Let's Chat Sylvaneth

[Cerve]

5 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

That's only if they are taking the skyshoal coven. It's not part of their normal warscroll abilities so you won't see it in every list. 
 

That's not technically true. Between realm root navigation and 2-3 forests on the board, there's not much we can't reach in a single turn. Sure, it relies on a  9" charge (unless your taking a Durthu with realm walker) but if you have 2 units of revenants (and you probably should) 1 of them is quite likely to get get into combat with them. If your running a household formation (and if your taking gnarlroot you already are running household), the skyfires will be unable to retreat and will likely be pinned there; giving you plenty of time to bring something in for CC. 

Even if the revenants die, he'll likely have to waste a turn clearing them. Barring a double turn (and you should be aware of that potential when making this play) he won't be able to get out of combat in time to avoid a charge.

 

Not to rain on the parade, but I don't think that list is as competitive as it looks. It's terribly one dimensional. It's basically a gunline army. And while kuroth shooting is good, it's not that good. Put an MSU list on the table with a few multi-wound units that have a 2-3+ save (not that hard to get) and it's over once they cross the board. No forests to teleport to, no way to bring back dead units, very little ability to compete for objectives. 

Sometimes more of a good thing is just "more". 

A nice trick is using Realm Root Navigation + Balewind Vortex. Teleport one unit at 9", then the mage, then summon the Vortex upon your unit. So you will push your unit near to the enemy by 2-3"., get it easy to charge.

[Kaylethia]

4 hours ago, Cerve said:

A nice trick is using Realm Root Navigation + Balewind Vortex. Teleport one unit at 9", then the mage, then summon the Vortex upon your unit. So you will push your unit near to the enemy by 2-3"., get it easy to charge.

A cool idea, but it wouldn't work. Teleport happens in movement, which is after the hero phase. Navigate Realmroots also has a random element with a chance your unit does nothing (unless it's one of the Treelord variants or you give your general Realm Walker). You also need to have a wyldwood close enough to the enemy unit.

Realm Walker on the other hand could get you there. Your roll goes from 1-6 to 3-8, with a 50% chance of being able to still move. Whether or not Realm Walker is worth it, is a different question. 

Moonstone of the Hidden Ways lets you set up at least 4" away from an enemy unit, no wyldwood needed with the downside that it needs to go on a Sylvaneth Wizard.

I don't think I've seen a clarification on whether or not navigating realmroots or using the moonstone is considered a retreat or not. I know there was a lot of discussion on the matter some number of pages back, was some kind of consensus or ruling ever reached?

[Cerve]

1 hour ago, Kaylethia said:

A cool idea, but it wouldn't work. Teleport happens in movement, which is after the hero phase. Navigate Realmroots also has a random element with a chance your unit does nothing (unless it's one of the Treelord variants or you give your general Realm Walker). You also need to have a wyldwood close enough to the enemy unit.

Realm Walker on the other hand could get you there. Your roll goes from 1-6 to 3-8, with a 50% chance of being able to still move. Whether or not Realm Walker is worth it, is a different question. 

Moonstone of the Hidden Ways lets you set up at least 4" away from an enemy unit, no wyldwood needed with the downside that it needs to go on a Sylvaneth Wizard.

I don't think I've seen a clarification on whether or not navigating realmroots or using the moonstone is considered a retreat or not. I know there was a lot of discussion on the matter some number of pages back, was some kind of consensus or ruling ever reached?

That's true! I mistake to get a summon trick to the realmroot travel. My bad 

[Nico]

Quote

That's true! I mistake to get a summon trick to the realmroot travel. My bad 

It is technically possible using Forest Folk as that particular teleport happens in the hero phase. So you could nudge forward some Dryads 5" or so towards the enemy. Dryads do at least have the -1 to hit debuff if near a Wyldwood.

[Mirage8112]

9 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

@Mirage8112 the strategy that you are suggesting sounds pretty unreliable to me. The skyfires are no slouches in close combat, and there are typically multiple units of them. You're banking on successfully deploying your wyldwoods (a smart opponent will fill area with chaff in anticipation of this to make your life more difficult), then teleporting in with multiple units, making a 9 inch charge, and then counting on them not to get a double turn. It certainly could happen some of the time, but I don't think it realistically makes sword kurnoths a good counter to skyfires. 

 

I think you're missing some steps the sequence. 

Wyldwood deployment happens before set-up. Between them act that most of the lists that are contenders for tournament play revolve around Gladius-style mega battalions, everything we tend to take is a single drop during deployment. That means it's pretty likely we're getting the first turn, which means if were taking the acorn (and I usually do) you get two Wyldwoods on the table before the first turn; and as many as 3 if your general is the tLa and you roll well.

