u/goldenemperor

Hey all, I am preparing myself for the probable Cavalier nerf. To that end I really enjoy Gallants, the new Cogfort, and Erasmus, so I have been trying to get those to work.

I have played about five games with this list or a small variation of it. Most recently trading out a Marshal for the Knellmage. And trading out the Blade of Emberguard for the Bones of Saint Ignifis.

The Cogfort has a very high skill ceiling I have found. If it does not absorb any damage that damage then falls on the rest of your army, which leaves just the Cogfort, while good cant win games on its own. However, if it takes too much early and dies it leaves a big damage hole in the army. Maneuvering, power through, and covering fire are vital to get the most out of it.

Gate Gargants have been the reliable all-rounders consistently in all of the games they have been in. The Steelhelms are an absolute must to stop big elite monster/units from killing the Cogfort or more valuable units on the line. Zenestra has been a massive pain for most of my opponents, it is her zone of last-strike and potential healing that opponents hate having to plan around. ​Gallants must stick close to Zenestra, they can lock down any objective anywhere with her.

Fusiliers kind of just reliably put down damage and move around.

Erasmus is big hit or miss, his shooting attack, when powered up, is actually really strong. But is is flimsy and can be hard to keep safe. I think I am using him wrong but I need to play more games to nail him down.

Just wanted to see other's thoughts and your no-Cavalier lists!

Magic Cogfort 2000/2000 pts

Cities of Sigmar Stalwart Guardians General's Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 4 Spell Lore - Spells of the Collegiate Arcane Prayer Lore - Scriptures of Sigmar Manifestation Lore - Aetherwrought Machineries

General's Regiment Cannonade Cogfort (530) • General • Grapple-Net Launcher Freeguild Gallants (260) • Reinforced Freeguild Steelhelms (90) Gate Gargants (320)

Regiment 1 Erasmus Zonn, the Enlightened One (170) Freeguild Fusiliers (240) • Reinforced Freeguild Steelhelms (90)

Regiment 2 Pontifex Zenestra, Matriarch of the Great Wheel (190)

Regiment 3 Amethyst Knellmage (110) • Grizzled Drillmaster • Bones of Saint Ignifus

Faction Terrain Dawners Triumph

Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App App: 1.37.0 | Data: 476

Had a lot of fun! I may be one of only a few people in AoS trying to run Barrow Legion in a competitive setting. I've ran the same list, essentially, since the Soulblight book dropped and have probably close to 40 games with the Barrow Legion.

Here are some thoughts:

Thematically this is the best army in the game.

Lack of mobility or any magic to supplement that mobility ​is the largest hindrance to the army.

Armies that have mobility spells or teleports will walk circles around you because they can tie up your army long enough to score a lot of points. The army lacks any meaningful damage outside of Barrow Guard, and they are a glass cannon.

Your mobility is the ability to summon 12" away from an friendly hero. This is reliant on your units dying, which doesn't always happen early, which is when you need the mobility.

The combat is good but not great. It won't necessarily steam roll armies, especially if your opponent focuses the Barrow Guard or uses mobility to negate them. But the army can hold it's own even against some top tier armies like Sylvaneth or DoK. Mind you, holding your own means you're very wrapped up in not dying to your opponent, meaning you're not scoring objectives.

Stormcasts just annihilate this army. They are just kind of good at everything, which is actually really bad for Barrow Legion. Normally a magic heavy army would be able to stop Stormcast magic. You can't do that. A ranged army would wipe out stormcast ranged options and gain ranged supremacy. You're not doing that.​ A fast army would be able to out maneuver Stormcast and use that strength to their advantage. You don't do that either. It was my worst match up out of any of the games I played throughout the edition.

I was never tabled, I was close to getting tabled by DoK.

Proposed fixes:

The army is already slow, no magic, and no shooting. Additionally, it's damage bump only gets it on par with damage output from other armies.

It is less durable than baseline Soulblight because of lack of Deathly Invocation.

Give the army deathly invocation. I think 30 wounds worth models over the course of the game would actually tip the army into the "usable" category. Because the army already does have a lot of wounds even if it is low quality, but they are rarely fully used because of the speed of the army. So making the army a slow creeping nearly unstoppable wave of death would be very thematic and still allow opponents to counter play by scoring early before the Royal Crypt comes online.

I have played enough with the Barrow Legion, I feel like there isn't too much left for me to learn with them, but it was very fun!