Nos

There is no objective best of course but I love Tree Revenants, 240 points for all your battle line at 2000 points which means you can take basically 1800 points of elites, they're, amazing at screening, sniping, taking objectives and generally being able to drop pretty much anywhere without your enemy being able to do anything about it

No strong feelings on it but I wonder if some of the more recent potential AOS rumour engines relate to a new Warhammer quest

Apologies for the slow response folks, been able to see my nephews for the first time since Covid restrictions so far more exciting things have been taking place. Thanks man. Your project log is one of the finest bits of "hobby" in respect to concept and execution that I've ever encountered, and I have been devouring articles on army collecting since I was about 10, so 24 years or so now. Transcendent stuff, honestly. It made me realise in particular that the "limitations" of AOS' fairly tepid narrative are actually strengths in respect to freeform projects, in that you're not constrained by the need for narrative logic or accuracy. You can just go with a mood or feel. Thanks man! Finally get to show you some of the stuff I guess, how are your own Kurnothi coming along? Hey thanks man! And congratulations on your family news, that's wonderful. I remember reading on your very inspirational and impressive project log last year or so that you were finding lack of motivation and self criticism very difficult to overcome. Glad you're in a better place. I think it's one of the unspoken aspects of mini painting, the psychological challenge of it. Amazing how these little guys can become a concentration of our angst and insecurities! Personally I've come to the conclusion that they are an outlet for my creativity. If i feel inspired and enthusiastic, I love having them for that. If I dont, I do something else, maybe even for months at a time. I find the whole "pile of shame" or notion of having to make a commitment that often does the rounds really corrosive actually. I refuse to pick up a brush now unless it's something I'm excited about. Thanks pal. Speaking of, gonna take a crack at the doggies next I think:

In my experience placing trees near or around objectives can be a bit of a trap, as given the limitations of doing stuff within a certain distance of the enemy it can limit you having it near a place which is already guaranteed to have a lot of enemy traffic. From the perspective of summoning or teleporting, Sylvaneth are fast enough and have movement buffs and trickery that mean a wood which looks to be out the way can be more than close enough as a troop delivery system. Not infrequently in that scenario an opponent will try to stymie that by taking units closer to the wood to prevent that but that means less enemies around an objective etc. Divide and conquer is the way I get that woods are useful in and around combat for the buffs they give but those are very much secondary to the movement and summoning control they provide in my experience.

I personally have never needed to cast throne of vines with a Branchwraith and her 3d6, I'm just saying it's an option. Throne of Vines on Alarielle is great against armies who want to charge you because it can make Metamorphosis really dangerous, especially versus mid level heroes or small units of elites. And vs Coalesced it's just one wound per dice so itsnt affected by scaly skin. Re Woods, if summoning is a part of your plan its worth putting a wood on your side of the board which is out of enemy reach for a few turns solely to turn it into a factory/defensive position. That's what I usually do with TLA's free wood after placing my initial one somewhere more aggressive.

To clarify, I wasnt saying go all magic , but in context to your post I was saying I personally would focus on the mobility and magic of Sylvaneth and not just spam Kurnoth Hunters in Winterleaf. Against Coalesced I probably would go something like Gnarlroot Grove Alarielle Drycha TLA Branchwych with Gnarlroot artefact Arch Rev 10 Tree Revs 2 x 5 Tree Revs 6 KH sycthes Vengeful skullroot or Gladewyrm to round off points, but excellent value to just block off a path, and cant hurt you either At least two guaranteed woods, 4 unbinds a turn, basically 3d6 to summon 10 dryads (or to get throne of Vines first turn then make it 3d6 +2, then +4 etc) multiple spell and attack options which do no more than 1 wound making them extra valuable vs scaly skin, multiple D6 damage chances which likewise are very important vs scaly skin, economical and reliable shooting with which is basically free, 20 extra dryads or ten Revs or 3 KH or a TL as situation demands for free, 2 super powerful and mobile assasins in Drycha and KH rerolling 1s in attack without even being buffed (Drycha guaranteed, KH more or less if you're sensible with positioning) , strong support in TLA, 3 cheap units which can move pretty much anywhere at any point, not at all command point reliant but you have great command options if you have them spare. Super mobile army that almost guarantees summoning a unit per turn with 3 other spells on top, very hard hitting strike units which can reliably attack and finish things like Slaan easily within a turn, strong unbind potential, strong, free healing for the pieces that need it most. No gimmicks, not reliant on two or three or four things having to happen to chain big combos, just really strong weapons and options available at multiple points of the turn and considered defence/nerf vs Coalesced strengths. Note the army isnt 'about' magic per se. My four casters have roles besides casting and can all perform a function well even if they dont get a spell off each. With the exception of the Branchwych, but they're 80 points so hardly breaking the bank, and casting on 2d6 out of 3, they absolutely will get spells off anyway.

