeswarm. Use these to screen your amazingly overpowered ranged options and watch you play 40k with your melee based opponent! If a CoS player wants to be competative, they most certainly can be, $30-80 is more than enough to send any army into the right direction, it all comes down to correctly diagnosing what your army lacks and filling the holes.

Example: A CoS Greywater Fastness list I made to Alpha Strike at my local tournament.

Runelord (90) - General; Command Trait - Ghoul Mere Ranger

Runelord (90) - City Role : General's Adjutant

Cogsmith (60) - Artefact: Mastro Vivetti's Magnificent Macroscope

Celestant-Prime (340)

Knight-Incantor (140) - Artefact: Ghyrstrike; Spell - Choking Fumes

 

10 x Longbeards (110) - Ancestral Weapons & Shields; City Role : Honoured Retinue

10 x Longbeards (110) - Ancestral Weapons & Shields

10 x Irondrakes (150)

10 x Irondrakes (150)

5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)

5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)

Helstorm Rocket Battery (130)

Helstorm Rocket Battery (130)

 

Battalions : Greywater Artillery Company (120)

Endless Spells : Emerald Lifeswarm (50)

Extra Command Point (50)

 

Irondrakes are the bane of Keepers of Secrets, which seem to be a popular choice in my local meta. Bump those Grudgehammers up to Rend 3 and they have no save. Not only that, but your first turn (assuming they play for the double turn as with most CoS you have a ton of drops!) you hit hard. This list on average delivers about 35 unsaved wounds during its' first turn of combat against an army of a 4+ save. With Slaanesh (again local meta) it is even better since most of their roster have a 5+ save. This army sacrifices units like the Sisters of Thorn as a bit of a "Chaff" unit to keep your irondrakes safe, but the good news is if they don't die, you can easily bring them back with the Emerald Lifeswarm! The Celestant-Prime can be swapped for some more units and a group of fulminators, but in my tournament, I found it better to bring the assassin/shooting powerhouse he is. This army was built with the armies I had and got me pretty far in the tournament I played in. 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Wulfrik the Wanderer

[Evantas]

I do want to play competitively, but is there an analysis of the units that are more competitive? 

So far standouts from my understanding  are (in no particular order)

 

Heroes 

- A tier : Hurricanium (both variants)

- B tier (situational) :

    Freeguild General (both variants)

    Battlemage

Melee 

- A tier: Phoenix Guard

- B tier (situational)

   Freeguild guard

Shooters

A tier

- Arkanauts (TS only) 

- Freeguild Handgunners 

- Sisters of the Watch

B tier (situational)

- Shadow warriors

- Freeguild Crossbowmen

 

Maybe compiling a list of the standouts can make it easier for people to make better lists.

[Icegoat]

Cities of sigmar is by far the worst armybook ever written. GW gutted every old faction cobbled together the plastic models they could still be bothered to reproduce and said these people now live and fight  together. Play this until we squat all of you. 

The Complete lack of a proper human order faction in age of sigmar continues to kill any love I have for this setting. Its clear by next year cities will be once again gutted and even more will be lost and squatted. And I'm sure we will get three new Aelf factions another load of bone people and a magic sky grot and fire lizard wizards long before we see an order human faction

 

The more I see of GW treatment of the old factions. Slaves to darkness stuck with half a model range still in ancient fine cast. Dwarfs almost completely gone high elves totally dead. I cannot wait for the old world to return. 

Citites of sigmar destroyed high elves, Basically destroyed dwarves and left the only good human representation in the realms ancient empire plastics soon to be squatted. And did barely anything new for dark elf players so what was the point?? Its the crumb we old timers got before our armies are squatted to oblivion. 

[prochuvi]

Yup im with you,this tome is a joke and the worst tome never done:

-At powerlevel of 1.0 tomes(win rate of 46%) 

-we didnt get terrain neither endless spells.

-almost 50% of high elfs and dwarfs units deleted

-almost every warscroll(dwarfs) got huge nerfs(a example are ironbreakers that lost ignore spells with 5, lost the ignore rend,lost the reroll saves, lost the only 50% units die on morale all this for a +1 save)

-the tome is all around stormcast,heck they could have called it stormcast and friends,all the lore in the book is about stormcast,as the 75% of the book is stormcat focused and only speak anout dwarfs or elfs as sidedish

-also people saying cos have underpowers winrates due to people dont know how do list.........when almost every buff or comandtrait is only for a faction

 

In general this tome was only a fast fix so they can save money and time on the armys that they want as water elfs or steampunk dwarf and release a garbage tome with every fantasy and cool dwarf\elfs.

