readercolin

It appears I was slightly wrong - it was 4 Daemon Princes and Be'lakor. This was run at "Bloodshed in the Shires 2022" by Simon Weakley, and I was able to find the list here: Army Name: The Butchers of Blood-Blessed Flux Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness - Damned Legion: Despoilers - Mortal Realm: Ghur - Grand Strategy: Beast Master - Triumphs: Inspired Leaders One-Eyed Grunnock (470)** - Allies (Mega Gargant Mercenaries) Be'Lakor, the Dark Master (360)* - Spell: Mask of Darkness - Spell: Call to Glory Tretchomvar Cursecast - Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)* - Hellforged Sword - Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch - Spell: Whispers of Chaos - Spell: Spite-tongue Curse Maughaemon Gougefrenzy - Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)* - General - Hellforged Sword - Command Trait: Paragon of Ruin - Artefact: Doombringer Blade - Mark of Chaos: Khorne Ghak Scarfury - Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)** - Hellforged Sword - Mark of Chaos: Khorne Tarkoth Goremaul - Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)** - Hellforged Sword - Mark of Chaos: Khorne Battleline The Syndicate of the Sentient Forge - 8 x Iron Golems (75)* - Mark of Chaos: Khorne The Iconoclasts of the Iron Messiah - 8 x Iron Golems (75)** - Mark of Chaos: Khorne The Covenant of the Bronze Fiend - 8 x Iron Golems (75) - Mark of Chaos: Khorne Endless Spells & Invocations Emerald Lifeswarm (60) Prismatic Palisade (40) Core Battalions *Warlord **Warlord Additional Enhancements Artefact Spell Total: 1995 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 0 / 4 Allies: 470 / 400 Wounds: 111 Drops: 9

Honestly, I keep the khorne daemon prince around for his aura - any combat utility is pretty negligable because I don't want him threatened so I can make sure to keep that aura around. Mathematically, the two are the same, or close enough as to not be worth bothering about (as in, between .1 to .5 damage difference on average, and if you ignore 2+ saves it is basically .1 to .25 damage difference). In either case though, unless you are that crazy person who ran a 5 daemon prince list, these guys aren't going to be adding much to your list beyond the khorne aura for the weapon choice to be making a big impact in your decision making. So go with whichever seems cooler to you.

I think that right now 3.0 is still "new" enough that not too many people want to be writing their own battlepacks. There is also quite a bit that goes into the battlepacks now. Not only are there the missions, but there is also the unit caps/minimums, the reinforcement limit, the grand strategies, and the battle tactics. Then there is the question of any special rules, like the spell Metamorphosis, or the realm command "Feral Roar", or the core battalions (alpha-beast pack and hunters of the heartlands). The battlepack actually is VERY impactful not only in game play, but also in list building. How much is your army going to change if you don't get bonus points for doing things with a monster? How about bonus points for killing a monster? What are the battle tactics that you create - what if you get extra points for doing something with a battle line? What if broken ranks isn't killing a battle line unit like it is in the GHB, but its killing a troops unit like it is in the Pitched Battles rules in the core rulebook? What changes if a battle tactic is "control the center" like in the pitched battle rules? This means that as you put together a battle pack for your tournament, you may get people to bow out of your event if your battle pack is too dissimilar to the current GHB because people are building their armies to play the current GHB. And I'm not sure that too many people want to take that risk right now. As people get more familiar with 3.0 and what makes a good battlepack, I think that we will get more tournament organizers experimenting with things, or more people putting out community battlepacks. I know from watching Warhammer Weekly that there is some sort of community that is putting together a "best hits" of map packs, and that is community driven. But I haven't seen anything else where people are trying to put together additional rules beyond that (though I might just not be looking in the right places).

As has been mentioned, hammerers come in the same box as longbeards, so unless they go and update the sculpts (HAH) they aren't going to retire the models unless they retire duradin from the cities completely. Considering the number of people who love the traditional "fantasy dwarf" in heavy armor with a hammer, I don't see this as particularly likely, as the other dwarfs in the game don't really give the same aesthetic. As for using them, they are currently not in the greatest place. Don't get me wrong - they are excelent units when it comes to dishing out damage, with potentially the highest damage output per point of any unit in the game (what do I mean? Going from unbuffed, a 10 man squad will deal ~11 damage on average before saves, but can jump all the way up to ~40 damage before saves if they get all the buffs). But the problem is that with a 4" move, they aren't dictating engagements, and with a 4+ save, they just aren't tanky enough to get into position. Finally, they are comparing themselves to Irondrakes, which can be nearly as killy, but do so at 16" instead of at 3", which means they can actually hit priority targets and get their damage in. I think that we would need to see the meta shift away from the current "power projection" meta and towards something where people are wanting to get up close and personal. Or at least shift away from the significant amount of shooting currently available. Because even though a single squad of hammerers can be buffed to the moon, that doesn't matter too much when your opponent just deletes it at range, or worse... just ignores it because it can't actually threaten them.

So something that I think needs to be said because it is being missed by a few people. There is no "General" rule that no more than half your army can be a single unit. This is battlepack specific. If I play a 1k game using the generals handbook, that rule doesn't exist, and therefore I can bring Alarielle in my 1k game despite her costing 740 points. I can bring Archaeon and 2 squads of 70 point cultists (say, untamed beasts?) - it comes out to exactly 1k points, and is a completely legal army. However, if we switch from the Generals Handbook to Path to Glory battlepack rules, or to contest of generals, then we do have a rule that says that no more than half of your army can be a single unit. Now you can't bring those god characters to a 1k or a 1500 point game. Now, is bringing a god going to be a good game? Probably not. Whether you are looking at it from a "competitive" viewpoint or a casual one, someone isn't going to have a good time. Can you play a 1k game and have fun? Undoubtably. I've done it a number of times. However, I find that 1k works much better as a "casual" environment, because as soon as one player starts to get competitive about it a lot or armies just don't have the tools to handle that due to the lack of scaling benefits.

So for me the assassins do a few things. First, they give me enough subcommanders for a warlord battalion. This is giving me an extra artefact that is going to assist in the survivability of my phoenix's. Since they are 80 points a piece, I'm good paying 160 points for 2 assassins and an extra artefact rather than another unit of infantry. Second, they start off off the board. If I am running battlemages, or other support hero's that are starting out on the board, and are easily the weakest models I'm fielding, which makes them prime targets to be picked off in non-melee combat. Meanwhile, the assassins are protected until the combat phase - they can't be shot, they can't be stomped, they are just hanging out until they make an appearance. This means that they can actually get into combat and do something. Third, due to the living idols ability, I can guarantee that the assassins attack. One of the biggest reasons that assassins are terrible is because they are made out of glass, but generally don't actually do enough damage to take something out if they do attack. Fight on death means that either I attack with them, or my opponent attacks them and they still get to swing before they go out. Additionally, don't underestimate their mortal wounds on 6's to wound. It isn't the most consistent, but if you ever get 2-3 procs of that, you are feeling really good about it, though the average 1.33 mortals off of that ability on average. Fourth, due to how the assassins appear, you can make things really, really annoying for your opponent with them. For example, I was able to lock a bloodthirster into combat with one unit of phoenix guard and not let him go bother a second unit, just by appearing base to base with that bloodthirster. I have been able to have him appear between my phoenix guard and my opponents units because they were a little short on getting everyone in on the charge, forcing them to waste attacks on that assassin. Finally, though I usually have them popping out of my phoenix guard, they can also be really helpful hopping out and assisting shadow warriors if someone tries to engage them in melee, forcing your opponent to have to over-commit to individual units of shadow warriors until after your assassins have all appeared. Finally, I've found that the majority of the time, I proc the Vengeful Revenants ability because an assassin died. While I wouldn't build my army around the vengeful revenants ability due to how easy it is for your opponents to play around it, if it does go off it gives a 50% boost to the damage output of my phoenix guard (9.33 avg damage before saves to 14.58 avg damage before saves). Overall, I wouldn't say that they are vital to the list, or irreplaceable. It is likely that you can get more out of your list with some well placed battlemages, sorceress's, or knight incantors. However, do remember that buff magic is a bit underwhelming if you are going MSU, and you will be better served by shifting away from that style of play if you want some battlemages buffing their surrounding units. But there is something so satisfying about saying "surprise! an assassin appears" that I really don't want to give them up when I'm having fun with them right now.

