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Hi all,

I have recently been considering starting KO in 2021 but this got me thinking how to counter them with my existing armies of Sylvaneth and Ymetrica stone guard-based Lumineth. Does anyone have any general tips?

I understand responses to KO will vary greatly between the two armies I mentioned and the lists brought to the game. To give a flavour, I would include a few units of Sentinels in my Lumineth to give that 30” no-line-of-sight mortals threat, but they still move slowly. As for Sylvaneth, they can use Wyldwoods to move around but any general pointers on countering an even more mobile army with them would be great.

My initial thoughts are, with Sylvaneth at least, to lean into their strengths of buffs / debuffs associated with Wyldwoods (even though flying KO units can see into the woods) and to play more of the objective game with Wyldwood mobility and using KO low model count against them. As a shooting army, KO would have a harder time hitting, say, dryads and Branchwraiths with a -1 to hit near the woods. Also wondering whether there is anything in using a Household battalion with decently sized unit of Tree Revenants to prevent KO retreating and disengaging, or maybe Forest Folks battalion to charge-retreat-charge with dryads to get around screens?

With slow Ymetrica Lumineth, it’s a bit more restricted as the difference between speeds of armies is a lot more stark. I feel archers are key in causing mortals early on - potentially sniping characters in the garrisons? At a bit of a loss what to do if the archers were focussed down though. Maybe just a bad match up?

I have scoured YouTube but if there are any decent battle reports anyone could point me towards concerning any of the above that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

A lot of it comes down to how optimized the KO list is. If they really leaned into the min-max there isn't anything you can do; they are just getting more for their points than you are.

But anyways, for Sylvaneth there's two things; you can teleport too and while fliers can see through the forest they can also BE seen through the forest. When we flies high he needs to land more than 9" away and by continually spreading out small units of trevenants and dryads you can severely limit his placement. Also, kurnoth hunters with bows. They can sit in cover with a strong save and keep shooting ships. If the ships go down you can pounce with melee units or play LoS shenanigans they no longer bypass.

For Ymetrica you'll want to plant stoneguard in cover on objectives and hope they live long enough. Sentinels in cover too using lofted arrows, but they have a unique strategy available. Since you only care about the MWs and not the hit roll, you are free to direct those shots at units IN the ships because them having cover and -1 to hit (or -2 for heroes with look out sir) doesn't matter. Snipe those heroes!

One issue will be he likely will get rid of sentinels. Likelw giving you turn, not have anything within 36"(damn fly high) and then blow them apart. 1w 5+ is soft. Hope you　get　5+++ aura on.

Likely either way down to hold obtectives and hope you survive enough to get sufficient lead. Screen objectives from fly high captures

Thanks guys. Really good pointers! A lot of that is in line with some of my thinking.

I was also turning over how the same arms would tackle Sons of Behemat but that’s off the original topic I guess!

Assuming it's a typical tournament KO list, screening and MW. The tournament list has 1000+ points tied up in one ironclad, and it usually needs to get within 12" to do full damage. That's the big weakness: most of the eggs are in one big basket, and that basket is very vulnerable to MW. How you exploit that really depends on your list.

That said, there are two things about KO that are just broken, which is Barak Zilfin's once-per-game move during the hero phase, and Warp Lightning Vortex in a Spell-in-a-Bottle. Those two things, and particularly the combination of the two, are legitimately oppressive and GW needs to do something about it, probably by limiting the hero-phase move ability to not work during T1, or else by not letting you fly high with it. Spell-in-a-bottle might need to have race-specific spells removed from its list, too.