AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion

[Landohammer]

Just got back from a one day tournament and I figured I would give a quick recap. List summary below.

Game 1 vs STD. Knife to the Heart

My opponent out-dropped me but curiously chose to take turn 1, so his first turn was a bit of a waste. I summoned a forest right in his face and teleported 6 Kurnoth with swords and made the charge into his 10 man unit of Chaos knights. I popped Call to Battle and killed the entire unit. Unfortunately for him he had moved most of his units to the flanks so he didn't have enough bodies to defend his objective. I scored the double turn into turn 3 and pushed onto his objective for the auto-win. Major victory!

Game 2 vs Tzeentch (Conflaguration). Places of Arcane Power.

This game was weird. I outdropped him and so he spent first turn just kinda plodding forward cautiously as a moving castle. I used my turn to run Drycha, Archie, and Wraith on to the objectives. However he used Kairos to make my Wraith's run into a 1, so I ended up short on that one. Clever move!

He then used his flamers and pink horrors to just shoot me up and ultimately tabled me. HOWEVER, I had scored so many objective points on turns 1-3 that he was unable to catch up so I scored another Major Victory! 

Game 3 vs Daughters of Khaine. 

This list was brutal, with like 4 hags, and 4 maxed out units of infantry. However I was able to do another forest-teleport-Hunter alpha strike and combined with the Frozen Kernal and Call to Battle, I eliminated one of his hordes. I then scored the double turn and pushed the Hunters into another horde, and did a lot more damage. 

Unfortunately, his battleshock immunity and rerollable FNPs let him keep that unit alive and combined with a double turn of his own began to eat my army. Fortunately I was up on BPs significantly. But on round 5 I was overly tired and made a critical mistake of skipping my movement phase. He capitalized by making a long bomb run+charge and stole the game. Major Loss

Summary

I went 2-1 overall and tied for 3rd out of 13. Had a blast. 

List

Winterleaf

Outcast Battallion

-Drycha

-Arch Rev (Kernel)

-Branchwraith (Stave)

-20 Spites

-10 Spites

-5 Spites

-6 Hunters with Swords

-6 Hunters with Scythes

-5 Evocators

 

[Pennydude]

10 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Just got back from a one day tournament and I figured I would give a quick recap. List summary below.

Game 1 vs STD. Knife to the Heart

My opponent out-dropped me but curiously chose to take turn 1, so his first turn was a bit of a waste. I summoned a forest right in his face and teleported 6 Kurnoth with swords and made the charge into his 10 man unit of Chaos knights. I popped Call to Battle and killed the entire unit. Unfortunately for him he had moved most of his units to the flanks so he didn't have enough bodies to defend his objective. I scored the double turn into turn 3 and pushed onto his objective for the auto-win. Major victory!

Game 2 vs Tzeentch (Conflaguration). Places of Arcane Power.

This game was weird. I outdropped him and so he spent first turn just kinda plodding forward cautiously as a moving castle. I used my turn to run Drycha, Archie, and Wraith on to the objectives. However he used Kairos to make my Wraith's run into a 1, so I ended up short on that one. Clever move!

He then used his flamers and pink horrors to just shoot me up and ultimately tabled me. HOWEVER, I had scored so many objective points on turns 1-3 that he was unable to catch up so I scored another Major Victory! 

Game 3 vs Daughters of Khaine. 

This list was brutal, with like 4 hags, and 4 maxed out units of infantry. However I was able to do another forest-teleport-Hunter alpha strike and combined with the Frozen Kernal and Call to Battle, I eliminated one of his hordes. I then scored the double turn and pushed the Hunters into another horde, and did a lot more damage. 

Unfortunately, his battleshock immunity and rerollable FNPs let him keep that unit alive and combined with a double turn of his own began to eat my army. Fortunately I was up on BPs significantly. But on round 5 I was overly tired and made a critical mistake of skipping my movement phase. He capitalized by making a long bomb run+charge and stole the game. Major Loss

Summary

I went 2-1 overall and tied for 3rd out of 13. Had a blast. 

List

Winterleaf

Outcast Battallion

-Drycha

-Arch Rev (Kernel)

-Branchwraith (Stave)

-20 Spites

-10 Spites

-5 Spites

-6 Hunters with Swords

-6 Hunters with Scythes

-5 Evocators

 

How did the Evocators do?  I'm always curious to know about how different allies perform. 

I'm putting together a 2000pt list with a 1000pt sideboard for Holy Wars and am looking for other options.  Haven't decided what glade I want to be but I recently tried a Harvestboon list using Durthu with a Thermalrider Cloak as my general.  That little trick won me the game against Ogors in Scorched Earth.

[Landohammer]

@Pennydude

 

They did fine, but I found that they always competed with the Kurnoth Hunters for premium front line space. They essentially fullfill the same role but Hunters are just better at the job. So they were kind of like my third string combat unit. In retrospect, I should have brought something to give me a shooting phase. 

Evocators are great, but without a means to deepstrike or teleport them, they lose quite a bit of value. If I owned 3 more Kurnoth Hunters I would immediately drop the Evocators altogether.

I had purchased them  for my Living City army, and I really only fielded them to show off their paint job. I painted them green and called them "Treevocators" all weekend 🤣. 

 

[Pennydude]

@Landohammer love the Treevocators!  

I've found out that you kinda need to go in hard on Bow Kurnoths to have a shooting phase.  My lists either have monsters shooting for 9 Bows shooting.  Drycha is just so good at what she does.   My recent list only had a TLA and 2 Durthu (revising to be TLA, one Durthu, and Drycha in Harvestboon).

How were the exploding hits with your Kurnoths?  Most of my lists revolve around Gnarlroot because I like the consistency of that glade.  I haven't really tried Winterleaf out.

[Landohammer]

16 hours ago, Pennydude said:

@Landohammer love the Treevocators!  

I've found out that you kinda need to go in hard on Bow Kurnoths to have a shooting phase.  My lists either have monsters shooting for 9 Bows shooting.  Drycha is just so good at what she does.   My recent list only had a TLA and 2 Durthu (revising to be TLA, one Durthu, and Drycha in Harvestboon).

How were the exploding hits with your Kurnoths?  Most of my lists revolve around Gnarlroot because I like the consistency of that glade.  I haven't really tried Winterleaf out.

Absolutely. I 100% agree. Drycha is an absolute powerhouse, and played a crucial part in all of my wins. She is just so reliable, its hard to leave her at home.

So I am going to be honest with you: Hunters in winterleaf are probably overpowered. There isn't much in the game that can withstand 6 of them, especially if you factor in Arch Revenant buffs, magic, and Frozen Kernel. Consider that every 6 to hit is a potential FIVE wounds. I was able to get 5 in combat normally, and the Arch revenant was usually nearby too. They absolutely murdered everything they touched and were hands down my MVP of the tourney.