My "new" army for the year is Sylvaneth... And none of it has left it's boxes yet. However, I also have been going through my backlog of other stuff and finished painting and basing 50 phoenix guard, finishing that project off, and I've been going though and converting a bunch of old high elf archers and glade guard into shadow warriors, and have 50 of them on my painting table. I also have almost finished up painting 4 stormdrake guard. And most of this is because I look at my Sylvaneth and go "ehhhh... Not today". So at least even though I haven't started with my new army yet, I am at least making progress on other stuff... Right?

So without phoenix guard, it is going to be a less durable list. This makes it easier to pick off units from shooting, from impact damage on charges, from mortal wounds from spells, etc. However, to compensate, you are getting more bodies on the board and more wounds available. I think that as long as you stick to 2 phoenix's to make sure you have some redundancy for the Living Idols ability, the rest of the list is a lot more flexible. Phoenix guard are good with them because of the Captain of the Phoenix Guard ability and the immunity to battleshock, but I think that you can get some similar results out of other units as well. That being said, I think having more MSU units is better than a big block or two because you can reliably get your damage out due to fight on death, and more MSU means more chances to proc your vengeful revenants ability. But at the same time, if there are reasons to run a big block of guys due to buffing abilities, then I would still run those big blocks. For list construction, you can still build towards an army that is trying to get the drop on people, but due to wanting to run double phoenix for redundency, the lowest you can realistically go is a 2 drop list, otherwise you are risking losing the phoenix to an alpha strike and not getting the use of the living idols abilities. This means that you are generally going to tend towards going high drops and trying to counter-deploy vs your opponents. If I was focusing on a wanderers build, this is probably what I would look at running: Wanderers: Annointed on Frostheart Annointed on Frostheart Nomad Prince - general Assassin Assassin 2x 10 Eternal Guard 2x 10 Wildwood Rangers 3x 10 Sisters of the Watch This list is looking to stick eternal guard up front, with wildwood rangers behind for "counter charging", and then use the sisters of the watch for unleash hell, or just general picking off targets. The nomad prince has a 12" bubble around himself of +1 to hit, which all the wanderers units would take advantage of. Some considerations with this list is whether or not to drop the assassins for battle mages or sorceress's, and whether or not the wildwood rangers should actually just be more eternal guard. Overall, I wouldn't expect this build to perform as well as a phoenix temple build due to the lower resiliency of the units, but at the same time you have a more solid shooting threat against most armies in the sisters of the watch. That being said, this list does seem to be extra CP hungry as you want the Nomad prince's bubble, the living idols CP each combat phase, and also probably unleash hell. However, there are also a few other lists that I want to run and see how effective they are: Demigryph Time: Annointed on Frostheart Annointed on Frostheart - arcane tome, golden mist Freeguild General on Griffon - general, free spell - golden mist 6x 3 Demigryph Knights This army is looking to to a few things. First of all, it is relatively fast moving, and demi's are 4 wound models on a 3+ save, meaning that if they take some damage but don't die, they can still get healed by the golden mists. The general on griffon also has a bubble buff ability that will affect the demi's giving them +1 to charge and to hit in the combat after, while the list is still heavily armored and hard to chew through in melee. That being said, this army would still be weak to shooting threats, and the general on griffon is an obvious target to try to take down... though realistically taking it down wouldn't make a huge impact in the performance of the list, and the new mount trait for it does still make it more annoying to deal with if your opponents choose "bring it down" or "slay the warlord". Darkling Covens: Annointed on Frostheart Annointed on Frostheart Sorceress - general Sorceress Assassin Assassin 4x 10 black guard 2x 20 darkshards (or 4x 10) This list is relying on black guard instead of phoenix guard, and taking advantage of the +1 to hit when near a sorceress ability of them. The darkshards also give the force a shooting threat, with each squad able to put out an average of 5 damage before saves. Overall, this is probably just a worse version of my phoenix temple list, but if you are more interested in the darkling covens it may still be a reasonable option. Freeguild Foot: Annointed on Frostheart Annointed on Frostheart Freeguild General - general Knight-Incantor Knight-Incantor 3x 10 Freeguild Greatswords 30 Freeguild Crossbowmen 2x 10 Freeguild Handgunners This list is using the greatswords as an extremely dangerous melee threat, while also having a dangerous shooting component in the crossbowmen and handgunners. The general can choose whether to buff the greatswords or the shooters, while the incantor's bring along dispell scrolls to handle AOE magic effects that could otherwise be annoying, as well as not being complete pushovers in melee like the Cities wizards would be.

