Kings of War 3rd Edition: #055 Herd vs Sylvan Kin [Dominate]

Intro and Lists

I thought it would be a few weeks before our paths would cross again, but some unexpected March snow cancelled some of his travel plans, and friend, fellow blogger, and forum-goer Cartwright was able to squeeze in a quick game with me recently. We were playing over at his place, and he carted out some Sylvan Kin, running the following:

We haven't seen the Sylvan Kin in a few months. We'll see how the Clash changes effected the speediest elementals! Yes, both Greater Air Elementals are returning, along with the very versatile Nimue, a Tree Herder, and a Forest Warden. The Warden intrigued me last time, as a cheap source of Inspiring and Surge. With several targets for the spell, we'll see what he gets up to! Holding the line would be a regiment and a horde of Forest Shamblers, a horde of Air Elemental, all eager for Surge. Backing up the elementals were two regiments of expensive Gladestalkers, a normal Stormwind Cavalry regiment, and a brand new infantry regiment of Boskwraiths. The Boskwraiths are a berserker-like unit with a lot of attacks, good infantry speed and Wild Charge D3, but have no innate CS or TC, and this particular list had no way to grant that. We'll see how these crazy, amped-up trees do! The last entry in the list was an Elven King on a horse with a bow. Inspiring, good mobility and decent utility! The King seems a bit more on the disruptive / chaff side of things, and I expect him to be skulking around the periphery, but we'll see what he actually gets up to as the game unfolds! 

   

My Herd are still reeling a bit from the Longhorn change. I’ve got some new units in process and some list ideas bouncing around, but for now, I wanted to try out a list that focused primarily on flying and positioning, while also exploring a few things I think might become staples for most Herd generals. 

• Tribal Spear Horde. I am embracing hordes more and more thanks to my experiences with the Kingdoms of Men. These kind of generic mid-tier infantry really needs to be run in hordes. While I need to pay for Thunderous Charge on these now, I think it's worth it, and this new cost is mitigated by the cost reduction to spear units generally. I think hordes of these are probably the Herd's best battle line unit right now, offering a decent mix of survivability and threat, but it's my first time running these in a horde, so we'll see how they actually perform.
• Guardian Brutes. With the Longhorns so drastically different, I need something else in my lists to do damage. It's a short list of Herd units that get to 2 CS/TC, and these are one of the few options that I have, so we'll try them out!
• Lycans. I have a large collection of Lycans, but haven’t really explored them previously. They are quick, but with just CS1, they seemed underwhelming for their price. The Lycans recently got discounts though, so that's why they are here! With some points left over as I was finalizing the list, I decided to give them Mindthirst. I figured I'd be using these for outriding and outflanking, and likely away from my own sources. Maybe it will come in handy. 
• Scorchwing Hordes. Positioning the regiments just kept melting my brain. I get the same number of attacks here, but less to think about, and more Nerve to work with. Hopefully the hordes should be easier to use! 
• Woodland Critters. Their debut! They fly, so they got added to the list to test out. Flying can be amazing to have on chaff, but I don't expect these will actually do much. They Fly, but are just Speed 6, and just Height 1, so their only real move is to hang back and then fly up in front of something to die. For that, 80 points seems steep, and I'd probably rather have some Gur Panthers around, but we'll see if they surprise me.
• Flying Beasts of Nature. Their debut! They should function a bit like my General on Winged Beast, which is to say probably underwhelming! The hope is that my opponent respects a 20" charge range, and I can use these in the early game to pressure. As the game progresses, hopefully opposing units get stuck up on things like the Hydra and Spears, and they can get some flank or rear charges to break enemy units. 
• Hydra. It is still a conflicted unit, wanting to take damage for the extra attacks, but is also regenerating said damage away. It's a casual unit with all that variation, but I still like the Hydra on paper. It also hits the CS/TC 2 threshold, and is a lot of Nerve for the points. I have struggled to get good use out of it previously, so we'll see what insights I can pick up this time around.
• Druids with Bane Chant. I need Inspiring sources, and BC is nice to have with mid-tier infantry like the Spears. With the clash updates they lost their Heal spell, but it was only Heal 2, and  so weak, was unlikely to swing anything. Little Inspiring sources with Bane Chant should be good enough for my needs.
• Avatar of the Father. He has not had a good game yet. In theory, all the messiness of a typical heavy / titanic flier like a dragon is stripped away: no breath attack, just good stats and a solid charge range. In practice, he's run up against a lot of Insanely Courageous units, and I don't think he has actually broken a single enemy unit yet (though he's only been in a few other games). Between him and two Flying Beasts, I am hoping things get messy and my monstrous fliers can sneak around and be little damage multipliers as the game goes on. 

