AoS Cities of Sigmar Battletome 2023 Discussion

[Satyrical Sophist]

46 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

YES, they ARE poop!

*Rant incoming, coz the entire double page with them, the Fussil Major and the cannon is a instant mood killer every single time I go through the book.*

4+ 4+ -1 1 for 150pts is NOT a good deal. Saying stuff like:  "This is how all shooting in the game should be" (ok I am being a little mean here forgive me, but its a ridiculous argument) is just a coping mechanism for being dealt a subpar unit. But the fact remains that it just ISNT how majority of  main ranged units in the game are.

You need to overspend on Fusiliers with support pieces, drowning hundreds of points, limited traits and artifacts to make a subpar unit be somewhat worth their points.

Frankly same with the Wildhcorps Hunters. They too are 4+ 4+ outside of the unit champion who has the big arbalest weapon. Both of these rather expensive ranged units should had 3+ to wound for shooting at the very minimum (and Hunters also for combat), to be even remotely decent pick at that points range.

Its really sad that we are all to pretend like the "Fortified Positions" gimmick is such an amazing rule that elevates these 4+ 4+ -1 1 guys both in value and in price. When in fact they are just utterly bland. You look to your allied order armies and compare units of the same price category with them. Its not even a contest.

They should have been decent on their own, and become really good when invested into with support and unit synergy. Instead they are really, really meh on their own, and become decent only when you throw lots of extras in just to get some mileage out of them.

Haaah, Why cant GW seem to get the shooting of Cities gunpowder weaponry right I just cant understand. And they even took our Sisters of the Watch away just so we really dont have any other option than to opt for these...

I'm not saying they are poop. I don't think they are poop. I think they are a useful unit, I just don't think they are positioned to be a unit that you have to spam to get use out of them. A unit of 20 with flaming weapons will do a lot of damage. Shooting just cannot be as powerful as melee, because melee lets the enemy fight back at you and inherently puts the unit at risk.  I'll be looking at a unit of 20 as a powerful tool for triggering suppressing fire (including the battle tactic), and returning fire. Having access to those things is great. Is it worth it burning the Command trait on them? It depends, its maybe a 20% buff to the unit's expected damage. I guess it depends on what you would rather take in its place.  

14 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I think the hitting on a 4+ actually make sense for the blackpowder weapons (primitive and no barrel-rifling on stuff like that), but they should wound better IF they hit....and probably just do MW on wounds of 6 instead of damage, or D3 damage instead of MW.  Archer Arrows should hit better in the Fantasy quasi-medieval but wound worse, but maybe with better rend.  THEN sprinkle magic dust on stuff.

The Alchemite guy isn't really that OP even at 90pts; it requires a spell to go off (easily countered by many opponents, or just easily failable), and he's pretty squishy himself (also very targetable by many armies with teleporty guys, enemy spells or invocations, etc). 

I just wish we had a cool unique monstrous action for the Griffon and sea-monsters. 

I really strongly disagree on the Warforger. I honestly think they guy is a strong choice if he had EITHER of his two abilities. I mortal wounds on 6s to hit in addition is such a powerful ability. Remember he has a + to cast.  With no other buffs he has a 70+ % cast rate. In Settler's Gain its basically on a 2+. 

Mystic shield to all humans around him is just insane.  He is very good.

 

What shooting units are people wanting comparisons to? I'm curious as to what people think the gold standard is.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Damage calculations of Fusiliers vs. various boogeyman shooting units I could remember off the top of my head:

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite (390 pts)	Blissbarb Archers (320 pts)	Lumineth Sentinels (320 pts)	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike (460 pts)	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla (340 pts)
2+	13.22	7.59	8.44	10.67	6.26
3+	16.33	11.39	9.5	12.89	7.22
4+	19.44	15.19	10.56	15.11	8.19
5+	22.56	18.98	11.61	17.33	9.15
6+	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11
-	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11

Details:

Spoiler

20 Fusiliers at +1/+1 plus the Alchemite mortal wound spell.

20 Blissbarbs at +1/+1.

20 Sentinels at +1 to hit, aimed shot, with 5+ mortal wound spell.

6 Vanguard raptors at +1 to hit.

6 Boltboyz at +1 to hit, hasty shot, with 5+ mortal wound effect.

All units with appropriate leader bonuses.

I may well have forgotten a reroll or +1 to wound/+1 attacks effect somewhere. Let me know if I have and I will update this post.

