Neil Arthur Hotep

They generally like to throw one non-spamable kit in there. I could imagine a Castelites box with the Major, Fusiliers and Cannon. Or maybe a box that includes the Freeguild General/Marshal/Karl Franz if they want to shift some old kits.

I just saw that the hurricanum gets to deal mortals in the hero phase, not your hero phase. That combined with its ability to get around Look out, Sir! has honestly made it a lot more attractive to me again.

Zynestra in brief: 9 wounds, so a small hero for battalions One extra order, as always with all heroes 4+ ward makes her survivable +1 unbind, I think the only one in Cities Garbo combat stats, but pulses 1d3 mortal wounds twice per combat phase: At the start and when she activates. All three prayer modes are good, and if you push her foreward you get to pick two of them. 18" 5+ ward bubble will always be useful. Of course, she is less useful in lists that heavily make use of dwarves and elves. But in a human list board-wide +2" move is just super strong, and a 5+ ward bubble will allow you to win engagements you would otherwise lose. What's good about her is honestly how little you need to build around her. You put your three big threats into your list and then you just throw her in because she is so cheap and everything she does is so broadly useful regardless of game plan. Comparisons to heroes in other armies are honestly completely immaterial because you are not choosing between a 6+ ward bubble for 100 and a 5+ ward on a roll for 150 in this army. Her being unique also barely matters because what command trait or artefact would you even want to put on her? Like I said before, if you compare her at her point level, I don't think there is really a competition between her and a cannon, or a second unit of fusiliers, or even a battlemage or whatever. Only the Alchemite competes, but that is because that guy is also too cheap and spamable.

Also I just hate batch painting. The new Cities seem like they can pull off horde lists, though, if that's your thing. Tahlia Vedra enables infantry spam pretty well.

Yeah, basically. I am not excited enough about Steelhelms to paint more than 20. Even that might be pushing it, tbh.

The Steelhelms are just screens, but the Tanks are proper anvils, so that is fine. Especially if the Zynestra 5+ ward prayer goes off. The real defense is blasting everything off the table before it can reach the gun line, though. 😎

Currently thinking about building this list from the launch box: Greywater Fastness Steam Tanks Commander (270) + Steam Tank (230)=500 Cavalliers (180)+Marshall (120)=300 Fusiliers x2 (300)+Warhulk (150)+Cannon (150)=600 Steelhelms ×2=200 Zynestra 150 Alchemite 90 Total 1840 points with 160 points left for assorted heroes or whatever. I like this list because it is thematic and uses mostly new models. It also has both units that can suppresson fire and units that can make charge, which I think is the intended Freeguild playstyle.

Personally, I want to run the gunpowder units that are not in the launch box, but I am considering the box anyway because it is a good base. I am currently thinking that I will need 20 Steelhelms and an Alchemite anyway. 5 Cavaliers and a Horse Marshall at 300 also seem like a good power pair. Honestly, I see very little reason not to have those in every list except theme. I have 1000 points of Cities in the form of 3 Steam Tanks and a Hurricanum right now. I don't think running them all is strictly speaking good, but it makes getting to 2000 points easy. Personally, if you are sticking with humans, I would not go super heavy on magic. Unless you are going with Hallowheart or Settler's Gain, that is. The Battlemages have good spells, but they are high CV and so that kinda balances out their innate +1 to cast. And a 1 cast wizard that does nothing else is a hard sell even at 100 points. However, going Hallowheart and spamming them is absolutely worth it. Pha's Protection, Pall of Doom and Wildform are all worth building around. Makes the Alchemite more consistent, too. In my opinion, Zynestra is currently too good in human-centric lists. How can you possibly justify bringing the Command Corps or a cannon for 150 points if you could just add her instead? I think she will no doubt go up in points. She and at least 1 Alchemite seem like absolute auto-includes right now.

It may not be a good list, but it gives you a chance to be the guy who blew apart Archaon with a bunch of armour piercing shells turn one.

