Landohammer

So I could write a novel on why the Wyldwoods are a problem mechanically, but at least the terrain fits in with the fluff of the army. However most of the other faction terrain just feel like they were tacked on as a cash grab. I can see Alarielle summoning a woods on a battlefield, but are Slaanesh followers gonna haul around a mirror the size of a building? Do Khornates take the time to construct an altar when battle is imminent? They really only benefit their faction under a specific set of circumstances and are more often than not forgotten about/disregarded early on in games. I feel like Tzeentch terrain would have been similar. I imagine we would have got a $50 giant bird statue that lets you reroll 1's to cast while wholly within 6 inches" or something similar. I wish the time/money/talent had went into creating more units.

So my main army is Sylvaneth, and let me tell you that faction terrain is overrated. Its expensive, generally doesn't contribute much, and is a pain to transport. Also, tournaments tend to overcrowd tables with terrain making it exceedingly difficult to place it anywhere meaningful. One of my biggest issues with AOS nowadays is the entourage of models you have to carry with you for competitive play. You have to carry endless spells, models to summon, and faction terrain (sometimes in multiples!). All of which have the potential to never see play.

Yea the frustrating part about Alarielle is that I am pretty sure her base issues with Living City and Gladewyrm weren't intentional. Six inches was probably just slapped on those rules arbitrarily. Luckily the Spiteswarm Hive is 8 inches. Looks like a fun list but I always advise against double TLAs. A big part of their cost is the command ability and the free forest, and you can't duplicate those. I would recommend you swap out a TLA and an endless spell for Durthu. I don't think you will miss one cast.

Wow I did not know either of those things! That is pretty significant correlation. Good on the ITC guys for standing up to the IH insanity and good on GW for responding quickly. If only the same thing had occurred for Slaanesh!

Haha thats awesome. Yea the Gladewyrm goes from meh to crazy good if you can get it within range of multiple units. The sad part is that it can't actually heal Alarielle because her base is too big 😭

Personally, I really like the Gladewyrm mode, so anytime I have the points leftover I put it in. However I have had mixed results with it in my games. It competes directly with Quicksilver swords, and the swords are great in a meta that is full of chaos. The primary benefit, for me at least, is that it can't be turned on you. I can't tell you how many times my own Quicksilver swords or Spellportals have been used against me. I'm like I bought the model, painted it, paid for its points, and casted it, but now its hurting me One good thing about the higher casting cost it that it takes like an 8 to dispel, so most opponents won't bother attempting it unless they have spare casts.

So I fully anticipate (and appreciate) those regularly scheduled updates. But the examples I referenced fall outside of the biyearly points balancing and post-codex clarifications For example, the Repulsors were nerfed weeks BEFORE the codex. Iron Hands weren't just post-codex clarified, they had balance-based rule adjustments Skaven had a warscroll change during a points update Meanwhile Slaanesh were tolerated until the annual update. Of all these situations, Slaanesh likely needed the most immediate attention. Don't get me wrong, all of these changes were VERY welcome. But I'm just making an observation that the methodology isn't always applied consistently.

I think its fair to wait a bit before bringing out the nerf-hammer. What' alarming about GW is the erratic timing of their changes. For example these were relatively unexpected. They let Slaanesh dominate for months but 40K Repulsors were actually adjusted pre-emptively, in anticipation of the SM codex release. They significantly altered a skaven warscrolls months after their codex but adjusted Iron Hands abilities within a few weeks. Its kind of creating a weird situation where you never really know when you are going to get nerfed or buffed. T9A got to this point and it was really alienating for many players.

Tzaangors have the same exact issue on a slightly smaller scale. They typically have four different attack profiles. I always get annoyed at models with excessive attack profiles, especially infantry. It slows down the game terribly. Its particularly terrible when playing vs unfamiliar armies. I find myself constantly asking "any more attacks" and "may I swing now?"

