Mirage8112

I’m not sure how that will work. Tournaments usually pre-set tables, but I know at a couple off tournaments we’ve moved things around slightly (always by mutual agreement). We both agreed that was alright, since battelplans change between rounds anyway, and terrain is always incidental to that. Good tournament organizers should account for faction terrain anyway. I would prefer to place terrain myself, but if they don’t go that route, hopefully they’ll take fraction terrain into account. Well, I’m of two minds about this. If tournament organizers leave plenty space for faction terrain then it’s not an issue. What I worry about is the opposite, faction like maggot kin and Sylvaneth are at a real disadvantage if they can’t get their terrain out on the table. Armies that don’t use faction terrain don’t really need it (Daughters of Khaine for example) but armies like Sylvaneth have terrain cost figured into their units point totals (drayds for instance are much better in woods, and marginal out of them). Preventing them from using something that they have pointed into their cost is way more unbalanced than forcing them to play without it.

Just to be clear, there is no “old” or “new” Wyldwoods. Because the warscroll hasn’t been replaced: just updated. What has changed is the “Citadel woods” model (well, once it’s officially released), since the new woods are a sculpt update of the old woods. The warscroll will update when the new Battletome drops, but for right now, they are pretty much exactly the same. I imagine the designers commentary on the new book will probably address how the old models interact with the new rules. My guess is that 1 old wood will count as 3 new ounces since the internal footprint is almost identical. For everyone saying that you wont be able to use the old woods, its important to remember that GW is usually pretty forgiving about allowing you to use old sculpt for current models. In 40k when models are updated, they even let you use the base size your model was originally released with. This isn’t a case of an old warscroll not being included anymore,. Because the warscroll hasn’t actually be removed.

I highly doubt that this is going to be removed or significantly changed in the Designers commentary. That’s not really the way the designers do things. I really think this is the result of people trying to read the new ruleset like the old ruleset. Sort of like how when AoS first came out, people couldn’t understand that a model with 2 hand weapons didn’t get +1 attack (and instead RR 1’s) like they did in WHFB. Or when AoS 2 came out and they removed summoning points from the game. Players couldn’t wrap thier heads around it despite it being there in black and white. they just gnashed their teeth and complained that it was under/overpowered and that it would “kill” the game; and yet here we are and everything is ok. I really think GW is trying to put a tighter restriction on how much terrain is on the table, preventing people from putting faction terrain and regular terrain on top of objectives, and still making sure people can get their faction terrain on the table by subbing it out for regular terrain pieces rather than relying on “allegiance ability” drops. We’ll find out soon how they intend to handle it, but I very very much doubt GW is just going to say ”nevermind”.

I’ve gotten a good deal of pushback on the interpretation I’m about to give. At this point we are all inclined to wait for the FAQ, but right now, this is the only thing that makes sense to me. The rules says that you may substitute any terrain feature no larger than 10” wide or 10” tall as a “unique terrain feature” and if that terrain feature has a warscroll you must use it. There is nothing in the rules as written prohibiting you from choosing you whatever terrain you like as one of your 3 primary pieces. Gnawholes, Wyldwoods, shipwrecks, whatever. In the faction terrain section, I think GW is making a distinction of “faction terrain” to mean “terrain that is deployed AFTER the board is set up” and the term “faction terrain” refers to terrain placed by an allegiance ability and not the actual “terrain” itself. The prohibitions on dropping “faction terrain” after the regular terrain is already on table, specifically mentions terrain deployed via “an allegiance ability”, and gives an extra set of restrictions (which everyone is losing their minds over) should you not be able to place it, it cannot be placed at all. It seems it only terrain that is deployed in this manner (i.e. after the board is set up and players have chosen sides but before the game begins) is subject to the additional “Cannot be placed” restriction. I think this might be GW’s intention from writing the scenery rules in this manner. They want at least 10 pieces of terrain on the table, but no more than 12 or so. They also want faction to be able to use their unique terrain features, but not to overcrowded the board with them. i.e for every terrain pieces you put on the board, you displace one of the primary pieces. Not knowing what side you’ll get also means dropping them in forward positions might not be helpful. Skaven players could now deploy their gnawholes in the middle of the board, but the trade off is that there is less scenery for cover, and since each gnawholes counts as 1 scenery piece (you’d displace 2 secondary and 1 primary piece to do this.) Your opponent will also know where they will be and place their own terrain accordingly. Same with Idoneth players, Maggotkin and Sylvaneth. (My only question is whether or not the loonshrine is over 10”). it also mean if you wish to wait and get helpful terrain ina place you KNOW will be useful (after other terrain is out and sides have been chosen) you run the risk of not being able to place it (helping avoid the “gotcha” terrain piece.) This is the only way I can think to read the rules that explains the free gravesite feature, or TZ armies subbing out realmgates to access summoning, and factions getting their unique terrain blocked out by placement. The faq coming out will hopefully clear this up, but right now as I said, this is only thing that reads proper to me.

