Cities of Sigmar in AoS 3

[Frowny]

I think its more about what makes them good- handgunners and crossbowmen often relied on stacking +1 to hit (hurricanum, freeguild general) or +1 to wound (general, hawk-eyed in tempest eye) which is now gone, so they are bumped up less points. In contrast, darkshards don't, and don't need to be outside of 3' (unlike the crossbows) so fire at full strength if charged. A unit of 30 darkshards will be super brutal to charge. 

I'm still pondering what to do with my brettonians converted to pistoliers... Pistoliers lost their amazing battalion, but they might still be good in the new edition. Or I could try them as something else... I'm unsure. 

[zilberfrid]

4 hours ago, Frowny said:

I'm still pondering what to do with my brettonians converted to pistoliers... Pistoliers lost their amazing battalion, but they might still be good in the new edition. Or I could try them as something else... I'm unsure. 

Hi! A fellow pistol knight enthousiast, I gather!

Not that I know what I'll do with them, but part of my pistoleers hail from Bretonnia as well.

[Horizons]

Overall it seems like we came out pretty good compared to other armies. The new battalions are great for a lot of the cities, unleash hell will work really well for us. The point hike doesn't seem as extreme as some of the other armies.

Internal balance does seem a little off still but maybe I'm being biased.

I run 3 lists.

Hallowheart based around casting and dispelling Everblaze Comet. New Endless spell ruling removed that option.

Har Kuron, battalion focused on a large block of Darkshards, some MSU Executioners and Snakes (they're cool). New way that on 6 effect cancel each other out kind of hurts this build a little. List still fits just needs retooling now, I think a Priest is a must now, the new "Curse" prayer and frees up a command trait. I can see myself taking a Cauldron and possibly an on foot Priest. 

Living City, probably  benefits the most, access to more CP's for Shoot then Fade Away and worthwhile battalions help a lot. The price hike of Sisters vs Irondrakes feels a little baffling, Drakes were already seen on top tables more often than Sisters. Maybe they're afraid of double overwatch being too strong. It might be.

[Myrdin]

13 hours ago, Rhubarb said:

As someone who was working on a mostly Freeguild infantry list, it doesn't seem like there's a place for Guard in 3.0 anymore. I like my horde of armored chaff humans gosh dammit!

I feel ya. FG Guard were the most reliable chaps to get the job done and not cost an arm and leg points wise. Always enjoyed using a nice big blob of them.

Worst is, same with Dark Elf infantry. So there is really no viable replacement for cheap blob anymore. I guess massive shift to MSU cav will be the only possibel replacement.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

A few thoughts on the new points:

Overall, points increases have not been huge. Most units went up by only 5 or 10 points, which is unlikely to make or break them. The loss of horde discounts is a bigger deal for units that could previously get theirs at 30. Freeguild Greatswords, for example: Were 360 for 30, are now 450. I think a lot of these units will be better off being run in 20s, unless you want to really go all in on supporting them.

Ranged infantry is looking pretty good! Handgunners up to 105 from 100 are basically untouched, and they look very nice with double Unleash Hell. Sisters of the Watch are up a little, but still seem good. Darkshards are up, but are probably still quite viable now. The value of short range shooting has definitely gone up a lot.

Interestingly, the artillery units went up (although just 5 points) along with the Cogsmith. But there is nothing to indicate currently that Cities artillery will be especially good in AoS 3. The same happened to the regular Steam Tank, but not the Commander.  I am not sure why this increase happened. Maybe just as part of the general points increase or to compensate for Unleash Hell/All-Out Defense (Steam Tanks are on a 3+).

This really makes me wonder if there are going to be warscroll rewrites at all. I generally think there will not be, but maybe for units that have mechanics on their warscrolls that just don't work anymore? I'm talking about +2 to hit or an inbuilt overwatch like Handgunners get. For what it's worth, there is some stuff in Cities that does not really work well anymore, more so than in other factions.

I think Cities looks pretty good, points wise. There are definitely viable builds in the new edition, but they are different from before. Personally, while 30 Handgunners look juicy, I will hold off buying into those until we know what the Dawnbringer Crusades are actually about. If they are a Freeguild update like many predict, I certainly don't want to paint up 30 of the crusty old sculpts we currently have.

