readercolin

Unless there is something that can remove them before I go, I always run them on the board. This is because getting those spells off to buff them makes such a big deal in their damage output, I want them on the board so I can attempt to do so. Additionally, I run with a Heraldor, and the run+charge means that they can pretty easily get anywhere I want them to be.

As someone who has been playing with 6 kitties for a year and a half now: 3 kitties at 2k just don't do enough. If your buffs don't go off or get dispelled, then they usually don't have enough offensive power to do more than eat a block of chaff. If they do go off, then they can do a good bit of damage, but usually still not enough to handle a big block of the opposing force (with everything going off, they only deal ~20 damage to a 4+ save if they charge). Meanwhile, taking 6 means that they have enough damage to kill most smaller blocks on the charge even without any buffs. When fully buffed, the only thing that can really survive their charge is a block of hearthguard berzerkers. They also carry buffs better, as celestial blades is a great spell to cast on them, and they also benefit better from having a heraldor around to let them retreat/run and still charge. As for getting them all on target, the only time I've experienced a problem there is trying to charge a single model (can only get 5 of them in contact to kill Gotrek). Getting them all within 9" for pride leader? That's a bit tougher. But getting Celestial Blades off on the bigger group makes up for that in my experience.

If you are making stationary fortress's, eternal guard are great. However, if you need to move around a good bit on the board, Phoenix Guard become miles better. Also, if you are taking eternal guard, I would say that at least 1 unit of sisters of the thorn are mandatory so that way they can be sitting on a 2+ save. Basically, I would consider eternal guard if I want to turtle up and bridge forward up the board and then just sit there with a gun line to obliterate anything that comes close. If however I was trying to run blocks of infantry around the board, and be able to take mobility, I would run the Phoenix Guard.

So I decided to mathhammer this a bit, and compared a dreadlord using a lance and charging. In Hammerhall, with 1 dreadlord using the command point, having twin stone, and either the blood of the twelve or aggressive general, a dreadlord will deal an average of 19.5 damage (to a 6+ save, 15 to a 4+). Blood of the twelve is more consistent working while it doesn't charge, while aggressive general deals ~.3 more damage on average, but only works when charging. So what are the other options: Tempest eye gives a big boost in Swift as the Wind, which lets the general run and charge, as well as always strike first in combat. He would probably best carry the Zephyrite Banner to allow full re-rolls of charge rolls. Without any other buffs though, a dreadlord is only dealing 12.7 damage (to a 6+ save, 9.7 to a 4+). However, you can have something like a sorceress running nearby with Aura of Glory for +1 attacks which bumps that up to 16.1 damage (12.4 to a 4+). The most important part though is that you can have both dreadlords attack without being attacked back in tempest eye, which you can't in hammerhall. Living city gives some mediocre bonuses, but one important one in Spear of the Hunt, which allows fight-first on the charge. However, once again we are back to only doing 12.7 damage (though now 10.3 on a 4+ due to the +1 rend). Additionally, one of these guys can be rocking a 2+ save. Alternatively, you can deploy off the board but with a crossbow to allow for an ambush. Lastly, Anvilguard. Here the big benefit is to use the command trait "Blackfang Crimelord" so that way both dragons have a drakeblood curse, and you have 2 artefacts. For curses, choose the Jutting Bones for d3 mortals on the charge, and acidic blood for the 2nd drake to deal some damage even if he hasn't attacked yet. Artefacts... Venomfang Blade and Asphyxia Censor? Here, the big bonus is that you can be doing 13 damage with the sword and Venomfang blade, +d3 on the charge - call it 15 damage. Yeah, the mathhammer is checking out. Hammerhall does appear to be the best city for dreadlords. So how does a dreadlord compare to a general on griffin? With the same loadout, and the griffin using his command ability (which brings the claws from a 4+ to a 2+) a griffin puts out 17.8 damage max. Same save, but it has 3" more movement. Alternatively, we can grab a frostheart phoenix with the same loadout, and it puts out 17.3 damage with effectively full re-rolls. But, it has a -1 to wound aura and a 4+ FNP, which makes it probably the tankiest of the options, as well as the fastest with its 16" movement range. Overall, you can see that they are at least all in the same general range. So if you want a monster hit squad, any of the three options would be decent. However, choose one and then go all in on that one.

