The power of nature awakens – Lily, Woodsinger of the Azure Forest, glides onto the battlefield in a cloud of sparkling fairy dust!

Older than the woods she wanders, nothing escapes Lily’s notice, even the tiniest sapling. In her wake, she leaves a trail of crystalline fairy dust that empowers her allies and ensnares her foes. Around her, an overgrowth of Thornlings sink their roots, ready to confront anyone foolish enough to trespass in their forest home. 

Lily is a support Shaper champion who spreads handy boons to aid your allies and nasty blights to ensnare your foes. And in today’s Ultimate Guide courtesy of Lead Developer, Steve Margetson, we’ll deep dive into how you could use the Thornsinger in your Godtear warband — including a look at Lily’s cards!

(New to Godtear? To find out more about our factionless fantasy skirmish game where two players go head-to-head to fight for the powerful tears of perished gods, click here!) 

Meet Lily, Thornsinger of the Azure Forest

By Steve Margetson

Lily is the very first fairy champion we’ve seen in Godtear, and follows in the footsteps of Lorsann, Finvarr, and Kailinn as our fourth denizen of the forest region.

So, you can now field multiple variations of an all-forest-warband! If you like introducing thematic elements into your battles, this setup can symbolise your warband defending the forest from those who trespass in their woodland realm.

And if you try this out, let us know which are your favourite forest champions to pair together on Discord or in the Facebook fan group! 

Anyway, back to Lily. Her five followers, the Thornlings, shift across the battlefield engulfing enemies in their thorns, impeding trespassers with powerful attacks and slowing tendrils and generally being a Thorn(ling) in your enemies’ sides!

Lily’s Stats and Traits

Being a green Shaper champion, Lily gains a bonus step on the battle ladder when she plants her banner on an objective hex (read: a godtear).

Always darting round the forest, Lily has a rapid movement of 3 in both phases: perfect for placing banners on objective hexes. It also allows her to make expert use of her trait… But we’ll come to that later. 

As well as a great speed stat, Lily’s got a nimble dodge value of 4. She’s hard to catch, and even harder to hit if you do pin her down! But if she does catch a blow, the results aren’t gonna be good, thanks to her measly protection value of 1.

Lacking any damaging attack, Lily’s strength is in the utility and board control she brings to the table. During her activation, she can place a status effect token (boon or blight) in an empty hex adjacent to her after an action. Any model that enters a hex with one of these tokens moves it onto them.

The options with this trait are plentiful. Lily can zip round the battlefield placing boons near friendly models, ready for them to collect. Dropping the right boon for the right champion in the right moment can make all the difference. A damage boon near Morrigan sets her up perfectly for a devastating clash phase attack. 

(Morrigan is part of the Eternal Glade Starter Set, so if you’re just getting into Godtear, Lily and the Eternal Glade would be a good place to start.)

She can even drop a dodge boon or protection boon nearby to pick up herself to try and offset her lower defensive stats!

Using Lily to Control Space

As the tacticians amongst you will have realised, Lily can use this trait to control board space, placing blights in hexes enemies want to move into. Is there only one route for an enemy slayer to attack one of your champions? Place an accuracy or damage blight right in the way to reduce the effectiveness of their attack. Or even place a dodge or protection blight to soften the champion up for a perfect counter attack.

Unfortunately, fae magic rarely comes without strings attached. Any boon or blight tokens that are placed can be picked up by either friend or foe. A boon placed can be picked up by an enemy champion if they get there first. Likewise that blight you used to deter your opponent entering a hex might end up blocking your way for a decisive counterattack.

Shayle’s Suggestion: The boons and blights Lily place are only placed on the model after the model has finished its movement. Meaning speed boons and blights will come into effect on the next movement that model makes, not the one they are currently making.

Lily’s Skills and Ultimate

Plot Phase Skills

In typical shaper fashion, Lily can move an objective hex during the plot phase using Earth Call. This can be done at a mighty range of 3, and will bring any models on the objective hex along for the ride. Perfect for bringing those objective hexes closer to your warband!

Lily’s other skill will look very familiar. Breath of the Earth allows her to place another status effect token on an adjacent objective hex just like her trait. That means during her plot phase she can place 2 status tokens and still have an action left to place her banner. Magical.

Clash Phase Skills

Her clash phase is very different to the plot phase. The fae prefer to befuddle their enemies rather than hurt them. Both Nature’s Visage and Haunting Melody are long range skills that allow Lily to manipulate enemy models, but lack any direct damage. 

Nature’s Visage allows her to push both enemy and friendly models away from its target, perfect when you’re in need of personal space on the battlefield and want to clear a path in the centre of a packed battle. 

