l1censetochill

The big issue I see is that this list feels like it's just trying to do too much - too many points spent on heroes, too many disparate units that don't synergize, not enough bodies to hold objectives, and just a general lack of focus. That's an understandable issue with all of the new rules we got, of course, but trying to fit everything into a list like this really isn't the way I'd recommend going about it. And even if the list does have some fun potential with all of the varied units, I feel like it'll be frustrating for both you and your opponent as you try to sift through the million rules and interactions you'll need to juggle to make everything work properly. As it stands, I'd say you should choose whether you want to lean more towards Alarith or Hurakan with this list and change the build accordingly. If you want to go Helon, you should get rid of Avalenor, the Stonemage and the Stoneguard - you can use those points to lean heavier on Wardens (2 blocks of 20) for objective control and melee damage, and invest in more Windchargers (2x10, maybe) to better take advantage of your allegiance abilities. Also, I'd consider the Hurakan Temple battalion, as it seems like a huge improvement to their mobility.

Eh, I suppose. To my mind, if I'm going to take a battalion, I'd much rather take either the Auralan Legion or a Temple battalion if I'm going heavy Alarith or Hurakan. I feel like all of those include the units I'd want to take anyway, reduce your drops more, and have arguably better abilities. But granted, I'm not a competitive player, so maybe people out there will end up proving me wrong! I'd love to have a reason to take Bladelords besides looks.

Yep, it's called the Bladelord Host - 1 Vanari or Scinari hero and 2-3 units of Bladelords. Costs 100 pts, allows units in the battalion to re-roll 1s to hit if they get charged. You probably haven't heard much about it because it seems like most folks aren't particularly impressed by it (nor am I), but if you're set on using multiple units of Bladelords there might be an argument for it.

As someone who collects Cities, Stormcast and Lumineth, I've gotta admit I'm a bit bummed out by the rules for Settler's Gain - I was hoping for a way to blend a bunch of my favorite models together on the table, but the rules here feel so clunky I'm having a hard time even coming up with lists. Limiting all of the casting bonuses, artifacts and even spell lores to just Collegiate Arcane wizards feels so restrictive, particularly in comparison to Hallowheart. I know Teclis is a monster regardless, but I don't own his model and it makes pretty much all of the other Lumineth and Stormcast wizard units feel like a waste. In fact, with no buffs and without their allegiance abilities (Aetherquartz, Shining Company), I feel like most Lumineth units will perform pretty poorly in comparison to regular, similarly-costed Cities units like Eternal Guard. Sentinels would still be good, of course. I'm sure I'll still kick a few lists around, though. I quite like @Neil Arthur Hotep's idea of taking Avalenor as a combat monster with a -1 to hit bubble. Paired with a Battlemage with Pha's Protection and a Luminark's FNP bubble, you've got some options to castle up quite well on one or two objectives.

A normal move is a move made during the movement phase. Charging is not a normal move. That said, he does do 1 mortal on a 3+ to a unit when he charges. Doing that math, it averages out to 3.33 mortal wounds (to a maximum spike of 7 on a single unit) in a turn. And by doing this, your 10 wound, 5+ save glass cannon is locked in combat in a location close enough to your enemy's troops that he'll most likely be charged on the following turn. It's a decent turn's worth of damage, yeah, but it's a high risk play, and not exactly game breaking. I feel like the most useful thing about the Spirits of the Wind is that the 24" move lets them constantly threaten back objectives in the late game. Getting them stuck in combat in general feels like a bad idea, so I really don't think you'll be seeing Sevireth getting those D3 mortals more than a couple times per game (if he doesn't just get shot off on turn 1).

From the way the core rules explain it, the Loreseeker should still be able to take artifacts despite being Unique. Named characters can't take artifacts or traits, but being Unique (1 per army) and being a named character are not the same thing. It's just unusual because until now, the only Unique characters in the game were also named characters. This may need to be addressed in the FAQ though, just to make sure everyone's on the same page. I generally lean toward Wardens being better in 20s, as their ability to attack in 3 ranks due to their reach means bigger units don't suffer the drawbacks you get with other armies. It also ensures you get to keep casting longer, as it's easy to lose 5 wardens in a single round of combat against a good enemy unit, even with aetherquartz. If you're just using them for screens, though, 10 should be fine. I don't use Teclis, so I don't generally use them that way.

