acr0ssth3p0nd

Ooof. Yeah, this may really hurt Sylvaneth.

I build my own, using 3D-printed bases I picked up off eBay. I do love me a good terrain build, and the Wyldwoods are a perfect excuse to churn them out.

The AoS 3.0 team is following a faction design philosophy that I've been more and more of a fan of - the "One Rad Rule" philosophy. The model stats are fairly bland and follow a standard approach, but that simiplification of the stats means that each faction has design room for 1-3 really, really rad abilities that are powerful, usable, and not too complex. If we're lucky, the "overgrown terrain" mechanic is one that Sylvaneth fans have wanted for years - the ability to turn other terrain into Wyldwood-lites. It's just another indication that the rules design team has the finger on the beat of how the game plays, its weaknesses, and what each appeals to faction's fanbase as the "core" of that faction's gameplay vibe. I'm more optimistic for a Warhammer product than I've been in years. And I'm similarly excited to see where Skaven go. The new Bell's summoning mechanic is more reliable than it has been in the past, but still feels as "madcap Skaven" as ever.

Check the Age of Sigmar and Sylvaneth subreddits.

A lot more reliable, that's for certain. And this Overgrown Terrain feature is making me very excited!

A lot more reliable, that's for certain. And this Overgrown Terrain feature is making me very excited! EDIT: Double post

Heck yes. I love my gimmick armies, and this would be so rad.

As a Necrons and Sylvaneth player: please don't give me hope! I'm not ready for pain again.

Oof. 4+ to hit is still a thing, Huntsmaster got hit on their attacks boost now only being melee, and Envoys got a nerf, too. At least the now damage is a flat 2 and the 3+ save is now baked in. Fingers crossed that our Allegiance Abilities have been boosted, at least.

Yeah, for it to make a difference, it may have to be for units of 6+ or 10+ Battleline, not just for all Battleline units.

It's been interesting seeing different reactions to the Sylvaneth, especially the "man this wasn't really a surprise tho" vibe from some folks. If anything, I think the new Sylvaneth units show that the miniatures design team really have their finger on the pulse of the aesthetics of the factions and the areas where each faction range needs filling out. That these things usually aren't a big surprise anymore is simply an indication of how much time we spend on these boards speculating - eventually, one of us is going to come up with an idea that is so thematically cohesive and so useful for filling in the blanks where needed that it just feels obvious. Those ideas stick around and keep coming up in discussions because they fill in those weaker areas that people will be talking about more often and because the aesthetic idea is strong and cohesive. And then when that model actually comes out, it continues to feel obvious because we've already talked the topic to death before ever seeing the model! And that's not necessarily a bad thing. As a creator, I figure that the internet is a huge hive mind that can come together to use their sheers numbers to accurately speculate future fandom things, whether that's Warhammer models or TV storylines, and if the speculation is decent enough, then "guessing things right" is a reward for their dedication to the core themes of the fandom, not a knock on the creator's ability to create cool stuff. Heck, it's an indication that you've found an audience that likes the same things you like to create, for the same reasons you like to create them!

Totally. I freakin' love that tome cover, and the 3.0 books have knocked it out of the park so far. 😠 I want my weird wild aelves dammit

I'm excited for this. One of the frustrating things with the current state of the game is how Battleline unit are discouraged due to the presence of scoring options for killing Battleline units. Narratively, "Battleline" represents the sort of "standard" unit that your army can afford to field a lot of, and thus the sort of unit where casualties hurt the war effort less than, say, losing a rare specialist unit, so the idea that they'd be the sort of thing you'd want to encourage generals to kill feels a bit "off." Additionally, I enjoy the vibe of large the core of a standard army being built out of blocks of troops, rather than the current state where troops tend to be vestigial hangers-on around big hitter monsters (which, to be fair, is thematic for what GW is going for right now with the Monster focus, and I'm glad that that effort is working, it's just not my personal preference). Monster-heavy armies have their place, for sure - BCR and SOB spring to mind, and I don't think anyone will argue that an Ent-themed Sylvaneth army of Treelords, Ancients, and Durthus isn't rad af - but I prefer when they feel like exceptions to the standard. On a tangent, one thing I'm enjoying about the recent "rotating seasons" approach is that it's allowed GW to find a nice compromise on the balance side of things. I don't think anyone will deny that balance is a good thing to have in a PVP game, but also that a bigger, more complex game like AoS will usually have certain builds and factions that have unintended power spikes, and there's only so much that the balance team can do based on resources and manpower. So what GW seems to be leaning into is intentional power imbalance, so that when the meta emphasises certain builds and unit types, it feels thematic and coherent. Obviously, it's not a perfect strategy, but we are currently in a monster-focused season and the meta heavily emphasises large, single- or low-model-count units that can hit like a truck, so there's something to be said about that. Perhaps the next season will rework scoring to not penalise the presence of battleline, reduce restrictions on and add buffs to battleline units above a certain size, and change up Matched Play battalions to reduce the number of monsters you can fit in them while rewarding larger battleline units. Just some ideas, but all of these things could help shift the meta to focus on large battleline units as the core of the army

My Wild Riders ride again!

NAILED IT

Ahh, this would be rad. Adding Wanderers would genuinely fill a couple holes in the Sylvaneth tome, and I'd love it to happen.

Jokes aside, I do love how this community is decent enough that I can read this and know that the joke is "trans people and people of colour being considered controversial is silly" instead of "including trans people and people of colour is silly." That said I do play sylvaneth and my hobby budget is stretched thin already so please don't tempt GW to raise prices further!

