[dragoniccam]

what makes a good city fighting army? specificly SM and Tau, which is what i play. i've heard as many shots as possible is wanted ( heavy bolters and burst cannons), is that true?

[Wingates_hellsing]

yes, but template weapons are also useful *wink*. Transports are less usefull as the terain cap rises, so it's better to have more infantry, some mobile infantry units are also a good choice.

[Frogger]

Infiltrators and close combat units make for good fun in a city fight game. Units with crappy armor saves become extremely efficient as well and don't forget tanks with indirect fire...

[Vash113]

Mobility is something you should emphasize, smaller squads but more of them. Template weapons are good, flamer equipped Assault Marines, Stealth Suits, SMS. Things that deny cover, ignore LOS, are fast and mobile etc. Bunkering down and shooting doesn't work so well when trying to accomplish the majority of the missions in Cities of Death. Mobility is just a must in my experience.

[GeekyGator]

Skimmers. Glide right over all those other buildings.

[Malcaor]

Mech Tau I find do very well In City Fight. I use the same list for CF as I do for a normal table.

[ToastMaster]

Originally Posted by dragoniccam

what makes a good city fighting army? specificly SM and Tau, which is what i play. i've heard as many shots as possible is wanted ( heavy bolters and burst cannons), is that true?

Lots of shots can help. AP weapons are thwarted by cover saves, so pure mathematical statistics will be your friends (so, lots of shots= more casualties).

City Fights are dominated by forces that are highly mobile, can move through cover easily, and that have decent access to template weapons. In theory, any army can be this. Tau and Space Marines are very mobile if you bring the right units; Crisis Battlesuits are fast, and with their nice jet packs can hop right over nasty terrain that's in the way, while Space Marines can take Bikes and Land Speeders that are also fast, and Speeders are skimmers so terrain is no prob for them. Tau Crisis Suits are easily able to max out on Flamers, and they'll be cheap at doing this too, so having a lot of template weapons to ignore cover isn't tricky for them. Marines have access to Flamers in their normal troop squads, and a lot of their sub-weapons are made up of template weapons.

Lots of people prefer Mech armies for City Fights. They don't focus too much on troops, and instead focus on skimmers and tanks that will breeze right on by thick terrain, all the while blasting away at the enemy with their fancy heavy weapons. Marine forces can be maxed out with units of Land Speeders that carry fierce template weapons and strong APin' weapons that'll blow your enemies to bits (or melt them, whichever you prefer), while Tau can take all their troops in tough skimmers, and rely strictly on Hammerhead skimmers for heavy support (and a pretty darn good one, if I might add).

People also take City Fighting as an opportunity to use units without much armour. I know Eldar players love City Fighting, as their Elven troops are fast on getting through terrain, and their troops love the ability to take some armour saves. I myself love taking Kroot in my Tau force in City Fight missions. They're an infiltrating unit so they can get up close really quickly, and they actually get some good saves with them if I hug the terrain.

In summary, look out for:

Templates They blow your opponent's cover saves away, and are usually very cheap and common in forces (especially Flamers).
Mobility City Fighting is less about sitting behind cover and shooting, and more about getting ahold of objectives. Keep mobility in mind.
Skimmers Skimmers are fast and fly right over terrain on the ground. Keep an eye out for skimmers, a lot of armies have access to them.
Weapons That Don't Need LOS LOS is usually pretty hard to get in City Fighting games, weapons that don't require it are a godsend.

[Vash113]

Skimmers have greater mobility over and around the terrain in Cities of Death but they are barred from going through it or entering it in any way. They can drop troops onto roofs with a strategem but skimmers are useless for capturing objectives and planting flags in buildings so to speak, as is one of the primary objectives in many of the Cities of Death missions. Which means in a mech Tau, Eldar or Dark Eldar army many of the scoring units will likely be totally unable to take the objectives to win or lose the mission. Which means that while non-skimmer mechanized armies may not be a bad choice in CoD, mechanized skimmer armies can have trouble if one is playing with the missions a lot.

[Ravager]

There is one way to capture buildings with skimmers if you play MechTau.
Sensor Spine. A little upgrade that becomes incredibly useful in CoD.

[Vash113]

Originally Posted by Ravager Zero

There is one way to capture buildings with skimmers if you play MechTau.
Sensor Spine. A little upgrade that becomes incredibly useful in CoD.

Except thats not so. The sensor spine just says that the Tau skimmer equipped with it may move through terrain without danger, it does not give it permission to move through terrain it would normally be unable to go into. Cities of Death forbids skimmers from even entering terrain, which makes the sensor spine worthless. Unless there is some aspect of that rule I am not aware of, I can't check the exact wording at the moment but if there is something that allows Tau vehicles with sensor spines to enter terrain that would be great. But I very much doubt it.