[Sons of Behemat Discussion 👣]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

Im still a bit on the fence, but ultimately I feel like SoB is one of those armies that will absolutely crush non-optimized lists by simply exsisting on the table, nevermind destroy squishy armies. Against the very top meta armies I think its looking rather grim. Many armies will very easily remove 1+ Mega per turn (some can comfortably remove 2) which you cant do a whole lot about due to their immense speed. I also think the result will very much depend on what battleplan you are playing on. My games so far have been VERY swingy and in about 10 games I have really only had 1 close match (fun semi shootcast list) which went all the way to turn 5 and I barely won by 2 points on Blade's Edge. 

Im still a bit annoyed at our Tribes.. Stomper is pretty disgusting against hordes of low wound models but it is kinda weaksauce against non-horde armies. Breaker is pretty awesome but if you pick the wrong loathing you basically get no benefit either. Taker is all around good, but again if you dont face horde armies, the increased model count doesnt really matter. I feel like picking your Tribe is very much hit or miss, where as other armies gain general benefits that work pretty much against any kind of army they face. This setup for the SoB sucks hard if you are into the "all-comer-list" gameplay rather than fixing a game with your mate and tailor your list accordingly. 

You can basically very easily run into situations where your alligiance abilities do 0 and all you have going is your warscroll abilities and the increased model count (which is great, no doubt).

If you are prepping for a tournament setting (as in you really have no idea about the meta you are playing in) I feel like Breaker with Bossy Pants is kind of a safe choice. 

 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

47 minutes ago, LuminethMage said:

@ChrisNoAnts I faced the same problem with my Sentinels and the Zaitrec Scheme. I didn't want to add any new colours. So in the end - I just added a layer of dark grey on the pants and used the same colour as for the skirt (in your case would be red). With the highlights etc. it worked out quite well for me. It looks similar, but different enough. An alternative might be a very light blue? Similar to your white on the armour, but with a slightly more bluish tint? Yellow could also fit well with the rest of your scheme. 

Btw. very nice paint job on your Warden : ). 👍

Hey, thanks for input. However, I'm not quite sure I understand your process.

Quote

I just added a layer of dark grey on the pants and used the same colour as for the skirt

Did you undercoat the area in dark grey so that the cloth color comes out darker? 

 

Edit: I think going yellow might be a great idea. I'm thinking Agaros Dunes or Iyanden Yellow contrast. 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

Guys, I need some help. 

After painting my first unit in the Ymetrica color almost killed me, I'm planning to paint the rest of the army in Iliatha colors. 

How would you go about painting the "extra" fabric on the archer models? 
 

•  I don't want it to be red. The loincloth / tabard is already going to be red.
• I don't want it to be orange as most of the fabric of the archer model is already going to be orange. 
• Black won't work either as gloves and boots are going to be black.
• White could work, but the armor is already white.

I feel like I should introduce an extra color for those models or just paint the fabric white. 

Do you guys have any suggestions? 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

3 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

Yep, painting Dawnriders is horrific. To the point where I’m considering leaving them at 5 even at 2k lol.

Building and painting both. 

I  tried to have the riders separate from their horses so that I can paint them a little easier. After building them that way, absolutely nothing lined up. I had to paint them in once piece and I totally messed up the build.

I really love the models, but unless I find a painter who  can finish them for me I'm not gonna touch a second unit. 

Totally unrelated: What do you think about the Cathallar's Darkness of the Soul spell?

My take is that it's totally busted, especially in the Teclis / Powerstone list where you can pretty much guarantee that it goes off.  For an opponent that brings something big, i.e. a max unit of anything, it is straight up in negative play experience territory for me. 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

Posting some progress...I've been working on this model for what felt like a month. I'm pretty scared by the idea of painting a whole army like that

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

From a hobby point of view I'm starting to think that the Lumineth are going to be an awful choice for new players. 

I assembled my first Dawnrider yesterday, which took well over an hour. Some key takeaways:

 

- Mold lines as bad as I've ever seen them. It's not only their positioning but also the quality. They feel way to harsh and pronounced for a brand new mold, which makes me think that they changed up things a bit in course of catching up with COVID. OBR Models where way better in that regard. 

- Tons of subassemblies required. I'm usually a "if a brush can't reach it you aint gonna see it" type of guy and love painting my models fully assembled. On these models, however, not a chance. There are at least 3 subassemblies per rider, with serious hobbyists going up to 4,5 or even more. To make things worse for beginners, the way the kit goes together doesn't allow for clear subassemblies as the riders legs go with the horse instead of with the body. 

