Trevelyan

The colours are irrelevant. Conceptually they’re spring, summer, autumn and winter (light green, dark green, orange and white) but the symbols are identical. The dark green is a little harder to read than the rest against the brown, but still perfectly visible.

Winter leaf is a strong glade, but I think you are underestimating several of the others. Harvestboon, Gnarlroot and Dreadwood are all a lot better than you acknowledge. Winterleaf has the most directly potent Ability, but I’d argue that other grades have the stronger claim to the best Command Ability, Command Trait and Artefact. Branch Blizzard just pays a command point to autocast Dwellers Below. The mobility provided by Dreadwood’s Sinister Ambush is vastly better, especially with the reduction in movement via wyldwood. With a battalion or two for extra command points and the Spiteswarm Hive to boost charges you can arrange an alpha strike that doesn’t need exploding 6s. Another contender is Harvestboon - a single extra attack for Durthu under the Harvestboon command ability will do more damage than the Winterleaf ability. Harvestboon has a very useful command trait too. Seek New Fruit prevents most retaliation in combat. Put that on a Durthu and he’s got a much easier time picking targets and surviving attacks. The Gnarlroot Nurtured by Magic is defensive rather than offensive, but significantly boosts healing and plays well with the glade artefact as well as the popular Vesperal Gem. Gnarlroot has one of the strongest artefacts too. A lot of strategies depends on getting key spells out in time, and the Chalice of Nectar helps with those. The Vesperal Gem is obviously good for everyone, but only the Chalice helps to summon Wyldwoods, cast endless spells and unbind offensive magic. It has value every turn, in contrast the Winterleaf Gem buys you one extra attack and can be wasted. Winterleaf is best for charging your blob and the other guy’s blob and rolling fistfuls of dice. Other glades are equally good at different ways of playing the game.

I think that’s an important difference between new Gnarlroot and old Gnarlroot. The old wargrove was all about casting more spells, but didn’t make you any better at actually casting them. It was quantity over quality. The new glade doesn’t allow you to cast more, but makes that casting reliable and adds the various healing and defence buffs. Since the best spells on the Deepwood list are the two healing spells, chances are you’ll be using the reliable casting to cast a healing spell (doubly so if you also take a battalion and the Vesperal Gem). It adds up to a much more resilient list

That’s the very point of the FAQ update - it clarifies that you use the GHB during setup only and Wyldwoods placed during play ignore the GHB and follow the rules for the ability used to place them.

I definitely agree on the healing spells. Although I usually find that having any healing spell on a Branchwraith is a waste as she is very rarely in range and LoS of things that need healing. Alarielle almost certainly is (flying helps), so I’m often inclined to give her one of the healing spells unless there is a clearly better option (such as two TLAs with artefacts in gnarlroot). The gain from casting Throne probably doesn’t offset the cost of missing a summon by itself. In the past (old Battletome) I’ve played lists with two wraiths, one with Thrones and the other on wyldwood duty. Turn 1 the wyldwood wraith summons Dryads while the throne wraith gets her throne on (using the acorn and the TLA to get woods out) then they swap. That’s gave me a dedicated wood summoning caster that benefitted from being hidden so harder to destroy. New Battletome makes that less valid as a choice since anyone can summon Wyldwoods and the range is reduced. My solo wraiths mostly have Thrones because it’s about the only other spell they might cast, even though they mostly just summon. It’s never really tempting to put that much effort into Dryad summoning. For a start, the Vesperal Gem doesn’t do anything for her summoning. I have had her benefit from Cogs in the past, but only ever as a side effect of no longer needing the movement buff. Once you’re engaged you might as well switch the spell. I still find value in speed bumps and objective campers at 2000 points. 100 points that you don’t spend on Dryads immediately will get you an arch-revenant. And while the relative value of 10 Dryads in a 2000 point list is half that in a 1000 point list, so is the relative cost of the Branchwraith to summon them. A single successful summons earns the points back, more is just gravy. Worst case scenario, I’ve tempted opponents into unbundling her summons early so later, more strategically important spells can go off safely (and vice verse). There are lists where I’m tempted to drop the wraith, but she’s usually at the top of the list of things to add back if the points are available.

Worth noting that they can both have it, and even both benefit from it simultaneously. They just can’t both cast it on the same turn. But you can have the Branchwraith cast it T1 and then stay put churning out Dryads on subsequent turns with a +2 bonus as long as she doesn’t move. Meanwhile Alarielle uses the first of her three spells on turns 2-5 to cast Throne, then casts two more spells with the +2 bonus.

