It’s leak season, baybee!

The new Cities of Sigmar book is emphatically out and about on the internet (it won’t be hard to find), and sweet mother of god is there a lot to unpack. So much to unpack, in fact, that we’ll be getting a review up sooner rather than later that’s going to dive deep into the synergies and tactics the revamped Cities book is bringing–but we’re not here for that, we’re for clickbait, knee-jerk reactions, let’s get into it!

This Book Has 54 Warscrolls And None Of Them Are Bad

I want to give GW a standing ovation here–this book is absolutely packed with warscrolls that range from mid-at-worst all the way to “What the fuck are you on, GW?” Not a single one of them is a dumpster tier unit, which is remarkable given there’s 54 different units out there. Of course, some of them are quite pushed, but hey, what’s new? Speaking of pushed:

GW Made Skragrott 2.0 And It’s Even Cheaper

Take a second and look at this Warscroll:

This costs 150 points. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY POINTS. It’s a priest that gets to unbind and dispel as a wizard, meaning dispelling with Zenestra on your turn doesn’t cost you a chanting roll (Core Rules 19.3), and it unbinds at +1. That’s super good!

But wait, there’s more! It has a prayer on a 3+ (god help you if there’s Mystical terrain on the table) that gives one out one effect if Zenestera is within your territory, or two if it’s outside your territory:

• Cities of Sigmar Human units have a 5+ while wholly within 18″ of Zenestra;
• Cities of Sigmar Human units on the battlefield gain +2″ to their movement;
• For each enemy Wizard and Priest on the battlefield, roll a dice and on a 2+ that unit suffers d3 Mortal Wounds;

That last one is particularly hilarious if you play Lumineth, since–y’know–your whole fucking army are wizards, more or less. At 150 points, this is a steal–I expect every single Human focused Cities of Sigmar army to windmill slam this in their lists, because why they hell not?

The benefits are huge–though keyword restricted–and impactful. The 4+ ward makes it tough as nails and–wait a minute.

5+ save? Unusually high bravery for the faction? A 4+ ward? Non-interactive mortal wound output? Where have I seen this before?

Those motherfuckers. The only saving grace here is that because the Pontifex has a crew, she doesn’t benefit from the super-look-out-sir and is thus visible to be shot at/targeted at will.

The Points Are WAY Too Damned Cheap

There’s exactly ONE Warscroll out of 54 that costs more than 300 points, and it’s the new general on Manticore, Tahlia Vedra at 340 points. Literally everything else is sub 300. Every lynchpin support piece is sub 200, and that includes Madame Ordergog above, so you can expect Cities armies to absolutely swamped with cheap as dirt units that either punch above their weight class or are obnoxiously difficult to kill.

For real here, how does anyone look at the pitched battle profile for this army and go, “yeah this all seems fine.” The theme of this army is decentralization, putting way, way, WAY more focus on individual unit actions with internal support provided by warscroll abilities–i.e. the Fusiliers being able to get a 1/game re-roll on their shooting attacks. You would think, then, that such units would be costed appropriately to counter the fact that the weight of points that would normally be in support pieces would not be there.

NOPE. Everything currently is in the bargain basement, and you should prepare to really shell out to build your forces up because, unforunately:

For All The Talk Of Synergy, There’s A Whole Lot Of Division

Did you love the idea of combined arms from the disparate races of the Cities of Sigmar advancing in glorious formations to bring ruin to the enemies of Order? Well, tough shit, Keyword Bingo is back.

Dwarves only combo with Dwarves, Humans only combo with Humans, and Elves combo with no one because they’re assholes (except other Elves–who are assholes). Combined forces still work–sort of–but they don’t interact with each other internally. Thematically what we’re looking at here is a pseudo-Big Waaagh situation, where there’s more or less entire sub-factions beyond your choices for Cities where a 2000 point list will more or less feel like Humans with a smattering of Aelves and Dwarves, while Big Waaagh is almost always an Ironjawz Army with a Wurrgog Prophet (Bonesplitterz) and a smattering of Kruleboyz units. It’s a bummer because by far the coolest aesthetic of Cities of Sigmar thematically is the concept of the common folk working together to win.

Kinda hard to do that when you’ve got keywords barring the way.

RIP to the Battlemage Ally

No longer can you pay 100 points to get a Ghurish Battlemage casting Wildform on your Spirits of Durthu–the Battlemage spells are now locked behind a Spell Lore. Speaking of spells:

The Alchemist Warforger Has The Best Spell In The Book

I mean, come on! Given that the Fusiliers come in 10s with two shots each and can be made battleline (for each Steelhelms unit you take–think Sentinels and Wardens in Lumineth), that’s up to 60 Rend -1 shots doing Mortal Wounds on 6s. Disgusting.

