2500 pts and 5 Trees

[NonnoSte]

Hi Guys,
at my local gaming club a Campaign based on ET: Nagash has just ended and we're now ready to start with one based on ET: Glottkin in January.
It will be quick one (5 or 6 matches) and I wanted to try something unusual, like fielding 5 Treemen.

I know that someone on this site already tried something similoar, but I can't find the thread anywhere.
Anyway my first attempt at the list looks like this:

Durthu
Treeman Ancient L4 (Life)
Treeman Ancient L4 (Undeath)

BSB w/ Moonstone
Metalsinger L2 w/ Dispel Scroll

19 HBT Glade Guards, mus, std
10 TFA Glade Guards, mus
10 TfA Glade Guards, mus

Treeman w/ Strangleroot
Treeman w/ Strangleroot

It should clock in exactly at 2500 pts.

This Campaign will feature some rule from the precedent one, such as Alliances and Random effects (though in this scenario they're more oriented towards debuffs due to pestilences).
If players decide not to take alliances, their army will have some kinds of bonus, which for Wood Elves is a second free wood in the specific.
Here the choice to pack the Moonstone on my BSB.
The Metalweaver is just there for the scroll, although Metal will be very helpful against Armour in general. I Wonder if a unit of 5 Sisters with mus could be more useful (I'd lose the scroll, but Curse is more effective than two random situational spells and Lifebloom helps A LOT in this list, they're better protected and can act as redirectors to some extent).
The core section is purely to get rid of cannons and annoying chaffs, with the big unit of Hagbane GG intended as a bunker for the two foot characters.
Strangleroots on the regular Treemen are there for chaff clearance too.

I could lack the HoDA on my BSB and the punch of Wild Riders or the speed and mobility of Warhawks (how bad I'd like to have them at least) and Sisters, but once the 5 Trees are in, the room left is really small.

I expect a lot of help and suggestions from you, since I'd really like to bring something similar for the Campaign.
(hopefully for Christmas I'll be able to give myself a gift with the second treeman box. Then the other 3 will be Raging Heroes Tree Warriors on appropriate bases)

[Mollesvinet]

If you are playing End Times: Glottkin, won't you be using the End Times magic rules? If that is so, then you really don't need all the magic levels in my opinion. Even without the end times magic, I would definately make the metal-singer a level 1 since searing doom i really what you are after. Life really needs the four spells, not so sure about undeath but if you made the undeath level 2 and singer level 1 then you have a 100 points to use on other things, like 5 waywatchers or whatever.

Lifebloom from sisters is nice, but since you have a level 4 Life it shouldn't be so important after all. Regrowth has a range of 24 or even 48 inches. If you play end times magic, then durthu will have curse as well. On the other hand, the scroll can easily save a treeman if he gets targeted by searing doom, pit of shades, purple sun, cracks call... and so on.

Also consider about the strangling roots. It's definately cool, and can prove useful in some situations. But it is also the same cost as a waywatcher and you really want those trees in combat where they are safe.

Hope you can use that advice for something. Good luck!

[NonnoSte]

Aren't the new magic rules intoduced in ET: Khaine?

If they're already available in Glottkin, then I definitely don't need L4 on both Ancients.
I should leave L2 the Undeath one and L3 the Life one, enough for 5 Waywatchers.ò

I feel Searing Doom is a bit harsh to be cast by a L1, but a L2 in a wood has some chance to cast it on 2 dice (almost 60%).

Strangleroot is absolutely nice, but I feel the Ancient BS is too low to take a real advantage from it.
Both the regular Treemen have the upgrade though.

[Mollesvinet]

Must admit that I don't know much about End Times magic, i don't have any of the books. I thought Khaine just added the d6 power and d6 dispel dice per spell. If it is called "End Times - Nagash" then it would make sense to me that it uses end times magic.

If not, then you can just use "Ent Times Magic" which is even better!

[NonnoSte]

Yesterday I actuallly played this list.

