Saturmorn Carvilli

That apex between the rock isn't even were the mage and floaty rocks connect. It is the tree and cape to the back of the pillar-like bit which is a good more plastic connecting the two than it appears. So far, the only issue I really had is the ribbons on Avalenor's legs. Particularly the left one, I think, where the sprue gate appears to be as thick that the spot the ribbon crosses over with itself. Just removing it from the sprue I broke and then tried to replace it from my Spirit of the Mountain and also broke that one. I glued the bit back on, but I doubt it is going to survive the table for very long. I suppose it won't be that noticeable though.

Yeah, I am going to actually have to think about MW hurting with Lumineth. Bravery too for that matter. My Chaos Undivided Warriors and Knights made me lazy to dealing with those elements. I certainly will field Teclis as some point, but I want to learn the faction via the Alarith. They were what had me go from, "The Lumineth look nice enough in a classic high elf sort of way." to "I am going to start an army of that faction." As a geologist, I am always a fan of non-dwarven earth elementalists in fantasy. Not that I have an issue with dwarves. It is just that they are always the go to fantasy earth-aspect race. Which after way too much D&D is too played out for me to be that interested anymore.

Interesting. At first look I was concerned about the lack of speed with so few Dawn Riders. However, you make a good point that my opponent is going to want to close the distance to deal with those sentinels giving the rest of my army a chance to get stuck in. It is definitely a much different list than what I would have thought of. I also kinda like it for transportation logistics of not having to bring Wardens. Finally, it looks very different to one of the other players getting Lumineth at my FLGS I spoke with. I don't know if I will every play him, but he said he was going very heavy into Vanari especially Wardens as he really likes elven spearmen. I think I will go with this instead. Thank you.

I appreciate the response. In terms of point #1, I wanted 3 groups of Stone Guard. However, I wasn't not expecting their monetary price to be as expensive as it was. So I only bought a total of 20 Stone Guard which I plan to model half with picks and half with mallets, and each group having a leader with twin hammers and a banner bearer. I don't really mind the twin hammers not being as good and I kinda want to have a group of both weapon types for aesthetics. At some point I so want to pick up another 10 Stone Guard as to really fill out the Alarith Temple. I am going to probably wait to see what a start collecting to battle box has, though; so it could be a long wait. As for point #2, I strongly considered a second Stone Mage, but again my Lumineth budget was strained from the expected prices for the models. Depending on what the Underworlds warband models look like I have been considering using something in it for a proxy for a second Stone Mage. Or go with some third party model to kitbash one at some point. Until then, I only have the one. I do agree that them getting removed quickly could be an issue. Strangely, the person I primarily play (DoT and KO player) has some strange code of honor about not attacking heroes. Whether it is an actual code or he doesn't see my heroes as threats I don't know. What I can tell you is when I play my S2D Ravagers army he ignores my Sorcerer Lord and Chaos Lord on foot far more than I would, and he has been burned my the Chaos Lord's double attack Command Ability enough to know not to. I could drop the Light of Eltharion and 10 Wardens to fit in both Avalenor and a Spirit of the Mountain. Playing a Warrior and Knight heavy S2D army, I wanted to stick kinda close to what I am used to. So I kinda have an idea how I want to use the Wardens but don't have as clear an idea how I want to use the behemoths. I agree that Lumineth points aren't easy to pick and chose with. I am also not sure how good of an idea it will be to mostly forsake spell casting with them even if I am mostly going with Mountain Aspect stuff. I mostly play against DoT so I kinda shy away from magic too much as it usually doesn't work or only strengthens my opponent.

My current thoughts is to have the Wardens front and center with the Sentinels behind them with both moving toward and possible nearby objectives as needed. The Dawn Riders are for distant objectives/speed bumps until my Alarith or the Light of Eltharion can get there. Probably keeping the Stone Mage and Spirit close together along with a unit of Stone Guard to serve as my hammer. All-in-all, I plan to play them pretty classic rank file Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Cavalry and Archers. My usual opponents include Disciples of Tzeentch (I don't want to go neg play experience if possible), Blades of Khorne, Kharadron Overlords and occasionally a squiggy army of Gloomspite Gitz. Most players don't have much more than 2,500pts in their collections, and as such, they don't typically have optimized armies either. To put it another way, my Slaves to Darkness army of mostly warriors and knights was doing pretty well so long as the battleplan had known, static objectives. Part of that was my army is pretty simple. My ability to leverage wins was starting to falter as my opponents starting really learn the finer details of their armies.

