readercolin

Hey now... don't forget the 14" move deals impact damage based on how long your charge is beastclaw raiders. They get angry when they get left out of the discussion.

Cities still gets good coalition rules because Stormcast/sylvaneth gain the Cities of Sigmar keyword And the city keyword. It doesn't work for Chaos because the coalition gets the god keyword, but no the faction keyword. This would be like getting the cities of sigmar keyword, but not living city keyword. So nurgle has the Nurgle Keyword, and the Maggotkin of Nurgle keyword, and most of their allegience abilities are Maggotkin of Nurgle, while coalition is just getting the Nurgle keyword.

Ahh... the garrison rules... also known of as the biggest pile of garbage in 3.0. Seriously GW - do something about KO's garrison. So, you can move into a garrison if you are wholly within 6" of the "feature" (note, only "marine" keyword can garrison ships). In the rules on the boat, you cannot garrison the boat if it has already moved this turn. This means that if the marines are away from the boat, the boat has to move to them, and then next turn can pick them up. Yes, you can garrison into/out of combat. You can garrison and then fly away the same turn. However, to get out of the boat, the boat has to not move for the entire movement phase, and then at the end of the movement phase you can get out. Previously, the marines could get out, and then the boat could still move afterwards... but apparently this is too good for KO in 3.0. I may or may not be grumpy with how this ends up playing out on the board.

For me, the question of frigate vs ironclad is what is going to be in the rest of my army. Thunderers + frigate is 520 points, thunderers + ironclad is 760 points. You HAVE to have at least 6 other units, and if I am running either set, I really want to be able to get them at least the +1 to hit bubble from a Taurelion or a Hurricanum, which is another ~300 points, and then you still have 5 more units to run. The next question is why I am taking them. Realistically, I can run 20 irondrakes + runelord + 10 longbeards for 525 points. Damage wise, 20 irondrakes without any buffs that move are going to be dishing out about 2/3 the damage of frigate + thunderers. However, they have a bunch of buffs available to them, AND they are counting as 20 models on the objective while thunderers on a frigate are counting for 2. So I am running them because I want something more mobile, that has some punch. In general, I lean more towards running the ironclad. I would go so far as to say that I would default to the ironclad before touching the frigate, and only really look at the frigate if I am running short on points for the rest of my army. Additionally, I would only look to run them with the aethershot rifles. This is for 3 reasons. First, and most importantly, I really don't want to have to roll out 5 different weapon profiles. It isn't worth it. Second, the boat wants to land just within 12" to get all of its guns on target - but you have to do your shooting in 2 separate attacks. You really don't want to open fire, kill some models, and then be out of range of the rest of your guns. Finally, if you want to hit something behind a screen, or something that is trying to hide, having 18" range guns gives you much more flexibility to get in and hit a priority target, rather than having to shoot screens.

There is no real army popularity list that covers casual play. You can check the honest wargamer out to see what is popular in competitive play, but that doesn't necessarily count for your local meta. For example, fyreslayers tend to be one of the less popular armies, but the last area I lived in, half the people had a fyreslayers army. Meanwhile, now that I've moved, I've seen fyreslayers hit the table once in nearly 3 years. Because of this, the only real option is to get involved in your local scene and see what people have/play. It may be that locally no one runs stormcast, and they are a great army for you to pick up. Or it may be that everyone has a stormcast army and they sometimes run a stormcast showdown where everyone shows up with their stormcast list. Again, you won't know your local scene until you get involved.

