readercolin

I do agree that a good bit of the power of Sylvaneth will likely come from allegiance abilities. However, I would expect that there are potentially a few units that could see play in the living city even without those allegiance abilities. For example: Right now, Cities has no access to 2 cast wizards without giving a single cast wizard the arcane tome. However, sylvaneth would let us bring Alarielle (a unique 3 cast wizard), the Lady of Vines (a unique 2 cast wizard) and the warsong revenant (a non-unique 2 cast wizard). All of these wizards are also noticeably more durable than the wizards that Cities otherwise has access to. The new spite rider lancers look to be noticably faster and hit a good bit harder than anything else Cities has access to, short of fulminators. If the Living City command ability does get the expected nerf, fulminators are going to be less guaranteed pain delivery methods, and having 14/16" move lancers (or whatever they end up being) able to come in and smash things gives the army a melee alpha threat that it is otherwise lacking. Tree-Revenants, if they keep their teleport ability, give the cities a way to have on board teleporting rather than only relying on deep striking. For more trick focused lists, this can be fairly relevant as a way to guarantee some battle tactics and threaten objectives. For everything else, there is likely something else in either the cities or stormcast that can fulfil a similar role. It is also very much moving the city away from their current trick which is dragons + fulminators... but that isn't necessarily a downside. Overall, I am not personally expecting too much out of sylvaneth units in my living city lists, but I will definitely experiment with some, even just in "for fun" lists.

So I just got done with a team tournament and I brought out my Phoenicium to represent. The following is what I ran: List I took: Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar - City: Phoenicium - Grand Strategy: Hold the Line - Triumphs: Anointed on Flamespyre Phoenix (290)* - General - Command Trait: One with Fire and Ice - Golden Mist - Artefact: Phoenix Pyre Ashes Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)* - Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) - Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon Sorceress (95)* - Lore of the Phoenix: Golden Mist Knight-Incantor (125)* - Lore of the Phoenix: Golden Mist 20 x Phoenix Guard (350)** - Reinforced x 1 20 x Phoenix Guard (350)** - Reinforced x 1 10 x Phoenix Guard (175)** 10 x Shadow Warriors (120)* 10 x Shadow Warriors (120)* Emerald Lifeswarm (60) *Warlord **Hunters of the Heartlands Artefact Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 2 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 104 Drops: 9 Overall in the event, I had the best army on my team against "all comers", and therefore was usually the sacrifice that was thrown out because I didn't really have bad matchups. Gameplay bore this out, as most of my games were fairly close, and I ended with a 3/2 record and my team took second place in overall score. As for my games, a quick review: Game 1: Stormcast - longstrikes + fulminators on Apex Predators. This match can be summed up in an army with rend -1 struggles to go through a 2+ ignore rend-1. Basically, a whole lot of nothing happened, with fulminators failing to go through the phoenix's + phoenix guard, and me unable to go through them back. This game ended on round 3 as a loss for me with a score of 14/13. Game 2: IDK - incarnage + magic eidolon + blender king + 12 eels. Here, we saw the power of the blender king, as it charged on turn 2 and gave itself fight first and then proceeded to go through 21 phoenix guard on its own. However, my opponent over-committed and then proceeded to attempt to go for the kill, rather than playing to objectives, and therefore lost. This game ended on round 5, with a win for me with a score of 24/15. Game 3: Legion of the first prince - Be'Lakor, Kairos, GUO, 2x10 pinks and 5 dogs. This game turned into a massive dual of "steal objectives and burn immediately", and due to me failing to win every single priority roll I barely failed to kill kairos, and he kept be'lakor's ability till turn 5 to deny my final battle tactic, resulting in a score of 17/15 and my second loss. Game 4: Stormcast - annihilators + longstrikes on survival of the fittest. Here, 1 squad of annihilators + longstrikes were able to burn through 20 phoenix guard in a single turn. However, fight on death showed its worth again and the game turned into a bit of a slugfest. My opponent made a mistake in positioning on turn 4 and failed their battle tactic, which then tilted them into making potentially un-optimal plays on turn 5, leading to a 24/17 victory. Game 5: Gloomspite Gitz with the trogg herd on Tectonic Interference. This game was a grindy mash in the middle of the board, and it turns out the phoenix temple was better at grinding. I eventually killed everything but their Troggoth Hag, and pulled out a win with 31/24. Overall, my MVP was the Frostheart Phoenix. It was able to get where I needed it to go, do the damage I needed it to do, and the -1 to wound de-buff was felt in every game. That being said, I can't really advise running multiple because its damage is remarkably underwhelming without flaming weapon. Overall, my least valuable was probably the shadow warriors. I'm pretty sure I could have done better in basically every single game if I replaced them with something else... anything else. Over the course of the entire tournament, they successfully killed 3 longstrikes and a single Khorne Dog. This was not worth dedicating 240 points towards, though the army really does need an additional shooting threat. I think 20 man blocks of phoenix guard are good in a Phoenicium list. Rally + emerald lifeswarm is enough to let you really grind with phoenix guard. That being said, it does leave you less points you can spend on other units, which can be a downside. All this being said, fight on death really breaks the rhythm of the game, and really slow things down. Keeping your distances in mind and maneuvering around that can also be really annoying in game as well, and it requires a lot of thinking. This isn't a problem for me with single games, but multiple games in a day is a fast way to burning out. Therefore, I'm going to be putting the Phoenicium down for a while and try something new for future tournaments. I'll probably pull out the Phoenicium for fun, as I love the army, but I just don't have the brain power to keep that up over 3 games a day.

