AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion

[Landohammer]

1 minute ago, Domize said:

He is still damage 2, unless you mean taking flaming weapon on him. But since he doesn't know the entire lore anymore, it's probably better to take something from the lore that fills his support role better.

Also, an important detail I missed about the Spiteswam Hive is that it only targets one unit now. It has increased range to 9", but you can't get +3" charge on both Durthu and a unit of Kurnoths anymore.

The leak am I looking at is pretty blurry but it 100% looks like Damage 3 to me. Do you have a clearer picture? 

[Landohammer]

So with Branchwraiths going away and Branchwych's being a hefty 130pts now. Skaeths band now becomes our cheapest wizard. Is anyone considering him?

Also getting access to the full cities roster means we can take a Sorceress or Battlemage. Both are solid casters for their points.

The Battlemage putting +2 to charge on a unit before it teleports seems spicy

[Domize]

8 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

The leak am I looking at is pretty blurry but it 100% looks like Damage 3 to me. Do you have a clearer picture? 

You can see it on Facehammer's review video

[Landohammer]

12 minutes ago, Domize said:

You can see it on Facehammer's review video

Thanks. Yea thats definitely damage 2. Oh well back to the shelf lol. Lady of Vines just seems better as the double caster. 

[Arzalyn]

8 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Thanks. Yea thats definitely damage 2. Oh well back to the shelf lol. Lady of Vines just seems better as the double caster. 

Honestly I'm having a hard time justifying the Lady on any of my list so far. She is basically a mobile overgrowth terrain + 5" ward bubble (if you get her spell off, which will require Dwindling or Gnarlroot if you want consistency) + 10 dryads. Its not bad utility, but I'm not sure its enough to justify her points with how expensive most of our units are. You probably gonna cast her spell most of the time, so she basically 1 cast for the lore spell/mystic shield/endless/woods and those will not have any bonus to cast if you want to secure her ward (unless you go Dwindling and Gnarlroot and separate their effects between casts).

On the point of her been a better dual caster, I don't think it even come closer. The warsong naturally have the +1 to cast most of the time (unless you are being aggressive with him), can get traits like master of magic or spellsinger and artefacts like the vesperal gem or even the arcane tome to secure a lore spell/get to 3 casts. You can build around his spell as well, which isn't as good as it used to be now that we lost the throne bonuses, but can still do some damage with the portal/spellsinger.

To me the Warsong is a hero that you get if you want a good caster and focus your list around magic/endless spells, while the lady is more of a general utility piece that can cast a extra spell if you don't need her ward.

[Tizianolol]

Are you sure you cant move out of coeherency? I thought u can but u need to stay in coherency after the battleshock or you lose models

[Landohammer]

2 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

Honestly I'm having a hard time justifying the Lady on any of my list so far. She is basically a mobile overgrowth terrain + 5" ward bubble (if you get her spell off, which will require Dwindling or Gnarlroot if you want consistency) + 10 dryads. Its not bad utility, but I'm not sure its enough to justify her points with how expensive most of our units are. You probably gonna cast her spell most of the time, so she basically 1 cast for the lore spell/mystic shield/endless/woods and those will not have any bonus to cast if you want to secure her ward (unless you go Dwindling and Gnarlroot and separate their effects between casts).

On the point of her been a better dual caster, I don't think it even come closer. The warsong naturally have the +1 to cast most of the time (unless you are being aggressive with him), can get traits like master of magic or spellsinger and artefacts like the vesperal gem or even the arcane tome to secure a lore spell/get to 3 casts. You can build around his spell as well, which isn't as good as it used to be now that we lost the throne bonuses, but can still do some damage with the portal/spellsinger.

To me the Warsong is a hero that you get if you want a good caster and focus your list around magic/endless spells, while the lady is more of a general utility piece that can cast a extra spell if you don't need her ward.

Thats fair, but the summon really gives her a lot of value. And she has a quite powerful shooting ability. The ward save aura is probably the best spell in our entire book outside of maybe Treesong. 

Also she can use herself as a woods, which makes her quite effective for the purposes of fight and fade and the normal teleport. 

The Warsong is definitely the better caster of the two, but in terms of utility the lady just does a bit of everything, and does it quite well. 

