Tidings

This is exactly what I was thinking. It could be very minimal and obstruct very little of the table this way.

They are battleline in TE!

Yeah, that's what you have to do in Hallowheart if you want to focus on shooting. I've done both a good amount. Regarding Ignite Weapons, you're usually better off just using it on a melee unit though since you get twice as many activations with the buff on, but it does work well on Irondrakes and all that. Hurricanum is amazing in just about any cities list My experience in tournaments so far is that Hallowheart Wizards get killed too easily, and TE 1st round bonuses make you mostly impervious to alpha strikes and the other things Cities struggles against, while having more tools for focusing on multiple objectives at the same time.

Yep I think that's our biggest strength! The Tier list kinda doesn't matter, because a really good HH list will do better than a poorly thought out LC list, and then the opposite is true too. The top 3 all have ways to be very strong. The other cities need a bit of love imo.

Yeah that can work, depends a lot on the opponent and matchup. When I play against other city lists they really only get to shoot at my Phoenix Guard most of the time cause of screening (against LC or bridge).

Hallowheart, guys I know use HMH for Hammerhal lol. I agree it's not great haha.

@SwampHeart Yep, I completely agree. HH could be strongest except gatekeeper armies (in this case anything that can kill heroes easily) are all over the place. I don't know that LC would beat out TE, because good opponents often screen you out of ambushing anywhere important and the bonus movement + run and shoot in TE means you can basically alpha from your own deployment zone if you want, with bonuses to wound. But it's really hard to say before the points adjustments and KO update haha.

Hawk-Eyed General gives a +1 to wound aura for missile weapons, great for Sister's shooting. Command ability lets you shoot after running - also great for Sisters, especially if you aren't using the bridge. You want to spend as few turns moving as possible so anything that helps you get into the right position to stay put and shoot is great, and this lets you shoot while doing it. I find this to be much better than Living City's CA for Sisters because they have relatively short range. You don't often need to move after shooting, but you DO often need a few extra inches of range to hit a priority target. Alert and Forewarned helps Wanderers where they are weak. We are not as fast as many current armies who have crazy bonuses to move. We don't have good armor. This lets you aggressively move onto objectives and survive their first turn of all-out damage. This is especially good for Eternal Guard who, just like Sisters, really want to get in position ASAP and then stay still during all the fighting. Moving an extra 4" on the first turn is really good for that. Yes this buff is only on the first turn, but most of the damage in AoS happens on turns 1 and 2. Since we don't usually get to choose if we are going first or not, it's very good to have such a strong turn 1 bonus to protect from alpha strikes (which are usually very rough on Wanderers), and the movement makes opponents consider going first because you CAN turn 1 charge them or alpha-bunker with tons of EG. The spell lore is solid, having a 30" MW spell is really useful and Aura of Glory is amazing on EG who are pretty savage in combat, despite not having rend. You can also put it on Wild Riders that are about to charge. Last little bonus, if you like using the old Glade Riders, they can be used (or converted, if you are picky) as Outriders which are battleline in Tempest's Eye. Outriders are cheap, have decent shooting, are fast and can always shoot after retreating or running. Those rules are more Wanderers than most Wanderer warscrolls lol. Great battleline option. I don't think any other city makes as much sense for Wanderers, sadly. Living city heals multi-wound models, which we don't really have. The ambushing mechanic doesn't help Wanderers a whole lot because we don't have units that can individually move aggressively on their own and survive, and you can't realistically ambush your entire army behind the target you want. Besides, if you want to ambush/deepstrike, Shadow Warriors already do that better and are dirt cheap for what they do. Sure you can do that with Sylvaneth units, but that has nothing to do with Wanderers. Hallowheart is awesome but we don't even have casters as Wanderers, so Hallowheart isn't helping us there. I guess the the massive battleshock immunity bubble is great cause with Wanderers in Hallowheart you'll need it lol. The rest don't warrant discussion imo.

I honestly don't know what you're going on about. Irondrakes and Arkanaut Company are currently our best ranged units by a huge margin. Sisters of the Watch and Freeguild are also good, but point for point you have way better damage potential from the Dwarves because they have the best synergies and are already efficient. If the movement bothers you, use bridge. You shouldn't be moving anyways, even if you're using crossbows or sisters or any of the "better" units. Sure PG are the best anvil Cities has, but at the next tier Dwarves are competing with Eternal Guard, who are only better when they don't move at all.

Well, it's actually a great option for Wanderers, but if you don't want to go that route then that's fine. Wanderers work great in Living City and Hallowheart as well.

I edited my post as you posted this haha, hopefully that clarifies what I meant. Sorry for confusion.