[Zeblasky]

I'm thinking about may be using 2x Dryads or 1x Dryad and 1x Eternal Guard in my Living City builds instead of Treelord. Both of those got cheaper, and both got 2 inch reach, so they will be quite good. Main problem for them would be to actually be in range to screen my deepstriking Sisters of the Watch though.

[Doko]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

This really makes me wonder if there are going to be warscroll rewrites at all. I generally think there will not be, but maybe for units that have mechanics on their warscrolls that just don't work anymore?

I think we gonna get new warscrolls for every unit with the rule "if 10 or more models you get x"

Souobligth got reworkd all these rules as skeletons or zombis and with new reinforcement dont make sense,so units as darkshards i think gonna get the rule reworked

[AlmGandix3]

There need to be rewrites for horde bonuses as mentioned above and some shield options to change the characteristic not a simple +1. 

As I mentioned before rocket batteries will never hit better than 4+ currently and there are other units and armies that don't make sense with their current rules and new points.

If they make us wait for a new battletome I would be really sad for my dwarf pony rocket batteries. 

Bonesplitterz got hord bonuses and shields and since the kruleboyz are orruk warclans there will be a new tome in the near future. Depending on how they handle them we can guess how others will fair.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

23 minutes ago, Doko said:

I think we gonna get new warscrolls for every unit with the rule "if 10 or more models you get x"

Souobligth got reworkd all these rules as skeletons or zombis and with new reinforcement dont make sense,so units as darkshards i think gonna get the rule reworked

I believe we will see this eventually, but I think it's much more likely that these warscroll updates happen when new battletomes come out. However, Cities might be one of the earlier ones.

[SentinelGuy]

I've been number crunching and I think my army is ok. I am loving the battalions, they're so damn tasty with all the little buffs. Weirdly I've gone from being keen to run more Tempests Eye, to thinking about Hallowheart as my city for this edition.

I have a game lined up against Seraphon which could be either monster or magic heavy, so I'm covering all bases with this list. I should add that my opponent will more than likely steamroll across the board as fast as possible to get to me - 

City: Hallowheart

Triumph - Inspired

Warlord Battalion

1 Runelord (General) - Veteran of the Blazing Crusade, Curse = 100

1 Black Ark Fleetmaster (General's Adjutant) - Arcane Tome, Ignite Weapons, Roaming Wildfire = 70

1 Celestial Hurricanum with Battlemage - Agloraxi Prism, Sear Wounds, Crystal Aegis = 280

1 Scourgerunner Chariot = 80

1 Scourgerunner Chariot = 80

Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion

10 Wild Riders = 240

10 Shadow Warriors = 120

10 Shadow Warriors = 120

Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion

10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160

10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160

10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160

Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion

10 Eternal Guard (Battleline, Honoured Retinue) = 125

10 Eternal Guard (Battleline) = 125

10 Eternal Guard (Battleline) = 125

Endless Spells

Chronomantic Cogs = 45

Total = 1990 points

 

That gives me fast moving blockers, objective grabbers and distractions, plenty of excellent firepower for dealing with monsters, and a wall of YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!! for any that get too close. The star of the show is the Fleetmaster - getting the Wizard keyword means he gets 2 spells from Hallowheart and with Cogs up and running, my 2 Wizards will be great support pieces. I've spent time considering the spells I chose for each and I think I have them assigned to the right people. I am slightly concerned about the speed of my Irondrakes, but want to test out the new board size to see if I can get away with not needing the bridge.

Edited June 18, 2021 by SentinelGuy

[zilberfrid]

4 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

A few thoughts on the new points:

Overall, points increases have not been huge. Most units went up by only 5 or 10 points, which is unlikely to make or break them. The loss of horde discounts is a bigger deal for units that could previously get theirs at 30. Freeguild Greatswords, for example: Were 360 for 30, are now 450. I think a lot of these units will be better off being run in 20s, unless you want to really go all in on supporting them.

Ranged infantry is looking pretty good! Handgunners up to 105 from 100 are basically untouched, and they look very nice with double Unleash Hell. Sisters of the Watch are up a little, but still seem good. Darkshards are up, but are probably still quite viable now. The value of short range shooting has definitely gone up a lot.

