AoS 2 - Wanderers Discussion

[Glam The Laughing Warrior]

I'm building some Wild Riders at the moment and wondering whether to give them shields or not?  Is it worth taking the movement penalty? 

Or maybe I can just hang the shields on the steeds and decide whether to use them or not in each game (depending on opponent and battleplan)?

 

[Arkanaut Admiral]

16 hours ago, Cynric said:

Sure, but that seems unlikely.  What I would like functionally is a mixed (either native or higher allie allowance) wanderer/sylvaneth force with reliable ways to put wildwoods on the table.   Without the woods the sylvaneth models are overpriced imo.   This could be done through a battalion or spell lore added to either army.   Also it would be nice if the woods themselves, spells and command abilities that affect either wanderers or sylvaneth work on the entire battalion rather than just a portion.

From the point of view of just "winning games" going mixed seems much worse than going sylvaneth with an allied waywatcher and glade guard (and some kurnoth archers if yet more archery is desired.)

This would only solve 2/3 of getting back to the army of old as orion, forest dragon, wardancers, eagles and beasttenders are left to the bygone era.

Wardancers could be brought back in some capacity as a new unit.  As could the rest, in some shape or form.  If they want to make them more "high fantasy" than what went before, they could have units riding insects.  Smaller versions of the Wardroth beetle and so forth.

I can see it now; the two merged back together, with some new plastics (all finecast replaced with plastics, endless spells), with the current Sylvaneth and Wanderer allegiance abilities combined together, with command traits, artifact lists and spells for specific character types.  In a way, think of Chaos books and how they split things between mortal and demon units.

 

[Aelfric]

On 1/26/2019 at 9:03 PM, Aezeal said:

Thanks for this. Some of it is obvious but the confirmation that SotT aren't worthwile is nice, I won't have t try it. The Wayfinder build is nice. And using wildriders for objective taking seems indeed their only real use, and the best unit we have for that role.... doesn't mean they aren't overcosted sadly but means I'll have to try them again I guess, especially in the batallion they're possibly less a waste of points than the sisters.

It is quite nice to have SotT for the scenarios that require a wizard to score objectives or when they are worth 20 models for objective scoring.  Also, if I drop them, I'll have to paint another 5 wild riders and my next addition is going to be be another unit of 20 SotW.  ( Once I've finished my Troggoths  )

[Popisdead]

 

On 1/27/2019 at 5:35 PM, Erosharcos said:

I'm tempted to buy some White Lion chariots and ally them into my Wanderers force and see how they fair. They seem like decent value for a 6-wound, 4+ save model with 9'' move at 80 points.  

Can they ally?  I love chariots in my BoC (granted they re-roll charges and ambush).  Swifthawk chariots would be rad to add aesthetically. 

On 1/28/2019 at 12:18 PM, Arkanaut Admiral said:

Can I ask a couple of questions?  First, what’s the general ‘lore’ of the wanderers?  And second, what are the odds that they could rejoin the Sylvaneth in a joint battletome in future?  One similar to the Gloomspite Gitz (ironically), split between wanderer and Sylvaneth in a manner similar to the Moonclan and spiderfang?  Is it feasible?

There is some lore in the BoC battle tome as well as the core rulebook.  It seems they have a Orion-like character who Alarielle visits.  With just that I feel hope.

After BoC I was so badly wanting Sylvaneth and Wanderers to become one but that might cost the Sylvaneth their unique 1-drop plethora of formations which would worry me. 

What worries me more is Greenskinz and Gitmob grots are now squated a la TK nad Brets.  I hope the EG/WR/WWR?SotT/SotW models are all new and distinct enough to warrant keeping.  I totally get getting rid of plain old O&G in favour of unique and flavourful.  This does make me feel the idea of the old "HE spearmen" is dead in the water.  It brings nothing to AoS.

20 hours ago, Arkanaut Admiral said:

Wardancers could be brought back in some capacity as a new unit. 

They are too historic to GW lore for them to be put in the bin   The next Idoneth novel by David Guymer will have a unit of them  

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Popisdead

[Popisdead]

On 1/29/2019 at 12:11 AM, Glam The Laughing Warrior said:

I'm building some Wild Riders at the moment and wondering whether to give them shields or not?  Is it worth taking the movement penalty?

