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Trevelyan

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Everything posted by Trevelyan

  1. As I saw someone comment elsewhere: ‘Promising the mouse a lifetime supply of cheese if he kills the dragon, doesn’t help him kill the dragon’
  2. The latest Warcom article on balance changes admits that the entire Sylvaneth faction - every single unit - is below the power curve and merits additional VPs for killing tougher units in other factions. If nothing else, it’s a sign that Geedubs thinks we need a serious competitive boost.
  3. With 95 points to spend and a Gnarlroot list with plenty of casters, you should consider picking up the faction endless spells.
  4. There are some paint schemes. The 2E codex has some painting guides for them, but no one will worry if you actually use them or not. The only ranged unit (other than monsters or heroes) we have is the Kurnoth Hunters with bows. There aren’t a lot of ways to deliberately buff them in Glades, the best option is the Heartwood artefact - Horn of the Consort - that allows nearby Kurnoth units to reroll hits. That lends itself to a cluster of bow Hunters around a hero with the Horn. Treelord variants and many of our hero’s also have good ranged attacks. That opens up the possibility of using Gnarlroot to allow rerolls of 1 to hit for all wizards (including heroes) or nearby units. That helps the treelords (directly for the ancient or indirectly for others) and named characters (Alarielle and Drycha both have good ranged attacks), as well as potentially buffing any bow Kurnoth unity near a wizard.
  5. I would recommend you get a Start Collecting Sylvaneth box. It comes with more Dryads and a second Treelord - unless you are very keen on magnetising, you’ll want more than one variant. It also comes with a Branchwych, which you could proxy as a Branchwraith in casual games. You could play most glades with the models you have, especially casually. You absolutely do need trees. Sylvaneth has a number of abilities that key off them and several ways to place more during a game. A single box is unlikely to have enough trees for serious play, but you can easily use the trees in a box as a template for some flat proxy bases in a casual game (also much easier to transport and to place models around without snagging on a branch). I cut a load from a Deepcut Studios mat that work well for me.
  6. You’ve completely missed my point. The errata doesn’t change her BR Kragnos warscroll. It changes her obsolete Battletome Sylvaneth 2E warscroll. GW has errata’d the wrong book. They might have meant to limit her spell access in Living Cities, but GW has so lost touch with the current state of Sylvaneth rules that they don’t know which book has the latest warscrolls. And while someone somewhere probably only intended to align access to spells among deities, the copy text for the Warcom article makes it clear that others saw this as a buff for Alarielle because, again, they’ve got no idea that she had access to all the spells since late 2E: ”And if you are taking Alarielle the Everqueen with a Sylvaneth army, or Morathi-Khaine with a Daughters of Khaine army, they will both receive access to that army’s spell lores in addition to the spells they already know.” - Warhammer Community. So what we really got was a handful of point reductions and an awkward reminder that GW doesn’t have a clue about the Sylvaneth faction.
  7. Although amusingly the Alarielle errata applies to the obsolete Sylvaneth Battletome warscroll rather than the BR Kragnos updated version. At this point either Geedubs has no idea what is happening with the faction or they are deliberately trolling Sylvaneth players.
  8. I know which section they are referring to. My point is that while it doesn’t explicitly state when the Faction Terrain change applies, the fact that it is listed among a series of other pre-game setup conditions for the battlepack without any other changes that could be read as applying throughout the game and without stating that the faction terrain change applies at all times strongly implies that all of those are pre-game changes.