I have been playing around with mine today. I have to say they roll a whole lot better than I thought they would. I have a few d6s that take more time to settle down than them. At least on flat surfaces. The bevels on the rolling portion of the Lumineth dice are sharp enough to prevent them from rolling too long. While the surface isn't so great they don't 'cha-chunk'' like d8s tend to. These dice honestly are going to be used a lot more than I had planned on. I will still mostly use the yellow boxed set most of the time, but I think these other ones will be used for leaders, spell casting, Initive and maybe even mixed in for special attacks with my LRL.

I went with 4 boxes giving me 20. I wanted a total of 6 boxes to really fill out an Alarith Temple battalion. I just couldn't bring myself to do that that the cost per box. The main reason I decided to start LRL was mostly because of them.

In an attempt to ween some of the posts from very long discussion thread to a more specific thread now that LRL has its own subgroup, I am starting this one. To kick it off, I changed my initial army list as the models I ordered were a little different than I originally planned. I am very much sticking with Ymetrica as that is the colors I am painting my army. As well as trying to lean into playing a mostly Alarith army. Here is my list so far: Great Nation: Ymetrica Leader: Stone Mage, Light of Eltharion Battleline: Stone Guard (picks) x10, Stone Guard (mallets) x10, Wardens x20, Dawn Riders x5, Behemoth: Spirit of the Mountain Other: Dawn Riders x5, Sentinels x10, Sentinels x10 Battalions: Alarith Temple 1990pts, 124 Wounds That's basically all my non-Leader models. I have/will have Avalenor, Teclis, the Scinari Cathallar and the Lumineth Endless Spells as the rest of my LRL collection. I could switch out the Spirit of the Mountain and Light of Eltharion for Avalenor and Scinari Cathallar which would also leave me with the ability to take Endless Spells/Command Point. I don't see that as useful for my army at this point though. When my budget allows, I would like to get at least 10 Stone Guard and 20 more Wardens. That is going to have to wait a bit though. I do want to get some feedback on the list I can put together now just the same.

I found the Ymetrica one pretty lacking. I was hoping that the video would expand on the battletome tips. Instead, it seem to go for a far more basic tutorial. I didn't find it that useful as it seem geared for someone even more simple style than my painting style which isn't that complex. As an example, I was hoping the video would have covered the Skeleton Horde and Medium mixture at 1:1 for getting that cream color cloth. I haven't really don't washes/inks/stains to change the color of the base coat (on purpose) so I wanted video of how to accomplish it without leaving uneven spots or pooling in the recesses. Unfortunately, the Warhammer Youtube video went straight Skeleton Horde Contrast. It also had an uneven spot at the lower part of the right robe, and when the model's back is shown some pretty bad pooling. Or at least for what I am looking to accomplish. I was also surprised very little layering/highlights was done on any of the blue parts. Overall, I would have much preferred the video focus on painting up one model better over the three in the video not done as well as I would have liked. Maybe I am being overly picky. At the same time, I just watched the Duncan video which even using different colors seemed much better on how go about painting Lumineth models switching colors as needed. I am still hoping for a more comprehensive and higher level tutorial for Teclis. If that happens and it is anywhere close to Archaon, I think I can use apply some of the techniques to my Ymetrica army. I couldn't really do that with the actual Ymetrica tutorial sadly.