One thing of note, is that this tournament included Realm Spells, so I had access to the Realm of Fire spells, most notably "Stoke Rage" which casts on a 6 and gives a unit +1 to charge, and +1 to wound. The synergy of that spell with our army can't be understated.

This really makes me reassess Skaeth's wild hunt. Being able to give my Hunters (or even Spites!) +1 to wound really seems powerful.

 

 

[Pennydude]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

Absolutely. I 100% agree. Drycha is an absolute powerhouse, and played a crucial part in all of my wins. She is just so reliable, its hard to leave her at home.

So I am going to be honest with you: Hunters in winterleaf are probably overpowered. There isn't much in the game that can withstand 6 of them, especially if you factor in Arch Revenant buffs, magic, and Frozen Kernel. Consider that every 6 to hit is a potential FIVE wounds. I was able to get 5 in combat normally, and the Arch revenant was usually nearby too. They absolutely murdered everything they touched and were hands down my MVP of the tourney.

One thing of note, is that this tournament included Realm Spells, so I had access to the Realm of Fire spells, most notably "Stoke Rage" which casts on a 6 and gives a unit +1 to charge, and +1 to wound. The synergy of that spell with our army can't be understated.

This really makes me reassess Skaeth's wild hunt. Being able to give my Hunters (or even Spites!) +1 to wound really seems powerful.

 

 

Okay I'll test out Winterleaf for my Holy Wars glade.  Here's what I'm thinking of running if I were to run Gnarlroot:

Drycha
Treelord Ancient
Spirit of Durthu
Branchwraith
Arch-Revenant

10 Dryads
10 Dryads
10 Dryads
6 Scythe Kurnoths

Forest Folk Battalion
Spiteswarm Hive
Gladewyrm

My 1000pt sidebar (which can be used to sub units in/out) is currently:

20 Dryads (to bump one up to 30 if need be)
3 Sword Kurnoth
3 Sword Kurnoth
3 Bow Kurnoth
3 Bow Kurnoth

I also get to take an extra artefact with me.  I've considered moving a Branchwych bomb package into the sidebar by taking out 3 Swords and adding B-Wych, Balewind, and Spellportal.  Lots of things to test out.

[Landohammer]

@Pennydude

Looks fun but if you wanted to maximize the cheesiness you should drop some characters for more Sword Kurnoth Hunters.

A lot of folks bring TLA for the guaranteed forest, but I have found that a Branchwraith with Throne and Spritsong Stave push out forests a lot more efficiently.

 

[Pennydude]

50 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

@Pennydude

Looks fun but if you wanted to maximize the cheesiness you should drop some characters for more Sword Kurnoth Hunters.

A lot of folks bring TLA for the guaranteed forest, but I have found that a Branchwraith with Throne and Spritsong Stave push out forests a lot more efficiently.

 

I think if I was going to a traditional event, I'd agree with you 100%.  Holy Wars is an event where the terrain is like a 3rd player and will slowly kill both side's armies.  I just love the flexibility the TLA brings and not just because of the free forest.  I tend to abuse the command ability.  Learned against Ogors that the stomp is invaluable as well.

[Inquisitorsz]

9 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Absolutely. I 100% agree. Drycha is an absolute powerhouse, and played a crucial part in all of my wins. She is just so reliable, its hard to leave her at home.

So I am going to be honest with you: Hunters in winterleaf are probably overpowered. There isn't much in the game that can withstand 6 of them, especially if you factor in Arch Revenant buffs, magic, and Frozen Kernel. Consider that every 6 to hit is a potential FIVE wounds. I was able to get 5 in combat normally, and the Arch revenant was usually nearby too. They absolutely murdered everything they touched and were hands down my MVP of the tourney.

One thing of note, is that this tournament included Realm Spells, so I had access to the Realm of Fire spells, most notably "Stoke Rage" which casts on a 6 and gives a unit +1 to charge, and +1 to wound. The synergy of that spell with our army can't be understated.

This really makes me reassess Skaeth's wild hunt. Being able to give my Hunters (or even Spites!) +1 to wound really seems powerful.

 

 

Absolutely agree about Drycha. She was probably my MVP during cancon. Even the games where she was killed early, she was a great distraction piece (usually after doing some good shooting damage). 

As for winterleaf hunters.... Certainly strong but I'll tell you this... There's heaps that can withstand 6 hunters. Admittedly I was running 6 scythes 3 swords,... 
But in game 3 I hit a block of 20 sequitors. they had +1 save buff, rerolling saves, and a buff that forced me to reroll  6s (I was using winterleaf).  
First combat I killed 1 guy. Next turn I popped +1 attack and Frozen Kernel. After 3 rounds of combat I had kill 5 sequitors.  
Admittedly they didn't hit back very hard (they were very spread out, being used as a screen so didn't get many attacks). But it took me all game to get through them.  

Then I also hit 15 chaos knights with +1 save and rerolls... same story (although they outright killed me before I got much of an attack back).   
And my 3 sword hunters did 1 damage to a Frostlord on a Stonehorn when they should do about 7 on average (he passed a lot of 5+ saves).  

Then against slaanesh, got hit with the strike last locus, keeper ate them for breakfast, the demonette's cleaned up the last few wounds. But with double pile ins and a greater deamon back up, it was always going to hurt. 

Sylvaneth are a "fair" army. They have tricks and strong units, but many other top factions just have far more stronger units and better tricks.
Moral of the story, don't fall into the trap of thinking that 6 Hunters are invincible or can kill anything.... they can still get stuck or killed. 

 

[Milo]

On 12/19/2019 at 5:49 PM, Pennydude said:

No problem!  As an FYI, my double partner in my 4 games so far was running Beefclaw endless spell) for the 4-person team event at Adepticon.  My teammates are playing Khorne, Ossiarch Bonereapers, and Flesh-Eater Courts.  

Also, never be afraid to run your Bow Kurnoths into combat to help claim objectives.  They are still as tanky as Scythes and Swords but not a ton of killing power.  I successfully charged an enemy unit with some Bows and because of that, I claimed the objective, 6 models to their 5. 

With the new points changes, I have a new Gnarlroot and Oakenbrow monster mash list I want to try out.

Goood morning,

what do you think about this list? Any suggestion? Thank you!!!

Edited January 30, 2020 by Milo

[rosa]

Can both have regrowth?

[Trevelyan]

1 hour ago, rosa said:

Can both have regrowth?

Yes. The limit is on the number of time you can attempt to cast a spell, not the number of units that have access to it. 

[aktanolt]

First note, Arch Rev is pretty meh to me in Harvestboon as his passive power is a bit useless, so his command ability..... Also i dont think in a list with only 3 kurnoth, he is worthy.

However my GF is working on a quite similar list, here it is , also tips on using drycha would be nice as critics on the whole thing.

