Every cos behemot is useless

[Doko]

Ok,the they arent useless but they are worse than every other behemot of other armys.

 

General on gryfon 320 makes 10 damage

Black dragon melle 300 makes 11 damage

War hydra 170 makes 7 damage

Steam tank better not include because its a joke.

Mages behemots:

 

Black dragon mage 300 makes 8 damage only 1 spell and a joke 5 save and nothing more

Mage on gryfon even worse than the black dragon.

 

Then we have others armys behemots as :

 

idoneths turtle 340 for 21damage and a aura of +1 save and 1 hit for thalls

lumineths avalenor 360 for 17 damage and aura of -1 hit to enemys

dok slaugther quen on cauldron with the avatar awaken(66% chance turn 1 and 100% in others turns) for 270 makes 17 damage and have prayers and a aura of +1 save

seraphons saurus scar on trex only 210 and unbufed(they have 9999999 free buffs in every alegiance and everything) for 14'5 damage.

 

mages behemots:

we have almost every mage of 250+ cast 2 spells with save 4 or better and feel no pain of 5 or 4 

verminlords,keepers of secret,avatar of idoneths,every mortarch(manfred,neferata etc)and a big etc

Dok bloodwrack shrine around 10 damage if we count ranged etc,1 spell and 2 dispells for 160. So this is the 100% same stats than our black dragon and grifon mages..........that cost 300 but the shrine cost 160.

 

So i really never tougth that citys behemots were so bad untill i started to see other tomes behemots.

As is posible that our melle behemots that dont have any aura of +1 save have similar cost that models as the shrine of dok or the turtle of idoneths that have as a 100% more damage(ours have 10 damage vs 17\21).

If we compare to other behemot only melle and without auras as the seraphon trex,then the trex does 14 damage for 210 vs the 10 damage of ours behemots that cost 300\320

or our war hydra that is only 100% damage with 0 utility cost the same than the medusa shrine but the shrine does more damage,can cast one spell and dispell 2

 

also as it is posible that our behemoths mages only have 1 spell,with 5 save and 0 fell no pain when every other mage behemot with similar cost cast 2 spells,3\4 save and 4\5 feel no pain.

Also our debuffer behemot,the phoenyx cost 320 for 8 damage and -1 wound vs avalenor for 360 makes 17 damage(double damage for 40 points lol)and debuff -1 hit

 

i dont think our tome is bad,it is great and i think we are pretty competitive,but our behemots are a joke.

 

seeing other tomes our cost would be balanced with:

melle black dragon and gryfon 230

Frostphoenyx with annointed 220

war hydra 100

black dragon and gryfon mage 200 or actual 300 but get 2 cast,save 4 and 4++

what do you think? Its true or im wrong?

[zilberfrid]

I think you are correct, but I would add that the General on Griffin is a very pretty model!

[Joseph Mackay]

Damage isn’t the only factor in this equation, damage isn’t the only reason you take a monster (I wish it was though)

[Doko]

What are the other reason? We havent behemots with a +1 save aura as others have,ours behemots only do damage.

Only the phoenyx is usefull out of damage,and as i said for only 40 points avalenor does the damage of two phoenyx.

 

[Leemer]

Yes in general they are bad.

But there are exceptions. Freeguild on griffon, both annointeds on phoenix and dreadlord on dragon are pretty decent in the right list. Sure they could do with coming down 20-30pts across the board but overall they have decent utility, synergy and strong defence.

I also think you're severely underestimating the tankiness of frostheart phoenixes. With just mystic shield you've got him to 3+4++ rr 1s, then easily buffed to 2+ with artefacts (armor mallus, iron oak) or allegiance abilities (tempest eye). The rr wounds is also a great command ability for blocks of PG which is quite rare. Reducing that to 220pts as you suggest would be extremely OP.

Sure we dont have any mawkrusha/terrorgheist-level damage dealers, but saying they're all useless would be incorrect.

That said, the hydra/kharibdyss, steam tanks, BM on griffon, and sorcerer on BD all do really need a boost. Which is a shame as they're all cool models.

