Kiekeboe

A Varghulf doesn't do this. You can find the battleline/general requirements in the back of the book in the table where you can find the unit points. These are the conditionals we have in FEC: Crypt Flayers: Battleline if general is Crypt Infernal Courtier or in Blisterskin Crypt Horrors: Battleline if general is Crypt Haunter Courtier or in Hollowmourne Royal Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon: Battleline in Gristlegore

Correct, but keep in mind it only works for abilities targeting friendly units WW 12", you can't use a command ability that targets enemies through the Hunters. For example the Winterleaf/Heartwood command abilities won't work as they require you to pick an enemy unit, not a friendly one.

Yep, that's correct. Kurnoth Hunters and allied Sylvaneth wholly within 12" of them are always in range of Sylvaneth command abilities.

I can only hope Sylvaneth gets the love they deserve. Heads up if you're going to convert a bunch: they're on 28.5mm bases (and leader on 40mm), no idea why but yeah... be aware of that if you want to use them competitively 😅

I think we're talking about different units here, small miscommunication 😅 I'm talking about the Khainite Shadowstalkers, which are in essence Tree-revenants - but better. And yep @Popisdead, they do take up one of the allies slots. But I don't think I've ever used allies in LC so that should be doable. At 100 points most people would agree they're severely undercosted.

True, I thought about them as well but since Shadowstalkers are a thing you'll always take those for 20 more points.

There's 42 pages of advice here, browse through and check out lists people post. Living City is extremely flexible in its lists, there is no go-to, you need to be looking for power pairs and pick what you like. The Frostheart Phoenix and Phoenix Guard are one such pair, so you're off to a good start. Other common pairs are Irondrakes/Ironbreakers + Runelord if you like dwarves. Nomad Prince + Sisters of the Watch/Eternal Guard if you like elves. Sorceress+Darkshards if you want a magic combo, Freeguild General + Freeguild dudes, etc, etc. You can also never go wrong with a Hurricanum in any City list. I'm also looking to make the most out of Sylvaneth and I think the only Sylvaneth things that may have a place in LC are: a Durthu general (because of the Living City command trait/artefact), Alarielle (likes the +1 to hit from the Hurricanum and can make sick plays with the move->summon unit->shoot->LC command ability move->charge something that didn't expect to see Alarielle this turn), Drycha (strong anywhere), or melee Kurnoths (strong hammer/anvil with Hurricanum/Luminark backup). It's probably better if you do your own research, write up a list, and ask for feedback on that list - instead of just asking for other people to do all the work for you. Most importantly, have fun. Living City has a million options and is a ton of fun to play because of that, find what works for you

I did but I heard so many things where they were just wrong that I gave up after half an hour because I felt that they had no idea what they were talking about in a competitive sense. Getting points wrong, getting rules wrong, fawning over Household battalion because "It basically has no downsides. The Branchwych is great, the Treelord is great, and you can keep units from retreating which is great!" ... what? I'd love to see a unit of Tree-Revenants survive combat and keep someone important from retreating. They're great and entertaining guys but there were no real takeaways there if you want to up your competitive game, in my opinion. I may have tuned out too early so feel free to correct me if I'm talking rubbish and I'll go back and listen to the rest.

Thoughts on putting the 3xKurnoths+Durthu in Free Spirits to go down to a 3-drop list?

One of the writers on this White Dwarf article (Sam Pearson) wrote this on Twitter yesterday: So I'm guessing this WD will be a bit of lore and the anvils thingy, and we'll have to wait for the Broken Realms: Teclis for rules and battalions.

For sure! The other image on Warhammer Community says "Includes new background and rules for the armies of undeath" so I'm excited. This is supposed to be the first of multiple "Flashpoints". I'm hoping it's a sort of micro broken realms style article with a new battalion or something like that.

Hollowmourne for the Grave Robber trait, Royal Mordants battalion, Billious Decanter. Then cast +D3 attacks from Archregent, and +1 from Ghoul King. Run him into a 10+ block of enemies and get an enemy artefact wielder within 3". Your best case scenario looks like: Claws: 4+1+2+2+3+1 = 13 attacks, 3 dmg each Fangs: 1+1+2+3+1 = 8 attacks, D3+1 dmg each Clear the 10+ block of enemies (should be able to kill any 10-30 unit), then CP repeat to take out the artifact hero. Earlier today I got him up to 11 Claws/6 Fangs attacks and took out 30 Kairic Acolytes and a Lord of Change in one combat phase, the game was over right there. I feel like we should enjoy the Nuclear Varghulf while we still can, people will probably soon learn how to deploy against this when they see the souped-up Varghulf on your list. edit: And let's not forget you're rerolling all hits because you cast a spell near him, and wound rolls of 1 because of Hollowmourne.

