acr0ssth3p0nd

Oof. Good point. Just when I was hoping Sylvaneth would be functional again...

I was thinking about doing a houserule where Command abilities don't use points, but key off a Bravery test (roll under on 2d6) for the unit being affected (with each Leader only getting one command a turn) for that exact reason. Makes Bravery really matter.

On one hand, my Sylvaneth are costed to take my faction terrain into account - without it, we're done! On the other hand, that does mean that high-level play now forces enemy monsters to make tough decisions - do they boost their monster or try to take out my terrain?

Well, Wyldwoods just became far more usable and literally 3 times more affordable, so I'll take that as a win.

It's at times like this that I wish, more than ever, that the old Leadership Checks were still a thing for actions outside of the Morale phase. If 3.0 has the charge reactions as rumored, they could be gated behind successful Leadership tests instead of requiring CP, for example. 40K Necrons actually have some neat stuff where you deal Mortal Wounds and debuffs by rolling over the target unit's Leadership on 3d6 - things like that would make Leadership (and Leadership debuffs) relevant, and could even replace the feels-bad of fleeing models in the Morale Phase entirely. So many armies have ways to make themselves immune to Morale Tests, and I suspect it's because of how having models flee makes the game feel less fun.

This has been my "design fix wish" for a while now - refocus Sylvaneth as the "board control through terrain manipulation" army, and allow that to work both on boards with lots of terrain (with this effect) and boards with very little terrain (by summoning Wyldwoods as normal). The only other thing I'd want is to be able to reliably apply these effects. To that end, I'd go so far as to suggest that a "you can freely place 1 Wyldwood or convert 1 existing terrain piece each Round" army ability is not out of the question, considering how mediocre our warscrolls are by themselves.

I'm working on something for that. I still need to playtest the current version that has a standard Hero-Movement/Charging-Shooting-Fighting-Morale flow like the MESBG, though I'm thinking of switching a few things up to keep the current ratio of shooting-to-melee. Something like: Priority Phase: Roll off for the round. Winner has priority. Hero Phase: Person with priority does their stuff, then person without priority does their stuff Priority Movement: Person with priority does their movement, including charges. Priority Fighting: Standard fight phase. Unit activation starts with the player who has priority. Shooting: Players alternate activating units to shoot, starting with the player who has priority. Reactive Movement: Person without priority does their movement, including charges. Reactive Fighting: Standard fight phase. Unit activation starts with the player who does not have priority. Morale Phase: As normal.

I'm at work right now and as such I can't offer a full response at the mo, but I do want to say that your concerns about excessive shooting are absolutely valid, and I'm 100% taking them into account. The first draft doesn't quite reflect this, since it's just a rough proof-of-concept, but I can promise I'll be addressing this in future drafts. It's not a problem with an obvious solution, that's for sure, and is going to require a lot of design iteration and hands-on playtesting to resolve.

So, after getting into several... passionate discussions about AoS's random Turn Order and Double-Turn mechanics on here and a couple other forums, I figured I'd dig into something I've seen talked about a lot: how the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game's Priority system provides a very similar gameplay experience to AoS's random turn order, with tactical choice and requiring players to hedge their bets with positioning and planning for future turns, but without some of the negative effects on the game's pacing and the new player "onboarding" experience. Before we continue, I just to make my thoughts on one thing absolutely clear: There are many people who really, really like AoS' current random-turn-order system. They feel it's a defining feature of the game, one that adds significant depth in that it requires its players to really be very careful and flexible with their planning and movement and positioning, and makes on-the-board skill really matter to mitigate and anticipate the famed double-turn. They are absolutely right on all these points. These particular points that the current turn system adds are good for the game and the players are right to recognise them as such. Players who love the double-turn, I hear you, and I hear why you love it. There are many players who really, really don't like the random-turn-order system. They feel it's too random and too swingy, and that it throws the pacing (not the actual speed, but the pacing, the percieved, felt speed of the game) out of whack where one player has to sit there while their opponent does everything a second time, with little they can do to react - the worst bits of an I-Go-You-Go system but exacerbated. They feel it's something new players miss the significance of, and only come to understand when they find themselves being punched by one. It's not a good way to "sell" a game to someone. They are also absolutely right. These particular aspects are very much present, and very much negatively affect the game experience. Players who dislike the double-turn, I hear you, and I hear why you dislike it. My thinking here is, the current turn system is seriously polarising, and for understandable reasons. If there's a way to provide all the positive aspects to the game experience that the current random-turn-order system does but without any of the negative aspects, it should be seriously looked at. And that's what I'm doing here. The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game's Priority system provides a gameplay experience that is strikingly similar to the positive aspects of AoS's current turn system. My games of the MESBG are won and lost primarily based on movement, timing, and how to mitigate and plan for changes in turn order - but I've never experienced any of the bad aspects on AoS's turn system in the MESBG. It's superbly paced, extremely accessible, and when new players fail to fully take the changing turn order into account, they still get to do stuff and interact meaningfully in the game even as their opponent is rewarded for their more-skillful play. See, the way the SBG does turn order is that it doesn't have turns - not really. You roll for Priority at the start of each round, with the winner getting Priority and the loser from last turn winning ties. It has phases, much like AoS, and but in those phases, the player with Priority gets to act first. So they would get to move (and charge) first, then their opponent would move and charge. Then they shoot, and then their opponent shoots. Then fights are resolved in the order determined by the player with Priority. End of round. Roll for Priority and repeat. And my pitch is to adapt that system to AoS. Six phases - Priority, Hero, Moving/Charging, Shooting, Combat, and Battleshock. If it works, it should have all the interesting, tactical weighing-of-choices and probing, careful movement and setup, and it should have those things matter more consistently across the game, without the pacing problems and other negative aspects. (And with some slight tweaks to Shooting, this also helps alleviate the negative experiences that can come with facing a shooting-heavy army, though my work and theory for that is far rougher.) With that pitch done, here's my first draft of Warhammer Age of SBGmar Alternative Battle Round Rules. I hope you enjoy it, and I would appreciate any constructive feedback you have.