I'm excited to see what changes have been made to Marks, personally. I've been slowly building up a Nurgle-themed force a la Vermintide, and I want to see how they've fared.

Totally agree. I'd much rather have our current Battleline buffed, and keep Kurnoth Hunters as these super-rad elite units that only remain in the realm of "balanced" due to limited spam-ability. Drop their points, buff bow accuracy, and set scythe damage at 2, and then let them wreck face. For battleline, here's what I'd love to see. Buff Tree-Revs offensive power and charging reliability, and maybe move martial memories to a strike-first deal or a solid ward. They teleport and hit hard, like spec-ops strike teams. They could become a mid-cost unit, more expensive than Dryad "horde" units and spite-rev "support/min-battleline" units, but cheaper than Kurnoth Hunters. Their teleport allows them to show up and provide combat support where needed to add extra punch, which a buffed unit can now reliably deliver, and a fight-first gives them a better chance to deliver that punch to reduce the enemy's ability to fight back while making them a less viable target in the main combat (since you will want to target thing that haven't fought yet to reduce the punch they can still throw at you in the future). Buff Spite-Revs by giving them the tree-rev teleport and.. idk, maybe a debuff-ing unit that blocks enemy command abilities? Battleshock shenanigans are fun, but not really compelling or useful. Giving them the teleport ties them into the same "family" as tree-revs, while a shift towards a debuff/disruption unit helps give them a clear identity beyond "less punchy tree-revs." Like tree-revs, their teleport lets you pop them up whereever you need them to be. Buff dryad staying power so they perform well as chaff and anvil units, or drop their cost. The latter is more likely, as the warscroll is already pretty decent for a horde-type model. On the comp side of things, it looks like a horde meta could be on the rise, and dryads are in a good spot to take advantage of that with just a slight points drop.

Totally. And the level of consistency with the 3.0 Battletomes has been just so good compared to previous times in GW's mainline games - the balance is solid, and if anything, they've reduced complexity and power in some key places. Sure, StormDragonRiders are gross, but they seem to be a clear outlier rather than just the most blatant example of a trend. I'm cautiously optimistic for the new Sylvaneth tome! Meanwhile in 40K-Land, I'm refusing to purchase a single 40K product until they do another Index-style reset of the codices, because codex power and complexity creep is getting ridiculous, and the "balance" patches don't just fail to solve a lot of the problems they aim to fix, but often create even more. I got back into 40K at the very start of 2020, and it took just two years to drive me away again - and that's while my favorite metal skeletons are front-and-center.

Heyo, I've been building up my Nurgle StD while I wait for Sylvaneth to get a new tome, and I have a couple thoughts bouncing my head that I'd love to get your opinions on. - When the new Battletome comes out, what do folks think about having options to reward single-oath armies? There's a lot of neat units that lend Slaves to Darkness a distinctly-different flavor to the dedicated god books, so I think it's something I'd like to see explored. Obviously, I don't want to see "mix-and-match oaths" be made obsolete, but as someone who loves themey armies, running mono-god right now seems like a distinct disadvantage. - How do you rate all the Maggotkin's Harbinger of Decay? Its main role is as a CP buff and CA debuff hero, and neither of those abilities lean on the MAGGOTKIN keyword. I love the model and will likely pick one up to represent a Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount, but the actual warscroll for the model has some interesting abilities as well.

Yeah, I think there's totally room for GW to figure out making "Board control and surgical strikes through terrain" balanced and reliable regardless of the preexisting terrain layout; the thing is, will they? My hope is that we can (a) take over preexisting terrain to apply some of the Wyldwood effects, and (b) get a free Wyldwood placement/terrain takeover each turn. This could go a long way to helping our army without overpowering our warscrolls or reducing the gameplay "vibe" of our gimmick. Of course, hope is often the first step on the road to disappointment...

Definitely. There's some "classic/generic fantasy" stuff that simply will never go out of style, and vampires and zombies are one. The Lumineth similarly do a lot to hit the "high elf" vibe with their cavalry and foot soldiers while also having some interesting AoS weirdness for those who want it, and I'm hopeful that this indicates we'll get more projects bringing that "traditional" fantasy vibe into AoS without abandoning what makes the Mortal Realms unique as a setting. The Coalition mechanics are likewise a great avenue for GW to explore to expand armies with minimal resources and risk, though it unfortunately seems like they're backing out of that somewhat if the Maggotkin book is any indication. Darn it, GW, let me yeet my Wanderer Wild Riders through my Sylvaneth Wyldwoods!

Man, I dunno about you lot, but I'm really excited for proper Black Orcs. Yeah, yeah, 'Ardboyz are the old Black Orc models, but the fiction of the 'Ardboyz don't capture what makes Black Orcs so cool. BOs aren't just "'Ey, if we put on 'eavy armor like dem big lads, we can scrap longer" blockheads and hooligans and hangers-on - they're professionals, and professionals have standards. Their kit is a kit that they maintain and take pride in, rather than just some scrap metal and miscellaneous weapons. They're not fighters, they're soldiers. They don't just pick fights for fun, they legitimately wage war. They think about the long game. Their leaders give thought to "loj-i-stiks" and the supplies needed to keep their Waaagh! going as an active campaign. In short, they're competent and thinkers on some level, and that's rad as hell. They represent a culture shock to traditional orc-y ways, which can potentially even lead to (dare I say it) more nuanced details for different orc cultures and factions.