Mirage8112

So. I’ve had a few days to think about my previous post, regarding my dissatisfaction with painting, and I think I’ve arranged at a few Realizations. I was scrolling through my Facebook feed today when I ran across a a graph posted by an artist friend of mine. I’d seen it before, but seeing in a new point in time when I’m wrestling with exactly what I should be working on, it sparked something of an understanding. The graph: When I first started painting, occasionally I would go through periods where my vision outpaced my actual technical skill. I’m sure we all know what that feels like; you know what you want to accomplish, but the ability to actually do that is lacking in some respect. But eventually, through growth and practice, your technical skill eventually improves and that feeling of “fighting the paint” gradually fades. I think what I’m experiencing is the opposite. I really really want to get in there and do new things I’ve never done before. In short, I think what I really want to work on is my Vision. The ability to conceive a project and do all the required things to produce some thing that is more than just a tabletop quality miniature. I wanna make ART baby! Midway through this year I finished painting Alarielle to the highest standard I’ve ever painted anything, canvas included. I’ll be getting pictures up eventually, but I want to do more of that. A lot more. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to work on getting my Sylvaneth ready for Adepticon next year, and then I’m going to start doing small dioramas, extensively converted, with scenic bases and such eventually working up to full-fledged narrative sculptures.. I’m totally flooded with ideas, and whatever angst I was experiencing a couple of days ago seems to have crystalized into some really creative determination. In the mean time, here’s a little sneaky peak of Allarielle. Watch this space....

Believe it or not, that’s a hard question. Between mini-painting and oil painting, I have enough hours under my belt that the process of painting is almost automatic. Before I paint anything, I can see all the steps ahead of me (almost like a map), so I can (sort of) already see a miniature fully painted before I even pick up a brush. When I pick it up, and look at it just after it’s primed, I can see all the spots that will need to be painted first, whether or not it will need to be painted in a sub-assembly, what paints/brushes/washes/inks will be required to get there and in what order everything will need to be done. Most of that happens in about 5-10 seconds. The rest is almost... mechanical? For me, painting is a little bit like watching a movie you’ve already seen a dozen times or so. You don’t know every detail by heart, but the way the plot unfolds isn’t a surprise and you already know what’s going to happen at the end. It’s “pleasantly familiar”, but not quite ”enjoyable” the in same way as seeing a really good movie for the first time. But even more so, I think of painting the same way I think of breathing. Does it feel good to breathe? Yes. It’s a pleasant sensation, but not something you really “enjoy”; unless your not doing it. Hold your breath long enough, and those first 3 breaths after are ****** ecstasy, but that fades after a minute or two. Painting satisfies some deep seated need within me to “make stuff”, and I get really unpleasant if I’m not doing it on a regular basis. “Not painting” is very much like holding my breath. I do get a lot of satisfaction seeing my vision for a minature completed. That goes for tabletop-standard armies all the way up to top-level display painting (of which I have some pictures I’ll get get around to getting up). But I don’t think it’s enough to say “I enjoy painting”; it’s probably more accurate to say “I am consumed by it entirely”.

Hi All! Time for new stuff! I’ve been wondering exactly how I should go about uploading my recent work, and I’ve decided that I’ll start by upload some warbands from Warhammer:Underworlds, because they are a good segway into talking about some of the new stuff I’ve been doing. The WH:Underworlds warbands are sort of a ”testing ground“ where I can really push things a little farther than I normally would. Some techniques or materials yield some very impressive effects, but a number of them aren’t things you’d want to commit to doing on an entire force. So today, I’m going to post up Zarbag’s Gitz: I’ve played with this warband a half-dozen times. They’re super fun and hilarious to play. I’ll also talk a wee bit about using fluorescent paint and OSL. Something I briefly touched on when talking about my Disc. of Tzneetch army a few pages back in the thread. Firstly, the family shot: As you can see, lots of pointed use of fluorescent paint and localized OSL. The reason I’m highlighting my use of OSL here is a lot of what I’m using and how I’m using it changes from miniature to miniature. When I started using fluorescent paint a couple of years ago, I’ve gradually changed how I work with it. For the most part, the application is similar, in that it starts with a high-value (light) high-chroma (strongly colored) basecoat, and then the fluorescent paint is applied over the basecoat in 2-3 layers. The light source always gets the lightest basecoat and the rest is feathered out so it gradually becomes whatever the background color is. When the fluorescent paint is applied, it gets an even coat so there’s no need to worry about working it thicker or thinner, or blending it, because the underlying basecoat provides all that: This is partially because the fluorescent paint has a really heavy body (i.e. its very thick) but it’s also very transparent (it doesn’t coat well) So its very time consuming to build it up from scratch, and when you do, it very difficult to get any sort of evenness in color. Working with it this way means I get all the control of regular paint, while being able to reaalllyy turn the color up up to 11 in a very localized way. This way the mini is super eye-catching, but not overwhelming (which is a risk when using a color with a higher than average chroma): You can see in the photos above and below, I’m actually using 3 fluorescents variously throughout the army, green, orange and magenta. The blue isn’t a true fluorescent, but it does a nice job of introducing a a lower-chroma OSL, to give some variation: you can see a bit on the mushroom near Dibz foot: True metallics throughout, But shaded as if they were NMM (This is a technique I’ve called “Demi-metal”, as in not quite TMP or NMM). The metals are less exaggerated in this warband, but it will appear again later in various places. The checks around the hoods are also freehand, a nice little addition that wasn’t too terribly difficult. Also the ground is painted with a mix of blue-greys, which both helps the OSL stand out and also makes a rough approximation of stone in low-light a conditions (i.e. Inside a cave or cavern). This was my first attempt to use this color combination on basework, something I revisited later with my Skaven warband, (which I’ll get up as soon as I get pictures). More to follow in the next few days as I do the thing with the camera. Happy painting! -F

