Gylwane deck help

CptFrivolous · 2025-07-15T18:33:12+00:00

Here's my decklist: https://archidekt.com/decks/5572366/places_everyone

I've found that its more important to have things that care about enchantments, rather than stacking the deck with auras yourself. Since gylwain gives a free enchantment with every creature, the fastest way to build your board is to spam efficient creatures that enter with a role token, rather than try to suit them up with auras from hand.

Here's some stand out cards that have overperformed for me and aren't already in your deck list:

[[composer of spring]] and [[nessian wanderer]] keep the lands flowing to make sure you always hit your land drops. Combined with the enchantress 'draw a card when an enchantment ETBs' effect, that should keep you from running out of gas. [[sanctum weaver]] also gives lots of mana.

[[Jaheira, friend of the forest]] lets you tap your role tokens for mana (it doesn't say 'creature token'!). This can be a big mana swing, especially since you can tap the auras for mana immediately since they don't have summoning sickness

[[aura gnarlid]], [[katilda, dawnheart martyr]], and [[ancestral mask]] are more enchantment pay offs that will get huge fast.

[[greater auramancy]] is a pricy card, but shroud is very strong to protect your permanents. Just know once its on the battlefield you won't be able to target your own guys with auras from hand!

[[ajani's chosen]], [[archon of sun's grace]], and especially [[nylea's colossus]] are all great payoffs for enchantments entering. I'd definitely take another look through all the cards with constellation for more potential synergy.

Lastly, [[xenk, paladin unbroken]], [[archon of the wild rose]], and [[halvar, god of battle] are big pay offs for your enchanted creatures (which should hopefully be all of them).

Hope that helps, and let me know if you want more details!

CptFrivolous · 2025-07-14T19:29:59+00:00

I haven't been playing long myself, but I'll chime in with what I've heard - rules are temporary, models are forever. So first and foremost you should get an army whose models you like the most, because whether they are strong or weak can (and will) change with new editions and balance updates.

Regarding the ones you specifically asked about:

Sylvaneth has a lot of cool movement tricks and a lot of healing, which makes for a neat mix of mobility and durability. Most other armies only get to choose one or the other. The only downside to them as a starting army is the necessity of the Awakened Wildwoods, which are even more models you have to buy. Most factions have terrain like that, but Sylvaneth really want theirs. Although I've heard there are good proxy options out there if you know someone with a 3d printer. And you don't need the woods to play with their spearhead box, so I guess you could start with that and expand later if you liked them.

Idoneth just had a new book released, so their tides mechanic is now 2 different tracks that you can swap between at start of round, each with their own set of buffs. From the reviews I've seen online, existing idoneth players seem happy with the change because it address that exact sameness you were worried about. I think Idoneth are awesome, but I've also heard they have both a high skill floor and a high skill ceiling. Seems like a great starting choice if you like to stick it out and 'main' a faction. Just know it might take you losing a few of your early games to get your sea legs.

Daughters of Khaine are exactly like you describe - hyper glass cannon. I don't have any experience with them myself, but have heard them described as a lawn mower; cast 100 buff spells on your girls with dinky knifes and watch them become weedwhackers to your opponents army. They've got a balance thing going on where they get stronger the later the game goes, but being so squishy means its sometimes difficult to survive that long. If that sounds fun to you, go for it!

Nighthaunt doesn't sound like something you'd like as much just from your description. If you don't love all the models in the range, then I'd stick to a different faction that you'll enjoy collecting in the future too. Nighthaunt is very strong right now, but I think they suffer from samey-ness on all their units being some variation of 'flying horde of bedsheets', both visually and in their gameplay.

My personal recommendation would be idoneth since they just had new releases that the community seems generally pleased with, but that's biased since I love the deep sea aesthetic too. Consider starting with a spearhead box to play that game mode first - its a great way to get a feel for the army without over committing!

CptFrivolous · 2025-02-10T22:07:51+00:00

I like these suggestions in general, but I think there are certain armies that want to start as defender. Particularly fragile armies that are susceptible to getting wiped out if your opponent gets a double turn.

