Jaskier

They are very similar in terms of overall damage output, the Seekers are slightly better but not by much. It comes down to just how much value you can derive out of the Lancers' strike first ability, as otherwise you're probably going to want the Seekers for their resurrections. I think the Treelord Ancient has only one real use besides the guaranteed extra wood; being nigh-unkillable with the right combo of trait, artifact and spell. I can see it being a real pain for opponents if you run Winterleaf for the no-retreat, but is it worth over 300 points? Probably not, as you can do something similar with the Treesong Revenant owing to its 4+ ward carrying the day while spitting out a plethora of mortal wounds. As for Alarielle, I think people are under-selling just how strong her resurrect is. It's a late-game summon of a monster model, you can immediately plop her down on an uncontested objective, or set her up so she can heal up on the next turn then start menacing the board - and even on the turn she comes down, she's still hurling a javelin that does 5 Damage thanks to her improved bracketing. Wholly within 12" of a wood/overgrown is quite generous for a summon, and if she's not dealt with immediately, she's going to heal back to full on the next turn and charge straight across the board to clear an objective or secure you a key battle tactic. If you bring her back on turn three (risky) or turn four (ideal) or turn five (only do this if you can set her up on an objective or spot where she will win you the game without needing to move) ideally you'll have dealt with some of the threats to her earlier and can use her more aggressively in the final turns. The other, simpler way to look at it is she's finally got a way around being alpha-struck - her classic fragility now has a thematic and potentially very powerful antidote.

You might want to reconsider this statement. I'll leave it there but this kind of attitude is really not conducive to a good discussion. I'm definitely starting to lean more toward the Seekers over the Lancers the more I think about it; two units of three are incredible tarpits and make great supporting tools for Scythe Kurnoths. The choice of Battleline and Glade dilemma is tough, though.

I know that for the list I ran the other week these drops would have helped me fit an extra unit in rather than play majorly under with nothing to show for it but a Triumph...so in that sense, yay? Keepers at 400 and Daemonettes at 130 are still laughable, though. I'm pretty sure they refuse to drop the points on Slaangor not because they think they're good but because they just genuinely don't care.

I like the Tree Revenant change. Their damage output improved slightly (not counting the free All Out Attack, just the extra attack the leaders' glaive has) but whilst they lost their useful re-roll ultimately you don't actually use them to kill things, other than maybe an isolated wizard/fragile hero. You take them to teleport around and steal objectives, or if need be to act as a redeployable screen that can appear where needed. For that role, doubling the wounds of the unit for 30 points is a fine trade - before, someone could just wipe the unit out simply by glancing at them, and now what used to take a bit of token attention now takes more investment on your opponents' half to deal with. You might think "well that usually won't be the case" but you'd be amazed how much those extra 5 wounds would have helped their case when I've played both with and against them. Hell, using a free All Out Defense is pretty darn handy for that reason too. All in all, for what they are designed to do, I don't mind paying the tax so they stick around a bit longer and have a better chance of claiming an objective - and hey, if an opponent wants to waste their time sending a Bounty Hunter unit into 5 of them, all power to them.

Someone's done some rough maths on the damage output of a bunch of our units, and the results are a bit eye-opening; 1) Point-for-point, Spite Revenants are our nastiest melee unit. 2) It's close but the Revenant-Seekers actually hit harder against all save brackets than the Spiterider Lancers. The strength of the Lancers' strike-first effect obviously balances this out, especially given the Seekers can resurrect one of their own or a Kurnoth every turn. 3) The cavalry aren't quite as potent as Kurnoths, as expected, but they aren't too far behind. 4) Scythe Kurnoths lose out to Sword Hunters even with their Rend 3, but will obviously shine in bigger units. 5) The Gossamids are quite respectable, having comparable output to melee Kurnoths, and far outshining ranged Kurnoths. I'm actually really unsure as to which cavalry variant I'll go for as I'd assumed the Spiteriders had the higher output. The Seekers being able to guarantee self-resurrect a model (or pair up with Kurnoths to resurrect them) is incredible, but strikes first - especially considering how hard most units can hit back these days - is such a fantastic ability to have too. I'm leaning towards the Seekers simply because they seem stupidly tough to shift (seriously, it's a 15 wound 4+ save unit that heals all wounds if it kills a model, Rallies on a 5+ and resurrects a dead model at the end of each friendly movement phase - that is nuts!)