So protectors can potentially be good in tempest eye, but I wouldn't rely on a battlemage (even with a retinue) to keep up the aura of glory. At 5 wounds, with a 6+ save battlemages are just too squishy, especially with the number of mortal wounds around the game right now. Additionally, Yndrasta does nothing for the army outside of maybe bringing back a protector, and she just doesn't carry enough weight for a 320 point unit. For Aura of Glory carriers, I personally prefer either a Frostheart Phoenix (with arcane tome), a Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion, or the Celestial Hurricanum. The Frostheart is a very resilient piece that is fast moving, can give a -1 to wound aura, and can easily choose where it needs to go. The Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion is another large, durable, fast moving threat that has a large base to give Aura of Glory from. Finally the Hurricanum is just generally good, giving a +1 to hit bubble in addition to the spell and a mortal wound ranged attack. This is not to say don't bring a battlemage. They are good, but I wouldn't make him the general and put a significant portion of your build behind him. Overall, if you want to build around protectors, I would look at something like the following: Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar - City: Tempest's Eye Battlemage (115) Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (280) - Lore of Eagles: Aura of Glory Runelord (100) - General - Command Trait: Hawk-eyed 10 x Longbeards (105) - Ancestral Weapons & Shields 30 x Irondrakes (510) - Reinforced x 2 10 x Dreadspears (90) 10 x Protectors (450) - Reinforced x 1 20 x Phoenix Guard (350) - Reinforced x 1 Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 4 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 121 Drops: 8 This gives you a solid shooting threat in the irondrakes backed up by the runelord, and gives you 2 solid melee threats in the phoenix guard and the protectors. It also all fits perfectly into a battle regiment, giving you solid turn priority. The irondrakes can still be on a 2+/2+ with an all out attack (or if the hurricanum just stays nearish), while the hurricanum can buff either the protectors or the phoenix guard (or both) with a +1 to hit and potentially +1 attacks. I would also probably just give the runelord the arcane tome to get 3 wizards, but if you want to run something else most of the rest of the list remains pretty open.

If Judicators and longstrikes didn't exist, vigilors might be playable. Stick vigilors in another faction, and the other faction would probably be fine getting them. They basically suffer from 4 problems: Range. An 18" range is less than the 24" range of Judicator or the 30" range of longstrikes. This means that they have to either move closer to shoot, or get teleported if they want to do the hero phase shooting. Damage. On base, vigilors have the exact same shooting profile (besides range) as judicators. However, judicators do mortal wounds on a 6 to hit, which means that on average they do more. They aren't battleline. Judicators are battleline on their own, which means 1 less squad of liberators/vindictors/whatever that you have to bring. Vigilors CAN be battleline, but then you have to spend another 205 points to get a Knight-Judicator, AND you have to make that knight-judicator your general. Points. For all of the above reasons, Vigilors just aren't worth 195 points. Not when you can bring judicators or longstrikes. Additionally, if you want to bring them as a melee unit, you are going to suffer because they only have a 1" reach on their weapons. This leaves you with the choice of having to bring MSU squads of them so that they can operate efficiently in melee, or bring reinforced squads of them to take advantage of thunderbolt volley, which just makes them more awkward to use. Overall, Vigilors are suffering because they want to be both a shooting unit and a melee unit, but they do both those roles worse than other options. If you want a dedicated shooting unit, you want to reinforce them, and it will cost more than judicators for the same role and perform worse. If you want a dedicated melee unit, you would do better to run Vindictors which can reinforce better AND be tankier. If you want both... generally stormcast do better by picking up units that perform their specific role very well than running generalists that can kind of do many roles. Now, as long as you understand their limitations... which for the most part are comparative to other options within the stormcast roster, they aren't actually THAT bad. You aren't going to run them competitively, but as long as you are ok with that, they can perform their roles reasonably well. You just need to decide if you are going to run them as a reinforced shooting focused unit, or run them as MSU and try to take advantage of their dual roles. Also, if you are bringing a Knight-Judicator to make them battleline. If your opponents are also playing casually, you will probably do fine with them. If your opponents are bringing competitive lists... you are likely to do significantly less fine.