I haven't come across a similar build before. However, I'm betting that if anyone was using that, they were bringing a unit of 9-12 longstrikes, and then the remaining were running hurricane crossbows, probably deployed from the sky. An example list: Anvils Lord-Aquilor Knight-Vexilor or Lord-Relictor (translocation) Knight-Azyros or 2x3 aetherwings 3x5 Liberators 12 Longstrikes 2x6 Hurricane Crossbows command point (or 3 aetherwings) This list can have the longstrikes + vexilor/relictor deployed on the board and both units of hurricanes in the sky, with the rest of the list wherever it makes sense. Longstrikes hit key support pieces, and then the hurricanes can come down in range and demolish hordes and chaff, clearing the board for your liberators to control objectives. I would be really wary of running this list myself, as anyone that can evade your screen can easily get into the meat of the raptors. On the other hand, 12 longstrikes can do almost 30 damage a turn when used to double-tap, and 6 hurricanes do a bit over 14 damage to a save of - when they come down. Dropping the Vexilor/Relictor would also allow you to use 2 units of 12 longstrikes, and then you could dish out ~44 damage a turn by double-tapping with one of the units.

Get Marauders. Think I'm joking? Nope. Marauders are basically a requirement to play Slaves to Darkness. Want to run Ravagers? You need marauders to bring them in on a board edge. Yes, technically you can do that with cultists instead, but if you look at the profiles and decide to take marauders with weapon + shield, they just blow all the cultists out of the water to an unfunny degree. Want to run Cabalists? You need marauders to sacrifice so that way you can get your spells off easier (here cabalists work too... but marauders are a better threat). Also, 2 wizards + 40 marauders has 1 wizard give them full re-rolls on hits, wounds, and saves, and the second wizard teleport them across the board to get an easy charge in and obliterate whatever they hit. Yeah, they'll die afterwards, but 40 marauders making up to 80 attacks with full re-rolls kinda makes up for that. Want to run Despoilers? Now technically you don't need marauders. Of course, once you get a few games in and realize just how weak the warriors and knights are, you'll go ahead and get the marauders so you have SOMETHING killy on the field. Host of the everchosen? Well, you take Archaeon, and then you take some varanguard, and then you realize that you need bodies to hold objectives... so you take marauders AGAIN. Think I'm overstating things? I currently have 40 Chaos Warriors, 20 Chaos Knights, 2 Gorebeast Chariots, 1 Warshrine, 1 Lord/sorcerer on manticore, 2 sorcerers on foot, 1 lord on foot, and 1 lord on Daemonic Mount. I have played ~8 games with these guys so far, with 4 of them at 1000 points, 3 at 1500 points, and 1 at 2000 points, and I have handily lost every single one of these games. If I had played those same games with my cities of sigmar or my stormcast armies, I would probably have lost the 2k game, and maaaybe 1 each of the 1000 and 1500 point games. Additionally, if I had at least enough marauders to take advantage of the Ravager's command ability, I would have won 2 of the 1000 point games, 1-2 of the 1500 point games, and might have had a chance in the 2k game. That isn't even counting replacing a block of warriors/knights with a block of marauders instead, and getting a hell of a lot more bang for my buck that way.

Assuming that you are running Barak-Zon to have the bonuses to your wardens: 3 wardens give you 6 wounds at a 4+ save, and do an average of 7.7 damage to a 6+ save on the charge, or 5.2 to a 4+ save (but only when charging). This is... ok to run into a chaff unit screening an objective. However, it is only going to tickle larger blocks. A unit of 6 on the other hand does an average of 14.4 damage to a 6+ save, and 9.6 to a 4+ save. This unit is enough to clear most screens and take objectives, as most back line objective holders are sitting on about 10 wounds. On the other hand, a unit of 12 gets access to aether gold, and deals 27.7 damage on the charge to a 6+ save, and 18.5 to a 4+ save. However, if we really want to kill something, we can re-roll 1's from a chemist (which, since we wound on a 2+ is pretty decent), and we can spend our aether gold to re-roll hits. If we do that, the damage spikes to 43 to a 6+ save, and 28.8 to a 4+ save. The only downside to doing things this way is that we can't fly high with this group. Realistically, I would say that if you want to run a unit of 3, you should probably run endrinriggers. Riggers can fly high and still shoot with their pistols, they are better in melee when not charging, and they can heal boats. It is only once you get a squad of 6 that I would consider running skywardens, as they are getting into the range of "can charge and clear objective holders". I would also stick with 6 if your army is focusing on boats and the fly-high mobility aspect. However, if you are wanting a solid cavalry force and are willing to spend 400 points to do it, then go with a block of 12 wardens and obliterate a target or two on the charge.