By comparison Haunting Melody allows Lily to move a target and any other models in its hex, useful for moving a hex-full of three enemy followers out of your way, or to move an enemy champion out of the battle… Or you could even push an enemy into a blight token she has placed! Delightfully devious.

As with the plot phase, she can place a token after one of her actions. Be careful though, the alternating nature of the clash phase can give your opponent the opportunity to grab any boons you have placed!

Lily’s Ultimate Skill: Thorn Wall

Lily’s ultimate really doubles down on her area control capabilities.

Once per game, Lily can remove any number of the Thornlings (more on them in a moment) from the battlefield and place them on objective hexes within range, blocking those hexes from your opponents. These Thornlings can’t be moved by enemy skills, forcing your opponent to knock them out if they want access to that space.

This can result in as many as 5 objective hexes being blocked!

With its huge range of 4 hexes, this ultimate has a few different applications. It can be used to block spaces your opponents might want to plant their banners, or to form a thorny wall around one of your banners. Obviously, sometimes you’ll just want to block off a section of the battlefield or quickly reposition your Thornlings into the action.

Be careful when maelstrom champions are nearby! You don’t want to end up serving her followers up on an objective hex-shaped platter…  

Shayle’s Suggestion: Using Thorn Wall going first in the plot phase can be devastating for your opponent, stopping them from placing any banners unless they have access to plot phase attacks.

Lily’s Followers: The Thornlings

The Thornlings, forest undergrowth given life, entangle enemies with their barbed tendrils.

Thornlings in the Plot Phase

The Thornlings' biggest strength is their ability to regrow in awkward areas for your opponent. Their trait lets them recruit at rapid speed, returning as many as 3 Thornlings to the battlefield with a single recruit action! As you can imagine, keeping the Thornling unit at full strength is quite easy. 

Though initially slow, the Thornlings have a few tricks up their spiky sleeves. Deep Roots places them next to Lily, allowing them to take advantage of her high speed and create a thorny wreath to protect her.

Their other skill, Tangling Roots, slows enemies down, restricting enemy choices and keeping friendly banners safe from being crushed.

Shayle’s Suggestion: When the Thornlings use Deep Roots they can return additional Thornlings to the battlefield thanks their Overgrowth trait. For example, a single Thornling using Deep Roots can return up 2 additional Thornlings to the battlefield when they use their recruit action. 

Thornlings in the Clash Phase

In the clash phase, the Thornlings show their sharp edges, with abilities to inflict damage on enemies. 

Nature’s Wrath seems like a fairly standard damage skill at first glance, with an uninspiring 4 damage. However, if the hit roll matches the target's dodge, the skill gains an additional 3 damage! This results in a fearsome 7 dice to bring down even the hardest of foes. 

Their other skill, Sprout, provides them with an accuracy boon. This allows them to potentially throw a 7 accuracy and 7 damage attack at an enemy! On top of that, a tricksy damage boon from Lily can crank that up to 8, making it one of the highest damage follower attacks in the game under the right circumstances. 

Shayle’s Suggestion: Though the accuracy boon from Sprout will make you more likely to hit your target with Nature’s Wrath, against lower dodge targets it might make it less likely to trigger the bonus damage. When you really need that additional damage, you might be better served forgoing the accuracy boon, or even splitting your followers up.

Tips and Tricks for Lily

Boon To The Warband: Pair Lily with champions that gain massively from the right boons to offset some of their weaker areas or increase their strengths. Morrigan, with her double bonuses from boons, particularly loves to be boosted by Lily!

Control The Area: Make sure you utilise Lily’s powerful control abilities to keep key enemy champions out of the battle. Lily can’t knock out a champion like Rangosh, but she can keep him away using Haunting Melody or her ultimate. Additionally, she can limit the effectiveness of enemy champions by moving them into her blights using her skills, or using skills from other champions like Helena, Rhodri, or Shayle.

Bring Some Muscle: Lily brings a lot of utility but is lacking in damaging attacks. Make sure you bring champions with a higher volume of attacks such as maelstroms like Blackjaw, or slayers with multiple attacks like Keera.

Lily Pros and Cons

Pros

• Provides every boon to her warband
• Powerful skills that move enemy models
• A unique ultimate that can stop banner placement

Cons

• Fragile
• Limited access to damaging attacks
• Boons must be placed carefully to avoid giving benefits to your opponent

Thanks for another riveting Ultimate Guide, Steve!

Sounds like Lily’s fae magic will definitely be a potent force on the battlefield! Which champions are you planning to pair her with? Let us know on our socials!

And if you like the sound of Lily, Thornsinger of the Azure Forest, (and if you don’t, you can’t have read Steve’s awesome guide properly!) you can recruit her for your warband here!

Recruit Lily now!