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No need to be snarky about it, tneva.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Being at -1 to hit from look out sir isn't going to matter much since it is the MWs you are gunning for anyways. This is not 40k where look out sir flat-out prevents shooting.

Yeah, and apparently I've been applying associating the Idoneth rule to characters only. That's on me.

My point still remains though with regards to Idoneth. I want to say there's a few other tidbits which give similar traits of "can't shoot me!" to characters, but not 100% sure on it.

As for lambent light, the whole dam army is filled with wizards! The only question is which target it will be cast on, not if there will be a wizard to cast it. And even without it, a unit of 20 sentinels will have no problem sniping a 5-wound character every turn provided they get their sunmetal buff off. Which they will be the vast majority of the time thanks to twinstones and aetherquartz.

The whole damn army is filled with Wizards, and there's a bunch of spells that you'll want to have. It will be a potential issue if you don't build for Twinstones.

The only other "you cant shoot me" ability that I can think of, off the top of my head is for Cities of Sigmar and the Generals Retinue, I think. Could be wrong.

However... Nothing in the Idoneth roster wants to be eating 11 mortal wounds with a 30" range. They're not exactly durable against MWs.

Edit: NOTHING in the game wants to eat 11 mortal wounds from a 280pt unit, I should be saying.

Sure, but again: this is a "triggers on unmodified hit rolls" ability.

I get that these things sound super scary and that we can throw numbers out all day about how likely they are to happen. But it's a game with dice. These things can and might happen...or they might whiff.

If you want to play Numberhammer, more power to you. I don't. I have no intention of bringing Twinstones. I have no intention of bringing Teclis. Right now, my "to do"/"to buy" list is:
-Light of Eltharion
-Auralan Legion with 2x units of 10 each on Wardens and Sentinels, plus the Cathallar.
-Dawnrider Lance with 2x units of Dawnriders x5
-Alarith Spirit of the Mountain

That's as far as I'm intending to really go until we get the other Aelementari Temples added in. I went crazy with Idoneth and Skitarii and am not making the same mistake again.

We're talking numberhammer here, and you're trying to dismiss it? That's just being unreasonable.

With the list you put, you can still do the 20 Sentinels rerolling all hits against one target. And if you run Iliatha, you can get reroll 1s to hit on both units, for 1 CP. Math-hammering reroll 1s gives an average for 6 MWs from 2x 10 (20) Sentinels. That requires two, very easy to cast spells that are native to the sentinels.

Average numbers are our best way of telling the effectiveness of a unit. Yes, the Sentinels could deal 0 mortal wounds. They could also deal a mortal wound on every shot fired.

Edit: Hold on, is the Iliatha command ability useless? It already exists as a default command ability that anyone can use... just rolled in to one ability.

I wasn't talking about numberhammer to begin with. Ninth took a valid shot at me over something from the main AoS N&R thread. I explained my position as to why I never responded and then further elaborated why I think the Sentinels might not be as crazy of a power unit as they're being made out to have been. I might have been wrong with regards to the main character rules, but my overall point of waiting to see a clarification of if Scryhawk Lantern overrides army related rules that prevent shooting a character outright rather than just blocking line of sight remains valid.

Additionally, if you're going to say "Sentinels are crazy" then you talk about a veritable raft of extra stuff on top of it? It's a bit daft to say that the unit itself is the issue.

No outside buffs, a 5+ to cast spell, 6 mortal wounds on something from 20 Sentinels on average. Your typical support character dies.

Went and did some of my own dice-rolling, so it'll be anecdotal. Could easily roll yourself, see what you get after repeated rounds, with only the unit's self-buffing.

Round 1: 8 MWs
Round 2: 4 MWs
Round 3: 7 MWs
Round 4: 5 MWs
Round 5: 5 MWs
Round 6: 6 MWs
Round 7: 7 MWs
Round 8: 8 MWs
Round 9: 3 MWs
Round 10: 5 MWs

I could keep going, and the curve would likely smooth out even more to settle around 6, with just the 5+ to hit doing a MW.

Confirmation on the IDK and ignoring LOS may be helpful, but I don't think that it will ignore that ability. The Sentinels doesn't suddenly make their unit count as if their target is the closest visible unit. IDK ability isn't dependant on line of sight, its dependant on what unit is closest to the unit shooting.

But thats was 280 pts to kill a 5w hero a turn, and if they have any type of after save you might not be able to. Thats honestly not that bad imo.

Assuming a Lumineth player does not have twinstones is assuming the player is deliberately holding back, at which point the entire argument is moot. Auto-take for every Lumineth army.

Killing aprox. half of their points value against VALUABLE support heros, per turn, from 30" away is very strong. Without any outside help. Their chances of success increase more and more, when you add on one of their readily accessible buffs from the rest of the army.

It highlights what the bulk of the battletome's balance problems come from: overstacked buffs. MWs on 6s to hit is not OP (though it is a massively overused ability), having a spell casting on a 6 which that buffs that to 5+ is not OP either. Even the 30" ignore LoS attack option is not OP; the unit is taking a serious reduction of its average damage output to do that. But combining those three becomes a unit that reliably kills a support character every turn from 30" away, does not need LoS to do it, and does not care about look out sir or any other hit penalties.

Then you just need to consider playing the unit as part of an army, and not as a unit in a vacuum and it just goes off the rails. That 6+ to cast can become a 4+ to cast the spell for 30pts, then a 3+ to cast if your Zaitrec and have the endless spell... Then 1 cp for reroll 1s, or a spell for reroll hits to improve the reliability.

I'm eager to play the army for sure. It's probably going to end up being an army I need to ask my opponent to bring the heat against, or play it down/without the stacking buffs.

