dekay

Deep striking a full horde of 20 dark riders is something that needs to be done. A lot of shots, a lot of attacks, reasonable price. With bonus move making their charge reliable it might be a pretty viable thing to do.

Dwarf and human lists are more popular, but there are some great things TE can do with Aelven perspective. 1. Scourgerunner chariot horde. Used to be plain broken before the price hike they got in latest GHB, but even now, it's very strong. Extra speed and durability in turn 1 makes you pretty much control the start of the battle. Hawk Eyed trait is great for any shooting list, and this certainly is one. 2. Drakespawn knights (they used to be terrible, but got way cheaper). extra speed and 2+ armour on turn 1. Access to Aura of Glory, which works great for any high quality-low volume attacks such as their lances. Re-roll charges for free with zephyrite banner around. They do require some support to do actual killing, though, they're more of a mobile anvil unit. Both drakespawn chariots and scourgerunners have been used to great effect here. 3. Darkshards. Combination of extra move, bonus to run and command underlings gives them 33' threat range in the first turn, so they can shoot at basically anything you might want to make 50 saves (because, with a full unit, hurricanum buff, hawk eyed and re rolling 1's to hit either for a CP which we get a lot of, or from Azyros, that's how much it'll be.) 4. Black Guard/Executioners. Extra move, run and charge (with access to a re-roll) can easily grant them a 1st turn charge. Also, aura of glory combined with inspire hatred. 5. Fleetmaster and aura of glory give corsairs 6 attacks each. I'm not saying it's a viable tactic, but the bucket of dice it requires is hilarious. Oh, and that corsair horde can be made immune to battleshock. 6. Shadow Warriors are thematically appropriate and work great unsupported. Good to get some table presence when your main force remains under hawk eyed/hurricanum/aura of glory/inspire hatred blobs. 7. You can have a dreadlord that always fights first. If you're not going for a shooting army, it's a good thing to have. 8. And let's mention Wanderers as well. Sisters like hawk eyed, wild riders like 1st turn move and save boost. 9. Phoenix Temple units are good in any city. Same here.

You, sadly, overestimate them. There's arch regent, a vargulf (old resin model) a dragon/terrorgheist kit and all the other heroes are built either out of these, or out of their 2 unit boxes ; ). So 3 hero kits total. So 5 kits total, plus spells, terrain and underworlds crew. Almost as bad as bonesplitterz...

From what I heard Har Kuron doesn't get retinue and adjutants (and empowered spells, which hurts a bit). But I feel they make up for it with other rules.

Yeah i genuinely feel for them. Especially that they really did some quality writing in there. But I really like where this is going, because it means that AoS won't suffer from 40k's eternal status quo problem. Apparently the authors won't shy away from straight up removing a playable faction from the setting if it fits the narrative, only adding 'yeah you can still play anvilgard if you want' basically turning into a 'historical' faction and leaving a place for those who wanted to create, say, group of former citizens who escaped Morathi's conquest but are keeping the city's traditions alive, but, setting-wise? There's no Anvilgard anymore. And that's great, because now, with upcoming events such as siege of Excelsis we don't know what to expect. If it was done like in 40k, it would be 'Gordrakk wrought terrible ruin upon the city, but Stormcast heroically drove him off, so he ran, swearing vengeance. The city was quickly rebuilt.' Now we know we'll be getting some actual story!

So, fun thing I noticed, tactics/combo wise. We all know that darkshards are great when it comes to effective range and volume of fire and few of the cities were great at making them even better in both. From what we know now, Har Kuron can buff them better than anything we had before. Old things: Vitriolic spray (unreliable, a bit less so with +2 to cast, but turns them into a blender), command underlings (to give them around (30+deployment) threat range). What we lose: Hurricanum (for +1 to hit, not sure if there are other ways to compensate for it) and Azyros (for re-roll 1's. Substitute with a command point). What we gain: WELL. Battalion bumps their 80 shots on a full unit to 120, if I understand correctly. And then there's the Withering, giving them +1 to wound. Yeah I kinda feel that +1 to hit we're missing out on doesn't seem all that great right now. Not saying it's practical, but it certainly is fun.

So, with some proper positioning, deepstrike on 9 -d6 for basically anything? This has such an incredible potential for a guaranteed charge.

This sounds, honestly, great. Do we know if Beasthunters battalion is still in? It opens some interesting choices, especially for using units that were usually overlooked in CoS. Say, Dark Riders. Much more attractive if their competition is gone. And it looks like Misthavn is custom made for all those who started their human pirate anvilgard armies they wouldn't be able o use now ; ) You know what, I actually kinda hope we'll get more of such changes, especially cities without the full sub-faction rosters.

You should meet Icegoat, you'll get along splendidly. We know literally 1/3rd of one rule from Misthavn, it's a BIT too early to complain (especially that one of those two drugs is actually good). So, we can now safely assume Shadowhost is a Har Kuron battalion, right? There's a chance for a reasonable rules update for Anvilgard, too, no longer relying on a single spell and +d3 command points ; ). If Stormcast are gone, that's not all that much of a worry, too, Anvilgard never had any reasonable stormcast synergies that, say Living City has. All in all, I feel it can only be a plus, unless they do something really, really weird with the rules. And, yeah, as others mentioned, fun to see 90% of the Dark Elves of yore back in one place. Basically only foot/cavalry dreadlords, reaper, pegasus and manticore are gone now, but as there's some proxy potential for all of them, old players should be happy!