Used this stuff for years, never had an issue with it spraying at appropriate length and angle, never experienced patchy, dusty or coarse application or obscured details, use grey, black and white for zenithal priming, all work great. https://www.amazon.co.uk/HYCOTE-XUK03015-Hycote-Primer-400ml/dp/B003MLIFN8

For about a decade now I've been trying to create an elf project which reflects my personal vision of what elves should be-unknowable, sinister, somewhat malevolent, as much inspired by folklore and Teutonic paganism as anything by Games Workshop. This darkness needed to be offset by a degree of grace and dignity though. In my minds eye these beings were dreadful, not evil. Their motivations beyond the ken of outsiders, but not despicable or excessive. For the majority of that period the project was based around Various iterations of the dark elf aesthetic but I wasnt in the place personally to pursue it. It was a vision out of reach, the principal obstacle being that I didnt feel as though I had the skill to realise my vision. Inspiration would give way for frankly ruthless self doubt. The army sat in my spare room but would cause me intense irritation for not being quite what I wanted it to be, and gradually found itself sold off in chunks to fund my AOS habit. Eventually forgotten. Then the Arch Revenant and Kurnothi were released in quick succession and I was immediately won over by the aesthetic, the revenant as Valkyrie and the Centaur of the Kurnothi. Their release also made me properly consider Tree Revenants who I never really looked at before only to realise that they are absolutely outstanding models in their aesthetic. This triumvirate of models fired my creative cylinders and provided the aesthetic to work to, and without me really thinking it through money had been spent feverishly and a more feral iteration of my sinister elves was back on the table. After months of mobilising the core units I have finally finished painting my first unit below and am delighted with how my paint concept sells the idea: Removing the horns on the Unit champion in particular made him much more of a fearful looking individual and he is sort of the epitome of the project: Currently the army is comprised of: Drycha (Converted into a tree demon) Durthu (Conveted into a sort of fen beast monster) Arch Revenant Branch Wych (Converted into something more sinister) 15 further Tree Revenants 3 Kurnothi wolves conversions (KH proxy) 3 Centaur conversions (KH proxy) All of these are assembled and I will post as I make sufficient progress on them. The reason for posting all this is solely out of respect for the hundreds of articles, blogs and army projects which have inspired me to maintain or pursue the hobby over the years. Especially when I have not had the self belief to actually do any hobbying myself. Honestly I'm not really satiated much by feedback or praise in the hobby. After spending much of my life living in crippling anxiety I have thankfully with support come out the other side to know that the greatest value in any hobby is that the person practises it values and enjoys it for themselves. In that sense the greatest reward for me in all this occurs at the painting table while I contentedly work away and watch an idea morph into reality. It's nice if people like my stuff but I dont do it for anyone but myself and in that sense posting on here feels somewhat redundant. But army projects are my absolute favourite aspect of the hobby and I have benefitted immeasurably from the time and hard work of others in chronicling their work. While I dont have anything like the time or skill I would like to properly do this justice and make the blog itself an event as say is showcased in the exemplary work of @KnaveOfScribes if someone is inspired, engaged or otherwise enthused by even one aspect of what is here then engaging here is time well spent. I hope you enjoy my contribution to the wonderful canon of army building projects that bless the hobby.