I would be reaaaaaaly wary of trying to run an all shooting force with only a single monster that wants to get into melee with them. There are a LOT of armies that can just go around that. Yes, you have a somewhat mobile army, and you can come in from the board edges with some models, but the army still seems really vulnerable to all the armies that have shenanigans of their own or that can get off turn 1 charges. This operates in the same manner as the Lord-Castellent does for stormcast, and you can reference the order there. However, in short: We roll to hit. Note, if say, sisters of the watch were firing and rolled a 6, the way the sisters are worded a mortal wound is triggered at this point. When you have a save vs mortal wounds, these get rolled now. Next, we roll to wound. Note, if something inflicts a mortal wound on 6's to wound, this triggers now. When you have a save vs mortal wounds, these get rolled now. Next, we roll to save. At this point, if we roll a 6, we heal any wounds inflicted for each 6. Next, we roll our Save after Save, if we have one. Lastly, we deal damage from the attack. This means that if we have say, sisters attacking our phoenix, they will attack, roll any 6's to hit, and deal mortal wounds after the attack. Then they roll to wound, we save, heal back from any 6's on the mortals they inflicted, and then take any damage that got through. This also means that if we had 3 wounds left, and then took 3 mortals after witness to destiny, we die before we ever heal back from the saves. On the other hand, if we only take two, then we have a chance to heal back up from however many 6's we roll before we inflict the damage. Lastly, if you want really unkillable, I would recommend looking at a stardrake with jade diadem backed up by a lord-castellent. Castellent heals on a 7+ rolled, while increasing its save by 1. This means that when the castellent buffs the drake, it will have a +2 to its save, and no-rend attacks will heal 1 wound on 5's, and 2 wounds on 6's, though it also means that rend 1 heals 2 wounds on 6's, and rend 2+ we only get the benefit of the diadem.

I'm not sure the math is going to help much. You have a 50% chance of it being on the RR1's to save on turn 1. There is no reliable way to modify this. Then, you only have a 33% chance per turn of it switching. This means you have a 33% chance of getting getting a CP on turn 2, a 55% chance of getting your first CP from it on turn 3, and a 70% chance of only getting one by turn 4. On the other hand, if it starts on the get CP side, you have a 100% chance of getting 1 CP, 66% chance of getting 2, 45% chance of getting 3, and 30% chance of getting 4 CP's. While this is a huge amount of CP's, you are spending 100 points to get a 50/50 shot of having those CP's. This is going to make the engine VERY swingy, and since most of the time you want the CP's early because thats when they would make the biggest difference, I would be very wary of spending the points to get this. The only exception is if somehow you build your army to always be wanting both the CP's AND the RR1's to save. So maybe if you are wanting to turtle up with some shooters behind a wall of ironbreakers/eternal guard (who have shield of thorns on them)?

There are 3 uses for the balloon boys, and both types fill the same role. The first use is as long range shooting. Here, you would give them their special weapons and have them plink damage into targets from 24" away. Here, they both have the exact same weapons, so riggers tend to be preferred because they can heal ships, and ships allow them to re-locate around the board, so that little bit of extra synergy makes them a bit better. The second is the fly high escort. When a ship flies high, it (and all the balloon guys) have to end outside of 9" of an opposing force. However, Skywardens only have a 9" range on their pistols. Therefore, they add only the long range guns that they can have with the long range shooting, while riggers with a 12" range can at least shoot with their pistols. Another victory for riggers. Lastly, there is melee combat. A unit of 6 riggers deals an average of 7.7 to a 5+ save, and 6.48 to a 4+ save. A unit of 6 skywardens deals an average of 8.67 to a 6+ save, but only 7.2 to a 5+ and 5.8 to a 4+. So only against 6+ saves do wardens deal more damage than riggers, and neither of them deal enough damage that you really want to be sending them in on a horde (which is the only thing that is really going to be rocking a 6+ save). As we can see, in basically every case riggers are better than wardens. Are there any exceptions? There are 2 exceptions. First, only skywardens are allowed in the Grundstock Escort Wing. So if you want a 2 drop army with that battalion, you can bring 3 units of skywardens in the battalion and an Endrinmaster in Dirigible suit. Second, if you run them in Barak Zon. In barak zon, skyfarers get +1 to wound, which doesn't really help endrinriggers because they already have a 2+ to wound, but boosts skywardens to 10.8 damage for 6+ saves and 7.2 to 4+ saves. Additionally, skywardens get +1 to hit when charging, which boosts their damage to 14.4 for a 6+ save and 9.63 to a 4+. This means that a group of skywardens charging into battle is actually a threat that your opponents have to take into account.