[Marcvs]

5 minutes ago, Tizianolol said:

Are you sure you cant move out of coeherency? I thought u can but u need to stay in coherency after the battleshock or you lose models

quite sure. rule 9.1 : " After you have moved all of the models in a unit, it must be coherent (see 1.3.3). If it is impossible for a unit to be coherent after it has moved, you cannot move that unit", and 1.3.3 " Units must be set up and finish every move as a single coherent group"
 

[Warbossironteef]

21 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Thats fair, but the summon really gives her a lot of value. And she has a quite powerful shooting ability. The ward save aura is probably the best spell in our entire book outside of maybe Treesong. 

Also she can use herself as a woods, which makes her quite effective for the purposes of fight and fade and the normal teleport. 

The Warsong is definitely the better caster of the two, but in terms of utility the lady just does a bit of everything, and does it quite well. 

They both have merit but Warsong has the edge of being able to take the Gem and also extra enhancements for spells. Auto-casting a spell from the lore that cant be unbound is huge, especially when consider how impactful our spells are. If you have an extra enhancement you could also make it so the Warsong knows multiple spells. For example you can have her know both the spell that revives models and the rend spell. It makes her super flexible and with the Gem extremely reliable. 

[PrimeElectrid]

Crucially, warsong can’t be shot in a wood. All the other big characters are >=10w and so cannot hide 

[lastlostboy]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

Wow good catch. I'm not super impressed with the new Treelords profile for their points TBH, but I think oakenbrow definitely pushes them into the realm of possibility. And being able to field them as bounty hounters, combined with their pile-in denial and ASL, they can become absolute infantry shredders.

Imagine charging a powerful melee unit like graveguard or fyreslayers, triggering ASL, denying pile in, and then swinging for damage 3 and 4 attacks on them. And then repeat. 

On 6/19/2022 at 3:58 PM, Arzalyn said:

Yeah the Treelords in Oakenbrow look promising! My only concern is that, while the don't suffer reduction on their damage as they take wounds, they damage isn't that high to start with (5 damage against a 3+ save and 8.6 damage against a 6+). Its better than it used to be, but they do the same damage as Lancers and less so than Sword/Scythes Kurnoths and Seekers, all which absorb buffs better. They fell more like a anvil that do some damage and that can hold a horde/infantry through correct positioning, supplementing them with some mortals spells could be a way to compensate the damage and win the long game.

Na, I'm not speaking of a new meta-defining, game-breaking strategy. Just a solid counter to count-as-3-models Expert Conquerers. And it is.
I think the battletome as a whole has a lot good-but-not-broken concepts to play with. Oakenbrow Trees are just one of them.

[Arzalyn]

35 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Thats fair, but the summon really gives her a lot of value. And she has a quite powerful shooting ability. The ward save aura is probably the best spell in our entire book outside of maybe Treesong. 

Also she can use herself as a woods, which makes her quite effective for the purposes of fight and fade and the normal teleport. 

The Warsong is definitely the better caster of the two, but in terms of utility the lady just does a bit of everything, and does it quite well. 

For sure she does! I think I need to get some games with the new tome to better evaluate how good is the utility she brings. How much the 10 dryads and the mobile overgrowth spot are useful will be the tipping point on her for me.

9 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Crucially, warsong can’t be shot in a wood. All the other big characters are >=10w and so cannot hide

And the wounds are relevant too if you want to get access to a extra artefact more easily. We got a pretty good selection of artefacts (4~5 of our 6 are pretty good) and if we want more than 1 we have to find space for a combination of two between the Wych/Archrev/Warsong on our lists (or bring some cheap allies like the cities battlemages).

[Landohammer]

30 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

They both have merit but Warsong has the edge of being able to take the Gem and also extra enhancements for spells. Auto-casting a spell from the lore that cant be unbound is huge, especially when consider how impactful our spells are. If you have an extra enhancement you could also make it so the Warsong knows multiple spells. For example you can have her know both the spell that revives models and the rend spell. It makes her super flexible and with the Gem extremely reliable. 

I don't see any scenario where you take a second enhancement for the Warsong. You either build your army around him or leave him at home. 

What it boils down to is that Warsong needs two more heroes to unlock the Warlord battallion for the extra enhancement. Our heroes are just too pricy for that.

However like I said earlier we have gained a lot of cheap hero options now with full cities allies. Those might be the key for the build you want. And battlemage got a price drop in the new GHB...