I dont base my perspective on faction balance on how experts play them, as most people arent experts, most people that most people play wont be experts. In my experience this focus just makes players worse if anything because they focus on playing a list and not playing the game. Experts are experts because they know the game itself regardless of army, and they are skilled in the fundamentals-deployment, movement, screening, model placement, anticipating turns, range, when to use reserves, all the things that you have complete control over and which have no dice involved what so ever. Most AOS players who are not experts in the basics do not place anything like as much focus on this as they do on the ideal scenario in which their favoured gimmick or ideal scenario for their list pops off. Experts are experts because their mastery of the basics can more or less guarantee they can maneouver that scenario into being, as far as is possible. In that scenario, even pro Sylvaneth players are not going to find a way out of that puzzle. Most AOS players do not have the same means to ensure this happens though , meaning if you're good at the basics you can work around their death synergy. And Sylvaneth just so happen to force you to master the basics if you want to use them at all effectively meaning in most cases if you use them well against a net list commandeered by an average player, your chances are good. I base my perspective on my own experience. My own experience with SC was that they were strong for the first few months of 2nd but lost their power relative to new releases and buffs of other factions. I dont play them currently because *I* cant work out how to have fun with them. I don't see that as an issue with the faction per se ,I've just accepted that for the time being I'm less interested in trying to work that out than I am in trying something else, which is why I started Sylvaneth. My experience with Sylvaneth is that they are blessed with very strong advantages core to the mechanics of the game and this has stayed true even with the subsequent release and buffs of existing and new factions. I play them because they are fun, involved, and in my experience, really powerful. They suit my understanding of the game which, as above, is master the basics. My experience with talking online with other players us that they either find them as strong as I do for the same reason, and those are people who use all of the army together, or that they find them weak or underpowered, abd talk in terms of an army they're not. Eg you say KH are the "strongest weapons"- no they're not. They're a powerful offensive unit but they dont work without synergy. In a sentence, my review of Sylvaneth's strengths is that almost all of their units are the strongest weapons because they all perform their specific intended function well and economically, meaning you can have multiple strong options in one list which allow for both aggressive and reactive play. All of the units are also fragile without support. None of them work independently. 190 points of Kurnoths will likely be negated or frustrated by 190 points of something else if they dont charge them, but theres no excuse for letting that happen. 80 points of Tree Revs wont even kill 80 points on the charge. But they're not for killing 80+ points. They're for claiming objectives, sniping 1-2 remaing wound characters, screening your force or droping in the path of a super powerful unit with a previously clear charge path. I'm not here to throw shade but my feeling from what I read online about Sylvaneth is that they are played by people whose focus on math hammer and deleting units etc blinds them to the basics of the game, and who are losing not because Sylvaneth are weak but because their basic grasp of mechanics are meaning they are forming an imbalanced gotcha list heavily dependent on specif circumstances, or letting their opponent corner them into an equal fight, which is not what Sylvaneth are about. Hit hard where the enemy are weak, otherwise tarpit/melt away. Dont ever line up equal points. I dont say this because I think I think Im a good player, I say it because I *dont* think I'm a good player but still do very well with Sylvaneth. Against Coalesced for example I would focus on all the magic and maneuverability I could, I wouldn't be looking to spam KH because without the auxiliary units to make them really powerful it's just lining up melee fights which arent going to pay off. Coalesced literally hard counter KH with their wound negation so points wise they're already compartivley less economical. Drycha on the other hand becomes invaluable, as do all those Spite or Rev units that Colaseced melee monster units will overkill 4 or 5 times for nothing but a 60 or 80 point return. Alarielle becomes more of a consideration than in most lists because of high movement and situational summoning, and the Beetles charge is comparatively more reliable damage vs coalesced than KH due to multiple D6s.

