mmimzie

i don't know 40 dark shards split split between 2 or 3 units makes screen that can keep you safe a for a turn against most stuff. Depending on what kind of punch you have behind that you can. That said it would be tough. After all the wizards it tough to bring melee or shooting forces that can hit hard enough to matter, while also having screen that can keep you safe. Putting you in situations where during list building you end up needing to build your shooting units as a screen. Folks i think look at the army list it's nagash, but you have to consider nagash was also super hard to kill for his points along with great screen, and spells powerful enough to possibly instantly kill a model or whole unit. Where as the hollow heart wizards are throwing around buffed versions of the old arcane bolt and giving units +1 to wound. There are change host comparisons but change host can 1 drop, and then summon a wall that can stop armies from moving accross the table. While also summoning several new units up the table for free at the start of the game. Now flying units, unbinds, and other low drop armies can counter this quickly and easily. Hallow heart has no 1 drop option, at best your at 4 drops. Meaning you can't pick when to go against most armies that care enough to get small enough. I don't think hallow heart is bad. I just think folks just like equating the army to nagash with out understanding why nagash is good. Or comparing it to change host with out understanding why change host is good. I think there is good stuff to hallow heart and ways that they can rock top 10 and maybe take a few tournaments with good match ups, a nice list, and skilled play. But i could say the same for deepkin, nurgle, and dok??? in the current meta, and i think maybe hallow heart is abit worse than those other 3.

@Gwendar I think if they did nerf the command ability i'd take the lord arcanum on mount Either dracoline or gyrph charger instead of the knight incantor i am taking now. Prime electrics would be quite alright, the gyrph charger one can self heal, and it still gets look out sir but has 7 wounds. @stratigo yeah i just never like the power creep arguement, atleast with current GW. The most intense moment we've had recently has been slannesh , skaven, flesh eater courts when they dropped pre general hand book, but i think that got squished quite quick and shows where GW stands on that. I think where they are weak is bringing armies back from the dead like KO and BCR. @KK9T I think you miss abit of a wall to keep your units safe, but i guess you could use sisters of the thorne as your protective models keep your inner wizard ball safe from being attacked. So i'd consider if you want to put the lives of your sisters on the line to keep the rest of your forces safe from any form of alpha strike.

Old army seems abit arbitary?? Deepkin still do well. LoN are still pretty alright. Nurgle top tenned twice last month at decent sized events i believe.tzneetch as you say. Seraphon appear in top tens every other month i believe? I'm just trying to think what is struggling that is old still out side of bcr anand ko. Aos has the most varied top 5 tables of any of the wargames i follow.

Also friend i'll take a look at your list tonight. my favorite mage is currently the battle mage on bale wind from azyr with roaming wild fire. He is a realm power house. HE's cheap throwing out 4 mortal wounds turn 1, and turn 2 he can mix in arcane bolt and with bonue to cast doing maybe d3 mortal on his bolt. Thats not including the splash damage to other units. Every turn he;s up he's killing your average hero.

Well so i wouldn't call it power creap because beside slannesh nothing else is really over preforming and stuff like stormcast eternals are still hanging out in top tables. As you and i have said Hallow heart isn't even broken due to spells it has access too, the rise of shooting, and the lack of a big punchy unit that is hallow heart specific. If you ask me Hallow heart is in line with the current state of the game. Sure it has super powerful wizards, but the counter to wizards has never been trying to unbind all thier spells, it's always been kill the wizard. Thats what made nagash good was that nagash was soooooo hard to kill and had powerful spell. The +3 to cast just made his spell more reliable.

