Editing Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Cities of Sigmar (section)

==List building==
With so many unit options, the first steps are to decide what to use as a battleline (you may pick your general based on your battlelines or your battlelines on the general you want). 
After that, it comes down to picking what you want. There's no restriction on thematics, there's nothing stopping you from taking only one unit from each faction. Don't let a Grudge from the world that was stop you from fielding a line of Duardin with Aelf Cavalry. '''[[Book of Grudges|THAT'S GOING IN THE BOOK]]'''

When picking, pay attention to differences as many units do the same thing but with additional niches. 

Ideally, you should try to use some faction synergy, like taking heroes to boost your units' performance.

Playing duardin? Increase your rend and/or attacks with runelords and warden kings. Playing freeguild? You are favoring a static gunline around a general that wants you to hold the line. The darkling coven can run and shoot/charge with a cp, making them quite mobile. Generally collegiate arcane wizards are good with everyone and generally, you should at least take one battlemage for every army you want to build. 

===City builds===
*'''Hammerhal:''' the CP Generator. Along with getting artifacts from either realm, for each unit (they will have a banner) you can gain CP. Freeguild and Covens benefit greatly for having piles of CP to burn.

*'''Anvilgard:''' gives treats to Dark elf monsters (Dragon/Kharibdyss/War Hydra). Flying wizards and Sisters of the Thorn are great at delivering their close-range spells. Black dealing lets you build have more equipment or cp.  Their Unique CA also lend well to hoards as you can spend 1 cp + slay a model, preferably on a big brick of 40, to create a massive ignore battleshock aura. A noticable combo here is a Sorceress on BD with two casters with spell portal and vitrolic spray. Step 1: cast spell portal near sorceress and caster number 2. Step 2: cast vitrolic spray on anything you don't like. Step 3: cast Storm of blades from your sorceress. Conclusion: About 9 mortal wounds and a crying opponent.

*'''Tempest's Eye:''' the city for fast, hit harder bastards. Personally, an all-out cavalry list can be quite devastating with this city, thanks to his bonuses in the first round. The faster you get into melee, the better, this is also extremely easy if you get the command trait and artifact who give you the +1 at the charge and the ability to re-roll the charge rolls without command points. it's up to you which kind of cavalry you want. Dark riders and outriders are light, skirmish units good for shooting afar, demigryph and drakespawn knights can deal devastating charge, helped by the Stormcast's monsters-riders like fulminators. Technology vehicles are also good, going from gyrocopters to arkhanaut airships. You also get good spells who are perfect for a celestial hurricanum with battlemage (aura of glory just behind a band of drakespawn? Yes, please!) good monsters like black dragon or hippogryph can take out the enemy's monsters, and a band of pistolers for charge right where the enemy shows a weak point, for destroying his lines. At least, if you want a band of objective grabbers, flagellants are what you need. Just remember, outflanking and outmaneuvering are the keywords of this army. 

*'''Hallowheart:''' Going Magic spam.
**Nomad Prince generals are nice for Hallowheart armies since they unlock battleline cavalry wizards and the Sisters also benefit from Hallowheart's 2 spells of your choice rule.
**Between their unique battalion, the Hurricanum, a Sorceress' ability to leech Coven units, and Hallowheart's command ability, you can stack up a casting bonus of +5-10, if you really want to get that always-empowered Endless Spell off.
**ALTERNATIVE TAKE: With innate magic resistance, Hallowheart is actually well situated to run a non-magic army. Take some dorfs and you got yourself a really tanky army that’ll take an act of the Ruinous Powers to upturn.