Hi all. The next few posts will be mix of hobby updates, but first some (rare for me) personal musings. I’ve not been very active in this thread for a while, and I have huge backlog of stuff I’ve been completed and it’s going to take some time to sort through it. As I said in my last post, I’d much rather be painting than fiddling with photography, but I’ve got to start sometime and somewhere. So over the next few weeks I’m going to make a concerted effort to document some of what I’ve been working on. I hope to get most everything up and current by the end of the year. I’ll be perfectly honest. This time of the year is rough for me. Part of it is my daughter has started public kindergarten so my schedule has been mercilessly upended. What with the constant barrage of “kindergerms” (everyone in the house has been ill for last 3 weeks on and off) and end of the year scheduling issues, it seems everything is apt to change at a moments notice. (For example, my daughter woke up at 2 am this morning vomiting for 3 hours, before setting down and going back to sleep around 5am). Thankfully, being that I essentially work for home I have some flexibility, but I’m finding that such disruptions and changes do NOT jive well with my personality. What’s more than that, I’m having a real crisis of conscience when it comes to painting. Sometimes I question privately to myself (and other times openly to what few close friends I have) why I even bother painting. This includes both my miniature painting, and my larger oil paintings. Sometimes it seems as though I’ve spent my entire life in the studio and having nothing tangible to show for it; other than a few hundred miniatures, and maybe half as many oil paintings of various sizes. Every time I pick up a brush I wonder if I’m spending my time wisely; should i be working on my “serious” paintings? Should I finish some of the portraits and figure work, or should I finish my Sigmar stuff? should I be drawing more? should I be working through my Underworlds warbands? Should i just shelve all my miniatures and sell everything off and find something else to do with my time? I have no answers for these questions. For a long time I did, now it seems those reasons just don't seem good enough or applicable anymore. In real life, I really, really struggle with letting people know what I’m thinking or feeling. I prefer as a matter of course to be as opaque as possible, because I like to present solutions, not problems. My problems are mine, and mine alone. I have been told that sharing your problems or struggles makes such things easier, but that‘s not been my experience. I don‘t react well to sympathy (it tends to make me angry), I don‘t find solace in shared struggle (I don’t commiserate). So, why share here? While I dont have a solid answer, it might stem from the fact that nobody here knows me, but if your reading this thread you’re at least interested in the work I’m producing; for whatever value it possesses. I have no idea what that value is, or why it’s important to continue make this type (or any type of work.) I dont have any answers and it positively tortures me. But for whatever reason, every morning after dropping my kid off at a school, I finish my coffee ‘round 9:30 (sometimes earlier), and then I paint for 5 hours. I do this nearly every day, which means I paint for around 30-40 hours a week, sometimes more (depending on my energy level). Perhaps if there anything to gain from this, it’s this: I have almost 20 years of painting experience in various mediums. My work sells for thousands of dollars, and I’ve sold at galleries, shows, and museums over the years. Perhaps the only thing I’ve really learned in that time is that crippling self doubt, personal judgements of lack of skill or ability, and feelings of worthlessness never really disappear. There is no level of skill you will achieve where you wont ever have to deal with those feelings again. And, as such, those feelings are not a good reason to stop working. The work is independent of my feelings about it. So, for what it’s worth, never stop painting. The struggle is real and it is hard, but struggle anyway. This is me struggling: 40 hours at a time. -F

