readercolin

Consider how you are going to use them. Lets take some squads of 6 as an example. With the normal guns, a squad of 6 is going to deal ~6 damage at range. However, because they all have saws, they can also deal ~7.8 damage in melee. If we give them special weapons, then we bump the ranged damage up to ~7 damage at range. However, the melee damage drops to ~4. (Note, all numbers before taking into account save rolls). What this means is that if we want a unit that can sit back and get a little bit of sniping on, and maybe accompany a long ranged ship, then the special weapons are a good idea. However, if your plan is to drop a ship in at 10" away to unload with all of its guns, then we don't lose much by using the normal shots. But, we get to double their melee damage output, which is going to make them a better screen for the ships as they are slightly scarier for the opponent to charge into. We still aren't talking about boatloads of damage for a 200 point investment though. Looking at some of the other dedicated cavalry that you can pick up for ~180-200 points, they are all averaging ~9.8-11.6 damage before any outside buffs come in. If you want a dedicated "Cavalry" unit, you need to look at Skywardens in Barak Zon. A squad of 6 of these guys will put out ~14.4 damage on the charge, putting them in the same range as a unit of buffed Chaos Knights, or buffed Demigryphs. However, in exchange for the melee damage, you lose out on all ranged damage beyond 9", which means you can't shoot after flying high, and are only actually effective when charging. For me, I would generally look to run units of riggers without any special weapons. The extra 1 damage at range is a little inconsistent (you have 2 units that get 1 shot for 3 damage, vs 3 shots for 1 damage each), and you lose too much melee damage to function effectively as a screen. Plus, a 12" range is more than close enough to hit things after flying high. I would only look to run special weapons if I had something very specific that I was planning on doing with them. I would also only look to run skywardens if I was wanting to run them in Barak Zon, and I would probably spend a good bit of time proxying them first before settling on that specific skyport and build, because no one else wants to use skywardens in the same way (cause they will only deal ~8.6 damage outside of zon - a 33% drop in melee damage, and they still don't function as fly-high ranged attackers). Also, at $40/3 models... yeah... I'm not going to be collecting droves of them.

I fail to see a reason to take a block of 9 kitties. If you take a block of 6 and don't give it any buffs, it deals 18.8 damage to a 4+ save on the charge. Give it buffs (re-roll 1's to hit from command point/vindicators, re-roll wounds from empower, pride leader for +1 to attack, and Celestial Blades for +1 to wound) and the block goes up to 40 damage to a 4+ save. This is already enough to delete whatever they run into. Going up to a unit of 9 isn't usually going to get more models into combat (I already frequently have issues getting more than 5 into combat). It also makes it even more difficult to get them into range for pride leader, meaning you will be losing your +1 to hit. Lastly, you are concentrating so many points into one unit that you are going to struggle to screen and is going to be an easy target for your opponents to focus on. In your list, you have 9 kitties and the Celestant Prime as your only threats. This is... probably not diversified enough for your threats. Against some armies, this isn't going to be a big deal. But send this up against say, Tzeentch, or Cities and they are going to make you miserable.

Page 7 of the core rulebook: Once all of a unit’s attacks have been resolved, add up the damage that was inflicted. The player commanding the target unit must then allocate a number of wounds to the target unit equal to the damage that was inflicted. As you can see here, all the attacks go through first, and then wounds are allocated. Since all of the attacks must go through first, you therefore have to finish all of your attacks, then all of your saves from all weapon profiles before you start allocating wounds. If there is any question about something like mortal wounds dealt through the attacking phase, ex. "Mortal Wounds on 6's". The section on mortal wounds says this: MORTAL WOUNDS Some attacks, spells and abilities inflict mortal wounds. Do not make hit, wound or save rolls for mortal wounds. Instead, the damage inflicted on the target is equal to the number of mortal wounds that were suffered. Allocate any mortal wounds that are caused while a unit is attacking at the same time as any other wounds caused by the unit’s attacks, after all of the unit’s attacks have been completed. Mortal wounds caused at other times are allocated to models in the target unit as soon as they occur, in the same manner as wounds caused This would mean that if you have a unit (ex. sisters of the watch) that deal mortals on 6's to hit, those wounds are dealt at the same time as all the rest of the wounds from the attack. This means that the unit would still have the +1 to save from 10+ models in the unit. Basically, there is one situation where you can kill dryads and remove their save. This is if you have something like "mortal wounds on a charge". Deal 1 mortal on the charge, and then they are down to 9 before you begin your attacks.

Is this actually better than running the Living City? All you would have to do to run living city is drop the reavers for another unit (outriders seem to be the most equivalent, though you could also use dark riders) and then drop morathi. In exchange, you get city specific spells (namely, life surge, to heal gotrek back up to full), and you also get empowered endless spells. You also get the ability to deep strike some of your units. Alternatively, you can swap the dryads out for another battleline unit and switch on over to hallowheart, and as long as you grab a 2nd caster you will have as many casts between the knight-incantor and the 2nd caster as you would with the knight-incantor and non-monstrous morathi. While you are doing that, you also get access to additional spells. I would much rather have Sear Wounds, Ignite Weapons, and Roaming Wildfire as 3 spells that I cast than Morthi's warscroll spell, arcane bolt and mystic shield. Basically, I don't see bringing morathi along as being worth it compared to the extra bonuses that you can get by running a Cities of Sigmar army. If you are super attached to running Morathi at all costs, then go for it I guess... But you have a variety of good casting options and big beatstick monsters available to you in the cities, and I'm not seeing the value in her myself.

