SwampHeart

The army is a bit unwieldy (keeping the handgunners and crew inside the relevant bubbles) which means it needs to point and shoot in the same general vector so if I position poorly early it can make it difficult to respond to the rest of the game. Armies with lots of teleports (especially late game) can be tricky because its hard to both keep yourself screened and play for objectives. I've played against a decent variety of styles of list at this point (NH, SCE, OBR, HoS, IDK, Big Waagh, and DoK) and honestly I feel like this is rounded enough that I haven't had a headache game yet. You do have to pilot it and really understand how to get the most out of the mounted units to get good results but so far its worked out really well for me (I've taken 2 FLGS one dayers with it so far).

That's my whole hang up (and I'm going to stop belaboring the point after this) - specifically against OBR you aren't anywhere as close to knowing you're going to have access to that prayer when it counts because of Crawlers.

Don't need combat when you delete units wholesale. The damage output on those Skyhooks is unreal (18 3/2/-2/d3 shots a turn), plus the handgunner output is admirable (20 3/2/-1/1 shots a turn) with the ability to stand and shoot to clean up most of what's left.

Yeah I agree - that's the major concern (and this has gone way off topic anyway) for me when regarding weapon selection. Feels like poleaxes need less support to get their damage in?

That's entirely fair - my main notion is that I'm not sure about the verdict on poleaxes not being the right answer. If Petrifex stays the dominant build I think getting as deep into MW generation as you can is the right answer.

You could fiddle around with it and maybe snag from Freeguild guard over one of the big handgunner units for a more effective screen or drop the body count a bit to slot in dwarf infantry instead.

A big unit of 40 is definitely where its at, my biggest concern is making sure you get the timing right on the -2 rend crash (also I forgot to factor in deathless minion saves above so it reduces to 26 dead) . It may still be the right answer but it just feels like a bad grind, especially if they get one of the catapults off on a character early.

Even then its rend 2 against a 5+ with full re-rolls. Eyeballing it looks like 20 fighting twice would do about 31 wounds to Petrifex Elite Mortek with their full re-roll up.

Just as a rough example this is my TE list that I've been having a lot of success with lately. -Aether-khemist (Patrician's Helm) -Battle Mage - Hysh, General (Hawk-eyed) -Celestial Hurricanum (Ignax Scales) -Freeguild General on Griffon -30 Arkanaut Company (9x Skyhooks) -20 Handgunners (honored retinue) -2 units of 5 Outriders -1 unit of 5 Pistoliers -10 Shadow Warriors Aetherguard Wind Runners Soul Scream Bridge Got some Dwarfs, some Elves, and some Freeguild in there.

My 'at a glance' GWF list is something like -Cogsmith -Battlemage -Celestial Hurricanum -2 units of 30 Handgunners -1 unit of 20 Handgunners -4 Helstorms Battalion Soul Scream Extra CP There's room to improve there to be sure but that's a 6 drop list with 80 bodies that are reliable shooters, the ability to bridge as needed, a nice little MW generator in the hurricanum, and a brutal 24 3/3/-2/d3 re-rolling 1s to hit first turn shooting phase.

Is it though? OBR only have a 6+ deathless save against MW poleaxes and with full re-rolls you're getting very very few d2 swings actually through. I haven't done actual math but having played OBR a few times now I can't imagine that just trying to get damage through via failed combat saves is the correct play.

You're correct, I missed that the nurgle aura is -1 from shooting rather than a blanket -1. Going to edit the post with revision.

Greywater is probably right around HH in viability honestly. 4 drop lists, huge reliable alpha strike with amazing range. Still suffers from lower body count and mobility isn't amazing so it misses some of what TE picks up but GWF I think is 4-1 army all day.

Not sure I follow this math but maybe I'm missing something, my napkin math (just averages) says the following (this is just on the HB warscroll and I'm assuming re-rolls of 1 somewhere). Broadaxe - 41 attacks - 3/3/-1/2 23 Hits (20 hits and additional 3 from re-rolled 1s) 12 Wounds 6 Unsaved - 12 damage - 6 dead warriors 12 dead warriors after double fight Poleaxe - 41 Attacks 3/3/-/1 23 Hits (same math as above) - 12 MWs from 6 to 6s to hit 12 Wounds (same as above) 1 Unsaved Wound 6.5 Dead Warriors - 13 after a double fight I'm assuming a warshrine buff + oracular visions + aura of nurgle on the warriors (looking strictly at durability) - this is 280 points in buffing characters (which I believe is similar to the HB buffing compliement). That said I admit maybe I've missed something here that drastically alters the numbers. Out of curiosity if you have both possible 'on 6s take MW' buffs on the warriors the HBs look like they'd take 7D3 (assuming re-roll 1s) for 14 MWs, 7 after save. And then an additional 2 MWs during wounds for 1 MW after save. The result would be 4 dead HBs per activation - so not an amazing amount of defensive output but at least notching out 20% of the unit per time they swing. Granted this all factors in more points (a DP and the Battalion) so its not a like for like but looks like an OK shake. Again I present all of the above with the caveat that what I know about HBs is they will fight twice with LoTL and that they presumably have re-roll 1s to hit from some source. EDIT - Math was incorrect. The above also doesn't include the MW shrug that Shield warriors would get against poleaxes.

