swarmofseals

I don't mean to suggest that the units warscrolls are identical or that they can't be used in a mutually supporting way, but rather that their battlefield roles are largely very similar. They are both slow, defense first infantry units that can do some damage when buffed. If you want a unit to fill a defensive holding role on the tabletop you can pick either one and be happy. I will readily admit though that I think I overstated my case initially. I had forgotten about the stoneguard's pushing ability, which is really unique and interesting. My point though is mostly a subjective one. I personally like armies that can function in a wide range of ways, so that if I invest in the faction I can build and paint like 3000 points of models and have a couple of different 2000 point armies that feel very different to play on the tabletop. The small size of LRL makes that much harder to accomplish, and it's made even harder when some of the warscrolls do very similar things. I think it's remarkable though that despite filling very similar roles, wardens and sentinels are both attractive options and could easily both make their way into the same competitive list for exactly the reasons you state. That's pretty remarkable, and it shows real progression on GW's part. How many past tomes had units that occupied the same or similar role where one was just clearly better than the other? Although LRL is a small faction, the internal balance is remarkable. I don't see a single warscroll that can be obviously discounted for competitive use. I feel the need to clarify here too. My statements weren't meant to be doom and gloom. If the army is a B at power level that makes it perfectly viable for competitive play -- it's just not so powerful that competitive play becomes a major draw to picking up the faction. My comments about comparisons to Hallowheart or OBR wasn't so much to suggest that LRL can't deal with those things, but rather to suggest that if all you are focusing on is how to be most competitive with a given playstyle there are other armies that play a similar game to LRL but look, at least based on first glance, to do a better job of it. So if you don't care if you paint skeletons or cow hats, you're probably going to pick skeletons. If you actually want to play LRL because you like the faction (for the models, the lore, or whatever reason) then it looks completely fine to me. I'd be just as surprised if LRL is a D or F tier faction as I would to find it at A or S tier. Overall, I think I'm trying to speak more to the folks who are glancing at the tome and thinking that it's some horrible Lovecraftian nightmare of powercreep. I just don't see that at all. Do we know this for sure? Almost every other "wizard unit" in the game has a stipulation that it can only cast the spell on its warscroll, and in compensation that spell can be cast by any number of units. I guess we will find out soon enough. If every unit can take spells from the spell lore than I'd probably revise my estimate up a bit as the magic will become a lot stronger against any faction that doesn't have an abundance of anti-magic. Just want to repeat a bit of what I said above. I don't know if you are specifically referring to me or not, but I really don't intend to be doom and gloom. A B battletome is still a good battletome, and you're absolutely right that we may be dealing with translation errors or even printing errors (non-english editions have been notorious for having important words left out or other issues). I think if you want to play LRL because it's LRL then the tome is absolutely solid. But if you're looking to bandwagon because OMG LRL is busted and you gotta get it if you want to compete.... then I'd recommend caution.