[Arzalyn]

35 minutes ago, lastlostboy said:

Na, I'm not speaking of a new meta-defining, game-breaking strategy. Just a solid counter to count-as-3-models Expert Conquerers. And it is.
I think the battletome as a whole has a lot good-but-not-broken concepts to play with. Oakenbrow Trees are just one of them.

They don't need to be meta defining, I agree with you that they look quiet playable in Oakenbrow! I was more expressing my concerns with them for the list building. Did you make any list with them you could share? I imagine Durthu + 2 Treelords would be the base you start building for Oakenbrow but I'm yet to juggle with the options for them.

[Warbossironteef]

Did some final tinkering and my preorder is now complete. Going to build some bug boys. Feeling pretty good about something like the below. Warsong is an awesome general. A little pricey, but she can give out +3 movement and auto revive every turn.

List brings Hunters with full support of Arch Rev and 3x Seekers. 2x Units of Lancers to be aggressive and then 3x5 Tree Revs all counting as 15 models for battle tactics. Not sure if the number of Lancers and Seekers is optimal or if the Lancers should be a unit of 6. I'm hoping to magnetize them and get some practice games in. 

 

Heartwood – The Reaping
Warsong – General, Warsinger, Vespereal Gem, Verdous Harmony - 305
Arch Rev - 120
6x Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes – 500 – Bounty Hunters
3x Lancers -210 – Bounty Hunters
3x Lancers 210 – Bounty Hunters
3x Seekers – 235
5x Tree Revs – 110 – Expert Conquerors 
5x Tree Revs – 110 – Expert Conquerors 
5x Tree Revs – 110 – Expert Conquerors 
Spiteswarm Hive – 40
1950/2000

[Tizianolol]

Guys if I wanna play warsong and i wanna hide him in a wood. I just need 1 piece of wood or all 3 pieces together?

[Mirage8112]

3 hours ago, Landohammer said:

I don't see any scenario where you take a second enhancement for the Warsong. You either build your army around him or leave him at home. 

What it boils down to is that Warsong needs two more heroes to unlock the Warlord battallion for the extra enhancement. Our heroes are just too pricy for that.

In addition to the Warsong, the arch-revenant looks like an easy choice to put in a list. If you play for area denial (as I do) the branchwytch has good synergy here too. That combo has good synergy and is a lock for warlord.

Casting his signature spell through a wood and then the witches spell immediately after, and then dwellers after that will absolutely ruin anybody’s day.
 

As you say, it’s best to build your list around your strategy. To ensure you get everything off, build this with the dwindling in gnarlroot list. 3D6 removing the lowest with the Warsongs signature spell through a Wyldwood has the potential to increase the cast radius from an 18” bubble around him to a nearly 30” bubble around a wood, has the potential to put out a crippling amount of wounds to a lot of units by itself.
 

The combo of horde-clearing and single target spells will strongly discourage anybody from going near whatever the wytch is sitting on no matter where the warsong is. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Mirage8112

[Jaskier]

Trying to write lists with this new book is hard, but not in a bad way; it's been a while since I read a book and thought "wow, there's so many good choices that I don't know what to pick!" The points add up because there's so much good stuff you want to use but you can't fit it all in. The best examples of this are our three big named characters. Alarielle and Drycha both look better than ever, whilst The Lady of Vines has so much utility and a clear role she can fit into any kind of list. However, actually fitting any of the three in after you put your Ethereal Durthu or your Spellsinger Warsong Revenant and your Arch-Revenant with multiple Kurnoth or Seeker blocks and your Tree or Spite Revenant Battleline and your Dryad screens andyour and andandand.... 🤯 

Heck, Gossamids are a very good choice but I haven't been able to fit even a single unit into any list I've written so far! It's not even an issue of stuff being overpriced, as every list I've written ends up with over 100 wounds (mostly 3+/4+ wounds too) and way more hitting power than I've ever had in Sylvaneth...the choices really are just that darned good! They made the Branchwych a deadly mini-Warsong that can do the same thing as a Warsong at the same time for projecting silly amounts of area mortal wounds from afar; if you stop and think on her for a moment, you realise they made her useful without even porting over the Branchwraith summon. If that isn't a sign of a good book, I don't know what is.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Jaskier

[mmimzie]

21 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Funny timing, I'd just edited my post having seen they were on 60mms just as you replied 😅 Yeah it probably nips reinforcing the unit in the bud, they already don't have great damage output as it is and having to sacrifice attacks to keep their coherency and not stray outside of our various wholly within ranges is probably too big of an ask. 

