Games Workshop dropped some surprise FAQs for 2 tomes this morning, the Lumineth Realm-Lords and Sons of Behemat. Sons of Behemat was mostly clear but Lumineth did have some odd hitches that we will get to.
The FAQs can be found here.
Sons of Behemat
Only 3 changes here, and they mostly apply to the unique monstrous rampages. Beast Grapple, which gives both the user and a targer monster Strike-Last on a 3+ was changed to not work on units with 2 or more models, e.g. Stormdrakes. Not entirely sure why this change was made as the effect doesn’t seem particularly broken other than looking very silly against 4 stormdrakes. Colossal Slam also got a designers note added that if you cannot legally place a monster back down on open ground, then put it back where it was. This was generally a problem because there were rare, but possible, situations where the monster with a large enough base could not fit anywhere legally, which left people in confusing situations if the target started on top of a piece of terrain. An FAQ also clarifies that the -1 to hit applies even if you fail the roll, which makes the ability much more promising. The final major change was to the Glowy Lantern which now gives the bearer the Wizard keyword but functionally acts the same. It does not give them access to any spells that aren’t endless spells, but it does make some rules interactions a bit smoother with abilities that only affect Wizards.
The FAQs are actually genuinely interesting here. The Wrath of the Titans battle tactic is successful even if you fail the rolls, which heavily raises its value as your only goal now is to get into combat with 3 Megas, and not need to succeed on another roll after that. On that note, they also state you cannot use these monstrous rampages with mercenaries because they’re battle trait, if you weren’t sure.
Stomper Tribe gets some attention. Due to some vague wording, it’s clarified that Big Shouts lets you hit as many Mancrushers as you want with command abilities and the Club of the First Oak artefact stops working if healed below 25 wounds. Likely not to be a popular artefact anyway, hardly the end of the world
Lastly, Idiots with Flags as one of the Fierce Loathings for Breakers doesn’t work on units without commanders i.e. Elite units. Sorry.
Overall nothing shattering here, other than Beast Grapple being strangely limited.
Lumineth Realm-Lords
This ones a bit weird because there already was an update last month, but they clearly missed a few things as this has some of the same stuff, with some new changes not highlighted in Magneta, meaning this probably was what was supposed to go out. As such anything I don’t mention was just already there.
The big one, Teclis finally got over his concussion suffered fighting Nagash and knows all the spells again. In possibly the biggest case of the player base knowing a rule was a misprint but needing to go along with it because it is what was written, Teclis did not have a rule stating that he knew all the spells from the book. Well now he does and his name has been taped on to all the lores as being able to take those spells. Finally his cost comes back a little bit, as his versatility was the primary reason to take him.
Ymetrica gets a clarification that can be a bit of a buff in the right instance, Attacks of Rend -1 or -2 that are improved to Rend -3 by abilities are still affected by the faction trait, and are dropped to – before adding the additional rend from the ability, as the ability procs off the base value and abilities that change to a fixed number are applied first. This is good if the rend is raised above -2, but if it raises it from -1 to -2, it will instead just cancel out. Still a positive, but it won’t drop it to -.
Poor Helon takes a hit, where its faction ability giving an extra attack when within 6″ of the enemy is generally not ideal because Lumineth ranged units are delicate and if the enemy gets that close, something bad happened along the way. It did have some niche value with Unleash Hell, since they were now within 6″ anyway, but it now only works in the shooting phase which is absolutely brutal and probably puts an end to this factions utility entirely.
Conclusion
The Sons of Behemat book mostly worked fine so it’s not terribly surprising they didn’t change much. Lumineth took a serious change with Teclis finally getting all his spells back, and the nerf to Helon. While there likely will be more debate about whether Teclis is worth his print point, it’ll undoubtedly make Teclis Appreciators happy that he has his versatility back.
