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Seems to be their precedent. Also was asked on those pictures if it was a matched play game and it was affirmed it was.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/03/building-the-cities-of-sigmargw-homepage-post-3/

An interesting article on Warhammer Community on how they built some of the scenery built in the Cities of Sigmar battletome.

Welp, I think this is the book thats officially going to push me into AoS. The stupid question is, where do I start? I saw they're coming out with the Gaming Book that seems to be the distilled down essences of matched play stuff (its typically how my local scene rocks). Would that be a worthwhile place to dive in?

Sterling191 wrote:
Welp, I think this is the book thats officially going to push me into AoS. The stupid question is, where do I start? I saw they're coming out with the Gaming Book that seems to be the distilled down essences of matched play stuff (its typically how my local scene rocks). Would that be a worthwhile place to dive in?

It's not "distilled down essences", it's the full kit and kaboodle.
The Core Rules are something like 8 pages.

This bit? This is the important stuff for you in Matched Play:

- Additional matched play and Pitched Battle rules – perfect if you're attending events or tournaments
- 31 matched play battleplans, offering you a vast degree of choice in how you choose to conquer the Mortal Realms
- Rules for battling in each of the Mortal Realms, complete with game-changing Realmscape Features and powerful spells of the Mortal Realms
- A huge selection of Artefacts of the Realms, giving every army a vast selection of magical items and weapons for using in your games

Some of that stuff is otherwise only in Malign Sorcery(which is something like $100 by itself with all the Endless Spells in it).
Some of it comes from the General's Handbook, which has updated points(not something you need with Free Cities).

I'd suggest going with the Gaming Book and Free Cities Book. If you want the Warscroll Cards for Cities of Sigmar, try to hunt those down on Saturday as they're sold out online. Those sets tend to have counters/markers for status effects that will make life easier on you.


Beyond that, can't help you as I haven't sat myself down and forced myself to look at things too heavily.

Getting through the new battletomes, still digesting them but preliminary feelings are pretty positive. Orruk changes still preserve what the armies were but also 'clean up' the allegiance... for the most part. Big Waaagh seems like it could have used a bit more development time as it seems 'messy' in the sense of a mash of different rules from the two allegiances with a mechanic that ties them together. There are advantages to that approach though, and I really like how the ironjawz/bonesplittaz allegiances look on their own.

Free Cities got a massive overhaul, and I am less critical of the massive cuts now as there would be a ton of clutter from units with overlapping rules had they all been crammed in here. Still would have preferred they did things a bit differently but it is what it is. Book looks really cool but the extent of the updates also comes with some bigger rough patches where I feel the point costs are way off or certain combinations are vastly superior. But there is a lot in this book for a lot of potential builds, for narrative/fluffy gamers especially it's a gold mine.

I've been mulling over all the units that got the axe and was wondering if there were any units that couldn't act as stand ins for something else that does have a warscroll.

And looking at how massive that warscroll card pack for cities is, it's pretty friggin obvious there needed to be some pruning.

The GW we have right now wouldn't do this, but I would have loved to see something like "Free City Guard" that has a generic warscroll profile for a basic melee troop with options for longspears, two-handed weapon, spear & shield, or hand weapon & shield. The unit picks one of three options: gain the human freeguild keywords, gain the duardin dispossessed keywords with -1 movement and +1 bravery, or gain the aelf darkling coven keywords with +1 movement +1 bravery and one worse a save. It condenses a lot of warscrolls into one place and allows OOP kits to continue to see play without taking up their own warscroll slots.

A good chunk of Free Cities units could have been done this way:
Quarrellers/Crossbowmen (longer range no rend shooting)
Thunderers/Handgunners (shorter range rend shooting)
Archers/Glade Guard (scout movement/bonus for being in cover)
Greatswords/Hammerers/Executioners (heavy armor strong melee attack)
Hellblaster/Organ Gun (close range multi-shot artillery)
Rocket/Duardin Cannon (long range multi-damage artillery)

Then more unique units can do more unique things since basic rolls are covered on a generic level. But I'm just daydreaming.

I do wish they had an option for a Generic city so we could build our own. But so far I'm liking what I'm seeing...just not sure which City to base my army off of yet.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I do wish they had an option for a Generic city so we could build our own. But so far I'm liking what I'm seeing...just not sure which City to base my army off of yet.

It's probably better that they didn't go down that pathway. I recall one of the earlier Tyranid books that tried that. You could gene-craft almost anything you wanted, the problem was it was not only so free that it was too much freedom for most gamers; but it also left itself open to some horrible potential abuses of the game balance. Sometimes its a lot easier to define set blocks that work and then let gamers get creative with conversions and paint schemes for making "their own" interpretation of a city

Yeah the only time I’ve ever seen a customisable GW theme set really work was with the Kharadron Overlord Code, and even that was undermined by the named ports being better in every way with some being yet better than others.

So I'm doing two things here, spoilering the Kantankerous Speech:


Now, for The Good Part...

