Let's Chat Sylvaneth

[DantePQ]

double pots 

[DantePQ]

@Mirage8112 

 I suggested that list few pages back I thought about Dreadwood and I guess that army could work pretty amazing 

Alarielle + Regrowth 

Branchwych + Acorn of Ages + Verdant's Blessing 

4x5 Spites 

30 Dryads 

6 Kurnoth Hunters 

I guess it all comes down to how good 30 Dryads will be, I read somewhere that Massive Regiments will get some bonus to taking objectives, but it's possible to cut them and get extra Hunters, Treelord or even Drycha. But I guess Dryads would be the best as they can tank a lot of damage and take crucial objectives. 

What do you think ? 

[Aezeal]

It's still kinda low on wounds. The Alpha strike damage is certainly impressive but a LOT will depend on where it can be delivered. 42 wounds on 1-2 not so important units (possibly only 20 wounds or less total) shielding the impotant things might mean the damage is not that impressive. Ofc you still have the bravery shenanigans to fall back on and the rerolls on the spites.. but not that many wounds total in your army.

Drycha's spell might actually be soemwhat effective with all the - bravery stuff and you might give the wych the wraithstone amulet...

BTW: IF you would want to increase the Alpha strike: ally with a shadowdancer It also gives some extra options for the alpha strike if you roll a 1-2. 

I think someone will have to try it out... but it won't be me.. since I currently have no spites .. and don't play that many games so I'm not really into experimenting anyway (and I've got that monster mash list I just mentioned to think about).    

[scrubyandwells]

14 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Looks like the plan is still on. thoughts?  

Thanks for the breakdown. 

Still reeling from the battalion a-bomb that dropped today, affecting a very large # of players/armies/factions. 

It's a new reality for many of us, including, I suspect, a lot of matched play sylvaneth players. 

Going to take it slow and try to wrap my head around everything. Pretty dizzying at the moment. 

[DantePQ]

Really ? Extra huge block of Dryads and Branchwych gives me a lot of possibilites. Damage output is quite amazing, even without alpha striking also rolling for 2 abilities makes it double threat with Alarielle as well and it's quite difficult to guard important units then. 

Also Dryads gives great way to hold some in CC and take objectives and Branchwych gives ability to put up extra woods, I think it can work amazing. Also if damage output is not enough there is room to replace Dryads with more Hunters, Tree lord or Drycha (if massive regiments will be a problem for that army for example) 

[Mirage8112]

Just now, DantePQ said:

@Mirage8112 

 I suggested that list few pages back I thought about Dreadwood and I guess that army could work pretty amazing 

Alarielle + Regrowth 

Branchwych + Acorn of Ages + Verdant's Blessing 

4x5 Spites 

30 Dryads 

6 Kurnoth Hunters 

I guess it all comes down to how good 30 Dryads will be, I read somewhere that Massive Regiments will get some bonus to taking objectives, but it's possible to cut them and get extra Hunters, Treelord or even Drycha. But I guess Dryads would be the best as they can tank a lot of damage and take crucial objectives. 

What do you think ? 

Looks solid to me. Dryads would provide the spites a fair bit of cover, if you wanted to use them together. 

I really would like to be able to split the spites up into 2 groups of 2, since the outcast battalion works when the enemy is in range of "at least 2 unit of spites" since 4 are required for the battalion I'd like to split them up, but they'll need support. 30 dryads might be able to stretch out between 2 wyldwoods (and since you've got the acorn you could set 2 forests close to each other, and shut down a swath of territory about 44" wide ( 11" per wood x 4 bases).
 

5 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

It's still kinda low on wounds. The Alpha strike damage is certainly impressive but a LOT will depend on where it can be delivered. 42 wounds on 1-2 not so important units (possibly only 20 wounds or less total) shielding the impotant things might mean the damage is not that impressive. Ofc you still have the bravery shenanigans to fall back on and the rerolls on the spites.. but not that many wounds total in your army.

