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Ultimately, I think it goes to the Hurricanum. The Hurricanum is more of a force multiplier due to the +1 to hit which is crazy with handgunners in a state troop detachment. The luminark's 6+ ward, while nice, is not stackable unlike the +1 to hit which really makes your army more consistent in damage output. Furthermore, as you yourself pointed out, the Luminark has the "one shot syndrome" that guns like lascannons and railguns suffer from 40K, where even if you do hit you have the chance to fail to wound. The Hurricanum's ability to bypass both to hit and to wound completely by forcing automatic mortal wounds makes it a huge win in my book, even if it is only 18" range. And given that it synergizes so well with troops, it's fairly easy to bubble-wrap it with state troops to ensure that it won't be taken out by any cavalry and will require ranged elements from your opponent to take it out.

A bit of anecdotal experience, but in a recent game of 3000 points (we use PPC comp system), where I played Ironjawz alongside a team of Empire and Night Gobbos against Vampire Counts/Death, I was barely holding the line against Neferata and a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon when the Hurricanum unleashed hell on Neferata and did an astounding 11 wounds on her. She has a specific spell that lets her become ethereal, thereby ignoring rend on weapons which meant only mortal wounds could ignore her save. The Hurricanum was our trump card since he had hot rolls and alongside my own magic from the weirdnob we pummeled her and the vampire lord on zombie dragon to death with mortal wounds. It also gave the crucial +1 to hit roll for his handgunners to pepper his morghast down so my brutes could finish them off. He also had the luminark which kept missing funnily enough even with the buff from the hurricanum.

Dude...

Everything you say is very true! Well, I ordered the kit today so still have a few days to make up my mind. The problem is the Hurricanum is 18 points in SCGT vs the 15 for the Luminark, and that slots into my army nicely. I could drop the Wizard from the Hurricanum to lower the points to 15, but then I would have a completely wizardless army.

Otherwise I need to drop a scoring unit to make way for the Hurricanum - in light of that I might still go for the Luminark.

But then GW's points system is coming soon too...

Well if you can't fit in the Hurricanum then the Luminark certainly isn't a bad choice, it still has huge damage potential and effectively gives a "no character zone" bubble of 30 some odd inches since guaranteed 6 damage with -2 rend is crazy. Many an orruk warchanter of mine was 360 no-scoped by my opponent's luminark. The big thing is to ensure that you have it placed either somewhere with good LoS or deployed last in your army so you can place it where all the tasty targets will be.

I need to make the decision between having a wizard on the Luminark or running a vanilla Hurricanum, with the added dilemma that running the Hurricanum as the choice would mean zero wizards in my army (unless I shake up the list more to make room for one). Thanks for all your input, even if you've only made my decision more difficult lol!

 Bottle wrote:
I need to make the decision between having a wizard on the Luminark or running a vanilla Hurricanum, with the added dilemma that running the Hurricanum as the choice would mean zero wizards in my army (unless I shake up the list more to make room for one). Thanks for all your input, even if you've only made my decision more difficult lol!

No problem! Sorry if I haven't made it super-clear as to what decision you should make, but I guess that's what always happens when it comes to list building. The necessity of the wizard is based a lot on who you face. Do you face against armies with a lot of wizards? If so, then I would agree that having a wizard on a Luminark is a safe choice just to give yourself some protection from enemy spells and his burning gaze spell acts as a decent discount version of the hurricanum's mortal wound attacks.

Gonna go for the Hurricanum in the end! The new SCGT pools mean I can squeeze it in, and even if the General's handbook reverts it, I will magnetise the battlemage riding it so I can swap it in and out (actually no one is that strict, but I like being able to make my characters able to be played separately :p)

Thanks again for your help!