They can re-roll run so you lose essentially have a permanently cast Mystic Shield cast on a unit with only a 5+ save for the average of 1" move loss (taking into account the run).  You don't want them in CC often.  I would just model them how you like and inform your opponent often "they don't have shields even though they are modeled". 

It is fairly dumb.  Centigors get a 4+ save for bucklers and IIRC don't lose movement.  

[Aezeal]

On 1/30/2019 at 4:12 PM, Popisdead said:

They can re-roll run so you lose essentially have a permanently cast Mystic Shield cast on a unit with only a 5+ save for the average of 1" move loss (taking into account the run).  You don't want them in CC often.  I would just model them how you like and inform your opponent often "they don't have shields even though they are modeled". 

It is fairly dumb.  Centigors get a 4+ save for bucklers and IIRC don't lose movement.  

I'm all in favor of there being a choice instead of shield being an auto-include..... however... why just us

[overtninja]

What's actually annoying is that many configurations of 2k lists for Wanderers ends up with either 100 points short or 20 points over, because everything in our army has awkward point costs. It's hard to build anything outside a few cookie cutter lists at 2k and take the battalion with this army. I might just ignore the battalion altogether and take another block of GG instead.

[adreal]

So, I personally have been against a combined sylvaneth and wanderers battletome, but seeing what gloomspite gitz has done for moonclan and spiderfang, I think it could work.

Maybe due to the necroquake alarielle has brought the aelves back into the fold, and while mistrust still lingers, more defenders of ghyran is better then fewer.

Give wanderers a stag mounted hero, maybe a heavy cav option on smaller wardroth Beatles, change spirit revenants to 3+ to hit and wound and give them a bow option. 

Slight buff to kurnoth hunters with a 3+ profile for shooting and a avatar of kurnoth (like the eidolons from deepkin).

Oak of ages endless spell would be fun (wildwood that al ways roused to wrath, sylvaneth and wanderers ignore the mortal wounds)

[Gwendar]

Well, finally got a 1k in against Seraphon bringing Shadowstrike with 6 Ripperdactyls and a Slann Starmaster...and it was interesting. We played Knife to the Heart (yes, finally, some objectives).

Allegiance: Wanderers
Waywatcher (120)
- General
- Trait: Stalker of the Hidden Paths 
- Artefact: Starcaster Longbow 
Spellweaver (100)
- Heartwood Staff
30 x Glade Guard (360)
10 x Sisters of the Watch (180)
3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)
- Scythes
- Allies
Aethervoid Pendulum (40)

Total: 1000 / 1000

Guess who forgot to get pictures? Anyway, I'll make this one quicker.

T1: He got priority and made sure to space out his skinks to avoid my teleport shenanigans that could potentially 1 shot his Slann. I stupidly decide to put Kurnoths up front and GG on the objective with the Spellweaver and Waywatcher, IE: leaving them open from behind to get annihilated but I move up the SotW a bit behind to try to circumvent this a bit.

T2: Opponent goes first and decides now is the time to give my GG the sweet kiss of death and he delivers wiping the unit. It was my own fault and I knew this exactly thing would happen on deployment. I think I would rather have put the SotW there so they could at least shoot overwatch or just create a bunker like I did with our 750 point game. Anyway, I fire back with the Pendulum, making sure it goes off the edge so I can summon it again next turn while shooting and Kurnoths clean up whats left...the worst is now over.

T3: He goes first again, summons a Bastilidon which I now hate with quite a passion. I teleport the SotW within shooting range of the in-cover Slann and do nothing since everything in his army is re-rolling all failed saves. Oh, and the Pendulum at least hits the Bastiladon for some wounds while the Waywatcher's shots simply bounce off. Worth noting that he's played me enough to know he needs to screen and keep everything as far away as possible and he was doing just that.

T4: We fubar'd the tied roll-off as he was meant to go first but.. I did instead while he moved the pendulum into his Citadeladon to take another MW if I recall, not sure how we had such a huge lapse in judgement but things happen. SotW take 1-2 wounds off the Slann while the Waywatcher continues down his path of depression as his shots continue to bounce off the only thing in range; The Undying Fortressadon. Both objectives are still under each players control.