With the amount of stuff that has been released for Sylvaneth and Slaves to Darkness, I wouldn't expect another temple for Lumineth. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't expect it. Maybe another hero (because clearly Lumineth need more hero's), but I would expect that it is mostly just an allegiance ability rebalancing. Going with GW's pattern, I would expect simplified warscrolls, loss of command abilities, and more power put into the allegiance abilities. I would also expect the various great nations to provide just a single ability, and maybe unlock battleline. So here would be my expectations: Sunmetal weapons may get changed to an allegiance ability, or may remain on warscrolls (considering that it is only on some of the warscrolls). Personally, I expect it to stay on warscrolls because it is on less than half the warscrolls. That being said, I could see them lean more into that and have it be an allegiance ability like the Kruelboyz one and just shift it so that the whole army is always doing mortals. If they do that, then I would expect power of hysh to just be a spell that is an allegience ability that can be cast multiple times. I would expect that the wizard units keep being wizards, but no changes to the non-wizard units in this regard. For the warscrolls, in general I expect them to be simplified. Sentinels, Wardens and Dawnriders will remain wizards, but they won't have any other special abilities, just warscroll adjustments. Swordmasters will likely be either bodyguards or have their swordmaster ability, but not both. Stoneguard and Windchargers will likely get new profiles and lose any special abilities they have, and I expect the spirit of the wind to get greatly simplified and gain the elite keyword. The ballista will likely lose the warding lantern and starshard bolts ability, and just get +1 attack on its profile and have a once-per-game blinding bolts ability. For hero's, I don't expect too many changes aside from removing command abilities and the monsters getting their brackets changed. Finally, allegiance abilities. I expect the great nations to be simplified just like every other book so far to being a single buff and maybe battleline unlocks. Artefacts, command traits will be lumineth generic, but I also expect them to all get changed up. Aetherquartz and lightning reactions will likely stick around, though the buffs provided by aetherquartz might change. I'm not sure if they will keep the vanari/scinari/hurakan/alarith battle traits, or if they will just cut those or shift them to hero buffs. Finally, I expect the spells to get thoroughly changed up, probably with a reduction in the total number of spell options - the big question is whether they will keep the 3 spell lores, or shove everything into a single one.

Nah. Just because stormdrakes and fulminators are strong, I shouldn't be prevented from bringing a reinforced unit of Grunstock Thunderers in my Tempest Eye army, or bringing a double-reinforced unit of Wardens in Settlers gain, or a reinforced block of dryads in the Living City. Even limiting reinforcements to a single coalition unit breaks things like bringing 2 reinforced units of Endrinriggers in tempest eye, or deciding that I want to have a flavorful block of reinforced Vindictors in any of my cities. Again, sweeping changes that affect everything is not the solution to the fact that stormdrakes are too strong, or that fulminators are the best unit to use with the living city command abilities.

No. A lord celestant on stardrake dishes about 10 damage in melee before buffs. This is for a 500 point monster. He can kind of make up for this by picking off individual models on pile in, but I've never had one kill equal to its points value in a game that I've played with it. And to be clear, I've used a lot of excuses to field one.