Generating CP: First of all, there are the non-city specific ways. You of course have the Adjutant, which gives you one on a 4+. Then there is heroic action, which gives you one on a 4+. The Warlord Battalion can also give you an extra CP once per game (you have to choose that you want to receive it at the start of your hero phase though) - note, this is in addition to the extra enhancement. Alternatively, the command entourage can also do so, but there you have to choose between CP and an enhancement, and it is hard to say that the CP would be more important than the enhancement. Additionally, if you only care about running, you can stick a hero and a troops unit into the vanguard battalion for one free use of at the double or forward to victory per game. You can also choose the "Skilled Leader" command trait for getting a CP on a 5+ in your hero phase. An easy prayer to add to your runelords is "Guidance", which can give you a CP on a 5+, and since you get a free prayer enhancement that is pretty trivial to add... but it does man that you can't take curse. Next up, city specific. Hammerhall has "Banners Held High", which can give you a CP on a 6+ for each unit with a banner in your army. Massed dwarfs = lots of banners, so there is a reasonable chance you can get some CP from this one. Also can choose the command trait "Academiate Prodigy" to start the game with an extra CP... but a CP on turn 1 isn't really worth taking a command trait for. Anvilguard has the illicit dealing for d3 extra CP on turn 1... if CP stuck around turn to turn this might be worth it, but since that will only be there on turn 1, it isn't really worth it. Tempest Eye has the "Seerstone Amulet" that gives you a CP on a 4+ in your hero phase (reasonable if you have already grabbed the arcane tome and possibly the amulet of destiny on a hurricanum). You can also take the spell "Celestial Visions" to get a CP on a spell cast of 7. This could be worth taking if you have multiple wizards and already gave one Aura of Glory. Hallowheart can take the command trait "Warden of the Flame" for an extra CP on a 4+. Greywater Fastness can have the command trait "Seat on the Council" for an extra cp on a 4+ - however, you would probably do better to stick a general with "Drillmaster" next to some irondrakes for re-roll 1's to hit. Also has the "Magnificent Macroscope" which gives you an extra CP on turn 1 - but once again, it goes away after turn 1 making it notably less useful. Settlers Gain gives you "Strategic Mastermind" for an extra CP on a 4+ each turn. Finally, for some unit specific stuff. The Lord-Imperitant can issue a command without a CP being spent every turn (no restrictions for stormcast only). You can make Aventis Firestrike your general (Hammerhall only) and you get an extra CP on turn 1. Note, aventis is basically a Taurelion with an arcane tome, but he only affects Hammerhall/Hammers of Sigmar units, so if you want to run hammerhall and an arcane tome on something else, he is actually worth it (note, also can give +1 to hit to your units, meaning you don't necessarily need to take a hurricanum). Note, all other stormcast hero's that get some sort of CP manipulation are restricted to stormcast only. No other hero's in the cities have abilities that grant extra CP, nor do any that I could find from other coalition options. Overall, I would recommend Tempest Eye if you are running dwarfs that want to get into melee. The extra 3" move turn 1 can get them up the board fast enough to get into position, and they also get a static +1 to their run rolls for the whole game. Note, this stacks with the +1 to run from the various dwarven musicians, meaning that turn 1 you are guaranteed a run of at least 10", and turns 2+ you are guaranteed runs of at least 7". Tempest Eye can also allow you to take the Zephyrite banner to be able to re-roll charge rolls for units wholly within 12" of the bearer, saving you some CP there as well, and of course you are going to take a runelord as your general with "Hawk Eyed" to give the +1 to wound bubble for shooting.

The problem with vanguard pallidors is that they come in units of 3. This means that reinforcing them to a unit of 6 means you run into coherency issues, and it is an absolute pain to try to get the extra models into combat. Yes, it can be done... but for what they do it isn't worth the extra headache. If they were truly devestating at either range or in melee, I might consider it, but here are the numbers: For 215 points, you get to bring either javelins or handaxes. Javelins do an average of 5.3 damage at ranged, and 7.5 in melee, meaning you can get 12.8 damage out of them with shoot + charge (note, all numbers before saves, and everything is basically rend -1). Running with handaxes, you can get an average of 1.75 damage at range, but 12.9 in melee, giving you an average of 14.65 damage with shoot + charge. If we look at the numbers objectively, this is actually around the same range as a pair of concussors, which cost 220 points. 2 Concussors will deal an average of 2 damage at range and 11.33 in melee. However, the important thing here is that those 2 concussors can be trivially reinforced to 4, which makes for a much better usage of your command points. Basically, what it comes down to is that if they errata the coherency rule to be 1-6 instead of 1-5, I would consider bringing Pallidors. Heck, if they did that, I would consider bringing pallidors + fulminators, as you can get the fulminators stuck in on turn 1, and then use the pallidors for ride the winds + shoot move and charge turns 2-5. But unless they do that errata, I don't think a non-reinforced unit of pallidors is worth spending a CP on every turn, and I don't think that a reinforced unit is worth bringing when you can instead bring the dracothian guard to serve a better purpose as an alpha striking hammer.

Something to be aware of there is that there are 5 arms for each box. There is a single arm that has a hand swappable at the wrist, which lets you change between sword, lance, or flaming sword. Then there are 2 arms with lances and 2 arms with swords, and you can magnetize those at the shoulder. This means that magnetizing lances/swords for just Stormdrake Guard can be fairly trivial, but trying to magnetize a model to be either Stormdrake Guard OR Knight-Draconis is going to be a bit more painful. You can do so by magnetizing the Knight-Draconis arm at the shoulder as well, instead of worrying about messing around at the wrist. However, the biggest issue with magnetizing the Knight-Draconis is probably figuring out how to swap the cloak out, and keep in mind that you will also need to magnetize the shield (though that at least is fairly trivial). Overall, after spending 10 minutes looking things over, I decided not to bother with magnetizing between stormdrake guard/knight-draconis, mostly due to not being able to figure out how to make the cloak swappable. I also didn't bother magnetizing between swords and lances, because I am looking to run mine as a fast anvil, not really as a unit that can reliably charge every turn. I know @PJetski is of the opinion that getting them to charge every turn isn't particularly difficult, but there are enough tarpits in the game that I don't want to have to be devoting resources to extracting the guard every turn just to allow them to charge. If you are running Guard as your only melee hammer, it might be worth it... but at the same time, if I want a melee hammer, I would rather run Annihilators or Fulminators, which can get the job done better than guard can.