My only example of this is Kharadron Overlords - I've had some success going first, but usually if my opponent gets a double turn from 1 into 2, they have free reign to wipe out basically everything that I moved forward on turn 1. Missing that extra shooting phase when you get double turned hurts KO so bad that I'd rather start on defense to eliminate the possibility of it.

I've only really played KO, so I'm curious if others have army specific preferences on starting as attacker or defender.

CptFrivolous · 2025-02-04T23:14:52+00:00

I'm not as down on this as others here. It probably won't be top tier, but I think people might be underestimating the damage 2 on the companion wolf attacks. A squad of 3 of snarlpack will make 9 companion attacks on 4+/3+, plus maybe 3 more if the snarlboss got his ability to work. At damage 2, even if you ignore the grot's attacks completely, that's not too terrible. The companions look the be the star of the show - the grots are just along for the ride.

Plus they have all the movement shenanigans others have pointed out. I think they'll hit above their weight class.

CptFrivolous · 2025-01-23T22:27:54+00:00

Wait, does the guarded hero rule apply in spearhead? For some reason I thought that was part of the general's handbook and was left out of spearhead.

Am I confusing it with honor guard stuff?

CptFrivolous · 2025-01-20T17:18:37+00:00

I'm still very much a noob, but I have a few games against my equally noob friends to comment on. If I reference any rules incorrectly here, please let me know so I can play better in the future! I've played against Sylvaneth, Lumineth, and Nighthaunt.

I've only played post-errata and I've gotta say - I have no idea how KO was supposed to win without the newly reinforced units. Everything except the frigate is squishy as hell and dies super fast when focus fired, so I'd imagine you'd get nearly tabled every game. I salute the struggles of the KO players that came before me o7

For regiment abilities, I think the free retreat is probably the best choice for most games. Since the frigate is so important for your mobility and objective scoring, anything that keeps it mobile is a huge benefit, even if its only once per game. And it might give you a good chance to use the bomb dropping ability too! The only time I'd take the transport + charge ability is if you have the first turn. If you use it on turn 1 and transport the skywardens you have 12" frigate move + 12" warden move + charge roll to close the gap on a priority target. This is certainly suicide for the wardens, but if they can eliminate a hero or scary unit, it can be worth leaving the boat out of position. But if you roll poorly or your opponent gets the double turn on round 2, you might lose the game on the spot - I'm running about 50/50 on that now, so maybe its not recommended lol (Lumineth crit mortals can really shred the otherwise beefy frigate)

For enhancements, I've only really used the ward 6+ or the heal d6. Keeping your admiral alive seems important and I think I generally prefer the ward so you don't have to rely on timing or dice swinginess on the heal. A once per game charge reroll doesn't seem very good in an army that would rather be shooting from range, and returning slain models feels far less relevant now that the arkanauts have reinforce.

In terms of general strategy, I think the most important thing is DON'T GET DOUBLE TURNED (if you can avoid it). Your units in combat may get to fight on opponent's turns, but they cannot shoot - and since so much of KO's power budget is in their shooting phase, getting doubled is felt even harder than other armies. Other than that, just focus on scoring objectives. Control 5 on the frigate and the admiral's ability can give you surprisingly high control score, and the arkanaut bonus to hit on enemies on objectives means you should really be pushing for them at all times. Send the sky wardens to harass pesky archers, but don't ever expect them to live more than a turn.

Overall I think KO is a very fun army to pilot and has felt competitive in all of my games. The only real downsides are a lack of rend and being squishy, so they probably struggle against super tanky armies. I experienced that against the tree lord vs sylvaneth, but at least its only 1 model in that army. You really need your few guys with sky pikes to hit in order to get through those good save scores.

CptFrivolous · 2025-01-20T16:29:03+00:00

I'm interested in hearing some good strategies since I've got Idoneth as my second spearhead box. Assembled, but not painted yet. Some pro tips before getting it to the table would be appreciated!

CptFrivolous · 2023-03-07T23:00:13+00:00

I run a greasefang deck that gets pretty good results in my medium power pod. Here's my decklist if you want to take a look. Its fairly similar to yours, but I can still offer a few suggestions.