Interestingly, the artillery units went up (although just 5 points) along with the Cogsmith. But there is nothing to indicate currently that Cities artillery will be especially good in AoS 3. The same happened to the regular Steam Tank, but not the Commander.  I am not sure why this increase happened. Maybe just as part of the general points increase or to compensate for Unleash Hell/All-Out Defense (Steam Tanks are on a 3+).

This really makes me wonder if there are going to be warscroll rewrites at all. I generally think there will not be, but maybe for units that have mechanics on their warscrolls that just don't work anymore? I'm talking about +2 to hit or an inbuilt overwatch like Handgunners get. For what it's worth, there is some stuff in Cities that does not really work well anymore, more so than in other factions.

I think Cities looks pretty good, points wise. There are definitely viable builds in the new edition, but they are different from before. Personally, while 30 Handgunners look juicy, I will hold off buying into those until we know what the Dawnbringer Crusades are actually about. If they are a Freeguild update like many predict, I certainly don't want to paint up 30 of the crusty old sculpts we currently have.

I wouldn't buy the Handgunners at all, they are awful models. Skitarii Rangers with a headswap are much better.

[NauticalSoup]

2 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

I wouldn't buy the Handgunners at all, they are awful models. Skitarii Rangers with a headswap are much better.

Literal robots with baroque space guns would seem mildly anachronistic but to each his own I suppose.

[SentinelGuy]

I've seen people mix shadow warrior bodies with handgunner and skitarii weapons and it looked ok.

[zilberfrid]

3 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

Literal robots with baroque space guns would seem mildly anachronistic but to each his own I suppose.

I'd take a good look at what's inside the Handgunner kit before you buy it, it's really awful. Guards can get better (not good) with just a headswap, but there's no saving the poor handgunners and crossbowmen.

Preferably, you'd stick some other legs under the greatcoats of the Skitarii, but there are quite enough long sleeves with gloved hands in the set., and greenstuffing pants over the metallic legs that are less awful than the Handgunner set isn't that hard.

[Dankboss]

While Gunners, Guard and Crossbowmen look their age, they do hold up when looking at them ranked up in large units from above, particularly if they have a striking colourscheme. Individually though they are a bit on the derpy side.

I think Freeguild look really good collectively, but those aforementioned models do stand out if on their own. If you really wanted to spend the cash you could take Greatswords and give them guns/ guard weapons.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

9 minutes ago, Dankboss said:

While Gunners, Guard and Crossbowmen look their age, they do hold up when looking at them ranked up in large units from above, particularly if they have a striking colourscheme. Individually though they are a bit on the derpy side.

I think Freeguild look really good collectively, but those aforementioned models do stand out if on their own. If you really wanted to spend the cash you could take Greatswords and give them guns/ guard weapons.

I really think with the introduction of Dawnbringer Crusades, we might see updated Freeguild sculpts in the near future. I will pass on the derpier Freeguild units for the time being, although they look pretty good mechanically right now.

I hope something happens to the Steam Tank to make it viable, though. They were sort of on the cusp of playability before 3.0, but now they lost some of their buff stacking, they miss out on the new monster mechanics and they don't efficiently use the new command abilities if you take multiple.

I think it would be neat if they were not Single units. I'd take a Steam Tank Commander and a squad of three tanks. That would be a juicy target for Unleash Hell or All Out Defense.

[Dankboss]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I really think with the introduction of Dawnbringer Crusades, we might see updated Freeguild sculpts in the near future. I will pass on the derpier Freeguild units for the time being, although they look pretty good mechanically right now.

I hope something happens to the Steam Tank to make it viable, though. They were sort of on the cusp of playability before 3.0, but now they lost some of their buff stacking, they miss out on the new monster mechanics and they don't efficiently use the new command abilities if you take multiple.

I think it would be neat if they were not Single units. I'd take a Steam Tank Commander and a squad of three tanks. That would be a juicy target for Unleash Hell or All Out Defense.

If there were to be an update, Guard and Gunners/ Crossbows would definitely get it. Alongside a new General on foot sculpt and some hero on Demigryph I reckon. Probably not much more than that though.