I feel like 120 is a lot of points to pay to give your Cathallar a meat shield, considering many armies out there will already struggle to take her off the table when she's hiding behind a wall of Wardens, within Look Out Sir range, likely getting a 5+ FNP, and when you've got other priority targets for ranged attacks (Sentinels, Teclis if you run him, etc.). Against the strongest shooting armies, though, I agree they'll be helpful. I think the better use for the Bladelords, though, will be helping tank wounds for the Loreseeker - you can set him up on an enemy objective Turn 1, hope he survives thanks to his +1 save ability, then run/Speed of Hysh/teleport(?) the Bladelords into range on the following turn to help him stay alive. You could probably sit on the objective and hold it for a few turns that way, racking up VPs while your opponent curses you out and yells about NPE.

On a more positive note, most people who play AOS (at least in my area) are quite chill, and just want to play a friendly game and have a few laughs now and then. The very online folks who get worked up over this sort of stuff generally make up a small proportion of the overall community, and unsurprisingly don't actually get involved in their local scene (because other players and store owners don't want to deal with their bad attitudes). It's just a hobby. We're grown adults playing with toy soldiers, and first and foremost we should be having fun with our hobby. If there are folks out there trying to make your hobby unpleasant or stressful, it's best to just avoid them.

Welcome! I 100% recommend painting the Wardens and shields separately. It's hard enough getting the Wardens painted just with the spears attached, since they get in the way of the chest icon and breastplate. The shields would make it 10x worse!

Really hard to make a judgment until we see all of the warscrolls and allegiance abilities confirmed, but my gut instinct tells me that Alumnia may actually turn out to be pretty good (if the "theories" are true) - being able to move units before the first battle round, giving units run & charge as a command ability, and getting a teleport would go a long way to solving our biggest issue: low mobility allowing enemies to trap you in your deployment zone and stack up on objectives. Syar may still be better, but I'd definitely consider this as a nice alternative.

The garrison rules essentially say that the garrisoned model is treated as being part of the terrain feature, and the Sanctum spell also says that the model and the Sanctum are treated as being a single model. I don't think they'll stack - and even if they did, looking at the pictures, I don't think the Sanctum would fit around the base of the Shrine. I'm almost positive the "floating around the battlefield" line is just a figure of speech - no other terrain feature in the game can move like that, and if it were meant to move I feel certain it'd have an actual round base with set dimensions to allow opponents to properly zone it out and to avoid it overlapping with other terrain. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's gotta be stationary. If it weren't it'd be way, way too good (especially when it costs no points!).

A garrisoned unit counts as being in cover (so +1 save) and attacks against them are -1 to hit. So it'll definitely make the wizard in question harder to kill. I think the rules for the Shrine are quite cool, though in thinking it over I'm wondering how the free Command Ability it gives us would best be used. Since it has to be the Shrine Guardian using the CA, it means in most cases it can only be used on a unit wholly within a certain range of the Shrine (12", usually?). So I assume the most common use will be to park a unit of Sentinels next to the Shrine, then use the CA to let them re-roll 1s to hit. I'm also wondering which wizard would be best to use as a Shrine Guardian - you generally want Cathallars to be moving with your Wardens to ensure they're within range to absorb the aetherquartz debuffs, Stonemages need to be near your Stoneguard/Spirit of the Mountains for their buff synergies, Windmages seem like they'll want to be moving around the battlefield to engage in movement shenanigans, and Loreseekers have thus far been presented as hybrid melee/caster heroes who belong near the front lines. So... Calligraves may end up being the choice, I guess? Very cool stuff, though, for sure! Interested to hear other peoples' takes on it.

Thanks for saying it, man, because I'm in the exact same boat (started with Stormcast, picked up Lumineth as a second army last year). I just picked up armies based on how cool I think the models look, and now every time I check out an AOS community it's nothing but constant complaining about the factions I play. It's so tiresome. I already said my piece in the Rumor thread, and since the mods seem to have no interest in curbing the toxicity I think I'm chilling here for the foreseeable future. The real bummer is that all of the screeching from keyboard warriors (many of whom don't even play the game) trickles into the whole AOS scene, so when you show up to play a casual game at your LGS there's a good chance you'll have to spend the whole game listening to your opponent moan about how OP your army is (even when you take fluffy lists or get completely blown out). It can be really disheartening. Well, whatever. I'll be running 5 or 10 of the Swordmasters because I like the models and want to paint them, regardless of whether they suck or they're OP as all hell. Here's hoping they get some fun additional abilities/synergies to go along with the stuff we've already seen.