 

Every high elf and dwarf player wanted a real 100% tome with only dwarf,or only high elf etc as every other faction got.

 

Many people can be happy with this soup,but the real dwarf\elf player are upset with this tome

 

[Joseph Mackay]

A mixed army only works as well as a Grand Alliance army will.

there is no synergy between the different factions like Dispossessed or Freeguild, abilities only work within specific factions. Telling people they’re playing the army wrong by not taking a mixed list is incorrect.

Cities of Sigmar also consolidated all unit champions, musicians and banner to have the same effect across all units in the book. In doing so the Dispossessed units lost some of their flavour that made them different (the 5+ to ignore spells for example, one of only 2 ways Dispossessed could counter magic, now it’s just 1).

additionally, gw have effectively forced Dispossessed etc into using Cities because all their conditional battleline are tied to being a Cities army now despite their own allegiance abilities from the GHB still being valid.

and not necessarily related to Cities as such, but the Dispossessed units are way overpriced. Compare Ironbreakers to Vulkite Berzerkers, it’s just ridiculous. All Duardin should have been updated to 2 wounds each when Fyreslayers were.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Joseph Mackay

[The Red King]

The reason everyone is playing pure lists (with a competitive eye) is because this army isn't competitive. If I built a list using only the best options this book had to offer with no consideration for what models I owned already or what I like or what makes sense it wouldn't compete with the top dogs. So what's the point? Nobody that's chasing the competitive scene is buying this army, the people who already play it are doing so because it allows them to field most of their old armies they already loved.  Why would I waste time and energy and money on adding a bunch of units I don't want to my mainly wanderers army just to be a low B tier army at best? I'm not gonna reward GW for squatting high elves and pushing out a half baked  bandaid book by buying a bunch of new models.

 

I like this army for conversion opportunities and because I like my wood elves and don't do tournaments but I don't think OP has found the super secret code to solve the underpowered Cities book. No offense.

[The Merchant Prince]

18 hours ago, dekay said:

freeguild were barely playable factions in their GHB days

Disagree. Great companies were, as the name suggest, great. Can't comment on the others though, and dispossessed were certainly slow.

18 hours ago, dekay said:

If you look at this like this, the question "I refuse to use 80% of my options, why do I keep losing" answers itself.

 

I think there's two noteworthy causes here:

1. At least initially, people are just getting into CoS using their existing collections; and

2. CoS was never designed as a cohesive model range. Now sure, a lord arcanum looks great alongside my demigryphs, but ultimately CoS is a mishmash of ranges that without converting can only be combined aesthetically via a common colour scheme and basing etc. Aesthetics and hobby are important to people's enjoyment of the hobby, so I totally understand this reason. I'm a freeguild player so when I want to play CoS I base it around my freeguild units and then I look and what other units complement my units or which rules fit my army theme, and I'll just convert an equivalent unit to represent that. E.g. I'm running tempests eye and in place of skywardens I'll be making some converted freeguild flying infantry.

[Aezeal]

7 hours ago, Icegoat said:

Cities of sigmar is by far the worst armybook ever written. GW gutted every old faction cobbled together the plastic models they could still be bothered to reproduce and said these people now live and fight  together. Play this until we squat all of you. 

The Complete lack of a proper human order faction in age of sigmar continues to kill any love I have for this setting. Its clear by next year cities will be once again gutted and even more will be lost and squatted. And I'm sure we will get three new Aelf factions another load of bone people and a magic sky grot and fire lizard wizards long before we see an order human faction

 

The more I see of GW treatment of the old factions. Slaves to darkness stuck with half a model range still in ancient fine cast. Dwarfs almost completely gone high elves totally dead. I cannot wait for the old world to return. 

Citites of sigmar destroyed high elves, Basically destroyed dwarves and left the only good human representation in the realms ancient empire plastics soon to be squatted. And did barely anything new for dark elf players so what was the point?? Its the crumb we old timers got before our armies are squatted to oblivion. 

To be fair it has been lore for years they live and fight together. The fact you don't like it doesn't change that.

[adreal]

I like the cities book for what it is, I can use mainly aelves in my list, so I'm happy with it, may not be the best of the best of the best, but it's certainly better then what things were before

[zilberfrid]

7 hours ago, Icegoat said:

Cities of sigmar is by far the worst armybook ever written. GW gutted every old faction cobbled together the plastic models they could still be bothered to reproduce and said these people now live and fight  together. Play this until we squat all of you. 