Fusiliers are absolutely in the top tier of shooting units. Other units have advantages over them in some categories: For example, Blissbarbs are more mobile and are more spammable and Vanguard Raptors get to shoot twice once per game. But Fusiliers are still excellent. Their Fortified Position is actually a real upside, too: Combined with the counter-fire order, it means they can't easily be shot off the table by other shooting units, which is generally the easiest way to combat shooting.

EDIT:

13 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I'll be looking at a unit of 20 as a powerful tool for triggering suppressing fire (including the battle tactic), and returning fire. Having access to those things is great. Is it worth it burning the Command trait on them? It depends, its maybe a 20% buff to the unit's expected damage. I guess it depends on what you would rather take in its place

I think the opportunity cost for the Master of Ballistics command trait is fairly low. The other human command traits only really shine in pretty specific builds. Grizzled Veteran can go on a Marshall on Griffon and very little else. Reroll charges is good, but you can just use command points for it. Becoming a priest and getting a +1 to wound prayer does not seem as good as Master of Ballistics in most situations.

The most important buff for Fusiliers is the Alchemite spell. If you have that, you can forego Master of Ballistics and still do very good damage. You don't have to give up your command trait to get good Fusilier shooting if you don't want to.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Myrdin]

4 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Damage calculations of Fusiliers vs. various boogeyman shooting units I could remember off the top of my head:

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite (390 pts)	Blissbarb Archers (320 pts)	Lumineth Sentinels (320 pts)	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike (460 pts)	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla (340 pts)
2+	13.22	7.59	8.44	10.67	6.26
3+	16.33	11.39	9.5	12.89	7.22
4+	19.44	15.19	10.56	15.11	8.19
5+	22.56	18.98	11.61	17.33	9.15
6+	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11
-	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11

Details:

  Reveal hidden contents

20 Fusiliers at +1/+1 plus the Alchemite mortal wound spell.

20 Blissbarbs at +1/+1.

20 Sentinels at +1 to hit, aimed shot, with 5+ mortal wound spell.

6 Vanguard raptors at +1 to hit.

6 Boltboyz at +1 to hit, hasty shot, with 5+ mortal wound effect.

All units with appropriate leader bonuses.

I may well have forgotten a reroll or +1 to wound/+1 attacks effect somewhere. Let me know if I have and I will update this post.

Fusiliers are absolutely in the top tier of shooting units. Other units have advantages over them in some categories: For example, Blissbarbs are more mobile and are more spammable and Vanguard Raptors get to shoot twice once per game. But Fusiliers are still excellent. Their Fortified Position is actually a real upside, too: Combined with the counter-fire order, it means they can't easily be shot off the table by other shooting units, which is generally the easiest way to combat shooting.

Range is also an important facto that should be considered.

Example: Lumineth Sentinels have inbuilt Mortal Wounds AND can improve their archers shooting by 6" just by having another ranged unit close by (So split the 20 into 2x10 for ex). They have only 1 shot per model yes, but the MW can be upgraded with a spell to 5+. They are also -1 to hit so they do have some inbuilt defense.

Quick mention of their balistas which are I think are definitely a great ranged option, start at 30" and go up to 36" with one friend around.

Longstrikes are a very dependable self contained unit that works in vacuum. Hence the hefty price. But then you are also getting a unit that doesnt need babysitting, and just happily snipes away. Expensive but more consistent, and ofc better range. Also inbuilt MW ability and Rend -2 open up a lot more effective targets to them.

Are you sure those Fussil numbers on high save are correct ? Seems quite a lot when they are mostly fishing for 6s. If correct then I admit, thats pretty respectable if they can maximize their shooting or possibly even counter shoot. But its still depending on you getting a spell of. And there are armies that wont let you even with all the cast bonuses (Sylvaneth is the first ex. I can think of).

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 minute ago, Myrdin said:

Are you sure those Fussil numbers on high save are correct ? Seems quite a lot when they are mostly fishing for 6s

They are high because they currently do mortals in addition, while most other shooting units do mortals "and the attack sequence ends". It may not seem like much, but at 3+/3+, the damage is significant. It accounts for about half the damage at a 2+ save.

Save	Fusiliers	Fusiliers +1/+1	Fusiliers with mortals	Fusiliers with everything
2+	3.5	6.22	9.33	13.22
3+	5.25	9.33	10.5	16.33
4+	7	12.44	11.67	19.44
5+	8.75	15.56	12.83	22.56
6+	10.5	18.67	14	25.67
-	10.5	18.67	14	25.67

 

Of course, there is more nuance to the whole thing. I would not want to claim that Fusiliers are clearly the best shooing unit in the game. As I said before, others have their own strengths.