The fluff in the book is nice. It's interesting to see how the cities function, and we get our first glimpse as to what was going on with Malerion and his nonsense with the Order Serpentis(spoiler: Order Serpentis were being jerks to the other races and Malerion thought it was hilarious, so he stuck up for them to Sigmar).

Scourge Privateers became amazing. My loss of Wanderers characters is somewhat tempered by the fact that I can do some nasty stuff with Anvilgard. A Kharibdyss can potentially be a -3 to Bravery with the right Drakeblood Curse...couple that with Dark Riders for a 12" aura of -4 Bravery?

That's...yeah. That's something potentially nasty.

Also, the name of an Anvilgard regiment of Freeguild Marines is "The Rumrunners".

As a fan/collector of Knights Excelsior and a bigger fan of the Callis & Toll stories that were initially set in and around Excelsis, I was kind of bummed that they didn’t have rules for the City of Secrets.

But after seeing how Excelsis is mentioned in the Orruk battletome, perhaps they will have their time to shine(or not, depending on who wins) soon. Maybe have their rules in a “Forbidden Power-esque” supplement, like Lethis and Legion of Grief?

Regarding the battletome, I do like how each city is restricted to the realm that they are based out of, in regards to selecting Realm specific items etc. Its a small thing and makes narrative sense but also has an impact on the gaming table. Would like to see more of that personally. Granted, it wouldn’t make sense to do that across the board as some factions are inherently mobile, but I kind of like it.

Which means this will be the only battletome to have those restrictions.

I’m glad to see the ‘standard issue’ stuff getting some love.

 nels1031 wrote:
As a fan/collector of Knights Excelsior and a bigger fan of the Callis & Toll stories that were initially set in and around Excelsis, I was kind of bummed that they didn’t have rules for the City of Secrets.

But after seeing how Excelsis is mentioned in the Orruk battletome, perhaps they will have their time to shine(or not, depending on who wins) soon. Maybe have their rules in a “Forbidden Power-esque” supplement, like Lethis and Legion of Grief?

Regarding the battletome, I do like how each city is restricted to the realm that they are based out of, in regards to selecting Realm specific items etc. Its a small thing and makes narrative sense but also has an impact on the gaming table. Would like to see more of that personally. Granted, it wouldn’t make sense to do that across the board as some factions are inherently mobile, but I kind of like it.

Which means this will be the only battletome to have those restrictions.

I like that aspect too. The way the book is designed it would be easy for them to add new cities in the future--each city is just two pages after all. They could even add new cities in white dwarf.

I'm hoping we get to see some more factions get Realm 'locked' based on their background.

Looking at you, FEC...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
As a fan/collector of Knights Excelsior and a bigger fan of the Callis & Toll stories that were initially set in and around Excelsis, I was kind of bummed that they didn’t have rules for the City of Secrets.

But after seeing how Excelsis is mentioned in the Orruk battletome, perhaps they will have their time to shine(or not, depending on who wins) soon. Maybe have their rules in a “Forbidden Power-esque” supplement, like Lethis and Legion of Grief?

Regarding the battletome, I do like how each city is restricted to the realm that they are based out of, in regards to selecting Realm specific items etc. Its a small thing and makes narrative sense but also has an impact on the gaming table. Would like to see more of that personally. Granted, it wouldn’t make sense to do that across the board as some factions are inherently mobile, but I kind of like it.

Which means this will be the only battletome to have those restrictions.

I like that aspect too. The way the book is designed it would be easy for them to add new cities in the future--each city is just two pages after all. They could even add new cities in white dwarf.

Agreed - they only did two Realms with this book I think?

 Overread wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I do wish they had an option for a Generic city so we could build our own. But so far I'm liking what I'm seeing...just not sure which City to base my army off of yet.

It's probably better that they didn't go down that pathway. I recall one of the earlier Tyranid books that tried that. You could gene-craft almost anything you wanted, the problem was it was not only so free that it was too much freedom for most gamers; but it also left itself open to some horrible potential abuses of the game balance. Sometimes its a lot easier to define set blocks that work and then let gamers get creative with conversions and paint schemes for making "their own" interpretation of a city

Yeah, this is always an issue with 'build you own' stuff. We're seeing it with the Space Marine successor rules now:

"Oh cool, I can create a custom chapter that reflects the lore I want and have that impact how they work on the tabletop" - what everyone thinks moments before every chapter become Master Artisans.

Basically, there's usually a clear best option for your army build, and almost everyone picks that.

 Elmir wrote:
I've been mulling over all the units that got the axe and was wondering if there were any units that couldn't act as stand ins for something else that does have a warscroll.

And looking at how massive that warscroll card pack for cities is, it's pretty friggin obvious there needed to be some pruning.

I have about 1500 points of High Elves and already I am seeing where each High Elf unit I have could stand in for another. I mean, my Ellyrian Reavers will be Dark Riders for example.