Quoted all above for truth. All I can say in response to other posts that quoted mine is that as above I find the toolkit for Sylvaneth to be fairly obvious and use it as such. Ambush and overwhelm the key enemy pieces with powerful units such as KH and Durthu, which is much easier for Sylvaneth than most due to high mobility, immobilise or sacrifice chaff to enemy elites which Dryads Spites and Revs are outstanding at (Dryads are free! You can literally make a 500 point unit focus all its killing power on zero points!), have a reserve to swing late game which again, Revs are aguably best in the game for (Waypipes mean they can set up *anywhere* 9 inches away from an enemy, not table edge remember, late game that's huge), but woods and Dryads also very valuable. All of these are principles for pretty much any war game concept really and are an extension of Sun Tzu's Art of War. Only fight where you know you'll win, avoid where you know you wont. In matched play wargames, the extension of this is to make sure expensive units justify or recoup their cost through killing points or taking objectives, and make cheap units more economical by wasting the time and investment of the enemy's expensive units and deny them the fights they want. The issue with these is having the mobility and adaptability to create such favourable match ups but Sylvaneth are exceptional at that. Likewise in respect to the potential of being double turned, Sylvaneth have excellent capacity to Castle up in defence but also to quickly turn into attack if you get the chance to double turn yourself. Honestly I dont consider myself some sort of tactical genius and I've certainly lost with Sylvaneth, especially at the release of the new rulebook when I started with them and had to work out how differebtvthey were from Stormcast. But once it clicked, I'be never lost by much, and wins far outweigh losses including against the flavour of the month netlists (before lockdown admittedly). Sylvaneth epitomise the "cant hurt what you cant touch" maxim. If as a Sylvaneth player you're in a position where big chunks of your army are getting tabled in one go, you're either assessing the wrong fights offensively or setting up badly defensively. Theres no reason with the amount of maneuverability that Sylvaneth have to let a substantial investment be getting munched in one turn or even double turn. If you're looking for a kill all comers net list that some factions have, with a central gimmick designed to deny the opponent from the get go, Sylvaneth dont have it, you wont find it. They are the antithesis of a point and click approach. That dosen't make them weak though. At the very top level, where the best players are playing each other, it stands to reason that players whose decision making and understanding of the game is excellent,that in control of an imbalanced faction, they will beat a similarly gifted player using a merely balanced army such as Sylvaneth. Because not only will they have an army designed to win from the outset, they will have the strategic capability to respond to things they wernt anticipating as well. But that's not 99% of people on here, and most of the issues on this forum or similar on the internet demonstrate that the issue isnt Sylvaneth, it's people trying to play them as something they arebt and ignoring the strengths of what they are.

It's a very obvious after thought without question but its undeniable that regardless of motivation that the lore and models work together to accomplish that vision, however much of a commercial bolt on it is. If you want a drab undead feudal faction, I agree that would be awesome, love to see it. But totally disagree that FEC should have what you describe. They are proxies because that's literally what they are. They think they are something which they are objectively not, or remotely similar to. That's literally the only unique thing about the faction.

Their lore fits perfect with their models. *They* see themselves as a pure, chaste society of chivalry and gallantry but they have *nothing to do with any of that* in reality. Its complete delusion. They're not just watered down grungy or messy facsimiles of a court. They are a total ape like blasphemy of the very idea of it.

They were/are an intimidating prospect hobby wise as well. Most people who liked Brettonia liked the fact that the knight units were units of individuals and heroes, with their own pageantry, heraldry etc. Most people did not want to come up with 40 different paint schemes for their core units. Also- lots of flat surfaces on caparisons and shields etc. Perfect for free hand if you had the skill, but even just painting flat surfaces well and clean takes good technique. Again, very counterproductive if you're trying to build an army to play with.

The Tenabrael Shaed has remarkably similar hook hair

Yes, exactly. They continue to make the best models. They dont fall out of the sky. They make that product, which is what people want, and pay increasing sums year on year for.

GW knows what makes money better than you. That's not a matter of opinion. It's a proven, demonstrable fact that GW are excellent at making money and increasing profits. They are making more money out of Indomitus than originally forecast as well. This is another fact. If they are needing to make things to meet demand, this is a good thing, and this is another fact. They arent going to be pricing things at a loss to save face. GW are going to make lots of money off Indomitus. Also quite why you think people buying a boxed game in record numbers *wont* equate to more people graduating to buy all the supplementary products you list is curious. Bottom line- GW are selling tons of stuff, mote than they expected, and more people will buy more stuff on top of that, meaning this has been a very successful product launch in the areas that count most to a buisness- profit.