Where it can be delivered? 20 of the wounds come from the hunters, and 20 from Alarielle. Hunters use the free redeploy within 5" of the enemy and can then move again before charging. Alarielle can fly, and gets a free 16" move before the game starts, then another 16" move and then a charge. I can't imagine it would be difficult to put it where you want it to go. 

 

4 minutes ago, scrubyandwells said:

Still reeling from the battalion a-bomb that dropped today, affecting a very large # of players/armies/factions. 

It's a new reality for many of us, including, I suspect, most matched play sylvaneth players. 

Going to take it slow and try to wrap my head around everything. Pretty dizzying at the moment. 

Are you referring to the point increases? They are quite steep, but truthfully I hadn't considered how undercosted the battalions actually were. Now that I think about it, the new points make it much more risk/reward appropriate. 

[Aezeal]

Yeah I guess they'd have to really deploy VERY defensively not to get a good target. Still a shadowdancer might be usefull , if you take him and a TL instead of the dryads you can put the TL somewhere interesting early too if it's one of the models you take for the bonus movement and the cast the spell on him. (well.. 30 dryads might be better.. but still).

[scrubyandwells]

Just now, Mirage8112 said:

Are you referring to the point increases? They are quite steep, but truthfully I hadn't considered how undercosted the battalions actually were. Now that I think about it, the new points make it much more risk/reward appropriate. 

Yeah. Just lots of new variables to consider, which is both exciting and unnerving. My 2K army, though, was blown up. It's now 2,280pts. That happened to a lot of armies and players. It was a painful pill to swallow, but it's done. Time to learn, adapt, and move forward. 

[Mirage8112]

Just now, scrubyandwells said:

Yeah. Just lots of new variables to consider, which is both exciting and unnerving. My 2K army, though, was blown up. It's now 2,280pts. That happened to a lot of armies and players. It was a painful pill to swallow, but it's done. Time to learn, adapt, and move forward. 

Good attitude to have! 

Still you might have the making to two separate tournament lists now. might be nice for a dual list event.

[Nico]

Quote

The basic premise of the list hasn't changed, and since spites now count for battleline you aren't required to take the 3 units of T-rev's, you actually gives get an extra 130 pts to play around with. More than enough for an extra hero or another unit choice to fiddle around with. 

That's massive if true. Definitely makes the list interesting again. A lot of the scary headline increases to battalion costs are compensated for by reductions in troop costs elsewhere, e.g. Ironjawz. Excited again!

Potentially bring in some allies with the spare points? Knight Azyros? Tempestors? Longstrikes and Aetherwings?

It's amazing but the big winner from GHB 2017 might be Death as they are used to having near zero useful battalions and can sit back as everyone else's toys get jacked up.

[Aginor]

Coming from a Seraphon background and having built Sylvaneth as my second army I always thought Sylvaneth bataillons were basically free, much too cheap.
Same for the Stormcast bataillons and some others. Compared to the Seraphon for example they were rewards without risk, getting abilities and artefacts.

Now GW obviously thought the same way. The expensive Seraphon bataillons increased a bit, too, most by 50 points, and bataillons for other armies increased more strongly.

I think all in all it will make balance better. Sylvaneth, SCE, and other top tier armies will become a bit weaker, and the mid-tier and low-tier armies become a bit stronger.

You gotta admit, Kurnoth Hunters were very cheap. Compared with the cheap bataillons that tipped balance quite a bit.

My own Gnarlroot list (not too competitive) went up only 20 points because I used less Hunters I guess. Not too severe. Sylvaneth will be fine I think.

[Baz]

55 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

Yeah I guess they'd have to really deploy VERY defensively not to get a good target. Still a shadowdancer might be usefull , if you take him and a TL instead of the dryads you can put the TL somewhere interesting early too if it's one of the models you take for the bonus movement and the cast the spell on him. (well.. 30 dryads might be better.. but still).