Ask yourself what the purpose for the unit is. Longbeards are useful to bring out in a 10 man unit to get the re-roll 1's to wound bubble, and to have as a cheap unit for battleline. It is really hard to justify bringing them in larger units or for another purpose though, because if you want bodies on an objective that are tough to move, then for 30 points less you can run freeguild guard. For 220 points you could have 20 longbeards, or for 240 you could have 30 guard. Additionally, the extra firepower that comes from running ironbreakers or hammerers for only a few more points makes the longbeards look even worse. However, again, the re-roll 1's to wound aura is something that you can't get anywhere else, so a small unit or two can definitely make it into a force. Ironbreakers cost 20 points more than longbeards, and in exchange get double the attacks. Worried about lack of rend? Grab a runelord and buff them (you should be running 2+ runelords anyways in a dwarf heavy force), and if it is super important, remember that you can double up on these buffs. Remember, they can fight in 2 ranks, so it is really easy to get 20 of them into combat. Hammerers cost 30 more points than longbeards. However, when you run the numbers you will find that hammerers are actually one of the killiest units in the entire game. While they have a base 3+/3+/-1/1 attack profile, it is really easy to give them extra attacks, extra to-hit, extra to-wound, re-roll 1's to hit, and re-roll 1's to wound. An unsupported unit of hammerers isn't really worth the points compared to a unit of ironbreakers/longbeards. However, if you are giving them the support they can easily hit well above their weight points wise. For reference, the base damage of a unit of 10 hammerers is ~12.8 damage. Fully buffed in tempest eye, that can get buffed up to ~39 damage. Lastly, we have irondrakes. Irondrakes exist for the purpose of having an extremely killy unit with good range. An unbuffed unit of irondrakes is going to be putting out ~9.8 damage if they stand still. Fully buffed, that can go up to 20.8 damage. However, they don't have to get into melee to do this, so it is easier to keep all these buffs going for them. So how does this all come together? If you are running irondrakes, I would run a block of 20 drakes with a block of 10 longbeards screening them. To get them fully buffed, park a hurricanum right behind them, and either have hawk eyed (if tempest eye) or give them ignite weapons (if hallowheart). If you are looking for a large, hard to move block that is going to sit on an objective or to act as a front line that is hard to break, then ironbreakers is what you want to run. That being said, you do need to make the decision that you want to be running dwarfs for this, because you can have 30 ironbreakers for 330 points, or 40 freeguild guard for 280 points. Or for 320 points, you can have a block of 40 dreadspears, or 330 points for a 30 block of eternal guard. None of these choices is going to be all that great for pushing out damage, though ironbreakers are probably the killiest of these options. However, they all serve the same purpose, which is to be a tough unit that is hard to move. Lastly, if you want a killy infantry unit, then you want to bring out hammerers. However, they do have 1 major issue, which is mobility. 4" move is just... slow, which makes it hard for them to get into position to do damage. Once they do though, if they have support they can delete whatever they run into. However, they are really competing against irondrakes as being the killy unit that you bring out, and irondrakes tend to be able to apply their damage better. Alltogether, I would highly recommend running a unit (or two) of irondrakes with a screen of longbeards supporting them and screening them. However, both of the other units need a long hard look before you decide to run them, simply because of how much overlap they have with other units in the cities. If you know you really want to take dwarfs, then look at taking the ironbreakers as your anvil, and then a mix (of your choice) of irondrakes and hammerers as your hammer. But make sure you look at the other options before you decide to dedicate yourself to the dwarfs.

Weighing in on the Chaos Warrior argument: I've been playing with 40 chaos warriors for the past 2 months, trying everything from 5 man units up to 25 man units. A 5 man unit is... ok as a MSU unit that is sitting around to count as cheap battleline and sit back and hold objectives. Run them similarly to Stormcast Sequitors/liberators, don't expect much out of them, and they'll do "fine". Technically you could take units of marauder horsemen for 10 points less and still meet the battleline requirement, but if you don't have horsemen you aren't losing much by taking these guys instead. If you are using them this way, I think that dual hand weapons is the best way to do so, as most people aren't going to be wasting mortal wounds on small squads of warriors, and the re-rolling attacks is a decent buff. Also, you aren't likely to waste your buffs on a small unit like this. A 10 man unit is a waste of time. The added damage from adding 5 more isn't particularly great, and you only get the re-roll saves until you take 2+ wounds, and getting rid of that save does make them a strong target for tossing out a few mortal wounds. They are also small enough that you usually wont wan't to be wasting your buffs on this unit. A 15 man unit is the "sweet spot" for efficiency. They have to take 12 wounds to lose their re-roll saves, you usually can get 10+ into combat, and the unit is large enough and can do enough that it is worth putting some buffs on them. If I'm not trying to get minimum points for battleline, I will generally default to running a 15 man block of warriors. But what loadout? Here, shields can pay off as it makes the unit be a poor target for horde clearing spells. If your opponent doesn't have horde clearing spells, then dual hand weapons is great, as now you can buff just their to-wound for good results. This works well with a nurgle warshrine buff, or with the Khorne general aura (3+rr/2+/-/1 is a good array). It is also really nice with a bloodstoker ally, because he can give +3" to run/charge, and full wound re-roll (meaning that they have a +4 to charge, and have full re-rolls on hits and wounds). Finally, 20+ man units. The only way that I've had success with really big units is to use them as a super-tanky screen. Sit these guys in front, force your opponents to attack into them, and then when they inevitably die then you can countercharge with your unit behind. A 20 man squad is really unwieldy, won't all get into combat, and anything that engages them is either going to be doing so just to lock them down, or does enough damage that a large unit doesn't bother them. However, a 20 man squad is enough that they can basically cover the entire width of the board (if base to base, that's a minimum of 25"), which works great for absorbing an alpha strike. As for weapons, I find large blocks want to run weapon and shield, specifically for the resistance to horde clearing spells. Whether that weapon is a hand weapon or a halberd is more up to taste, but I find that the halberds tend to allow ~50% more models into combat, and allows you to deploy the units 2 ranks deep, which helps with damage application and keeping units in range for buffs. That being said, they only really start to pay off when you run units of 20+, as at 15 the extra models in combat only really comes up until they are hit. Smaller units tend to wield the dual weapons better, as their damage application is more notable. However, an argument can be made for a 15 man block with great weapons, as that is a large enough block to be worth spending buffs on, while still being small enough that it doesn't reaaaally pay off to blast it with horde clearing spells. I don't think it really pays off to use great weapons at any other numbers though, as they only get better damage than 2 weapons when you can buff them. So to sum it up: 5 man squads: 2 weapons 10 man squads: don't bother running them 15 man squads: whatever floats your boat/looks coolest 20+ man squads: Either hand weapon + shield or halberd + shield

