Thanks to Games Workshop for sending us these rules and the Skaventide box set for review. Over the coming weeks, we will be having experts provide insight into how they are building and running lists with each faction in Age of Sigmar. For this overview, we’re looking at what stands out for each faction, how much has changed, and how we might approach some key challenges on the tabletop.

Old fantasy players will likely recognise the general aesthetic here and think “oh those are High Elves” and would be basically correct. Teclis is back in the Age of Sigmar and gave life to a whole new lot of aelves after failing horrifically with the Idoneth Deepkin. Oops.

It’s an army that has a few different sub-categories based on different elements. You can play a magic heavy force or lean heavier in the mountain theme of Alarith units instead. Regardless of which way you go you’re going to end up with a bunch of magic almost regardless. Just about all of your heroes are wizards with very few exception. Probably the best part of the new edition for Lumineth is no longer having to remember (or decide to begin with!) what spell each model knows. They simply know the whole lore that you’ve chosen for your list and right now there’s only one lore to choose from too.

Army Rules

As is often the case with elf (aelf in AoS) armies they just have a lot of rules. Six different battle traits that affect them throughout the course of the game with five of those playing off of different elements of the army like Vanari, Scinari, or Hurakan units. These have all been shown on Warhammer Community so I won’t rehash but even just the simple Lightning Reactions allowing two of your units to fight instead of just one, every single time you choose to fight, is powerful. You’re able to gang up on enemy units and really lay into them before they get a chance to hit back.

Battle Formations

Unlike most factions these aren’t really designed to force you into playing one type of army but instead being able to lean heavily into two different aspects of the faction and benefit from ones Facet of War ability every turn as well as whatever other Facet of War ability you used. Pretty strong. The battle hosts and which Face of War they let you use every turn regardless are:

• Vanari Battlehost: Power of Hysh
• Scinari Council: Deep Thinkers
• Alarith Temple: Enduring as Rock
• Hurakan Temple: Move Like the Wind

Heroic Traits

Any hero can take one of the following, just not Unique heroes, as is standard and doesn’t have to be your General.

Masterful Tactician

A unit using Redeploy Wholly Within 12” counts any roll lower than 4 as a 4 instead. Being able to guarantee a bit of movement out of units is never a bad thing especially in an army as mobile as this!

Perfect Strike

Once per battle in a combat phase instead of using the normal Core Fight ability to attack the hero can simply inflict D3+3 mortal damage on an unit. That has a solid chance of just removing unmounted heroes immediately and often stronger than your wizard’s attack profile.

Paragon of Hysh

Another once per battle ability, you can re-roll a charge or casting roll for the model. A re-roll on a vital cast is nice but doesn’t guarantee you anything, the first of these traits for that movement is likely going to be the top pick.

Heirlooms of Hysh

Phoenix Stone

The first time the bearer is killed or otherwise removed from the table you get to roll a dice; on a 3+ the hero is not destroyed, any remaining points of damage are discarded, and they heal 1 wound. It’s a once per game ability but nice to keep your hero going after an unfortunate attack/spell/whatever.

Silver Wand

If the bearer is not a Wizard, well then they sure are now with a power level of 1. If they were already a wizard you add 1 its power level (allowing it to cast and unbind an additional spell each turn).

Waystone

A once per game teleport to remove your model from the board and plop it down anywhere else more than 9” away from enemy units. Very simple, a nice get-out-of-dodge option but the Silver Wand is right there.

Lore of Hysh

And now we get to why that Silver Wand is so good.

Speed of Hysh

The Unlimited spell of the lore which gives a unit wholly within 18” of the caster +4” of movement. That adds so much speed to an already-fast army and only needs a 5+ to cast! Being able to pretty easily get this army wide is no joke.

Overwhelming Heat

Now we’re on higher cast spells, this one needs a 7 to go off and it halves the movement (rounding up) of an enemy unit within 18” with a chance to also deal D3 mortal damage to slower units.

Protection of Hysh

All friendly units have a ward of 5+ while wholly within 12” of the caster. It needs an 8 to cast but that’s not an issue for Teclis, who also has a very large base. It’s nice that this is a generic spell now though so armies without Teclis also have access to it making him potentially(?) less “necessary” to run.

Manifestations of Hysh

Sanctum of Amyntok

This is an odd one; it’s three parts that have to form a circle touching each other part so it will only work with smaller “normal” sized heroes, not Teclis. It’s also very specific that the hero being surrounded by it has to be more than 3” from all other units, terrain, etc so that these can literally fit. It’s also unique as being a manifestation without any wounds or a save; it cannot be targeted by anything other than by the Banishment ability to get rid of it, making it very strong as some armies will simply not be able to remove it without scuttling over to a Place of Power if you’re using them.

It gives the surrounded hero a 4+ ward, +1 to its Wizard power level (if it was one), to measure the range of all of its abilities from the manifestation instead of the model. However the model cannot move and if it does for any reason then the manifestation is removed from play. This is a great way to get a larger Protection of Hysh aura for your army and it only needs a 4 to summon!

Rune of Petrification

A higher cast at 7 the Rune is a move ‘-‘ manifestation so doesn’t get in the way of movement, setting up units, etc. During every hero phase every enemy unit rolls a D3 on a 2+ suffers that amount of mortal damage. If a unit suffers 3 mortal damage then it also has Strikes Last for the rest of the turn. Placing this between pieces of terrain where it will be hard to avoid being hit gives you a nice bout of damage every turn as well as the added possibility of really hampering melee effectiveness. Placement will be key so it’s not just avoided though!

Hyshian Twinstones

The highest cast of the bunch at an 8 it’s the best one to cast early giving all of your wizards close by +1 to their casting rolls. So long as you can get this out first the sequence you’ll have of stacking additional spells and buffs onto your wizards, and by extension units, will be incredible and difficult to stop. However, because of the small aura it won’t be able to benefit a hero inside of the Sanctum Manifestation.

Shrine Luminor

I believe this is the only mobile faction terrain piece in the game, which it gains when an infantry hero within 3” to be set up on it and become a “Shrine Guardian”. All abilities from the Shrine Guardian are measured from the shrine itself instead (making it the best place to cast Protection of Hysh from, actually) and once per turn gives a wizard nearby a re-roll on a failed cast. That’s once per turn meaning you get to use it on a cast during your opponent’s turn via the command. It’s free so there’s really nothing bad to say about it, it’s even got 12 wounds with a 3+ save making it relatively tough and has Fly to move around easier.

Warscroll Showcase

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include what was for a long time a staple to every Lumineth army: Vanari Auralan Sentinels. The shooty basic-troop unit of the army. These make 2 shots each at 18” range with a point of rend and Crit (Auto-wound). They can gain an additional 6” on that range at the cost of -1 to hit rolls which they can immediately mitigate with an All Out Attack if you really want to. A unit of 10 making 21 shots with rend at range isn’t bad by any means and I’m very happy to see ranged weaponry toned down over all this edition. Quick addition to this unit since it pairs together is the Vanari Starshard Ballista which gets +6” range while next to a Sentinels unit with 3 shots of D3 damage, Crit (2 Hits) and an extra point of rend against Monsters; if you make all 3 shots at the same target it also suffers -1 to its hit rolls for the rest of the turn making it less worrisome to charge into.

Moving to something much bigger is Avalenor, a unique character and Warmster that buffs friendly Alarith Aelf units with extra attacks with a unique command ability. Unique commands aren’t very common so interesting to see here because you’ll either have built your army with a number of Alarith units to bump those Stoneguard hammer attacks up to 3 each or you’ll never use it because this guy is just kind of a beast on his own. When in combat, so long as he hasn’t charged, his rampage goes off on an easy 2+ choosing an enemy unit and subtracting 1 from the rend of their attacks; also giving himself +1 attack on both melee profiles (which are 6 attacks of damage 4 and 2 attacks damage 2 respectively, great to get more attacks on).

Last I want to cover The Light of Eltharion which might still be the coolest hero in the range. He’s just a really solid duellist hero with a 3+ save that can’t be modified in any way, a 5+ ward for when that fails, and a rule to ignore all negative modifiers that would effect his hit and wound rolls or any other ability that would negatively modify his melee weapons in any way. Those melee weapons have two profiles:

• 4 attacks 2+ 3+ rend 3 damage 3 Crit (2 Hits)
• 2 attacks 2+ 3+ rend 1 damage 3 Anti-Hero and Anti-Monster (+1 Rend)

Really solid profile that will make other heroes want to give him a wide berth at all times. Remember that you can boost his movement up to 10” easily to turn him into a little homing missile.

Battle Tactics in Hysh

Between incredible movement, solid ranged damage, and also strong melee options you’ll be able to put together an army that can really do-it-all. Forces like this are often just great at battle tactics too being able to score Take the Flanks with Dawnriders or a Windcharger with ease and striking with combined precision for Slay the Entourage.

All in a Day’s Light

This is one of the factions with the richest choice in unit selection. You’ll end up with a couple wizards regardless, and you definitely want to have them, but you can really lean into cavalry charges, brutal stoneguard objective holding, or a very mixed army of any two parts. Overall the army has a lot of flavour to play with and both returning players and new should be excited about what the army can do on the table.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.