Yeah, the same as Places of Arcane Power without a lot of front line Heroes. Both create an somewhat artificial reason for those roles via the way they score points. Which is exactly what I mean by 'eat you vegetables' army building. Whether a player want those units are not, the game requires then to take them if they know what's good for them. Not because a player wants those unit is their army. Much like whether a person wants to or not, they should eat their vegetables if they know what's good for them. I just don't think that is very effective way to go about putting together a miniatures wargame. Especially if the 'vegetable' units are supposed to be the core of each factions' armies. It leads them to be a tax unit taken at the minimum amount to allow the rest of the army to be the good stuff. Which still leads to armies not really being composed of the core units and players who happen to like those core units having a weaker army because of it. Example: see Chaos Space Marines or Space Marine armies that don't even have chaos space marines or space marines in them. I think Age of Sigmar designers should really think about what fundamental element(s) they want Battleline units to accomplish and then write rules that facilitate that. Perhaps considering cutting the number of unit considered Battleline too. If for example, I was to say I think Battleline should excel at holding ground/objectives; Battleline units could all have Objective Secured. Which is still kinda an artificial patch but better than nothing. I would also consider rules that increase a Battleline's general resilience since holding ground is going to often leave them a target. Something along the lines of re-rolling Saves, a minor Shrug or Damage Resistance if the Battleline unit did not move/run for example. I certainly don't think making Battleline inherently weaker than any other units is a good way to go about it.

One concept that tends to linger in GW's games is the concept that an army's most common unit (Battleline, Troops) are an 'eat your vegetables' selection. Something everyone has to take before they can have the 'good' stuff in their army. I am not a fan of this. I think if Battleline or unit slots/categories are to continue to exist then GW ought to come up with better reasons than forcing players to eat their vegetables before they can have the main/dessert units they actually want. I think Objective Secured (the old 40k term) is an acceptable, though not optimum, method to ensure players want to take Battleline units. Although, realistically I would prefer something a little more emergent. Players should want to take them not be forced to. I think one of the big issues in Age of Sigmar is that the game hasn't well defined what role Battleline serves beyond being a more common type of unit for a faction. Leaning on black powder era armies (that's as far as my historical knowledge goes), there's distinct roles that line infantry, cavalry, artillery have each important in their own way, and a game could be set up without restriction where players would still ensure they cover all three types and still have room for light infantry, skirmishers, dragoons, etc. However, what commonality does AoS Battleline units have with each other than being a tax unit and occasionally critical to some Battle Plans? Several factions have infantry and cavalry options while others can have archers/musketeers available. Conditional Battleline units only aggravate the problem of undefined role of what Battleline purpose. Without a defined purpose of what Battleline units do in the game beyond some amorphous 'what we think the army should look like', I don't think there's much chance to fixing them beyond having players eat their vegetables.

Groovy.

The prices had me cut back a bit. I already had the boxed set. Today I pre-ordered Teclis, Scinari Cathallar, Wardens x1, Sentinels x2, Endless Spells and Dice. I wanted another two boxes of Wardens, but they are just too expensive for me with everything else I got. I am going Ymetrica and Alarith so the second half of the release where most of my army actually is. I plan on getting Avalenor, a Spirit of the Mountain, Stone Mage and at least Stone Guard x4 plus a group of Dawn Riders. I want a total of 30 Stone Guard, but I suspect they are going to be $50 US which is a little more than I care to pay for all at once.

If you don’t mind me asking, how is it bad sportsmanship? I most certainly can't speak for NinthMusketeer. I can speak for myself that making the standard bearer and musician the model does feel like it is gaming the system. It feels that it was very rare to never any real historical army on Earth to have their banners bearers and musicians being one in the same. I could be wrong on that though. It definitely doesn't feel like model kit ever intended it. So it very much feels like someone attempting this is doing it for some sort of advantage in game. Even if that advantage is ease of just position one model instead of two. Now you can say, 'but there are abilities that can target a specific model making it the double dipping have a drawback.' However, let's be real. That is very unlikely to happen in that the Champion or any weak link that causes coherency loss is far more a target. There's a good chance some model standing a particular spot is going to be a better target. And that's assuming your opponent is even bothering using such an ability on your Warriors/Knights. So if it isn't that important, why worry about it? Because AoS is a miniatures game which heavily implies aesthetics are important. I am having a hard time picturing a musician/standard bearer model not looking like a confused mess even if it was well converted. So again it comes back to me thinking that a player wanting to do such a thing isn't being exactly sporting and trying to leverage an advantage however small. I personally don't find myself that interested in a game with someone willing to leverage such things in the gaps and margins of the game. They seem like a pill and going to the DMV/Dentist seems like a more fun use of my time. Maybe that isn't the case, but I don't really fancy spend 2-3 hours to find out. In contrast, I have a standard bearer for every 10 of my 40 Warriors. When I field 15 Warriors I leave the 2nd one out. When I field all 40 in groups of 20 I don't really have a choice in the matter. At the same time, I made sure my opponent was aware which standard was the one with rules attached and which one was decorative. Which really doesn't matter as I run my S2D army as Chaos Undivided with plenty of heroes to maintain auras. So I rarely even roll Bravery tests anyways. Just like the way weapon choices are written, I don't believe that the designers intend what they wrote in these particular cases. I certainly don't want to take advantage of poor wording nor have a very confused looking model if and when it gets changed.