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Leemer

[Marcvs]

It could be worse, it could be raining... 🤣

Lord Celestant on Stadrake, 500 points, 4.5 damage to a 4+ save

[Dankboss]

I mean, I play Hammerhalian Lancers and the other day my Griffon ate a Manticore, then went on to eat a Karkadrak and 10 chaos warriors in the space of 2 combats. He's great when built in Hammerhal. His 320 points cost is likely to prevent the ballistic missile monster meta of a few years back. I'd say he's a 300 point monster but that's hardly an issue. His sheer accuracy is unlike that of almost any other monster. Sure, he may not do the most damage but he's resistant to whiffing his attacks.

 

[Doko]

As i said the first sentence,they arent useless,the title was a clickbait.

But karl franz with the battalilion are 320+140(the batallion) to do 17 damage when others behemots as the idoneths turtle for only a unbufed 340 points do 21 damage allready and moreover bringing a +1 save aura.

As i said he isnt bad but even buffed with a battallion he is a joke vs others behemots.

 

Per example if we add buffs to others behemots,the seraphon trex can skyrocket to some as 30+ damage or the triceraptos to 40+ damage with the insane buffs stacking of seraphons and cost 210 points....

 

Our behemots arent useless,but really need a boost(a HUGE boost in case of our mage behemots) to be comparable to every other behemots.

I think after look other behemots only the magmadroths are so bad as our city behemots

[Dankboss]

5 minutes ago, Doko said:

As i said the first sentence,they arent useless,the title was a clickbait.

But karl franz with the battalilion are 320+140(the batallion) to do 17 damage when others behemots as the idoneths turtle for only a unbufed 340 points do 21 damage allready and moreover bringing a +1 save aura.

As i said he isnt bad but even buffed with a battallion he is a joke vs others behemots.

 

Per example if we add buffs to others behemots,the seraphon trex can skyrocket to some as 30+ damage or the triceraptos to 40+ damage with the insane buffs stacking of seraphons and cost 210 points....

 

Our behemots arent useless,but really need a boost(a HUGE boost in case of our mage behemots) to be comparable to every other behemots.

I think after look other behemots only the magmadroths are so bad as our city behemots

To kill a Karkadrak and 10 warriors in one combat my griffon had to do 29 damage minimum. He can fight twice remember. CoS is also a different army, and inherently relies on its infantry. It's just how the book is designed. Comparing outside of allegiance is not an ideal indicator of a model's performance.

[Marcvs]

5 minutes ago, Doko said:

As i said the first sentence,they arent useless,the title was a clickbait.

But karl franz with the battalilion are 320+140(the batallion) to do 17 damage when others behemots as the idoneths turtle for only a unbufed 340 points do 21 damage allready and moreover bringing a +1 save aura.

As i said he isnt bad but even buffed with a battallion he is a joke vs others behemots.

 

Per example if we add buffs to others behemots,the seraphon trex can skyrocket to some as 30+ damage or the triceraptos to 40+ damage with the insane buffs stacking of seraphons and cost 210 points....

 

Our behemots arent useless,but really need a boost(a HUGE boost in case of our mage behemots) to be comparable to every other behemots.

I think after look other behemots only the magmadroths are so bad as our city behemots

While I agree that some of the CoS behemots need a boost (the wizards, notably and all of the non-leader ones, but that's true in most factions) I think it's a bit too easy to compare with some of the best (at the moment) factions out there. There's plenty of ****** behemots in other factions too : how does the general on griffon compare with an arachnarok? or the cygor?

Also, sweeping statements are hard to confirm: not all behemots have FNP (see all the stormcast behemots, just as an example)

I would also note that the phoenix (leader version) is amazing much beyond her damage and is a very common pick in competitive CoS lists

[Zeblasky]

On their own even the best CoS Behemoths don't look great. It's all about synergies and Command abilities with them.

Frost Phoenix with Annointed is the least damage oriented. He instead has a pretty impressive tanking/roadblock potential, gives AOE melee defence and immunity to battleshock for Phoenix Guard near. Tanky model, good synergies all around.

Fire phoenix is less tanky, more "running around, spamming MW and having a chance to start over". Still a very good choice, just more risky and requires certain gooning setup.

General on Griffon looks... Okay. But add Hammerhall CP generator, artefacts and Command ability, and he becomes quite a great blender.

