Myrdin

Mounts the steed with mali....ahem... righteous intent, yes yes!

Now besides this whole "Blissbarbs are good" discussion. Yes they are too good, but I dont want to get into that now. What I want to point at is the highlighted text. Thats the exact issue I have with Fussiliers personally. They require way to much investment in terms of resources you do not have multiple off or are unreliable, for a meidocre 4+ 4+ platform to become good. Dispelling a spell is easy in the current season. Even with all the casting buffs you might not get the spell through, and at that point your expensive investment is under performing and not pulling their weight. Sacrifice of a generals trait and possibly an artifact, both of which are HUMAN only, meaning you cant even multipurpose with them is what makes them even less appealing. No matter the math I think GW dropped the ball on them, the cannon and the Fussil Major. In their case its the 4+ to Wound, which should have been a 3+ since we do have access to +1 To Hit buffing without spending a Generals battle trait on it. Then drop them to 130 and its a fair, solid unit. The cannons issue is the range which should have been at minimum 30" possibly even 36" and cost, and the Ogor is just badly designed single "support" piece but thats besides the point rn. And the problem is that the books are already printed so we can forget about a fix, since GW is absolutely incompetent in this regard. That leaves us with the "once a year" price adjustment, where they usually "fix" a non performing unit by dropping the points. In case of Cannon and Fussils, enough of a points reduction might help. The Ogor requires a full scroll redesign coz whatever that thing was supposed to be and do simply doesnt work. Not even on the paper, and that should give you a huge warning sign already. Its funny how they want to sells us these new kits, yet they completely ommited the usual power creept/decent warscroll that goes with it. EDIT: And for armies centered wholly about Fussiliers... Again its the Old World dwarves issue I mentioned few pages before. Nobody liked playing against them, and I believe eventually even as them, once the novelty of camping the corner and shooting your opponent to death died down. Cities was not a single unit focus army, and I would hate for them to become that.

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

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.

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).

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...

Nah, this book is already riddled with "once per battle" abiities. Whereas other armies dont or very rarely have this type of limitation. I`d say the Alchemite will probably go up in price, to maybe 120 points which would be reasonable or possibly even more - hopefully not. After all his armor buffing makes him unable to cast so you are always using only half of his potential, either magic or bonus to saves, never both @Neil Arthur Hotep Regarding battlemages I think the spells that are race specific are kinda rubbish considering all of them have relatively high casting values and not so mind blowing effect. But I can still see BMages be interesting pick with extra range or bonus cast item pick. You can always default to basic magic missile, and with that extra range you can play them as magic snipers heh.

Both of those are oval 120mm, its just my crappy angle shots that make it look round 😅. But thats what I meant, going wide makes the model feel big and have presence as if the base was round not oval, whereas going narrow, while maybe practical makes him looks more squeezed in. As for Tahlia: I got two other dragons one like this and one other so in case her base size is bigger than the Gryffon one I can still keep this one as a Freeguild Marshal on Gryffon and have a solid proxi that fits a different base. About the fox dragon, thats what I was thinking about, but the problem is Battlemage on Gryffon has 120mm oval and Sorc has I believe 105 x 70mm, which is trickier. And while both are meh due to being way to overpriced, BMage seems better since he could work as a Monster hunter with his special rules and spells. But then again the Sorc can always make up for what she lacks with one of the 3 spells she can choose from, unlke the BMage who has to take Wildform. Appreciate the feedback!

One thing I do love about Age of Sigmar is the fact your models facing doesnt matter. I really dont miss the Old World movement trays and facing shenanigans haha. Looking for advice: Trying to position this chunky boy on a 120mm oval is pretty rough if I wanted to do it on the length of the base rather than on the wider side. Especially since I need somethin under his belly or the upmost back leg to prop up all that weight (solid resin) so the tail doesnt break off. Plus I really think having him set on the wider side makes him more menacing since it gives off a feel of size, whereas if he were positioned on the lenghty side it would look like he`s trying to "squeeze in". What do you think ? *I suck at taking pictures. but the first two are with the wide base placement, the 2 below are on the base length placement* *Also my Battlemage on Griffon/Sorc on BDragon pic included since she`ll need a base overhaul as well. Though in her case I might just get oneof those conversion bases for square to oval and just slot her in, instead of reoding the entire base from scratch*

Nice looking army! Seeing your Marshall on Griffon I dug out my own big gribblies and was not so pleasantly reminded I still havent finished their new bases (they are still on squares haha~) so thats something I will have to get done before the new book launches so I can get back into the game with what remaining fun stuff is still there.

