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AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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Also, should mention that in a Gnarlroot grove she can always reroll 1s to hit for shooting and melee which is huge for her (I miss a lot with her spear or beetle.)  This would be in addition to rerolling 1s to wound in the combat phase for her command ability.

Or you can create a new wyldwood within 1" of her target with the spell or Metamorphosis, then cast Treesong on the target to get the rerolls of 1s to hit and wound in the combat phase along with the Winterleaf exploding dice and the ability to attack twice once again from a nearby hero with the artifact.

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15 hours ago, Emissary said:

Personally, I don't think she was really nerfed. 

Yes, the nerfs were
...
2) Her command ability got nerfed (the big deal IMO).
...

Somehow I fail to see this. The two changes were:

  • You can use it every turn now.
  • It is not armywide anymore, but got a range.

As (imho) the first is a huge buff and the second can be mitigated quite nicely with the changed "Envoys of the Eeverqueen" ability from our Kurnoth Hunters - of which most armies play a significant number - I really do not see a big nerf. What do I miss here?

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52 minutes ago, Emissary said:

Plus before it affected your shooting phase and lasted until your next hero phase.  Now it's just 1 combat phase.  

It was a big Nerf.

Yes and no. In abstract you could argue that making it usable every turn was a fair offset for changing “reroll all” to “reroll 1s”, and the change to omit shooting (I think the range is a non-issue given Hunter changes). It was a balanced technical change to turn a single big turn ability into a recurring smaller ability. 

But I would agree that, in practice, there was usually one big turn where the more extensive reroll clearly mattered. 

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Useable every turn means one command point each turn as well. 

It is always a matter of circumstances, but I would prefer a strong effect turn one or two, when most fighting happens and massive amounts of attacks are dished out, over a slow but steady effect, that costs a multiple of that.

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I think she's been nerfed a good bit actually. A few important quality of life changes which I'm very happy with to be sure but her core function as a jack of all trades didn't change and most of her changes are kinda a wash in terms of overall power. Additionally, 60 points is not nothing. When you consider her free summon putting her at 400/460, is a 15% increase. For that, she gains the Glade abilities, but since she is such a Swiss army knife no single buff is that helpful.  For example the exploding 6s doesn't help if you need her as a mobile spell or ranged turret. 

It's also that many of the other options got stronger and more focused and benefit more from the Glade stuff

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The fact she can benefit from some of the nice Grove buffs migrates the nerds a bit. Rr save of 1 from gnarlroot or the winterleaf exploding attacks for example. But I agree with Frowny. . Overall pretty big nerf.

However Frowny says 

5 hours ago, Frowny said:

if you need her as a mobile spell or ranged turret

I think if you don't have plans for her in every phase and certainly combat you shouldnt  use her. 

 

 

 

Edited by Aezeal
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She isn't THAT sturdy, at least not for 400 points, so I've found occasionally I get her in rough spots when I commit too much to her melee prowess. Also, the 4+ to hit on single targets with the main attack (beetle) can be pretty swingy. The EV of her 25 damage-attacks is only ~7 on a 4+ save single target, so sometimes you fail to kill the character/monster or damage the big unit enough and then are overextended (due to her giant base) and get mushed. 

I've found her most valuable immediately behind my main line, right in the middle. That way she can use all of her abilities to full effect but she  isn't in danger of a serious return damage. Then she can use her huge mobility to pick her melee fight slightly later (against an opponent she will obliterate)  or you can threaten the counter-charge which is sometimes just as effective as charging. 

I guess I do have a plan for her melee, it just isn't immediately going full on in immediately. When I did that at first, she got mangled

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I think it’s probably more accurate to say that Alarielle has been “tweaked” rather than buffed or nerfed. 

 The 60 point increase comes from being able to benefit (passively and actively) from the  Warglades. Some of this can be quite a substantial buff and needs to be taken into account. In Winterleaf Alarielle’s damage massively increases, in Gnarlroot her survivability goes through the roof.   Harvestboon could be pretty hilarious with a decent damage buff as well. I’d say all that is well worth 60 points. In non-glade armies you probably wont take Alarielle sicne your likely looking to make the most of the artifacts.  

Alarielle has never been entirely “unkillable”, so the fact that she effectively lost D3 healing isn’t all that big of a deal. If your enemy was intent on removing her by throwing everything they had at her in a single turn, and you miscalculated your positioning, a single D3 heals every other turn won’t make all that much of difference. In fact it makes sense they removed it, since our army now has access to D6 un-unbindable heals through the vesperal gem/ regrowth combo on a support TLA (who benefits the most from her D3 bubble heal anyway). Combo this with the passive damage save from gnarlroot (6+) and the passive heal from gnarlroot (d3 on a successful spell cast), + D3 heals from items like lifewreath AND the glade worm. If you’re counting, that means she can get D6+ 4D3 heals in our hero phase: I’d say her survivability went up overall. 

