Lucur

If you want to get shooty, there's vanguard raptors with longstrike crossbows (preferrably as anvils of the heldenhammer for shoot twice) or celestar ballista with Lord Ordinator (though you need min 3 ballistae for the LO to be points efficient and without the LO ballistae are swingy af). Note that both will be a considerable part of your army.

While i generally consent, i want to add a) total comitment duh and b) the defensive part of -1 to hit should last the round and not the turn imo. But what drags the book down far more is the choice of stormhosts with their clunky restrictions and sub par traits/ artifacts. BUT i'm pretty certain our book was the prototype of new tomes and we were the guinea pigs of the new system. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Wardens will le the safest bet, as they are and unlock battleline. So unless you want to go ymetrica with stoneguard (or maybe the hurakan if they get a BL option), you'll need a minimum of 20 wardens. Depending on how long you need for those go for what you like, rules and points come and go anyways. In the current roster there's no bad picks.

There's wishful thinking around here we're headed for AoS 3 in the near future which would most likely bring us a new book along the way. I haven't seen any rumors on the web confirming that but i sure hope it's true ^^

The healing should not decide which unit gets the lantern in general, it's more of an added bonus. Sequitors for example are a prime target because they can also reroll the saves naturally. I use the lantern on Dracolines, using the chronomantic Cogs to reroll saves, thus i can get some healing in now and then. Stardrakes are another good example. But if you have a unit of Liberators on an objective, buffing their save to make sure you get the VP is often the better choice than fishing for healing on another model.

No dude, the FAQ is pretty clear: first you heal wounds then you apply damage from failed saves. No healing damage that isnt applied yet and no healing after damage is applied. The ability doesn't prevent damage beforehand. Only if your unit suffered damage before the attack was made, you can heal that much damage back if you rolled that many or more 7+. Then you lose wounds according to failed saves.

No that's sadly not right. In this example you lose 3 wounds. You cannot heal wounds that are not there yet, see my post above.

That's not how it works, the Castellant heal only works on wounds suffered BEFORE the current attacks. On Liberators% Sequitors you can only ever heal 1w max with castellant. The longer version: At the moment you make the saves the wounds from the current series of attacks are not allocated to the models (yet) as that happens after the saves are taken. So you can't heal those. FNP style abilities on the other hand are worded to prevent the wounds from being allocated at all, not healing previously allocated wounds. If that makes sense It's a bit like the old MTG mechanic, gain life and prevent damage.

You could grab the underworlds warband (i eye myari as a cathallar stand-in) and build a unit leader from the box.

You might want to hop over to the starcast thread, it's a list "archetype" that focusses on mortal wound generation through stardrakes, prime and some magic and/or allies. With a drake and celestant prime you're halfway there anyways

The CA doesn't say they get an extra spell, so no, one spell it is. It's just the auto success and can't be unbound.

@martinwolf you may want to check the dracoline thread, there's a lot of good talk on Kittycators (my preferred SCE list, too). The choice boils down to how much of a deathstar you want the cats to be and what you takf to support them. I personally run Castellant, Heraldor and chronomantic cogs to get tanky cats. Sometimes i run 15 Sequitors, someties i run ballistae with Ordinator. Not like there's much to run these days

Note: Vandus can't get the Hammers CA as he's unique. You want a Lord-Arcanum general anyways to get Seq battleline. Note 2: You can take Kittycators in a phalanx, three of those are more useful than 5 foot Evos, can buff the Seqs in the hero phase then move off to do things (for example charge the same target as the Sequitors from another angle to make pile ins harder or go blow up a support hero) Hope that helps abit. Also consider the good old Lord Relictor for translocate and -1 to hit for enemies, remedies the movement of Sequitors a bit and helps them survive more.

The requirement is 1 unit, nothing about the size. But Protectors are considered the strongest of the contained units by most and more of them allows for more starsoulmaces while the backrow gets to hit with their glaives thanks to the range. Decimators could in theory do the same but lose lots of attacks and don't have bonus damage vs monsters or bonus save against shooting, so Protectors it is.

Soulstrike makes them okay but the hobby investment is huge for a one trick pony. Castigators are hard to justify unless you have exactly 70pts left and can use an off the side objective grabber (and even then: take aetherwings and a chance at a triumph, fool!) Only time their shooting is ever worth a thing is against daemons/NH when they get extra hits. If they always had that rule on they might do decently. But they don't, so yeah, Judicators.

If i'm not mistaken (big if :P) vindicators CA can be used once, Vandus' can be used several times. Look, i'm not saying it's optimal, it's just the best use i got for the man

Because battlescribe is an official, licensed product and has never contained any mistakes... I dream of Vandus in the skyborne slayers...

I really hope we get a start collecting box alongside the new release. I still delayed starting Lumineth because of a mix of other hobby projects and cost. A proper SC box with a proper discount might just tip the scales.

Considering i'd never thought Liberators would drop from 100 pts and the recent stormkeep rules i'd say anything goes. I'm not sure the space marine treatment is what we want, though, as there are still people who think Evocators are brokem... and then see how SM players get treated in 40k, i know a bunch of people who flat out refuse to play even against friendly lists. The hyperbole and general adversity to the faction are unreal. And that's something SCE suffer from already, even with a weak book. Give us meta dominant rules and we're the black sheep sigmarine power gamers that destroyed the old world amd took little Erma's lolly on the way out.

I'm curious what the related behemoth will be (if there is one). i'll not make calls based on potato cam pics of the back of a box. We'll see more come saturday, i guess.

The Soulwars warscroll said 1/3 greatmaces and the soulwars unit sizes are all over the place. I wish we could in-/ decrease unit sizes by single models, not these stupid fixed blocks... but that's not a SCE exclusive problem

With Sequitors even more so, as you get an extra slot for a greatmace in addition t the 2/5.

There was an FAQ a while back (like 2 years?) that you need a hero on the field to use it. At work so can't get references, but i'll look into it wjen home. if i remember

Yes, as the bites are made after pile in but before the attacks, removing models might put you outside weapon's range or even 3in engagement range.

Clanrats. There's always too many of them, they screen their shooting, they are fearless through the verminlord and there's no way an equal amount of Liberators or Sequitors can trade with them somewhat equally.