Cartwright and I have generally avoided our "near-mirror" match-ups for the sake of more variety, but these are the armies we wanted to play the most on the day, so we went for it. We both ended up wfairly evenly matched with exact drops, similar Unit Strength, and similar styles of lists, down to each running multiple flying monsters, and a towering thing to battle over the center. My games running the Herd have been rather bloody and quick, so it should be an interesting match-up! 

Table and Terrain

My opponent was hosting the game, so we used his terrain, including some nice newly printed ruins. We followed our usual terrain rules, running the buildings as Height 9 blocking terrain, the forests as Height 6 Difficult Terrain, stone fences as Height 2 Obstacles, and Hills as Height 3.

We rolled up Dominate for the scenario. I won the roll-off, and didn't see any big differences so I picked the side I was already on, lazy-gamer style.

Deployment for the Sylvan Kin.

From my perspective, left to right the Sylvan Kin had the Boskwraiths and Nimue in the forest, a Greater Air Elemental, Tree Herder, Air Elemental Horde and Forest Shambler Horde as the main line. A building split the deployment zone here, and right flank has speedier units with the Forest Shambler Regiment screening a Greater Air Elemental, Forest Warden, Gladestalkers, Stormwind Cavalry, other Gladestalkers, with the Elven King out on the flank. My opponent is great at running battle groups, and I probably should have guessed that with the Bow, the King would be near the Gladestalkers.

The Herd's Center, and sparse left.

On my far left I had a Beast of Nature, a building, and Lycans. These were my two final drops, as I wanted to zip into the forest and hopefully get an easy kill against the Def3 Boskwraith regiment. Screened by the forest and hills, my center had both Guardian Brutes, the Hydta, a Druid and the Woodland Critters in reserve. Nearby was the other Druid and the horde of Tribal Spearmen, angled to try and make use of the obstacle to hold at the periphery of the scoring zone. My fast stuff and shooting stuff was also on my right, with the second Flying Beast, both Scorchwing Hordes and the Avatar of the Father. 

The speedy flying right flank for the Herd.

This pairing up of shooting units was by design. Seeing my list, my opponent delayed his Gladestalkers until my Scorchwings started arriving. I remembered the Gladestalkers were shooters, but they had plenty of other S words going for them, including scouts and stealthy and steady aim. This was potentially a very good match up for his shooters, assuming I can't close the distance quickly.

Round 0: Scouting Moves

I didn't bring anything with Scout, but my opponent sure did! 

Scout moves, from the Sylvan Kin.

The Tree Herder and Forest Shambler horde hopped up around 4", careful to keep out of range of the Flying Beasts. Honestly, that was not something I was really even considering until my opponent started measuring! Charging the Beasts into the front of hordes probably isn't the best use of them, but it is a good habit to be aware of fliers.

The Forest Shambler regiment scouted up as well, and was just in charge range of the Flying Beast on my right but nothing else. The Forest Warden moved up, but stayed slightly back, safe from any Round 1 charges. Both Gladestalkers scouted up as well, to get into shooting range of their Scorchwing quarry, but were 21" away.

My opponent won the roll for deciding the turn order, and seized the initiative.

Top of Round 1: Sylvan Kin

My opponent was happy with the positioning granted by his scouting moves, and as a result, very little moved on his turn.

The Air Elementals catch up with the trees.

The Stormwind Cavalry held back, and only the Greater Air Elemental moved up, getting back behind the screening regiment of Forest Shamblers.

The Greater Air Elemental peeks through the forest.

Centrally, the Air Elemental Horde whirled up to get even with the scout moves from the Tree Herder and the Forest Shambler Horde.

The other Greater Air Elemental moved up to get its leader point into the woods to threaten my lines. Nimue flitted up a bit. The Boskwraiths were originally even with Nimue, but my opponent eventually thought better of it, and they moved up to the edge of the deployment zone, looking to zone-out my Flying Beast. This was wise, otherwise I had nice 20" to move and nimble pivot to look down his line with impunity. Well spotted!

A very unfortunate opening for the Herd!

Having scouted to get into range, the Gladestalkers loosed, and boy did they have the number for the Scorchwings. Near the table edge, the regiment did 5 and the King did 2, and the Sylvan Kin secured a Waver. The other regiment loosed into the other horde, scored 6, and secured another Waver. Ouch!

And with that, it was over to the Herd.

Bottom of Round 1: Herd

Have 400+ points of stuff wavering in the bottom of Round 1 isn't ideal. I opted to try and delay the seemingly inevitable. Both Scorchwings moved back 5" out of shooting range of the Gladestalkers. Sure, they have Steady Aim, but they will need to move, and they may open things up for me. Both the Flying Beast and Avatar moved up ever so slightly, covering the retreat while staying out of charge range of the Greater Air Elemental.

The Scorchwings retreat for now. 

The Hydra had deployed on the line with the Brutes about a half inch back. They move up a bit, but not quite their speed. The Woodland Critters hop up as well. The Greater Air Elemental in the forest can see things, but the Woodland Critters should complicate a charge into the Guardian Brutes, and nothing else should be in charge range here just yet, since it is a lot of speed 6 stuff staring each other down.

The Herd tries and dissuade the Greater Air Elemental

On the left, the Flying Beast tentatively moves up, with charges into the Boskwraiths and Greater Air Elemental. The Lycans move up tentatively, and end at a bit of an angle to face down the Greater Air Elemental. The unit is a flier, but it is Shambling, so I am just trying to box it in a bit. It can't land to fight the Guardian Brutes, but if it charges anything else, things are around to punish it. The Lycans have an 18" charge range, so my hope is to dissuade my opponent a bit this turn and then double-team the Boskwraiths next turn. 

My shooting is currently cowering, so it's a very quick Round 1.

Top of Round 2: Sylvan Kin

The Gladestalkers continue to roll quite well. Both inch up to continue the hunt against their prey. One regiment does 2 damage, along with 2 from the King to bring the Horde to 13 damage total before routing it, while the other regiment lands another 5 damage all on their own, bringing that horde up to 11 damage, before it routs as well. What a catastrophic start for the Herd this game! The rest of the Kin's right flank holds, as my opponent knows he has quite the shooting advantage, and doesn't want to risk my combat fliers getting behind his lines.

I mean, they're easiest to use if they aren't on the table anymore, right?

More centrally, the Greater Air Elemental leaves the woods, not wanting to start a piece trade. It is able to back up far enough to get away from the Flying Beast.

Nimue moves out of charge range for the Flying Beast too, and the Boskwraiths back up. They cannot get away from the Beast, but this does get them out of charge range of the Lycans and royals spoils my plans here.

Bottom of Round 2: Herd

With no charges the Lycans pivot and advance a bit. With just the Boskwraiths, as a possibly charge, I hold the Flying Beast back as well. It's not going to break them, and it seems foolish to charge the Beast alone into the front when things are about to go down.

The Herd moves into the center.

I make a move in the center, with the Woodland Critters hopping up to block in the Tree Herder. The Guardian Brutes enter the woods to threaten things, and the Hydra and other Brutes move up as well. Things can charge me next turn, but multiple charges will be difficult.

It's Round 2, and I am already down 400+ points now. I send the Beast in against the Forest Warden to delay. It's definitely not great odds, but if I can punch through him, I can overrun the 1" to safety and then keep this flank disorganized in the coming turns. It's a desperate charge. I forget Vicious, but the hit rolls aren't great. Only 2 damage lands, and he's stuck. Things will be delayed a turn, but it's not a great situation for him.

The Avatar of the Father nimbly pivots moves and pivots again to move down the line and get closer to the Tribal Spearmen. All alone, his usefulness isn't great, but he could maybe intercept something in the coming turn and help me in play for the middle.

Top of Round 3: Sylvan Kin

Nimue uses his one-a-game move to fly up behind the Lycans. Cloak of Death hits them and the Guardian Brutes, and the Waydancer prepares a spell... The Great Air Elemental moves 10" and pivots, to stare right at the flank of the Lycans. Oops. I guess I moved them too far up last turn... the Greater Air Elementals are notoriously hard to plan around! Nimue will get them the 1" needed via Surge, and the GAE will deal 11 new damage to the Lycans, and wipe the unit out and then overrun, to get out of the charge arc of the Guardian Brutes.

The Boskwraiths make a break for it.

The Boskwraiths roll max for their Wild Charge, and they are then able to escape the woods and hit the flank of the Woodland Critters, with the Tree Herder smashing in from the front. The Critters are sent running. The Herder will back up and the Boskwraiths will lazily turn to face things.

The Herd loses some more units.

The Forest Shambler Horde will make a front-charge into the Guardian Brutes, with the other Greater Air Elemental joining in. Each will deal 6, and even Inspired, the Brutes will be bested. The Brutes have Fury, so this is another bummer. The Greater Air Elemental backs up and the Forest Shamblers wheel to face the Hydra.

Over on the right, the Forest Shambler regiment will lurch up into the center. The Forest Warden will countercharge the Beast, dealing 1, with the Stormwind Cavalry hitting the monster in the flank for 19 damage, devastating the beast, and the routing it. The Warden will back up, and the cavalry will pivot. Attacking the Warden was a long-shot play from me, and at least the Cavalry are delayed.

The Gladestalkers move up and loose into the Avatar of the Father, joined by the King. The King misses, but the regiments continue to roll hot, and between them will deal 10 damage to the big guy. 

Bottom of Round 3: Herd

Going into Round 6, I've dealt a total of 2 damage (to the Forest Warden), while my opponent removed 400+ points of units. Top of Round 3, another 600+ points of the Herd is slain. I am not winning this game and have been thoroughly outplayed. But, I've got units to test, so we persevere! Something on the Herd's side needs to get into combat this game.

An awkward rear charge is still a rear charge! The Tribal Spears are doing their best.

The Tribal Spears had hunkered down behind the obstacle, but that proved to be a bad call with the Sylvan Kin playing more defensively. They are forced to clamber over the fence now, for a hindered charge into the rear of the Forest Shamblers. They roll a bit poorly landing just 12 damage, and the Nerve check is just shy of the Rout. With Fearless, the Shamblers are sticking around. 

The Guardian Brutes crash into the Air Elementals, and will pulverize them for my first kill of the game. They will spin around to face the tough Shamblers. Hydra goes into the front of the Tree Herder, with the Beast hitting the flank. 

In retrospect, this multi-charge is an error. The Herder is Def6. I am not going to break it. Nor am I likely to break the Boskwraiths in the flank. But charging in the Hydra alone and tying the tree up isn't a bad idea, as it limits the counter charge options for the Herder. The Hydra needs to be taking damage to be effective with its extra attacks, and the multi-charge here lets my opponent ignore the Hydra and countercharge the other unit. Lessons learned!

The Forest Warden is just out of range for the Avatar. It would be in the front, but charging the Stormwind Cavalry unit or the Gladestalkers nearest the edge of the table would have been a better call if things were going better for me. As it is, the Avatar is maimed, and not likely to last another turn. I opt to flank charge the Forest Shambler Regiment, and remove it to buy time for testing out what remains of my list.

Top of Round 4: Sylvan Kin

The Boskwraiths can't see anything, so they just pivot slightly. My opponent wants to ignore the Hydra completely, for the reasons described above. He considers withdrawing and rear-charging the Guardian Brutes (while writing the report... the Herder is engaged on two facings, so this would be illegal, so it's good we didn't do that!). He considers counter-charging the Beast with the Herder. But the Greater Air Elemental has limited options. It can nimbly move and get 1" away from the Hydra, so I talk him in to counter-charging the Hydra with the Tree Herder too. Nimue can surges the Elemental in, and the Hydra ends at 20 damage, and is devastated and then routed. The Tree Herder is Hight 5, meaning my Beast will be able to see basically just him next turn, making this a very effective play. 

The Herd takes some more hits as the game grinds towards a conclusion. 

The unbothered Forest Shamblers counter charge the Tribal Spearmen, swiveling around. The other Greater Air Elemental starts the turn an inch away, but facing the wrong way as I recall. I changes facing, the the Forest Warden is able to stagger forward and Surge it into the flank. My opponent dice finally cool off. The Shamblers do only 4, the Greater Air Elemental only 6. The horde is Inspired, but the Nerve check is an 11, wavering the infantry horde.

Bottom of Round 4: Herd

Things have not improved for the Herd, but there is still testing to do!

The Guardian Brutes flank charge the Forest Shamblers, brining them up to 37 damage. Thankfully, the Brutes are able to best the shrubs, and will change facing 180 degrees to stare menacingly at my opponent's deployment zone.

Not much left for the Herd.

The Beast can't charge anything besides the Tree Herder, as discussed previously. I consider flying it up and over, but I can't get out of line of sight of the Stormwind Cavalry either. I charge in and take the big tree up to 6 damage, but it obviously holds.

Wavered, I'll eventually remember to change facing with the Tribal Spearmen, to face the oncoming elves.

Top of Round 5: Sylvan Kin

The Greater Air Elementals are surged into the flanks of the Guardian Brutes, with one taking a withdraw penalty as it extricates itself from the Tribal Spearmen. Still, the Brutes are easily obliterated. 

The final charges from the Sylvan kin.

The Tribal Spearmen take a triple charge from the Stormwind Cavalry, Gladestalkers, and the King. The Gladestalkers end on the obstacle, so everything is hindered heading in, and with Phalanx, all the TC is stripped. The damage is kept down to just 8, which would be amazing, if their total wasn't 18. The Spearmen are annihilated as well.

Bottom of Round 5: Herd

It's Dominate, and I am down to just two Druids. I have no units that can possibly score, but have finally gotten into some combats to get some testing done, and will concede here.

Game Conclusions

Well, that was a one-sided bloodbath! With Stealthy, the Gladestalkers should still have a good match up against my Scorchwings regardless of the turn order, but getting 1st turn really exacerbated the edge the elves had. The Gladestalkers then rolled amazingly well for 3 consecutive (early) rounds, first completely shutting down my shooting with risky split fire, then routing my shooting entirely with more split fire, and then grievously injuring my Avatar of the Father with focused fire, who just wanted one game where his combats didn't result in Insane Courage! He did finally break a unit this game, but it was far from impactful, and he has still yet to have a good time!

Keeping on with the Sylvan Kin side of things, the Air Elementals still hit plenty hard! They almost got exclusively flank charges, and Nimue was quite the enabler here, being able to pop behind my line and then surge one into the flank of the Lycans to open things up for my opponent. With nothing to duel or hunt him at that point, there was very little I could do against the Surge shenanigans, and Nimue has been surprisingly effective for my opponent thus far.

There is not much else to say. The game started out poorly for the Herd and never got better! My opponent came in with a good strategy and was able to execute it rather flawlessly. This was an overwhelming win predicated on some good strategy and I definitely cannot begrudge that! 

Testing Conclusions

• Tribal Spear Horde. I figured the Gladestalkers would be with the other elves in the forest in my opponent's deployment zone, and I did not want them shot off, so put them here instead of near the building opposit that forest. The charge was awkward given the obstacle, but overall, I was happy with them. I think a horde or two would be a great place for someone to start up a Herd list nowadays. 
• Guardian Brutes. The first rout was quite unlucky and a bummer, but that's why I run two units of things I want to test! The second unit made up for things, thumping two elemental hordes and showing that these are definitely a threat when they get the charge. They are a bit fragile with Def4 and typical Large Infantry Nerve, but can dish out the damage relatively well. 
• Lycans. The price decrease is good, unfortunately we didn't get to see these in action. Mindthirst did come into play though, with Nimue Inspiring them after surging the GAE into their flank, which was a bit funny. More testing is needed, but I conceptually I am still not sold on these yet.
• Scorchwing Horde. Nothing to say here. They never had a chance. 
• Woodland Critters. Speed 6 wasn't as bad as I figured, but that's mostly because everything else around them was also Speed 6. They still weren't good though. I would like them if they were more like Imps or Orclings? Paying for Fly doesn't seem worth it here.
• Flying Beasts of Nature. I was not able to execute well with them for their debut. I was on the the back foot immediately, while also jockeying for positions against two Greater Air Elementals, and this was just not a fun time for them. They might have done better against a different list, and do seem worth exploring, so we'll definitely give them another try sometime.
• Hydra. The Hydra is a very weird unit, but I like it and still want to play around with him, and I definitely learned some things here! I deployed him at the line and was decently aggressive with him, but I think he should be a distraction carnifex, as the Warhammer folks used to say. Keeping him Inspired would be nice, but I should be sending him in solo on these early turns and looking to tar pit something scary. They can grind for a few turns, and then I can hopefully reinforce with stuff like the Flying Beast.
• Druids with Bane Chant. They worked well enough. My opponent and I discussed this a bit, as I often run the spell while he does not. I think lower-tier units (Zombies, Penitents) don't really need it. Defensive units don't necessarily need it, with the points better-spent to improve their survivability rather than their fighting prowess. Higher-tier units (Soul Reavers, Huscarls / Hearthguard) don't usually need it, as they are destructive enough. Cavalry can make use of it, but it can be hard for a caster to keep pace. However, mid-tier infantry (units with 12ish attacks, CS1 or lacking it entirely, 4+ to hit and/or for defense, things like my KoM Foot Guard, Abyssal Guard and all these Tribal units) really want it, as the spell lets them actually contribute some damage during the game. These are units I seem to be running regularly, so a Lute on an ASB and such is very welcome in my lists. Here, with a la carte spells, the Druids function similarly, but I can take multiples.
• Avatar of the Father. This was only his third outing, but he has not been having a good time as the Herd figurehead so far! The first two saw him charge stuff only to find it insanely courageous, and while this outing he finally routed something, I think running him alongside other fast units, particularly other flying threats, is still a good idea, I was just unable to execute it well here.

Our last game ended with a draw, and this is about the farthest from that result you can get, but I still had a great time both times. Thanks for fitting this in and congrats on the victory!