How do the dark elf minis look with more ‘goodie’ paint scheme? Because I look at them and how sinister and evil they look, and I wonder if they really fit in well with the human, duardin and other Aelf factions. But a good, unifying paint scheme can work wonders.

It does make me wish though that the high elves had a more up to date mini range before a lot of it got squatted. They’d have looked good alongside the others. The scale mail they wore in particular would have looked sweet alongside the dwarf units.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
How do the dark elf minis look with more ‘goodie’ paint scheme? Because I look at them and how sinister and evil they look, and I wonder if they really fit in well with the human, duardin and other Aelf factions. But a good, unifying paint scheme can work wonders.

It does make me wish though that the high elves had a more up to date mini range before a lot of it got squatted. They’d have looked good alongside the others. The scale mail they wore in particular would have looked sweet alongside the dwarf units.

I agree DE really look odd alongside the other factions... A brighter paint job will definitely help though.

As for High Elves, my assumption is GW is ultimately planning to do a Tyrion and Teclis faction. The characters are still a big deal in the lore, so it makes sense to me they would eventually reinvent High Elves through them.

Reading the Order Serpentis, Darkling Coven, and Scourge Privateer fluff...there's A Good Reason for it.

They're part of the Free Cities, but only because they're biding their time/getting something for it.

Did dark elves retain repeater bolt throwers?

If not, can we still utilize them with the dark elves free rules?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Reading the Order Serpentis, Darkling Coven, and Scourge Privateer fluff...there's A Good Reason for it.

They're part of the Free Cities, but only because they're biding their time/getting something for it.

They are evil self serving criminals, that they still represent a good choice of ally says a lot about what the free cities are up against.

The main issue for counts as seems to be around armoured cavalry and horse mounted leaders

I have tons of Bretonnians, Empire Knights and Dragon Princes as well as equivalent mounted leaders and find it very difficult to fit them in to anything.

Archers I was just thinking of going counts as crossbowmen.

Ellyrians either Pistoliers with small conversion or Dark Riders.

Swordmasters as Greatswords

2 Knights on one large base = count as Demigriph Knights?

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Did dark elves retain repeater bolt throwers?

If not, can we still utilize them with the dark elves free rules?

Only if you bring the Legacy Dark Elves, which means no Free Cities. Which sucks cause I love my Repeater Bolt Throwers :( Also annoyed that they didn't put all the points for units in the book, only the updated ones.

On the note of "good" Dark elves, remember that Order doesn't equal "Good." Just look at Deepkin, Daughters, or some of the Stormcast in the fluff. The dark elf factions are self serving and power hungry. The fact that they work with SIgmar and his allies is to further their own ends more-so then to enact any kind of righteousness. In short, the aelves of Ulgu sided with Sigmar out of convince and mutual hatred of Chaos.

Supposedly Malerion is actually a Chaos god now. There's a picture of what looks like a scene setup from Realmslayer part three that has him listed as such. Not sure of the authenticity but if true could make for an interesting shakeup of the story.

So, spell combo from Anvilgard. Requires at least 2 Wizards (90 points Sorcs on foot) and Spellportals endless spell. Sorc 1 casts an empowered portal spell letting you put it where ever but keep it within 6" of an enemy unit. Sorc 2 casts Vitriolic Spray (range 6") through the portals turning a units Save to "-". Throw in a Sorc on Black Dragon for bladewind and deal 9 MW automagically. Downside is that this combo would cost at least 580ish points and you couldn't Bladewind on turn 1 unless you huddle around the portal. On the plus side, throw a cheap unit next to the Sorceresses to kill models from for +2 to casting (and be a guard unit for backline drops). Could 1-shot on-foot heroes turn 1 with some luck or take that 30 man Stormcast shield-wall to a 5+ at best iirc. Good? Probably not, but sounds fun to try.

BomBomHotdog wrote:

Supposedly Malerion is actually a Chaos god now. There's a picture of what looks like a scene setup from Realmslayer part three that has him listed as such. Not sure of the authenticity but if true could make for an interesting shakeup of the story.

David Guymer has come out and said that was clearly a mistake. Though he did add “Unless someone knows something I don’t”

BomBomHotdog wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Did dark elves retain repeater bolt throwers?

If not, can we still utilize them with the dark elves free rules?

Only if you bring the Legacy Dark Elves, which means no Free Cities. Which sucks cause I love my Repeater Bolt Throwers :( Also annoyed that they didn't put all the points for units in the book, only the updated ones.

It's because this is the Cities of Sigmar book. It says right at the top of the points page, these points are for the units presented in Cities of Sigmar.

Anything not in that list can't be Cities of Sigmar.

Ally some Stormcast with a Celestar Ballista and use the Repeater Bolt thrower as a proxy.

 Overread wrote:
Ally some Stormcast with a Celestar Ballista and use the Repeater Bolt thrower as a proxy.

you don't need to ally in stormcast, 1 in 4 units can be stormcast in a city army