 

Allegiance: Sylvaneth
- Glade: Harvestboon
Mortal Realm: Ghyran
Spirit of Durthu (300)
- General
- Trait: Seek New Fruit
- Artefact: Ghyrstrike
Drycha Hamadreth (320)
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Treelord Ancient (260)
- Artefact: The Silent Sickle
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Branchwraith (80)
- Deepwood Spell: Throne of Vines
30 x Dryads (270)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)
- Scythes
Outcasts (100)
Balewind Vortex (40)
Spiteswarm Hive (50)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 114
 

 

Thx 

[States]

38 minutes ago, aktanolt said:

First note, Arch Rev is pretty meh to me in Harvestboon as his passive power is a bit useless, so his command ability..... Also i dont think in a list with only 3 kurnoth, he is worthy.

However my GF is working on a quite similar list, here it is , also tips on using drycha would be nice as critics on the whole thing.

 

Allegiance: Sylvaneth
- Glade: Harvestboon
Mortal Realm: Ghyran
Spirit of Durthu (300)
- General
- Trait: Seek New Fruit
- Artefact: Ghyrstrike
Drycha Hamadreth (320)
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Treelord Ancient (260)
- Artefact: The Silent Sickle
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Branchwraith (80)
- Deepwood Spell: Throne of Vines
30 x Dryads (270)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)
- Scythes
Outcasts (100)
Balewind Vortex (40)
Spiteswarm Hive (50)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 114
 

 

Thx 

Whats the plan with the balewind and wraith?

[AndyPa]

3 hours ago, Milo said:

Goood morning,

what do you think about this list? Any suggestion? Thank you!!!

 

 

it's not a tournament list, but I think it is fun with 2 SoDs.
you can always drop the dryads für spites and outcast (because it cost less points).
with the xtra CP you can give both SoDs and the Hunter-Squad an additional attack.

[Landohammer]

13 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

Absolutely agree about Drycha. She was probably my MVP during cancon. Even the games where she was killed early, she was a great distraction piece (usually after doing some good shooting damage). 

As for winterleaf hunters.... Certainly strong but I'll tell you this... There's heaps that can withstand 6 hunters. Admittedly I was running 6 scythes 3 swords,... 
But in game 3 I hit a block of 20 sequitors. they had +1 save buff, rerolling saves, and a buff that forced me to reroll  6s (I was using winterleaf).  
First combat I killed 1 guy. Next turn I popped +1 attack and Frozen Kernel. After 3 rounds of combat I had kill 5 sequitors.  
Admittedly they didn't hit back very hard (they were very spread out, being used as a screen so didn't get many attacks). But it took me all game to get through them.  

Then I also hit 15 chaos knights with +1 save and rerolls... same story (although they outright killed me before I got much of an attack back).   
And my 3 sword hunters did 1 damage to a Frostlord on a Stonehorn when they should do about 7 on average (he passed a lot of 5+ saves).  

Then against slaanesh, got hit with the strike last locus, keeper ate them for breakfast, the demonette's cleaned up the last few wounds. But with double pile ins and a greater deamon back up, it was always going to hurt. 

Sylvaneth are a "fair" army. They have tricks and strong units, but many other top factions just have far more stronger units and better tricks.
Moral of the story, don't fall into the trap of thinking that 6 Hunters are invincible or can kill anything.... they can still get stuck or killed. 

 

Oh man you went to Cancon? I'm so jealous. Have you posted a summary of your games? (sorry if I missed it, it may have got buried). 

So I think the key component of the unit is always taking a minimum of 6 swords. A lot of folks worry that they won't all get into combat, but in my experience I can guarantee that 4 will get into combat, and I almost always get 5 in combat.

Outside of the obvious ability to absorb casualties, the additional bodies just get compounded when you trigger Call to Battle, double swing, reroll 1's, and explode 6's. If you absolutely cripple a unit, the return swings are less of a problem. 

Buuuuuut, you have a point. There are some hard counters such as ASL or anything that makes you reroll to-hit rolls of 6. Both of which are surprisingly common. (Nurgle, Slaanesh, StD, and Stormcast all have access off the top of my head)

 

[Trevelyan]

1 hour ago, States said:

Whats the plan with the balewind and wraith?

I assume it’s an attempt to give the Wraith an extra cast to use both Throne and to summon dryads.

If so, it is probably a waste of the points spent on the Vortex - the Vortex gets you two casts per turn, including the turn you cast it. I would guess that the plan is to cast Vortex and maybe attempt a summon on Turn 1, then cast Throne and a summon on subsequent Turns. that would make the first turn dependent on a 6+ then a 7+ spell to pull off, with subsequent 5+ and 7(5)+ casting. Once the Vortex is up, the subsequent turns are relatively reliable, but there is a reasonable chance that you miss the Vortex cast to start and are on the back foot thereafter.

It would be better to spend the points on another spell, cast Throne Turn 1 and summon on subsequent turns. Or just try to summon normally each turn. Summoned dryads are nice to have, but you shouldn’t hang your game plan on the ability to get them out, and there are almost always better ways to spend the points than enhanced dryad summoning. 
 

[Inquisitorsz]

10 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Oh man you went to Cancon? I'm so jealous. Have you posted a summary of your games? (sorry if I missed it, it may have got buried). 

 

I wrote a quick summary on the previous page but I can do a more detailed write up later today if you like.

EDIT:

Here's a quickly wall of text dump of a write up for you.

Little bit of background first. 
I finished painting my base army at 3am the night before Cancon.

This meant that I didn’t have any extra summoned units. No dryads, no hunters, no extra forests. I had 2 old custom citadel woods and that’s all I used throughout the tournament. 

Turns out having a 4 month old at home really eats into your hobby time.

So with that, I wasn’t expecting too much. I was just happy to actually get an army onto the table. This would also be my first ever games with Sylvaneth… I think they last time I played an AoS game was at another tournament back in March 2019 with my Nighthaunt…. I don’t get to play much lol.  

This was the list. Keep in mind that the whole tournament was played in Ghyran, so we had access to the whole spell lore. The damage spells there are pretty terrible, but Mirrorpool and Flesh to Stone are great for Alarielle and Drycha.
That was the main reason I chose Drycha over Durthu. If not for the realm, the list would have been a bit different. That being said, Drycha was probably my MVP.