Just one question - how do you get that to stand upright?

This same FAQ also said: Page 176 – Warden King, Ancestral Grudge Add: ‘The same unit cannot be picked as the target of this command ability more than once in the same phase.’ Note the new warden king warscroll. "You can use this command ability at the start of the combat phase. If you do so, pick 1 enemy unit within 18" of a friendly Hero with this command ability. Until the end of that phase, add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of attacks made with melee weapons used by friendly Dispossessed units that target that unit. A unit cannot benefit from this command ability more than once per phase." Here, we can clearly see that the Warden King's warscroll was clearly updated to include the effects of the FAQ. Freeguild general, the Grand Alliance Order FAQ says: Page 138 – Freeguild General, Hold The Line! Add: ‘The same unit cannot be picked to benefit from this command ability more than once in the same phase.’ The new freeguild general warscroll: "You can use this command ability in your hero phase. If you do so, pick up to 3 friendly Freeguild units wholly within 18" of a friendly Freeguild Hero with this command ability. Until the start of your next hero phase, add 1 to hit and wound rolls for attacks made by those friendly units if they have not made a normal move or a charge move in the same turn. A unit cannot benefit from this command ability more than once per phase." Seems kind of interesting how the new warscrolls already take this into account. Its almost like they were designed that way. Lastly, since you are so focused on the FAQ's, lets take a look at this one from the Core Rulebook's Designer's Commentary: Q: If I have two different warscrolls for the same unit, can I choose which to use, or must I use the most recently published version? Do I have to use any errata that applies to the warscroll? A: You must use the most recently published warscroll and errata that you or your opponent have available. Warscrolls with a date of publication are always considered to have been published more recently than a warscroll that doesn’t have one. If you have two warscrolls for a unit and neither has a date of publication, you can choose which warscroll to use. Note here that Cities of Sigmar is the most recently published warscroll and errata. Now, if an errata came out about the runelord with respect to the cities of sigmar book, then of course that should be followed. But a new warscroll was printed, and it is more recent than both the old warscroll, and the old errata. Therefore, you use the new warscroll and errata (the CoS book and its accompanying FAQ) to determine what your units can or can't do.

A few points. First, you are missing an artefact. You have the Whitefire Tome on the Sorceress on dragon, but you get a second one from your battalion. Second, you are going to have an issue with range. Without running, your darkshards have a maximum engagement range of 22", though you can give them run and shoot with a command point. Additionally, all of your offensive spells also have an 18" range. This means that you may struggle to engage turn 1 because everything will be out of range. Starting round 2 you can get things on, but there are a good number of armies that can plow through you, especially if they get the double turn (alternatively, I might be scarred from playing against too many ironjaws players). There isn't really much you can do about this point unless you get the soulscream bridge, but it is a point of consideration that you might want to think about. Third, what are those dreadspears doing for you? A 40 man block is rather large for a screen, too large to be a bodyguard, and the only benefit for running them in a large unit is that they get +1 to hit for 10+ models. You could save 40 points by making them a block of freeguild guard, or you could save 40 points by taking a second block of 20 black guard, or 20 points by taking another 30 darkshards. Any of those models will probably be more effective than a single block of dreadspears. Personally, I would only look to take at most a block of 20 dreadspears so that they can act as Honored Retinue and give my general a 4+ pass off, while still being fodder for their +2 to cast bonus. Just my thoughts on the army.

