Predien

Keep in mind that a lot of FEC spells have a HUGE casting range so you might be able to deploy your AAR out of unbinding range. This way at least turn 1, maybe turn 2, you won't have to worry about something getting unbound. You might have to go for an alpha-strike tactic to bring down their leaders. I feel like the smashbat lists can handle Tzeentch if you're able to deploy right and get your first round of buffs off.

Yep!

Totally agree. I've end up collecting quite a few SC boxes so that my army is somewhat future proof. I've got plenty of dryads, enough TLAs and Treelords and a couple of Durthus for whatever Broken Realms and the 3.0 book gives us.

I would 100% allow that. Looks badass.

Looking forward to seeing what you're working on!

Anything with the Sylvaneth keyword (I'm only kinda joking. I love my Sylvaneth.)

Remember that the Arch Rev brings the +1 to attacks that can be given to any of your units (prioritizing your Kurnoths of course). The Branchwych is a model that could really use a Warscroll rework and outside of the branchwych bomb I don't see it being that good. If you run into any Seraphon they are going to shut that down real quick. You could also consider putting the Chalice on the Branchwraith instead of Spiritsong + ToT and then the Vesperal Gem on the TLA so that you can't be unbound getting Verdous Harmony off. Rolling 3d6 for spells on your Brachwraith means you'll have a pretty damn good chance on summoning dryads or getting Spite Swarm cast whenever you want (minus going up against Tzeentch, Seraphon, LRL). Also, it'll be harder to move those 9 kurnoths off the table if you're bringing one back every hero phase. Just be careful you don't get that TLA sniped. Overall I think your list is good. Try and get some reps in with a friend before your tournament and try some stuff out!

It looks like you're trying to do the Branchwych bomb and I would reconsider it. Drop the Branchwych and balewind and go with an Arch-Rev to support those 9 sexy Kurnoth's you have w/ rr1s and an extra attack. Put the Spiritsong Stave on the Branchwraith with Throne of Vines so you can get those dryads in or get that Spite Swarm off turn one. Make the TLA your General with the Chalice with Verdous Harmony so you can put him behind the unit of Kurnoth's not being supported by the Arch-Rev. If you decide to bring this list I'll be super curious on your thoughts on how it felt, pros/cons, etc.!

You mind sharing the lists you've been playing recently? I'm a collector of armies but when I play competitively I usually find myself coming back to Skaven or FEC. I've got a good amount of Skryre stuff but I'm missing the weapon teams, jezzails, and acolytes. Might have to revisit Skaven in the fall and round out the collection. You're 100% right about the AW/Engineer getting blown off the table. That is a real concern in this meta and I know when those stormfiends aren't buffed they aren't doing anything but taking up space and they are wayyy too expensive to not be doing anything. The Vigordust + giving them rr1s to hit helps a little bit but nothing compared to what MMWP does for them. If I was playing against Seraphon there's no way I'd ever get MMWP off and even if I did my AW/Engineer is dead by turn 3 - 2 if my opponent is lucky. Acolytes are a unit that I've been wanting to mess with but haven't pulled the trigger due to the age of their actual models. If I ever want to get some I'll just convert plague monks or the Blood Bowl box.

The only reason I brought it was for the extra artefact. I wanted to give the stormfiends a "fall back" buff with the Vigordust Injector in case MMWP didn't go off (I'm notorious for rolling terrible). I would need to try the list out a little bit more to see if it's necessary but I don't think the buff the batallion gives to the Clawlord's ability is important. It is super expensive for just a CP and an artefact but I'm not sure there's any other way around it

Had a great game against Nurgle this past weekend. Played 2020 Focal Points and used GHB20 rules. I brought this list: LeadersGrey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)- General- Command Trait: Master of Magic - Artefact: Skavenbrew - Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy Arch-Warlock (240) - Artefact: Vigordust Injector - Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power! Clawlord (240)- Mighty Warlord Command Trait: Brutal Fury Battleline20 x Clanrats (120)- Spears 20 x Clanrats (120)- Spear 40 x Stormvermin (400)Units6 x Stormfiends (520)BatallionClaw-horde (180 Total: 1990 / 2000Extra Command Points: 0Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 148 I deployed with the idea of having 2 major threats - Grey Seer + Clawlord + 40 stormvermin and 40 Clanrats + 6 fiends + arch warlock. I brought the doomwheel for fun because the model, in the past, has done cool stuff whenever I field him. During this game, the DW brought Belakor down to 2 wounds and then he proceeded to blow himself up by doing 11 mortals to himself. I love that little ******. I really wanted to try a bunch of stormvermin fully buffed. They never got a chance to really fight because most of the damage came out of my stormfiends. Also, I was being too conservative with the stormvermin so next time I'm going to get them in there. In the right scenario, they would have 4 attacks each on 3/2/-1/1 and fighting when they die. Not having access to the realm artefacts really makes you think differently about your lists. I think it's going to let people try out a lot more tome specific artefacts and I really like that. I ended up losing by 1 point but realized later that evening that I would have been getting 1 extra point each turn from the Grey Seer holding an objective making me the winner in the end. It was a really fun list, a really fun game, and I'm looking forward to trying it out again with some tweaks. I think I would drop the doomwheel and fit in some more clanrats + an endless spell but I'm not sure yet. I could also drop the doomwheel and batallion and fit in a HPA, more clan rats, and an endless spell but I don't have an HPA yet and the less drops + extra artefact and CP are pretty important. I really feel like Skaven are in a good spot to not only be a competitive army but to be something that isn't giving bad play experiences to the other person (even though 6 stormfiends fully buffed hit like dumptrucks still).