Shadow dancer spell only affects wanderers units only. 

[swarmofseals]

Now that I've digested more of the changes, I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand I generally like the points adjustments. I think they are a little bit of a net nerf for Sylvaneth in the context of everything else but not a severe one. I do wish they had taken a bit more care in balancing specific battalions. Gnarlroot is still the obvious choice (or the Dreadwood Alphastrike if that's your thing), while unused battalions like Winterleaf aren't any more attractive now. Meanwhile other top tier battalions like Kunnin' Rukk simply went up by the same flat increase as everything else.  

The thing that I really don't like are the allies. I have no idea why Sylvaneth have such restricted allies when there are a bunch of factions that can take Sylvaneth as allies. Sylv is already such a small faction. Are there any Stormcast things worth taking? I'm not as familiar with SCE, but my impression is that most of their stuff is good because of internal synergies that probably won't work in the context of allies. Wanderers are OK, I guess -- I could see taking some of the heroes for ranged support or maybe some Sisters of the Thorn. The most attractive unit in that roster to me is the Eternal Guard, but they function so similarly to Dryads that I don't really see the point. 

I'll fully admit that some of this is personal disappointment because I've long wanted to take a Frostheart Phoenix in my Sylvaneth list, but without Phoenix Temple as allies and with Winterleaf costing a staggering 310 points I just don't see it happening. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On a different note, I have a few tentative predictions. I see a lot of people focusing on alpha strike lists, and while I don't dismiss the possibility that such lists could be good, I think that there will be a general trend towards armies being bulkier with more wounds shoved into fewer points. The massive regiment rules really encourage that. I already think that hordes would have made a pretty reasonable counter to the GHB 1.0 metagame, and with heavy ranged damage becoming less efficient and chaff becoming more efficient I think we're even more likely to see that play out. Alpha Strike lists are great against opponents who have a lot of points shoved into key pieces that you can realistically take out on turn 1 or 2. They are going to struggle against opponents who either have enough chaff to keep you from getting at the good bits or who simply have no key locuses of points and can just absorb your initial hit with sheer numbers.

Instead, consider the possibilities presented by our new roster. A 30 strong Dryad unit is really tough to move. You can almost guarantee proximity to a Wyldwood because you have enough bodies to create a nice balloon string. That gives you 9 point models with a 4+ armor save and -1 to hit. In Magical Christmas Land you can drop a huge Wyldwood on an objective, fill it with a 30 strong Dryad unit, and give it mystic shield. With TLA command you're looking at 2+ rerolling 1's and -1 to hit. Opponents are going to really struggle to dislodge that unit. Offensively Dryads aren't great, but they are quite good against chaff (which I expect to see more of!). So if 30 Dryads are a tough nut to crack and extremely tough if they somehow all squeeze into a Wyldwood, imagine how painful it would be to face something like 120-150 Dryads. These numbers are very doable. I mean, if you really wanted to go ham you could squeeze 210 dryads into a 2k point list.

One strategy that I think could be quite effective is to create hardpoints using a Treelord or TLA enveloped by 30 Dryads either inside a Wyldwood or balloon stringing to one. This gives you -1 to hit with shooting and -1 to -2 in combat, good armor, and the Treelord can reach over two rows of Dryads and still hit the opponent without them being able to retaliate.

If you need a second artefact, I think running a simple Household could actually be an attractive option. The no-retreat rule could actually be very relevant in helping you get 2 out of 3 objectives early.

Anyway, I doubt many people will be rushing to field triple digit Dryads -- but I do think it's a potentially very powerful strategy to consider. 