 

21 hours ago, Arzalyn said:

Sadly they are in 60mm bases. I'm not sure if it's worth it to even go above MSU with them if you want to strike and fade way.

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Jaskier said:

This actually might have a lot of merit, depending on the base size. 2" is slightly more than 50mm so if their bases are 50mm or less they can happily fight in two ranks, if not I can see it being hard to keep them wholly in range of woods (potentially even with the 12") for the fade-away unless you're willing to lose out on attacks. EDIT: Just checked, they are on 60mms...I think even with the old tri-pointing system that lets 32mms fight in two ranks it might not be enough to solve that issue for these guys. A 6" pile-in certainly helps but I'm still just worried about trying to get all of the models' attacks whilst staying wholly within wood range to fade away. 

It's a tough as nails unit even before accounting for it being virtually immune to shooting (woods) and very hard to catch and pin down (fade away.) The damage isn't great though, but I guess that's the trade-off for being so mobile and hard to shift.

For those wondering like I was, 9 Lancers (630) do slightly more melee damage against 4+ save baseline than 4 Stormdrakes (680) though obviously the Stormdrakes have overall higher output thanks to their shooting. 

Don't be too sad. I think they were already designed with a lot of this in mind. I think you'll have to commit more with them, but you can actually get all of them to reliably fight the same target. As MSU if you have 3 units of dragon flies 2 of which are lancers and your charge all 3 in.

You can pick both your lancers to fight first and then strike and fadeaway one of the two units. Then your 3rd dragon fly unit can then pile in using thier 6" pile. This will let you pretty reliably get first attack with 3 of your dragon fly units on the same target. 

This will leave you in combat, but the target you fought should have had a few teeth kicked in. 

I think they work well enough in the meta in bounty hunters getting the damage buff, but not being vulnerable to bounty hunters.  Supported by tree revs to claim objectives you could have a very powerful army. Though lack a bit of punch for some precision objective play. 

[Jaskier]

57 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

 

 

 

Don't be too sad. I think they were already designed with a lot of this in mind. I think you'll have to commit more with them, but you can actually get all of them to reliably fight the same target. As MSU if you have 3 units of dragon flies 2 of which are lancers and your charge all 3 in.

You can pick both your lancers to fight first and then strike and fadeaway one of the two units. Then your 3rd dragon fly unit can then pile in using thier 6" pile. This will let you pretty reliably get first attack with 3 of your dragon fly units on the same target. 

This will leave you in combat, but the target you fought should have had a few teeth kicked in. 

I think they work well enough in the meta in bounty hunters getting the damage buff, but not being vulnerable to bounty hunters.  Supported by tree revs to claim objectives you could have a very powerful army. Though lack a bit of punch for some precision objective play. 

This is 100% how I'd run them, and is absolutely the best use of the Lancers' strike first ability. It's essentially a flying gank squad, and the neat thing is if you were to take them outside of Harvestboon you can trade Battleline-if for things like the guaranteed +1 to-hit buff from Heartwood. The other neat bonus to a 6" pile-in is you only need to get one model per unit into contact off the charge, then wrap around with and fade-away a side unit first to let the middle unit pile into the gap later; it's super easy to setup. 

On the note of how to use the bugs, I've finally come up with a list that I'm semi happy with. It's not what I'd normally run (I like my low drop armies) but I'm keen to try it out and get a feel for all our new or evolved combat units at a tournament the day after release. Deciding between ethereal on Durthu or 'woodportal' on the Warsong is tough, but I went with the latter for now as it just really unlocks the Warsong as a unit, and I didn't have the points to fit in a proper Spellportal anyway. I went Heartwood because +1 to-hit on key targets helps our combat units so much and frees them up to receive Archie's +1 attack command. The Kurnoths near an Archie have 4 attacks each at 2+ 2+ -3 D2...absolute insanity. I considered swapping Verdurous for Treesong but I think an auto-cast bring a Kurnoth/bug back might be better. 2000 points on the dot.

