AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion

[Landohammer]

20 hours ago, Popisdead said:

Oh sorry, haha I meant I also have played a 30-SotW CoS list and it was,.. brutal.  They point and click remove something reliably every turn.  Bow Hunters don't.  So like Alarielle it's a bit of all sorts of things that add up for them.  Obviously you don't aim them at something with a save and save stacks on it.  Irondrakes are better in CoS.  As much as there was this feeling of synergy between Sylvaneth and Living City it never seemed to materialize in an incredibly useful format.

I have 6 Bow Hunters (I admit I bought 3 in AoS 1 then 3 more recently) but my 6/6 Sword/Sycthes are old Treekin on 50mm bases with KH weapons and bitz to bulk them up.  So I've been through enough long ago to have things on hand.  Surely your opponents must be okay with counts-as?  My opponent joked I could use a coke can as an endless spell for all he cared.  

 

So I would obviously avoid targeting anything with a save buff, but the issue is that my opponent will be popping All out Defense as soon as I target them. So even a basic 4+ unit will jump to a 3+ and still save half of the bows Rend 1 attacks.

Yea my typical thursday night opponents wouldn't care at all, but I generally try to be as WYSIWYG as possible in tournaments, and I often play at least 1-2 of those a month. So there is no point, for me at least, to dial in list I can't use in a tournament.

 

2 hours ago, Kiekeboe said:

I've tried Ironbark as well, was great fun, just not very competitive it seems, but there are options. Irondrakes need a Runelord and you can't fit 20 Irondrakes with a Runelord in <400 points. If you want irondrakes/sylvaneth, Living city is the way to go tbh.

What I would recommend if you want to try Ironbark is a Runesmiter with 10 Auric Hearthguard. It's a solid deepstriking/scalpel package with good ranged damage to snipe key targets. Especially vs monsters it's effective. It's 21 shots, 3+/3+/-1/2dmg (vs a monster + all out attack). Teleport a miniscreen of Tree revs, deepstrike the Fyreslayer bunch behind them and fire away. If they survive or if you double turn you can use the Runesmiter prayer to give them rerolling wounds the next turn to finish off the wounded monster or pick a new one. I'm definitely going to give this another go now that I'm thinking of it again.

Yea the Fyreslayers and Dispossessed bring some very welcome tools to a Sylvaneth list, but like you said, that kind of playstyle is just flat out easier in a Living City list.  Also, unlocking those allies requires you to give up meaningful subfaction buffs and that is a REALLY heavy price IMHO. 

I continue to express my frustration at losing Wanderers as allies, while retaining access to Duardin. I mean, even Idoneth have access to Aelf cities units without any kind of subfaction requirement. I can't help but wonder if Wanderers falling off the allies chart was just another in a long line of careless oversights for the Sylvaneth faction.

[Mirage8112]

On 8/31/2021 at 12:46 PM, Landohammer said:

There is no way they intentionally removed our primary allegiance ability. Other than sub faction abilities, the teleport is pretty much all we get.

Then why haven’t they fixed it yet.

It’s been nearly a week. All they need to do to fix it is remove one sentence (the one that says to ignore the alleged allegiance ability in the battletome) or add two sentences to the relevant warscroll. 

To me only one thing is certain, the ability as written does not work, because it refers to an ability that is no longer where it should be. This should be an easy fix, and I know for certain they are aware of the issue. Sylvaneth players were all over the FAQ announcement thread on FB and I know of at least 10 people who emailed them. Word is, the writers are aware of the issue, but we don’t have a fix as yet. 

So what gives? 
 

On 8/31/2021 at 12:46 PM, Landohammer said:

If blocking LOS and the charge phase damage on 6+ is all they do, I wouldn't even bother bringing more than 1 to games. 

Personally I do think the teleport as a mechanic is bad, since it forces players into having to purchase and transport multiple forests to games to fully capitalize.

Well, that and giving dryads and branchwraiths -1 to hit, serving as teleport nodes for the Treelord variants, giving Durthu extra attacks, and the Warsong-Rev bonuses to casting. WW actually do a lot for us outside moving 1 unit around the board and are still pretty integral to our play style. This change (until it corrected) doesn’t make them useless, it just makes them less useful: albeit by alot.  

Also other factions have access to a lot more annoying mechanics than teleporting. Hell Flesh Eater Courts still have Terrorgiests which are just brutal on the tabletop, and storm cast have plenty of access to teleporting. KO to can practically teleport around the board and bring multiple units with them, and they aren’t tied to a terrain feature. Other factions have units arriving from reserves, or can move units either with magic, or giving them flying and a huge movement buff (which in some ways is better than teleporting). Teleporting/movement abilities are a key part of the game for lots of armies/builds and I don’t really see why ours is overpowered enough to warrant a nerf of this magnitude.    

Personally, I don’t see why having to buy forests is any different than having to buy Treelords or endless spells. In 3.0 we can easily play a very low model count army and still be competitive, so the cost of entry is a lot lower than something like DoK. As to “having to buy terrain”, pretty much every faction except a handful has faction terrain and I doubt GW’s goal is to have you buy less stuff to play a given faction. Selling kits is what GW does, and if you want to play Sylvaneth you’ll need a few tree kits to get the most out of the army regardless of that single unit teleport.  

 

On 8/31/2021 at 12:46 PM, Landohammer said:

But removing it entirely in a FAQ so quickly after it was overhauled just can't be how they intended to do it. They would have waited for a new codex or at least a WD article. 

It’s weird and we agree on that. We also agree that there is some kind of mistake on the warscroll, I’m just not certain we agree on what the mistake is. This should be an easy fix and its not fixed yet. 

My only thought is that there is some discussion as to how they are going to implement this mechanic, because it seems to me they tried something and it wasn’t working how they intended (Sylvaneth winning tournaments? Can’t have that lol.) or perhaps they saw a potential for abuse that they hadn’t considered and just made a snap revision until they could figure something out.

Also, it bears considering SoB just got a WD update, and its been announced that StD are getting something similar in the coming weeks. I wonder if this clumsy re-jiggering of our teleport mechanic is in preparation for a WD update to our faction that’s just over the horizon? Certainly there’s a lot of talk about how stacking ward saves won’t last, and the wider AoS community’s opinion of the Sylvaneth change is overwhelmingly negative. I very much hope they change it but at this point even giving our original teleport as written in the BT is a nerf (Enter wholly within, exit wholly within vs enter within exit wholly within).

Seems to me they took our bread and we’re begging to get some crumbs back. Crumbs are better than nothing, but they’re still crumbs.


 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Mirage8112

[Landohammer]

@Mirage8112

To my knowledge, GW historically does not do post-FAQ hot fixes, at least for AOS. If they mess up something in the FAQ, its pretty much always left that way until the next scheduled FAQ or a related publication hits.

I hope I am wrong and they make an exception for Sylvaneth. Fortunately several TO's on twitter are allowing Sylvaneth players to continue to use the teleport as a house rule. So if we are waiting 3-4 more months for the year end FAQ, then at least a few events will help us out. 

So the hurdle of having to buy the forests is annoying, but I also personally find transporting 3+ wyldwoods to events/games to be quite impractical. I usually have my army on a nice neat tray, and then a giant clunky rubbermade full of trees lol. And the leaves/branches are particularly fussy. I do it because I love the faction, but I can't help but feel like the odd duck. 

I am *really* hoping that we get a WD article. Based on the rumour thread, it doesn't look like we are on the schedule for a new codex anytime soon. 

 

[Azamar]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

@Mirage8112

To my knowledge, GW historically does not do post-FAQ hot fixes, at least for AOS. If they mess up something in the FAQ, its pretty much always left that way until the next scheduled FAQ or a related publication hits.I

The whole fights at the start of the combat phase vs fights before your opponent debacle ended up with a rapid clarification (and a whole article on the community page) within about 2 weeks of an faq update. It doesn’t happen often though 

[Landohammer]

4 minutes ago, Azamar said:

The whole fights at the start of the combat phase vs fights before your opponent debacle ended up with a rapid clarification (and a whole article on the community page) within about 2 weeks of an faq update. It doesn’t happen often though 

Thats good to know. But I can't imagine a single faction will warrant that kind of attention. The situation you quoted was a for a game-wide issue that affected many factions. It does however give me hope that the Ward Save fiasco will be addressed sooner rather than later

But as Mirage said, Sylvaneth players have been really noisy on the Facebook account. I have also emailed the FAQ team. If we stay noisy on both ends then maybe we will get the squeaky wheel treatment. 

[Mirage8112]

7 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Thats good to know. But I can't imagine a single faction will warrant that kind of attention. The situation you quoted was a for a game-wide issue that affected many factions. It does however give me hope that the Ward Save fiasco will be addressed sooner rather than later

It’s happened to single factions 40k a couple of times (usually to correct errors in print rather than  adjust a a mechanic), and I believe in AoS once or twice, (although the details escape me).   

But on a side note, regarding the ward save change: is it just me or is the Warsong Revanant save-after-the-save one that happens after wounds are allocated? In other words according to the new faq does it stack with a ward save? A Warsong-Rev with the Amulet of Destiny, +2 to armor saves and flaming weapons sounds ridiculous: 3+ Armor ignoring rend -1, 5+ ward and a 4+ Save-after-the-save, sporting 5 3+/3+, damage 3, rend-1 attacks. 

Normally I wouldn’t capitalize on something like that, but considering teh rough treatment we just had I’m inclined to take the above in Dreadwood and just pop up around the board and murder things. 

[Arzalyn]

They update the FAQ for us, Navigate Realmroots is back as a allegiance ability as it used to be (they removed the part that deleted the ability and replaced it with the warscroll ability).

Two other nerfs that affect us:

- Cogs gives a extra spell cast for just 1 wizard.

- Spell portal measurement is from 1 part of the endless spell. (I hadn't hear people using both portal for the measurement, but maybe someone here used it this way with the warsong spell).

Edited September 3, 2021 by Arzalyn

[Warbossironteef]

Good on GW to at least fix the Navigate Realmroots issue.

With the new FAQs no in place, is it certain that we can only place Wyldwoods in our own terrority? I was unsure of how the warscroll rules interact with the core rules about terrain. 

[Arzalyn]

4 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

Good on GW to at least fix the Navigate Realmroots issue.

With the new FAQs no in place, is it certain that we can only place Wyldwoods in our own terrority? I was unsure of how the warscroll rules interact with the core rules about terrain. 

The Wyldwood warscroll tell us to follow the placement instructions of the ability that created the woods. I presume the warscroll instruction overlap the core rules in those cases.

[Aezeal]

On 9/1/2021 at 5:12 PM, Landohammer said:

You would have to bring Living City to field Sisters since the 3.0 FAQ removed Wanderers as allies. Just another kick in the ribs for Sylvaneth😭. I have been considering an Ironbark list just to bring 20 Irondrakes, but the Irondrake allegiance rules are so bad I cant bring myself to do it. 

I'm still not sold on Bow Hunters but I haven't given them a fair shake yet. The models are pricy and I never bothered magnetizing the 21 Swords/Scythes that I own. So its a $110+ investment to try them out. 😳 

 

It's called proxying and in non tournament games it's a thing.. I mean if you played the 10th game with the same unit I'd get them but when trying them out... PROXY

edit:

Saw I was late with this reply. Still you can use a tried and tested WYSIWYG list for the tourneys (I assume you don't go there with a testing list anyway)  while testing the bows in other games.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Aezeal

[Landohammer]

7 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

It's called proxying and in non tournament games it's a thing.. I mean if you played the 10th game with the same unit I'd get them but when trying them out... PROXY

edit:

Saw I was late with this reply. Still you can use a tried and tested list for the tourneys (I assume you don't go there with a testing list anyway)  while testing the bows in other games.

Absolutely. I don't judge anyone for proxying models in casual games. I totally understand. Its just not my thing. 

[Aezeal]

1 hour ago, Arzalyn said:

The Wyldwood warscroll tell us to follow the placement instructions of the ability that created the woods. I presume the warscroll instruction overlap the core rules in those cases.

If you mean overrule I'd agree. As written now I'd say you get the placement range from the ability/spell whatever and then it's just 3' away from everything. 

And it's 1x  1-3 piece per ability/spell. 

I don't have the book here but the overgrown wilderness rule probably means it blocks LOS again? but not sure which rule makes that so since there is no keyword?

[Aezeal]

7 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Absolutely. I don't judge anyone for proxying models in casual games. I totally understand. Its just not my thing. 

I understood that from your reply yes. But just because I'm curious: if you want to try a list with new units (say the bow hunters or the irondrakes or SotW or whatever) you buy them paint them and then test them... and if the test is not satisfactory... they (represeting and investment in money, paint, painting effort etcetc) get shelved in you cellar or something?

[Landohammer]

10 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

I understood that from your reply yes. But just because I'm curious: if you want to try a list with new units (say the bow hunters or the irondrakes or SotW or whatever) you buy them paint them and then test them... and if the test is not satisfactory... they (represeting and investment in money, paint, painting effort etcetc) get shelved in you cellar or something?

Yep, pretty much.

I have this weird mentality where I like to "earn" the ability to field a unit. For example if I wanted to field a new unit for whatever reason, then I wont' field them until they are all assembled and painted.

I find it gives me more joy when putting the models on the table. It also helps me manage/regulate my hobby a bit better, so I don't end up with overly large piles of shame.

I paint pretty fast though, so its usually not that big of a delay between me "wanting a unit" and fielding it fully painted. Usually just a few days. I store my completely painted armies (11 at the moment) in a china cabinet and two bookshelves. (my wife naturally is thrilled)

This is just how I personally hobby though. I do not project these self-imposed requirements on to my opponents. Though I do think painting requirements help regulate the meta to some degree. But that is a different topic altogether.

 

 

 

[Tizianolol]

Yep the honestwargamer said we can place wildwood everywhere,  i dont think sylvaneth are in a bad spot now.

 

Edit: wait you right. Now we can place 1 single piece of wildwood and it counts as awakened wildwood( its 1-3).  Do you think a single piece block line of sight too?

Edited September 3, 2021 by Tizianolol

[Arzalyn]

1 hour ago, Tizianolol said:

Yep the honestwargamer said we can place wildwood everywhere,  i dont think sylvaneth are in a bad spot now.

 

Edit: wait you right. Now we can place 1 single piece of wildwood and it counts as awakened wildwood( its 1-3).  Do you think a single piece block line of sight too?

It depends if its possible to have a line pass across more than 3" of a single wood. I don't have my woods with my right now to measure it, but I guess it should be possible only for the larger piece and if you have the right angle between both models and it.

[Walkirriox]

I’m lost about tp requirements, now is wholly within enter-exit? Execept the big trees?

[Mokoshkana]

5 hours ago, Walkirriox said:

I’m lost about tp requirements, now is wholly within enter-exit? Execept the big trees?

Refer to the allegiance ability in your battletome 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Mokoshkana

[Aezeal]

22 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Yep, pretty much.

I have this weird mentality where I like to "earn" the ability to field a unit. For example if I wanted to field a new unit for whatever reason, then I wont' field them until they are all assembled and painted.

I find it gives me more joy when putting the models on the table. It also helps me manage/regulate my hobby a bit better, so I don't end up with overly large piles of shame.

I paint pretty fast though, so its usually not that big of a delay between me "wanting a unit" and fielding it fully painted. Usually just a few days. I store my completely painted armies (11 at the moment) in a china cabinet and two bookshelves. (my wife naturally is thrilled)

This is just how I personally hobby though. I do not project these self-imposed requirements on to my opponents. Though I do think painting requirements help regulate the meta to some degree. But that is a different topic altogether.

 

 

 

But don't you have shelves and shelves with units you tried that didn't work out? 

[Landohammer]

1 hour ago, Aezeal said:

But don't you have shelves and shelves with units you tried that didn't work out? 

Not really. AOS armies (with the exception of Cities) are pretty limited on unit variety. If i ended up with multiple units from a single faction that i didnt like i would just sell that army and play one of my other armies.

I dont mind underperforming units. What i dont like are underperforming units that are financially expensive AND require you to build your army around them. Bow Hunters hit that niche pretty hard. 

 

 

 

[Reinholt]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

Not really. AOS armies (with the exception of Cities) are pretty limited on unit variety. If i ended up with multiple units from a single faction that i didnt like i would just sell that army and play one of my other armies.

I dont mind underperforming units. What i dont like are underperforming units that are financially expensive AND require you to build your army around them. Bow Hunters hit that niche pretty hard. 

 

 

 

Everything about your first block makes me angry as a Stormcast player, given they are the army with huge variety where most of it should be on the shelf.

Ahem! With that said, I don't see the bow hunters problem as critical because, as raised, it's still a pretty slim army overall. Yes, building a unit of 6 is a commitment, but not the same commitment as painting 120 zombies.

[Rhetoric]

Got in a game yesterday with my Gnarlroot list.  I have to say, I didn’t lose Durthu or my TLA.  Heroic Recovery on top of Regrowth plus the Gnarlroot Command Trait on the Warsong Rev is so clutch to the big heroes in the game.  Also I got an Unleash Swarm if Spites off that did 22 MW.  My opponent wasn’t happy but it was a clutch moment.  I tried out Arcane Tome on Durthu for the RR1’s to hit, but Amulet of Destiny might be better for next time.  Before 3.0 I was always a stand for Gnarlroot, but the Warsong Rev was the missing piece of the puzzle.  Great model with a great scroll.  
 

List was: 

 

Warsong Rev with Chalice/Nurtured

Durthu with Arcane Tome

TLA

Branchwraith

6 KH with Scythes

3 KH with Scythes 

3 x 5 Units Id Tree Revs

Spellportal

Spiteswarm Hive

 

[Reinholt]

5 minutes ago, Rhetoric said:

Got in a game yesterday with my Gnarlroot list.  I have to say, I didn’t lose Durthu or my TLA.  Heroic Recovery on top of Regrowth plus the Gnarlroot Command Trait on the Warsong Rev is so clutch to the big heroes in the game.  Also I got an Unleash Swarm if Spites off that did 22 MW.  My opponent wasn’t happy but it was a clutch moment.  I tried out Arcane Tome on Durthu for the RR1’s to hit, but Amulet of Destiny might be better for next time.  Before 3.0 I was always a stand for Gnarlroot, but the Warsong Rev was the missing piece of the puzzle.  Great model with a great scroll.  
 

List was: 

 

Warsong Rev with Chalice/Nurtured

Durthu with Arcane Tome

TLA

Branchwraith

6 KH with Scythes

3 KH with Scythes 

3 x 5 Units Id Tree Revs

Spellportal

Spiteswarm Hive

 

I want to echo this as someone who has played against it twice now: Warsong Revenant is the first caster in the Sylvaneth book that can make good use of many of the artifacts (which are boss) as a 2x cast wizard. Likewise, Gnarlroot with rerolls and what it does for the overall army is kind of bonkers in 3e given how they changed the prevalence of those abilities. I think it's an uncontroversial statement at this point to say Gnarlroot is a real problem.

Heroic recovery on Durthu is also gross as you keep him at the magic 6 damage tier longer.

[Mokoshkana]

3 hours ago, Reinholt said:

I want to echo this as someone who has played against it twice now: Warsong Revenant is the first caster in the Sylvaneth book that can make good use of many of the artifacts (which are boss) as a 2x cast wizard. Likewise, Gnarlroot with rerolls and what it does for the overall army is kind of bonkers in 3e given how they changed the prevalence of those abilities. I think it's an uncontroversial statement at this point to say Gnarlroot is a real problem.

Heroic recovery on Durthu is also gross as you keep him at the magic 6 damage tier longer.

And if you tone it back, the faction will be completely trash. None of the other glades are remotely viable, and this glade only shines with the warsong. It is definitely viable without it, but it’s not a top tier army. This is where we all come together and say they need a new book, but then we’ll be right back where we started with an auto take glade and the rest being underwhelming. 

[Mirage8112]

2 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

And if you tone it back, the faction will be completely trash. None of the other glades are remotely viable, and this glade only shines with the warsong. It is definitely viable without it, but it’s not a top tier army. This is where we all come together and say they need a new book, but then we’ll be right back where we started with an auto take glade and the rest being underwhelming. 

Heartwood has seen some success in competitive events, and I’m still pretty convinced Dreadwood is a viable choice. Although I haven’t tested it, Oakenbrow + Alarielle seems to have a lot going for it as well.