readercolin

Some conclusions that I have come to as a result of my recent games. First off, the Flamespyre Phoenix is noticeably worse than the frostheart. Mortal wounds on a normal move aren't a great reason to bring it, coming back to life is really un-reliable, and it is a LOT worse in melee than the frostheart. I will probably continue to run mine if I want a 2 phoenix list, but if I had a 2nd frostheart I wouldn't. If GW errata's the flamespyre to deal mortals on a normal move, retreat, or run, I might run the flamespyre again, but realistically it needs to drop to ~250 points, maybe less. If anyone wants to complain about it being too strong, I'm going to note that the average damage of an un-bracketed flamespyre is 5.78... before saves. This is NOT a 290 point monster. It doesn't even take buffs well. Secondly, shadow warriors are truly mediocre. Yes, they have deepstrike, and can help you do things like snipe out some longstrikes that your opponent failed to screen well enough. They are good for forcing an opponent to hold back on their objectives. However, you probably shouldn't run more than 2 squads, max. That is enough to force your opponents to hold back some, threaten objectives, and maybe deal some cheeky damage. But once they are on the board, they are underwhelming enough that bringing them is HIGHLY questionable. Third, assassins aren't worth it. I know, I know, them dying is an easy way to trigger Vengeful Revenants, but honestly they could remove that "buff" from the city and most of the time you wouldn't even notice. They are good for deploying off the board and being cheeky, and if you have a spare 80 points you can throw one in. But you are going to get more effectiveness from your list if you leave them at home. They are fun though, and if you really want to run assassins, this IS the city to do it in. Fourth, Gryobombers suck. Yes, I just "built" and ran 3 of them. But they aren't enough of a threat to force your opponents to really care, their speed isn't enough to drop bombs and get out of threat range, they are terrible in melee, and their average ranged damage is ~1... before saves. They are a great way to tone down your list for more casual play, but you need to be honest with yourself that that is what you are doing. Gryocopters with brimstone guns MAY be worth playing if you are facing a lot of hordes locally, but that isn't really where the game is at right now. I'm still having fun with the city, and have a few more builds I plan to try out. So far, THE reason to run the city is "Living Idols", so as long as you can take advantage of that, the Phoenicium can be a good pick for you. But I think that building it more like a "normal" city that can take advantage of the fight on death trigger is going to get you further than trying to take advantage of any other gimmicks the city can do.

So I was attempting to tone down my list a little bit for more casual games, and got 2 games in recently. For my first list, I ran: Annointed on Flamespyre (general) 5x assassins 4x 10 Phoenix Guard 5x 10 Shadow warriors Note, this list was run solely as an excuse to field all 50 of my new shadow warriors, and I decided to see what spamming assassins would do for me. Here I had a double warlord + hunters, and gave the phoenix golden mist + phoenix pyre ashes, and then I gave 1 assassin the vial of manticore venom and the other the arcane tome. I ended up playing someone who was running Stormcast Paladins, with the following list: 2x Lord-Relictor (one as general w/ arcane tome) Knight-Vexilor with Banner of Apotheosis Yndrasta 5 Rextributors 5 Decimators 6 Annihilators with Grandhammers 3 Longstrikes Emerald Lifeswarm We played Feral Foray, and my opponent decided that rather than playing objectives, he wanted to smash face and see how much he could kill. This basically meant he gave the game away, but it is interesting how it turned out anyways. I deployed my phoenix guard to hold my objectives and be wholly within 12" of my bird, and all my shadow warriors and assassins off the board. He went first, and dropped everything down to hit one of my squads of phoenix guard, but only succeeded in charging his annihilators. I popped out 3 assassins, and he took out 3 assassins + 9 phoenix guard, and I took out 5 annihilators in exchange. On my turn, I flew over his annihilator with the phoenix and rolled a 1, leaving it alive. I also pulled my lone phoenix guard away from him, and he re-deployed out of charge range (and right next to yndrasta). Shadow warriors came down and attempted to shoot it, failing to kill it. Shadow warriors also grabbed 2 of his objectives, and failed to kill his relictor or his longstrikes. Turn 2, he went first, and got lucky with the emerald lifeswarm to bring back an annihilator, and yndrasta brought back another. I rallied back 2 phoenix guard to my squad of 1. He charged and took out 1 squad of shadow warriors and the 3 phoenix guard, but avoided engaging anything else near my phoenix. He also charged a block of shadow warriors with his relictor in his back field, and I popped 2 assassins out to slay it. On my turn, I once again attempted to fly over his annihilators with my bird, and once again rolled a 1 dealing 0 mortal wounds. I re-positioned to screen my bird with 2 squads of phoenix guard, and moved up to get in range of his longstrikes hiding in the corner. I managed to kill 1 annihilator with shooting (leaving him back at 2), and 1 longstrike. Turn 3, I got the double, flew over his annihilators again, this time rolling a 5 so I did 5 mortals and left 1 on 1 wound, then kept castling on my middle objective, screening my bird with phoenix guard. Meanwhile, my shadow warriors and assassins killed his longstrikes, and a squad of 10 barely managed to put the last wound on the annihilators, finishing them off. On his turn, he charged my phoenix guard with Yndrasta, his relictor, and the decimators (which were buffed with +1 to wound and exploding 6's to hit), but decided to split his decimators damage between a squad of 8 guard and the phoenix, killing neither. I managed to kill 3 decimators in return, and not much happened to yndrasta or the relictor. Turn 4, I won the roll off and we decided to stop. I had a commanding lead in points, though we were barely keeping track as he just wanted to smash. But in the end I killed his annihilators, 1 relictor, his longstrikes, and 3 decimators, while he killed 3 assassins and 1 full squad of phoenix guard and 7 guys from the second squad, which we both agreed put me in the lead on the "taking heads" score. For my second game, I made some small adjustments, bringing in some "gyrobombers". I ran the following: Annointed on Flamespyre (general) 3x assassins 4x 10 Phoenix Guard 4x 10 Shadow warriors 3x Gyrobombers I ran into flesh eater courts with something like the following: Archregent Ghoul King on Terrorgheist another hero? or two? 2x Fell Bats (allies) 3-4? Crypt Ghouls 2x Terrorgheists Chalice Horrorghast Once again, we ran Feral Foray (my dice liked that mission), and I deployed with my phoenix guard around my bird and the gyrobombers blocking summoning from the back board edges. This didn't really matter as he was able to put 1 terrorgheist into a gyrobomber (despite being deployed near the back of the objective zone), and he was able to summon in 2 squads of crypt flayers that were able to take out another gyrobomber when they came in and wound the last bomber. On my turn, I threw a squad of guard into the terrorgheist that took out my bomber, killing it, and also brought down 2 squads of shadow warriors to shoot some stuff up. Turn 2, he got his buffs off on his ghoul king giving it +3 attacks and a 5+ ward, and then he brought both remaining terrorgheists into my flank. I popped some more assassins out and killed 1 gheist, but otherwise he cleared both squads of guard and my assassins. On my turn, I brought in my last shadow warriors, did some shooting, and failed to kill his ghoul king which healed back to full from the chalice (twice). Despite my attempts to be tricky and take out his crypt flayers and secure an objective, he was able to pile in to my phoenix, deal 21 damage (and I failed exactly 13 wards), and then I failed my 4+ to come back at full health, and he was able to double-pile in and finish off my phoenix guard. This left me with 1 bomber, 1 squad of guard, and 4 squads of shadow warriors, while he controlled all 3 of his objectives and 1 of mine, and he still had his arch-regent + all his ghouls still ready to come in. I took turn 3 and failed to accomplish anything, and we called it after that as I saw no way I could get back into the game or kill his terrorgheist.