[DantePQ]

20 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

 

On a different note, I have a few tentative predictions. I see a lot of people focusing on alpha strike lists, and while I don't dismiss the possibility that such lists could be good, I think that there will be a general trend towards armies being bulkier with more wounds shoved into fewer points. The massive regiment rules really encourage that. I already think that hordes would have made a pretty reasonable counter to the GHB 1.0 metagame, and with heavy ranged damage becoming less efficient and chaff becoming more efficient I think we're even more likely to see that play out. Alpha Strike lists are great against opponents who have a lot of points shoved into key pieces that you can realistically take out on turn 1 or 2. They are going to struggle against opponents who either have enough chaff to keep you from getting at the good bits or who simply have no key locuses of points and can just absorb your initial hit with sheer numbers.

 

That's why I think Dreadwood with 30 Dryads is good idea as it won't struggle that much against hordes and Alarielle is a beast against huge units which don't have particular good damage output.  Also you can easily fit it Drycha instead of Dryads against horde armies again she's a best against them plus you can get her Dwellers to wreak even more havoc against hordes. 

Sylvaneth has a lot of tools to battle huge units and if meta goes that way it's easy to tweak Dreadwood (which wasn't possible with Dreadwood until now)

@Mirage8112 that was by reasoning behind Dryads that they will help to utilise Spite's Revenants. Also I heard that Massive Regiments will have some bonus to capturing objectives and then with Dryads ability 30 for 270 is real value giving an army exra tactical possibilities. But if they don't perofrm as expected easily you can swap them and Branchwych for :

- Drycha + Aetherwings - maybe be usefull if there is a lot of Massive Regiments out there

- TLA with Moonstone - now alpha strike is basically much more stronger

Both options make list better in hero-centric scenarios as well.  

 

[scrubyandwells]

1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

Now that I've digested more of the changes, I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand I generally like the points adjustments. I think they are a little bit of a net nerf for Sylvaneth in the context of everything else but not a severe one. I do wish they had taken a bit more care in balancing specific battalions. Gnarlroot is still the obvious choice (or the Dreadwood Alphastrike if that's your thing), while unused battalions like Winterleaf aren't any more attractive now. Meanwhile other top tier battalions like Kunnin' Rukk simply went up by the same flat increase as everything else.  

The thing that I really don't like are the allies. I have no idea why Sylvaneth have such restricted allies when there are a bunch of factions that can take Sylvaneth as allies. Sylv is already such a small faction. Are there any Stormcast things worth taking? I'm not as familiar with SCE, but my impression is that most of their stuff is good because of internal synergies that probably won't work in the context of allies. Wanderers are OK, I guess -- I could see taking some of the heroes for ranged support or maybe some Sisters of the Thorn. The most attractive unit in that roster to me is the Eternal Guard, but they function so similarly to Dryads that I don't really see the point. 

I'll fully admit that some of this is personal disappointment because I've long wanted to take a Frostheart Phoenix in my Sylvaneth list, but without Phoenix Temple as allies and with Winterleaf costing a staggering 310 points I just don't see it happening. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On a different note, I have a few tentative predictions. I see a lot of people focusing on alpha strike lists, and while I don't dismiss the possibility that such lists could be good, I think that there will be a general trend towards armies being bulkier with more wounds shoved into fewer points. The massive regiment rules really encourage that. I already think that hordes would have made a pretty reasonable counter to the GHB 1.0 metagame, and with heavy ranged damage becoming less efficient and chaff becoming more efficient I think we're even more likely to see that play out. Alpha Strike lists are great against opponents who have a lot of points shoved into key pieces that you can realistically take out on turn 1 or 2. They are going to struggle against opponents who either have enough chaff to keep you from getting at the good bits or who simply have no key locuses of points and can just absorb your initial hit with sheer numbers.

