by Calvin Rarie

What makes a battletome a good one is dependent entirely on its depth–a combination of good battle traits, good warscrolls, and good design choices. Soulblight Gravelords is one such book, dominated entirely by the conversation around Vyrkos and a shitload of Zombies being brain-dead easy to play while ludicrously tough to deal with. However, that does a disservice to the depth that exists in the book, which at its core is loaded with concepts and strategies that are just waiting to be explored.

On the flipside, you sometimes get books like Hedonites of Slaanesh. Despite some interesting combinations and depth among the different subfactions and warscrolls, in the greater competitive scene you almost exclusively see folks running 50+ Blissbarbs, because the Pretenders Subfaction (allowing your general to issue a command three times) makes Blissbarb Archers insanely efficient to the detriment of everything else in the book. If your goal is to be as efficient as possible, why wouldn’t you play that?

Which brings us to Cities of Sigmar–the leaked book hasn’t been out very long and yet the more obsessed folks (myself included) have already started to pore through the book and find the combinations necessary to make the book work. The question remains–is this just another Hedonites of Slaanesh release, or is there more to the book than spamming the best unit? Let’s find out.

What Exactly is a Power Combo?

Let’s go back to Blissbarb Archers for a second, as they are the lynch pin of the arguably most efficient and powerful combo in the game.

Now, Blissbarbs come in units of 11–10 archers and a little sausage running around that gives out a +1 to wound buff. The leader gets the typical additional attack, so you’re looking at 21 attacks from a unit of 10 that–with an All-Out Attack and the +1 to wound sausage–means they’re hitting on a 2+ and wounding on a 3+. Pretty efficient, right?

Well, the power combo in Hedonites is that your general gets to issue commands 3x a phase, meaning it passes out buffs to shots across the entire army. So, since Blissbarbs are Battleline, you’ll see blocks of 20 and even 30 archers zooming around peppering whole armies to death with efficient shooting. Also, Blissbarbs innately can run and shoot thanks to their warscroll ability, so thanks to their 6″ run and the Pretenders Subfaction, you can get a unit of 30x Blissbarbs running 12″ and shooting 18″, for a 30″ threat range.

To summarize, to get that kind of output you need:

• A subfaction to allow multiple commands;
• A warscroll ability for run and charge;
• A warscroll ability for +1 to wound;
• Two command points (auto-run and All-Out Attack);
• Being unrestricted Battleline, so no unit tax;
• A certain level of degeneracy.

Essentially, running the above requires very little to make it very good. Any sufficiently powerful combination of rules requires as few break-points as possible, and the only real breakpoint that exists in mass Blissbarbs is killing the general–which given the new Look-Out-Sir rules is much harder than it has ever been. In fact, I’d argue that this is potentially the most powerful combo in the game right now, since all of the above can fit in a 1 drop Battle Regiment. It sounds powerful, it feels powerful (both giving and receiving) and it is VERY good at what it does.

So now that we have our baseline for a power combo, let’s see some Cities of Sigmar combos.

Combo 1: The Guns of Sigmar

We’re going to get this out of the way now, because it’s by far the biggest conversational topic regarding the new book, and that’s the Freeguild Fusiliers.

Good grief that is a lot of text. Let’s summarize the above:

• Fortified Position: If this unit does not move and is not set-up in the movement phase then it is Fortified and gets to ignore negative save roll modifiers for shooting attacks.
  • Spoiler Alert: we’re gonna do whatever we can to stay Fortified.
• Fusiliers, Fire!: Was this unit moved or set up in the movement phase? If so, use the Mobile shooting profile, otherwise use the Fortified Position profile.
  • Spoiler Alert: shooting from a Fortified Position is WAY better than not.
• Resupply Run: a 1/game ability to give you full re-rolls to hit in your shooting phase that can only be used starting in Round 3.

Ok, so what’s the big deal? There’s movement restrictions, a powerful ability that can only be used in the late game, and it’s two shots on a 4+/4+. Additionally, they aren’t even Battleline unless you take a Freeguild Steelhelms unit in your list–similar to Sentinels and Wardens in Lumineth Realm-Lords.

Well, the Devil is in the details, and boy are there a lot of details to go over.

First up is your City (Subfaction). Remember how for Blissbarbs there’s a subfaction that lets your general issue All-Out Attack three times? Well the same is true here:

On an aside, you can also accomplish this with a Celestial Hurricanum, who has a 9″ +1 to hit bubble on its warscroll, though obviously that’s way more restrictive.

Important note about Greywater Fastness: this does not allow your general to issue All-Out Attack three times, just that the command can be issued three times. This is important because of the next piece of the puzzle, the Master of Ballistics Command Trait:

So let’s assume you’ve taken a unit of Freeguild Steelhelms to make a unit of Freeguild Fusiliers Battleline, so you double reinforce it to 30 Fusiliers, and you take two more units of 20x Fusiliers–at 150 for 10 Fusiliers, that’s 1050 points of gunline. In your Shooting Phase, your general issues All-Out Attack to the 30x Block, and the two 20x Blocks issue All-Out Attack to themselves.