*'''The Living City:''' let half your army ambush, take Sylvaneth units, heals Hero's and monsters every turn.
**Surprisingly decent choice for a Steam Tank army- Iron Oak Artisan command trait gives a 2+ save to your lead tank, and having several tanks come in from the board edges can mitigate their random movement and let you place your guns exactly where you need them. Getting a wound back per turn is always welcome on models with damage tables.
**Instead of using their battalion, consider getting the use out of their unique command ability instead. Take units that have good melee/charge ability that also have a ranged attack (such as Drakespawn Chariots, dreadlords on Dragons, or various flavours of Stormcast Dracoth cavalry), set them up from ambush with a Hero, shoot, use the command ability, enjoy your 3" charge.
***However, this is tricky to do with multiple units due to it requiring a CP per unit, and your only source of additional CPs in Living City is a squishy General with an adjutant. Which means no spamming the ability with an army made solely of tanks.

*'''Greywater Fastness:''' Very supportive of Artillery and missile weapon, encouraging you to sit back and blast the enemy apart.
**a lot of abilities call for the range approach, the CA buff Freeguild Handgunners and Irondrakes. Also, Good Idea to Invest in most units that gain bonuses from Playing defensively in addition to the object grabbers, enemies will be coming for you.
**If you go Freeguild focused, take a Freeguild General with Drillmaster and Handgunner so resulting in (16" 2+/2+/-1/1) shooting, and a (30" 2+/2+/-1/2) sniper Rifle per unit.
**If you go duardin, take a Cogsmith and some cannons from Blacksmoke Battery Mercenary Companie. Then a Runelord for the city's prayer, who work on IRONWIELD ARSENAL WAR MACHINE.
**In any case, if you play many WAR MACHINES, just take a STORMCAST LORD-ORDINATOR, with his Arcane Engineer rule, all ORDER WAR MACHINES wholly within 9" get +1 to hit. Just too good to miss.

*'''The Phoenicium:''' It might be expensive at $45 US for a box of ten models, but you can field so much with Phoenix Guard. Take as MSU or as blocks of thirty for one of the game's better battlelines. For The Phoenicium you can take them as MSU and bring two Frostheart Phoenix and one Anointed on foot for dispels and unbinds. Use your CA to make your front unit of ten fight again before they die, and then the general gets buffed up if any models die. Screen off the map and board control with these murder Aelves.
** Flagellants make a good battleline with a Human general, being happy to die, and are cheap enough to act as a tarpit.

*'''Har Kuron:''' A little bit disappointing, as the allegiance abilities boil down to a prayer that you might not get off and 3 additional spells. Where this excells is at taking full advantage from that pray. A super buffed witch aelves unit with witchbrew and the prayer can be terrifying, although you can just do this in DoK. A 40 man unit of Black Ark Corsairs buffed by a Black Ark Fleetmaster with exploding sixes and +1 to wound is the real deal. That's a metric ton of dice. Darkshards in the new battalion also profit from the exploding sixes, as the prayer also works on missile attacks and a 10 man unit of Darkshards can shoot 30 shots if Drusa says so, although the dreadspears are quite a point tax. Overall you gotta abuse the prayer or you get almost nothing in this Allegiance.

*'''Misthåvn:''' The lack of spells is pretty off-putting, but what it lacks in casting makes up for in punch. One could use Runelords to function as anti-magic and buff for objective babysitters like ironbreakers, while you hold your unit of 20 drakespawn knights, War Hydra and dreadlord on a black dragon in reserve to get a guaranteed charge on your opponent's high value targets. Strangler-Kelp Noose can let you do this safely as well.

*'''Settler's Gain:''' The Aelven Fan Club, gives bonuses to human nerds (Collegiate Arcanum Wizards) and Jocks (Freeguild heroes and units), for being near the superior Lumineth Elves. The bonus to casting for battlemages and the free artefact for either Freeguild or Collegiate Arcanum heroes seems to encourage spending on heroes, similar to how the quite nice Command Ability mandates taking at least one Lumineth Realmlords Aelf Hero to anchor your humans. Note that despite the small bonuses to casting, this isn't Hallowheart where your wizards let you throw hands magically speaking. Note that nothing stops you from taking a Steam Tank Commander as your general with the Personal Levitation trait for FLYING STEAM TANK! TAKE THAT YOU STEAMPUNK MIDGETS!