Agreed on Durthu, I came to that conclusion when writing about potential generals in my post above. His main weakness is his movement and Sylvaneth has ways around that. I'm not ready to give up on him yet, though. I'll be writing more Durthu lists for testing I pretty much exclusively play with Eternal Guard (and 1 unit of 10 Ironbreakers if I need more battleline) because I just like the elven aesthetic. I've tried 1x30 and 3x10 EG against the same opponent last week (pyrofane cult hero phase shooting kairic acolytes, ouch), and I think both worked great in the plans I set out to do (had a draw and won the other game). When running the 1x30 the goal was to use that block to stall the opponent mid-board and have them waste turns on the EG. In the end they survived in combat for 2 battlerounds , keeping enemies in combat while I could move other units around and strike/shoot elsewhere. When I took 3x10 they sat on objectives and I played a frostheart phoenix to perform the stalling while the rest of the army moved around and took out other threats. If you're looking for a unit to tie down an opponent you can absolutely make 30 EG work, but a Phoenix works just as well. It's personal preference there I guess. The big difference between 1x30 and 3x10 is the role you have for them in your game plan. You can make both work and it's great to have the models to try both game plans, keeps the game and list building interesting in my opinion.

I like this, let's go on a TGA quest to find Living City's best general. There are a few "requirements" to keep in mind. Shooting profile. Lord Celestant on Stardrake/Celestant Prime have shooting abilities so they don't trigger strike and melt away. Drakesworn Templar/Hurricanum/Durthu/etc. do have a shooting profile so they CAN use the ability. Non-named character. Stardrake/Drycha/Alarielle/Celestant-Prime can't take artefacts/command traits, so they're out. Preferably non-mount behemoth to maximize the +1 to wound and rend from Ironoak Artisan/Spear of the Hunt. Phoenixes for example only give the wound and rend buff to the anointed, while the phoenix is the one doing the damage. Durthu for example benefits from all of the buffs. All of this is keeping in mind that we're looking for a general who can utilize the combat trait/artefact optimally and deepstrike or at least look for a fight. If you want to play a bunker-style game with walls of Phoenix Guard and heaps of Sisters/Irondrakes then you do you of course but these generals/this discussion won't fit your gameplan. As @The Red King says, there are only a handful of candidates. Here's my take on the top 5: Frost Phoenix: (Fire phoenix is disqualified in my opinion because his damage is extremely poor and he can't stall opponents as well as frost one can with the -wound aura.) The Anointed on Frost Phoenix is a wonderful general but because he doesn't have a shooting profile. You also need him near a wizard to get the +1 to save, so no deepstriking for him. And while his damage is better than the fire phoenix, it's still mediocre for his points value. The main reason you'd want to bring one is to rush him into your opponent's danger zone and stall for a turn or 2, while you strike elsewhere and comfortably settle bodies on points and whittle down units with your shooting. Getting him to 2+ save with a 4++ save, on top of the -1 to wound aura is brilliant. I do think, however, that the phoenix can fulfil this task just as while not being the general. Drakesworn templar: I recently started testing this guy and he's much better than I expected when looking at his scroll (he's still not worth his points, but in Living City he can at least compete). His damage from attacks is laughably low, you'll have combat phases where you dish out 0-2 damage, it's so sad. The thing however is that he has boardwide D3 dmg on D6 targets, which can range from 0 to 18 damage. And he eats models after piling in if you throw higher than the model's wound characteristic. In my most recent game he survived an attack from 6 Varanguards (because 2+ save), I then piled in and ate one of the middle Varanguard so he had to sacrifice 2 more because of coherency loss. And after combat he rolls again for each enemy unit within 3" to deal another D3 damage. As long as you don't run him into 1-model-units you'll see value from him. Durthu: This guy I've played the most with. He's a bit of a double edged sword (heh). I've had the most wonderful combat phases with him where he does 3 attacks on 3+/2+/-3/6dmg and get 18 dmg through, I've also had combats where he did 0. Him having only 3 attacks and no damaging abilities makes him suuper swingy, but so satisfying when he goes through. What I found is that you can easily deepstrike-shoot-move-charge him where you want him, and he will most likely kill what he get his sword on, but if your opponent screens well they may be able to take him out before the next turn. And his biggest problem is that he only has 5" move so chances are that you'll be walking for 2 turns after you killed the first screen, which feels really bad. In Sylvaneth he's mediocre because you can't get his attacks better than 3+/3+ now that ghyrstrike is gone, but you can at least get +2 attacks from wyldwoods, and more from arch-revenant/artifacts which mitigates the swingyness a bit. He also has his wyldwood teleportation to combat his poor move characteristic. In Living City you have none of the teleporting and no buffs to his number of attacks. Some things I want to test with this guy are: pair him with a Treelord Ancient to yeet a wyldwood to where you're going to deepstrike him. Pair him with a Hurricanum to get him to 2+/2+, and possibly add Knight-Azyros to the party to reroll the 1s as well. Dreadlord on Black Dragon: I don't own this model and have never played TTS games with him as my general, however I can see him working great because he does have the shooting attack, room for artefact/command trait, and strong'ish damage profiles. The thing however is that his strongest attacks are again on the mount, which is a bit of a waste of Ironoak Artisan/Spear of the Hunt. I'd love to hear someone who actually played with this model talk about their experiences. Freeguild General on Griffon: Again I don't own this one. Looking at his stats I think he ends up being very similar if not slightly weaker when compared to Dreadlord on Black Dragon as he has his strongest attacks on the mount, and unfortunately he doesn't have a shooting profile. If I had to rank them from most to least ideal I would probably put them like this: 1: Drakesworn templar 1: Spirit of Durthu 2: Dreadlord on Black Dragon 3: Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix 4: Freeguild General on Griffon I can't make up my mind on #1 because they require different lists around them and can work great in their own regard, they're both excellent. Looking forward to your input Once we end up agreeing on the best 1 or 2 generals we could move on to list speculations.