There are 2 all monster lists available within Cities of Sigmar. The first is of course, the steam tank list (commander + hurricanum + luminark + 6 tanks). The second is the Anvilguard Hydra + Kharibdyss army. A silly start to a monster mash could be: Lord Celestant on Stardrake 3x Dreadlord on Black Dragon 3x Hydra/Kharibdyss If you don't want the stardrake, you can drop that for another black dragon and another hydra/kharibdyss. Alternatively, you can go for Max Hydra's with the following: Dreadlord on Black Dragon 10x Hydra's Note, none of these are good builds. But they can be funny.

It is fun to imagine stuff, however, lets keep in mind 1 thing. To embark on a ship, you HAVE to have the MARINE keyword. At the moment, this keyword is EXCLUSIVE to KO foot hero's, and foot troops. Anything else that you want to bring can't get on a ship because they don't have that keyword. To spell this out more specifically, the following units are the ONLY ones that can embark: Hero's: Aether-Khemist Aetheric Navigator Arkanaut Admiral Bjorgen Thundrik Endrinmaster with Endrinharness Other Units: Arkanaut Company Grundstok Thunderers Thundrik's Profiteers So, want to stick Gotrek on a ship? Too bad, he isn't a marine. How about some Fyreslayers? Nope, not marines. Maybe some irondrakes? Nope, not marines. Hey, Thunderers are duradin, how about them? Nope, Thunderers =/= Grundstok Thunderers, and are not marines. What about ... No. Not a marine. If it isn't one of those 8 units listed above, it can't get on a ship. Period.

Running the actual numbers: The sword is better - barely. Taking it blank off the warscroll without any other buffs, the ax does an average of 2.67 damage (against a 5+ or worse save), while the sword does an average of 3.11 against a 6+ or worse save. Against a 5+ save, the sword does 2.81 damage on average. Then as saves get better, the sword gets better, just because of the 2 mortal's on 6's to hit pushing through more damage and ignoring the rend. If we modify this to look at charging damage, the ax goes up to 3.33 damage, while the sword goes up to 4. Again, they get closer at a 5+ save, but once saves get better than the sword wins again due to the mortal's on 6's. Charging while being a Khorne general, we see the one and only area where the ax wins against the sword - it deals 4.86 damage to a 5+ save, while the sword deals 4.8 damage. Once again, all other saves favor the sword. Is there a case where through other buffs we can get the ax to be better than the sword? Yes, but it involves getting outside of pure StD. Here, we need to bring in allies (or switch to another faction) that can give us +attack. +1 attack makes the Ax better vs 4+ and 5+ saves, and about equal vs 6+'s. +2 attacks bumps the numbers some more, but doesn't change the overall result. Are any of these numbers significant enough to actually care about though? Not really. We are talking about something like a 5% difference in damage output. While this could be significant if we could have say, a unit of 5 princes, on individual ones it is rather mediocre. We are also talking about a unit that is going to be dealing 4-5 wounds on average when it attacks, 5-7 if it charges, before taking into account mark buff's or artefacts/command traits. It is also a daemon unit, and can't carry many of the StD buffs (like chaos lord pile in and attack twice, or Daemonic Power full re-rolls) because they target only mortals.

