Mirage8112

It literally says “a good guide is to have at least 1 piece of terrain for every 2”. It’s saying that “this is a reasonable amount of terrain for your games”. It also doesn't say you can’t have less, just like it says you cant have more. It’s saying “this is a good amount to use”. It’s not restrictive, nor prohibitive to have less. I’d be ok with 8 if thats what we decide on, but I’d sure as hell not pick big peices for my 4 terrain drops. I mean everybody is worried about writing a list that can handle Eel spam, Daughters of Khaine, and endless Nagash hordes and you guys are willing to let the player flood the board with terrain before the game even starts just because you don’t want to be seen as “that guy”. Meanwhile your opponent’s putting 5 Royal Terrorgiests on the table...

If you dont have a rule, and GW has given you a guideline, you use the guideline. Guidelines are negotiable, but here is no reason to put yourself at a handicap just because you “don’t want to make fuss”. You want both you and your opponent to have an even chance of winning the game, and 6 pieces of terrain is not any disadvantage for your opponent, nor is it an advantage for you. As you said, 6 pieces of terrain could be huge and cover a lot of the board. Ideally it would be a mix on large and small pieces so that each player has an even chance. Your opponent want to throw down 15 pieces? Say hold up cowboy, 15’s way too many. And you negotiate. Say you settle on 8 and he want 4 huge pieces, say thats fine, and you pick 4 tiny pieces. There is nothing wrong with making sure you can play your army in the way it was designed. You opponent trying to zone you with terrain because he “doesnt like playing with WW” tell him too bad, you don’t like him playing with a bunch of Nighthaunt immune to rend but your going to let him, because thats the way his army works. Your army works with terrain. That’s just the way it is and there no reason to pretend your “inconveniencing him” just because you want to play a fair game.

You are welcome to do what you like at your gaming club, but the designers made a woods a core mechanic of how this army functions. Selecting a 9-10 of a bunch of HUGE terrain pieces, knowing full well it zones your army out of a core mechanic is a negative play experience. Too little terrain is as bad a problem as too much. I’m not saying you have to make your opponent play the game in the Realm bowling ball. GW has given us a guideline on what is a good amount of terrain to use. There is nothing wrong with sticking to a the guidelines given by GW. That’s why the game has rules.

What tourney was this? I remember the TO’s adepticon had a reasonable amount of terrain up specifically to accommodate sylvaneth players and I didn’t have a problem. It’s my understanding the major tournaments are aware of these things and make their decisions accordingly.

Yes. That was in the book at one point, but no longer. And I disagree, because in setting up a table, no one player gets to determine how many scenery pieces there are. The player across from you doesn't get the choice to grab 14 scenery pieces and you have no say. When a disagreement between the players happens, you look at the rules for guidance. Core rules say 1 piece per 2” square is reasonable, and if thats the only thing the rules say about it, then that’s the guidance you should fight for. OIr you can let them put 14 peices down and wonder why you aren't playing on equal footing. Your choice.

Gah. Stupid English. It’s my first language and I can barely speak it. Yes, 3 wyldwoods 1” apart from each other. Should be fantastic for something like take and hold. The first “free” wood goes out 6” from the first objective. The second go down so they are 1” away from the first and each other and 1” away from the objective. Add drayds across the middle over the objective anchored by a TLA or hunters. TLA with auto-cast gem on the woods for D3 mortals and will also trigger the magic test on all 3 woods. Roll well and that’s 4D3 mortals to anything in range. That will be pretty hard to shift and the damage output is better than anything we could do before.

Also, after reading my last post I did a quick check. Models test on a 6+ for Wyldwood damage for EVERY wildwood they are within 1” of, since the wording is “a Wyldwood” and not “any wyldwoods”. It might be a funny strategy to set up 3 single-footprint woods within 1” of each other and hang out right in the middle forcing them to test on 3 dice every charge phase. At 2 checks per turn on 3 dice, its a 90% it will go off at least once per player turn, and a 60% chance it will go off twice per player turn. That’s a lot of mortal wounds and could really hurt monsters and the like.

We can still easily cover the board in trees. The first free forest is the most restrictive, but subsequent forests are not and you should easily be able to find space even if it’s 1 footprint (of the old woods. The new woods would be 3 peices). It’s not unreasonable to expect us to get 4 woods down by the end of our first turn, even if the enemy brings on reserves, or tries to zone you out. Even units that can move 20” from a forward deployment can have a. Wood thrown down 1” in front of them (providing you account for their move when you deploy), and with the 24” range of the new woods, even if they end their turn 6” away from you, you can throw up a wood behind them fairly easily. Aside from the above, it’s important tot remember, that the GW guidelines for terrain is 1 piece per 2’ Square of game board which is 6 pieces. Not 9, not 12. It will be fairly important as a Sylvaneth player to remind your opponent of this, so he can’t put 11 pierces of terrain on the board and prevent you from throwing any woods down. In the big tournaments I’ve played in, they are usually pretty good at sticking close-to or under this rule. In your local games you might need to insist that you stick to the rule and point out the relevant section of the rule book. Don’t be a d*k about it, but you might need to insist on it, and stress that without reasonable space to put terrain down, it won’t be a fair or fun game. Also, when you put out terrain, be mindful of the pieces you pick and keep in mind where you’ll want to put out your woods. Also something I can’t stress enough: A competitive player is thinking about being competitive in every phase of the game. That mindset starts when you pick up your army book for the first time, and doesn't end until the last roll of the game is made: the army you choose, the list you make, the scenery you choose, where you put it down, the side you pick, the deployment choices you make, and what your going to do first turn. Every single phase of the game matters, and if you’re interested in being competitive on the tabletop you need to consider all those aspects as well as the choices you make when the game starts. @overtninja Is right in the sense that our woods actually are less critical now. The teleport range has effectively gone way up, and having a max-size wood down isn’t totally necessary anymore. We can fit more models in a smaller area thanks to no trees in the way, and being deep in the forest doesn't really help us like it used to; instead we’re looking for prolonged combats so we can get our 6+ roll twice per game turn. Keep in mind, that this 6+ per game turn will probably be causing more damage over the course of the game than our old woods used to. Unless you played a bunch of idiot opponents that didn’t learn charging all your models into the woods was probably a bad plan. (Mine learned pretty quickly that you “conga-charge” as few models into the forest as you can, just enough to make contact and keep the others at the edge, and then pile them in 3” to avoid the test.)

You quoted the command ability, not the core rule for running:

Its the exact same wording as running in the core rules; when you run, you roll a dice and add it to the core move characteristic. They’re just saying you don’t have to roll the dice and auto-run 6”, but it still counts as running.

Perfect. That was the faq I was looking for.

Just FYI I think this is by design. The old heartwood battalion required the Free spirits battalion and at least 4 units of hunters

I’m going to push my luck again and ask what might be a weird rules interaction question: The new warscroll battalions have a peculiar wording in regards to command traits. From Winterleaf: “A Winterleaf general must have this command trait, instead of one listed on pg. 66” Fair enough. If you have a Winterleaf General, he must have that Command trait and cannot choose another. The core rules says, on page 242, that “Named characters such as Nagash Archaon and Alarielle are singular and mighty warriors, with their own personalities and artifacts of power. as such, those models cannot have a command trait or artifact of power.” Fair enough, if you have Alarielle as your general she cannot pick an additional command trait. But, based on the wording above, what if you make Alarielle the general of a Winterleaf wargrove? It says the “General must have this command trait”, which takes precedence? The designers commentary for the core rules has this question: Q: If a warscroll or set of allegiance abilities has a rule that contradicts the core rules, can I use it? For example, Lord Kroak has a rule that allows him to attempt to cast Celestial Deliverance up to three times in the hero phase, but this contradicts the core rule that you can only attempt to cast a spell once per turn. A: Warscrolls and allegiance abilities take precedence over the core rules, allowing you to do things that would not normally be allowed. In the case of Lord Kroak, his rule means he can attempt to cast Celestial Deliverance up to three times in the same turn We’ve also seen this with FEC, where the Gristlegore Terrorgiests count as battleline units and thus do not count as behemoths in an explicit FAQ; another example where a core rule is altered by something akin to our wargroves. Q: In a Pitched Battle, Royal Terrogheists and Royal Zombie Dragons from a Gristlegore army are Battleline. Are they still counted Behemoths as well? A: No. GHW has already ruled that warscrolls “take precedence over the core rules” in nearly every case where there is a conflict. I understand that the rules include the phrase “instead of the ones listed on pg. 66”. But before you say, “because Alarielle cannot choose an command trait, this prevents her from taking a warscroll battalion one”, consider that this type of rules interaction has come up before in regard to summoning dryads with the Branchwraiths spell. When a unit of Drayds is summoned to the board, they cannot move in the following movement phase. The question was asked “can they still use the realmroots, since the wording of realmroots includes the “instead of moving normally” since they can’t move normally”. After much discussion on that point, I (and I think we?) came down on the “yes” side. Just because they “can’t” do one doesn’t mean they dont have the option of doing the other. Much akin to the syllogism: “instead of running, you must sit”. “I don’t have legs so I can’t run anyway” “Then you must sit.” I understand the reticence to go against the core rule book, but armybooks repeatedly trump core rules restrictions. Yes gamey perhaps, but again, Gristlegore and Kroak are perfect examples where this is happening. Can anybody give me a solid rules-referenced based perspective on this?

He can only pile in if he’s charged in that turn. So in your turn, you’d be safe from the pile in. I’m going to sit back and think on this a bit. This obviously isn’t the only problem out there, but right now it’s the main one.The unbeaten list in Best Coast Pairings was FEC: Gristlegore, GKoT with Gryph feather, arch regent and Terrorgiests x4 + quicksilver swords. That’s a lot of nasty. I’m going to sit back and think and paper hammer this out a bit with the new book info. It’s very possible that the GHB in July might make some adjustments to FEC because they’re so dominate in the meta right now. And if normal releases schedule is to happen this week, our book will drop 2 weeks before-ish. We’ll have to see how things shape up. It will either be like Disc of TZ that was super op and got hit hard and errated/repointed out of existence, or Gw will just shrug and say “figure it out”.

Ugh. Errated. I was working from an old copy of the book. Talk about an amazing item being made totally garbage by an errata. Whelp. That clearly wont work then. Lol. It would still work in your own turn (I think), it would definitely take some engineering, but the list I provided before has enough chaff (I think) to set-up the positioning to make it go off in your turn. You would very much be putting all your eggs in one basket in that case though...

Doppelganger cloak doesn’t require an activation. It says the bearer “cannot be chosen as a target for melee attacks” unless he’s already attacked. It’s doesn't matter when the AGKoT attacks, he can’t target Durthu until Durthu attacks first. Effectively he is required to “pass” (not something you see very often) and then regular attack activations start. In his turn, he’d have to activate another unit, in yours, you get to activate a unit i.e. Durthu and then move away 6” after attacking. He can still make a pile-in move after Durthu attacks and moves 6”, which puts him in range of the fanged-maw attack in his own turn (but not in yours, since only units who charge get a free pile-in if there are no enemies around) unless you can engineer a unit to be closer to him than to Durthu OR he wasn’t touching your base when he charged (i.e if you had a unit of T-revs in front screening him, hint hint). The funny thing is, in this case, he’s be forced to attack the revenants and ignore Durthu, since you can’t pass and refuse to activate a unit that is able to attack.

Weird double post.

I always enjoy seeing your posts on here, because you bring the math: I like that. You’re the only poster I know who does theory hammer that way. It’s especially helpful in situations like this where all we really have is mathhammer to work things out vs actual plays testing . I see everything your trying to say, but I think you’re missing the point here. Yes, we’re assuming there is a situation where the general of Gristlegore army and the Durthu both have the opportunity to get into combat at full health. How he gets into combat is a question of gameplay and what the rest of the list brings, and how you engineer such a scenario is a question for another post. I’m not sure about your math. With a best case-scenario (as you say), my math has Durthu throwing out 7 attacks. 3 base + 2 for being within 8” of a Wyldwood (I do not think it’s unreasonable to assume he can be within 8” of a wood. Especially if we are in fact able to blanket our side of the board with WW at least 1” from an objective that is being fought over), +1 for charging, +1 for Arch rev’s command ability. He’s also RR 1’s from Vibrant Surge. With spiteswarm out, Durthu has a 8” move, or can teleport within 9”. He only needs a 6” charge which can be rerolled with a CP. That’s pretty damn reasonable. Between those sword attacks, 6 verdant blast attacks (which will give him 1-2 extra wounds), and 3 impaling talon attacks (which benefit from both the arch rev ability and the +1 attack on a charge ability giving him another wound) my math has him doing somewhere around 22 wounds before the 5+ save (if it’s up). I can show you the math if you like. That 5+ drops that damage to just under 15. Its close, but should on average be enough to wipe him out in 1 turn. But lets say just four the sake of argument, you fluff a couple of attacks or you aren’t within 8” of a WW. Then my math has his damage output dropping to 16 wounds before the 5+ and 11 wounds after. Whatever the case, let’s say he’s grievously wounded but still fighting. Durthu gets a free 6” move immediately after he attacks, before the Terrorgeist can attack. The Terrorgheist cannot pile in and attack him, because he’s no longer within 3” of him and not in combat. What happens next depends a lot on what the board looks like, and who gets next turn. But if we’re assuming he can’t bring any other models to bear with a 3” reach (either because they’re dead, locked in combat from the previous turn, or don’t have a 3” reach). He could scream at Durthu, maybe peel 1-3 wounds off him (since he’ll be bravery 10) and drop his sword down a tier, he could charge but Durthu still gets to attack first and the arch rev can still get his command ability off to give Durthu 4 attacks. In such case Durthu still stands a good chance of killing him before he can do anything about it. Strike first doesn’t mean much if you can’t select Durthu as a target. Here I think we disagree. While I agree that a smart FEC player will figure out real quick how deadly that Durthu is; especially when it wipes a Terrorgeist off the table in a single turn of combat, even when he’s supposed to have the first activation. At some point he’ll be forced to try and do something about it. These FEC lists don't really have the bodies to afford losing a Terrorgheist per turn. Sure he’ll spend a turn killing stuff on the other side of the board. Then in our turn, Durthu heals up to full wounds, charges, and wipes out another Terrorgiest. At that point, what’s he going to do about it? Spend the whole game wiping out chaff on the other side of the board not using the most killy thing in his army to do something about the thing thats wiping him off the board? We’re also not even considering how easy it is for our army to throw out mortal wounds and healing from our new endless spells now. It’s very reasonable to assume that in our own turn, we can peel 2-3 wounds off that monster, bring Durthu in through teleport and have him at full health, fully within a WW, striking first and wiping him off the board before he can do much about it. As I said earlier, the rest of the army will be pretty key in engineering a scenario where this face-off happens. What would that look like? Dryads vs Terrorgheists is just feeling him points/bodies and the answer is no dryads and just chaff chaff chaff. Our chaff is crazy cheap now, and this Durthu set up has an entry cost of 580 points (Durthu + our cheapest battalion) that comes with 3 units of spites who make perfect bubble wrap and give you battleline. I’m even tempted to throw 2 x 3 Hunters with bows in the woods, surrounded by chaff just to bait the Terrorgheists in to do something about it or risk being picked apart at a 30” range (RR 1’s from the battalion helps with that 4+ to hit). That’s 980 points. For another 580, you can get a spellcaster with regrowth and the gem to auto-cast for support, another Treelord to anchor the line and possibly force those baited Terrortgiests to strike last (making those chaff spites into terrifying blenders) and a unit of T-revs to snatch objectives. Put your positions down right and they wont be able to retreat and help elsewhere (household battalion). That’s 1560. plenty of room for 2 endless spells (spiteswarm to help with teleport charging, and the worm for MW and healing, a wraith (with throne of vines) to help get them out and summon dryads, for 160 pts. You now have 2 casters to rouse the wood and unbind, and endless spells that do double duty within MW output and healing, and source to bring extra bodies on the board to either act as chaff or counter units summoned to your backfield. Add the mandatory arch-revenant that’s another 100 so 1820pts. Plenty of room for more chaff to help hold objectives, be speed bumps or generally be annoying objective grabbers. What difference does a million attacks that do MW’s make if all he can do are kill are single units of 5 at a time? #### Edit: a kind player just informed he this item has been errata’d, and must be activated at the start of the combat phase. That clearly puts a kink in how I was thinking of using this strategy, and bears reconsideration. I’m still convinced in our own turn Durthu would have the numbers on his side, but at one use only you’d only get one shot, a bad roll and it would be lights out. ### My thought was if the opponent takes first turn, the best he can do (at most) is come up the middle of the board (if he’s pushed up to his front line and runs) and if your free wood is near the center, it’s likely he’ll opt to go around since the roll happens now whether he charged or not. You can still drop a metric fk-ton of woods in your first turn regardless, and when you do, you might be well-able to hit him with a first turn charge. My guess is he’ll play back, in which case you just push your wood deeper more mid-line. If you get the first turn then you just put your woods wherever you like, set up your defensive lines and dare him to do something about it. I’m inclined to agree with you. Getting the +3 to charge endless out and maybe even cogs in the same turn is a 5+ to move and charge. That’s a massive threat range and only a 4” charge if you teleport 9” away. I don't know about 30 T-revs only because of their range but 20 backed by an arch rev and showing up in the backfield is bad business. Couple that with a pair of teleporting Treelords (for a double shot at making the target strike last) all combo charging something sounds like absolute havoc. What do you see a list making use of this look like?

I’m going to sit down and start throwing around some sample lists tonight, so for everybody's reference here are our battalions and their cost (including units) from least expensive to most expensive. Outcasts: 280 pts 3 units of Spite Revenants Household: 460 pts Branchwytch Treelord T-revs Forest Folk: 520 pts Branchwraith Dryads x3 Lords of the Clan: 860 pts Treelord ancient x 2 Treelord Free Spirits: 1080 pts Durthu Kurnoth Hunters x 3 Looking (roughly) at these point values, I don't think it would be unreasonable to try and squeeze 2 battalions at 2k points. I’t not saying its mandatory, but some of these relics are just so good. (Extra CP’s don’t hurt either)

I really like what they’ve’ done with new Drycha. Filterfuries used to be very effective vs MSU lists and squirmlings were good at clearing hordes, but you could never use both. Now it looks like she’s halfway effective in both roles. One of the things i’m really noticing about players responses to the book, is the unit roles have changed dramatically. If you only ever used Drycha to clear hordes, and never came up on MSU lists with Multi-wound models, it looks like a clear nerf. Same thing with gnarlroot and spell casting. If you’ve enerv come up against a anti-casting army it looks like clear nerf. I actually think the changes make a lot of units more effective in multiple roles, and we’ll stop seeing them used in such “niche” ways. Drycha can still clear a horde pretty easily, she’ll just need to get into combat to do it, or be screened by dryads. She can also do some serious damage in MSU lists with multi-wound models. We also have a lot more access to healing than before, so 10 wounds isn’t really a problem if you don’t put her in a vulnerable spot where she can get double-turned. Winterleaf as a battalion looks very very aggressive, and Drycha is a good candidate for the the double attack item. You’d have to make it count and only use it on something lynchpin. I’m still a bit puzzled at how to build dreadwood and take full advantage of it’s rather odd mechanics. I’m fairly sure there is something there, its just not super obvious atm.

Don’t worry man. I’m not defensive about it, nor am I really sticking to my guns on it. My post was probably sounded more defensive than it was, since I’m jumping back and forth between multiple discussion threads. Slot of Sylvaneth players who played gnarlroot are upset about the changes. Not because they changed are less powerful, but because... we’ll... “changes”. I believe you re: nighthaunt snd SCE. You don’t have to share the text. If anything I was reading that way to see if it could solve @swarmofseals problem of having too many drops. I’m not totally convinced having a one drop army is necessary anymore, so the point is somewhat moot. What do you think about the underlying issue? Do you think having a 1 drop will be a handicap?

Insert shrug emoji here. I like looking at how things are written to see what is permitted and what isn’t. I don’t have the nighthaunt or SCE book, so I can’t speak to what’s in those books. This is is the most recent book written at the moment, and a designers faq will be released after. It’s one of the things I’d like clarified, because the rule has changed in format and application from the previous rule. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Everybody seems pretty convinced they know exactly what the power level of the book is, and how everything interacts before 85% of the player base has the book in hand, and before 100% of the player base has played any games with it. Nobody is any sort of expert yet. So Chill out ffs.

That’s not exactly what rock-paper-scissors means. R.P.S. Usually refers to units that are super powerful against one thing, but can’t beat another thing. Old Gnarlroot was RPS because it was very powerful vs armies that had no easy access to unbinding, but weak against anti-casting armies. Cloaked Durthu will absolutely ruin a terrorgiest. It will probably ruin hordes of troops too. I can’t really think of a hard counter to this combo other than another terrorgeist with the Doppelganger cloak, in which case they wouldn’t ever be able to attack each other and combat would end with them standing there staring at each other.

I get thats how you read it, but that’s not what it says. It says, “you can set up one unit in reserves, for every unit you set-up on the table”. The wording is one-for-one. It doesn’t say “you can never have more units set up in reserves than you’ve set up on the table,” it doesn’t say “before you set a unit up in reserves, you must set a unit up on the field.” I’d like to see an FAQ on this, because RAW it can be read either way.

I understand what you’re saying here. But I disagree. With our current book, getting first turn was an absolutely priority. Why? Dryads are why. Currently, dryads are the backbone of our army and I don’t think players have realized that they are far from mandatory now. Previously, we had to get woods out onto objectives, mostly because dryads were mostly useless outside of the woods. We needed the space and we had to get at least 2 woods down so we could maintain our dryad bunkers, teleporting and whatnot. The problem with this strategy is that in the current incarnation of AoS, you don’t want first turn. I know that runs counter to everything we’ve been talking up to this point, but double turns have always been murder on us using any of our core playstyles. Gnarlroot depended on healing wounded hunters up to full strength and then bringing a dead hunters back, ideally undoing whatever damage was done to them in the previous turn. If you caught a double turn, your opponent likely brought in another CC unit and took 3 hunters off the board over 4 combat phases before you could do anything about it. Dreadwood alpha strike was always a very high-risk high-reward way to play, and was extremely vulnerable to double turns. Winterleaf a little less so thanks to shear body count, but winterleaf was the most average across the board in terms of balance. We don’t need as many woods on the board anymore, because they don't confer the same benefits. Previously we wanted our opponent to charge into the woods and hopefully lose models to the dangerous terrain test. Now we want them to move into the woods, and have us charge them. Yes. We can’t drop our woods directly on objectives anymore. This is a clear nerf and (although I hate to say it) it is a fair one. The fact that we can’t drop our woods in the enemy deployment zone anymore is actually a buff, since we now know what side of the table we’ll be on before dropping the wood. I cant tell you how many times I dropped a wood in a great spot and had my opponent win the roll off and switch sides on me. Getting out woods out is also much much easier now. It’s fully possible to get 4 woods out in the first turn if you really wanted to. 1 free drop, 1 regrowth, 1 silent communion, 1 acorn. That means you can literally blanket half the table with woods and shield your entire army from shooting in the first turn without worrying about getting double turned. I dont know if anybody has noticed, but the wording on Forest sprits is interesting: Does anybody else see that? For every unit you set up on the battlefield, you can set one up off the board. RAW, that to me says we can drop two units at a time as long as one is off the board, effectively cutting your drops in half. If the intention was, “you can’t have more models off the board then on the board” they could have worded it like that. But they didn’t. A list that has 3 units in a battalion, and a further say, 5 units, could mean when you drop the battalion for each unit you drop on the board, you can drop 3 units off the board. That means your first drop is actually 6 units, And you’re next drop is 2 units. That’s an 8 unit army (fairly big for Sylvaneth) in 2 drops.