Neil Arthur Hotep

I agree, and having some experience with the TK kits in particular, if they are really bringing back the old skeleton archer kit as it was at the time, I will be very disappointed. Those skeletons and the infantry skeleton kit they are based on (it is an upgrade sprue) are now two generations of models out of date. And let's not speak about the awful skeleton horses from the mounted skeleton and chariot kits. Tomb Kings deserve better.

I find that weird as well. A dragon seems really random as a mount. They couldn't pull a Liche Priest on Bone Scarab or whatever out of their hat?

Weird that the boxes supposedly do not include all the new models we have already seen, like the new foot knight and tomb prince. Also, those are some huge boxes if true. 70+ and 90+ models is a lot. In AoS terms, that is a full army each. What are the prices going to be like, 400€?

Bring back Steam-Piston Plate Mail.

It certainly seems that AoS had about a year of very little content right after the switch to 3rd edition. Right now, it feels like cool stuff is coming out every week. I wish they would strike a better balance with this kind of thing, but their rolling battletome updates and three year edition cycle makes it hard, I think.

I kind of wonder if "you get one half-size unit resurrection per hero in your list, max one per turn and you can only bring back the same unit once" would be a way to do it. Or maybe just VAMPIRE and NECROMANCER heroes. And maybe they have to be on the battlefield to do it? Because then resurrection comes with a tax, and running 6 heroes will probably prevent you from running enough SUMMONABLE to fully take advantage of it. It would make the whole thing more predictable, and maybe that would make it easier to balance overall? I don't know, but it definitely seems like resurrection is a mechanic that GW struggles with and that probably needs a redesign from the ground up in the next tome.

I am definitely feeling the points squeeze after the battlescroll. Fitting in a VLoZD and Mortis Engine into the same list while also filling battleline effectively is basically not possible. Too bad, seems like I will need to cut the Engine from my fun list. For the future, I hope that we eventually get rules nerfs and point drops instead. It seems like the combination of unit resurrection, hero regeneration and other healing abilities is just too strong overall. I personally don't know what should be changed, exactly. Maybe the Hunger? I personally like the idea of the army being composed of low-quality troops that are hard to kill as long as heroes are around, but I know a lot of people really want the vampires to feel super tough and powerful, so it's hard to say. For what it's worth, Legions of Nagash had the same problem that SBGL has now, that being that their resurrection and healing was just too strong for a while (remember Nagash+80 Skeletons or later Grimghast Reapers?). I like unit resurrection as a thing that SBGL can do, but it just seems to have proven to be very hard to properly balance throughout the history of the game.

Here's a little conversion idea for those of you looking for an alternative Cavalry-Marshall: Using extra parts from the Cavalier and foot Marshall kits you can make a pretty cool conversion using the Lord Solar kit as a base. Chamonite cog-horse is 100% lore friendly.

Nice customization. Maybe repost in the hobby thread?

It's Steelhelm time. They are surprisingly less fiddly than I thought.

Finally got my box! Only 19 more Steelhelms to go.

I have not looked into the specifics for a bit, but in general for named characters you only get what's on the warscroll. They don't get artefacts or command traits to uplift them and are frequently subfaction locked. Sometimes, that just means they should be cheaper than the generic version, even if their warscroll is stronger in a vacuum. And for generics, you basically always have to point for the best use case if you want to balance for competitive play, so even if the VLoZD is not that good in most subfactions, the fact that it is really scary in Legion of Blood means it needs to be pointed for that role, sadly.

Even with all that, I am still rating the Dreadlord fairly highly in this book. Best user of the wound reflection command trait. Flying, so can counter charge over screens. Fast enough to support all the good Dark elf cavalry units with strikes first/retreat out of combat.I Even if he's not great by the standards of other monster heroes, I think he has uses in this army.

Big oof. Poor dwarfs. I guess you can still Unleash at full strength if you are between 3" and 6" away from the charging unit, but it certainly does not make the unit easier to use.

Calculating the efficiency of Gotrek vs. a unit of Hammerers with support might be an interesting exercise. He can't score you battle tactics, but he's definitely a very hard to kill hammer unit. He's definitely got the painting efficiency metrics on lock: Having to paint one guy instead of 20 is hard to beat.

Very much agreed on the role of elves and dwarves as supporting units in this book. I think a human core with elf/dwarf auxiliaries should work very well. Both have a lot to offer that humans can't easily replicate on their own, but struggle to field a full list without humans. I would also add the Sorceress and Blackguard to the category of good units. Pairing these two units makes them self-sufficient: They both get that 4+ ward and the Sorceress can cast Tenebrael Blades to give the Black Guard some good punch. Just sacrificing a Black Guard for the cast bonus if you need it seems better to me than dragging around another extra 90 points of Dreadspears or whatever. Maybe a hot take, but I don't super love the Scourge Privateers in the Tenebrael Blades combo. They get a lot of attacks, of course, but the combo seems really easy to disrupt if they are your main buff recipient unit. It's not possible to easily snipe heroes anymore, but it seems to me like most lists should be able to snipe a 5+ save unit. Also, the combo gets very complex if you go all the way with it: Privateers, Fleetmaster, Sorceress, Darkling Covens unit to sacrifice... That's a lot of easily disruptible moving parts.