@dekay I agree 100%. This is a drum I've been beating since CoS came out and you're correct we've seen it time and time again. Person says Cities is a bad book, you look at their list - its entirely unoptimized running pure DE or Dispossessed or whatever. The book is called Cities of Sigmar, it is clearly designed to be played using various pieces from all of the units in it to get the most leverage. The book isn't for you to remake your old WHFB into a new and shiny competitive army, if it was for that it would be Battletome: Dispossessed (et. all).

Doesn't have to be - GWF can do 4 drop reliably, my TE list is 6 and could go to 5 pretty readily as well. A lot of Cities lists are high drop but it certainly isn't a requirement for the army. Access to empowered Soul Scream Bridge (which is very easy to reliably cast in CoS, likely out of turn one unbind range) negates this concern. It does mean you're spending about 250 points in most lists towards making sure SSB is viable and available but that's a cost worth spending given the ability to punish your opponent for making you go first. And its even better now that SSB entirely survived the Dec. FAQs intact. Also TE negate this weakness entirely by giving you access to KO with m7 in turn one. Post nerf there is simply no way HH is the most viable city in CoS. The bonus to casting becomes much more unreliable post Dec. FAQ.

I think Hammerhal has some legs and GWF has one of the nastiest alphas in the game. I just don't think they've got the same breadth of tools as the top 3 cities. Phoenicum lives pretty happily in the 'fun for casual play/FLGS tournament' band and Anvilguard is Anvilguard. Its really sad because I think Vitriotic Spray + Portals is amazing and could probably carry the city but then you just look at what all you give up to get there and feels so lackluster. That said just typing this I wonder if there is value in a 3 prong Anvilguard shooting build where you look at some Helstorms, some Longstrikes, and some maybe Crossbowmen or Darkshards so that you can really effectively unpack an enemy army in one turn?

Its not fool proof at all but one of the best ways not to get shot at is simply to not be on the table for the first turn. LC overall I think is interesting because it has the potential to be very good or mediocre and its all very dependent on what the rest of the meta is doing at the time. Honestly that's not untrue for most of the rest of Cities though, its very much so a big tool box army that can lend itself to playing against the current meta.

I think the key here is that I still value shooting over combat even in LC so even with good screening you should be able to pop out still in shooting range and not having given your opponent a chance to deal with your shooters before they show up.

I've had a chance to play games with LC, TE, and HH. I've played at least 7-8 games with each (about 15 now with TE) and in my experience I'd say the current rankings are: -TE -HH -LC But that said they are very close. I found HH was very potent but I ran into an issue where against shooting armies I was getting my characters smashed to bits before I could really get into the meat of their usefulness (specifically Longstrikes dropping in and popping away, very difficult to screen out due to their range). I definitely think the tiering is going to be very meta dependent as well - right now shooting is in a very powerful spot so TE gets a bump but that could change with a KO change obviously. If shooting continues to shift to the fore then I think LC bumps ahead of the other two for the fact that we have access to so many cheap drops to allow us to stack hidden paths that we'll have one of the best beta strikes in the game. Also I'd advise against trying to reason with a certain poster in this thread - they effectively exists on TGA to make a statement and then will argue with you about that statement no matter what evidence you might provide. There is no conversation to be had there.

I think I'd ask the table over to just give a glance to the roll and then have it stored under a cup of some sort. That said I'd definitely played a few folks who'd I'd be concerned about this rule with.

Just depends on the rest of their set up and what the rest of the table looks like. Bridge/Hallowheart in general are toolbox setups, you can't play them one way consistently, they just give you a lot of options on how to tackle the table, you've still got to use the right tool though.

Not against specifically Greywater where the only goal is to kill their artillery. You don't do it every game but you do it when it means removing their alpha. If you cast Pha's, Ignite Weapons, and Warding Brand on Handgunners who go across the bridge you're golden. Hallowheart is tough to play objectives but you specifically stated Greywater is a hard counter to Hallowheart and it simply isn't - you've got the buffs and capacity to hurt their alpha faster than they hurt yours and you can play a longer game than they can.

I'd also add a maximized prismatic palisade for an additional -1 to hit (potentially).

Our main strength is magic, not just offensive magic. Just because you can't do a ton of MWs in a turn is irrelevant, if you can use your magic to effectively neuter his alpha then your strength won.