T5: He wins priority and kills teleports his 4 wound Castleadon behind Hero\Kurnoth bunker and...forgets to shoot with it. We rolled anyway just to see what it would've done, and the -2 to be hit would've resulted in it only doing 2 wounds to the Waywatcher anyway. Skinks shot and somehow managed to kill a SotW but 9 died when they charged and got overwatch'd with combat clearing the last one. At this point, I'm really just playing for kill points to get a minor victory as there's no time to do much else and it would've been far too risky in previous turns to allow my SotW to get wiped off the board. On my turn I teleport the SotW back to the homefront to finish off the Bunkeradon and just barely manage to do it with the Waywatcher... Which ended up putting me ahead on kill points, 580 to 360.


Overall: I still don't think screens are a huge must in this army with my playstyle, but man, 10 EG would've been helpful as a throwaway unit to feed to the Rippers and would have saved me a lot of trouble. Outside of that, he was bunkering his objective with Skinks and 2 Wizards which really isn't too threatening, but him taking out a large chunk of my force by T2 meant I had to play defensively the rest of the game to make sure I minimized my own casualties as I no longer had any punch to attempt to take his objective. I'm somewhat debating at this point to build 10 EG and 10 WWR's with the 20 I have available, but I dunno. It's probably still the better choice to just run 20 WWR's in the end. Thanks for reading everyone.

[overtninja]

@Gwendar I think it is useful, especially in smaller games, to split big units of GG into smaller ones - maybe one at 20 and another at 10. This way, you can use the smaller one to block with if you need to and preserve the larger one, or position them so they are far enough apart where your opponent has to choose which one to chase down. Having +1 to hit for numbers is great, but splitting the unit would probably have helped them survive longer.

 

[overtninja]

I finally settled on a 2k army, I'll probably trot it out for a game on Thursday. I'll be bringing the battalion, all the heroes, with a WW general, 2x20 GG, 20 WWR, 10 SotW, 5 WR and 5SotT, and Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws. My Nomad Prince will have the Starcaster, and I'll give my Waystrider the Hoarfrost to help put the hurt on monsters. I'm entertaining the possibility that I might swap out 10 GG for 5WR, the thinking being that it would make another great target for Shield of Thorns, and a big unit of WR lasts a lot longer, and bringing back d3 models with the Spellweaver sounds really attractive. Also, I've got kind of a Realm of Beasts theme going with my army, and I kind of like the look of that many WR on the field.

Anyway, I suspect I'm going to get mauled by whatever my buddy brings in his Tzeench army, but we'll see. He's got a lot of angry birds surfing on dinner platters, which move too fast for me to contain properly - I'll have to shoot them a lot first and hope to do well there.

Edited February 3, 2019 by overtninja
additional info

[Gwendar]

@overtninja Hmm, I hadn't really considered splitting. May give it a shot at 1250 or 1500. After debating it overnight I think I'll just continue to go with 20 WWR as I really need something that can do some work in the combat phase. That would have easily been able to deal with his objective "bunker" since the Kurnoths did literally nothing but kill 1-2 Ripperdactyls the entire game.

Good luck on your game, looking forward to hearing how it goes.

[overtninja]

@Gwendar Thanks man! I'll try to take more pictures when I next play. The more I play Wanderers, the more I think I'll just run them pure, with my block of WWR and WR for melee bite. Dryads have proven to basically be a speedbump, and I'd be better off with EG if that's what I need - but I try to play where I don't need any speedbumps. It's a lot harder, and very failure-prone, but it lets me play more aggressively and decisively. I really don't think Wanderers are a defensive army at heart.

I just spent most of the day building Alarielle, in case I want to go pure supervillain at my local gamestore. Frankly, the difference between a battletome army and a GHB army is really stark, now that I've got both Sylvaneth at Wanderers at 2k - With the trees I feel strong and can make decisions confident that my models will perform. Lots of 3+/3+ attack statlines makes a huge difference, as does putting out masses of terrain and having a unique spell lore. Wanderers are so fragile and really have almost no magic presence on the field, and do nothing to alter the battlefield, so you've got much fewer options.