Why not just... integrate the 'Ardboyz into the Ironjawz directly, change the lore so they're a true mainline forces of the Ironjawz, who are more grounded and pragmatic about their path of war and destruction (heavy armor, good killin' gear) compared to the crazy spiritualism of the Bonesplitterz? I love the 'Ardboyz kit, I think the models have aged well, and the heavy armor aesthetic melds well into the rest of the force.

That's hilarious, considering that I'm thinking of picking up that box of 20 Mirkwood Rangers to use as Sisters of the Thorn.

Keep the main rules in the main rulebook, that's awesome and fine and totally understandable. Sell General's Handbooks yearly or twice-yearly as the only "official" source of battleplans and Matched Play rules - I'll buy that. But the faction rules, points, and warscrolls should absolutely use the internet as their main method for delivery, allowing for frequent updates, revisions, and patches. Printed battletomes can still be a thing, but more as a container for lore and hobby guides, and perhaps coming with a themed three-ring binder with inserts containing the rules that you can swap out if there's a "patch". You can print the updates yourself or buy the nice-quality GW ones. I would complain far less about GW's model prices if I knew they were helping pay for a better game-balancing experience. As a Sylvaneth player who just got their tome last year, knowing I'm not gonna see any revisions for another two years or more before the tome gets another pass is not a good feeling. Heck, even using the General's Handbook as a delivery method for updated rules would be acceptable for me. I just want a more-frequent update cycle that means nerfs and buffs can be handed out on a smaller scale without needing an entire revamp of the system, and hopefully curb power creep in doing so.

I love how the Middle-Earth SBG's priority roll and turn structure (I-Move/You-Move, I-Shoot/You-Shoot, Fight!) keeps the benefits and hedge-your-bets competitive strategy of the double-turn while also eliminating the chance for a player in more-casual-games to sit there for twenty minutes doing nothing while their opponent gets to do everything twice in a row and blow half their army of the board. Best of both worlds! Plus, it improves the pacing of the game overall, with shorter stretches of player downtime. Stop defending the double-turn. Start pushing for MESBG turn structure in 3rd Ed!

The Middle-Earth SBG's priority roll and turn structure (I-Move/You-Move, I-Shoot/You-Shoot, Fight!) keeps the benefits and hedge-your-bets competitive strategy of the double-turn while also eliminating the chance for a player in more-casual-games to sit there for twenty minutes doing nothing while their opponent gets to do everything twice in a row and blow half their army of the board. Best of both worlds! Plus, it improves the pacing of the game overall, with shorter stretches of player downtime. Stop defending the double-turn. Start pushing for MESBG turn structure!