I think even if they do FAQ it do you really need +6 to cast? +4 to cast is enough to make for a great spell phase and is more than you can hope for on your average roll and is more of a cast bonus than any other army. Not to mention you still have a bunch of two cast wizards. Reguardless i don't really think it's gonna be FAQd simply because the most likely way you'd mitigate the damage is given to you as a major feature in the book in retinues. So seems like that combo is put in there on purpose? PG is so weird to me i hate having to take an anoited or a phoenix more so forcing them to be the general and taking away access to famed spell hunter, retinue, and the bonus CP per turn. I might take a 10 man squad of liberators as retinue. But it will be interesting to see what folks take in the cities there is a lot of meat on the bone there and several list that look pretty good. @Dis_Interested Lacks a punch melee unit. If you are gonna go Phoenix Guard you should definitely take a phoenix. It'll give you a unit that has teeth and with out being a tax on your list. It would also justify the emerald life swarm more. I don't know that you have enough shooting to warent a bridge. You could turn all those sisters of the watch into shadow warriors along with droping the screaming birdge. You'll do a bit less damage but for a nice extra 70pts in your pocket. That combine with the droping the shackles as well could let you take a 4th shadow warrior squad. Then your cooking. Either way it's shaping up.

I think azyr battle made with bale window vortex is nearly just a must for our army. He's the best thing we got and does a job so well. You've got the battle mage why not vortex it up. Whitefire tome isn't worth it. You don't become a wizard so no extra spell from command ability and no bonuses to cast. So throw that thing in the trash. I think if you bring the battalion you want agroxi prism or whatever. It will give you access to more durability from shooting. This won't help you against what you faces, but will make shooting less spooky. Otherwise as you say no need to take the battalion. Currently, i'm a big fan of dark shards, quick if you need them to be. Lets the Sorc get casting bonuses with out having to use command ability, letting her either go off on her own or letting he be effective with out needing to CP out anything. The -1 to hit on her can be pretty good if you have a squishy hammer running around, along side the hysh buff can make that unit really annoying to deal with. The main thing you need to consider is what are your wizards doing?? Are they buffing a big DPS unit or are they killing key enemy pieces?? As this is what they do best. Cyclone exist and can cut a witch aelf unit in half (sorta <.<), but it's a lot to set up either needed a sportal in range or to be dangerously close to witch aelves. That said after your cyclone what is gonna kill the rest, and 20 witches will still kill a lot of what we can bring, such as your 10 pheonix guard. I think MSU shooting is out best back up with maybe 1 hammer unit such as a pheonix/morrsarr guard (allys)/black guard/greatsword/etc. The flame phoenix and morrsarr guard are my favorite as they can do entry mortal wounds letting you skirt around enemies that attack before you do and both can fly and move quickly so they can hide well behind your MSU. Black guard are my 2nd favorite as they can go super fast and charge from long distance with wild form + instrument and pack a much large potential punch than morrsarr guard can. The MSU shooting i like because why do you want a unit that can take a punch?? Sequitors who can take a real punch aren't as potent outside of storm cast battalion and need lots of supply to become relavent. Pheonix guard are durable but if you do the math freeguild are just as durable in just about every situation outside of healing from life swarm, and even then are squishier than clan rats for the point and much squishier than sequitors. MSU shooting lets you have layers of shooting that have to die 1 at a time, maybe 2 at a time before the layers underneath can be taken out. While also providing you with extra damage to finish off targets weakend by your wizards or support your heavy hitting hammers. There are other options than what i laid out, but i'm just going off the units that currently interest me personally, which is to say they aren't necessarily the best options and stuff like sister of the watch/shadow warriors/irondrake/etc might also have merit. Well so them the hurricanum is like bringing a mage you don't really wanna cast with right?? which is kinda killing some of the usefulness on the model in the army more so than the cut in usefulness of the +1 to cast/hit, kinda dumbing the model down to it's 3d3 mortal (which isn't a joke, just limited range) and endless spell dispel. The phoenix doesn't work as a target for the command ability because he doesn't become a wizard from the artifact. I'm sure you knew this as you weren't really even imply you were gonna use it for that. I think a sorc general is great at using the command ability. Early on she can eat a darkshard for +2 to cast if you want her providing spell support. Her retinue can way more than average soak even a 5 or 6 roll and keep her from dying. Lasting she can be given the command ability of famed spell hunter to let her spend most of the game eating endless spell for resume or whatever, so buffing her doesn't matter. She is also abit more durable with access to that retinue if you wanted to keep her around, and if you wanted to pay for the battalion you could get the prism to give her amazing protection against shooting as she'd be taking like only 25% damage from shooting in most cases. Her retinue can be murdered and leaving her not super useful, but maybe that's alright as your wizards might live. I say battalion because the auto take artifact, in my mind, is ignax scales because it turns another mage on to be the command ability target. Again eating taking the mortal wounds, but doesn't cost you models to keep around. I think between both of those, and if your afraid of shooting the prism you can be sure to have your bonuses to cast up at least in the early turns in the game.