Ahh, well all the good Stormcast armies have 3 squads of liberators in them. They are all the same army. I don't know what you people are complaining about when they say that they are nerfing stormcast into the ground - you're using most of the same models, with the same allegiance abilities, spells, keywords. Sarcasm in case anyone is dense enough to not see through that. But that is effectively what you just said about Tzeentch. If I keep the same book but have to go out and purchase 1500-2000 points for a new army because of meta/edition/FAQ changes, it is not the same army.

Sure, there has been a Tzeentch army that has been good, but it is notable that it hasn't been the same army. There was the era of Skyfires dominating tables. Then there was the Changehost with flamers, pinks and a lord of change, teleporting a shooting unit each turn. In 3.0, Tzeentch has already gone through 3 shifts, with the first being the Cogs spell spam with massed summoning due to that, followed by Archaeon Tzeentch, and now it is more about massed pinks. Are some models shared between these armies? Yes. But depending upon when you bought into Tzeentch, if you wanted to be able to run all 5 of these lists, you are sitting on ~6k points of Tzeentch to be able to do so as various units have fallen in and out of the meta.

Ehh, most factions take some time at the bottom of the barrel. Kharadron Overlords were one of the top armies in 2.0 because they had a ton of damage and a ton of ways to deliver it. They are now one of the worst armies available, because their damage is done via rend -1 with a sprinkling of rend -2, and save stacking basically laughs in their face. Do we see anyone outside of KO players shedding a tear for how their army plays now that they have effectively been nerfed out of the game? Slannesh was one of the the top armies for a while and at one point reached nearly a 70% winrate in competitive. Now they are bottom of the barrel because their new book nerfed them to heck and back. Do we see non-slannesh players shedding any tears for them now that they have fallen off the face of the earth? Flesh Eater Courts were the terror of the battlefields for quite some time, and were kings in the "strikes first" meta that existed for a while. Then they got nerfed, and new books came out that had strategies that countered FEC, and went from top tier to the lower end of the mid tier. And is anyone shedding any tears for FEC players? Fyerslayers were a terror running around with 3 blocks of 20 hearthguard berzerkers. Now they can run a maximum of 2 blocks of 15... leaving them with another 6 blocks of 5 that they can't reinforce because of the reinforcements limit. They also used to stack saves with various aura effects, but while previously they could get to a 3+, now they are capped at a 4+ because their base save is a 5+. The entire playstyle got taken out back and shot... but I am not seeing anyone shedding tears for them outside of the fyreslayers threads. I could keep going on with more examples. What happened to Cities of Sigmar with the irondrake bridges of doom? What happened to the 6 monster Beastclaw Raiders lists? What happened to the seraphon players who bought into Saurus? What happened to the poor souls who were doing good with Bonesplittaz? How about the people that went deep on Skyfires when they were good? How about the entirety of Ossiarch Bonereapers, who can't use any of the nifty new features that came out with 3.0 because they don't use command points, but were terrors until petrifex elite got nerfed? I would advise you to stop focusing how how it is affecting your one army. Things change over time, and Stormcast will get a few months to podium before falling back into obscurity like most armies. Yes, there are a few that come out and never amount to anything (looking at you beasts of chaos), but anything that ends up at the top of the pile for a while inevitably gets that final nerf that pushes them over the edge into the dumpster. Yes, it will be nice if after they are done nerfing, Stormcast still have a few lists that can reliably go 3-2, but if we're honest, that is about the power level that most armies should be at.

If you are ever not sure - check the stormhost. In this case, the annihilators are battleline because Knights-Excelsior

Have you looked at the new warscrolls? Because if you haven't, I have bad, bad news. Aka, the heraldor no longer allows run and charge - he can toot his horn to blow up terrain, but that is all he does anymore.

So running the numbers, 2 concussors deal an average of 11 damage. 2 fulminators deal an average of 9.78, or 18 on the charge. Basically, a squad of 4 fulminators charging can delete a megagargant, and need maybe an all out attack. But 4 concussors can't. Because of this, I think that if you are running just one unit of dracothian guard, then you are running fulminators, even with that points increase. However, if you are running squads of 2, or already have your hammer of fulminators, then it might be worth looking to the concussors.

For cities coalition, I would go an ironclad with a squad of 10 Thunderers. If you stick them next to a hawk eyed general, and then have a +1 to hit buff (hurricanum, taureluon) then both the boat and riders a re +1 to hit and wound. Gunhaulers meanwhile just don't do enough to be worth bringing, especially 3 as you then need 9 other units in your army due to the 1/4 rule.

If they decide to do something significant with the cities: First off, units that don't need adjustment, or only need a small tweak: Frostheart Phoenix w/ annointed. Yes, it is tanky and fast... that is about all you can say about it though, because you are spending 315 points for a monster that can average less than 9 wounds before saves. I would argue that it could use a bit of a points drop, but I will say it definitely doesn't need a points increase. Celestial Hurricanum (with and without battlemage). There is a reason it goes in almost every list, and yet is useless outside of the cities. Fine where it is. Annointed, assassin, battlemage, Black Ark Fleetmaster, Cogsmith, Freeguild General, Nomad Prince, Runelord, Sorceress, and warden king. All of these have at least some use (except maybe the cogsmith) in unlocking battleline or just being a support character. Aside from the battlemage, sorceress, and maybe the runelord, none of these are something that I would stick in my list outside of unlocking battleline, or sub-faction synergies, but at the same time GW seems to like pricing these support hero's around 100 points, so I can't really see any significant changes here. Darkshards, Irondrakes, Longbeards, Phoenix Guard, and sisters of the watch are all in fairly good places, though I could see a points drop for Sisters of the Watch. In less good spaces, but might only get a 5-10 points tweak, there are the Black Ark Corsairs, Black Guard, Bleakswords, Dreadspears, Dark Riders, Demigryph Knights, Eternal Guard, Flagellants, Freeguild Crossbowmen, Freeguild Greatswords, Hammerers, Ironbreakers, Scourgerunner Chariots, Shadow Warriors, and Sisters of the Thorn. Next up, units that need a more significant points adjustment: Freeguild General on Griffon is overpriced for what it does and deserves to drop 25+ points. The Luminark is a little overpriced for what it does, and needs to drop some points so someone might actually consider taking it over the hurricanum. Note that this applies to both the Luminark w/ battlemage, and the luminark without. Frostheart Phoenix without rider. Take the phoenix, drop a pittance of damage, and drop the 4+ ward. At 220 points, not worth it, and to have it EVER see use without a rider, it needs to drop to more like 170-180 points. Relevant here - this model can expect an average of 7 damage before saves when it is at its top bracket, and without the hero riding it, it loses much of its utility. Finally, units that need warscroll adjustments, not just points: Battlemage on Griffon. This thing is 275 points for a single cast wizard, on a 13 wound model with a 5+ save, AND only 6 bravery. I have never seen one of these things on the table, even in meme lists. This model either needs to drop ~100 points off of it, or it needs to get a 2nd spell cast, or it needs SOMETHING to make it remotely survivable. Dreadlord on Black Dragon. This thing is absurdly swingy. The fact that its claws and jaws hit on a 4+, and the best we can do to buff that is bring it to a 3+ is pretty terrible. The lack of rend on the sword is also pretty poor. However, then we get to the jaws. 3 attacks on a 4+ is already incrediably swingy (though I have now successfully bitten something with my dragons enough that I need two hands to count instead of just one... even after having played 1+ dragon in 30+ games of 3.0, and 3+ dragons in ~10 games of 3.0), but the fact that if you get through all that swingyness to do d6 damage, and inevitably roll a 1 (unless your target has a single wound left - then you'll roll the 6) just makes fielding these guys frustrating beyond belief. Claws and Jaws need to be updated to a 3+ to hit, and the jaw attacks need to be changed to 3+d3 damage, not d6. Do that and these guys might be worth their 290 points. Sorceress on Black Dragon. This is a combination of the battlemage on griffon and the dreadlord on dragon. A 5+ save for these points is not worth it for a single cast wizard, though at least this one has a spell that might be worth bringing in bladestorm. Combine that with the fact that the mount is swingy as all get out, and you have a recipie for an overpriced model. Just like the battlemage on griffon, this needs to drop a lot of points, get a 2nd spell, or get something to make it survivable... but it also needs to make the dragon less swingy, just like the dreadlord. Steam tank w/ or without commander. Look at what I wrote about swingyness on the dragons. Now apply that to the guns, AND the movement. WHY!?! Honestly, I would actually consider running steam tanks as they are if they had static movement, even it it changed as the model bracketed. But realistically, they need to change their main gun shot to be d3+3, or just something like 4 damage rather than d6, and the steam guns could realistically use some rend as well (also, more range). Then, if something gets into melee, it needs a consistent number of attacks there as well, because d6 just isn't cutting it. Finally, a 4+ to hit is no longer good enough - you used to be able to get this back to a 2+ between a hurricanum and a commander, but now that stacking is gone they need either more shots, or to go to a 3+ to hit. Drakespawn Chariots. Why? Why are these units even here? They do nothing at range, have pitiful melee damage, poor movement for a chariot, and all they really have going for them is a 2+ chance at d3 mortals when they charge. I don't know what these guys need, but they need something, especially as there is no way on gods green earth you are going to reinforce these guys now. Drakespawn Knights. No. Just no. I have played these guys at their initial 170 points (lol). I have played them at their current 125 points. Realistically, with a 10" move and a 3+ save, they can't drop much more points wise, as they would then be too good as a wall to just throw in front of people. But a lot of these guy's failings would be fixed if you just gave the riders 2 attacks, which might make them worth bringing to get some charges off. Don't get me wrong - they would still suck, as their stats are pretty terrible. But at least with 2 attacks we could talk about them possibly being worth it at 125ish points, and not complaining about having to drop them to 95 points and still barely being worth it. Also, some people really want to be able to run a cavalry heavy army, and these guys seem great at that until you read their warscrolls. Freeguild Guard. These guys were written with hordes in mind, getting stacking bonuses to hit for the number of models in the unit, and potentially being able to benefit from the freeguild general's buff as well. With the changes to hordes and stacking in 3.0, this makes their warscroll seem particularly out of date, and it should get re-written to reflect the current reality. Realistically, I would be fine with them at 85 points with just cutting all the bonuses from them and cleaning up the warscroll some, but I would like it if they got something to make them slightly unique afterwards. Freeguild Handgunners. Just like the freeguild guard, these guys were written with stacking bonuses in mind, but they were also written with stand and shoot. Now that stand and shoot has been ruled as an "unleash hell" (and still counts as using unleash hell, so you can't do it across multiple units), and there is no longer ways that you can stack their buffs down to a 2+/2+, they need some attention. Realistically, if we got rid of their attack bonuses and stand and shoot rules, and just gave them base 3+/3+ guns, they would probably still be worth 105 points (though I would appreciate keeping the "crack shot" for the unit leader's long rifle), but again cleaning up the warscroll would be nice for them. Freeguild Outriders. 5+ base to hit is terrible, especially is this was a unit that previously relied on stacking buffing. Change them to a 4+ to hit to account for the fact that you cant buff stack them to the moon anymore, and they would probably be fine at their current points. Without doing that though, it is hard to say when they would ever get used, as they are just too un-reliable. Freeguild Pistoliers. Pistoliers were basically only used in Tempest Eye battalion, which allowed them to retreat and still charge. Without that, it is hard to say that they are ever useful, especially with such short range. Realistically, these guys either need retreat+shoot and charge on their warscroll, some other way to access that, or a significant warscroll re-write to make them worth bringing. Gyrobombers. The only real reason to bring gyrobombers was for the ability to fly over and drop bombs. However, a 12" move isn't enough to make that reliable, and the fact that they can't drop bombs after retreating, or when running makes them really, really hard to use. They need a warscroll re-write to adjust bomb dropping timing, either make it whenever they move in the movement phase, or at the start of the combat phase they can drop them on a unit within 3". Gyrocopters. Just like the gyrobombers, these guys need an adjustment to when they can drop bombs, though with theirs being once per game it is less vital to the usage of the unit. However, the reason these guys were brought was to be used as horde killers... and you may have noticed a distinct lack of hordes right now. Also, making them not able to be reinforced to 3 models in the unit makes them noticeably harder to use as a horde-clearing unit now. But at the same time, it is really, really hard to consider dropping even more points off of these guys (also, why are they $50 a model? seriously?). These guys need some sort of warscroll re-write to make them relevant... also, they need to be both Cities and KO units, because I want to bring some little gyrocopters alongside my bigger boats. Wild Riders. So, we want a hard charging unit that can move fast and smash. Wild riders are perfect for that, right? I mean, maybe... but these guys don't reinforce well, and with a 3+/4+ profile, even when charging you can't rely on a squad of 5 of them to be able to smash a 10 wound unit, so they can't even reliably make it through a screen. Reinforcements making it so you can't bring a significant chunk of them also means that you can't buff them up enough to make them hammers, and coherency changes making it so you can't get a whole reinforced unit into combat is also rough. Add on a 5+ save, and they melt to any sort of counter attack, and it is a struggle to figure out where they would ever get used. These guys need a new warscroll, but I'm not really sure what they need to make them work on it. Wildwood Rangers. Woo hoo - monster slayers in the edition of monsters, just what we need, right? Except a squad of 10 of these guys will still only do ~9 damage to a 3+ save (monster), and are pretty terrible vs anything else. Stack on a 5+ save, so they die to a stiff breeze and it is no surprise that these guys don't see play. Realistically, these guys need more rend, and a better save - giving them rend-2 and a 4+ save would make me actually consider using these guys, but as it is their real competition is Irondrakes... which just do their job with better projection and better damage. Flamespyre Phoenix. Oh dear, I am SOOOO disappointed by this unit, whether it has a rider or not. This model can expect to do less than 6 damage in melee without buffs. And that is before saves. The ONLY thing that made it worth considering before was its wake of fire (which I have already spoken to earlier in this thread), which since it happens on a normal move, basically doesn't exist. If he got re-written to use wake of fire at the end of the charge phase, or the start of combat, or just move/run/retreat, he might be worth bringing back out. He also needs to lose his 4+ to hit on the bird (why!?!). But as it is, I'm not sure I would bring one with an annointed on it for even as little as 200 points, and without an annointed his paltry 4 damage before saves in melee is... well... you might have to pay me to put it in my list, even if it was as low as 120 points, because realistically he is going to give away more points than he is going to gain me in a game. Kharibdyss and war hydra. I'm bundling these two together, because they are basically the same model. But you are spending 170ish points for a monster that has some sort of regeneration, mediocre movement, and poor damage output. Just... why? I mean, don't get me wrong - they are better than a flamespyre phoenix (with or without the rider...), but that isn't exactly a high bar to surpass. But these guys are realistically going to lose you more points when they die than they will gain you in a match, and even if they were to drop to 100 points they wouldn't be worth bringing due to that. I don't know what they need, but a new warscroll is probably the best place to start, because there isn't exactly anything worth saving here. Hellblaster Volley Gun. The volley gun is a unit that was designed with hit stacking in mind. You get +1 to hit for shooting something within 12", +1 to hit from a hurricanum, +1 to hit from a lord-ordinator, +1 to hit from the ironweld arsenal prayer, and now you max at +1 to hit. Even the 3d6 roll though is an average of less than 5 damage (with +1 to hit), but it is extremely swingy due to the shots being d6 rolls - and doubles means you shoot 0 times too. Overall, this unit needs a warscroll re-write to make it worth bringing without hit stacking being expected, and to make it less random (and make it so it will never just do nothing and fail you completely). Helstorm Rocket Battery. Another case of being designed with hit stacking in mind. A 5+ to hit wasn't terrible when you get +1 to sending all the shots at 1 target, re-roll 1's for being near an engineer, and +1 from hurricanum, +1 from lord-ordinator, and +1 from the ironweld arsenal prayer, meaning that minimal investment is needed to put multiple on a 3+, and it wasn't impossible to get them to a 2+ either. As it is now, the average damage from one of these is 2, while before you could expect an average of just short of 4 damage. Personally, I like the idea of making this a rocket spewer, keep its 5+ to hit, but give it like 6-10 shots, but anyway you do it this unit needs a warscroll re-write, because I wouldn't be willing to spend even as little as 50 points on this thing in its current form.

If you were to compare the 2 units without support, 10 Irondrakes that move come out to an average of 4.89 damage before saves, while 5 Auric Hearthguard shooting non-monsters come out to 3.67 damage before saves (note, both units have rend -1 here). Both units have a situation where they can double their damage - irondrakes by standing still, and hearthguard by shooting monsters. However, we then have to look at the support. In the cities, you can buff hearthguard with all out attack, and you can give them deepstrike with a runesmiter. And that's it - there is literally nothing else that you can do to buff them. However, when you look at irondrakes, you can give them +1 to hit from all out attack, a hurricanum, or a Taurelion, you can give them +1 to wound in tempest eye with hawk eyed, or in hallowheart with their spell, and they can also re-roll wound rolls of 1 if they are near some longbeards and finally, they can get +1 rend from a runelord. Now, all the support does cost extra points, which means you can't really compare 10 hearthguard to 20 irondrakes straight up. But, fully buffed up the hearthguard will deal an average of 18.67 damage to a monster before saves (with rend -1), but a fully buffed up squad of 20 irondrakes will deal an average of 34 damage before saves (with rend -2) if they stand still. This means that comparing best case scenarios against each other, it becomes really, really hard to want to run hearthguard over irondrakes. Additionally, defensively the hearthguard are 2 wound models with a 5+ save, while irondrakes are 1 wound models with a 4+ save and a +1 vs shooting. Finally, irondrakes can benefit from your cities allegience abilities while the hearthguard can't. All this doesn't mean don't run hearthguard. However, if you do run them, realize that doing so is probably worse than running cities units, unless you are really valuing the deepstrike capability. But, if you want to go all in on dwarfs, you do have this amusing army option (note, not good, amusing): Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar- City: Tempest's Eye- Grand Strategy:- Triumphs: InspiredLeadersAuric Runesmiter (120)*- Runic Iron- Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse- AlliesCogsmith (70)*- City Role: General's AdjutantRunelord (100)*- General- Command Trait: Hawk-eyed- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)- Lore of Eagles: Strike of Eagles- Universal Prayer Scripture: HealBattleline30 x Irondrakes (480)*- Reinforced x 210 x Longbeards (105)*- Ancestral Weapons & Shields10 x Longbeards (105)*- Ancestral Weapons & ShieldsUnits10 x Auric Hearthguard (250)*- Allies- Reinforced x 110 x Grundstok Thunderers (270)*- Reinforced x 1BehemothsArkanaut Ironclad (490)*Core Battalions*Battle RegimentTotal: 1990 / 2000Reinforced Units: 4 / 4Allies: 370 / 400Wounds: 123Drops: 1 This gives you an all dwarf list that has a ton of shooting available to it, runs all 3 dwarf factions, and is a 1 drop list.