Allegiance: Sylvaneth

- Glade: Winterleaf

Alarielle the Everqueen (600)

- Deepwood Spell : Throne of Vines

Drycha Hamadreth (320)

- Deepwood Spell : Regrowth

Branchwraith (80)

- Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony

Arch-Revenant (100)

- General

- Command Trait : My Heart Is Ice

- Artefact : Frozen Kernel

6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)

- Scythes

3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)

- Greatswords

5 x Spite-Revenants (60)

5 x Spite-Revenants (60)

5 x Tree-Revenants (80)

Spiteswarm Hive (50)

Extra Command Point (50)

Game 1:
Started off playing Alex and his Hallowheart army. Unfortunately for him I was rocking 5 unbinds. I think I was given the first turn. The battleplan was border war. So I moved some things up to the objectives and Alarielle threw her spear. The magic phase was uneventful as I either failed to cast anything or had it unbound.  
The spear however did work. It hit and outright killed the hallowheart general.  
After the game we realised we had played the Cities of Sigmar bodyguard rule incorrectly (we rolled one 4+ to shrug off the whole hit, not each individual wound that was allocated).
This was a learning experience for Alex. Know your army guys!
With the general dead, he lost his big battleshock bubble and a big chunk of his spellcasting. 
In his turn, he charged some spite revs and Drycha with spearmen and the 6 hunter unit with a huge block of greatswords. 
He didn’t roll particularly well in that combat and killed 1.5 hunters. When they fought back they took down something like 11 greatswords. On the other flank Drycha got to attack before the spearmen…. And that hurt the elves A LOT. I think she accounted for about 10 by herself with pretty average rolling. I believe the rest of that unit suffered from battleshock (being over extended). Alex, like most opponents throughout the weekend severely underestimated Dyrcha’s damage output. 
The middle of my battle line was Alarielle with her screen and the 3 sword hunters. They came up against a block of black guard, but the results were similar. Alarielle’s beetle making pretty short work of large blocks of units.   

Alex’s first magic phase was as uneventful as mine, and we pretty much called it during Turn 2. At this point I was pretty impressed with the Hunters and Drycha but Alex was pretty unlucky in key moments and the incorrect death of his general certainly didn’t help.
That being said, between the spear, Drycha’s shooting and spells, I think it would have been difficult to keep her alive much longer anyway.

Major Win

Game 2:
Tzeentch eternal conflagration changehost piloted by Jarred. Here we go time to mix it up with the big boys. I’m a little bit familiar with Tzeentch so I at least know some of their tricks. We both chose the “kill all behemoths” secondary objective so I set myself an early goal of killing the Lord of Change.
I got the first turn again as I’m rocking 9 drops. I summoned a new forest quite deep into his territory, got the endless spell off and set up a great alpha strike with the large hunter unit. Unfortunately Drycha didn’t get mirrorpool off so she couldn’t join the party. 
However, I failed the charge roll even with +2, so now my hunters were sitting in front of a LOC and 20 pink horrors ready to receive a beating. 
My opponent however opted to run away. He teleported the pink horrors away and the LOC also took to the skies and flew away, leaving some small brimstone screens in front of my hunters. His magic phase was fairly uneventful, I got some good unbinds off. With all his combined shooting he killed the 3 sword hunters on the other flank, as well as some of my spite screens and did a fair bit of damage to Drycha.  My tree revs teleported around attempting to hunt his heroes. They didn’t achieve much damage but did force some reactions which was good.
Since I don’t have extra hunters to summon, Alarielle used the freshly killed ones instead. I brought those guys back on, almost mopped up the brimstone screens, and started laying into the LOC. There was just enough room for my hunters to charge through a gap and get a few in combat with him. They did some good damage and he then used the teleport to escape getting mauled further.

As the battleplan was Starstrike the first objective came down this turn, slightly to my left flank and that’s where 20 pink horrors ended up.
I decided to mainly ignore those guys as there was no way I was going to get through 100 wounds quick enough. Especially with how destiny dice work and results of 1 bringing models back on. 

I went first again in turn 3 and the two new objectives popped up on my right flank which was currently clear of demons. My large hunter unit continued to roll around the left flank, this time hitting his changling and one unit of flamers. They also pulled the horrors into combat too. A few solid rolls later and I wiped out the flamer unit and changling completely. Alarielle’s spear again did good work and left the LOC on 1 wound (I needed 3 damage to kill him and rolled a 2).

The LOC teleported again to get out of the way of the rampaging hunter unit, the remaining flamers shot at Alarielle doing a few wounds, the exalted flamer and herald finished off Drycha who was wasting her time killing brimestones.
The big pink horror units teleported back to the right flank and spread themselves out to try and tag both objectives. Thankfully my branchwraith and sword hunters were in the way and they could only grab 1 of them.  However this left his exalted flamer and herald exposed.

The Scythe hunters continued their rampage and ripped through both heroes. Alarielle finished off the LOC with an arcane bolt I mopped up the last 2 brimstones which annoyingly kept holding the first objective. But now, Jarred only had the large pink horror unit left and no heroes. I had lost all my small battleline, 1 unit of sword hunters (who came back on) and Drycha. 

After that it was just a case of grabbing the objectives and mopping up the pink horror unit, which Alarielle and the 3 sword hunters were doing fairly well.  We called the game at this point as I was too far ahead on objective points but had we played one more turn I would have probably wiped him out. 

Major Win. Feeling pretty good about myself now, even without extra dryads or forests.

Game 3:

This time it’s Blood And Glory against Sean’s shooty and teleporting stormcast. He had 3 units of hunters, a big block of sequitors backed up by some buffing heroes, 20 castigators and a ballista.
He had all the mobility, surprise and bodies to make this objective game very difficult. This was bad match up for me. Without my extra summons I wouldn’t be able to have a big enough board presence and without the extra forests my mobility is minimal.

In any case the game started pretty well. He went first, castled up in the middle with a big fully buffed sequitor bubble. I dropped a forest and smashed the 6 hunters into him…. They killed 1. He then gave me the first turn in round 2 and I popped the frozen kernel and +1 attack from the arch rev. 
3 combat rounds later and I had killed about 5 sequitors…. This was going to be a nightmare to get through. Turns out 3+ rerollable saves and rerolling 6s to hit makes that 40 wound unit bloody tough. Even against -2 rend scythes. Admittedly he did roll very well on those 5+ saves all game, but still. 
My sword hunters were kind of out of position most of the game with was a mistake. I should have set them up in the realmroots in hindsight.
On turn 3 he dropped the rest of his army. The 20 castigators deleted Alarielle and grabbed my rear left objective. I failed to cast the endless spell which meant my sword hunters had to run, to get close enough to a wildwood to teleport. So they lost a turn getting to the castigators.

Drycha was slowly working her way through sequitors along with the hunters when she was finally gunned down by the deepstriking castigators.
Once the sword hunters hit in turn 4 they did pretty well, but by that point I was a bit low on bodies to hold objectives. Sean used his command abilities to teleport his general and hunters around to try and grab the last 2 objectives. He failed one charge but managed to shoot down the last tree rev, which gave him his 3^rd objective. In hindsight we played that wrong, an objective 12” away from the table edge shouldn’t be in range of something teleporting within 6” of a table edge, but that’s how the TO ruled it.
We ran out of time here, so Sean got a minor win by having 3 objectives, but even without that 3^rd objective he would have still won on kill points. Annoyingly there was 1 sequitor left so I didn’t get that 400pts. One more turn would have probably seen me clean up the rest of the castigators and the sequitor unit but it’s unlikely I would have gotten 2 objectives and if I lost the priority role Sean would instantly claim 4 and get a major win. 