So I decided to run some comparisons to another unit that recently was 300 points for a very similar effect - Evocators on Dracolines. How do the two match up? Well, both are 5 wound models, come in packs of 3, and are supposedly hard hitting units in an elite army. Varanguard only have a 10" move as opposed to the dracolines 12", but in exchange they have a 3+ save instead of a 4+ save. If we compare a bog standard unit of Varanguard, with the undivided (or tzeentch) mark or no hero's nearby, then that unit of varanguard will deal an average of 14 damage to a save of -, and 9.8 to a 4+ save. From there, there are 4 ways to buff him. Marks, Spells/prayers, Being in host of the everchosen, and having Archaon around. With just marks, the best mark is Khorne, and being near the general. Doing just that brings us up to 19.5/13.5 damage on average. If we don't have a mark affecting our damage, but do have full re-rolls, that brings us to 24.2/16.5 damage on average. The best mark when rocking full re-rolls is Nurgle, and that can bring us up to 29.2/19.6 damage. Those numbers in an army with Archaon in it are 16/11.1 without other bonuses, 22.5/15.4 with Khorne Aura, 25/26.8 with just re-rolls, and 30.4/20.2 with Nurgle Aura and full re-rolls. Lastly, if we add in the 6th circle buff + charging and Archaon in the army, we get 29/19.3 without other bonuses, 41.4/27.3 with Khorne aura, 46.6/30.2 with full re-rolls, and lastly 52/33.5 with full re-rolls and Nurgle aura. Before comparing evokitties to this, I just want to take a moment to point out that we have a lot of ways to buff these guys, and we can increase their damage output by 3.7 times. Additionally, once per game they can pile in and attack twice without needing a chaos lord on foot to do so, but then still do so with a command point later on if you have the chaos lord around. Then, if this isn't enough, we can also pile on additional attacks by bringing in some Khorne allies, or pile on some additional tankiness by bringing on some nurgle allies. Now, lets look at those evokitties. Kitties have a number of buffs available to them as well. They can get d3 damage on the kitty claws just by charging. They can get +1 to hit with a pride leader around. They can get +1 to wound from Celestial Blades (stormcast spell). They can re-roll failed wound rolls due to their built in spell. They can re-roll 1's from either a command point, or charging in Celestial Vindicators stormhost. And lastly they can get +1 attack on their models in Celestial Vindicators, or they can attack in the hero phase with Anvils of Heldenhammer. A base unbuffed kitty squad is going to do 15 damage to a save of -, and 10 to a 4+ save (this includes the celestial lightning arc) . Add charging, and that unbuffed kitty will be up to 19/12.6. Pile on pride leader, celestial blades, re-roll 1's to hit, and re-roll failed wounds and that charging kitty is now up to 37/23.5 damage. Give them +1 attack on top of all of that and we are up to 47.4/29.8 damge. From this, we can see that without any buffs available, Kitties and Varanguard are about equal. However, kitties can buff themselves just by charging, or casting empower on themselves, and Varanguard can't buff themselves. If you are wanting to play varanguard without archaon around, they also can't really be buffed up to similar levels as the kitties can (which is important when your buff piece is sitting around at 800 points...). But if you are going all in on varanguard, and bringing Archaon, then they can surpass what a block of kitties can pull off. What conclusion can we draw from this? To be honest, I think that they made a mistake printing the 6th circle. Why? The 6th circle buffs the varanguard too much, and makes the other circles fairly redundant. If it wasn't for the 6th circle buff, the damage output of the Varanguard would be low enough that we could easily justify lowering their points so that they could be at a playable level in a non-hosts army. We have an easy example in the Evokitties of a similar unit that wasn't worth its points at 300 points/unit, and is still questionably worth their points at 260 points/unit. Taking a look at the Varanguard, and the fact that it is a little harder to get all the buffs in place for them, I could easily see them being worth 200-240 points - if it wasn't for that 6th circle buff. With the 6th circle buff available, it is hard to justify bringing their price down that low, because then they would be such an easy no-brainer to bring in a Hosts army. They are still slightly overpriced there, but Archaon + Khorne Aura is still enough to buff them to 40% more damage in that allegiance than they are with the max buffs outside of that subfaction.

In which case are you quoting? 1 normal unit and X shadow warriors? In this case I stated that the 1 unit has to be deployed to the table, which doesn't contradict hidden paths. 5 Normal units and X shadow warriors? In this case I stated that 2 of the units can be deployed on the hidden paths (5 / 2, rounded down is 2), which doesn't contradict hidden paths.

Few comments: A stardrake is surprisingly squishy. Yes, you can run him up the field to do some damage, but he's only 16 wounds with a 3+ save. All the "Unkillable stardrakes" that you see are running around with a +1 to their save from an artifact/command ability (ex. staunch defender in stormcast), and are backed up by a Lord-Castellent. This gives them a +2 to their save, and each roll of a 7+ (5 or 6 against no-rend, 6 against rend 1) heals them a wound. Without those two pieces though, throwing your stardrake into your opponent is just asking to lose the model. Additionally, Stardrakes are surprisingly pillow fisted, and you will often find them not doing a whole lot of damage. They especially struggle against large models, and are only particularly talented at clearing out chaff. Phoenix guard, as a block of 10, aren't really worth it. You are effectively paying 160 points for 20 wounds and a 4+ save. You know what else has 20 wounds and a 4+ save? Freeguild guard. And the guard count as battleline, as well as more bodies on the objectives. If you want to see Phoenix Guard perform for their points, you need 2 things. First, a larger block (20-30 guard in a single block). Second, you need the Emerald Lifeswarm. After all, for cities, the lifeswarm brings back d6 models a turn, effectively bringing back 2 wounds/turn. But if you aren't willing to commit those two things to them, it would be better to just replace them with freeguild guard. Outriders. I'm guessing that you have them here because you want a faster moving unit to run out, hold an objective, and still be able to get a few potshots in. On the other hand, a unit of handgunners that moved will do a little bit more damage, about 50% more if they just stand still, and over 2x the damage if they are buffed by the general. Basically, I'm just saying that the outriders aren't really worth their points, unless you want them hovering around a hurricanum with Hawk Eyed and reaaaaaaly emphasizing the fast moving aspect of them (which the rest of your list isn't). Shadow Warriors. They are lovely models, and I like using them. However, you already have a great deal of mobility in Tempest Eye, and I'm not sure you will be able to get their points worth in this list. I prefer Shadow Warriors in other cities where you you are playing a more stationary game. Not saying don't take them, but you would probably get more use by swapping them out for some more handgunners/crossbowmen.