Instead, consider the possibilities presented by our new roster. A 30 strong Dryad unit is really tough to move. You can almost guarantee proximity to a Wyldwood because you have enough bodies to create a nice balloon string. That gives you 9 point models with a 4+ armor save and -1 to hit. In Magical Christmas Land you can drop a huge Wyldwood on an objective, fill it with a 30 strong Dryad unit, and give it mystic shield. With TLA command you're looking at 2+ rerolling 1's and -1 to hit. Opponents are going to really struggle to dislodge that unit. Offensively Dryads aren't great, but they are quite good against chaff (which I expect to see more of!). So if 30 Dryads are a tough nut to crack and extremely tough if they somehow all squeeze into a Wyldwood, imagine how painful it would be to face something like 120-150 Dryads. These numbers are very doable. I mean, if you really wanted to go ham you could squeeze 210 dryads into a 2k point list.

One strategy that I think could be quite effective is to create hardpoints using a Treelord or TLA enveloped by 30 Dryads either inside a Wyldwood or balloon stringing to one. This gives you -1 to hit with shooting and -1 to -2 in combat, good armor, and the Treelord can reach over two rows of Dryads and still hit the opponent without them being able to retaliate.

If you need a second artefact, I think running a simple Household could actually be an attractive option. The no-retreat rule could actually be very relevant in helping you get 2 out of 3 objectives early.

Anyway, I doubt many people will be rushing to field triple digit Dryads -- but I do think it's a potentially very powerful strategy to consider. 

Great write up.

I hear ya on the Frostheart Phoenix...was at the top of my list (...had a "Jadeheart Phoenix" planned out and everything).

Sunday was pretty jarring, mainly because there's signs pointing toward the main concern I had coming true: that sylvaneth proper will have to become a Dryads-horde army to be sufficiently viable at tournaments.

It's definitely too early to know, though,...personally just starting to look at potential new lists, look at other factions and see how much of a hit they took, and look at a bunch of other variables.

In general, we're still dealing with quite limited information. I'm hopeful in a couple of weeks, we'll be more optimistic, and in two months, we'll be a lot more optimistic. Hopefully.

In terms of Stormcast, I did a minisode the other day looking at SCE as allies for us. I think there's a lot to like and expect we'll see a lot of sylvaneth builds at tournies running some SCE allies.

One thing I may have underrated in the episode was Vanguard Raptors w/ Hurricane Crossbows as an anti-horde option.

I thought Dan Street @ AoS Shorts summarized the situation well recently: "Anti-horde output, mortal wound output and cheap but resilient 5 wound buff heroes is what we lack & can supplement with allies." 

SCE can help us with all three.

At the moment, I'm mostly concerned about our capacity to compete vs certain horde lists, like 120-150 fast-moving Bloodletters via Murderhost w/ plenty of room left over for heroes (Bloodsecrator, Bloodstoker, etc.). And horde lists with extremely high wound count could be very difficult as well.

It also looks like Kharadron Zilfin w/ Endrinrigger and/or Skywarden spam (especially the former) is still going to be quite potent and cripple a lot of builds in the first round before they've done anything. That's another one where horde-Dryads would help, but personally I didn't get into sylvaneth to play a horde army, so the idea of putting a mass of Dryads on the table isn't appealing.

[Azurious]

Here is the setup I'm going for [emoji6]
 
 
Allegiance: Sylvaneth
 
Heroes
Alarielle the Everqueen (620)
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Spirit of Durthu (400)
- General
- Trait: Gnarled Warrior 
- Artefact: The Oaken Armour 
Drycha Hamadreth (280)
- Deepwood Spell: Verdant Blessing
Knight-Heraldor (120)
Knight-Heraldor (120)
Knight-Heraldor (120)
 
Battleline
5 x Tree-Revenants (100)
- Sylvaneth Battleline
5 x Tree-Revenants (100)
- Sylvaneth Battleline
20 x Dryads (240)
 
Total: 2100/2000
 
With the coming discount it should be 2000 points.
 
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I like the idea of heraldors. A MW splash focused force has been something iv been thinking about since allies were announced

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[Ian R]

Who can ally with Sylvaneth, just Stormcasts?