There's no opportunity to block deployment with chaff if the forests are deployed before the game starts. Even if your playing an opponent with a single drop and they win the roll off, you still get your free forest, and still have the first turn to get the second forest on the table. (not much can prevent you from getting the second forest down, not much is fast enough to block an acorn drop in your deployment zone first turn.) 

Furthermore, Tree-rev don't need wyldwoods for teleportation, table edges work just fine. Between the two forests and 4 table edges, two units of rev-should have no problem finding  spot to charge from. Plus, given the fact that they can re-roll a dice every round, (including charge dice) it's pretty likely at least 1 of them will make a charge.

Skyfires aren't slouches in CC, but they aren't really aces either. Given the fact that they are only save 5+ and T-rev's are rend -1 you can probably peel a sky fire off before they take any attacks back. I haven't run the mathhammer in it's entirety, but I'm fairly certain they'll last at least 1 combat round. (especially if you can charge in a way to prevent attacks back). Infact, they don't really even need to kill the skyfires, they just need to hold them there for a turn before something that can easily kill them show up. That means either hunters getting in range with arrows or teleporting in for CC. If anything other than t-revs get into CC the skyfires are done. 

The double turn was more of an asterisk. Ideally you don't want to attempt this when the opponent has the opportunity for a double turn, since the T-rev's will survive one CC round, but probably not 3. Sometimes you don't have the option, (not everything can be predicted).

Truthfully, it's probably best to just ignore the skyfires. We can stack plenty of -1 to hits and since Judgement from afar only proc on to hit rolls of 6, shot of expending DD they lose not of their bite. It's probably better to focus on taking out support characters and scoring objectives than worrying too much about a toothless unit. 

 

9 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Also please note that the list I was suggesting was specifically intended only to be a counter to certain high tier cheese lists that have frequently been terrorizing the top tables at tournaments. It's *certainly* not well balanced or well-suited against more normal opponents. It would be a very unfun list to play with or against. 

Have skyfyres been terrorizing top tables at tournaments? It was my impression the top lists at events like adepticon this year was beastclaw raiders, bonesplittaz, khorne bloodhound and stormcast. 

Also, don't think I'm trying to get on your case here. we have plenty to worry about from Di of Tzn player but Skyfyre spam isn't high on that list. @Nico and I have done lot of theorycrafting regarding Tzaangor skyfyres and the conclusion seems to be they're a good addition to an arcanite list, but not the most effective unit to spam. They are more of scalpel than a hammer. Granted you could take a bunch of scalpels and tape them together to make a hammer, but it's not the most effective hammer you could make. 

[Nico]

Quote

Have skyfyres been terrorizing top tables at tournaments? It was my impression the top lists at events like adepticon this year was beastclaw raiders, bonesplittaz, khorne bloodhound and stormcast. 

Also, don't think I'm trying to get on your case here. we have plenty to worry about from Di of Tzn player but Skyfyre spam isn't high on that list. @Nico and I have done lot of theorycrafting regarding Tzaangor skyfyres and the conclusion seems to be they're a good addition to an arcanite list, but not the most effective unit to spam. They are more of scalpel than a hammer. Granted you could take a bunch of scalpels and tape them together to make a hammer, but it's not the most effective hammer you could make. 

I'm guessing someone hasn't been watching the Livestream of SCGT then?

The reason why I'm avoiding them like the plague is because they are a potentially game wrecking unit and they will almost certainly get a big cost increase - maybe even a TK sized never see it on the table again mega-nerf.

The factor you may not have included is the obscene melee damage when they charge you first turn (using DD for example). Units of 9 one-shotting a Stonelord in melee after killing a Thundertusk with shooting. Partly this is down to people selectively avoiding the Hints and Tips rules which require them to roll a single D3 and multiply by 9 for the amount of Disk attacks (which at least makes them swingy and unreliable compared to 9 D3s). 

They do have some weakspots - alpha strike shooting on them especially with any kind of bravery debuff.

 

  

[Mirage8112]

3 minutes ago, Nico said:

I'm guessing someone hasn't been watching the Livestream of SCGT then?

The reason why I'm avoiding them like the plague is because they are a potentially game wrecking unit and they will almost certainly get a big cost increase - maybe even a TK sized never see it on the table again mega-nerf.

lol no. Stay at home dad means in knee deep in toddler trouble all damn day lol.

Even still, I'm not terribly surprised. It's tricky whenever the new book finally works its way into the meta because nobody has a chance to develop counter play strategies. I'd be careful about calling for mega-nerfs before the book has been out a while longer and had a chance to work its way through the tournament scene. Hunters were thought to be tremendously under costed upon release, but longer the book is out the more balanced they look. 

