AoS3 - Lumineth Realm-lords Discussion

[Azamar]

1 hour ago, Tango Trooper said:

I've checked my Army Roster and I still believe Stoneguard outperform Wardens. The only area in which Wardens are better is the 3inch reach compared to 1inch reach. If you are fishing for Mortal Wounds then both are comparable as both require a spell buff, yet, stoneguard don't risk unit loss from a miscast.

Furthermore, I would have preferred to keep double damage on a 6 with mallet to bolster Bounty Hunter and thus get treble damage on a 6. Wardens have no rend on the spears whilst Stoneguard can have 2 rend with a stonemage. Mortal wounds have no synergies with rend except against Mortal Wound saves.

I'd still prefer to kill 3 wounds/models with treble damage inflicted over 1 wound per character with a Mortal wound. In some ways the damage has been nerfed but in other ways the damage has been increased. I will have to play more games to work out if I will synergise with the Mortal wound output or not.

I think the mortal wounds for new stoneguard are in addition to their damage, not instead of. 
 

In any case I’m glad to see the back of 6s doing double damage- the amount of different groups of dice you’d have to roll for one 5 man unit, assuming you had a banner and seneschal, was amazingly clunky. 

[Tango Trooper]

I never used stratum due to the rerolls. It was never worthwhile. The stratum slowes the game with no real benefit.

Also, double damage or treble damage doesn't cause you to roll more dice. Number of attacks make you roll more dice.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Tango Trooper

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, chosen_of_khaine said:

Complaining about LRL is a part time job for this user, you won't convince them. 

quite resentful. I complained a lot about them when they were released - after that not so much.
So if you like to talk bad about people, you should switch to reddit my friend.

Edited October 11, 2022 by JackStreicher

[JackStreicher]

9 hours ago, woolf said:

than a lot of other armies in this game,

You hit the issue I have with AoS on the head. NPE is fine because everybody receives it - ouch!

Imo such spells and abilities like total eclipse should not exist. (esp. if you have access to auto casting)
Nagash is a joke, I would not compare him to any other god really he's a 800+ points grave  (imo Teclis is way better and still cheaper for some reason)

I agree however that some NPE was removed and that's great. The way I see it though is that a poison remains a poison even if you take 60% of it away.

Sentinels are still great and iirc they can still boost their MWs to trigger on a 5+, right?

You are also right, LRL aren't the only faction using NPE mechanics, they are the latest book however. By not removing all of the worst offenders GW clearly shows you in which direction the game is headed.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Bosskelot]

Getting MW's on 5+ isn't and never was the actual issue with Sentinels and you focusing on that shows you probably never had much experience playing vs the army.

It was that they could shoot stuff out of LOS and re-roll all their hits with Lambent Light to explicitly fish for mortals. You cannot do either of these things anymore.

[woolf]

what I'm personally a little bit disappointed in is actually what I think was a somewhat missed opportunity to have them lean heavier into the magic, on basis that "everyone" is a wizard (or whatever that tagline was), and the whole team is lead by the greatest wizard ever, I would expect them to use magic as a main source of dmg, even wardens perhaps having more magic dmg output than combat output. for me that would be the route of creating a nighthaunt/nurgle success in terms of being on theme for this army. could also be an interesting design space given how the phase order works. Absolutely zero idea how it would be balanced etc though

[Beliman]

I think that Lumineth should have a perfect balance between their magic and their military might. And try to combine them to achieve better quality gameplay over other armies:

• Their dmg output is low-average (basic troops), but that's why they need magic to improve it (power of hysh).
  Even if I don't like mortal wounds, I can understand why GW wants to maintain that.
• Their defense is good, but not great, that's why they have Protection of Hysh + AoD + Protection of Teclis + Mystic Shield + Etheral blessing + etc...
• Their movement is not as great as other type of armies (eg: no ambush or half-army redeploys), but that's why they have Speed of Hysh and transporting vortex.
• And a lot of bonus to magic, to make it easier to achieve them.

Imho, I think that's perfect for Age of Sigmar's  High Elfs, imrpove their main qualities with magic.

Maybe there will be some armies with better movement, but probably they have less wards or less mortal wounds outputs. Maybe there will be some armies with better magic dmg output, but probably they have less movement, or worst wards or less improvements to their casts. Maybe there will be better melee armies, but probably they don't have the same quality of magic power of Lumineth.

(note: having one 500+p unit with better quality of casts, dmg, or whatever, doesn't make an army better at doing THAT thing, it's just that there have one OP unit that nobody likes to play... hey Kroak! how are you?)

[Tango Trooper]

We had a lot of damage spells but most people didn't use them. Thus, they were removed. A lot of people used overwhelming heat so it was moved from zaitrec to lore of hysh.

The main advantage of every unit having a wizard is the dispels and unbinds. We might not be able to deal much damage from wizards now but opponents also can't use a lot of magic against us either.

[JackStreicher]

16 hours ago, Bosskelot said:

Getting MW's on 5+ isn't and never was the actual issue with Sentinels and you focusing on that shows you probably never had much experience playing vs the army.

It was that they could shoot stuff out of LOS and re-roll all their hits with Lambent Light to explicitly fish for mortals. You cannot do either of these things anymore.

I don't think you've had much experience concerning Mortal Wounds combined with shooting being an issue then?
Also what are we talking about here? Competetively? Who cares about comp. I am talking about games Vs the every day Joe.  
Srsly, I've had pupils drop AoS due to too many mortal wounds.

It's good that they changed it. Not enough however (imo)
Bow Snakes should also never be able to shoot twice, it's too much. 

 

Edit: @Beliman I agree with you. However, this begs the question: Why has the faction the ability to negate any and all of its weaknesses?

Edited October 12, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Tango Trooper]

We deal mortal wounds to counter the -3 rend models. Prior to these changes we would be wiped by -3 rend monsters. The only defence was lambent light and sentinel spam.

You can ****** and moan all you like about our army but we are mostly 1 damage unit based with access to mortals, not multiple damage units with access to -3 rend.

The new battletome has removed a lot of the issues people bitched about has also given us better chance at negating -3 rend models. We must cover our weaknesses because if left to people like you we'd be wiped from the table without contestation.

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

Edit: @Beliman I agree with you. However, this begs the question: Why has the faction the ability to negate any and all of its weaknesses?

Good question, but I think that's their weakness too. Yes, they can "counter" all their diferent weakness, but they need to work for each of one.

[Tango Trooper]

I see why double damage was removed from the mallets. Double and treble damage with a wound roll of 2+ and an extra attack from Avelenor would have been crazy damage output on galletion veteran units for bounty hunters.

[CommissarRotke]

Hi folks, I'm considering branching out into a small Lumineth force with their new book. I'd love to have a unit of Wardens but I'm worried about their pikes! A few questions:

1. how common is getting new sprues with bent or warped pikes?

2. how difficult is it to snip the pikes off sprues? (and I guess by extension, how difficult is gluing them?)

3. is magnet or foam best for maintaining the pikes in storage?

 

[readercolin]

22 hours ago, Tango Trooper said:

I've checked my Army Roster and I still believe Stoneguard outperform Wardens. The only area in which Wardens are better is the 3inch reach compared to 1inch reach. If you are fishing for Mortal Wounds then both are comparable as both require a spell buff, yet, stoneguard don't risk unit loss from a miscast.

Furthermore, I would have preferred to keep double damage on a 6 with mallet to bolster Bounty Hunter and thus get treble damage on a 6. Wardens have no rend on the spears whilst Stoneguard can have 2 rend with a stonemage. Mortal wounds have no synergies with rend except against Mortal Wound saves.

I'd still prefer to kill 3 wounds/models with treble damage inflicted over 1 wound per character with a Mortal wound. In some ways the damage has been nerfed but in other ways the damage has been increased. I will have to play more games to work out if I will synergise with the Mortal wound output or not.

You might want to go back and re-read the warscroll.  Wardens get mortals and the attack sequence ends.  Stoneguard get mortals in addition.  This means that if you get a 6 to hit, you are guaranteed 1 damage, whether you then proceed to wound with the attack roll or not (this was not the case with the mallets).  However, if you stick them in bounty hunters, you and you get a 6 to hit, you get a mortal and then when you wound you get 2 damage, so you still get 3 damage on the attack.

Of course, now you have to justify to yourself why you are running a 4" move unit that has no way to run/charge in bounty hunters, and if you are in ymetrica, your bounty hunter unit will also be a veteran, and therefore weak to other bounty hunter units.  Also, you are still limited to only getting the mortals on a 5+ effect on a single unit, which means running multiple squads of stoneguard is significantly harder to justify.  Stoneguard also fail to outperform a squad of wardens against anything except a 6+ save UNLESS they have both the +1 attack AND the 5+ mortals (which means you have to bring both a stonemage and a spirit of the mountains to get your stoneguard to outperform wardens).  Finally, as nice as numbers look when shove units into bounty hunters, if you take a look at the meta right now, there aren't exactly a lot of veterans to hit with your bounty hunter units, and those that are there can be rather easily squished without a bounty hunter unit, because no one is investing in veterans if they have any excuse not to.

Moving on to the miscast issue, you have a 1/36 chance of miscasting.  This means that on average, if you have 7 casters in your list and they all survive all 5 rounds, you average a single miscast a game, and if that is particularly scary to you then you can always save your aetherquartz to re-roll that miscast.  This is also assuming that you didn't bring Cogs to be able to re-roll all of your casts anyways.

Am I telling you not to run stoneguard?  No.  I think that if you are interested in running a Spirit of the Mountain anyways, you can justify a single block of stoneguard, either as a 10 man block or maybe even a 15 man block.  However, unless the spirit of the mountain is worth bringing on its own merits, it isn't going to be worth it to bring the stoneguard and stonemage as well.  I also think that there is no case where you can justify running more than a single block of stoneguard.

[readercolin]

21 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Hi folks, I'm considering branching out into a small Lumineth force with their new book. I'd love to have a unit of Wardens but I'm worried about their pikes! A few questions:

1. how common is getting new sprues with bent or warped pikes?

2. how difficult is it to snip the pikes off sprues? (and I guess by extension, how difficult is gluing them?)

3. is magnet or foam best for maintaining the pikes in storage?

Do not under any circumstances stick wardens and their pikes in foam.  It is basically asking to snap those pikes.  That being said, I have magnetized all of my models anyways, and find it easy enough to use them.

As for how common it is to bet bent/warped pikes on new sprues?  Eh.  Apparently some people find it common, but having painted up 50 wardens from various sources (launch box, warcry boxes, battleforce, and bought on their own), any warping that I had was pretty unnoticable in my opinion.  Yes, they aren't perfectly straight, but it also isn't like they are swinging around pool noodles.  Additionally, after 4 months of playing with my wardens at least once a week (sometimes twice), I haven't broken a single pike (amusingly enough, I broke off an arrowhead from one of my sentinels, but no pikes have been damaged).  I'm not going to let my kids play with them, and I try to be gentle with my models, but I haven't exactly been going out of my way to be nice to them.

This being said, if you don't like the 3" pike, you can try cutting some of the middle out, but getting the finished bit to line up afterwards is entirely up to your skills as a modeler.  But the pike shafts are reasonably thick, so it isn't going to be too hard.

Edited October 12, 2022 by readercolin

[Tango Trooper]

The spirit of the mountain is not worth the points anymore. It is avelenor or no behemoth. Also,  I run expert conquerors and not bounty hunters. You don't seem to get the battle line requirements of 3+ battline at a 2000 points game. I don't play less than 2000 points and 4 battleline are required at 3000 points. There is no option to just have one unit of stoneguard.

There are few synergies for Wardens and too many to list for Stoneguard. Fully buffed Stoneguard outplay fully buffed Wardens. Furthermore, I have speed of hysh for my stoneguard and also run the stoneguard. It is difficult to record the eb and flow of a dice game.

There are more options now than pure Wardens and Sentinels. The great divide means my alarith force is very potent and Ymmetrica is almost identical to pre-battletome. Furthermore, MSU and Lighting Reactions means there is little chance for enemy units not to meet my units.

You seem to have ignored the spells which halt enemy units or Halve enemy unit movements. There is no need to move 56" with windchargers on double speed of hysh, 4 inch normal move is enough when minimal moves are enough. Anything more requires magic which is fine.

[Beliman]

Some people are practicing with wild form Incarnate (treat and treated like an enemy by your friendly units) in Helon for that +1attack.

Not sure if it's worth or not, but I think it's a bit edgy.