Heartwood - The Reaping 

Warsong Revenant** - General, Spellsinger, The Vesperal Gem, Verdurous Harmony
Spirit of Durthu** - Greenwood Gladius
Arch Revenant**
5 Tree Revenants***
5 Tree Revenants***
6 Kurnoth Hunters w/ Scythes*
3 Revenant Seekers* 
3 Spiterider Lancers*
Spiteswarm Hive 

Bounty Hunters*
Command Entourage**
Expert Conquerors***

Edited June 21, 2022 by Jaskier

[Aeryenn]

I really like both @Arzalyn and @Jaskier list. This is what I had in mind few posts back. Basically these lists differ with swapping one KH for Warsong. Wasn't Vesperal Gem a once per game ability in the previous battletome?

Now just waiting for dragonflies to arrive with the new battletome and I'll give it a try.

[Landohammer]

18 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

In addition to the Warsong, the arch-revenant looks like an easy choice to put in a list. If you play for area denial (as I do) the branchwytch has good synergy here too. That combo has good synergy and is a lock for warlord.

 

The more I look at the Arch-Rev, the more I like him. He adds some pretty insane utility to Hunters, especially in Heartwood. Because they are most often going to be on 2+, the extra attack CA is a nice alternative to AOA. And it also combos well with large units of Spites fishing for mortals. 

The issue with the Warsong Warlord build for me, is that its a bare minimum of 555pts in characters. I am having a hard time getting all the units I want into lists!

12 hours ago, Jaskier said:

 However, actually fitting any of the three in after you put your Ethereal Durthu...

My initial assumption was that Ethereal Durthu was the auto-choice. But honestly Warsinger is probably the true-autotake. Most of our army is movement 5, and its honestly our biggest weakness. We are really vulnerable to well placed redeploys and it can cost us games when 500pt units of Hunters or 370pt units of Durthu's don't connect their charges. Many of the objectives will start the game 8-9+ inches away form deployment zones, and that oftens means you are praying for a 3+ run roll. 

Warsinger is a +60% movement buff and it can effect half your army. Its too good to pass on in almost every situation

[Landohammer]

I played another game with the new codex and new GHB vs Ogors. I lost 22-23 but it mostly came down to Sword Hunters whiffing  vs a Tyrant. I brought a Dreadwood Reaping list for max mobility. Here is a quick summary of high points. Please correct me if I got any rules wrong.

-10 man unit of Spites in battalion where they are counting as 3 models for objectives is solid. Especially with access to multiple teleports. The were able to grab many VPs. Their footprint makes it tricky to land where you want tho. They are also VERY vulnerable to battleshock tests.

-I often found my forests "shut down" by enemy units within 3". My understanding is that the 3" rule only applies to woods you "arrive" at, and not the wood you choose to go into. So that is helpful. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

-We have 2-3 battle tactics that are absolutely clutch. The "killl a unit within 6" of a wood" and "kill a monster with a treelord/durthu" are generally freebies under the right circumstances. And the "complete a teleport charge" is a nice hail mary in the end game when you dont' have many units left. The new GHB makes Grands and Battle tactics VERY difficult to complete, so reliable options are always helpful.

-Scythe Hunters may be the MVP of the book. Especially in bounty hunters. These guys do not play, and Heartwood armies built around them will likely become a top list for us. I will have a block of 6 in every list. The jury is still out of sword bros. If you roll hot on your sixes they are great but AOD means their normal attacks don't often connect. 

-Dryads were surprisingly resilient. There might be some value in dryad spam lists. I need to explore that more.

 

[Aeryenn]

Is it possible to use The Vesperal Gem with Unleash Swarm of Spites?

[Jaskier]

4 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Is it possible to use The Vesperal Gem with Unleash Swarm of Spites?

Unfortunately no, it only works on Lore of the Deepwood spells. 

To add to the reply earlier, I have the same thinking on the Ethereal trait versus the more generalist traits. A 3+ can be boosted a lot as it is with our army and we already have so many ways to keep stuff alive, hence why I leaned towards Spellsinger instead - but Warsinger is also very strong. I think if you run a Warsong Revenant or Branchwych you probably want Spellsinger, otherwise Warsinger looks to be the best generalist choice. It's the one that is least reliant on matchup to determine its usefulness, importantly.