 

7 minutes ago, Nico said:

The factor you may not have included is the obscene melee damage when they charge you first turn (using DD for example). Units of 9 one-shotting a Stonelord in melee after killing a Thundertusk with shooting. Partly this is down to people selectively avoiding the Hints and Tips rules which require them to roll a single D3 and multiply by 9 for the amount of Disk attacks (which at least makes them swingy and unreliable compared to 9 D3s). 

Are talking about skyfyres or enlightened? I haven't seen the feed, but I find it hard to believe 9 skyfires can put out 36 wounds (after saves) a turn. (since the Stonelord halves total damage taken). They'd all need to get into combat AND cause 4 wounds apiece after saves. Maybe with great rolls, but that seems outside the statistical average. 

And I believe your mistaken on rolling D3 for the unit. Wasn't that a "mistaken" FAQ answer that was retracted and replaced?  
 

15 minutes ago, Nico said:

They do have some weakspots - alpha strike shooting on them especially with any kind of bravery debuff.

Anything alpha strike and they're toast. That and the bravery debuff just screams Dreadwood to me. 

9 in a unit gives them more staying power and I can see how that would be very difficult for a beastclaw raider army to deal with. It's pretty much exactly what they are weak against. I'm still fairly convince that for sylvaneth they are less toothy, given the abundance of -1 to making the damage output middling at best. Even a first turn charge vs gnarlroot at best puts them smack damn in the middle of a dryad bunker or toe to toe with scythe hunters. Which is pretty much the last place they want to be.  

You were originally a lot cooler on the skyfires than I was. Barring the nerf bat (since I doubt a book this new will be receiving a nerf anytime soon) have you changed your mind on them? 

[Nico]

I have changed my mind on them - the ease of getting Damned buff for 4+ To hit mortal wounds. Also when people go and buy 27 of them I tend to sit up and take note. A bit surprised that Mirror Shielded and Lanterned Stardrake didn't tear them up.

Completely agree re Hunters.

26 wounds would take out the Stonelord. It's the reroll hits and wounds which is mad. 18 attacks with the disks - 75% hit, 8/9 wound, half saved, D3 damage. So about 12 damage before halving. It must have been either a regular Stonehorn or including the pew pew Damage. Sorry for passing on rumoured feats which exaggerate problem. Also the Beaks and Bow attacks in melee.

Still vs saves that aren't 3+ that's horrific for a squishy pew pew unit....

The FAQ was amended for damage rolls, but not movement, number of attacks etc.. Chaos Spawn are a good example.

[Aezeal]

I doubt new units will get major nerves. A few extra points on the unit and a few points on the batallion can make a big difference though.

Isn't a unit or batallion that is reliant on a hero to buff it very vulnerable in any case?

[swarmofseals]

I'm familiar with the Shaman buff, but what is the buff that gives them a further +1 to hit? I don't have the battletome myself.

 

@Mirage8112 I hear what you are saying about getting the first wyldwood down for sure. You'll get the first turn option often, which will allow you to use acorn as well -- I don't dispute that. But the enemy can deploy in such a way that blocks you from placing that acorn wyldwood where you want it. It has to deploy within 5" of the carrier and can't be within 1" of any other terrain or model. If the enemy deploys carefully, they can block you from putting it near their skyfires.  Keep in mind that you MUST deploy your wyldwoods in a cluster formation now -- you can't snake them out in a line, so deploying a large wyldwood in a forward position is a lot trickier now.

I'll concede that your chances are good for getting your tree revs in. The enemy could just block the board edges near the skyfires with chaff too, but they might not be able to do both that and block a wyldwood depending on the table. And yeah, a 9" charge is more realistic with the reroll. That said, I don't think a unit of tree revs lasts for more than 2 combat rounds, and depending on the angle of attack they might not even last one. If they have fewer skyfires they can probably afford to just bubblewrap them on the first turn to prevent your charge, and if they have the usual amount they are typically running in multiple units, so you're realistically only going to be able to lock down one. If the stars align maybe you get two. 

Even if all that happens, you still have to warp your Kurnoths forward successfully and pull off a turn 2 charge without getting intercepted by anything, and even if you manage to close with the skyfires you still have to worry about getting countercharged by a huge letterbomb or unit of 30 tzaangors which are really quite nasty in melee. 

Also keep in mind that your scenario has you single dropping your army to get the first turn, so they get to deploy reactively to your deployment, including the positioning of your acorn bearer and your kurnoths. Taking the first turn also guarantees them a shot at the double turn right away.

 

I'm not saying your scenario is untenable -- just that it has a lot of moving parts, a lot of opportunities for your opponent to interfere, and a lot of ways it can go wrong. 