[Tango Trooper]

I think that's a double edged sword. I'm not sure +1 attack is worthwhile when windchargers have 12 range and other armies have 24inch ranges. I guess the movement remains in the hands of the conjurer even after the 'host wizard' has died.

The incarnate can be very vulnerable when faced with ranged units. Fortunately, not every army has devastating ranged units and the plus side remains our wizards can die fast to a snipe when wanted. I guess no retreat merges we'll with the new Helon buffs which don't allow the old hit and retreat patterns.

[readercolin]

2 hours ago, Tango Trooper said:

The spirit of the mountain is not worth the points anymore. It is avelenor or no behemoth. Also,  I run expert conquerors and not bounty hunters. You don't seem to get the battle line requirements of 3+ battline at a 2000 points game. I don't play less than 2000 points and 4 battleline are required at 3000 points. There is no option to just have one unit of stoneguard.

There are few synergies for Wardens and too many to list for Stoneguard. Fully buffed Stoneguard outplay fully buffed Wardens. Furthermore, I have speed of hysh for my stoneguard and also run the stoneguard. It is difficult to record the eb and flow of a dice game.

There are more options now than pure Wardens and Sentinels. The great divide means my alarith force is very potent and Ymmetrica is almost identical to pre-battletome. Furthermore, MSU and Lighting Reactions means there is little chance for enemy units not to meet my units.

You seem to have ignored the spells which halt enemy units or Halve enemy unit movements. There is no need to move 56" with windchargers on double speed of hysh, 4 inch normal move is enough when minimal moves are enough. Anything more requires magic which is fine.

What exactly about what I am saying makes you think that I don't know how battleline works?  I am well aware of the battleline requirements, and I am rather specifically stating that I don't think more than 1 squad of stoneguard is playable.  Yes, that means that you will need to fill out your other 2 battleline slots with other units.  I thought that was obvious enough that I didn't need to spell it out, but here we are.

Next, lets look at synergies.  First off, generic.  Everyone can get chosen for Speed of Hysh, everyone can get chosen for Etherial Blessing, and everyone can benefit from Protection of Hysh (note, need a scinari or vanari caster for these) or Protection of Teclis.  Everyone can benefit from Transporting Vortex (note, need a windmage for this).  Wardens can benefit from a Vanari Lord Regent casting greater power of hysh (which can free up other casts) or from casting their own power of hysh.  Stoneguard can benefit from +1 attacks from a Spirit of the Mountains (or Avelenor), +1 to wound from Molten Talisman, deal mortals on a 5+ from Unbreakable Stoacism, can get +1 rend (in exchange for no pile in) if near a stonemage, and can ignore some rend.  Wow... so much synergy... must be more than I can list...

So yes, if you set up in a castle around a stonemage with a spirit of the mountain nearby, you can have a super buffed up squad of stoneguard.  Just, you know, don't move more than 12" away, or most of those buffs disappear.  It would be a shame if you charged out of synergy range.  As a slaves to darkness player, I can tell you that staying wholly within 12" of a support hero is absolutely trivial and you should always do that.  I can also tell you that 5 wound, 4+ save support hero's are absolutely invincible and you can always rely on them sticking around.  (In case this wasn't absurdly obvious, yes, both those 2 previous statements are sarcasm, but since we've already found that I need to spell things out, I'll spell this one out too - also, saying support hero's will survive in a Lumineth forum is also the height of hilariousness to me).

Next up, spells to halt enemy movement or halve enemy movement.  We have Crippling Vertigo which requires a stonemage and has an 18" range (which means you either have to bring 2, or you aren't casting Unbreakable stoicism).  Overwhelming heat requires a scinari or vanari, but at least has a 24" range (also, could be cast by the wardens if you didn't need power of hysh).  And then the Cathellar can cast Darkness of the Soul with an 18" range.

Finally, lets hit that key point that you seem to be avoiding so much.  Points.