From the cities themselves, the only real monster hero's are the Freeguild General on Griffon, the Dreadlord on Black Dragon, and the Annointed on Phoenix. Of those 3, the Freeguild General is likely the killiest... and this isn't exactly saying much. The Dreadlord on Black dragon can be very killy, but it can also whiff and do exactly nothing (the most common case in my experience). Finally, the Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix is a good, durable support piece, but it isn't really something that you can just chuck in and let it go to town like the Maw Krusha. Finally, the Annointed on Flamespyre Phoenix... yeah, the less that is said on that, the better. However, all is not lost. Why? Because we still have Coalition and Allied monsters to draw from. Do keep in mind though that all the coalition units can benefit from allegience abilities and artefacts, but none can be your general. Your allies have to stand on the weight of their own warscroll though. Almost every city gets stormcast coalition, and there are a few good stormcast combat monsters. First off, you have Krondys and Karazai, both of which are probably a little overcosted for what they do, but can be solid centerpieces in your cities army. Celestant Prime remains a hammer from the heavens, and arguably is stronger in the Cities than in stormcast itself. After that... things drop off pretty hard, and the only other combat monster I would consider bringing would be a Knight-Draconis, as he is a solid artefact carrier and a reasonably tanky and killy hero. However, if you want to feel really spicy, you can consider bringing bastion. After stormcast, Cities still have a number of coalition options, but these will all lock you into a single city. The first city to consider is Har Kuron, which restricts you to basically the old Dark Elf lineup (and also no stormcast coalition), but you get Daughters of Khaine as coalition. The relevant unit here? Morathi. So if you liked the old dark elves, but still want an excuse to run morathi, then you can try this city out. Next up, Tempest Eye. Here, you get coalition Kharadron Overlords, which don't really have combat monsters in the same way that the maw krusha is, but you still can get a fabulous centerpiece in the Ironclad. For the next city, we can look at the living city and their coalition Sylvaneth. Now, there are only really 3 units to consider from the sylvaneth, and if we are being honest... none of them is particularly great outside of Sylvaneth. First is the Spirit of Durthu, who is an excelent combat monster, but gets betrayed by the fact that the Living City doesn't really get wyldwoods, and he has to be near them to get +2 attacks for his 6 damage sword. Second is Drycha, and probably the best choice of monster as she can still do most of her work without any sylvaneth dependencies, but she is still only a 300ish point monster. Finally, you get Alarielle. Alarielle is a solid monster, but without other sylvaneth to buff, she is likely not going to be worth the 740 points (or whatever she is currently at) to try to run her. Moving on, we get Settlers Gain, which lets you bring Lumineth. Now, lumineth isn't exactly known of for being combat monsters, and settlers gain allegience abilities are honestly kind of trash. However, if you want to run Teclis but don't want to have to paint a whole fiddly army of Lumineth, you can do so here, or you can run one of their Cow Mountains. Finally, we move on from coalition units and get to allies. Here, there are only really 4 allies of note to consider. Firstly, you have Gotrek. If you have somehow gotten this far without ever coming across the ginger ninja, just know that he is quite possibly the killiest individual unit in the entire game. He gets 6 attacks at 3+/3+/-2/3... but he also gets to re-roll all hit and wound rolls, and any 6's to hit result in d6 mortal wounds in addition. In case that wasn't enough, he also gets to fight a second time at the end of the combat phase if he is still near an enemy unit. But, you may then be wondering how anyone would let him survive that long... to which I say he is utter BS. Yes, he only has a 4+ save and 8 wounds, but he also reduces all damage dealt to him by a single attack/ability/whatever to 1, AND he has a 3+ ward on top of that. The only reason why Gotrek isn't literally everywhere is that he is only a 4" move unit, so getting all that killing power to a target is the hardest part of running him. Next up, and definitely failing to live up to the ginger ninja's raw killing power, you get Bundo Whalebiter. As a megagargant, bundo is a solid mountain of wounds, with a reasonable attack profile as well. Personally, I'm not a fan of megagargants, but if you are, then he is a solid consideration. More recently, we now can run the Incarnate as an ally. The incarnate is a solid monster hunter (just ignore anything it says about endless spells), and also has the advantage of not dying/going down a level until the battleshock phase, meaning you can just throw it into stuff and then not worry too much. Finally, there is one unit that is potentially worth considering as an ally that isn't in any potential coalition cities. That is the Runefather on Magmadroth. For 360 points, you get an ally with a 4+ save, 16 wounds, and ~13 damage before saves. Sadly, he can't benefit from any allegience abilities, but he can still give himself an extra attack on all his profiles once per game, and if someone comes after him in melee, he can blead on them for extra mortal wounds. ----------- In conclusion, the best "combat monsters" would probably be Krondys, Karazai, Gotrek, and the incarnate. After that, there are a bunch of fun choices that you can choose from, but nothing that really stands out at the same level that a Maw Krusha does.

The only cities units really worth allying in (and not as a stormhost) would be: Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix. This guy gives stormcast a tanky, fast moving monster that also has a debuff aura. If you bring him in a stormhost, he can also be given the arcane tome and flaming weapon, which is a big upgrade for his damage (and tankyness). 20 Phoenix Guard. This gives you 20 bodies on an objective for 350 points, and these 20 bodies all have a 4+ save and 4+ ward. This gives you a tankier anvil than anything that stormcast can run for a similar number of points. Battlemage (ghur). Battlemages are pretty good, and a few of them have spells that do things that stormcast don't otherwise have access to. However, the Ghur battlemage is the best because he gets a +1 to cast (if you are in ghur, aka, you are playing a matched play game), and his warscroll spell gives +2 to run and charge rolls... which turns a teleport into a 7" charge instead of 9", or can get your other units up the board faster. Everything else is questionable to bring, as there is generally going to be something else in the stormcast roster that does things better.

Yes - I forgot to have the mortals in addition (I blame that on being in too many meetings today).

So if you look at the numbers, for crossbows the general +20 crossbows is better than 30 crossbows. For handgunners, the general + 40 handgunners is better than 50 handgunners. Just existing is enough to give greatswords +1 to hit, and I would rather get that from a general on foot than pay an extra 190 points for a griffon. This is especially because if I want to fit in a battle regiment, I want to do so with a hurricanum, not with a griffon. Overall, I think the first general is worth bringing, but a second is generally never worth it. This being said, I do only think that the general is worth it if you are going human heavy, and I generally don't run one. However, most of my armies are built around either a core of annointed + phoenix guard, or I am running some minimum battleline so that I can build the rest of my army around monsters, stormcast, etc. So if you want a tanky general, you can go with the steam tank. Or you can go with an annointed on frostheart phoenix. Thats the part that I always keep coming back to - if I want a tanky aura carrier, I can use one that is tankier, more reliable, and can actually get over to where I need him. Sure, if you are human focused and you refuse to run elves, then I guess the steam tank is the best option you can get, but personally I would rather kitbash something to get the appearance I'm looking for than to go with something that inferior. Now, even if all they changed about the steam tank was his random movement, and I could reliably get him where I wanted him to go, then I might change my mind about this. But I've had enough games where I just got unlucky with my rolls that I don't want to run something that can go 2", or can go 12", and I don't know how far that is going to be before I decide to move him. I would prefer if they also made his damage output less random, but if I just want a tanky aura carrier, then his damage is less important than being where I want him to be. Outriders may have a niche as skirmishers, but if you are using them as skirmishers then you are likely going to be out of range for your +1 to hit buffs. If you aren't using them as skirmishers to keep them nearer to your buffs, then I think that crossbows are going to better serve you. On top of this, if I want a mobile threat piece that can harrass weak points, I would rather bring shadow warriors than outriders - though that does take you away from the human focus. If you are insisting on looking at only humans, then maybe they can rate a mid tier, but if you look at cities as a whole then they are definitely bottom tier. So my problem with greatswords is that they can't kill most things that they touch. With a +1 to hit (trivially achieved), a unit of 10 of them are dishing out an average of 11.67 damage before saves, and 7.78 damage to a 4+ save. If you say that the average target that you are going to hit is 10 wounds with a 4+ save... this isn't going through them. On top of this, this is assuming that you can get TO that target, which is a bit more questionable of a statement. If you have multiple units of greatswords, then you can't hit with one unit and then hit with the second unit without your opponent being able to hit back. Meanwhile, if you have a big block of greatswords, now they can go through something they touch... if they can get there in one piece. On the other hand, you look at their defenses, which is a 4+ save and 1 wound each. Lots of stuff can go through them, or deal enough damage to them to drastically cut off their damage output. At 150 points for a squad of 10, they aren't fast enough to project their force, they aren't survivable enough to take a hit before hitting back, and they don't do enough damage to force your opponent to play around them. For what they do, they are overcosted, and they underperform. In general, I would rather run blocks of shooting units to get my damage out then try to rely on greatswords.

There are 2 ways to run warcry warbands as battleline in Slaves. First is Idolators, which came out in Broken Realms: Morathi. In an Idolators list, all cultists MUST have the same mark as your general, but then they are battleline in the army. Second is the update from the White Dwarf 468 (October 2021). This white dwarf updated slaves to darkness and allowed various cultists to take the mark of one of the gods, AND it made it so that cultists that have the same mark as your general are battleline. Note that this applies to every subfaction, so you can have cultists as battleline in your ravagers army, or your Knights of the Empty Throne list, or whatever other list you want. Note here that if you run, for example, a knights of the empty throne list with some khorne marked varanguard, you can bring some khorne marked iron golems as battleline, and then some non-khorne marked untamed beasts to screen with, and you won't be giving up broken ranks if your opponent kills those untamed beasts. However, if you run an Idolators list, your cultists MUST be the same mark as your general, which doesn't give you that option.

As for discussion points: I regularly grab battlemages in many of my cities lists, though sometimes I'll grab a knight-incantor or a sorceress instead - but I usually default to battlemages. I also regularly grab some freeguild guard and handgunners if I need something cheap to shove in for battleline purposes, but generally don't go out of my way to run them. That being said, the core of most of my lists are Phoenix Guard, and I usually start my list with an annointed and some phoenix guard, and then fill out the rest of my armies after that. As for endless spells, the Lifeswarm can still be good with phoenix guard, but I usually don't find it all that worthwhile with other units (they generally end up losing too many models to make it worth it to try to bring them back), though I might try it with more units once the FAQ for fyreslayers comes out, as rally on a 4+ AND lifeswarm may be enough recursion to be worth it for additional units. I've tried some other endless spells (bridge, spell portal, purple sun, burning head, aethervoid pendulum, and Gnashing Jaws), and about the only one that I will run even semi-regularly is the burning head because for 20 points I can just fit it in sometimes without trying. The damaging spells aren't worth bringing for 1-3 mortal wounds on average, the purple sun going wild every time I cast it before I even move it for the first time is super annoying, we don't have high enough impact spells to make the spell portal particularly useful, and the bridge being limited to a single unit going through it now means that jumping through to shoot em up (ex. irondrakes) leaves that unit flapping about in the breeze and easily dealt with. Basically, every single endless spell needs to drop in points fairly significantly, and they really need to make the purple sun not go wild on you too. Finally, what will the dawnbringer crusades bring to humans. The biggest thing is just a general 3.0 update that makes fewer things reliant on the to hit stacking, which made them good in 2.0 but underpowered with the cap in 3.0. I think that if they re-balance the units to not be relying on that to be strong(ish), that everything else will sort out fairly well, though I could also see some upgrades for demigryphs to make them scary even in MSU units, or add retreat+shoot and charge to pisoliers. Finally, giving steam tanks more fixed numbers instead of randomness everywhere would be nice.

Top Tier: Hurricanum, battlemages, freeguild general, freeguild crossbows, and freeguild guard Mid Tier: Doralia, Luminark, General on Griffon, Demigryph Knights, Greatswords and Handgunners Bottom Tier: Steam tank commander, Galen ven Denst, Battlemage on Griffon, Outriders, Pistoliers, Flagellants, Steam tanks, Helstorm's and Helblasters.

My wishlisting: Dryads become tanky chaff. Give them a base 4+ save, maybe give them a 5+ or 6+ ward near woods, and keep their attack profile similar to what it is now. But they should exist to be bodies on objectives. Spite Revenants. These guys need to be the cheap, elite killers. They should be 2 wound models, and they should get more attacks (4? 5?) with rend -1. Alternatively, bring them up to damage 2 with either mortals on hit or wound, or rend -1. As far as abilities, maybe give them built in re-roll charges, or just make them stats units. Tree Revenants. These guys should also be elite, and be 2 wound models for ~120-140 points. Give them the 3+/3+ profile instead of 4+/3+, but the attacks and damage can remain the same, and keep the teleport. Kurnoth Hunters. All these guys should be simplified. Get rid of the stand-put to get tankier, get rid of the command re-broadcasting, get rid of the "trample underfoot" rule, and just make them a 3+ save. Additionally, they should all be modified to do some more damage, and the swords should get a 2" reach and scythes 3". Just make them the elite, tanky beatsticks that they should be instead of having a ton of fiddly bits. Also, these guys should either be battleline or conditional battleline. Treelord. Firstly, ALL the sylvaneth monsters need to have a better damage table, and they should also all get more wounds. The treelord should also be elite, and the massive impaling talon needs to stop being a swingy maybe mortal wound source that happens once every 3 games. Damage needs to move to flat instead of d6, or more attacks with d3 damage. Finally, can we make these guys conditional battleline? Treelord Ancient. Is he a caster? Is he a beatstick? Is he a support piece? Seriously, choose 1 and stick to it. But like the treelord, he needs more wounds, needs a better wound table, needs to lose the d6 damage, and massive impaling talon needs to be less swingy. Get rid of his bubble of +1 to save, and then either make him a 2 cast wizard, or give him a better damage profile. Spirit of Durthu. The spirit of Durthu is a great unit... until it takes 3 wounds, or walks just too far away from the wyldwoods, after which it becomes much closer to garbage. This guy should be the ultimate beatstick in the army, and it needs more wounds, a better damage table, flat damage for its guardian sword, and less dependence on being near trees. Warsong Revenant. This guy is basically fine as is, and I would have no issues if they left it more or less unchanged. Brancwych. This thing needs an entire warscroll re-write, or just get binned. Maybe make this and the brancwraith the same unit with 2 different models. But there should be no reason to attempt to run a 5 wound unit with a 5+ wave that wants to get into melee range. I don't have a good solution to this unit, but it needs a complete overhaul. Branchwraith. Honestly, this unit only gets used as a dryad factory, and I would rather get rid of that. Yes, it has been a staple of Sylvaneth armies for years, but I would rather not have summoning (at least from cheap support pieces) and would rather have this thing as a semi-useful wizard support piece. Arch-Revenant. Why is a hyper-fast 12" move 5 wound hero running around as a support piece for Kurnoth Hunters? Either make this guy a more general support piece, or make him a "Revenant" support piece... you know, like its name says? Drycha. Drycha, like the rest of Sylvaneth monsters needs a better wound table. Her spell also kind of sucks, and she could use a better spell, and maybe more wounds. Otherwise, she is mostly fine. Allarielle. Ahh, the god of life. Dear lord do I hate this warscroll. First off, she needs either more wounds or a ward save (and I would prefer the ward save). She is a GOD after all. Like the rest of the sylvaneth units, she needs a better wound table too. However, the biggest thing that she needs is a re-write for the "Talon of Dwindling". Who the heck thought that thing was a good idea? You have to hit (2/3 chance to do so), you have to wound (1/2 chance to do so), your opponent has to fail their save (call it between 1/3 and 1/2 a chance to do so), and then, finally, if all of that happens you have to roll a 6 or nothing happens. For reference, against a 3+ save, this means that the talon has a 1.8% chance of killing something. Against a save of -, this is still only a 5% chance of doing something. WHY!?! This means that if you were to somehow get allarielle into combat EVERY round against units with a save of -, she would only insta-slay a single model once every 4 games. Next up, her summoning. Either cut that from her, or make her the tree-god and build her around being able to summon every turn. Again, I would prefer to cut summoning, and make her worth her points on her own, but if you really insist on having a summoning army, then make it alarielle's special ability to summon each turn. Finally, she is a god - why doesn't she get a bonus to casting? Like... seriously... why? Finally, allegience abilities. Sylvaneth currently have a number of good artefacts, command traits and allegience abilities, but everything is locked up in the glade choice, and you can't mix and match well to fit your army. Give us Gnarlroot's "Nurtured by Magic" as a generic allegience ability, and the Chalice of Nectar as a generic artefact. Give us the Frozen Kernal as a Generic Artefact. Let us keep the Acorn of the Ages, the Spiritsong Stave, the Vespral Gem, and the Lifewreath. And let us reduce our dependency on Wyldwoods - sure, lets keep 1 wyldwood, maybe with the ability to summon a 2nd... but you shouldn't have to tell a new sylvaneth player to go out and buy 3-5 boxes of wyldwoods.