If liberators and sequitors cost the same points, I would probably run sequitors. As it is though, in either case I'm going to be running minimum battleline because I'm saving points for the rest of my actual hammers. Neither unit is all that impactful , though both can clear a cheap screening unit (eventually), but neither is worth reinforcing. However, the problem is that there are also vindictors, and vindictors can actually get to a 2+, so if I have spare points to run them, I'll probably choose vindictors over either option, even if vindictors cost 10-15 points more. As for Astrea over a generic Dracoline lord, I can't agree. Yes, she can give 1 unit a free +1 to save in melee, but she has to be wholly within 12" AND she doesn't give the +1 attacks aura. Locking you into hammers of sigmar is a bit whatever at this point, but I can't get behind running a 195 point model to buff a single 280 point unit. Maybe if reinforced kitties were worth running, I could get behind that, but as it is I can't justify bringing that much support for a 3 man squad. Either way though, the point is a bit moot until kitties are worth bringing in the first place.

Sacrosanct units that are playable: Knight-Incantor. Auto-unbinds are still good, and its the cheapest wizard. Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion. The +1 to hit bubble is really good, and helps this guy see use in a number of lists. He is also a fast flier that can keep up with your fast moving units to buff them with mystic shield/celestial blades. After that, nothing else is generally competitively playable. To state exactly what I'm talking about, we have the following: Lord-Arcanum (on foot) remains overcosted, and has no real benefit to run over the Knight-Incantor. His warscroll spell is indeed better, but generally not impactful enough to be worth spending 155 points on, especially when the book is generally so points starved. His extra movement for predatory spells could be useful, but again, stormcast are usually so points starved that you aren't bringing endless spells for him to move around (they are also all overcosted as well). The Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline has a pretty terrible spell, and also doesn't do enough damage to be worth bringing as a hero beatstick. This means that the only reason to bring it is for the Pack Alpha ability for extra attacks for dracoline units, but those aren't playable at the moment either so this guy isn't going to see play. The Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger is a bit more interesting as a highly mobile piece that has a heal spell. However, once again, it doesn't do enough to bring it as a beatstick hero, and stormcast are usually so starved for points that you aren't going to have room to bring this guy. That being said, he is probably the closest to making it into some lists for the heal and mobility. Next up, the non-hero's. Sequitors are overcosted. Tankywise, them having a 4+ save vs the 3+ of liberators and vindictors leaves them a bit underwhelming, and they don't do enough damage to replace dedicated hammer units. Additionally, even if you reinforce them and shove the hammers up front, they do less damage than a reinforced unit of vindictors because they can't get in with all their weapons. I'm not sure that they would be playable even if they only cost 115 like liberators due to that, but they definitely aren't worth 30 points more than liberators. Castigators are... ok. Point for point, they are one of the most efficient shooting units in the entire roster. Especially because Evocators can give them +1 to wound, and they can choose their +1 to hit "stance" to be d3 shots on 2+/2+. However, a reinforced unit is only 210 points, and between their shorter range and their smaller size, they don't really compete well with longstrikes and judicators, and they don't make great use of thunderbolt volley because their largest size is 6. If you wanted to go heavy on them, you could, but then you would struggle to fit into a battle regiment. Basically, they are just a bit too awkward to use compared to the alternatives. Evocators suffer the same problems as other paladin units - delivery. If you can get them into combat, they can be devastating. But now that their grandstaves don't have 2" reach, they don't reinforce well. Their 4+ save also doesn't help them in walking up the board or taking a counter-punch vs other paladins. Their poorer rend values also aren't doing them any favors. But most of it comes down to delivery. Evocators on Dracolines are actually pretty good numbers wise, with an un-reinforced unit actually competing with Fulminators in the damage department (especially with a Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline nearby). However, Fulminators trivially reinforce to 4, but Evokitties reinforce to 6, and run into coherency issues. Combine that with their 4+ save, and that they cost 50 points more than fulminators do and they aren't going to see play until either see a points drop or the coherency rule gets modified to 6 or less instead of 5 or less. Finally, Celestar Ballista's. Ballistas have a number of problems, with swingy damage, inability to all out attack as a group, inability to unleash hell as a group, and just generally overcosted for what they do. Basically, anything they do longstrikes do better. Overall, what this all boils down to is that most of the sacrosanct stuff is overcosted by a bit, or there are just better options to do what they want to do in stormcast. If they were pulled out of the book and put into their own book, it would probably make a decent middle of the road army that can go 3-2 with an occasional 4-1. However, they are in stormcast, and as such the question becomes why run them when you can run something else instead.