- Unclear gates. I messed up at least one part that I had to repair with filing and molding on the first rider as it was really hard to make out what's part of the model and what's the gate. 

- Lots of fiddly bits that break real easy. 

- That Paintjob... Seriously, I painted a couple of Thousand Sons and swore to myself that I'm never going to paint another army with such a rim type of armor. I don't know why I picked up this damn army as the rim on these models is about a million times worse, plus, there are at least a thousand details on every unit, which aren't even very expensive, points wise (so you gotta paint a ton of 'em). 

As a PS regarding the last point: I did a test model (see attached) to try a few things out. If you want to paint the rim anywhere like that, the color you want to use below the gold (as a foundation and shading at the edges) is contrast Wyldwood, straight out of the pot. I cannot stress enough how much of a help it is. The marks on the spear blade are from the cat. 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

30 minutes ago, fenriswolf2003 said:

How do I give my wizards more spells? I am starting AoS with this army. On the warsroll of the cathalar is written it knows mystic shield, arcane shot and his own spell. However the list a few comments above gives the cathalar and the wardens two more spells out of the lore of hysh (the lore where everyone but the Alarith have access to). How?

Every wizard can pick a spell from their appropriate list. So, your Cathalar has Mystic Shield, Arcane Missle, his own spell and a spell from the Lore of Hysh. In addition, OP chose Zaitrec as his Great Nation (although the list says Ymetrica) which gives every wizard the ability to cast Overwhelming Heat (which isn't really part of the Lore of Hysh list, another typo). That's why you see multiple spells per unit on the list. 

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

16 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I've now got my own copy of the battletome and have been trying to wrap my head around it. I really, really want these guys to be good but the more I try the more frustrated I get!

Disclaimer: all of this is from a competitive perspective. I think these guys are going to be perfectly viable in almost any configuration in a casual or semi-competitive environment. ALL of the warscrolls are good enough to use, and now that I've crunched the numbers I'm fairly confident that I was wrong about too many warscrolls being redundant. There's very little redundancy in the book.

First, here are my brief thoughts on all of the warscrolls:

  Reveal hidden contents

• Teclis - Ultra powerful, game defining warscroll but also a massive liability in any metagame that has a good amount of shooting. If all of your locals are melee or magic hounds then Teclis could be a great meta call. Against an unknown opponent though I think he just raises the % of games that you auto-lose too much.
• Eltharion - He's fine, but I don't really see why you'd want to take him from a competitive standpoint. His damage output is good for a hero on foot, and his defensive efficiency is good for a hero on foot but he's incredibly weak to mortal wounds, is slow, and doesn't do anything that other warscrolls don't already do. I'd rather have more wardens, stoneguard or whatever than him.
• Avalenor - This guy seems very good. He provides a little ranged support, has OK damage efficiency for a hero/monster (although still worse than regular units) and OK defensive efficiency for a hero/monster. His -1 hit aura is really nice, and I think he will be a key part of the Stoneguard battalion as it provides a second hero with which to trigger the battalion ability. His CA is also really, really good. Solid all around warscroll that does a little bit of everything.
• Alarith Spirit of the Mountain - Almost strictly worse than Avalenor, I can only imagine taking one if for some reason I want two big monsters. He's not a hero (which matters for some battleplans). His support abilities are significantly worse, his damage efficiency is a bit lower when charging and a bit higher when not charging, and his defensive efficiency is a bit worse. Unless you absolutely MUST have that 20 points for something else, Avalenor is going to be better 95% of the time.
• The mages - both seem decent but you're not building a list around them.
• Alarith Stoneguard - Very, very good defensive infantry. I think it's worth comparing them to Phoenix Guard, Mortek Guard, and Hearthguard Berserkers. Offensively Stoneguard are fine. At their peak they are better than Phoenix Guard but I think will be roughly comparable in average game situations. But they are much worse than buffed Mortek Guard or Hearthguard Berserkers. Defensively they are nothing to write home about outside their battalion -- good but definitely not great. In their battalion though they are only beaten by Petrifex Mortek Guard against rend 0 melee and actually beat Petrifex Mortek Guard against rend 1 (and rend 2 if Ymetrica). They beat out Phoenix Guard and Hearthguard in melee against all conventional attacks, but are much worse against mortal wounds. Against ranged attacks Phoenix Guard and Hearthguard are better and Petrifex Mortek Guard are a bit better. That said, their defense is vulnerable to hero sniping in a way that PG and MG isn't.
• Vanari Dawnriders - The only fast unit available, I don't see how you can go without at least a unit of these or maybe two. They are also extremely efficient against 1 wound infantry and very efficient against 2 wound infantry, but they are awful against other targets. They absolutely can't be relied on as the core of an army.
• Vanari Auralan Sentinels - I think these are one of the most unique strengths in the roster. They are incredible hero snipers and a very good source of mortal wounds at range. Their damage output is not great against cheap wounds though, so again like dawnriders they are a niche role and I don't see them as a viable core. They are also horrible defensively and incredibly vulnerable to enemy ranged units.
• Vanari Auralan Wardens - Despite their billing these guys are actually not defensively efficient, even in their battalion and in the Shining Company formation. In Shining Company and in their battalion they are decently efficient against rend 0 but not good against any other damage type. Otherwise they are only OK defensively in Shining Company and quite bad outside of it. They are slow (especially in Shining Company), but their damage output is quite respectable. At base they are good but not great, but with Power of Hysh active they are very good. Their Wizard status gives them some utility, too. But overall they are slow and don't excel at anything -- a combination of characteristics that you almost never see in competitive units. The problem is that unless you go Ymetrica then you have to take at least two units of these guys for your battleline.