This is in the Grand Alliance Order FAQ - the unit has received an new warscroll since then and is now in a completely new book. In every other case where a new book comes out and the models are updated, old FAQ's for the previous book do not apply to that new unit. It is rather disingenuous to state that for this particular model an FAQ on its old warscroll in its old book still applies to it. Yes, I am aware that not much changed about the warscroll (mostly, cities of sigmar was added to the tags). But again, if they felt that this restriction should still apply to this unit, then they would have modified the warscroll to state that when it was printed in the new book, or they would have issued a new FAQ for the new book stating this. This also stands with their policy of "Most recent printing", and the new book and FAQ's for the new book are more recent than the grand alliance order FAQ.

There is nothing in the warscroll or the FAQ that states that runelord's Forgefire buff doesn't stack. This means that as long as you have 2 runelords, they can both use forgefire on the same unit and buff the rend to -3 provided that both prayers go off. Heck, you could buff it to -5 rend if you have 4 runelords. If you feel that this is otherwise, please point out exactly where in the rules it states that you cannot do this. Note here that usually when the ability doesn't stack the warscroll states "within X inches of a unit with this ability", or "a unit cannot benefit from this ability more than once a turn". That isn't found anywhere on the runelord warscroll.

Fastwater box gives you Ironbreakers, which can also be built as irondrakes. Then it gives you a warden king, a cogsmith, and a gyrocopter. You can build a decent list around Irondrakes, with a screen of ironbreakers, and then some gryocopters to support. However, the cogsmith is a waste in this box without artillery, which would be coming seperately. Additionally, to maximize the power of irondrakes and ironbreakers, you really want a runesmith or two, and a unit of 10 longbeards. A reasonable 1000 point army would be the following: Warden King Runelord Runelord 10x Longbeards 10x Ironbreakers 20x Irondrakes 2x Gyrocopters/Gyrobombers The basic idea here would be to use the ironbreakers as your front "screen", have the irondrakes behind and buffed to -3 rend by the runelords, and then with the longbeards grumbling and a command point you can re-roll 1's to hit and to wound. If you go Greywater Fastness, the gyrocopters get +3" range on their steam cannons (or any other gun). But a better plan may be to go Tempest Eye so you can give one of your leaders Hawk Eyed, so your drakes can be 3+(rr1)/2+(rr1)/-3/1 as their damage profile. That being said, if you want to just buy 2-3 boxes of Greywater Fastness... you are probably going to be disappointed. You are never really going to need more than 1 warden king or more than 1 cogsmith, which means those models are wasted. However, you can definitely run with a lot of irondrakes/ironbreakers, and fleets of gryocopters/gryobombers can be fun to play with too. If you decide you want to expand beyond 1000 points, getting a wizard or two and Soulscream Bridge is basically mandatory as well, though you can fill out the rest of your list with more ironbreakers/irondrakes/gryo's and still play a reasonable game.

Glaring issues: Bodies on objectives. There are a lot of cool, boat heavy builds available. But if you don't have bodies on objectives, you are going to lose. Shooting is good. Mobility is good. But every list is tempting you to take an ironclad, or take a frigate or two, or take a few gunhaulers. Capitalize on that mobility. But AoS is an objective game, and it is really easy to lose on objectives because you don't have enough bodies. This is not to say that you can't put bodies on objectives. But it is like eating your veggies - everyone wants to skip that part so they can have all the tasty stuff. But to have a balanced diet, you need to eat your veggies. Like veggies, you need to bring your arkanaughts so you can put bodies on objectives, and not just pig out on all the cool ships, the cool balloons, and the other fun units.