Oh fantastic, you've already seen the warscrolls and point costs in the new book? Can you please direct the rest of the thread to where you're getting this information, so we can all be as educated as you are? The constant whinging and toxicity over every Lumineth reveal in this thread is getting incredibly tiresome, especially from people who have no idea what they're talking about. I'll just leave it at that - please, go ahead and resume the hatejerking. It's a great way to spend your hobby time and excellent for fostering a good atmosphere in the community.

For context, then, their "Flurry of Blows" attacks are exactly the same as Stormcast Decimators, except Decimators have rend -1 on the profile (so they're better). And Decimators are a garbage unit that's never taken in even semi-competitive lists. And the Perfect Strike is worse. Even auto-hitting with rend -2, a single attack at damage 1 per model (for a unit of 5, no less) is terrible. If they get mortal wounds on 6s, that'd certainly make the Flurry of Blows a better option - but since they designed the Perfect Strike to not have a hit roll, I'm wondering if they'll have some other ability instead. Regardless, the profile right now looks worse than the current Wardens. The people pulling out torches and pitchforks over this are being completely irrational.

Healing in AOS only removes wounds from damaged models, it doesn't bring slain models back. There are a few specific spells that do return slain models (for example, the endless spell Emerald Lifeswarm), but Calming Zephyr isn't one of them. Having played an army with some similar healing options before starting Lumineth (Stormcast), I don't anticipate that this spell will be especially useful - most of the time units in AOS do so much damage that healing D3 wounds is almost meaningless, though I suppose if you're running Avalenor or some other especially tanky hero it could occasionally be worth it.

While I could of course be mistaken, I'd be really surprised if Daemonbane was the only attack on Lyrior's profile - keep in mind that he's meant to be an elite Lord-Regent, and the normal Lord-Regents (based on the model) are going to have standard sword attacks as well (probably at 4 attacks, 3+/3+/-1/1 or something, which puts them in line with most generic melee heroes). So he'll probably have one big attack with the lance, then a few regular sword attacks, like the Dawnrider champion. Then, let's not forget his mount will definitely have attacks as well. I'm expecting that on his own he'll be solid, though not a combat monster. But hopefully he'll have enough punch that opponents will need to respect the damage him + a unit of Dawnriders could do if they double charge into their flank.

If true, this strikes me as a really dumb decision - likely made by GW execs who have never set foot in a store themselves outside of one of their big media events. If I just want to buy models, paints, brushes, or whatever else, I can order them from a third party vendor or buy them at a non-GW LGS at better prices than I can get off the GW site or from my local Warhammer store. The only reason I bother to go to the Warhammer store at all is to play games there. When I do so, I also choose to buy whatever models, paints, etc. I need in order to support the store, even though I'm paying extra for it. I want the store to do well so I can keep playing there. If the store isn't providing a place for me to meet up with people and play games, then I have no incentive to help them stay in business. I don't need a local Warhammer store just to buy retail at inflated prices. It'd be a far better investment for me to drive the extra 5-10 minutes to a different store that does still allow me to play there to support their business instead.

@Someuberdude That's a really nice looking scheme, congrats! Red and gold almost always seem to play well together. For my part, it took a few days' worth of painting sessions and one false start, but I just finished up my Cathallar - a really nice model to paint, and one I like far more in person than I thought I would based on pictures. Not completely satisfied with my first attempt at sheer fabric, and there are a couple details I'd try to clean up if I were doing it again, but it was a good learning experience and I'm happy with the result. Also, after spending months painting Dawnriders and Sentinels, it feels really good to knock out 140 points from my army list with a single model! Next on the agenda are my second units of Wardens and Sentinels to complete the Auralan Legion (and put me over 1k points for the whole army). I'm quite satisfied with my leaders so far:

For starters, it really doesn't look that different in the pictures - in fact, I honestly think the skin looks pretty good! The two things I'm noticing are that the skin on the face and top of the head does seem a bit pale compared to the rest of the body, and that some areas seem really glossy while others look more matte. Both of those things really shouldn't be that hard to fix, fortunately. If you want to darken the skin on the head slightly, you could always consider mixing up a thin glaze of your base skin tone (or something slightly darker) and glazing over the lighter areas to even things out a bit. As long as it's really thin, you'll still be able to see the highlights and shadows you've done underneath. As for the glossiness, I've often had issues with that popping up as well. Certain GW washes tend to go on really glossy for me for some reason, as do Army Painter shades. My solution has just been to hit all of my models with 2 coats of matte varnish after I finish painting, which really tends to smooth out the tones and bring all the colors together. Testor's Dullcote is a common recommendation for that, and I've also really come to like AK Interactive's ultra matte varnish for this purpose. I'm not sure if there's another issue that I'm unable to pick out in the pictures, but hopefully between those two suggestions you can come up with a fix - you obviously put a lot of time into the skin on this model, so don't give up on it yet!

Well, between work stuff, moving into a new house, and my own excruciatingly slow painting speed, I haven't been particularly productive recently. I did, however, finally finish my first unit of 10 Sentinels this weekend! While I could maybe nitpick that I'd like a couple more head options for them, on the whole I found these guys to be a real joy to build and paint: My Cathallar's up next on the painting table, which should (hopefully!) be a quicker 140 points to finish than these were. Still got a whole lot of grey to wade through before I can convince the wife I need to buy any of the new models, though! Looking at the Blademasters and Lord-Regent is one way to keep motivating myself, at least!

Yeah, the Great Nation question is one that I've been mulling over since the reveal show, and I'm honestly not sure what to make of it. It seems likely from the color schemes that all of the new named characters are going to be from Ymetrica - including the named Lord Regent, the Twins, and Sevireth, the named Wind Spirit. And that strikes me as really strange, because none of those units (on the surface, at least) seem like they'd have any synergy with the Ymetrica allegiance abilities, nor do they really seem to fit into the lore. Lyrior Uthralle is a Vanari lord and Tyrion's champion, but Ymetrica is a Teclian nation (and Iliatha is the Great Nation built around the Vanari units, not Ymetrica). The Twins also seem like they'd fit perfectly into Iliatha, since Iliatha's lore is all about twins and soul magic. And we already know Ymetrica is the Great Nation with the largest number of Mountain temples (and they've already got Avalenor), so it seems very weird that the named Wind Spirit is also going to be a Ymetrica unit. So I'm really not sure what the deal is there. Part of me almost expects the Ymetrica allegiance abilities will have to be changed, since they can't be the Hammers of Sigmar, poster-child Lumineth faction, but also be pigeonholed into benefitting only Alarith units. It's like they picked Ymetrica for the named characters and box art based purely on the color scheme, but didn't give any thought to how their rules would work or what the lore says about them. It's weird.

Pretty sure save rolls apply as normal, it just isn't affected by save-after-saves like Gotrek's, Phoenix Guard, Teclis bubble, etc. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Hard to say how popular Lumineth actually are, honestly - the most recent tournament stats put them at ~3.5% of the meta, which is right around the middle of the pack, but tournaments aren't a good representation of the hobby as a whole. And most FLGS's aren't open for games to be played (at least in the US), so I have no idea what my local scene looks like. Lumineth look great, but they're also pretty expensive and challenging to paint for newer players, so that may keep some people away (similar to IDK and DOK). That said, Lumineth posts and model pics seem very common on AOS social media, so I get the feeling a lot of hobbyists are picking them up for the looks, even if they don't plan to paint a whole army for the tabletop. Part of that may just be because they're the most recent big release, but with the new models set to drop in (probably) a few months I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more.

General consensus is the Sentinels are probably the best unit in the current Battletome - assuming you get off Power of Hysh a unit of 20 is going to put out ~6 mortal wounds with 30" range every shooting phase, making it really easy to pick off strategic targets if you take 2-3 of them. A lot of armies (particularly those that rely on heroes to buff their units) will struggle to deal with that. I don't think they're as broken as people sometimes claim, but in the future for friendly games I'll probably max out at 20-30 Sentinels per list to avoid being "that guy". If you're gearing up for a tournament, though, I'd definitely expect to see 50-60 Sentinel lists just deleting stuff off the table every turn (unless the Hurakan archers turn out to be even better, in which case I assume they'll become the new flavor of the week).