I agree that makes intuitive sense, but there is currently zero official support for this view. GW hasn’t released a generic Wyldwood warscroll or any sort of clarifying remarks. Do you have a reference that I’ve missed?

But it doesn’t say anything about the inclusion of Wyldwood on the list of allowed terrain for placement in matched play.

You don’t want to ask me. I’m like a one trick pony - I always recommend 6x scythe hunters. That said, I do like another unit when I’ve got the points to spare. Your list already has Durthu and Drycha, though, so you’ve got plenty of punch available. In which case I suspect that the third batch of hunters may be superfluous. You’ll certainly struggle to find a place to put them into melee if you go swords. I think the 200 points could probably be better spent, but you might also want to tinker with the Spites for enough points for a Treelord Ancient.

Over the course of a 5 round game, you’d realistically only expect a Branchwraith to summon 30 Dryads at most. The spell is t the easiest to cast, and even with Throne of Vines (which then takes a turn to cast anyway) you can fail or have the spell unbound. Some Glades will help - a Gnarlroot Dryad might summon 50 Dryads - but assuming 30 is safe. Alarielle can also summon Dryads. Although I often assume I’ll summon some sword hunters with her, the Dryads are a valid option more often than you might suspect. That’s another potential 20 Dryads. But you don’t really need 30-50 spare Dryads. If you are using them then they will die, and late game summons can come from the minis you’ve already removed. I’ve got 64 Dryads (made up as 6 Nymphs and 58 normal), made from four Start Collecting boxes, and that has always been enough for me. It does mean that Dryad spam lists are a challenge/impossible to run, but those seem less valid under the new book. It’s certainly enough to have a unit of 30, or two units of 20 with some bodies for extra summoning. EDIT: having a spare unit of sword hunters for Alarielle to summon is always worthwhile too.

It’s just a bit of fluff for beginners. You can’t use it in matched play. The command trait only gives a bonus attack in the combat phase, so the most you get for the bows is the reroll 1s. That said, if you are taking 600 points of melee focused Kurnoth Hunters then you probably do want the arch-revenant to buff them. But taking units of 3 is very inefficient when it comes to using the command ability.

It’s not a bad start. There is something to be said for considering a Treelord Ancient, as an extra caster, the source of an extra wyldwood and for the stomp. A lot has been said recently (in the last few pages) about the relative merits of scythe hunters vs sword hunters in large numbers. Worth checking that out to see whether you really want 6x sword hunters, 6x scythe hunters or 2x 3 sword hunters.

Mine just arrived. I can confirm that these new templates are a perfect match for the footprint of the real woods.

I’ve ordered a set to see for myself. If they are a good fit then I’ll use them to cut my new set of Deepcut mat trees. Either way I can report back in a few days.

Are the Counter Attack templates for the new woods accurate? Most of their stuff is pretty good, but their template for the original citadel wood was only very approximate. EDIT: I’ve now got a set of the new templates. They are much better than the old version (which had the trees in the wrong places). Confirm an exact match.

Not getting to attack first is a reason to take the 6 scythes, over the swords. If your unit is going to get charged then you naught as well have enough bodies to hit back with. You could easily lose 2 or 3 hunters to a credible threat. That’ll either remove or effectively neuter your 3 sword unit but having 3 or 4 scythes lets you fight back and the threat may deter weaker units from challenging the hunters. Taking 3 swords with Alarielle is definitely worthwhile, as is taking 3 swords generally when you’ve already got a bigger unit of scythes as your primary hitters. Swords are still good, and they are the best option whenever you take a smaller unit. I’m just saying that the real value of the scythes isn’t apparent from just the numbers, where swords always win, but from actual play where the less tangible advantages of the scythe really make a difference.

Of course, getting 6 scythes into range is vastly easier than getting two units each of 3 swords into range of the same target. Not least because you can only teleport one unit through the Wyldwoods now. You will need more than 3 of either type to reliably deal with the bigger targets that should be the primary prey of the hunters, be they behemoths or larger units of infantry. Plus even a unit of 3 scythes benefits proportionally more from the arch revenant than a unit of 3 swords (+33% attacks vs +25% attacks). A unit of 6 scythes not only benefits even more, but costs half the command points to buff than two units of swords. Don’t overlook the advantage of 2” reach for running your hunters behind a screen of chaff infantry, or simply getting more of the unit into range when their tanglethorn thickets limit them to a 1” pile in. 3 “naked” swords will outperform 3 “naked” scythes when you just compare the numbers, but there’s a difference between warhammer and mathhammer. Or to look at it another way, sword hunters have always been statistically stronger than scythe Hunters, but there is a reason only the swords got the mortal wound ability and still cost the same.