I think greatbow spam is a better counter strategy for two reasons: first, it works regardless of who goes first. If they take the first turn they don't have any obvious locuses of power to dump all their damage into. You don't present any particularly juicy targets at all, so all they can do is incremental damage. This is significant, for sure, but not fatal. When you go, you should be able to pick off their support characters easily and then start whittling down the skyfires. In an attrition shootout, Kurnoths win. If you do manage to get the double turn it will dramatically tilt the balance of power in your favor. If you don't, the game will go back and forth and eventually you will get one or at the very least they never will get one. On the other hand, if you go first you will be able to kill their support heroes immediately, thus dramatically decreasing the effectiveness of their first volley. They may get a double turn, but by that point it's not likely to be enough to be fatal. It might pull them even temporarily, but then you get back into the situation where either you double or just go back and forth. If you enter that shootout at parity you are a favorite to win. 

In the end it's probably best overall to take a mix of Kurnoths to have a reasonably balanced list since you aren't going to be facing skyfire spam or thundertusk spam every game... I just still contend that greatbows are the best counter we have to the other elite shooting out there.

 

I suppose the larger question that I'm raising is about the conventional wisdom of Sylvaneth list construction. Just about every Sylvaneth list starts with at least 600 points dumped into leaders, often more, plus a Gnarlroot Wargrove that costs a further 100. Against normal lists these choices are VERY powerful as they provide you with excellent magic and some very tough characters. Against the increasingly prevalent long-ranged pseudo artillery metagame though, these heroes are just a huge honeypot for your opponent to shoot of the table in one go. 18 skyfires are a strong favorite to kill a durthu or TLA in one turn of shooting even if it has Briarsheath. They probably can't crack both Durthu and TLA standing next to one another, but in that case you have minimum 700 points sunk into one location on the board, and the enemy can simply tear the rest of your army to pieces and ignore your leaders. 

I agree that it makes you weak in Three Places of Power, but what are you supposed to do? Three Places is a terrible scenario in a meta where basically every character is dead on arrival in a bunch of prevalent matchups. It's not like your typical Gnarlroot list has a *good* Three Places matchup against Longstrikes/Thundertusks/Skyfires.

 

I'm really hopeful that they fix shooting without neutering it in GHB2, and do so with a rules fix rather than simply raising the points on all the heavy shooting warscrolls. I'd be very concerned that Sylvaneth would basically be gutted at the competitive level if they nerf Kurnoth points heavily without some serious buffs to other units. 

 

As to your point about Skyfires terrorizing tournaments, I'm pretty sure skyfire spam lists won both Adepticon and SCGT, and the mixed destruction lists that have also done well at those events play in a similar fashion with the long range character sniping Thundertusks. Vanguard heavy Stormcast lists did very well in the 1k ACon tournaments, and may have done well at SCGT too, but I'm not sure as I only have seen the top couple of lists. 

[Mirage8112]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm familiar with the Shaman buff, but what is the buff that gives them a further +1 to hit? I don't have the battletome myself.

Damned terrain. 
 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

But the enemy can deploy in such a way that blocks you from placing that acorn wyldwood where you want it. It has to deploy within 5" of the carrier and can't be within 1" of any other terrain or model. If the enemy deploys carefully, they can block you from putting it near their skyfires.  Keep in mind that you MUST deploy your wyldwoods in a cluster formation now -- you can't snake them out in a line, so deploying a large wyldwood in a forward position is a lot trickier now.

Im a fairly big advocate of center deployed woods. I am not a fan of trying to drop the free wood in the deployment zone, since any player whose not intending to just go home right then will opt to switch sides. Two woods in your own deployment zone really doesn't help you at all. In reference to the acorn, 5" + 1" away from terrain and models is pretty easy to stomach if it goes down in the first hero phase. Even with the Les Martin Cluster (as it has come to be called) two woods end to end is still 23". Considering the space between deployment zones is 24" it's pretty much a perfect fit. Plus you can "shoot" the third citadel base out from the middle giving you more reach to edges or center. Granted, it doesn't work all the time, terrain sometimes gets in the way or the deployment set out in the scenario makes it less desirable, but 9 times out of 10 I haven't seen it be a problem. 

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I'll concede that your chances are good for getting your tree revs in. The enemy could just block the board edges near the skyfires with chaff too, but they might not be able to do both that and block a wyldwood depending on the table. And yeah, a 9" charge is more realistic with the reroll. That said, I don't think a unit of tree revs lasts for more than 2 combat rounds, and depending on the angle of attack they might not even last one. If they have fewer skyfires they can probably afford to just bubblewrap them on the first turn to prevent your charge, and if they have the usual amount they are typically running in multiple units, so you're realistically only going to be able to lock down one. If the stars align maybe you get two. 