A unit I forgot in my last post were the Daughters of Khaine bow snakes. They basically do Longstrike damage. They also get to double shoot, but need a 700 point Morathi to issue them a command to do it.

[Satyrical Sophist]

6 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

They are high because they currently do mortals in addition, while most other shooting units do mortals "and the attack sequence ends". It may not seem like much, but at 3+/3+, the damage is significant. It accounts for about half the damage at a 2+ save.

Save	Fusiliers	Fusiliers +1/+1	Fusiliers with mortals	Fusiliers with everything
2+	3.5	6.22	9.33	13.22
3+	5.25	9.33	10.5	16.33
4+	7	12.44	11.67	19.44
5+	8.75	15.56	12.83	22.56
6+	10.5	18.67	14	25.67
-	10.5	18.67	14	25.67

 

Of course, there is more nuance to the whole thing. I would not want to claim that Fusiliers are clearly the best shooing unit in the game. As I said before, others have their own strengths.

A unit I forgot in my last post were the Daughters of Khaine bow snakes. They basically do Longstrike damage. They also get to double shoot, but need a 700 point Morathi to issue them a command to do it.

My numbers agree with yours if it's any help, though for reasons best known to me I worked it out for save stacking units as well, ever since being traumatised by a best day ever, all out defensed, mystic shield stonehorn. I mainly want to know when it's even worth shooting at a 0+ armour save unit. In that example it's still 10 expected wounds to a 0+ or 1+ save.

I think fusiliers are definitely an interesting unit. As I said I think I'll be looking at 20 with a warforger. Otherwise I think the way I'll be trying out cities first is with a shooting base, and sending out buffed up units in waves, 5 cavaliers with engage the foe, 10-20 corsairs with tenebrael blades, drakespawn knight with chariots etc.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 minute ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I think fusiliers are definitely an interesting unit. As I said I think I'll be looking at 20 with a warforger. Otherwise I think the way I'll be trying out cities first is with a shooting base, and sending out buffed up units in waves, 5 cavaliers with engage the foe, 10-20 corsairs with tenebrael blades, drakespawn knight with chariots etc.

I will go with 20 to start as well. Partially because I don't want to make things awful for my opponents, partially because I am not excited about batch painting 30 guys, but mainly because I don't trust the combo to stay intact in its current form through the next FAQ.

[Myrdin]

30 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I will go with 20 to start as well. Partially because I don't want to make things awful for my opponents, partially because I am not excited about batch painting 30 guys, but mainly because I don't trust the combo to stay intact in its current form through the next FAQ.

3+ 3+ ? So you are taking the trait for better wounding and use AoA or take Hurricanum (lot more points) ?

That is exactly the expensive investment I mentioned before. A hero is just points, but artifacts and traits are very limited and I think there are better options (STank, Gryffon, BDragon, Manticore girl, etc) for a better trait. Ofc in an army centered around them its another thing.

If Fussiliers were 3+ to wound on their Warscroll I would have much less issue with them as a unit

But hey, I do appreciate the break down, while I think some people on the internet hype them up too much, with me be on the opposite side and dislike them excessively (which I do both visually and gameplay wise ngl ).

I got 30 unpainted handgunners that never saw table (I preffered Sisters, Pistoleers and Shadow warriors for all my shooting needs), so I can totally relate with not looking forward to batch painting them haha. But I should at least give them a chance and see how they do.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

3+ 3+ ? So you are taking the trait for better wounding and use AoA or take Hurricanum (lot more points) ?

Yeah, I added in +1 to wound from the command trait. As I said above, I think it's a fair investment to use a command trait and earmark one command point for them. You can also use a different command trait and just give them +1 to hit from All-Out Attack. The damage is still reasonable for their points if you do.

Not running any Fusiliers is also defensible, though, if you really want to free up your command ability and Alchemite spell. Literally any other human unit can also make good use of it, after all. Still, the ability to just put ~30 wounds at 24" range from 30 fusiliers with the spell likely just beats out all other options in a competitive environment.

Personally, I find that at least among the human command traits, nothing obviously competes with master of ballistics. Like I said above, Grizzled Veteran is good if you want to make a Griffon beatstick and reroll charges is always good, but the use case in which it is better than just using the command ability is fairly specific (several separate units around the general units that all want to charge).

