Today on Tactics Shaman I’m going to take a closer look at the development to Cities of Sigmar brought on by the Broken Realms books.

Broken Realms: Morathi

Pretty much ignore this update. You gain the ability for one in four units to be daughters but that’s about it. 

Broken Realms: Teclis

Broken Realms on the other hand gives you this monstrosity:

Settler’s Gain

This is the new City Stronghold for Cities of Sigmar, which you take in place of picking one from the regular battletome.

• The city is from Hysh.
• You can give one of your freeguild or Collegiate arcane an extra relic ontop of your normal amount. (that’s handy if you need it)
• Your Collegiate arcane wizards get +1 to cast.
• One in four units can be a Lumineth Realm-Lords unit. (in addition to the one in four that can be Stormcast.)
• Command ability: Aelven Training (1 CP) = while they are wholly within 18” of a Lumineth Reamlords hero, all freeguild or Collegiate arcane are immune to Battleshock. This isn’t terrible if you’re running a mainly Freeguild army with a Loreseeker or the new twins or something.

Settler’s Gain Command Traits

The ones to note here are:

• Strategic Mastermind: If the general is on the table at start of your Hero phase, roll a D6; on a 4+ you get an additional Command Point.
• Raging Outburst: Gives you +1 to hit and wound rolls for the general’s combat weapons, but -1 permanently to your save rolls in combat. It’s… ok? This might be ok on a Stardrake but I don’t know if it would even be worth it then… not sure. Stardrakes in general still just aren’t great.

Settler’s Gain Artefacts

Again, the ones worth noting here are:

• Heart of Stone: The first time the bearer is slain, roll a D6; on a 4+ they aren’t slain, they heal one wound, and the rest of the attacks against them are negated. A worse Phoenix Stone from Lumineth.
• Silver-Plated Wand: You get an additional cast per turn.
• Amulet of Haste: Roll a D6 after you finish a run move, on a 2+ you can still charge that turn. (weird but.. I guess)
• Stone-Spirit Armour: Gives the ability to ignore wounds on a 6+ (only really relevant if you don’t have a Hurricanum), and the ability to ignore spells on a 5+.
• Blade of Leaping Bronze: The relic that Hedonites of Slaanesh wish they still had, gives +2 attacks to a melee weapon.

Settler’s Gain Spells

The problem with this lore is that all the spells require you to get dangerously close – 12” range spells.
And there are only 3 of them.

• Drain magic (CV 6): Wizards within 12″ – Including your own – are -2 to cast, unbind, and dispel.
• Shield of Light (CV 6): This is another way to get a 6+ roll to negate damage on a friendly unit but again, this is only relevant if you don’t have a Hurricanum and, again: You have to be wholly within 12” of your target.
• Illuminate (CV 6): Pick a visible enemy unit within 12”; until your next Hero phase add 1 to hit rolls against that unit made with missile weapons. 

The New Battalion

This City also gets another battalion, and like all Cities battalions, they are locked to the specific city. And all the heroes in the battalion become named. So, the battalion is a one-and-done.

Xintil War-Magi

• 1 Battlemage from Hysh becomes named
• 1 Luminark: becomes named
• 1 Hurricanum with battlemage: not named

You can re-roll the Searing beam of light dice to determine if a unit suffers d3 mortals, and the damage prevention roll produced by the Hurricanum is increased by 1 to a 5+. All of that seems… Pretty good. You get more reliable mortal wounds on units you’re probably taking in a Cities army anyway – it’s not bad.

What This Means

If you play cities already, and want to slowly build a Lumineth army, this is the way. The abilities this army gives Cities is basically all it does, and it’s more a “Lumineth-Light” list when going the other way; it has almost no buffs for running Lumineths in the army at all.

However, my friend Darren Watson of ETC Team England and Darren’s List Diaries sent me a list we’ve been talking about – one that kinda uses a bit of everything and is more or less something you can think of as: “AOE D3 mortal wounds to everyone!”, or “and you get d3 mortal wounds, and You get d3 mortal wounds, AND YOU get d3 mortal wounds” – The List.

Here we go:

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar

- City: Settler's Gain


Leaders

Archmage Teclis and Celennar, Spirit of Hysh (660)

-Drain Magic

Sevireth, Lord of the Seventh Wind (300)

Celestant-Prime (300)

Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (280)

-General

-Strategic Mastermind

-Silver Plated Wand

-Spell: Illuminate



Battleline

10 x Freeguild Handgunners (100)

10 x Freeguild Handgunners (100)

10 x Freeguild Guard (80)

- Halberds


Units

10 x Shadow Warriors (110)


Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs

Umbral Spellportal (70)



Total: 2000 / 2000

Extra Command Points: 0

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 85

The list doesn’t use the new battalion but you have the 5+ damage negation roll from Teclis casting Protection of Teclis.

Since you have Empowered Endless Spells, Teclis now has tablewide range on Storm of Searing White Light: 18” from the portal, (the portal can be placed anywhere on the table, because you’re in a Cities of Sigmar army and get that bonus.) The SoSWL is an 18” AOE d6 roll, on a 1, nothing happens, on a 2-4: d3 mortal wounds, and 5+: d6 mortal wounds to all enemies in that area. Again, tablewide cause of the portal.

Sevireth, then, has a movement of 24”, if he flies over you, on a 3+ can deal d3 mortal wounds. They can then Shoot at 18”, hitting on 2’s, wounding on 3’s, rend 3. (so basically ignore armor) d3 wounds, (since they ignore almost all armorsaves, basically d3 mortals per arrow that makes it.) then he can move another 12” at the end of the shooting phase, if they pass over you, 3+, d3 mortal wounds. If they charge, they have rend 2 attacks that hit on 2’s and wound on 3’s rend 2, d3 damage. 

The Hurricanum has Chainlighting which grants 18” d3 mortal wounds, that then targets every other enemy unit at 6” from that unit, and on a 4+ deals d3 mortals to those units. Then moves 10”(degradeable) and shoots (at full health,) 3 dice on each 2+ inflicts d3 mortals.

And, last but not least, the Celestant Prime: Deepstrike anywhere out of 9” of enemy units, pick any spot within 24” of himself, and every unit with d6” of that spot suffers d3 mortal wounds. He can then charge 12” and swing his hammer that has 3 attacks (+2 for each turn he doesn’t come down yet.) at 3+ 2+ -3 3 damage…

So aoe d3 mortals times 3, and a ton of direct d3 damage all over the place. 5-7 wound heroes will not survive unless they are extremely spread out. And even then can’t hide from the amount of projected range. Without support heroes, Celennar can actually deal some effective damage, and at the same time, all these units have been taking at least 3d3 mortals on top of any combat output from these heroes, and retaliation will be -2 to pile in because of Sevireth… Even tho Sevireth doesn’t get the Pile-in and out rules here because they don’t have Hurakan abilities in cities, they’re still range 3 combat and move 36” before charging. 

Leaving all the infantry to just casually screen the back if the field and hold the objectives as the heroes just clean up shop.

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