Greywater being able to do 2 all out attacks in the shooting phase and not issuing the 3rd requiring a CP to be spent is going to feel really good for one player and one player only 😂
Considering the integration of the Lumineth, Kharadron, and DoK, I'm guessing their intention is to just turn Cities into Order Soup: The Book instead of having dedicated miniatures to that affect. The only reason the Disposessed are still there is most likely just because they didn't have a plan until after Kharadron were already out. Once the dark elves come out there will be no more city elves at all, and then what? I bet you GW still hasn't thought that far ahead and those old Warhammer Fantasy Dwarf kits will just be this awkward vestigial organ that don't fit the new format and confuse people.
It's been a while since I've tuned in and I didn't realize how much I missed it, your passion for the hobby and tactical insights are honestly an inspiration Rob!
I dont understand the need for the weird rules separation between the species. A mixed faction would have been a pretty unique product in the market and the community has been begging for it.
Been watching this video almost everyday since you dropped it Ron. Played with them last night and felt like I hade made a decent list and understood how the book worked thanks to you. Really appreciate the video! Looking forward to the next few.
you'll probably want a mix of heroes and units so you have better access to orders you need. Like if you go mono-human, and have 6 heroes, it's unlikely you'll find every different order useful. But if you have say 2 human heroes/units and 2 of dwarves and elve units, you're more likely to have access to useful abilities out each of the different races order pools.
I think it'd have been better if they'd renamed the Faction. Cities focused on this grand gathering of different cultures and people who chose to stand united in order to survive. It felt quite heroic and desperate in that traditional fantasy way. This new book feels more like we're focused on one specific design of human, with dwarves and dark elves arbitrarily thrown in. I'm not saying the new humans are bad. I just think we lost the spirit of Cities in the transition. And I think that's a darn shame.
I think we’re at a crossroads & the next book will have gotten rid of the legacy stuff and everything will be usable on everything again. The crossroad part will be whether we‘ll get just more humans (hopefully not!) or *Cities* Aelves & Duardin (very hopefully so!)
Thanks as always for such concise reviews. I watched the twitch recording but it’s so useful to have one to watch again for everything I want to know with the time stamps etc. As always top quality.
Underrating the griffon, it hits hard with engage the foe and the hammer relic. Hits especially hard with priest CT prayer or finest hour. Roar twice means it hardly ever fails. With two orders he can always have counter-charge up. His threat is huge with 14" flying, +3 from advance, or 3d6 with wildform with last through turn for counter-charge. You can't get threat like him elsewhere for his low cost.
Was just about to comment this. You can play around all your support pieces super well with counter charges letting you benefit from all your aura buffs
The rule of including 1 in 4 Stormcast as coalition is out of the new book, isn't it? That is quite a shame, I was looking forward to fiedling my Krondys next to a big line of cannons. With Krondys' point cost being above 400, we sadly can't use him anymore in matched play.
I'm so excited for this book, and a reason to finally jump back into AoS. i thought Jelsen Darrock was going to feature in this book, i guess you could use him as a Hexbane hunter?
Yeah, all of the Cursed City heroes oddly are Legends only status and don’t show up in any of their factions. At least proxies should be super easy with the Command Group and you can include even an undead gribbly from the boardgame as a Gargoylian mascot for a custom Shyish Realm city.
I like the idea of a fire and faith themed force, using the witch hunter Hexbane Hunters and the Ven Denst along with the battle line units. More a theme than super competitive.
I get that the Dwarfs haven't received a whole lot of love, but honestly the new artefacts and command traits along with the buffs to defensiveness and rend makes them feel more Dwarfy than ever. With some KO allies im looking forward to running a Duardin list. Edit: removal of coalition allies does however mean that I can't run Tempest Eye with Gotrek and KO allies which kills my 2k list. Probably going to have to change to: 2 x 10 Ironbreakers, 1 x 10 Longbeards 2 x 10 Hammerers 1 x 20 Irondrakes 1 x 2 Gyrocopter Gotrek 2 x 1 Warden King 1 x 1 Runelord ~1960pts
@amazinghayes1 Gotrek is a noob smasher of a unit, I take him for flavour but if you find him a problem you're playing into him wrong. He can easily die to a unit of 10 Ghouls, any unit with high volume low quality attacks.
Thanks for the review Rob, what I'd love to see next is the "so what", by that i mean; what lists, archetypes, etc. are jumping out at you to bring all this together?
in the "bringers of dawn" section, there isn't a single dwarf or elf miniature (only some irondrakes as background of the warforger) i don't know what to do with my dwarfs :(
I don't remember hearing you mention this, but all of the shooters that have Fortified Position can move in the hero phase with Misthaven and then Remain Stationary in the Movement Phase to still get their fortified bonus.
