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So I'm just getting into the game and wondering about which army to invest in. I really like most fantasy Elves, and some units from both Lumineth and Cities of Sigmar look really nifty. But others in each faction I really dislike the look of. Aesthetics are important to me, a bit more so than building an optimal army. At the same time while I'm willing to give up some stuff for a cool look I do want to be able to field something that isn't wiped out every game. So which is easier / better to build: Cities of Sigmar focusing on elven troops, or Lumineth without the ox-people?

Lumineth can do fine without Alarith Temple models at all.

Typically I just take a Spirit of the Mountain in my lists because I love the model and like what it does for my lists. But, before the second wave of models came out, Lumineth competitive lists were just about entirely Sentinels, Wardens and Cathallars. Now, the roster has expanded further, with more Vanari units, more Scinari/Caster models, and the Hurakan Temple models.

If you like elements of both, but are looking for the 'smarter' investment I would focus on Lumineth because its difficult to see what is going to happen with cities of sigmar in the future.

If CoS is kept you can bet they are gonna get some wonderful new models that will look better than current ones and may even invalidate them.

Or the cities of sigmar could get 'retired' (never updated and slowly forgotten) as new order factions come out and essentially replace them.

Serious question:
Have you actually read the lore for either faction? What would make you think the Alarith are required for the Lumineth?

The main strength of Cities of Sigmar, is there are endless ways to play that battletome, and it has a pretty vast model line.

Sylvaneth with tree people! Embrace the wood aelf life!

In terms of model support it is worth pointing out that Lumineth is all new range and Cities of Sigmar is a collection of WHFB leftovers and have received zero new models since the launch of Age of Sigmar. If you want an army that is actually being supported, choose the one that has new models.

It is possible that actual Cities of Sigmar revamp is in the works. If you can afford to wait a few months we should know better in which direction GW is taking the game in its 3rd edition.

The Broken Realms Teclis book added a City that can field 1 Lumineth unit for every 4 units in the army.

*Why not both meme

Agreed with others that lumineth is lot safer due to being new rather than leftover kit mix. Also with wave2 they have bit more variety though melee(particularly cavalry) isn't their　strongest suit.

(not that they can't do it but more of defensive counter punch)

 Eldarain wrote:
The Broken Realms Teclis book added a City that can field 1 Lumineth unit for every 4 units in the army.

*Why not both meme

Came here to say exactly this.

jullevi wrote:
In terms of model support it is worth pointing out that Lumineth is all new range and Cities of Sigmar is a collection of WHFB leftovers and have received zero new models since the launch of Age of Sigmar.

And several culls. The current book was preceded by multiple kits actively being eliminated (the 'great cull' of september 2019). Some weren't even that old.

The Lumineth can absolutely do just fine without the ox-faction.
Though I do like the Stone-mage on his floating rock just as model.

I also really really like everything in the 2nd wave except the archer cavalry. But my being neutral on the archer cav as models should in no way be read as them being a bad unit. My friend & frequent opponent fields them in great # & uses them well. They are every bit as good as the foot archers & spearmen. They just don't quite do it for me modelwise.

It's pretty hard to make a bad Lumineth army.

Cities.... I love this force because of A) its great flexibility in list building options, B) because its the catchall faction for my many of my old Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies (or remnants of them). Primarily my Dwarves & Dark Elves. Whatever keeps my collection in the game.
That said? It's easy to put together weak or even just plain bad lists with this book.

On Lumineth being a more stable range?

With CoS now codified in a proper dedicated Battletome, I’d say you can be reasonably confident they won’t lose anything more.

They might very well get new stuff added (such as redone Knights on horsies), but with the Great Rationalisation* seemingly complete, stuff dropping out seems less likely than before.

*When AoS first launched to now, historical WHFB kits and units have been removed. For example, the Great Cannon/Mortar and Empire Knights, plus a decent slice of Wood Elf, High Elf and Dark Elf stuff (such as Bolt Throwers)

That of course created unease amongst would-be CoS players, as one could never be sure that a unit bought today would still be valid tomorrow.

But during 2nd Ed AoS, we have seen a concerted effort by GW to decide what’s staying and what’s going. That process, at least for CoS, now seems complete. So whilst some unease will of course remain, you can now buy with a greater level of confidence

I sincerely doubt they'll be getting new stuff. The go-to seems to be "you can take X as 1 in 4". Additionally, there's always more to lose.