The core of a starcast list is this: Lord-Celestant on Stardrake Drakesworn Templar (or maybe Celestant Prime) Lord-Castellant 3x 5 Liberators This comes out to be 1260-1340 points depending on if you went 2 drakes or ran the prime. Now, after this, you can put in whatever you want - ballista's, longstrikes, wizards + comet, etc. However, a lot of people focus on getting the MW chip damage going with the Incantor + comet, and then a little more, because this allows you to clear off small hero's at the start of the game, and those hero's are usually the buffing kind. If you wanted to go with longstrikes, a block of 9 of them will deal 11 damage on average to a 5+ save, and 8.3 to a 3+. This is... not really enough to accomplish much. However, making that 22 or 16.6 by going with anvils is a lot more appealing. However, the downside of this is then you have to go anvils, which means you aren't running staunch defender. Then your Celestant only had a 3+ save, or a 2+ save with the Castellant. This also means that you are only healing due to the castellent when you roll a 6 and are facing no rend, rather than a 5+ against no rend or 6+ against rend 1. This makes the Stardrakes notably less tanky, and while it makes taking down bigger monsters easier, it isn't noticably better at clearing off the smaller support heroes. As for the ballista plan, this can be done while staying with Staunch. Damage wise, they deal about the same as longstrikes, but are a lot spikier with their damage. Additionally, there is no way to get them to benefit from something like the anvils command, so there isn't an easy way to boost their damage. I would look to add ballista's if you want to have something that can deal with screens, and shoot monsters, but I feel that they are really unreliable at shooting down hero's, even with the Ordinator helping them. Another option to consider if you want to add a shootcast element is to run Judicators. Yes, a block of 20 judicators is 640 points, but compared to Longstrikes/Ballista's, we can count it as 540 points because we can drop a block of liberators to run them. Damage wise, Judicators do less damage than either longstrikes or ballista's (against a 6+ save, Judicators do ~10.56, Longstrikes ~11, and Ballista's ~11.56), but they somewhat make up for this due to much of their damage hinging on the shockbolt bows, and the fact that they can give you 20 bodies on an objective, with a 24" range (which is better than ballista's rapid fire range). Overall, if I were to run any of these, it would be the ballista's. I wouldn't really want to give up the benefit of Staunch + Castellent to run the longstrikes. However, I would need to play around with the more traditional lists that have Incantor + comet more before I would bring the ballista list.

Easiest suggestion: Get a Frigate or ironclad and 2 start collectings. This gives you the following army: 1 Balloon Lord (220 points) 2 Endrinmasters (200 points) 10 Thunderers (240 points) 12 Balloon Boys (400 points) 1 Frigate/Ironclad (250/510 points) 3 Gunhaulers (450 points) This gives you 2020 points if you bought the ironclad, and 1760 points if you bought the frigate. It also gives you a solid core to work from that can be useful in building any sort of list that appeals to you. Notably, this also gives you everything that you need to run the Grundstock Escort Wing. Another alternative would be to purchase 2 frigates and 2 boxes of Arkanaughts, as well as a navigator or chemist. This gives you the following force: 1 Balloon Lord (220 points) 1 Navigator/Chemist (100/90 points) 2 Frigates (500 points) 1 Gunhauler (150 points) 20 Arkanauts (180 points) 6 Balloon Boys (200 points) This comes out to 1350/1340 points, and gives you enough pieces to run the Iron Sky Attack Squadron battalion. This also gives you a decent starting point for a 1000 point army (don't run the gunhauler or balloon boys). If you decide you don't like the battalions, it isn't a big deal. Either of these purchases will get you the core of a KO army, and more importantly get you a few ships to work with.

Now that I read that more closely... why in the world did they split up the cast/unbind bonus between the Luminark/Hurricanum? Just give it to both of them so that they both provide +1 to each, and if you are that worried about it, then make it so its within 12" of either? Anyways, I think that there are two ways to look at this. The first is that you want to run the battalion so that way you can get a bonus on units that otherwise wouldn't have it. The second is to get enough bonus's that you don't need to use the command ability, saving your command points for other uses in your army. In the first case, you would be wanting it to get small bonuses to cast and make casting a little bit easier in the early game, so that you can still get your spells off even when you roll a 1 on the command ability. Then in the late game, if they are still alive, you might not want to use the command ability because you've taken damage/your MW sponge is dead, etc. The battalion still lets you keep your consistency throughout the game. I would say that if this is what you are doing, you are probably running a mixture of stormcast units and battlemages, and you might have decided to leave the luminark and/or hurricanum at home. In the second case, think about a sorceress. Getting a +3 bonus to cast, do you even need to use the command ability? What if you decide to run 3 sorceress's? Sure, you are eating 3 bleakswords a turn to get your bonuses, but needing to roll literally anything but snake eyes to get off any of your Hallowheart spells means that you can save your command points for other things - like run and shoot with your darkshards, or run and charge with your Black Guard, or Hold the Line with a freeguild general. It is very easy to be command point hungry with Cities of Sigmar, and despite having the Adjutant and Warden of the Flame giving you command points on a 4+, it can be easy to run out of them with Hallowheart. But losing one of your biggest expenditures and starting the game with 1 more because of the battalion could give you the points that you need elsewhere in your list. Overall, after having thought about the subject a bit more, I'm inclined to think that the second way is what you really want to be looking for when deciding whether or not to run the battalion. As you said - if you roll a 4-6 on the CA, a +1 is rather redundant. And if you already have +1-2 to cast from other things, then the command ability basically says "Your spells go off, good luck unbinding that". But, it costs a command point. And if you want to spend the command points on other things, well, you need to find ways to either get more, or reduce expenditures. So your list that is running a Hurricanum, Luminark, Sorceress, Battlemage and Incantor... you probably aren't running much else that demands the command points because of how much you have invested in your casting. So drop the battalion, get more screens, and use your command points to buff your casting through the roof. However, if you decide to change your list up because you want to spend those command points on other things, then consider running the battalion.