From what I gather and my opinion, the citys of sigmar seem to be an army that focus on defense, even the base unit steelhelms have the ability to hold the ground with a formidable grip, so the cavalier would claim territories, while bieng covered by the casalite who would pelt the enamy with formidable firepower, yeah seem legit good, i belive that in later editions we would have some focus on the dispossessed and darklings, as well an likely chance of some ogors and more hard hitters, still i think it looking good for an army, i do belive they should have more focus then the stormcast for now, dont get me wrong stormcast have some unique lore but city of sigmars are just refreshing to see something that looks interesting and is in the neutral area. This might be my first army but I wait till the umberneath or flesh eater court range is reveal which is probably going to be in October for FEC and umberneath for 4th, this tome is a pivotal moment were AOS seem to whant to establish it self away from fantasy making it, it own unique setting, I know that by next year we probably get more cities of sigmar units in the next edition but goddammit if i see annother stormcast warband or unit i will eat my hat. As for the lore, (this is the big thing for me along with style) it seems the many humans are the core force machining forward unware that the darklings are making some pacts with maliron, and the durdain might get a refresh from there god gragani, it would be funny in my head if by 5th the citys of sigmar would become the largest tome due to the huge level of lore, also as a note we might get some city ogors since the warhulk hint it, i know there would be time, but this range is not a refesh but a revival for the city of sigmar were we probably get alot of unique models, i like it since it something i can look at and say it not connected to the empire. So yeah 4 stars for them good work GW
Personally, I like how GW focused in on the humans as the focal point of the Cities. Their range *desperately* needed an update and most of the new models are gorgeous!(imo) I don't at all doubt that GW went too far in pushing the Humans in terms of their power level on the tabletop. But I know that will be fixed eventually. My biggest issue is that they completely removed Coalition. Why can't I take the different Order factions as Coalition in the appropriate Subfactions? I dont think that'd break anything, but maybe I'm wrong. (Also, Aventis Firestrike does technically synergize with Hammerhal Aqsha in his Comet Trail ability. When he moves, he gives a 3" aura of +1 to hit to any keyword Hammers of Sigmar or Hammerhal Units. So he *does* have direct synergy in the book.)
@@thehonestwargamerstreamsShe has a crew, and as 22.3.1 "For rules purposes, companions and crew are treated in the same manner as mounts." @KisifrothSippik
Nice. Just sat down with a cup of tea to build some models. Really looking forward to this release (I totally agree that Cities should be the "lead" in AoS) Keep up the good work. :)
I honestly prefered the old book. I loved the big soup - throw in humans in there, add stormcast to hold their hands and then take root with some sylvaneth. Also my SCE just lost a solid ally in form of ghur battlemage
Okay this is my summary of the comments, “stuff is under-costed and hits hard.” Hear me out, my concern with that generalization is that people have been pessimistic and underrated battletomes in the past (see maggotkin as a prime example), and they turned out to be meta-changing/good books. It doesn’t portend well for the meta when people are saying it’s already broken.
Using the sawbones ability, if you do it on the command squad itself would you need to roll a 5/6 on the d3 to actually bring one back. I feel like I've read somewhere you can't bring back a partially wounded model
I play tempest eye and it’s good to see that KO is still included but the redeploy doesn’t really do it for me. Feels like they wanted to balance the ability to ally with KO to other cities by taking some of the extra rules it once and giving them out to army as a whole with the orders. Still gonna play them when the book comes out :)
Quite tempted to leave out the pontifex and just take the 6 leaders: warforger, Marshall on foot, cavalier Marshall, hexbane and the ven Densts. Torn between keeping the pontifex in for pure competitiveness vs the witch hunter leaders for just a fun time and sick models. I think I’ll just leave out the pontifex and try and have a fun but hopefully mildly competitive time!
It's a pity to see so many units that are just worse than similar others in the same book. That's probably hard to avoid with so many different and somewhat redundant warscrolls and rules in CoS. The army still feels provisional after all these years. It's all over the place, no clear stylistic identity and design philosophy.
That great cannon should slow movement if a unit takes casualties or something given its 24” range (which ain’t good). Fusiliers are either going to get nerfed or the cannon will get buffed at some point.
So what do you guys think of the new book? To me, this doesn't seem all that strong. At least it doesn't look as overtuned as Gloomspite or Seraphon etc. Aside from the obvious Fusilade Spam it also doesn't look like the book offers that many top-tier builds. Sure, Black Guard + Sorceress is cute but not enough. Otherwise we would have seen Pheonix Guard at top tables. Getting the spell of to make an enemy unit's save "-" looks very, very strong but I fear that it will be quite difficult this season. Any competent opponent will see that combo coming from a mile away and just throw their new primal magic dice at it to stop the spell. The book doesn't seem to offer a really scary melee hammer either. There are some good units like Hammerers but nothing that would push damage like a buffed Squig Herd, Fulminators or the like. I also don't understand why all the things are race-locked. Aelfs, Duardin and Humans working, living and fighting together was the whole idea behind Cities of Sigmar. The whole "melting pot" identity is gone imo. What vexes me the most actually, is that we can't take 1/4 units from KO, Sylvaneth, SCE etc. anymore. They are just normal allies now which is sad. On the plus side I think the new order mechanic is really cool and I'm excited to see how this army will play on the table. I don't think it will be top tier but rather a good midfield army, which I honestly like much more than some of the overpowered books we've seen recently.
Damn and I just bought Cursed City on 35% discount and now this leak means we are getting the box soon. Well I guess I'll just wait for their Vanguard box, or even better Battleforce.
My first thought on aelf abuse is, if the cities still get coalition allies. I believe coalition units gain cities of sigmar and the city keyword. Meaning the good lumineth combat units like sword masters can be effected by the dark elf spell.
Thanks for covering this Rob. I guess ill have to create an entire SCE army if i wanna play with Krondys ever again, or KO for my frigate and thunderers. Damn i really liked the old book. The nee models are neat, sure, but this feels like a big step backwards. Oh and GW where are the units i can proxy for everything you removed from CoS? Liars 😢
drakespwan knight are actully really good as you can give them the spell of tendedreal blades to just rampage in any unit and at 140 point they are quite cheap. + whit a 3 plus save move 10 they can go pretty anywhere they want ^ ^
I don't understand why they went the Gobbapalooza route with the Freeguild Command Corps. Each of them looks like their own character that should be doing their own thing and adding unique flavor to army. Forcing every player to take all of them limits creative freedom in a big way. Why do they do these things?