Sounds like some fun games. Did you have issues with phoenix guard against kragnos? I haven't actually played against a kragnos yet, so I'm not sure how well/poorly that will play out. As for other cheap mobile pieces, I'm a bit up in the air. On the one hand, you could look at running something like Outriders to get a fast moving shooting threat that can sit on objectives, or tag objectives and plink away. Alternatively, they can be used to screen out large areas of the board with their cavalry bases. However, they also really want to be near the hurricanum, which means you don't want to drop the hurricanum to make room for them, but you also can't really drop a phoenix or you lose redundancy for the Living Idols ability. But if you drop the shadow warriors, you lose deep strike abilities (maybe compensated for by the fast movement?), which leaves the assassins as the only real thing that you can drop, but they are so cheap that dropping them doesn't add all that much room. Finally, as 2 wound models, you can't pop assassins out of them, making them a bit of a non-bo. The only other cheap unit I can see bringing is gyrocopters/bombers. These have the advantage of being fast moving, have some mortal wound potential, and can plink away at things from a distance. However, they are pretty useless in melee, and their damage output is... not exactly anything to write home about either. I'm actually planning to try a few of these out, but I'm doing that because I have some old metal hawk riders that I'm going to paint up as mini-phoenix's and call them gyrobombers, not because I think that they are going to be particularly "good". Outside of those units though, nothing else really comes in as cheap mobile pieces. You can get some expensive mobile pieces with things like Demigryph Knights, or running some stormcast units (ex. tempestors), but you end up giving up so much other stuff to get them in that their usefulness becomes questionable.

Lore for units is nice. Fluff is nice. What I absolutely do not want to see is unique abilities tied to named units. The "best" example of this is Stormcast because they have so many of them. But lets say I want to play an army with some hard, recursive threats? Then I must take Yndrasta - no other model does what she does. Want a more durable army? Then I must take gardus - no other model does what he does. Want beefier battleline infantry? Then I must take Vandus Hammerhand if I want to give them extra attacks - no other model does what he does. Want a 2 cast wizard? Then I must take Aventus Firestrike or Krondys - there are no other native 2 cast wizards available. Similarly for IDK, the Akhelian king gives strikes first, but Volturnos is the only unit that can give extra attacks in the whole army. I'm ok with god level characters having special rules - they are gods, and they have to have SOMETHING to make them worth their obscene points cost. But if I have an endrinmaster, he really should have some other fluffy way of showing he's different, but not be the ONLY way to aquire that ability. Maybe give him something slightly better - he repairs boats for 3 instead of d3. Or maybe he gets an ability that is available on a different model, like the admirals command ability. Or maybe he is just a normal endrinmaster with +2 attacks. All of those are acceptable things, but I never want to look at something and go "well, I guess I HAVE to take this named character if I want this ability".

Lol. No, I had 24 glade guard, 16 high elf archers, 6 way watchers, and enough bits to convert another 4 elven archers to get me up to 50 (the above models were from my fantasy armies). I also got the Khanite shadow stalkers box, which have a number of great "assassin" models, so now I have 6 assassin's. Yes, I totally plan to run 5 assassin's and 50 shadow warriors at least once. Will it be good? Doubtful. Will it be fun? Absolutely.

That depends entirely on how resilient your buffs are. Is your buff piece the Herdstone, which gives +1 rend (and later +2) board wide, and the only way to remove it is bring a monster to where the terrain piece is and stomp it? Cool, a buff like this that is fairly reliable and perfectly fine to use to bring mediocre units up to good. Is your buff piece a 5 wound hero with a 4+ save, wholly within 9" bubble, and gives something like +1 attack? Ehh... this is not resilient, tightly constrained, hard to use, and easy to remove. I would accept a buff piece like this to take a unit from "good" to "broken", mostly because it is very unreliable - charge out of range? Too bad. Casually shot/magicked off the board? Too bad. But if this is buffing an already good unit, that good unit can actually do something after its buff piece is gone. There is plenty of counterplay to a buff piece like this, and the more your opponent can interact with your buff pieces, the less impactful that unit is going to be. Also, if you are wondering if anything is actually this bad, the example above is the Sylvaneth Arch Revenant, which has a command ability to give +1 attack to kurnoth hunters wholly within 9" (12" if its the general), and also gives kurnoths within 12" re-roll 1's to hit. You will notice that sylvaneth aren't exactly tearing up the meta at the moment, and when they are seen the Arch-Revenant rarely makes the field.

I'm not sure I agree that shadow warriors are required. Don't get me wrong - I'm having fun with them, and it does become a bit easier to counter deploy when you can null deploy for the first few drops. I also just finished painting up 50 of them, and am looking for excuses to field them. However, I think it would be just as valid to throw down some blocks of freeguild crossbows, or a block of irondrakes with a bridge, or bring some Judicators to have a tougher shooting threat. Stormdrake Guard are still good, and you can certainly continue running them, just like in every other city. My bricks of phoenix guard can't really affect the opponent turn 1 unless they come close. Running larger bricks also means that I have less ability to spread out, but at the same time, it also forces my opponents to commit hard to kill a brick. But 2 bricks of phoenix guard are also going to take objectives and leave enough room in the list for a solid shooting threat to give you game in matches where you would otherwise struggle. As for wounds vs the big tanks, I haven't faced a Kragnos, but I have run against Stormdrake Guard a few times. I haven't run into any issues killing them though, even without mortal wounds, just because you are throwing a lot of rend -1 attacks at your opponents. Yes, if you were concentrating all that power on 1 thing, rend -1 is pretty easy to ignore with all the save stacking going around. However, because the Phoenicium pushes you to engage on a number of fronts at once, most of the time save stacking is good for making 1 unit really strong, but doesn't work as well when you spread the damage across a large number of units. As for the flamespyre phoenix... you cannot count on its mortal wounds ability. Generally, I am given turn 1, and I cannot fly over anything. Turn 2, I usually get 1 round of mortals in, but then either sit back to ensure that I don't get roared and can use living idols, or it has to dive into combat. Turn 3, it is either stuck in combat or dead, and you can't drop mortals in a retreat move, and turns 4+ I am either in a commanding position with the phoenix sitting on objectives, or I am more worried about getting to objectives and not trying to drop bombs. So on average, I usually get 1 round of fire poop per game. Yes, they REALLY need to errata that from Normal Move to "normal move, run or retreat". Overall, I think that the Phoenicium is pretty forgiving for what you want to run. You really don't want to be losing models outside the combat phase, and you will want to be able to screen any shooting units you have, or anything that really wants to get a charge off. But I think that you would be pretty safe to just drop the magic from the army and rely on melee and shooting. So if you have some stormstrike chariots - run them. Test things out and see what works. But don't forget about what works in other cities armies, as you can probably get that to work here as well.