 

Dreadlord... Well, you do forget about his Breath attack. Situational, sure, hard to use well, yes, but get into combat right near a horde unit of 40 models, pull them in, and you can do around 7 mortal wounds in your next shooting phase. Even if you get 10 models in range, that's still almost 2 MW on average. Oh, and in Living City only Dreadlord can fly 28 (or deepstrike +14) with a single CP, which is pretty great for threatening that squishy backline.

 

I do completely agree though that after huge only self spell buffs from malign sorcery realms are gone, CoS wizard Behemoths need a buff. +1 to their saves and number of casts would be good. Some minor buffs to other Behemoths (may be some limited save rerolls on non Phoenix ones) could be good as well. They do feel a bit squishy for their points.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Zeblasky

[dekay]

I'll agree on these ones:

Steam tank (both variants) is bad.

Griffon mage might be one of the worst units in the game.

It gets a bit hazier here:

Hydra is, well, meh. A passable distraction carnifex at best.

Kharybdiss can be okay-ish in some builds and match up, but in general, similar to hydra.

And finally:

Dreadlord has two viable builds in living city, both proven to work quite well, and has been proven to work in niche serpentis based lists. Not great, but usable and maybe even good. Yeah it's a weaker statline than some monsters but can any of those monsters pull of a guaranteed, always-strike-first charge from a table edge?

Dragon sorceress is a crucial element of darkling-hammer builds, a bit niche and not strong on her own, but a necessary element of a strong combo. 

All 4 phoenix variants are good, for varying reasons. Anointed are usually better, but sometimes you want them cheap.

Luminark is great.

Hurricanum is awesome to the point like, 80% lists have it.

Griffon general is a necessary piece of CoS only two good low drop builds. He could be utterly useless on his own, but those builds (Hammerhall lancers, and TE Aetherguard) work, and they require him to be taken, thus making him useful. In Hammerhal he can fight twice, in TE he's fast enough to keep up with pistoliers, boost their charges and make them wound on 2+.

Units need to be compared in context of their armies. Let's just use your own example:

"idoneths turtle 340 for 21 damage and a aura of +1 save and 1 hit for thalls" well, yes. So let's take a turtle with 30 thralls.  660 points total. Turtle does 21 damage. I'll be generous and assume we're fighting a 1 wound enemy here, so thralls get their bonus, because otherwise it will get sad. Thralls will do 41 damage with the turtle buff.

They have threat range of 6+2d6. 18. 24 if we're on turn 2 and only then. Cool, assuming you roll 12 for that charge, because it might as well be a total of 8.

Compare:

A sorceress on dragon and 30 executioners. 600 pts, so we're already cheaper by a large enough margin to buy another scoring unit.

Sorceress does 8 damage. Executioners do 25. Gasp! It's but a half of what deepkin do!

If we assume the enemy has save of 6+. That the sorceress fails to cast aura of glory (with +2 to cast of course). That all the thralls on their large bases and 1' range will get to attack and imagining such occurrence is funny on its own. That the enemy doesn't have 2-3 wounds on their profile, and that happens to be *a lot* of units. Because then? Then executioners start to out-damage the thralls.

And, guess what, they can make a charge from 30+ inches losing nothing of their effectiveness.

'But oh no, the thralls have +1 save! Their 5+ is buffed to 4+, what shall we do?' cry out the executioners with their 4+ buffed to 3+ in the first turn in which, make no mistake, they WILL be able to charge.

But, hell, let's assume they ARE both fighting a 6+, 1 wound enemy spaced so the all thralls can go into base contact. It might seem like the deepkin do 62 wounds then, while CoS only do 33. Yeah. But a fun thing is, in all standard battleplans they start the game 24+in from that enemy. So when we compare, say, potential 1st turn damage... then, we compare 33 from CoS to... how much does the harpoon do on its own? like, 5? Solid. Solid alpha strike damage on the deepkin part, it may kill half of a chaff unit, a round of applause here!

And guess what? That terrible dragon sorceress was essential to make all this happen. Yeah, she will do 8 damage on her own. And still the thralls and their turtle will lose that matchup. Damage is not all. The sorceress offers mobility, two great command skills and a good bonus for casting a spell that, given some of our spell lores, can utterly change a course of combat. And, remember, the sorceress is one of the *bad* behemoths.

I'm not saying they're all great, yeah, most of them are underpowered to some degree and require either some skill or a very particular combos to use, so it may take some figuring out, but i agree that crying is much easier to do, so, well, you be you.