Simple inclusion. This way they are not all individual characters so you can bring all of them. If they were kept to individual leader restrictions inevitably some of the them would just never get taken. This way you can include them all.
@@gwell2118 So it's a competitive decision made at the exense of hobbyists and narrative players. Another good example of why tailoring the game for competitive play doesn't always work out.
Does anyone know if the General on Griffin kit will change? I really wanna build Karl Franz and not the other one and would be crying a lot if GW decides to eliminate him out of the kit. Seriously love this model Also really nice video, excited for the new Cities tome (alltough I miss my (Outriders and Great Swordsmen)!
Alquemite warforgers have a +1 save 12" aura, if Thalia had a better save, she'd be walking around with a 2+ base, all game. She (like many other units) is clearly balanced around being buffed by an alchemite warforger
Feels like the 2.0 gitz book with all the keyword bingo restrictions between the races. That being said i enjoy uniform armies better than a big mismatch of everything
I belive that the army look pretty strong to me Sure gw what you to buy at least the pontifex and 20 fusiolier but for the rest you can do what you want
I’m just glad that there seems to be play with Darkling and Humans together and that Misthavn and Lethis both feel like fun an competitive options. But, I’m also curious about the removal of Anvilguard and hoping this has an impact on 4E DoK.
@@andyburchette3545 it did, then the DoK book came out and it was like it didn't happen in terms of game development. So, its entirely possible they will continue to ignore it game wise even if DoK could use some more unit variation than 8 (10) glass cannons, Morathi and some other heroes you take to fill points/unlock and a trash Behemoth.
Did rob not notice that irondrakes are 3+ to hit and wound while fusiliers are 4+ to hit and wound? That translates to irondrakes doing almost 2x the damage of fusiliers when both are getting their bonus attacks. So even if you aren't as easily able to get the bonus attacks on irondrakes, they still do almost as much damage without their bonus attacks as fusiliers do with theirs. It is a shame that they lost their synergy with the runesmith though...
Irondrakes don't get mortals on 6s to hit and it's so much harder to get the extra shot vs fusiliers 32" range. Fuislls get a battle 2 tactics and benefit from two orders
I wish that they had made a 3 race unit, like the warcry unit could have had models from all 3 and could take any orders giving it tactical flexibility and useful to all armies
I'm assuming that they are going to FAQ Aventis' ability to say he affects Hammerhal Aqsha units...but this is the same company who forgot to FAQ Grey Knights when Daemons stopped getting Ward saves
I'm super sad, after seeing the Fusil-major on war hulk got me excited to have an ogre and human mercenary group like Dogs of war in AOS finally or at least ogre allies, but let down with not seeing it.
Could you use the spell that makes their save - then the sorceress on black dragon spell would do all the wounds or how does it interact with a save of '-'
It really feels like theyve kept the duardin and dark elves in as they didnt have enough new human models to justify cutting them out. Maybe well see a lumineth style second drop and book at some point. Feels like they missed a trick to roll the duardin into one big tome like the orruks. The individual books even have traits around them all working together. Also feels they are keeping the dark elves around for when they eventually want to do umbrabeth/shadowy elves and need them to fill out a tome. Overall disappointing as a duardin fan seems they went look how good these human models are, yes you can have the duardin one but the synergies and everything else will just make the human option better.
Hmm, so Runelord and 20x Hammerers in a Fyreslayers army is ~400 pts and with the right Rune+prayer active is between Rend-3 and Rend-5 Damage 2 on a decent number of attacks Also, this book is the biggest example of "Buy the New Stuff" we have seen in a long time It's Cities of Humans Lack of SCE Coalition is disappointing The spell lore change is a huge bummer -- RIP Ghur battlemage ally Overall, like the warscrolls (except Battlemage), like the new minis (and the old ones), hate most of the mechanics changes (except the individual city bonuses)
@@thehonestwargamerstreams I was concurring in agreement =P Usually, I am a bit more impartial on "buy the new stuff", but here it is so egregious that even I cannot sit on the sidelines
@@jonathanwatson4484 I thought this could be the case but after looking at the book and models im a bit cynical. Seeing no Dwarf or Dark Elf updates at all has me thinking they're gonna end up getting the chop after a while, the wording on the city allegiances seems to imply they want you to take cities alongside things like sylvaneth for the living city and It wouldnt be a stretch to imagine they could incorporate that for Kharadron or Fyreslayers with the dwarf aligned cities in the future if they wanted to Curiously enough meaning you'll be buying multiple battle tomes and making them more money
i have a question in concern of using a spell like miasma - alot of games ive played lately that have varied deployment plans have really seemed to shrink the board space. im just wondering if other people have experienced this too and trying to compensate for their opponents deploying sometimes near the middle of the board, instead of expecting full board space, just bring units that will be better in close combat.
Always wanted to collect dwarfs (played a rune priest in warhammer MMO ages ago). Would all dwarfs army be really that bad? Do you think they will discount them like the old humans?
Thanks for your video mate. A single thought from me... What about people who collected a Wanderer's Army?!? Not a single unit from that roster is now present on this Army book. Considering that they kept Living Cities inside the book, this is a big nonsense to me.