Exactly! Someone threw down the "Hallowheart beats TE because it kills 60 Arkanaut" and I just wanted to set that straight because rules as written, that was just impossible lol. We got lost down this rabbit hole. @Rune I think I just wasn't very clear. I didn't mean 800 less points on the table in the way you are stating, I just meant that the 800 points Hallowheart is spending is basically just a few models. While those are very powerful, it's still a lot less wounds, less bodies to take objectives and hold areas, less deepstriking, less fill in the blank. The opportunity cost of taking such strong casters and spells is that you just have less soldiers of all kinds to tackle the objectives with. So now it all comes down to how well can the casters carry that weight. Against a good number of lists (Skaven, Shootcast, Nighthaunt, OBR, all orks but especially Bonesplitters, etc) the wizards can't pull the weight reliably.

I think at this point I've made my case as best as I can as to why I think TE is a stronger meta army right now. I'm not saying Hallowheart is bad, it's incredibly strong. It's just got some matchups that it struggles with that TE can handle. And like I originally said, none of this even matters because this month the points update might change everything, and then soon after that the upcoming KO book will certainly impact how relevant TE is.

Well, we're a bit off topic but coming full circle now. In my original post I explained why I think TE is stronger in the current meta because there are a lot of 1st turn charge armies, a lot of ambushing, teleporting, etc. Because shooting is growing in importance, TE's command ability and the +1 to wounding with shooting aura is very strong. Hallowheart has objectively stronger rules, but unfortunately those don't matter if the squishy heroes get shot/killed, which is becoming more common. More and more tourney lists are focusing on having an answer to heroes. In competitive terms, those lists would be called "gatekeepers" to most Hallowheart lists. It might be that you are positioning your casters perfectly, or that your opponents are not great, or that they aren't playing one of the several strong armies that have easy answers to Hallowheart. There are plenty of armies that CAN'T reliably stop the casters and in those match ups, Hallowheart is very strong! I didn't do the math, I just threw a number out there. But here's the units you commonly see in Hallowheart lists that I wouldn't put in a TE list for example. Incantor, extra battlemage and sorc, Sisters of the Thorn, and I split the difference on your endless spells estimate. That adds up to 725 points. With 725 points I can replace those 3 characters, 5 Sisters and the spells with 30 Phoenix Guard and an Annointed on a Flamspyre Phoenix. Or 60 Shadow Warriors. That's just an example, but if you are doing a low drop Hallowheart list, your opponent WILL have a lot more bodies on the table than you. If you get 1 or 2 less wizards and stick with only 1 or 2 endless spells, it's not as bad.

Sure. I don't think anything I say will convince you lol, but I've beaten the exact Hallowheart strategy you are talking about with TE. Bridge is countered by screening, since it has to respect the 9". Very easy to keep the Hallowheart army from having anything other than Phoenix Guard to shoot. You won't get to shoot the Arkanaut or heroes if your opponent knows how bridge works and just positions with a little forethought. I'm not worried about a single mage throwing 1 spell each turn through spell portal. That's not going to do enough. I've played a lot of Hallowheart and done just that, it's just not enough damage and your 4 or 5 drop army is hopelessly outnumbered because it's ~800 points less models on the table. Hallowheart casting is really fun, but it's also really easy to counter at a competitive level by smart play.

It doesn't matter. If he goes first and gets a great cyclone off and kills 20 Arkanaut, he's still going to lose all his heroes cause none of the Skyhooks are dead. And he HAS to go first or have his heroes hidden behind something, at which point TE just speeds to objectives and shoot the rest of the army off the table. I've played the match up, and it's an autowin for TE who counters heroes, since Hallowheart is 100% hero focused.

It's impossible to kill 60. It only effects models from a single unit, so that generally means 30 max (sometimes 40). And it only effects models wholly within 12". So you're looking at about 15 MWs on average against a big unit. That's great, but that's only against big units. Doesn't do anything against the heroes and stuff that you really want to kill. 30 Arkanaut do an average of 25 wounds against a 4+ save, with a 38" threat range on turn 1. That's more damage, more reliable, and against priority targets instead of just the big units. It also means your opponent either takes first turn or deploys all spread out and cautious cause he's terrified of that damage. I'm not sure what you mean about the end being the same against KoS and FEC cause at my most recent tourney I played against FEC, Slaanesh and Cities in that order and had major victories against all 3. And I wasn't even using Arkanauts. EDIT: just to add, all the enemy has to do to shut down Hallowheart is kill a few squishy wizards. Against Tempest Eye, he has to chew through 21 Arkanaut with +1 armor before he makes any impact on the Skyhooks.

@Gwendar Yep exactly, whatever the current tier list is will change soon anyways. I'm working on Arkanauts just because I love the KO models anyways and it's a great excuse to branch into that army! I'm worried that Hurricanum/PG/Battlemage/Sorc will all go up in points and make Cities pretty bad. We don't have battalion options (or even many good ones), and we don't have crazy special rules outside of Hallowheart, which is pretty easy to counter. The main strength of Cities comes from the awesome unit and playstyle diversity and some pretty solid stand-out units. Edit: and we aren't even a top tier army, so I don't feel we really deserve any nerfs haha. Just a couple adjustments!