 

I'll also concede that the t-rev's probably won't do anything spectacular. Certainly not against 9 skyfires. In that scenario it's probably best to try and put both units of T-revs into combat as it will be harder for them to wipe 2 separate blocks. But as you said, more moving parts mean more can go wrong. I wasn't suggesting that such a tactic was a cure-all for the sky fire threat, my point was that it's fairly easy to catch them and lock them down into a combat they can't retreat from. What you do once you have them there is a different story....
 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Even if all that happens, you still have to warp your Kurnoths forward successfully and pull off a turn 2 charge without getting intercepted by anything, and even if you manage to close with the skyfires you still have to worry about getting countercharged by a huge letterbomb or unit of 30 tzaangors which are really quite nasty in melee. 

I don't think this sort of tactic would be a first turn option. I would think this is more of a turn 3 or 4. For the most part, we don't need to try and take them out turn 1 since a forest bunker is more than capable of holding them off for a turn or two. Maybe more. Really your first play would be to wipe out the Shaman who's likely babysitting them. With the stacking -1 hit debuffs and wyldwood support, bloodletter bombs aren't scary at all. Neither really are Tzaangor mobs. They aren't exactly pushovers for sure, but 20 dryads are hard as hell to shift from a forest if they don't want to go. 

That really just leaves you to deal with the shooting threat to whatever the Dryads are guarding. Most likely a TLA. A very basic running of the math shows that were 18 skyfires, (at full strength, next to damned terrain and a Shaman), to focus a TLA (with briarsheath) they probably couldn't take him down in a single round without a substantial use of DD. Half wounds? Sure. But then they've basically wasted all their shooting on a single target who will likely just heal himself back to full wounds next turn (from say, the branchwytch hiding out of LOS sporting Regrowth and Ranuu's Lamentiri for the +2 to cast) and damned terrain isn't something you can fully bank on being available or in the right position. Plus, there's no way from them to get into CC without going through the dryads first and the possibility of having to fight with a -2 to hit makes rerolling hits/wounds far less toothy, (since rerolls come before modifiers.)

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Also keep in mind that your scenario has you single dropping your army to get the first turn, so they get to deploy reactively to your deployment, including the positioning of your acorn bearer and your kurnoths. Taking the first turn also guarantees them a shot at the double turn right away.

 
All true. Frankly knowing the deployment doesn't really help since nearly everything important usually goes into the hidden enclaves. The free forest goes right on the line between the the center and far edge tile in no mans land, so its already painfully obvious that where the second will go (mirror deployment, just on the other side). Frankly, there's not much he can do to stop it if we have first turn since the acorn caddy is often going into cover behind something that blocks LOS (since LOS isn't technically needed to drop the acorn.) At that point it's just the revenants that hit the table with a "normal" deployment (since they can basically teleport anywhere on the board, between the trees/table edges). Everything else goes into the hidden enclaves to be dropped into the forests in the first movement phase. 

The double turn is far more worrisome. 18 skyfires might not be able to wipe a TLA in one round, but its very possible they could do it in two consecutive rounds of shooting. They might not even need DD to make that happen. Thats why is more crucial to take out what support characters they have since they will be much more squishy than the skyfires themselves.

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm not saying your scenario is untenable -- just that it has a lot of moving parts, a lot of opportunities for your opponent to interfere, and a lot of ways it can go wrong. 

 
 I'm also not saying it's a easy match up or a given at all. My point was that you can catch them. That's not hard (the catching them part). And if the unit is a reasonable size it should be fairly easy to deal with. 9 or more is not an easy size to deal wth period. I originally pegged Skyfires as a competitive unit, it seems thats starting to bear out at least in recent tournament play. 
 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I think greatbow spam is a better counter strategy for two reasons: first, it works regardless of who goes first. If they take the first turn they don't have any obvious locuses of power to dump all their damage into. You don't present any particularly juicy targets at all, so all they can do is incremental damage. This is significant, for sure, but not fatal. When you go, you should be able to pick off their support characters easily and then start whittling down the skyfires. In an attrition shootout, Kurnoths win. If you do manage to get the double turn it will dramatically tilt the balance of power in your favor. If you don't, the game will go back and forth and eventually you will get one or at the very least they never will get one. On the other hand, if you go first you will be able to kill their support heroes immediately, thus dramatically decreasing the effectiveness of their first volley. They may get a double turn, but by that point it's not likely to be enough to be fatal. It might pull them even temporarily, but then you get back into the situation where either you double or just go back and forth. If you enter that shootout at parity you are a favorite to win. 