All in all, it was a pretty close game and I made a few mistakes. Not having the extra summons hurt a bit. Good learning experience and I was pretty happy with a close game considering the tough match up.

Minor Loss

So after Day 1 I was feeling pretty good. I thought I could walk away with 3-3 or 4-2 which would be great considering the handicap and lack of any Sylvaneth gaming experience. Then Day 2 happened….

Game 4:

This was going to be an interesting bloodbath. A 6 stonehorn mawtribes (actually 4 stonehorns and2 thundertusks) list played by a very experienced player… and one who used to play a lot of Sylvaneth too.
Turns out he didn’t really need that knowledge. He took the first turn and his frostlord hit Alarielle’s screen, killed them all with impact hits and proceeded to 6” pile in and one shot the big girl herself. 
I underestimated the threat range of that guy a bit, but with a 12” move + 3” from a prayer + 2” from hunger with a rerollable charge, I’m not sure I could have hid her anywhere since the diagonal deployment limits positioning a bit. I can’t remember if he can run and charge as well maybe? 
Drycha was dropped to like 3 wounds remaining from the winter chill shooting and 5 blood vulture shots.  
My turn consisted of 3 sword hunters doing a grand total of 1 wound to the frostlord (should be about 7 on average but he saved four 5+ wounds). They were butchered with easy in return. 
Drycha shot him for another 2 wounds, which he healed next turn anyway.  She also failed to cast regrowth. My Branchwraith and Arch Rev ran up to grab the both flank objectives but at this stage I knew the game was over. 

The ogors went first in turn 2 and easily dispatched my remaining 5 wound heroes. Since the scenario was Places of Arcane Power I had no hope of scoring any more points and called the game there. Took about 40min including set up.
I knew I was not experienced enough and didn’t have enough chaff to properly contest this game, but I had hoped to put up a bit more of a fight. It was a bit embarrassing.

Major Loss. 2-2 at this point, still not bad, I should get some easier games now having dropped to the middle of the field. 

Game 5:
Nope…. It’s Slaanesh commanded by Ken.
I actually started this game off pretty well. It was Escalation so all our behemoths started way at the back. I used mirrorpool to get Drycha up the right flank. Dropped a forest near the middle objective, got the endless spell off, but rolled a 1 for the 6 hunter unit, so they didn’t get the buff.
I still moved them into the centre forest with a Shield of Thorns. That’s now a 3+ rerollable save that gives out mortal wounds to enemies charging it, sitting in a wyldwood. Come get me.

Tree revs also teleported up the right flank to grab an objective and act as bait. Alarielle’s spear did some good damage to one of the chariot heroes as the keepers were out of range.

The big demonette unit on the flank took the bait, charged the tree revs and drycha… Between her attacks and battleshock the unit was wiped out.
The other demonette unit in the middle saw what happened and didn’t take the hunter bait. They sat on the objective instead.  I lost the left objective to some seekers with another chariot and keeper not far behind. Without some dryad summons I knew I wasn’t going to hold that flank, but I did take a commanding lead on the other side of the board. 

In my next turn, Drycha finished off the chariot hero on that side of the battlefield but was just out of range to shoot the keeper in the middle. Alarielle however did some good damage with her spell and spear.
Unfortunately, this is where I made my game losing mistake. Instead of holding back and hammering the keepers with shooting and magic, I got over confident and charged the scythe hunters into the big demonette unit with a keeper close behind. I knew I was likely going to strike last, but thought I could weather the storm well enough, and if he failed the locus roll, I was going to spill a lot of demon blood.
Well, he didn’t fail it, and between the keeper and double pile in for the demonettes, the hunters were easily wiped out. And with that, the centre of my battle line collapsed.

In his turn, the second keeper on the flank, swung up through the middle, now in range to charge Alarielle, while the wounded keeper in the middle turned to face the incoming Drycha. Again in this game I used my sword hunters poorly and they were essentially out of the fight for most of the game. But I’m not sure they would have made much difference, maybe they could have slowed down the second keeper?  

In any case, this turn I lost both my big girls, and with only a handful for chaff and 3 sword hunters left, I conceded. Ken had something like 51 summoning points at this stage due to the tasty 5 wound hunters, so even killing the wounded keeper would have been a hollow victory.

Major Loss. I feel like it was mainly my lack of experience here that cost me the game. Had I used the sword hunters better and left the 6 scythes in the forest till one keeper was dead, I could have held out much longer and Drycha could have continued to munch through demonettes from the flank. I think that would have made it a very close game.  
Some dryads to summon on the left flank would have helped a lot to slow down his army and help contest that objective. 

Disappointing loss but a good learning experience.

Game 6: 
This one was just rubbing salt in the wound. It was a Nurgle list with a Glottkin, 15 knights a few heroes, a warshrine and some small units of warriors. It was obvious the knights were the lynchpin of the army but I wasn’t familiar enough Nurgle to know what buffs and tricks were coming.
I deployed fairly conservatively with the spite screens up and scythe hunters ready to forest teleport. 
Mike took the first turn and proceeded to get every single buff spell and prayer off onto the knights.  I failed to unbind all 4 spells.

So here’s the deal. Chaos Knights have 3 attacks each, 3+/3+/-1. The horses get 2 attacks. 
The glottkin gives them both +1 attack. The Lord on demonic mount gives them reroll charges and +1 to hit, the sorcerer gives them reroll all hits and wounds. The Glottkin then casts Blades of Putrefaction…. Which makes 6+ to hit = mortal wounds. 
Since this is an old book, that’s not unmodified 6s, and it’s in addition to normal damage. 
So now the knights have 4 attacks + 3 from the horses, doing mortal wounds on 5+ to hit in addition to normal damage, with full rerolls.

So a unit of 15 knights is looking at an average of over 30 mortal wounds before rerolls and normal damage. Did I mention they can run and charge (due to the Nurgle tree in the middle of the board), with a charge reroll? Well they can. So he pops a command point to run 6.
He’s now moved up 16” and rolls a 10 to charge. The knight unit is so large/long that he can tag half may army and warp around all my screens.  

I’ll let you guess how that combat round went. Once the dust settled, I had 1 scythe hunter, Drycha on 3 wounds left.  Alarielle, arch rev, 5 spites and 5 tree revs were unengaged so they avoided the slaughter for now.