I agree up to a point. I used to love making my Old World armies something with weight and associated context. As a teenager with hours of free time for it a day it was very satisfying not just to build my own narrative but also to pore over army books, WD's, novels etc for inspiration. Now as an adult with associated responsibilities and shortage of time I use making models, units, warbands etc as an outlet for my broader interests and cultural inspiration and AOS is far more suited for it. An Old World project by me now would feel sort of weightless and intangible because I dont have the time to research the world and create the heft to my projects that its rich narrative befits. Most AOS lore on the other hand, by either GW or hobbyists, is just superlatives attached to vague amorphous goings on with tepid metaphysical smudgings in place of geopolitical parameters. The bigger it gets the worse it gets too. It suffers from 40k in that respect, in which Space Marines regularly exterminate planets of a billion people or whatever. What should be massive, dramatic events become punctuation and theres no scale to grip you as it's just inconceivable and distant. In the myths on which AOS are based this is fine because said occurrences are not the point, they are basically the staging point for a meditation on either some aspect of the human condition, or the nature of the divine etc. But in AOS they *are* the story. Impossible to really connect with as meaningful. Almost entirely without character in the traditional literary sense. But if you embrace that absence of purpose it can be very liberating from a hobby perspective. You can make what you like without being shackled by any need to justify what it is or how it fits. My current project is Kurnothi Aelves. There is no story to it. None of them have names. They arent based in any realm or event or adjacent to or inspired by any plot development or indeed lore at all. I am basically converting and painting an army that has a sort of pagan wood elf aesthetic from an imagined 80's metal gatefold LP cover. It's all feel. Its actually an army I've had in mind for well over a decade but in Warhammer I could never get round the need to make it narrativley appropriate and I could never do that to my satisfaction meaning despite collecting certain models for it I never actually started the process of painting. Now I'm painting a passion project made up solely of minis picked and converted solely because they look cool together. For me AOS is far more rewarding to my hobbyist bone for that reason even if my writing instincts are left utterly cold by it. I also like the more "heroic" scale on respect to my own, measured and slow painting habits. Nothing looks better than a huge varied regiment in all its regalia and character but I've always hated assembly batch painting. You can still create something nearly as impressive with a unit of 5 dynamically posed, well based and positioned elites though.

All companies with monopolies tend to make more errors than other companies. They have a monopoly, so it dosent matter they're not a small business, so they can afford it. Within business mistakes are an issue if they affect your capacity to turn a profit or maintain your power, but not only has this not occured with GW, they're getting bigger and richer year on year. Mistakes are a matter of life, it is impossible to do everything perfectly, but the ones GW makes are so vanishing compared to the returns of what they get through what they do know and what does appeal to consumers, it dosent matter comparatively. And again I haven't once cheered them on. Just pointed out the naivety of believing a company whose first aim is to make money globally and turn a profit year on year is suddenly going to consider ethical sales practices or not exploiting people who for whatever reason are happy to perpetually pay more money for the same thing.

Two things 1) I agree that the fanbase is loyal to a fault, but theres a reason for it, that loyalty comes from somewhere, it's not patronage that they just happen to bestow on GW instead of something else. They're loyal because GW has worked out how to get it to them. In many instances other fanbases would have given up in the same circumstances receiving the same product in the same overpriced logistically weird manner, I agree, but this one haven't. It's not GW's fault the fanbase dont seem to have much in the way if discernment or restraint, and force company whose sole aim is to make money, they'd be idiots not to capitalise on it. GW do what needs to be done given their audience. 2) GW intend to make money. They make loads of it. That's the end of the argument really in that respect. Dosent matter how they do it, they do it and theres not another miniature company on earth has ever come with in one hundred miles of them, let alone come close. They're not short of competition but they routinely annihilate it by investing in the things that make them money. That takes brains. They also do it completely in the face of what seems to make sense to most people in the hobby. In many senses they *ignore* what the customer asks for, and convinces them they want whatever else they're making, and then sell that at profit year on year. Sorry but theres few companies in any field have mastered that to such a consistent degree. It's absolutely a rare genius in that sense.