Ah. Thanks for that.

If that’s true, and if our new woods are under 10” tall (old ones are about 5” tall) it seems like there’s nothing stopping us from picking WW as one or more of our 3 primary peices of terrain. If thats true, that would be a Godsend and pretty much everything we could want. It’s not without precedent either, since one of the primary terrain pieces is a Sigmarite mausoleum which act as gravesites for LoN armies. It would also make sense that that each faction could use it’s own terrain pieces as substitutes for primary terrain pieces, and why deploying them after terrain is set is so restricted.

I don’t think so. Rules say 6” for faction terrain pieces deployed by an allegiance ability. A mystical rock is just... a mystical rock. Right now, the default terain is one of like 8 kits and you have to use the warcrolls. If you want to sub in something use you can (dreadstone blight for example), you just have to use it’s warscroll. If it doesn’t have one, you have to roll for mystical terrain But wait a frigging minute. does that say 10” tall at its tallest point? Is this from the new GHB?

I think the difference between the TL and the AGKoT/KoS use of the ability differs based on the context it’s being used. The ability of combat disruption on a AGKoT or Keeper of secret is valuable because they are killy enough to be independent operators, insofar as they wont require attack support to make the best use of their disruption abilities. This is further evident because there’s also a 160-200 point disparity between between the TL and those two. Which makes sense, because the TL essentially functions as a utility unit. As you pointed out, it’s damage is “swingy” at best, when it rolls well it wrecks face, when it rolls poorly it’s a slap fight at best (though, such things can be said about any unit in the game). But it’s ability’s usefulness really needs to be calculated with another unit or two since you would never run 1 independently and expect to get anything out of it. Personally, I would argue that a utility unit like the TL need to be treated much in the same way we treat a buffed stat or heroes with items in our calculations. That is to say, you effectively add the Treelord’s raw offensive/defensive output to a single unit present in the combat when a stomp is successful. Vs a single enemy, you add every unit’s damage together in an aggregate and effectively treat them all as a single unit. Depending on positioning and turn, you can add either the offensive stat or the defensive stat. To reflect the 4+ nature of the roll, just reduce the value by half. If your concerned about the points value, items past the first technically have a points value as well, since it requires the purchase of a battalion to make any use of them. I know if we could buy an item that basically gives 12 free wounds (that can also be negated on a 3+) and an extra 8 damage to any single unit wholly within 12” on a 4+ we would all be taking it. I think it’s important to think of the ability in this way, because we’ve always been an army that wants to bait the charge (at least as I play). I don’t think this has drastically changed. A unit of T-revs screening a TL 1” out with a unit or two of hunters screened by a WW holding an objective is quite formidable. A horde unit attempting to charge that will only be able to clear the screen, and if stomped, everything will have a chance to swing before losing the screen. Even in the enemies turn, it will take no less than 3 units to access whatever is behind the screen if stomp is successful. Yes that’s a large points investment and an obvious trap. That doesn’t matter if it’s the only thing the enemy can reach, or if everything else the enemy can reach is either chaff or a tar pit. (Did I mention I often play with a lot of chaff?) Yes that was me. However, it’s important to consider the context of the argument. My argument was that if players can flood the board with numerous large terrain pieces, we’d have no space to place woods. My (clarified) argument was that if there were no restrictions on size of terrain, we should argue for 6 pieces, but accept no more than 8. However the new terrain rules mandate 10 peices, but only 6 pieces of (relatively) medium size. The dragonfate dias, ophidian archway, magewraith throne, numinous oculusum and arcane ruins all have very small footprints (something like 3-5” square) and each player can place 3. Players may bring custom scenery pieces outside that list, but they must use the relevant warscroll, and have a foot print of no more than 10” in any direction or be larger than 4” tall. The further 4 pieces are walls/fences consisting of 2 pieces each , with each player placing 2. This is actually quite reasonable since it makes it almost impossible for a single player to block out the entire board. Also, since citadel woods are one of the listed “approved” pieces, we can very well take 3 woods for our 3 pieces and shut down firing lanes to objectives relatively easily (there is no restriction on placing listed scenery on objectives that I’ve seen). This makes an excellent substitute for WW on forward objectives, since they don’t really provide quite as much benefit as before. Furthermore It’s fully possibles to put the citadel woods 1” away from an objective (blocking firing lines from the enemy deployment zone) and then summoning a wood on the other side 1” away from the same objective. If you can pull this off, it’s would be fully possible to teleport 30 drayds onto the objective, maintain your -1 hit by staying within 6” of the wood, keep your +1 cover save (by maintaining 1” coherency across the 2 scenery pieces) and be LOS blocked from shooting. Furthermore, there is no minimum size on terrain now. If your enemy tries to block you out by choosing a big 10” 4” tall block for his 3 terrain pieces, there’s nothing stopping you from dropping a rock on top and saying it’s mystical terrain and rolling on the accompanying table. (It’s gamey as fk, but if I felt my opponent was trying to zone me out by picking the largest terrain he could, I’d say one good turn deserves another.) The rules specifically mention “terrain placed by an allegiance ability”. Which would apply to our first woods, but not our subsequent woods. Wyldwoods aren’t even really “faction terrain”, just regular terrain. They do not even contain the SYLVANETH keyword (unlike the battleforge, herdstone, Fane of Slaanesh, ect). i imagine that will be cleared up very quickly in the first FAQ. Our book seems to me to be like a box of tinkertoys where you have 50 parts but you can only build something out of 15. How you pick and choose those parts will make wildly different buildings that do wildly differ things. : I see builds in our book that can skew their power wildly in a number of directions: spellcasting, combat efficiency, resiliency, combat disruption, hordes or MSU. I also see builds that can focus in a couple of areas while still maintaining presence in others. These are the builds I think will be the most competitive, and there’s definitely more than 3 of them (unlike the last book.) Playing Sylvaneth will be quite different in this book and I think that’s good for our overall power level. We were mostly easily to account for before thanks to our lack of diversity and being 1-2 trick ponies. We’ll have a better picture when the GHB is out sat and hopefully the errata/raw soon after. It would also be nice if our damn book came out before the end of the year.

This all makes sense, but with the prevalence of these types of abilities there has to be some way to account for it. Abilities that affect activation order remind me a little of abilities that give blanket buffs or debuffs, that don’t really offer anything to the unit providing the buffs. If memory serves, in the early days of AOS in first iterations of the GHB there was guy who claimed that “combat efficiency” was the only stat that mattered and that games could be predicted based solely on the armies combat efficiency score. Every unit in the game got an A-F rating for it’s efficiency based on it’s ability to do damage relative to its points. But units like the celestial hurricanium got very low scores, ignoring the fact that it significantly increased the damage metrics of everything around it and allowed Sylvaneth to dominate the early competitive scene. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but force multiplying units like TL stomps or Slaanesh’s Locus of diversion are going to play a huge part in the meta going forward and it’s best to find some way to find someway to quantify that a little. I feel like AGKoTG is a fringe case, albeit at the moment a very dominate one. IIRC the current top winner of ITC played the FEC list at Nova this year and wiped everything off the board. It’s not the faction itself that is particularly dominant, but that particular unit because it hits hard, is terribly mobile, and disrupts the combat sequencing. It’s very hard to take any other army and write an all-comers list that can field well against the broader meta AND handle Gristlegore, so the comparison between it and the TL is not a fair one at the moment. I’m anticipating some sort of change to this on Sat with the impending GHB update. I’m not sure what this will be, but I think there’s a good chance something will change. In regards to the TL itself, it’s important to remember that a TL’s mobility increased dramatically with the number of WW we have on the board, A treelord might only be able to move 6”, but 6” isn’t really 6” with teleport. A pair of Treelords can easily cross the entire board with a screen of T-rev’s and still have a free teleport to bring in something with combat power, 2 teleports if playing Dreadwood. With KoS and AGKoRT have excellent movement and attacking power, they do not have the ability to teleport, which means you should reasonably able to determine their threat radius and account for that. As a fellow 5th edition wood elf player I’m fairly well versed in assessing what will come into play and what will not come into play on a model with a fixed movement value. I’m not exactly a proponent of Harvestboon. I think that it could be viable for a certain playstyle, but that’s likely not my first choice. I will probably be playing Dreadwood first. I was simply pointing out that if I were to play Harvestboon, I think forest folk would be a good fit battalion-wise. While I understand this has been the dominant playstyle with Sylvaneth, it’s not at all close to mine. In the old book, I played Dreadwood competitively, which mostly focused of extensive use of chaff, high damage output in a very focused area of the board, and long-lasting tar pits. I did make extensive use of alpha-bunkering by including 30 drayds and a TLA however, but I think we are still reasonably capable of doing that with a little planning. I never used Alarielle or the Phoenix and still did very well in competitive tournaments. I’m wary of detailing all the things we can do in the new book, or detailing the particulars of why I think TL’s and T-revs are going to be the backbone of competitive Sylvaneth play going forward, because when I do, the inevitable reply is “Well, that will never work against X build/army”, or “you’ll never be able to make those scenarios happen” or “what if x spell is dispelled or you fail that 4” charge” (as if any those scenarios hadn’t crossed my mind). It’s been my experience that the best build for an army exploits its designed strengths and minimizes its inherent weaknesses. As such, while I recognize that TL’s aren’t super efferent, I never build Sylvaneth solely for combat efficiency. Combat efficiency is certainly something I consider in my playstyle (because you have to fight sometime), but it’s only 1 phase of the game (I might even say that the only combat phase you should plan on winning is yours while you set up units to sacrifice in your opponents turn; i.e. chaff), and it very possible to win games based almost entirely on movement. Which is why I’m surprised you characterize Sylvaneth as a low speed army. My experience is just the opposite. Most games are fought over control of 25-30% of the objectives on the board, i.e. if there are 4 objectives only 1 will change hands frequently and another might change hands 1-2 times. For the most part, I don’t see that changing because the way lists are written and the way armies are designed, most armies can’t fight everywhere at once. Few armies are capable of fighting for backfield objectives controlled by their enemy, because they lack the necessary movement to successfully threaten those objectives while still maintaining pressure on anything midfield while simultaneously holding their own backfield. The better the player, the more objectives they can threaten. Despite our low movement values, we are exceptionally good at doing this: our threat range is actually quite large between flying units, teleports and LoS blocking terrain. While I’m withholding concrete judgements on our new book, initial battle reports look very promising. I think there will be a much clearer picture on Saturday when we get the full and complete breakdowns of points changes for all the factions (I know most have been leaked already, but Skaven, FEC and Slaanesh will be released as addendums.) I actually think the new scenery rules will make it easier to get our own terrain out on the table, while posing a bigger problem for other factions who are much more limited by initial terrain drops. It remains to be seen exactly how this will be applied in competitive play going forward, but for single match-ups I think it’s a real boon for us.

I think Harvestboon is the best wargrove to use when considering forest folk. Units from this battalion benefit the most from “retreat and charge” since they RR 1’s on the turn they charged. Pair that with the double extra attack from the groves command ability and Arch-revenants command ability, and dryads are doing 4 attacks apiece, hitting on 3’s (in your turn) RR 1’s, and wounding on 4’s. I also think this would be a good set up to take advantage of the Sisters of the Thorn to give them a little extra protection in your enemies turn. 3+ save RR failed and doing MW on 4+ is no joke. I think LotC is a trap. It’s tempting to take because its a 3 model battalion with a very low battalion price tag. Of course 2 TLA’s is really a waste unless your playing Gnarlroot and looking to get another tanky caster on the table. A lot of players are down on abilities that interrupt the turn order. Generally speaking I really like the mechanic, since its the only reliable counter for models who have a stupidly high damage output. I’m also used to playing with it, having a lot of wargaming experience from the WHFB days and seeing high elves on the table frequently (an army where every model struck first regardless of activations or turns.) I’m beginning to look at this mechanic a lot like players felt about endless spells or double turns; it’s relatively new, but we’ll get used to it. That being said, 200pts for access to a 50/50 stomp is an absolute steal in our army. Treelords gained a lot of healing potential, and if you run them paired with a screen (t-revs or spites) they’re going to be tough to remove without some seriously focused attention. I’d be curious to see if @swarmofseals has done any calculations on how much a strike last ability raises a units offensive/defensive efficiency, since it effectively combines the attacks of every unit striking against whatever has been effected AND allows you to more efficiently activate your other units across the board.

@swarmofseals As I’ve said before, I always enjoy seeing you show up on the forum. Even when don't show your work, I know you’ve put a lot of work into forming an opinion and have enough math behind you that your word carries a fair amount of weight and I’m quite glad that you’vebeen Able to lend some of that expertise to the gamer designers. Well done sir. Dear God. So much this. I cant express how many times I’ve tried to change wrong headed opinions on this very subject. Good call +1,000 internet points to you sir.

The terrain rules say “in addition to any restrictions”. It’s not a contradiction, so there is nothing to “overwrite”. It’s a little like the rule of 3’s, the warscroll says a wizard can cast “arcane bolt” but the matched play rules add restrictions not present on the warscroll.

Here are the exact words as I’ve heard them read in the video: “Sometimes the allegiance abilities will allow you to include 1 or more terrain features, these are set up in addition to the pitched battle terrain features. In a pitched battle, faction terrain must be set up more than 6” from a table edge, more than 6” from any other terrain feature and more than 3” from any objectives. In addition to any other restrictions that apply. Sometimes this makes it impossible for a faction terrain pieces to be placed in this way, if this is case it is not [placed].”  Terrain is chosen from a predefined list of terrain features. With players choosing 3 each of: Azyrite ruins [1 piece?], citadel woods, magewraith throne, ophidian archways, dragonfate dias, numinous oculus, arcane ruins or sigmarite mausoleum. and then 2 secondary pieces: and walls/fences. An different scenery peices can be substituted for any of the 6 primary peices as long as it is not more than 10” wide in nay direction or taller than 4” at any point. A death player in theory could choose 3 Mausoleums, in the “line deployment” as picture from a previous post. I fairly sure that’s not the way it’s “intended” to be set up, but RAW it’s perfectly legal. I expect something like that might be addressed in the FAQ. It seems terain features placed after initial set-up follow whatever rules are on the warscroll (this only really affects Wyldwoods) since they are not placed through an “allegiance ability”; they are placed via a warscroll ability, spell, or item. WW summoned in game only have about 10.5” footprint and can be 1” away from other terrain features and objectives so they’re going to be hard to zone out completely. The footprints of the selected terrain features are fairly small, most only being about 4” x 4” with some exceptions (mausoleum and ophidian archway for example). And even if a death player were to drop 3 mausoleums like that, It would still be fairly difficult to zone the board out completely, since the other player could just choose a very very small terrain piece (like a 2” x 2” rock), and opt to use the mysterious terrain rules instead.

Huh. Mum on the subject. Figures

This is $64,000 question. The exact words as I’ve heard them read in the video above are “Sometimes the allegiance abilities will allow you to include 1 or more terrain features, these are set up in addition to the pitched battle terrain features. In a pitched battle, faction terrain must be set up more than 6” from a table edge, more than 6” from any other terrain feature and more than 3” from any objectives. In addition to any other restrictions that apply. Sometimes this makes it impossible for a faction terrain pieces to be placed in this way, if this is case it is not [placed].” I think it’s the “in addition to any other restrictions”, that will cause this to override placement restrictions in the individual battletomes. Since faction pieces like the Skaven’s Gnawholes get their placement instructions (which is a restriction) from their allegiance abilities. So essentially, that sentence means you add the restrictions from the GHB to whatever restrictions are already present, ie. Skaven wont be able to deploy gnawholes in a pitched battle without an errata (since they must be placed entirely within 8” of an edge and they are more than 2” long at any point) For us, that means we won’t be able to count on puttin our free forest down in our own deployment zone next to the table edge. Not a big deal, because this seems to only apply to terrain that is set up before the game starts: since it is specifically mentioning terrain deployed through an “allegiance ability”, (ie. Dwarf forge, Wyldwoods, Shipwreck ect.) WW placed during the game are not done via an allegiance ability, they are placed via a spell, item, or a warscroll ability, and thus fall outside these restrictions. But for other factions who can’t do that, it’s a big restriction. It all but guarantees free space on the edges of the board for WW’s and gives enemies an incentive to leave space free in the middle of the board to deploy their own terrain features. Ironically, this reverses the problem we were arguing about earlier of enemies zoning our woods off the board by dropping a large amount of terrain. Now, we can drop terrain to zone them out of their own feature (since that 6” restriction is a big one, and one they didn’t have to worry about before) with the idea that while we wont be able to get our free forest out either, WW forest bought on later can easily fit within that those gaps and keep 1” away from everything else. The only feature we might not be able to squeeze out are Maggotkin Trees (small bases) but we might be able to control where they get dropped and still leave room for our forests.

Most tournaments will probably opt for standard terrain deployed before the game to limit game times, while others might use the terrain rules as written, but still set the boards up before the game starts. But yes, now we have something official we can point to that says “this how much terrain should be on the board.” It’s also super useful because it says that any of the named primary pieces can be swapped out for another piece as long as it’s not more than 11” wide at its widest point and 4” tall at its tallest. I think that’s a solid compromise for getting some other small-ish terrain peices on the table if your opponent just goes right for the largest things his can get his hands on. I’m also pleased to see that citadel woods is one of primary pieces, and gives us an incentive to drop those down for our 3 primary pieces to block LoS over much of the board. Skaven players will hate that since it will pretty effectively shut down the gun line component. All in all, as much as players are having a kneejerk reaction to this, it might actually be a real boon for us.

This was my thought. Most of the scenery mentioned actually has a fairly small footprint. It might even be possible to block your opponent out of deploying his faction terrain (since faction terrain can’t be placed within 6” of any other terrain), and still ensure that you can get woods out over the course of the game (since our woods deployed after the game begins only has a 1” restriction)

New rules mandate 10 pieces of terrain for matched play. It also says faction-specific terrain must be set up more than 6” from the battlefield edge, no more than 6” away from other terrain features and 3” away from objectives. Terrain is set up in a particular order: First you choose a battleplan and then set up objectives. Each player selects 5 terrain pieces from a list: 3 from primary (Azyrite ruins [1 piece?], citadel woods, magewraith throne, ophidian archways, dragonfate dias, numinous oculus, arcane ruins or sigmarite mausoleum. and then 2 secondary pieces: and walls/fences (2 peices ). It also says you can sub in a terrain piece no more than 6” across at its wides point or 4” tall at its tallest point for any of these. Then faction terrain must be placed, if there is no space, then it is not placed. It seems like from the wording, this only applies to faction terrain set up before the battle and not faction terrain set up during the battle, (which would follows the warscroll placement I assume. This is prime for an FAQ) If that is the case, it means the table edges, and our deployment zone will probably be where our woods are most likely to go. The GHB also specifies that you must roll on each piece of non-faction scenery for the scenery table. It also says (somewhere in there) that is method for assembling the board should be bog-standard for tournament play. Thoughts? Source: Relevant section starts at 20:55

The diagram from the warscroll describes/shows the “ring” placement of a 3 piece WW. I don’t think a WW with more peices has to form a ring, since the shape of the footprint would make this impossible with more than 3 pieces. It would come out looking more like a 4 pointed star or something. I think the intention here is just that the ends of the scenery pieces need to touch one on another to form an enclosed space, with all the point turning inward. If if that’s true, we might be able to get some flexibility in the shape provided we have enough woods to do so. Not sure until the kit comes out how that will work.

Dryads had a points increase if you figure that you can no longer put woods on objectives, which mean for dryads to hold an objective, their save is effectively a point worse for the same cost. Hunters also have lost a little mobility since only a single unit can teleport through the woods. Tree -Revs got a buff for the same cost, but don’t really benefit all that much from glade bonuses, unless you plan on running large units and build your list deliberately to do that. Extra healing does absolutely zip for 1 wound models. Alarielle benefits proportionally more from the healing bonuses than any other unit In the codex, and also had the added benefit of auto-healing multi-wound models around her. Hunters at full strength do about the same amount of damage as Alarielle, but as they take wounds their damage output drops significantly take 10 wounds, lose two and even if you manage to bring back 1 you still lose 3-4 attacks. With the healing Alarielle can muster from the healing combo I outlined above, she can easily gain back all 10 wounds and fight at full strength. Thats fine, don’t take her. Nothing in our codex is auto-take anymore. Everything has a place now with the right build. The only things I think are must take now are 2-3 units of T-revs and at least 2 models with stomp. Preferably 3 (or 1-2 and Alarielle with her free summon). Seriously though, it’s 60 points, she’s gained a whole boatload of synergy. Thats a very very small increase for a bunch of benefits she didn’t have before. It’s just that they’ve moved her benefits from her warscroll and spread them out across the book. Units don't fight in a vacuum, they fight together and those benefits should be readily apparent when you build a list with these mechanics in mind.

I think it’s probably more accurate to say that Alarielle has been “tweaked” rather than buffed or nerfed. The 60 point increase comes from being able to benefit (passively and actively) from the Warglades. Some of this can be quite a substantial buff and needs to be taken into account. In Winterleaf Alarielle’s damage massively increases, in Gnarlroot her survivability goes through the roof. Harvestboon could be pretty hilarious with a decent damage buff as well. I’d say all that is well worth 60 points. In non-glade armies you probably wont take Alarielle sicne your likely looking to make the most of the artifacts. Alarielle has never been entirely “unkillable”, so the fact that she effectively lost D3 healing isn’t all that big of a deal. If your enemy was intent on removing her by throwing everything they had at her in a single turn, and you miscalculated your positioning, a single D3 heals every other turn won’t make all that much of difference. In fact it makes sense they removed it, since our army now has access to D6 un-unbindable heals through the vesperal gem/ regrowth combo on a support TLA (who benefits the most from her D3 bubble heal anyway). Combo this with the passive damage save from gnarlroot (6+) and the passive heal from gnarlroot (d3 on a successful spell cast), + D3 heals from items like lifewreath AND the glade worm. If you’re counting, that means she can get D6+ 4D3 heals in our hero phase: I’d say her survivability went up overall. Her command ability has been reworked to be more impactful over the course of the entire game, and RR 1’s isn’t terrible in an army where most of our damaging units hit on 3’s anyway. The Metamorphosis change is interesting, because raising the casting value of the spell also raises the potential damage, since the number of dice you roll is linked to the casting value of the spell. Alarielle can cast 3 spells, so it seems that they are pushing for throne of vines on her. This makes her a good candidate as an ES caddy, since ToV will allow her to cast metamorphosis for a higher damage potential and then also throw out some endless spells while she’s at it. Getting a wizard in range to unbind ToV means he’s still got potentially 2 (3 with slow down time from cogs) other spell to think about. Letting ToV get through would be a mistake; preventing ToV getting through and burning your 1 unbind to do it might be a bigger mistake if you end up rolling well for Endless Spell’s.|| Talon got a huge buff. Considering how wargroves work it has the potential to throw out a massive amount of MW now. + archy and she’s throwing out way more damage than she was before. Our old book had it’s power concentrated in 2 or 3 wargroves and small handful of units. Only looking at the way those warscrolls have changed makes things looks like nerfs, when actually they end up being army-wide buffs. A few (relatively) minor changes to Alarielle’s warscrolls and a very small points increase doesn’t account for the massive synergy bonus she’s gained once everything is working in tandem.

What’s up y’all. I swear I’m not lazy, I just really hate photographing my minis. I prefer to spend my time painting and not fiddling about with light, a light box, F-stops and all the other necessary fiddly things that go along with getting these posts up. That being said, I have been painting, and have been painting a lot... quite a lot. I’ve given up television, smoking and video games, and replaced all the time I spent doing those activities with painting. so needless to say I’ve got quite a backlog of stuff to show. So, this post is just a teaser really. I’m just going to throw out a couple of pics of some stuff that’s been finished, and a few WIP shots from other things that are mostly finished, and I’ll follow up with a more regular post in a couple of days. So, a taste of things to come: Happy painting all. -F

I’m not sure spites in that large of a group are worth it in that particular battalion. Extra hits are nice no doubt, but my guess you’d be better served fishing for extra hits on something like sword/scythe hunters, since every extra hit that goes through does more than 1 damage and has the benefit of rend. 20 spites (all in combat) put out about 27 wounds without buffs, and with Winterleaf generating extra hit’s on 6’s, that only goes up to 34 wounds. On a 5+ save however, that drops down to ~22 wounds. Which is still great, but only if you swing first. Winterleaf Kurnoth hunters with swords on the other hand, put out ~15 wounds after the same amount of saves. Yes, that’s 7 wounds less. but consider the fact that to get the max out of the Winterleaf spite unit, you’d absolutely need to land the charge and get everyone in combat. Hunters stand a much better chance of taking a charge and still having sufficient firepower to swing back and cause a considerable amount of damage. I think new spites are awesome, but (just like a lot of the new book) require foresight and more set-up to be the most effective. It depends what you wanna them to do. Dryads need woods to be effective. And you can’t always guarantee that your going to be able to fight in the woods. Dryads benefit a lot from defensive use, they have a higher save, -1 hit and can be replaced with the branchwytch spell. They also benefit a lot form verdurous harmony because they will likely survive the first round of combat (provide your enemy isn’t charging them with 4-5 units and shooting mortal wounds at them as well), while spites will just evaporate if something big hits them. So why spites? In tournaments, I have seen opponents use 30-40 man blocks of clanrats, skeletons, and other horde units as a front-line screen. 20 models across and 2 models deep, to screen the rest of their line. They do this because the units are cheap (200-280pts) and they can screen the entire front line with a single unit. Breaking through that line can be a problem for 20 dryads, because they don’t have a significant damage output. Yes, they are alright, but not “take 25-30” models off the board alright. Spites on the other hand are capable of doing this, and will be really quite good at this sort of thing. The unit is relatively cheap (200 pts) and (depending on the battalion they are in) can take out a screen of 30 models in 1 round of combat, letting whatever else you combo-charge with to hit what’s behind it. This isn’t a first turn problem either. I have seen players do with in tournaments after the first round, juts running the big screen up the board, ahead of the main army, knowing that the opponent can’t clear it in 1 round of combat. So they put it in your face, and dare you to charge it knowing you can’t get past it, and wait to combo charge you next round. This will be a dangerous tactic to use now, since a unit of spites in our turn can effectively clear a wide screen pretty easily. With a 9” charge against a unit with a frontage of 6-7? Yes. It’s unlikely you’ll get everything in combat at that range without some sort of bonus to charge. But against a big unit 10-12 wide 7” away with a. +3 to charge from Spiteswarm hive? That’s totally doable considering you’ll likely have an extra 5” to maneuver (assuming you roll an average charge of 7”) and a 3’ pile-in. With wraparound on an equal-sized unit, getting 18-20 spites in combat is pretty reasonable. A enemy unit will have a lot of difficulty shifting a bunch of drayds + a treelord off an objective. And it’s not unreasonable to assume they will need 2-3 turns to do it. Bringing a bunch of spites in through the realmroots 9“ away from the flank of an opponent trying to do that makes for a tough choice on your opponents side. Does he continue trying to push the dryads off the objective and risk a flank charge? Or does he try and retreat possibly getting charged by the spites in the next turn?

I’m not totally sold on the second unit of spites, only because it will take an extra command point to get them there (since they have to be in range of hive and the other unit of spites will use the realmroots, using up my “1 unit” per tun). If I cut the second unit down to 5 that gives me 80 extra points. + the extra 50 left over its still not enough for hunters. So what would I take? Maybe an extra 2 units of t-revs to screen (losing the extra command point)? Or should I spread it around on the spites and have 1 unit of 20 and 2 units of 10? I could also swap out treesong on the wytch and give her Verdurous harmony instead of treesong to help top-up the spites did they end up losing models to shooting. Or maybe some other combination. Thoughts?

Assuming deployment zones are max 12” from each other’s territory, and the enemy pushes right up onto the front line for deployment, that’s 24” between his deployment zone and mine. If the wytch is 7” from the front line there’s no chance she’s in unbind range for the first turn. And even then the unbinding wizard would need to be directly in front of her to be a threat. My guess is the enemy burns his unbind on the TLA, who will purposefully be in unbind range and start with verdant blessing or awakening the wood that’s in range (specifically to temp the enemy to burn one of his unbinds). If he unbinds it, I don’t need it and he’s burned an unbind. If he fails, then he’s burned an unbind and I get a free woods out 1” from his deployment zone (24” range easily puts it in front on my free forest.) If I fail the cast, then whatever. I can also drop the wraith last since she’s not actually part of any battalions in a convenient spot. Players don’t usually put squishy wizards right on the front lines anyway so I think it’s probably relatively safe to assume no unbind threats for first turn at least. But even if there is, I can put the wraith on the back edge and get her 35”away from anything the enemy can deploy. It depends on the battleplan. Some battleplans have enemy territory up to 1/2 the board, others have it only 12” or so from the back edge. Pre-game forest goes on the opponents side 1” from the front line of his territory in either case. If he deploys way back out of alpha range, that’s actually great for me, because it allows me to control the objective game and I can save the alpha for a later turn; more CP and a more solid chance to get endless spells out.. Sometimes the threat of the alpha-strike is as good as the actual strike itself if it makes him play cautiously. In terms of having everything on my side within range to teleport; Yes. TLA’s forest goes on ours 1” away from everything I want to move. If I can get a 2-wood width forest out (I would specify deploy everything where this is a possibility) that’s a 36” long strip 5” deep for teleport range (1” away from units). TL’s (TLA and D’s) bases are only 4” long, so 1” away still gives me 1” to spare. TL bases are under 3” wide, so all three only take up ~8 inches of the 32” strip. Spites have 1.25” bases, so arraigned 20 in 4 rows of 5 they’re 5” deep and they’re in range too. That formation is only ~6.25 inches wide. The second unit will have to use the DW strat to teleport since I can only bring 1 unit through the woods that’s not a big tree. Everything else can teleport on it’s own, (t-revs) or come down out of the celestial realm. All together, if I pack it tight, I can fit everything I need to into a space 14.25 inches wide. Incidentally if I can only get a 1 base forest out, that’s still 23” of teleport space. (Assuming it’s about 11” wide, the same as our old woods, and 6” on both sides, that’s 23” of teleport space.) it will be a wee bit tighter, but definitely possible. 8 battleplans have the territories dividing the field in half. 4 have them ~12” from the back edge. The 4 that aren't dividing the board, without question yes. For the 8 where the table is cut in half it’s a little more uncertain. In such case I would probably give them first turn, and let them get a little closer to my forest. Assuming they get a move between 5”- 10” if they move forward at all, Durthu should be in range for the extra 2 attacks. If the forest 1” away from enemy territory, and the enemy is 12” away from my territory, then they start the game 13” away from the edge of my forest. A 5” move brings them exactly 8” away, and I only have to come within .5 inches of them to complete the charge. So in this case Durthu is 7.5” away. Keep in mind I can stomp anything within 3”, so if the TL/TLA gets the stomp off I can try to stomp what’s behind it. If he’s moved up super aggressively, I might even be able to use the DW strat to put the spites behind him and come at him from all directions. In that case I’d use Durthu and the 2 TL’s to take out whatever the front line screen is there (so he can make use of the extra 2 attacks) and lets the spites eat whatever was behind it without putting them at risk. If they are 13” away from the woods, and force me to take first turn, then I just send the spites with T-revs to screen. Archie can come down in the woods and hit anything within 18” if I need the extra oomph. I have 2 easy screens to protect him and I wouldn’t do it if I thought there’s a good chance he’d get overwhlemed next turn. It is! They need LoS to dispel an endless spell after it’s already been cast. You said that about my first Dreadwood list when this thread started ages ago lol. The good thing here is that this doesn't absolutely have to go off in the first turn. I’ve been playing alpha-striking Sylvaneth for a while now and I know that sometimes you can’t pull it off in the first turn. In old Dreadwood, if you didn’t do it first turn you didn’t do it. Now I can reasonably do it in any turn the opportunity presents itself. The good thing is you’ll know what everything looks like after your hero phase, if both endless spells aren't out yet, or nothing is in range then you’d wait and set it up later in the game and set up the screened triple TL stomp on an objective and teleport everything into a good spot (out of likely charge range) to threaten something next turn. I was thinking of Durthu's threat range if he’s not on the other side of the board. This would happen if the enemy took first turn and tried to push up on me,. (Possibly to try and unbind something). But to do that he’d give me the chance at a double turn and would have to sit in the middle of my forest to even be out of regular charge range. Plus the TLA is sitting there read to awaken the woods on anything smart enough to stand within 3” of them. They’d probably try and unbind that first.