Of the elf and dwarf traits, only Unparalleled Duelist for a Dreadlord and Secretive Warlock for a Sorceress jump out to me. And the value of the latter is kind of dubious, since you can get a sorceress to +3 to cast even without it pretty easily.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Satyrical Sophist]

 

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Damage calculations of Fusiliers vs. various boogeyman shooting units I could remember off the top of my head:

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite (390 pts)	Blissbarb Archers (320 pts)	Lumineth Sentinels (320 pts)	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike (460 pts)	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla (340 pts)
2+	13.22	7.59	8.44	10.67	6.26
3+	16.33	11.39	9.5	12.89	7.22
4+	19.44	15.19	10.56	15.11	8.19
5+	22.56	18.98	11.61	17.33	9.15
6+	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11
-	25.67	22.78	12.67	17.33	10.11

Details:

  Reveal hidden contents

20 Fusiliers at +1/+1 plus the Alchemite mortal wound spell.

20 Blissbarbs at +1/+1.

20 Sentinels at +1 to hit, aimed shot, with 5+ mortal wound spell.

6 Vanguard raptors at +1 to hit.

6 Boltboyz at +1 to hit, hasty shot, with 5+ mortal wound effect.

All units with appropriate leader bonuses.

I may well have forgotten a reroll or +1 to wound/+1 attacks effect somewhere. Let me know if I have and I will update this post.

Fusiliers are absolutely in the top tier of shooting units. Other units have advantages over them in some categories: For example, Blissbarbs are more mobile and are more spammable and Vanguard Raptors get to shoot twice once per game. But Fusiliers are still excellent. Their Fortified Position is actually a real upside, too: Combined with the counter-fire order, it means they can't easily be shot off the table by other shooting units, which is generally the easiest way to combat shooting.

EDIT:

I think the opportunity cost for the Master of Ballistics command trait is fairly low. The other human command traits only really shine in pretty specific builds. Grizzled Veteran can go on a Marshall on Griffon and very little else. Reroll charges is good, but you can just use command points for it. Becoming a priest and getting a +1 to wound prayer does not seem as good as Master of Ballistics in most situations.

The most important buff for Fusiliers is the Alchemite spell. If you have that, you can forego Master of Ballistics and still do very good damage. You don't have to give up your command trait to get good Fusilier shooting if you don't want to.

I normalised to 100 points for each of those, to give which is the most efficient. Blissbarbs are more efficient than Fusiliers vs 5+ saves or better. That said its fairly close, and blissbarbs are a very good unit.  Note that the buffing pieces are being factored into the cost here, which isn't quite fair to Fusiliers, since Flaming wounds also buffs all other humans around as well.

 

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite	Blissbarb Archers	Lumineth Sentinels	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla
2+	3.39	2.37	2.64	2.32	1.84
3+	4.19	3.56	2.97	2.80	2.12
4+	4.98	4.75	3.30	3.28	2.41
5+	5.78	5.93	3.63	3.77	2.69
6+	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97
-	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

11 minutes ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

 

I normalised to 100 points for each of those, to give which is the most efficient. Blissbarbs are more efficient than Fusiliers vs 5+ saves or better. That said its fairly close, and blissbarbs are a very good unit.  Note that the buffing pieces are being factored into the cost here, which isn't quite fair to Fusiliers, since Flaming wounds also buffs all other humans around as well.

 

 

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite	Blissbarb Archers	Lumineth Sentinels	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla
2+	3.39	2.37	2.64	2.32	1.84
3+	4.19	3.56	2.97	2.80	2.12
4+	4.98	4.75	3.30	3.28	2.41
5+	5.78	5.93	3.63	3.77	2.69
6+	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97
-	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97

For units with buff pieces the normalized values also get better if you run them double reinforced. Which in a competitive context is probably the right play in the case of Fusiliers. Dedicating 540 points to a shooting unit is about right for competitive AoS. 640 if you include the points for the unit of Steelhelms that is required to make Fusiliers battleline (although that cost is debateable because having a few cheap screens is independently valuable). Still leaves you with under a third of your points invested into pure shooting, which I think has historically been the sweet spot.

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

They are high because they currently do mortals in addition, while most other shooting units do mortals "and the attack sequence ends". It may not seem like much, but at 3+/3+, the damage is significant. It accounts for about half the damage at a 2+ save.

