Hot takes, come get your hot takes! We have just had the December releases for Sÿenann dropped and boy howdy they are some tasty morsels. If you hated Sÿenann before, you will loathe them now. With these new units they’re going to double down on the three things that they do best: assassinate, jump around, and pin you down, and all without letting you respond! Yay player interaction!
Let’s start with the burliest of the bunch, the Shadow of the Hawthorn:
The Hawthorn is a solo character with 3 wounds, an insane defence roll, and a reliable but weak melee attack with a nice disarm switch. His job isn’t to kill things though – it is to jump in and conquer an objective while pinning an enemy there helplessly, and then stay alive. Let me just clarify how astounding his defence roll is – if he stresses for the modifier and gets to use his switch, he is natively rolling 7 blocks 77% of the time. Add in Lioslaith’s extra block and this guy can tank an assault from Warg Riders without taking a scratch. Who knew all elves had to do to become invulnerable was lift weights?
Apart from being bulky, he is also agile – he can use Innate Agility as an action to place himself 3 strides of an allied Nemorous unit, a forest, or a piece of rugged terrain within 7 strides. If the target is a 3-troop unit each standing 2 strides apart, then that unit is effectively 10 strides long, so the Hawthorn could leap a mighty 22 strides – 7 strides on one side, 3 strides on the other, plus his base. This doesn’t require line of sight so you could jump over a wall or over enemies. Placing allows you to engage, so your second action could be to attack. This ability can also be used while engaged to help you jump out of a tricky situation.
Conquering the objective is also easy with a native conquest of 2, and the awesome Isolate the Enemy – you reduce the conquest of enemies engaged with you by 1. This means no number of conquest 1 enemies can engage you and take your objective, and you can steal objectives from enemies with conquest 2. You tie with conquest 3 enemies, which means if you get there first you can keep it (unless they strategically don’t end the activation engaged with you).
The second part of Isolate the Enemy is the key point of this unit – enemies engaged with you cannot perform movements or be placed. That means no walking out of combat, even with Large units (e.g. War Rigs), no jumping away with switches or with Red Cap’s Anxious Mob – shove, attract, and displace are all types of movement, which is not allowed. This, along with the new Sprigs (found here), are the only units in the game that can truly pin an enemy in position, particularly a large one.
What that all means is that this unit is excellent at getting into hard to reach objectives and stealing them, while keeping itself alive. Another great use for him will be in missions like Loot where he can use his agility and durability to grab a Loot and stay out of danger. I look forward to seeing this monkey-man bouncing around the tabletop soon.
This guy is an easy A tier – great at what they do, offers something unique and list-defining.
Shadow of the Rowan
Next up is the Shadow of the Rowan, expert ambusher. She is rocking an 18 stride bow attack with a switch which gives a stress on a hollow hit (40% for 1, 10% for 2). This won’t do much damage to anyone other than a solo spellcaster, but a 40% chance of stressing can be clutch. Sadly she has no Aim to reroll with. Her switchless melee attack is not much to fear and her defence is unreliable but slightly tanky if the enemy is already stressed. More important for her survival is her Camouflage, situationally superior than that of Shadows of the Yew; when she is further than 7 strides from an enemy, that enemy cannot draw line of sight to her as long as she is within 3 strides of terrain…
Her main power, however, is that she is Behind the Trees – at the end of the activation in which you deployed her with Ambush, another ally with 7 strides can attack, charge, or assault without activating! They can be fully stressed, or locked in combat, or whatever, and won’t get stressed for activating. I’m talking double hitting with Shadows of the Yew, Wardens, or whoever else you need. Stress management is one the most important aspects of playing Warcrow, so getting an out-of-sequence attack from your units without activating is enormous, if situational.