So one thing that has been bothering me for a while is the Endless Spells and Factions terrain for new Cities. In the previous book we had no Faction terrain with some niche but usefull ability so we got that neat little gimmick with endless spells instead. Now we no longer have that, nor did we gain the terrain and also can no longer take any SCE units as part of our army instead of Allies... Thats a pretty substantial nerf as a whole. Now ofc its not impossible we will get a nice terrain piece, but that would have been probably included in the book already. Unless they gonna pull that Lumineth nonsense with us, and re-release this book once per year just adding few more unit profiles each time... ugh, talk about stupid AND predatory way to monetize. Any thoughts on this matter ?

Drag. Ogs and Shaggoth both suffer from "the previous book" syndrome. I am unsure if you saw their previous warscrolls but they were severly underpowered (Drag. Ogs at least, Shaggoth was ok for the price) which resulted in that FAQ making them cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. Eventually you hit a point where even a weaker unit becomes amazing if its cheap enough for you to take lets say 12 of them. After all 5 wounds and 4+ save is great for grinding your way through, and when a unit of 3 costed something around 140 pts... flooding the board with them while taking 2 Shaggoths to back them and still have enough points for bunch of other stuff up was pretty common. Now they finally have the dmg output you would expect from something that is a mix of a Ogor and a draconian. But due to how goodp they were previously (due to being cheap) they became rather overpriced. Especially the Shaggoth, which didnt get any significant stat boost yet is priced in a category where the big heavy hitters start to appear. Thats quite absurd. The problem is also the fact for that price to be at least somewhat justifiable he would need the ability to cast and dispel 2 spells, not 1. Which he doesnt. Thats why running DO in bigger numbers is currently not viable. One basic unit of 3 as flank grinder is solid, two is expensive but can still work. And a Shaggoth is a no no until it drops at least 50-70pts and even then its still to expensive for what he brings. About Bestigors, I am not a fan of their current itteration. Too expensive and not enough dmg. But people here reported good results for a grinding unit. All out Defense + Beastlord buffing them and you get a solid anvil that can grind really well. But it needs some setup before that. Hence what I mentioned about breaking your army into "mini squads", that can operate separately while also working well together. Tzaangors are the best offensive option in the book going by dmg per point cost. Good price, good Wound pool and high number of attacks that can be enchanced via Hero buffs and command abilities, or you debuffing your enemy. They`ve always been good, now they are even better thanks to the synergy. I think Gavespawn is very strong yes. Simply because it allows you to fill out your whole battleline very easy, and those super spawns are not bad. Just their aura is tiny in range so they need to get in there properly. Frankly there are better people here to give advise, especially since I plan to move away from my Beastmen due to space and time constraints and just how many I`ve collected over the years haha. Right now the Beasts of Chaos are in a good spot, althought almost everything in the book is somewhat overpriced. Once we get some slight price adjustments (20-30 points reduction across the board for all the stuff that went up by 50%+) they will be a great army to play.

Looking at it I am afraid its a bit all over the place. Let me try to sum up some major sticking points so you can maybe adjust your strategy with that in mind. You have a Beastlord but no bestigors or Tzaangors for him to buff. 3 Shamans are also bit too much. Two Gorghons but no Bullgor hero to make them charge out of sequence. A unit of Drago Ogs. is not a bad choice, though they are pretty expensive currently. But two is a bit too many in this specific list. Also you lack any of the debuff pieces outside of relying on the spells from your Shaman which depending on your opponents might not even get through when you need them. No cockatrice, no giant and no gibbering congregration is a nono. Beastmen are not a army that has good standalone warscroll but rather an army that (finally) has important internal synergies between heroes and units as well as solid debuff pieces to weaken the enemy and allowing you to pick them apart piece by piece rather than one heroice battle that decides it all. I would suggest to get at least one Cockatrice and or a Giant in there, and replace the Beastlord with a Minotaur. Or alternatively, remove one Gorghon and one Drag. Og unit and add at least 20 infantry Tzaangors or Bestigors for your Beastlord to stick with and buff. If you have some spare points at the end a Charriot or two make for defense flank chaff hunters. Good way to look at the army is to separate the whole army into "mini squads" where a specific hero and his dedicated unit plus a buff/debuff piece can operate on their own. That way your army isnt just a random mix of units that dont really synergize and rely on brute force, which BoC doesnt do as well as one would hope, while ensuring that if you loose one crucial model the whole thing wont fall apart.

Considering the theme you are going for I think a Kharybdis mount for your Dread lord, with added wings and maybe a single big head of....something (Mutalith vortex beast, or maybe one of the new Tyranids) in the middle with smaller kharybdis claw heads on the sides might wrok quite well.

So about the wording on the corsairs ability: Is it 1mv for each 1 rolled ? That sounds the way it was intended, but the way its worded maked is feel like "no matter how many 1, if 1-999, after all attacks have been resolved the enemy suffers a one, singular MW). Would be silly and absolutely inconsequential, but wouldnt be the first time a rule wording was botched.

Same here. Bunch of Pistollers and Shadow Warriors were my mainstay for almost every list especially in Tempest Eye. The removal of pistollers is just odd. They would fit this new book well, the playstyle, looks, lore. Hell the commands, orders and even some of the cities, mianly Tempest Eye here would fit them perfectly. TE is pretty meh outside of some very janky plays. For example a mechanized army with bunch of Gyrocopters in units might be able to make use of it, since the new copter and bombers all have 3+ save thus making them more durable and maybe more viable to throw at the enemy, retreat and then still shoot... hmm that might be fun actualy, though to really use it well you`d probably needs some Duardin hero support in there just in case. Yes Living City is still going strong I think. Dreadlord on BD and Marshall on Gryffon have both access to an AoE charge reroll. Taking a Wildform Wizard with the Chicken lord would result in a pretty scary charge possibilities.... *Yet another nitpick: really hate how spells are also race keyword restrictive. So magic became racist now lol ? So stupid, sigh...*

Do units taken as allies inherit the specific City bonus ? For example does Greywater city ability work on a allied ranged unit ?

These are some great ideas! Counter shooting steamtank lol Enemies: "Feel the sting of our arrows filthy human!" Steam tank: Turns around with malicious intent. I am a huge fan of the Marshall on Gryffon, always liked the unit and hes been a dependable staple of the previous book. Throw in Counter Charge and Engage the Foe orders and.... oh boy. Thats one angry oversized chicken!

What do you guys think about the two special units ? Haskal Hexbane warband and the Ven Denst Duo ? Ven Densts family seems like a solid "auto inlcude" for many builds. While Galen isnt as impressive, he is a basic infantry hero, that can do generic infantry hero stuff, while also having the super niche ability to one shot Endless spells, and maybe make a hybrid combat-wizard enemy hero slightly more worried. His daughter though... oh yeah Doralia is where its at. 2 shots at 24" with 3+ 3+ -2 2 is already pretty solid. If you Have a Hurricanum in your army, being a single infantry sized hero she can easily hug it tight while not being in the way for your other units thus enjoying that crispy 2+ To Hit. Both are joining you at 160pts, and while I would love to be able to take just Doralia, even if she was more slightly more expensive, considering its 80pts for one very scary sniper hero and 80 for a generic infantry hero with little bit more niche, its not a bad deal at all. On the other hand the Haskal Hexbane group... yeah I am not sold on that one. Other than the one funny model with the Crossbow Launcher (who named this ? I keep imagining a bazooka shooting regular sized crossbows, that then fire bolts while flying in the air xd) with the D6 dmg, and the ability to smack someone with a torch and deal D3 mortal wounds they bring little to the table. If their Witch Hunting ability made all other units attacking the target deal more damage I would consider it a pretty cool gimmick. Calling it a gimmick because you cant target focus the ability if there is a enemy wizard present. But since it affects only Haskel and his group, and they do very little beside this, and its not as if they were especially tough or fast either so .... eh ? *Nitpick: Also the fact Heskel has a 5+ Ward while miss Big girl general on Manticore has just a 6+ is just.... Who gave her a 6+ and didnt think twice about how stupid it looks. A unique named character in that price range should be expected to have at least 5+ for Sigmars sake!*

Any thoughts on what base size Pontifex Zenestra will be ? Looking at the model I dont think its neither a 120mm nor 60mm oval. Could be 75mm as Demis, but I have a strong inkling its gonna be the 90mm one.

