Spites

[MortenLarsen]

The more I think about them, the less I think GW thought about them. The amount, the cost and the abilities paired with Tree Spirit units just does not make much sense.

It is literally impossible to use 100 pts on Spites for an Ancient. A Blight of Terrors and A Luminescent of Dispair are useless and he is not allowed to take A Muster of Malevolents leaving the a total of 90 pts. for the rest of the Spites...
The normal Treeman can be maxed out but he cannot take An Annoyance of Netlings since he's not a character that can make challenges so you are left with 3 out of 7 Spites...
The Branchwraiths could be tooled up for somethings, but still mhhpf, so disappointing...
Maybe a chance to do something with a Nymph or an Elder?

Am I missing the point or something else?

[OvertninjaX]

befuddlement of mischiefs is a great buy on a treeman or even a tree-kin champion, because lowering initiative affects the potency of tree whack, which is quite a thing. the reason there are points limits is to create a minimal threshold for what models can take what spite (or magic item), and it's best to ignore the upper limit as it seldom matters.

with the exception of a dragon lord generally, you'll never fully use your points allowance on items or spites; instead it allows for certain combinations that others can't take. having terrors and despairs on the same model is nice to be able to do if you're not bringing other models for the same purpose - though terrors is best on an elf character since treemen cause terror already.

ultimately spites enable certain builds and provide magic items to tree spirits, who cannot normally take them, and they are often used that way. the other options are terror-bombing for elven heroes with units, or adding magical attacks to an elf unit with the luminescents. there are a few potential applications to bully casters, but because they're a long shot at best, they usually don't see play (sadly).

as in previous editions, unless you are purpose-building a hero or lord for a certain function, you usually leave magic items and spites alone in favor of more models and units on the field, which will generally serve you much more ably than having more items, despite how fun those items might be. I think O&G players coined the term 'boys before toys', but it generally applies.

[MortenLarsen]

Sure, A Befuddlement of Mischiefs could be good and An Annoyance of Netlings absolutely is. But it's still not a broad selection. 7 in total and then some are completely useless for some models. Seems like they just copied the old ones over, removed two good ones, and then did nothing.
It's not like they don't know how to make things other than magical items. Brets, HE, WoC and so on have lots of army specific options. When we got the Spites in 6th. ed. we also got the Kindred system. Both really sweet to make a WE character stand out and give som fluff.
So, yes the one or two odd Spites can/are be useful, but it seems like a missed opportunity

[godswearhats]

I expect we'll see more Spites in the Arcane Journal.