The Complete lack of a proper human order faction in age of sigmar continues to kill any love I have for this setting. Its clear by next year cities will be once again gutted and even more will be lost and squatted. And I'm sure we will get three new Aelf factions another load of bone people and a magic sky grot and fire lizard wizards long before we see an order human faction

The more I see of GW treatment of the old factions. Slaves to darkness stuck with half a model range still in ancient fine cast. Dwarfs almost completely gone high elves totally dead. I cannot wait for the old world to return. 

Citites of sigmar destroyed high elves, Basically destroyed dwarves and left the only good human representation in the realms ancient empire plastics soon to be squatted. And did barely anything new for dark elf players so what was the point?? Its the crumb we old timers got before our armies are squatted to oblivion. 

I will not say it is the worst tome ever, there is decent balance between different army choices, and there are a lot of them. As I read it, in sheer amount of choices, CoS is the best book. Almost all of the warscrolls are clearly written and quick to play, which isn't something you can say of, for instance, Skaven. There are quite a few negatives, sure:

• We did not get endless spells, but generic endless spells are better for CoS wizards. A bit of a wash here.
• We did not get faction terrain. A loss certainly, this is a bad choice on GW's part, but consistent with them not putting any plastic commitment to CoS factions.
• There are no mounted heroes save those on giant beasties. The gap between one shottable (by OBR) heroes and the very expensive ones on giant bases is about 3x the points.
• Because so little of the old factions boost one another, the "Cities" feel is lost. There are still racial keywords in the warscrolls, which isn't inviting to do massive conversions (not that this is stopping me in any way, shape or form).
• There are too many Stormcast on the cover, and too much mention of them in the book. A minor one.

The book is not an overpowered one, it seems more of a book that should be the baseline. This is not a negative.

Apart from this, we have the culling. This was done separately from writing the book, the lore for Freeguild, for instance, still mentions Militia weapons and I get the feeling at least part of the culling was not known to the writers of the book until the last moment. I do not consider the culling part of the book. It is part of the way GW does business. Some of the gaps in the lineup could well have been closed with extinguished sets.

I do not think 2020 will come with a massive culling for Cities, but I do not know what AoS 3.0 will do, as I think that will coincide with the release of the Old World (baseless conjecture on my part though).

 

[Myrdin]

@dekay Love your take on it, and the opening post is perfect. Take this like good sir ! Just wanted to say that  

 

On a bit more serious note tho, you are spot on. I`ve seeen bunch of veteran players shelving their old WFB armies that simply because they either still harbor dislike to AoS and call it dumbed down mass skirmish game, or B desperately cling to the way their army used to be.

I for one, while understanding of the strong tinge of nostalgia their beloved army has around it, cant really empathize with this outlook. I started building my Empire army shortly before WFB died, and resurrected it only after AoS 2.0 turned out to be > for me at least < a really fun format to play. And once Cities tome came out I was extremely happy how it turned out. So many options, sure some beloved miniatures and units are gone (Warrior priest of Sigmar, the most bad as* priest there is! May his shiny bald head for ever blind the enemies of Sigmar :3  ...or the Witch Hunters. These two units are super Iconic and been part of Warhammer since ages past ), but still so many cool combinations can be done.

The people who embrace the book for what it is, will do well in competitive scene. I am sure of it. Those who wish to keep playing with the scraps that were left over after the "great squat" will keep on wondering why it is that they keep on loosing when they willingly play with both hands tied behind their back and a blindfold over their eyes, while also stepping on a piece of Lego stuck in their boot  

Edited December 19, 2019 by Myrdin

[SwampHeart]

9 hours ago, The Red King said:

The reason everyone is playing pure lists (with a competitive eye) is because this army isn't competitive.

Lol. CoS won a major in effectively the first tournament it was playable in. The butt hurt in the last few posts in this thread is palpable, its amazing. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by SwampHeart

[The Red King]

2 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

Lol. CoS won a major in effectively the first tournament it was playable in. The butt hurt in the last few posts in this thread is palpable, its amazing. 

You mean that one 1250 point tournament with no indication of what the rest of the field was like? Because unless you've got some much more compelling data I think I'd drop the pompous tone.

 

Even if they did win ONE tournament I would hope anyone trying to talk about the competitiveness of an army would at the very least understand what anecdotal evidence is.

 

But no, I suppose it's much more likely that we are all just salty and not as good as you are. Please feel free to post all your Top rankings at tournaments with this awesome book that we're all just too butthurt to use right.