So there are several things worth noting in the longstrikes vs judicators discussion. First, damage. Damage wise, 15 judicators does slightly more than 6 raptors to a 4+ save, and slightly less to a 2+ or 3+. How much is the difference? 15 judicators do 16.67 damage to a 6+ save, and 8.22 to a 2+, while 6 longstrikes do 14 to a 6+ save and 9 to a 2+. There are some plusses and minuses to each, with rend -2 vs rend -1, and damage 2 vs damage 1. Go up against gotrek, or against thunder lizards, or etherial units, and judicators are better. Against chaff units, judicators are better. Against bricks like Archaeon or Maw Krusha's, longstrikes are likely better. Next up, range. 30" range is a lot farther than 24" range. 30" is going to outrange most other ranged units (with the exception of sentinels), and 30" range is also enough to shoot something deployed on the line turn 1 with a screen in front of them, while 24" requires the judicators to be on the line (this is due to deployment distance being 22" on many battleplans). This makes it easier for longstrikes to use thunderbolt volley turn 1, or to sit outside range of shorter range shooters and still kill them. Third, footprint. 6 longstrikes are a lot easier to place on the board than 15 judicators. Whether this is coming down from scions, or a translocate, it is easier to put the longstrikes down and screen them than it is judicators. Going with this, if you screen it is easier to unleash hell with all 6 longstrikes than with 15 judicators due to it requiring the model to be within 6", not the unit. Fourth, wounds and bodies. Judicators are 30 wounds on a 4+ save vs 12 wounds on a 4+ save. This makes judicators a lot more resilient to opposing shooting, and if bodies are removed then judicators lose a lot less output than raptors do. Also relevant here, you can rally back judicators a lot easier (because there are more there) than longstrikes, which continues to make them more resilient. Fifth, price. 2 boxes of raptors gets you the full squad, and that is $84. Judicators come in boxes of 10, and are $65 per box, which means that you are shelling out $130 to get a squad of 15, and then you have 5 judicators left. Yes, you can get them second hand as well, but between the cost of the models and the fact that you have to paint 6 raptors vs 15 judicators, it is easier for most people to drop the raptors down than the judicators. Overall, for me the reason to go longstrikes was reasons 2 and 3. You can relatively easily use longstrikes even without a priest in your list, though obviously translocate makes things better. You can more easily protect longstrikes vs melee threats, though judicators are better vs other shooting threats. However, with the current meta being more shooting focused, and raptors now giving up VP's if your opponent can get to them, I would lean a little bit more towards the judicators now, but only if you are looking for a squad to buy, or you already have both units. If you already own 1 unit but not the other, I'm not seeing a particularly compelling reason to go out and drop a ton more cash to get the unit you are missing.

Swiss, as in tournament format. Aka, the format used for the event, where you get paired up with someone else based on your record (so if you go 1-0, you are paired up with someone else who went 1-0, at 2-0 you get paired up with someone else who went 2-0, etc.).

So I got another Phoenicium game in, and this time I decided to lean on the power of Phoenix Guard and ignore the Vengeful Revenants ability. This is the list that I brought: Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar - City: Phoenicium Anointed on Flamespyre Phoenix (290) - General - Command Trait: One with Fire and Ice - Golden Mist - Artefact: Phoenix Pyre Ashes Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315) - Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) - Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon Knight-Incantor (125)** - Lore of the Phoenix: Golden Mist Assassin (80)** Assassin (80)** 20 x Phoenix Guard (350)* 20 x Phoenix Guard (350)* 20 x Phoenix Guard (350)* Emerald Lifeswarm (60) *Hunters of the Heartlands **Command Entourage - Magnificent Artefact Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 3 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 101 Drops: 8 So as you can see from this, the core of my army was built around 2 phoenixes and 3 blocks of phoenix guard. I also brought along the emerald lifeswarm to make anyone trying to kill a unit of phoenix guard truly miserable. I ended up playing someone with an annihilator + longstrikes list on Savage Gains. They deployed off to one side with their longstrikes and screens, and stuck their annihilators in the sky, then made me go first. I auto-ran 1 unit of phoenix guard onto my right objective, and then proceeded to roll 1's on every single other run role, but I did manage to turn the incantor into a monster for the run 3 tactic, scoring 6 points. On their turn, they shot my right squad of phoenix guard, and otherwise shifted around a bit, scoring 3 points. Turn 2 I got in with 2 squads of phoenix guard and both phoenixes. I failed to kill his screens, but was able to pile in enough to tag his longstrikes. However, I easily took all 4 objectives and completed my battle tactic of aggressive expansion, scoring me 11 points. On his turn, he failed to kill the last of the phoenix guard, brought his annihilators down, and failed his charges. Additionally, he failed his battle tactic of broken ranks, and scored 0 points. Turn 3, I went first, and we could have called it, but he wanted to kill my squad of phoenix guard. So I got the emerald lifeswarm off, and brought 3 models back to the unit (there had been 1 guy remaining). I then finished off his raptors and popped my assassins out, and 1 squad of phoenix guard charged a unit of annihilators while the other unit was charged by my frostheart phoenix. At the end of my turn, he was left with 2 hero's, 2 squads of aetherwings, and 0 objectives. On his turn, he finally killed that squad of phoenix guard with one of his hero's and we called it. Overall, I think this build once again showed the power of the Living Idols ability, as I could sometimes attack twice with my models, and phoenix guard continued to show their power as an incredible anvil. The lack of shooting in this list is going to cause some issues in some matchups, but at the same time this list is 86 wounds with a 4+ ward, or effectively the equivalent of 187 wounds total, which is a lot for many armies to chew through. The lack of Vengeful Revenants was not noticed at all, and the assassins could easily be replaced by any number of other things, though I would appreciate a hero still so you can get the extra enhancement. Emerald Lifeswarm + phoenix guard still remains busted as ever though. The big question is whether I would consider bringing this list to a tournament though. I think that if I wasn't expecting a lot of highly mobile shooting (KO, Idoneth, lumineth fox builds, etc.) that this would be a decent contender, but there is enough fragile shooting armies out there that I would really miss my shadow warriors. As a skew build that demands an answer, it does its job well, and other melee heavy armies are going to cry if they hit the brick wall that is a block of 20 phoenix guard. But I had less objective control with this list vs my other one, and I don't think that a build like this really has the chops to go 5-0. On the other hand, dropping a block of phoenix guard for some cheaper battleline and shooting is actually a reasonable possibility, and I would still consider it worth it to run the phoenicium in that regard as the 20 man blocks with fight on death are still a right pain to fight through.

