Trevelyan

I’m not blaming the retailer for anything. I’m just saying that if the retailer didn’t refund an infilled preorder then that’s not GW’s fault. But assuming no one paid for a preorder they didn’t receive them no one got shafted. Some people were disappointed, but that’s a very different thing.

Who was “outright shafted” here exactly? The absolute worst that happened to anyone is that they couldn’t buy a discounted box of plastic miniatures because someone else got their first. No one paid for something they didn’t receive (if they did then that’s a problem for the retailer). Your definition of how to “handle things better” seems to amount to GW providing unlimited cheap stuff to anyone who wants it.

Overall it’s probably a nerf from a strategic standpoint. Standing around (and importantly running/charging through) a wildwood now has a maximum downside of d3 wounds. That’s a risk that I suspect is far more manageable than the chance of losing multiple models on a bad roll. In many cases, even 3 wounds is less than the wound total of a single model that had the same chance of just dying under the old rules. It does discourage generally standing around woods. Whether that is enough to compensate for the relative freedom to charge trough them remains to be seen, but I suspect not. The other nerf is hidden in the text for Roused by Magic - it no longer triggers if the spell is unbound. There might be more flexibility over the shape of larger woods. Three models really only allows for one to show a concave edge (based on the external mass of the tree) but larger woods might enable some more complex shapes to fit around terrain. Time will tell.

That’s spooky timing! My opponent on Wednesday mentioned your tool, suggesting it looked good but only covered Seraphon. Great to see it also covers Sylvaneth now too! Overall, it looks fantastically useful. My two immediate thoughts are: 1) would it be possibly to make the names of the units involved more prominent, especially in the “during the game” section? I can see that you have the names after each ability (“Because you have...”) but it is probably easier to swiftly locate applicable abilities if the name of the unit is immediately obvious. 2) Can you add command abilities for specific models in the appropriate phases? Also, while you’re here, can I add a request for adding Ironjaws to the tool? My opponent is an avid Ironjaws player and was very positive about the tool and would definitely appreciate it! He also suggested that if you made the code available then he (and likely others) would happily add content for other factions.

You’re assuming that GW wants to sell a lot of these boxed sets. That’s really only going to be true if they are a way to clear overstock of existing sprus, which seems unlikely in this case given that a Sylvaneth is about to get another big sales push from the new Battletome and Gitz seem popular too right now. In reality, these limited run boxes are a promotion and quite possibly a loss leader. Why would GW want to produce enough boxes to meet the full demand when they are selling the contents at significantly below the market price for the individual components? If they sold enough copies of Looncurse to appease anyone who wanted one or more Arch revenants, what would that do for the market afterwards? People complaining that GW didn’t produce enough boxes are really complaining that GW didn’t make enough for them to buy everything they wanted at discount prices. If all you want is an arch revenant or two then you can pick them up on eBay for less than half the cost of the box (ie cheaper than a share of full Sylvaneth content). How many people who wanted the Sylvaneth still sold the Gitz (or split the box, which is fundamentally the same thing - they weren’t buying Looncurse as an intro set, they were plundering a discount box for stuff they wanted and selling the stuff they didn’t to minimise their net spend. Not that I’m suggesting this is morally wrong, it’s the way this hobby frequently works. I just think the level of indignation is strange when the complaint is that people can’t buy the box at a discount and sell off the stuff they don’t want because someone on eBay bought it to sell on first, and the suggested solution from some people is that GW produce enough discount boxes, at increased cost to themselves, to make everyone happy. Some people even think this would make good economic sense!

If it is only intended as a limited run then why would eBay prices matter?

It’s been less than two weeks!

You can. The Start Collecting box has the full set of Treelord sprus to make a ‘proper’ version of any of the options. The only treelord that you can build from a single spru is the ancient, as the Ancient spru has the core body parts and unique ancient parts. The second spru has the generic Treelord and Durthu parts. To make the basic Treelord seen in the SC box, the box has to contain all the parts for all varieties. You basically get a single set of core arms, legs and body sections which are universal, then three sets of joints for all of the limbs (shoulders, elbows, knees, ankles) which are interchangeable - you can build a ‘proper’ Ancient in a Durthu or generic Treelord pose if you want, and the official pics often show these variations in pose. Each specific treelord type has a unique head, shoulder branches (Durthu has skulls in his), belt/loin cloth and weapon for the right hand. I don’t understand why people thing that heads and other parts are interchangeable. The Durthu parts are covered in skulls, and the Ancient head has a full braided beard - they aren’t remotely similar.

Of course there is more difference than just the hand/weapon choice with the treelord types. You can probably get away with a magnetised weapon, but it will look like your Treelord Ancient (for example) is holding a Durthu sword, rather than a proper Spirit of Durthu.

Two small squads. Tree revenants don’t really work as standard tarpit infantry, that’s what the Dryads are for. If you really need numbers then you can teleport two units to a location (and increase the chances of at least one charge succeeding), but most of the time a group of five is enough for the objective grabbing and charge blocking that revenants should be doing. Plus two units give you far more flexibility in list building for the same points.