Yeah I really wanted to make a super "civilization and nature working together" living cities army with wanderers and sylvaneth and and stormcast animal companions. For some reason they have decided to move away from that idea in every way they possibly could :(
Great review of the book but what a shame that they have not been balanced the book across the all the races. The Cities should be the foundation of AOS and the book seems decent start to this. They should have been the main focus from the very beginning and the Stormcast should have been a off faction or elite cult of the Humans. I do love the look of the models and I think you could build a very interesting army with this book but it would have to be largely human which just spoils that feel of we in it together otherwise we will perish feeling which is how I would believe the cities would be. Maybe in the future GW may look to expand on the other races but I wouldn't hold my breath in regards to this. As usual Rob great insight and although I am a death player I may dabble in the Cities.
I disagree that they should be the main faction. AoS is an epic very high fantasy setting and I feel the main faction should reflect that. stormcast works well for that but cities doesnt. If they are your first encounter with aos, you'd expect the setting to be grimdark lotr, which is basically the old world.
Agreed. The empire makes sense in the old world as it's regular humans against all kinds of monsters and beings that on a 1 to 1 level generally overpower a regular mortal man. That's where the use of firearms and magic, as well as insane bravery on the part of the greatswords help to give the humans a fighting chance against all the challenges before them. However, in AoS the most powerful force in order isn't the humans, dwarves, or elves. It's the Stormcast, who are literally holy super soldiers who can be brought back nigh indefinitely when they fall in battle.
Really good overview, I definitely learned a lot. That said, it's idiotic of GW to subfaction lock units to a specific city, especially if the entire lore about them is that it's cities from all over the realms striking out to reclaim areas.
Undecided how i feel about my dark aelves. Some really cool tech with kharybdis and the spell that increases bravery dice rolls, and some good unit synergy changes.... but honestly the book is written to give humans and only humans a chance long term.
I understand GW is trying to get rid of legacy units and with the release of Old World soon, they really aren't going away. The high and wood aelves have been completely axed, as well as almost all the old Human models. The Duardin are honestly very underwhelming and seem like a feel bad choice to go pure Duardin. At first impression is that this Cities rendition seems very defensive. There are some decent combos for all 3 races, but being racially divided hurts. Next to no coalition considerations feels rough too. It seems GW just wants you to play Humans. Obviously better rules, more and better options, objectives and such. There are a lot of poor options that aren't Human. As was said at the end of the video, GW just needs to say they're getting rid of the Dispossessed and Aelves and make Cities a Human only book with Coalition options for various cities.
@@toro132 lol. I bet they are sold out within one or two weeks of being released. I also reckon they will do rather well in tournaments and get nerfed before Christmas!
Greywater being able to do 2 all out attacks in the shooting phase and not issuing the 3rd requiring a CP to be spent is going to feel really good for one player and one player only 😂
What?
Misthaven Duardin is gonna be fun.
We dwarves are renowned sprinters!
Breaks my heart it's not jolly cooperation anymore, it still looks amazing, hope for more cooperative tactics and more mixed raced units
Considering the integration of the Lumineth, Kharadron, and DoK, I'm guessing their intention is to just turn Cities into Order Soup: The Book instead of having dedicated miniatures to that affect.
The only reason the Disposessed are still there is most likely just because they didn't have a plan until after Kharadron were already out.
Once the dark elves come out there will be no more city elves at all, and then what? I bet you GW still hasn't thought that far ahead and those old Warhammer Fantasy Dwarf kits will just be this awkward vestigial organ that don't fit the new format and confuse people.
@@EmidretrauqeNah. They're redoing a massive part of the faction and I think Dwarves and Elves will come later.
It's been a while since I've tuned in and I didn't realize how much I missed it, your passion for the hobby and tactical insights are honestly an inspiration Rob!
I dont understand the need for the weird rules separation between the species. A mixed faction would have been a pretty unique product in the market and the community has been begging for it.
Also, crazy they didn't resculpt the flaggelants
Completely AGREE it's actually kinda ick
They want to slowly make it human only and remove elfs and dwarfs..
Been watching this video almost everyday since you dropped it Ron. Played with them last night and felt like I hade made a decent list and understood how the book worked thanks to you. Really appreciate the video! Looking forward to the next few.
Well RIP the thematic refugee faction I loved. 😢
you'll probably want a mix of heroes and units so you have better access to orders you need. Like if you go mono-human, and have 6 heroes, it's unlikely you'll find every different order useful. But if you have say 2 human heroes/units and 2 of dwarves and elve units, you're more likely to have access to useful abilities out each of the different races order pools.
I think it'd have been better if they'd renamed the Faction. Cities focused on this grand gathering of different cultures and people who chose to stand united in order to survive. It felt quite heroic and desperate in that traditional fantasy way.
This new book feels more like we're focused on one specific design of human, with dwarves and dark elves arbitrarily thrown in.
I'm not saying the new humans are bad. I just think we lost the spirit of Cities in the transition. And I think that's a darn shame.
I'm with you 100%
I think this is because this is the last version of this faction that has legacy units in it..
I think we’re at a crossroads & the next book will have gotten rid of the legacy stuff and everything will be usable on everything again.
The crossroad part will be whether we‘ll get just more humans (hopefully not!) or *Cities* Aelves & Duardin (very hopefully so!)
@@toro132 Its like this round was to fully refresh the human range and next time the duardin and aelf ranges will get attention
OMG this has made my night thank you so much :-) Time to reorganise the Halflings.
Any time!
Thanks as always for such concise reviews.
I watched the twitch recording but it’s so useful to have one to watch again for everything I want to know with the time stamps etc. As always top quality.