[Molt]

I'm thinking of what lists to try first and think that CoS got some pretty nice combos with the new edition, if i didnt oversee anyting from stopping them:

Hallowheart + Arcane Tome:

makes the bearer a wizard and hallowheart gives another cast. Could be nice on for example anointed on foot or phoenix to create a very tanky wizard with 2 casts.

edit: "Flaming Weapon: Casts on a 4+ and improves the damage of one of the casters weapons by 1. " Seems quite good in conjunction with the above to make phoenix more killy.

Actually, with the wording on the frost phoenix "This model can included 1 Anointed armed with a Great Phoenix Halberd. If it does, this model has the Hero keyword.However, if it does, any command traits or artefacts of power only affect attacks made by the Anointed."

Currently it should be possible to use flaming weapon on the phoenix talons, as it is neither command trait nor artefact, which would be insanely good and probably not intended. Still very good to buff up the hellbeard attacks and get an easy proc of the + save for phoenix.

 

2 gyros in grand battery core battalion:

Gives a free Unleash hell, which might be quite nasty on gyro actually, as after the charge probably quite a few foes are in range of the steam gun. Also pretty hillarious imo!

Super tanky phoenix stuff:

Frostheart Phoenix can Heroic Recovery every herophase, which heals on average 1.6 wounds per phase. Normally not very killy, he can use stomp for mortal wounds or roar to disable command points. As healing is generally great value on the phoenix, i think he will be super obnoxious. 

For phoenix guards it might still be worth it to run a big blob of 30 and try to get rally off, which is pretty awesome value on these guys. Might be too expensive though. Also a very good target for the hold the line objective.

 

Did you find any other nice combos yet?

Edited June 19, 2021 by Molt

[Zeblasky]

Huh. One weird thing, that for Seraphon Cities are an ally, but for Cities Seraphon are not. This is kinda weird. I thought that with older rules if one faction gets other faction as an ally, it goes both ways automatically. Otherwise it would have been great to get Kroak into Cities, but he's 430 points, damn.

[SentinelGuy]

1 hour ago, Zeblasky said:

Huh. One weird thing, that for Seraphon Cities are an ally, but for Cities Seraphon are not. This is kinda weird. I thought that with older rules if one faction gets other faction as an ally, it goes both ways automatically. Otherwise it would have been great to get Kroak into Cities, but he's 430 points, damn.

Similar problem with Sylvaneth - they can't take Cities allies, but we can take them in Living City. 

[Myrdin]

2 hours ago, Zeblasky said:

Huh. One weird thing, that for Seraphon Cities are an ally, but for Cities Seraphon are not. This is kinda weird. I thought that with older rules if one faction gets other faction as an ally, it goes both ways automatically. Otherwise it would have been great to get Kroak into Cities, but he's 430 points, damn.

Its not that unique of a quirk honestly. This has been the case for Beast of Chaos since forever... You can ally into the 4 God factions and Slaves of Darkness, but you cant take any allies from them (just from Slaves) into your own BoC army sadly.

[Marcvs]

2 hours ago, Myrdin said:

Its not that unique of a quirk honestly. This has been the case for Beast of Chaos since forever... You can ally into the 4 God factions and Slaves of Darkness, but you cant take any allies from them (just from Slaves) into your own BoC army sadly.

And stormcast and lumineth... Honestly I don't expect allies rules to be symmetrical

Edited June 19, 2021 by Marcvs

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I doubt a lot of people care about this, but Steam Tanks are a pet unit of mine, so here are some thoughts on the viability of Steam Tanks in AoS 3:

In AoS 2, Steam Tanks were not very good. But I think they were right on the edge of being a niche pick. It's just that they fell a little bit short in every category. Their 12 wounds on a 3+ save were good bulk, but not good enough to really stand up to dedicated hammers. Their damage output was decent, but only if you got in all their attacks (both ranged, melee and the impact hits). Their mobility was OK, but their random movement made them hard to run in multiples. However, their biggest weakness was probably that their damage brackets were very harsh and affected both movement and damage output.

So how does the Steam Tank look in AoS 3?