Scythes and swords don’t seem too disparate even with mortal wounds. Don’t underestimate the value of 2” reach and -2 Rend. Spite revenants definitely need some work. But that was true even before the recent changes to other units.

Maybe we will get lucky and the next book will be held up too! 😛

If you didn’t get it in the first batch then it almost certainly isn’t coming. I’ve heard that preorders everywhere vastly exceeded expectations and no shop was allocated more than 50 boxes by GW. No one has any idea when/if GW will produce more, and Looncurse has already been listed as limited edition. But if you’ve already got two sets of Sylvaneth content then you really don’t need another box (unless you like Gitz). You’d just be denying another tree hugger the chance to get Archie early.

I predict more like standard endless spells. Fyreslayers don’t have traditional wizards so needed something tailored to give them access to endless spell equivalents. Sylvaneth have more heroes that can cast spells than cannot so don’t need the same specialist treatment. But I would be happy to be wrong.

I don’t think that anyone is saying you rely on bow exclusively - they won’t kill everything and will likely serve time holding one objective rather than securing others - but they have a place. Your point about other players wanting to do some damage to Durthu early to push him down the damage table is valid, but it goes both ways. We will want to do the same to whatever behemoth the other side brings out, and the bow hunters are great for that. I find bows still have great value for any situation where you want to inflict modest damage early, or pick off stragglers/chaff. We’ve talked about using tree revenants as chaff charge blockers, but bow hunters are a reasonable counter to someone else trying something similar.

That’s consistent with conversations I’ve had recently. Our local FEC player has been running hordes (units of 6 and 9) of Crypt Flayers with Crypt Infernal Courtiers to keep them coming back. Between the flying, mortal wounds on a 6 to hit (that don’t stop the rest of the attack sequence) and a few other features, those are steamrollering a lot of lists. The only way to survive is to bubble wrap key models in chaff infantry and hope you can win the attrition game.

That’s consistent with conversations I’ve had recently. Our local FEC player has been running hordes (units of 6 and 9) of Crypt Flayers with Crypt Infernal Courtiers to keep them coming back. Between the flying, mortal wounds on a 6 to hit (that don’t stop the rest of the attack sequence) and a few other features, those are steamrollering a lot of lists. The only way to survive is to bubble wrap key models in chaff infantry and hope you can win the attrition game.

You’re misunderstanding. I don’t mean you personally, but rather the generic “you”. As in “one might take 30 tree revenants because one misread Dreadwood, etc”. Because I can’t think of a valid reason to take that many.

Essentially, yes. As I said, it’s not worth getting into because the language is changing anyway. The only question is whether you believe that GW intends this to be a change to RAW or a change you RAI. Personally, I think it’s really a change to RAW, after a poorly drafted FAQ had unforeseen consequences. I can construct a case for this, but the evidence is all circumstantial - GE generally pretty poor at writing clear rules; consensus at both my local GW store and local non-GW gaming venue; that the recent change brings rules into line with how I had previously interpreted them; and so on. I can even speculate that what GW originally intended with the whole “modifiers apply after rerolls” language was to closer to the idea that you don’t lose modifiers if you reroll. But that remains speculation. Interestingly, none of the difficult issues arise with positive modifiers, and the FAQ example likewise deals with the positive modifier case. It is not unreasonable to speculate that age wrote the FAQ without really thinking about the interaction between negative modifiers and conditional rerolls. But ultimately it is all history anyway, so I genuinely don’t see the point in worry. As I said, I will happily accept that the vast majority of the world interpreted the old rule differently and simply rejoice that GW has changed things to match the way my local community plays before it ever became a problem. Besides which, all of this is distracting us from rampant enthusiasm about new releases. Let’s talk about that instead! 🙂

That’s why I said “because you misread the *revenant requirements for Dreadwood”

That section you’ve quoted doesn’t say what you think it says. That rule only states that you apply modifiers to dice after refilling them. It doesn’t prohibit applying those modifiers before reroll in general too. The FAQ quote that someone quoted earlier is the real source of confusion. The issue with Rend is that the core rules don’t determine the pass/fail state of a save until after Rend is applied. An argument can be made that the whole discussion of modifiers and refills is really only intended to apply to non-standard rerolls (from spells and similar sources) rather than inherent modifiers such as Rend. But it’s an argument that could go either way - an FAQ to the FAQ would not be out of place. More importantly, it’s not an argument worth having given the apparent change in the language used. I will happily concede that a strict reading of the rules could have prohibited reroll of saves which only failed due to Rend. But the current language (as of Looncurse) suggests that GW is addressing an unintended corner case modifier and it was not ever the intent to prohibit rerolls where Rend (as distinct from other modifiers) is concerned.

Four units of 5 each because you misread the *revenant requirements for Dreadwood, and a unit of 10 because you like a challenge when deciding what Alarielle will summon.

I don’t think you’ve got enough Dryads!

[double post]

That’s not how I would parse the FAQ in the context of rend on saves. I can see the argument, but denying a reroll because rend turns a ‘successful’ save into a fail seems counter to the intent, and I’ve never seen it played that way. Either way, the change in language removes the ambiguity.