 Thadin wrote:
Killing aprox. half of their points value against VALUABLE support heros, per turn, from 30" away is very strong. Without any outside help. Their chances of success increase more and more, when you add on one of their readily accessible buffs from the rest of the army.

And some armies live and die by their heroes. Kill heroes and you effectively kill more than just the point value of the hero. You cripple their army when units depend heavily and are paying for abilities of support characters.

 Thadin wrote:

Edit: Hold on, is the Iliatha command ability useless? It already exists as a default command ability that anyone can use... just rolled in to one ability.

The default command ability requires a hero to be nearby, the Iliatha one does not. So not useless, but also not super flashy either. Just a more flexible version of an already existing command ability.

So having read through the battletome a couple of times (bear in mind this is my first look into anything AoS related at all, never played it before) I like the look of these elves. Sorry Aelves.

As others have said, there are a hell of a lot of stacking buffs going on with this army which makes them dangerous. However, they are few in number on the battlefield, which means that taking and holding objectives could prove difficult if the army becomes stretched or fractured. They want to play as a solid disciplined force. Rushing around trying to capture things is not the forte of this army. The army is all about making choices, which for me is great. Interesting choices mean an interesting game.

Looking at the Twinstones, I am afraid I have to disagree with the assesment made that after you reset it to 1 you then add 1 back on straight away for the spell that you just cast. Its clear to me that once you have used the power of the twinstones to cast your spell it is set to 1 after the effects of the spell have been completed. You then cant add that cast spell back into the pool to boost the stones again. "Then after the effects of the spell have been resolved, change the value of the dice beside this model back to 1" - its a statement of what to do, no ambiguity. The minimum power available is always 1, its kind of like a toilet. You can flush it right away as soon as the minimum is available or wait until its full for a much stronger flush! I will say that GW should probably start writing them as a checklist or flow chat to clear it up for people a little, but for me it is clear that you dont finish the rule then bounce back around to the start again. Anyone who seriously thinks that is clearly trying to be that guy and needs a swift kick in the happy sacks or gender equivilent.

So are there really bad units in the battletome?
The Vanari Dawnriders feel a bit underwhelming. They seem to be really good against horde infantry but pretty bad against anything else.

I would say the dawnriders have a place. Speed for objectives and can really work against infantry. Light cavalry in the mold of the reavers of old.

 Garrlor wrote:
I would say the dawnriders have a place. Speed for objectives and can really work against infantry. Light cavalry in the mold of the reavers of old.

I'd put them more in line with Silver Helms than Reavers...especially in light of the description of Wind Temple's mounted archers!

 Garrlor wrote:
Looking at the Twinstones, I am afraid I have to disagree with the assesment made that after you reset it to 1 you then add 1 back on straight away for the spell that you just cast. Its clear to me that once you have used the power of the twinstones to cast your spell it is set to 1 after the effects of the spell have been completed. You then cant add that cast spell back into the pool to boost the stones again. "Then after the effects of the spell have been resolved, change the value of the dice beside this model back to 1" - its a statement of what to do, no ambiguity. The minimum power available is always 1, its kind of like a toilet. You can flush it right away as soon as the minimum is available or wait until its full for a much stronger flush! I will say that GW should probably start writing them as a checklist or flow chat to clear it up for people a little, but for me it is clear that you dont finish the rule then bounce back around to the start again. Anyone who seriously thinks that is clearly trying to be that guy and needs a swift kick in the happy sacks or gender equivilent.

Be careful before leveling TFG accusations;

"Each time a spell is successfully cast by a unit within 12" of this model and not unbound, after the effects of the spell have been resolved, increase the value of the dice beside this model by 1"

"Then, after the effects of the spell have been resolved, change the value of the dice beside this model back to 1."

Emphasis mine. The effects trigger at the same time, so the player will be able to choose the order. Unless deliberately handicapping themselves they will be ordering it to get the +2. Though if it was a Lumineth vs Lumineth battle I could see wanting to do the reset second so as not to pass your opponent a higher number.

Going off order of operations, you could certainly set the dice score to '2' for the Twinstones. You're the one casting spells, you're the player controlling the turn and so, you control the order of effects that are applied at the same time, going by GW's rules.



By the way, don't go wishing harm on people for actually knowing the rules of the game. It's a really bad look.

Looking forward to the missing units and Wind temple. Too bad it's going to be a long wait for that to happen. :(

Yeah, but given the choice between getting some now and the rest later or all of it later... I'm glad GW went the way they did. And the battletome is designed in such a manner that those future releases can be slotted in without issue.

Teclis will just mash the crystals, shouting "THE HELL I CAN'T!" while Tyrion tells him to knock it off.

I want Wind Temple first, I think. The War Form sounded fantastic as did the mounted archers and the cloudmages.
I wonder what it actually is that Zenith would have, or if it would be a 'hero only' style of thing?

I dont plan on using teclis.
Giant Mountain goat FTW.

Fun fact, the subfaction they have as tied fairly closely to Teclis(Ymetrica) also makes the Alarith Aelf unit Battleline.

Just throwing that out there.

The more i look the more i don't think Teclis is that good.

Teclis' potency swings wildly based on matchup. He is a meta-shifter because of how hard he ruins Tzeentch.

I cannot wait to see Tyrion.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I cannot wait to see Tyrion.

Yes! You're more well versed than I in these new Aelves. Are his nations described as more martial than the more magical Teclian?

His nations aren't really described at all. We have the names and that's about it.

What we do know however is that there's more to the Vanari than just Dawnriders, Sentinels, and Wardens.
There are also charioteers, artillery crews, and scouts.