Save	Fusiliers	Fusiliers +1/+1	Fusiliers with mortals	Fusiliers with everything
2+	3.5	6.22	9.33	13.22
3+	5.25	9.33	10.5	16.33
4+	7	12.44	11.67	19.44
5+	8.75	15.56	12.83	22.56
6+	10.5	18.67	14	25.67
-	10.5	18.67	14	25.67

 

Of course, there is more nuance to the whole thing. I would not want to claim that Fusiliers are clearly the best shooing unit in the game. As I said before, others have their own strengths.

A unit I forgot in my last post were the Daughters of Khaine bow snakes. They basically do Longstrike damage. They also get to double shoot, but need a 700 point Morathi to issue them a command to do it.

Damage per point invested (babysitting heroes, command points etc.) would make this calculation more useful

Example 20 Fusiliers:

150x2 + 90 + 90 + 50(Command point)

=530points

that‘s ~20,64pts per damage

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by JackStreicher

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

15 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Damage per point invested (babysitting heroes, command points etc.) would make this calculation more useful

 

For the above, I assumed a unit of 20 Fusiliers (300 points). Without a hero, you can put them at +1 to hit by self-buffing. With a hero, you can potentially get them to +1/+1 with the Master of Ballistics command trait for a command point. That hero can be an Alchemite (90 points), who can cast his mortal wound spell about 70% of the time. About 80% in Settler's Gain. About 95% in Hallowheart. The Alchemite can also give them an order, of which three are applicable: Advance, Counter-Fire and Suppressive Fire. The unit can potentially help you get two battle tactics. If you want to double-reinforce instead, you will need at least one unit of Steelhelms (100 points) to make them battleline.

I don't think it's possible to reduce stuff like hero slots, reinforcement points, command traits and subfaction choices to a point number. Even the days where you could buy an extra command point for 50 points are long past by now. You just kinda need to weigh the trade offs. A unit of Fusiliers does lock you in to a certain extent during list building. Depending on what else you want to do in your list, the reasons for or against them change. However, a unit of 30 Fusiliers with full support is probably part of the best human-centered lists, and I think those lists are better than elf or dwarf centered ones, from a purely competitive point of view.

EDIT: I also don't 100% believe that damage per point is the best metric. What matters is whether or not you can reliably take on common threats. It might well be worth over-paying on a point-by-point basis for that.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[The Lost Sigmarite]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

For units with buff pieces the normalized values also get better if you run them double reinforced. Which in a competitive context is probably the right play in the case of Fusiliers. Dedicating 540 points to a shooting unit is about right for competitive AoS. 640 if you include the points for the unit of Steelhelms that is required to make Fusiliers battleline (although that cost is debateable because having a few cheap screens is independently valuable). Still leaves you with under a third of your points invested into pure shooting, which I think has historically been the sweet spot.

So you think at 2000 pts "only" 30 Fusiliers are enough for competitive ? I don't know, feeling like tournament folks will try to run 60+ of those. 

About Fusiliers, I'm really puzzled by Blackpowder Bombardment. How do you shoot 3 units of the board in one go if you only have one unit of Fusiliers ? I don't think you will use cannons for that...

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

So you think at 2000 pts "only" 30 Fusiliers are enough for competitive ? I don't know, feeling like tournament folks will try to run 60+ of those.

You could definitely be right, full shooting castles have been successful in the past. For example, for Lumineth, for a while 40-60 Sentinels with Teclis was one of the best lists. However, AoS is still a game about going out and doing stuff. Having a large amount of your points stuck in/near your deployment zone for the majority of the game goes against what the basic rules/battle plans want you to do.

Running 60 Fusiliers is just barely possible. You can fit them into the Alchemite's bubble for his spell. But beyond that, two units of 30 become much less efficient than one unit of 30. One of the blocks will definitely miss out on +1 to wound, because that is tied to your general issuing the command. One of them will likely miss out on All-Out Attack completely, because getting uses of the command would mean running Greywater, but that competes against running a city with a casting bonus. You would also need to run 2x10 Steelhelms to make the units battleline in order to reinforce them. At that point, you are 1190 points down and have not even started to include units that can play the objective game. Or other really valuable stuff like the Command Corps or Zenestra.

In my opinion, Cities has better options than to try to double down on shooting. You can have a good, powerful shooting unit and still play in other phases, which is generally preferable if you are going for consistent tournament results.