I don't think that's an unreasonable plan. Ideally you have some shooting to go with a balanced list and as I mentioned above, if we're smart with positioning Sylvaneth weather punishment amazingly well. Skyfires are threatening but (at least to us) I don't see them as particularly game breaking. Sure they're hard to deal with, but there's plenty of things in the game that are ugly right now. Triple Husktusks, Kunnin' Rukk, Skyre shenanigans all represent real challenges to our style of play, and Skyfires are in there, but maybe not exactly the tippy-top of the threat list. 

I don't even think you'd exactly need 18 bow hunters to counter the sky fire threat in an effective way. With the deployment steps outlines above, you could easily drop a unit of 3 bow hunters behind a bunker. Even with just 3 you stand a fairly good chance of picking off the shaman since he's only sporting 6 wounds and a 5+ save (paradoxical shield not withstanding.). Even if you don't kill him outright, if he only has a wound or two off, he'll have to think really hard about leaving him in range for another volley and since the Skyfires have to be within 9" of him to get the buff he might opt to pull back rather than risk losing him. Sure they have a 24" range, but hunters are 30" and it's still the first turn which means his whole army is likely in the way of being able to reposition everything. It would be a tough call for him. 
 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

In the end it's probably best overall to take a mix of Kurnoths to have a reasonably balanced list since you aren't going to be facing skyfire spam or thundertusk spam every game... I just still contend that greatbows are the best counter we have to the other elite shooting out there.

Agreed. Generally speaking it's always best to take a balanced list unless your the new hotness. I might posit that these type of skyfire spam works so well because it's practically brand new. It's hard to counter something you've never played against before, and the more threads I read the more I am seeing them starting with "I've never seen this before what do I do?". 

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I suppose the larger question that I'm raising is about the conventional wisdom of Sylvaneth list construction. Just about every Sylvaneth list starts with at least 600 points dumped into leaders, often more, plus a Gnarlroot Wargrove that costs a further 100. Against normal lists these choices are VERY powerful as they provide you with excellent magic and some very tough characters. Against the increasingly prevalent long-ranged pseudo artillery metagame though, these heroes are just a huge honeypot for your opponent to shoot of the table in one go. 18 skyfires are a strong favorite to kill a durthu or TLA in one turn of shooting even if it has Briarsheath. They probably can't crack both Durthu and TLA standing next to one another, but in that case you have minimum 700 points sunk into one location on the board, and the enemy can simply tear the rest of your army to pieces and ignore your leaders. 

I dunno. Gnarlroot is the go-to because it's resilient. I'll confess I play it often myself because it gives you a strong way to compete in all phases of the game. I still think the Dreadwood list is a winner though and I'm currently building the version @Nico and I came up with. Time will tell if it's a deadly on the table as it is on paper.

18 skyfires throw out 18 shots in a single round of shooting. Assume the "normal" buffs from the Shaman they are doing mortal wounds on 5+. With a Briarsheath TLA they are at -1 to hit so only doing mortal wounds on rolls of 6. Mathhamer shows that after saves the TLA stands to take 7-8 wounds. That's without Destiny Dice or Mystic Sheild. (Those numbers doesn't factor the Aviarch into the mix, but his stats don't change things all that much.) Since the TLA clocks in at 12 wounds, he's probably fine for a single round. 

Strong long range shooting has been a staple of war-games since pretty much forever. I haven't found that Gnarlroot as a list is particularly weak to that shooting since most of we have is resilient enough to wether the fire, then heal back to full or near full health while holding objectives and closing the gap. Gnarlroot provides a fairly strong objective game as well. 

I don't really think Di of TZ change the metagame all that much I just think at this point in time they're the new hotness and people are forgetting how to prioritize targets. The player who lost his FrostHorn to a unit 9 probably learned real quick he can't just throw his biggest baddest monster out onto the board without support anymore. Sylvaneth don't do that. We learned pretty fast when Beastclaw raiders hit the table that lone characters get stomped fairly early. 

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I agree that it makes you weak in Three Places of Power, but what are you supposed to do? Three Places is a terrible scenario in a meta where basically every character is dead on arrival in a bunch of prevalent matchups. It's not like your typical Gnarlroot list has a *good* Three Places matchup against Longstrikes/Thundertusks/Skyfires.

I dunno, I've had fairly good success with gnarlroot in three places of power. Our ability to get there first with more bodies means you can easily prevent a hero from getting with 3" while a TLA camps on another objective. After all, you don't have to hold an objective to prevent the enemy from capturing it. It's funny when you see a BCR take a bunch for stonehorns for 3 places of power and then realize they can't actually win since you surrounded one of the objective with trees they can't fit between, the second is surrounded by Dryads and T-revs screening that will take 7 turns to clear and the third is camped by a TLA surrounded by 9 scythe hunters. All by the end of the first movement phase. 