Chosen are... ok. The biggest problem is that they are resin models and cost $45 for 5 of them, so they would have to be REALLY good to make that worth it for most people. If they get a re-sculpt, I would expect to see a good bit more of them. For 40 more points, you get about double the damage output as the same number of warriors against a save of -, and 3 times the damage output against a save of 4+, which makes them a lot killier than warriors are. However, they have the same number of wounds, and they don't get a re-rollable save without a sorcerer nearby. The other problem is that for 10 more points, you could instead run a block of 20 marauders which are going to deal about 50% more damage than they are - if you can get them all in range. You might be noticing a trend here - marauders are just the best units to take in almost any situation. Lord on Manticore is decent. If you need a giant flying beatstick, well, he's a giant flying beatstick. His command ability is utterly worthless however. If you run a lance and blade, he is probably the strongest single unit that slaves have offensively (especially if you can get the charge off), while giving him a shield gives him a 5+ vs mortal wounds that helps against opposing sniping. However, he has some solid competition in the Lord on Karkadrak, which does only a little less damage, but has a much better command ability, and more importantly, can't get bracketed by taking some damage. The end result though is to go for whichever looks cooler to you unless you have a very specific build in mind. As for going for more of a marauder build and being savage vikings - probably the best build in the book. Marauders are probably the best unit in the book, and having a front line of them, maybe with a block of Chaos Knights to back them up is enough to take you pretty far. Daemon Princes are also great units, especially in Despoilers lists. However, the Darkoath Chieftain's, Warqueens, and the various cultist units have 1 major problem - they can't take marks. If you read up above, you can see that the khorne mark with a general nearby can boost the damage of a block of knights by 50% without any other buffs. Being unable to carry or benefit from these marks is a major blow to these model's playability.

... It isn't a single mortal on a 5+. You roll a number of dice equal to your charge roll. So if you roll a 7 to charge, you get to roll 7 dice and for each 5+ you deal a mortal wound.

They would have the Mark of Khorne, as they are Khorne units, not allies. However, only Slaves to Darkness gets the Khorne Aura (re-roll 1's near hero's, also +1 to wound near your general). This means that a unit of Khorne Chaos Knights w/ Ensorcelled Blades are hitting on a 3+, re-rolling 1's, and if they are near your general, wounding on a 2+. However, when you run them in Khorne, they are straight 3+/3+. Note that this means that being near your general in a Slaves army is a nearly 50% boost in damage output (for a block of 5, without the buff the knights will do 9.6 damage to a save of -, with the buff that turns into 14.3 damage). This is also why I feel that if you want to run Mortal's, you are probably better off running Slaves than you are Khorne. At 2k points, you can get 400 points of allies, which could easily be a Bloodsecrator (120pts) and a 5 man, 10 man, or 2 5 man units of wrathmongers (140pts/5). This gives your Khorne units a solid +2 attacks if they are near the bloodsecrator and a unit of wrathmongers. Here is an example army that you could run a 2k points for either Khorne or Slaves: Heroes: Lord on Karkadrak Lord on Karkadrak Lord on Foot Bloodsecrator Battleline: 40 Marauders 20 Marauders 20 Marauders Other: 5 Marauder Horsemen 5 Marauder Horsemen 5 Wrathmongers Warshrine Bloodmarked Warband This is a 3 drop list that can be run as either Slaves to Darkness or as Khorne, and trying to make use of the bloodmarked warband. The basic idea would be to have a unit of marauders and a Karkadrak engaging an enemy unit with the wrathmongers and Bloodsecrator close enough to give the +1 attack aura. Then, if the Karkadrak can kill a model, he can give the marauders +1 attacks. If we are running Slaves to darkness and are near our general, every 10 marauders that can attack are going to deal ~26 damage on average before saves. If we are Khorne, every 10 marauders are going to deal ~17 damage on average before saves. Now, Khorne does have some things that can work to make this up. If units die, Khorne gets Blood Tithe points, and this list is worth 11 tithe points on its own before counting your opponent's army. The warshrine also gets an extra prayer. Does this make up for the extra damage that you can get by running Slaves? Maybe (probably not if you don't have Daemons you want to summon). Is this the best way to run Slaves units? Probably not (the battalion is REAAAALLY restrictive, and arguably not worth it).