Yeah... I am already planning on going slightly over budget to get the Lumineth army I want with almost everything being slightly more than I was expecting. The only way I can get back under budget is if the Stone Guard happen to be $35 U.S. I don't see that happening though.

DIGGANOBZ!

I'm okay with this. Even though I am planning on more of an Alarith army, I still want a good portion of the Vanari. Plus all the Lumineth Heroes and Endless Spells. I kinda prefer it broken up to keep the wallet pain from being all at once. Now, I have to wonder which week is going to be more expensive for me? Plus, it isn't like I believe I would even finish building (I build pretty slowly) everything from either group before I get the next group anyways.

You know what? Chicken butt. But also I think I am going to get a set of those dice with rest of everything else. I don't think I will really use them except for like critical rolls or maybe spell casting with my Lumineth. Still... They are going be fun to break out at the beginning of a game to see the reaction on my opponent's face. I might also add one die to the mix for every cow-pun not said by me or helmet comment I get (I'm going all in on the Alarith). Unless they work a lot better than I think they will, they probably won't actually be used though.

I am just stoked for Lumineth as I was when I decided to start collecting them. I just put a pile of my space marines on my painting table that I figured would be a challenging but very possible painting goal to work on before the Lumineth are released. So I have a painting goal deadline I want extra time to complete competing with my desire to start work on my new aelf army. I don't know how many people it would help them stay excited, but it has been working great for me. I have been rapidly closing in catching up painting everything my space marine army (something GW seem determined to not let me do churning out more and more marines) while not getting bored waiting to start this new army.

As long AoS largely sticks to wholly within type auras I don't think think 9th ed 40k unit coherency is needed at all. For all of 8th ed 40k's life cycle there existed ugly unit formation exploits from stringing units out all along the front (bubblewrap) and back (deep strike denial) of deployment zones. Some units even having the numbers and distance (remember 40k unit coherency is 2" not AoS's 1") to hold two objectives at the same time. That's before getting involved with units having little tails to be within HQ auras. Heck, 8th edition didn't even really punish units that the player purposely allowed to be out of coherency like AoS and 9th ed 40k have. AoS in contrast, already has counters to strange/gamey unit formations. Sure, go ahead and stretch your horde unit out into a max spaced long line. Just don't do against one of the factions that gets to pick the model removed. Not to mention, AoS generally being more melee focused means less of your units are contributing in fights. If anything, I think AoS should consider adding more formation buffs similar to the Lumineth's Shining Company rules. I wouldn't mind seeing more factions forming more traditional rank and file shapes that do eventually break into more of a skirmisher formations mid/late game if needed.

I would argue it does matter how long it takes to update since GW is charging a monthly subscription fee. The longer they delay, the less worthwhile a monthly subscription becomes. If GW wants to go the fire and forget route with few and far between updates then they should probably consider a flat fee instead of asking customers to constantly pay for a non-service.

