The Book of Wildwood Runner

[DanieLoche]

The Book of Wildwood Runner
Awakened Forest - C3V Wave Exclusive 1



Basic Side Army Card and Alternate Figure

Spoiler Alert!

The alternate figure used for this unit is a custom 3D printed miniature. The .stl file is here

PDF download for printing.

PDF download for printing.

The figure used for this unit is a D&D Miniatures figure. The figure name is : Twig Blight from the War of the Dragon Queen set.


Biography : By Wildwood standards, these seedlings are lightning fast. But these Runners are dangerous for more than their speed. Hardy and tenacious, these Runners can often survive long enough to replace a fallen Sentinel, doubling in size and in power. The Monarch may be the trunk, but it is the Runners that make enemies of the Awakened Forest quake in fear.

ASCEND 4
Instead of moving normally, a Wildwood Runner may move one space. That space may be up to 4 levels higher.

VIGOROUS GROWTH
At the start of each round, before you place Order Markers, if you have not used a Vigorous Growth power this round, you may destroy one Wildwood Runner you control that was not placed this round and replace it with one of your previously destroyed medium Wildwood Heroes. Remove all wound markers from that Hero's Army Card.

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- Rulings and Clarifications -

• ERRATA - Vigorous Growth
  Vigorous Growth only affects Wildwood Runners that you control. Consequently, the power should read :
  

  [...]you may destroy one Wildwood Runner you control that was not placed this round [...]

• Wildwoods Growth : Vigorous, Verdant, Seedling...
  QUESTION - How does the Wildwood life cycle work?
  ANSWER - At the start of each round, you can, in any order:
  • Upgrade a Runner to a Sentinel
  • Upgrade a Sentinel into the Monarch
  • Place a Runner adjacent to the Monarch
  You cannot upgrade a figure you just placed, nor can you place a Runner if you just placed the Monarch. So, for example, you cannot upgrade a Runner into a Sentinel and then immediately upgrade it into the Monarch. Nor can you upgrade a Sentinel into the Monarch and then immediately place a Runner next to it.
  Any unit placed must come from your reserves. You may upgrade a Runner into a Sentinel, which puts that Runner into your reserves, then place that Runner from your reserves adjacent to the Monarch.

• Awakened Forest : Synergies inside synergies..?
  QUESTION - After taking a turn with the Wildwood Monarch, you can take a turn with Wildwood Sentinel using Trunk of the Awakened Forest. After the Sentinel turn, could you then use Branch of the Awakened Forest to take a turn with a Wildwood Runner?
  ANSWER - Yes !

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- Combinations and Synergies -

Synergy Benefits Offered:

• VIGOROUS GROWTH : Medium Wildwood Heroes
  Following Heroes can be resurrected in replacement of a Wildwood Runner :
  • Wildwood Sentinel (C3V)

Synergy Benefits Received:

• WILDWOOD MONARCH : Seedling
  As a Small Wildwood Hero, Wildwood Runners may be resurrected by the Wildwood Monarch.

• WILDWOOD MONARCH : Trunk of the Awakened Forest
  As a Small Wildwood Hero, Wildwood Runners may benefit from Wildwood Monarch's bonding.

• WILDWOOD SENTINEL : Branch of the Awakened Forest
  As a Small Wildwood Hero, Wildwood Runners may benefit from Wildwood Sentinel's bonding.

• ACOLARH : Ullar’s Amulet
  As a unit that follows Ullar, a Wildood Runner may benefit from Acolarh’s ULLAR’S AMULET movement bonus.

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-Heroscapers Community Contributions-


Power Ranking and Master Index
TBA.

Unit Strategy Review
TBA.

[dok]

Be aware that playing either with the Wildwoods or against them can be tricky. Have you ever played against a Marro Divider army where they kept hitting their divides? Or a Zombie army that was making zombies as fast as you killed them? Or Marro Warriors in late game that keep running away and cloning? Well, Wildwoods can feel similar if you are not careful.

A quick tip: try to "bottom up" the army by killing the Runners first, then the Sentinels, and finally the Monarch. Take advantage of being faster (everything this side of the Marro Hive is faster than Wildwoods) and stay away from the Monarch, or tie it down with cheap figures while your more important figures hunt the other units. If you can wipe out all the Runners, then you only need to kill the one new Runner the next round to keep a Sentinel from forming.