I don't think this will play out the way you think it will. Lumineth have a lot of wizards, but outside of Teclis they are mostly unremarkable in their cast ability and are mostly just self-buffing. Any enemy army with significant unbinding power will be able to stop non-Teclis casters a lot of the time. Also, the enemy will not be within 18" range to mess with their movement on the first turn. If you go first and they double turn you they could easily get to your lines before you have a chance to cast any of the movement restricting spells. Yeah, I think that sentinels are definitely a sleeper unit so far with everyone talking about Teclis and stoneguard. They are going to be really good at assassinating heroes. The problem is that while their mortal wound output is respectable they will struggle against targets that aren't relying on armor for their defense. They just don't put out enough damage to bother large blocks of troops, especially those with cheap wounds or ward saves like Phoenix Guard, Savage Orruks of all types, Witch Aelves, Hearthguard Berzerkers, Horrors etc. So I think taking some sentinels will be fantastic as hero snipers but I don't think they will work en masse (at least in a scenario where you don't know your opponent ahead of time). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I think it's too early to tell and I'll readily admit that I may be missing something (it's harder to process all the information when it's spread out and reliant on translation), but my first impressions of this army are not good. From a purely competitive standpoint, I'm not sure what Lumineth do that other armies can't already do better. Teclis is an amazing caster but I don't really see him being as good as other top level magic options like Nagash, Lord Kroak, or Hallowheart. Are stoneguard and wardens really any better than Mortek Guard or Hearthguard? My initial impression is no. The army is incredibly slow. Dawnriders are the only fast option, and they are really bad against anything other than infantry (which they are admittedly quite good against). Teclis is the only thing that flies, but you pretty much have to play him defensively. How is Lumineth supposed to win against any army that has decent defense and can get to the objectives first? I'd be full on shocked if Lumineth are S tier and really surprised if they are A tier. My best bet is that they are a middling B, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are C tier. Again, I could very well be mistaken if I'm interpreting the rules incorrectly -- but this is my first impression. As far as my impressions of the faction beyond just competitive concerns, I'm also not a fan. The model range is very limited but is somehow also quite redundant. While wardens and stoneguard are different in some ways, they effectively fill the same role on the battlefield. The named giant and the regular giant are also really similar. It seems to me that most Lumineth builds are likely to play about the same, which is a serious turn-off for me personally. I'll readily admit that I much prefer the broader tomes like Legions of Nagash, Beasts of Chaos, Seraphon, Cities of Sigmar etc. that offer a bunch of ways to play that are substantially different from one another. I also really like the design of most of the units in a vacuum. I love that the sentinels and the dawnriders are designed in a way that gives them pretty strong roles on the battlefield. I appreciate that the different mage heroes do somewhat different things. I really like the design space that the book is carving out in terms of unit formations and stances. If the faction overall were twice as big with some options that really change the way the army plays (like the Coalesced vs. Starborne options in Seraphon) then I'd probably really like this book. But as it is it feels very narrow. I also really hate the "release the box set now and then the rest of the faction at some point in the future" model.

Man, my Cities and Seraphon armies are going to love playing against Teclis. At 660 for 16 wounds at a 4+/5++ he's going to get shot off the table in one turn and leave my opponent at a huge disadvantage. That's an average of 58 Sisters of the Watch shots, 52 handgunner shots, 69 crossbow shots, or 42 Irondrake shots (buffed, but not counting champions) to kill him. A single unit of Savage Arrowboys has a solid chance of taking him down in one volley even with no buffs other than the ones on their warscroll. Tzeentch, Skaven, Seraphon and KO should all be able to shoot him down effortlessly. Quad Mortek Crawler builds will probably take two turns to get it done most of the time. Some SCE builds can get the job done in 1-2 turns. Disclaimer: if he has additional defensive abilities I may have to revise this.

A 6" typical elf move characteristic doesn't cut it in AOS, especially when some units are giving up the ability to run for defensive buffs. And yes, the archers and cav may make up for it to a degree... if they are good. They may not be. Or they might be incredible. The point is that we don't know. I don't really understand the rush to judgment when we will basically have the tome in a week's time. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and if you've already decided what you think before having all the information you're just setting yourself up for a bad impression. They probably won't be garbage, but most big hero models like this are very vulnerable even with respectable defensive stats. He'll probably have 12-16 wounds and a 4+ save. Even if we take the 5++ as a given there are loads of options that can tear through that in 1-2 rounds. Ask any Sylvaneth player how fragile Alarielle feels despite having 16 wounds and a 3+ save. I mean it needs to be said right? I don't know if we have Teclis' points yet but I'd expect somewhere in the 450-700 range. If you're tunnel visioning on the ~300 point defensive infantry unit instead of going for the much softer and juicier target then something is wrong! And if you don't have enough ranged firepower or melee maneuverability to get to Teclis, then there's always Eddy Izzard's advice: "Just don't go in that [censored] house, you know?"