Underrating the griffon, it hits hard with engage the foe and the hammer relic. Hits especially hard with priest CT prayer or finest hour. Roar twice means it hardly ever fails. With two orders he can always have counter-charge up. His threat is huge with 14" flying, +3 from advance, or 3d6 with wildform with last through turn for counter-charge. You can't get threat like him elsewhere for his low cost.
Was just about to comment this. You can play around all your support pieces super well with counter charges letting you benefit from all your aura buffs
Sure I agree. Adding him in as a counter punch piece is great but I'm not sure that's what I would do is all. Thanks for the comment
The rule of including 1 in 4 Stormcast as coalition is out of the new book, isn't it? That is quite a shame, I was looking forward to fiedling my Krondys next to a big line of cannons. With Krondys' point cost being above 400, we sadly can't use him anymore in matched play.
I'm so excited for this book, and a reason to finally jump back into AoS.
i thought Jelsen Darrock was going to feature in this book, i guess you could use him as a Hexbane hunter?
Yeah, all of the Cursed City heroes oddly are Legends only status and don’t show up in any of their factions.
At least proxies should be super easy with the Command Group and you can include even an undead gribbly from the boardgame as a Gargoylian mascot for a custom Shyish Realm city.
Elves among themselves. It won't stop going around my head
I like the idea of a fire and faith themed force, using the witch hunter Hexbane Hunters and the Ven Denst along with the battle line units. More a theme than super competitive.
I get that the Dwarfs haven't received a whole lot of love, but honestly the new artefacts and command traits along with the buffs to defensiveness and rend makes them feel more Dwarfy than ever. With some KO allies im looking forward to running a Duardin list.
Edit: removal of coalition allies does however mean that I can't run Tempest Eye with Gotrek and KO allies which kills my 2k list.
Probably going to have to change to:
2 x 10 Ironbreakers, 1 x 10 Longbeards
2 x 10 Hammerers
1 x 20 Irondrakes
1 x 2 Gyrocopter
Gotrek
2 x 1 Warden King
1 x 1 Runelord
~1960pts
Gotrek is a pleb move anyway so it's probably better you've restrictions so you can interact with the game more.
@amazinghayes1 Gotrek is a noob smasher of a unit, I take him for flavour but if you find him a problem you're playing into him wrong. He can easily die to a unit of 10 Ghouls, any unit with high volume low quality attacks.
Thanks for the review Rob, what I'd love to see next is the "so what", by that i mean; what lists, archetypes, etc. are jumping out at you to bring all this together?
in the "bringers of dawn" section, there isn't a single dwarf or elf miniature (only some irondrakes as background of the warforger)
i don't know what to do with my dwarfs :(
Rules aside- these models look absolutely beautiful! Can't wait to see them all lined up on the battlefield
Same here!
I don't remember hearing you mention this, but all of the shooters that have Fortified Position can move in the hero phase with Misthaven and then Remain Stationary in the Movement Phase to still get their fortified bonus.
From what I gather and my opinion, the citys of sigmar seem to be an army that focus on defense, even the base unit steelhelms have the ability to hold the ground with a formidable grip, so the cavalier would claim territories, while bieng covered by the casalite who would pelt the enamy with formidable firepower, yeah seem legit good, i belive that in later editions we would have some focus on the dispossessed and darklings, as well an likely chance of some ogors and more hard hitters, still i think it looking good for an army, i do belive they should have more focus then the stormcast for now, dont get me wrong stormcast have some unique lore but city of sigmars are just refreshing to see something that looks interesting and is in the neutral area.
This might be my first army but I wait till the umberneath or flesh eater court range is reveal which is probably going to be in October for FEC and umberneath for 4th, this tome is a pivotal moment were AOS seem to whant to establish it self away from fantasy making it, it own unique setting, I know that by next year we probably get more cities of sigmar units in the next edition but goddammit if i see annother stormcast warband or unit i will eat my hat.
As for the lore, (this is the big thing for me along with style) it seems the many humans are the core force machining forward unware that the darklings are making some pacts with maliron, and the durdain might get a refresh from there god gragani, it would be funny in my head if by 5th the citys of sigmar would become the largest tome due to the huge level of lore, also as a note we might get some city ogors since the warhulk hint it, i know there would be time, but this range is not a refesh but a revival for the city of sigmar were we probably get alot of unique models, i like it since it something i can look at and say it not connected to the empire. So yeah 4 stars for them good work GW
Personally, I like how GW focused in on the humans as the focal point of the Cities. Their range *desperately* needed an update and most of the new models are gorgeous!(imo) I don't at all doubt that GW went too far in pushing the Humans in terms of their power level on the tabletop. But I know that will be fixed eventually.
My biggest issue is that they completely removed Coalition. Why can't I take the different Order factions as Coalition in the appropriate Subfactions? I dont think that'd break anything, but maybe I'm wrong.
(Also, Aventis Firestrike does technically synergize with Hammerhal Aqsha in his Comet Trail ability. When he moves, he gives a 3" aura of +1 to hit to any keyword Hammers of Sigmar or Hammerhal Units. So he *does* have direct synergy in the book.)
You can shoot the pontifex, because he counts as mounted!
OMG PERFECT
Are you sure? Don't see it on the warscroll?
@@thehonestwargamerstreamsShe has a crew, and as 22.3.1 "For rules purposes, companions and crew are treated in the same manner as mounts." @KisifrothSippik
@@KisifrothSippikPlease see my other reply.
Nice. Just sat down with a cup of tea to build some models. Really looking forward to this release (I totally agree that Cities should be the "lead" in AoS) Keep up the good work. :)
Hope you enjoy it! Good luck with the models
They did the Hammeres dirty. Poor guys doesn't even have a champion or standard bearer anymore....
