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1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

On top of that we just learned today that the immunity to rend 1 (and quite possibly rend 2) only applies on the first battle round! 

Don't have anything else to comment on in your post except this. The blog text says "During the first turn of the game, your Alarith units couple great saves with the ability to ignore -1 Rend attacks..." but the actual rule says:

image.png.8fb254b00049e8ec3f933e519a732978.png

I'd probably side with the rules text and say they always have ignore -1 Rend. There might be a rider in another one of their abilities to offset this, since I don't see why you wouldn't activate this ability every turn. Or maybe it's a command ability?

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3 minutes ago, relic456 said:

Don't have anything else to comment on in your post except this. The blog text says "During the first turn of the game, your Alarith units couple great saves with the ability to ignore -1 Rend attacks..." but the actual rule says:

image.png.8fb254b00049e8ec3f933e519a732978.png

I'd probably side with the rules text and say they always have ignore -1 Rend. There might be a rider in another one of their abilities to offset this, since I don't see why you wouldn't activate this ability every turn. Or maybe it's a command ability?

Hmm yeah, I'll admit that I didn't notice that! We'll see if there are any restrictions to it.  Even if it's every turn though I think my basic comparison to Hearthguard holds up.

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1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

@zilberfrid especially, but I'm sure others as well.

Nearly every time a new tome comes out people start raising hell about the new rules and balance, typically picking out specific things and labeling them as OP before we have the complete context.

I have no idea if Lumineth will be OP, and I'm going to reserve judgment until I have the entire tome. Even then my judgment will have a big asterisk by it until we have a lot of high level results to help measure actual performance in practice rather than just theory.

One of the consistent patterns I notice in new-tome criticism is that most people who claim OP are focusing on combat stats and forget what a big part of the game movement is. Lumineth looks like a pretty slow faction so far, with only the cavalry (which we know little about) having a lot of speed. I don't see much flying. Some of the defensive bonuses require a unit to slow down even more, both by maintaining formation and giving up the ability to run. Movement really matters in AOS.  Everyone points to the ASF rules for FEC and Slaanesh as the reason why they are OP, but if those factions were really slow then their ASF wouldn't have mattered nearly as much.

AOS has mostly unkillable units in it now. I don't think there is a unit in the game that can efficiently melee against Hearthguard. Are the OP? Not really. They are very strong, but their slow movement is a serious problem. If they were really fast then yes, they would be OP. But as it is you can play around Hearthguard by playing around their speed. The same may very well be true for Lumineth's infantry.

Also, I've noticed some people laying out a fully buffed scenario as the baseline without really considering the limitations of those buffs. Yes, we know that Alarith infantry can get a 3+ save ignoring rend 1 and 2 and possibly a 5+ ward. But that Ward requires Teclis, who is likely to be very expensive. We know he can autocast spells, but do we know how that rule works in full? It's entirely possible that autocasted spells will be unbound at the casting value of the spell, which means that the 5+ ward may be quite unreliable.  Furthermore, the immunity to rend 2 requires a subfaction or battalion (I forget which). On top of that we just learned today that the immunity to rend 1 (and quite possibly rend 2) only applies on the first battle round! 

So that gives you a bunch of options to counter them:

  • Kill Teclis and then use mortal wounds.
  • Hit them with rend after turn 1
  • Just avoid them and kill softer targets

There is a chance the BT will be balanced, but the signs are not good. Neither were the signs and executions good for Slaanesh, Tzeench and Petrifex.

As for the proposed solutions, sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds is easier said than done, especially with the amount of unbinds the army has.

Not to mention, when does sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds ever not work? It isn't a specific counter.

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I'm not sure I'm that bothered about the rules in isolation, but if those points from White Dwarf from a while ago are accurate my initial impression is that compared to other units are their points cost they just do a hell of a lot.

I'll admit this is partly because I think points are just getting a bit low across the board.

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13 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

There is a chance the BT will be balanced, but the signs are not good. Neither were the signs and executions good for Slaanesh, Tzeench and Petrifex.

As for the proposed solutions, sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds is easier said than done, especially with the amount of unbinds the army has.

Not to mention, when does sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds ever not work? It isn't a specific counter.

Part of my point is that it doesn't make any sense to try to read the "signs" at all. Literally every battletome that comes out has people here panicking before the tome is released that this or that will be overpowered. Sometimes it's true, but more often than not it is an overreaction. I also disagree about Petrifex and possibly even Tzeentch. Petrifex is very good an nearly unbeatable in some matchups -- I'll grant you that. I personally think it was a design mistake as it's not fun to play against a pretty high percentage of the time. But I think the evidence shows that it was only overpowered for a brief window. It's still a great and highly competitive army, no doubt, but I don't think there is a lot of evidence to support that it's still OP. The same might be true of Tzeentch. The developers clearly missed a few things, but those were quickly nerfed with the FAQ. It remains to be seen if Tzeentch is good or too good as most tournament play since those nerfs has been shut down.