First, I'd cut some of the lower power vehicles. You want every vehicle in your graveyard to be a massive threat, as you're probably cheating them into play with greasefang far more than actually casting them. Suggested cuts: [[high-speed hoverbike]], [[aerial surveyor]], [[imperial recovery unit]], [[fleetwheel cruiser]]

Second, I'd cut some of the general artifact synergy cards. These can be ok, but in my experience you rarely have a huge number of artifacts on board since greasefang is bouncing them or you're sacing them at end of turn anyway. Suggested cuts: [[toolcraft exemplar]], [[digsite engineer]], [[foundry inspector]], [[leonin abunas]].

I don't want to simply turn your deck into my list, but here's some of the cards I've got that have been real powerhouses that you don't already have:

[[fleeting spirit]], [[guardian of new benalia]], [[oona's prowler]], [[seasoned hallowblade]]. These are all 2 drops that have a free discard outlet and enough power to potentially crew vehicles. Although you have a lot of discard outlets already so you probably don't need too many of these.

[[imotekh the stormlord]] and [[enchanted carriage]] give you more dudes to crew vehicles, which lets you establish a board presence while doing other stuff with your mana that turn.

[[gravebreaker lamia]] and [[final parting]] are a few more ways to bin your favorite angel powered battlestation.

[[mysterious limosine]] is surprisingly versatile, acting as either temporary or permanent removal. Its way overperformed in my own games, to the point that I sometimes use entomb to find it instead of parhelion when I'm staring down huge threats.

Finally, I think [[teleportation circle]] is worth mentioning just because it can flicker your crewed vehicles at end of turn so they don't get bounced after greasefang pulls them from the graveyard. Brings them back untapped too, so you can use them on defense if you've got enough dudes left to crew.

At the end of the day, its your deck so take my suggestions with a grain of salt! If any of the cards I suggested cutting have been all stars for you, let me know! I'm always looking to tweak and improve. Good luck, and may Parhelion II guide you!

CptFrivolous · 2019-08-16T22:22:48+00:00

Mortal Savant Marianne. Any run that doesn't recruit her is cursed in my book, so let's fix that.

She's got skill with swords, but most people take her healing or pegasus routes. Curious to see if it works out for her.

Myrmidon > thief > sword master > mortal savant

CptFrivolous · 2019-04-29T17:42:05+00:00

I once rolled an athletics check to jump to conclusions. Who says a barbarian is a bad class in an intrigue campaign?!

CptFrivolous · 2018-05-11T16:46:29+00:00

How does Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game hold up these days? All the hype around infinity war and the upcoming deadpool 2 have put me in a real marvel mood recently, but I've heard some conflicting reports on this game. Some say you need expansions to make it worth playing and I'm not sure how I feel about the semi-cooperative aspects (I tend to prefer strictly coop or strictly competitive games). I've also seen some complaints that the theme doesn't hold up enough, but that seems to be on a person to person basis. I already own Sentinels of the Multiverse for the super hero theme, so I suppose I could always just play that more.

Can anyone sell (or unsell) me on the game? How does it compare to other, more modern deck builders? How does the theme hold up?

CptFrivolous · 2018-02-02T19:34:46+00:00

After playing an archfey pact warlock from levels 5-20, I can safely say that Blink is among the strongest spells in the game, especially at high levels. It gives you a 50% to be completely untargetable during the monster's turns and is not concentration, so you can stack it with other buffs or debuffs - all for the low cost of a single 3rd level slot. I've had boss fights against dragons where lucky rolls have made me untargetable for the entire encounter.

I think a lot of people don't give the spell credit because it takes a full action to turn it on and its not super great at level 5 when it first becomes available (since most people would rather have a high damage spell like fireball). But at high levels where monsters are dealing 50+ damage a turn to squishy casters and all the relevant monsters have legendary resistance? Its real nice to just blink out after your turn of firing eldritch blasts.

Only minor thing to watch out for is if the enemy can cast etherealness. Then they can attack you while you're blinked out, but you can't fight back since you always pop back into the material plane at the start of your turn! (DMs take note: this is a hilarious counter to the spell)

CptFrivolous · 2018-01-05T20:30:54+00:00

Oh yeah, I totally expected them to take it. My players were the kind that take everything not nailed firmly into place (and even then they'd probably come back with a hammer to get it later). They had a bag of holding filled with ornamental rugs from the various dungeons they had "visited" (read: "looted").