So the factions, starting with Chaos: Beasts of Chaos is an interesting army to collect in relation to DnD, because you get quite the variety of various goat men and monsters to choose from. For Hero's, you have a fighty goat man, a casty goat man, a crazy looking bird man on a flying disk, a minotaur, and a gigantic centaur thingy (beastlord, great brey shaman, tzaangor shaman, doombull and dragon ogor shaggoth). Then for monsters, they get a giant, a chimera, a cygor, a ghorgon, and a jabberslythe, while for "regular" dudes they get a variety of goat guys, minotaurs, centaurs, dogs, chariots, and more of the crazy bird things (tzaangors). Overall, if you want to have a wide variety of "opposing" monsters to throw down, and you don't necessarily care that they perform well in AoS, beasts is a decent army to get into. Additionally, if your local stores/groups are good with 3rd party mini's, you can get QUITE the variety in your list, even if you run a lot of the same model. For reference, if you got 1 of every unit in beasts of chaos, it would come out to 3435 points (note, it wouldn't be a "good" army... but beasts never was a good army to start with so meh?). Khorne. Khorne has a variety of "classic" demons, and bad guys in armor. Get a bloodthirster or two as big arch-demons, some of the smaller guys, and you end up with a small "evil" army of bad guys you can use in DnD, and a rather terrible army to put on the tabletop. Do note that even if you "optimize", Khorne currently isn't in that great a place, so you would still end up with a "bad" army on the tabletop, so you aren't really missing out much by getting some variety. Legion of the First prince. Now, let me be clear here - legion of the first prince is a TERRIBLE army for a beginner to pick up. However, the upside of it is that its units are "any chaos daemon unit". So if you want a bloodthirster and a great unclean one, you can shove both of them into this army. Be'lakor is also the "big bad" in charge of the army, and his model is AWESOME as an end game threat in DnD. If you want to run a campaign where you are fighting the creatures of hell, you are likely going to be eying these guys up anyways, so might as well get some variety and just throw stuff together and call it an AoS list too. Nurgle. Nurgle is your "gross" bad guys basically across the board, and they all tend to be fat and disgusting. You can pretty easily put together a list with them that isn't spamming a ton of the same thing, but on the DnD side of things your mini's are going to be a bit one-not and not as "generic devil" as khorne would be. As for AoS, this is probably the easiest chaos army to start with though, which swings some points back in its favor. Skaven. Do you like rats? Do you like rat abominations? Are you ok with a kind of steampunk/technopunk asthetic? As you ok with the idea of painting hordes and hordes of rats? Overall, skaven are an interesting faction, but aside from their "chaff" units (which you would need a LOT of) their asthetic doesn't really fit a traditional DnD setting. If you like them, feel free to go for it anyways, but unless you are doing some rather significant homebrew you aren't going to get a lot out of a skaven army for DnD. Slaanesh. The "sexy" demons. Here you can get an interesting variety of human models and some "interesting" demon models, but again they don't fit the "traditional" demon look like Khorne would. If they appeal to you, you can probably make them work for DnD and AoS, but you would probably need to have more variety in paint jobs than the traditional slaanesh look. They also suffer from the problem of not being in a really good place in AoS, and can be somewhat hard to use, which makes them something that I wouldn't recommend from the AoS side of things. Slaves to Darkness. The "traditional" chaos look. These guys would actually be a great place to build out for both AoS and DnD because of the sheer variety of models. They have a few mediocre monsters you can grab, and a mixture of heavily armored and lightly armored dudes in both hero and unit rosters. However, the biggest thing for them is that they also include most of the Warcry Warbands, and the warbands are actually a decent place to start collecting both for bands of bandits to fight in DnD, playing warcry, or shoving them in your slaves to darkness army. Additionally, if you want to take the time to clean off the chaos Iconography (just use a nail file and some patience), a lot of the guys can be pretty decent as "generic" good or bad guys in armor. A Chaos knight is an armored dude riding an armored horse - with all the spiky bits on, he is scary and intimidating and probably bad, but if you get rid of the spiky bits and chaos symbols he is a knight in armor, whether that is a good knight or a bad knight is up to you. For AoS, slaves is a bit tricky to play and has a lot of "trap" options, but as long as you are playing casually you can get most anything to work. If your local group is really competitive though, look at dropping Archaeon on their head - and he also does a good job in DnD as the "King of Hell". Tzeentch. Tzeentch has some options for various demons and various humans, as well as the crazy bird things from Beasts of Chaos (Tzaangors). They can be ok as DnD mini's, but tend not to look much like traditional DnD enemies. As for AoS, they are a pretty good army to play, but have a lot of fiddly bits, and their best builds tend to run a lot of "pink horrors", which means buying pink horrors, and blue/brimstone horrors as well, and can feel a bit spammy after a bit. Overall, if you want some demon action in your DnD campaign they can work, but will probably require some homebrew to make them work well in DnD. ------------ Next up, order: There are only 2 factions worth talking about in order - Cities and seraphon. For seraphon, do you want dino's and lizardmen? Cool, then a seraphon army might be for you. Don't have your campaigns fighting off dinosaur invasions? Well, you don't know what your missing out on, but it does make a seraphon army hard to use in DnD. Overall, a kind of mediocre choice. Cities though is where it is at. Do you want traditional humans, dwarves or elves? Do you want to get that cool model from literally any other non-seraphon army in order? Cool, the cities is what you want. Cities has "Coalition" which is a special rule that says that 1/4 units can be from another army, with no points limit. Depending on which city you choose to play with this time, it will change which army that you can use with them, but most of the order armies are "good guys" in a traditional DnD world, and are going to be hard to take advantage of a full army of them. Running the cities fixes that problem because you can get that big cool looking model, or that unit of cool looking guys and be able to play with them in both AoS and DnD. The only armies they can't coalition in are Fyreslayers and Idoneth deepkin, and most of what you would want to play with from those factions can fit into your ally limit as well, so you can literally pick and choose whatever looks cool in order and run it. Except dinosaurs. Apparently GW is anti-dinosaurs in their cities, and don't want you collecting them as well. On top of all of this, Cities tends to be VERY accepting of 3rd party mini's and various conversions, so don't worry too much about units if you aren't all that fond of their asthetic. -------------- Next up, Destruction. Ogres. Ogres is Ogor Mawtribes/Beastclaw raiders. Basically, big fat dudes who may or may not also ride mammoths. The upside is that you can have a relatively small AoS army (6-30 models) and still have a full 2k army. The downside is that they work great as occasional encounters in DnD, but aren't really that great as a "big bad" for whole campaigns. If they appeal to you, go for them, but you are likely going to have limited use from them in DnD. Orcs. This is the Orruk Warclans, and if you are looking at this from a DnD perspective, you want the Big Waaagh! Orruks are divided into 3 groups - bonesplitters (aka, the naked fanatics), Ironjaws (aka, the heavily armored dudes), and Kruleboyz (aka, the more traditional looking orcs). If you run them as a Big Waaagh though, you can run it with any assortment of these guys, and collect whatever orks you want for AoS or DnD. Want to run an Ork Invasion? Cool, these guys are good for it. Use bonesplittaz as the crazy feral orks that are roaming around in warbands. Grab the Kruelboyz for a more cohesive midgame threat that also throws magic and missiles at you. And use Ironjaws as your end game threat with massive guys with heavy armor and an attitude, and then grab a maw-krusha to have a solid end game threat that you can face for a tier 2 to early tier 3 campaign. Generic enough that you can run these guys as the central baddy for a campaign, or just a wilderness threat as you travel. Goblins. This is Gloomspite Gitz, and they have a problem. They are best run as a horde army, which isn't really what you want for a DnD campaign, AND it also doesn't work too great in AoS right now. But this gives you generic goblins (in robes), trolls, squigs, and spider riders. The problem with them is the number of models you would have to collect to make them work in AoS is going to be drastically more than you would want to run in a DnD campaign. Overall, if you really like them, go for it... just be prepared to be getting a LOT of models ready. Finally, be prepared for the fact that they are only really good opponents for tier 1 DnD campaigns. Giants. This is Sons of Behemat, and you would probably want to buy 3 mega-gargants and 3 Mancrusher gargants so you have some different sizes to work with in DnD. Overall, they end up being rather one note, but it is also only 6 models (or 4 if you just go for 4 mega's), so you at least won't have a huge collection taking up space. Do be advised that the mega's are going to be much larger than traditional giants, and if you aren't running a campaign that uses a lot of giants you aren't going to be getting a ton of use out of them. But they are also really easy to kitbash around and get different appearances, and you can get some great 3rd party mini's to use for them as well. --------------- Finally, death. Flesh Eater Courts. These are ghouls, ghouls with wings, and dead dragons. Overall, an army of them is going to be a bit one-note, and you are also not going to get a ton of variety for DnD campaigning, but if they speak to you for AoS, you can make them work in both systems. Nighthaunt. Ghosty boys. The problem with these guys is they tend to be more hordey, and you also don't tend to face a lot of ghosts in DnD. So you will have a large collection of ghosts, and not a ton of reason to pull them out. Like flesh eater courts, if they speak to you you can make them work in both systems, but you will likely end up with a lot of models you don't use for DnD. Soulblight Gravelords. The ultimate death faction. Here we have vampires, necromancers, zombies, skeletons, wolves. Basically, if you have traditional undead in your DnD campaign, you can use them for a Soulblight Gravelords army. That being said, if you go the zombies/skeletons route, you are going to have a LOT of them... more than you would usually need for a DnD campaign. But as long as you are ok diversifying, you can get a playable soulblight army AND be able to use most of the models at least occasionally in DnD. Ossiarch Bonereapers. The bone faction. Like, literally, all skeletons and skeleton constructs. If these guys could ally or be allied into soulblight gravelords, I would say go for them. But they are a bit one-note on their own. ------------- Overall, we can break all of this down. For more "good" guys, you want the cities of sigmar. These would be mini's to represent guards, urban environments, bandits, and player characters. You can also use some of the coalition units (looking at you witch aelves) as "bad guys" for various sub-plots. Alternatively, you can do all of this with Slaves to Darkness, and more of them will be more easily usable as bandits. Otherwise, for "bad" guys you can go soulblight gravelords if you want undead, goblins or orruk warclans if you want greenskins, or you can go with your flavor of demon in the various chaos factions. Finally, random monsters can probably fit into a Beasts of Chaos army.

