General Lumineth Realm Lords Rules Discussion

[LuminethMage]

On 6/21/2021 at 5:37 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Without making any statement on Lumineth being overpowered or not... Actually, no, I will make a short statement: Lumineth are probably no overpowered mechanically, but they break some basic rules of the game in a way that is not very enjoyable to play against. Still, even recognizing this, they receive an amount of negative reactions that I would personally say is unreasonable.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to say: You should probably stop sharing this particular piece of data. It's just too iffy, even at a glance. Between Slaanesh and Khorne holding the top spots, Maggotkin being A-tier without any tournament wins and Grand Host of Nagash being on the list when it does not even exist anymore, this table really invites you to question the validity of the ranking it gives. It just provokes a reaction of "Well, I know Khorne and Slaanesh are in the wrong place, so why should I care where Lumineth are on this list?"

I was expecting this, but you can easily see how some of the data is what it is. Like Slaanesh - 1 % means it's an outlier because someone played well. I was thinking about adding an explanation, but I have done this in the past and it doesn't help either, people will just have another objection, and my post was already too long as it is. It's the newest data we have, that's why I used it. Most of the other data analyzers don't bother to update their data anymore so close to AoS3. 

Have a look at what the data generally shows - who's in the top? Most of it is exactly what you would expect. Nurgle is one of the better armies out there. It was in the "B" category last time when The Honest Wargamer showed their TTS data-based tier list. Also above Lumineth, which were in the C category at that time. They are always around the 50% win-rate, but all of these are snap-shots, so one good performance can push an army temporarily up. So Khorne, have a look at the tournament data Athrawes showed, a Khorne player recently won a tournament and came in forth in another one. That's a reason why it's in the list with that win-rate. So you could then check if that's an outlier of someone just being really good and/or lucky, or maybe has found a good list in the current meta. Or you could do what you did - just reject it and say it's wrong because it doesn't fit with your expectations. 

Not being enjoyable is another argument altogether. That's another problem, if people don't get anywhere with the OP discussion - then we start the NPE cycle again. The question which revived the discussion was about power level. Not saying you are wrong, but if you play with Death armies, also a lot of people didn't enjoy playing against many of those, and you can build lists which people experiences as NPE. There will always be people who do not enjoy something - but it's also important to make armies people enjoy playing. A lot of people hate if they can't kill stuff, but there are people who love to play with resilient armies, a lot of people don't like playing against magic armies, but there are people who love that, people don't love shooting etc. I also have my preferences, but wouldn't say and army shouldn't play like it does, just because I don't like it. 

There is always a balance there, and of course an army should not feel not fun to play against all the time. But it's  subjective. LRL have a different playstyle, in many cases you work with debuffs, that's not enjoyable for everyone, but it doesn't mean that it's bad or should be changed. With all the rule changes and abilities other new armies have - I also think there isn't a great argument to make anymore that LRL especially break many rules of the game. Most of the exceptions are also done elsewhere, and many armies/models have a thing they can do which others can't. And that's good. 

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by LuminethMage

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

4 hours ago, LuminethMage said:

I was expecting this, but you can easily see how some of the data is what it is. Like Slaanesh - 1 % means it's an outlier because someone played well. I was thinking about adding an explanation, but I have done this in the past and it doesn't help either, people will just have another objection, and my post was already too long as it is. It's the newest data we have, that's why I used it. Most of the other data analyzers don't bother to update their data anymore so close to AoS3. 

Have a look at what the data generally shows - who's in the top? Most of it is exactly what you would expect. Nurgle is one of the better armies out there. It was in the "B" category last time when The Honest Wargamer showed their TTS data-based tier list. Also above Lumineth, which were in the C category at that time. They are always around the 50% win-rate, but all of these are snap-shots, so one good performance can push an army temporarily up. So Khorne, have a look at the tournament data Athrawes showed, a Khorne player recently won a tournament and came in forth in another one. That's a reason why it's in the list with that win-rate. So you could then check if that's an outlier of someone just being really good and/or lucky, or maybe has found a good list in the current meta. Or you could do what you did - just reject it and say it's wrong because it doesn't fit with your expectations. 

Not being enjoyable is another argument altogether. That's another problem, if people don't get anywhere with the OP discussion - then we start the NPE cycle again. The question which revived the discussion was about power level. Not saying you are wrong, but if you play with Death armies, also a lot of people didn't enjoy playing against many of those, and you can build lists which people experiences as NPE. There will always be people who do not enjoy something - but it's also important to make armies people enjoy playing. A lot of people hate if they can't kill stuff, but there are people who love to play with resilient armies, a lot of people don't like playing against magic armies, but there are people who love that, people don't love shooting etc. I also have my preferences, but wouldn't say and army shouldn't play like it does, just because I don't like it. 