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm really hopeful that they fix shooting without neutering it in GHB2, and do so with a rules fix rather than simply raising the points on all the heavy shooting warscrolls. I'd be very concerned that Sylvaneth would basically be gutted at the competitive level if they nerf Kurnoth points heavily without some serious buffs to other units. 

I think there's too much talk around nerfs incoming with GHB2. I'm still skeptical that Hunters are still as overpowered as they seemed when the books as first released. I've said elsewhere in this thread but I'll say it again; Hunters do not need a points increase. The Sylvaneth book has fairly good internal balance right now and the power level is commensurate with nearly all the battletomes that came after it's release. I wouldn't argue against a point drop for T-Revs or Spites (or making spites battleline for a outcast army...) but I don't think they need it to be effective as things stand right now. I also don't necessarily think skyfires are undercosted either. I just think they are the new thing on the block and the meta hasn't adapted yet. 

 

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

As to your point about Skyfires terrorizing tournaments, I'm pretty sure skyfire spam lists won both Adepticon and SCGT, and the mixed destruction lists that have also done well at those events play in a similar fashion with the long range character sniping Thundertusks. Vanguard heavy Stormcast lists did very well in the 1k ACon tournaments, and may have done well at SCGT too, but I'm not sure as I only have seen the top couple of lists. 

A skyfire list did win adepticon this year by a percentage point (or so.) It was actually fairly close between the sky fire list and a death player (who was running a 12 snake TK list) the next in the top 5 was I believe stormcast, then mixed destruction, then 2 mixed undead lists. 6th was Sylvaneth. But I would hardly say the list terrorized Adepticon, it did very well, but so did most of the usual suspects (and again, don't underestimate the shock of the unfamiliar). 

 
-----

Mostly I think agree, but the talk around skyfires very much reminds me of the talk when beastclaw raiders dropped. A tough match-up to be sure, but not by any means unbeatable. I think once the list circles through the meta a few times and few more books drop (Khardaron Overlords maybe with their airships?) I expect things will look different. That is to say, were the same event held a year from now (with no changes) I doubt the sky fire list would roll over players the way it did this year since you can bet the next few months players in their respective grand alliances will take skyfires into account when working out gameplay strategies. 

But also (and you touched on this above) we don't know what changes GHB2 will bring. I'm not counting on any hugely drastic point changes, but certainly we will see some changes which will affect the meta. (I'm actually betting on changes to the summoning mechanic, either through core rule changes or new Death-focused battletomes which don't penalize summoning so harshly). I'm curious what those changes will be but I'm betting on more of a tweak and build rather than a drastic overhaul. 
 

 

[Mirage8112]

7 hours ago, Nico said:

The FAQ was amended for damage rolls, but not movement, number of attacks etc.. Chaos Spawn are a good example.

You said its in a "hints & tips" section, but I can't seem to find it. Any chance you could throw me a reference? 

[swarmofseals]

The second +1 to hit bonus being from terrain does change things quite a bit, as like you said that won't always be available. I had been assuming it was something from another warscroll, battalion, spell, or artefact that I didn't know the rules of and thus at least relatively reliable. 

 

[Nico]

Quote

You said its in a "hints & tips" section, but I can't seem to find it. Any chance you could throw me a reference? 

In the DoT book (for example), it's the final paragraph of the first column of text: "Generate any random values for a weapon...." This is the post-FAQ wording, which carves out damage.

[Nico]

Quote

I suppose the larger question that I'm raising is about the conventional wisdom of Sylvaneth list construction. Just about every Sylvaneth list starts with at least 600 points dumped into leaders, often more, plus a Gnarlroot Wargrove that costs a further 100. Against normal lists these choices are VERY powerful as they provide you with excellent magic and some very tough characters. Against the increasingly prevalent long-ranged pseudo artillery metagame though, these heroes are just a huge honeypot for your opponent to shoot of the table in one go. 18 skyfires are a strong favorite to kill a durthu or TLA in one turn of shooting even if it has Briarsheath. They probably can't crack both Durthu and TLA standing next to one another, but in that case you have minimum 700 points sunk into one location on the board, and the enemy can simply tear the rest of your army to pieces and ignore your leaders. 

I agree that it makes you weak in Three Places of Power, but what are you supposed to do? Three Places is a terrible scenario in a meta where basically every character is dead on arrival in a bunch of prevalent matchups. It's not like your typical Gnarlroot list has a *good* Three Places matchup against Longstrikes/Thundertusks/Skyfires.

I've been writing lists along these lines, basically dumping the Ancient and taking 2-3 Branchwraiths instead (which you might even be able to hide behind a building or which get -2 to hit in a Wyldwood with Briarsheath and then powering ahead with 70 odd Dryads. The problem is that Winterleaf still feels criminally expensive at 160 points (plus it forces you to take 4 units of Dryads rather than 3).