[Doko]

Yes the turtle inside of idoneths is worse than our sorceress in our city list........but seems that every tournament player dont know this because idoneths are THE BEST army rigth now at the level of seraphons and the 100% of list bring the turtle.

But wonders citys are a t3 army and the sorceress have 0% playrate.

Your example is useless and tournament data show the reasons.

Also yes the dragonlord is great in anvilgard.........but a no city behemot as durthu is 100% better than him doing his role inside of anvilgard.otyer example of as dragonlord is useless when a supossed bad behemot as durthu out of his army is better than our behemot.

Im not crying,are data showing as 2 is less than 3.

Btw i wont take my time showing you the same example but with turtle+eels because tournament data shows it allready

 

https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar-tts-stats-15-2-21/

Edited February 27, 2021 by Doko

[dekay]

A miscommunication then ; ) At no point I said CoS are a top tier army. At no point you argued they aren't. The discussion is about behemoths, and I will still claim many of them don't compare badly with other factions' behemoths, the problems lie elsewhere.

Deepkin were a bad book with terrible internal balance, and the turtle upgrade made their one strong build even stronger. That's a problem because now the eels are wrecking face more than any time in the past. But comparative strength of behemoths is just one of factors in play here. And the damage they do, which you focused on, is not all that important, all things considered.

Illustration of the problem: The turtle boosts thralls. It has a skill that does literally nothing if you don't take thralls (a skill you mentioned, hence my comparison of CoS against thralls). And still, it shows up in lists featuring zero thralls, because its other skill makes the eels, already strong unit, even stronger. It's literally worth to waste half of its buff aura because the other half breaks eels even more.

Also, another point that has been discussed several times already: CoS tournament win ratio is pretty much worthless data when judging army strength, because a lot of CoS players don't play CoS. Sheer number of posts  like 'Here is my <dispossessed/wanderers/dark elves/empire/dwarfs/some other faction that doesn't exist> army list' highlights the issue. 

Those who know they're playing a faction called Cities of Sigmar, in Age of Sigmar setting, and seek best lists using said factions tend to fare well on tournaments. But if we look beyond win ratio, to the individual lists, it quite often looked like this: one CoS player in top 3, with actual CoS list, and three more  at the rock bottom, with something looking like a WFB dwarf army shoehorned into AoS rules.  And they're dragging the winrate down, mostly because they're trying to play a different game with a faction that used to exist ages ago but no longer does.

Hell, I've seen so many situations where someone asked 'i keep losing objective game, here's my list, what can I do?' 'remove one of your infantry blocks and replace with cavalry.' 'oh, no, i play dwarfs only' to lose any faith in statistics concerning CoS. No other faction does this. You don't see people saying 'here is my 100% melusai no exceptions army' or 'i collect vanguard chamber'. All other factions are treated as factions. CoS comes with baggage.

Individually, for a long time, back when tournament scenes still existed, things like Hallowheart with phoenix guard blocks, or TE scourgerunner horde, or two-drop Aetherguard actually placed pretty high, but  they were quite rare and shared their statistical slot with some 'pure wood elf' fluff lists. It's a wonder CoS gets as high as 45% winrate given a large chunk of the playerbase tries to play with 1/3 of the faction

EDIT:

And the table you linked shows it as well: no faction below CoS winrate wise has as much top3 and top10 positions. Several factions above them don't do as well in that regard! Look at Soulblight, Ironjaws, Stormcast, Ossiatch, Mix Destruction, Ogors even - better win rates, fewer high placements. Because some CoS players go quite well, but are being dragged down in winrate.

Edited February 27, 2021 by dekay

[Doko]

I agree with you,win rate is useless because can be skewed. But that web show also the tournament results.

 

So as you said we have many mono armys in citys that dont use the potential of have 62 warscrolls, but many others top tournament players are triying tye best comp with the best unit of cos and even then:

 

Seraphons: 25 top 10 results

Idoneths: 12 top 10

City: 5 top 10 and 0 1 st and 0 second positions.

 

So as i said i agree with you that win rate isnt very usefull, but tournament top results are 100% only showing the tops lists of every army and with this the gap is huge betwen citys and the top. In win rate citys are t4 and i said we are t3 because i ignored the win rate table and i only see the tournament results.

