Warhammer: Age of Sigmar's latest Battletome completely changes the way my favorite faction plays

At first glance, the latest update to Warhammer: Age of Sigmar's Lumineth Realm-Lords range looks perhaps a little underwhelming. There's the latest Battletome, a Battleforce box made up of older models, and a grand total of one new miniature. As a Lumineth player, I breathed a disappointed sigh.

But looks can be deceiving. In fact, this update actually marks a significant change to the way our beloved snooty aelves play in Age of Sigmar, with a bonkers new Battle Trait, and improved profiles for some of the army's core units.

Let's start with the most significant thing here: the Lumineth Realm-Lords Battletome. As we all know, by now, Battletomes can come in different flavors. Sometimes they'll offer major updates that change the way your army plays, other times they're just not worth it and you're left feeling like you've effectively shelled out £38 for pretty much the same book with a different cover.

Happily, the latest Lumineth book is very much in the former camp. From improved units (the Light of Eltharion – already a decent hero – is now absolutely monstrous) to new Spell Lores and Battle Formations, this really does offer a massive update to the way the faction works. It's going to delight fans of the faction – and make our enemies weep bitter tears.

There are far too many new rules to go into here, so I'll concentrate on the single biggest change: the army's new Battle Trait. You'll need a note pad to hand, as you'll be channeling your inner Scinari Calligrave and writing a "battle scripture" each turn.

Now, at the start of every battle round you choose one of five runes to grant a power to up to two friendly units on the battlefield. At their most basic, the Varinor rune, you add 1 to run and charge rolls. Fine, if not too exciting.

Where things get interesting is that while the effects of the rune only last a turn, the rune itself stays on your battle scripture and, as you add other runes, the effects start to harmonize, giving you extra buffs. For example, if you have the Varinor rune and add the Ydriliqi rune, which subtracts 2 from enemy charge rolls, you gain an additional +1 to wound rolls on combat attacks.

The impact of this later in the game, when multiple runes have been inscribed is potentially massive, opening up all sorts of possibilities. If, for instance, you inscribe Thalari and have 4 unique runes on your battle scripture, then you add 2 to casting rolls, add 4" to friendly move characteristics, and crit on an unmodified attack rolls of 5+. Not bad at all!

You can also choose to play the same rune multiple times – and if you do, its strength becomes cumulative, expanding from two units to four and so on. It's a really flexible system meaning that if you've found a runes that’s working perfectly for your particular army, you can just play that every turn, or you could try and go for the full set and unleash absolute chaos on the battlefield.

There's also a significant change to the line up of the army's Spearhead. The previous list was composed of 10 Wardens, 10 Sentinels, 5 Bladelords, and led by a Scinari Cathaller. It was fairly fun to play, but while the Cathaller was useful for giving protective wards to your troops, she was a bit boring as a unit in her own right.

The new Spearhead army centers largely on the Hurakan caste and now features the obligatory 10 Wardens, plus 5 Hurakan Windchargers, a Hurakan Windmage (the guy who floats about on his own personal cloud), and the ace Hurakan Spirit of the Wind. As you might expect, that makes for a much more nimble army, capable of getting up close and personal with your enemies very quickly.

It's also just a much more interesting list. The Lumineth Realm-Lords are easily one of the best-looking armies in the game and have a good range of models available, so there was always something a bit un-exciting about fielding an army that was so heavily themed around basic troops. This gives us some squaddies, but also two very fun characters and a gorgeous cavalry unit.

Finally, let's talk about that new model. It's a Vanari Lord Regent, offering an on-foot option to the range (the only previous Lord Regent was a Lightcourser-mounted kit that could be built as either named-character Lyrior Uthralle or a generic hero). The new one has reduced stats compared to his mounted predecessor, with 5 Health and a 4+ Save, but is still pretty good. He also offers the Wall of Blades ability, which buffs a unit of nearby Wardens. You roll a dice for every enemy model within 3" of the chosen Wardens unit and on a 5+ the enemy model takes 1 mortal damage.

The miniature itself is gorgeous. I painted him to match the rest of my Ymetrica-themed army, as you can see in the picture above. The photo doesn't quite do the sculpt justice, which looks super-dynamic on the tabletop. I love the flow of his double-cape and the pose, holding his helmet while surveying the battlefield. I very much recommend painting this one in sub-assemblies, so you can really go to town on this noble hero. I just need to come up with a suitably aelven name for him, now. I'm thinking maybe Graeme.

So yeah, while the new goodies are minimal in terms of actual physical releases this time around, from the point of view of the game itself, this is a significant update. If you play Lumineth Realm-Lords then the new Battletome is happily essential (not so happily for your opponents, who are going to be tearing their hair out when you combo runes in turn four) and the new model is damn pretty. The shining companies prevail!

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