In addition, she has the excellent Hidden Traps – for a command point you can attack any enemy within 12 strides that charges or assaults. The ROO ranged attack is unlikely to do much damage, but it has a 44% chance to give 1 stress, and 31% chance of 2 stress! This could be the difference between an attacking unit double stressing to kill your defender, and the attacker getting demoralised at the end of the activation to run away. Note this ability does not require the enemy to target the Rowan, so she can just ambush down next to your Wardens on the middle objective, shoot to give a stress, let the Wardens charge and push back the opponent off the objective, and then use Hidden Traps when they try to counterattack.
Morale 1 is her greatest weakpoint, but I imagine she won’t be activated after she drops in with ambush so it won’t matter much.
Given her weak damage profile she’s going to be very situational, but Sÿenann is all about creating good situations. Depending on how we go about finding all the uses for her, I think she’s a solid B tier – good at what they do, but are often situational.
Now comes the tastiest parts, the Walker of the Leaf Storm and Aileen!
Walker of the Leaf Storm
Man, oh man do I look forward to exploring all the uses of this unit. Either she is going to be amazing, and opponents of Sÿenann will put her up on their rage list next to Shadows of the Yew, or we’ll figure out in the meta that she doesn’t matter much and Sÿenann players will put her on their shelf next to Aoidos. I’m betting on the former.
A frail statline, weak attack and soft defence only serve to highlight the simmering power that this unit possesses. She is a Nemorous ambusher, allowing by itself a great of shenanigans, but her real trickery which come in the form of three abililties which are really all one and the same. Enter the Portal is a spell that allows you to remove her and two allied units from the table and at the end of the next turn place herself anywhere on the table within 3 strides of a forest or allied Nemorous unit, and then the two teleporting buddies within 3 strides of herself. Prepared to Strike then lets you spend a command token (only once per round!) to let one of those units you just teleported activate. Activate! You are effectively trading the Walker’s activation for the teleported unit’s, plus a delay of one turn, plus teleporting. My brain is just swimming with all the possibilities this opens up already, let alone for what might come. Activation cheats are some of the most powerful skills that we can get in Warcrow, and now Sÿenann gets a great one.
Let’s walk through a dream scenario – you are going first, and on your third turn of the round you ambush in Shadows of the Yew to assassinate something. They do their job, but due to your opponent’s clever deployment, your elite unit is now stuck somewhere useless. Your opponent moves a unit over to deal with them, but on your next turn, you ambush in the Walker of the Leaf Storm and portal the Yews out of there. Your opponent has no targets to counterattack and goes back to doing the mission. Silence falls on the table, it’s quiet, too quiet… You then ambush in Lioslaith and soften up a target. Your opponent counterattacks, but they can’t kill her due to her magical and fashionable clothing. At the end of the turn, the Walker of the Leaf Storm portals in next to Lioslaith (who is Nemorous), as do the Shadows of the Yew. They then immediately charge whoever is engaged with Lioslaith and probably kill it, in part thanks to the gang-up bonus. The round ends, and your first action is to activate the Walker of the Leaf Storm and portal out again, taking Lioslaith and the Shadows of the Yew with her, ready to come back in again next turn. Your opponent has received three attacks, and has had zero real opportunities to counterattack, and all the pieces you used are currently off the board, waiting to come back in almost wherever you like. I think people are going to absolutely hate it, which is a good elvish measure of how awesome a thing they are doing is.
As I read it this ability will work with Wardens and their rally/charge, but only if you are going second and your opponent attacks the Wardens as their activation. The Wardens can then use Feigned Retreat to flee and you can use the Walker to portal them and a buddy off the table. Next turn, after both activations, the Walker comes back in with the Wardens and the buddy, and can use Prepared to Strike to activate the buddy (but not the Wardens, who are still fleeing), and after that the Wardens can rally and charge. So you could clump three attacks into a single activation, given a very particular set of circumstances.
There are of course some major limitations. Firstly, you have to get the spell off. A willpower of OO means an 85% chance of one hit and if someone tries to block you, your chance of succeeding with at least a hit drops to 53%, giving a 47% chance you have to take a tinge to pass the test. Tinge with morale 2 isn’t the worst thing in the world, but there’s a distinct possibility you’ll gain a stress and stay stressed for the rest of the game. If you ever completely fail the spell, that’s going to suck – the Walker will have wasted an activation, and she and whatever unit you were planning on portalling out of there will be warg food.