Hey all, I'm gonna make this brief because I'm on my too-short break at work, but I've been thinking about how Sylvaneth could regain a competitive edge in the current meta, and specifically how to do that by focusing on our strengths - board control and terrain weirdness, which can suffer heavily depending on the table. Here's some rough mechanics I've thrown together, which allow us to get more use out of our board control identity and Wyldwood mechanics. Opponents can still zone us out, but it's a lot harder to do so. Notes in red. Nature's Reclamation At the start of the battle, before units are deployed, each SYLVANETH wizard who knows Verdant Blessing may choose to know the Spiritual Reclamation or Vengeful Reclamation spell, instead. This allows us to make the call on the spells we know depending on the board and terrain setup. Terrain features that can be effected by Spiritual Reclamation and Vengeful Reclamation must be at least 6" wide, and no larger than 15" wide at any point. Helps mitigate some of the shenanigans as to what counts as a "Terrain Feature." You may only have one casting of Verdant Blessing, Spiritual Reclamation, and Vengeful Reclamation each turn. For example, if a wizard successfully cast Verdant Blessing, another wizard could not attempt to cast Spiritual Reclamation or Vengeful Reclamation that turn. Prevents the ability to bypass the "one casting per spell per turn" limitation inherent to Verdant Blessing. The intention is that these spells widen your options for Wyldwood effects, not increase your maximum rate of deployment of those effects. Spiritual Reclamation Spiritual Reclamation has a casting value of 6. If successfully cast, choose one terrain feature without a faction keyword wholly within 20" of the caster and more than 1" from any other model, terrain feature, or objective. This terrain feature gains the Sylvaneth keyword, and now counts as a friendly Awakened Wyldwood for the purposes of allegiance abilities and warscroll abilities that you to deploy or redeploy a Sylvaneth unit. Additionally, in the hero phase, if a spell is successfully cast by a Wizard wholly within 6" of this terrain feature and not unbound, roll a dice for each unit within 1" of this terrain feature which does not have the Sylvaneth keyword. On a 5+ that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds after that spell’s effects have been resolved. Vengeful Reclamation Vengeful Reclamation has a casting value of 6. If successfully cast, choose one terrain feature without a faction keyword wholly within 20" of the caster and more than 1" from any other model, terrain feature, or objective. This terrain feature gains the Sylvaneth keyword, and now counts as a friendly Awakened Wyldwood for the purposes of any Sylvaneth warscroll abilities that do not allow you to redeploy a Sylvaneth unit. Additionally, at the end of the charge phase, roll a dice for each unit within 1" of this terrain feature which does not have the Sylvaneth keyword. On a 6, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. These spells basically turn terrain features into half-a-Wyldwood, splitting the difference between woods that allow teleportation and woods that provide other buffs. This represents sylvaneth wizards conjuring vines and roots to tear down buildings and ruins and reclaim them for nature. Obviously, if you have the space, you want to conjure a full Wyldwood instead, but these give you a measure of functionality on terrain-dense boards.

It's stuff like this that makes me enjoy the Mortal Realms as a setting. The grimdark serves a thematic purpose to contrast the places of genuine okay-ness. The Mortal Realms feel like a place with people worth fighting for and with, even if that fight is horrifying and brutal and there is no guarantee of victory.

I know this is a joke thread, but I'm genuinely enjoying this little weird bit of wholesomeness.

Ooo, ta!

Where are you getting these bits from? All I saw in the article was the spell and the Fleet of Foot rule.

Nice list! I do have a couple questions: How did you find your mobility? Without tree-revs or some sort of secondary teleport and only two casters for getting out more trees, it's something I'd worry about. It looks like you've put a good number of eggs into one basket with your Branchwaith's summoning. How did you protect her in the game? Am I overimagining how important she is for the army to succeed? Units of 10 Dryads don't strike me as super-resilient. How did they work for you?

See, I don't know if I buy that. One of the warband is literally just a centaur, which are inherently un-trademarkable, and the others are... elves with goat legs and horns? I mean, not exactly the most original design basis.

All I'm hoping is that the Kurnothi (A) get turned into a full army, and/or (B) get models that don't have animal legs. Everything from the waist-up on them is fantastic and I love it, but I've never been a fan of "animal legs" aesthetics on my fey elf people things.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to say this again - this thread is currently hitting absolutely everything I love about elves. Thank you all so much.

My God, combining the Wanderer wild elf and Harlequin aesthetics and themes is everything I want in my elves. Heck yes.

Maybe it's just me, but I can still absolutely see the Wanderers working as a unique faction within AoS. They're literal Wanderers, raggedy wild elves traveling/migrating across dimensions in penance for the sins of their fathers. Their model range has some absolute-stand-out models in it. They're a good bit of emotional grit and introspection within the larger setting, and have so much potential with a few new models to be something unique. How many other fantasy model ranges have good semi-feral fey traveling Wild Elves as a major faction?