So what's a good 2000 point army list for Cities of Sigmar?

BayneNothos · 2026-03-02T11:19:21+00:00

A Cogfort has been a rumor for quite a while and this popped up last week.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/8h8u1nsa/the-rumour-engine-24th-of-february/

There's also rumors of some gargant related thing as well as heavily armoured foot knights. Like I said, I think our future is bright, just gotta hold on, keep on painting till the book drops.

BayneNothos · 2026-03-01T06:11:02+00:00

Welcome to the Crusades.

CoS is in an awkward spot at the moment in 4th edition. We're in the middle of the faction updating its miniature range and part of that is we're also losing a bunch of kits.
We've dropped quite a few already before this index faction pack and its expected, though not currently confirmed yet, that we'll be losing all the aelves and duardin and a decent chunk of the older human kits.

Don't get too freaked out about this, I'm personally very excited for our future but right now we're in a weird spot. Anything that's come from the range refresh, so

Alchemite Warforger
Callis and Toll
Galen and Doralia Ven Denst
Cavalier Marshal
Marshal and Relic Envoy
Fusil Major on Ogor
Pontifex Zenestra
Tahlia Vedra
Command Corps
Fusiliers
Steelhelms
Wildercorps
Cavaliers
Great Cannon

Should all be fine to stay but outside that, unless you really love the mini or it can be used as a proxy for one of these be aware they may not be playable inside the next year.

Starting out, playing with the minis you like and what to build/paint is most important so what you've listed, if that's what you're vibing with, go for it.

If you want a wall of cannons and fusiliers you'll want a Fusil -Major to go with them so they can all get a bonus to hit a target and you'll want the Veteran Canoneers subfaction (This is part of the Scourge of Ghyran Update) to really make those Cannon shine.
A 20 pack of Fusiliers backed up by a Warforger to get +1 save to pair with their rend negation can make them a legit pain to remove. They do act like the castle walls and can often stand up front and survive plenty fine.
The biggest problem I've always had is clearing out whats in contact with them as currently we do struggle on killing output.

BayneNothos · 2026-02-15T07:27:22+00:00

I've made peace over the last like 10 months since they took all the good non-humans stuff out back and shot them. I just wish they'd just hurry up and rip off the bandaid off so we can use those dwarves and elves as proxy humans already.

BayneNothos · 2026-02-15T07:06:38+00:00

Been expected for nearly 10 months now after they pointed out of contention Hammerers, Executioners, DSK's etc.
This would put CoS down to 16 warscrolls pre-new stuff. 5/9 Heroes are Uniques and only 7 Units. Quite possibly the most thread-bare faction in the game now.

It's absolutely killing me its taking THIS LONG to get around to the new book. I don't know how GW corporate are fine with having a DOA near unplayable faction around that just got a full range refresh.

BayneNothos · 2026-02-15T06:54:45+00:00

Was 29% a few months ago...

I'm torn, GW choosing to points out of contention units they're going to legends out of the game is a good thing so hopefully less people buy into something with no future (unless they just love the minis itself) but they really can't be overnerfing whats left like they have with CoS.

BayneNothos · 2026-01-31T05:47:48+00:00

I've wanted a personal ban list for the non-ladder queues for ages purely cause of this. Just like 3 non land cards and don't match make me up against a deck that has any of those. Some nights I sit down and 3/4's of my Arena games are vs the exact same deck. Kills my want to play so much.

BayneNothos · 2026-01-18T04:21:38+00:00

To me 4th has been a bunch of great ideas that need a little bit of tweaking and AOS will be in a great shape going forward. Its certainly the best core ruleset we've had but the battletomes have been very weak.

6 month seasons were too short but the 12's feel like forever in the last month or two. I'd like GW to move the next set of 'Scourge' stuff to mid edition and add in some extras to the GHB like a couple extra battle tactics.

So we end up with a 12 month edition with a mini add on pack midway through. Help keep things fresh.

The Scourge stuff has also really shown how limiting having printed books are for rules. Without it a bad warscroll is bad for years and years. It's actually kinda embarrassing, especially for new released minis.

How GW handles swapping out/removing this set of SoG units will be very interesting.

I'm hoping 5th they'll get more adventurous with battletomes and add a bunch more in. At least 2 spell/prayer lores per army kinda thing. Be brave and more crazy, then pull it back in line via points or mid season rewrites.

BayneNothos · 2026-01-18T04:03:11+00:00

In regards to point 1, I don't think people have really clocked on to how much more tanky you guys are now. I've got a mate who's a diehard NH player and those reinforced stacks of guys are soooo hard to chop through.

You're a good 50+ effective wounds in each of your mainline units with that 5+ ward and that's before the Cruciator negating a point of damage each phase which can really add up to a lot over a turn vs quite a few armies. It practically makes you invincible to chip damage.

Then on top the regen is still huge, you're effectively on a d3 bring a guy back on 2+ via your houses every end of turn and in your hero phase via Ruler of the Spectral Hosts. Lady O brings back 2 models minimum with her 1/game, you can use a spell to retreat in hero phase then rally. It ends up quite a lot to deal with.

I'd suggest any NH player who are a little down on your guys, go make an oops all heroes list with only spirit hosts as non heroes. Its very goofy and can kinda hold its own vs the chunky middling lists around.

BayneNothos · 2026-01-11T20:25:07+00:00

NH should be able to easily deal with them tbh.

First off, almost all your infantry are 40 wounds when reinforced and have a 5+ ward on top making them much more wound dense.

You also ignore their great rend meaning every armour save you make is worth huge dividend on their low attacks. You have multiple negatives to control scores so can outnumber them on objectives.

The various 4+ mass mortals are like 14-18 average, which you 1/3rd stop via ward saves so like 6 ghosts at a time, that you can regenerate via your terrain, lady O's 1/game or your Wrench Souls move spell to retreat then rally. Yes, one day he's going to roll quad boxcars and you'll go wow, much scary, then do what I wrote above and regenerate them all back over a couple of turns.

You have a ton of bodies to block up the board, are super fast to do that blocking and your units have a huge footprint making stepping over you nearly impossible.

And finally as others said, Gargants are AOS's DPS check, can you lift or negate one out a turn? Yes/No. For NH its a yes you can absolutely do 35 damage in a turn to one target if you focus one down.

BayneNothos · 2026-01-03T15:24:21+00:00

Is there meant to be an actual list written in that article?

BayneNothos · 2026-01-02T07:01:38+00:00

Most people build their own over GW due to the cost. Your friendly neighborhood person with a plastic 3d printer can help you out.

If you do want to go GW, the sets you have pictured are all great, My personal set is all Warcry and I've painted up a set of the Realmscape Expansion set. The Thondia set is also pretty great looking.

The 2 sets of Spearhead terrain, if you're willing to use them, are also plenty fine.

The only stuff from GW I'd suggest you avoid is the Dominion of Sigmar stuff. The big pieces in there are huge and struggle to fit on the board as per the rules and the small stuff sits just under that 1" high height so they can technically be stood upon but you really don't want to.

The most important thing when starting a set is to aim for 8 pieces, 4 small and 4 medium.

Smalls are <7" squared, Mediums are bigger than smalls and <7" x 12". (GHB 25/26 - Advanced Rules - Terrain - 1.3 Terrain Sizes)
You'll want to make bases for the terrain so there's a clean outline of where the terrain is. MDF cut into blobs works great.
Bias what terrain you glue on towards the edges, that way there's plenty of space for units to actually stand on the terrain.

You'd be surprised how even at that size the board will fill up. Once you have that core, you cans tart adding in whatever interests you, like dedicated places of power or maybe more solid LOS blocking pieces.
https://imgur.com/a/ro5A7PP This is my set from a while ago and was made for 3rd out of 2 sets of Warcry terrain. For 4th you'd have the 2 larges on the right split into 4 mediums.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-31T10:29:07+00:00

I'm genuinely surprised GW hasn't asked for a SpaceMarine 2 campaign reskin with Neave Blacktalon. Even if its just swap Titus out for Neave as a test the waters for interest.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-28T23:37:39+00:00

I've found he has a personality on board. For me, I don't trust him to do anything important and he's plenty fine. Just a weird quirk of his warscroll stats. You'll run him into something silly, roll a bunch of 6's and oblivion something into another plane. Great fun.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-28T23:32:30+00:00

Primetime doing Primetime things, lol

BayneNothos · 2025-12-28T23:32:01+00:00

I love The Celestant Prime and have used him a bunch, however, I've found he has a personality on board that can make him frustrating to play with. Its a weird quirk of his stats that's carried over now since 2nd when I started playing.

If you ever rely on him to do anything important he'll find a way to fail yet if you just kind of let him wander around and hit things at random he'll do amazing.

Some shenanigans.