Even then,to me citys tome is great,very competitive and have huge options,in general i LOVE the book, but the behemots are too much useless.

Yes we have some niche lists as sorceres with the portal and the delete save of enemy with a block of darkshards, but for tournaments are useless because have to much counters or arent reliable to can go beyond 2\3 and so middle tier.

I said in other post,the title is a clickbait, our behemots arent useless(hydras,steam tank and behemot mages i think are useless) but are underpower vs every other army behemot.

Yes have any use and can be buffed,but other armys behemots can also be buffed and are better than us unbufed.

This wasnt a rant about how bad is city tome as army because as i said city is competitive and fun to play. Was a post only showing tye gap betwen our behemots and others behemots.

Even bad behemoths as magmadroths are better than our

[Zeblasky]

20 hours ago, Doko said:

Yes the turtle inside of idoneths is worse than our sorceress in our city list........but seems that every tournament player dont know this because idoneths are THE BEST army rigth now at the level of seraphons and the 100% of list bring the turtle.

The last time I've checked Idoneth Meta (like a few moth ago) it was Eels, then Eels, followed my... More Eels? Oh, and Aetherwings, of course. And no turtle in sight. Perhaps my knowledge if out of date... *looks up warscroll* oh god it's pure +1 to save now, how did I miss it, Turn 1 Idoneth must be so broken now.

Yea, GW needs to nerf Eels, probably Turtle as well (2+save for first 8 wounds is crazy), buff Thralls, give Idoneth a few new inits and finally call it a day. Idoneth should not be a Khorne like but better charge it all army. This is not worth the memes anymore. And I'm not even talking about one teleporting frog army.

 

20 hours ago, Doko said:

Also yes the dragonlord is great in anvilgard.........but a no city behemot as durthu is 100% better than him doing his role inside of anvilgard.otyer example of as dragonlord is useless when a supossed bad behemot as durthu out of his army is better than our behemot.

Living City, not anvilguard. And if you would ask me, who's better in Living City without support, Durthu or Dreadlord, it's always Dreadlord time. Dreadlord is MUCH faster, flies, does decent damage and can threaten backline with ease (hello squishy archers and mages!) Durthu is good for the turn you've dropped him in, but the second he takes 3 wounds, he turns into a Treelord damage wise. Except he's also slower and it may be a while before he gets into combat. That's why I take basic Treelord instead btw, he's 1 inch faster, does not get crippled so hard by his damage table and has the same tanking potential, while costing 180 points. It's a steal for Living City, sure.

Now if you would make Durthu a general, give him Ironoak Artisan, and Spear of The Hunt, take a Treelord Ancient for a Wyldwood, Knight Azyros for rr 1 to hit, Hurricanum for a +1 to hit, you get a tanky monster which in melee does almost guaranteed 30 damage with -3 rend on charge with always fights first. Terrifying? Sure. But overkill? Probably. Expensive setup? Yes. Quite a few things can go wrong? Also yes. So it's a Dreadlord for me, Durthu is too weak without guaranteed Wyldwood support.

So yea, damage on paper is not everything, not even close. Comparing our Behemoths to S-tier Behemoths (Idoneth, Seraphon, kinda Lumineth) directly does not achieve much. Those needs nerfs anyway, CoS top monsters are not that weak as synergies boost them hard. And sure, most of CoS Behemoths do need big or small buffs. But it's not that huge of a problem.

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Zeblasky

[Doko]

12 hours ago, Zeblasky said:

The last time I've checked Idoneth Meta (like a few moth ago) it was Eels, then Eels, followed my... More Eels? Oh, and Aetherwings, of course. And no turtle in sight. Perhaps my knowledge if out of date... *looks up warscroll* oh god it's pure +1 to save now, how did I miss it, Turn 1 Idoneth must be so broken now.

 you need see warscroll first,he got as extra 6 more damage AND +1 save  himself and aura +1 save.

 

And yes you need see more tournaments because since br morathi EVERY idoneth lists are 100% the same.