I think you want the battalion if you are running around with Wizards who aren't getting any bonuses to cast (ex. Knight-Incantor), or you are trying to maximally stack buffs without having to use their command ability. So for example, here is a group of wizards who I wouldn't be too worried about bringing the battalion for: Hurricanum Luminark 2x Battlemage Note here that if you keep everyone near your hurricanum/luminark, everyone gets a +2 to cast (+1 from Hurricanum, +1 from Luminark, both affect themselves and any other battlemages within 12" of them). However, here is a setup that I would bring the battalion for: Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger Knight-Incantor Sorceress Here, the Sorceress can buff herself to a +2, but the Knight-Incantor and Lord-Arcanum don't have any way of buffing themselves. Here, you can get the +1 to cast from being in the Battalion, and then you need to decide if you want to use the command ability as well. If your Lord-Arcanum is perfectly healthy, then sure, but if he's not you might want to use the sorceress to cast sear wounds and get that to go off before using the command ability to buff the rest of your spells.

2x Start collecting + Aether wars gets you: Balloon Lord (220 pts) 2x Endrinmasters (200 pts) 12 Balloon Boys (400 pts) 3 Grundstock Gunhaulers (450 pts) 10 Thunderers (240 pts) Count up the points on that and you have 1510 points Looking for an easy way to turn this into an army? Buy a frigate and 6 more balloon boys and you get the following: Balloon Lord Endrinmaster Frigate 3x Gunhaulers 10 Thunderers 3x 6 Skywardens Grundstock Escort Wing Tada - straight 2000 points. Is it the best build? Probably not. It is a bit light on screening elements, and light on bodies to hold objectives. However, it is a 3 drop list because everything except the two leaders are part of the battalion.

So you bring 4 Gaunt Summoners, each of whom has 2 casts each. Do you reaaaally want to run them in ravagers so you can... pass around which is general and spreads the Tzeench aura, just for a few extra wounds? Or would you rather run them in Cabalists so you can sacrifice some marauders/cultists and get a d3 bonus to cast? As for being game breaking, I mean, yeah, you can throw 200 extra wounds on the board. However, you are going to struggle to put them into a battalion, which means that you are going to struggle to go first. And until you manage to go and drop those pinks, you are very vulnerable to someone going first and sniping one of them. They are a 6 wound model with only a 6+ save. And you don't really want to stick them on the very back of your board, because then those pinks that you summon won't be doing anything useful until turn 3-4, but you still somehow have to screen them from shooting and mortal wounds. I have Stormcast, Cities of Sigmar, and Khadron Overlords as my other armies, and all 3 of them have ways that they can easily take out 1-2 summoners on the first turn. Sure, good screening can prevent some other armies from getting to them, but enough armies can that I would bet that games would end up being very lopsided, and mostly decided before the game begin.

So, I ran the numbers for the endrinriggers. If you take a squad of 6 and give them 2 volley guns and 2 skyhooks/grapnel launchers, they do 1 more damage on average compared to running them all with their normal guns. However, you drastically reduce their melee threat by doing so. Since I want my endriggers to be flying around my boats to heal them, and to keep their mobility, but not really put them into melee, an argument can be made for giving them the special weapons. But, having the saws gives them significantly more threat in melee, and help act when they get charged. So personally, I would probably keep endrinriggers with just saws and pistols, and use the fly-high ability to get me into range. Looking at skywardens, we have one major issue. Their pistols only have a 9" range, which means they can't fire after a fly-high. This means that if you want a similar effect as endriggers where you are using your boats mobility to get you into position to shoot, well, they are just straight worse than endrinriggers. Additionally, the riggers do more ranged damage with pistols only than the wardens do, so if you want special weapons you might as well just run riggers anyways. In melee, wardens are worse than endrinriggers as well, except against 6+ saves (and then they barely win as well). However, this all gets turned on its head if you are running Barak-Zon, because your skyfarers all get +1 to hit, and your wardens get +1 to wound, which then jumps the skywardens melee to acceptable levels. My conclusion from all of this is that if you want to run balloons, you want to run endrinriggers, and then the special weapons will be to taste. Except, if you want to run Barak-Zon, in which case you want to run Skywardens and get them charging in and dealing damage, in which case you want all spears except maybe 1 skyhook for the +1 to charge (and you might want to consider running a squad of 12 as fast cav and not worry about the fly-high abilities - and you get an aethergold too).