Her Flitterfuries/Squirmlings still have 10 Attacks each (and you can increase one to 20 per her mood) just like before, it's just her Talons went from 6 to 4 Attacks, though they now hit on 3s and she doesn't degrade so it's a bit of a wash really for them. The Flitterfuries getting +1 to-hit and the Squirmlings getting +1 to-wound and -1 Rend are the big improvements for her output. The best way to think of her is she gets 30 Attacks 3+ 3+ -1 1 Damage with 6s to-hit dealing mortal wounds and 4 Attacks 3+ 3+ -2 2 Damage each turn. If she's getting into combat and you expect her to stay there it's definitely going to be preferable to set the Squirmlings for her mood so that you still get 20 Attacks in combat in your opponents' turn. If you stop and think that she can now get boosted to 2s to-hit for both shooting and combat and wounds on 3s with everything with at least -1 Rend (and again, no degrading) it really starts to dawn on you just how scary she is now!

Man reads book is up; both of Drycha's bug profiles have been streamlined to 3+ 3+ -1 Rend, and her Talons are also 3+ 3+ -2 2D but now only have 4 attacks. However...she no longer degrades at all! She also gives +1 to wound instead of re-rolls 1s to Spites now. The range of her Flitterfuries dropped to 12", but given the other buffs and the faction she's in, I think it's ok - it will undeniably make it harder for her to snipe heroes from afar, but her overall output is way up and not degrading means she doesn't lose a lot of output quickly like she used to. She's also a Warmaster like the Lady of Vines. Overall, I'm very happy with her!

Another little detail; while Alarielle isn't a Warmaster, she gained the Totem keyword and thus can issue commands 18" away!

Huh, that's actually a stealth buff for them if you used the glaive, as now you have 3 instead of 2 attacks with it. Neat!

I tried a Treelord recently with my Living City and he just felt so...pathetic. Now though? The Talon change alone makes him so much scarier as instead of usually just doing one wound now you're most likely doing six unsaved with it. Just going off what we know so far, the Lady of Vines also looks incredible - she counts for all the Season of War rules (for example, if you fail her spell, she can still project a 6+ ward aura) and Dryads are extremely tough next to her (-1 to be wounded is better than their old +1 save.) Something I noticed is that Sylvaneth can shoot out of woods freely but importantly still benefit from the LOS blocking. Add the Archies' +1 to-wound bubble and I'm pretty sure those bow Kurnoth builds some people play around with just got a lot (like, A LOT) better, especially in Heartwood where they are Battleline and get +1 to-hit against three units of your choice.

Got some more for you; Treelord Ancient/Treelord - much more consistent/less swingy damage profiles for both shooting and melee. Same stat changes, strike-last monstrous rampage and bracketing improvements as Durthu. Treelord Ancient - lost +1 save aura command ability, otherwise largely the same (notably he now fights just as well as the normal Treelord - his overall damage output is greatly improved.) Treelord - gained an ability where if he hits a unit with his melee attacks, that unit can't make pile-in moves in that phase. For reference, his overall damage output is probably slightly improved as the Sweeping Blows are likely a bit worse than before (5 Damage 2 attacks vs 4 Damage D6 attacks) but the Talon is much better. Warsong Revenant - unchanged. Branchwych - gets +1 to-hit and to-wound when wholly within 9" of a wood, her spell is now identical to the Warsongs' but with a casting value of 5 (hers used to do mortals on 6s, now it does them on 5s like the Warsong) and contrary to what we hoped she did not inherit the Branchwraith's Dryad summon. So the Branchwych seems like a discount Warsong as far as the mortal bomb potential, or even a cheeky addition to that combo if you use both a Spellportal and that new "cast through a wood" trait (i.e. Wych gets the trait, Warsong gets the Portal or vice-versa) to do both spells from afar. The Treelord seems pretty darn strong with the combo of forcing strikes last (especially as it looks like Hunters of the Heartlands is disappearing?) and then disabling pile-in moves on top of a much better base profile. I think it's got good mileage for sure. The Ancient feels questionable - 100 points more than a Treelord (and 80 more than it used to be) gets you a single cast/unbind and one free wood as well as access to traits and artifacts, though it loses that pile-in stopper. I'll try the immortal build on him but other than being a big tarpit (which would be dirty in Winterleaf) I'm not sure how else to use it. Durthu will likely be the more worthwhile recipient of traits. Edit: I ran some quick numbers on unbuffed Treelords/Ancients comparing their old and new damage stats, so keeping in mind they have far better bracketing, the Treelord is consistently hitting ~8/10 unsaved against a 4+ save baseline whereas before it was a coin toss but probably levelled out to ~6 unsaved, and the Ancient does the same whereas it used to only average a paltry ~4 unsaved before (and lost 33% effectiveness after suffering just 3 Wounds!)

Main changes to Scythe Kurnoths are Rend 3 and flat Damage 2, and they gained an ability where enemy units suffer a mortal wound if they finish a pile-in move within 3" of them. These things can get up to Rend 4 with the updated Treesong spell 😳

You can find images on the Sylvaneth Reddit or in the spoiler zone of the AoS Coach Discord. There's a few things missing but we did just get the Arch-Revenant (which I'll quickly summarize the changes;) 6 Wounds, +1 Attack but -1 Damage on the glaive, D3 instead of 1 attacks on the bug but +1 Damage, combat stances changed to either gain a 4+ ward or +1 attack, lost Ultimate Sacrifice, now grants Kurnoths wholly within 12" +1 to-wound to all their attacks instead of re-roll 1s to-hit, +1 attack command ability is now always a 12" range. Definitely seems like an auto include for Kurnoth builds as, beyond being a good buffer, that 4+ ward in combat makes her pretty darned resilient too.

I'd assume it just comes down to being able to snipe whatever needs killing with an obscene amount of mortal wounds. An 18" reach means the Hurricanums can shoot from relative safety, and the threat of a Celestant Prime is always going to force your opponent into a tough position of how to move. It has a lot of mobility and drop options to easily get battle tactics too. It doesn't look like much but I can definitely see how a good player would go 5-0 with it. As for how it beat another Living City list, that's easy. Whoever has priority (especially going into round three) is likely to win...and by priority, I mean forcing your opponent to bring their reserves out first. It's Warhammer's version of cat and mouse, and it's really important to understand when you're playing into other alpha strike builds. The other thing to consider is your typical Living City list relies on Stormcast, and Stormcast melt to mortal wounds.

The old immortal Treelord Ancient build is back! Take the 6+ ward season, the Ethereal command trait and the Vespereal Gem to auto-cast the new Throne of Vines that can't be unbound - it's a 14 wound 3+ save monster ignoring all save modifiers with a 6+ ward (near woods) that heals 6 wounds per turn (both in yours AND your opponents turn - six phases in a turn, and you heal 1 wound at the end of each phase until your next hero phase.) Like before, it's not going to be *that* useful, especially if the Ancient remains as anaemic as before, but hey, short of mortal wound spam that thing is unlikely to ever die and that to me is just funny

Yeah, those points almost definitely confirm what I thought after seeing the Gossamids - all Revenants will have 2 Wounds each at minimum. This gives them a bit more of a seperate identity to Dryads as the more 'elite' infantry option. If they keep the teleport and get improved melee stats, I'll be happy with the change. Conditional Battleline on the Spite Revenants is a bit disappointing but it makes sense lore-wise that only Dreadwood has them in high numbers. The real news is conditional Battleline Treelords, Kurnoths and the new cavalry. That's...certainly going to change things.

Their offensive stats are still quite good, just not top tier. Having a boat load of Rend 2 attacks is still going to force wounds through on most things. 5 Wounds each, presumably a 4+ save and the full heal ability mean they trade extremely well too - and it generally will trigger unless they're fighting a monster (which you can just teleport away from if need be) so if your opponent doesn't fully kill one it's going to get a lot of mileage - overall they're going to be very annoying for opponents to deal with.

I'm thinking of adding a Tauralon to my Stormcast as I adore the model. I play Hammers of Sigmar so my question is should I build it as Aventis or as a regular Lord Arcanum? Having access to traits - particularly mount traits - and artifacts is a big deal for the LA, but Aventis has a lot of good bonuses to compensate, so I'm a bit stuck on which way to go. Alternatively, if I build it as Aventis do you think I would be able to use it as a regular Lord Arcanum as well? That'd be ideal but I'm not sure if he's aesthetically different enough to where that might be an issue for WYSIWYG (I mostly play at tournaments so this is crucial.)

In all honesty, the fake 'leak' rules did sound a bit overpowering if you had the teleport after fighting in mind; a speedy super high damage unit that can freely retreat after striking to a spot that protects them from most counter pressure is scary as hell. Even so, their actual rules look quite strong as well. 4 Rend 2 attacks each is no joke even if they are only Damage 1. Add the mount attacks and the 2" reach on everything making them ideal reinforce targets and that's actually a very scary unit. The utility of strike first on the charge is immense not just for determining where you'll teleport a unit out of combat but mostly just so you can pulverise something without fear of reprisal elsewhere before you get to activate something else. Assuming they are on a 4+ save (5+ would be odd given the shields, and 3+ would have too much overlap with Kurnoths) having 5 Wounds each is fantastic because it's the magic number to count as 2 models each on objectives. Having a 5+ Rally and the ability to heal all wounds after killing just a single model each fight phase on such a beefy unit that *wants* to be reinforced is nuts. This unit hits pretty hard, has all the advantages of other flying cavalry, and looks really tough to shift - and if caught in an unfavourable spot, you can just teleport them away. Honestly, unless these only have a 5+ save (doubtful) I expect these things will be quite pricey as they do so much.

Incorrect, Nautilar Leviadons gain the Battleline role, meaning they lose the Behemoth role as per the core rules. In fact, Nautilar Leviadons can't legally go in Alpha Beast Pack for this reason.

I agree, ultimately it's going to heavily affect how strong we are but having considered some of the discussion earlier about the topic I'm happier with this than some of the other alternative routes they could have taken. At least we should still get to use Sylvaneth/Stormcast/etc without hindrance.

It will be interesting if they do change the command ability so you have to finish the move more than 9" away from enemies, and honestly it's a sensible change given we knew GW were always going to nerf Living City in some manner. They likely wrote the rule with the idea players would use it to keep ranged units out of harm, not "melt away" right into the opponents' face 😅 it sucks for our competitive chances but the faction winning LVO guaranteed something had to give. In terms of how it affects list building, I think it will just seal my thoughts from SGT - Stormdrakes over Fulminators for our heavy hitter, because they don't need the extra mobility the command ability offers. Sisters of the Watch and Irondrakes will be top of my list to add in to compensate for the loss of melee punch, and I might lean into Gotrek now that the melee-alpha strategy is changing up. Wait and see I guess.

This isn't really unusual. It could well be a different leaker to the one who posted the photo. There's no reason to believe or not believe it over any other rumor we've seen - and mind you, we have a very credible rumor about how our Wyldwoods work (counting as a spell portal) from a different source, and that didn't have any photo evidence either. We'll know soon enough either way; all I can say is the rumored profile fits snugly alongside the Gossamid one so I'm inclined to think it's probably accurate.

No talk about this rumor yet? They seem very good like the Gossamids; a high damage glass cannon that relies on Sylvaneth tricks (i.e. teleport after fight, hiding in woods to block line of sight for shooting) to survive. I like the look of these quite a bit. "Spiterider lancers - 225 for 3 3 wounds Save 4+ Bravery 6 16” move Lance/2/3+/3+/-1/2 - extra rend and damage on charge Fangs and claws/2/3+/3+/-1/d3 Poison sting/1/2+/2+/-1/d6, d6MW on hit of 6 180 for alternative build, fight worse, but resurrect d3 models or heal d6 wounds"

If they can shorten Tzeentch's hero phases without reducing the spell power of the army, I think we'd all be very happy. I always feel so bad for anyone who brings them to a tournament and has to stay in a time limit 😅 I swear the ones that do manage it are the most efficient AoS players around.