In one phase you’re getting 62A/3+/3+/-1/1, and 84A/3+/4+/-1/1 from the other unit.

That’s pretty good! But we’re not done yet, because we can go even further.

Let me introduce you to possibly the most ludicrous 90 point hero ever made, the Alchemite Warforger:

In a nutshell, this badboy and his soup pot goes around and does one of two things:

• Hands a +1 to Save, 12″ bubble but can’t cast spells, or;
• Casts his Warscroll Spell and hands out a Giga-Curse to HUMAN units wholly within 12″, so their attacks always cause mortal wounds on 6s to hit in addition to their normal damage.

Also, if he decides to cast spells he’s at +1 to cast. Who the fuck at GW thought it was okay to give a 90 point Wizard an innate +1 to cast?

Anyway, picture that you’re in a Greywater Fastness army, have 70 fusiliers, and a general with the Master of Ballistics command trait, and then you later Blazing Weapons on top of that. So what’s that output look like?

Holy mother of god, look at that output! That’s 1 and a half Megas dead in that scenario.

But wait, Fusiliers move 5″ and if they move at all, they don’t get the Fortified Position shots. So that’s the drawback, right?

Let me introduce you to Orders–the big battle trait for Cities of Sigmar. Essentially, at the start of each battle round after the priority roll has been made, you can give each Cities of Sigmar Hero in your army one Order. These are chosen secretly, assigned secretly, and only revealed when you go to use them.

More importantly, these are not commands, so you can give orders and commands in the same turn. In particular, there’s an Order that is basically custom designed to help out with our movement problems with Fusiliers:

So, now you get to move the Fusiliers AND keep their Fortified Positions if they end their move within 3″ of the hero that uses the Order. So now you have 8″ movement on your 140 shot castle that has a 24″ range–meaning whatever starts the game within 32″ of your guns can now eat lead.

But what about even MORE movement?

This is possibly going to get FAQ’d for one very big reason–since Misthavn’s ability happens at the end of your hero phase, it doesn’t interfere with creating a Foritifed Position since the ability checks whether or not the unit moved or was set up in the movement phase. And while d6″ doesn’t sound like much, it’s still free movement, though I doubt it is better than Greywater Fastness’s free All-Out Attacks.

Lastly, if you’re taking that many guns, who not add even MORE range with a Human specific artefact?

27″ guns for everyone!

Well that’s a hell of a lot buffs we’ve just ran through, so let’s summarize:

The Guns of Sigmar Combo:

• City: Greywater Fastness for 3 All-Out Attacks in the Shooting Phase;
• Command Trait: Master of Ballistics to give out +1 to wound to one unit of Fusiliers when giving out All-Out Attack;
• Artefact: Mastro Vivetti’s Magnificent Macroscope to add 3″ to the Fusiliers shooting range;
• Lynchpin Spell: Alchemite Warforger’s Blazing Weapon to give out Mortal Wounds on 6s to hit in addition to regular damage;
• Order: Advance in Formation to add 3″ of movement and keep the Fortified Position attack profile on the Fusiliers.
• The result:
  • 5″ Base Move + 3″ from Advance in Formation = 8″ movement
  • 24″ Base Range + 3″ from the artefact = 27″ Shooting Attacks
  • 35″ total Threat Range on the following attack profiles:
    • 62 Attacks at 3+/3+/-1/1 with 6s to hit causing mortal wounds in addition;
    • 84 attacks at 3+/4+/-1/1 with 6s to hit causing mortal wounds in addition.

The best part is that the above is astoundingly cheap (points-wise), all things considered:

While there are better choices for generals, this is just a skeleton. After all, that’s 760 points to play around with–and we’re dangerously close to fitting all of that into a Battle Regiment! All you need is one more Battleline and some heroes, and you’ve got a stew going.

But what about the other combos in the book?

Combo 2: The Steam Tank Special

I love Steam Tanks. They are one of the most absolutely ridiculous things in all of Age of Sigmar, and was among the first things that really drew me into Warhammer when I first started playing. For years now they have been absolute ass, with random movement, a 3+ save, and the stupidest bracketing profile you’ve ever seen.

Seriously, look how fucking bad this is. It’s awful. So what changed?