Her command ability has been reworked to be more impactful over the course of the entire game, and RR 1’s isn’t terrible in an army where most of our damaging units hit on 3’s anyway.    

The Metamorphosis change is interesting, because raising the casting value of the spell also raises the potential damage, since the number of dice you roll is linked to the casting value of the spell. Alarielle can cast 3 spells, so it seems that they are pushing for throne of vines on her. This makes her a good candidate as an ES caddy, since ToV will allow her to cast metamorphosis for a higher damage potential and then also throw out some endless spells while she’s at it. Getting a wizard in range to unbind ToV means he’s still got potentially 2 (3 with slow down time from cogs) other spell to think about. Letting ToV get through would be a mistake; preventing ToV getting through and burning your 1 unbind to do it might be a bigger mistake if you end up rolling well for Endless Spell’s.||

Talon got a huge buff. Considering how wargroves work it has the potential to throw out a massive amount of MW now. + archy and she’s throwing out way more damage than she was before. 

Our old book had it’s power concentrated in 2 or 3 wargroves and small handful of units. Only looking at the way those warscrolls have changed makes things looks like nerfs, when actually they end up being army-wide buffs. A few (relatively) minor changes to Alarielle’s warscrolls and a very small points increase doesn’t account for the massive synergy bonus she’s gained once everything is working in tandem. 
 

Edited by Mirage8112
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One question concerning "Metamorphosis" overall: If you use Throne of Vines first and then cast Metamorphosis, is the bonus to casting used to determine the number of dice you roll, or is it the result shown on the dice only? 

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8 minutes ago, Craze said:

One question concerning "Metamorphosis" overall: If you use Throne of Vines first and then cast Metamorphosis, is the bonus to casting used to determine the number of dice you roll, or is it the result shown on the dice only? 

It doesn't say unmodified casting roll.. So modifiers both pos and neg should be taken into account for it.

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6 minutes ago, Craze said:

One question concerning "Metamorphosis" overall: If you use Throne of Vines first and then cast Metamorphosis, is the bonus to casting used to determine the number of dice you roll, or is it the result shown on the dice only? 

The end result matters (just like before). The only difference is that Throne of Vines is now flat +2 instead of +D3 (great change in my view) and Metamorphosis has a casting value of 7 instead of 5.

So, as an example: You successfully cast Throne of Vines and then cast Metamorphosis, rolling an 8. You add 2 to the result, choose a valid target and proceed to roll 10 dice for the damage effect.

Just like before, Throne of Vines "only" increases your average damage output with Metamorphosis by 1. I think it is more important than before, though, since you allready need a 7 to cast Metamorphosis in the first place (which will be made much more reliable with Throne of Vines going off before).

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I think it's more that while she does benefit from the glades, everything else does as well. And most other things didn't have point adjustments. Dryads,  tree revenants and hunters were already strong or useful, stayed the same cost, and now get a free Glade bonus. Treelords, durthu and spite revenants also gain the Glade bonuses but dropped in points to boot. 

Yes, she is slightly stronger, but compared to other options I think she is in fact a worse pick. I will certainly be experimenting with other builds now, rather than immediately starting out with her and going from there. Seems like less of an autopick now

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10 hours ago, Isotop said:

Just like before, Throne of Vines "only" increases your average damage output with Metamorphosis by 1. I think it is more important than before, though, since you allready need a 7 to cast Metamorphosis in the first place (which will be made much more reliable with Throne of Vines going off before).

It only increases average damage by 1 if you’re already successfully cast and not been unbound. Once you adjust your overall numbers to allow for the increased chance to cast and reduced chance to unbind then the average damage increase from ToV up before you cast Metamorphosis is not insignificant 

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1 hour ago, Warbossironteef said:

With improvements to the swords and melee buffs from the Glades, do you think Bow Hunters have a place? I liked the idea of using them in a more defensive Alarielle list but it seems difficult to deal with the LoS issue. The swords also bring some MWs to the table which are always good.

Bow Hunters aren’t without buffs. The Heartwood Horn of the Consort lets them reroll attacks for a start, which addresses their most obvious weakness. 