Part of my point is that it doesn't make any sense to try to read the "signs" at all. Literally every battletome that comes out has people here panicking before the tome is released that this or that will be overpowered. Sometimes it's true, but more often than not it is an overreaction. I also disagree about Petrifex and possibly even Tzeentch. Petrifex is very good an nearly unbeatable in some matchups -- I'll grant you that. I personally think it was a design mistake as it's not fun to play against a pretty high percentage of the time. But I think the evidence shows that it was only overpowered for a brief window. It's still a great and highly competitive army, no doubt, but I don't think there is a lot of evidence to support that it's still OP. The same might be true of Tzeentch. The developers clearly missed a few things, but those were quickly nerfed with the FAQ. It remains to be seen if Tzeentch is good or too good as most tournament play since those nerfs has been shut down. Sniping Teclis will probably be easy for some armies and nearly impossible for others. It may be that some compositions will be unable to deal with Alarith units except by avoiding them, but that doesn't mean that Alarith are OP. As to your last point, there are plenty of situations where sniping the lord and dealing a lot of mortal wounds doesn't work. Orruk Warclans (particularly Bonesplitterz heavy builds) are a great example. Mortal wounds are terrible against Bonesplitterz. Sniping their heroes can help, but it's also can be really difficult due to the ease at which they can be LOS'ed and the built in hit penalties against small heroes. Teclis isn't likely to benefit from these things. He probably won't have great armor and he is certainly too big to LOS and too big for Look Out Sir. If I had to bet, I'd bet that defensively Teclis will be a lot closer to Alarielle than to Nagash. Anyway, there are plenty of other examples of armies against which mortal wounds are not the answer. DoK is an example, as is Hearthguard spam. Historically speaking, Plague Monk lists also were very good against mortal wounds. Basically anything that relies on ward saves or bulk cheap wounds is going to be very good against mortals. ______ Just to be clear, I do think there is a risk of Lumineth repeating OBR. OBR and, to a lesser extent, the new Fyreslayers tomes were the first armies that we've seen that are primarily defensive in nature. They are very hard to crack in melee, and their main weakness is movement. Many AOS players, and particularly novice AOS players, chronically underestimate movement. They think that the solution to an enemy unit is to kill it, and when that isn't a plausible solution they conclude that the unit is overpowered. Certain armies encourage this line of thinking as they heavily encourage the player to just pelt at the enemy full speed and get stuck in as soon as possible. Sometimes that's an actively bad idea, though. People must learn not only to play their army but to play against their opponent and take advantage of weaknesses rather than falling victim to them. Until they do, they will continue to see slow, high efficiency units as overpowered.

Hmm yeah, I'll admit that I didn't notice that! We'll see if there are any restrictions to it. Even if it's every turn though I think my basic comparison to Hearthguard holds up.

@zilberfrid especially, but I'm sure others as well. Nearly every time a new tome comes out people start raising hell about the new rules and balance, typically picking out specific things and labeling them as OP before we have the complete context. I have no idea if Lumineth will be OP, and I'm going to reserve judgment until I have the entire tome. Even then my judgment will have a big asterisk by it until we have a lot of high level results to help measure actual performance in practice rather than just theory. One of the consistent patterns I notice in new-tome criticism is that most people who claim OP are focusing on combat stats and forget what a big part of the game movement is. Lumineth looks like a pretty slow faction so far, with only the cavalry (which we know little about) having a lot of speed. I don't see much flying. Some of the defensive bonuses require a unit to slow down even more, both by maintaining formation and giving up the ability to run. Movement really matters in AOS. Everyone points to the ASF rules for FEC and Slaanesh as the reason why they are OP, but if those factions were really slow then their ASF wouldn't have mattered nearly as much. AOS already has mostly unkillable units in it now. I don't think there is a unit in the game that can efficiently melee against Hearthguard. Are they OP? Not really. They are very strong, but their slow movement is a serious problem. If they were really fast then yes, they would be OP. But as it is you can play around Hearthguard by playing around their speed. The same may very well be true for Lumineth's infantry. Also, I've noticed some people laying out a fully buffed scenario as the baseline without really considering the limitations of those buffs. Yes, we know that Alarith infantry can get a 3+ save ignoring rend 1 and 2 and possibly a 5+ ward. But that Ward requires Teclis, who is likely to be very expensive. We know he can autocast spells, but do we know how that rule works in full? It's entirely possible that autocasted spells will be unbound at the casting value of the spell, which means that the 5+ ward may be quite unreliable. Furthermore, the immunity to rend 2 requires a subfaction or battalion (I forget which). On top of that we just learned today that the immunity to rend 1 (and quite possibly rend 2) only applies on the first battle round! So that gives you a bunch of options to counter them: Kill Teclis and then use mortal wounds. Hit them with rend after turn 1 Just avoid them and kill softer targets

Did you look at the sprues? The spears look to be about three times the height of the models in length, so somewhere around 18 feet long. A 3" range is perfectly sensible there. What other models have weapons that are this long aside from monsters (many of which do have 3" range on some attacks)?