But he was about 5 wounds away from killing 1000pts in one combat round. 
On my turn failed to cast a few spells, charged Alarielle in, brought back 3 sword hunters and charged them in too. That went about as you’d expect too. All the buffs still remain, I chose to attack with the hunters first as Alarielle was only going to fight 2 knights and I figured she could survive that.
Did I mention that the knights have 3+ rerollable saves and 6s to wound bounce back mortal wounds? Yeah…. I didn’t kill many. I think he even failed to cast his +1 wound spell which would have added more insult to injury. 

The knights then attacked again and killed the sword hunters again. Finished off Drycha and the two knights fighting Alarielle did a whopping 14 wounds to her. She then proceeded to kill herself when she rolled two 6s to wound.
At this point the game was well and truly over. I had almost nothing left and I’d killed about 3 or 4 knights. 
Mike did roll extremely well for his 5+ mortal wounds all game (and his armour saves) and I was unlucky to not unbind all his buffs, but it was still an absolute stomping.
His army did exactly what it was supposed to, and I’m not too sure what I could have done differently save for having a big horde unit to screen better, but still, I didn’t enjoy the game at all. Mike was a great bloke though, it was probably the overall disappointment of losing all my games on turn 2 the whole day that finally took it’s toll.

I was quite annoyed after day 2, but in hindsight it wasn’t really that bad. The nurgle stuff does need some rewording to bring it in line with all the other “unmodified” and “wholly within” abilities. The stonehorn list was always going to be difficult for me, and the other 2 losses were certainly winnable had I been a bit more experience and had more summons/forests painted.

Now a week later, I’m feeling much better about the whole event. It was tough. It was hot and I dragged my wife and 4 month old up there too which added to the stress and cost of the trip, but overall it was a good weekend and I learned a lot. 

I know, now with a kid, I won’t be rushing to finish new armies each year like I have in the past. It’s nice to have a hobby deadline, but it’s just not very practical anymore. I’ll probably focus on finishing up this army now and having some proper games with it, hopefully at a few other events throughout the year.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Inquisitorsz

[Piikalo1]

Is it possible to take allies and a battalion for those allies? Im assuming it would all have to be included in the 400pts? 

[Sleepa]

13 hours ago, Piikalo1 said:

Is it possible to take allies and a battalion for those allies? Im assuming it would all have to be included in the 400pts? 

You  can't take battalions outside of those included in your allegiance. They occasionally add new battalions in White Dwarf magazine, or supplemental books, but as an example; you can't take a Sylvaneth battalion in any non-sylvaneth allegiance army.

[Piikalo1]

But where does it say this? Im scouring for it with no luck and some other people have told me you can

[Zanzou]

17 hours ago, Sleepa said:

You  can't take battalions outside of those included in your allegiance. They occasionally add new battalions in White Dwarf magazine, or supplemental books, but as an example; you can't take a Sylvaneth battalion in any non-sylvaneth allegiance army.

 

14 hours ago, Piikalo1 said:

But where does it say this? Im scouring for it with no luck and some other people have told me you can

I learned something new today:

 

However, just because you *could* do it doesn't mean it would be realistic or very useful for you, considering the allies PLUS their battalion points would have to be <= 400 points total in a 2000 point game.  What sort of battalion were you thinking of using?

Edited February 6, 2020 by Zanzou

[Sleepa]

Well I'll be damned! I stand corrected.

[Ian Wallsh]

On 1/30/2020 at 3:57 PM, Inquisitorsz said:

I wrote a quick summary on the previous page but I can do a more detailed write up later today if you like.

EDIT:

Here's a quickly wall of text dump of a write up for you.

Little bit of background first. 
I finished painting my base army at 3am the night before Cancon.

This meant that I didn’t have any extra summoned units. No dryads, no hunters, no extra forests. I had 2 old custom citadel woods and that’s all I used throughout the tournament. 

Turns out having a 4 month old at home really eats into your hobby time.

So with that, I wasn’t expecting too much. I was just happy to actually get an army onto the table. This would also be my first ever games with Sylvaneth… I think they last time I played an AoS game was at another tournament back in March 2019 with my Nighthaunt…. I don’t get to play much lol.  

This was the list. Keep in mind that the whole tournament was played in Ghyran, so we had access to the whole spell lore. The damage spells there are pretty terrible, but Mirrorpool and Flesh to Stone are great for Alarielle and Drycha.
That was the main reason I chose Drycha over Durthu. If not for the realm, the list would have been a bit different. That being said, Drycha was probably my MVP.

Allegiance: Sylvaneth

- Glade: Winterleaf

Alarielle the Everqueen (600)

- Deepwood Spell : Throne of Vines

Drycha Hamadreth (320)

- Deepwood Spell : Regrowth

Branchwraith (80)

- Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony

Arch-Revenant (100)

- General

- Command Trait : My Heart Is Ice

- Artefact : Frozen Kernel

6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)

- Scythes

3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)

- Greatswords

5 x Spite-Revenants (60)

5 x Spite-Revenants (60)

5 x Tree-Revenants (80)

Spiteswarm Hive (50)

Extra Command Point (50)

Game 1:
Started off playing Alex and his Hallowheart army. Unfortunately for him I was rocking 5 unbinds. I think I was given the first turn. The battleplan was border war. So I moved some things up to the objectives and Alarielle threw her spear. The magic phase was uneventful as I either failed to cast anything or had it unbound.  
The spear however did work. It hit and outright killed the hallowheart general.  
After the game we realised we had played the Cities of Sigmar bodyguard rule incorrectly (we rolled one 4+ to shrug off the whole hit, not each individual wound that was allocated).
This was a learning experience for Alex. Know your army guys!
With the general dead, he lost his big battleshock bubble and a big chunk of his spellcasting. 
In his turn, he charged some spite revs and Drycha with spearmen and the 6 hunter unit with a huge block of greatswords. 
He didn’t roll particularly well in that combat and killed 1.5 hunters. When they fought back they took down something like 11 greatswords. On the other flank Drycha got to attack before the spearmen…. And that hurt the elves A LOT. I think she accounted for about 10 by herself with pretty average rolling. I believe the rest of that unit suffered from battleshock (being over extended). Alex, like most opponents throughout the weekend severely underestimated Dyrcha’s damage output. 
The middle of my battle line was Alarielle with her screen and the 3 sword hunters. They came up against a block of black guard, but the results were similar. Alarielle’s beetle making pretty short work of large blocks of units.   

Alex’s first magic phase was as uneventful as mine, and we pretty much called it during Turn 2. At this point I was pretty impressed with the Hunters and Drycha but Alex was pretty unlucky in key moments and the incorrect death of his general certainly didn’t help.
That being said, between the spear, Drycha’s shooting and spells, I think it would have been difficult to keep her alive much longer anyway.

