Jaskier

It was expected, but as we've discussed earlier, lore-wise the new version of the rule is more fitting. We still have very strong shooting options to make use of it, and being able to ambush melee hammers is still useful just to protect them a bit. I'll probably swap to Hammerhal for running Cities + Stormcast stuff (i.e. Stormdrakes) now, as it was already a question of mobility/guaranteeing threat versus huge combat buffs.

I'm pretty sure the Lady of Vines' aura would not block LoS for the same reason it doesn't provide you with cover. It'd be nice if it did but I don't think that's how it works.

Stormdrakes are still strong purely on a numbers basis on top of being an optional Battleline unit that doesn't care about Bounty Hunters. The cheese combo of Translocation + their hero phase move needed to go, and anyone who thinks the unit suddenly isn't still very good are crazy. Similarly, Thunderbolt Raptors were so stupidly prolific that they were warping the meta, so by the same token, this nerf needed to happen. There's legitimate concerns to be raised about certain Stormcast units that needed points drops not getting any, but pretending like these nerfs weren't needed or will kill the army is ludicrous. Slaangors are still 130 points of the worst unit in the game, Gitz got almost no changes, Khorne got a love-tap, and half the Cities book still feels utterly superfluous. The lack of changes to struggling units isn't exclusive to Stormcast, and pretending like the community asking for much needed nerfs to overpowered combos ruined Stormcast is absolutely laughable.

Having literally just finished doing up all my Stormcast, including 6 Vanguard Raptors and 4 Stormdrake Guard that I'd intended to take together to my next GT, I agree with the changes 100%. It'll mean I need to approach the list a bit differently, but probably I'll just swap my Thunderbolt out for Steadfast March, and the Lord Relictor feels a bit less necessary now - maybe a Knight Incantor would be better?

The app has been updated, and the points in that document were spot on. 205 point Sigvald still feels bizarre to me, but this update overall will likely push Slaanesh up a tier straight-out in conjunction with the White Dwarf rules.

All good changes, especially the Stormdrake one. It does make my tournament Living City and Stormcast lists a lot weaker but they needed to be reined in, so no complaints here.

A neat trick for them is they can shoot out of Wyldwoods without getting shot back, though obviously that's reliant on your target of choice being close enough to do so - and with only a 12" range, that's by no means guaranteed.

I think the only reasons I wouldn't run a Durthu (with the Gladius) at this point is I'm either going magic heavy or I'm using Alarielle. Having at least one Treelord for the Stomp is always good and Durthu's easily the best of the three, he really doesn't need much to chomp things down beyond the Gladius. Just a great unit all around. You're spot on about the high damage/small footprint ratio and utility of being a hero. I think the main thing those numbers show is that it's a lot easier to buff Kurnoths to level almost anything, but Durthu's no slouch either. It bears repeating but I'm not sure there's much of anything that survives a 6 Scythe Hunters and Durthu tag-team, and that's a far cry from our anaemic can-opening potential of the previous book. While I agree with you in principle about the Eidolon, in all fairness an Aspect of the Sea is 325 points. Treesong is much cheaper and easier to access, whilst also being potentially a lot easier to setup for when you need it. I like the Aspect of the Sea a lot and have looked at using him in multiple armies as an ally, but I'm not sure it's a simple matter of "if you want Treesong, take this guy instead." I wouldn't say Treesong excites me *that* much either, I'd rather use my Vesperal Gem on Verdurous Harmony for example as I've shown in my posted list, but it's something to consider in the age of save stacking 2+ monsters like Kragnos. It's a nice-to-have which is a running trend in this book One thing I've noted is that Regrowth feels completely unnecessary now, or at least it's not as good as the other, improved lore spells. A D6 heal on a 5+ isn't bad but with the passive healing from woods, some units having self-healing/recursion, and Heroic Revovery, it doesn't feel as important as it used to. I think I'd only take it in a full on monster mash/Oakenbrow list.