I think we can make some inferences about the kit prices based on the sprues that were revealed today. The infantry appear to be 5 models per set of frames, which suggests a 10 model box size (as opposed to the Mortek Guard, who are 10 models per set of frames). I'd bet on a $50 USD price point there, and the same for the cavalry. It's always possible that they will inch up the pricing though, but this is my best guess. Eltharion is likely to be $35-40 I think. What to make of the accessories is a little unclear. I wish they had given more detail about the cards, as I'm unsure if it will be a complete set of warscroll cards or not. If we assume it is, I think that's likely a $25 value. It might be that the $35 Seraphon pack is the new normal, but I think that also might just be a result of the faction being very large. It's also not clear if the dice set is equivalent to the faction dice or just a regular dice set. It looks more like the latter to me, or a $10 value. There aren't any combat gauges on the GW US website at the moment, but Amazon has a 40k one that is supposedly made by GW for $15. So that puts the models in the $135-140 range, the accessories at about $50, and the battletome at $40-80 depending on how much stock you put in the limited edition version. Overall if you don't care about the LE version of the tome and don't care about the accessories then it's probably a reasonable purchase as you're getting $175-180 worth of models and tome. In this scenario you are actively paying a premium to get the stuff earlier. If you actually want some of the accessories or care about the LE version of the tome, then the set is a good value to buy a single copy of. I still don't understand why one would want more than one copy of the box, as you're then paying a huge premium to get about $100 of models.

I believe people are saying this, but I can't say that I understand why. I get wanting one box, but a second box just gets you a duplicate unique (probably) hero and two units that will almost certainly cost far less than the cost of the box. The Sisters boxed set had about $220 of models and cost $215. A lot will depend on the Lumineth box price, but I can't imagine it at a low enough price point where the models in the box alone account for the cost... unless the individual kits are going to be a radical price jump.

I have no idea how I feel about this boxed set. If I had to take a wild guess, Eltharion will probably retail for $35-40 (US) and the cavalry for $50. The infantry are a huge wildcard. They could be like Namarti at the $50 per 10 price point or Mortek Guard at the $60 per 20 price point. So I'd guess the retail value of the models in the box is somewhere between $115 and $140. I'd be surprised if the box set is anything less than $170, which strikes me as likely only a small discount. On the one hand it makes me sad as a consumer, but on the other it makes me happy that there probably won't be much reason to buy more than one copy of the box which should help get the box into the hands of a wider range of gamers.

If you are going with that many you probably want Desolators as they are the most efficient at large unit sizes. The problem with this strategy is that it's really all eggs in one basket and a unit like that can be zoned away from important targets and tarpitted really easily. When you are spending 800-1200 points on one unit then almost any enemy unit is an "unworthy" target. The Concussors idea that folks are tossing around is interesting though. Their ability to do some decent damage and lock a unit in place for a turn is pretty valuable, although I think you need a unit of 4 for that to be reliable. Also really liking the Gamezone Predator suggestion as a counts-as. Those models are very bulky but look great. I've got my own conversion idea though if I end up going after some dracothian guard.

Ohh yes, I absolutely mean to suggest doing this only with books that you have purchased. It's meant to be a solution to the awkwardness of carrying around a stack of hardcovers to a game, not a solution to the cost of books. I definitely don't read it like that. I'm sure anyone who uses the site regularly noticed. All multiplayer in-person gaming is a bit tamped down now due to social distancing needs, but aside from that is there any evidence that AOS is in a bad place? The GW store is selling out of kits faster than they can restock. I haven't noticed any downtick in online engagement, and I'd argue that online engagement isn't all that representative of the community at large anyway.