Sniping Teclis will probably be easy for some armies and nearly impossible for others. It may be that some compositions will be unable to deal with Alarith units except by avoiding them, but that doesn't mean that Alarith are OP.

As to your last point, there are plenty of situations where sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds doesn't work. Orruk Warclans (particularly Bonesplitterz heavy builds) are a great example. Mortal wounds are terrible against Bonesplitterz. Sniping their heroes can help, but it's also can be really difficult due to the ease at which they can be LOS'ed and the built in hit penalties against small heroes. Teclis isn't likely to benefit from these things. He probably won't have great armor and he is certainly too big to LOS and too big for Look Out Sir. If I had to bet, I'd bet that defensively Teclis will be a lot closer to Alarielle than to Nagash.

Anyway, there are plenty of other examples of armies against which mortal wounds are not the answer. DoK is an example, as is Hearthguard spam. Historically speaking, Plague Monk lists also were very good against mortal wounds. Basically anything that relies on ward saves or bulk cheap wounds is going to be very good against mortals.

______

Just to be clear, I do think there is a risk of Lumineth repeating OBR. OBR and, to a lesser extent, the new Fyreslayers tomes were the first armies that we've seen that are primarily defensive in nature. They are very hard to crack in melee, and their main weakness is movement.

Many AOS players, and particularly novice AOS players, chronically underestimate movement. They think that the solution to an enemy unit is to kill it, and when that isn't a plausible solution they conclude that the unit is overpowered. Certain armies encourage this line of thinking as they heavily encourage the player to just pelt at the enemy full speed and get stuck in as soon as possible. Sometimes that's an actively bad idea, though. People must learn not only to play their army but to play against their opponent and take advantage of weaknesses rather than falling victim to them. Until they do, they will continue to see slow, high efficiency units as overpowered.

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6 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Part of my point is that it doesn't make any sense to try to read the "signs" at all. Literally every battletome that comes out has people here panicking before the tome is released that this or that will be overpowered. Sometimes it's true, but more often than not it is an overreaction. I also disagree about Petrifex and possibly even Tzeentch. Petrifex is very good an nearly unbeatable in some matchups -- I'll grant you that. I personally think it was a design mistake as it's not fun to play against a pretty high percentage of the time. But I think the evidence shows that it was only overpowered for a brief window. It's still a great and highly competitive army, no doubt, but I don't think there is a lot of evidence to support that it's still OP. The same might be true of Tzeentch. The developers clearly missed a few things, but those were quickly nerfed with the FAQ. It remains to be seen if Tzeentch is good or too good as most tournament play since those nerfs has been shut down.

Sniping Teclis will probably be easy for some armies and nearly impossible for others. It may be that some compositions will be unable to deal with Alarith units except by avoiding them, but that doesn't mean that Alarith are OP.

As to your last point, there are plenty of situations where sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds doesn't work. Orruk Warclans (particularly Bonesplitterz heavy builds) are a great example. Mortal wounds are terrible against Bonesplitterz. Sniping their heroes can help, but it's also can be really difficult due to the ease at which they can be LOS'ed and the built in hit penalties against small heroes. Teclis isn't likely to benefit from these things. He probably won't have great armor and he is certainly too big to LOS and too big for Look Out Sir. If I had to bet, I'd bet that defensively Teclis will be a lot closer to Alarielle than to Nagash.

Anyway, there are plenty of other examples of armies against which mortal wounds are not the answer. DoK is an example, as is Hearthguard spam. Historically speaking, Plague Monk lists also were very good against mortal wounds. Basically anything that relies on ward saves or bulk cheap wounds is going to be very good against mortals.

______

Just to be clear, I do think there is a risk of Lumineth repeating OBR. OBR and, to a lesser extent, the new Fyreslayers tomes were the first armies that we've seen that are primarily defensive in nature. They are very hard to crack in melee, and their main weakness is movement.

Many AOS players, and particularly novice AOS players, chronically underestimate movement. They think that the solution to an enemy unit is to kill it, and when that isn't a plausible solution they conclude that the unit is overpowered. Certain armies encourage this line of thinking as they heavily encourage the player to just pelt at the enemy full speed and get stuck in as soon as possible. Sometimes that's an actively bad idea, though. People must learn not only to play their army but to play against their opponent and take advantage of weaknesses rather than falling victim to them. Until they do, they will continue to see slow, high efficiency units as overpowered.