It seems like a bonus completely unrelated to artifacts. We still need to wait for more rules.

And Hallowheart is bad because pauldrons of living flame are unreliable! Yeah, maybe if we could wait for more rules before we start mourning? Also, one turn ethereal drug can be very good if timed correctly (keeping, say, hurricanum alive one turn longer can change the game) , I wonder what the rest will look like. The thing I wait for the most concerns battalions, though. Namely, do the new cities get them? Is Shadowhost tied to a single city or will it be availible to all? Is Har Kuron even a new city or is it Anvilgard renamed after Morathi takes it over (hey, it's a possibility!)?

What traits are we talking about? I can't think of anything it would change, except for giving SoB some way to dispel endless spells.

This is not a drill!

Oh, yeah, I agree with you, just elaborating on the point. And as for fyreslayers, that's entirely true! They have quite a small amount of choice, both kit and warscroll wise. And still, their army has 3 units and 11 heroes, + underworlds warband, terrain and spells. And ally options. And Kharadron battletome allowing for building a mixed army. And yet, there are still justified complaints that it's not enough, so I don't really get how can anyone be surprised people are complaining about choice in SoB ; )

There's one more thing in play here: Many of us remember the days of 7th edition 40k when they were flooding the game with mini factions (tempestus, skitarii, genestealer cults, cult mechanicus, talons of the emperor, knights), we have since learned that it was because of the ridiculous marketing strategy involving white dwarf release schedule, and it was widely regarded as a bad idea. AoS has of course fallen victim to this strategy too (early battletomes for bonesplitterz, beastclaw raiders and so on) but, the thing is, both 40k and AoS have since moved away from this strategy. The factions have been either combined into bigger books (warclans, mechanicus etc) or developed with second wave of releases (genestealers, custodes, knights) or at the very least, in case of AoS, with new characters, underworlds models and endless spells (in case of factions with kinda reasonable number of units, such as flesheaters or fyreslayers). And here, out of nowhere, we get SoB, entirely in line of the previous design philosphy that many consider a failure. So here we are, looking at their 4 unit-2 kit army list asking 'where's the other half?' Because everything else that was comparatively compact in the past has since grown. EDIT, additional reflection: Look at Lumineth. Folks call Lumineth unfinished and lacking their Tyrionic half, and it's a faction of 10 units, endless spells and now underworlds warbands too. almost 3 times the choice of SoB. Compare it to say, Bonereapers, another faction that came out of nowhere that, despite borrowing only 4 warscrolls from the earlier Legions of Nagash still feels very much complete.

The more I think of the faction, the more I'm inclined to agree. Typically, you're starting new army with smaller games, like 1000 pts. In SoB, and that's kinda ridiculous, it means you're buying one mega gargant box and 2 boxes of mancrushers. That's literally your only option, and 100% of customisability (what tribe you'll be playing) can be done with magnets. So let's develop your new army further, to 2000 pts. You buy third box of mancrushers (you have one extra anyway, so might as well make it 6) and add a second mega gargant. Or you buy two mega gargants instead. Again, your only options. Now, that you have your 2000 points, you might want to buy something for alternate builds. Depending on your previous choice you buy... huh. Third mega gargant or third box of mancrushers? And it fou REALLY want all the options, you might buy 2 more boxes of mancrushers to be ale to play 1+9. Yeah all those are horribly expensive and it won't be in any way cheaper than a regular army, but it's downright weird how little decision making is involved when buying these.... (i mean, yeah, you COULD buy 9 mega gargants to have 3 of each type if you're allergic to magnets, but if you don't like converting, is this really an army for you? 3 identical monsters as a centerpiece don't look too good....) To add to this, the faction has no allies, so you have zero incentive to develop the force in any other direction. And comparing SoB to Imperial Knights is kind of wrong mostly because Knights have always had a very long list of allies. Knights supported by Guard were radically different to play than knights with AdMech and both were different to pure knights. Using a gargant as mercenary is kind of similar but it robs him of most of his special rules AND costs extra 50 pts in form of a command point (and, most important difference, it gives you no incentive to buy more gargants, as you're limited to 1 anyway!). And ever since knights got their 8th edition codex (and before that we're talkingo of dark times of mini-factions from the previous era which was rightly left behind) they have more than twice the number of SoB units. Not even counting forgeworld!

...Huh. What's up with those Lumineth poses? For me it's the single ugliest underworlds warband yet. One with the hammer is not bad, but he's basically indistinguishable from regular stoneguard, archer would be in the same situation but his pose is completely unflattering for his robe and highlights the asymmetry of the bow in the wrong way (is he playing it like a harp?). Sword lady with her straight up sword/banner/hair lines and derpy face is downright hilarious and the mage, while interesting, clearly isn't improved by his king fu pose. I don't remember when was the last time when I disliked the new release so much... The slaaneshi are great, though. If Slaanesh mortals ever come out and look like this, it will be one of the best chaos lines.