There is always a balance there, and of course an army should not feel not fun to play against all the time. But it's  subjective. LRL have a different playstyle, in many cases you work with debuffs, that's not enjoyable for everyone, but it doesn't mean that it's bad or should be changed. With all the rule changes and abilities other new armies have - I also think there isn't a great argument to make anymore that LRL especially break many rules of the game. Most of the exceptions are also done elsewhere, and many armies/models have a thing they can do which others can't. And that's good.

Don't misunderstand me: I believe I mostly share your position re: Lumineth. It's just that I think using this specific ranking from ListBot is not a good way to convince people.

I have watched that Warhammer Weekly episode with the creator of listbot, and he definitely knows what he's doing and takes a lot care. But that episode also made it apparent that you need to be careful interpreting the data on his site. This should not be a surprise: If you have ever done any kind of data analysis, you know that you have to be careful about picking the correct data and means of analyzing it if you want to get meaningful results.

And the thing is, for this particular ListBot ranking, I just don't think the tier ranking is very meaningful. It really seems to be all over the place. But it's the first thing you see, and it invites people to question whether the data is good or whether this ranking really supports the point you are trying to make. And then you get dragged into conversations you don't want to have about the methodology of ListBot and how to read this ranking correctly. Case in point: This comment thread.

I just don't think that's ultimately very fruitful. I think it would be better to just acknowledge that LRL are a strong army, but not overwhelmingly so, both in tournaments and in other contexts. Even if LRL don't put up the best numbers in regards to tournament wins, they are definitely a meta-shaping army, because you can definitely expect to face them at any given tournaments (Chance to face: 26%. Thanks ListBot!). And the Lumineth toolkit is such that some of their options will just ruin your day if you come unprepared. Facing Teclis will be an uphill battle for any list that relies on getting particular spells off at particular times, or that needs certain command abilities to function. There is a reason that people are discussing the viability of Kragnos in terms of "How long can we even expect him to last against 20/30 Sentinels?".

For what it's worth, I think the NPE discussion is the one we should be having. LRL are a type of control/denial army, which is an archetype that does not really exist anywhere else in AoS. I think it's worth talking about how much of this play style should be in the game, and whether or not there are some units in LRL that take it too far. I believe Sentinels are a case that we should probably acknowledge as breaking a few too many rules, to the point that they are hard to balance with points. Teclis is also debatably such a case. But then on the flip side it's also worth emphasizing that there are a lot of Lumineth units and abilities that are really not especially egregious. I have hear very little complaints about the second wave other than the Loreseeker, for example. Or about the mountain temple units.

[Kadeton]

50 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have watched that Warhammer Weekly episode with the creator of listbot, and he definitely knows what he's doing and takes a lot care. But that episode also made it apparent that you need to be careful interpreting the data on his site. This should not be a surprise: If you have ever done any kind of data analysis, you know that you have to be careful about picking the correct data and means of analyzing it if you want to get meaningful results.

And the thing is, for this particular ListBot ranking, I just don't think the tier ranking is very meaningful. It really seems to be all over the place. But it's the first thing you see, and it invites people to question whether the data is good or whether this ranking really supports the point you are trying to make. And then you get dragged into conversations you don't want to have about the methodology of ListBot and how to read this ranking correctly. Case in point: This comment thread.

While the core of this (be careful how you do your analysis) is good advice, it's kind of annoying to see it applied only on this specific analysis because it's a bit more sophisticated and harder for people to understand, when the naive analyses of tournament results often seem to pass without comment even though they exhibit far less rigour. Not having a go at you for being critical of the Listbot stats, but it's worth remembering that none of the data available actually holds up for the purpose of drawing strong conclusions.

50 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

For what it's worth, I think the NPE discussion is the one we should be having.

Absolutely agree. I've found Lumineth to be competitively mediocre, but I still think they're bad for the game in their current state. Just because something isn't OP doesn't mean it's fine.

[Kitsumy]

Lumineth arent overpower. In fact they are weak like every data shows.

 

But elf haters dont care, his answer is " ignore data" lumis are op! I dont care abour proof they are boken op because i say it.

 

But but, every page i see, like 3 pages show them as subpar, around 12-15th place, see? Thats real data. 

 

Answer: i dont care! They are broken because they do 10 mortals per every archer!

 

But but, they only do 1.5-3mw per unit, when every cities ranged unit do 8.8 1 rend dmg for those points.

 

Answer: i dont care, they delete a full army from 50um in 1 turn without vision!!