The Warforger’s other ability is quite good too:

The neat thing with this ability is how it interacts with the Fortified rules on the Ironweld Great Cannon and the Fusiliers, as the ability ignores negative modifiers to save roles from missile attacks, but lets that unit keep positive modifiers:

Given that Fusiliers have a 4+ base save, it’s really easy to get them to become damn near-unshiftable in the shooting phase thanks to the Warforger, especially under the 5+ ward from the Pontifex. All that pales in comparison to:

STEAM TANKS ARE ON THE MENU BAYBEE

Let’s just go over this line by line:

1. They went up 50 points–boo;
2. They now have 8″ movement instead of 2d6, good;
3. The damage on the cannon went from D6 to D3+2, great;
4. The range went from 30″ to 24″, but no longer degrades, which is even better;
5. Steam Guns now hit on 3+/3+ instead of a 4+ and degrading 2+ to wound, and have 12″ range instead of 8″;
6. The boiler ability works the same (roll 2d6 in the hero phase, roll less than the wounds allocated and you take d3 MWs, roll higher get a buff), but now you get one of two really awesome abilities:
   • Power the Wheels: Run and Shoot and/or Charge
   • Power the Guns: Add 1 to the attacks characteristic on the Cannon and D6 to the Steam Gun’s attacks characteristic
7. It does Impact mortals now on the charge;
8. It now has 6 attacks, up from D6 attacks, that are now 3/3/-1/2

Oh, and they are a 2+ base save now. Sweet god. Under a Pontifex and a Warforger these are more or less unkillable in most cases.

Irondrakes Got What They Deserved

The Runelord’s prayer only affects melee now. Soulscream Bridge now turns off commands when you teleport through it, and Irondrakes now don’t get the +1 to their attacks when they are set-up now, not just when they move.

For my Dawi bros out there with 60 painted Irondrakes, I’m pouring one out for you, they look great.

As someone on the receiving end of getting shot by Irondrakes in Living City:

Orders Are Cool But Feel Like It Belongs In 40k

Orders are new, unique abilities that usually come with very restrictive timing windows and qualifiers that do some pretty powerful stuff–all of which is decided before the game starts.

Basically, each hero in your army can be given a secret order that are only revealed when the order is used, which creates a guessing game for your opponent. Sounds neat right?

However, I can see this being a bit difficult to implement for newer players–Warhammer is a complex system, and one of of the pride points for Age of Sigmar is that it is considerably easier to learn than 40k is–one of the reasons I picked up AOS over 40k back in 8th edition was that Stratagems suck and are miserable to try and remember. While I don’t think it will be that bad to remember, this feels like a sign of things to come.

The Cities Ranked In A Totally Arbitrary Order:

1. Hallowheart–Big surprise, the magic city is still really good. They basically have the Cabalists rules from Slaves to Darkness–where they get to cast on 3d6–but the schtick now is an unmodified casting roll of 10+ causes d3 MWs to the caster. Big whoop, you get to cast Merciless Blizzard and fucking nuke something. Worth.
2. Misthaven–“We’ve got Murderlust at home.” At the end of your hero phase, you can pick up to 3 friendly units outside of 12″ of enemy units and they can move d6″, or 2d6″ if mounted, and can finish within 3″ of enemy units. While you won’t get into combat often, free movement is free movement.
3. Living City–same as before, more or less. You can give a Cities of Sigmar or allied Sylvaneth unit (coalition is gone, by the way) the ability to outflank from reserves. With a Cavalier Marshal and some outflanking Cavaliers, you can get some sick charges off.
4. Vindicarum–you can rally in combat. Uhhhhh. Yeah. Did I mention Tahlia can rally multiple units, and they rally on 4+s when she does it?
5. Hammerhall Ghyra–You get an extra reinforced unit, and your Ghyra Human units have Bravery 10. Real gross.
6. Greywater Fastness–You can issue All-Out attack three times in the Shooting phase, and the first two times it’s ussed to a Greywater Fastness unit, no command points are spent. Free commands are great!
7. Settler’s Gain–+1 to casting for Settler’s Gain Wizards, and if you general is within 3″ of an Allied Lumineth unit, you get an extra CP. Pretty cute with Ellania and Ellathor from Lumineth to farm command points.
8. Hammerhall Aqsha–Hammerhall Aqsha heroes get an extra Order, but no duplicates. Also, if Aventis Firestrike is in your army, you get an extra CP in your hero phase. Cute, but it remains to be seen just how powerful the second order will be
9. Lethis–all non-priest Human heroes become Priests, and they all know a 12″ prayer on a 4+ that turns off wards. Strong, but nothing to write home about.
10. Tempest’s Eye–Tempest’s Eye and allied Kharadron units can retreat and still shoot. Discount Nighthaunt, essentially.
11. Excelsis–friendly Monsters get +1 to their wounds, and Freeguild Cavalier units now potentially do d3 MWs to one unit within 3″ of the Cavalier unit on a 4+ after it fights. Despite how good Cavaliers are in a vacuum, probably not the best use of them. Yawn.

Closing Thoughts

This is a great book. Everything feels on point, on theme, and just good overall. There’s obviously a few instances of the kids eating ice cream for breakfast, but beyond those points, this book is SOLID, and there’s a lot of good variety to be had.

What’s your favorite combo, unit, or city? Be sure to let us know!

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