Yep, I agree. I haven't been able to get any real value out of Nomad Prince lists. The thing with unlocking Sisters as battleline is... you still need actual blocks of battleline, or screens at the very least. You'll still bring your Eternal/Phoenix/Freeguild Guard or some Ironbreakers to have some objective presence as your sisters are going to be deepstriking. So why make the Sisters battleline in the first place? The second downside of a Nomad Prince general is that you're giving up a wonderful command trait in Ironoak Artisan, which has the ability to put some mediocre behemoths in the near-god-tier. In return you get CP on a 4+. After the initial deepstrike -> strike and melt away you rarely need extra CP because your best candidates for it are going to be in combat. Sure it's nice to use a CP for reroll 1's in combat or skip the occasional battleshock but you can really do without the one beyond your 1 per turn. I think including a Nomad Prince means you're not playing Living City to its full potential, you're giving up power somewhere with nothing in return.

Ok hear me out. Thinking outside the box here. Living City is the only army where you can deepstrike a Luminark of Hysh. What about a list with 4 Luminarks (buying/painting these makes me uncomfortable, but that's besides the point) where you put all 4 in reserve -> deploy them alongside your opponent in your first turn -> unleash hellfire along 30" lines basically obliterating whatever you want. You still have 1000 points spare to form something of a backup plan or second wave. Or use those points to add insult to injury by adding a Celestant Prime to take out what's left standing for example. Would this win games? Or is just a bit too gimmicky? I'm sure it won't make you any new friends but as I said, thinking out loud here. Would certainly turn heads if you bring it to a tournament. Unrelated to Luminarks: I've been playing a ton of Living City over the past few months and would like to post my findings. I've gotten loads of really useful info from this forum/thread so I'd love to give some back. (Keep in mind, all of it is anecdotal, it's just what I've experienced in ~15+ games testing different lists) Drakesworn templar, while expensive, has a place in specific lists in Living City. As a general with a 2+ save because of Ironoak Artisan he can be a real nuisance for opponents who lack mortal wounds. Throw him in a flank where he can occupy a chunk of your opponents army and they'll spend 2-3 turns getting rid of it while you score objectives elsewhere. His damage profiles are terrible, don't ever fight 1 on 1 (monster)battles with him. His bite is great, my most recent game I played against a unit of 6 Varanguard where he survived their double activation and then ate the middle one, breaking coherency causing the opponent to have to sacrifice half of the unit. Also plays well with a unit of 4 fulminators/concussors, situationally giving them +1 to hit. Living City is hands down the best place for Sisters of the Watch. While it's true that 20 irondrakes with a runelord deal equal or just a bit more damage, the dwarves just require way more setup and a move or bridge to get them where you want them. Deepstriking units of 10 sisters and taking out key targets is extremely useful. When my main deepstrike comes down on let's say the right side of the board, I just love plopping down 10 sisters on the other end of the board. The opponent has to send something over to deal with them while they're also dealing with your big deepstrike. Meanwhile you're also moving your main anvil up the board to start scoring points. Don't feel bad for not using the deepstrike. Yes this is a defining features of Living City but a poor deepstrike can leave your army out of position and immediately lose the game. I started out with lots of Durthu games because in Living City he's a god (ironoak artisan + spear of the hunt) where in Sylvaneth he's just mediocre to poor now that ghyrstrike is gone. I would deepstrike him with 4 concussors and shoot+move+charge everyone in. This would destroy whatever they landed in but Durthu would just spend the next 3 turns walking to his next target, wasting his potential because he's just so damn slow and had to start his journey at a table edge and enemies just stay away from him. My best performing armies generally consist of 3 main forces. First is a strong anvil backline (things like 6 kurnoths/30 Eternal Guard/20 Phoenix Guard) that protects your wizards/hurricanum/squishies. Second is a main deepstriking force consisting of a strong leader