 

Is impossible to get to those guys haha

 

Reality is every lumineth unit is overpriced and do lower dmg than it should only because it can do some mortals. They are great sniping little heros yes, or killing elite armys with high armor, but in general they dont do enough dmg to kill armyes. And cant play objetives very well.

 

Only unit real op broken is cathalar, the do a unit useless is too broken, or the"use inspiring presence or than unit is dead" ability.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

@Kitsumy

There's no need to be so aggressive.  The fable of the Sun and the Wind comes to mind. 

 

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, Kitsumy said:

Lumineth arent overpower. In fact they are weak like every data shows.

But elf haters dont care, his answer is " ignore data" lumis are op! I dont care abour proof they are boken op because i say it.

Yeah, people really often make a leap from "I hate playing against Lumineth, it feels unfair," to "Lumineth are overpowered." Not really, they just feel bad to play against even though they struggle to win games. That's still a big problem in their design.

[whispersofblood]

7 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Yeah, people really often make a leap from "I hate playing against Lumineth, it feels unfair," to "Lumineth are overpowered." Not really, they just feel bad to play against even though they struggle to win games. That's still a big problem in their design.

Imagine living a life of such complete and utter previlage that being successful at your endevour more often than not isn't enough. You must be sucessful AND that endevour must conform to how you believe it should function, which is of course closely aligned to what you prefer. 

Literally no consideration for the other player at all.

[Liquidsteel]

Lumineth are a high skill floor and high ceiling army. They are strong no doubt, and their strength comes from their toolbox. They can pretty much do everything and react to any matchup.

Great players can extract their full potential and can cripple other armies.

Weaker players will not and will struggle with them. You have to sequence your hero phase correctly and really squeeze the value out of things like Goading Arrogance, which requires proper positioning and foresight.

This is where you get the unreliable data from, for example the Honest Wargamer TTS data, placing Lumineth as C-Tier.

[pnkdth]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Imagine living a life of such complete and utter previlage that being successful at your endevour more often than not isn't enough. You must be sucessful AND that endevour must conform to how you believe it should function, which is of course closely aligned to what you prefer. 

Literally no consideration for the other player at all.

Ironically, exactly why people dislike facing LRL so much. Rules are designed with little to no regard for the opposing player. I mean, despite winning against LRL people are having such a miserable time they don't want a repeat experience. 

Not an ideal situation and it must feel even worse for LRL players. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by pnkdth

[whispersofblood]

47 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

Ironically, exactly why people dislike facing LRL so much. Rules are designed with little to no regard for the opposing player. I mean, despite winning against LRL people are having such a miserable time they don't want a repeat experience. 

Not an ideal situation and it must feel even worse for LRL players. 

This is exactly my point. Most of the time, the design of LRL actually doesn't have a powerful in game effect, it can't because if it did it would give the LRL player an advantage which would translate into results. Meaning for most people playing with or against the faction it's all just flourish 💥and no substance 💣. 

Which is why playing "control" is generally such a unrewarding experience regardless of the medium. For example, LRL player casts Total Eclipse. IJ player wanted to use Mighty Destroyers, but now can't afford it 😒. So they just move forward and charge normally, which lets them smash and bash their way out of the original problem 😄.

Like I get it people don't like getting push back on a tactical level which is quite clear from a lot of the angst with some of the AoS 3 changes. But, fundamentally it is a bit rich to claim you are being aggrieved when you've not been stopped from doing your thing strategically, onlinconvenienced tactically. Maybe I just am not able to empathize with this specific issue because I play like 8 factions, and then have like 3 more cross-faction mini-factions. But different factions presenting different tactical problems is like the core of faction based gaming. I also find we are very bad at seeing the core of a book and determining its capacity. The HoS book produces good, solid, competitive lists, but it isn't what I would call a fun book. The LRL book can produce good lists that great players can do well with, but it is probably actually just not very good for the bulk of the community who will find it quite frustrating actually.

 

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Imagine living a life of such complete and utter previlage that being successful at your endevour more often than not isn't enough. You must be sucessful AND that endevour must conform to how you believe it should function, which is of course closely aligned to what you prefer. 

Literally no consideration for the other player at all.

For real, though - what are you on about? The belligerent, hostile tone is coming through loud and clear, but I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. Can you explain in a bit more depth?

[pnkdth]

34 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

This is exactly my point. Most of the time, the design of LRL actually doesn't have a powerful in game effect, it can't because if it did it would give the LRL player an advantage which would translate into results. Meaning for most people playing with or against the faction it's all just flourish 💥and no substance 💣. 

Which is why playing "control" is generally such a unrewarding experience regardless of the medium. For example, LRL player casts Total Eclipse. IJ player wanted to use Mighty Destroyers, but now can't afford it 😒. So they just move forward and charge normally, which lets them smash and bash their way out of the original problem 😄.

Like I get it people don't like getting push back on a tactical level which is quite clear from a lot of the angst with some of the AoS 3 changes. But, fundamentally it is a bit rich to claim you are being aggrieved when you've not been stopped from doing your thing strategically, onlinconvenienced tactically. Maybe I just am not able to empathize with this specific issue because I play like 8 factions, and then have like 3 more cross-faction mini-factions. But different factions presenting different tactical problems is like the core of faction based gaming. I also find we are very bad at seeing the core of a book and determining its capacity. The HoS book produces good, solid, competitive lists, but it isn't what I would call a fun book. The LRL book can produce good lists that great players can do well with, but it is probably actually just not very good for the bulk of the community who will find it quite frustrating actually.

 

I can 100% get behind overcoming things on a tactical and strategic level (though I think 8 armies is a bit much to ask!). However, the LRL tome has taken it to a point where people are so miserable they don't even care if they win or are able to overcome such obstacles. At that point, you gotta admit there's a big problem here.

3rd has ignited a new flame among us hedonites as things are clicking into place for the 3rd edition. The initial impression has overstayed its welcome and I'm having a jolly time with it. Lots of promise! It seems my overbearing sense of optimism has payed off and I fully expect a bountiful reward from Slaanesh. 

[Backbreaker]

I always thought total eclipse was strong. But with 3ed edition, it's just game breaking. Because of Teclis but also bcause of how CA are mandatory in 3ed edition.

[whispersofblood]

56 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

For real, though - what are you on about? The belligerent, hostile tone is coming through loud and clear, but I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. Can you explain in a bit more depth?

There is an explanation right above your post. And, as I have no intention to cause harm, distress, or upset there isn't any hostility. It's called sarcasm...

 

22 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

I can 100% get behind overcoming things on a tactical and strategic level (though I think 8 armies is a bit much to ask!). However, the LRL tome has taken it to a point where people are so miserable they don't even care if they win or are able to overcome such obstacles. At that point, you gotta admit there's a big problem here.

3rd has ignited a new flame among us hedonites as things are clicking into place for the 3rd edition. The initial impression has overstayed its welcome and I'm having a jolly time with it. Lots of promise! It seems my overbearing sense of optimism has payed off and I fully expect a bountiful reward from Slaanesh. 

Yeah it's an excessive amount of armies and factions no doubt. But, it lets me be quite chill with other factions and not be so emotional invested in tiny power discrepancies. It also lets me see the distinction between an army "doing it's thing", and "buffing how it does it's thing". LRL interact with the second to various degrees of success. They don't really touch the first, which I would argue or agree would be unfair or unnecessarily restrictive on other players. 

The results and anecdotes of other posters here on both sides demonstrate that LRL aren't stopping people from playing their armies. And, even where they do the second thing, it's not generally very successful, because they are winning the game.

Tagging HoS was to demonstrate that the distance between what the community feels or believes and what is true is often quite large. People tend to believe what they believe and that's basically the end of the analysis in the long run. Which is how you end up with the belief that BoC (a faction almost no one plays) are a meme in a game no one has played; because that's what they already believed and that needs to be disproved to their personal satisfaction.

I've basically figured out competitive HoS now, just waiting for the FAQs to see if I want to run for the first bit of AoS 3.

[Enoby]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Tagging HoS was to demonstrate that the distance between what the community feels or believes and what is true is often quite large. People tend to believe what they believe and that's basically the end of the analysis in the long run. Which is how you end up with the belief that BoC (a faction almost no one plays) are a meme in a game no one has played; because that's what they already believed and that needs to be disproved to their personal satisfaction.

I've basically figured out competitive HoS now, just waiting for the FAQs to see if I want to run for the first bit of AoS 3.

While I don't really have a horse in the Lumineth race, I do think your points may be taken more readily if you provided some evidence (or examples where evidence can't be provided)  

I know evidence, especially for vague things like NPE, can be very hard to come by. But more for things like "BoC are good but no one plays them correctly so the general consensus is that they're bad" - it's not that I disagree with you (in fact, I think Hedonites are a lot better than some give them credit for), but I think people would be more willing to agree if you pointed to a tournament winning BoC or HoS list (though I appreciate that's hard to do in Covid times). 

It seems the general 'argument' isn't that Lumineth is too strong, but rather Lumineth is unfun to play against. As I understand it, your point is that people should learn to play against them better, seeing these events of "NPE" as opportunities to strategize rather than actual negative experiences (apologies if this misconstrues your argument, this is just what I'm getting from it). I think this is going to struggle to convince people who don't find it fun to play Lumineth, same as saying "BoC are actually good" (without pointing to winning lists) wouldn't likely convince someone that they are. 

I know it's very difficult to do, but could you provide an example (doesn't have to be real) of how people could enjoy the parts of Lumineth they claim not to? For example, how someone could enjoy/strategize against their bloodthirster being shot off the board turn 1 by sentinels. I don't mean "why this isn't overpowered", but rather how the average player would enjoy/learn from this experience. It looks like the crux of the issue isn't strength, but just "yeah, I can win, but I don't enjoy doing so". 

As an aside, I would be interested in seeing your winning HoS list and if you've had a chance to test it yet? I'm not expecting any big write ups, but a small report would be appreciated

Edited June 24, 2021 by Enoby

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

6 hours ago, pnkdth said:

Ironically, exactly why people dislike facing LRL so much. Rules are designed with little to no regard for the opposing player. I mean, despite winning against LRL people are having such a miserable time they don't want a repeat experience. 

Not an ideal situation and it must feel even worse for LRL players. 

My opponents so far haven't had an issue with my Lumineth army in terms of difficulty nor fun.  Of course, I run an army list built entirely around Alarith and don't support my 20 Sentinels (so little MW output usually to the point it isn't a concern of my opponent so far).  The most frustrating thing is probably the fact much of my army has -2 Rend immunity which I am sure opposing armies pay a premium points cost for.  I know my DoT opponent much prefers facing my Lumineth over my Slaves to Darkness since my LRL barely have any MW protection and practically all my S2D does making much of their army seeminly impotent. It probably helps I don't usually have access to much of the Lore of Hysh spells, and without Teclis; Total Eclipse is an unreliable cast to increase the 1 CP cost of Command Abilities to 2 CP.  So there is certainly a way to have fun with and play against Lumineth without it being miserable.  Personally, I find LRL the idea of LRL more fun to play against than MoN with all the tokens, cycle of corruption, damage bouncing off them and all that other stuff they have (been a long while since I played them) all of which was like having teeth pulled on my end. 

I do think a lot of this NPE can be sidelined by the usual, 'talk with your opponent on what kind of game you are looking for'.  The 'NPE' Lumineth army build seems pretty apparent to me.  If it really is a causal game, maybe ask your opponent to only use either Power of Hysh or Lambent Light on any give unit of Sentinels if that is a concern.  Maybe go with a smaller points game to draw down a few units of Sentinels if the opponent went all-in on them.  Though, I think I would consider avoiding anyone that goes with 40+ Sentinels as I would with anyone that has a skew list.  As skew lists tend to be more of a rock-paper-scissor/coin-toss affair anyways and not worth the bother to play the game out.

Bottom line, not all Lumineth armies are this miserable experience.  It is my general rule-of-thumb that as armies approach their most optimized or go skew they become less fun (unless winning is the only thing a player finds fun which isn't my mindset) by their very nature. If you are playing in a group that leans heavy on optimization (it's not necessarily competitive even though that is what most call those communities) then I would expect NPE be fairly common anyways.  Especially if a player isn't of that mindset.  However, if you are playing with like-minded individuals, I do think you could politely ask to tone down things you find to be NPE.  Since what is and isn't NPE may have some basic tenets but will vary from person to person.

[yukishiro1]

10 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Bottom line, not all Lumineth armies are this miserable experience.  

Yeah, but the competitive ones are, and it's worse than with any other army. Telling people not to abuse the rules is never going to be a very good solution for abusable rules. 

The LRL tome is just weird, it feels like a book written for a different game than any other book. It's always going to provoke a lot of negative feeling for that reason. 

[whispersofblood]

22 minutes ago, Enoby said:

While I don't really have a horse in the Lumineth race, I do think your points may be taken more readily if you provided some evidence (or examples where evidence can't be provided)  

I know evidence, especially for vague things like NPE, can be very hard to come by. But more for things like "BoC are good but no one plays them correctly so the general consensus is that they're bad" - it's not that I disagree with you (in fact, I think Hedonites are a lot better than some give them credit for), but I think people would be more willing to agree if you pointed to a tournament winning BoC or HoS list (though I appreciate that's hard to do in Covid times). 

It seems the general 'argument' isn't that Lumineth is too strong, but rather Lumineth is unfun to play against. As I understand it, your point is that people should learn to play against them better, seeing these events of "NPE" as opportunities to strategize rather than actual negative experiences (apologies if this misconstrues your argument, this is just what I'm getting from it). I think this is going to struggle to convince people who don't find it fun to play Lumineth, same as saying "BoC are actually good" (without pointing to winning lists) wouldn't likely convince someone that they are. 

I know it's very difficult to do, but could you provide an example (doesn't have to be real) of how people could enjoy the parts of Lumineth they claim not to? For example, how someone could enjoy/strategize against their bloodthirster being shot off the board turn 1 by sentinels. I don't mean "why this isn't overpowered", but rather how the average player would enjoy/learn from this experience. It looks like the crux of the issue isn't strength, but just "yeah, I can win, but I don't enjoy doing so". 

As an aside, I would be interested in seeing your winning HoS list and if you've had a chance to test it yet? I'm not expecting any big write ups, but a small report would be appreciated

The problem is that mostly the solutions are strategic and tactical, which a) the internet doesn't like to talk about, and b) even when it does get talked about, it is categorized as "get good" and dismissed. But, the question you should ask as a person who Sentinels make uncomfortable is; how are they literally agitating me? And, how can I make my opponent suffer instead of me?

Basically my understanding is that Sentinel's put such an extremely level of mental pressure on the player that they suffer from the experience. Which I can accept. That was ultimately the most effective part of ranged weaponry in the form of combat that AoS replicates. So when the LRL player targeted and killed your bloodthirster, yes you lost your bloodthirster, but the real effect is the psychological one. Now you feel pressure, you're rushing to make up for what you feel you have lost, and making poor decisions such as hunting down the offending sentinel unit. If you are at the table trying to deal with shooting, it is probably already too late. But, on the table you need to take the pressure and put it on the player with the shooting so that they can't act indiscriminately. 

Now very good players will ignore your plays, which is what gets called target selection usually. But, the better you are and the more useful units you include in your list, the more compelling you can make the threats. The better and cheaper the units you take the more efficient you can make the strategy. So, units like Furies, Harpies, Frost Sabres. Fast, agile, and with enough punch to do something to the shooting unit when they get there. This is how you apply pressure and make the shooting player take aim at the units you want them to shoot at. 

So the answer TL:DR is the work needs to be done in the List Writing, Deployment, and Movement phases. 

As to HoS yeah I have like 2 builds, I'll post in the thread in a day or two once I can play some TTS.

 

[C0deb1ue]

On 6/15/2021 at 11:52 PM, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

I haven't quite yet discovered anything especially OP. Although, I also don't really go looking for it either.  Which as mentioned above could change with the beginning of a new core rules set. That said, there are a few things that get touted as OP and likely will regardless of anything less of making them absolutely for at least the next year as many people don't keep up the game, don't actually play the game, etc.

Number 1 on the list of most talked about OP units for the Lumineth is the Vanari Sentinels (the archers).  Largely due to being able to generate Mortal Wounds (MW) on hit rolls of 6 (5s with Power of Hysh) as well as their ability to shoot 30" and without needing Line of Sight (LoS).  As a biased Lumineth player, I haven't seen this supposed OP-ness show itself as each model has 1 attack (minus the Leader).  So actual MW output is only about 2-3 for 10 typically for 140 points.  It certainly can be an issue for the weakest of Hero types, but beyond that, I haven't found Sentinels in actual use allowing me to auto-win.  That said, I only run 20 and don't give them support.  Still, I can't help to think the complaints are largely from the idea of opponents taking long range MW and the inherent powerlessness of it regardless of its actual effect.

Next, it usually Teclis who has the ability to cast 1-4 spells automatically as if rolling 10 for 4 spells, 12 for 2 spells and a single spell that can't be unbound.  Along with knowing every spell in the Lumineth battletome and couple powerful spells only known by himself. I can't comment too much on Teclis as I haven't fielded him.  Looking at him he seems like a binary thing where he can be overwhelming (and at 660 point he should be doing something) for some armies and underwhelming for others.

Something also uncommonly mentioned is the Lumineth have a bunch of special faction abilities.  I personally think it is kinda flavorful that the Lumineth are overly complicated for not apparent reason.  However, I can also see that they are a faction that wants its opponents to be more familiar than average with their rules than most.  Otherwise, there can be a few gotchas as I do find it difficult to explain to everything the faction is capable before a game, let alone before it is too late for an opponent to accidentally fall into a some sort of trap.  I think the big ones are the Total Eclipse spell which doubles the cost of using Command Points (CP), Speed of Hysh which doubles the Movement of a unit, Lighting Reactions which allow them to activate 2 units for every 1 their opponent does in melee.

Since Bravery and Battleshock aren't usually an issue, this doesn't come up much, but Lumineth have a surprising number of ways to lower enemy units' Bravery.  Which can very much catch someone off guard.

 

A lot of me suspects the reason Lumineth get this reputation is much like Primaris space marines in 40k do.  On paper, they have all these rules, many of which seem to break the core rules of the game.  Because they have a lot of special abilities and such this must be their raw power or some secret combination of synergies make them a boogyman powerhouse.  That's added to the fact that since they are a magic faction they seem to have no shortage of generating Mortal Wounds (and much of it at range) which most factions just have to take. 

I have my reservations about the Lumineth being as OP as they are made out to be. The faction has a lot of draw backs.  I'm not sure if they get overlooked or not.  First off, the faction is composed of some points heavy units.  Doubley so if you consider how fragile most of them are (at least without magic).  They are also surprisingly slow save a few units or again use of magic.  This may have changed some with Wave 2 (I haven't really looked as I'm not ready to buy more models).  Finally, and something I find can be their biggest weakness is that the Lumineth are very vulnerable to battleshock.  To be sure, there a many things they can do to circumvent it, but it does feel to me that more resources have to be put in place to avoid it than most AoS factions.

 

Again, I am a Lumineth player.  So I will look at them in a favorable light.  I also don't spend much time rooting out the most power for any army I play.  I am just not that kind of player.  So I can very easily miss even obvious power combos.  Finally, only this last month have I managed to even start playing games again.  So I don't have much experience yet, and I specifically built a Ymetrica Alarith army.  I would have probably gone all in on Stone Guard if they didn't cost so much money.  Which turned out to have a silver lining as I don't think I could fit more than the 20 I do have in a list now, and it's not really worth it without the Alarith Temple Battalion.

I struggle a bit with this answer, as the sentinels are clearly and widely known to be oppressive. Mortals on 5+ with a ranged unit that doesn't need LOS is absolutely bonkers and has been widely abused by people running lists with like 80 sentinels.

This is pretty common knowledge stuff and is about as NPE as is possible in a game like AOS  as it requires nil effort to do with little ability to counter/interact. No-one except LRL plyers were pleased to see the GHB taking a light touch on sentinels.

The rest of it is probably ok.

Edited June 24, 2021 by C0deb1ue

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

1 hour ago, C0deb1ue said:

I struggle a bit with this answer, as the sentinels are clearly and widely known to be oppressive. Mortals on 5+ with a ranged unit that doesn't need LOS is absolutely bonkers and has been widely abused by people running lists with like 80 sentinels.

This is pretty common knowledge stuff and is about as NPE as is possible in a game like AOS  as it requires nil effort to do with little ability to counter/interact. No-one except LRL plyers were pleased to see the GHB taking a light touch on sentinels.

The rest of it is probably ok.

I disagree with the premise that Mortal Wounds on a 5+ not needing LoS is bonkers.

One, maybe I am doing it wrong, but I haven't set up a table (I usually host and use my terrain) that LoS made much, if any difference.  Because I see/saw AoS as bathtubbed rank and file game, I mostly left the center of the table pretty empty and use about half the amount of terrain as I would in 40k.  The Range is far more of an issue to me.  Especially if players are going to see the smallest table size as the best table size.

Two, without support/spells we are talking about a 150pt unit that can generate between 1 and 10 MW  [correction: 1-9 for the 1st ten Sentinels] (or any damage for that matter) with likely output is a little less than 2 MW per attack.  Other than lesser Heroes (which is why I was a proponent to Lookout, Sir! working like it does in 40k) it is in reality, minor chip damage.  With Power of Hysh, casting value 6, (I think it should be casting value 7 since Aetherquartz is a thing), it is not going to happen every round despite how it often gets framed that it will.  When it does, that means a pretty reliable 2 MW from every 150 pts.

That's all Sentinels really have going for them.  They can't even be expected to hold ground for very long, nor generate that much more damage with Aimed shots as they are limited to 10 damage/150pts regardless of source. Taken in low numbers (20 or less) and without additional support Wizards, they aren't going to be much of a factor.

When you are talking about 80 (1200 pts for a conditional Batteline unit), how is that not a skew list?  Which is what I am saying.  Skew lists are almost never fun.  Your opponent can either counter the skew in which they win, or they can't counter it in which the skew wins.  That's not necessarily the Sentinel warscrolls fault save the unit having a sort hypothetical snowball effect.  I say hypothetical as I don't know how universally powerful such a list might be.  Like all skews, I can see a lot of pretty easy counter army lists (my basic S2D being one) which is par for the course of skew.  But I am sure there are more (typically good ol' Take-All-Comers (TAC)) that might struggle.  Sadly, TACs suffer the most from skew.

