SentinelGuy

I've been number crunching and I think my army is ok. I am loving the battalions, they're so damn tasty with all the little buffs. Weirdly I've gone from being keen to run more Tempests Eye, to thinking about Hallowheart as my city for this edition. I have a game lined up against Seraphon which could be either monster or magic heavy, so I'm covering all bases with this list. I should add that my opponent will more than likely steamroll across the board as fast as possible to get to me - City: Hallowheart Triumph - Inspired Warlord Battalion 1 Runelord (General) - Veteran of the Blazing Crusade, Curse = 100 1 Black Ark Fleetmaster (General's Adjutant) - Arcane Tome, Ignite Weapons, Roaming Wildfire = 70 1 Celestial Hurricanum with Battlemage - Agloraxi Prism, Sear Wounds, Crystal Aegis = 280 1 Scourgerunner Chariot = 80 1 Scourgerunner Chariot = 80 Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion 10 Wild Riders = 240 10 Shadow Warriors = 120 10 Shadow Warriors = 120 Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion 10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160 10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160 10 Irondrakes (Battleline) - grudgehammer torpedo = 160 Hunters of the Heartlands Battalion 10 Eternal Guard (Battleline, Honoured Retinue) = 125 10 Eternal Guard (Battleline) = 125 10 Eternal Guard (Battleline) = 125 Endless Spells Chronomantic Cogs = 45 Total = 1990 points That gives me fast moving blockers, objective grabbers and distractions, plenty of excellent firepower for dealing with monsters, and a wall of YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!! for any that get too close. The star of the show is the Fleetmaster - getting the Wizard keyword means he gets 2 spells from Hallowheart and with Cogs up and running, my 2 Wizards will be great support pieces. I've spent time considering the spells I chose for each and I think I have them assigned to the right people. I am slightly concerned about the speed of my Irondrakes, but want to test out the new board size to see if I can get away with not needing the bridge.

That could be it. I'm not 100% sure yet.

I second that

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a Fleetmaster with the arcane tome generic artefact is the real CoS hero we've all been searching for. Why bother with a Battlemage unless you really need a particular spell? He's the cheapest unbind we can get and he has access to all the city spells and the generics. Plus his armour save is good and he's not terrible in combat.

Stick the tome on a fleetmaster and you have a 70 point wizard with a 3+ save against shooting.

Drakespawn knights went down 5 points! It's a win Wild riders dropped 10, even better. I think I'll be taking my cavalry as wild riders from now on.

I still wouldn't run a hydra, Kharibdis, sorceress on dragon or a battlemage on griffon for those points.

GW Age of Sentinels 3.0

Anyone know how much the endless spells changed?

Oooof that's a big kick in the tender regions. Those points changes seem pretty random.

The game can be fun even with the old stuff. My current Tempests Eye army is made up of old high elf chariots (converted into scourge runners), glade guard spearmen (as eternal guard), a converted cauldron of blood (as a hurricanum), loads of old 5th ed glade riders (as drakespawn knights and wild riders), waywatchers (as shadow warriors). Plus a newer runepriest and 30 Irondrakes. It's not too bad overall, but it relies on the Irondrakes and wild riders to do the damage. It's really going to come down to how the points end up as to how good or bad Cities armies are in this new edition. The cities themselves do seem to be quite good.

Ok, so firstly there are rules in the Morathi book which allows you to play as a city that combines all the legacy dark elves, so you can still use the witch elves you have if you want to. Secondly, there is a new Generals Handbook coming in a few weeks which will introduce new points for all units, and supposedly this will shake things up quite a bit. At least at the moment, things aren't looking too great for dark elves. Don't let me put you off trying them, but as it stands, with what we know about the new edition of the game, they're not really competitive. That's not to say that they're unplayable, they just don't really have any standout units. It's also a kick in the teeth that the witch elves are some of the weakest units in their faction as well. The way that the new edition changes things is that now you start with your minimum size unit (10 minis on foot, 5 on horse/cold one, 1 for chariots). Then you have 4 reinforcement points you can spend at 2000 points. That means that only a maximum of 4 units can be increased in size to 20 infantry/10 cavalry/2 chariots. And beyond that only battleline choices can be increased again. As dark elves kind of require larger units for most of their buffs, that puts them in a rather tricky position as at most you'll have 4 larger units. The good news is that not everything is terrible - the scourge runner chariots are pretty good as fast objective grabbers and chaff. The sorceress and sorceress on dragon can be useful and they work well with a large unit of black guard as they get them moving faster (although this can also be done with the generic command ability in the new rules). I've used cold one knights because they're the only normal sized heavy cavalry we have access to. Don't look at them as killers, they're basically a moving wall that is slightly faster than infantry and much better protected. If I had to choose between Dreadspears and Bleakswords, I would pick the Bleakswords 99% of the time as they're better in defence. Having said that, I use Dreadspears because I have the models and they're not that bad, although I would also consider using them as eternal guard as they're much better ruleswise. Dark Riders never see play, but that could be because of how the last edition worked. Battleshock immunity is supposed to be harder to get, so their ability may see some limited use. You mentioned executioners - do you have the old marauder ones with axes? If you do then run them as Wildwood Rangers. Expect to see more monsters on the table in the new edition, so Rangers suddenly got quite useful. The Dreadlord on dragon is pretty cool in some armies. If you run Living City and give him a crossbow then he can pop up and charge with their special city rules. Makes him quite useful and he's pretty sturdy for an elf. With the new monster abilities he's also the best way of delivering a roar at an opportune moment. The other city that they also benefit from is Anvilgard. They get drakeblood curses which actually makes the Hydra and Kharibdis worth taking. The spell lore is also nice for this city. Take a sorceress on dragon and a coven unit to keep up with her, sacrifice one of the dark elves and then have her cast the spray spell to reduce enemy armour. You can also do the same with a sorceress on foot if you use the spell portal. Assassin's aren't the best, but taking one as a general unlocks Shadow Warriors as battleline, and they're quite fun to use for hiding in cover and taking potshots with rending bows. A lot of this is subject to change with the new points coming out. Those changes could make or break a lot of the units. One thing I will say is that playing pure dark elves can be hard. Don't be afraid to use your units as something else. Phoenix Guard are currently much better than Black Guard for example.