And no, it wasn't "a decent slice of Wood Elf" stuff. It was basically the whole damn range. The only things left are Wild Riders/Sisters of the Thorn, the Nomad Prince, and Eternal Guard/Wildwood Rangers. That's not even discussing what got moved to Sylvaneth. The only addition they've seen was the Sisters of the Watch, a rebranding of the Everqueen's Guard into a Wanderers unit.

High Elves were similarly gutted. Dark Elves are the only Elves that basically came out untouched. Siege weapons, Shades, and the Daughters of Khaine stuff are basically the only items they lost that immediately spring to mind.

I will not ever suggest someone start with Cities of Sigmar unless that's the thing they really, really, really want to do. And then I'll suggest if they want Elves? Go for Scourge Privateers as they're the most complete range, and the Black Ark Corsair kit while aging is not seeming like it is going anywhere anytime soon.

jullevi wrote:
In terms of model support it is worth pointing out that Lumineth is all new range and Cities of Sigmar is a collection of WHFB leftovers and have received zero new models since the launch of Age of Sigmar.

Cities are getting two new models with the Kragnos book.

CoS was a passion project by one of the designers rather than something GW had really planned for. No doubt it's success will have caught their attention, but they've probably got several years planned ahead.

My take is that they'll be in a LoN/SBGL situation where future tomes chip away at the range. So most of the existing Freeguild stuff will probably remain/get updated sculpts, but when whatever Grungi's upto gets revealed, they'll write a throwaway line about most Dispossessed migrating to his new territory and largely leaving the Cities, carving them out of future Cities/Freeguild tomes the way Arkhan/Morghasts/Nighthaunt/etc were out of SBGL. Similarly the Kurnothi in Cursed City looking pretty much identical to a new Wood Elf/Wanderer means I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to that range in the future and eventually Cities is just Freeguild/humans - assuming it isn't just renamed Battletome: Freeguild Regiments anyway.

As has been suggested though, if you really can't make up your mind then I'd run Settler's Gain and max out those Lumineth slots.

Dancingjoker wrote:
So I'm just getting into the game and wondering about which army to invest in. I really like most fantasy Elves, and some units from both Lumineth and Cities of Sigmar look really nifty. But others in each faction I really dislike the look of. Aesthetics are important to me, a bit more so than building an optimal army. At the same time while I'm willing to give up some stuff for a cool look I do want to be able to field something that isn't wiped out every game. So which is easier / better to build: Cities of Sigmar focusing on elven troops, or Lumineth without the ox-people?

Then get the ones you like the looks of better, both are fine, sure Lumineth is a stronger army for pure Aelves but both works just fine unless you want to win a GT.

There is a semi reliable rumour that cities are getting some new kits soonish. Cities have actually had 8 new models recently and have had a few extra cities added in Broken Realms.
The book itself is one of the most popular books gw have.
All this means that the faction absolutely isn't going anywhere but may well get a Soulblight style update in the next couple of years. Lumineth are more stable.

Chikout wrote:
Cities have actually had 8 new models recently and have had a few extra cities added in Broken Realms.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to refresh my memory as to what those are. I'm not seeing anything for them on GWs site that'd qualify a recently new by human standards....

It IS true that there were new stats for specific versions out of the lore for some of these models - but that doesn't make the kits used to represent them new.

Chikout wrote:
There is a semi reliable rumour that cities are getting some new kits soonish. Cities have actually had 8 new models recently and have had a few extra cities added in Broken Realms.
The book itself is one of the most popular books gw have.
All this means that the faction absolutely isn't going anywhere but may well get a Soulblight style update in the next couple of years. Lumineth are more stable.

The semi-reliable rumour from Anon of 4chan who's source is "dude trust me"?

Cities haven't had any new models except for the upcoming Witch Hunters. Cursed City is a spin-off game if you mean that and the pretty atrocious rules and weirdly pigeon holed <Ulfencain> tag makes it apparent they weren't designed for regular AoS so much as getting consolidatory rules. Cities being added doesn't mean too much since GW has shown they could care even less about what's put on paper than squat'ing model ranges.

I don't think Freeguild are going anywhere, but I'll be genuinely surprised if the actual Cities of Sigmar army gets a second version.

If you find aesthetics important that is another reason to avoid Cities of Sigmar for now. Their collection of models come from 5 different armies that were not designed to go together (and were designed for a different game too). Some of the armies even had conflicting internal aesthetics to begin with, although getting rid of part of the range helped to some extent. To build and paint a coherent looking army you need serious hobby skills and out of the box thinking.