Bad news first: The Steam Tank gets two +1 to hit abilities. It's cannon gets +1 to hit against units with >10 models, and the Steam Tank Commander can provide a +1 to hit bubble in the shooting phase. These abilities have been triple nerfed: There are now fewer large units around due to reinforcement restrictions, to hit buffs no longer stack beyond +1 and the +1 to hit bubble competes with the generic command ability All-Out Attack in the shooting phase, which provides the same benefit but not only to Steam Tanks.

The Steam Tank also sadly misses out on the new goodies provided by the MONSTER keyword, such as capturing for 5 and rampages.

So are there any good news for the Steam Tank?

While it does not have the MONSTER keyword, the Steam Tank Commander is a HERO, and thus gets access to Finest Hour and Heroic Recovery. Finest Hour is quite good on the Tank Commander, putting it on a 2+ save and giving it +1 to wound, which it otherwise does not have easy access to.

Heroic Recovery geos off about 70% of the time, so you can treat it like "On a 3+, heal d3 wounds". It stacks well with the Commander's repair ability (another d3 wounds). In Living City, a Steam Tank Commander will be very durable, potentially healing about 6 wounds per round on a 2+ save.

The generic Steam Tank is not a hero, but still gets to count for 2 models when contesting objectives like the Commander, which is nice.

The Steam Tanks also benefit from some of the new generic command abilities. Unleash Hell is potentially nice on a big tanky, well, tank. The shooting damage of a Steam Tank is not huge, but it's an option if you have not other target for the command ability on that turn. Sadly, Steam Tanks can't group up, so you will only ever be able to Unleash Hell with one at a time.

Redeploy is a nice tool for Steam Tanks. It helps mitigate their random movement, and you might be able to move a Steam Tank between a charging unit and some squishies with it sometimes.

Most of all, the Tanks benefit from Mystic Shield and All-Out Defense, since they have a high base save. Of course, mortals will still chew through them, but if your opponent does not have mortals 12 wounds on a 2+ are hard to overcome.

Overall, the Steam Tank has a few new fun tools, but I don't think I could objectively call it a good choice. I hope that when it gets a warscroll rewrite for AoS 3, they revise the damage brackets and remove the random movement. As it is now, the Steam Tank is not a competitive unit, but you could maybe justify the Tank Commander as a support unit for infantry. As a slow unit with lots of wounds on a high save that can also issue commands, that might be its best use. Just have it tank for those Handgunners while they do all the damage.

 

[Zeblasky]

You know, it's so weird, but in AoS and Total War: Warhammer memes have a tendency to coincide for some reason. In TW:W2 multiplayer Steam tank was a meme for pretty much the whole game existence. It had some situational niches (like versus Greenskins it could be an MVP unit if supported with healing), but other than that...  And the same thing with Beastmen for some reason. They had an okay balance for most of the time, had pretty good 5 out of 15 matchups, but overall they too were at the bottom at the barrel. So since their release it became a meme, that they are a forgotten stepchild of game gevelopers, never receiving any new content or being made strong enough to be truly competitive. Until very recently that is.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 minutes ago, Zeblasky said:

You know, it's so weird, but in AoS and Total War: Warhammer memes have a tendency to coincide for some reason. In TW:W2 multiplayer Steam tank was a meme for pretty much the whole game existence. It had some situational niches (like versus Greenskins it could be an MVP unit if supported with healing), but other than that...  And the same thing with Beastmen for some reason. They had an okay balance for most of the time, had pretty good 5 out of 15 matchups, but overall they too were at the bottom at the barrel. So since their release it became a meme, that they are a forgotten stepchild of game gevelopers, never receiving any new content or being made strong enough to be truly competitive. Until very recently that is.

We will have to see if Dawnbringer Crusades have anything in store for the Meme Tank, but if the rumours are true and the Dawnbringer Crusades are really a reboot of the Freeguild portion of Cities, then I could see the Steam Tank getting some attention, as well.

I doubt it means anything, but there was some new art of the Steam Tank in the promotional material for AoS 3:

Also, steam contraptions seem to feature in the Dawnbringer Crusade artwork:

For me personally, the Steam Tank has always been a very iconic Warhammer unit, and the first unit I associate with the Empire. So I hope it can become viable at some point.