The app reflects the new warscroll that it got in the new book (released last septemberish). Yes, it now only has 2 shots with its bow.

Honestly, I wouldn't look to run him with other fyreslayers units. Just bring him on his own, because rally on a 4+ is just that much better than rally on 6's.

I would say that it is more about diversifying damage output. If you are running raptors + dragons, you have a lot of damage 2 rend -2 attacks. That is... fine... however you run into a few problems. For example, if you run into a thunder lizards list, then all that damage 2 goes to damage 1, while the damage 1 ones remain the same. Additionally, if you run into ethereal units (ex. be'lakor), rend -2 doesn't mean all that much and you would rather have more rend -1 attacks. Finally, the judicators are more resilient (30 wounds vs 12 wounds) and benefit better from things like rally. Overall, I would say that you could run it either way, but this person made the decision to go judicators and it worked for them. They might have been able to get the same results with longstrikes, or they might have done worse with longstrikes (can't really say that they could have done better than a 5-0 though), but if you have longstrikes and not judicators, you could pretty easily run the same list and swap the judicators out for longstrikes + liberators and call it a day.

Keep in mind that Verdant Blessing is a spell from the Sylvaneth battletome, not something that is a warscroll spell (unlike what GW's app says...), so bringing a treelord gives you 1 forest and that's it.

Tried out a different list this last week, and thought it went fairly well. What I ran: Flamespyre (general) Frostheart (arcane tome) 4x 10 phoenix guard 4 Stormdrake Guard 2x Battle Regiment The idea with this list was that stormdrake guard are good, lets see how that works with the Phoenicium. I ended up playing against a knights of the empty throne list that looked like this: 6 Varanguard 3 Varanguard Sorcerer Lord on Manticore Bloodsecrator Demon Prince (khorne) Warshrine Splintered Fangs Iron Golems 2x Untamed Beasts Mission was Tooth and Nail... which had basically no impact on either of us. I deployed my Flamespyre and phoenix guard on the short flank, and the frostheart + dragons towards the long one. He deployed his varanguard nearer to my phoenix guard, and then pre-game moved his untamed beasts forward to be just off the objectives. I decided to go first, and took 3 objectives, and the dragons did 8 damage to his untamed beasts. On his turn, he charged his varanguard into my phoenix guard, and then proceeded to kill 7 from 1 squad, 5 from a second, and 9 from a third, failing to finish anything off. But he failed to take the objective from me, leaving us at 5-3 in my favor. He won the roll off, and he proceeded to kill some more phoenix guard, leaving me with 4 guard and my flamespyre left. He also moved his smaller squad of varanguard back to take my back objective, and scored 5 points. On my turn, I hero phase moved my dragons, moved again in the movement phase, and just collapsed towards the objectives where the varanguard were. Shooting phase killed his remaining smaller unit of varanguard, and then I got a charge off to get 1 dragon into his guys and left the rest strung out. However, he killed my flamespyre, and I am now 0-5 on succeeding on that 4+ to come back at full health. Score was 11-9 in my favor. Turn 3, I won the roll off, but decided to go second, removing the objective that I had abandoned. He moved up and charged my dragons with everything that he could. I lost 1 dragon, and dealt some damage here and there. On my turn, I killed his last varanguard and his demon prince, but was still in combat with his warshrine. Score was 17-13. Turn 4, I won the roll off and we called it, as I could just sit back on my objectives and he didn't have enough left to go through the dragons, or take the objectives away from me. Overall, my conclusion from this is that stormdrakes remain good and can work well in a list like this. However, the phoenicium doesn't really provide many advantages for the stormdrakes, and I'm not sure it is really worth bringing the dragons here vs hammerhall or the living city.

The problem with Carnosaurs is rend, and swinginess. The clawed forelimbs start at 2 attacks with a 3+/3+/-/2 profile. This is... fine... but not really inspiring. However, the kicker is the massive Jaws, which is 3 attacks at a 4+/3+/-1/* (starting at 5). Sure, if everything goes through, the carnosaur is dealing 19 damage before any rider gets into this. But then you look at the numbers, and you see that the carnosaur has an AVERAGE of 6.78 damage before saves. Throw him at a 3+ save? Average of 3 damage. But lets take an old blood. For 270 points you are getting an average of 11.78 damage before saves on a 12 wound monster with a 4+ save. That same 3+ save is now taking 5.6 damage on average. The scar vet is basically the same thing, but he's dishing out ~4 damage to that 3+ save, but at least you are only spending 215 points on him. However, on the bright side, when it comes time to start buffing, you have all out attack, the old blood's command ability, a scar veterans command ability, a sunbloods command ability, AND an eternity wardens command ability, for 3 instances of +1 to hit, 1 of +1 to wound, and 1 of exploding 6's, so at least you'll be able to buff everythings attack profile (somehow). Thunder lizard also gives you an extra bite attack, sacred asterisms can give 1 hero +1 attacks, and I'm sure that there's more that I'm missing as far as buff abilities. Basically though, it boils down that the swinginess of their attack profile and their lack of rend puts them in a poor position in the current meta. If the meta changes, and we move away from save stacking, this might change. If your local meta is a lot of nurgle and just putting wounds on the board, carnosaurs might be able to do some work. Etherial Nighthaunt takes off? Rend -1 is equal to rend -5, so you are doing fine there. Your meta is going to zombietown and everyone is bringing 120 zombies + some other stuff? Sure, carnosaurs may have a place. Heavy armor targets? Ehh... leave your carnosaurs at home and bring something that can do mortal wounds. Overall, if you are ok with the fact that they are likely underpowered, and you are playing casually, you can probably run a few carnosaurs. Go all in on that thunder lizard list with 4 carnosaurs and 3 stegadons and some other stuff. Will it be good? Nope. Will it be fun? Yup. Pull out your inner child and go "dinosaurs RAWR".