Totally agree with you! Clarification is needed. I sent an email and if I hear back from an official GW person I'll let everyone know. Fingers crossed we see some FAQ about it in the near future. I'd love to mess with some Living Cities lists with Durthu but only if I can somehow get some trees for him to fight near.

I get the argument about it being an allegiance ability since it's under the "allegiance abilities" section but look at the "Types of Abilities" paragraph from the "Allegiance Abilities" section in the AoS rules pdf. I'm taking this next part directly from the general rules pdf for AoS: "Most allegiance abilities include sets of battle traits, command traits, artefacts of power and spell lores. These are sometimes presented on a table - you can either roll on that table to randomly generate an ability or you can choose one. Remember that allegiance abilities cannot be used by allied units in your army." This rule about Verdant Blessing isn't an allegiance ability (otherwise GW would have put it on page 65 in the Sylvaneth book - they had the room because half of that page is empty). It's not a spell lore because it's not in the table and the Vesperal Gem FAQ. And it doesn't really fit into any of those other categories. I think there's a solid argument for including Verdant Blessing outside of Sylvaneth allegiance. This 100% needs an FAQ from GW because I feel like it's a very unique situation to only Sylvaneth that could really effect Living Cities and Seraphon since those are the ones that I see potentially allying in Sylvaneth the most. All GW has to say is that Verdant Blessing is/is not an allegiance ability which would settle this. Thanks for the discussion on this Lando! Maybe I'll start spamming the GW rules department and see if they can get back to me on it.

Hey! I wanted to push back a little on this. I recently got into a discussion about this and had do to some deep diving into the tome because I kept getting mixed results from looking it up online. Here are my thoughts on it... The book says that "Sylvaneth wizards" know Verdant Blessing + any other spells they know. In the Sylvaneth FAQ, it states that the Vesperal Gem cannot be used on Verdant Blessing but the Vesperal Gem's rules say it can be used on the Lore of the Deepwood spells only. By this logic, Verdant Blessing isn't part of the Lore of the Deepwoods. "Sylvaneth Wizards know the Verdant Blessing spell in addition to any other spells they know," since they stop the sentence there and follow it up with, "In addition, you can choose or roll for one of the spells from the Lore of the Deepwood table for each Wizard in a Sylvaneth army, I would read this as you get Verdant Blessing + your warscroll spell and then if you're in a Sylvaneth army you get access to the lore. Since it doesn't explicitly say that you have to be in a Sylvaneth army to get Verdant Blessing, like it does the Lore spells, I think you could argue that Sylvaneth allies get access to this spell outside of a Sylvaneth army. Thoughts?

I took Despoilers to a doubles tournament a couple of weeks ago. The DP and Belakor were the MVP's but I think StD is a hard army at the lower point levels. Faced a lot of shooty lists and people that rolled REAL hot when they shot at my marauders and chaos warriors. I don't have the book in front of me so I don't have the exact wording but the Godsworn batallion is the one building around. I'm running it with the mounted chaos lord on lizard + a chaos lord on foot so that he can potentially attack 3 times. I copied this from the batallion description from 1d4, "1 hero selected from Chaos Lord (any kind), Sorcerer Lord (either kind), Exalted Hero of Chaos, Ogroid Myrmidon, Daemon Prince, Darkoath Warqueen, and Darkoath Chieftain; 4-8 units selected from Chosen, Knights, Warriors, Marauders, and Marauder Horsemen." When you play at 1500 you could easily get that batallion by getting another unit of marauders or warriors.

Thanks for writing this up! I feel like bringing a batallion in a 1250pt game, especially for StD, is rough. 180pts is 20 more marauders, 5 more warriors + some endless spells, etc. And that batallion really favors a more combat-focused mortal hero, not a sorcerer (just my 2 cents). Also, I don't think you have enough units to fulfill the batallion tax for Champions of Ruin You need 4 units and I only counted 3 - your warriors, marauders and knights

Respect and good luck!

If you want to go real cheap to start out, I would get an SC box, a box of spite revs / tree revs, and a box of kurnoth hunters. That will get you 2 heros, 2 battle line options, and a heavy infantry. You would need a few boxes of the Wyldwoods but I would start with proxy templates of the Wyldwoods - they aren't cheap - to start until you're for sure committing to Sylvaneth. From there you'll want to basically want to repeat the first sentence - SC box, box of revs, and kurnoth hunters. Turn the 2nd branchwych you get into a Branchwraith (google conversions - some are legit!) If you could get your hands on a Looncurse half do it!

I just put this list into Azyr and you're 10 points over 😥 The Outcast batallion is 100pts not 90pts. Would have to drop Spiteswarm for something else - Gladewyrm maybe? Little more sustain but you're losing the +3 to charge.

The Winterleaf 6 just makes you have an extra hit, not an extra 6. So for Drycha, normally when you roll a 6 you wouldn't make a wound roll for that hit because her warscroll says "...that attack inflicts 1 mortal wound on the target and the attack sequence ends...). In Winterleaf, if Drycha rolls a 6, it'll do the mortal wound + an extra hit. You'll resolve that extra hit like you normally would any of of the non-6 hits.

Anyone have war stories they would like to share using the new book, terrain, endless spells, etc.? I haven't had time to get a game in with the update so I want to read about your experiences!

I was thinking about lists last night and realized you can get +8 to charges on a general with Warsinger, Everdew Vial, Spiteswarm Hive and the Cogs. I'm stoked for this new book.

I've been having a great time with a flayer heavy Blisterskin list.