I honestly prefered the old book. I loved the big soup - throw in humans in there, add stormcast to hold their hands and then take root with some sylvaneth. Also my SCE just lost a solid ally in form of ghur battlemage
Wow, guess I can drop my plans of ever making a cities army.
Okay this is my summary of the comments, “stuff is under-costed and hits hard.”
Hear me out, my concern with that generalization is that people have been pessimistic and underrated battletomes in the past (see maggotkin as a prime example), and they turned out to be meta-changing/good books.
It doesn’t portend well for the meta when people are saying it’s already broken.
No one's stating like fact. It just how it reads and it can always change in the future based on putting it on the table
Using the sawbones ability, if you do it on the command squad itself would you need to roll a 5/6 on the d3 to actually bring one back.
I feel like I've read somewhere you can't bring back a partially wounded model
I play tempest eye and it’s good to see that KO is still included but the redeploy doesn’t really do it for me. Feels like they wanted to balance the ability to ally with KO to other cities by taking some of the extra rules it once and giving them out to army as a whole with the orders. Still gonna play them when the book comes out :)
Quite tempted to leave out the pontifex and just take the 6 leaders: warforger, Marshall on foot, cavalier Marshall, hexbane and the ven Densts.
Torn between keeping the pontifex in for pure competitiveness vs the witch hunter leaders for just a fun time and sick models.
I think I’ll just leave out the pontifex and try and have a fun but hopefully mildly competitive time!
anyone else think it's weird there's dark elves but no high elves? makes me think a range refresh is coming in the near future
I thought because they were being shifted back to being to a oldwolrd army and that the realm lords fill the high elf gap.
"high elves" have lumineth. I guess when there will be a real new dark elves faction they will leave cities of sigmar.
dark elves will definitely be my army when playing cities
It's a pity to see so many units that are just worse than similar others in the same book. That's probably hard to avoid with so many different and somewhat redundant warscrolls and rules in CoS. The army still feels provisional after all these years. It's all over the place, no clear stylistic identity and design philosophy.
That great cannon should slow movement if a unit takes casualties or something given its 24” range (which ain’t good). Fusiliers are either going to get nerfed or the cannon will get buffed at some point.
So what do you guys think of the new book?
To me, this doesn't seem all that strong. At least it doesn't look as overtuned as Gloomspite or Seraphon etc.
Aside from the obvious Fusilade Spam it also doesn't look like the book offers that many top-tier builds. Sure, Black Guard + Sorceress is cute but not enough. Otherwise we would have seen Pheonix Guard at top tables. Getting the spell of to make an enemy unit's save "-" looks very, very strong but I fear that it will be quite difficult this season. Any competent opponent will see that combo coming from a mile away and just throw their new primal magic dice at it to stop the spell.
The book doesn't seem to offer a really scary melee hammer either. There are some good units like Hammerers but nothing that would push damage like a buffed Squig Herd, Fulminators or the like.
I also don't understand why all the things are race-locked. Aelfs, Duardin and Humans working, living and fighting together was the whole idea behind Cities of Sigmar. The whole "melting pot" identity is gone imo.
What vexes me the most actually, is that we can't take 1/4 units from KO, Sylvaneth, SCE etc. anymore. They are just normal allies now which is sad.
On the plus side I think the new order mechanic is really cool and I'm excited to see how this army will play on the table. I don't think it will be top tier but rather a good midfield army, which I honestly like much more than some of the overpowered books we've seen recently.
Flaggelants doing exactly what zombies were doing before nerf, thats quite funny 😂
Where did all the Wood Elf stuff go?! Just gutted my Living Cities army!
Damn and I just bought Cursed City on 35% discount and now this leak means we are getting the box soon. Well I guess I'll just wait for their Vanguard box, or even better Battleforce.
I haven’t been keeping up recently, what do you mean by this?
@@magicgeek1237 If full codex leaked that means that CoS release box is probably going on preorder soon.
Heavy metal ingot works always in the opponent's turn, unless you redeployed. So it's actually cute.
I really wish th you could go over the amount of allies you can add to a list becuase I hope it isn't just standard ally rules.
My first thought on aelf abuse is, if the cities still get coalition allies. I believe coalition units gain cities of sigmar and the city keyword. Meaning the good lumineth combat units like sword masters can be effected by the dark elf spell.
Thanks for covering this Rob. I guess ill have to create an entire SCE army if i wanna play with Krondys ever again, or KO for my frigate and thunderers.
Damn i really liked the old book. The nee models are neat, sure, but this feels like a big step backwards.
Oh and GW where are the units i can proxy for everything you removed from CoS? Liars 😢
drakespwan knight are actully really good as you can give them the spell of tendedreal blades to just rampage in any unit and at 140 point they are quite cheap.
+ whit a 3 plus save move 10 they can go pretty anywhere they want ^ ^
Thanks for the analysis. I appreciate everything you do for the community. You are a babe
I don't understand why they went the Gobbapalooza route with the Freeguild Command Corps. Each of them looks like their own character that should be doing their own thing and adding unique flavor to army. Forcing every player to take all of them limits creative freedom in a big way.
Why do they do these things?
Simple inclusion. This way they are not all individual characters so you can bring all of them. If they were kept to individual leader restrictions inevitably some of the them would just never get taken. This way you can include them all.
@@gwell2118 So it's a competitive decision made at the exense of hobbyists and narrative players. Another good example of why tailoring the game for competitive play doesn't always work out.
@@Emidretrauqe Maybe, that and selling more models and encouraging you to take them all.
@@gwell2118 Right. How could I forget...
Thanks for all the work you doin for us
Wow, looking at the command corps, comparing only sawbones to the IDK soulrender, the cities has a POWERHOUSE unit.... *feel bad for IDK*
Does anyone know if the General on Griffin kit will change? I really wanna build Karl Franz and not the other one and would be crying a lot if GW decides to eliminate him out of the kit.
Seriously love this model
Also really nice video, excited for the new Cities tome (alltough I miss my (Outriders and Great Swordsmen)!
Alquemite warforgers have a +1 save 12" aura, if Thalia had a better save, she'd be walking around with a 2+ base, all game. She (like many other units) is clearly balanced around being buffed by an alchemite warforger
Which is fair and can get a 5+ ward from the pontifex but I can get more wounds or better output from other units and give them the same bonus.
Feels like the 2.0 gitz book with all the keyword bingo restrictions between the races. That being said i enjoy uniform armies better than a big mismatch of everything
I belive that the army look pretty strong to me
Sure gw what you to buy at least the pontifex and 20 fusiolier but for the rest you can do what you want
Except for the manticore girl she is dissapoiting
I’m just glad that there seems to be play with Darkling and Humans together and that Misthavn and Lethis both feel like fun an competitive options. But, I’m also curious about the removal of Anvilguard and hoping this has an impact on 4E DoK.
Didn't Anvilguard fall narratively in Broken Realms Morathi?
@@andyburchette3545 it did, then the DoK book came out and it was like it didn't happen in terms of game development. So, its entirely possible they will continue to ignore it game wise even if DoK could use some more unit variation than 8 (10) glass cannons, Morathi and some other heroes you take to fill points/unlock and a trash Behemoth.
It's Har Kuron now, which had rules, now doesn't which is a bit weird
@@AlexQuartararo exactly.
Good news: My Dispossessed are now a 2000pts army.
Bad news: They suck.
@@toro132 Know I place where I can get a bag of 80 plastic mini hammers? 😬
So a fleetmaster general with the duelist trait, if attacked, will do a mortal for every miss and 3 mortals for every miss that was a 1... lol
Did rob not notice that irondrakes are 3+ to hit and wound while fusiliers are 4+ to hit and wound? That translates to irondrakes doing almost 2x the damage of fusiliers when both are getting their bonus attacks. So even if you aren't as easily able to get the bonus attacks on irondrakes, they still do almost as much damage without their bonus attacks as fusiliers do with theirs. It is a shame that they lost their synergy with the runesmith though...
Irondrakes don't get mortals on 6s to hit and it's so much harder to get the extra shot vs fusiliers 32" range.
Fuislls get a battle 2 tactics and benefit from two orders
I wish that they had made a 3 race unit, like the warcry unit could have had models from all 3 and could take any orders giving it tactical flexibility and useful to all armies
There is an elf in the Warcry unit I believe as an alt build option
I'm assuming that they are going to FAQ Aventis' ability to say he affects Hammerhal Aqsha units...but this is the same company who forgot to FAQ Grey Knights when Daemons stopped getting Ward saves
Steamtanks have mounts for Mounting the Charge...
I'm super sad, after seeing the Fusil-major on war hulk got me excited to have an ogre and human mercenary group like Dogs of war in AOS finally or at least ogre allies, but let down with not seeing it.
Dark Elves look very spicy!!! Cant w8t!
why are no wood elves in this book?
Wish those elves were part of DoK ;-)
Or maybe I should start Cities elfs army just for fun 🤔
Could you use the spell that makes their save - then the sorceress on black dragon spell would do all the wounds or how does it interact with a save of '-'
So hyped for the new range! Already ordered a Hurricanum in preparation
omg, you should get 3 more
@@thehonestwargamerstreamsan incredible idea. I will use them in a line with 3 wizards and 20 fusiliers
It really feels like theyve kept the duardin and dark elves in as they didnt have enough new human models to justify cutting them out. Maybe well see a lumineth style second drop and book at some point.
Feels like they missed a trick to roll the duardin into one big tome like the orruks. The individual books even have traits around them all working together.
Also feels they are keeping the dark elves around for when they eventually want to do umbrabeth/shadowy elves and need them to fill out a tome.
Overall disappointing as a duardin fan seems they went look how good these human models are, yes you can have the duardin one but the synergies and everything else will just make the human option better.
Hmm, so Runelord and 20x Hammerers in a Fyreslayers army is ~400 pts and with the right Rune+prayer active is between Rend-3 and Rend-5 Damage 2 on a decent number of attacks
Also, this book is the biggest example of "Buy the New Stuff" we have seen in a long time
It's Cities of Humans
Lack of SCE Coalition is disappointing
The spell lore change is a huge bummer -- RIP Ghur battlemage ally
Overall, like the warscrolls (except Battlemage), like the new minis (and the old ones), hate most of the mechanics changes (except the individual city bonuses)
I think being upset about how obviously they want you to buy the new stuff Is super fair and I did mention it
@@thehonestwargamerstreams I was concurring in agreement
=P
Usually, I am a bit more impartial on "buy the new stuff", but here it is so egregious that even I cannot sit on the sidelines
Hammerers still have a 1" range, a block of 20 is getting maybe 10-15 into combat realistically.
Let’s go. I can see so many variations I can do with this with a Gotrek army. I’ve been dying to have a decent order army to use him and here they are
Damn, the whole book got leaked! Someone is getting fired!