No, the 9 MWs from Burning Gaze is because the target unit had 20+ models in it. It's actually pretty hard to reliably dump MWs on the heroes, especially if they are spread out. You can do it over 2 or 3 turns but it's more or less too late at that point, he'll already have moved onto more objectives with the +3 move discipline points and if you have anything in combat, he'll have made his guys win. I was able to kill a few of his heroes that game by turn 4 but I had already lost the objectives and was too far behind. If I had Arkanaut, the math says I'd have like a 90%+ to kill 2.5 petrifex heroes each turn. In my experience using Arkanaut in TE with +1 to wound, shooting after running, etc, you have a MUCH larger threat range than with casting that your opponent has to respect. If he doesn't, then Arkanaut can reliably shoot anything they want off the table in 1 turn, often 2 things. The other great advantage to taking 30 Arkanaut (at least until KO is updated) is that for him to STOP your damage output, he has to kill 21 of them first, since all your damage is coming from the 9 Skyhooks + Khemist. In Hallowheart all he has to do is kill a 5 wound hero with a 6+ save. He doesn't care about Look Out Sir because he's hitting on a 2+ with rerolls. Getting back to the ranking discussion, I think the tiers will shift after points are adjusted this month and again when KO get's their new book, since that impacts TE a lot.

This has been my experience. The existence of the catapult means you either have to hide your wizards and they aren't able to do much (plus you maybe lose adjutant bonus), or you hide in cover and pray that you don't die (66% chance you will from a single of the 4 shots). Having 2 shots fired each turn at 2 battlemage/sorceresses means they will probably both die on turn one, definitely dead on his second turn. If you just say F it, I'll go Knight Incantors then you're better off but even more starved for points. In one of my games he had bad luck and couldn't kill my wizards before my Phoenix caught his catapult. I had amazing casting all game, constantly getting 9 MWs off with Burning Gaze, great splash from Raging Wildfire, etc. Killed lots of stuff but not as fast as he chewed through my fairly limited army (spamming wizards and spells means the rest of your army is smaller). Besides, doing 8 MWs to a unit or Mortek doesn't matter when he brings 6 back every turn. I've found that TE works best. They don't reroll saves against shooting, and Arkanaut wreck heroes and have great rending and damage output. OBR needs heroes to work well. Hope we didn't just derail the thread into being a "how to beat OBR" lol, but honestly OBR is one of the reasons Hallowheart is held back a bit I think.

@RaffonerdI would consider replacing Eternal Guard with Phoenix Guard. I've played a few matches against OBR and Phoenix Guard worked better. Petrifex get's up to -2 rend, so your EG will die pretty easily without the 4+ shrug that PG have. For stronger shooting lists, just go TE. It's way better than Living city for a shooty army, and you have bonus protection from the catapults in the first turn too, since they struggle against armor. Plus you get access to Arkanaut Company which wrecks anything it shoots at, especially OBR heroes. OBR really needs their heroes too, so killing them or forcing them to stay away from the units they need to buff is great. Other than that, just generally try to avoid melee with OBR. They are better at it in every regard. EDIT: Forgot to say that Frostheart Phoenixes are the best counter to Mortek damage. OBR has so many ways to modify and reroll hits, but the Mortek Guard are stuck at wounding on 4+. Bumping that to 5+ drastically lowers their damage output.

1: Tempest's Eye 2: Hallowheart 3: Living city 4: Greywater Fastness / Hammerhall 5: lol My reason for Tempest's Eye being above Hallowheart is there are so many turn 1 charges in the game now. That alpha strike protection is really really good (even if it's only first turn instead of all game *cough* Petrifex). The bonus to movement is great, and Hawk-Eyed General is incredible for us and our plentiful shooting options. Hallowheart has the most broken mechanic out of all the cities, but it's kept in check by how easy it is to kill off the wizards, how hard it is to fill out the rest of your list after buying all the wizards and some endless spells, etc. On paper, Hallowheart is by far the best. In practice, it's MUCH harder to pull off consistently compared to Tempest's Eye. The other cities don't compare at a competitive level imo. Even Living City struggles against a good player, who can pretty easily deny any impactful ambushing. And healing 1 wound per turn is nothing compared to the volume of wounds you just prevent from +1 armor first turn in Tempest Eye.

Ah wow I dunno why I assumed I knew it so well lol. Thanks for pointing that out. If something doesn't specify that it modifies the move characteristic, but just says "+3 to move" or "move an extra X inches", would it work the same way?

I'm pretty sure that came down to a last-minute balancing decision. Hallowheart has the most powerful (though specific) abilities from Cities, so taking away a bonus somewhere else seems like an attempt at balancing that.

In casual games, you can often rely to some degree on hiding behind objects to block LoS. For a more reliable list that doesn't care as much about the table, just use SCE wizards instead of Battlemages/Sorceress. The crawlers basically counter Hallowheart otherwise imo.