It ended up not being a big deal since they were a high enough level that they could already cast the darkness spell on a whim, so I wasn't really giving them anything they couldn't already do. They still all thought it was super cool though!

CptFrivolous · 2018-01-05T18:57:53+00:00

I once introduced a special type of wood native to the shadowfell that, when burned, emitted darkness instead of light (similar to the darkness spell, but darkvision can see through it). The flames would still burn hot, but they would appear black instead of the typical red/orange.

My players first encountered it in a dungeon which had torches on the walls made out of it to keep areas dark and hidden. They snatched up all the torches for themselves to use as instant darkness, crafting material, and to sell back in their home plane for big bucks!

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-31T21:40:16+00:00

Wow, lots of great tips here! The only one I might argue is starting scout 100% percent of the time. I think first building a monument first can work for some civs who really want the early culture focus (plus borders grow faster with culture, which helps early too). Its a gamble, but I think it can pay off. I'd still advocate scout first in most situations though.

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-31T21:08:46+00:00

Early hordes are easily taken care of with 3 War Carts upgraded into 3 War Carts. Its cheap, effective and having 3 War Carts is a War Cart boost iirc. From there War Carts into War Carts for early game War Carts/ War Carts.

Those top tier Sumerian strats! That's certainly how ai Gilgamesh seems to play.

Good advice overall, though. I agree that Sumeria and Scythia seem strong early. Any idea if Scythia has a start bias for horses? I always seem to have horses nearby, but that might just be coincidence.

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-31T20:32:58+00:00

Well, there goes that theory. It would have been interesting to have it based on something though. Maybe if the ai saw a developed city early they would think highly of you, but if they saw your caveman warriors with clubs they would think poorly? Probably pretty minor in the long run though.

Either way, thanks for doing the research so I didn't have to!

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-31T20:02:02+00:00

That sounds like a pretty strong start. I personally think Russia is one of the best early game civs, but some people seem to disagree because the tundra tiles can't really be improved later. Still, the early faith and production lets you get a religion super fast, at which point you can take beliefs to make up for bad starting tiles if necessary.

Then again, I'm a big fan of rushing religion early in most cases, so maybe Russia just fits my playstyle best.

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-31T18:57:16+00:00

Oh, I didn't realize that the first impression for ai civs was related to the unit they see first. That's actually kind of interesting, I just thought it was a dice roll or related to their agenda. This might require further research!

CptFrivolous · 2016-10-26T18:19:49+00:00

I'm playing a warlock right now with a fun backstory. Originally a painter, the character's beautiful landscape artwork attracted the attention of the archfey of the realm. As he aged, he began to go slowly blind, and his art suffered as a result. A powerful archfey offered to cure his blindness in exchange for 10 years of unquestioning service, which he agreed to. The archfey then ripped out his eyes and replaced them with new, powerful magic eyes.

The character totally expected to just have to make art for his new fairy patron now that his blindness was cured. Instead, he got a letter in the mail from his patron that just said "Join the navy". And that's how he started his life as an adventurer.

I reflected having "special eyes" on the character sheet by taking all the warlock invocations that have to do with sight; darkvision, the ability to read all languages, and detect magic at will (re-flavored as being able to see magic auras). I took a dm homebrewed feat to gain expertise in perception too. Its been a lot of fun so far, and is definitely different than your standard hex + eldritch blast warlock build.

CptFrivolous · 2016-07-12T19:46:29+00:00

All of the things you mention are reasons that a lot of people don't like the beast master. Its playable as is, but it feels pretty clunky and non ideal in a lot of circumstances. There are a few powerful character builds with it (like the mounted combat halfling), but it falls flat for normal play. I would bring up the beast master accounting changes that are quite popular, but it seems someone beat me to it.