No. Most saurus buffs are command abilities that happen in the combat phase. To list them out: Eternity Wardens give a unit +1 to hit with "Prime Guardian" Oldbloods (foot or carnisaur) gives a unit +1 to hit with "Wrath of the Seraphon" Scar Veterans (cold one or carnisaur) give exploding 6's with "Saurian Savagery" Sunbloods give +1 to wound with "Scent of Weakness" Finally, saurus get a 1 attack at 4+/3+ (and either -1 rend or 2" reach), and +1 attacks in units of 15+. Guard get 2 attacks at 3+/3+/-1/1. Knights get 2 attacks at either 3+/3+/-/1 or 4+/3+/-/1. All of this together, and previously you could do "well" with saurus by stacking multiple +1 to hit, +1 to wound, and exploding 6's, though all of that was no-rend damage. Come 3.0, and you can't stack +1 to hit multiple times, you have to choose either +1 to hit, +1 to wound, or exploding 6's, you can't have multiple instances, and save stacking means a lot of no-rend damage isn't particularly impactful. Now, compare this to skinks. Skinks can get +1 attacks from a skink chief as a command ability in the combat phase. They get mortals on 6's to wound from the skink starpriest as a hero phase ability. Skink Priests can use a CP for +1 to hit in the hero phase, as well as give a skink unit run + shoot/charge, and +1 to save. So skinks can have more attacks, benefit more from CP's, and potentially deal mortal wounds (which negates their lack of rend). Basically, I don't see any way that a saurus heavy list can perform without a new book because of how the buffs for them worked in 2.0, and now get in each other's way in 3.0. If you want to run saurus casually, by all means, go for it. A few saurus guard can be good in any list as bodyguards for your slaan. But beyond that you likely won't see them competitively until their warscrolls get touched, or unless they lose so many points that you can just spam hundreds of them.

Ok. Lets be real here. That is an Arkonaught with a slightly different backpack, a different gun, and finally we get to see the face underneath. Sadly, I can't get a good rear-view image of an arkonaught... but seriously, the heads are different, the weapons are different, and the backpacks are different. The rest of both models could easily fit into either universe and no one would know the difference. Basically, what I'm saying here is: New KO Units confirmed! Edit: Ok, I looked at it a little bit more, and I'm pretty sure that no one would complain if you ran that 40k squat as a Grundstock Thunderer

Casually, you can get away with 1 Phoenix as long as your opponent doesn't have strong shooting to take it down. Competitively you really need 2. As for the other units, fight on death means you can guarantee output from them, so dwarves can work well, but will remain a little slow. Again, if your opponent is hitting you in melee, the phoenecium is strong, but if they can put out damage in other phases they become less useful.

I'm sorry, played against what? What are these... bonesplitterz? On a more serious note, I have yet to see a bonesplitterz player... ever. There may be someone that has the army and just keeps it on a shelf, but I've been playing for 4-5 years and have never seen them hit the table. If you want to know how effective/useful ward saves are for other armies, I've seen a few Fyreslayer players bringing out their Hearthguard, and I've played against Nurgle and Legion of the First Prince with their 5+ ward effects a few times, and I've even played against troggs with their 5+ wards. 5+ or better wards are really good, and they really force someone to have to overkill a unit if they want to guarantee that it dies. Wards are really good for a unit that wants to get in there and grind. They are really good for forcing an opponent to over-commit to guarantee that something dies. Sometimes it is really, really over-committing, because all the ward rolls get failed anyways. Sometimes, it still isn't enough if your opponent rolls hot. I've had a block of 20 phoenix guard survive a reinforced fulminator charge because my dice were running hot. I've also had a block of 10 fail every single ward roll and die with a whimper. But adding in those extra wards is a good way of adding uncertainty to a game, as now your opponents can't just go "yeah, phoenix guard are basically 20 wound units" and get away with it. I mean, on average, they would be correct... but that isn't how it plays out in game.