Regarding the Ancient - sometimes I think "how is this joker the same cost as a Lord of Change" - given he consistently does negligible damage with both melee and shooting - with only one spell - you don't even get much of a chance to cast his very good Awakening the Woods (unless you take Gnarlroot) - as he usually ends up carrying Regrowth for you.  He is a great tank to anything with rend -1 or worse, but often only against the kind of armies that you would likely beat anyway - anyone foolish enough to take an army which is more than 50% melee oriented. This is your "Against normal lists" point.

[Nico]

Quote

Im a fairly big advocate of center deployed woods. I am not a fan of trying to drop the free wood in the deployment zone, since any player whose not intending to just go home right then will opt to switch sides. Two woods in your own deployment zone really doesn't help you at all. In reference to the acorn, 5" + 1" away from terrain and models is pretty easy to stomach if it goes down in the first hero phase. Even with the Les Martin Cluster (as it has come to be called) two woods end to end is still 23". Considering the space between deployment zones is 24" it's pretty much a perfect fit. Plus you can "shoot" the third citadel base out from the middle giving you more reach to edges or center. Granted, it doesn't work all the time, terrain sometimes gets in the way or the deployment set out in the scenario makes it less desirable, but 9 times out of 10 I haven't seen it be a problem. 

This is my standard approach too. 

[Nico]

Quote

I think there's too much talk around nerfs incoming with GHB2. I'm still skeptical that Hunters are still as overpowered as they seemed when the books as first released. I've said elsewhere in this thread but I'll say it again; Hunters do not need a points increase. The Sylvaneth book has fairly good internal balance right now and the power level is commensurate with nearly all the battletomes that came after it's release. I wouldn't argue against a point drop for T-Revs or Spites (or making spites battleline for a outcast army...) but I don't think they need it to be effective as things stand right now. I also don't necessarily think skyfires are undercosted either. I just think they are the new thing on the block and the meta hasn't adapted yet. 

Indeed.

There's zero leeway in the Sylvaneth book at the moment. None of the other Warscrolls come across as cheap and several are overcosted.

[Cerve]

If they'll increase the points of Hunters, I think that Sylvaneth will struggle against top lists. Hunters are the thing that get Sylvaneth in competitive scene.

[Jorthax]

Some excellent discussion going on here, I love a Les Martin Cluster in the middle of the table too, and attempt to summon left and right on the first turns with various options available.

I wanted to re-open Ironbark discussion... I really love this battalion because I'm a dwarf player at heart and (sorry if this is sacrilege, but my true love) I want to make it work. Previously we've discussed a tunneling Fyreslayer squad of 30 Vulkites which is excellent choice but I REALLY want to fit a skyship in.

My initial theory is maybe A Frigate and 10+ Thunderers or something, but I would love some ideas from others. 2 Gunhaulers maybe as Cannons might be good but risky. 

[Nico]

Perhaps a Khemist and 9-12 Endrinriggers?

[Jorthax]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

Perhaps a Khemist and 9-12 Endrinriggers?

To buff the Saw's in melee? I didn't feel like Melee was something that needed help since Scythe hunters are one of my favourite things. But they are very fast for point taking... it's an idea. I kind of feel that in both Kharadron and Sylvaneth there are very few points left to play with after a battalion is in.

[Nico]

Make that a Khemist and 9-12 Skywardens with Drill Cannons.

[Jorthax]

I just want to move away from Gnarlroot, even though I love how it plays I like to have variants. 

[Aezeal]

8 minutes ago, Nico said:

Make that a Khemist and 9-12 Skywardens with Drill Cannons.

Why these and not the others?

[Aezeal]

3 hours ago, Jorthax said:

Some excellent discussion going on here, I love a Les Martin Cluster in the middle of the table too, and attempt to summon left and right on the first turns with various options available.

I wanted to re-open Ironbark discussion... I really love this battalion because I'm a dwarf player at heart and (sorry if this is sacrilege, but my true love) I want to make it work. Previously we've discussed a tunneling Fyreslayer squad of 30 Vulkites which is excellent choice but I REALLY want to fit a skyship in.

My initial theory is maybe A Frigate and 10+ Thunderers or something, but I would love some ideas from others. 2 Gunhaulers maybe as Cannons might be good but risky. 

I think the Overlords are very dependant on their allegiance buff and buffs from each other.  They are really meant to be played (IMHO) with a ship AND a hero for buffing a unit.  Since we can't get 3 units in it'll be suboptimal. Also.. what do they bring that we don't already have ourselves except the models which are nice and different from what we have).