A squad of Stoneguard is 120 points.  A stonemage is 120 points.  Wardens are 150 points.  So if you take 4 squads of wardens, for the same points you could take 4 squads of stoneguard and a stonemage.  Anything less than that, and the stonemage is a pure points tax over just taking wardens.  Since we are talking 4 units, clearly we have already hit our battleline requirements at this point.  If we are reinforcing enough that we haven't, then at least the wardens are unlocking either sentinels or dawnriders to finish our battleline requirements, while the stoneguard would require more.  Next up, to make stoneguard function at the same level of wardens, we are bringing Avelenor or a Spirit of the Mountains, which is another 420 or 380 points respectively.  We'll totally not count this though, because those guys are totally lifting their own weight, right?  Next, if we are wanting to further buff our stoneguard, we are looking to use one of our artefacts for the +1 to wound bubble, though at least here a lot of the available artefacts for lumineth are a little underwhelming.  Finally, if you want to give the Mountain +1 ranged attack, you have to make the stonemage or general, OR you can lean further into buffing and use the command trait to give a squad of stoneguard +1 wounds, but they have to start your hero phase wholly within 6" of your general.

Note here with all of this that I am purely comparing Stoneguard to the only other unit in the army that does the same thing as them - wardens.  I am purely saying that point for point, you can get more effectiveness with less unwieldy synergy pieces by just running wardens.  This isn't touching at all on whether or not Sentinels have a place in our armies, or if we should be running 2 15 man blocks of windchargers, or if we should be going all in on the bladelord meta.  This is me saying straight up that anything that you are doing with stoneguard, you can do more reliably with wardens.  And by doing so, you are going to be getting more spell casts/unbinds, are going to have fewer obvious "shoot me now" targets, and can still take advantage of all those other spells and abilities that you were going on about with reducing movement, or controlling your opponent.  You will just be doing those things... better.

[Tango Trooper]

I'll be blunt here. Your wardens will be trampled by Blood Knights, the Blood Knights will then hit your Lord Regent or your Sentinels, perhaps your wizards.

The stonemages will use Gravitic Redirection and prevent the Blood Knight tramples. The stoneguard will then charge the Blood Knights.

I've seen 20 Wardens be exterminated by Blood Knights and then 30 Sentinels be exterminated by the same Blood Knights. Hence my switch to Stoneguard. I do not want the 12 inch auras. I only use army wide buffs.

This is also why I don't use Total Eclipse because not all enemies use Command Points. The same applies to crippling vertigo which does not work on high bravery units or even whole armies like nighthaunts.

I'm not sure what your aim is but my armies are proven in battle and not by debates of theories placed on incorrect fundamentals. If I want to grab an objective I use Transportation Vortex. If I want to hold a battleline I will use Stoneguard and Stonemages backed by Sentinels or Wind Chargers.

[readercolin]

I'll be blunt back - anything that can go through 20 wardens will also go through 10 stoneguard.  I've lost 20 wardens to 10 witch elves, to 2 fulminators, to a single terrorgheist, to getting bodied by nurgle flies, to random shooting.  And all of these will go through 10 stoneguard.

My armies are proven in battle as well.  See, look, my statement now means just as much as yours does.  However, I'm going to bet that I have just as many games with the new book as you do (aka, none).  Is my army going to change with the new book?  Of course it is - it was being hard-carried by sentinels + lambent light before anyways, just like everyone else's, and that build has clearly gone.  Now I can actually try an offensive warden build, or test out windchargers, or see if the light of eltharion can carry its weight.

[Jaskier]

1 hour ago, readercolin said:

I'll be blunt back - anything that can go through 20 wardens will also go through 10 stoneguard. 

You know this isn't true, right? If you All Out Defence 20 Wardens, that's 20 Wounds with a 3+ save and -1 to be hit. If you do the same to 10 Stoneguard, that's 20 wounds with a 3+ save ignoring up to -2 Rend. Like just to use a recent example, 3/5 Mega Gargant variants are locked at Rend 2 outside of a non-guaranteed once per game ability. If a Warstomper (which is now mathematically the best damage dealer of the Megas) smacks the Wardens and has +1 to-hit, it's averaging ~13.5 unsaved damage. Against the Stoneguard, it's averaging closer to ~6. Let's not forget the Stoneguard have a 4+ ward against any mortal wounds either - and let's be real, those Stoneguard are likely going to be -1 to be hit too which pushes the numbers further in their favour. As objective control is determined at the end of a turn, a Stoneguard blob plonked on an uncontested objective will get their ward even when a Mega charges them. 