Ahh, I found my point of confusion. I was mixing up the wording with the Stardrake mount trait (storm winged), which says "After this model has moved", vs the phoenix "after this has made a normal move". I did play with the stardrake in 2nd edition, but even though I finished my Flamespyre before 3.0 dropped, I never got to play with him till afterwards due to lockdown. Still an extremely disappointing model to put on the table.

I doubt Cities is getting a new battletome soon. There are rumors of the "Dawnheart Crusades", but I have a feeling that is going to turn out more like the Broken Realms series of supplements rather than a new book for just the cities. That being said, I could be wrong. However, with Cities getting a white dwarf update, it indicates that we are likely to not see a new book for at least 6 months to a year or two. As for Phoenix, Frostheart all the way. The Flamespyre is... ok... but it has been drastically nerfed by the wording of its mortal wound bombs being "A normal move". For reference, in 2.0, a normal move was a move, a run, a charge, a retreat, or a pile in. In 3.0, a normal move is... a move. All those other things that used to count now don't. This means that in 2.0, I could take a flamespyre phoenix in Tempest eye, give him "Swift as the Wind", run 26" turn 1, fly over something, deal 5 mortals on the fly over, then charge a unit, fly over them a little before landing next to them and deal another 5 mortals, and then fight first, piling in 3", where I would fly in a bit over their base to deal another 5 mortals. All before actually attempting to do damage with weapons. Then, on the next turn, I could retreat out of combat and deal another 5 mortals on the way out (assuming I was still in my top bracket). This made the flamespyre a terror in 2.0 (though still not particularly common to see). However, in the above example in 3.0 the flamespyre would deal exactly 0 damage in mortal wounds from flyovers. On top of that, the damage profile for the flamespyre is terrible. A frostheart without any buffs can expect ~9 damage on average before saves. A flamesypre? ~6. And yet for some reason the flamespyre is only 25 points less. I would say that I can usually get 315 points of value out of a frostheart between its damage output and its -1 wound aura. I cannot say that I can get even 200 points value out of a flamespyre most of the time. Finally, for battleline. I would HIGHLY recommend getting 20-40 Phoenix Guard. I find that a lot of my lists start out as 1 Frostheart + 2 blocks of 20 Phoenix Guard, then fill in the rest with other units. If I really need points for something, I'll drop a block or two of guard down to 10, but I almost always want to run my frostheart as my general. There are exceptions if there is something else you want to build around, like irondrakes. But most of my lists start with Phoenix Guard and a frostheart because those models generally perform for me, and I can experiment with the rest of my list as I want. On the other hand... I am one of those nuts that has 90 phoenix guard, so your mileage may vary.

Giants is mostly a DPS check army. Stormcast can handle the DPS check, provided that you bring one or two of the standard heavy hitters (longstrikes/judicators, annihilators, fulminators, protectors). Even if they go ahead and mystic shield, finest hour, and all out defense on various units, you can still punch through a giant a turn if you focus it. If you can take 1 down before they can respond, you are in a fairly decent position. If you can take 2 down, they are going to struggle to hold objectives against you, or pull off their battle tactics. Then, even if they destroy your hammer units, you should be able to secure enough victory points to take the game. That being said, this does mean that you are basically required to bring some of those heavy hammer units, and you can't reliably beat them if you decide you want to run one of the more typical durable/grindy setups.

Yes. Ko are allies for the cities, and only tempest eye and that morathi city don't get them as allies.

There are 3 things you can do against KO. Option 1 - shoot them off. A squad of longstrikes with thunderbolt volley will kill an ironclad in a turn, and 30" shooting range + translocate means they aren't safe. Add some judicator's if you want, or just run a 15 man block of them if you want more durability. Option 2 - force them into melee. Dracothian guard, evokitties, prosecutors, and stormdrake guard can all get into melee and ruin a unit pretty easily. Alternatively, a squad of grandhammer annihilators can ruin an ironclad on a charge, but will then not be able to engage anything for the rest of the game. Option 3 - ignore them. Take vindicators, protectors, stardrake, and castellents. A lot of KO shooting is rend -1, with only a small sprinkling of rend 2 and one or two rend 3 weapons. Put some base 3+ save units in a stormkeep, then just walk into objectives and ignore your opponent since you have more bodies on objectives and can ignore his dps (it's surprisingly low...). You aren't going to kill him, but he can't kill you either. Remember, garrisoned units on boats don't count for objectives.