[Satyrical Sophist]

I don't think any one is claiming that cities of sigmar is OP.  I think people are claiming that they are pretty mid tier with a lot of customisation and options. There are a lot more choices you can make and things to try. There are 150 or so warscrolls to build your list from, that's going to be way less easy to solve than something like  Hedonites or Flesh Eaters. 

It's perfectly valid to point out that a lot of the people playing are playing lists that are designed with way more restrictions than win rate in mind. 

[The Red King]

Oh no I honestly like the Cities book quite a lot and agree it's mid tier and pretty well balanced internally (a few outliers liked drakespawn knights aside).

 

I'm just taking issue with some people's tone as rather than say "hey you guys are limiting yourselves and putting a handicap on your army" it sounds more like "hah you butthurt Oldhammer players just need to get over it and the only reason you're losing is because you don't like AoS." And for the record I never even played Oldhammer.

 

This discussion seems like it may be worth having but it currently feels more like an I do/dont like AoS/WHFB discussion more than a tactical one.

[Lord Krungharr]

I got the CoS tome for an alternate way to play my Legion of Azgorh, as I am doubtful of their future as real Chaos Dwarves (given Forgeworld's problems).  But also I got a Frostheart Phoenix for the firey wings for a customized Lord of Change, and I found a really old metal guy that turned out to be Orion the old Wood Elves king....so he's gonna be a Durthu after I make a mechanized tree suit for him.

I'll post if I win or lose any games when I get to use them in the next few months.

Seems like a good tome for people with a bunch of Start Collecting boxes.  Living City you could have half of it Sylvaneth and Stormcast!  So diverse, peace and love and harmony and ******

[SwampHeart]

2 hours ago, The Red King said:

You mean that one 1250 point tournament with no indication of what the rest of the field was like? Because unless you've got some much more compelling data I think I'd drop the pompous tone.

 

No I mean Blood and Glory 2019, one of the largest AoS events in the world. What I'm saying is that CoS is quite clearly a book capable of taking majors because its far better than a mid tier book. It can easily compete with the top of the meta right now. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by SwampHeart

[The Red King]

17 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

No I mean Blood and Glory 2019, one of the largest AoS events in the world. What I'm saying is that CoS is quite clearly a book capable of taking majors because its far better than a mid tier book. It can easily compete with the top of the meta right now. 

I don't doubt you but could you link any information about what the lists were like because I can not find any information on attendance or lists just names of people I don't know who won.

[SwampHeart]

9 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I don't doubt you but could you link any information about what the lists were like because I can not find any information on attendance or lists just names of people I don't know who won.

Honest Wargamer is down right now but once its back up I'll post the link. You can also check out their VODs on Twitch for a recap of Tom's Hallowheart list that took 1st place by a mile.  Final game was against Russ Veal's BoK - worth a watch. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by SwampHeart

[The Red King]

I was wondering if it was down. I tried it earlier.  VODs aren't really my thing. I'll just wait.

[willange]

I think it's definitely limiting to try and build around just 1 subfaction.  Then again, you want to take advantage of subfaction synergies.  To do both, I usually just take 2-3 subfactions and splash the odd "unsupported" unit in where it makes sense.  Like maybe 600 points of dispossessed to be your front-line, get some free guild guns for shooting, then go either elves or more free guild for the cav and/or objective grabbers.

[prochuvi]

Sure and then that is the same than old general mixed order lists with old firestorm alegiances.

Win rates dont lie,every new tome have around 55-60% win rate and then cos have a great 46% win rate worse than 1.0 armys that have tomes incoming.

 

Cos is 100% the same than a general order mixed list using old firestorm alegiances,this tome only have added MANY nerfs to every warscroll and some relik and so.

 

One dude won one tournament? Sure that is called stathistic, if the tome have 46% win rate means that can have one dude winning ome tournament but then we have other 100 players that lost.

 

The truth is that cos is a mid tier at best army and dont matter if it is played as full mixed list or as only dwarfs or elfs,nothing gonna changue that

[willange]

I agree that it is a lot like old mixed order (a subset really), and I can see where that may not be what people want, but that is certainly the way it's meant to played in a pitched battle.  The mechanics lend themselves to a LOTR "last alliance of elves and men" sorta faction, except there are also dwarves and dark elves.

I've only played a couple of casual games (using pitched battle rules) with CoS so far, and I took both of those, so I personally think they're fine.  But my limited experience is just that and I can't speak to a tournament environment, so I won't argue there.  It would be interesting to see what lists are going to those tournaments though, do they mix effectively or just run 1 subfaction?