[BodaciousBlood]

Wildwood faction


I have had a lot of fun with the Wildwood Faction. Buyer beware! These figures can cause for an un-fun playing experience for both the pilot of the army and the opponent. 



I played in this recent OHS season and in a recent Utah Monthly tourney running a “lighter version” of this army.



Traditionally players would want: 

Monarch

Sentinel x2
Runner x4 OR 5

This would fill up your whole army in most cases. 



The “light version” 



Monarch

Sentinel x1

Runners x3

360 points.

This leaves quite a bit of room for some ranged fillers or perhaps even some screen figures (thinking 3x Deathreavers to counter and slow down their range). In the recent OHS tourney I filled it with Major Q10 and Bol. (Delta pricing)



This forced my opponents to think differently about how to play against this army. Sometimes I would lead with Q10, others I would keep him in reserves. But 8 range and some good special attacks really helps the Trees to be better and more fun. Plus it creates a more tactical challenge for your opponents.



I’ll add that the risk and reward for targeting runners vs targeting the sentinel or monarch when you have less of each creates interesting interactions for your opponent.




I ended up being matched up against a full Wildwood army (Monarch, 2x sentinel, 5x runner) in that OHS season and won. I’ll assert that the lighter version of the Wildwood army is superior AND equally as important, more fun to play with/against. 







How to beat kite-y ranged figures with the Wildwoods: 



The Wildwoods have an Achilles heel… Range.



This requires some real finesse to combat effectively. Isolate the figure that you want to pin. Use as much road as you can. Truly the only way to stop a good player from kiting and killing your trees is to:



1) Lose initiative. If you win initiative, start to push the kiting figure(s) to start zones and pinch points. Spread out. Use your runners to hassle the kiters.



2) During OM 3 get into a spot to set up a favorable OM switch. Keep in mind that the Monarch will be spawning a new runner at the start of the next round. Use this to get in position to lock something up. Set up as many Turn 1 ambushes as possible. 



3) Win initiative.

4) if you lose initiative repeat steps 1 -3. If you win initiative, it’s time to lock things down and deal as much damage as possible.



5) Rinse and repeat until you win the game!


In this OHS season, I faced off with Marro Warriors and got some critical initiative switches to win the game. I faced off with Gorillinators and got some critical initiative switches to win the game. Finally, I faced off with Krav Maga Agents. I had the set up to get the big plays I needed a couple of times, but the initiative never switched ha! So I lost the game.



But the right moves were made to set up a victory for the slow but near-indomitable trees.



How Wildwoods have been played has been pretty linear since their release. I hope this post causes some discussion and creates some interesting dialogue around how to play with/against the trees differently moving forward.