That's exactly why I'm likely going to run at least one unit of each in all my competitive lists, because they output 6-7 attacks per model on multiple profiles so inherently get a lot more value out of +1 Damage/Attack/etc buffs than anything else. It's Gore Gruntas all over again! The trick is to not look at them as your main hammer (that's Kurnoths) but treat them as strong, mobile units that are extremely self-sufficient and can do anything you need them to do. For the sake of curiosity as it was brought up, here's some quick and rough numbers (rounded up) for Scythe Kurnoths VS Durthu, assuming these buffs; Kurnoths get +1 to-hit (Heartwood) +1 to-wound (Arch-Revenant) +1 attack (Arch-Revenant) and exploding 6s (Everdusk; extremely easy to setup for Kurnoths because of their Envoys rule)/Durthu gets +1 to-hit (Heartwood) +1 to-wound (Finest Hour) +5 attacks on the Sword (Arch-Revenant, being near a wood and assuming you get lucky and roll high for the Greenwood Gladius) +1 attack on the Talon (Arch-Revenant) and exploding 6s (unfortunately much more difficult to setup for him, becoming impossible if charging off a teleport, so keep that in mind.) We'll also assume Treesong is in play for the heck of it (because thanks to the Vesperal Gem, that's easy!) Now; I'll list the save bracket then the expected average unsaved damage against that save bracket in (x) again these are assuming a lot of buffs and are very quick/rough numbers so please don't get mad if they're a bit off! The Kurnoths; 25 attacks hitting and wounding on 2s, 25 hits, 21 wounds at -4 Rend/2 Damage - 2+ stacked to ignore 2 points of Rend (22) 2+ stacked to ignore 1 point of Rend (28) 2+ (34/36) 3+ or worse (42) The Durthu; (sword) 8 attacks hitting and wounding on 2s, 8 hits, 7 wounds at -3 Rend/6 Damage - 2+ stacked to ignore 2 points of Rend (12) 2+ stacked to ignore 1 point of Rend (18-24) 2+ (30) 3+ (36) 4+ or worse (42) / (talon) 3 attacks hitting and wounding on 2s, 3 hits, 3 wounds at -3 Rend/3 Damage - 2+ stacked ro ignore 2 points of Rend (3) 2+ stacked to ignore 1 point of Rend (3/6) 2+ (6) 3+ (6/9) 4+ or worse (9) The numbers are a bit deceiving because one of Durthu's buffs is a once-per-game ability, and for Durthu to really stack up to the Kurnoths he needs to roll high for his +D3 attacks from the Gladius. However, when you consider he's 130 points cheaper than the Kurnoths, he does really darned well, though Rend 2 means against the super tough targets you'll probably be relying on the Kurnoths. It definitely shows the value of Treesong to help enable these units in case you come up against things like stacked Archaon and so on. I think the nice thing here is that the Kurnoths are super strong and easy to buff to that level, and you can still have Durthu tagging along with them with a few buffs of his own (just +1 from Heartwood and D3+1 extra attacks from the Gladius and wood) and he will still put in a lot of work. Lord help anything the two charge together, especially as Hunters no longer exists so there's no way to stop Durthu's strike-last stomp!

I think my old damage comparison chart needs a bit of updating, huh? Just some quick numbers (rounded up) against a 4+ save baseline with all the non-hero units that got drops for their ideal scenarios (i.e. Daemonettes at 20 to get the 5+ exploding hits bonus, but nothing ridiculous like including both Inspired and the -1 to saves from a Purple Sun; realistic, easily setup scenarios) just to give you an idea of how deadly these units are relative to each other. Note that thanks to the GHB, Myrmidesh can now fight in two ranks if unlocked as Battleline. 20xDaemonettes (260) with +1 to-hit - 41 attacks, 41 hits, 21 wounds at -1 Rend 1 Damage = 14 unsaved damage 10xSymbaresh (260) with +1 to-hit and re-rolls to-hit - 31 attacks, 34 hits, 23 wounds at 2 Damage = 24 unsaved damage 10xMyrmidesh (240) with re-rolls to-hit (LoP) - 21 attacks, 23 hits, 15 wounds at -1 Rend 1 Damage + 4 mortal wounds = 14 unsaved damage 5 Slickblade Seekers (230) with re-rolls to-hit (LoP) - (rider) 16 attacks, 18 hits, 12 wounds at -1 Rend 1 Damage + 3 mortal wounds = 11 unsaved damage / (mount) 10 attacks, 11 hits, 7 wounds at 1 Damage = 4 unsaved damage / (total) = 15 unsaved damage And as a bonus...a shooting unit! 22xBlissbarbs (280) with +1 to-hit - 41 attacks, 27 hits, 18 wounds at -1 Rend 1 Damage = 12 unsaved damage Myrmidesh are finally punching at their weight level, as being roughly even with Slickblades for damage-per-point gives both a clear role (you trade durability for speed) and Symbaresh are just absurd at 26 points per model - seriously, a 10 block of this unit had good numbers for a 340 point unit, now it's 260!

It'd explain the lack of points changes to Stormcast, as they simply aren't going to just leave the trinity of Fulminators, Raptors and Stormdrakes untouched, surely. I'm just sad it looks like the Stardrakes and big named dragons aren't getting their much needed drops

Yep, it's one of the reasons Seekers are justifiably 25 points more than the Lancers. Where the Lancers shine is if you run multiple units to really make the most of their strikes first on the charge, or even just one to partner up with a bigger combat threat like Kurnoths or Durthu. Being able to fight with multiple units before your opponent can strike with even one of their own is a huge deal, especially if you use them together to gank tougher units. If you run 6 Kurnoths + 2x3 Seekers, only one unit would fight before the reprisal, whereas switching one of the Seeker units for Lancers would let you fight with two units before any reprisal, perfect for getting the few extra wounds you need off a hard target or crippling something else before it can do anything. Even just being able to say "my Kurnoths are gonna dice this thing, and my Lancers will charge this other thing and zip away after fighting for free damage every turn without putting any extra risk on my Kurnoths" is pretty darned good. I think like most things in this book, there's merit to each option, which is something I can't say for a lot of other tomes I've read through.

Oh, it absolutely bears repeating; these changes are massive. If you're taking your three minimum Battleline with a Lord of Pain, you're saving ~100 points. If you ran Sigvald, that's another 60 points - and he looks like an auto-take at 205. If you were reinforcing any of those units, that's another ~30 per reinforcement. Given what was working for us before, that's a lot of extra points to play with. I wouldn't be surprised if most builds people were running before gained in the vicinity of ~200 extra points to work with. Hell, Galletian Veterans even gives a reason to reinforce Myrmidesh now...which Bounty Hunters immediately negates, but oh well. Even with the daemon stuff being so overpriced still, our foot mortals getting so much cheaper balances it out nicely as it invariably means our summoning will be that much faster.

Some minor points changes for Cities, nothing major that I noticed. As usual, a lot of stuff that needs love got nothing, and units that were fine got tweaked. Dreadspears getting a drop to match Freeguild Guard is just funny, but then Darkshards stayed the same while Crossbowmen got a drop. It's bizarre. My tournament list dropped a neat 20 points, so no complaints here.

Yes, they can resurrect themselves, Lancers and Kurnoths (and anything smaller.) Their ability is worded as 'friendly unit in range' and in AoS units are always in range of themselves for things like that.

The mortals getting big drops while other stuff that needs it more doesn't isn't surprising in the slightest given the assumed focus of what GW wants Slaanesh players to lean into. Looking at the updates in other armies, it's clear the changes are targeted on what they want to change; Slaangors, the big Stormcast dragons and half the Cities book not getting a change all prove this. The reason you should worry these are misprints is not the mortal infantry; it's the completely random 60 point drop to Sigvald.

It does bear mentioning that Chaos Warriors themselves aren't that great, I think the better point of comparison is Vindictors who do a lot of similar stuff. Myrmidesh have a worse save against shooting, can't get buffed to save on a 2+, have lower Bravery (no banner) but move slightly faster, and assuming Slaanesh allegiance for the exploding 6s to-hit they are a bit better in terms of damage output. 10 points cheaper than Vindictors is a nice spot for them and is interesting in that it feels like there's no summoning tax baked in at that point. Blissbarbs and Twinsouls similarly look to be out of the 'taxed' bracket, and Blissbarbs in particular are looking even more like auto-includes than they already were.

He halves the damage of each individual attack, so six Damage 1 attacks would remain Damage 1 (as you round up after halving) and consequently if he were to suffer, for example, three Damage 2 attacks, he would halve each of those individual attacks to Damage 1. To put it more simply, the rules of the game are designed around resolving each individual attack seperately, so rules like Eltharion's Spirit Armor typically always work the way I described above.

I'm actually wondering if the online points are incorrect, because Sigvald getting a random 60 point drop when he's widely regarded as one of our better units is...very odd. Otherwise, they pretty much give us a whole extra unit if you lean into the mortals. Those drops for the newer mortal Battlelines are massive. I actually worry that 140 point Blissbarbs might just be too good. The Myrmidesh/Symbaresh feel right where they are, especially as making them Battleline isn't always the right play anymore (thanks for nothing Bounty Hunters!) The list I ran the other day gained an extra 185 points to work with which is just astonishing.

Unfortunately no, it only works on Lore of the Deepwood spells. To add to the reply earlier, I have the same thinking on the Ethereal trait versus the more generalist traits. A 3+ can be boosted a lot as it is with our army and we already have so many ways to keep stuff alive, hence why I leaned towards Spellsinger instead - but Warsinger is also very strong. I think if you run a Warsong Revenant or Branchwych you probably want Spellsinger, otherwise Warsinger looks to be the best generalist choice. It's the one that is least reliant on matchup to determine its usefulness, importantly.

This is 100% how I'd run them, and is absolutely the best use of the Lancers' strike first ability. It's essentially a flying gank squad, and the neat thing is if you were to take them outside of Harvestboon you can trade Battleline-if for things like the guaranteed +1 to-hit buff from Heartwood. The other neat bonus to a 6" pile-in is you only need to get one model per unit into contact off the charge, then wrap around with and fade-away a side unit first to let the middle unit pile into the gap later; it's super easy to setup. On the note of how to use the bugs, I've finally come up with a list that I'm semi happy with. It's not what I'd normally run (I like my low drop armies) but I'm keen to try it out and get a feel for all our new or evolved combat units at a tournament the day after release. Deciding between ethereal on Durthu or 'woodportal' on the Warsong is tough, but I went with the latter for now as it just really unlocks the Warsong as a unit, and I didn't have the points to fit in a proper Spellportal anyway. I went Heartwood because +1 to-hit on key targets helps our combat units so much and frees them up to receive Archie's +1 attack command. The Kurnoths near an Archie have 4 attacks each at 2+ 2+ -3 D2...absolute insanity. I considered swapping Verdurous for Treesong but I think an auto-cast bring a Kurnoth/bug back might be better. 2000 points on the dot. Heartwood - The Reaping Warsong Revenant** - General, Spellsinger, The Vesperal Gem, Verdurous Harmony Spirit of Durthu** - Greenwood Gladius Arch Revenant** 5 Tree Revenants*** 5 Tree Revenants*** 6 Kurnoth Hunters w/ Scythes* 3 Revenant Seekers* 3 Spiterider Lancers* Spiteswarm Hive Bounty Hunters* Command Entourage** Expert Conquerors***

Trying to write lists with this new book is hard, but not in a bad way; it's been a while since I read a book and thought "wow, there's so many good choices that I don't know what to pick!" The points add up because there's so much good stuff you want to use but you can't fit it all in. The best examples of this are our three big named characters. Alarielle and Drycha both look better than ever, whilst The Lady of Vines has so much utility and a clear role she can fit into any kind of list. However, actually fitting any of the three in after you put your Ethereal Durthu or your Spellsinger Warsong Revenant and your Arch-Revenant with multiple Kurnoth or Seeker blocks and your Tree or Spite Revenant Battleline and your Dryad screens andyour and andandand.... 🤯 Heck, Gossamids are a very good choice but I haven't been able to fit even a single unit into any list I've written so far! It's not even an issue of stuff being overpriced, as every list I've written ends up with over 100 wounds (mostly 3+/4+ wounds too) and way more hitting power than I've ever had in Sylvaneth...the choices really are just that darned good! They made the Branchwych a deadly mini-Warsong that can do the same thing as a Warsong at the same time for projecting silly amounts of area mortal wounds from afar; if you stop and think on her for a moment, you realise they made her useful without even porting over the Branchwraith summon. If that isn't a sign of a good book, I don't know what is.

Funny timing, I'd just edited my post having seen they were on 60mms just as you replied 😅 Yeah it probably nips reinforcing the unit in the bud, they already don't have great damage output as it is and having to sacrifice attacks to keep their coherency and not stray outside of our various wholly within ranges is probably too big of an ask.

This actually might have a lot of merit, depending on the base size. 2" is slightly more than 50mm so if their bases are 50mm or less they can happily fight in two ranks, if not I can see it being hard to keep them wholly in range of woods (potentially even with the 12") for the fade-away unless you're willing to lose out on attacks. EDIT: Just checked, they are on 60mms...I think even with the old tri-pointing system that lets 32mms fight in two ranks it might not be enough to solve that issue for these guys. A 6" pile-in certainly helps but I'm still just worried about trying to get all of the models' attacks whilst staying wholly within wood range to fade away. It's a tough as nails unit even before accounting for it being virtually immune to shooting (woods) and very hard to catch and pin down (fade away.) The damage isn't great though, but I guess that's the trade-off for being so mobile and hard to shift. For those wondering like I was, 9 Lancers (630) do slightly more melee damage against 4+ save baseline than 4 Stormdrakes (680) though obviously the Stormdrakes have overall higher output thanks to their shooting.

I want to go Gnarlroot with the Dwindling season for maximum casting effectiveness to try and recreate the glory days of old Gnarlroot, and I really want to try out The Lady of Vines. The obvious combo is coupling it with a Warsong/Branchwych and using either the spellportal or that cast-through-wood command trait to really push high mortal wounds. It's also good for The Lady of Vines and her amazing but otherwise unreliable 5++ bubble spell, plus the fact she is always in range for both the Gnarlroot and Dwindling effects. I think there's some real potential there (matchup dependent of course, thanks Teclis ) Another season that fits The Lady really well is Everdusk as she then becomes a portable source of exploding 6s!