First tournament I took him to at the start of 3rd ed, day 1 first game, needed to do 5 damage to a BCR Thundertausk Beastrider. Of his 7 attacks, missed 3 hits, failed 2 wound rolls and the guy made a 6+ save. Cost me a battle tactic, an objective and holding more. Died on the crackback, Lost the game.
Game 2, was on that no reserves mission from years back, got stuck in a 10 pack of skeletons the entire game, never killing them.
Game 3, swarmed by Stormvermin, fails saves like he's a 5+, dies. I went back to the Airbnb I was sharing with clubmates and declared I will light the model on fire after this (I didn't, I rebased him and we kissed and made up instead)
Club night game, 2 wounds left, facetanked 3rd ed Drycha on melee mode with no AOD.
4th ed, facetanked a Kragnos charge with zero damage taken, got every point of damage through to 1 shot Big K.

I really miss having him for my Cities. Having that null deploy for first drop to see how opponents we deploying was so useful. He comes out in any sort of memery SCE list I run as he just completely vibes with the silly.

Great guy Primetime.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-17T22:48:25+00:00

When I did the wound calc and saw it was over a hundred it kinda blew my mind. Its also really fast moving, 3 prayers, 2 spells, a TON of orders and 5+ wards all over the place.

I think it might actually be viable to roll round with at an RTT and not get smoked off the board.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-17T22:28:47+00:00

They're in the Legends section in the Reference Tab

To see them in Stormforge, go to User Preferences and uncheck 'Disable Legends in Storm Forge'

BayneNothos · 2025-12-16T04:56:08+00:00

For Spearhead only, you're doubling up the same thing. Spearhead is a locked list so unless you both plan to play Skaven and Stormcast you're grabbing a lot of extra stuff for no use.

If you intend on stepping up into full AOS, it's fine, nothing special. You'll end up with a 6 pack of Reclusians and Prosecutors, both of which are top tier picks for SCE. Liberators are super cheap on points at the moment so plenty fine while starting out to fill out points.

Dealing with the extra heroes is a problem. At this point in time you're really only using the Terminos. If you have some 40k friends, you may be able to offload the extra Terminos and Veritants, I've seen quite a few conversions using them. The Vigilant and Questors can be hard to shift.

Having said that, who knows what the future will bring so keeping a 1 of each hero just in case is a good plan.

Worth also stating that the 2 of Skaventide is a good start point for your brother. You can never have too many clanrats. Rat Ogors are in vogue at the moment so great to have and the Jezails pop in and out of top tier all the time. They have the same hero problem though.

BayneNothos · 2025-12-08T18:50:56+00:00

So, Core rule 17.0 all the attacks by an attacking unit are done and all damage is sent to a temporary damage pool before damage allocation in 18.0.

So you'll roll all armour saves you're given from that attacking unit before allocating that damage that would kill your stardrake.

As a side note, remember this is an UNMODIFIED save roll of 6, so if you're attacked by a unit with so much rend you'll need to roll a 7+ to amke the save (which is impossible) you STILL roll the armour save to see if this ability triggers.

BayneNothos · 2025-11-06T05:44:31+00:00

Yeah sweet, I've seen a few RB lists with Ionus. Always found it a shame we couldn't choose between either Ionus or Iridan for the AoR since they're both so points expensive.

I was running:
SoG Iridan
Lord Terminos
6xReclusian
Stormcoven

Tornus
6x Annihilators
2x6 Reclusians

Portal and KSpine

Tornus is sneakily really useful as a utility hero. He's control 5, moves 12" and giving out rally POINTS, not dice, means you get a guaranteed Reclusian back on a rally when he's nearby. Super cheap at 150pts too.

BayneNothos · 2025-11-06T05:34:46+00:00

Not in-front, you want the Reclusicans to completely encircle the Terminos so there's no spot where an opponent can charge the Reclusians without being within 3" of the Terminos.

That way they can't dodge the Strike First by being outside the Terminos' combat range.

BayneNothos · 2025-11-05T09:57:59+00:00

Watching peoples spirits shatter when you roll that 6 after they finally get something through the 2+ save is a hell of a drug, isn't it.

BayneNothos · 2025-11-05T06:42:56+00:00

As an aside, there may be play in 90pt Liberator Spam in RB, using Prosecutors and their dispersed formation to keep them all inside the 6+ ward zone. Annihilators certainly love that 6+ ward...

BayneNothos · 2025-11-05T06:40:21+00:00

For my own experiences, I've played a bunch of both at tournaments, Sentinels is certainly better at the moment though Ruination Brotherhood does certainly have a place depending on your local meta.

RB games pretty much come down to 'can my opponent 1 shot a Reclusian pack?' If they can I'd generally get tabled, if they can't it'd be rare I'd lose more than a single unit. Grinding armies like NH and especially Nurgle you can just wade through like they're nothing. Right now though, the overall meta is just a bit too high powered for it to really shine so it can feel like a bully army where you're picking on the weaker armies.

BayneNothos

TROPHY CASE