OBR can steal CP's as well, right? I think this army could well be less interesting to play against than Petrifex (internal balance in the book is so poor that the rest is irrelevant). Overcosting your CP's, everything can dispel, and stuff is tanky as hell.

High elves had better movement than humans, so the slowness isn't as much a thing, and their archers and cav also don't really align with slow melee stuff either.

Still, there is a chance it will be balanced. A faint chance, but a chance nonetheless. Otherwise, it still does have three good kits in the lineup for hobby purposes.

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The thing to note with Teclis is he can hand out a 5+ ignore in an 18" bubble, which presumably affects himself. Unless his base defensive stats are garbage (which I doubt, given he's with Celennar) that 5++ will likely keep him in the fight for a good while, especially if he's designed as a ranged support caster that doesn't need to get into melee to be super useful. 

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20 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

The thing to note with Teclis is he can hand out a 5+ ignore in an 18" bubble, which presumably affects himself. Unless his base defensive stats are garbage (which I doubt, given he's with Celennar) that 5++ will likely keep him in the fight for a good while, especially if he's designed as a ranged support caster that doesn't need to get into melee to be super useful. 

Where was that rule for Teclis mentioned?

Side note: I wasn't saying Lumineth was busted or anything, just stating the fact that Ossiarchs are, as matter of fact, weak to things like reliable mortal wound output, shooting, and magic.

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2 hours ago, Oak7603 said:

If you're anything like me you'll just forget to say it. Everytime. Whilst shouting that you definitely won't forget next turn!

Sure, but lazy players will just state "hey, assume I pick that option every time all game" and pressure players will ask you to let them have a go-backsies.

In either case, their opponents will not want to risk looking like bad guys for daring to want the elf player to take ownership of their own error and forgo the bonus.

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4 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Sure, but lazy players will just state "hey, assume I pick that option every time all game" and pressure players will ask you to let them have a go-backsies.

In either case, their opponents will not want to risk looking like bad guys for daring to want the elf player to take ownership of their own error and forgo the bonus.

If I'm honest this kind of interaction has hindered me in the actual gaming side of the hobby. 

I remember one of my first ventures in a GW when I was young and watching this absolute man child freaking out about forgetting to do something in his turn during a game of WHFB.  He literally was throwing a tantrum because he forgot to do something with his Wood Elves I think they were? And just losing it calling his opponent unfair and a cheater and a Staff member literally had to tell him to calm down or leave. 

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4 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

@zilberfrid especially, but I'm sure others as well.

Nearly every time a new tome comes out people start raising hell about the new rules and balance, typically picking out specific things and labeling them as OP before we have the complete context.

I have no idea if Lumineth will be OP, and I'm going to reserve judgment until I have the entire tome. Even then my judgment will have a big asterisk by it until we have a lot of high level results to help measure actual performance in practice rather than just theory.

One of the consistent patterns I notice in new-tome criticism is that most people who claim OP are focusing on combat stats and forget what a big part of the game movement is. Lumineth looks like a pretty slow faction so far, with only the cavalry (which we know little about) having a lot of speed. I don't see much flying. Some of the defensive bonuses require a unit to slow down even more, both by maintaining formation and giving up the ability to run. Movement really matters in AOS.  Everyone points to the ASF rules for FEC and Slaanesh as the reason why they are OP, but if those factions were really slow then their ASF wouldn't have mattered nearly as much.

AOS has mostly unkillable units in it now. I don't think there is a unit in the game that can efficiently melee against Hearthguard. Are the OP? Not really. They are very strong, but their slow movement is a serious problem. If they were really fast then yes, they would be OP. But as it is you can play around Hearthguard by playing around their speed. The same may very well be true for Lumineth's infantry.

Also, I've noticed some people laying out a fully buffed scenario as the baseline without really considering the limitations of those buffs. Yes, we know that Alarith infantry can get a 3+ save ignoring rend 1 and 2 and possibly a 5+ ward. But that Ward requires Teclis, who is likely to be very expensive. We know he can autocast spells, but do we know how that rule works in full? It's entirely possible that autocasted spells will be unbound at the casting value of the spell, which means that the 5+ ward may be quite unreliable.  Furthermore, the immunity to rend 2 requires a subfaction or battalion (I forget which). On top of that we just learned today that the immunity to rend 1 (and quite possibly rend 2) only applies on the first battle round! 

So that gives you a bunch of options to counter them:

  • Kill Teclis and then use mortal wounds.
  • Hit them with rend after turn 1
  • Just avoid them and kill softer targets

 

I have to admit, I laughed out loud at the advice of kill the leader duh!

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2 hours ago, relic456 said:

Don't have anything else to comment on in your post except this. The blog text says "During the first turn of the game, your Alarith units couple great saves with the ability to ignore -1 Rend attacks..." but the actual rule says:

image.png.8fb254b00049e8ec3f933e519a732978.png

I'd probably side with the rules text and say they always have ignore -1 Rend. There might be a rider in another one of their abilities to offset this, since I don't see why you wouldn't activate this ability every turn. Or maybe it's a command ability?

I´d assume they have one or more additional "stances" to choose from, this way the wording would make more sense.

 

Talking about the general Powerlevel: I am actually quite happy out local groups stereotypical aelf player isn´t currently too much into tabletop so I won´t have to play against thoose. Seems like another army that gets quite broken upon release. Althrough I have to admit I feel quite delusional about AoS Balancing currently as I had a row of several games in which I simply couldn´t enjoy the game in any manner as my army seemed to be inferior by design when battling new seraphon and obr~

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2 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

High elves had better movement than humans, so the slowness isn't as much a thing, and their archers and cav also don't really align with slow melee stuff either.

Still, there is a chance it will be balanced. A faint chance, but a chance nonetheless. Otherwise, it still does have three good kits in the lineup for hobby purposes.

A 6" typical elf move characteristic doesn't cut it in AOS, especially when some units are giving up the ability to run for defensive buffs. And yes, the archers and cav may make up for it to a degree... if they are good. They may not be. Or they might be incredible. The point is that we don't know.

I don't really understand the rush to judgment when we will basically have the tome in a week's time. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and if you've already decided what you think before having all the information you're just setting yourself up for a bad impression.

1 hour ago, Jaskier said:

The thing to note with Teclis is he can hand out a 5+ ignore in an 18" bubble, which presumably affects himself. Unless his base defensive stats are garbage (which I doubt, given he's with Celennar) that 5++ will likely keep him in the fight for a good while, especially if he's designed as a ranged support caster that doesn't need to get into melee to be super useful. 

They probably won't be garbage, but most big hero models like this are very vulnerable even with respectable defensive stats. He'll probably have 12-16 wounds and a 4+ save. Even if we take the 5++ as a given there are loads of options that can tear through that in 1-2 rounds. Ask any Sylvaneth player how fragile Alarielle feels despite having 16 wounds and a 3+ save.

10 minutes ago, Austin said:

I have to admit, I laughed out loud at the advice of kill the leader duh!

I mean it needs to be said right? I don't know if we have Teclis' points yet but I'd expect somewhere in the 450-700 range. If you're tunnel visioning on the ~300 point defensive infantry unit instead of going for the much softer and juicier target then something is wrong! And if you don't have enough ranged firepower or melee maneuverability to get to Teclis, then there's always Eddy Izzard's advice: "Just don't go in that [censored] house, you know?"

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50 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

A 6" typical elf move characteristic doesn't cut it in AOS, especially when some units are giving up the ability to run for defensive buffs. And yes, the archers and cav may make up for it to a degree... if they are good. They may not be. Or they might be incredible. The point is that we don't know.

I don't really understand the rush to judgment when we will basically have the tome in a week's time. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and if you've already decided what you think before having all the information you're just setting yourself up for a bad impression.

They probably won't be garbage, but most big hero models like this are very vulnerable even with respectable defensive stats. He'll probably have 12-16 wounds and a 4+ save. Even if we take the 5++ as a given there are loads of options that can tear through that in 1-2 rounds. Ask any Sylvaneth player how fragile Alarielle feels despite having 16 wounds and a 3+ save.

I mean it needs to be said right? I don't know if we have Teclis' points yet but I'd expect somewhere in the 450-700 range. If you're tunnel visioning on the ~300 point defensive infantry unit instead of going for the much softer and juicier target then something is wrong! And if you don't have enough ranged firepower or melee maneuverability to get to Teclis, then there's always Eddy Izzard's advice: "Just don't go in that [censored] house, you know?"

We'll have to see. Maybe there's something critically wrong with the army to balance what we've seen so far. Maybe it's one in the line of unbalanced books. They've done a few good ones, and it's optimistic to hope for half, right?

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From the brief time that I have returned to this hobby, I have noticed that when a new army is released  it is often hard to predict and understand how to play around it. Often this results in early adopters making builds that capitalize on that confusion and they will frequently seem overpowered. But after a while either people learn to play around it, or the army gets a slight adjustment in the next rules update. So while I personally think that Lumineth seem very strong, I also doubt I will come across any of its overly competitive builds and will learn to play against the Lumineth opponents in my own small group of friends. 😁


I have also noticed the more complex an army's rules the worse this reaction seems to be. I will admit playing against certain armies can feel somewhat overwhelming at times (Ossiarch and Tzeentch come to mind) and Lumineth seem like they will follow that trend... for better or worse. 😧

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8 hours ago, Mutton said:

Where was that rule for Teclis mentioned?

Side note: I wasn't saying Lumineth was busted or anything, just stating the fact that Ossiarchs are, as matter of fact, weak to things like reliable mortal wound output, shooting, and magic.

It's from the leaked White Dwarf battle report featuring the Lumineth. Teclis has a spell that provides all Lumineth within 18" the ability to ignore wounds on a 5+. It's not exactly a guarantee as unbinds exist, though Teclis auto-casts it (and up to three other spells) with a casting value of 10, so your average foe will likely struggle to stop it. 

6 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

They probably won't be garbage, but most big hero models like this are very vulnerable even with respectable defensive stats. He'll probably have 12-16 wounds and a 4+ save. Even if we take the 5++ as a given there are loads of options that can tear through that in 1-2 rounds. Ask any Sylvaneth player how fragile Alarielle feels despite having 16 wounds and a 3+ save.

I mean it needs to be said right? I don't know if we have Teclis' points yet but I'd expect somewhere in the 450-700 range. If you're tunnel visioning on the ~300 point defensive infantry unit instead of going for the much softer and juicier target then something is wrong! And if you don't have enough ranged firepower or melee maneuverability to get to Teclis, then there's always Eddy Izzard's advice: "Just don't go in that [censored] house, you know?"

I'm a Sylvaneth player myself and have extensively used Alarielle both in a GT and smaller tournaments, so I know exactly what you mean :D The thing with her though is that you absolutely want to get her into combat to get full use of her, as she's utterly terrifying when she rolls hot. If Teclis isn't really geared for combat (i.e. if you can still get huge value out of him just as a support piece/ranged attacker) then that will definitely help protect him, what with Lumineth having such cheap and durable infantry. Also, if he has 14-16 wounds as we expect and a 4+ save, his spell-based 5++ will actually make him more durable than Alarielle in most cases (as she has no protection against super high rend and mortal wounds, whereas he would.) 

We know from the leaked battle report that Teclis is 660 points (i.e. Alarielle's pre-FAQ points cost), so very much on the higher end of the demigod/god characters. That's why I'm assuming his stats will likely hover around Alarielle's, and with the potential 5++ and a possible incentive to spend the game tucked away behind the phalanxes of tough spear aelves, he could well have a much easier time surviving the damage-stacked meta we have. Time will tell of course, but I'm expecting good things (as OBR Nagash and Katakros prove those types of centrepiece models can absolutely work!) 

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8 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Sure, but lazy players will just state "hey, assume I pick that option every time all game" and pressure players will ask you to let them have a go-backsies.

In either case, their opponents will not want to risk looking like bad guys for daring to want the elf player to take ownership of their own error and forgo the bonus.

The rules always say... "at the start of the so & so phase..." I've not seen one that says pick this at the beginning of the game and it lasts forEVAH! 

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1 hour ago, Chumphammer said:

You say that, but I have played many people who don't go after my general ot support units, which usually causes them to lose badly 

Oh and can I add to that players who stopped shooting my 5 wound heroes just because of look out sir... 

I get that it requires a bit more but it’s still worth it. It’s like quitting your work because you need to buy a salad for lunch. Yeah it costs money but still a net win (hopefully)

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12 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Oh and can I add to that players who stopped shooting my 5 wound heroes just because of look out sir... 

I get that it requires a bit more but it’s still worth it. It’s like quitting your work because you need to buy a salad for lunch. Yeah it costs money but still a net win (hopefully)

Hmm, maybe I should get a Khemist next to my Cities hero, -2 to hit would make for a good defense. Shooting isn't too shabby either.

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7 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Hmm, maybe I should get a Khemist next to my Cities hero, -2 to hit would make for a good defense. Shooting isn't too shabby either.

-2 is big indeed. But honestly I had a mate who didn’t shoot his two volley guns into my Skaven clawlord. (5 wounds, 4+ saves, gives a unit +1 attack). Instead he shot the 40 clanrats next to it so he didn’t have to deal with the -1. 

he would probably just shoot his own troops to avoid a -2 to hit 😂

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