There are a few things that I don't like about your list. First, I'm not sure that I like this being ravagers. With only 2 hero's, I'm not sure that this is a significant improvement for your army, as all of the warbands and marauders that you can summon aren't exactly adding a lot to your list. On the other hand, you could instead run this as Knights of the Empty Throne, make that squad of Varanguard into a hero (so it can do heroic actions, spreads its own mark so can be more independent of another lord, and can issue commands to other units as well). Finally, it would let you take a warlord battalion for an extra enhancement, which I find more usable than the one drop. Second, your artefact of choice. The Blashphemous Curiass gives you a 5+ ward vs mortal wounds. I struggle to find any reason why you would ever run that over an Amulet of Destiny, which gives you a 5+ ward vs mortals AND normal wounds. If you are wondering where that is coming from, the Amulet of Destiny is available in the Core rules. Third, spell choice. Binding damnation is an ok choice... but it suffers from a MASSIVE problem. That problem? 12" range. This means that you are basically already going to be engaged in combat for a full round without this spell. Now, if we are going to be realistic, all you are casting anyways is Mystic Shield, or maybe daemonic power, so spell choice doesn't technically matter. However, I find that if you are going to take a spell, you should just run Mask of Darkness, because the threat of the teleport will force your opponents to keep units back to protect objectives, even if you never actually try to cast the spell. Fourth, battalion. I have played around with my Slaves a good bit, and I find that having a 1 drop doesn't really help. However, being able to run the Amulet of Destiny AND arcane tome, or Amulet of Destiny AND Grasping Plate, or something along those lines is significantly more helpful. If we are being realistic, the one drop battalion is good if you are running a list that HAS to get its buffs off, or if you are running a list that can effectively get off an alpha strike. Slaves to darkness... is neither of those (without Archaeon). Everything is already durable enough that you aren't too worried about getting your buffs off if your opponent attempts to alpha strike you. And the damage output of slaves is anemic enough that there is no way you are effectively doing an alpha strike. Finally, warriors. Let me be clear here - I do like warriors (with the mark of Tzeentch and backed up by a sorcerer). I personally run 2 blocks of 20 of them. However, I don't think that they are really worth running in a block of 10. Your opponent has to clear off a mere 2 wounds to remove their +1 to save, which is fairly easy to do with some chip damage. And they aren't offensive enough to reliably kill something (a squad of 10 can reliably expect to put out less than 5 damage before saves). However, (you may have missed this, because it came in a white dwarf), as of white dwarf #468, cultists can now be battleline IF they have the same mark as your general. So you could look to replace those 10 warriors with 2 units of... whatever cultists you have around (with your points, if you do 70 point units, you can even do 3). Or look to replace the warriors with another squad of Knights. Overall, with a minimum amount of changes, this is what I would look to run: Knights of the Empty Throne Chaos Lord on Karkadrak - general, mark of Tzeentch, master of Magic, Arcane Tome, Flaming Weapon Chaos Sorcerer Lord - mark of Tzeentch, Mask of Darkness 3x Varanguard - Hero, mark of Tzeentch, Grasping Plate 10 Chaos Warriors - mark of Tzeentch 5 Chaos Knights - mark of Tzeentch Warlord Battalion - extra enhancement -> extra artefact

The problem with that is that you are spending 500 points for a unit that you can expect an average of ~10 damage from in melee (before saves... but at rend-2 you can still expect ~6 to a 3+) and ~4.5 damage at range. Yes, yes, I understand that they are more designed to be anvils than anything else, but when for the same price (460 points) I can bring a pack of 4 fulminators in from a board edge, shoot for an average of ~4 mortal wounds, and then move and charge for an average of ~37 damage... it is really really hard to choose the stardrake. Then, 4 fulminators is 24 wounds on a 3+ save vs 18 on a 3+ (yes, the stardrake can take the amulet for an equivalent of ~27) and it is looking significantly worse, because the fulminators can perform the anvil role nearly as well as the stardrake can. Basically, as a dragon fan and the proud owner of a stardrake... it is really, really hard to justify running one. This hasn't stopped me from doing so, but being realistic, they usually underperform for their point total.

My concern with this list is that you are able to deal ~29.5 damage on average before saves at 9-12" away. However, if you look at a 3+ save, you are going to deal an average of only ~16 if you focus fire from everything on a single target - and only ~11 on a 3+ ignore rend -1. Yes, you can all out attack, or spend some aether gold, or both, but even if you do both on an Ironclad, you are only buffing up to ~18.5 damage to a 3+ save, or ~13 to a 3+ ignore rend -1. Basically, the problem is that this list is giving up its ability to hold objectives in exchange for killing power... but the killing power isn't there to kill the big monsters in the meta. And I'm not even talking about the competitive monsters - on average, this list can't kill a Dreadlord on Black Dragon that used all out defense in a single shooting phase, despite putting 1600 points into shooting it. Since Heroic Recovery happens every hero phase, you also can't really get away with just doing a bit of chip damage here and there either. KO need to either eliminate key targets, or harrass while they hold objectives and do battle tactics. This army doesn't have the firepower to eliminate key targets, and it also doesn't have the bodies to sit on objective/do battle tactics, which means it is going to struggle against both casual lists and competitive ones.