unit with a shooting profile (Durthu/Drakesworn templar) on ironoak artisan/spear of the hunt and supported by another unit that can shoot and fight well in melee like Concussors. And third are my filler deepstrikers like MSU sisters of the watch, shadow warriors, Celestant Prime, or other things that drop down and mainly cause a distraction that has to be dealt with. Having a strategy like this in mind really helps with list building because we all know how complex list building can get with all the options the Cities book gives us. Strike then Melt Away is brilliant, but very situational, and has to be kept in mind when list building. Let's say you're going for a strategy with a strong deepstriking general, this means you're forfeiting General+Adjutant command points. Which also means you can buy the one CP and you're down to 1 per turn after that. If you're doing the Templar+Concussors deepstrike for example, you're burning both your CP in turn 1 to guarantee the charges/positioning so you better pray that your unit of 30 EG isn't in need of a battleshock skip. Strike then Melt Away is a wonderful tool for an initial alpha strike but it's also a great way to burn your CP and hurt yourself later on. Use with caution. For example on an Alarielle to zoom her 32" across the board, dropping 20 dryads midway and charging some big unit on the other side of the field, they won't see it coming. People say that Hurricanum in a cities army is an auto include. I can see why because a +1 to hit bubble, +1 to cast (to battlemages), and a 3D3 mw ranged attack is nothing to scoff at, but at 280 points you can - depending on your game plan - absolutely leave it out of your lists. If you're running a serious deepstrike list you'll find that most often the deepstriking units won't be getting the +1 to hit. You also won't often be running battlemages now that they're 110 points, so that's a +1 to cast it's only giving to itself. Most of the times it's giving the +1 to hit to a big block of battleline it's hiding behind, in my case I prefer playing with Eternal Guard, who already are on 2+ to hit when not moving, so that's a waste. In my lists it usually ends up being a 3D3 mortal wound cannon with a cast in the hero phase. There are better ways to spend 280 points. Next to the Hurricanum auto include you often see Knight-Azyros taken as well. He's generally quite useful in my lists as with his 12" move and small base it's easy for him to keep up, he's also easier to position because he has to shine his light on the enemy, instead of keeping friendlies within range. He's also a good candidate to join deepstrikes because you can set him up with enemies within lantern range and you can use him to cast the Strike then Melt Away from. I originally came here to spew the 4 Luminark idea but it somehow turned into this essay... I'm going to continue playing Living City until Sylvaneth gets a proper book so I'll no doubt be back with updated findings at some point. Next up on the menu is testing out the phoenixes and I'm currently building 3 Gyrocopters to do a deepstrike+bombing run and see if they stay alive long enough to get use out of their steam guns. Learning about Living City continues! Thanks if you made it all this way! The sheer unit variety in the book must make for some wildly different experiences among players, I'd love to hear yours. Cheers,

I ordered it locally for €6,50 and wasn't expecting much but it's a great quality hardback. The story is great, definitely an ending I wasn't expecting (I'm not too familiar with Black Library stuff so it could be common in the Warhammer universe but it was unexpected to me). I sat down yesterday evening and read it in one sitting, only about 140 pages but it grabs you. Don't read on if you don't want the whole story and ending spoiled: All in all: great story, cheap and high quality hardcover book. No reason not to get it.

First time seeing someone suggest that many Shadow Warriors heh. Would love to see this in action. One thing about the retinue/adjutant though: they don't apply when your general has more than 6 wounds. And you probably mean Branchwraith instead of the Wych. I'm also interested in making a TLA list work but I would like to try a list with Durthu + TLA where the TLA yeets a forest towards the place where Durthu is going to do his deepstrike, so he ends up with 5 attacks after deepstrike->shoot->move->charge.

duplicate post please ignore, can't figure out how to delete a post

The preview showed an image with it being about the same height as one of the 3 wyldwood models.