It's not like this isn't a common case either. There's plenty of units in the game that sport a low volume of high Rend attacks, and outside of Beasts of Chaos and Ironjawz, Rend -3 is extremely rare for most factions. In these situations, the value of ignoring up to -2 Rend (and let's be honest, you will always want to run Stoneguard in Ymetrica) can be a literal game-changer. It obviously will not save them against high volume of attacks, but then outside of 2+ saves most things don't anyway. Let's not pretend like Stoneguard aren't a lot more durable against Rend sources below -3; it's literally their schtick. 

Lastly, yes, you can save stack the Wardens, the beauty of a Ymetrica Alarith list is you can spread those defensive tools like Aetherquartz, Mystic Shield, etc around because they typically won't need to rely on save stacking to survive, allowing you to protect more elements of your army simultaneously which is a big deal. Also, having experienced the Kastelai 4 wound Blood Knight bomb, giving a unit of 10-15 Stoneguard a perpetual extra wound per model is great (and it also interacts with a lot of auto-kill abilities based off of wound characteristics.) 

Edit; just on your Fulminator example, again with +1 to-hit 2 Fulminators average ~13 unsaved against Wardens (+ ~2 mortals) versus ~8 unsaved against the Stoneguard (+ ~1 mortal thanks to the 4++.) Again, not factoring in a nearby moontain providing -1 to-hit for the Alarith. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Jaskier

[JackStreicher]

15 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

Hi folks, I'm considering branching out into a small Lumineth force with their new book. I'd love to have a unit of Wardens but I'm worried about their pikes! A few questions:

1. how common is getting new sprues with bent or warped pikes?

2. how difficult is it to snip the pikes off sprues? (and I guess by extension, how difficult is gluing them?)

3. is magnet or foam best for maintaining the pikes in storage?

 

1. haven’t had any

2. it’s easy, just be careful to use a good (flat edged) clipper

3. Magnet, always magnet no matter the model! Foam rubs off color, spikes get stuck etc!

[Tango Trooper]

10 hours ago, readercolin said:

I'll be blunt back - anything that can go through 20 wardens will also go through 10 stoneguard.  I've lost 20 wardens to 10 witch elves, to 2 fulminators, to a single terrorgheist, to getting bodied by nurgle flies, to random shooting.  And all of these will go through 10 stoneguard.

My armies are proven in battle as well.  See, look, my statement now means just as much as yours does.  However, I'm going to bet that I have just as many games with the new book as you do (aka, none).  Is my army going to change with the new book?  Of course it is - it was being hard-carried by sentinels + lambent light before anyways, just like everyone else's, and that build has clearly gone.  Now I can actually try an offensive warden build, or test out windchargers, or see if the light of eltharion can carry its weight.

Yeah. I've been dicing with windchargers myself. I love the new ward ignores for the windcharger bows. Still not convinced I want to drop from 24 inch range and lore of hysh on the sentinels to 12inch range and no wizards in windchargers though. However, windchargers have a plush movement unlike the sentinels and stoneguard so it could be an excellent counter balance.

I've taken into consideration all of the wild claims on reddit about unit combinations which trash lumineth armies. For the most part the -2 negation to rend from the stoneguard counters a lot of those issues.

The days of suicidal lambent light casters have gone. There weren't high tactics in the sentinels spam. I also ran Alarith Temple Battalion with no sentinels back then.

I was gutted when Alarith Temple Battalion was removed from matched play but the changes to alarith in the newest battletome has put my mind at ease. We can still save stack to +1 for stoneguard but it's not the default play, it's a special case when faced with -3 rend attacks.

The weakness in Alarith Temple Battalion was not the limited movement per say, but, the lack of ranged counter play. Hence why I mixed in sentinels and windchargers instead of a Mountain Spirit as soon as Alarith Temple Battalion was removed from match play.

[Sonnenspeer]

Guys how do you win games with Lumineth?

Some armies are resilient, some are alpha strike armies and/or hard hitting. I understand how you win with such armies. With Idoneth I try to hurt the oppenent as mush as possible Turn2/3. With old Lumineth you just hold the line, waiting for the opponent to come to you, casting Lambert Light and Total Ecipse and weaken him with the archers as much as possible. But with new Lumineth I cant see how you play this army. Any general advise. What would be a good Vanari List?