Well, a lot:

Let’s summarize the improvements:

1. No more random movement, just a flat 8″;
2. A consistent 24″ range on the Steam Cannon;
3. Much more consistent damage on the Steam Cannon;
4. 12″ on the Steam Gun–yes we lost a pip of rend, but gain a 3+ to wound, which is FAR more consistent;
5. A flat 6 attacks on the grinding wheels which are now 2 Damage each, so they’re not useless in combat;
6. A Flat 2+ save making them LUDICROUSLY tough to damage;
7. Impact Mortal Wounds on the Charge;
8. Finally, an absolutely baller warscroll ability that lets you roll 2d6 in your hero phase and if you roll equal to or above the wounds allocated to it the Steam Tank can either:
   • Run and Charge/Shoot
   • Add 1 to the Cannon’s shots and add d6 to the Steam Gun’s shots.

All of this for 230 points, which is pretty damn efficient. The sauce though is that just in the previous book, you can make these bad boys battleline with a Steam Tank Commander:

Bonus points if you paint your commander to look like Brad Pitt from Fury.

So now you have Battleline, 2+ save Artillery pieces that are at minimum competent in combat. So how do we build on this?

Let me introduce you to the greatest ally ever made for the Steam Tank–the Lord-Ordinator!

For 110 points you get a 9″ permanent All-Out Attack bubble. Absolutely incredible.

Stack the Lord-Ordinator on top of an Alchemite Warforger, and you can give a Steam Tank +1 to Hit, and either +1 to Save, or 6s to hit is a mortal wound in addition to regular damage. With the Macroscope from earlier, all those tanks are at 27″ on the cannons and 15″ on the Steam Guns, and all those units are either on a 1+ or are dealing extra mortal wounds.

However, since Tanks are not Monsters, they only count as two models on objectives, so you can’t take an entire army of Steam Tanks and expect to do well–unless you don’t give a shit and do it anyway which, if you do, bravo. So you need bodies to fill out a list, which thankfully the book is absolutely filled with–which would push this article to War and Peace lengths if we went down that rabbit hole, but we’ll have an article soon talking about what to fill out a Steam Tanks list later on.

However, there are two big additions to make this Steel Castle even tougher:

1. Pontifex Zenestra: You can now apparently bring the Pope with you on campaign, which is sweet. Even better is that she has a prayer on a 3+ that can give out a 5+ Ward to human units wholly within 18″ of her.
   • What’s better than a 1+ Save Steam Tank? How about a 1+ Save and a 5+ Warded Steam Tank!
2. Freeguild Command Corps: The Human Equivalent of the Gobbapalooza does a lot of stuff, but the big one is that in your Hero phase, you can pick up to 3 Human units wholly within 12″ of this unit while it has a Sawbones to be healed d3 wounds, or put back d3 wounds worth of models if the picked unit isn’t wounded.
   • Note: The ability doesn’t say different units to be picked, so you could pick the same Steam Tank 3 times and heal it 3d3 wounds:

You are pretty wide-open for your choice of Cities out there, though my personal favorite for buffing Steam Tanks is Hammerhall Aqsha where you can hand out two Orders to a Hero instead of one:

So what does a Steam Tank framework look like?

Is the command Corps necessary? Probably not, but even still you have 430 points to play around with to fill it out.

Combo 3: Unblockable Elves

This is a far less complex combo than the others, because this begins and ends with one of the most bonkers spells ever printed:

Seriously, you more or less just slap this on whatever melee unit you want and watch them kill just about anything they fight. Given that the only casters who can cast this are a Sorceress on foot or a Sorceress on Black Dragon, you’re almost always going to pick the foot wizard version for the Look-Out Sir protection.

That being said, it’s only a 9″ spell and the affected Aelf unit has to be wholly within range, which is pretty damn restrictive. So how do we get around that?

With an artefact, of course!

While there are definitely some riders there on when you can get the extra 6″, the reality is that you’re often going to have no problem getting something in. Add on top of that Primal Dice and the fact that the Sorceress has a warscroll ability where she can get +2 to cast if she slays a friendly Darkling Covens model within 3″ of her in her hero phase, and you’re going to get this spell off reliably.

So what’s the best option for this combo? Enter the Black Ark Corsairs:

Always take the paired Vicious Blades here. Now–mind you–3 attacks at 4+/4+/-/1 sucks, but it gets WAY better when you pair them with a Black Ark Fleetmaster:

Take a Fleetmaster, 20 Corsairs, and put Tenebrael Blades on them and now you get 81 Attacks at 3+/4+/-Infinity/1. That’s an INSANE amount of damage. Misthavn was designed to enable shenanigans like this, giving the Corsairs and their Fleetmaster an extra d6″ of movement.

So what would a framework look like for something like this?

That is a LOT of room to play with. And with Cities units being dirt cheap points wise, the sky’s the limit here.

Final Thoughts

These combos are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s still more to uncover and unpack, especially when you have a book as deep as this. The above is just what stands out most to me, but I’m sure there’s some other really awesome combos waiting to be cooked up. Do you have any that stands out to you, or any you think are certified bangers? Let us know!

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