Those of you who are complaining about having to carry around a ton of books wherever you go: there are two solutions to your problem. 1. Buy digital copies of the books - a great solution, but I understand many (myself included) prefer to have a physical copy. 2. Photocopy the rules pages that are relevant to your army and put them in a binder. Now you only have one thin binder to carry around. Alternately, take photographs of each page and make your own PDF to bring on your tablet. As long as you do not share or distribute copies this should solidly fall under fair use. Personally, I think number two is an excellent solution. I don't want to bring even one hardbound book to my games. I'd much prefer a binder with only the rules that I am actually using in that game. In a tournament setting I'd consider bringing two binders, one for my opponent to borrow during the game so that he or she can look things up him/herself as needed. Overall, my thoughts on this topic is that it's a balance between having to buy several books to keep up to date or not having your army updated except for maybe once every few years if you are lucky. I fall very squarely on the side of preferring to buy more books and get more frequent updates. When I quit WHFB it was because I was sick of waiting whole editions for my Wood Elves to get an update. Playing 7th edition with a 6th edition book was fine as the rules mostly still worked, but 8th edition invalidated my playstyle and I was left with an army that was essentially unworkable. I would have stayed in the game if there was a Psychic Awakening style book that brought the army up to speed. Buying a book every year (or even every 6 months) is absolutely fine by me if it means that I get to keep getting mileage out of the hundreds of dollars of models and hours painting and modeling. To this day I have a really, really hard time getting hobby projects off the ground and at least part of that is a direct result of having my army invalidated in the past.

If you're talking about purely casual play then the only thing you should know is that in matched play you don't get a new general when your current one dies. If you're looking at a more competitive level, I think there are a couple of things to consider. While you do have a fair number of small shooting units they aren't really going to put out that much damage. There's enough to be an annoyance but not enough to really exert that much force on the flow of the game, especially once they aren't covered by the hurricanum. Kurnoths with bows are just really inefficient unfortunately, even when buffed by the Arch-Revenant (which doesn't increase their attacks btw,). They really aren't going to be that good for taking out support heroes either, as they will likely be hitting on 4's even with hurricanum. You definitely don't want the hurricanum to be in the thick of things. It will die quickly, and a single unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunters will not be able to protect it very well. They can only cover maybe a third to a half of the hurricanum's base at best, so any opponent who wants to get into the hurricanum won't really have much of a problem in doing so. I think that lists either need to be very heavy shooting or mostly combat with some shooting support. Going halfway on both would only work well if you could make everything efficient, but unfortunately a lot of the things in the list aren't that efficient. Couple that with very little redundancy in key roles and I think you'll find the list to be very fragile in the face of serious opponents.

Just to speak to the first point -- you're correct up to a point. However, at some point the cost of starting an army, the daunting task of painting a huge number of models just to get up to the standard army size, and the difficulties of playing a game in a timely fashion begin to overwhelm the financial advantage of encouraging consumers to buy more models through reduced points costs. Overall, points costs have been getting lower and lower for years if not decades in the case of 40k. It may be that their market research is showing them that they are finally hitting the tipping point where they must backtrack some. Also, from what I've seen GW outright announced that in 9th point costs are going up across the board. I'm not sure why you wouldn't buy it if GW is outright saying it's going to happen. Just a small quibble but 14 points per wound is quite expensive for anything other than heroes and monsters. 10 points per wound is definitely not in expensive/elite territory, but most factions' cheap troops are in the 5-8 points per wound range.

@Overread @Clan's Cynic Just to be clear I'm not suggesting that a price hike isn't a valid strategy, merely that it isn't inevitable or a clearly necessary strategy.

There's also a ton of basic troops in there too, and many of them just went through a round of price increases last time. I suspect what we're seeing is a slow move toward bringing the big guy kits up to the $140-150 price range and unit boxes up to the $45-50 range as a baseline.

It's absolutely not inevitable. Many businesses are approaching this situation in the opposite way; they see that consumers have less to spend and are trying to increase value and/or decrease prices in order to drum up more business.