Thats very true. One small step improvement in each book, until finally the degradation table is completely gone and a TANK has the armor save one would expect from a unit called a TANK xd. Great point about the moving artillery, well worth keeping in mind. They should be able to soak a lot of punishment now as long as no mortal wounds are being directed their way en masse. *** Sticking with the mechanized army theme, I think Copters and Bombers are still pretty decent. Bombers feel a bit too pricey but that shooting should be able to clear chaff and then fly over something engaged into combat with your STanks. Copters got nerfed quite badly with loosing 4" of movement and rend on the Steam gun, Not a fan of that. Though their combat got slightly better and they gained 3+ Save instead of 4+. Odd, but workable, though being slower sucks since we also lost all other light cav and backfield deployment pieces, nor can we incorporate SCE allies as part of the army anymore. But 1 or 2 of them might still be able to find a place in almost any list. Edit: Actually looking at the bomber, in the old book and the new one, it got substantial buff. +1A and +1 damage for its shooting, wile loosing only 2" range. Improved save to 3+ while also getting the more reliable combat attacks. No more D3. Still a tad bit pricey for a single model piece but I think their power is one of those that grows multiplicatively with numbers. To bad you cant take them in units and even worse Hurricanum buff is now restricted to HUMANS only. But still worth considering as a flanking unit. *Nitpick: Kinda ironic how HUMANS are made to be the focus of this book, yet the majority remaining fun choices (not necessarily good, just fun) options lie with the non human factions of Cities.*

Yeah the Ogor is a bad deal. Its a hybrid unit that excels at nothing. The combat potential is low. It needs at least 4 attacks to be considered viable. It has 8 wounds which is pointless coz its a single model not dedicated to combat. The shooting is meh as well, and the buff is a janky meh. In general its very mediocre unit. I could see them being decent if they costed around 110 and have less wounds but you could bring them in units of 1-3, like scourge runners. But then that ability is still janky as all hell. Maybe if it increased range of any missile attacks by any CoS units, not just CASTELITE (nothing tells you "buy more of our new kit like all the Castelite focus in the book forcing a VERY boring gamestyle), an argument could be made. And dont get me started on the whole "Fortified Positions" gimmick. Thats such a pointless nonsense rule that changes nothing and just increases the cost of the unit and takes away slot for some more useful ability. Speaking of range, the Huntsman unit is just.... ugh, its supposed to replace Shadow warriors, but ****** are they bad. More expensive than SW, much worse shooting, with 4+ 4+, same for melee and you are forced to exchange models for dogs which dont really add much, thus loosing even more shots. If they at least had one of the values set to 3+, either To Hit or To Wound, but both being 4+ for 140 polints and that type of unit is just not worth it. Their ability is pretty underwhelming as well when compared to SW who could just deploy whereever they wanted as long as requirements were met. Thats why I said this book feels like a nerf, coz compared to what we lost we gained just bunch of janky, less reliable, overcosted meh. Zenestra, Alchemite and some of the other Heroes are the only pure win units, but even then, Alchemite is slow as hell so while great for it, he is compatible only with standing castle walls builds, not fast cavalry ones. Compared to the freedom we had previously this book feels much more constrictive and much less fun. "Just buy 60 fusiliers, couple of buff pieces, stand and shoot" is the feel it gives me. Like the Old World Dwarfs. And that army wasnt exactly thrilling to play with or against. *and this is a nitpick but dont get me started on the fact CoS technologically degraded. We lost matchlock riflemen and got handcannons instead. Yeah thats a downgrade in terms of tech tree*

I wonder, could you maybe complete one of the shooty ones with Lumineth allies ? The Starshard Ballista is pretty solid piece of artillery, and is cheap enough at 120 pts to take 3. Certainly much more reliable dmg output than our overcosted, 24" cannons that hit on 4+. Due to all the buffs be it spells or abilities now being VERY keyword specific you cant really buff them, but on the other hand their warscrolls are solid as they are so not much buffing is needed. Looking at the Keywords, those are AELFs as well, and those units are certainly able to snipe some chaff, or lone small heroes and THANKFULLY those 2 battle tactics dont force the "Cities of Sigmar Aelf" or any other specification on you (I already feel the Battle tactics are dictating the army setup way to much as is). What do you think ?

Checked them out including their warscroll and I think they would fit perfectly! Even their ability to "fly away" and redeploy fits nicely for my dragon Demis. Thanks for the advice!