The problem is that when you look at the numbers, fulminators are significantly better than concussors, which are still the second best. How much so? Below are the stats for units of just 2 guys, and only looking at melee: Save Charging fulminators concussors 2+ 9.33 4.89 6.67 3+ 12.44 6.52 8.22 4+ 15.56 8.15 9.78 5+ 18.67 9.78 11.33 6+ 18.67 9.78 11.33 - 18.67 9.78 11.33 As you can see, concussors do less than 2 more damage than fulminators that aren't charging, but 7 less damage than charging fulminators. Where this becomes particularly relevant is when you look at some of the various "damage checks" in the game. A megagargant has a 4+ save and 35 wounds. A squad of pink horrors is 6+ save and ~50 wounds. A maw-krusha is 18 wounds on a 3+ save. Basically, you can look and say that a reinforced squad of fulminators can, on average, meet the DPS check - especially if they can get a buff (all out attack, celestial blades, a triumph, whatever). A reinforced squad of concussors... can't. And even in the worst case scenario of your guys get stuck in combat, it takes 5 rounds of being stuck in combat for a unit of concussors to match a unit of fulminators. Basically, all I'm saying here is that until you reach a points cost where you can take 6 concussors for the same price as 4 fulminators, you likely won't see concussors hit the table outside of "dracothian guard spam" lists - despite them being the second best dracothian guard. The more likely result of giving up VP's with fulminators is that instead you just won't take them period, and instead switch to a different strategy (ex. stormdrake guard, annihilator lists, etc.). Alternatively, if they get a warscroll "nudge" that takes them from 3 damage on the charge to 2, they will get reigned in close enough that it may be worth taking concussors sometimes (as they go to 14.22 damage before saves). All this being said, I will note that this is a significant change for Dracothian Guard vs their second edition book, which was "run concussors if you run any, but you are better running nothing". So do be aware that these things change, and if there is one "build" that you find cooler than another, then build your guys that way, and one day they may become top meta units.

Lances are better if you are planning to do a lot of charging, swords better for anvils that are going to remain stuck in combat. Realistically, go with whichever is cooler to you, as they are similar enough to not be a huge deal. For dracothian guard, fulminators are the best damage wise, concussors are second best, desolators are... Questionable, and tempestors are useful as a solid ranged unit that can also get stuck into melee. Realistically, unless you are running a ton of them, you get a block of fulminators and call it a day.

After thinking about the role of artillery for a while, I think I have come to a conclusion about what artillery should do. Artillery should have a set of "roles", depending upon the type of artillery. We can break this down to "Single Target", "Horde", and "Area". A single target artillery piece should have an attack that specializes in killing something big. The Beast-Skewer Killbow is the perfect example of this. It does a bunch of damage, but more damage to single targets than to a horde of units. Cannons, ballista's, warp-lightning cannons, etc. should all follow a similar role as this, where it has a high chance to hit and wound, and then its damage scales based on how big a model is, or it does good, precise damage. These would tend to be high-rend attacks, or maybe mortal wounds, but specialized in cracking hard targets with good damage, but aren't the best against hordes of small things. An example could be a cannon that gets 1 shot at 3+/2+/-3/6, which is going to be very nice for cracking open a megagargant, but is pointed such that it isn't really advisable to try to spam it to kill low-save high-wound infantry. Second, is "horde". Here, sadly, the best example is not an artillery piece, but the Gyrocopter (with brimstone gun). A horde artillery piece should either have a high number of low quality shots, or preferably, a number of shots based on the target unit. Examples of horde artillery pieces could be things like the hellblaster volley gun, trebuche's, or celestar ballista's on rapid fire. By scaling the number of attacks based on the number of models in the target unit, you can get a weapon that is good against large blobs, but isn't going to be picking off support hero's from across the board. An example here could be "* attacks at 4+/3+/-1/1", with * being the number of models in the target unit. Or heck, do * equals twice the number of models in the target unit. This helps differentiate the weapon from just "normal" shooting, and gives it a well defined role on the battlefield that makes people consider bringing 1-2, but not spamming them (cause who would want 4 of these and then face megagargants?). The final thing is "area". Right now, "area" is something that is only really being done by spells, or special abilities. For example, the Knight-Judicator has a special ability where once per game it can choose a point on the battlefield and everything within 6" of that point takes d3 mortal wounds on a 4+. WHY ISN'T THIS ARTILLERY? A perfect example of this would be a hellstorm rocket battery. Why isn't the hellstorm just blanketing an area in attacks. Give it a rule where you pick a point on the battlefield, and for each unit within 3" or 6" of that point, you get 3 attacks against that unit on a 5+/3+/-2/d3. Here you still keep the "to hit/wound/rend/damage" effect, and you can scale that number of attacks, or buff/debuff with spells and abilities. Afraid of this nuking support hero's? Well its not mortal wounds, so keep them near a unit and they still get "look out sir", so now you are hitting on a 6+. The attacks are still "balanced", but it use is still going to play out differently than any of the other artillery types. Of these 3 roles, nothing is brand new, never before seen in AoS. But each of these different rules gives you a different role than a squad of ranged units, aside from maybe the single-target artillery piece that doesn't have scaling damage. None of these artillery pieces would be something that you would always want to bring, or necessarily want to spam (unless your local meta is particularly wild), but at the same time having 1 or 2 of them in your lists could help hedge against certain army types.

The fact that Gardus only buffs hallowed knights and not also hallowheart is a bit of a travesty. I mean, Aventus buffs hammers of sigmar AND hammerhall, why can't other named characters also buff specific cities as well? Yes, give me the Hallowheart Gardus Castle. Give me that wall of Ironbreakers with a 3+ save, 5+ spell ignore, and 5+ ward! Why CAN'T I have that? Heck, lets expand this out. Why would ANYONE take a knight-heraldor right now? Ok - give him an ability to buff charge rolls for nearby Cities of Sigmar units (or non-stormcast units). They can't think of a role for their... 43? hero warscrolls? First, they probably should make fewer stormcast hero's. But failing that, they should give them roles outside of "pure stormcast" armies. Its not like most of them are going to see play in a Stormcast army anyways with the pitiful stats they've been giving them.

Do be aware that Hallowheart has the rule "eldritch attunement" which lets any CoS units ignore spells on a 5+ (if they want to), and there is another spell that they can cast that changes that from a 5+ to a 4+ within 12" of the caster. So if you want your "traditional dwarven" army that ignores spells, amusingly enough it is the wizard city that does it for you.

For the argument about strikes first: Core rules, 12.4 and 12.5 go into strike-first and strike-last effects. Here are those rules: 12.4 STRIKE-FIRST AND STRIKE-LAST EFFECTS Some abilities have an effect that allows a unit to fight at either the start or the end of the combat phase. These effects are called strikefirst effects and strike-last effects respectively. The rules in sections 1.6.1-1.6.3 do not apply to these effects: use the rules here instead. If a strike-first effect applies to any units, those units fight before all other units fight. If a strike-last effect applies to any units, those units fight after all other units fight. If a strike-first effect applies to units from both players’ armies, the players alternate fighting with those units, starting with the player whose turn it is. Similarly, if a strike-last effect applies to units from both players’ armies, the players alternate fighting with those units, starting with the player whose turn it is. If a strike-first effect and a strike-last effect apply to the same unit at the same time, then they cancel each other out and neither effect applies to that unit. 12.5 STRIKE-FIRST AND STRIKE-LAST SEQUENCING 1. Start of combat phase abilities are used 2. Units with strike-first effects attack 3. Units without strike-first/strike-last effects attack 4. Units with strike-last effects attack 5. End of combat phase abilities are used Here are the examples from the core rules: Example: The player whose turn is taking place has two units with strike-first effects (units A and B) and one with a strike-last effect (unit C), while their opponent has one unit with a strike-first effect (unit D) and two units with no strike-first or strike-last effects (units E and F). The players alternate fighting with the strike-first units, starting with the player whose turn is taking place, so unit A fights, then unit D, and then unit B. Next, units with no strike-first or strike-last effects fight, so units E and F fight. Finally units with strike-last effects fight, so unit C fights. --------------- I am seeing no ambiguity here in the core rules that would make someone think that if an Idoneth player has 2 units, 1 with fight first, that their opponent would be able to swing before the idoneth player finishes attacking with their 2 units. The rules rather explicitly lay out that there are 5 phases of sequencing in the combat phase. This is also not the first time that "strikes-first" effects have appeared in gameplay, with the most common case of it probably being the Daemon Prince which has "strike-first" on its warscroll. Every time a daemon prince has attacked on its players turn, it has been used to have the daemon prince go, then another unit from the daemon prince's army go, before the defender gets to go with a unit in their army. This sets a rather compelling precedent that that is how the rules should work out.

There are 2 potential changes that come with hunters as conditional battleline. First, we can now fit everything into a battle regiment. Right now if you attempt to Kurnoth spam, your 3 battleline units are going to mean you can only take 2 squads of 6 and still fit into a battle regiment. It is still possible to make a battle regiment list right now, but doing so basically means either bringing Alarielle, or bringing a big block of dryads. With battleline kurnoths, you could bring 4 reinforced units and 2 small hero's and have a one drop. Second, we can now bring a squad of 9 Hunters. Now, due to the large bases, the only way to effectively run 9 hunters is either with bows or with scythes, but if they don't change the warscroll, 9 scythe hunters is only dealing ~24 damage before saves. For 645 points... I'm not impressed. 9 bow hunters cost 675 points and are doing a mere 12 damage before saves. All out attack + re-roll hits would bring that up to 21.33 damage before saves. These numbers aren't inspiring to me. Overall, I can see fitting better into a battle regiment to be a decent reason for someone to run Kurnoth Battleline. But unless there are some rather significant warscroll buffs, I can't see "kurnoth spam" being a viable list outside of for giggles. If they do significantly change the warscrolls that all goes out the window of course. That being said, I don't see any way that GW can overhaul Sylvaneth without some significant warscroll changes unless they are content with Sylvaneth remaining a bottom tier army for the whole edition.

Lumineth tends to be more about precision damage and mortal wounds. They can't do a lot of damage, but they are going to be great at picking off support hero's. As long as your opponent isn't going heavy on foxes, the best "hard counter" to lumineth is probably going to be throwing a wall of bodies at them. Ex. 20 chaos warriors (with runeshields - halberds or hand weapons both work), chaos knights, varanguard, Karkadrak, etc. 2 example armies: Knights of the Empty Throne 3 Varanguard Karkadrak 20 Chaos Warriors 5 Knights 5 Knights Just give everything the mark of Khorne, and you are throwing an army that has 94 wounds, everything has a 5+ ward vs mortal wounds, and everything is rocking a 3+ or 4+ save. Give the Karkadrak an arcane tome and flaming weapon and go to town (or the varanguard the grasping plate for 6" pile in). Ravagers Karkadrak Sorcerer Lord Sorcerer Lord 20 Chaos Warriors 5 Knights 5 Knights Give everything the mark of Tzeentch and you can save stack against any rend your opponent brings, and only your sorcerer lords will be weak vs mortal wounds. Give them both the spell "Mask of Darkness" so you can teleport something around, and give one of your sorcerer lord's "Master of Magic" to reliably get that teleport off. This army brings 89 wounds to the board and is a bit weaker vs the precision sniping, but again your opponent is going to struggle to get through the wall of iron you throw in their face. On top of that, this army can bring cultists/marauders in on a board edge to attempt to get into their shooters and tie them up, potentially bringing another 30 wounds to the board. Do note that slaves to darkness don't really have an answer to a "Fox Spam" build that attempts to block you off with foxes and move out of charge range at the end of the shooting phase. It is basically a hard counter. However, against most other lumineth lists, just drowning them in bodies is probably going to be the most effective answer.