It also kind of looks like a hydra behind his head as well. As for new Kurnothi - the CoS book has pictures of huge cannons and the lore repeatedly talks about cannons. GW removed the cannon 🤷🤦

Living City can only choose the life realm. I was having a talk with a mate earlier and we thought that only Excelsis will be able to use the battalions in the Generals Handbook as they are based in Ghur.

Looks like a Wildwood Ranger with a wonky blade.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that they keep showing Freeguild Archers. It's the equivalent of showing the 2020 model of a car in the 2021 brochure. Hydras suck. All CoS monsters suck. Unless they get a points drop, I just don't see them being worth much. None of our monsters (including the hero mounts) manage to put out enough damage to justify their cost and the buffs that GW are making out to be wonderful, also apply to every other factions monsters as well. A monster smackdown between a CoS monster or any other factions, my money is on the other side.

Yes, Gyros will still be good for killing hordes.

It's sad, but unsurprising. After GW killed off most of my units a few years back I'm kind of used to expecting the worst, so watching the vortex go the way of the Dodo is business as usual. When it comes down to it, the only unit that you can guarantee will still be around is elves of some variety, armed with bows. There are currently 4 bow armed elf units in the game. If you want to future proof your purchases, buy/convert elves with bows. Or Stormcast with crossbows, which for some unexplainable reason require 4 variations of the same thing in the same faction.

They've already said that points are changing to suite the new rules, so priests could get rebalanced by that.

It's happening to all priests so it's a game wide weakening of units. That could balance it out. Looking at the Lumineth cavalry, I'm surprised at how much better they are than Wild Riders or Drakespawn Knights for the same points. GW need to fix CoS cavalry badly.

They're really inspired conversions. Love those deck droppers and cannons.

Isn't there a generic artefact that makes a hero a wizard? Or is that a Warlord trait? Would mean giving up the LC weapon though

If only they had added in the Silver Tower priest with the gryph. That would have given CoS another useful priest. Any thoughts on Durthu in the new edition? Seems like he could be a real winner.

Scourgerunner Chariots got a slight nerf. They only get a champion if taken in 3s and that's only possible if you take the Fleetmaster general. Not huge, but still a bit silly. If the Fleetmaster stays our cheapest hero then I could maybe see myself taking one to bulk out my hero slots for battalions. With the wider access to magic items he can have some interesting stuff. Eternal Guard still benefit from the buffs as they only get their built in ones if they don't move, in which case they're hitting on 2s anyway. I don't think being restricted to +1 to save is that big a deal when you read up on how it actually works. Stacking will still be useful and it was already pointless against mortal wounds anyway. Drakespawn Chariots might do a bit more damage now that there will be more 10 man squads on the field. It's a chaff unit which will hopefully stay cheap. Drakespawn Knights are iffy and will depend on the points changes. Pistoliers are getting whacked by range difficulties and the chickens aren't up to much in larger formations now, so maybe it is their time to be slightly more shiny than previous editions. Tempests Eye with the improved save on turn 1 and the move and run bonus could work nicely with some of the generic command abilities. A wall of 10 (2 ranks of 5) moving sideways still covers a large area. Play Excelsis and run them in the new battalion that messes with monsters, and you have some reasonably cheap cavalry, faster than infantry, well armoured blockers to tie down monsters for a little while. Freeguild combat infantry are pretty much useless though. Tempests Eye - there's nothing much else which gives +1 to wound in CoS, so I'm not sure why some think the new rules suddenly make TE bad. They'll still be one of the best cities, as Hawk Eyed and all 3 magic artefacts are excellent. Hallowheart are also going to be strong with their anti magic and Veteran of the Blazing Crusade trait. Battleshock immunity is gold now. I'm mostly interested in MSU vs reinforced Irondrakes. Big squads are harder to hide and harder to position. MSU squads means only one benefits from the Runelord and the firing when charged command. I have to admit I'm still considering turning my 30 man blob into 3 units of 10.

I love that rule. Have you seen the realm of beast battalions? The ones they have revealed look quite useful for CoS.