It feels a bit 2005 to have racial division to be so important to the mechanics of a faction. I wish it was more justice league and less x-man
I agree so hard
What do you mean? You can run the races together.
Yeah I like how it was a big soup army
We probably get more about working together in later editions since it the core thing for city of sigmar
@@jonathanwatson4484 I thought this could be the case but after looking at the book and models im a bit cynical. Seeing no Dwarf or Dark Elf updates at all has me thinking they're gonna end up getting the chop after a while, the wording on the city allegiances seems to imply they want you to take cities alongside things like sylvaneth for the living city and It wouldnt be a stretch to imagine they could incorporate that for Kharadron or Fyreslayers with the dwarf aligned cities in the future if they wanted to
Curiously enough meaning you'll be buying multiple battle tomes and making them more money
What do people recommend for a beat stick unit or hero in this. Was tempted by the lioness at the start but now seeing the scroll she’s so squishy
Wait did they get rid of Anvilgard?
Pretty sure Morathi destroyed it.
It no longer exists as it was. Now its called Har Kuron and belongs to Morathi...
Correct
Can sigmarain be the alliance of cos in the new book?
I hoped they would also include the heroes of cursed city in the books.
They shouldn't stop there, they should include Ulfenkarn in as the City of Shyish that can field units from SBGL.
i have a question in concern of using a spell like miasma - alot of games ive played lately that have varied deployment plans have really seemed to shrink the board space. im just wondering if other people have experienced this too and trying to compensate for their opponents deploying sometimes near the middle of the board, instead of expecting full board space, just bring units that will be better in close combat.
are galen and doralia not in there anymore?
Would love to build a darkling coven army anyone got any ideas for a 2k list?
I somehow expected more of the cannon...
Always wanted to collect dwarfs (played a rune priest in warhammer MMO ages ago). Would all dwarfs army be really that bad? Do you think they will discount them like the old humans?
Thanks for your video mate. A single thought from me... What about people who collected a Wanderer's Army?!? Not a single unit from that roster is now present on this Army book. Considering that they kept Living Cities inside the book, this is a big nonsense to me.
Yeah I really wanted to make a super "civilization and nature working together" living cities army with wanderers and sylvaneth and and stormcast animal companions. For some reason they have decided to move away from that idea in every way they possibly could :(
The astra militarum faction
New humans with elves and dwarves¿? the AOS pineapple pizza army
New orders? How does it feel?
Great review of the book but what a shame that they have not been balanced the book across the all the races. The Cities should be the foundation of AOS and the book seems decent start to this. They should have been the main focus from the very beginning and the Stormcast should have been a off faction or elite cult of the Humans. I do love the look of the models and I think you could build a very interesting army with this book but it would have to be largely human which just spoils that feel of we in it together otherwise we will perish feeling which is how I would believe the cities would be. Maybe in the future GW may look to expand on the other races but I wouldn't hold my breath in regards to this. As usual Rob great insight and although I am a death player I may dabble in the Cities.
Is this mean we can pre order the box within 2 weeks
Maybe this Saturday?
The shooting meta hell continues. Might be time to shelve AoS until GW can sort out their power creep.
I disagree that they should be the main faction. AoS is an epic very high fantasy setting and I feel the main faction should reflect that. stormcast works well for that but cities doesnt. If they are your first encounter with aos, you'd expect the setting to be grimdark lotr, which is basically the old world.
Agreed. The empire makes sense in the old world as it's regular humans against all kinds of monsters and beings that on a 1 to 1 level generally overpower a regular mortal man. That's where the use of firearms and magic, as well as insane bravery on the part of the greatswords help to give the humans a fighting chance against all the challenges before them.
However, in AoS the most powerful force in order isn't the humans, dwarves, or elves. It's the Stormcast, who are literally holy super soldiers who can be brought back nigh indefinitely when they fall in battle.
Wait what? I love you man, thank you for this :D
You're welcome!
I think you misunderstood divine champion
A book of racism only one can come out on top
Thanks for the video :) Awesome as usual
Really good overview, I definitely learned a lot. That said, it's idiotic of GW to subfaction lock units to a specific city, especially if the entire lore about them is that it's cities from all over the realms striking out to reclaim areas.
Ah man no glade guard :(
this toro guy in the comments....lol.
Yeah I've blocked him😊
big
Undecided how i feel about my dark aelves. Some really cool tech with kharybdis and the spell that increases bravery dice rolls, and some good unit synergy changes.... but honestly the book is written to give humans and only humans a chance long term.
I understand GW is trying to get rid of legacy units and with the release of Old World soon, they really aren't going away. The high and wood aelves have been completely axed, as well as almost all the old Human models. The Duardin are honestly very underwhelming and seem like a feel bad choice to go pure Duardin.
At first impression is that this Cities rendition seems very defensive. There are some decent combos for all 3 races, but being racially divided hurts. Next to no coalition considerations feels rough too. It seems GW just wants you to play Humans. Obviously better rules, more and better options, objectives and such. There are a lot of poor options that aren't Human.
As was said at the end of the video, GW just needs to say they're getting rid of the Dispossessed and Aelves and make Cities a Human only book with Coalition options for various cities.
Love how the Ven Densts have a 5+ ward save somehow, but Synessa and Dexcessa dont -_-
Absolutely amazing figures. The fusilier rules look a bit oppressive to be honest! I bet they’re sold out very quickly…
I think so too
@@toro132 lol. I bet they are sold out within one or two weeks of being released. I also reckon they will do rather well in tournaments and get nerfed before Christmas!