@Kramer I had forgotten about the CP generation. I'll concede that could make a big difference if a faction is really hungry for CP. My point about armies that are heavier in magic is based on the idea that you get a significant benefit from having magic superiority in a given game, but the more points you spend on magic without having magic superiority is a huge handicap. Kroak is expensive enough (especially with spellportal) that he's going to be a rock in your pocket in any matchup with real, serious magic. In a tournament setting, those matchups will come up often enough that if you are trying to go 3-0 or 5-0 then it may not be a great idea to spend 300-400 points on something that will be all but useless in one or two of your games. Seraphon Kroak gives you magic superiority in almost every matchup, and magic parity in the very few matchups that can rival him for casting power. Ally Kroak gets dominated in quite a few matchups, and only gives magic superiority occasionally.

Even with the engineer and the +1 to hit for the gyro, Cannon damage efficiency is mediocre. It's not terrible by any stretch, but compared to other Cities options it's just worse. @Kramer OK I gotta bite on this one. I don't buy that every Order army that can take Kroak will. Outside of Seraphon he will only have +1 to cast/unbind/dispel, he won't be able to teleport, so using a Balewind Vortex will be very awkward. He's good at unbinding, but Order has plenty of options for that and with only +1 he won't be able to unbind effectively against real heavy casters like Hallowheart, Nagash, Seraphon Kroak etc. Second and third castings of Celestial Deliverance will be very dicey and other heavy casting armies will unbind him easily. He's nice, and I could see some non-Seraphon lists wanting him but auto-include seems like a big stretch.

I thought that some of you might be interested in alternate Salamanders. I recently picked up some Szalamandra from Mierce and figured I'd post some info here. Overall the quality is great and the models fit together nicely (not always a guarantee with resin). The detail is fantastic, although there are some really annoying gates like the one you'll see pictured below. The size is definitely larger than GW salamanders, but they do still kinda fit on the correct bases. I might suggest raising them up a bit with scenic elements or putting them on a diagonal slope to minimize gameplay disruption.

I finally took the time to sort out my "most wanted" list. Apologies for the wall of text. I've got cash and lots to trade and will be happy to pay for shipping from wherever in the world if the overall price is reasonable. I know a lot of you are in the UK/EU where many of these things are more common than in the US, so I would very much appreciate if anyone is willing to take mercy on a poor yankee collector XD High Elves Lizardmen/Seraphon Orcs and Goblins/Gloomspite Gits Chaos Bretonnia Wood Elves Dwarfs Vampire Counts The Empire Dogs of War Skaven Misc Forgeworld Dark Elves Mordheim Forge World Collector Series (these are larger scale models, not the busts)

@Calebexnihilo I probably wouldn't bother with the rr1's to hit CA if Hand of Glory fails... unless running the Koatl's Claw Aetherquartz brooch combo. Plenty of pound with just 1 CP spent! And yeah, I agree that 10 models is probably the ideal size. Slightly related to your video, I've been wondering if Coalesced Seraphon lists should be considering Soulscream Bridge. It addresses two problems pretty effectively. One, it allows you to take a full on Kroak setup. Balewind Kroak doesn't work well at all without the teleport, and Kroak's slow movement becomes much more of a problem with the reduced range and lack of teleport. But with bridge you can put him on his pedestal and still move him around. It's not as good as a full on teleport, but it's still quite solid. A second benefit is that it makes Firelance Temple Host knights a legitimate turn 1 charge threat. Bridge probably provides about 12-15" of move, so with a starseer you're looking at a 3d6 + 3-4 charge from 12-15" deep. So that's an average of 25.5-29.5" turn 1 charge range. Considering you have a baked in free reroll that should work pretty frequently. Finally, bridge helps your Salamanders close into range quickly. This could help you break screens to get the knights through, or simply forego a t1 knight charge for a t1 salamander show. Basically you get to play a real Kroak and give your Coalesced list a legit turn 1 threat, which imo makes up for two of the biggest weaknesses of Coalesced.

One thing to keep in mind about Drycha is that you can't use her +10 attacks ability on the first turn if you deepstrike her. That really puts a damper on her usefulness imo. I'm also really not sold on WWR as deepstrikers. They are slow infantry and specialize in killing things that are generally a lot faster than they are. Your opponent is probably going to be pushing most monsters toward the middle in many battleplans, so forcing yourself to come in from the edge just means it will be even harder for you to catch your opponent's monsters. Yes, absolutely this. There are some great third party versions, too. If I ever get my Living City project off the ground my gyrocopters will be converted warhawk riders.