I'll still be playing my Wanderers, but now that I've got a really stompy Sylvaneth army, I can have a lot more fun with my Wanderers as a fluffy army. I'm gonna pack a lot of Wild Riders in there, and just go full out converting my models and stuff so even if they aren't going to be dominating anything, they'll look gorgeous.

In a few weeks I'll get all the round bases I ordered, so I'll rebase my whole Wanderers army then. That's my next project, along with painting.

 

[Erosharcos]

On 1/30/2019 at 10:07 AM, Popisdead said:

 

Can they ally?  I love chariots in my BoC (granted they re-roll charges and ambush).  Swifthawk chariots would be rad to add aesthetically. 

 

 

They sure can! Lion rangers would make an interesting ally. 

My buddy and I were theory-crafting ways to make the Wanderers more fun/competitive. With the way GW has been going with the last couple released in BoC, Idoneth, and Gloomspite Gitz, we focused mainly on ways we could introduce Waystones as a fun, interesting and synergistic way. What we determined was this:

1. Waystones are special scenery like a Herdstone. Like other scenery, it has benefits for units within a certain area of it. 6" seemed fair to us. 

2. The Wanderers player declare three "Waystone Sites" before unit placement where they must get units to in order to place a Waystone, with reasonable placement rules such as 18'' from each other and 3'' from other terrain. 

3. They confer army-wide, cumulative benefits/synergies the more Waystones you place. 

-Cumulative benefits would be based on either a certain "path" you choose for your army (hunt, life, beasts, etc.) or which mortal realm they are from (cuz Wanderers)

-No matter which theme/path/realm you choose, you always get to add 1 to the number of units who can use Realm Wanderers in a turn for each Waystone placed. 

4. Once per game, if you wipe an enemy unit you can place a Waystone site within 6'' of where the last model was slain to get a fourth Waystone for a super duper benefit.

To exemplify, let's say I have my Wanderers from the realm of Ghur, or they're the hunting path. I choose my Waystone sites after we determine who places first. My army's benefits from each Waystone placed on the battlefield are as follows:

0 - add 2 to charge rolls for each Wanderers unit on the battlefield

1- add 2" to movement for each Wanderers unit on the battlefield 

2 - re-roll wound rolls of 1 for any Wanderers unit that charged in the same turn it attacks

3 - Resolve unmodified wound rolls of 6 as mortal wounds during the combat phase for a Wanderers unit that charged in the same turn it attacks

4 - Wanderer units may move an additional time in the same movement phase if they used Realm Wanderers

This would be a list focused on moving around the map and charging things, say with your Wild Riders. You could have a few different Waystone "types" that grant synergistic benefits and boons based on your army comp. This adds, what I believe to be, the much-needed "oomf" that Wanderers need to stack up, and also brings theme to the table top. I figured that since Waystones were used for a variety of different magical purposes in WHFB lore, they could provide various benefits to our Wanderers in AoS with the rationale being that the Waystones channel magic from the realm the Wanderer kin-band is from. 

[Gwill_of_the_Woods]

@Erosharcos- sent it to GW! 😀

[Aezeal]

I'd say waystones are not things that are placed together myself... but on certain points over the realms. 1 would be enough to start with or to get during a game (like slann maybe trading spells for points that you need to get it?)

[Glam The Laughing Warrior]

Hi all, I played a couple of Skirmish games with my Wanderers yesterday.  My warband was:

- Nomad Prince with Ambitious Fighter and Blessed Amulet

- 4 Wildwood Rangers

- 1 High Sister of the Watch

- 3 Sisters of the Watch

- 3 Glade Guard

 

Pic here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Btq9N4An7xh

 

First game was against Kharadron Overlords using The Ritual battleplan (randomly chosen).  Not familiar with KO so not really sure what his guys were but they all had different guns!  I won the roll and chose to be the assassin. Turns out that was a good choice because both of us only had one multi-wound character (our generals) so the ritualist wouldn’t be able to use their general to attack. Also neither of us had wizards/priests making the ritual harder to complete.

