Incineroar87

Is the ability to customise and create our hero a thing for match play or casual games ? Wonder what that entails. Hopefully some freedom for more artifacts and command traits. I’m sure will give us some interesting Cathaller and Stonemage combos at the very least lol

That makes sense, that makes Syar even more valuable especially in bigger point games where you are likely taking more units each with their own aetherquartz reserves. Making that choice between the freedom of Iliatha, the reliability of Syar, the dependability of Ymetrica or the spell variety of Zaitrec difficult to make. Really loving that we don't have the one superior choice, there is enough viability for all four, on paper at least.

Reading the alliance abilities it says" each unit in a lumineth realm lords army starts the battle with 1 aetherquartz reserve", does this mean once a unit has used its one 1 aetherquartz it cannot use anymore for the rest of the battle?

Im more interested in the Silver Wand, in general it looks amazing for other nations too. Lliatha looks good if you want to customize your build though since there's few restrictions, but you can take a second hero + battalion if you wanna get the best of everything I suppose for x nation. There def will be a lot of variety for builds which is unusual for a small army due to the various small niches you can turn on and off when building.

Those Cathaller and Stonemage items / traits are really good. Might be worth running a second hero equivalent to pick up some of the goodies especially if already planning to take the Vanairi Legion / Stonetemple Battalions anyway. The cathaller really standing out especially in Zaitrec. Problem is finding 130-140 points spare for that second mage hero.

He seems almost useless to take under Zaitek in that case. Getting the one lore spell is his only real gain.

After reading the english rules of Teclis on twitter, it seems he cant manual cast any spells as it states he has to choose to autocast 1, 2 or up to 4 spells as per his archmage rule and his two or four casting abilities can't have their spell values modified as there's no roll. This means he doesn't benefit from the aura of cellenar, aetherquartz for increasing the number of spells he can cast or any + 1 spell modifiers from aetherquartz, the endless spell or zaitek rules unless there's a FAQ. He does benefit from the + 1 to unbinding and dispelling attempts, can auto unbind and dispel and gets infinite unbinds. Not sure if he's an auto take now but def solid enough.

It looks like Auralan Legion is our best chance of a 2-3 drop list, this is what we should be aiming for competitively?

We still don’t know if Eltharion is a mage either since he doesn’t have the wizard keyword or anything about magic on his warscroll. Agree with a unit of Stoneguard on their own being less than impressive but Stoneguard with all the Ymetica, Cow and Alarith buffs are more impressive than the Spearmen buffs on paper. Both full on Alarith and Vanari army builds will be both viable though.

I feel it’s too early to judge on our potential tournament success or failure; I believe on the table we will see a difference compared to paper especially once meta trends develop as a result. It wasn’t long ago that people were crying that the new Tzeentch, Seraphon, KO, Cities and Orruks and other new battletomes at release looked weak, were nerfed, situational and bad for x matchup and they went on to dominate tournaments quickly. I believe we will be a great competing army with or without Teclis.

If Aetherquartz is written like Aether Gold where you can use it in any phase I’d assume it would mean the opponents phases like KO can do, that is a option for more protection. But that + 1 to armor save in the shooting phase will only go so far for Teclis mind you.

Do we know how exactly aetherquartz works, Is it a once per phase per turn deal or a once per game deal ? Reports and translations seem conflicting.

If you choose to promote x to champion yes they have to use the champion weapon variety. You can choose for them to be a basic troop and use the generic weapon set though.

So the lore of Hysh does actually state that light of Eltharion gets a spell from this lore, but he doesn’t have the wizard keyword on his warscroll. Guessing we will need a faq to find what happens here lol

Seems safe to assume that Vanari Wizards can get a lore spell and the Zaitrec faction spell as they don't have the wording they cant know any other spells that Horrors and Kairic Acolytes have.

Didnt the german translation say that Eltharion can choose a spell from the Hyish spell lore ? Is there a reason why his warscroll doesnt say he is a wizard like GW was hyping him to be ?

Will Lumineth still be a tier 1-2 army even the shortcommings of Teclis?

If there's a way to make Stoneguard core, a full on Ymetica army will be really fun.

I still find Nagash more annoying with his casting bonus's and the 8 or so spells he can use + the ward, that feels more threatening than auto casting 4. Also seems Teclis can only auto cast, would he be able to take advantage of the magic faction to get that additional cast so he can auto cast 5 spells?

the new army / army book imbalance and internal balance has been something that fantasy and 40k has struggled with in the past and still do to an extent. We will never have true balance but I hope for AOS they strike a happy medium of sorts between healthy and potential growth.

Did high elf spearman have lots of builds / weapon options ? I can’t recall if they did or not. I know their archers and cavalry were fairly simple with the one option for all models.

How many Psychic Awakening Books do we have left, is Pariah the last one left before 9th arrives?

Thats a good point about the Lumineth, unlike other armies, they seem to lack any expensive or elite infantry and cavalry, everything is between 100 and 140 points. I wonder if this is the new norm or just a Lumineth specific route.

The stone mage in that AOS novel is depicted as giving the accompying stone guard some sort of buff where they felt as heavy as stone with their mountain stance, so perhaps the stone mage is more like the Tidecaster in which she's seen as a buffing caster unit for the race. It could also be like Bonereapers where their multiple wizard heroes each have differing roles too

How imminent though ? Guessing it’s only the starter box first and everything else weeks / months later ?