  9. It’s worth pointing out that there is no conflict between the GHB and the revised AW warscroll for the initial setup. The latest AW version has the same 3” minimum included in the GHB (clearly limited to setup before game only). You aren’t letting the GHB supersede anything at setup. The setup restrictions are intended, in large part, to ensure that the game starts with a reasonable distance between terrain pieces and that players placing faction terrain are not able to do so in a way that creates an impediment on the table; the constraints are universal. But the ability to actively summon more trees during a game is a particular feature of our faction. It can create constraints for other players, but unlike the initial placement it is not guaranteed - we can get safe woods down if we pay up front for the artefact or a TLA to place them, otherwise we are using spells that can be unbound. And opposing players have the opportunity to simply limit placement by controlling areas of the table. That’s why I agree with Mirage. Once the game begins, the pre-game setup rules don’t apply. We are working with a different set of constraints for artefacts, warscroll abilities and spells and there is no reason to believe that the GHB limitation on placement before you’ve deployed armies should supersede individual warscroll abilities and spells that have not been errataed on several occasions in spite of GW putting considerable work into changing the way Awakened Wyldwoods operate.
  10. Are we the only faction that can summon faction terrain during the game as well as place it at the start? That alone might be a cause for ambiguity. While the Faction Terrain subheading doesn’t explicitly mention “before game” placement, it is clearly placed in a sequential list after discussion of generic terrain features and before determining the traits of mysterious terrain features. Suggesting that this isn’t part of the pre game sequence is a stretch. More interesting is the revised Awakened Wyldwood warscroll itself. The language there talking about the 3” limit is clearly only talking about setup at the start of the game. The warscroll doesn’t mention later placement, which is significant because the pre-BR version (still listed on the AoS app) very explicitly does apply additional restrictions on placement beyond those in the spell used to summon it. It is possible that GW really did mean the section of rules on setup to supersede all subsequent summoned distances. It is possible that GW removed the extra restrictions on the old version from the updated warscroll for Awakened Wyldwoods but still expected people to apply them. It is possible that GW decided not to errata any of the applicable spells and abilities that summon Awakened Wyldwoods to clarify the summoning restrictions when updating the rest of the army. But I find it the less convincing interpretation unless/unroll we get clarification.
  11. That could just as easily be an omission in the errata as a deliberate choice. It makes very little sense to selectively limit spelL selection.
  12. I think it’s the same restriction we’ve had since the 2.0 Battletome dropped in 2019, so it’s a little late to start worrying about it now.
  13. That’s another non-sequitur. You were, and still are, the one complaining about the points increases on some units. If you don’t believe that points changes are ever a solution, and that issues with the faction run much deeper than points changes can reach, then that’s a very different proposition and a very different conversation. But the only complaint you’ve made is about the points. All of the comparisons you’ve drawn with other factions have been about relative point increases. You can’t then pull a volte-face and ask everyone else to point out when points changes made a difference.
  14. I’d assume the difference vs Sword Hunters is a consequence of the changes to unit size (capped at 6 Hunters). 6 Hunters was the break point where people actively debated whether swords or scythes were better. Swords were pretty much universally preferred in units of 3 and scythes in 9+. Now there is no situation where scythes are definitely better, and the limited number of times you can reinforce a unit makes units of 3 Hunters, and so swords, a more likely option. For bows, GW seems to be really pushing the Unleash Hell command ability for ranged attacks. Add the Redeploy strategy and it looks like ranged units have plenty of scope to stay out of combat and contribute more firepower. That’s likely the source of the point premium over scythes.
  15. You are conflating some very different things. You say that you don’t expect much errata and criticise the claim that the rules are better, then go back to complaining about a difference of 15-25 point on a 200+ point unit, as if that’s the difference between sunlit uplands and an eternity of darkness. Simply put, points aren’t rules, and points most definitely do change on at least an annual basis for every faction, and more frequently if tournament results show that a faction is broken. If a tweak to the points is all you want then, assuming your assessment is correct and Kurnoths are overpriced for 3E, we absolutely will see a point drop before the edition is done - how many points changes did we see in 2E?