Personally, I think every option for a second shooting unit in Cities is currently kinda bad. Which is also why I don't think Greywater is actually as good as it appears at first glance. The second block of Fusiliers is not so good becuase it either makes you really immobile by having to keep both blocks near the same Alchemite or it misses out on a lot of the buffs that make the first Fusilier block good (+1 to wound from command trait, mortals from the spell). You can't have two Fusilier blocks operating independently to good effect. Irondrakes, I already talked about above. Overall, I think they are too expensive right now for what they can theoretically do. The same applies to the Fusil-Major and Cannons. Having a Steam Tank or two is genuinely a defensible option, but not for their ranged damage output alone. They shoot OK, though. Same for the Scourgerunner and possibly the Gyrocopters. Everything else seems like incidental shooting, not real damage dealers. You can slap a unit of Darkshards in a list as a ranged screen that does, like, 3 damage per round. Or you can run a unit of Wildercorps Hunters just to push them onto terrain near an objective so that the opponent has to come down there to remove them. But none of the units not mentioned above have the potential to deal serious ranged damage. In my opinion: Be happy with the good shooting you can get out of that first Fusilier unit, build the rest of the army as melee.

I'd love that, but I expect they will put out another wave of Freeguild designs first. Because realistically, there is probably a stockpile of new designs that are already done but just didn't make the cut for this wave of models. I hope they figure out a good way to deal with elves and dwarves. They need to get a re-imagining in the same vein as the Freeguild if they are to stay part of the book long-term. But how would that even work from a release perspective without giving Cities three battletomes next edition? I don't think we can realistically wait around another 6 years until they finally update Dispossessed. I don't really know what will happen. Maybe we will actually see new Grungni and Malerion factions in the near future. That could at least be an excuse to replace the old WHFB models with a smaller contingent of dedicated Cities elves and dwarves (maybe more integrated into the Freeguild?).

Absolutely agreed and I have been tooting the same horn in this thread multiple times. I am working under the assumption that this is a mistake and will be errata'd. Otherwise, you are right, this is a significant downside.

I like a unit of Ironbreakers with a supporting hero. 3+, 4+ save is a proper anvil. Hammerers are good, too, especially since the Warden King can pull them out of strikes last from shield wall into regular combat by activation chaining.

I personally think that Irondrakes have other problems than their damage output. With their current shooting stats and access to the Shieldwall order, I think they can in theory play a role in Cities. However, they have a certain developer-intended downside that the rules writers were very sure to really enforce this time around: They are supposed to have to move into position and stay still before they get access to their full damage output. Their short 15" range and new inability to get 2 attacks after set up clearly express this, in my mind. They also lost all their previous synergies (extra rend, +1 to wound from Longbeards). It seems to me that the ceiling for Irondrake is pretty clear: You get that pretty solid 2 attacks, 3+/3+ shooting profile with maybe a +1 to hit from the Runelord. That's not bad. They Unleash Hell a lot better than fusiliers and their access to the Shieldwall order makes them receive a charge better, as well. This unit could, in theory, be worth using, even with the downside that you can only expect them to do their full shooting damage from turn 2 onward. But the unit/power pair is not worth using at 160 points for 10 Irondrakes and 100 points for the Runelord. They will have to go down significantly to be worth considering. Not to 100 points or whatever (they are not Darkshards), but they definitely need to be cheaper than Fusiliers to be worth considering. And even then, I think with their movement restriction they won't be used in tournament lists.

My order says it will probably be delivered on Monday. Sad, because I will coincidentally be in the UK that day on a business trip. There is some sort of irony in me not getting my box because I am in the homeland of warhammer at the time, but I suspect it's the Alanis Morisette version of irony.

I don't know how much of this is still regarded to be rumour, but I thought the working theory was that all the 1st edition armies like KO, FEC, Idoneth, Fyreslayers and Ironjawz were released at a time when the GW strategy was still to have a bunch of tiny micro-factions. And then that strategy changed with 2nd edition. But since GW's design process takes 2-3 years from concept to finished product, we are only now seeing these factions actually get expanded. I would say the evidence that this is happening is pretty good: Ironjawz and FEC seem to be getting pretty substantial amounts of models now, and I would suspect that the other micro-factions won't be too far behind.

Interesting. I guess that means we can proxy old Pistoliers as Cavaliers, as well. They have the same base size.

I was recently looking at Irondrakes again as a second shooting unit (because I think the second Fusilier unit is a lot worse than the first), but it seems to me that Irondrakes just are not cutting currently. Their short range and the non-movement requirement kind of make them too hard to use for their points/their damage. If they get a bit cheaper, though, I think I might do 20 of those dudes and a Runelord for the to-hit buff. What I like about them is that they are completely self-contained pair that does not need any command abilities or a specific city choice to do its job. Right now, though, it is insanity that 20 Irondrakes and a Runelord is 30 points more expensive than 20 Fusiliers and an Alchemite.