True, but I don't count that one because honestly how often does that work out? With all the magic hate flying around (and us not having real casting buffs) you're very unlikely to be able to cast it and besides that, who are you going to give it to? Alarielle will take Throne instead, Branchwraith will have to give up attempting the 10 dryad summon to restore 1 model which makes no sense. Treelord ancient is the only model who can afford to give up his own cast to try the Verdurous Harmony but let's be honest, he's generally a waste of points. Drycha perhaps but you'd rather have the heal spell there. I mean Sylvaneth, a faction about life and restoration, needs an actual way of restoring models. Legions have gravesites, Gloomspite has the shrine, FEC has a million ways to restore models, Bonereapers bring back everyone, even Warclans have the battalion that brings back ardboys. Most of these things just work, or require a 4+ roll without the opponent having the option to stop it. That's the reliable model restoring that would make sense in Sylvaneth, the faction where you can put the goddess of life magic on the table. There's an entire story in the book "Legends of the Age of Sigmar" with a Branchwych as the main character and their sole duty is gathering and tending to soul pods. I would really like to see some of this reflected in the game. Back on the topic of what I'd like to see in a broken realms update: I think we need a new book with drastic changes to fix the faction, but for now I think one of the better changes we could get is to simply rewrite all of Sylvaneth's "Heal 1/D3/D6 wounds" to "Heal 1/D3/D6 wounds or if there are no wounds allocated restore 1/D3/D6 models worth of wounds".

Nah in my opinion the woods are a core part of the Sylvaneth identity. A table where a Sylvaneth player has planted 2 or 3 woods just looks great, you can see from a few tables away that there's a Sylvaneth player here. I just really want more reliable ways to place them, casting them is stopped so easily. And if it does fail, your whole game plan for that turn goes out the window. Perhaps some more impactful rules as well, something with soul pods and returning models to units which would thematically be super-Sylvanethy. It's crazy we don't have model restoring already given how important soul pods are in every Sylvaneth piece of lore you can find.

I ran an Alarielle + Durthu list in the previous tournament I went to a few months ago. It was a 3 game event and I practiced the list against about 5 different armies before that and I've never managed to spawn a wood unfortunately. There's just so much magic hate going around plus you need to wipe out a unit with a lucky roll. I didn't play Hurricanum back then but that wouldn't have helped with casting unfortunately. Durthu doesn't really need a wood in Living City if you make him your general and give him the artifact. Him being on +1 to wound/rend/strike first makes him a god already. Especially if you manage to fly the Knight Azyros close or get the Hurricanum in there. He's just very slow. I've thought about it but I tend to revert to Dryads because they're cheaper and woods make them really annoying to deal with. I am however trying to write up a Sylvaneth list that includes 20 Sisters of the Watch. They're way too strong, and good shooting is something Sylvaneth seriously lacks. Try mathhammering Bow Kurnoths' damage per point spent against Sisters, it's laughable. I'm leaning towards Dreadwood right now because Dreadwood lists don't have to spawn woods aside from the pre-game one, this way you're not shooting (heh) yourself in the foot by blocking your Sisters' line of sight. Other threats are going to be 1 or 2 blocks of 6-9 Swords/Scythes to teleport around. Still theorycrafting on this one, would love to test it but we're likely entering lockdown again where I live

No problem, let me know how the Templar works! I've actually been looking to replace my Durthu with a Templar because I've noticed that Durthu's initial bang is amazing, but once he's slain his target he can easily spend 3 turns walking to his next target with his amazing 5" move. I'm thinking I'm going to be okay with lowering that initial damage a bit by grabbing a Templar and gaining a lot of movement freedom. Better than I would expect, really. I play them in units of 10 as screens/home objective keepers while half the list does their deepstrike thing. More often than not I find them still alive after something hits them that should be killing them. And if they get to fight they'll most often deal some damage too, not too shabby. Their point cost is not ideal if you're only using them as a screen. If you want them for screening you'd rather have Ironbreakers which have the exact same 3+ save but for 110 points and don't have to stand still. I'm just here in Living City because Sylvaneth is broken in their own allegiance so I'd rather play EG because they fit the Sylvaneth theme better visually.

I've played something similar to this minus the Kurnoth package, adding in Hurricanum+Knight Azyros and playing Durthu instead of Templar. I played 4 Fulminators and while their initial strike is amazing, they often remain in combat and the turn after when not charging their damage is simply pathetic for their points cost. I would strongly recommend Concussors. Their initial damage is only slightly lower than the Fulminators on the charge (mortal wounds make up for the damage gap you would expect simply comparing weapon profiles), and they do the exact same damage the turn after when not charging. The game plan is probably the same as what I had so I can confirm the list is absolutely fun to play, enjoy