Commenting on the above, couldn't you take a free peoples army and then ally in 3-4 Ballistas? Would give you some artillery and still let you use the free companies? Also stormcast fit in any of the cities if you are going that route. I'm not sure if anyone has done the math but they seem stronger than more traditional cannons in a lot of ways and are a lot less vulnerable for sure. Doesn't help you with the tank question though.
On a somewhat different note, I was really liking the look of some of the collegiate arcane stuff, and was considering building a list around them. Has anyone tried this out recently? I know the hurricanum has accumulated quite a few nerfs along the way. I'm mostly interested in just painting and using the models, so It doesn't necessarily need to be the most competitive list.
I was thinking
380 Celestial Hurricanum
240 Luminarch of Hysh
120 Battlemage (Jade for the healing spell)
100 10x handgunners
100 10x handgunners
As a core for ~940 points. Some screening, some range, hopefully to advance up the field. The goal being to keep my big guys safe for a few turns, use spells to kill off little tie up units and to pin/tank big units on something sturdy (a seige tank or pheonix, see below)
In terms of finishing this out, I was thinking some combination of either
Steam Tank
Frostheart Pheonix
2x 5 reavers (mobility, more shooting, maybe claim an objective early)
10x Dragon Blades (advance up the field, hit hard, sturdy)
6x Demigryph Knights (redundent with the dragon blades, sturdier but hit noticeably less hard, cooler models)
Loremaster (goes great with all the big models)
30x Pheonix Guard (Big and sturdy and wear buffs well)
5x Sisters of Thorn (especially great with the phoenix although seem expensive and I'd only really be taking them for their spell)
More collegiate wizards (chain lightning and fireball both seem useful and go great with +1 to dispel and cast)
30 x Free peoples guard w/ swords.
Some units of dryads to wall?
A big block of stormcast to advance and make a wall
Any thoughts on how to finish out the list? Also and unrelated, can I ally in a steam tank to keep the possibility of using one of the free cities? Hallowheart seems like the best fit, although may be redundent with the luminarch. I think these things are listed approximately in the order I'm interested in them.... I don't really like the idea of painting tooooo many models and would prefer to do a good job on a smaller number.
One worry is being a bit too immobile. I don't really want to play a gunline, although I know things like the hurricanum and Luminarch tend to lend themselves best to exactly that. Also is there anything similar to skinks that would fit more thematically with human/elf appearing list? Cheap screeners seem like exactly what this list wants.
Thanks for any help