So I wasn't able to get in as many games this week as last, but I was able to take the Phoenicium out against a Legion of the First Prince list that someone was practicing with for a tournament. I ran the same things as before, but he was running: Great Unclean One - general, ruinous aura, fourfold blade (on the nurglings) Be'Lakor Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury 10 Pink Horrors 5 Flesh Hounds 5 Flesh Hounds Soulscream Bridge We ran the Vice, with him deploying his flesh hounds near the objectives/denying my deepstrikes, and then the pinks and his big boys up near the deployment line. I deployed my Shadow Warriors and Assassins in reserve, tossed a phoenix down near each objective, and then deployed my phoenix guard near the front edge of the 12" bubble from the phoenix's. Turn 1: He made me go first, and I did ferocious advance, moved my birds next to each other, and got most of my phoenix guard to just within the 9" bubble from the frostheart phoenix, while being wholly within 12" of both phoenix's. I scored 4 points, and not much happened. On His turn, he cast the bridge from Be'lakor, who was just out of unbind range, and did ferocious advance with Be'lakor, a unit of flesh hounds, and the squad of pink horrors. He jumped his great unclean one through the bridge to 9" away from my phoenix guard, and brought both bloodthirsters up, with the objective being to pile in 6" to attack with the boomthirster. I was a smart cookie though and re-deployed the one squad of phoenix guard back to 6.5" away to force him to charge. He summoned some Pinks in with Be'lakor, in a spot where they could shoot my phoenix guard, and proceeded to kill 2 guard in his shooting phase (from the great unclean one only). On charge, he got in with the great unclean one and the boomthirster, and I popped my assassins out next to his great unclean one and his boomthirster, locking his thirster outside of the wholly within 8" bubble from the great unclean one. In combat, he wiped out 1 squad of phoenix guard with his great unclean one, and I did ~8 damage to his boomthirster in response. He then killed 4 guard with his boomthirster, failing to roll any 6's to wound, and I got another 2 damage in with my assassin, and put ~10 damage in on his great unclean one. Overall score, 4 to 4. Turn 2: He got the double and took it. For his battle tactic, he did savage spearhead, and he moved his summoned pinks and belakor up to charge, while his starting block of pinks moved a bit closer but were unable to shoot due to running into position. His dogs he moved back to screen his objectives. Next, he summoned in 10 plaguebearers. Combat, belakor and the summoned pinks got in, while his second bloodthirster failed its charge and just stood around. I lost a few more phoenix guard, but for the most part on damage we both wiffed pretty hard. He completed his battle tactic with a monster, and scored 5 points. On my turn I did bring it down on his boomthirster which had 4 wounds left on it, and he Be'lakored my Flamespyre Phoenix. I adjusted my frostheart's position, and brought all 3 squads of shadow warriors down - 2 in his back field and 1 in mine. I thought I had his boomthirster in the bag, and used my shadow warriors to shoot his summoned pinks, while the ones in his back field each took down 2 dogs. Combat came around, and my assassin and phoenix guard wiffed hard against his boomthirster, leaving it alive on 2 wounds. I killed his summoned pinks and brought belakor and his great unclean one low, but failed to kill either. I scored 2 points, bringing us 6-9 in his favor. Turn 3: He won the roll off, and decided he had to take it. He chose broken ranks on a squad of 3 phoenix guard. Movement he summoned in 5 more pinks, and moved his dogs into position to charge my shadow warriors, while his 10 pinks got into position to shoot my frostheart, and he retreated be'lakor out to get him near his bodyguard. Charging, he got his dogs into my shadow warriors, and lost another dog to unleash hell. Combat, he started with his great unclean one killing my phoenix guard, which killed the great unclean one with their fight on death, which then killed my assassin with its fight on death, and my assassin was then very sad that nothing was in range for it to fight. I went with a squad of shadow warriors to wipe out his unit of 3 dogs, then he went with his boomthirster and did 3 damage to my assassin. I then went with my other squad of shadow warriors, killing his dogs, and then I finished off his boomthirster with my assassin. He completed his battle tactic with a monster, and held 2 objectives, scoring 5 points, while I killed a monster scoring 1 point. On my turn, I chose Conquer, and moved my shadow warriors up to take all 4 objectives. My phoenix guard and assassin from the boomthirster went towards the center, while my other phoenix guard moved up to charge be'lakor and friends. The Flamespyre Phoenix flew over Be'lakor and dropped some fire on him, while the frostheart got into an annoying position. I got 2 squads of phoenix guard into be'lakor, but failed my charges with both phoenix's. In combat, I killed Be'lakor, and brought his summoned pinks down to brimstones, and killed a few plaguebearers. End of turn, I completed my battle tactic, controlled 4 objectives, and scored 5 points, bringing us 12-14 in his favor. Turn 4: I won the roll off and took the turn. Battle Tactic was "savage spearhead" which was basically auto-accomplished by my 2 squads of shadow warriors. My flamespyre Phoenix flew over his brimstones, killing them, and then moved into position to charge his plaguebearers, while my frostheart, assassin, and remaining phoenix guard from the other side moved up to charge his bloodthirster. I did some damage in shooting with my shadow warriors, and then charged and killed his bloodthirster and plaguebearers, taking control of the center objective (despite most of his pinks sitting there - leaving them un-engaged prevented him from getting more bodies on the objective than me). I completed my battle tactic, controlled the objective and killed a monster for 5 points. On his turn, all he had left was the pink horrors, and he chose conquer. He charged his pinks into my frostheart, and lost enough pinks to take the objective from me, scoring his battle tactic and controlling the objective for 4 points. This brought us to 17-18 in his favor. At this point though we called it, because I had 2 birds, an assassin, 23 phoenix guard, and 30 shadow warriors left, and he had some blue horrors. Even if he won turn 5, he couldn't do a battle tactic, while I could choose broken ranks or monstrous takeover and kill his horrors off, bringing the score to 21-20 in my favor. Additionally, his grand strategy was prized sorcery, which he had already lost, while mine was hold the line, bringing the final score to 24-20. -------- Overall, the thing that I find the MOST key about a phoenicium list is the Living Idols command ability for Fight on Death. The +1 to hit/wound is nice when it happens, but it is best to treat it as a nice bonus when it happens and otherwise ignore it. The Fight on Death ability is what makes the list though, as it allows me to just put a brick in front of someone and say "go for it". I don't have to worry about who hits first, or any sort of combat order, I just always know that all of my guys will be able to attack. Yes, it isn't quite as good vs a shooting heavy army, and if you are confident in your ability to hit first it isn't as good as a really strong hammer in say, a living cities list. But for being able to reliably do my thing and get my damage, it is great, and I would highly recommend anyone who wants to try it out. The key core to a Phoenicium list is 2 phoenix's (whatever flavor you want, though frostheart's are better at the moment). This way you can reliably get your living idols ability off, and your opponent can't just snipe a key component of your army off on turn 1 without any worries. Then Phoenix Guard are good mostly because they are already durable and killy, and they are immune to battleshock near a bird. However, you can probably go ahead and choose whatever infantry/cavalry you want, as long as it can do some damage. I kind of want to try a list running a bunch of demigryph knights, just to give my birds some escort birdies. As for the rest, you can bring a strong ranged component like you would for another cities army, and be able to reliably attack from 2 fronts. Also, there is no requirement that a phoenix be your general... I just generally would because I would run phoenix guard, and why not?