Which LoS issue are you worried about? The biggest threat to LoS comes from your own woods, and you get to decide where to place those. If you are bringing bows then I’ve never had a problem positioning woods so as not to block LoS where I need it most, and if you force the enemy away from objectives and into cover to avoid the bows then that’s still advantageous. Plus a lot of factions have flying units which don’t create LoS problems in the first place. 

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3 hours ago, Frowny said:

I think it's more that while she does benefit from the glades, everything else does as well. And most other things didn't have point adjustments. Dryads,  tree revenants and hunters were already strong or useful, stayed the same cost, and now get a free Glade bonus. Treelords, durthu and spite revenants also gain the Glade bonuses but dropped in points to boot. 

Dryads had a points increase if you figure that you can no longer put woods on objectives, which mean for dryads to hold an objective, their save is effectively a point worse for the same cost. 

Hunters also have lost a little mobility since only a single unit can teleport through the woods.

Tree -Revs got a buff for the same cost, but don’t really benefit all that much from glade bonuses, unless you plan on running large units and build your list deliberately to do that. Extra healing does absolutely zip for 1 wound models. 

Alarielle benefits proportionally more from the healing bonuses than any other unit In the codex, and also had the added benefit of auto-healing multi-wound models around her. Hunters at full strength do about the same amount of damage as Alarielle, but as they take wounds their damage output drops significantly take 10 wounds, lose two and even if you manage to bring back 1 you still lose 3-4 attacks. With the healing Alarielle can muster from the healing combo I outlined above, she can easily gain back all 10 wounds and fight at full strength.    
 

3 hours ago, Frowny said:

Yes, she is slightly stronger, but compared to other options I think she is in fact a worse pick. I will certainly be experimenting with other builds now, rather than immediately starting out with her and going from there. Seems like less of an autopick now

Thats fine, don’t take her. 

Nothing in our codex is auto-take anymore. Everything has a place now with the right build. The only things I think are must take now are 2-3 units of T-revs and at least 2 models with stomp. Preferably 3 (or 1-2 and Alarielle with her free summon).

Seriously though, it’s 60 points, she’s gained a whole boatload of synergy. Thats a very very small increase for a bunch of benefits she didn’t have before. It’s just that they’ve moved her benefits from her warscroll and spread them out across the book. Units don't fight in a vacuum, they fight together and those benefits should be readily apparent when you build a list with these mechanics in mind.

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21 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Dryads had a points increase if you figure that you can no longer put woods on objectives, which mean for dryads to hold an objective, their save is effectively a point worse for the same cost. 

Hunters also have lost a little mobility since only a single unit can teleport through the woods.

Tree -Revs got a buff for the same cost, but don’t really benefit all that much from glade bonuses, unless you plan on running large units and build your list deliberately to do that. Extra healing does absolutely zip for 1 wound models. 

Alarielle benefits proportionally more from the healing bonuses than any other unit In the codex, and also had the added benefit of auto-healing multi-wound models around her. Hunters at full strength do about the same amount of damage as Alarielle, but as they take wounds their damage output drops significantly take 10 wounds, lose two and even if you manage to bring back 1 you still lose 3-4 attacks. With the healing Alarielle can muster from the healing combo I outlined above, she can easily gain back all 10 wounds and fight at full strength.    
 

Thats fine, don’t take her. 

Nothing in our codex is auto-take anymore. Everything has a place now with the right build. The only things I think are must take now are 2-3 units of T-revs and at least 2 models with stomp. Preferably 3 (or 1-2 and Alarielle with her free summon).

Seriously though, it’s 60 points, she’s gained a whole boatload of synergy. Thats a very very small increase for a bunch of benefits she didn’t have before. It’s just that they’ve moved her benefits from her warscroll and spread them out across the book. Units don't fight in a vacuum, they fight together and those benefits should be readily apparent when you build a list with these mechanics in mind.

So it has been confirmed that no Woods can placed on objectives? I thought it was just the first one that had to be away from objectives.

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38 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

So it has been confirmed that no Woods can placed on objectives? I thought it was just the first one that had to be away from objectives.

Apart from the pre-deployment one, Wyldwoods must be 1" from the center of objectives, as well as 1" away from terrain and models, as normal. The 1"-from-center-of-objectives requirement isn't minimal, since Wyldwoods can now only be placed as a ring, instead of the myriad ways we could place them previously.

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As someone new to this army this is going to take a little to get to use to.  So in your example, "Wyldwoods must be 1" from the center of objectives, " they are specifically refering to the actual terrain piece, not the board area that is considered to be the Wyldwood? 

So you can put a Wyldwood on an objective (after the 1st) as long as the 3 terrain pieces are spaced out around it?

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