Major Win

Game 2:
Tzeentch eternal conflagration changehost piloted by Jarred. Here we go time to mix it up with the big boys. I’m a little bit familiar with Tzeentch so I at least know some of their tricks. We both chose the “kill all behemoths” secondary objective so I set myself an early goal of killing the Lord of Change.
I got the first turn again as I’m rocking 9 drops. I summoned a new forest quite deep into his territory, got the endless spell off and set up a great alpha strike with the large hunter unit. Unfortunately Drycha didn’t get mirrorpool off so she couldn’t join the party. 
However, I failed the charge roll even with +2, so now my hunters were sitting in front of a LOC and 20 pink horrors ready to receive a beating. 
My opponent however opted to run away. He teleported the pink horrors away and the LOC also took to the skies and flew away, leaving some small brimstone screens in front of my hunters. His magic phase was fairly uneventful, I got some good unbinds off. With all his combined shooting he killed the 3 sword hunters on the other flank, as well as some of my spite screens and did a fair bit of damage to Drycha.  My tree revs teleported around attempting to hunt his heroes. They didn’t achieve much damage but did force some reactions which was good.
Since I don’t have extra hunters to summon, Alarielle used the freshly killed ones instead. I brought those guys back on, almost mopped up the brimstone screens, and started laying into the LOC. There was just enough room for my hunters to charge through a gap and get a few in combat with him. They did some good damage and he then used the teleport to escape getting mauled further.

As the battleplan was Starstrike the first objective came down this turn, slightly to my left flank and that’s where 20 pink horrors ended up.
I decided to mainly ignore those guys as there was no way I was going to get through 100 wounds quick enough. Especially with how destiny dice work and results of 1 bringing models back on. 

I went first again in turn 3 and the two new objectives popped up on my right flank which was currently clear of demons. My large hunter unit continued to roll around the left flank, this time hitting his changling and one unit of flamers. They also pulled the horrors into combat too. A few solid rolls later and I wiped out the flamer unit and changling completely. Alarielle’s spear again did good work and left the LOC on 1 wound (I needed 3 damage to kill him and rolled a 2).

The LOC teleported again to get out of the way of the rampaging hunter unit, the remaining flamers shot at Alarielle doing a few wounds, the exalted flamer and herald finished off Drycha who was wasting her time killing brimestones.
The big pink horror units teleported back to the right flank and spread themselves out to try and tag both objectives. Thankfully my branchwraith and sword hunters were in the way and they could only grab 1 of them.  However this left his exalted flamer and herald exposed.

The Scythe hunters continued their rampage and ripped through both heroes. Alarielle finished off the LOC with an arcane bolt I mopped up the last 2 brimstones which annoyingly kept holding the first objective. But now, Jarred only had the large pink horror unit left and no heroes. I had lost all my small battleline, 1 unit of sword hunters (who came back on) and Drycha. 

After that it was just a case of grabbing the objectives and mopping up the pink horror unit, which Alarielle and the 3 sword hunters were doing fairly well.  We called the game at this point as I was too far ahead on objective points but had we played one more turn I would have probably wiped him out. 

Major Win. Feeling pretty good about myself now, even without extra dryads or forests.

Game 3:

This time it’s Blood And Glory against Sean’s shooty and teleporting stormcast. He had 3 units of hunters, a big block of sequitors backed up by some buffing heroes, 20 castigators and a ballista.
He had all the mobility, surprise and bodies to make this objective game very difficult. This was bad match up for me. Without my extra summons I wouldn’t be able to have a big enough board presence and without the extra forests my mobility is minimal.

In any case the game started pretty well. He went first, castled up in the middle with a big fully buffed sequitor bubble. I dropped a forest and smashed the 6 hunters into him…. They killed 1. He then gave me the first turn in round 2 and I popped the frozen kernel and +1 attack from the arch rev. 
3 combat rounds later and I had killed about 5 sequitors…. This was going to be a nightmare to get through. Turns out 3+ rerollable saves and rerolling 6s to hit makes that 40 wound unit bloody tough. Even against -2 rend scythes. Admittedly he did roll very well on those 5+ saves all game, but still. 
My sword hunters were kind of out of position most of the game with was a mistake. I should have set them up in the realmroots in hindsight.
On turn 3 he dropped the rest of his army. The 20 castigators deleted Alarielle and grabbed my rear left objective. I failed to cast the endless spell which meant my sword hunters had to run, to get close enough to a wildwood to teleport. So they lost a turn getting to the castigators.

Drycha was slowly working her way through sequitors along with the hunters when she was finally gunned down by the deepstriking castigators.
Once the sword hunters hit in turn 4 they did pretty well, but by that point I was a bit low on bodies to hold objectives. Sean used his command abilities to teleport his general and hunters around to try and grab the last 2 objectives. He failed one charge but managed to shoot down the last tree rev, which gave him his 3^rd objective. In hindsight we played that wrong, an objective 12” away from the table edge shouldn’t be in range of something teleporting within 6” of a table edge, but that’s how the TO ruled it.
We ran out of time here, so Sean got a minor win by having 3 objectives, but even without that 3^rd objective he would have still won on kill points. Annoyingly there was 1 sequitor left so I didn’t get that 400pts. One more turn would have probably seen me clean up the rest of the castigators and the sequitor unit but it’s unlikely I would have gotten 2 objectives and if I lost the priority role Sean would instantly claim 4 and get a major win. 

All in all, it was a pretty close game and I made a few mistakes. Not having the extra summons hurt a bit. Good learning experience and I was pretty happy with a close game considering the tough match up.

Minor Loss

So after Day 1 I was feeling pretty good. I thought I could walk away with 3-3 or 4-2 which would be great considering the handicap and lack of any Sylvaneth gaming experience. Then Day 2 happened….

Game 4:

This was going to be an interesting bloodbath. A 6 stonehorn mawtribes (actually 4 stonehorns and2 thundertusks) list played by a very experienced player… and one who used to play a lot of Sylvaneth too.
Turns out he didn’t really need that knowledge. He took the first turn and his frostlord hit Alarielle’s screen, killed them all with impact hits and proceeded to 6” pile in and one shot the big girl herself. 
I underestimated the threat range of that guy a bit, but with a 12” move + 3” from a prayer + 2” from hunger with a rerollable charge, I’m not sure I could have hid her anywhere since the diagonal deployment limits positioning a bit. I can’t remember if he can run and charge as well maybe? 
Drycha was dropped to like 3 wounds remaining from the winter chill shooting and 5 blood vulture shots.  
My turn consisted of 3 sword hunters doing a grand total of 1 wound to the frostlord (should be about 7 on average but he saved four 5+ wounds). They were butchered with easy in return. 
Drycha shot him for another 2 wounds, which he healed next turn anyway.  She also failed to cast regrowth. My Branchwraith and Arch Rev ran up to grab the both flank objectives but at this stage I knew the game was over. 

The ogors went first in turn 2 and easily dispatched my remaining 5 wound heroes. Since the scenario was Places of Arcane Power I had no hope of scoring any more points and called the game there. Took about 40min including set up.
I knew I was not experienced enough and didn’t have enough chaff to properly contest this game, but I had hoped to put up a bit more of a fight. It was a bit embarrassing.

Major Loss. 2-2 at this point, still not bad, I should get some easier games now having dropped to the middle of the field. 

Game 5:
Nope…. It’s Slaanesh commanded by Ken.
I actually started this game off pretty well. It was Escalation so all our behemoths started way at the back. I used mirrorpool to get Drycha up the right flank. Dropped a forest near the middle objective, got the endless spell off, but rolled a 1 for the 6 hunter unit, so they didn’t get the buff.
I still moved them into the centre forest with a Shield of Thorns. That’s now a 3+ rerollable save that gives out mortal wounds to enemies charging it, sitting in a wyldwood. Come get me.

Tree revs also teleported up the right flank to grab an objective and act as bait. Alarielle’s spear did some good damage to one of the chariot heroes as the keepers were out of range.

The big demonette unit on the flank took the bait, charged the tree revs and drycha… Between her attacks and battleshock the unit was wiped out.
The other demonette unit in the middle saw what happened and didn’t take the hunter bait. They sat on the objective instead.  I lost the left objective to some seekers with another chariot and keeper not far behind. Without some dryad summons I knew I wasn’t going to hold that flank, but I did take a commanding lead on the other side of the board. 

In my next turn, Drycha finished off the chariot hero on that side of the battlefield but was just out of range to shoot the keeper in the middle. Alarielle however did some good damage with her spell and spear.
Unfortunately, this is where I made my game losing mistake. Instead of holding back and hammering the keepers with shooting and magic, I got over confident and charged the scythe hunters into the big demonette unit with a keeper close behind. I knew I was likely going to strike last, but thought I could weather the storm well enough, and if he failed the locus roll, I was going to spill a lot of demon blood.
Well, he didn’t fail it, and between the keeper and double pile in for the demonettes, the hunters were easily wiped out. And with that, the centre of my battle line collapsed.

In his turn, the second keeper on the flank, swung up through the middle, now in range to charge Alarielle, while the wounded keeper in the middle turned to face the incoming Drycha. Again in this game I used my sword hunters poorly and they were essentially out of the fight for most of the game. But I’m not sure they would have made much difference, maybe they could have slowed down the second keeper?  

In any case, this turn I lost both my big girls, and with only a handful for chaff and 3 sword hunters left, I conceded. Ken had something like 51 summoning points at this stage due to the tasty 5 wound hunters, so even killing the wounded keeper would have been a hollow victory.

Major Loss. I feel like it was mainly my lack of experience here that cost me the game. Had I used the sword hunters better and left the 6 scythes in the forest till one keeper was dead, I could have held out much longer and Drycha could have continued to munch through demonettes from the flank. I think that would have made it a very close game.  
Some dryads to summon on the left flank would have helped a lot to slow down his army and help contest that objective. 

Disappointing loss but a good learning experience.

Game 6: 
This one was just rubbing salt in the wound. It was a Nurgle list with a Glottkin, 15 knights a few heroes, a warshrine and some small units of warriors. It was obvious the knights were the lynchpin of the army but I wasn’t familiar enough Nurgle to know what buffs and tricks were coming.
I deployed fairly conservatively with the spite screens up and scythe hunters ready to forest teleport. 
Mike took the first turn and proceeded to get every single buff spell and prayer off onto the knights.  I failed to unbind all 4 spells.

So here’s the deal. Chaos Knights have 3 attacks each, 3+/3+/-1. The horses get 2 attacks. 
The glottkin gives them both +1 attack. The Lord on demonic mount gives them reroll charges and +1 to hit, the sorcerer gives them reroll all hits and wounds. The Glottkin then casts Blades of Putrefaction…. Which makes 6+ to hit = mortal wounds. 
Since this is an old book, that’s not unmodified 6s, and it’s in addition to normal damage. 
So now the knights have 4 attacks + 3 from the horses, doing mortal wounds on 5+ to hit in addition to normal damage, with full rerolls.

So a unit of 15 knights is looking at an average of over 30 mortal wounds before rerolls and normal damage. Did I mention they can run and charge (due to the Nurgle tree in the middle of the board), with a charge reroll? Well they can. So he pops a command point to run 6.
He’s now moved up 16” and rolls a 10 to charge. The knight unit is so large/long that he can tag half may army and warp around all my screens.  

I’ll let you guess how that combat round went. Once the dust settled, I had 1 scythe hunter, Drycha on 3 wounds left.  Alarielle, arch rev, 5 spites and 5 tree revs were unengaged so they avoided the slaughter for now.

But he was about 5 wounds away from killing 1000pts in one combat round. 
On my turn failed to cast a few spells, charged Alarielle in, brought back 3 sword hunters and charged them in too. That went about as you’d expect too. All the buffs still remain, I chose to attack with the hunters first as Alarielle was only going to fight 2 knights and I figured she could survive that.
Did I mention that the knights have 3+ rerollable saves and 6s to wound bounce back mortal wounds? Yeah…. I didn’t kill many. I think he even failed to cast his +1 wound spell which would have added more insult to injury. 

The knights then attacked again and killed the sword hunters again. Finished off Drycha and the two knights fighting Alarielle did a whopping 14 wounds to her. She then proceeded to kill herself when she rolled two 6s to wound.
At this point the game was well and truly over. I had almost nothing left and I’d killed about 3 or 4 knights. 
Mike did roll extremely well for his 5+ mortal wounds all game (and his armour saves) and I was unlucky to not unbind all his buffs, but it was still an absolute stomping.
His army did exactly what it was supposed to, and I’m not too sure what I could have done differently save for having a big horde unit to screen better, but still, I didn’t enjoy the game at all. Mike was a great bloke though, it was probably the overall disappointment of losing all my games on turn 2 the whole day that finally took it’s toll.

I was quite annoyed after day 2, but in hindsight it wasn’t really that bad. The nurgle stuff does need some rewording to bring it in line with all the other “unmodified” and “wholly within” abilities. The stonehorn list was always going to be difficult for me, and the other 2 losses were certainly winnable had I been a bit more experience and had more summons/forests painted.

Now a week later, I’m feeling much better about the whole event. It was tough. It was hot and I dragged my wife and 4 month old up there too which added to the stress and cost of the trip, but overall it was a good weekend and I learned a lot. 

I know, now with a kid, I won’t be rushing to finish new armies each year like I have in the past. It’s nice to have a hobby deadline, but it’s just not very practical anymore. I’ll probably focus on finishing up this army now and having some proper games with it, hopefully at a few other events throughout the year.

Brilliant Sum Up - Thank You! 

[Trevelyan]

On 2/8/2020 at 4:12 PM, Ian Wallsh said:

Brilliant Sum Up - Thank You! 

It was very good. I’m not quite sure it was necessary to quote the entire post just to show your appreciation, though!