Sadly, the last 20 or so pages got lost in people complaining about how KO is a terrible book and totally underpowered. At the time that I posted that response, the thread was a lot more useful as people were still posting actual lists. However, just recently I was looking for ways to build out from the starting point of an Aether Wars box. Here were some of the ideas that I came up with: Option 1: Escort Wing This option is pretty good with the Aether Wars box, because you have the balloon hero, 6 balloons, and a gunhauler. An easy way to go to 2k points is to grab 2 start collectings, a frigate, and 2 more boxes of skywardens. This gives you this list: Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit Endrinmaster with Endrinharness (alternatively, navigator or khemist, but those would require another purchase) 10 Thunderers 3x 6 Skywardens 3x Gunhaulers Frigate Grundstock Escort Wing With the balloon hero as your general, your skywardens are all battleline and you can run whatever port you want. This is a 3 drop list, with everything but the hero's being in your battalion. Keep in mind, if you want your foot hero in a boat, he doesn't drop with the boat, you put your battalion down and then you garrison him in your boat of choice afterwards. Option 2: Iron Sky Attack Squadron Here, you need X frigates and a box of arknaught's per frigate. I would recommend starting off with 2 frigates and 2 boxes of arknaughts, and see how you like it from there. An easy 1000 point army would be this: 2x 100 point or less hero's (khemist/endrinmaster on foot/navigator) 2x frigates 2x 10 Arknaughts Iron Sky Attack Squadron From here, to get to 2k I would add in a 3rd frigate + arknaught company, and then your Endrinmaster w/ Dirigible suit + 2x 6 Endriggers. If you have a khemist as one of your hero's, then you can drop the other 100 point hero to add in your gunhauler as well. This would give you the following force: Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit Khemist 3x Frigates 3x 10 Arknaughts Gunhauler 2x 6 Endriggers Iron Sky Attack Squadron Option 3: Boat the Balloons This was more of a silly list to see how funny we could get with balloon boys while still maintaining the fly high mobility advantage. As you can see, this would require a lot of balloons (I wouldn't recommend this list unless you really, really love the balloon boys) For 920 points, we can have the following: Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit 2x Gunhaulers 2x 6 Endriggers For 1970 points, we can have the following: Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit 5x Gunhaulers 5x 6 Endriggers For either list, 1 gunhauler hauls around the general + 6 endriggers (7 can follow it when it flies high), and then you have as many other detachments of gunhauler + 6 endriggers as you want. Is this a good list? Probably not. But it does give you nearly unmatched mobility. Option 4: The Iron Fortress Here, we want an ironclad and 20 thunderers. Don't worry, that is only 990 points of our army right there... so we should insure our investment by following around with some endriggers and gunhaulers eh? How about this list: Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit Khemist Ironclad (endrinworks - can fly high with any number of models) 20x Thunderers (garrisoning the boat) 2x Gunhaulers 2x 6 Endriggers Here, we have endriggers that can heal our ironclad, thunderers to blast anything we want from inside it, and the gunhaulers give it a 6+ FNP. Note, we are going to be required to take a port that makes either the gunhaulers or thunderers battleline, or we have to drop the khemist for 10 arknaughts to sit around and hold back objectives, or we have to break up one or both squads of endriggers to 3 man units. Lets be clear here - none of these lists is going to let you go 5-0 in a tournament. It is questionable if there is a KO list that will. But all of these lists are ways that you can build on your aether wars box and build out a larger KO force. Additionally, you will note that many of the models are re-usable between these lists, so you wouldn't have to restart from scratch if you wanted to try a new list.