 

14 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

About Fusiliers, I'm really puzzled by Blackpowder Bombardment. How do you shoot 3 units of the board in one go if you only have one unit of Fusiliers ? I don't think you will use cannons for that...

You can split shots. One unit can shoot at as many targets as it can see/has in range.

However, Blackpowder Bombardment becomes a lot easier to do if you run other units with incidental shooting attacks alongside your Fusiliers. Steam Tanks can definitely shoot a screen off the table on their own, for example.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Satyrical Sophist]

26 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Damage per point invested (babysitting heroes, command points etc.) would make this calculation more useful

Example 20 Fusiliers:

150x2 + 90 + 90 + 50(Command point)

=530points

that‘s ~20,64pts per damage

 

I've looked at the efficiency of units by taking the expected damage of the unit (Calculated by Neil Arthur Hotep in these, since I've only done the CoS directly myself, I believe his numbers) . and dividing it by the points cost of the unit and multiplying by 100 to get what 100 points of that unit's damage is, with a goal of getting easy to grokk how units compare to each other. I absolutely agree that efficiency really isn't everything when it comes to calculating this stuff. I actually quite like steam tanks, and they come out pretty dreadfully on efficiency but also fight pretty well, and are absurdly tough vs non mortal wounds. Units that do a bunch of things are often look terribly on efficiency metrics but then question you need to ask yourself is whether you will be using enough of the things the unit can do, or alternatively whether one of the situational good points is so good in those situations if its worth taking the efficiency hit.

 

Jack, I've calculated the points per damage for each of the units. I haven't added in command point costs through, since while I agree it is a cost its a cost that is going to vary substantially army to army. If you are greywater fastness then its barely any cost to AoA. Same for the command point rich Hedonite build. 

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite (Pt Per D)	Blissbarb Archers (Pt Per D)	Lumineth Sentinels (Pt Per D)	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike (Pt Per D)	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla (Pt Per D)
2+	29.50	42.16	37.91	43.11	54.31
3+	23.88	28.09	33.68	35.69	47.09
4+	20.06	21.07	30.30	30.44	41.51
5+	17.29	16.86	27.56	26.54	37.16
6+	15.19	14.05	25.26	26.54	33.63
-	15.19	14.05	25.26	26.54	33.63

 

2 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

 

I normalised to 100 points for each of those, to give which is the most efficient. Blissbarbs are more efficient than Fusiliers vs 5+ saves or better. That said its fairly close, and blissbarbs are a very good unit.  Note that the buffing pieces are being factored into the cost here, which isn't quite fair to Fusiliers, since Flaming wounds also buffs all other humans around as well.

 

 

Save	Fusiliers with Alchemite	Blissbarb Archers	Lumineth Sentinels	Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike	Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla
2+	3.39	2.37	2.64	2.32	1.84
3+	4.19	3.56	2.97	2.80	2.12
4+	4.98	4.75	3.30	3.28	2.41
5+	5.78	5.93	3.63	3.77	2.69
6+	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97
-	6.58	7.12	3.96	3.77	2.97

 

9 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

So you think at 2000 pts "only" 30 Fusiliers are enough for competitive ? I don't know, feeling like tournament folks will try to run 60+ of those. 

About Fusiliers, I'm really puzzled by Blackpowder Bombardment. How do you shoot 3 units of the board in one go if you only have one unit of Fusiliers ? I don't think you will use cannons for that...

Not the person you asked, but I'll have a go! 

 

I suspect there is a good chance that there is a spam build, but I wouldn't put it as a certainty by any measure. I think there is a very good chance that it does end up peaking at a single unit, since you are buff limited, and its not very mobile. Black Powder Bombardment I don't put as a particularly top tier battle tactic for any build honestly. I think its a really good one to have access to, but its situational. I would probably want more shooting units than a big block of fusiliers, but that can be incidental shooting. I suspect it gets taken when the situation is that you have a screen, a juicy target, and a buffing hero with the juicy target.

4 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

You could definitely be right, full shooting castles have been successful in the past. For example, for Lumineth, for a while 40-60 Sentinels with Teclis was one of the best lists. However, AoS is still a game about going out and doing stuff. Running 60 Fusiliers is just barely possible. You can fit them into the Alchemite's bubble for his spell.

But beyond that, two units of 30 become much less efficient than one unit of 30. One of the blocks will definitely miss out on +1 to wound, because that is tied to your general issuing the command. One of them will likely miss out on All-Out Attack completely, because getting uses of the command would mean running Greywater, but that competes against running a city with a casting bonus. You would also need to run 2x10 Steelhelms to make the units battleline in order to reinforce them. At that point, you are 1190 points down and have not even started to include units that can play the objective game. Or other really valuable stuff like the Command Corps or Zenestra.

In my opinion, Cities has better options than to try to double down on shooting. You can have a good, powerful shooting unit and still play in other phases, which is generally preferable if you are going for consistent tournament results.

 

You can split shots. One unit can shoot at as many targets as it can see/has in range.

However, Blackpowder Bombardment becomes a lot easier to do if you run other units with incidental shooting attacks alongside your Fusiliers. Steam Tanks can definitely shoot a screen off the table on their own, for example.

Sorry for the long post, two people responded while I was typing.

Assuming a screen unit has a 5+, an Overloaded but not AoA Steam tank does an expected 5.9 wounds (7.2 to a 6+), jumping to 8 and 9.3 if you have flaming weapons on the tank.

You are looking at 3ish from an unbuffed scourge runner, and 3.3/4 from unbuffed handbow corsairs.

 

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't think it's possible to reduce stuff like hero slots, reinforcement points, command traits and subfaction choices to a point number.

It’s less about choices but combos. It’s well possible to establish a crude efficiency value for the points invested into a combo.

 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

15 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

It’s less about choices but combos. It’s well possible to establish a crude efficiency value for the points invested into a combo.

 

 

I get the desire, and you can always try, of course.

But personally, I think you lose more meaningful information than you gain by doing this. I find "This combo costs 390 points and requires a command point and your command trait" more informative than "this combo costs 590 points". Because you can't actually exchange list building points for extra comand points or command traits and you also don't actually spend 590 points from your 590 point budget on the combo.

[Lord Krungharr]

I think the armor save/durability of the shooting units probably should also be considered.  It's not just how much damage they'll do once, but how much can they do over the course of the game; calculating areas under the curve; entanglement of dice quarks, etc.

Apparently Kruleboyz won big at NOVA this weekend, or maybe it was last weekend, but the Grinnin Blades can shoot for longer because of being essentially invisible outside of 12" (besides getting their poison more poisony) .  

[Doko]

On 9/4/2023 at 9:09 PM, Satyrical Sophist said:

What shooting units are people wanting comparisons to? I'm curious as to what people think the gold standard is.

blisbarbs archers and idoneth reavers are the standar of ranged units with rend1

also in these tables blisbarbs are missing the -1 save to enemy from the cavalry,also to be acurate must be same points,fussilers are 70 espensiver,this table with same points(4 extra blisbarbs) and a -1 save to blisbarbs and the data change

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Doko

[Lord Krungharr]

No love for Ratling Guns?!?

[Satyrical Sophist]

1 hour ago, Doko said:

blisbarbs archers and idoneth reavers are the standar of ranged units with rend1

also is fun as in all these tables you guys are doing a comparation of fussilers with a spell that can faill and be canceled and a enhacement while the others units are almost unbufed and without any enhacement or spell.

if you want ****** the data great,but i hope nobody take it as real when is fake.

per example blisbarbs get a very easy acess to +1 wound and -1 save to enemy and here have been ignored.

or use unbuffed stats where fussilers are worse by a huge gap or use full buffed stats where fussilers are worse by a big gap,but only fussilers full buffed vs others units almost umbufed? its pointless

 

 

I don't know what the asterisks are standing for there, but I'm taking it as you saying that people are massaging the data. 

That's not my intent, my primary initial goal is to work out what kind of expected damage outcome you get from each unit, since it can be pretty important for battle tactics, you don't want to accidentally kill the unit you are trying to suppress to score that battle tactic. 

Neil Arthur Hotep calculated the expected damage numbers for the other shooting options and applied all relevant buffs to them (including a spell for the lumineth, other buffing characters for other units). I can't think of any that he missed, and he was very open about all the buffs used. I've not directly checked them, but given his fusilier numbers are exactly the same as mine I figure he is right. 

If you want to have the unbuffed Fusilier numbers you are more than welcome, I think I might have included them in a previous post but not sure, I'll do a post with it when I'm at my desk. Tried to set up a pretty one from Google sheets from my phone and that was not happening.

What kind of "Unmassaged" numbers are you looking for? Sounds like you want Idoneth Reavers added. I don't know deepkin very well, other than AoA what would buffed up Reavers include? I think blissbarbs were just getting the homunculus and all out attack buff, but would gladly include whatever you want.

I don't know if you intended to, but your message feels quite aggressive, I think this has mostly been a pretty chill conversation about a faction it sounds like a lot of us are excited to try out. I know I'm looking forward to trying out some Dark Elves I always thought were neat and am trying to work out how to do my colour scheme to tie things in. 

I'm thinking of a White, Black and Burgundy scheme, maybe changing the primary colour depending on the subfaction. My first attempt at cities (Which was 75% high and wood elves, D'oh) had some issues where I was keeping too close to one scheme, and I ended up with some very dull looking dwarves. If I'm painting some lumineth allies as well I want it to match (considering Sererith for some shooting, mortal wounds and potential objective grabbing).

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Satyrical Sophist
To avoid double posting and reply to Lord Krungharr

[Satyrical Sophist]

21 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

No love for Ratling Guns?!?

I can include Rattling Guns if you'd like! What buffs would you like on them that aren't on the warscroll, I don't have the Skaven book.

[Lord Krungharr]

2 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I can include Rattling Guns if you'd like! What buffs would you like on them that aren't on the warscroll, I don't have the Skaven book.

Ooh excellent....More-More Warppower is a spell for +1 to hit and +1 to wound on them.....also they can get a Warpspark effect for them to do 2 damage per shot.  Normally they're 2D6+3 shots....but they can choose to go to 4D6+3 shots instead.  Normal stats are 2D6+3 shots 4+/4+/rend-1/1 damage, but only 12" range.

[Doko]

2 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I don't know what the asterisks are standing for there, but I'm taking it as you saying that people are massaging the data. 

That's not my intent, my primary initial goal is to work out what kind of expected damage outcome you get from each unit, since it can be pretty important for battle tactics, you don't want to accidentally kill the unit you are trying to suppress to score that battle tactic. 

Neil Arthur Hotep calculated the expected damage numbers for the other shooting options and applied all relevant buffs to them (including a spell for the lumineth, other buffing characters for other units). I can't think of any that he missed, and he was very open about all the buffs used. I've not directly checked them, but given his fusilier numbers are exactly the same as mine I figure he is right. 

If you want to have the unbuffed Fusilier numbers you are more than welcome, I think I might have included them in a previous post but not sure, I'll do a post with it when I'm at my desk. Tried to set up a pretty one from Google sheets from my phone and that was not happening.

What kind of "Unmassaged" numbers are you looking for? Sounds like you want Idoneth Reavers added. I don't know deepkin very well, other than AoA what would buffed up Reavers include? I think blissbarbs were just getting the homunculus and all out attack buff, but would gladly include whatever you want.

I don't know if you intended to, but your message feels quite aggressive, I think this has mostly been a pretty chill conversation about a faction it sounds like a lot of us are excited to try out. I know I'm looking forward to trying out some Dark Elves I always thought were neat and am trying to work out how to do my colour scheme to tie things in. 

I'm thinking of a White, Black and Burgundy scheme, maybe changing the primary colour depending on the subfaction. My first attempt at cities (Which was 75% high and wood elves, D'oh) had some issues where I was keeping too close to one scheme, and I ended up with some very dull looking dwarves. If I'm painting some lumineth allies as well I want it to match (considering Sererith for some shooting, mortal wounds and potential objective grabbing).

 

 

 

hnnn why my post was agresive only for saying that is wrong calculate bufed units vs unbufed units?

also dont take in count the cost, see a table of 390 points of fussilers vs 320 of blisbarb is wrong since the start because arent same points.

i could post the real data with same points of fussilers vs same points of blisbarbs and blisbarbs full buffed wit +1 rend and the data would show how blisbarbs are better and dont need a spell that is isnt relyable neither spend one cp neither one warlord trait.

in fact blisbarbs need a increase of 20/30 points to be balanced while fusilers need a reduction of 20 points.

 

but even if fussilers are overcosted for their damage,they are one key unit of our book,supresive fire make playable units as hammerers,also the counter fire with a good brain open many plays.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Doko

[Myrdin]

2 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I can include Rattling Guns if you'd like! What buffs would you like on them that aren't on the warscroll, I don't have the Skaven book.

I found myself going to this site quite often when looking for a specific warscroll and being to lazy to open the book (when it come sto faction books that I have).

Here is the Ratling gun warscroll specifically :
https://wahapedia.ru/aos3/factions/skaven/Ratling-Gun