  16. You’re right. it’s always entirely possible to judge what a new edition will bring right at the outset before it has even been released. No faction ever changes it’s performance as new battletomes are released. The points established in the first Generals Handbook of the new edition always persist until the next edition. Woe is us, our chosen faction is destined to suck forever, dead on arrival into AoS 3E. All that remains is to set up a curb side stall to sell our salty tears as refreshments to people playing stronger factions in tournaments. Maybe if we offer them a discount they’ll go easy on us at the table? Or maybe, just maybe, we could save the wailing and gnashing of teeth until things at least have time to settle, and wait until we’re past the inevitable first round of FAQs and errata, before we declare that the sky is falling?
  17. Yeah, it’s terrible. What was GW thinking? It’s almost as if they feel that the complete change to way competitive lists are constructed means that some units translate better into the new edition than others, so the points changes shouldn’t be equal across every faction. It’s madness!
  18. That cuts both ways. Spites might be seen in smaller units now, but the same goes for many of their targets. That 5 man Spite unit is likely facing 5-10 man units and, if it gets the charge, has a much better chance of surviving. All the reasons Tree Revenants have become relatively more killy in 3E apply to small units of Spites too. To that you can add the possibility of just using them differently. The old 20 Spite blob was a threat in its own right. The 5 Spite unit might function better as a supporting harassment unit alongside other units. If your opponent is sending something against your Dryad line, or you are sending a small unit of sword Hunters into an enemy unit, then back the Dryads or Hunters up with a unit of Spites to add damage output and swing the balance on bravery tests.
  19. A 2000 point game is 0-4 reinforcements, I can see two on units of Kurnoths (now apparently capped at 6 models) and two on dryads or spites if nothing changes on our existing unit sizes. That’s scope for either a single dryad blob of 30, or two blobs of 20. Or whatever you feel like doing with revenants. edit: it’s good to be back
  20. That right there is what I mean about shifting goalposts. But those didn’t so much shift as navigate the realmroots. First, making the TLA work involves too many complicated choices. When I point out that isn’t true, the problem becomes that the TLA is too expensive. Those are two very different issues. To your actual criticisms of the TLA, it is no easier to kill than other treelords, including Durthu, and is arguably more durable if you consider the command ability it brings and the chance to self heal using a spell. It’s the same speed as Durthu too, and only one inch slower than standard treelords. Limitations teleporting are likewise common to them all. It does have lower damage potential than Durthu, but that potential declines far less rapidly, and a healthy TLA can still put out multiple 3+/3+/-1/d6 attacks - that’s not nothing. Plus ranged attack, spell casting and other abilities for the 260 points. It could be a little cheaper, but probably not by much - I could see a point drop to the 240-250 range, but not really any less. The point being that the TLA isn’t a perfect unit, but neither it is complete dross - it has more value than a lot of people who don’t use it seem to realise (funny that) and most of the criticisms levelled against it are common to other, more popular units. You seem hung up on the idea of your opponent needing to be in a wood for us to gain any benefit. That’s simply not the case. Consider fights over objectives as the obvious case; you can place a wood 1” away from the centre of an objective, that means around half the control zone can be exposed to Roused by magic and the Wyldwood charge phase wound. More than half is potentially vulnerable to the TLA spell (which can also trigger Roused) and most of the zone offers various buffs. Sometimes other terrain might limit placement of Wyldwoods, but equally it can limit available space outside the influence of the wood - we should be benefitting as often as we lose. It’s also worth remembering that you don’t have to put the Wood on the ‘near’ side of the objective - if you can put the wood down between enemy units and the centre of the objective then they don't have a lot of choice. There will be many different factors in each game, sometimes we get less value than others, but if you never get to place woods where you want and never (or even rarely) get to benefit from woods then either you aren’t trying or you just aren’t seeing the options. It’s not about staying in the wood - that’s a false premise on which to base your objections - but about using them as optimally as each game permits.