[Aginor]

12 minutes ago, Ian R said:

Who can ally with Sylvaneth, just Stormcasts?

No, Wanderers as well.

[Nico]

List of Possible Allies:

1. Sisters of the Thorn (a gamble on cast roll).
2. Spellweaver (autounbind)
3. Sisters of the Watch (20 Points cheaper, annoying 24" effective range)
4. Glade Guard (better range but understand will not count as a Battleline choice)
5. Protectors plus Vexillor
6. Dracoth Cavalry
7. Raptors plus Aetherstrike 
8. Knight Azyros
9. Knight Vexillor
10. Prime Time (cheaper?)
11. Judicators
12. Javelin Prosecutors (no longer undercosted)
13. Knight Heraldor 

 

[swarmofseals]

8 hours ago, Azurious said:

I like the idea of heraldors. A MW splash focused force has been something iv been thinking about since allies were announced

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This seems like an interesting idea, but doesn't their ability hit your units as well?

[Azurious]

This seems like an interesting idea, but doesn't their ability hit your units as well?

It does, but if you can place your woods well theres combos with heraldors, tge ancients sig spell and spite revs porting in to force battleshocks. Would need tested and it could merely be a nice idea and rubbish in reality. But given the upheaval its a good time to think a little differently

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[Azurious]

For example

Treelord ancient
Drycha
Branchwraith
Toot toot x 3 (heraldor)
5 spite revs x 3
30 dryads
3 bow hunters x 2

Sits at 1970 and could possibly be an interesting standoff style force.

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[Tizianolol]

tla 300

durthu 400

branchwich 80

10 dryads 100

10 dryads 100

5 Tree reve 80

6 kurnos hunters schytes 440

3 kurnos hunt bow 220

gnarloot battalion + household 250

tot 1970

what do you thing about that? is still viable?

[Aezeal]

How compare spites and dryads in combat? 

[swarmofseals]

56 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

How compare spites and dryads in combat? 

Spites have a WDR of .05, Dryads (full price) have a WDR of .0525 normally and .07 against an enraptured target while Dryads (massive regement) have a WDR of .0565 normally and .0753 against an enraptured target.

So Dryads are slightly better on your opponent's turn and substantially better on your turn offensively. 

Defensively, Spites have points-per-effective-wound of 10.67/13.33/16/16 against rend 0/1/2/mortals. Dryads at <12 models have a ppew of 6.67/8.33/10/10 and at >12 models have a ppew of 5/6.67/8.33/10. A massive regiment of Dryads has a ppew of 4.5/6/7.5/9. When you factor in the -1 to hit from wyldwood proximity the numbers improve to approximately 4.46/5.58/6.67/6.67 for <12 models, 3.35/4.47/5.58/6.67 for >12 models, and 3/4/5/6 for a Massive Regiment. 

So Dryads range from being slightly better to 50% more efficient on offense depending on the situation and range from being about twice as efficient to three times more efficient on defense. 

Just to put those numbers into context, a WDR of .05ish is on the poor side but not embarrassingly bad. It's similar to Liberators fighting against a non-monster target. A WDR of .07ish is respectable but unexciting. PPEW of 10 against rend 0 is horrible, while 16 against rend 2/mortals is merely very bad. PPEW of 8-10 against rend 2/mortal is decent but unremarkable. 5-6 against rend 0 is middling but respectable. 5-6 against rend 1 is pretty good. 5-6 against rend 2/mortals is very good to great. PPEW of 4 against rend 0 is pretty great, while 3 against rend 0 is elite. 

 

EDIT: In case anyone cares, Tree-Revs have a WDR of .067. That doesn't account for their single die reroll. Their defensive efficiency is the same horrorshow as Spites. That said, their 6" pile in, waypipes, and ability to reroll a charge die gives them a lot of utility. @Mirage8112 made a good argument for their inclusion for tactical reasons under the old pointing, and I think that argument holds up now.