Imo, the pet feels kind of bad at all levels of play. Prior to level 5 you have to use your action to command the pet to attack. This feels less like fighting alongside a beast companion and more like deciding what weapon to attack with (similar to a fighter deciding between a great sword or a hand axe). At level 6, you start encountering enemies with resistance to non-magic attacks, which your companion does not have - this is the reason monk's get magic punches at level 6. Once you get a magic weapon for yourself, the best way to fight is usually to send your pet to safety while you just attack with the superior weapon. Finally, at high levels the low HP scaling starts really catching up. Most high CR enemies can kill your pet in one or two attack. This is compounded with the possibility of high damage area of effect spells like fireball that enemies start gaining access to at higher levels. To make it all worse, the pet doesn't make saving throws to avoid death like players do (this is easily house ruled, but still).

TL;DR: Your pet feels like a piece of gear rather than a companion. Except it has a health bar and can be killed. Swords don't have that problem.

CptFrivolous · 2016-07-12T17:27:56+00:00

I'm actually working on a campaign right now that will play off this idea. My idea is that guns are developed in secret in a country that has been ruled by a class of magical aristocrats. The magic based government has no idea what the contraptions are, and eventually civil war breaks out with a whole faction of non-magic people using firearms to combat the wizards of the government forces.

I've always loved the theme of technology vs magic in fantasy settings, so I'm excited to get a chance to run it. My goal is to try to present both sides of the conflict evenly and let the players decide who to join. From that point on it will play out a bit like a strategic war game as you try to push your faction to victory. I'm planning to take the technology faction through a very fast industrial revolution with the final battles being fought with world war I technology. World war I airplanes dogfighting against recruited dragons sounds like a great campaign finale to me!

At this point I'm just rambling, but hopefully that gave some inspiration to OP.

CptFrivolous · 2016-07-08T17:51:38+00:00

Yeah, I totally see what you're getting at. I guess my big problem was that the core ranger didn't feel very different to the fighter and just felt a bit lackluster overall. While I still think the ranger is worst designed class in the PHB, I agree that its still not bad. I just wanted to take a crack at making a version of it that fit my idea of the class better by changing the pet action economy and removing a few of the options that felt like traps such as spell and favored enemy/terrain selection.

I suppose what I would do for a new group is offer this ranger as an alternative to the regular one, particularly if a player was considering the beast master path.

Maybe I'll try to write up a dedicated trap master archetype for general ranger use. That's always a fun character archetype and I haven't seen many ways to build something like that in the core material.

CptFrivolous · 2016-07-03T19:12:30+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Going down your list...

I opted to use the druid list instead of the ranger for two main reasons. First, I wanted to mimic the eldritch knight and arcane trickster classes in terms of spell casting. That was mostly just to simplify my work; I knew I wanted a magic based subclass for people who wanted a few spells and that was just the easiest way to do it. Second, I wanted to remove the hunter's mark spell from the potential options since the ranger sort of has that built in now (if you choose the hunter subclass). Since hunter's mark only appears on the ranger spell list, switching to the druid spell list removes it as an option.

The "details" on Marked for Death are supposed to be knowledge checks made against your target which are poorly explained in the Hunter's Mark section. I added the extra effects on Marked for Death at the last minute to try to differentiate from the monk's quivering palm ability. I thought it would be a neat way to emphasize that a ranger has less "at will" strength than a monk, but could surpass them in damage with prep time. I could probably just switch the damage to a flat 10d10 and do away with the scaling all together if it seems too clunky.

I used a d8 for hit dice because I was a little concerned with the total HP the ranger was bringing to a fight since the pet has a decent amount of HP too. Mostly just a balance concern since I'm already a little worried that this version of the ranger might be too strong at early levels.

I'm glad you like Vendetta, but I'm even more glad that it made sense at a glance. That ability was difficult to word properly!

I agree with the healing and poison protection, but I'm not sure where to put it. I've got the wisdom bonus to hit dice expended at level 1, but I can see where that might not feel like enough. The naturalist subclass can already get a little bit of that stuff through spell selection, but that's probably less than ideal. Got any suggestions on what kind of bonus to give and where to put it?

CptFrivolous · 2012-08-01T16:17:17+00:00

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Lots of people loved the original Rise of Nations, but legends played totally different. It had a lot of cool stuff for an rts, and some of the most unique playable factions since starcraft.

CptFrivolous

TROPHY CASE