I went against one of the worst matchup possible, but the list performed well, despite my uncertainty in deployment and the misuse of Lore of Undeath.

Here's the Legion of Khorne I faced:

Bloodthirster
Herald of Khorne, Locus of Fury (Frenzy to his unit)
Wargor BSB with Beast Banner (+1 Str to his unit) and Mark of Khorne (Frenzy)

14 Bloodletters, command
24 Gors, command, EHW, Mark of Khorne (Frenzy)
Chariot of Khorne (Frenzy)

War Shrine
3 x 5 Chosen of Khorne (Frenzy) with Haleberds, champion
2 x 5 Chaos Furies

3 Skullcrushers
2 x Skullcannon

No magic, if not for the Warshrine, but double flaming cannon is the worst thing possible to fight with this list. The Bloodthirster is dangerous too for Treemen and the Warshrine in combination of 3 units of Chosen is really potent.

Quick teasers:
Durthu had a really short life and I had to face a Daemon Prince too.

[Mollesvinet]

Ouch that is tough.

At least in the new book you have that 6+ ward against the skill cannons... yaaaaaay

[liesmith]

I thought you couldn't take armybook-specific items in Chaos Legion armies? Like taking the beast banner on the BSB. I mean I get that it wasn't a game-changing factor, and perhaps I'm being a tad pedantic, but I thought that armies from the End Times books were limited to the BRB for items.

[NonnoSte]

I honestly didn't know about that.
Anyway, Gors with Str3 are really ugly. And no, it wasn't gamebreaking at all. It mattered only a little in a challenge involving the Wargor and an Ancient.

[Aezeal]

I thought you couldn't take armybook-specific items in Chaos Legion armies? Like taking the beast banner on the BSB. I mean I get that it wasn't a game-changing factor, and perhaps I'm being a tad pedantic, but I thought that armies from the End Times books were limited to the BRB for items.

I thought is was you could only use the items on units/chars that can use them in the old books: So legions troop from (former) WoC can use WoC specific items etc etc. (I'm pretty sure this is right because everyone is talking about Eternity king lists with the loremaster and the book of Hoeth, which is basicly the same thing).

[liesmith]

I thought is was you could only use the items on units/chars that can use them in the old books: So legions troop from (former) WoC can use WoC specific items etc etc. (I'm pretty sure this is right because everyone is talking about Eternity king lists with the loremaster and the book of Hoeth, which is basicly the same thing).

Ah okay, that makes sense then. I'm not entirely up on the whole End Times thing since I don't get too many games in nowadays.

[NonnoSte]

I had the time to have another friendly games in the Christmas break (2 days off here in Italy), so I decided to give another try to this list.
Here the first two matches played with 5 Treemen:

5 Treemen against Khorne Legions

5 Treemen against Khainites Dark Elves

After the first two matches, I'm quite disappointed by BSB and the Metalsinger (although the scroll and the occasional Searing Dooms can win me games).
Therefore I'm going to try this little changes to the list:

Lords: 1070
Durthu.
Life Ancient L4. (General)
Undeath Ancient L3.

Core: 680
2 x 10 Trueflight Glade Guards, musician, std.
2 x 10 Hagbane Glade Guards, musician, std.

Special: 160
5 Sisters of the Thorn, mus, std, BoEF.

Rare: 590
2 x Great Eagle
2 x Treeman, Strangleroot

Banners on Glade Guards units are there because we're going to play scenarios in the incoming campaign, where you need banners to control portions of the table to gain additional VP/not concede additional VP.

[Aezeal]

Nice reports.

I agree with not taking the BSB (I've always said our army doesn't need one and THIS list certainly doesn't) and the metal weaver (you have enough magic levels already, and already enough to cast certainly if you don't play endtimes.. 2d6 only lasts a few spells.

If I where you I'd get more troops (and you mention that too so that is great).

The eagles might be a good idea (since you coudl ahve used them well against those DE. (they could have marchblocked in your 2nd turn, see my remark in the report).
I'm not sure why you take the sisters.. what are they supposed to do? they have some shooting.. nice .. but you have that. They have poison.. which is nice.. but you have that a lot already.
You have 5!! treemen.. about the best tarpits we have.. you need to take advantage of that and get WR for side charges IMHO.
(for the WR or SotT if you keep those: I would not bother with musicians.. in your last 2 reports you are keeping back.. which is good considering your archery so they won't be making fancy moves a lot I think. In SotT just delete the music in WR consider taking a champ.

Also if I where you I would spend some points to upgrade AT LEAST 1 unit of HB GG to scouts.

If you have points to spare (if you decide to drop the 3th level on the undeath ancient) you should jsut get more archers or more WR.

I think you also upgraded the undeath ancient to level 3.. not sure why you do that but imho level 2 is enough.

[Aezeal]

About the undeath ancient..

If you play end times. and have ALL undeath spells on your mage... you can summon ethereal roadblocks.

[NonnoSte]

Unfortunately we're playing with Glottkin rules so no Loremaster to all casters yet.
Otherwise I'd surely run the Life ancient as a L3 and the Undeath as a L2.

I did not considered Wild Riders because I could afford a single unit of 5 of them and that unit is going to die really quickly in most games, since I wouldn't have many other good targets for small fire.
Imagine how long they could have survived in the game against Dark Elves with 4 RBTs.

Sisters were meant to bring flaming shots and combat attacks against regenerating troops (they would strike quite before all the Treemen), while being somewhat resilient from enemy fire attention. The musician was there to be sure they rallied if forced to flee a charge.

[NonnoSte]

Hi everyone,
For the next campaign the store manager decided that any player can submit up to 3 different lists (with no duplicated special characters, Magic Items, bla bla bla...) and pick one at his choice according to the opponent he's going to face (but without knowing which list he's using).

It turned out as well that I'm going to play in a "neutral" faction, so I'm going to face Order armies, Destruction armies and other neutral ones too. For this reason I thought to bring a list of pure Asrai (this one), a combined list of Asrai+Asur (I was thinking about double Forest Dragon and a mini-Helmbus with BotWD) and a third one of Asrai+Druchii (here I was thinking about Dark Magic spam in an Eternal Guard block, instead).

About the 5 Trees list, as suggested, I'm going to ditch the BSB as well as downgrading the Undeath Ancient to a L3 for one or two more troops and the list I'm going to use will look like this:

Lords: 1070
Durthu
Life Ancient L4
Undeath Ancient L3

Heroes: 140
Metalsinger L2 w/ Dispel Scroll

Core: 640
2 x 10 TFA Glade Guards, mus
2 x 10 HBT Glade Guards, mus

Special: 160
5 Wild Riders, shields, std, w/ BoEF.

Rare: 490
2 x Treeman, Strangleroot

The possible alternative to Wild Riders would be 2 units of HBT Scouts.
What do you think?

[NonnoSte]

I had a couple of games in these days and, although I liked having two more drops in deployment, I found some other issues with this new setup.

First of all, our gaming club released scenarios for the campaign and 3 out of 6 rely on fortitude or more generally on banners to win addictional VP and I have only one of them.
Secondly, 10 GG are too small a bunker to hide the Metalsinger and she risked too many times to die to light fire and MM, since my GG units are the only reasonable target for those ranged attacks (Treemen aren't worthy the effort and I tend to keep WR hidden when facing opponents with those threats).
Lastly, I need at least a champion to grab an objective in a scenario and not having even a single one prevents me from trying for it.

For these reasons, I intend to merge the two HBT GG again, going down to 18 models and, with the saved points, I'm gonna buy standards for all the GG units and the champ for WR.

Shortly I'm going to post all the report against DE I started in the Hall of Honours.
Next week I'll be playing against my first opponent in the Campaign.

Any comment or feedback are welcome, as usual!

[NonnoSte]

I started a simple tale to accompany this list through the Glottkin Campaign.
Here's the thread about the story, for those of you who are interested.

Don't blame me for the awful English.
It's just a distraction, since our local club asked us to write some background for our list in this campaign (I'm writing it in Italian and I just translated and shared it here).

[NonnoSte]

At last, my Life Treeman comes alive for real!!

[popisdead]

This is a great thread. Thanks for your effort and promotion of heavy treeman use :-)

[sunstrider]

Is there anyway to leverage so many monsters in one army to throw your opponent off? I have no experience running more than 2 monsters in one army (2 treeman/1 dragon 1 treeman/2 dragons), but I feel like the monster rules can give you an edge you won't normally have. Mass strangleroot or thunderstomp? It's an interesting concept that has a lot of tactical possibilities I feel like.

[laribold]

I'm really enjoying this list and the associated battle reports. Great stuff NonnoSte.

So much so that it has inspired me to brush off a couple of my old treemen, invest in some more and shamelessly rip off your ideas!

Special characters are an issue for me though, so I'm wondering how important Durthu is (other than having 5 trees is cool!)? Would dropping him make a huge change to the way the list works?

By not being able to have Durthu I've added in some Warhawk Riders (as I think they give some much needed mobility) and some Sisters of the Thorn for my BSB to hang out with.
I've also kitted out the BSB to be more of a 'grenade' character (Steed, Shield, Spear, Helm of the Hunt, Potion of Strength, DB Gem) to get in and hit something with 4xASF WS7 S5(8) attacks on the charge. The idea being he can go in and finish something off (hopefully before it strikes back). Gives the BSB a role beyond waving his flag about and providing rerolls.

Given the number of treewhacks in the list, do you think a ShadowSinger would be useful (looking to sneak through a cheeky Initiative-lowering Miasma)?
Not sure where the points come from though and if that's just too many spellcasters fighting over Power Dice.

I know WRs are very potent, but do they not attract an obscene amount of small arms fire? I know that's what I'd be shooting at with anything S4 or below!

I like the different dimension the Undeath lore gives the list. Any advice on best spells to take/units to raise? From the reports so far it seems you've used quite a few different ones.
And finally, from a tactical point of view, you say you play this list much more defensively. Do you think you could use the flexibility Undeath gives you and be more aggressive? Loading one flank with all the Treemen and rushing it?
That'd be bound to give you opponent several worrying things to think about...

Keep up the good work and keep the reports coming!

[Aezeal]

Why the hate against Durthu.

I think he's a pretty essential thing in the list since the treemen take a lot of points and can't do that much damage.. Durthu helps being a hammer as well as an anvil I'd say.
I think the undeath lore summoning spells are obviously the way to go. In game it will depend on what you need. Zombies as tarpits. Fliers as redirectors but also to harras the backline. The ethereals if you can get those can be golden as tarpits agianst the right units (non magic) ofc.

[laribold]

Oh it's not a personal hate against Durthu from me, just SCs are sometimes frowned upon and I'm just seeing if the list can work without him.

Maybe that's why the WRs have come in... To provide some real cc damage output.
Some things to consider there.

[NonnoSte]

@popisdead:
Thanks to you as well as eachother for the support. I don't know if I'm really promoting or encouraging heavy Treemen armies, but sure they are a lot of fun!! (as well as suggestive to see on the table)

@sunstriders:
Sure the massive use of monsters gives some edge against Infantries and light troops in general, but being the Treemen so tough and Stubborn, they can throw off some heavy cavalries and monstrous cavalry as well.
Basically they fear just warmachines and magic (and massed high Str or poisoned flaming attacks, but they can be avoided more easily).
Thunderstomps force carefulness from your opponents in approaching with infantries and Strangleroot prevent them from running circles around your Trees. I think these are exactly the factor that mainly give you a sort of tactical advantage (along with Lore of Undeath).

Lizardmen and High Elves showed from quite a while what a Monster-heavy army can do.
But, where their advantage lies in the mobility they can achieve (Lizard monsters are M7 and High Elves ones fly), I think the upper hand of our monsters lies in the ranged threat of magic and Strangleroots (not quite the same, but it's something which allows us to play differently, not needing to rush them in combat).

@laribold:
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I'm actually enjoying running the army.
I can't say it enough: the face of your opponent when you put down 5 Treemen and he starts counting how many cannons he has at disposal is priceless.

I'm also glad for any idea you rip off and twice as glad for any of them you'll sand back improved!

As Aezael already said, Durthu provides an invaluable thing: Str6 attacks.
Another quite useful feature is his magic ability.
First of all, one more channel dice for free is never to be undervalued, then he runs a decnt lore too.
Beast is easier to cast with this list since you have the +1 to cast any of your augments on most part of your troops.
Wyssan with +3 to be cast (Ancient blessing, Lore attribute and Durthu's magic level) is likely to go off even with just two dice and either on WR or any of your Trees, it can change a combat entirely.

Warhawks are something I woulòd have liked to include, for they mobility and for they ability to possibly screen Treemen from cannons.
Anyway I quickly found myself short in points and for now the ability to carry around the BoEF pushed me towards Wild Riders.
Scouts are another thing I wanted to try, but for now I'm feeling comfortable with those 40 GG shots. Maybe 5 SotT carrying the banner could work similarly to WR and replace Scouts at the same time.

That being said, If you don't run Durthu I'd consider a Unicorn Weaver in place of him and the Singer.
Be it one of the classical builds with High Magic (Crown of Command, HoDA, OTS are all great addition to the army) or even a Beastweaver to boost your Trees and specifically your Ancients (who could now be both downgraded to L2 and used more like monsters than like casters). At this point with the spare points I'd go for an Eagle, more Wild Riders or a biog unit of WHR for the LoS on the Weaver.

Something like:
Beatweaver on Unicorn
Ancient (Life)
Ancient (Undeath)
4 x 10 GG, mus
3 Warhawks Riders
5 Warhawks Riders
2 x Treemen, Strangleroot
with 80 points to spare (Scouts, Eagles, magic levels or even a Branchwraith are all good additions).

About Lore of Undeath I don't really know what to advice.
I had just an handful of matches with it and I mainly used it to raise diverters/harassers.
Skeleton Archers are an awesome unit to raise, since the boosted signature spell with a couple of counters can bring 20 of them to the game quite easily and they'are as effective as 10 TFA GG, but unbreakable, ItP and with double the bodies.
Warbeasts/swarms proved very useful as well (they can never march and this is a little liability for units such as Dire Wolves or Fell Bats, but they are quite fast nonetheless, especially with the Dark Breath spell) and Bat swarms in particular can help greatly Treemen, since it gives ASL to units in base to base.
Basically all the raising spells have their applications and can be used with good effects and, most important, provide a nice redundancy (two army books from which to choose the things you need most is an enormous range of choices). Almost any of them can raise tarpits, shooters, hard hitters or supporters.
It has never occured yet, but adding a Terrorgheist to the Trees could be really hilarious (for me at least. Probably much less for my opponent)
Dark Breath is great to move raised units further and to keep tarpits alive longer.
The other two spells are not that awesome, but a direct damage is never bad (even if it's extremely short ranged) and Hand of Dust is more likely to be used on a caster who actually sees combat with this list. Still, I'd swap them for the Signature anytime, starting from Hand of Dust.

@Aezeal:
You caught all the points apparently.
The only thing on which I have to disagree is the viability of ethereal tarpits. Since you can raise up to 75 pts of swarms, you'll be likely to have a single base of Spirit Hosts. It will be likely to die because of static CR against anything charging it, waving a banner.

Thanks again to anyone for the support.
Hopefully next week I'm having a couple of games wit the army.
RL is messing things up a bit with the campaign, but I'll have to keep up with the other players sooner or later and more Reports will certainly follow.

[Aezeal]

Do you thinkn both treemen ancients are worth it? They are a lot of points, you already have some magic and they are not as strong as a monster. I'm wondering wether the 2nd ancient doesn't weaken your list at bit too much, instead of it you could get some nice units.