Knights: Playing as slaves to darkness, these models are currently the ones that are doing the most work for me. That being said, I don't currently have marauders, so that isn't the fairest of comparisons. I've run them in everything from a block of 5, to a block of 20, and tried with lances and without. Overall, I find that you can run a block of 5 with lances behind your lines as a "counterpunch", where you hold them and attempt to charge with them after your opponent washes against (and destroys) a unit in front of them. For any other use though, ensorcelled blades are better, and they are also arguably better as a counterpunch as well. Additionally, I usually struggle to get more than 10 into combat at once, and the extra knights tend to be just extra wounds to take off before the killing power is affected. A charging block with lances deals almost the exact same amount of damage to a 6+ save as blades do, and about 20% more damage on average to a 4+ save. Once they are off the charge though, the damage just plummets too much, with lances doing half the damage as blades do to a 4+ save, and a bit less than 2/3 the damage to a 6+. Do note though that the exact numbers will vary depending upon which mark you choose. Playing them in a Khorne army, the biggest loss would be the loss of the Khorne Mark, as you will no longer have easy access to re-rolling 1's to hit, or the +1 to wound. This is however made up for by the easier access to extra attacks. Comparing them to Skullcrushers (the nearest Khorne unit to them), for 20 points more the block of knights is going to do more damage, but be a bit less tanky. Note, this is including the mortal wounds on a charge. Either way that you are running them, I would highly recommend bringing a Chaos Lord (on foot), as the pile in and attack twice is a massive increase in their damage. A Lord on Karkadark can also be a great boon, both because of its own killing power and due to its command ability giving +1 to hit and re-rolling charges. Next, a Warshrine is a great tool in both armies - slaves because the 6+ FNP makes them even tankier, and the ability to give them re-rolling hits and wounds is great, and Khorne because you get the above AND you get to run the Khorne. Lastly, a Sorcerer Lord is decent because of Oracular Visions, giving them re-rollable saves, which if you are running Khorne stacks really nicely with Bronzed Flesh (even if like me you don't use any of the spells... though my excuse is that my dice hate spellcasting, not that I don't make the attempt). Warriors: I have tried warriors in blocks of 5 to blocks of 20, and tried them with sword+shield and dual swords. At this point, the only unit that I've been more disappointed by is Stormcast Liberators (sequitors are just soooo much better... also, stormcast have more killier options available than StD does...). At small sizes, they don't really have enough models to contest objectives, and the lack of rend leaves them fluffing anything that they attack quite often (that being said, my meta has a lot of people who like running 4+ saves - or better, so your experience may differ). At large sizes you look around and ask yourself, "Would I rather have 20 warriors, or 10 knights?" My answer is the knights. They at least will kill stuff - especially because it is so rare to be able to get all the warriors onto a single target. Should you by some miracle find yourself facing someone without a lot of rend, warriors are decent. This isn't even bringing the marauder comparison into it, because marauders just blow warriors out of the water by so much (like seriously, a block of 20 marauders deals more damage than a block of 15 chaos warriors, while costing half as much... and can get into an engagement easier as well with their charge bonuses). As for the comparison with Blood Warriors, in blocks of 5 the chaos warriors actually do more damage, while being slightly tankier (due to the 5+ vs mortals). Once you start looking at blocks of 10+, you find that they deal almost the exact same amount of damage (all thanks to the goreaxes), but now the Chaos warriors have a fully re-rollable save. My initial pass also says that there are more ways to buff the chaos warriors (sorcerer's, warshrines, dual-blades, etc.) than there are to buff the blood warriors, as most of the blood warrior's buffs will also affect chaos warriors (ex. bloodsecrator, wrathmongers, etc.). The only advantage Blood Warriors have is the Pile in and Attack on death, which overall makes blood warriors slightly more killy while chaos warriors are slightly more tanky. Either way that you take them... I would rather have Marauders. I was contemplating Bloodreavers being the equivalent of marauders (though they actually do a bit less damage, while also being less tanky), but then I looked up the fact that Bloodreavers are on 32mm bases and I just decided to give up on them completely. As far as tanking goes, a 4+ save on 30 wounds is actually the same amount of tankiness as a 5+ save on 40 wounds, which makes a pack of marauders as tanky as a block of blood warriors. The re-rollable saves on Chaos Warriors does give them the lead in tankiness, but the fact that that unit can't really kill anything while the Marauders will still sells me on the marauders.

Another area to get a book (and possibly be able to find some as spare bits) is from the StD Warshrine. One of the altar options is to have a book on the altar, and you might be able to find a few from spare bits sites that way.

Yes. Also, to clarify a bit more: If you have 1 normal unit, and 5 units of shadow warriors, that 1 unit has to be deployed on the table. All the shadow warriors can be deployed in the shadows and come down later. This is not a hidden paths deployment, but it is functionally identical as far as putting them off the board goes. If you have 5 normal units, and then shadow warriors, 2 of the normal units can be deployed on the hidden paths. Lastly, the only place where how it is deployed off the table matters. An assassin could be deployed via hidden paths. Or he can be deployed off the board to later pop out in a unit. Note, popping out later in a unit is a different method of deployment, and he comes onto the board at a different timing. This means that if you have an assassin, you will have to state how he is deployed, and then you are restricted on how he can enter the board.

So I spent some time mathhammering the comparison between the different chaos warriors. It gets annoyingly complicated due to seeing if there are differences between the different marks. So I spent the time to see what the results were for a block of 5 warriors with each weapon and each mark, as well as what a difference full re-rolls gives you. Here are some of the results: Facing off against a save of - To no ones great surprise, against a save of - dual hand weapons do the most damage wtihout any buffs, and dual weapons are the same as weapon + shield with full re-rolls. More interestingly, having a Khorne General is the biggest buff to power without other buffs for every unit except dual weapons, in which case the khorne general adds as much as a nurgle hero does. With full re-rolls, the nurgle hero provides the biggest buff, followed by the slannesh hero buff, with khorne providing the least bonus (ignoring undivided/unbuffed). Against a save of 4+ Here is a bit more surprising. Without full re-rolls, dual hand weapons deal the most damage across the board. Additionally, hand weapon + shield does the same damage as greatblades with any buff other than slannesh, with slannesh slightly outdamaging sword + shield. With full re-rolls, then greatblades do more damage across the board, with the Nurgle buff being the most damage. Once again, without re-rolls the Khorne general buff gives the greatest benefit across the board except that dual hand weapons match that with a nurgle buff. With full re-rolls, once again the Nurgle buff is the largest, and khorne the least (ignoring undivided/unbuffed). The overall conclusion that I can draw from this is that if you are wanting to have a unit run around without getting full re-rolls, you would get the best damage out of a unit of nurgle warriors with dual weapons. However, if you want a block of warriors and you are willing to stick some buffs on them, then Nurgle Greatblades are a valid option. As far as the shields MW shrug goes, I've had some matchups where it is irrelevant, and others where it has been a big deal. Playing vs Bonereapers, Deepkin, KO, Cities, Fyreslayers, etc. the Shields are fairly pointless, as those factions don't have a plethora of mortal wounds that they produce, and instead rely on rend or just a ton of attacks. Vs Ironjaws, Ogres, etc. there are enough casual mortal wounds flowing that the shrug has occasionally been relevant. Overall, I rate the shields as ok, but not vital in most matchups, because you are going to take more damage from rend weapons then you are MW most of the time, and damage is something that slaves are usually lacking in, so getting a bit more is always nice. However, in basically every case, you would be better damage wise spending 300 points on 40 marauders than you would 15 warriors.