 Arbitrator wrote:

Chikout wrote:
There is a semi reliable rumour that cities are getting some new kits soonish. Cities have actually had 8 new models recently and have had a few extra cities added in Broken Realms.
The book itself is one of the most popular books gw have.
All this means that the faction absolutely isn't going anywhere but may well get a Soulblight style update in the next couple of years. Lumineth are more stable.

The semi-reliable rumour from Anon of 4chan who's source is "dude trust me"?

Cities haven't had any new models except for the upcoming Witch Hunters. Cursed City is a spin-off game if you mean that and the pretty atrocious rules and weirdly pigeon holed <Ulfencain> tag makes it apparent they weren't designed for regular AoS so much as getting consolidatory rules. Cities being added doesn't mean too much since GW has shown they could care even less about what's put on paper than squat'ing model ranges.

I don't think Freeguild are going anywhere, but I'll be genuinely surprised if the actual Cities of Sigmar army gets a second version.

They are going to get new models in broken realms. That's BR release. Not CC release. In case you haven't noticed by now CC got sold out and there was no witch hunters there. Why? They are AOS release. Not CC...

I like CoS because with each city you can take different things from other factions to give you a small slice of basically everything.
Everyone gets access to Stormcast thanks to the Stormkeeps rule, and there are cities that can take Sylvaneth, Kharadron, Daughters of Khaine, and Lumineth. I think it's just the Idoneth, Seraphon, and Fyreslayers who can't be taken in a CoS army but you can hire Mercenaries and take small Allied forces. Basically, if you want to take a Grand Alliance Order army or just want to grab small amounts of all the Order forces for hobby purposes, CoS is pretty great.


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jullevi wrote:
If you find aesthetics important that is another reason to avoid Cities of Sigmar for now. Their collection of models come from 5 different armies that were not designed to go together (and were designed for a different game too). Some of the armies even had conflicting internal aesthetics to begin with, although getting rid of part of the range helped to some extent. To build and paint a coherent looking army you need serious hobby skills and out of the box thinking.

Or just give them some similar colour schemes and banners.

If you play for fun then just choose what you like the look of. If you're a competitive player:

I would expect a nerf coming to Lumineth due to all the complaining about them across the internet.

Hallowheart mortal wound spam still flies under the radar, because people keep trying to make Greywater Fastness work.

 D6Damager wrote:
If you play for fun then just choose what you like the look of. If you're a competitive player:

I would expect a nerf coming to Lumineth due to all the complaining about them across the internet.

Hallowheart mortal wound spam still flies under the radar, because people keep trying to make Greywater Fastness work.

It does work, Rockets go Zoom!

 Arbitrator wrote:
CoS was a passion project by one of the designers rather than something GW had really planned for. No doubt it's success will have caught their attention, but they've probably got several years planned ahead.

If that's true, that's really bad. Once said designer is no long in favor or moves on, that means the army has no internal advocate. That's happened in the past with bad results (WE players can wave sadly now, as they know what its like to be passed over for a decade). And Orc and Goblin players past can testify how bad it can get when an un-invested writer gets an army book dumped on them from above.

A lot of models/units that went away was more so b.c of copywrite/IP, etc.. not b.c they wanted it to go away. There has been podcasts, interviews, etc.. of GW off recorder confirming it. One of the guys at GW still plays Tomb Kings even.

I think it was the 2nd? or 3rd? Podcast where they talk about how they give attention to each army and its more of a large team design now unlike in the old days where it was 1 guy having a cool idea and then they make the book. They do not do that anymore. With that said there wills till be some bias if the studio likes the army more so or not, but that doesn't mean they do less work with a less interested army. They even talked about the full process (They get a army design idea first, 3 ways to play that army, etc....) you can literally go list to it and them talk about it.

Essentially if you want a relative hard mode, CoS is the way. Don't expect much given to them other than what already exists and rules and support slim.

If you want the new broken hotness, Lumineth is the way to go.

I like my Cities of Sigmar army.

There is so much potential there to make it truly UNIQUE. If you want to develop your own aesthetic, CoS is the way to go

 BlackoCatto wrote:
Essentially if you want a relative hard mode, CoS is the way. Don't expect much given to them other than what already exists and rules and support slim.

If you want the new broken hotness, Lumineth is the way to go.

Broken hotness that isn't actually dominating tournaments. If you want broken hotness go elsewhere.