Thoughts on Great Nations:

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• The two ones that seem competitive to me are Ymetrica and Zaitrec with maybe Syar as a dark horse.
• Zaitrec seems like it should be the best option. Resolving Power of Hysh is just so important in making Sentinels and Wardens good, so the +1 to cast seems really hard to give up. Overwhelming Heat is also very good. The other characteristics are minor at best.
• Ymetrica definitely makes Alarith units more reliable, but beyond that everything else is really mediocre. The key thing is making Stoneguard battleline.

So this leads me to the following frustrations:

• Stoneguard are the only warscroll that is good enough at what it does to form a viable core to the army, but they aren't battleline and they aren't good enough all around (like Mortek Guard or Hearthguard Berserkers) to actually carry the army.
• Wardens are probably the worst non-hero/monster warscroll, but also the only battleline option outside Ymetrica.
• Sentinels and Dawnriders both seem necessary, but neither can really form the core of the army as they are also niche. They (especially Sentinels) also really want to be in Zaitrec.
• The army has no screening unit. Wardens can't really screen in Shining Company (and are too expensive for the role anyway), and Stoneguard who could screen are bad at it because they are 2W per base instead of 1.

In the end I can't figure out how to build a legal list that will actually do what I want it to do reliably.

If I go Ymetrica, my Sentinels become much less reliable. If I go Zaitrec I don't have enough points to keep my drops to a reasonable level, get the support units that I need and get enough Stoneguard to form a core.

I don't really see how any build of Lumineth beats Deepkin, Tzeentch, or a ranged heavy Cities or Seraphon build. If you go too heavy on sentinels, then I think you can add Orruk Warclans to that list.

So yeah, I feel pretty stuck.

Thank you for sharing your detailed analysis, this saved me a lot of time.

I've got a bit of an alternative take on the matter. When we compare points for damage / defense efficiency we factor in a lot of faction stuff. What we cannot properly compute though is our ability to fight twice during combat, which can have a huge impact on actual unit performance as it sort of works offensively and defensively simultaneously.

When we consider that our defense can potentially be great while our damage is mostly mediocre, Lightning Reactions could be the thing that pushes everything over the edge outside of efficiency computations. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Here's another take on the Bonereapers!

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Guys, whats the general opinion on Immortis Guard? I was planning to include them in a list with Katakros and a couple of casters to keep them safe from sniping attempts, but now they seem like a large-ish investment, considering that they compete with Stalkers points-wise. 

 

Unrelated, here is a new paint scheme that I'm starting: 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Finished my Stalkers, building the Falchions despite their bad math. They just look too cool. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

18 hours ago, Blitzd said:

The only people not using it are miss reading the spell. Cast out anywhere in LOS, ideally in a big blob on enemy units, on a 3+ in the hero phase, shooting phase, charge phase, combat phase, battleshock phase that a model is removed near it, every unit within 6 takes a mortal. I've killed characters with it without targeting the characters with anything

Dude, thanks for pointing it out like that. Turns out I never truly read his rules. I'm kind of speechless, this bird is absolutely bonkers. 