His general was set in the corner of the first floor of some ruins surrounded by 3 of his troops.  The other duardin were scattered around the rest of his deployment zone. I had 3 glade guard in the corner by one of the locus of power, 2 sisters near the other, 2 more sisters in another corner with line of sight to the guys around his general, then 2 rangers on one edge and 2 rangers and the Prince on the opposite side. The idea was to have all the archers surrounding them and shooting the normal duardin while my Prince and Rangers head for their general.

KO got first turn and he moved his guys on the ground out towards the locuses of power. His shooting killed 2 rangers and 1 glade guard. On my turn the Prince headed towards his general. The rangers headed towards the closest duardin who was on the way to their general. The glade guard stayed close to their locus. 2 sisters stayed close to their locus but had to move to get better line of sight. The other 2 sisters stayed put. I can’t remember if I actually killed anyone in this turn, if I did it was only 1 or 2 duardin (my wound rolls were awful in this game).

I got the double turn which let me get my Prince into his general. I only got 2 hits and then rolled snakes eyes to wound... the other duardin were being slowly killed by my shooting.

On his turn, the duardin were off trying to take control of the locuses and he only had 2 remaining to protect his general. They struggled to do much damage to the Prince while the Prince manage to knock the general down to about half wounds.

He got the double turn this time but it went similarly to the previous turn. This time the Prince managed to kill the general achieving a major victory for the Wanderers!!

 

Second game was Hold the Centre (randomly chosen) against Khorne.  He had an Aspiring Deathbringer (I think), a Khorgaroth and a bunch of bloodreavers.

Khorne got first turn and ran everything to the centre taking two of the objectives. Having forgotten about arcane bodkins in the last game, I used them against the Khorgaroth but missed with all of them. The Sisters focussed on the Bloodreavers killing a few.  The Prince and 2 rangers headed for the centre while the other 2 rangers took the unclaimed objective. The Prince and 2 rangers charged the Khorgaroth. The other 2 rangers charged the bloodreavers but one failed. The Prince took the Khorgaroth down to 2 wounds, while the rangers failed to do anything. The ranger attacking the bloodreavers got surrounded but somehow survived (poor attack rolls plus one save).

Khorne won the rolloff and attacked my Prince with the Khorgaroth leaving him on 2 wounds. The bloodreavers kill the ranger, while the other 2 rangers failed to do anything again. The Prince killed the Khorgaroth.  On my turn the shooting and combat finished off the bloodreavers leaving him with only his general, who failed his battleshock test and ran away. I had more victory points at this point so it was another major victory to the Wanderers!!

 

It was a lot of fun and nice to be able to play a couple of games. I think my warband had a pretty good balance of shooting and melee. Most of the melee damage was done by the Prince so he was key to both games.  Also the command trait and artefact were both good for the Prince.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Glam The Laughing Warrior

[Aloth_Corfiser]

So with the recent change to Wild Rider Shields - how would you feel about a similar Change where the Eternal Guard gets a small Bonus when played without shields? Currently they receive reroll save rolls of 1 and rerolls of 1&2 if in cover. I am not that creative on the rule design side of things: +2" Movement ? 😛makes no sense to me, reroll hit rolls of 1 when they attack? piling in when in fortress of Boughs? etc....
It would be quite cool regardless  ^^
 

[GM_Monkey]

17 hours ago, Aloth_Corfiser said:

So with the recent change to Wild Rider Shields - how would you feel about a similar Change where the Eternal Guard gets a small Bonus when played without shields? Currently they receive reroll save rolls of 1 and rerolls of 1&2 if in cover. I am not that creative on the rule design side of things: +2" Movement ? 😛makes no sense to me, reroll hit rolls of 1 when they attack? piling in when in fortress of Boughs? etc....
It would be quite cool regardless  ^^
 

It's usually something like "gain an extra attack" if they don't have a shield, if you look at the other things that have similar weapon options.