  21. As a codex/battletome... I’m not sure that I would say we were the least competitive, although maybe we are? I’ve not been overly impressed by the Orruks and neither has our local Orruk player. It is fair to say that we had one of the least exciting new battletomes in which our signature gimmick was nerfed - loosing the random chance of moving again was worth loosing the risk of the delay, but only allowing one navigate per turn was a definite hit. We are also dependent on placement of Wyldwoods - everyone (except the Orruks) has a signature terrain piece, but we are more dependent than most on ours and can struggle to put them on the table given the new restrictions. Tangent: I like the idea upthread of spells to convert scenery into Wyldwoods in some way, but not exactly the spells suggested. We are also seriously miss-marketed. There is a view that we are a mobile faction, but these days we are no more, and often less, mobile than others. We are a “healing” faction that can’t return models to the table easily (contrast anything undead and most of Chaos) and the healing that we do have is very contingent on spells. But we do have a few strengths that I think aren’t values as they might be: 1) We have some very good individual units - Kurnoth hunters are obvious, but Dryads are a very solid tarpit for the price, Spites are a strong cannon even if made of glass. Even Tree Revs have surprising value in their mobility as objective grabbers and charge blockers, just don’t expect them to win a fight. Durthu is a little vulnerable to bracketing but has some of the highest top-end damage you’ll see. Drycha goes without saying. 2) We have some very good defensive spells - Regrowth is good for keeping monsters alive and Verdurous Harmony on an already tough unit like Kurnoths is bonkers good value. We’ve got some useful faction spells too, notably the Hive. 3) We have the unique ability, subject to conditions, to drop LoS blocking scenery on the table. Against that we have the aforementioned weaknesses. I think that our tournament ranking is slightly held back by the fact that we are a pain to transport - taking all the forests creates transport issues that likely dissuade many people from even trying. But I also suspect that a lot of lists are trying to do something that doesn’t really play to our strengths - Winterleaf Hunters are devastating, but entirely predictable and winning an alpha strike slug fest isn’t enough to win the objective game consistently. I don’t think we are hugely competitive, but I think we are more competitive than recent results indicate. The key to improving things is to find a more innovative approach to the faction that capitalises on all of our strengths. That said, I would welcome some changes to the placement and use of Wyldwoods.
  22. “You are sacrificing access to Winterleaf and Dreadwood”? I’m sorry, what?!? You aren’t sacrificing anything. You are choosing to play a different one of the seven available glades. If not picking the current most competitive option is “sacrificing” the option then it’s too late for all of us - we’ve already “sacrificed” the option to play a different and more competitive faction. I understood this conversation to be about your earlier suggestion that even taking one TLA was questionable (a basic Treelord plus Branchwraith being your preferred use of the points) and more than one being inexcusable. There was some discussion about the rate at which a TLA degrades (until I pointed out that Durthu degrades faster), that the TLA spell is useless because no one ever fights near woods (to which I pointed out that it is fairly easy to force some fights near woods - granted not all of them - because summoning woods is a thing we do) and anyway no one can use magic in the current meta (to which I showed that we have the ability to put out a fairly consistent rate of spells in our spell-casting glade). Now you want it to be about how competitive Gnarlroot is compared with our top two (current) competitive Glades. And to top it off you seem to have reconsidered the value of a TLA in the one that you don’t play. There are some rapidly moving goalposts in all of this. If your argument is now that multiple TLAs are entirely valid in Gnarlroot, but you only play the current top competitive glades so use one at most then that’s fine - I don’t use more than one TLA in Winterleaf myself. But basing your comments on the implicit assumption that Winterleaf and Dreadwood are acceptible and ever unit must be considered for the value it brings those two glades is a fairly hefty qualifier that you didn’t articulate at the outset.