===Transport Tactics===
many footsloggers units are strong fighters but need methods to reliably reach their prey.

*The Living City Hidden Paths: lets Half your army arrive on board

*Endless spells: you need to pay points but they can cover a lot of ground Especially since they are automatically empowered.

*Misthovan underhand tactics: One Freeguild, Duardin or Darkling Covens can appear on the board for every Order Serpentis, Shadowblades or Scourge Privateers that does the same.

===Endless Spells===
'''Magic Support:'''
*'''Umbral Spell Portal:''' can be cast anywhere on the board. Short-range but powerful spells like Anvilgard’s spell that removes saves or Hallowheart’s spell that deals mortal wounds to half the models in a unit can be cast from well outside unbind range (unless you're fighting a Slann).
*'''Chronomantic Cogs:''' you know what they do. +1 spell or +2" movement.
*'''Emerald Lifeswarm:''' always heals D6 - useful for bringing back elite units like Phoenix Guard, or for healing damage back to your Celestial Hurricanum with Battlemage after you took damage to empower your Hallowheart wizards.
*'''Prismatic Palisade:''' Deployable Line of sight blocking 

'''Transports:'''
*'''The Soulscream Bridge:''' allows you to move models 24” (or really up to 30-36” if you go from the back to the front of the bridge) without them counting as having moved - excellent for getting your Irondrakes or Handgunners into range while still getting those extra shots.
*'''Lauchon the Soulseeker:''' Magic Transport. Pile in some Duardin, move them 18", then use a Lifeswarm to bring back that guy still on the boat.

'''Slowdown:'''
*'''Soulsnare Shackles:''' cover a larger area - instead of threatening up to 24” away, you can threaten up to 27” away, allowing for a turn 1 shackles onto an enemy’s front rank regardless of mission.

'''Damage:'''
*'''Geminids''' are always a good option and are made better when you can reroll the D3 mortal wounds in case you roll a 1.

===Strategies and Lists===

'''who got the guts?!'''
An army based on enemy battleshock, so better not use it against fyreslayers and Death armies - especially Ossiarch. Play a kharibdyss on anvilgard for getting the -2 bravery bubble who get together with its passive ability, going to a -3 12" bubble. Now, take an horrorgast endless spell (or a gravetide for spare points and money) adding a -2(1) together. For end all of this, a battlemage coming from shysh for his unique spell -2 to a specific unit and darks riders for shoots and -1 around them. You now have more enemy units under a sure -6(5) that can influence more units and a -2 that you can add at a enemy unit that you hate in a peculiar way. Positioning is the key of this strategy. Now you just need some good shooting (hellstorm or crossbowmen) for make inflict casualties at more units at once. Look at your enemy when he have to do a terrible battleshock test with elites units like stomcast, ogor, troll or when he know that his hordes models are going to desert in mass. (it's easy to give a dark elves theme at this army. Remember that other units, mercenaries and allies influenced bravery as well) (also wizards who would get benefits from low bravery characteristic, like a lord-exorcist on balewind vortex)

Addendum: Bravery debuffing is good, but how can we really maximize this? The Tenebrous Court mercenary company. This company lets you bring FEC units as allies. The magic trick here is Crypt Flayers, who have a shooting attack that does MWs based on a Bravery contest. At 2000 points, that's either two units of three or one unit of six. We can offset the turn 1 CP loss for bringing a mercenary company with one of the Anvilgard allegiance ability choices, giving us d3 extra CP at the start of the game. Getting all the pieces set up on the battlefield to pull this off will be the challenge, but since the Flayers are doing this in the shooting phase, your opponent can't use his own CP to protect the unit. '''As of GHB 2020, it's questionable if this is still a legal strategy. The Mercenary options were removed from the Warscroll Builder and weren't brought forward into the new GHB. However, Tenebrous Court is also in Forbidden Power, so technically the rules are still valid?'''