Im not convinced by the spell selection across Alarielle and the wraith. Although Throne of Vines is generally useful on Alarielle, that tends to be in situations where you’ve got the basic spells covered elsewhere. The wraith is only casting a single spell, so will ideally be summoning more Dryads for much of the game. When you need Regrowth, you’ll face a dilemma between casting that and summoning more Dryads. That’s even assuming the wraith is in range to heal anything - typically you’ll want to keep her away from the action. I would be tempted to give Regrowth to Alarielle in this list. You’ll need her to get stuck in to combat, so the extra d6 healing will be useful to top up her inherent d3 healing. She’ll then be healing, casting her own spell and still have a third cast for an endless spell. The alternative would be to go with Verdurous Harmony on Alarielle to help any Kurnoths, or even Dryads, that she summons (if she summons a treelord then Regrowth is a stronger pick). Either way, having both Regrowth and Verdurous Harmony across both casters is probably better than dropping either for a Throne of Vines.

Units of 3 hunters can die to serious threats before you get a chance to use them. It won’t always happen, and you can screen them in some cases, but I find that they are in the awkward position of being a big enough threat if left alone, yet a small enough unit that it is worth the effort of your opponent removing them if they have half a chance. Even if they only remove two hunters, the remaining solo Hunter is a sad puppy. In contrast, it takes an awful lot to remove a whole unit of 6 hunters and very few of the things that can remove 3 will want to take out half the unit and find themselves on the receiving end of the rest (plus any you’ve restored in the interim). I’ve never taken a unit of 6 and wished I’d split them into two 3s, but I’ve taken two units of 3 and regretted it. Not always, but enough not to treat it as a preferred option.

You can teleport out of combat. The designer’s commentary for the previous Battletome confirms this, but there is no reason to assume it has changed since. Kurnoths are always in range of command abilities as you suggest. This is very effective with the arch revenant.

Possibly a silly question - perhaps I’ve overlooked a core rule, or missed something in the new book (after reading the leaks for two months I admit to skimming the finished article) - but what is the purpose of the new “social class” keywords on the warscrolls? We’ve got units listed as ‘noble spirits’ or ‘outcasts’, for example. It seems to be pure fluff. Is there any rule which actually references any of these keywords or are they completely redundant?

It’s very similar to my current Gnarlroot list. The only real change is that I dropped Durthu to turn the 3x Sword Hunters into a 6x Scythe Hunters, and took an ArchRevenant to buff them. That leaves you enough points to take both spells. I like the bow hunters in this list, although others may disagree. Between the treelords and LotC, you’ve got enough ranged output for your opponent to feel it, and the bow hunters add to that nicely.

I’m not sure that’s true. The Wyldwood you put down with your allegiance ability is still considered a terrain feature and the core rules note that “Terrain features are considered to be friendly to both sides and cannot he chosen as the target of an attack”. I don’t know if there is a specific FAQ on faction terrain which supersedes that.

It would probably work well against something like Orruks that just want to charge at your front line, but against anything more mobile that can fly over your units to your objectives, or even just run faster to flank you, 5 Spite Revenants won’t be able to hold the objective. See the above discussion - this is a case where you want Dryads more than the alternative. While you can summon them, it isn’t reliable without some further casting buffs. I would be inclined to keep the arch Revenant but consider dropping one of Durthu or Drycha. With the Kurnoths in the list you’ve already got plenty of punch. That’ll let you get a nice blob of Dryads or two plus free up some more points, perhaps for a second wraith.

Sylvaneth don’t really play like Idoneth. If the only option was to set the two units up on the table and get them running towards an opposing unit then the Dryad speed advantage would be more significant. And sometimes it really does help. But more often than not you are either a) being charged, in which case Dryads help on the defence but the movement is largely irrelevant; b) close enough to an enemy that failed a charge that you can walk right up with either unit and any half decent charge roll gives you adequate distance to get the unit fully engaged; or c) teleporting a unit forward, at which point the 9” charge is identical for both units, with the Dryad range needing to get twice as many, at around twice the cost, into combat to even things out. Teleports with the new book are obviously more restricted, but in Dreadwood you’ve got a lot of Spite synergy and extra teleports, and while you might not always be teleporting Spites otherwise, you won’t want to be teleporting Dryads in those circumstances either - you’ll be sending Kurnoths in ahead of either of them. I’m not saying you won’t want Dryads, because you will. I’m saying that you don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking that’s a Dryads are your best offensive battleline infantry. And by extension, you don’t want to overlook the value of Spites, because even a unit of 5 or 10 can punch a lot harder than you’d think.