  23. The amount that you spend in unit and spell selection is “take a TLA”. That’s it. That’s all of it. There is no other unit or spell choice that you need to make to pull off the above combo. The TLA comes complete with Awakening the Wood on his own warscroll at no additional charge and every caster in Sylvaneth gets Verdant Blessing for free as a bonus spell just for showing up. The TLA can also summon his own Wyldwood without risk of failure using Silent Communion. The rest of the post - using artefact combos to drop more woods reliably is optional but also kinda useful in a faction which is themed around woods and benefits from having woods nearby. It’s also not a huge hardship, the only additional choice beyond “take a TLA” is “take one of the best faction artefacts from the book” and/or “take the mandatory glade artefact. If you think that “put a TLA in your list” is too much complexity to make the TLA work then the problem really isn’t the TLA. Writing “Gnarlroot” instead of “Winterleaf” or “Dreadwood” isn’t a problem of complexity either. What this really comes down to is that people who like to play Winterleaf/Dreadwood complain that Gnarlroot doesn’t work as well as those glades at the same tactics those other glades prefer. But Gnarlroot does perfectly well playing to it’s own strengths, which happen to include aggressive use of TLAs.
  24. This baffles me on both fronts, to the point that I wonder whether they are connected. When I play Gnarlroot, I put down forests fairly consistently in places that I want them to be. I have multiple treelords to ensure I have options for my Silent Communion, and use casting buffs to reliably cast Verdant Blessing. Either option lets me place a Wyldwood 1” away from enemy units and Awakening the Wyldwood hits enemy units within 3” of the wood. In the first turn, you can quite comfortably drop a wood in front of one or more enemy units, cast the spell as a softener and then do your usual teleport and charge. I don’t get to fight every fight against every opponent in range of a wood, but neither does every opponent get to ignore them completely. If you are using woods well then you should get at least some down in places where your opponent doesn’t have the option. Absolute worst case, if you’ve parked units in a wood near an objective then your opponent has to either move in or give you the advantage of charging next turn. And you can comfortably have units in a wood controlling an objective. All of which requires that you have the ability to cast spells regularly. I suspect you underestimate how much Gnarlroot brings on that front. Giving the Chalice of Nectar to a TLA is very potent - you get the bonus to any spell you cast or unbind. It makes the above viable combo fairly reliable (TLA to summon a free wood then cast his spell). Combine that with the Vesperal Gem on a TLA warlord to consistently cast Verdurous Harmony on a unit of Hunters and gain the extra d3 command trait heal (for wounded Hunters or other units) and you’ve got a chunk of reliable magic and healing, even in the fact of armies that usually make it much harder. But if you don’t play Gnarlroot and don’t like TLAs then I suspect you have far fewer Wyldwoods on the table so don’t have as many engagements near them. Which in turn means that you don’t get value from the spell, etc. It’s not that Awakening the Wood is “really really bad”, just that you don’t play a game with the other moving parts that enable you to benefit from it.
  25. I can only assume that you don’t rate the TLA spell because you don’t play with TLAs and therefore don’t cast Awaken the Wood very often. If you genuinely think that a 6 cast spell that can inflict mortal wounds on multiple units at a time is bad then I start to wonder what your basis for comparison actually is. The other mistake is treating TLA and Branchwraith as an either/or choice. It clearly isn’t. You can have a Branchwraith sitting in your back lines in relative safety while your TLA is supporting frontline units. How much do you want to bet I don’t give a glade artefact to a TLA? Seriously, name any price, because I’ve already mentioned Gnarlroot, and if you think I’m wasting the Chalice of Nectar on a Branchwraith to let it summon marginally more Dryads over the course of a game then you really don’t understand that glade. So yes, I regularly give the glade artefact to a TLA. I do give a Stave to a Branchwraith if I take one, but it is rarely my first choice of artefact to take. Durthu doesn’t actually have to stay near a wood. It certainly helps if he does, but he does work even without a wood nearby. I prefer Drycha too, but Durthu isn’t split between ‘woods = good’ and ‘no woods = bad’. The woods make him better, and even a skilled opponent can’t hide from woods all of the time - a skilled Sylvaneth player should be able to tip the balance and pick where to fight too at least some of the time. This is pertinent to the TLA discussion, because forcing fights near woods also increases the value of the TLA spell. If you would never ever ever ever etc condone more than one TLA, I’m curious to know how you would build a Gnarlroot list.
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