[overtninja]

Got a 3v3 game in today 2ith 1250 points, with my Wanderers allied with Stormcast and Seraphon against Maggotkin, Disciples of Tzeentch, and Nighthaunt. I brought a WW general with +10" range, a NP with Starcaster Longbow, a SW, 20 GG, 10 SotW, 20 WWR, and 10 WR. The Stormcast player brought mounted Evocators and normal Evocators, and honestly did most of the heavy lifting (The mounted dudes cannot be killed by anything outside of mortal wounds, and they blew apart a GUO solo and tied up like 5 units, including a Black Coach, 2 units of Blightknights, and a bunch of other ghosts), though between me and the Seraphon's shooting and magic we took down quite a lot of things on the Tzeentch side. I was pretty surprised by how well 10 WR did in a unit - they could take a beating and thanks to the SW, they could come back swinging. Also, their threat range is immense, and with their footprint they can tie up a lot of things.  Also, WWR continue to be my best-performing unit - they do incredible work in combat. Still haven't gotten to smear a monster yet with them, but between the WR and the WWR, I finally feel like I've got some decent melee presence in the army.

[Garz25]

Pure wanderer list. Not sure if this has been posted before.

3 waywatchers. One is the general with eagle eye

Nomad prince with the bow

Spellweaver 

2x20 EG

1x30 GG

3x10 SotW

1x20 WWR

2k exactly 

The other list is removing the 3rd squad of SotW to add a 5 man WR squad  to the list but I would have 60 points left over to use and I wouldn't know what to use for the 60 points.

What is your guys opinion on it? I know WR are fast and can get obj.

[Erosharcos]

4 hours ago, Garz25 said:

Pure wanderer list. Not sure if this has been posted before.

3 waywatchers. One is the general with eagle eye

Nomad prince with the bow

Spellweaver 

2x20 EG

1x30 GG

3x10 SotW

1x20 WWR

2k exactly 

The other list is removing the 3rd squad of SotW to add a 5 man WR squad  to the list but I would have 60 points left over to use and I wouldn't know what to use for the 60 points.

What is your guys opinion on it? I know WR are fast and can get obj.

I've never done math-hammer on the WR, but I know I've ran 20 of them and they get completely melted and usually fail to do anything significant. I'd rather have 10 more GG than 5 WR. 

[overtninja]

@Garz25 @Erosharcos  I ran 10 WR, and if they have spellweaver support and you don't send them at anything gross (nothing elite and certainly not alone against monsters or something), they do alright, and restoring whole models rather than wounds works really well with them. They are more for chasing things off lightly guarded objectives than anything else. I wouldn't bring only 5 in a group, I think, unless I was using them entirely to force my opponent to leave a unit on every objective, or chase down a lone caster or something. They are nice to have, but not at the expense of much of anything. I think 10 is a good sweet spot - you get 21 attacks on 3+/3+ on the charge, and 20 on 4+/4+, but sadly without rend you'll not do anything serious to anything harder than a 5+ save. They are great at tagging wizards, lone infantry characters, and their mobility gets them anywhere you need them, really.

If you are going with 3 units of SotW, I wouldn't drop them for anything else. Just keep in mind that you are going all-in with shooting if you do that, and you'll really get hurt if your opponent gets too many double turns on you, since shooting only happens on your own turn. It can certainly work, but it requires good fortune and isn't really tolerant of any mistakes, bad shooting phases, or any failure.

 

 

[overtninja]

I was spitballing lists, and I realized that you can take a battalion force of 1 of each hero, 10 SotW, 20 GG, 5 WR, 5 SotT, and two groups of 20 WWR for exactly 2k points.

I kind of want to try such a list out - I've got lots of old Wardancers I could proxy as WWR, and I have a feeling that such a list would put the fear of... fear into anyone I fight. Showing up on table edges, alpha striking, and then charging in with what amounts to 82 attacks, rerolling hits, with potential Shield of Thorns, and the command ability from the Wayfarer that lets them pile in and attack again on a Battleshock of 1 - any monsters would just melt, and most other things would whither under that kind of assault.

It's not a kind list on the wallet, but it seems almost intentionally point-priced.

[martinwolf]

Hey fellow Wanderers, not sure if it‘s okay to post here about painting stuff? I was wondering what your go-to green color for capes/hoods is? I‘m currently mostly using Caliban Green -> Athonian Camoshade -> Highlight with Warpstone Glow and a really small edge highlight with Moot Green.