Additionally, you can only portal back in near forests and Nemorous units. If those things aren’t where you need them to be, it’s pretty useless. Bringing a Druid seems sensible to ensure at least one objective is covered by his magic tree, but your opponent can still use this limitation to outmanoeuvre you.
Thirdly, she has no other powers, conquest, threat, or survivability. If you can’t find a reason to enter and exit the portals, she’s not got much to do. Except be an ambushing Nemorous unit to trigger your other powers, but that seems a sad fate for some with such awesome potential.
I think she’s S tier (best in their class, causes great dismay in your opponents) because I love teleport shenanigans, but it might turn out that it’s not that impactful, in which case she might drop to B or even C.
Aileen Cethir Wynn
Last but not least we have the epitome of Sÿenann annoyance, Aileen. She is also a Nemorous ambusher with a non-damaging attack, who instead delivers something new for Sÿennan – she can give out any state she likes, pretty much at will. Her ranged attack has a 7 stride range with OYY plus any die of your choice. If you want more states, take yellow. If you need damage, go red. If you do take yellow you have a 36% of giving out all four states (Slowed, Frightened, Disarmed, and Vulnerable), and 70% of at least 3. Your opponent can of course Rest in retaliation, but that only clears one state, so they’ll still have the others. Finding situations that would really benefit from this kind of attack will be key to getting work out of Eileen.
She also has the excellent Walk Between Realms, which lets her place 10, shoot, then place 10 again. The range here is enormous – she can effectively use this to move 24 with a shooting attack in the middle. Place is a teleport, so does not need line of sight, allowing her to jump over enemies or terrain.
The most obvious synergy I find for her is to prepare to a target to get charged by Vercana. With all the states applied, Vercana will be 1) giving a stress at the start of combat, 2) removing a stress at the start of combat, 3) dealing an additional damage and 4) adding her defence modifier for free. In combination with the Walker of the Leaf Storm above, Vercana could even charge in the same activation that Aileen gave out states, giving your opponent no possible chance to respond.
Picture this awful scenario: On your turn you ambush in Vercana and charge something squishy, killing it and moving away to safety. Then, the Walker of the Leaf Storm ambushes in and portals her away. Next turn, Aileen ambushes in near some poor sad target, like a Revenant. She uses Walk Between Realms to place herself within 7, shoots her ranged attack to give all the states, then places herself engaged to give the gang- up bonus. Then at the end of the turn, Vercana portals in next to her (Aileen is Nemorous) and charges. Without taking into account the gang-up or disarmed bonus, Vercana has a 75% chance to deal all 5 wounds to the Revenant and kill it. And that could all be against any target on the table.
I find Disarmed and Vulnerable can make such a huge difference to combat, I think Aileen is going to be the bane of elite units, and with Slowed and Frightened she can also threaten most other things too.
As a little cherry on top, she can also shout Hey! Listen! for nostalgia purposes and to place 2 a friendly unit within 12, potentially pulling them out of combat. As this has a target it does require line of sight and since she does not have Preferred Terrain (Forest), you can’t pull someone into the bush with you.
I see Aileen being an astoundingly good tracker as well as Loot carrier. Jumping in, giving out Vulnerable and Frightened then melee attacking may also be just enough to push weak enemies off objectives to steal them with conquest zero.
Overall she is going to be a thorn in the side of your opponent, if you can find the places to get the most out of her. I think she’s A tier, but it might be a B given how many agile units we already have who compete for her space.
Summary
There you go – a burly muscle man who hugs enemies into submission, a ambushy bush lady who lets you double attack, a teleporting whirlwind of options and annoyance, and a state-throwing acrobat with the coolest model yet.
Did I miss anything? Jump on the Discord and let me know your thoughts. I can’t wait to see what you all figure out seeing these guys on the table.
If you liked this article, check out my previous one on how to play Sÿenann.