Like I said, not worth playing as that is what skew lists do.  Best to decline a game with such a player and politely inform them win or lose that their army list is very unlikely to produce an interesting or enjoyable game.  I would just hope that isn't a new player that somehow thought buying near $500 US of the same models was a good idea. Which just doesn't seem likely to me.  That seem far more like that guy that likes winning but doesn't want to put the effort in to do so.  So they'll brute force wins through a skew list in a causal/new player environment.  Hardly something I want to spend a few hours to indulge.  Also, something, I don't think reasonable Lumineth players should be punished for by making Sentinels ineffective outside taking hordes of them.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Saturmorn Carvilli

[yukishiro1]

The warscroll is just really poorly designed. The ability to do mortals at 30" range ignoring LOS is an extremely powerful ability to put on a unit, which is why the unit is otherwise so anemic. And then they tried to limit the power by making it only on a 6...only to allow you to get it to a 5+ rerolling instead. 

20 Sentinels doing mortals on 6s isn't particularly oppressive; 40 Sentinels doing mortals on a 5+ rerolling is hugely oppressive. The mistake was in designing a warscroll that is so anemic at base profile fired at chaff, but so powerful when self-buffed and then augmented with a crazy debuff on a single otherwise resilient target.

 

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

54 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Yeah, but the competitive ones are, and it's worse than with any other army. Telling people not to abuse the rules is never going to be a very good solution for abusable rules. 

The LRL tome is just weird, it feels like a book written for a different game than any other book. It's always going to provoke a lot of negative feeling for that reason. 

My mindset is that is just the nature of optimized (i.e. competitive) gaming. Could be wrong with that mindset, as optimized play isn't my bag, so I don't give it much thought.  The funny thing is, if that is Lumineth's optimized, tournaments are showing the faction to be pretty darn average.

I disagree with the idea that LRL's battletome feels like it's for a different game.  Doe any other faction have fate dice?, cycle of corruption?, a path of where the Bad Moon goes, teleporting through Wyldwoods, massive deep strike or exploding on death, Command Points but not Command Points?  Yeah, lots (dare I say most) factions have rules and abilities that always out from the core rules.  That is AoS, and quickly seems to be the way of GW games I as more 9th ed 40k codices are released.

If anything, generating Mortal Wounds, like S2D with re-rolls, are more in line with the core rules as they don't really bolt-on a new system/mini-game.  I would Lumineth are more line with AoS core rules than many other factions because of that.  They don't really create a whole new game mechanic.  Rather they seem to short circuit the ones that exist already.  That may be part of the reason some take issue with them.  People better understand Lumineth mechanics and their interaction that makes better use of the rules might seem more threatening than some arcane add-on system of another faction (especially if that faction is well known to be suffering right now).  Don't know if there's any truth to that, just musing the idea a bit.

 

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

9 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

20 Sentinels doing mortals on 6s isn't particularly oppressive; 40 Sentinels doing mortals on a 5+ rerolling is hugely oppressive. The mistake was in designing a warscroll that is so anemic at base profile fired at chaff, but so powerful when self-buffed and then augmented with a crazy debuff on a single otherwise resilient target.

Which is where we approach agreement.  I don't know there is much to discuss fixing it, as I sure you are aware; GW is very hesitant to alter warscrolls/datasheet outside a battletome/codex.  Unless Sentinels start rocking major tournaments, I don't think we can even expect a further points increase either.

So in optimized play one is going to have a plan to deal with them in they are deciding factor in the meta.  In other kinds play, best to treat a LRL army list with a lot of Sentinels like any other skew list. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Saturmorn Carvilli

[yukishiro1]

I agree, they're not going to change Sentinels to be less terribly designed any time soon. But people also aren't going to just give up and stop disliking them, either. That's what happens when GW goofs in a way it has a policy of not fixing: bad feelings all around. When that goes on long enough, you get what happened in 7th edition 40k or late edition WHFB. Now obviously Sentinels alone aren't going to ruin a game on that scale, but they're like a little mini version of that sort of flawed design. 

I guess my point is just that the negative reactions here aren't unwarranted. They're the natural results of bad design. 

[JustAsPlanned]

I agree that the Sentinels (and to a certain extent, Teclis) are badly designed units. But. Because that’s a mostly widely agreed on opinion, and because it’s unlikely that GW is going to change it, is there still much of a need for this topic? Sure, I’m fully aware that people aren’t going to stop hating or disliking it - and that is fine, cause it’s an opinion, and a pretty understandable one at that.

But, with all due, respect, this topic’s been beaten to death over the past few months. The conversation is just a loop of someone bringing up how LRL are OP, someone saying they aren’t, someone bringing up Sentinels, and so on, with the occasional bad faith take thrown in.