Warseers still have lots of range and skaven take ground fast. Even all skaven if you take the table your opponent knows it will be several turns before they reclaim those objectives due to battleshock immunity and sooo many models. Where as for us we have less bodies, less durability, and lower battleshock immunity. So us taking the table is us getting into potion to get swatted. What we can do though is hit really hard with our turn 1. I suppose after you making me think about it i'm off team luminark, but i think i'm off team hurricanum, and maybe off team big thingy. Originally i liked the luminark because i liked that it had good range and could help you pick off characters as it has range to pretty much always hit a character you have down. I then after you brought it up liked the hurricanum because you could soul scream bridge it and get the job done with a bunch of shooting... units.... So then i realized that other list could use the thing a lot more effectively. As the only thing hallow heart brings to the huricanum is +1 spell and it can be used to get your spells off. That said i prefer ignax scale on a little guy or to use your general to pass off wounds to a retinue. The other hurricanum give other bonus's like +1 to hit or cast. The casting bonus i don't rate as our command ability gets us high enough. The +1 to hit is nice, but other factions can do more with a good shooting unit that we can't. I'd rather take a self contained shooting unit that needs low or no help or a melee unit that has the same, than worry about a unit i'm overly concerned about buffing a lot in hollow heart.

dispeling is done at the start of the turn, but the longbeard ability doesn't say at the start of the turn. Seems odd. I play skaven as well, as i'm sure you are aware. Skaven has more too it that lets you not care about going first or not. You start with 120 clan rats that are super durable and won't flee to battleshock for a lot of different reasons. I could go into warpseer, jezzalls at 30" range, plague monks at 280 pts for 40, 120 clan rats for 600pts, and near complete battle shock immunity. Anyway as i said you we don't have low drops and you need a list that can take going first or 2nd. Which i agree with and is kinda my point. You want to beable to take advantage of going first or second so you aren't caught back footed.

Hallow heart is definitly good, and lots of folks like to compare the casting bonuses to that of nagash list where you could get curse of years and hand of dust. Powerful spells that make a huge difference. As @stratigo says hollow heart is amazing at taking out combo pieces as they can find and pick off character easily. They like all the cities can also take some pretty great shooting and very easily get them into distance to hit most any targets, with little opponent recourse. That said melee punch is lacking and your ability to buff shooting/melee is limited to +1 to wound and maybe +1 to hit (from huricanum that is not hollow heart specific). This means that in the melee parts of the game which still is the heart of AoS Hallow Heart gets a bit hallow and loses a bit of heart. Tempest eye and living city can bring much more powerful shooting and melee options to bare with verious tricks and abilities to buff and get units into fighting range. Hallow Heart is quite good and i'd put it up there, but looking at built out list it's missing a key piece or prospective to make it really pop.

I think i rate the luminarch over the hurricanum because the luminark does something if your forced to go first, quite a lot of something. Our list outside of portal, vortex, shadow warriors, CP boosted dark shards, comet, and soul thief+purple sun/pendulum. Most list is ee here don't do enough turn 1, and thus your basicly playing a 4 turn game vs your opponents 5 turn game. Even more so when you consider most list are going to out drop us pretty hard. I feel like ever good army either can almost always decide to go first or second and take whatever is best for them, or can take advantage of both going first or going 2nd, so you aren't as thrown to the mercy of your opponent. @Malakithe: my Crituques are strictly competive. If you play in a less aggressive environment feel free to take or leave them as you will. I think if your going to take this battalion i'd aim to be <5 drops. +1 to cast is small potatoes for us as we can drop 2 CP turn 1 and get an average +7 to cast with out really breaking a sweat. While it does provide a nice artifact for us as the -1 to hit and scales are both appealing for various reasons, i don't know if that alone is a big enough draw in a list where you might still get out dropped by skaven with no battalion. +1 to hit is abit much of a price tag for only bringing ~400pts worth of shooting. I'd change this out for the luminark on the +1 to cast it only hits the battle mages and again the command ability will bring you so much more. On my point up top and on the getting out dropped your turn 1 is only shadow warriors, the comet, and outriders that moved. a Luminark would give you more turn 1 punch and let you protect a unit. The azyr battle mage spell is better on a battle mage on a balewind anyway launching that and roaming wild fire accross the table. You list format requirs me to do math and think. That said You could drop gemnids for the balewind vortex. An azyr battle mage with roaming wildfire which will have about the same threat range as you can set the vortex up abit forward of the casting mage giving you something more akin to +8-10" to range. It'll also hit multiple units for d3 and do so multiple times. You also won't have to worry about it coming back at you. With that change you now have points to replace lauchon for the screaming bridge. This will let you move the pheonix guard and your crossbow men. I like lauchon on sisters of the thorn to get them into turn 1 spell range as it lets them move in the hero phase rather than the movement phase, and with thier large unit size they can keep a toe in range of the spell bonus aura. That said you don't have another endspell to help you take advantage of this.

FAQ covers that you must roll the 6+ for the purple sun to do the 7 mortal wounds. The power of the purple sun is hitting alot of an opponents army. More so in hollow heart and even more with our ability to cast it right in the enemies face if they dare make you go first. That said it's target dependent, but its not just hordes purple sun is good against. Anything beyond min size is a potentially good target, as you have to consider it's killing models not doing wounds. It's really good against multi wound unit and any horde unit. That said it is definity a trade off against pendulum and which units they are better against are different. In hollow heart i'd say the argument leans alittle more toward purple sun as it can move 12" getting a large chunk of the table, and can be boosted further with a spell portal as @Gwydion points out. Letting you extend the range abit further, as spell portal is mostly for the first and maybe 2nd turn, but after that it struggle to find a good use. Anywho this is what my list is looking like: Sorceress General: Fames spell hunter, Spells: ignite/warding brand Ghur Battlemage: Adjunct, Spells: Crystal ageis/Ignite Azyr Battlemage: Spells: Roaming wildfire, Seer wounds Knight Incantor: Spells: Cyclone, Seer wounds Luminark: Artifact: Agloraxxi Prism Seer wounds, Roaming Wildfire 20x Darkshards: Retinue 10x Darkshards 10x Darkshards 130 5x Sisters of throne 340 6x Morrsarr guard 110 10x Shadow warriors 40 Balewind Vortex 50 Purple Sun (maaaybe pendulum) 70 Umbral spellportal 60 Lauchron the soulseeker 100 Everblaze Comet 20 Suffocating Gravetide (filling points) 2000/2000 Wanted to make sure i'm not caught on the back foot if made to go first, but also have a fat enough screen if i go 2nd against an alpha list.

Hey friend and welcome to AoS. I hope you have a blast getting back into the hobby, and if you have any questions the community is always here to help. There is an FAQ on the order in which things happen, general if you are controling the action you pick the order things happen. So if you wanted to use the boat and pop it through a portal you can and then set up, or you can chose to stop the boat, let everyone out and then move it through the portal. Here is said FAQ

No I don't loce gemnids as i like to have a nice strong melee unit, and geminids nerf you so much, even more so when most out good melee units have two attack, but if you are all shooting they arent an issue. I don't love geminids when bringing fast multi attack melee units as even with our possible spell ignore you could find yourself with a unit of black guard only doing 1 attack each. I'd make the black guard squads 30 man. That's what makes them good is that they can fight in 3 rows unlike excutions and other 1" range units. A sorcerous with thermal rider cloak is about as good as a black dragon in my opinion. As the main reason you bring the black dragon is to have something that keeps up with the black guard. Otherwise it looks pretty cool.

Really good combo i just figured out, and i think we might have all skimmed it abit because the endless spell became a joke after the FAQ. Also, maaaaybe some one said it some where else, but it seems so powerful, and it not being in everyones list despite most list having maybe 2 of these pieces seems goofy. The combo is: Sisters of the thorn Purple sun of Shyish Lauchon the soulseeker Now of course it needs another wizard to help you set this up, but likely you'll have one in hollow heart. Not counting that other wizards hand in helping you set this up the combo cost 240 points. Same as the comet. Most importantly it lets you drop the purple sun turn 1. As the sisters is multiple models and thus can lose a model to get into range during the hero phase. Depending on how the rules work kinda changes how close your caster can get. Either you can stretch the unit back into the hollowheart casting bonus aura and the actual caster up close >9" letting you set up the sun such that it rolls through most of your opponents army. Otherwise you use your long base to put a toe into the hollow heart aura and use your longer base to angle as close to your target location as possible. Either way the 12" move of the purple sun should have you hitting several units. More over this combo gets you a decent universal spell for moving your shooting units, and your charge bonus aided melee units. With this you can take: Luminark/Purple sun/comet/ Chain lighting+roaming fire bale wind/Umbral spell portal + (wizard of choice) spell in a single list and do devastating turn 1 damage.

Cities or sigmar is a very seperate and different set of alliegence abilities. Free guild run pretty well in cities. No run and charge out side or darkling as far as i know. Tempeest eye does let you pick a unit to run and still shoot. Living city can let you use any twleport mechanic, short and then make a free 2nd move. Wildform gives you +2 run and charge rolls. All muscians generally give +1 to run and charge rolls. In cities the soulsream birgde has massive range, and when combine with a few things above can allow for charges easily.

Welcome to the hobby friend. Seems neat enough for 1k and a first list. One thing you'll maybe notice quickly is you'll want one big smashy unit in most games. Taking objectives is important in AoS and sitting there slowlying fighting for several turns doesn't really help you score point quickly enough. That said if you can find the space make that great sword unit big and smashy like 20 strong. If you like hallow heart you'll also likely want to get some endless spells, but honestly the best bet for new players is to just get some stuff, try it and see what stuff you like playing. Then you can figure out what kind of units you'd want to use more of later.

I think the stand out battle line options are Darkshards Blackguard Free guild guard (with shields) Flaggellents Phoenix guard These are in my mind the best. There are other options and there might truely be a better option. However, as i see it these complement hollow heart the best. Darkshard have great ranged damage damage. If you take a sorceress in your army, they can be sped up to deal hero killing damage at very long range. The ability to run and shoot syngerizes with wildform should you need the boost in range. Burning head skull/screaming bridge/etc all work well too boost the effectiveness of these units. Blackguard have about all the same bonuses as above. Lightning fast and all damage. All that apply to darkshards apply to these guys instead getting run and charge getting lots of milage out of wildform. With the current meta fight are generally taken. These guys match that and move blisteringly fast and charge targets at will. Fans of the emerald life swarm. Phoenix guard are very similar to black guard, but lose speed for durability. They are give up a bit of punch. More over they get decent battle shock immunity is baby sat by thier annoited of choice. I think i wouldn't take an on foot annoited for this purpose and just rather have them deploy with thier pheonix for immunity, act as a T1 screen, and then go off to do thier own thing. These along with the phoenixs like the emrald life swarm. Free guild (with shields)- durable and cheap. They are point for point as tanky as pheonix guard if both are taken in full units. Also they are a little less tanky when you look at ranged damage. These guy make up for the lack of tankiness with numbers. Along with the reflect damage spell this can allow them to be a nice threat that can hold objectives. With thier built in +1 charge and wild form they can take this buff aggressively into combat. Flaggellents are all about that refelct damage spell and suiside bombing. They can do the same objective by numbers thing as friend guild, and become battleline with the battlemage as your leader. There are definitly more options from sister of the watch with a nomad prince general. This allows you to bring the soulscream bridge and pop them up into range. They'll count as stationary and long with +1 to hit from enkindle weapon and burning head you can get some good ranged damage. This takes away from your points in mages and points efficiency, but it might be worth it. Lot's of other options out there, and we've only scratched the surface of this nuts book.

They are another good killy hammer unit that works well if you have a freeguild character as your general, which is the only tough thing about them specifically in hollow heart as there are no free guild hero wizards. That said if you like them it's not a tough stretch to get them in. You need some melee threat in AoS they are the most effcients forces in the game. They'd work out decently, but as @SwampHeart illuded too you'd need alittle more work than other units to get them into combat quickly. The major issue i see is they don't have an in unit +1 to charge. I think if they had that they'd be an auto take in my eyes. Without it, if they have wild form it's a 7" charge after you teleport them using a bridge. Meaning you tart burning CP to get them to charge that 7". That isn't terrible though. From there i'd bring quicksilver swords. You can throw those at your flagellents (which is very thematic) to get some kills on them to boost up thier attack numbers before you throw them into combat. I guess the other issue is it might be hard or not even possible to set the flagelents up as both a screen, but also have them in a good position to take the bridge.

The above is why i personal like multiple small squads of dark shards as your screen. Makes it tough we to lose as many models and you have few points on the line. Also you don't have to buy an early CP or have an artifact to auto bass your battleshock. I like the dark shards because if you go first you can potentially punish by taking more objectives all over the map or put out some serious shooting damage to slannesh's important characters.

Also no bonuses from the hollow heart command ability. I think HoS would definitly be a problem getting to definitly always out drop us. that said since we aren't skaven and don't have units as tanky as clan rats to eat charges. I think it's best to use multiple small screen over one big unit hoping it can eat the charge. Pheonix guard can be do the job, but you can also do the same job with multiple layers of chaffe squads such as freeguild or fantatics if you want to be cheap or dark shards if you want to have a little more ranged punch for other match ups.

Sorry got distracted my black guard. yeah as you say you have retinue for that It's the benefit you get for having your general be one of your wizard. the other benefit is more CP from your adjunct who will almost always be near by. PLus as you say you have healing like sear wounds, and you could fit in emerald lifeswarm if you wanted even more healing.

It is 300 pts though. I guess it does kind of move the needle when i compare it to the lord of change that i still bring and does really well. I just feel her breath range is soooo short which is the main thing on her. She is really good at keeping up with the super fast blackguard as well... hmmmmm... Still on the fence but i teatering here.

Yeah as i said in my last post i don't think the incantor is bad, where it gets concerning is when it's the only thing keep up your comet. Putting the comet another way all of order has had access to incantor+comet as an ally and most folks don't bring it bring. It stays mostly stormcast as stormcast can grab multiple stormcast wizards to make sure they don't lose access to thier comet, and even then some time they don't take it. It's a thing to think about with your comet and i think it's something you definitly should consider if you want to have the comet in your army. Is the comet bad? no, is the incantor bad? no. But it is 240 pts for 5 wounds with a 3+ save and most likely always -1 to hit. First page my list is there (whitefire retinue has since been removed in the latest interation). I think blackguard as where it's at. With wildform you can go 15" and charge with +3. While darkshards can also be buffed to get early reach. I don't personally rate the dragon super high though as it's range is very limited. I don't rate the pheonix guard super high as they aren't particularly good as soaking wounds. they are about as good as freeguild guard. Which the phoenix guard shine is when life swarm lets you bring models back, however. As that is a very effective use of points.

rad IF your going comet you have to protect that model, making them your general and getting the -1 to shooting artifact is a good idea. could be dread spears and could be modeled like those spear weilding guards from zelda, would be cool and you ahve the 10 spare points. gotrek does not need ignite weapons it won't move the needle much, if it's stoping you from casting literally anything else than don't take it. This man wants a balewind vortex. Could model it off one of those flying leaf plants that you grow from magic beans.