3\4 tank units of eels tanks

3\4 dps unit of eels dps

3\6 sharks

1\3turtles

Volturnos

 

https://tabletop.to/events/aos

 

You can see results in this web,i dare you  if you can find only ONE idoneth list in any 20+ people tournament and top 10 that havent the turtle

 

But this post is about our behemoths and not as broken are other factions as idoneths.

you are rigth i said anvilgard when i meant living city. And in the living city post we have many posts showing as durthu is better than dreadlord with items etc,even  no heroes units as stormcast deacoths are better than dreadlord.

Sure durthu is slower,but that it is all, he does so much more damage(as 7 damage gap with items) and its more tanky(dreadlord without shield if you are bringing in living is for the bow). 

I myself only use the black dragon in fun games vs undepowered enemys or starting players with anvilgard,he have a spell,a 5 special save and gives back 7 mortal wounds in melle when killed,he isnt great as other armys behemoths but is fun.

I really miss the aos1 feeling when i fielded my dragonlord,the enemy feared him,i could snipe heroes with the breath, killing behemoths 1vs 1 and tank for ages, now the enemy only laugth if i field him as black dragon and gives me thanks for the handicap

Edited February 28, 2021 by Doko

[JackStreicher]

Are you arguing about CoS or are you hating about IDK?

IDK are still fine imo. They need a different playstyle to be defeated and they‘re currently at a good spot listbuilding-wise.  Yes, they have good monsters, so what? Comparing units across armies seldom yields any good results since the internal balance is also important.

 

On topic: CoS Behemoths are frankly underwhelming for their costs (imo). That includes the dreadlord, hydra etc.

The only exceptions are Phoenixes which are bonkers  imo.

Edited February 28, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Doko]

53 minutes ago, Doko said:

But this post is about our behemoths and not as broken are other factions as idoneths.

The answer is in my post,and yes i hate idoneths because they have 0 counterplay and are too much easy to play(reason of the high win rate)

Only put eels tanks with 2 save invulnerable(turtle +1 and the free cover or bonus when charge)ahead of your units and laugh of your oponent shooting while then charge with the dps eels and delete all.

The concept was supposed to be a glass cannon army that needed survive 2 turns to then come back at turn 3 with the wave and change the game.

But now the concept is far away,they are the most sturdy army of the game (betwen the free cover in turn1 and the turtle have a +2 save in all the army doing them save2 in every model not thall)inmune to shooting meanwhile being the fastest and deadly army of the game.

My problem isnt that i hated idoneths,i hate umbalanced armys and a army with 0 counterplays is broken and i hate that

 

But last time that i mention idoneths,as i said in my other post this is about our behemoths and not idoneths

[dekay]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

IDK are still fine imo. They need a different playstyle to be defeated and they‘re currently at a good spot listbuilding-wise.

I'm with Doko here, IDK, as a whole, is not fine. They used to have 4 playable warscrolls in the entire book, now they have 6 and one of those boosts the others even further. Terrible internal balance, with eels stronger than ever while namarti and most of the heroes are still pretty bad. Can they be won against? Sure. But if you take the strong stuff only they're extremely easy to use, while taking other units is actively choosing a handicap. 

[Zeblasky]

4 hours ago, Doko said:

 you need see warscroll first,he got as extra 6 more damage AND +1 save  himself and aura +1 save.

Yea, for its cost and in that army the amount of damage and tankiness Turtle gets for for itself and surrounding troops is simply crazy. Who even thought that buffing an already solid monster so hard and indirectly buffing Eels was a good idea...

 

4 hours ago, Doko said:

But this post is about our behemoths and not as broken are other factions as idoneths.

And that is great! I would rather play with slightly underpowered fun Behemoths than with broken ones, that should be nerfed in the future.

[SentinelGuy]

On 2/27/2021 at 6:21 PM, dekay said:

A miscommunication then ; ) At no point I said CoS are a top tier army. At no point you argued they aren't. The discussion is about behemoths, and I will still claim many of them don't compare badly with other factions' behemoths, the problems lie elsewhere.

Deepkin were a bad book with terrible internal balance, and the turtle upgrade made their one strong build even stronger. That's a problem because now the eels are wrecking face more than any time in the past. But comparative strength of behemoths is just one of factors in play here. And the damage they do, which you focused on, is not all that important, all things considered.

Illustration of the problem: The turtle boosts thralls. It has a skill that does literally nothing if you don't take thralls (a skill you mentioned, hence my comparison of CoS against thralls). And still, it shows up in lists featuring zero thralls, because its other skill makes the eels, already strong unit, even stronger. It's literally worth to waste half of its buff aura because the other half breaks eels even more.

Also, another point that has been discussed several times already: CoS tournament win ratio is pretty much worthless data when judging army strength, because a lot of CoS players don't play CoS. Sheer number of posts  like 'Here is my <dispossessed/wanderers/dark elves/empire/dwarfs/some other faction that doesn't exist> army list' highlights the issue. 

Those who know they're playing a faction called Cities of Sigmar, in Age of Sigmar setting, and seek best lists using said factions tend to fare well on tournaments. But if we look beyond win ratio, to the individual lists, it quite often looked like this: one CoS player in top 3, with actual CoS list, and three more  at the rock bottom, with something looking like a WFB dwarf army shoehorned into AoS rules.  And they're dragging the winrate down, mostly because they're trying to play a different game with a faction that used to exist ages ago but no longer does.

Hell, I've seen so many situations where someone asked 'i keep losing objective game, here's my list, what can I do?' 'remove one of your infantry blocks and replace with cavalry.' 'oh, no, i play dwarfs only' to lose any faith in statistics concerning CoS. No other faction does this. You don't see people saying 'here is my 100% melusai no exceptions army' or 'i collect vanguard chamber'. All other factions are treated as factions. CoS comes with baggage.

Individually, for a long time, back when tournament scenes still existed, things like Hallowheart with phoenix guard blocks, or TE scourgerunner horde, or two-drop Aetherguard actually placed pretty high, but  they were quite rare and shared their statistical slot with some 'pure wood elf' fluff lists. It's a wonder CoS gets as high as 45% winrate given a large chunk of the playerbase tries to play with 1/3 of the faction

EDIT:

And the table you linked shows it as well: no faction below CoS winrate wise has as much top3 and top10 positions. Several factions above them don't do as well in that regard! Look at Soulblight, Ironjaws, Stormcast, Ossiatch, Mix Destruction, Ogors even - better win rates, fewer high placements. Because some CoS players go quite well, but are being dragged down in winrate.

This is an interesting point. Most CoS payers I know personally (including me) still tend to play the armies we liked back in Fantasy if possible.

But GW themselves basically forced us still to do this by grouping the units into separate sub categories like freeguild and wanderers, that can only be buffed by command abilities from heroes of their race. It's a similar problem for the battalions, they dropped so many Fantasy units that there's just no options. I would love to swap a black dragon in for a griffon in Hamerhalian Lancers, but GW says no. Same for swapping dark riders in for pistoliers in the Tempests Eye battalion.

The CoS lists that appear to do well are basically old Empire lists using the TE and Hammerhal battalions, or High Elf PG/SotW spam.  

Stuff like the dreadlord is stuck buffing the weak combat capabilities of a chariot nobody takes, and a unit of cavalry that is designed to act as a wall. It's the same problem for all of them - the commands are too specific. Then there's the cool SotT spell that only works on wanderers, another lame duck. Most of them should just work for all CoS units.

GW wants us to believe that the cities are centres for all peoples that fight for Sigmar, yet they handicap us from the start. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by SentinelGuy

[Joseph Mackay]

3 hours ago, Zeblasky said:

Yea, for its cost and in that army the amount of damage and tankiness Turtle gets for for itself and surrounding troops is simply crazy. Who even thought that buffing an already solid monster so hard and indirectly buffing Eels was a good idea...

 

And that is great! I would rather play with slightly underpowered fun Behemoths than with broken ones, that should be nerfed in the future.

Previously no one took the turtle because everyone said it was bad and overcosted (yet here I was, the madman trying to run 4 of them 😂)

the biggest complaint I saw was the Void Drum, as it’s original rule meant units nearby counted as being in cover. Because the turtle is a monster, it didn’t benefit from its own rule

