I’ve been playing Forces of Nature on UB for a while (including through the whole of the recent Call to Arms 3 UB tourney). That’s helped me to decide what kind of army I want (FoN offering so many different builds) and to pick units. It’s going to be a trees and centaurs army, plus the odd pegasus, and unicorn.
I’ve just finished the first unit - a regiment of Forest Shamblers. I’ll keep posting progress here (as well as on FB in the Slow Grow Army Challenge and the Forces of Nature groups.
The pictures aren’t great, but the colour scheme and basing look good (to my eyes, at least) in the flesh.
I’ve got the bit between my teeth now on this army. It’s all trees at the moment: Two regiments and one horde of Forest Shamblers, a Forest Warden and a Tree Herder ready for the Ent Moot!
Prepping and assembling the Forest Shamblers feels like it takes as long as painting them, but I like the models and find that with the addition of model trees and chunks of bark / rock to the bases, it’s possible to get quite a bit of variety into the units. That’s lucky, as I’m not finished with the trees yet !
After a painting marathon, I’ve just about got 1650-points-worth of Forest Shambler, Tree Herders and Forest Wardens painted in time for tomorrow’s Franticon tournament (doubles on Saturday, singles on Sunday). A few units still need a bit more TLC, but I’m calling it tabletop ready.
I don’t yet know where I finished, but I had 3 wins and 1 loss, so I was very happy.
My list was:
3 regiments of Forest Shamblers
3 hordes of the same
Wiltfather with Sacred Horn
Tree Herder withChant of Hate
Forest Warden with Healing Brew
That did occur to me, but I don’t think so. The Wiltfather is not a unique unit. Wiltfather is a unique upgrade to a Tree Herder. Some such upgrades say that you cannot also take a magical artefact or other upgrade. E.g. in Trident Realm of Neritica the Naiad Envoy has a unique upgrade, Horn of Ocean’s Fury [1]. That has a sentence: “This unique upgrade cannot be taken in conjunction with a magical artefact”. Wiltfather does not have any similar restriction.
This seems FAQ worthy. I guess it depends on if the Wiltfather is a unique upgrade for a Tree Herder or if the upgrade changes the Tree Herder into a unique unit. Interesting implications both ways, either the Wiltfather can have items or it doesn’t count against your number of Tree Herder duplicates for army composition.
Ed - think given the specific wording they have put in place for some units (which restrict artifacts, being mounted etc) the lack of that means that you are able to take any other available upgrade/item. Wording in the unit selection red seem to imply that as well (ie it is a unique upgrade, not a LL unit)
It’s a bit murky. The definition for Limited Units on page 42 of the printed book says a unit is a Limited Unit if it has [n] after its name which “Upgrade to The Wiltfather [1]…” does. Page 45 under Magical Artefacts says "Unique units (i.e. units with a [1] limit) cannot choose artefacts. However, Unique Units seems to be a unit section like Cavalry, Monsters, or Titans in the army profiles. The Wilfather is not listed there but that type isn’t defined other than having the [1] after the name which it does. And lastly, all the other [1] upgrades I found, such as the Varangar’s Wolf Handlers, were worded differently than The Wiltfather so comparing to other unit profiles wasn’t much help.
So it boils down to whether The Wiltfather is a Tree Herder with a unique upgrade or The Wiltfather.
Wiltfather isn’t a unit, it’s an upgrade. There’s plenty of other upgrades and spells that have [1] after them. Does a naiad envoy that takes Bastion [1] become a unique unit and unable to take magical artefacts? And in that case there’s two [1] upgrades in the same unit entry, one of which specifies the restriction on magical artefacts and the other doesn’t. It doesn’t seem likely that’s a case of sloppy rule writing.
I’ve read the rules to mean that only units that are in the Unique Units section at the end of each army list, where the unit itself has [1] against its name, have the blanket “no magical artefacts” restriction, and upgrades and spells that are [1] just mean that you can only take 1 of them with no additional restrictions unless specified in the description. It seems that whoever checked the lists for Franticon (King of Herts and EritBellumII) thought it was OK, though they might not have noticed it.
Anyhow, if you think it’s ambiguous, go ahead and put the question to the community on Facebook. It would be good to have a ruling from the RC.
as i understand it, normally upgrades wouldn’t effect the ability to take artifacts, but in this case it is an upgrade that changes the Unit name and identity, and that new unit name and identity is a limited unit. which would fall under the limit on artifacts.
however my suggestion would be to contact mantic and request a clarification.
The mushrooms are part of the model, like the bullrushes on one of the figures (which are a bit fragile). I still need to do some highlighting on the mushrooms / fungi, but I am happy with the overall colour scheme.
A regiment of Kindred Archers enters the woods. I did take these guys to Franticon, but they were done in a great hurry to just about gaming standard. I’ve now had time to add a few more colours and details. And yes, I did take them all off the base and paint each model individually rather than just working on the bits that showed!