The griffon battlemage is... bad. Like, its hard to state just how bad it is. It is a 13 wound model on a 5+ save, does terrible damage in melee, only has 6 bravery (so can't really rely on heroic recovery), and somehow it is still only a single cast wizard. If it was a 2 cast wizard, or it had a useful warscroll spell that you couldn't get from a battlemage on foot, it might be worth it, but it doesn't. The sorceress on dragon is better. It is still a 14 wound model on a 5+ save that can only really fight in melee, but it comes with a useful command ability that you can't get from the sorceress on foot (inspire hatred), and bladewind is an interesting spell that it can cast, though it works best on squishy units, or after you hit something with vitrolic spray. However, the Hurricanum is straight up good. Even if it doesn't cast any spells, it can put out an average of 5 mortal wounds in the shooting phase, as well as buffing other nearby units. It also buffs itself for casting by +1, and it is 11 wounds on a 4+ base save. Finally, both of its warscroll spells are actually pretty decent (though against different targets). Basically, it can actually perform without needing to actually get into melee combat (where none of them want to be) and it is just generally the best at doing its actual job.

No idea, but looking the event up it was september last year, so it should have been the new book. It was honestly probably just running around as a fast moving hero that can self-buff itself with +1 to hit, and could fairly easily be swapped out for something else.

The flight stand for the ironclad is absolutely ridiculous. That being said - I did use it for mine. But I also braced the other side of the ironclad on a small "hill", which I made out of clay. This gives it support up front and in back, and helps the model stay stable, though you really have to pick mine up by its base and not by the boat. Failing to support the boat in an additional way like this is going to leave it with wobbly model syndrome, and I had an unsupported gunhauler for a bit that nearly felt like it was going to wobble off its stand just driving it to the local game store.

Taking a quick look at the Cities lists that have 5-0'd: List 1 is Gavin's LVO winning list, which is a living cities list with a sorcerss, Doralia, a freeguild general, 30 crossbowmen, 10 crossbowmen, 10 dreadspears, 4 fulminators, and 4 stormdrake guard. List 2 is Anthony Lawrence at Armour Con, which is running an Anvilguard list with a Sorceress on Dragon, 2 sorceress's on foot, a frostheart phoenix, a runelord, 30 darkshards, 2x 10 dreadspears, 20 phoenix guard, 10 shadow warriors + spellportal. Note that every wizard in the army is running Vitriolic spray, so clearly this list is pushing heavy on killing save rolls and then destroying the now unarmored targets with darkshards, while keeping phoenix guard around as a melee hammer. List 3 and 4 are both Jeremy Lefebvre with his Phoenicium list at Flying Monkey Con and LVO respectively. This was the double frostheart + triple assassin list that also brought a hurricanum, 3x 10 phoenix guard, 2x 10 shadow warriors, and 1 scourgerunner chariot. List 5 is Joe Vucic at the Iron Realms GT running a tempest eye list with a runelord, a hurricanum, a knigh-azyros, a frostheart, 10 freeguild guard, 20 hammerers, 20 irondrakes, 20 phoenix guard, a gyrobomber and an emerald lifeswarm. List 6 is Mark Wildman at Blackout V running a living city list with a frostheart, Doralia, Sorceress, 2x 10 dreadspears, 20 phoenix guard, 5 dark riders, 10 flagellants, a squad of 4 fulminators, a squad of 2 fulminators, and the emerald lifeswarm. So what we can see here is that Jeremy is doing a lot of heavy lifting to try to drag the Phoenicium's name out of the dumpster, the Living City is leaning pretty hard on Fulminators, and then the only other constant is that the frostheart phoenix and at least 20 phoenix guard is a pretty good place to start if you are going for a winning Cities list. Taking a look at the meta representation of other armies, since the Maggotkin of Nurgle tome, Cities top opponents (in order) have been stormcast, soulblight, nurgle, ironjaws, seraphon, daughters of khaine, and bonereapers, with every other faction having 5 or fewer matches played. They have a 50% winrate vs stormcast, a 57% winrate vs soulblight, a 43% winrate vs nurgle, a 69% winrate vs ironjaws, a 64% winrate vs seraphon, an 11% winrate vs daughters, and a 50% winrate vs bonereapers. I think the biggest thing for the cities here is that the overall meta has shifted more towards stormcast/soulblight/ironjaws and less sons, daughters, seraphon and lumineth, which means that the meta is shifting more towards armies that Cities plays well against. A common note for all of the new "top" armies is that they tend to be more high-armor factions, and cities does better against high armor than they do against sheer wounds. I would put the increasing winrate down to the meta shifting more than players "cracking the code" or "leaning on stormcast", though I did find a lot of 3-2 living cities lists that are probably running more stormcast units.

So just for giggles, I decided to replicate your table, but also add in the celestar ballista and the volley gun: Save Raptors Ballista Single Hellstorm Volley gun 2+ 9 4.67 5.19 4.67 4.67 3+ 10.67 6.22 6.48 6.22 7 4+ 12.33 7.78 7.78 7.78 9.33 5+ 14 9.33 7.78 9.33 11.67 6+ 14 9.33 7.78 9.33 14 - 14 9.33 7.78 9.33 14 So we have a set of 6 vanguard raptors with no buffs, 4 celestar ballista's with rapid fire, 4 celestar ballista's with single shot, 4 hellstorms shooting a single target with a cogsmith standing next to them, and the volley gun with 3 decks of shots with an engineer standing next to them (for re-roll dice to number of hits). Now, both the ballista's and the volley guns can benefit from either a Lord-Ordinator, a Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion, or a celestial hurricanum, but the hellstorm... can't (unless it wants to split its shots... but why?). Next up, points. A single squad of raptors is 480 points, 4 ballista's is 560 points, 4 hellblasters + cogsmith is 570 points, and 4 hellstorms + cogsmith is 610 points. What can we tell from this? The easy answer is that GW needs to overhaul artillery completely. A single unit of vanguard raptors/judicators/whatever can benefit from unleash hell, can rally, counts for more bodies on objectives, and can get buffed from all out attack/all out defense with a single CP. Meanwhile, artillery is 4 different units, which means you need a buff piece like the Lord-Ordinator to stand around (aka, yet more points) to buff their to hit, AND they are doing less damage and can't reliably unleash hell. Then, to add on top of that, all of the artillery is more expensive than a shooting unit that does the job better? It is really hard to justify running them in that case. Now, for reference, in 2nd edition when you could stack +hit bonuses, between the Lord-Ordinator and a Celestial Hurricanum, you could get the following profile for the hellstorm and volley gun: Save Hellstorm Volley gun 2+ 7.78 7.78 3+ 10.37 11.67 4+ 12.96 15.56 5+ 15.56 19.44 6+ 15.56 23.33 - 15.56 23.33 On top of this, they still weren't running last edition either, but those numbers are a lot more impressive than the new numbers. Most of it boils down to the fact that to get those numbers, you needed ~400 points of buff pieces to be sitting next to them. But as it is, artillery really needs to get re-evaluated by GW. Especially as if you start running an artillery heavy army like this, you won't fit into a battle regiment.

Ehh, don't worry, Stormdrake Guard are going to get another round of nerfs the next rebalance (is that going to be Generals Handbook 2022 or something this spring though?). At this point, I expect a massive points hike (400 per pair) and/or a warscroll re-write. Going to 400 per pair is going to drop the list from Knight-Draconis + 10 guard to Knight-Draconis + 8 guard, and then 100 points to spare, or 2 Knight-Draconis + 6 guard and 140 points to spare. If they do a warscroll errata, I would expect them to just remove the hero phase move from the Guard, and possibly also the hero phase shoot from the knight. All this being said, I also expect the meta to adjust some as people get used to playing vs stormdrake lists, and that more people will bring out tools to counter them. I also expect those meta adjustments to happen after GW has internally made their points adjustments/errata's, but before they release them so stormdrake lists will start to taper off due to meta adjustment, and then get pulverized by the nerf bat.

Stormcast monsters are: Knight-Draconis/Stormdrake Guard Stardrake Taurelion Krondy's/Karazai Of the non-stromdrakes, the stardrake is thoroughly mediocre, and needs to lose ~100 points from its warscroll if it wants to become playable (and it might not be good even then). I mean, seriously, a stardrake does less damage than a squad of 2 stormdrake guard, and is only better than a Knight-Draconis vs 5+ saves (all while costing 500 points to their 340/300). Also, someone needs to explain to me why exactly the Knight-Draconis RIDER is better in melee than the Lord-Celestant... the lord celestant gets 2 less attacks and has 1 less rend than the Knight-Draconis does. And before someone brings the Drakesworn Templar into this, let me remind you that for some reason that is rocking a 4+ SAVE!?! WHY!?! Yes, the stardrakes have 18 wounds compared to the Knight-Draconis's 11, and the stardrake can choose models to kill with its cavernous jaws at the start of combat rather than dragged into the tempest's 1 model at the end, but I'm still seriously questioning things here. Next up, the Taurelion is good. He buffs nearby units with +1 to hit, which can save you some CP when shooting your vanguard raptors on 2+/2+, or he can stay close to some stormdrakes or fulminators or whatever for that same bonus. He's also a 3+ save monster and a wizard. All this being said, in about half a dozen or so games in 3.0, I'm not sure if mine has ever actually gotten into combat, as I generally am just using him as a mobile buff piece. Finally, Krondy's and Karazai. These guys are BIG, and hard to transport, which isn't really helping you for transport. That being said, consensus seems to be that they aren't worth 600 points in an army, but if you want to build around them go to town. Notable here is that both the Knight-Draconis AND the Taurelion are monsters, but they aren't behemoths, so they don't count against your behemoth limit, but also can't benefit from Master of the Celestial Menagerie (it got FAQ'd to behemoths not monsters). -------------- As for coalition and allies: Coalition in a stormkeep allows you to bring Cities of Sigmar units. Notable here is that while stormcast in a Cities army gain the cities keywords, Cities units in a Stormcast Army don't... not that there are any allegience abilities of note that you would want to use on them, but it does also prevent them from taking Stormcast Spells/prayers (so no runelords with translocation). As for monsters worth Coalitioning in, the Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix is good as a mobile debuff piece, whether taken as an ally or taken as coalition (just be aware that its damage output is kind of low). Otherwise, the rest of the monsters are notable in being rather bad, not in being worth bringing. For other allies, Stormcast can ally in basically anything except daughters of Khaine. Looking at potential monsters from there, Magmadroth's aren't worth running (new warscrolls pending). Deepkin allows you to take the Turtle (unless its points go up), but the turtle tends to be better as a buff piece in IdK, not a combat monster. Lumineth Realm Lords can give you either Avalenor or the Spirit of the Mountain, which I'm not particularly familiar with, but I have a feeling if they were actually good would show up in Lumineth Lists from time to time. Seraphon gives you Bastiladon's, Stegadons, various Hero Stegadons, Troglodons, and Carnosaurs, which all have the advantage of being big, cool dinosaurs, but also all tend to need some of the Seraphon Allegience Abilities to shine, and may not be the best allies... however one of these is probably second best after the Frostheart Phoenix. Finally, Sylvaneth can give you various treelord flavors, but the basic treelord is... not worth 180 points, the Spirit of Durthu really needs a wyldwood to shine, and the Treelord Ancient is a support piece, not a combat monster. Overall, I would probably rank the Frostheart Phoenix as the first choice of allies, followed by your favorite flavor of Dinosaur, and then stick the Turtle in 3rd place for monsters worth bringing.

Personal recommendation for the Ikea billy with glass doors. Note that you can also buy glass shelves for them, and I have mine with 6 shelves, and it currently holds about 20k points in mine, including a number of large models like the stardrake, the ironclad, and the old black dragons.

Did you watch the interview? He specifically said that his list would be straight up worse in any other city. Also, have you actually tried a list with the phoenicium? Or are you just parroting the same stuff that has been said about the city since it was released in 2nd edition? And yes, he didn't win - he came in 4th at a 170+ person event, went 5-0 in the swiss and lost in the semi-finals - effectively going 6-1 in the entire event.

I have a number of issues with 1k games. First off, lets talk wounds. At the moment, an average 2k list is somewhere between 80-100 wounds, with most of them being on the lower end of that scale. Exceptions do exist, but if you were to go through the majority of 2k lists that have been doing well, they all fall somewhere in that range. Go to a 1k game, and we cut that in half(ish) to 40-50 wounds. Now lets talk damage. What are some "good" units that I can bring at 500 points or less. Hmm... I can bring 6 longstrikes, at 480 points, which are going to dish out ~14 damage per turn at rend -2, with 1 turn of double that. Lets do a smidge of rounding... and they can do 30 damage turn 1, effectively ending the game because the opponent only has 10-20 wounds left on the board. Great game, right? Or how about fulminators? A squad of 2 fulminators charging is 18 damage at rend -2. Add the breath weapon, and we can just round up to 20. So for 230 points, I get to delete half to 2/5 of the "average" army. Note here, I can actually fit both of the above units into the same army, and if it is hammers of sigmar, still have 2 battleline units. I can go through a few other factions and build "power" lists as well, that can effectively hit hard before the opponent has a chance to react. Are these the armies that you normally see at 1k? No. Why? Because they aren't fun, and the game is over by turn 2, usually in a VERY lopsided manner. At the same time, there are a number of factions that just straight up cannot compete with the above lists, because they require synergy pieces to work together to create that. In case all of this wasn't enough though, there is one other "boogyman" out there. Summoning. Lets take sylvaneth as an example. At 2k, summoning 100 points of dryads from within their woods is... sometimes not even worth it. With the right build, you can fairly easily get your spell off each turn, meaning that by turn 4 you effectively have fielded a 1400 point army to your opponents 1k army, all for the low, low price of bringing a 95 point hero. Moving on to Nurgle, their conjuration points are affected by being in your territory, being in your opponents territory, and having a gnarlmaw... which means you have standard nurgle summoning for a 2k army, but your opponent is only fielding 1k points. Even bringing a squad of plaguebearers out each turn from turn 2-4 is an extra 450 points, and should be pretty easy for a nurgle list to do (unless it gets wiped off the board by one of the alpha lists available). Or we can look at Legion of the First Prince, which can still field Belakor, and still potentially get ~125-150 points or so worth of summoning each turn. Overall, the problem is that while 1k is technically a "viable" way to play, if it is played competitively it leads to some rather extreme skew lists, and an awful lot of non-games. For many armies, the board also feels extremely empty, but at the same time, you don't necessarily want to decrease the size of it because it leads to easier turn 1 charges, which then leads to even more skew lists. 1k is fine as a casual "I want to play a fast game" format, but once people try solving it competitively, it quickly leads to un-fun non-games that are easily seen as won or lost before deployment even happens.

Sooo... someone going 5-0 at LVO isn't competitive. Gotcha.

So, battle reports. I have run this list 3 times so far, with my opponents being a Casual Gutbuster Ogre's army, a competitive Daughters of Khaine army, and a competitive Stormcast army... and the end result is that I plan to keep bringing it out some more. Maybe I'm just too in love with phoenix guard, maybe I just love my phoenixes, but personally I think it is because it just straight up feels good to run these lists. So to the battle reports. Note, I ran the exact same list in all of the battle reports. Phoenicium vs Ogres. My Ogre opponent was definitely running a pretty casual list, and this is the best that I can remember it: Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes- Mawtribe: BloodgulletTyrant (150)- GeneralButcher (135)Slaughtermaster (140)6 x Ogor Gluttons (250)4 x Ironguts (235)4 x Ironguts (235)1 x Gorgers (80)Aleguzzler Gargant (165)- AlliesAleguzzler Gargant (165)- AlliesIronblaster (130)Ironblaster (130)Ironblaster (130)Total: 1945 / 2000Reinforced Units: 0 / 4Allies: 330 / 400Wounds: 134Drops: 12 The game was Tectonic Interference, which basically meant we went and had a mash in the center. I went first, and moved up to barely toe the line on all 3 objectives, and did ferocious advance for my battle tactic, for a total of 6 points. I also brought down 1 squad of shadow warriors in cover, and got lucky with them dealing 8 damage to one of his gargants. On his turn, he moved up, tried blowing up one of my birds with his ironblasters, doing a whole lot of... not much, and succeeded in charging his wounded gargant into my shadow warriors, his unwounded gargant into one of my squads of phoenix guard, and a block of ironguts into another unit of phoenix guard. The shadow warriors unleashed hell, bringing the gargant to 10 wounds, and at the beginning of combat I popped an assassin out next to his unwounded gargant and popped Living Idol to affect that combat and the combat with the Ironguts. He went first into my shadow warriors, killing 6 of them, and then I went with my assassin wounding his other gargant. Next, my opponent made their first mistake and squished my assassin, giving my whole army +1/+1, and allowing my phoenix guard to murder 2 of the ironguts in their face (even through mystic shield/all out defense). He hit my phoenix guard, killing 2 of them, and then I finished off both of his gargants. He did however complete his battle tactic and controlled 2 objectives for 5 points. Turn 2, I went first, and did Broken Ranks on his ironguts. I healed my Phoenix's with golden mists and heroic recovery, dropped a second squad of shadow warriors, and then moved up to charge. My charge tied up all 3 of his ironblasters, his other squad of ironguts, and his gluttons, his gorger, and his butcher. Then through a series of... rather poor rolls... he failed to kill any of my units in combat while I cleared out his damaged squad of ironguts, took the other squad down to 1, and eliminated his gorger and one of his ironblasters. Note here that Living Idols played a HUGE roll, as I was able to focus on combats one by one and even as models died in my units, they were still able to strike with their full firepower. At the end, I completed my battle tactic with a monster, and controlled all 3 points for a total of 6 points, bringing me up to 12. On his turn, he shuffled around a little bit to charge his tyrant and butcher in, and chose broken ranks on a unit of 2 remaining phoenix guard. Due to how the fighting went, he lost his butcher and the last of his ironguts before they could swing, and he failed his battle tactic. Additionally, he failed to kill any units again, and at the end of the turn was left with his tyrant, his butcher, and 1 ironblaster, while scoring 0 points. At this point we called it, as we saw no way that he would be able to get back into the game. ------------------ Next, my matchup vs Daughters of Khaine. Here is their list as best as I can remember it: Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine- Temple: Hagg NarMorathi-Khaine (330)*The Shadow Queen (330)*Bloodwrack Medusa (120)*- General20 x Witch Aelves (240)*20 x Witch Aelves (240)*15 x Blood Stalkers (540)*5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)**Battle RegimentTotal: 1990 / 2000Reinforced Units: 4 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 104Drops: 1 This battle took place on Power Struggle, and he dropped his whole army before I placed a model (surprise surprise). He did an... ok job screening his blood stalkers, but still kept them forward far enough that I could deepstrike my shadow warriors and hit them. Since I deployed the rest of my army outside of his 24" range, he couldn't hero phase shoot me, so he made me go first. My turn 1, I did ferocious advance, got off a mystic shield, ran some units, and controlled 3 objectives, with 2 units of phoenix guard holding back a little to hold the back two points (though closer to the center objective), and the rest of my army moving up on the middle objective. Then I dropped all 3 squads of shadow warriors to shoot his blood stalkers, getting 1 unit in cover and the other 2 out. They were able to kill 5 of the blood stalkers with their shooting attacks, and then stayed put. I got 5 points for my battle tactic and objectives. His turn 1, he did ferocious advance and ran 1 squad of witch elves, morathi and the medusa. He was able to get Mindrazor off on the Shadow Queen, I unbound mystic shield, and he was unable to get off another spell. Hero phase shooting took out a squad of shadow warriors. He moved up, ran his witch aelves closer, and then proceeded to shoot off another squad of shadow warriors. He charged with all his witch aelves and the shadow queen, but due to positioning everything was within range of the frostheart's -1 to wound aura. Beginning of combat, I popped living idols, and captain of the phoenix guard, and dropped out both assassins, and then things got messy. He went first with a squad of witch aelves, and killed an assassin and 2 phoenix guard. My other squad of phoenix guard cleaned up most of the 20 man squad of witch aelves that hadn't attacked yet, with the assassin finishing the job after he activated them. He activated morathi last, and whiffed hard (mostly due to the frostheart's bubble), and only managed to kill 5 phoenix guard. I was able to clean up both of his 20 man squads of witch aelves, and only the 5 phoenix guard were left in combat with morathi. Turn 2, I went first, and chose conquer. I was able to fly over his blood stalkers with my flamespyre phoenix, and move 2 squads of phoenix guard up to charge them, as well as the assassin. The frostheart moved into position to get his bubble over everything, and I was able to charge in and clean up the blood stalkers, and the phoenix guard in combat with morathi were able to take 3 wounds off her as they died. Bottom of turn 2, my opponent had Morathi, his bloodwrack medusa, and 2 squads of Kinerai still in the sky. I still had 10 shadow warriors, 2 phoenix's, and about 30 phoenix guard, as well as 3/5 objectives, and morathi already had 6 wounds on her. At this point we called it as it was getting late, and my opponent didn't see a way to come back into the game. The key thing from this was once again, killing a unit of mine is VERY painful for my opponents, and the ability to fight before death means I generally am not too concerned about who is activating what when - as long as whichever phoenix has Living Idol is not in combat. -------------- Finally, my match vs Stormcast. Here was the list: Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals- Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar (Stormkeep)Knight-Relictor (140)*- General, high priest, mirrorshield, translocateAventis Firestrike Magister of Hammerhal (310)* - celestial blades5 x Vindictors (130)*5 x Vindictors (130)*5 x Liberators (115)*4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)*- Drakerider's Warblade6 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (480)**Battle RegimentHoly Command: Thunderbolt VolleyTotal: 1985 / 2000Reinforced Units: 2 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 96Drops: 1 The battleplan here was Feral Foray, and my opponent (obviously) finished deploying first. Due to deployment, he wasn't able to deploy in a way that protected his longstrikes from deep striking shadow warriors and still have them be relevant on turn 1, so he decided to go first. My deployment was such that I had units on all of the objectives, but everything was within range for at least 1 phoenix bubble, but my phoenix's were out of range for thunderbolt volley unless my opponent exposed them with translocate. Turn 1, he went first, did ferocious advance with Aventis, the Knight-Relictor, and a squad of vindictors, then failed both his spell casts, but did thunderbolt volley in to kill 7 phoenix guard and moved his dragons forward in the hero phase. Movement got the dragons in my face, and he decided to throw everything at the frostheart, shooting it with the longstrikes and the dragon breath... killing it quite thoroughly, and putting 2 squads of phoenix guard outside 12" from the other phoenix. He also positioned his battleline in such a way that I couldn't deep strike my shadow warriors and still be able to shoot the longstrikes. The dragons then charged my phoenix guard, and in combat I popped living idol to get what I could and waited to see what happened. Due to positioning, the dragons were engaged with 3 separate units of phoenix guard, and they threw their attacks in killing 3 from the farthest unit, 4 from the middle unit, and 2 from the squad of 3 guys remaining. My counterattack managed to deal 10 wounds to the unit, killing 1 dragon and dealing a damage to a second. I was also able to pile the middle unit into 12" of the phoenix, and used inspiring presence on the other unit to prevent anything from running. My turn 1, I chose to be a little risky and chose "bring it down" on the dragons. I flew over them with my phoenix doing 5 mortal wounds, and then got another squad of phoenix guard in position to charge, then ended my movement phase by dropping all 3 squads of shadow warriors to shoot his battleline units. Shooting killed 3 vindictors and a liberator, and then I charged my flamespyre and my phoenix guard. Monstrous rampages did exactly nothing, and beginning of combat I popped living idols and dropped both assassins on the dragons. First attack was the flamespyre phoenix, which was able to kill one dragon and deal a bit of damage to the second. His response killed one assassin and some of the phoenix guard. I then proceeded to pile in with the rest of my units and finish off the dragons with some damage to spare... but his dragons exploded hard enough to kill the other assassin. Turn 2 my opponent went first, and chose broken ranks on my lone phoenix guard from his unit. He was able to do that, but the rest of his longstrikes wiffed against the phoenix and only did 7 damage to it. He also charged his vindictors into my shadow warriors (rather than just losing them to shooting), and was able to kill 4 of them but lost his vindictors. My turn 2, I chose conquer, recovered some health between heroic recovery and golden mists, walked onto one of his objectives, and then charged 20 phoenix guard and my phoenix into his other squad of vindictors. Combat and shooting then took out the vindictors and his Knight-Relictor, leaving him with his longstrikes, Aventis, and 5 liberators. I then won the turn 3 roll off and we called it. Without his Knight-Relictor he couldn't translocate his raptors, and they were ~4" away from my flamespyre phoenix. The score was evenish at this time, but even if he won turn 3 he didn't see a way to turn the battle around when I still had ~35 phoenix guard and 25 shadow warriors, even if he shot my flamespyre off the board. ---------- Overall, I have really enjoyed playing the Phoenicium. Shadow Warriors have been... fine, but not stellar. But the assassins have been incredible to run, and the living idols ability to ensure that I am always getting my damage in has been enough to make the Phoenicium one of my favorite armies to run in the Cities. That being said, I'm not 100% sure that it is best to run these small units of 10, or if it would be better to do something like run blocks of 20 phoenix guard. I'm going to be continuing to experiment with the city, but the living idols ability just makes me so happy to run my units.

So I decided to test the Phoenicium out with models in my own collection, and this is what I ended up building: Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar- City: Phoenicium- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line- Triumphs:Anointed on Flamespyre Phoenix (290)*- General- Command Trait: One with Fire and Ice - Golden Mist- Artefact: Phoenix Pyre AshesAnointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)*- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)- Lore of the Phoenix: Golden MistAssassin (80)*Assassin (80)*10 x Phoenix Guard (175)**10 x Phoenix Guard (175)**10 x Phoenix Guard (175)**10 x Phoenix Guard (175)10 x Phoenix Guard (175)10 x Shadow Warriors (120)10 x Shadow Warriors (120)10 x Shadow Warriors (120)**Warlord**Hunters of the HeartlandsArtefactTotal: 2000 / 2000Reinforced Units: 0 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 114Drops: 12 Now, before anyone asks - no, I don't think I'm better than Jeremy who took his list to LVO. However, after reviewing what models I had in my collection, this is what I settled on. If I had the models, I would probably swap one squad of shadow warriors for another assassin, and upgrade my flamespyre phoenix to a second frostheart, but other than that, I find that I have actually really been enjoying the Phoenicium. So to all of the people who clicked on this thread because it popped up and don't have a clue what the phoenicium does, and don't want to watch Jeremy talk with Coach on that for an hour and a half (its actually pretty good if you have the time though), here is what makes the Phoenicium special: First off, the army ability. If any friendly Phoenicium units have been destroyed in the same phase, you get +1 to hit and wound for melee weapons. Second off, their command ability, Living Idol, lets you pick a PHOENIX HERO, and they use a CP to pop a 12" bubble of "fight on death" (note, this is for each model within 12"... the unit doesn't have to be wholly within 12" for it to work, but it does work better if that is the case). Basically everything else about the army is irrelevant and can be ignored, these are the two abilities that make the Phoenicium work... and realistically, after playing a few games, its that command ability that takes the cake. So how does my list play out? Basically, I start deployment with a 5 drop null deploy of the shadow warriors and assassins. Then I start putting my phoenix's and phoenix guard down, with deployment varying depending upon my opponent. The most important part about this step is that I always make sure that every unit of phoenix guard is wholly within 12" of at least 1 phoenix, and each phoenix is wholly within 12" of the other phoenix. This way if my opponent decides to try to snipe me, I can still heal up with golden mists, while if my opponent commits to a turn 1 charge everyone is within range to be affected by the Living Idol ability. Then, I move up the board, and make sure that I have my overlapping bubbles. I will basically always keep everything wholly within 12" of at least one phoenix, and I will use the Phoenix Guard to screen my phoenix's. If my opponent decides to charge me, they are usually going to bring at least 2 squads of phoenix guard into combat, and then "surprise, its assassin time". If I get to charge, I'm usually going to be bringing 2-4 units of phoenix guard into combat, and basically everything is guaranteed to hit something. Finally, I bring the shadow warriors in to shoot at things that my phoenix guard will have trouble getting to (ex. longstrikes), and it is VERY important to note that shadow warriors are also good in melee combat, so don't be afraid to come down, shoot, and then charge. Due to how tanky phoenix guard are, if your opponent really wants to kill a squad, they tend to overcommit a lot. If they don't kill one, then they are pinned in combat (which is generally good for me). It also means that your opponent is going to be playing very risky if they go for broken ranks, or they are overcommitting hard to accomplish it, which means they aren't putting damage on other units. Similarly, due to how tanky phoenix's are, bring it down is a questionable battle tactic unless once again, they overcommit really, really hard. And slay the warlord is a HUGE gamble because not only are they committing hard to burst down a phoenix, but there is a 50% chance that it is just going to get back up at full health. As for killiness... I'll leave that to the battle reports that I'm going to post below.

Well, this feels a little like thread necromancy (and definitely in the wrong grand alliance for that), but since we aren't creating new threads for cities in 3.0, I felt like posting here. Recently, a player took a Pheonicium army to LVO, went 5-0, and then lost in the semi-finals. There was a great interview with this player over on AoS Coach's youtube channel here: The army list was: Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar- City: Phoenicium- Grand Strategy: Dominating Presence- Triumphs: BloodthirstyAnointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)*- General- Command Trait: One with Fire and Ice - Golden Mist- Artefact: Phoenix Pyre AshesAnointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)*- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)- Universal Spell Lore: Flaming WeaponCelestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (280)- Lore of the Phoenix: Golden MistAssassin (80)*Assassin (80)*Assassin (80)**10 x Phoenix Guard (175)***10 x Phoenix Guard (175)***10 x Phoenix Guard (175)***10 x Shadow Warriors (120)**10 x Shadow Warriors (120)**1 x Scourgerunner Chariots (80)**Warlord**Vanguard***Hunters of the HeartlandsArtefactTotal: 1995 / 2000Reinforced Units: 0 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 106Drops: 12 After taking a closer look at this, and the models in my collection, I decided to give the Phoenicium a try locally, and see how it plays out. I'll detail my experiences in another post.

Yes, GW is well known for doing things... poorly. That being said, if they slap down an errata the easy solution is to just nerf everything, not just the stormcast only portion. Otherwise they are going to have to go back in and FAQ the errata, and that requires WAY too much effort compared to a half-ass slapdash "coalition units don't gain the cities of sigmar/city keywords". And that is my problem. If GW does go in, they are going to keep it short, simple, and not think to hard about it. And that is going to ****** up approximately 12k points of coalition units that I own for my cities, which is why I would MUCH rather go in and nerf my 4 fulminators and 4 stormdrake guard than shoot the other 11k points of coalition units in the foot. (ok, I will admit, all 12k points aren't specifically for coalition... but I have purchased stormcast, KO, Sylvaneth and Lumineth for use in coalition armies, and then because I bought enough fun stuff for coalition also picked up some battleline/support hero's for those factions to run them independently)