Now I truly want to buy a catapult. 

 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

3 hours ago, Sedraxis said:

Basically, I think OBR is one of the best examples of balance since every unit is worth considering over another and every 2k list will have one or two weaknesses. I wish every book did this.

That is true, the units got a really healthy internal balancing. Even choices like swords / spears are actual choices. I just wish they do something about Petrifex Elite. They are just too strong and overshadow the other options.

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Hey guys, I recently finished my nexus and I'm currently doing the last strokes on a 20 piece blob of Spearmen. I'm already afraid that the next squad of 20 is going to break me a bit. Attached is a crummy cellphone pic of how they'll look like. 

Did anyone manage to make the Kavalos Deathrider work yet? I mostly see them in squads of 5 but upon reading the battletome for the first time, their big formation looked really good on paper. The 15 model unit would average out on 5 mortal wounds per charge and with the battalion they could keep doing it. Initially I thought this would be really awesome, but the point investment is massive. My plan is to run them in a 15/5/Arch-Kavavlos formation under Preatorians. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

I did a bit of mathhammer to confirm my suspicion that something about the Stalker is off. 

This is based on a single model with 5 attacks (Spirit Blades). It obviously scales with models. 

No other buffs are present. The target got a relevant save of 4+. 

• Both reroll modes yield 1.98 wounds
• The rend/damage mode yields 1.85 wounds while only computing for the extra rend

These numbers are pretty much equivalent and would allow for actual choice, depending on the situation, however:

• The actual rend/damage mode yields 3.7 wounds, vastly outperforming the other offensive modes. 

Note that on weaker saves where the extra rend does not matter, the picture does not change. If the target had a 5+ save it looks like this:

• Reroll mode: 2.47 wounds
• Rend / damage mode: 4.44 wounds

tl;dr: 

• It is almost always wrong to go for the reroll mode (outside of going for defense)
• It is always wrong (math not shown here, but I did it and it checks out) to go for the Falchions

This feels like a huge oversight / bad game design. It feels like the +1 damage slipped in somewhere, it does not makes sense as a rule choice.  Also, after doing that math I'd wager that these guys are something like an AoS-wide Top 5 raw damage unit, if not better. It's a 200 points unit that can butcher pretty much everything in the game except the biggest monsters and heroes. They are boxing far above their point-weight while being tanky and versatile at the same time. 

 

@ScurvydogYou might be right that without the rend/damage mode, they would just not be a valid option. But I stand by opinion that the choices they offer are garbage and that they output is incredibly high. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

I'm coming from a 1000p Meeting Engagement test game with the OBR. The one thing that's in the forefront of my mind right now: Stalkers and / or Petrifex Elite are overtuned. 

Petrifex Elite should not have the incredible -1 Rend CA in addition to the already incredible +1 to save. 

Stalkers should not get -1 Rend AND +1 Damage. It massively outshines the other 3 options. 

I've had a min size Stalker unit deal 20 damage after all saves to a Lord of Affliction and it felt bad. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Guys, how do you handle your standard bearers in large units?

A 40 piece blob of Mortek Guard can have 4 banner bearers. I think it looks crappy, causes a lot of extra work and (most importantly) does not feel fluffly to me. 

Not building the maximum number of banner bearers is a clear disadvantage though. At one point you might have to remove that one model. 

My playgroup is probably fine with a "pick up the banner if the bearer dies, up to x times whereas x is the number of maximum allowed banner bearers"-houserule, but I also dislike the level of bookkeeping and explaining out of regular playgroup games.

I'm fishing for your opinions here. How will you handle your banner bearers? 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

I painted up this squad as a proof of concept, checking if I'd be willing to paint up 2500 points of these guys. Cutting a lot of corners, I now feel like I can do it. Its a whole lot of drybrushing and I avoided the different hues of bone colors that are on the box art. I really like them right now, even though the whole paintjob turned out darker than I expected. 

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Oh right I totally  misread. Its just an ability, not a CA or spell. So it makes sense to have multiple Boneshapers, right?

[AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion]

Guys, just to make sure I am getting this right. There is no limit on how often I can use a command ability unless it is specifically restricted. So as an example, if I spend 5 CP a single Boneshaper could bring back 15 Mortek Guard in a single phase.

Correct?