dekay

Note on that, Drycha is a named character so she can't receive traits or artefacts. Spirit of Durthu is a popular choice specifically because of that, he costs the same and can be upgraded. Drycha is a good choice in Living City, but you shouldn't take her as te only character precisely because it makes free traits and items go to waste.

But you never saw a character without any artifacts - yeah, some were never used, but if you had a choice of 30+ items per faction, no one could've possibly have enough heroes for all that. If we had item costs , but with similar choice we have now, a lot of rarely used ones would see play.

They did in some sense, but only after CoS came out - option to give those skyhooks easy +1 to hit/wound, extra move, run and shoot and battleshock immunity, together with cheep screens, made them temporarily into the most ridiculous Cities build. Meta impact wasn't huge because for many reasons CoS are a fascinating aberration when it comes to meta and competitiveness in general, but locally, wherever this list popped up, others were forced to plan for it.

They're actually very weak and likely no one will use them in competitive setting. What you see highlights the problems with the Stormcast, though. A lot of units are too weak and they're up for an update soon.

Out of the long list of things in the rules that are not logical from the lore perspective, this one doesn't even place in top 10 ; ) (But the damage coming from magical cart is *not* halved because, and I know it's weird, it doesn't technically deal *damage*. It deals *mortal wounds*. Completely different things :D)

Reducing damage means, that 'Damage' statistic of any attack that targets him is halved. It only works for things that have 'Damage' statistic, so any attacks without a regular statline (say, Storm of Shemtek) are not affected, as there's no 'Damage' that can be reduced.

You can, technically, generate 5 a turn with a single liege kavalos and battalions if you're determined (and that's before single use items and fishing for 6s). Not saying it's in any way an optimal way to build a list, but if someone truly hates characters, OBR lose less than many other factions.

Idoneth cavalry lists require minimal character support (and you need a general anyway - Volturnos could reasonably be the only character you use.). Apart from that, just mass akhelians, sharks and turtles. Not really a horde army as every thing is pretty elite, but you really won't overinvest in characters. CoS Tempest's Eye two-drop cavalry list - you need exactly two characters: a griffon general and a mage on hurricanum. Everything else is just all the pistoliers, outriders and gunhaulers you can get. Gloomspite Troggoth list: All troggoths, all the time. You will need a trogboss, of course, maybe a hag, but everything else can be unit based. It's not the strongest thing to play but it's fun. And, as above, OBR can do quite fine as well, they have extremely solid unit core. I would really advise against using a non-buffing character only. Command points are a resource you're expected to use. By simply letting them accumulate you gain nothing, basically handicapping your army. It's not as extreme as saying 'i want to play without using my movement phase' but it's up there. Keeping it minimal? Cool. Not using it at all? Don't expect to win much.

Or otherwise, if you're not greywater, you can just ally her in.

On the one hand, yes, on the other, up until now it was the only faction in game never to get a new model. It was (rightly) worrying for some.

I came to this thread with exact same intention. But in general, it's nice to finally see a solid proof the faction is not doomed and we'll be getting model updates too.

This is extremely important. A lot of people have been waiting for the proof CoS will be getting actual updates in the future (being treated fairly well in Borken Realms helped, but still, no models) and getting new regular humans for CoS is exactly what we've been waiting for.

The priestess is not terrible. A solid heal that can't be countered... if you feel lucky, because it's also unreliable as hell. She might be usable against unbind-heavy armies where you won't cast this lifeswarm anyway. The mage is not bad, but i don't think his unique spell compensates for the loss of city keyword, especially in the cities where spells and artifacts buff magic. After that it gets worse. Captain provides battleshock immunity for combat units I guess? Not bad, but we don't really lack those. The others are just squishy combat characters that don't do anything else, and there's a reason why Assassin is not popular despite having a better delivery method. Overall, solid meh. But they will be pretty proxies for sure!