Slaanesh generates summoning point by wounding, but not killing models. So 1 wound models (T-revs, dryads and spites) don’t generate summoning points for them if they die. These will be your models of choice when facing his units. Anything he has that has multi-wounds (KoS, Feinds, or minor characters) you really want to kill in a single round of combat, preferably before they can wound you back and generate a bunch of summoning points. If I were you, I’d break up that 6 man scythe hunter unit into two groups of 3, each bubble-wrapped by 10 drayds. Your scythes can attack over them and you want have to worry about him generating depravity points since dryads are single wound models. Since Slaanesh is pretty fast, There’s a good chance he’ll be charging you, so set your hunters up 2.5” back from the dryads. The only thing that will be able to reach them and really is a KoS. That way your hunters can chop whatever gets stuck on the dryads, and probably wont have to worry about swinging last. Otherwise, play the objective game and don't get sucked into unnecessary fights. It’s likely he’ll be able to pick when combat happens (since they’re pretty fast) but that means you’ll likely get to where combat happens (since you’ll be the one getting charged). So when you end your movement phase, make sure your happy with your placement, and always expect a charge next turn.

Your English is fine! no need to apologize. Previous FAQ has said you can teleport out of combat and still shoot/charge as long as you remove the unit from the tabletop and set it up somewhere else. You cannot do a “regular move” and retreat, but you can teleport either via wyldwoods or some other ability.

It’s funny that you mention how how exploding 6’s were overkill, because in the games I’ve played with the new book, I’ve noticed the same thing. In the last game I played, I probably forgot that 6’s explode in 25% of the combats, and still had no problem taking entire units off the board with Drycha and 6 scythe hunters. My reasoning for taking 6 hunters was mostly for the wound pool, as its much more difficult to take 30 wounds off table in two rounds of combat than 2 groups of 15. The ability to swing with all six hunters at once (rather than in alternating activations), is also really helpful, but with that much firepower concentrated in a single unit I’ve found I didn’t really need the extra attacks. Call me a heretic, but I’m wondering in this case if perhaps 6 scythe hunters aren’t the “most optimum” choice for a Winterleaf warglade. Yes, they can easily take stuff off the board, but as I said above, they don’t really need Winterleaf to do that; especially if Archy is there to give extra attacks and RR 1’s to hit (possibly doubling up with Alarielle giving RR 1’s to wound). I say this because I noticed was after the hunters murder whatever it is they are supposed to murder, they are often stuck in place for at least a turn, and it often takes at least another turn to get them into combat somewhere else. That means unless you get them into and out of combat early (by turn 2-3) they won’t be able to close the gap to affect other area of the board. In my game, I’ll admit I was a bit lucky, since I summoned a forest within 6”, then landed a 9” charge with an 11. If I had failed the spell, had it unbound, didn’t have a place to put the wood (or ran out of wood models), didn’t have a useful teleport destination, was screened out by enemy units, failed the charge, only just made it by rolling a 9, I would have lost the game. I needed 3-4 rolls to go my way to get the hunters somewhere useful and if i had failed any of those critical rolls, they would have been dead in the water. This makes me thing that 6 scythe hunters might be best served in a Dreadwood wargrove, since I can spend a CP to just put them were I need them and archy is fairly mobile between fly and 12 inch move. While Winterleaf might be best utilized on units that could really benefit from the extra attacks on 6’s. 6 scythe hunters is 400 pts. For that price you can get 25 Tree revenants. It sounds like bad trade, but if you consider the fact that they do nearly the same amount of damage (25 T-revs (unbuffed) do ~17 wounds at -1 rend before saves; Hunters (unbuffed) do ~17 wounds at -2 rend before saves). T-revs will benefit a lot more from Winterleafs exploding sixes, because 25 T-revs put out 50 attacks; 75 if buffed by an archy. With average rolls thats 12 6’s as opposed to hunters 2 6’s. Before you ask if you can get all 25 T-revs into combat, remember that T-revs have a 6” pile in, and can RR 1 dice in the charge phase making a “wrap around” very possible. Even if you don’t get every T-rev into combat, the damage is pretty comparable. So you sacrifice 1 point of save and 1 point of rend, for the ability to literally threaten any unit on the board at any time. Waypipes also mean your can teleport out of combat and still charge, they are battleline units (meaning you can capture objectives with them in BP’s like Duality of Death which hunters cannot). Gun line units can’t touch them as they can set up easily out of range at deployment and then charge artillery fairly easily thanks to being able to RR 1 charge die without spending a CP. They are also good candidates for fighting outside of “placers of power” since they would be bravery 8 and can RR battleshock tests. That doesn’t mean hunters don't have a place in Winterleaf lists, but it might be more efficient to take say 1 unit of sword hunters and 1 unit of 15 T-revs. That way you have a much bigger threat range and stand a good chance of combo-charging a bunkered unit that is being supported by a back-line hero. Hunters + Archy charge from the front, t-revs teleport and charge from the rear. Activate T-revs first and buff them with the Archy and they’ll be able to put ~15 rend -1 wounds into that backline hero who cannot now buff the enemy. Likely he’ll opt to attack the hunters who haven’t attacked yet and who are more survivable anyway. If the hunters were already in combat that’s even better, since they’ll be able to RR saves. I think in the next couple matches I’m going to experiment with using large t-rev units this way. I really like the 6 hunter set up, but putting 20 wounds into a 10 wound unit isn’t the best use of points, especially if it means thats the only combat they can get to without spending another 2 turns trying to get across the board. I also find it very frustrating when 6 scythe hunters take 8 models out of a 10 man unit that would flee from battleshock but don’t because a backline hero spends a CP on inspiring presence.

