Age of Sigmar: My 3 Favorite Cities of Sigmar
Cities of Sigmar is imminent. Here are my three favorite Strongholds, and some tactics I plan to employ with them.
Each city brings a ton of unique new ways to play your Order armies. Chief among these is the new Stronghold of Order rule, which requires you to pick one of the cities for your army to be from, each with their own unique flavor and playstyle.
The Living City
As a huge fan of the Wood Elves of old, I was immediately drawn to the Living City, which Alarielle helped build to give her wayward children a home. After looking at their rules, they will definitely be the Stronghold I play, and very likely with no human or Duardin units. First off, all units can have one in every four units from their army be Stormcasts, but the Living City can also do this with Sylvaneth, another callback to Old World Wood Elves. They can also outflank, deploying off table and then arriving anywhere within 6” of any edge, so long as they are more than 9” away from enemy units. This is a great way to set up ambushes, grab backfield objectives, or take out a buried war machine or shooting unit.
Second, every hero phase all Living City units on the battlefield heal 1 wound. This isn’t much in itself if you have mostly single wound battleline, but if you have any Stormcast or some Kurnoth Hunters you can make an already tough unit practically immovable. Combined with an Emerald Lifeswarm, which automatically comes out overcharged when cast by a CoS wizard, this can make your Hunters immortal. Finally, the Living City Command Ability allows a Living City unit to make a normal move after shooting, provided they are within 12” of a Living City Hero. This is incredible for more mobile ranged units, like Outriders or Sisters of the Thorn, or for repositioning powerful shooters like Sisters of the Watch or Kurnoth Hunters. It seems like mobility and surgical strikes are the name of the game with this city, and I’m here for it.
Hallowheart
As if the auto-buffed Endless Spells weren’t magical prowess enough, the city of Hallowheart enters with magical might like no other. They’re all for Aqshy, which makes me think of the old flame-headed Bright Wizards of the past, and that really represents this Stronghold well. Their wizards can all cast an extra spell every hero phase, which gives them a lot of magical superiority over almost every army (save maybe Tzeentch but that’s literally their whole thing). Mix in an already powerful wizard or a couple Endless spells and you’ll definitely be saturating the field in magic almost every turn. Or save the points you would spend on a second wizard since you can get two spells for the price of one.
But Hallowheart armies aren’t just good at casting spells; they are really adept at resisting them as well. Whenever a Hallowheart unit is affected by a spell or endless spell, they can ignore it on a 5+. Going back to Tzeentch, this rule is going to make them very sad, and is going to throw a wrench in the gears of a lot of other armies as well. And if you absolutely, positively need to cast a spell, you can always go nuclear with the command ability Arcane Channeling. It allows you to roll a d6 and deal that many mortal wounds to one of your wizards, but then until your next hero phase you can add that number to all casting for other wizards within 12”. Putting this on a tough hero can make your already potent magic even scarier, and if you can somehow avoid the mortal wounds, it doesn’t lower the number added, so you can still buff up your wizards.
Anvilguard
Along with Wood Elves, back in OG Fantasy I had a pretty sizable Dark Elf force, and it centered around Corsairs. Anvilguard is the new pirate hotness in AoS, and their rules definitely reflect their status as the place to go for whatever you might need. You can pick one of three different underhanded tactics when you pick your army, either getting an additional Artefact, buffing one of your monsters, or giving you d3 extra command points. Each has its own benefits obviously, but the second one seems best to me, but then I just really like monsters. Speaking of monsters, Anvilguard adds a way to buff them called Drakeblood Curses, which are like mount traits for other armies. You get one default, plus one for every warscroll battalion you have, and an additional one if you take the Dabblings in Sorcery trait for your army. This can apply to any Dragons, Hydras, or Kharibdysses, so you can make a Dreadlord on Dragon extremely powerful if you give him an artefact and his dragon a trait.
Additionally in true Dark Elf fashion, you can inspire your units through acts of incredible cruelty with the Make an Example of the Weak command ability. If you use this ability, one unit wholly within 12” loses a model, but then all other Anvilguard units wholly within 18” of that unit ignore Battleshock, which is pretty great. Take a bunch of Dreadspears in large units and use them to keep your smaller units in the fight longer.
What’s your favorite Stronghold?