The more I think of it, the more I'm certain that this city *needs* to rely on Lumineth to offer something worthwhile. Either units (although something not relying on Lumineth allegiance must be found) or characters for some otherwise unique skills. Mountain spirits seem like a good option, being plain better than our native monsters. Dawnriders work quite well on their own and they're plain better than our own cavalry, Teclis is always worth considering, it's only a matter of choosing *which* endless spells we need to autosucceed... But apart from that, as others said, although nothing the city offers is plain bad, most of the things it does are better done elsewhere. So, i'd say either you find a good use for Lumineth or this isn't a city for you. There's also a matter of battalion. I *want* to like it. Its skills are really good - buffed luminark is a pretty incredible unit. But it's just so horribly expensive... I mean, not only it's expensive on its own, the tax of taking a light mage and mage-less luminark separately is insane, and it's not something anyone should consider doing in regular circumstances. If it turns out it's worth the points, cool. It's a good battalion consisting of only good units. But the pricetag is very harsh. Additional thought, comparing the city to our other 1-in-4 options, Settler's Gain is pretty unique in the regard of 'can have units from another army' being its main selling point. Tempest's Eye works perfectly well without KO (and rarely uses more than some light support), Living City works great with native units and stormcast only, with Sylvaneth being pretty optional, even in Har Kuron, with its extremely limited unit choice, thanks to the spell lore, artifacts, battalion and prayer, DoK are absolutely not needed to make something useful out of it (a single DoK priestess to not waste your command trait on casting prayer is a reasonable minimum, but even this is not mandatory).

Sadly, as the realm artifacts exist, it's not 100% useless right now. You can always give a freeguild hero the Hysh item, so it's unlikely they'll faq it. And, on more positive note, despite some opinions, I'd say Settler's Gain is above Misthavn, power level wise. Due to some interesting combos with Lumineth, for me it's solidly mid tier, possibly higher after new Lumineth tome comes out and we'll figure out some stronger combos. Also, hey, all those flying steam tank conversions people made in Thermalrider days have found their home again! Another random idea, +1hit/wound trait is not terrible for assassin general. Assassin general is a pretty, well, exotic idea anyway, but if you really want shadowbade battleline, having your mandatory assassin do 2+/2+ without any support is not the worst thing that can happen. And you can give him said hysh artifact for free re rolls of 1's, too.

I guess just the standard city lore spells. Doesn't matter, he just needs to cast uncounterable bridge turn 1 and +1 to hit from the city lore and mystic shield on auto 12 after that.

Unblockable teleport, go!

As an ally, Gotrek can't take any upgrades. Healing him with Lifeswarm works just fine, though.

The skills look a bit like a Hallowheart lite, that is true, but if it can include Teclis - that's a potential boost in itself. There are some strange lists to be made here.

General on warhorse is a legacy model no longer usable in matched play (outside of Legends at least) and as such, will have some not up to date keywords. All former Empire models still in the game have Cities of Sigmar keyword.

Underworlds beastmen are genuinely good, some of the warcry cultists are good in StD, but in general, most models like this are just for flavour. I hope this time will be different, because it would serve GW as a chance to update CoS without actually investing in updating CoS - they should like the upportunity.

Would be very weird if they disappeared. The models exist and the box can't be discontinued without removing, like, half of the Flesheater model line ; ). Same goes for Zombie Dragon. Speaking of, despite no confirmation yet, I'm almost certain that Manfred and Neferata are in (because it would make zero sense not to include them), same as Coven Throne and Bloodseeker Palanquin. Highly likely that Mortis Engine will be in as well, because where else to put it? Out of the current models I'd also be willing to bet that Corpse Cart will be in the book as well. It still looks good and zombies are in the book, so... ^There are also new vampires from Underworlds. Who knows, maybe it will be the Beastmen case and they'll be actually useful?

Grave Guard still look a lot more fancy than the new skeletons and they're very consistent, style wise, with Black Knights. I wouldn't be surprised if they remained unchanged.

It has been faqed for the general rules, not only CoS. When Behemoths become battleline, they don't take up a behemoth slot (but a word of warning, tanks, as cool as they are, are not all that good when taken in large numbers. It does look good on the table though.)

Looking at it from 40k perspective, out of all the Blackstone Fortress characters, most of them were utterly useless except for Daedalosus who became almost mandatory in every single AdMech army (fun fact, he was also the only one to have a real support skill, I hope they learned something from this) We'll see if we get a better result this time.