Prior to the December FAQ that lowered their prices, kitties were just too expensive. I was still running them prior to that because I liked the models, but at 100 points per model, they were overpriced, even by stormcast standards. Dropping 40 points off a unit meant dropping 80 points off of a group of 6, which is almost enough to get an entire extra unit (or swap some underperforming units for better ones). However, that was less than 2 months ago. If anyone was testing kitties, they probably started with testing a unit of 3, and at 3 kitties they definitely underperform. If I didn't love the model, I wouldn't have bothered running 6 after seeing how 3 performed when I first started playing them. I would be willing to bet that you aren't seeing them locally just because people already had an opinion of them being overpriced from prior to the december changes, and not enough people have dived in to test them out since then. Additionally, the only competitive stormcast army recently has been shootcast, and kitties don't really fit well into the traditional shootcast list. This doesn't mean that kitties are competitive - someone would have to take them to a tournament and test that out. But I do think that they are competitive enough that you could take them to a tournament and do 3-2 or 4-1 if you know what you are doing.

Personally, my most successful kitty list has been the following: Celestial Vindicators Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline Knight-Heraldor Lord-Ordinator Knight-Incantor 3x 5 Sequitors 6 Evocators on Celestial Dracolines 4x Celestar Ballista Command Point Followed by this list: Anvils of Heldenhammer Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline Knight-Heraldor Knight-Vexilor Knight-Incantor 3x 5 Sequitors 6 Evocators on Celestial Dracolines 9 Vanguard Raptor's with Longstrike Crossbows With the vindicators list, I generally put the ballista's in the sky so that way I can drop them and the ordinators close to the target and then clear a path so that the kitties can get in and obliterate whatever they are aiming for. The anvils list instead takes the raptors and uses them to take out key support pieces and hopes that the kitties can clean up the pieces afterwards. A few comments about other ideas that have been posted: Comet. Everyone loves the comet, and its great at chipping in some mortal wounds at range. However, I find myself with insufficient space to run the comet points wise, and while my dice love me when making attack rolls and saving rolls, they hate casting spells for me. Without any bonuses to cast it, I find the comet just too unreliable on its own. On the other hand, a lot of our other options (longstrikes, ballista's, etc.) are also unreliable in small numbers, but become more reliable when you take more of them. This is why I tend to concentrate my power on one gameplan rather than diversifying. Cogs. Going back to my dice not liking me casting spells, I find casting cogs to be too unreliable. Re-rolling saves and getting an extra cast is nice, but then you need to sit near the cogs to continue getting use out of them. All of my casters like to move around the board too much, which then feels like a waste of points. Castellent. I could see dropping the incantor from my list for a castellent. Some matchups that will be better. Others, it will be worse. Locally I find having the easy unbind is better (especially since castellent cares about the modified rolls, which means rend screws me up). Foot Evocators. Without going with a Gav-bomb, I've never been that fond of foot evocators. Yes, they will ****** over whatever they hit (usually), but they are sooo slow. This means that they usually end up eating chaff, or getting stuck away from where the fighting is occurring. This is actually a big reason why I like evo-kitties - they have the mobility to get to where I need them when I need them. Stardrakes. I like them - they are dragons. However, they are so points hungry that you really also have to drop the sequitors to liberators, and they also really like staunch defender. I just don't have enough models painted up to play these guys and get a more definitive opinion on trying to run them alongside the kitties rather than as their own independent starcast list.

I think that if you want to have the maximum mixture of Starcast and Kitties, that you would want to start here and test it out: Lord-Celestant on Stardrake General Staunch Defender Celestant-Prime Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline Pride Leader 6 Evocators on Celestial Dracoline 3x 5 Liberators Everblaze Comet This gives you the core of starcast, which is the Stardrake, Celestant-Prime, and Everblaze Comet. The comet is castable by the Lord-Arcanum, and you have 3 major threats that your opponent has to deal with in the drake, the prime, and the kitties. However, there are a few standout problems with this list. First off, there is no space for a Castellent. This also reduces the benefits of taking staunch defender, which makes taking a different stormhost a bit more appealing. Second, you only have a single caster for your comet, which makes that a bit less reliable. That being said, dropping the comet does open up the space to bring a castellent, but then you are reducing your chip damage.

