Has any of you made a WHB list that is competitive? Ventala are quite expensive, I have only 2 trays and am still wondering whether it would be a good investment and sensible addition to Latari army to try to make this card valid.

I believe that at least 3 2*1's would be needed

Where would You rather put it? Darnati or Deepwoods?

Ventala Skirmishers [18] 2x1
Metered March [2] -
Rank Discipline [4] -
Remove Unit [24]

Ventala Skirmishers [18] 2x1
Metered March [2] -
Rank Discipline [4] -
Remove Unit [24]

Ventala Skirmishers [18] 2x1
Metered March [2] -
Rank Discipline [4] -
Remove Unit [24]

Darnati Warriors [31] 2x2
Warden of Horn and Branch [5] -
[Equipment]
Hedge Shroud [2] -

Remove Unit [38]

Aymhelin Scions [14] 1x1
[Heraldry]
Vicious Roots [3] -
Remove Unit [17]

Deepwood Archers [42] 3x2
Warden of Horn and Branch [5] -
[Equipment]
Frontline Aymhelin Scion [6] -
[Music]
Close Quarters Targeting [3] -
Remove Unit [56]

Aymhelin Scions [14] 1x1
[Heraldry]
Vicious Roots [3] -
Remove Unit [17]

Maybe it should go into list section. I was thinking that to really be able to use ability, you have to invest heavily. It is a weird list, and has serious problems with high armor units, but triggering ability at init 7 or 8 and then early might cause opponents some serious problems.

I find that upgrades in any game that depend upon a lot of variables being just right do not tend to be worth it, in this case:

1. You have to have a specific army composition to pull it off.

2. You roll a single die per Ventala, so that leaves a lot of variance on that die. Overcoming this requires you to take more Ventala.

3. There's a swing effect. You get 2 damage, but at 4 surge icons per blue die, the blue die averages 1 damage.

I think you have the right of it. You really need 3+ Ventala, and then 2 Wardens. Once you've invested that far, you've also got a pretty fixed playstyle that you need to pull it off, which leaves you predictable to the opponent. And my sense is that Deepwoods would work better. They synchronize well with the R5 and the fact that you'll have Ventala in front of you blocking already.

People will call me crazy...

Take 5 units of 4 tray Ventala, each with the Warden.

Clustered up, each unit is throwing 3 to 4 blue dice and deal 2 damage per surge.

It isn't a shooting attack, so you don't panic your own units targeting an enemy in melee.

that'd be 10 boxes. 5 if you proxy. But can be devastating. Power creep even greater than in warhammer invasion

or eight boxes. quite flexible but I'd rather let them live longer with Hedge; it's too expensive to include them though.

In my first list it is more like msu, with two units forming core and magnet to enemy, two roadblocks and 3 nimble skirmishers to do pincer movement on far flanks, able to ignore terrain and just do their job. But of course, against MSU Oathsworn it will die in no time.

If any of those units draw attention, fire once, melee once, add to ability once or twice it has paid itself.

With those bigger ventala blocks you have same problem as with maegan/fire rune - you either do one or the other of your strengths.

But sure they look creepy on battlefield and can rain death upon waiquar. Uthuks should rather eat them with ease.

Looking at spam, 4 units of 4 with the wardens, and 2 units of 2 without. Leaves somepoints for other features, like a few simul orders and corrupt runes.

Just ran the points, 4 units of 4 with warden, simul orders, rune of corruption, and 2 units of 2 is 200 points.

With the corrupt rune and warden, this just might work.

I think the open question that faces all spam type lists is if you can get up there and do enough damage off of the abilities quickly and meaningfully enough before a more conventional list damage back. Since often with Ventala, you will want to move and then attack early, your skill dial isn't free. If you do decide to attack and skill, that's I4 for melee and I8 for Ranged. And after a point, the units all crowd each other out of the way. Sure, as a thought exercise, we could probably find a way to get tons of Ventala within distance three. In practice, you have to respond to the rest of your opponent's list, which should be attempting to disrupt and/or mitigate the combo (perhaps by spreading out and leaving it much more difficult to put multiple targets at R3 of something. We looked at earlier how each blue die was worth 1 point of damage each (4 surges and 8 die faces, but swingy because of the double surge). So on balance, if you can roll 3 dice, you should produce 3 damage. That's not unlike what TS on a 3x2 Archers could do, or Fire Rune/Malcornes averages. Of course, TS exhausts and Fire Rune/Malcornes relies on the runes, which might on a given day benefit the opponent's list.

Honestly, I'd put multiple 2x1 Ventala with Hedge shroud in a list, maybe a 2x2 and two 2x1s, and then put 2x2 Archers with Warden behind them. The Ventala block and hold everything up, thus staying on the board longer and preserving damage from their numbers, while a couple of sets of archers pelt whatever engages them and triggers an average of 2-3 damage per attack (depending upon how many Ventala are alive at the moment), all without needing to exhaust/ready the upgrade. Or at least that would represent my best attempt at getting the upgrade to work more competitively. It isn't just what is theoretically possible for damage, but what works together in unity as a list. On the whole, it still feels like too many working parts, and that the problem of getting a bit more damage can be solved more easily by taking different upgrades and units.

Add in 4 corruption runes, and you've got something to worry about.

I gave it a go (proxies of course, who's got 20 trays of Ventala?), and it was surprising.

I sent 1 two tray units, and 2 four-tray units up each flank.

The corruption and warden is a powerful 1 - 2 punch.

Started off with move on 8's and shoots on the smaller units, and move on 8's and skills on the big units; which was after my opponents entire army.

This let me get Ventala units within range 3 on turn 1, and then let me throw out 4 corruption runes and 6 blue dice worth of wardens.

On turn 2, everybody went on 3 (which was ahead of almost all of my opponents units, this time throwing out 4 more corruption runes and 8 dice worth of surgy death).

Combined, in this alpha style strike, immobilized a few units and that turned out to be deadly. By spamming corruption into larger units to slow them, and shooting and wardening the smaller units, it let me murder and halt my opponent.

On turn 3, I started really moving again, this time using the free turns that Ventala do to bank both flanks toward the center.

I was taking some losses, but being able to Corrupt into combat, and being able to Warden into combat without panicking my own units was pretty nice.

I'd never build this army... well, unless I get a good deal as online retailers clearance out this stock.

It was a pretty fun, and very tactical game. Position and units working together was critical; which is really how I see Elf type lists working. Not a single deathstar, but rather several units working in concert.

-Matt

This is hilarious. I would never have taken this army seriously on paper. It goes to show why you have to actually build these things and play them out. I wonder if this approach was revelead during playtesting...

Cool report. Definitely an expensive army to outfit.

21 hours ago, sarumanthewhite said:

This is hilarious. I would never have taken this army seriously on paper. It goes to show why you have to actually build these things and play them out. I wonder if this approach was revelead during playtesting...

The part that was surprising is how damage didn't significantly diminish as I lost trays.

With 1-3 from corruption and 0-6 from the warden, even when one of the 4 trays was knocked down to 1 tray, it was still a threat.

When the 2 tray block was knocked down to a single tray, it was still a threat, it was giving a blue die to all the other wardens.

With everything with protect 1, it was in the end grind that the list pulled through.

It was a lot more flexible than I though it was going to be, and almost got better at the end as the Ventala units got smaller; as it became easier to get unit into range and line of sight.