I wish they had taken the opportunity to update Alarielle's summoning table. The 10 Spites remain as a head-scratcher, as does the Tree Revenants and Branchwych to a lesser extent. Personally I don't normally compare Drycha + 6 Kurnoths to Alarielle. If we are talking optimizing, then all of your Kurnoth models should just be in your army period lol. Add battleline and characters to taste. The decision, for me at least, is usually Alarielle vs Drycha+Durthu. I agree though that Alarielle can be a liability on the field. She requires careful placement or she will go down early to experienced players. But Drycha is just as bad. Her wound/pt ratio is pretty bad on paper. (though I would argue her reliability makes up for that)

List 1 -Max Cheese - Keeper and Chariot spam, beastmen battleline List 2 - Moderate Cheese- 1 Keeper, chariot and misc character spam List 3 - Minimal Cheese - 1 Keeper, 1 chariot, fiends, seekers Games vs list 1 and 2 weren't even close. But the game vs list 3 was relatively close until depravity put 900pts+ back on the table. Having your opponent essentially just respawn half their army is just nuts. Again I think that they focused on the right issues to begin nerfing. If Slaanesh continues to be a problem then perhaps GW should take a look at the Keeper specifically. It seems to be the epicenter of Slaanesh's issues.

Ahahaha I actually use that quote a lot jokingly but in this case its probably true. At least Keepers can't rely on an 83% chance of going first anymore. Having a 33% chance of failure means that Alpha strikes may occasionally fail. Well I have played 3 different Slaanesh lists in a tournament setting and I hated all of them lol.

Overall I am very happy with the changes to the armies I use. Sylvaneth, Cities, and Idoneth changes were all solid. I will be happy to see wildriders, turtles, and treelords on the table again. I think the jury is still out regarding Slaanesh. At first glance I really like the nerfs. They are clearly hitting the right nails (depravity and locus) But I agree that the changes may force competitive players into more Keeper (and chariot) spam. However the one ray of sunshine in all this, is that at the end of the day this is an objective based game. Players who spam Keepers will run into the same issues as other armies: They won't have the infantry they need to screen and retake objectives.

There should be a price difference between bows and swords/scythes. There is clearly a performance difference. Though to be fair it should probably be a discount on bows rather than an increase on the others.

Yep you did. I will happily eat crow on this one. My list gained 100+ points. Pretty strange that Hunters didn't go up but whatever. I will take it!

Yes apologies. My sentence should read "any" turn not necessarily "your" turn. I quoted the rule then completely messed up the summary of that rule lol. I actually had two recent opponents in tournaments think the same thing. Its surprisingly common. I think the root of the confusion is how AOS allows you to leave an objective but maintain control over it.

Here is the quote from the "Battleplan" section of the rules: "At the end of each player's turn you must check to see if either player has gained control of any objectives." The rest of the paragraph is also relevant but I think this sentence answers your question. So long story short: You can only establish control of an objective at the END of one of your turns.

It can be a bit annoying, but do note that you ignore woods for the purposes of LOS when you or your target fly. So Alarielle just flat out doesn't have to worry about it. Branchwyches don't really need to be inside of woods unless your opponent has the ability to snipe them off. They either want to cast a heal spell, summon a forest, or use their AOE spell. In all of those cases you want your Branchwych to be moving up the board each turn. Branchwraith's are probably going to be summoning each turn, so LOS isn't really a concern. But like Trevalyn said, the trick is to make sure you have the right spells on the right casters so this never happens. 2000pt games will probably alleviate some of your frustration because you will have access to more casters.

Spites are good for a battleline unit, but there are very few instances where they will outperform Kurnoth Hunters. Maybe vs hordes of low-save infantry? Note that Spites only have a 1 inch attack range but have 32 inch bases. So on average you may get 7-8 guys in combat. Also 20 spites is like $160 USD. You could buy 9 Kurnoth Hunters for the same price lol. Drycha is still solid even if she doesn't get to use her Spite buff. It would be extremely difficult to keep them in range of her buff anyway.

Looks great! Do note that if you substitute Durthu for the Prime then you will have too many Sylvaneth units. So most people prefer Kurnoth Hunters in units of 6 to have Scythes, but I have fielded a unit of 6 greatswords in about 3 tournaments now and they do just fine. I can usually get 5 guys in with a decent charge roll and that is still 20 attacks. I have mentioned this before, but Durthu just isn't that good without Wyldwoods, Glades, and specific artefacts. He loses probably about 40-50% of his damage output outside of Sylvaneth lists. Drycha is a much stronger option for shooting based movement shenanigans.

She was originally 600 so I doubt she would go right back down to that again. Remember that 60pts gave her access to glades, a better Talon, and a free Verdant Blessing. She lost the additional self-heal which was probably the most painful nerf though. I actually wish we could take Alarielle and/or the Wardroth Beatle separate. Sometimes I want just a strong caster or a flying behemoth, and the model itself seems like it was intended to be removable. Yea Archie is strong in KH list for sure, but I think if you are going to invest 500pts in a clump of bows then you might as well go nuts and run the Heartwood glade so you can reroll ALL hits with the bows. A branchwraith with the item and the Harmony spell will be much more effective. Archie's command ability is strong but I prefer to use it on units of 6 Hunters, or even large blocks of Spites/Dryads. While it can reach all KH units on the board, it still only affects one unit per use.

So for the most part I think Alarielle is at least in the ballpark of a good cost. GW tends to price wizards at around 90pts+ per cast. So that is 270pts right off the top. So that puts the beatle at around 190pts which is really good for a flying behemoth. Alarielle only starts to look bad when you compare her to the insanely undercosted behemoths like Keepers of Secrets. If you only compare her to tier B and C stuff then she is relatively reasonable. Personally I wish they would remove her summon ability and make her 460pts. Maybe make her "soul pod" ability something like a deepstrike. That way she wouldn't dictate so much of our lists.

I love your list. Actually seeing your list a while back actually caused me to reassess the Hunters with Bows altogether! I actually impulse bought some off ebay that day! However as @Graywater said, the investment to get those Hunters to perform was pretty huge. Thats a lot of points that needs to stay together and I am curious how it would do outside of a team-based event. (You should run it in a singles event and let us know!!) I don't disagree, but I think "good" is relative here. They can shoot in a book with very limited access to shooting, so that makes them useful. However our allies just run circles around them. We have access to some pretty solid shooters such as Celestar Ballistas, Sisters of the Watch, and the Wanderer characters. All of which are a lot more efficient at the role. Hunters are just paying too many taxes on their melee-based abilities that don't benefit them at their job.

This topic came up in the Sylvaneth thread as well as the Rules forum. So for deeper discussion on that you may want to hit up those threads. But in summary, there is nothing tying Verdant Blessing to Sylvaneth Allegiance. Here is the quote from the Sylvaneth Codex: "SYLVANETH WIZARDS know the Verdant Blessing spell in addition to any other spells they know. 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." So RAW: The Lore of the Deepwood requires the allegiance. Verdant Blessing is keyword based.

Yep! The Teleport loses some of its value if you can't reliably get a charge off afterwards. If you are just teleporting on to objectives without the intent to charge then Tree Revenants can do the job without the need for Dreadwood. Cogs and Hive are both 7 to cast though, so Dreadwood benefits greatly from a multi-caster. I usually cast throne and then Hive to help increase the chances that it goes off. Correct! I think most players alternate battleshock tests just out of habit, but yes it all occurs simultaneously. So that sole surviving Spite Revenant testing at -19 leadership will still get to use his debuff provided he is still in range. Sometimes if my Kurnoth or characters are fighting elites, I will send any surviving units of spites into the combat as well. Most opponents aren't willing to waste attacks on them and end up losing several models to morale (or are forced to burn CP to save them). Outcast Spite revenants are particularly brutal at this. I actually caused 2 Gore Gruntas to flee from combat with 6 spites. Ouch!