Hot take: You can do worse than a two pack of heroes (two orders for the price of one!) with a 5+ ward that can dome wizards for big damage and destroy endless spells for 160. However, they are just goodstuff and don't advance any particular game plan.

D6 damage though. That's a lot worse than it looks (super swingy). However, you can of course make it more consistent by adding more cannons

Even in Greywater, 10 extra fusiliers are probably just better (painting meta not taken into consideration).

I'm also getting a cannon and fusil-major. They are not optimal, I think, but I don't want to paint 40+ fusiliers. Plus, the alchemite and fusiliers will almost certainly go up in points over time (how crazy is it that the alchemite is our cheapest hero?), while I would predict that the fusil-major and cannon will come down if anything. I have been thinking about steam tanks more. I think the ideal size is probably a tank commander plus one regular. That way the tanks can be pretty much self-sufficient. They can help out your other troops by tanking and delivering orders at the front lines. The commander can buff the normal tank for free, so you don't need extra support pieces If you run 3+ tanks you need to start builing around them by including stuff like a hurricanum, and they become much harder to justify. I'm still doing three tanks right now (because I have them painted), but they definitely warp the list around themselves. They kind of demand that you give them both +1 to hit and a movement buff at that point, which is not the easiest thing in the world to build for without ****** over the rest of you list. You might want a casting bonus as well, which even harder to fit all at once.

Fusiliers come in 10s.

Are you sure you calced that correctly? When I input the stats of the cannon and fusiliers into Statshammer, the cannon does about half the damage of the fusiliers. Honestly, I don't think the cannon is objectively worth taking at this point. You can get pretty outstanding shooting out of 20 fusiliers and an alchemite. No need to ally in a 110 point lord ordinator who does nothing else for your army. Having extra native heroes is so good in cities just for that extra order alone.

Just a few quick comments: This army has good casting if you want it too. +1 or 3d6 casting from allegiance abilities. +1 to cast on warscroll for alchemite and battlemage. +2 for sorceress. Good spells, too: Pall of Doom, Pha's Protection, Tenebral Blade... As for comparing our units point-for-point to other battletomes, just don't. This army is extremely high synergy in a way that other armies are not: Through orders. That makes it very difficult to evaluate at the moment because basically nobody knows how that system actually plays. Those 10" move cavaliers might well be counter-charging something or actually be 13" move plus fighting a strikes-last opponent because of suppressive fire. Our units generally have far stats but nothing on their warscrolls because the complexity is in their allegiance abilities. There are a few very good units in this book. The alchemite is, at worst, a free, non-interactable +1 to saves for 90 points. Also gives the best offensive buff in the game at +1 to cast. The Pontifex is probably just about 50 points to cheap. Just have her in your army for free movement or mortals board wide. Tahlia Vedra has rally on 4+, which can be rally into combat in vindicarum. Cavaliers have a million synergies to choose from. I think even the steam tank is no longer a meme: It's a sturdy hero that gives out orders, tanks and provides suppressive fire at the front lines. And that's not even getting into elves and dwarves. The problem from my point of view is less that this army has no path to victory, it is more that there are several, but you really need to commit to them and they rely on skill expression in form of good use of orders.