I think that open play and path to glory don't really need any changes on smaller table sizes (my complaints about the path to glory missions notwithstanding), mostly because any objectives aren't fixed, and instead has rules for how far away from other things it needs to be placed. I would argue that for the "best" game you should ensure that your armies are deploying at least 18" away, as that is the minimum distance possible specified in the GHB. But every mission in the GHB (assuming you are playing on the "minimum" table size of 60"x44") has deployment such that if you start your armies as close to each other as possible, they will be between 18" and 24" away. As for objectives, this isn't really a problem in open play, as there is no fixed objective positioning. Similarly, it isn't really much of a problem in Path to Glory, as there is 1 mission that has multiple actual objectives to control. But for matched play, shrinking the table size in a mission that runs with 3 objectives on the same horizontal line can mean that the objective zones overlap, and that can potentially be an issue. Do keep in mind that there is a rule stating that a single unit cannot control more than 1 objective (so if you throw a unit of cavalry down in a blocking formation, they can theoretically sit on 2, or even 3 objectives at once, but they only count for control on 1 of those - but you get to choose which one), which means that overlapping objectives may not be the biggest issue. Overall, I would only adjust that if you find yourself having issues with the game.

I have played a number of games at lower points. This ranges from path to glory games, open play games, and matched play games, and I've had different experiences with each of them. First off, path to glory. I have done a few path to glory leagues at this point, and at this point I have nothing but distaste for the path to glory battlepack. Going through the battlepack, you can see that whoever wrote those "missions" was focused on having people get up and smash in melee and it was going to be a game of whoever is better in melee wins. Like, seriously, half your army comes in at a board edge, but the only restriction is more than 3" away from enemy units? Or deploying 9" away from each other at setup? What's the mission? Kill your opponents army? Like, seriously, its terrible. Armies are designed differently. Some are better at killing, but slow. Some are better at objective play. Some are better at getting to where they want to be faster. All these things can come out and be used in various ways in matched play, but when you start the game deploying in charge range, a lot of the nuance gets thrown out the window. Its fine for "I just started a new army and want to test it out", but for actual gameplay I honestly never want to play a game from that battlepack again. Note that this is applicable whether you are playing at 600 points or at 2k points, and at every level in between. Open play is a lot better. It still loses some of the nuance, as there are 6 victory conditions, and 5 of them have objectives on the battlefield. The changes to deployment areas also means that some battles you can start in easy charge range, while others you can start rather far away. This can make games much swingier, but at the same time you kind of know that you are signing up for this when you decide to play open play. The random "effects" can also make a huge impact - after all, do you really want to build your army around longstrikes when you have a 1/6 chance of rolling the effect that your max range turn 1 is 12"? Or a chance that every hero phase someone is potentially getting struck by lighting and taking mortal wounds? I'm of the opinion that open play is best for smaller point games as leaning into the randomness there is going to make it easier to brush off the imbalances of small point games. And yes, there are a lot of imbalances there... and if you get blown out it is really easy to just roll up another one and have a go at it again. Finally, Matched Play. I like matched play for 2k games. However, some of those battle plans are just terrible at 1k. Yes, we are playing with 6 objectives and I'm fielding... 4 units? No way for this to go poorly, right? Other battleplans are fine - Tectonic Interference is a fine battleplan for any number of points, and the vice is (almost) always fun every time I play it. At the same time, as soon as 1 person decides to optimize, they inevitably end up with a skew list and the games become very not fun, as either someone can't answer the skew or hard counters the skew, and the game is usually over on turn 2 one way or another. The fixed positioning of objectives for matched play also means that games play out rather differently every time you adjust the table size. Overall, if I were to make any sort of recommendation, it would be to stick to open play when you are playing smaller games. Its fun, its random, and it is easier (in my opinion) to shrug off the inevitable blow out games because, hey, it happens sometimes.

The state of the game is fine. Heck, I would even rate it as great. AoS 3 is a massive improvement over AoS 2, and so far every book that has been released has evoked the flavor of that faction in both the units and the army abilities, and honestly I think that most of the people complaining about it have just been stewing in negativity, or been listening to the complaining echo chamber for too long. In case you are wondering, yes, I do actually play the game. Heck, I would go so far to say that I am probably well above average in game time. Last summer after the new edition dropped, I was averaging 1 game a week. Starting last fall, as more things opened up, I was able to bring that up to 2 games a week on average. I currently play Cities of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, Kharadron Overlords, and Slaves to Darkness, and I also have both Sylvaneth and Lumineth on my painting table getting them ready to see the field (hopefully this spring... unless I get distracted with other stuff again - and in case you are wondering, I've been debating about adding Ironjaws, Idoneth deepkin, and even an all-magmadroth fyreslayers to my table). With every single army that I play, I am still interested in them, and still interested in trying new things out with them. Most of them I don't, because I am controlling my spending and not just going out and getting that new unit because "that would be cool, I want to try that"... or in the case of Kharadron Overlords "I refuse to paint any more rivets... I'm NOT buying another boat". But I play with my armies on the table, figure out what went well, what didn't, and what could be fun to field the next time I play. I love that GW is making changes with the books to open up play styles and cool units without having to worry about buying and painting "taxes". I love that they are making it easy to get your models out and experiment with them, and not lock you in with artefacts and other enhancements just for taking a specific subfaction. I like that the books are carriers for rules, and they leave the flavor up to the player who is making their army theirs. Overall, again, I find the state of the game as great. I hope that GW continues to release future books that open up more flexibility to their players. If GW releases a new Sylvaneth book this summer, I hope that there is an option to make Treelords and Kurnoth Hunters battleline. I look forwards to not being locked into specific command traits, or being required to take specific artefacts. I look forward to making my army MY army, and not feeling obligated to get certain things and build them certain ways because "thats the 'flavor' of the faction". No. It is MY army. I make it. I build it. I give it the flavor that I want it to have, and I appreciate that GW is giving me more flexibility to be able to hobby MY way - not the way of someone else who thinks that it should look different than my vision for it.

I'm going to wait till after the FAQ comes out first, but a battle smith with the ability to give a 4+ rally is on my list of potential allies to bring into my cities. For me, it is the idea of running a battle smith and an emerald lifeswarm to get death levels of recursion with my Phoenix guard, but I could totally see running that alongside some of the other tanky units as well.

So I got another game this past week with my same list against a little bit lower powered stormcast list that looked like the following: Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger Lord-Imperitant Knight-Incantor Knight-Vexilor with Banner of Apotheosis 5 Vindictors 3 Annihilators (grandhammers) 3 Annihilators (grandhammers) 6 Longstrikes 3 Aetherwings 3 Aetherwings Everblaze Comet Warlord + battle regiment We ended up playing First Blood, and he finished deploying before I put a unit on the board. He did a very good job of screening his longstrikes out, leaving me no room to deepstrike my shadow warriors and shoot them before he could do anything. I started with my shadow warriors and assassins in the sky, and then my phoenix guard in 2 groups to go threaten the mid and upper objective, with the phoenix's in between. To no ones surprise, he made me go first. My turn 1, I did ferocious advance with some of my phoenix guard and moved my phoenix guard forward taking the upper and middle objectives, shifted my birds between, and stayed back far enough that my opponent couldn't thunderbolt volley anything without moving first. Then I dropped some shadow warriors to shoot his incantor, and after failing to kill it charged and tried to see if they could get the job done (this would open up a bit that would let me shoot his longstrikes on turn 2). They didn't get the job done, and lost 7 warriors to the incantor and battleshock. Overall, I scored hold 1, hold 2, hold more, and my battle tactic, scoring 5 points. On his turn 1, he also chose ferocious advance and dropped the comet in the middle of my phoenix guard, hitting 4 squads of guard and both birds, and did... 1 damage to each bird and killed 2 phoenix guard. In the movement phase, he shifted forwards, toed the open objective with his gryph-charger, brought in one squad of his aetherwings near my phoenix guard, and shot a squad of them, killing 5 (bringing it down to 4 guard left). He also failed to kill the shadow warriors in shooting, but his incantor was able to finish them off in combat. He scored 1 objective and his battle tactic, scoring 3 points. Turn 2, I went first, and chose monstrous takeover. I successfully healed with golden mist, and then I shifted my phoenix guard forward more, leaving one squad toeing the upper objective with 4 models, kept my general in the middle, and shifted a squad of phoenix guard and my frostheart towards his Gryph-Charger, and then dropped a squad of shadow warriors down to shoot the gryph charger. In the shooting phase, I shot it, but then failed to get to it with any of my charges. I scored hold 1, hold 2, hold more, and my battle tactic, scoring 5 points, bringing me up to 10. On his turn 2, he chose slay the warlord and decided to try to kill my flamespyre phoenix. He opened up with a thunderbolt volley and took 9 wounds off of it, moved his general back to be barely toeing the bottom objective, and dropped a squad of annihilators down in the center, dealing a single point to my flamespyre and killing a single phoenix guard out of the 3 squads that were in the impact range. Shooting phase, he managed to kill my flamespyre and it didn't get back up, and then he charged his annihilators in to my phoenix guard on the center objective, dragging 2 squads into combat. Beginning of combat, I popped living idols and let him attack, and then had to laugh as he killed 3 phoenix guard from my squad of 4, and then 3 more phoenix guard from my squad of 8, and lost 5 wounds off his annihilators in retaliation. Overall he failed to take the objective, scored hold 1, battle tactic, and killed a monster for 4 points, bringing him up to 7. On turn 3, he won the rolloff, and I took off the one objective that he controlled. He chose broken ranks on my single phoenix guard, and figured he could kill it in melee. He brought down his second squad of annihilators, and killed 1 phoenix guard with entry hit, and then shot at one of my squads of guard with his longstrikes, taking out 4 more guard. Charging killed 1 more, leaving me in the center with a squad of 1 guard, a squad of 4 guard, and a squad of 9 guard engaged with his 5 annihilators. Beginning of combat, I popped living idols and out came 2 assassins. He swung at my single guard (that he chose broken ranks on), and at my squad of 4 guard, and 1 of my assassins, and killed 2 from my unit of 4, failing to kill the broken ranks unit. I retaliated with an assassin against his un-wounded unit of annihilators and killed one. He responded back by swinging into the now 2 guard and both assasins, and dealt 3 damage to one assassin and killed the squad of 2 guard (but again, not the broken ranks squad as it wasn't in range for that unit to swing at). I then proceeded to take his first squad of annihilators down to 1, and dealt 4 damage to his second squad. End of turn, he scored 0 points. On my turn 3, I chose broken Ranks on one of his squads of annihilators. I brought down my last squad of shadow warriors (still unable to shoot his longstrikes), and then moved around a little bit. My phoenix and a squad of guard got into his vindictors which had been moving towards the center objective, and I shot at his general a little bit more with my shadow warriors, failing to kill it. In combat, I killed both his annihilators, his vindictors, 3 aether wings, and lost both assassins and both damaged squads of phoenix guard. I failed to kill his annihilators with a monster though, so I scored 5 points, bringing it 15-7 in my favor, and leaving him with his hero's, longstrikes and a squad of aetherwings left. Turn 4, he went first and tried bring it down. He threw his general and everything else at my frostheart, but failed to kill it, scoring 0 points. I took slay the warlord, killed his gryph-charger (his warlord), and got some units into melee with his vanguard raptors, leaving us 20-7 at the bottom of 4 where we called it, as there was no way for him to come back OR to achieve his consolation prize of killing my other bird. ---------------- Overall, my opponent could probably improve his army by getting a relictor instead of the Knight-Vexilor, and a 3rd squad of annihilators over the vindictors and comet (at which point it would basically be the Annihilana Grande list, but with a gryph charger instead of a Knight-Judicator). As it was though, this game continued to show just how powerful the "Living Idols" command ability is, and once again I had a single combat phase where "Vengeful Revenants" kicked in and actually did something. This continues to reinforce to me that the way to get the most out of a Phoenicium list, you want to be playing to take advantage of Living Idols. MSU units can take advantage of this in multiple ways, as your opponent has to carefully figure out how to split attacks and can't just throw everything into a single unit like they can if you have a squad of 20-30 guys. However, at this point I can say that there isn't a huge advantage of doing MSU over doing some big hammers. But at the same time, as you start going with bigger units, the question comes up of why do that in the Phoenicium rather than just running a living city list. I intend to continue playing around with it as I'm having fun, but you do need to constantly ask yourself if another city could do what you want better.