Hey all, So another truncated report from my last AoS game. I won’t do a full blow-by-blow battle report here for time a space considerations bu tI thought I would just touch on a few things learned, noticed and decided regarding the game. Played a Winterleaf vs a Sequitor and shooting-heavy Stormcast list on duality of death. From what I remember my opponent took 2 x 10 Sequitors 1 x 5 Sequitors 1 x 5 Evocators 1 x 5 castigators (battalion) 2 Ballistas (battalion) 1 Lord Aquillor 1 Lord ordinator 1 additional caster (dont remember exactly which) meteor dias I took TLA (vesperal gem, with verdurous harmony) Arch Rev (general with kernel) Drycha Branchwraith 20 drayds 5 tree revs 3 x 5 spites 6 x scythe hunters TL We used the terrain set-up rules from the errated GHB. I took 3 Wyldwoods as my 3 major terrain pieces while my opponent took 3 unique features which we generated traits for. Due to placement, the unique rules never really came into play. Battleplan was Duality of Death (objectives) can only be held by battleline/hero units within 3” of an objective, and cant be held if you move away), VP’s scored at the end of your turn depending on how long you’ve controlled the objective. His set up his entire shooty battalion in the sky, as well as the 5 Evocators. 1 unit of 10 sequitors and the Aquillor on my right, and the 10 Sequitors, 5 sequitors and caster on my left. I had my TLA, TL, revs on my left, and drycha, hunters, archy and wraith on my right all screened by a wood. Dryads and spites off the board. In my matches so far, I’ve been planning on taking second turn. I don’t think we are as heavily dependent on getting first turn as we were in the past, and I’ve been testing this. In this scenario however, I was gunning for first turn, and as such positioned my woods aggressively with the intention of getting on the objectives first, bunkering (like the good old days) and waiting out the storm(cast) scoring VP’s. Unfortunately, I paid the price for my agressive deployment. He won first turn, ran his sequitors on both sides onto the objectives (one which could be held while in cover). Dropped his entire shooty battalion onto the board and took my TL off in a single round of shooting. This made the rest of the match a serious uphill battle for me. Not only did I begin my first turn down 200pts (thanks to my lost TL) but I had nothing on my left flank to challenge the sequitors holding the objective. He already controlled both objectives before the end of the first turn, and to have a chance I needed to take at least 1 objective by the end of the second turn, and would have to take the other by the end of the 3rd. So I changed my strategy. I dropped the TLA’s free wood on my left and sent him across the board to one of the forests dropped during terrain placement (more on this later) on my right. I also brought in the dryads around the newly positioned TLA and brought the hunters up to threaten the sequitors on my right. Drycha also switched sides, taking the TLA’s place to threaten the objective on my left. I’m normally a cautious player, and prefer to hold once per battle abilities till the middle or end game when I Reeeaalllyy need to break a key unit. But since objectives are worth more Vp’s the longer they are held: ain’t nobody got time for that. I failed a 4” charge on my hunters, paid a CP to reroll and made the charge. I forgot a battlalion grants an extra CP, so I didn’t use archy’s Ability (which would have made a substantial difference) . Even attacking twice from the kernel it took 3 whole rounds of combat to remove those sequitors (3+ armor saves, rerolling failed, and 2 wounds apiece are no joke). I lost 3 hunters in the process (he brought the evocators down top of turn 2) but since the TLA was there, I was able to bring back 2 by the bottom of round 3. Meanwhile, drycha was able to wrestle control of the other objective by top of round 3. One of the terrain drop woods was just to the right of that objective, effectively screening her from the ballistas and casigators. She only held the objective for a single turn, but it was enough to keep him from snowballing VP’s at least and reset the counter. Turn 4 second half. The score is currently 9-7. He pretty solidly holds the left objective and I solidly hold the right. My hunters are 30” or so away, and my dryads or TLA need to stay there to hold the objective. I have nothing on my left to take the objective, and he has 4 sequitors, his caster (3 wounds left) and 5 castigors. He will score 3 points in his next turn if he controls it, and I will score 4 holding mine. (Giving him a victory 12-11). So I attempted a Hail Mary pass. TLA brought back a hunter (making the unit 6 models again) wraith summoned a wood so the hunters were within 6”. Both the TLA and hunters teleported to the right side of the board. Both the TLA and the hunters made their 9” charges. The TLA pretty efficiently locked down one of the ballistas, preventing it from shooting next turn. My goal in charging the hunters was to take out his sequitors and hero so I could bring in some dryads and take the objective next turn. Unfortunately he had positioned his castigators between the hunters and the sequitors in order to take Drycha out the previous turn. Thankfully I had rolled an 11” charge. It wasn't enough to get the hunters within range of the sequitors by itself, but thanks to some clever positioning, I was able to get at least the huntsmaster within 2” after pile-in. Combat saw the the hunters wipe out the castigators completely and the sequitors down to 1 man. He still controlled the objective however and used a CP to keep the last guy from running. Since it was my turn, he did not score any VP’s. Top of turn 5 he took the initiative. He attempted to shoot the hunters out, but only managed to kill 2 since the other ballista was still locked down fighting the TLA. Hunters wiped everything out in the combat phase. I couldn’t score the objective since it wasn’t my turn and I had no battleline units, but neither could he since he had no heroes or BL units within 3”. He conceded since the store was closing. Final score 9-11 with a major victory for me The game was a bit sloppy since I was tired and we both forgot some buffs and rules. But neither of us really felt those mistakes influence the game all that much. A couple of things were pretty clear: Scythes statistically aren’t as good as swords on paper. But in practice that 2” reach is a significant advantage. 10 sequitors in cover have a 3+ save RR failed makes scythes a really effective choice, especially since rr happen before modifiers turning rolls of 4 into wounds regardless of rr’s. Drycha is pure murder. -2 rend is something to worry about however. Winterleaf is super brutal with a hunter group that big, and having Archy nearby makes them that much more effective. Losing 1 hunter means losing 3 attacks base, but 5 hunters get an extra 5 dice effectively making the unit hit at just above full strength. Also the change to stomp is really really good. Not having to have every hunter in range makes a big difference when your spread out fighting 2-3 units and you really need to pull 2-3 wounds off a final stubborn model. The other thing I want to mention is that since we used the matched play terrain rules with “wyldwoods” as ”awakened wyldwoods”, by the end of the game the field had 6 woods on it (old models). Of those woods, only 1 of the “terrain woods” was especially useful. We never actually fought in the woods so the roused to wrath never really came into play. Only 1 time during the game were there any units within 1” during the charge phase and both rolls of 6+ failed. It certainly gave me more movement options, but of the 6 woods on the board only 3 where very useful and 1 was summoned later game (a critical wood, but only in that turn). I’m fairly confident that I could gotten the critical woods out even without the matched play terrain rules (TLA’s drop was used frequently, the faction wood could have subbed in for 1 of the terrain pieces and the other 2 could have been summoned instead of the other spells I chose to cast. (There were a couple of spells that were cast that turned out not to be particularly useful: the worm for instance did nothing this match.)) It was interesting to play a match that required I be aggressive before I was ready to be. Usually I take turn 1, and maybe 1/2 of turn 2 to set up my positions to really make things happen in turns 3-5. But snowballing VP’s aren’t something you can afford to do that with. I’m very interested in playing some of the other wargroves, specifically Gnarlroot and Dreadwood but I’m still building/painting the models for that (since I really try not to play with unpainted models), so it might be a few weeks. I did manage to get my hands on the last copy of looncurse in my FLGS. So super pumped for that. More to come as I get more games in.

We used 6 very large pieces of terrain, so I’m fairly convinced that the footprint of said terrain was similar enough to the footprint of terrain in the GHB matched play rules that I feel comfortable saying it was “comparable”. Notice that I did say that I wasn’t always able to get my woods exactly where I wanted them. 3 times out of the 5 I had to put the wood down in a way that wasn’t immediately useful. What I did find was that those “non-optimum” wood drops got more useful as the game moved along; Some units moved around and the general balance of power on the board generally shifted. Seems to me to that the basic approach of, “I have no more useful spells to cast so I might as well get some woods on the table” is the best way to approach getting the woods out. Sure throwing down a wood at the edge of the board isn’t immediately helpful, but in the last 2 turns they might provide you with the mobility needed to lock down an objective or take out a key support unit. -2 rend is nothing to sneeze at. It also helps that scythes usually travel in groups greater than 3. Between 6 scythes, arch rev’s command ability and the rr 1’s aura, and winterleaf adding hits on 6’s, my 6 hunters were regularly dishing out 20-25 wounds at -2 rend. Sure sword hunters might put out a bit more, but I was using old woods, which means positioning hunters around the trees. While the new woods have a much more flexible footprint, the trees on the old forests are still super useful for denying your opponent base 2 base contact. Here 2” reach on the scythes really shine: you can limit your unit to unit contact to a handful of models, still get your full (or nearly so) number of attacks and deny your opponent half of his attacks. They are powerful enough together I’m considering using both types of forests in future battles.

So I finally got my chance to start putting the book through its paces this last week. A lot of the things I noticed have already been commented on. Drycha is a beast, and kills all of the things. Spites are fairly killy and also fairly fragile. The Wyldwood changes to a D6 in the charge phase did pretty much nothing all game. All fo this more to less jives with everyone else’s experience so I won’t overrun them here. What I did want to highlight are a few areas that I haven’t seen talked about. I was playing an “untuned” skaven list. My list was fairly untuned as well, (somewhat limited by what I had on hand and what I could proxy) I So I felt we were more less evenly matched list-wise. I took a Drycha/TLA hybrid Winterleaf list with a single unit 6x Scythe hunters and the warm endless spell. We played the Total Conquest BP from the GHB 2019. I out-dropped him, so to treat the viability of going second I chose to give him first turn. The first turn as about what you’d expect, positioning to take objectives, hold what you could and prepare for combat turn 2. I was only using the old woods models, which I think actually put me at a bit of handicap. while imminently useable, the old woods are a bit cumbersome in how they are placed because of drop restrictions. There were several times during the match that I would have liked to place forest somewhere, but the old wood footprint was just too large and I had to pick a slightly less optimum spot. If I had been using the new models (bought, but still in the box) I would have been able to put them right where I needed them. That being said I was able to have 3 out by the end of my first turn, and they proved to be a massive headache for my opponent. Shutting down LoS alone is almost worth the loss of that dangerous terrain check they used to provide. The inability to see through the forests meant that he had to push up to set himself up for charges, only to be either countercharged next turn, or forced to fight a bunch of stubborn dryads in the woods which largely went nowhere. Throughout he course of the match, I was absolutely stunned at the level of board control we have. I put up about 2 woods in the third and 4th turn, making 5 on the board in total. Between teleports, summoning and units with relatively high movement speed, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t reach in a turn, turn and a half anywhere on the board. That made it very easy for me to isolate and destroy dangerous units without posing much risk to my army as a whole. I ended up just about tabling him in the top of the 5th, when he conceded. Over the course of the match, i lost 3 units of 5x spites and 1 unit of t-revs. Maybe 3-4 drayds and 1 hunter. The games outcome really only was fought over 2 objectives (despite their being 4 on the board). Those two objectives changed hands 2-3 times between them, with the final steal coming from T-revs turn 3 which ended up being the score needed to push me ahead for the rest of the game 9have I mentioned how much I love T-revs?). Combat-wise I took everything he had off the board and won handily when my opponent conceded turn 5: 13-10. Then entire match was pretty much a textbook account of what makes us so difficult to fight. I was able to dictate when and where I got into combat, only picking fights I knew I could easily win (i.e. drycha frozen kernel-ing a unit of 40 clan rats was pretty funny). Screened Scythe hunters backed by an Archy is also no joke. Tree’s attacking when spells are cast works as well as it ever did, dealing a significant amount of damage throughout the course of the game. Likewise, having the worm function as a roving MW generator, blocking access to forest made life pretty rough for his Stormfeinds. They couldn’t shoot into the forest since they were LoS blocked, and they couldn’t really charge being blocked by the endless spell. Winterleaf’s trait is also very satisfying to play with, and also fairly intmidating. Having extra hits on 6’s made up for the hunters only have 3 attacks, (having the archy buff helped a lot too). All in all I’m really pleased with how the book performed. It was a friendly game on both sides, but entirely taking an army of 160 or so models off the table is nothing to sneeze at even in a friendly game.

This is a tricky one. The GHB says that you must use the available warscroll for a a primary/secondary terrain feature if it has one. If a terrain feature does NOT have a warscroll you must generate a scenery rule from the unique table. According to the GHB, since there is no warscroll for a “Wyldwood”, you would be expected to treat it as Unique and generate a scenery rule for it using the provided table. HOWEVER The paragraph that says you must generate a scenery rule for terrain features that do not have a warscroll was changed in the errata. Now, the only terrain features you are required to generate rules for are unique terrain features. The language that said if a piece of scenery doesn’t have a warscroll, you must treat it as unique terrain is no longer there. So what does that mean? Hell if I know. It really seems to me like it was intended to be an awakened wyldwood and somebody just thought that they’d shorten it for some reason. It’s pretty clear from the errata that all the primary/secondary terrain features on the table are meant to be used with a warscroll. The only warscroll that currently matches a “Wyldwood” is the “Awakened Wyldwood”. It sucks because we’re going to be treated like we’re trying to game the set-up rules, but based on how the FAQ/Errata/GHB rules all add up this seem like the most reasonable interpretation.

Spells and artifacts are allegiance abilities (as I found out recently). But see below: It’s a bit sticky, because the language in the passage is a bit weird. But it is a long standing rule that battletome/warscroll rules supersede core rules when there is a conflict. When there is not conflict you must use both rules. This is why the language in the GHB was changed regarding Skaven gnawholes; the language didn’t directly conflict, but it gave two mutually exclusive rules that had to be applied at the same time (I.e. gnawholes had to be placed wholly within 8” of the battlefield edge, but at least 6” away from the edge itself; leaving a 2” space for a 5” model. But all the rules regarding placement of woods in our tome conflict with the rules in the GHB, (specifically the 3” from objectives portion). In this case, we use the rules in the battletome: Sylvaneth terrain placed in-game maintains a 1” placement from models, objectives, or terrain.

This is still unanswered. Two points: currently there is no “wyldwood” warscroll. Basic logic says they’re talking about the Awakened wyldwoods, but its unclear. It is possible that they meant “citadel wood”. While there is still a warscoll for citadel woods, those woods are no longer sold on the website. Makes it kind of hard to suggest that you can only use a model they no longer sell. I put in a FAQ to the design team so hopefully it will be addressed in the commentary (which should drop this next weekend or thereabouts). My guess is they’ll either give the go-ahead that it’s an awakened wyldwood (I give this a 70% chance) or they’ll issue a new warscroll for a “wyldwood” (I give this a 30% chance). I think the second option is less likely, only because it means issuing a new warscroll that will probably need to be different from the citadel wood warscroll and yet requires the use of the same models as the “awakened wyldwood” which might prove confusing on the board, since teleport woods and non teleport woods are both “wyldwoods” and will be using identical models.

So the new FAQ says we can take Awakened Wyldwoods as primary terrain pieces by substituting them for any primary terrain feature. Then it also says we don’t use the warscroll if we do that. We roll on the table and then use that for the rules for the piece. My question is, is it still an Awakened Wyldwood or not? The allegiance abilities triggers off the name of the scenery piece, since we teleport near “Awakened Wyldwoods” which it neither a Keyword nor a Warscroll rule. If we don’t use the warscroll rules, but it’s still an “Awakened Wyldwood” we should be able to use all our abilities that trigger when we’re near them (dryads -1 to hit, teleport, Treelord’s awaken woods spell) but we wont get it’s random magic effects, or the change to do MW during the charge phase. I wonder also what this “wyldwood” business is on the primary terrain feature list, since we don’t currently have a scenery pieces by that name. maybe it will be an “awakened Wyldwoods lite” in the same way the mausoleum is a gravesite light for LoN? Thoughts?

This is not confirmed. WH community seemed to suggest today that it was part of the Deepwood spell lore just on a different place on the page.

Ahhh. That explains it. Thank you.

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I get that part. But I’ve heard it said that you can resurrect units from a mausoleum even if it doesn’t have a unit garrisoned insides I have no idea why because it desk to function juts like a regular gravesite under those conditions for all intents and purposes.

I’ve seen this mentioned before, but I don’t understand why. Can you explain why they can’t resurrect new units from them?

I believe the new kit is called “citadel woods”, where an “awakened wyldwood” is 3-6 of them. The warscroll is renamed, but still refers to “citadel woods”, the same way the old warscroll did.

Again, if there are already 5 trees on the table I don't think it will be a problem for Nurgle players. I missed that spells and items are actually allegiance abilities and I guess I was only focusing on battle traits because batteltraits are all the Sylvaneth book has under Allegiance abilities. If I’m missing a page, and they are indeed on there, RAW they would be subject to those restrictions as well. If they aren’t (Sylvaneth will be the newest book so it could be a format change) then they wont be considered allegiance abilities since Battletomes trump core rules. But even that aside, I’m fairly certain will the FAQ will say that “Battletome rules supersede core rule/GHB rules”. Thats teh way its always been and thats a easiest solution to fix skaven gnawholes and Nurgle tree drops without rewriting them. That’s pretty much been the way they’ve always handled these conflicts.

Yes I know that. I meant that after that. During the game both of them can summon more to the field that don’t have to follow the 6” - 6” -3 “ rule, They both follow a 1” rule to objectives, models or terrain. If terrain is no closer than 12” to any other terrain feature, then there should be a bunch of 12” holes all over the board. For Sylvaneth, the new woods are 10” wide, so 1” on either side, they should fit. Nurgle trees are tiny, but since they are summoned to the board via an allegiance ability they’ll be more restricted. The trees are tiny tho, so it’s possible. But I don't think they’ll need more than the 5 they can potentially bring anyway, they wont really benefit from more.

Yup. Giving players as reason to bring more terrain, means they (ultimately) sell more terrain, and it ensures that factions who do use terrain in a competitive environment are going to more amplified from what it did/was before. The placement rules are quite restrictive either way, and it does make it of situational use, but it’s really pushing the game down the path it’s always been going. Big swift clashes with units where you roll lots of dice. I’ma actually interested in how it affects mixed order armies. KO players bringing Wyldwoods to block out the firing lanes of artillery line of sight, and making spellcasting that much more of a headache. Some terrain wont be as much use for some players (dwarves forge) but a bunch of fyreslayers as allies acting as super tanks for 1 turn. 4 grand alliances also get access to a cheap unit factories Destruction: You can bring 400 allies of Gitz and use the shrine as a cheap goblin mill. Death: You can take a charnel throne and an arch-regent to churn out minions with summon imperial guard. Order: Take a branch wraith and you can take a Wyldwoods and turn it into a summoning mill with dryads As a trade off, all mixed chaos stuff just gets more chaotic. Single allegiance armies will still be a thing, because of the really unique items and some of terrain features you can’t use very well without it (Gravesites, Sylvaneth teleports, Nurgle contagion points). In short, I’d be super pumped about this because the viability of a bunch of new builds Mixed order and single allegiance that juts became a whole lot more competitive because of this. As to the physical use of it on the battlefield, I know it can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but to some degree that’s just an inherent awkwardness in the 28 mm heroic scale. The models have to be big enough to see the detail on, (any smaller and the sculpt matters less) but small enough that you need to fit up to 200 or so miniatures onto a table together. Plus, since they bases to stand and be dynamic, they need to be mounted on bases. Playing with round bases means tricky terrain is just unavoidable when you need to sit a round base on a bunch of visibly sculpted things. The “Charnel Pancake” just doesn’t have quite the same visual appeal.

You must be a holdover from the Kirby days. GW ended it’s streak as “the Evil Empire” a while ago now. Seriously though. Pour yourself a drink a wait till the FAQ drops before your torch burns out.

It depends what army you play. The rules are pretty clear that that 6” - 6” -3” rule (as written) only applies to terrain summoned onto the board via an “allegiance ability”. The only two armies that currently summon terrain to table during the game are Sylvaneth and Maggotkin, and only one of those (maggotkin) actually summon terrain to the board via their allegiance ability. Sylvaneth have thier own restrictions based on summoning Wyldwoods to the board depending on the mechanic used. The allegiance summon already has the 6”-6”-3” rules built in, but all the other woods summoned onto the board (spell/warscroll ability/item) use a 1” 1” 1” rule. So it’s not really and issue for them. I will say, if T.O.’s scrap the terrain placement rules they should scrap the faction terrain portion of the rules as well. It doesn’t make sense to scrap half the rules an apply the other half, especially since the trouble with Maggotkin summoning trees virtually disappear since they can sub out 6 terrain pieces for their own trees. Indirectly: yes. In ones of the designers commentary, they answered a question asking if the Realmscape rules and Endless spells rules were considered part of the core game or optional. The answer they gave was something along the lines that points values for every unit across the game were written with every available rule to an army in mind, and if you don't play with them, the points value wont really reflect what the army can do. If that’s the case, then Maggotkin and Sylvaneth also have all the rules available to them written into their posts cost as well. Dryads are garbage outside of the woods, but great inside them. It doesn’t make sense that a unit like that should have single point costs and not factor in the disparity as a core mechanic of the army. The same goes for Maggotkin, they are very hard to kill but slow as ****. Trees are a part of both army’s core mechanics, it doesn’t make sense that GW would write the rules that way and not account for their terrain .