1) GW are a sight more good at buisness than you and me. They are frankly geniuses in that department. You do not know better than them what the best strategy is. On this occasion, for all intents and purposes GW have managed to not only make sure they sell a copy to everyone who wants one with Made to Order , they have increased the number of people who do by virtue of selling out and making it even more desirable, and also sold masses to scalpers. To clarify: they have sold out entirely of the game they have produced in by far the greatest quantities ever, are taking bespoke orders for more (thereby ensuring they dont produce more than they need to and lose out there) but you think it's bad buisness? Mhm. 2) See above. 3) I haven't cheered for anyone. I haven't applied any morality to the discussion. I haven't said its good that GW are doing what they are doing or that I agree with it. By and large I despise capitalism and shareholders and scalpers in particular. I would trade the existence of GW for a fairer society in a heartbeat. But in the current context: Hobbyists arent missing out. Everything that has been a limited run availble initially for general releases has been made available at a later stage, including Indomitus. But whenever the issue of GW and the morality of pricing, limited runs etc come up, I simply point out they explicitly, as their own stated first intention, intend to make money all over the world. That is why they exist. That is why they make what they do and how they decide how to price, market and sell it. And as a result of understanding the terms of engagement GW set I am never disappointed, because they *always* follow that. You said it's a joke that GW are selling what they are as limited edition. No it's not. It's e timely rational, logical and predicable, completely in keeping with what is making them crazy money, crazy money which is allowing them to produce the AOS products you want and like hand over fist , among other things. If GW pursued buisness the way you say you want them to in your post, focussing more on ethics and less on the ruthless profiteering they pursue openly and without apology, AOS would look very different, and be far more sparse in its content.

Almost as if they are fulfilling their stated buisness aims to sell miniatures globally at a profit. Nothing in there about making sure everyone who wants whatever they want from GW gets it though.

As per most GW products the rules are a mess, its neither simple and flowing and elegant like the best Skirmish games or rich and deep like most of it's obvious counterparts such as MTG et al, but it's far more accessible than anything else they've made besides LOTR back in the day The Lore itself veers from pretty good to really dumb and is mainly passable. What Warhammer has lost in the rich cultural and political flavouring of the Old World it has gained in offering an amazing playground for hobby creativity. You can make up any background for any project without being in fear of it not fitting the wider context of the Mortal Realms. Aesthetically speaking the armies are exciting, creative, and many of them are served by extraordinary models. It's very exciting to see GW evolve the obvious (and wonderful) Tolkien inspiration of old Warhammer into something recognisable but also innovative and interesting. It's essentially a meld of Old World and 30 and 40K but that's no criticism. Re collecting, theres a really viable option within army building of taking loads of troops, or a few monsters and not much else, or anything in between. With Warcry off-shoots and Start Collecting its cheap and easy to get a foot hold but as per GW the extraneous nonsense quickly makes it quite an investment if you want to play with an army. Like still minimum £200 outlay for a 1500 point army for pretty much anyone. But again, that's all GW not AOS specifically. But it's an evolution from Warhammmer and is being steered with an increasingly assured hand and going somewhere really interesting. Warhammer has lost nothing from the Old World dying honestly- in many ways the Total Warhammer license is as powerful a means of engaging with the Old World as any previous edition was, and far cheaper and less time intensive too- and and I'm glad AOS exists. Just dont expect it to be a big revelation game wise. At best it's a pleasant and engaging way to spend an evening. At worst, utterly opaque, antiquated and open to hilarious exploitation for those so inclined. But again- that's just GWs way.

I think the new realmscapes are going to help somewhat. Ghur looks awful but theres otherwise 2 (Shyish and Ghyran) which are straight up great for Sylvaneth when playing to their strengths (3 with Ulgu if you're not shoot heavy) and the remaining ones are just as much an issue for other armies but they dont get to change the battlefield in play like Sylvaneth do.

Sigmar

I never said you could summon woods directly on or near objectives late game; frankly it would be boring if you reliably could. The point is you still have the capacity to change the battlefield late game and you *can* play around that fact, even think a few moves ahead around utilising it- say by summoning a spite swarm in anticipation - you can really make a lot of capital out of it. Also for certain scenarios like relocation orb its amazing. If you let the enemy dictate where you put your woods, on your assumption theres only a few good places to put them, you're way behind. Re spellcasting- I tend to go Gnarlroot, it's not often most factions can dispel me and frequently get dispelled themselves, and there are multiple benefits for most phases of the game that come with that allegiance, which is great for an army which is decent in multiple phases. Winter leaf are very much a combat orientated grove whose main benefit is getting more attacks, this in a meta currently dominated by armies able to save or otherwise eat wounds and mortal wounds. Those few extra attacks on a 6 are paltry compared to rolling a 7 on 3d6, or re-rollings 1's for all attacks near heroes. Winter leaf is very much an eggs in one basket approach for an army far too fragile for it.