Sylvaneth Confusion: Faction Trait (Realmroots), Warsong Revenant, Alarielle, Dryads

[Ormly]

Hi everyone! I'm playing "for real" (following competitive rules) for the first time this week, so I need to nail down things we've been playing loose with about mah treez. Some of these are touched on in other posts, but not definitely.

Some of these questions boil down to "Is the official AoS app authoritative when it contradicts official FAQs/books". If it does, that simplifies things, as much as I think it's totally unreasonable to have an app that can change the rules on a daily basis with no announcement.

For convenience, here's the latest FAQ for Sylvaneth: https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/KKoVfkGu4xwCkCXT.pdf

1. The Battle Trait "Navigate the Realmroots" has never been struck down or removed in a FAQ I could find, but it's not listed in the app under Reference -> Order -> Battletome Sylvaneth -> Battle Traits. So is it gone? If so, how was I supposed to know? Reread my battle traits before each match in the app?

2. Warsong Revenant has "This unit knows all the spells in Lore of the Deepwood." Again, this is missing from the app, even though there's no mention of it in the FAQs that list changes to Sylvaneth units. So what's the deal?

3. This question is more general. When a wizard knows all an entire lore, do you still choose a spell for it? Example: Alarielle knows all spells from Lore of the Deepwood. So should I still get to pick a universal spell (e.g. Flaming Weapon) for her? The app doesn't allow it, but it prompts you to choose ONE spell for her from the spells she already knows without choosing it, so that's confusing. Either I can pick a universal spell or I can't pick any (because she already knows all the spells that could be chosen for her).

4. This one genuinely irritates me, because it makes so little sense. When you summon dryads using Branchwraith, they must be placed wholly within 1" of an Awakened Wyldwood. They have a base size of 32mm (bigger than 1"). So how exactly is that supposed to be accomplished? If there are 3 pieces in the wood arranged to maximum area, they fit inside the empty area, but in any other case they do not. I'd like to place the rules designer responsible for this wholly within a region 79% of their body volume.

Thanks!

[Arzalyn]

10 minutes ago, Ormly said:

Hi everyone! I'm playing "for real" (following competitive rules) for the first time this week, so I need to nail down things we've been playing loose with about mah treez. Some of these are touched on in other posts, but not definitely.

Some of these questions boil down to "Is the official AoS app authoritative when it contradicts official FAQs/books". If it does, that simplifies things, as much as I think it's totally unreasonable to have an app that can change the rules on a daily basis with no announcement.

For convenience, here's the latest FAQ for Sylvaneth: https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/KKoVfkGu4xwCkCXT.pdf

1. The Battle Trait "Navigate the Realmroots" has never been struck down or removed in a FAQ I could find, but it's not listed in the app under Reference -> Order -> Battletome Sylvaneth -> Battle Traits. So is it gone? If so, how was I supposed to know? Reread my battle traits before each match in the app?

2. Warsong Revenant has "This unit knows all the spells in Lore of the Deepwood." Again, this is missing from the app, even though there's no mention of it in the FAQs that list changes to Sylvaneth units. So what's the deal?

3. This question is more general. When a wizard knows all an entire lore, do you still choose a spell for it? Example: Alarielle knows all spells from Lore of the Deepwood. So should I still get to pick a universal spell (e.g. Flaming Weapon) for her? The app doesn't allow it, but it prompts you to choose ONE spell for her from the spells she already knows without choosing it, so that's confusing. Either I can pick a universal spell or I can't pick any (because she already knows all the spells that could be chosen for her).

4. This one genuinely irritates me, because it makes so little sense. When you summon dryads using Branchwraith, they must be placed wholly within 1" of an Awakened Wyldwood. They have a base size of 32mm (bigger than 1"). So how exactly is that supposed to be accomplished? If there are 3 pieces in the wood arranged to maximum area, they fit inside the empty area, but in any other case they do not. I'd like to place the rules designer responsible for this wholly within a region 79% of their body volume.

Thanks!

The App is more of a facilitator rather than a authority when it come to rules. It helps putting rules scattered on different places in one place, but it misses some of them at times. The official rules are what you find in the books + the faqs for those books. It really sucks that we have rules spread across 2 books + faqs and the app doesn't help getting them correctly.

1 - This trait was removed when the first 3.0 faq dropped and the ability was added to the woods warscroll. The app was released around the time this first faq dropped. Some weeks after this they released another faq with corrections and undone this change (they simple deleted the faq entry saying to remove it, so it is still part of our allegiance again rather than part of woods warscroll). In the app they update the woods with the new scroll from the second faq, but never correct the battle trait. Long story short, follow the Sylvaneth battletome, s the latest faq don't change this trait anymore.

2 - Again this seen to be another mistake in the app. The valid warscroll for the warsong is in the broken realms kragnos book. It never was changed in a faq, so it knows all the spell lore.

3 - Named Characters (Unique unit) can't choose a enchantment from the generic ones (check the core rules faq, page 6 under the enchantments section). The app probably is programed t make you pick a spell for your wizards, but it means nothing for Alarielle has her warscroll says she know all spells form the deepwood lore.

4 - Yeah this one sucks, you generally have to wrap the dryads around the trees while respecting the unit coherency. The distance when it come to our woods i one of the worst parts of our actual tome, really hope it gets better when we finally get a new one this edition.

[Ormly]

Awesome answers, thanks! And so quick! The only thing that doesn't work is the dryads. With a base size of 1.25", they can never be wholly within 1" of the woods. I'm willing to argue this is nonsensical and that I should be able to place them "within 1". I guess it will be up to my opponent to decide if I should have to do something physically impossible.

Thanks for clarity on the app, I get it now. It's a convenience, not an authority.

[Arzalyn]

10 minutes ago, Ormly said:

Awesome answers, thanks! And so quick! The only thing that doesn't work is the dryads. With a base size of 1.25", they can never be wholly within 1" of the woods. I'm willing to argue this is nonsensical and that I should be able to place them "within 1". I guess it will be up to my opponent to decide if I should have to do something physically impossible.

Thanks for clarity on the app, I get it now. It's a convenience, not an authority.

Yeah, its good to talk about this with your opponents for casual games and the organizers for tournaments. Generally you can place some over the tree base, but you can't fit 10 this way if when the woods has just 1 tree. So far no one I played has had a problem with this, as long has they are placed as close to the trees as possible.

[yukishiro1]

The AOS terrain rules are such a mess that you can actually technically put some of them up on top of the branches of the trees if you want, and you can certainly place them on the narrow bits on either side of each tree. It's possible to fit in 10 wholly within even one tree base, as long as it's one of the larger ones, if you get creative enough. 

Needless to say, the way woods work is an absolute travesty and totally stupid in multiple ways, not just this one. It is a classic example of a mechanic that was clearly designed by someone who never actually really tested what they had come up with on an actual table in actual game conditions, or it would have become immediately apparently what a mess they had created. 

Edited January 26, 2022 by yukishiro1