Conversely, when playing with the Wildwoods, the goal is to force your opponent to engage your powerful Sentinels and Monarch early. It's OK to miss out on some Runner attacks; you want to keep them in supporting positions.

[Sir Dendrik]

I've played 3 games with the Wildroots now. An important thing to remember is that if you kill off a Monarch and nothing else, you're really just killing off a Runner: When everything upgrades at the end of the round, only a Runner will be lost.

My main strategy against the Wildroots is to get the Monarch down to one life, then the Sentinels down to 1 life each, killing any Runners you can. The Monarch at 1 life will cause Order Marker decisions for the Wildroot player. You need to kill everything at once to effectively get rid of the Wildroots, or else they will just spawn back up, losing only a Runner. Once you get rid of all the Runners it is easier to get rid of the rest of the army, but a good Wildroot player will guard their precious Runners so they can regrow what's left of the army.

Overall the Wildroots feel like one living breathing entity, a unit that is so interconnected that it feels like one unit. There's never been a unit quite like these before.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Sir Dendrik

The Monarch at 1 life will cause Order Marker decisions for the Wildroot player.

This is a really good point. Delaying the killing blow on the Monarch until there's no Sentinel waiting to regenerate is usually good, but if you can snipe the Monarch on OM1 and drain OMs for the rest of the round that's really strong. If this causes your opponent to throw some OMs on Sentinels to avoid losing OMs, that's a win as well.

And to flip that around into Wildwood strategy, if you do have a Sentinel in the wings, it's OK to be extremely aggressive with the monarch as it nears death. For example, don't worry about LEAs or lava damage with a 1-life monarch at the end of the round.

[Sir Dendrik]

Originally Posted by dok

And to flip that around into Wildwood strategy, if you do have a Sentinel in the wings, it's OK to be extremely aggressive with the monarch as it nears death. For example, don't worry about LEAs or lava damage with a 1-life monarch at the end of the round.

Yeah there's a reason the Wildroots cannot attack each other: Killing off your own Monarch just so it can spawn again next round with full health would be broken.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Sir Dendrik

Overall the Wildroots feel like one living breathing entity, a unit that is so interconnected that it feels like one unit. There's never been a unit quite like these before.

Thank you for saying so! That is exactly how they were designed to feel, so it's thrilling to hear you caught on to that. Getting these guys right was a lot of work, but we're really proud of the result.

And yes, getting the Monarch down to 1 Life is an effective mindgame strategy. More so in large games, I've found, as you can more easily afford to lose some time and units chipping away at it, and can let it hang out longer in that state. As a Wildwood player, I usually choose to take the risk of losing order markers (even a whole round!) to force the matter, but it really depends on expected damage output of the opponent, positioning of the Monarch, number of remaining figures on both sides, etc.

[Tmac2200]

The link to the 3D printable miniature is a dead link. Can somebody update it?

[superfrog]

@White Knight do you have this file?

[superfrog]

Originally Posted by Tmac2200

The link to the 3D printable miniature is a dead link. Can somebody update it?

https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/...DMJcrszD9/view

[Muskie]

Adding Rygarn to the build lets you be even more aggressive with the OM (it just sacrifices 90 points). I still think 2 runners would be better than Rygarn, just sharing a thought.

[Just_a_Bill]

As written, it seems that I'm able to destroy one of my opponent's Runners and replace it with one of my own Sentinels. If that's not the design intent, then perhaps a "you control" would be appropriate:

VIGOROUS GROWTH
At the start of each round, before you place Order Markers, if you have not used a Vigorous Growth power this round, you may destroy one Wildwood Runner you control that was not placed this round and replace it with one of your previously destroyed medium Wildwood Heroes. Remove all wound markers from that Hero's Army Card.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Just_a_Bill

As written, it seems that I'm able to destroy one of my opponent's Runners and replace it with one of my own Sentinels. If that's not the design intent, then perhaps a "you control" would be appropriate:

VIGOROUS GROWTH
At the start of each round, before you place Order Markers, if you have not used a Vigorous Growth power this round, you may destroy one Wildwood Runner you control that was not placed this round and replace it with one of your previously destroyed medium Wildwood Heroes. Remove all wound markers from that Hero's Army Card.

You are correct, that should have a "you control" in there. Consider it errata'ed in.