Deepkin are probably the worst balanced army in the game. Internal balance between their own warscrolls is bad. Personally, comparing the Namarti units to other aelves, I actually think they’re fine (they’re disadvantaged by 32mm bases instead of 25mm the other aelves have so they get less attacks). The problem is that Eels are just so much better that there’s really no reason to take Namarti units. As for external balance, the Eels do way too much damage and have too many wounds for their points. The defensive eels also aren’t paying the same premium that Nighthaunt are for Ethereal. The problem with Eels is made so much worse by Volturnos who can stack his command ability to give each eel +3 attacks to each weapon per command point he spends. Every similar command ability can’t be stacked, I don’t care that he can only use his during High Tide, being able to stack it is way too strong. If that ability only applied to a single weapon and couldn’t be stacked then it’d be fine. But Eels are undercosted and they always have been, gw were too scared of the backlash from waac players to put the points up properly the first time and haven’t addressed them since. Going from 140pts to 160pts was a sick joke

[Joseph Mackay]

11 minutes ago, SentinelGuy said:

This is an interesting point. Most CoS payers I know personally (including me) still tend to play the armies we liked back in Fantasy if possible.

But GW themselves basically forced us still to do this by grouping the units into separate sub categories like freeguild and wanderers, that can only be buffed by command abilities from heroes of their race. It's a similar problem for the battalions, they dropped so many Fantasy units that there's just no options. I would love to swap a black dragon in for a griffon in Hamerhalian Lancers, but GW says no. Same for swapping dark riders in for pistoliers in the Tempests Eye battalion.

The CoS lists that appear to do well are basically old Empire lists using the TE and Hammerhal battalions, or High Elf PG/SotW spam.  

Stuff like the dreadlord is stuck buffing the weak combat capabilities of a chariot nobody takes, and a unit of cavalry that is designed to act as a wall. It's the same problem for all of them - the commands are too specific. Then there's the cool SotT spell that only works on wanderers, another lame duck. Most of them should just work for all CoS units.

GW wants us to believe that the cities are centres for all peoples that fight for Sigmar, yet they handicap us from the start. 

This, 100% this. Gw want Cities to be a mixed faction of Duardin, Humans and Aelves, but the rules don’t allow such an army to function because all abilities (or most at least) are tied to the individual sub factions that make up the Cities Of Sigmar (like Dispossessed, Order Serpentis etc).

in a game that seems to be all about buffing and auras, mixed race Cities just doesn’t work 

[dekay]

51 minutes ago, SentinelGuy said:

The CoS lists that appear to do well are basically old Empire lists using the TE and Hammerhal battalions, or High Elf PG/SotW spam.  

Stuff like the dreadlord is stuck buffing the weak combat capabilities of a chariot nobody takes, and a unit of cavalry that is designed to act as a wall. It's the same problem for all of them - the commands are too specific. Then there's the cool SotT spell that only works on wanderers, another lame duck. Most of them should just work for all CoS units.

GW wants us to believe that the cities are centres for all peoples that fight for Sigmar, yet they handicap us from the start. 

 

37 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

This, 100% this. Gw want Cities to be a mixed faction of Duardin, Humans and Aelves, but the rules don’t allow such an army to function because all abilities (or most at least) are tied to the individual sub factions that make up the Cities Of Sigmar (like Dispossessed, Order Serpentis etc).

in a game that seems to be all about buffing and auras, mixed race Cities just doesn’t work 

To risk derailing the thread even futher, while I agree CoS would be *much* more fun to play if the synergies were less rigid (I mean, seriously, how hard would it be to give us some more universal command abilities?), most successful lists are in some way mixed.

Hammerhal lancers are a bit of an exception here. TE aetherguard too, to a lesser degree, being  mostly freeguild, but with collegiate and kharadon elements and both of those are important for the list to function.

But, for example, typical Hallowheart list was usually collegiate/coven/freeguild/phoenix temple mix and the elements supported each other. Mostly with spells (which, thank the lord, are not keyword locked) and complimenting battlefield functions, but still, a mixed lists with some synergies. Phoenix guard brought to life by a lifeswarm cast by a sorceress boosted by a hurricanum using arcane channeling is, after all, a multi-subfaction synergy.

Another popular list was TE with irondrakes blob covered by like 4 separate buffs and teleported by soulscream bridge. ~4 subfactions are needed to make that happen, and that's not counting cavalry/gyrocopters/aetherwings/ shadow warriors or something to grab objectives.

Yeah, CoS armies often work in self reliant blocks with little synergies between themselves, but the army as a whole tends to be pretty mixed.

But yes, would it hurt them to give us a less keyword reliant list? Would it?