I think the clear winners for cities are going to be tempest eye and hallowheart. Why? Tempest eye is great for a dwarf heavy force for a few reasons. Firstly, the extra 3" of movement on turn 1 is enough to get their stubby little legs to go 7" without running, which means that you can actually get your forces moving towards your opponent. The +1 armor also means that ironbreakers and longbeards are rocking a 2+ save for that first turn as well, which helps to mitigate the inevitability of your opponent being able to choose who goes first. Secondly, Hawk Eyed gives your inevitable block of irondrakes a 3+/2+ profile, and having some longbeards screening them also gives them a re-roll to their wound rolls. Add a hurricanum and a command point and that can be 2+rr1/2+rr1, with anywhere between -1 and -3 rend. If you are wondering, this means that you are rocking a 94.5% accuracy rating with those irondrakes, so basically if you have a block of 10 that didn't move or a block of 20 that did, only 1 shot from that block will miss on average. Next, when you are looking to deal damage, you can rock the spell Aura of Glory to give +1 to attack for all units within 12" of the caster, which means that you could theoretically get a block of hammerers to be attacking 4 times each. Basically, every single part of your gameplan gets a bonus when you run tempest eye. Hallowheart makes number 2 on the list because of the sheer power of the wizards. Why does this matter? Dwarfs are slow, and getting near guaranteed soulscream bridges off to get your stubby legs up and into combat is important. Ignite Weapons from your hurricanum can do the work of hawk eyed as well to get your irondrakes to that sweet 2+/2+ profile too. Warding Brand can also be useful to punish people trying to attack your hammerers before your hammerers get to smash whatever they are engaged with. Lastly, you have the power of your enhanced spells to help snipe out key support pieces that would be causing issues for the rest of your army to deal with. Moving on from the top 2 choices, Hammerhall and the Living City both have arguments that can be made for being decent dwarf strongholds. Hammerhall gets you extra CP from all your banners, and you ignore battleshock in your territory, which is important because your stubby little legs are going to leave you there for much of the game. However, should you get into your opponents territory, being able to pile in and attack twice in a turn can be devastating. However, there isn't anything to really buff your wound rolls, you don't have any movement assistance, and you don't have any magic assistance, and those 3 things are all things that Tempest Eye and Hallowheart can give you. I just don't see that hammerhall gives dwarfs much over the other two cities to make it worth taking though. Next up, the living city provides exactly one thing for the dwarfs - the ability to ambush in from the board edge. This is an extremely powerful ability, and if you are wanting to get the most out of irondrakes without relying on the bridge to help you, this is what you want to bring. However, there are literally no other features of the living city that benefit your forces. There is no extra movement, no extra defense, no extra offense. It is only the board edge ambushing. Now, if you want to go heavy on the irondrakes, with 2-3 blocks of 20 of them, this can be really good (though you don't get to buff them with extra rend by doing this). If you are wanting to try to make hammerers work though... you are going to be better with one of the other cities. Finally, there are the last 3 cities. Greywater fastness buffs your gyrocopters range. Beyond that, it buffs artillery (which is all human now - but could be easily converted), or allows you to run and shoot. Its... nice? I guess? But unless you want to run an artillery heavy force, this isn't providing you with any notable buffs, unlike the cities above. Next up, Anvilguard. Here you can take an illicit dealing and get an extra artefact, and maybe some extra command points. You can also sacrifice a dwarf to make everything within 18" immune to battleshock, which is kinda nice. The only other thing of note is the spell Vitrioc Spray, which eliminates the need for rend... which doesn't really matter to you because it is so easy to give good rend to units that need it with the runelords. Once again, this isn't really providing you with anything special. For the last city, the Phoenicium. There are 2 relevant things the Phoenicium can give you. The first is +1/+1 if a unit dies, which rewards MSU playstyle. Note, MSU can work ok with dwarfs, because the warden king's command ability affects opposing units, not your own. On the other hand, Runelords help your own units, which benefits larger blocks. This makes things a bit of a wash. However, the bigger thing is that for a command point, you can give your units the ability to fight after death, which is really helpful if you are trying to get in with some melee infantry, because it guarantees that the damage is going to come out, even if your opponent elects to remove that unit first. This alone makes the Phoenicium better than Anvilguard and Greywater fastness... but it still doesn't really compare to the living city or hammerhall, much less hallowheart or tempest eye. Lastly, if I wanted to make an army running 60 hammerers, this is what I would do: Hallowheart: Warden King (general, Warden of the Flame) Runelord (adjutant) Runelord Celestial Hurricanum (whitefire tome) Battlemage (Ghur) Battlemage (Hysh) 30 Hammerers 30 Hammerers 10 Longbeards 20 Irondrakes Soulscream Bridge 40 more points of endless spells of your choice This gives you the the bridge, the hurricanum to use Arcane Channeling with, and you can teleport forward the irondrakes with the longbeards to screen for them, and then possibly also a unit of hammerers. Additionally, you have 6 spell casts per turn, 5 dispels per turn (runelords get a +2 to that too), and 6 attempts to dispell endless spells too (1 from each wizard, 1 from each runelord, and 1 from longbeards grumbling). You will be uncontested in the magic phase, your irondrakes will be able to trivially put an average of 40 damage with rend -3 downrange, and if anyone is dumb enough to get close, the hammerers will be able to demonstrate why they are literally the killiest infantry in the game. That being said, this setup is basically one big deathstar, and aside from hopping around with the bridge, mobility is kind of poor. On the other hand, you knew that going in when you said you wanted to run 60 hammerers...

3 is still playable, but they change from a punch that can take out major threats to something that can clear screens and dash around to quickly take objectives. There is very little that has the same mobility in the stormcast lineup while still being able to clear light objective holders. Personally, I'm not sure that they are worth it in a block of 3, but I've also been relying on them to be one of my main punches. With a drake list that has the stardrake and more sources of mortal wounds, 3 might still be enough to pay off.

I like to keep the LAoCD nearby enough to get off celestial blades. If I can get it in range for the pride leader buff, even better. However, especially in the first turn, I'll frequently keep the LAoCD back a little bit so that way its less likely to get countercharged. Also, don't be afraid to have them charge 2 units if you can get all the buffs off. Fully buffed, a unit of kitties can put out ~72 damage on average to a save of -, or ~46 damage to a 4+ save. If you are willing to drop Staunch Defender, I find they work especially well with Celestial Vindicators because they get to re-roll 1's to hit on the charge and you can command point to give them an extra attack (which can buff them up to ~92 damage to a save of -, or ~58 damage to a 4+ save). This is usually enough to obliterate not 1, but 2 different units when charging if your opponent didn't screen properly.