Here's a short list of some of things that make AoS a simpler/more elegant game than 40k. Points and buying models/wargear: In 40k you have the ability to purchase (not counting Power Level which is typically not used in PUGs) per man beyond the minimum squad size for most non-vehicle/monster units. Additionally, most units also have a selection wargear that cost additional points. List building in general in 40k requires far more accounting. Most of the time in AoS, you drop the zero from points and not change a thing. Detachments: 40k has a whole host of Force Organization Charts with Detachments each dictating the type of units you take. Additionally, taking more detachments alters the number of Command Points (8th ed was more, 9th ed is less). More Types of Unit: 40k has Troops, Fast Attack, Elites, Heavy Support, Flyers, Lords of War and HQs compared to AoS's Heroes/Leaders, Battleline, Behemoths and Others (I think that's everything). Point is there are few more unit types in 40k. Command Points and Stratagems: 40k has several times the number of Command Points available for a 2000pt army to manage before and during a game. As mentioned, CP can even be spent on Stratagems giving units special ability very close to what Battalions often can do in AoS (not that close, but enough to mention). Additionally, 40k's general pool of a Stratagems is typically more than what any given AoS army even has to spend CP on during a game, and there are at 3-5 times that number of stratagems available per faction. Determining To Wound Target Number: In AoS this is a static number depending on the unit. In 40k, this is a variable determine by the difference between Strength and Toughness. Factions and Subfactions: 40k just has more of them. There are more active Codices than Battletomes and most 40k factions are often going to have more subfactions (like space marine chapters, Tyranid Hivefleets and Eldar Craftworlds) than any of the AoS factions I have seen. Terrain Effects: As of 9th edition, 40k now has more involved terrain rules for a game where I would say terrain and terrain density is more important since 40k is largely assumed to be mostly ranged with few units have more than 10 individuals in them. Model Positioning: As of 9th, 40k models have to placed with similar care as they do in AoS with 2" coherency. But more than 6 models have to be careful to stay within 2 other models. Granted, AoS tends to have more wholly within effects, but 40k also has a few themselves in addition to good number of within effect auras. More Datasheets: It isn't a secret that a lot of AoS/40k's rules are actually baked into the unit rules. And 40k has loads more units dramatically increasing the complication of the game. Again that is just a quick short list of the things that stand out to me not thinking too deep about it. Sure, some AoS factions can have a meta resource or mini-game attached to a faction (Aether Gold/Quartz or Destiny Dice, Etc.), but that isn't universal to all factions. I also want to say that I think that 40k is largely needlessly complicated and not really that complex of a game. I much prefer AoS's approach as I find much of 40k's mechanics often feel like a busy box with lots of switches, dials and buttons that don't really do that much save maybe give the illusion of complexity. I definitely don't think there is anything wrong with simple mechanics. Chess, Go and number very hard to master games aren't really that complicated relying on how the player manipulates the mechanics as a matter of skill compared to knowing more mechanics being counted as skill (again, personal opinion) which I often find with GW games.

@Jcar09 I run 10 man units of knights all the time. I just like they way they look in big groups, and they can pull some double duty as brick units until my slower stuff gets there. I also don't play super optimized. That said, I can tell you it is incredibly rare when I can get more than 7 Knights into anything. The 2" reach doesn't get much since the bases are so wide staggering them can create gaps more than 1" wide easy if your opponent has a choose which model to remove ability. Not to mention any terrain or even the enemy unit footprint is going to stifle that pretty easy. Knights also only have a 10" Move, so you're going to get charges that just don't connect as solid as you'd like a good portion of the time. The spoiler is perhaps the best charge I ever managed. It came after me getting a double turn allowing me to be 3" away plus rolling an 11 allowing me to completely encircle the missing KO unit. Even pulling off the charge and getting 10 attacks was no guarantee that I would delete the unit so I wanted to make sure it couldn't get away easily. Fortunately, my luck was good and my opponent's wasn't and cleared them to allow me to push to the center back of my opponent's forces. The first photo is my Command phase and the second was end of turn. Note: the Altar of Skulls was there for decorative purposes and not an active terrain piece.

I am using the time between now and when the Lumineth finally get released to try and get my space marines painting caught up. I should get all the non-vehicles painted should it be the first couple of weeks of September. If it is the later part of the month, I have a few vehicles to at least get a little more progress on. No matter what happens I don't think I am finishing my marine collection as I suspect October is going to when some of the new marine stuff drops along with the new codex. There's just too much stuff I like coming out. I plan getting quite a bit of Lumineth stuff which I want to be the remainder of the year's painting. However, I think I am also going to pick up the new Tech Marine and Gladiator tank. I know this isn't the case for everyone, but I am absolutely no rush for anything at the moment since I have more than plenty to paint and little to no opportunity to play due to world events anyways.

To those wanting to further discuss what is at stake in the Mortal Realms, I started a thread better suited to such discussion: