The Mortal Realms are filled with horrors unimaginable, from the towering monsters of Ghur to the restless dead of Shyish. Even the Realms themselves are a threat to the lives of mere mortals. But standing as bastions of light and hope in all that terror are the Cities of Sigmar. Mighty cities that stand against the darkness and inhabited by Humans, Duardin and Aelves, these cities are often the only defense against the dangers of the Realms. Marching out from these cities and standing loyal to the God King Sigmar, the Dawnbringer Crusades are tasked with expanding the presence of these forces across the realms, and with the new Cities of Sigmar Army Set and 3rd Edition Battletome for Warhammer Age of Sigmar the Cities of Sigmar now have some new reinforcements.

Today the brand new Cities of Sigmar Army Set goes up for pre order, containing not just the new Cities of Sigmar Battletome but a host of new models and accessories! In this post we’ll be taking a look at what is included in the box, try and work out what value is contained within, paint up the models and check out the new battletome with our full review.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free copy of the Army Set a little early to paint up and review on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too

We have also filmed a full unboxing and video review, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So gather your best troops and bring the fight to the enemies of Sigmar as we check out the new Cities of Sigmar Army Set.

Cities of Sigmar Army Set Unboxing & Review

Army Sets are a concept that Games Workshop have been doing for a while now, and I’m a big fan. Essentially it is a box containing a limited edition copy of the new Battletome/Codex bundled with a collection of miniatures, usually a little while before the main release to allow fans to get access to them a little before the full wave is out. This is great as not only does it allow you to get your scheme ready before the main release, but it also allows you to have an army list in mind before the models are released so that you already have an idea how the army plays and what models you want to pick up.

This box clocks in at £120, but what’s contained within? Well let’s take a look!

The thing a lot of people will be picking this box up for is the limited edition Cities of Sigmar Battletome sporting gold edged pages and a gorgeous cover depicting the icons of the various cities. We’ll be taking a proper look inside a little further down, but this is a really good looking book and one of my favourite 3rd edition covers!

Alongside the Battletome we also get a full set of warscroll cards. Like with the Slaves to Darkness box before it, this contains not just the contents of the box but the warscrolls for every single model in the Battletome along with the usual sheets of punch out tokens depicting spell effects, abilities and battle tactics/

Speaking of punch sheets, we also get a full sheet with all the tokens needed for the Cities of Sigmar new order system. We’ll talk about this a little further down when we get to the main review, but if you think of an Age of Sigmar equivalent to Astra Militarum orders, then you’ll have an idea of what these are used for – but these ones that are secret until revealed, because of that double sided tokens are used to secretly mark which characters are giving which orders. These can then be flipped over once used, and the sheet also contains a collection of tokens with the order rules on them, so you can leave them on the battlefield to remind you of what they do.

You also a set of cards detailing all spells, prayers, artifacts and command traits, again making it really easy to keep tabs on what models have each enhancement. These also contain the orders that can be given to heroes too, which makes it a little odd they are also printed on the card sheet (Though I suspect that will be also packed with the standard Battletomes too)

For adding heraldry and markings to your units, you also get 4 copies of a brand new transfer sheet – it’s been a while since we’ve had any new Age of Sigmar transfers, and these really are brilliant covering not only each of the named Cities of Sigmar but also a selection of generic symbols that you can use to invent your own custom ones! The majority of the models in the new Cities of Sigmar range have got nice flat areas on their shields and banners for you to affix these to – but also leaves the door open for some nice freehand designs too!

Speaking of new models, you also get 28 brand new ones in the box. Cities of Sigmar always seemed to be the faction that contained all the old Warhammer Fantasy models that hadn’t been discontinued. However, with The Old World on the way and many of the classic Empire kits leaving the Age of Sigmar range to rejoin their parent armies, the studio has taken the opportunity to design new models that capture the feeling of what the average Human in the Mortal Realms looks like. The models look absolutly gorgeous and I think Cities of Sigmar may well be the faction that gets a lot of people into Warhammer Age of Sigmar – I’m tempted to say that if we saw a “Wave 2” in a launch box rather than Stormcast then it could be the thing that makes it fly off the shelves for those with a craving for more classic fantasy style elements. Quick note here, all of the banners, robes and loose bits of clothing are all “blowing” in the same direction, which makes the army look really cool together on the battlefield.

First up we have the Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy – this is a very customisable kit with a host of different weapon options. I’ve opted to build mine with a warhammer but theres pistols, swords and a shield that you can also use! You can also choose to build him with or without his helmet too

Another hero joining him is the Alchemite Warforger, this is an alchemist/wizard that can either cast spells or improve saves of nearby units – its a very different look for a wizard and I love the sinister mask he has!

One of the coolest kits released for a long time are the new Freeguild Cavaliers, again these are quite modular and you end up with a unit of very unique looking knights – what’s cool is that the transfer sheet actually has enough unique heraldry pieces to be able to give up to 15 Cavaliers each their unique markings 5 are contained in the box

Finally we get 20 of the new Freeguild Steelhelms allowing you to build 2 units of 10 with full command. Again these take the concept of the old Warhammer infantry, but give them a very distinct Age of Sigmar look that feels at home in the Mortal Realms.

With 3 boxes that will most likely not sell for less that £30 and 2 character blisters that probably will be more than £20 each there’s at least £130 of miniatures here before you even add the value of the limited battletome and all the cards and tokens – If you are tempted to get into Cities of Sigmar and want all these kits then you’ll be saving around £50 on the contents in this box too (And the units here you’ll most likely want in your force) Also, interestingly if you pick up this box plus each of the other new kits that is on the way you have a fully legal 2000 point force, which is a nice touch.

So with the kits and box contents looked at, let’s now check out the battletome itself.

Cities of Sigmar 3rd Edition Battletome Review

Can you believe it was 2019 when the last Cities of Sigmar book was released? Time certainly flies! While that book was very much a way of using your old Warhammer fantasy models in games of Age of Sigmar, the new book looks to give the Cities of Sigmar their own look and style – though I will say that this book seems like it’s halfway through that transition.

I think the real deciding factor for this is The Old World. All of the old High Elf, Wood Elf and a lot (but not all) of the old Empire models are now removed from the book. Incidentally these are all models that will be returning to The Old World when that is released (Presumably this year in time for the 40th anniversary of Warhammer)

All of the old Dark Elf models remain, and those are not in the initial wave of releases for The Old World, so their presence still in the Cities of Sigmar book does make sense.

What’s a little stranger are the Duardin. The Dwarfs are due to be supported in The Old World, but their models are still present in the new Cities of Sigmar book. Though this could be because they are a later release in the Old World scehedule.

By the time we get to a 4th Edition Cities of Sigmar book then I suspect The Old World will start covering the Dark Elves and at that point they will probably get replaced with some more “age of sigmer” looking Aelves and Duardin – this is purely speculation by me, but it is telling how no high elves are in the book any more.

This is a nice chunky book with with 160 pages, more than 30 more than the previous book with the first half being filled with cracking lore, artwork and detailed painting guides. While a lot of Age of Sigmar books have had recycled painting guides, here we get brand new guides dedicated to the new models that are coming out alongside the main book release including schemes for all of the main Cities of Sigmar listed inside.

So what has changed for the Cities of Sigmar in this new book? Well quite a lot – we have a brand new mechanic in the form of Orders

Orders

Orders are a really cool mechanic that feels like the child of 40k Imperial Guard orders and Horus Heresy reactions. At the start of each Battleround you issue secret orders to each of your Heroes. There’s a number of different types and they are grouped by “Cities of Sigmar” which can be issued to any hero, and Human, Aelf and Duardin specific ones that can only be issued to a hero of that race.

These orders are placed facedown at the start of the battleround, so your opponent doesnt know for sure what has been issued before it is revealed. most of these effect units that are within 3″ of the hero with the order, making it a good idea to maximise the different orders across your lines through multiple heroes.

Advance in Formation – Cities of Sigmar

This is a decent order that increases the movement of all Cities of Sigmar units within 3″ of the hero by 3, and also allows Castelite units to maintain their Fortified Position even if they move – which is great for getting your gunners in position without sacrificing their shots

Counter Charge – Cities of Sigmar

This allows you to pick a unit within 3″ to perform a charge at the end of the opponents charge phase – in addition that unit increases it’s rend by 1 too! Very nasty one to have on a unit of Cavaliers

Return Fire – Human Order

Want to shoot your opponent in their turn? Return fire allows you to pick a unit within 3″ and shoot with them if they are targeted by an enemy unit – and words as written they dont even need to shoot at the unit that shot them!

Engage the Foe – Human Order

This is a nice one to stick on a charging unit, nice and simple – increases their attacks by 1

Suppressing Fire – Human Order

This is pretty cool – basically you use after you have shot at a unit – you roll 2D6 and add the number of models that have been slain, and if you beat the target’s bravery they have Strike Last

Form Shieldwall – Duardin Order

One for the dwarfs, this one gives one of your units Strikes Last, but also a 5+ ward save

Grim Last Stand – Duardin Order

This one makes it so that the enemy suffers a mortal wound on a roll of 5+ each time a Duardin in that unit dies

Strike Them Down – Aelf Order

Remember when Elves had Always Strikes First on the charge? Well now they do again with this order!

Swift Disengage – Aelf Order

This one is pretty nifty and allows your unit to disengage at the end of the combat phase

I really like this mechanic and adds a unique playstyle to the Cities of Sigmar as you try and set up some combos with these orders. In my practice games it also made my opponent really cautious about shooting anyone standing nearby to heroes just in case they had a Return Fire order on them.

The Free Cities

In the new book we get 11 Cities each with their own abilities. Much like other newer book, you no longer have artifacts, traits and spells tied to the cities, with these now being a list that can be picked for any city. There’s some nice variety here and they all tend to revolve around a certain play style or army build

Hammerhal Aqsha allows one hero to receive 2 orders rather than just one, which is a nice way of maximising what orders go off, and in a nice lore related touch, if Aventis Firestrike is an ally then you get an extra command point in your hero phase.

Tempest’s Eye is all about Kharadrons and allows them to retreat and shoot with Skyvessels

Hallowheart is the magic city and allows casts to be made on 3D6 at the risk of taking mortal wounds if you roll over 10

Hammerhal Ghyra has braver than average citizens with increased bravery across the board and a bigger re-enforced unit allowance

The Living City allows Cities and Sylvaneth units to be placed in the Hidden Paths and deploy on board edges out of reserves

Greywater Fastness is what I think a lot of people will be gravitating towards as it allows you to do all out attack 3 times in the shooting phase at the cost of just 1 CP

Lethis is a priest heavy city that turns all your non-wizards into Priests with a unique prayer that turns off ward saves for a target unit – can see this one being popular too

Vindicarum is pretty good too – you can Rally when in combat and your Flagellants come back on a 5+. Ok Flagellants are not that exciting, but this becomes super good when used in conjunction with Tahlia and suddenly even your Knights can come back to life in combat on a 4+…

Excelsis is the Monster city with all your monsters getting +1 wound, and also allows each Cavalier to do a mortal wound at the end of combat on a roll of 4+

Settler’s Gain is the other magic city, with +1 to cast across the board and extra command points if you have Lumineth nearby in the hero phase

And finally Misthaven is the city of sneaky pirates with the ability to move D3 units at the end of the hero phase, which can be handy for dancing around objectives

Enhancements

As mentioned earlier, we now do not have enhancements tied to the cities, instead you are free to pick and choose as you please – these are split out with lists for Humans, Aelves and Duardin

For the Command Traits for Humans we have:

Divine Champion which makes your hero into a priest and gives them a unique prayer that increases the to wound of friendly units with 12″ by 1, which is pretty decent!

Grizzled Veteran makes it so that your Freeguild hero can only be wounded on a 4+

The most popular one I think will be Master of Ballistics – this makes it so that when you issue All Out Attack in the shooting phase it increases your to wound by 1 in addition to plus 1 to hit – combine that with Greywater Fastness and you suddenly have 3 units with +1 to hit and +1 to wound

Finally, Fiery Temper grants a reroll to charges within 18″

The Duardin get 3 Command Abilities:

Of Mighty Linage allows your hero to make a challenge meaning that all attacks have to target him, however he suffers Strikes Last

Insurmountable Resilience is pretty good – making the hero heal any suffered wounds each turn on a 3+

Finally Master of Ancient Lore grants the hero an additional prayer

The Aelves also get three:

Unparalleled Duelist makes anyone attacking the hero suffer a mortal wound for each attack that misses

Secrative Warlock gets +1 to casts and unbinds

And Draconic Blood Pact allows your Dragon mounted heroes to suffer a mortal wound in exchange for +1 attack on each of the Dragons weapons

Artefacts are likewise split between Humans, Duardin and Aelves with 6 available to Humans and 3 each available to the others

Humans get the Brazier of Holy Flame which stops models running away on a 4+ – which can be handy for Battleshock tests

Mastro Vivetti’s Magnificent Macroscope is a decent choice for shooty armies with it extending the range of ranged weapons within 12″ by 3″

Shemtek’s Grimoire seems a little situational to me – once per game it reduces enemy casting rolls by D3 for a phase

The Sigmarite Warhammer is a great pick for a combat character, increasing rend and damage by 1

The Flask of Lethisian Darkwater is a once per battle heal of D6 wounds

And finally Glimmering allows you to reroll a hit, wound or save once per phase

Duardin get the Book of Grudges – this essentially allows you to pick a unit and get a +1 to hit against them on a roll of 4+ until you pick another target for the grudge

Piledriver Gauntlets are pretty fun, you can choose to not fight but instead hit the ground, and all enemey units within 3″ gain Strikes Last on a roll a roll of 4+

And finally the Heavy Metal Ingot allows the bearer to ignore save modifiers if they stand still

The Aelves also get 3 with the Shadowshroud ring that makes you invisible once per game

The Venomfang Blade inflicts D3 mortal wounds in addition to any normal damage on a wound roll of 6

And the Anklet of Epiphany increases range of spells by 6″ if you are on a terrain feature or objective

There’s a nice new list of spells with 8 now available to humans all based on the Winds of Magic – there’s a distinctly old school vibe with these being based on the old Warhammer Fantasy spells

Fireball is your classic roll a number of dice equal to the models in the unit with each 6 doing a mortal wound

Mystifying miasma stops a target unit from running and reduces their charges by 2

Pall of Doom stops a unit from issuing or receiving commands

Pha’s Protection allows a friendly unit to ignore modifiers to saves

Rain of Jade is a healing spell that has you roll dice equal to the number of wounds suffered, with every 5+ healing one

Transmutation of Lead works like it used to, you roll a number of dice equal to the number of models in the unit and each result over their save is a mortal wound – great for things with decent saves

Twin Tailed comet has you draw a line to an enemy unit,that unit takes D3 mortal wounds and all friendly units under that line get bravery 10

Wildform allows a target unit to charge 3D6

The Aelves also get a trio of spells, Sap Strength makes the target -1 to wound, Umbral Hex makes Battleshock harder by forcing the target to take it on 2D6 and Tenebael Blades makes the target of an attack have a save characteristic of –

Rounding out the enhancements we also get three prayers for the Duardin – Rune of Unfaltering Aim gives +1 to hit to a Duardin ranged unit, Rune of Oath and Steel grants -1 to Wound and Rune of Wrath and Ruin can cause mortal wounds across a unit and stop them from getting armour bonuses

Path to Glory

The path to Glory content in the new book is really fun – you start out without any territories or even a stronghold as your force is out on a Dawnbringer Crusade. As your army gains Crusade points and completes quest you eventually get to the point when you can finally found a brand new city after a suitably epic battleplan fighting off against endless waves of enemy hordes who are trying to destroy the fledgling settlement – this is really cool and captures the feeling of your army striking out across the plains, fighting their way to form a new city in the name of Sigmar

Matched Play

The Cities of Sigmar have access to 4 Grand Strategies. The first is the usual “Do 4 battle tactics from the Cities list – though as we will see later some of these are a little tricky to do unless you have focused lists to do so. Hold the High ground requires you to have units within 12” of the centre of the board, and no enemey units in that range. Reclaim for Sigmar requires a Cities unit in every quarter of the board at the end of the game. My favourite one however is Banners Held High, purely for the visuals! You get this one if you have more Standard Bearers and Totems than your opponent at the end of the game!

As for Battle Tactics these require quite a mix of different units

Bring Full Arms to bear requires you to suppress a unit using the Suppressing Fire order – which will really depend on the bravery of what you are fighting

Raise the Banners needs you to hold an objective with a Great Herald from the Command Corps

Blackpowder Bombardment requires you to kill three different units with shooting

Mount The Charge requires you to hold an objective just with mounted units who have done a charge – this one seems super niche so you’ll want to make sure they dont fail that charge!

Strike Without Warning requires 3 Aelf units to charge

And finally Iron Might needs 3 Duardin units to fight and no Duardin units die

Compared to some other recent books I feel these are a little trickier to score based on your army composition!

Warscrolls

So let’s have a look at what’s new for the Cities of Sigmar – I’m only going to focus on the new stuff here, with us taking a look at the other older units in a future article. Old units have been updated, but what really excites me are the new kits that are on the way!

Tahlia Vedra

Tahlia is the awesome new centrepiece model coming out alongside the Battletome. In addition to being a decent combat unit with a unique monstrous action that grants Strikes Last to enemy units, she is also a force multiplier for the Cities of Sigmar being able to be issued two orders and issue rally while in combat and have it go off on a 4+, I think we’ll see a lot of her!

Pontifex Zenestra

Like with Tahlia, I think that the other named character Zenestra is going to taken along to most games. She is a priest who gets to dispell and unbind one spell, and do so at +1, and she also has a really good prayer that grants 1 ability from a list of 3 if she is in friendly territory or 2 if outside it! The choices are give every unit within 18″ a 5+ ward. give the entire army +2 movement (Which will of course stack with the order to increase movement), or force every enemy wizard or priest on the battlefield to take D3 mortal wounds on a 2+. Amazing unit and a bargain at 150 points.

Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy

This is one of the new Hero models included in the Army Set, and he’s got a really cool mechanic where he can either grant a unit the ability to use a command without a command point being spent, or instead keep the herald on himself and get the ability to do a heroic action in addition to any others – The Envoy is essentially just a marker that can be placed in order to trigger these abilities. He also has a unique Heroic Action that can make models count as 2 models for the purposes of objectives.

Freeguild Cavalier Marshal

If you rather your leader on horse, then you can stick a Marshal on a mount, he gets some abilities that enhance Cavaliers, firstly he gives them a +3 to their charges, and in addition he gets Strikes First on the charge and then allows a unit of Cavaliers to automatically fight after him. Really nice unit to lead your cav charges

Alchemite Warforger

This is an interesting unit, it’s a Wizard with +1 to cast and a spell that gives a unit mortal wounds on wounds of 6, but instead of casting spells he can instead increase the saves by 1 of all Cities of Sigmar within 12″

Freeguld Command Corps

This is another interesting unit – basically it is an attachment for a Freeguild Marshal and gives him a wardsave while they stay nearby him, however you can still move them away from him if you want to – they are not “attached” as such in the way that 40k heroes are.

Each model grants an additional ability such as the sawbones being able to heal D3 wounds or wounds worth of models, the spy being able to stop the opponent granting command points, the Herald allowing units +1 to run and charge and faster retreats and the Soul Shepard stopping units from fleeing from battleshock – again I think this is going to be a linchpin of the army

Freeguild Steelhelms

These are your basic infantry and they are pretty good for their points – yes they dont hit very hard, but they can choose to gain a 6+ ward save when contesting an objective by consecrating the objective until it is taken by the opponent, and they also can receive All Out Defense for free when another unit within 12″ gets it

Freeguild Cavaliers

2 wounds a peice and a 3+ save, these are your heavily armoured cav unit, that also hits hard with 3 attacks hitting and wounding on 3s and on the charge -2 rend and damage 2. combine them with a Marshal on mount and they are a great unit for cracking open enemy units.

Freeguld Fusiliers

The replacements for the old Empire handgunners – these are an interesting unit that gets more shops and longer range if they stay still in addition to getting to ignore negative save modifiers – they can spend their squire marker once per game to get the ability to reroll all hits, making them a really handy unit to sit on objectives and blast away at the enemy.

Fusil Major on Ogor Warhulk

This is your shooty hero, and his main ability is increasing the range of a nearby ranged unit. In addition to this he also acts as a sniper – for each hit of 6 that he rolls he can slay the target by rolling at least double their wounds characteristic – which makes him really good at taking out elite infantry.

Ironweld Great Cannon

In addition to looking gorgeous, this acts as a bit of a jack of all trades gun platform, you have a choice of multiple shots ranging from the heavy rend -4 D6 damage option for cracking open heavily armoured targets, to a volume of fire 5 shot damage 2 attack – like with the fusiliers if they remain stationary they ignore save modifiers.

Wildercorps Hunters

Finally we get to the new Warcry unit, These guys are basically forward scouts, they get to make a move at the start of the game, and as long as they are 12″ away from enemies they cannot be targeted – they also have pretty good shooting attacks, more so because they get extra rend if they are in cover – actually making them more lethal than the fusiliers with their basic crossbows hitting at rend -2.

Summary

So what do I think of the new Cities of Sigmar Batletome, and in particular the new Army Set? Ever since I saw the first preview for the new Cities of Sigmar I’ve been super excited to get my teeth into them, – Age of Sigmar has long been crying out for a new Human faction to show what life in the Mortal Realms looks like, and the book really captures that with all the amazing new units. I do feel a little sorry for Aelf and Duardin fans, as I was hoping we might get some new units for them too to match the cool human stuff we have got – though i suspect this is something we might see when we get round to the next version of this book.

All the new models are drop dead gorgeous and I’m very excited to paint them all up!

The box in particular seems great value if you want to pick up the army, and getting a headstart on painting the models before the main release lands certain is a good option if you are going infantry heavy!

I really do think this is one of the most exciting releases from Games Workshop for a long time, and i hope they continue to make the Cities of Sigmar their own thing rather than just a collection of old Warhammer models.

The Cities of Sigmar Army Set is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 2nd September

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes.