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AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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1 minute ago, Aezeal said:

Not really something you can use. Imho it says 1 minimum (no max) and the overall conclusion is more is better. There used to be something clear that said d3 per 2x2 if I recall correctly.. and alernately you and opponent set up. This meant that you could put 3 small  terrain pieces on the edge of the table on a 2x2 if your opponent picked large 2x2 covering terrain pieces on his squares.

Yes. That was in the book at one point, but no longer. 

And I disagree, because in setting up a table, no one player gets to determine how many scenery pieces there are. The player across from you doesn't get the choice to grab 14 scenery pieces and you have no say.  When a disagreement between the players happens, you look at the rules for guidance. Core rules say 1 piece per 2” square is reasonable, and if thats the only thing the rules say about it, then that’s the guidance you should fight for.  
 
OIr you can let them put 14 peices down and wonder why you aren't playing on equal footing. Your choice.

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1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

Yes. That was in the book at one point, but no longer. 

And I disagree, because in setting up a table, no one player gets to determine how many scenery pieces there are. The player across from you doesn't get the choice to grab 14 scenery pieces and you have no say.  When a disagreement between the players happens, you look at the rules for guidance. Core rules say 1 piece per 2” square is reasonable, and if thats the only thing the rules say about it, then that’s the guidance you should fight for.  
 
OIr you can let them put 14 peices down and wonder why you aren't playing on equal footing. Your choice.

Well for tournament play you're likely getting all the tables and terrain set up by the TO beforehand. So it can be a lucky dip in terms of how much free space there is. 
At least we get a nice battleshock immune piece in the middle so that's nice. 

But thinking back to my last tournament, probably half of the tables it would have been nearly impossible to place a wildwood in a useful position, especially if you went second and the opponent could spread out a bit. 
I played nighthaunt then so terrain completely didn't bother me, but I think only 2 of the tables I played on had decent sized empty spaces (which can also depend greatly on objective placement). 

I think it's going to be an interesting problem. 

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3 hours ago, ElectricPaladin said:

Thank you, that's correct.

So on a 6, a winterleaf treelord will get d6 mortal wounds and one roll to-wound that will deal one damage. Much less tasty. Not exactly bad, but less tasty. So winterleef treelords aren't uninteresting, but they aren't really taking advantage of the winterleaf combat trait any better than anyone else.

For sword-hunters, a 6 will get them one mortal wound plus two rolls to-wound (two damage each).  Especially as each one gets four attacks, that's many more mortal wounds for your buck. It seems to me that winterleaf sword hunters are the ******.

Generally, the winterleaf trait is best on any attack that does more than 1 damage. That's where you get good value.
So even though it doesn't do much for Impaling Talons... getting another Sweeping blows attack with another chance at d6 damage is great. 

Same with hunters, both scythes and swords to multiple damage so extra hits there are great. 

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I think I agree with Mirage a lot here. It's true, there is no rule that states how many pieces of terrain you can put down. But with the guidelines, I don't think it's unreasonable to advocate for one substantial piece per 2x2. Terrain, at least as it stands right now, is something that needs to be negotiated between players. And if you can point to something in the rulebook, it's going to be way easier to get someone to agree with you. Or at least, bump that 14 down to an 8 or a 9. I'm surprised GW doesn't have a suggested terrain template at all, honestly? But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you're not sure however much terrain past 6 or so is really going to provide the best game for both players.

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1 minute ago, Inquisitorsz said:

But thinking back to my last tournament, probably half of the tables it would have been nearly impossible to place a wildwood in a useful position, especially if you went second and the opponent could spread out a bit. 
I played nighthaunt then so terrain completely didn't bother me, but I think only 2 of the tables I played on had decent sized empty spaces (which can also depend greatly on objective placement). 

What tourney was this? I remember the TO’s adepticon had a reasonable amount of terrain up specifically to accommodate sylvaneth players and I didn’t have a problem. It’s my understanding the major tournaments are aware of these things and make their decisions accordingly. 

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1 minute ago, Mirage8112 said:

What tourney was this? I remember the TO’s adepticon had a reasonable amount of terrain up specifically to accommodate sylvaneth players and I didn’t have a problem. It’s my understanding the major tournaments are aware of these things and make their decisions accordingly. 

40 person tournament in Australia. (got another 70 player one coming up end of June so I'll see what those tables look like) 
Admittedly I think there were exactly 0 sylvaneth players at that last tournament and I'm sure the TOs consider it to an extent, but you  can't possibly set up every table to have enough space for every deployment and every objective configuration and still keep tables unique and visually cool and using different terrain pieces. 

Nothing wrong with variety of course... sometimes you'll get a favorable table, sometimes you'll get a restrictive one. Just like sometimes you'll play an easy army and sometimes have a really bad match up. It happens. 
Just as long as it doesn't happen 80% of the time....

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1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

Yes. That was in the book at one point, but no longer. 

And I disagree, because in setting up a table, no one player gets to determine how many scenery pieces there are. The player across from you doesn't get the choice to grab 14 scenery pieces and you have no say.  When a disagreement between the players happens, you look at the rules for guidance. Core rules say 1 piece per 2” square is reasonable, and if thats the only thing the rules say about it, then that’s the guidance you should fight for.  
 
OIr you can let them put 14 peices down and wonder why you aren't playing on equal footing. Your choice.

This is why people hate Sylvaneth players. If I have to insist that our table can only have 6 pieces of terrain then something is wrong. This is certainly not in the spirit of the game to insist on something like this. 

Edited by Easytyger
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22 minutes ago, Easytyger said:

This is why people hate Sylvaneth players. If I have to insist that our table can only have 6 pieces of terrain then something is wrong. This is certainly not is the spirit of the game to insist on something like this. 

Yeah maybe it's just me but it kind of feels like an NPE (Negative Play Experience), if I have to flood the board with expensive and annoying terrain just for the army to work. 
It feels bad for me and for my opponent. And it's not like it offers any interesting strategic decisions. 
This forest is going in the best place it can, and it's just gonna sit there being a pain for the opponent. They can't really interact with it. They can't stop it or move it. If it's near an objective, they can't play around it or counter it. 

I like the that army doesn't rely so much on the woods anymore, but they're still a huge element of the army.
I would have preferred if they were single trees and worked a bit more like the nurgle tree or graveyards in that they don't take up as much space and can still be use to buff and teleport and do whatever they do now.... just don't need as much space (and as much money spent) 

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2 hours ago, TheGrayKing said:

I think the following list would be pretty good for using/abusing the exploding 6's from Winterleaf.

Arch-Revenant

Spirit of Durthu - Frozen Kernel.

Treelord Ancient - General, Regrowth, Spiritsong Stave

20x Spite-Revenants

20x Spite-Revenants

20x Spite-Revenants

6x Kunroth Hunters w/Greatsword

Chronomatic Cogs

Spiteswarm Hive

Outcasts Battalion

 

The list leaves 50 points for either another Endless Spell or an extra CP

 

So i had basically the same idea, but then i got worried about the spite revs: 1"range with 32mm bases , which means their effective engagement numbers are a lot lower than the mathhammer might lead you to believe. Now consider  that the tree revs get baked in teleport, and the martial memories gets more powerful in smaller units lends me to think that 3x10 or even 6x10 tree revs would be effective at grabbing objectives and making the 9 inch charges after the teleports with their rerolls.   I really wanted to make a shredder bucket o dice spite rev army too, but i don't think you can get the models to fit to maximize that effect.

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15 minutes ago, Inquisitorsz said:

Yeah maybe it's just me but it kind of feels like an NPE (Negative Play Experience), if I have to flood the board with expensive and annoying terrain just for the army to work. 
It feels bad for me and for my opponent. And it's not like it offers any interesting strategic decisions. 
This forest is going in the best place it can, and it's just gonna sit there being a pain for the opponent. They can't really interact with it. They can't stop it or move it. If it's near an objective, they can't play around it or counter it.

 

43 minutes ago, Easytyger said:

This is why people hate Sylvaneth players. If I have to insist that our table can only have 6 pieces of terrain then something is wrong. This is certainly not in the spirit of the game to insist on something like this. 


You are welcome to do what you like at your gaming club, but the designers made a woods a core mechanic of how this army functions. Selecting a 9-10 of a bunch of HUGE terrain pieces, knowing full well it zones your army out of a core mechanic is a negative play experience.  

Too little terrain is as bad a problem as too much. I’m not saying you have to make your opponent play the game in the Realm bowling ball. GW has given us a guideline on what is a good amount of terrain to use. There is nothing wrong with sticking to a the guidelines given by GW.

That’s why the game has rules. 

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1 minute ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Free Spirits battalion, can anyone help me understand it

Durthu + 3 sword Kurnoths. they want to be in combat but if they run they cant charge?

Most likely not. 
The wording is the same as a fyrelsayer ability and is similar to how normal run moves are worded.
The word "instead" is the confusing bit. 

We might have to wait for an FAQ to be 100% sure but it most likely still counts as a run move. 

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2 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Free Spirits battalion, can anyone help me understand it

Durthu + 3 sword Kurnoths. they want to be in combat but if they run they cant charge?

Well you can run on the objective so the ennemy have to fight with you. They are so slow otherwise to be honest they just can't go anywhere.

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15 minutes ago, Hallgeir said:

So i had basically the same idea, but then i got worried about the spite revs: 1"range with 32mm bases , which means their effective engagement numbers are a lot lower than the mathhammer might lead you to believe. Now consider  that the tree revs get baked in teleport, and the martial memories gets more powerful in smaller units lends me to think that 3x10 or even 6x10 tree revs would be effective at grabbing objectives and making the 9 inch charges after the teleports with their rerolls.   I really wanted to make a shredder bucket o dice spite rev army too, but i don't think you can get the models to fit to maximize that effect.

Part of the reason I'm running the Spites in such big numbers, besides for the battalion, is the aura of -1 bravery and reroll successful battleshock tests.

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Just now, Mirage8112 said:

 


You are welcome to do what you like at your gaming club, but the designers made a woods a core mechanic of how this army functions. Selecting a 9-10 of a bunch of HUGE terrain pieces, knowing full well it zones your army out of a core mechanic is a negative play experience.  

Too little terrain is as bad a problem as too much. I’m not saying you have to make your opponent play the game in the Realm bowling ball. GW has given us a guideline on what is a good amount of terrain to use. There is nothing wrong with sticking to a the guidelines given by GW.

That’s why the game has rules. 

It's a guideline not a rule. If it mandated some thing (EG, Legion says 25% of the table should be covered by various pieces of terrain), then this discussion would be different.
The other problem is GW's own terrain. It's huge. 
Apart from the small ruins and individual walls most of the other terrain pieces are massive. The new Forgotten Power terrain is massive. Stuff like the old dreadhold forts take up half a table. 
The buildings from AoS release (eg Ophian Archway) are fairly large. The Warscryer Citadel is pretty big. The Sigmarite Mausoleum is a massive footprint or even bigger if you scatter all the pieces as smaller bits of terrain.  

There's no standard for AoS terrain. You can have a tiny house of half a castle. So saying 1 piece for every 2x2 area (even if it was a hard and fast rule) is pretty vague. 

My understanding is that dropping 9 Citadel Woods before was also a pain in the butt for everyone involved. Other armies have similar terrain and it's not as annoying. 

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10 minutes ago, Inquisitorsz said:

It's a guideline not a rule. If it mandated some thing (EG, Legion says 25% of the table should be covered by various pieces of terrain), then this discussion would be different.
The other problem is GW's own terrain. It's huge. 
Apart from the small ruins and individual walls most of the other terrain pieces are massive. The new Forgotten Power terrain is massive. Stuff like the old dreadhold forts take up half a table. 
The buildings from AoS release (eg Ophian Archway) are fairly large. The Warscryer Citadel is pretty big. The Sigmarite Mausoleum is a massive footprint or even bigger if you scatter all the pieces as smaller bits of terrain.  

There's no standard for AoS terrain. You can have a tiny house of half a castle. So saying 1 piece for every 2x2 area (even if it was a hard and fast rule) is pretty vague. 

My understanding is that dropping 9 Citadel Woods before was also a pain in the butt for everyone involved. Other armies have similar terrain and it's not as annoying. 

If you dont have a rule, and GW has given you a guideline, you use the guideline.


Guidelines are negotiable, but here is no reason to put yourself at a handicap just because you “don’t want to make fuss”. You want both you and your opponent to have an even chance of winning the game, and 6 pieces of terrain is not any disadvantage for your opponent, nor is it an advantage for you. As you said, 6 pieces of terrain could be huge and cover a lot of the board.  Ideally it would be a mix on large and small pieces so that each player has an even chance. 

Your opponent want to throw down 15 pieces? Say hold up cowboy, 15’s way too many. And you negotiate. Say you settle on 8 and he want 4 huge pieces, say thats fine, and you pick 4 tiny pieces. 

There is nothing wrong with making sure you can play your army in the way it was designed. You opponent trying to zone you with terrain because he “doesnt like playing with WW” tell him too bad, you don’t like him playing with a bunch of Nighthaunt immune to rend but your going to let him, because thats the way his army works. Your army works with terrain. That’s just the way it is and there no reason to pretend your “inconveniencing him” just because you want to play a fair game.  

Edited by Mirage8112
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7 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

If you dont have a rule, and GW has given you a guideline, you use the guideline.

Is there a guideline stated for "1 per 2ft square" besides the bit you linked earlier? Because that says "a minimum of 1..." which is NOT "1 per" as you keep saying. If the guideline is 1+, you arguing for 1 max seems more out of line than people wanting to place more. 

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8 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

Is there a guideline stated for "1 per 2ft square" besides the bit you linked earlier? Because that says "a minimum of 1..." which is NOT "1 per" as you keep saying. If the guideline is 1+, you arguing for 1 max seems more out of line than people wanting to place more. 

It literally says “a good guide is to have at least 1 piece of terrain for every 2”. It’s saying that “this is a reasonable amount of terrain for your games”. It also doesn't say you can’t have less, just like it says you cant have more. It’s saying “this is a good amount to use”. 

It’s not restrictive, nor prohibitive to have less. I’d be ok with 8 if thats what we decide on, but I’d sure as hell not pick big peices for my 4 terrain drops. 

I mean everybody is worried about writing a list that can handle Eel spam, Daughters of Khaine, and endless Nagash hordes and you guys are willing to let the player flood the board with terrain before the game even starts just because you don’t want to be seen as “that guy”.

Meanwhile your opponent’s putting 5 Royal Terrorgiests on the table...

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3 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

you guys are willing to let the player flood the board with terrain before the game even starts just because you don’t want to be seen as “that guy”.

Absolutely not what I'm saying - I was simply asking where your idea of "1 as THE guideline" was coming from. Again, "at least 1" does not mean "guideline is 1". 

I think the best tact would be to say "I'm sorry my faction's rules are anti-fun for other players, but could we try 1 piece per section" or maybe use the old rules' chart which had the possibilities listed from 0-3. 

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3 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Your opponent want to throw down 15 pieces? Say hold up cowboy, 15’s way too many. And you negotiate. Say you settle on 8 and he want 4 huge pieces, say thats fine, and you pick 4 tiny pieces. 

I have no problem with negotiating a table layout.
I'm talking more from a competitive point of view where you don't get to do that at an event. 
And more so, just the general play experience/army design of requiring extra terrain purchases and flooding the table with stuff the opponent doesn't get much say in. 
I like that the woods are tricky to place and you can't just guarantee dropping them where every you like as much as you like. That's good. 
Requiring 3-4 boxes of woods and maybe not being able to use half of them in most games.... That's bad. 

It's not that the army works with the terrain. I think that's a great feature (I actually hate how little impact terrain has in AoS most of the time). But I don't see why the terrain has to be so oppressive to buy and use. 
There's really no good reason why we couldn't have a single big tree like the nurgle one (or like what the endless spell looks like). 
It could work exactly the same way, it would be less annoying for blocking off the whole table, and it could be wrapped up by enemies like gravesites so the opponent has some actual counterplay. 

I need way more experience to make a final decision. Most of this just comes from thinking about the last few games/tables I've played on. 
Hypothetically speaking, 4 small bits of terrain (3" in diameter which is pretty tiny terrain) can almost completely zone you out of a 2x2ft space if there's an objective in the middle.

image.png.216421cc746f0cedaa94c5aeeb6961ab.png
That's assuming the woods are roughly a 6" diameter circle. I'm pretty sure they're actually bigger than that. Probably closer to 8" from the photos I've seen.
And of course that's even worse for the first free wood (though I think that's been specifically worded that way to be placed somewhere near your back line)

I think it's not unreasonable to say that a table with some moderate level of terrain could easily leave very little room for wyldwood placement. 

 

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1 minute ago, Inquisitorsz said:

I think it's not unreasonable to say that a table with some moderate level of terrain could easily leave very little room for wyldwood placement. 

Which is a bit baffling why the devs chose to restrict our faction's exclusive mechanic even more... if it had been 1-6 woods we'd be fine. 

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Here's an example of a game I played recently. This had 8 bits of terrain (both small and large, not including the Khorne shrine) which is realistically pretty light on. 
This was Focal Points I think, with a diagonal deployment and 5 objectives (middle and 4 compass points). 

Obviously the first wood is placed before deployment, but that's pretty much going to have to be somewhere in your deployment zone anyway. 
And a Sylvaneth player would likely deploy differently than my nighthaunt did. 
But at the end of the day, there's maybe 1 spot in between the bloodthrister and the black coach to place a wyldwood..... and that's probably about it. 
Maybe you could leave a spot in front of the Khorne shrine if you deployed back a bit. 
I don't think you'll fit one anywhere else apart from the far corners of the battlefield which is pretty useless (and possibly out of range most of the time). Especially while enemy models are still around (and a good player will do that to stop block teleporting and summoning). 

61982015_353518305156864_7545720294497845248_n.jpg.6080e6d261daf1ab8e564373ef6cbdee.jpg

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11 minutes ago, Inquisitorsz said:

I need way more experience to make a final decision. Most of this just comes from thinking about the last few games/tables I've played on. 
Hypothetically speaking, 4 small bits of terrain (3" in diameter which is pretty tiny terrain) can almost completely zone you out of a 2x2ft space if there's an objective in the middle.

This is a exactly my point: 4 tiny pieces of terrain can easily zone you out of a 2 foot square if there’s an objective nearby. 6 pieces of terrain doesn’t sound like a lot. But if they are big pieces, and your opponent is dropping 2-3 pieces of his own (Gloomtide shipwrecks, Skaven gnawholes, even though the loon-shrine is only 1 piece, damn thing is bloody huge.) It’s very feasible you wont have space to get out more than 1 wood in your own deployment zone. 
 
I guess I just don’t understand why we as Sylvaneth players are arguing that 6 is too restrictive. Even at 8 pieces, if both us and our opponent are dropping terrain (say skaven) that’s actually 12 pieces of terrain on the table. 

I could even argue that that the 1 piece per 2” square should include faction specific terrain, since you will effectively be playing  with 6-8 pieces when the game starts. But I’m not even going that far. 

At a tournament you’re sometimes stuck with what your stuck with. However, I’ve moved terrain on tables with my opponents consent  (usually hills, because models fall over and they have no effect on the game).  

But Sylvaneth players should absolutely not feel like they are forced to play on overcrowded tables just because they feel bad for playing with something their opponent doesn't like playing against. Hell, I hate facing Nagash, but I don't get a say on whether my opponent brings him or not. I DO get a say on how much terrain is on the table, and I think GW’s guideline is a fair one.
 

27 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

I think the best tact would be to say "I'm sorry my faction's rules are anti-fun for other players, but could we try 1 piece per section" or maybe use the old rules' chart which had the possibilities listed from 0-3. 


Are you a Brit by any chance? because your answer is exceedingly polite. 😂

All jokes aside, I’m not advocating for being a domineering ass about it. But I’m certainly not going to let my opponent an obscene amount of huge terrain pieces and their placement without my input. Especially if he’s doing so knowing full well that doing so will put me at a disadvantage.     
 

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yeah like I said, negotiating a table layout with friends or a casual came at a club/store is very different to a set tournament/competitive event. 

My main point is that all the local tournaments I've been to recently feel like they had more terrain on them. I know some local TOs aim for about 10-12 pieces. 
And that's where things can get tricky I think. 

3 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:


Are you a Brit by any chance? because your answer is exceedingly polite. 😂
 

I'm in Australia 😃

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