Some quick hot takes while I am developing my list: So I am going to run a list that includes steam tanks and wants them to do work, but not going 100% tanks. Probably one commander and two regular. So far, subfaction choice is not obvious at all. You would think Greywater is the obvious go-to, but it actuakly does not work on the tanks themselves. Still, it is in contention for other Castellite stuff I am definiteky going to run. However it basically requires the combo with the Master of Ballistics command trait, which in turn would mean running a non-tank general (because I don't want my tank commander babysitting a gunline in the back field). That, in turn, means no tank battleline. There are actually a lot of potential subfaction choices. Tanks want to both shoot and charge, so Hammerhal Aqsha to give them two orders seems cool. Hallowheart for good casting is always viable if you include a few wizards (which you will because Alchemite is undercosted). I could see Lethis if you have a lot of non-wizard heroes, cursing people with the Tank Commander and then dumping 3d6 steam gun shots into them seems decent. Misthavn to help with the approach seems good, too, however movement buffs are easy to get in Cities. Same for Living City. Concerning artefacts and command traits: The command traits seem OK, but I am definitely eyeing the good ol' arcane tome again for artefacts. I think Cities can generally go for the one drop instead of extra enhancements. Speaking of one drop: I don't think the castellite battalion is good, because the Fusil-Major is a tax and the cannon is worse point-for-point than just taking 10 more Fusiliers. So I predict tournament players will just spam those in Battle Regiment. Works for me, though, I will just run the cool thematic stuff and not have people hate me Stand out units for me are the cavaliers+hero (great power pair), fusiliers+alchemite (actually anything+alchemite) and pontifex. Pontifex and alchemite seem like auto-includes. They just do too much for too cheap.

The new Freeguild models are all so good! Absolutely can't wait to get them in November. I liked the old empire stuff a lot, but I am super excited to upgrade.

Love these guys! It is high time that Sigmar paid attention to that invaluable battlefield role previously only served by Nurglings: Little buddies.

Thanks! I am happy you picked up on the different feel between the domicile shell and other terrain pieces because that is something I wanted to express as part of the history of the settlement I am building. My idea is that in this place, there are buildings from three different time periodes. The oldest are ruins from thr age of myth, which are characterized by their astrological markings. Then, there are the traditional mediveal buildings, which in my mind represent a small freeguild and collegiate arcane base which was used as a location from which to study these more ancient ruins for their magical significance. And finally, thr newest type of buildings are the prefabricated dawnbringer houses and aqualith, which were constructed after the site was found to be important enough to send a Dawnbringer Crusade to it. I especially like how the guardian idol in the first picture can work as a bridge between the age of myth ruins and dawner buildings, because it is a prefab structure that uses an old astrological ruin as support.

Working on terrain again. This time, domicil shells. You might like this one, @Twisted Firaun I am painting these buildings in the style of Moorish revival architecture: The flat roofs, arched doors and windows seem like a good fit. Plus, it's a little more eye catching than simple grey or white. Overall, the domicile shells are fun kits, but the scaffolding is kind of a chore to paint. I hope we get the completed buildings from the CoS battletome, too.

Good post. I really agree with what you said, so please don't take this as a put down, but I am not sure how in the year of our lord 2023 people still don't understand that 10 bodies on 25mm bases for 90 points is actually super good. Dreadspears are extremely good in their role, which is to capture points, be chaff and make sorceresses cast at +2.

I would guess it might come out with the full release. Or maybe if we are lucky the Dawnbringers books will come with a Streets of Death game mode that simulates urban combat, like 40k Boarding Actions. That would be a good excuse to release more city terrain.

This development is happening all over 3rd edition, as you know. Since the earliest FAQs, in fact, where all the Chaos factions lost a lot of interplayability. My view is that GW just really does not like it when units of one faction are made obsolete by those from another in their own book. For KO, that probably means not wanting to risk having Arkanauts and Thunderers replaced wholesale by sturdier melee oriented dwarves from Cities or Fyreslayers. Although, of course allies are still an option. This design trend is also the reason why I am very skeptical of the Regiments of Renown, by the way.

I'm pretty happy with the new book. The "Oops! All Guns!" list I wanted to build looks pretty viable. The Steam Tank has got to be the most improved unit in the book. i'm not 100% sold on the Fusil-Major, but I suppose sniping unit champions and standard bearers is pretty good. Plus he's necessary as a guy who can pass on orders to Fusiliers. I think this army is going to look super impressive on the tabletop. Steam Tanks, Gyrocopters, all the Castelite stuff, a Hurricanum, maybe a marshal and command corps... I can't wait to see it take shape.