[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

On 3/8/2021 at 5:23 AM, Landohammer said:

You are correct. And this is what I did to some extent.  I made him eat through 3 units of spites and 2 summoned units of dryads. I even screened with my Branchwraith to some extent. But that playstyle is super limited on what battleplans it will work on. Because I am functionally forfeiting any objectives in his territory it means, at best, I can play for a tie. 

Tree Revs may have had some use but this particular list has several melee characters that camped objectives  and could have EASILY disposed of 5 revs. 

What was the battleplan? 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

On 3/1/2021 at 8:20 AM, Landohammer said:

So berzerkers are already S tier infantry in my book. Their movement is supposed to be their biggest (and only) weakness. But when you give them the ability to deepstrike and trigger ASF, it completely negates that weakness and just makes them essentially unstoppable unless you have a ton of shooting. 

I would think a big block like that could be chaffed for at least a couple of turns.  4” move and 8” range of mediocre shooting should mean they spend a turn or two clearing useless models rather than getting stuck into the body of your army. Of course, that wont work unless you actually bring chaff. 

Dropping T-revs (because they’re the most mobile) 13-4” in front of the block means they wouldn’t even be able to shoot until the next turn. Then next turn they could try shoot, clear 1-3 maybe (1 shot 5+/5+ no rend vs 5+ save rerolling one dice)  but then they cannot run. They could charge, but then they have the problem of needing to close an 8-9” charge gap.

You could do with spites too, but you’d need a WW in the right place to pull it off. 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

1 hour ago, Craze said:

I am curious what major tournament you are talking about, would you mind to elaborate and perhaps even give a link/list inforamtion?

Would really appreciate it!

I will give the link directly, but again, the list composition os likely unimportant. what’s important is that you likely had it in the hands of somebody who knew what he/she was  doing with it:

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/06/aos-list-of-the-week-sylvaneth-harvesting-victory.html

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

@Sleepa

I’ve been mulling your post over for a few days, and while I agree with some of your points, I think perhaps your overstating the case a bit on others.

On 8/7/2020 at 8:19 AM, Sleepa said:

Sylvaneth are in a generally poor place in the competitive meta. Vince over at Warhammer Weekly recently released the results of a community poll he administered regarding balance in AOS, and of the approximately 50 Sylvaneth who provided feedback, 95% of them were of the opinion that Sylvaneth have few if any good matchups with other armies. 

That said of course; if you are a tactical genius or dice wizard, I'm sure you could realize success with basically any list. 

I think this I probably not as deep an insight into the competitiveness of the Sylvaneth as it appears. Sylvaneth are hard to play well. I would say there isn’t a single match-up that Sylvaneth have a lopsided advantage against *before lists are made*.

I put that last bit in bold, because we have a huge amount diversity in the type of toolkit armies we can build. We can build fast, elite armies with low model counts; we can build decentralized lists that flood the board with bodies and multiple low level heroes (basically an army of all chaff); or concentrate all our power into 2-3 heroes/units that can heal 3D3 plus 1D6 AND return destroyed models to the board. 

So far just about everyone plays wargroves (because they are cool), but I’d hesitate to say that Dreadwood and Winterleaf are our only *competitive* builds. I’d also say that tournament results aren’t the best measure of whether or not the army is competitive because Sylvaneth are already underrepresented at tournaments (and not only because they are perceived to be underpowered, but because they are tricky to play, depends a great deal on their ability to get enough woods out, and also just logistically clunky to get  to tournaments: transporting 16 woods is a ******.)   
 

On 8/7/2020 at 8:19 AM, Sleepa said:

The best tournament results Sylvaneth have been able to produce since our new battletome have been Dreadwood glade lists using 6-9 strong Kurnoth Hunter blocks as teleporting mega hammers. I've seen some people posting Heartwood Bow Hunter lists in here, but I haven't seen any formal tournament results from those. Winterleaf and Gnarlroot are the only two other glade people seem to consider viable.

Harvestboon won a major tournament back in June, but literally nobody has talked anything about Harvestboon  before or even after that tournament.  People seem just convinced Sylvaneth don’t win tournaments or that that there are only 1-2 viable ways to play them. This results in people taking variations of the same list over an over, which everyone knows how to play against, which is why people don’t take Sylvaneth to tournaments, which is why Sylvaneth don’t win tournaments.

 

On 8/7/2020 at 8:19 AM, Sleepa said:

There is no currently competitive list using Alarielle. If you could conceive one, I'm sure we'd all love to see what it looks like!

Everything in our book can be built into a competitive list. You just needed to design the list around the playstyle that suits those units best. 

 

On 8/7/2020 at 8:19 AM, Sleepa said:

Generally speaking, if we rank the viability of our units in a hierarchy, it currently looks something like this: (1 being most viable, 10 being least)
1. Kurnoth Hunters (Scythe and Sword - best hammer unit in our book by a huge margin)
2. Spite Revenants (specifically in outcasts battalions to fulfill battleline)
3. Tree Revenants (strictly for high mobility and objective play)
4. Dryads (In large blocks as our only true anvil unit)
5. Arch-Revenant (Best force multiplier for Kurnoths)
6. Branchwraith (best cheap wizard)
7. Tree Lord Ancient (Edges out other leader choices because of one-time free Wyldwood, and minor utility as a super basic wizard)
8. Spirit of Durthu (The best bully unit we have, strictly inferior to melee spec Hunters, although more mobile outside of Dreadwood)
9. Drycha (Just edges out Bow Hunters due to her potential offensive output. Incredibly fragile for a Monster. Should only be used as an assassin)
10. Kurnoth Hunters (Bows - more survivable than Drycha, but 4+ to hit combined with random damage rolls and inability to shoot through our own woods makes them very difficult to use within our own mechanics. Over 3x more viable in Heartwood specifically)
11. Branchwych (Incredibly outdated warscroll with counter intuitive spell. She's designed to get close to combat but will die instantly if she does. However, she is an 80 point caster, which is why she isn't our worst unit)
12. Alarielle (Hate to see her down here, but our esteemed God of Life is just not worth 600 points. She was kind of barely good enough as a utility monster before the nerfs to all of her utility abilities. She is absurdly fragile for a 600 point model, has no innate bonuses to cast, has middling melee and a token ranged attack. She costs as much as 1.8 Kroaks, and will never push out even one Lord Kroak's worth of damage.)
13. Treelord (The worst behemoth in the game, in terms of battlefield role. TLAs and Durthu somewhat justify their points cost with utility or potential damage, but the treelord costs just 10 points less than our best units, and offers nothing comparable to their performance besides a 50% chance to stomp an enemy unit to strike last in combat. By the time one of these makes its way into melee, it will be bracketed to impotence, but even if it isn't, its averaging something like 4 wounds per combat to a unit with a 4+ save.)

    
I appreciate a lot of what you wrote here. And also of it is a fair assessment if you’re focusing your analysis strictly on how many points of damage you can squeeze out compared to the units point cost. 

But aside from that, AoS is not a game that is won or lost based on how many of your opponents models you can kill. AoS is an objective game. You can kill every single model on the opponents side, by the bottom of turn 3, and still lose the game on victory points. Unit’s like Alarielle, Treelords, TLA’s and even the Branchwytch have utility in a list beyond how much damage they can do. 

Treelords, TLA’s and Durthu’s are absolutely essential in a list these days soley because of stomp. Stomp is the only way we have to compete in the activation wars and if you don’t a least 1 (preferably 2) of them in your list your going to have rough time competing with things that have auto-strike first (Flesheater courts) or some other combat ability that changes the activation order (new Aelves for example).

When you start including multiples of these behemoths in your list, things like Alarielle (who auto-heal) Gladewyrm (which autoheals) lifeswarm, and lifewreath become much more attractive. It is entirely possible to set up a 4D3 healing bubble without needing to even make a successful cast. That wont matter all that much if you taking tons of dryads or spite revenants. But when your running 1 TL, A TLA,  a group of Hunters and a supporting caster (say a branchwytch so you can take the household Battalion) You can effectively lock a group of enemy models into a combat they can’t win (because you have behemoths disrupting activation and healing massive amount of damage) all game.

Hunters and dryads are easy go-to units because they can both operate mostly independently. But AoS is a game of synergy and combinations. The fact that hunters value and battlefield role is obvious sometimes obscures the greater (but less obvious) value of the other units in our book. 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

On 7/30/2020 at 6:07 AM, Landohammer said:

So the battlefield setup rules definitely imply that we would place forests before choosing territories. That is a pretty harsh nerf since you could end up dropping it in your opponent's deployment zone.

Why is that a harsh nerf? I actually think that would be a bonus considering all spellcasting happens in the first turn. And if you’re going “all in” and drop a big forest at max size, it’s almost 18” wide.  Add 6” on either side  to trigger the woods and that a 30” Area Of effect, not to mention a big lump of  irritating, LoS blocking woods right smack in the middle of the enemy’s deployment zone.  

Plus you also have a teleport node on the other side of the board for late game teleporting shenanigans. Personally I’d think the enemy would be a fool for choosing the side with a bunch of woods taking a 1/3 of the deployment zone but stranger things have happened. 

 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

5 hours ago, Aezeal said:

not sure where I got this rule from really

In the Designers commentary for the Sylvaneth BT.

 

yes, turns out they’ve rereleased the Wyldwood warscroll. Basically does everything an Awakened wyldwood does without letting us get our faction buffs/teleporting.

It does however block LoS, which is a huge benefit for us vs. most shooty armies. 

[If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG]

11 hours ago, Tommy said:

I’ve often found Alarielle’s face to be a tiny bit waxy or wooden in some way I can’t quite put my finger on, but your paint job has brought her completely to life. Amazing work! 🙂

I agree actually. 
 

The cheekbones are ridiculously high and nose is somewhat flat across the bridge. The eyes are small, and because the cheekbones are so high, there’s no room for expression. Also because she’s wearing a covered headpiece, her eyebrows, ears and forehead are obscured. There’s just not a lot to signal expression or mood.

 

I attempted to correct this via the paint job as much as possible. Painting the whites and highlights did a lot for the eyes, the cheekbones are highlighted to compensate for their height, and I’ve also painted some purple shading around the eyes to give some indication of sockets under the flesh. This makes the cheekbones sharper and gives more room for expression in the eyes. The bridge of the nose was also aggressively highlighted with some additional shading on the nostrils to give the impression that it’s pointy (ie. more “elf”-y).

You can actually change the shape of a face by selective highlighting very effectively. The realm challenge is doing it in such a small space. 

 

 

 

[Kurnothi/Pagan Sylvaneth passion project]

I saw this on FB! I really really like this scheme. Super moody.  

[If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG]

What’s up party people!

It’s been ages since I’ve updated this thread. All the previous reasons (hate taking pictures, busy life, the great plague upending everything) apply. 

That being said, it’s time to show some of my most ambitious project to date. This was actually finished last year around this time, but I kept it under wraps with the intention of taking it to Adepticon this year and show it in the Golden Demon. This wasn’t exactly a “secret project” so much as I just can’t stand taking photographs, and prefer to share the miniature in person if I can help it. But, once COVID shut everything down it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen this year.

So, I had resolved to wait under the plague passed and possibly show this at the GD 2021. However, life has other plans and it turns out we’re expecting! The baby is set to arrive in Feb next year, so its pretty clear I wont be doing any traveling for warhammer for a while. Super bummed I wont be able to o show it, but the trade off is more than worth it.  

So. Without further ado, Alarielle the Everqueen, Life Incarnate.






As you can see, I went for a high-realism approach, trying to model Alarielle’s features and overall expression something akin to my wife when she’s serious. I also incorporated my wife’s red hair into the composition. 

 

The beetle is fulled painted with Colorshift paints from greenstuff world. I’ve developed a very specific working method with them, and this final effect is a combination of 3 different colorshift paints re-enforced by painted shadows. Throughout the scratch-built diorama base there are also a number of insects all painted with colorshifting paints. In the bottom left-hand corner of the above photograph, you can also see Arkhan the Black’s staff, with it eerie green glow near the waterfall (and Arkhan’s foot is visible just under the waterfall.)

Although not totally visible in the picture, there are also several layers to the soil under the ground level. If you look you can see all the roots of the trees, plus skulls, weaponry, shields, and banners: all attesting to amount of warfare the land has seen hiding just below the forest floor. 
 

Detail of the soul amphora. 



Detail of bioluminescent mushrooms and a spite. 

Total work time was somewhere between 300-400 hours, give or take. This is by far one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve ever undertaken. Painting tiny highlights on the eyes through a 20x magnified jeweler’s loop was no joke. I actually have a lot of work to show (I know I always say that, but I do!) And I’m going to try and get the projects on my bench finished Ana’s photographed as best I can before my summoned reinforcements arrive in Feb.

Happy painting all.
 

-F

P.S. Here’s also a short video that gives a good 360º view. 

 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

2 hours ago, Aezeal said:

Odd post.. it was Nos who was talking about focussing on magic (against coalesced) and me saying it wasn't a good option against that army due to the Slann and it's magical options. Also I didn't focus on magic, I just had 3 casters and no magic specific items which is fairly standard in this army. So how you make that into me saying you should dominate the magic phase (let alone all your assumptions about me and other phases which I don't mention here) and him being right about everything I can't follow since you directly contradict that part of his post.

I can accept you saying he's right about the rest but the above is just a plain contradiction.

Two separate issues. I was agreeing with @Nos about the attitude toward our BT’s playstyle.  

My comments o na build that focuses on magic is a separate issue. It wasn’t a pointed criticism of a magic heavy approach, it was more of a general approach to building an army.. My point was when writing a list you need to think about building your synergies so that you can compete in 3-4 phases or dominate in 2. If you run a magic focuses list that focuses on dominating the magic phase, you also need to plan how the list will play out in the other phases of the game. Personally, I feel a list that focuses on dominating in 1-2 phases rather than competiting in 3-4 runs the risk of being really swingy: you either crush your opponent because they have no counters, or you run up against a hard counter (like coalesced) and have nothing to fall back on. 
 

2 hours ago, Aezeal said:

In the link I found I didn't see it described but since objectives is still mentioned in the rule that must mean you FIRST pick scenario, then 1 player sets up all terrain (so you can stay away from objectives) and then the other player picks a side and after that the first player (who setup terrain) starts deployment?

So the new rules lay out the following steps:

1. Players pick the scenario, and then place objective tokens
2. We pick terrain from a pre-set list. 3 from primary and 2 from secondary 
3. Players roll off, with the winner picking player A, or Player B .
4. Players A then sets up ALL the terrain 
5. Player B then chooses which territory they wish to use. 

The question is when faction terrain should be set up. The little bubble that mentioned tournament play mentions that tournaments will likely  have terrain already set up, in which case players roll off to see which territory they will use. Players who have faction terrain are instructed to set up thier faction terrain before territories are determined.  Can’t place your free wood 1” away from enemy territory if you don’t know which territory is friendly. I assume the placement is the same with matched play games that happen outside tournaments.

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

On 7/18/2020 at 2:37 AM, Kaylethia said:

The 2019 FAQ had this:

In a Pitched Battle, faction terrain must be set up more 
than 3" from any other terrain features and more 
than 1" from any objectives, in addition to any other 
restrictions that apply to it. Sometimes this will make it 
impossible for a faction terrain piece to be set up; in this 
case, it is not used.’

I've always taken it to mean to layer every restriction and use the worst, and I have a rules lawyer-y player in the group, so everything has to be "exactly by the rules or FAQ as written, damnit." I'd be very happy if you, or someone else could point me in the right direction. 

I believe when you’re dealing with overlapping restrictions, you use the most recent version. Not “the worst” version. This is why we use stats the most recent battletome, rather than the stat lines from previous battletome regardless if the unit is better or worse.

 Our “faction drop” woods have a 1” from terrain, 6” from objectives and 1” from enemy territory in our BT. The 2019 GHB actually dropped after our book was published, and the matched play rules superseded our BT rules. That is why we used the 3” from terrain, 1” from objectives and 1” from enemy territory (“an additional restriction” covered by the GHB) when using the GHB 2019 for matched play. The restrictions are the same in GHB 2020 (3” from terrain, 1” from objectives) but as an “additional restriction”, we also can’t drop our faction terrain in enemy territory (1” away).

However, the order of operational looks a little like this changed in GHB 2020. This think this is relevant because it looks like terrain (including faction terrain) is set up before players actually choose which territory they want. This means there is no enemy territory when our faction terrain drops, so I assume we don’t have to follow that restriction. 

3” from other terrain and 1” from objectives looks to be the proper guidelines to use. 

  

 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

I think focussing on magic might not be that easy. I had 3 casters and his single +2 and 3x  cast and unbind over whole table slann made sure I only got a single spell off my last game against them. Not to mention he killed my 2 wraiths (5 wounds) in 2-3 turns (also the arch rev btw) with his annoying signature spell. I took an all comers list with a bit of everything, 9 hunters, not that much since I didn't know anything about his army and also because I don't often tailor lists in general.  As I said, in a rematch I'd try to tailor a bit since the difference in power was significant and I'd go with lots dryads and spites (I don't have that much T revs).   

This game has 5 phases: Hero, movement, shooting, charging/combat, and battleshock.  To win a game of AOS, you need to be able to compete in at least 3 of the 5 phases (preferably 4) or absolutely dominate 2 phases.  

You can’t really win games *just* by dominating the magic phase. This is an objective game, not “see how many of your opponents models you can blow off the board” game. If totally wreck face in the magic phase But you can’t get on objectives: you lose. If you dominate the magic phase and  get on objectives but can’t stop the enemy from getting to you then you had better hope the unit you picked to hold the objective can take a punch: or you lose. Get a shut down in the magic phase, can’t get on objectives and picking the wrong combats? Guess what? You lose. 

If you are putting all your eggs in 1 basket and hoping to dominate the magic phase, it’s likely you’ll do fine provided you don’t come up against a magic specialist (like Seraphon or DoT). If you do, and you cannot compete in 3 of the other phases (moving, combat, shooting or BS), then you’re a goner.
 

On 7/18/2020 at 8:43 AM, Nos said:

**A bunch of true stuff** 

Absolutely 100% spot on. couldn’t have said it better myself. 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

On 7/16/2020 at 2:06 PM, Kaylethia said:

@Aezeal @Mirage8112

Forgive me if I've missed something, but the new faction terrain rules are the same as GHB 2019 errata ones, including the line about additional restrictions applying.

Not exactly the same. There are significant differences regarding set-up and choosing sides. I believe in regard to restrictions, the last FAQ said use the most recent ruleset, this is why we’ve been deploying our free faction woods with the least restrictive placement. As I said before, I don’t remember the exact justification why, just that the was widely agreed upon with official backing from GW. I’ll likely be sticking with that interpretation until I have good justification otherwise. 
 

On 7/16/2020 at 2:06 PM, Kaylethia said:

And how are you getting 3 woods? Sure, the terrain table has Wyldwoods, but our scenery is an Awakened Wyldwood. And if you mean by the Unique entry on the table, the GHB 2019 Designer's Commentary explicitly said not to use the warscroll and to generate a scenery effect when using faction terrain as Unique. I think I'll err on the side of caution until they clarify it either way.

I’m not referring to the “unique” terrain feature myself.  Ruleset says if it’s on the list, and has a warscroll, then that’s what you use. The only warscroll we have for a wyldwood is the awakened Wyldwood. That’s close enough for me to make a decent arguement for, so that‘S likely what I’ll be playing. (Although I’ve been playing it this way since the last GHB, since the entry is the same.) 

Have you sent a FAQ About it yet? 

 

5 hours ago, Zanzou said:

This was good before power creep.  Sylvaneth healing looks strong but then you remember the game was patched so that even monsters get bodied in one attack, which a heal does nothing for.

It’s still good. If your monsters are getting wrecked in one round of combat then your doing it wrong. This typically happens when your monsters try to solo large units of 20+ 3+/3+ -2 rend or thereabouts alone. 

Durthu’s are obviously combat gods (providing they strike first and don’t drop a bracket) and meant to be front-line fighters, but they really need support. This is why they need to be run in pairs with a TL, both to maximize stomp and to have a little extra combat punch. It helps to think of Treelords as support units and not front-line combat units. They are mostly there to disrupt the activation wars (With Stomp) and soak 1/3 to 1/2 a units damage output. If you send them in alone, there’s nothing to support and they get wrecked. Surround them with hunters and they’re baller AF. Surround them with Dryads and you can hold an objective for days. If you’re getting shot to death, why aren’t you using screens to zone out shooting or LoS blocking terrain?  Some armies are harder than others to deal with, but one or both of those two things (screening and terrain) are enough to handle just about anything I can think of. 

 

5 hours ago, Zanzou said:

In a climate like this, the armies with high defense would survive attacks that sylv wouldn't have a chance to survive to heal.  Manoeuvring and summoning are great but there are factions that can do these things on top of going toe-to-toe.

This is tough to respond to, because I don’t know exactly what your referencing. Most every army depends on synergies between units to make something like this happen. It’s not like these buffs are “secret“ and  you won’t know how everything combines to make something a “super” unit.  Sometimes you have the ability to shut 1-2 components (spells can be unbound, you can take out support units ect) to keep this from happening, but occasionally you can’t. What then?

It reminds me of a discussion I had not the long ago regarding petrifex elite Mortek guard. Somebody was asking how you beat a unit of 30 fully buffed with 3+/3+ -2 rend RR hit’s and wounds, RR’ing a 3+ unrendable save And bringing dead back on a 4+ (or something absurd like that).  

The answer is you can’t and you don’t (obviously). You play around it. If you can’t beat it, dont fight it: Tie it down. Keep it fighting 80 point (or free) units  for 1-2 turns before letting it charge a dryad block in a forest.  5 man units of t-revs are great because you can teleport them between the threat and your objective holders in your turn. You move 10 man Dryad blocks and position them in the way (3-4 inches usually does the trick). By turn 4 they should reach your objective holders. I prefer 20-30 Drayds with a TLA in the middle near a WW. It will likely kill all of them, but it will take 2-3 turns to do it (if your smart about using trees/scenery to limit incoming attacks).   You basically feed it chaff until turn 4, and by that time you should be ahead enough on objectives that it doesn’t matter if it kills everything.  

I’ve won plenty of battles even though I’ve lost a significant amount more of my force that my opponent. This is first and foremost an objective game. Objectives are captured by movement and not combat. Sure combat is important, but you can get crushed in combat and still win: if you play smart and don’t waste time trying to kill things that you can’t kill. 

 

5 hours ago, Zanzou said:

If sylvaneth are supposed to be tricksy, give TLA dual cast for a start.

I've mentioned before, the lack of dual-cast options in the new sylv gnarlroot, combined with the locked-in artefacts and such of glades had turned me off playing very much, as strategy-wise I felt forced into GW's cookie-cutter guides.  Having a dual caster that could be customized with an artefact would make at least something stimulating to work with, and TLA would instantly be 100% competitive with that one change.

TLA’s already pretty competitive. I wouldn’t turn down an extra spell, but you’d probably be looking at point increase. I don’t really find that I need the extra spell (I usually run 3 casters, TLA, Bwraith and Drycha or wytch) so sometimes my 3rd cast is a throwaway anyway.

Have you tried perhaps building your own wargrove rather than taking the preset ones? There’s a bunch of decent items/command traits that are well worth taking. I’ve toyed around with some of the builds and found somethings I’d be happy to play.



  

 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

 

2 hours ago, scrubyandwells said:

One potential problem: the "...in addition to any other restrictions that apply."

The pre-deploy Awakened Wyldwood arguably has two "additional restrictions" in the Sylvaneth Battletome: 1) more than 1" from enemy territory, and 2) more than 6" from any objectives. In particular, they need to clarify whether the Sylvaneth Battletome's more-than-6"-from-objectives requirement overrides "...more than 1" from objectives..." in the GHB. IMO, 6" is an "additional restriction."

From what I remember this was a debate when GHB 2019 came out last year. IIRC the settled upon interpretation was you used the least restrictive of the options available. That wasn’t the reasoning (obviously) but it was the conclusion. This was also the general concession of the player base at large, not specifically Sylvaneth players.

Also have we anything to say about the new terrain rules? I.e. Picking 3 wyldwoods and then rolling off to see which player places ALL the terrain. And the other player chooses sides?  That’s got to be a huge win for up in matched play games, although it remains to be seen how this and the other changes are treated by tournaments. 
 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

9 hours ago, Popisdead said:

+1A is better than exploding 6s.  Did the math out a few times.   It would be Winterleaf +1A and exploding 6s vs +2A for Harvest boon.  I also think the Arch-Rev is good value.  You can toss that +1A on Kurnoth Hunters who don't even need to be within range.  

I think you mistaking what I’m saying. 

I’m not saying exploding sixes are better than +1 attack, I’m saying you wont be able to stack the +1 attack from both sources (Arch-rev and Grove CA) for more than 1 combat a turn. If there are 2 combats per round, the damage Winterleaf does over the course of the game is actually more because Harvestboon can only stack +1 attack every 2 turns. That’s 4 combats. Winterleaf exploding sixes do damage over all 4 combats and doesn’t require a CP be effective. I can show you the math if you want. 

Also, if you insist on burning 2 CP in a turn with Winterleaf, you can still buff T-revs with +1 attack and use it again on a unit of hunters anywhere on the board since CA can be used multiple times; just not on the same unit. 

 

10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

I don't see our army do that though. The fact forest are not that easy to place, certainly not in the places you need them AND the fact our teleports like most of them are still @ 9" and most options to get increased charge ranges are magic based and thus extremely unreliable means it's a to unreliable to base a strategy on.. hell lately I've read that even dreadwood based alpha strikes aren't reliable and that is much easier to pull off than what you say every fight we pick should be like. Not to mention lots of armies have quite a good mobility without teleporting so they'll charge us too and nothing we can do about it.

I base a strategy on it all the time. Works like a charm.

I still find it amusing when you tell me it wont work, because I’ve used it and it works great. How can you know it wont work when you haven’t tried? 

You complain about charges being hard pull off with 9”, but T-revs can re-roll 1 charge die. We have a bunch of ways to get more reliable casting (and can pick scenery rules now that help with that.) We can get wyldwoods on the board during terrain deployment, and have other easy way to get more. We have a bunch of tool kits and of course, if you fail every spell and roll and your opponent is God himself, sure: nothing you do will work. Baring that perfect storm,  if you know how to set up combats 1-2 turns ahead you’ll be fine. 

Honestly I’m starting think this is just a difference of Generalship or maybe playstyle. I really love playing the teleporty, stick-and-move, nuke-bomb Sylvaneth that pop on the board and blow something to pieces. It’s hilarious. It doesnt rely heavy on alpha striking or any other tricks like that. It’s just being aware of your opponents units and deploying appropriately. You get woods out where you can, and decide what your going to fight and what your going to screen and what your going to tarpit.  You plan your combats in advance and sometimes you bait, sometimes you teleport, but a good general will be able to make those combats happen.


 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

5 hours ago, Popisdead said:

Actually,. Tree Revenants are better in Harvest boon.  +1A is better than exploding 6s.   Plus it grants them RR1s on the charge I recall?  Also cast the Spiteswarm before you teleport them for RR charge looking for a 6+.  

This is incorrect. Winterleaf T-revs can get a +1 attack from the arch-rev buff.  The +1 attack for Harvestboon is a command ability as well, so it takes a CP just like the arch-rev ability. I doubt you’d use both at the same time (unless you have command points coming out of your ears); in Harvestboon you would probably just leave the Arch-rev out of your list and make use of the points elsewhere. 

That being said, mathhammer has 5 T-revs doing a full point of damage more after saves than Harvestboon. 5 damage per turn vs a 4+ save for Winterleaf vs. 4 damage per turn vs a 4+ save with Harvestboon  (including RR 1’s). This is because exploding sixes do not need to roll to hit: they just double an existing hit. Maybe on a 3+ hit unit like hunters Harvestboon would be better (haven’t done the math) but on 4+ hit T-revs exploding sixes beats RR ones (both get an extra attack from a command ability.)

5 hours ago, Aezeal said:

While I usually take a unit of T-revs to force the opponent to keep something back, hopefully more points and thus giving us an edge (in points at least) elsewhere on the table as mentioned before.. however.. in combat efficiency they lag a lot behind other units so even a unit of 20 will have a hard time actually conquering an objective so I'd hesitate to try and use a unit of 20 for that purpose.

For every 5 (Winterleaf) T-revs you take, you get 5 damage. A 15 man unit will reliably throw out 15 damage after (4+) saves, and stand a really good chance of landing the 9” charge after teleporting (rr 1 charge die). If you don’t charge something with more than 15 wounds : you’ll be fine. Charge a  30 man unit with a 3+ save: you won’t.

T-rev are basically snipers. You don’t use a sniper to fight an entire battalion of tanks.  
 

6 hours ago, Aezeal said:

Results I've read about online don't seem to back this but maybe I'm mistaken.

 
This is what I was mentioning above. You have to lean hard into the Sylvaneth playstyle to have any success with them. I’ve watched a lot of players try to play the army by taking a bunch of hunters and then going toe-to-toe with HoS or OBR. Hunters are strong, but they aren’t that strong.  @scrubyandwells posted an analysis of Sylvaneth a while back that I really wanted to respond to, talking about what kind of army we are. His conclusions were we should be a close combat army, but we aren’t really good at it.

And he’s 100% right. We’re a close combat army. But the main difference is that we aren’t a close combat army that does well in a fair fight. 

When you play Sylvaneth, you should never ever get into a combat you aren’t absolutely sure you can win. We have the mobility to pick and choose our fights and we have to use it. 9 times out of 10, I see players either picking the wrong fights or letting the enemy pick the fights. Some armies can do this and be fine. We aren’t one of them.

Sylvaneth are about asymmetrical warfare. We cannot win combats by engaging in 1 v 1 fights. If you have 1 unit of hunters fighting 1 unit of something on one side of board and another unit of T-revs fighting something on the other side of the board: you’re doing it wrong. The correct way to do it is have 1 unit of hunters and 1 units of t-revs fight 1 enemy unit on one side of the board, and then you teleport and fight the other enemy unit with the hunters and T-revs the next turn. 2v1, 3v1, 5v2.

This our playstyle. Our army is much more complicated than most, but played this way we’re crazy powerful. I know I’m in the minority, but the idea that we should drop our casters by 20 points or make TL battleline is total overkill. Yes, it would make our army just points efficient enough to play like a traditional CC toe-to-toe army, but if you played with the hit and run asymmetrical warfare at those point levels? We’d be drastically overpowered and totally break the Meta. Nobody want to see that because what the Buff God giveth, the Nerf god taketh away just as fast. 

[How will Games Workshop push diversity in AoS?]

2 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

The only thing I would be sad about would be if they adopted a policy of having every unit be mixed racially and gender wise in a way which doesn't necessarily make sense or look unified. I think for some, like chaos marauders or free city guard,  that would make sense but for more isolated cultures it would be a bit odd.

I second this. I like a little sprinkle of diversity here and there as much as the next guy, but not everything needs parity. I’d very very much like to see entire female regiments or units (like the sisters of the thorn) with the same going for groups of color.  I painted my hell-striders with dark complexions and they look great on the tabletop.   

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

2 minutes ago, Kaylethia said:

I think that Tree-Revenants should be almost an auto-include in any list that can spare the points even if you're paying 70 points to have your opponent keep something back for five rounds. I've had an opponents keep 100-200 point units in their backline to keep me from stealing objectives or assassinating a hero and allowing me to leverage that difference elsewhere on the board.

I’ve been saying it since our first book: t-rev’s are a must have unit in our lists. Not every list I play has them, but I always miss them when I leave them out. They are hands down the best chaff, best for snagging objectives, best area denial, and in larger groups a fair threat to anything less than 10 wounds.  

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

How about we just give everything an extra 10 wounds and give a 2+ shrug save vs wounds and mortal wounds?  Maybe we can make hunter units 50 points and then the army would be fixed 🤣

I kid of course. 

Y’all’ seem to be having mad trouble out there. Granted I haven’t played too recently because of the plague that’s ravaging our idiot country, but from where I’m sitting, trees are still pretty competitive. It’s really tricky to pin down the differences why people are having problems but it’s been my experience that Sylvanethg only really work if you lean hard into their playstyle. This is why I think our points are in the right place  : the faction is super strong played correctly and pretty bad if you try to play them like a normal army. 
 

1 hour ago, Kaylethia said:

Taking 20-30 Tree-Revenants sounds like something I would do. And I think I'll try it out some time in the next few weeks and report back. They need someone or something that can keep them from running away in battleshock, but the hilarity should be worth it.

I’ve tried larger groups of T-revs (10, 15, 20) and they are more effective than you think. Especially if you throw Druanti in the mix with a Winterleaf list. 15 T-revs will throw out 45 rend -1 attacks and exploding sixes easily make up for the 4+ to hit. Rerolling 1 charge dice plus a 6” pile in make them super reliable scalpels when you need to remove something in the backfield. A unit of 15 can reliably peel 10 wounds off a unit with a 4+ save. Not bad for 240 pts. 

They are definitely finishers though.  Never put them into combat with anything that can reliable swing back with any force or they’ll die like flies. Although if its a key unit, sometimes the trade off is worth it. 

[AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion]

These point changes are all great, even if its only to two units. I was expecting a drop to Drycha (20 pts is fair) and the drop to hunters is a nice little bonus (Enough to maybe eek out another command point or an extra endless spell). 

It not enough of a point change to actually change how we build our lists, but generally makes everything function more efficiently.  It also shows GW is pretty happy overall with how our army plays . I’d agree, were in the best shape we’ve ever been  (if you discount that brief period where we were super OP).

[drybrush white onto grey seer base before contrast?]

My simple advice is: don’t do it.

My more complex advice is that extra highlighting or pre-shading is generally unnecessary when using contrast paint. The other issue is is that contrast needs a smooth basecoat to properly settle. If you complicate that basecoat by introducing an uneven surface of paint particles and tiny brush-hair grooves, the contrast paint will settle at different volumes creating a muddled finish.

I’ve used contrast a fair bit, in a few different ways; including over a flat basecoat and over a preshaded basecoat. I’ve found that the flat actually gives a better continuity of color. When you include a pre-shade underneath the self-darkening feature of the contrast actually darkens too quickly which mean you need to go back in and do extra highlighting in placed that would have self highlighted if you had just used a flat basecoat. 

Also, if your going to give yourself the extra task of highlighting a model painted with contrast paint, then don’t try to take shortcuts. Contrast can be “one and done” and look just fine at tabletop distance with some practice, and the only reason to add additional highlights and shades is to get that model to higher degree of finish. If you’re committed to putting extra work in: then you might as well put the work in.

Aside from that, you can get some truly fantastic results using contrast and additional layers. I’ve been very pleased with my own results combining the two methods. 


 

[If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG]

Hi!

I’m back again, with new stuff, some WIP stuff, and just stuff in general. 

Firstly, I’m off all my vices for the the New Year, and I’m back to painting regularly. Generally I’m getting about 5 hours in in the morning, and generally another 2-3 hours in a night. I’m in a bit of a lull right now, between projects, and so thought this would be a good time to put some of my recent work up.

I think I’m starting to see the finish line on my Sylvaneth army. By finish line, I mean I think I’ve built and painted enough models where I can play just about all the variations I’m interested in playing. Right now I’m just finishing up a massive amount of Tree-revenants:

 

There’s about 15 here, and added to the 10 I already have, that makes 25. A max unit size is 30, and I do love even numbers even though its unlikely I’ll play with that many in one unit. But I am tempted to write a list and see if I can make it viable. Normally I wouldn’t invest so much in a unit I’m not sure if i want to play, but I actually didn’t buy a single one of these. I had a friend give me 10, and mother friend give me 5. Most of them were already assembled, so it was a bit tricky to get them all painted to the same standard as my regular T-revs which were all painted in a sub-assembly. 

Interestingly enough, painting the fully assembled models wasn’t as hard as I expected:


The model on the right was painted in full sub assembly ( hair, head/arm/torso, body, all separate) while the model on the was painted fully assembled. All in all a very similar finish on both, and at tabletop distance you really can’t tell the difference. I did have to pry the heads off two of the models, and cut the arms off since the banner and waypipes obscured too much of the body. Those two models were turned into spite revenants after grafting new arms on the left side (the connection point is just below the elbow) and sticking some new spite heads on: 



 So, that means I have 13 t-revs and 2 spites. I plan on evening that number out to make minimum squad sizes, and I still have 10 on the sprue from the Looncurse box. I will probably just even out the t-revs and add 8 more spites (giving me 10 spites and 15 t-revs). That means I’ll have 30 spites total and 25 t-revs total. More than enough.

As I mentioned above, I managed to pick up a copy of Looncurse at my local FLGS. I was pretty lucky since it was the last one. I sold the goblin half on eBay, and managed to recoup a little more than half my cost, AND I got my hot little hands on the Arch-revenant model. Here’s a wip shot:



The wings are a blend of color-shift paint and glazes of fluorescent paint over a grey base. This was a new thing as the color shift paint is normally used over a black base. You can really see the color when the model is titled so the light hits it, creating an almost stained glass window effect:




I also decided to do the metallics in NMM, which I usually hate the look of. They make for excellent photographs but the models usually looks silly in person (not just my NMM, I feel that way about nearly every NMM metal paint job I see in person. Even from top level painters.) The only reason I went with NMM on this model was because it’s only a very small part, and you can only really see it from one angle, so it doesn’t bother me nearly as much.  

As you can also see in the background, I’ve got some new trees as well. I’ve just finished painting 9 in total. Here’s 3:



When I finish the remnants of the revenants and get around to doing the basing, these will get leaves and grass much like my older trees.

I’ve also made a solid start on my Sylvaneth endless spells, finishing the Vengeful Skullroot, finishing the spiteswarm hive (except for basing) and nearly finishing the Gladewyrm:



\\

Last but not least I’m in the process of converting a Treelord.

So far its more of a reposing than a straight conversion, which somehow seems harder. 🤣. Here’s a look at the face:

 
I wasn’t really happy with the regular treelords face with its closed mouth. It seemed a little static, so I’ve taken Durthu’s jaw, modified it a little, and granted it onto the Treelords face after carefully cutting away the lower jaw. It took a fair bit of filling to get it to fit the back piece. The greenstuff looks a little lumpy here, but it’s just the fact that the colors weren’t perfectly mixed. Overall I’m pretty happy with the result so far, as his mouth is wide open, and I’ll be reposing him so He’s leaning forward with his arms out Wolverine-style :

     


This time, I’ve managed to take pictures of the steps as I go along, and I’ll show the whole thing in either the next post or the post after that. I have some other finished stuff I want to show that I might put up first and show the process once I’ve finished sculpting over the gaps left after reposing him.

I’m also doing this in my spare time:



I’m not sure how it fits in, but I’m pleased with my first attempts so far. 

See you guys soon! More to come!

-F

[If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG]

Updates!

So, I think I’ve finally posted all my Shadespire warbands that I’ve painted thus far. I still have Malgore’s fiends and Ironskulls Boyz yet to paint, but as I dont have any immediate intention of playing them, they will continue to sit on the back burner for a few more months while I work through some other projects. 

Right now, my painting is focused on my getting ready for Adepticon this next year. While I’m currently planning on attending, I’m not totally 100% sure I’ll actually make the trip. The main draw for me is the Golden Demon competition, as I’d really like to enter my Alarielle and possibly my Arch-rev depending on how it turns out (I’ve just finished painting her, more or less, this morning. But she is yet unbased). I’m a little apprehensive traveling with these models, as Alarielle is extremely large with some fairly extensive base work with lots of fiddle bits that could be very prone to breaking if handled anything other than gingerly. 

Do any of you have any experience with traveling with large delegate models? What do you use for transportation? I imagine that they’ll need to be carried on the plane, but even in those conditions I can just imagine hanging on to a tiny box for dear life in my seat. Might look suspicious... 😂

Anyway, lets talk new stuff shall we?

Eyes of the Nine: 



As I mentioned before, all the WH:Underworlds warbands get a little something extra compared to my tabletop undertakings. If anything they’re all painted as individual characters, taken to what I would consider just sub-display level painting. The other interesting thing is these small warbands let me play with new materials or to try new techniques in a small controlled way. This way if something turns out awesome, but incredibly time consuming, I can still get the benefits of using such a technique, or refine it until it becomes more streamlined and manageable. 

Turosh and Narvia:





The big difference in these models is that various sections are painted with Greenstuff worlds color change paint (fitting for a TZ warband) Turosh’s sheild and pauldrons, as well as Narvia’s sheild were painted with various color change paints (3 different ones in fact) along with some other glazes and various tricks to get the effect right. As you can also see I free handed an eye* in the center of Tz symbols on Narvia’s sheild. The Iris is green color change paint.

K’Charik:



K’Charik’s armor is painted with color change paint, although its difficult to see in the photo. To really get the effect it helps to be able to turn the model and it also helps to have more than one light source (not great for photos), so the the color shifting is really evident.   

Blue and Brimstone Horrors:

  




Pretty standard application at this point. The main difference here is the blue horror has some additional glazing with a transparent fluorescent paint (also from greenstuff world). It is very very weak stuff so it takes a number of coats for it to be visible, (something I’ve learned to work with in subsequent projects.)   

Vortemis the all-seeing:

 

Again, color change paint on the armor, fluorescent paint accents in the eye embellishments and ground.  

I’ve since developed/refined my technique using the colorshift paints and it will feature in a number of projects which I will post soon. It’s very strange stuff to work with, since you can see the flakes suspended in whatever medium they use. It dries rock-hard (harder than any acrylic paint I’ve ever seen)  and require multiple layers to get the effect right.  

But when you get it, it’s super cool. If the light hits it from one direction it’s blue, but from another direction it’s purple. If your standing somewhere with multiple light sources (like ina. Room with overhead lights but a window with daylight coming in, one eye see one color and the other eye see another.  

Play-wise, I’ve had numerous games with these guys. They either blow everything off the table or blow away like leaves. It doesn’t help that every time I think I come up with a workable deck for these guys, GW updates the BR list and they become unplayable. (Why do you hate me GW why?) 

I’ll develop this in further posts. Stay tuned!

*The eye in Narvia’s shield belongs to the acolyte she replaced: Turosh’s brother Halicum. Before Narvia joined the group, Halicum and Turosh both served as apprentices to Vortemis: attempting to gain sorcerous insight and hopefully discover and steal the source of Vortemis’s power. Vortemis (being the all seeing) was always fully aware of this. In fact he encouraged it. Often he goaded the brothers into greater and greater acts of One-Upsmanship to ensure they both stayed focused on gaining thier own power at the expense of their rivals.

Turosh took to this readily, but his brother proved resistant to Vortemis’s attempts to divide the pair. Finally, during an assault on one of Sigmarite temples (long before their imprisonment in the the Nightvault), Turosh goaded by one of Vortemis’s riddles rushed a Lord Imperator and was caught off-guard by one of the Lord’s protectors. Quick as a flash, Halicum jumped the liberator and shielded Turosh from what would have certainly been a fatal strike from a very large hammer.

Vortemis was less than pleased with Halicum’s persistent selflessness. 

With a shrill, piercing voice Vortemis screeched out in anger. “SO! YOU WISH TO BE A SAVIOR NOW??!?” Vortemis hissed as his armor began to crawl with Eldritch power, “VERY WELL THEN!” He cackled, “ BE AS YOU WILL A SHEILD UNTO MY CHILDREN THEN!” With a blinding flash and an explosion that turned the defenders to ash, Halicum was nowhere to be found. Instead a golden shield with a single staring eye stood in his place. 

Now Narvia carries the enchanted sheild. Halicum, imprisoned within is forced to watch with an unblinking and unslumbering eye, as he turns aside every blow that might kill the bearer of his enchanted prison and free him once again...

 

[WA Champion (first attempt at NMM)]

Super pretty! 

[If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG]

And now for something completely different...

Rats in the Dark.

 

This was something I’d been thinking about doing for a while. I really wanted to do an all OSL army, but trying to paint more than 5 models like this is just too time consuming. Spiteclaws swarm was the perfect size to try this with and I’m really happy with the results.

 



Basically every model is painted with two different color pallets. The “dark” side uses mainly blues and greys, and if there is color present on the model (like Skritch’s cape) it gets mixed with the base color (“The Fang” in this case) so that it seems as if everything is lit by the light of a full moon. The light side has a fairly normal color palette, favoring warms reds and browns, that mimic torch-light.    

Krrk the “almost trusted”.





Krrk is the only model with a light source above mid-center. I imagined him lit by a spotlight, either the focused light of a lantern hanging on a wall, or perhaps the light from a window.

Festering skaven:



 

This warband is very striking when being played with, because the dark pallets really blends them just enough that they looks “shadowy”. Except for their glowing yellow eyes of course 

Lurking skaven:



 

The camera made the highlights on the “dark” side of the model a lot lighter than they are, but I imagine it’s because the double palette is confusing for the camera. Interestingly enough in miniature painting sometimes color and light can be used interchangeably (something that cant be done in canvas painting). It;s interesting because the lightest lights on the “dark” side are nearly as light as the lightest lights on the “light” side. The difference is that everything on the dark side is desaturated in color, and painted with cool colors, while the colors on the light size are (purposefully) overly strong. It’s a delicate balance that took some practicing to get right.

Lurking Skaven:     





All in all a super fun little project and I’m very glad I didn’t decide to do this on a whole army. I have no idea why the pictures are all different sizes (makes no sense). It’s driving my OCD crazy so I’ll probably  come back in a day or two and try to sort that out.

I have plenty more on the way, so stay tuned.