And if you just stick to the basic, cheapest Mantic giant (the third one, which still has some customisation options!) you can literally get a full SoB force for a price of a single GW mega gargant. My advice for anyone getting priced out would be, as some already mentioned, is asking yourself if you're really hell bent on playing in GW stores and tournaments. Because if not, there are a lot of alternative models, many of them of similar quality. Personally, hen I've started my current army projects I decided to go GW only, but I've come to regret it and probably won't be doing it ever again. Too many good options on the market. Also, I've been GW's customer for years, but in all honesty, i feel personally offended at the notion of SoB warscroll cards. 4 units, 3 mercenary companies (that a] you won't use if you want to play SoB, b] are technically the same as 3 of those 4 units!) for that price? That's beyond reason.

You know, Seeing drakespawn knight's shield and sword among the trophies of the new Gargant is oddly optimistic for the future of the Cities. It kind of suggests that this particular design has a bigger chance of remaining in game. Who can know for sure, but makes them a bit more grounded in the setting. [edit after several days, it MIGHT be a DoK stuff after all but still, there are some distinctly disposessed trophies in there as well, so not all is lost :D]

I personally wouldn't mind to change the language surrounding Seraphon to make them completely gender less. There isn't any other faction like this and it would work well with their general 'otherness'. But sprinkling some female pronouns into their lore would work as well, especially as they're the one faction where it doesn't need any change in model design. Whatever physical characteristics they might have to signify their sex, they don't need to be in any way recognizable for us (and no one should want lizard ******).

Cawl is a heretek given unlimited resources, literally 100x the time the Emperor had, hghest mandate to do whatever the hell he wants, additional info and materials from the Selenar the Emperor *didn't* have and literally no moral restrictions. Three lines of text about how he succeeded in doubling the SM recruiting pool after thousands of years of experimenting would solve this plot hole you speak of. Still, no women in Heresy era. No Firstborn. Only primaris. done.

I recall the original reddit thread you're referencing, and I very much don't agree with ignoring Underworlds characters (and, specifically, underworld heroes, I agree that women from eyes of the nine or grymwatch shouldn't be counted as they don't even get separate rules). On on hand, I do understand Pebbles' reasoning that they originally came from a different game and are as such less important for AoS proper. On the other hand a) half of AoS models originally came from a different game if you think about it and b) more importantly,let me put it like this: I don't play underworlds. I play AoS. I am under no obligation to have any knowledge of underworlds. What I know from AoS is that, say, Theddra, Ylthari or Fecula, are AoS characters, with rules and lore of AoS characters. And if we agree they're full fledged AoS characters for someone with no knowledge of Underworlds, having that knowledge shouldn't diminish their role for those of us who do. Because otherwise, we're dangerously close to WFB models and 'Cities are not a real faction' and I will now let it stand Also, try telling Beasts of Chaos players that Grashrak is not a real character, see what they respond ; ) That, however, should bump Flesheaters to a faction with named characters, because Duke Crackmarrow is there.

Speaking of weird artifacts, isn't Phoenix stone just... unfun? Most times you take it, it will do absolutely nothing, triggering only on a 6 in quite rare occurence of hero dying near user. We're talking 3 rolls per game max. But sometimes it does work, and you just get a brand new Teclis, worth 1/3 of your entire army point value. Neither of those outcomes seems fun to play either with or against, it's in this weird state where it's usually too weak but in a rare occurrence absurdly strong... It's way too random to see much use in competitive play i think (unless the rest of their artifacts are just terrible and you have a spare slot, i guess), but sometimes, once every few friendly games it takes part with, it will be 'i win' button. Only no one can control if the button will be pressed. Say what you will about sword adding attack to a wizard, at least you can predict what it does.

In CoS both Hammerhal and Tempest's Eye can do proper pure cavalry lists (both battalion based) that both had reasonable degree of success in larger tournaments. It's also the easiest army to branch out into other cavalry units and chariots. There's a lot of choice and most of them are considered good, or at least tolerable. And apart from those two known to be good, people have also got to high places in tournaments with things like mass drakespawn knights that no one before suspected could work, so there are clearly additional possibilities. And it's better than some alternatives mentioned in a sense you won't be spamming a single unit over and over again, but you can actually have some variety. And Slaves to Darkness are a solid alternative, with both several units to choose from and some rules support for pure cavalry armies as well.

Just to chime in, if you're choosing between those two, Sorceress on dragon is, in basically every circumstance, better than mage on griffon. And to add another good caster for aura of glory, lord arcanum on gryph-charger is fast, durable and reasonably priced. And the model is very cheap on the aftermarket thanks to Soul Wars. And I agree that you should probably drop the battalion until you can make it bigger. 120 points is a lot and you have quite a few unit drops anyway, so you'd probably be better off buying more troops for this. Aetherguard Windrunners is a great way of fitting almost the entire army into it, and is best used like that (with just 1-3 extra units on top of it, to give you a greater probability of choosing who goes first.). As a small support segment of the army it's probably not worth the price.